राम
Awareness & Attention

God Is Now

2019-04-11|11:49-16:08|Watch on YouTube

The voice in the mind is not proof of a separate self; the ego is a mythical idea that cannot be found through perception, and the belief it must be destroyed is itself the ego.

Seeker

Father we can find the ego in the form of this voice which keeps saying I am this…?

Ananta

But that is just the lawyer, no? That is just the lawyer of this client. But can you find the client? The voice is speaking, because there is a voice does it prove there is an entity? Suppose the voice became a frogs voice tomorrow, ‘I want mosquito, I want mosquito’ will you start believing that you are a frog? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe that’s what it's about and I’ve been saying this- Because there is a narrative, because there is this subtitling voice we believe the identity of that one which has never existed. But don’t we want to push the standard a little more than just there being a voice now? Because all of the Masters have told us that the voice is a trickster. The mind is not your friend. So, if we keep falling for that voice and we trust the existence of an entity who is really there, it's saying ‘I want pizza. I want pizza.’ One day we looked, one day some young one was there and he was really frustrated saying ‘But what are we saying! I can’t! What are you trying to say?’ And then what we said is that suppose from the next room you are hearing this voice ‘I want pizza, I want pizza’ and you’ve been supplying this one pizza for the last ten years there comes a point where it is never satisfied. So, then doesn’t it compel you to go and look? Who is this one who is getting all this pizza from me? And when we go looking we realize there is nobody, it's just been a mythical idea. It was just a voice representing nobody. So, who does this voice represent? Haven’t we suffered enough from this voice already to at least make that exploration? Make that exploration. Whose voice are you? And if I find you then I promise you that I will give you all the pizza you want. We’ve just handed over everything to this voice. If somebody comes at your door and says ‘Who are you? Show me your ID’. First, won’t you say, ‘But who are you to ask for my ID?’ So, the perception of this voice is a common human condition. But because this voice is heard does it mean that there must be an entity who it is representing? And if the entity was so apparent then shouldn’t we see its shape, its color, its size, its birth. Whose voice is it? Whose voice is it? So, the spiritual seeker is the most confused one because this one it cannot find and that one it cannot find. It's looking with its eyes and trying to find the ego, never finds it. With its eyes it's trying to find the Self, can never find it. So, it's caught between two mirages. Fully confused. And sometimes it will replace some phenomenal experience of maybe some joy or some chakra or some experience or some astral travel or some past life experience or something like that and we feel like I’m finding the Self. Isn’t it? And then, ‘Okay! Then I was free’. But it was just more phenomena and nothing to do with yourself. So, it cannot find the ego and it cannot find the Self with perception. Then? It finds the ego and the Self through concepts. The ego through worldly concepts and the Self through spiritual concepts. And then its life becomes like a tennis ball going from worldly concepts to spiritual concepts. That is no way to live. We’re missing life in this ping-pong game. So, independent of either of them, independent of all notions. You tried, no? You tried to lose yourself, what happened? Was there an ego sitting there? Did you come across an ego? Scary looking creature sitting there which you had to kill and destroy to be free? No such entity exists. The idea that you have to kill the ego is the ego.

Key Teachings

  • The inner voice is not proof of a separate self—just as a frog's voice wouldn't make you a frog, the voice in your head doesn't prove an entity exists
  • The ego cannot be found through perception or concepts—it is a mythical idea with no actual existence, yet we keep looking for it as if it were real
  • The belief that you must kill the ego is itself the ego—there is no separate entity to destroy for liberation; the seeker's search between ego and Self is a ping-pong game between concepts
egovoiceself-inquiryperceptionliberationmindconcepts

From: God Is Now - 11th April 2019