Playing The Game Wrong

Are we confused or are we Free?

[Smiles] He said once and then he sort of lost confidence about it. The only struggle is in our intellect. And if you are struggling in your intellect, there is confusion. There is no bondage anywhere else. Even in the intellect it is not true. So either you have a question or you are Free. But the solution to the problem is not at the level of the problem. The solution to the problem is not at the same level as the seeming problem itself. The solution is higher. The solution is to look from a higher perspective. That’s why I was saying the other day that most spiritual seekers, I would say 99.9% (maybe) are playing this game all wrong. Because we are trying to resolve it at the wrong level. What do most spiritual seekers want? They want either the experience of the Self, which they believe is going to be phenomenal, so they’re waiting for some experience. And if an experience can come… we know very well in spirituality that - everything that comes, goes. So that cannot be reality. So if you are still waiting for the final explosion, some big fireworks, or whatever you think is going to happen — it is not about that. Whatever you may think, how much ever you may have invested in that idea, it is not about that. What is the second thing they are waiting for? They’re waiting for complete conceptual clarity, ‘Once I have no more confusion left in my head then I’m Free.’ But this ‘net of the intellect’ is always leaky from somewhere. You have a question; the Master gives you an answer. For the moment you feel like, ‘This is good. I feel I’m done. That was it. That was the only question left!’ And you feel very Free - for a day. [Laughs] Wake up the next morning: a new question has come or you start doubting the answer. Either a new question or it’s like a leaky roof. If you plug one side, you feel like now it’s all dry and clear… it starts leaking from somewhere else. And we keep chasing this intellectual clarity. That’s why most spiritual seekers right from the beginning, most of them always believe that they are almost there. Just that little bit. What happens? If you look… cover up, then another part, cover up, then another part… So, to expect the Self to be either a phenomenal perception, (which will appear as an experience or any change in phenomenal experience) or to expect complete intellectual clarity is playing the game wrong. And I played the game wrong for many years, so I’m speaking from experience directly. Till I came to Guruji, then I saw that this was not the game at all. This was not the game at all. That’s why I’ve been saying recently that the Master’s main job is to tell you what not to do. Because in telling you what not to do, it will save you a lot of time. So, what not to do? What not to do? To be dramatic I can say don’t go to the jungle of perception and the desert of the intellect, just to make it sound fancy but don’t bother with anything phenomenal, just for a moment. Because you will not contain the Truth there. The intellect is not big enough to capture the Truth, to grasp it. Just like you cannot fill the ocean in a glass. In fact, if you were able to fill the Truth in your intellect, it would be deeply unsatisfying. That is it? Aham Brahman Asmi - that’s it? I know this can hurt; this is the crux of Vedanta, but just a conceptual understanding that I’m Brahman doesn’t mean anything at all. In fact, maybe better to believe (if it’s a question of belief, then maybe better to believe) that I’m a person than believe I’m Brahman. Just believe. So it’s not going to be a product of your belief system. Because in every term there’s a limitation, every term is a definition and therefore limited. To define is to limit. So if this is the wrong way; waiting for some phenomenal change, waiting for some deep intellectual understanding — then what is the right way? What is the right way? So, there is a… let’s call it ‘a place’ provisionally, it’s not really a place… there is a place within you where all that is to be known, including your own self, is already known. It is already known. So spirituality is coming to the recognition or the discovery, of this place. And this is what we call intuitive knowledge or Self-knowledge or Atma gyan. And I will point you to that place. How do you know that you are Aware? Do you perceive this Awareness? Is it phenomenal? Is it just a concept that you heard in Satsang [and] that’s why you are claiming it, like ‘how do you know the world is round.’ Let’s compare the two questions. How do you know the world is round… spherical? Simple, no? We’ve seen perceptual evidence, we’ve seen photographs and we’ve been told by credible sources (presumably). That’s why somebody asks what’s the shape of the earth? You’ll say, ‘It’s a sphere or it’s round.’ Now are you Aware? Are you Aware now? Now the basis for this ‘yes’ is different than the basis for the ‘yes’ that came for the world is round What is the basis for this ‘yes’? Am I Aware? You did not see this Awareness and it is not just conceptual answer, isn’t it? Everybody has this; and that hurts our ego also because some spiritual seekers feel like I’ve been at this [for] 50 years and this boy or girl she just came to Satsang… it can hurt our specialness somewhere. But it is like that, we can’t help it. Self-knowledge is universal. So there where you ‘know’, but the term ‘know’ is used in a different way, that you are Aware — that is your intuitive knowledge. Now who’s confused about this because I’m happy to repeat this a hundred times because this is the crux of what I’m saying. If you’re still climbing the wrong tree then there’s no point. We’ll keep climbing it for lifetimes maybe. I want to get you off that tree. So, like the metaphor I was using yesterday was that God is sitting in your living room but we are digging a tunnel to find God. So try to make God an object of our phenomenal perception or an object of our intellectual understanding is the fallacy. And then you will say, ‘What is the right way?’ Actually to let go of the wrong way is the right way. That is more than enough. But because we’re still in our minds a bit (gestures with closed fist) that’s why we are to little bit point further to the very potent pointer, which is ‘Are you Aware now’? Now when you say, ‘Yes,’ and I say what is the basis of this yes? If you go to your mind you will only say, ‘I don’t know.’ If you’re being honest. If you’re being honest, you’ll say, ‘I don’t know.’ What you are actually saying is that ‘I don’t know in my head.’ I don’t know in my head, but I know somewhere that’s why I’m saying ‘Yes’, I’m not saying ‘No’. Is there a football in my hand? You say, ‘No’ if you don’t perceive something you say no. Here you don’t perceive awareness and yet you say yes. It’s a strange thing. That’s why it can seem rare. This is called intuitive insight.

Ah ok. I hadn’t got that question in a while. But it’s good to hear that again. So, I’m sitting on the couch. So you know ‘couch’ and you know ‘sitting’. Isn’t it? Because you can distinguish between standing, sitting, lying down. Now I’m aware of perception. You are in a way saying that it is because just of the perception, we are not able to confirm ‘Aware’. It’s a bit tricky for the intellect to handle. We can go very slowly. We are saying, ‘I’m aware of my perception.’ We are not saying, ‘I’m smelling my perception, I’m tasting my perception, I’m feeling my perception.’ So if I say, ‘What does it mean when I say ‘Aware of my perception?’ is it that you are smelling your perception. Are you with me because I can go very slowly? If I were to say that… what is actually happening for you when you say, ‘I’m aware of my perception,’ you’re just smelling your perception. Would that sound true to you? No, because you’re able to distinguish the quality of smell vs the quality-lessness of awareness. You are able to clarify it’s not smelling. It is empty of that quality. But because it is strange business, because you are not able to perceive it phenomenally, you’re feeling that you’re presuming it is Awareness. Is that what you’re saying? Because perception is happening I'm presuming that I’m Aware.

Yes, you are aware of your Presence. Isn’t it? You are aware of your Being. So are you smelling your Being?

Is it an object of sight?

So, how are you able to make this so clear ‘no’?

You just know. And that ‘just know’ for the mind sounds like, ‘I don’t actually know. I don’t actually know, I’m just inferring’ but you actually just know. Therefore, to the mind this intuitive understanding seems basis-less. What you are saying is baseless. And actually it is basis-less. It is basis-less. But that basis-less-ness to make it sound nice we call it ‘intuition’. [Laughs] We just know. That doesn’t sound so great, so we have to say it is intuitive understanding, because that sounds better. ‘At least I have something, I have intuitive understanding.’ So we can deconstruct all these tricks of spirituality also while we are at it. So there is only yourself which you just know like this. Is there anything which you just know like that in the basis-less way? [For] which you say, ‘Yes,’ inspite of not seeing it. Inspite of maybe being empty of concept about it. You still say Yes, isn’t it? What is the colour of the cat on the couch? There’s no cat on the couch. You are denying its existence because it is not perceived. You are asserting the existence or that which is prior to existence of Awareness without perceiving it. And how do you know that? You just do. Now, let me take it one more step further, if at all possible. You are perceiving this hand, no? So, are you aware of this perception? Are you aware of this perception of the hand? Yes. How do you know that it is ‘you’ that is aware? Did you see such a you? And yet you are clear you are perceiving - I am perceiving it. Even if your Master comes and tells you, ‘You are not perceiving it,’ you may just feel like ‘What’s going on with him, he needs to get some sleep.’ Because so, so clear that it is I that is aware of my perception. So, how do you know that? Again, without basis. You just do. So, that is intuitive. So everybody has this Self-knowledge This Awareness is ‘I’ is very, very clear to everyone. Nobody is confused unless you start using your head. It is clear. Now, there is only one problem that will trip you up. If you’ve left yourself independent of perception, if you’ve left yourself independent of conceptual understanding and you’re coming to the simple insight (which everybody has) then only one problem will trip you up which is, ‘What does it mean for me? How does that help me?’ Am I Free yet? Are we there yet? But there is no deal like that. But the discovery of this simple Truth, simplest Truth, is meant to help the false? Reality is meant to help the notion? So, Shankara said very beautifully in the commentary of the Bhagwat Gita that Self-knowledge, Atma Gyana, is the only way to be free from this cycle of suffering, cycle of birth and death. And it has only one prerequisite. One prerequisite is the non-attachment to actions and their fruits. And it’s so strange, all of us know this, but we keep applying it to our spiritual action as well. We keep applying to spiritual insight as well: Now that I know myself, am I free? What happened for me? But you just discovered that you are not this body-mind, no? That you are that pure Awareness, which is not perceivable and yet from which all that is perceivable arises on its own screen of Existence of Being. This is your discovery and yet because of the deeply conditioned selfishness we want this to mean something for one particular body-mind. And the moment we get into that trap we are back into our limited frame, frame of reference of personhood. So independent of perception, independent of conceptual understanding you have a deep intuitive insight into the nature of your Self which is completely clear if you leave it unburdened with any expectation. That is called Freedom.