In Dispassion, Truth Is Very Apparent

What is the standard of Truth? Now in Satsang like this, because we are primarily referring to ‘Advaita-Vedanta’ that is the first prerequisite. The first prerequisite is what? What is it that you consider to be real or True? So, that which is described as Viveka (discrimination) which doesn’t have the negative connotation when it is used like this, implies to be distinguish between that which is true and that which is false. And what is the standard that Sages have applied? They have said that, that which comes and goes is not real, is not true. So that is the first. The second is to be unattached to that which comes and goes. That is Vairagya (dispassion) to remain unattached. And this dispassion is exactly what we say when we say ‘open and empty’. Don’t attach to any thought which is coming and going. So instead of saying Vairagya we just use a more contemporary term ‘open and empty’. Don’t attach yourself to anything that is coming and going. Let it come, let it go. Now in this dispassion, Vairagya, that which is the Truth about your Self is very, very clear, is very apparent. Sometimes you use a tool like an enquiry or neti-neti, not this, not this, not this. ‘Not this’ being said to what? That which comes and goes. The world comes and goes - Not this. The body and goes - Not this. Sometimes, because the exercise is ‘not this’ we feel like we must come into opposition with the world, the body. It is not that. [Smiles] Maybe for the contemporary world it may be better to say ‘What is beyond that?’ What else is there? Okay, world. The world is coming and going so there must be something else. What else is there? You say the body. The body is also world but okay body, okay. What else is there? Then you say ‘My thoughts are there, my feelings are there, all these sensations of pain and pleasure is there’. What else is there? What else is there? Is that it! So there is a soup of sensations and perceptions (fundamentally) and that’s it. Then the question may come ‘But who is perceiving them?’ Who is perceiving them? Who is confirming that there is a soup of sensations and perceptions? Then a very few might come to even this question, but that there is this perception of them ‘Who is aware of that’? (Either perception or non-perception) So when you apply this standard of the Truth that, that which comes and goes is not real, and you let go of everything that comes and goes, then you are bound to discover your Truth. Now, what is the problem? The problem is that this discovery of that which does not come and go, we try to make it mean something for that which comes and goes. So, that is what I call ‘spiritual materialism’ or ‘spiritual selfishness’, ‘spiritual egotism’. Ego is what? [Ego] is just the identity which comes and goes, ephemeral. But we want the Real which does not come and go, to mean something, to do something, for that which comes and goes. That is why, I (in Satsang) sometimes these days I have started asking ‘Who are you asking for help for? Who do you think should be helped?’