‘Me’ Is the Requirement for Suffering

Suffering means ‘me’. [Pause] If there is no ‘me’ suffering is impossible. And this can seem strange because you’re like, ‘But . . . I am not believing myself to be ‘me’, then why am I suffering?’ Just investigate on what we are calling ‘I’. If that ‘I’ still has a shape which means, [draws a shape in the air] like this shape, or some other mental shape, then that is still ‘me’. So, our refusal to hear the alarm clock, [laughs] our refusal to hear the alarm clock… What is suffering? It’s like an alarm clock which tells you, ‘Me-me-me-me is there. Me-me is there. Me- me is there’. Only ‘me’ then ‘ow’. It cannot be ‘ow’ without ‘me’. Me-ow has to be … it’s not ow-me. It’s always meow. You’re getting what I’m saying? A cat always goes, ‘Meow, meow’. It never goes, ‘Ow-me, ow-me’. So ‘me’ is the requirement for ‘ow’. You see? So ‘me’ is the requirement for suffering, deny it as much as we may. That, ‘I am suffering but there’s no me… I have really looked. I have looked so often. I can tell you I’m free as a bird. But still I’m suffering’. So, what is this nature of this me? The one who is hanging on to past experiences, past insight. Saying, ‘I’m so free because yesterday I was enlightened’, or something, some idea like that and it is God’s grace that that ‘ow’ comes, you see? Because if that ‘ow’ did not come then that me could just be, me-me, not me-ow. So if there is... and again when I’m speaking of suffering, I had the full talk about … I’m not talking about just the pure sensation, or the pure perception, I’m talking about, ‘Why it is still coming? It should have stopped by now. Why it’s still happening to me?’ When we’re saying, ‘Why it’s still happening?’, many times we leave it at that, especially in spirituality. ‘Why it’s still happening?’. But we’re missing the important part. Why it’s still happening to me? We’re not talking about it happening somewhere else. We’re talking about why it’s still happening to me. So that means that ‘me’ is still getting belief. So, when suffering comes, a way to translate what was being shared in the morning. If I was to say when suffering comes, do not deny it. Do not then become very Advaita and say, ‘But there is no suffering for the Self. I am the Self’. And inside in our heart we’re like, ‘Oh I just … I’m missing that relationship so much’. Or anything, ‘Why am I not getting freedom?’, or, ‘What’s going to happen to our money situation, I have so less money in the bank’. And outwardly we’re like, [Poses outwardly calm demeanor]. Nobody’s looking but still, like we are playing these poses with ourself. You see? Just like, [Poses as outwardly calm again], ’But I am the Self’. [Affects agitated expression] ’What’s going to happen to my money bank?’, [Relaxing back, switches to outwardly calm demeanor again] ‘But I am the Self, I have no money’. Like this kind of, like, ping-pong we can play with ourselves, no? Just try to use Advaita-denial. Both are just conceptual. This, like, ‘I am the Self. I am the Self’, is only conceptual and, ‘I need money, I need money’, also conceptual. So if it becomes a conceptual battle like this, then we continue to suffer. So, that is why the Masters say, instead of using it conceptually, just check, look, beyond perception. [Pause] Now, the ‘me’ notion does not survive this. So when the ‘me’ notion does not survive this, the [inaudible] … or, ‘When will it get better for me?’, all of this stuff, is meaningless. So if there is suffering, don’t push it under the carpet, don’t get into some sort of Advaita-denial of it, and start posing as Brahman, or the Self, or something like that, you see? Really look - what am I taking myself to be? What am I believing to be real? Any of these enquiries that you constantly hear in Satsang. If you forgot to enquire, whole day yesterday you were suffering. Then, now you remember, now you look. Oh wait, like, ‘Oh I wasted whole day yesterday, I should have enquired, and... ’, because that’s more and more, we continue to suffer now with the suffering that happened yesterday. So when the masters say, ‘Don’t resist your suffering’, this is what they mean. Don’t resist it by using some spiritual concepts and get into some Advaita-denial. Not that, ‘I’m so open and yet suffering continues to come’. It’s different thing. Don’t resist your suffering means, when it comes, or when it seems like you’re suffering, use it as an opportunity to explore, see what you’re taking yourself to be. Have a naturalness, have a playfulness about that exploration. But when it is said, when sometimes it is said (it’s more popular in the last few years to say these things), ‘I’m so open, I feel like I’m so free, and I’m so free that, yeah, suffering comes, and it comes quite often actually, but . . . I’m very open to it’. [Laughs]. So we have to be a bit careful what we mean. Like we are open to it, like it’s welcome to come and I use it, for my exploration and then this sense of ‘me’ dissolves, or, we’re actually not as open as we think we are. We’re trying to control life, but we’re just using Advaita conceptually. There’s a big difference between using Advaita just conceptually, and using the pointers to really check, or to really let go. It’s a very subtle thing, and the thing is that ignorance means that we don’t know also what we don’t know. It’s like… that’s what a blind spot is. That’s why a living Master is so helpful. Because a living Master can usually spot your blind spots and keep poking those. Keep poking those, prodding those to bring your attention to that. Because many times we’re just believing a lot of stuff about our self, but we can’t see that it’s just a belief. It’s just a belief.