Say ‘I’.

Say ‘I’.

Is it representing a group of sensations? Is it representing an idea you might have about yourself? It can represent all of these things. We are just playfully looking at what the truest representation is, if there is such a thing.

Presence. If this ‘I’ is a pointer like I was saying yesterday, Guruji [Sri Mooji] calls it ‘the chameleon I’, it can represent a variety of concepts. But does it also represent that which is empty of all qualities? Can it also represent the primal witnessing principle itself? So, in a way, we can say: The only true reference to ‘I’ is to make no reference to ‘I’. Otherwise, can you tell me what you are referring to? Now, what happens is the mind will take you on side-tracks and say, ‘Every time I ask this question ‘Who am I?’ this is what happens to me.’ What happened there? You picked up a reference, which is ‘me’ again, un-inquired. Whatever makes you pick up a reference to yourself, without your actual seeing of yourself, is just an inference, is just a presumption. --- Where does the ‘I’-ness come from? Can Nothing have ‘I’-ness? Therefore, it is No-thing and yet, it is I. Impossible for the mind to understand. --- EXISTENCE Taste your Presence. Smell the fragrance of your own Being. Hear the vibration of the Primordial Existence. See with your inner sight where all Seeing comes from. Touch the Holy feet of your own Self. --- I Am What Exists? Just this simple checking: What exists? What does it mean to exist? Who is it that exists? --- What is it that exists? --- And we already saw that there is a phenomenal world which includes all phenomena. Is it just that? Or are you also here? --- What is at the core of your existence? --- You are the Self because only the Self Is. This ‘Is-ness’ is a very beautiful word; which many of us have not truly explored, actually. We’ve used it many ways. We can say the table is, the hand is, the computer is… But what does it mean to exist? What is ‘Is’? What is it that never is not? --- What is here now? In this uncluttered, uninterpreted, unjudged moment. Who sits Here? --- Neti-neti starts how? Not the world; it is changing. Not the body; it is changing. Not my thoughts; they are changing. Not my emotions; they are changing. What can we say about that Being? Is it changing? So instead of saying ‘not this, not that’, you say: ‘Okay, the world is fine; good, good.’ Hug the world and say: ‘Okay, what else is there?’ Ah, body is there. What else? Thoughts are there. What else? Emotions are there. What else? Even this ‘What else?’ is fine. So, the point of ‘neti-neti’ is not to come into some sort of opposition to the world but to bring some focus back to where this world comes from. --- You Are Existence Look; even to find your body you have to take the step of noticing a sensation or a visual of the body. To find your mind, you have to take a step to notice a thought or an image or a memory. To find emotions, you need to take a step to notice sensations. To find the world, you need to take a step to go to the senses. How to find that which is at no distance from you? Don’t take a step anywhere. --- You Cannot Not Be Can you stop being? Just because the question is simple doesn’t mean that the insight is not tremendous. You don’t have to find that which is so obviously here. You can’t even stop it. Just stop being. Don’t be for a second. Don’t exist. Go away from yourself. Separate yourself from your existence. Don’t be. Who can do this? --- Dive into your Being. [Silence] And notice whether you can actually ever step out of your Being. What is your original position? What is the starting point itself? --- Have you ever checked and you saw that you are not there? [Smiles] --- What is ‘Is’? What is it that never is not? --- Can You Stop Being? To get to this sense of Existence that I am speaking of, the simple thing you have to do is: Try to stop Being. --- What Is This Knowing? To know that ‘I exist’, is not perception, it is not conceptual, it is not emotional; what is this Knowing? What is that one? --- Which sense am I using to know that I exist? Do I need to refer to a concept of existence to see that I exist? Do I need to refer to some emotion to see that I exist? Do I need to refer to eyesight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch to see that I exist? --- Now, this Being, is it an inference you are making or is it your tasted experience? --- So, you have a perceptual knowledge, you have a conceptual knowledge, and then you have a computational knowledge. Now, what knows all of this? Let me give you a simpler question: What knows your existence? What type of knowledge is your existence? How do you know you exist? Do you have a perception of your existence? I say, 'Can you stop Being?' That 'Being' that did not stop, did you have a perception of it? --- AHributes Of Existence Self Existence What is That which is Self-Existent? What a beautiful term. What exists by itself? --- What is holding this Existence up? --- This Being, does it have any phenomenal precedence? Does it come from a phenomenal source? --- This ‘I Am’ is naturally here. Who has produced it? Did you make your Existence? What raw material did you use? --- Natural and Effortless Where do your feet naturally land when you do not have a notion about yourself? What is your natural state? When you are not trying to get something or hold onto something, where are you? --- What did you do to create this Presence here? How much effort did it take for you to be present? --- This Existence is just here naturally. Do you have to work hard to exist? How did this Existence come about? Did you say, ‘I have to work so hard to make my life?’ But what amount of work can you make to make your life? If you didn’t exist, what work will you do to make yourself exist? --- Light and Substratum of the Phenomena Our experience has always been that nothing has existed without the light of our existence. Can we say that something has existed unless you were there first? There is this beautiful quote in the Upanishads about a Sage asking ‘In which light do you see the world?’ The disciple says, ‘I see the world in the sun's light.’ The Sage asks, 'In which light do you see the sun? Does the sun even exist unless you exist?’ What is primary? From your own insight? Yesterday I was wearing this shirt which says ‘Your Heart is the light of this world. Don't let your mind hide it.' Guruji's [Sri Mooji’s] quote. This is what it means. Now, how does the mind hide it? Does it cease to be? Does the Heart cease being the light of the world? --- Where is the experience of sight happening? Where is the experience of hearing happening? Where is the experience of any phenomenon happening? --- What is the space in which all of this is happening. Is it separate from you? --- All these waves of thoughts and emotions and perceptions, what are they, where are they, in relation to the Reality of you? --- All of these are experiences within you, within your existence. If you did not exist, could you have this experience? --- It is background to everything that comes and goes. But it is the ‘background’. In what way is it the background? Is it behind them or in front of them or below them or above them? --- It is not with forms and names. That which underlies these is the Reality. So, when we hear this ‘underlies’ now, is it the same as a physical underlying? Or is it a different type of ‘underlies’? --- Existence Is ‘The First’ It takes you a moment or two to reconcile that even this body is here. You might not have looked at it so closely. But in the first moment upon waking, we are reconciling which world this is. What is here now? But all of this reconciliation happens after you exist. --- No matter what the content is, what the appearance is, without you can there be an appearance? Can you have the experience of an appearance unless you are there? Can you testify to the existence of even the sun, which seems like the biggest light you can come across? Can you testify to its existence unless you exist? --- What is that which is there, first thing in the waking state? --- Untouched By Phenomena So, when we say ‘neti, neti,’ (not this, not that), it is not that we are trying to push it away or there is an aversion to phenomena. It is only that one phenomenal aspect has gotten so much attention from us. How about we check beyond and see if there is something beyond my phenomenal existence. Where will I find this One; non-phenomenal existence? What can come in the world of appearances that can touch this One? --- That which you are, right now, is the maximum you will ever be. It needs no planning. It needs no strategy. Already it is a gift to you. [Silence] And this is true about you in every moment. [Silence] You don't have to believe it. You are complete already. Now, if some feeling was to come, if lot of thoughts start coming, can these touch This? Can anything ruin This? --- What can appear in this world that can bind your Presence, your Existence, and make it limited? --- Does Not Come and Go Until you go to sleep tonight, will this come and go? Or is this your constant experience? --- Now, this existence is whose existence? Is this existence a bodily existence, just a bodily existence? No, the body has changed completely. The body that was born is not this body now. But your Existence has continued. They say, ‘body/mind organism’. What to say about the mind? One moment it is there and the next moment it is not. It comes and goes. But does your Existence also come and go with that? --- What is ‘Is’. What is it that never is not? --- Boundless What space is that which is beyond space? --- Show me your boundary. Where do you stop? Where is your boundary? Seriously. Is your boundary inside the body? Is the body your boundary? Is your boundary outside the body? Is it outside this room? Where do you start and where do you end? --- Is there anything outside of you? --- LocaSonless What are the dimensions we feel we exist in? The three dimensions of space. What is it? X, y, and z; three dimensions. What does it mean? Front-behind, left-right, and up-down. These are the three dimensions in which we feel. And the fourth dimension is the presumption that we are living inside ‘time’. So, the movement happens in time; it can feel like. But when you go to ‘I am’, is it in front or behind? Is it left, right, up, or down? Where is it contained? Your very Existence, where is it? --- But really, this inquiry ‘Who am I?’, introduces you to that greater aspect of yourself. It is not included in any dimension. Tell me, where is it? Where are you? Where is your existence? In which direction should I come to meet your Existence? Should I come in front, behind, up, down, left, or right? --- Where to go to find God? Where did you go to find your Self? What are you already? --- Does your attention move outside of you? --- Timeless The Now that we are speaking about is not a moment in time. The Now that we are speaking about contains all moments in time. The Now of your Existence. --- Complete In this very moment, is there something missing? Whatever the content of the moment might be, you are Here. What do we need beyond our Existence? --- As you taste your Existence, do you feel like it is incomplete? Do you feel that it is lacking? And when I say, ‘Do you feel…?’ I don’t mean ‘What are your feelings about it’ and I don’t mean ‘What are your thoughts about it?’ I mean, what is your insight about it? How do you taste your Existence? How do you experience your Existence? Is there naturally something lacking in it? Is there naturally something missing in it? Until you go to sleep tonight, will this come and go? Or is this your constant experience? So, if there is nothing lacking in our Existence, in our Presence, then where is it lacking? --- Now, notionlessly, what is missing for the Being? ‘Notionlessly’ means, again, you are just relying on what you are Seeing; you are not relying on an interpretation. You are relying on what you are finding for yourself in your Existence. Without a concept, just in its own natural way, is there something missing? --- In your conceptless Existence, right now: Is there somewhere to get to? Is there something you have to become? Is there a right or wrong way? Can anything come and change your Reality? --- It Cannot Be Enhanced or Diminished You are finding that to add anything to your Being is like the ocean wanting to add a mythical drop of water to itself. If the drop of water was real, then at least we can make one concession, saying, ‘The ocean wants to become the ocean plus one.’ But what can you add to your Being? What objects can you surround yourself with that the Being will become Being, plus-one? [Silence] And what can be taken away from Being? --- Beyond Death Is there something Here Now, which will not be burnt on the funeral fire, which will not be buried under the ground? What is that? All your ideas about yourself, what is going to come of them? All of your sensations in the body, what is going to come of them? All your experiences which you store so beautifully in your memory, what is going to come of them? All your yogic and meditative prowess, what is going to come of it? That is why the Sages have said, ‘Look beyond all of these.’ --- Existence Is Not Personal What is it that is here? Is there something personal about existence? I exist. Do I exist as a person? What convinces you that your Being is personal? --- All LimitaEons Are Imagined For a moment, can you imagine yourself without a story? Even if you feel you can’t do it, imagine yourself without any story. Imagine that you are just so fresh. You have no grievances, no resentment. No past, no idea about the future. No boundary, no body; more spacious than space. Beyond all true and false. Beyond all right and wrong. Imagine, you are This. Imagine that That is the Real world. Here, you are neither doing nor not-doing. You are neither wanting nor letting go. You are empty of all of these qualities, empty of all of these notions. Now, in your Heart, ask yourself: Is this my imagination or my Truth? Could it be that everything that I have believed before this has been imagined? This notionless-ness has shown me the Truth. --- Imagine if you are ‘All There Is’. Start by imagining and then see if you are actually imagining. Or is it the limitation which is being imagined? --- NoEonless Existence To exist, what concept are you using? To Be, what concept do you need? What concept is holding up your Existence? What thought are you using to exist right now? Do you have some conceptual knowledge about something which is not phenomenal? When you’re empty of any notion, what is here? Are you all your thoughts about yourself? --- Consciousness is reminding itself how it would be to live without boundaries. Without notions. Without a position. Without judgment. Without resistance. As natural, effortless openness, which is your very nature. --- Remain neutral. Neutral means ‘positionless, notionless’. In this neutrality, what happened? Did your sight stop? Did your hearing stop? Did your taste stop functioning? --- If there is a sense of what I am saying then it won’t sound so strange when I say, ‘To know even one thing is to know too much.’ It won’t sound strange. To know ‘too much’ in what way? It’s to burden yourself with limitation and identity. But it doesn’t end there. The inquiry is: ‘What do you know when you know nothing?’ I noticed that on the first day there were lots of answers coming ‘I know nothing’. And I kept asking, ‘Do you know that? Do you really know that? Then it is to know too much.’ So, the first few days there may be some pruning [of concepts]. But I feel like this inquiry, in terms of its directness, could really be the essence of what I am pointing to. And the first statement actually provides everything that you need to know about the inquiry itself. And it is, in a way, self-inflaming, and self-destructive. If to know even one thing was to know too much, what do I know when I know nothing? --- AddiEonal ContemplaEons At which layer of your existence is reality? --- What can you anchor yourself to? --- Just be space. Allow everything to come and go. What is space? Is space objecting to any object coming into this room or not coming? Is space wanting to do something about what is appearing or not appearing? How many of you feel that ‘When he says: Be space’ that it is some strange sort of instruction? Like, ‘There is no space that I can be.’ If you don’t feel that, then this pointing could be very helpful. Then you will find that even this space is notional, and that you are No-thing. You are not nothing, but you are No-thing. --- After you Exist, do you have to switch on the world? It comes on its own, no? Do you have to switch on the movements of the world? It is also moving. Is this body separate from the world? This also moves on its own. Does the heart beat on its own? Or you have to switch it on? --- If God cannot be Here all the time , effortlessly, then what kind of God would that be? --- What defines your boundary? How long is Consciousness going to let a sensation define Its boundary? When will It decide to look beyond and say, ‘Oh, actually this sensation is appearing within me’? This is the play of Consciousness. Look beyond. Are you contained in a name? Are you contained in a form? Is something a ‘me’? Is something really ‘mine’? You are the Eternal One, the Unborn, the Undying. What can you own? What can you leave behind? What position can you take? How long will you continue to point at some sensation and say, ‘This is me’? ---

All has already happened for you. What is your next move? --- When you really look, in the effortlessness of the Right Now, are you happy or unhappy? --- You know ‘why’ about everything. But why do you exist? --- Although I make the point ,very trivially sometimes, that the answer to all 'why' questions is Consciousness. We must try to answer ‘Why Consciousness?’ Why does Consciousness exist in the first place? Why do I exist? --- Letting go is your gateway to Divinity. Give yourself the biggest gift of your own Self-Recognition. Enough with the conceptual denial of what is so apparent to all of you. Enough dancing with ideas. Enough with spiritual fantasy. See the glory of your own Existence. --- DUALITY I read something beautiful yesterday which said ‘Anytime you go hunting for duality, anytime you truly go hunting for duality, the results are bound to startle you.’ [Smiles] The results are bound to startle you. But when you start hunting down duality, you realize that: Time is duality. Space is duality. Cause and effect are duality. Everything is duality. This world is duality. Truth and un-truth are duality. Self and no-self is duality. Being and not-being is duality. Awareness, Consciousness, person, Presence; all is duality. Where will you stop? Everything is gone. We discover that the concept of freedom is false because the concept of bondage is false. We discover that the concept of truth is false because the concept of false is false. EGO - ME & OTHER Examining Duality Are there two of you? One is the 'I' and the other is the 'Self'? Can we locate this 'I' that is disconnected from the ‘Self’? -- How do we make things out of our perception? Are we perceiving one appearance? How do I make a thing? How do I make a separation? How do I say ‘this’ vs. ‘this’ vs. ‘this’ vs. ‘this’? What do we actually perceive? Is it actually one appearance or is it the collection of these things which get together to make this one appearance? Is it one appearance within which these things are arising? Then can we include all perception into that one appearance? -- Without any version of truth, without any should or should not, is there naturally a distinction present? Is duality originally inherent in this? Whether eyes are open or eyes are closed, without the label ‘appearance’ and ‘reality’ is there such a dichotomy? Even in the labels ‘real’ and ‘unreal’? You are not experiencing duality; we are interpreting it as dual. You are not experiencing distinction; we are judging it to be separate. You are not even experiencing time and space. It is just a judgment you are making. It is a conclusion. We are not experiencing a ‘me’ and ‘another.’ It is only a conclusion, a notion. We are not experiencing a body and a world. You are judging your experiences to be ‘body’ and ‘the world.’ You are experiencing, but you are labelling that as ‘body’ and ‘outside the body.’ But where is the space of experiencing? Have you ever experienced anything outside of you? See, but even these statements can be used to make distinctions. -- What makes you ‘you’ in your own specific way? So, if this body is not it, then what makes you ‘you’? What else is there? -- Is there (just sensationally) inherently a set of sensations which are automatically you … and another which is not-you? What makes something you or not-you? Automatically, as something is perceived, does something become you and something become not-you without interpretation? -- Without the idea that you're a limited entity, without the idea that you are ‘some-thing’ … What real disconnection is there? If this separation has never really happened, why must we pick it up? -- What separates one separation from another, except your notional boundary? -- What is your Truth right now? Is it true that you are some-thing? Is it true that ‘I am some-thing?’ What is that some-thing that you attach to 'I am'? What is the basis of that? -- Suppose that you could no longer use any phenomenal appearance to give a reference about yourself, then: Do you have a desire? Is there a doer? Or is there any duality? -- Just look at even the phenomenal world around you right now, without the filter of these ideas of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, without having a reference of an individual entity at the centre of it. What do you find? -- What is that linkage between the appearance of the world and that which we consider ourselves to be? This idea of ‘me’ and ‘mine’. What would your life be, if there was no such idea as ‘me’ and therefore such idea of ‘mine’? -- Can you distinguish between your body sensations and the sensations of this voice, and the sensations of the sound from the road, and the sensation of the breeze from the fans, unless you define a boundary for the ‘me’ which is based on thought? Can you do it? -- How come this [Ananta’s] voice which we are hearing is the voice of other? Isn't it your own? -- Where is the separation between me and you? -- How do you come into this body position? Is it purely on basis of perception itself that makes you pick up the pretence of body? -- What is the world? A set of perceptions. What is the body? A set of perceptions. What is the mind? A set of perceptions. We have made theoretical constructs out of the appearance of these sensations. And some of these sensations we have labelled ‘me’. This ‘me’ does not stand up to any test of Truth. No test of ‘Why these sensations should be me, and other should not be me?’ There is, actually, even no intellectual reasoning behind it. -- We are looking at two questions: Were you able to pick up the pretence of personhood, the pretence of ego? Or were you able to transform this Being into something which is limited, which is an object? -- Do You have a name, originally? Do You have a boundary? Like, does something define You originally; what You are, in this very moment? -- It's just one piece of paper. God's drawing board. -- Is Person Real? All our relationships, all the idea of doer-ship, of separation, of desire, who's at the centre of all of this? [Silence] And are we happy to go on presuming the existence of this entity without investigating? Are we just happy to run on this treadmill forever? Just presuming that there is a destination to it. Or are we willing to at least take out a little bit of time and see whether it is a valid proposition at all? Are we willing to presume the existence of an 'I' and deny the existence of That which is so apparent when we are empty of concepts? -- So, whatever name that we have (the parents, or we, have given you) is the name for an individual form, (the worldly play). But is it actually pointing to something, to somebody? -- Why are you ‘you’ and not me? This is Advaita, after all and if you are talking about ‘Oneness’, why are you ‘you’ and you are not me? How is it? What way is this distinction made? ‘Am I really this person?’ If there is constant belief in this ‘person identity’ then is there some real basis to that belief? -- Where is it, this person? Where is it? -- ‘Who is it? Where is the person that has this ‘lawyer’[mind] who is representing it?’ And you looked and you found nobody like that is there. But who is even making this discovery? What is the quality of that one? -- For effort to want to get somewhere, you have to take a position. A concept has to come. The idea has to come: 'I must find freedom. I must do something. I must become a better person. 'I must be…., whatever.’ But without that, what are you now? -- The person just like if you carried a belief about yourself that actually you are just a visitor here from Mars. Suppose you carried this belief about yourself. Would there be an actual Martian here? Would there be a qualitative ‘taste’ of this Martian? -- There is a ‘me’ and there is a world in which some things are ‘mine’. This body is ‘mine’ but the rest is ‘not mine’. The objects in my house are ‘mine’ but the rest are ‘not mine’. But where are all of them appearing? Where does this come from? How come when I see a certain set of objects, they seem to be ‘mine’ and when I see another set of objects, those are ‘not mine.’ Who is the ‘me’ to which they belong, or they don’t belong? You see some bodies and they are ‘my children’ and you see another set of bodies and they are ‘not my children’. How does that distinguishing come? Who is the ‘me’ at the centre of this? Is it tangible, this one? -- Is there an entity sitting here who is doing the hearing? -- What is a person but just a bundle of identities, just a bundle of beliefs? So, if you don't believe anything about yourself, if you don't believe anything about yourself, do you still exist? -- I Am without labels, without distinctions, without boundaries, without limitations. All these limitations belong to something which I have never been. -- When you see your Self then there is no ‘me’ left. -- Is There Someone In The Body ? How long will you let a group of sensations, an interpretation of a group of sensations, convince you that it is You? (The body ... the body…) Suppose we ignore the term ‘the body’, that every sensation is experienced independently. Ignore the overriding concept called ‘the body’. There is no body. If you did not have the concept of ‘world’, no concept of world, no concept of body; every sensation experienced independently. This is your experience, actually. This voice is being experienced, this visual is being experienced, but is there a ‘me’ who is doing it and a ‘you’ that is experiencing it? -- You have looked inside the body, you have looked outside the body, have you found somebody? -- What are you without this notion of separation, if you are not able to draw your boundary anywhere? Is it so far-fetched of an idea still? Or are you starting to get a taste of it now? -- Right Now, there is an experience of some sensations and if you don’t label them ‘my body’ but just notice that there are some sensations in the same way that there is the sound of this voice, which is another set of sensations. What is it that makes that more ‘me’ and this ‘less me’? What tells us that? Is it the experience which is telling us that? -- This ‘Everything is appearing within Me’, it can be very much a struggle because they can feel like ‘But I am here, and you are there’ or ‘I am here and the world is there’. But suppose you did not have this boundary of ‘This is where I am’? Suppose this boundary was just made up? Suppose till it becomes your Seeing (or as we are contemplating this verse) just See: what if these sensations that we call the body was not really a boundary to anyone? When does the world appear to you? When we wake up, what wakes up? What is it that wakes up? -- It's the centrality of the perspective which seems to be from inside this head, from behind these eyes, that it seems it convinces us. But we've had so many dreams also where it seems there is a body there and I'm watching from inside the body. But where were you actually? Were you an object contained behind the eyes in the dream? Although the centrality of the perspective was the same, it was seeming like you were looking from within those eyes, from behind those eyes. Were you actually there? This is very, very common because we feel that ‘I must be an object inside this head’ or something behind these eyes because my vision seems to confirm that. What object is there behind the eyes? Do you feel like you are an object behind the eyes or a non-object? -- Why we call that sensation ‘mine’ and this sensation outside me (like this voice or another’s voice) ‘another’? How do you hear your voice? It’s also in the same space. But one is ‘my’ voice, and another is ‘not mine’.

It appears to be another, without interpretation as another? That is why I said, ‘Look around without interpretation or judgment.’ You are seeing all these qualitative appearances but does the sense of ‘me’ and ‘another’ come without a notion? This hand is appearing, that hand is appearing, and that hand is appearing; without any notion, does it become my hand and another hand? No; just appearances in the same space of perception, in the same space of Existence. Then what can happen? The second thing is that we seem to have this visual perspective, the centrality of the visual perspective, which seems to be centred around this body and seems to be looking outwards from here. And that’s why so many of us (although we know that this is not true) we still feel like ‘I must be one object which is sitting inside this head’. That is why I ask this question:’ Is the back of your head in front of you, or behind you? Where is it in relation to you?’ It is a good contemplation, although it can seem a bit strange, because it looks at this belief, we have that ‘I am something contained within this container, this body container’. But then, when we observe the sensations which we call ‘the back of my head’ and try to find our relationship with that, we find that it is just another sensation occurring in the same space. -- This body has more cells than the stars in the Milky Way, supposedly. [Smiles] But we don’t even know what keeps it together. How do you call it ‘me’? It’s a universe; at least a galaxy. -- Is the witness to be found inside what? The body? The body is made up of food, so you will only find paratha (a kind of bread) falafel, this kind of thing inside the body. All this stuff is made up of what? Just the food that we have taken. How will we find the witness inside? So, we don’t even look for, when we say, ‘inside’ what is it actually? ‘I go inside’, and many of us are believing we go inside the body. That would be endoscopy, but this is not what it is. So, are you going inside the body? Where are you watching from, where is the witness, the Saakshi? Where is it watching from? Simple, like this. Are you an object sitting inside a bigger object looking at this world, is that what you are? [Silence] Because an object can only contain another object. I don’t see how this object [points to the body] can contain the witness or the witnessing. So where are you now? There are a set of perceptions you say, which are very compelling, a set of perception very compelling you say, sensations, perception, all of this [looks at his hands] and it forces me to be just this. But does it really? [Silence] It is witnessed. What perception can come that forces the Witness? --

Now, if you had a dream last night in which you saw a hundred other bodies and they were all moving around, having conversations; and then when you wake up, where was all of that? Why is the mind willing to admit that ‘Okay, all of that was the projection of my Consciousness’ but this can’t be? Is there something special about this dream that we cannot have this exact conversation in your dream tonight? We can have. And then where would I be? So, why do we default, if our experience for various experiences shows us that it is possible for our Consciousness to project Itself in this way then why do we default to separation? Why don’t we default to unity, oneness; and let our mind prove that all of this is actually separate? -- Ego Construct You cannot be shaken unless you give yourself a shape, and your shape is only in the mind. The power of belief is the power of Consciousness to take on a presumed shape. That’s called identification. Don’t make any shape. What is your shape without going to the mind? What shape are you now? Without buying into the mind’s interpretations, what is your shape? Actually, every shape is effort. Your mind may be saying to you ‘that it is too much effort to remain shapeless’, it may seem that way temporarily, provisionally. -- Who doesn’t say ‘I am’? All of us do. But usually, we say ‘I am happy, I am bored, I am dissatisfied, and I am excited.’ But before we add something to this (or ‘I am Ananta, I am Grija, I am this body. I am thinking that I want to go to New York.’), what is the basis? What is at the centre of all of these? -- What is a belief? -- What is this unique power of belief which makes the pretence come on as if there is a separate entity here? -- What is that primal drive to pick up a belief about ourselves, to make a position about yourself? Prior to the concept about yourself, what is it that You are? -- “Was there an age or time men existed without opposites?” What does this mean? The person entity, the person identity, is dependent on this play of opposites. Without it, can there be this identity? -- This ego is just a bundle of self-righteousness in some way, isn’t it? This need to be right. And that is the biggest resistance in Satsang also, that ‘There must be some value to some concept that I hold. Something at least must have been right in what I have believed about myself’. -- Some of you have been having some very good Satsang with this contemplation, with this question: ‘What righteousness am I not willing to give up?’ How can you be right and surrendered at the same time? -- So how to deal with this non-existent problem that ‘This what the ego wants to do’? And when I am saying it's a non-existent problem, I am not putting you down. I am just saying that your claim that ‘this how it is’ is based on which basis? What is the basis for this claim? Is it just purely thought? Is it just purely conceptual? Because you cannot even have a perception of this ego. -- The play of appearance is coming, no trouble, [Makes hand gesture of one hand still and other hand rotating] including the mind. No trouble. It’s an aspect of Consciousness Itself. But Consciousness Itself has given Itself the power to ‘believe’ these energy constructs called thoughts (or mind). In the object itself, there is nothing to believe or not believe. You see what I am saying? How many of you have heard this? Like when you look at an object per se [Picks up a bowl] I say, ‘Don’t believe’. Does it make sense? [Chuckles] First you have to pick up the notion of its existence, like ‘Does it exist or not?’ and then it might sound like I am asking you to disbelieve the notion of its existence. But the object itself, there is nothing to believe or not-believe. It is only a concept which you can either believe or not-believe. How many are seeing what I am saying? [Looks around the room] No? [Chuckles] So, it is only for one set of these appearances called mind (which Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi said is ‘a bundle of thoughts’), for this mind (this definition of mind which is that it is ‘a bundle of thoughts’) the power of belief is applicable. So, this belief leads to what? Does it ever lead you to becoming more than what you already are? -- You don’t have to replace one belief with another belief. Replace all your beliefs with Your intuitive insights about YourSelf. No pointers are actually needed except those which help you demolish whatever you might be believing about yourself. -- AHachment-NoEon of Mine So, who is this one that has strong attachments? Then we might find that is it God that is playing this way That is a bit of a switch; that is God that is playing this way. What is strong for God? Which attachment is too strong for God? -- How does this come about? In our notion-less-ness, is there sense of ownership? -- There is a ‘me’ and there is a world in which some things are ‘mine’. This body is ‘mine’ but the rest is ‘not mine’. The objects in my house are ‘mine’ but the rest are ‘not mine’. But where are all of them appearing? Where does this come from? How come when I see a certain set of objects, they seem to be ‘mine’ and when I see another set of objects, those are ‘not mine.’ Who is the ‘me’ to which they belong, or they don’t belong? You see some bodies and they are ‘my children’ and you see another set of bodies and they are ‘not my children’. How does that distinguishing come? Who is the ‘me’ at the centre of this? -- How can that Awareness be attached? -- What is the nature of this world? Even if you weren’t spiritual, I feel like by the time everyone is a bit older they come to this understanding that attachments lead to trouble. Because they see that everything in this world is changing. Now, if I just try to hold onto something that is going to go, is that going to bring peace or trouble? -- Desire and Desirer But as you taste your Existence, do you feel like it is incomplete? Do you feel that it is lacking? And when I say, ‘Do you feel?’ I don’t mean ‘What are your feelings about it’ and I don’t mean ‘What are your thoughts about it?’ [I mean]: What is your insight about it? How do you taste your Existence? How do you experience your Existence? Is there naturally something lacking in it? Is there naturally something missing in it? -- What is all that we desire? Why do you desire relationship? Why do you desire money?’ -- Can it be this simple, that all that we are looking for (contentment, freedom from desire) really does not apply to the Reality of You? It only applied to the notion of yourself. -- Can you want something without first picking up the idea that ‘I am something limited’? -- Without separation, can there be desire? Already, everything is You. What could you desire? -- When it becomes the sense that ‘I must have this’ , who is the ‘I’ in that? When we buy the idea that ‘I must have something’ that ‘This offering is meaningful for me’ or ‘This desire I must fulfil’ , who is the ‘I’ in that? Is the ‘I’ what your insight is? -- And if You are the Source of all of this, what desire can you have? What sense of lack can you still believe about YourSelf? -- All of these things (all the contemplations, all the meditation, all the inquiry) is to come to this discovery: ‘What is it that I am? I am complete beyond the concept of complete. What desire can I truly have?’ -- I’m saying: You Are That. And the mind is saying ‘I want that.’ Is it a worthy notion? What are you willing to exchange my words for? -- We looked at desire. But the opposite of this desire, which is aversion, is also a form of attachment, in which we say, ‘I don’t want this to be mine, come what may!’ It could be pain, it could be relationship, it could be anything. So, what is it that we attach our identity to, we attach ourselves to, in a specific way? -- Confusion is deeply linked to misidentification. In fact, the basis of all confusion is only who we are, who we think we are. And it is deeply linked to what we want. -- Doing and Doer Is there such a ‘you’ which could have anything at all, including free will? -- For the One for whom all things are happening within It, what could It possibly do? --

Who is the ‘you’ who has to do? -- But once it's Seen that all is a movement of Consciousness, all is the movement in the ocean of Consciousness, all waves in one Being, then who is to hold this grievance against whom? If there are no-two, if there is only One, only God is, then who is doing what to whom? -- Someone said that there is a mild sense of a doer which comes, but are you that sense? Or are you perceiving even that? Nothing which comes stays, everything that comes, goes. So then, if you are that which comes, then you will also have to go. Who saw this coming? And who will see this going? -- If I have a desire, that there is somewhere to get to, something to get, then what to do? The ‘do’ comes. The ‘D’ of doership comes. So, the sage Ashtavakra is saying ‘When will this end? Things to do and things not to do’. And ‘For whom?’ is an important question. ‘Who is here which is doing and not-doing?’ -- From doership we don’t move to non-doership; we move to stillness. What does stillness mean? -- How to be empty of all positions? SEE what You Are. What are You in this very moment? If the choice comes, which one are you? Option A: Doer Option B: Non-doer Option C: Not applicable -- What can make a doer or a sufferer out of You? -- When I say what make this [Gesture of waving hand in air] a doing Vs the waves in the ocean are flowing. So, what is it that does that? Is it possible to consider this to be a ‘doing’? Whether we say this Ananta is doing or whether consciousness is doing. But is it possible to consider it a ‘doing’ without an idea, without a notion? Is the doing-ness inherent in our experience? -- See this for YourSelf. How are these words coming? Is there an Ananta sitting here doing them? -- All three combinations are possible. Thought can come, no action might happen. Thought can come and that action might happen. Those times will lead us to this cause and effect, casualty, sort of relationship. And no thought might come and yet action might happen. So, in our life we see that all three things happen. But the mind latches on to this cause and effect, because without the story there is nothing to hang onto. That is why the great Sage Vasistha said ‘The bird flies. It lands on the branch of the coconut tree. The coconut falls. There is nothing to it.’ But the mind will say what? ‘Because the bird flew and landed on the branch therefore, the coconut must have fallen.’ But does anybody really know that? We cannot say. Okay, let’s also presume that the first one is true, that there is a relation between thoughts and action. What is that relation? Who is the cognisor of thoughts and therefore, the decider of action? What is the difference between a thought and an action? Both are just perceptions, sensations. Where are they coming from? May I ask you something else? Do you know how to move a finger? You might say ‘Yes, I do. Here you go.’ [Moving his finger in the air] ‘But no; how do you do it? How do you fire a neuron? Do you know how the action happens?’ -- I’m saying that ‘doing’ and ‘not-doing’ are not applicable to Your Truth. Now, this the mind cannot fathom. It will try to make a concept around it, it will try something, but it really cannot fathom the neutrality. It can either fathom ‘doing, doing’ or ‘not-doing, not- doing’. If I say ‘both’ and ‘neither’, what is left? -- What makes the flowers so beautiful and unique? What is making the millions of processes in your body function right now? What is making this body able to sit on the couch with a certain gravitational [force]? What is making the electron move? All around us we are surrounded by these miracles. But we think, ‘No I have to, the non-existent one has to think something and then something will happen.’ Don't know how to move a finger, the mind doesn't know how to move a finger. Do you know how to move a finger, I don't know at least. You might have some crazy ideas about ‘Oh neurons have to fire then the nerves get activated on the finger move.’ But who knows how to fire a neuron? I don’t know. [Laughs] This is just such a fallacy that if it's not our own ego involved in this fallacy, we will treat it as a ridiculous. Nobody knows how to move a finger, but we think we are controlling in this life. It is just silliness. -- If the doer you are not, then also the experiencer you cannot be. -- Advaita [non-duality] is your natural position Dvaita [duality] is your play time. -- BODY-WORLD Impermanence of the Body Most likely our body will end up in the hospital one day and then after that this body will in a pyre or under the ground. But while this play is on, while this body has the animating force animating it, can we play the game in this way? Can we find that which is undying? That which will not burn in that fire? Like in Shivoham: Na Shastra kate na agni jalay – which no weapon can cut, and fire cannot burn. Can we find that? -- One baby was born; then there was a teenager then there was a grown-up. Now this is here, this one that is sitting in Satsang. What has remained the constant? That body that was born is gone; not a single cell in this body is in that body that was born forty- three years ago. No? -- You also experience many bodies, in that which you call dream; you have experienced YourSelf with no body and no phenomenon in that which you call sleep. -- Many, many bodies; many, many worlds; many, many realms of experience; many states we have experienced. But not contained in any of these experiences, any of these states, is the unchanging, the timeless One. -- How you know it’s the same body? So, let’s say… let’s think back and say, let’s think about yesterday, to see if there’s continuity. We think about yesterday, some image comes, ‘Ahh it seems familiar’. But can we really confirm it was yesterday? Can we confirm anything from five minutes ago? One minute ago? Then how do we know it is the same body? Like often I say that the dream starts, and if the dream starts and, in the dream, somebody comes to you and says, ‘Where were you born?’, you’re not going to say, ‘Oh, sorry, my dream just started, give me a few minutes to put all this together’. You can say ‘I was born in Mumbai’ or whatever. Isn’t it? -- Body Appears in Boundless Being Just this simple checking: What exists? What does it mean to exist? Who is it that exists? the boundary of your body, can it really limit you? Or is the sense of the boundary also an experience within the unlimited space of experiencing? -- Just look for yourself: Do I have a boundary? Can I find where the sensations of the boundaries are appearing? In that space of existence is there any boundary? Is there any limitation? -- What is the body? What is the world? Where is the world? What is the Being? -- What does the term ‘body’ contain, from your experience? Only these sensations which you are experiencing now; whether they are visual sensations or they are perceived in a different way sensationally. Is there something called body really? It’s nothing. It is just labels for perceptions, labels for appearances. What is beyond these appearances, beyond these labels? -- Are you aware of the body, or is the body aware of you? In your experience… -- How are you so sure that you are this body? -- How is it that this no-thing comes to take itself to be this meat bucket; this bundle of flesh and blood and bones? How is it that you consider yourself to be limited in any way? Let’s really investigate. -- What is important is: ‘What is my position with respect to my body, with respect to the world? Am I something that exists within this world or is this world something that exists within Me? What defines my limitations? Are they true?’ Just check: What is it that I am? What is your position? What is your reference point? All the limitations which you feel like you have, like the limitation of this body, is that limitation within you? Or are you within that limitation? Like we were saying earlier about sensations in the body; we just have to see whether they are within us, in the same space of experiencing as the sound of this fan, as the noise from this road, or I am inside that? -- Show me your boundary. Where do you stop? Where is your boundary? Seriously. Is your boundary inside the body? Is the body your boundary? Is your boundary outside the body? Is it outside this room? Where do you start and where do you end? -- So, then, what do we do in Satsang? We say ‘You consider your boundaries to be the boundaries of this cloud. But notice that this entire boundary of the cloud is contained within You.’ When I ask you to check the boundaries of your body and where they are contained, this is the discovery that is happening to you, that ‘I have considered this to be my boundary but actually, all of this is contained within myself.’ If you were not the container, but were the contained, how would you find the boundaries within yourself? If you were not the container, but were the contained, could you discover that the boundaries were within yourself? -- We can't even say where we are, because if you say 'I am just in my body ' but the body is an object and an object can only contain other objects, can an object contain a non-object? The body is an object. How can it contain a Being? Can you put a Being in a glass; like the body is like glass? 'My Atma is in my body.' You see? How? [Chuckling] These are just concepts. We don't know where we are. We don't even know what is inside. We say ‘I go inside. I see this; I go outside I see this.’ What is this ‘inside’? We don't know. Where is it? Is it the back of this bone, this forehead? Is ‘inside’ like a blank screen where I can project things like imagination and memory? What is it? -- I was asking: What is it that is inside the body, but it is not outside the body? Who is that one? I’m questioning the very basis on which we make this divide of ‘me and the world’ and ‘me and other’ and ‘me and mine’. What is in your hand which is not in the space outside your hand? [Smiles] Who is that one sitting there? Is there someone sitting there? -- There is no distinction between the coaster and me, between you and me. Where is the line, dividing line? Where do you start, and I stop? Where do I stop, and you start? -- Where are you right now? Are you sitting inside this head? As what are you sitting inside the head? Where are you? Are you an object? This body is an object, and it can hold other objects. So, to be inside this object, you must be an object. What can hold a non-object in this world? -- Now, what object can hold a non-object? Where in the world must you be if you are not an object? Where are you watching this movie from? -- Is the witness to be found inside what? The body? The body is made up of food, so you will only find paratha (a kind of bread) falafel, this kind of thing inside the body. All this stuff is made up of what? Just the food that we have taken. How will we find the witness inside? So, we don’t even look for, when we say, ‘inside’ what is it actually? ‘I go inside’, and many of us are believing we go inside the body. That would be endoscopy, but this is not what it is. So, are you going inside the body? Where are you watching from, where is the witness, the Saakshi? Where is it watching from? -- Body Is a Group of SensaEons How long will you let a group of sensations, an interpretation of a group of sensations, convince you that it is You? (The body ... the body…) -- I am just asking sincerely can we really say, ‘a sensation is in the body’. We have some perception that we call the body, in those sensations that we also call the ‘body’, but do we really know that it is in this [points to the body], flesh-bucket? Can we really say where it is coming from? -- We actually don’t know what this ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ is. Why I’m advising you not to make any correlations like that is because in that correlation, you are also making dividing line about you. You are saying that ‘This is inside me and that is outside me.’ So, either treat everything as inside or nothing as inside, but don’t make a line that divides ‘you’ and the ‘other’ or ‘you’ and the ‘world’ , you which is inside, and the you which is outside. Because it is this division which can lead to a lot of confusion as well. Like the body boundary, what does it actually divide? Who is there inside the body that is not there outside the body? -- There are a certain set of sensations being experienced but do we really know what they are?, what they are, before you had a term for them? -- ‘How can you really say that this is a sensation that you are experiencing?’ Like this: [Holds one finger with the other hand] How do you know that the sensation that you are experiencing is actually this, like a material sensation? It could just be in the design of programming. Just like in a 3-D movie, the airplane is crashing; dusushh, dusushh. You see it start shaking and you feel like ‘I am experiencing the shaky-ness of the airplane.’ It’s just the design of this program. At least, if nothing else, you cannot conclude that it is so, that I am experiencing the sensation of my hand. You might not be able to conclude that ‘Okay, it is not my hand or it’s illusion or a dream’ , you might not even need to make these conclusions but at least you cannot assertively say that ‘I know that this is definitely my hand.’ --

We aren’t trying to get to the best version. But you will try to change it around like this. ‘This body has a headache.’ Then are you certain about that? Maybe it is a phantom limb type thing or about a love type thing? Is it a dream body? It is a waking state body? So, as you keep playing with the versions of whatever you could use to represent what perception is happening, you will find that no version actually works. So, I’m not saying to become strange in day-to-day life; that you don’t tell people that ‘I have a headache, give me a crocin.’ I’m not talking about that. But I’m just saying that even this version, which is a notion (if you were open at that time; not when you have a headache) you can check and see: ‘What is it? Can I find the one who has the headache? Do I really know what a head is or what a headache is?’ I know, it may be too much for some. So, it’s fine. What is headache? You looked at various sensations and we said, ‘Presumably it comes from here, presumably it is there.’ But when we start really looking at these sensations, these perceptions, can you really locate where they are? You might be trained to say that ‘Okay, this is a hand sensation.’ Where is it being experienced? You check like this, and you will find that location-less-ness is more prevalent that you realize. These concepts of space are fitted on top of just natural experience. This concept of spatial existence is an overlay on top of just ‘What Is’. Like we were saying ‘up and down, left and right’ and the mind will say ‘Of course, up is up.’ Okay, but up for who? I don’t know why I have to insist so much on this ‘up and down’ thing [Chuckles] but I felt like something opened here when I saw that even this is just notional. -- Are You Perceiving the World Through Body? Is there something called the world? -- How long will you let a group of sensations, an interpretation of a group of sensations, convince you that it is You? (The body ... the body…) Suppose we ignore the term ‘the body’, that every sensation is experienced independently. Ignore the overriding concept called ‘the body’. There is no body. If you did not have the concept of ‘world’, no concept of world, no concept of body; every sensation experienced independently. This is your experience, actually. -- You are finding that all appearances (the appearance of this body which seems so intimate to you, the appearance of all these other bodies, the appearances of all these places and spaces) all these are just movements of light and sound, designed in such a way to make it feel like something can contain You. But actually, all is just contained on Your own screen, on Your own Being, in Your own light. --

[Reading from chat]: “This body is in my direct Awareness. I sense the world through this body, even though it is not me. Would this be correct to say?” In a way, it is fine to say this …, in the sense that when we have a dream, even a daydream right now, then we can conceptualize a world where there is a body and the visuals are coming through that body’s eyes, through that body’s ears. But that whole world (which seems as endless as this world) as the dream, where does that appear? On which screen is the dream world? And although in the dream-story there can be a body which seems like the central character, and when the dream is on, it might feel like we’re perceiving that dream through the senses of that body …, but where is it actually? That is why so many have these out-of-body experiences, all kinds of experiences, even in this so-called waking state where it seems like even this body is being perceived from a distance. --

Now, if you had a dream last night in which you saw a hundred other bodies and they were all moving around, having conversations; and then when you wake up, where was all of that? Why is the mind willing to admit that ‘Okay, all of that was the projection of my Consciousness’ but this can’t be? Is there something special about this dream that we cannot have this exact conversation in your dream tonight? We can have. And then where would I be? -- Just because the design of a dream is such that one body sensation seems more intimate than another body sensation doesn’t prove that you are only that in your dream. In the dream also, there is a body which experiences pain and pleasure and there are seemingly-other bodies whose sensations you don’t seem to experience. Where is that happening? -- So then, when the sensations of the body seem to come up and the mind says ‘this is me’ ask yourself: Who witnesses both this sensation and the testimony from the mind, saying it is me? Find out who witnesses this. -- How Are You Connected to the Body? How are you so sure that you are the owner of just this body? --

How are you connected to your body? Okay, let’s deconstruct this. Which is the connection point between you and the body?

It’s just a thought, therefore not real. What is your real connection point with the body? -- How do you do this magic? How do You, the Supreme Lord of the world, of the Universe, Consider your Self to be a measly object of flesh and blood? -- ME-MIND A Bunch of Thoughts What is mind? Another set of sensations. A set of sensations which are energy constructs that we call thoughts, including imagination and memories. But do they have any real existence? Is there something called ‘the mind’ really? --- What is thought? Where is the origin or end of thought? A beautiful exercise, isn’t it? Where does a thought come from? --- We did this exercise where we said, ‘So how do your thoughts appear to you ?’ For some they appear visually , for some it's like they’re hearing audio , for others it is coming like neon flashes. So, the perception of thoughts and how we are perceiving is also Consciousness playing in a very unique way. Some, when we did this exercise said, ‘What? For me it's neither audio nor visual. What do you mean?’ But, it is good to look and check. How many of you hear it as a voice? Visual? Audio-visual? [Laughs]. Yeah, it's just energy, it's just energy actually. But how is it perceived? --- What is this ‘inside’? What is this space or perception in which imagination, memories, thoughts, and sensations of the body are perceived? Is it a different space compared to where all this other visual stimuli is available? Where is all this appearing? Is it in a different space? --- Simpler than just being is your Being. Simpler than just being is your Being. Anything more complex than that is the mind. Everything more complex than that is the mind. --- Nature of Mind-Selling LimitaEons This tool called the mind is very happy to investigate objective things. When you say, ‘Find out who you are’, the response can be, ‘What kind of question is that?’ And that is the design of this instrument called mind. It is doing its job very well. It is not failing in its function at all. It is designed to convince Consciousness itself that it is a limited entity. Who gives power to the mind? Is there ever mind without You? --- Have you noticed the mind loves the question ‘Why?’ but the mind hates the question ‘Who?’ --- What is on this conveyor belt of the mind? Inferences, judgments, and projections. What is the basis for belief in them? Look at the thoughts you believe about yourself. And if you were an unlimited Being, would any of them make sense? --- If you know that you are already in the best place you can ever be, where would you want to go? Nowhere. So, the mind is only telling you that there is a better place to offer you. It is only selling you the story of resistance to what Is. ‘What Is’ is not enough for the mind; that’s what it says. If God is not enough, then what is? --- What is it that you actually want? Have you ever tried asking your mind this question? ‘What? What do you want?’ --- God is Here. Whatever is your favorite way to address the Supreme Power, either it is God, it is Self, it is Satguru,or it is Silence. Invoke that in your Heart and see if it is present or not. Guruji is Guruji because Guruji is here now. God is God because God is here now. I've been saying that the mind only has one trick. Mind has only one trick which is to convince you that this Holy Presence is something personal, something limited. But it is not true. This Being is the One Immortal Being which is beyond time and space. This Being, your Being has seen the birth of time, has seen the birth of the Universe and will see the dissolution of that and the dissolution of this Universe. This is your Being. But you are beyond even that. You are That which is aware of the movement of this, [waves arm] your own aspect. Like the movement of this arm, this is the dynamic aspect; the phenomenal. The sense of I Am arises and the play of all of this starts. But you are That in which this [ raises arm ] appears and dissolves. This primal witnessing, this Pure Knowingness... is just Here. --- You Are Not Your Mind What has to happen, happens; and this voice comes and says, ‘It’s very good, you did this. It’s very good. We decided to do this, very good.’ Or it will say, ‘No, no. You shouldn’t have done that.’ You see? If we ask one of the two questions: ‘But who are you, who is saying this to me?’ or ‘Who is it that you’re speaking to?’, either of these questions is enough. But mostly, we just go about in this blurry zone where it is presumed that the mind is my voice, and who is it talking to? It seems to be talking to a ‘me’ with no investigation if it is truly my voice. What it is saying, I must already know. Why do I need a voice to talk to myself? Why do you need a voice to talk to yourself? --- LimitaEons of Mind The mind can only operate in these opposites: Knowing something and not-knowing. And both can become positions; doer or not-doer, desirer or not-desirer, sufferer or not-sufferer. What we are talking about is That which is at the background of both of these positions. You see? --- Can you think of 'nothing'? --- If you ask the mind ‘How do you move a finger?’ It will say, ‘I just decided to move it.’ Then you say, ‘Oh good. How do you do it?’ After the thought comes 'Move the finger'... What do you do next?’ --- Where is it that your mind cannot go? --- Is there a thing called a ‘true thought'? --- Just because something pops up in my head, or it occurs to me, does not automatically make it true. How many of us are open enough at least for that much? --- The mind says, ‘The coconut is green.’ Is it a lie or the truth? Is it perception, or representative of perception? Can a thought truly represent perception in the first place? No, just very broad strokes. Like, green is very broad. He is wearing a green shirt but some of you can’t see his shirt. Maybe you are visualizing a completely different green. Those of you online can’t see his shirt. So, if I say ‘green’ it could mean very different things to each of you. The second aspect of this is - Can a thought really represent even perception? I want to propose to you that you have never experienced the same thing twice. The Greeks have said, ‘You can never walk into the same river twice, never step into the same river twice.’ In the same way, you never experience the same perception. Whether that is emotion, whether that is a pain, whether that is a pleasure, or whether that is the world; you can never experience it twice. But in our thought constructs, they are limited, and vocabulary is limited. So you keep putting it back in that construct. So then is it a true thing or a lie? Is it really green, what do we mean by green? So that is the second aspect. But fundamentally the most troublesome aspect which is the third aspect is - What it makes you out to be. --- What does the mind know about what the Sage is saying? Ashtavakra said, ‘Having had enough of the endless workings of the mind, the wise one comes to rest. He neither thinks, nor knows, nor hears, nor sees.’ Have we had enough of the endless workings of the mind? Or are we still feeling like, 'There is the ‘eternal secret’ that the mind is hiding from me. But one day it will tell me. One day it will figure out how to run this life. One day it will tell me the truth about who I am.' Are you done with this expectation? --- You Don’t Need the Mind Consciousness does not need the aid of thoughts. [Chuckles] And God is saying, ‘I don’t know the next thing I should have. Do you have some thoughts on it?’ [Chuckles] We do. But does it go according to those thoughts? Then what is the point of this plan? --- Listening to the mind, what have you got? Fear about death? Fear of the next moment? Fear of the future? The idea that you have a start and an end? The idea that you were born, and you will die? How long do you want to play with these concepts? --- Yes, the mind isn’t designed to trust, so the mind will always give you messages like ‘What will happen without your control?’ or ‘You better take charge of your life’ and all of these things. But it has given all these messages for so many years, 30, 40, 50, 60 years at least that you remember; actually, millions of years. Has it been able to sort your life? With its seeming control, is life so good? --- I’m saying: You Are That. And the mind is saying, ‘I want that.’ Is it a worthy notion? What are you willing to exchange my words for? What is the greatest offer that you can get from the mind? Your Existence is all there Is. So, what do you need a notion for? --- Somebody wakes up one day in Bangalore and suddenly the mind starts speaking Arabic or Russian or something. We went ‘Huh?’ [Chuckles] Would you not exist now? [Silence] Of course, your outward appearance might seem very strange to others who come across you. But it’s not about the outward appearance, is it? What has fundamentally changed for your Reality if suddenly something changed the switch in your mind and it became a different language? --- How is life without the subtitles? And I'm not saying that the subtitles should not appear anymore or that you must avoid looking at them. They can come and go. I jokingly say sometimes that 'What if your mind started to speak in a language which you did not understand? Would you stop existing? Even when the mind said, 'Oh, I don’t know what's going on anyway’ even in that you would not understand because it would be in a different language. [Chuckles] What would be your position then? You could not even make the statement 'I am lost'. Trust the movie for what it is. Allow the movie to be what it is. The movie is not in a foreign language. You don't need an interpreter. It is actually the subtitles which are foreign to you. --- See, many times the thoughts come like this: ‘Without me, what are you going to do in the future? What’s going to happen to you? You’re just going to make a mess of your life.’ Don’t follow this pointing, this kind of fear. As if it’s done such a bang up, smashing job at running your life so far. --- Dealing With the Mind What concept from the mind would be inviting to you, unless you consider yourself to be ‘something’? --- What is that primal drive to pick up a belief about ourselves, to make a position about yourself? Prior to the concept about yourself, what is it that you are? --- Who is perceiving this mind? --- Now, when the mind is offering or doubting, is it offering or doubting for God? Or is it offering and doubting for a limited version of you? --- You say that the mind could create a tsunami, but what power does it have over the Self? --- If I ask you ‘Can you predict what your next thought is going to be?’ some have said ‘Yes’. When I ask this question ‘Can you create your next thought or can you predict what your next thought will be?’, we have been conditioned to believe that the answer is ‘Yes’. But what do you do? You wait for the thought to come and then you report on it. Isn’t it? --- Don’t believe your next thought... Don’t try to control the mind. Don’t try to change the quality of the mind also. Let the mind come and go. If you are the space in this room, are you concerned about the kind of visitors you are getting? --- Many are trying to get to the ‘no-mind’. What is no-mind? Because a bundle of thoughts is ‘mind’. When there is no thought, what is here? Now, with mind or no-mind, whether there is an object on the screen or no object on the screen, what happened to that which witnesses it? --- So, we are completely inclusive to the appearance of the mind, it is coming and it's fine; it's an aspect of Consciousness which is arising. But does this mean that we will take its word for it, even when it is contrary to our insight about what we are? --- What to do with the thought that says, ‘Thought itself must change’? --- Many feel like ‘Oh, the mind is my true voice.’ Have you ever made a phone call to yourself? Dialed your number and called yourself? Why do you need a voice to speak to yourself? So, in response to the mind’s doubts, ask ‘Who are you speaking to?’ or ‘Who is it who is speaking?’ Either question will do. --- Open & Empty

Yes, yes. Just as much as you can remain open and empty. Open and empty means you are allowing everything to move. Empty means not concluding or making assertions or mental conclusions about anything. And don't do open and empty as a ‘doing’. Don't do it as somebody that is not open enough or empty enough. Many, you see, when I say remain open and empty are ‘doing’ open and empty as a body. So, they are getting the body to be open and empty or doing a yogic posture or something like, ‘Anything can happen in the world, but I'm open and empty.’ But that is too identified! Be open and empty about this body also, what is moving from here [points to the body]; not moving from here. I'm not speaking to you as a body. So, being open and empty is not like this [Opens arms], it can be. The body can play out like that, but it is just in your inner space, in your inner attitude. You are not grasping, you are not clinging to anything. You are including the body in the world, so you are open to everything being played out. It means allowing everything in this world, including this body, as it is already playing out. [Reads from the chat again, ‘Please clarify what to practise in order to avoid mind habits.’] Just this and then I don't know if it was in the broadcast where I was sharing one of my favourite metaphors in the Satsang. I have used this metaphor of a Sushi restaurant. So, there is a restaurant called Yoh Sushi restaurant with a conveyor belt. The sushi comes to you on this conveyor belt. So in the same way the mind is like a conveyor belt. These thoughts come to you on this conveyor belt of the mind. You have just one job, to just let them all come and go. Not picking up any sushi, not picking up starters, not the mains, not the deserts, and if you do pick up then don't pick up the next one. It’s as simple as that. Don’t pick up the ‘desert of guilt’ or ‘not doing it right’ or ‘progress’ even. Nothing, nothing at all. Just one plate will only come to you at the time. It may seem to come very fast, just remain open and empty. Remain in the Unborn. So when Master Bankei was talking about ‘Remain in the Unborn’ he was talking about the same thing as open and empty. Which means don't give birth to a shape. The mind is just shape-making, you don't buy into any shape. Don't give birth to any shape you see, that is the Unborn; as simple as that. So to remain open and empty is to remain in the Unborn. Whether you call it Notionless Existence or remaining in Pure Presence, it doesn't really matter. It is very very simple, very natural and it is very effortless. But initially it may seem like you have to make some effort to let go. What is effortless, to pick up the sushi or to not pick it up? It depends on how addicted you are to it, it depends how much interest there is. So initially if there is a seeming addiction or habit to pick it up then it seems a bit tough to not pick it up. But actually it is effortless. And the mind will feed you this idea, ‘It’s so natural [to pick up the mind], my limitation is so natural.’ But it’s really not. That’s why this works. [Snaps fingers] Before the sound of the click you are free. [Chuckling] [Snaps fingers] You are free right now. There is nothing you can do about it. Fight it as you may. --- NOTIONLESS BEING Can you believe that all spirituality, with its huge libraries, ultimately boils down to this: Can we be open in this moment or not? --- EXPLORING CONCEPTS Concepts Cannot Capture Phenomena If you wrote an entire book, you would still not be able to describe this room. --- Concepts Cannot Capture Reality Does any term represent ‘What Is’? Make no distinctions; no distinctions. ‘Distinction’ means concept. ‘Concept 'means conceptualizing mind. ‘Conceptualizing mind 'means a false representation. That is what we started with: Can any concept truly represent what Is? What distinction do you have to make? --- If you wrote an entire book, you would still not be able to describe this room. So, if words are not even enough to describe your phenomenal existence, what words will describe the non- phenomenal; the unmanifest? --- It will take millions of sentences to truly decipher even the phenomenal appearance; sounds, tastes, sensations, appearances, colors, shapes and sizes. All of this. But we live by these; these photocopy versions of life, ‘This one is like this, this one is like that.’ These kinds of things; we live by these. But we don’t really know any of that. These photocopy versions are oppressive, in a way. Because it is not just that we are making a judgment about what is appearing. More importantly, we are making a judgment about what we are, which is also a limited object. So, even if your phenomenal existence cannot be deciphered in concepts, then how will you represent your wholeness, which is the unmanifest and the manifest? That which is aware of all of this, what concepts can contain It actually? --- Just like you can’t measure the weight of the song you heard last evening, in the same way the mind cannot capture your Reality. The intellect cannot fathom the Truth of this, the Truth of ‘What Is’. --- Whatever version of Truth you believe is the ultimate or that ‘I have found it’, that can be kept aside. Because the Truth is actually way, way simpler than that and our mind cannot grasp it. Just as this hand cannot grasp the space. [Silence] These negations cannot grasp it; yet, at some point, they are useful: ‘It is not this, it is not this, it is not this, it is not this.’ But we cannot make idols out of these negations also. --- Concepts Are Circular Is there a concept which is completely independent of every other concept? Sometimes I say: ‘When you say one term, you say the whole dictionary actually.’ In the sense that: Tell me something which is independent? Some notion which is independent of any other notion? --- Every idea is dependent on every other idea and in a way then contains every idea. You can explore this. Because even a simple idea like, ‘A man is walking down the street’; you can start looking at what ‘a man’ is, what ‘walking’ is, what ‘street’ is and you get so many other ideas. Then you start looking at those ideas, and there may be so many ideas. What is a man? Each of you may have different ideas about that. So if you start looking in this way you will see that everything in your entire lexicon, in your entire dictionary, is contained in one idea. So you cannot carry your favorite idea with you. Whatever it may be. Why do you want it anyway? Because you think it represents the Truth? It doesn’t. Don't fall in love with ideas. --- UElity of Concept There is no utility of any concept, except when they are used to remove or explore other concepts. The only other utility has been to cause this seeming play of suffering. With concepts, what have we got actually? --- If you build a mountain of concepts, can you build one physical atom with it? Can you build one ounce of love with it; one gram of devotion with a huge mountain of concepts? --- Tiny Box of Intellect At best, with your mind, you can just play like this, ‘I am bound, I am free, I am bound, I am free, I am bound, I am free.’ Beyond that, what is there in your mind? You, at best, can say ‘beyond free’. That is also just like that. So, the highest notion you can have about yourself is what? You can switch from ‘I am a meagre limited person’ to ‘I am the Absolute’. This is the box, no? Beyond that there is nothing. But your Reality is beyond this box. Even our notion of ‘Absolute’ is just in the box. Our notion of ‘person’ is definitely in the box. But we don’t realize that when we consider ourselves to be anything, including the Absolute, it is just the opposite spectrum of the same limited box. This is as far as your notions can go; tiny, okay? --- What is your greatest concept? The Absolute, Brahman, the Self. What is your smallest concept? Ego, person, lunch, chai. So, between chai and Brahman, what is the distance? --- Just look at this thing. They are fun [Chuckles] if you enjoy them. I enjoy looking at these things. ‘What does an assertion assert?’ and ‘What does a negation negate?’ And if you can assert both or negate both, then both are true or false. --- Now, if I were to say to you ‘What I am saying to you is neither true nor false’ how would you keep that? --- There is a very nice contemplation about logic as well. So, what happened in the Western systems of logic is that because of Socrates and his disciples and maybe even before that, what happened is that logic became very linear. In that definition of logic something is either true or untrue. It cannot be both. But in Eastern civilizations, like in India, very popularly in Buddhism especially, many times they would say, ‘It’s both true and untrue, or neither true nor false.’ Now, because most of us must be conditioned and it’s in the construct in which we live, to find this kind of thing absurd, it can seem very strange. How can something be both true and false? How can something be neither true nor false? It sounds out of the bounds of logic. But there were systems of logic where all four variables were present. Then Masters could answer by saying ‘both’ or ‘neither’. And then what would happen is, if Buddha for example, was presented with questions asking, ‘What happens to the body of one who is already enlightened?’ He would say ‘the fifth’. The fifth is neither true nor untrue, neither both true and untrue and neither both. And there our intellect cannot visit. Because for the intellect what I am saying right now is completely crazy business, it’s completely absurd. But there is a deeper knowledge inside you for which this is not so strange. It recognizes that the instrument called the intellect, cannot capture everything in itself and the funny thing is that anything really of value it cannot capture. So, love, peace, joy, Truth, Self, devotion, and trust, all these it cannot really understand. --- So, were we born with the idea that life must have a point? And, does life not having a point that we can comprehend—does that automatically imply that it is pointless? In our intellect, we can only present it this way, that either life is very meaningful, it has this point, or it presents it as ‘Oh, it’s pointless or meaningless.’ But does it have to be pointy or pointless. [Laughs] You see? Can it not be beyond these opposites, and isn’t it beyond these opposites? --- The Box of Intellect Is Too Tiny Anything that is valuable in life, whether it is love, whether it is Being, whether it is the Self, whether it is Truth; anything that is valuable, have we really understood it? Can we really understand it? Because the tool to get that understanding is too, too tiny, you see? --- TIME AND SPACE ARE NOTIONAL I'm not forcing anything, just hoping that we can look together at some of these things and really check whether we know. What is past? What is future? Can we really say there is something like memory? Can we really say there is an up, there is a down? I'm just exploring along with all of you. And I'm used to the fact that your mind will come and protest and say ‘But, but, but… this is too far, this is too much!’ this kind of thing. Or ‘How will I run my life?’ which is basically also somewhere built in, that ‘Did I really come to Satsang for this? I just came because I wanted a happy life, how to be at peace, how to be effective, to have a nice balance’ and these kinds of things. All of us came to Satsang because we wanted some benefit and here's this guy sitting here and he's not promising any balance, any peace, any joy any; not even Self [realization] is being promised. He's taking away time as if it's candy. He's saying to forget time, forget space. ‘Is this what I really came for!?' This can be behind our protestations also. That is why I keep saying, if it had no benefit except that it was True then would it still be worthwhile? And it seems like, at this point, to most of humanity it may not be that appealing. --- All notions are nothing but distinctions in time and space. If you stop making distinctions in space, then we start making distinctions in time. ‘Oh, it’s okay now, but what about the future? It’s okay now that I’m in Satsang but when I leave, what happens?’ This is also distinction. Where is the future? Has anybody experienced it? Where is the past? Is there any clear evidence of this past, except this very unreliable memory? All these are also distinctions. It is just one Consciousness playing this game of light and sound. And the mind is designed to chop it up in to pieces (past, present, future, me, other, my family, other family, my sangha, my Guru, my Truth.) --- What is the past now, except another group of perceptions and sensations? What is the future? Just another set of projections. ---

Space implies what? That there is a here and there is a there. There is distance. There is somewhere.

Yeah, and very quickly ‘me’ and ‘that’. But if there is no such thing as here and there, then? Like, this which we feel is there, do we really know it’s there? Do we know anything about distance? Like you’re saying if we were just looking at moving energies and you put a device [points to his eyes] and it’s a lens where you're seeing all these moving energies, but actually it's an empty room. Because that device is there, it can feel full, but where are the actual moving images? On your eye. So, we can’t confirm any distance ever. Like, what is the distance between two countries in a dream? It’s only a seeming-distance. It's not real. ---

Okay, you are Here now. Suppose you got one thing mixed up, which is that everything that you feel was in the past is actually going to happen in the future, and everything you want in the future has actually happened in the past. Then how would it be?

Exactly. Then what are you Now? --- How do you consider yourself to be in time and space? Don’t try to leave time and space; tell me how you consider yourself to be in time and space? --- Jump into time. Do it and tell me. Who did it? --- Actually, ‘past’ is a big lie. It’s just a made-up idea. You will only experience your past in the future. Check. You will only experience your past in the future. So is the past in the future or future in the past? I am just not playing with words. Right now you are empty of past and future [Clicking of figures] empty of past and future. Now we say ‘Okay, let me refer to this repository of experiences, presumably called the memory. But you will do it only in the future. And it will be fresh imagery that comes and there is no real way of verifying ‘did that actually happen.’ You just experiencing it fresh and calling it past experience. Now the thing is that nobody has ever met this future also. So, all that I spoke about was just a fantasy. So, either, neither is there a past nor is there is there a future. It’s just a wild fantasy, it's just crazy. [Smile] It’s just crazy stuff. There is no past, no future. Who can experience the past and show me? Like ‘I have never experienced a past.’ And we have an idea that I have. ---

The one who had these ‘New Year’ experiences over these years, is which one?

So, if a year is a measure of time, and time seems to present these new possibilities for us at regular intervals, then you who are tasting this flow of time, are you subject to this time? If it is a year that rejuvenates and it is a ‘new year’ which comes for you, a ‘new day’ which comes for you, a ‘new minute’ which comes to you, a ‘new second’ which comes for you… is the ‘you’ for whom it comes subject to it? And on the other hand, if You were not here, would there be this next minute? Next moment… New Year? --- Your dynamic aspect also is being stretched out (seemingly) over that which we call time, but actually nothing is moving. It is all already Here. [Silence] We are just visiting it with our attention, and the movement of this attention leads to what we call this time and space. What is the screen on which all of this Is? --- [Notion of pre-destiny]… But Consciousness is completely free…, because it is prior to time and space. So, in that way the will of Consciousness is predestined, because time does not apply to it. But if you feel like it is some robotic existence that Consciousness is living out, that is not the case. It is just a sort of level confusion. Because as long as we consider ourselves as the object within time, it can seem like ‘Whatever is to happen with me is predestined.’ But what You are finding for your Self, this Being you are discovering, is it subject to time? --- Just like on a movie screen you can project one picture of the entire solar system or you can show one drawing room; the screen remains untouched. So, this notion of space is just like the notion of time. It can seem to have some tangible reality to it, but on the screen of Consciousness it’s nothing. --- One way to look at this is to check what we are and to see whether that is in the realm of change. And if that is not, then time is for whom? For what? --- This visual stimulus is very, very compelling, in a way. But on top of this visual stimulus, we put a lot of concepts. A lot of concepts! Because even our visual perceptions, we don't leave them alone. We molest them with our ideas of them. What are the most common things which we superimpose on this? Let's say ‘time and space.’ Something is being perceived. What tells you that there is distance, that there is space? And I'm including this body also; but just to illustrate the point, I could have something like a film on my eyes and everything could be on that film; where there is no distance, it’s just moving images. But the idea that there is distance is just a notion; that there is distance between this and that. All of this. Also, the idea of duration or time, where does it come from? We have visuals and we have certain other visuals and we make a link between them: ‘That happened before; this is happening now.’ So, even our perceptions; we mix them up with concepts about what they are. Then, what are the other common ideas of knowing that we put on this appearance? We put this idea of causation; cause and effect. ‘This causes this.’ A set of perceptions that seem to appear and disappear; what makes the linkage between them? ‘Oh, I thought this and that's why I did this’ or ‘This happened and that's why that happened.’ And so many of our grievances and pride are because of this. --- There is no real ‘why’ Just like there is no real ‘when’ Just like there is no real ‘who’ ---

Where is the one that was here five minutes ago?

If it is fresh. [Chuckles] This is a very good. This is what I have been looking at also. So, suppose this is Ananta 1 [Holds up index finger]. Now this one which has the 1 on the fingers is the Ananta 1. Now, [Holds up also middle finger] that has changed and this is Ananta 2. You know, actually, this body has changed, the cells have changed, many things have transformed in that much time. Now, this one is here. [Ananta 2] Where is Ananta 1?

Gone? Then who came into the future? Now, there is Ananta 3? [Holds up also ring finger] So, where is Ananta 2? It’s only in the idea of the past. Did that one come into the future? No. This one is completely fresh. Like you said it is completely fresh. So, this one [Ananta 3] has now gone to the death of the past or to the idea of the past. Are things coming to go into the future? Or are things coming so they can die in the past? Like we can have this idea that ‘I’m coming and this one is moving into the future.’ But is this true? The this one will never see that which we call the future. It is just confined to the grave of the past. So, this idea of moving and stillness doesn’t really apply to Reality. --- WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW? One tip I would give you, is to start to love the ‘I don’t know.’ Because if you hate the ‘I don’t know’ you will still go back to some mental conclusion or you will get frustrated or will get irritated. When you start to love the ‘I don’t know’ it’s like ‘I don’t know, I go inside, I just don’t know what this inside is. [Laughs] I don’t know what this inside is. I don’t have to be spiritual to go inside; a baby can go inside, children can go inside, an old man can go inside because inside is always here. And it’s here for everyone, but I don’t know what it is.’ [Smiles] So, start to like this ‘I don’t know.’ Or at least don’t hate it. [Chuckles] Because if you start hating it then you are in for quite a ride; a lot of irritation, frustration and anger will come. --- Tell me something you really know about your Self. What do you really know about your Self? And if you know nothing about your Self, then what can you know about the world? --- What is that Being? But there comes a time that even those sacred concepts can be explored, and we say, But what is ‘To Be’? What is ‘Am’? Do we really know? --- We don’t even know whether ‘What I’m claiming in the past’ actually happened. We don’t even know whether this is waking state or dream state. We don’t even know whether my attention is visiting some memories from ten million years ago. We don’t know anything. We don’t know where we are. Can anyone tell me where we are? --- We say ‘This is outside and this is inside.’ We don’t even know where that inside is. --- Do not go running from doubt. If there is doubt, then doubt. But doubt, what are you certain of, what are your certainties? You cannot tell me three things that you are certain of. You might, but are they really undoubtable? Check for yourself. Even this nature of the mind we can use for inquiry. The nature of the mind is to doubt. Even that we can use for inquiry. --- What is it that we really know? And what does it mean to know? When ‘I know something’ what does it mean? Does it just mean that I have a concept of something and I know it? --- It's not really that important to make a conclusion that there is no distinction between outside and inside. But what is important is to admit to yourself that you really don't know. And the same for every notion, every notion. The same for everything. --- Do we really know good, bad, this way, that way? --- There are very simple questions that we cannot answer, like, ‘What’s going on?’ And we have been taught that it is not a good place to be in - this not knowing what is going on. We have been taught that we must always know what is going on. But we have never known. And what happens? We attach ourselves to our versions of what we think is going on and when that version starts to fail, then we don’t like it and say ‘Oh, my life changed and this happened’. But we have never understood life in that way anyway. Like, what is going on now? [Chuckles] We don’t really know. Because if you were to describe this, you would find it impossible. Even at a metaphysical level or something like that, even phenomenally, what is going on? A seeming-body made up of trillions of atoms is sitting in front of twenty other trillion atom-seeming-objects. What is Here? And plus, there are seemingly-objects from all over the world sitting at various points of time, listening to some energy which we have given meaning to, as words with language. It is just a set of sounds. And what they mean to each of you is different. If I were to ask each of you ‘What did you hear in Satsang so far?’ … everybody will say very differently. What is really being shared? Where is the sound happening? --- You don't know what anything is. Therefore, there is no real answer to anything at all. --- We just say 'Man - I am meeting a man.' No. You have never met a man. Every experience has been unique. Or you are meeting a cat. You never met a cat. Cat means so many things. So, the avoidance is to use a label and presume that ‘I know what this is’ but we don´t know what this is. That leads to an even more beautiful contemplation on ‘what it means to know' itself. The question on spiritual avoidance or by-passing led to an even more beautiful contemplation on: What do we mean by 'known'? What do we mean by an 'answer'? What do we mean by 'understanding'? --- Some have ideas about this ‘I’ but it’s better that we throw those ideas away because those don't help. Whatever ideas we have about this ‘I’, it’s better to throw those away because those are just labels and these labels don't help when life is throttling our throat. [Chuckles] Ideas don't help. So, we're looking for something which is more tangible than just a label. If instead of soul, I called that apple, if instead of Atma I said potato; it's just a label. How does it matter? In fact, it's a beautiful experiment. Instead of pain you call it something else which you've related with something else so far. You say (let's try potato)…, you can say ‘I have so much potato in my body.’ I know it can sound crazy [Laughing] but the fact is that we feel… there is a point here [Laughing] as unbelievable as it might sound. [Looking at a Sangha member] You have no potato in the body today? So, what happens is that when we change the label, we see that we’ve suddenly thrown away the photocopy version of this world. We live in this world of ‘photocopy reality’ which means the conceptual version. I'm sitting in Satsang, he's the Master, I'm the disciple; these kinds of things are just concepts about what is happening. It has nothing to do with the reality of what is happening. In the same way, if we say ‘This is what I'm experiencing’ we don't truly know …, and that experience is also constantly changing. But our label makes us feel that we have some hold on this reality. To the mind, this world is too chaotic. It's crazy! Everything is always changing. So, it makes these concepts available to us so that it can feel like our limited idea has some hold over this world. ‘I know left is left and right is right.’ There is no such thing as left or right. But it can feel like ‘Okay, at least I have some grip on this world because this is left and this is right.’ In the same way, it feels ‘I know something because I know what this emotion is, what this sensation is.’ But we don't know what pain is, what grief is. We don't know any of this. But it can feel too strong to taste it, empty of these notions, as long as we have a limited idea about ourself. So, this ‘I’ therefore is not just a label. The pointer, of course, is the label. When we say ‘I’ it is pointing to something which is a label. When you think ‘I’ it is pointing to something. But who is the ‘I’ that is perceiving? Who is the ‘I’ that is perceiving? Thinking about it will not help. Because you do not have to think really. It's a deeper Knowing. --- If you are building spiritual frameworks, then it is my job to demolish them. If you are building templates, then it is my job to tear them up. --- ‘Something’ is playing. Tell me what thing is playing? What is that ‘thing’ … what is ‘is’ … and what is ‘play’? Do we really know any of this? --- What do we actually understand? What understanding is there really? We just like feel like ‘We can add up two plus two, therefore we know something.’ But nobody can really state ‘This, therefore that.’ This kind of inductive reasoning is very popular but the claims we end up making are all ephemeral. They’re all ephemeral. How much longer they are going to last? Which of this knowledge will we take when this body goes? If fact, which of this knowledge will you take into your sleep state tonight? You could have solved quantum theory or something, you could have come up with the better version of the theory of relativity, but when you go into the sleep state, will you know what it is? --- ‘I hand over everything that I think I know. I’m letting go of all of this.’ Then when we come to this point, do you really know ‘handing over’? Do you really know ‘me… you’? --- You can do one (as I call it) ‘The internal audit.’ You just do one internal audit and see, ‘What am I still believing [that] is true? What do I know? What do I know?’ And I can tell you what you can throw away, Whatever you say to ‘What do I know?’ you can throw it safely. Find that which you want to guard and not to throw away. Just to yourself, expose it to yourself - What is it that you want to guard and not throw away? --- Like do you really know it would be much better for you to have a lot of money? Do you really know? Do you really know that it would be much better for you to have a great relationship? Better by which standards and for whom? We don’t even really know and this might sound strong to some of you. Forget about it, I don’t want to bother anybody but do we really know what is better, life or death? It can sound absurd. But do we really know? --- In Reality, there is no such thing as better or worse. It is just what it is. So this misery of these opposites of good and bad is the apple that Adam ate. [Smile] Misery of this duality. So would it be better to talk better? [Smile] All communication, even the sharing of Satsang, is in that paradigm. But at least it is trying to point you out of that. Because that would be better. [Laughs] But what Is, cannot get better or worse, it just Is. --- How can you know your experience? What is the way in which you can know your experience? I realize that for many of you it can seem like a completely absurd sort of question and you allow it to be absurd, it's okay, don’t bother with it. But for some of you it'll meet you here [points to his heart] and you will be open to contemplating something like this; I have a narrative about what my life is like, or what my day is like, or what my last one hour is like. I can never have a narrative about right now anyway, but on what basis can I conclude that that narrative is accurate or true? So, the way to knock off all the narratives is to really zero in on this a bit and say - The mind comes with a proposal for a story of my life. Can I really conclude this to have some truth? In what way can I say that it’s true? And if you will explore, you will find I can’t really say. --- Even with the notion of beauty, how do we really know what is beauty? Which aspect of us knows what is beautiful? Where can we go? How can we know? What is the basis on which we can know these things? And let’s include beauty with love, Truth, Self—how can we know any of these things? What is the basis for our determination of the nature of something? --- Any of these games or experiments which I suggest can sound very ‘childish’ almost but if you try them, if you try playing with them for a bit, you will see that ‘Ah, this identity is here.’ When you change the labels of this identity, change the usual labels, you will find (we have been experimenting with this) like, instead of ‘anger’ we say ‘potato.’ [Chuckles] And then when that becomes too jaded, that label, we can change it to something else. It can sound like ‘What is this? [Laughs] What is he saying!?’ But you see that (not ‘a lot of’ but) all of our conditions are based on the terms we use - ‘But this is like this. I know it to be this way.’ --- To come to discovery of your Self which needs no prerequisite… If you are full of emotions, you can discover yourself. If there is no emotion showing up, you can discover yourself. If your mind is full and loud, you can discover yourself. If your mind is empty, you can discover yourself. You see if your body is fully in pain, you can discover yourself. If you are full of pleasure, you can discover yourself. No prerequisite is needed. Just the simplicity of this is astounding. And everything that is showing up, everything that is showing up, nothing is in opposition to your discovery actually. So the only (and I have said this often) the only thing that seems to get in the way, is your notions of what you think you are right about, what you think you know and what you think you don't know. --- INVITATION TO BE NOTIONLESS When I speak about notion-less-ness, even that becomes notional. You see? Even the idea of ‘remaining notion-less’ can be a notion of becoming notion-less. That is notional. I am speaking about radical nakedness. I don’t know how to convey it to you. It’s like a radical Now-ness, a radical openness …, which is independent of any idea of Reality that your mind has. --- Reality Is Independent of Any NoEons Is the Real, real only because there is a notion of it being real? Does Reality depend on a notion to be real? Does Reality depend on an idea to be real? If it doesn’t, then how does our grasping onto a notion bring us closer to Reality? --- If I give you encyclopaedia full of Advaita notions, will it will make one tiny scratch worth of difference to the Is-ness? --- This contemplation is good… What does an answer provide to you? What is the question really asking? And what does the answer provide to you? Is it a true Knowing? Or it is, at best, something which demolishes something which you already know? --- Now, if I’ve constructed bridges to get to the Truth, then it can make me believe my Self to be something that is apart from the Truth, that’s why I need a bridge to get to the Truth. Whether that bridge is a thought, a practice, whatever it is. So, in the notion of the bridge is the idea of my separation from the Truth. So, in way, the only bridge then is to burn the bridge. That is why it is deconstructive. To construct would be to build the bridge to get to the Truth. But because it seems like ‘I still need a bridge’ then I’m giving you the bridge that is to ‘burn the bridge’… which is also a bridge, it doesn’t need to be done, but if it feels like something has to be done, if it feels like we have a choice; burn the bridge. [Silence] Whatever bridge you have to get to the Truth - Burn the bridge. That is the bridge. --- What is the greatest distance your intellect can go to? It can negate a person, birth, death, then, at best, it will have some very high concept like Absolute or Self or something like that. That’s the limit to our intellect. What is higher than that? To use the story of the Sufi master at the king’s gate, what are we pointing to? What is higher than that? What is higher than the greatest concept your intellect can hold and smaller than the smallest concept it can hold? That is the Self. --- Nothing Is Lost When You are NoEonless Reality cannot go. Once all notions of Reality go, Reality cannot go. But what goes once one’s notions go? That is called ‘false.’ What notions are you scared of losing? … ‘I’? --- When you lose your favourite idea, when you lose that which you are completely right about (you think), what do you actually lose? --- What did you lose when everything went? All your concepts… gone. Anything useful you lost? Nothing, you see? If you were to crumple up your most valuable positions into pieces of paper and throw them into the trash can, you would not have lost anything at all. Because this existent Being is actually all there Is. --- Which position do you refuse to throw away? Use this opportunity today in Satsang to shine Your light on it. And may it burn in Your light. What is it that you feel does not leave you, but, actually you have been quietly nurturing it? --- Picking a NoEon Is Just a Habit All things are perfectly resolved where? In the Unborn. But where do you want to go? Into the born. [Laughs] And this is habit. This is habit. To go to a concept as if it will represent Truth, to go to an experience as if it will represent Truth, is to give birth to the limited idea of Self. And that is not where things are perfectly resolved. Where [you] started off, before that [Snaps fingers] is the Unborn. It doesn’t mean that you actually left the Unborn, but it can seem like the game is played that way. Now, where are you going? --- Are you itching to conclude something? --- What is the concept that you feel is stronger than You… that you cannot drop? That it has so much power over you that you just cannot drop it? --- What is that primal drive to pick up a belief about ourselves..., to make a position about your Self? Prior to the concept about your Self, what is it that You are? --- NoEons Bring Suffering Which notion do I have to hold on to, to exist …, in this moment? There is no notion like that. Now you have to see for yourself whether these notions are bringing you joy or they are bringing you suffering. Is joy not independently arising on its own? --- Look at all the things that you have given meaning to. And now notice what believing those meanings convinces you about what you are. --- If you had no notion about anything at all (what is up, what is down, what is constriction, what is openness, what is life, what is death, what is yesterday, what is tomorrow) how will you struggle? --- I am saying that there is no such future ‘you’ but even if you were to say that there is, the best gift you can give to that one is you be fully open and empty for one moment, here and now. Give yourself this gift and help every ‘you’ past, present, future; ten lifetimes before, ten lifetimes later, anything that you want to imagine, that is the best gift. There is no other antidote. --- Be NoEonless We realize that everything we pick up is dropped soon, either in Satsang itself or life forces us to drop it. It is a coming to an emptiness in terms of concepts. --- What do we need to do to give ourselves this gift of one moment of un-interpreted Existence? If you call that effort, then that effort can be made. It is just that. --- What do you need to do to give yourself this gift of not labelling ‘What Is’ … of letting go? So, if it takes the question ‘Who am I?’ then of course, ask it. If it takes the reminder ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam’ of course, use it. If you need to be reminded that ‘You do not know anything at all’ you might use it. Whatever the case. But the point is not what it takes you to get you there but what this is. What is here? Give yourself this gift, this moment. Empty of right and wrong. Empty of got it, lost it. Empty of truth and false. Empty of effort and non-effort. Empty of abiding and non-abiding. Empty of recognition and non- recognition. Empty of every idea and its opposite. Empty of lower and higher. Of truer and falser. Of ultimate and practical. Empty of time and timeless. Empty of the idea of emptiness. Neither this way nor that way. --- Master Bankei says what? ‘All things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn.’ So, either the Master didn't know what he was talking about and it is the mind that knows, or…. Either way, don’t trust the mind’s resolution. So, the born is what? If the Unborn is this notionless Existence, the born is what? When we pick up the notion of a limited 'I', when we pick up the idea of a separate 'me', of a separate self, what does your experience tell you? Have you been able to resolve your life through your mind’s tactics? Now get the experience of leaving it Unborn. Taste this Unborn moment, see if anything has to be done, if something is missing? [Silence] In this Unborn, are you lost or are you found? Is it good or bad? Is there any opposite at play, any duality? Even born and unborn mean nothing. In the Unborn, even born and unborn mean nothing. Meaning and meaningless both mean nothing. --- The fact is that the notion of real and unreal, itself is not Real. Who can meet me here? --- For such a long time, we have lived on the basis of these certainties. Can we play for a bit, as an experiment, like this? Allow all uncertainties for a while. I’m holding your hand while the fear comes, while you feel wobbly. But it is an invitation that not everyone takes …, the invitation to allow yourself to be wobbly, to allow yourself to just play, for a bit. I said the other day, it’s what? One percent of your life so far? You’ve spent one hundred percent of your life so far in these certainties, learning more and more. Give me one percent. One percent of the time you spent in certainties, we’ll spend on not being certain about anything. What is the worst that could happen? --- When we are in the corporate world, we are taught to answer these questions about everything; doing your plans. Who? What? Why? When? How? Where? Who will do it? So, if a project has to be done, who will do it? What has to be done exactly? Why? Why are we doing it? What is the reasoning behind it? When? What are the timelines for the project? How? Step by step, how will this happen? These kinds of questions we've been conditioned to pick up notions about. And I'm suggesting we throw all of them away. [Silence] And if to throw all of them away seems like it is too much, then stay with the question: ‘Who?’ In the mere act of labelling something as ‘something’ we seem to be answering questions like this about it. The pretence that we know what anything is. That's why these days I've been saying, leave this existence as unlabelled as possible. I've been saying that, isn't it? Look around the room. Actually do it. (I know some resistance can come. It can say ‘I’ve done this the other day. It's very good but it doesn’t do anything.’) Just look around. It might feel a bit strange. [Looking around] Leave everything unlabelled. [Silence] I'm here to tell you that it is completely possible to lead a life mostly like this. --- When we are empty of notions, is there a difference between the sound of the bird and the sound of the ambulance? Is one good and the other bad? Without our labels, what remains? Is something up and something down? Something manifest and something else unmanifest? Is there Brahman and Ishwara? Is there Atma and Jeevatma? Is there absolute Awareness, Consciousness; body, mind, ego? --- Is it possible to leave this box of intellect? Let it be. All these assertions, negations, opposites Should be and should not be, Getting it and not getting it, Will find it and will not find it, Have found it and have not found it, Had found it and had not found it. Left - right, Up - down, Yesterday - tomorrow. All these are ideas. This moment - that moment, Here - there, Guru - disciple, Truth - false, Right - wrong. Is it possible to leave all this as it is, without grabbing, grasping, pushing? ---

How is it that you can add two oranges to two oranges and make no oranges. Can you? How to do it? The mind has no notion like this so it can't go there. Your intellect …, this is against all the reasoning that you have so it can't go there. Imagination is also used for this, imagination can conjure up some visualization like that, but don't go there also. Is there something else in you, where this is not a contradiction? This example, as simple as it might sound, confronts very, very fundamental ideas; fundamental even for what we considered truth.

The need to conclude, yes. The need to conclude with ‘a truth’ …, with something which is valid. But I'm inviting you to find that space where you can add two oranges to two oranges and there are no oranges… is as true as… there are four or there are ten, or there are a thousand or anything. (I don't want to give too many examples like this because it will become imagination; you will just visualize it.) --- In this Unborn, are you lost or are you found? --- When you meet yourself notion-less-ly, how is it? --- Is it better to have a false idea of something because it reassures us that at least I have an idea about what it is, or to allow ourself to be in the mystery? --- What if you started from Now, fresh; from the Timeless? --- Open and empty is the same as ‘Make no distinctions.’ It’s the same as to ‘Remain in the Unborn.’ It’s the same as ‘Don’t believe your next thought.’ It’s all the same stuff, just put in different ways. Whatever seems natural, it is fine. It’s the same as ‘To remain in our notionless existence.’ It’s the same as ‘God Now verses me-ow.’ All these pointers are the same. --- Truth Is Apparent In NoEon-less-ness Make no distinctions. Take no positions. Any claim to knowledge is a position. Don’t even take the position that you don’t know. Find out what is apparent Here. What is known when you know nothing? --- Who is Here Now when you forget your labels? --- So everything that you got to know that you did not know originally, that came to you over a period of time, just leave that aside. It is too much to know. To get to true Self-knowledge we need to return to simplicity. You cannot return to innocence and simplicity if you know too much and how much is too much? Even one thing is too much. Even the one thing that came to you in time is too much. So ‘let it go.’ Now, what do you know independent of that time-bound knowledge, independent of that which you picked up as a concept? What remains when all your conceptual-knowledge is gone? Can you keep the investment in this moment in the false? To Know Even One Thing Is To Know Too Much. What Do You Know When You Know Nothing? What is most apparent, most apparent? Who do you have to be to even Be? Even to Exist, what do you have to Be? Before you decide to exist or not-exist, Or make the conclusion ‘I Exist’ or ‘I don’t exist’, what is the Existence of That? That is the most apparent to you. It is completely hundred percent clear to You actually, But not to your mind and not your senses. Now, where will you go to check whether this is true? --- Meet ‘What Is’ Without NoEons When I label it as if ‘I know what it is’ then that is when I’m avoiding the pure meeting. That’s when I’m just saying ‘I know, this is a hand. I know what this is, this is man. I know what this is, this is partner. I know what this is…’ All these kinds of things. So, how have we been meeting it? Empty of an understanding of this world play, are we in touch with the greater reality, or would our mental version be a better reality? --- When I say ‘house’ or ‘man’ or ‘woman’ or ‘satsang’ or ‘master’ is it just an innocuous word you are meeting… a harmless form of term? No, you meet the entire history, of everything that you’ve burdened that term with. Now, will you deal with that, which is the ‘pain’, or will you then have to deal with both this physicality (which we are calling pain) and what that label entails? Because once you have claimed that ‘I am feeling pain’ you are not just feeling like you are experiencing what you are experiencing in the moment, but you are experiencing the entire history of what you have called pain. Everything that you’ve used the label for, is then apparent... it seems apparent for you, it feels like you are having to deal with that. And in that way you have avoided the meeting of it, in its purity, you have avoided just what it was, by saying that ‘this is what it is’. --- Don’t get attached to any of these.’ Like Guruji [Sri Mooji] says ‘Don’t make tattoos of my words.’ You don’t attach to this sense of ‘This is what it is.’ It’s not that. Everything that you conclude like that is in the box. That’s why I said ‘I have given license for one.’ If you feel like ‘There is too much fear, there is too much; it is too broad. I can’t believe that it’s…. (something)’. If there are so many notions you’re buying about notion-less-ness, then better than buying all those notions, you pick one notion and you hold onto that tightly. Like ‘Remain at my Father’s feet. Guru Kripa Kevalam’ or ‘Who am I?’ Take one and just hang on with that one. If it is one of these, then those are self-destructing in nature anyway, self-dissolving in nature anyway. It is only when you’re faced with this Unborn, when you come face to face with your original nature, you feel like ‘There are too many notions’ so you pick up about that. ‘I can’t do it. I’m scared. I’m lost. I’m not understanding.’ When there are so many notions about being notion- less, then better you hold just one notion. So, that one stick you can hold onto if you feel like this. But my invitation, of course, is to let them go. --- Not this way, not that way. Not up, not down. Not Self, not person. Not Brahman, not Maya. Neither asserting nor denying. Although the ‘not, not, not’ can seem like denial, it’s not really. It’s just letting go. --- END OF SUFFERING Step away from your limited mind and taste your Reality. If you attach yourself to this crazy donkey called the world, if you tie yourself to this, no lasting peace is going to come. That which you are attached to, how long is it going to last? For ‘you’ that one blink of your eyelid is billions of centuries, (even that is saying too much). How long are these tiny things going to last? This planet, this realm, arises in one of your states. This is your experience, I’m not saying anything esoteric or metaphysical, plain and simple. You outlast all your states; no state outlasts you. But if you keep considering yourself just an object in this dream, suffering is the reward for this stupidity. … NO PROBLEM TO SOLVE Why do we focus on this end of suffering or almost 100% end of suffering? Why is it an important notion in Vedanta? It is because in the design of this play, unless there is this egoic identity, unless there is belief in this limited self, the play of this aspect called suffering cannot happen. Because suffering is not a pure energetic appearance. Isn´t it? … Aren’t you Awareness? This ineffable, unspeakable knowledge, Self-knowledge, is not just Self-knowledge about the non-phenomenal, it is Self-knowledge about the entirety of the manifest as well. And that is why you can surrender to it. I wonder, maybe you all need to contemplate this. … In your intuition, your true Self is apparent to you. Is your intuition not enough to run this life, to provide enough guidance, to move this body like it wants? Is there something missing, is there something lacking in this intuition? … I’m saying that without condition, allow everything, and just look at - What witnesses that? … Should we talk about 'you' as an individual? Or as Awareness? If you considered yourself to be a cat, but you were reminded and you were shown and you came to the recognition yourself that you are not a cat, then you are free from all the problems of the cat, aren’t you? … Always the question is ‘What is the 'I' in that?’ … I see many trying to live as if they are Awareness. It is a joke. You cannot even imagine this formless One. How will you live as if you are That? It’s a pretty heavy position to carry because then we try to live up to that position of what we conceptually think we are now. We try to live as Awareness. Live as the Self. Okay? Live as the Self and show me. [Chuckles] Who can do it? How would you live as the Self? [Pretends a very serious, vacant look and everyone laughs] There are also many oppressive things like trying to live as the Absolute or trying to live as a particular state. It may be even heavier than trying to live as a good person. Trying to live as the Absolute, how to live it? … In the right now, if you check and you find that you are Awareness, then how is it that you become something else? Can it happen without the thought? If a thought doesn't come, what are you? … Without any story, what are you right now? … Guruji says ‘Bring the ‘I’ to the witness box.’ Who will you bring? And if you don’t know who you will present in the witness box, how can that witness have a story? … When you really look, in the effortlessness of the right Now, are you are happy or unhappy? … What witnesses this? What witnesses all of this? Is that dependent on bliss or joy or peace? Or is it bliss and joy and peace which are dependent on that? … The ego, the sense ‘I am something’ the sense that ‘I am separate’ - without a story, where does it go? The experience of this world continues to be experienced. Our perception is still on. Life is still being lived. Did you stop breathing without a story? Did your heart stop beating? Eyes stop functioning? Ears are still hearing. What happened when we dropped the story? … What is here? All this phenomenal play, phenomenal perception is here. Can we keep it this simple, or do you want to break it down into world, body, emotion, sensation, pain? Can we all just put it in one bucket and say ‘All of this is phenomenally perceived. It is one bucket of perception; one bucket of experiencing. Let’s leave it at that’. Then, what is here that perceives all of this? No matter what the content or quality is, what is it that perceives it? … What is your mask-less Truth? What is your naked Reality? Are you confused here? Are you lost? Do you have somewhere to get to? Do you have to fight with some emotion? Do you have to fix a relationship? Do you need to earn more money? What is here, before there is an idea of you, which I call the mask? … What is your Truth right now? Is it true that you are some ‘thing’? Is it true that - I am some ‘thing’? What is that some ‘thing’ that you attach to 'I am'? What is the basis of that? … When you really look, in the effortlessness of the right Now, are you are happy or unhappy? … If you are ‘All there Is’ (in fact, beyond even ‘All there Is’) tell me what is your suffering? What is your trouble? … Who is it? Where is the person that has this ‘lawyer’ who is representing it? And you looked and you found nobody like that is there. But who is even making this discovery? What is the quality of that one? … Once you see that you are the screen and the light of the projector, is there some trouble with what scene the movie might contain? … So, many times it can happen that when we are experiencing suffering and we want to answer this question ‘But why am I suffering?’ then we try to use even the concepts of Satsang to get over our suffering; to answer the ‘Why am I suffering? If I have seen this, then why do I continue to suffer?’ But who does the I represent, even in this? Who is recognizing? Ask yourself this question. Who is recognizing the truth of who you are? Does it have anything to do with the identity? Is the identity coming to the recognition of the Self? Or is the recognition itself not That. There is no identity. … Whatever it might be, what can we say about That which witnesses that? Now, some Sages will say that everything after ‘I Am’ is a lie, is a story. And some like [Sri Nisargadatta] Maharaj have gone as far as to say that ‘I Am’ is also ultimately a lie. He said ‘The only truth you can speak about yourself is that ‘I Am’ but ultimately, even that is a lie.’ Why don’t we take this completely literally? Just take this completely literally, not marked with some end of some spiritual journey or something like that? Like ‘At that point, I will see this.’ Everything that you say after ‘I Am’ is a lie. Run that like a lawnmower in your garden and see what is left. … Now? You lost yourself in phenomena? Is that something you are Seeing? Or you’re relying on some inference that happened a few minutes ago? So, every part of you now is phenomena? To be completely lost in phenomena would mean that everything is phenomena. Now, that which is witnessing this phenomena, has that also become phenomenal? Can it, if you were to try push it out? If it feels small or if it feels expansive, find out - Within what space is the small or expansive? Is the smallness of it inside something that is larger? … Judge yourself on the basis of the witness who witnesses both the ups and the downs. What happens to that one? … How can that Awareness be attached? What position does no-thing have? … What you found was that you are the Self and all appearances continue to come and go. Isn’t it? Now in all those appearances, this body’s appearance coming and going was included, no? So, this body was found to be like the waves of the ocean, and all waves are coming and going. Now, if the wave is not going as high one day, or going very high one day, what does that have to do with the ocean? … ‘Who am I?’ Why is it that this question is so powerful? Because we find that all that this voice [mind] is saying is ‘not applicable’ to the reality of what I Am. And the movie continues to play anyway. What is my true position in this? … So, this Truth you are meeting now, what would you rather have instead of this? [Silence] If the choices were like this, you have this beautiful Presence of your Being verses you can decide to spend the next five minutes playing with the grievance you have with somebody else or some sense of pride you might have about something you did or some regret about something that didn’t happen for you about five years ago or remorse about not buying bitcoin at ten dollars. What would you rather play with right now? … What can make a doer or a sufferer out of you? … Suppose that in your life everything was always taken care of. Everything was always taken care of. Then how would your inner attitude change if you knew this? Unwaveringly, whatever it is, it is always taken care of. Then how would your inner attitude change? … For you as Consciousness, what is your will? How would you like to play? … What is your position with regards to suffering. What are you suffering from or who is the one who is suffering? Investigate that. … As you let go of ignorance, as you let go of this hero or heroine of your movie, is it not clear to you what you are? … Who does destiny apply to? So, mind says this may not be your destiny, whose destiny? Is your Being in time, destiny, or is impacted by karma, or something like that? … At least this much is very simple to check, that the happiness never comes from outside you. Even if you feel like it is coming as a result of some desire being fulfilled, you see that it can only come from within you. Nobody can give you happiness. ‘Take 10 grams of happiness. How much is it you want, maybe I can give it?’ It is not from outside, it is only coming from within. So, the source of happiness must be where? … That which Knows that God is here, That which is aware of God’s Presence, what help could That need? … 'Why is it happening to me?' Find out 'who' me. That is the way to do the inquiry. … You Are Untouched by Phenomena The more important thing is that even though this belief might come, even though the pretend suffering might play out, what is really happening to you? Has anything ever really happened to you? Has there ever been one who has actually suffered? Has there really been a sufferer? … Although we are not getting into any conceptual denial of reality (we can’t even call it Reality) of this experience, we are actually finding the Truth which is so apparent that ‘Whatever the content of my experience might be, I am not contained in that, it is contained in Me’. And you will See that when you are empty of notions, you will find that this Truth is so apparent; that everything, all the anxiety, all the depression, is sensations happening within you. But this, within which it is happening, remains untouched by all of these sensations. … And ultimately, you See that you are no-thing. ‘All that is everything’ is also emerging within you, but you are that ‘no-thing’ from which all things come. And as you are Seeing this more and more every day, then what can you hold on to? Which idea of suffering can you have? … 'I am Awareness, but...' 'I am Consciousness, I am God, but...' [Laughs] What are you willing to exchange God for? … Everything is perceived as a set of sensations. Now, what is too strong for the perceiver of them? How loud or how big does something have to be when it becomes too loud or too big for the perceiver? If an image came (the image is a tiny image of an ant) but what if this image keeps growing? Now, this ant is as big as this body. But it keeps growing, growing. It’s as big as this room. Big, big, big, bigger and bigger. It’s as big as this building. Bigger, bigger, bigger. It’s a big as the entire Earth. Because this ant, which is so tiny, the image, the visual of it is so big now... is it bigger than the perceiver? Does it hurt the perceiver? It’s just another image, isn’t it? Can any object perceived become greater than That which perceives it? Any thought (even if it feels like it is shouting and screaming, throwing a big tantrum) is it bigger than your Being in which it is appearing? It is only if you introduce yourself in this image now, and you introduce yourself as a person, a body, that then the ant is so big. Then it can become scary. But if you are not a thing, if you are not an object, what is too much for you? … In your concept-less existence, right Now… Is there somewhere to get to? Is there something you have to become? Is there some more right or wrong way? Can anything come and change Your Reality? … How many of you See that nothing has ever happened to Awareness? Then how come you feel that something has happened to you? When you See that you cannot be scratched, cannot be dented by any appearance, what is there to fear? … You will not become something other than you already Are. You see? … How can everything get overwhelmed by something? Can the ocean get overwhelmed by a wave? No matter how big the tidal wave is, can the ocean be overwhelmed? … Is it ever true that what I really Am can ever be caught up in anything? … How can something be strong for That which is the entire Universe, which is the light of this whole Universe? Can something be too strong for that One? … In all our spheres of our existence, in one sphere, if some tiny moment comes, we just zero in on that and say ‘This is what my life is right now.’ In your emotional body (to use this term, forget about it after this example) if something shakes about a bit, then mixed with your intellect-body which comes and says ‘But this is not good, this should go’ … these are just two tiny moments in your boundless ocean. Two tiny moments and you’re just like ‘This is happening to me! Why this is happening to me? Satsang is not working. I have to do this. Why doesn’t Father help me?’ All this will start. Because all of this stuff is just tiny stuff. Have you really looked at where it is? How big is it compared to you? … In a simple way, we can say that all our personal considerations are between this ‘very small’ and ‘very big’. But that spectrum of ‘very small’ to the ‘very big’ is nothing really to the Reality of you. What concerns you that is beyond the very small and the very big, right from the spectrum of nothing to the Absolute? … In one way, we can say that, the source of all suffering is the notion of ‘me’. And if you have to go even deeper than that you can say that, the source of all the trouble is the waking state. Then you might say ‘I have trouble even in dreams.’ Then you can say, the source of all trouble is when ‘I Am’. So, if you have to forget about your existence (which means what? Hold no concept about you, hold no concepts about your existence) then what is left? The one that ‘you are’ is the same in the sleep state. With the coming and going of the waking state, it remains untouched. So, what are you concerned about? In fact, the coming and going of any state doesn’t affect you actually in the least. Can anything come out of this manifest creation and make a dent on that primal witnessing? What can happen here [Waves hand across empty space] that can scratch my Awareness? That is why it is called ‘The untouched Awareness’… which is the Unborn. How can the Unborn be hurt in this world? … What can actually play in this world that can make a scratch or a dent on Awareness? [Silence] And if nothing can make a scratch or a dent on You, then what are we protecting, what are we defending, what are we attacking? So, if the project now was the reverse; if the project was ‘how to suffer’… what would you do? … When the rubber hits the road, then we see what our true insight is. Many have reported this. ‘Something was happening in my life, I was fighting with my partner and all these ideas about I am Awareness, I am Consciousness, unlimited Being…, all this went out of the window first thing.’ So, as long as this isn’t digested as this simple Knowing, as a simple Knowingness, if it is only conceptual, then the idea of an individual sufferer can continue. In fact, it might even become worse because the conflict might even seem deeper. … There Is No Person Whether you have the secondary insight of the Oneness of the phenomenal play or not, at least this much is important; that you see that this individual thing that you consider yourself to be is not present. … Who is that which is saying ‘Oh, Awareness is untouched, but what about ‘me’?’ … The idea that something should be another way applies to who ? Where is it - this person? … Who is concerned about what texture life may take? … Who is this ‘but’ about? But…, what about when I go home? But..., why doesn’t my family understand I am free?’ So, inquire into this. ‘Whose family? Who are you referring to yourself as? Are you just this body/mind? Are they not also an appearance the same way that this body is?’ Who has that money in the bank account which you say is yours? Where is that entity? Who is the owner of that? There is a name there, it seems to conform with the name that has been given to this body. But even if this body was able to answer, are you concerned about the money in the bank account? Who is that one that owns this body? Who owns that money? Who owns that relationship? Who owns the spiritual journey? Who has embarked on this endeavour? … Let's take the suffering of the seeker, who is saying ‘Yes, I haven't yet got it. I want it. How come this one who came yesterday, he came and he got it, but I've been coming to Satsang for four years, ten years, twenty years?’ So, what is the root of the ‘I’ in that? … What is it that You are, in this very moment? Where can we go for the answer? Where will you answer this from? If you go to the mind, the mind says ‘Of course, you are the body. What are you? You’re just a body. Don’t try to be God or something’. If you go to your friends and relatives, mostly they will say that you are this person, this body. If you go to emotions, the emotions will again be interpreted as if you are a limited entity. If anger is arising, they will say ‘You shouldn’t be angry’. If lust is arising, ‘No, no, you’re supposed to be spiritual. Lust should not arise for you’. But what is the ‘you’ in that? It is, again, the limited identity. So, mind, you cannot go to. Outside, you cannot go to. Emotion you cannot go to. Pain and pleasure in the body, you cannot go to. What is left? Besides these things, is there something? What is Naturally Present Here? If God is effortlessly present, what more do you want to add to that? Whichever ‘something’ you are considering yourself to be, inquire whether that is true or not. … What does the non-existent one deserve? And when has it ever gotten anything? … Who is the suffer-er? Who is going to take care of this person who never was? … The 'me' that needs to be looked after, where is it now? Where is the 'me' that needs to be looked after? Where is this 'me'? It’s just a vague belief system, isn't it? It's just a very slippery sort of vague belief system which is always changing the target. Sometimes it wants only freedom; sometimes it only wants freedom from something else; sometimes it only wants good relationship; sometimes it only wants money. Where is this one? … That is why Guru Kripa Kevalam seems very easy. Just don’t bother with it. Everything that the mind is inviting you to resolve or fix, the Master has already taken care of it, and you can remain in the Unborn. … HOW DO WE SUFFER? How does a Master of the universe suffer? You have given yourself the power to pretend as if something has… The power to believe that you were born. The power to believe that you will die. The power to believe that you are this body. The power to believe that these thoughts are referring to the reality of You. Basically, the power to believe nonsense. All of this, for the Reality of You, is pure nonsense. … Basis For Suffering I know that ultimately you want Truth for Truth’s sake, but there are moments where it can feel like it is all about getting a better life. How long will the better life last? Forty years, fifty years, hundred years? Then …? How long does the last forty years seem, fifty years seem? Nothing. It will just come and go. We want a better life, and next better life. What is the end to this? … You can check, who is the star of your movie? Then you might find that this identified one is just a role, just a character, just a role that I’m playing. What are the lines of this role? What is the character’s landscape? All that you identify with (mother, father, spiritual seeker, worker in an office) seems to define how your character should play out, our ideas of what is right, what is wrong, what is true, what is false, what is good, what is bad, even the idea of what should happen or what should not happen or what is happening. How many of us are convinced that we know what is happening… not just in Satsang, in any aspect of our life, we are certain that we know. And these certainties are the grooves. These are the lanes of the ego. It will say ‘You are like this’ and we fall into that groove because we bought into this notion. So, the central question in the inquiry is - Who is this One? Who is playing this role also? Look at these notions that grab you and investigate. Look at the miniature life that they claim for you. Tell me something about your life. Tell me something that you know about your life. Now, you’ll be a bit shy because you know you are in the spotlight. But you are constantly telling yourself that ‘This is what it is.’ … What are the steps you have to take to suffer? … Can you take an example of a loud thought? You will find that (although there are these 3 or 4 things that are loud for most of us) for everyone in this Satsang today, it will not be equally loud. Why? … Listening to the mind, what have you got? Fear about death? Fear of the next moment? Fear of the future? The idea that you have a start and an end? The idea that you were born, you will die? How long do you want to play with these concepts? … Consciousness does not need the aid of thoughts. And God [pretending] is saying ‘I don’t know the next thing I should have. Do you have some thoughts on it?’ [Chuckles] We do. But does it go according to those thoughts? Then what is the point of this plan? … So, what is the false? We already discussed that it is the ideas of limited me. The limited version of the Self. So ‘to not take this me seriously’ is the Sage. That’s all. And 'to take the me seriously’ is the sufferer. The distance between the two is this thought. That’s all. In this moment [Snaps a finger] you are a Sage. You start Now [Snaps] as a Sage. Now, how do you want to play? … What will you lose, really, if you lose all your concepts? If you lose all your concepts, you will lose all your grievances, your resentment, your story, your pride, your guilt, your suffering. … Is any concept worth all of this? What about the concept of ‘me’? How much suffering are you willing to endure to be ‘me’… to be the best ‘me’, the best, the best, the best me’? The minute you pick up the idea of ‘Mr. me’ or ‘Mrs. Me’ or ‘Miss me’ you pick up the idea of desire, of doership, of duality. Can you find the one who never wanted anything at all? How long will you let a group of sensations, an interpretation of a group of sensations, convince you that it is You? … Papaji said ‘You don’t need anything to be happy but you do need something to be unhappy.’ The ‘something’ is what? An attachment, a desire, duality, doer-ship. Can you truly be unhappy without a belief? Without an identity? … What is the underlying belief that I’m believing about myself which is the cause of my suffering? … Does it make sense that we invest all our attention, all our time, on just tending to this body which one day has to go? … What is this unique power of belief which makes the pretence come on as if there is a separate entity here? … What is that primal drive to pick up a belief about ourselves, to make a position about yourself? \ Prior to the concept about yourself, what is it that You are? … You are the Self. In Satsang, all that you are learning is not to take the ‘as if’ so seriously. You are the Self behaving ‘as if’ you are a limited entity. … Ashtavakra said, “The mind of the liberated one is neither troubled nor pleased. It is action-less, motion-less, desireless and free of doubt.” What does this mean, ‘To make yourself troubled’? If I said ‘In the next ten seconds you have to find a way to trouble yourself’, can you do it without going to a thought? What is your state before that? … Is it the body that is so concerned about the money? Does the body in itself (the sensations that we call body) does it have any sense of relationship with money, with job, with promotion, with relationships? … Without picking up this thought from ‘the conveyor belt of the mind’ show me the identity? … What has this ‘me’ and ‘mine’ ever gotten anyone… except suffering? … The play of appearance is coming, no trouble, [makes hand gesture of one hand still and other hand rotating] including the mind. No trouble. It’s an aspect of Consciousness itself. But Consciousness itself has given itself the power to ‘believe’ these energy construct called thoughts (or mind). In the object itself, there is nothing to believe or not believe. You see what I am saying? How many of you have heard this? Like when you look at an object per se [picks up a bowl] I say ‘Don’t believe’. Does it make sense? [Chuckles] First you have to pick up the notion of it’s existence, like ‘Does it exist or not?’ and then it might sound like I am asking you to disbelieve the notion of its existence. But the object itself, there is nothing to believe or not-believe. It is only a concept which you can either believe or not-believe. How many are seeing what I am saying? [Looks around the room] No? [Chuckles] So, it is only for one set of these appearances called mind (which Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi said is ‘a bundle of thoughts’), for this mind (this definition of mind which is that it is ‘a bundle of thoughts’) the power of belief is applicable. This belief leads to what? Does it ever lead you to becoming more than what you already are? … Can you play as ‘something’ without believing anything? … Now, if I say ‘What is troubling you?’ don’t take a second and tell me, don’t take a second and tell me; what is naturally here which is troubling you? You couldn’t do it. … We only suffer from what we think we know. Have you ever suffered without thinking you know something? Is there something that the mind wants to achieve which does not come and go, which will not go with the death of this body? What will you keep for yourself out of your achievements? So, whatever; if you have to win some awards, if you have to make lots of money, if you create a big name for yourself, if they put statues of you all over the world, what is going to last after your death? … Like do you really know it would be much better for you to have a lot of money? Do you really know? Do you really know that it would be much better for you to have a great relationship? Better by which standards and for whom? We don’t even really know and this might sound strong to some of you. Forget about it, I don’t want to bother anybody but do we really know what is better, life or death? It can sound absurd. But do we really know? … Are we giving the un-real a degree of seriousness? Which means an idea of it being real, undeservedly. … Make a story just about space with no time or make a story with time but no space. Can you do it? Can you come up with something? [Smile] It’s next to impossible, it’s just not possible. Because the story relies on time and space but time and space are just notions. … If you look at your intentions, your judgements, your perspectives on life, what is the spectrum on which they are built? Do we really know what is good for us, what is bad for us? … That is why this point, which is ‘that this is It’ seems so alien because we are used to evaluating ourselves and setting up structures based on which we can then gauge what is better and what is worse. So, what I am inviting [you to] is just a looking, without this judgement that ‘is it better to be better or better to be without better and worse?’ … How can you know your experience? What is the way in which you can know your experience? I realize that for many of you it can seem like a completely absurd sort of question—and you allow it to be absurd, it's okay, don’t bother with it. But for some of you, it will meet you here [points to his heart] and you will be open to contemplating something like this—like, I have a narrative about what my life is like, or what my day is like, or what my last one hour is like. You see? I can never have a narrative about right now anyway, but on what basis can I conclude that that narrative is accurate or true? So, the way to knock off all the narratives is to really zero in on this a bit and say - The mind comes with a proposal for a story of my life. Can I really conclude this to have some truth? In what way can I say that it’s true? And if you will explore, you will find I can’t really say. Why believe when we don’t really know? Let me ask a ‘why’ question. Why believe when we don’t really know? … There is no hero or heroine of the movie without the movie, without the story. There is no central character without the story. It is the story which makes the central character, and the idea of the central character which gives life to more and more of the story. Without any story, who are you now? … How does this come about? In our notion-less-ness, is there sense of ownership? … There is a ‘me’ and there is a world in which some things are ‘mine’. This body is ‘mine’ but the rest is ‘not mine’. The objects in my house are ‘mine’ but the rest are ‘not mine’. But where are all of them appearing? Where does this come from? How come when I see a certain set of objects, they seem to be ‘mine’ and when I see another set of objects, those are ‘not mine.’ Who is the ‘me’ to which they belong or they don’t belong? You see some bodies and they are ‘my children’ and you see another set of bodies and they are ‘not my children’. How does that distinguishing come? Who is the ‘me’ at the centre of this? … What is the nature of this world? Even if you weren’t spiritual, I feel like by the time everyone is a bit older they come to this understanding that attachments lead to trouble. Because they see that everything in this world is changing. Now, if I just try to hold onto something that is going to go, is that going to bring peace or trouble? … Lack and Desire As you taste your Existence, do you feel like it is incomplete? Do you feel that it is lacking? And when I say ‘Do you feel…?’ I don’t mean ‘What are your feelings about it’ and I don’t mean ‘What are your thoughts about it?’ I mean ‘What is your insight about it?’ How do you taste your Existence? How do you experience your Existence? Is there naturally something lacking in it? Is there naturally something missing in it? Until you go to sleep tonight, will this come and go? Or is this your constant experience? So, if there is nothing lacking in our Existence, in our Presence, then where is it lacking? … What is all that we desire? Why do you desire relationship? Why do you desire money? … Can it be this simple that all that we are looking for… contentment, Freedom from desire… really does not apply to the Reality of you? It only applies to the notion of yourself. Can you want something without first picking up the idea that ‘I am something limited?’ … The idea that something should be another way applies to who? … What does the non-existent one deserve? And when has it ever gotten anything? … Without separation, can there be desire? Already, everything is you. What could you desire? … ‘How do I find this One that is One? How do I find this One that is desireless?’ No. You find the witness of all things and then see who that is. Is that you? Or no? And this ‘you’ that is the witness of all things, then you check against all these attributes - The solitary witness. The one that has no imperfections, that is free, desireless, forever still. … When it becomes the sense that ‘I must have this’ - who is the ‘I’ in that? When we buy the idea that ‘I must have something’ that ‘This offering is meaningful for me’ or ‘This desire I must fulfil’, who is the ‘I’ in that? Is the ‘I’ what your insight is? … Who is the One who is concerned about how much money is in the bank account? Does the body care about that? … And if You are the Source of all of this, what desire can you have? What sense of lack can you still believe about your Self? … All of these things (all the contemplations, all the meditation, all the inquiry) is to come to this discovery - ‘What is it that I am? I am complete beyond the concept of complete. What desire can I truly have?’ … I’m saying - You Are That. And the mind is saying ‘I want that.’ Is it a worthy notion? What are you willing to exchange my words for? … We looked at desire. But the opposite of this desire which is aversion, is also a form of attachment, in which we say ‘I don’t want this to be mine come what may.’ It could be pain, it could be relationship, it could be anything. So, what is it that we attach our identity to, we attach ourself to… in a specific way? … The source of happiness itself is what you always have been. You don’t need to go helter-skelter and running about here and there trying to find it. All that you needed was to look inside your own box, on top of which you were sitting with a begging bowl. ‘Give me some happiness, give me some happiness’ [Chuckle] until you actually got up and saw: ‘What is there in the box?’ And you find that the source of all happiness has already been here, has always been here. What is it that you see about your Self? Go with that. You cannot find yourself yearning, longing, thirsting for some other phenomena after truly discovering your Self. … Burden Of Doer-ship For the One for whom all things are happening within it, what could it possibly do? … Am I really this person? If there is constant belief in this ‘person identity’ then is there some real basis to that belief? Even if the person was there, what would be its role? If even the blade of grass is moving with the will of God, what is the person’s role? If every dialogue which is going to come from the actor’s mouth is going to be the will of Consciousness, what is the person’s role? If every hand movement is going to be the will of God, what is the person’s role? …

Who is the ‘you’ who has to do? … But once it's seen that all is a movement of Consciousness, all is the movement in the ocean of Consciousness, all waves in one Being, then who is to hold this grievance against whom? If there are no two, if there is only One, only God is, then who is doing what to whom? … Is there such a ‘you’ which could have anything at all, including free will? … What is your mask-less Truth? What is your naked Reality? What is here, before there is an idea of you, which I call the mask? Are you the doer, or the non-doer? … When I say what makes this [Gesture of waving hand in air] a doing, verses the waves in the ocean are flowing. So, what is it that does that? Is it possible to consider this to be a ‘doing’. Whether we say this Ananta is doing or whether Consciousness is doing. But is it possible to consider it a ‘doing’ without an idea, without a notion? Is the doing-ness inherent in our experience? … All of this doing and not doing are just made-up ideas. This is a doing? [Waves hand] This is a doing? The breeze is flowing, the tree is swaying - is that a doing? … What does it matter, what do I have to do next, if only God Is, if only the Self Is? … I can do it - Who is this ‘I’? That I don’t know, but I can do it. It is so funny isn’t it? … Who is doing what to whom? What injustice has been done upon me by another if there is no ‘other’ and no ‘me’? What would your life be if there was no need for this kind of effort which involved the idea that ‘you’ have to do something? … Ashtavakra says “You neither do nor enjoy.” Who is this One? … What can make a doer or a sufferer out of you? What happens when you allow things to unfold? … The most important work, even at the body level, is being done for you. Do we have enough gratitude for that, to start with? ‘Thank you, Lord, for beating my heart.’ If you don’t consider yourself the body, what is the work? It is just to exist, no? Just to Be. … Where’s the control? Where is the control that we can lose? If you really look, what are we controlling right now? In what way are we controlling it? Does that one even really exist—the one who has some apparent control? … Who’s the one who’s not the doer? If the doer you are not, then also the experiencer you cannot be. … GUIDANCE How long will you keep presuming that there is a 'me' like this? When will you look and stay with what you actually find? [Silence] So one tip I have for all of you, is that, any time you notice yourself making a linear story about yourself, any linear story about yourself, know that it is just the mind. Nothing that appears and disappears has the power to define you in any way. Don’t take any reference to the ‘I’ seriously. … Dealing With EmoEons As these things are coming (it could be in terms of life events, it could be in terms of emotions) many of them will try to convince you that you have to deal with them in some personal sort of way, that you must put on the garb of personality so that you can finally deal with these things and get them out of the way. But let’s see if it is possible to deal with all of this as Presence itself. Things come to you; they knock on your door and they are expecting to meet a person there. But what happens to those things when they meet God? … There are a certain set of sensations being experienced but do we really know what they are? What they are… before you had a term for them? … I am That which is the witness even of Being, completely unconcerned, untouched by any of this. How can I have a grievance against my own aspect…, which might be playing out as some relationship, or something else? … What feeling has ever hurt space? What feeling is not allowed to come in space? What object does the room not want? ‘No, no don't bring that in’ the room has never said. … So, although we did not use it as a concept, whenever we find the space to check on the Reality of this...., we’re just checking and we can even say ‘Has this vulnerability, has this fear, taken over EVERY aspect of my Existence?’ And the mind will come and say ‘Yes, of course it has. You are completely shaking from this fear.’ But if we find the space to check, we’ll find that that there is an aspect that remains untouched. That which witnesses all of this shaking is untouched. Has this vulnerability, has this fear, taken over EVERY aspect of my Existence? … When you See that You cannot be scratched, cannot be dented by any appearance, what is there to fear? … Now, how to make anger into resentment? Can you do it without mixing egoic belief with that? How to make it into resentment? How will you make an action that happened..., (suppose you shouted at your children, some shouting happened at your children), how will you make that movement into guilt? Can you do it without mixing egoic identity, mixing the false into it? How will you make something which was said, which helped another one in a great way, (suppose you were just with someone and something was said like 'Mom, thank you that helped me so much!') …, how do you convert that movement of appearances into pride? … Holding a grievance; what is the idea that is perpetuated? … What if all of it was rubbish; every belief that you had about yourself? Would you suffer? If you did not believe anything about yourself? Could anyone come and push your button? How would it be? Would this play of attack and defense, righteousness, right and wrong; can this play on… grievances, pride and guilt, attachment? … At least this much is very simple to check, that the happiness never comes from outside you. Even if you feel like it is coming as a result of some desire being fulfilled, you see that it can only come from within you. Nobody can give you happiness. [Indicating giving something] ‘Take 10 grams of happiness. How much is it you want, maybe I can give it?’ It is not from outside, it is only coming from within. So, the source of happiness must be where? … When a strong sensation is there in the body, what is it that witnesses this sensation? Is that also a sensation? What is the most primal sensation? It seems to be the sensation of Being. What witnesses even that? … You are discovering your Self to be that which is beyond time and space, but you’re also finding your Self to be that which is prior to all attributes. [Silence] Is that one concerned about even life? Is the play of existence something that makes a real difference to the Self? … Can it be this simple…, that all that we are looking for (contentment, freedom from desire) really does not apply to the Reality of you? It only applied to the notion of yourself. … Can you have a grievance notion-less-ly? … Is there any trouble in the naked perception? (Phenomenal as it might be?) And whether you choose to call it illusory or real, that is okay but in the appearance of this naked perception, is there any trouble? Or do you need to mix it with conceptualization for this sense of trouble to come? … If you are open enough to investigate - What is it that we are defending? And if it is the Truth, why does it need a defense? If it is the Truth why does it need to be defended? … When these feelings or these sensations seem too scary, where there is no space to look, then it’s okay. Then just forget about it, go through it, you will be fine the next day. But when there is some space, when you can look, then you may want to invite yourself to look in this way and say ‘How much of my space do these sensations take? … Has your Being, as Consciousness, as God, become so powerless that it is now dancing to the tunes of its own tiny aspect? Is this your reality? … Dance is happening here [Shaking hand gesture start] in the world. This dance is happening for many of you. I’ve been getting your messages. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes; events, events, emotions, emotions, thoughts, thoughts, [Chuckles] pain, pain…, all this is happening.’ But does this dance contain you…, the entirety of You? Are you in this ‘moving, moving, moving’? Because if you are in that, then you are also coming and going. Then you don't need to worry anyway, because you will be gone soon. Because if you were just an appearance, why try to fix something? … If you take my one tip to heart, never try to solve it for a past you or a future you. Don’t try to solve it for the one who was there in the morning. And don’t solve it for the one who is going to be there after Satsang. In every moment, if there is a ‘solving’, just see if anything has to be solved in this moment. InvitaEon To Be Open Can you remain without your conclusions? Can you remain without your interpretations? Meet Life As Space If you have to meet life as something, meet it as space. What can’t you meet as space… that you surrender or you inquire. This whole so-called path is just this. That which you can’t meet with openness, you either surrender (Guru Kripa Kevalam) or inquire, ‘Who is this happening to?’ … Dropping of the pretence is the not picking up of another concept. Can we remain empty of all notions? … Which notion now is greater than Your Existence, Your Being? No notion is greater than Your Being. Why you want to exchange a notion for your Being? … Anything your mind is saying has nothing to do with the real You. It is just the mask salesman. The mask salesman is coming and saying ‘This mask now is worthy of you. This mask now is worthy of you.’ When are you ready to remain naked of these masks? … Can we not meet as little children… playing as this world itself… knowing that Mother is taking care of everything? When ‘I am’ is ‘not’ then, no trouble anyway? In sleep state you are not troubling yourself, there is no trouble. There is nothing to fix, nothing to find, nothing to resolve. But when ‘I am’ is, then also no trouble no? Because ‘I am’ is, no? … If you have idea that ‘life should only be this way’ then life will also come and show you that life has no limitations; it can also be the other way. So, all our positions are fundamentally just non- sense. How can that which is everything, which includes both the opposites of everything, have a position which is something? … In a way, the question always is about - How open can I be? Is my acceptance just lip service? Is my surrender just lip service? … Whatever you may think the problem is, it is better resolved in your notion-less Existence than through any strategies that you may come up with or any tactics that you come up with. Because this is the source of whatever tactics or strategies that you might come up with anyway. Where does everything arise from - even the mind? … One is the invitation from the voice of your own inner Sadguru saying, “Stay like this, simple, empty of notions, empty of judgments.” And, the other invitation is from the mind, saying, “Come, come, come with me. I will tell you what is right and wrong, what is good and bad.” Which invitation are you accepting? … Your eyes can be open or closed; the eyes of attention. But keep your hands of belief in your pocket. Can you live like this? … So then all of these are part of the play on the playground. Little taste of this, little taste of that. We must not shy away from feeling any feeling that is coming because who is it made for? God has cooked it for itself, for God's Self [Smiles] and if you don’t taste it then who will taste it? So taste it! Everything that appears for Consciousness, is enjoyable. I know to the mind that sounds very strange. [Smile] Everything is enjoyable because it is not making a distinction between bitter and sweet. So in that openness… and don’t say ‘this should not come, this should come, this is how it should be.’ It’s all good, very good. … Give Freedom To The World What if there was nothing to be solved? … Many, especially those in relationships, have come to me with this question, and they have said ‘Father, I still find my partner and I see that he is being so egoistic. Does that mean I’m being egoistic?’ And I say ‘Well, that depends.’ [Chuckles] ‘If you’re just spotting that he or she is being egoistic, and that is not met with a resistance; if the freedom is there that ‘Yes, the world is allowed to be as they are’. But if we say ‘But why does my partner have to be so egoistic? I wish it was not like this’ …, then what is that? This ‘me’ is what? Are we letting our partner be exactly how he or she is? Are we giving the Freedom to the Ones around us to also be deluded for as long as they like? … So, if all of this happens in the Light of Being, then whose problem is it? Is it anybody’s personal problem? All is just happening. And how do you know it is wrong? Who wants to control that experience? Who is to stop life from doing what it is doing? … For Awareness, it is not a problem, for Consciousness it is not a problem. The one it is a problem for does not exist. What to do? Awareness, no problem. For Being, is it a problem? Consciousness is doing all of this. Anything can really become a problem for that? … Hand over this existence to Existence. What is so difficult about that? … This surrender, this letting go, is not dumb. It is being with this Supreme Intelligence which is animating this entire perceived creation. But it doesn’t even make that distinction between the phenomenal and the nominal; the perceived and the perceiver. Even these distinctions are not needed there. … The mind has sold us this notion that there is a ‘Satsang world’ (and thankfully, you did not use the term but many times I hear it) and there is a 'Real world' out there. [The mind] makes this distinction and says 'Here, it’s okay; you can just be. But how can you ‘just be’ at work? You have to be a 'me'.’ Will you try it a few days without a 'me' and see? Then you can complain to me and tell me ‘I had to send an e-mail to my boss and it just didn't happen.’ Can I tell you that all of this, the movement of every action in this body, is happening only in the Light of Consciousness? It does not need anything’s help; especially not the ego. It is just mythical anyway. You said you cannot produce the person. So, if it doesn't exist, how can it help you? Isn’t it? … How would you not give freedom to the world? Actually, what is the method you have? The method that you seem to have to control the world is what? To control your emotions is what? … What could God be messing up? What could God be messing up? And if God is messing up then who can help! [Laughing] What could we be getting wrong (whatever that ‘we’ is) or what could we be getting right which God is getting wrong? [Silence] All our ‘shoulds’ are based on that. … What’s the intervention that God needs to guide God in the right path about your life? … What are we actually? In most of humanity what do we actually do? We walk into God’s house and say ‘This is what your house should be like’? We won’t even do that even to a stranger. [For example] We go to a stranger’s house… ‘Can I have some water please? We went to the house and say ‘Why is the TV kept there? It should be there. Why do you have three paintings on the wall? You should have one’. We do not do that. But ‘our existence’… we are constantly poking at it. It should be like this. It should not be like this. Whose house is this? Whose life is this? … Let the body be. Let the mind be. Let the intellect be. Let attention be. All of it gets it’s Being-ness from Being. And Being is not going wrong. This point is clear? … What can the ocean do for the wave, more than it has already done? That it`s very existence is made up of it. What more could we want? … Where’s the control? Where is the control that we can lose? If you really look, what are we controlling right now? In what way are we controlling it? Does that one even really exist—the one who has some apparent control? … Just empty of all stances, there is an openness for the body to exhibit naturally whatever stance has to come up in that moment. And then, for a while, you will feel like a sense of wonder is there. ‘Oh, how did this happen? How did this one say this?’ Like that. And sometimes, in the most difficult-seeming circumstances (as you say) there can be complete tolerance. And sometimes with a slightest [disturbance] ‘What’s going on here!’ Nobody should be able to draw a picture of Shiva. ‘This is how this one is going to be.’ Because you are not able to draw a picture yourself. … You start off completely as the Truth, the unspeakable Truth, unexplainable, unborn undying, it is naturally here. The minute you take yourself to be something, ‘I am something’ that is ignorance. Whatever that ‘something’ maybe. So this ignorance is how we practice the false. So whatever practice it takes so that we stop practicing the false is the practice that is needed. For some, [Snaps his fingers and indicates it is done] now no practice is needed, naturally you find yourself open and empty, without conditions. Some feel that when a notion comes, ‘I am this way’ or ‘I am this’ then it feels helpful to, with all sincerity and integrity ask ourselves, ‘Who am I?’ that is self-inquiry. [Silence] just to check, to inquire into our true nature and whatever we may perceive in our inquiry, to ask, ‘what witnesses that’ or ‘who witnesses that?’ [Silence] So that is one way to not practice the false. And this is only for you have to be true in your heart, if you feel like you need a way, then you can use that. Or you can ask yourself, ‘What am I doing here.. Where am I?’ any of these kind of questions which hit at the root of what you take yourself to be. Am I aware now? ; Who is aware of my existence? ; [Silence] What do I know when I know nothing? And if you don’t feel like you want to ask any of these kind of questions or look inside yourself, then just let go. Let go to that which you feel devoted to. Whether you call that Master, whether you call that Krishna or you call that Jesus or you call that Allah doesn’t really matter, what’s important is for you to let go. So when the mind is proposing something for you to resolve, for you to take on, [Silence] you let it go, saying it is for my Master or my Father to resolve. … PATH OF SURRENDER Suppose one day Guruji [Sri Mooji] came to you suddenly and was looking like one of those Indian Gods with a thousand hands. And in each hand he had a gift for you. In one hand he had a gift where you would have endless comfort in the material world. In another hand he had a gift where you were the owner of the power of love; anybody that you would meet would fall in love with you. In the other hand he had a gift where you would be able to recall every piece of knowledge in the world; all the scriptures, everything. In another hand he had a gift that as soon as you took that gift, you would be recognized as the Messiah of this world; everybody would bow down to your feet and you would be the Messiah of this world. Thousands of hands would be there and each of these hands had one gift. And he would say, ‘Amongst everything that you see here, you have to pick one thing...’ What will you pick? Let’s finish the example. Guruji himself is the embodiment of Truth itself. Now, very well some of you answered that you would pick Him. Suppose that after you picked Him, you hugged Him, then all these gifts actually became like fire. They start burning everything. Would you still keep hugging this Truth? --- GURU’S GRACE Having a Guru is to get on the ‘Guru Train’. And there’s nothing for you to do, really. And what do I mean by this? What else could you do but live in His Grace? --- What is the mind going to give you that the Guru’s Grace cannot? What is it, do you think? What is the greatest offer that you can get from the mind? --- What do you still feel is outside of the scope of God's Grace or Satguru’s Grace? [Silence] Anything? Anything? Everybody out here is deeply meditating so they are not answering my question. [Chuckles] What is outside the scope of the Master’s Grace? What do you have to handle? Let's put it another way. What does the 'me' have to handle? --- If, as you say so beautifully, that you are here in the lap of the Divine Presence, then let the mind say whatever it wants. When it says, ‘I’m still waiting’, see that and say, ‘But I’m on my Father’s lap.’ If it says, ‘But you’re not like Bhagavan was’, see that and say, ‘I am on my Father’s lap.’ And see that Father’s lap cannot be secondary to any other position. That is the simplest, simplest. Then it doesn’t matter whether you’ve heard anything else in Satsang or not. --- Like I said, there is only one medicine which is available here. Find out who you are. And all concerns about life, what is going to happen, including concerns about Freedom or any state, leave that up to Guru Power. [Smiles] Guru Power is the best power. [Silence] No waiting, no expecting, no judging, no interpreting, no resentment, no pride, no guilt; no suffering basically. [Chuckling] Guru Power can run your life, no? --- There is only one thing which is a constant in many of our lives, and that is the Divine Presence of the Master. I’m bound to the feet of the Master like a child who hangs on the mother’s womb when it is scared. And sooner or later you will come to this discovery that everything has always been taken care of. --- ‘Kripa’ or Grace, is not within the bounds of our mental boundaries of what is good or what is bad. --- Let all the messages be directed towards the Satguru. You can say ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam’ to everything like autoresponder. [Smiles] Yes, I have come from a full day at work, okay. [Laughter] All of these work references are coming. Let the autoresponder be: Guru Kripa Kevalam. [Smiles] All emails from the mind: Guru Kripa Kevalam. ‘Oh, but you are running out of money.’… Guru Kripa Kevalam. ‘That is such an irresponsible way to live.’ … Guru Kripa Kevalam. ‘You are going to end up on the streets.’ … Guru Kripa Kevalam. ‘You are being a complete loser.’ … Guru Kripa Kevalam. Nothing is going to happen to your life. Your complete way of thinking is ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam.’ ‘So, that means that now you have found a cheat code; you don’t have to do anything at all.’… Guru Kripa Kevalam. [Chuckles] ‘You can just lay in bed all day.’ … Guru Kripa Kevalam. ‘I don’t need to do work.’ … Guru Kripa Kevalam. ‘You need to work very hard.’ … Guru Kripa Kevalam. No position needed. And then you will see that the body seems to be working, working, working. Then you will see that the body is just in bed. … Guru Kripa Kevalam. What can you not say ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam’ to? The death of the body? Is that outside the scope of your Master’s Grace? Is it...? Guru Kripa Kevalam. Guru Kripa Kevalam The Guru’s Grace Is All There Is. SURRENDER

So, it starts like this [joins his hands in prayer]: ‘Please take care of me, I’ve tried running this life and now it is not working, so I bow my head to you.’ So there’s a separation between master and disciple. Then it is found often, not always, that most actually stay at this point and they find some peace. It gives them a band-aid, and they go about their life until something irritates them and then they come back and say: ‘Sorry, sorry, I forgot, but you please take care of this.’ So, some can stay at that place. But many times, it happens that you stay at that place and you say: ‘Thank you for being here. I see that I’m not so concerned now about what is being done because what is being done and what is being experienced are both your problems. Who am I to ask for only this or that? You see, we can start by saying, ‘Please let this life be full of all things that the world has to offer. May I never lack anything.’ You can do all kinds of ceremonies and rituals around it, but most prayers are like that: ‘Please give me money, give me strength, whatever, whatever, whatever.’ So that, clearly now, ‘I’m handing it over to you. You are the doer, but please can you just take care of my bank account, my spiritual progress, and whatever?’ If surrender is true, then many can come to this point, which is that ‘Yes, you are doing everything and I’m nobody to define for you what you have to do. If you want to keep this body in wealth, keep it in wealth. If you want to keep it in poverty, keep it in poverty.’ So, you can make a prayer like, ‘Jaahi vidhi rakhe Ram, taahi viddhi rahiye.’ Meaning, however Ram keeps me, I’m happy. Sometimes you move away from making that full surrender and continue having an expectation of what that experience should become by saying, ‘Whatever happens, it’s up to you. Whichever way you want to keep me, I’m fine with that.’ Then it becomes, ‘Yes, I see only you everywhere, Oh Lord, it’s only you; I don’t find this ‘me’ anywhere.’ Then you may say something like, Bulleh Shah [Sufi poet] said, “Mein kaun? Who am I? I don’t understand. Here I look, I’m not; there I look, I’m not.’ So, some may say then, ‘Here, there, everywhere, there is only you; you, you. Tu hi tu. Who am I to pray to you? It’s all you.’ Surrender naturally comes to this Oneness of Jnana Yoga [Path of Knowledge], which through the inquiry you see there is only one, there is no separation, there is no two. Then in our devotion, when we let go of this outcome, of this individual expectation of what should happen, and what should not happen, you see that, ‘Who was I asking for anyway? I don’t find any evidence of ‘me.’ It’s only one; it’s only you. [Beaming smile]. So, for many it can feel like a progression. --- One great Master I was with said, ‘Surrender is not a doing, it is just a recognition.’ You recognize the way things always were and you realize that there was no such individual doer. So it is just a recognition that this one in the light of this one Being, on the screen of this one Being, all of this play of light and sound, is happening. --- If the doer you are not, then also the experiencer you cannot be. It is very, very common in India to say, ‘God I prayed to you but just make sure it goes like this...’ Somebody in Satsang just the other day also said it like that: ‘Father, I surrender this to you. Father, this I surrender to you, just make sure it goes well.’ Where’s the surrender? --- So, if you surrender at the Master’s feet or at God’s feet, we must surrender both aspects: the doing and the experiencing. This must become God’s life then. ‘Do with it what you want.’ It can’t be ‘I surrender to you; do with it what I want.’ Although it sounds funny when I’m saying it, you will notice how much deal making we have done like that. You see, ‘I surrender; do with it what I want’ is not true surrender. It is ‘I surrender to you; do with it what you want.’ --- Now, if you continue to take yourself to be the non-existent one which is still the individual experiencer, then it is not fully surrendered. You must now say, ‘That which I considered myself to be is neither the doer nor the experiencer and there is only One, which is my Master, Guru Kripa Kevalam, who is now doing and experiencing. There is no distinction between my Being and my Master.’ --- The simplest way to surrender is to not make a conclusion. --- Some of you have been having some very good insights with this contemplation: ‘What righteousness am I not willing to give up?’ How can you be right and surrender at the same time? --- Even if you had an idea for twenty years, thirty years, if it feels like you've always had that idea, are you willing to come to Satsang and question these now-sacred ideas about yourself? \ In some ways this is Surrender. In some ways this is Devotion. --- Suppose that in your life everything was always taken care of. Everything was always taken care of. Then how would your inner attitude change if you knew this? Unwaveringly, whatever it is, it is always taken care of. Then how would your inner attitude change? --- This surrender, this letting go, is not dumb. It is being with this Supreme Intelligence which is animating this entire perceived creation. But it doesn’t even make that distinction between the phenomenal and the nominal; the perceived and the perceiver. Even these distinctions are not needed there. --- Don’t know … And don’t know that even you don’t know. Don’t even make ‘I don’t know’ a position. Just like that. This for me is surrender. --- You say, ‘Rid me of this me’ and the Master says, ‘It is Done.’ How do you receive this? This part is very important. All of you have made this prayer ‘Rid me of me.’ The Master has said, ‘It is Done.’ Will you receive this in the same tired skepticism? Or is there at least a little possibility that what the Master is saying is true? Will you still wait for evidence to prove the Master’s words? Will you continue to judge yourself, or interpret yourself in a limited way? So, let’s not say ‘Guru Kripa Kevalam’ if we mean ‘Me, me, me, Kevalam.’ --- Trust means that everything that appears in light of Being, is left for Being to do. Everything that appears in the light of Being, Being has to take care of. So many times we make this mistake and say, ‘I surrender, I surrender.’ And we try to surrender as if we are the body and we are like, ‘Oh, I surrender…’ But when you surrender you must surrender the whole Universe. Leave nothing out of your surrender. If you are just surrendering one measly body, what is the big deal in that? Surrender everything and give it freedom. Let it be. Stop burdening it and therefore burdening yourself with these ideas. That is the feeling behind Guru Kripa Kevalam - Everything is the Master’s Grace. Not everything in my life, for this body I surrender. This kind of egotism is not surrender. Everything ever perceived… just let go.[Meditative Silence] That is the way of Truth. --- So don’t do your Master the disservice of letting the mind overrule the Master’s instructions. Because then your mind is still the Master. The one that has the veto power is the Master, no? --- GURU’S INTENTION It does happen many times that we come to a Master and we feel like, ‘This Master is going to help me.’ Until you recognize his true intention. [Smile] His true intention is like, ‘Get out of the way ‘you’, get out of the way. I want to meet God. I don’t want to meet ‘you’, I want to meet God.’ That’s what the Master is saying: `You are still here? Come on ‘you’ leave, I want to meet God.’ We may have this feeling or this expectation that we come to a Master so that he can help ‘me’. But when we realize that really it is not about ‘me’, the Master doesn’t care about ‘me’ at all - that is a very, very tough realization to come to. The Master loves your Reality, not your falseness, not your facade. The Master does not love your mask. The Master loves what you are because that’s what the Master is. That is the crunch moment, the moment when you realize that he or she, the Master and whatever that expression of the Master may be, is not interested in catering to this ‘me’. They are only interested in finding ways where you will let go. How can I meet You without ‘you’? That is always looking for that sliver of the entry point. How can I meet you so that I can bypass your mind? How can I meet you empty of this? --- I ask for the greatest Guru Dakshina. Everything I want. I can’t leave you with anything. I don’t ask for phenomenal ‘peanuts’. You have no excuses. You have to come with me out of this Universe on this voyage that you’re taking; Your Reality is beyond all of this. --- Your notion of ‘me’ and ‘mine’ I want as my Guru Dakshina. Your notion of ‘me’ and ‘others’ I will also have. Your notions of ‘bondage’ and ‘separation.’ Your notion of ‘Oneness’ and ‘Freedom’. Your notion of ‘What should be.’ Your notions of ‘What could have been.’ --- In a sense, the Guru is just the garbage collector. [Chuckles] He is the garbage collector who is taking all your conceptual knowledge. Sometimes shaking things up and saying, ‘Give it all to me, this nonsense you are talking about.’ [Laughing] And sometimes saying, ‘My child, my child, just surrender it.’ --- The true disciple is not ‘being’ a disciple. You understand what I mean? The true disciple is not ‘being’ a disciple; you are not becoming a better disciple. The true disciple is empty of identity; like an infant child. Is the infant child being an infant child? [Silence] Therefore, in the same way, the best disciple is one who is empty of all concepts, including disciple; empty of the concept of being an empty ‘disciple’ also. I have to tell you this because the nature of the mind is such that it will pick up this aspect of it. Forget both the opposites and remain like an innocent child. --- Always at Father’s Feet CONCLUSION Almost every clue in Vedanta has been heard by you. In this moment, here and now, what is it that you are? Simple, if you don’t go along with what the mind is saying ,‘But, but, but…’ Don’t go along with the quality and content of what your feeling is right now. Don’t go with any of these things. Don’t resist any of that, of course. Find out: What witnesses that? Come to the Unchanging. Then, truly when we use the words, ‘The Unborn, the Undying, and the Eternal’ it is not just a concept. It is your own direct experience. And all these pointings are not something for you to do. Just allow them some space in which they can enter. You cannot solve it. Like I say, you cannot solve ‘Who am I?’ like an equation. ‘I will add 3 + 2 and multiply it by 55 and then I will get the answer. Yes! Right or wrong?’ We are trying to solve it like this. [Points to his head; deep thinking] [Chuckles] You cannot get it like that. What did the Sage say? You cannot get it through these phenomenal tools. Let these words do the work on their own. Just a simple sense of allowing, if that is possible in Satsang. Just to keep that. Something just opens up. --- BLESSINGS TO ALL OF YOU Whatever has to happen in the play is going to happen in the play. But there's a blessing I have for all of you. May my Master’s Grace always shine upon each and every moment in your life. May His unlimited Grace and love bring all of your heart’s truest desires into your life with full auspiciousness. And as long as you might want to play, may that play be full of love, peace and joy. Even the tears; may they be full of joy. Whatever the apparent play might be, you are the Self. And as you meet your Self, this is completely recognized. Even in the interpretation, judgment, and conditions, the Self remains unchanging. As Consciousness speaking with itself, I know that the blessing is: Play. Play as much as you like and come home as you like. No pushing, no forcing, because I know that all of you are in the Satguru’s care. I'm always available to all of you in this form of Ananta. But my deeper blessing is that you find me as your own Inner Presence, Inner Satguru. And recognize that all of this beautiful stepping-out of ignorance is also happening in your own light, by your own Grace. May your Presence lead to full love, peace, and joy for all those appearing in your life. Remember that there is nothing to remember and that you are never forgotten. In the moment of looking, the finding is already there. All gratitude, all praise, to our Beloved Master, Satguru Sri Mooji Baba. May his light bring all beings to the recognition of the Self. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti. --- All power to you, my Beloved children. May my Master’s Light shine through each and every one of you. Guru Kripa Kevalam Satguru Sri Mooji Baba Ki Jai! --- GLOSSARY Advaita Vedanta: Literally ‘not two’; non-duality or absolute unity. Advaita Vedanta affirms that what is, is only Brahman, the Ultimate Reality. It also affirms the unreality of the world and the conceptual self. Awakening: When the delusion of identification with the mind has dissolved, it is said that that one is an awakened being. This may also be referred to as enlightenment or self- realization. The process by which one awakens is known as Awakening. Awakening Experience: The recognition of what we are in reality, but not necessarily the dissolution of all prior conditioning. Awareness: That which is unborn and unchanging; the Self. Awareness is the Pure Seeing itself, which is aware even of Beingness. Bhakta: A lover of God, a devotee; one who follows or practices the path of surrender or devotion (bhakti yoga). Bhakti: Loving devotion and surrender to God. Ultimately, this devotion will take one toward the formless realization of Oneness. Being: Your own holy Presence. Also referred to as Consciousness, Presence and God. Brahman: The Absolute principle by which all manifestation arises. The designation in Hinduism for the impersonal Absolute Reality, Ultimate Truth, existence-knowledge-bliss; the one, formless, non-dual, Absolute, substratum of all that exists. Contemplation: Contemplation is a non-intellectual looking as one follows the teacher’s pointings inwardly. It does not seek to find an answer, but instead holds a question or inquiry softly allowing an insight or revelation to arise. Contemplation does not always lead to revelation, however. Instead, contemplation may give way to the dissolution of a sense of doership and identification with the Ego/Mind structure. Disciple: When one sincerely follows the teaching of a Guru/Master they may be called a disciple of that teacher. Doership: The sense that ‘I’ as a person am the doer of my actions and the thinker of my thoughts. Ego: The belief in separation and an individual sense of a ‘me’. ‘That which resists what is, is the ego.’ ~ Ananta Freedom: When one experiences themselves as being free from the constraints of the projections of the mind. Guru: Literally, ‘remover of darkness’. The true Guru guides the seeker of truth to turn inward and discover that they are Truth itself. “The Guru actually is the Polar Star around which all things revolve. He is the unmoving one, the core. To live with your head at the Master’s feet is to live on top of the world. I discovered this at the feet of my Master, Papaji.” ~ Sri Mooji I Am: The natural sense or knowing in all sentient beings, that ‘I exist.’ This sense is untaught and therefore completely natural. The knowing that ‘I Am’ can be interchanged with many words, and may be called Being, Presence, Heart, Spirit or Consciousness. The natural being that has not taken itself to be its beliefs, preferences, desires, feelings, sensations and the body, and that lives spontaneously and free from the constraints of identified consciousness. Identified Consciousness (Identification): Believing that one is their beliefs, preferences, desires, sensations, thoughts and/or their body. When one is identified with the above mentioned phenomenon, they may believe they are a person with particular beliefs, likes and dislikes. The state of believing oneself to be a person or a ‘me’ is known to be a state which may vacillate wildly between pleasure and pain. When one dis-identifies with beliefs, the sense that they are vulnerable and alone loosens as the natural state of Being is naturally revealed. Jnana: Perfect knowledge or understanding arising from the practice of self-inquiry. Jhana yoga is the path of true knowledge and wisdom which is incontrovertible and permanent; absolute knowledge. Jnani: Sage, a liberated or enlightened one. Ki Jai: A sign of respect, praise and reverence to whomever it is referring. It is customarily used as a call and response, as in, “Satguru Sri Moojiji Ki Jai!” Lila: The Divine play or dance of existence. Maya: The illusion that the world (both inner and outer) is real and is made of separate and independent parts. Maya is created to seem real and feel real. Non-Duality: Simply, non duality means One without a second. This term may be considered a secular version of Advaita Vedanta. PercepOon: That which is consumed, in a way, through the senses. What are these senses? Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch: that is perception. There is another type of perception, ‘inner perception’ because even if we are not using this physical sight, even if we are not using physical taste, touch, it is possible to perceive these things internally. If I say ‘What is the taste of an orange?’ we can perceive it, isn’t it? Even though we are not tasting it with this tongue, we can still perceive the taste, the tanginess of an orange or the sweetness of honey, the sourness of a lemon. Say, if you can bring attention to the image of a tree, you can still perceive a tree. You can still perceive it. What’s better is if I say ‘don’t’ … ‘Don’t think of a tree’ then you still perceive a tree. That is the nature of the mind. This perception is also perception. Sangha: A group or community of seekers, finders and lovers of Truth and everyone who is drawn to sincere interaction with Truth. Satguru: The Satguru is the true Master which is your own inner being; the already free Self living within and as all sentient beings. Satsang: Fellowship or company of Truth; the company of a realized sage, conversation which leads one toward Truth. Seeing: Unlike sight, as in the mechanism of perception, seeing is used to point to a broader Knowing or Pure Awareness. This can also be called Witnessing. Self: Awareness is the Self. Self-Inquiry: Introduced by Adi Shankara and popularized by Ramana Maharshi, Self-Inquiry is asking, “Who Am I?” Like Contemplation, the questioner should not seek an answer but rather remain open. By doing so, the inquirer discovers that they are not composed of the five elements, the body, thought, belief, desire, sensation, or emotion. Seva: Selfless service to Guru and God. The Seer: The one to whom seeing is occurring. This is not referring to the personal sense of ‘me’ but rather to neutral observing. This may also be called the Witness. Truth: That which cannot be altered and is common to all beings; Awareness and the Self. Yoga: Literally, ‘to yoke, harness, unite’; union in which the subject and object of meditation have become one. Satsang with Ananta Ananta shares Satsang with the blessings of his Guru, Sri Mooji. In Sanskrit, the word ‘Satsang’ (‘Sat’ – truth, ‘Sangha’ – company) simply means being with the Truth. Satsang with Ananta is an invitation for sincere seekers to come to the complete realization of the Self. In his presence, many beings have experienced a stillness of mind and resting as Being. In Satsang, belief in thoughts reduces and the mind comes to rest in the Heart. In this peace, our true nature reveals itself. Although words may be used in Satsang, communication also happens non-verbally, through a deeper transmission of the Heart. All are welcome to attend. Join in the Facebook group to receive all announcements about Satsang broadcasts: https://www.facebook.com/groups/satsangwithananta To attend in-person satsang with Ananta in Bangalore, please leave a message @ https://www.facebook.com/satsangwithananta/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ananta_garg/ https://www.instagram.com/satsangwithananta/ Official Website: http://www.anantasatsang.org Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/SatsangwithAnanta Buy Ananta's Paperback Books: Consciousness Speaking With Consciousness https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521204705/ The Knowing of the Heart: Direct Pointers for Self-Realisation https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DCB11CK/ Other Books are available at https://anantasatsang.org/read/ for download as pdf, Kindle or mobile devices. Audio talks: https://soundcloud.com/satsangwithananta https://open.spotify.com/episode/0t82tiqhSwJMs5eiPsr4m4?si=9ZjIsNZlQhC2CfC2Upqeug