Taking It to be The Truth is Called Belief.

You said something very beautiful and I’ve been stressing on this point for some time and I feel it still manages to escape because to use in worldly terms; it’s a bit subtle. So you said, ‘How do we know that the world is round that is different from how we know that we are Awareness?’ So how do we know that the world is round?

But we don’t know that the world is round through perceptual evidence.

[Chuckling] Yes. So if you look at a photograph and somebody tells you that this is the earth. But even if you didn’t have that perceptual evidence and if a great scientist or the president of the country [is] coming and telling you that the world is round then you would still take it to be true, based on the credibility.

So if your Master comes and tells you that the world is actually round or this shape, you will take it to be true. Because the concept coming from a credible source and you apply the stamp of truth on it, with your belief. Everybody with me on this? So it’s important to see that the concept in itself is just another concept; but Consciousness has the ability to take it to be the Truth and that taking it to be the Truth is what is called a belief. A conceptual notion, let me take another one, this earth is moving at supersonic speed, its true isn’t it? It’s rotating and it is revolving, yet we have not had a perceptual experience of that (not even in photos) and yet we take it to be true isn’t it? Because it is a conceptual understanding that we take to be real, we take to be representing reality. That’s the first. The second thing that you said is the perception. We take that which we perceive to be real. Infact in the world it is said that ‘seeing is believing’ but the basis of Vedanta is ‘what you see is not to be believed’ because every perception, it comes and goes. So all this perception, (whatever we perceive) it is not the ultimate Truth. It is not the Truth if the quality of the Truth is that it is the eternal One, it does not come and go, you see then every perception does not fall into that category of Truth. And atleast if we use that benchmark of Truth then all perceptions don’t match that benchmark, isn’t it? Because everything that you perceive it comes and goes. Now how do we come to direct knowledge of the unchanging? And that is why this pointer has been given that when you check on whether you are Aware, ‘Am I aware now’ you have a non- experiential experience. It is apparent to you but it is not something that you see. And it is not just a concept. When I say, ‘Are you Aware now’? Some of you could be responding conceptually, you could be saying ‘Yes I know the answer, I’ve heard this many times, so I’m aware’, this is true conceptually. But this is not what happens with most of you, you just simply check, you are aware that you are aware. Now this is the only non-phenomenal, non-experiential experience that any of us can ever have. And all of us have had it, it is clear to all of us. So Self-knowledge belongs to all of us already. There is nobody who is unaware of their own Awareness. In fact this notion of somebody and nobody is not there but that is getting to technical, we won’t worry about that for the moment. This Awareness is empty of all qualities and yet it is clearer than daylight. Because even if daylight is not there and your eyes are closed you cannot deny this simple Self awareness. So this is the subtle trick, this is the cow jumping over the moon, because we are expecting it to be something phenomenal, something perceptual… You are trying to send with all your might your attention to it saying, if I just look inside, if I look more and more inside finally somewhere deep inside there is this Awareness sitting over there. But this is just not true like that because that would also make Awareness phenomenal. If can be covered in a layer of phenomena then it itself has to be phenomenal, isn’t it? Can phenomena cover something that is non-phenomenal?

It cannot. So this fallacy of trying, trying, trying and coming to a sight or a perception of the Self is a great fallacy which 99.9 % of seekers are suffering from. And that is why I am happy when you say that it hit you very strongly, when you recognized that the way that you know Awareness is not the way you know any other information in this world. So what is the spiritual seeker trying to do? The spiritual seeker is trying to make what is known already like this (let us call it intuitively) they are trying to fit it into some perceptual or conceptual box and that is why the journey seems long. And for a many it seems like for a long time they have been ‘almost there’. But most spiritual seekers from the beginning always feel that they are almost there. So why is it? Because intuitively the sense is clear, empty of any sense of any dependence on perception or concept, everybody knows themselves. [Silence] Now even as I say this observe yourselves, observe yourselves all of you, and see how are you trying to confirm that. When I say to you, you know your Self right now, what tools or measures do you have to confirm that?

You can’t go there. The tool will be of perception or intellect. And all of us are waiting to confirm our Self or our Freedom but it is not that way. So, this quantum leap in a way happens, this cow jumping over the moon happens where you realize my searching for it as if it is an objective search gets dropped. And when the searching for it as an objective search gets dropped, the recognition that ‘It is always This’ becomes so simple and apparent.