I am Awareness alone | The sword that cuts all confusion [public version]

NSo there's a line in the Ashtavakra Gita which I got a question about. We'll start with that, and it's in the first chapter: "Meditate on this: I am Awareness alone, unity itself." So the question I got was on that phrase "unity itself." And sometimes it happens that when you hear the wisdom teachings there's one word or two words and they really grab you. There's a gravity in them. You feel the weight of insight and yet you feel you're not quite getting it — the meaning is just out of reach. So what do you do with it? It's actually an invitation. It's like wisdom knocking at your door. What I used to do is: okay, just stop all the rest, all the other teachings, and stay with it. You just meditate on those two — whatever phrase that hit you. You can walk with it, you can sleep over it, and see what it does to the mind. "Unity itself" — there's the concept of unity, and then there's unity itself, in itself. What could deserve the title?

Let your mind marinate on that. What here can deserve this title — unity itself? Whatever unity is, it must encompass everything. All the people you love, all the people you hate, all the ones who are living now, who have died, who are yet to be born. Unity must encompass all of that. All the things you observe, every experience, every possible experience cannot be apart from unity itself.

So you start to see: well, what could we call unity itself here? And the answer is already given in that sentence. Meditate on this: I am Awareness alone. Why can Awareness be called unity itself? Not unity as a concept, but itself.

Because when you look within, the core fact you find is you are aware. You cannot separate that from yourself. It's not that you are one thing and then you gained Awareness. It's not like that. The fact is you are aware. If you separate it, you can't — if you separate it, you cease to exist. So it's intrinsic to what you are. Any possible subject is not an individual self, but based on — it's just this core fact of being aware. That is the unity which encapsulates all subjects. And then you look out, and whatever you see, whatever you hear, whatever you feel — again, everything you can describe about an experience is an aspect of Awareness itself. So again you're arriving at unity itself. So not unity as a concept, or a union yet to happen, or some truth that you should be united with — but unity itself, in the moment as it presents itself. And only Awareness deserves the title. And not to be thought of as something apart from you, because it's unity.

And this translation says "unity itself." Another one says "one without another" — like one without two, nonduality, advaita. And then it says: so meditate on this. I am Awareness alone, unity itself. Give up the idea that you are separate, a person, that there is a within and a without.

So the next thing you have to do is only give up an idea. You are presented with not a concept but unity itself. And what you have to give up is an idea — just a concept of being separate to unity itself, which is not possible. It's not possible to be separate, apart from unity itself. So let the mind grapple with that: that there is here this self-evident fact that everything, everyone is encompassed by this unity of Awareness, and there's only the idea of being separate, a person, that there's something inside and outside — and you give that up. In the next verse it says — I don't quite remember it — it's like: let this knowledge that I am Awareness alone be the sword that frees you.

It's the single insight that will cut through every possible argument that could come up next. All right, let's go into Q&A. Yes, Neil.

QGood morning everyone. Morning. Yeah, I was — I think what I was reading, Perfect Brilliant Stillness, or listening to on an audiobook — and there's... it's always quite funny how you start with the Q&A and it just links in, at least to my eyes, something very... it's always not identical, but I'll just say it. It's the concept that we think there's something wrong with us. There's something wrong with us in the world, and there's something that we've got to change or improve or destroy, as he says, to just allow something different or better to take its place. And that's the problem. If there's a problem that we feel we have, it's just that concept. It's the concept that we carry around — that as we've been brought up, our conditioning, what we've read, what we've learned, etc.

That the base starting point is wrong in itself. That there's nothing to change, there's nothing to improve. It's just clear. He puts it: an awakening is the annihilation of the ego's desires and beliefs. And it thinks that that's the solution — that we've got to build something — that we don't have to. That it's just that turning around and looking at yourself and understanding. You say that the "I am" — that's the problem. It's almost like we've got this mistaken belief. That is what we've got to put right. You've got to put something right. It's not. It's just accepting what we actually are.

But the one thing that I have — the idea of, and it's mentioned to you very often I think, or it has been mentioned — is like awakening or liberation. And that maybe you hold that as being the starting point: that there's this thing to do, that until you've reached a point of liberation you will never have clarity or real understanding. And that the point of — can't think of the word now — the switch, the little change, the change of perspective, the change of understanding, or the awakening. And until that point you're always going to be almost waiting for an event to happen, waiting for something to change in you. But maybe it seems to me like that change isn't like this earth-shattering... I know you've talked about your — I've forgotten the expression you use for that when you were with your wife and your daughter, and you had that switch, that change. But like I said, am I waiting for something that's never going to happen?

NYeah. I mean — so have you finished that book? Because there is —

QI've listened to it fully once and bits of it since. But go on.

NYeah. So I love that book. I read it a while ago, several years ago. There is a point which he begrudgingly explains, and that is for him the point — what happens in the jungle. But then — David Carse, that's the author.

QYeah.

NHe has had pains to explain that is not what you should look for. It's not important. And even what I — that video I made — that is not the crucial point, even though it is and it's not. Even before that it had already sunk in. If it was not that point, it was like... that's just your mind's way of framing it later and trying to explain it and have that conversation.

But the sword — like I will use the sword today — is: you are Awareness alone. And what you're saying is just: the only thing that can be done, if it can be done, is that understanding. And instead of trying to fix and change and this and that, all you recognize, all you can do is recognize that truth. And with that truth, the understanding itself shows you — yeah, it does fix problems that you thought were insoluble, but it does it in a way by showing you: this is how it is, and it is not wrong. It is how it is. And it shows you the beauty of it, and why things go wrong, and who can change it. Because the only thing to recognize — wherever there's this flaw of how people are behaving wrongly — they are behaving wrongly because you do not recognize this truth.

And so the only thing that can be done of any worth in a life is simply to recognize that single truth, which is not an experience, because it's just recognizing what the Self is.

QSo are you saying then that even the looking — it's almost for me it's almost been like something I've always carried with me, looking — or you think that the understanding or the liberation is an experience. It is like a thing is going to happen. You're going to zoom off up into the universe, or are you going to merge with whatever — and that it isn't an experience and it never has been. It's just an acceptance of — and this is where language falls down, doesn't it — the understanding, for want of a better word.

Not an experience.

NYeah. Acceptance definitely is not a word I would use, because it's not a passive insight. It is — when you get to the depth of it — it is a mind-shattering insight. When I say that, again it sounds like, "Oh, there must be a mind-shattering experience" — but that's not the point. The point is the insight has been given to a mind and you're just dancing around, round and round. I built a campfire around it and it's dancing. Dive into it.

It is so significant. So it changes every single thing you thought you knew about yourself. What you think about people, about things, about what the universe is, about what life is. All the dualities that the mind works around — life and death, existence, nonexistence, birth, death — every single thing, insentient and sentient — all of that is cut through by this single sword. And you handed the sword to someone and they just put it there and then they're waiting for something to happen. That's what's happening in a transmission. In the same book, David Carse says — he uses an example like: you find a figure curled up in the corner in their misery, and to him the figure is made out of light. That person is made out of pure light, and he goes and shakes the person. He's just trying to explain and say, "Wake up. You are made out of pure light." And the person doesn't want to accept it and they're still curling in their misery.

It's simple. You are Awareness alone. Let that percolate in the mind. What does it mean? Well, give it a go.

[laughter] I don't mean you are already well on — you have understood. The only thing is the mind will keep bringing up stuff back: "Oh, maybe there's this, maybe there's that." But whatever the mind can dream up can at best just be an experience which might happen and will pass by and does nothing to change the truth of what you are.

QYeah. I always like these videos that you put out after these calls, because I don't know if it's my age and just being me, but I listen to it three or four times and every time I listen I pick something new up and I hear something differently. Like when you're talking to me here now, I hear so much, but then I'll go away — but it seems to be all of your work. But maybe it's just that kind of stuff. I don't know — that as you said before, like depth — that it has depth, and that you don't always — it just doesn't click straight away always. It's almost like over time maybe I need — time is a factor, or seemingly time is the factor in it, that the absorption happens over time.

NYeah. I consider that like a mark of truth. Pure — when you're being given pure truth. It used to happen like I would revisit a Zen koan or Nisargadatta's dialogues or Ramana Maharshi's dialogue and the same: okay, I got it, it's simple — and then you read that a few months later, boom boom. It's like this continuous implosion again and again. And that is the mark of truth, because what is it doing? The truth is simple. You recognize it, and then the mind starts to come back with its concepts and its models, and then you read the same truth again or hear it, and then again it crumbles, and then it tries to put itself back together, and then it crumbles — and that's the mark of truth. There are ways to hear it, ways that it will resonate.

But again, it is still simple, and at the end you don't need to hear or listen to me or anyone. There's nothing left at the end because it's so straightforward, and you can just — in your own mind, let's say — you can just recognize it. Where you reach the point where just that simple recognition is undoing whatever concept is coming up in that moment.

QYeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.

NThank you. Yes, John.

QHey, Nabeel. Very nice to be here. Very nice to say something. I just thought along the lines of what Neil and you were just discussing — reminds me of a discussion that a friend and I were having just the other day, who happens to be here as well for the first time. But it's similar to a video that you did quite a while ago, and it was really meaningful to me when you said something like: you've gone this far. You've searched this far. You've learned a lot. You know, you've learned enough. And it's more about living it than having a peak experience as it were. At least that's what I took out of it. And I thought that was really good, because there is a lot of, I think, tendency for the seeker to want some kind of peak experience to happen. But I think it's more critical to notice it in just daily activities and live according to that — when you notice it, you know, if that makes any sense. But I got that from one of your videos. Really, really wonderful work that is so beautiful and just really, really affects my heart deeply. So I just want to thank you, Nabeel, you know, for what you're doing. It's just really incredible. So thank you very much.

NThank you, John.

I do remember that video. Yeah, it's an old one. And you're right. There is a heavy burden which you will feel you've just put down when you give up the idea — that I don't need a peak experience, I'm done, I don't want it. Yeah, that is the turning point: when you say I don't want any further experiences. They can come, fine. I will live out the life — this life, any other life, whatever. But it is not experience that you need. And there was a dialogue from Nisargadatta where this hit me. He said you do not need any experiences. I've forgotten the line. It was beautiful. And he said you need the opposite — like he said you need the absence of experience. Give it up.

And then I started to meditate with that intention. And you've put down the burden of needing a peak experience, some special state, whatever — to compare: my enlightenment is as good as Buddha's enlightenment, or whatever. You know, I've achieved the state Ramana was in. No, it's give it up. Who cares? That was one life. [laughter] The truth is not about any one life. The truth is about unity itself. That's what he started with — the all-encompassing truth. That's what I wanted to know.

And all these — what Nisargadatta said, what Maharshi say — it redirects you back. Stop it. Stop it. You don't need a personal state, personal experience. All of that. Whatever you got would be wrong and not the truth. It would be the false paradise. Instead you could recognize that fundamental unity itself which has to be there in any experience or even in the absence of experience. The most mundane experience, the most worst, terrible experience — it's all within unity itself. Hi — I don't know, I forgot your name, sorry. We've done —

QI'm Sil actually. I should have put that. I didn't know if you could — I didn't know how you change it. But anyway, my question is — you know, I have these little glimpses, and of course then life happens. So it gets busy, and then you have a little glimpse when you perhaps meditate occasionally. So recently I went to Ramana, and it was incredibly peaceful, and then towards the end I was wondering: how do I bring that back? How do I take it with me? And so I realized: look, you can't take it. You have to sort of create that wherever you go in some sense. It's not a place thing. It's not related necessarily to a place. Kind of — for me — to bring it with me. I mean, to create that environment wherever I go. And I have a comment and a question relating to that: to create this continuity of experience, let's say, of silence — nothing flashy, it's very ordinary — but to create the continuity of this silence. I said to myself: look, I'll create this environment around myself by putting an alarm every hour. Every time I hear the alarm — which, you know, sometimes I'll be busy, I won't even hear it — but when I hear it, I'll promise myself to do a short two minutes' Self-inquiry and just sort of draw myself back into silence. And then of course the madness would happen, and then you kind of get — you know, like life happens. So this is my mechanism that I came up with on my last couple of days in Ramanashram. Like that might be a good way to keep the current of silence continuous, if I can express it like that. And it's sort of working, but I was wondering if you had other suggestions to keep this — because otherwise it's just words. All this, you know — I mean a lot of times it's just words, and I can convince myself that I understand the words, but that's garbage, I think. Understanding is false.

I think if I think that I'm mentally getting it, I know instantly that that's a trap, because, you know, I got a big head. Okay? So I can understand stuff, and that's always fraught, because we fool ourselves fantastically. I mean, you know, like the brain is a great device to fool ourselves. So I don't want the mind in the game. I don't want words. I don't want "read this, read that." Are there techniques or thoughts, processes or something that you suggest would keep the current of silence, if I want to call it that, continuous?

NOkay. So first there's the conceptual layer. You're rejecting that. Good. We don't need that. But then from there the mind comes up with maybe the experiential layer. At the bottom of it there's some baseline experience — the silence experience — and you feel that. And when you're at the ashram in meditation, whatever, you will reach samadhi, you will have that. But you should then see that is again the conditioned. If it was the unconditioned there would be no coming and going. So at the end you even let that go. I have tasted that beautiful silence.

But the silence that I can taste is not the true silence which is always present. You are aiming for the unconditioned. Whatever is conditional, comes and goes, is not the core of what you want to get to.

QSo how — sort of a counter-question to that is: is it true that this unconditional silence, when it first appears, appears in spurts, in moments, momentarily, short moments or something, and the goal is to sort of stretch it out to become continuous, which is at which point it becomes this continuous unconditional thing? I mean, is it true?

Is it just true that from an ordinary existence, boom, you get into unconditional silence and they are there forever? That doesn't sound too plausible to me. I think it seems to me that a plausible thing is where you have little glimpses and then you try to stretch them out into one continuous unconditional. I don't know. I'm confused, because if you say that you should look for the unconditional, then I would ask the next question, which is: what is the test of it? What is the guarantee of it?

How do I know I'm there if I'm there?

NMhm.

QSo —

NOkay. So we can go back to what we started with — like the many tests. One of them is: what deserves the title "unity itself"?

Yeah. Our scope is wrong. Okay, sorry for being a bit harsh, but the scope — whenever we think of like "I'm getting glimpses and then I will stretch them out and I will be there" — that "I" is the wrong "I." The scope is wrong. That "I" is the wrong self. There's no such individual "I." And so what is there as the actual silence, or whatever the fundamental basis, whatever we call it — it's already here, it's already always present. Even the word "present" is wrong, because that assumes time. It is the fundamental basis: unity itself. So instead of waiting for the silence, the beautiful silence to return — what all that was was you waking up. That is called awakening. You taste it. Where is it coming from? It's not — you know, it's all the things you thought in life would give you that failed to give you that, and then suddenly the peace just erupts from where? Where did it come from? And in human terms of how we talk we will say it came from within. It didn't come from outside. I found that in me. Like when you're saying the peace was not in the ashram — you know that actually it was just the conducive environment let you give up your work and whatever disturbs you and reside in the peace which flowers from within. But then that peace was the clue. It was the gift to teach you the truth.

The peace is not the goal. Because if we make that a goal, it's a goal. A personal goal. My life, my peace, my heaven. And the test is you give that up, because that "my" is wrong. You give up the goal of getting to paradise.

QI see. I mean, I kind of see it, but I don't see it. From what you're saying — because it almost seems like from what you're saying is this transition would be instantaneous and permanent necessarily.

NThere is no transition. It is just that —

QI mean, okay.

NSorry. The mind is ignoring, because the mind cannot recognize truth. The mind cannot recognize what is unity itself, because what we call the mind is a bundle of thought. It's a web of thought, concepts. And by thought I don't just mean words. It's a complicated web — concepts, feelings, experiences, all of that mind. So unity itself is beyond that mind. But you can recognize it because that is what you are.

QSo when I say silence, perhaps I'm misunderstood or I didn't express myself well. It's that silence is not a [unclear] silence. It's an absence. There's nothing, and that's what I'm calling the silence. So I think it's real. But it goes away because stuff has to — I mean, you know, you jump out of it, you bump out of it or whatever — so then you realize, "Oh yeah, I'm back." So there was nobody for a second and then everything's back in a sense. So I don't mean to say it's a silence where I'm consciously still here and then I feel a silence and there's no noise or something — like it's not a literal silence, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. But it does have gaps. It does have a stint and then it's gone. So that was my question, I think.

Anyway —

NYeah. That's — I mean, if there is — if we talk about state, then yes, that is the base state prior to experience. But if you were there then that's what's called death, or before birth. So anyway, this life has an expiry date — that's the base state. But while life is there, while the body is functioning, you cannot expect that to be permanent, because if that becomes permanent how do you function?

QBut I mean, at least my premise is people like Ramana — for them it was permanent. It was just that they were, you know — like he had that example. He said like a ceiling fan, you know — like you have a ceiling fan, you turn off the electric switch and the ceiling fan still rotates. It's not going to just stop. Boom. You know, like instantaneously stop rotating. It's going to rotate. It's going to slow down and then it just stops. That's just like naturally sort of stops. So in some sense I at least always thought that people like Ramana were — they were whatever you want to call it, realized, zapped, whatever — but that it's not orthogonal, it's not mutually exclusive with daily functioning, you know, with brushing your teeth or having lunch or something. It doesn't mean that that stops. That just goes on because it's a process. But at the same time, they're quote-unquote zapped. So I never thought it was mutually exclusive, but I do think people like that are continuously in that self-realized state. No. Or I don't know.

NSo how people see the sage is not how the sage sees their own state. Okay. People are projecting — like the videos of Sri Ramana Maharshi being venerated by crowds, and because they treat him like God. They call him God — Bhagavan, God.

QSure.

NBut to him, to be called God is offensive actually — to say — because he has explained to you: there is no self. You are this — you know, what are you? You are the Self, the actual Self — and then you're calling him God, which means you ignored everything he said. You're reinventing him as a person, as an entity — not more than a person, but still an entity. And then there's this projection that he is in some perfect state, while he is saying that actually there's only one state: the state that is innate to the Self. And he does not say the Self is "I am one Self and you're another Self." There's just the Self. So whatever he's saying is the one perfect state that is ever present — it applies to you right now.

It does not apply to any other. Right now. It applies to you.

QYeah. Yeah.

NNo, wait. So when Sri Ramana Maharshi was seriously hit by — he was in the state you're describing. He was catatonic. He was in a cave, almost — we would say he was comatose. So when he comes out of the state, then there is thinking — okay, it's a blasphemy to say it maybe — but to be able to speak, because for a few years he didn't speak, and then he started to speak — like that's his fan starting to spin back up. Actually he was out of it, gone, ceased to exist, and then experience comes back. So what you're describing — like you experience the silence — not experience, but experience stops, you go under, you come back — that was an extreme case of that which lasted a significant amount of, from a human point of view we could say, time. But then even though experience came back and he went through all this, you know, the mess of life of having cancer and feeling that terrible pain again — all of that came back — he was unshakable in the face of that. And that is not because he was in a special precious state. He had realized what is the Self, what is the fundamental state of the Self — not "my" state which came and was lost. There was no me. So whatever state comes and goes is conditional.

But the actual true state of the Self is simply that which is called Awareness. Being aware. And that does not come and go. And the peace.

QSo the whole question that I started with is: how does one — are there practical tips to vector towards that state that is continuous? In all of this what you're saying — and I understand at least from all I've read that that should be continuous — just makes absolute sense. It just makes natural sense that it's not an add-on thing. It's the background. It's the thing on which everything rests, which everything comes out of. All this intuitively makes sense to me. But how — are there tips to recognize it that are good tips which are not mental, which are not mind-based? That's kind of the question.

NSo once you see that the ground state is simply that of being aware — there's no effort in being aware. You are aware right now. So instead — we're changing the criteria. The criteria used to be — for me it was the same — it used to be to be in that beautiful blissful peaceful state. Whatever. It became quite consistent and so on. But then you recognize that to stay there is wrong. It's not the goal. It's not —

QYeah, it's not correct. If you stay there you're about to become a hedonist of a different kind. It's just pleasure.

It's my pleasure.

NYeah, it is the pleasure of the Self. Yeah, that bliss is of the Self. It's coming from within. It's amazing. It's beautiful. But if I stay in that —

Q— is personal.

NIt's yes. So I don't need it. It is mine. I don't need it, because it's mine. You know — it's a bit convoluted I'm saying it — but then you realize: okay, so what do I need to return to is this word with which the mind — whenever the mind shows up, you're presented this word: who is the Self? What am I? Are you ever — whenever this question is asked — can there ever be a point where you're not aware? It's not possible. That is what you are. That is the state which is unconditional. Everything else is conditional. The state which is unconditional must have been there throughout your whole life, before the point we imagine we will get enlightened. It must be here now.

Must be there at your worst point in life. Must be there in an insect's life. And so it is about recognizing the truth in each moment rather than any experiential validation fact like, "Oh, if I'm not feeling this I'm not getting it." No — you recognize the truth so clearly that whatever the experience is, it doesn't matter.

QI think I kind of sort of see it, but I have to dream about this. You know, I like — I think I see the flaw in trying to keep it continuous, which is now it became a personal goal. It became now the person kicked in again, sort of.

So the trick then is — so I'm trying to see what the natural balance then is. But I like the hint. I like the suggestion.

NYeah.

QThank you.

NThank you so much.

QThank you.

NCisco.

QHi Nabeel. Hi everyone. It's my first time here. Nabeel — I have been devouring all your videos continually, around the clock almost. And I have to tell you that I do not have any problem understanding — don't look like it — and I kind of recognize pretty well everything. Just that the way that you put it is becoming even clearer. It's like it is absolutely clear the way that you put it, which I had not had before. I had before the same sensation that I understood what I was reading or watching, but in your case it's absolutely clear. There are no doubts about it. And yet, like John was saying, the question is: how to make this present in my life. And so one of the issues that I had — I was trying to do this thing about sleeping, watching the transition from sleeping to wake up that you mentioned so many times.

Because I'm not very hot on meditation, and so that seemed like a reasonable thing. And the problem is that all the time when I wake up is as a result of a dream, and before I know I am already — you know, the time has passed, because the dream is what was present in my mind. And the next second I am already back in the regular guy, you know, the regular character. And so I just can't seem to slow down that process in a way that actually will get a sense of what you're talking about — the going from no experience to the first experience. Do you have any suggestion or any ideas that might help? Because that is an area that I feel like I don't quite get it. In other words, I intellectually understand all of it, but then when it comes down to that feeling, it doesn't seem that I got it.

NMhm. Yeah. I mean, I've gotten that comment from a few viewers. And I used to explain it as if that is the threshold where you really get it somehow — when you go from the absence of experience to experience and you view it — and everything — it is a beautiful proof, but it is not necessary. So even if you're just going from dream to just waking up in this character, whatever you think you are — there's a transition even there happening which is quite mind-opening. That there was an entire world, there's a character in it which you thought you were in the dream — and then suddenly this entire new world, new character, and now you're supposedly this. That itself proves you can't be either of the characters. So it's just pointing to various ways you can examine what's going on to get to the truth. And the core point is only ever to recognize the truth, which is: first of all, yes, you don't need to understand the truth in words. Secondly, you don't need to understand it as an experience. There's no special experience. And then there's no special state. And then the truth is obviously — once you see it — it has to be the most obvious, most fundamental, inarguable fact. And I like to sometimes use that movie Inception as an example. You can be in a dream; inside there you have another dream; inside you have another dream — it's a dream within a dream. And the criteria for truth is: even in 100 levels deep in a dream, the truth must be true.

The truth must always be true. It's just a tautology. I'm not making — it's: the truth must always be true. And so the only point is to dedicate the mind to find out what is that truth. What deserves to be called the absolute truth? What deserves to be called unity itself? What deserves to be called Awareness? Don't let the mind treat it as a word, as a concept. What truly deserves to be called Awareness?

What truly deserves to be called "I"? What are you? And all the other pointers I gave about which take experience or transitions — it's just to point you to the truth. And there are many ways to arrive at it. And you know, the book Neil is reading — it describes it very beautifully — that there are many ways to enter the house. We can call it the house. In the house it's the truth. There are many ways to go in. You go through the front door, through the window, you can drop through the chimney. It doesn't have to be the same way. But the truth is always the same.

QOkay. So essentially what I get from that is I do not have to worry about it really, because I can get the same thing at any point in the waking state even — because every single instant, you know, I can simply check: who am I here? And immediately, if I am to apply your sense that it has to be true everywhere, then immediately the answer comes out right away. And it is not just merely because I have read it. The only thing is somehow I felt like it needed some further confirmation — trying to, because there is the idea that somehow whatever it is that you are just understanding with your mind, with the intellect — that it's not the real thing. That there is a further step to have. But I'm sorry — I have not found that further step yet. I guess that one day it will hit me. But for the time being all what it is is the clarity of understanding. That's it. I understand the thing, you know, and that's the end of it.

NYes. So yes — I think what you raised brings me back to — when there was a lot more confusion what is going on, and what Sil is also trying to grapple with — especially if you're an intellect, which I think he's got the strong intellect.

QUnfortunate.

NIt's not unfortunate. It's also —

QIt's both good and bad.

NBut what happens is there's a point where you realize the confusion is only the intellect being confused. You are not confused. You are here. You are here right now and you're aware. There's no confusion about that. And so you get this little — before, the confusion was "I am confused," and then there's a distance. The intellect is confused, and then it's almost as if you thought you were the intellect and now it's an object, and you see: oh, this intellect can never realize what the Self is, what I am, because it is purely the intellect. It's not a living thing. It's not conscious. What we call the intellect is a web of thoughts. It's getting all the other sensory data. You can think of it as the brain, let's say. So the brain is receiving all the inputs.

It's computing it and so on. But it can never compute what Sentience is, because that unit — it's just a distributed network which is not sentient. Sentience was present within which this instrument took shape, started processing, and its processes are being experienced by you, the Sentience. And so once you have that distance from the confusion and you know what the truth is — I am, I am, I am Sentience itself — and then that is the sword.

In Zen they call it the sword of General Guan. If you see a Buddha before you, slay him. Like that's the sword. Like even if you're — the guru you looked up to the most is standing there now in front of you shining bright with the beautiful state. You can — "I'm not feeling that state" — so what? My blade can still cut through that illusion that the state is what is required or to be attained. So now you see — if there's someone you love, you can apply the same to them. Who are they? They are Awareness alone.

What is this object? Can I describe it as something apart from Awareness? No. So the truth is recognized. The confusion is now at a distance and now the truth is all-consuming. It just destroys all categories, all opposites — and that is nonduality: no dualities.

QOkay. So I think that when I see it on my case, from my perspective — the problem consisting that I am still kind of a little doubting whether the clarity is mine from Awareness being present and simply recognizing it everywhere — that I read or I watch something, I recognize it, and so that I understand it — or if it is something missing. I think that that is wrong. Nothing is missing. I think that it's there. If I understand it, I understand it, and that's the end of it. It is the Awareness, the one that is understanding, because the intellect — no, doesn't really understand anything. It's just a collection of thoughts and all that. And there will always be — even when it appears to be understanding, it is not really understanding anything. It's like an AI that produces very, very convincing answers, but there is not really understanding of that. So the question in here I think that is more like dropping out the concerns about whether there is anything else or not. And I do like you're saying — just applying to everything in life what I already know that it is, and looking at it from that perspective and not from the perspective of separate selves or anything — and just do that. You agree with?

NYes. Yes. Definitely.

So then you can learn how to deal with the intellect skillfully — the skillful use of thought. So first — so this is the intellect itself recognizing and admitting that I cannot know what precedes, which is more fundamental, which is prior to me — the intellect. And when the intellect does that, that's where I like to use Rumi's way of explaining it. There can be two ways in that — that there is another problem there: that the intellect can get angry at itself, or there'll be seemingly two things like you and the intellect and you're fighting — but it's actually just two puppets with the same hand under them. So instead of getting angry and trying to fix and so on, we can go down the path of love. Who is the lover? Who is the beloved? The lover is ready to give up their claim to being conscious, to being you — just give it up — because your beloved is who? It's the Self, Awareness. Anyone you love — it's that. It's very easy to — and then surrender becomes possible. Once you — like often surrender — people come and ask: how do you surrender?

Well, to me the truth is the way. First you recognize the truth and then true surrender becomes possible, because then the intellect has also gotten this message and it's recognized its place in the grand scheme. It's not a bad place. [laughter] It can devote — there's the recognition of what the beloved is. The beloved is not at a distance but the Self. And then whenever there's confusion, it's simpler to let it go and return to the fact, the basic fact.

QOkay, I think that I got the idea. Thank you.

NThank you.

QHi Nabeel. Hi everyone.

So it's been a while that I've been watching your content on YouTube, and every time I do there are some fundamental kind of questions that keep popping into my head. And one such question that I can remember right now — it's quite fundamental. So I don't know how to approach this question, if I may put it that way. So it's like this: it's around this Awareness and the truth that we've been talking about. So when I, for example, when I look at a tree, when I look at the leaves — so I'm kind of in my head I can almost see how the photosynthesis is happening, how the minerals are being siphoned up through the roots into the tree — and there is a sense of peace and there is a sense of equanimity that comes within when observing that tree from like very up close and with a certain amount of focus. Similarly, when I'm sitting or basking in the sun, I feel the warmth on my skin and it's just amazing to realize that it's coming from 93 million miles away — and that's kind of, you know, there's a sense of peace and a sense of — it's very difficult to put into words, but there is a sense of equanimity in that. But then again when I look at a rock and I realize I don't know anything about this rock. I don't know where it comes from. I don't know how it was formed, when it was formed. And then all of a sudden I realize that I have to go back to my knowledge base — probably look it up online, or Gemini or ChatGPT probably — to know more about it. So that it's almost like this sense of peace, this sense of feeling like I'm here and now, has a lot to do with relying on the knowledge of that thing that I'm trying to be aware about, or around me that I'm trying to be aware in the here and now. But then I also realized that there are infinite amounts of sounds and noise and things around me that I cannot be aware of completely at the same time. Even if I try to remove all thoughts from my head and try to focus here and now. So somewhere it does feel that probably I don't know what this truth is. I mean — is it just — it's probably something that Buddha talked about, about the elephant: that I'm holding onto the trunk or the tail of the elephant and thinking this is it. So what is this truth? What am I being aware of without the knowledge component of it? Now having said that, just one last tiny tail to it: knowledge sometimes definitely overwhelms me because, you know, I mean just continuously grappling through the information — and I personally, well to put it in medical terms, I have been diagnosed with ADHD, so sometimes it can get very, very overwhelming for me to kind of rely on knowledge to feel the peace and to be here and now. So I don't know how to approach this. I have no clue how to approach this. So what are your thoughts? How do you look at this? What would be your advice?

NSure. So see if I understand the role of science. What is it doing? Science is from what we call the third-person perspective. We're trying to look at things, take out the first-person subjective view. What is this really? And we try to explain it.

And we do it with observations which different observers can take — different observers — and they should match, and then we use the data to explain. So it's a best understanding of the universe in mathematical terms, in rules-based terms — understanding laws of nature. But now if you were doing all this in a dream it would still work. In a dream you take measurements, you try to find what laws govern this world. The dream has rules. And those rules are being described by science. What science has not settled is: what is the role of subjectivity in all this? Why is there Consciousness at all?

And so the view of the sage is: well, when you go to the third-person view you are jumping from not knowing what you are — which is the most fundamental view, which is called the first-person view — to a third-person view and taking that to be the Reality. Okay, that might explain the mechanics of how things work and so on. But to get to Reality must first find out what you are. So that first-person view is being put to the question: who am I? What am I? And what you realize is there's nothing to call a person. What particular thing is a person? Like you can hold a rock, you can feel the warmth of the sun. So all these are experiential phenomena. And the person is thought of as either an object or some coherent unit which is the thing that's conscious. But as you explore yourself — explore your mind — you don't find that. There's no first person, so there can be no third person. And so now take out the person — no first, second, or third person. Science is describing the rules that govern this universe. Very good. I like that. I use that. And what Self-inquiry is defining is what is most fundamental from the most direct view. Not the first-person view, but the direct view, because there's no first person. And from the direct view, what we see: what is the warmth? Is it the warmth of the sun?

No, the sun is conceptual. It's the knowledge you have learned. If you have never learned the knowledge, you still feel the warmth. The warmth — you feel it there on the skin. But is it the warmth of the skin? Well, no. Because skin again is knowledge you gained. And you realize that the experience itself — there's a more fundamental Reality to it, to all experience: the experience of the rock and so on and so forth, the emotion. And there is in each and every experience, no matter how extreme or how basic or whatever, the commonality, the fundamental basis of it is — what? You know, once as soon as I give it a word it's just cheap. I don't give it a word. That is Reality itself. Well, I just gave it a word, but you know — the most fundamental way to arrive at Reality: that is it. And so the knowledge and all that — there's nothing wrong with it, but it's trying to take an outside perspective. Whereas wisdom is saying: okay, fine, but how about we take the actual direct perspective — apply it to yourself, apply it to the world — what is the truth you arrive at?

QHow do you approach this? I mean, a couple of years back I did the 10-day Vipassana course, and the idea was to kind of reduce the noise from outside and try to look within. But after those 10 days all I could feel — of course my intensity of focus increased, that was bound to happen — but when I was feeling the sensations I couldn't help but feel that: okay, that's the blood flowing under the skin, that's my heartbeat, that is this sensation and that sensation. So how do you stop adding labels to things? Because that's I guess the nature of the mind: to continuously add labels to things. So how to un-nature that? If I'm putting it that way — I don't know how to approach this.

NMhm. Yeah. I mean, the tried and tested way is to leave that all as it is and just go to the root. And the root is "I."

What do you consider "I"? If you put that question to the mind — what do you mean by "I"? — then it will slowly run out of words. It might at first think: oh, I'm the body. I'm something in the body. I'm the brain. But as you examine that, it runs out of those concepts — they fall apart. And then you're not using the other kind of knowledge. You're using a direct knowledge. The knowledge of being aware is not something somebody had to tell you. Everything else you learned later.

Whether you're a boy or a girl or this race or that race or whatever. All that was later. What of the sun? People just found out recently whether the earth is flat or round. We found out recently. All that came later. But nobody has to tell a child you're aware. When they come out into the world crying, that is because experience has begun. It's always annoying at first. Everybody gets crying. So that is your direct knowledge of yourself being aware.

And so instead of then relying on external knowledge, there's this direct fact. I am aware. I am sentient. And then you continue the inquiry. So what is this "I" that is aware?

QSo one comment — so right, there's one of Nabeel's videos that talks about light entering the eye and all the processes that happen, you know, the things that happen in the process of seeing. I think if you heard that it would form a good — it'll sort of shake you up a little. It shook me up. You know, and it sort of pushes you towards that looking for the "I" thing, you know, that process. I think — but have a look if you don't mind. Sorry N, I didn't mean to interrupt, but —

NThank you.

QThank you. I'll look it up.

QIt's a fantastic —

QThank you, Nabeel. I think — I mean, I can't say that I got it entirely of course, but that unlabeling thing probably is something that would probably — maybe I have a different question in our next satsang when I attend it, in line with this one. Maybe I'll try to inquire a little bit into that in the meantime. Thank you. Thank you so much.

NYeah. And as Neil said, it might seem that what you heard did not land, or it might land a certain way right now. But the way all this works is that the information is going in. There's two ways it's working. One is the self-evident fact that you're aware. I just keep repeating that and you recognize it. It's known. There's no question about it. The other is we're feeding information into the system which will break the system — all the conceptual palace. I'm just adding it. That one is for the intellect to recognize that of course the Self knows the Self. The Self is aware. The only problem is the intellect cannot recognize that.

And all the knowledge questions and all that that have to do with the intellect. And so there's some arrows which are intended to undo that, and the other side is just for you to recognize you as you are — aware. The video Sil was mentioning — that was an important step, because I was also very intellect-dominant. I was very interested in particle physics and all that long ago, and that was an important step because the intellect is the barrier.

QYeah.

NYeah. Because it thinks it gets it. It thinks it's got all this knowledge of the world. And of course, you know, the physics is explaining things so well and so on, and it sounds like Awareness is hypothetical and the objects in front of you are more real than what the sage is talking about.

And that's completely backwards, because what you're seeing is Awareness. The seeing is Awareness. It's not you seeing an object. The seeing itself is Awareness. The hearing itself is Awareness. The warmth itself is Awareness.

And you yourself who are aware — what else can you be? You are Awareness.

QYeah, I remember from one of your videos you had — it talked about that: I am the hearing of it. I'm the feeling of it. I'm the seeing of it. Like I'm not seeing but I'm the seeing of it. So that was quite a new perspective. Took me a while to figure what you were actually trying to mean.

A very different way of looking at things.

NYes, that is the way to see it. That is the truth which will take no effort and will always be with you no matter what state. And when I say the seeing — "I am the seeing of it" — even the "of it" is wrong. It's just because you're trying to put words together. It comes out that way. But there's no it. There's just the seeing. And I am the seeing. All of it.

At the end Nisargadatta would say "I am the total functioning" — like he was fed up that people, all his devotees, still don't get it and they're still trying to differentiate, because he had tried to explain the Absolute versus all this and Consciousness and so on — even that backfired. Now it's another Reality. And so he went: I am the total functioning. Now try to take something out of that. Separated doesn't work. Total unity itself, all-encompassing. The other thing is: there's probably an expectation of what you should get out of this kind of session. Like if you go in the presence of a sage, you should feel a certain way and so on. This is not that kind of session.

There's — like all the books you read — you go to Sri Ramanashram and people are in bliss and so on and so forth. Well, the problem is they leave and still nothing has been gained. So that is the effect of your own mind creating that beautiful state because it's now at peace. It's realized: oh, here is my truth. This is my guru. He is at the highest state. He has understood. I'm just going to sit here and be quiet.

And just by being quiet of course you are blissful — the bliss comes out. But this is the kind of session which will ruffle your feathers. It'll disturb the mind. And that's what I liked about Nisargadatta as well. He wouldn't — he was argumentative. He wanted you to bring your intellect, then he will fight with the intellect, and he is sure he can break your intellect as well, because he had this amazing sharp mind to work with. So at one hand: okay, fine, you bring your intellect, let's have a fight. On the other hand, you talk to the actual Self which you're recognizing here. I'm recognizing — that's why we're having this conversation — and we just remind — simple reminder.

You're always you. You're always aware. And just return to that fact. Use the sword of the knowledge: I am Awareness alone.

That is your only role. You're aware. The rest just happens. You don't do it. But whenever there's seeing, you are the seeing. Whenever there's hearing, you are the hearing. Whenever there's thinking, you are the understanding, the comprehension. Who can understand the thought? That is you. And in there, in that simple fact, you recognize what you are. The intellect recognizes what Reality is — and that is it. Done. Game over.

QYeah, it just occurred to me when you say sword. It is really a sword. Like I find myself sometimes waking up blank and saying okay, you know what happened — like yesterday I was like all on top of it and all that, and then my mind starts thinking: okay, let me start "I am Awareness," let me think what's the Awareness, you know, the seeing — and then at some point just the Awareness comes, that the knowing, and it's like a sword. It's like instantly you don't have to do anything. Like it just occurred to me when you say it's a sword — it's like that.

NYeah. Like in logic we apply Occam's razor. This is much bigger than the razor. [laughter] So it is sharp.

Then you're always ready to apply it. It's actually the intellect itself has learned that the idea that there are separate selves, separate people, separate individuals — that is wrong. And so whenever the mind starts thinking in that way, there's another part which now is well established and that reminds the mind itself: no, that's not how it is. In the Diamond Sutra there's a line which is really powerful — as long as I don't remember the actual words — but as long as there's any idea of being a person, a separate self, an individual, separate soul, or even separate lifespans — that is not a true bodhisattva. Even separate lifespans.

If you work with that, it's amazing. It just — it's so powerful. The diamond that cuts through the illusion — the Diamond Sutra. So as long as there's any such concept — because first the Diamond Sutra says that we will, you know, as any life, any being, we will liberate all of them — but then this follows: but if you believe in a separate self and so on and so forth, you're not an actual bodhisattva at all. So the way to liberation is only to share that one fact: that there are no separate selves, and liberation is already in place. Who is bound? The bondage is only the idea of being a separate self, person, individual, of having a limited lifespan to work with. So, do you have something else to say?

You still have your hand up.

QI'm processing. I'm hearing and processing.

NAll right. Any last questions or comments? If not, thank you for joining.

Thank you. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you. Have a lovely day.