Right Now Are There Only Perceptions or Do You Notice Something Other Than That? - 10th October 2022

The minute we have the sense that, 'Um, this is it. This is one, this is two, this is this. I know this, this,' then you've got to pray for grace to slap us out of our righteousness. So, it is coming up like this. I don't need to know that I am sitting on a sofa because I can check; I'm sitting also. So, the way we rely on things... okay, so satsang is shared fresh from what is the insight right here and now. The minute we start relying on notions of past and previous experiences and knowledge and things we think we know, that is just spiritual ego.

Just before coming here, it was like, 'Why am I going? I know what he is going to speak.'

Yes, that is spiritual ego. 'I know.' Like any claim to truth based on an instrument which is unable to find the truth, you see, is ego, is delusion, is whatever you want to call it. So, what is the weight of this room? Because weight is the wrong unit. Weight is the wrong unit. You say, 'What is the size of this room?' So, when the mind, which is capable of weighing, is trying to tell us the size of something, you see, that is a misunderstanding. That is avidya, that is ignorance. And what is the main ingredient? The main ignorance is the idea of separation, the idea of limitation, the idea of 'me'.

So, when you say, 'Why should I go? I already know what he's going to say,' you see, you can dissect it word by word and you will find that mainly the thing is: who are we taking yourself and him to be? The true idea of ignorance, the central idea of the mind, is to create an enduring notion of what we are. So, if you have any definite notion of what we are, that is the ego. If that ignorant notion of what we are is spiritual in nature, that is spiritual ego. And spiritual ego is the hardest to shake off because it is just like it already knows. 'No, I already know. If I'm going to ask a question, he's going to say: About who?'

You see, this pool of knowledge which is conceptual—and you can smell it being conceptual—this misrepresents you, misrepresents the world, makes everything into an act of limitation. And therefore, it can become like this. It starts off very subtle. So, it's amazing. You don't need to go because you already know. And then for a while, you may even feel like, 'And I didn't go for myself.' Instead of getting confused with the words, it's so good. And that's why I was saying, don't... the mind will first sell you a terrible idea. It will say, 'If you don't go to satsang, you'll have a life full of suffering, full of misery,' you see? And then it will prod you and say, 'Today I'm a bit tired. I know his stuff.' And then it'll say, 'Nothing happened. I didn't suffer. In fact, I was feeling fully fine. And how long will you depend on him? How long will you depend on him? Isn't it time to become independent? He has taken you so far; the last mile you have to do by yourself.'

You see, all this nonsense has caused a lot of fatalities. It can be like that. And then because it sold you like, 'I never said that you suffer a lot if you don't come to satsang,' you see, it sold you on that idea and then later it tells you, 'See, all this fear was unfounded. You're just fine.' The next day, some other thing. Slowly, slowly, slowly, it's like... I mean, 'me' doesn't have to happen, but in many cases it happens. 'I am' is there, and then it makes us feel also like the prodigal son. She's saying, 'I can't go back now.' So, he's like punch combination after punch combination. 'Go back now because why have you come? Excuse me.'

So, it's very, very subtle. So, it's first the idea of misery without satsang is also an idea itself. Then it uses that to tell you, 'See, nothing happened. In fact, I was feeling much freer.' And again, I'm saying it's not necessary that it plays out that way. It can play out in Consciousness in any way, but many times it does. Something you have to check, explain where it is coming from. So, the ego is a misrepresentation of who we are. Spiritual ego is the spiritual misrepresentation of who we are based on spiritual concepts itself.

Now, what happens when the mind plays the game both ways? If you are resonating with what is being said, many times the mind will come and say, 'Yeah, I already knew this. What is the point of coming?' If you're not resonating with what is being said, it says, 'It's pointless because I didn't understand anything.' So, some invitation has to compel you to the heart, you see, and not so rely on being so conclusive, being so judgmental about what this is, what this means, what should happen to me, what is the benefit or loss of coming to satsang. We have to stop doing this business for some time. And I don't know the way that happens. Literally, we can call it Grace if you want. What is the way in which it happens? We are not so concerned about judging. In what capacity do we have within us to make that judgment? If the idea is to be free from the thief itself, what do you think? It's not that.

So, what is the source of knowledge that can tell us what we should do? Is there such a source at all for anything that is valuable, that is worth knowing? Where can we go to know, like, what is worth knowing? Let's say love. If there is love, it is worth knowing. Where can we go? To the head? It will just tell you notions of love. 'Oh, Rumi said. Oh, Hafiz said. Oh, Kabir Ji said.' It doesn't matter what he said. What is your insight of love? What is your experience of love? Can I tell you what is joy, what is truth? All the questions and inquiry: Who am I? All the Zen koans. Nothing louder.

The whole insight thing is repeating because it's like you get an insight, yeah, but if you don't have the understanding that there's always a deeper insight, stuff like that... like, yes, it's God or whatever, but there's always another way of looking. So that leaves...

Yes, and if you're referring to intuitive insight in the same vocabulary, actually we can never say that 'this was my insight.' You can say that these are the words available at the moment to communicate that. These are provisional words. Because insight... like, no insight I've ever had, I found the perfect words to share, you see? Like, what is love? And now we say, 'But the highest love is non-separation.' But those are the words available. But was that what I found love to be?

I don't feel like I've ever found the words to express myself. So, the insight is the insight. The sight within is the insight. The words you use are communication tools or pointers which may at best try to point there, you see? But no insight I've ever had has been translated, or I have been able to translate into an insight which is capturable in an efficient way in words, you see? So, in the sharing of satsang also, the words keep getting clarified, keep getting clarified. But if there is such a transcript I can look at and say, 'Hey, this set of words truly captures what I have seen,' it's so unfathomable conceptually. And yet the process of trying to point to it conceptually seems to serve some purpose because at least you can negate the false idea, you see? You can use poison to cut poison.

But you're absolutely right. To be able to say, 'This is it, and this is what it captures,' it's like when I ask you, 'Are you aware now?' You are inside now, see that? 'Are you aware now?' You mean, 'Yes, yes.' It doesn't capture it. It is just your pointing to a direct insight that you have. But the 'yes' is meaningless because you could be saying 'yes' because you tried it yesterday and you have a memory of what happened. You could say 'yes' because you know it is the right answer and you don't want to look back, you see? You could be saying 'yes' for many things. So, the 'yes' itself is meaningless. But are you aware now? You see? What is the insight then? It is the insight there. So, that cannot be put in words.

That's why when I say blah, blah, blah, that is not the insight. I'm just trying some way to get us all to look in the same way. Ask yourself: Who am I? Bhagwan said: Ask yourself: Who am I? Your true sincerity with the true looking. What did we find? Awareness? Of course not. Consciousness? Of course not. But as far as words go, maybe they can be useful to point to that. What is love? Were you born? Were you born? What is the insight? You see, now it is not that you don't know. It is not that you don't know. Like, it is not that you don't know when I say, 'Are you aware now?' It is not that you don't know, but you don't know here. And that translation from that heart knowing or intuitive knowing to conceptual knowing is impossible. There's no gap; there's no bridge that way, you see?

And the biggest way to suffer in spirituality is to try and convert heart knowledge into conceptual knowledge. To try and create a framework of understanding which accurately translates a single insight into something which we can take as the gospel truth is full of suffering. And life will show you it is broader than that, whatever you may see it, you see? So, if I say, 'Ultimately you are awareness,' that's it. I mean, it's not an insight; it is at best a pointer. And I would like you to argue with me on that point. At least you're trying to then look for yourself. And ultimately, I also say it's pure nonsense. Of course, the insight is not what is coming out in the words. It is in the actual heart-see, intuitive insight.

Okay, it's like: Do you love your son? But it is not based on a feeling. It's not always present, you see? Right here, I love my son. So, it's not based on the evidence of a perceptual feeling that we can say we love our children, you see? Or love my satsang. No, sometimes I just want to be free from all of you. I'm done now. And then we're dealing with this stuff. So, like that. But I love my satsang independent of the feeling which may be there, because sometimes there's this feeling, sometimes there's that feeling. In the human play, all these feelings will come and go. That is not showing you that you love your children. What is the basis for that? How?

Evidence of a perceptual feeling that we can say we love our children, you see. 'Oh, I love my children.' No, sometimes I just want to be free from all of you. I'm done now. And then we're dealing with this stuff. So, like that. But I love myself so independent of the feeling which may be there, because sometimes there's this feeling, sometimes there's that feeling. When the human play, all these feelings will come and go. That is not showing you that you love your children. What is the basis for that? How do you know that you love yourself? Is it because your theory, 'Oh, this is my child, I should love him; it is the ethical thing to do, it is the right way to live'? No. So, things which are truly valuable can only be met with intuitive insights, and those insights are untranslatables. Every single Master, a different expression. Every single Master has a different expression. You are this, you are the same, you attack something, you are going to do this, do that—everything is different because although the insight may be same, the expression really is... the insight is not a conceptual translation of the insight as a conceptually attainable piece of knowledge, you see. At least insight in satsang is that which is beyond expression. That's a good segue entry because a good piece to add on to this: to rely on conceptual knowledge posing as if it is insight in a spiritual way is spiritual ego, because it makes you very rigid in terms of, 'Yeah, yeah, but I know it's not like that.' This is a stupidity in the human condition.

I read an Osho book when I was much younger called 'The Inner Journey.' And reading that, I said, 'This guy doesn't know what he's talking about,' because what he was sharing in terms of the experience of this chakra being like this and this chakra being like that, mine was exactly the opposite. Rigidity and the stupidity. It could just have been a typo, but I was looking for reasons to be right, you see. I was looking for reasons to be right. So then that is spiritually... how do you know that your memory will show the right experience that you had? So that which makes it rigid, that it keeps us from starting to open up, even that is not... become too rigid about that.

They say that when the mind is still, the thoughts then completely... there are no thoughts, then you'll be able to see yourself. I mean, it's been very diary then. Now, while still in the mind, if I'm watching the breath, is it okay or is it wrong? Is it real? Is it okay?

Yes, if I watch the breath... I tell you, let's look at this. Thank you, thank you for this question. Firstly, the appearance of the thought is not thinking.

There's no thought. I can make it that way if I'm watching the breath. Yeah, I'm saying that comes and goes once in a way. I mean, it's not completely clean, but most of the time I'll be watching different face like that, 20-30 minutes. And I keep a timer for 30 so that I sit there for 30 minutes. But that is not adequate. We'll see. I mean, should I do it more often? My this thing is I have no problems in life and things have settled, but still I'm not... there's some discontentment. Not that I want to jump with joy, just normally. Yeah, it's not that the mind is not comfortable. To make it comfortable, I'm trying certain ways, which is one is watching the breath. And then I, of course, we read books and even if you're the same with Consciousness, we must know that knowing... I didn't follow. You must know that you are conscious. That Consciousness, to understand the Consciousness like that, I say.

Exactly. Yeah, this is very good. So first, the question was: what is the prerequisite for self-recognition? Yeah. So how much time should I be in the no-mind for myself to be apparent? Done. Born in no time, it's apparent. No time, it's apparent. You see now, right now, are there only perceptions? Yeah. And I'm conscious. Yeah. Right now, are you... are there only perceptions or do you notice something other than that?

Other thing, it is perceived. And what else?

Yeah, there's no rush. We have nothing better to do. Okay? So don't worry. Take the entire satsang goes in our conversation. It's very good, don't worry. So he said we're trying to look at the question of what is the requirement, the prerequisite, right? It is needed for true self-recognition to happen, isn't it? That is what we are exploring. Now we are saying that okay, suppose we don't give it any time. Is it at all possible? That sounds absurd, I know. Yeah. Is it possible without any time or without any prerequisites for the Self to become apparent? So first let's try this crazy experiment. If it doesn't work, we'll figure out how much time is needed. So now, without any preparation, without any meditation, without any mindfulness and nothing in your present experience, do you recognize only perception or do you recognize something which is beyond perception as well?

The word perception... yes, perception, everything for the quality, anything. It is going into your mind and there are people here, it is there. But yeah.

Yeah, it's good. It's very good. So you're noticing that all these people are sitting here. One body which is called Guruji is sitting here. Now, you are aware that you are witnessing all of this?

Yes, I am aware. I am aware that I am looking at all this and I'm asking... I'm conscious of it. I'm aware.

This awareness of yourself is the recognition of the Self. Yeah. You're not confused. 'Oh, is it I that is aware of this world of perception or is it you?' It's clear to you whether that is the body or who will come to you. Clear it is you that is witnessing all of this. And yet this you, is it witnessed? Is it perceived?

I didn't follow it.

Is it perceived?

It is. Yeah, that I am aware and I am aware of that as a perceived.

Yeah. Does it have a quality? So let me help a little bit with vocabulary. When I say perception, I'm talking about attribute which is seen, like a color, shape, size, length, breadth, duration. All of these are attributes. These are called phenomenal attributes. These are the gunas. We are trying to find something which is beyond gunas, beyond attributes, right? So now you rightly said that just sitting here, all this world of attributes is perceived. Now, that which is aware of this world of attributes, what quality does it have?

No quality.

It has no quality. Yes, very good. It has no quality. Okay. Now, are you saying this from learned knowledge or are you seeing this fresh?

Right, it's from the thing. I mean, it's...

Very good, very good. So you are recognizing something about yourselves which is independent of quality, guna. Yeah?

Huh. But because we read the books, you know, I'm cautious. I'm conscious that Consciousness is reflected Consciousness. I mean, I'm aware. I am aware that those deals here... I am aware that awareness what I haven't understood is the reflected Consciousness or Chidabhasa has to say yes, but the real... so I'm aware of that, still I am unhappy. But if I really, if I really seen the same Consciousness, yes, yes, happy and dumb and whatever, whatever. So to get that, not the reflective Consciousness I have, that's been unable to see top live everything, yes. But to get a real Consciousness, not just like it, that is why our strength was the reach. Stillness would help to...

So it is impossible to do what I'm asking to do. It is really impossible to do what I'm asking you to do if you want some outcome out of it or if you have a way to judge whether you're getting it or not.

Yeah, whether I'm in the correct path now.

So those things which you read—beautiful, beautiful. 'You come to self-realization, that will give you so much peace, you will be full of bliss.' All of that, it was useful as far as that is concerned. No. Now you need to leave that and come to Truth for Truth's sake. Why do you want the truth? Because it is true. Yeah. Not because I have a want out of it, because I want this belonging to the small 'I.' Here we go, you see. Yeah. So you cannot keep the ego in your pocket and say, 'Show me God.' You see? Yeah. So you have to become like... come back to the innocence of an infant. Return to the innocence of the... all the knowledge that you read served its purpose. Yeah. So it served its purpose. Right now we have become like a child. Because if you use conceptual benchmarks of trying to match your experience with some authorized somewhere, you see, then the mind will use that instead. 'Where is the Ananda? He's beyond it. Show me where he's on.' You see? And then many times to many of you, you also confirm, 'Oh, there's so much Ananda,' and then that Ananda goes away. So you say, 'I lost it.' Satyanjit also went because Ananda went, you see. So the instrument that we're using to measure Ananda... firstly, the Ananda which is talked about is not bhajan Ananda or some objective Ananda. It is Brahmananda. And Brahmananda is that which we cannot measure. It is not a feeling. It is the enjoyment of sleep state. What happened to you in sleep state? There was nothing there. Even 'I' was not there. We may say, 'I experienced that even I was not there.' So the absence of all phenomena, you see, the absence of any feeling, experience, any phenomenal... even the sense 'I am' may not be there, and we call that the Supreme Ananda, Brahmananda. Can you measure it? No. So when I ask you if you are aware, you're noticing yourself beyond all attributes. That itself is the bliss. That itself is the Ananda. That is the same as the Ananda of Brahmananda. So but best is not to worry about... worry about the Sat part. The rest will take care of itself. So we were at this very beautiful point where you said, 'Yes, yes, I am aware of perception, and yet the I that is aware of perceptions, it is clear that it is I and it is independent of perception.' Yeah. You know you're not perceiving a quality or an attribute of this 'I.' Yeah. And great. If I told you, 'No, no, you are not aware of your perception,' on what type of knowledge are you concluding that 'I am'? On what lack of knowledge? Can you explain it? But yeah, on what type of knowledge are you concluding that 'I'...

Okay, can I... can I dig that downstream?

Yeah, go slowly. Okay. So what color is this couch? You perceive the blue. Is this a word? Is it flat or is it spherical?

Yeah, flat.

This world is flat? Yes, this Earth is flat? It's spherical. Okay, exactly. So although our experience of it is flat, you're absolutely right. The experience in perception is flat. So the way you answer blue, you also answered flat. But to most people, you will see spherical because you'll say, 'But we've heard from credible sources and there are experiments, all of that stuff which shows you it's spherical.' So these are two types of knowledge. One is perception. The second is to have a concept of... you have a concept that it is Earth. Now, is this Earth still or is it moving? Rotating, it's going around, revolving, rotating, everything. All these have you believe that because some super smart people are saying it. Again, that is called conceptual knowledge. It is not an experience. But we take that to be true because it comes from credible sources. Yeah. The other knowledge is this one: seeing is believing. You notice the perception. Now, this 'I' that is aware of perception, which one of the two is it? Yes, which one? How do you know of this awareness? The existence of this awareness, what type of knowledge is it? Do you perceive it or do you think about it?

I perceive it.

And you perceive it. What is this color? Is blue like that? I mean, this awareness...

It's the awareness which tells me and it makes me say yes.

But this awareness itself, how do you know?

Close my eye, I know I am aware of feeling is like anger, lust. All these are fishing. What is the feeling of awareness? I am not able to say.

This is beautiful. You may not recognize it is beautiful, but it is beautiful. Yeah. Because what you're actually doing is you are accessing a third type of knowledge which is not perceptual, it is not conceptual, and yet it is so obvious. So that is called self-knowledge, you see. What did they do? They said, 'Forget about everything that comes and goes,' which means forget about all the perceptions. So they're saying all this sensory knowledge, forget about it. Then in all traditions—Vedanta, Sikhism, Christianity, all of them...

Beautiful. You may not recognize it is beautiful, but it is beautiful. Yeah, because what you're actually doing is you are accessing a third type of knowledge which is not perceptual, it is not conceptual, and yet it is so obvious. So that is called self-knowledge. You see, what did they do? They said forget about everything that comes and goes, which means forget about all the perceptions. So they're saying all this sensory knowledge, forget about it. Then in all traditions—Vedanta, Sikhism, Christianity—all of this is saying go beyond your thought knowledge, conceptual knowledge. You see, no matter how much you think, you will not get it through thought. So they have discarded both of these. Okay, now we see mostly in the human condition, we end up believing that without these there is nothing, we are lost. But that is not true. Without relying on this, there is a higher knowledge which is called intuition.

So how do you know that you are aware? Not through the senses. So this is that moment. So when I ask you, are you aware now, with which tool you confirm that you are aware right now? Let's say intuition is making that also because just like that is not fancy. So you use a fancy word, intuition. Yeah, if everyone said you will come to know yourself just like that, everyone would say, 'Who's this stupid guy? Stop.' You will have an intuitive insight about yourself. So this universal knowledge, yeah, so apparent. But because we have mistakenly taken only perception and concept to be knowledge, we seem to have lost self-knowledge. She said self-knowledge will not be a new attainment; it will be only the letting go of the ignorance. The cleaning up of the mirror will show you what you are. What is the cleaning up? Ignorance means to take a wrong notion of yourself to be the true notion about yourself.

Now this awareness which you are discovering so naturally, what words can we use to describe it? Very, not just difficult, impossible. So it cannot be captured in conceptual knowledge. What qualities can you say it has? So perception is not possible. This is going beyond perceptual knowledge and conceptual knowledge into Atma Gyan, self-knowledge. Now the mind will come and trouble you and say, 'So and so, what actually is the full statement of that? So how does that help me? Yeah, so what next?' You know, being very important. Who's the awareness that we are covering is beyond time. But the mind will say, 'Okay, now this is clear to me, it is not clear to me,' but it will try and use it. This is what I mean by trying to squeeze heart knowledge or intuitive knowledge into the head. So the mind will quickly try to put this in a narrative, say, 'Ah, this is very good. Now does this mean I'm enlightened?' Yeah, but the one who it is referring to is not the one that you are discovering yourself to be because it's saying whether the body-mind is enlightened. Yeah, yeah, but what you're discovering yourself to be is beyond body-mind.

What does that one want? Is there a next for that one? It's worth contemplating that when the mind proposes a next or proposes a worthy desire to say, 'Now you should aspire to share this knowledge, now you must share it,' you see, then quickly you can play a trump card and make you believe that you're back as a body-mind again. So this is the trouble, this is the struggle. So what you're discovering about yourself, make sure that your desire, as humble and as high as it may seem, does it really apply to what you've discovered about yourself? Because this is the way the mind will woo you, you see. It will say, 'Where is the Ananda?' and then it will say, 'Oh, it was so clear when I was talking to Guruji, let's go.' No, this hasn't gone. It will never go. It's not possible for it to go. But if you pick up a frame of reference about yourself, which Bhagwan called the 'I-thought,' if you pick up a frame of reference about yourself to hold on to that frame of reference, and for this self-knowledge to be as apparent as it is like this, is impossible. And you can experiment with this, you see. And that is why all the masters are there: don't identify, don't get into the stream of thought.

That is your point of even mindfulness which you were talking about. He wasn't. Can I keep it on the breath with no thought? Yes. So how much time does self-realization take? Self-realization, I mean many attacks, it takes ages or janmas to get it and all that, you know. So how much time did you take to realize you are this awareness, this ordinary awareness? What is an extraordinary awareness? Is there such a thing? Difficult question to answer. Everything that's in the realm of speculation which invites us to speculate, amazing, just forget about it. Yeah, just forget about it. So even this question is the extraordinary life. Okay, it has no value.

I am only, I was only prodding that because I heard this notion of ordinary awareness. Yeah, so what would make it ordinary? What would make it ordinary? Suppose a limitation would make it ordinary and lack of any limitation would make it extraordinary. Check on yourselves and tell me whether you have a limitation. Your awareness has a limitation, as a boundary, as a container?

No, I'll speak about it. Yeah, yeah, because there was a notion of an ordinary awareness. I am only prodding that and checking what would make it extraordinary. Yeah, so I am proposing that suppose this awareness had no boundary, no limitation. In fact, it was not in time and space, right? That would make it pretty extraordinary, right? Now check for yourselves, that awareness, where is it contained? What are its limitations?

Because no limitation, it is my awareness is, I'm aware all the time, aware of the surroundings and...

Where is that? What is the location of this awareness? Let's find out. Is it in this objective universe? In this universe you can only have objects, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, because we have read something, it's sort of universal, you know, that sort of thing. It's about God or not. It is not my knowledge, what I have read and telling that that awareness is...

For lunch, nice hotel for lunch, big buffet is laid out in front of you. Okay, okay. All the starters, main course, dessert, everything is made. Best chefs in the world have made it. Now when you're there, will you be very concerned about the recipes? Let's forget it. It is for you, it is laid out in front of you. You don't have to worry about the spiritual encyclopedia and matching. So fully fresh, you cannot, you will not find yourself, you see, that will match with your conceptual understanding of what the Self has to be. That is guaranteed. So either then we spend our life in a search for that conceptual understanding we have for something to match that, or we find what the master is pointing us to find and then try to see if, okay, now the basic principles of timelessness, spacelessness, qualitylessness, all these apply to what you're finding or not. That is more than enough.

Dualism. Okay, once you get into any sort of phenomenal due diligence, yeah, yeah, this allows. Why don't I feel one with, one with that voice? It was, it when that becomes all phenomenally convoluted because the oneness of Advaita is not...

Somebody said to me like that. I said, 'Why didn't you say one with the space also? Why you left this space between you as separate? Why you picked on only this?' And then you see, so these can lead you to misunderstanding. What you discover is that the entire dream is contained within you. Now within the dream, you don't say, 'Okay, dream character body has to feel with that other character body.' When you wake up, and sometimes you wake up within the dream itself, it's called a lucid dream, you realize the whole thing is a dream within you. That is the oneness. So don't let the mind give you some phenomenal things that you must check on, you see, to confirm your discovery. You don't have to worry about that because the mind is not a good arbitrator of this conversation. The mind's purpose is not to help you. Yeah, yeah, the mind's purpose is to dominate the ego, your life. It is to dominate your life in the notion of separation.

So otherwise what would happen is we say, 'Okay, the mind is the voice of limitation, your reality is unlimited.' That would be enough for the mind to say, 'Oh good, you recognize it, bye-bye.' It doesn't work like that. No, instead it wants to perpetuate itself even more. Spiritual ego as something special, as the one who has found this. It perpetuates the identity, tries to perpetuate the identity even in the spiritual insight. So if you, so I started using a metaphor for this. So let's go back to Bhagwan's example. He said the Self is not a new attainment, it's always there. All you have to do is get rid of vasanas, mental conditions. I am showing you in a moment of emptiness of mental conditions is that it is very apparent. You've seen that also. Very beautiful. You see, without any senses, without any concept, you are discovering, 'I, I am aware.' It's okay, don't worry about the world so much. I am aware. It is apparent.

Now if you invite the mind to say, 'Okay, huh, what do you think?' So Bhagwan said what? It is only the mind which makes you believe in your limitation. So let's in our metaphor call that the thief. Now if you call the thief and say, 'Hello, I'm trying to catch you, can you tell me your address please?' The mind is the thief, right? Isn't it? Yeah. Now if you try to catch the thief by calling the thief, 'I am trying to catch you, Mr. Thief, can you tell me your address please?' And you know that feeling of anger you got yesterday, yeah, that is the work on your anger. He says, 'You know, your partner always getting in the way or something.' Yeah, yeah, it will not say, 'It is me, come catch me.' It will always divert you to something else. It will say your Sangha is bad, your master is bad, the teaching is bad, everything is bad except the belief in the limitation which the thought is proposing. It will say that is bad because the thief doesn't want to get caught. Not only doesn't it want to get caught, it wants to rule your life, right?

You see, even as we come to the darshan of that which is empty of attributes and qualities, we, because it is our habit, we go to the mind and say, 'Hello my friend, what do you think about this?' And then it says, 'But where is the bhava? Yeah, where is the Ananda? Where is the bliss?' Yeah, yeah, but what about the news? You just recognized it is beyond bhava. You see, so don't fall for that trick. You see, and this is the beauty of this intuitive insight, that in your heart, you see, if there is a point where you need some guidance about in life also, it is the Supreme intelligence which is making the plants grow and your heart beat. It is not mental processes that are doing that. So you can trust it for that also.

So how can you confirm that you're being intuitive and not mental? That is then the correct question which you would have asked me eventually, so I'm preempting it. So you can confirm that you are being intuitive when what you are just seeing or who you are is apparent to you. Because when you are in the hypnosis of belief in the mind, you see, then the Self is not apparent, although it never goes away. But that it never goes away is also apparent only when you are out of the hypnosis of thought. And that out of the hypnosis happens. So this is what led to the confusion part of it. So when Bhagwan said all you have to do is be free from your vasana, be free from your conditioning, and Self will be apparent to you. Okay, then the disciple said, 'Okay, this is very good, I'm making progress. Bhagwan, tell us how can I be free of my conditioning, with my vasana?' He said, 'It already is.' It's very golden, isn't it? Because he said to come to self-knowledge you have to be free from them. So if I was a devotee of Bhagwan, I would have had a tantrum and said, 'If it already is, so then why did you say I have to be rid of them?' And I'm sure he would have said, 'Because it is true.' I wonder if I can, you see, it is true at the level of hypnosis. It's true that at the level of hypnosis. And we tried this experiment the other day. Why do masters insist that you must be open, empty, you must be in no-mind, you must be then in...

It is said that to come to self-knowledge you have to be free from him. So, if I was a devotee of Bhagwan, I would have had a tantrum and said, 'If it already is so, then why did you say I have to be rid of them?' And I'm sure you would have said, 'Because it is true.' You see, it is true at the level of hypnosis. It's true that at the level of hypnosis—and we tried this experiment the other day—why do Masters insist that you must be open, empty, you must be in no-mind? Because the Self doesn't change, so what does mind or no-mind have to do with it? Because even that intuitive insight, the Self doesn't change. It's only available in the no-mind. You cannot take the 'I' thought to be true and hold on to self-knowledge. That is the bane of the human condition.

So that is now... if you go to the head and say, 'Now what else? What do you think?' You go to the thief, it'll throw a stone and say, 'When I go home, what can I practice?' It is confusing. So it sold you about a limited 'you' again. Yeah, just be like a child. I don't know. I knew that answer also, I promise you I'll give you that answer. I said also okay because it is part of my job. But let's ask for a moment: but who are we referring to again? So when the 'I' goes home, which 'I' goes home? Which 'I' will go home? For the person, is there such a one? Is there such a one?

Yeah, that awareness tells me that I am not the body and the mind, but apart from that, 'I' is in the body and mind. Of course, without it, it can't exist. Okay, so now when I say 'I' is itself, I don't mean the body. I know that I have the 'I' resides in the body and something like that.

So my invitation and, in fact, imploration to you would be to leave the spiritual encyclopedia, okay? Because it will not help you anymore. It has served its purpose. Now you have to rely on your own insight. You see, because at this point, your spiritual knowledge will get in your way, not help you. So it's time to throw away the recipe books, okay? Because you have bought yourself a lifetime free card to the Lila Palace. Leave there any time. Or whichever is your favorite restaurant in the mind's narrative, it will want something to come to a very logical conclusion: 'This I understood, this I understood, finally understood, then I understood everything.' No. But what you are coming to is beyond conceptual understanding. The conceptual understanding, whatever part it had to play, it has been played. Now if you try to force-fit that which is beyond any concept into that stream of narrative, you're only going to struggle.

It can make us feel a bit helpless for a moment because we relied on that spirituality for a long time, you see? But this will force you to rely on a fresh God rather than a learned God. It may seem a bit unnerving for a little bit, and everybody has gone through that wobbliness. Everybody goes through that problem. So it's very important that you don't determine your present state, because the mind will offer that to you and say, 'A good conversation, this is what happened, this is where you are,' you see? But the need of that determination of where you are in the narrative is only so that it can sell you on the idea of 'next.' So if I ask you, 'Where does the story go from here? Where is the story moving?' you should ask, 'But where is the story now?' Before I can determine where it goes, you see, I need to start with 'Once upon a time there was a king and then he lived in this kingdom.' Whatever that sets the subtext for the mind to operate. If you don't make any such determinations about the nature of your reality...

Right. It is simple.

Yes, it is. But not even that. Not even that. Don't determine anything about the nature of reality. Not even that it is simple. Yeah, for a while you have to allow me to make all the nonsense determinations. How are things? Did you find something that's true? Just observe the nature of the mind. It will wobble a bit and try to something... it will try to hold on to saying, 'I can be open and empty.' Is this today or yesterday?

No, I'm not... I know it's good, it's fine, but not even that. I'm not trying that. Quiet or not quiet make things difficult again for us now.

Including these. Including these. Yeah. You see what we are doing now still is the grasping at some conceptual nature of reality, right? Even if we say words make things difficult, it is grasping at the conceptual nature of reality. Yeah, it's okay. And as you keep coming to Satsang, you'll find it natural not to need a conceptual description of what is, because that is what the mind is constantly proposing: some truth, some reality about what is.

Thank you for your openness. Thank you for your openness to have this conversation. It is the only way. I mean, because I have enough with the books, you know? Then I thought through Guruji, it is only through a Guru that you can learn something. So I thought my doubts will be cleared, which you have already done so well. And thank you so much. Thank you is not the word. So I'm sorry.