Awareness is Attribute-less, So How Is Is Arrogance to Say 'I'? - 11th August 2016

Actually, every moment is the end of it, isn't it? Now is the end of it, unless we pick it up, and then it's the end of it. We're just tired of this game now. And now, coming to this place of stopping—not stopping to try also—because individuality, personality, he who basically has to be picked up, it is not natural. And I found that it usually is accompanied with some kind of a factor, I would say. My experience is always, but like with varying kind of like a degree of obviousness or sensitivity or something, it's like there's always some kind of constriction, like a knot. Not real, like a vibration that's not rooted in like an openness, and it's always got some kind of like conditional tightness or label. Yeah. And so it seems like as fast as the thoughts drop or the belief is not given, then certainly the attention just falls upon the actual accompanying kind of vibration that's there, and then that's allowed. So I guess it's just this, sometime it's an example inquiry: nobody here. And it doesn't feel like there's an 'I' that's found that there's nobody here anymore; it's just like it's just that, it's just knowing. And it's just like a kind of recognition that I think we talk about this, like that the awareness has the capacity and the intelligence to recognize this nobody's here without creating somebody to say there's nobody here. And then, but then there could come a thought like, 'Oh, I thought, how did I ever believe that there was somebody here?' And that one does belong to a somebody, and it's like always, there's always a potential of that. So I guess I care, so just really hoping...

Well, no, you're totally... very good is to see that. Because when you see that there is nobody here, you find that it is known now. Because the discovery is that there is nobody here, there can be a bit of a resistance to saying 'I know this.' Yes.

So exactly, because what is found is there is nobody here, and the minute I say 'I know this,' I'm creating a somebody again. But this is not true ultimately. Yeah, it feels... it comes with a kind of a like a wariness to sound arrogant, they say. Like to say to somebody, and also like in the Satsang, like to say, 'Yeah, I found there's nobody here,' feels like, 'Oh, but you know it spiritually.' Yeah.

So, but sometimes it can come from this place of not wanting to seem special. Sometimes it's also the fear of not wanting to sound inaccurate or something. Yeah, then you just... when you just hear that there is nobody here, then the next sentence to be that 'I found it' sounds like you're contradicting yourself. So this sounds... if not, it can be anywhere in the scale of fear of being arrogant or being, you know, any of that can be there. But the fact is that this that is aware is 'I'. It is that we've been using, misusing 'I' for so long as if it was an appearance in this play. To try now to give it the right pointer, to give it the right label, seems to attach to it either arrogance or... but it is 'I' which is aware. Or just not this 'I' which we've been using. 'I' in the past, we used it for the body-mind; we've used it for the ego for so long. It now seems to be when we say 'I', it means for many, especially in Advaita, it seems to imply ego. But actually, the whole point of Advaita is to move the 'I' from there to the reality of what it is, which is this awareness that is right, is the Self. Like, and when you contemplate the question, something is coming up, something is coming... sorry.

The whole distinction... but a big part of the distinction between Vedanta, traditional Vedanta or Advaita, and Buddhism was this. Is it where Buddha said that there is no self? The 'no self' and the 'self' became then a label for the ego. So 'there is no self' implied that there is no ego, there is no individual. Then Adi Shankara, he actually said that this 'no self'—what do you call the no-self—individuality in that, not even phenomenal, you see. All the phenomena is an aspect of it, but it by itself is the Self. So over the instant with a Self, it implies 'I', the real 'I'. See what the problem is? It's semantical. Otherwise, I would have just left it. The reason why I've been emphasizing it is because it becomes like that. Only have these self-inquiry experiences using... babies love the campaign... and you have these experiences and self-inquiry. Many times the mind will offer you with thoughts like, 'Yes, I saw, I saw awareness now.' Easy. Or 'I'—and bring the personal 'I' back in that sense and makes awareness an experience of the product depth of some self-inquiry. And it can... might try and retain a distinction between 'I' and... because once it is seen that I am awareness, it's pretty much game over. So even under that, it tries to create a distinction as is, 'Yes, yes, I had a very nice experience of awareness, and I saw nothing is happening to awareness, but how does that really help me in my day-to-day life?' Yeah. So this 'me' creates a distinction, and again the false 'me' was given somebody. That is why it is important to see that it is 'I' that is aware. Just not the way we've been using 'I', but in reality, it is 'I'. There is only 'I'. I am that. Easy. It is not that is that; it is 'I am'. As they get comfortable, not conceptually, but comfortable with this emptiness, this nothingness being 'I', we must audit this for us. Are we comfortable with this emptiness, nothingness, non-phenomenal 'I'? See? And as you get comfortable with this, then the urge to pick up the false 'I' will not be so compellingly strong. Otherwise, many times we see we have a recognition of it, and many times because it might even be fear more than arrogance that we rush to pick up our 'I'. If it says to call awareness 'I', so we think of the false identity, presuming that this to refer to ourselves as 'I' is arrogant. But actually, to refer to ourselves as anything other than 'I' is arrogance. Meaning there is some individual here which had the power to separate itself from Truth. Is he? As far as we'll go, all of us should contemplate a little bit on this and why it feels like 'I am arrogant, I am awareness.' Well, we are the witnesses, attribute-less. How could awareness be arrogant?