The mind has to keep spinning to hold your view of reality together. Since personal reality is mind-created, it can be either a negative reality or a positive reality. You can view the world as enemy or you can view the world as friend.
A positive reality is much more pleasing, of course, than a negative reality. It is actually through a positive reality that you get glimmers of that which is beyond mind-created reality, that which has no need to be created by your mind, that in which all creation arises.
The readiness to discover what is before your personal reality, what is not contingent on your personal reality, what already is and does not need practice, support, or belief to be, is spiritual maturity.
Spiritual maturity allows satsang to appear in your mind. In your mind, you hear the call Wake up! Wake up!
Surrender to that call. Mental surrender is reflection, resting the mind, not thinking. To reflect means to give up all considerations, all computations, all measurements, and just be still. A reflective mind is alert yet at rest. A reflective mind is open. Then quite naturally, unexpectedly, and mysteriously, there arises that which is reflected upon.
I encourage you to reflect on truth, reflect on freedom, reflect on who you truly are. Reflect deeply and then more deeply. Insight and revelation arise quite naturally in reflection. Wisdom and clarity are natural byproducts of reflection, of not creating and not following mind activity.
All I am ever saying, regardless of whatever words I use, is to be still. Let all concepts rest and dissolve.
Be still, be quiet, and the glory and peace revealed are infinite. This is the message of my teacher’s teacher, Ramana Maharshi, and the message of my teacher, Papaji, and the message of this life, Gangaji.
Silence is an opening in which the usual evaluation about past events, and speculation about future events, stops. When you let all mental activity stop, you make your mind available for the unknown, for your own self, your true self, your permanent self, your eternal self.
If you imagine anything stands between you and your true self, please, let us expose it and see the reality of it. Is it imaginary, or is it real?
It’s my mind.
Where is your mind? Find it right now. If mind is the obstacle to knowing yourself, then we must see if mind is real or imagined.
I can’t find it now. Where did it go?
Yes, where did it go? Where does the mind go in the moment of investigation?
It doesn’t exist.
If something doesn’t exist in one moment, and in another moment seems to exist, how reliable can it be?
It isn’t reliable.
It is not even a reliable obstacle, is it?
I just keep believing in it somehow. I keep supporting it.
How?
By keeping it going.
What is this “it” that you keep going?
My mind, listening to it.
Where is this mind? Find it.
In substance, I can’t.
When you stop assuming mind is some solid substance, what is it?
It’s my thoughts.
When you look at this thought, It’s my thoughts, what is there? What is there when you actually turn awareness directly toward thought?
Nothing.
If thought is insubstantial and is not there, what is there?
Feeling, emotion.
Find the feeling, the emotion, and tell me, what is there?
It’s imagined.
Then what, in reality, is there?
Nothing.
And this “nothing”? What is this “nothing”?
People have heard the word “nothing” and perhaps have all kinds of ideas about what “nothing” means, such as blankness, or some other concept of emptiness. I want to know, is this “nothing” truly nothing, or is it conscious, alive intelligence?
Sometimes it’s intelligence.
If it is intelligence only sometimes, then it is not a reliable intelligence.
Yes, because much of the time it’s clouded.
This that is aware of clouds and aware of some kind of intelligence that comes and goes, what is this?
That is who I am.
Yes! What you are telling me is that who you are is that which is aware when there are clouds, and that which is aware when there is clarity. Do I understand you correctly?
Yes, and I judge the clouds.
Is it awareness that judges the clouds, or is it that judgment appears in awareness as another cloud?
Judgment appears. I don’t like it, and then I judge.
Disliking, aversion, and distaste appear. Is this the awareness that you have just said is who you are, or are these states simply phenomena appearing as another form of cloud?
They are another form of cloud. A state is not who I am.
Now you are speaking the truth. Just for a moment, be very still in this insight.
This thing called mind that you have perceived as an obstacle, is this not just another phenomenon?
It is not who I am.
If I am hearing you correctly, you are saying that who you are is what is always present—that which is aware of judgment, aware of mind, aware of clouds— awareness, period.
Yes.
Awareness is always present. Everything else comes and goes in awareness.
I get angry that phenomena come and go.
Anger arises and again we have a layer of cloud. In the Hindu tradition, these layers are called the veils of Maya, because the mind, this cloud, has the capacity to appear to break into infinite particles.
My mind is very good at that.
The mind is a great power. The mind can imagine something to be so, and then quite clearly recognize it is not so. Isn’t this a great power? This is the power of Maya, the power of illusion, the power of trance.
Yes, I see the trance more and more. I see the hypnotism.
Now see the seer.
Why does she feel so alone?
She? You must be seeing some object. Is “she” identification with some phenomenon arising in awareness, or is “she” awareness itself?
Some phenomenon.
Does awareness have gender?
No.
Correct! No gender. Does awareness have eyes?
Not really.
Does awareness have ears?
No.
Does awareness have form?
No.
The living truth is revealed when you see what is truly here. Nothing! Nobody! Is there ever a moment when this that has no eyes, no ears, no form, no gender, is not totally present?
No, it is always present!
What is always present is who you truly are. Correctly identify yourself as eternally present awareness and take refuge in that.
I know in my mind that these formulations, this body, all these things that I do, are not the truth of who I am.
Knowing this intellectually is not sufficient.
I know that!
Stop knowing anything. Stop the search for intellectual understanding. Stop asking why. Every time why arises, it only takes you deeper into intellect. The only answer for Why? is Why not?
You are being called to that which is beyond mental knowledge. You are being called to direct experience. You are hungry for direct experience, and direct experience is not found in any formulation of intellect.
Be still, and then more still, and even more still.
Be still beyond belief. Then that which cannot be known reveals itself, both fresh and ancient, beyond any polarity of knowing or not knowing.
What is needed in stillness?
What survives stillness?
Stay here. Let stillness dissolve belief in any substantiality of independent existence.
Then there is no way to really know, because if you know, your mind is interpreting what consciousness is.
There is pure being, which is where individual being gets its power. There is pure consciousness, which is where limited, individual consciousness gets its power. Pure knowing is not known, nor is it storable by the mind, because it is bigger than what can be known from past memory or categories. It is immaculate. It leaves no tracks. It is what space is in, so it is even subtler than space.
What about insights? Aren’t they just thoughts?
Insightful, revelatory thought that is original and pure, coming directly from emptiness, is unmediated by conditioned mind. Insight is the holy child of the conscious union of the mind with its source. From that union spring sutra and scripture.
So these revelations are to be paid attention to?
Yes, they are beauty, and they reflect truth.
Speak them. Write them. Live them. This is what poetry is. This is what art is. This is what a true human life is.
In all the glory of the insights, that which is even more glorious—the source itself—is present always. Pay attention to that.
I have some confusion about this idea that all is “that.” There is thought, and then there is non-thought. There are these thoughts that are just noisy stuff, yet I keep coming back to the thought that even those are that.
Yes, absolutely.
So it’s not necessarily a dilemma?
It is not necessarily a dilemma. The dilemma arises by following thoughts as if they were the limit of reality. They are not. They are waves in the ocean of consciousness. Our general condition is to focus on the waves as reality. Suffering is then experienced as one wave ends, or one wave is bigger, or one wave is something that another wave is not. In that suffering, what these waves or thoughts arise from, what they are composed of, is overlooked.
The teaching that comes from Ramana and Papaji is to allow the thoughts to stop. Be quiet. Be still. In stillness, the vastness of what is exists prior to thought, prior to wave, as well as after all thought, after all waves, and recognizes itself in its limitlessness.
We experience bondage only by our attention on these thoughts that are thought and rethought, and then considered to be reality. The thoughts themselves are nothing but electrical impulses, waves, limited reality. Yet these electrical impulses, these waves, this limited reality, are finally one with limitless absolute reality.
Individual consciousness is always one with pure, unlimited consciousness. Shift attention from wave, and ocean is realized. Shift attention back to wave and tell me, has ocean gone anywhere? Isn’t ocean always present with or without wave? Isn’t awareness always present with or without object (thought)?
Then even the experience of being bound is a thought, but is still unlimited consciousness?
Yes! The experience of being bound is not really being bound. The thought of bondage leads to the experience of suffering only because it is believed to be reality.
In the willingness to be still, no one can be found either bound or released from bondage. There is only indefinable, limitless consciousness, in which all definitions of bondage and liberation arise and end.
It feels like without thought the body doesn’t exist.
Excellent! That’s right. The experience of body is the result of many past thoughts. These past thoughts have a momentum that will carry the body until its natural death. You don’t have to continue to think to keep the body going. The body has its own momentum.
The body, as you have discovered, is only a thought body. It is a desire body arising from past desires. Let these desires go, and they are finished in their power to create future bodies.
In Eastern philosophy, self-realization is spoken of as the end of the cycle of rebirth. The cycle of rebirth is experienced each moment. Simply see that what is born dies, and recognize yourself to be the seeing itself. The body comes; the body goes. An emotion comes; an emotion goes. Strange phenomena come; strange phenomena go. See what everything comes and goes in. See what needs no momentum and no thought to be.
The ego is simply a thought based on the assumption that you are a particular body, and this is a lie. All assumptions that follow and support this initial, mistaken assumption are therefore also lies.
Let go of the practice of trying to hold the body together, of thinking your reality. This is the beginning. What is revealed is so secret that it cannot be spoken. If it is spoken, it is already a distortion of truth.
First, drop everything—just for an instant—and see if anything has been lost. Then speak from direct experience.
People are often worried that if they drop everything, they will lose their ability to function in the world. In general, however, acuity of both intellect and memory results from this release. When the mind is not forever chasing images and thoughts of the past, there is greater potentiality for pure intelligence to express itself easily.
Regardless of what I tell you, you will never know until you discover it for yourself, right? You will never know how delicious dessert tastes until you taste it. You can read it on the menu. You can look at the faces of your friends who have tasted it. You can hear their descriptions. But it is all secondhand.
The dessert is your own self. It is waiting to be eaten. When I say drop all concepts, actually what I am saying is to not pick up a concept. You don’t even have to go through the effort of dropping anything. Don’t pick up any concept, and then feast on this that you are.
I have heard it said, “Mind is like a restless monkey—to overcome it, recite the sutras.” Can any sutra really overcome the nature of mind?
A living sutra can. A living sutra appears in satsang, and satsang is occurring in the depths of your being.
The spring of living sutras is silence. If you surrender to silence, your mind will be tamed. Silence uses the mind to express itself in sutra.
Living truth, whether it comes from the historical Buddha or from the beggar on the street, is true nourishment. Drink it, digest it, and then the mind is blissfully subservient.
I once heard it said that religion is the tracks where something alive once passed. The tracks may emanate great power and truth. If the tracks can serve to inspire you to turn to truth, then they are to be honored. Follow the tracks to their source.
As a child, I used to recite a Christian prayer, and I found comfort in that prayer as I imagined an angel beside me and Jesus in heaven. Everything was in order and I would be taken care of. At a certain stage that comfort wasn’t enough. I needed to enter heaven itself.
That prayer was a way of taming a child’s mind. When childhood is finished, prayers from childhood are not enough. Finally, the one praying must be discovered.
Sutras arise from revelation. Realize yourself and you will recognize that Buddha is not someone separate from yourself. The Buddha’s words, Christ’s words, a saint’s words, are all your words, your celebration, your devotion to eternal truth.
No one has ever measured the depth of silence.
Try. Turn your mind to measure the depth of silence. Silence is present right here, right now. Measure it. What blissful activity for the mind!
Is there a difference between liberation and realization?
Within the apparent levels of mind, multiple differences, hierarchies, inner circles, outer circles, and levels of awakening appear. But when one awakens to what has always been awake, where can differences be found?
While there is no need to deny the experience of difference, it is the reality of difference that must be investigated.
Where do categories and levels exist? What is necessary for the maintenance of categories?
Where do the terms “liberation” and “realization” exist?
If your attention is pulled to categorization, you overlook what is not possible to categorize. If you imagine differences to be real rather than appearances in reality, you suffer unnecessarily. Discovering reality releases you from the bondage of differences.
I want to understand, to let go and let God.
Maybe you have studied metaphysics or practiced techniques and disciplines according to different religious dictates. Now you have to directly discover for yourself what is true.
For one moment, put all interpretations, speculations, and conclusions about reality aside. Let that which exists prior to any interpretation or conclusion reveal itself. Let that which is untouched by any categorization reveal itself.
For another moment, as an experiment, resist all temptation to define it, philosophize it, or know it. Just for a moment, rest in that, and see if your understanding can reach beyond definitions.
Is “being” really a dissolving?
Yes. A dissolving of all thoughts and all concepts. A dissolving of all ideas of who you are, who you might be someday, who you should be, or who you hope you can be.
Could you explain what silence is?
There is no way to explain silence. Silence can only be experienced.
It is not something that you go to and get. If you go into nature or go into your room or close your eyes, you may feel quieter. In nature, or in a quiet place, you are not distracted by your usual worries. That peace of non-distraction points you to silence.
In silence, you recognize that any efforting arises out of silence and is actually searching for that silence.
If you tell the truth and are very attentive to silence, a profound discovery is revealed. You are home.
Many people stop at relative quiet, relative pleasure, relative comfort, relative happiness. Maybe you don’t have a television in your house or you don’t go to noisy places, but relative quiet is conditional. If by chance life flings you into the middle of downtown New York, where is the quiet? If it is relative, it is gone. Something else relative has displaced it. The lasting discovery of truth is in absolute, unconditional silence. Then, wherever you are, you know yourself to be the silence itself, absolutely.
What I get from the silence is a deep sense of aloneness.
Yes, total aloneness. Aloneness is the truth. If you get that, then there is no question of a belief in an apparent “me” or an apparent “other.” “Me” and “other” may appear, yet they are only appearances in the field of total aloneness.
True aloneness is all.
The mental definition or image of “alone” indicates something lonely, scary, needy—something in danger. That is not the direct experience of aloneness. The direct experience of true aloneness reflects deep peace and love.
Yesterday after satsang, I stayed still. I said, “I’m going to follow what Gangaji says and be still.” I really tasted that quiet. At the same time, perhaps because of those tastes, I was more aware than ever of my mental activity. There’s nothing I’d like more than to be that kind of full stillness you’re speaking of.
But I didn’t say to get still or to make yourself still. I didn’t say do stillness. I said be stillness.
I was doing the first three.
People often imagine that silence means an absence of noise and will attempt to suppress anything that seems to interrupt quiet. Stillness is, and being quiet is recognizing what is always still, regardless of events or commentary on events. Even what appears to be noise appears in silence. Return to that. Be that.
What a surprise, this stillness. In the midst of the turmoil, in the midst of all the mind activity, there is stillness. In the gap between thoughts, there is stillness. Before thought, there is stillness. After thought, there is stillness. No thought exists separate from stillness.
Be still. Taste stillness. Be who you are.
The challenge is then to recognize that stillness is always present. Simply check by turning your mind inward rather than pursuing its outward flow. Rather than effort to stop the mind’s outward flow, rest your mind. Relax.
I am not anti-intellect, but I am suggesting that you give all thought activity a rest. Let the mind rest in its source. This rest is nourishment. Intellect is hungry for true nourishment.
At rest, individual consciousness expands and recognizes itself as not separate from the universal sea of consciousness. In stillness, there is no separation between “my mind” and “consciousness.” Separation is experienced only when the thought, “my mind” is accepted as reality. Be still and see.
Be available for the unknown, for your own self, your true self, the eternal self.
Open your mind. Be available for what is unconceived, unimagined, unexpected, unnamed. Opening the mind immediately produces wonderful byproducts, but don’t follow the byproducts. Following objects of experience is the great temptation of the mind.
My mind still wants to figure it out.
A powerful intellect is a beautiful power, but realization is beyond the power of the intellect to grasp. Realize what gives the intellect its power, and the intellect is prostrate and humbled, floored at the feet of its source. In that prostration, the intellect serves, flowers, and sparkles.
This is the assignment: Speak what cannot be spoken. Speak what has never been spoken. What good use for the vocal cords, the intellect, and the life experience. Keep the mind totally at the feet of source so that it may serve that at a moment’s notice, and the mind will be divinely used.
Thankfully, I finally don’t know what to say.
That’s a good beginning. You cannot know what to say. When you don’t know what to say, your mind is humbled.
Don’t know what to say. Stay right there.
I am not asking you to say something in particular. I want to hear what has never been said. I am not talking about words. I am talking about that which uses words. Let it speak for itself.