Simply Ask: Can You Stop Being? - 27 May 2016

Yes, so it is effortlessly present, this presence?

Yeah, it's just being here exactly.

Now, is there any other entity or persona or something which is really present except as an idea?

No, not at all. They're all ideas, and I can see them almost like a screen in front of me. Like there's this whole force field that isn't me in front of me that is my life, quote-unquote.

Yes, but this me is which one is it? The presence or a separate entity? You see that this presence is effortlessly present. Being is effortlessly here. Then we say that there is nobody else present; only this one is here. And then we say, 'But there's a me that this is happening to me now.' Which me is it?

Okay, so then now I see the me is out there. It's not me. The me isn't me. The me is not the I Am. I am able to see the me. Oh my goodness, oh goodness, goodness. Yeah, it's all effortless except for all that stuff right here that I look at, and that is called me, and it's called Lucia, and it's called Lucia's life, and I've been holding it up for all these years.

And the funny thing is that we cannot see this me even like we see the computer or we see a table, you see? Yet that gets so much of our belief. You cannot even find it at the molecular level, but there's an imagination of it.

I mean, I can... what? Even the imagination is not very clear. No, it's not.

Yeah, like we can imagine an orange quite clearly. You're in California, so an orange you can imagine quite clearly, very easily, right? Put it in the kitchen now. This one, as long as we keep putting our 'I' over there, and we say, 'I need to fix something for this me,' either by doing this or doing that or any practice, then it is bound to fail. Because a practice—you can call it that—staying with the I Am or even this sense of not believing our next thought, is not an instruction for this non-existent entity, you see? Because that which doesn't exist, what could it actually do?

It just sits. I don't know, it just makes up movies. It has a little movie projector and it's just making these little videos going. It's pressing the button on all these little videos from the past or maybe in the future. That's a little film director.

Yes, in these movies, because this mind is so much of a soap opera queen, it makes a telenovela out of our life.

Oh my goodness, yes! It's just been going on for years. It's on reruns. It's just these four reruns. These four reruns: partners, health of the body, and yep, yep, yep, yep. Really, that's it. I mean, really, when you put it like that earlier, I thought, 'Yep, that's it.' That's it, there's nothing else. Yeah, maybe family and relationships kind of go with partners, you know?

Yeah, so I'm now seeing, or it is being seen, that the being is just being. The body is still tired and, you know, big deal. Because like we just said, the body is very intricate when we start to look at it in that way, you see? And it is running on some supreme intelligence which is way beyond this idea of me, way beyond what the me can handle or the mind can handle. So it doesn't help. The thought that the body is tired does not help the body in any way.

No, in fact, I think it makes it worse.

Yes, if it at all it does something, it would make it worse because some energy goes into that thought and the belief in that thought. From this perspective right this minute, it feels possible to always be here and to experience being here.

You cannot ever leave this, actually. I knew you were going to say that. I've become too predictable.

Because the subtle message which can come from the mind is that now that you see this, you must just be here. True, that is true, but no effort is needed because you cannot leave this, actually. At some point that instruction is useful, but at some point we come to the seeing that I'm trying to be that which is already just being. I'm trying to be that which is already just being, you see? So all that needs to stop is the trying.

Being, I noticed that sometime during the silent retreat—oh boy—that when I was trying, yes, when I was trying to be the presence or be aware of the presence or be aware of consciousness or whatever you want to call it, that my attention... I would direct my attention back about two inches, as if I'm looking from farther back on my head.

Yeah, it can seem like that, yes.

And sometime during Satsang, I dropped that and just... I don't know what, I don't know how I did it, but something shifted and I didn't have to move even two inches. So now talking to you, I'm just talking to you from somewhere inside of my head.

You are your head? Let's call a surgeon in and see where you are sitting inside the head. Actually, you know what? You're not even sitting. No, I'm not sitting in the head. It's... I'm somewhere behind the head. Right behind the head is the wall. Is there truth behind the head as well? Right? I don't know, I'm just here. Let me confuse you some more. You're not in this realm at all.

I'm not in this realm at all?

You're not watching from within this realm. That's a relief, because you don't exist as a phenomenal entity inside this world. It is this world that exists inside of you. And it's simple; it's simpler than it sounds because when we look for ourselves inside this realm, we don't find it, right? And yet there is a looking, there is an awareness out of this world. It's a little bit like the black and white picture of the two faces looking at each other and then they become the vase, but they become the faces, but they become the vase. You know that one? When you were talking, I had that sense. Yeah, I had the sense of being in the realm and being outside of the realm, and seeing the realm from outside, and then being in the realm and looking out as if I can see the structure of the realm, like sitting in a house that doesn't have any walls but just the structure of it.

Yes, and as we start having these insights, then the sense of inside or outside also starts to dissolve because it's like the Matrix is dissolving.

Yeah, I had this strong fear today that I was going to die very soon. And I almost feel like I have to hold on to my body like, 'No, not yet.' What you wrote also, because I found it beautiful, and you said that you were reminded then of Bhagavan.

Yes, I had this feeling that death is coming, and he said that if it is going to come, I want to see what it is like. What is it like to die? What will die? What will remain? Contemplation.

Yes, and I ended up just crying in this joy and just sitting staring at my... I was sitting at my desk trying to do some work. I'm like, trying to do some work, you know? Like, I really should do this work tonight and get it over with so I don't have to think about it for three days or four days. And I managed to get it done, but I had to really push myself to do it. And I was watching myself push because I also was very aware of the beauty and this love and bliss. As if I really... okay, so if I'm going to die in six hours right from right now, I mean, like everything is just incredible. Yes, it's amazing. I look around and go, 'Oh my God, this is so beautiful.' My apartment is so beautiful, and my curtains are beautiful, and you're beautiful, and everyone's beautiful, and I'm beautiful, and it's all beautiful, and my water's beautiful, and everything's enough. There's nothing lacking at all.

Ah, thank you. One of the teachers I used to go to earlier said something very beautiful once. He said that most of us, for most of our lives, we live as if we are never going to die, and most of us die as if we never lived. Because when the sense comes that this might be the end of all experiencing, then the experiencing starts to seem very beautiful. And yet, for most of this appearance of humanity, it seems like they are mostly suffering what they are experiencing. Yes, because they are believing themselves to be something that they are not. So it is not that the experience has to change; it is the idea of who the experiencer is that needs to be clarified. So as long as it seems like there is a person here experiencing life, then for the person idea, it can seem very scary because nothing is predictable. Anything can happen. For the person, for the idea of an entity, this unpredictability of life is extremely scary, you see? Yes, it would like to make itself secure, and yet it knows it never can. Death is coming ultimately, you see? But to that which is witnessing this entire play like a movie, it is this unpredictability itself which is joy, because you don't know. It's an exciting movie. You don't know what's coming next. You don't even know when it started and when it's going to end, you see? So when the perspective switches, then it becomes clear that the experiencer is not an entity; the experiencer is presence itself. And that which is aware of this presence itself remains untouched no matter what the experience might be. Then it goes from being a horror movie to just being an adventure fantasy or something like that.

Adventure fantasy, that's it. I'm realizing that I have the strong attachment to an idea that I can't die before my mother. Yeah, you know, she, as I said, she'll be 98 years old in two weeks and she's doing great. She's just fine, writes her own bills, pays her own bills, figures out checks. She's... I know you don't mean it like it's sounding right now.

How is it sounding?

You said that... what did I say? Attachment to not dying before my mother who's 98 right now, but she's doing quite well. Thing was, that means I have to be sure to live past her, way past her. And I don't know, she could go on to 100. She said she's going for 100. I'm thinking at this rate she may very well go for 100. But as soon as she goes, I'm free to go. I'm free to do... I'm free, you know? There's something about like, okay, I'm free to do whatever, move to Bangalore. I don't know, I don't know. Kill myself, move to Bangalore, you know, something like that.

Very nice that we can have a sense of humor about these things because it makes this so-called journey very light. Many times we just take ourselves too seriously. Then as we become lighter and lighter, then we also have this sense of everything being so funny, and we laugh at the movements which are appearing through this body and the words which are coming, you see? Everything seems so entertaining, actually. Yes, so usually I don't give any ideas about signs of spiritual progress or something, but I feel that if there was a sign of spiritual progress, then it would be this: just this ability to laugh at life and at what we've considered ourselves to be, at all appearances, and especially to laugh at the mind.

It is pretty funny, yes. So funny. Everything the mind says actually is funny, even the horror stuff.

Yes, because it's talking about horror for the pink elephant, right? And it doesn't exist. That's the funny thing.

Yeah, there was a beautiful sense today with my clients of just being with them and being grounded in their presence and being thankful for all this drama in front of me. And I just sat there through most of the sessions just saying inside myself, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.'

It is very funny, yes. So funny. Everything the mind says actually is funny, even the horror stuff, yes, because it is talking about horror for the pink elephant, right? And it doesn't exist. That's the funny thing.

Yeah. There was a beautiful sense today with my clients of just being with them and being grounded in their presence and being thankful for all this drama in front of me. Yeah. And I just sat there through most of the sessions just saying inside myself, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.' And things were unfolding for people in, like, oh my goodness, interesting, really interesting ways. Yeah. Actually, I thought of you. I thought of one of our very first conversations when I talked about being afraid to let it all go, and you were laughing about me being afraid to let God be there with my clients because God will make a mess out of it.

Oh, I'm terrible, horrible, just horrible psychotherapist. He's just going to mess it up. I need to get Lucia into this. God can't do this. Oh boy. And then I remember the next day, for the first time in your long career, you were God.

Oh yes, it was. It was. God made a mess out of it, which actually turned out fine. I'm still seeing that person and she's getting better and all this stuff. Yeah. And actually, in the middle of Sahaja, I had one day where I had to see clients. I hadn't planned on doing the silent retreat at all; it was just totally spontaneous, totally just like, 'I'm doing it.' And so on Monday I had clients, and one client just attacked me in such a way that no one's ever attacked me as a therapist. It was like, oh my God, it was like one of the worst things, you know? Yeah, not physical, but you know, calling into question all my skills. Yeah. And so the therapist identity was really attacked. Laughing about it today, I thought, oh my God, there it is again. You know, what is this about the psychotherapist identity? And I suddenly had this memory of a real traumatic event that happened right after I got my degree back in 1985, where I was like, 'Oh, now I'm this therapist, I'm this guru,' you know? And my girlfriend at the time said, 'Oh, now you're a guru.' I'm thinking, 'Yeah, okay.' And then we ended up having this horrendous relationship and we had to split up, and there was physical violence between us. And I was like, oh my God, it was horrible. It was such a contrast. And all that came up in the satsang energy of Sahaja, you know? And something just got healed around it. Yeah. And now I'm just saying thank you to that person. So I'm thinking, I don't know what's going to happen to the psychotherapist identity because it's certainly getting by the wayside.

Yes. We like, as you know, we have a few psychotherapists. No, I met two of them last week. Yes, yes, yes. And the challenge that mostly they are having is that when a client is sharing some problem, some story, they're finding that they are unable to give much importance to the stories. And something that wants to jump into the inquiry, but they know that there is not that openness yet in the clients, mostly who come through the traditional ways, to look at this question. Yeah, it is like a bit of work for them to pretend to be involved in the story and, you know, empathize with the story. So this is one of the common reports that I get from the psychotherapists in satsang. They have this inclination to say, 'Why can't you just look at who you are? You don't exist in that way.' No, you can't say that to people. They have to be at a certain place, yeah. There has to be certain maturity before you can ask the question 'Who am I?' Yes, some openness has to be there to this.

Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Thank you, Ananta.

Thank you too. Very beautiful as always. Thank you. Thank you.