Feelings Experienced Completely Dissolve into Nothing (Silent Retreat) - 17th Oct. 2015

This morning, I remember the sticky thought that comes, and it tends to come, and its tendency now... that's just what was happening. And I was contemplating it during breakfast, and the thought is: 'I wish I could do something for my daughter.' And then it was seen that there is nobody that could do anything, there is no daughter. And then just such grief. It's funny as well, because the bad news for the seeker is that when there's grief, it's really ramped up a hundred times because there's no filter. It's just grief. But it really feels like such a death. It's like grief, death, death, grief, because there's no daughter. And it just seems that the grief just has to come about that. But it's fine, because it's just so... just grief. There's nothing can be done about it. Only when it stops, it'll just be wiped clean like it was a minute ago, and then it goes again. And I see that maybe this grief has to play out—that there is no daughter and there's nothing can be done. There's no one to do anything. The play of the daughter just has to play out in whatever form that is, however extreme that might appear. There's nothing can be done.

One of the misconceptions which is very rampant is that those who are free or those who are awake have no feelings. They are concerned about my feelings, but it's not like this. It is that these feelings come; emotions do arise. It is not a robotic vegetative state. They come very strongly. In fact, like you said, there's no filter. It just comes. But the difference is that it does not last. So it comes, it can be really strong, and then because nothing is giving it identity, nothing is keeping it around, it is just experienced completely. And it can seem so strong, but then it dissolves back into the nothingness. And there is no reporting that this happened or this didn't happen. You won't even remember what feelings came and what... this is true. But the feelings do appear. The feeling of grief can appear, the feeling of being hurt can appear, but it does not last. It's not held onto. And it's true, when joy arises, it's magnified. Everything is magnified. And one way to say it is like you said, that there is no daughter. The other way to say it also is that your daughter is Ram. Yes, there is no personal daughter, so all which is phenomenal is God, is consciousness. Then everything...

Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah. Now they're just... the grief is just like a death. Just like it does... cleaner. It's really good.

So clean. Emotions by themselves are just pure, very pure expressions of consciousness. Even anger, even grief, sorrow—just expressions of consciousness uncontaminated by personhood. Even now, it is what we use the mind to make out of it. That anger can come and the mind says, 'See, you're still just an angry person. What about all this freedom stuff? It's rubbish for you. You're still just an angry person.' If you believe that, then we made guilt out of it, resentment. These are the byproducts which need the mind. The emotions by themselves are just pure energy which are experienced in the moment. They just come, just like thoughts; they appear and disappear. Seeing the emotions just come and they go, it's very good to be just open. It's just pure awareness, pure oneness, arising as grief. It is. This is very good because then we're not holding on to any self-image, projecting that 'I'm free' or something like this. 'How can I be crying then?' That is the heaviest burden that anyone can carry. It's the biggest, biggest burden for anyone to carry. So just like this: completely open, no concept of self-image, nothing. It's all just perfect.

Thank you.