In Freedom, Everything Can Come, Everything Can Go

Ahaa…That got your attention? [Laughing] Okay, what happened? Tell me more.

Aaa haan

This is very good. This is my favorite topic actually. [Laughs]. This is my favorite topic. I'm very happy to help you with this. In fact this is the main thing I'm speaking of. So, I'm happy in a way that this confusion got created, because what that implies is that there was a confusion already present- that our search for the Self is going to be something that will culminate in an experience. Confirm this if we are going in the right track. So, attention means what? Means perception. What do you get with attention? You get perception. So now when you have heard that the Self will not be found using your attention, you are basically realizing that it is never going to be a perception, or an experience, or a state. Yes?

So, but this is fundamental to Vedanta no? Every perception comes and goes. Everything that comes, will go.

And the bane of most spiritual seekers, including this one [Points to his body] who used to ‘search’ for the Self, was the same thing. I had heard that it is never going to be a perception, so what I was expecting was a ‘super perception’ of some sort. ‘One day I will come across a super perception and then that will be perceived but that will not be a perception anymore, it will be the Self.’ Isn't it? So now when that idea is shaken that I am searching for myself in this sort of way, then it can feel like but if it is not this way then which way can it be? [Silence] Isn’t it?

Because it can feel like what else do I have to be able to search? If not with attention, then with what? [Looks around the room and asks] With me? I’m not just speaking to the zoom crowd. So. So. Because this is very, very important. So, she is saying ‘I got really confused, because you said, you can't find it with attention’ and I’m saying that we have always been told that it will never be a perception, but now when it is hitting us directly in the face, we’re just like ‘Then how do I look?’ Tell me if that is not your predicament?

Very good, very good. So, I feel we understand the part about conceptual knowledge well enough so I won’t, and I have talked about it long enough, so I won’t digress into that. Now, that is why I have given you the hammer. Hammer is the question like ‘Are you Aware now?’ What is your response to this?

Now did you use perception to recognize this Awareness?

No.Then what did you use?

[Laughs)

Yes. How do you know this?

It just is, it just is. So that ‘just is’, or ‘just is known’ is what we are calling intuitive insight.

Yes, because you just checked no. You can check again. This awareness, is it something like content, which is coming to you through attention?

This is the critical point. This is the main point because all of the spiritual struggle is to try and find it in some way, as if you are looking for some special thing, special object because that is the way we have learnt how to search. But this search is not that way. And if all of you here understand that it is not that way-You cannot find it perceptually and you cannot figure it out in your head, then at least the ones who are here today cannot really struggle, if you take my words to heart. You cannot spiritually struggle. Then of course, you may struggle with what to do aeer that [Laughs), but that's for later. So now that you recognize that your conformation of this Awareness does not need any sort of objective perception and It just Is, is so apparent, so apparent, so clear. Can you confirm from the same space of insight, that same intuitive insight that this can never change? Again, don't go to your mind. Because your mind will make it a different sort of question. In the same space that you are Aware, that you are able to confirm that you are Aware, now...Okay let me ask you a simpler one. What can appear as a perception, to make an impact or a dent on that awareness? [Silence]

Like right now, anything in front of you, can it touch that Awareness? Anything that you perceive, can it touch Awareness?

That much is enough, that much is enough. To see that this realm of perception is not powerful enough to make a dent or a scratch on this Awareness… because it is not in the same plane at all. And if these words are making you visualize, then forget about it, forget about it. You don't have to worry about creating any sort of imagery about this. Just innocently like a child we need to look. Now what needs to happen to Rashmi, or what understanding does she need to have now, to be free? [Silence]

And if a lot of confusion comes, what is a confusion? That two opposing concepts are playing around in our intellect and sometimes this seems plausible and sometimes this feels plausible, that is confusion isn’t it? But what I’m showing you is beyond intellect, so it doesn't matter what is playing around in the intellect or there are a hundred confusions there, it doesn't really matter. Does it? [Silence]

It just is. Now this It, how is this related to you? [Silence]

You don't sound confused at all to me now.

But, I want to caution you against one thing, that we may use the words for some momentary intellectual clarity, so it can seem to settle down for a moment. But I'm not really aiming for that. Because that is an impossible goal. Your intellect is like a leaky roof. You may keep fixing it over and over again, but some notion will come and create a hole again. If you start chasing conceptual clarity, then it’s like chasing the mirage. It never happens. It is just to transcend the intellect, to let go of it. So you can have confusion in the level of intellect. Leave the intellect be. It doesn't matter to me whether you are confused in your intellect or clear in your intellect, because the intellect is full of lies anyway. So how would you like your lies I say now... these days [Laughs] Would you like your lies all clear-clear or you would like them all scattered around and confused?

‘I don't care’ no? I don't care. If they are in a coherent set or they are just all over the place, it doesn't really matter. [Silence] Because the point of spirituality is not to come to intellectual clarity, that is another way in which seekers struggle-I thought I was clear that there is one Brahman, and then there is Nirguna and then there is Saguna and in the Saguna the play of Ishwara happens, then there is a play of Jivatma, then the Jivatma has to recognize that it is Paramatma. You see, you can create this sort of conceptual paradigm of all of this. But that is really not needed.

It’s not possible my dear. It’s not possible.