This Beautiful Unchanging Awareness - 5th August 2016

Yesterday actually some of us were also sitting and someone was sharing how it seems like there's some fluttering going on or some fear coming or something like this. And we looked at it and we saw that actually, just like the ocean, at the surface level on the ocean there's always this greediness, the waves falling up and down. It can seem like very turbulent at times and sometimes it can feel like very quiet. But as we start to go below the surface—some of us have seen these videos of underwater—it all seems so still, you see? The water, although it is the same water which is wavy at the surface, as we go deeper and deeper at ground level, then you find that it is very still. See, it becomes very pristine and beautiful. And that the majority, the predominance of the ocean is not at the surface; it is below the surface. Because something is wavy, our attention seems to go to that which is changing, see? So that seems to get a lot of our attention. But if you just go one millimeter below the surface of this phenomenal existence, what do we find? We find a great stillness, unmoving, because all this changing is happening only at the surface level.

And because it is movement that seems attractive to the mind and to our attention, all that is needed is to just look below the surface and see what is the underlying sense of existence below this overlay of movement. What is it that it is based upon? The sense of existence which is so beautifully unchanging and therefore, to the mind, very boring. Yeah, it is so beautifully unchanging. The mind enjoys change; it is changeful by nature itself. So to come to peace actually is not very difficult. All we have to do—and I'm not speaking spatially, but I'm just using a term—all we have to do is come one millimeter below what is happening at this surface level of movement. Movement of thought, movement of emotion, movement of these phenomenal appearances. Substratum gets missed because it is unchanging. And as we get used to this unchanging more and more in Satsang, also we've been focusing on that backdrop on which the changeful is occurring.

Just like the other day I was saying that what about the space in which all these movements and emotions and thoughts are happening? And we bring a little bit of attention to that space behind that. As we do that, we see so much more gratitude, peace, although at the surface level still movement might continue. But you find that predominantly you remain untouched and unchanged through all of these. I've been noticing recently that for a long time we've been focused on belief and how it is the belief in thought which leads to this sense that we are personal in some way, and a person can only be a concept to believe. And now a little bit of attention is also going in Satsang on the power of attention itself. Power of attention or intention, attention focus.

So we see that this attention has presumably been operating in the sense of operating as if it has been in personal control, although it never has. Only because it has been accompanied by this thought pattern saying 'What's in it for me? What's in it for me?' So wherever our attention goes, we focus, we seem to have focused on that which seemed to offer something for the personal sense of me. And not too much attention has gone into that which seemed quiet and still. Did you see that? If you are able to put our attention into that which is unchanging, unmoving, which is right here actually, that is the predominant part of our existence, see? It is not the fluttering which is the predominant part. The unmoving space of being, find that it is just here.

And what is the easiest way to do this is not to fight with our attention. That's an important part of this because it can seem like we get into a war with our attention saying 'Don't go there, go here.' Best is to just leave it alone. Just let it be. And we can try it right now. Just let it be. It can seem to move about for a bit but naturally comes to a resting. Actually, even more fun if you try to drop your attention. Don't have attention. You just drop it, leave it behind. You see, you cannot do it. It is just here in service to you. So you find this beautiful play happening with attention and more and more you find that attention will stabilize in this unchanging, unmoving. And for a while the mind will interpret this as boring, as if you lost some excitement in your life, but you will find that nothing has actually been lost. There's a deeper sense of peace and joy which comes on its own.