Nisargadatta's I Am That Session 6-The Living Present Part 3

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

There is no my.

The my is also an illusion.

When the I is an illusion,

How can there be a my?

I am not in control.

First wrap your head around this truth.

Recognize this truth.

I am not in control.

Whatever makes you feel that you are in control,

Make a list of it.

Let's see.

Anything.

Anything.

A thought,

A sensation,

A feeling,

A perception,

An action.

You see.

Is it really in your control?

In your direct experience,

Explore it.

That which I just did.

Was this in my control?

Can I say I controlled it?

Let's say this session.

Do you think you attended this session?

Did you think you chose to attend this session?

So it was in your control to either choose it or not choose it?

Think again.

Think again.

Explore.

I don't want to give you answers directly.

You will come to it.

It is all there in Maharaja's book.

Explore.

Very good question.

I'm throwing the question back to you until we get to that chapter.

I want you to really explore this.

Am I really in control?

He just answered,

No?

The mind cannot be happy.

Forget about it.

Don't try to make the mind happy.

The mind can never be happy.

There is no other option for you but to go to the other mind,

The higher mind,

The heart.

So if you missed the last 10 minutes of the session,

Please watch the video again.

You missed the higher mind.

Wake up,

Wake up,

Shake up.

The mind cannot be happy.

A part of you already knows this truth.

It's only the ego that doesn't want to accept it.

The ego wants to say,

No,

No,

I have built this big mansion of mine.

This makes me happy.

I have built that car.

I have made this family.

I have made this.

Maharaj is going to challenge your doership even.

Recognize this.

There is no happiness in the mind.

There's only one way.

You take that step beyond.

Go beyond the limiting mind.

That is what we did on the last page.

Go beyond the limiting mind.

Drop judgments.

I already gave you that tip.

Contemplate on all the homework that I've given you.

You'll find the answer.

If you have tasted the sense of being,

That's where the answer lies.

So,

Again in Samadhi,

There are two types of Samadhi.

The Samadhi on the Dwaitam path is all about concentrating on something.

So,

When you concentrate on one particular object,

Either physical or mental,

You can temporarily sthagit.

Still the mind.

Temporarily suppress the mind.

In Hindi,

Sthagit karna.

Yes,

It's not real eradication of thoughts.

It is just suppression of the mind that happens through concentration on particular objects.

Yes,

Ramana Maharshi has warned against this.

It brings in a temporary stillness,

He says.

That stillness lasts for some while and the moment you come out of that Samadhi,

All the thoughts come rushing back.

So,

It's pointless basically that that kind of Samadhi.

Yeah,

It's called Manolaya.

Yeah,

It's basically a pointless way to do it.

The right thing to do is Mano Nasha.

Mano Nasha,

Ramana Maharshi describes it as destruction of thoughts.

How can thoughts get destroyed?

He says,

Only by a proper meditation which is through self-inquiry,

Where I,

The witness,

Have recognized that I am NOT this mind.

I am NOT this body.

Yes,

And I stop fueling the mind and I stop fueling the body.

Yeah,

And fueling means what?

When I become the mind,

I fuel the mind.

When I start talking to my thoughts,

I am fueling the thoughts.

When I start talking to the feelings and say,

Encourage the feelings,

Like the feelings,

Dislike the feelings,

Go on just adding more fuel and this is called Tadatma.

When I recognize I am separate from it,

I have stopped fueling the mind.

What will happen?

Then the body and mind start resting,

Relaxing,

Withdrawing and the mind finally and gradually loses its thoughts,

Loses its feelings.

It now becomes the tool of awareness.

When awareness needs,

It brings up that tool of thought which is required for interaction,

For calculation,

For something and then puts the tool down and then it is just the awareness.

Yes,

To reach this stage is called Mano Nasha.

Yeah,

Mano,

Man and Nasha.

Nash is destruction of thoughts,

Means it's not destruction,

Destruction.

Basically,

They are no more creating chaos in my life.

The mind is no more the master.

Now I,

The witness,

I,

The sense of being,

I am the master and in me there is just this timeless,

Spaceless void,

A silence,

A limitless awareness,

A quietness.

There is no reliving the past because first of all there is no past.

We already discussed,

Delete those words.

There is only the now.

In the now,

The thought arises because you have seen this thought before.

You term this thought as memory.

I've just given it a label,

Memory.

Does the baby tell mummy,

Mummy,

I have the memory of this doo-doo bottle that you gave me right now from yesterday?

No,

The baby is completely in the present moment.

You have been there.

That has been your reality,

Moment to moment in the now.

Not labeling the past,

Not labeling the future.

These are labels.

Mental construct means label.

Yeah,

Lot of unconditioning to do to be able to see direct,

In my direct experience,

What is now,

What is the truth.

Work on this,

Work on this part.

That which I cannot prove,

I do not entertain.

Simple,

That which I cannot see,

I do not entertain.

No beliefs,

No conditioning,

No myths.

Yeah,

Myth is a story.

No because that guru said so or this guru says so.

No.

Path of Advaita is that which I can see in my direct experience here and now.

I don't have 100 lifetimes that I'm going to live and get enlightened.

No.

Advaita says,

Right now you are already enlightened.

You have to just recognize it and it starts with the first revelation of the sense of being.

It was always there since childhood.

I had just not recognized it.

Do you see it?

In my direct experience,

I can recognize the sense of being.

Now I taste it.

That which I can taste,

That is Advaita.

Is this super clear?

Yeah,

So now learn to drop your conditioning.

Everything that has come from beliefs,

Everything that has come from scriptures,

Everything that because somebody else says so or because hypothetically this makes sense,

That is not Advaita.

Super clear?

We'll talk more on this as we go.

Maharaj will clear it up for us.

Okay,

Right now,

Right now,

Let's all empty out our thoughts.

Empty out,

Empty out.

We've all done this before.

Yeah,

There is this meditation.

Empty out,

Empty out all thoughts,

All feelings.

Empty out the room.

Close your eyes.

Empty it out.

Empty your mind completely.

Break the walls.

That is the sense of I am,

The sense of being.

Is there an inside and outside of the sense of being?

Can you find any inside and outside?

Is there a boundary?

No,

There is no boundary.

There is no limit to it.

Okay,

Now open your eyes.

With open eyes,

You can be in the sense of being.

You don't have to close them all the time.

That sense of being is there.

Same is-ness,

That which is witnessing the mind and the body and Ekta on the computer screen.

Can you point a finger and tell me,

Okay,

It is here or it is here?

Do you recognize that it is limitless?

Yeah,

Can you recognize there is no boundary?

You can talk when you are in this is-ness.

You can do your daily routine with the sense of is-ness.

Have you started practicing that?

Yeah.

In this is-ness,

Now did you find an inside and outside?

No,

There is no inside and outside.

It is limitless.

It is infinite.

No boundary.

When there's no boundary,

There is no inside and no outside.

So how can you say body and mind are inside?

No,

There is no inside and outside.

Explore,

Explore this is-ness,

This awareness again and again with open eyes.

The problem happens for people who come from the tradition of closed-eye meditation only.

The moment they open their eyes,

They can't see it because they have habituated themselves to keeping the eyes closed and recognizing the void.

No,

It is there with eyes open.

Yeah,

So homework from whoever this questioner was,

Homework from him,

Not from me.

With open eyes,

I will practice the sense of I am,

The sense of being or the is-ness meditation you do with eyes open throughout the week.

Yeah,

Because then only can it percolate into your daily routine and your activities,

Right?

What is the point of that meditation that cannot be brought into your home and family and your activities?

That is no meditation at all.

Yeah,

So you all have the link for the is-ness meditation?

Everybody?

Yeah,

So what we'll do,

You do it once with eyes closed,

If you're the habituated eyes closed meditator.

Do it once with eyes closed,

Keep it on a loop only.

Now open your eyes and do the same thing with nobody else in the room.

Yeah,

And now keep that sense of is-ness only.

Now walk out of your room and see can you maintain it with the other family members.

Be in that sense of is-ness,

The sense of I am.

Yeah,

The sense of witnessing consciousness,

The awareness.

Advaita is the path of research,

Of exploring,

Of experimenting with your own self.

If you're not experimenting,

You're in the wrong class.

This is not intellectually learning something.

We've left those classes behind.

Now we've graduated.

Yeah,

We are no more in school,

We've gone to university level now.

So at university level,

Thesis,

Self-research,

Very important.

Yeah,

And what are you doing the research on?

This is my specimen.

This body-mind complex is my specimen and I am the scientist.

Yeah,

So let's get serious about it.

Those who have still not started practicing,

Let's start practicing the sense of I am,

The is-ness with open eyes this week.

You think that you bring up memories.

You don't.

You are not the doer.

Yeah,

Slowly you will understand.

At least stop using the word past now because there's nothing like going in the past or bringing the past here.

Yeah,

You cannot bring the past here.

A particular memory arises.

It arises only in the now.

This is what I know.

I only know the now.

That's it.

We are not going beyond this.

Yeah,

Drop the if and then and should I do this or should I not do this.

You're not the doer anyways.

You're going to come to that very soon.

So I'm not entertaining any questions like that because if I entertain that now,

I will have to work on making you unlearn what I taught you in this session.

So there is nothing like I am doing something or I am bringing a memory and learning a lesson from it.

No,

You're not a duffer.

You learnt it the first time.

You made the mistake.

The learning has already taken place.

You're just revising the learning as a new thought in the present moment,

In the now.

Start seeing it really.

Start seeing the truth.

And it's not really hi-fi,

Very difficult out of the world.

It's very simple.

See it very simply like a little child would.

A little child does not say,

Oh mama,

That is last week's memory.

He's so much in the present moment.

Everything is present like that.

Everything is in the now.

Homework question from this participant.

Where does memory reside?

First of all,

Is there a house?

Yeah?

So when you do your IS-ness meditation first with eyes closed,

Look,

Is there a house where I can say,

Okay,

This is where memory is and then this is where mind is and then this is where intellect is,

This is where the ego is.

Can you point out?

Do in your own direct experience with your eyes closed.

Then with your eyes open,

The moment you open your eyes and you see your room,

Even with your eyes closed,

You knew where the table is,

Where the TV is.

That was memory.

You've opened your eyes.

Where is memory?

Where is memory?

I'm not giving you this answer.

You have to tell me this answer.

Where is memory?

Can I explore this?

So this whole week you do IS-ness meditation.

I don't know if you have to do it a million times this week.

You have to answer this question.

Where is memory?

Where is mind?

Where is intellect?

Where is ego?

I've added three more to that.

Do they have houses somewhere?

Could you locate the houses?

Got you interested in Advaita enough now?

Will you do your own self-exploration?

Did you understand what is Advaita now?

It's about experimenting.

It's not about learning what another person is telling me.

Just believing it.

No,

That's not Advaita.

No belief.

Yeah,

No blind belief,

No superstition,

No because Ekta said so.

No,

I have to challenge that also and see in my direct experience,

Can I recognize this?

That is Advaita.

Super clear?