Try Not to Know

Okay, okay, let’s look at this. This is good, good way to start Satsang. So, you say your pracHce is to try and sit and see if you can observe the mind, and you would like to take five minutes to do it together to see if you’re observing in the right way.

Okay, so what’s the report now?

What would be the wrong way? Maybe that is simpler. What are we checking exactly?

You’re checking your Beingness? [smiles]

Yes, yes. Can it go away?

Yes. [smiles]

For the mind to not seem that aZracHve. Is that what you’re saying?

[raises both arms] Wow, going too fast…I’m too slow for this. So, the one that you take yourself to be – to do something or not do something. But that one doesn’t exist.

That…ah, well. [laughs] If you took yourself to be a frog: does the frog come and go or does your taking yourself to be the frog come and go? I feel like this is a very relevant point. Like, we may have the idea that the person comes and goes. The person was here, and the person goes. But no, the person is only what we take ourselves to be. So, if you take yourself to be a unicorn, then the unicorn doesn’t come and go, your taking yourself to be the unicorn comes and goes.

But even if you take yourself to be the unicorn, that non-existent unicorn – how many steps can it walk?

That’s good. Thank you for saying that because that’s what most of us end up doing. We’re measuring the level of personhood that we sHll have based on some apparent symptoms of that personhood. So, with the pedometer you can never measure the steps of the unicorn, but you’re measuring actually what seems like or feels like there must be the unicorn there. And this is the subtle difference between Reality and appearance. So, if you keep going on with ‘it seems like’ and ‘it feels like’ – then we’re back to the realm of, “Oh, I have never seen the unicorn, but it seems like it must be there, or it feels like it must be there. And every Hme it feels like I keep measuring that and saying, oh, there’s sHll so much person here, there’s so much problem here, there’s so much ego here.” But I mean it quite literally: the person is as existent as the unicorn in front of you.

So, you don’t take it to be poeHc or metaphorical. It is very literally: the person is as real as the unicorn that you perceive in front of you now. Maybe even less real because the minute I say that you actually may start perceiving unicorns. Okay, so let’s return where we started. So, your Being is apparent here now or does it feel effor{ul?

Exactly. Very good, very good. So, effortlessly it is apparent. And many Hmes, I say this: that if you’re taking effort, you’re going in the wrong direcHon. You’re using the wrong instrument. Yes?

So, now you will perceive in some way, which is difficult to pinpoint and say: is it perceived as a sound, is it perceived as an image? But you will perceive thoughts, you will get thoughts which are proposing a reality which has nothing to do with your Reality. It is proposing something which what you find effortlessly has nothing to do with that.

Yes, yes. But try not to know.

The idea of this is not to come up with the most magnificent conclusions. The idea of this is to be empty of everything, all knowledge.

Don’t know. [chuckles] Don’t know. It’s a human condiHon to not want what is effortlessly available. Or let’s call it an egoic condiHon or a mental condiHon to not want that which is effortlessly available. Otherwise, spiritual seeking can seem like such a difficult thing, actually it is effortless. So, for the mind to accept effortlessness is impossible, and as long as we keep valuing the mind as if it is giving us valuable posiHons, Hll then to accept what is effortlessly available can seem like such a task, it can seem like such a state that we have to hold on to. And it’s very important as we start Satsang today that I want to point out as I’m saying I also noHced the human condiHon, so I want to point to everyone: embrace what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Otherwise, you will go back from Satsang just reinforcing some beliefs that you have, and you may miss what you actually need to hear in Satsang. So, when we talk about openness, it is openness to that which we don’t want to hear maybe even more than that which we want to hear. Because that is mostly we already think we know.

Exactly. Very good, very good.