श्रीरामSatsang with Ananta
Mind & Thoughts

The Cycle of The Spiritual Seeker

The cycle of seeking is endless because conclusions become new confusion; true freedom comes not from answers but from meeting the wobbliness of not-knowing empty-handed, beyond all mind positions.

Seeker

I see there is still an idea that I want to know. Even though it’s a spiritual idea, it’s still a conditioning, it is still something I want to know and I want to grasp. That’s clear. It’s still there but I hear what you are saying.

Ananta

But, when we say ‘it is there’, what does that mean actually?

Seeker

The desire, the urge. It’s kind of a tightness.

Ananta

So, let’s identify it. Can we identify it here and now? Where is it?

Seeker

In the chest. Where most things are.

Ananta

Now, that perception which could be like a constriction or some pulsation, then what is that saying organically? Just the perception itself.

Seeker

Just is. It’s not saying anything.

Ananta

That’s very good. So, if you just look at that and you don’t have to fixate your attention on it or make a practice out of it, but if you just look at that and don’t succumb to the need to conclude, then you will meet at a point where you will identify all the need to know, all the need to grasp, which is actually like a need to limit ourself or a need to attack ourself or a need to really suffer. Which the mind actually convinces us that this is actually going to help us, ‘the more we grasp the better off we will be’, so if we can meet it at the seeming discomfort or wobbliness level of not knowing and allowing our self to be not-conclusive, then you strike it at the root. Because it is at the substratum of all grasping, this kind of, ‘But I am still a bit incomplete, am I completely clear about all of this?’ And it is mental push, a mental pushing towards a mental resolution, a conclusiveness which actually is just the birthing ground for new confusion. So, like we said, the cycle of the spiritual seeker is mostly ‘confusion - confusion; conclusion - conclusion; confusion - confusion.” So, it’s the same thing - confusion. Then you hear some words in satsang and you feel like, “Ah, thank you, thank you. That got resolved.” It became a conclusion but those fresh conclusions then become the new confusion. So, that’s why this journey seems so circular and endless. And most of us have been on this for so long, in this sort of merry go round way, where we feel like, “This is my final question.” So, many times we feel like this. Like, I have felt that so many times. And then I would hear a satsang or I would hear a new master speaking and I would feel, “Oh, I have had this confusion so long. Thank you, thank you, thank you. All done now.” But then the same thing the master said today, tomorrow will become the source of new confusion, “But, you said like this but how can it be like that?” So, it becomes a source of fresh confusion. So, what happens is that the world's idea of progressive knowledge cannot work here in Satsang. Because we have progressed from one level, to the next level, to the third level. And in most forms of spirituality or in most sects of spirituality also there is that kind of progressive system available until a particular point where everything has to be chopped away. But in what we call Direct Satsang, it’s just very direct and the idea is to not put you in a progressively better place. It is just to shake you out of every place that you can possibly imagine yourself to be. That’s the main idea. So, more and more, especially for those who have been with me for a bit now, we must be able to look at it at this level and say, “What is this really about?.” Is it that I’ll hear an answer, “Blah, blah, blah, bleeh, bleeh, blooh, blah, bleeh, blah, blah”? And I’ll store that and say, “Ah yes yes this is my mantra for life now. This is what I am supposed to do.” That cannot be it. The glory of God and the Light of the Self cannot be that limited that we would be able to capture it in that way, provisionally of course. Especially for those who are new, we can provide some tips and answers and solutions. But, ultimately we must just come to a point where we are not afraid to meet our own nakedness in a full and open and innocent way. And you identified it very well because this is the kind of wobbliness that I speak about that many times just feels like it’s a little bit shaky here. “So, what is he saying? Left, left, or right, right?” Like many of you, you may look back on the end Satsang and say, “What did he really say?” [Chuckles] So, I can understand that predicament but that’s the whole feeling. If you feel like at the end of Satsang you didn’t really understand much but hopefully you felt like you had a bath on the inside then that is good enough. And the second is also my problem, nothing to do with any of you. So, it’s for me to do, not for any of you to feel like, “Oh, I don’t feel so good today, maybe I didn’t pay enough attention.” It’s not talking about any of that stuff. It’s just like this. Don’t meet me at a level where answers define so much now. It is the essence of your Pure Being which we are now cleaning up fully. So that you can fully shine in this unobstructed way instead of giving you fresh dust. We are not replacing dust with glitter or something. [Chuckles] That can be the spiritual idea, “I had this worldly dust now I am going to be full of spiritual glitter.” That is not it. Because at your core, at your center, at your very essence is the purest Light of the Universe. In fact, it is the Light in which the whole world is perceived. So, no words can amplify that. So, at best the delusion that is created by words is then negated by words. It’s like the poison cutting poison. So, if you did not have a “how to” for anything, and this is for everyone, if you did not have a “how to” manual on how to live, most of us since we were two to three and a half years old we have been on this search for “how to.” And whether you are three years old, five years old, or ten years old, eighty years old, hundred years old, if you talk to most people they would say, “I still haven’t figured out how to live.” And even the ones then who have felt like they have learned how to live, they are more deluded. So, there’s dissatisfaction because I haven't learned how to live. And there’s greater suffering because when we become too rigid about our ideas of how to live then that makes us suffer a lot because life shows us all colors and shapes and sizes. Our ideas are bound to get crushed alive. And that feels like we are suffering more. And we have met so many people in our lives that we come across who are the ones who are really really certain about things we cannot be certain about. They end up trying to hold it up for a bit but eventually end up crumbling under the weight of their own notions. So as a spiritual guide and some of you call me Father and things, I would never give my children any more burden. The provisional concepts I hear in Satsang are just so that they can do a clean-up job of what is there. But, all of you can notice this now, even right now that life is appearing as pure perception- Do you need to mold it in a mental shape?

Seeker

No.

Ananta

And when we are not able to mold it in a mental shape sometimes this feeling of wobbliness comes. And it is good to meet it empty, good to recognize that yes it is natural for it to come. If it doesn’t come, no worries, but for many it will come. And it is fine. And it sort of is a habit, it is the instigator of the habit to make conceptual meaning about what is showing up. And once we see it for what it is then we can meet it at that level and together discard this. So, I am just showing that it is...Sorry, I am just rambling on and on but it is a good start to Satsang. I am just showing you how much of a supreme possibility it is to live open and empty without needing to grasp onto any way of living or any “how to” of life. So, as we investigate more and more you will find, “What is this really about?” If we are able to ask ourselves this question, “What is this really about, is it about a “me”? Is it that a non-existent entity wants to figure out how to swim in this lake?” It’s not possible. [Silence] So, Guruji uses this beautiful example: he says, “You be the cow that jumped over the moon.” But in our trying we cannot do it. Can anyone try and jump over the moon? Like, “I am going to take a really long run up and I am going to come from a hundred meters, a really long run up and then really just take off and jump over the moon.” So, in our trying we cannot do it. Then the mind says, “Let me try the opposite approach. Let me not try at all. I am just going to sit here. If the moon wants to come under me then it can come.” But, that is also trying without trying. Like, we are trying to do it by not trying. That is still trying. We cannot fool our way out of this. Either position we take we cannot jump. But when we are absent from any position we are already very much beyond the moon. I know I am taking the metaphor really far but we are much beyond the leap. But, we cannot do it in our trying and we cannot do it in our not trying. [Silence] And it is the intellect in which it has these opposites. As I keep reiterating we have to let go of both ends of the intellect. Because all of the positions it can propose that you take belong to somebody who doesn’t exist. [Pause]

Ananta

And as you continue to contemplate on, “Can I stop being? Am I aware now?” you are doing the inquiriy and you are seeing that these positions will not seem as compelling as they were in the past. Because you notice, “Who is it talking about? Is it talking about this Being-ness?” which is limitless already and has nowhere to go, in fact everything appears within itself. Or, is it talking to That which is even Aware of Being? It cannot apply to any of those. So, the mind’s non-existent problems or propositions of problems for that one that doesn’t exist then no longer seem as compelling now.

Seeker

Thank you. Ananta: So welcome, my dear.

Key Teachings

  • The spiritual seeker's cycle is confusion → conclusion → new confusion; seeking answers only creates fresh confusion
  • The desire to know and grasp is actually self-limitation and suffering - meeting the discomfort of not-knowing strikes at the root of all grasping
  • In Direct Satsang, the purpose is not to progress to a better place but to be shaken out of every position the mind can imagine; both trying and not-trying are mind positions
spiritual seekingconfusion and conclusiongrasping and letting godirect pathmind and conceptsawarenessself-inquiry

From: Nobody Can Start Closed, Everybody Starts Open – Right Now! - 20th May 2022