There Is No Battle to Fight - 12th February 2018
Saar (Essence)
Ananta guides seekers to look behind the 'hologram' of changing phenomena to discover the ever-present, qualityless being. He emphasizes that God is not a distant goal but the very presence that is already here.
The attempt to find God is a paradox because you could not get rid of God if you tried.
Everything that we can say after ‘I am’ is a story, a lie.
All things are perfectly resolved in the unborn. There is no battle to fight.
intimate
Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
I'll say everyone, welcome to satsang today. Mooji Baba ki Jai. So, you're attached to the images in the hologram and then it is being scratched and you feel like, 'Oh, this is too unbearable, this is too this or that.' But you like it when you scratch the surface. So here, we don't even have to remove anything. We don't have to remove the hologram. You can just take a peek behind the veil of this. So everything that is appearing and disappearing is this hologram. What is behind this veil? And how do we check that? There are a couple of simple ways which are coming up now. One is: In whose light do all these images exist? In which light, whose presence, do all these images exist? Another simple way is just to check what perceives all of these holographic images. And the reason we are looking for holographic is because they change.
So when Guruji says, 'Don't bring me something domestic,' what does it actually mean? It means, could you keep the surface-level things aside for some time and can we go before one level and check on the light of this existence, the screen of this existence, or the perceiver of this existence? There is only one light, one screen or space, and one person. Who is this one? Could it be that God has been hiding in your attic and we are looking for Him everywhere? On the surface, a lot of things have been happening: relationships, money, health, search for meaning and value. All of this is happening on the surface. But all of this time, God has been here. The being, consciousness, has been here. Objects change with time, but your being has not.
So when you scratch the surface, not only you will find this unlimited peace, but you find that it is your own presence. There is one paradigm from the mind which says, 'Oh, this is too simple, therefore it cannot be it. It is too simple, therefore it cannot be it.' We must replace that notion. If you have to use a notion—best is notionless—but if you have to use a notion, you have to say, 'This is so simple that it must be it.' Being is the only thing. Bring it from complexity just to be. Being has zero complexity. That's why I have been saying recently that you see this discovery will be your greatest one. The mind is complex; let it go. What are you most naturally, effortlessly? Nothing on the surface has to change. Also, even before you can try to become effortless, you see, what are you effortlessly? But even before that, just you, just that.
That is why the attempt to find God is such a paradox, because you could not get rid of God if you tried. When I asked you, 'Can you stop being?' it's the same as asking, 'Can you be rid of God?' So how is this master trick? What is the trick of the mind? There's only one trick: it has to convince you that this being is an individual or a person. It is not God, it is not consciousness, it is not unlimited. That is all that it is doing. Everything else is actually showing you your truth. It is only our interpretation coming from this mind that creates this notion of separation.
So when you check, 'Can I stop being?' now, this being that you are discovering about yourselves is not a personal entity, is not individual, has no boundaries. It is not existent in time; time is existent in it. It is not existent in space; space is existent in it. It itself is beyond all ideas of space. And there is an aspect of you which has not aged, isn't it? The body has aged, our ideas have become old, sensations and emotions we have experienced for a long time. But there is something about you which is beyond this time. To the perceiver of the movement that we call time—to put it more accurately, the movement of objects through which time is inferred—the very existence is not participating in this limited realm of time and space.
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So if the question 'Can I stop being?' is the coin that we are using to scratch the surface and you come across this presence, without going to your interpretation, your mental interpretation of this presence, see if you can remain with just your inner insight about your tasting, your direct tasting of it. Stay in the tasting of your being. Because if you give it to your mind, you know what happens. Guruji says you bring chocolate cake to the mind and it only mixes dirt in there. So as you're tasting your being, if you give it over to your interpretation of it, it will say, 'But where is the bliss? Oh, this can't be it. But how long will being last?' How long will you continue to doubt your very being, your very existence? There will come a time where no notion will be used to describe it. My invitation is that this time is now.
This is what I mean when I say everything that we can say after 'I am' is a story, is a lie, because this 'I am' is beyond description and has been harassed and molested by notions. And all of you also might say that, 'Master, but...' All things are perfectly resolved in the unborn. One time it happened that a member was here and we broadcasted this. This was about three years ago. She was sitting there and she said, 'You take me through this because I'm just not getting it.' So then we went to the inquiry together. You could see that in the inquiry something was coming a bit clearer. Then after a while, she became more participative in this world. So I said, 'What happened? What did you see?' She said, 'I saw that there is nobody to fight.' This is one of the most beautiful words I have ever heard. She said, 'I have been going like Don Quixote, fighting these battles, but there is no battle to fight.' What a beautiful way to express the same thing. All things are perfectly resolved in the unborn. To fight, to resist, to struggle is only our post-notional condition. And what is the pre-notional condition? There is no battle, nothing to do, nowhere to go.
And remember that this 'nothing to do, nowhere to go' is not talking about the surface level. At the surface level, the body can do what it is doing or not. You can go where it is going or not. The key word is discovering the unchanging. This is just naturally present here, prior to your interpretation of an event. Now, just now, we could have an exercise. In the retreat, some of us have deep notions of unworthiness or deep ideas that something has to happen before I can be free. So in a joke, I said, 'Yes, it is true actually. You have to have meditated for a thousand years over all your lifetimes. You should have meditated for a thousand years, and I have been keeping track of all of you. And it so happened that I have invited those who have finished exactly 999 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds. And you have to now, for this freedom, look like what you are now.'
What does enlightenment look like? What you are now. Not what you think you are, not what you feel you are, not what you conceptually know you are, not even what you perceive you are. What you are behind the veil of these moving images. You have always been that. You are that being which is the substratum of all expressions. That water—it goes in all rivers and oceans, it is the same water. And it is the same water which is this coconut water. It is just things at the surface which are different that they call their reality. They are the same. When you mix being with ideas about yourselves, then you appear to be an individual, a person. But as you are free from notions now, empty of concepts, naturally here and now you are the greatest enlightenment. Not your personality, but in your essence, the highest truth about yourself is naturally present. Whether you call it the Self, whether you call it the Satguru, whether you call it Atma, whether you call it consciousness, you are it. There cannot be such a thing as this. Halfway doubt is impossible. You cannot say that the highest is there but I am not. The highest is there but I am not it. That doesn't enter either, because if it is the highest, then it cannot be this which is just high enough that it excludes you. It must be something higher than that which includes you. If the highest is true, can it be that the highest must be there but it can't include me? Because then there would be a higher than that which will include you also. So either there is no highest, or it is already here.
As I said, halfway doubt is not possible. And what is happening is from tasted experience; it is not from intellectual reasoning. But I am also showing you that even with reasoning, it is not possible to doubt. Everyone says God is everywhere. When most of humanity says God is everywhere, we mean God is everywhere but me. And if everybody believes this, then God is actually nowhere. Well, it is everywhere but me for everyone. That is the great thing about this discovery. And I said that it sounds distant when I say God is here. It can sound distant when I say God is here, but what if you were to discover that saying 'God is here' is the same as saying 'I am'? They are completely the same. 'God is here,' like we said the other day, 'God now' is the same as 'me now.' In the satsang that day, we said that we are basically operating in one of the modes: either 'God now' or 'me now.' Because when there's a 'me,' there's a 'now.' To see that 'God now' is just 'I am.' And 'I am something' is 'me now.' Just 'I am' is 'God now.' But to attach an attribute to this unlimited, attributeless being is to pose, to pretend, to put on the mask of the 'me.' My advice is to remain in your motionless resistance. It's a worthwhile experiment.
If somebody said, 'If you do this, all things will be resolved. Take three steps. And to take these three steps and all things will be resolved: first you go to Kailash, then Rishikesh, then you need three steps and then your life is completely resolved.' And they actually take steps and check. And they should be perfect. So I say, 'Okay, just one step. Zero.' Just made it really simple. Thank you. We say no step is needed. All things are perfectly resolved in the unborn. 'No, this I don't like. Please tell me where to go.' That one is this. This is the trick. And see, steps are more popular in this world. More steps are very important. Like that story of the Zen master who has a discussion. He is sitting on the steps. This is paraphrasing, and nobody can tell the story as good as Guruji, so my storytelling... This Zen master is sitting on the steps. Now, a man comes to him. 'What are you doing sitting around? You need to go work on your fields.' 'So then what will happen?' 'Yeah, use that money and build a house for yourself.' 'And then what will happen?' 'Then you can have some more money and get married.' 'Then what will happen?' 'Then you can have kids and they will come into your life and they can also work with you on the fields.' 'And then what?' 'But then you can just sit in peace, nothing to do.' So the Zen master says, 'That's what I'm doing.'
This is what I mean when I say wherever you may wander, you would only find yourself because it is inescapable. You could be doing the highest Kriya yoga, pranayama, all your chakras could be awakened, you could travel to any aspect of time and space you would like. All of the seven billion beings in humanity could recognize your greatness and be subservient to you. But even in all of this, you will only find yourself to be what you are now. Not one inch greater can you become. You are already all there is. You have never left the destination. Motionlessly, you can't even play this game of seeker and finder of enlightenment, of freedom. You just are God. God now. Before you can decide whether this is true or not, you are. Whatever conclusion you might think, you can only make it because you are. 'I am' is this substratum of all appearances. No step can bring you to it, and no step can take you away from it. It is not applicable. It's important to say it is not applicable because...
Even motionlessly, you can't even play this game of seeker and finder of one latent freedom. You just are. God, God, no. Before you can decide whether this is true or not, you are. Whatever conclusion you might think, you can only make it because you are. 'I Am' is this. Is this all statistics, abstraction of what appearances? No step can bring you to it, and no step can take you away from it. It is not applicable. It's important to say it is not applicable because some of you would have heard this fully like, 'What he's saying is don't do Kriya, don't meditate.' I didn't say that. I just said whatever you might be doing, you are. Whatever you might not be doing, you are. It is the basis for all doing or not doing, the light of all appearances.
There is never a reason to be frustrated as a person. To say, 'I'm so frustrated and didn't find God' is an impossibility. It's more likely that it will be a frustrated ego saying, 'I can't shake off my body illness.' I tried with a million ideas and notions, but it was so clear that I just have... when you do say, the minute you say 'I', you're pointing to your boundless self. There is no limited self. Nobody has found this limited self. It is like the Loch Ness monster; people believe in it, but nobody has found it. They see some footsteps, some circumstantial evidence, as I call it, of the person. 'It is my body holed up in this room.' This is the same thing for the idea of the person. It is just a belief that there exists an entity called 'me' which the world is going to die, whose reality is done. Let go of the wheel that is phenomenal and just take a peek into what you really are.
The taste of your own being is never disappointing. Well, it can seem disappointing sometimes if you feel like it has to taste a certain way. If you go to the Ganga—and now I'm younger than you but closer than now—and go to the bank, drink the water from it, that was very much a popular thing to do. But if you drink a sip from the Ganga and expect it to feel like Gatorade or something, then you will be disappointed. This is a big clue as to why water continues to be the most popular. You can make so many tastes in it and do so much with it, and yet in all of those tastes, we can have enough. But which is water itself? Nobody says they are tired of tasting water. This is your being. Although it is empty of quality, this is your very essence. And because it is empty of quality, it is not tiring. Because all qualities, even if they are the most sublime things, if you have too much of it, it becomes tiring.
You know the truth. My throat was bad a long time; that makes me everything good. I felt like just honey, but after ten days, I'm ginger-lemon-honey-ed out. I just have some water. No matter what the case is, I joke sometimes, even if it is the angels playing the harp, if you have to hear it all the time, you say, 'Please, just not here anymore.' This qualityless existence is our very nature. We have played with qualities; we played the game of desire and aversion, and now we will be coming down with this game. Allow all appearances to come in. Yes, Krishna, look in. And the one who is already witness of all things, what is here for me to accept or renounce? All things come and go as waves on the ocean, which is my very self.
Many times as we are taking the break on Friday evening, I say to everyone, 'All of you have a concept-free weekend.' Today being a Monday, I want to actually say to all of us: have a concept-free week. It's a worthwhile experiment. If the great Zen master Bankei said, 'All things are perfectly resolved in the unborn,' what does this mean? Be as you are. Don't pick up the pretense of the limited self. You don't buy the story for the point. You don't activate these notions about yourself. It is naturally present, this consciousness, what the Zen master would call the unborn mind. Another way to put it is that all things are perfectly resolved. No notion must be your own self as existence. One final experiment. Thank you all so much for being in Satsang. Satguru Sri Mooji Baba Ki Jai.