Are You 'Almost' Aware of Your Self?

If you had no means of checking on your Freedom, how would that be? If you had no way to check ‘Am I Free or not’? Then, would you give yourself more trouble or less? [Smiles]

Less. Because this checker guy [the mind], that we rely so much, the one who is judging us constantly in every walk of life but (life of a spiritual seeker) especially [in] the spiritual walk of life… what is the report that it is making about you? Some common ones that I hear are like this (I feel the most common in Satsang is) ‘I am almost there, just that last final push and done!’ Of course now you won’t admit it, it will sound arrogant or something. Just about there…

Feels like?

Feels like? What is ‘almost there’ feel like?

Just a feeling. Mostly we end up blaming our feelings [Laughs] but there is no ‘almost there’ feeling - it is just a thought. So, are you almost being? Who is almost being? [Smiles] Anyone who is almost being? So, to say that ‘I am almost there’ is to say that ‘I am almost being’ but this is just not true. Are you almost Aware of your Self? [Smiles] This is where it may become confusing for some of you. Because you may make this false report to yourself that ‘I have had glimpses of my Self and then I lose them’. So, if it is glimpsed and it is lost, then it is not the Self. You had a glimpse of something and that something came and that something went. But ‘you’ who had that glimpse went? So, this Self that can even report that ‘I am Aware - of Existence, of Being’ is self-aware in the most natural, simplest of ways. In it’s very existence (we have to use that term although it is prior to existence and non-existence)… In its very existence ‘It’ knows itself and ‘It’ knows everything as Itself - you do. Sometimes we say ‘It’ and it creates some distance. We objectify it in some way. You do - you cannot forget your Self, you cannot lose the awareness of your Self. So, this idea that ‘I glimpsed it’ or ‘I lose it’ is all nonsense. You are referring to spiritual by-products of your Sadhana and you confuse the by-products to be the main point. If we are talking about a spiritual experience and sometimes; it seems like the world vanishes, and only your existence is, and even your existence may sometimes seem like it’s a very light sliver of Being. But even in that experience, if you refer to yourself as getting a glimpse of your Self in that experience, then even that is not true. No matter what the experience is or was, it is not It. It’s much, much, much simpler than that. You have to be there to have that experience. Yes or no? So, how you know that? Because you always have been. All experiences are predicated on your Being there. Even the arising of your Being, the coming of the waking state depends on you being there to experience it. Right now, you are It. But you may be waiting for something to happen or something to change. You might have the sense that, ‘once I find my Self then this benefit can come’. That’s way (we were talking yesterday) I keep saying ‘Truth for Truth’s sake’ because if it is not Truth for Truth’s sake, the minute you let yourself be for one moment, your mind will come and say ‘But that which I wanted has not happened yet’. So, if you had no idea what this should lead to, what Self-recognition should mean for your life’, then you would not burden yourself with checking ‘Am I there yet? Is this really happening?’. So, I say to you - remain empty for a moment without having to confirm this or even check on this. Just let go. And you have no means to check on whether it is working or not working, there is no such thing as not working. [Smiles] Working or not working would just be an idea based on what you think should happen. . . . st