This Just Is. You Just Are. - 5th February 2018

It occurred to me a little while ago that life is usually lived in one of two ways. It is lived in one of two ways: one is 'God now,' say Lord is here, 'God now,' and the second is 'me-ow.' That's basically all that we say in Satsang. God itself is playing in one of these two ways: 'God now' or 'me-ow.' And sometimes it feels like it's almost like—some of you who practice yoga will know there's a pose called tree pose. So to me, 'me-ow' is like me trying to do the tree pose. For a while it feels like, 'I can do this, I can balance this body level,' but it doesn't move. So in the same way, for a while it can feel like the 'me' can actually work. 'If I try this, if I just be like this, if I get this much wealth, then just get this relationship, if I get these material objects or I get some sort of understanding about something, then I could actually make this work.' And the 'ow' seems to get postponed a bit. But this is inevitable about the 'me'—that the 'ow' will always come.

And if some of you are new to Satsang and might be wondering what he is on about, to me 'me-ow' is something which comes from my example of the cat identity. Because the concept of 'me' and the suffering, which is the 'ow,' was bound to follow. Now the logical question that the seeker can then ask is, 'Okay, so what do I have to do to not be in this me-ow state? How do I come to this God now?' And for this, I have the best news: that there is nothing you have to do. It is naturally what is already present here now. That is why it is 'God now.' It is never 'me now.' The 'me' is made up of a set of ideas picked up on the path and projections about the future.

And what can happen is that the mind will take this which is presence now, which is presence now, and say that that is a 'me.' But this is not true. Your presence, your Atma, your being, is the presence of God. So only God is now. The 'me' is a pretense, just an idea. And you know ultimately that it is a lie because you taste the suffering of this lie. So there is nothing really that needs to be done. But you don't have to do this 'nothing' also. You see, many times when I say nothing is to be done, then you think you have to do nothing. But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying nothing needs to be done, and yet all doing can appear and disappear. There is an openness and allowing of all things to happen.

But for God to exist, what precondition can there be? Then we have the idea that, 'Maybe after I do certain things, God will be.' That means that God's existence is also pre-conditioned on some state. This God is not worth it. The only God that is worth it is the one that just is, irrespective of what the appearance might be. So actually, the 'me-ow' is also happening on the substratum of 'God now.' God is not the 'me.' God is playing with the notion of 'me.' And I was saying the other day that this notion of 'God now,' this idea that consciousness is all there is, can initially feel like, 'I have no experience of this.' Then the question could come, 'What is this God that he speaks of?' And I could say: just what is, starting from your very presence. Which means to make it even more direct: just this existence, I Am. This is called Beingness or consciousness.

This just is. You just are. All the rest is just notional, just ideas. Starting from the idea of separation—that there is a 'me' here that is separate from everything else—is just an idea. You've taken some appearances of things which are seen and made a mental boundary and said, 'This is a me. I am contained in this body. He is contained in that body. She is contained in this body.' That is ideas. You find no such tangible separation. You find this one appearance and you are aware of it. All of this is one consciousness and nothing can ever separate consciousness. So just like there is one ocean but it can appear as if there are separate waves, in the same way, there is one Being, one consciousness, one God, although it might appear as if there are separate beings.