The Invitation Is to Really Look Deeply - 26th Sept. 2016

Let me say, but my expectation from you is good. I keep hearing expectations that everyone has to me. I give me freedom, bakery this, do things that. So can I say before we start this time what I want you to do? And it's more of an invitation actually. The invitation is to really look deeply. Just to look. Look without interpretation and judgment as much as possible. Look without conclusions. Can we do this? Just to look and to discover whether this looking is all there is, however there is a deeper looking which is looking even at this looking itself. If this attention is all there is or if there is awareness even of this attention. And just to look like this and no running to conclusions, no running to debating, no running to any sort of judgment about ourselves, the rest of the Satsang, or the rest of the world. Just to look like this.

Because all that happens when we are in Satsang also many times, and in the rest of life, is that we are running away from this looking. Our conclusions also are running away. A conclusion is very tricky, running away from just looking because something wants to... there can be a sense of fear or wobbliness which comes in this looking and then we want to come to a conclusion. 'Yes, this is what I saw. Yes, this is the truth. I got it.' No, then 'I lost it.' Even the getting it, losing it, all of this game is part of the same running away from what is. And some of us have been exploring like this. So can we say now that this time my expectation from you... it's not real what I want to say, is that you just look. All of us look together at what is going on. What is this really about? And we continue our way of questioning. Really say, what is it that is really going on? What do I want? To be able to look like this and to see.

Is it then I truly just want to be? Because when you ever say like this, no, 'I just want to exist,' but nothing is stopping your existence to exist. What is it that we need to just be? What is it we need? It comes automatically, isn't it? Beingness comes on its own, you see. So if it were just the will to be, the will to exist, then there is nothing that we need. Consciousness is being conscious right now, isn't it? Just a will to be. How do we want something? Do we want to feed this sense of beingness something specific? Then you start... if you start to lose... I mean, he said that to just be nothing is needed, then where does need come from? Need must come from a specific idea that this beingness needs this additional quality for something phenomenal, for it to become better. But you're now looking. Have we seen that being actually becomes better or less better? No, you see, being is just being.

So what is it about? Is it possible that being this, being itself, is playing one big game with us, with itself? This game of pretending to be something personal and this game of dropping the seeming sense of person? Is it possible? I also feel like I must not make so many conclusions. Listen, Advaita is really absolutist, you see. So it's very easy to just say this, but sometimes it will help you and sometimes it just becomes another concept. So what if I just propose ideas to you, concepts to you, and then you explore those concepts for yourself and look deeply? Could it be that this is true? Why would Consciousness want to do this game? What is it getting out of it? Why would you want to take all the trouble of the pretense of personhood and then all the trouble of the dropping of the pretense? Even if it is the urge to drop the pretense, why does it have to go through all this rigmarole of Satsang for years in here? If it wants to drop the pretense, it should just...

I want to look before we come to any conclusions, before we want to say that 'Yes, yes, this is how it is, this is what it is.' So what have we said? We said that if it was just about wanting to exist, then nothing can prevent that wanting. Nothing can prevent that existing. And when there is tiredness of this existence also, then sleep comes. We go from this time and space into something which is timeless. So it is immaterial there whether we say we sleep for one second or four million years. So as long as there is no urge to experience or to exist, it does not arise again. Then we call it urge, but I don't know what the accurate term is. But when the urge is back, then again this being comes into existence and the so-called day happens, our waking state happens.