There is only the ONE

Remarks on Enlightenment
José le Roy, Translated from French by Collin Fox

We talk a lot these days about awakening and enlightenment. In the Western world, more and more men and women are curious about their true nature. So it is more important than ever to be clear about what we mean by enlightenment.

Enlightenment or awakening is the movement from total identification with an individual to a life centered in Emptiness. This movement is revealed through the discovery of a totally new way of seeing oneself and the world, a discovery that is called in the Eastern tradition 'the opening of the third eye'.

This awakening is often described as the egoless state. But what does the word 'ego' really mean? Words such as 'individual', 'person', 'ego' are concepts to which everyone gives their own meaning depending on their cultural and religious background. For Christians theses words have a meaning which they would not have for Buddhists. The only possibility of really clarifying the meaning of awakening is to return to the pure and simple description of the experience.

From the individual to the Void

After enlightenment, what is most remarkable is that the subject, the me is no longer visible. My first impression is to have completely disappeared from the world. When enlightenment happened, I was in my bedroom. I opened the window and what I saw threw me into a state of total astonishment. There was, as usual, the wall of the building in front, the roofs, the court, the patio-stones, but bathed in a light that was incomprehensible and sublime. This vision of the world I beheld as if for the first time. Most of all, I had vanished from the scene. No one was looking at the world ! Douglas Harding describes very precisely his own astonishment at this experience:

"It was all, quite literally, breathtaking. I seemed to have stop breathing altogether, absorbed in the Given. Here it was, this superb scene, brightly shining in the clear air, alone and unsupported, mysteriously suspended in the void, and (and this was the real miracle, the wonder and delight) utterly free of "me", unstained by any observer. Its total presence was my total absence, body and soul, lighter than air, clearer than glass, altogether released from myself, I was nowhere around."

The 'me', such I had known it before, had quite literally vanished and in its place was suddenly a seeing that came from nowhere, belonged to nobody and gazed upon the Unknown. From that time, a mystery is alive in the heart of our being: the Void. It becomes impossible to perceive the 'me', to see oneself. Enlightenment is the end of a journey, the end of a quest because the searcher no longer exists. It's exactly the same as waking up from a nightmare. Let us imagine that in a nightmare we are being pursued by a ferocious dog. The fear is so strong that we wake up suddenly in a sweat. All of a sudden, the dream is over: the dog, the chase and the dreamer, every thing has vanished without trace. We discover to our great relief that we are comfortably tucked up in the warmth of our bed. Such is enlightenment : the end of an hallucination.

This seeing, this enlightenment cannot possibly be imagined or conceived of. It can only be lived. This awareness is completely different from our everyday awareness. In the everyday awareness the individual takes as his reference point the body-mind. After awakening, this reference point has disappeared. This isappearance is totally extraordinary because, as from then, life is going to be lived on a new level and in an unknown dimension.

In reality, it is the old 'me' which disappears; the old way of living as a separate individual and located in time and space. A new 'me' , the real 'me' is unveiled. Enlightenment doesn't remove the personal sense, the feeling of existing, but this feeling of being, this 'I AM' is pure; it is no longer identified with an individual who is confronting other individuals. The 'I AM' is not relative, it is absolute; it is an unlimited presence and conscious of itself. This feeling of being alive becomes even more intense. When awakening happened, it was as if I had just been born into the world for the first time. Life before awakening is a dream, a deep coma, a death. The newly discovered 'I AM' has divine attributes. This 'I AM' is beyond time, beyond space, without limits, without size, conscious, empty, full, silent, still and bliss. God the most high is within me and I am in HIM.

So, there we have a paradox. On the one side, I see absolutely no 'me', no observer, nothing and, on the other side, I feel myself to be alive as I never felt before. So we have here a mystery. Whilst diving into the pure Void, I remain, nevertheless, myself; by grace of the pure Void, I am finally myself and this 'me' is nobody!

Free from thoughts and desires

So with enlightenment, life does not stop. What disappears is the mistake of taking oneself to be somebody, of taking oneself for ones' appearance in the mirror. My true nature (what I am) is the total opposite of what I appear to be. In this Emptiness, thoughts and desires do not cease to be. My mind continues to function and life goes on.

But I no longer see thoughts arising from a solid thing that we call a head, but arising from the empty space. The wonderful sense of freedom as a result of enlightenment comes from the free Presence that appeared and which makes me independent from thoughts. Before enlightenment, what I took to be my 'me' was the continual stream of thoughts which produces stress and suffering. Now I see that thoughts arrive from the Void. I no longer identify myself with them, I have the possibility of being behind them. They no longer define me. If it happens that I identify with thoughts and consequently suffer, I now know how to extricate myself from them to find again the place of freedom which is without thoughts and silent. In the deepest centre of the 'me', there is complete and total silence. Of this silence, one can say nothing because it is not an experience; it is non-duality. But it is the background, unknown and transcendent which makes possible all the experiences and within which thoughts arrive. When thoughts are completely absent, silence reigns.

However, all this is not about destroying this marvelous tool; thought in the right place is very useful. Pure thought, that is to say without stress, is a reflection of the wisdom of the Source. This is why the mind is often symbolized by the moon and the wisdom of God by the sun. When it is spontaneous, thought is quite simply a correct response to the situation as it presents itself without the harmful intervention of the ego.

But it is important to leave thought in its right place. Thought is limited and the mind cannot comprehend everything. Thought is created and belongs to the world. The truth is beyond; it is the Source and can only be perceived by a direct intuition and not by the mind. The 'philosopher' who searches for truth through the use of reason is like a man who tries to reach the stars by pulling up his trousers to the sky. It is stupid and dangerous. Stupid because the 'philosophers' are lead to write, in general, vain things. And dangerous because they end up denying that it is possible to know the truth or even that truth exists at all.

On the other hand, it is useless to look to control thoughts. We have in fact a lot of difficulties in letting go (and I have my own difficulties); the ego, the little guy in the mirror has the tendency to come back again and block up the Void to take control of the show. But thoughts are spontaneous and arrive from the Void. Their ultimate Source is the supreme intelligence. So it's useless to get upset about it: the world takes care of itself. My life will run much smoother if nobody is thinking. In fact, where do thoughts come from ? From a mind-box? From a head-shaped thing ? Of course not: they come from the absence of mind.

Just as Emptiness welcomes thoughts, it also welcomes desires. These do not entirely disappear with Seeing, but what is removed is the dissatisfaction. Identification with the ego generates suffering and dissatisfaction. To fill up this gap, this lack of being, the ego rushes into an unbridled run to obtain possessions. Desires follow desires, frustrations follow frustrations in an endless chain. When we are aware of our true nature, a huge feeling of fullness fills us up and all kind of needs vanish. There is no more thirst. Enlightenment pacifies us beyond all limits. In the Gospel of John, Jesus met a woman near a well. She came to look for water and Jesus said to her:

"The one who drinks these water will have thirst again, but who will drink the water that I give, never will be thirsty again; the water I give will become in him a fountain of eternal life."

The awakening to our true nature generates an immense relaxation in our being and an openness to the present moment. Thus thirst has disappeared but desires remain. My humanity still exists. This life, however centered on the supernatural, is a natural life. Nevertheless, compared to my life before awakening (I should say my no-life !) what I know today could be called a desireless state. I can stay very long moments without any desire because the 'I AM' is filled with a perfect joy.

As regards the nature of desires that sometimes appear, they are very simple and ordinary and there is nothing specific to say about them. For example, I like to drink a glass of French white wine from the Loire in a small cafe in Montmartre, and I desire to make love to the young and pretty woman I live with. Seen from outside, I look like an ordinary person but lacking in social ambition. But seen from inside, it's different; you have to believe me, it is the Kingdom of Heaven.

A Way Into Non-duality

The enlightenment is like being born again, being born from above as Christ puts It. The entire life is now transformed in an infinite proportion. Before this passage, I had lived myself corruptible and physical; now I am incorruptible and the Light. Of course for this transformation to be achieved, I need not only to have some glimpses of the reality, but I have to settle in it. But anyone who perceives this reality even for one second sees it perfectly for it is always the Absolute that sees itself. Truth does not depend upon time. There is no possible improvement in the Seeing. Each moment is the moment of awakening, and each awakening is the awakening to the Absolute.

This birth is the death of the identification with the body-mind, with the appearance in the mirror. So we could say that it is an egoless life if we call 'ego' the total identification with our human appearance. It is then no longer possible to live as before. Everything has changed. An upsetting has taken place. The spiritual quest has stopped because the seeker has vanished and truth has been revealed.

However with this birth, a new life begins. The new child, the child of light, the heavenly being can keep on growing up. In concrete terms, it means that I still see that egoistic reactions can appear in this space in relation to events. The perfection which is in the Centre, the perfection of my true nature illuminates all the imperfections I had not paid attention to before. The habits have to disappear and I do not forget that for more than 20 years I have been totally identified with a body-mind called José. So there is at the same time consciousness of the Void and consciousness of some egoistic desires and thoughts. But when these egoistic reactions linked with the little José, emerge, they are seen through the light of my true nature and they lose their power and vanish soon. This new light is very important because it transforms the whole of my being and embraces little by little each part of me in its clarity.

So after the illumination, a process of disidentification and of gradual unification is going to take place. But if the identification with the body easily disappears (indeed, it is actually ridiculous to identify with a piece of meat), the belief to be a thinker is more deeply rooted. It will take more time to stop living as a thinker. As Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj puts it:

Thanks to this revelation (enlightenment), your identification with what is corporeal is going to know a vast spread and to extend to the dimensions of the manifested universe. Then you will discover that you contain and penetrate the whole cosmos and that you know it simply as your own body. This is named by the words 'pure superior knowledge' , Shud-Vijnan. Nevertheless, even in this state of sublime Shud-Vijnan, the intellect denies to be recognised as non-entity. However, in giving up yourself to the pure consciousness, the evidence of the fallibility and of the lack of consistence of the intellectual process is going gradually to become stronger and you will be able then to put the intellect to its true place, the second one.

Living in the timeless, the past and the future become unreal; thoughts relating to memory, regrets, remorse or anticipation about the future diminish in number and in power. The only thing that matters is the present moment. The mind is no longer the master of the house, it becomes the servant. Thoughts come and go; they belong to the world and are like clouds crossing the sky leaving no trace.

This is why the incessant chatter of the mind becomes quiet. Thoughts and desires continue to arrive in the Vacuity, but a little bit like a fire that one no longer feeds with wood, or like a wheel that the engine no longer turns and yet nevertheless continues to turn. Disidentification with the body-mind, with my appearance in the mirror breaks the mind's own ability to create more and more thoughts and desires in an infernal circle generating stress.

Indeed, there is here a paradox because in fact nothing changes. The seeing of my true nature always remains. There is no progress in this seeing because there is no time. This process of disidentification and unification simply happens in a spontaneous way. Naturally, the awakening brings its fruits and the heart opens itself. As St. Paul said: 'our external man falls into pieces, our interior man is renewed every day.' This way of realisation and accomplishment is a way of total surrender to my true nature which is the all Being. Nothing can be taken or added to this Being. It is what it is and contains everything. The present moment is in itself an absolute perfection, each situation is full in itself and opens on the infinite. My true nature is perfect. It has no problems and no needs. From thereon thoughts and desires are no longer essential to life; they belong to the world and are one of the expressions of Life. The most important thing in life now is to live each moment consciously from the Void. What I have to do is to rest in the wholeness, in the peace of my original state. It doesn't require any effort. I have to be passive and let the uncreated light of Awakening achieve its great work. It is a way towards unity, bliss, peace and the Unknown.

CONCLUSION

The vacuity is independent of phenomena (thoughts, desires, as well as forms, colours, sounds...) that occur in itself. Fortunately, reality is always available. Reality is the only guide in our often peaceful but sometimes troubled journey. But peace at the centre is never affected. The secret lies in asymmetry. All the changing phenomena appear in the foreground of my non-changing nature. The Seeing of the Vacuity is like a sword which cuts off the illusion as soon as it shows its head. At every instant, the Infinite is here and now, and all the limitations due to experience collapse. The personal is plunged into the Impersonal (or suprapersonal). It could be compared to a carafe of water immersed in the sea: then there is no more interior or exterior.

There is only the ONE.

Just another day in India

In the memory of a seeker who died before realization,while traveling in India looking for gurus.
His name was Michael.
--added by danny--

Michael (email 29 Aug 02 titled "Just another day in India"): On a bus to Rishikesh, on my one day off from a yoga course taught by a saintly old swami who was a colonel in the Indian army for 20 years . . . training commandos no less. As I wipe the sleep from my eyes and massage my yoga punished limbs it doesn't surprise me as much as when he first told me. I'm travelling past cows that compete with beggars for food in stinking piles of fly-blown garbage . . . straight-backed women in bright saris carrying impossibly large sacks of flour on their heads, mangey hairless street dogs who fight and rip the shit out of each other, pigs wallowing in swollen gutters full of green black slime . . . and all the while motorscooters swarm like termites on the way back to the nest before a storm. Suddenly the bus starts making a noise like a spanner dropped in a blender, and it comes to a grinding halt. "Shit" says the dude next to me. We're stopped next to a sort of shaded clearing with a water pump. There are 4 girls wearing saris while washing clothes as one pumps the water. Some old cows wander onto the scene and an old man squats Indian style in the background, smoking a biddi, and I think a more typical scene of rural India could hardly be found, so I whip out my camera and take a few shots. The driver has lifted the hood off the engine and is bashing away like a drunken gorilla, and it starts to rain. Really fucking rain. The washer girls barely bat an eyelid and continue their work with a few knowing smiles between them, and the scrawny old bull outside my window just stands there as the rain pelts its bony back, sending muddy streaks down its side. The drver starts a shoving match with one of the passengers who I think wants to leave. Suddenly, another bus pulls up in front of us and everyone starts fighting each other to be first off this bus so that they can be first on the other bus. I decide that this sort of childish behaviour is beneath me so I continue to read my book with a condescending smile as the passengers elbow and press each other. As a consequence I'm one of only 5 people left on the bus. 2 of them are the driver and conductor, one is an old blind lady, and the other is this beaming guy carrying half a truck axle who I don't think is completely with the program. I retain composure as I realise that this bus ain't going nowhere, so I flag down a rickshaw. "Rishikesh?" I ask. The passengers all say no, but the driver of course says "Yes! Yes! Come, come!" So I think what the fuck, at least I'll get to the nearest village where I can maybe hop on another bus. 10 km later the driver decides he isn't going any further and I find myself standing next to a giant rubbish pile and a little boy of maybe 8 with an open sore on his face is tugging at my shirt and touching my feet reverently and asking for one rupee. He ignores my angry "chello!" so I give him a light kick on the bum and he scampers off. After an hour or so I see a bus marked Rishikesh but it's not gonna stop, so I jump right in front of it thinking that this fucker is going to have to run me down if he wants to pass. So the ancient driver, with glasses like magnifying glasses, slows down just enough for me to take a running jump on the bus, and I see why he wouldn't stop . . . the bus is completely packed and my ass is literally flying in the breeze for the first 10 miles or so until some people get off and I can relax a bit. Get to Rishikesh and the rain just gets harder. There are whole streets that are 3 feet under water. Men are pushing scooters through streets that that are now rivers brown with mud, shit and god knows what else. Pigs and dogs compete for ever decreasing space under landings while locals crowd cheerfully under shop awnings. Sadhus squat Indian style, lost in their chillum smoke watching with amusement the few brave souls who dart out into the downpour.

So I hop onto another rickshaw that feels more like a speedboat as it cuts a path through the floodwater. It's only my head banging against the roof when we fall into unseen potholes that reminds me that there's any land at all around. I get to Vedniketan (ashram), my home away from home, feeling like I've just been chewed, swallowed and shitted out the ass of some unspeakably evil creature . . . only to find that no-one I know is there. A swim in the Ganges today is not even a remote possibility so I go for lunch at the posh Green Italian Restaurant. I'm in another world as I sit opposite some French wankers, listening to some pan-flute Kenny-G crap and watch cows, beggars and pilgrims file past in an endless multi-coloured stream. I just read my yoga book, and when my food comes I ask for a change of music and they put on Dark Side of the Moon, and it takes me back to when I first heard the album in Sydney, in the back of a mate's car on the way into the city to meet some girls on a clear, starry Saturday night. I feel like crying, and more French wankers pile into the restaurant, and I leave after eating. Go to do some internetting that fucks up 3 times before I get to read a message from a beautiful blue eyed Belgian babe who tells me she's in Gangotri on a fast for 3 weeks. I agree to meet up with whatever is left of her when she gets back. Walking back to Vedniketan I'm confronted with the usual moronic stares from the locals and cocky laughter. I ignore the thousand outstretched hands and "Hello sir . . . your country?" bullshit and sit talking to a few pommy guys for a while back at Vedniketan. Chill for a while and it's like old times. Go for a coffee and the locals stare and stare and stare as I play-fight with an Israeli girl. We stare back but they seem to like that more and as usual a crowd starts to gather so we leave. I decide to sit by the bridge that crosses the Ganges and watch the monkeys being fed and the constant flow of pilgrims heading up to Gangotri. Suddenly a huge red-faced monkey starts chasing a smaller one across the bridge, they both run over the backs of startled people, and the big one catches the smaller one and starts really tearing into him. The smaller one screams as blood flows from his head and he limps away after a minute or so while the big one sits like a newly crowned king, gently accepting any food offered to him from passers by. I'm filled with disgust and dread for this place and these people so I hop into a shared jeep for the ride home. It takes an hour for the driver to round up enough people to fill up the jeep and it's dark by the time we get going. We travel for about 10 minutes before we get to a long straight stretch of road that has thick forest on both sides. Up ahead there are about 10 cars blocking the road and a man flags us down to stop. He starts talking with the driver and pointing to a huge, eerie silhouette about 50 metres ahead. "Elephant" says the old police inspector sitting next to me. "Mad elephant. See?" All around us are uprooted trees.

The elephant is just standing there in the middle of the road, daring anyone to get close. So we sit for another 10 minutes before one brave rickshaw decides to head off, and we watch, holding our breaths and smiling at each other. The elephant decides not to flatten the rickshaw, and we all go home in one piece.

Just another day in India.

I am eternal bliss and awareness -

"That's what you are. You are eternal bliss and awareness. Consciousness, the pure consciousness. I think this must be... Everyone must learn it by heart and must say it in all the Ashrams. That's a very good way of remembering what you are. May God bless you!"

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, in Gmunden, Austria, 1986.

"Tad Niskala" by Adi Shankaracharya
Om. I am neither the mind,
Intelligence, ego nor chitta.
Neither the ears, the tongue,
Nor the senses of smell and sight.
Neither ether nor air.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

I am neither the prana,
Nor the five vital breaths.
Neither the seven elements of the body,
Nor its five sheaths,
Nor hands, nor feet, nor tongue,
Nor other organ of action.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

Neither fear, greed, delusion,
Loathing, nor liking have I.
Nothing of pride, or ego,
Or dharma or liberation.
Neither desire of the mind,
Nor object of its desiring.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

Nothing of pleasure or pain,
Or virtue or vice, do I know.
Of manta, of sacred place,
Of Vedas or sacrifice.
Neither I am the eater,
The food or the act of eating.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

Fear or death, I have none,
Nor any distincton of caste.
Neither father nor mother,
Not even a birth, have I.
Neither friend, nor comrade.
Neither disciple, nor Guru.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

I have no form or fancy.
The All-pervading am I.
Everywhere I exist,
Yet I am beyond the senses.
Neither salvation am I,
Nor anything to be known.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

Truth and happiness are present

What it's like to live in overflowing energy.

What it's like to live in overflowing energy.

1. Spiritual Light will begin to take you over. These
higher feelings will increase and grow in intensity. Yes, right
in the middle of your day, down at the office or at home with
the children, higher feelings will start to inspire you.

2. You know that whatever comes up around the next
corner, it is no problem, because through Reality's wisdom
and energy, you can handle anything.

3. Gradually, you will begin to cool down, spiritually
speaking, until you reach the perfect spiritual temperature
of 72 degrees. At a certain point, you will enter Reality.

4. Truth and happiness are present and nothing is needed
on your part to keep it in place. So you relax, you smile, you
laugh and you enjoy your day to the fullest. For now you
are a receiver of something coming from a Higher World.

5. Picture yourself in a spaceship, moving away from
this world to the cosmic world. You look toward the front of
the ship. There is a big window and through it you see
incredible sights, great stars, and you look in awe at what
is happening to you and where you're now going. What you
see is Reality as it lights itself up! This is the intensity of
the spiritual journey that begins to unfold after a certain
point.

6. Here is the good news! As one eagle appears, a
thousand vultures disappear. And, what a welcome the eagles
extend to you! What a feeling comes over you when you
arrive in the higher world.

7. You will feel so good that you never want to leave
your own company. You're always pleasant, always! Your
inner pleasantness reflects itself outwardly, at all times,
wherever you go, whatever you meet.

8. Your life will be one spiritual revelation after
another. Just as a scientist gets rightly excited when he is
about to make a discovery, so will you be rightly excited
as you move from one spiritual insight to the next.

9. As you work with these principles you will experience
a falling away. Wrong reactions to other people will
fall away. All your secret fears and angers will fall away.
You will understand that inwardly, loss is gain.

10. Increasingly spiritual feelings reach you– something
new, something clean, something higher. And you find that
the best two words to describe this feeling are RELEASE
and RELIEF.

11. This new feeling begins to spiritualize words for
you, so that you really begin to live their meaning. Take the
word "love" for example. In previous years the word was
all you had. But this new and increasingly powerful feeling
begins to reveal to you the state behind the word.

12. The day will come when you crack through the
ceiling and the Light from the Spiritual World floods in. As
this happens, it will feel so good that you will want to triple
your efforts to clear away the ceiling so that more Light can
break through.
...........from my friend Vernon Howard
danny

Meditation is a very general word

"Meditation is a very general word. It is not a word that explains
all the three steps one has to take for meditating. But in Sanskrit
language they have very clearly said, how you have to move in your
meditation.

First is called as Dhyana, and second is called as Dhaarna; and the
third is called Samadhi. Luckily Sahaja Yoga is such a thing that you
get everything in a bundle. You avoided everything else and you got
the Samadhi part. That's the beauty of it. The first part of
meditation is the Dhyana. First when you have seeking, you put your
attention towards the object of your worship. That is called as
Dhyana. And the Dhaarana is the one in which you put all your effort.
Concentrate all your effort. But this is all drama for people who are
not realised. For them it's just a sort of an acting that they do.
But for a realised soul it is a reality. So the first, the Dhyana,
you have to do. Some do it of the Form, another of the Formless. But
you are so fortunate that the Formless has become a Form for you. No
problem, you don't have to go from Form to Formless, from Formless to
form; it's all there, in a bundle. So you concentrate, or think of
some Deity, or some point for Nirakar, for the Formless, or of
Nirakar itself."

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi,
January 1984

Thinking Past Your Nose

-note: This is Robert Adams talking about thinking and not thinking from the Advainta point of view of ,,real self,,.
...................................

It's good to be with you again. As long as you believe that you are the body/mind phenomena you're going to have problems. That's that. I don't care what kind of problems you may think you have, it makes no difference how severe. As long as you believe you are the body/mind phenomena you're going to have problems. You may feel justified in having problems. You may feel it's not your fault. You may feel it's karma. You may feel it's all kinds of things, but as long as you believe or you feel the body/mind, you will have problems, because this is the kind of world in which we live, the world that doesn't exist. Seems real to most of us. And if we believe we are the body/mind then we believe the world is real and we believe we have to pray to God for solutions. We do all these things and we still suffer And suffering will only stop, not when God answers your prayers, but when you awaken to the truth of your own Being. Then you are born again, so to speak, in a new reality and all is well. But you say to me, "But Robert, sometimes you appear to have problems too. Your karma evolved as it does all the time, or your physical body doesn't feel to good, or something is going on.” My question to you is this, "Who sees this?" There has to be a seer and an object. You're seeing yourself. When you catch on to your awakening the world does not change. You just see it differently, that's all. You acquire a feeling of immortality, a feeling of divine bliss, so to speak, when things no longer have the power to affect you. In other words, in the state of enlightenment cause and effect does not exist for you. But those who are living in the world are going through their karma, and they're beholding themselves everywhere they look. For the world, remember, is only a projection of your mind. Now what kind of a projection is it? It depends on your state, where you are coming from. We're all looking at the world and we see something different. All we are seeing is ourselves. There are no problems. None exist. None will ever exist. The only problem that exists is what...? Who can tell me? (Student: "Kuwait.”) You're close. What do I always say, why does a problem exist? It has to do with your nose. That's right. You're allowing your thoughts to go past your nose. That is the only reason you have a problem. If you catch yourself quick before it gets past your nose, where is the problem? The problem is in your thought, only in your thought. When your mind slows down, when the thinking process slows down, where is the problem? It doesn't exist. But if you allow the thoughts to go past your nose then there are all kinds of problems which you come up with. You believe this is wrong, and this is not right, and this is hurting me, and you become doubtful, suspicious and apprehensive, and fearful and so forth. Because you're thinking. You may say, “How can you exist without thinking?” Quite well, thank you. The trees do not have to think. The grass does not have to think. The world does not have to think of itself. Everything is taken care of. There is a power that knows how to take care of everything, and will also take care of your body, so called, if you stop thinking. But as long as you think I am the body then you have to take care of your body, and watch it, and feed it aspirin and cold remedy and proper foods and do all kinds of strange things with your body. But your body and your mind are not your friend. They come under a law of their own. Did your body ask you today this morning. When it's time to get up, it got up. Did it ask your permission? It does what it wants. You have nothing to do with the body or the mind. When you become depressed does your mind ask you if it can become depressed? It does what it wants. When you become fearful does your mind ask your permission? It does what it wants. When your body catches a cold does it ask you if it can catch a cold? It does what it wants. But what have you got to do with those things? A lady called me this morning from Santa Cruz. And she asked me, “How long do I have to come to Satsang before I become self-realized?” So I told her, “Before I answer let me ask you, what do you mean by I, and what do you mean by Satsang?” And she hung up. I wonder why she did that. But it's something we can talk about, or I can talk about since I have nothing else to do. How long do "I" have to come to Satsang ? How long does "I" have to come to Satsang ? Does "I" need to come to Satsang ? What is this elusive “I”? What does it mean? How long does "I" have to come to Satsang ? The reason you would call it I, is because you misinterpreted the I. You identify the I with the body. So you're saying how long do I have to come to Satsang . Then what is Satsang ? Sat means Being, being with the Self. Therefore I and Satsang are the same thing. What this means is Satsang is your everyday experience. It's not a place you go to. It’s how you live your life. "I" makes the separation but there is no separation. There is one whole and you are That. But as long as you are separating I from your Self then you always question. I feel sick. I feel happy. I feel depressed. I feel out of sorts. Who is this I? Where did it come from? How does it originate? What is it's Source? Find out. Dive deep within and find out where the I came from. A good way to do this is before you go to sleep say to yourself, "I'm going to find my I when I get up this morning." Just before you wake up, before you start thinking, the I presents itself as "I AM", as pure Consciousness. Catch it then. That's the best time to catch it. As soon as you awaken in the morning, in that split second before you wake up and start thinking. Before the thoughts come of the world, that is the time to catch the I AM, the Absolute Reality. For at that moment this is exactly what you are, pure Awareness. And then the thought comes, it covers it up. So remember this. If you ask yourself when you go to sleep, you tell yourself, "Tomorrow morning as I open my eyes I am going to identify with my Source I AM,” and you will. Even for a second, it will change your life. As you keep on doing this every morning, every morning, every morning, the time between your awakening and the thought coming to you will become larger. And the space will expand and expand and expand until you are able to stay in the Awareness. Of course at that time there will no longer be a you. There will only be the Awareness. Try it. You have to investigate. You have to intelligently dive deep within yourself and find the Source of your I. Do not accept your feeling. Do not accept your thoughts. Do not watch yourself feeling miserable, and you do nothing about it. Or you can become the witness to it. That will help too. But it's better to ask, "Why am I feeling miserable?” and realize that you said why am "I" feeling miserable. I, I'm identifying with my body as I. Again a mistake. The I in itself is pure harmony, joy, happiness. But when you identify the I with your body/mind, it becomes the personal I which doesn't even exist. But you’re making it exist. You're identifying with it. Why do you want to identify with your personal I? Your personal I never existed. Why have you befriended it? Why do you keep giving it power? Why do you make it grow? Take your power back. Expose yourself, the real YOU, and forget all this nonsense about a mind and a body and thoughts and the world and God and everything else that appears to be real. Compare yourself with no one. Be true to your self. Never mind how much progress somebody else is making. Forget about Saints and Sages and other people. You are the only one that ever existed and there is no one but you. You are all the Saints and the Sages and the Seers. You are everything. Everything is the Self, and you are That. Why not awaken to this? Why do you want to play games with yourself so long? By believing in reincarnation you just come back again and again and again, and hoping to have a better life next time. There is no better life. As long as you are born of the flesh you have to suffer. This is the way of the flesh. Do not try to improve your life. You're making a big mistake. For there is no question about it, if you use positive thinking and use your mind, you may appear to improve your life. But remember this world in which you live is a world of duality. For every up there is a down. For every forward there is a backward. For every good there is a bad. Therefore whatever improvement comes in your life, it will last for a while, then will subside, then you become miserable again. Then you will be happy again when you get what you want, and then that will last, and then you will be miserable again. You'll start sticking up for your rights and fighting for your survival. Then as you get what you want, you'll be happy again. You’re like a yo-yo. You go up and down, up and down. And no matter how much I talk to you about this you're going to keep on doing this. So why am I talking? I don't know. I have no choice. You know, I never asked to do this. Strange how things turn out. (Student: "Too late now.” ) All I know is that all is well and everything is unfolding as it should. All I know is that happiness is your true nature. That you are not what you appear to be and things are not what they appear to be. Nothing can ever happen to you. Why do you worry so much? What are you afraid of? Your life? You have no life. What you call your life is nothing. It doesn't exist. It's no thing. You worry about your hair falling out. Worried about needing a new pair of shoes. You're getting fat. What a waste of energy. Like feeding a dead horse. We're all going to wind up in the cemetery so what difference does it make what you do. Last week I was talking to a body builder. He was telling me about his muscles. And what he does for this muscle, and what he does for that muscle, and how well he eats. So I told him that's great, you'll be the healthiest man in the cemetery. And that's about the gist of it. Why not use your energy for constructive purposes? Now this does not have to mean that you ignore your body. Your body will always take care of itself. As a matter of fact the more you practice your sadhana, or realizing your true identity, your body will be able to take better care of itself than you were ever able to take care of it, because it comes under a different law. It knows what to do. It will do whatever it came to this world to do, but it has absolutely nothing to do with you. When will you wake up to that fact? Stop thinking about yourself so much, about getting a new job, losing a job, about working or not working. No one is ever happy. Those people who work are miserable because they have to work. Those people who don't work are miserable because they can't find a job. And when they find a job they join the miserable ones who can't stand the job. Where is peace? Peace is your real nature. It's within you. It is you. Look for it and you'll find it. Seek and ye shall find. Whatever you identify with, that's what you become. Therefore stop identifying with worldly things. Identify with yourself. Now how do you do this? It begins in the morning, as I told you before. That's the time when your mind has been free. Because you slept you've had a semblance of peace. Being in deep sleep is an unconscious method of self-realization. You're realized when you are asleep, but you are unconscious so you're not aware of it. You want to be consciously asleep. When you're consciously asleep you're awake. You're awake to your Self, to Reality, to what is, to I AM. When you get up in the morning, immediately before the thoughts come, identify with the Self. Now how do you do this? Simply say to yourself, "I, I.” That's all you got to do, "I, I.” You're doing this before your thoughts come. Maybe in the beginning you can only do this for a couple of seconds, but that's good. Even those couple of seconds will make your day fulfilled, and you'll feel happy during the day. As time passes, as I explained before, the space will widen and you'll be able to remain longer periods in “I, I”, “I, I”. Now when thoughts come simply ask yourself, "To whom do these thoughts come? They come to me." And you hold on to the me. You do not let go. But do not concentrate on the me. Just hold on to the me. You concentrate on the source of me. It's like you're holding on to a rope, and you're going to its source and you let go. Letting go is the Source. Total Awareness, Absolute Reality, I am that I am. Do not try to analyze this. Just allow it to be. As you keep doing this every morning, either watching the I, or asking, “To whom do the thoughts come?” you'll notice a subtle change is taking place in your life. The first change you will see is you develop a semblance of peace that you never had before. You'll just not be disturbed by anything and you'll be surprised at yourself. You'll notice the things that used to make you angry no longer have the power to do that. You'll notice that the things you feared, for instance depression, recession, (laughter) loss of memory, whatever, your wife ran away with the milkman. Maybe that's a good sign, but these things will no longer disturb you. You'll just feel good. You'll feel good all over. And that will turn into pure happiness You're just happy, for no reason. Can you imagine what it feels like just to be happy without interruption, for no reason. It has absolutely nothing to do with the world. It doesn't mean you'll go round laughing hysterically all the time. It means you just feel happy. You hear about the war in Iraq and you're happy. There's no war in Iraq, you're still happy. You work, you're happy. You don't work, you're happy. You have possessions, you're happy. You don't have possessions, you're happy. In other words it makes no difference what the world may seem to bring to you. You are no longer identifying with the world and its objects. You're seeing the world as yourself, or you're beginning to, slowly but surely. Everything begins to take on a projection of yourself. And since you are beginning to discover that you are pure Consciousness, the world starts becoming pure Consciousness also. It's like going to a movie, and the screen is pure Consciousness, the images are the world. Prior to your awakening you've been identifying with the images and you have no idea there's a screen. Oh you know it somewhere in your mind. You have a slight image of the screen, but you don't think of that because the images are very entertaining. You watch a love movie, or a war movie, or this kind of movie, or that kind of movie, and you get all wrapped up in the objects. But of course if you try to go up to the screen to grab any objects you're going to grab the screen. This is what happens when you awaken. You realize that you are the screen, which is Consciousness. And you realize that everything in the world, everything, the whole Universe including God, is superimposed on you. It's not Reality. It's a superimposition. But you identify with the screen, which is Consciousness, and you tolerate the superimposition. Yet you realize it's not you. You have nothing to do with it and you do not identify with it. So in the same instance your body goes through all kinds of experiences, good and bad and in between, but you are always aware that you are not the body and no body exists for you. You know in reality there is no superimposition at all. It does not exist. It appears to exist but it does not. It's like hypnosis. You're hypnotized to believe a white poodle is following you. And sure enough when you wake up out of the hypnosis, you keep looking back, you will actually see a white poodle. Your mind will actually picture the white poodle and you will believe it's real. Nobody else will see it but you will, until the hypnosis wears off. In the same way we see people, places, and things, and they appear so real to us. We identify with them and we suffer accordingly. But as you practice every morning, catching yourself between waking up and thoughts coming, little by little, slowly but surely, you will begin to realize yourself more and more. And the day will come when you awaken. Never mind how long it takes. Do not look at time. Think of how long it takes you to be what you are now. Be yourself. Identify with your reality. Try to be yourself at times. Be aware that the world is egoless. The world has no cause, so where is the effect? If there is no effect there is no cause. How could the world have a cause? Where would it come from? When you dream you can say that your dream has a cause. You are the cause, because you are dreaming. But can you say that while you're dreaming? While you're dreaming and you're in the dream, you believe that the world has a cause, like everyone else does. And you get involved in everyday activities in the dream. You have good experiences and you have bad experiences. And then I come along and I tell you you're dreaming, but you don't believe me. You say, "I'll show you if I'm dreaming, Robert," and you pinch me. And I say, ”owl!” And you say, "See? Is that a dream?" And I try to explain to you it's a dream pinch but you don't believe it. You think it's real. Then you go across the street. And then you're walking down the street and a car hits you, and you're bleeding all over the street. And I run over and I tell you, "You're dreaming, don't be too upset. It's OK.” And you start cursing at me and shaking your fist at me. "How can you say that? Look I'm bleeding all over the place.” Then something funny happens. You wake up. Where does the dream go? Where did the blood go? Where did the car that hit you go? Think of your personal experiences that are upsetting you right now. Think of the problems that you think you have even while I'm talking to you. Some of your minds are thinking of something else, problems, and you believe it's real. You're thinking of who you like or don't like, what you're going to eat for dinner tonight. All these thoughts come to you because you have not trained yourself how to deal with your thoughts. And you've got preconceived ideas. You have got concepts. As an example, you come and you look at me. You don't see me fresh and new like you see yourself. But you compare me with Krishnamurti, or with this guy, or the Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, or Nisargadatta, or the garbage cleaner, or with the janitor or whoever you wish to compare me with. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Your mind becomes filled with preconceived ideas. I am really nobody. I am nothing special. So what you see in me is not real. You're seeing your own projections. You're seeing your self in other words. And if you have not developed yourself and have awakened to pure Consciousness, then you're seeing something worldly. And you make comparisons. You say, “I like, I don't like, it's good, it's bad,” and so forth. You've got to take control of your mind. You've got to realize your mind and your body are not your friend. They feed you the wrong information. They appear right for a while but then it becomes wrong again. Do not listen to your mind. Stop the thoughts before they get to the edge of your nose. That's all I've got to say.