Nisargadatta's I Am That Session 20 - Chapter 9 Part 2 Q&As

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

Don't expect that the expectations will not arise in the mind.

They will continue to do their job.

All those expectations from the husband,

Expectation from the wife,

Expectation from the mother,

All those thoughts,

They will keep arising.

But now I have taken that step beyond.

I have become the witness.

I have recognized my true nature and I can see that the mind is doing its drama.

I don't become one with the mind.

So don't expect that the expectation will not arise.

That is another expectation.

You just remain as the witness.

The body mind has a program.

I cannot change this program.

Oh,

I don't like the way Ekta looks.

I don't like the way Ekta speaks.

I don't like the way Ekta thinks.

Ekta should become Amitabh Bachchan.

Oh,

It's not possible.

How much ever Ekta loves Amitabh Bachchan,

She cannot transform into Amitabh Bachchan.

Ekta is always going to remain Ekta.

I have to just recognize I am not Ekta.

Ekta is the name given to this body mind.

So it could be distinguished from the other baby in the family.

Otherwise there would be confusion.

So we'll give this baby one label and that baby another label.

That's it.

Ekta is the name of this body mind.

I am not this body mind.

Yes.

So when I recognize I am not it,

I don't have expectations of it.

I don't want it to change.

I don't want it to be anything different from what it is right now.

I am the witness and I'm not concerned about the body and mind.

So if the mind has expectations,

It has expectations.

I don't need to become one with that expectation and do the drama.

I am not the mind.

I am not this thought that came up of craving.

I am just the witness.

So I remain in my position and observe the drama of the craving.

I am not the mind.

This is the way you practice it in your daily dealings with your family,

With your friends,

With colleagues.

Then life becomes very smooth because you remain as the witness again and again and realize there is no need to lose my position and become the mind.

Do you see what I'm saying?

It is in your hands to shake out of it,

To wake up from it.

Till the time you say I had nightmares,

You're saying I am this body mind.

Take that step beyond and say,

Oh,

This body mind called Edward had nightmares.

So it's over.

Whatever it was,

It was.

When you see a dream in the night,

It comes and it goes.

I don't give it any importance.

It's just a dream.

Some fear hidden at the unconscious level came to the conscious level and it got released.

Good.

Let it get released.

If I hold on to it now,

If I think about it,

If I get worried about it,

I'm not letting it get released.

I'm holding on to it,

Holding on to it,

Holding on to it.

I am becoming Edward,

The body mind and holding on to these.

The suffering is going to continue because I am holding on to it.

Karma is the holding on.

Karma phalam is the suffering from holding on.

Let it go.

It's just a nightmare.

Just a dream.

Not real.

Only an illusion.

Biggest illusion.

I had nightmares.

I did not have any nightmares.

I witnessed the body mind called Edward that went through a nightmare.

It's over.

Big deal.

Thank you.

We all work on ourselves like this.

Edward is very forthright and outcoming and he tells us what is happening at his mind level.

You look,

You have certain strong predominant fear.

You have a craving.

You have an aversion that is haunting you like crazy.

You're eating food.

You're watching a movie.

You're out with the kids or you're working.

You're constantly thinking about one particular thing.

What is that?

What is that thing that is haunting you?

That is something that you need to work on.

That is your nightmare.

So how do I work on it?

I recognize my holding on to it,

Identifying with it,

Seeing this is happening to me.

This is holding on.

This is my karma.

The suffering that I get from it is my karma phalam,

The result of the action.

How will the suffering get released when I let go?

I am not this body.

I am not this mind.

Take that step back again and again and just be that emptiness,

That no thingness.

Very clear.

I'll repeat what I had said in the Ramana session.

Ramana Maharshi describes this very beautifully.

He says,

You know how a radio is?

The radio sings songs.

It's talking big,

Big conversations,

Really heavy,

Political,

Deep stuff.

You break open a radio.

There is nothing inside.

There's nobody hiding inside.

Exactly like that is this body mind.

It walks,

It talks,

It does action.

It does everything in the world as if there is somebody inside.

But when you actually go looking for the I,

You will find there is no I.

There is nobody inside.

So go beyond the body.

Go beyond the mind.

Go looking for the I and then just dissolve in that source and recognize,

Oh,

I am this emptiness.

I am this no thingness.

I am this awareness.

It's just a matter of getting interested in yourself first.

Are you interested?

The question is to all of you.

Are you interested?

If you are interested,

Then dive within again and again.

Every chance you get,

Dive within.

Just be the witness.

The more you stay as the witness,

The easier it is to understand this.

Because you experientially get it.

You experientially recognize it.

No point intellectually memorizing it and vomiting it out in the exam paper.

No point.

You get no marks for your exam paper.

Because I know you heard Ekta say it and then you've just written down copy paste what Ekta said.

No,

No point.

Experiential recognition trumps intellectual understanding.

So aim for experiential recognition.

Karma and karma phalam only exist at the level of the body and the mind.

The moment you take a step at the witness consciousness,

You are God.

There is no other God sitting up there in the clouds.

If you're expecting a God other than yourself,

You need to exit this group.

Guys,

You are in the wrong class and you have not understood Advaita.

Yes,

You are the witness consciousness.

You are God.

There is no Krishna or Rama or some other Jesus or Allah sitting outside you.

So when he says when I look at God's point of view,

He's just taking a step beyond.

And from there,

It's so clear.

Whatever this body mind does,

It must get its reward so that the body mind learns not to indulge in that.

If you did not get the appropriate reward,

You would keep doing wrong.

If you kept eating continuously,

Your body will become fat,

Will become unhealthy.

You will get disease.

You have to have the other end.

Otherwise,

You would not stop eating.

Do you see this?

So for every karma at the body mind level,

There has to be a balancing force at the other end that makes you stop eating.

I'm talking about the basic thing,

Basic.

Yeah.

So eating is like that.

Sex is like that.

Whatever criminal activities are happening in the world,

It is because the balance has toppled over.

Yeah.

So karma and karma exist only at the body mind level because all actions are happening at the body mind level.

And I am suffering if I consider myself or assume myself to be the body mind.

If I want to be free of suffering,

There is only one way.

Take the step to the witness consciousness,

The sense of I am and recognize the truth.

I am God.

I am the one projecting my world.

According to you,

God was the creator of the world.

No,

You are creating your own world.

Aren't you God?

Yeah.

So from that level,

From that point of view,

All is well.

Yeah.

All you can do is wake up and recognize I'm not the body.

Ramana Maharshi had cancer.

He was in extreme pain,

Extreme pain.

But he said,

I am not hurting.

There is a clear cut distance between I,

The witness consciousness and the body mind.

All Dukha,

All suffering,

All karma phalam is only at the body mind.

I do not suffer.

So that's pure acceptance as an awareness.

No,

Acceptance again has that little thing to it that the mind has to accept.

You're not getting it.

It is seeing the truth.

It is not an acceptance.

When you see the truth,

You're not the body mind.

You're not concerned about it.

Like Maharaj says,

He does not care for it.

He does not even think about it.

Yeah.

If you are thinking about your body mind,

You have not understood that you are the witness yet.

Yes.

Start working on that front more.

Yeah.

Just just like a software program.

If you put certain code into a software program,

It's going to spit out the same data to you again and again and again and again flawlessly.

Right.

How do you think software programs came into being?

They are nothing else but mini me or mini my mind.

Do you see that the way my mind works?

That is how a software program works.

So exactly like that.

Look at things.

It just spits it out because it has the same code.

The code is there.

No,

You can put a code to stop spitting out the same data.

It's the code of that body mind that that body mind is going to go through memory loss and old age.

It is what it is.

Big deal.

You make a big thing out of it because you want everything to be perfect.

If it was given in your hand,

Nobody would ever die.

And everybody would look 20 something.

The moment they were born,

They would be born 20 something and all their lives.

They would look like that perfect bodies,

Perfect face.

Everybody would look identical,

Identical health.

It's not like that.

Right.

That would be boring.

So let's drop out of this imagination and see things as they are.

It is what it is.

So simple.

Thank you.

I cut my hand with the knife while cutting the orange while cutting the mango.

Obviously,

There's going to be blood and there's going to be pain and the body will reflexly react and say,

Ah,

That is going to be there.

That does not mean I am hurting.

I have separated myself from the body and mind.

Start practicing.

I think you really need to work on experiential recognition of I am the witness,

Not intellectually understanding.

Most of you are only trying to memorize this intellectually.

And that is why you're not getting it.

Experientially start doing what I have described in the first video of Advaita level one.

You are not the eyes.

Take your step beyond the eyes.

You're not the mind.

Take a step beyond that and stay there.

Don't call it witness because now you have corrupted that word.

Also,

You have corrupted the sense of I am word also.

So the words are not working for you.

Do it.

Actually do it again and again.

Beyond the eyes is the mind.

Beyond the mind is the witness.

Now stay there.

Now,

When you stay there,

You start recognizing who the body mind is working automatically.

Automatically,

The hand is moving like this.

The speech is coming out.

It is explaining something to Sriram,

But I am not talking.

I am not moving my hand.

I am just witnessing the hand moving.

I am witnessing the speech coming on.

Start seeing it in regular daily life.

You will automatically see it when there is pain.

Your problem is you have not actually experimented enough on yourself.

And what is enough?

Do you remember?

Hourly and daily.

Not one minute in a week.

It's not counted.

So,

Back to Advaita one practice.

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