When Silence is the Only Answer You Get in Inquiry - 3rd October 2017

So then I looked to Guruji and said, 'I'm so happy. I've never been this happy, and thank you so much for everything. But the family is a bit concerned about work and interest in work.' So then he said that this is a natural flow of things, and tell your family that what is happening with you is best for everyone. Anyone who is around you, this is good for them. And this is the flow of life. With life, energy comes, and there is a miracle of work. And in work, there is nothing. It can be still, paperless. Man, you okay? So many things started to come back. And in fact, I started some big projects later. Also, there is work that happened. See how it is? Now it is constant. There are other days, and both don't make a position about it because it's not a strategy.

So what did I do to make that eighteen-hour work day happen? Or what did I not do? All things, even though or easily, some paper just for long, so long, so long, it could become immediate. You use various modes of communication. So sometimes, everything was coming at the same time, just tilting the back. And some days, it's just an empty inbox, right? The reference so quickly. Like sometimes I can say that I'm very sorry to all of you, like I said recently, that I'm not able to respond on Messenger or WhatsApp or Facebook. But the reality of the discovery stays. The challenge so far, when you are with somebody and they are going through some pain, you felt it as your own. Oh, it's a very... some increase in some transference that happens when you interact. Or I can feel more of what those who come to me... I can feel more of what is going through them.

And so if somebody's very nervous in satsang, then I can feel that. No one is coming to everything. If there's some grief, I can feel grief. My mind especially sometimes gets caught up here. I was immaturely sharing. So even what comes on the tongue, and so what is happening is this retains its some intelligence. Once the concepts are gone, then it has to be fresh every minute. The old patterns, yes, but that concept is not easy. So you cannot make a plan out of this. You cannot create... it has to be. That's basically what I'm saying. You cannot create a way in it. It has to be. All that you can do is check how it is now. How you are now is really no different from how I am. It is one being, actually. Again, this interaction... and sometimes from... but the concepts and beliefs are what keep us from being fully. It seems to create a layer of dust, if you can say. 'I am something' seems to play in the world different from just 'I am'.

So it's like the mirror which has all these concepts. Concepts just stack up on it. And we come to satsang for this shrugging off of the dust. We are not making something new out of you. You are the Self. It is just that your presence, your being, consciousness, 'I am', is playing the game of believing itself to be something. It has an idea or a notion about itself. Change 'I am something' to 'I am'. One way is by this direct pointing: just throw it away, it is meaningless. And one way is by looking back and coming to the recognition of your own source, 'I am' itself. You see? Come into the recognition of 'I' or awareness of the Self and seeing that all the 'something' can never truly apply. But it is like loosening the hold over 'something'. And then it won't be completely different behavior another minute because there are no concepts, there are no beliefs, there are no set patterns. So it can be freely anything any minute.

You see the nature of the world. Although everything is free, a plant is not deciding which branch to go next, which flower to come next. It is a beautiful symmetry in which things happen. And then we cannot fathom why the branch is taking that direction. But you pivot sometimes. At the bottom, you'll see something beautiful that nature is creating. The same is for every aspect of consciousness, including this life. Many times we cannot understand why this particular action happened this way, this particular movement happened in this way. But because it's the creation of God, ultimately the will of God will find some joy and pleasure. So yes, even without this having the decision about it, because that is the play of 'I am something', even without that, many times things which are so unpredictable can happen. And yet, over all the worlds, you know things... if you look at the life of a sage, which looks very dutifully flow, then if you like mostly of the very acceptance... a sage's life doesn't seem like the man who seemed to splash. He says anything exceptional in it can clear.

But even that place within... they say in Tiruvannamalai, he used to just walk into people's shops and throw everything around. And the shopkeeper, because he was well known, would touch his feet and would feel, 'Oh, my shop is blessed.' And as it would start doing very well, it would be somebody who's just like... they say, no, that even in a sage, this eccentricity is there. So there is a... it is not just you having completely unpredictable things. The family is not wondering, 'Who is this man sitting almost transparent in that thing?' The identity is just like very light leaves just hanging there. Like the extent of that extreme unpredictability can come to say, for example, to the country... so completion, I'm attached. But even that can attract. There's no known quantity of this condition existing even in their cases because, as it sometimes might be, they're not jumping off terraces saying, 'I am one with the sky' and 'I am one with...' they're not walking into the ocean. I think education given this virus, this human birth has been taken, is nobody with one hundred percent transparency. It is not painful.

I feel like a lot of the pain and confusion was done here before I met you. Now, you know, I have been to a few masters, and somebody creates something which is not right. Happens this spiritual ups and downs. And to be honest, even before I met Guruji, a lot of the insights were present. A lot of spiritual insights had come already. But this fluctuation in speaking of identity was very rampant. This belief finding... come up with this thought that this balance would shift and you might lose this. This thought like, 'This is going to be like this only.' You went to sleep. It's not in it for me. Is that... didn't happen? Not those conditions of this is just mind. Just that if you think that too.

G.B. says, 'Hi, I'm new here. Can I ask you a question next?' Yes, my dear, you can. See if you can find any... well, so now we have this new system. Alright, so what happens is to see you, I have to look down at the computer, and to look at you this way, then I have to look up at the camera. Yeah, okay.

Um, so I'll ask you about what to do when the attention is directed at the watcher. So it has happened to me that the attention kind of... it like sinks back or expands kind of. And how far I allow it to sink back varies greatly. One time, I think I got so far I felt like I was almost on some kind of edge or something, and then the fear took over and everything went black again. And I just feel like I don't have the courage to disappear because I always get the chance... I can't fall off then. This feeling is not very strong often, but I can tell you often, but I always back out because it feels like I'm going to die. And I don't think I'm ready for that death. And it seems to always happen on its own. It's never... I have sat for hours trying to think myself into this experience, but it is only once so totally outside of the mind that I feel like I could wait for years and it wouldn't happen. And I feel like when I try, it becomes a corner in my mind, and so I just go further, further away from it. So I feel like by trying, I go further away from it. So do I just have to wait and hope it happens on its own? Because I could have lost... I don't know what to do.

Okay, very good, very good questions. I want to start by telling you a little bit of the story about what happened one day. What I will not leave, because the same thing happens when we come to this place which is empty of any phenomena. Some fear can come, and we can utilize the fear of death. You very rightly... I think you like... unless I have some phenomena to hold on to, you can feel like I'm dying. And the thought can come and say, 'Maybe go back.' What happened is that the first time I did the inquiry really clearly, well then I would ask, 'What is witnessing this thought?' Anything would come, a visual would come, like this visual standing on the edge, jumping or jumping off. This imagery was coming, and I was saying, 'What witnesses even this? What witnesses whatever the mind was throwing at me?'

The fear of death, you very rightly—I think you see, unless I have some phenomena to hold on to, you can feel like 'I'm dying.' And the thought can come and say, 'Maybe...' What happened is that the first time I did the inquiry really clearly, well then I would ask, 'What is witnessing this?' Anything would come. Visuals would come, like this visual standing on the edge, jumping or jumping off. This imagery was coming and I was saying, 'What witnesses even this? What witnesses whatever the mind was throwing at me?' Imagination, memory, everything. The question, you know? And so, what witnesses that? Then what happens is the question came: 'So who is what witnesses my presence, my existence?' Then everything became very quiet. Body... then after a long time, the mind came with the same thing: 'Stop this. I will give you a good life.' And the mind itself said, 'Feel...' Oh, what so much guilt was kicked up. So much mind. 'You maybe you cut a deal with the devil. You will never get it like this.' So much, everything is... so this kind of mind tricks can happen.

This is where satsang is, that we do this inquiry together. Then you find that it's so helpful to be in satsang together because the Master is going to tell you that, 'Don't worry, I walked down the same path.' Even if the limit of the fear is coming, it doesn't really have any waves. It is your necklace Self, that which is. And the mind—clearly the mind wants the realm of phenomena. It wants to hold on to phenomenal things because it cannot. Mind becomes fearful of this. It is that undying. 'I am not ready for it.' And yeah, yeah, it is your heart's deepest longing. Longing. Otherwise, you would not even go there, not even clear on that street. If you really want to reach that destination, you get there because it is no-thing. Then the fear can come to that phenomena. This fear is not uncommon; in fact, it is very common. And that is why it is very helpful to have a living Master to go to, someone who you can really be with in this way, where they can tell you how it was. We can... okay, there is a very little instruction to give you, actually reassurance that there might be this fear that 'I'm going to die.' So that to me, I'm not going to die. You will see that you will be on that. Thank you.

Yes, I think I think you're right. The times I have in my heart deep longing for this because I'm not a spiritual or religious person. I live a very detached life and still I keep coming back to this just on my own kind of. And I just need to realize that there is nothing to fear. Yes, because yes, yeah, there was something else that was... but yeah, I think you answered my question really well. And I didn't think about the watching even the watcher that is afraid or not afraid. Watching that even, that's good. Thank you. Like, you know, I could still spend years if I tried to think myself into it, but it's so obvious, with the callously obvious that you know, you know, it's just when you see it itself is not, you know, what witnesses...

What you are calling the insight part in this exercise of inquiry, exactly. The inquiry is not answered. It is that we go... that moments of insight, your heart's longing. Now the heart is to do that, to start to... far too simple to get it in mind. Maybe we'll continue to place the identification. Although what you're discovering about yourself with your non-individualistic nature, jumping into that, you see that will be too much for you. But I tell you, which is jumping into that, this will be in my name and form which is rising, which is coming out of them. Consciousness is now recognizing jumping into the ocean, but it is the wheel, the play of the wave is recognizing it that 'I'm feeling now rediscovering that you are the ocean itself.' In the mind, now we become required. It's just a simple seeing. You're looking, this itself just one bursting.

I feel like when I watch the spirit, the juice of satsang, I feel like I'm still getting to a cold and the experience just courses whenever... my strongest happens in to relax with the original... ready for communication is different for everyone. We will talk about the witness, talk about the Absolute, so stick to those who are the same. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your instruction. It was very, very duty.

Mamta asked this question: 'If you see it as a dream movie, then any desire that arises is also part of the dream. So anytime that we watch the movie, we have a desire for the particular outcome. How does that happen?' Because we must be relating to the characters as if they are real. We must be relating to the outcomes as if it affects us in some way. So that's why I talk to you about what we call as emotion, actually in two ways. Now, the first is just momentarily some feeling can come and go, can come and go, can come. Lasting economy of this emotion can arise, but we make suffering out of it by mixing concepts with that. We can make guilt out of lust by saying, 'Oh, you're supposed to be spiritual, you cannot experience.' So we can pick up a concept. So seeing like this, but I call them Grade B emotions like resentment, grievances, regret, remorse, pride, arrogance, specialness. So we have the generic term 'suffering,' which suffering is just all of these Grade B things. Appearance is mixed up with thought concepts, which means me suffering. No?

So it depends on what you mean by desire. You just feel like to spend this... so just a momentary movement in the movie. If you go to that, if desire is that, it can be spontaneous. But mostly for people who suffer from it, the idea that 'My life should be like this. I should only have flowers every day.' Please cancel now. Today the satsang hall is full, point full, so there are some flowers nicely decorated. I know tomorrow somebody, nobody might be here. So then if I am attached, my desire is everyday there should be flowers here, that can suffer you. But the distinction... so if something is just arising momentarily to get this meal, this is the happiest man at that movement. Which is the place we are attached to the particular way the play must go? 'It must only be like this. This is what I want and this is what I do.' It becomes suffering. This cannot happen without thought. This cannot happen without belief. And thought cannot happen without consciousness itself giving its assent to playing as an individual entity, or consciousness reminding itself.

Father, can I say something? So no, it was like in the context of when you, you know, like when I wake up from a dream then I can immediately see it. Every desire or whatever I did or didn't do in that dream was a dream. I don't judge myself for what I did or didn't do in that dream, you know what I'm saying? So in that sense, when you were saying that, okay, well nice, when I'm in my awakening when I saw this whole thing as a play... so I mean, I'm just, you know, I mean that's the thing that you want to wake up here and now from this. Now it's conceptual that this is a dream, right? It's an inference at some level. I mean, it's and you're trying to make... should not through that influence but say, okay, initially like logically, and then you said don't think of it logically because that's not gonna work. But by just dropping or this surrender or whatever, there are glimpses that, okay, this, you know, for a bit it just seems like, okay, I'm not doing anything actually. And then when a desire arises suddenly, that's when you get caught and I get confused. And then I say that, okay, and then that instruction of yours, 'Don't pick any notion about yourself, not even one,' kind of like freezes you again. I mean, you have to just wait for that energetic whatever rose to go away. But sometimes it just feels like, you know, I mean again there's that sense of doing, that I'm waiting and I'm witnessing to watch what is true, what is false. It gets exhausting.

How can I make that, reproduce that which now, from now? How can you reproduce this which is picking about? I can't. Because what happens is that we try to... the complaint of the non-existent one using something on the path, right? And the way I was to find it, and I can see that the power of so clearly here, Father. You know, this sound is not coming clearly. It's like just breaking and the sentences are not like really being made already. Yeah, so is it like this for everyone else?

So what helps here is that I find that we could... available only for one-side traffic. Sometimes it becomes better that we... maybe you can try something like this. So what I was saying simply is that once you see that from here, it is quite a leap to come into that situation, you see? Then you see that actually my mind is trying to keep me caught up in an idea about myself using some seeming past evidence to make a conclusion of what happens to you. But if it really happens to you, it can happen to you now. Gopala will say, 'But now I'm in satsang, so I don't know.' I know what he's saying because like it's like this swinging, but it's even that that seems to be seen, Father.

Basically, you know, the only way it seems to be, come back into that space of emptiness or whatever we want to say, is when I just again consciously just remember to surrender. That you are the one who's the experiencer, you Father is the one who knows the experience and the doer, and then that something just drops and there's this emptiness again and just this witnessing. But even like with Guru's pointing of isness, it's the same thing happens. You just... yeah, I mean you're saying okay now it's now, but can one just use this tool? I mean if you're basically getting messed up somewhere...

Why do I say now, now? Because if it is true, if it is real, if it has any substance, it must be here now, you see? Otherwise it's just made up. We cannot... if I ask you, see the three sentences I spoke one minute ago, you cannot reproduce it accurately, you see? The memory is so all over the place, it's so unreliable that we cannot even recall things exactly from a minute ago. So those things which happened yesterday, day before, are we really sure that they ever really happened? Or the mind actually saying that, 'Oh, this is the symptom that you have now and this is what you need to solve.' Mostly how many of us now in satsang feel like these those symptoms? We just thought really here now, but just like these those symptoms which seem to get picked up.

So that is the beauty of this pointing, this self-recognition in the moment now. That even if something is in the memory, we don't give it so much meaning, so much importance. Meaning is for that which is true now. What is real? What is here? Why you in this moment? Otherwise our stories get a place, from personal stories to spiritual stories that we don't know they were acid you. Thank you, Father.

And he says, 'Father, just a comment. I had a dream last night that I realized I died but I was still here. You and Mooji were in the car driving and I was texting you.' Julian says, 'Unfortunately I follow like 100,000 years... unfortunately I follow 100,000 different teachings because of the mind's intellectual journey that is now seen to not lead anywhere. So I try my best to be clear. When I relax or let go of thinking and feeling, I notice that which remains unchanged. The presence of awareness, I call it. Do you say there is I even witnessing this aware presence? You say there's I even witnessing this aware... now make me guilty.' She gets triggered every time I say it's a bit subtle.

Now this aware presence, we have to have some clarity about that because awareness, the Absolute, the Self, is beyond even the sense of presence. The sense of presence, and yet it is before 'I am' always present. But you can never really say that 'I am experiencing the presence of pure awareness.' You can use it as a word, but not the feeling like in experience. If I asked you, 'Can you stop being?' in experience the presence of existence, presence of being. So aware can be a beautiful term that we can use for the entirety, awareness unchanging, one phenomena.

I pointed out that because awareness, the Absolute, the Self, is beyond even the sense of presence—the sense of presence and yet it is before. I am always present, but you can never really say that I am experiencing the presence of pure awareness. You can use it as a word, but not like an experience. If I asked you, 'Can you stop being?' in experience, the presence of existence, the presence of being, so 'aware' can be a beautiful term that we can use for the entirety. Awareness: one unchanging, one phenomenal, and its dynamic manifestation, Being, which we use in the term 'aware presence.' Now, you ask this question: which is more important? Which is there? I, which witnesses even this awareness? This is very, very, very important, but we will not understand this if we hold on to any notion about 'I'.

And if I ask you now, in this discovery of awareness, you find that only awareness is. There is nothing else. Now, if only awareness is, then is it not self-aware? And how even the reports are made? Awareness is. It is not witnessing itself as if it is a thing. It is not experiencing as a phenomenon, and yet it is the supreme intelligence. Now, what kind of supreme intelligence would it be if it did not even know itself? How would this intelligence arise from this awareness if that itself was empty of it? Because we have an idea about what it means to witness—because that idea of what it means to witness is to perceive, to see, to taste—when we say that the primal witness is self-aware, then it can seem confusing. It can seem like there is no witnessing happening there, there is no perception happening there, there is no clear attention happening there. But 'I' is aware of itself. It is merely aware of itself. It is a much better way to say it, actually, than anything else but itself.

So, that's why the term 'witnessing' also depends on how you use it. Do you mean capital 'W', which is that awareness is aware of itself and aware of its dynamic play in consciousness? I am aware of my existence and aware that I am aware of my existence. To the mind, it can be very confusing, but it's very simple. We want to make a report. I ask you, 'Are you aware of your existence?' 'Yes, I'm aware of my existence.' Now, in that statement itself, you want education because to say 'I am aware' already—forget the awkward—you are aware that you are aware of whatever. Already there is an awareness of whatever. We're not going to use any of this for... none of you. Don't use any of this to activate your mind in some way. Again, the mind won't be able to compute this. All I'm saying is that what makes it possible for us to say 'I am aware'? Is it a phenomena? Is it a thought? A feeling? There's no more things. What is it that makes these words seem to have more integrity? 'I am aware' then 'I am a green car'—just made up. Then why is it that you say 'I am aware'? It seems the music... 'I am a pink elephant' or something.

Thank you. Um, yeah, I think it's still out of habit that I try to make awareness into something that I can find and then grasp. But sometimes I glimpse this, that awareness is just aware, and even in this phenomenal presence, sometimes it's very clear. And it's funny because it depends so much on the situations and the concepts that are in the situation that sometimes I don't get it and sometimes it's totally easy.

Ha ha! Now, 'I will get it sometimes' and 'doesn't get it sometimes'—is that one here now? What?

Oh, I misunderstood it, I guess. Yeah.

Oh, that one who gets it sometimes and sometimes seems to miss it—what is the nature of that one right now?

Changing.

Yeah. So right now, if there is one that is changing, what witnesses this one? That one which is not changing. So which one is, of course, the one that I am? It can't change. It has to be you. So the one that changes, which means can get it sometimes, can miss it sometimes, that is just part of the movement of this anomaly. You can see. I like that conversationally, of course, we study, of course, we're not a greater new music, but truly don't give it your belief. Don't say that it truly is me who gets it or not. If you remove this 'I' from this equation, then what does it mean? Seeming back for instead of getting it, using 'seem' is much lighter.

Okay, so first, she said, 'Can I come up?' and then she... so many things follow that are trying to be important, but I understand like I really don't know. Yeah, so that happened here. After this, a play can happen. First, let's add some more. Life is for some only something you can have that position, and then they give a time where you can say, 'I'm not certain enough.' Some of the same stuff, you know, a lot of things can come, but ultimately it is neither. Neither position, neither this nor that. Now, I am getting a gist to your question a little bit, and I'm not sure whether this is the correct gist, but maybe we spoken about this also a little bit earlier. What you're finding is that this life—and that's why I call it a claim—is inherently meaningless. Meaningless.

Now, this is a terrible discovery, maybe, if you consider yourself to be an object in this life. If you consider yourself to be just a body-mind in this level, then this is a terrible discovery because then, what is the point of me? What is the point of my existence in this world? All of this, as you're finding that searching for meaning in that way seems quite a joke. It seems like a fallacy or fraud to look for meaning in that way. So in this way, then, many who discover the business of life can become nihilistic. 'What's the point? It's real. I have no purpose for me. What am I even doing here? What is the difference whether I'm alive or dead?' This kind of thing can come.

But what I'm finding is that as I'm saying that I am not an object contained in this life, so for me, it is like watching an episode of Star Trek or I Love Lucy. What is the point of I Love Lucy? It is entertainment. There is no point. So it is just something which, in the appearance of which, some broken image, then what type of distance... some play can happen. So from the corner perspective, then, this discovery that this appearance is so inconsistent, is so meaningless, meaningless to my perspective, it does not become a nihilistic sort of discovery. In fact, it becomes wonderful because there's so much freedom. It doesn't matter whether we go left or right, it is up and down, or we go to sleep in the play. Whatever happens to the body-mind and all the body-minds around us, really nothing is ever hurt, nothing is ever attacked, nothing really ever happened. So then this play just becomes more wonderful, more joyful.

But what if we have the idea that 'I am a part of this play and I'm just an object that was born here and I will die here'? Then obviously this discovery of meaninglessness can seem very terrible. 'Why? What am I doing? What is the point of this even? Satsang, what is happening? What is the point even if I discover myself?' So what boundary or anything that might happen—money or more money, relationship or no relationship—what is the point of it all can be the question if I am just an object that had a particular birth and will have a particular goal. But if I see that I am not that, I see that right now there is no person here, there is just this amazingness. I'm not trying to sell it to you, okay? I am a bit amazingness. That non-phenomenal witnessing, non-phenomenal awareness, is aware of this entire wave of light and sound, this world of duality. It seems to have so much intricacy and so beauty and wonder. Just all of us being able to sit here like this in this play. I am aware of all of this. I am automatically untouched by it, and yet this is so wonderful.

But if I was just this Ananta who comes every day to satsang with repeating the same story, everybody misunderstanding what I'm really saying here after you have the same time like that... so even if I identify as an object, which by himself has a very beautiful life actually, you see, then if I have to look for reasons to trouble myself, I can find lots of reasons. But I'm saying that when I find that I am aware of even the play of this Ananta, I see that he's a regular nice guy, quite well-intentioned in what he's trying to do even with the Sangha. I enjoy this play like a nice movie that I'm watching, and there is a little bit of interest how his life goes, but not so much, not so concerned about what the ending will be like. I know for sure certain one thing: that the body of Ananta will end up on a funeral pyre one day. So if you try to look for meaning in this mortal existence, then that is a fallacy. But in the meanwhile, before that happens and he is available when I wake up, I find that this body is still there. There's not a sense of disappointment.

Now you are seeing what I'm seeing. It's just that how we are interpreting it seems to be a little different, actually. Neither interpretation... you've been in satsang long enough to know that I am not speaking something which is the gospel truth or something. I'm just trying to shake everyone out of their positions so that we can become empty of solutions. So neither position is true, but sometimes I use the opposite position to shake you out of some position that you might be taking. So what's so bad right now if you don't project in the future or don't pick up anything? Nothing. But what is the fact that you could be here right now? Sometimes saying it out loud helps, no? Because when you say it out of your mouth and you notice it coming out, you think, 'No, okay.' He brought totally the internet. Okay, how's the internet for the rest of you? Is my audio clear? Audio is clear for the rest, yeah. She wasn't early. This one is still illegal. You want to reconnect? It's quite clear now. You want to try it once you close up here? So I'm not sure just that...

Um, sorry, that feedback. It's just that the realistic thing that you're saying, this voice of like, 'Everything's pointless and blah blah blah.' But it wasn't that strong, but it's kind of winning a bit. It's like because something like when things started, like when the mind started telling you about that, saying like, you know, and all that, it's like even this thing that was so important, like this... I'm so serious. Like, I'm so serious about that saying, it's not funny. Like, you know, like just it felt so strong and then it was like it seemed to be a lot of rubbish. It was just like this huge sadness came. Like, even this, even this thing is rubbish. So then this big bad attitude came, you know?

What you're saying is it is because even that is a position. It is too good, too good, too good. All it is just operational. Even this self that is so serious about that saying, you know, like all the stuff that went along with it... like, yeah, just everything that went along with it. Not saying itself, not like... yeah, that identity of the Sangha members, identity of the one in satsang. It's good, actually, if that is also swept away. Now, if you say that everything is pointless, would there be a pointless? Pointless means that first there must be what would have been a point. And identify that. What would not have been pointless? Just anything which is not personal, which could have given some meaning to this world? Not really.

But Father, there's certain things like, you know, honestly, I get all choked up, but there's certain things like, um, like my kids for example. You know, this just seems to me like... I'm getting choked up, but yeah, this like this choked up feeling of like everything's meaningless. Like, I don't know what, it just feels like... just feels horrible. Like kind of shocking. Like, what the hell? Like even though, even the good stuff is pointless. Even the... I can't talk.

It's a very good question. Everyone who can ask themselves: what is it that is not personal and yet could have been an idea we had which was a meaning of love? That is the cat example, isn't it? I don't say it like that, but that is the cat example. We went after one bowl of milk. Said if you get a good education, that is how life is meaningful. Get a good relationship, get...

It's kind of shocking, like, what the hell? Even the good stuff is pointless. I can't talk.

It's a very good question. Everyone can ask themselves: what is it that is not personal and yet could have been an idea we had, which was a meaning of life? That is the cat example, isn't it? I don't say it like that, but that is the cat example. We went after one bowl of milk. We said if you get a good education, that is how life is meaningful. Get a good relationship, get good children; that is how life is meaningful. Let me say it: we'll get this, and our life is meaningful. Then we were told that if you come to this enlightenment, that is how life is meaningful.

Now, what happens with enlightenment is that we see that you are no longer the cat. So, life is seen rather than as a vehicle to search for meaning. Why? It becomes this wonderful play. If it still had some meaning—that something should happen in this life for meaning to come—then I would not be complete already. All things cannot be true. Meaning means something should be derived in this play so that something can be gotten by me. But I am already everything, all there is. Now, what meaning can anything which is appearing and disappearing give me? What point can I have here?

So, in the demolition of the cat, you are not becoming a cat who has come to the conclusion that there is no bowl of milk. It is not the realist who avoids the cat, which is saying that no bowl of milk is attractive to me. But you are not finding yourself to be the cat; you are finding yourself to be the entire space in which all of this play of cat and milk is happening. What can give meaning to you? What meaning would you ever expect which is aligned with your discovery of who you are?

You know, the first or the second satsang that we ever had, I told you that there is a pen on the table, and that pen on the table is 'meaning'. The only thing you have to do is pick up that pen. And if you pick up that pen, all that you have to do is just drop it. Now, the pen that might be getting picked up is that 'even this doesn't work' or 'it is pointless' or something like that. So don't even pick up that. In your emptiness, show me the struggling with the pointlessness of this play. Empty. Look. Any concept, and then that will reduce its weight. Because they were weighed straightforward and simple, or just use this simple 'it'.

So, the one thing that gets, like, sticky... we had the same childhood, in a way, a similar childhood. So I do put that like that, so she can also fire back at him sometimes. So she will say, 'This was rubbish,' and 'I don't like you.' You might say that about this. But for them, I am very, very, very, very certain that what you are in this moment, who you are in this moment, has no trouble, has no struggle. Never. The emotion might be coming, might become clear. You are on fire now. What are you going to exchange this for? You don't have to be a 'me'. You don't have to have any idea about how life should play out. You don't have to have any conclusion about anything at all.

But what sounds like bad news to you sounds like wonderful news to me. All these things are so freeing. If I had to have ten conclusions about my life now, that would be a struggle. If I had to know which way my kids' lives are going to move, then that would be a struggle. I don't have to hold on to anything at all, and I'm seeing that I actually cannot. I don't see the struggle. You exist right now. How you exist, nobody can answer this question. No sage can give you a good answer even to this question: how you exist? It's the most miracle. It might not be meaningful conceptually, but it's so amazing. How can you manage to exist? And that we can never exist beyond this existence that you are, no matter what might be coming in life or what might be going in life. This is it. So if you're going to allow the shades of what is appearing to make a conclusion about what life is, then we are falling into the mind.

It's kind of like this thing of... I feel like just this always trying to steer things, you know? Because basically, it's like I just feel like the way that it plays here, I can't function. So there's always this trying to control things because I have to function. I can't not. And yet when you say, like, you know, in this moment what is wrong? If I was in a cave and I didn't have to deal with anything, I could say nothing is wrong, nothing's wrong. But to function, I feel like everything is wrong. That makes it... you know, if I could just be left alone, everything's fine. But it's not. I feel like...

You're functioning very well right now. You're putting together a coherent set of words. How is it happening? In life, there are only two things that people expect from us, speaking phenomenally for a moment: one is our hands and feet to move a certain way, and the second is our mouth to function. Basically, it's all that we call action. And it seems like the mouth is functioning quite normally right now in the words that it is speaking. I'm sure that the hands and feet can also work that way. Though the one that has taken the burden of functioning, that one is the troublesome one. 'Yeah, I have to function because I want to take the position of not having to do anything and be left alone.' Now, is that one really you? Or it is feeling that that is true about you?

You know, getting out of bed and going... we started like the first week, getting out of bed and going to school. No, it's getting out and going to work, or getting up and looking after the girls. It just feels like I have to do something to get this happening. Because the way it plays here is just this negativity all the time. Just this. So it feels like I can't just let things be because it doesn't work. Like, I'd be... I don't know where I'd be, living on the streets or something. I don't know. It feels like that. I don't know. That's dramatic on a basic level. It feels like maybe fathers in India... I can't live on the street in India, but here I can't. I don't know.

Someone who was very close to me, she is suffering from depression. So what she's been advised to do was do something about CBT—Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. And I realized, looking at the silly thing, there is just such something... basically, they are also auditing: what is it that you're believing about yourself? Where does negativity come from? To this root of all of these conditions, where do they come from? How to empty ourselves out from these things? So I found that a lot of it is very much exactly the same as satsang. She is also having to go through these same things where it becomes quite painful sometimes for her to go through it, where she has to see: what is it I'm really believing about myself? Why am I buying the story of this negativity and worst-case scenario? But is it really true? This is how things are being cleaned now.

So, like this, I feel like some concepts have been given some room there, but we have to find some way in which we can shine our light on them. Maybe something like what Byron Katie does, or some other conditions which are getting picked up. And somewhere the words of satsang also can be used by the mind to reinforce our negativity, like 'this is not working for me anymore'. So I feel like we can agree on one thing: that without a notion, without the condition right now, you have no struggle. Then the notion of having to function, and 'I feel like I have to do it', then come up here also. In the past couple of weeks, a lot of functioning has happened through this body, but somehow the notion has not been picked up that 'Oh, I am having to do this' or 'I've been having this life' or 'My life has become so like this, why do I have to do it?'

Functioning is required in life. Energy is there; the functioning will happen. Functioning is required in life; energy is not there—no matter what we do, the functioning will not happen. This is very, very intelligent activity. If you see that you're not falling for the tricks of the mind, and if functioning is really needed, then it is life itself. So it is consciousness itself, Grace itself, that has created that situation for us. Then it is Grace's job also to provide the energy for that. Where do I get this energy from? But don't take a position that 'I don't want to' or 'I want to'.

Yeah, although I'm saying that, like with work, it just happens. It's like, you know, I get there, it happens. When I think I could... you know, even like I might be half an hour before thinking I can't go there, so I just kind of go and then I'm there doing it.

Like you're saying, there are three options. One option is to, with your mind, report on the pointlessness or the meaninglessness of life. The second option is to let everything be my problem, seriously. And the third option is to invite Grace. So that seems like too much about this. Maybe my mind would be good to say, very beautiful yourself, that in spite of whatever position I might be taking about my work, I just seem to show up and work also seems to just happen. The same one that is doing all of this is the one that gives our heart this pump. That one makes the breath happen. That one we can trust. Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's all that there is. It's pretty much where it is, right? I just don't know. So I can't do it anymore. Right in the midst of all of this, we can see life becomes you. You are not alone and abandoned. I love you, love you, love you more than I could have loved even my actual twin sister I have. And don't worry about sleeping like a mouse or something. Yeah, you're here to do all of these situations as they come.

Like, is it a linear continuous, or is it... is it like... with time and space also? Do time and space... thinking of one end of you coming up and going back, but do you relate yourself as a linear existence? Something I was contemplating.

It feels very good now, actually. Conversationally, of course, you have to say that it is just linear this way: yesterday this happened, today is like this, tomorrow will be like this. But actually, this linear flow is just like attention also flows in a linear way. Sometimes you look, okay, you say look from left to right in space; it can go in the linear-seeming way. In the same way, in time, it moves in the linear-seeming way. But actually, it is not linear in that way. Everything that exists, exists. You see, time and space are just ways in which to taste that existence. Existence already encompasses everything. We are tasting ourselves using these two tools of time and space.

My existence is not limited to time and space. It is not linear, not backward, not forward, not any sequence. It is already all there is. But to taste it phenomenally, you need the tools or axes of time and space. But these things, like we said, are insights on your own contemplation. I can't really give you an answer which then... once that answer is spoken, if insight is there, but continuing these contemplations, they are very beautiful. As you are recognizing yourself more and more, you are also recognizing the fleeting nature of time and space and what they are. Let's take an example: Arya was here in this room seemingly some time ago. Harini is on the computer right now. But where is all of this in my existence, really? I don't have the best words to explain these things, but stay with these contemplations and see what is arising. For those of you who are not so interested in these contemplations, don't worry about it. As you are coming to insights about what you are and your limitlessness, your boundless nature beyond time and space, then all of these insights, these contemplations, might seem more attractive to you at some point. Thank you.

When are you going to come to Bangalore?

When? Then I will be coming on the 15th. On the 15th. Okay, very good. Yeah, just sharing: as long as my attention is on something, something is appearing. This is very good, very natural. Life goes on like this. Something is there, it is engaged with, and if it is not there, it is not. There is not so much intellectual or mental discourse going on about them. This way, life becomes very light.

Space, then all of these insights, these contemplations might seem more attractive to you at some point. Thank you.

When are you going to come to Bangalore?

When was then? I will be coming on the 15th. Under the 15th. Okay, very good.

Yeah, just sharing. As long as my attention on something is... something is appearing. This is very good, very natural. Life goes on like this. Something is there, it is engaged with, and if it is not there, there is not so much intellectual or mental justice going on about them. This way life becomes very light and natural. You see, Father, the position that we have taken can be so subtle that it seems that there is not even a position. Yes, you can only grasp it in that sense, that there is a sense of suffering. Murdock says, 'Loving what is.' Love that statement by Byron Katie. It takes me right into the now, dropping the expectations. She is coming to Boston tomorrow and we are going to meet with her.

But sorry, this is worthy. 'Loving what is' is another way of saying don't pick up the next thought. Okay, enough for today, I think. Someone else also came in.

Hello, my dear. Hello, Father. I love you, Father.

Thank you so much for being in Satsang today. Satguru Mooji Ji Ki Jai. Ananta Ji Ki Jai.