How Do I Know That It Is I That Is Aware?

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I like what you say. I like what you say that ‘I don’t want answers anymore because it's the same old stuff, same questions, same answers, never ending cycle.’ So, you just want to be free. You just want to be free. But are you sure that you are not free right now?

But in what way does a thought bind you? Is the mere appearance of a thought enough to bind you?

The same one that wants to be free. Do you know that one?

Yes, yes. So, this ‘I’, is that bound by thoughts?

Aha. So, this ‘I’ is suffering from thoughts?

So, is that just a thought or is there something more real to that than it just being a thought? Like, for example, if I want to say that can you produce the suffering ‘I’. Can you introduce that one?

But are you a thought? So, there is the ‘I’ thought, which means that any reference to you which is conceptualize-able is the ‘I’ thought. Isn’t it? Like a conceptual reference to you is the ‘I’ thought. Any reference you make to yourself is a thought. But when you’re just seeing, without trying to so much get into the question and answer thing, when you’re just looking, are you just a thought?

So, this looking, what is happening to that one?

Does the looking ever look at a sufferer?

There is a presumed ‘I’. A presumed ‘I’. Is there an ‘I’ in actuality which is suffering? So, I will go along with you as far as when you say, yes, in that statement ‘I am suffering’ or in any statement ‘I am whatever’ there is a presumed ‘I’ but does that ‘I’ which is presumed in this case, does that ever have a reality or a tangibility of some sort?

And does your belief ever make it anything beyond just a belief?

Belief equals trouble. Belief equals trouble. That is my main point since I’ve started sharing Satsang. I’ve watched very little of Shri Osho but once he was asked this question ‘Do you believe in God?’ And his answer was ‘I don’t believe in belief’. I feel like so beautiful. So, don’t believe in belief because belief is trouble. All that you said so far is that when I believe I suffer. The presumed ‘I’ identity is a product of my belief. Everything that I say after ‘I am’ is a story which includes this limited ‘I’ and it is included as just a belief, not as anything tangible or anything real, as just a character in the stories.

It is even less than a fantasy because even in a fantasy you could say ‘I met a unicorn’ but this ‘I’ you never meet. Not even as a unicorn.

Who is the one that is looking? You say ‘I am just the looking’. Is that just conceptual? Can it ever be just conceptual? Q; No, it is. That is undeniable.

Yes. So, that which is undeniable is Real.

And you are speaking of the Looking which is aware even of perception, isn’t it?

Because one way to look at the word ‘looking’ is that its sight, sight is looking, hearing is hearing, smelling is smelling. But that which is Looking at all of this perception, I’m presuming that, that’s what you’re speaking of. That which is Aware of all of this perception, all of this looking, is the Looking that you’re speaking of. And you say ‘When I check it is undeniable. How can I deny?’ Because even to deny, even to say ‘I am not aware’ we’re actually saying ‘I am aware that I am not aware’. So Reality means that which is undeniable, that which doesn’t not come and go, that which is direct experience without needing to think about it or without needing any sort of experience.

What doesn’t it have?

Yes, yes. That's what all the scriptures say, no? So, if it had a defining characteristic, a definition, to define is to limit, then you would limit yourself. In its indefinability, it is unlimited. Even to say it is unlimited is a limiting attribute because it takes away the limited from it.

Even that is… Its okay as a pointer but it makes a distinction between ‘is’ and ‘is not’ which does not apply to it. Even to your Being you could say ‘Being- I am or I am not.’ But that which is Aware of Being or not being, the characteristic of existence or non-existence, does not apply to it.

Well that is to please our intellect because the intellect cannot fathom that which is beyond existent and non-existent. The substratum of the intellect is Existence, the sense ‘I am’, so it cannot go beyond its substratum and that’s why we feel like it has to be existent because existence means ‘is’. So, something cannot be neither ‘is’ nor ‘is not’. But your Reality does not have to fulfil any of your intellectual paradigms.

And even that.

You see, that is the end of duality. That is the end of duality. Because if we use the negation as if it's some final truth, then we will get stuck in that ultimate negation which was a pointer, neti-neti-neti (not this-not this-not this) but ultimately even that negation is given up.

You can locate now, within your Being, that aspect which has this play of confusion-conclusion going on.

So, let that aspect play out. You don’t worry about it. When we identify ourselves as that which is playing the game of confusion-conclusion, then we suffer. We allow that to be, it's fine. Q; Yes, but it does wobble…

The wobbliness also happens in only that aspect. Sometimes it feels like, when we let go of that aspect of our existence and we are not so attached to it, it can feel like some wobbliness or some fear arising. All that can also happen. But unless we interpret even that, in the same aspect of the intellect, even that doesn’t cause any real problem.

Only the only that never lived can die.

Yes, Yes.

Yes, but the problem with that is, and problem can come with whatever anybody says, but the problem sometimes I have noticed when it is said like that, that the self is unknown, then it can just feel like that the Master are pointing us to some fantasy sort of Self and it will never be found. We just have to trust them that there is a Self. But actually what is being pointed to in Satsang is very very clear. Like when you checked ‘What is here?’ You saw that there is this Awareness. You saw it non-perceptually but it was clear, no? It is more tangible than tangible. All the worldly tangibility comes on top of it. So, when we say sometimes but actually it cannot be known then sometimes we end up believing ‘It’s futile. I can never really come to this recognition.’ So, that’s why that’s not a very attractive term for me to use because I noticed it can cause that. But if I say ‘It can be known’ then also it can cause a lot of confusion. I am aware of that.

So, that’s the thing. Atma Gyana or Self Knowledge is not conceptual. That knowledge which is independent of perceptions and concepts. It's very simple. So, just notice the mind's tendency to make you separate from this Knowing in some way, as if you are watching it from a distance or something like that. It can create this presumed distinction. Try to create, near in reality, of course.

It’s unfathomable.

[Laughs] You were doing it ten minutes ago. That’s how. That's the trouble with being so unlimited that you also have to power to believe yourself to be limited. How would you be unlimited if you didn’t have the power to believe yourself to be limited? That would be a limitation you would have.

What else to do? Like can we say ‘Okay, God is unlimited but he only has one limit. He cannot believe himself to be limited.’ We can’t say like that. Just don’t go to your intellect for validation or even for objection. Don’t try to win that law suit. It’s never going to happen. Because it's going to keep saying ‘Objection! Objection! Objection!’

Over ruled. Very good. The other thing I want to tell you is that the Master is always there. The job of the Master is to point you to This as it is so apparent to you in such a simple way, right now. That Master is always available to you. The first thing in the morning. Actually it is the Master that wakes up as the sense ‘I Am’. It’s always available to you. It can feel very blurry because it can feel like, many times first thing in the morning, it seems that the mind is full of attack but that’s why I want to leave you with the reassurance that whenever you look for the Master it is always there. Point you to that which is so apparent in every moment. So, we don’t have to worry about those moments when we forget to look. But when we do look, you will find that you are always held by Grace, held by your Divine Presence and the moments when you forget to look, don’t worry about that. That’s also Grace. It's fine. What happens is that even when you’re looking the mind will try to solve those moments where you forget to look ‘But what about that?’. Forget about it.

You were enjoying a beautiful dinner then it will come and say ‘But tomorrow you will not have lunch’ so it spoils the enjoyment of the dinner also that you have in front. It serves no value.