Everything That Is Perceived, Is Perceived

Instead of seeking a remedy for the pain it is better to investigate who is experiencing or suffering from the pain. Who is the sufferer of the pain? [Silence] So before we invent the seeker who goes on the expedition to find a solution to this pain we must first investigate ‘Whose pain is it?’

(Repeats what the sangha member says) ‘It feels like me.’ What is this feeling?

So what is the feeling itself, before we put a label to it, does it feel small - big, where is it?

In your head? Whatever is in your head, let’s call that a thought for the moment. Lets call that a notion or a thought. You say there is something that is feeling like a ‘me’, the interpretation of it is in your head but what is the feeling itself?

‘It’s an image’ and you are the image or you are that which is witnessing it? You can see an image, how does that image become you? Because then there must be two of you, the one that is witnessing the image and also the image itself as a separate me. Is it like that? And then when you decide that I must find a solution or freedom, or something like that, who goes on the search? The image goes on the search or that which it witnesses - it goes.

The image. What is happening to you in all of this time?

So in our image that we have, which is a bundle of perceptions and concepts around these perceptions, all these seeming movements are happening. That which witnesses all of these, that which is aware of all of these has remained untouched, unmoved.

If there is no separation between the - all that is witnessed and the witnessing itself… we do not invent a separate ‘me’ in the first place, then the concept of ‘other’ cannot arise at all because for ‘other’ there has to first be ‘me.’

Yes, yes, now that which is perceiving this, is that making any distinction between itself and the perceiving? (The question is clear) That which is perceiving everything, is it making any distinction between itself and that which is perceived? Is it making a distinction also of front and back?

Yes.

Okay, if you cannot see ‘what is perceiving’ how do you know that it is you that is perceiving?

It is you na?

Yes, that is clear. But you cannot see it. So how do you become clear?

You know, so this knowingness, that is the beauty of Self-knowledge that you cannot see it, you cannot see your Self, you cannot think your Self and yet it is undeniable. You know it, it is you that is perceiving. He said very nicely, he said ‘Everything that is perceived is perceived. But that which is perceiving cannot be perceived. Now and yet I am Aware that I am perceiving.’ So, how is it that without perception you know? Because we have felt that our means of knowing is through perception and through conceptualizing that is why (when) we meet this means of knowing which is independent of seeing and thinking we feel like ‘But, I did not see anything.’ Yes, you are right. You did not see anything and still know it is ‘I’. How you know that you are aware of perception? How do you know you are perceiving the hand ? You are perceiving the hand, you are perceiving no? How are you claiming that it is you? If this question (because I am not able to put this question clearly, so if one day) if this question itself is clear, then I feel like it will be very simple. When I say ‘How do you claim this ‘I’ that is perceiving the hand?’ (I feel like I am not able to put it in direct terms)

But it is meant to negate those habits. ‘How’ because when I say ‘how’ (holding yellow coaster in hand) how do you say this is yellow?

Yes, but you are perceiving a quality, which you have previously defined as yellowness and you find the same quality in the perception, and you say ‘It is yellow’. So, that is one way of knowing. Then how do you know that the earth is moving?

It is learnt, you have concepts about it and you learnt it. But if you did not then the earth seems pretty stationary. So both these are the ways of knowing things and we got restricted, we’ve restricted ourselves to these. Now, this ‘I’ that is perceiving or let us say more accurately the ‘I’ that is aware of perception, do you see it like the yellowness? Are you using conceptual learnt knowledge that you could be using to say the earth is moving? Your experience is that it is stationery. So, you are using neither and yet you are saying that “There is an ‘I’ there, I am perceiving”. But you have no phenomenal evidence of that and yet if somebody denies it and if I say, ‘You are not perceiving it, (points to the another person sitting next to him) you are perceiving on his behalf.’ You say ‘What nonsense is that? Of course, I am perceiving.’ So this ‘I’ how can you be so clear about it? How can you be so clear that it is you? Not what the ‘you’ is doing (even including perceiving) but how are you so clear that it is you? Because anything else actually is unfathomable. Like this knowledge is so inherent to yourself that it cannot be lost. You ask a child, they will say ‘I am seeing your hand.’ You ask a grown-up, they will say ‘I am seeing your hand.’ You ask a spiritual seeker fifty years after meditation ‘Who is seeing my hand?’ they will say, ‘I am seeing your hand.’ Does not matter, no distinction. So, how do you know this ‘I’? This is the meaning of what I am trying to say ‘how’. How do you know this ‘I’?

Yeah, what do you mean by subjective?

There is no objective quantification or qualification needed. So but how come you are willing to go for this sort of subjective…? If I told you that ‘In Delhi this morning there were fifteen yellow-colored goblins that showed up’, then how come you say ‘That is unbelievable.’ Because that is also subjective. You do not have any objective quantification or qualification to prove that. So how come that is taken to be nonsense; but I am perceiving.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Now if somebody came to you and said ‘I have lost this.’ What would you tell them? Like, ‘I am looking for this now’.

Exactly, they already said ‘I have lost it.’ So what will you say? But who are you? That is what we are saying in Satsang constantly. So now, this is so clear and simple. So where is the trouble? The trouble is that we have ideas about ‘What this should mean - now my pain should go away, my pain should go away, only pleasure should come. Which contract said that? See marketing guys do not sign contracts, it is the legal department that signs the contract. [Smiles] So that was just the marketing team. There is no such contract that anything has to happen. And my saying that again is not a prediction that no good stuff will happen. It is just to tell you, again, not to be so concerned about the objective realm, the material realm, and don’t confuse yourself with just the movement in this realm.