We are Valuing the NarraHve and Missing our Life

Every moment of this living experience is unique, but our labels are so limiHng and primiHve that when we define ourselves in those ways it can feel like why is my life like this, it just keeps coming back again and again. You see? But what you are experiencing, you will never experience again. You never step into the same river twice. Now, if it helped you in some way, if there was a life instrucHon manual based on: ‘Oh, if there is fear, do this.’ If that was what all of us are searching for in some way, that I just want to make a life instrucHon booklet saying, ‘If this appears, do this, if this comes then do this.’ But there is no such template to life. So, in which way does our living experience get amplified by our narraHves about what something is?

This is spiritual oppression, this is how we oppress ourselves with spirituality, with spiritual noHons. So, are you aware now?

So, that is the only way you will recognize yourself ever. So, you recognize yourselves. Now, what should change on the screen of consciousness because of that?

It’s absurdity, no? It’s absurdity.

Why do you have to frame? Are we wriHng an autobiography? Why do you have to frame what is happening to your life in a conceptual construct? We feel like that is understanding. It is not understanding. You feel like that helps to determine what to do. It doesn’t because you don’t know how to move a finger! What is to be done is going to be done anyway. That which you take yourself to be does not know how to move a finger, and that which is already doing everything is already doing everything.

Exactly, exactly.

But now don’t even understand this. Just drop it cold turkey. [Laughs] What will happen is that we will look for the negaHng narraHve, which Vedanta provides with a ne#-ne# of everything and then provides with the a no-no to everything. But the negaHng narraHve also has to then be dropped. You don’t have to frame your life in any idea of life. That is to be open and empty, that is to be in the Unborn, that is to be in the no-mind. Now, the mind will trouble you by asking ‘But what’s really happening to me right now?’ So, accept that that quesHoner is just a quesHoner and any answers that it can understand are not answers.

Don’t frame your life in any construct, including this one. You don’t need to understand, you don’t need to know. You already know. Where you don’t know, you can never know. Or, where you’re trying to know, you can never know. Don’t squeeze anything into your head. Nothing will get squeezed in there anyway except narraHves and concepts and noHons.

No. [Laughs] No. Just no. Why do you need that determinaHon? For what?

Ah, no, no no! [Laughs] Why do sages come to satsang and speak for hours and hours from the heart? It’s okay. Just no. Don’t frame life in any construct.

Nah! [Laughs] If you start making sense to yourself, you are going in the wrong direcHon. Don’t make any sense. But it doesn’t mean that now the sensible approach is to try and speak nonsense— that is also trying to make sense.

No, no. Is your expression of what the thought is saying because you’re valuing it or because you’re not valuing it?

Is your expression about what the thought is saying because you are giving value to what it is saying or because you are giving no value to what it’s saying? Because subtly this can happen. You want to express as if there could be truth value in that thought, so we say “Ananta, just thought is saying, you know?” But we want actual validaHon or invalidaHon of the thought to happen from me. So, what if the thought is saying? Let it say; it’s job is to say. It will say all kinds of rubbish. It will say: But now I can’t speak; then how to say anything. Really, it’s not true. None of this is true! It is just a_empts, people’s a_empts, to frame your life into a conceptual idea, which is nothing but a story. You see? It’s not that I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I’m just giving you the tool by which you can be free from suffering, because we are valuing this li_le narrator, the narraHve, and we’re missing our lives. If you can say anything true about this moment, please do. Don’t frame anything, don’t frame anything at all. Thoughts are nothing but frames on offer from the mind with which to define your life, nothing but frames by which to define your life. But your life is too vast to be defined in that way. And it’s absurd, actually, that in the human condiHon we are missing it, just missing it. I’m sharing this with those that are here that… I was in the office the other day and somebody had got their pet to work, a dog called Leo, and I met this dog Leo, and it was like two dogs are meeHng. Like I could see there’s no thinking happening there, there was no thinking happening here. It was like true, we were fully with each other. But when I engage with humans usually it’s like something, then like what you think about that, it is saying something, some recycled stuff, you see? We remove the freshness from our life in that way, you see? And then we try to be spontaneous, it becomes a new planet. Dog is not trying to be spontaneous. It is like the new mantra becomes ‘I only live spontaneously’, but that’s the new bondage.

You see this is how we trouble ourselves! We categorize dynamic life, spiritual life, pracHcal life, real life, satsang life, work life. Life is just life. Even life is not even life. Like the label ‘life’ cannot convey life, and then not only do we accept the false label life, we then subcategorize and say, ‘Satsang life is like this. This is okay for spirituality, but in my pracHcal life, I have to…. ” You know? We make all this excuses for the mind. So, today, just No. Who takes over when there’s pracHcal life? The God that is running this life goes away, some other God comes in? Or, this God that you’re discovering in satsang, that one cannot do any work, is only running this enHre universe effortlessly. My work….? Who needs this disHncHon between work life and life life or spiritual life? Just so we can put ourselves in one construct: At work I’m like this, at Satsang I’m like this. Just so we can narrate, only trouble ourselves. What do you have to understand? What has understanding go_en us? We’ve only enjoyed those moments where we are empty of understanding. Have we enjoyed those moments when we’re like “Yeah! Mountain! River! Mountain!” [Laughs]

Very welcome. Highlight from Satsang- 29th July 2022 Where You’re Trying To Know, You Can Never Know Time: 1:24:27-1:38:44 Link: h_ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZfHj8GAF-g&t=5367s