You are That which is beyond experience [public version]

NSo Self-realization does not depend on having a specific experience. You do not require a unique and special experience for Realization. Realization is when you look past the experiences to what is most real, always real. So, in a way, you could say it's going beyond experience.

Going beyond experience. So, if you question what it means to go beyond experience — what is beyond experience? The usual answer would be: before you were born, there were your parents, there was this planet, these stars and all that, the universe. That's beyond your experience.

But actually all of that is based on images, memories, experiences you had. It's based on mental models. So that universe came with experience. What was before that?

And you might say, well, it's almost like... I did not exist before that. And that is the point towards which you're being nudged. That point where you did not exist. That nonexistence is the actual state in which you experienced life begin.

So, that is also your state. Inexistence, non-existence, the state before birth — the Absolute. It is not inexistence. That is what you start to see if you just look past the specific experiences to what is most real, what is beyond experience.

It is that intrinsic nature — what is called Buddha Nature. The starting point of anything, any experience, is at that point. So what came first — you or the universe? The universe everybody thinks of came later. It came with experience.

And before experience there was no distinction between you, universe, or anything else. There was no experiential state. That's what's beyond experience. But that does not mean that you have to end experience to Realize.

Because you take what is in this moment and notice what is beyond experience. And anything you can name or think of or notice, it's all experiential. But you are not an experience. The experiences are not aware.

You do not appear in the experiences. The experiences appear to You. So You are what is beyond experience. So what is thought of as inexistence — not existing — is just not existing in the form of an object, or in the form of an experience, or in the form of anything observable, but it is not inexistence.

It is the true existence of what never changes. This nature of being aware, which is intrinsically you. So You are That which is beyond experience. All right, let's do Q&A.

Hey, Rachel. Nice to see you.

QI've been waiting for this talk. When you ask the question — you do this frequently — "Who were you before your parents were born?" I ponder that a lot. And when you teach us that we are Awareness, we are Consciousness, and there is not one piece of Consciousness in me and a piece in everybody else — it just doesn't exist the way we conceptualize matter, because it isn't matter —

that helps to clarify and differentiate between the world of experience and the inexperiential. So thank you for all of those pointers that you've given us, to be able to come to an understanding about that. My question is: I am Awareness experiencing this body, experiencing my life with family and everything else. And my question is about the conditioning of emotions and feelings...

Can that actually be neutralized with any practice? And I know you always say the point is to accept everything, including all of that. When that can hurt people and it hurts me, I'm just wondering if there's any way to manage that somehow, moment by moment.

NSo in the traditions, especially in the Indian traditions, there's the path of jnana or knowledge, and then there's the path of yoga and so on.

What you're talking about is often the path of the yogis — they focus on some specific thing, a path of overcoming mind, or a special skill and so on. But jnana goes straight to the heart of what is true. Once that is realized, then everything falls in place. There's no special control over emotions and so on. They will still arise.

Whereas if someone has spent 30 years meditating, they will have those kind of powers. You have trained your mind. But all of that is through practice. Whereas jnana, and what I talk about, is just one direct Realization. And after that, yes, whatever comes in life you take it as — that is life.

But then consider when you have an orchestra. You might start with one instrument playing, and then another joins, and another joins, and it reaches a crescendo and this huge, very complex — there's lots of notes, music going on — and that is experience. But what was there before that is actually what is aware — Awareness. It's just the Awareness. So, whatever the music is describing has nothing to do — well, it has everything to do with describing what Awareness is — but nothing in terms of identity.

Whatever is happening, whatever opinions, whatever feelings — it's all part of the music. And whenever they reference self, jnana means you should be aware of what that Self means. You catch when it's the wrong "me" and "you", and when the music is actually describing you.

QOkay, I get that.

So it really is just about becoming aware when the body is triggered and the body feels something, and then the whole human experience including the emotions and the feelings get kind of triggered because it's so intimately entangled — that the emotions will occur, and it's just about recognizing when they occur and when they arrive. Is that it isn't me, it's just the experience. Am I understanding that correctly?

NYou'll see that the experiences... It's just seeing deeply that the experiences are empty of having any self-identity.

They're not attached to a self. They're empty of self.

QHow does that relate to memory and conditioning? Because memory and conditioning is all of the experiences of everything occurring within Awareness.

So can you help me understand the connection with the memory and conditioning in the physical form which arises?

NSo memory is an interesting one, because one of the insights that hit hard was that all of the memories which I associated with myself — they flash past, and you see you were not in them. None of the memories contained you.

They are memories of experiences, of voices and faces and... So again, the memories themselves are showing that there is no self-entity.

Okay. And the behaviors — the habits you dislike and you can't change — you look at them and you say, "Oh, it's just like a muscle spasming. It's just happening."

It's because, whatever happened, the chemical imbalance in a muscle — or in terms of behaviors, there are longer-term reasons for them.

So, it's not that you completely give up in terms of life. It's pretty normal. You can try to improve and change and all that. The only difference is what is meant by "I."

QMy first experience of this — I was at a Buddhist monastery, staying with some nuns. I had some very abusive trauma as a child, and with the meditation, what arose was: Nobody has ever done anything to this One, and nothing has ever happened to this One. Yes, things have happened to the body. There's been experiences over time, but nothing has actually... that phrase arose: "Nothing has ever happened to this One. And no one has ever done anything to this One." And it's only when I started listening to you that I understood what "This One" meant.

It meant Awareness — being the Awareness. Nothing happens to the Awareness. The Awareness witnesses all of it. So, thank you. I appreciate that clarification.

NAnd that meant so much to you because it arose from inside you. If someone says that to someone who's been abused, it's pointless. It's the wrong thing to say.

But because of how it arose, it worked. It meant something. Nader, you have your hand up.

QExperience happens and it's experienced... then when it's over... While it's happening, it's you, you can't say no — you have to fully experience it, so it's fully...

So any aspect of it is fully experienced. The trick is afterwards — when the experience goes away, the memory of it lingers. And that memory is what gets you off your centeredness, off being Awareness, off being aware of being Awareness. So when experience goes away, the memory of it is the trick.

It arises from Emptiness and subsides to Emptiness. But the memory wants to extend that experience — and that's one thing I caught in myself. Why is it that I have the realization, and then something happens, and boom — I can't find it anymore? Where did it go? Experience happens, you have to experience it, there's no way you can say no to that.

It could have emotions and all that. But when it goes, that's where you have a choice. If you train your mind — maybe it's not mind, but yeah, probably mind — you stop the memory of that and go back to Emptiness. I was also thinking about something I read from Nisargadatta in the book.

Somebody asked him how do we function without memory, and he said, "Live every moment fresh — you don't need memory, every moment fresh." I think that kind of clicked in me. What's your take?

NEvery moment is fresh.

Memory itself is an experience which is fresh in the moment. They're manufactured. That's why we often think, "Oh, I remember it clearly," but we're often wrong. It's just the experience appearing. But you said when the experience is there, that is you. But you are beyond experience. What we see is that whatever the experience is, it has no self-essence.

There's no self contained in the thought. There's no thinker of the thought. It's just the thought, and it has no... in itself there's no identity to the thought or the sound. In some senses it's very easy to see it. Nobody associates taste with identity. Same with sound. So it's coming from somewhere. It has nothing to do with you.

QSo — can I interrupt you, Nabeel? Sorry. So when you say that the experience happens, it's not — I mean, at a level, all of it is you, right? Even the experience is you, otherwise it would be dual. So yes, everything is you. So there's a difference between the source of light and then the reflections of that light.

NSo there's the technical non-duality that the mind tries to get to, and the actual... how it is. And how it is, is: in the experience there's no self to be found. There's no actual self. Anything you inspect — if you inspect it clearly — it's fresh, it's just that, and it's not you.

You do not appear in the experience. If I took the collection of what you're looking at and hearing and so on, that is not you. Because now that's gone and you're still here. And now that's gone and you're still here.

What you are is realized through that Buddha Nature, which is beyond experience. Everything else is interdependent. That's the teaching on dependent arising. Everything is interconnected — the body and the mind, the physical and the mental and all that, all of that is arising. But there's one intrinsic fact which never changes.

That's the fundamental truth. That is beyond experience. And that is most Self. Everything else is like the effulgence of the Self, the light — but then there's the actual Self.

QYeah, experience — you experiencing — is you. You cannot say no to experiencing; it happens. You have to experience it. So that's probably a better way to say that.

NSometimes I like to say: you are — it's not happening to you, you are the happening of it. So the happening of it is the experiencing, but that experiencing cannot take place without that fundamental nature, which is most you. You are the aware factor, the Awareness. And then we can talk about happening — otherwise, there's no happening.

QYou speak absolute truth. Me, I'm at the level where I want to catch my mind not to go astray. Still bring it back. So it's like practical tips of how to stay longer in the realization, per se.

NJust give up trying to stay there, because you are what you are.

QNo, it's not that easy in real life. So if something happens, the fact is that you experience it. You cannot say no to it. And in the act of experiencing — could be strong emotions, strong things. And those things when they come, it's like a storm.

When they go, you want to still be standing. But the thing is, you're going to be blown in the air with the storm and then you can't find your footing. So I'm kind of talking from... I know all along I am aware...

NNature allows for storms. Nature does not say no there should be no hurricanes. You are not being blown about. That's all...

QIt's not you thrown about... But my mind is. And it's the mind that is here, and I have to use this mind to get beyond mind, to make it shut up.

And then everything — you're absolutely right — when the mind shuts up, all of this is to shut up the mind. The mind gets to a point that says, "I'm better off being quiet," and then everything just reveals itself and you are there.

All of it is to just get the mind to the level that says, "I'm better off to be still." No, I mean, at the end of the day we are here. We are here. This is the mind, this is the body, and we are using this mind to get beyond it.

Beyond experience, like you just said.

NSo even when the mind is chattering — when I say beyond experience, it does not require experience to be absent. It's there. It's you. Whether experience is there or not.

And when the mind is chattering, it still cannot change the truth. It cannot change the basis of Reality. Who is chattering about what? It's all self-referencing — everything in that orchestra piece, but not you.

When the mind is blown about, is the mind an entity? Like, we sometimes... it's like we're pushing the Self down into another puppet. Is the mind an actual entity?

QAs much as everything else is...

NThe mind is just a loose category. It's a category of whatever you collect all the experience in the moment; that's mind. So it's not an entity.

QBut is the body an entity?

NSame thing. Body and mind come together — it's the same.

So when you see there's no entity, no self-entity, and the experience has no self-essence, then whatever the experience is... the experience can be a storm of emotion. What did it prove or change? Nothing.

There was no self involved. It was that orchestra playing. And then when there's this idea of quieting, quietening the orchestra, quietening the mind — that itself is wrong. You can drop that.

Because while the orchestra is playing or while it's quiet, it does not change what you are. So always look back: What am I? What is beyond experience?

QBut that's the part I'm... I know mind is not that which realizes. Mind only realizes that it is not real. That's as far as it goes.

But I also read that Awareness doesn't know about itself. Awareness does not know — and that's why... so what is it that realizes? Like, when we say "you realize," who is the "you"? Is it Awareness that realizes itself, or the mind that realizes...

NWhen it is said Awareness does not know, that just means that original State is a state of not knowing, there's no experience. But when experience appears, who knows it other than the Awareness? It's not correct to say Awareness does not know. It's the basic nature of Awareness to be aware — of experience, but also of itself.

You are aware that you are aware. So when the mind says, "You are aware," the One who notices it is Awareness. That is you. You notice it.

Awareness is aware. But not in the way of a universal mind — that's how it goes wrong. Because we imagine, "Oh, if Awareness should be aware of all these lives at the same time, because it is aware. It is! But each life is like a little island, because of just how these processes play out. It's little dream worlds. All dream worlds.

QYeah, that's true. But the one that the realization occurs to — the mind knows all of these things are true, obviously it's true, but Awareness is aware. Yes, but there is a realization that has... when we say somebody gets enlightened, it's the realization that comes that says, "Okay, I am that Awareness." That realization...

NThat is heard by the One who was always there.

That is heard by Awareness. In that moment of Realization, the mind is shown to be not the Self. When we say "not the Self," it means it's not conscious. It's not a thing in its own right. It has no independent nature. So what is proven is all the things that got hooked to identity are not actual self-entities.

There's just — they're not conscious. They are the phenomena being observed. And of course the One who is observing is the One who has that realization. It's a flash. It's a realization. But because the True Nature is beyond experience, whatever experience showed you, when experience ends, it's gone.

I think Liam has his hand up for quite a while so let's let him speak now.

QCan you hear me, Nabeel? How are you?

NGood, thank you.

QI've been away. I was in China and I had a difficult experience. I got very unwell — very physically sick — and I had to have a lot of medication. I don't know, was I hallucinating or what, but I had a sense — listening there — of, as you say yourself, there's no such thing as a wise man, there is only wisdom, there's no such thing as a man of peace, there is only peace. And I had this kind of — I've had various experiences — but I had this one of being just the subtlest of touches, being aware of all these experiences: phenomenal rainbows of lights and colour, streetscapes and things like that.

And then I went through all these dark, heavy things. And I realised that I was just the Awareness of all of these — that I was untouched by them. But at the same time, I suffered from a very deep kind of melancholy, and a terrible sense of powerlessness. And I listened to you, and you were saying that about those who

cross the bridge — the "I Am" — and move back to Source, and so on. And it's only through losing this sense of the entity "me," this identity that is separate and apart. And I have lost interest in life, really — in people and things — not that I don't respond to people and care for people. And then I came back, and a son of mine is unwell.

He's troublingly unwell — from his particular... he's having a complaint of a personal nature — and he's a lovely, gentle soul, and he has other problems, and I'm upset about that. And yet at the same time, I kind of find that it's all an Awareness, and there is a kind of peace in the whole thing. And I don't want to run away to the peace. I want to face whatever life's challenges are. There's a lot on my plate, as my brother often says.

And it's not about the entity "me," but it's just trying to process the whole notion of the being — that Awareness is aware of everything. And that's a gift. It relieves something of the mind. As the lady in the group there — as she said about her past and things like that — I would have had very similar experiences. And I don't carry any levels of judgment or retribution for people. I really don't.

I kind of let everybody go, and I try to see everybody as part of me, and myself as part of everybody — as the at-onement is. And there are people who cannot step over and remain there. They shudder at that particular point. And yet if I say I don't want to shudder at that point, I'm afraid of losing something — it would be a kind of attachment or desire. Because I do love those around me. I am only as strong as my weakest link.

And in that regard, as [unclear] says — you live life as if it is real, but do realise it's not real. Now it's difficult to keep both balls in the air at the same time. Because it is, I think, a process — as you say yourself — some people have the enlightenment and they move into it and realise it at a deep level, and it's just convincing, it's an inexorable experience. And I know there's no going back from where I'm at. I'm on this particular road and I don't see a way back out of it.

As you say, the jnana is there — the knowledge is there. And this Awareness — there's no memory in it for me. It's beyond knowledge. It is the unborn. And I see the unborn, and yet at the same time, my mother was a wise woman, and I love my mother and my father — if they were here this moment — and all of that. I have all these particular attachments, and yet not a soul is lost, as you say yourself. We're all on the way home.

And it was good for me to come home — to this — to feel at home. And when this is spoken about and shared about... and I know it's about... So I'm struggling at that particular pivot point. I just want to surrender to it all, and yet at the same time I say, who is surrendering?

You know, surrender — just absorb me into it. Take me away. Let me be the peace that will surpass understanding. Let me be at peace and let me be still. That's my dilemma. Thank you. Thank you always for everything you're doing, and for all of those who contribute. I'm sorry for being emotional, but that's the way I am.

NThank you, Liam. Thank you for sharing.

So you raise some interesting angles I could go on. So see, the surrender — it links to what Nader was saying: who realizes, and who is to surrender? Because only Awareness is aware, no matter what's going on. It's Awareness that is aware.

It's the unconditioned, never-changing. That's where I always go back to Rumi — because he describes it, or the poets, they all describe it: the lover and the beloved. The mind — it's not really an entity, but it's that space of Thought, of deep Thought, of deep memory, of connecting all these experiences which link a life together. And that surrender, that path, it continues, because now the realization is there that the Self is just the Awareness.

You've seen it, and now the mind is linking that into this life. It's ready to give it up. Give it up. It's like what happened to Abraham — the story of Abraham realizing God. It's told in human terms of a man realizing what God is.

But that's what has happened to the mind. It has realized what is the true Self. So vast, so amazing, so... nothing to do with the one identity I held on to. But there's still all that love for all the ones in this life.

There's nothing wrong, nothing to give up. Only renounce what you don't have. You have the love. You have to renounce the idea of giving up your attachments. That's the one to renounce.

The idea of giving up this and that — it's all fine. Who would give it up, and for what purpose? Which is what you were saying as well. You've seen it.

Life is life. Nobody's writing the script — it writes itself, and you experience it, and there's nothing wrong with it. And as you said, "Not a soul will be lost." Not a single soul will be lost, because there are no separate souls.

So the most wretched life — there's a saving grace to it. Even from the standpoint of the evil tyrant who causes all that chaos and pain: why did it end up that way? You can't find an entity to blame. You go back far enough, it's an innocent child, shaped by whatever happened.

Or born with that tumor in the mind, or whatever. So you just see it that way. And what your hallucination showed you, something similar occurred to me. It's often the case when you see, or in a dream when you see a whole life flash by, you thought you were living this life, and there's a... it's like compressing time. You suddenly see, "Oh, what am I? So much has happened. What was I in all that?"

It is quite clear. You are just what is Aware. And you're not blown about by all that is happening because you are the basis of the very happening taking place. Thank you for sharing.

All right. What's next? Yes, [unclear].

QCan you speak a little more about the formation process of memories with us? Because I think that is where I find myself hooked. That's where the triggers are — the triggers in the body where a certain chemical reaction occurred when I was having an experience, and then when the mind thinks that a similar experience is going to occur, instead of staying in the moment and recognizing, "This is brand new and has nothing to do with the past memory..."

the thoughts can be transported to the past memory, and it happens so quickly. Can you speak a little more to that process please?

NSure. So the way I see memory is, it's just... there's a familiarity, like déjà vu; it's happened before. That's part of the experience. The experience has this taste of "I experienced this before."

If you strongly identify with it, it's a bit different. Once you start loosening that, there's the taste of familiarity. Yes, I remember. Yes, I was there. Who else could be there? So the memory — and even in science it's still a mystery where is the memory actually stored, because we don't know.

It's just familiarity. It is the same Awareness experiencing that life, when there's a resonance with the same pattern, it resonates. There's an important point here: at what point does the chemical stuff turn into experience and how? Because all of the brain and all that only explains the activity taking place.

There's a point at which that activity is now an experience — that is what I call the point of contact. This is why the physical and the mental, or experiential, are not two separate things. That's the point of contact. And there's no energy or special organ required for it, because it's the very nature of Awareness to be aware. So when that activity reaches a threshold, there's an experience to it.

So the way I see memories is this: familiar patterns repeating and being known in the same way. There's the hint of that old experience. There's the hint of the smell of the rose, or the freshly cut grass. And then that takes you to your grandma's face. It's the same pattern.

QOkay. Yeah, that does make a lot of sense. But there's something that I'm always observing when I get transported to the past. Yes, it's a familiar sequence of patterns in the taste and the smell.

Yes, it's about the senses experiencing something that it identifies as familiar — but none of it is really familiar, because I'm in the here and now, in a different place, with a different person, and none of it is really the same. So the pattern just kind of releases this perception: "Oh, I can predict what's coming next." But what I'm actually doing is grabbing on to a past memory as though I know what's going to happen next. And what happens next can be very surprising, because it's a new experience in this moment.

But that triggering — that whole sequence of events and the process of the new experience arising... can get very murky when a past memory that I'm holding on to just kind of... it's like having black ink poured into clear water, and the memory just messes up everything. That's the only way I can find to describe it at this time.

NSometimes you catch yourself — you might try to notice when you, what we call daydreaming — you catch yourself daydreaming. It's very much like dreaming with your eyes open, and it's just that the dream involves this waking life, instead of when you sleep and the dream involves sometimes a completely different life. It's dreaming. It's imagining. You're just sitting there, and then you start to wonder: what is thought itself? Why is thought so powerful?

You don't see it. Well, sometimes you see images and so on, but it's not... there's no... it's not the way the other senses are. And you can notice how a thought works. It is the most subtle kind of sense, thought.

It's not just linguistic. Memory is part of it. There's the images, the emotions it brings with it. And that very subtle layer is the world, mostly, the inner world is stuck in. Somehow we've learned to ignore the more obvious things because they're just too obvious, and then we shrink into this inner world of subtle mental models.

QMhm. A mishmash that brings back your trauma and your behaviours and all that.

NExactly. And then you just see — what is it?

There's no substance to it. It's just imagination. It's the same substance as imagination. Same stuff as dreams are made of. And then you see: what is the Reality of that stuff that dreams are made of?

That is the... that is the Self — the actual truth beneath that. What is imagination made of? What is a dream made of? It's just Awareness in action.

QWow.

Thank you for that. Thank you.

I'm sorry. Once I have you on the screen there, there's all these things that arise for me and I don't want to waste this precious moment to ask. So, one thing — in your videos you identify Awareness and Consciousness. Sometimes when I listen to them, I kind of wonder: can those two be used interchangeably? Because in my understanding it's not the same thing. Or is it? Am I misunderstanding those terms?

NI make that distinction because at one point it's important, because Consciousness, as far as the aspirant thinks of initially, has always to do with experience.

So when you start to hear, "Oh, Consciousness is the Reality, is all there is," then the idea has set in that there is always experience — experience must be there — and then there's some universal Consciousness knowing all these lives and stuff. But that's not the truth. Consciousness in that sense comes and goes. Even in your one life, it's quite obvious. You're not having experience the whole time. Like when I'm under anesthesia for a surgery. And the term that's used is you become unconscious. Yes. Awareness is still there through all of that.

So that's why I make the distinction, because then you can start to point out that even what is called unconscious — when experience appears, You are aware to receive that experience. To be truly unconscious means there's no possibility of experience. Then you need to be dead. But even when life begins, it's the same as dead.

QOh, that's true.

NWhat pointing out Awareness shows is there's no birth and death. Nobody was born. There's no such thing as unconscious — for the life experiences. If you take conscious to mean experience, then sure, there's being unconscious. But there's no not being Aware. That's a very subtle difference.

QOkay, I get that.

NEven Awareness is not a great word to try to point out... but it's useful in its ways. To me, when it started to really hit hard, is what Nisargadatta was all about — the Parabrahman, the Absolute. There's nothing in that State. Nothing. It is the same as inexistence, or not existing. But then you start to see that what the mind thought of as not existing, as being "nothing" — that is the fundamental Reality. That's fundamentally what the Self is. And then experience appears because the Self is. And if the Self was not, then that's not even imaginable, because the Self is the same as "nothing". You can't imagine a "nothing" without falling back to the same Reality that is.

QThank you.

NThank you, Michael. He's still on mute. Nope. Not yet. Doesn't work. All right, we can come back to you if you get it. Don't worry.

QReal quick — when we say in these teachings "give up desire," who are we talking to?

NSure. I mean some of these later parts of Ashtavakra — even doing them is a bit like... is this how I should be spending my time?

Because they go a bit too much into desire and giving up all desire. But actually, I think the Gita might have been written over time by different people, and to me the core part is already done in the first few to-and-fro between Ashtavakra and Janaka. And then it's lingering on that part a bit too much. But actually the other reading of it, which is what I try to express, is not actually asking to do that — it's not asking you to give up desire.

It's a different way of seeing it, and that's what it's trying to express. Because it goes into neither attached nor trying to be detached. That's the thing you struggle with sometimes — the trying to be detached. So you're neither attached, and that's natural when you see what is the nature of all this. But then to try to let go of whatever the mind is on about and go back to being very peaceful and all that — that is also another kind of attachment.

So that's trying to be detached. And so it's pointing out this Sage's state, which is compared to being like a child — which is also not entirely true, because children throw all kinds of tantrums because of things they want. It is being free of the longer-term desires. You might desire chocolate in a moment and have it. That's perfectly fine.

However, there's a carefreeness... of seeing that fundamentally Reality is ever the same, not changing. The Self is perfect. And so that's what it's trying to express. It sounds like — and that's why I don't especially enjoy that part of the text as much — it can be read in wrong ways so easily.

That's how asceticism has such strong roots in these traditions. It sounds like it's talking about asceticism, giving everything up, but there are two layers in which that conversation is proceeding. Janaka has already seen the truth and he will remain the king, and Ashtavakra is not asking him to give up all his responsibilities and so on. He's showing him the way to carry on those responsibilities with this knowledge.

QThey are actually super useful, but my take is — the Thought, don't go back to thought... the thought that comes — I think that is the root cause. So live without thinking, like the carefree quality you're talking about: don't think, don't plan, don't go to thought.

NIt's just setting in stone what the realization is, because Janaka has the realization but then makes those same moves initially — like after this I should be... it sounds like "after this I will be invincible" and so on. Then Ashtavakra pulls him back and says, well, is there... then he tests that knowledge, because the Self is the Self even in those lives where there is complete obliviousness to this fact.

The mind may be ruled by whatever — it still doesn't change anything. And so he's setting in stone the one fact, and then all desires, all affairs and so on are seen through that, from that standpoint. As the mind hears it, it might also say, "Okay, yes, next time there's a desire, I should use this." And that's fine because it might be helpful. But the true message is for You, because you've already realized that nothing is changing.

There's nothing bad about being in an emotional storm. And they say all this because you are in this body and a lot of things happen. You are experiencing all of it, and you have to be like dead realized to not sway from all these experiences that happen around you and to you and all that. It's just that the standard by which I would judge myself has died off. By what standard, and who am I to judge? Who is to judge whom?

I would have to create Nabeel back from the ashes and then judge him for doing something — and he's just ashes. You need to blame someone. You need to fix someone. And that someone is not there. The fixing and the improvement happens anyway, and that's fine. It's just like hobbies you pick up — how do you improve? You just sit, you consciously experience it, and then at some point it's just subconscious, and then you're much better than when you were trying to do it consciously. The body has learnt. That's the process of improvement within life, and there are lots of self-improvement books for that. That's fine.

But when it comes to blaming and trying to improve the Self, well, that is just fundamentally wrong. It cannot happen.

QI got my phone off mute.

NYeah. Hi.

QBack to anesthesia. I have lucid dreaming, and when I'm dreaming I can sometimes dictate what I want to happen next, or observe, and I know I'm dreaming.

But I had anesthesia two years ago in the hospital, and as I was coming out of anesthesia, I had kind of the same experience. I felt that there was a choice — the same way the mind creates the dreams, like the script writer or whatever. I felt like in the waking dream, daily life, there was a choice, and I felt that we were creating the script and it could go various ways, like there was a choice. Was I hallucinating, or is that actually somewhat what we do to create this waking reality?

NSure. Yes. So what you're noticing is not wrong, but what you can see differently is what choice is. Choice is actually not a central agency picking things and then planning and doing them, or having them happen. What it is is the interplay of thought and other aspects of the mind.

You start to see how powerful thought is. So in your lucid dreaming, the thought appears first and then the story changes. So you're noticing that sequence. But where did the thought come from? Who thought it?

It also is just an experience. It just arises. "Oh, I wish there were rainbows here and unicorns" — and then the rainbows and unicorns appear. But who thought that initial thought? Or maybe the rainbow and unicorns, because they were appearing, the precedent of that experience is a thought.

So instead of trying... because it's all about — there's no actual self — then you start to see choice is still there. However, and thought is still there, but the agency is not required. And then lucid dreaming is even more interesting, because you're seeing how dreams are created. They are made of thought. And now, to you, thought is not just what most people associate with it, which is the linguistic — the voice in my head.

Now, to you, thought — because when it's a voice in the head, it's annoying and you want to get rid of it — when you see thought as the very essence of what is constructing all this, it's deeply interconnected. You are rid of that idea that thought is something bad and to be silenced.

QThank you. One other quick question. I've heard you use the word "corrector" — I think "the corrector" — and I didn't know exactly what the definition of that was when you use it. Is that the right word you use sometimes? If you can clarify.

NI don't recall using that.

QOkay. I think I've got the wrong word. I think — no, it's "character" — that is the word you use, Nabeel, but sometimes your pronunciation being different, it comes out "character," you know. It's "character" is what it means there. I apologize. Thank you. "Corrector" sounded interesting because I'd like to correct a lot of things.

NIt's like another thing you notice in a dream is the character, or the protagonist — it feels like, okay, this is me now. But because you're lucid dreaming, you start to see, oh, actually it's not me now. It's just a character. It's just a persona. And so you can also see through that. Yes, it's just like when you play a video game and you choose a character — it's not you. It's just what happens to be the protagonist right now in that particular dream world.

So I started with: there's no unique, special experience required. All experiences are just telling us the same truth. It's just a slightly... different standpoint to the same Reality given to you. And maybe that's the choice. If you think of choices, there's the choice of how everybody — every human being — lives life as being me, separate, in the whole universe, the universe was there before me. Or you look honestly at what is being communicated by the wisdom traditions, and see that it fits perfectly. It's more perfect than this idea of being a person, because when you try to pin down what am I, you're at a complete loss. And so you do not need a special experience — only to see beyond experience. Who woke up from that anesthesia? Who received that experience when the deep sleep ended? What is actually born when a baby is born and it cries? What is actually happening? Experience is arising. To whom? To what? That is the Self. That is the only Self. What else can you call Self?

We can create a puppet. You can adopt a character, but it's not the Self. And then when you love someone, does it invalidate the love? No. It gives it new meaning. Who are they? What are they? Oh yes — Awareness is unaware in that case. Unaware of what? How glorious, how perfect They are.

But They are aware. So that truth remains. So no life is worthless in that way, because each life is Awareness being aware. Any last questions or comments, and then we'll end.

QJust thank you.

NThank you.

QCould I ask?

NYes.

QSorry, I just did this but the app didn't respond very fast. I think you said once you have a daughter, and children are always some of my biggest teachers to get back to Awareness in some way. Do you have some experience with your daughter where you said, "Hey, this is a good lesson to get back to Awareness"? Because for me, I am 35 years old and getting back to Awareness — I know I have my challenges — but you are one of my biggest mentors, I can say. Do you think children are good teachers to naturally get back to Awareness?

NIs that what you're asking — children?

QYeah.

NSo for most of my life, I thought I would not have a child, because I wasn't sure if life was worth living. I was on the border — is life worth living? I'm not sure. So then why should I bring one more life into the world? But then I got to a point in life where I was sure I could at least give a decent life to a child. That was my first criterion. I don't want to bring someone into the world and just... and the other was just getting older. My wife was starting to have health issues. It was our last chance. So we decided yes. But yes, the birth of my daughter is maybe the most significant event in this life, because after that is when I began to question all this and all that, and I could break out of my own shell.

So if you're in a place in life where you can provide that care to a child, it's up to you. But you know how life is. There's no guarantee that life will be all great. It'll be full of trauma. See, everybody arrives at an answer for themselves — is life worth living? And that should be the question before someone gives birth to a child, which is unfortunately not how it mostly happens. It just happens accidentally. But if we asked that, and we were sure we can provide, that is where a child would be welcomed into the world.

QThank you so much. Thank you.

NAll right, let's end there for today. Thank you all for joining.