There Is Nothing As Healing As Pure Perception

Yes. So, you are experiencing a sensation or just an idea? What is happening? Can you zero in on it a bit more?

Okay, let’s slow down even more, if you will indulge me in that. So, don’t interpret it in any way, tell me as raw as possible, like don’t tell me what you think it means, like a feeling of dying or any of that, just what is the experience in as simple a way as possible.

Yes.

Yes, but we don’t have enough to say that. Just stay with whatever you're perceiving, just stay with it in this pure perception without the need to conclude something out of it. Because our conclusion can be very far from what it is. And one trick in life is there is nothing as healing as pure perception. The minute we bring in the idea of being able to know it conceptually, that’s where it seems to become stuck. Can you truly tell me what it means whatever the sensation may be? Can you truly tell me?

Does it feel better? This is maybe the most important question today for everyone: Is it better to have a false idea of something because it reassures us that at least I have an idea about what it is, or to allow ourself to be in the mystery? Oh, I’ve said it too poetically now. Now the answer seems obvious. But the invitation from the mind is always like this: It presents a proposal to us and somewhere we have got used to taking it to be true because the alternative seems too open, it seems too broad, and it seems too fearful to not know. But I’m inviting you into that mystery. I’m inviting you into that mystery because you'll find that all that we thought we knew was not even the surface of what is true, not even the surface level mask of what is true.

That’s why the theme of Satsang today and the previous few times has been: How can you know your experience? What is the way in which you can know your experience? I realize that for many of you it can seem like a completely absurd sort of question—and you allow it to be absurd, it's okay, don’t bother with it. But for some of you it'll meet you here [points to his heart] and you’ll be open to contemplating something like this—like, I have a narrative about what my life is like, or what my day is like, or what my last one hour is like. You see? I can never have a narrative about right now anyway, but on what basis can I conclude that that narrative is accurate or true?

It’s just like saying, as children say: It is true because I say so. That is not a standard for truth, it is just an insistence of truth. So, the mind behaves just like that. How do I really know this is true? Because I said so. And that only brings conflict and suffering because one time it says like this, another time it says something else, and this apparent play of all these so-called minds, which is actually one mind, it seems to present different versions. And that is why there’s so much conflict and struggle and strife in this world. So, the way to knock off all the narratives is to really zero in on this a bit and say: The mind comes with a proposal for a story of my life. Can I really conclude this to have some truth? In what way can I say that it’s true? And if you will explore, you will find I can’t really say. So, to take that which we cannot really conclude to be true as the truth is the ignorance that the Masters are telling us about and that we have to let go.

You cannot solve it there, my dear, you cannot solve it there. Where you are trying to solve it, there’s no resolution there. Because we keep hoping that I’ll be able to conclude something about what is with some finality, but it just doesn’t happen because the instrument is too small, as I’ve been saying. So, in Satsang we can negate or deconstruct all these conclusions that we can come to, but we cannot constructively give you the truth mentally. So, without the attempt to resolve it conceptually, show me how you’re struggling.

Do you really know that?

Not even that, isn’t it? Although it is the words of Satsang.

Do you really know that? Do you really know even that? [Laughs] Get used to the wobbliness of inconclusiveness. It can feel a bit wobbly like: Oh, now this is happening, something is waiting for….” No, it's not. Do we really know that? No. And then, it can feel it like [shakes hands as if trembling] and then what, but then what? You see? Aah, what’s happening is I’m dealing with the wobbliness of not knowing. You see? But do we really know that? Even that—gone! That’s where we have some fun.

Don’t be scared, okay? I won’t say: Do you really know that?

Although it’s a good exercise but not to oppress you.

Okay, I lied. Do you really know that? [Laughs] Sorry. Why believe when we don’t really know? Let me ask a ‘why’ question. Why believe when we don’t really know?

I can see because the alternative is nothingness, is emptiness, and that emptiness is scary to the mind— but even this is nonsense because I can’t really say that, but provisionally it’s okay. I’m inviting you, and all of you, in this emptiness, in this openness. [Silence] Our life is immense, it’s more than a 4D movie; there’s so much beyond what our limited memory can fathom. But the mind’s version of our life is so meagre, it’s so tiny compared to the magnificence of your life. And there’s no valid reason except to be able to suffer, to accept the story of the mind. What else will you lose? What else will you lose? If you lose all interpretations about what is—except the ability to storify and to suffer because of our story—what else do we lose?

Where’s the control? Where is the control that we can lose? You’re right, you’re right. The fear is about losing control, about losing control over this life. Like Guruji [Sri Mooji] said he had a fear about he will become a hunchback beggar on the streets of Brixton like Quasimodo. This is the fear that what will happen to me, what will happen to my life? But if you really look, what are we controlling right now? In what way are we controlling it? Does that one even really exist—the one who has some apparent control? [Silence.] Very good, very good, very good. Thank you.