Even If Not Understanding Satsang, Can You Stop Being? - 15 Apr 2016

So yes, actually, if you are talking about an appearance in this realm, then we cannot really refer to it as the ultimate anyway because this realm is the realm of conditioning. There is no expression, true expression, of that ultimate, non-existent, non-phenomenal Absolute which can be found in this play of phenomena. This entire realm is a play of phenomena. Okay? Yes. And so then to just presume that, 'Okay, I am non-phenomenal,' which is the absolute truth, can sometimes become the denial of this appearance of this relative realm. See? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I know it can seem a bit sticky. What I am simply saying is that although the truth is always that I am this non-phenomenal awareness, yet to deny the appearance of the dynamic aspect, the phenomenal aspect which arises within me, can become a very strongly egoistic mental standpoint if you just say like a mantra that it just all is this awareness, all is this Absolute. Yeah, that can... how that manifests and how it manifested here when I was under this affliction, in the sense, was that the manifestation of this spiritual jerk. Which you... anyone would come in front of me and say, 'This is what's happening to me, this is what my day was like,' like when my wife would come and say these things to me, I would say, 'But who are you? You don't exist.' See? So I can tell that conversation would not go well now, you see? Because as I said, although everything you're saying is true, you're still being a jerk. And this jerkiness comes from sticking on mentally to an ultimate perspective and refusing to acknowledge the existence or the appearance of this realm, which is consciousness. And yet the denial of consciousness can only happen within consciousness. Awareness cannot say there is no consciousness; awareness is not interested in saying that. So even the denial of consciousness happens only within the realm of consciousness.

Yeah, yeah, if you have to believe with you or whatever.

Yeah, so there must be this appearance of this dynamic aspect, the sense I am, and within which the ability to say 'I am not.' Even to say 'I am not' first must presume the existence of an 'I am.' I know, I know it's a bit tricky today, but we must look into these things because even to say 'I am not' needs 'I am.' Yeah, I was... how do you think? Exactly. How would you say 'I am not' before there being an 'I am' which is not? Yeah, is the... so this leads to a lot of level confusion. Yeah, because in the sense that we're trying to speak about that which is the ultimate reality from a place of denying the relative appearance of this phenomenal realm within the phenomenal realm. Yeah, if all that we knew to be true is the ultimate reality, then I don't feel there would be any need to speak in the phenomenal realm.

But you still speak.

Exactly. So that is now what we are coming to. So what is then the point of satsang? What is the point of this sharing, isn't it? So for me, I would rather here, rather than denying the phenomenal play, let us look. And nobody can deny that this appearance is appearing. Really, with integrity, can we deny this appearance is appearing? No, see? It can be said that I am not in this appearance, but we cannot say this appearance is not appearing because even to see that would be within the appearance itself. Yes. So now that this appearance seems to be appearing, how does the play of appearances go? It goes with the picking up of conditioning that 'I am a person, I am the body, these are my relationships, these are things I want and these are things I don't want, this is my life.' All of this conditioned play, playing as a person, is the usual appearance in this realm. And how it also usually appears is that when one is tired of playing as a person... look, this is answering your question finally. Okay? When one is tired of playing as a person, then the next stage of this play, this Leela, starts, which is the play of freedom. Play of freedom. The play of freedom. Why? He knows nothing really happened to consciousness. Consciousness, when it started playing as a person, did not actually become a person. Okay, you see? So it played the play of the person. Okay? And then as a final game of the play of the person, it is playing the game of this dissolution of personhood itself. Yes, you see? So it is this dissolution of personhood which is the ending of the play as the person. And yet that which is this I-am-ness, which is here, cannot be denied because I cannot say I have stopped being just because I discovered I am not a person. Being is still here. The denial of being can only be within being. So you continue to play as consciousness, as God. So you move from playing as if you're a person to moving to play just as consciousness or God itself.

But when you say you play, do you feel like you're playing or is it... I'm respectively, speculatively asking what I want to ask. Um, do you feel... so you say you are playing as God. Are you playing as God or God is playing and you're just kind of there also? My pants on what you are calling yourselves.

So if you say that I am awareness, then you can say that I am the witness of God's play. Yeah, but in a sense, is there a sense of 'I am playing'? Is that sense there? I'm playing... the I am sense still remains.

So you have the feeling that you're playing?

Yes, the sense that I am itself is the play. The sense that I am itself is the play. So I am stays and this world of appearances is dancing for the I am. That itself is the play now. But you're no longer playing as the person.

But if you're saying it, does it feel like I'm playing as if like I'm playing a video game or something?

No, not like that. Get it? I don't, but it's fine. Playing... okay, so let's replace the word play. Yes, you see? So let's say that God was pretending as if it is a person and playing a pretending in that way, and now the pretense is dropped. But doesn't mean that this world of appearances stops appearing and moving about. So forget play, you see? This aspect of pretending you can understand.

Your words actually, yes. Because I kind of stopped like being able to understand the words kind of a while ago. Yes, like in every satsang I don't understand anything and I don't even know why I'm asking the questions because I also know I won't understand. But I just really like satsang. I mean, I just... I just know what I feel when I come here, so that's enough. And I know what's happening inside. It's okay. So what... somehow I want to know this. I don't know why I want to know this right now.

Okay, so tell me. I know this feeling. I know this feeling from direct experience. So when I say, 'Can you stop being now?' is it something to understand in that?

So you ask me the question, yes, and the question goes inside and something, something happens. It's like almost like somebody puts another camphor into a fire. It's like that. And I feel like it... it something burns again, some nonsense lights up and it feels real or whatever.

Okay, and that's all I can say here. But the answer is what? I don't know now. I don't know. You must try to stop being. You try to stop being. Don't be here. Don't be. Can you not be for just a second? It's important.

Oh, it's... I don't know. I don't want to say anything from my experience. Don't worry about sounding silly or right or something. I'm having something very simple. Can you stop being? But you want to get in the answer like save our long experience. You see from your own experience, can I stop being now? I can't. I can't. But I find it hard to say this because there is nothing substantiating my response. Like I usually try to speak when I have something to substantiate it, like something to prove that what I'm saying is true. But I'm just saying it's like... it feels like I'm just, you know...

We don't need any secondary evidence. Just the direct evidence that I try to stop being and yet being is still here.

Yeah, it's here. Being is here. I don't know if I can't stop it. Come on, stop it. Okay, I took a question. I try to stop it.

And the point is not to stop it or not stop it. The point is to bring you to the experience that the being is here.

Yeah, here. It's here.

So that's all that needed to be understood with that. Okay? So you are coming to the direct experiencing. The mind will be saying, 'But I didn't understand what happened.' Yeah, which is exactly what I was saying. The idea of understanding has been this conceptual understanding, and we are keeping that aside and coming to the direct looking. So you say being is here. No mental concept can bring you to this point where authoritatively you can say being is here. It can only be from here, the direct experience.

Can you tell me if I'm experiencing it or not?

You are experiencing it. Everybody is.

No, but so when I say yes, am I lying? Why am I telling the truth? If you were lying, then you would have been able to stop being. You cannot really... am I just speaking like a conceptual spiritual ego or my or whatever? Am I just... I don't know. Am I fake or am I real? Like I don't want to be... I don't want to just keep coming to satsang and just be a lemon. I like, you know, like I want is... I want... oh, like I really want to get there and speak honestly just like a child. Can you stop being? Not so... why? Because because I can feel the work. My being is being. Yes, and my heart is beating. Yeah, and I'm feeling the heart beating. So I feel like this is me being that, right?

You can feel the being is being. Does it need the heart to be to be?

But when you ask me this question, the response is almost like my heart goes boom. Yeah, yeah, I get it. If that was to stop, would that be the end of being? Suppose even this didn't come to your attention, would it be the end? Is what I feel like right now. My heart stops beating, I wouldn't exist.

If right now, can you stop being irrespective of what the heart is doing?

How can I separate my heart from my being? It's...

Being that, right? You can feel the being is being. Does it need the heart to be?

To be? But when you ask me this question, the response is almost like my heart goes boom. Yeah, yeah, I get if that was to stop, would that be the end of being? Suppose even this didn't come to your attention, would it be the end? Is what I feel like right now. My heart stops beating, I wouldn't exist.

If right now, can you stop being, irrespective of what the heart is doing?

How can I separate my heart from my being? It's like saying if my brains are functioning, then I would stop being. So is it the heart or the brain? Feels like it's the heart. I sound so dumb there. I know I sound...

I know, I know. But it's really what I'm telling you. You're looking at conditioning and ideas that we have about ourselves, and we are letting them go. It's okay to look at this, to be held on this like this.

Yeah, because the experience of the heart beating is validating my existence. And I can try and go spiritual and say, 'Yeah, I'm believing it and all,' but no, it really feels like, okay, this is... and there's emotion. There's a lot of emotion around that heart center area energy I can feel in the body. I feel this is where I am.

Yes, yes. And the rest of it is where? The rest of your body is not inside you? If you say, 'This is where I am,' the rest of it is not you?

It's not. Then what is it? Who is it? It's something else. I'm not concerned about it.

So you are just here?

I just feel like I'm in my heart. Like, it's an emotion. It's emotional and it also is accompanied with actual physical heart moving.

Yes. So if you are just here, then who would be worried about sounding silly or whether they got it or something? You're just the heart. So don't fight that. Just... now what else is there? Who else is there who doesn't want to speak from spiritual concepts? Who is it that stops understanding in satsang? The heart? And who perceives the heart also? Is that which sees the heart or is aware of the heart, is that also the heart?

No.

So that can be also seen. Are you seeing the heart? Even the beating of the physical heart, who is perceiving?

I can't catch that question. Like, it's like this one that can't get that question.

Let's keep that on the side for a while because it's simpler than that. You're seeing that the heart is beating, yes or no?

Yes.

That which is seeing that the heart is beating, who is that one? Is it providing you that your heart is beating? No, she is not. Is it not your direct experience?

It is my direct experience.

So therefore you must be seeing that the heart is beating. You are aware of the beating of your heart, isn't it?

Yes, I am. Yes.

So this one that is aware of the beating of the heart, is that also beating? Or is it the heart? What is it?

Yeah, it's silent.

Silent, yes. Does it come and go, though?

It comes and goes. Then who is there to see that it comes and goes? You say it comes and goes. Let's see.

I say this out of frustration because I'm always coming back to this place. Okay, we can... and yeah, I'm losing it and coming back and losing it and I stop. So let's say like this, okay? Suppose I am attached to something, okay? And this something is like a flower in my garden or some rose plant. It has these roses and I'm very happy when it comes, but it goes. It comes and it goes, you see? And I am watching my rose plant. The rose is coming and the rose is going, you see? And that I don't like because it comes and goes, you see? But I must be there to report that something is coming and going. I must know that the rose plant has a rose or doesn't have a rose.

Of course, of course. Yeah.

In the same way, I could say that I have this beautiful thought about the future, this beautiful image, imagination of what my house will be ten years later, and I love it. But even this thought comes and goes. Therefore, there must be an 'I' that knows that this thought comes and goes, isn't it? In the same way, you could say, 'I have this beautiful feeling of bliss,' yeah? But even this feeling comes and goes. Yeah, I mean, it's always there in satsang, yes, and then I leave satsang and it goes. Yes, but eventually it goes. Everything in this appearance comes and goes. But for you to be able to say it comes and goes, that means you must be there to watch the coming and going of it. Can you really say if you were just that feeling or that which actually came and went, then you would go along with it? No, but that's impossible. That's wrong. No, but is it just mentally impossible? No, even currently impossible. Let us check. Any feeling, the coming and going of it, am I not there to witness it? You say, 'In satsang I get these beautiful feelings of bliss and then it reduces and eventually goes.' Am I getting those experiences? Yes, I am. Yes. And yet that which is the witness of these, is it untouched by them? That which says, 'This is coming, very beautiful, very beautiful, very strong,' and then, 'Now it is going,' is that one touched by it?

Because I get it, I get it, and then I doubt it. I get it and then I doubt it. I doubt everything. I'm like a doubting person. Like, I doubt Thomas, yeah. I have that tendency from ever. I doubt everything, anything.

It's very good, spiritually very helpful.

Yeah, but it's bad also.

Well, sometimes between you and satsang it can be helpful actually because...

I don't believe anything.

Don't believe anything, no.

But it's bad.

Don't believe that also. Because like, I get a good experience, I'm like, 'Wait, am I really getting this experience? Is it really happening for me?' We could use this. If you feel like a madman, this also don't believe. This also don't believe. It is bad that you are... and all these 'ands', don't add to yourself, okay? So don't believe any, okay? Including what I am saying.

Yes. Okay. No, wait. Now I have to believe what you say. It's like, because if I believe what you say, it overrides my own belief, honestly. Because I'm able to put more trust in your words than my words. So it actually helps a lot. I just say like, 'I believe Ananta,' and then I'm able to get out of my own head and I just listen to you and it takes me out.

But so if it's replacing prior conditioning with new conditioning, that is all alright. But ultimately even this conditioning must be let go of, because I don't want you to be dependent on my belief system.

But I am right now. So let's look at how we can even transcend that. So I just want to be with, like, around you. I just wanted... I keep... I don't know, maybe... yeah, because you got it. I can just keep listening to you. You'll take me wherever I need to go. I don't have to do...

Beautiful. But just don't block off anything then. If you trust me, then just remain open to what it entails, okay? Okay, okay. 'I don't really care what he's saying, I just want to be with him.' I kind of do that, yes. Yeah, yeah, you see? Because this is a normal thing that happens with those with a devotional temperament. Sometimes they can fall into this trap, which is that he's just talking, so... see, whatever, whatever, whatever sense you have, a little bit of just remaining open. Don't say it's yours. Whatever, just remain open, okay? Say, 'I don't get it, but I trust him. He'll get me there.' Yes. And you will find that those who have come to satsang with even this devotion... like Aradhana, when she came, she had no interest in any of what was being pointed like this. She would just be like this and, 'I just want to be with you. I know that I'm safe with you. I can trust you.' Yeah, she came and yet there was some just openness to allowing things to come and some looking to happen very naturally. And now if you speak to her, she speaks about all of this awareness, consciousness. There's nothing which escapes.

I think it's only because of that actually. Because I don't get the other stuff really. I can pretend like I get it and say the stuff, but I feel like it's only because I put my whole being like in what you say. I'm like, I'm just gonna like... I just totally listen to you and then it automatically happens. It's totally you. Like, that's the only thing that works.

Yeah, it's okay like this actually. If someone was to ask me also, and although I can sound like this and sound very Advaita on things like this, but if somewhere I had to pick between being a devotee or being a gyani, I would say devotee any day. Then being a devotee is not a struggle.

Yeah, it's not. No, it's not. This is easy.

Then everything is my Master's problem, my Father's problem. Then all this conditioning from the mind—'What's going to happen to you? Where is my life going?'—all of that seems powerless.

Yeah, because none of it is my problem.

Yes, it is my problem. But none of it is your problem.

But I am a bad student. I pick it up again.

Don't pick this up. 'You get rid of it, I get it back. You get rid of it, I get it back. I'm such a bad student.' Whose problem would that be to solve? You say, 'I'm surrendered to you,' then don't pick up trying to fix the bad student also.

When I get frustrated because I'm like, 'Aha, you know it because you went to satsang and Ananta did this and was like, look, free, and then you picked it up again.' You...

Yeah, this is also my problem then. You cannot have it both ways, you see? This is okay, let me handle this. It's like you come halfway and I come halfway. I believe that it is not the views or something like that. You can say something like that. But the point, the real point is that if you surrender, then surrender everything. Yeah, there are many variations of half-surrender, and this is one of them. Yeah, the first variation of half-surrender is that you are the doer now, but I am the experiencer. Therefore, why are you doing this to me? Or thank you for doing this to me. But actually, doer and experiencer must be the same. Sometimes those who are inclined to pride, they will say all the good things: 'Yes, I was very good today. I did all the good stuff,' you see? And yet, 'God is doing this to me,' or 'My Master is doing these bad things to me,' you see? Those who are inclined towards pride will say that. Those who are inclined towards guilt will say, 'Master is doing such great stuff. Ananta is doing this, he's doing this, but yet I am being so bad.' Yeah? Then if your Master can do this good stuff, then who's doing the bad stuff? If the Master is the doer, then everything must be his doing. Understand?

Yes, I understand.

So then with this surrender, when you see that the sense of personal doership dissolves, and then you see that everything is my Master's, and then you say, 'My Master and I are one.' Yeah, I want... now let that be my problem too. You don't pick up anything about yourself. Let it all be taken up with my Father. Whatever the mind is saying, take it up with my Father. 'You're being bad, you're not listening'—take it up with my Father. I can say that. You can say that, okay? Even the most... sometimes the fear is that, 'How can I give this to my Father? This is too horrible.' Wonder if I say that, yes, whatever you can. 'How can I just say to you, how can I just put the onus or the responsibility to blame on you?' Yes, you can. You can't just make excuses for your life. Sat there like that. It cannot have it both ways, you see? Then don't give me the good stuff also. Don't give me credit for the good stuff and say, 'I attained it.' But then how does that help me exactly? So leave both of these to me. If there is a sense that my Master is doing it, then your Master is doing everything. The experience is the realm of the Master. Sometimes he's eating sugar, sometimes he's eating salt. Then you will come to the realization that there is no such thing and there is no Master, we are one. Yes, you give up on ideas of self, the most guilt-ridden ones, the most shameful ones, as well as the most full of pride, the most amazing ones. All ideas of self must be dropped. Can you take them from... that's what you're doing in satsang. 'I don't want them.' Then you don't energize them with your belief. Yeah, and especially almost all the time, say, 'Take it up with my Father.' Because I see you are attracted to guilt, yes? Why do you want to be that way? It's all my problem. Years of conditioning, right? So I don't want to make excuses, but years of conditioning and nothing for the Satguru. If you keep believing that, 'Oh, it's years, therefore it should take years to go,' then it will.

Can they be dropped? Can you take them from... that's what you're doing in Satsang. 'I don't want them.' Then you don't energize them with your belief, no?

Yeah, and especially almost every time, I say, 'Take it up with my Father' because I see you are attracted to kill it. Yes, why do you want to be that way? It's all my problem, years of conditioning, right? So I don't want to make excuses, but years of conditioning...

And nothing for the Satguru. If you keep believing that, 'Oh, it's years, therefore it should take years to go,' then it will play that way too. To that which is the eternal one, years of conditioning is nothing but a blink of an eyelid. It is the devotees that have the easiest time of it. So now you see it, don't become guilty about that, you see? Because those who are attracted to guilt will even say, if I say 'don't become guilty,' they say, 'Okay, I'm becoming too guilty' and feel guilty about that.

Yes, like I want it, I want it this... if there comes a confusion, so I can't even blame anyone else. I can't make an excuse because I chose that thought pattern. I can even, since I've come, sometimes I can see, 'Ah, at that point I chose that,' and I continue to run that way. So yeah, I feel like not running back the other way. I have to run as long...

Now you don't have to do anything. I'm running for you.

And this can be a little fearful. The mind comes and says, 'But then who are you? What are you to do?' Nothing. Thank you. I love you. I love it a lot. Yes, it seems ready.

Yes, no?

I really, I really do. I really love you a lot. I'd be totally just lost without you. You and Mooji. I'm always here, even physically. I'll mostly be here. Thank God for that. Like, thank God I was born in Bangalore. Can you imagine? Wondering if I did something right to be born in Bangalore.

We had to dance this dance together. You had to be here.

Yeah, thank God for that. Thank God for you. Okay, I love you. I guess I should go. So thanks. I love you.

I love you.