The Absolute Does Not Come and Go - 22nd January 2018

Suppose that you had to undertake a journey to find freedom, and if you were told that the destination is where you already are, how would you undertake this journey? It can sound a bit silly, no? This is the story of all of us in a way. If all that was needed for freedom was to see that you already are free—in fact, you are that which is beyond freedom and bondage—would that be good news or bad news? See, and I know most of you will say it is good news, but sometimes one might have this idea that actually, "I feel it is bad news because I spent already 20 years doing it." Because I've already spent 20 years doing it, this makes it feel like it has been a waste or something. Like in business, there is a term called "good money chasing bad money." So because 20 years ago you spent, the next 20 years also saying, "I will try something out of the time which has been spent, but I will not be open to the possibility that this bondage itself has been a wrongful notion; just an idea which has no place in reality."

Now, when I asked you to check, nobody finds some bondage. But what you don't also find is what your idea of freedom is. That is where it can seem a bit unsatisfactory. "Yes, it's true I don't find bondage, but I don't find anything. This can't be freedom. I was promised the nectar of immortality." Now, what are you actually finding? You are finding the immortal being as you are, meeting yourself. But you expected it to be dressed differently. You did not expect that the same old self, the same old existence which has always been, is the Atma being you. You felt that something special has to happen to it. But this being is already more than your mind can ever fathom, and therefore, to interpret it, to judge it, is useless, pointless.

So to recognize it, to realize it, it is just to meet yourself in this unjudgmental way, uninterpreted way. And you see that even the concept of meeting becomes invalid because how does the hand meet itself? It is itself. You are yourself. There is nothing missing in yourself. There is nothing limited about yourself. The Absolute does not come and go; it is your reality. All your ideas about what self-realization should mean have also come. They were not naturally present, but they have also come and they can go now. Because this Self, which is beyond qualities and attributes, will not match any notion you have about yourself.