We Only Believe What We Think To Be True - 11th June 2021
Saar (Essence)
Ananta challenges the mind's tendency to construct false narratives of suffering by picking fragments of experience. He points out that true awareness is beyond suffering, which only arises when pain is resisted with concepts.
The mind presents a narrative about our experience, but it does not have the capacity to capture the truth.
Suffering is not a concept for the unchanging witnessing principle; it relies entirely on false identification.
Pain can appear naturally, but suffering is pain plus concepts; to suffer, you actually have to work hard.
intimate
Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
Now, so I just come up because the whole week I experienced so much negativity which feels untrue but which was very—
Are you ready? Sorry, my dear, but are you ready for this question which is my new sword now, which is: How do you know your experience? Yeah, I don't know. That was quick! That is very good because if you go from... 'My whole week I've been experiencing negativity too,' but I don't really know. Because if I ask you about the week, the memory may throw up a few instances from last week, you know, maybe four or five things like this. But you had thousands and thousands of moments in the last week, and I realized that the mind does not have the capacity to capture knowledge about our experience. And yet, it presents to us a narrative which it wants us to believe, it wants consciousness to take to be true, you see? Just like a child saying, 'Hear my story because it is true,' but it is all made up. In the same way, you see, your mind presents a narrative about our experience. But now you come to the maturity where you can see that: Can I really bank on those words? Can I really rely on those words which claim to convey a story about my experience, but is it really true? You see? Because what the mind will do is constantly—especially because you are having good insights about what you are—it will present to you problems and narratives which it will say, 'First you resolve these, then we will talk about greater things.' You see? 'First fix that aspect of your life. Look, look, fix that first. Who are you to claim freedom? You haven't even sorted out this issue,' you see? So it will present these stories with the claim of knowledge where it doesn't actually have that knowledge. With me, at least a little bit? No? Yes.
You see, because it's very, very important. So when we are able to spot the nature of the mind, you see, and its conclusions about what it claims to be our experience as just a tiny aspect of my being, you see, then we don't fall for the tricks. So that's why these days I've started saying, 'Okay, if you can narrate your experiences of a week to me, can you tell me your experience right now? What is your experience right now?' And I promise you nobody can do it because at best you will take a fragment of it. You will take a small aspect of it: 'Oh, I'm feeling some resistance' or 'I am feeling some joy.' But that's just a fragment, a tiny fragment in your infinite being, you see? So no mind can narrate the story of what is your true experience for one moment also. So it cannot do it for a week. So it can do it as conversation among friends, you see? So we may talk as friends and say, 'Ah, my last week, I can tell you I had so much work,' you see, 'this happened to me last week.' And you can say, 'Yes, yes, my friend, this is what my week...' But if you're really saying Satsang is truth, then we cannot truly say... like I cannot tell you what my week was like because it was just too big for me to put it in words, you see? So, but I'm not promoting any sort of denial that, 'Oh, I was feeling like this, I don't know about that, let's just deny that.' No, I'm saying don't meet it halfway, you see? Whatever is coming, meet it full way. And you realize that when you meet something full way, then you don't have the capacity to interpret it or insert it in some idea about ourself.
I feel so touched with something that you said, like, 'meet with whatever it is.' You said something like this, like, 'no denial.' When you said this, I feel so... yes, when I see that you accept this part.
So of course, because I know the mind and the naysayers will always have this idea that, 'Oh, this is some sort of bypassing' or 'this is some sort of denial.' But I'm not saying deny at all. I'm saying accept. But why are you picking and choosing among your experiences and saying only this is relevant to me? God is painting the whole picture for you. Is it denial to say, 'Look at the whole picture and don't get lost in a tiny aspect of it because that makes you suffer'? That is not denial. That is acceptance of your full reality, not your incomplete, limited idea of just being a body-mind. Yeah.
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Um, there was kind of false suffering. I also say this, you know, there's a suffering but it's false suffering because it was like, as you said now, just it was going... um, like the habit of interpretation, but I cannot... like, it doesn't work at all. So this kind of cold suffering was playing the whole week.
And I'll give you another tip which will be helpful. Suffering is only about the false as true suffering. Because true suffering would mean that I take myself to be what I really am and that one is suffering. I try to translate to my native language so it's helpful to transcribe because you can hear it in your own time and just immerse yourself in the words and just see, you see what I'm saying? You see? So I'll repeat this again and you can transcribe it only once. But we can have this idea of false suffering and true suffering. True suffering would mean that I am not taking myself to be the false, I am taking myself to be what I truly am and yet I am suffering, you see? Now, I haven't met that because what I found myself to be—and which I'm certain that you are as well, you see, because there are no two—is this unchanging, pure awareness, witnessing principle, to which suffering is not even a concept, you see? It's not even an alien concept; it's not a concept at all. So suffering relies on false identification because in the light of truth, there is no such thing as suffering. In the light of truth, the experience or the perception of pain can be there, you see? But pain resisted with concepts is called suffering.
May you repeat, Father?
Yes, I'm saying in your spacious perception, from openness, there could be the experience of what we may call pain. But suffering means pain plus concepts, you see? Pain can appear naturally, you see, but for suffering you have to work hard. I know it sounds the opposite of what we think, but to suffer we are doing a lot of work.
Yes, it was just too obvious how false it was, but it was playing in a way.
Yes, once it seemed to be false, you see, once it seemed to be false, then it loses its ability to grab us because we only believe what we think to be true. Nobody says, 'Oh, this is so false, let me believe it.' Isn't it time to do that? You see? 'Whatever I'm going to say now is going to be false, just believe it.' You see? 'A man climbed up the tree and then he fell down. It's all false, believe it.' It doesn't work like that. Thank you. So welcome, so welcome. I enjoyed this interaction.