The Trouble Is From These Labels - 15th Nov 2018

What does that mean? Nothing in the sense that if you are not good, it does not mean that you're bad. If you're not bad, it doesn't mean that you're good. These are just inferences from the mind. You are beyond bad and good. You see, these don't apply to your reality because—it might sound strange to say—but everything is inherently just an expression of consciousness. But how we label it? And you see culturally, in some areas of the world something is good, but in other areas of the world, in some cultures, this exact same thing would be bad. And people are very clear: 'No, it is bad' or 'It is good.' So these are just attributes that we give using the mind, that 'If I am this way, then it is good; if I am that way, then it is bad.'

Now, why I keep saying don't go to the opposite? Because otherwise we rest in the opposite position, saying that 'Now I can just be bad, I can just be rude to everyone who speaks to me.' And that becomes a new position. So most of our children are conditioned to this sort of 'You have to be good, you have to speak nicely, you have to be vigilant towards others' feelings.' This kind of thing. To the opposite, saying 'I don't care anymore.' And many times this is also labeled under 'I'm just going to be myself.' It has nothing to do with the Self. It is just switching one image because some pain came with that image and then we felt like it is worthwhile to drop that, but trying to construct a new image which we feel will not be as painful. But because all imagery is ultimately not true about you, it is going to be painful. You see, in the design of this play, it seems that it is designed in a way that no lie lasts forever and it starts to become painful. Like I was saying the other day, the potato does keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter till you drop it. This identity, no matter what the roots of that are.

So I'm very happy to hear you speak like this and say that there's an impulse to try and light on the opposite of that, but to see that, yes, this is what would be true in satsang: it's neither this nor that. And that can feel like limbo or wobbly for a bit. 'Where do I rest on? So what is it? Am I good or bad?' So when I say it is not applicable, it doesn't mean that it isn't—I'm not making confusion of what you must try to be. I'm not saying that you must try to be good-good or bad-bad or even neutral. See that none of this applies. It's true, my reality, none of this really applies. It only applies to identity nature.

It was Nietzsche who made this very interesting book called 'Beyond Good and Evil,' and many, many misunderstood that again in the same way satsang can be misunderstood. They felt like, 'Oh, we must then, you know, own our bad side' or something like that. But that's not what he was saying. Even in the book, a little bit that I had read of it, he was saying something similar: that these labels now are extinct. These labels are extinct because he was kind of hoping that humanity has crossed that traditional idea of labeling us as 'I was like this' or 'I'm like that.' But I don't feel like we have, even now, although this must be about a hundred years ago, fifty, sixty years ago.

If you never had this condition about good and bad, then the mind can give you this fear: 'But then I can just be really bad.' Yeah, when I used to visit Ramesh, one of the most common questions that used to come to him was because he would say that you are not the doer, everything happens through God's will. But this was also often misunderstood because the question he would get is, 'What does that mean? I can just go around shooting everybody?' or 'Does that mean I can just lie in bed all day?' But it is not what he was saying. What he was saying was that everything that happens is God through you. And when you say 'I can go around shooting people,' who are you referring to? Yourself, then.

So it's kind of—I was going to say dangerous, but not really dangerous, but very unfathomable to the mind what is being spoken. So like Guruji says, 'Mind bypass this.' Feel something still being heard without it being understood by the mind. The mind asks, 'What is this? Should I be good or bad?' and you hear 'Neither' or 'Both' or 'Not applicable.' The mind can't do anything with that, you see? Although it might try to own that concept, like Tiger Woods, he might try to own that, but it has no legs to stand on with this kind of thing. Because it'll keep saying, 'Okay fine, so then now what should I do? How should I be?' as if it is still up to it, still trying to get that ownership of that.

Now, the funny thing is if I say don't be good, don't be bad, and don't be empty—so there are no latest positions now—something must be left. 'I just have to just be empty.' But empty is not trying to be empty. Let's say, like Guruji talks about trying to be natural. Do we need to try to be natural? The naturalness is gone. Just be natural. Yeah, that is not a position. So when we make it into a position, like emptiness can also be made into a position. What I'm feeling now is just heat. It's not, you know, it's just this kitchen becomes too hot. You can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. This kitchen, when it becomes too hot to stay, drop the potato.

And the other day I was reading a book—was it 'Letters from the Samplan' or something like that?—the saint was saying that this, like neither this nor that, no position, not even empty as a position. Emptiness is emptiness itself. Empty is empty of even itself. So this kind of thing seems very strange for the mind and we want to run. He said something very beautiful. He said because we are so used to resting in this nest of intellect, when you've been pushed beyond your intellect, it can seem like, 'But this is too strange, too crazy' or something. But this is the most auspicious. You are left without a conclusion, without a resting place for your limited idea of yourself. So all confused, even conclusions about emptiness or silence. I suppose he calls it especially, also calls it the 'naked eye,' especially because we still make a conclusion about our inner openness and attaching to how the coconut seems to operate in the world. 'So if I'm just so empty, then this can't happen.' The same thing: 'I'll just lie in bed all day' or something like that. These kind of ideas.

And the bad news is that if you were to try and not try and be empty of even being able to try, you would still not be empty. Still trying to be empty of even being empty. So that is the bad news. But the best news is that I tell you all this is here. Best thing that's in this very moment: empty of even trying to be empty.

And I notice that there's obviously the mind's version of what just flowing in is. And actually, when—so the mind has 'wants' and 'don't wants' basically. And then when life begins to flow in the direction of the 'don't wants,' the mind tries to bring all this evidence to say, you know, like, 'Now you're doing something' or 'doing something wrong' or whatever. But all it brings is—it's like kind of models of its 'wants' and 'no wants' and there's no evidence at all that actually there's any truth in it. You get that? That the flow is always infinitely broader than the mind's idea of it. And I noticed—but I know it sounds like obvious—but just how much resistance there is to actually, you know, within the mind to absolutely just be and leave it alone. Especially these sort of quite precious ideas about, you know, what life looks like, even to be in satsang, since they stop, you know, activity or lifestyle or whatever. It identifies any of your life to any attempt to see that its version can never match what is there. It is life about anything else. The mind's version even about a green coconut is not a true representation of what is. But in part of the design, in a way, it resists this theme, which is this insight. And it says, 'Oh no, I don't know what you mean. I do know. I'll come to you. See, this therefore this, this therefore that.' I told you.

Once they stopped, you know, activity, your lifestyle or whatever, the mind identifies any of your life. Any attempt to see that its version can never match what is there. It is life about anything. The mind's version even about a green coconut is not a true representation of what is. But as part of the design, in a way, it resists this theme, which is this insight. And it says, 'Oh no, I don't know what you mean. I do know. I'll come to you, you see. This therefore this, this therefore that. I told you so.' This kind of habit.

Another devotee was telling me, 'How does it always happen that I felt like I should have done that, and even when I don't do it, literally that happens?' And I said, if you really observe this, because the mind is so full of ideas, every possible alternative actually comes up in the mind. But then when something works out that way, it conveniently forgets the rest and says, 'I told you we should have done that and you didn't do it.' But you also said do the opposite, do plus one, do minus one. It is really saying everything, but it conveniently pulls out from its bag, 'I told you to do this.' So clearly, very sparkly also.

Many times I was noticing also, there was a scientific study I read maybe six months ago where they said that memory works in a very convenient way. It gives you a sort of seemingly coherent story of your life, but these stories—and they did this kind of research, they liked it—so they did some research and they spoke to young adults, people who are in their twenties and thirties. They had a version about themselves, and then they actually validated this version with parents and others who saw them growing up. And all of them had different versions of that one story. So it's very much like a version of our life, but it doesn't come close to capturing the entirety of what is, or even what seemed to have played out.

But we just feel, for a while, it can feel a bit uncomfortable to not have a clear version of the past because we feel like, 'What do you see the testimonials in the world?' 'Ah, my past has made me what I am today.' These kind of things. What this is saying is, 'My current identity is based on all this.' Do the history of the past sound like anything at all? No. Especially no story given to us. It's almost like a suffocation. It's okay because the mind only has the ideas as its currency. Yes, that's all. The cream, yeah. So when you see through the ideas, the mind can't breathe.

And if you look a bit more, it is so. It's like you can't reconcile that on the mental level. You have to see it from your position. Total disagreement. The only currency of the mind is ideas. Even when it is saying that 'Now my problem is only energetic,' it is the mind's idea that 'This is my problem.' Even the idea of what is energetic and not you, because everything is energetic, then what is not? In addition, to label something as if we know it through this currency of ideas is what leads to this trouble. There is no appearance—and all appearances can be called energetic in a way, which are the energy of Consciousness, the light of Consciousness—but there is nothing that appears which is greater than the source itself, the Consciousness itself.

So only when you identify as something affected by a particular appearance, only then it can seem like it is too much or too strong, or yourself, you know, suffering from it. And that identification is only possible through the currency of ideas.

Like this, and suddenly I don't know where it came from, I just was cursing somebody. Not even somebody, I'm like, 'Whoa, good thing they don't know.' I am thinking, you know, 'I am a bad person.' It just came so much out of the blue that I'm like, 'Whoa, okay.' It's true. It's just even when I was coming and then, 'Okay, you should get into a fight.' Or like other situations, like sometimes you know, you get thoughts and then somebody else is speaking them out. So sometimes I feel like I just have thoughts which are not mine actually, you know? And just seeing that more is also a release because else it's always clear, so to speak, to us. We are thinking, we are just...

It couldn't be. What are the mathematical odds of that happening? And there's so many things, you see. Maybe we start noticing more after we start coming to Satsang, but there are so many things which are the probability of one is to like a gazillion or something, not even like a trillion. It is just so unlikely that it will just happen that you were having that thought and those words are coming from one of the mouths, this exact same thing somewhere. And not infrequently, it's quite often now that you've noted these things.

So this notion of 'my idea' or 'it is coming from me' or 'I own it,' it's just... you just need like this. Not only am I making any reference to myself, I'm also not making any reference to who I'm cursing. It only reminded me of when I read Eckhart Tolle many years ago. He said that one day he saw this lady—I might be telling the story a bit wrong—but he saw this lady and she was just speaking angrily. People were saying that she's mad, or he was making a conclusion that she's mad or something like that. But then he noticed that it's not so strange because what is really happening inwardly, now the mouth which is repeating that stuff is just giving expression to what the thoughts, whatever the thought was saying. Most probably it's just going with that and just saying it out loud.

So this is the kind of wow bubble that can happen in the mind. We can say, 'I don't know, I watched this a little time.' Like something just finds expression and you can't even find what you're fighting against or what the whole thing is releasing its about. But I would say it's good to just have it out, like vomit it out sometimes if the mind is very... and the more you want it to shut up, it can feel like it's somewhere better. Did he say, 'Okay, what do you... this is like what do you want? Okay, then what else? What do you want?' It's like a skit a few times. It's not as bright, everything. It is not endless.

We feel like, 'Where is this going to go on?' You can try doing it like anytime you say to the mind, 'Okay, bring it on,' what happens? For most of you, it shuts up. Is it like, 'Okay, bring it on, what do you got?' Anytime you play it like this. We said, 'Okay, let's do this experiment, let's play this game. You expose every thought that you're getting.' And then after one, two, three... and it doesn't like the spotlight. That is like the whisperer; it really likes to be in the shadows. We were distracted by the events in the world, in your life, and it tries to whisper that message in a large way. Okay, from the shadows, right back to it. And maybe that's why in these representations in stories and movies, it had this evil in this hospital, like this kind of thing. Something is playing on that recognition of how this mind operates because just pure open sunlight... 'I'm just going to see everything that you see and hear. What do you want to see? Try to do some fear, something, something good for ten minutes. Some disease and tenderness on trial.' Just so you don't have to try and stop the mind.

This is why I stopped saying 'don't believe in thoughts' so much, you see, because it was misunderstood as trying to repress the mind or do something with the content of the thoughts appearing. It is often misrepresented by the mind itself in, 'Oh, the thoughts come' or 'Oh, to my heart that should not happen.' I prefer to see, 'Okay, I don't... either way, you know, there you are. Hello.' Very, very... because I'm going to mute myself so maybe we hear you better then. Okay, I cannot hear you. Okay, what I'm doing is I'm going to mute so the bandwidth is not... I'm saying so we can hear you in China. Oh, very happy to meet you as well. What is... the signal is not good? No, no, no. You see, do you see me? Yes, you can understand them better. You can translate for me a bit.

You made a comment for full trading wood, wood raw food. I see. Nice.

Okay, I give you an example. Yes, I give you an example that sometimes, in fact most times, these things are blessings in disguise. Everything actually is a blessing in disguise. It's not... let's say that it's a blessing in disguise. Okay, yes, you can tell me. Here also, I used to have this very big business at one point of time with almost seven hundred people. You can translate. Then what happened is because of some business problem, we had to shut that business. But I had a lot of identity about the business, so a lot of suffering came because it was something I always wanted to have, a software business.

But when the suffering came, then something opened up here to really look at what life is about. Before that, I was very sure of myself and life, that this is what life is: you have to work hard and make lots of money. These kind of ideas were very strong. But when I saw that I had worked hard, I did everything right, you see, and still these kind of things happened and the business had to go away, then what is the...

And as this questioning started, I started questioning myself: 'What is life? Who am I? What is my purpose?' Then I saw that life has a much deeper play than we understand mentally, much deeper significance, more than our mind can understand. And today it will sound funny to you maybe, but maybe a few years later you will also say the same thing, but today I am very grateful that all that happened because I found something here which will not go away with death. There is nothing in this world that you can do that is appearing that will survive your death. When this body is dead, you see, it will... there is nothing in this world. But when you find your true Self, as you recognize what you really are, then you come to that which is unborn and undying.

So we replace our attachment for something which is limited, which is going to go with time, and we open up, see, and we discover that life is so beautiful when we are empty of attachments. But I can understand the pain that you must be going through right now from the memory I have of the pain that was felt here also. And for that, and for this pain to get better soon, for you to feel light and open again, you have my full, full love and blessings.

This you want to ask everything at more put down with young days. Can you repeat, my dear? Can you repeat again? Put down with down a finger being put down word, put down your business be good again.

Well, nobody can predict what will unfold in this life, but I can tell you that if you let go of your attachments, you will never regret it. And you will find joy in everything. So we cannot say... this divine play is so magnificent that we cannot say. You might have a much bigger business tomorrow, or you might have a completely different life. Nobody can say. But you will be happy. It's a method so, so easy. So listening is never about how you yell. Okay, you're talking about how the wrong thing thing. Yes, yes, it is a letting go here. It is a letting go.

And what is it that is let go of? You are not trying to repress feelings or push away anything, you see. You are not trying to say, 'This is pain, it should not be there.' You are not making any judgment. You just completely open and allowing all these judgments to come and go, all your thoughts to come and go, you see. Don't label as much as you can. Don't label anything. Don't even... so as you did open, it's good. As you become open in this way where you're not trying to resist anything at all, you see, it is allowing everything to come and go. You will see that all of this is very like popcorn sometimes. This is that picnic we need looking, you see. But you are just open. You're just allowing it to come and go. But if you judge it and say, 'This should not be' or 'It should be some other way,' then it will seem like it's really strong. There's a supreme intelligence which is taking care of this life. It is all the same intelligence that the birds know how to fly, the trees know how to grow, this heart beats, a heart is beating, the breath is happening, so many millions of processes happening in the body. So that which is doing all of this is...

Looking busy, but you are just open. You're just allowing it to come and go. But if you judge it and say 'This should not be' or 'It should be some other way,' then it will seem like it's really strong. There's a supreme intelligence which is taking care of this life. It is all the same intelligence that the birds know how to fly, the trees know how to grow, this heart beats, a heart is beating, the breaths is happening. So many millions of processes happening in the body. So that which is doing all of this is also taking care of our life. And if you trust that more and more, if you don't worry too much, then you will see that this will pass. Everything passes. This too shall pass.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. So welcome, my dear. So good to see you. I know that when Tara used to join earlier, few years ago when you used to come online, it was very difficult in China. In China, they would not be so easy to join satsang and he had to use proxy server. And now it is better because your quality of the video is good now. Yes, I see that Zoom is not blocked. I see, I see, I see. Yeah, that is good. But I guess you still can't get to YouTube? Yes, that is still blocked. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you can through some proxying. Yes, so good to see you after so long and so nice to meet both your friends as well.

My friend, my friend, uh-huh. The feeling is gone.

Okay, that's very good. That's very good. It's gone, but even if it comes back, it's okay. If it comes and goes, everything that comes and goes, let it come and go. Don't attach to even 'gone.' Is it okay? And he could... okay. There are some other messages and all my love to you, my dear. Thank you, my dear.

I feel to say to all of you that I'm very happy with the reports I'm hearing these days. They quite liked quite often, so they happy that the sense of what is being shared, which is really not possible to do verbally, it seems to be getting through in a way. All God's grace. It doesn't mean, of course, that when you come you only have to come with some light report or something. It's not a judgment like that. It's just the sense I'm getting in this and what the past few weeks is that there's a lot more openness with lot less clinging, and there's a lot of insight about even this trickery of the mind and the positions it can tempt you with. Thank you all so much for being in satsang today. Satguru Mooji Baba Ki Jai.