Even The Notion Of Time Is Just A Notion

Yes, so ‘will’ to the non-existent one does not apply no. ‘Will’ to the non-existent one does not apply. But as long as we believe that something is happening… okay, let us go slowly on this is a very important point. Is this [Waving one hand in the air] a doing or is it a happening?

This [referring to the waving hand] is a happening! Can there be a happening, which is not in time?

Okay let me break it down so that everyone can be with us in this conversation. It is a beautiful introspection actually. [Waving one hand in the air] Most will feel like there is an Ananta who is doing this. But I can confirm to you that there is no Ananta that is doing this. So because there is no agent and there is no volition at play in that way, then we can say that this is a happening. Then we can observe the nature of happenings in this world and they seem to have a beautiful intelligence, which seemed to be guiding them, driving them. Now, that intelligence is what we call the will of God, the will of Consciousness. In the light of Consciousness, everything seems to play out and if you were to make some story about it we can pretty much say ‘Hey, this is quite intricate, it's quite beautiful, look at the way things happen.’ So as long as we believe that there is a happening there seems to be an intelligence which is guiding those happenings, and that intelligence is what we call the will of Consciousness. Now, that is not the ultimate Truth because even the notion of time is just a notion. Actually there is no time, there is not even happening. So even saying that ‘everything happens by the will of Consciousness or even saying Guru Kripa Kevalam, everything is the Master’s Grace’ is provisional as long as there is belief in time. As long as the belief in time exists then this is the antidote to fear which tells you that everything is the will of Consciousness inclined, everything is driven by the Supreme intelligence and we have nothing to worry… this is Masters grace taking care of everything.’ But even this statement (although very beautiful) is provisional ultimately because ultimately we are all going to say from our heart that ‘nothing has ever happened.’ Nothing has ever happened. So if nothing has ever happened the question of agency, volition, will, falls away. So as long as you are a believer in time, you are a believer in something happening, you can trust, that you as Consciousness have full power especially over your belief, especially over the ability to identify or not. Of course full power over everything but I am specially calling out ‘belief and identification’ because it is at this point where all of you start to say but ‘Oh, belief just happens on its own, I cannot help it.’ So if ‘you’ cannot help it are ‘you’ talking as you as a non-existent person or you as Consciousness? And as Consciousness this is completely in service to you. The power of belief, the power of attention, all the powers in this universe are completely running by your will. Then what happens is that as you let go of this narrative, all narratives, then even belief in the narrative of time on the notion of time will drop. And then the notion of will also does not apply because will implies time, causation. Without time there cannot be any causation. Definitively nothing has ever really happened. As long as we believe that things are happening and especially when we believe things are happening to ‘me.’ I am giving you the power of not taking yourself to be the limited non-existent one but taking yourself to be that which is Consciousness itself. You are beyond Consciousness in your ultimate Reality, but it's to take yourself to be Consciousness is better than taking yourself to be the non-existent person. So the mind that appears and in its seemingly attractive notions are not stronger than the light in which it appears. The light of Consciousness is the projective light and the screen on which all things appear including the mind. So I am just shaking the sheepishness out of all of us, which is just made up because we hang on to this position of the non-doer like a personal non-doer a very strongly, which is just not true. Because what we are then trying to say is that ‘I can't help it because my mind is stronger than my Beings and that can never be. And if mind was stronger than Being then all of us should bow our head down to the mind because the mind then is the ultimate God, not Consciousness. You say ‘I am.’ All of us say ‘I am, I am’ and then we add all kinds of stories to that but the ‘I am’ part we can all say very naturally. So this is Being. Whose Being is it? I am. My Being. In my Being my mind arises, in my Being my world arises, in my Being my relationships arise, in my Being my body arises, in my Being. It is Being itself. So how can this Being be held hostage to the mind? So my intention of saying that ‘you as Consciousness have full power’ is this. I am saying ‘the mind cannot be stronger than you, stop being so submissive and so meek because it is not a true position; it is just part of the mental narrative about who you are.’ And maybe Advaita has added something to that or some sort of new Advaita has added something to that with the notion of the thing saying ‘I am not the doer’ and we choose to not become the doer especially when we are asked to inquire or surrender. [Smile] ‘Oh, that you have to do Ananta, you have to do Father’ but the rest we feel we are doing and the world is doing to us.’ All our resentments, our prides, our guilt are all based on ‘doing’ but when you are asked to ‘let go’ [Clicking of figures] then I am not the doer then I choose not to be the doer. So it is a very convenient escapism, which I am not going to let anyone of you fall for as long as you keep coming to Satsang; I will keep driving these points home.

Very good, very good. When we buy into the idea that ‘I am not the doer’… I want to ask all those who buy into this idea ‘you’ who is not the doer? Who is that ‘you’ which is not the doer? Can we find such a one? It does not exist. So to say that ‘the non-existent one is not the doer’ goes without saying. It is obvious; it is obvious the non-existent one cannot be the doer because the one that cannot exist or does not exist how can it do? But you, the existent one, ‘I am’ existence itself. If there is doing then who can do and belong to? You may say that ‘there is no doing, there is only happening.’ You may say ‘there is no doing, there is only happening’ provisionally and then you will recognize that even happening is just a made-up notion in time. But as long as you believe in doing - ‘God is doing this to me’ - that kind of thing at best can be the doorway into surrender. It cannot be a final surrender. So just all of this weakness, me-ness, which takes on a very convenient non-dealership and asked to let go of the false and yet takes on doer-ship to seem very true for the rest of the time that is, that is a facade that I am very happy to chop.