What Needs to Happen and What Are We Doing Here? - 18th July 2016

So you see that I cannot be a person. Okay, then what else could you be? What else is here? You can do anything, anything on it now. So it cannot be this world, cannot be this body. It's okay, tell me when it gets stuck in some ways.

Yes, cannot be this body.

Can you be your thoughts coming and going? Can you be your emotions? Can you be some sensation in the body, some physical pain? Can you be the sense that 'I, I am, I exist'? Can you be that? Is it clear what this means, the sense 'I am'?

Yes, it's the sense that I exist.

So can you be that?

Perhaps yes, seems like that, yes.

And the one that is aware even of this sense, who is that one? So we walk together this way now. We saw: not world, not body, nor thoughts, not emotion. I am aware of even the sense that I am. So this one that is aware, what can we say about that one?

That's the Atma you talk about.

So better to forget what you heard before now. Just stay here and see. So there is an awareness even of the sense that I exist. And if this is not clear, we can look at it again. So this awareness, what does this awareness look like? And where are you in relation to this?

Sometimes I'm looking from there.

Okay, where else is it possible to look? Can you step out of that awareness? So if you can't step out of it, you need to be in it effortfully? Effortlessly, where are you?

From that watching itself, yes.

Can you ever move away from this? Can you ever become something else? Actually not. You are not visualizing anything. Even if the mind is offering some visual to you, see who is the witness of even that visual. So when we say 'Are you aware now?', what is the answer?

Yes.

What did this awareness look like? It's just that, just here. Any attributes you can say? So this is the only confirmation that you can make without the phenomenal experience of it, isn't it? Everything else that we are confirming, we are referring to the phenomenal experience of it. When you say 'I am aware now', you're not finding the phenomenal attribute of it, and yet you know it is true. Not mentally, but it is so clear, prior to mind. And you see where this cannot be changed, unmoving, unconcerned, unbelievable. So like this, when we come to Satsang, the first aspect is this recognition of what is true. And after using the pointers of the Masters, it's become very simple.

So this is the first aspect. When you say 'What is the difference between myself and a sage like Mooji?', then first is this recognition is very clear. It's really good that we are able to enquire together and look.

It isn't like when I'm not in Satsang, it seems like a lot more distractions come. It doesn't seem as clear as it is now.

See, that's why it's good to be in the energetic presence of Satsang to be able to check, as it is so clear. So this is the recognition. So does the recognition itself mean liberation? Not necessarily, because what happens is... although it is a very helpful aspect of liberation, it is not necessarily that which we call the completion of the liberation, because we might still go back into belief and believing that which I am not. Because the recognition was what? I am this awareness, it is not changing, nothing is happening to it, it's just here. But our mind is not reporting like this. Our mind is still trying to convince us that we are a person in some way, including trying to convince us that 'I got it now' or something like this. So this mind has been given a lot of belief in the past, you see.

So the difference between the sages and the rest of humanity is that they are not... one, they have had a clear recognition of who they are, and second, they are not believing what the mind is saying or are established in that. Actually, the established... how you start... this is a little contrary to our idea of establishing or abiding, but I am a bit radical in that way. And I'm happy to look at it together. You start now, established. No, you are abiding. The only seeming choice now seems to be whether you pretend to be a person or not. And the only way to pretend to be a person is to believe your thought. Is there any other way? So every moment is your best friend now. You establish, you are abiding as the Self. In fact, you never leave this position. You only pretend if you believe our thoughts. So the power of belief is our power to pretend—God's power to pretend. You want to see God pretending to be a person? Believe your next thought, see?

So then what happens as we stay like this, not believing our thought, not picking up from the conveyor belt of thought? Then you find the magnetism of these thoughts reduces. As the magnetism of these thoughts reduces, then you find they're not so much attractive even to our attention. So instead of trying to control our attention too much, what we've done is we've divested our belief. And with the divestment of belief, you find that attention is also not so attracted to these thoughts. So then you had a clear recognition of who we are, and also that all these thoughts are proud to come and go. Then even in your phenomenal expression, there is no difference between you and a sage. Fundamentally, there was never any difference anyway. Is it? In reality, we are that. That is what all the sages are saying. Even in the phenomenal escalation, and you're not attracted to the gravitational pull of these thoughts, to the magnetic pull of these thoughts, and the only expression also becomes that of the sage. That's about it.

So happy you came. I love... would you believe it when I saw the children? Then we get down to esoteric and actually nothing wrong with the books. It's just...

I think, I think when the time... when you're reading the same words, they seem to have a different meaning. Yes, just like it seemed like that, that all the while I was reading the same Ramana Bhagavan and I... the depth from, I think, Mooji Baba's and your Satsangs, they made it so clear. Otherwise it was all, you know, yeah, so many... only the feet, and then it makes it so clear and obvious.

So what has happened is that you're moving from the realm of interpretations. Yeah, so we've been interpreting them differently and now we come to the realm of just the pure seeing of it. As you see that, 'Oh yes, of course, he's just saying what is being seen here.' So the words of the expression are very beautiful, but that which is direct is just the same. So now in the same way, when you read the Ashtavakra Gita, you say that this is just so fundamental that it seemed so esoteric and maybe even mystical earlier, now it's just like kindergarten stuff. Stay with it now, yes. Don't come to any conclusions, right? Because the mind offers up... even now will offer up strategies to see, 'Yes, you're here now, now you can do...' Right? Let it go. You don't need to renounce anything, even the next thought.