It’s Not About What We Think or What We Feel - 14 Apr 2016

You see where I'm going? Just this: anything which tells you that you must not be this way, that this feeling must not come, that you will always now be free, that no grief can ever come to you, that you will always only have joy and bliss—all of these are just traps. Ideas we have about ourselves, especially these spiritual ones, are ultimately also just ideas from the mind. And the reality that is, is not reliant on any of this. And in this openness, in this freshness and in this integrity, there can be no resistance. Or even if resistance comes, it cannot really last. And we see that there is nothing missing in the right now.

When we compare the words of satsang with 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 will see that which I am speaking is completely true for you. You are nobody. And the story that we pick up about ourselves is only a doorway to suffering. But the good news is that you cannot really suffer without buying a story. You can experience pain without the story, but there is no sufferer in this pain. The sufferer is just a figment of imagination, of our thoughts. There is no sufferer, there is no doer, there is no thinker, except as an idea. Many times we just presume this entity, but there is no entity.

The same mind which is selling you the stories of suffering is selling you the stories of freedom from suffering. The same one that said, 'My life is terrible because of this, this, and this,' is now 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'm really saying is: Wake up.

We have talked about this in the last years of almost every day's satsang. We have answered: '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 Bhagavan answered these questions in the 1930s. Same questions. When you read 'Talks with Ramana,' a devotee also sometimes reads and I enjoy listening to it very much. I have to be honest, not so much for the answer actually, because I enjoy hearing the question. I enjoy hearing that the questions were just this same theme almost a hundred years ago. We are 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 the seeker identity: 'I am unworthy' or 'I am not doing a good enough job of dropping my person.' Who is this one? It's just the same person's voice. And actually, if the ego is keeping score of identification, then every time we buy these nonsense thoughts about unworthiness, not getting it, not dropping the person enough, not surrendered enough, not understanding enough, it's knocking up ten more points on 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, just to look: Who is this voice and who is it talking to?

And how to look? It's not some mystical, esoteric process. It's very, very simple. It's definitely not mystical. How to look? How do I inquire? Just by looking simply: Who am I? Am I that which is appearing, or am I that to which that which is appearing is appearing? Am I that which is appearing, or am I that to which that which is appearing is appearing? And because it's a long sentence, 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? After I said it's very simple! Okay: Am I that which is seen, or am I the seeing of it? Am I that which is seen, or that which is the seeing of it? Which one am I? If I am that which is seen, then who's seeing it? I am not seeing it. And don't go too far yet. The mind wants to jump and say, 'I'm both, I'm both, I know, I know.' Hold on. See. Stay with this. Can I be 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,' let's check again. It doesn't hurt. So what is everything that is seen? The outer world is seen. Am I that 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? The mind very fantastically actually makes a distinction and says, 'Outer world? No, no, not you.' But the body is also in the outer world, isn't it? It is part of 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 they are seeing me? And thoughts are coming and going. Am I going along with them? I am still here; therefore, I cannot be these also. They are seen. Same for memory, imagination. Then emotion also. You say, 'This morning I was feeling very frustrated.' But what we are saying is, before this morning, this frustration was not there. I was there. I was still there, whether this feeling was there or not. I was there, and this feeling is perceived and seen.

And we also say, 'I woke up at 6:30 this morning, went to sleep at 11:00 PM.' So something is already very clear about these truths: that this presence also dissolves when sleep comes, and this presence comes back up. Don't give it to the mind. You sleep and you wake up. A child knows this. That which sleeps and that which wakes up is your own presence, consciousness. And yet you are still there to say, '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 is nothingness. No-thingness. You see? So it is not secondhand experience. Nobody told you that when you went to sleep there was nothing. You see it yourself. Then you say, 'I woke up,' which means the 'I Am' woke up. So this one that saw all of this outer seeming and inner seeming—don't you know it is you? You know it is you. Who else could it be if 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?' The mind is representing... and some of them are still greyed out... 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 and give its opinions about things? Who is this one? Do you have a sidekick that you never knew about? The mind comes and complains about you. Who is it representing? And if it is representing you, you must already know what it is saying. If it is your voice, then why do you need to hear it? You must already know it. If you have a pain in the stomach, the pain is already experienced. You know of the pain. Why do you need a voice to say, 'I have a pain in the stomach'? It is already known. If you are 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. It's 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 I can be a person; it's just the most crazy idea because nobody has ever found this one. Almost seven billion seemingly appeared 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 that. Lay back. Drop the act.