Being Free from Addiction to Personhood - 27 May 2015

But there is something which is getting missed out in these two perspectives. So one, we are taking the absolute perspective as awareness, and it is true that as awareness you can never be bound. And the bound perspective is this personal perspective, the imagined one as I say, which is the ego. And saying that, we often say that the mind will always talk about you as a person, so don't expect it to change. So then what is the point? The point of satsang is that we come to a place of unassociated being. And for those of you who are new to satsang, they might be confused now between awareness, beingness, and person. So let me quickly, quickly go through those as well.

So when we speak about person, we are saying this idea that I am a separate entity, I am an individual, I am that which my name refers to. And it is not the body. What my name refers to is not the body; the body is just a part of what it refers to. Because the body is unconcerned about relationships, unconcerned about being a father, mother, daughter, son, parents—all of these things. It is unconcerned. It is unconcerned with the amount of money you have. It is not just the body. There is an imagined entity called the person. I say imagined because when you look for it, you cannot find it. There is the person, you see? I don't know. And yet you will find the voice, the voice of the mind, the voice of the ego, this thought stream which is constantly trying to convince you of your personhood. And because it speaks authoritatively, you start believing that yes, I must be this person. This is what we mean when we say person, mind; we use all these terms interchangeably.

Then the question is: what is this being, Atma? You keep hearing these terms, you see: consciousness, soul, being, God. But how many are clear about this, or is it just a label or a concept? If I were to tell you, in the sense 'I am,' many of you, this can seem... no, it is clear that there is a being which is here. There is a sense that I exist, the presence. And in this stage, we can call the waking state, it is not possible for this presence to not be there. The sense of being to not be there is not possible in this case. And yet in the deep sleep state, even the presence of 'I am' is not present. So if even this 'I am' is not present, how do we know that there is a deep sleep state? How do we know? 'I went to sleep,' like I often say that in satsang it was so boring you went to sleep, then you wake up in ten minutes, you know you went to sleep, isn't it? There is nothing to report from there, but you are aware of even this nothing. This is what we mean by awareness.

When I ask the question, 'Are you aware now? Am I aware now?' this is the only non-phenomenal experience, which means this is the only confirmation you can give without actually tasting anything phenomenally. Am I aware now? You don't see anything to confirm this, and yet you know completely, 'Of course I am aware. Awareness is here. It is what I am.' So when we say that this awareness, this awareness can never be bound, it is easy to take: 'Yes, this awareness can never be bound, it doesn't want freedom.' And then when we check, the voice of the mind doesn't change. Even after this discovery that I am this awareness, the voice of the mind is still the voice of the mind, always talking to you as if you are a person. So then you come back to the main point, which is: what is the point of satsang?

The point of satsang is that this pure presence, 'I am,' has the power of belief, and it can believe itself to be a person. So the power of belief is the power to pretend. It is I-am-ness which is associated as a person, an imagined one, and it is I-am-ness which is tired of this association. It brings this appearance into satsang, and it is I-am-ness which rids itself of this association as a person and it becomes the unassociated being. So when we are speaking as this awareness, as this 'I am,' as this beingness, this being, this consciousness has complete control over the power of belief to withdraw belief from this egoic mindstream so that you can rest as the unassociated being, untroubled by this way of suffering which is all person. Sorry.

So I would just say that once it is clear that belief in this mindstream, this flow of thought, is just the doorway to misery, the doorway to suffering, then our being is unassociated. So 'I am' is as 'I am.' It is not saying 'I am the body,' it is not saying 'I am whatever your name is,' it is not saying 'I am whatever identity, mother, daughter.' That is the entire point of satsang: to get rid of this pretend association. It gives you your dynamics, you know? When I started speaking, I felt we'll keep it really simple because I heard the words coming out of my mouth, I was feeling that okay, those who are new must be wondering what is going on.

This... I'm noticing that all this stuff is coming up to trick me and I can see its tricks. And it's like even the other day when I wrote to you, after I wrote it I thought, 'But it's all gone, and what did I do that for? Why did I message, you know, take up so much of your time for nothing?' None of it was true. And it's like all these even feelings, old feelings of like guilt, are coming up because I've always held myself back from expressing sometimes. And something wants to express itself and I think, 'No, I'm going to be judged by what I might write,' or they're all silly thoughts. And I thought, 'But if it wants to express, let it express.' And it's like it's coming from every angle; things are coming to me from every angle, but I can see its falseness. I can see because I think what I went through this month with all this, you know, I felt such darkness that I didn't even feel that when my mother passed away. It was very, very... it was really, really horrible. And the pain was, the emotional pain was so strong that I felt like I had to get out of this body to cope. And when I was out of the body, I realized that only when I was in the body that I was feeling the pain, and I could only survive this pain when I was out of it. And I think something happened, I don't know. Because since I've come back home, I feel like I'm out of my body most of the time and I don't need to be. It's... yeah. So I'm like floating, but it feels like whatever's happening is happening really quickly. It doesn't give me time. I can't hold on to anything. I can't even stay angry with my husband. Sometimes we're in the middle of an argument and I start laughing right in the middle of it thinking, 'Look at this, I can't even hold that.' It's just, I don't know what it is. It's just so strange.

This, your husband should be grateful for satsang. No other reason, at least for this he should be grateful.

God, yes. I mean, I shouldn't be on satsang today because I'll have to start cooking soon, but I thought, 'No, I have to. It doesn't matter, I have to do what I have to do today.' So it is easier for me, the nighttime ones, but yeah, I had to be here. And just being here, like you've said in your quotes, just being in satsang melts away the ego. And I believe that, I really believe everything you say. Everything you say touches my heart so very, very deeply and I am just so grateful to you. Ananta, I love you so much and I just can never repay what you've done for me and for many. So thank you so, so much.

Thank you. I love you too very, very much. I love you very much too. God bless. Thank you. One point also I wanted to speak about was that you are coming to this discovery that you are not in the body. Initially it might seem like it's a special experience for some when they say, 'Oh, I had an out-of-body experience.' I know also that they are maybe speaking of different things; the perspective of vision may be changed and they saw that from a different perspective. But actually the fact is that we cannot be in the body. The body also is appearing inside consciousness. It's very good that all these insights are coming to you, and sometimes it seems strange. It seems like, 'Oh, I'm floating in all this, I don't have legs to stand on anymore, I don't know what's going on.'

When they say, 'Oh, I had an out-of-body experience,' I know also that they are maybe speaking of different things. The perspective of vision may be changed and they saw that from a different perspective, but actually the fact is that we cannot be in the body. The body also is appearing inside consciousness. It's very good that all these insights are coming to you. And sometimes it seems strange; it seems like, 'Oh, I'm floating in all this, I don't have legs to stand on anymore, I don't know what's going on.' It's all very auspicious when you're losing this body condition, you're losing the body identification, losing the mental identification.

So many times it happens with the mind also, isn't it? 'I don't know what I'm saying, I don't know where I am to go next.' So many times I tell you that if I just forget everything, then remind me, okay, what is supposed to happen next? Are we at the beginning of satsang? Satsang, what's going on in the mind, the body? Sometimes we don't know where, but it doesn't really matter because I am always, I always feel I'm always here. Yeah, it doesn't really matter what I experience, it is just an experience. So it's very good. Thank you. Also, it is 12:30 in Japan. Tell them, May, I think that's my dear. I don't want to... can you hear me okay?

Yes, yes. Okay. I haven't really got much to say actually. Um, I understood a little bit what you were saying in that, and one of the things is that I have a thousand questions for you, but they all just like, they all seem rubbish. Everything comes out of my mouth, I also just don't believe, and it passes. And I just want to check with you that it's just okay for me just to sit here in satsang and just, you know, just sit with you and just checking that that's okay just to do, you know? Because I don't feel... it just feels that's all I need to do at the moment.

Yes, yes, yes. It's completely fine like this. It is safe in satsang with this complete sense of emotion. Many of you call me Father; with your love, you just sit like visiting your father with no sense of giving back or having no sense of holding back. Oh, okay, we just sit innocently. If something comes, come up and do share. If nothing is coming, you can just sit. It's completely fine.

Um, I also wanted to... the one thing, the two things I did want to say was how I appreciate and love... I'm not an online person, so I don't really get to communicate with the sangha at all, but how much this love really is developed for my sangha. And you know, they're all over the world—South Africa, Australia, America, and Europe, and India—and this love has arisen for them. And I so appreciate their questions because so many times their questions are either questions I'd like to ask myself or questions that I didn't realize that I needed maybe to hear. And you know, and how I appreciate them so much and I love them, and I feel very privileged to be part of this. It's such an amazing... and thank you. And yeah, that's all I wanted to say. Thank you very much.

This beautiful sangha. Even my gratitude to all of you. Love you also very much. And I often say you are my Master's gift to me. And you see that in every sangha there are some different types of constituents. Different types of constituents. So some will come, be part of the sangha, and they will drop out, which is normal. Some dropouts are bound to be so. Let's take maybe the college metaphor. Yes, so some will say that, 'Oh, this course is really not for me,' and drop out. Another will say, another type of dropout will say, 'I got everything, I already know this course, why am I here?' and drop out. So those are the dropouts.

Then there are some who graduate, who really in their heart they feel, 'Yes, it's true discovery. What I am is clear.' So what I mean by graduate is it's clear: no suffering, none of this trouble. But it doesn't feel to continue as part of the sangha anymore. It just feels like life is charting its own course, it is going somewhere in its own way, you see. So I say, okay, you graduate and let life take you wherever it is. But it's good if you get this graduation from the mouth of the Master, because many times the dropout will say so. It's good to check. It's just good to check.

And the third order goes to the fourth. Yes, the fourth are who just feel like, 'This is my home. It's not a college. This is where I must be and I cannot leave. I don't care—graduated, dropped out, understood, not understood—I just know that this is home.' Like this has all of these, and it's okay. This is how it plays. Is everyone clear now on what is the point of satsang, of what they're going to say? This question, and now looking at its logical conclusion: what is the point of satsang? You can share with us. What is the point?

Okay, so apparently Start says, 'There is no point of satsang for the mind.' Yes, okay. Then what's the point? Myself, something about coming to a place of unassociated... but the ego was never here to just imagine. He says, 'Father Ji, I am watching. This is my home.' One he says, 'To talk to false Father and we are natural Self.' What does it mean to drop the false? What does it mean, everybody? These questions, this question is for everybody. What does it mean to drop the false?

Very true. The point of satsang is to... the point is to stop pretending. How do we stop pretending? Really, I feel I need to spoon through, keep missing your next thing. How are we pretending? By believing our next thought. How are you pretending? You are believing a thought. However, who is pretending himself? Who is pretending to be a person? That's why I say, isn't it, that if you want to see God pretending to be a person, wait for your next thought. Because this consciousness, which is as unassociated consciousness—because 'I am that I am,' God said in the Bible—so it is clear that awareness for the witnessing, nothing is changing. Whether pretending is happening or not happening, nothing is changing.

The mind is always the mind. Even the mind of the sage is, although it might be a lot less, but flow might be a lot less, but the content is very much the same. Okay, that can be finished. Therefore, the point of satsang must be that this being, this consciousness itself, is pretending to be a person inside of the suffering of the person. This pretense, it gets tired of the pretense itself, from this addiction of listening. So all that is happening in satsang is this freedom from this addiction. And sometimes when the addiction is gone, you feel how much, so much freedom. Sometimes when the withdrawal symptoms are there, you say, 'Oh God, this is all rubbish, it's not working for me. I want the mind back. At least I knew what it was doing, you know? I'm tired of this awareness.'

So these are little symptoms, no addiction. But as my Master says, this is rehab for God Himself. For those of you who are new to satsang, this might be like a little blasphemous, but it is. This is actually rehab for God Himself, by God Himself. And that all these identifications are getting chopped off. And some identifications have been nourished; when they are chopped off, it seems like you cry about them. So much pain. 'I love that part of me.' All rubbish. So even this, this part of the withdrawals and things, and some when you drop them, so much sense of space and peace only as being.

So the one who is worried about whether which choice will be made or not is still the mind. That's the full point. So it is not any other entity which has the power of belief. So there is no other entity. There is only one. There is only one. Then all choices... and when it is tired of the choice, then it makes for satsang within, going through twice the techniques. All of this personal is because there is one pretending to be a teacher as if you know something, another pretending to be a student as if he doesn't know anything. All the play of this one being itself. So even this is part of the game. It's part of the... it's part of the Maya, you see.

It's like in a computer game, there are various missions that you might have to complete. Then finally, when you get tired of the game, there is a sense of addiction... between. So somewhere you program the voice they are saying, but still part of the game. But it is reminding you to wake up. It's all your own as consciousness, all part of the game. But there is a voice which is reminding you of what you are. Mostly other, when you interact with people, everyone is referring to you as a person. 'Mr. Lao, how are you doing? What are you going to do?' Nobody is referring to you as consciousness. Everything which is phenomenally existing is part of the pretense.

So if you realize that all of this is... some conditioning is always there. Okay, there is... so there is one awareness which is the witnessing of all of these states which are coming in. You say, 'I went to sleep, but it was broken sleep.' When we get involved in the appearance and we call anything in the occurrence 'me' or 'mine,' untouched by the movement of time and space also... but when the appearance is coming and you say, 'This is me, this is being, this is meaning,' that's when all the troubles come to the number. Age is part of the appearance in this particular 16 years. So if you look at the content of dreams, you hardly speak about this. Some of you also will find this name, still have dreams about failing an exam or having studied for the wrong exam, because it is a fear which is this.

Many of us will have other dreams which are about unresolved desires. So unresolved fear, desires, and fears are the most common content in the projection which we call dreams. But funnily enough, various other forces which are at work even in sleep still. So sometimes you could find if you travel to a different place, if you travel to a different location, you find that you're having a dream in another language, the language of that... I don't know, which is still not forgiving, still not completely free from that, is still trying to be used. This is the most common. Many times like past lives.

The point in satsang here is not too much to analyze, okay, why did this... which is the appearance, which in India we call Maya for appearance. So rather than contemplating too much about why does this Maya project like this, because ultimately it is this self-realization that 'I am this,' meaning this decreasing, this awareness which will give us suffering. Otherwise, what happens is when we free from suffering, or it becomes another trap trying to manage, because we find that, okay, the waking state is not enough for me, we are trying to resolve something in the industry. As you see that I have this, that is the witness of the presence and absence of being itself, and we will use the ability to suffer. If you suffer, that is why I am here. I'm here because it seems that the purpose of this voice is to help you lose the ability to suffer.

And that which is the witness of the presence of and absence of being, isn't it? Because you say, 'I slept,' and even the sense 'I am' was not there. And now is what is the difference between sleep state and waking? Sleep is like this, but it depends on nothing, depends on the person. All depends on whether it's consciousness... um, is with that which is the freedom which is which. And I really don't want, I don't know, I mean I want to see that problem because I see that, you know...

This is very good. You say like this because it reminds me of a mail I got yesterday, and this one said, you know, that I didn't really want freedom, I was just coming to satsang because of peer pressure and like this. She said like this. And I don't believe them because satsang, if it is just because of peer pressure, you will come once, you will come twice, you will not get your mind here to be tortured every time. It cannot be. So if you've been in satsang, it must be that this resonance for freedom is here.

Because like, like now, like like I'm saying, like after having seen and even this morning, like little thoughts like me troubling myself, it still gets attention. And then that creates, like she said, more thoughts that I'm not being loyal, like loyal enough to this, and why am I giving any attention to those thoughts where I was not giving it a few days back?

It will not get your mind here to be tortured every time. It cannot be so. If you've been in satsang, it must be that this resonance for freedom is here. Because like now, like I'm saying, after having seen, and even this morning, like little thoughts like me troubling myself, it still gets attention. And then that creates, like she said, more thoughts that I'm not being loyal, like loyal enough to this. And why am I giving any attention to those thoughts where I was not giving it a few days back? So right now it's like a medley of things going on. And I'm really like, I come here because I love you so much and I think this so much. And I really don't know what I would... I don't know. There's a fear wanting to like not hear, but I really want to see it because why am I still giving some juice to my crap? Why?

What happens is that one tip I want to give all of you is that it will trap you in this way where it gets you to do a postmortem of the past. That's why I used to keep saying—I'm not saying for a few days, so maybe you need to hear it—don't take your temperature. As many of you I find constantly, you're taking your temperature: 'How am I? Am I believing in my thoughts?' I'm not about that. Just in any moment, if you find that something has been picked up, don't say 'Why did I pick up again? Am I still down?' That is still the same voice. You start fresh in that moment. You can never become that guy. I'm not worried about that, but the experience is just not right to think that you are that.

Yes.

But this openness to all experiences will also come and you will stop even labeling it. We're carrying our own menu and saying, 'This is how it should be, this is how it should be, this is nice.' You go into the restaurant of life; just trust life for whatever it is. Because otherwise, if it has the potential to push these buttons, the universe knows exactly what it is and has perfect timing. The only thing that resists this is called the mind. So the ego is only a resistance. Is the thought that's coming 'What to do now?' is what you do thing is now like just nothing to... if you refuse to open, it will stop coming. But if you open and feel today you have something different, then again it is... it doesn't have anything different. It's the same salesman. If one trick works, you'll also see these tricks as mine. The line starts working, a new line, that line starts working. It's very sneaky like this. It's very good it happened like this because you are transcending all of these tricks up there. What gets you now? What to do now? It's not really getting you; it is coming.

One thing that gets me is that past. Just a few days back you were right there, you were not believing anything. You can, you know, you're just in this awareness. Now you are there, you are that one.

Unless we go to future or past, we cannot be bound by any thought. So drop any image that you have of yourself from the past. There is nothing of value there. It is all here now. Because in this way, actually, you might develop a spiritual ego. You say that 'I attained...' What is the spiritual ego? It is a picture of yourself which is awake. You see, this is a picture of yourself which is awake. It is still not you. It is still a picture. That is great, that is the way you painted a picture of yourself with a halo around its head: the free person. Forget about these pictures. You are here now. Something wants to hold on to that picture because saying, 'Yes, yes, that is our game. We got very easy and now you lost it again. It's time to put some guilt on you.' That's trying to make this game about it.

I can just see all this game. I'm not doing anything. Yeah, it's just happening. I just suddenly find myself sitting in front of you and suddenly find myself at home. It's like I'm not moved. It's just that what is appearing in front of you... the mind says that you are moving and to be this appearance is moving. I am untouched.

Unknown is to be taken and he will have a peaceful life, thoughts in the right direction and without giving up his social responsibility. The real one in satsang is just the one who has come to the true discovery of what he is. Then you can say what it is and what are the symptoms of it. So you can describe what it is—you see a disease, you can describe what the disease is, or you can describe the symptoms of it. So the reality of one who is in satsang is the one who has discovered what he really is, or he has only this in his heart: that 'All I want is my Atma Darshan.' The symptoms of it could be the ones that you described. The one who truly wants freedom or who has come to the self-discovery of what they are, then they have these attributes. But we must not confuse such to be the attributes because many who are even the sages exhibit many different attributes. It's not about the attributes; it is about the presence. Okay, I feel we are getting late because we have Guruji's satsang starting in a few minutes. There are lots of chat, lots of questions, but maybe we can keep it for tomorrow and we'll discuss. You may have a song before you go? Have one from somebody that's coming up.

Thank you all so very much for being in satsang today. Namaste. Pranam.