Nisargadatta's I Am That Session 17 - Chapter 8 Part 1

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.

Transcript

So let's begin.

Chapter 8 The Self Stands Beyond Mind Questioner As a child,

Fairly often I experienced states of complete happiness,

Verging on ecstasy.

Later,

They ceased,

But since I came to India,

They reappeared,

Particularly after I met you.

Yet,

These states,

However wonderful,

Are not lasting.

They come and go,

And there is no knowing when they will come back.

So this is obviously a westerner who has been meditating for some time,

And he talks about the states of the mind.

Some of us have done certain Samadhi meditations earlier.

Those are called states of the mind in simple English.

So he said that when he was young,

He could very easily get into that state of the mind where you feel very tranquil,

Peaceful,

Quiet.

And then these started happening when he met Maharaj.

But his question is,

They are not lasting.

It's not a steady experience for him.

So Maharaj says,

How can anything be steady in a mind which itself is not steady?

This is an answer to your question also.

You also have this question,

No?

Why can't I maintain my awareness?

Why can't I maintain being in the witness?

Those who have gone higher and tasted the absolute reality,

The void they feel,

Why can't I maintain that?

Why do I get consumed?

Why do I get pulled into the drama?

Here is your answer.

Because your mind is not steady.

So he says,

How can anything be steady in a mind which itself is not steady?

Questioner says,

Okay,

How can I make my mind steady?

Maharaj says,

How can an unsteady mind make itself steady?

Isn't this amazing?

Till now,

All the techniques that you did on the Dwaitam Path were at the level of the mind,

The mind trying to make the mind steady with a mantra,

With breath,

With this rites and rituals,

That kind of puja,

That worship.

Mind trying to make mind steady.

Is that even possible?

So again,

How can an unsteady mind make itself steady?

Of course,

It cannot.

It is the nature of the mind to roam about.

All you can do is to shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind.

So this is an answer to the question some of you asked me in email.

Were all my Dwaitam practices a waste?

I did so many years of mantra and so many years of pranayam and so many years of this technique and that technique.

Was it a waste?

He says that initially,

Okay,

Because you come to the path as a newbie,

You're not really interested in knowing your true nature.

You've had a fight with your spouse,

You come to the teacher,

First you take away my little bit of restlessness.

This agitation in the mind,

Right?

You're not interested in your true nature.

Oh,

What is my real nature?

I don't want to know.

So obviously the teacher gives you a technique which is at the mind level only.

You chant a mantra.

10-15 minutes,

Anything you chant,

Even if you don't chant a holy mantra,

Even if you say your own name,

10 minutes sit and chant your own name.

Ikta,

Ikta,

Ikta,

In 10 minutes your mind will quieten.

It's got nothing to do with that mantra.

Anything you chant for 10 minutes,

The mind will settle down.

Why?

Because it has got distracted from the fight it had with the spouse,

No?

All that technique was,

It was taking your mind away from your current problem.

It's a distraction.

How long can a distraction really keep the mind settled?

Very temporary.

The moment you go back home,

You meet your wife,

Your husband,

And there it comes back.

Clear?

So techniques at the mind level are temporary relaxation methods.

All you have to do is shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind.

So obviously your technique also has to be that which takes you beyond the mind.

What is beyond the mind?

The witness.

There is no major technique to go to the witness.

You just recognize it.

Beyond the eyes are your thoughts.

Can you see there is somebody beyond the thoughts?

Somebody that knows the thoughts?

Shift beyond the thoughts.

Now remain steady as that.

That knower,

That witness.

That is the level beyond the mind.

Very clear?

Maharaj is taking us beyond the mind to the sense of I am,

To the witness consciousness.

So questioner asks,

How is it done?

Maharaj says,

Refuse all thoughts except one,

The thought I am.

This translation is incorrect in Marathi.

It's not refuse,

It's not a negative way that it is written in.

In Marathi it is,

मी आहे या विचारा खेरिज इतर विचारान्न धारा देवु नका It just means don't give importance to any other thought other than the thought I am.

That's it.

So this is a very negative translation.

Refuse all thoughts is a negative translation.

I would change that to give importance only to the thought I am over all other thoughts.

Just follow that thought I am.

It's basically the sense I am.

Not I am a woman or I am a man or I am a father or I am a teacher or I am a doctor,

No.

Drop the this and that.

Just the sense of I am.

And you'll notice you are beyond the mind.

You are beyond the thoughts.

The sense of I am is beyond the mind.

The mind will rebel in the beginning.

But with patience and perseverance,

It will yield and keep quiet.

Once you are quiet,

Things will begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally without any interference on your part.

We all identify with this.

The mind rebels a lot.

How many of you have managed to go beyond the rebellion of the mind and just stay?

Super.

So you have picked up the skill of patience and perseverance that Maharaj is talking about.

Fantastic.

Now grow your roots in patience.

Just stay there.

Stay there.

Don't give in to the rebellion of the mind.

Then what he says,

Once your mind becomes quiet because of your patience,

Things will begin to happen spontaneously.

Means you'll start noticing I am the witness and the body and mind is working automatically,

Spontaneously,

Naturally doing what it needs to do.

Talking with the husband,

Interacting with the kid,

Cooking,

Cleaning,

Doing office work.

Everything is happening spontaneously,

Naturally.

I am established as the witness,

As the sense of I am.

The last part is most important.

Without any interference on your part.

Whose part?

Who is this your?

He is talking about.

I,

The witness.

I just remain and I can see that the body-mind is doing everything on its own.

I do not need to interfere.

How many of you have recognized this at least in a few glimpses?

That you do not need to interfere at all and the body-mind continues doing what it needs to do.

Super.

Can I avoid this protracted battle with my mind?

Maharaj says,

Yes,

You can.

Just live your life as it comes.

What is the questioner asking?

Too much work.

Being the sense of I am,

Be the witness and then you stay there patiently or too much work.

I don't want to do this.

Yeah,

So can I avoid this?

Basically,

He's saying.

Can I avoid this protracted battle with my mind?

Maharaj says,

Yes,

Yes,

You can.

Just live your life as it comes.

But be alert,

Alertly,

Watchfully,

Allowing everything to happen as it happens.

Doing the natural things the natural way.

Suffering,

Rejoicing as life brings.

This is also a way.

Yeah,

But as life brings,

So there is suffering.

Okay,

There is suffering.

Rejoicing.

Okay,

There is rejoicing.

This is a way.

If you cannot do this,

Then you remain as the witness,

The sense of I am.

You have two options.

Very clear?

So the questioner says,

Well,

Then I can as well marry,

Have children,

Run a business and be happy.

Remember,

He is a westerner who has come to India.

So in those days,

This is 1970s.

Okay,

So sometime in the 70s,

This person has come down to India.

So the belief was,

Oh,

You have to leave your family.

You should not be married when you're a celibate,

A brahmachari.

And you do this 100 percent.

You give this your energy and time.

Then only you can get enlightened.

So now he said,

Oh,

Fantastic.

Now you're telling me another way.

Then I can do all these things.

Marry,

Run a business.

Maharaj says,

Sure,

You may or may not be happy.

Take it in your stride.

Because he is looking for an easy way.

He doesn't want to do the sense of I am.

Remember,

He said,

Can I avoid the battle?

So Maharaj says,

Okay,

Just be with what is.

You might not be happy,

But you take it in your stride.

And the questioner says,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

I want happiness.

Yeah,

Yet I want happiness.

Maharaj says,

True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass away.

Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably.

Happiness comes from the self and can be found in the self only.

Find your real self,

Swaroopa,

And all else will come with it.

First line,

True happiness cannot come from things that change and pass away.

This is the truth about life.

It doesn't matter which path you follow.

Whether you follow the Advaita path or the yogic path,

The Vedic path,

The path of Buddha,

Ramana Maharshi,

Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Any,

Any path,

Wherever you go,

Every path will tell you the one truth,

Anitya.

Everything is anitya.

Anitya,

It's constantly changing,

Constantly changing.

Everything is constantly changing.

This is number one truth of life.

Buddha also taught the same thing,

Anitya.

Everything is changing.

What does this tell me?

I only experience the now,

The now,

The now,

Again and again.

I just experience the now.

Do you notice the now keeps changing?

Again it is changing,

Again it is changing,

Again it is changing.

What is the thirst of the mind?

Permanency should not change.

I want a permanent relationship.

I want a permanent house and perfect house.

No maintenance required,

Perfect house.

No taxes to be paid also,

That perfect house on a no tax land.

Is it possible?

No.

The same house that gave me lot of happiness the day I bought it,

In a few days,

Oh I have to pay taxes.

Oh this is broken,

I have to mend this.

Oh that is broken.

Few years down the line the same house is giving you dukkha.

Why?

Because I am looking for permanence.

I am looking for it to not change.

This is the cause of my suffering.

I am not ready to accept the biggest truth about life.

That everything is changing.

True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass away.

Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably.

You keep saying the same thing that gives me pleasure today,

Tomorrow gives me pain.

Again it will bring pleasure,

Again there is pain.

Happiness comes from the self and can be found in the self only.

So that is why stop looking here he says.

This is the wrong direction.

Look inwards.

When you bought the house,

The trigger must have been the new house.

But is there happiness in that house?

If happiness really came from the house,

It should have been continuous and permanent.

Even today it should give you exactly the same happiness it gave you the day you bought the house.

Is that true?

No.

It does not give you that happiness today.

That means it does not have happiness as its quality.

Happiness came from somewhere else.

So it was triggered from an external trigger.

For example,

House in our example.

But the happiness was delivered from inside.

Do you get it?

Most of us have the gas at home,

The stove that has the flame.

You use a lighter to strike the stove on.

It comes on.

Can you say the lighter was the source of the flame coming on?

The lighter was just a trigger.

The fire came on because there is a cylinder or there is gas flowing through the pipes coming to that particular stove.

So do you see the source is somewhere else and the trigger is somewhere else?

Similarly,

The source of my happiness is here.

It's within.

And it's a continuous supply.

Like the pipe,

The gas that comes in the pipe.

Continuous supply.

The trigger might be a house,

A relationship outside,

Some money,

Extra money in the bank,

Some new job.

Some external trigger triggered it.

But actually the happiness source is within.

Just like your gas stove.

Happiness comes from the self and can be found in the self only.

Find your real self,

Swaroopa,

And all else will come with it.

The questioner says,

If my real self is peace and love,

Why is it so restless?

Maharaj says,

It is not your real being that is restless,

But its reflection in the mind appears restless.

Because the mind is restless.

It is just like the reflection of the moon in the water stirred by the wind.

The wind of desire stirs the mind.

And the me,

Which is but a reflection of the self in the mind,

Appears changeful.

But these ideas of movement,

Of restlessness,

Of pleasure and pain are all in the mind.

The self stands beyond the mind,

Aware but unconcerned.

This is very simple.

The moonlight is reflecting on the surface of a lake.

Let's assume to begin with the surface of this lake is absolutely still.

You can see a perfect reflection of the moon.

And then comes a gust of wind.

The wind moves the surface of the water.

So what happens?

You see the reflection also moving.

That's exactly what is happening.

Our mind is unsteady.

The self is not unsteady.

The self is like the original moon.

The mind is unsteady because of the wind of desire.

I want this.

I don't like this.

I don't like this.

Both are desires.

Because I encourage this.

What happens?

The winds blow on the mind.

And the reflection seems shaky,

Unsteady.

Now understand,

Why do I say I like this and I don't like this?

Because I am not ready to accept the truth that everything is changing.

If I accept the truth,

Okay,

Everything changes,

It's okay.

It's raining,

Okay.

It's snowing,

Okay.

It's nice and sunny,

Okay.

You'll have a straight line graph.

You will not want things to be anything other than what they naturally are in the moment.

Then these winds will not move over that surface of the water.

The winds are moving only because you're not ready to accept the truth that everything is changing.

Very carefully look in this moment.

You might think,

Oh,

It's the same thing that we are talking about for the past 30 minutes.

No.

Moment to moment to moment,

The now is changing.

Your experience is changing.

The way you were sitting 30 minutes ago,

You're not sitting the same way.

The way the body was comfortable in the chair is not comfortable in the same way.

Somebody's back is hurting.

Somebody's leg is hurting.

Somebody's feeling a cramp.

Recognize this.

Your posture has changed.

Things keep changing moment to moment to moment.

The state of your mind has changed.

How you were feeling 30 minutes ago,

You're not feeling the same right now.

Your feelings are changing.

Inside,

How your own inner environment is,

That is changing.

The thoughts are changing.

Maybe 30 minutes ago,

You were feeling very negative.

Now you've started feeling a little positive.

Or 30 minutes ago,

You were feeling positive.

Now you're feeling negative.

It's constantly changing.

The room is the same.

The house is the same.

Look at the same house 10 years down the line.

It'll show its age.

Look at your own face 10 years down the line.

It'll show its age.

Moment to moment to moment to moment,

Things are changing.

Accept this truth.

Accept this truth.

When you start accepting,

Then the surface becomes steady.

Then nothing affects.

Then nothing causes dukkha.

Dukkha is pain.

I'm just going to talk a lot about pain in the next few paragraphs.

So the reason for pain is my non-acceptance of the truth of anitya.

It's the last sentences.

But these ideas of movement,

Of restlessness,

Of pleasure and pain are all in the mind.

The self stands beyond the mind,

Aware but unconcerned.

Those who have managed to take the step to the witness,

Step beyond the mind and body.

See your mind and body are restless,

But the witness,

Is it restless?

How your mind and body were moving right now,

Before I told you to take a step beyond and go to the witness.

Do you notice now how steady the body became?

Are you noticing even the mind becomes steady the moment you take a step beyond to the witness?

Yeah,

Why?

Because the body and mind are a reflection of the witness consciousness.

The moment you stand as the witness,

It becomes steady and that reflects in your body and mind.

Right now,

Right here,

You experienced it.

So I'll read that last sentence again.

The self stands beyond the mind,

Aware but unconcerned.

The moment you stand as the witness,

You're beyond the mind and you're aware.

Aren't you aware now?

And now tell me,

Is this witness restless like the mind?

Is there pain in the witness?

Is there pleasure in the witness?

Do you notice there is nothing,

No pain,

No pleasure.

Whatever pain and pleasure happens,

Happens at the body and mind level.

The moment you stand as the witness,

As the awareness,

There is no pain,

There is no pleasure,

There is no restlessness.

It is totally unconcerned.

Aware yet unconcerned.

How to reach it?

Maharaj says,

You are the self,

Here and now.

Leave the mind alone.

Stand aware and unconcerned.

And you will realize that to stand alert but detached,

Watching events come and go is an aspect of your real nature.

Just like in the night when you dream a dream,

Many times you forget that you are the dreamer.

You become the dream character and you go through the pain or the pleasure,

Whatever is happening in the dream.

But sometimes,

Some fortunate moments are there when you recognize,

I am dreaming that the dream character is going through this pain or pleasure.

Have you had glimpses of this?

Now have you started having the same glimpses in this waking dream?

Have you started seeing,

Let's see,

I am the witness of this body-mind that is speaking right now.

I am standing apart from it.

Have you had at least one glimpse?

Superb!

So,

You will realize that to stand alert but detached,

Watching events come and go is an aspect of your real nature.

We had totally ignored this aspect of our real nature all our lives.

So,

It's so fortunate to find a master like Maharaj who reminds you,

Look,

See,

You have really ignored this aspect before.

Now just stay there,

Detached,

Aware and alert but unconcerned,

Just watching the events.

The husband or the wife comes,

The child comes and says something,

Things going on,

Office work is going on,

Whatever events are happening.

I stand detached.

I see that the body-mind does what it needs to do in that interaction but I stand detached and alert.

What are the other aspects?

Because he spoke about the aspect of our real nature where we are just standing and watching.

So,

The questioner asks,

What are the other aspects?

Maharaj says,

The aspects are infinite in number.

Realize one and you will realize all.

So,

The questioner gets very interested,

Tell me something that would help me.

Maharaj says,

You know best what you need.

Questioner says,

I am restless,

How can I gain peace?

For what do you need peace?

To be happy.

Are you not happy now?

No,

I am not.

What makes you unhappy?

I have what I don't want and I want what I don't have.

Please highlight,

Isn't this your problem too?

You will have money,

You will have a family,

You will have good things also.

But no,

You are not happy with that.

You want something you don't have.

I don't have that Tesla.

Oh,

I don't have that Rolex watch.

Oh,

I don't have that kind of a beautiful family member.

There,

You want that which you don't have.

You want that which you don't have.

What you have,

All these wonderful things you ignore.

You don't want them in fact.

So,

I have what I don't want and I want what I don't have.

Maharaj says,

Why don't you invert it?

Want what you have and care not for what you don't have.

It's such a simple solution.

Whatever you have,

Just cherish that.

Just be grateful for that.

And what you don't have,

Forget about it.

Don't even think about it.

Questioner says,

I want what is pleasant and don't want what is painful.

Maharaj says,

How do you know what is pleasant and what is not?

Questioner says,

From past experience of course.

Maharaj says,

Guided by memory,

You have been pursuing the pleasant and shunning the unpleasant.

Have you succeeded?

You ask yourself this question,

Have you succeeded?

Have you succeeded?

Whatever your memory tells you,

This thing gave me pleasure last time.

So,

It should give me pleasure today also.

So,

I should run after this today.

Don't you do that?

You run behind that which gave you pleasure in the past.

So,

You are guided by memory.

Yes?

And something was unpleasant in the past.

So,

What do you do?

No,

No.

I don't even want to see that.

I don't even want to go there.

I shun that which was unpleasant in the past.

So,

I am guided by memory.

My actions are following the same repetitive pattern.

Yes?

There is repetition.

And I do the same thing again and again and again and again and again.

Do you notice this?

Have you succeeded?

Have you succeeded in eliminating that unpleasant and getting that which is pleasant?

You will notice that the mind is never satiated.

It is never ever enough.

Have you realized this?

In your own personal experience.

Your mind can never be satiated.

How much ever money you get,

How much ever success you get,

It wants more,

It wants more,

It wants more.

How much ever you succeed in pushing the unpleasant away.

You notice it comes back.

You don't want it.

You push it away.

It keeps coming back.

Again and again.

You don't want to see your obnoxious neighbor.

Every morning you get out of the house.

He also has to go to office at that time only.

You land up seeing your neighbor even when you don't want to see your neighbor.

Today is an important meeting.

Today is a very important day.

I should not see my neighbor.

He has to leave 5 minutes early.

He also has to leave 5 minutes early that day only.

The more you push things away,

Do you notice they keep coming back?

Have you succeeded?

If you have not succeeded,

It means you are doing something wrong.

The questioner says,

No,

I have not.

The pleasant does not last.

Pain sets in again.

Maharaj says,

Which pain?

The desire for pleasure.

The fear of pain.

Both are states of distress.

Is there a state of unalloyed pleasure?

This is very important.

This questioner has walked the path.

You can recognize from his answer.

The desire for pleasure is itself a state of distress.

How many of you recognize this?

You desire for money.

You desire for name.

You desire for fame.

You desire for a happy relationship.

You want more.

You want more.

Do you recognize that desire itself is the cause of distress?

You are constantly restless.

Constantly restless.

Constantly feverish.

It should happen this way.

It should happen this way.

Does life go according to your wishes?

No.

But you still don't learn a lesson.

You still keep saying things should happen this way.

Are you seeing this?

That hankering for pleasure.

The desire for pleasure.

Itself is a state of distress.

And the fear of pain.

You apply it to your life.

You know things are not in your control.

There is no point of fear.

Any fear.

If things were in your control.

And by you fearing they would change their course of action.

When it was sensible.

Right?

Do things change the course of action?

Depending on you having fear or not having fear.

No.

Pointless.

I am agitating my own self.

Yes.

That is why.

The fear of pain is a state of distress.

Very intelligent.

Advaitin.

So he is asking.

Is there a state of unalloyed pleasure?

Maharaj says.

Every pleasure.

Physical or mental.

Needs an instrument.

Both the physical and mental instruments are material.

They get tired and worn out.

They get tired and worn out.

What is physical and mental instrument?

The body and the mind.

The body and the mind get tired and worn out.

The pleasure they yield is necessarily limited in intensity and duration.

You can get only so much pleasure from the body.

You can get only so much pleasure from your thinking,

Your analysis,

From the mind,

From logic.

But you want so much more.

So.

The pleasure they yield is limited in intensity as well as duration.

You want it to last long.

That is duration.

And intensity you want lots of pleasure.

But body and mind are incapable instruments.

They cannot give you that pleasure.

Because they are incapable.

What happens?

Pain is the background of all your pleasures.

Because the mind wants infinite pleasure for an infinite amount of time.

But body and mind can give me only so much pleasure.

There is a limitation.

The I,

The ego is not satiated with the pleasure that it receives.

That is why there is dukkha constantly.

So dukkha,

Pain is born out of not accepting the truth of anitya,

The constant change.

Anitya leads to dukkha.

Pain is the background of all your pleasures.

You want them because you suffer.

You want what?

You want pleasure because you suffer.

On the other hand,

The very search for pleasure is the cause of pain.

It is a vicious cycle.

So some of us who are beginners don't get this.

They say,

No,

I find it very pleasurable to run after that beautiful woman or that handsome guy.

Yeah,

I'm still young.

I'm in my 20s.

I'm looking for a relationship.

I'm enjoying running after him or her.

Do you notice the mind is constantly restless?

Constantly thinking thoughts about when I get this,

Then what will happen?

When I attain that,

Then what will happen?

The constant hankering in the mind,

The constant restlessness in the mind does not allow the mind to be settled and at peace.

That constant craving for pleasure and running after pleasure itself is pain.

You will not see it right now,

But when you get that girl or that boy and you get into that relationship,

What will happen after six,

Eight months?

What did I do?

Why did I choose you?

Then you create all that drama.

Oh,

What was I running behind?

It happens in everything in life,

My dear.

You'll start running after a job.

Same thing will happen.

You'll start running after money.

Same thing will repeat.

You'll start running after power,

Politics.

Same thing will repeat.

So the fault is not in this external world.

Where is the fault?

Where is the problem?

The problem is my mind is not ready to accept that everything in this external world is constantly changing.

Remember,

It is the dreamer's dream.

I am the dream character.

I cannot dictate what should happen in the now.

Can I?

Can I?

The dream is not in my control.

It is the dreamer's dream.

I am simply the dream character.

That is the main reason why I cannot control anything and that is the main reason why everything is constantly changing because it is somebody else's dream.

Wake up to this truth.

When you wake up,

Then you'll stop fighting with life.

You'll stop struggling with life.

And it's not fun to stop this struggle when you're 50,

60,

70 years old.

Too late.

Earlier,

Earlier.

The younger you are,

The faster you start enjoying life.

When you recognize,

Oh,

It's raining.

It's raining.

It's snowing.

It's snowing.

It's snowing.

It's nice and sunny.

It's nice and sunny.

Straight line graph.

Everything is absolutely fine the way it is.

You see,

Then you will start living life.

Then you do not put conditions on life that it should follow your moods,

Your whims and fancies.

So he says,

You want pleasure because you suffer and the very search for pleasure is the cause of pain.

So this is a vicious cycle.

So the questioner says,

Yes,

I can see the mechanism of my confusion,

But I do not see my way out of it.

Maharaj says,

The very examination of the mechanism shows the way.

After all,

Your confusion is only in your mind,

Which never rebelled so far against confusion and never got to grips with it.

It rebelled only against pain.

Very important paragraph.

Please highlight.

Till now,

You were only rebelling against pain.

You never rebelled against this confusion.

And you've had this confusion.

You're smart enough,

You have seen it,

That even in running behind this pleasure,

There is pain.

Yet I'm running behind the pleasure.

I run behind pleasure,

Then again pain comes.

Again I want pleasure,

Again pain comes.

Again I want pleasure,

Again pain comes.

There is this understanding,

But the ego is so strong,

It says,

No,

Maybe I can change this.

You think you can change it?

Do you think you can change it?

It's the design of the dream.

It's the design of this so-called world.

You cannot change it.

So the problem is not outside in this world.

The problem is in this mind.

My confusion is because of me.

My ego wants to still hold on to the false belief that no,

I will get pleasure from this.

I will get something from this.

It doesn't have a strong basis why it feels like that.

Oh,

Because other people say so.

That person's Facebook photographs show that he's happy because he has this.

And that person's Instagram picture shows she has this.

So she's happy,

Means I will be happy when I get that.

Do you see this?

I am not studying my own internal mechanism of confusion.

So number one homework from Maharaj,

Study your own mechanism,

Your own internal mechanism.

So the questioner says,

So all I can do is to stay confused?

Maharaj says,

Be alert.

Question,

Observe,

Investigate.

Learn all you can about confusion.

How it operates.

What it does to you and the others.

By being clear about confusion,

You become clear of confusion.

So he's answered how also,

How to study the mechanism.

You question,

This craving that has arisen in me,

Whatever your personal craving is,

For sexual lust,

For money,

For name,

Fame,

Politics,

Power,

A title,

Some career position,

Whatever it is,

That craving,

You question it.

By my craving for this thing,

Does it come my way?

Take the stand of the witness and see.

Who wants this?

You'll notice that it's just a thought that arose in the mind and went away.

I can stand apart from it and notice it just as an arising,

Like a wave arises and falls.

Question it.

Am I,

The witness,

Craving for this?

Or is it just a thought that arose and went away?

Or is it just a thought that arose and fell?

And I,

The witness,

Forgot my position,

Held on to the thought and started thinking,

I want this.

I dropped my position of I,

The witness,

And I became I,

The mind,

The one that is craving for it,

Or the one that is averse to it,

Whatever craving or aversion has arisen in you at that moment.

So you question,

You investigate,

You learn all about it,

Recognize what it is.

The moment you start actually doing exploration on every thought,

Every desire,

Every craving,

You'll notice,

Oh,

I am at a distance.

This is happening because of some past programming,

Some old conditioning.

If I just stay at a distance and just be a witness to it,

I can observe it arise and fall away.

Lots of logic will come up.

The ego will say,

See,

Last time you did this,

You got a lot of joy.

So then you look at your past incident.

Did the joy really come from that external person or thing,

Whatever it was,

Or was the joy triggered from the external and delivered from internal?

Where is this happening?

Then the ego will come up with many,

Many different kinds of logic.

You have to do your own investigation.

I'm just throwing out a few examples here.

How real investigation is done.

You recognize.

The mind will also say,

No,

See,

Every time you did this,

Every time you have got some money from the stock market.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Go,

Go,

Go.

So recognize,

Did I get money from the stock market by craving for it?

Or did I get it simply by observing the action that has to be done?

Did it happen naturally by the action?

Or did it happen by the craving?

You will be able to see,

Oh,

Craving is just feverishness.

It's just feeling.

Feeling cannot drive whether I succeed in that stock market trade or not.

It was just the action.

Oh,

The craving is not what brings the joy.

Can I let the action happen now?

Different,

Different logic comes up.

It says,

See,

I am doing,

I am doing.

Am I really doing?

Take that step as a witness and recognize,

No,

I am only knowing that the body mind is doing its action based on a past programming.

So I just threw out a few examples with few ways that your mind or your ego can come and bring up great logic to refute you.

You can work on along the same lines.

Even if it says,

No,

There was joy in that,

There was joy in that,

Recognize there is another level also of this understanding.

It's not just that the joy is triggered from outside and delivered from inside.

The reason why you felt joy when you got that attainment is also because of the feverishness that you were having to attain it that collapsed,

It culminated,

It ended.

That also brings a relief.

And that relief was translated as joy by the mind.

So these are few pointers.

You can start looking deeper.

The more you study your mind,

The more you understand.

Oh,

See,

Ego will come up with this logic.

Ego comes up with this logic.

It's real fun to study your own mind and find your own solution.

So start investigation.

This is called self-exploration.

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