Take Out The Idea Of Cause And Effect - 2nd August 2016

So one advice is that as you are doing this contemplation, let's not have any purpose behind it. Let it not be for the purpose of getting rid of any energy or to push anything aside. Just for itself, we're exploring these dimensions of this where everything seems to be appearing and disappearing. Don't worry about the future or what happened in the past. And in this operation, if this sense of separate identity has to die or has to weaken or has to become stronger, whatever has to happen to it, don't be concerned by it. You stay with the exploration. Here, nothing is wrong. Here, everything is absolutely okay. Now the mind will offer you something and it will say that it is possible for you to leave 'here' when you are engaged in day-to-day life. Let's explore that possibility from here. Can that actually happen? Can you actually leave this space of 'here'?

No.

Everything must appear within this 'hereness'. Even the life that has to be lived is only appearing within this space of Being, this space of 'hereness'. When identification happens, does something really switch? No, not in reality. But the attention will go to these exchanges and the pain in the body.

Yes.

The way that these emotions and these thoughts get stronger and stronger, get more and more energized, is when we have the sense that they should not be, or they should now not come. Or even the idea that 'I should not identify with them' actually energizes them, you see? Is it possible, just checking from the here and now, not predicting about the future, but is it possible to let everything just be without even labeling anything as dark or bright? It already is.

Yes.

So this sense that the difference in state or states should not happen—when I am in Satsang versus outside, when I am meditating or inquiring or in the presence of the Master versus when I am in my day-to-day life—if you had no idea about how it must go and what must appear or not, is that a possibility?

It is, but it's not happening like that.

Yes, then that's okay. What is happening is happening. It's fine. My job in this role right now is I'm supposed to give some advice, and whether it gets imbibed or not is all part of the play. And you see it, isn't it? When we are able to see it like that, then actually these things cannot have that much power over us. In fact, I don't feel they have as much power over us. So in that which we call the dark energy or luminous thoughts about it, in reality, you yourself said that nothing really changes. But this play of its seeming like something changes, the play of identification or not, that has to be wiped out according to your own grace, according to the grace of consciousness. It will dissolve ultimately. Till then, I will keep saying these things with you and we'll play this game as long as it has to go on. But even the seeming separation, even the seeming identification, all of that, you see, all of this is appearing, but you remain untouched, isn't it? Totally untouched.

Yes, but so much attention is going to this sensation of just like... I don't even know the word for it, but it's just like, oh, just like this.

Yeah, but what I'm hearing from you is that attention is going, but you said right in the beginning that you're not really believing any ideas about it. You're not really buying the interpretation of it. At some subtle levels, a little bit might be happening, but that's fine. So as long as not too much of this interpretation, not too much of these conclusions are being bought, it's just playing the way it is playing. As long as the pretense of personhood is not being injected into the situation through our belief in thoughts and ideas, then already it might seem very intense because your attention is going so strongly there, but it doesn't have that personal intensity. It doesn't have the personal onus that 'I must do something about this'.

It does, though, because the attention is so strong. And this is what's so frustrating, upsetting, annoying—is that I know that these thoughts that are appearing on the conveyor belt, I know that these thoughts have no basis, have no truth to them. But the body is reacting as if they are true. Now, I know that they're not, yet there is this whole kind of bodily reaction happening. And then the one-two punch is: 'You know this isn't true, why are you reacting like this?' And then the identity is formed in that.

Yes. If you can take out the idea of cause and effect from this and you only look at consciousness as the one cause of all appearances, that will make it a bit lighter. Because there can be a sense that this thought comes, and what is a thought? A thought is a bundle of energy, it's a ball of energy. And then there can be the sense that this thought creates some sensation in the body, something happens, an intensity. But that is like two waves on the same ocean. But the mind tries to make a story out of it saying, 'Okay, because this wave came, then this wave came.' Usually it will try to find some patterns and play together where these energetic movements usually flow together, and we try to say it is because of this thought that this is happening to the body. But actually, all of this has one cause, which is consciousness. The thought coming, the body reacting, and the second punch is also consciousness. So everything is just energetic patterns appearing on the screen of consciousness itself, having only one cause, which is the light of consciousness itself. So if you stop giving them so much credit and so much strength—that your thought is doing this and this is what's happening because of the thought—it's all energy. The source of energy is only consciousness. All is ultimately consciousness itself. Thought comes, then the energetic reaction comes in the body, then another thought comes. All of this is just the energetic play of consciousness. Then we remove causality from it.

Is there a way for me to break the pattern?

If you just stop giving thoughts any credit at all, that itself is a very good way to break the pattern.

Yeah. And when it gets so strong... there's an echo... when this thought and bodily reaction becomes so strong and I do have to literally lie down or sit down because there's no way to function with it, and there's an inquiry happening or there's just a complete seeing that there's this belief in the mind, and it all just disappears, like just completely disappears. And there's this like deep sleep state. I don't know what... it's just like being in deep sleep completely and there's nothing wrong. There's absolutely nothing wrong at all. It's just like, oh, I want to just spend as much time there as possible. But as soon as I have to come... as soon as there's just like no need to be there anymore or there's just a natural movement to get up, then ten minutes later there'll be this energy that reappears and re-identification that reappears. And it seems like life is pushing me to just inquire because it's so painful to be in the world at the moment.

Yes, there's nothing wrong with that. As long as there's a sense for 'me' that can inquire, we must inquire. And many times it can seem like life pushes us into these situations. For you, it is these energetic things which are happening; for others, it could be life events, life situations. For many, it can be combinations of various things. So if what it is doing is pushing you to the inquiry, there's nothing wrong with that. What is happening sometimes is that the instant you start the inquiry, it becomes so clear, isn't it? It becomes so clear there is no 'me' to inquire anymore. And when seemingly you stop, then it seems like, 'Oh, I better inquire because that is my only refuge.' It can seem like that, a bit of oscillation. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

But I am grateful for this, although it's been clearly horrific, because it actually brought up the inquiry of suicide and really, really inquiring into leaving the body. And I just saw over the weekend at the yoga festival that even leaving this body, it would just be not even like from here to here, because there's literally nowhere for me to go. There's nowhere. This absolutely horrendous period has really been so beneficial in the way of like, I'm totally not scared of death at all. It's more like fear of identification and fear of like feeling all of these really human emotions that feel so big.

Yes. One sense that we get lighter and lighter is that 'I am enclosed in this body.' So it can seem like, 'Oh, I'm going to drop this body and it will be light or something.' No, actually many bodies you experience. If there is an end to this body, another body instantly appears because I don't feel that by dropping off a body, the potential for all these energetic creations will stop. So it doesn't really help in any way to bind to that idea. Also, this sense of being enclosed into the body that we have looked at—we can see that actually it is this body which is a miniscule aspect of me, a miniscule aspect of my dynamic appearance. Because when we try to find our boundaries, we don't find the enclosure. We find the body which is enclosed in an aspect of me, but I don't find that this Being is enclosed in any way.

I'm looking now and it's like the awareness that's inside the body is also totally just the same as the awareness on the outside of the body. There's no difference.

Yes. We usually get the credit or blame, whatever you like to call it, for no reason. Because the basic sense that consciousness is the root of all energetic movement—once this is seen and understood, then I don't feel that you'll be giving all the credit or blame to the body. It's not the body. It's not the body.

Yes.

And then, so what is the discovery? So we find that it's not the body, it is consciousness itself. And we have come together to this place where we can see that I am that I am, I am this consciousness. So although again it sounds silly, the fact is there must be something primal there that wants to experience all of this, wants to taste all these energies, wants to also taste the distaste when they appear. So from the perspective of consciousness, you can savor all of this. And from the ultimate perspective as awareness or as the Self, none of this really ever truly happened anyway, and it's not happening in any way.