श्रीरामSatsang with Ananta
The Self (I Am)

What Is Your Non-notional Representation Of You?

The Self cannot be conceptualized; when you drop false notions about yourself, the true Self remains because you never lost it—just stop taking the not-real to be the real.

Seeker

So, is it, Father, that all these concepts I make…. So, when we ask the question that how do I realize the Self, and you say ‘keep dropping the false’, so is it that I stick to myself all these labels in a way…and that I construct an idea of myself in doing that?

Ananta

Exactly. You need a construct to construct an idea. You need a thought construct to construct an idea about yourself.

Seeker

That’s the ‘me’ I get confused with? That’s the ‘me’ when I say, ‘I am suffering’?

Ananta

That is the ‘sufferer me’, that is the ‘doer me’, that is even the idea of the ‘experiencer me’.

Seeker

Yes. So, I really want to expose this, even in saying this I needed again, like you said, a confirmation that this recognition is a true one or a false one, is it really true or am I imagining this….

Ananta

Yeah, but it is not true. [Chuckling] In the sense that even in this representation what you’re claiming yourself to be, you are not. [Silence]

Seeker

Okay. But this thing is really torture.

Ananta

What is your non-notional representation of you?

Seeker

Can you repeat that? I can’t hear you.

Ananta

What is your non-notional representation of you?

Seeker

None. You can’t have a non-notional representation.

Ananta

So, does this mean that you went away?

Seeker

No.

Ananta

[Nods his head] This is the thing. If the notion goes away, you do not go away but the false goes away. [Pauses] You see? So, this which is so clear to you, at your very core you are not confused, because even when you are convinced that ‘I am confused’, the basis for even that ‘I’ which is the false one, is the true I. That is your very existence. So, the only confusion now, or the only trouble now, is how to represent this Self as something. I’m saying it cannot be done, forget about it. What did you understand? Nothing! You never needed to. Have you got it? Of course not. [Chuckling] Because you can never lose it. These considerations are still in that box of notions: ‘Got it’, ‘lost it’, ‘understood it’, ’not understood it’, even ‘Being and not Being’. What is that knowledge which is not representable this way but it is just the simplest thing that you know? You see, sometimes we take you through this thing: I ask you what is simpler than sitting where you’re sitting now, and what is simpler than even being? Now, here the mind struggles but you don’t struggle. If you have the openness and innocence of a child, you will never struggle with this stuff. If you know too much, you will struggle. [Silence] And then what happens is the minute you — this ‘apparency’ becomes apparent, we start to try and build our conceptual box with it, like ``Fit it into the mind, fit it into the mind! Fit it into the mind’, [pushing his hands up, as if pushing something into his head], so that you can finally claim that ‘I got it’. That is just such a struggle. It is a completely, completely futile task. Nobody has ever been able to do it. So this is what letting go feels like, just this [drops his hands and exhales audibly]. Let go of trying to represent it. Let go of trying to fit it into your mind. Let go of trying to conceptualize it. You see, that’s why all the sages, you look at Ribhu Gita. All it has is ‘No, no, no’ [chuckling], emptying of all the representations that you could have of it, even the most glorious ones, you see. Because It does not need that representation. That is not jnana [knowledge] yoga. [Laughs] It can feel like when we come into jnana yoga that it is the yoga of knowledge, which means our idea of knowledge so far has been this kind of intellectual or conceptual knowledge. It can feel like I can get the truth through the highest form of intellectual knowledge so I can have some major knowledge erupting in my mind and that will be the goal or the fruit of jnana yoga or the way to jnana yoga. But this knowledge is the simplest knowledge, the most innocent knowledge. That is why Bhagwan [Sri Ramana Maharshi] would call it ‘the light’. And even we can say, what is the lightest knowledge that we have? Because it is said many times that the truth hurts — and many times, it can feel like the truth hurts. But actually it is the false that hurts. You have suffered from the false. That’s why Bhagwan has said that all that is needed is that you stop practising the false. Stop taking the not-real to be the real.

Key Teachings

  • The "me" is a thought construct—labels and ideas we create about ourselves are not our true Self
  • When the false notion goes away, you do not go away—the true I remains because you never lost it
  • The Self cannot be represented conceptually; trying to fit it into the mind is futile—simply stop practicing the false
false_selftrue_selfconceptsletting_gonon_notionalsufferingknowledge

From: You Have Never Left the Destination - 31st July 2020