The Sage Laughs at Thoughts that He Once Took Seriously - 9th Sept. 2016

So suppose you were born into a world where there were no mirrors, so you could not check really who you are, you see? But everybody starts telling you that you're a cat, you see? Saying, 'You're a cat.' So everything is, 'I'm a cat.' And as the job of the cat, the only job is to get the next bowl of milk. Yeah? So it has been said, then, 'This is your job now, the next bowl of milk.' First study, you'll get good marks, you see? That is the first bowl of milk. Okay, so we chase that, like this bowl of milk. But has it given us the eternal happiness and contentment we wanted? No. So then the search is on for the next bowl of milk. 'Hey, get a good job and then you can be happy the rest of your life.' Everybody's been told this, no? 'Just get a good job and then you'll be fine.' Get that bowl of milk. Contentment? Momentary, maybe, you see? Once in a while, say, 'Okay, okay,' but still, you know something is missing. Your next bowl of milk is 'Get the perfect relationship,' you see? 'Get the partner, he or she will complete you.' Now, so you chase that bowl of milk. So much, so much, so much drama about relationship, relationship. Then we get to the relationship. For a while it seemed like 'Wow,' and then 'Only if she was like this a little more, if he was a little more like that.' Yeah? We enjoyed the differences before you were together because it's so attractive, you see? And once you are together, then 'Why can't she be more like me?' or 'Why can't he be more like me?' We want to change the same differences which were attractive.

So both this also didn't work as the next bowl of milk. Then they say money is... you're getting the point? So all these bowls of milk have been defined. Then somebody comes and says to you, 'No, no, you've been chasing all the wrong things. There's no happiness in this. Liberation, freedom, that is your bowl of milk. And this one will not run out. It is your amrit now.' Since then, a never-ending treadmill. This is the huge... 'I will never run out.' Being these, still chasing. And it is changing like the cat chasing this ultimate bowl of milk called freedom. Then one day you go to a Satsang, and the Satguru says, 'Actually, you know, sorry to break it to you, but I don't have any such bowl of milk,' you see? 'But what I do have is a mirror. Are you willing to look?'

You see, then if there is openness—this is what we mean by openness—if there is openness to not be a cat, if you're open to the idea that you are not a person at all, you see? Then you can see this mirror and you will find what it reflects. So when that happens, when you see that there is no cat, then what do you find? There is no person here. But what is here which is undeniable? The sense that I am, that I exist. So this 'I am', although it seems very simple, especially when I asked you, 'Can you stop being now?' you know, of course not. What kind of question is that? I'm being. Being is here. But this is your introduction to your own Atma, you see? This Atma is the same I-am-ness, and it means also the same: this sense of existence, beingness, consciousness. We find that this is here and I am aware even of this. But this one that is aware even of this is not a body, is not a thought, is not an emotion. It is something even prior to this presence of being, you see?

So what is this 'I' that is aware of this? Is it a thing? Is it like some empty dark space? Is it some white light? You find that it is none of this, because even if it was this, I would be aware of that, you see? Many times our mind will visualize things and give them to us as a solution. We say 'awareness' and the mind will start visualizing a big dark space or something like this. But who is aware even of that? Can we say something about that? We cannot, you see? And that is why it's impossible to mentally grasp this, and yet you know it is true. That's why when we say, 'Are you aware now?' you see, yes. That means we are aware of our awareness. We just don't have the words to define it or describe it. That's why you feel like, 'I still haven't found the Self,' yeah? Because our idea has been that once I know a concept of something, only then do I know it, you see? Like in school you study science, okay, you learn ten concepts: the world is round and goes around the sun, gravity, that works. Hearing all these and we feel like, 'Oh, I know something about the world.' You really don't. We just know some concepts about the world now, you see?

But this Self is also like this. You can have some concepts about it, but that is not the true knowing, yeah? But this true knowing is possible and it is available even through a simple question like this: 'Are you aware now?' Yeah? But to the mind it is supremely unsatisfactory. Something happened? Where is the halo? Where is the bliss? I was promised bliss! They say there isn't any of that. But the magnificence of this, that I am able to say 'I am aware' without a phenomenal experience of this, you see? Then you find that this 'I' that is aware, it must be this awareness itself, because it is aware of itself without any visualization, without any conceptualization, without any interpretation, you see? And you find that this discovery is the recognition of the Self. It is not that it was... it is something new. It is a recognition, you see?

So just to come to this recognition is very beautiful even in our phenomenal day-to-day life. Why? Because when the thought comes and says, 'Oh, he doesn't like me so much,' or 'I'm not so much on that,' now the belief is not so much on that, recognizing ourselves to be this awareness. This is so. As we switch our idea about ourselves, going from 'I am this person' and 'this identity, I am like this, I am like this,' and we just throw all of this away and we have no idea now about who we are, then when things come as triggers for us even in the world... if you feel like somebody is attacking space, you see? Somebody is taking a sword and trying to cut space, you will just laugh at it. But if you imagine yourself to be in there, then you will feel like, 'Yes, I'm being attacked, I'm being cut, I'm being hurt,' you see? That is why this recognition is very beautiful and it makes what the mind says laughable, actually. So I often say, with this tormentor, it seemed like a tormentor, then becomes like a stand-up comedian which is available to us for free—no ticket also needed, you see? And this is the primary difference between a sage and the so-called normal layman. The sage is enjoying this comedy in the head, that's why always smiling and laughing. They're enjoying this comedy the mind is giving them, and the layman is taking it so seriously. So not believing our thoughts, the recognition of who we are—all of these are correlated, interrelated.