Satsang is Rehab for Addiction to Belief in Thoughts - 5 July 2016

Yes, there's also wanting to explore this energy of addiction. It really is similar to food or when I remember I used to smoke. This energy pulling back to the mind and belief in it—can we look at this energy? We've been speaking about this to see that there seems to be this very, very basic urge to give belief to these thoughts. It is my feeling that all of us must be able to look at this to see what happens when a thought comes. Is it just the attention which goes on it, or is there also an urge to believe it, especially when it seems like it is a meaningful urge? This addiction, which makes the simple pointing 'don't believe your next thought' seem almost impossible for many, and just to bring our attention to it actually is enough. Because this power of belief, misidentification, conditioning likes to operate in the dark. Quickly, quickly the transaction, just like the buying of drugs or something, happens when we are quickly finished. As we bring our attention to this, we can see it now briefly. Not make serious business out of it, just playfully check. Remain in your neutrality, in your emptiness. Allow all thoughts to come and go and see how belief actually operates.

We'll actually find that in satsang the urge is not so strong because the energetic presence of satsang helps us remain more open. But we can check here and also we can check once satsang is over. Once you start seeing these ways of identification, this way of belief, in the spotting of it itself, the weight will start to settle more and more. Without this, you cannot construct the idea of an ego. Without these concepts, individuality, all separation is dissolved. Observe the magnetism that some thoughts seem to have. And for some of you, it might have become these spiritual thoughts now that seem to be magnetic. The idea that a mental understanding will be the end of this game is completely false. And as you start looking at this urge to believe, you will find that in some ways it is very similar to the urge to pick up the tray of food, the urge to any addiction that you might have. That is why my Master says that satsang is like a rehab. And the addiction that we are dropping, these are thoughts and a habitual belief in our thoughts, our identification with our thoughts. As we are following the pointings in satsang, coming to the recognition of who we are, then this recognition itself is a great way to drop this addiction because all thoughts are referring to you personally, phenomenally. More and more, you're believing less and less.

Father, is this energy of addiction not already a belief or an interpretation of what is going on?

In a very subtle way, yes. We can say like this, that even this concept ultimately is not true. Yet it is a useful concept to remove other concepts. That is the only use of it. We are not to make concepts; you are not to hold on to any concepts in satsang. No truth is being shared here. No truth can be shared in concepts anyway, right? At best, we are just sharing concepts which help in the removal of other concepts. So if we come to satsang with our basket of concepts and, instead of using these concepts to remove them, if we're just adding more and more of these to the already existing ones, then we are adding to our conditioning, to our belief system in the personhood. Ultimately, even that is a concept. Even conditioning is a concept. And yet, a mental denial of it is not enough. You can only deny it from the place of true recognition of who we are.