This Truth Is the Simplest to Find, Simpler Than Finding. It Is You

What Is Going to Last Beyond Time? I am happy to take these questions while you are fresh in Satsang (like the question that we answered today was indulged) because the one who comes fresh into Satsang is caught up in these notions of worldly truth and worldly false and things like that. I am happy to clarify a bit initially. But if I notice over a long period of time all that we are interested in is, to be able to make claims over some worldly truth or not, or this kind of religious or political paradigm then there is not so much of interest here to indulge in those sort of conversations. These are things that everybody has an opinion about. [Smile] You don’t have to necessarily come to Satsang to get these answers. Talk to any grand-pa or uncle or… whatever appeals to you [Smile] you can talk to them. If you go to Calcutta especially then everybody will have very strong opinions about all of these things no? Every conversation is about politics and this one is good and this one is bad. But in Satsang, we are trying to come to that discovery which is beyond these intellectual conclusions and these ephemeral conclusions. What amongst all of this is going to last? What is going to last beyond time? Because the root cause of suffering, whether you read a scripture from ten thousands of years ago or you read ‘Talks with Ramana’ from hundred years ago or you come to Satsang every day you will notice that this Freedom from suffering is only about your Self-recognition which is beyond anything, any mental conclusions that you could make about the world. The contexts from those times were different. We started from the times of tribes, then the times of kings and queens, then the times of democracy, the times of the British when Bhagwan [Sri Raman Maharshi] was sharing Satsang and this time now. I am saying for just this India context but anywhere in the world, if you were in Europe you could talk about then Greeks and then those times. But the questions, if we read Socrates or Pluto today or you read it so many thousand years ago, it’s the core of the issues are the same. What are the core of the issues? What exists? Now that is called in western philosophy you will call it metaphysics, ontology, or something like that. What exists? What is real? What has being? All these questions were basically around what is! Just a simple question of what is? Then that is the primary main question. Then the second question is ‘What is Knowing and can anything be Known?’ So this is called ‘Epistemology’. But the same thing in our philosophy also; ‘What does it mean to Know’? Every day we are talking about Self-knowledge. I am saying - this means of knowing, not this means of knowing, not this. So we are defining what is knowing mean? Can anything truly be known? So these are the two main branches actually. Then the third one which is that of ‘How to live’? Ethics - what is the right way, what is the wrong way? Somebody asked a question at the beginning of Satsang about this. What is the right way to live? What is the wrong way to live? Now when these three get jumbled up and mixed up and confused. So we are trying to figure out what is the right way to live, but you are already presuming the existence of an independent entity, but we have not really answered what Is? Which is the thing, and then it is a very limiting sort of perspective. It is a very limiting sort of perspective and in a way what happened to all religions is that the ‘how to live’ aspect, the ethical aspect which is very caught up in the culture, tradition and the righteousness of those time-periods, it gets taken to be the timeless Truth. But the timeless pointing to what Is and what is true Self-knowledge, that gets pushed into the background. Maybe because it is simpler for the human intellect to understand ‘I should do this, I should not do that, I should be like this, I should not be like that’. So what is happening in the most religious construct is that, this aspect, which is that ‘This is good to do, this is bad do, you should do like this, you should not do like this’ gets more prominence. Then the pointings to the other two aspects which is ‘What actually is or what is real and is there is a way to know, is there any true knowing? What is knowing actually?’ these get missed out.