All Experiences Take Place In The Placeless Place

We often look for happiness in what life gives us, overlooking the simple fact that being alive is already the source of happiness. In this meditation, Saja invites you to rest in that simplicity, allowing confusion and lack of clarity in the mind to wash away. Not in search of an absolute answer, but simply clearing away what obscures the recognition of what you already are, so that it can shine.

Transcript

So the first thing that we'll go through today is if everyone can just close their eyes when they're ready. Give ourselves a mental note that this is the time to. Really be serious. We're going to be serious about something. This is the time to get serious. But we want to be seriously playful with it. You see, This is the attitude that we're taking on right now. It's so serious all day. We have to be to some degree, Right? We have to take things seriously. But right now we're taking this very seriously, So seriously that we are seriously playful with it. And We don't mind what appears. We're not doing anything to change ourselves, To replace ourselves. This isn't a practice. We're not getting better at something. We're not getting more peaceful. We're not getting happier here. We're just exploring clearly what's actually going on, What's really taking place here. And. Let yourself just melt into your chair, Your seat, Your. . . Pillow, Floor, Wherever you choose to sit, And let yourself relax. Feel that your body is no different from the space that contains it. Surrender the sensation of your body to the space around it. Imagine there's this subtle resistance to gravity, And imagine you've been holding on to this. Imagine that you are the one holding yourself to the ground, And that's what you've been doing so that you don't float off into space. Now in this moment, Let go of that. Let go of even that sense of gravity. You could float up to the ceiling right now. You're surrendering so much. Your body could start levitating. Just give yourself to the space. You're letting go of these sensations to the highest degree that you could just float away. Now your sensations, You're now floating. There is nothing that you're touching because all you experience is a sensation. So you're just a floating sensation. Completely relaxed. Who needs a sensory deprivation tank? We just float as we are. We just float in the ocean of awareness and now experience that all your sense perceptions are like little ripples and waves in the ocean of awareness. If you imagine when you drop a little stone to a pond, There's those little ripples, The sound of my voice, The sounds around you, The sensations you feel, They're like ripples in awareness. And just give. All of y'all. Experiencing to Life. Give it all to life. You don't need to hear my voice. Hearing is done for you. You don't need to sense your body. Your body will sense it for you. Let everything be. Outsource everything to life. Life will surely very quickly hire the right staff to take care of each thing. If you have an itch, That's fine. Leave it to life. He will hire an arm to go and scratch it for you. Just let it all be. Now, In this experience, There is a placeless place. It's the place from which everything is experienced. You are that placeless place from which everything is experienced. The placeless place. Is everywhere but here. Somewhere. So wherever there is that isn't somewhere, That's where you are. We can't call it no way. Because otherwise nothing would be there. And we can't say there's nothing. Because we know there's something there. That which is there. May not be an object. But it is something. That thing that is there, That is not in somewhere, Is you. Now you're not in a sensation. Sensations are in you. You're not in a sound. Sounds are in you. But you are not in a sound, You are not in a sensation, You are not in a sight. All experience takes place in the placeless plate. From your point of view, The only real point of view. There is no time. There is no space. Time and space are created in the moment. That we render the existence of any world at all. And their only rendered existence relative to. The apparent object that we perceive. So the minute that we perceive an object, We create space with it. Because there would not be an object without the space that contains the object. And there would be no space if there wasn't an object in order to render the fact that there is space. Space without objects. That's no space at all. There'd be nothing to render the space existent. Space is to infinity or eternity. What an ocean is to water, What appears as an objective experience to the mind, Namely space. Is what infinite consciousness looks like. To itself. In the same way. That when we look at the ocean, We can see it as an ocean, But really we know that the ocean never takes place. The only thing that takes place is the water. The same is with time. We believe time takes place. However, Time is an appropriated concept that is superimposed on the experience of pure timelessness. One thought takes place. Then pure timelessness continues. Doesn't make much sense to say that timelessness continues, But you know what I mean. Then another thought takes place. And the mind that is accustomed to only knowing the existence of objects We'll say what happened in the middle of that. There was a thought and another thought and what was in between it? The mind can't render. The absolute, Because in order for the mind to render the absolute, It wouldn't be the mind rendering it at all. It'd be the absolute recognizing the absolute. The problem we all have is that typically we don't recognize the absolute. It's not clear to us. So the mind says, Well, In that spaceless, Timeless presence, It must have been this thing called time. And we'll measure it with the movement of an arm on a clock or the movement of the sun and the shade. We'll measure it with an object. But really, There is no time taking place. There is no succession of time, There is no movement of time. Time, There is no movement at all. There is just pure spontaneous creativity that comes from timelessness and lives as timelessness. Time is then the measurement that we impose on what is actually timeless, Empty nothingness. The gap between thoughts, The unbearable gap between thoughts that the mind avoids like a plague. The unbearable gap where the separate self cannot exist. It will do anything to avoid that gap. We are in that gap right now. We have never left that gap. That gap's not really a gap. All things take place in that apparent gap or place which we are referring to now as the placeless place. All things take place there, That's where we are, That's the source of creation. Everything that seems to appear, Anything that seems to be not that, Namely a thought, A feeling, An emotion, A sight, A sound is made of that. And the only reason it can appear to be not is if we view that from another illusory point of view. And that's what we call the mind that's life we create a limitation called the mind. To experience. Pure, Infinite existence. Our only limit is that we're unlimited. That's the only limit there is to existence, Is the fact that it is unlimited. Because by being unlimited, The only limitation is that there's no limit. And if there's no limit, There's no experience. So in order for there to be the existence of anything at all, Experience has to be. So we come to these non-dual traditions in order to try and recognize this absolute nothingness, And then in order to realize that the nothingness is everything. And that everything has equal existence. I recognize the absolute, I can see it now, It's pristine, There's nothing there, Nothing takes place, No time, No space But you can't say that without being in time and space, Experiencing time and space. That's the paradox. Rendering that even knowable requires an experience. An experience of what? An experience of our true nature, An experience of timeless pristine, But then we flip that again and that's the paradox. But we're saying that from a relative point of view. We cannot be strict on either. We cannot be strict on nothing and we cannot be strict on something the place to stand is not in the relative, It's not in the absolute. It's not in the absolute, Pretending the relative doesn't exist. Pretending the will doesn't exist. Pretending that it isn't really there, It's not really there. There's only consciousness. When I go to bed, I sleep on consciousness. When I talk to my wife or my kids, I'm just speaking to consciousness. That's. . . That's like a. . . Imagine like. I always was scared of this when I was young. If you imagine these sea creatures, When they were evolving to become human beings as we started in the ocean, And these little sea creatures, The original transmorphing humans that became the cells that ended up becoming land creatures today. When they were travelling up the ocean floor towards the land, Some of them would get stuck in these little puddles halfway up. They were still underwater, But they thought that was the top. They thought it was land. Their instinct was taking them to the surface and they thought they got there, But they were really just in another cul-de-sac. And then the other creatures, They didn't stop. They kept going. They kept swimming up to the top, And then they found land. Being in this, My daughter's consciousness, My wife, I'm just talking to consciousness, And there's only the absolute. That's like getting stuck in a cul-de-sac. And the problem and the paradox is that people think, Well, No, Because if that is the ultimate truth, That there really is just consciousness, Then I am, On a logical level, Just speaking to consciousness, And that's all there is. But then we have to see. That We have to break that down. Have to really see through this need for an absolute answer. Mind gets very happy with just finding an absolute answer. There is no absolute answer, Because the minute that we try to find an absolute answer, We carry on experiencing a world, Why is that still taking place? Because that deserves equal reality because it is the same side of the coin. World may not be made of world stuff, But it doesn't mean that reality doesn't create it, Which means that the world is real. So contrary to what we used to think the world is real, Then we realize it's an illusion, And then we realize it's real again. It's very important to see that. So this placeless place from which experience is made, This is like seeing the nature of reality. And the only reason really for seeing this clearly and for spending as much time here in this place, If you're struggling to find it or understand what I mean, It's simply this fact of being alive. It's the fact that you are alive right now experiencing being alive. You're not necessarily experiencing a world. You're experiencing being alive. And then that being aliveness expresses itself as the world. But really, It's all the experience of being alive. And what happens is the more that we get accustomed to this raw, Simple experience of being alive, Being in the placeless place, The more that the qualities of that placeless place can basically seep into, Funnel into the mind, Into the body and into the world. The qualities that are innate with this placeless place, The formless, Timeless presence of being. Is absolute acceptance. On the human level. It looks like acceptance. It looks like forgiveness, It looks like love. These are qualities like colours of a rainbow and this pure infinite sense of being, Which is reality itself, Which is what we are. When that white light shines into the mind, It expresses us the colors of the rainbow, Which look like love, Joy, Happiness, Peace. They're natural expressions of our true nature. So we don't need to identify with our true nature, That's another pitfall. We all know people who love to identify as consciousness we simply are. Be what we are we don't need to make an effort to be what we are. The sun doesn't need to identify with shining in order to shine. You see the sun doesn't identify with light in order to shine. Awareness doesn't need to identify with awareness in order to shine. In order to be happy. It is happiness. And we've all spent long enough in suffering to be very clear on what peace and happiness looks like. Be convicted in your knowing. And if you're not convicted yet in your knowing, Vigorously ask questions until you are. Because the only reason we would not have conviction is if there is some misunderstanding. The mind when it understands, True understands, Not just intellectual knowledge but understanding is a very different thing from knowledge, When it understands it runs out of questions, And when it runs out of questions you are in this absolute openness for the truth to just pour into your life, For that conviction and knowing to be just absolute truth. No doubt. And if there's no doubt on what you are, Guess what you'll be? You'll be exactly what you are. Without resistance. And if you're being what you are without resistance you're going to be very happy. So be in this moment. Simply alive just be alive don't do anything else other than that Not that you could anyway, But. . . Just for the sake of it. Meditation. Be. Alive it sounds like. So simple that there can't be any benefit to it. But that's the thing. At this stage we shouldn't be questioning a benefit to being alive, You see. Being alive is all you are or ever will be. So what we're doing is we're getting accustomed and we're getting used to that raw experience without having to supplement it with thoughts, Feelings, States, Relationships we see that being alive is the source of happiness. Every time we retrieve an object, We surrender the desire to change the fact that we are alive, To try and supplement being alive, And we are just being alive. There's nothing replacing it, Nothing resisting it. And we love that. We love just the raw experience of being alive. So be. This aliveness, This aliveness is in the empty space It's in the placeless place. It's everywhere where there is not anything at all. Wherever there's something, It's not there.