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Still in Awareness
Compilation of Talks 2004

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The most sublime truth of all has never been
stated or sung or written.

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Not because it is far away and can't be reached but because it is so intimately close, because it is closer

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than anything that can be spoken.

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It is truly alive as the stillness in the
core of your being, not my being or her being

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or his being, your being, alive in the stillness
that is the core of your being.

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It is too close to be described, too close
to be objectified, too close to be known in

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the way that we think of knowing as knowledge,
as objects.

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But it is yours already. It's already present.

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The only reason that I have appeared in your
consciousness is to simply confirm that.

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I truly have nothing to teach you. You probably know more than I do anyway.

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There have been plenty of teachers who have
taught exquisite and true and useful codes

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of conduct, methods of meditation, ways of
living in the world, ways of manifesting in

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the world but what this appearance that is
called “Gangaji” is, in your consciousness

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is simply a pointing to the stillness that
is alive in the core of your being,

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and an invitation to turn your attention to that,
to let that live your life, to give your questions

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to that, to give your answers to that, your
failures, your successes, your form, your

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formlessness, your action, your inaction,
your choice, your choicelessness, all,

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to give it back where it came from, back before
creation.

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This is possible only because you are that
stillness.

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It would be impossible regardless of the intention
or the effort, if you were who you think you are.

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Who you think you are is by the very nature
of thought limited.

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So however grandiose that thought may be, it's
still limited.

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But who you are has never been spoken, is
closer than you can know.

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Who you are is where it all is.

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***

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I’m far from being still.

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You’re far from being still.

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How do you know that?

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Who told you that?

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I feel that.

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Okay, there is a feeling and the interpretation
of that feeling, since a feeling is agitated,

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is that what you mean?

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The feeling is agitated so then there is a
conclusion that therefore I am agitated.

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And maybe there is a mental agitation that
goes along with that so that’s further proof,

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“I am agitated."

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But I am here to tell you that you are still.

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And this agitation is in your body perhaps,
in your emotions perhaps, in your mind perhaps,

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in the elements perhaps, but you are the awareness
that recognizes the agitation.

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You follow this?

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There’s agitation.

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Can there be recognition of that agitation
without some awareness of that agitation?

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No.

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Right, It’s simple isn’t it?

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Is the awareness of the agitation agitated?

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(laughter)

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Yes, it bears checking.

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Just take a moment to check.

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Is agitation…

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I understand...a lot of agitation.

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And there's awareness of that agitation.

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Is awareness agitated?

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No

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That’s right. (laughter)

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Awareness is still, Isn’t it?

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Yes.

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I say to you, you are that awareness.

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Agitation comes and goes, calmness comes and
goes, awareness is eternal.

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It is eternally still.

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You are that.

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You can’t catch it with your mind.

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Yes, because the mind just gets agitated further
in trying to catch it.

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Let the mind do its thing, it doesn’t matter.

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You are the awareness of the mind’s agitation.

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You are what is already still.

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I just don't believe it.

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It’s not a question of believing it.

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Don’t believe it. Don't believe it.

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I don’t want you to believe it.

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I want you to investigate and see for yourself,
is this true or is this just another belief.

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In your life moments of agitation have appeared
and disappeared.

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Right?

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You have not been agitated every second of
your life.

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Maybe a majority, I don’t know.

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But that is the way it is with certain nervous
systems.

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They vary like plants vary, you know.

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Patterns of weather vary in human beings.

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Certain nervous systems experience or generate
more agitations than others.

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The awareness of that agitation that has never
come and gone.

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That's always been present.

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And it has always been still.

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The dilemma and the suffering comes out of
misidentification of your Self as your body

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which can be agitated or sick or in pain,
or your mind which can be spinning or calm

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or confused rather than the awareness of all
of that.

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Okay. What happens when I get almost overwhelmed
with feelings?

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Aha.

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What gets almost overwhelmed with feelings?

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My body

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Your body, now, does the awareness of that
get overwhelmed?

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Check it out be sure

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Okay

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I’m willing to go on but I want us to stop
along the way because if we can nip the misidentification

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in the bud.

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I get a feeling that it happens in my body
and then I go Okay, I’m angry or upset and

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it’s so overwhelming that I think my mind
will just go…

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Yes it’s overwhelming to the nervous system,
right?

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The awareness, just for now, just for checking
it out- Has the awareness of that gone anywhere

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or gotten agitated or been diminished
or overwhelmed in the slightest? (pause)

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It is very good you’re taking time
to look.

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Yes.Take time to see this.

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Î don’t want you to accept it because I
say so, don’t do that.

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I feel like there is a little fight that goes
on in my head...

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A little fight, there is a big fight.

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Yes there is a fight.

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The mind is fragmented isn’t it?

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Into the good guys and the bad guys and the
mediators (laughs)

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But the awareness of all that, is there any
split there?

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No

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You are doing very very well, your are telling
the truth.

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So the very fact that you are willing to tell
the truth even though you are experiencing

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the suffering of this situation means that
your interest is more in truth than in this

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identification of yourself as this body.

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This is excellent, excellent sign, you can believe
that.

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Now throughout time, conditioned existence
has been taught, so you have to learn that

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you are your body.

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And that learning gets translated into thoughts
and then you have to learn you are being a

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bad body because you are in pain or you're agitated,
“and stop that you bad girl, slap, slap”.

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And then another part fragments off and says “I’ll
stop it when I feel like stopping it.

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Leave me alone bam, bam” And this is what
goes on in your mind, right.

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I am not a mind reader This is what goes on.

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This is what goes on in individual minds and
goes on in the collective mind.

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In the collective mind we witness it as wars,
religious wars, or political wars or genocidal

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wars but it is the same mind at war with itself.

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One side of the fragmentation of mind deciding
the other side has to go.

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No room for it here.

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And the identification and the suffering in
that or the self-righteousness in that.

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But the point here is there is an awareness of
this war that is not at war.

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That is peace itself.

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And that is your soul.

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There is an opportunity at this moment in
your lifetime to align yourself with your

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soul rather than these warring factions of your
mind.

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I'm not saying the war will immediately end.

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I'm saying if you align yourself with your
soul, the war won’t be empowered.

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They'll run out of provisions.

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There may be clashes but the war’s steam
will have finished because your central attention

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has shifted to its source, which is awareness
itself, vast limitless awareness.

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Peace, stillness has shifted to who you are,
not who you thought you were.

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Who you thought or think you are is only a
thought in your mind.

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It comes and it goes.

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It changes, it mutates, it likes, it says
that you are a good one day and bad the next day.

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The awareness doesn’t change, doesn’t
move, radiates the presence of love, regardless

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of the thought ” I am bad or I am good' irrelevant in the
face of this awareness.

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And somehow you know it.

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Now, I understand the suffering.

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And I don’t want to trivialize the suffering
or dismiss the suffering as nonexistent.

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I mean, it is but I don’t want to dismiss
it as that. (laughter)

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Yes, I want to wait until you do that.

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Then we will laugh together.

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Because there's a weight there and an identification
there and am not asking that you now layer

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on top of that identification another identification
called “ I am awareness”.

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'Cause then they are just stacked, you know, and
you can walk around saying “I am awareness”,

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and smiling and laughing and then four o’clock
in the morning “oh yeah” comes up (laughter)

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because it's just another belief.

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But if it’s not a belief but in fact a direct
experience then what ever arises in whatever

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time of day or night, you can investigate
the truth, “Has awareness been diminished by this?

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What is the separation between me and awareness?

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Do you find one, a separation between you
and awareness.?

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I do now

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At the moment because you identify yourself
as a body separate form awareness but awareness

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is here always and this body comes and goes.

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Even in a day, I’m not even speaking about
deep sleep now, but in a day aren’t there moments

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when you are not aware if your body?

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Yeah, you're aware of other things, yes, or you're aware of spacing out, yes, aware of daydreaming,

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aware of working intently focused, aware of dancing, aware of liking something, aware of not liking

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Oh, then aware of the body, aware of the heartbeat,
aware of the breath- back and forth- the constant

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in that is awareness.

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Yes, yes, this is it. You've caught it.

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When you recognize this, then you can explore
awareness with awareness, and then you see,

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“does it have a boundary? Is it a thing?

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Is it limited?”

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Then you recognize “we’ what we call ourselves
are all in awareness.

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There is awareness here, aware of awareness
here and differences in the form “here and here”

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but the same radiant, simply, absolute
awareness.

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Yes, I see you catch it.

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Its beautiful, your willingness to tell the
truth, your willingness to be exposed, to

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investigate, to be free.

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Yes, and amazingly awareness, even though it doesn’t
have attributes of beauty, is beauty.

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Even though it's untouched by good or bad,
it is radiantly good.

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Is God itself.

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Because in truth, God has never left the soul.

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I'm very happy to see you see your Self.

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There may be moments…

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Expect moments to come where self-doubt or
agitation will once more say, “No you're mine.

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This life is mine.

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That's all right, you just stop and tell the
truth.

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“Has awareness left?

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Has awareness changed?

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Is awareness at peace?

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It's not forcing your mind to be at peace
or forcing your body to stop suffering.

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It is just telling the truth.

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And then the mind naturally unwinds.

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The body naturally comes to a place of equilibrium
or not.

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It doesn’t matter because the truth is being
told.

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and the truth is primary.

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(instrumental music playing)

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So there is a certain point where you tell
the truth.

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And this point is now, obviously.

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And that’s why we meet.

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We meet in the spirit of truth.

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We meet to surrender to truth.

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The mysterious force that has already appeared
in your life and said,

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“Come here, come home, rest, be still”.

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That is what meditation is.

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That's what practices are, what prayer is.

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That is what rituals are.

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But Papaji’s invitation is, not really a
prayer, it is certainly not a ritual.

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It is not a meditation.

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It is not a practice.

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It's the immediacy of right here, right now,
stopping, looking for anything.

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Being still, not working on being still, or
working to keep stillness (soft laugh).

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Being still is being who you are, not cultivating
stillness or being bigger in your stillness.

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Being who you are is being still.

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Being who you think you are is your lack of
surrender to being who you are.

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“Well, this is just who I am.

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You just have to love me as I am”.

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That’s who you think you are and it is not
lovable (laughter).

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You have to face it.

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And it never will be.

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It may be cute or not cute but it is not lovable.

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Who you are is lovable.

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'Cause who you are is love.

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Plain and simple, That's the truth.

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All the rest is some resistance to that or
denial of that or searching for that. It's all the same.

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(instrumental music)

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And where I’m at now is, there's been kind
of awareness of the story.

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And then going back into the story and the
awareness of the story and then going back

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into the story.

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Does the awareness go back into the story?

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No

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What goes in and out of the story?

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'Cause it's so great you can say “no”
immediately.You know it is not the awareness.

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You are aware of something. Yes.

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Going in the story and going out of the
story.

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This is excellent, excellent.

235
00:22:59,610 --> 00:23:03,070
What is it that goes in and out?

236
00:23:03,260 --> 00:23:08,240
The awareness becomes aware of itself and
I’m aware of the awareness

237
00:23:08,250 --> 00:23:10,250
As awareness

238
00:23:10,250 --> 00:23:14,059
And then I’m me again.

239
00:23:14,060 --> 00:23:18,620
And where is awareness in that moment of “meness”?

240
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Forgetting itself?

241
00:23:20,460 --> 00:23:24,139
What’s aware of forgetting?

242
00:23:26,100 --> 00:23:27,900
Oh yes.

243
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:35,260
Yes. You see what happens, is because the mind,
as we have been speaking here in the last

244
00:23:35,269 --> 00:23:41,829
few days, is so brilliant, so awesome, awareness
itself becomes an object.

245
00:23:42,100 --> 00:23:52,180
So I was speaking no form but you can then kind of have
this amorphous “oh awareness”

246
00:23:52,380 --> 00:23:56,340
and so of course that's subject to appearance and disappearance.

247
00:23:56,520 --> 00:24:05,440
But the awareness of that awareness that comes
and goes does not disappear.

248
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:13,269
“Me” appears in it, the sense of “meness”,
the physical, emotional, mental sense of individual

249
00:24:13,269 --> 00:24:20,109
nervous system taking in individual processing
of information.

250
00:24:20,380 --> 00:24:28,120
That appears and disappears as does that notion
of awareness appear and disappear.

251
00:24:28,340 --> 00:24:36,660
But there is pure awareness that cannot be
notioned.

252
00:24:38,860 --> 00:24:44,920
When you say forgetting, you are forgetting
some 'thing'.

253
00:24:45,140 --> 00:24:52,679
You know there's a problem with this phrase
about self-remembering, as there's a problem

254
00:24:52,679 --> 00:24:58,170
with any phrase that is spoken and then gets
taken out of context and gets worshipped and then

255
00:24:58,170 --> 00:25:00,470
people have to "self-remember”.

256
00:25:00,540 --> 00:25:02,840
But you cannot remember your Self.

257
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:11,340
It is impossible, because you're not a thing
that is an object that can be stored in a memory bank.

258
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:21,140
You can remember a notion of your self or
an experience of your self or an idea of your self.

259
00:25:21,140 --> 00:25:22,940
Just like you remember your name.

260
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:27,059
Every morning when you wake up, you have to
remember your name again.

261
00:25:27,059 --> 00:25:30,119
It’s quick because you’ve practiced it.

262
00:25:30,300 --> 00:25:37,280
But there is an instant where you have no name
and you remember it.

263
00:25:37,289 --> 00:25:40,790
And so we assume we can do that with the
truth of who we are.

264
00:25:40,790 --> 00:25:42,830
You cannot.

265
00:25:43,140 --> 00:25:50,660
If you recognize and are willing to recognize that you cannot remember your self, the truth of your self,

266
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:56,940
Then immediately you will see that you also can’t
forget it.

267
00:25:56,950 --> 00:26:06,100
It’s not subject to being remembered or
forgotten, because it is not an object.

268
00:26:06,100 --> 00:26:11,460
Did everybody here that?

269
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:17,360
Who you are is not subject to being remembered
or forgotten.

270
00:26:17,370 --> 00:26:22,120
So give up remembering your self.

271
00:26:22,120 --> 00:26:25,490
This is worse than a useless activity.

272
00:26:25,490 --> 00:26:31,760
It's the carrot again. It's an image of yourself.

273
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:37,720
It's like awareness, or bliss or emptiness.

274
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:45,419
But now this bliss, and awareness and emptiness
has a boundary had a birth, subject to change

275
00:26:45,419 --> 00:26:47,309
and a death.

276
00:26:47,309 --> 00:26:48,990
Forget it.

277
00:26:48,990 --> 00:26:50,779
Save yourself some trouble.

278
00:26:50,779 --> 00:26:59,519
Forget it, then you can see what is out of
the bounds of memory, what cannot be forgotten,

279
00:26:59,519 --> 00:27:03,819
cannot be remembered, cannot be denied.

280
00:27:04,060 --> 00:27:11,180
Cannot be found and cannot be escaped.

281
00:27:11,380 --> 00:27:16,580
This idea “I will find it or I will remember
it or I will keep it”

282
00:27:16,700 --> 00:27:26,240
This is an idea of you as a thing, walking
around like a little stick figure, going after "It".

283
00:27:26,420 --> 00:27:27,940
This is all in your mind.

284
00:27:27,940 --> 00:27:29,290
Forget it.

285
00:27:29,290 --> 00:27:30,630
Forget it.

286
00:27:30,630 --> 00:27:34,509
This is what Papaji means when he says, “Give
up the search."

287
00:27:34,509 --> 00:27:39,880
And we think, "Oh, he couldn't really mean 'give up the search'.

288
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:44,000
He means that metaphorically or poetically,
not really give up the search “.

289
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:45,571
Yes, give it up.

290
00:27:45,571 --> 00:27:48,000
Give up the search.

291
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:52,840
You give up the search, you give up the seeker.

292
00:27:52,840 --> 00:28:03,180
You give up this little stick figure in your
mind or this fleshy wonderful, godlike creature.

293
00:28:03,380 --> 00:28:06,460
And see what is here.

294
00:28:06,460 --> 00:28:09,259
It’s the same as dying.

295
00:28:09,259 --> 00:28:15,799
Only it's dying consciously before the body
dies.

296
00:28:15,940 --> 00:28:26,040
(instrumental music)

297
00:28:26,300 --> 00:28:37,340
A word that I hear often, when I suggest or
demand that someone stop or be still or tell

298
00:28:37,350 --> 00:28:43,929
the truth is “trying”, “I’m trying
to. I’m trying to”.

299
00:28:43,929 --> 00:28:44,940
Do you know this word?

300
00:28:44,940 --> 00:28:46,679
Do you use this word sometimes?

301
00:28:46,679 --> 00:28:55,319
“I’m trying to." And this is a big trap.

302
00:28:55,320 --> 00:29:04,740
In using this word “trying”, what it usually
means is “I’m trying to do that”.

303
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:10,419
And so the trying is the effort around doing.

304
00:29:10,419 --> 00:29:18,879
But really telling the truth or being still
or stopping is much simpler than doing anything.

305
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:29,500
And so once there's a trying involved there's tension, different from focus is tension.

306
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:38,539
Because you can’t quite find how to do it
and many people ask me, “But how, but how?"

307
00:29:38,539 --> 00:29:45,639
That’s really looking for some model, or some
picture, or some image and it is much simpler,

308
00:29:45,820 --> 00:29:48,920
It's much closer to home.

309
00:29:49,140 --> 00:29:54,000
You may ask “how to be”

310
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:58,600
but you already are.

311
00:29:58,610 --> 00:30:10,289
So if you'll stop trying to be, there's an expanse
that opens up of beingness, or rather there

312
00:30:10,289 --> 00:30:13,669
is an expanse of recognition of beingness.

313
00:30:13,669 --> 00:30:19,389
But the trying is covering because of the
tension and contraction of energy.

314
00:30:19,389 --> 00:30:22,849
“I want it." I have to get it. "How do I do it?””

315
00:30:23,070 --> 00:30:26,670
I’m trying to do it." Just stop. “Okay, how do I stop?'

316
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:35,680
So you can see the dilemma in speaking about
this because language itself is already one

317
00:30:35,690 --> 00:30:42,590
step out from what is closest in.

318
00:30:42,780 --> 00:30:50,720
The simple fact of being, it takes no trying.

319
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:58,639
So I really want you to understand that I
am not talking about changing your behavior.

320
00:30:58,639 --> 00:31:05,439
There is a natural appropriateness of behavior
that there is nothing wrong with.

321
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:09,900
The way you speak to your parents, the way
you speak to your children, the way you speak

322
00:31:09,909 --> 00:31:12,950
to your friends, the way you speak to the
desk clerk, the way you drive your car.

323
00:31:12,950 --> 00:31:16,870
This is just appropriate behavior that gets learned.

324
00:31:16,870 --> 00:31:26,710
But deeper inside, there is often a tension in trying to be something that that behavior says you are.

325
00:31:27,660 --> 00:31:39,200
Trying to be a good person, trying to be brilliant and the fear is if I don’t’ try to be I will be the reverse of that.

326
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:48,560
I will be a bad person. I will be a stupid person, trying to 
be of worth or I'll be a worthless person,

327
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:54,500
trying to be enlightened or I will live in hell and ignorance.

328
00:31:54,509 --> 00:32:02,409
And so, of course, what has to be faced sooner
or later and the suggestion of this message

329
00:32:02,580 --> 00:32:12,260
from Ramana and from Papaji is that sooner is right
now, is that which is being avoided.

330
00:32:12,500 --> 00:32:16,800
Ramana gives us the example with facing death.

331
00:32:16,809 --> 00:32:20,830
It’s all about facing death, all of it.

332
00:32:20,830 --> 00:32:26,770
But our mind fragments death into lots of
little mini deaths like being worthless or being

333
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:34,660
no good or being condemned to ignorance or
hell.

334
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:48,160
So in this moment, if you aren't trying to be any thing or any body or any where or any way

335
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:58,660
Who are you? What are you? What is here?

336
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:06,740
If you aren't trying to be some place, where
are you?

337
00:33:09,020 --> 00:33:15,380
If you aren't trying to be, are you?

338
00:33:20,260 --> 00:33:33,020
It's possible you can at least glimpse the
extraneous energy and unnecessary suffering

339
00:33:33,029 --> 00:33:42,139
which is the attention of your lifespan which
may be over today or tomorrow or in a year

340
00:33:42,140 --> 00:33:52,920
or ten years, who knows? But the attention of your lifespan is spent unnecessarily, extraneously.

341
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:09,440
So the question, “Where is your attention?”
is the same as “What are you trying to be?”

342
00:34:09,450 --> 00:34:10,940
"Who are you trying to be?”

343
00:34:10,940 --> 00:34:15,980
"What are you trying to escape?”

344
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:25,640
Which is the same as, "Who are you, really?"

345
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:33,500
(instrumental music)

346
00:34:33,500 --> 00:34:36,240
How do I stop the obsession?

347
00:34:36,429 --> 00:34:44,209
Oh, this is beautiful, this is the question "How do I stop the obsession? Yes, this is a true question.

348
00:34:49,920 --> 00:35:00,040
The real question behind that, the question,
“How do I obsess?’ can be seen.

349
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:11,200
The how to stop the obsessing cannot be seen
because stopping…Do you get this?

350
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:17,770
But what can be seen is how the refusal to
stop and its justifications and it’s tangents

351
00:35:17,770 --> 00:35:25,950
and it’s sophistication, and it’s cynicism,
how it plays itself based on desires and hopes

352
00:35:25,950 --> 00:35:41,270
and fears but what is already stopped within you?

353
00:35:45,020 --> 00:35:49,920
Everything, it's...I don’t know. I don't know.

354
00:35:50,200 --> 00:36:00,940
So when you make that statement, “I don’t
know," there's awareness of that statement.

355
00:36:01,260 --> 00:36:05,080
Is that awareness moving in any direction?

356
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:07,160
No.That’s right.

357
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:17,760
So the secret really is that
when you stop, you stop identifying with the

358
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:21,910
movement and you identify with awareness.

359
00:36:21,910 --> 00:36:25,790
I'm not speaking of observer and observed.

360
00:36:25,980 --> 00:36:32,559
I’m speaking of the awareness of the observer
and the observed, in which both the observer

361
00:36:32,559 --> 00:36:37,680
and the observed appear.

362
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:43,980
So already you are stopped.

363
00:36:43,990 --> 00:36:49,470
And so when I say “stop” you are already
stopped.

364
00:36:49,470 --> 00:36:54,330
You are already awareness.

365
00:36:54,480 --> 00:37:01,760
Attention is gathered, stop to what already
is at peace,

366
00:37:03,220 --> 00:37:07,800
where fulfillment is already.

367
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:22,720
Yes, you see that. This is the beauty, how
simply and really easily it can be seen.

368
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:33,400
With that beauty there is a tragedy, how easily
it is turned from, how easily it is trivialized,

369
00:37:33,410 --> 00:37:50,270
given up, dismissed, denied, ignored but the
ease is not diminished by the turning.

370
00:37:50,270 --> 00:38:00,450
So still within you, however many times your
mind has turned from this, simple and radiant truth,

371
00:38:00,450 --> 00:38:23,090
there is the welcome, there is the
invitation, home, right now.

372
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:34,800
Thank you

373
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:37,480
You are very welcome.

374
00:38:37,490 --> 00:38:43,750
You are very welcome.

375
00:38:45,540 --> 00:38:59,260
This is an essential experience that is available
to anyone who is even curious enough to investigate.

376
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:07,180
From this essential experience, there is choice.

377
00:39:07,460 --> 00:39:18,580
There may appear to be lack of choice but
you have an experience now of what is already at peace,

378
00:39:18,860 --> 00:39:30,800
already stopped, already free, already who you are.

379
00:39:32,460 --> 00:39:53,000
That's the gift my teacher sends to you,
from me, via me. This is Papaji’s gift.

380
00:40:07,540 --> 00:40:11,340
Did you have anything else you wanted to say?

381
00:40:11,340 --> 00:40:17,100
No, I’m just enjoying this. (laughter)

382
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:23,140
That's the opening, that's the beginning.

383
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:38,240
There may come, expect, many, many challenges,
but always there is this very simple truth:

384
00:40:38,240 --> 00:40:50,620
what is free, what is conscience, what is at peace is the awareness that is present every moment.

385
00:40:52,100 --> 00:40:56,280
That's who you are.

386
00:40:56,460 --> 00:41:02,460
Who you think you are gets its power from
that awareness.

387
00:41:02,900 --> 00:41:08,240
Awareness has no problem with any thought.

388
00:41:08,420 --> 00:41:11,880
Only thoughts battle each other.

389
00:41:14,580 --> 00:41:25,600
That's why you can have a horrible history as a thought form acting it’s way out in the collective mind

390
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:35,640
and you can still return home, as a prodigal son.

391
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:40,560
(instrumental music)

392
00:41:40,780 --> 00:41:48,180
The question is, is there ever a time when
awareness is no longer overshadowed by emotion?

393
00:41:48,180 --> 00:41:54,520
Actually all the time, all the time.

394
00:41:54,940 --> 00:42:06,040
What happens is the mind, the individual awareness, the ray of universal awareness gets fixated in a loop of

395
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:17,700
emotional drama. But if at any moment in that loop, 
at any point that loop, the individual mind stops and

396
00:42:17,710 --> 00:42:26,079
examines that moment, investigates that moment,
all the way, whatever the emotion, instantly

397
00:42:26,079 --> 00:42:29,079
there is full clarity in awareness.

398
00:42:29,079 --> 00:42:37,159
So then every emotion is a vehicle, every
moment of every emotion is a vehicle.

399
00:42:37,260 --> 00:42:44,900
Awareness is not overshadowed by anything
ever, ever.

400
00:42:45,140 --> 00:42:51,960
You see, we use this word “awareness”
but often what we're talking about is an

401
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:59,530
individual state of awareness that gets called mindfulness, or equanimity, or oceanic or Samadhi,

402
00:42:59,530 --> 00:43:04,890
or clarity. Those are states of awareness.

403
00:43:06,140 --> 00:43:12,880
And then we also have what we call the negative states,
which you know, “lack of equanimity, confusion,

404
00:43:12,890 --> 00:43:17,390
anger, negativity, fear.

405
00:43:17,620 --> 00:43:21,000
Those are also states of awareness.

406
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:26,630
But you cannot have any of those states without
awareness.

407
00:43:26,630 --> 00:43:28,290
This is not illogical.

408
00:43:28,290 --> 00:43:33,290
This is very logical.

409
00:43:33,290 --> 00:43:36,960
You can have awareness without any state.

410
00:43:37,240 --> 00:43:42,200
You don’t need any state for awareness as
some people in here have discovered.

411
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:47,320
There can be a moment, an instant of nothing happening.

412
00:43:47,540 --> 00:43:53,600
Just awareness as you just spoke of, no trees,
no me, just awareness.

413
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:57,060
Then trees reappear. Does awareness disappear?

414
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:02,860
Well how would you know there are trees, if awareness disappeared?

415
00:44:03,020 --> 00:44:08,500
How did you know there were no trees if awareness
disappeared when there were no trees?

416
00:44:08,500 --> 00:44:16,340
So what happens in certain spiritual conditioning
is we start to elevate certain states that are elevated.

417
00:44:16,580 --> 00:44:19,860
We don’t start to elevate them.They are elevated states

418
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:25,579
but we start to assign
the elevated state as the truth of awareness,

419
00:44:25,579 --> 00:44:30,490
rather than recognizing awareness is
present in any state.

420
00:44:30,490 --> 00:44:33,330
Awareness is omnipresent.

421
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:37,320
Awareness is God.

422
00:44:38,220 --> 00:44:44,420
It is always here, omnipresent, omniscient,
knows everything, is aware of everything.

423
00:44:44,430 --> 00:44:49,109
That doesn’t mean some like powerful thing
knowing what you're thinking, you're thinking

424
00:44:49,109 --> 00:44:51,099
knowing that you blinked, you didn’t blink.

425
00:44:51,099 --> 00:44:59,919
It means, in your mind, everything that occurs or doesn’t occur, occurs in the presence of awareness.

426
00:45:00,180 --> 00:45:07,420
The shift, the break happens when you recognize,
as was spoken of

427
00:45:07,620 --> 00:45:15,960
here so beautifully this morning about the cars passing on the road but here you are.

428
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:20,540
Emotion as weather, so the winds came up this
morning.

429
00:45:20,540 --> 00:45:25,869
There were whitecaps on the lake, and rain
came but here you are.

430
00:45:25,869 --> 00:45:27,690
You didn’t change.

431
00:45:27,690 --> 00:45:30,000
Life didn’t change.

432
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:39,600
So it’s dropping the individual awareness,
deeper and deeper back into it’s source.

433
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:46,099
Not so you have to stay in the source, because
you can’t be separate from the source.

434
00:45:46,099 --> 00:45:52,760
If you stay in the source there's still some
latent thought, 'If I don’t stay here

435
00:45:52,760 --> 00:46:03,720
than I won’t be awareness." This is fluid, effortless being. Awareness is effortless.

436
00:46:03,900 --> 00:46:10,580
Identification with particular states of awareness
is perhaps part of the organism, perhaps part

437
00:46:10,580 --> 00:46:20,460
of the evolution and is a source of suffering,
because then there is identification with a sufferer.

438
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:28,880
And a sufferer is an image or a sensation that
appears in suffering that is identified as me,

439
00:46:29,100 --> 00:46:35,420
associated with the body and the sensory
nerve endings of that body.

440
00:46:35,420 --> 00:46:45,520
But deeper than that, there's awareness, aware of the suffering, aware of me, aware of identification and free.

441
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:51,320
It is already present.

442
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,589
The mystery is how it got overlooked.

443
00:46:54,589 --> 00:46:56,869
But let’s leave that as a mystery.

444
00:46:56,869 --> 00:47:00,660
We don’t have to solve that mystery.

445
00:47:00,660 --> 00:47:05,520
Just stop overlooking it.

446
00:47:05,780 --> 00:47:19,180
(instrumental music)

447
00:47:19,240 --> 00:47:28,839
I have moments that I would say of stopping
and waking up and then I have moments where

448
00:47:28,839 --> 00:47:34,379
I would say I’m aware that I’m not awake.

449
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:41,720
So there’s kind of that being awake and
being aware that I’m not awake.

450
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:45,060
And I don’t really know what the question
is, just looking at that.

451
00:47:45,340 --> 00:47:48,180
So let me ask you a question.

452
00:47:48,190 --> 00:47:55,880
So when you say (this is so rich because everyone can relate to this, surely).

453
00:47:55,880 --> 00:48:05,609
So I want to know what you mean by “I am
awake or I am not awake.

454
00:48:05,609 --> 00:48:15,429
What “I” is awake?

455
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:29,280
There is a moment of seeing like how I usually
see myself then seeing it likes it’s

456
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:31,740
a horse, you know like a horse that I have.

457
00:48:31,740 --> 00:48:37,110
That that personality is just this horse that
I have but it’s not me, you know

458
00:48:37,110 --> 00:48:43,329
Excellent, beautiful and then in the other
moment?

459
00:48:43,329 --> 00:48:52,170
Then I am the horse and it’s very real and
sometimes it's like “oh, I'm being the

460
00:48:52,170 --> 00:48:58,579
horse” and I remember that I’m not the
horse but is seems really real right now.

461
00:48:58,579 --> 00:49:05,759
So what is exactly the same in both of those
experiences?

462
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:08,320
We understand what’s different

463
00:49:08,589 --> 00:49:09,589
Yeah

464
00:49:09,589 --> 00:49:17,969
One's light and one's dark or one is identified
and one is free of identification.

465
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:22,180
But what’s the same?

466
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:31,520
What aspect of both of those experiences is
unchangeable?

467
00:49:35,260 --> 00:49:37,240
I don’t know.

468
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:42,320
I know it is so close, it is so close that it goes overlooked.

469
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:47,190
When you said, initially you said “and
then I am aware.

470
00:49:47,190 --> 00:49:53,220
I am aware that I’m awake and then I am
aware that I’m identified as a horse.”

471
00:49:53,220 --> 00:50:00,040
Are you aware that you are awareness?

472
00:50:03,220 --> 00:50:06,940
I get the idea, you know

473
00:50:06,950 --> 00:50:13,750
Impossible, you can't get the idea because
it doesn’t make sense but you can,

474
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:17,640
you can catch the reverberation of it.

475
00:50:17,650 --> 00:50:24,250
It’s like tuning, you know, (mmmm) and then
we are on the same wavelength.

476
00:50:24,250 --> 00:50:29,040
And then what happens is you try to get it
as an idea and its flat.

477
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:30,800
You lose the tune.

478
00:50:31,060 --> 00:50:32,180
Right?

479
00:50:32,380 --> 00:50:33,280
Yeah

480
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:43,520
So in the experience of “I am aware, I am
awake and I am aware I am not awake”.

481
00:50:43,530 --> 00:50:50,470
What is unchanging is that “I am aware”.

482
00:50:50,470 --> 00:51:00,730
The truth is I am awareness.

483
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:12,140
What happens is we identify with the experience
of awakeness and we hate the experience of ignorance.

484
00:51:12,539 --> 00:51:19,829
And that’s then this spiritual dharmic wheel
'I’m awake, I’m asleep, I’m awake,

485
00:51:19,829 --> 00:51:24,880
I’m asleep, I’m awake, I’m asleep,'
which is the same wheel as the worldly wheel,

486
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:30,000
“I’m good, I’m bad, I’m rich, I’m
poor, I’m happy, I’m sad, I’m beautiful,

487
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:32,570
I’m ugly, I’m stupid, I’m brilliant”
Familiar?

488
00:51:32,570 --> 00:51:36,300
I mean I must of gotten your version in.

489
00:51:36,300 --> 00:51:41,970
We all have all parts of it, many spokes on
this wheel.

490
00:51:41,970 --> 00:51:46,200
But the spiritual one and that's what I’m
speaking to many people is, 'I’m awake,

491
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:49,869
I’m asleep, I’m awake, I’m asleep, I’m
awake, I'm asleep.

492
00:51:49,869 --> 00:51:53,769
I want be awake all the time; I don’t want
to be asleep anymore.'

493
00:51:53,940 --> 00:52:01,960
All the time overlooking what is closer than
awake or asleep.

494
00:52:01,970 --> 00:52:06,190
What is free of both awake and asleep.

495
00:52:06,460 --> 00:52:12,760
Now I believe it to be so, I am not sure about
this, but I believe it to be so,

496
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:21,299
that in order to discover what's closer than awake 
or asleep, you have to first to have an experience of

497
00:52:21,299 --> 00:52:23,500
“I am awake”.

498
00:52:23,500 --> 00:52:30,099
Because there's this tilt to our experience
of ignorance, sleep, sleep.

499
00:52:30,099 --> 00:52:36,130
and then 'poof,' there's an essential experience,
of awakeness, where you recognize,

500
00:52:36,130 --> 00:52:38,089
I am not this personality.

501
00:52:38,089 --> 00:52:40,220
I am not this set of this story.

502
00:52:40,220 --> 00:52:42,240
I am not this story.

503
00:52:42,240 --> 00:52:45,770
There is a recognition there and it is a beautiful
recognition.

504
00:52:45,770 --> 00:52:51,910
And it is filled with light and freedom and
joy and laughter.

505
00:52:52,240 --> 00:52:59,539
It's an essential experience because it's
the counter point to the normal experience.

506
00:52:59,539 --> 00:53:03,510
But it is not the final experience.

507
00:53:03,510 --> 00:53:07,039
It’s the opening of the final experience.

508
00:53:07,049 --> 00:53:10,949
It’s what Papaji would call “half-baked”.

509
00:53:11,240 --> 00:53:15,140
Half-baked but half-baked is half-baked. Right?

510
00:53:15,150 --> 00:53:28,020
Half baked, good, so back in the oven is
to discover, 'Okay if I’m aware when I’m

511
00:53:28,020 --> 00:53:37,780
awake and I’m aware when I’m asleep, who
or what is it that is aware?

512
00:53:37,980 --> 00:53:45,040
So when you say, “I am aware,” Who is
aware?

513
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:54,580
Is it not awareness itself that is aware?

514
00:53:54,589 --> 00:53:59,630
Let’s see, like right now.

515
00:53:59,630 --> 00:54:05,059
Isn’t there an awareness of this exchange,
an awareness of whatever maybe happening or

516
00:54:05,059 --> 00:54:08,609
awareness of no awareness of what's happening.

517
00:54:08,609 --> 00:54:18,119
But awareness is here so close- closer than
any thought- closer than any heartbeat.

518
00:54:18,119 --> 00:54:24,789
Closer than any awakening and closer than
any sleep, closer than any identification.

519
00:54:24,789 --> 00:54:33,200
And present in every identification as well
as every awakening.

520
00:54:38,260 --> 00:54:43,040
Now when I feel into it, it doesn’t fit,
you know words.

521
00:54:43,049 --> 00:54:45,710
It doesn’t fit a word, that’s right.

522
00:54:45,710 --> 00:54:47,760
But a word fits into it.

523
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:48,859
Every word is in it.

524
00:54:48,859 --> 00:54:54,539
You see, do you catch it, what I'm talking
about here.

525
00:54:54,539 --> 00:54:58,039
This is not just giving you another spiritual
search.

526
00:54:58,039 --> 00:55:01,270
It’s not giving you a religion or a set
of beliefs.

527
00:55:01,270 --> 00:55:08,270
It is first of all acknowledging that you
have had an essential experience.

528
00:55:08,270 --> 00:55:11,640
If you haven’t, you don’t know what I
am talking about.

529
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:12,920
And you will have one.

530
00:55:12,920 --> 00:55:18,849
You will get one because they are contagious.

531
00:55:18,849 --> 00:55:19,849
And it’s what you want.

532
00:55:19,849 --> 00:55:20,849
So you’ll have it.

533
00:55:20,849 --> 00:55:23,980
You are mind is turned in that direction.

534
00:55:23,980 --> 00:55:30,670
I would say that 90 to 99% of the people in here
have had an essential experience.

535
00:55:30,670 --> 00:55:36,750
Even if you don’t remember the exact experience,
you have an echo of that experience resonating

536
00:55:36,750 --> 00:55:38,220
in your being.

537
00:55:38,220 --> 00:55:45,680
Even if that experience happened with some
substance, even if that experience happened

538
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:51,040
in your sleep, it’s there. That's great.

539
00:55:51,340 --> 00:55:59,600
Now, what was unchanged even by that experience,
by that blessed, hoped for, prayed for

540
00:55:59,609 --> 00:56:06,059
searched for, worshipped for, worked
for experienced, experience.

541
00:56:06,059 --> 00:56:10,930
What is unchanged by that?

542
00:56:11,900 --> 00:56:19,080
When you find your Self, you find what is
unchanged by any experience.

543
00:56:19,089 --> 00:56:26,609
Blessedly delivered from hell but unchanged
by that delivery.

544
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:29,500
You understand this?

545
00:56:29,500 --> 00:56:36,940
Because otherwise, you will fear hell and
you will resist hell and you will hate hell

546
00:56:36,940 --> 00:56:46,340
and you will spend the rest of your attention
in this life story avoiding hell.

547
00:56:46,500 --> 00:56:51,060
And then that becomes the religion, the avoidance
of hell, the avoidance of pain, the avoidance of

548
00:56:51,180 --> 00:56:58,589
suffering and then the life once again, very superficial
only now it is a spiritual superficial life.

549
00:56:58,589 --> 00:57:03,539
Don’t settle for that.

550
00:57:03,539 --> 00:57:09,900
The essential experience is the counter balance
to the normal experience of plodding through

551
00:57:09,900 --> 00:57:20,120
life miserably, neurotically, there is an
essential experience that penetrates and cuts through.

552
00:57:20,540 --> 00:57:28,099
How it came to you, I don’t know and I suggest,
you don’t know.

553
00:57:28,099 --> 00:57:31,710
It is very skillful to not know how it came
to you.

554
00:57:31,710 --> 00:57:41,230
By Grace, by luck, some mystery, there
is an opening and there is a direct knowing

555
00:57:41,230 --> 00:57:54,990
of oneself as free- free of the personality
or free of the identification or freedom itself.

556
00:57:55,260 --> 00:58:04,940
(Instrumental music)

557
00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:17,100
This is the profound teaching of Ramana when
he says to Be Still, to be the stillness that you are.

558
00:58:20,060 --> 00:58:25,700
And this stillness is eternal.

559
00:58:25,760 --> 00:58:30,059
And it is the sublime nectar of being.

560
00:58:30,059 --> 00:58:32,359
It’s not a magic potion.

561
00:58:32,359 --> 00:58:44,639
It won’t keep bad experiences away but it
will keep the truth shining regardless of experience.

562
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:53,300
It won’t keep your body from aging or keep
your body in perfect health always but it

563
00:58:53,310 --> 00:59:05,859
will keep the radiance and the innocence and
the purity of your own nature obvious regardless

564
00:59:05,860 --> 00:59:10,100
of the state of the body or age.

565
00:59:11,880 --> 00:59:15,580
It won’t bring you great riches.

566
00:59:15,589 --> 00:59:20,109
It won’t help you win wars.

567
00:59:20,260 --> 00:59:30,079
It won’t make you the queen of the world
or the king of the universe but it will reveal

568
00:59:30,079 --> 00:59:41,679
the source of power, which is the resting
place, which no war can disrupt,

569
00:59:41,900 --> 00:59:51,580
which no individual power can touch.

570
00:59:51,720 --> 01:00:02,600
(instrumental music)

571
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:11,599
So in this moment, as we are gathered here
with our attention on this if just in this

572
01:00:11,599 --> 01:00:19,990
moment for just five seconds, thirty seconds
you just put aside the whole story of who you

573
01:00:19,990 --> 01:00:28,430
think you are, the story of your unenlightenment,
the story of your enlightenment, the story

574
01:00:28,430 --> 01:00:33,730
of you don’t have it, the story that somebody else
has it, the story that you had a horrible

575
01:00:33,730 --> 01:00:38,789
childhood, the story that you had a good childhood,
the story that you’re beautiful, the story

576
01:00:38,789 --> 01:00:47,119
that you’re ugly, the story that your superior,
the story that you’re inferior, the story

577
01:00:47,119 --> 01:00:55,079
that you’re brilliant, the story that you’re
stupid, just this moment just put it aside.

578
01:00:55,400 --> 01:00:59,600
Then where does you’re attention go?

579
01:01:01,100 --> 01:01:06,560
If it doesn’t go anywhere, where does it go?

580
01:01:07,140 --> 01:01:13,240
Where does it rest?

581
01:01:15,700 --> 01:01:23,099
This is present always in everybody, in every
moment.

582
01:01:23,099 --> 01:01:27,099
That’s the glorious good news.

583
01:01:27,099 --> 01:01:42,299
Let your attention rest in itself, in awareness
and experience your Self.

584
01:01:42,520 --> 01:01:46,859
Not to get something, because that is another story.

585
01:01:46,859 --> 01:01:52,079
Not to keep it because that is a story, not
to wake up because that's a story.

586
01:01:52,280 --> 01:01:57,460
Awareness is awake, it's awake.

587
01:01:57,470 --> 01:02:08,290
How else would you know you’re asleep if
you weren’t awake?

588
01:02:08,290 --> 01:02:26,230
(instrumental music)