Only Consciousness Has the Power of Belief - 30th March 2016

Exactly.

But, let’s say when I am sitting in silence and thoughts are coming, just coming, coming and letting go, peaceful and very nice and aware of the peacefulness and everything, it’s nice. And then negative thoughts are coming, through; letting go of past, like memories, you know. Now it’s automatically; they are not useful. But then, let’s say, maybe you should plan to book a taxi for tomorrow and then you can let go, yes; and then I can let it go, this way or I can engage into it and do it and it won’t trouble me. You know?

So your first part of the question was, ‘Who is the one that believes a thought because Consciousness cannot do it.' That’s what you say. I say, only Consciousness is here therefore only Consciousness can do it. That’s why I say that the powers of attention and belief only belong to Consciousness. There is nobody else here, you see. We didn’t find this one; we looked for so many days. So it is only Consciousness that has the power of belief. A thought has no power of belief. A thought cannot believe another thought. A thought is just come and gone. It is not around actually to believe the next thought, it is already gone. So it is only…, in deep sleep state no question of belief, isn’t it? There is no Consciousness there, so no question of belief. It is when this dynamic aspect is born, called Being or Consciousness, then it has all of these powers of attention, belief, identity and all these phenomenal powers.

But let’s say, I believe into a thought and then I can see that I believed it as well. So, this is not..., Is this Consciousness believing into a thought?

Yes.

Okay.

Because this is the only ‘I’ there is here, in this way. When you say, ‘I believe my thought’ which ‘I’ are you referring to? This ‘I’ that is Being; not the Awareness of this Being, the Being itself.

Okay, and then when I believe the negative thought, how can Consciousness be in trouble then?

It’s never really in trouble. That’s why I say it is only pretending. The power of belief is God’s ability to pretend to be a person. It’s a big pretense. That’s why in India, it’s called a Leela, which means a play. It’s just a play. It’s God’s play. To give this play more juice, it gave itself the power of this belief. Just like this..., Okay, so I take this example often, but maybe you have not heard it. We put on a computer game. And then it starts, but you are not believing anything, you are not that character, there is no story that you are engaged in, you have no fun. You must find a relate-able character, you must want to kill the enemies of that character, you must achieve a mission, you see. So you have to believe yourself to be that James Bond or whatever character, and then the game seems enjoyable. You will read a book. If none of the characters are relate-able, you don’t feel you connect with any of them, is the book enjoyable? No. The same for a movie. You go to a movie you cannot relate to the protagonist, it’s a boring movie. Like this, so the power of belief is our power to give meaning to something which is just an appearance. But in reality, what happened to God? Nothing. It is only pretending. So the game of delusion and freedom from this delusion is all one big pretense, you see.

Yes. So now, for example, when the thought comes, ‘Okay, let’s have some watermelon’…, going back to that same example I go into it. So there is no trouble in believing it, right?

Yes, so you find that most practical thoughts do not cause these kind of identity-related trouble.

So because in this…, ‘Oh no, I cannot believe' 'I’m not going to do it, okay, I’m just going to stay here’.., then worrying feeling comes, and then it’s more irritating than if I would follow any of those.

Yes, but the thing, even with practical thoughts, is that sometimes, they cause us to maintain this belief that I am the doer. So you will find that this false entity that doesn’t exist cannot be the doer of anything. That which doesn’t exist cannot do anything, isn’t it? That’s all I am saying. So, if the person doesn’t exist, therefore this thought is talking to who? You see, this advice that, ‘You must get a watermelon or drink a glass of water’…, is for who? You say, ‘The person doesn’t exist, we looked and looked and looked, we don’t find.' Then, the second alternative is that God himself, who is the creator and projector of all of this, needs to rely on these practical thoughts to run this life. This is very strange because it is the creator of the thought itself. Then, if it is the creator of the thought itself, why it needs to believe it to do that? So, therefore you will find that, as you let go of all of these thoughts, that actions continue to happen. The fear comes that, ‘I will become like a vegetable, sitting on my bed.' 'I won’t move at all.' But you find that actions move on their own; you find it, you see? But not under the dominance of thoughts. Therefore, that’s why I say, the key to this conversation always is: Who is the thought advising? Is it advising a person or is it advising God. Now person, we didn’t find.

So, there must be a person before even the thought comes…, or it’s not possible?

There is never a person. But to play this game personally, this game of thought appearance and belief in thought is happening to have some juice in this Leela. Because actually it is quite a ludicrous idea, that the One that is creating the thought, then needs to listen to the thought, to be able to run this practical life. Guruji takes this example of the tree. It doesn’t need to think about where to grow the next branch and the next leaf. Yet it all happens in a beautiful symmetry.

It seems like somethings happen by themself, like it seems like sometimes I have an option.

Who, who I? Option comes... Yes, but whose options are these? Options for whom? That’s always the root question. Because as long as there is the sense that there is a person and there is God, there is me and there is Consciousness, then this debate of freewill versus God’s Will, will continue. Now the best way to end this debate is to see that there is no person. So whose freewill are we talking about? So the options that I am saying is that: Okay thoughts are coming. Now tell me the options for who should believe this thought? One is Consciousness, what is the second option?

No option.

No other option, you see. So how could it be that That which is the projector of the thought itself, needs to believe a thought to run this life?

Doesn’t need to. Just seems like but, it’s like an option now; you have a choice to have watermelon or not.

Yes, so if God wants to experience a watermelon, God will experience a watermelon. Whether the thought came or not, whether belief went or not. As long as it is clear for you that... When you find that there is no individual doer, then all these questions just dissolve. Because they all rely on an identity and doership is one of the strongest legs of the ego, in fact, maybe the strongest. Because very often, even when someone has a direct recognition of what they are, they come up and ask, ‘So what should I do now?’ You see? So you can play with this actually and see whether in the not believing of thoughts your life comes to a standstill, or you become very irresponsible or something like this. My feeling is neither of them will happen.