As You Meet YourSelf, the Idea of You Disappears - 31st January 2018

To be is very simple, simpler than simple. You just are. Nobody is taking any effort to be, and to not be is impossible. You couldn't do it if you tried. So this being is your divine presence; already is the existence of consciousness, is the existence of the greatest being ever. You don't have to hold on to it because, actually, you can never let go of it. And already, the most naturally, you notice: I exist, I am. Because if you were unaware of this, then even a simple thing like 'I am sitting' you would not be able to see. 'I am here'—you would not be able to see this. As simple as that. Before you can see what this body is, you experience your own presence, which is unlimited by any body's sensation.

So if I was to say, 'You are not sitting,' you would say, 'But I am.' If I say, 'You're not sitting,' you say, 'But I am.' It is very simple what I'm saying, but what you've been pointed to with this 'I am' is independent of any position of the body—sitting, standing, lying down—you just effortlessly are. So all that has happened is that this that is, this what is, is playing as if it is making a mistake about what it is. This Atma is playing as if it is misidentifying himself to be a limited entity. The truth is just here effortlessly. To play with this identity takes energy. To play with identity takes energy, and therefore that is effort. To rest naturally, you don't have to expend any effort to pick up notions about yourself, to pick up concepts about yourself.

The example—and we are tired of this, I don't know about you, but I am—if you were to tell me, if you would take the effort for 24 hours to believe all these notions about yourself which the mind is offering, and I will give you a fully expense-paid vacation in Hawaii... you would say, 'That sounds like too much work. I'll stay here.' And yet, I do remember that there is a time, even when this is known, it can feel like the effort is to let go of my concerns. It can seem like that was effort because the power of the habit, the seeming gravitational force of the mind, seemed so attractive that to be just the observer of it and not get caught up with my belief in what was showing up, that seemed like more effort.

But one had a very beautiful example when he said that initially it can feel like it is effort to keep this heavy bag down. We've been carrying it and that has become so much of our habit, it can seem like I have to make an effort to keep the bag down. But it is actually to carry this burden of limitation which has been there for so long. And how can you see this? You can only see this now. Naturally, in this moment, you are empty of all notions about yourselves. Effortlessly, this is here. You don't have to do anything to create this. The total existence, the most enlightened being, is what you already are right now. In fact, you are the light of this entire universe, most actually already here and now.

And if you don't say 'but,' then I don't have anything else to say. But if you say, 'But I think something more has to happen,' 'But I heard that I will have some halo around my head,' 'But what about yesterday when I got angry with my partner?', 'But what about these feelings of constriction right in the gut?', 'But what about my doubts about this path, about the teacher, about my own self?', 'What about all of this?' Nothing. Because it is already gone. And soon you will start to see that it is in the picking up of all of this again and again that is taking up all our energy. That is making us tired. Our being is not tired; pretending to be a tired person is the play.