You Are Not This Body

Explore the profound truth that you are not the body made of five elements, but the eternal awareness that witnesses all experience. Through investigation of the deepest human fear—absolute disappearance—discover your true nature.

Learn how earth, water, fire, air, and ether contribute to form the body, while you remain as the unchanging awareness that manages this bio-computer. Understand how misidentification with the temporary creates all suffering, and how recognizing your true identity brings lasting peace.

This meditation includes a touching story about grief and loss, revealing what we truly love in others. Perfect for anyone ready to investigate the most fundamental question: who am I really?

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Encounters with Truth,

Where we meet truth and allow it to reveal itself to us.

I am Mitesh.

Allow your mind to be open,

Free from all prejudices,

All past knowledge,

The surety of knowing,

Be completely open to the words being shared here.

Allow these words to show you the truth.

This entire universe is made up of 5 building blocks,

Namely,

Earth,

Fire,

Water,

Air,

Water and ether,

Playing their game in space,

In ether.

So earth,

Water,

Fire,

Air and ether are the 5 building blocks of this entire universe and everything in this universe.

Think of what happened when you were born,

Earth gave part of it to build this entire body of yours,

The skin,

The bones,

Fire gave a part of it to keep this machine going,

Water gave a part of it to become all the fluids and blood inside of this body,

Air gave a part of it to become breath in your body and all this play is unfolding in space,

So space gave a part of it for the existence of this body to allow it to occupy it and this is what happens when this body dies,

What belongs to the earth goes back to the earth,

What belongs to the air goes back to the air,

What belongs to the water goes back to the water,

What belongs to fire goes back to fire.

One of the deepest fears we have is of absolute disappearance and the fundamental reason for that is that we believe that we are this body.

The contribution of these 5 elements to build this machine,

This hardware is what we end up believing ourselves to be and then we suffer the fate of this body as our own,

Trying to find happiness,

Peace by identifying with the body is a recipe for failure because this body is merely an accumulation,

Contribution that is set in motion by nature but you,

The one who is listening to my words through this body is not this body and you,

The awareness is the witness of everything that is unfolding,

The fears,

The agitation that comes out of This misplaced identity often leaves us miserable throughout our life,

Moments of happiness sprinkled but mostly despair,

Anxiety,

Constant fear,

Fear of disappearance,

Deep down we do have this intuition that I am not this body and it does slip through our language but we don't really pause and reflect as to the repercussions of what we just said.

When you put on weight,

You know that you have accumulated mass,

Weight and when you lose weight you know that you have lost weight,

You have not become more when you have gained weight as awareness and you have not lost a part of you as awareness when you have lost weight so the language actually says exactly the truth that you have gained weight,

You have accumulated and you have lost the accumulation wasn't yours and the losing wasn't yours either,

The accumulation wasn't you and the losing wasn't you either.

So this exploration is an invitation to zoom in on your true identity that which you call I and that which I refers to,

The one that is hearing my words,

The one that is aware for this awareness to shine,

Let go of everything that is not you.

I remember my teacher telling a story about a lady asking him a question about her son's death and my teacher giving a brilliant answer reminded her of that experience when she saw the body of her son in front of her and told her that if your son was this body,

You would not be crying,

Your son was more than the body,

The awareness,

You are more than your body the awareness,

The ordinary awareness that is so intimate and so taken for granted because it's transparent,

Easily overlooked the witness of all aging,

The witness of all accumulation and losses,

The witness of all gains of skills,

The witness of all deterioration and interestingly what we love in another person is not their body,

Although we refer to it as what's inside,

We never really zoom in on what that inside is for them and for us,

What we love in another person is their awareness,

Yes we see their body,

We see their actions,

We hear their words but we feel them,

So nature has sprinkled this truth in our everyday life,

But we are busy misidentifying that which is changing trying to find happiness in a moving target only ends up in frustration,

Whatever we put our identity into,

We suffer that fate I broke two plates today,

Just to give you a story of what happened,

I broke two plates and I felt that fear that I'm talking about,

I didn't want those plates to break but there was this irrational fear that arose in me,

That happens every time I lose something,

As if a part of me is going to die or the entire me is going to die the habit,

The belief of misidentifying is so deep-rooted that all our possessions are marked as us instead of merely things so when we lose things,

When we lose people,

When we lose situations,

The same fear comes up of complete disappearance and we try to restore normalcy,

We scramble,

We sometimes are brought to the knees and this process of fear is amplified when we are sick,

Especially as we age,

As the senses and our body starts deteriorating that belief is trying to hold on to scraps,

To keep the identity going,

Otherwise I would disappear but what if we actually zoomed in on what this body is,

The hardware,

The contribution of the five elements of earth,

Water,

Fire,

Ether,

Air is run by a software that is you you are the life in this body,

Without exploring,

Discovering and living this truth,

Trying to find long-term peace and happiness is impossible it's like having an extremely powerful car,

You have to take care of it,

You have to fuel it that's your job as awareness,

As a manager of this body,

To take care of it,

To fuel it,

To fix it from time to time knowing very well that it's a machine and when time comes to let go,

You will let go and as far as disappearance is concerned,

First there has to be proof of appearance because that's an underlying belief we have that somehow,

When the body appeared,

I appeared,

Deeply connected with the belief that I am this body the inert elements of earth,

Water,

Fire,

Ether,

Air,

They are inert,

The life is running through them the amness of you and the isness of it are one and the same,

What is powering the life inside of this body is powering the life outside of this body as well this needs to be explored and verified,

We need to be open to this possibility next is self-inquiry,

Self-inquiry is about exploring the amness,

The awareness once you go deep inside of yourself,

Beyond all that has been accumulated and discarded as not me that is when you find amness,

The experience of being,

And what we interact with the world through the same five elements that everything else is made up of we are interacting with the isness,

It's like one wave in the ocean interacting with another wave we are all waves as bodies interacting with other bodies and ripples in this ocean of awareness collapse of a wave doesn't mean collapse of the ocean,

This belief to be a body is such a deep rooted belief in all of us that you cannot out think it,

It has to be dismantled one investigation at a time until the understanding has colonized our body and mind which may take days,

Weeks,

Months,

Years,

Even decades but if you can glimpse the truth in this moment,

In this session,

That can serve as a reference point or even if I am successful in planting a seed of doubt in your belief system that I am this body,

I appeared with this body and I am going to disappear with this body that doubt will take a life of its own,

It is the most uninvestigated aspect of our life and we often assume that if I cannot remember something it hasn't happened so many times we dismiss the idea of not appearing at all and just being as I don't remember when I was born so I assume that I must have been born with this body that serves as a cornerstone of the fear of absolute disappearance and this fear makes us suffer,

Insults,

Anxieties,

Agony on all scales,

On all levels,

The complete spectrum of suffering is hinging on this one unfounded belief that I am this body and if we zoom in actually on this belief,

I don't think and I am going here on a limb based on my own experience that you consider yourself to be this entire body,

Most of the time you consider yourself somewhere in your head,

Behind your eyes you know where your leg is,

You know where your knees are,

You know where your hands are,

You know where your stomach is,

You know where your chest is your throat,

Your mouth but somehow you allegedly are in your head or sometimes in your chest so there is a kind of disowning of this belief that I am not this entire body,

I am only a tiny part of it apparently there is something special in the head,

The control room of this bio-computer,

This machine is where allegedly you are so all of spiritual path is only about finding who you are and where you are discovering yourself as awareness,

Unlocalized awareness,

The manager of this body and mind is the route,

Is the destination to happiness letting go of this unfounded beliefs about who I am,

What I am,

Where I am,

When I am is the bondage we have in life suffering is the outcome I invite you to ask yourself are you the building blocks of this body,

Of this universe or are you that witness of these building blocks playing their game are you the inert elements of earth,

Water,

Fire,

Ether,

Air or are you the life,

The amness and the isness of your life and all life around you is this experience of amness,

Of being,

Evolving,

Appearing,

Disappearing or is it like an ocean ever present this experience of amness,

Is it the same in sickness and in health,

In dreams as in the waking state is this experience of amness the same as when we started this session,

This play of earth,

Water,

Fire,

Ether,

Air is not you you are the awareness,

The amness,

Thank you