Neti Neti or Including Everything - 7th January 2018

I have a question about, I don't know if I can call it the concept of Neti Neti. Yes, because somehow in my experience, it's more that I want to include everything. Yes, I want, I want to be everything. I don't want to be 'I am not that, I am not that, I'm not that.' And yeah, I don't know, I don't know how to... there seems to be some kind of struggle between these two ideas, or maybe, maybe I can include even Neti Neti within the 'I am everything'.

It's funny, it's like many of these, contradiction is inherent in them. Then you discover what's at the end of it. What is that to which I cannot say 'not that'? To me, Neti Neti is 'not that, not that.' See, you're coming up to a point where we cannot say 'not that' to this. And then in this, you will find that everything is this. This is the conundrum. You will not find, 'Oh, there is just this which is just like...' but that it is just because our focus has been on this side of 'I am.' You tell me when you lose me, okay?

So, after our existence, this entire phenomenal play is there. All our focus has gone on it: the people, the events, money, relationship—all of this is on the side when you exist. So the Sages devised a mechanism by which some focus could come to this itself, the Being, and that which is even prior to 'I am.' How do they do that? Let's use the filter of what is real to mean to say what does not come and go. Then it is this Being itself which seems to come to the recognition of its own source. And when it does that, then this individual mask of individuality falls away, yeah? The mask of division falls away, and then naturally it includes everything.

So what is happening is that as identity has gone on phenomenal events for so long, the Sages say, 'Okay, for some time, not this. Not this. What else is there?' I would say, if I can be so courageous as to add something to what the Sages say, I would say instead of doing Neti Neti, you do 'What else is there?' Now, is that so? The world is there; what else is there? Because Neti Neti starts how? 'Not the world, it is changing. Not the body, it is changing. Not my thoughts, they are changing. Not my emotions, they are changing.' What can we say about that which is not changing? So instead of saying 'not, not, not,' you see, okay, world, fine, good. Could hug the world and say, 'Okay, what else is there?' Body is there; what else? Thoughts are there; what else? Emotions are there; what else? Even this; what else? Is fine.

So the point of Neti Neti is not to come into some sort of opposition to the world, but to bring some focus back to where this world comes from.