Its Not About What We Think or What We Feel - 14th April 2016

And this openness, freshness, and then this integrity—there can be no resistance. If resistance comes, it cannot really last. And we see that there is nothing missing in the right now. The words of Satsang is what our direct experience is right now. This is very, very important. Let's compare the words of Satsang with the direct experience of what is right now, and not with the story of what I feel it should be or think it should be. Then you see that which I'm speaking is completely true for you. And you should know that any story we pick up about ourselves is only a doorway to suffering. But the good news is that you cannot really suffer without buying the story. You can be with a lot of pain, but for this pain to become suffering, the sufferer is just a figment of imagination of our thoughts. There is no sufferer, there is no doer, there is no thinker idea.

Many times we just presume for this entity that is not there. There is no entity. The same mind which tells the stories of suffering is selling you the stories of freedom from suffering. The same one that said that 'My life is terrible because of this, this, and this' is also saying that 'Your life can be better if you listen to Satsang' and things like this. But if you really listen to Satsang and if you really look at where I am pointing to, you will find that I am not pointing to an individual entity at all. I am speaking to you as consciousness which is currently playing the role of a person. And all that I am really saying is that, 'Why? Have you had enough?'

Thinking about this in the last years of almost every day Satsang, we have uncertainties. 'How do I drop the person? How do I not believe my thoughts? What are the powers of attention and belief? What is the root of identity? What is doership? What is truth? What is devotion? What is surrender?' And Bhagwan answered these questions in the 1930s. Same questions. And we read 'Talks with Ramana Maharshi.' People sometimes read, and I enjoy listening to it very much. And I have to be honest, not so much for the answer actually, as I enjoy hearing the question. Then I enjoy hearing that the questions were just the same almost 100 years ago. Still talking about the same thing. So there is something which is so deeply invested in making the idea of the person work that we are not willing to open up to the simplicity of what is being shared. And that ultimately is also a play of the same consciousness.

So you must not take on any sense of personal guilt about it. 'Oh, I am not doing a good enough job of dropping the person.' This is very popular in seeker's identity: 'I am unworthy because I am not doing a good enough job of dropping my person.' Who is this one? Just the same person's voice. And actually, if we go by the score of identification, then every time we buy the nonsense thoughts about unworthiness, not getting it, not dropping the person enough, not surrendered enough, not understanding enough—it's knotting up ten more points in the scoreboard for the ego. And right now the mind might be shouting and saying, 'But then what do I do? He is not telling me what to do!'

Yes, just look. Who is this voice talking to you? And how to look? It's not some mystical, esoteric process. Very, very simple. It's definitely not mystical. How to look? How do I inquire? Just by looking simply: Who am I? That which is appearing, or that to which that which is appearing is appearing to? Who am I? Is it that which is appearing, or am I that to which that which is appearing is appearing to? And because it's a long one, let me see if I can say it again one more time. Am I that which is appearing, or am I that to which that which is appearing is appearing to? This is what I said, it's very simple. Okay, am I that which is seen, or am I the seeing of it? How's that? That which is seen, or the seeing of it? Which one am I? If you say you are that what is seen, then who's seeing it? I am not seeing it. And don't go to the mind. The mind wants to jump and say, 'I'm both, I'm both, I know, I know this.' Hold on.

So if you are that which is seen, then who is it being seen by? What is more intimate to me: the seeing or that which is seen? And even if the mind is saying, 'Yes, yes, I know this,' check again. It doesn't hurt. So what is everything that is seen? The outer world. Is it the outer world, or is the seeing of it more intimate to me? Am I this which is also appearing in the outer world? This body, which the mind very fantastically actually makes a distinction from, and says, 'Outer world, no, no, not you.' But the body is in the outer world, isn't it? It is part of the same world, the same realm which is appearing. This body is a part of that. Who sees this one then? What else is seen? Thoughts. Am I seeing them, or are they seeing me? They are coming and going. Am I going along with them? I am still here. Therefore, I cannot be these. Also seen are memory, imagination.

Also we say, 'This morning I was feeling very frustrated.' So what we are saying is, before this morning this frustration was not there. I was there. Was this feeling there or not? I was there. I perceived it. And we also say, 'I woke up at 6:30 this morning, went to sleep at 11:00 PM.' Something is already very clear about this truth. This presence also dissolves when sleep comes, and this presence comes back up. Give it to the mind. You sleep and you will wake up. A child knows this. You sleep, and that which wakes up is your own presence, consciousness. And yet you are still there. 'I went to sleep.' And you say, 'But I don't know, I didn't have an experience of sleep because there was nothing there.' How can you say 'I experienced sleep' if there was nothing there? You are saying there was nothing there. It's nothingness.

You see? So it is not secondhand experience. Nobody told you that when you went to sleep there was nothing. You see it yourselves. Then you say, 'Today I woke up,' which means the 'I am' woke up. So this one that saw all of this outer—seeming outer and seeming inner—don't you know it is you? You know it is you. What else could it be? If it's not you, you already know it is you. Now what is the only trouble left over? My mind is saying... is there another you? Here is the mind representing, and these are my... still a bit out? No. Oh, maybe the light is down. Okay. Is there another one of you which the mind is representing? Another one which is not getting enough attention and therefore needs this voice to comment, to give its opinions about things?

This one, do you have a sidekick that you never knew about? This mind comes and complains about you, representing you. And if it is representing you, so you must already know what it is saying. If it is your voice, then why do you need to see it? You must already know it. If you have a pain in the stomach, the experience, you know of the pain. Why do you need a voice to say, 'I have a pain in the stomach'? It's already known. If you're feeling hot or cool, it is already experienced. But you will find that this mind is most often not talking about experience, but some ideas about you. As simple as that.

And this mind tells you that right now you are not God, you are something else. You are some person which none of us can ever find. So actually, it is not that you... the punch is, 'I can be a person' is the most crazy idea ever. Because nobody has ever found this one. Yeah? So almost seven billion seemingly appear on this planet. If you were to talk to all of them and ask, nobody can show this person. And yet everybody is pretending to be one. This is Maya. We must have gone to some very good acting schools if we took on the role so well. Now drop the act. Yeah? Drop the act. Stop the act.