What Is it That You Are? - 31st October 2017
Saar (Essence)
Ananta challenges the popular presumption of being a separate ego, guiding listeners to investigate what remains when all changing phenomena—body, mind, and emotions—are set aside, revealing the unchanging witness as our true nature.
The ego is a popular presumption, but popularity does not make it true.
Everything that changes goes in the basket; what is left outside is the unchanging witness.
Do I remain with the witness or do I go along with the changing?
contemplative
Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
The ego is basically a presumption. It's a presumption which is very popular, but just because it is very popular doesn't make it true. Just like there was a popular notion some centuries ago that the world is flat; just because it is the popular notion, does it make it true? You actually have had no experience of the ego. You have no experience of separation; you have only presumed it. This is very important to be shared, otherwise you might get stuck in the idea that 'I am a separate person who needs to come to my God presence' or 'who needs to become the Self.' But these things are not true.
What is your direct experience right now? It is not that you are a person. Your experience right now includes the experience of the body, the sensations of this which we call the body—a set of sensations, actually. But just because a certain set of sensations is experienced, does it make you that? Listen, what is it that you are in this very moment? Where can we go to for this answer? Where will you answer this from?
If you go to the mind, the mind says, 'Suppose you're the body.' What are you? It says it is the body; 'Don't try to be God or something.' If you go to your friends and relatives, they will say that you are this person, this body. If you go to emotions, the emotions will be again interpreted as if you are a limited entity. If anger is arising, you will say, 'You should be angry.' If lust is arising, 'No, no, you're supposed to be spiritual, it should not arise.' But what is the 'you' in that? It is again the limited identity. So, mind you cannot go to; outside you cannot go to; mind you cannot go to; emotion you cannot go to; pain and pleasure and the body, you cannot go to. What is left besides these things?
Is there something? Often I use this example: let's suppose we were to put everything that is changing, we put it in a box. I'll put it in the basket. Are you outside the basket or inside the basket? Inside the basket? Put in change—all that changes goes in the basket. So, will body, thoughts, mind, emotions, pain, and pleasure go in? Is there anything left? What is not inside?
Have you gone inside?
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You put everything inside. Why?
I couldn't put myself inside.
One. Everything that is changing, you put inside. Now, what is left outside? Is that changing or not changing? Now, is this an inference? Is this something you're presuming, like 'Oh, there must be an I which is unchanging, so I'm leaving it outside,' or is this your insight?
What about the seeing? Seeing is still there.
Seeing is still there. Is this changing or unchanging? As long as I have this perception, seeing is still there. Now, what about that which is aware of the seeing? You are aware, so you don't know whether you are that awareness? Is that the question? Where did we come to? We saw that there is awareness of it, but 'I don't know whether I am aware because this I itself is...' And yet, if I said you are not this, is it not you speaking from inside? Is it a Ratna who had that experience and she just whispered in your ear? You see? No, no, it's direct. So it is you, but you don't know that you are familiar to you. So you are neither able to call it somebody else, nor are you able to call it 'I'.
You're not saying it's somebody else, but also what you are saying is, 'Is it really I?' Why is that conclusion? It is only because so far in the past, before coming to Satsang, where have we used the 'I'? For the changing. For the body and the mind. Now we are listening to what the sages said: 'The world, the universe keep changing; I remain as the solitary witness.' So now we are taking the sages' word for it and using it in our investigation. Okay, the changes can come and go, but something witnesses it. Now, do I remain with the witness, or do I go along with the changing? So, if you do not come and go with everything that comes and goes, you must be the unchanging one. And which form or size what are we finding with the unchanged?
The Thread Continues
These satsangs touch the same silence.
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