It Is Before 'I Am' (Ashtavakra Gita 11.5-11.8) - 22nd November 2016

So the sage says, 'I am not the body, nor is the body my possession. I am awareness itself.' The Supreme witness, the solitary witness of all that appears, not just this body. Why is it that we get convinced that this body is my body? For two reasons. One is that the seeming sensations which seem so intimate to us, like pain, seem to be within this body. The second is that the visual perspective of this realm seems to be as if it is enclosed, coming from behind this head, behind these eyes, and it's viewed in this way. So because the visual is coming like this, that's why it can seem like I must be something which is enclosed inside this head.

Most of humanity carries this idea that 'I am something,' even if they say 'I am the soul.' They say, 'Where the soul is? Inside the body.' Then why can't a surgeon find it if it is physical in that way? If it is phenomenal in that way, even if it is energetic in some way, then we should have some devices which can find the energetic residence of the soul within the body. But it is not like that. Then when we come to the truer understanding, we start to see that in the waking state, the presence of my being is here, and everything I experience is experienced within this being, within myself. All my perceptions, where are they being experienced? Within this being. All sensations, all thoughts, memory, imagination, within the same space of being. All is within me.

When we say 'me' now, we are talking about within this space of Consciousness. Even space is within the space of Consciousness; even time is within the space of Consciousness. It is not a three-dimensional space as the mind might be giving you a visual of some three-dimensional space. It is beyond space. And that space, the sage is saying, not even this. I am that which witnesses even this. I am awareness itself. Now once we see this to be our truth, the self-realization of this non-phenomenal truth, then if you find that your predominant existence is this non-phenomenal truth, then what is there for you to do in this phenomenal realm? What can you do here that will make a difference to awareness?

That is why the sage Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi said, 'As long as there's this sense that I am an individual, I'm a doer, as long as there is a sense that I have some choice, till then keep doing the inquiry.' There will come a point where you see that all of this was part of the play, all of this was moving only through the power of Consciousness, through Grace itself. This must be our authentic living experience; it must not just be taken as a concept. There must be no doer, because very often it can be that we continue to pick up the false doer identity for everything in life except when it comes to the inquiry. We say, 'No, no, I don't need to inquire because I'm not the doer,' but for everything else, then pride, guilt, everything still continues.

So we've thrown away the stick that is going to light the funeral pyre before we have lit it. You've thrown away the thorn which will remove the other thorns before we remove the other thorns. So in this play, some of this also happens—misunderstandings, confusion—all part of the one play of Consciousness experiencing itself without redundancies in every being in a unique way. That is why we can also drop this question: 'If it worked for him like that, why doesn't it work for me? It worked for her like that, why doesn't it work for him?' If he went up to, just went on the hot seat once and he sat in front of his master and just exploded, why can't it happen for me? Because everything is always functioning in its own unique way.

Every fingerprint is different. Just to see something like that—eye retina scan, every retina is different. Just to see these things gives us evidence that Consciousness is experiencing itself uniquely. It does not like redundancy. So everything is a unique expression of the one Consciousness. And we were looking at this, and it was a bit subtle that day: if that which is colorless, see, really transparent, whiter than white, now experiences itself as a set of colors and it separates itself into this, and yet it still remains whole, you will find that every part of the spectrum is different, isn't it? If you look at the color spectrum, if you move even one millimeter, you see, you find the taste of a different color in the spectrum. It might be slightly different, but still it is different.

So, 'one who realizes this for certain has no memory of things done or left undone' means what? Has no concern about doership, has no concern about awareness, is not really concerned about the activities that need to happen in this realm. And we discussed earlier, this does not mean that you must become passive or active; it only means that whatever is going to happen is going to happen anyway through the will of Consciousness. Our true position is that which is that of the solitary witness of this.

Verse number seven: 'From Brahma to the last blade of grass, I alone exist. One who knows this for certain becomes immaculate, serene, unconflicted; attainment has no meaning.' What does this mean, 'from Brahma to the last blade of grass'? And we discussed this, but let's look again. Brahma is that aspect of Consciousness which is the creative aspect. We see the light of 'I am' comes on and then this world appears. So that which is the creative aspect of this Consciousness, 'I am,' this is called Brahma. See, the creator itself is 'I.' And to the last blade of grass that the creator seemingly creates is also 'I,' because all is fundamentally still made up of awareness. Consciousness is made up of awareness alone. It is 'I am.' The finger is still the hand, although it appears as a finger. So from this aspect of Consciousness which is the creator itself to the last blade of grass which is the minutest creation, I am. It is I that is the truth. From Brahma to the last blade of grass, I alone exist.

One who knows this for certain becomes immaculate, serene, unconflicted. You see, so if we know this for certain mentally, we do not become serene and unconflicted. As much as we deny it mentally, as much as we struggle to prove to ourselves, there will be suffering, there will be conflict. Only when it becomes a direct living experience—it is beyond mental concept, which is in checking: who is aware of awareness? Am I aware now? Who is this one that is aware? To come to this direct tasting of the Self, it is those that remain serene, immaculate, and unconflicted. Here, attainment has no meaning.

If I am Brahma and I am the blade of grass also, the creator and everything that has been created, what is there for me to get? Yesterday we put up another set of verses from Adi Shankaracharya which is very much like that Hindi song that if I was to get this whole world, this whole universe, so what? So the verses started—I was a bit lazy, I should have said actually the more accurate translation is not just 'what if,' it is 'so what?' 'So what if I was to get this? So what if I was to get that? If I had this, if I had that?'

And something here, even when I was younger, I started to see like this: that what is it that we really even need? Even when the idea of person was there strongly, it was just, 'Okay, what do I need? I need maybe a clean set of clothes to wear, I need a comfortable bed to sleep on, I need meals at regular intervals, some entertainment once in a while.' That's it. Can we really experience much more than that? Even our tools of experiencing, these senses, have limitations. The best food, how long can we eat? The best music, how long can we hear? And something, 'Okay, but yesterday the same song was sounding so sublime, but I heard it the whole day and today I don't want to hear.' Yesterday the same rasgulla was tasting so good, but I had twenty of them and today I don't want to touch rasgulla ever again. Because why? Because our ability to experience is through these phenomenal senses, and everything in this phenomenal world has limitations.

So we find, even phenomenally speaking, that there's not so much difference depending on what kind of material existence I have. But once we see that I am beyond phenomena, then what kind of material attainment could still be of interest? It could only be a part of the play. And these pointings, they work either way. So once we see this, that I am awareness, therefore I'm unattached to any outcome in this world. Or we hear Sri Krishna talking in the Bhagavad Gita saying, 'Let the action happen, don't be attached to the fruits of the action.' Even this pointing not to be attached to the outcome of action, which is called Karma Yoga, leads to the same recognition ultimately: that I am awareness, therefore unattached. You see, so we can go this way from the recognition to how the functioning...

Pointings, they work either way. So once we see this, that I am awareness, therefore I'm unattached to any outcome in this world. All we hear Sri Krishna talking in the Bhagavad Gita, saying let the action happen, don't be attached to the fruits of the action. Even this pointing not to be attached to the outcome of action, which is called Karma Yoga, leads to the same recognition ultimately that I am awareness, therefore unattached, you see? So we can go this way, from the recognition to how the functioning in the phenomenal Lila changes, or we can go this way, which is to follow with faith and devotion the words of the Masters and make those changes in our worldly phenomenal life and then come to this seeing that, 'Oh, I'm not phenomenal at all. I am this absolute Self.' And it was only Grace that made me follow the words of these beautiful Masters.

The last verse of chapter 11: 'One who knows for certain that this manifold and wonderful universe is nothing becomes desireless awareness and abides in the Stillness of nothing.' Actually, maybe I got attracted to this translation because when I read the verses of this translation, it feels like it's the same texture as in the satsang that we share here. Even the 'no thing' is a 'no-hyphen-thing'. One who knows for certain that this manifold and wonderful universe is nothing becomes desireless awareness and abides in the Stillness of no thing.

This is what I was saying, that one, we can come to this recognition by using inquiry tools like 'Who am I?', 'Am I aware now?', 'Who is awareness?' to come to this recognition that I am this. Or even if we start to see the unreality, the ephemeral nature of this realm, the ever-changing nature of this realm, and to deprive meaning from that which is changing, to not give belief to thoughts about that which is changing, you will come to see that I am this one awareness, you see? So our recognition of the truth helps us let go of our thoughts, and our letting go of our thoughts helps us to come to the recognition of the truth. This is what I call the virtuous circle, as opposed to the vicious circle where we believe a thought, then that leads to another hundred thoughts, and one branch of the identity can lead to another hundred branches of identity, which is then the vicious circle of identity.

The good news is that the now is your best friend. Right now, you are free from identity unless you tug at the branches of identity, unless you start giving belief to a concept. You cannot even tell me what your conditioning is without first believing your thought. You cannot tell me how you are suffering without first believing your thought. You cannot tell me the story of the life of the non-existent ego without believing a thought. You cannot tell me whether you are free or bound without believing a thought. It is this thought, belief in this thought, which is the root of all of this drama of separation, this delusion of separation.

Thought is at the root of desire: 'What's in it for me? What's in it for me?' Thought is at the root of doership: 'What should I do? Why did I do this? Why did he do this to me?' And thought is at the root of duality: 'Me and another, me and my life, my family, my world,' which is already the voice of separation. So it is thought which is at the root of misery. So one who knows for certain that this manifold and wonderful universe is nothing becomes desireless awareness and abides in the Stillness of no thing. That which is aware even of our existence, that itself is not a thing. It is not an entity. It is not even the Virat form, the glorious aspect of Consciousness. It is prior to Consciousness, before 'I am'.