Awareness Itself is

Aware of Awareness

Ananta

2016 Sangha of Being

About Ananta

Ananta gives satsang with the blessings of his Master, Sri Mooji. He lives in Bangalore, India with his wife, son and daughter. Usually he offers satsang with sangha in attendance via Youtube with Google Hangout on-line satsang. See Ananta Facebook page for Satsang schedules, contact, information and updates of satsang with Ananta.

Links

Satsang with Ananta Youtube channel and satsang link is:

www.youtube.com/channel/UCmc83jyrwpCNBT2xywXVoLg/feed

Website:

www.anantasatsang.org

Facebook:

www.facebook.com/satsangwithananta

This is the 4th book of Ananta satsang talks. This book is a compilation of short, poignant talks taken from online satsangs with Ananta, from January 2016 through February 2016.

Where the paragraph begins with Q: it means questioner. Transcribed and collected with love by the Sangha, in deepest love and gratitude to Anantaji (nicknamed ‘Father’ by some), as an offering to all who seek Truth and Freedom from suffering through these simple pointings.

Preface

Blessings

May the gift that was received here be received in all of our Hearts.

And may the truth of What We Are reveal itself for all those who are done playing, who want to let go of this personal game. May they come to the realization of the True Self…, in double-quick time…, [chuckles]…, even prior to time: Right Now.

[Silence]

May all that is personal be dissolved by the simplest solution of forgetting about it …, the fulfillment or the non-fulfillment of it. May you all be done with it. May even the desire for freedom dissolve in your Seeing of what the Truth is: the un-doubt-able, the undeniable that You Are.

It is super-obvious actually. It is so obvious that it is missed.

May you be blessed with the holy instant of looking, without confusion.

May you See that what you have been looking for is not that way, not that way; but is actually where you have been looking from…, what you have been looking As.

So, not an entity, not a thing; just the looking itself, the Awareness Itself.

May you find that which is most original to You, most primal; which never goes.

May the Satguru's grace bless you with the power to look at What Is…, without interference from the mind, with no interpretation, with no judgment, with no grievance.

And may you be blessed with the vision that That which perceives ‘What Is’, and the ‘What Is’, are One, and there is no separation.

The Core Pointings

Clarity comes from direct seeing, direct experience. And we have tried over the years to demystify your true nature as much as possible. Therefore all it needs is a little bit of openness, a little bit of checking neutrally to see. Some of you are new here, so maybe we can revise some of the core pointings for you.

So the first one is: if you still have this sense that I am suffering, then all you have to do is not to believe your next thought. Because there is no suffering ‘Now’. Suffering is always dependent on some projection of past or future, and this interpretation of what the mind is saying about the past or future. So in our not believing the next thought, we are not picking up the false identity, we are not picking up any of these projections.

And then some resistances will come. You will say ‘I cannot not believe this’. So find out those two or three top buttons which the mind can push, which seem to automatically get your belief and pull them into your inquiry.

If it is about freedom…, for many of you now it is the spiritual seeker identity which is the strongest one where the buttons get pushed. So find out: Who is the seeker, can we find the seeker? Is the body seeking freedom? If there was a way actually to communicate with the body and you say ‘I'm going to get you some freedom’ the body will say ‘What, does it taste good?’ [Laughs] It has no idea about freedom, it already is free. It's just an instrument; a beautiful instrument, but an instrument.

So find out who wants freedom? Where is this one sitting? What does it look like? When was it born? What is its relationship with you? Why does it need a voice to communicate with you? You see? So are there two of you? Like this, if you inquire, you will realize very quickly, it is just an idea. The seeker identity is nothing but an idea, with no tangibility at all. You see?

So those ideas which still seem to get your belief, pull them into your inquiry. And you will find the rest are nothing. There is no validity behind any identity. Then it might seem like for some of you ‘Everything is so fresh, I'm not suffering. Because all my identities which I was caring about have now been inquired into, and they have been dropped, and everything is fresh moment to moment. I'm just witnessing all of this moving’.

Then we could say ‘But is that it? What about God? Because the entire quest was to find God, so can you show me God?’ And I would say ‘Yes I can’. Not your idea of God, necessarily. But the God that I have experienced. That one I can show you. Just by asking you this simple question: Can you stop being now?

And when I say ‘Can you stop being?’ then actually try. Don't just use it as an intellectual question and say 'What kind of question is that?' Actually try to stop being. Don't be…, for an instant. And you will discover your own holy Presence. Instantly you will find that you can't stop being. Your Presence is here. I just Am. This I Am is Being, is Consciousness, is God. Because it is God who said ‘I Am That I Am’.

So don't let the simplicity of the pointing confuse you and make it trivial. It is one of the most beautiful discoveries that you can come to. It is the realization of God as your own Presence, in just looking and seeing if I can stop being. And often I've said that this much is enough actually, this much is enough, because you're beyond suffering and you're living in the presence of God.

But for some of you, (like in my case here also), some of you will say that there's something more. And by this time, the mind will probably be going crazy saying ‘Something more than God, what are you saying?’ But you might say ‘I am aware even of Being. There is something here which is prior even to Being, which knows that there is something called sleep state and then I woke up from sleep state. So what is this? So what is this? What is prior to I Am? What is before I Am?’

It is this Awareness, Knowingness, that knows even the presence and absence of Being, you see? So this is the highest. You say, can you show me the highest? And I say: Are you aware now?

And for some of you, this might sound like a magnificent pointing and for some, you will say ‘What? This was the highest? I didn't see anything at all’. You see? But in those words themselves lays the Truth; where you're able to confirm ‘Yes, I am aware. I am aware without actually phenomenally experiencing anything’. Even for Being, it was phenomenally experienced. But for Awareness.... am I aware now? This fact that I'm aware is known. It is not a phenomenal experience. It's the only non-phenomenal experiencing that you can have. It's not even an experience; but if you were to use the word non-phenomenal experiencing, it is the only one you can have.

And it is central to our existence. I am aware. And because it is so natural, so intimate, there is no space between us and this. And because our entire idea of freedom, of self-realization, was based on some sort of an explosion or some sort of awakening experience or something special like that, the mind refuses to accept that this seeing, I Am Aware Now, is the realization of the Self. You're realizing your own Self as Awareness. Awareness itself, is realizing Itself.

This is the essence of Self-realization.

The trouble can come because the mind, the person-identity, can come and say ‘But this is not what I asked for’. But we are no longer to cater to this one who does not exist, because this one is forever unsatisfied.

How do you know that you are aware? First, do you know or not? Do you know you're aware? Let's say yes or no. [Looks around the room and participants all acknowledge 'yes'.] So we know.

How? How do we know? We're just aware, just aware. But for everything else we say ‘Is there a blue box on the table?’ You have to look; and we either see or we don't see. And if we see, we have confirmation it was there.

You see, everything else is phenomenally checked, everything else, even Presence. Can you feel the Presence? It is phenomenally checked. But for this, we just know. It is always just here. Because what did you see? If I ask you what you saw that you were able to confirm your awareness, you would not have a good answer. Isn't it?

Isn't this so beautiful? I enjoy very much this contemplation. If I ask you what you saw to be able to confirm your awareness, you will not have a good answer. For everything else, to say it is there, you will say ‘Yes I saw it. This was the color. This was the taste. This was the phenomenal experience of it’. But for Yourself, you are not able to define a quality or an attribute, and yet you're clear that You Are.

The I Prior to ‘I Am’

So many times we hear things like ‘Drop the search’. What do we mean? Basically it means ‘Drop the struggle’. There really is no need to struggle now. All the pointings which you need are here. All the Grace which you need is here. All the presence which you need is here. So this struggle has become a habit; this sense of something which is this frustrating sort of energy and we feel like we just carry it around.

This seeking by itself without the sense of struggle is a beautiful contemplation into the nature of the reality. So it is not the seeking in itself which is trouble, because here also there are various contemplations which continue still. That is very beautiful.

The sense that 'I am incomplete, I need something and then I'll be done'…, that is what is meant by drop the seeking. Not that we stop contemplating because now we've reached… (although that's another example...). 'Now that we've reached the top of the mountain there's nothing else’. You see? That makes us very closed.

So one of my prayers always, as many of you know, is that if I'm wrong about something may I be corrected, even now. May life show it to me. And if I'm not listening, let it slap it into me. You see? Because this arrogance of the spiritual ego should never be let in. And that creates a lot of trouble.

So this struggle is really not needed now. Once you say that 'I found my teacher, I found my master', then it's his struggle, his problem. How is it yours? This is how it is different from school. How is the guru/disciple relationship different from a typical teacher/student relationship? It is that the guru takes responsibility. All he asks of you is that you continue to come to Satsang. And come with a whatever reserves of attention you feel you have. Because many times it can be 'He said come to Satsang' (but you're not actually 'in' Satsang).

So just whatever sense of little bit of control you feel you have, just bring that attention into Satsang. The rest is his (or her) problem. So this is the difference. Whereas in school, you could go and the teacher doesn't say 'I take complete responsibility’. We go to many PTA meetings, so I've heard this unfortunately. [Laughs] But here I'm saying ‘It's my problem’. There is no need for any of you to struggle. It's just a bad habit. And it comes with so much guilt and doership and regret, unworthiness; all these ideas that we have about ourself for no reason.

Because all of you are That. And I feel this when I'm speaking. I realize that more and more this is coming to me to remind you that you are The Eternal One. We even titled one Satsang 'You are Eternal Whether You Like it or Not’. And if you were to really look at this, even imagine it, that you are eternal, then you would do exactly like this. You wouldn't play these ‘person’ games because actually nothing really matters to you. To the immortal, to the eternal, this is just a play now.

With the recognition of What You Are, then this sense of struggle, this sense of trouble, this will start dissolving. And if it's not dissolving then we must inquire into the beliefs which we still hold. There is an identity still then lurking if there is still some sense of struggle. It usually comes from some meaning which is still left to the appearance. We are giving some meaning which is not neutral to the appearance and saying 'This one. Everything else okay, okay, okay, but this particular identity or role still has meaning for me. In fact, it's central to me’. But it's not. What is central to you is your true nature, that which cannot go. Everything else, all relationships, all other materialistic things all are coming and going, all our tendencies. Nothing will last. You will last, but not you personally.

And now you're here; that means you are looking for this eternal Truth. Because if you were looking for some phenomenal truth, there are many better people to show you. Relationship counselors, psychotherapists, money advisors, counselors; all those are available by the millions in the world. You see?

So what brings you here? There must be a realization somewhere that ‘This phenomenal stuff is not satisfying to me. I'm looking for that which I truly am’. This must be here.

Just with a simple checking: Am I Aware Now? …, instantaneously, before the mind can come to any conclusion, you'll know that you are aware. And this you cannot leave. This we cannot leave.

Of course, some friends are using different definitions, so you could say 'I was not even aware; even Awareness was not there’. And who knows this? So the knowing that something is present or not is already Awareness. This Knowingness, Awareness, the I prior to I Am, I prior to Being, I, Knowing-ness, Seeing-ness, Witnessing, Perceiving; we've used many words for it. They're all synonymous.

There is no way that This you cannot find. There is no way that You can lose yourself. In fact, it is more that since it has always been like this, our mind is in denial of it. It makes it another task to get to. It makes it ‘the next bowl of milk’. If our entire life we've pretended to be a cat, then we have constantly looked for the next bowl of milk. And this, the mind says, is the eternal bowl of milk. Find freedom and you will find the nectar of immortality, for the cat. But you never were a cat. You never were a person.

You are That which you have been looking for. So this I, before the birth of the I Am-ness even, is your true unshakable, immortal, eternal nature. And everything exists only in your awareness of it. Inside your awareness.

Then what happens? With the birth of Being actually, all confusion starts. [Laughs] Deep sleep, no confusion, isn't it? Then [to wake up next day], the birth of Being. So in fact, the first time I heard Maharaj say something like 'The only problem you have is the I Am infection’…, I was like, ‘I Am infection? I Am is God Himself. [Laughs] You know, how can you say 'I Am infection’? I read that in 'I Am That' or one of the books, Maharaj's books. I was not able to process the enormity of what he was saying at that time.

So with the birth of I Am, then very quickly the world of duality appears. It's always ‘Me in the world, me and another, my world, my life’. Before that, nothing, no phenomena. And even if this appearance was there, without the pesky interpreter, than it would not seem like it is separate. It is this interpretative mind, what we call ‘the ego, the wrong subtitles in the movie, the fake interpreter’.

This one makes trouble where there is none because it convinces you that you are this bundle of just flesh and blood. And you're alone here. Then it seems scary. You're just this body in this huge realm of billions of people and so many forces which are constantly attacking. And once you buy this story, then you've bought the cat idea. Then you're running around like a cat, looking for your bowl of milk, trying to keep them safe and making sure you're on the right track.

That's why I say this is such a divine mystery, the great divine maya that convinces the Creator of the world that it is just a small speck in the world. Actually the universe is a small speck inside you. And all these insights are available to you once you come to clarity about Who You Are.

Clarity is different from mental understanding. Because it's very easy to pick up the concept ‘I am Awareness’ or ‘I am the Infinite One’ But if it's just another concept then it's not going to help.

Can We Find This One

Who Needs to Become Free Now?

Let's do something radical today. [Laughs] Because I keep saying that ‘I am saying that you are free now; you are free now’. So what if we don't close satsang today unless everyone who attends sees that they are free? It could be very short. [Laughs] And it doesn't matter whether you have been in satsang for a long time, a short time, because you are free now.

So for this satsang to continue then, we have to presume that someone is not free. Who is here that is not free? Like I said, a very short satsang. [Laughs] Because when I say that we won't end until everybody is free, then it might seem like ‘Oh it is gonna take a while’. But when I ask ‘Who is not free right now?’ then you have to start inventing reasons. Without inventing a reason, can you show me how you are not free? Without working, your mind coming up with a reason, some explanations for why you would be not free, then can you tell me how?

Just in your own most natural state. Without coming up with some mental reasoning, can we find this one who needs to become free now? Without going with any mental reasoning, can we find this one that needs to become free?

And the mental reasoning, I will tell you what the mind could be saying: ‘Yes, now I see, but it's not stable’. But it is stable; only this mind saying it's not stable. Or it could say ‘But I still become angry’. Everyone still becomes still angry, even the sages still become angry.

What are the mental reasonings. Who else has some?

So what is it that is convincing us to still remain as the seeker? And mostly it is the sense that ‘I am not stable in the abidance of the truth’. Like we were saying the other day; the sense that ‘I am not stable in the abidance of the truth’. But actually you are stable in the abidance of the truth. The only thing is that ‘pretending’ sometimes still remains as a habit.

The stability of the truth. The truth would be valueless if it was unstable. Would someone be interested in a truth which is not stable? Why would you want it? If it is coming and going, why would I want such a truth? Therefore by definition, truth must be that which is not coming and going. It is stable. So it is not that we need to stabilize in the truth. The truth is ever-stable.

And it is not about attention also. It is not that we have to come to this place where my attention is always only in Awareness. That is not the function of attention. Attention is already on the leash, it cannot leave Awareness. One end is already tied to Awareness; it cannot leave it. Can it leave Awareness and go somewhere? It cannot. It Is, always. Who is it reporting it to? It is reporting back to Awareness through your Beingness, so it is not leaving Awareness.

So how long will we continue to believe the story that we are not free? Can we find some evidence of this bondage right now?

What can happen? A thought can come, but that is seen. An emotion can come and that is seen. How is the Seeing touched by that which comes and goes?

Because our habit is to go with the content of what is appearing. We don't pay enough attention or we don't just simply witness: ‘Who is it appearing to?’

Right now we can check this: Who is any of this content appearing to?

What do I mean by content? I mean the appearance; that which is coming and going.

Is the witnessing of the content also coming and going? The witnessing is stable. Even when there is no content, you are able to say that there is no content; in sleep state or ‘I fell unconscious and there was nothing there, it was just black’. Even that, You have to remain to witness.

So you are completely steady in this. This is your natural state.

So what else is it that we want?

The Realization Of What We Are

Is A Facepalm Moment

[So, the question is]: ‘Who is the one which is aware? Is it not Being?’

What is the distance between the sleep state and the waking state?

Who had the experience of sleep?

Nobody has to tell you that you slept, and you had the direct experience of waking up. So [what is] the change between sleep and waking up? In sleep there was no sense of Being; in waking there is the sense of Being. So there must be an awareness which is aware that Being was not there, and now Being is there. This Awareness remains unmoved through all of the states which might come and go. Isn't it?

So I don't have to tell you that you went to sleep last night.

You know you went to sleep, isn't it?

Q: Yes. It's so simple.

Yes. It's too simple. For the mind, it's too simple. [Laughs]

Q: In any case, I'm always aware.

Yes.

Q: Who wakes me …[Inaudible]… I am aware of that sense of Being.

Most will report that there was nothing in sleep.

Q: [Inaudible]..so that's retrospectively?

It must be. It has to be reported retrospectively, but you can't sleep retrospectively. The reporting is retrospective because the Presence of Being is required for this phenomenal reporting. But the sleep is not retrospective. That's what first I asked you if somebody else has to tell you that you went to sleep or not? Or you know directly?

Q: That's a direct experience.

Of whose direct experience is it? Of this Awareness alone? Who knows your sleep, and waking? It's Knowingness alone, Awareness alone.

Q: Maybe I am looking for a location in Awareness, or maybe I am trying to find out…, some quality that ‘This is Awareness’.

Let me tell you something about this, which is that it will not happen exactly, because time and space are toys which belong to Being. They are born after the world of Being; time and space. So then, if time and space are not there, how can you find a quality or a location for Awareness?

Q: [Inaudible]… If there is no Being, there is no question of time or location.

Exactly.

Q: But, is it my intellectual understanding?

No, it's a direct experience.

Q: [Inaudible].. I am using mind, let's say for example, it's a concept…

Which part is a concept?

Q: [Inaudible]..

What is your direct experience?

Don't let the mind come in. It is your direct experience.

Q: [Inaudible] [Laughing]

The realization of what we are is a ‘facepalm’ moment.

Q: This is so simple, guys. This is so simple! [Laughing] And the mind…. [Inaudible]

It cannot take anything.

Q: [Inaudible].. when we believe a thought….

Yes, it becomes a pretense. But in reality, nothing changed; but we are pretending to be a person checking on whether it was intellectual or real. That pretense is completely your power. Whether you want to play or not is your power.

Q: That means that I have to drop those concepts that I am my name, I am my body. [Inaudible] … I need to have a good laugh. [Laughs] I'm going to go home and laugh.

Oh, this is great. [Laughs] ‘I'm having an awakening experience in the office. Where do I go?’

Q: What more can I say? Thank you. What more can I say?

You're welcome, my dear. Always welcome.

Yes, I Am…

But as What?

Q: Namaste, Anantaji. You ask: Can you stop being now? But I do not know what it is to be in Being.

It's simpler than that. It's simpler than that. It's just Right Now You Are.

Can you not be? Can you say ‘I am not’? You are.

‘You are what?’ is a different question, so we are not concerned with that for now.

Q: Yes, I am.

Yes, this ‘I am’, this sense ‘I am. I exist’, this Being is Consciousness.

Q: I understand what you say, that I am. I cannot deny that fact. I do exist. We can take that only, that I am, simply I am, nothing more than that. And then the question comes: Then, who is angry? Who is doing all of these things? I am doing my job, family, ... [Inaudible]… And then I don't have any reference. Who is doing this life?

So, already we say, ‘Yes, I Am’. So this ‘I Am’ this Being, ‘Am-ness’ this is the only one, isn't it? This is the only one here. Is there another ‘I Am-ness’…, and Questioner? And, if there is a Questioner, then where is he?

Q: [Inaudible]…only a belief?

Yes, only a belief, only an idea. An idea cannot do anything. Only that which is here must be the do-er. Isn't it? A mental construct, can it just do something? No. It's just an idea. So if Questioner is just an idea, a concept which caught your belief, then can it actually do something? It's like imagining that there is someone sitting next to me and when we say to that one ‘Can you give me a glass of water?’ can it give it to you? No, it was just an idea. That which IS must be the do-er, isn't it?

Q: [Inaudible]…

Exactly, exactly. This ‘I Am’ is the do-er. This ‘I Am-ness’. There is no Questioner, so it cannot be the do-er. And this ‘I Am-ness’ is doing everything. When this ‘I Am’ is not, like in deep sleep state, there is nothing. This ‘I Am’ appears, and this whole phenomenal play appears.

You know? And it's not only this phenomenal play. It's other phenomenal plays, like dreams. Or that which we call dreams. In that waking state; this might be a dream for this waking state. Because in the Presence of this ‘I Am-ness’ all this phenomenal play happens. Therefore we can say that there is only one do-er and one experiencer, which is Being Itself. And there is no Questioner.

Q: And then the thoughts that come that I have to do my job and …[Inaudible]…

See, these thoughts have no meaning, because they are all referring to you as Questioner. Consciousness is doing all of this on Its own, naturally. Consciousness is not dependent on anybody to run this Universe. Which thought is making gravity function? Which thought is making your heart beat? Which thought is making your breathing happen? It's the mind which takes credit, saying ‘I am doing this. I am doing, I am sitting here’. But this is referring to ‘I’ which is a Questioner which doesn't exist. Now the mind is saying ‘Without me, nothing will happen’ but that is not your experience. Activity still happens.

Q: It looks like if I don't decide that I have to do something, [Inaudible] then it will not happen.

It only appears like that. Mind experiences us. Right now, your hand is moving. Have you decided to move it?

Q: No.

No, it is moving. Who is moving that?

Q: [Inaudible]…that I cannot say.

Yes, it must be the do-er of it, because that is the only ‘I Am-ness’ that is here. Consciousness, Being, I Am, God…, whatever word you want to use, it's fine. But nobody else is here.

Q: That creates trouble, that concept. It creates trouble..,. [Inaudible]…that commentary.

Commentary will always create trouble. The mind is only a trouble-maker.

Q: [Inaudible]…

The root point of reference for the mind is that you are a person. Everything is dependent on this lie, you see? And this lie is so prevalent that [only] a rare one looks at it, and asks ‘Who are you talking about?’ And it says ‘You are a fantastic person’. Who? We cannot find. So, it's still a lie, whether it's good or bad.

Q: The one that troubles me the most…[Inaudible, life story]…but why did I believe these things? I don't understand that. [Laughs]

It's a habit which has been inculcated ever since we were little. When we were 2, 2-1/2 years old then these thoughts started coming. You see? And they were coming authoritatively, so our parents were also saying the same thing, ‘You must be a good boy. You must go to school. You are like this. You are like that’. All of this is filled with identity. This realm is full of that.

A few of us come to this point where we see ‘Yes, but this one that they are referring to, I can't seem to find this one. Who are we talking about? Because the body is not a good boy, it's just an instrument; with nothing good or bad about it inherently. So, who are they talking about?’

And once this kind of inquiry starts, then this whole delusion of personhood starts to dissolve.

And there are just 3 or 4 of these key areas. So one was about relationships; special relationships, close relationships. Second one is about this work, abilities, security; all of this money-related thing. Third is about the health of the body and how good the body is. And fourth is about this search for freedom itself. So around these 3-4 key identities, we keep moving.

But when you ask ‘Who is this bothering? Who is suffering from this? Who wants any of this?’ then very quickly you see that there is nobody like that which is here. The body doesn't even want a good body; the body is just here. So, the one who wants or doesn't want, who is that one? It is the non-existent, not-even-imagined-properly one. [Laughs] And freedom from delusion is freedom from this idea.

So, then you will see that ‘Oh, thoughts are appearing and disappearing, in the same way reactions are appearing and disappearing’. There is nobody to take credit or blame. Everything is moving on its own.

Q: So, I don't have to be. I Am.

Exactly, exactly. You already Are.

Q: But, as what?

As ‘I Am-ness’ itself. As ‘I Am-ness’ itself. As Being, itself.

Don't Try To Come To This Point,

This is Where You're Starting From

So now it's so simple…, that we cannot suffer without listening to or believing this thought, this mind. You see? As simple as that.

But why do we continue to sometimes? Because there might still be a sense that something meaningful might come from here. When we check right now, we say ‘Yes, it's all rubbish’. Like Guruji says ‘99% rubbish and the other 1% also rubbish’. So when we check about the past we are able to say ‘Yes, it's clear. I'm not going to pick it up’.

But somewhere, there some sense that maybe one day it will have something meaningful to tell me, this mind. But it has nothing ever meaningful to tell about the real You. Because it cannot fathom the reality that You are. And That which it cannot fathom, how can it say anything about That? How can it help That, which is prior to all of this? That which is before time and space. Before Being also. How can the mind, (which is just another ‘object’ in the Beingness), how can that have any conclusions to say about You?

So as long as there is a sense that ‘I might still be a person. You know, this might all be some sort of brainwashing or something’ then it can seem like ‘I better hedge my bets. A little bit of satsang, a little bit of mind; just in case either is wrong’. [Laughs]

But there comes a point where we completely we run out of moves, as far as the person is concerned or as far as the mind is concerned. There is nothing for us to really give meaning to from the mind. ‘I'm just done with this game, done with this playing. I cannot find the One that the mind is referring to anyway. So let me now let go and see what happens’. And initially the mind can again give you some fears: ‘What about your life? Why can't you do both?’ These kind of things it will tell you. ‘What's going to happen? You're going to make a mess out of your life’.

But no one who has realized the Self has gone and said ‘Oh I made such a mistake, I messed up my life’. No one. That's great encouragement, isn't it? [Laughter] Even if there was one who said ‘I want to give this realization of what I am back, and I'd rather go with the mind and pursue my worldly endeavors’ then we could say ‘Okay, statistically at least there is one’. But not one we have found. Because no one has truly discovered what they are has said ‘Okay, I want to go back to handing power back to the mind’.

So in this is a lot of encouragement for us. Because I know a lot of the mind's fears can come. ‘Just what if? What if he's wrong?’ [Laughs] ‘What if he's wrong’' So more and more as we are in Satsang then, there is a development of trust. Because we try out what's been said and see that it works. We find more peace, more space in our lives. And then more and more, this trust is there.

For the ego, for the person, satsang is the most destructive process ever. So you know, it can be that it has these accompaniments of love, peace and joy; but for the person, it is the most destructive process. That's why we have so many tantrums, we have so many things that happen, this back and forth.

Because it is destroying everything that we've held onto. Nothing we can rely on. All these thoughts we invested in, all these identities, all of this; it doesn't have any value. And this valuelessness of our prior investments starts to bother this mind. And it says ‘What is this? Why can't I be a person and be free? Why can't I be a free person?’

Not possible. Because you can never become a person in the first place. And by definition it is an unstable construct, just made up of a bundle of thoughts, a set of beliefs that we have carried. ‘I am like this, I am an honest person, I'm a great person, I'm a happy person’. All of these are just ideas. Who is it at the core of them? Nothing.

So as long as there is some reliance…, ‘I'm a spiritual person’ for example is a very popular construct. And then those who are spiritual then have these other points of suffering. ‘I'm such a God loving person, God fearing person, why do I suffer? Why does God do bad things to good people?’ All of these things I have heard.

So, then eventually we come to this understanding that no matter what kind of person I believe myself to be, it is not the end of suffering. The end of suffering is only the realization that there is no person. And This that is prior to all phenomena, this Awareness, is what I Am.

And this is not changing. Stable, more than the word stable can convey. This is that stable. It's not changing. Anything might be happening in the waking state, any phenomena might be coming and going, but this witnessing of it is untouched, unmoved, unchanged. And you cannot step away from it. This is What You Are (I've been saying this often): Whether you like it or not, this is What You Are.

[The idea of a being a person] is in the power of our pretense, in the power of our belief, you see? What a magnificent power this must be, actually. The power of belief, which can convince that which is no-thing, that which is eternal, immortal, unchanging; can convince that, (or actually the dynamic aspect of that, the Being aspect of that); which tries to convince that, that you are just this (pointing to body). Just this, and a set of ideas. The body-mind complex, as it is called.

So the Being which is pure, unassociated Being, which is as pure Awareness itself, somehow has created this power for itself to get deluded. Who else could have done such a thing? Only God could create this maya also, isn't it? There is no other.

There comes a point where we are done with the play. And that's why I have started asking this question, which is: Are you done with the play or not? Because otherwise we can have the same conversation over and over and over again. But actually what you are saying then is ‘I want to play also and I want to be free also’. I would rather you just say ‘Be done with the play. Be clear that I'm done with the play’.

And then there are some aspects which are still held onto, some strong identities. Those we can look at. But if you still feel that ‘I still want to be a person, I enjoy it’ and this is just like some sort of comfort blanket or safety net or something, then we go over and over the same thing. But those who say ‘No, I'm not interested in anything that might come in the play. Any content might appear. I might be a beggar on the streets or a king in the palace. This body might be the fittest one or it might be just going into the dust’. You see?

So with this sense, if you come to satsang and are not worried about phenomenal appearances at all, then what happens? All that is personal, all that is domestic, all that is kept aside. And we are clearly just Seeing what is prior to all of this.

Who was I before I woke up this morning? Did I have an identity in my sleep state? So, to me, these are very beautifulcontemplations to look at. And everybody enjoys their sleep, at least they report after they wake up. Because at some point, we get tired of this phenomenal experiencing. Like Papaji used to say, you could be in the arms of your beloved on your wedding night. But when sleep comes, when you're done with the experience, you just say ‘Yes, done. Done for today. Let's go to sleep’.

So there comes a point that the most blissful experiences could be in front of us, but there is a limit to how much we can enjoy them. And very quickly the mind will come with this fear. The fear that ‘Will the play stop? I don't want the play to stop. I like my family and I like my worldly attachments’.

And it is usually seen that very naturally the play continues. Without it becoming an expectation of it going a certain way, the play very naturally continues. Because that which is playing all these roles can continue to play the roles if it likes to.

Only the sense of control, that ‘I must control the way this life is going’ dissolves. You see? And that is a very freeing sense. Because every moment is then experienced so beautifully, because we are not projecting where we want this life to be.

It is just like we are watching a move and saying ‘I hope the next scene is like this, I hope the next scene is like this’. Such a troublesome way of watching a movie. Just watch; we're just watching. It's so beautiful. The script writer, the director, the projector, the screen; all is one Consciousness. The entire movie is playing, in your own screen of Being, on your own screen of Consciousness. Everything is appearing and disappearing and You are the eternal witness of this.

And when this is said, something knows that this is true, isn't it? It knows that these words are resonating with what is here.

Because otherwise for the mind it's completely radical. But when these words are said that ‘You are the Eternal One’ then I don't feel there is anyone here where something will not ring true when this is heard.

Something knows this very clearly, that this One is a prior-intuitive sense, which knows the reality of what I Am. Because the mind cannot grasp eternity.

So this One: What is here prior to mind? What is here prior to Being? You are aware of your Presence. What is here that is aware of Presence?

[Silence]

This is the Self. Unmoved, untouched through any state.

[Silence]

So once it is kept aside, this mind, just allowing Being to be, without any sense of grasping or control, just Being, then this simple truth of who we are is so apparent, isn't it? It's only when we try to label it, only when you try to make a conclusion about it, like 'What have I found, what have I found?' If you quickly go to that, then again it is giving it to the mind.

There is nothing you have found, You have always been This. So the discovery is that I have always been This. It is not a discovery of a new one. So we have unraveled this in some way. And we have seen the core of this delusion of personhood is only…, firstly, the Presence of this voice which tries to convince us that ‘I am a person’. And more importantly, the belief in this voice that we give. Then we will find that all of this...., this voice is allowed to continue, this world is allowed to continue and Being is allowed to just be.

I Am That which is the eternal, pure, innocent Witnessing of all of this. And this is our experience right now.

Don't try to grasp at it. Don't try to come to this point. This is where you're starting from. This is your starting point. If the mind is still painting a picture saying that ‘You have to get to where he's pointing’ then it is again tricking. This is the starting point.

So the movement, if you want to look at it as a movement, is an inward one, not a forward one. And the grace of satsang, the Presence of satsang has given us the spiritual muscles now (when we say ‘just keep the mind aside’) even to follow [what is said here]. If you were to speak to anyone who has not been in satsang and say ‘Keep the mind aside’ [then they would say] 'But no, how can I? It's so strong. The mind is so strong’.

But now, having been in satsang more and more, don't feel as much that the mind is so strong. We have unraveled that also. What do we find so strong? That which is our strongest identity. And in spiritual circles, the seeker identity can be the strongest one. The ‘I've made it, you have not made it’. All of this. So this can be. Then when we explore ‘Who is this one who made it?’ …, there is nobody here in that way.

The True I is

Synonymous with Awareness

So let's read the question. She says “When you say ‘I-as-Awareness’…, ‘I Am’ has the non-phenomenal Beingness, empty save [except] itself…, But ‘I am Awareness’…, is there an ‘I’ here at all?..., as in our only identity, as One before all?”

As you know, usually what I say is ‘I-as-Awareness’ is the non-phenomenal. ‘I Am’ is the root phenomenon of Beingness.

And why do we say the root phenomenon? Because although no identity is here yet, but all the forces of this phenomenal manifestation, including the forces of belief, relating to identity, are present now. Okay? So that's why we call this ‘I Am-ness’ or ‘Om’ the primordial vibration or the root phenomenon.

Then you say: “…empty save [except] itself.”

Yes, I-as-Awareness is empty, save itself. Perfect, perfect.

“But I-Am-Awareness…, is there an ‘I’ here at all?..., as in our only identity, as One before all?”

This Awareness is undeniably ‘I’. But not in the way that we've used ‘I’ in the past. Why is it undeniably ‘I’? Because there is the existence of this ‘I’, the existence of this Awareness, which is not separate from What I Am.

Prior to..., (I know you have the ears to hear this, so we'll say like this), prior even to the birth of Being, ..., even prior to the sense ‘I Am’… Awareness is What I Am. You see? Prior even to the sense of ‘I Am’…, Awareness is What I Am.

Because sleep is my experience. So we can say this is what I am, impersonally. But it is ‘I’ that is ‘This’. So as Bhagavan said, this ‘I’ when we say ‘I’ it is Awareness itself. And when it becomes the ‘I-I’ that means the dynamic aspect of it; or the ‘I-I’ and the ‘I Am’ are the same.

So it is not ‘I’ in the sense of ‘nothing to do with identity’. No attribute, no quality at all. And yet undeniably ‘I’.

[She had also asked]: “Or …, just Awareness aware?” ………… Yes, just Awareness aware. But this Awareness is What I Am. We might as well say ‘I’ instead of ‘Awareness’.

[She said]: “No location obviously, but sense of I Am Aware.” ………. Yes. With the ‘I’ here, we can say this. The ‘I’ that I Am is Awareness. So as Bhagavan said, ‘Awareness is another name for You’. This ‘You’, what does he mean? This ‘I’.

[Laughs] I'm just laughing because if I'd heard words like this 15 years ago, I would have said ‘What is he talking about?!’ [Laughs]

The true ‘I’ is synonymous with Awareness.

So when we say ‘Awareness’ we are talking about the true ‘I’.

Is This Urge for Freedom

More Than Just a Personal Desire?

Over the years I have heard many resistances. Also I have had many resistances before I met Guruji, to the simple truth, the simple pointing. One of the biggest resistances has been ‘It can't be just this, it must be something else’. You hear this very often. When we say ‘This simple awareness is what you are’ then something inside wants to fight that, because this is too just simple, easy. There is no story we can paint around that.

The mind says ‘There must be something because all throughout our spiritual journey we have heard about the glory of this Self-realization. The glorious divinity of the liberation of one’. And here, to find ‘But I have always been this. It's always been at the root of what is here, prior to all appearances. I have only been this’. And then when we discover This.., when we discover That…, especially when I speak, I say you don't even have to try to ‘Be That’ because you cannot leave That. At least this pointing was there, where someone says ‘Be That’ or ‘Abide in the Self’. Even Bhagavan said ‘Abide in Self’.

But this is a simpler time maybe. [Laughs] It's been made even simpler. A simpler time maybe. We say ‘Okay, leave That and show me…’ So that's why I said that abidance, at best, must have meant ‘Don't pretend to be something you are not’. What else is there to abide in? Because the truth is the truth. It's not leaving. By definition the truth is not leaving, it is not coming and going. So what else is there to abide in, except that we keep our power of belief in our pocket, you don't pretend to be this or that?

And what can we pretend to be? We can only pretend to be something that is appearing, only pretend to be something that is appearing. And if something is appearing, it is disappearing. This is the root of all suffering. Because we pretend to be something that is appearing, then when it is disappearing we want to make this…, (which appears and disappears, this which comes and goes)…, we wanted it to be permanent. But this can never be. But in wanting to make the appearance permanent, we pretend as if we have forgotten what we truly are, which is the permanence itself.

So when it is seen that ‘I cannot be that which comes and goes, I have always been here through all my delusions’ then something says ‘But what's so great about this?’ Initially the mind can say like that: ‘So what's so great about this? There must be a level forward, a level next’. And it can be like that. ‘So, maybe Ananta has not found it, because he is a regular guy, he wears regular clothes, he does not have swami or something like this in front of his name. So maybe there is something… He's a well-meaning guy. Maybe he has not discovered it’.

And in contemplating this, we say ‘What could be another experience which has been missed?’ But for that experience to happen, doesn't there first need to be the awareness of it? To discover the level next, wouldn't first awareness need to be there of that level? So this is at the root, and we have seen that no matter what the state is, this Awareness remains untouched.

So, even intellectually, if we were to look into this and ask: ‘So what should be the nature of the true self?’

We say:

It must be Invincible.

It must be Immortal.

It must not be coming and going.

It must not be attacked or hurt.

It cannot suffer.

This must be the nature of the true Self.

Even intellectually, if we were to contemplate…, and this Awareness fits in perfectly with all of this definition. It is not coming and going through any state, through anything time and space is bringing. There is no way that this pure Witnessing can be attacked by anything phenomenal. It cannot be made full by anything phenomenal. There's always infiniteness within it. It is the immortal One. Through all the appearance, it remains.

So when we hear like this, we say ‘Ah, okay. I like those attributes, immortal, invincible, so maybe this is the truth, the Supreme’. Like that. We have to use these words sometimes, just so that you can accept the truth of Who You Are. But actually no labels suffices, because we can say ‘supremely magnificient’ and also say ‘supremely nothing’.

There is nothing phenomenally, and nothing definitely in language, that can be used to describe the truth of What We Are.

Something beautiful I was reading on the weekend by Kahlil Gibran. He says that ‘One morning I woke up and I forgot to put on any of my seven masks’. Very beautiful, you know? He says ‘I have seven masks that I put on, and one morning I woke up and I forgot to put on any of my seven masks’. (I am paraphrasing anyway). ‘And this was the first time I experienced the truth’.

So the identity, the personhood; this is what he would mean by masks. So if, when the waking happens, the Presence of I Am is there but we don't put on any masks after that, what is missing in this? Nothing is missing in this. So this mask is of identity, this mask of ideas about who we are. And as Consciousness, it is completely in our power to not put them on. Just like it is in our power to put them on, to give them our belief…, or not. Because sometimes, many of us I see falling into this Adviata trap: ‘You say there is no identity, therefore who should not believe?’ But this ‘Don't believe your thoughts. Don't believe your next thought’ are not a pointer for the identity.

Why would I waste my time by telling the identity to do something when it doesn't exist? This pointing is just a monologue that Consciousness is having with Itself. So here It is recognizing that there is this power of belief, the power to pretend to be a person. Therefore It is speaking to Itself saying ‘This is only leading to identity, to a person’. And then immediately we have got to the ‘right now’.

There is nothing ever wrong with the right now. It is neither right nor wrong, it is just what It Is.

Maybe it was Shakespeare who said something like this: ‘Nothing is ever right or wrong except when we think about it’.

So all these tools have been around forever. ‘Just now: Who am I? Without my stories, without my ideas, who am I?’ If the truth is true then it must be present here, right now.

Stop all waiting, stop all waiting for mental confirmation and just report from the right now. It cannot escape you. Don't believe any ideas that ‘I am still not there yet’ or something like this.

The truth cannot escape you because You are It. Don't try to become the truth.

[Silence]

Before you can even decide what to do to get freedom, You are free. Before you can take one step toward freedom, You are free.

But the identity can never be free. And if you're going to be frustrated about the fact that the identity is not free, then it's going to be a long, long frustration. The infinite frustration will be this one. This is maya, you see. This is delusion that we even have to say this. That we even have to say that ‘The identity cannot be free’ gives us a clue as to why this is such a big delusion. Why? Because identity does not exist. Identity is just a set of ideas, it does not exist. Therefore so simply it is seen that it cannot be free. It does not exist. And yet, this is the power of our belief. Because we have believed and believed in the existence of this non-existent one, that's why we want to make it free. Such is the power of this play.

And it's completely possible that in 5 years, we could be at another level in the play. I don't know if you track the technology news but Facebook has this device called ‘Occulus Rift’ (which we have spoken about in the past as well). Now it's available for sale; the first models of ‘Occulus Rift’. You put on this headset and you're transported into a different world. I haven't experienced it yet; this is what I've heard. You're transported into this different reality and it seems very real. You see? So it could be [Laughs] that five years later there's an Ananta inside the ‘Occulus Rift’ sharing satsang over there trying to convince you that this world that you're in, the ‘Occulus Rift’, is just a virtual world. That's all that's going on.

And what would I say? Just discover who you are. What were you prior to this appearance, before all of this starts coming? The trouble is that you are attaching to something that is appearing here. Just go beyond that.

Inside this virtual reality system also, this would be exactly the same. Because actually it is exactly the same. So we don't know at what level of this play, what iteration of this play, we are in right now.

Okay, so let's take this example a little bit further. We put on this headset. What part of you do you carry into this game? Really contemplate.

What part of the originality of you do you carry into this game?

Has the Being changed? The Being is the same.

The identity could be different. The body is obviously different because you're in this virtual reality and you have this computer body. But the Being is the same; is constant. Isn't it?

And the Awareness? The content is changing but the Awareness remains the same.

So this remains unchanging; Consciousness and Awareness; Awareness Itself.

And even in this realm, we have seen that this content here is coming and going. We cannot attach to it; emotions, external objects, people, relationships, money.

That is why, in this game, I feel the questions: ‘Can you stop being now?’ and ‘Am I aware now?’ are very right. Because these two questions take you beyond the world of appearances.

So do we want help for this character that is coming and going? Or it is something more primal than that.

Is this urge for freedom more than the quest which is personal?

This is what I mean when I ask, (because I know this question can cause some confusion); when I ask: ‘Are you done playing now?’ This is what I mean.

Is this urge for freedom more than just a personal desire?

Because if it is just a personal desire, then it will not be fulfilled.

How to check this? That's an interesting question. [Laughs] That's a very interesting contemplation. But in a sense we've checked that in every satsang. Because nothing personal is offered here, in what we continue to be. And every day, more or less, I repeat that I have nothing here to offer for the identity. There's nothing I can do for you personally.

Checking Into

What is Here Now

All we're doing is just checking into what is here now. That's all we're doing, just checking into what is here now. Because why would we be interested in something which is not here? If something is not here, then by definition it would mean that it is coming and going. It's only an appearance. So if there is a task to do, it is only to check: What is present here?

Simple. So in this simple simplicity, the truth can be found. If there is waiting, and there is a sense that ‘I will find out the Now if I go to the next retreat’ [Laughs] …, how can that be? There can be the sense of allowing ourself to just be here now. And what is experienced by us, undeniably experienced, is the Presence of God, of Consciousness (whatever terminology we want to use). It cannot be denied. If we check what is here now, it cannot be denied that God is found, undeniably.

So what is it that we want beyond God? If we're saying that ‘This is not satisfactory for me’ then either there must be a sense that ‘This cannot be God’ or ‘I want something more than God’. When we check into what is here now, we find that there's a sense of existence, the sense of Presence, that I exist. And this is the only Presence that you're truly experiencing; Your own Presence.

Of course, it can feel like, when you come into the energy field of satsang in the human embodiment of Masters, it can seem like something gets amplified. But what is really happening is that all the other mental, emotional energies are settling, and you come face to face with your own Presence more clearly.

So then you can say ‘Oh, I feel the Master's Presence very strong’. But this Master is your inner Satguru. It's not that you're experiencing the physical body called Ananta, that Presence. It's just that in the energy field of one who has realized the truth, you will find that your own Presence gets amplified.

When we say Satguru or Atma or Consciousness or Being or ‘I Am’ or God, it's all being used inter-changeably here. I have no trouble with the definition. If you want to call it something else, that's also fine. But what's unmistakable is that I exist. In fact, it is so natural that we miss it. It is so natural that we miss it.

So instead of asking ‘How do I find God?’ you tell me how you are not God right now? Which God is missing from the right now?

So, we can check like this: In the right now, can I deny the Presence of my own Being? Can I say I am not here?

The mind will say ‘Yes, yes, I am here, but I'm looking for God!’

This ‘I Am’ Itself is the only God you will find. This sense of the Presence of Being is the only God there is. This is Consciousness. This is the only Consciousness I know, and you will know.

All other glorious stories which the mind is painting are just distractions.

Who can say ‘I am not’…, right now…, ‘I don't exist’…?

I sense something is saying ‘I exist, but it doesn't fully make sense yet’. This can be a trick of the mind. That's why I ask: ‘Can you stop being?’ And the simplicity of the question sometimes camouflages what is revealed in this question.

So if you were to ask ‘Can I stop being now? How can I stop being?’…, this Being is what?

Whose Being is it, whose Presence is it?

It is a personal Presence?

Does it have personal preferences?

If inherently it had some personal preferences, then you would not need thought to have desires and aversions. You would not need thought to have likes and dislikes. But can you have a like and dislike without first believing a thought? Or interpreting an emotion?

Q: The body has likes and dislikes, likes some foods and not others.

Yes, but good and bad taste is also based on interpretation. Because when it is tasted, it is just what it is. You see, it is the mind that comes and says ‘Never again, I will never eat karela again’ because it is an interpretation of the mind. What is, just Is.

Q: [Inaudible]

It can be that biologically there are two different categories of food, but what I'm talking about are these inferred concepts which are personality oriented; that ‘I'm like this, I like this, I don't like this, I like being around happy people, I don't like being around people who are sad’. All these inferences can come.

Q: The body has its own emotions and its own… [Inaudible].

Yes, so the natural functioning is happening the way the natural functioning is happening, but you cannot say that this aversion or this desire exists here, (besides these very spontaneous arisings and callings); you cannot have this personal sense of liking or disliking something without buying a thought about it. So you can say ‘Ananta doesn't agree with me, so I won't come’. For example, this thought can come. Unless you buy that that, then that aversion is not created. Those are the kind of things I'm talking about; the personality based ones.

So, see ‘What exists here? What is present here?’ without employing any labels, without employing any interpretation. And you might come to the conclusion that the ‘I’ that I believed myself to be, this one I cannot find. I can only find the Presence of this Consciousness, this ‘I Am-ness’.

So the question is: Is there any tangibility to this person that I believe myself to be? Is there any evidence of this person? ..., (which is not circumstantial, which is direct?)

So, if we can't find the person, is there something to do to get rid of the person?

Although in satsang, I many times might say [‘person’]. But in the truest looking, do we find the ego?

And if we don't find the ego, then what must we ‘kill’? ‘Kill the ego’. What must we kill? Just the idea that there could be an ego here.

To kill an idea is to just not give it belief. That's the only way to kill an idea.

There is one more way, but it's more difficult; which is not to give it our attention. And most of the world sadhana is based on not giving attention to thoughts.

But I find it much simpler just to withdraw belief. And very naturally, our existence is here. Very spontaneously, very naturally, everything can come and go.

Giving Freedom to the

World to Be As It Is

To live in resistance to the world, or to live in resistance to anything in the world, is a terrible way to live actually. What do I mean by living in resistance to the world? It could mean a judgmental attitude, or something like this coming. Or it could be life full of grievances. When we examine things like grievances, we see that there is so much ‘specialness’ there. There is so much arrogance there. ‘I'm right, he's wrong. I'm a good person. Why is the world so bad?’ The victim mindset also, full of arrogance. The victim is full of arrogance. So much specialness in this victimhood.

The most beautiful way to experience this game, this realm, is to leave it completely free, including what comes from our own (seemingly our own) bodies. Because actually this is our true position anyway. We're only pretending to take on the doership position, and pretending to make another the doer also. So can we allow the world to be exactly as it is?

And with this, there must be the sense that the One who is running this world must have a more Supreme Intelligence than our personal mind. Because to say that ‘This should not be’ is to question the will of God.

Very quickly the mind takes on this approach that I'm saying ‘You be passive’. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that whatever is appearing spontaneously, let that also appear. Just be the witness of that.

So, if you sense that something is wrong, if you see somebody's being mugged on the street, I'm not saying acceptance means ‘Yes, yes, yes’. Not like that, no. It is that somebody is being mugged on the street. Accept both of our reactions which are happening on their own. The one reaction could be that we run and we go help the situation. Second reaction could be that we feel scared of this situation and we run the other way. Both are completely possible. To have either pride or guilt about what just appeared in that moment, that would be the folly.

So there is no black and white in terms of how this game should be played. I also earlier used the example of in India, when you come to a street light, usually you will find some people who will come beg for money. Sometimes there will be so much compassion, and I will feel actually to give them some bananas or a biscuit, (not give them money because they might spend it on alcohol or something). So like this, sometimes this compassion can come. Sometimes there is just this feeling ‘No, stay away. Something doesn't feel right’. So I've seen people guilty about ‘Why didn't I give something to them?’

What happened, just happened. It was just witnessed. Because there is no individual doer of any of those actions. So, either we can say there is no doer; like this. Or we can say that all happens through God's will. Both are the same.

So this, what happens, is great freedom. Great freedom. Then everything is full of wonder and joy. ‘Oh, this is how it's unfolding’. Then you enjoy the movie in this way.

So one authority figure of the ego is the lawyer ‘Rajan’. And the other authority is the judge ‘Rajan’ sitting and judging everything. ‘This is right, this is not’. Everything; judging, judging, judging.

Can we just be open? This giving freedom to the world is closely interlinked with the openness which I speak about. We cannot be open and attached to a certain outcome in this way. And right now, we must be able to check: What grievances am I still holding? Isn't there doership at the core of that? Because either we are believing ourself to be the doer, or another to be the doer. What was it? Just another appearance.

And we can hold grievances against God. ‘Why did you create a world like this?’ That is the ultimate grievance, isn't it? Because there is some knowledge there, that everything is done by God. At least that much is there. But then that becomes like a victim / specialness: ‘The world is there and the world is happening to me’. If God created the world, then it must be God who is experiencing all of it. So, where is the victim? Because this openness then becomes so natural.

If we go with the judge or the one who finds grievances, then everywhere we look we find something to build a grievance about. See?

It was very revealing to me when I heard this phrase: ‘Love holds no grievances’ the first time in the Course in Miracles so many years ago.

And then I said ‘No grievances. Okay, let me check’. And every single one that I knew, I had a grievance against. Some small, some big; but everyone I had some grievance against. It was a very business transaction relationship. ‘I like this about them, I don't like this about them, I wish they would change this way, that way’. See, where is the love in that? Love must be acceptance of what is.

So with this, I found it was very useful. I found this pointing very useful, because it was quite revealing to me. Because before that, the idea still here was ‘I'm such a nice guy, I don't hold a grudge or anything’. And I started looking: ‘This one? Yeah. I have this grievance, and this grievance’. So many grievances. It was very beautiful to see. But it's all centered around individual specialness, individual doership; this idea that ‘I know what is right and what is wrong. I know how the world should behave’.

And when we let go of this, we give the world the freedom that we want for ourselves. Give the world the freedom that we want for ourselves. Then what am I in this simple openness? Not resisting, not judging.

So we could be sitting here, something like this, and somebody says ‘I'm really …’ [inaudible]…, which is completely contrary to satsang. But that is also accepted that this is being said. The reaction from here, which could be strong or light or whatever, has also been accepted. But there's no grudge of ‘How could they be like this? How could this one be doing this?’

In today's interconnected world anyway, because of social media and things like this, every day we're exposed to even more that people are doing. Because they post it on Facebook, post it somewhere. So if we sit with that attitude of judging everything then we'll become completely lost in it. So just to allow it, just to allow …, this is how it happened, this is how this is unfolding, this is how [inaudible] …

The beauty, one of the most beautiful aspects of this world is that it rarely ever goes to plan; rarely ever goes to plan. Because it would be so boring if it always just went [according] to plan. ‘I thought this should happen, this is how it should be’. Where is the fun in that? See, it rarely happens according to plan. That is the fun, too.

But if you attach duality of how it should be, then we are in this constant state of resistance, which is very egoic. So allow. Allow everything to be exactly where it is, including the reactions that come from here. It is not a state of passivity. It is not an aggressive state. It is just neutrality.

And I know that this pointing of openness also is experienced at different levels, because that's how it happened here. Because when I first heard ‘Be open, accepting’ it felt like a personal strategy, a good way to lead a life or something. Then one day, it just appeared to me, this openness. This resistance had just fallen off. This judge had just taken a break, or something like this. Which was open. This is open. Just flowing, everything is just flowing. However we are experiencing it, it's beautiful, this openness.

All our grievances can be allowed, too. Because very often what happens is that we hear about non-doership in satsang and we say ‘Yes, yes, I am not the doer’. But also remember that no one is the doer. Then there can be no individual one that exists. If I don't exist personally then no other one exists; therefore nobody is personally the doer.

All is being done in this play of maya by God. When this is seen, when this is realized, then can we hold a grievance? Can we hold a grievance? We can't, you see? Because we have seen that God is all there is. Then who is holding a grievance against whom?

And just now there may be something coming. ‘Yes, everything I can drop, but not that one! That guy, he did this to me’ or ‘she did this to me! That one!’ Then that one you must bring into inquiry. If something is resisting, then that one [who is resisting], you must bring to inquiry and find out: ‘Who did what to whom?’ Isn't there duality in that? Isn't there some sense of individual personhood?

Q: Specialness…

Specialness means that I have the sense that there is something which is only individually present here. Why that is a fallacy is because there is no individual present here. Therefore nothing can be individually present.

You Are Only the

Awareness Right Now

So, very simply speaking, we are speaking about that which is just here, always present; always just here. Right now it is what You Are. For This, to become This, is impossible. To become the Self is impossible. To not be the Self is also impossible. You are just That, already. The most natural state.

That's all we are saying if you take out all the jargon, all the terminology which can become a new set of concepts and a new conceptual framework. Just very simply, what is here right now is what We Are. And we don't need any idea about it, we don't need any concept to reinforce it, we don't need any thoughts to understand it. Prior to all of these, We Are.

When I'm saying this, I'm talking about Your experience. It's not a special experience. It is the most natural experience for a child, and for a grown up. Nothing to get. No experience. Originally, this is our natural state, and it continues to be.

Q: [Inaudible, about the awakening experience]

The awakening experience is only a sudden burst of what I am saying. So, if there is a lot of pretense which is carried, and that suddenly drops, and you see ‘There's no separation actually’ then in the body a lot of things can come up, a lot of bliss can come, a lot of grief can also come; it's like a dam which can explode. But that is not the point, really. It is just a by-product.

So the mistake could be, for some, that if you feel that the awakening experience is the goal; no. It is just a by-product. It's like when the drop falls into the ocean, it could be a lot of ripples or it could be very gently falling. That doesn't matter. The point is this. And it's not even falling actually; it's just the realization that ‘I have always been the ocean’.

Q: [Inaudible, about an awakening experience which went away]

See, so this is what I've been saying; that if we rely on the content of what is appearing, it could be the most beautiful content, but it will not last, even an awakening experience. So, even that which was so beautiful, (and thoughts just seem to be these tiny ripples), is just an appearance. The Witnessing of that is the same as the Witnessing of this. What witnessed that is the same Witnessing. You see?

Because you say ‘I saw that and now I'm only seeing this. I want to only see that’. This is the voice of the mind which wants only a particular experience to confirm that I'm free.

Q: [Inaudible, about Masters]

No, no. ‘What is’ for a Master is always ‘what is’ for you. It's just that we've given up pretending. What do I mean by that? Right now, you are only the ocean. You are only the Awareness right now.

Q: [Inaudible]

Effortlessly, what are you? Forget the space, it's not important. Just effortlessly right now, what are you?

You say ‘It still seems like effort to become the Self’ so let's find out: Without effort, who are you?

Q: [Inaudible]

Before you can make the effort to be free, You are free. It's only about now. It's not an experience. How do You get mixed up with the content?

Q: [Inaudible]

Because emotions by themselves also are just experience. When there's no interpretation about them, it's okay.

Q: [Inaudible]

There is absolutely no need for the idea of freedom.

Q: It's a good idea.

Let's say it was. [Laughs] It's not bad as far as ideas go. But now we've gone beyond ideas.

How are you bound? Don't talk about any experience, because that is not bondage. That you don't have an experience right now is not bondage. Show me how you are bound? Because we must only offer freedom to those who are bound, isn't it? So show me the jail cell, then I'll tell you how to break it open.

Q: Mostly, you know, it's only the story.

Mostly, you know, only the story, [Laughs] about how it should be a certain way. That's a resistance to ‘what is’.

So, once it is seen, can it be dropped? Or not? ‘It's only a story’ means we can drop the story or not. Please do. No more time is needed to drop.

Q: [Inaudible]

That is a story…, whatever is after the ‘but’ is only a story. ‘But, but, but the story will come back’.

Q: [Inaudible]

Then what happens? How do you get bound?

Q: [Inaudible]

So, these are the pretend ways to get bound.

The Awareness that is here, is it ever bound by any identity? What You Are, very naturally here, how would we bind that, even if there is a story that is being believed?

It is impossible to bind You. Therefore freedom must only mean the dropping of the story; including the story that ‘I've found freedom’ or ‘I'm not finding freedom’.

Bearing Our Own Emptiness

So, when we first come to This, the attention moves to the depth of what we are, the unlimitedness of what we are, the eternity of what we are. Then a lot of this [strong feelings] can come. So when it is said: ‘Can you bear your own emptiness?’ it is that when we are coming to terms with the Awareness that we are, which is unlimited, beyond time and space, the mind will immediately come saying ‘Oh, this is too scary’ or ‘This is too empty. I don't know what to do now. I'm confused’. All of this is resistance will come.

And this very emptiness is a pointing which says ‘It's okay. Let it be wobbly for some time. I'm with you. Let the fear come. Nothing will happen, you're in a secure place’. And actually then the perspective starts to shift. And then we go from something that feels like ‘Oh, it will drown in that’ to ‘It IS That, I Am That’. The fear of drowning then dissolves, and you realize ‘There's nothing for me to drown in. This entire manifest universe is drowning inside Me’.

And then, once you see that all of this is just a play happening inside Me, then how can you not love it? But even if we don't have to go that far and say ‘How can you not love it?’… how can you have a grievance against it? How can you oppose it? And then all is seen as just what it is, and I Am That un-label-able One. Un-label-able. And we see that all labels, all this play of name and form is happening inside of Me.

And then, as we come to this, then there will be many times where there's too much joy, too much love. Sometimes I've said that it seems so tangible, I wish I could just cut it into pieces and give it you as Prasad. But there's no dependence on even this, the joy, the love; it's not a dependent relationship. They come for their joy. Inside Me, they play. But I am not attached.

Because otherwise what can happen is very quickly the mind can come and say ‘Now, because this peace and joy and love are here, therefore now I must be free’. It may also go. It's not a constant state. They go, they come; they go, they come. They play like children, they get tired and go to sleep, then wake up and play. But if we were to attach to that, then again it can be this sense of finding it and losing it, finding it and losing it.

So if we stay with our emptiness… What does it mean: Emptiness? It's not a negative thing. Because the words…, we have to use these words. But emptiness is not a negative emptiness. This no-thing-ness is not the negative nothingness. It is that we are coming to our realization of the non-phenomenality that we are; the understanding that ‘I am not phenomenal, predominately. Although the phenomenal arises within me, I am not phenomenal’.

So, as that which is non-phenomenal, I can have no story, I can have no attachments. In this realization, this settling into What We Are can be accompanied by such strong experiences that you don't know whether to laugh or cry, or are laughing and crying at the same time, or it could be very peaceful: ‘This is what it always was’. And sometimes it can feel like the biggest joke that has ever been played. The idea ‘I was lost, and confused myself to be a phenomenal entity’ then sounds completely silly. How could I ever…? (you know, many report this after an awakening experience)…, how did I ever get confused to be just in this? And you can go anywhere from there. It could be that it settles like this and it stays. ‘I can never believe myself to be a person again’. Or very quickly, in 3 days you could come back and say ‘I'm suffering so much in my relationships’.

But my feeling, and my blessing actually, is that you cannot go all the way back to the delusion of believing yourself to be a person. And this sense of personhood dissolving is what is happening in satsang over and over, more and more as we go along. And I see that it's happening for all of us.

Because if there is not this common path then satsang will become very tiring after two or three times. ‘This one is not for me. It's too difficult. I'm not getting it.’ …, whatever the resistance might be. If it is still something personal that we want, then we'll not resonate with satsang for long.

Then we'll see that when you start to get glimpses of what you truly are, somewhere in there is an urge that ‘I don't want to fool myself anymore. I am done with this game’. Then satsang will resonate more and more. And it is happening for many of you, when you come and say, after a long time of being in satsang you will come and say ‘Today I feel like for the first time I'm hearing you’. And yet the words have always been similar. But it can feel like ‘Today is the first time I'm here’. Why? Because something just settles into the Seeing. The person is getting dropped.

Initially, even in satsang, we take the personal perspective. ‘Yes, this is making sense to me, this is not making sense to me, I agree with this’. We have this personal sense that ‘I am not seeing this’. Then as we come more and more into our true nature, it's so obvious what is being spoken.

Then the question can come, and you can maybe even question me and say ‘Why do you keep saying this every day? It's so simple!’ [Laughs] And I would typically say ‘NOW you are saying simple’. [Laughs] Isn't it?

So in this realization of what is just here, it is seen that ‘It's always been here! And I've always known this! I don't know why I was pretending’. It will always come like this. ‘I don't know why I was pretending. Must be some divine maya, some divine hypnosis’. So, the personal pretense then is laughed at.

When we learn to live our lives without dependence on these thoughts, such immeasurable beauty is there, without even the need for sensations. Just in the space of Beingness, in the Now.

So, let's come back to this simple question: Can we bear our own emptiness?

All the energy, all the grace in satsang is there to support; [about] this irrational fear that we have of our own Self, of our own true magnificence, of our own true enormity.

What is Meant by

‘Your Non-Phenomenal Nature’

Some of you might be new to satsang so I will share a little bit about what I mean by ‘Your true non-phenomenal nature’.

What do I mean? And at any point in this that I am sharing.., don't let your mind convince you that it's something difficult or abstract or you don't see it. Actually if you feel that, then you come up and say ‘I don't see. Can you walk through with me?’ Like this.

So when I ask you this question: ‘Are you aware now?’…, very naturally for all you it is seen ‘Yes, I am aware’.

Don't add anything to it. Don't say ‘I am aware of content, I am aware mentally’ or ‘It's just an intellectual concept’. No. It's a simple question: ‘Are you aware now? Are you witnessing now?’

[Silence]

And it is seen that ‘Yes, I am’.

What is this ‘aware’? When did we learn about this awareness?

Hasn't it been primal to us, primary even before any concept was learned?

Am I aware?

[Silence]

And this I that is aware, is it different from awareness itself?

Therefore the question ‘Am I aware?’ leads us to the Seeing that I am Awareness.

And yet if you give this to your mind, the mind will say ‘Nothing was seen’. And yet you are AWARE that nothing was seen.

Am I aware?

[Silence]

Is this ‘aware’…, is it a phenomenal experience for you?

[Silence]

And if it's not tasted phenomenally, then how do you know that you are aware?

There must be something here which is prior to phenomena or non-phenomena; completely empty of all concepts, all qualities, all attributes. It just IS.

[Silence]

Then when I ask you: ‘What is the distance between you and this awareness?’ what must you try and do?

Try and separate yourself from this awareness, keep it aside. [Silence]

Who can do it?

[Silence]

Who can keep awareness aside even for an instant?

Don't be aware.

Even if you are aware of nothing, you are still aware that there is no-thing.

You find that ‘I cannot separate because It IS Me, it is another name for Me, for this I.

So, if ‘I’ is a label which is pointing, then the truest place for this ‘I’ to point is Awareness.

And this awareness is not going anywhere.

It is not born, it doesn't die.

There is nothing God can even do about it.

It is the only constant.

And whether you like it or not, You are That.

As much as you would like to be a person, You are Awareness.

Prior to Awareness

Q: I know I am aware, but something else… There is the just the sense that there is something else. I don't know.

Yes, so presume that there is something else. Then it would still need this ‘I’ to be aware of it. Okay, so this is not necessarily for you, but, it is very easy to say that something is prior to Awareness. We can say. I can say that ‘There is a special pot of gold, which exists prior to Awareness and only the truest seeker will find it’. Is there any way that that can be disputed? No.

Q: It's not conceptual...it's just ...

No, I am just saying that to talk about that which is prior to Awareness, I can say anything. I can say like ‘You have heard of a mythical pot at the end of a rainbow, which is full of gold. That is there. It is prior to Awareness. And truest one, find it’.

You can say ‘Yes, I see it's there’. And once you get to this place then you will also see that ‘Now there is no way anyone can dispute that’. I am not saying this just for you; because it's popular sometimes to say that prior to Awareness something is, or something like this. But let's just look and see.

Whatever that something might be, is there any way to know of the existence of this something without the awareness of it? So, there can be the most sublime sense, the most beautiful…, but unless there is awareness of it, it is still nothing.

And there is much beauty that emerges from this simple thread of Being. Much beauty can emerge. And it can seem like it is the most primal thing. In fact, the ‘I Am-ness’ or the ‘Om’ is called the primordial vibration from which everything arises, isn't it? So there is great beauty, great sanctity, great innocence, great purity in this.

But it has to be said that even for this to exist, there has to be awareness of it. So that something, whatever it might be, for it to exist there must be an awareness of it.

Like we said, we will keep contemplating this. And I'm not ever coming to you with the perspective that ‘I know, and I want you to refer to what I know’. You see? I want you to keep this open contemplation and dive into this together. I am completely open if you say ‘Ananta, this is the way you must look, to find this something which is prior to Awareness’.

Q: I don't know. That's why I said the last few times..., at best I can say, it's a conviction, I don't know whether it is a …

One thing that can also happen is that when we find the Truth of ourselves, then Awareness doesn't seem like a good enough way to describe it, you see. Because it's not ‘just aware’. There is something indescribable about it. That's why I call it ‘the un-label-able’. Maybe that's what the feeling is. That the word that we use, either Awareness or Knowingness, or the Witnessing or the pure Perceiving; whatever word you want to use, it doesn't seem enough. You see, it doesn't seem enough. So that is different. So that's why I say the best way to describe it is to say that ‘You cannot describe it. It is not label-able’. This word also came up in satsang like this only: The un-label-able One.

Q: The part I feel tricky is that; the un-label-able ‘one’. And then when you say Awareness…, it is a demonstration of it, it's not necessarily the one, it's just sensory, it can't be that one…, there is a sense that the un-label-able one, that there is a one somewhere there.

Yes, there is this one. ‘I’, is that one. Yes, yes.

One more confusion which is becoming clear to me is that it's easy to mix up Awareness with the phenomenal perceiving. So this sense of seeing is there, and it seems very primal to us. It seems like this is Awareness itself. But the sensory seeing is not Awareness. There is Awareness even of sensory seeing. But the world uses awareness to denote the perceiving through the senses like this.

Q: Can I ask for clarification of that? When you say ‘It's different than the sensory seeing’… can I say that Seeing which is different… is the same as seeing and hearing and all of that?

Yes, yes. All that is collected through the senses and phenomenally perceived, there is awareness of even this. So Awareness is prior even to this. That which knows that this is also that. This is also phenomenal. Phenomenal means phenomenal. Only in the Presence of Being it happens.

But that Awareness which we speak of, or the Knowingness, or the pure Seeing that we talk about is not referring to this phenomenal sensory perception.

It is good you brought up this point. Because we use the words Awareness and the Seeing; it can be confused to be that we are talking about this phenomenal dual form, which is limited also.

Q: The way I differentiate as multiple senses, the one that knows, or the one that sees that.

Exactly. And this one is the same.

Q: Yes, the same. So I don't know what to do. It's a joy.

Yes, yes. Even this ‘I’ which seems like a little bit of doer or ‘what to do, what not to do’…, this is dissolving into your true seeing. It's very good.

Thank you so much, thank you.

Either It's Something Personal

or It's About Awareness

I had the feeling we should do some self-inquiry today. Just with some focus, with one at a time. You want to come first?

Q: [Asks a question about ‘subject and object’].

Can we do the inquiry first? Just follow me. We'll answer the question after that.

So right now, what is here?

Q: [sigh] [Inaudible]

Now is here? Awareness is here?

Q: Yes.

And…? [Silence] Just whatever it is. Don't worry about the right answer. With full integrity, whatever you feel is true, that you must say. [Silence]

Awareness is here. And this ‘I’, is it also here, or no?

Is there something apart from Awareness?

Q: This is here.

Yes. And ‘I’ is there? Or no? Is ‘I’ there?

Q: Witnessing is there.

Is Witnessing separate from Awareness? When you are saying ‘Witnessing’ are you speaking about…?

Q: It's only a concept, conceptual…, when I say…, it's not my…, immediately, it is a concept.

Yes. So leave all concepts aside. When we say ‘Awareness’ that's not a concept, no?

Q: I am Aware. [Inaudible]

You are Aware. And this ‘I’ that is aware, this ‘I’…, is it separate from Awareness?

Q: [Inaudible]

No, what do you see? What do you see? Don't go to any concept. You say ‘I am aware’. So now, just check: This ‘I’ that is aware, is it separate from this awareness, or is it one with it?

Q: I only know Awareness.

You only know Awareness. ‘I only know awareness’. [Laughs] I don't know any ‘I’…, I only know Awareness’. This ‘I’ that knows Awareness is what?

There is a knowingness of awareness. Can we say like that?

Q: There is something here that knows that.

Something. Now, this something, is it separate from Awareness Itself?

Q: [sigh] … [silence] …

So, you're clear that Awareness is here; but the ‘I’ you cannot find? Can you find an ‘I’?

Q: [Inaudible]

Yet, ‘I know Awareness’. It is directly known, isn't it? Directly known. Therefore my proposition to you then is that this ‘I’ is Awareness Itself.

Now, you have to try and prove me wrong. Can you find a separate ‘I’ from this Awareness?

[Silence]

Finding any ‘I’ which is separate from this Awareness?

Q: There's only Awareness.

There's only Awareness. Okay.

Now, if there is only Awareness, without picking up a concept, can you become [their name]? Without picking up a concept, how will you become [their name]?

Q: The body is seen in Awareness.

Body is seen. Is the body you?

Q: It's only an instrument. [Inaudible]

The body…, it is aware of you? Or you are aware of the body?

Q: I am aware of the body.

Ah. [Silence]

Q: [Inaudible]

Don't believe the label. Labeling means what? ‘I am the body’. Can you believe that now? From the place of looking now, with this appearance of the body, do you find that really it has that much pull, the thought that ‘I am the body’…, as we're seeing clearly that only Awareness is here, and all these appearances are coming, including the body; does it have that much juice, ‘I am the body’?

Q: [Inaudible]

Okay, so what you must do is not be scared of this concept. Because the fear is coming that ‘Oh, later I will become body-identified’ or something.

Try to become body-identified. Just become the body; don't be the Awareness. Just be the body. [Silence] Can you do it?

Q: [Inaudible]

You can never do it. It can only seem like it can happen like that, but it never truly happens.

And don't say ‘This should not come, that should not come, and I should not have tendencies’. All of this is rubbish. Throw it out.

But that is what the mind is using, that ‘My tendencies are not gone yet. Why do I still have this, why do I still have that?’ [Silence]

Say something about your true Self. You say ‘Only Awareness is here’. Say something about that.

Q: [Silence] Nothing..., [Inaudible]

Anything happening to it? Anything happening to Awareness?

Q: [Inaudible] Mind comes and tries to claim…

Mind comes and tries to claim. The false one will come and claim.

Q: [Inaudible]

Don't believe this guy. Whatever the mind is saying, let it come and let it go. As simple as that.

Q: [Inaudible sentences]

Once there is clarity about these definitions then these words will also not bother you. If you were asking about ‘subject and object’…, what's the difficulty? All that is appearing is object, phenomenal. The subject is not phenomenal. And the subjective Awareness of Itself is not an objective experience. Straight-forward. So all that is phenomenal, you call that object. All that you are, the non-phenomenal Awareness, that is the subject. And the subject knows Itself, but not objectively, not as an object.

Once there is clarity about Who You Are, then the jargon and play of words will not bother you so much. It only bothers those who are trying to play at some sort of mental understanding, or trying to prove to themselves that ‘I know this’ or something like this.

I don't try to remember anything. When something comes like that, then we look together. And in the direct looking of the truth, then I don't feel that anything which is truthful can escape you. So, you don't have to bother yourself with learning this, and knowing something. We're not trying to make intellectuals out of you. It would be a complete waste. If after coming to satsang for so long, you became an intellectual, it would be a complete waste. You see?

If you are to call something valuable, it must be only that which is here. So any term, any definition...,

Are you here?

You just have to check back with what is here; if it resonates in here. And if it doesn't resonate, then just say ‘I don't understand what you're saying’. No need to wrestle with anything. I am not giving you anything to learn also.

What do you see yourself to be?

You want to be Awareness, and a certain type of person?

Or the nothingness of Awareness is enough for you?

Q: Nothing.

Then nothing can make you suffer. [Silence] If your emptiness is fine by you, then what suffering can there be? Because suffering can only be phenomenal. Only phenomena attacks phenomena. Only phenomena defends against phenomena. That which is no-thing cannot be attacked nor defended.

So, if you're okay being nothing, if you see yourself as this ‘no-thing’, then how can you suffer?

Q: Yeah. It's so easy.

So any time we find that there is a grievance or there is some suffering or something egoic coming up, find out: What phenomena I'm attaching to, or identifying with?

And then, when you inquire, you see that ‘I am no thing; I am this emptiness, I am this Awareness. Then I cannot be hurt by this phenomena; either by its coming or its going’.

Q: So, still stuck with this jargon initially.

Just don't pick it up. How to drop the story? Just don't pick it up now.

Q: [Inaudible]

Even forget about that. Then you come back and report whether the play continued or not. Because there can be some fear of losing the play, or some fear that this play will continue; either way, we're not to be bothered about it.

Q: [Inaudible sentences]

You could go to sleep and not wake up.

Q: It's like that.

Nothing to save.

Q: So, you shut down existence? There's no existence for you?

No, I'm saying that. There's complete allowing for it to come or to not come. Nothing to predict. [Silence]

Supposing we go to sleep tonight, we go to sleep for a million years, and when we wake up tomorrow, we feel it's just the next day. Who can say these things?

As Awareness, are you concerned about the play?

Q: [Inaudible]

Who is?

Q: ‘I’ doesn't want to lose itself.

The false ‘I’, the fake ‘I’ which doesn't exist, never existed, that one says ‘I don't want to lose myself’. I say: Where are you?.... ‘I don't know’. You see, it doesn't exist. It's just being represented through this voice, of the mind. The one who doesn't exist is being represented through a voice. All evidence that we have of this one is only this voice. ‘I, I, I’. Who is it representing?

So, we've been using this lawyer example. So, you ask the lawyer ‘Who are you representing?’…. ‘Oh, my client couldn't be in court today because he's not well’. …’And will he come tomorrow?’…..’No, he never comes’…

The one who is being represented by this voice never comes. And yet, we go on believing in the existence of such a one.

That's all there is to it. [Silence]

So, can you drop it now? Whatever this voice might be saying, can you drop it?

Q: I want to…

Drop this also. Drop it means what? I will not believe my next thought. [Silence]

What's so difficult? Do you want to believe your next thought, or you don't want to believe it?

Q: I need permanency.

‘I need’. So drop this first. ‘I need permanency’. Who needs? Which ‘I’?

Q: I see this habit, this stupid habit.

So, you see it. Then you drop it.

So you see there is no ‘I’ here that needs permancy? Yes or no?

Q: Yes, yes.

Then, forget about ‘I need permanency’. For what [personal identity]?

Okay, what next? What else you want?

Q: [Laughs]

See, it's all rubbish, because we're still representing the one that doesn't exist. And the one that IS here is ever-permanent, ever-present: Awareness Itself.

[Silence]

Something still feels…, ‘I still don't get it 100%’ or something.

Q: [Inaudible]

Which part? You don't get that you are Awareness?

[Silence]

Or you don't get that the person doesn't exist?

[Silence]

Q: I'm sure that is it. It's just ….

What else can it be besides these two? Either it's something personal, or it's about Awareness.

Q: This conditioning .., that something magical must happen…

The story. This is personal. The ‘I’ that wants something euphoric is who? The ‘I’ that wants something magical is who?

Q: He's the person.

Where is he? Where is he?

Q: [Laughs] Non-existent.

Non-existent. You yourself say ‘non-existent’. Then forget it!

And if it's sticky like this, then keep contemplating: Who is the ‘I’ that wants experience?

You want enlightenment? Or the enlightenment experience?

Q: This conditioning…

Just leave it. It's nothing for you. As Awareness, conditioning is nothing. What is it for Awareness? Nothing.

If you keep believing ‘It's something, and I have to fight it, I have to change it’ then it becomes something. With our belief, it gets energized.

Q: [Inaudible]

You are only That. You cannot not be That.

Q: It's coming into the Heart; Being.

You want all of that? Or you want to be free?

Q: I just want to be free.

Forget it.

Q: So [inaudible]…, this is all gymnastics.

Forget it. ForGet It! Those are just terms we use sometimes. In satsang, we can use terms. Just for different expressions, we use different terms.

When you come into the truth of What You Are, there's nothing to be. There's nothing to be. Forget it. Because it's still personal. The person wants to become broad, the person wants to become ‘Being’, the person wants to become the Heart. Forget it. Whatever you want to become, forget it.

Whatever you want to become, forget about it. It's not in the becoming. It's the recognition of What Is. And no one can escape this recognition.

I'm telling you what you are. Your mind is saying ‘But I want to become something’. And I'm saying ‘But you ARE That’. …., ‘But I want to become that!’

Q: [inaudible] is gone, but … verification…

[Silence, looking at each other]

Q: The emotions are a distraction, actually.

If you believe the story about them. Otherwise, they are nothing. Just another appearance.

[Silence, looking at each other]

[Ananta nods] Good.

Don't pick up any story now. Just don't pick it up.

And if you pick it up, you drop it.

Accepting is Not

a Passive State

Q: [Is in tears regarding mistreatment of dogs and working in dog rescue.]

There can be this beautiful, Universal Love which can express Itself in this beautiful way, in terms of our caring; for dogs, and all other beautiful creatures can be taken care of. But it's also accompanied now with a sense of trust in What Is.

So it can seem like it's expressing itself very specifically, but actually it's the Universal Love which is expressing Itself.

And also, it's this trust that ‘Whatever be Thy will…’

Q: Yes…, [Inaudible]…just ‘Thy will be done’…

And also, it can be, if something is seen and the energy is there, the life-force is there to make some change about it, to take some steps, by all means it must be followed.

The accepting is not a passive state. Love and surrender and accepting God's will is not a passive state.

So, if you find that there's energy for some work to be done, the movement happens through this body, even that is accepted. So it can be that you're completely accepting, completely surrendered, and yet very active with any of this movement. It's completely fine. That is not identification or attachment, because you're allowing it to flow, just naturally.

But if you say ‘I am on a mission! I will do this. And I…’ I'm not saying you, but there are many like this who are in [Inaudible] which have this ‘I, I, I’ which is a special arrogance of being something special because ‘I'm helping the world’. Only then it's trouble.

Q: Sometimes, just tears will come, because they're my ‘kids’. Also that comes simultaneously with trust. Even if I'm Seeing…, there can be Seeing, but I might be seeing it personally also or… [Inaudible]

What it means to say ‘I'm seeing it personally’ is only that ‘There could be moments when I'm believing my thoughts’.

And although we use this terminology in satsang sometimes, [Inaudible], it's just defining that. Have I picked up some belief? Now, they're gone. Nothing to worry about. Everyone does. Even the sages pick up some beliefs here and there [momentarily].

Q: Thank you.

Freedom is Not a State Where Attention Completely Rests Only in Awareness

With simple integrity, what is the truest introduction you can give for yourself?

Q: [Inaudible]... There are times when there's so much contentment, when I'm not in the mind. So that's Seen. [Inaudible]...

Is Awareness, or is the real I, concerned even with Presence? It is unconcerned even about Presence, isn't it? Presence being apparent or dissolved.

Q: It feels so nice. [Laughs]

It feels nice, until it stops feeling nice and some other feelings come. [Laughs] But it is very natural also. As we are coming to this space of un-associated Being, then it's very natural for it to be accompanied with peace and love and joy. And nothing wrong with that. It's just that…, the trouble can only be if we attached to it; if you are concerned whether this nice feeling is there or not. So it can be that it's just neutral to this.

Q: Yes, I can see there's enjoyment of it, but then comes the identification with it.

Yes, but the enjoyment of it is not identification with it.

Okay, this is very good point because sometimes this confusion can be there that ‘Ah, there is so much beautiful love here and peace here’. It can be experienced; and there's a great joy which can be the enjoyment of it. It can be like swimming in it, drowning in it, swimming in…, it can be like that. Then the mind will come and judge it. ‘See, now you are enjoying the enjoyment’. But it's not like that.

To attach, to identify means that there is this feverishness about it not going, or it staying; just like this. That is attachment. But purely, it's just wonderfully seen and felt. Nothing wrong with that. But as Awareness, which is unconcerned even with Presence or not-Presence, then it is definitely not concerned with any feeling, no matter how sublimely beautiful it might be.

And it is found usually…, (that's why I don't say this much, because sometimes it might become like an expectation or benchmark like this), but it is found usually that those who are not concerned with anything which is arising, then all of these feelings and these beautiful chocolate-flavored things, they seem to chase those [ones]. And those who are chasing these things, then these energies seems to be running from them.

Q: And I don't feel there is chasing; it just comes.

Yes. It comes. It just comes naturally. And there is a great trust in Being also. That means… [Inaudible] …how much to give. I used to say this earlier also, remember? God knows exactly how much to put in this recipe; how much spice, how much salt. Then we are not attaching to the mind and saying ‘You could mess it up. I want more sugar, more chocolate’. So like this, then we know that That which is the creator of all of this knows exactly what to do.

Q: Yes, and it's not even a desire for it anymore. It's just clear Seeing…, that it's sort of in experience. [Inaudible]… But it comes very strong… [Inaudible]. But there's one thing I wanted to discuss with you, when I'm just sitting quietly and just looking, then there's really looking and confirming, then it's just so clear. But somehow, experience of that clarity is different than… [Inaudible] …that when I'm moving through the day, it's not always this clear; even though there's not any belief in what's there.

It becomes like this, yes. I feel this is important to clarify for all of you:

Freedom is not a state where attention completely rests only in Awareness.

It's important to know this. Because there can be this expectation that ‘Once I am free or a sage or something like that, then my attention will only be in Awareness itself’. Then if that was what it was, if that was God's will, then God would not project this world at all. So if this waking state is happening, a natural flow of attention which is moving to objects and to other things will flow. And when attention is there, then it doesn't seem like Awareness is just aware of itself; because other phenomenal things are coming which have our attention. You see?

But the good news is that the attention is reporting back to the same Being, which ultimately is the same Awareness.

Attention is reporting to who?

We can look at this. So we say ‘Attention is going’. But is it going completely? Because then I would not be able to call it ‘my attention’ at all. It's gone. [Laughs]

Q: I feel like it's coming more…, less now; like it just goes… [Inaudible]

What happens is it becomes less of a mind riddle. It becomes less of a mind riddle, and this fogginess, the sense of fogginess reduces.

And how does the fogginess come? Have we contemplated this? Sometimes we try to bring your attention to your mind, thoughts, and to the world. And suddenly everything becomes blurry. Because attention is limited, when you try to put attention on two things at the same time everything seems to blur. You see? This computer will be blurry when my attention is on a thought. But blurriness reduces because we are not that mind-riddling.

So, it is almost like the Buddhist practice of mindfulness; we are completely with what is Seen. So it is Seen very clearly. And it is seen in This.

Because there are not as many pulls and pulls to our attention because our mind is not as magnetic as it was. Then you find that life seems to have a lot more clarity and space. Our vision seems much more global, just accepting.

Regular people in the world, especially in the work place, are always like this [makes fast, frantic movements]…, they are not ‘there’. They're just confused between the external world and the mind, and what's going on; like this.

Now what is happening is that it's just settling. Whatever is appearing, attention can go to that. We see it's not going anywhere, you see, because it's still My attention. It's reporting back to Me-as-Being. And this Being is ultimately made up of Awareness alone. So it can never lose touch with the Awareness that It Is.

It's like I was saying the other day, it's like a dog on a leash which is not going anywhere. But if the purpose of it was just for the dog to stay home, then you would not take it out for a walk at all. You see?

So if the purpose of it was just for Awareness to be aware of Itself, then it would not create this world, this manifest world.

You Are Free,

But Come to Satsang

If I say ‘All of you are already free’ then why do I also say ‘You must come to satsang’?

That can get confusing, isn't it? ‘You say I am already free. And then you also say: Just make sure you keep coming to satsang’. Why is it like that?

It's only that the whole point of satsang is to point Being toward the truth of what It Is. But Being has capacity for belief, has the capacity for pretense. And we have collected many, many, many, many, many pretenses over millions of years; many subtle or strong identities have been picked up.

So satsang serves as a reminder: Drop this, drop this, drop this, drop this, drop this…

And the Master says ‘Keep coming, because we are dropping this together’.

When instead it is the picking up of the concept…, (Okay, this is a little subtle, so just stay with me)…

When I say that ‘You are free’ it is a pointing so that you look and you check that ‘There is no bondage now. I am free’. That is the purpose of the pointing.

The mis-use of this pointing would be to pick it up conceptually. So if ‘I am free’ becomes a concept that gets picked up, then very quickly the concept ‘Therefore I don't need to come to satsang’ will also get picked up: ‘Because I am free’. [Laughs]

So, when I say ‘You are free’ it to is point you to see ‘There is no bondage. You are free’. To look. Not to pick up freedom even as a concept.

That's why I say that the way we define contemplations is different from typically the way the world would define a contemplation. Because the world would define a contemplation as sitting and thinking about something. But we say that a contemplation is just the Seeing of how it is. The direct experience of ‘What Is’ is the most beautiful contemplation.

So, what is happening in satsang is that all of this bag full of identity is being emptied away, emptied away, emptied away. And our strongest identities that seemed to be pushing our buttons, a lot of them got thrown away and we don't even remember that we carried them.

But our strongest ones can still be in the special relationship; the husband, wife, partner relationship can be one of the strongest. So, when something is pushing our button in that way, you're not to ‘Advaita’ it away, and say ‘Oh, but I'm free’… and you know… ‘then therefore they should not bother me’. Because that creates a dichotomy. It will create an inner struggle. Because inwardly we're experiencing a sense of suffering because of what the wife is doing. And outwardly we are feeling ‘Oh, I must be free, I'm Awareness’…, something like this.

So, instead of that, what we must do is just when something seems to bother us, then we look at that and say ‘Okay, why am I upset at what this (appearance of) woman is saying?’

Why? That must be the reason. If it was not my wife, then it would not bother me. If it was a random stranger on the street saying something, then it doesn't bother me. Why does it bother here? Because I am ‘the husband’. You see?

So we must then look at ‘this husband’ and say: ‘Where is this husband?’ Is the body ‘the husband’? Who is the husband? And we must really inquire.

It can sound funny. ‘Oh, but this is kindergarten stuff’ or something like that. But actually we must look and say ‘Okay. Where is the husband? I'm concerned only because I'm the husband’. And we look and we look and we look and we say ‘Wow. There is no husband here’.

The good news is that life is constantly now showing us what still needs to be contemplated, what still needs to be inquired into. So rather than looking at those as points of failure to say ‘Look, I failed again. I was doing so well as Awareness. And see, I became a ‘person’ again’. Instead of that, use them as opportunities for inquiry.

Attention Always

Reports Back to You

How can one who is not bound want freedom? Is it possible for one who is free to want freedom?

How do I know that I am free? Do I rely on a mental conclusion? Do I rely on some emotional feeling? If I have a joy or bliss or something like that, is it then?

And all of us have learned here to check on what is prior to all of these appearances. So in the now, there must be full freedom. In every now. So this now, from now, going from here, what do we want? Freedom. Already here. If you are hoping that our power to believe, our power to believe will go away, nobody can do that. Nobody can give you that; take away God's power to pretend, God's power to believe. Even the strongest satsang will not take away your power to pretend. But it will just make it overwhelmingly clear that the pretense is just a joke.

If we still continue to delude ourselves, it's completely your will. So this power to believe will not go, but there will be so much overwhelming evidence which comes again and again from checking, and from dropping the belief, that it becomes so clear. Even this, the state of delusion, the state of identity, I am really not touched by that. So we must drop this sense that ‘But why do still I feel this way, why do I still pick it up?’ Because this power remains. But predominantly, what is your experience of yourself? And I feel that being in satsang, it must be predominantly clear that ‘I Am this Awareness’.

Once in a while some drama, some situations, some events, something can come; like old memory. So where we are starting from, even before any concepts of starting point…, what is here?

Before we even I can decide that ‘I must get somewhere’ who is watching this decision?

Before we can say that ‘I am going to undertake a journey which will give me peace and joy’ who witnesses this movement towards this journey?

No matter what the undertaking is, (good, bad or ugly), who is aware of it?

Whatever movement might be happening from here or in any appearance, who is aware of it?

What is aware right now?

Before you can say ‘I got it’ or ‘I didn't get it’…, You Are It.

Who is aware of the mental conclusion of getting it or not getting it?

Who is aware of the effort? You are saying ‘Okay, now he is pointing, now let's focus, let's get it’. Who is aware of this?

It's simple like that. It's simpler than any effort, simpler than time; simpler than getting it or not getting it. It is too, too, too obvious; and that is why it can seem little confusing.

Just like if I were to tell someone who has been begging for twenty years that ‘You know that you have carried this treasure in your box, in your knapsack?’ [And you would say] ‘No, it can't be!’ Even upon seeing it, there could be sense of disbelief. ‘Is this a dream, is this really happening?’ Just like this, we know the simplicity of what we are, and there is a sense that comes up ‘But this can't be real because I have trying to find it for so long’.

And in this journey of trying to find it, who has been the companion? The mind which is saying ‘Okay, let's go here, let's go to this teacher; this one’ or ‘This one I agree with, this one I don't agree with; let's move from here’. All of this constant mental ally has been there. And when this direct experience of the truth is happening, what is this guy saying? ‘Yeah, I have known this, but there is something more. There should be something more’. Or it says ‘But now, you must always stay here. You found this Awareness, now don't leave. Don't leave. Yeah, yeah, this is my friend, this is good advice, this is good advice’. But instantly your door bell rings; it left, the attention. The attention left, instantly. But where did it go? Did it leave you? Did it start reporting to anybody else? It has always been here; it cannot go.

What do you have to do to hold on to that end of attention? Has anybody contemplated this? To hold on to this end of attention…, attention is moving outwards but it is always reporting back to me. What am I doing to hold this end of attention? Am I doing something?

What I am saying is clear? So you can see attention moving, moving, moving but it's reporting back to I, isn't it? So how am I holding attention from here, this end? How am I holding; is it effort? No, not doing anything at all. So where can it go?

If I am holding on to it effortlessly, then what must I need to do more?

Q: Not be.

[Laughs] Not be. So it is attached. Attention is an intimate part of you, just like Consciousness. So we can contemplate whether it is a function of Consciousness itself or if it arises simultaneously with Consciousness; these kind of fun contemplations we can do.

But we never should feel that ‘I left my attention’. How did you leave it? Then when we are talking, we are talking about the other end of attention, in the sense of what it is bringing to my Awareness.

Now just let's demystify this. If the purpose of attention was just to come back to Awareness and rest over there, then why would I create attention? Because Awareness is aware of Itself; it knows Itself very well.

So the purpose of the creation of attention, just like Consciousness, must have been to enjoy the experience of this realm. And without the functioning, the natural functioning of attention, I don't know of this realm. Because only that where my attention goes exists for me in my experience.

Hypothetically everything can exist; but in direct experience, only that where my attention goes, (that side of my attention goes), only that exists. But it is still reporting Here, you see?

So it cannot be about ‘Getting a grip on this attention and keeping it with Awareness alone’ because then we would not function in this realm at all. And nobody can actually do it.

Then it must be a question of whether I am believing myself to be an object which my attention is bringing. An object which my attention is bringing to me; the mind is telling me that I am that. That's why I say that if we call anything in the appearance ‘me’ or ‘mine’ that is the root of misery.

It cannot be attached to any appearance, including the appearance of ‘I Am’…, including the appearance of ‘I Am’ because we all know that at the end of the day, when we have had enough experiencing, even this we don't want; we want sleep. And that is why I feel when we check ‘Am I aware now?’…, it's not that we become aware only upon asking this question. It's just that we keep everything else aside for an instant, and we see that awareness is here. And who sees this? Awareness itself.

Who else can be a witness to awareness?

Who else would be here to know that I am aware?

Really ask yourself:

Who can it be that can be aware of awareness?

I say ‘I am aware’.

Now this I…, is it separate from awareness itself?

And these are the times where the mind can come up with a lot of distraction. It's almost as if it's waiting; and then when it's really the time to check, it can come up with something, something.

What is happening when I check on whether I am aware or not? What is happening? (We have to use the word ‘happening’…, you know what I mean.)

See if you can separate yourself. Can you separate yourself into two? Is it possible?..., that there is an I which is separate from the awareness? Is it possible to become dual? This duality; is it possible?

Within Awareness there are no two.

And then check: even after the birth of Being, is it separate from me, from I?

Or does it only appear to be [separate]?

All that is appearing to you now, use it and see where it is experienced.

Is it outside of you? Is anything outside of you?

Even the idea of ‘something outside of me’ is inside of you.

All of this is appearing inside you.

Can there be anything outside of me, outside of I?

Like this we see that there are no two.

Advaita = non-dual [not two]. That is why it is said that the separation never happened.

The pretense of personhood will become more and more incredible to all of you. If it is picked up momentarily, very soon you will laugh and say ‘How did I pick up this idea that I could be that which comes and goes?’

Who is witnessing the coming and going? Is it somebody else?

Every one of us have seen that this appearance, and everything in this appearance, is coming and going. Who tells you this? Does someone else come and tell you ‘Hey, you went away. Now you came back’?

The objects in front of us, the body, the thoughts…, who is aware of this thought coming and going? It cannot be the thought which knows of its own going. There must be something which is steady which watches all of this come and go, isn't it?

Your emotion…, you say ‘I got angry and I was feeling better the next day’. So anger came and anger left. All emotions, like this, come and go. What stays? What is that which is steady? And all of this is the content of the state that right now we are calling the waking state.

But who is aware of this waking and sleeping? Who is aware that ‘I woke up and I went to sleep’? Is that one, the steady one, touched by the content of the any of these states; waking state, dream, turiya, whatever states you might want to say?

So if it is not even touched by the coming and going of these states, how can it ever be touched by something which is happening within the state?

If the state itself does not touch the I, then how can the content of some state touch the I?

If this body is an appearance within this waking state, how will it become me? How can it become I? Many, many, many, many bodies like this have come and gone; all seeming so beautiful, so well designed, so real.

You know what? Even if I was this body, what is there for me to do? Even if I was this body then as it is said in some of the simple, simplistic translation of the Bhagvad Gita: ‘I came empty handed and I will leave empty handed’.

So even in the realm of phenomenality, there is no trouble. There are just appearances. Nothing is happening to Me. There is only this Consciousness which is appearing; in its own light, on its own screen, it is playing. This Consciousness.

So yesterday I was asking one of the sangha members ‘How do I experience this Consciousness?’ We were playing yesterday. ‘So how do I experience this consciousness?’ And she said ‘Can you stop being now?’

To see that this Being is present, ‘I Am’ is here, existence…, is our direct experience of Being.

Let's take another simple example of how it has nothing to do with the body actually. So, suppose, just as I was sharing like this, my body went [puts limp head down toward table]…, like that, it went like that? Now by looking at the body, can anyone tell whether Consciousness was here, or whether it left? But I am aware that although the body went like this, Being was still present. And I am aware that at other times when the body goes like that then even Consciousness could leave; and then I am aware that it comes back. See?

So if someone comes and says ‘Did you fall asleep?’ and you say ‘No, no, I was awake’..., what is the meaning of that? That I am aware that Being was still here.

Is this confusing? No matter what the body might be exhibiting, I am aware of whether Being is here or not. This I that is aware of Being; That which is aware of Being, This One…, can it leave?

Can this One leave?

Who would know of the coming and going of this One?

If this Awareness had to leave, who would report on it?

And because This is the all-knowing, ever-present One, the unborn, the unchanging, the undying, I…, this is the extent of what can be spoken from direct experience. The extent of what can be spoken from intuition or direct experience is this.

[Silence]

Everything with any quality, any attribute, is phenomenal; appearing within the non-phenomenal Self.

[Silence]

And hearing this is the reversal of the hypnosis of the mind.

To check on this, verify for ourselves. And this is why we check over and over, because the hypnosis has been there for a long time.

Just because we have been hypnotised into believing that we are something, can never make it real.

We have used many depictions to make light of the pretend person. We have called it the hungry Martian, we have called it Rajan, we have called it a lawyer, we have called it an insect, we have called it the imagined one. We have said all kind of things. Why? Is it because we have a sense of distain about this movement of Consciousness? No. It's truly not that. It is just for you to see the distance between yourSelf and this. And no matter what you call it, it cannot mind, because it doesn't exit.

So we must stop pandering to the hurt feelings of the non-existent one.

Therefore every single time that there is a sense that ‘I am suffering from something’…, that ‘something is happening to me’…, the question to be asked is:

‘Who am I believing myself to be?’

Every single time.

There is a sense that ‘I am suffering from something’. YOU cannot suffer, I cannot suffer, in reality. It must be a mis-identification. It must be something in the appearance which I am believing myself to be.

There must be something in the appearance which I believe that I want or I don't want. But when we check and see, it's just the content within the waking state; and the state itself does not touch me.

How can any appearance touch Awareness?

We can say it is within Awareness…, but can it affect Awareness?

Therefore it must be that anytime that I say I am affected by something, I am posing as something other than Awareness. We have this power to pretend, to pose, to believe.

[Silent communion]

Awareness is Always Neutral

Who feels that there is something left? Something left to be done, something yet to be seen, some state yet to be realized?

Q: Ego is left.

Ego is left. But it is seen that you are not the ego.

Q: Yes.

Then it's not ego. You see, ego means the sense that ‘This, which is not me, is me’. When you say that ‘ego is left’ it means you already see it. That means what? That the mind continues to function, and sometimes it gets our belief. Sometimes. But right now, when you look, you say that ego is left. That means, if you see it, you are not it. You see?

Sometimes it just feels like this lump of energy which appears in front of me; and I'm in no way concerned by it. This lump of energy can appear as this body, thoughts, emotions; all of these things. It can seem like that. It's just moving on its own. Just like these hands are moving on their own. I'm not saying ‘Hand, go like this’. They just move. And this talking is just flowing on its own. I'm just watching all of this. It is the same for all us. And yet this sense of doership, me and mine, gets picked up. Actually, we're just seeing it as the Witness of it. It's just being watched. The seeing…, what is the seeing doing?

If we were even to forget about the concept of Consciousness for a minute…, all is just Seen: appearance. Forget about Consciousness for a minute. There is appearance and there is Awareness of the appearance. What is the Awareness doing about anything in the appearance?

Q: Just witnessing it.

Just witnessing it. Because even though the taste of it is happening for Consciousness…, when I say ‘Forget about Consciousness’ it means ‘Forget about my dynamic aspect’. I-as-Awareness has this instrument. It's just like…, (what is a good example?) … suppose I had a special glove which can participate in some other realm. You see? Consciousness is like that. It's still Me, still a part of Me, but it's not the entirety of Me. It's made up of Me, and yet it is not the entirety of Me, just as ‘all it experiences’ is just a small aspect of Me. This one [Consciousness] is feeling, tasting, everything that is there in this realm. But the Witness of this, that which Sees this, what is happening to That?

Q: It's neutral.

It's neutral, isn't it? So, if This is neutral, then what are we working towards? [Silence] Can I ever get out of neutral? Suppose it's like a gear in the car. [Laughs] Does it ever come to first or second? It's always in neutral, isn't it? No matter what the road conditions are, what traffic is there, whether there are bullock carts like in India sometimes, or there are speed trains, [when you keep it on the neutral setting] it's always in neutral, unaffected by any of this.

So, then what are we working to fix?

Q: The ability to identify with that Awareness as You.

But does that also affect Awareness?

Q: It doesn't. [Laughs]

Even that…, whether Being is identifying as a person or as Awareness, … Awareness is untouched by it.

So that dynamic aspect; my arm, it's like the arm is forgetting what it is and thinks it's a separate arm. Actually it's still part of the body, isn't it?

So, at the end, (I know it's defeating the purpose of satsang itself, but ultimately it has to be said that), even the recognition of the Self-as-Awareness…, to Awareness doesn't matter. It is only for Consciousness. So, Consciousness believing itself to be an entity made up of this matter, or recognizing the Source of itself to be this Awareness itself …, that's the only switching that's happening, isn't it?

Nothing is happening for the person, because ‘person’ doesn't exist.

Being is going from identifying as this non-existent entity to seeing What It Truly Is.

And for Awareness, nothing ever happened.

So, if it is recognized even for an instant that ‘I Am This Awareness’ then we see that even the play of Consciousness is not relevant for Me.

Q: But is the play of Consciousness actually happening?

We can say it is not. For Awareness, nothing is happening. We're looking at, at best, (when we're talking from the level of Being which has identified itself to be a person using the power of belief), we're looking at removing all these misconceptions.

But it is not as if, even by picking up these beliefs, something happened even to Consciousness. You see, deeply identified as it might be, it is not suffering from the identification; it's only believing that it is suffering. The concept of suffering is only very personal. So once it believes itself to be a person, then it can suffer. How can Consciousness Itself suffer? It is Being. So when I say ‘Can you stop being?’…, what is found there, the Being, this Presence…, how will we make the Presence suffer?

Nothing can make the Presence suffer.

What If We Did Not

Have a Single Concept?

[Silence; Love, Peace and Joy]

So what words can better this silence? And yet we try…

Suppose there was just no capacity for any conceptualizing; to not pick up a concept. Suppose you lost the capacity. What will you lose?

Q: [Inaudible]

Yes, yes, but we have to use concepts. That's why I said we can't compete with the silence; and yet we want to use some words because some concepts are there. Same way as the thorn example. So suppose we use this as a thorn today to ask: What if we did not have a single concept? …, including the concept of a concept?

Would ‘What Is’ stop? Just by the dropping of our conceptual understanding, would ‘This that Is’ stop? And if it did, even if it did, who would it matter to? So we must not come to satsang to pick up new concepts. ‘No new concepts’ can be the last concept. [Laughs]

Not even to clarify our concepts. Because many times it can seem like I'm here to clarify some concepts. But if the pointing is not leading to the throwing away of the concept and is just modifying it to something else, then I need to do my job better. So if it is not leading to the throwing away of the concept, but just that it's giving you the best killer concepts that nobody can argue with, then I'm not doing my job well.

And you know that I love to experiment. So can we say that today we just experiment like this: I will not pick up a single concept. We have allocated some time for this. Anyway, we are here. I don't want to pick up a concept, get any new concept, get the killer concept; all these, forget about it for some time. Nothing is going to happen for the next 2 hours. We will not learn anything at all.

There will be energy which offers…, that says ‘I got this fresh one for you’. Usually it's the recycled stuff. But when we decide to not pick up, usually it tries to tempt you with some fresh idea. So there will be an energy which comes like this, which you call the mind or the ego which comes and says ‘Here, this is brand new, fresh for you today. Fresh out of the oven I have for you to taste’. Let it come, and let it go. Don't do anything with it. Let the offer come and let the offer go. Don't push it away, don't say ‘I don't want it’…, nothing. Just look. Just watch it.

As I've often said, ‘Don't believe your next thought’ is also a thought. But let it be your final thought. A final believed thought. Thoughts will continue. If you have to believe a thought, then believe this one that says ‘Don't believe your next thought’.

No effort is needed, so if you find yourself making some sort of effort, notice that even that is not needed. In the allowing of all to come and go, it is a resting; it is not effort.

Some mundane ideas, some very glorious ideas might be coming. Let them go.

Some bliss, or some boredom could be coming. It doesn't matter; either way.

Some of you might be enjoying the naturalness of this, and for some of you it might be becoming unbearable. Both are okay.

Something could be saying that ‘I've taken out two hours to be in satsang from my busy schedule, and here you're not saying anything’. [Chuckles] ‘I had to join today’. [Laughs]

What concept do we have that beats this?

What idea can be better than the taste of this ‘What Is’?

Q: There is a sense of peace, or a feeling of peace. Who is the experiencer of this peace?

So usually when I get a question like that, what I ask is ‘What are my options?’ So, tell me who all are here, then I will pick between those.

What is here which is not a concept? We'll say that some peace is experienced. This is a sense, you see? Direct experience. It's not a concept, it's not a belief, it's not based on faith; it just is ‘What Is’. It is an experience. Then you said ‘Who is it that experiences this also?’ And I said ‘Tell me who is here’. So if you say these three, four or five are here…, then make it multiple choice for me today, I'm being lazy. [Smiles] So, what are the options? Who all are here?

Q: Presence

Presence is here, okay. Who else is here?

Q: Everything else is a concept.

Everything else is a concept. Therefore, then, who must be experiencing this peace? This Consciousness. Only Consciousness is here. You say only Consciousness is here; the rest is just concept. Okay. Then who must be having this direct experience?

Don't think about it. You have to check. Where are all experiences being experienced? I can sense that my Presence is here. Being. I Am. Is there anyone else here?

Q: [Inaudible]

Then you're not giving me the choices to pick from, so I will only pick that one.

Q: Then that's the direct experience?

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. That's why when we speak from experience, it's a lot simpler. When we speak from ideas and concepts that we have, then it becomes all mixed up.

So, directly from your experience now, what would you say? Who is experiencing this peace?

Q: [Silence]

So beautifully you say that only this Presence is here; all else is conceptual. And who is aware of this Presence?

Q: [Silence]

So, presence also has an opposite called ‘absence’. That's why we use the word ‘presence’. So presence and absence are for who?

Q: [Silence] [Inaudible] … can't say who…

It's simpler than that. It's simpler than that. Who is aware of Presence? Someone else? Is [the one sitting beside you] telling you that ‘Hey, your Presence is there’? Or you know it?

Q: Presence is Aware…

You can say like that. But then, how would Presence be aware of absence?

Q: [Inaudible]

So, the space of Presence seems completely united with being aware for you right now, yes?

Q: Yes.

This is good enough, this is good enough.

If we stay with the experience of Presence, then we don't have to bother about anything else. This is the realization of God-Presence.

[Silence, peace and joy]

What Am I Still

Giving Meaning To?

We've been discovering the beauty of just this non-conceptual life. So, even if there are concepts, they're just played with. They're not taken so seriously as if our life depended on it. Just the simplicity of this; not living on the basis of some concepts, but living just as it is. As simple as that.

Very often I've said that the power of belief can only be applied to concepts. We cannot believe imagery. A sense of joy can come or a sense of grief can come on watching some appearance, but there is nothing to believe on that. So just contemplate on the nature of belief. And see what it is that can be believed.

Can you believe anything other than a concept? And you'll find that it's only ideas, concepts, thoughts, (same thing), which can get our belief. And by definition, a thought presumes an existence of a separate entity that I am. Even the most glorious ones, even if they are saying that ‘You are One’…, you're presuming that this entity that you believe yourself to be has now become One, or is the One.

So, these conceptual words are just nothing compared to the truth of what is. But it's been like this here in this realm, that everyone has seemingly relied on these, and it takes some amount of de-addiction through satsang or other spiritual paths that we have to let go of this identity, to let go of these concepts.

Even in satsang, there is the danger that we pick up new concepts. This happened here, also. When I first became spiritual after being an atheist for most of my life, then I felt ‘These are wonderful concepts. I can just use them’. [Laughs] So then this entire conceptual framework was created here. But I realized, when the appearance seemingly became strong, that it was not helping me. Not really anyway. And I'm so grateful to those strong experiences because it helped me open beyond those concepts to see ‘What's going on? If I know all this spiritual stuff, why is it still that my life is this seemingly up and down; it still continues?’

In that way, we can be grateful to our suffering that happens. It opens us up, it crushes these concepts that we feel are very valuable. And in the spiritual path also, the seeming path also, we can have this sense that ‘I'm learning so much now’. ‘Almost there’ comes from this. The sense of ‘Almost being there…’ comes from this. ‘I'm learning so much now, just a little more and I feel it will be coming; I'm on the edge of the cliff’. [Laughs]

These concepts, and also feelings; if some beautiful feelings start coming to you when you're in satsang. ‘This is beautiful. Imagine, a little more of this and I will just be a mad man’. You know? ‘…a mad man that I heard about’. [Laughs] ‘I'll be like Rumi and I'll be writing beautiful poems’. And this glory…, because the feelings can come so beautifully. So you attach the sense of progress to these feelings. And what can happen? Very quickly they can also dissolve. Like all ‘comings and goings’ they are also ‘comings and goings’. And then with that comes some ideas about unworthiness of not getting there, of ‘It's not happening for me’.

So don't attach to the concepts or the states or feelings which are arising. Then what is here?

I have this new saying that there is this lump of content, which is fluttering in front of us. But does any of it touch what really Is? And you will find it doesn't. So how can that which is untouched be found through these concepts or what kind of states are arising or not arising? I'm not saying that we must be adverse to this beautiful bliss that is coming. This beautiful joy is coming, love is coming. We must not be adverse. Accept them as beautiful gifts. But to be attached and to say that ‘This is freedom’ …, that would be a mistake. You see?

So, it starts off with this idea…, (and many also teach this in so-called self-help programs): ‘Just think happy thoughts’. It starts off like that. ‘Just think happy thoughts. You're making yourself unhappy by thinking unhappy thoughts’.

How are you creating your next thought? You see? This is a fallacy. ‘Yeah, I can create it. I'll tell you what I'm creating’. And then you wait for the thought to come, and you say ‘This is mine. This is going to be nice’. Already it came. [Someone in sangha audience says ‘The Secret’]. The so-called ‘Secret’.

So, don't worry about the appearance and disappearance of thoughts. Also, who would not want to have happy thoughts? Nothing against happy thoughts. I'm just saying that if you're dependent then when some painful attack or different defense thoughts come, then again you will come to this conclusion that ‘I haven't made it. I haven't got to the freedom that I want’.

So forget about it. Thoughts gone, states gone, body pain gone; everything is allowed to be exactly as it is, and Being is just being. In this state of simple allowing, not resisting anything, Being remains unassociated. This is the fruit of satsang.

To unburden that which can never be burdened seems to be the game we are playing. [Chuckles] Because that is the game; let's play.

How do we pretend to be burdened? Only by picking up these concepts.

So, I've been feeling to say since yesterday about this non-conceptual life. And no concept, no matter how pure, holy, glorious it might be…, it cannot truly define the truth of what you are.

And we can look at some; the popular ones. Very popular in satsang is the concept that ‘I haven't got it’. So, can we laugh at it now? Can we laugh at the idea ‘I haven't got it’ because this ‘I’ doesn't exist to get it? And the ‘I’ that Is, is all there is. There is nothing for It to get. You cannot give anything to the ‘I’. It is not bound also. How will you give it freedom?

And as I was saying yesterday, when I say let's burn this concept that ‘I haven't got it’ into the fire of satsang, then very quickly the mind offers the opposite, which is ‘I have got it’. Which is as laughable as ‘I haven't got it’. It says ‘Okay, if ‘I haven't got it’ is not true, then ‘I have got it’ must be true’. Because the mind cannot fathom the neutrality which I speak of. So ‘I have got it’ also must go into the same fire, because it is also rubbish.

There is nothing to get. In this way we can notice the tendency of the mind to swing from opposites but never remain neutral. Actually neutrality means no mind anyway.

In this way all of us can look at our most sacred concepts, our holy concepts. Because some of you might say ‘You say burn all concepts, but here's there's the concept that I have this great love for you. I have this great reverence for my Master’. But that which we have, this love and devotion and reverence, is not reliant on your belief in this. Your belief is not creating the devotion. Your belief is definitely not creating the love. Forget about it.

Because if it is still…, (and we've seen this often in the sangha also)…, if it is still the subject of some thought, then when the content of the thought changes, you feel that the relationship with the Master also changes. You see? Because one day the thought will come ‘Oh, I love him so much and I always want to be with him’ but next day the thought can come ‘No, I feel I've had enough. Maybe I need some space to myself’. Something, something…

So if our love is just dependent on the content of thought, then it's not what we are talking about. That's why I said that our most sacred, our holiest concepts can also be thrown into the fire of satsang; with no fear about what remains if I throw everything away. Because the truth definitely does not need to rely on the crutches of these concepts.

So, like this, the inquiry or self-audit can happen to see that ‘What beliefs am I still, as Consciousness itself, believing, pretending to be real for me? What am I still giving meaning to?

A Thought is Calling,

Saying ‘Hello, This is You’

So, how is the non-conceptual life going? Are there some concepts about it?

Q: Yesterday, I got into total arrogance.

Arrogance? Without a concept? Even arrogance needs a concept. Someone says that ‘Yesterday, I got into total arrogance’. But even …, not even total arrogance, but a little arrogance means I need a concept. ‘I'm special. I am something’. Firstly that I am something, I am separate, and ‘this that is separate’ is special or something better than the rest. We cannot pick up the idea ‘I am something’ unless we picked up a concept.

So, those who are really trying this, experimenting with this, playing with this, we must come back and report whether these fears of ‘Oh, my life just stopped, and my bills are not being paid’…, whether they are actually coming true. And if that also happened, if something like this was happening and you were just out on the streets, is that really suffering? Can even this situation, or any event like this…, can it cause what we would call suffering? Or it is also just seen?

Are we playing with this?

Sangha: Yes.

[Reading chat]: ‘It would be a hard life, though, Father’.

[Repeats] ‘It would be a hard life, though’. How many concepts are needed to define a hard life? Firstly you need the concept that ‘This is my life’. And then you need all the concepts about how it needs to be. And then you need all the concepts about how it is…, opposed to how it's supposed to be. And then you can come to the conclusion that it would be a hard life. So, what about if you throw this concept away; about hard life or nice life? Can you hand over…, as Guruji says, can you hand over your existence to existence?

Actually is there something even to hand over? Because it is existence already that is running it. Can we find the one that is running this life? So very often I used to say earlier that surrender means…, if there's a sense of surrendering then it must mean that you are the doer and you are the experiencer. Less than that would be a half-surrender.

So, sometimes it can happen like this that we say ‘You, God or You, Guru are the doer of all things now, but I am still the experiencer of it, so please can you insure that it's not difficult?’ So this is also half-way there. Because if it is the Guru or God that is the doer, then it is the same one that is the experiencer; because there is only One that is here. There are no two.

Other examples of half-surrender could be that all the things which we feel that I did which were good, we take credit for those; and all the things which don't seem as good, then we say ‘Oh, God, why are you doing this to me?’ That is also one example of half-surrender.

Sometimes it is the other way. Those who are inclined towards guilt then say ‘God is running my life overall pretty good, but I still mess up sometimes’. You see? So it can be that this is another variation of it.

There are many ways to surrender in half. But the complete surrender only is that ‘You are the doer and You are also the experiencer’…, because there can be no difference between the two.

This non-conceptual life is the surrendered life. When we see that ‘I don't need any concepts about myself and life still continues to go on’ then we are free from this mental existence; seemingly mental existence.

What we can do is you can look at this for yourself and say ‘What is it that I am scared of?’ [Silence] ‘If I were completely immersed in my Presence, if I was completely immersed in the truth of Who I Am, then would it matter, in this appearance, if there was money or no money, relationship or no relationship, healthy body or diseased body, freedom or no freedom?’ None of these four things would matter, you see? And mostly we're just stuck in these four; one of these four things, or a combination of these.

Do we know who was the richest man during Bhagavan's time? Do we know who had the perfect marriage during Bhagavan's time? Do we know the Mr. Universe Body Builder during Bhagavan's time? We don't know. But we know Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi]. So even phenomenally, it is because of the life of the one who has dropped this identity that has the most beautiful remembrance about it. And as my Master says, there is no one who has discovered the Self who has gone on to regret it and said ‘Oh, I wish I had some money or I wish I had that relationship’. Nobody like that. Nobody. Nobody has actually said that after dropping this conceptual personhood or this conceptual idea of being a person, nobody has said ‘Oh, I wish I had the person back because life is too tough’. That should give us some hope also, isn't it?

Because I know the mind will play on these fears. Even Guruji talks about this when he says that when this was unfolding for him, the truth was unfolding for him, the mind would paint these fears for him saying that ‘You'll be like Quasimodo, a hunchback beggar on the streets’. Like this; this fear came. These fears will come. But if you were to actually look, you will find so much beauty.

[Tells story about Ashtavakra and King Janaka]

So, don't fall for these tricks of the mind. This fear that the one that is running this entire universe cannot pay my bills is completely unfounded actually. That's why I say ‘As we play with this’ … Why do I say ‘Just play with this’? Why don't I say ‘This is a very serious instruction ‘Don't believe your next thought’ and very seriously you must do this’. Because I don't want to make a practice out of it really. I want you to just play with this and see that actually the practice is in picking up the thought, the effort is in picking up the thought. Although initially it can seem like it is effort to not pick up, the actual effort is in believing all of these ideas, believing all of these concepts. And the only, only, only trouble is our mis-belief. God's idea, God's play with belief in this idea that He is a person. Does something happen to God because of it? No, of course not. Is something happening to God because She is believing that She is a person? No, of course not.

Therefore, in this realm, both opportunities are available; to experience ourself in this imagined identity of a person (the entire world is so much filled with that), but it also has this play where this identity, this idea is dissolving. Who is doing it? Only God. For who? Only for Himself / Herself.

And you don't have to believe this, what I'm saying. You just have to check: Who is here? Is there anything operating, appearing, in this realm which is outside of my Godly Presence? Or isn't everything just being experienced in the space of my own Being?

What is outside of this ‘I Am’?

Right now, what is outside of this ‘I Am’?

[Silence]

Is the appearance of this one that is speaking now…, is that one outside You?

[Silence] …all the sounds, all the visuals, this body, these hands?

How do you know of the existence of any of this appearance?

Only because it is seen inside of You.

It's only that the mind has been painting a visual with our boundary, collaborating with the sensations of the body which define that ‘I'm within this container’. You see? It can seem like ‘I'm inside this container’ and even that ‘I Am’ is inside this. Why? Because the sensations are experienced like this, and visually we see like that; when we close our eyes the mind will offer up some visuals of the boundary of the body. And where is all of this experienced, all of these sensations? Isn't it in the same space as you hear the car on the road?

Everything is inside of this space of Being. We are not limited to this container of flesh and bones and blood. You are That which contains everything.

And if this seems confusing, or ‘way out there’, then forget about it. You don't have to work hard to understand any of this. It can be an actual insight that can come.

The main point is that the appearance of this container called the body, we can grant that ‘Yes, it is appearing’. But where is the one that wants life to be a certain way; that wants some money, that wants some relationship…, where is that one? That is the question, you see? And by now we must be able to say that it doesn't exist, because we have looked and looked and looked and looked. What great hypnosis must it be that after checking so many times and seeing that there is no person, we still cater to this personal voice?

And what is happening? Can we just look at it simply? What is happening? A thought is coming and saying ‘Hello, this is you’. [Bursts out laughing] It's coming to you and saying ‘Hello, this is you. And this is what you want right now actually’.

So…, if that is you, then who is it talking to?

[Laughs]

Isn't it the most ridiculous thing?

And yet all of us have fallen for this.

Q: [Inaudible]

[Laughter] ‘Hello, this is you, and you are saying that it's not that simple’. [Laughter] It's a wrong number, keep it [the phone] down. Ring, ring. What's it saying now? [Laughter] What is this you, the ‘pretend you’ saying? And we keep chasing this guy. And who has found peace, who has found joy in chasing this guy? Just a wrong number.

Or you must say ‘Okay, there are two of me. There is one ‘me’ that speaks like this, and one ‘me’ who listens’. Because it makes no sense otherwise that you have a voice to communicate with yourself.

I'd have to work hard to find some objections. [Laughs] Who is that voice representing? Is it representing our Being? And this Being is that which we say ‘Thy will be done’. It is not struggling in making predictions, saying ‘I want this. I want this. I don't want this’.

All of this calling can actually be outsourced to Bangalore. [Laughter] So, if all the voices in your head came with an Indian accent, Bangalore call center agent, would you still believe it's the same? [Laughs] (I claim no credit for these examples.) [Laughs]

In this simple way, we can just see that it's a joke actually. This voice is saying ‘It is you, It's you; and this is what you want! It's I, it's me, and this is what I want!’ Who…?? [Laughter]

So I have said:

Either find who it is representing,

Or tell me who it is speaking to?

And which one are You?

And it can come up with anything at all. In the next instant it could say anything. It could say ‘This is the worst satsang ever!’ or it could say ‘It's the best satsang ever!’ And we're so used to following, that when it says like that, we [shakes his head up and down in yes motion].

Truth Means That Which

is Not Coming and Going

Right now, who am I? Before we can think about it….

Not ‘Who am I?’[points to himself]…,

Who am I? [waves hand around the room]

Before a concept can be picked up about it.

Before I need to define.

Before I've figured out who I am, You Are.

Isn't it?

There is nothing missing in that. Before we pick up the idea of missing, before we pick up the idea that ‘I am something’ there is nothing missing. And Awareness is just aware that I Am, or aware that I am not. Even before we can use the words ‘I Am’ or ‘I am not’…, prior to any of these concepts, the sense ‘I Am’ is here; that which you call the waking state or the dream state. And it is our direct experience also that the ‘I Am’ is not there in that which we call the sleep state.

Why this can seem like a journey only is that, for a long time, we seem to be trying to convince our mind. You see? We feel that convincing ‘that-which-we-believe-ourself-to-be’ is freedom. So we feel that when we completely believe that ‘I am Consciousness’ or I believe that ‘I am Awareness’…, ‘then I will be free’. And ‘Because I don't completely believe it yet, I am not there yet’.

But this freedom doesn't need your belief; doesn't need our belief. It is prior to that. So that which needs belief can only be an idea. Only ideas can be believed in. Truth cannot be believed in. And the ideas can be beautiful or they can be terrible; but are only just ideas.

Before the idea…, are you not?

Before your mind…, who can say ‘I am not’?

… with integrity?

I've seen some very conceptual-Advaita types who can say ‘I don't exist’. What they mean is ‘I don't exist personally’. But they do exist as Consciousness. The ‘I’ that I always believed myself to be has never existed. But the Presence of Consciousness is appearing, and it is appearing to that ‘I’ which is constantly here called Awareness. So when it is said ‘I don't exist’ or ‘You don't exist at all’ it is referring to this idea of the separate entity.

Otherwise, at best, we are saying that ‘I know I don't exist. I know this’. See? ‘I…know… that I don't exist’. ‘I saw. I saw’. [Laughs] And I don't think this is so clear. What is happening? Where is the confusion? The confusion only is that ‘I saw that I don't exist as a phenomenal entity. Person anyway is long gone; just an idea. But I don't exist as a phenomenal entity’. Who saw this? Or who knows this? Or who is aware of this? The Knowing-ness or the Awareness itself.

So some might say that ‘Oh, I'm aware that there is no awareness. I know this, that even awareness was not there’. The Knowing-ness Itself (that knows that something was not there, or was there), IS Awareness.

So either it can be when we say ‘I don't exist’ we are talking about the non-existent idea that I had about myself. Or it could be that we're talking about the phenomenal sense; that even the sense ‘I am’ I am not…, I Am That which is prior even to that. Or third and most often, it is a definition type problem, it's conceptual; where the words have been used in a lot of different ways and that relates to a lot of confusion.

But truth in itself mean ‘That which is not coming and going’.

The reality itself means ‘That which is not coming and going’.

Appearances or maya is that which is coming and going. So when it is said ‘The realm of name and form’ … ‘name’ means concept, ideas; ‘form’ means phenomenal appearances. So if maya is the realm of name and form, then that which is aware of name and form must be name-less, form-less.

So then, if Awareness itself was coming and going, who would be aware of that?

The fourth confusion sometimes can be that we confuse what I call the phenomenal perceiving to be the Awareness, you see? The phenomenal perceiving is only arising in the Presence of I Am.

The world uses awareness in this way…, ‘I'm aware of this glass, I'm aware of this concept’ …, that which is phenomenally perceived. Obviously that is subject to the Presence of Being, so that is coming and going. But who knows ‘of’?

Who is aware that phenomenal perceiving is happening?

That is the Awareness that we are talking about; not the phenomenal perceiving in itself.

So sometimes, if we use awareness in that sense of phenomenal perceiving, we can say ‘Yes, awareness is coming and going, and it belongs to my Being’.

And the easiest way to find out all of this for ourself is just to stay with our direct experience. Use whatever pointers are available to us from satsang, and check for ourself: Is this directly what is experienced here, or not?

[Silence]

The entire point of any spiritual practice and even self-inquiry is just to come to this direct experience of What We Are.

[Silence]

So, what is our direct experience? Sleep is a direct experience. We don't have to learn about sleep in school, that ‘This is how you sleep, this is what happens in sleep’. It's a very natural dissolution of the sense of Being. And waking up is also direct experience; not conceptual. That there was no sense of Being, this Awareness was aware of itself; then there was now (made up of Awareness Itself) the sense of Being. And with the birth of this sense of Being, the entire circus starts. So much comes to life instantly; this whole play with all of its energies and forces…, metaphysical, physical. And it's alluring in a way that very quickly you get involved with it. Very quickly we get involved with the identity of being the person and the body.

But in satsang, in self-inquiry, we slow it down, and we look: So, what is happening here? Being came to Be…, what happened? Along with the birth of Being, we noticed that there also were the forces of attention, of belief; there are these energies called thoughts, and the entire energetic creation that we call the world is present with all the forces of light, sound, gravity, electricity; all of this.

But what happened to that Awareness that is just aware of Itself? Nothing happened to this Awareness. It did not become an object within this phenomenal play. All of this objectivity, phenomenality is within it; but It Itself did not stop being Aware. It remained untouched and unmoved. This is the ‘I’ that is ever-present.

[Silence]

And just the reverse of this happens when we go to sleep. In our scriptures it is said ‘Just like the legs of the turtle, this world goes back into itself’. You see? So all of this…, when sleep is coming, all of this rolls into Being, and then Being dissolves into That which It was always made up of, which is Awareness Itself.

That is all that is going on. Everything else…, if you say that there's something other than this, to me it seems to be just imagination. Because from my direct experience this is what we can speak.

Now, what happens is, with the Presence of Being, is there can be this impulse towards conceptual understanding, because in this realm of polarity we are used to understand using our mind conceptually. But satsang leads us to a sort of deeper understanding; that understanding which is un-reliant on any concept; is not changing based on the concept that we have.

The seeming life of the person changes with the concepts that they are believing. It seems to change like that. So that is why all this positive thinking and ‘think positive’ and self-help and all that…, ‘Just think happy thoughts’… [Laughs] …because the concepts that you carry seem to affect the person identity.

Here what we're saying is whether you have the most terrible thoughts or the best thoughts, the Truth of What You Are is not changing. So whatever conceptual understanding we might have, ultimately actually does not matter. Therefore we must stop fighting about any conceptual understanding. ‘Oh, his understanding is like this; her understanding is like this; this is not compliant with my understanding’. Forget it. It's never about any conceptual understanding.

Then the space that comes to look together only is from that sense of ‘This is the way that I see it’. And if there seems to be some disconnect with the way another sees it, then that is a beautiful contemplation that we can have together; and it is something that I am always up for.

So the leela (lila) is a circus which is appearing in the Presence of Being. And the mind is the merry-go-round in this circus. It says ‘I'll take you there, to the final destination’. The merry-go-round; and you buy a ticket which says ‘Become a better person’ or ‘Become like this or like that’…, ‘Buy that ticket’.

You jump on the merry-go-round and it seems to be moving. So initially it can seem like you're making some progress, you see? And then it starts turning back. [Laughs] Turning around. [Laughs] And you go ‘No, no, I'm losing it, losing it! That way! I need to become a better person’. And then it starts going back again, forward. So this merry-go-round, we realize that after a long time, we're just at the starting point.

Then we say ‘I've come to satsang, I'm going to get off this merry-go-round. I've seen it's just a merry-go-round, it's not taking me anywhere. I'm going to get off. I'm not going to buy the ‘mind ticket’ come what may!’ Then it comes up with another ticket; it says ‘Now, this is super! Now, I'm going to take you to the Super-Enlightened state!’…, (the mind says).

[Laughs, and someone asks a question]

Is There Any Difference

in Perception Between Us?

The question is: ‘Is there fundamentally a difference in perception between you and I? And is there a gap there that needs to be bridged?’

This is an interesting topic; two or three points for this. One is what we just spoke about. We mean by ‘perceiving’ that we are talking about the phenomenal perception. Because the objects in our perception obviously, they can be different. The phenomenal perception through the senses must also be functioning in the same way. But what we are talking about as Awareness is That which is aware even of this perceiving happening or not happening. You see? Of course, no difference there in Awareness.

The point is, if there is any difference, what seems to be…, so I can talk about what happened here. Earlier when some perceiving was happening [sweeps hand around the room] it was always along with the buying of the interpretation ‘What's in it for me?’ I see now that there was this habit to look at everything with the aid of the interpreter, which is saying ‘Okay, what's in it for me in this? What's in it for me? If I talk to her, what's in it for me? If I speak to him, what's in it for me?’ Everything was like that. ‘What value is being added to me because of it?’ It was always this ‘me, me, me’.

So, that has dropped, because we realize that there's nothing that this world can give you. You have no need for anything. As Awareness, there is no need for anything. There's no lack of anything. And there is nothing that the world can give you; because nothing in the world touches What-I-Am anyway.

So then this sense of ‘What's in it for me?’ drops…, predominantly; mostly it is not there. Then this perceiving is just happening as perceiving.

Otherwise it's like we constantly have this hearing aid on which is saying ‘Okay, now you're here. What's in it for you? Are you wasting time? Why is it like this?’ You know? All of this… selfish way (I don't like the word selfish so much because there is the Self, but)… egoistic way of looking at life. That drops.

And that is the only fundamental difference between how it was earlier here and how it is now.

Q: [Inaudible]

Also this self-judgment from before is missing, that was like ‘Oh, why am I saying this? Am I saying the right thing? Why am I getting angry, or not angry? Why is…?’ All of this has also been dropped. You just watch it; you're watching the entire thing…, as a whole. You're not saying ‘Why I am doing this? Why is she doing this?’ Like that. So, it's very spontaneous and fresh.

Q: [Inaudible]

Yes, there can be times like that. She said ‘Do you revisit times from the past?’ There can be times like that. In fact, the other day I was listening to someone who said ‘Hind-sight is 20/20’. I said ‘Okay. But if hind-sight is the only thing which is 20/20, then why not use it?’

20/20 means complete clarity of vision. Because it's often said that ‘Hind-sight is 20/20’. It's okay to say it later; after events you can see things clearly. So, I said ‘Okay, if hind-sight is 20/20, let's use it, because it's 20/20. It's a nice thing’. [Laughs] See?

So there's no trouble with even referring back. The trouble is if we refer back and we make judgments about ourself, about others, and we pick up do-ership that ‘I should not do this or do that’. Then it leads to trouble.

Just to go back is so beautiful…, because I felt, for example, at the end of the previous satsang I felt I wanted to hear what Shakti said again. So I went back to the recording and heard it. It was very beautiful. There's nothing wrong with back, forwards….

This Openness is What

I'm Pointing To

Q: So, Father, when I'm not thinking, everything is beautiful. And yet, apparently, there seems to be forgetfulness. I know you don't have to do anything. But there's somehow a feeling that I'm not doing enough. There seems to be a lot of distractions. And you know, somehow you feel you're not doing.., you're not putting your attention somewhere or somehow you're not doing enough. I know you're not the doer. But it's some other connection; when you sit quietly and close your eyes and the connection is there. But otherwise, when the attention is outwards, it seems to be that you're lost in that, the appearances and the stories. Although you know it's not You, but you kind of get lost in it, and it's like a whole movie or drama going on. And when you come back, the peace is there. But it's always a like a struggle, you know,… ‘I should be in the peace and I'm not feeling it’. How can it be the true nothing?

The sense that ‘I must have a state of peace’ can get in the way of peace.

We can play with this now. So right now, let your attention go wherever it likes. Let it go wherever it likes, and see what is really getting lost. Because this sense is there, for some of you, that ‘As long as I'm meditative or I'm in satsang or I have my eyes closed, it's okay. But the minute I open them, something gets lost’. Nothing is going except attention. And let it go, because it cannot leave you. One end is always tied to you, (like I've started saying now); like a dog on a leash, it cannot leave you. So, now your eyes are open. What is getting lost?

Q: Now? Nothing.

Yes.

Q: In the now, there's nothing that's getting lost.

Okay, try to step out of the now.

Q: Yeah. If I think of the future, or the work, then something is coming.

So, okay, let the thoughts also come. Let them come.

Q: What's going to be for dinner, you know? What do I make for dinner? Things like that, yes.

So, they're coming; let them come and let them go. This openness is what I'm pointing to.

Because if it was to become a restrictive state, then it cannot last. I can give you a meditation practice where I say ‘Okay, for 20 minutes, just follow your breath’ or something like that. And then it will feel good; but it doesn't last, you see?

Just the sense of allowing everything to come and go, including our thoughts about dinner or whatever else. Then what is happening?

[Silence] Don't resist at all.

Q: Not resisting is also like a pause, isn't it? Like you're pausing.

This will become more and more natural. Although this might seem like a ‘pause’ sort of state and the habit is still to pick up, pick up, pick up and to resist, resist, resist, the only switching (if any switching is happening) is that this openness will become the natural-ness, the natural state; and it is the picking up which will seem like the pause…, ‘Oh, for a moment, I picked up. For a moment, I got identified’. You see? You will start enjoying this openness so much that you will not want to pick up.

Q: I understand. So it's just like allowing anything to come or go, right? It doesn't really matter if the thought comes or it doesn't come.

Exactly.

Q: And just to be in that knowing that ‘It's fine’.

Yes. Even something more primal than ‘fine’. It's just What It Is. You see, no label of good or bad, fine or not fine also. Just ‘What is, Is’…, including the reactions from our own body are happening on their own.

Q: Yes.

The body is not separate from the rest of the appearance. Although it can seem like it belongs to a ‘me’ it is actually just part of the same. The only difference is that the sensations seem more intimate. Allow all sensations; the moves of the body, even the words which are being spoken are actually happening on their own.

And this is complete freedom. It is Consciousness unburdened by any concept of how it should be or not be.

Q: It's beautiful. It feels like a trusting, complete trusting and acceptance of everything that is.

This is a very good point you make because we cannot be open if we are fearful. And like I was saying yesterday, I'm not talking about the energetic sense of fear which can arise at times, and it can subside on its own. I'm talking about the concept that ‘This should not happen to me or this should not come in my appearance. I hope I don't make a mess out of dinner’ or something like this. Just to take it as an example. Just this sense of no expectations, no fear about whatever might be coming.

And the beautiful part of this is that as you start trusting ‘What Is’ you realize that ‘There is nothing I need to do. There is nowhere I need to put my attention. I don't want anything also; not even peace I want’.

Q: That's beautiful. I never thought about it that way, that it's not even about peace. But still somewhere it feels like ‘I'm not good enough, I'm not getting there; there's a process’. Is that just a habit?

Yes. Because if you were not That already, and I would have to make you something, then nobody can do that job. I just have to point to What You Are. All that happens in satsang is that I point you to What You Are. And you point at something else, an appearance or something, and say ‘But what about this? But what about that?’ And I say ‘No, no, not there. Look at where I'm pointing’.

That's why we look at it layer by layer. We've looked at the world, we've looked at the body, we've looked at our emotions, we've looked at our thoughts, we've looked at the Presence I Am itself. And yet there is something that witnesses all of this.

So, the questions in satsang…, all questions are about something in the appearance which the questioner says is meaningful. And the one that is pointing is always saying ‘No, no, that is not meaningful. Look at where I'm pointing’. That's all that is happening in satsang.

And it is already your natural state.

Q: Is there something like an active inquiry that one has to do? … I'm stuck at the ‘doing’, right? [Laughs] But like you said, the pointing. Every time; asking yourself that question ‘Who am I?’…, every time you get caught up?

Very good. If you spot the time that you get caught up, it's very good to inquire. Many times we feel like we don't even spot it; the whole day is gone. That is why I used to very often say actually that ‘There is only one rule here, and the rule is: keep coming to satsang’. Because in satsang, Your own light, Your own spotting abilities get amplified. You're able to see things that just half an hour ago could have seemed so important; and now sitting in Your own Presence, they seem like ‘Oh, I was concerned about this?’ So, don't try to fight the mind, just allow it to come and go.

Q: It's beautiful. It's like a gentle process instead of some kind of struggle always going on. It's very gentle and loving.

It's just like saying ‘I'm the riverbed, and the river is the flow of appearances’. It can have fishes and frogs, it can have all kinds of vegetation, it can have sharks, goldfish, tuna, you name it. It can, like in the Ganga, have people bathing inside.

We got so used to looking at the content of the river, saying ‘This is happening to me. Oh, this is happening to me’ that we forgot that we are the background on which all of this movie is playing. We try to control the flow of the river or the content of what should come and what should not; and nobody is successful at doing that.

So, let the river flow on its own. Just remain open. Our sense of control is nothing more than this delusion that ‘I can control the flow of life, the flow of this river…, with a twig in my hand’.

In this way then, this openness, this allowing of anything in the seeming-outside world, of whatever is happening as sensations in the body, whatever is coming as thoughts, emotions…, there's a simple openness. And this is our natural, true state; which is prior to ‘state’ actually.

It's as simple as that.

Q: Thank you.

Thank you.

Answering: Don't I Need

Thoughts Sometimes?

Q: So you say ‘Don't believe your next thought’ but it appears here that belief happens automatically many a time. It's so fast that thought comes, belief happens and before you realize; it functions all by itself. Because as Awareness, if I speak, I don't have anything to say about that. But it happens. It appears that it's a spontaneous power which expresses in the waking state.

So, as I said ‘Don't believe your next thought’ which includes a thought which you're believing about your past thoughts. So let's do it together now. Let's do together: Don't believe your next thought.

Q: There's no need even to believe the next thought. There's no need.

That's my point.

Q: Because I'm always aware, and that's all. That's a full stop. There is no need even to not believe the next thought. But many a time, belief happens by itself, you know?

Yes.

Q: And as Awareness, I cannot do anything about that. I'm simply aware of that fact. Belief happens. And if sometimes the thoughts are negative and belief happens in them, suffering also happens. But it is the Being which suffers, but I [as Awareness] don't suffer.

Yes. Nothing has ever happened to Awareness. Then why do we do satsang?

Q: We need to keep reminding the Being that ‘You Are Awareness. You came out of Awareness’.

That's it. That's it. And the reminder is simpler, or the direct seeing is simpler than ‘I'm not deluding myself with these picked-up beliefs of being a person’.

Q: But I am never deluded myself, because I know what I am. It is Being which is deluding itself. The Consciousness is believing in ‘the person’ and behaving like a person many a time; in day to day life it behaves like a person.., that is egoic behavior also. But that is through my Awareness; I mean, that is in me as Awareness. But that still happens. And maybe the mind wants that; maybe the mind wants that ‘the person’ should never come back, that there should never be ‘a person’ again.

Yes, so don't believe that.

Q: But that doesn't happen. I mean, it keeps coming and going. It doesn't do nothing to me as Awareness.

It's a bit of a dilemma that you're having between speaking as Awareness, and speaking as Being.

Q: Yes. But even that is witnessed in Awareness Itself.

Yes, my dear, I know that. [Chuckles] So this ‘Everything is appearing in Awareness Itself and Awareness is always aware of Itself; and even Consciousness is made up of Awareness Itself. There is nothing else’…, as this is clearer and clearer, then you will not even be concerned about what is happening to Being. So as long as the sense is there that ‘I Am’ then the ‘I Am’ has the potential to pick up ‘I am a good person, I am a spiritual seeker, I am enlightened, I am… whatever’. The dropping is happening for who? The dropping and picking up both are happening for ‘I Am’ Itself, for Consciousness Itself. There's nothing to say to Awareness.

So the question ‘Am I aware now?’ is for Being to recognize the Source from where it comes.

Q: Does that pendulum slow down? Can I ask you, for yourself, has it stopped even? It slows down?

Yes, yes. Identifying as person, then just resting as Being; this pendulum. It slows down to such an extent that it seems like work to pick up thoughts. Of course, momentarily thoughts will be picked up. But those long term ones not.

You know, as I kid, I was very sulky about things; especially as a teenager. So if I'd had fight with my girlfriend or something like that, I would sulk for days; just holding on to these thoughts. Just sulk, sulk, sulk. And I find that is completely gone now. It's not possible to sulk. Because a thought is just picked up momentarily…, is dropped.

So this sense of sulking, resentment, this sense of boredom, all of this gets wiped out. Because it's dependent on the secondary part of the play. So, the first part is these natural emotions and sensations which…, sometimes [inaudible] can come, sometimes anger can come, but we interpret these. So another came, and then you interpret that and say…, anything…, either that ‘That person is so terrible’ or ‘I am so terrible’. And we convert these into this sense of thought-mixed-emotion; something like that. It stays then, like the sulking thing I was talking about. So that gets dropped. But everything is just momentary; fresh.

Q: And it happens all by itself; Consciousness in itself has this power to linger or not; that means you move out of your own way.

It has to happen by itself because actually there is nobody else here. Only Consciousness is appearing and disappearing. The ‘person’ is not even an appearance.

Q: It's not even properly imagined. It's half-hearted, I mean. Sometimes I wonder ‘How is it possible to pick up this ‘person’? It looks like it's never possible. And sometimes it does happen, also by itself.

Yes. This is part of the play. A little bit back and forth, the little bit pendulum. It's okay, it's okay. Don't put any labels on yourself. Any label will give you trouble. And definitely don't have this sense that ‘I got it’ or ‘I'm getting it’.

Q: That's again a label.

Yes, exactly.

Q: It's very difficult to use this word ‘I’…, because this ‘I’ is very tricky.

It can seem like that. Actually, I've never had so much trouble with using the word because when belief is withdrawn from this sense of personhood, it doesn't mean that our natural way of living in the world stops or has to change. I don't go into a restaurant saying ‘Oh, the body here is hungry, so can I have a pizza’. It's not like that. It's very natural…, ‘I would like a pizza’. It's okay.

Q: But it does not become a definition for ‘me’.

Of course.

Q: I remember who I am.

Before ‘I Am’ actually.

Q: I am That, and I remain as That, which is even prior to ‘I Am’.

That's why I ask you to stay with your direct experience and you will see that even ‘I Am’…, I am aware of it. It is appearing for Me; this I. So if I were to ask ‘Predominately What are you?’ Although ‘I Am’ is a beautiful aspect of you, I feel that if your experience is the same as mine, you will say ‘Predominately I am this Awareness’. And this tiny light called ‘Am-ness’ or Being also goes in and out. But stay true to your experience.

Q: Even there is no need to STAY in that experience; I Am That. Maybe that's an instruction for the Being, you can say.

Yes. All instructions are for Being. Here at least. Of course, in the world you'll find lots of instructions for the identity also. But in satsang, ‘Don't believe the next thought’ and all instruction is for Being; not for Awareness. What can instruct Awareness? What pointing can you give to Awareness? [Chuckles]

Q: And who can point at Awareness? The one who is pointing is Itself Awareness. Who can point at That?

[Silence]

Q: Without believing a thought, can that thought become an action? [example: I have to go to college, go to a lecture]. Now, if this thought is not believed, will I take whatever the action needs to be without believing in the thought?

How does a thought become an action?

Q: The thought comes that ‘I want to go to satsang today’.

And yet the action might happen, or might not happen.

Q: Yes. It may happen or it may not happen; that is possible.

Both thoughts and actions are appearances within Consciousness. And Consciousness is free to project whatever thought and action it likes. In the game it can seem like ‘I thought this and I said yes to this thought, and therefore I did this’. But when you see our actions, all the actions are just happening on their own.

Also many times I decide to do certain thoughts, but when the moment comes, it doesn't happen. I often use this example that ‘Okay, when I go to work today, I will tell my manager that he has to back off’. And when you wind up at work, you find yourself standing in front of the manger saying ‘What should I do next?’ So how does that happen? It just happened.

There is an example of this in the Yoga Vasistha; that the crow is flying and lands on the branch of the coconut tree and the coconut falls. Now, is it the landing of the crow on the coconut tree that caused the coconut to fall? The coconut might have been ready to fall even otherwise.

The mind has this tendency to make patterns and stories. The appearance of thought is happening; the appearance of action is happening. Actually they are just both appearances within Consciousness.

I don't feel that Consciousness needs to rely on thought to run our life. To pretend to be a person, it needs to rely on thoughts.

Q: But when it wants to carry out intricate functions which require a lot of planning, like micro-planning everything, from this point to the end point. There is so much of thoughts going on; brainstorming. You plan everything.

Yes. Thoughts happen. Thoughts are believed in. Then when the time for action happens, action happens. Many times it is not according to plan or to micro-plan; many times it is. Both are okay.

Q: So, sometimes belief in the thoughts might be required for actions to be carried out?

What I'm saying is that I don't believe that God would need a thought or a belief in a thought to carry out an action. But you're free to believe it, if you like. It's okay. It makes no difference. As long as the sense is that ‘Only God is here and there is no separate person’…, then it's fine.

And why don't I believe that God needs thoughts to run our life? God is running this entire realm. You go inward, inward, inward and you come to the realm of quantum physics where everything is just moving on its own. We haven't even figured out how these trillions of cells, atoms come together and stay as a body. We haven't figured out the cohesive force that keeps it together also. We haven't figured out what intelligence anti-bodies have, who reads the DNA structure code…, you see? All of this, God is doing. God is doing all of this.

So, that which is running all this; light, sound, gravity, electricity…, all of these forces, the quantum forces…, does it really need to rely on these thoughts…, to move in this Consciousness? I find it tough to believe. But I'm okay if you have that belief, because as long as you are saying it's God who is believing some thought and doing some action, I'm okay with it. As long as you're not reading a [Q's name] into the picture, no trouble.

Q: There is no [his name].

That's it. But when a thought is coming, it is saying ‘Okay, God, this is what you have to do next’. All thoughts are presuming an existence of a ‘person’, no?

Q: Yes.

So, if the thoughts are of a [Q's name]’…, and no [Q's name] ever existed, then of what use is the thought?

Q: [Laughs] Out of words… [Laughs]

Even the other day…, there was this video where the particles of light, they change their trajectory based on whether there is an observer of that light or not. So it has some wave sort of movement when the observer exists, and just pure particle sort of movement when there is no observer. What gives the atom the intelligence that an observer exists now? Because normally, the thing is just going from point ‘a’ to ‘b’. What does it know? But there must be a Supreme Intelligence which is moving all of this.

And also there's a BBC [show about a] study which I mention very often in satsang, which we can send to you, which is that the nerves start getting activated, the brain starts activating the nerve centers of the movement of the hand 6 seconds prior to the movement of the hand; and sometimes the thought comes one or two seconds before the movement. So the activation of the nerves is happening even before the thought comes.

It's only post-facto that we come and say ‘Oh, I did this’. Or just before the action, then the mind tries to be tricky and say ‘Oh, yes, I must move my hand’ or something. It's already happened.

But the [main] thing is that there is no [Q's name]. The rest of it is fine by me. If God is playing in this way that he needs the thought to run the life, then let God play that way. God is playing in that way that a thought can come and do whatever it wants, and doesn't need It to run the life, then let God play that way. I'm just saying that: Don't believe there is this entity which a thought is telling you that you are.

Q: I'm not that aware of my actions… [Inaudible]… thoughts.

The one that is the Doer, let it worry about whether it needs thoughts or not.

Q: Nothing left to say.

With you, I'll give you some advice, which is don't try to create a conceptual framework about what we are saying. You'll find it deeply frustrating. Just stay with your direct experience, and it will serve you very well.

If you make a set of ideas about ‘What is this, and this is Consciousness, this is Awareness, this is free will, this is God's will’…, like that, like that, like that, then satsang will come and it will be the opposite. And it will be very frustrating for you also, because you'll say ‘Oh, no, but I had understood this. Now I feel Ananta…, I don't feel he's being authentic’ and things like that. Because all these ideas that we have, they must be blown apart, you see? They must be blown apart. So, if you're building a house of cards of concepts, then some wind has to come and blow it. Just be open, just be fresh every moment. Everything is clear when you stay with your direct seeing. Nothing you need to rely on; no concepts.

And also remember that most sages have said that ‘I don't speak the Truth. Because the Truth actually cannot be spoken’. So, to keep you in that neutrality zone, where the mind jumps this way or that way…, some day I will say left, some day I will say right; someday I'll say left, some day I'll say right. So, if you're attaching to the concepts of left and right, then this could be deeply frustrating for you.

But if you just stay with your own experience, all you have to do is check back …, then notice ‘What is this?’ Then you can say ‘This is the way I see it. Your saying something different from the way I see. Can we explore together?’ This is very beautiful for me. Because I still feel actually I can learn from your insight also. Give no belief to your ‘spiritual mind’ also…, which is trying to be the ‘spiritual mind’.

Q: [Smiles] Thank you.

Thank you, my dear.

This Sense ‘I Am Aware’ is Pointing You Directly to What You Are

You will never become anything more than what you already are. If there is anyone that promises that you will now become something special or extraordinary, then it is not true. You already Are That. It's just that you're deeply identified sometimes as being a person; which you never were.

That's why for 3 years almost, I've been asking the question; I've been also offering $1,000 to anyone who shows me ‘a person’ and nobody has claimed that award…, because it doesn't exist. There is no such thing as ‘a person’. So, since the person doesn't exist and you can never become that which doesn't exist, obviously, then the only thing left to do is to check what is here.

What are you right now? ..., (before any mental conclusion about it).

Are you not aware of this entire appearance?

If you are not aware, then who is aware?

And what knows?

This is the place where I lose most of you, but I have to keep trying. [Laughs]

What is that which knows the phenomenal appearance?

I know the phenomenal appearance.

Who knows that I know?

I.

So it is Awareness which is aware of Itself.

I know that I know.

I am aware that I am aware.

That's why when I ask you the question: ‘Are you aware now?’..., what happens? (…before even you can say ‘happens’?)

Naturally, this seeing is there: ‘Yes, I am aware’.

It is Awareness Itself that sees it is aware.

And I can understand that when these words are spoken, it can seem like it's just completely un-understandable for many. It seems like the mind comes with a lot of resistance and it just seems so abstract and obscure. Because we're used to a phenomenal sort of seeing.

So many of you will enjoy much more when I say: ‘Can you stop being now?’ Because the sense of Being is phenomenally perceived. It could be the root phenomena. It seems much more tangible because it's our habit to go for phenomenal experiences.

But when I say: ‘Are you aware now?’ it's even over before you can conceptualize the question. And yet you know the answer is ‘Yes’. How do you know the answer is ‘Yes’?

I am aware. This ‘I’ which is aware is Awareness Itself.

So, if you can leave the ‘of’..., ‘I am aware OF…’ aside for some time, if you can leave the ‘of’ aside for some time, and just stay with the sense ‘I am aware’…

What are we saying actually? What is the meaning of the word ‘aware’? Who taught you how to be aware? And can you not be [aware]? Can we change it to ‘unaware’?

What happens? All of you will be able to just know: ‘Of course, I am aware’.

‘But, but, but…’ It is the ‘but, but, but…’ which is trouble. The sense of ‘but nothing happened’. What does it mean? It only means ‘It was not a phenomenal experience, and I'm used to only phenomenal experiences’.

So when you say ‘I am aware’ what are we saying actually? What does it mean to be aware?

Is it subject to the world of duality, where I can be aware OR un-aware? Can I switch states? The content can keep changing. It can also change from something to nothing, from waking to sleep. But who is aware of both; of either?

I Am…, (before ‘am’).

Q: [A couple of words only; inaudible]

Wait, wait. Are you with me in ‘I am aware’? Don't let your mind dilute it with ‘this’ and ‘he said this’. Forget it. I don't care what I said.

This sense ‘I am aware’ is pointing you directly to what you are. You don't need any other words. So, if you stay with me in this ‘I am aware’…, then is it unclear or clear? Where are you in this?

And this is for all of you. Don't let your mind come in and distract you with something else. All of you can say ‘I am aware’. What does it mean? What is the meaning of ‘aware’? Is it a state that can be turned on and off? Can it come and go, this awareness?

Let's look together at this. Don't worry about any conclusion that the mind is making.

Q: [Inaudible]

Prior to Being also, ‘Am I aware?’ That which is aware of Presence.

Q: [Inaudible]

Yet, because Being is made up of Awareness alone, it comes to the recognition of its Source in this way. Because otherwise, what is the point of inquiry?

Q: [Inaudible]

Awareness is aware of itself, and Being recognizes that this is what is…

Q: [Inaudible]

Yes. It only comes after, and within. But it is made up of the same knowing.

Q: [Inaudible]

So, it is true that [Nisargadatta] Maharaj prescribed the practice of ‘Stay with the Presence’. And with this ‘Staying with the Presence’ then ultimately you realize that even the sense ‘I Am’ is not what you are. He said ‘The only thing you can say is true is the sense I Am. Ultimately even that is not true’. So, I find no trouble in pointing you directly to that which is your very own Source of Being Itself. You see? And you cannot deny the experience of that. So even though you're reporting as Being, you're speaking as Being, you cannot say ‘I am not aware’.

Q: [Inaudible]

Exactly. So who is reporting this?

Q: Being is.

Being is. That's the point. This recognition that ‘Awareness is aware of Itself, and I am That’…, arises for who? Awareness is always aware of it. This recognition arises for who?

So, only Being is here for any recognition.

Q: How can the Being…? [Inaudible]

It [Being] recognizes that ‘This is where I come from’.

Just like the river can see where I'm floating. [‘I am the riverbed, and the appearance is the river’ Ananta had said earlier in satsang.]

That's why often I've said that the sense ‘I Am’ is a two way gate: it has the power of belief and it can attach to various things; but you also use the sense ‘I Am’ to go within the ‘Am-ness’ itself and come to see the Source of the ‘Am’ which is ‘I’ itself.

Q: [Inaudible]

You see, the Knowing is always Knowing.

Awareness is always aware, and this is always 'I'.

So although Being is coming to a realization of its Source,

The 'I' has always been 'I'.

Even in the playing of ‘I’ as ‘I Am’,

‘I’ has remained as ‘I’.

The confusion and the delusion, and all of that, arises for the playing part of the the ‘I Am-ness’. But in the play, the ‘I’ has never left the ‘I’.

Q: [Inaudible]

It's not true. It's not true that it [ego/personhood idea] can only be stripped off by a Being marinating in the Presence I Am, (which is beautiful. I'm not doubting.)

But to see the Source, I feel, is the quickest chop. All the sense ‘I am this, I am that’…, once you see that ‘I am nothing. This has no quality, no attribute. This is what I Am.’…, then this Awareness Being Aware of Itself, and the recognition that Awareness is Aware of Itself…, is the quickest sword to cut your head off; not to stay with the sense ‘I Am’.

Q: [Inaudible]

You do whatever feels more comfortable to you, between these two. Whatever feels more at home for you, you'll be fine.

Q: [Inaudible]

What are the options we are talking about? The option is ‘Should I stay with God? (as Being)’ or ‘Should I stay with the Absolute from which even God comes?’ What options are more beautiful? [Laughs] I have to say it like that since you say it so directly.

I have already said that, in my experience, I feel that directly we can see the Absolute no-thing-ness, which is the Source of Being. It is the ‘I’ which always is.

Then you say ‘As Being, then let me stay as Being’. Stay as God. The one that is saying ‘What is quicker for me?’ is neither, you see?

Here it was already said that there was not this sense that I would have neither the attention span nor the patience to just stay with the ‘I Am’ all the time. I don't even feel it is a requirement.

Q: [Inaudible]

So, you want to realize the Self now…, then it needs no patience, no trust also. Are you aware now? Or not? That is your realization of the Self now.

Q: [Laughs] [Inaudible]

Who are You? Who are you that says ‘For Awareness says this, for Being like this, for me like this’. Who are you in all of this?

How did you leave Awareness and become Being? How did you become Being? Don't fall for these tricks.

Because if you have remained as Awareness and it is your direct experience that this is true, then why are you trying to sort things out for Being?

Q: [Inaudible]

Exactly. Exactly. And who are you? Exactly. I agree with you. But you cannot leave. I have been saying this every day:

You cannot leave Awareness.

Q: [Inaudible]

Yes, because to recognize the Source of Being clears it up for Being very quickly.

What is recognized? It is recognized that I Am Awareness.

Q: [Inaudible]

Where are you in relation to the knowing? It is recognized that there is a knowing. Is there an ‘I’ that is in relation to the knowing in some way?

How far from you is knowing?

Q: [Inaudible]

How far from you is knowing?

Q: How can it be far?

How can it be far? Then can you not be this? Can you be something else? If there is no distance, no separation, then can I be something other than that? [Silence]

And this recognition is happening in the Presence of Being? Or not?

Q: Yes.

Yes. Because this recognition is naturally there; in the sleep state no question about it. So the being is recognizing its Source.

This Awareness, I Am.

Before ‘Am’…., ‘I’.

Then what is left to do? How many years should we keep our attention on Being?

Q: [Laughs] [Laughter in the room, and Ananta laughing.]

The bliss is coming from inside, but his mind is saying ‘No, no, no. No, no, no…, No, don't come yet’.

Q: …all the great Masters… [Inaudible]

Forget it. Please forget it. You stay with your direct experience. Forget even what I'm saying. NOW, I'm saying. Where do you lose me in your direct experience? You stay with your direct experience.

Q: [Inaudible]

So, I hear what you're saying. You're saying that your idea of freedom would be that there are no more thoughts coming from the mind; the end of the mind.

I have not met anyone like that. Definitely it is not there, so I can't show you how to get there. I doubt very much also that this is predominately what Bhagavan was saying, because…

Q: [Inaudible]

But it is like this; the allowing of all to come and go; the Samadhi. I doubt very much that [inaudible] said that ‘the mind completely stops’. I would like to see it. At least I cannot offer you that. So, his point was that ‘There must come a state where there is just no thought, because as long as there is thought, the potential for belief is there’. I cannot promise you that; because from here also, thoughts arise…, but are not believed. [Silence]

Q: [Inaudible]

Don't believe your next thought. Many get confused by the simplicity of this instruction.

Q: I try to follow these instructions…

Just now. It's now. It's always now.

Okay.

Satsang is an Introduction

to Your Non-phenomenal Self

Sometimes we might get this sense that ‘I know what to do now. I know how I can get there’. Especially having been in satsang, it can seem like ‘I have a path. And if I don't believe my next thought, then one day eventually I will get to the truth’. But that is also missing it.

As very often I've said ‘It is where you start from. Before you even start, you are that’. That's why before we even say ‘Don't believe your next thought’ I also say mostly that ‘Find out what is already here’.

Is there any bondage in the right now? And you find that ‘I'm completely aware of my Presence in the right now’. And I cannot pretend to be suffering or pretend to be troubled now unless I listen to some idea which is coming from the mind.

That is the reason why I say ‘Don't believe your next thought’ is the master key; not because it will get you to freedom, but because you see that ‘I cannot leave This…, except when I pretend’.

Sometimes the mind really has got you with some silly-ness actually. It will say ‘Unless you can tell me what happens after death, I cannot believe I'm free’. Why? I am pointing to the freedom which is available right now. We are projecting some idea about the future and death. ‘Unless you can tell me…’ something. But a child, before they start believing thoughts, before 2, 2-1/2 years old, a child is completely free and he knows nothing about any of this. So don't fall for these simple mind tricks.

Nothing needs to be known mentally for you to know what you are right now.

Nothing needs to be known also in the phenomenal realm for us to discover That which is the witness of all phenomena, That from which all phenomena comes.

Even to say that there is phenomena there must be already acceptance of the non-phenomena. If it is all there is, then you would not invent a term for it. See, the sense of phenomena comes from this intuitive sense that there must be something non-phenomenal as well.

So satsang is an introduction to your non-phenomenal Self.

I Am Always with You

Sometimes the mind can have a fear like ‘Is my Guru also going to leave me, or is the sangha going to leave me?’ And I want to tell you that, from here, I don't feel like…, (even speaking phenomenally), I don't feel like I've ever left anyone. In fact, all those who have left the sangha, it has mostly been that they felt like something is enough, and then want some space; and they could have left in this way.

So what I am saying is that ‘I am always with you’..., even in the worldly way. I am not here to leave you. And as long as you are not completely clear, that actually the Guru is your own Presence, until then, as long as you're with me, I am with you, as Ananta.

And after that…, Your own Presence, you will find that to be the real Guru. And really, there is nothing to fear, everything will be just fine by Guruji's grace which is guiding all of us.

Many of you have been in the sangha for a long time, and you will see that it is never that something from here said that ‘I want some space from you so I want to not be with you for some time’. It's always come like that, from that sense. So even phenomenally, every personally, I am at your service. I am at the service of all of those who are in service to the truth.

If there's any reason where I had felt the need to make some distance or space is when I sense some disrespect to my Master, some disrespect to the Satguru's words…, then it can feel like. Otherwise, I don't have this sense that these are my close ones, or these are not close, or this is not sangha.

All of you are my Sangha. You are my Sangha. So how can the Sangha leave you? You are the Sangha itself.

And none of these things have ever mattered to me; language, level of understand, ability to speak in Advaita or not; none of that is important. I can sense the love in your heart, I can sense the devotion in your heart, and that is enough for me.

So don't carry any of these irrational fears.

The Essential Pointers

Being Spoken in Satsang

What is being spoken here? Let's see if we can put it across in an uncontaminated way.

You are already That which you are looking for. Don't make any other concept about it. This much is enough.

You are already That which you are looking for. Don't make any picture, no visual, nothing; no imagination. Don't say ‘I got it’ or ‘I didn't get it’. Just:

1. You are That which you are looking for.

2. Therefore, there is nothing that you need to do.

3. Freedom does not apply to the real You. The concept of freedom does not apply to reality.

4. You are That which is aware of all creation.

5. No matter what appearances might be appearing, they do not touch Awareness.

6. The primal, or primordial, appearance is the appearance of the Presence ‘I Am’.

7. In the light of this Presence, this leela or this world of appearances appears.

8. This Presence (or) Consciousness (or) I Am- ness has the power to pretend.

9. It can pretend to be separate by believing a thought; and a thought is nothing but another appearance.

10. The simplest way to stop pretending is to stop believing these thoughts.

11. In this entire play, nothing happened to Awareness.

That's all.

If It Needs Belief,

It Is Not True

There's one beautiful video in which Guruji says ‘All you have to do is: 3-2-1 Drop it!’ Just like that. That's it.

How to drop it? Just by dropping it. Because if you let the mind come in there and say ‘This is too difficult’ or ‘I don't know how to do it’…, yesterday was like that. We had in satsang, (and then I had a call with someone after satsang also), and this sense was there that ‘How do I not believe?’ The same thing as ‘How do I drop it?’ And if we let that thing in, if we don't drop that, then we have to apply some other medicine, you see.

So if it is like this, then all I can say is just don't resist anything at all. Allow everything through. No resistance with anything which is arising, including actions from our own body. I say like this because when we hear ‘Allow everything’ it seems like I'm saying ‘Just be passive. Allow everything. Let the world do anything it wants to you’…, something like that. The mind does this kind of story, that I'm proposing some sort of passivity. But what I'm proposing is much deeper than that. I'm saying that there is no doer here anyway. So the allowing means the allowing of everything; the entire appearance.

There is no separation between this body and the rest of the appearance…, unless we start labeling it. What makes it seem separate is that the sensations which we call ‘coming from our body’. They seem to belong to this body and seem more intimate to us. But actually this is as much of an appearance as the rest of it. It's not like the hand is something outside of this. It's part of the same appearance. So ‘allow everything’ means including this appearance which we call the body.

And mostly all of you will realize that all of these actions happening through the body are also just happening on their own. You can check this now actually. I say ‘Okay, do something’. You say ‘Okay, I move my hand. I can do that. I move my hand’. But the hand moved and the mind came to take credit for that movement. How did the thought move the hand? Who is the ‘I’ that took the thought and then said ‘Yes, this is what I will do, and I did it’? And you also know this, that even scientifically, the thought comes later than when actually the nerves start moving; the movement of the hand starts.

But even if you presume that there is a decision-maker, can we find that one?

Then some of you might say ‘But it is the brain that is deciding’. If the brain is deciding, then are you the brain? [Laughs] How do you tell the brain to decide? You cannot find the doer, any which-way. Then you say ‘Okay, the brain is me actually’. Then leave it to the brain. Because the brain already has all the knowledge and knows what to do. Then what are you struggling about?

This sense of doership, this sense of ‘What to do?’ also creeps into the primal instructions like ‘Just be open’ and ‘Don't believe your next thought’. It comes and says ‘How do I do that?’ But it's not a doing actually.

And if it feels like ‘I don't know how to do it’…, then forget it. Don't bother yourself about it. I know many of you struggle with this sense that ‘I'm not able to follow the pointing that he's saying’. Forget it.

Your being in satsang is enough! And even that, even if you're not in satsang, ultimately you will see what you are. But my job is to say ‘Your being in satsang is enough’. [Smiles]

Q: [Inaudible]

Because what is happening is that the ego is hanging on to spiritual instruction for dear life. It's let go of all the other things, and it now wants to hang on to the pointing in satsang, and say ‘Let's do this together. We can make it. We can be good at it’. And this sense that ‘I can be good at it’ is the same as ‘I'm unworthy, I'm not good enough’…, just reflecting in different ways. Neither is true.

You already are that.

You already are free.

You cannot be bound.

You are the un-bound.

All that is happening is the dropping of that which is false. A drop in the ocean can believe itself to be just a drop, and not the ocean. But can it actually not be the ocean? Is there a separate drop in the first place?

The simple pointing is: If it needs belief, it is not true.

If you need to believe me, then it is not true. If you are able to check for yourself and see that ‘This is how it is’ then that is the direct experience of the truth that we speak about.

Whatever movement might be happening in Consciousness, who is witnessing that?

And is the witnessing affected by any movement in Consciousness?

Attention is Not

the Same as Awareness

Q: What is happening here is ‘I'm aware’ is not equal to ‘I am Awareness’. When I hear that ‘You are Awareness’ and when I try to tell myself that I'm Awareness, it feels false somewhere. It doesn't feel real. And anything that requires more convincing is somehow not right; it has to be natural. And I see that most people don't seem to be having a problem with this, because ‘I'm aware’ to ‘I'm Awareness’ …, they seem to be able to bridge that gap easily. And the mind, of course, when I read beautiful messages on Heart Altar, (that's my favorite place to go), and [say to myself] like ‘See? You're nowhere near there. All these experiences all these people are having, you don't have any of those’. So, though I said it, I know it's not true. So I just wanted to bring it up.

So, we have a question that the sense ‘I am aware’ is not translating to the natural seeing that ‘I am Awareness Itself’.

I feel I want to say something on this, because I feel this is really the crux of what is being spoken of here. So let's de-construct it totally.

So, initially the whole feeling is that ‘I'm aware OF…’ The computer I'm aware of, others I'm aware of, the world I'm aware of; aware of thoughts, feelings, emotions. The ‘of’ part has a lot of dominance. It gets all our attention, it gets our belief, in terms of what the ‘of’ is.

But you see, if you were to keep the ‘of’ aside for some time, (it can still arise. I'm not saying that the appearance should stop; that is the meaning of keeping it aside), I'm saying if we focus more on the first part, which is ‘I am aware’. So, the ‘of’ is still there, but our focus is not going there. We're saying the words ‘I am aware’. That means that I know that there is something called ‘aware’.

You say ‘I'm walking. I'm talking’. We know what walking is, we know what talking is. So in the same way, we say ‘I am aware’. But when asked to check: ‘What is this aware?’…

So, we can say ‘I'm aware of…’ then it seems very natural. ‘Yeah, I'm naturally aware of these things’.

The question then switches to ‘What is this aware that I'm talking about?’ It's as simple as that. Just in the same way that ‘I know I am walking, I know that I am talking; I am looking, I am speaking’. You see? So we know what those terms mean.

But somewhere prior to that, we also know what ‘aware’ means. But we never looked at that. What is that ‘aware’? So when we say ‘aware’…, ‘I know that I am aware’. But what is this ‘aware’?

Q: Without the data…

Without the content, without the data. So very naturally right now you can say ‘I'm aware, that these words are being heard’. Isn't it? So far we've focused on the words which are being heard; the silence when no words are there. So we focused on the content of it. But we've not focused on this ‘aware’. ‘I'm aware’, you see? Because it seems so natural to be aware; because we have always been. Has there ever been a moment when we have not been aware?

Q: Sleep.

Yes, but sleep; how do you know there's something called sleep? We know that there is something called sleep. That's why I say if we did not know of sleep then we would just feel like a time lapse happened suddenly. It was night and now it's morning. But, no, it's not that, you see? ‘I went to sleep and now I woke up’. So who is aware that you slept?

Q: So when you become unconscious…, [inaudible]…awareness there?

Not really. It can remain very, very subtle. It can be very subtle because what happens is there is really no time and space whatsoever, so it can seem like just instantly. But just stay with this. So, you could have your eyes closed right now, but others around you would not be able to tell whether you're sleeping or not. But you know ‘I went to sleep’ or ‘I didn't go to sleep’. Isn't it? So you are aware even of the sleep state. You are aware of something called sleep where there is nothing. Not even ‘I Am’. Who knows this? You know it. Nobody has to tell you that you were not there. So, there is awareness even of that. This awareness has been constant.

So, then, coming directly to your question which was ‘Yes, I know I am aware…’

So, this ‘I’… that knows it is aware… is what?

Q: Mentally…

Not mentally. What do you see? I know sometimes knowing the right answer gets in the way. So, right now, if you were to check: ‘I am aware’.

Who is aware?

Who knows this?

Who is that ‘I’?

And is it any different from the awareness itself which it knows?

You with me?

Is the ‘I’ that knows of awareness different from the awareness itself?

Q: It feels different.

Okay, so check:

The ‘I’ that knows it is aware, in what way does it feel different?

And at what distance is it from awareness?

Q: [Inaudible]

Tell me how it feels different. Is it just a picture, a visual of awareness that you have? If something is far away, that means it's subject to space and time. What do you mean by far away?

Q: It feels distant, or larger than.

Okay, and who sees this?

Is that also far away?

That which sees that awareness is distant and larger than me…,

who sees that?

Is that also far?

Where is that one?

Q: It's the ‘I’.

It's the ‘I’.

So is it ‘That which is seeing awareness’?

Or is the ‘seeing’ itself awareness?

Or, let's put it simpler:

Is the ‘I’ which is ‘seeing’…, is that awareness?

Or

Is that which is ‘seen’…, awareness?

Q: Say that again…

You say that ‘It seems like awareness it is far away; it feels like it is far’.

Then I said ‘Who sees this?’

You say ‘It is the I’.

So, is this ‘seeing’… awareness?

Or

Is that which is ‘seen’…, and feels like it is far…, is that awareness?

Q: This is the limited awareness, and this is …[inaudible, laughs]

So, how is this seeing limited? By what?

Q: [Inaudible]

How is it limited?

Can you find the limits of it?

So if eyes are closed, senses are closed, is it not aware of no phenomena?

If you close your eyes, the awareness is still the same, isn't it?

Only the content has vanished.

You see? There is no awareness at a distance. There's just a visual, just an idea. So when we say ‘Universal Awareness’…, as you come more and more into the direct seeing of the ‘Seeing Itself’ you will find it has no limits.

So now we can see. Something will say ‘Yes. I'll take this as homework’. [Laughs] I'm getting that sense ‘I've got something to do’. No, NOW we are seeing it.

Right now, all this ‘of’…, the content, is clear, is seen. The content could be any of this; either external or seemingly-internal. Even our Presence is seen. And I know that this Seeing is here. Nobody else knows; I know. So this ‘I’ is the Seeing Itself…, is my submission to you to check.

So, the Seeing Itself, at what distance am I from it?

You know what I mean by ‘Seeing’…, I'm not talking about the phenomenal seeing; I'm talking about the Awareness or the Knowingness.

Q: It's right here.

It's right here.

Is there any ‘I’ which is separate from this?

Can you separate awareness from yourself and show me?

[Silence]

Q: Mind….

Also seen…, whatever the mind is saying is also seen; just another appearance. So, let it just remain as an appearance. You stay with your direct experience. Don't rely on this one [mind thoughts] to be the teacher at all. Because you have one chair in front of you; either the mind can sit on it or I can sit on it. So, let me sit for a while. [Chuckles]

What I am pointing to is that which is aware of ALL of this phenomenal experience.

This awareness…, at what distance is it from you?

Q: There is no distance.

There is no distance.

Can you keep it aside from you?

Can you separate awareness from yourself?

[Silence]

Try to do it. Try to do it now. Push it aside; see if you can do it. Because the sense is there that it goes away. But it's just imagined like that.

Even the ‘going away’…, who is aware of?

Must be You-as-Awareness.

To say that something is coming, it stays and it goes,

there must be something that is aware of it.

So if awareness went, then who would be aware of it?

So, the mind always comes with visuals of awareness,

saying ‘Now it's close, see, it went far like that’.

Who is aware of that?

Who is seeing?

Who is the ‘Seeing’ itself’ actually?

That's why my Master says: There is no ‘seer’. There is only the ‘Seeing’.

So then, coming back to your question, it was ‘I am aware’…

And this ‘I’ is what? … that can be aware?

Q: [Inaudible]

And when you don't stay with it, is it limited?

Q: [Inaudible]

Yes. So don't stay with it now, and show me how you limited it?

[Silence]

So, this awareness actually has no qualities and no attributes. So, even the term ‘limited’ or ‘unlimited’ does not apply to it. It is prior to time and space. Time and space come after the birth of Being, in the sense that when ‘I am’ is there, then the sense of time and space comes. So limits or no limits apply only after that.

This pure Witnessing…, so that's why I say, when I ask you ‘Are you aware now?’ and you confirm ‘Yes’…, what is seen?

Q: There's a sense of awareness.

There's a sense of awareness.

This sense of awareness…, how is it limited?

Can it even be defined in spatial terms?

Stay with your seeing; don't give it to the mind.

So when I say ‘Are you aware now?’ and [the answer comes] ‘Yes’ and that was seen…, was that limited in any way?

Q: [Inaudible]

But, you see, that is the ‘OF’ part. Aware ‘of’. We're talking about the ‘aware’.

Q: It isn't…

The ‘of’ part seems limited because our attention is limited.

Awareness is unlimited.

But attention is limited.

…

That which is aware even that attention is limited,

That is not limited.

The awareness that knows that attention is limited,

That is not limited.

So it can be that ‘attention’ gets confused for ‘Awareness’.

Then it can seem like ‘Oh, when I'm day-to-day, then it can seem so limited’.

Because it's ‘attention’.

Or when I'm meditating or something, then it's just open.

Because attention is coming back to its Source, which is Awareness itself.

So, it can seem like ‘Oh, it's far away’. But change is only happening for attention, not to awareness. So, that which is aware of limits and no limits, that itself, you must see…, and see if it has any limits…, and see how these terms even apply to that.

So, now if I ask you ‘Are you aware now?’

Q: Yes.

The ‘Yes’ comes, but nothing was seen phenomenally to confirm it. So, what is seen phenomenally is the ‘OF’ part…, ‘I'm aware of…’

But the term ‘aware’…, was there any phenomena seen to confirm the term ‘aware’?

Q: No.

This is the Knowingness itself.

And this does not go.

And the ‘I’ that is aware, is it separate from this awareness itself? [Silence]

I know these words can be the most confusing for the mind. But naturally for you, it's getting clear now.

Is there anything else except awareness which can be aware?

It is only awareness which can be aware.

Therefore, when you say ‘I am aware’…,

Therefore, what you're saying is: Awareness is aware.

So, if we expect that the sense of ‘I Am’ will now become Awareness…,

It is made up of Awareness.

But the mind can say ‘I Am Awareness’ would mean that ‘I Am-ness’ is now only Awareness. Not like that; not to fall into these kinds of inclusions. Just check:

I say ‘I am aware’,

What, besides Awareness, is aware?

Only Awareness is aware.

Therefore, we can say:

Awareness is aware.

Therefore, I Am Awareness.

Because I Am Aware.

So, when we come to this point that ‘I Am Aware’…, if we have to put some sense of distance into it, we're like this close [hold two fingers touching together]. Because that which can say ‘I Am Aware’ is only Awareness. Nothing else.

So, in that case, the ‘I’ can very easily be replaced by ‘Awareness’. The instant you say ‘I Am Aware’ you are already speaking as Awareness.

Q: Thank you.

I feel that this is what the whole point of satsang is. And if someone is at that point of this question, which I really enjoy, that ‘I looked and I checked ‘Am I aware now? And I can say ‘I am aware…, but ‘I am Awareness’ is still not clear’…, then I cannot let that question just go by.

‘I Am’ is a Portal That

Can Go Both Ways

Prior to any words, prior to any expectations of something to be heard, of something that will be understood; before that, who is here now?

If there were no more words, ever, either sensed from outside or even heard inside; neither mind nor intuition, if there were no more words ever in any form…, what would still remain?

If there were no feelings also… So right now, suppose everything started to fade away. In this moment something goes ‘click’ and the outside world is gone, including this body. Then someone does another ‘click’ and thoughts are gone; (don't think about it). Another ‘click’ and emotions are gone. Are you still there?

And they're going one by one, you see. Something remains.

[‘Click’] The world is gone. It cannot be perceived anymore, all senses are closed. Hearing stopped working, eye sight stopped working, sensory touch stopped working, taste stopped working, smell stopped working; all senses are gone. On the going of … which of the senses …. do You go?

You still don't go, isn't it?

And suppose thoughts stopped working. Have you gone?

Emotion is still there. Now emotion also stopped working.

None of this movement is happening. What still remains?

And how is That which still remains touched by any of this?

So, it can be said that the purpose of the mind is to keep us distracted from This that still remains; to keep us distracted with that which is just appearing and disappearing. And how does it do that? Through its constant interpretation; through the constant commentary.

You'll notice this, if you're new to satsang, that everything that is being spoken in satsang also, this mind is trying to contribute and say ‘Yes, yes’ and ‘No, no’ …, ‘Yes, like this’ and ‘No, like this’…, ‘He's right’..., ‘He's wrong about this’. So this interpreter is completely clueless about what really is. And yet, as you often see in the world, it still has opinions. We see in the world also many times that we can have strong opinions about something and be completely clueless about it. The mind is like this. It has no idea about the nature of reality and still it likes to contribute, it likes to participate and wants to teach us about it. And satsang is introducing us to the better Teacher.

Satsang is introducing us to the better Teacher which is your own intuitive Presence. That which you call the Satguru within Your own Heart, which uses the external embodiment, the human embodiment of the Master to communicate until you're ready to listen to your own Presence; until we are not so distracted by name and form.

So it can start by seeming like it is name and form which is real and that which is nameless and formless is abstract and unreal. And it becomes clearer and clearer that it is actually that which arises as name and form which is not eternal, which is not timeless; which is therefore unreal.

And that it is this nameless and formless Witnessing… of this which comes and goes… which doesn't go anywhere; which is timeless, which is eternal; un-hurt by anything.

And how do you find That? How do you find that One, the Eternal One? By definition, that which is eternal must already be here! That which is Timeless must be ever-Present.

The only trouble is that we look for it as if it was an object. ‘I'm looking for my Self’. [Chuckles] And you go looking for it as if it is something to find. Then it is bound to be a very frustrating journey. Because it cannot be found as an object.

Some will say ‘I have been searching for more than 30 years. Most of my life I have been a seeker. I'm so frustrated in this journey’. Because we are looking for the Self as if it is some object to be found, either within the body or outside the body somewhere. It is not that.

Who is aware of the seeking? If we say ‘I am a seeker’ then there is a sense of ‘seeking’ that I am aware of. This I… who is aware of the seeking…, who is this one?

The one that is aware of all movements, is That also moving?

Is it coming and going?

Is that separate from you?

So the ‘seeker’ means we are seeking in the wrong direction. We are seeking on the outside. ‘I am seeking’.

This ‘I Am’ is a portal that goes both ways. So, if you want to come to the truth of ‘Who am I?’ …, (Okay, this is a little bit subtle)…,

So, ‘I Am’ is here: ‘I am here’. Now we are trying to find ‘Who is this I?’ But in the trying to find this I, we make it more complex. By making ‘I’ into the sense ‘I Am’ … the attribute of seeking something; then this ‘I Am’ that was unassociated now became ‘I am a seeker’.

And innumerable attributes you can attach to this ‘Am-ness’. ‘I am like this, I am like that, I am doing this, I am doing that, I am going here, I am going there, I am good, I'm bad, I'm terrible, I'm hopeful, I'm awful…’ We keep attaching many, many attributes to this ‘Am-ness’.

But what are we looking for? We are looking for the ‘I’ which is prior to this.

So, the way into the phenomenal realm, the way to operate as a person, is to keep attaching things to the sense ‘I Am’…, believing that something can be attached to the sense ‘I Am’.

And the entire point of satsang is to drop these ideas which we have been attaching to ourselves.

And no concept, no idea is worthy enough to get our belief, to be attached to This; not even our concepts like ‘I am God’ or ‘I am free’. They're meaningless.

So, first we come to this unassociated Being, where it is just Being. It is not being anything. Not ‘I am something’. Not even ‘I am nothing’. Just ‘I Am’.

And this is completely true right now. There is nothing you have to do to get there. It is already true.

Don't try to stop anything also. And then what happens, there is a sense of space, the voice of the mind doesn't have any power, and this is the end of suffering, because it is the end of resistance.

Being is just Being. And there is complete allowing of the body/mind to function exactly as it is functioning; active or passive, according to mind's plan or not according to mind's plan. It is all happening on its own. It always has been…, only now that we get to see that it is like this.

So Being is just Being.

Then what can happen (although this much is enough), but what can happen…, (and IS happening for many), is that it becomes clearer, that ‘I am aware even of Being’.

You see? This is what I mean by ‘I Am-ness’ being a portal which can go both ways.

We saw how it can be used to pretend to be ‘a person’, an ego by adding attributes to the sense ‘I Am’. And now we can see how this ‘I Am-ness’ also points back at the Truth of What You Are.

We see that there is Awareness of even this Presence, this Being.

The sense ‘I Am’ … I am aware of it.

We see that this Awareness is prior even to the Presence Itself.

And we find that there is nothing to speak of here, because there are no qualities, there are no attributes. All of that requires the Presence of Being. And we left that behind, because we came the other way now; from the ‘I Am’ to the ‘I’.

That which is Aware…, what does That look like?

Is there an entity which owns this Awareness?

Therefore, as Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi used to say ‘This I is The Eternal One’.

And the recognition that this ‘I’ is the Timeless Awareness, within which (what he used to call) the sense ‘I-I’ (which we call the sense I Am) is born, and it dissolves back into.

Therefore, this ‘I’ is what we call the Self, we call the Absolute.., the pure Knowingness, the pure Awareness…, bereft of all qualities.

And this is true about You, right now.

You Are That. I Am That. We Are One.

Because You are aware now,

And You are aware that You are aware.

[Silence]

So as we go this way to the root of what I am, then the truth cannot be missed.

But initially what can happen is that this truth can seem deeply disappointing to the mind. The mind can say ‘This was it? But nothing happened’. Because the mind actually didn't find anything. No fireworks needed to happen. No great ‘awakening’ experience also needs to happen. No states of bliss need to come. They can all be there; they can come for some. But for some there can be this completely sober Seeing. But try as it might, the mind cannot deny the Truth of What You Are.

‘Getting It’ Is Not Dependent

on Time: You Are It.

The sense of getting somewhere, the sense of going somewhere, the sense of becoming something is just a habit from the mind. Only the mind wants ‘next’. And between this ‘earlier’ and ‘next’.., between this sense of ‘earlier’ and ‘next’ this mind moves. But the present.., it cannot do anything with.

What is now has nothing to say about that.

What's wrong with ‘right now’?

Who am I right now?

If there was no time…, (not that ‘we are in a rush, so there is no time’)…, what if there just was no time; it did not exist? …, if no movement happened in time?

And then when the sense of time comes back, is that which witnesses it, (the witnessing of time), is that also moving in time? Is that also changing with time?

The sense of ‘Have I got there or have not got there?’ is subject to time, you see? And the mind is completely concerned about this question ‘When will I finally get it?’ But it is not dependent on time.

You Are It.

De-mystifying the Non-phenomenal Reality That I Am

Very beautiful sharing…, because first she says ‘All mental knowledge and all concepts can be kept aside’. That's exactly what we are pointing to. And what is selling the mental concepts, what is selling the beliefs, what is selling ideas, is only these thoughts or the mind.

Often we use the word ‘mind’ and ‘ego’ interchangeably, but there is a slight distinction. Because ‘mind’ is just this energy of thoughts; the ‘ego’ is the sense of separation that comes after believing the thoughts. So the mind is like the agent, the catalyst for ego creation. (Anyway, we're getting technical, so let's not worry about any of that. We kept it aside, which is good).

Then she says ‘Without relying on any concept, it is seen that there is the appearance of that which we call Being or Consciousness. And that was the purpose of giving everyone the pointer ‘Can you stop being now?’…, was to introduce you to the appearance of Consciousness. This Consciousness is also appearing to ‘I’. (We'll come to that).

Phenomenal play, appearing and disappearing, happens. So within this phenomenal play, there is a little knowing, a little awareness. When I say ‘little’ I don't mean little as in less-limited little, I mean the small ‘k’ [knowing] and the small ‘a’ [awareness]…, it's the conceptual knowing or the intellectual knowing. But that which knows the appearance of Being is not conceptual, you see? No concept can help us with that.

It is a direct seeing that Being is here. And I know that if I was to say ‘Find your Being’ a few rare ones might see this, if you're new to satsang; but for most of you, it becomes a struggle: ‘How do I find my Being?’ It was a big struggle here also: ‘How do I find this Being’.

But I find if I ask ‘Can you stop being?’ then it is just seen that Being is here. How can I stop this Presence that is here, the sense ‘I am’? This is Seen. Not with worldly eyes, but with non-phenomenal Seeing or Awareness Itself.

And therefore when we say ‘I cannot stop being’ although the words are reported in phenomenality, they are not a result of some belief or some concept. They are only arising from what is directly Seen.

Words can come from only two places. They can come from the direct Seeing, or they can come from some beliefs. So now they are not coming from the belief in God anymore; it is coming from the direct experience of God. Isn't it? So just like this it becomes clear, that this is Consciousness. This Being is Consciousness. And all this phenomenal play is appearing and disappearing within this Being.

Then we come to this place where the mind has no chance. Because when we ask ‘Who is aware even of this Being?’ …, no intellectual concept, no mental knowledge can help. And yet it is Seen that there is a Seeing of this Being. It is Seen that there is a Seeing of this Being. That is why when we say ‘Being is here’ it is not coming from concepts; it is coming from this Seeing, from the direct experience (as I call it). So to See that there is a Seeing… is Seeing seeing Itself.

Don't let your mind convince any of you now that these words are complicated, okay? [Chuckles]

Because we can say that Being is here, therefore there must be a Seeing of the Being. And because we can say there is a Seeing of the Being, there is a Seeing of the Seeing.

[Chuckles] Maybe this part you can hear a few times.

There is a Seeing of the Seeing, which is Awareness aware of Itself.

Again, I'm saying not in the worldly sense of the word ‘seeing’, not in the phenomenal seeing or knowing; but something which cannot be expressed phenomenally is aware that Awareness is here. Just to be able to say ‘I am aware’. Even to be able to say ‘I am un-aware’ means that there must be an awareness of ‘aware’ or ‘un-aware’. So even when we say ‘I am un-aware’ there is an awareness that we are calling something ‘un-awareness’.

Someone had asked on Facebook, and I didn't get the chance to answer them: ‘What about sleep and dream?’

How do we know that there is sleep state and dream? It is directly Seen that it is there. It is not coming from some belief. The experience of sleep state is not coming as a belief in sleep state. The experience of dream state is not because there is some belief that there is dream state. So, it's not conceptually known.

So this, which we call the Seeing, is actually non-phenomenal. And therefore we can also call it the ‘no-thing’. But if you hear me often, you know that I prefer to call it ‘no-thing’ rather than ‘nothing’. You see, because ‘no-thing’ means ‘non-phenomenal’. ‘No-thing’ means ‘non-phenomenal’ whereas ‘nothing’ means ‘Oh, there is just nothing’.

So it is good to see that Being or Consciousness is here. And it is good to see that it is also our direct experience in that which we call sleep state, that it is not there.

The whole feeling here, in the sharing of satsang from the beginning has been to de-mystify, to unravel this reality; the non-phenomenal reality that I Am.

Grace, Gratitude, Blessings

What is unfolding for you is the realization of What You Are, independent of any relationship. This doesn't mean that relationship is bad; the relationships can still continue. But this sense of need and desperation about holding onto something which is ultimately just an appearance has to go one way or the other; one day or another. So sometimes the mind comes and says ‘See, that was so beautiful. Grace did that’. And that which is not seemingly so full of bliss and joy, that can seem like ‘Oh, the person is responsible’ (either ourselves or another person). No, it is still Grace. It is still Grace which is doing everything.

And why is it doing it like this? Any time we fall into identity, we fall into attachments. Because we have made this prayer, either overtly or not…, coming into satsang we have made this prayer ‘May I discover the truth of what I am, and may that which is false be burnt away’. And when the false is burning, it is bound to create some moments which seem like they are painful. But it is only an answer to what has been prayed for.

~ ~ ~

I just want to say that I love all of you so, so, so very much.

And I feel blessed…, every moment I feel blessed to be surrounded with this beautiful Sangha. I feel that, after my Master's feet, it is the Presence of this Sangha which is the greatest gift in my life. It is just joy to be with you all.

And I know that many of us will meet when we are in Rishikesh [with Mooji giving satsang there], and some of you are not able to come; but irrespective of that, there is not one millimeter of distance in our Hearts.

I love, love, love all of you. May we forever be at my Father's feet.

And this is a great moment of celebration and joy, because we get to experience his satsang for 5 weeks, almost non-stop [even free online]. And every season, every time, even now when I go, the fresh insights, a fresh Seeing, emerges.

So, I am ever grateful to my Master, my Father, Satguru Sri Moojiji, for allowing his words to be spoken here; for his Presence and his Love.

So thankful to all of you, this beautiful Sangha of Being. All my Love and Blessings. May you all find this truth which is ever-present. May my Master's grace bring all auspiciousness into your lives…, and to the lives of your loved ones.

Thank you all so much for being such beautiful children, best friends, brothers and sisters.

I'm so, so, so grateful.

Thank you all so much for being in satsang today. Sri Moojiji ki Jai!

Table of Contents

About Ananta

Preface

The Core Pointings

The I Prior to ‘I Am’

Can We Find This One Who Needs to Become Free Now?

The Realization Of What We Are Is A Facepalm Moment

Yes, I Am…, But as What?

Don't Try To Come To This Point, This is Where You're Starting From

The True I is Synonymous with Awareness

Is This Urge for Freedom More Than Just a Personal Desire?

Checking into What is Here Now

Giving Freedom to the World to Be As It Is

You Are Only the Awareness Right Now

Bearing Our Own Emptiness

What is Meant by ‘Your Non-Phenomenal Nature’

Prior to Awareness

Either It’s Something Personal or It’s About Awareness

Accepting is Not a Passive State

Freedom is Not a State Where Attention Completely Rests Only in Awareness

You Are Free, But Come to Satsang

Attention Always Reports Back to You

Awareness is Always Neutral

What If We Did Not Have A Single Concept?

What Am I Still Giving Meaning To?

A Thought is Calling, Saying ‘Hello, This is You’

Truth Means That Which is Not Coming and Going

Is There Any Difference in Perception Between Us?

This Openness is What I’m Pointing To

Answering: Don’t I Need Thoughts Sometimes?

This Sense ‘I Am Aware’ is Pointing You Directly to What You Are

Satsang is an Introduction to Your Non-phenomenal Self

I Am Always with You

The Essential Pointers Being Spoken in Satsang

If It Needs Belief, It Is Not True

Attention is Not The Same as Awareness

‘I Am’ is a Portal That Can Go Both Ways

‘Getting It’ Is Not Dependent on Time: You Are It.

De-mystifying the Non-phenomenal Reality That I Am

Grace, Gratitude, Blessings