Good or Bad is Definitely a Mental Ac#vity

We can explore a bit. It depends on what you mean by ‘bad’ because good or bad is definitely a mental activity. But I have a sense of what you are saying so let me attempt to answer it. So, in life, in the waking state (things) all kinds of appearances – they come and go. Human intellect has broken them up into world, body, emotional layer, mental layer, Being layer, the Absolute layer, all of this is mental construction, intellectual construction, of the human mind. Now, when the waking state is there then, all these things come and go, irrespective, independent of whatever categorization of layers (you may have called it). So, if you are empty of all conditions and a snake comes in front of you there may still be a primal reaction, that which we call fear. It’s just a shaky sensation isn’t it? Now, this in itself can be very natural. If the body has not eaten for two days, then we may experience that sensation which we call hunger. If these are what you are calling bad or good for that matter; because you may smell a rose and you may have no concept of the rose and yet you will have a good feeling of the rose, like some joy may appear in your heart. These can just happen organically, isn’t it? You notice that. If you are calling some of these bad or good, then that is just problematic in the labelling. If on the other hand, you are talking about that which we call ‘emotions’ but actually are mixtures of these ‘pure sensations’ and ‘conceptual burdening’. For example, some words came out of this mouth and that one had a reaction of [pointing to Sangha member and enacting reaction of disgrace and crying] all playing out. But if the mind from here [pointing to his own head] comes and says ‘No, that was very bad, you shouldn’t have done that’. So, to buy that notion along with the feeling of some constriction – that is what we call ‘guilt’. It’s not organic, if it just came like anger can come, fear can come, joy can come, feeling of love can come, just organically. But these… guilt needs a notion of a ‘me’ who did something, pride – same notion, the ‘me’ who did something, but good, ‘me’ who did something bad is guilt, ‘me’ who did something good is pride. So, these are second hand emotions, not pure. And all this language is provisional so, don’t judge yourself on any of this. I am just explaining to you that there are some constructs which seem to be mixtures of some sensations and mental labeling. And as you start looking more and more you will see that the pure perception of what is arising is not even so strong. It is the mind which has got you in the oppression with the guilt like ‘You shouldn’t have done that, when will you ever change’ and others will also say that of course, ‘You, you are spiritual, look at how you behave’, this kind of thing and we buy into that guilt sort of thing. So, it is not a pure sensation that we will call an emotion, it is not a pure thought because it relies on something that is showing up. Now, my advice to all of you is that, let all these pure perceptions and sensations come and go as they like, don’t worry with them (don’t worry with them). But when the story is being told, when the narrative structure is coming from your mind, don’t fit yourself in that narrative. Whether, like Guruji [Sri Mooji] says, [inaudible] ‘I don’t identify’, you surrender and say ‘All my Master’s problem, I let go.’ Or you say, ‘I am going to inquire - Who is the one who did this action.’ So, the mind says, ‘You should not have done that’ - Not as an Advaita defense, just as a true inquiry with integrity for your ownself. You ask whose action was that? And don’t settle for the provisional conclusion that ‘Actually I am not the doer’ because that is also provisional. What you are still identifying with is a body-mind but now you divested that body-mind with the power of doing. So, you basically bought into a puppet notion of yourself which is very limiting. May be even more limiting than taking yourself to be a body mind with some power (That’s also a broad statement). So, best not to buy into that provisional notion and say – ‘Who really… am I, this I? Am I just this body-mind? But what happens to me when there is another body? When there is a dream and another body seems to show up [inaudible], and who is looking at this body, [inaudible] these perceptions of this body, who is aware of that? What is that looking look like? How does that report back to me? You can use all of these depending… so the ones who are more use to surrender or more of a devotional temperament could say ‘Who wants to all of that, I am just going to leave it to you Father, it’s your problem. You deal with it and that’s beautiful.’ Or you could say ‘No, no this devotion stuff is all made up nonsense. You know, I can inquire, I can look.’ And either are fine. So, just coming back to your question, ‘When I am feeling bad or uneasy’ – now you see what I mean, that when you say this is not so clear, are you just talking about the organic stuff showing up, which is bound to show up in the waking state. In the waking state the sun shows up, this world seems to function, there is gravity, there is all of these technologies, all of this that shows up and this is very natural for all of it to show up. So, there is a storm cloud in the sky, we don’t say a bad feeling is arising (usually), so this is indicative of how much we’ve limited ourselves to be this flesh bucket, to be this body made of food. Everything that is arising in your perception is arising in your perception. What makes you limit yourself to only a set of perceptions? That’s another way to look at it also.