Playful Parables - 8th January 2018

Then you were told you need that final bowl of milk, the bowl that has written on it, you see, the nectar of immortality, enlightenment, moksha, liberation. Then we try with many teachers, many satsangs. 'Where can I get this bowl of milk? Because this is the final bowl of milk.' Although other bowls of milk didn't work, but the ultimate purpose of my life as a cat is to get to moksha. This is one who tried many masters and many, and we got frustrated with saying, 'It's just not happening. I am not getting that true happiness.'

Then somebody says, 'Go to a true master.' And you find a true master like Guruji. You go there, he says, 'Bowl of milk? I have no bowl of milk. But are you a cat? I have a mirror. Let me show you.' Until then, everything has been for the cat. How are you finding that that which I have been catering to has just been an idea? It has never been my reality. So the master says, 'Are you a cat?' How many are willing to look openly and how many are still searching for that bowl of milk for the cat? There is no such thing as personal freedom. There is no such thing as nirvana for the cat.

Are you open to the idea that all you've considered yourself to be, every notion that you have had about yourself, has been for the cat identity? Are you open to the idea that you are not an object in this world? Open to the idea that you are not an object in this world and maybe the world is an object in you? You don't have to have an insight about it yet, but are you open to this being a true possibility? Are you open to the idea that you are not this cat, you are not this person?

So this is an example of a human condition. Actually, we've been taught that we are this person, we have believed that we are this person, and we've been provided many ways to make this person happy. It doesn't work. Now you're finding what you truly are. You are not this cat going from place to place looking for bowls of milk, trying to find happiness. And what is this mirror? That is what this silent retreat will be all about: how to see this for myself. This is what we are going to talk about.

But since I shared the cat story, and I see many of you are new in satsang with me, at least in person, so I might as well share my other favorite story as well, which also describes the human condition in a very nice way. So suppose the task was the opposite. The task was not to try and find happiness; the task was to be miserable or to find suffering. How would you do it? The task was reversed: 'I want to become miserable and I want to suffer.' How would you do it? Easy, because you have an anytime misery machine, ATM. We have an ATM which is anytime misery. What is this anytime misery machine? It is the mind.

Now, just by walking up to the ATM, it doesn't give you money, does it? You have to do two things. What is the first thing? You put the ATM card in. ATM card is what? Attention to mind. The first: attention to mind, ATM card. So you put the card in. But even after putting the card in, does misery come, does money come on its own? No. You also put your personal identification, which means your belief. The only way to identify... so when Guruji says 'don't identify,' the only way to identify is to believe what the thought is saying. We punch in our personal identification and what happens? Unlimited amount is available. This is the account in which misery is unlimited, as much as you want. But both these steps have to happen: attention has to go to the mind and belief has to be provided to what the mind is saying. And we'll talk about all of these things. Who is it? I know many of you will say, 'But who is providing the belief? Whose attention is it?' We'll talk about all of this.

There's something else. Aha! So these are all these ATM... you should have 70 of them. And then it says 'Artist Personified Person.' So this is art of my kid, which must be the brand this comes from. The artist is Personified Person. The title is 'Anytime Misery Machine.' Good. 'Insert attention card, then punch in belief PIN.' Perfect. It's already MQ, my stuff, and you're gonna take it out anyway. All my hard work is done already. You want to see how you'll be at the end of... 'Not Applicable.' Very good. Here is someone who's really been listening to satsang. This is very good.

The path to 'Not Applicable' is loving what is. What does this 'Not Applicable' mean? Like many times what happens is when we come to Advaita Vedanta satsang, then what might happen is that we might hear something like, 'You are not the doer.' Easy. But you might still consider yourself to be a limited entity whose attribute of doership has been taken away. So then 'I'm just a person who has no doership.' So I'm just like a chair which everybody... I'm just like this chair which all of us can move around. So God is just moving me on this, this poor chair.

Now the truth is that why are you not the doer? Because the person does not exist. So neither doership nor non-doership actually is applicable. Don't worry if the words are confusing you already. You just start to see all of this. That which does not exist, we don't have to strip it of all of its attributes. You just have to see that it doesn't exist and you come to the seeing of what you truly are. So doership, non-doership: not applicable. Desire, non-desire, renouncer to accept... you see, all these things are the play of what poses we pick up as a person. And as a spiritual person, we can pick up the poses of non-doership, you can pick up the pose of renouncing, but actually even this is not applicable. It's not about any position that you take.