What In You Has the Ability to Make a Non Phenomenal Discovery

How many of you still feel that you have to find something? [Looks through online satsang attendees] You have to find something? Still waiting to find something? [Chuckles] Okay. How many of you feel like you keep finding it, but you keep losing it? [Looks through online satsang attendees] Yeah?! [Notices response from sangha in the room] Oh! Here also! [Laughs] Yes? [Keeps looking through online satsang attendees] But that which comes and goes is not Real, you know? That is the Vedanta 101; first lesson of Vedanta, isn’t it? That if you’re going to define Reality in some way, then that which comes and goes cannot be real. So, if it came, it had to go. Therefore, it was just part of the phenomenal appearance. So, what are we waiting for? And if you got it, how would you know that you got it? Because all of you apparently are aware of the concept that the discovery is not phenomenal, isn’t it? And if the discovery is not phenomenal, then how would you recognize it? Huh? [Chuckles] Sorry I’m starting on this note. But I feel good to clarify right off the bat so the expectations are clear from both sides. For those of you who feel like you had it and then you lost it, that which you had, if it was not a phenomenal experience, how could it go? Because only phenomena comes and goes. So, are you associating the byproducts of this discovery—which could be some sense of peace or bliss or joy or love or even like a feeling of phenomenal spaciousness—are you associating that with the (capital T) Truth that we speak about? And in that way, in one way or the other, we continue to remain chasing experiences, experience chasers where actually our claim is that we are searching for the Truth. So… ([Chuckles] Let me ask you one more difficult question and then I will stop. If you were to follow me, but I was to tell you ‘You are going to get nowhere. It’s just pointless. There is no point coming to satsang, because you are not going to get anywhere if you follow me.’ how many of you would say ‘Okay! Bye bye. We are done.’? You see? It is easy to follow when there is an expectation that ‘I’m going to get somewhere.’ For that, we need no devotion. You see? Devotion, really in the truest sense, implies that ‘I’m going to follow the direction of the Master with no expectation of even getting somewhere.’ And actually, where I’m pointing you to is not even nowhere [chuckles]; not even nowhere you are going to get. How many of you still want to stick around? [Looks through satsang attendees] Under the promise of or the expectation of, the carrot of enlightenment or Freedom, then you follow easily; there is no trouble. Because you’ve been promised the greatest thing in the universe, why will we not follow? But the thing is that your idea of enlightenment, your idea of Freedom is getting in your way. It may be a construct of some experience or some idea that you may have about it which is just impeding the simplest discovery that was ever made. We are searching all over the world to find ourselves. Isn’t that a great strangeness? [Chuckles] We’re searching all over the world to find our Self, Satsang to Satsang, Master to Master, hoping to hear one day something which will bring us to our Self. You see? I’m not saying, by the way, that you must not listen to the Masters, or follow Satsangs; I’m just saying that if you were to find your Self, how would you know it? What in you has the ability to make a non-phenomenal discovery? So, if the Truth is not phenomenal and It does not come and go, then will your eyes find It? Will your ears hear It? Will your nose smell It? [Chuckles] Any of the senses, can they experience It? Even your inner perception through which you can imagine and think about the past and imagine the future, does that have the capacity (the inner perception) to perceive the non-phenomenal? Like you can close your eyes and imagine a tree or a forest or a butterfly or whatever you like, but can you imagine a non-phenomenal? You cannot do it. There is a simpler knowing which all of you have and you can never lose. And all that the Masters are pointing you to is that. What is that knowing which you can never lose? And don’t go to something you just heard from the mouth of any Master. Look completely fresh. Not in your mind; not that type of knowing. Not in your perception. But That which is independent of either of these. That Self-Knowledge. That Awareness of the Self. Independent of even the play of waking and sleeping. ‘I woke up’; but That for which ‘I am’ wakes up and ‘I am’ goes back to sleep; That which is aware of both of these; don’t you know That One? Is it not You? You cannot grasp at it; you cannot try; you cannot think your way through it or do it. You cannot use your attention—[enacts putting attention outward] look, look, look, or [enacts putting attention inward] look, look, look—to find it. Independent of all of that. That which does not come and go. Effortlessly your Truth. How many of you feel now it is apparent to you; right now, in this moment? [Looks through online satsang attendees] And if it’s not, it’s not. It’s okay. [Smiles] Good, good. Okay. Now, instead of trying to keep it, try to lose it. Lose Self-Knowledge. Don’t know your Self. It would mean that when you are hearing this voice, you are not clear about who is hearing it. ‘Am I hearing it? Is someone else hearing it?’ But isn’t it obvious that ‘I am hearing it’? So, what are we looking for? If it is clear that ‘I am aware of these perceptions’ and it is also clear that this ‘I’ that is aware is shapeless, it is size-less, it is birth-less, it is death-less, then what is the struggle about? I feel most of the struggle—if not all of it—is not about the ‘I’, it is about what the ‘me’ will get in the discovery of the ‘I’. What is the benefit to the ‘me’ if I find ‘I’? [Chuckles] Do you have a sense of what I’m saying? It is like the egoic desire of the fulfilment of Self- Discovery so that this limited idea of ‘myself’ can always be in a particular state, or something like that. That is why you find it most difficult to engage with the simplest question that I ask. What is the simplest question that I ask? I just ask you ‘How do you know that it is you that is perceiving this hand?’ It’s clear to you it is you. Anyone who is not clear that it is you perceiving the hand? You have heard too much Advaita! [Chuckles] Even if you say ‘I don’t know who that “I” is, but it is I.’ that much is apparent at least, isn’t it? You may say, ‘I’m so confused because I don’t have a picture of this “I”. I can’t find it.’ but even that you are claiming an ‘I’ which is so obvious to you. Even when you say, ‘I can’t find it.’ you are claiming an ‘I’, which is so obvious. It cannot be lost. When you say, ‘I have found it at times, and I have lost it’ is it the same ‘I’ that found and lost it? So it came to this ‘I’ and it was lost to this ‘I’, but does this ‘I’ ever come and go? That is the main point. Now, what is the struggle? The struggle is that you can’t see it; you can’t perceive it. But if you were to perceive it, then it would be another phenomena and it would also come and go. That is the struggle. The struggle is also that you can’t conceptualize it, so [enacts seeker’s thinking] ‘What is it? What is it? I want to be able to define It.’ and you can’t define it. That is the struggle. But none of you ever lost the Self. You cannot lose it if you try it. Because you would have to be there to lose it. But I’m not just making intellectual conclusions.