Existence, Who Are We Really?

In this 1983 talk at a meditator's home in Chicago, Gururaj answers a question about existence, delving into the idea of who we really are and what is the nature of Love. Do we feel Love or are we Love? This is one of my favorites.

Transcript

Here is a conflict of feeling.

At one moment you feel that you're non-existent and at the next moment you feel that you are equal to all.

The very word that you're equal to all,

You are admitting existence for who is the all that you would refer to.

So in this life,

Which is a paradox,

One finds oneself sometimes placed in the position when you become totally centered within yourself,

When you become integrated,

When mind,

Body and spirit functions in oneness,

You say to yourself,

I am non-existent,

Something else exists.

That which I thought is me is not really me,

For I'm not this body,

I'm not this mind,

But I am something else.

So I combine in daily living both the principles that I am not existent,

Yet I am all existent.

For without me,

How can existence ever exist?

For the I that I would speak of in thinking those thoughts would be the greater I that I really am,

Eternal,

Immortal,

Without beginning and without end.

For I'm always there,

I've never been away,

I've never come from anywhere and there's no place that I will go to.

I just am.

Yahweh,

I am that I am.

But when the feelings creep up within one of non-existence,

It also shows another factor that the very recognition of the fact that I am not existent,

Then it could be brought about by a comparison of existence.

Now if you compare the two,

You've got to have a point with which comparisons are done.

Then if you do not know existence,

How can you say you are non-existent?

For one requires the prerequisite knowledge has to be there to know of non-existence as well as of existence.

So you are both non-existent as well as existence.

But beyond both you are also,

You are also beyond existence and non-existence.

For non-existence as I said a moment ago is just but the negation of existence.

But yet there is a factor that transcends existence and non-existence.

For existence or non-existence implies relativity,

The relative way of looking at life.

For the existence that you know of is perceived by your five senses,

Activated by your mind with its various categories of consciousness,

Subconsciousness and superconsciousness.

And yet what is the reality in this all?

Is there any reality in the superconscious mind?

Is there a superconscious mind?

Is there a subconscious mind?

And is there a conscious mind?

Now when all these three are brought together and brought to the center of your ego then it recognizes superconsciousness,

The consciousness and the subconsciousness.

So it is the ego that says that I am existence.

But when you transcend the ego then superconsciousness disappears.

Consciousness disappears and all the trappings and workings,

The garbage of the subconscious mind also disappears.

So then you are in a totally different existence.

And that too you can question is this now existence or not.

You are in a different dimension that would be a better word.

And from that dimension all this that you hear and see,

Touch,

Smell,

All your conceptions of existence,

All your perceptions of everything around you would seem a dream.

So are you awake or are you dreaming?

Now when you say I am existence you are talking about a dream and the dream exists.

But what is the form of the dream in which you exist?

Where does that dream come from that tells you that this is a dream and who is the cognizer of the dream?

Here again you go back to that ego self which in reality is non-existence.

So here the existence of the dream comes from non-existence so it would mean that the dream is non-existent too.

So what reality is in the dream?

Sometimes our thought formations gathered in this lifetime or perhaps other lifetimes and because of certain happenings today,

Last week,

Six months ago,

It triggers of a picture in your mind.

And the picture it triggers of is a concoction of different experiences interpreted again and not in its total purity but filtered through that ego self.

So there existence is found.

It is observed.

I am dreaming that I am climbing up the Himalayas while I am here in Chicago.

What is the validity of it?

Am I really climbing the mountains there or am I not?

I say to you that you are climbing the Himalayas while even in Chicago.

For the entirety of existence is imagination.

Now imagination does not need to be false for the word imagination comes from image making and any image you make in your mind is a reality within the concept of the realness of the very image you are building in the mind.

So that is why in practical daily life people are so much affected by the images they create in their mind where something so real becomes unreal and something so unreal becomes real.

I tell someone,

A woman,

I love you.

What is the reality of that love?

What is the reality of that love?

For the very cognition of the love within me brings that love into non-existence for the mind could never comprehend the meaning of love.

We could say that love is not of the mind but love is an experience.

Now if it is an experience we got to have an experiencer.

Who is experiencing that experience?

But again it is your ego self that experiences that and the ego self has its own model of what it would perceive to be an experience.

The ego self has formulated certain ideas of what love is or what love should be.

So the ego self projects that love in saying that I love you.

The ego self tries all the time to compare,

Compare,

Compare its past experiences with what is now in the presence.

I am in the presence of someone I love deeply but I have to have a basis to compare that why do I love this person deeply.

And that is taking place in the mind all the time comparisons,

Comparisons,

Comparisons always trying to find a point of reference.

And yet when you do find the point of reference within your subconscious mind and you bring it down to the level of feeling or experience then who is the experiencer?

The non-existent ego.

So the entire concept of love,

Real love,

Actual love is never comprehended and never experienced by man in his present fragmented state.

Therefore to know love that is the secret.

To become love that is the secret.

To be love that is the secret.

Not to feel,

For in feelings emotions are involved and emotions are governed by the ego self.

To think that you love that still loses its validity because it is governed by the mind.

So through meditational practices,

Through spiritual practices we become so integrated that we neither feel love,

We neither think love,

We neither experience love because that would be temporary and not eternal.

For soon as you drop this body that love is dropped because it is governed by things that are forever changing.

You might feel this today and a different thing tomorrow.

You might feel so beautiful and tender today with your beloved one and tomorrow your feelings might change because he or she has been scolding you over something very,

Very trivial.

So experiencing this love for the moment is not a true experience.

It's a presumed experience.

It's a superimposition upon your real self,

Your actual self.

So experience emotions,

Feelings and thought proves the non-existence of love.

Now what is the true existence of love is to become love,

Devoid of any conditioning,

Where like a flower gives of its fragrance all the time without being conscious of it for even in experience,

Feeling,

Emotions and thought you require consciousness and love transcends all consciousness.

You are love.

You are love and that is a realization which exists within itself.

It does not require oil in the lamp to keep the flame alive but it is self-effulgent and that self-effulgence is both existence and non-existence.

So when people are hurt in love,

When people are disappointed because I use love as an example for this is the greatest need of man and man's ego self to love and be loved.

That's the greatest need from the ego level and because it being a need it gives either pleasure or pain but what I want you to experience or rather know which is a better word than experience I want you to know the isness of love and in there you would combine existence and non-existence.

You would form a synthesis between the two opposites for in reality non-existence is existence and existence is non-existence.

This applies to divinity as well.

Does the divine exist or does he not exist?

Does divinity exist or does it not exist?

He is both.

He is non-existence as well as existence but the existence only comes along by your perception and that is where we lack the knowingness of existence.

Until then it is non-existence.

So it is of no use to reach that realization with any preconceived ideas of no use whatsoever of having conceptions of what God or divinity would be like.

If you ask what would he be like then you still have to use a point of reference where there is no reference at all and that non-reference is the non-existence.

So how could you find existence on the point of that which is none?

What do you see?

So there is a path to self-realization and even self is a very incomplete word.

We say a man is self-realized.

What is self?

Do we know the self?

And if we do not know the self what right have we to say that I am self-realized?

Or what right have we to say that I am on the path of self-realization?

What I am trying to point out to you is to get away from all ideas of yourself,

To get away from all ideas of your existence or your non-existence.

And it is only then when you are away from these ideas that suddenly you are in the dimension of knowingness.

In that thin dividing line where there is neither existence and there is non-existence.

Now this is a totally revolutionary idea that you do not merge away into existence or non-existence but between that invisible line and you land there in that knowingness that I am and that I am is not dependent upon existence or non-existence.

And that,

To use common parlance,

Is self-realization.

That is awakening.

Reviews

Much to think about. We are beyond compare, and beyond comparison. We are Love, and Love is eternal.

Thought provoking talk. The explanation on being love makes sense. For the first time I considered that the pain of love is really only disappointment in another because of expectations and not an actual injury to myself (ego).