'Spiritual Experiences' and Resonating with the 'Truth' - Dec. 22, 2014

Yes. Unless you're talking about Turiya, where in Turiya even the sense of the presence 'I am' is not there. Then what happens is that if you're in deep meditation, at least the presence of 'I am' stays, you see? But when we are talking about death, then we are saying that the presence of 'I am' itself vanishes also. So the sense that 'I am' is also... not only are we able to report later after some appearance comes or the waking state comes that even the sense 'I am' was not there, 'I am' is not there, there's no possibility to report also that 'I am.'

Yes, it's like it comes back, it goes away and it comes back. So is there something that is bothering you about this, which is that Lakshman story or the reincarnation thing? I didn't get the point which was... no, you know, it's in conversation I feel inauthentic sometimes. I hang out with a lot of yogis and, you know, like I'll go to Rishikesh in February and you hear a lot of talk about 'this life, that life,' 'when I was Marie Antoinette,' you know? Or people just speak about, you know, maybe you'll speak about something and they say, 'Oh, that's from a previous life.' And lately I just smile politely and nod because I understand the concept and I know what the belief is behind it, but I just constantly feel like it's a belief. And I just want to speak to you about it because there's nobody I can talk to, you know? Nobody will understand me when I say like there's nothing, it's nothing, it's nothing.

It's completely true that it is nothing. So nothing has really happened to you and you cannot be conditioned. So for us to say that you are like this because of a previous life, it is not true because it's a different 'you' that is being spoken of. What is clear is that this awareness is completely untouched by any of these appearances and therefore not possible to be conditioned in any way also, you see? No conditioning is possible for awareness. So then what is conditioning possible for? It must be possible for this sense of being itself because it is possible for being to delude itself, isn't it? So this sense of being, if it gets attached to some experience from a dream or a lifetime, it doesn't matter what we say, it's all the same—another appearance. So just in the same way that we must not get attached to any appearance which is here now, we must not get attached to any appearance that we might have had in deeply meditative states or past life regression or something like that. That's why we can only talk about them as entertainment and just to see that all which is flowing even here, we cannot give any reality to it because there seems to be so much going on in Consciousness all the time. I would have seen this tendency amongst various people in India especially, that this tendency is there to say, 'Oh, in my previous life I was this and therefore that's why I act like this' and all this.

What I want to ask you is, awareness is the recognition is... somehow it's the being in the presence of the being that we, although we are awareness, we've always been that, but the conscious recognition of it happens in the presence of the being. So can we say that—I don't know if it's appropriate to say it like that—is it the being that decides when you get to see that, you know?

Yes. So this is a very good question. And in the play of this life, it is being itself which decides when to wake up or not in the play of this life. But the fact is that awareness never fell asleep, you see? So in deep sleep state, there is no enlightenment required because there's only awareness. Now, when there is appearance, then the potential to believe is there, the potential to give attention at that which is all driven by beingness itself. Awareness is untouched by all, unconcerned. So beingness itself can look at the appearance which it is projecting, or it can just rest in its true nature of awareness itself. So it can reveal back to itself at any point it wishes to, so to say. And it must be its own doing; this cannot be anybody else. And when we say that it's projecting all these appearances and all of these appearances are independent, it doesn't technically depend on the past appearances, so to say. So even to say that things like, for instance, 'If I've done all these good deeds, then the being will reveal this to me,' it's not entirely... it's completely up to being or Consciousness or God. There are no rules as such for it. We can say that all of this has already happened and we are just watching a movie which is all pre-planned and shot already. Or we can say that being is deciding every moment of appearance.

What some people can use this as an excuse and say, 'Well, my time is not here because, you know, maybe although they've heard all these things, they can say maybe no, you know, it's all being, it's being doing all these things.'

Yes, but if there's a person which is saying that, then it is just like an excuse. But it's very difficult to explain. Tell me about it, because my mom keeps saying that and we talk, but so much it's not clear. It's like being is doing everything. It's very difficult from the person's perspective to understand. But it's a very good thing even as a person if you're saying that all is God's doing, then even that is very... that sense of surrender which might be a little inaccurate in reality, but actually will lead you to the dissolution of this ego. I'm not sure we finished our conversation, I'm not sure, but it was good to have it.

It's really so great to be able to talk to you. I appreciate it so much. I'm so grateful to you.

You're very welcome, my dear. Such a pleasure always to talk to you as well. But we can look if there's something still there. Don't have an aversion also to it because all this is just fun.

Oh yeah, it is fun, you know? It starts triggering my mind when the subject comes up and it starts... all those old seeker tendencies start coming up and I feel like a question starts coming of like, you know, the Bodhisattvas who decide to stay in form to help the world. It starts bringing up this thing of like, can you decide to stay in form because the character could decide to stay a character? It's just an interesting thing to start contemplating. It doesn't bother me, you know? I don't lie awake worrying about it, but it's interesting to start thinking about these things, you know? Or whether and if there is even a choice that the character has, because the character is what it is, it's doing what it's doing, you know? So I can see that the character has no choice because the character is non-existent, isn't it?

Exactly. So I always come like a loop. Not the character's choice, but it is beingness' choice, which is completely free to project itself in any way. So it is not a person who is deciding, but God himself. And I don't find any restriction that God needs to place on itself. So if He wants to create somebody who lives a thousand years or ten thousand years, I don't feel any problem with that. But my thing is that I don't believe something unless I've experienced it for myself, and I've never experienced a ten thousand year old body. So I'm not willing to give it my belief as a concept also right now. I just see, okay, something we read in the books. Because if you've seen that our approach has always been scientific, isn't it? We always see, okay, what can be verified right now? What is true in the moment? And something which is not verifiable holds no value even in the inquiry. But I can say that because it seems apparent that for being, time and space is completely irrelevant, completely moldable, I don't see any trouble if being or God was to decide that this body will live for ten thousand years. I don't see that as an impossibility. I'm open-minded towards it, but I have not seen it, so I cannot say that it will definitely or is definitely true or something like that. The other day—I don't know whether you were there in satsang or not, maybe it was in the in-person satsang—somebody was to come and say that you can keep this body for ten thousand years, would I want to? I don't know. No, I wouldn't want to. So even if there was a personal choice in deciding our lifespan, I would rather say, 'Let You decide. God will decide.'

Yeah, I was listening to Mooji talking about free will and, you know, it's so funny, we actually... the way the game is set up is so perfect, this game of life, you know? The fact that we can't control things, the fact that we don't know when we're going to die, you know, all of the way the game is set up is just perfect, ingenious.

Yes, supremely. The Supreme Intelligence is running all of this so beautifully, isn't it? So beautifully.

I don't feel like there's a concrete question, Father. I just feel like I had to speak to you about it because I sometimes get frustrated that I don't have anyone to speak to about these things, you know? So thank you.

Always, you can always speak about this, always. Also, don't feel that this says something about our understanding of the truth. All these yogis and usually yogis...

Perfect, ingenious, yes. Supremely, the Supreme intelligence is running all of this so beautifully, isn't it? So beautifully.

I don't feel like there's a concrete question, Father. I just feel like I had to speak to you about it because I sometimes get frustrated that I don't have anyone to speak to about these things, you know? So thank you.

Always, you can always speak about this. Always. Also, don't feel that this says something about our understanding of the truths. All these yogis, and usually yogis talk about experiences more because they have not understood the truths. I can be as strong as to say this because if you find somebody who is saying that, you know, 'I stood on one leg for a hundred years in the Himalayan cave' or something like that, it means that they've not understood the truth. You'll meet many swamis who will say that 'I've been walking around pilgrimages in India for fifty years' or something like that. If there's so much pride that appears in saying these kind of things, you know that, okay, they've not discovered who they really are.

And even with past life experiences, you can experience your last hundred lives, but if you're still saying that 'I was a person, I was this person, then I was this person, then I was this person,' then you've not experienced the truth, you see? Then you've not even made use of what the experience is trying to show you, which is that these appearances can keep changing but you are just the awareness of them. It can be like that. Thank you, very welcome.

Anyone who has not even had any experience—no Kundalini, no past life, nothing, nothing, no spiritual experience whatsoever—can discover the truth of who they are in this moment, and there is nothing missing from that. Nothing missing from that freedom. There is too much emphasis in India about all these chakras and Kundalini and past life and all of that. And I can say again, I'm saying this authoritatively because many of these experiences have happened here and they're just... there's no point to any of them. I can tell you with certainty, no.

Earlier on, when I said that it starts my mind up, it's because I'm in the presence of really very highly respected yogis and I can hear... I can hear they don't know the truth just by the way that they speak. And then I realize, okay, that one hasn't seen. It's not that I don't feel any less love; it's just that I realize, I just go, 'Okay,' you know? But then my mind... then I don't feel like I listen so much anymore, and then my mind starts up a little guilty thing of like, 'Who do you think you are? How can you judge whether that person knows the truth?' And it's not a judgment, it's just that... it's like if somebody speaks about there still being Twin Towers in New York, you'll go, 'Okay, well they obviously haven't been to New York in the last few years.' It's just that, you know, you just go, 'Okay, they haven't seen.' And then all that talk starts, you know? So it's really valuable for me to hear you speak it out.

This is very good because this is an important point. I think we are getting to the root of the issue now, which is that there is this feeling of guilt initially. When we feel, okay, if someone is getting angry, suppose, and I see that she's being egoistic—she's not, but suppose I see that she's being egoistic, she's coming from the ego—does that mean that I'm being egoistic to say that she's being egoistic? Can you see there's a subtle difference? To see that red is red and to see that it's just red is okay. To say that this color is red is fine, but to say that 'I have an aversion to red and I don't like red' or 'red should not be there,' that is ego, you see?

But just to be able to spot red... just because you're free doesn't mean that you'll lose your power of observation, isn't it? So you can spot ego, but is the ego a problem for you? If it is a problem for you, that means that it is coming from the ego. But if you can spot ego clearly and it has no problem for you—like you said, you still love them, there's no judgment—then it's nothing. So this ability to see where another is coming from will not go away, and it's very natural. But there will not be an ego to clap on the other side, so no conflict can happen because it is not being delivered to an ego; it is just being observed.

But if you believe the thoughts of guilt about it, then in your case that could be a problem, right? So don't believe any guilt about it. It is natural. You will watch. Now that you know the truth, it is very apparent that when you are around other beings, you will see that they're coming from this place, they're coming from this identity. It'll be clear. Just because you can see it doesn't make you egoistic. If it would make a difference to you, then that would make you egoistic, see? So that's why it's easier to take an example of a color. We will still be able to see red, but red will not mean anything to you.

You know what India is like, yes. You know that the swamis are very respected and, you know, your way of reacting towards them does change. It does change.

Yes, yes, yes. And that's natural for it, you see. There was a Swami that I respected a lot. The first time I went to Rishikesh, there was huge respect for him because beautiful ashram, everything. And then when I got into a little close proximity, I realized that it's not true. They're not speaking from the truths. That realization is there, but it doesn't mean that I reject them or something, but it just means that that reverence which was there is not there now. That's natural, isn't it? How can there be reverence now? It's not possible. That would be forced, isn't it?

And why should we revere one that is not free from their own suffering and is preaching about freedom from suffering? At best, we know that we are just peers; we are all just beings which are there in this world. But the reverence which is there for the Satguru is not possible in this case. Once the truth is seen, it's very natural. And we must always... we must never... for those of you which will be new in Rishikesh and to India, just because someone is in robes or wearing orange or white, right, doesn't mean that they have understood the truth or that they are free from suffering. Please remember this.

Because many will come from overseas and they'll come to India and they'll see somebody wearing some orange robes, and many times they could be drug addicts or they could be criminals. So always do your due diligence. Go with your intuition, what your heart is telling you. Just the way somebody's dressed or the way they look does not count for the fact that they know the truth. Also, we must not be completely skeptical. Now there's this thing in India that all gurus, all teachers are now just crooks because so many scandals and things are appearing. It's also this thing now that all Babas are fake. There's no such thing, you know? It's like that.

So just go with the intuition in your heart. Don't go to any extreme point of view. Just know you know the truth in your heart, so just see whether there is resonance which is there. And then if you find resonance, you can definitely converse, talk to them; no harm in any of that. But just don't go on blind... just because somebody's wearing some clothes or looks like a sadhu or something doesn't mean anything.