Can You First Confirm That You Are Bound?

Yesterday we took this example, if you always considered yourself to be a banana but Freedom was to peel this banana, this was the idea: I will get to my Antar Atma –Inner Atma, by peeling this banana. But in actuality there is no banana, so how will the banana peel itself?

It has to realize? It doesn’t exist. [Chuckling]

So that which doesn’t exist, can it realize? So first you must recognize that which does exist. And upon recognizing that which does exist whether it is banana-like or is it shapeless, formless. Isn’t it. Otherwise to start with a presumpHon, I am a person that must become free, is to first ingest the poison and then search for the anHdote. That’s why I say before you can start the journey of Freedom can you first confirm that you are bound. We must undertake a journey only if we are clear what we are trying to do, what is the desHnaHon, where we are now. Suppose you are standing at the desHnaHon, saying ‘I’m going to take a journey, it might take a lifeHme’, but where are you now? You say, ‘No, no, I don’t want to look, I’ll know it when I get there.’ So this is the seeker paradigm, this is the seeker mindset. Means I’m seeking something without checking what already is. And at the same Hme (in India especially), those of us who are liZle VedanHc already know that Self does not come and go, it will not change, it is not something that you will get or forget. It already is. So, if ‘It already Is’, where must it be now? Where to look for It? So, very simple quesHons can do the trick which seems to prevents us from looking at what Is. Even a simple quesHon, ‘Where are you now?’, so the Sages have said that, ‘You are the witness, looking at all of this, aware of all of this.’ So where is this witness? If you are the witness then where is this witness? Then we will have an idea like it is inside, I must search for the witness inside, inside what will you search?

Space… but also inside what? Even if It was space, is the witness to be found inside what? The body? The body is made up of food, so you will only find paratha (a kind of bread) falafel, this kind of thing inside the body. All this stuff is made up of what? Just the food that we have taken. How will we find the witness inside? So we don’t even look for, when we say, ‘inside’ what is it actually? ‘I go inside’, and many of us are believing we go inside the body. That would be endoscopy, but this is not what it is. So are you going inside the body? Where are you watching from, where is the witness, the saakshi? Where is it watching from? Simple, like this. Are you an object si^ng inside a bigger object looking at this world, is that what you are? [Silence] Because an object can only contain another object. I don’t see how this object [points to the body] can contain the witness or the witnessing. So where are you now? There are a set of percepHons you say, which are very compelling, a set of percepHon very compelling you say, sensaHons, percepHon, all of this [looks at his hands] and it forces me to be just this. But does it really? [Silence] It is witnessed. What percepHon can come that forces the Witness? [Pause] What are the aZributes of this? Is there a ‘witness’, like an enHty witnessing? These very simple things we don’t check. But we go with the presumpHon, herd mentality, everybody believes it so it must be true. Like we believed the world was flat, because everybody believed it, was it true? So give up that presumpHon, because the journey with that presumpHon is very long, infact it is endless. Without starHng with the presumpHon that I am bound now and looking for Freedom, what must happen when you’re free? So what must happen when I am free? And many of us have these kind of ideas that once I’m free then the objects of my percepHon will change. If there is anger that will become joy, if there is grief, it will become bliss, this kind of thing, you see. So what we are saying is that we tried to get joy and bliss from other things - worldly things, material thing, bodily things, because all that didn’t work now we want it through God. It’s sHll a sort of spiritual materialism, what we wanted to achieve through worldly means now we want to achieve through other means but it’s sHll about trying to get stuff , ‘good feelings’. So let’s be honest and say in SatChitAnanda, [Truth Consciousness Bliss] what is the most aZracHve aspect? [Chuckles] if it is sHll about Ananda, then we try to get Ananda through world, through picking up objects here, through dealing with objects here, relaHonships, through money, through body, all of these things, and now we want that happiness from God. So what about Sat, the Truth? And it is my proposal to you that if you are concerned with Truth, [Chuckling], if we are concerned just with Truth, then the rest will take care of itself. But if you are concerned just with Ananda and the Truth is the means to get to Ananda then you will keep running around for a long long Hme. This is strange, that’s why they say, Truth first. I say, Truth for Truths sake. And what is the Truth? Truth means, what is Reality. What is your true nature, what is your original face? Where will we look for this? And how we will look? And I’ve been saying my main job is to tell you all, what not to do. Now all of you realize we have to look for the Truth because we have to come to ‘Self- realizaHon’, ‘LiberaHon’ all of these things, isn’t it? But most of us are doing it all wrong. How we doing it, when we are looking for the Truth we are expecHng it to be something like a percepHon, ‘I will see the Truth and then I will be free.’ But already what the Sages have said, ‘The Truth does not come and go’, but is there a percepHon that you have ever met that does not come and go? [Silence] Then Truth cannot be a percepHon. Already, this will save you a lot of Hme, alot of energy because many are sHll waiHng to have an ‘experience’ of the Truth but they are misunderstanding what this kind of experience is like. SHll waiHng for some sort of fantasHcal seeming experience at the level of percepHon but all percepHons come and go. So how will Truth be a percepHon? So then how to look for the Truth, what is the other way? I will discover a great concept, ‘Aham Brahman Asmi’; E=MC2 (some scienHsts are there with us today) some discovery will come, you see, it is not a percepHon, it is in the intellect. Some discovery will come and I will be able to speak a Maha Vakya, great set of words and that will be the Truth. But no concept, no word can signify this truly. All the Sages have told us that the Truth cannot be spoken. So if you think that you will come to some discovery in terms of intellectual understanding then that is also not it. Now, who is here with me, whose here… [Chuckling] so you will not see it as a percepHon, as an objecHve percepHon and you will not find it in your intellect, it will not be ‘Eureka, Eureka, this is what it is!’ Then what do you have lee? How will you recognize yourself? If it is not one of these two ways then what do you have lee? [Pause] If it is not going to be an object of your aZenHon, of your percepHon, which means it won’t be the most fantasHc, full of color, vibrant experience nor is it going to be dark empty space, then how… is it even possible to recognize the Self? Is this Self-recogniHon just a fallacy? [Silence] No it isn’t. So, when the Sages told us ‘Know thyself’, they were not talking about these two ways of knowing. And some of you might feel that what I’m saying is very dry intellectual talk but it isn’t. It isn’t because this is how you are wasHng your Hme. Your either trying to stuff it into your heads which is intellectual understanding or your trying to see, see, see something which is fantasHcal and then say, ‘This is my God or this is the Self’. Without these two how will you struggle? I’m taking your struggle out of this spiritual search. If you understand this, if you see this, then the recogniHon is very very straigh{orward. It is very very straigh{orward.