How To Never Forget

Join us for a discussion about remaining in the knowledge and never forgetting the true essence of the self. We will suggest simple methods and practices to help remain on the path and centered. Don't miss out. Establish these 4 pillars and you will stay on the path. For good.

Transcript

So,

Like always,

We are going to start this session with a short ceremony,

Just to make sure that we are all aligned.

So let's make sure that all the beeps and sounds are turned off,

And nothing will disturb our peace for the next few minutes.

And let's sit comfortably on our seats,

And take a deep breath in,

And let's close our eyes and take another deep breath in,

And the next breath in,

We keep in,

We don't breathe out,

And slowly breathe out,

And let go of all your efforts,

Let go of everything that already happened in the past,

Let go of everything that may happen in the future,

And allow your breath to guide you back to the present moment,

To whatever is happening right now around you,

Sounds and voices,

Smells,

The sensation of the air touching your skin,

The color of all the information generated by your surroundings,

Become aware of the presence of your body in that space,

And the posture your body took upon its seat,

You may scan your body from the tip of your toes to the top of your head,

Patiently making sure there is no tension hiding anywhere in your body,

Comfortable and relaxed.

Become aware of your own heartbeat,

The pulse of life within you,

Become aware of your breath as it occurs in its own natural rhythm,

Every breath in fills your body with oxygen,

With life,

And every breath out cleanses the body and relaxes more and more,

Gently allowing your attention to shift and meet your thoughts,

What are you thinking of right now,

Without getting too entangled or carried away by any specific thoughts,

You just observe your thoughts pass through your mind like clouds in the sky,

Become aware of every phenomenon that occurs around you and within you,

And as the level of phenomena continues to flow in its own rhythm,

Allow your attention to shift from that flow and turn towards itself,

To the source of awareness,

That space within that exists before and beyond any phenomena,

Where there is no movement,

There is only silence,

And for a moment become that silence.

So,

That now the fourth element,

Gently allow your attention to come back to your body,

Become aware of the presence of your body in this world,

A part of our virtual circles,

But let us unite our individual intentions into one unified intention,

The intention to grow,

Develop,

To evolve,

The smile is taken out,

Deep breath in,

And when you feel comfortable,

You may open your eyes.

So,

Hello everyone,

Welcome to this unique opportunity we give ourselves once a week,

To stop the race and take a deep breath and reflect on our lives,

Reminding ourselves who we are and what is most important to us.

This is your opportunity to shed off any useless load,

Grow beyond any barrier that stands between you and an awakened consciousness,

And grow not just as individuals on the path,

But also as a united consciousness,

And the force that drives us forward is always that tension that hides in that space between the question and the answer,

The longing for the truth.

So,

Your way to contribute to this meeting is sharing your questions,

And be sincere and authentic when you do so,

When you do so,

So the questions can serve their purposes.

So,

Today we are gathered under the question,

How not to forget,

Whatever that means.

Again,

I don't have a pre-prepared lecture,

It's not about following my pre-organized text and content,

It's about how we interact through your questions,

And even not about the text at all,

But the gap that is between words and sentences.

So,

Try to fine-tune your listening so you can recognize those gaps and the silence suggested in those gaps.

So,

How not to forget?

First of all,

It's important to recognize that it's not about learning anything that we never knew,

Never heard of.

On the spiritual path,

We just remember what we already know,

And keep reminding ourselves.

So,

When we forget,

It will be easy to remember it once again.

Have you noticed that?

If you are walking on the path that is right for you,

I'm sure you will recognize that nothing that you hear on the path is new to you.

There is no concept that strikes you as,

Wow,

I've never thought about that.

Everything is very natural,

Isn't it?

Of course,

Yeah,

That's the way it is,

Isn't it?

Isn't it so with everyone?

That's how I felt when I first met my spiritual path.

Growing on the path is not about accumulating more ideas and concepts,

But just reconfirming what you already know deep inside,

Rekindling that knowing of who you are,

What you are.

That knowing has a tendency to hide behind distractions,

Behind the shields that we build around ourselves,

Behind the personality that we develop through the years,

Behind the self-image we have about ourselves,

Behind all the preconceptions we have about life.

So,

The whole process is a process of shedding those preconceptions,

Ideas,

False identifications,

And images,

So the truth can reveal itself pure,

Not as an idea or as a concept,

But as the nature of things,

Simple,

Innocent.

So,

The first thing you recognize is that there's nothing new about it.

It's just rekindling,

Knowingness.

And there are those graceful moments where that knowing is present.

Everyone on the path has experienced that.

It's like a teaser that we receive,

Momentary experiences of knowing,

I am that,

Where there is no I that identifies with anything anymore.

There is only grace with no identification.

It's like a teaser from God that is inviting us to remember.

It could be a very deep meditation that you had,

Or it could be a moment of inspiration where it just flows through you,

Whatever it is,

Creativity.

You write something,

Or you paint something,

Or create something that is generated through you without you taking ownership.

You're just in the zone,

Melting into that experience.

It doesn't matter,

You run,

You swim,

Whatever you do,

You dance,

And the dance just happens through you,

Right?

Those graceful moments on the path where you say,

Wow,

Okay,

This is it.

I remember now.

This is what I am.

This is who I am.

I am peace.

I am love.

I am joy.

I am grace,

Compassion.

This is the nature of the self.

It's nothing personal.

This is the nature of united consciousness.

God,

Doesn't matter the name you give it.

I am that.

And you say,

Yes,

A whole Niranjana.

What do you say?

But then you forget.

Sounds like a plan.

How many of you here experienced that?

I guarantee success.

Chad is saying,

But it will only work if you apply it.

I played hockey today for fun.

Listening to me speaking about it for a few minutes is nice,

But if you want to apply it on your life,

It will be useless.

This is not a concept.

It's not theory.

The criticism was a poor attempt at doing me.

It bothered me.

This is something to apply,

To practice.

His level of self-development more than the actual criticism.

That is my mundane conversation topic.

Create those pillars to be stable in your life.

And then you'll see.

You forget less.

You remember more.

Yes.

Guaranteed.

Money back.

Guaranteed.

So two things to learn from that.

What do you say?

One,

Questions.

We've got time for a few questions.

You never take credit and you never take blame.

You are not influenced by criticism as you are not influenced by praise.

Well,

It's not because of me.

For better or worse,

You are like an empty vessel,

Like a flute allowing life to flow through you.

And the opposite direction,

Allowing life to receive those compliments or blame through you.

But it doesn't stick to you.

And you don't care and you don't create a personality around it.

You don't add more medals or a revelation.

Though it's simple in a way.

You see how it works in us?

The heart stains of blame,

Recognizes an invitation like an empty vessel,

Some familiarity.

Then somebody's praising you,

It feels that it can come all the way to God.

If somebody blames you,

You allow that as well.

Nothing sticks to you.

It's too simple.

It's too complicated how you stay free from other people's opinions.

And the other thing to learn from these words is surrender to that.

When people,

Invitation,

Act because of ignorance,

Criticize,

Blame,

They are frustrated,

They are angry,

Too simplistic,

They suffer.

And what do you do when you face suffering?

That's because it is very obvious and very simple.

You just pull compassion onto that.

People ask me how to let go.

Compassion,

Not pity,

Compassion.

That's a ridiculous question.

Do you know the difference,

Right?

When I ask you to take a deep breath in,

That's it.

You don't ask me how to breathe out,

Do you?

The difference between compassion and pity.

And pity has a hierarchy,

Right?

I am here,

You are here,

And I pity you.

Effortless from here.

It's your very nature,

What you don't know.

It's not something you have to think about at all.

So I pity you.

Compassion is effortless unification comes from oneness.

Your pain is my pain.

It's your nature.

You just have to let go of everything that is masking that away from you.

I feel your pain.

I experience it.

Irene is saying,

Not identifying with it,

But experiencing it.

I can feel your pain,

It is my pain.

That's why next,

This is compassion.

It's come from oneness,

There is no hierarchy in trust.

Compassion.

Thank you for reminding us.

This is difference.

So if somebody is suffering in front of you,

You just add compassion.

This person is suffering,

I can feel that.

So invite everyone you know that has trust issues.

Make sure you don't forget anyone.

Invite anyone you know that you know the nature of the self.

Because of trust is suffering.

Your lack of trust.

Make sure you listen to the next meeting next Wednesday.

And then you forget.

And life goes on,

You know,

And you get carried away by life's little dramas.

So I'd like to thank you all for coming.

You forget.

And sharing this session with us.

So the question is?

Contributing with your beautiful question.

And you're to forget less.

Donations.

They are very helpful in the past.

And I hope to meet you next week so you can share your experiences.

So the first thing to do is not to blame yourself about the fact that you forgot.

What do you say?

Yes,

As much as you don't blame others,

You don't blame yourself.

I want to hear a resounding yes.

Because if you blame yourself,

Criticize yourself,

Disappointed about yourself,

Or at least one forgot again,

You thought you already passed that phase.

Yes,

It shouldn't happen to you again and again and again.

You should be smarter.

So good night.

Good morning,

Wherever you are.

No,

No,

No.

I love you very much that you just add gasoline to the fire.

Bye bye.

Of drama.

You just dig a deeper hole to fall into.

You know that I call it the pulse of life.

What is the pulse of life?

I forget.

And then I remember.

And then I forget.

And then I remember.

That is the pulse of life.

Why do we forget?

So we can remind ourselves.

Why do we forget?

So we feel that longing to reunite with our true essence.

Why do we forget?

So we have that evolutionary force to come back home.

Do you see that?

If we are staying,

If we are in heaven,

Staying in heaven,

There is no movement in heaven.

In heaven,

There is only peace,

But no evolution.

Evolution has to go through that,

Grinding with life,

With life's circumstances.

You know the story of heaven,

Right?

God created heaven.

And the first thing he created after heaven is man.

And the first sentence he said to the man was,

Here,

This is for you.

I created this for you.

You go and enjoy.

All of this is for you.

And then whatever happens,

He kicked man out of heaven.

So you may ask yourself,

What's the point?

Why create heaven?

Let us taste it and then throw us away,

Fall in heaven.

Why create heaven and not allow us to stay there?

Any ideas?

21.

22.

23.

Explosion.

No ideas.

The answer is,

Or could be,

The answer could be to ignite the longing to come back.

That longing is the root force of evolution.

Without that longing,

There is no force.

There is no evolution.

We were there,

We tasted it,

And it was taken away.

So now we want to come back.

We want to reunite.

Irene is saying too,

But it was before my time.

I certainly don't remember tasting heaven.

I don't believe you.

I don't believe you don't remember.

You just need to look deeper.

Look deeper beyond life circumstances,

Beyond everything you experienced in your body.

Look deeper.

What was there before experiences started to accumulate and creating a personality for you?

What were you before personality developed?

What is hiding there behind all those things that happened in life and happened to you?

There is a memory there.

Everyone has that memory.

Even if it's not defined in words and concepts,

Without that memory,

There will be no longing.

And without that longing,

You will not sit here and listen to my words now.

I'll add definitely 100%.

The memory is there.

Laurel,

You just have to invite yourself to go deeper.

Use one of those guided meditations that you can find on my Insight Timer page.

For instance,

Use the one that is called Me and My Story,

Or My Story and Me.

See if you can use that guided meditation as an invitation to dive beyond your story,

Deeper.

What is happening there?

Before the story started and after the story ends,

Your memory is there.

You just need to find a way to get in touch with it.

Barbara is saying,

I have reflected on your comment from last week about tips on how to remember,

Strengthen the four pillars.

So I'm here.

Good.

We're going to discuss those pillars today.

But first thing is to remind yourself.

The fact that you forget it is not a problem.

It just means that you're still alive.

The pulse of life is still pulsing.

I forget and I remember and I forget and I remember.

And the spiritual path and the teacher is here to help you to forget less and remember more and more and more and more and more and more.

And I'm going to discuss four pillars that are essential on your path to make sure that you forget less and you remember more.

If you make sure that those four pillars are stable in your life,

In your daily life,

Accessible to you at any time,

You will see that you become less forgetful and more attached to your knowing.

Your knowing sings through you.

Well,

So do you want to know the four pillars?

What are the four pillars?

Yes.

So it's very easy.

Seva,

Satsang,

Sadhana and Sadguru.

Four pillars.

Remember the four S's.

What is Seva?

These are words in Sanskrit.

Seva is an attitude of service.

You adopt an attitude of service in your daily lives.

Random acts of kindness out of your heart,

Not expecting anything in return.

Just find someone that needs help and help them.

Somebody write down.

The first pillar is an attitude of service.

Barbara already wrote all the four of them.

Thank you,

Barbara.

An attitude of service.

This is very important.

You will realize as you adopt an attitude of service that what you actually do is simulate an awakened consciousness,

Allowing your system to get tuned to that flow that is usually opposite of the flow of most of the people around you.

What is the flow of most people?

Outside,

Inwards.

I don't have,

So I go out and gather from the outside,

Trying to fill a hole in me,

Trying to fill lack in me,

Sucking that out of life.

Attitude of service is changing the direction from inwards out.

I already have,

I found bounty in me,

As me,

And that bounty flows to touch everyone that needs it.

This is the nature of an awakened consciousness.

And this is exactly what you do.

You simulate that flow more and more and more.

So add that to your daily routine.

Make sure there is no day passing without you doing at least one random act of kindness.

Find somebody that needs help.

Help them.

Find somebody that is in a deeper hole than you and pull them up.

There is always someone in a deeper hole,

Very close to you.

You just need to look,

Find it,

Help him.

If the day ends and you haven't done your random act,

Make sure you go down and grab an old lady and help her to cross the road.

Whatever is required.

This is Seva.

It's the top of the list,

Very important.

And then the second one is Satsang.

That community of people that helps you grow,

Supports your evolution.

You know,

Because usually people around us are just justifying our own suffering.

What do we do when we meet friends?

We complain,

We gossip,

We justify each other's drama,

Pulling more fuel into the fire.

And then at the end of the meeting,

You feel even more drained.

Life is so depressing.

Now you get another reason because people around you are also suffering.

Instead of that,

Find a community of people that helps you grow.

That when you leave that community,

You feel that you expanded a little bit,

That your heart opened.

This is very essential.

And if you can't find it,

Create one.

Gather a few people,

You know,

Meet weekly,

Discuss knowledge,

Meditate together,

Sing,

Whatever is available to you.

Create that invitation.

This is Satsang.

So beautiful.

And then Sadhana.

What is Sadhana?

It is practice.

Daily practice.

Reminding yourself again and again and again every day.

This is who I am.

This is what's most important to me.

This is who I am.

This is what's most important to me.

And find that routine that helps you to remember that.

Usually,

Meditation is recommended.

Meditation is the most pure way to do that.

It's a technique that is designed exactly for that.

But if,

You know,

If you do something else,

If you paint,

For example,

And you are able to remind yourself and reconnect with your essence through painting or whatever,

A ceremony,

You light a candle,

You know,

You read a chapter in a book,

Anything that helps you remember.

But you do that every day.

You do that a few times a day.

I can give you a routine that is definitely recommended.

Every hour,

You take a minute or two,

Take some few deep breaths,

Close your eyes.

Every hour,

Just a few breaths,

Just to make sure that you are aligned and you never go astray too far from the path that you've chosen.

And then once a day,

You do 20 minutes,

You know,

Meditation,

Whatever,

Every day.

And then once a week,

You take an hour or two,

You go to nature,

You know,

Whatever is available to you.

Connect with the skies,

Connect with the earth,

With the feminine and the masculine,

Reconnect.

And then once a month,

You take a day or half a day.

And then every six months,

You take a weekend.

You do a silence retreat,

You know,

Like that.

The routine of reminding yourself again and again is very important.

So,

Seva,

Satsang,

Sadhana,

And Sadguru.

Sadguru is the teacher,

The source of inspiration.

The teacher,

The presence of a teacher on the life of the spiritual seeker is also very important.

If you want to dive deep into that knowledge of why is it important to have a teacher and how to choose the right teacher for you,

I invite you to listen to that talk.

You can find again on Insight Timer,

I had the talk about how to find the right guru for me.

But just know that the presence of a teacher is like a gift,

Someone or something that can keep reminding me on my path of my fullest potential as it is manifested in a human form.

Inspire me to continue growing,

Demonstrating as a role model,

How to flow through life effortlessly,

Fearless,

That keeps kindling that longing to reconnect.

In the East,

A person without a teacher is considered an orphan,

An orphan,

An orphan,

An orphan.

In the West,

It's less common,

But it's as important.

We just need to make that leap of faith,

Find someone or something.

It could be a person,

It could be a book,

It could be a tree,

A river,

Anything that is always there waiting for us.

And when we reconnect with it or with him or her,

It's like coming back home and we can rest again.

That demonstrates unconditional love,

Which is essentially what we are looking for.

Unconditional love,

Isn't it?

Rabbi is saying the word that comes to mind is abide,

Abide in the abide in the space of open heartness created by the four pillars.

Life is that space.

Beautiful.

Poetry.

So if you keep those four pillars alive in your life,

In your daily life,

You will see that those moments of forgetfulness are becoming more and more rare.

And also you find the way back home gets shorter and shorter.

Until,

With the grace of God,

That will not open again and you will not forget.

You will be an embodiment of knowing that's unshakable anymore.

What do you say?

Sounds like a plan?

I guarantee success,

But it will only work if you apply it.

Listening to me speaking about it for a few minutes is nice,

But if you don't apply it on your life,

It will be useless.

This is not a concept.

It's not theory.

It's not abstract philosophy.

This is something to apply,

To practice.

What?

Seva?

Satsang?

Sadhana?

Sadguru?

Apply those.

Create those pillars to be stable in your life.

And then you'll see.

You forget less.

You remember more.

Guaranteed.

Money back.

Guaranteed.

What do you say?

Questions?

We've got time for a few questions.

Who would like to ask?

Well,

Irene is saying that's a revelation,

Though it's simple in a way.

You see how it works in us?

The heart recognizes an invitation,

Some familiarity that it feels that it can connect,

Reunite with.

And then immediately the intellect takes over and says,

No,

It can't be.

I mean,

It's too simple.

It's too complicated.

There must be a trick.

And it doesn't allow you to really surrender to that invitation.

If you think it's too simplistic or too obvious,

That's because it is very obvious and very simple.

You know,

People ask me how to let go.

That's a ridiculous question.

When I ask you to take a deep breath in,

You don't ask me how to breathe out,

Do you?

You just,

And you breathe out.

Similarly,

Letting go is just effortless.

It's your very nature.

It's not something you have to think about or effortless,

Achieve with effort.

It's your nature.

You just have to let go of everything that is masking that away from you.

Do you see that?

Irene is saying,

Thinking that it must be hard for people with trust issues.

That's why next session,

Next Wednesday,

We're going to discuss trust.

Thank you for reminding us.

We're going to dive deep into the matter of trust.

So invite everyone you know that has trust issues.

Make sure you don't forget anyone.

Invite anyone that you know that because of trust is suffering or lack of trust.

Make sure they listen to the next meeting,

Next Wednesday.

So I would like to thank you all for coming and sharing this session with us and contributing with your beautiful question and your donations.

They are very helpful on the path.

And I hope to meet you next week so you can share your experiences about the four pillars.

How does life feel once those are established in your life?

What do you say?

Yes?

I want to hear a resounding yes or at least one.

Yes.

So good night,

Good morning,

Wherever you are.

Love you very much.

Bye-bye.