Introducing You to the Lottery You Already Won

Right, I can’t be so open and empty. What if… what is the best thing that could happen in this world? What if I’m so open and empty that enlightenment comes and goes? [Laughs] It came and said, ‘Hello’, and I was so open and empty it also said, ‘Okay, bye-bye’. Just like that. [Laughs] Then what else? Maybe my soulmate, she comes and she waves at me, but I’m so open and empty, I’m just like [Laughs] … What could you miss out on, in this open and emptiness? That’s what we’re looking at. So if we’re a spiritual seeker of God our biggest fear is, ‘What if enlightenment came to say hello but I was too empty. I can’t stay like this… I have to be able to grab enlightenment when it comes’. What of the other fears? What could you lose? The best relationship, soulmate is coming, she’s saying ‘Hello Nitin [another Being in Satsang], I’m here finally, we’ve waited many lifetimes to meet’. And you’re just like, ‘Okay…Okay, bye, I don’t want to talk to you’. Is that what you could miss out on? What else? Best business opportunity idea is coming … [Indicating with hands] Do-do-do, do- do-do, do-do-do . . . ‘You’ll be, your company will be a unicorn tomorrow, just get back to work. You can do Freedom later’. [Indicating with hands] Da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da … It’s coming, and you’re just so open and empty … ‘Now I really messed up my life’. What is the worst that could happen? [Pause]

And by the way also the other question to ask is; when we have tried to control it, how has it gone? Very well? Exceedingly great? [Gives thumbs-up]. It’s highly unlikely. For most in Satsang, it felt like, already feels like somewhere life was not playing well enough. Really mostly it is suffering that brings us to Satsang, supposedly. So, how, like the Americans would say, ‘If you... when you trusted the mind, how did that work out for you?’.

But it’s promising, like, ‘Now, now … now I’ll be good. I’ll be your good servant, I’ll tell you good things, I’ll be your best friend.’ And the other form is like this… ‘But why are we always attacking the mind? Why? Isn’t mind Consciousness also?’ Yes, it is. Of course it is Consciousness. It is also God. But so are pickpockets. Pickpockets also Consciousness, no? Go and give your wallet to [inaudible] …[Laughs]. So these are just, these are just protestations and lamentations, coming from the mind. And they seem quite harmless at some level, but the point is that, if you buy seriously into the representation they are making out of you, then that is only what is called identity or suffering. Now in a way we may think that what we want is to continue to have this identity, and yet [inaudible]… have your, more suffering or just be at peace. But it just doesn’t play out like that. It just doesn’t play out like that. But, in a way your question was different. So if I just... what is it? ‘If I just stay like this, will I .. will I be missing out on something… it’s not enough?’.

And what… if… Okay what would that be that has to happen for it to be enough?

It has to be good Consciousness. [Laughs]. You’ll have to elaborate on that.

So what am I asking you to do? Just remain open, remain empty. So what is the fear? Suppose Mr. Good Consciousness was coming, but I was just so open that Mr. Good Consciousness also came and went, and it was coming with… coming with all the best feelings, all the best experiences, all the best interactions, no confusion, all bliss, all of that. But what I am suggesting is, that in our openness then all of this can continue to come and go, but you remain untouched, you remain unharmed. I’m just introducing you to the lottery ticket that you have already won. Like Guruji [Sri Mooji] also sometimes, you know… because .. it’s just like, ‘What if I miss out?’. But what are you being pointed to? Where I am telling you, you are the Supreme Self. But you are saying, ‘But what can I be as a person?’. But you are the Supreme Self. The One that all the scriptures are about. But, ‘Will I have a happy life’? You are the Supreme Self. Because it can feel like, ‘Ananta is just asking me to let go of everything, then I’ll have such a dead, insipid life’. Because we have this false idea that in our grasping, we’ll grasp the good things. But it is only in our letting go. Guruji says that, ‘If you chase the world, then it runs from you. If you stop chasing the world, then it comes and kisses you.’ But we have been taught in a way, our conditioning has been in a way that we have to grab it, or get it. But grasping is suffering. If you don’t take Ananta’s words for it then, at least take the Buddha’s words for it. The whole of Buddhism, the central tenet is this idea that, ‘Grasping is suffering’. So openness, emptiness is not grasping.