I Am That - Session 88 - You Are Free Now - Part 2

Listen to Ektaji talk about Nisargadatta Maharaj's book I Am That. Nisargadatta Maharaj was a teacher who did not propound any ideology or religion, but gently unwrapped the mystery of the Self. 'I Am That' preserves his dialogs with the followers who came from around the world seeking guidance in destroying false identities. It was his mission to guide the individual to an understanding of his true nature and the timelessness of Being.

Transcript

What is more powerful,

Desire or destiny?

Maharaj,

Desire shapes destiny.

The questioner continues,

Destiny shapes desire.

My desires are conditioned by heredity and circumstances,

By opportunities and accidents,

By what we call destiny.

Maharaj says,

Yes,

You may say so.

Can you start seeing that I am projecting inside out,

I project something as a mental thought first and then it manifests in front of me as a gross manifestation.

First there is a mental wave and then there is the physical wave.

So desires shape destiny.

Destiny shapes more desires because you react to what you see here in the physical,

That reaction gets stored like a seed and that again comes up as the first thought,

The mental desire.

Again the mental desire manifests as the physical manifestation.

Reaction to that physical manifestation again gets stored as an impression.

Again the impression kicks up the first thought which is the mental desire and the cycle continues.

Do you see that?

Desire shapes destiny.

Destiny shapes desire.

Is this becoming very clear?

This will become clear only if you see that projection is inside out.

It will not apply if you try to see that the world exists first in that this body-mind-person is born.

Then you are trying to see outside in.

That is the wrong way of seeing it.

Desire is inside out.

First there is consciousness,

Then there is the wave.

It is never that the wave is before consciousness.

Projection is inside out.

There is a desire,

First there is the mental wave,

Then there is the physical manifestation of what you thought.

That is how desire becomes destiny.

You react to that physical wave,

It is saved as an impression or a sanskara.

Your reaction to it,

I like it,

I dislike it,

Is saved as a sanskara.

That again comes up as the first thought,

Which is the desire.

You give fuel to the first desire,

Again it manifests as the physical wave,

The physical manifestation.

You react to the physical manifestation,

Again it is saved as a sanskara.

The cycle continues.

Desire shapes destiny.

Destiny shapes desire.

Attempt to see that it is first inside out projection,

Then you will be able to see desire shapes destiny,

Destiny shapes desire.

Then the questioner says,

At what point am I free to desire what I want to desire?

Maharaj says,

You are free now.

What is it that you want to desire?

Desire it.

Questioner says,

Of course I am free to desire,

But I am not free to act on my desire.

Other urges will lead me astray.

My desire is not strong enough,

Even if it has my approval.

Other desires which I disapprove of are stronger.

Do you notice this?

You don't have one clear desire,

You have a barrage of confusion inside you.

You want this and immediately a contradictory desire is there,

Then another contradiction and another contradiction,

And you are confused.

Though you are saying,

No,

No,

This is what I want,

The fear that I will not get this is also there.

It's a contradictory desire.

You see that?

I'll give you an example.

I love my job.

This is a great job.

I'm in a great position.

And I hope I can maintain this.

I hope I do a good job.

And then,

What if my boss does not like me?

This is an opposite desire.

You are saying,

What if my boss doesn't like me?

But it is a desire.

Universe does not understand your Marathi and Telugu and Tamil and French and German of I want and I don't want.

Universe only understands attraction and repulsion.

The more attraction and repulsion towards a certain direction,

That manifests.

That manifests.

So if your force is stronger towards the aversion,

The boss should not fire me,

Boss should not fire me,

Boss should not fire me,

I should not lose this job,

Instead of focusing on what a wonderful job,

Instead of being grateful,

Your focus is on fear,

What will happen?

You lose the job.

Do you get it?

You make things happen.

Because you have a lot of contradictions going on within you.

You are not clear.

You don't understand that aversion is also a desire.

You don't understand that fear is also a desire.

You don't understand anxiety is also a desire.

And it will manifest,

It will shape,

That desire will become destiny.

This is what you don't understand.

And then you say,

No I didn't want this failure.

You kept thinking about that failure.

You thought about the failure 1000 times,

You thought about the success only 100 times.

So which side is heavier?

The failure was heavier.

Are you getting this?

Stop thinking about the failure.

You are going towards the wrong direction.

You are not understanding that aversion is also a desire.

Fear is also a desire.

Anxiety is also a desire.

You are attracting that in your life.

Has this become clear?

And this seeker is so clear that I have contradictory thoughts going on within me.

Are you so clear?

Have you become sensitive towards your inner environment so much?

If you have not,

I'll give you a little task.

All the failures in your life that have happened recently,

Which really hit you hard and your heart broke,

Whatever,

You lost your job,

You lost some money in some transaction,

You had a major argument and broke a relationship,

Something,

Something went kaput,

Some failure,

Really focus on it and see where did I put my energy.

You will see that you focused on the negative more than the positive.

You made it happen.

You didn't want to make it happen,

But your focus in the negative direction,

This should not happen,

This should not happen.

That made it happen.

Do you see it?

Your energy was on the negativity rather than on the positivity.

Is this becoming clear what I am saying?

He is so sensitive,

This seeker,

He is seeing it in his thoughts.

These contradictory thoughts are there.

Even though my approval is only on this much positive thought and this negative thought does not have my approval,

Still this manifested,

The negativity manifested.

Why?

Because there is lots of contradiction going on.

Number one,

Have you realized this?

If not,

Please do that exercise today after the session.

Sit for 10 minutes and really note it down.

Did I really focus on the negativity?

Did I make that happen?

Become very clear.

In my mind,

I tend to focus on negativity and I multiply that negativity.

So obviously if you multiply it and create a whole big web in your mind of negative thoughts and your positive thoughts are only so much,

Which side is heavier?

Where is the balance going to go?

This side.

Do you see it?

And whatever mental picture I have,

That is the physical manifestation.

After you see it,

Make a very strong conviction I am not going to fuel these negative thoughts because Maharaj said in yesterday's chapter,

Anxiety is an imagination.

It's not true.

You are imagining it.

These anxious thoughts,

These fearful thoughts,

All this negativity is imagined by you.

Cut it off.

Simply be a witness to the first one because it will come because of your old habit pattern and conditioning.

From there,

The first thought of panic,

Fear,

Anxiety will come.

What will you do?

Stay as the witness.

I have to practice here.

Not when I go back in that samsara.

It's very hard to practice there.

Here,

When I am isolated from that,

So that that does not repeat again in my life,

Here I practice with that first thought.

It's trying to really shake me and make me think about more fearful thoughts.

It's trying to poke me and evoke more panicky and anxiety based thoughts.

Can I simply be a witness?

Then let it recede,

Pass away.

You win over it.

Then you will understand how your inner contradiction only shapes what happens in front of you.

Your projection is shaped by your inner mental picture first.

So he says my desire is not strong enough even if it has my approval.

Other desires which I disapprove of,

They are stronger.

Maharaj says maybe you are deceiving yourself.

Maybe you are giving expression to your real desires and the ones you approve of are kept on the surface for the sake of respectability.

It means you are giving too much attention to your panic and fear and on the surface you have kept all,

Oh,

I am very calm.

This was only at the surface.

You are not paying real attention to it.

All your expression is given to the panicky thoughts,

The anxiety thoughts,

The fear,

The negativity.

That is what he is telling you.

See,

Did you do that in that situation?

Did you give expression to that negative thought instead of gratitude or the real positive direction?

Questioner,

It may be as you say.

But this is another theory.

The fact is that I do not feel free to desire what I think I should.

And when I seem to desire rightly,

I do not act accordingly.

Either I don't desire correctly or when I desire correctly,

I don't act accordingly.

So let's see what Maharaj answers.

He says it is all due to weakness of mind and disintegration of the brain.

Collect and straighten your mind and you will find that your thoughts and feelings,

Words and actions will align themselves in the direction of your will.

What does he mean by collect and straighten your mind?

Again establish as the witnessing consciousness and recognize what is the beginning of the mind.

The I is the beginning point of the mind.

If you straighten it means what?

It remains as the witness.

That's the meaning of straighten it.

When does it become crooked and not straighten?

When it starts projecting thoughts,

Feelings,

Sensations and perceptions.

Is this very clear?

Straighten the mind means straighten that I.

Stay as the witness.

So questioner says again a council of perfection to integrate and strengthen the mind is not an easy task.

How does one begin?

Maharaj says you can start only from where you are.

You are here and now.

You cannot get out of here and now.

So questioner said but what can I do here and now?

Maharaj says you can be aware of your being here and now.

Questioner says that is all.

Maharaj says that is all.

There is nothing more to it.

Did you get your answer?

Only one step.

Stay as the witnessing consciousness.

Simple.

Nothing more to it.

Nothing more.

Questioner.

All my waking and dreaming I am conscious of myself.

It does not help me much.

Maharaj says you were aware of thinking,

Feeling and doing.

You are not aware of your being.

What are you aware of?

The waves in front of you.

Where is thinking?

Here.

The wave arises.

What is thinking?

In front.

Doing?

It is in front.

What is the being?

Here.

What are you supposed to do?

Stay here.

Focus here.

What are you focusing on?

This.

When you focus here you start indulging.

You start resisting.

You start interacting.

You start fighting with yourself.

You are lost in contradictions.

So you are interested only in thinking,

Feeling and doing.

You are going to be stuck.

You are not aware.

Where should you be interested in?

In just being.

Being.

You are using these as an object to focus on being here.

This is helping me recognize whether I am at a distance or not.

That's the only job of the arising.

That's the only job of the wave.

To help me recognize if I am at a distance from that wave or have I jumped in and become one with it.

Do you understand its job?

Why we are witnessing it?

To maintain the distance.

And never to bridge the gap.

Has this become clear?

In your Samadhi?

Yeah.

If I bridge the gap and jump in.

Then am I being?

No.

Then I am doing,

Feeling.

Jumping in.

I am thinking.

I am lost.

Anyway you cannot feel,

Do,

Think.

It's all an assumption.

Then we are lost in stupidity again.

Again you have to come back to wisdom.

Again this is stupidity.

This is wisdom.

This is stupidity.

This is wisdom.

One step to stupidity.

Just one step.

You have to be vigilant all the time.

Is this clear?

Questioner.

What is the new factor you want me to bring in?

Maharaj says,

The attitude of pure witnessing.

Of watching the events without taking part in them.

Please highlight.

He is giving you straight forward instructions.

Of what you must do in your Samadhi.

On Buddha's path it is called pure Vijnana.

Pure seeing.

Simply watch the events without taking part in them.

Questioner.

What will it do to me?

Maharaj says,

Weak mindedness is due to lack of intelligence.

Lack of understanding.

Which again is the result of non-awareness.

By striving for awareness,

You bring your mind together and strengthen it.

You will realize how strong you are the moment you have established.

You have got cemented feet into witnessing.

They just don't come out.

You will see how powerful you are.

You will see,

Oh,

Projection is inside out.

I project everything.

I have projected this mess.

I can now withdraw from it.

I cannot totally change what I projected in the past.

But now I can stop projecting new reactions to what I projected in the past.

Because when new reactions go out,

What happens?

They get deposited as impressions.

And they keep coming up as the first thought,

The first feeling,

The first sensation.

I cannot stop it.

The more I learn to withdraw,

The more these arisings start reducing,

Reducing,

Reducing,

Reducing,

Become very quiet.

And life becomes quiet.

There are lesser arisings in life.

Same people,

Same family,

Same situations,

But lesser arisings,

Less botherations.

Because you are not reacting to new things.

You are not throwing out new seeds.

So there will not be new sprouts.

It's a different kind of a power to learn to change it at the source.

That is called strengthening the mind.

That is what he means there.

By striving for awareness,

You bring your mind together and strengthen it.

Questioner,

I may be fully aware of what is going on and yet quite unable to influence it in any way.

Maharaj,

You are mistaken.

What is going on is a projection of your mind.

Highlight,

You heard it directly from Maharaj.

Till now Ikta was telling me this,

Now Maharaj is telling this to me directly.

What is going on means whatever is projecting in my life.

Spouse,

Parents,

Sibling,

Money,

Poverty,

Abundance,

Happiness,

Sadness.

Whatever is the projection in my life,

Where does it come from?

From me.

So what is going on is a projection of my own mind.

A weak mind cannot control its own projections.

Be aware,

Therefore,

Of your mind and its projections.

So that you have to be constantly interested inward.

What is the thought that has come up?

Constantly knowing which feeling has come up.

Because if I feed it,

It is going to become a gross physical manifestation.

If I feed fear,

What will happen?

It will manifest.

If I feed anxiety,

It will manifest.

If I feed gratitude,

That beautiful thing will manifest more.

You see that?

So be aware of what is coming up in the mind.

That is called the projection of the mind.

Clear?

You cannot control what you do not know.

On the other hand,

Knowledge gives power.

In practice,

It is very simple.

To control yourself,

Know yourself.

So what is your problem?

Why have you not been able to control it so far?

Because you didn't know yourself.

To control yourself,

You have to know yourself.

So first learn,

Learn about yourself rather than being interested in the projection outside.

See what thought comes up.

See what feeling comes up and see how it gets projected.

So now start watching inwards first.

Every mental arising gives rise to a physical manifestation.

Before this mental arising becomes a physical manifestation,

Can I withdraw it?

That is the skill.

That is the skill.

That will come only if you keep watching and keep learning about yourself.

It's a very personal skill to develop.

Ekta can only pinpoint in that direction.

Maharaj can just give you a few sentences.

But who is to work on that inner skill?

You will have to work on it.

And it's very simple,

I tell you.

It's very simple.

The only thing you have to change is your perspective.

You are not a physical body-mind in a physical world which is pre-existing.

Completely shift the perspective.

I am the witnessing consciousness.

In me,

There is this arising,

That arising,

That arising.

Can I be aware of the arising?

First there is a mental level arising.

Then there is the physical manifestation of the mental level arising.

And if I have zillion contradictory arisings,

The one which I have fed the most at the mental level manifests at the physical level.

So becoming so aware at such an intricate,

Detailed level is required.

For that,

You need interest in which direction?

This way,

Not this way.

That's why you will have to leave your interest in the external world.

If you are too busy running behind boys,

This path is not for you.

If you are too busy running behind girls,

This path is not for you.

If you are too busy running behind money,

This will not work.

If you are too busy running behind name,

Fame,

Power,

Politics out there,

This will not work.

This requires full inner attention.

Do you see that?

You won't have time for this.

So you have to drop this running.

And how does that happen?

You will recognize this running was anyway useless.

What is meant for this body-mind comes to this body-mind.

That is Maryada.

When that seeing happens,

Automatically you turn and you realize turning outside is a waste of time.

Pointless is only feverishness.

It increases stress.

What is meant to happen here comes anyways.

Then you turn inwards.

You need to do work this way.

Then that skill develops.

Is this clear?

Do you have that as first priority?

Is it?

Yes?

If it is,

Then only this will happen.

Otherwise it is going to go under the carpet,

Fizzle away.

Questioner Maybe I can come to control myself.

But shall I be able to deal with the chaos in the world?

Maharaj says there is no chaos in the world.

Except the chaos which your mind creates.

There is no chaos in that world.

Where is the chaos?

Here.

Because where is that world?

Here.

This recognition is the most important.

There is no world out there.

You have to see this.

Without that,

You can't even begin this journey.

Do you recognize it?

Your one foot will be outside and one foot will be inside.

Will you go in any direction?

No.

For the longest time,

The Advaitins who begin the path are stuck at the door.

Because of this.

You have to have the courage to first take your foot off that boat.

Then you can see Maryada at work.

The body,

Mind,

World in flow.

You are saying no,

First I want to see it,

Then I will take my foot off.

It doesn't work only like that.

Doesn't work like that.

You will have to gather the courage to take your foot off and then you will see it.

Because your foot being there obscures your sight.

Obscures your vision.

You have to take your foot off and see,

Oh,

It's happening on its own.

That recognition of the flow,

That aha moment is your first step towards Ajatavada.

Otherwise,

The journey of Ajatavada doesn't even begin.

Not possible.

First I have to have the courage.

That's why Ashtavakra tells Janaka to be Veeraha.

Very courageous.

You have to be courageous.

Take that foot off.

And now see.

It automatically works.

The world does not need your support to run.

Your ego doesn't like it.

Because it is all caught up in doership.

My world runs because of me.

It doesn't.

It's like the movie is going on.

The scene is going from one scene to the next.

The hero gets an award and you scream,

Yay,

I got an award.

It's so silly.

It is actually so silly.

You did not get an award.

You cannot get an award.

You cannot win.

At the same time,

You cannot fail.

Remember yesterday's chapter?

There is no failure and there is no victory.

There is nothing.

The witness cannot do,

Cannot speak,

Cannot see,

Cannot hear,

Cannot touch,

Cannot taste.

Where is the victory?

Where is the failure?

Where is the action?

It cannot do only.

There is no question of success and failure.

So where is the chaos?

In your belief of doership.

That is the chaos part of it.

It's a false belief of doership,

Experiencership,

Ownership.

That is the chaos.

Become aware of this chaos.

So please highlight this.

Make a little note if you have not recognized.

This is what I need to really recognize.

There is no chaos in the world.

The chaos is in my mind.

I'll read that again.

There is no chaos in the world except the chaos which your mind creates.

It is self-created in the sense that at its very center is the false idea of oneself as a thing different and separate from other things.

Because there is that dvaitam idea,

I and the world.

That is the root cause of the problem.

You have to just recognize this.

No,

There is no I and the other.

There is a oneness here.

When there is that oneness,

When there is no two,

There is no world out there where there will be chaos.

And I which is separate from that chaotic world,

I have to clean up that chaos.

No,

Wrong idea.

There is no world out there.

It's all created by my mind.

This recognition has to become very clear.

And the only way if you get your feet cemented in witness consciousness.

In that space of awareness in which there are only arisings moment to moment to moment to moment to moment.

And these arisings operate of their own accord.

They are not chaotic or in any particular fashion.

They are what they are.

Not in my control.

Not created by me.

Got nothing to do with me.

Simply there.

There is no chaos in the world.

No chaos.

Then you will start respecting the flow.

What is,

Is.

In reality,

You are not a thing.

Nor separate.

You are the infinite potentiality.

The inexhaustible possibility.

Because you are,

All can be.

Do you see this now?

When I am the witnessing consciousness,

When I am there,

Because I am,

These arisings are there.

What happens when you slip from the waking to the dream?

Are these waking arisings there?

Why are they not there?

Because you are not in the waking,

You are now in the dream.

So these arisings are dependent on what?

On me.

Because I am,

They are there.

Is that very clear?

When I am in the dream,

Then there are only dream arisings.

There are no waking arisings.

That is why,

In the dream,

I only know the dream character's body.

I never know the assumed waker lying on the bed.

How much ever I believe,

How much ever I think that to be true.

There is never the experience of that.

Why?

Because that would depend on me being first.

That is only an arising of a sensation lying on the bed.

I would have to be there first for that sensation to be there.

The waking body lying on the bed.

But it is not there.

Why?

Because I am in the dream.

I am projecting the dream right now.

So I have to be there for an arising to be.

Is that very clear?

That means I have to be first,

Then there is the world.

I am,

Therefore is the world.

If I am not,

There is no world.

Because you are,

All can be.

The universe is but a partial manifestation of your limitless capacity to become.

Why is this waking universe my partial manifestation?

Where is the other part?

Yeah,

The dream and the deep sleep are also my projections,

My manifestations.

What does that tell me?

If waking is my projection,

If dreaming is my projection,

And if deep sleep is my projection,

My manifestation,

What does it mean?

They do not exist.

There is no world.

It is only an illusion.

They do not exist.

For that illusion to be there,

I have to be in the illusion state.

And I project them.

When I am not there,

They are not there.

If I am not in an illusory state,

There is no illusory wave.

That means it is dependent on me.

That means it does not exist by itself.

There is no world out there.

This is the meaning of my infinite potentiality,

My inexhaustible possibility.

Clear?