Are You Willing to Give Up the Seeker Identity? - 25th December 2017

See, you are seeing that you are the ocean, but you are believing what the mind is saying—that you are still a coconut. You cannot gather that magnitude into this limited object. You want to own freedom personally; you cannot do that. The body will not become free. It is not this body which is finding freedom; you are. Then the body—it seems like all the waves are just a part of you on the surface. Okay, a big part of last year has also gone in dealing with all the 'buts,' the doubts. 'But inside, I see this, but... yes, I know this, but... but I saw it last week also, but it is gone now.' Using all this, all the doubts in the world, I have invited you back to right now to see what you truly are. To experience the truth about yourselves, not in what it means to the future you, not what happened to you yesterday, not any idea that you have about yourself, but in reality what you are.

We spent many months studying the beautiful Ashtavakra Gita in which every verse is a beautiful clue to this insight about the Self. Each one of them, any one of them, can blow away any idea of identification that you might have. We have been blessed with the presence of satsang and the words of satsang. I've said often that most of satsang is not in the words, but from the presence of satsang itself, that a part of the identification getting cleaned up is happening. But this does not mean that the words are not important. The words are beautiful pointers that you are using for your own contemplation. And this is the best use of the words of satsang. The best use of the words of satsang is not that you believe them; that might be the worst use. If you're creating another new belief system based on the words of satsang, then that is not the intent. The best use of the words of satsang is, after you hear them, to check them for yourself.

So if the master says that you are the one solitary witness of all there is—those are beautiful words of Ashtavakra: 'The one solitary witness of all there is, you are'—what prevents us from taking on this right now? Just some doubt comes, some resistance can come. But you are valuing the truth more than doubt. You are checking to see, the great sage who said this, would he be lying? It must be the truth. Let me find out that which witnesses all things. And where do you come to? You come to your own Self. Your insight is very clear, but many, many, many times you will buy into this doubt from the mind which says, 'But I didn't see anything at all. I didn't find the Self.' And we've spent a lot of time in explaining that you will not find the Self as an object. You will not find something which has some quality, some attribute.

That's why I've given all of you this beautiful pointer: Are you aware now? I actually read these beautiful words from Adi Shankara which I found, just the verse, but it contains most of what we speak about in satsang. That is the beauty of these great sages. He says, 'Now I shall tell you the nature of this absolute witness.' And it is your grace that we get to even hear these words, maybe centuries down, but when the body of Shankara lived, his words still have that power. We are blessed to have this grace in our life that we can hear the Satguru in this form. So the Satguru is now telling us the nature of this absolute witness. Even before we get into the description of this, we can check this for ourselves. Isn't it the same thing what Ashtavakra was saying? 'You are the one solitary witness of all there is.'

Then he says, 'If you recognize it, you will be freed from the bonds of ignorance and attain liberation.' So beautiful, isn't it? Just by the recognizing of it, you let go of the bonds of ignorance and find that which you are seeking: attaining liberation. Therefore, it must tell you that it is just a question of recognition. It is just a misunderstanding. It is not something to be done. It is just something that you have considered yourself to be, and now you are coming to the recognition of it, and then the false consideration will go away, and this itself is freedom. So it is not a physical movement that needs to happen. If you consider yourself to be a cat, but you were reminded and you were shown and you came to the recognition yourselves that you are not a cat, then you are freed from all the problems of the cat; they do not apply anymore.

So as you are recognizing the truth, you will be freed from the bonds of ignorance and attain liberation. Then he says, 'There is a self-existent reality which is the basis of our consciousness of ego.' There is a self-existent reality which was the basis of the notion 'I am something,' 'I am limited,' 'I am my name,' 'I am my form.' What is that which is self-existent? What a beautiful term. What exists by itself? Does your identity exist by itself? Can you pose as if you are a person without picking up a notion about yourself? You can't even pick up a problem without picking up an idea. So all of this is dependent on believing some ideas that you have about yourself. Now you are existent. Now you are being. You are existing. What effort are you making to exist? What is holding this existence? Are you forcing it up? No, it is just here. You exist. This existence is the basis of all that then comes and goes. This is the substratum of all that moves in this world.

Now what has happened is we have attached ourselves to that which is coming and going. All the things that you call 'mine'—out of all of them, how many are not going to come and go? Everything that you see is 'mine'—how much of that will stay forever, is eternal? Nothing. So then this mind itself is going to be the cause of so much suffering because you attach to something which is going to be going anyway. To say that anything in this phenomenal world is 'mine' is like attaching yourself to a drunken donkey. Lovely. Because you know it is going to go away. So in this play of 'me' and 'mine,' we have forgotten the basis of all of this: what is my own existence?

Then the sage says, 'That reality is a witness of the states of ego consciousness and of the body. That reality is the constant witness of all the three states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep. It is your real Self.' What a potent pointer again. It's the same as what Ashtavakra also shared. What is that which continues even in your dreamless sleep? And here you cannot presume anything; you have to speak from your very experience. In this waking state, you have one body. In a dream state, you seem like you have another body. In dreamless sleep, neither body is there. What witnesses the state of dreamless sleep? Why, there is nothing at all phenomenal, and yet you had the experience of sleep. That which is untouched by any of the coming and going of any of these things, that you are. And if you are that, then what can come in this waking state that can, in reality, harm you?

You have remained the unchanging, irrespective of what states have come and gone. This is your unchanging reality. So then Shankara says, 'It is your real Self. That reality pervades the universe. It alone shines. The universe shines with its reflected light.' The reflected light of yourself. As I said, you are that shoreless ocean in which the arcs of the universe, they come and go. You are the basis of them. You are not an object in this universe. If you have to create a relationship, it is more accurate to say that the universe is an object in you. Its essence is timeless awareness. It knows all things, witnesses all things, from the ego to the body. It is the witness of pleasure and pain and the sense objects. This is your real Self, the Supreme Being, the ancient. It never ceases to experience infinite bliss. It is unwavering. It is spirit itself. Usually we come into satsang when being 'something' is not working. If being 'something' was just naturally working, then very few would find the will to come to satsang—only those with a very high curiosity about the truth.

It is timeless awareness. It knows all things, witnesses all things, from the ego to the body. It is the witness of pleasure and pain and the sense objects. This is your real Self, the Supreme Being, the Ancient. It never ceases to experience in infinite ways. It is unwavering; it is spirit itself. Usually, we come into satsang when being something is not working. If being something was just naturally working, then very few would find their way to satsang—only those with a very high curiosity about the truth. You see, we come to satsang for some refuge because we find that all my ideas about myself, all that I've considered myself to be, all my plans, they are not getting me to the promised land of eternal contentment.

That's why, you know, one of my favorite things that came up in satsang is the story of the cat. The cat is born in the world without mirrors, and everybody said, 'You are a cat. Your only job is to get the next bowl of milk.' And what is it they also told us what these bowls of milk were? 'Get a good education and you will find this happiness; you will always be happy. Find a good partner and you will always be happy. Make lots of money and you will always be happy. Do this and you will always be happy.' But you see that all of these were ephemeral, coming and going.

Then somebody said to us, 'Yes, actually, this is the nature of the world, and you will not find happiness till you come to this ultimate bowl of milk called enlightenment, moksha, liberation.' Then you, as a cat, go to various places, various masters, various satsangs to try and find this bowl of milk: enlightenment. And sometimes you might even feel like you're getting that taste that you wanted, but it goes away. It goes away. You say, 'No, no, I had it and I lost it.' Then you feel like you're guilty, you are unworthy of it. But not only are you a cat, but you're in a movie, and you've also been told, by the way, that only one in a million cats will get this milk.

And you might come, if it is Grace, you might come to someone like Mooji who will say, 'Why do you want a bowl of milk? You are not a cat. You want something? You are not a person at all. You are that from which all things come.' And if you see that with the Master, then you will play the cat game for some time. And that 'some time' could be today, a year, ten years, ten lifetimes, or briefly, because you never know. You say, 'Yes, but yes, I see that I'm this, but why do I still feel this? Why do I still think this attachment to this ephemeral world?' The condition of believing yourself to be the cat for so long seems to carry on with some momentum till one day, please, you just give up.

And the play of this life—if consciousness wants to play the cat for longer, then the cat will behave as such. It is all fine. But if the truth is stronger, then the craving will be less. That is the play that we are playing now. Whether we believe the identity doesn't mean that you have to renounce anything at all, because for some of you it might be something like another thing: 'I must renounce everything that is changing.' No, the play of this life can continue. The ocean does not have to renounce the waves; it just has to see that it is not contained in a wave. The waves can still continue and will. This is the misidentification: 'I am limited, I am this.' And we will see the play of this life will continue to happen. I see the play of this life continues to happen.

The other day I said, only half-jokingly actually, that there's also a member of this Sangha, of my son. He's not the one that is speaking now; he is just the instrument for the Self. So this play can continue. But that revelation is that attachment to the objective appearance of the things in this life, we lose the power to create suffering because you are not attached to them. The Master holds up a mirror for you, and if you have the expectation that you are going to see something, then again you might be disappointed. He is showing you that you are no-thing. Not that you are nothing, but that you are not a thing. That which is the absolute witness of all things in itself is not a thing, but it is the absolute witness. It is not nothing else, and that is you now.

All of these that I said can begin to sound a bit complicated. So, how do I get to the Self? That's why a big part of the year also went in showing you that in your motionless existence, this truth is apparent about yourself. There is nothing that you even have to do. This is the best news ever: that that which you're looking for doesn't have to be found at all. How is it accepted when I'm saying this good news, but I don't see that I'm sharing? I even asked, wondering, if somebody said to you, 'What are you sitting here doing?' and it was announced on the radio, 'You won a prize for one million dollars,' more excitement will come than if you were to hear me telling you that there's nothing you have to do and it is apparent to you that you are this Self which is beyond time and space today.

Why is this not the best news that you'll ever hear? That you're beyond time and space? That the universe is also just a coming and going for you? You are the eternal final witness of all of this, independent of anything that you might get or not get in this life. How to find this here and now? It is already seen what you are. Don't go to the mind's certificate. Don't buy the notion that this one is selling you. What are you right now? Are you contained in something? Do you have a need for the mind to conclude whether this is true or not? Go into: do you have boundaries? If the Self is eternal, mustn't it be here now? Mustn't it be you? If you are saying God is everywhere, are you really meaning God is everywhere but me? How do you really mean it? There is no separation that ever happened. All of this is the play of one consciousness. For the one that is all there is, what could you possibly want? For the one for whom all things are happening within it, what could it possibly do?

It is when consciousness takes a position about itself, even if it feels like it might be the highest position, the enlightened position, it still draws a boundary around itself. Empty of notions about yourself, you are free. You believe in a location, in a reference point about yourself, you draw an imaginary boundary and you play this game of personhood, ego. Now, one last point maybe, I think, before we go today is: don't get into level confusion. Don't worry about how this body is presenting itself after it has found freedom, because your discovery is not located in this body. This body is just another occurrence on the surface of the ocean, on the screen of consciousness.

So, I'll end with the story about Adi Shankara. The great Shankaracharya was sharing with many people sitting around like this. He was sharing that Brahman is the truth, the Absolute is the truth, and this world appearance is illusory; it is a coming and going, ephemeral appearance. He's sharing like this, and in those days there were leopards and tigers. So then one tiger came, and Shankara was the first to run. I'm sharing this just to finish the sentence I started earlier. So he went and climbed a tree along with everybody else who was in the satsang with him. They all climbed trees and went to the highest branches. Then they waited for the tiger to go. After the tiger went, they waited a few more minutes and they got down. Shankara got down, they collected for satsang again, and he could see that people sitting in the Sangha were sniggering at him.

So he said, 'So what happened? Why are you laughing at me?' They said, 'Weren't you saying that the world is illusory and the only truth is the Absolute, which is unchanged, unhurt? And when the tiger came, why did you run?' And he said, 'My running was also part of the illusion.' This is what I mean. You don't have to present yourself as some enlightened master or something like this. Very dutifully, I let my worldly existence play as it wants. I remain as I am. Nobody can predict the way it will play out for this body-mind. The sharing of satsang will happen from there. Whether you go into complete silence, whether you lead the life of a householder, nobody knows what events will happen. Nobody can predict. Forget about all fanciful notions about the body of the enlightened master having supernatural abilities, being in five places at the same time. Those things that will happen will happen. Let them be. But they are no proof of your freedom.

You remain in your motionless existence. Surrender any notion that you might have about yourself or inquire into the reality of you. Come to your emptiness, your neutrality. This is my blessing, my gift on this beautiful Christmas Day as we remember one of the purest embodiments of these truths. So much love to all of you. Thank you all so much for being in satsang today. Jesus Christ ki Jai! Mooji Baba ki Jai! Then tomorrow will be the last broadcast for this year, then family and I are off to go for a few days' break. Restart maybe on the first or second, depending on what we hear from you.