Find yourself back here.
The habit of constantly losing ourselves in our thoughts,
In our perceptions,
In our feelings alienates us from ourselves.
So find yourself back to yourself,
Put an end to all struggle outside and inside and come back to yourself.
What is right,
What is not right,
What is acceptable,
What is not acceptable,
What you agree with,
With whatever is happening in the world,
In your surroundings,
Why you don't agree with it,
Let it be.
And for some time,
Find yourself back from this struggle.
At the deepest level,
What we aspire is a life free from struggle,
Also known as peace and struggle is a two-way street.
Withdraw yourself from all your struggles and come back.
It seems that our life is a constant struggle.
Everything that is happening,
Whether out there in the world or an echo of it in our mind as thoughts and feelings,
Is clashing against us,
Our opinions,
Our beliefs,
Our stance of struggling.
Let all the people,
Let all the situations,
Let all the things,
Let the world continue.
Continue the way it is going.
The world has continued in your absence and will continue long after you are gone.
For a short while,
Don't participate in this struggle.
If you close your eyes and some outrageous thoughts come to you.
Don't fight them.
Don't welcome them either.
And don't try to get rid of them.
You come back.
This struggle,
This fight puts us,
Puts our nervous system,
Our bodies,
Our minds into an agitation and we are in an agitated state all along.
Allow that agitation to come down by not participating.
Whatever is dangling in front of you,
Ignore it.
All the shiny thoughts,
Crying out for your attention,
For your involvement,
For your opinion,
Be disinterested in them.
Our attention has two points,
The source and the target.
Every time you are hearing my words,
Your attention is on the target of what is appearing.
But in these pauses,
Notice how the attention comes back to you,
Back to the source.
And I'm not saying you need to pay attention to what I'm saying.
I would rather you stay at the source.
Because that's the point of today's session.
And this is a function of our interest.
No one,
Your spouse,
Your boss,
Government,
God can make you attend to something or not attend to something.
It's your freedom.
So use your freedom.
This instruction sounds counterintuitive,
But I'm asking you to use your freedom to be disinterested.
And find yourself available with this freedom,
Instead of merely being a puppet of our thoughts,
Of our perceptions,
Of our feelings,
Recognize that you have a say.
And if you didn't attend to something,
There's no problem.
You are with yourself,
Unbothered.
And our attention is like a rubber band,
Stretching,
Relaxing,
Stretching,
Relaxing,
Stretching,
What tires us is the constant stretching,
The constant engagement and struggling with our thoughts,
With our perceptions,
With our ideas.
One of the main hindrances of a deep meditation,
One of the main hindrances to a deep meditation is having a nagging interest in whatever is happening,
Which pulls us,
Which stretches us constantly.
Be carefree and rest.
Rest in yourself,
Away from everything that is calling out to you to participate.
And notice that if you didn't participate,
You are just fine.
In the last few minutes,
Hopefully,
You had a dip into non-participation and you are just fine.
So this compulsion of constantly stretching,
Engaging,
Judging,
Struggling is optional.
Just because you don't participate doesn't mean you disappear.
Doesn't mean you diminish.
And I want you to see it.
You might find that actually non-participation,
Withdrawal can be energizing,
Calming,
Freeing.
But find yourself as the source.
Find yourself as the freedom.
Find yourself as you,
Just you,
Without the baggage of any opinions,
Any identities,
Any beliefs,
Any associations,
And any affiliations.
Without any roles of a husband,
Mother,
Friend,
Employee.
And find your troubles and your struggles far away from you.
The more you find yourself,
The farther your struggles seem to be.
When we go back to the quote-unquote real world,
The habit,
The tendency,
The momentum of losing ourselves,
Of stretching ourselves,
Of struggling will come back.
But this imprint of being yourself,
Withdrawing from struggles,
Will remind you to come back here.
And it's not an arduous journey that we have to undertake to come back.
It's merely a reminder that serves a purpose.
Whenever we lose ourselves,
There is struggle,
There is suffering.
Suffering is a reminder to find yourself.
Instead of fighting with the struggle,
Instead of fighting with suffering,
Rejecting it,
We can use it.
And at times where there is no suffering,
There is boredom,
There is this habit of constantly being engaged with our phones,
With our thoughts,
With food,
We don't need to escape.
Being with ourselves is peace.
Not losing ourselves,
Not escaping is peace.
Free yourself and find yourself.
Thank you.
