What do we know in our Heart?

No, for whom does it create the confusion?

So there is no separation.

If it's felt that the one...

Felt by whom?

Felt by I.

It's felt by I. The non-separate one is now confused and feeling something.

The I. There's only one I. There's no two Is. There aren't like two versions of me. There's only me, right? There's only one I.

Then who's confused?

But if I is not confused, just it's kind of convey the I is...

So confusion is not possible in the human condition. I'm just—who is this I who doesn't want the conjecture?

See, there's only one I. Yes, I know he can't—multiple Is. The I of the I is the real one, which is universal, all light, like space. There's only one I.

Yes.

So this is the I.

Now that I may imagine that it's personal.

Who? Whom you imagine?

I'm just saying, I don't know the reason for this deal, but in fact, it's very difficult to ascribe the reasons for it. But I'm just saying that I think it's better to dissolve. I just feel in the heart that it's better to dissolve the separation.

Better for whom?

Better for the real one.

So the real one is in a situation which can get better?

I don't know what I mean—I know better, but certainly there's going to be confusion.

Both?

For the real one. The real one can imagine itself to be separate, which is what we've been doing all our lives.

Okay.

And I think I've been doing this all my life, just imagining that I'm this identity and person all my life. And with his grace, I think, and what he's saying, there's only one universal I. And I mean, we can worship him in all ways we want to, as many parts as we want, as long as we are pure in our love for him, that's all fine. But I think the eventual reality is there's only one I. I think the ego, really the ego, that association is... I mean, this is part of the... So Avidya happens to whom? I mean, Avidya happens to the... if the real I imagines himself to be something separate from himself, then it happens. Then he has to play the game of finding himself.

Yes. And by whose grace does the game happen where the return happens to the truth?

It's only him. There's only the light, only the sun shining here. Everything else is his creation. So it's his when the time is right for him to get detached from playing around in the world, which is his creation. He wants to come back to this worldless incident. Maybe there were some desires there, but the desire needs the person to lie to, to fulfill them. Your desires in the personal life—whatever the desire is, it could be even a spiritual desire: "I want to keep seeking him."

So you have recognized that you are this. You are as if only he is. It's not me as—it's not this person. It's just only that person.

You, that is...

Beyond the layer of personhood, there is no distinction between you and I anymore, isn't it?

There's only that I exists. Now there's this play within the I where there's a sensation. The mind is playing. The sensations are there. The body is there.

And there's continuous sadhana to separate oneself from identification with personal.

That's it. And this oneself is him only.

The oneself is him only.

Okay.

Because the intelligence is only him. The one who knows the space as well as the form in it.

Yeah.

The intelligence is only one.

Yes.

So this I, the Nirguna Brahman playing as the Saguna, playing as the Atma, playing as the projection of consciousness, playing as all of this play of so-called humanity—and humanity realizes that it is that I itself, isn't it, on freeing itself from Avidya? Now, is there anything that this I, the light of this entire universe—is there anything that this I cannot do?

There's nothing. Forms, all, everything.

And you realize that I am that.

Yeah, that's him. Maybe there's some sheaths within all of us, but the innermost sheath is just this one universal boundless one.

Yes.

So when you realize that you are that, just bring these wires to life.

It's different.

Different?

It's different, right? Because the universal one has to decide what he wants to do. This one is this one...

Is which one?

This one is the expression of that one.

So this one is not that.

This one is the expression of that one. Even the thoughts and the words.

So you are fundamentally not that. You're just an expression.

Yeah.

That is true.

I agree with that. That is actually true.

It's very—I mean, but it's actually true.

Okay. So if you are just an expression and you are fundamentally not that, then isn't that external to you?

It's not an external. This is like the most subtlest and the grosser.

But you are not that fundamentally.

Fundamentally, the intelligence is...

Fundamentally, are you that or not that? Are you an adjunct like an expression? 100% and undeniably, certainly, without any doubt, am an expression of that. It is like an adjunct of that.

An expression of that.

Why can an expression of that not do everything that he can?

I mean, it's like the light can form a color, but the color is not the power of the light.

Okay. So?

So they're both the same. The color comes from the light. It's a power expression of the light. But the light is the light.

And the color is like it appears. It's the appearance of the light in that. It's like a quality of the light.

It's an visually perceivable quality of the unseen which has the power to express itself as the light. That's the color. Sorry. Very good.

So that's a relationship. It's like a subordinate to the oil, right? So it's very difficult to put this stuff in words, which is why I really struggle to answer about which is the color, the light. Well, the color comes from the light. You know, the power to express—I have power to express the color. Could it come without the light? No. Can the light be seen? No. Is the light everywhere? So it's like that relationship, very subtle relationship between the one that can be seen, which is very limited and doesn't really have the—it's the expression, not the expresser.

Right. So I mean, that's—I just feel like that's a very kind of a subtle relationship.

Very good. So if the color red says, "I'm that light," that's correct. And if the color blue says, "I am made up of that light. He is everything to me. So I bow down to that light."

Yeah.

But the color red says to the color blue, "Oh, you're so foolish. You've taken the light to be external to you." What would you say?

But I mean, they're both—I mean, it's all good, right? As long as you don't imagine yourself to be separate, it's all good. I mean, there's nothing.

So are you saying that it's Bheda-Abheda, which means that it's unfathomable oneness and yet distinction, which is what the color and light is telling you?

I mean, everything is just one, and then it just comes—it expresses itself in different transient forms.

Yes. So if you were that one...

Yeah.

...can you bring this fire to life?

If I was—if I am the one and I wanted to make this wire dance around like a snake, I probably could.

Please, please.

Yeah, but it's not this one. It's the intelligence.

So which one is that? The light.

It's the light. So this is the color. The color can't make the other.

Exactly. Exactly. So although you are one...

Yeah.

...there is a distinction as well.

Yeah. Yeah. This one is like the image in the cinema and that one is the projector light. So it won't be different.

So although this is contained in that, but...

...not—I can't go in the opposite direction.

Correct.

So the image in the mirror can't play the role in the mirror.

Yes. So if the perspective of the one that's contained becomes that of reverence towards the container, would you say that is fundamentally bad?

There's no bad or good, right? There's nothing at all like that. It's just a recognition of reality and then you just sort of search for the recognition of who we are. We recognize who we are and any way we do it—whether it's through reverence, through saving the mind and experiencing it, through karma, through... I can only talk about your own experience, but there's so many paths. Who's one to judge one or the other, right? They're all great.

As long as you come to this understanding.

If the contained...

Yeah.

...feels like the container is much bigger than itself, much broader than itself, that it is nothing in front of the container, then in that reverence, if the words seem to be that "You are the greatest, you are the highest, you are the most loving, you are the most merciful," would you say that that one has caught in Avidya necessarily?

Not at all, right? Because we can't even—the power of the one who is here as all of us is so unfathomable to the mind itself. Anything we can say to it, we have to be reverent. We have to be reverent because that's our living Father and his only living life right now. So I mean, how can we not be reverent? How can the painting not be referential to the painter?

He, right?

So he's actually painting this image right now, second by second. He's making this transient appear. So everything here, every element is him.

Yes.

But why are you saying "him"? It's one with you.

Yeah, that's true. And...

But why are you saying "him"?

Him and I are saying...

Yes. And isn't that exactly what you're saying, that it's Achintya Bheda-Abheda, which means an unfathomable, uncomputable, unintellectualizable oneness and yet distinction?

Yeah. See, in the heart, as you guided us to feel the heart, we feel the presence. We feel everything, the body being a little thing in it.

Every element is Him. Yes, but why are you saying Him? It's one with you.

Yeah, that's true. And, and, and... but why are you saying Him? Him and I are saying... yes. And isn't that exactly what you're saying, that it's achintya, which means that an unfathomable, uncomputable, unintellectualizable oneness and yet distinction?

Yeah. See, in the heart, as you guided us to feel the heart, we feel the presence. It means we feel everything, the body being a little thing in it. So it's totally evident to us, right? The oneness as the knower, yes, with everything is just like... that's what we feel every minute. We feel that, you know, the body is in us; we just feel it every minute. So where's the separation?

Yes. That, you know, so we can't say that... we can say we are there and there's a... we have expressed ourselves as the body and... but where's the separation?

Exactly. So, the Abheda part is clear because we can't find the boundary to ourselves. The Bheda part is clear that that which is the creator, the light, the sustainer of the universe—even after recognition that I am that, I cannot, I don't have a single supernatural power. I can't create one ray of light. I can't create one ounce of love. You see? So when it becomes clear, although it's very troubling to the intellect, when it becomes clear that I am one and yet I am a tiny distinct aspect at best, you see, then the highest knowledge and the highest servitude can run this life, run this expression as you called it. So I don't feel like we have to force it like either too much on this way or too much on that way. Both are valid paths and ultimately, like Bhagavan said, Gyana and Bhakti are two wings of the same bird. So it's very important for us not to feel that one wing is more important or one wing is the ultimate and the other wing is the non-ultimate.

That's what... it's just that I think I just wanted to say that it really feels, and through actually reminding myself all the time, that whenever I take this body of 'I' to be... it's, you know, it's like a ripple in the observer. You know, this wasn't evident to me for a long time, actually. It's the source of my confusion for a long time. I really thought that, you know, this presence and the body and everything was, you know, I mean, it wasn't... I didn't know it so clearly that the body itself is like a sensation in the presence and the presence itself is the knower. And you know, because I know the presence, I'm inseparable from it. Like, I mean, this just, you know, it's the intelligence itself is the spirit, the formless one that is the knower. And then even the body is, it's just, you know, it's like a ripple. Tomorrow if He takes away the body, nothing will happen to Him, the witness. And in fact, He's doing it in dream and sleep all the time to show us that all this stuff is just His creation.

Yeah, but you don't... why do you put yourself down? I feel like you got a good sense of that very early on in Satsang itself. Why do you say that it was recent or something like that? This sense of really feeling like He's more approximate than the body. Do you know what I mean? Like the first thing in the morning when you wake up, you know, you feel the Atma. You feel the Atma and then you feel like the body is an expression.

I didn't know, I didn't feel... I mean, for a long time I really was trying to figure out what is this, but now it just feels like that expression is... the body is like just, you know, He comes first. And then the body comes, and so He's the creator of the sense of having the body, and then He's also then the dissolver. In meditation, the dissolver of that sense. So only He shines. So only He's there. In fact, He's so great that only He shines and He also dissolves the sense of separation by His will in the waking state too. So we just know that it's only Him. It's you know, and then we are actually for this... we're all totally conditioned to believing that we are this person. But if somebody told us from a child that you're actually completely formless, maybe I wouldn't have wasted so much of my life. It's just an essential difference. But who really feels, you know, that they're just told that they're formless? I mean, if you just start to search for them, there's no denying it that we are actually on this... we have the presence. I just, you know, it just wasn't clear to me for a long, long time. The sense of presence, feeling of presence was clear, but that we are the presence was actually not very clear. I really struggled with a mind that doesn't want to admit that whatever it takes to be is just a bunch of sensations, sort of, in the ocean. So, I don't know why I just felt the urge to just share this directly. Not really intending to do it, but I just wanted to share it. I know it's a little bit of a tangent to what you were saying, but I just wanted to share it.

Yes, tangents are welcome. Tangents are welcome as long as it doesn't seem like it's in opposition to what's being shared. Also, all views are completely welcome, but what is dangerous is to only make a new conceptual framework out of whatever insight we may be having. No? So remember that the truth does not rely on our conceptual understanding of the truth. The truth is freshly available to us every time we look: What is the reality of myself? Who am I? Do I need to remember the answer to that? Maybe as a reminder to look, but not as a replacement for the looking. You see, because the truth is always freshly available. God is always fresh and available. That which we make as an understanding in our mind cannot add light to the truth; it can only serve as a proxy or a replacement for the truth. The attempt is to be empty of that.

Is there anything that we know conceptually and we take to be the truth of ourselves conceptually which is not Avidya? If I say that I am that, or I am the pure awareness, or the Self, but I'm just speaking of this from an experience I had in 2009, is that Vidya or Avidya? The experience was valid in 2009, you see, but I remembered it then and since then I just remember from there and I speak from there. Is that Vidya or is it still a Vidya? It's still a Vidya, isn't it? Because true Vidya, true knowledge, is fresh from the Atma right now. Can you see this? This is so... suddenly you get this fresh world. Like when you're open and empty, then you realize you're seeing it now. Otherwise, you can imagine that you saw Brahman and think that you're seeing it now. Actually, I'm not; I'm just remembering.

That's the danger.

So in my previous avatar, which some of you liked more maybe, we were emphasizing on one aspect of it. Now I'd like to emphasize on both aspects of it. But even in the previous avatar—and I'm not saying avatar in just version—in the previous version, I was just emphasizing on that aspect of it more. But even then, the emphasis was that if it is heart insight, if it is intuitive insight, if it is Atma Gyan, then we must not have to rely on some conceptual intellectual framework to tell us what it is. It must be fresh and alive right now. The truth doesn't need to be remembered. Only the false needs to be remembered. So that's why for me it's a bit... I have to push a little bit more if I feel like the same framework seems to be perpetuating. So we need to fall back into that which is freshly seen. Freshly seen non-conceptually, non-sensorially.

That words to make a point out of something is also, I see, a way of making a concept about it, isn't it? Because...

That's why it's very dangerous for me to say yes to anything, because then what happens? We get a tick from a seemingly credible source about that concept and then we feel safe that we can safely hold it. That's why I love the Zen method where the answer for everything is 'No.' I think he's provoked me to get back to my old mode. No, I am. Enough. No, I know that I was trying that when I wanted to make a reform in my mind. The mind wants to make a theory about whatever may have happened.

But not including this theory, is it?

Yeah, not including this theory. I show you to see it fresh. That was the point: see it now. You don't need to memorize it. So, empty of that. But it's an important conversation. Thank you. I'm sure that because it's achintya, unfathomable, whichever leg of this table you pull, you can feel like this is opposed to the other leg. They're actually not opposed. And what is the strangest thing? Have you noticed that—myself being first in the line for that—is that when I call myself an Advaitin too strongly, then I'm the most Dvaitin? Have you had conversations with non-dual people? I'm sure you've had some nice ones.

I find them very dualistic because they are just like, 'It is only like this.'

But isn't that duality, to say that this is the only path or this is the only right way? Let's not fall into any of these traps from a broader perspective.