We´re Here to Recognize Who We Are - 11th July 2016

The feeling here is that more and more we will keep quiet. I will keep quiet. The intent is not to replace your personal conditioning with a new spiritual condition, a new conceptual framework of spirituality. That is not what we are here to create. We are here to recognize who we are and to drop all conditioning for that. For what says, 'What am I doing here? What am I learning in this silence?' Nothing. That's the point. The more we learn, the more identified we become, attached to our concepts, to our spirituality. Get used to the silence, the true silence of being empty of egoic belief, egoic identity.

The mind wants to give you a seven-course meal of concepts, and you have consumed many such meals and found that they only give you the indigestion of suffering. Even the best sound concepts—you feel you found the best concept—you just try to defend it, and it makes a person out of you. Oh, in this openness, in this nakedness, some discomfort can come. And it is this seeming suffering, this wobbliness, this fear, which makes you want to hide behind some ideas. And many times the ideas itself could be Advaitic ideas, and many times ideas could be those of giving up on Satsang. Which of you will allow these ideas to come and go, stay with the discomfort, and find that you're coming to your own naturalness? The acceptance of what is. The addiction to belief, the addiction to identify, is what is being rooted out here.

How many are sensing this, what I'm saying? That as we remain in our recognition of who we are, we are sensing this urge to leave our thoughts? Something wants to hide behind some concepts. Are we able to check on this? This is the key to the removal of the egoic sense of separation: to see this. The urge to interpret, the urge to judge, the urge to check your own progress, the urge to give advice—all escapism from this openness. It's very good if you spot it. The sense of separation and how it emerges. A concept can come and this whole game of 'as if' begins. And we are seeing the primal sense of separation and how it emerges. How all concepts are separation. Even the concept 'we are one' is not required. So if you identify this, see that it is this which is the root of separation.

Then what Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi said becomes so clear, because he said that either we inquire—which means what? To find out who is this, who are these thoughts appearing to? Does any thought apply to the reality of what I am? Inquire into who you are and see that these thoughts are meaningless. Or surrender to the Satguru, to the Master. The same thing, which means none of what these thoughts are saying are my problem; all are my Master's problem. This way we are not picking up any concept about ourselves, no identification. Some are more attracted to inquiry and some more attracted to surrender. Some are a bit of both. Everything is okay. Some can just remain open like the Zen Masters who said, 'Let thoughts come and go, just don't serve them tea.' Just remain open like this. This is surrender. It is enough.

And those which are truly sticky—some of you are identifying relationships, some are identifying veganism—there are judgments around these things, interpretations about these things. So when you're able to identify them like this, use them for your inquiry. Whose relationship is it? Who is here? What are you recognizing about yourself? That you are awareness. Can this awareness have a relationship? Who is it that is here as a separate entity? Then as you inquire, you will find that if there is strong resistance to inquiry, then hopefully you've been blessed with devotion and say, 'Whatever is the problem is my Master's problem, is God's problem.' Then these will not stick.