Awareness Is What We´re Discovering Ourself To Be - 5th August 2016

Let's say that the negative chatter is believed or has... seems to have some power still because there is an urge to go to this rather than accept the emptiness or the nothingness of what we are. Mm-hmm. That makes sense?

How do you free yourself of the fear of being in the aware state?

This is what satsang is for. All of this is for that. So our inquiry is a recognition of who we are, our marinating together in this, my reminders that the Satguru is always with you. You see, all of this is for this. So not believing our thoughts, experimentally using things and seeing that nothing really falls apart without going to the mental chatter, and more and more recognizing that I have this non-phenomenal from which all phenomena arises. So this actually is the whole reason for satsang. You get used to this emptiness, the nothingness. In fact, I would go as far as to say to be with this and to see that, contrary to what the mind is saying—that this is boring, this is so not getting you anywhere, all these thought patterns—if I just allow them to come and go, then you will find the true purpose of love, peace, and joy, which is to be in service to this unnecessary being and start to reveal itself.

There is nowhere for love and peace to go but to be at your feet. But not at your personal feet; the feet of the Divine which you are. The pretense of personhood having gone, and if I put all beautiful energies like wonder, amazement, love, peace, joy, they're just here. And there is no concern about them being here or not. There's no expectation for it yet. You see that there is nowhere for them to go but to be at your feet.

There was a lot of that, a lot more, yeah. There was a lot more, and it's delightful. And when I'm... when it's there and I'm in it, I want this every single second of my life. And it's almost like this other entity takes over, takes over a minute, you know, takes over my body, doesn't it? Yeah. And then I start feeling very negative, and I have to work awfully hard not to feel negative.

The thing is, like you mentioned the word 'intention,' you find that these beautiful energies are not in service to any intention. They are in service to our unintentionality, our emptiness. They are unassociated with any concept. Even the intention that it should always be like this actually is the productive essence, the intention in flourish, person in contention by separation. God is not, consciousness is not projecting this world on the whims of an intention as we understand it. It is not a personal intention; it is not a desire. In fact, it is very beautiful to look at this, and maybe we can digest this. It came up about intention.

It is often said that we experience the fruits of our actions. We are talking karmically now, in the laws of this realm, which we rarely do. The better word in my view... it is something also that can be spoken about, that we experience the fruits of our actions, but that fails even the most basic contemplation, you see? That fails even the most basic contemplation because there is the action of a doctor and a criminal could be the same. The surgeon could be the same. The surgeon is using a knife to cut someone; the surgeon is using a knife to cut someone, and also a criminal is using a knife to cut someone. Therefore, if both of them experience the same fruit, both of their actions are the same thing. Therefore, this basic inquiry, the concept that you experience the fruit of your actions, is immediately moved.

Then we could say that we experience the fruit of my intentions. Intending good, this is helpful, and then therefore in this realm it seems like it plays out. We experience the fruit of their intentions. So this intention now, what is said is that once you come to the realization of what you are and therefore you come to unassociated beingness by dropping of the conditioning as dominant, it is also the dropping of this law of karmic 'what you sow is what you will reap.' This law of karma itself, it seems to be in operation in this realm, although we are not too concerned about it here. But if it is on the basis of intention on which it operates, then we also notice that it is not possible then to have an intention without carrying a belief. You cannot intend for something unless there is a belief about something.

So can there be any intention that 'I will make it big time tomorrow' or in the vein intention 'change our life'? Or can there be an intention of any sort without there being the underlying belief? So as we are coming to the end of belief, as we're coming to the end of me predominantly—there is no hundred percent—it is also coming to an end, end of intention. So either as we use surrender, everything belongs to my Father, it is His problem, therefore we cannot carry an intention for ourselves. So surrender is the dropping of intention itself. Or when we come to the inquiry to see that there is nobody here who can have an intention or a goal or an ambition of any sort. As we come into the dropping of belief, then you find that there is this emptiness of concepts, of conditioning.

And that is why traditionally it has been said in India that those who come to unassociated are the only ones who can change content, change karma or their karmic patterns. And now it is also said that in the presence of the Satguru, karma gets cut. In Indian spirituality, you would have everything like this, that you come to the end of your karmic cycle in the presence of the Satguru. But it cannot happen without this sense of devotion, surrender, inquiring into who is here to carry out a particular intention. So I think it's a beautiful digression for us also to be able to look at this, to see that as we remain empty, then we are also not in the realm of this karmic intention. Or at least as the one said, that we are no longer creating any new karma. It is still experiencing, just the body is still experiencing the fruit of old karma, no problem, which is a problem. Okay, let's not get too much into it. But you're all full of karmic untanglements which are still being experienced by the body, but there's no fresh or no newly created with no new intention or new belief.

And there's an experience of this terror sometimes, the pure terror. And I've been trying to practice just sitting with it. I can just sit with the stillness when I'm home and it's in the evening and I'm done with what I need to do for the day. And then I think, 'Now what?' And I think, 'Well, maybe I'll just be outside, I'll be in silence, I'll inquire, or you know, I'll practice my Advaita.' And I just sit, you know, and then there's just... look, it's almost like an instinct, like a gasping, like 'Oh my God.' And it's a very strong fear about being alone. And I am alone. And something like... I'm aware of it and something I'm not, you know? But when I'm mostly when I'm looking at being silent or I don't have a specific activity planned out in front of me, then that's when it comes.

This is exactly what we've been talking about, which is that if you know my own Self in a way, hmm, this fear of our own Self because it is 'no-thing' in the non-phenomenal sense. And all of us, if you're interested, can go through a transcript where we describe the difference between 'no-thing' and 'nothing.' Important distinction. So is there... is there in the groups? And if somebody wants to read it, it's very useful because it can be a bit confusing because the mind only understands 'nothing' and its interpretation. The 'no-thing' that we are discovering ourselves to be is that which is lucky. Is there nothing? I have nothing. It will not be a great discovery. I mean, who wants to discover that they are nothing? This man probably wants to discover that. Okay, great distinction between the phenomenal sense of nothing, which means it is the absence of all phenomena, is it? But the 'no-thing' maybe we are discovering ourselves to be because this is the discovery of the non-phenomenal potential for everything to come because it comes from this nothing, and yet it is not limited by it. It's the potential for something to come. And it's good sometimes we think the better consumed in the written form. So when you read this, it is easier to understand.

What I'm simply saying is that this 'no-thing' we are finding ourselves to be has the potential for everything to come here. It is unlimited, it is not constricted to be by as this potential is not just a mere potential because even when the potential manifests this living universe, dynamic universe with living consciousness which projects this universe, even with the being...

It's good sometimes, we think, to have it in the written form so when you read it, this is easier to understand. Good. What I'm simply saying is that this 'no-thing' we are finding ourselves to be has the potential for everything to come here. It is unlimited; it is not constricted. And this potential is not just a mere potential because even when the potential manifests this living universe, this dynamic universe with living consciousness which projects this universe, even with the birth of consciousness and this realm, this awareness continues to be complete. It is not lacking anything. It did not disappear because the potential manifested into something. It still remains untouched. That is why it is the eternal, unchanging, unmoving Self. So, it is a beautiful, pristine 'no-thing' which is very different in quality to the phenomenal idea of nothing. I cannot fathom this; the mind says, 'What about the point?' It is discovering yourself to be nothing.

So, the movement from here has been to see if some of these points get in the way. They bring a lot of fear. 'I don't want to discover myself to be nothing. I don't want to be nothing. The whole game has been to be something.' But what you're discovering is that you are much beyond this something, not much lesser than something. Usually, you become a nothing which is lesser than something, but what you're discovering is you're much greater than the supreme greatness, but greater than something. And in this will be your actual discovery that you are something.

The second conclusion that we've been looking at very directly is that many of you are coming to the realization of the Self in the form of the recognition of awareness, but very quickly the mind has played as if it is separate from 'I' and was discovering awareness. Because many times when I hear—not you specifically, I mean the Sangha at large—I find that we link to awareness and then say, 'Okay, but nothing really happens to awareness.' But in the instinct, I hear that 'nothing really happens to awareness, but what about me?' There is a dichotomy which is being created because we speak about awareness in that way, between 'I' and awareness. But the discovery is that this 'I' at its very foundation, at its very root, is this awareness. The 'I' that remains is this awareness.

So, that's why I've offered all of you this question: Who is aware of awareness? Who is aware of this awareness? And in this question, then you will merge the sense of awareness, the recognition of awareness, with the ultimate reality of the Self, which is 'I'. Then it will not seem to be a distant experience because the mind's tricky nature, after the recognition of awareness, tries to sell awareness to you as if it was an experience. But it is not really an experience; it is the recognition of what you really are. Because if it was not the fundamental of what I am, prior to even the sense 'I am,' then there would be no point in inquiring, actually. If you were just moving towards another experience, then there would be no point. This is self-recognition, not the recognition of an experience. Self-recognition which, by definition, means 'I recognition.' I am coming to the recognition of what I truly am.

So, these two aspects, I feel, are very, very important. And this can go to the integration of our recognition with our letting go of our old conditioning, because it is seen that 'I' truly is this awareness itself. And then we will not flip-flop so much between levels. And then we will also see that it will only be conversational. What do I mean by that? I mean that our understanding about our Self—which is Understanding with a capital U—remains as awareness, and yet in the world, there can be a very natural, spontaneous way of living. So, this is not a flip-flopping in the sense... what I'm saying is that because we recognize ourselves to be awareness, it doesn't mean that we go to a restaurant and we're saying that 'Awareness, which is now playing in its dynamic aspect as consciousness, which has given itself the label Me, would like to have pasta for lunch.' Conversationally, the flip-flopping of the recognition of what I really am exists as a spontaneous, very natural way of living in the world.

What I mean by flip-flopping is that in the moments of quiet, in the moments of meditation, the moments of inquiry, seriousness remains. And then very quickly after these moments, the mind comes back again: 'Very nice experience, you should know, yes, we have felt that, we should do more of that.' It separates you immediately. That is what is not awareness anymore. That's why when we ask ourselves, 'Who is aware of this awareness?' we'll see that 'I' and awareness are one. And then the mind will not be able to sell you the story of another 'I' for whom this was also an experience.

I've asked that question lately, and following in the chat and in the groups, 'Who's aware of awareness?' And when I've asked that, it's clearly awareness that's aware of awareness, or 'I'. And it lasts for about three seconds, then I get a long one.

That's good. That's good. But the more you're inquiring, this will just be like... it won't be like you're constantly asking yourself. It will just be that once the wonder of 'I' has shifted from pointing to the personal sense of 'I' to this unlimited awareness itself, we don't have to keep reminding ourselves or keep inquiring more and more. But it is just that fact which has been misidentified, now getting truly identified within your heart. That's why the 'I' is a very tricky master. It's a chameleon, I say it, because it can be a label for the very personal 'I', this personal sense of 'I'. It can be a label for the body, it can be for the mind, it can be a label for our attention, for our emotion, even for consciousness—'I am that I am,' 'I am the function.' And it can also be the fact of this 'I' which is even before 'I am.' It looks like it's called 'before I am,' the reality of the Absolute. So, this 'I' chameleon, when it is self-identified with this floating of this label 'I' of the Absolute reality, which is the natural, unchanging you, is what we're discovering. In this discovery, then you will find that you're not so much the projector guy and the reporter that made this week happen. All of this will just seem like some surface-level activity. You remain unchanged.

You mentioned a little while ago that there is some written material on the difference between 'no-thing' and 'nothing,' and I wondered, what is that? Is it on your website under written materials, or...?

Oh, somebody's put it online. I'll check with them. Right, okay. We'll show you. I feel it's something better to consume in the written form, so we can take our time over every sentence and clarify as you go along with our own peace.

Yeah, okay. Thank you so much. It's so lovely to talk to you again.

Thank you. Thank you so much.