How To Find the Self?

We gather here to recognize the Self, Self-realization, Self-recognition. How to do it is the primary question. Because if you're doing it wrong, then you better stop. If you're doing it wrong, you better stop because maybe we are going in the opposite direction, we don't know. Therein lies the problem. So, how to find the Self? All the sages have said, you are already That. You already are the Self. God's Presence that you're looking for is already your Presence. Then everybody complains and says, but, I don't feel that, I don't experience that, how can I make that my living Reality? And it's a fair question, to some extent. [The sages have told us] Bhagavan [Sri Ramana Mahershi] said, it is not a new attainment you will get. You will not get the Self as a new attainmant one day and say, Okay now, this is the Self, I got it. So it's not something that will come from outside of you. Then, what will it be? Only the removal of ignorance, the removal of the false idea. And the main false idea is the I-thought, te idea of separation. The 'I' that I can refer to in some way, the I-reference is the ego. This is the ignorance that we need to be free from. So, the disciple says, Master, please help me, how can I be free from all of this ignorance, so I can discover my Self? And what did Bhagavan say? He says, it already is so. That's big trouble. That's big trouble because the instruction started with 'All you have to do is get rid of all the ignorance, so that you can come to the Self'. Then the disciple asks, but how can I do it? The Master says, it is so already, you see. If Bhagavan has a tantrum throwing Sangha like many of us do [chuckles], then the disciple would have said, If it already is so, then why did you tell me to get rid of ignorance? And I am sure that Bhagavan would have said, Because you have to. [Pauses] Let's say that we take Bhagavan's word for it and say, we have to be empty of ignorance and then we are free, or, we find the Self. Now, what is this ignorance, where does it come from? Who is the producer of this ignorance? What is the voice that proposes ignorance to us? That voice is the mind. Besides the mind's proposals about 'This is reality, and this is how things are, this is how your life is, this is how the world is', determinations about the state of reality and then determinations about what you should do or not do, these are the two main functions of the mind. So, this is the voice of ignorance, because without this, there is no I-thought, there is no trouble. 'I am' does not play as if 'I am something' without these proposals from the mind. To be free from the mind, so say, the mind is the thief that you want to catch and put it in a prison. How can we do that? That's the question, that's the main question. To be free from ignorance, how can we do that? I'll tell you what most spiritual seekers are doing. What most of us may be doing is that, suppose the mind is the thief and we want to catch it, we try to call the thief and say, Please tell me, how do I catch you? And if that was the nature of the beast, it is that it will help in that way, then we could have done that. But what have we definitely noticed about the mind? The more we chase it, the more it runs. Self-preservation seems to be in the design of the mind. Otherwise on the noticing itself [clicks fingers] that the mind itself is the ATM machine causing all this misery here, then we could just shut it off and say, I don't want you anymore, off. But that is not the design of the mind, is it. It wants to preserve, self- preservation. So, if the mind is the source of ignorance and self-preservation is part of its design, then how useful is it to call this thief and say, Can you please tell me your address because I'm done with you, I want to catch you? What do you feel is going to happen? Have you met a thief like that? You call the thief and it says 'Yes, yes, I am waiting for you to catch me, come, here I am. I am the one troubling you, catch me'. It doesn't do that. Instead, what does it do? It says 'Who, me? Little old me? I didn't do anything. It's your feelings. It's your relationships. It's not me. It's all of that. I'm your friend, I'm trying to help you. Here I am, being helpful, and you're accusing me?'. You see, this is the complaint from the mind. So, all of spiritual seeking is driven by projects that we have received from where? If you see that, then that is the end of the journey. So, what does the thief do instead? When you're close to catching the thief it creates diversion. 'This is the problem, the partner is the problem, your anger is the problem, your lust is the problem, all this is the problem. I'm just your friendly neighborhood guy to this spiritual mystery, I will help you through this'. So, when I ask you this question, How do you know?, I feel it is of primary importance. When you say that my trouble is this, I had an experience three weeks ago but I can't stay in it because I keep oscillating...How do you know? Is it not the thief telling you its address? So, how do you know? It's very important to contemplate this. And once you know like this, once you know from the mind what happens, what you take yourself to be, take yourself to be an object in time, an object in space. And without that, where are you? Without that, what is your location? So, contemplate. And contemplate does not mean that you think about it, contemplate means, keep this question in your Heart and let the answer emerge. What is driving your spirituality? If the attempt is to be free from ignorance, then can you assert that it is not being driven by ignorance itself? I'm giving you some of this context, so when I ask you 'How do you know?', you now don't get super irritated, you have some sense of where it is coming from.