The Truth Is Most Obvious

So what is more apparent? Is that which is ‘beyond perception’ more apparent? Or is that which is ‘perception’ more apparent? And maybe this is a very good conversation to have, because this is what trips us up. If you take perception to be most apparent, then the Truth seems to get lost. Is there a deeper Truth than just perception, which is most apparent, most original? That you are, that you are Aware, is beyond perception. And that, if we check, is the most apparent. That has to be before any perception can come. So when you say, ‘I don’t know where I am’, you’re obviously not referring to yourself as the body, because it seems like the body is here. So that which is beyond this universe [and] has no spatial location, so obviously it is impossible to say where that is because the ‘where’ does not apply to it. There is no ‘where’. It is not a spatial object, that it’ll be somewhere. So in a way when I heard, ‘I don’t know where I am’, I heard that you’re pointing to that non- spatial reality of the Self. Now, the rest of it, who does it apply to? Which is that: ‘I want something, that’s why I’m sitting in Satsang’.

Yes, yes. So we’ve gone beyond that which is the most obvious. And I’m purposely turning it around, to say that the Truth is the most obvious, because that’s how it is. But under the mind’s hypnosis it seems like the Truth is the most difficult. But to take yourself to be something that is sitting in Satsang, you have to go beyond that which is the most obvious. You have to take a presumption that ‘I am contained in some perceptions.’ Yes? With me so far? So when we move away from the mind into our intuition, into our heart, then what is it that you can truthfully say? Is it the first part or the second part?

When you move away from mental conclusions into your heart or intuition, (whatever you call it) then what do you feel is more truthful to say? The first part of what you said or the second part of what you said?

Yes, yes. Now how will you make yourself an object which is sitting in a room? If the Truth is apparent, and we discussed that that Truth is not in time, it is not in space, now how will you take yourself to be an object now sitting in this room, and then all the rest about why you are sitting in this room, because you wanted Truth … all these inferences can come. But even that basic thing, because these perceptions appear, how do you go from that which is beyond perception, and take yourself to be an object just in perception? That is the whole game, isn’t it? How do we take that giant leap from being beyond space and time, beyond life and death, into just becoming this tiny object in perception? If it was just by virtue of the perception appearing, then there’s no point of having Satsang, because the perception will keep appearing as long as there’s the waking state and when there’s no waking state then we can’t have Satsang anyway.

So you have to apply yourself in some way, right, let’s start there. To take yourself to be limited in this time and space. It is not … now, when we can speak about that which is apparent, it is not that natural. It’s something inorganic that you have to build on top of what is the most natural. Even if this much is clear, then everything is very easy. Because the mind will put you in this position where, to take yourself to be limited in time and space is natural and then it feels like, ‘Ah, but to go beyond is something I have to do’ or is unnatural. So if we flip that, and we see that most natural is to just be beyond. But to take myself to be this limited object, takes effort, takes some application of something, which we can then investigate the mechanics of that. But a simple term for that is identification, or belief.

What do we mean by understanding?

So even this that you’re saying, is this because we have to communicate or can you say it is actually like that? In the sense that even this distinction between the seeing and the seeming. Is it -actually- like that, or just tools we are using to communicate? Just check and tell me.

Yes. So to be able to even conclude that the seeming is, before we can say it is anything, then that is the opposite of seeming, no? If the world is seeming, or appearance, and then we say that the seeming Is or the appearance Is, it is contradicting that it is just a seeming.

That is what I was just wanting to clarify for everyone. Okay, so there is a pure seeing, and there is all this perception, which is like a seeming appearance.

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? So to take this imagery which comes and it only comes in the future, to truly represent a real past, we can’t really… It is at least, we can say - we don’t have to go as far as to say it’s illusion - but at least we can say that it is not undoubtable. It is very doubtable.