Every Label Carries A Baggage

How do I see that the body is just a thought? Because I experience the sensaHons and I see that there is a body. [RepeaHng a Sangha member’s quesHon.] [He answers] But the sensaHon is not body. The body is a thought that we are applying on top of the sensaHon. [Silence] See if you can stay with me in this one. There is a sensaHon [Shakes his hand] now this sensaHon is just perceived. It does not carry any idea that it is a body or it is not a body. It’s not working at that conceptual level anyways. Now stay with all of your percepHons, and allow them to be open and empty and tell me what anything is. Is there a world?

Is there a world? Is there a body?

There is no noHon of boundary or boundaryless-ness. [Pause] Isn’t it?

This is a simple one, we can look at it together. All it needs is liZle innocence to look along with me. So we are just checking for a moment, who is bound by this body? And when we check you will see that there may even be the noHon that, “I am bound within this body.” But then go to the sensaHon of the body and see if that conclusion has the Presence of this I Am only on one side of it and therefore it would be bound as a container, just like the water would be bound by the container which is the glass. You see? Then water can only be on one side of the glass, it cannot be on be on both sides. Check on your own body sensaHons that you perceive and see whether you are more on one side and not on the other? See if it really contains you, any boundary sensaHon of the body.

It doesn’t contain you.

There’s no boundary, it’s just an idea. So in that idea, because every label, every word carries a baggage around it, so inherently this idea of body carries the noHon of me being contained in that body, [Silence] carries the baggage of these ideas about the body- about beauty; about being a container; about aging; all these gravitate around the central idea of body.

If you don’t label it that way then all these start to crumble you see? Who is aging? What is aging? Who is man or woman? Who is separate? What defines the boundary? All those start to crumble. You’ll see the trick of labels, just what seem like very innocent labels actually can be very limiHng. Just in the simple label body there are so many noHons that hang around with it- fear about death; fear about ageing; fear of represenHng self-image, all of these things can be around a simple idea of a body.

And if you drop the label and if you drop all the labels then there is no disHncHon me and you, me and the world, you see, all these dissolve and yet all of it is already available to us in percepHon itself. It’s not as if we lost something. I take this example, I don’t need to call this cup [holds up a mug] and coffee or chai to be drinking from the cup no? A child doesn’t need to know boZle, milk powder, water, mixing, it doesn’t know any of those, it just takes and drinks. So it doesn’t impede the funcHoning, the natural funcHoning which is happening through the natural intelligence of Consciousness. So that Intelligence that is running this enHre universe is sHll operaHng and is not going to abandon us because we lost our limited conceptual ideas.

So that is the fear, what is going to happen when I stop referring to or taking the labels seriously then how will I be able to life my life or control my life. That is the fear that the mind itself will present to you. But you will noHce that everything seems to be operaHng so beauHfully, the birds, the animals, the plants, you see, everything seems to be moving in its own intelligent way. Like I take this example of a new born bird, when it’s season to migrate and eve when there is no flock, it just starts flying in the right direcHon of where it’s supposed to go I summer. But it doesn’t know west or east, it doesn’t know season or not season, but there’s an intelligence which guides it and takes it where it’s meant to go. In humanity somewhere we have lost touch with that Intelligence and started relying on a more primiHve sort of limited intelligence of individuality. And coming to Satsang is to let go of that and to allow this deeper primal Intelligence to take hold, which doesn’t need to rely on emoHons and ideas.

Yes, yes. Exactly. It is one of the most fear inducing concepts. Just the four leZers-body.

It is actually, the label has all this trouble but this [taps the body] itself is fairly innocent and natural. There is no trouble with this itself, what we call the body itself has no trouble. It is the labels which are oppressive. This is an innocent instrument, it’s not doing anything, it is not binding you in any way, it is not a chain around you or something. it’s fine, it’s just si^ng around, its fine. But when we idenHfy, I am the body, and the way to idenHfy is to have a label, so that is what becomes oppressive, not the appearance in itself.

to see through it, and you are inquiring into the true nature of it that is to be free from it as well.