Surrender Is Not Really a Doing, but a Recognition of What Already Is

It is obvious to you that you are sitting?

What is even more obvious than that?

‘I am sitting’, so even more obvious than that?

That ‘I Am’, What is even more obvious than that?

‘I’. So, because ‘I am sitting’ is still a few steps. Now, looking from our mind’s perspective it can seem like ‘My most obvious starting point is I am sitting’. But, it’s not true. When you just look, if your eyes are closed and suppose the sensations of the ground vanish for a moment, it won’t be obvious whether you are sitting or standing. But that ‘You are’ is more obvious than that. That which Is, that which is Being is You. You are Being, this ‘You’ or the ‘I’ is the most obvious. This is so obvious that it cannot be lost and to the mind because it is so obvious it is lost.

But if I say ‘You are not, only Vasu is’ [The Sangha member sitting beside]

It doesn’t sound right. Like ‘you are not hearing this voice’.

Then how does it come to you?

Exactly! What is the struggle? The struggle is we are not able to picture the ‘I’ or we are not able to conclude about this ‘I’. And yet this Self-Knowledge is primal. So, it also doesn’t sound correct when I say ‘No, no you are not hearing these words’ but ‘I am’. So, you also said (in a way) in your report very correctly, that the confusion only comes because I don’t know what this ‘I’ is.

And what I want to tell you is that you cannot know here [Points to head] what this ‘I’ is.

It is more than okay. In fact, that recognition will save you a lot of time. Because if we think that spirituality or Satsang means that I will come to know here [Points to head] what this I is… Okay let me spend a minute on this ‘So, it is becoming more and more obvious to us that we don’t know what this I is, and we cannot perceive what this I is’ and yet it is very natural to say ‘I’. Like even in this report you say ‘I don’t know what this I is’. You are not saying ‘The one, who I cannot figure out, that one now knows that it cannot be known, or some strange…’ ‘I don’t know’ [Smiles] So, somewhere it is very natural but also it is not contained in our head or our perception. So, what we are discovering in Satsang is what makes this so natural, what is that? And that is what has been neglected. This is what is Self-Knowledge, which is just simple, simple and obvious. But when our intellect is asked to translate that - “What is this I? - I don’t know” “What does it look like? - I don’t know” “What is the color of it, shape of it, size of it? - I don’t know”. So, we cannot fit it in our intellect and because we cannot fit it in our intellect and that’s why I was talking about our entire conditioning in this world is to try fit things into our intellect, we feel like ‘I am failing this exam’ because I am not able to write a proper answer about it. But are you hearing this voice or not?

That’s it! So, I am hearing this voice. [Smiles]

Yes, you cannot have. In fact, all ideas that we can have about it are false.