This Day Wakes Up Within Me - 26th July 2018

So that which is completely already mine, when I limit myself, the mind wants to play the same game and say, 'If you do this or you do that, or you don't do this as this limited object, then something here could become mine.' After a point, both of these ideas start to seem ludicrous. I look at myself and I see that I find no boundary. All is here. And within all of this, there is the mind which says, 'You are only this object, this body-mind organism.' But strangely enough, it doesn't even stop at that. It also says that this object can own other objects. And this then is the nature of attachment: first consider yourself to be a limited object, and then assign an attribute of ownership to other objects.

And what remains uninvestigated for most of us is: what is beyond these perceptions, these objects? Most of us don't investigate. Who is it that witnessed the appearance of this state called the waking state, where there is a world with all of its play of light and sound? Apparently, it is the same one who experienced another state called the dream state, in which there was another world just like this, another play of light and sound. Then who is it that can say that, 'Oh, last night I did not have any dreams; it was just deep sleep'? Who is it that experienced even deep sleep? So the one that is aware of these states coming and going, can that really be an object within one of these states? In deep sleep there is no object. Then what am I? In the dream state there is another object which I call me, and it seemed as clear as this me in this waking state. So who is it that I truly am?

So it is the advice of the sages that before we can figure out why something is in this state, or 'Why does something always happen to me like this?', first we must clarify: who is this 'I'? And this is called the path of knowledge, Jnana Yoga. But there is something confusing about this term 'knowledge.' When those who come to this apparently direct path, they might find that if I pick up the best concepts about myself—that I am Brahman, the Absolute—or if I can remember the most, the best, strongest, most potent verses of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras, then I will become free, I will get the freedom of the sages. Because according to our understanding, it is the path of knowledge after all, and this is the way I know things: by picking up concepts about it. Then we realize that this is futile.

I can have the best concepts, but when push comes to shove and the rubber hits the road, somehow these concepts of oneness, these concepts of non-separation, concepts of the unchanging Self, they seem to be the first to go out the window. Nice concepts seem to be the first to desert us. So it cannot be that. It cannot be the truth. The phrase 'Aham Brahmasmi,' 'I am Brahman, the Absolute'—if it is just conceptual and it does not help, then what is the other way that we can know things? So if we cannot have a concept of it, then we feel like I must at least have sensory experience of it, a perceptible, perceptual experience of the truth beyond concepts.

So then we try to look for this knowledge as an experience. And some of us have spiritual experiences. Some can have Kundalini, some can have transcendence, some can have all types of samadhis. And then we can feel that, 'Oh, that experience is the truth.' But then again we get frustrated because the sages have said that the truth does not come and go, but these experiences all come and go. So then these experiences also cannot be it. There is nothing in your experience that does not have a duration; it all comes and goes. Now what is left? The greatest concepts have failed and the most pristine, even spiritual experiences have failed to get us to that which is the unchanging. Have you followed the story so far?

So where we've come to now is that to conceptualize is not it, and to perceive is not it. What else is there? If you cannot conceptualize the truth and you cannot perceive the truth—because we are applying that filter, the filter that if it is changing, it is not the truth—so then what is left? So what are we saying? We're saying that this device, this mental device, cannot do it. And these sensory devices, they cannot do it. Even the devices of the so-called inner perception—that which perceives memories, imagination—not even this kind of perception is it. It is not a memory, it is not imagination, it is not a thought, not emotion, because all of these are changing. So it cannot be an object of thought or intellect, and it cannot be an object of perception. When all objects are gone, then all objects are gone, but what remains?

Bhakti.

Yes, actually she's absolutely right, because that is like the shortcut of surrender. 'I cannot find it, Lord. Everything is your problem.' And for some, this devotional quality comes naturally, like some children quickly rush back to the mother. But some want to fight it out and say, 'I can do this.' The unchanging, ever-present awareness business is what's here. Now this is an uncommon recognition. Why am I saying it's an uncommon recognition? Because it is not a concept. To express it, of course, we have to use concepts, but the recognition itself is not conceptual. You did not suddenly compute 333 into 545 and come up with the answer and then shout, 'Yes, this is it!' You see, it's not a computation. And also, it is not something that you perceived.

That is why this question is so pristine: Are you aware now? Are you aware now? It is very different from a question like, 'Are you hungry now?' How is it different? No reference to any sensation. So what happens if I ask you, 'Are you hungry now?' Do you refer to some sensation? You find if there is the sensation of pangs of hunger, then you say, 'Yes, I'm quite hungry,' you see? But how is it different from 'Are you aware now?' In the case of hunger, there was some sensation which tells you the presence or absence of hunger. Same thing for if I say, 'Are you in pain?' You know: sensation of pain or no pain. If I say, 'Are you sitting?' mostly you have these visual perceptions that you can rely on. If I say, 'In front of you, is there red color or blue?' you check perceptually. So this is a perception sort of knowing.

If I say, 'Is two plus two equal to four?' you say, 'Yes.' Now this is a different type of knowing. It is not sensational, but you were able to reason, to compute it, use your intellect, reason. You don't have to see four objects in front of you. If I say, 'One million plus one million,' we say, 'Two million.' You don't have to see two million objects. Sensorily, there is something that you can use called the intellect to bring you this kind of knowledge. And then there's another type of knowledge when you say, 'Where were you born?' You have the concept of it, that 'I was born here or there.' You have the concept of it. You don't have to compute it; you just have to rely on some conceptual memory.

But 'Are you aware now?' is different from all of these questions. You did not compute it. You did not have to refer to memory for it. You don't have the sensory experience of anything called awareness. And yet, what do you say? 'Yes.' This is an astounding discovery. This is an astounding discovery. So what type of knowing is this, that 'I am aware'? If it is not known, then you would say 'No' or 'I don't know.' You say, 'I'm aware.' You might say, 'I don't know what this awareness is. I don't know where it is. I don't know what my relationship with it is.' You might say all of these things. But the thing with awareness is, even if you say that 'I am unaware,' you are actually saying, 'I am aware of that now, I'm unaware.' So it is inescapable.

So what did you find? Are you aware? Something very natural about it. But the mind doesn't like this kind of enquiry. 'What is this? I'm not getting the experience of freedom. Where are the fireworks? Why are you so bothered about awareness? It is nothing.' This kind of resistance comes. And maybe if this kind of resistance comes, then we know that we are onto something. How is it that I'm able to answer 'Yes,' but I don't see it as a perceptual object? I don't have to refer to a memory of it. I am aware now. And it is not just a concept, like it is not the same as 'Oh, the world is round or spherical,' which is just a conceptual knowledge for most of us. But 'Are you aware now?' is direct. It is a no-experience experience. Sometimes I call it the non-phenomenal experience. There is such a thing; we just have to stretch the language some.

It's the only experience that doesn't come and go. Aha, now we're getting somewhere. What the sages were saying. You were frustrated with all other levels of experience because everything seems to come and go. But they said this is the only thing, if you can call it a thing, that doesn't come and go. But it is forgotten. But even to forget, it must be left untouched. So: unchanging, untouched, self-evident. Look at that.

Is it the non-phenomenal experience? There is such a thing. We just have to stretch the language some. It's the only experience that doesn't come and go. Aha, now we're getting somewhere. What the sages were saying: you're frustrated with all other levels of experience because everything seems to come and go. But he said this is the only thing, if you can call it a thing, that doesn't come and go. But it is forgotten. But even to forget it, it must be left untouched. So, unchanging, untouched, self-evident. Look at that. All the clues from all the historical Gita and Upanishads, all these views naturally all of your thing. But when you try to find it as an object, you could not find it.

Now the thing is that when we inquire like this, the mind has one more trick up its sleeve. There's one more trick up its sleeve. It says, 'Okay, all of this is about it, but what about you? How did it help you?' And this 'I' sound, I make it sound exaggerated, but I can't tell you how common it is. Because even after you could have an awakening or you could have a very sober seeing, but even after that, the question quickly comes: 'Okay, now I had this experience of the unchanging and that self-evident awareness, but what about me? Or what does this mean for me? Am I free now because of this?'

And this is exactly what I mean by the ocean and the coconut. You considered that you are a coconut looking for the ocean. You found that you yourself are the ocean, because there is no distinction between 'I' and awareness. In fact, here all distinctions dissolve. Everything that is defined by language dissolves here. All terminology is all driven—the term Atma or Self—all of this dissolves. So you thought you were the coconut looking for the ocean, and it's thought that you are the ocean itself. But the allegiance to the coconut is so much, we still go back to this illusory coconut and say, 'Now that I found that I am the ocean, what does it mean for the coconut?'

And as we were exploring yesterday, we try to contain this insight, which is not capturable through the mind, into some conclusion. Because according to the mind, still nothing happened. This awareness is beyond any fireworks. Minds are at least—if they were fireworks, then I know, easy. Mind says, 'If I came to some sort of a deep conceptual understanding that every word out of my mouth is now scriptural, I'm speaking like a sage, so then I would say okay, I'm free.' But neither of these things have to happen. So according to the mind, nothing happens because that's all it can operate with.

If there is, 'Okay, does that experience... let's try to capture it in words.' And some will say it was nothing. But it is not nothing. The awareness, it was yourself. It was not a thing or no-thing, but no-thing is again nothing for the mind. So you cannot capture it through the mental. If I say, 'Okay, can you drop anything of this awareness?' No, I can't do that either. The mind will offer up paintings. It'll say, 'The black empty space.' But what is aware of that? Is that big black empty space? Some will say, 'Huge white light.' What is witnessing that? So all these paintings on offer, all these pictures are also not it.

So according to the mind, nothing happened. They say, 'Okay, now where is the Ananda?' Because he heard at least if you find this out, there will be Sat-Chit-Ananda. He says, 'Sat was this, Chit was this, now where is Ananda?' So if at least show me Ananda, then I will give you a certificate of freedom. And Ananda also doesn't have to come like this because Ananda is also the term which has as many levels there. The joy of sleep, but nobody tastes that joy. Or the joy of something sweet or salty.

So that is why the sages say something very strange. They say, 'Till you know the truth...' Let's put it the other way. They say, 'The truth cannot be known, but till you know the truth, you will not come to the end of your suffering.' So whatever you think, they're basically saying that you cannot conceptualize or perceptualize the truth, but there is a deeper knowingness. The knowingness itself, this awareness itself, is the unchanging truth. And once this is seen, then the identification with the limited one starts to fall away. And without identification, you cannot suffer. Unless you identify yourself with the limited object, there is no such thing as suffering.

Before we jump into the talk, I just want to say this is primarily what is happening in Satsang. You are being pointed to this non-experience experience. But because the tennis match might still be on, the mind is saying, 'This is nothing' or 'You haven't got it' or 'You haven't understood.' Or it might even say, 'It is not your experience.' But it is not an experience or an understanding is what the sages have already seen. So this truth, which is beyond concepts and beyond experiences, this is the truth of Satsang. To try and capture it with the mind is ignorance. To keep waiting for some sort of spiritual experience is ignorance. To make conclusions about it also is ignorance.

Okay, my parents... uh, speaks. You can come. Yes, my dear. I just moved when you speak. Okay, I don't know if it's a little loud here because I have my window so... um, I just had to come up and speak with you and expose some things that were going on. There's so much anger. Yeah, you know, so much anger that the person really doesn't want to be in Satsang. I'm totally not. And it's really angry with all of this, you know? It's just, you know, it's just really afraid of getting finished up or something. And another thing is what I just want... just God, I mean, you have to just, you know, there's so much elementary this identification, you know? Still what is getting is this Seva thing, you know? It's such a seeming big thing. I just... it seems like it's always there's so many. And I just want to speak it out because I, you know, I just trust why not speak it out. It's alright. I don't have to even ask. I just... and another thing is this, this thing that that being itself seems to take me away from experience, you know, from being. So much ignorance and arrogance in that, but I don't mean it in the judging way as such, but I just feel it. I just experience, you know, that what... that there's identification behind it. And there's such a big thing, big topic here in my life that I always had to do it my way, you know, really my way, because every other way was so threatening always. So I always... it was my way of fear management always.

Thank you for sharing. A few things that came up. One is that you spoke very accurately about this nature of anger. And actually, we can say in a way that—I can't, nobody really knows these things—but we can say in a way that it is impossible to truly be angry unless there is some fear. Is there something that we are defending? It is not truly possible to be angry. So there's a fear of some sort of destruction. Like you've actually identified this, then the front for that is this anger. This front for that is this. And we spoke... you mentioned something about Seva, and we've also been talking about it quite a bit actually in Bangalore here.

And something occurred to me that as you were saying, then it occurred to me that when we look at what Seva is actually, it is just that the Master is holding up the hill. You heard the story of Krishna holding up the hill? But Krishna also gave the opportunity to the villagers to come with their sticks. It's a longer story, I'll share later. But basically, the Master has given this beautiful opportunity. Guruji has put these words into this mouth and Guruji has brought all of you to hear these words. He has also given this sort of possibility to commune in this way. All of it is His grace.

So then our Seva is what? Our Seva actually is a privileged Seva. That we are doing is actually a privilege, that our Master is allowing us to share in his grace. So actually, if we were to go to Guruji as a built-on so much Seva... like just to take an example, if I was to go to Guruji now and say, 'Okay, now this to you,' if I was to say to Guruji now that in service to you now for the last five years, I gave half of my time to Satsang and sharing all of this has been Seva to you actually, so what should his response be? Should his response be 'Thank you'? It cannot be. But more appropriate, the response would be 'You're welcome.'

So once this perspective of Seva becomes clear, and we are so privileged to participate in this beautiful grace called Satsang, so privileged to at least pretend to hold up the stick while the Master is doing everything. And also Seva is very, very beautiful. It's a great privilege and it is in many ways the strongest Sadhana anyway of the stories of Sadhana that has come into our life. So we have so much to be grateful for about it.

The third thing I remember what you mentioned was this thing of Satsang itself seems to at some point, like now, just fine now it is being, and then all this Satsang happens and every layer got caught up again. That can happen to some of us if we still try to conceptualize or try to understand Satsang in that way. What is actually another way to look at that, though? What if there is an attempt from the Master? The attempt is like a doctor to diagnose all your positions. Doctors say, 'Okay, this is the absence or the presence of some position.' So the lack of ease comes because you're holding on to something. So the doctor will diagnose, 'Okay, this is what it is.'

What is the Satsang doctor doing? He's also looking, he's smelling. I mean, where is it that you're holding on to some position? And what is the easiest way to get rid of that position? Is it surrender? Inquire into it? All these are remedies for just your position. It is not meant to cause any confusion. It is completely demolishing, including demolishing its own concepts, maybe as we have been doing over the past few weeks. So it is a demolition job on position because that is what is causing us this lack of, like I was speaking, the lightness of being, you see? When it gets becomes constricted, there comes a sense of heaviness, and then that is the disease.

So in Satsang, the Master is looking at this disease and looking at ways to blow it up, to eradicate, to demolish our position. This is what is happening in Satsang. So in itself, it cannot lead to confusion because confusion is about holding a position. Confusion is confusion about who you are and trying to define who you are. So I know that as this demolition job is on, it can feel like, 'For now, I've taken this position as awareness, now I've taken this position as the devotee, taking this position as somebody who's doing Seva, now taking this position as whatever.' But all of this gets squeezed out after a while.

But while the squeezing out is happening, it can feel like this is causing even more confusion. I've actually contemplated this, as you know, and I've actually contemplated whether just to be in silence would be the best, and even experimented with this. And I've seen that the presumption that the outward silence is the best to come to this inner silence of positionlessness, you see, that doesn't always hold true. There is no standard template to come to this positionlessness. Many times outwardly we are silent, but inwardly we are still stewing with so many concepts and positions.

So sometimes we have to be confronted with our beliefs. It has to be looked at and said, 'All that you are saying, is it truth? What is the basis for everything?' Because otherwise we can become very complacent about our belief system. It seems so true to us. So sometimes an outward confrontation is required. Sometimes the touch will require, sometimes this outward silence is needed. So we cannot in this... template-ize anything, just like we cannot template-ize the one true path to the truth. There is no such thing as one true path, you see? If there was one in the millions of years, we would have figured it out by now and it would be it. It is not like that. Our conditions are different. Every expression of consciousness is different. Like I say, every fingerprint, every retina, every leaf, every branch is different. So then different things at different points...

Silence is needed so we cannot in this template eyes anything, just like we cannot template eyes the path to the truth. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all group, you see. If there was one in the millions of years, we would have figured it out by now. And it is not like that. Our conditions are different. Every expression of consciousness is different. Like I say, every fingerprint, every retina, every leaf, every branch is different. So then different things at different points of time have to be open, and previous times nothing has to be split. And even this is very good in his answer; we can even explore whether this is so. 'Something takes me away from my truth.' Then if that truth can be taken away, then it never was the truth in the first place. And it applies both ways. Like we can say, 'The world takes me away' or 'The satsang takes me away' or 'My family takes me away from the truth.' It is not really the truth anyway; it is another position you want to see.

Just to what you just said, because how you know this thing is in the way, in a way, and it's just of course it is the one who is listening to that. Not which, you know, 'do it my way.' And then I'm just here, I'm just here. But it's just the big habit, you know, during the long period of time, really long period of time. I really know he's our son and really hardly missed any letter that another, you know, identity was created which was listening to that song. And now, and into the past, I don't know what time, longer time, now it's just this, you know, this tiredness of listening to this one who is interpreting your words. And just, you know, there's just the big habit that I would listen with the mind to what you were saying. And there was just such a relief actually to just sit inside my own satsang, I mean just sit in silence. And you know, there isn't so much anymore to that. It wasn't that I didn't watch satsang anymore at all, you know, just when I felt to. That was so good and so natural then to trust this also, that there are changes here and just not to... during that, I just realized that when I did so many, you know, all this seva, it was just so very much focus and I had to, I needed to use the mind a lot more than when I did this. You know, I needed to use the mind more and then somehow something comes in. It goes by itself, you know, you're just using more of the mind. And now I feel I have to, you know, sometimes just more regularly, like you said that many times, it can become mental. Even a seva can become mental, all things can become so.

My only advice then at this point would be that just notice if you can and just bring to your attention that this should not become a new sort of knowing. What you're finding now, see if you can leave it conclusionless, confusionless. It should not become a new sort of knowing because then the opposite will have to come for that to become the knowing, and then this game of oscillating can keep going on.

It's very good. Then I'm just jumping into the chat to test it. 'It's never not here.' That's the mind-blowingness of awareness. Yes, ever-present, unchanging. Oh, look at that, it's very good. In a way, the mind knows it is drunk by awareness because at some point it knows it is no longer believed or given reality. Even if it is throwing a tantrum, it even feels like a little coconut, you know? Because yes, and also to link it somehow with what was being said, the mind always has a way to offer you like 'my way.' And this 'my way' can be very subtle, subtly grabby. It might feel like, 'As I'm doing this now I can see, but that was just so much my way, my way. But now I found this way which is the way to rid myself of my way.' So it can certainly play in this way.

Very good to spot these things. Very good to just see. It will become a very naked positionlessness. All these positions can be even using the knowledge which is obtained in satsang. This word also related to ordinate everything, right? The mind will use the knowledge which it has received in satsang or heard in satsang in this way where it can create a new way and then say, 'Well, this is like my way to get rid of my way.' So the tantrums of the mind are very much even offers to come to the recognition which is pointed to in satsang. Reminds me of JK who said, 'Truth is the pathless land.'

Okay, good. Tomorrow is what time? 11:30. So similar time to today. We have a beautiful Guru Poornima celebration. Thank you all so much for being in satsang today. Guru Sri Mooji Baba Ki Jai. Guru Kripa Kevalam.