When I ask you if you were born to another family in another country,
In a different culture or region of the world,
You can understand that.
You can actually see yourself being born into a different body,
Into a different personality even,
Different ethnicity.
There is a part of you which can do that.
You can see,
When I say,
Can you observe your own reactions to events,
The patterns of behavior,
The patterns of thinking,
Your physiological reactions,
Your psychological reactions to events,
People.
You can see it,
You can observe it,
You can observe your mind,
You can observe your body,
How that responds in different situations.
So you have a body,
You have a personality,
You have a series of traits,
Behaviors,
Tendencies,
Temperaments,
And the one that sees that is who you are.
That part can also be born,
It can see itself in another body.
That's how we empathize.
For instance,
If I say,
The phrase,
Putting yourself in other people's shoes,
Putting yourself,
Yourself in other people's shoes,
What is that self?
Who is that self that can put itself in other people's shoes?
Now I want you to answer that.
I'm not going to answer that for you,
Because I want you to kind of get a real deep sense of that self that is beyond the personality,
Beyond the mind,
Beyond the body,
That can put itself in other people's shoes.
Now obviously,
The more you know about other people,
The easier it is for you to put yourself in other people's shoes.
And when I say know,
This is again a very knowing about other people.
It's knowing about the way they think,
The way they feel,
The way they are,
Their personality.
And then it's easier for you to put yourself in their shoes,
Because you can start seeing things from their perspective,
But from the perspective of how their mind and body,
Their mind and personality work.
But the self,
The self is beyond that mind,
Beyond that body.
And that's why it can shift and put itself in different places and see things differently.
That is the self we're interested in.
The self beyond the mind,
Beyond the body,
Beyond ethnicity,
Beyond the religion,
Beyond culture,
Beyond the psychological,
Physiological patterns.
One experiences different events.
There is a deep connectedness and commonality that is missed here.
In our society today,
We emphasize so much on differences,
On our uniqueness,
On how we are different in terms of our beliefs and thinking and opinions and all of that.
We have massive,
Massive focus on the differences and we have completely missed this self,
Which is the essence of who we are.
Because perhaps it's not as interesting if we go deep enough and realize that actually this self that is within me is exactly the self that is within you,
That is within the others,
That is within all of us.
This conscious awareness,
This observer that can see,
It's this pure awareness that is there,
That is exactly the same.
When we go deep enough and recognize that,
We identify with that real self beyond the mind,
Beyond the personality,
Beyond the body.
When we identify with that,
Uniqueness starts to away.
All of the stuff that we think we are,
You know,
Our profession,
Our ethnicity,
Religion,
Culture,
Opinions,
Wealth,
Our social status,
The things we have,
All of these things are thoughts about who we think we are.
These are all thoughts.
And when this begins to fall away,
Fall apart,
First we might,
If we've identified with all those things,
We might have an identity crisis.
When we lose all those things,
Let's say we actually physically in real life lose a lot of that,
Our jobs,
Our wealth,
Our possessions,
Our social communities,
Whatever it is,
If all of these things we lose,
We're still there,
We're still there,
Right?
Our bodies will change,
We're still there,
Our thinking will change,
We're still there.
That is what we're talking here,
That real essence of who you are,
That is beyond everything you think you are.
When we get to the bottom of that,
To the real thing,
The real thing,
And we really bring attention to that,
We find out.
In finding our true self,
We also recognize the true self in others beyond their mind and egos and personalities and reactions and physical appearances and ethnicities and all of that strips away and you get to the essence of who they are.
An easy access to that is to look into someone's eyes very deeply,
And you can even do this with a stranger,
You just grab him and we obviously,
You gain consent and say,
Look,
Let's do this exercise.
Now you can do it with anyone,
And you gaze into their eyes for a minute,
For one minute,
Just gaze into their eyes without looking anywhere else,
Just look into their eyes and you'll soon recognize the depth of their being beyond their personality,
All this thinking of who you think they are,
You will gain access to the depth of their being and you'll be able to understand much of what we're talking about here.
For yourself,
Gain access to your deeper self through the breath,
Through breath awareness from body awareness.
Now this may sound contradictory because we're saying you're beyond your mind and body,
Here I'm saying pay attention to your breath and your body,
And this is really important because the breath and body are actually access points to the deeper self.
They are a vehicle to go deeper than the personality and your identification with mind and body,
All the things you think you are.
You gain access to that deeper self through breath and body awareness and the more you pay attention to your body,
To your bodily sensations,
When you go deeper in within yourself,
Within your body and feel your body,
And the more you do that,
The deeper you can go into the nature of who you are.
The mind in fact begins to become secondary in your life,
Not primary.
In most of our lives,
The mind is primary.
It is the active dominant state of who we think we are.
The mind is always trying to tell us about who we are,
Who others are,
About situations,
Always constant interpretations of everything.
Because it's so dominant,
We can't see anything beyond the mind.
The mind is basically an autonomous thing inside our heads that is conditioned based on our past,
On our environment,
Our education,
Our experiences,
Our personalities,
Our reactions.
The body does the same,
But the body has some physiological reactions to things,
And the mind and the body work together to create emotions and memories and all sorts of stuff is happening here,
Like a whole machine.
But the mind is constantly chattering away,
Telling us stories about everything,
But it's all conditioned.
But the awareness beyond that mental noise is unconditioned.
It is pure.
It is the same when you were five years old,
It's the same when you're 50,
It's the same before you pass away.
It is in fact the same when you're born,
It is the same when you pass away.
The only thing that's changing is the mind.
When you're born,
It's very simple,
The mind is just trying to make sense of its environment,
Where it can get food,
Just basic functions of trying to discover.
And it gets more complex as you go through life.
It becomes,
Forms beliefs and opinions over time,
Understands about right and wrong from its environment,
From parents,
From school,
Peers.
So the mind is constantly getting conditioned.
And that's why when I say if you're born in a different country to different parents,
That mind will be very different.
If you're born into a different body,
That body will be very different.
It will have different physiological reactions to different things.
But essentially,
It's the same.
The mind and the body work the same way in all human beings.
Obviously,
There are distinct differences,
But we are essentially the same,
Even if the nature of the mind and the nature of the body.
But when we go deeper,
That self,
That awareness,
That pure awareness is exactly the same.
And that's why you can put yourself in other people's shoes,
Because that part of you,
Come out of that body,
Put itself in another.
Over the next few decades,
If we do not recognize this self,
This self,
Which is the true self,
Beyond the conditioned mind and the limited body,
If we don't recognize that,
We cannot transcend these conditioned aspects of ourselves.
And we cannot make deep,
Meaningful connection with each other in the world and with nature.
Because when you look at another being,
Either a human being or an animal,
When you gaze into an eye of a dog or a cat or even look at a butterfly or an insect,
When you look at a tree,
A leaf,
A flower,
And when you gaze very closely and let your mind subside,
You gain access to the depth of your essence,
Which is in everything that there is.
You will see yourself in everything.
You recognize that same essence in this body of yours is in everything that there is.
And that is true love.
That cannot be believed,
That can only be experienced.
And when you experience it,
When you experience it,
Then you know it for real.
But if you just believe it,
That's just not good enough.
Or you don't believe it.
Obviously,
Some people believe and some people don't.
We're not talking about belief because belief is again another mental process,
Another thought.
When you experience oneness by gazing deeply into a nature and you allow your mind to just go to the side,
It might still be noisy,
It might still be interpreting and judging,
But you allow yourself to go deeper beyond that chatty mind that's always constantly judging.
And that's okay,
Never resist the mind.
Do not try to change the nature of the mind,
Which is constant judgment.
It's also automatic.
It's constantly judging and it's all automatic.
So you don't need to change the nature of the mind.
All you need to do is transcend the nature or the constant noise in the mind so that you can find the depth of truth within all of creation,
Beyond mental interpretation,
Reality that the mind creates.
And there's nothing to make sense of things.
But there's a part of you that can go deeper than those mental models,
Which are useful,
But not ultimately,
Not fully,
Not reality.
George Box says,
All mental models are false,
But some are useful.
So go deep,
Go deep within yourself by feeling your breath and body and go deep into your relationship with others and with nature and with the world by becoming purely aware of the sights and the sounds by listening very deeply,
Very carefully.
Wherever you are,
Wherever you are,
Just look,
Listen into the silence,
Spaces between sounds,
Feel the sound,
Ears,
Your sensory.
Also,
Look very closely.
When you look at a flower,
Look deeply,
Look for a few moments,
A few minutes,
Just gaze at a flower.
Your mind will constantly chatter away.
That's okay.
No problem.
You don't have to quieten.
You just need to be aware that that's just happening in the background.
That's okay.
The mind will start taking the background seat rather than the foreground seat,
Which it normally does for most of us.
The mind just goes in the background and your conscious awareness,
Your pure awareness,
Then comes to the forefront.
Now,
Your awareness is dominant and your mental interpretations still there,
But they're kind of a bit lighter.
Their voice is a lot gentler and it's in the background.
You can look at them if you want to.
You can notice them.
Then you have a choice to listen or not listen to that mental noise,
That conditioned noise that is just in the background.
You don't take it so seriously anymore.
That's the point.
You don't take it so seriously anymore.
It's just there.
You begin to deepen your presence,
Your awareness beyond the mind,
Beyond the body,
Beyond your reactions,
Beyond your beliefs,
Beyond your conditioned self,
Which is still there.
You do not deny it.
But that conditioned self becomes secondary and your pure conscious awareness,
Your alertness,
Can make more clear choices about what is real and what is not,
What is opinion and what is truth.
This is where you enter insight and wisdom because you have gone above and beyond the mental conditioning of your environment and of your experiences.
You go higher.
It's as though you have gone and are standing on the top of the mountain and below it is all the conditioned mental states that come from your environment.
And that is a powerful place to be.
That is the beginning of your true self.
