I, in Reality, Remains Untouched

[Responding to an online participant] Yes it does sometimes feel like it takes some effort to come to this effortlessness, because (like you say) ‘energetically’… I would say more like a habit of identifying - that some interpretation about something which maybe appearing gets some belief and then it seems like ‘I need some effort to step back from it’ and that effort, that seeming effort, is fine. Just like it can take some… seem to take some effort to inquire into our true nature. Actually, the question should be very natural ‘Who Am I’? Why should it be that this question seems to get so much resistance, in fact so much resistance that most of the world will not ask it. A few (very rare ones who) end up asking it, and even then, even for them it seems like very few times it is really open, mostly it is met with a lot of resistance. So, this is because of the conditioning, the habit of identification. And it can seem like it is some effort to ask or step back, to just see, really, ‘What is going on’. And Bhagavan [Sri Ramana Maharshi] has said very clearly that as long as it seems like this seeming effort is needed, then we can put this effort. Although he has explained that this effort is to actually keep the heavy bag down, but because our condition, our habit is to keep, keep carrying it, even to keep it down seems like it is some effort. The other nice thing I noticed in what you said is that no matter what the state is, you are actually still there, even if the state is sleep state or passed out [Chuckles] state you are there, quote- unquote experiencing the… even that state which is empty of all experience. So, that you, which is untouched, through all of this play, whether it is identification, whether it is just energetic, (as you call it)… I, in Reality remains untouched through all of this.