What Are You Independent of Perception?

Cannot do it. So, what is it that you know already without having to perceive anything?

That’s it game over. [Smiles] Game over if you don’t want anything selfish out of it.

Yeah and you don’t even try to apply it to the phenomenon.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So the recognition is apparent when you leave phenomena independent and instant that we have this simple insight, the mind will come and say ‘Okay, so then what about ‘me’ then, am I enlightened? Is This It? Don’t I want more? Am I free forever? Can I keep this?’ All this…like that. So, that’s what I am calling selfishness, we don’t realize that it is selfishness. But it is because we feel like that will be the culmination of this journey… when I become enlightened. But in your discovery of yourself as Awareness that kind of ‘I’ is no longer there, who could be enlightened. Can Awareness be enlightened? [Smile] Absurd isn’t it? So who are we talking about then? If you are Awareness then whose enlightenment are we concerned about?

Ego and that can never be. Ego is literally the opposite of enlightenment. Unlike false and Truth so the false should become True and maybe that is the good trick of the mind. That ultimately the false must become true. Like many times we feel things like ‘self- actualization’ we actually mean ‘I should become something special’ but it is not for this one, this one which doesn’t exist can never become Truth. So your discovery that - You are Awareness, an Awareness, fundamentally Awareness alone, fundamentally Awareness alone.

For whom… for Awareness?

Awareness goes wow [Ananta Sangha Smiles] like that? Who should go? Who should go?

Ego doesn’t exist.

So we can still be in sort of expectation of return on investment. I have invested so much in the journey, what do I finally get? Where is my final eureka? And I am not saying that doesn’t happen or can’t happen or won’t happen. It may or it may not, it doesn’t matter is what I am saying. Some may just see ‘I am the Self.’ Don’t even… without a claim I am just translating. You may discover ‘You are the Self’ finished. Like the Zen Master said ‘Chopping wood fetching water. Before enlightenment chopping wood fetching water. After enlightenment chopping wood fetching water.’ But many make that also into a condition, that ‘Oh, you were chopping wood fetching water and now you are just sitting.’ So that means it is not real. It should be ‘Before enlightenment chopping, wood fetching water, after enlightenment chopping wood fetching water, or not?’ Like all preconditions are dropped. It doesn’t apply to a phenomenal change. To expect a phenomenal benefit out of the discovery that ‘I am Awareness’ is what I am calling ‘spiritual materialism or spiritual selfishness.’ Which is the opposite of… So Krishna’s proclamation was that, the only prerequisite to come to the Freedom from this cycle of suffering is Self-discover, Self-knowledge and the only thing that gets in the way of Self- knowledge is attachment to the fruits of the actions, actions and their fruits. And what are we doing? We are doing an inquiry so that we can get the fruits. [Smile] So lets at least apply it to our spiritual endower? Don’t expect anything out of this discover expect the Truth itself. That’s what I mean when I say ‘Truth for Truth’s sake.’ If you come to this letting go and you come to this ‘Truth for Truth sake’ we cannot struggle. The struggle is only with - What’s in it for me? What about me?