Where Wisdom and Love Converge | Talk + Q&A [public version]

NAll right, let's begin. So there's a side to all this that is best expressed through the language of love. There's the path of wisdom, but there's also the path of devotion. And they must converge. You can start on either one. They must converge in Self-realization.

Half of it is expressed in wisdom. The other half is just love and it's expressed through love. There's a kind of understanding defined by that. In the last call, there was this question: nonduality is sometimes very bleak, very empty. And that's only focusing — and that's the internet version of nonduality. That's just focusing on a very conceptual side of it. The no-self. There's no self. Blah blah.

And in the question it was Christina's friend — that she said the friend is content to be in love with Jesus. She's actually focusing on the other side, the path of devotion. But the true path here is to go deeper into that love. What does it mean to love Jesus?

Can you love Jesus as a person? Because you've never met him. You don't even know what his face looked like. So the path is to go deeper. What is that love for? Who is it for? And who is the one who loves?

So I often return to Rumi because no one has expressed it better than in poetry. You find especially Rumi — they speak from the language of love. It's not empty, it's not bleak, and he can disarm you so easily. Lose yourself — when he says lose yourself, you're happy to do it. Because he says it: lose yourself in this love.

So the path of all the talk of love and so on — sometimes it becomes like what you see on a gift card. But there is a side to it. You understand that: what is the love for? Who is it for? In Sufism, or in Islam actually, there's this injunction that you must love Muhammad more than your own children, more than your own parents. And the typical "I love Jesus" or "I love God" thing just dies there. Can you love more than your own children? Can you love an entity that you've imagined?

You can't, honestly. You can't. Even the Bible itself exposes it with the book of Job. When everything is nice and you're prosperous — that's the prosperity Bible — you can love God until things go wrong. So we go deeper. You're questioning: who do I even love? Do I love the body? Do I love the personality, the mind, the face? No.

It's very clear. When you love someone, you love what they are, the Consciousness. And then the rest is just the faces and the memories. They're like the clothes. The disguise here is time. Call it a temporal disguise through time and space. That's the garb which seems like there's so many of you, and you pick your love for this one and not that one, and that's fine. But you should know what the beloved is. Who is it?

Yes, Rachel.

QI'm going to shut this. Well, even beyond the duality of the loved and the beloved, what exactly is love? Because how we are taught love in any society — and every society is taught from a perspective of full acceptance and embracing as our own.

But there seems to be a selfish component to that. And so my question is: what exactly is love?

NThat is the path you're going down. You have to get to the bottom of that. So in Sufism, you cannot understand love. You are not truly loving as long as you even love yourself more than the beloved. So you have to just lose the self. Then you know what love is.

Love is just — it's not love — the mind is compartmentalizing it. You love people, you love things and so on. But then love becomes desire. It becomes craving. Okay. But what is love without the self? Without having the concept of self, then it is love of all of existence. It's not love for something or someone.

It is the love of Reality as it is — just a love to be. And you realize that's the very basic thing that gives momentum to allow there to be life and so on. If there's no love to be, it gets stillborn and the life cannot start. There has to be something.

Yeah. Even — we know there's a kind of will involved in being alive at the end. When you're sick, when you die, you've been injured in a war. What keeps you alive longer is the ones who want to live. Sorry, there's some echoes. I might have to see who is not on mute.

QIn your expression and sharing your own experience — in one of the YouTube sessions that I listened to, you talked about two lightning strikes, if I remember correctly, and it reminds me of the two arrows in Buddhism. And you talked about there has to be two because the second one was about the love of the ones you were embracing in this experience.

Could you share a little more about that with us?

NSure. So the two arrows — they were about the moment the realization hits. The first one is about what I thought as myself being completely wrong. There's no such self. It's not that I stopped existing. There was no such self.

It was just like a combination of thoughts and memories and assumptions. The second arrow is realizing what is the Self — and that is not a person, that is not even an entity, you know. It's Sentience itself. You do not understand the meaning of Consciousness, Awareness, or whatever word we use until that point. And then it is all-embracing.

At that moment I was with my wife and daughter. But then they were not my wife and daughter anymore. They were the beloved. They were the Self. That's what you all are. That's what it is. That's how it's like. That's the second arrow. When you realize who you loved is you and all of it, all of everyone. And what is the love? The love is you.

You know this is the trinity. Now if we think in conceptual terms, there's the lover, the beloved, and the love. But in Reality there's the unity. The trinity is not. It's just how we might see things through the mind. When there's a self, then there is the one you love and the love. When there's no self, there's only the love and the love is the Self.

With the two arrows in Buddhism, they're more about the suffering. I think you're hit first by the actual arrow of pain and then the second arrow is psychological suffering. But it's also about how the self — the idea of self — causes that. Second arrow.

It was — I used to do metta meditation for a while. Not often. It was hard. When you try to do it, it's hard.

If you're unfamiliar, metta is when you meditate on trying to cultivate feelings of love. You'll start with someone easy to love. Think of them, feel love for them, and then you expand your circle. But it's hard because you're trying to create love. For me, what happened was in meditation, I started to question — because you do feel it. You feel the love and you remember someone you haven't thought of in many years and there's the love for them and you can question right now in this moment. They're not here.

The love is so real. It's present. I can't even remember the face really. Who am I loving? Who is the love for? It's not a faint memory that the love can be for.

And I realized that's what metta is about. It's to teach you. Who do you really love? Here sitting alone, eyes closed or half closed, whatever. Nobody else is here. And are you here? Who is the one loving? You find, oh, what? Who is the one who is actually sitting here loving? What? It's just — it's not the body. It's not this.

There's no lover. The beloved is what? Like smoke. But the love is real. And that is expressing the nonduality. There's no separate subjects and in that moment you have done what Rumi is asking: lose yourself in this love and then you will rise from the earth and embrace the endless heavens.

What does it mean? How can you embrace the endless heavens? Because once you've lost the self, love doesn't die. Animals die. Consciousness continues to appear again, again. Each life it's there. Love is there. That's not dying. That is fundamental to whatever Reality is even before you understand it. So that's how metta should be taught. But I didn't come across it like that — that you should be understanding who is the beloved and who is the lover. Once you see that there are actually no fixed things like that, then there's only love and the love explains to you what all this means.

QBut that is why I didn't understand what is love. Because if there is just me and the thoughts I'm creating, then what am I trying to do? And so one of my Buddhist bhikkhuni friends taught me this practice, this metta practice. And you're right, I found it very difficult to do because I couldn't even identify who is the me that I'm loving and what is this love. There's a story that Lord Krishna tells Radha when she asks him, Lord, you are everything in the universe. Why do you need me and why do you need my love? And he goes through this entire explanation of creation to help her understand that she was the same as him.

And so it is an intellectual concept for me which I have great difficulty comprehending — the oneness, the nonduality.

NMhm. I mean, what I'm saying is if we do it the standard way it's described, it's very icky and you're trying to cultivate love — but if you can get into that state where you're experiencing the love while you're alone meditating, the question then is: right now what is actually here? Because the love is there, definitely. You can feel that it's here. Then what is here that is me and what is here that is the object of devotion. The object of devotion is purely imagination in the moment — that's not there. There's no object.

And what is me in that moment is not me as a lover, but I am the love in that moment. You are the love in that moment. And it's taking away all the forms you think you are because they are not there in that moment. When it's all engulfing and you look for me, you only find love. And you look for the beloved, you only find love. Well, what are you talking about — that there's a duality?

There's no — it's annihilated the self in a very beautiful way. You haven't even realized it because you thought you lose the self, it's painful. There's also the side of this that humans through the centuries have needed this object to direct their devotion to. This worshipping of idols. And when the Abrahamic religions started, they are rejecting the worshipping of idols. But the idols just shifted to mental idols. When someone says they love Jesus, they now have a mental idol — the object of devotion. And what I'm saying is our path is to then go deeper. Who do you love? Can you find an object for your devotion? And when you cannot find an object, then the devotion is just all-embracing. It's not for someone or for something.

That is the thing that makes Rumi create all this poetry — like this one part where he says my poetry was broken and something until this happened. That's how he can say all that. Like he's just — all of the pointers are to bring you back to yourself. So like the latest video — it's a beautiful line: return to the root of the root of your own soul. Why does he repeat it? The root of the root. Where does he find the root? What is the root of what you are? He says conscious, unconscious. That's the root.

Now you go to the root of that root.

QNeil. Hi. Hello everyone. Yeah, you just kind of — I was listening to that, your video which is marvelous and wonderful and I've heard that poem by Rumi previously but I really appreciate your — as you describe it — your elaboration on the meaning of it because I think I said in the comments that I listen, I'd read these poems and I get — you get the spectacle of the poetry of it but you don't always get what it's actually saying. Maybe it's just the language, the time that it's written, or as I've said in my thing, my lack of understanding. But anyway I do appreciate what you do with your videos like that.

I've also been reading a lot of Nisargadatta and it just seems to me that — and hopefully in line with what you've been saying and what the lady was saying before — that you can't get to that place as you are. How on earth can you say this?

I can't do it. That I that I think I am, that I believe that I am — he's never going to do it. He can't do it because he doesn't exist. He isn't real. And that to actually go to the root of the root, to be at the root of the root, you've got to be there. You've got to let go of — that's the way I see it anyway, that's the way it appears to me. It's the destruction or the annihilation — which is a scary word. Annihilation — it has so many connotations of fear. And you also hear about people saying you're going to die before you die and it's like, you know, that's a scary concept from one point of view. But my understanding of that is no, it's not. It's not scary at all. It's liberation. It's Reality. It's the truth.

And I think — getting back to what you say about love — to try to generate love. I think it's a little bit what you were saying about greeting cards — like trying to generate, to make love happen is impossible. And it's unreal and it's fake.

It only becomes real to me when I've let go of what I think I am. And when I'm actually aware of Awareness, then it's real. Then because that is — I'm not generating it. It's there because that is what it is. That is what I am. And then I'm not having to be devoted or be a devotee or generate this experience or this love. It's because that's what I am. That's my nature. That's everything.

But I don't really know if I'm actually asking you a question. Maybe I'm just saying to you I think I hear you. I hear what you say and I do love those videos so much because they really take you there. I feel that the work, the poems and your elaboration and the way it's put together, it actually takes you there. It does to me anyway. At least that's my feeling. That's my experience that, you know, it's like you can talk about all of this stuff and discuss and you talk about your mental concepts and I do this all the time. I can't get my head around it, but it's just actually the Reality of it.

So—

NI'll touch on a few things you said. So the first one is when you read these texts, there's the sense: is it lost in translation? Is it — I can't understand it, it's my fault — and so on. But the way to understand these texts is: let's say you start with Nisargadatta. You start to realize what he's saying is sinking in. You realize it. To me all the other texts were reference points, validation points. Okay, now I'll take this understanding and see if that text which was so obscure and it made no sense — does it make sense now? And it does. And you go to a Zen koan and it opens. And all of the traditions — Sufi, Islam, Christian mysticism, Buddhism, whatever — saying exactly the same. And that is the test of truth. Everybody's fighting about which god is real. But there can only be one real Reality and that is the test. And that's why also in the channel I don't like to stick to one thing because you see Ashtavakra said that — he's saying oh you should renounce everything — and Rumi is saying you should just lose yourself in the ecstasy — and actually talking about the same. And that communication is happening beyond the concepts and the words because when it sinks in it's just contradictory things but you're realizing yes this is true, yes this is true.

And the other thing you said about annihilation — that's the view from the wrong side. From the actual side of truth there's no self. There's no entity that gets annihilated. So the fear is all because of the belief in something that doesn't exist. And so I like — the right pointer can just disarm that thought. There's no annihilation. There's no need to fear.

And yes, love — you can't force it. When you truly love, you are loving — it's just you are giving yourself up. Love is the annihilation of self. You will die for someone, you will whatever — you are putting aside the baggage. And the self everybody is afraid to lose is just baggage.

It's not the Self. So you know as Ramana Maharshi said — the train will bring everyone to the destination. Just put down your bag, it'll still go there.

QOkay. Thank you.

NThank you, Sil. Welcome back. You're so — unmute. No, I can't hear you yet.

QOkay. I think it was my microphone closed. Okay. Hi. Hi everybody. Nice to see you live. I was looking — I was watching all your videos and listen all your talks. I'm normally watching from Spotify and this why I'm not so much in YouTube. From the last time I think was passing like two months. Nabeel, thank you for everything. For your video are fantastic and I need to go live again. I will not make you trouble to blow my face, you know. I don't have problem with my identity. I didn't think is a good image. I was very excited. I already excited also. I have issues with my exciting and everybody have some problems you know is why we are here.

So I don't have so much question like you know when I go on silence, when I go in Awareness and I find all the answer is almost like no questions have no answer. But I have a experience and I get very scared, Nabeel, and I didn't expect something like that, you know. I was in the morning. I was very clear head and everything. And I'm sleeping with your videos, I'm wake up with your videos in the last three months and maybe one day I have to quit that, you know — how you say in one video: if you like something very much you need to quit that and to try to live without it.

So anyway, I was watching your video and my connection is very strong with Rumi, with the video about — maybe because I've been Muslim and I read things about Rumi. I don't know for sure but when you said there he said like: I'm coming in the town but you already left without saying goodbye.

I blow English. I start to do meditation like one month before and I was going very fast to be comparing with my friend who making meditation for a long time and I didn't know why because you know I see my mind. I try to manage my ego and I find out that I'm not such a good person like I've been thinking about and I realize a lot of things about myself but I didn't like it and I push everything — like when it's coming this thinking, this mind, I just push away, push away — and the lightning was striking me. And I said okay I understand something there. I was not here. Okay. I was pushing. I was in another place. I wasn't waiting for something like this. It was so powerful. I cannot describe in any words and my mind cannot understand and I can speak with nobody. I cannot speak with nobody. Nobody understand me behind you guys. I think it's hard. I didn't wait it was and after this become so everything was upside down, you know — maybe you the rice and after this you clean it and the bowl and I don't know what to think about. But the problem was bigger because my ego was flowing back.

NSo the fear you mentioned — that was before this happened or what is that?

QThat's before. Now it's gone.

NYou ask about the experience.

No, you said you had some fear that was before this. Is it gone now?

QOh, the fear — the big fear was in the moment when the strike was—

NYeah.

QFor one second I don't know — my mind try to understand what happened but I am not a scary person. I have a lot of experience in my life but this is was something very different. So please help me. You put me — like I said I know somehow but I want — I have because Peace Center — I don't know the lady name but Peace Center. Her name—

NRachel.

QRachel. Hi Rachel. You are very sweet, everyone of you. So we're speaking about striking like this — need to be the second time. So Nabeel I need the second strike or I'm in nothingness right now, I stuck, or what is happen? Because I have the experience like blowing something and I was not here. Was very very powerful. I cannot explain any words. I was not here. It was something very different and I was get scary and I come back and I said okay okay I know I understand something there. But I will go there when I'm dying, right?

Why I have — do I have to what? If I could keep strong myself, I will see the something because I see nothing. It was dark. It was I don't understand.

NOkay. So the way I described the two strikes, it can be confusing. It's just a moment. It's a single moment. Okay. But there's two points to be clear about.

One is what it showed you and you obviously get it — that—

QI was not there. Whatever I consider I was not there.

NYes.

QYes.

NBut somehow you were still there because you are the one who witnessed whatever that point was. So that you is the real you.

QAnd the one we—

NSorry. So that is the point. One point is this I does not exist. The I we think of as me — the person who can be good or bad, who makes mistakes. When you say ego, that is still like a reflection of that assumed, presumed self. There's no ego either. In that moment, was there an ego?

QNo, no, no. I will explain you again because I am excited. I don't know how did I make you understand or not? So my English is not so good. So I'm sorry for that too. So I watch my mind. Okay. And I can control my mind. I start to believe, you know, because I was very angry person, you know. I live in Turkey and in the city and I get angry. I am Romanian, by the way. I'm not Turkish, but how to say I get angry. I am an angry person. Okay. But after the meditation, I've been like smiley to everybody and the sun was shining like magic. Everything was magic around me. My life was magical. I understand everything. And I said this is the experience you know. This is what can I want more than this. It was magic. I wish you all to live that. I was a religion person. I was looking for something in my life. If I change my religion for my — because I wanted to see what is Muslim and I find also the Muslim is better than Orthodox. But I wasn't quite okay with that too. So I'm sorry I delayed from the subject.

So it was good. This was shiny. It was everything. I understand everybody. I don't care what somebody tell about me or — you know that small thinking what we lose ourself all day in the thinking was gone. Okay. I control it like you know like Matrix where controlling everything. It was nice. But after the experience, I get back and I say why me? You know, I'm not such a good person. I do again. I have my ego. Okay.

I have my ego alive. I can choose what is good and what is wrong. I do mistake again. So I was thinking maybe Nabeel I need to have again the experience and to see for real without being scared. Do you have any—

NYeah, baby. Okay, you just go. I'm here.

Okay. So what you need is not another experience.

What you've seen — you try to understand what you saw in the moment. Which is that all of what you're describing — it happened. Sure. But that was not happening to you as a person. You are that Self which is revealed in that.

QYes. Snapping out of this mind. Yeah, from thinking.

NSo try to just look from that standpoint because that has not changed. What has changed is the thinking is back, the mind is back, whatever. Now you have to inquire directly. What am I really?

QI understand some kind of — I mean this is not I, this is not me. This is only thinking. Is my body. Okay? It's not even my brain. Is a body. The cell is working. The cells — they have the organic robot something like this. There's nothing else. Okay. The other side is real. This is clear for me.

NIt's fine. See, we go through the peaks and the valleys. It's natural. The bliss — that kind of bliss doesn't last forever. It's also—

QYeah. It's there for a while. Life is sweet and beautiful and Consciousness is everything.

NBut then that can't last forever. So that now what you get to is you go high, you go low. This — the baseline where you settle at — this is what I am. This is the ground. And then whatever comes, it comes and goes.

It's — you're fine. But don't think from that old standpoint. That's the point which is a mistake — to then continue to think in terms of yourself as a person because you know now that that's not real. You still live life. That's fine. But who is judging? Who is judging the thoughts? It's other thoughts judging thoughts.

QExactly. But in meditation when I stay still and — you know when you go in a high place — I'm like my reason to see this, to feel this — not to see because I see nothing — to feel this. Maybe it's a reason. I need to find a reason. Maybe my body tell me that I need to find a reason. So I cannot go with my life like until now. I don't know. Sometime you know it's coming this — maybe you saw this situation — how I can go down from my this ego is—

NWhat is the ego to you? What does ego mean?

QEgo is like you want more.

NWho wants more?

QThis body of course. What I'm doing with my body just need food and water.

NThe demands here are a bit more than what the body wants. Look — the ego is actually just wrong thinking. The ego begins with the thought of the wrong idea of self.

So you continue to focus on what am I really. There can be no — the ego cannot form. Because the ego is just thinking. It's chains of thinking based on the wrong concept of self. So now with what you've experienced, with what you've seen, spend some time just inquiring on that point and then it fixes the whole system. It rewrites the system. But don't expect to become a perfect person. That's not what's being rewritten. What's happening is the meaning of I shifts to the actual meaning of I. Whereas previously it was pointing here and then it was all fuzzy. It becomes solid.

QYeah. Now when I'm inquiring I understand what has happened actually but is not so easy because you can speak with anybody and said you — this is this girl was not really normal before but right now is more — is very funny. Let me see what happen next. I will—

NIt doesn't stay dark like that. Maybe you've got feelings of nothingness and darkness. No — you go back to what are you?

There's a joy in that. There's beauty in that.

QI after that scare — it was broke up you know. The connection I have before it was so great. So my addiction and everything was great and after the experience I was like losing that connection.

NWhy was the connection there? The connection was there because the sense of being a small person had dissolved and the fear brings it back. So the connection is not a connection — is the baseline. Is as if you live as you are knowing what the Self is then you will feel the peace, you'll have those moments of joy and beauty and so on. But if we try to create — get back there — who will get back there? That's just going to create trouble there. That's going to create all the wrong thinking and you cannot get there because then you're stuck in that thinking.

QOh.

NSo that's why I'm saying just inquire what am I? You have all the clues. You have had the insights.

QYeah. Don't worry.

NOkay.

QYeah, I think everything is so easy actually but we making so much questions and so much but everything is just black and white actually but our mind likes to go around and around and around.

NThank you.

Thank you. Now there you have — your hand up.

QYes, I do. Hi. This is with reference to the state of knowing the Self alone is rare even among those — class. I'm sorry you're bringing up that.

NOh, okay. So this is the verse and this is: the tranquil state of knowing still is rare among even among those who own what?

Am I coming through?

QIt's breaking up. I think you're talking about the Ashtavakra—

NYeah. Is it better now?

QYes. Yes. Better.

NOkay. The tranquil state of knowing Self alone is rare. That one.

QMhm. Okay. So basically — so that state — so people go to that state and some come back and some don't, right?

NNo. You know people don't go to that state.

QI know. Yeah I mean — yeah you caught me right there. Yeah. As a hovering around that state, getting close to it, attachment brings you back. And mainly in this case is the kids and I know all the theory, but that still keeps you and that's the fear. So how — give me some wisdom there.

NRight. So this statement has a contradiction — that the tranquil state of knowing Self alone is rare — and it's Janaka saying it. So Ashtavakra is the last line. Janaka is still the disciple being guided to this is not the right way of thinking. You still have something to change in that thinking. But anyway, he says the tranquil state of knowing Self alone is rare even among those who own but a loincloth. And that is true if we think of it as a state. And I described how — consider the point where Buddha realized or where Ramana Maharshi realized and so on. That is the point.

It's the point where you drop out of time and space and the mind. Everything's gone. There's nothing. And you cannot even say you experience nothing until you return. Not you return — like experience returns. And you know the absolute standpoint from which experience is witnessed and that does not belong to a person, a mind, a body, anything. That is the absolute standpoint from which experience is witnessed.

But to go through that is very rare. It happens. You like — if as someone in search of the truth, you cannot depend on getting there. That's what this statement is also saying. You don't need that because — once — that's the contradiction in the statement because the state of knowing Self is changeless. It's there. It's right now. What are you knowing? The Self is Awareness. Everything is Awareness. That's all there is. So if you're waiting to have that one flash of where everything drops — for most it's happening every night.

You go to sleep, it happens. Everything goes. It comes back. To see it the way the sage sees it is rare and you could spend your life dedicated to it and there's no guarantee that you would be able to see it that way. So that's the kind of a warning in the statement. If you want to do it, fine, you can try.

However, after that he just says and I therefore neither accept nor reject and live as I am. Because in many ways to realize you don't need that point. That is the extreme case. It's the extreme case. And once you've had it, you realize I didn't actually need that. It was just — it's the same as going into sleep and returning. But you realize which you all know that in deep sleep none of this existed. I as I consider myself in life did not exist.

And so that I which I consider myself in life appears and disappears and is not I. It's just one way to realize the truth. I don't think it's — and that's what Janaka's statements are saying. Look, you don't need that. It's very rare. And just because it has happened in human history is itself a gift. What if it was not possible? What if there was no such teaching? Or if there was no sleep, you were awake all the time. And then like — much so the hints are there in a normal life. The clues are there.

And then you can look at the words of the sage and realize based on your normal basic ordinary existence what that truth is.

You're on mute.

QThe underlying kind of corollary to that is when you realize you watch things happen or you see things happen, there's no doer. Basically, you really live that.

There's no doer. And that applies to every aspect of life. Until you have attachments and you're thinking you're doing something like you know — or that mental attachment mainly about the children let's say kind of supporting them and I think that's my underlying thing like I'm not crazy about going to — but that's like a test of okay let go like you said lose yourself. Okay. What keeps you from losing? What are those last things that keep you — maybe such all mental? I mean, it is mental, but still it's kind of a reality, you know, one may be dealing with. So how do you orient your mind towards that aspect that people depend on you and so forth?

But and also resolve that with the fact that there's no doer.

NIt's just a reframe in a way. You re — it's the mind has framed everything in the sense of a person doing stuff. But now you see, oh, the person wasn't ever doing stuff because there's no person. However, you are central to all of it. You the Awareness are central to this body function otherwise it's a corpse. Because of Awareness the mind can exist. So whatever happens — all the higher functions of the body which involve thinking, work — they require you to be there but then your role is only to be there, to be aware, and you have always been doing that role to perfection. And then the sense of doing is actually just the one way of thinking of it which is — once you're not thinking that way — is just ridiculous.

It's the feeling is of effort. Of course, there's effort. Effort is Awareness. Being aware of what's going on in the body. If you run a sprint and you say, "I'm not the doer. I should not feel the effort of the sprint." That's not how it works. You will feel the effort but it is not because you are doing it but because you are the Awareness aware of the body doing it.

You know everything happens the same way. I was saying in the last conversation the truth explains everything as it is. There's the idea that everything will change. I will see things differently and so on. The criteria for truth is it has to explain everything as it is. That's the criteria in science as well. Whatever theory you come up with, it has to map with existing data.

If the data is right, your theory has to map to it.

QThank you.

NThank you, Harsh. You've been waiting very long.

QThank you, Nabeel. It's my first time joining these you guys. So, it's lovely to meet all of you.

I wanted to thank you. Thank you. I wanted to ask that why the realizations of the Self and the peace, the bliss and the ecstasy that comes with it feels kind of flat or goes in the background when the body is sick or ill. That's in my experience.

NYeah. So that's what I was saying to Sil as well. The high you get from realization also temporary. It is not the actual bliss the sages talk about.

So when at the point you realize there is this gushing amazing wow — every — it's beautiful forever — but that is temporary because that is still the mind shifting and reacting to what has been realized. Its concepts of self have changed. It have expanded to infinity. The world which was dangerous and against you is now just the Self. So there's that bliss but then the mind has to perform its role which is reflective of what's going on in the body.

So if — are you familiar with Sri Nisargadatta's dialogues?

QLittle bit. Not too deep into it but yes.

NYeah sure. So if you — there's one video I did which is a very rarely known book which he himself wrote — that's the only book he wrote — which describes the moments around his realization and it's so blissful, so beautiful. And then you read the end of his dialogues and he's just a very cynical old man — that's his persona — because he's got terminal cancer. He just discards life. He discards Consciousness. I don't need any of this. It's worthless to me. But between those two his standpoint has not changed. The bliss is at the moment you realize. Yes. It's beautiful. Amazing.

But the body is going through its cycles. Eventually there will be disease. Eventually it will be discarded and the mind will reflect all of that happening. There will be pain and suffering and not just yours but the ones you love and that's still there. And what we realize — the actual constant — the bliss the sages describe is the bliss that is there even in deep sleep, that is there before you were born. It is not experiential.

It is describing the peace of just being independent of any — not dependent on anything — and then experience appears and it can take you higher or lower but in yourself you are peace itself. If the baseline was nothing we can't describe it as peace. It's just — you know like if there's no Awareness, nothing — if Awareness is something possessed by entities and the entity dies you can't call that peace. But if there are no separate selves, no separate sentient entities, and the baseline is Awareness, then not having experience means peace. The baseline is peace. And so when despite experience being there and despite the experience of being sick being there or even negative emotions being there, when you become familiar not with the highs and lows but with the baseline, then you have that absolute peace there.

It's always there. It's just we are turning away from the gross to the subtle — like there's a thing in your face and we focus on that. But this — the deeper — the root of the root of your own soul—

QFeel like the attachment to the experience itself is coming and biting at me. I feel like—

NThat's a very important thing to notice. Yes. Like in meditation. The meditation only became very useful to me when I sat with the intention I won't want any experience. I want to turn away from experience and see what I am, what is real.

But that was for a while as well. We don't reject experience. But if we look besides all the experience here — all the experiential side is transient and changeful — what is the constant factor.

QThank you. Thank you. Yes. Rachel—

Can you share the name of the book you were referring to?

Do you recall the name of the book?

NThe one that he wrote.

QThe one that—

NYeah. It's Self-Realization and Self-Knowledge.

I think it's translated by Jean Dunn. Self-Realization and Self-Knowledge. Yeah. Translated by Jean Dunn.

QJean Dunn. Okay. Thank you.

NBut some of it might sound very odd to you because it's quite written in the traditional understanding and later — not like he's trying to map it to what he learned about Brahman and all that. Later on he just lets go of let's lose. Yeah. It's worth a read.

Bill.

QHi. I just thought I'd say hello.

First time I've joined one of these live meetings. I live in Melbourne, by the way. If—

NRight. Same as me.

QYes. That's why I thought I'd mention it. Yeah, just listening to the discussion today when we started off — I mean in my case it was always Bill trying to get to Awareness.

It's like the door — there seems to be a doorway for Bill that he can't get through. And the realization for Bill is that he doesn't have to go through the doorway. If he turns around, then Awareness is behind Bill, and you're still seeing the face of Bill, but it's Awareness that's looking through Bill's eyes at long last. And then the ego which is the claimant for the doing comes back and starts us to discuss this whole problem — this you know why we can't stay, why we can't go — and then we lose that connection to the Reality of what we are. But the more we try to make these visits the easier it becomes.

To get the knack seems to be going back to this situation where you are Awareness and accepting it. The ego is the only one who objects to you being Awareness. And eventually as Nisargadatta says you are the observer for a while. Who is the observer then? If there's only Awareness, well, it's the ego who is the observer. But the ego eventually dissolves and you give up trying to be Awareness. And that's when it becomes more like you set up camp as Awareness.

And you only become Bill when someone's talking to you or you have to go to the shops and you forget for a little while until you get home again. Basically, I'm just speaking for speaking sake.

NThat was good. You know how in some of my videos I have this view where it's like an eye blinking?

QYeah.

NSo eventually those simple things become the pointer taking you back. So you're at the shop and you realize my view is not the view of Bill which the other person sees. Your view is the view of Awareness.

QYeah.

NRight. It's what's called the first-person view. What view is that if there's no person?

QYeah. And the first person is just a catchall for I, you, he, we. It's like the I is a representative of all those pronouns that we use. And when the I goes, they all go.

NYeah. And then the first-person view is the first view.

The only view.

QYeah. The first view. Yeah. The only view. And the rest is just the objectification. Yeah. Maharaj said we are all constantly in the process of objectifying. That's what the mind does.

NYeah. So we should all find our own pointer which is as simple as that — just going to that instead of the third-person view which is the mind is thinking of you in terms of what that person sees you as or it's building like a muppet and that's you. Go to that first view, the only you. It's always there. How do you lose connection with that?

It's not possible. There's no view until the first view opens that eye. The rest of it is just lies.

QI guess that the ego—

NIt's just a different — it's within the view. Everything's possible. So it's amazing that—

QYeah it's just everything can — all forms are possible and when you look in the mirror you have this kind of form but that is the form being observed.

Yeah. It says I don't happen to the mind — the mind happens to me.

NYeah. Yeah. And when I read that, I imagined it, you know, being said in his style like with the authority, like the mind happens to him like a mosquito buzzing by.

Neil, you had your hand up earlier.

QYeah. Yeah, I did. There was really — I guess it's for Rachel and it's just funny how these things happen. But I'm actually reading that at the moment which is I think is one of the books you were referring to. And that's the final talks of Sri Nisargadatta and you just — it's quite fascinating that you should be talking about how he was in that book because he is obviously dying with cancer and some of his statements are really quite harsh but just with that amazing clarity at the same time. And there's just one I've got to read because it really struck me.

He said that this conscious state is not of my choosing. And he's really — the sooner it goes the better. Once it is known what is temporary and what is one's original state, no further knowledge is needed. And then he finishes off with — there's a poet called Eknath whose name I've only just discovered. I don't know if you're familiar with that one, but it says, "I am stung by a scorpion. What is that sting? It is the Consciousness. The knowingness is the scorpion which has given me all the pain in the form of various experiences and concepts."

I mean, I think it's kind of like you're saying — even with all that he knew and he had experienced at that stage in his demise as it were, there's that seeing that he's in a state of — he just wants to get back to his pure state. He doesn't need any more concepts, ideas, or thoughts. But anyway, just I had to say because I love the little poem about I'm stung by a scorpion. That's because I feel like sometimes you go, why — what's all the problems? And it's like, yeah, I've been stung by a scorpion. And there's behind it all a memory of our true state — or to me it's like my memory of so far back in my past that there's still a memory there of before coming here as it were — there was a perfect state, there was a place that I came from that was like he says I can't even put it into words. But anyway, enough that I just felt I had to say something as you'd been talking about the very book I'm reading.

NMhm. Some of what he says is for knocking out the idea that you need experiences. You want the experience that he had and so on. He's rejecting it. He's saying no experience is necessary. But if you just take that bit in exclusion, it sounds — it could end up sounding like nihilism — like there should be no Consciousness ever. But that's not actually his standpoint. But it just — like I as the Absolute had no need for this.

It has come without my choosing and without me deciding how the world should be and so on. Me — me as his absolute I. But you know, well, Rumi says the opposite. He says, "When this world goes, it'll be so easy to let it go. But how can I give up my love for you?" Because when you lose Consciousness, you're also losing the ability to love the beloved.

So it depends which perspective it is said from. And it's not that he meant — he can say it from both sides, you know. Next dialogue he'll say something else. But that's why I say Consciousness is heaven and hell packaged in one and you cannot have one part of the package. You either accept it all or you reject it all. But even if you reject it all you still have to live through it. So rather just see it for what it is. That's what he's saying. See it for what it is. If it's good, be happy. If it's bad, know what you are and stand firm.

QThank you.

NThank you. Right. Question in the comments. Yeah, it's from Iwars. So, there's nothing to realize. It's always there. Even existence coming as bothering.

Even existence is coming as a kind of bothering, but it's also coming as a teacher as understanding. That's right. It's like there's two sides to it. Like in shamanic traditions, you would actually inject the poison — like you're saying you're being stung by a scorpion. But humans have this way of finding the poisons they can ingest. And we ingest them knowing there will be the darkness that you fall down to the bottom of the pit. But it will also allow you to see beyond the usual walls of the human mind. So you can willingly take the plunge and life is like that. You didn't choose it. But then you can look at all of it as it was just — like in The Guest House by Rumi and I love that. The Guest House — like this being human is a guest house. Every day a new emotion, new feeling, a new depression, but you welcome them all.

Actually, the guest house is just open to all. That's the nature of the guest house. You don't go and welcome them all. That's just the nature of Awareness — that you cannot reject whatever appears. In all the terrible things humans have done, Awareness has not rejected Consciousness — like the possibility of experience. It's not possible because the very nature of Awareness is to be aware. So when we — but when you read Nisargadatta it sounds like he wants to go back to that state — that is actually not true because the absolute state is absolute. It's ever present.

It is an additional layer there which is the experience. This is a movement but still the absolute state is here present as being aware. It's not there's a memory of it. It's right now your absolute state is of being aware and you start to imagine the senses dropping off. Thinking's gone, seeing's gone, hearing's gone. Are you gone? Is the state of being aware gone? No. Because as soon as there's a sound Awareness is present to hear — to turn that into whatever — into a sound. The happening is the sound. That is the absolute ever-present changeless state and all is being said — the rest is extra.

It's additional. All right. Any last questions or comments? All right. Thank you all for joining. See you next time. Thank you.

QThank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Happy new year everyone.

NHappy new year. Yes. Absolutely.