This Is Your Escape Button from the Mind

One Sangha Gathering
The world is our family

24 - 28 March 2021
(with subtitles)

This Is Your Escape Button from the Mind

26 March 2021 - Satsang Excerpt

[Mooji reads]
'Dearest Moojibaba,

such love and gratitude
pour from my heart to you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you,

for all that you do for all beings,

and your boundless love, wisdom, patience,

kindness and compassion.'

This is from Nick.

'Babaji, please take my ego
and body-mind identification,

leaving nothing but you.
Nick'

[Mooji] Nick, yes, yes. Nick.

Very good. Lovely to see you, Nick.

[Questioner: Nick] Hello Guruji.

[Mooji] Yes. So good.

[Q.] My source.
[Mooji] My Lord.

[Mooji] 'Babaji, please take my ego
and body-mind identification,

leaving nothing but you.

Even as I write this letter,
part of me is running from you.'

I know him very well.

We all do, don't we?
We all know this energy.

Something has touched your heart.

It's calling you and you know this voice,

even if you felt you've never heard it before.

When you hear this voice within you,

you recognise Him, you see.

Because it's not apart, He's not 'other than'.

The voice of your own inmost being calls you.

Yes. And yet, something wants to run.

'So, even as I write this letter,

part of me is running from you.'

And you say here,
'Please catch me, as I am a good runner'.

[Mooji laughs]

[Mooji] Yes, he is a good runner.

You must know the difference
between your mind and your Self.

The one who lives ...
The entity in the mind, the imagined self,

that Sri Ramana's statement,
which I've just made,

'The 'I' removes that 'I',

and remains as itself',
the natural 'I-am-ness'.

Come to that place first, you see.

So he says, 'Please catch me,

as I am a good runner,
and I do not wish to escape'.

So, there are three kinds of runners.

There is a tamasic runner.

He runs heavily.
He is very slow, but he runs anyway.

Anywhere apart from here, he wants to run to.

The next one is the raja runner.

Raja is running.
He's got speed as well, running.

And the next one is the satvic runner.

This is what you are saying.

This is the runner who really wants to stay.

He's running, but he wants to be caught.

Only the satvic runner wants to be caught!

[Mooji laughs]

But there's something else which is not a runner,

that watches the satva running, do you see?

Now, I wonder if you can join me in this one.

Whether the runner is a rajasic runner,

who has got a lot of energy,
he's bursting to go,

or whether he is the tamasic runner,

who's very slothful, [slow run and growl]
running away, turning away.

You're not that one.

But there's one who is running

and he's looking, 'Please catch me, catch me.

My legs are running, but my heart wants to stay.'

[Q.] Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Mooji] So this one longs to be still,

but cannot control his own restlessness.

Like a reflex, whenever the call of grace comes,

he finds himself running.

But there's another one.

He's not in a race at all.

Actually, he cannot go anywhere at all.

That is your real Self.

And how do we know this one?

He is a witness to the other three.

He is very separate from their energy.
He's not caught by them.

The witness of all of these,
he's not in any race.

He's not in any race.

He's there before the beginning.

During the race, after the race ends,
he's still not changed,

always the same.

You know this one, you see.

'Please catch me, as I'm a good runner

and I do not wish to escape.

Rather, I wish that you dissolve me
in your acid grace,

leaving only you.'

The grace is only acid
for the one who wants to run.

But there's one
who just runs into the arms, also.

For them that grace is not acid.

It's not even alkaline.

That grace and the Self are the same thing.

So, we have to play each of those roles.

We've been through many stages,

the tamasic, resisting one,

the very excited, creative one,

and the one who has an attraction for the Truth,

but at the same time, runs whenever they ...

You send a message, 'Truth, please come'.

But as Truth is coming to the door,
you run out into the garden.

So, this is the satvic one.

But he doesn't want to do it,
he just finds himself running.

So, none of these ...
At this stage I can say, none of them is you.

They are all your masks.
None of them is you.

You are the witness of all of them.

Are you still with me when I speak these things?

[Q.] Yes.
[Mooji] Yes. Open forum.

[Mooji] Are you still with me, as we speak?

Something is watching, but at the same time,

some remnant of the old identity and personality

is still hanging around,
and we are used to his smell.

If he's there you say,
'Oh, yes, please catch me',

and this type of thing.

But if you don't identify
with any of these gunas,

don't identify even with the turiya,

meaning beyond even
the three energetic qualities of consciousness,

don't identify with anything,

you notice that all of them are visible.

All stages are perceivable.

Now, don't join any stage.

You see them.

That from where the very seeing of them arises,

you may call that the perceiving itself.

That which even perceives perceiving ...

I'm going to slow down a little bit now.

Can anybody refute that?

That even here, even the subtlest ...

You're saying, 'Please catch me',
it is only by habit.

Because if I catch this one,
do I have to hold him?

No, no. Better you let everything go.

And when you let every thing go,
without attaching yourself to them,

you find that you're completely here.

Meaning, don't hold onto any stage

however appealing it may feel at the time,

however irresistible it might feel.

You see, even in satsang,
we must have an escape button.

Isn't it so?

Because ...
I'm not too much of a computer guy,

sometimes I found myself looking
and then I got caught on some page,

and I said, I can't see how to get out.

I'm pressing keys, but nothing is happening.

Nothing is happening.
I said, Oh, now I missed my thing.

Something came on the screen.

And then Krish came inside and I said,

I can't get out of this. How can I get out?

I wanted to throw the computer out.
How do you get out?

She showed me a button that says 'Esc',
the escape button.

So I pressed this button and, 'Poom!',
I'm back.

So, where is your escape button from the mind?

Can I look like that?

Where's your escape button?

Because the 'trap button'
is that whatever arises inside,

some reflex picks it up
and begins to run with it.

And then you say,
'Please can you help me to stop this thing?

I just feel lost and confused.'

Meaning something is running.

Some reflex went, an identity came with that.

You were pulled back into some shape.

Then you have to
try and unshape the shape or something.

What to do? How to escape from this?

So I said, Remember, when this happens,
there's nothing to solve.

Nothing to solve.

It's not true!

Stay as the witness, the formless witness.

If I were to say,
and I am saying this right now,

can you feel the power of it?

It is something immediate.
This is your escape button.

Then, when you escape, you realise that

this which you are here was never trapped.

Do you follow?

[Mooji] When you're in the state,
it feels like it's everything. Everything!

[Mooji] But when you come out of it,

or you move to another state,

you can look back and think,
'Wow, what was that?'

It's as though you were hypnotised
for a few moments,

caught up in your own traffic,

asking, 'Please help me to get out'.

But neither the situation
nor the one in it are true!

I could give you this simple exercise and say,

Let's finish satsang here.
You check this out!

Really check it out.

And this habit will check out!

You really look at this. Don't skip over it.

Don't turn it into another aphorism,
another nice saying.

No. Verify this, in fact!

The next time the mind energy comes
and you think,

'Oh no, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Help, please! Om Namah Shivaya.'

No. No, no.

It comes and pounds on the door,
and you feel, 'I'm caught in that'.

This, 'I am caught in that', is being dreamed.
It's not true!

This is some false I's dream.

When you remember, 'But the escape button',
it's what? It means what?

Don't touch. Drop everything immediately!

Like the exercise I gave you,

when you see that something is really not true,

verbally say, announce it, 'That is not true!'

Cut him.

When we stay with something,

it's because
something is believing in this scenario.

Do you follow?

Something is still holding some identity.

That's going to be the root.

A personal identity that
has a relationship with this kind of play,

that's what is being sticky.

Can you cut it? Can it be cut?

Do you wish to escape?

Or maybe there is a feeling,
'No, no, I have to deal with it.

I've got to sort it out.
It's my vasana, I must sort it out.'

Then it perpetuates
because it has your support, your belief.

It's not true, but you believe it into existence,

and it becomes ...

A problem is born right there.

You can decide.

We are not used to it.

I am pointing to a simple way.

You don't have to go and see some professional,

or to go and do something,
or to seek to be distracted.

If you found something to distract you,

if you go to a movie or something,

it's the same one choosing to go to the movie

only to postpone,
or to avoid something temporarily.

But you keep the identity.

So I'm saying, neither the identity
nor the thing it is suffering from ...

They are not true at all.

If you follow when I say, Just cut all of that,
like, 'Bang', wake up from it,

you find that it is simply another dream,

another nightmare,
another witnessing of something.

But now, you have to search yourself and say,

'Do I really want to let go of this?'

Maybe it still has some juiciness for you.

You being who?

You are still the 'I am'

that is somehow
on the edge of sleeping and dreaming.

You're still your basic self,

but with some indulging attitude
still mixed with that.

The more you see this clearly,
'But I am not this',

the more free you become of it.

Sometimes instantly, like that.

[Mooji] So, I've shown you a very simple way.

But you need to trust this, to apply it.

Even if you say, 'It feels so difficult',

but you've said, 'I'm going to try and do this'.

Not even 'try', because it is possible.

Your weakness is also imagined.

Our weaknesses are also imagined
and cultivated through habit.

The habit is playing,
but it cannot play without your co-operation.

On some level we are supporting it,
maybe unknowingly.

Because you believe it,
and if you believe it, that's enough support.

May I say another thing?

Because I feel I'm able to say to you,
in all love and respect,

also the believer is not true;
you may cut him, also.

The believer is also phenominal.

At this stage in your satsang,
may I say this to you?

The believer is also a shape taken.

In the pure space of formless awareness,

this dreamed self is playing.

Maybe a few months or a year ago,

I could not speak like this to you,

because your receptivity
would not be developed enough

to accommodate my words inside your heart.

But now you can.

Even this believer, you will transcend.

The believer has believed many things,

but the believer also is itself not true.

We have taken up residence in many states,
many identities,

and they molest you.

They disturb your peace, eventually.

They are all appealing in the beginning.

Many things are nicest in the beginning.

But as you stay with them,
they begin to turn sour in you.

But I want to just remind you that

your true essence, your being, is not a dream.

It's not some fantasy.

More than that, to make it clear,
clearly recognised.

But it won't be a dualistic recogition.

It's not one thing recognising something else.

It's not the person recognising the God.

This is why I say,
Freedom is not for the person,

freedom is from the person!

People sometimes say,
'How can I go beyond the person?'

This is also still the person speaking.

It's still, at the same time, a route.

God made many, many ways in the play of life.

So, even sometimes when you are at the stage

where you really believe
in yourself as the journeyer,

and say, 'But how can I come off this road?'

This is faith in that 'I'!
But that 'I' is only a stage.

It is not the ultimate one!
It also is ...

As you advance in your discovery,

all your previous identities
are being shredded behind you.

[Mooji] Do you follow this?
Do you find my words are harsh?

[Mooji] I'm looking at all of you now.

[Mooji] In fact, they are better than sweet.

Because instantly,
it's as though something dismounts!

You dismount, 'Boop', let the horse gallop,

but you dismount somehow.

You are here.

When you experience a sense of dismounting,

you may even come to realise that
the horse was not real,

the rider was not real, also.

Perhaps not yet.

Maybe you just enjoy the dismounting,
'Ha-ha-ha, very good!'

Enjoy the peace.

Any problem starts with habit

sustained by belief and identity.

Suppose everything you perceived as a problem
was really real,

you would not be here today!

You would not be here today.

You'd be so crushed
we'd have to scrape you off the ceiling,

or scrape you off some place.

You transcended them.

Somebody asked, 'How can I transcend?
It feels like a big deal.'

No, it simply means that

something appeared to be in your way,
you moved it.

So you're beyond it now.
It's not trouble for you.

That's simply enough words for transcending.

OK. So with that, Nick, please ...

The mind needs many words, many explanations,

but the heart sees clearly, 'Aha!', like that.

If you feel, 'Oh, I'm trying to understand
what Mooji says.

It's just so difficult because I ...'

Again, you're standing in the wrong 'I'.

Yes.
Everybody's looking at what the 'I' suffers,

but no one looks at the 'I' itself.

Everyone is looking at and paying attention

to what the 'I' is suffering from,
its conditions and its projections,

but no one looks at the 'I' itself.

To the extent that, that itself

joins the screen as a perceivable phenomenon.

Do you see?

But my sangha must do it!
And you have been doing it,

more and more
feeling your natural presence and power.

Not a power to control, but a power to set free.

Thank you, Nick. Love you so.

Thank you, thank you. Very good, very good.

Thank you, thank you.

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