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You know what showed up on my Facebook feed the other day was that graphic you made with the pen. You remember the graphic? Believing the thoughts or not believing them with the pen example. And you remember what it said? It said—I don’t remember now whether it said seven years or eight years ago.

It said, “Don’t pick it up, or if you’ve found you already have it in your hand, throw it away or put it back. That’s it. And that’s all I’ve been trying to say for so long.

I remember this, I remember you telling me this….

What do I say? I never remember what I said….The nihilistic view. Is that what you said?

Aah, nihilism.

So, were we born with the idea that life must have a point? And, does it (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?

Yes, but that is our need to understand, no? That is our need to understand. But 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? It only—

Yes, yes.

Thank you for reminding me of that because I wanted to tell Aparna also this. You don’t need to accept anything. What would that acceptance—

I see that she’s also trying to accept that her mother is not there. But it’s not true that her mother is not there, you see, only in a particular way. But even that we don’t have to force ourselves to accept.

But if you really look at it, in the play of perception something appears or something does not appear. In those perceptions—in themselves the perceptions are not saying that oh, that one is not there now or that one will never show up now. It is only the mind presentations which have these kind of ideas, no?

So, the mind pokes us both ways. If you become too accepting of it, (the mind says): Look at you, you’ve become so hard, you have accepted that your best friend is gone, how rough are you or how tough are you. And, if you say no, no, I can’t deal with this concept, I don’t want it, it will say: See! You can’t even accept, acceptance is very important. But the acceptance that I am speaking of is not to give a conceptual assertion to an idea from the mind. It is to allow even the un-acceptance conceptually of an idea to be there. I can’t accept it! Okay, don’t accept it. It’s fine.

Who told you you have to accept it? I mean, I know the world tells us that. I don’t ever recall saying something like that in Satsang that oh, I have to accept. Because I don’t know; this could be a dream, that may have been a dream. I don’t really know. So, what to accept and what not to accept?

Yes, but what’s the best way to look? What can we really say? I like what you did because you started something and then said: Can I really say that? What would ‘real’ imply there? And, what is the way I have to know? And when we start looking in this way, we realize the mind has just been making a monkey out of us for this long by saying accept this, no, no, you can’t accept that—by presenting these things. And we put ourselves in these limited positions that something has to happen before I can be free or something. You see?

And suppose, for example—sorry, I seem to keep interrupting because there’s a lag—but suppose I didn’t accept what you were saying. So, I’m not going to beat myself up and say no, no, I should accept what Shivani is saying, you see? No, I don’t accept what you’re saying. It’s fine.

But I’m not saying you have to get to non-acceptance. I’m just saying I’m remaining neutral, neither accepting nor no, no, I reject what you’re saying. So, I’m not talking about an acceptance or a rejection. Because either position is full of trouble.

No, but this is very good. Because, you see, because the nature of the problem is like this: If we say okay, now don’t accept that means that I am now rejecting or not accepting. No, that’s not what I said because that’s a new position. You see? I’m not accepting but I’m not rejecting either. I’m just letting it be.

Who said that I must take a position about something that shows up in life.

Emotion is fine, but emotions are not a position because they come, sometimes they seem to linger, and they pass, you see, and maybe they come again. That’s fine. But they are not proposing ideas. they’re just experienced as perception.

It is the idea that comes as an overlay on top of the emotion that says this emotion should not come, this means you’re still attached, or this means you need to get more detached. All this is the narrative that the emotion doesn’t carry. The emotion is a pure appearance like a cloud. It is the mind’s interpretation that oh, dark cloud means bad news, light cloud means good news. You see? We can make these smoke signals out of anything.

Of course. This is exactly the pen thing we were talking about just yesterday. [Laughs]

So, good to identify that it’s just the idea.

So, don’t pick up the pen; or if you picked it up, then drop it.

Many times we struggle because a better pen is not being presented to us. Like, we’re usually willing to drop the branch that we are holding if a better branch is offered. But because what is offered to the mind seems like nothing, then it can feel like but what do I hold then, then what can I truly say? But the thing is that what we’re taking to be true is not true and we see that by now.

Okay, tell me exactly, spell it out for me what you’re struggling with.

How do you know that this report is true?

The week that just went past, how many moments did you struggle with this?

Tell me authoritatively. How many moments were you troubled with this?

One moment? And, how many moments are there in a week?

I would like to have struggled like this; it’s only one in a trillion. That’s freer than the Masters. [Laughs] That’s why I’m questioning the narrative and whether it truly depicts our lives in an accurate fashion.

Sometimes. And it’s fine to happen from time to time because as long as it doesn’t take 999,000 out of a million, it’s okay.

[Laughs] Yeah. We know you in the hospital, as well. One of the who’s attended Satsang from the hospital.

I feel like I won’t impose this on you because you’ll beat me up, but I’ll be happy if you transcribe at least a part of what we spoke.

Good.

We’ll help you. We’ll help you out with this one.