Whatever the Content, This Being is Unchanging - 12th Sept. 2016

So how is it? So should I would say that the attachment is with the idea of a person? Idea of the person?

Very good. So idea. Now where I'm questioning and drilling down on everything: What is an idea? I mean, so an idea is a mix of what I saw years ago and what I thought I would expect years ago or something like it. Like a mix of expectation and what it is. So let's take a simple example. This day, someone new, anyone who walks in the door right now, and he comes in the door and the idea comes, 'This person seems good.' Or the idea would come, 'But don't I...' You see, are we the creator of this idea? The mind is the creator of these ideas. But can you say what your next thought is going to be before the thought comes? You cannot see. Isn't it? Therefore it arises like this. Now mostly in our lives and mostly in the world, what has happened is that these ideas have come about certain appearances and we really have no way of telling why it came with some, where and which ideas come, but they have been believed to be true and they come, you see.

So wrap it up so it's clear. So there's this 'I' which is unchanging, this sense of being which comes and goes. All of this weight of appearances, the entire play starts with every appearance. For most of humanity, there is an idea, an interpretation of those appearances that come to us. Now, you see, when these ideas are gone, they stop. But then the capacity to call the mind is the 'I' become and retire in this. Now, this anything that appears in the realm that we call 'me' or 'mine', that has the potential to cause suffering because we see that this realm is the changeful one. It's constantly changing, you see. Even if you try to keep it completely constant and Sunday like, you see. So that which we say is 'me' or 'mine', that must go one day. Sooner or later it is going to go. So what should our approach be if we come to a point that living a life of suffering is not what I want? But the only one who's in the last three years of satsang has told me that I actually have no suffering, so maybe for you that impetus is not there. But mostly people will come to satsang and say that a life of suffering is not what I want. So how do I be free from this sense of suffering?

But it's moving in the realm. It's moving. Even our thoughts are coming and going, you see. Giving belief to these ideas, is it possible for us to suffer? Not possible. So when we look at the basket of ideas that we have, you don't have to do anything about the really strong ones right now, right? So you can have an idea about a husband, I get it. But it is the small ones, which is, 'Oh, I should have an idea about where my work should go.' I have an idea about anything, you know. People have ideas about their houses, their cars, their everything. Everything is planned out here and you see that life doesn't answer the terms of our ideas about life, you see, and that causes suffering. So if you can start by dropping this and just experiment like this and see what happens. If life stops in its functioning, is it that this body becomes inert? Is it that my work will stop? And you will mostly find that beingness moves with some beautiful flow, but our attachments, our potential to suffer, gets lighter and lighter.

I'd say that, yeah, to detect that whether that attachment is the idea to certain ideas or not, that sometimes is...

This is something you don't have to do at all because the minute you find a pinch of suffering, know that it is coming from attachment. Can you experience the pinch of suffering without there being attachment? So life is showing you. It's a big mirror which will show you everything that is being held on to. So you will find that 'Oh, I had an idea about how life should be.' Then life should be, and that causes suffering. So when you clear the 'Why am I suffering? Because this happened. Why am I suffering? Because this happened,' that is being held on to. Because it is not possible for us to suffer without holding on to some idea. Oh, the mind will come and say that, 'No, no, at least this idea I am justified in holding.' Yes, it will come and say that, 'No, this is going too far actually, this idea I should be entitled to hold.' You see, you find that nothing actually can be held on to, you see, because what ultimately we don't give... Now, I don't know whether we wake up in this realm tomorrow, you see. So that which we truly are remains unconcerned with the movement of this world of appearances.

That which we are presuming ourselves to be, that is the maybe more important aspect of it. Can we call something 'mine' without first having a false idea about who this 'me' is? Can we call something 'mine' without having the wrong idea about who the 'me' is? So when we see that all these attachments belong to this imagined person that I consider myself to be, that never was born... We talked about the awareness, we talked about the birth of being within that and the dissolution of it, we see. Then we talked about this realm of appearances coming and all of the ideas coming. Where was the person? One was not actually born. It is just a bundle of beliefs. So that which we are believing right now, is that what we have all in the first place? We mix up this person identity, you see. It has no tangibility, no reality. So there is attachment about an idea about me and there is an attachment...

Exactly, exactly. So we can say because the 'me' and around which he...

So this 'me' is the basket and all the wrong ideas are filled up in this basket. Once you drop this basket and see what this 'me' itself is—just a figment, the basic wrong idea—then all the false attachments will drop. Because is there something that you are attached to as awareness? In the other person, or just being awareness? Can we attach to something as just pure beingness itself? We attach to something else? Not possible. So first you must be attached to the idea that 'I am something' for them to say 'this is mine'. So either desire or aversion first implies that I must be each individual separate entity.