Are You Dependent on Any Story?
The intellect tricks you into thinking understanding is the path, but Truth is only apparent in fresh presence, not stale concepts.
You know, I have a fear of just leaving this spirituality thing because I’ve been there and I left, then came back; I don’t know if this time is the true one, where I will stay, like for the rest of my life. I don’t want to leave, right now I don’t want to leave. You know, I’ve been with you for almost three months, just three months, but I don’t know whenever there was a mistake, whenever I have some personal problem I feel like speaking it aloud. I don’t know, maybe this is why you say that Satsang is in the heart of one, not an event because I make this imagination maybe but you always say….Like, I tell my problems out aloud and then I don’t know if I hear that, the thought comes to my mind—and it’s not a thought—but you say exactly what I need to hear in that moment. And I don’t know if it is your voice as a person, like as the image I’m seeing, or it is all in my head, or it is the heart.
Accept the mystery. [Laughs]
Yes, I just wanted to comment on that but I didn’t want to seem crazy saying it aloud, that’s why I tried the explanation.
A little bit of craziness is a prerequisite to be in Satsang.
Is it?
But remember I said a little bit. [Laughs]
You know, the idea of this thing called perfection in the mind—what happened two days ago, I just left a cat, my home adopted a cat and then I didn’t leave it but my father did, and I couldn’t do much about it, and I felt really bad because he left it somewhere in this rural place, but she’s a little cat. I felt like things shouldn’t be like this, she should be with us.
Cat? Are you talking about cat or car?
No, no, cat, the animal. A little cat, she is very young, one month, two months old. I felt it was unfairness, injustice. and maybe I remembered the words ‘Everything is, on the bigger scale, it is all okay, all fine,’ but I didn’t want to apply that conceptual thing to this feeling situation because I wanted to just feel just that. Maybe ‘everything is right’ is just a construct, but I don’t want to go to ‘everything is wrong’ too.
Both, either way is a construct.
And that didn’t make me more free, because I thought like when I’m free I will understand everything is alright and I will never feel sad.
Every construct is just a construct, just like every thought is a thought, like everything you can think is a thought. [Silence] It can feel like what branch do I hold now? Which branch can I hold now? Is it right, is it wrong, is it neutral? But all three are branches, leave them all. And remember that I’m not speaking of your outer expression. Your outer expression could be completely at peace with your father, or yelling at your father, or fighting with him, or sulking, or whatever—that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m speaking about your ‘inner space’ [makes air quotes] in a way, just to use those terms. Somewhere we have to admit that we don’t know, somewhere we have to admit that we don’t know what was better for the cat, what was better for us, what was better for humanity or the world, we don’t really know.
Is there no way to know?
There’s one way to know but that which you know that way cannot be expressed in words, and that’s all that I’m constantly pointing to—pointing to your intuition, where it may provide some words at times as pointers but not as ultimate truth. But you cannot hold the mind with one hand and intuition with the other. Because all the mind wants is confirmation of its idea. The mind says here’s my box and it wants intuition to fill up that box with the right colour. But intuition is not in service to the mind in that way. As a blessing, I want to tell you that if you are in any way comparing the life of Ananta with your life playing out, you are far ahead. At your age, I was completely lost in the mind. You’re doing very well, and may you go much beyond this father of yours.
I feel like I owe it to people to be as understanding as possible.
It’s okay.
Sometimes it is tempting to hear the mind, to come to these ideas because I still feel like there is a sense of choice. That’s for sure.
By virtue of you calling me father, you owe it to me to be open and empty. That’s all you owe.
Now, there is a question coming here. There was a point in Satsang that I wanted to ask you, Anantaji, do you really exist? Like, in a real sense. Because I don’t know…
But what is real? Is real real?
Real, real, real?
[Laughs] What is real? What would ‘really’ mean? We know what ‘exists’ means in a way. What does ‘real’ mean? How to confirm to you if I really exist, I have to know what ‘real’ means to confirm or deny.
But to you, do I exist for you? Am I real? Or am I a dream?
For me, there’s no real or unreal. [Laughs] I don’t know what it means, you see, then how would I have it? I find this mouth using the terms sometimes, you see, ‘reality’ and things like this, I don’t know what it means.
You know, sometimes in the thoughts, I don’t know what it is like for you, but for me sometimes I am in all these dialogues and I’m using the word ‘real’—like, for example, ‘I’m really mad’ and then I just mid-sentence stop and then start with this questioning: What do I mean by ‘real’? Then I get all confused and leave it.
Very good. [Laughs] The whole point of Satsang is so that you get confused and leave it—not Satsang, you leave it [points to head]. Don’t get confused and leave Satsang. You get confused and leave this [points to head], the mind.
There is a sense of wanting to stay here and, like you said sometimes, it’s okay to be attached to the unattached one. I want to be in Satsang, like, whole life, because I feel Satsang is free….
Now not free, now you have to do transcript. [Laughs]
I actually was waiting for this moment.
It’s been free for many years, but now I charge transcripts.
It’s okay, I actually enjoy them. I don’t think people hate that job; if there’s a job they love, that would be this job.
Very good, very good. she wants to intervene. [Listens to another Sangha member as she talks.] So, two important pointers from her. One is you have to transcribe everything, not what you feel to transcribe; and the second pointer is that you have to transcribe the words as they are spoken, not what you think was spoken or what you understood out of them—and this is for everyone. [Laughs] I’m presuming this is happening; she couldn’t have made this up, I’m sure. [Laughs]
I don’t know; I trust it. I stay with the definition of transcript, you hear it and go through the words. I love that because I don’t speak English and I enjoy to. You know, if English had words like how do you convey this message to me, if these are just sounds, these are only in my mind, like what is real here?
What is real real?
The mystery.
[Laughs]
Yes. Because think about it. Like, it’s just words, you’re just making sounds, and I’m listening to them and somehow I’m getting—I don’t know.
Very good, accept the mystery. [Laughs] Thank you, thank you, my love. Very good, very good, very good.
Key Teachings
- Intellectual understanding and the quest for answers is what creates suffering, not liberation
- Truth is only apparent in present freshness, never in stale concepts or old ideas
- Letting go of invested ideas requires simply releasing, not effort
From: Are You Dependent on Any Story? - 11th November 2019