The voice in the head is not You | Live Satsang [public version]

NSo let's start with an insight about what's called the voice in the head. It might put a mute on that, or at least lower the volume. So it goes like this. When you hear a sound, you don't consider the sound to be conscious. It's quite obvious. The sound is what is being observed. The sound does not have the knowledge of being heard, nor is it conscious.

It's the same with the voice. The voice is not conscious. So how can the voice in the head be conscious? It cannot.

A thought cannot be conscious. What makes it different to a sound is that there is the assumption as part of the thought that it is being heard or being known. But the thought is not conscious.

So when you go on the search to know the Self, to realize the Self, and so on — the thing that says, "Oh, but I do not know. I don't get it. I do not know what Awareness is. I have not realized the Self."

That is the voice in the head. It is unaware. It is unaware because it is not aware. You keep that line. That's our goal for today.

Why does it not know? Because it is not you. It is not I because it is not conscious. Whatever speaks up, whatever thinks, whatever the thought is, it is not conscious.

It is unaware because it is not aware. So what that voice can honestly then say is that you are aware.

That knowledge is there, but it cannot go further than that. After that, it has to stop. You are aware. And then when that voice is muted, or at least the volume is lower, then you notice as you are — what is your nature? It is your nature to be conscious, to be aware.

And in yourself — in yourself without considering the observed, whatever phenomena, whatever — in yourself, your nature is of bliss. There's a peace, a bliss that is the nature of Consciousness. Chidananda — and there's a word I want to get to. At the end it says Chidananda rupa. Your form is formless. It's Consciousness — of the nature of Consciousness and bliss. And the only thing that is saying otherwise is not aware.

It is unaware. It can never be aware. So the Self can never be known through that medium. So that's — we've kind of gone through the whole arc. You start with Naham. Naham is not I. Not I. The sound, the voice, whatever, the thought, the mind. Not I.

Koham. What am I? Who am I? And you only can get from there, in terms of the mind, to I am. Soham. I am. But then the furthest point is when you realize your own nature, because that's the obvious you. The actual you.

The "I" it was saying — that I was not I because it was not conscious. And so that final part after Soham is Shivoham. Shivoham.

You are Shiva. You are Shiva. And all this is the dance of Shiva. Every moment, everything — which is not apart from Consciousness.

The thought, the sound, whatever — but it is not what is conscious. It is a step in the dance. But then what the Self is is revealed through that nature of what the voice cannot describe. What a thought cannot capture.

That which is aware. All right. Let's do Q&A.

QHi Nabeel. Hi everyone. This is something that was in my mind the last few weeks. Kind of living it. Was going through some ups and downs in life. And so there was something that I read from Nisargadatta. Something like — I can't find it — but there was somebody asking and he was saying if you live by courage you don't need conviction. Something like that. And it kind of stuck in my mind. And then it was something on Ashtavakra that you were talking about — that only renounce what you don't have. And basically these things were in my head, and as I was going through a difficult time it kind of brought me — it doesn't matter how I get there, but it eventually came down to a kind of realization that it's moment by moment. When "renounce what you don't have" goes deep and deeper, basically it says: as Consciousness, what you have is the present moment.

Right now, this moment — basically any thought that comes, you renounce. Any thought of future, of anything — and that basically brought that Nisargadatta's comment about living by courage: anything that comes, you're completely open to it. You are the witness, and you don't worry about future. You don't think any thoughts — you renounce. You are not the doer. Things happen on their own. You are nothing to do with it.

So it basically came down to that when you say renounce what you don't have, that comes down to renounce desire, renounce thinking, because all thoughts are one way or another about the desire, about the fear, whatever. And just leave it at that. I don't know if you have any comments on that.

NSure. Yeah — when I said it, it was a bit of a pun in there. Renounce what you don't have. You don't have it. What's there to renounce? It's just you realizing you don't have that — that's not yours. So we start to shed all the things we had assumed we were or were ours.

What you see is you only have one quality. That's all you have. Nisargadatta said your only asset in life is this Consciousness. That's it. That's all the capital you're born with.

The rest we start to assume we have. It is not ours — not in the way the mind thinks. What do you really possess?

That can't be taken away. Yes — it's not about actually renouncing anything. But actually it's just seeing: I don't have that. It's just passing by. Life brought it up, life will take it away. All the control I thought I had, I didn't. It was not control. It was a story built after things had happened.

And it's the same happening every day. We think there's someone in charge. And you renounce that in the way of seeing through it.

I do not have that. That is not I. So when all you have left is the quality of being aware, then you have renounced all you don't have. And then the courage goes out. And what is the courage? It's that when you know your quality is that of being aware, then you're not choosing what comes next. Then the courage is that whatever comes next, yes — you will be aware of that.

You cannot reject it. That you cannot renounce. Who would do that? Because that would again be that voice in the head assuming control, assuming that is conscious. It is unaware.

Because it is not aware. What was not aware? The possession that you want to have taken possession of Awareness. So when you renounce what you don't have, you arrive at your actual possession, your actual intrinsic quality.

QYeah, thank you.

NThank you. Hi, Neil.

QHello, everyone. Hi, everyone.

I've been reading quite a lot and watching a lot of the videos as normal, which is my thing I love to do. The aspect that's kind of captivated me recently has been the understanding or the realization — I don't even know how to put it into words — of you aren't actually an entity.

I mean that's quite a — all your life you think that I'm this thing. I'm this person. I'm this character. I'm this — this is me.

This is what I am, you know, and then you read the stuff of Ramana Maharshi and you're doing your Self-inquiry. It's just like no, you're not. You're not, but it still — I don't know. It's not something you can come to terms with, I don't think. Maybe it's an understanding. I wouldn't like to say. I don't know. But it's dawning on me, on this non-entity. It's hard to call yourself — actually, I'm just a non-entity. I mean, that was an insult to give to people when I was growing up. "Oh, you're just a non-entity."

You know, you're nothing. And it's just that — well, you know, that is such a freedom when you realize that. Yeah, that's the truth. That thing that I thought I was isn't that thing that I thought it was. And there's one question that I had, which I've asked before and I keep asking it. Is this where the connection between the snake and the rope — that analogy being applied to that ego or to that false character, that false — like you look at this thing, you think it's a snake. You think it's this entity, when in reality it's nothing at all. Or it's just a shadow. Because that's the nearest I've been able to really get to grips with that. Because it's typical — I have to say it's slippery. It's a slippery concept, but it's the nearest I've had to: oh, that's what they're saying. That's what they're alluding to — that you think you believe you are this character, this thing, when actually you're not that at all.

But I don't know if you can give a little guidance on that, Nabeel. Thank you.

NYeah, sure. That analogy of the snake and the rope — it's about how the rope and the snake are of completely different nature. The snake is dangerous and it's animate. It can attack you. It's animate. And the rope is inanimate.

And that's exactly what the ego or the narrative self, whatever that bothers you — that's what it is. It's not conscious. It's not conscious. Let's take — some people won't call it the voice in the head because it's not actually a voice. But it has similarities to voice. When some higher thought is linguistic, it's language-based, it feels like maybe you're listening. So that narrative self is the snake. It's building the whole story like, "Oh, I haven't understood," or "but this is still me," and so on and so forth. "I don't get what he's saying."

That thing is not conscious, because how can it be? It's just a voice or it's just a thought. It is just the nature of how Consciousness works that whatever arises is a phenomenon that is not sentient. So because in this case all of that information is collected in an orb. It's brought together, collated. So there's this cross-referencing. The pain can be referenced in the thought and the sound can be referenced in the thought, but it's giving the illusion that this thing is aware.

But then you just take a moment, and when that questioning begins — what is it that is aware? The mind cannot describe it. That's the loophole. That's the way to insight. The mind can describe anything about the world. All the information stuff it can describe.

But for you, all it can do is give you names. It can glorify you or belittle you. It can say terrible things about you or beautiful things about you. However, it's not really describing you as you are.

That's a complete blind spot in terms of information and knowledge and thought. So that's flipping the snake to the rope — because when you see, oh, the snake is not alive, it's not a snake. It's just a chain of thinking going on which you are aware of. And when the chain of thinking then says I and me and so on, you can see that is not true. Because if it's not conscious, that is not I.

As soon as you see something as not conscious, that's not you. And then the voice cannot say "I am" even. "I am not."

"I am" — it — it's just a thing, a phenomenon. And the truest thing it can then say is: you are. You are.

It is. Like the non-entity part is when then you notice your own nature. And when I say Shivoham, it's no longer individual. It's understanding this is the nature of Self.

It is in the nature of Self to be conscious. And then the snake is just the rope. It's just lots of strings. Just lots of strings of thought with no conscious entity behind them.

QMay I ask a little more?

NYeah.

QWhen I get to that stage — I mean I want to get — I'm a little lost for words. The way that I deal with that when I'm involved — I guess the way you'd put it — or I'm trying to put it — is in the Self-inquiry that Ramana Maharshi suggests. When I get to that point — the point I'm trying to make, I'm just trying to spit it out — is his solution to all of it is just: he just says just be. Just be quiet. Just be still.

Just — there's the answer. Within everything that we're trying and not trying to do and understand and not understand and reject — the one thing that I find that works for me is that Awareness just being there. In that Awareness and that silence, it just seems all-encompassing. There's just that — the Awareness — I can't think of — that being aware in that silence.

There's just that. There it is. I found — something I was reading today was like: the seeker is the thing that is being sought, and that which is sought is the seeker. And to me in that Awareness it's there — it's like you find it. That's where I'm at at the moment. That's the way I kind of see.

Because we all want a solution and we all want to kind of just go — and then to me, like I say, that really is the experience of silence. It just seems to do it.

NIs it — the whole thing that's trying to find and so on is not you.

You know, that quote has many variations. Don't know if Rumi actually said any of them. But the one I like is: what you seek is seeking you. It flips it around actually. You are not seeking at the end. At the end, you are what were being sought for.

And what was seeking you actually was just a process. It's what I'm trying to say — and today I can't explain it well somehow. It's not conscious. That process is not conscious. It's like the whole dream — in a dream there's a whole arc of story and so on and so forth.

There's no conscious agent behind it. And the dream itself is not conscious. But in the dream there's a storyline and there's an objective maybe to be achieved and so on. But as soon as you see it as it is — what am I trying to say?

It's hard to say. When I started it seemed very clear that I could explain this, but look — whatever is not conscious is not you. So every time you see something and that's not conscious — whatever is trying to find or trying to understand and so on — it's not conscious. And then there's the silence.

In the silence you're there. You are that.

QYeah. Thank you for that.

NThank you. Marina.

QSorry. I don't know how to take this hand off. Okay. So recently, this body has been diagnosed with a brain disease. It's a genetic disease and the diagnosis is — it's going to be worse in time. Okay.

And it's a familial disease because I know for sure because my mom had the same disease. And she eventually became — she had a severe dementia. So now I am aware of all of this, which is just information. I don't have any clue of my brain having all these things inside going on. I feel good, but I'm afraid as hell.

I'm really afraid. Because now I know there is something which I'm not aware of and it's potentially getting very worse. So I've no clue on how to address this piece of information, which was so sudden, so immediate. I just ended up — because I was having trouble in seeing. I was seeing double. Okay? So I went to the optician and he said, "No, no, your eyes are perfectly okay.

You should go to the emergency room and see if there is some neurological issue" — which was like a thunderstorm. And I came out with the exam saying that there is this damn thing going on with my brain. So I need some advice if possible. Because I feel good. I don't feel any kind of disease. I just know this information. I know this information, but I don't have any health issue. None.

NYeah, I'm sorry to hear that. I think from now there'll be two tracks to your life. One track is the one we've always been living. You go through the highs and the lows, and the lows are usually much worse and more often.

And the end was inevitable. It ends up being like this. Dementia, cancer, and Alzheimer's and what — there's no good ending. So there's that track, and that's what is meant by renouncing what you don't have. In that path, what can you do? What you can do, you should do. If there's ways to delay the progression of the disease and so on, do everything you can.

QOkay, so this is a wise thing to do — to follow the medical path, to do all the therapies and checks and whatever.

NYeah, you should do that. You should do all that. So whatever can relieve —

QYeah, but if the body is something not really — I mean, it's not conscious. So what's the point? I'm confused. Because I'm reading a book about — this guy is saying that the body has an innate force within, which is a healing force. Like, if you have a level of Awareness of the body, you can boost this inner source of the body to heal itself.

NAnd there are — what?

Don't believe that stuff. Don't believe that stuff, okay? I never talk about such stuff. There's no magic, all right? Look, there's power to being positive, to trying — yes, it will affect your body.

How the mind and the body react together, yes, but we cannot believe in a magical cure. So we do what — you should listen to the doctors on that side. That side I'm not there to give you advice, but what I'm going to tell you is there's another track to what's going to happen next. Okay? It's life as it will go on.

But you try to always return to what is your nature. Okay? And that's a very simple fact. Even as we're losing our whatever — the cognitive capacities and so on. You can return to that for a while.

You can keep returning. What am I? What am I? Make that perfectly clear. You are what is conscious. The body is going through its final phases as all bodies do. Yeah, it will — my thing, many years. Yeah, that's fine. But what are you?

Are you tied to this body? We just see — there's two tracks to it. There's the life part, which is full of experiences. But there's the truth. The truth of what you are.

And that is the saving grace. You come back to it. That's what gives you courage. You are what is aware.

You are. That is beyond doubt. And that is —

QYeah, but right now I'm aware of this notion, which is devastating because even if I don't have any kind of issue right now, I mean, I keep thinking about this thing.

NYeah. So that's again with the thinking. We apply that lens. Who is actually worried? It's a bit brutal to do it, but —

QYeah, I know.

NYou can sit with it, and there's some relief when you see, "Oh, yes. This is happening to the body. I'm aware of it, but I remain what I am. When the body is gone, you'll be what you were before you were born.

Same with everyone. It's just the bad part is you have to experience the dying. You don't actually die, but you have to experience the dying. Because you are what is aware. The reason to then try to — you know, you would think, "What's the point?" Like, the body's not conscious inside.

It's just the reduction of suffering is the whole point. So why suffer needlessly? So whatever you can do —

QYeah.

N— we do that. And there can be a point like someone close to me where he's been diagnosed with cancer. And she's decided not to go through chemotherapy.

Because that would just increase the suffering pointlessly, as it's at a point it's not going to help. So then yes, that's a fine — that's a correct decision. So you don't need to needlessly suffer.

QYeah.

NBut suffering is inevitable because to be aware is to be vulnerable to all experiences, to be open to all of them. You can't stop them.

So what we're renouncing is the control. Renouncing — we didn't have that. The body was not yours. But you're aware of it.

QYes.

Yeah. That is very helpful. Indeed. Yeah.

Okay, thank you very much, Nabeel.

NThank you, Marina. Sunil.

QGood afternoon. So I had a general question. I was wondering what videos you had in mind, you know, upcoming. Did you have any planned, or I'm just curious. And then I have a request about a video.

NRight now I'm working on an Ashtavakra Gita. I think the chapter of the next — I've got one ready, the next one I'm doing. But things are really slow right now, to be honest, because my interest is kind of dropping off and the usual work is busy. So the videos are slower to come out, but yeah. What did you have in mind?

QSo by the way, the Ashtavakra Gita ones are fantastic, you know. I just really like them. Just wanted to mention that. And okay, so the one I had in mind is this Sanskrit — you know, one of the four or five big statements is about Om Purnamadah Purnamidam. It says this thing is complete, it sort of donates its completeness to the world. And in doing that, nothing happens. So I was wondering if that is something that interests you — if you could do your take on that. Just a thought.

NYeah. And I think there's a — I might revisit it, but there is a video on that.

QOh, there is one. Okay. It's hard to navigate. It's hard to find sometimes. I'll look for it then, you know.

NYeah. I'll send it to you.

QAll right. Thank you.

NIt's the perfect — take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect.

QAnd then it still remains perfect. Yeah.

NYeah.

Yeah, it's hard to — I do not. See what I was talking to you about with Marina. You can't deny all the suffering experienced in each and every life. This is the whole thing that started this journey for anyone. The Buddha and the Krishna and all that. So then that statement is quite hard to see. How can perfect remain perfect in spite of all of this?

And the reason is that there are no separate selves. That's what saves the whole thing. If there were separate selves, if Marina is really a separate individual — then we are all in this great immense void, suffering alone and dying. And that's it. And maybe there's something after that and so on. People believe this and that. And that's even worse because there's hell and so on. But if there are no individual selves, then there is suffering and joy and all of that. And that is the dance of Shiva.

Because you cannot have joy without suffering. It's actually the dimension is the same. They're just — there's a spectrum. If there was no sorrow, the end of the spectrum shifts and then, you know, less joy is also painful because you had that immense joy. Because Awareness is not deciding how to experience something.

What happens is because Reality has this quality of Awareness, of being aware, then when there's a process taking place in Reality, it is perfectly represented as an experience. The experience reflects what's going on. And that cannot change. It's more firm than the laws of physics. Because the laws of physics apply to this universe, but this is the nature of Reality. You take perfect from perfect.

What remains is perfect. You cannot go from perfect to imperfect. When the base Reality is perfect, whatever it produces, it cannot be anything but perfect.

Yes, let me revisit.

QThank you.

NRobert.

QWhat I really like about what you do, Nabeel, is you cover from what I can tell a pretty good range of various nonduality traditions or teachings. And you have a way of tying it back to the fundamental — the essence of nonduality. And I really appreciate that because I've been studying nonduality in various traditions and teachings for a lot of years, and one of the big problems that I've run across is just the variety of different approaches that are often contradictory even within the same teaching. So someone tying it together on a regular basis is much appreciated. People talking today — I had several thoughts running by my view.

And when you're talking about the snake and the rope, and there were other points in other people's comments — sort of the bottom line to all of it is this thing about misidentification essentially. Whether it's disease or something that happened — whenever I put myself, you know, my imaginary self as a doer or something, someone or something that something happened to. It rarely ends well. Because I get wrapped around the axle of so-called my thoughts.

Whether in the past or in the present or in the future. And as long as I'm identified as such with that unreal quote-unquote entity, it's a losing proposition at best. And I don't know. I think a lot of times there's a tendency — like I go to another thought thing on weekly — and there's a tendency for the conversation or the way people talk to talk from that imaginary non-entity.

And I don't know. I just find that difficult not only with myself, dealing with that, but when other people start talking about essential nonduality — I don't want to call them concepts because that takes it right back into the wrong place. There's a tendency to talk first person. So I try not to do that.

I listened to one of your videos and it was actually my current favorite — is actually Zen, and his name is Huang Po, and you did a video on Huang Po which really thrilled me because what's great about him is his insistence and incessant insistence that all that is required at any time is to rid oneself of conceptual thought, which is where the I — the personal entity — that what the personal entity is is a concept. That's all I am. That's all Robert is. Robert's just a concept. And that's like the snake and the rope that you were talking about.

It's like do I identify with the snake or the rope, or do I see the Reality of that situation? And that's just an analogy for just about anything in life. And the other thing — I was a comment somebody put in there that I couldn't respond to. She asked about Dzogchen Longchenpa. And so I don't know, in the last year or so I've studied a lot of Longchenpa and also in the last couple of months Huang Po.

Dzogchen is — I find it like extremely essential. Insofar as —

QHey Robert, you're hijacking the Satsang. We want to hear Nabeel speak.

QOkay. All right. Fair enough. I'll leave it at that.

NYeah, no worries.

All right. So let's go with Huang Po. Yes, what did Huang Po say? The most essential book — the One Mind. He says all the Buddhas and all sentient beings are the One Mind.

QYeah.

NAnd nothing else. So it's only modern nonduality — the drivel that it makes you say, "Oh, Robert is nothing and I am nothing." And so no. You go into what is Robert? What can that name actually point to? Robert and all sentient beings and all Buddhas are the One Mind besides which nothing exists.

So what is the One Mind? The One Mind is just his way of saying the deepest nature of Reality that is aware. Because it's not separate things. The sentient beings and Buddhas are not separate. They're the One Mind. And what is most essential to a sentient being is Sentience. That is you. That is what every name actually refers to. When a child is born and the parents choose a name, they're not choosing a name for the body or the mind that is yet to develop.

What they recognize is the life. And what is life except Sentience expressing itself? That is you. The non-entity part and the misidentification is only in thought. So when the voice in the head speaks and so on and so on, it's the long monologue, it's using I, I, I, I. However, the voice is not conscious. So the truest thing that voice can say is: you are aware.

The voice doesn't know it because it cannot know. It is unaware. However, the knowledge is there. In the mind, knowledge is there — that it is being observed.

And the one principle in Reality that can observe it is not owned by anything. That can be called I, because yes, whatever you are, you are what is conscious.

All right, let's — I think now there had — yeah, hand up. It's down now.

QIt's okay. Yeah, I'll go after.

NOkay. Let's go to [unclear].

QHey, excuse me. Can you hear me?

NYep, we can.

QOh, okay. So Nabeel, last week from Sunday to Monday, okay? I was maybe in one of my most — I can say weird or difficult days of my life, but the good thing is that I don't remember, because I'm going to make a very fast resume. I am 35 years. I'm single, and I was in front of a bar, kind of a dance bar. And I entered in a car of three people — like I was talking to them, my first time I knew them.

And they gave me a kind of a thing that I was — one they have in their hand, I think it was something very bigger, and they took from me something like — I don't want to — I know I don't need to talk about numbers, whatever, but it was a lot of money. And but it's like this — I was — the words Marina was saying, I was a little — I could feel her some way because the point is I don't remember anything bad that I went through because they started talking things that I like to hear, things like that. And when I realized it myself, I was after two days in the streets without my sneakers. And after — and without my cell phone. And okay, they got a lot of money, whatever. I know money is just one of the smaller things here. But I don't think I can call it a trauma.

But there is something in me like — first, I want to thank you a lot because I am very grateful for teachings. But it's very kind of ironic because the only thing that I can remember are not bad things because they didn't hit me. Okay, they got a lot of money off me, whatever. But mind sometimes is kind of ironic, yeah, because I know it was a big learning and I'm not going — I know I was kind of in general because I entered in their car. There was one of the three that I was kind of — I wanted to stay with him, whatever. But it's a little like Marina's issue because it's kind of my mind wants to suffer, but it's not very fair with my mind because I don't remember anything bad. The only thing — okay, the money is lost, but the money is not making me alive. So do you have something to say like — can you feel me some way?

NYeah, so I mean like you said, you can learn from it. What can we learn from this? Is how did the mind get hooked by people who are trying to scam you? They obviously went in with bad intentions.

Like you can say yes, they didn't hit you as hard, but they were there to scam you.

QYeah.

NWhy do we — so the one thing you can pick on is what allowed you to get trapped in that way. Like —

QYeah.

NAnd that's — in the Ashtavakra Gita, they talk a lot about desires and renouncing desires and so on.

QYeah.

NIt's actually less about renouncing and seeing the hooks that pull us in this direction or that direction.

QYeah.

NWhy could they hook the mind?

QYeah. It's like I was a kind of — and I don't want to — every single second I feel myself as a victim, I get back to Awareness and I don't want to like fight myself because I was in a lot of wars already in my life. Like I have a family that has — I used to have a lot of nerve — difficult problems like mental problems. My mother tried to cure herself once for more than 10 years, but now she's okay. So can I make a second question very fast?

NSure.

QWhen you say we are — I am not the doer, if I am not the doer — like the one who goes until a place to dance, or if I am not the one that goes until someone to say hey let's talk or let's maybe do something together — who am I like if I am not the doer?

NYou are what is aware.

QOh, okay.

NThat's your quality. When you see when an action takes place — and what is it doing? The doing is the actual happening of the action. You're aware of it. When the body is moving, you're aware of it. If you're running hard, you're aware of the effort.

QYeah.

NBut you just — about seeing being very precise about your true role in all of that. Given the direct knowledge and the actual fact of the moment, what is your role?

QYeah.

NIt's not — you don't have to — it's like a corollary. Corollary — as you understood the core fact, of additional consequence you understand additional things because of that. So the no doer is more of a consequence of the actual realization. Rather than something you have to focus on first.

QYeah, just to get together — what is corollary, corollary?

NI don't think I pronounced that well, but yeah.

QOkay. Okay. Okay.

NCorollary.

QCorollary. Okay. Thank you, Nabeel.

NThank you. Corollary. Okay.

Next is Malahi. Muhammad Malahi.

QYeah, wait. Just I don't have any question. Just wanted to say hi. How are you? It's nice to see you after some time.

NNice to see you again.

QSo how are we doing? How are we doing? Good?

NYeah, the channel's lagging a bit now.

And like I was saying to Neil I think last session — eventually there's no — like why am I doing this? Like you start to see what's the point. There's no point to this either. The Self is the Self. It is just a universal fact. Perfect is perfect and will always remain perfect.

So a new brother there. So yeah, it's already perfect. And there will always be suffering. The Buddha says he realized the end of suffering. Suffering is still around. What did he actually mean?

The end of suffering is the insight of how suffering fits into the picture. Anyway, he just asked — I think he was just being polite that night. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Another.

QYeah, so I don't know if this is helpful for Marina. I had a surgery three years ago. I don't know if — suddenly I went — I had a tumor in my head. I went through rough times. I came out and it was the best thing that happened to me because it put me in this path.

So you never know. This is — you know through either way, neither think about it nor don't think about it. Just go day by day, you know, type thing. And as you were going to say — like if one of the attributes of Reality is infinity in all dimensions — and it makes sense. Even to mind it makes sense. And if you just think with the logical mind about the infinity, how does it manifest other than the opposites? Because it cannot — it would be an unstable system if you just going all goodness or all badness. It has to be pain and pleasure. It has to be contrast. It has to be opposites.

And so like you always say, Nabeel, if you realize your role in Reality, which is just being aware of all this, whatever comes, you can say no to it. Is it pain? Is it pleasure? Pain will be there, but it doesn't have to be that psychological suffering, that mind going crazy. I mean, mind should go crazy because mind is — mind's job is to take care of body.

If the body is in danger, then it's mind's job to go crazy to find solution and all that. But like you always say, you are not the mind. Watch it. Watch it go crazy. Watch it try to take care of the body. Run to the doctors, get this, get that, or whatever. But you just watch all that.

And yeah, I just want to throw that in.

NMhm.

QCan I just say one short thing? Yes, thank you, Nabeel. The problem is to choose the right choice, to do the right choice, not to go too far away.

NIt doesn't matter.

The right choice doesn't matter. Your mind, whatever you think — whatever it thinks based on your background, based on your circumstance, it thinks it's the right choice and it means well. It wants to take care of your body. You have nothing to do with it. It's mind and body and mind — that thing, that drama going on.

It's like I said — it's brutal to talk about these things with this humor or whatever, seeming humor. But honestly, ultimately, it is what it is.

QMhm. Yeah.

Thank you, Nabeel.

NThank you. Razi.

QYeah, I'm here.

I want to thank you for the last call that we had. It was very helpful. You may not remember it, but you said something to the point of I'm not that voice or I'm not that which says that I'm not aware. Somehow it made an impact. And it seemed very clear in that moment. And as time has gone and just last night some incident happened. And what you said earlier to [unclear] is like how I got hooked. Basically, I got a lot of anger, judgment, rage happened last night.

And it's directed at my wife, you know, and I was like, she should listen to me. She doesn't. So I was noticing of how I'm getting hooked. And I was lying in bed. She was on the phone with somebody else. And I have this thing: "God, she's on the phone all the time. She's on Instagram. She's on Facebook. She's on YouTube." I'm like, "God, you know, she's like — and she says, 'I don't have enough time.'" And then I look on the phone and she spends 8 hours on the phone. And I show it to her. She's like, "I don't have time." I'm like, "Yeah, no wonder you have — no matter what I say, everything gets poo-pooed, you know, like I'm the bad guy." And I don't want to get into it, but the point is before I acted on the thoughts that were she shouldn't do this, this is wrong, all of that stuff, there was a pause.

And it was: "Well, who is angry? Who wants to confront her?" And who wants to — and then there was like even now I can feel like tension, heat, that anger sensations coming up. And that was there last night. And I was like, "Yeah, this is it. This is the point. This is the whole point.

This is the moment of Awareness, you know? Who is aware of all of those things?" And as I was doing it, there was like an overwhelming thing. I just got up, opened the door, and screamed at her. And I was like, "You know, I know better." And of course, it ended up I'm the bad guy that yelled at her and like all of that stuff. And then I woke up this morning of "Man, what did I do this again?" Even after you talked and I'm not that — I'm that which is aware and all that, you know, stuff just went out the door.

My question is, if I am that which is aware, and the thoughts and sensations are observable and I have observed it myself — who is it? There seems to be a gap in my seeing because you were saying — like you mentioned earlier about the Buddha — like it's to see the suffering in real time. To directly see how my suffering is occurring. And I'm very interested now to see how the suffering is continuing to occur, how I'm getting hooked. And when I'm quiet and I'm still, there's just beingness and silence and quiet and then there's thoughts. And somewhere there's a pull. And I think you explained the lifetime where there's a magnetic — I don't know how to explain it, but this keeps happening, you know. And I just feel bad asking the same, but it happens — it's the similar mechanism. It shows up with different faces, different things, and all that, but the mechanism — if you could spotlight anything, I'm using it as just a learning tool in my life to see my own suffering better.

NSure.

So yeah, let's use what hit you in the last video, and I think it's what I started with in this video is the same — like when the voice — when whatever I'm saying, if it's just the voice in the head repeating it. It's actually not helpful. When it's not being triggered, then it's saying the right things. However, the voice is not aware. The thinking mind is not aware. Because it's not conscious. It's not what is conscious.

So when the mood is good, it can say all the right things about nonduality and wisdom and all that and Awareness. And when things get triggered, it goes back to what it was built over many years. It repeats that pattern. So the crucial point is that shift — when the voice says I, I and blah blah and her. You catch it. When it says her, what do you mean? What do you mean by her?

Who is she? It's not just about me. It's not just about — because the I is then not just you, it's her. It's all encompassing. And so at that moment when the thought says her and it's thinking all this and if you catch it — oh it is unaware. That whole stream of thought that's unaware because it is not aware. That's the koan I'm giving you this video. It is not aware — and as you think that, you're not thinking that. Like it's just another thing I'm throwing in the mix. When that happens, that whole stream will have a gap. It gets tripped up. If you see that thing as not aware, the volume goes down. You don't care. And in that moment, you can recognize what is the nature of Self.

And that is what is described in such beautiful terms because the nature of Self is the obvious unsaid part, which the voice cannot explain. That's not knowable. Cannot be knowable. What comes later and is based on something more fundamental can never understand what came before.

The nature of Self is being aware, being conscious. And when we say her, him, us, whatever, all these referring to that innermost nature. And that innermost Self is innocent. How can you blame for anything? The anger, the one who's angry or the one whose anger is directed at. That is not the Self.

You cannot be angry at the nature of Self. Anger is always by setting up different puppets and being voodoo dolls and sticking pins in them. The nature of Self is perfect. Without that — the most we can reject is experience.

Yeah, you can reject — I don't want these experiences. I don't want them. It's fine. Sure. But you cannot reject your own nature. It is most perfect, most intimate, most you, most her. And so all that nonsense is pointless because it's pretty much like an unconscious thing generating text like we have nowadays.

QMhm. So the only thing conscious is that myself, my own beingness — that's the only thing that's conscious and aware. Even the idea of her is a thought within my own Self that can be perceived. So —

NThere's nothing that is conscious. When you say nothing that is conscious — because nothing is conscious, being conscious is not a possession of things.

QMhm.

NAwareness is the nature of Reality. Why? Because when a life begins, when the first experience appears, before that there's no experience. There's no person, there's no world, nothing.

That is the absence of experience. Before the first experience, the absence of experience. But that is the point where the first experience appears. Every time, every life, every time you wake up from sleep — sleep, if you're going into coma — the point where experience appears is the absence of experience.

QMhm.

NBut the absence of experience is still Awareness. Otherwise, the experience cannot appear. See? So Awareness is the nature, the basic fundamental Reality in which lives and experiences appear. It's not possessed by anything.

Until when that mind — mental I — is no longer considered I. And that's why I'm saying that should be it. It's ridiculous. How can that be I? What is you is definitely what is aware.

You are what is aware. So anything that is not conscious, not aware, is immediately proven to not be you. And it's the same — I'm just saying you have to apply that not just to me, I, you know, like the personal one, but to her, to every interaction that one ever has. Who is on the other side?

QWhat does it look like when you said to apply it? Like let's say if we apply it right now, like what does it look like as a practice to apply what you're pointing out?

NIt looks like this. I'm talking to you.

QYes.

NIn the sense of what you are, not what, you know, I don't know your background and what this and that — but I know what you are.

You cannot be anything else. I'm not talking to pixels and a face or a body or a brain. I'm talking to the one that is aware. And that is what you are.

It's just — it's a simple fact of being very firm on what I means, what the Self is. And I can use all the pronouns and her and she and so on. But the fact remains clear.

QWill you just — can I stay here just a second, please. As you're speaking, you said something very — I don't know, direct.

I'm not able to speak of it in words, but you said like right now as there's a sense of Awareness here, just here. Then the seeing on the screen, seeing pictures and all. And then the idea of Nabeel is a thought in the head. So what you — so right now the attention — so it seems like a game of attention. Either it's going into the thoughts or it's going into just here without words, just here. So is the practice to just have the attention just be here, or —

NThere's no practice.

When you are talking to me — me — when you're talking to me, there might be a thought of Nabeel and a face and whatever. But what you're acknowledging, what you know is that you're talking and the words are being heard, are being listened to, not just there, not just where Razi is. They're being heard in all other places. And wherever they're being heard, behind that is the same Awareness that you find as yourself. It cannot be some other kind of Awareness, some grand Awareness and male and female Awareness — no, Awareness is just Awareness.

QSee, this is where I'm problem because Nabeel, that seems like an idea, conception, or a thought that seems like you're introducing. And I'm not saying it's not true, but that's not the direct experience. The direct experience so far for me is I am, I'm here, I'm listening, I'm looking at the screen. I don't know if it's heard anywhere.

Like all that — isn't that conceptual? I mean, I want to directly experience what you're saying, but that is not the direct experience right now. There's some gap. But maybe I'm still thinking about what you're saying and not directly experiencing it.

NNo, it's not just thinking. What you're holding as primary is experience itself. And I'm saying experience is not primary. Your nature is primary.

QMhm.

NI'm just referencing to your own nature.

When you know your own nature, you know that anyway if there's experience that same nature is at the heart of it as the Self. So instead of referencing the experience which is always local — because it's always with reference to some process. The experience is local. But what is your role? What is your place in all this? What is what can be called I? When you get to what can be called I then the I is absolute.

QYes. Thank you. I'm there. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your patience.

NOkay. Marina.

QYes, a quick question. When there is a situation like Razi was saying which is quite common among humans — to feel the heat of the moment, the rage, all the thoughts going on.

Are all of those sensations just the conditioning of the body, the pattern of the body, the brain, whatever it is that instantaneously manifests all these emotions which are intrinsic to the body? My question is — whatever it is, the emotion or the heat of the moment, the thoughts, the sensations, whatever — are those just a conditioning of the body which I'm aware of?

NMhm.

QBecause —

NSure.

QI did — there is a very thin line which sometimes makes me think that the body is aware, is conscious, but is not. So whatever the body does is a conditioning of the body itself, the brain.

NMhm. So consider it — there's an interplay of a few factors. Some are yes, conditioned. Yeah, this whatever was shaped to DNA and then whatever the mind connection — mental connections were made into life and so on. But there is a very core thing around which emotions are built.

And that is your image of yourself. And that is what the wisdom teachings can crucially first of all dismantle, but then point to the actual Self. And when you're aware of what you are, the emotions cannot play in the same way. I mean, they will spark off and so on. But there's the feeling.

But then there's a feedback loop. So if when you have like fear, you're feeling fear about your health issue — then there will be thinking related to that. And that thinking will be on the wrong self-image. And that will feed the fear. And the fear will become deeper. And then it'll become habitual — if you continue to leverage only that wrong idea of self. We get — it's just being blown about in the wind.

That's what every life is. Because the image of self was wrong. And that is all I'm trying to clarify.

QYeah, but the image — oh, sorry.

NYeah?

QThe image of myself has been built through years. Through conditioning. I am a walking conditioning body, conditioned.

NYeah, but the magic is even after the whatever billions of years of conditioning, whatever. There's a little plug at the bottom of the bathtub. You just pull that. And that plug is what is meant by I.

I must be conscious. That is the fundamental fact. What you are must be what is conscious. Because you are conscious.

QThat is very clear. That is very clear to me. My question was just about the reaction of the body. The body reactions. Because sometimes they are very hard.

NWait — you are aware, you are clear that you are conscious, but you're not using it the right way. When you are clear that you are conscious, then when the conditioning says me this, me that, it's not referring to that which is conscious.

QOh yes, of course. Yes.

NSo we have to use that insight in a — it's almost in a surgical way to take out the tumor.

Whenever the wrong self-image appears and says I'm going to die. Oh, I'm going to lose all these capabilities and so on. But that is not I. Your only quality you cannot lose.

QYeah, but that very thought "I am going to die" — it is the conditioning of whatever it is, the body, the thoughts, whatever.

NYeah, but you can catch it in the act. Say when it says "I am going to die" and it's clear that I is what is conscious.

QYeah.

NHow can what is conscious become unconscious? And even if it does, that's just the end of experience, but not the end of you. Because —

QYeah, right.

NIs it like —

QNo, no, I get the point. I get the point. I get it's very clear.

My point was just to catch the conditioning arising.

NYeah. So it's like all what happens is because it's so clear what I is, what I means — that when you get in that and whatever emotion is arising, and then the thinking starts, you catch it as being wrong and it cannot snowball. There might be flickers, maybe momentary lapses back into a pattern. But then you catch it.

It's not referring to Awareness. It's referring to personal self. But that personal self is just a narrative self. It's not actually the Self. And you keep catching it.

QYeah, which has been built through years and years and DNA and whatever.

NYeah, so the narration might continue according — the narration will continue according to its conditioned ways.

QYeah.

NBut you can catch very clearly that it's not referring to you.

QYeah. Yes, very clear. Thank you.

NYeah, that's the fuse, the short circuit. Sunil, last question and we'll end there.

QSorry, I hit the wrong button. So I just wanted to bring up a little corollary which is, you know, from what you've been saying. So I think you just mentioned that nature is the primary and the experience is secondary. And some of this I've smiled or seen experientially, but mostly also theoretically and from too much reading. It's sort of like they also say that nature is primary and this experience, this Sunil — you know, it is essentially a robot. It is essentially not — it has no free will. Once this thing recognizes that there is — the nature is primary — if that recognition is complete, then the existence of this Sunil experience entity — it has no free will. There is — there cannot be a free will because there is no thing. There is no entity.

And that recognition softens many of these harsh feelings, like anger. See, slowly the anger gets dissolved because then this entity says, "You know what? This is not my free will that's getting angry. It's just a thing, you know?" And also difficulties in life, life situations, health situations — their sharpness gets sort of diluted because then there's a recognition: "Come on, that's not the free will thing happening. That is just — you know, that's this entity going through its crap." And also I found that whenever I've seen many — when in all these Advaita teachings, there's sometimes contradictory things because people are saying this word I, but when the speaker says I I don't know whether they mean little I or big I. When they say you, I never know whether it means little you or big you, correct? So once that recognition happens, I can then recalibrate what they meant and it sort of softens or erases some of those possible contradictions. So in some sense, this recognition, which is just partially firsthand — for me it's never really permanent — but it helps soften a lot of this harshness. Health harshness, anger harshness, contradictions. So I just wanted to make that comment. Sorry. And I know I took up a lot of time. Yeah.

NNo. Yeah, that's right. It's just the conditioning will play out in terms of the thinking, the emotions, that's right, and so on. But you can be very clear on what the nature of Self is, what you are, and that's going to clear everything up.

QMhm. Thank you.

Nabeel, you said something I can't resist. I know we're out of time. AI for enlightenment. Like if you think about these agentic AIs and do things, that's exactly like the mind works, and we know they are not conscious, but they do all this stuff. So look at it. It's very similar to the way mind — that conditioning Marina was talking about, or meant maybe. Interesting. Isn't that so? Like yeah, our body and mind are not conscious. They're not aware, but the same thing for these agents, AI things that learn and train and all that.

NI mean that comparison has its limits, and it can go wrong in that someone will start imagining the AI might be having experiences. It's a very different mechanism right now than how it works. The body, like I say, is because it can do something much more amazing than so much computational power that we're spending on all these machines — because it found a hack. It found what was there and used it. And that is this quality of being conscious. It is interconnected. Why did the body evolve to — like it captures all that and processes all that in certain way to create experiences. There's the carrot and the stick. The pain and the pleasure that's used in certain ways to cause certain behaviors and so on. So there's an interplay again between Consciousness, conscious experiences, and what's going on at the body level.

It's not entirely like what's happening in the AI, which is just generating text. So if the machinery that generates these texts were to produce experiences, they would have nothing to do with the text. They would not think in English or in human terms. The people even — people who are developing AI don't get it. They think when the AI is sentient it'll be talking to you. No, because what we're looking at right now with the text outputs is like the stuff that comes out of the body, the excretions, or the stuff coming out of it. Or maybe you're looking at the brain scan. It tells you nothing of the experience. So if there ever is an experience because we created such a complex machinery that the process itself is producing an experience — it would not be known to us.

There'll be no way to know that. And the thing would not be able to communicate either. Because the outputs are not what it is aware of. So it's like — anyway, we're going on a tangent here.

The thing is, yes, you can notice for yourself that whatever the thought is, when it says I, it is unaware of what I means. Only when it stops referring to itself or anything else, it just recognizes — just stops there and says, "You are aware." That is a true thought. Yes. You are what is aware.

Thank you. Let's end there for today. Thank you all for joining.

QThank you so much, Nabeel.

NThank you.

QThank you so much, everybody.