Your Primary Nature

Really, what I want to emphasize is that notice when you are open and empty right now. When you're open and empty—and open and empty just means that be open to everything that is coming. See, allow all thoughts, all perceptions to come. And empty means don't cling on to anything that comes; allow them to go. Everything in the realm of perception comes and goes. It is only when we cling, only when we attach, that we suffer. Or only when we say that this is not good enough, this should be different from what it is, what is appearing, then we suffer, which is the same thing, you see. So, cling on to an idea of what your perceptual experience must be, and that idea makes you suffer.

So now try this: just remain open and empty. All of you, just remain open and empty. Allow everything to come and go. Allow everything to come. Don't worry at all about what the mind is saying. Don't be concerned at all about that. I'm going to ask you a very simple question. Simple question—don't give it to your mind. Allow the question to do the work for itself. You don't have to solve this like a maths puzzle. If no answer is coming, that is completely fine. There is no pressure.

As you are open and empty, is it not clear to you, naturally clear, that you're something, you're beyond just what you are perceiving? Is it not apparent to you that you are beyond just what you are perceiving? And you will notice that it is completely clear, completely apparent, that you are not just the manifest, but you are also the unmanifest. And it is, in fact, the unmanifest—it is this unmanifest which is your primary nature. Everything else comes and goes. Every thought, every visual, every smell, all taste, all touch, all sounds—all of them come and go. But that which is beyond these perceptions does not come and go in that way.

To come to just this non-resistive openness is also the fulfillment of inquiry because it is actually apparent, so naturally, so organically, that you are beyond just what you are perceiving. Now, this that is beyond what you're perceiving is not in opposition to Maya or to the realm of perception. It is not in opposition to any of that. But my proposal to you is that we spent enough time, and we spend enough time, in the realm of perception with our focus on the realm of perception. Let's spend a few minutes in Satsang focused on that which is beyond the realm of perception.