The ego is a rope you mistook for a snake (Satsang)

NLet's start by distinguishing thought from Thought, because there's a question in the post I wanted to address. But first you have to distinguish the usual kind of thoughts — when they're coming fast and shallow, that's the usual kind of thought. But when thinking slows down and it's deeper, even simpler, that is a different kind of thinking. That kind of thinking is insight. That is revelation. That is the teaching. The thinking itself is the teaching — otherwise the teaching cannot be transmitted.

So all the traditions, when you start them, what they're teaching you is to slow down the thinking. And if you've experienced something like what's called an awakening experience, or if you've ever experienced a psychedelic — what it does is reveal to you that thought is not just thought. What you always thought of as thinking and thoughts — that's not the extent of what it is. So what starts to happen in these kinds of experiences is that all the different senses, which we treat as discrete and totally separate, are actually one thing. The music will start to become the same as emotion — it's like pure emotion, there's no difference. They just become... it becomes very clear you can't separate them in the moment that you're experiencing it.

And then what you see — the seeing cannot be separated from light. Like, everything you see is made of light. I'm just saying that's how you start to experience it. Whatever's going on, you start to see how it's working. There's something to it which is just ignored, because we think thinking is thinking, seeing is seeing, and so on. But now you're starting to see how it's all dimensions of what is called experience. And then what is thought? Thought is the comprehension. It is the intelligence.

Without it, all these things are like discrete things happening. But it brings it together — it joins the dots, and there's comprehension. So what is Thought then is just pure knowledge. It can become the revelation.

So the question... it was in Portuguese, so I'm not sure if it translated correctly. But the translation — Rodrigo said that he had a Thought about two years ago. And I know he's not talking about the normal thought. He's talking about the revelatory Thought, and it changed the way he saw himself. A few years later, it's sunk in, and he's seen that he was there prior to the body. He is the Consciousness that was there when the body started to produce these experiences. He came to know of it. But as this insight came to him, it came with the flip side. One side was that Consciousness says to the body and mind, "You need me. I was there before you." But then the response from the other side is, "You need me too." That Consciousness needs this mind, this body.

What is that? That was his question. Because if there is no mind or body, is there any difference between being conscious and being not conscious? Actually, that difference is only there once you come to know "I am." And to come to know that you are — that is knowledge, that is Thought, that is the original Thought that has come up. So often we end up treating it... it's come up in a few calls — we treat what arises as something to be silenced or overcome. But that's not how we talk about it here, because all the insights, all the revelations, all the teachings are also Thought. And the original Thought is what informs Consciousness of who you are — that you exist, that you're aware here. Without it, there's no one. There's just silence.

Sure, which silence may be good in itself, but who can say that it's bad that this has happened? That this has happened is the miracle which reveals the nature of Reality. So that is Thought. But then there was another question which asked how do we relate to thoughts? How should we deal with thoughts and feelings and so on? And that's more from the way we usually see all this happen. So let's go there then. Let's make it more practical.

Because the only difference between thought and Thought is the speed and the depth of the thought. So if you're a responsible driver and you notice you're speeding, you don't need to think about it — you naturally lift your foot off the gas and the speed goes down. And that's what the contemplative traditions have taught us: that as soon as you notice, "Oh, my breath is too shallow" — because breath is related to the speed of your thought — or "My mind is too busy," the foot should come off the gas. You don't need to eliminate thought or silence it completely. But the nature of what you are thinking should change. It should slow down. It should go deeper. It should return to the truth of what was understood. All right, let's go into Q&A.

QYeah, my question is not directly about thought, but is a continuation of last week's conversation. I'm still trying to figure out attention — who is it that pays attention? Who is it that withdraws attention? Is attention a property of Sentience? Is it pure Consciousness that happens? Is attention one aspect of Sentience, or can you shed some light on that?

NYeah, sure. So the normal experience, which everyone believes is true, is that attention is like a torch light. You point it at something and it becomes sharper. But that doesn't work once you see that there is no self. There's no one to hold the torch and point it. What's happening is, whatever experience is arising, something will be in focus. Something is taking center stage.

Who says that it should take center stage? There's actually nobody saying it. It just happens. Mostly it's because of how the body works. If there's a loud noise, immediately that takes center stage. Nobody says, "Oh, I don't want that to take center stage." There is, however, this aspect which I find creates a feedback loop, and that is interest. If you look at thought — how does a small little thought snowball and become rage, or passion? It's through interest.

If you look at human civilization, it's not built up just to meet our needs. It's all built by interest. All these musical instruments, all the entertainment we watch — most of the resources we spend are on interest. So somehow there's this feedback loop, and that fuels how the mind is growing and pruning itself and learning and so on. But attention is not really like how everyone imagines — that you as a person have the power to pay attention to something. Can you replace attention with interest and answer the question: what is interest? Where is it coming from?

So interest is certainly more... I find it's just more natural. It's just love, in a way. We generally think of love as between people, but love can be for anything. As you were growing up as a child, something took your interest — that is, something drew your love. The love of Consciousness for that experience, whatever it was. Let's say music. You saw it, you heard it, and it's just like magic. It's one aspect of Consciousness that you started to love, and then somehow that affects how that life progresses. If the love is deep enough, you want to learn music. It's like it's guiding the path that life will go through. But it can go in all kinds of wrong directions too, because once you don't know what the Self is and you take the self to be a person — this body — your interests become the most important interests in the universe.

So it's not a pure and perfect power. But once you see what the Self is, it does start to clear up how minds work. Interest is there, and it is fueling how lives proceed.

QSo, in the context of these fast thoughts coming in — I want to disinterest myself from those. I want to withdraw my interest from those fast thoughts and slow it down. This "I" that has the ability to give interest to something or withdraw interest from something — is it...?

NYeah. So it's because, through the whole path that you've walked, the mind itself will have changed. Once you notice that these thoughts are shallow and they're wrong — because they refer to a meaning that does not exist — that has to come first. The insight is there: I am not a thing. I'm not a thing in this body. And this thought, whatever it's referring to, is just imaginary.

So when that knowledge is there, it's automatic that the thoughts lose steam. They can only get your interest if you take up the role of the "me" that the thought is building. If you take up that role, they become strong. But as soon as you see through it, they automatically lose power. So it works a bit differently than you becoming disinterested. It's you seeing through the facade. The disinterest is there because of seeing through it — seeing that it's not true. And if you remember what you are, what the nature of Awareness is, it just takes the wind out of the sails. How will the thoughts continue on their own without interest? They just become like background chatter, and then start to die down and are gone. Poof.

QThank you. Yes. Can you hear me now? Sorry. Yes.

Just following on from what you opened with — I understand all this intellectually, and I also have experience... experienced all this, but still there's still interest. For example, two or three weeks ago I woke up — but not the body or the mind. There was Awareness from sleeping all night. I think it was very early in the morning. I just became aware. There was Awareness. But that Awareness was not localized. It was just empty silence. Just pure Awareness. And I was aware that the body was asleep. I was aware that there was no mind — I don't know where it had gone. Was it asleep? I don't know. But I couldn't localize, and then I started to panic. At that time I had to remember my problems. As soon as I remembered my problems, I localized, and I went, "Thank God."

It was actually quite funny, because as soon as I remembered my problems it's like the mind woke up, and then when the mind woke up, the body woke up. But I... help me, please. I have no interest in these fleeting experiences. I have no interest in any philosophical explanations or debates about the self. I just want to have it as a constant.

NSo when you say there was just Awareness and then you started to panic — what were you at that point, in that Awareness?

QI was... it was just Awareness. But maybe it was that the mind... another mind, because the other mind wasn't there. When I...

NWhat were you, though? Like, what were you? Because you cannot be two.

QI was nothing. I was just... I was everywhere and nowhere.

NSo were you the Awareness?

QYeah.

NSo what was there — was the Awareness separate to you?

QNo, there was no separation in it. The separation came when the mind came.

NSo the Self, or what you are, is the Awareness. And in it, when that panic or whatever was happening, that was already the mind — the thinking had started. The thinking would cast you as a something in the Awareness, or something that possesses the Awareness, and then it can start to go wherever — that panic, and wanting to localize, and all that.

That is still a sort of thinking about it, which is not accurate, because you are the Awareness. Whatever comes in it is local. It's always local. It can never be... it's reflecting the process taking place. When an experience happens, that is reflecting a process taking place. The process is local. The experience will always be local. But what you have to realize is that nothing has changed. So when this is happening right now — a very local experience — you are still the Awareness.

QYes. I wonder, because sometimes I feel like I'm too interested in my local self. There's too much interest in it. Maybe there's avoidance.

NThen there is no local self. There are local experiences, but there cannot be two kinds of you — one is a global self and one is a local self. That's not right. One has to be you. So either we are the character — the dream character — but then that character cannot be that which is aware. But you obviously are aware. So that reveals the true Self. You're always the Awareness, and in all this, whatever is happening, the experience is happening. Now, the interest question — as I said, it's not so clear-cut. It's that one is more about attention. You don't want to be so involved in the thinking and so on and so forth. But interest doesn't work like that.

I think when I start to speak of it, it ends up sounding like attention. But you have to understand how things actually work. They're not working on intention. They're not working based on somebody deciding to do something, because that would be an individual self having power over physics — having power over the laws of physics and all that. That's not how things work. So when a thought rises up and it's very gripping, that is the nature of that experience, and you cannot make it less intense or whatever. That is not about interest. I mentioned a bit about psychedelics — once the substance is in your body, there's no way you can make that experience less intense. You can try disinterest, whatever, running away — that's not how it works. Interest is in the moment. Where are you placing your love?

Or how do you treat the thought — as my thought, or as an object to be pushed away, repressed? How do you receive the next experience? And if it really doesn't interest you, it'll just go away. Bow and go away off stage, and the next thing will come. Sorry, no, go ahead.

QI see the ebbs and flows of the mind. I see the thoughts. And sometimes I do get interested and sometimes I don't.

But still, I feel like I'm still in the mind. I'm not experiencing the Self, the true Self. And then I sometimes think, maybe my personal self, you know, the human me — maybe I'm not ripe. Or these are just thoughts. I don't know.

NYeah, to investigate that: is there a personal self? Can there be an experience of self once you've seen that before the mind arose, all there was was pure Awareness? Can there be another kind of experience of self? There cannot. This is the experience of Self. The experience of Self means to be aware, and the existence of experience is telling you that you are aware. That is the Self knowing Self.

You're getting there. It's just a bit more clarity that there is no personal self. There is no small self. You're not doing anything wrong, because your only nature is to be aware. You can't do it better or worse. You're not unaware right now.

QHow come I'm not experiencing that Awareness on a constant basis?

NAre you not aware right now?

QI am, but... because I know how it feels. I know how it's... because I've experienced it.

NYou're talking about when the mind is silent. But Awareness is not just when the mind is silent.

QEven when the mind is there, there's this other Awareness where there's so much peace and silence — even when the mind is going crazy. But then I get scared, or I avoid... I don't know why.

NSo when we have those kinds of experiences, they are still experiences. It's the mind expanding or silencing, and in that you notice the depth of what the Self is, what you are.

But that cannot be the constant state. If you want this body-mind to function as it's supposed to, that cannot be the constant state. So it is correct for the body to start to feel nervous and anxious, because it cannot do its duty — it cannot do its job. Unless you're ready to give up everything and live like the sages of old, that's not the goal. So it's fine. You are already seeing more than many. And we have to learn to see the truth in the most mundane moment, as I have said before. You are always aware, and in that, you are always the Self. You cannot change between being one kind of Self and another kind of Self.

QYeah. Thank you so much.

NAll right, [unclear].

QHello. It's not really a question so much as wanting you to expand on something. I was watching one of your videos yesterday, quite an old one — forgive me because I don't remember the name of it.

It was fundamentally saying that the Awareness, the being — my being and your being and everybody's being — is the same. The Awareness that I experience, that we all have, is this... I mean, when you put it in the video, it was like — that was amazing. It was just something almost like out of the Gita, almost, of weight and importance. It was saying that the experience we have is the same — not just here, but everywhere. I mean literally everywhere, in the whole universe. When I — and maybe I perceived that wrongly — but I think that was the gist of what you were saying. And to me, that's totally fascinating and intriguing. As you talk about depth, the depth that you put into something like that — to me it's just... there's just so much in that. And there's always the mind wanting to comprehend it, but when actually all I want to do is...

So like I said, this isn't really a question so much as — I love it, it's wonderful. Is there more? How do you ever comprehend it? Or is there never a comprehension of that? Is it just an acceptance of that being the way it is?

NThere is a kind of comprehension that is the realization. But when I say — do you know which video was it? Was it the Ramana Maharshi one? The heart.

QI really wish I could — I've been watching a lot of your older videos, just catching up. I watched them when they first came out because I've left a comment, so I know that I did, but I'm getting old. I remember there were just images of the universe and planets, just flying through space.

So it did seem — maybe I didn't get it right.

NOne thing you said that I would like to pick up on is "we having Awareness." Which you already have seen — it's not like that. We don't have Awareness, because who is the "we" that can possess Reality? You cannot put Reality in a jar. Awareness is the base Reality. Before any experience can take place, that's what's there.

Experience begins with the knowledge "I am." And that "I am" is not words. It's not human thought. It is just the basic atom of knowledge, of Thought. So even if there is an insect, there is some experience, and it begins with the knowledge "I am." And that's what I mean — that in the entire universe, anywhere, any life, that basic atom of knowledge is there. And the knowledge is telling the Awareness: you are, you exist. Because there's nobody else who can listen to that.

There's no individual self-entity that is conscious and can receive that message, because that goes against a very fundamental realization that is called nonduality. Nonduality is realizing there are no separate selves, because when I look for myself I don't find anything. I find thoughts, I find sensations, feelings. I don't find an individual self. And all I can say about myself is: I am aware. How do I know it? Because each experience — that's what it's saying. Even whatever the content of the thought, what it's actually saying is: you are, you are aware, you are here, you are real. So that's what every experience is saying. No matter what the words are saying, what the actual knowledge is is that one fact being repeated in every experience.

That one fact is being repeated, and to the sage that is Self-knowledge. It's everywhere. It's every moment Self-knowledge. It's there. It's present. It's self-evident. And so there's nothing to achieve. There's nothing to attain. Who will you save? And somehow you still go out, because it's so funny — nobody is looking at life this way, not understanding the message, which is just: you don't need anything.

It's the first thing — when a child is born and the body starts to function, the first experience, what would it say? You exist, you are here, you are real. No matter if the next experience is illusion or whatever, you are real. And that is how to look at Thought a bit deeper. Not just at the surface level of what it's saying. That might be wrong, but then it's saying something more. And then the thoughts start to sing. You see where Rumi was writing from? Or even Shakespeare. You see in Shakespeare you find clear nondual statements. You see where the inspiration came from.

QThank you very much.

QI don't hear you yet. Hi Nabeel, can you hear me?

NYeah.

QI just wanted to say thank you for your YouTube videos. They've been fantastic and fascinating and very inspirational. I'll have to leave soon, I've got something on.

I'm still very kind of intellectual about all of this. I'll go for a walk and I'll try to remember some key point, and then I'll try to visualize things in a certain way. Or for example, I might see my sister and try to imagine her as a pattern — expressing a unique pattern, I suppose, as part of the universe. The closest I get to any real sense of joy is, you know, at night, if I listen to you or some other thing and I've got my eyes closed, and then I can go into a real darkness, a beautiful darkness. That seems to be the closest I can come to this. And yet the sages seem to talk about light and illumination, but I go to this beautiful darkness, and it's very still and momentary really.

NThe darkness, to the sages, is not darkness. You find in the darkness there can be reflections, and that's what you see when you see something — a reflection. How can there be a reflection in the darkness? Because in the darkness there is light. It's like when you look at the moon at night. It's not just that the light is where the moon is. All around the moon, where it's dark, there is light. It's just that there's nothing to reflect it. The sages don't talk about light as only the reflections. So what you're seeing is not wrong. There's no difference between darkness and light for the sage.

But next time you go out on a walk, don't think of your sister as a pattern. Think: no, she is not a pattern. She is you. Think of it this way — she is you at a different point in time and space. Exactly what you are. At some point the stream branched, and there are two streams of experience, and they're both being experienced simultaneously. So as you're walking, you look at this experience, whatever is going on, and you try to imagine what your sister is right now. She is also aware, but the experience is different. So is there any difference between what you are and what she is?

You'll find that whatever difference the mind comes up with is part of the experience, or it will refer to some experience that happened at some point in that stream. So now there's this river, and it's branching into streams. But what is aware — that is you, that is your sister, that is any point where there is any experience. What is aware is the Awareness. That is the one insight.

QI can see that what we share at a fundamental level is something like the life force, or whatever energy. I can see that we are the same in that way.

NNo, don't think of it that way. It's much more than that, because that becomes theoretical. Right now — what are you? You can't say "I am what I'm looking at." I'm not the sound I'm hearing. I'm not the thought. What are you? The only quality that is inarguably you is that of being aware. That is why you are the Awareness. That is your quality. Anything else is not really your quality, because you can validate it right away.

What am I in all this? As I'm out walking, what am I in all this? The trees, the skies — eventually you might see them as also I. But what is most essentially I is the Awareness. And in that sense, you cannot find a single distinction between you and your sister, or whoever. You look at it like that for a while, and then it sinks in.

QThat's lovely. Thank you.

Can I just ask also, Nabeel — your relationship with other people, the body's relationship with other people — does that just function as a day-to-day thing, as we do in our interactions with people? Or do you see people that you know well and they appear to you in a different way? As just your Awareness?

NYeah. The thing that's been cut off is the idea of people. So as I'm interacting with you, I know it's thought interacting with thought. It's not one person interacting with another person, but at both sides — who is experiencing the thought? I know who the Self is. The Self is the Awareness in any instance. So of course, if it's just an interaction on the street and someone says, "Give me all your money," it's just a thought interacting with thought. I'm not going to give all my money, because I'm not that stupid. But I know that who is behind that thought is the Self.

So if there is a scenario where I see someone is suffering, it's not that you wouldn't help — because who is having that terrible experience? But it doesn't make you gullible either. In a way, yes, it's almost the same — but also, when you look in someone's eyes, you know who you're talking to. It's not a person. In some of my videos, I have close-ups of the human eye. I love that, because when you really close up on the human eye, you just see a hole.

When we usually talk to each other, we look in the eyes and we think we're talking to a person. But when you zoom in, it's just a hole. Light's dropping down the hole, and then there's stuff behind there. It's all meat. There's no person in there.

QIs it like two thought streams interacting, or is it like one thought stream?

NSure. Sorry, it's getting quite theoretical. If we zoom out, it's one huge universe interacting. It's one thought stream — one, but there are branches. Sometimes they merge, sometimes they divide.

And so yes — one raging river.

QThank you. Thank you.

QYes, Nabeel. You're back. I'm back again. You can't get rid of me.

I just wanted to answer your question about what the video was that we were speaking about. I just looked it up and it was called — it's two years ago — and it's called "Why Experience Is Local and Limited, But You Are Not." I just wanted to clarify that's where I came up with that question. That's what it was based on. It is kind of implying — I think it's just saying what you're saying to everybody this evening, this morning. We're not... there's not a real self. There's not a permanent self. There's not a self in the way that we think of it. Anyway, that's really all I wanted to say.

NYeah, I remember that one now. That one came from a different angle. A lot of the trouble is that the thought is that once you realize, you shouldn't just experience this mind — you should experience something more global, something more infinite.

But experience is local. That's what the video explains. Experience cannot be global. In fact, where are all the experiences appearing right now? In the global context, which is just pure Awareness. Pure Awareness means there's nothing impure, which means there's no additional thing. Experience is the additional thing — not that it's impure, but it's something extra.

When there's only Awareness, there's no sound, no sight, no feeling, no thought. That is the same as silence, the same as nothing in the experiential sense. Even in the objective sense, nothing. That is the global context. But if you take, let's say, the field of electromagnetism — you can create a little local circuit. It has not localized the field. The field is still global, still universal. There's just a local circuit. And what if the field were aware? What would it experience? It would experience a local circuit. It would not experience all of itself, because there's no fluctuation at the global level. There are only local little fluctuations, and those are what get noticed.

And that is what Awareness is like.

QThis, to me... it just throws up. I think we could probably sit here and talk for the next two or three weeks and it would just roll and roll and roll into the bigger picture and the deeper understanding of what you're saying and of what's being pointed to, which is incredibly beautiful and wonderful. But as I say, the more you talk about it and the more you experience it, it just seems deeper and deeper and deeper, and more and more intriguing and fascinating and wonderful. Okay. Thank you so much.

NThank you.

QYeah, [unclear]. Sorry, me again. Just following on from what Chris was saying and what you were saying, especially lately... I find it — I don't know — I find it so frustrating, interacting with people, because I just see thoughts and then I have to engage with my thoughts. And then it's just... I do have compassion, because as I said, when I had the experience it's like something just switched. Before, I used to be in the thoughts, and I used to think I was the thought, and I used to just be a normal person. But now... it had been a while, but it's like I just go through a process, and now I just feel so frustrated, and then I end up isolating myself.

Because whenever I end up talking to people, I always try to... bring them to realize that it's just thoughts. But obviously everyone is at their own stage, and I just find it so frustrating. How the first thing is... we're not supposed to try to preach this to everyone. No, I don't preach. It just naturally comes, because the people that come to me naturally start talking about... I don't know, it just happens naturally.

I used to, initially when it happened, then I realized — no, I have to interact with people at their level. Everyone is at their own level of understanding. Initially I was too excited when it happened. I wanted to let people know, because what I could see was we were living in a mansion, but people were just in the basement. We were all in the basement, but there was a whole big mansion when I experienced the light. But then slowly I grew, and I realized no, everyone is at their own understanding, at their own evolutionary stage. But now... I think it's my own... I'm projecting, because I'm frustrated with my own self, that...

NYeah, that's what's happening.

So in your own mind there's several additional kinds of thought processes taking place. Before, when you talked to someone, there was just a simple interaction. Now there's an expectation — now you've realized this, you feel you should be somehow different, there should be a different level you should be on. And then there are additional thoughts spiraling off. But what is wrong here is that nonduality is the great equalizer. There are no levels, there are no different people at different levels. That's not possible. Because who are these people?

When I talked to Chris, we talked about the raging river. In the river, let's say it's branching with lots of different streams. All this mind can do is try to evaluate what's going on in the stream over there, to which it has no access until it joins with that stream. There's no access to that stream. So what is it trying to evaluate? It's trying to imagine a different stream, evaluate it — and while it's doing that, it's again going back to the old way of thinking that there are these separate people. Which is the first thing that's wrong — who is the person?

QYeah, but there are others that are so identified with their mind. The ones that do bad things — it's not levels, but it is the degree of identification with the mind. Some people are so identified with their minds, and then they end up becoming selfish and doing things...

NAgain, the problem is there are selfish thoughts, but there is no self. So there cannot be selfish people.

The mind has a certain way of thinking about the world. That involves intention and actions and morality and all of that. And what you find is there's actually no one to blame. No matter how an action might arise, there was no person behind it. So I think your inquiry has to focus on what the mind is calling a person. What can we call a person?

QI see them as just thought forms. Some thoughts are just too identified with thoughts, and then they end up — it's even sometimes funny — doing silly things, not so nice in human form, but it's because they're so identified with the mind.

I feel like at one stage, before the experiences, I was part of it as well. And I don't know — is it growing? On the one hand I know there is no growing, because Awareness cannot grow. But maybe I'm just lost in my own thoughts and projecting. Because I had another experience as well, where someone I really cared about and loved died. They took their own life. And they came to me to speak to me after — I got a shock. I never knew this was possible. That was another shock. It was like a shared experience where they were apologizing for taking their own life. But at the same time I was telling them there was no need — and I didn't even understand what I was saying. I was telepathically communicating, which is another strange thing. I was saying I don't know — that there is no forgiveness, because there is nothing to forgive, because it was all just the one. And I didn't even understand what that was that I was saying.

NSo that's where your inquiry should remain. What is the one? Because the mind keeps flipping between "yes, there is the one," but then splitting it into people. People are the selves the Buddha was talking about. There is no such thing as a person as a separate self. In the one, there are all kinds of experiences. All kinds of terrible things have happened and will continue to happen. Who's going to stop them? Because they are not designed, they are not being orchestrated by some entity. Nobody is in charge. And in your own mind you also have to see nobody is in charge. So when there's the frustration and the ideas of wanting to be different in some way, there's something there.

Also, you can't stop that. But somehow you will see it in that way, and the frustration will go away. You will see that who is there in charge? Who is there to blame? Nothing. No one. Always one. The Self is all. The Self is all. I am not. The Self is not just I. The Self is all. You just go deep into that realization. That's it — go deep.

QDo I just observe my thoughts? Because that's what I do. And then I observe the observer.

NAnd then... you need to question what is meant by person. What is a person? Because there's still the idea of people. So when the thinking comes up with all these ideas of people, you should inquire: what is it? What is a person? What am I?

QI feel like it's just a bundle of thoughts in my own mind. Other people are just bundles of thoughts. They just...

NI mean, that's going towards too much of "I" again. That's the wrong direction.

You can't discard people as thoughts, but remain as "I am" — that's still real. When we discard, we discard the personal self first. When that's gone, people are the same as what I am. And what I am is not a personal thing. In a sense you're trading off. That's why I like to do videos on Rumi, because he explains it so well. In one way, you sacrifice everything you held to be me. Everything. It's a disaster. In that sense, it's the end.

QYes.

NBut then he says, "But then there's nothing to lose. There's nothing to fear, because then you will rise up from the earth and embrace the endless heavens." Why would you embrace the endless heavens? Because you see what it is. Every life — look, you're looking down at someone. Oh, there's no person there. And what is there is the deepest, ultimate Reality experiencing what is going on in that frail little body. That is what's going on. See through the idea of a person.

QHow to give up the self — how do I go about giving up the self?

NThrough inquiry, through the idea of self. It's happening, but you inquire with everything at your disposal.

You don't just observe thought. You turn thought to inquire into thought. When there's a thought about a person, about me or whatever other person, inquire: who is this talking about? What exactly is a person? What am I? And you have all the clues. You have all the evidence. Now you're putting the jigsaw together.

QYeah. And I'm so blessed, and I'm so thankful to you and to all the masters. Every time I have a question, just the other day I opened up Maharaj's "I Am That" — just the right page — and the answer is there. I just feel so... I don't know what I did. I just feel so blessed. So thank you, so so much.

NThank you.

All right. Who wants to go next?

QYes, Nabeel. Nobody else wanted to talk, so I wanted one more question. This is a proper question. This statement of seeing a snake in a rope — I just can't... I understand it's like seeing something in something that isn't real, that's an illusion, but I don't see how it relates to my experience, or to the experience. I just can't see it. I was hoping maybe you could fill me in.

NYeah. So you have to think of the scope of that analogy. The first scope is the personal self. What was thought of as the personal self turns out to be something completely harmless, completely not what you thought it was, and completely inanimate. It's the perfect analogy. A lot of the spiritual journey is tussling with the ego — "I'm going to destroy my ego and overcome my ego and attain my higher self." You're fighting with the snake. But there is no snake. It's a rope. You're fighting shadows. It's an inanimate thing, and it's tangled up. It's just a rope in knots.

Because of all the evolutionary conditioning and everything that happened in this life, it created a certain chain of thoughts. A certain thought process started. It created an image of self. But what was thought of as "I" turns out to be inanimate. It's insentient. That is seeing the snake in the rope. Once you see it, you can never see the snake again. So when we go back, you need a deeper look. The other scope is that you can apply it to the world as well. If the world feels hostile — an animal in the world must look at its environment as hostile. You find friends, you look for enemies, you hunt, you find food. The world is then your snake. It can be dangerous. It can destroy you. It's venomous.

And then you see the world as a rope. It's not what you thought it was. It's not separate to you. It's not separate to what you are. Because what is the world? The world is inseparable from the seeing, the hearing, the feeling, the sensing — all of that. That is the world. And you cannot separate that from what you are. So again, we find that where there was something vast and dangerous, which would outlive you and kill you eventually, it turns out to be not that.

But it was an analogy, I think, designed for a certain era. I heard it was because there used to be fires, and the rope would burn down and it would look like a snake — the ashes would be preserved in the form in which it burned down, something like that. We haven't seen it, so sometimes you can't relate to the analogy. But sometimes I'm running and I see something that looked like a dead animal, and it turns out it was just some garbage. So when you thought of it as a dead animal, you feel concerned — is it there, do you need to do something? And it's just garbage. Immediately, once you see that something you thought was sentient turns out to be insentient, it's an amazing shift. Not a care in the world. Who cares? And so we are taking away something that was insentient, that took up this garb of being the thing that is conscious. "I am the person. I am the thing that's conscious." You're lifting it and you say, "Oh no, that's not the thing that's conscious." And it should completely rewrite how everything in this brain works — but it often doesn't. So we must go back to that single insight.

Because it's ridiculous that you are again seeing the snake in a rope when you know it's a rope. It's time to stop being scared.

QYeah, great explanation. Thank you. Another question here is about the Heart Sutra. I think it says, "In the seen, there will be only the seen. In the heard, only the heard," and so on. That's how the Buddha told Bahiya to train himself, and Bahiya got it immediately. But I'm listening and trying to get it, and it's taking a long time for me.

So the question is: in the sense there's only the sensed, but is it me — pure Consciousness — that is actually the Sentience that is sensing it? Like, that pain or whatever is there... how do you, practically, contextualize that? What are you supposed to do as a practitioner? In the sense there's only the sense, but that sense is actually producing feelings and pain and stuff like that. So practically, how do you contextualize that as you're trying to stay with that?

NYeah, that is one of my favorite teachings, because it's just perfect. However, it approaches from the Buddha's teaching, and his objective is just to show you there's no self. He does not say this is the Self. He just shows you there is no self, and then the answer is left for you to find out.

Because once you see there is no self, and you see it perfectly clearly, there is no doubt that the final answer is there in front of you. So when he says... Bahiya went to him because he had this sudden doubt. Bahiya was a revered sage himself, but he doubted — is he an Arahant? Is there something left for me to understand and attain? That's why he went to the Buddha. And then the Buddha is saying: there is no you there. In the seen, there's only the seen. In the heard, only the heard. So what you just said — that there's still the Sentience — no, the Buddha is breaking that down. Later we can talk about Sentience or Awareness, but here he is passing on the realization. There is no you there.

In the seen, there's only the seen. In the heard, only the heard. In the pain, only the pain. The thought of you being there feeling the pain is a thought. In the cognized, there's only the cognized. So the thought is also just a thought. There is no self there. And when Bahiya hears this, he does not need to train himself. Even though at the start it says "you should train yourself thus," immediately Bahiya — because he is a sage — sees: yes, there is no me here. So who am I worried about attaining, or being an Arahant or not? Problem solved. There is no me here. Then what is all this? What is the seeing, the hearing, the sensing? What is it? That is the question. The Buddha might not have said it that way, but he was talking to Bahiya.

And he was interacting. If there is truly no self — in the sense of the kind of nonduality where the no-self is taken to a certain extreme — then why does the Buddha stop? Bahiya does not exist, so why would you stop to teach? So he is interacting with what the Buddha has recognized as the fundamental Reality. And the teaching goes in and is comprehended in that Reality. In that Reality, what is found is that the "me" that all the concerns were for does not exist. And then it is clear what that Reality is. It is not me. It is not "I" in any of the previous sense, but it is I.

And that is why it was left unsaid — because he had noticed how those teachings of self and so on would mostly not be going anywhere. So he wanted to create his own way of doing it. The Sentience is not separable from the seeing there. It's not like there's something sentient, or Sentience itself, and then there is a certain thing separate which is the seeing. The seeing is the Sentience. You have to — so when we contemplate the [unclear] Sutra, you take it very plainly, very direct. It is pointing out that right now there is no you here as a separate thing. All right. Any last comments or questions? If not, we'll end there. Thank you all for your time today.