That Which is Central to Our Existence - 24th April 2017

What happened is that we speak in that which is and cling to our existence. We've taken that to be an entity like a person. So all this process of Satsang is just clarifying: what is it that is at the center of my existence, actually? And we've been trained and taught by our mind and those around us that that is an entity with the name which has been given to you. The path is an entity with the name that you have. Suppose it is that which is our existence, consciousness itself. That is what we are coming to see. There is nothing individual or personal truly about my existence unless I believe, unless I retain belief. And this power of belief, of course, again belongs to consciousness and therefore it seems very strong. It's a fact for some of us; we've been together for a long time yet the power of this conditioning can seem to reiterate itself over and over again.

As this conditioning reiterates itself, if we hear this in Satsang, which is: don't listen to that one for a bit, listen to this voice. I was telling somebody the other day that it is very uncomfortable to sit on two chairs at the same time. So if you are listening both to this voice in Satsang and to your mind's voice, as if both could be true, and trying to reconcile both of them, then it becomes a painful spiritual journey. It's a struggle. There is no reconciliation possible between the mind's voice and this voice. Everything else is completely different. The message of the mind's voice is that there is an individual entity called a person at the center of this equation, at the center. Okay? And the message of this voice is that this is a monologue within one consciousness. How do we reconcile these two? That which seems to have a limited entity at the center of the equation and that which has unlimited beingness as the basic premise. Can these two be reconciled? Really, they cannot be. It is only to the extent that I am not involved in that equation.

When the mind is saying something—the mind saying the coconut is green—we want to give it some credit. Even that is not required. Even that labeling is not ultimately required. But if you want to give it some credit, you can give it that much credit: that it can speak phenomenally. It is interpreting and decoding. But there is no truth about the reality of what I am to be found in the words of the mind. This is why it can seem like a bit of a struggle. This spiritual journey can seem like it is frustrating. We can feel like it is a struggle because you're trying to comfortably sit on a chair—the mind chair and the intuition chair—at the same time.

Now, if it were just a question of two different belief systems—the mind has a belief system of the individual 'I' and the Master has the belief system that there is only the Divine—if this were just a belief system, then it would be a clash of belief systems with no actual recognition. The Master is not saying that I have a belief system that you must follow. What are we asking? Whether we have validated what the mind is saying about us. Have we really checked? When we pick up the idea 'I', have we really truly checked that this 'I' is true, is real? Is that too much to ask? Is that too much to ask for? If you spend our entire life with the 'I' at the center of this life, in the entire life, the 'I' at the center of this life—the 'I, me, mine, myself' over everything—'I, me, and myself' at the center of this life, then is it not a fair question to truly check: what is this?

This is the beautiful thing we've been recognizing more the past few weeks: that the mind loves the question 'Why?' Yes, why? Why is this happening to me? Why am I not getting it? Why does nobody understand? Why, why, why? If we take the question 'W-H-Y', which is the favorite question of the mind, and somehow we change it to one alphabet, it becomes 'Y'. But if we take the good question of the mind, 'W-H-Y', the favorite question, and 'W-H-O', and put them together... for weeks we twist the question of this one. I'd like to find out why meaningful things for an individual entity are happening. Why is my life like this? Why can't I find happiness? What about the person? You can fit all our reports—I get quite a few reports every day—we can fit all our reports if you could replace all the 'Why' questions with 'Who'. Because most of our questions are about this identity, the thing at the center of this. They're saying, 'Why is this like this?' It's a basic premise and a figment of our imagination. The basis itself, the central standpoint itself, is fictional. Therefore, all the explanations will also be fiction. The basis itself is fiction, then all the explanations or the interpretations must be fiction.