You are the Great Beyond in which the mind arose (Satsang) [public version]

NSo in the mind there's this idea of "beyond" — that there's something beyond this life.

It's something beyond this world.

And how a mind deals with it, it can be different. You could turn to faith. You could turn to what others say. Or you could turn to science, and you want to find out what's underlying all this.

But there is this very deep belief: there's something greater, something beyond.

And when you hear the wisdom teachings, they're coming from that idea of beyond having collapsed.

It's not a beyond.

It's like it's right here.

And it's an understanding of what the mind considered the Greater Beyond.

What was That?

How do you even go about it?

So of course, when you inquire into all this, all you have to go on is what is in the moment.

If you just take what is in the moment, all you find is experience.

What is seen, what is heard, what is known — all of that.

And you start to notice what experience is like.

If you add anything to it, that becomes part of the experience. It's the new kind of sound, new kind of feeling.

There's always the one experience.

And if you take anything out, it's gone. It's not an experience. It doesn't exist, in a way.

And that's the nature of experience.

It's always rearranging to contain whatever is there.

And if you look in it, how do you find what is beyond?

But you can start to notice: nothing in experience is what is conscious.

If you're looking at something in the seen, what you're seeing is just the seen, the object seen.

And in the sound is only the sound. In the thought is just a thought.

There's nothing conscious about thought itself. It is what is being observed.

You find in experience there's nothing that is conscious.

And it's impossible for anything in experience to be conscious.

That's the nature of experience.

So there's no self in experience.

Whatever Self is, whatever I am, what You are — you're conscious, and you're not in experience.

And that immediately puts you in the "beyond", to the mind.

Now you are beyond.

You're not in the experience. You're beyond it.

But how preposterous!

You're not beyond.

You're here!

But that's when... that's your clue into what is "beyond".

The Self is not in experience.

Can there be a self beyond experience?

Because everything the mind ever associated with you is not beyond. It's whatever happened in this life — the experiences, or what the face looks like, the memories, relationships and all that — that was all in the experience.

And in the experience you never can find the conscious aspect of you, which is the core You.

So there's no self in experience, and there can be no individuality beyond experience.

So there can be no individual self beyond experience.

But You are still here.

Not as a... you could just do away with that idea of being a separate thing in the world.

And you understand that "beyond" is only to the mind a beyond.

For You, it is just Here.

You are Here.

Being conscious is that Greater Beyond that the mind cannot comprehend.

Because when we say mind, it is only this collection of experiences, and what the process behind it is, whatever — that's not beyond.

That's just... it's all observable.

So you start to see you're not in the experience.

There's no self there.

There's no self beyond the experience.

And then the beyond comes rushing Here, because you have eliminated the idea that Consciousness belongs to separate things.

Nature Itself is experiencing.

Whatever the "beyond" is, That is what is experiencing this moment, any moment.

When you lose yourself — the idea, all ideas of self — then what is conscious is the Beyond.

And of course You are That, and there is no beyond.

Then there is what is real, most fundamental, in every moment.

And only that deserves to be called the Self, I.

That is the true I.

All right, let's do Q&A.

Yes, Rachel.

QSo, going through the day, every happening seems to be like a déjà vu, that nothing is new and everything is just on some kind of cycle. It's like something happens to the body, it's like, well, this isn't the first time. This has happened so many times in the past.

So my question is about memories.

The experience feels like it's not new. The experience feels like it's just the past repeating itself.

And I'm not in it. It's just a happening.

NMhm.

Well it is just a happening.

But how you see experience, it will... it depends on how we're looking at it.

So every experience can also feel very new with this same knowledge. You've seen it a thousand times before, but then you look at the sky and it's new because you see it clearly, from a different point of view.

Or it could feel like everything is the same and it's repeating and so on.

So that is looking at what the experiences are now feeling like.

But the core insight is about what was previously thought of as beyond — what that actually is.

So the attention is now turning away from... well, the experiences are still there. They're quite obviously there, quite clear.

But then there is that what was thought of as "beyond" — as beyond comprehension, beyond knowledge.

And That is right here.

The Awareness which is the basis of all these experiences... also right here.

And most deeply Self.

There's no distance.

And then whatever the experience feels like — it could feel new, it could feel old and repeated — that is just the one experience in that moment.

And underlying that one experience is what Realization is about.

QThank you.

NThank you. Roo Chee.

QIt's my first time here. So the term... Consciousness and Awareness, sometimes I'm confused a little bit. So I was looking at the videos in the past. So there were two: one is suffering, all the experience; another one is about Consciousness.

So in the past I always equate Consciousness as Awareness. But after looking at those two videos, Nisargadatta equates like Consciousness is transient, because Consciousness is one's suffering. So pure Awareness won't suffer. Body-mind don't have the capability to suffer. So suffering and joy is all Consciousness. So Consciousness is transient; it depends on the food body.

Then your opening talk you use the term Consciousness. So then I was confused. So I need to mentally replace Consciousness with Awareness to make sense with the new learning I get from the channel.

Can you speak more about it?

NYeah, sure.

So Consciousness and Awareness, we make a distinction because... to move the mind beyond where it was stuck.

If you take "Consciousness is all there is," that is always associated with experience.

Nobody you talk to about consciousness will associate it with the absence of experience.

And what we want to move towards is an understanding of what the Self is, not just some abstract idea of consciousness.

And the Self is there when there's no consciousness.

There are times when there's no experience. Does not mean you cease to exist.

Then experience appears, you are there.

And for the experience to reappear, what must be there — that is what is called Awareness.

And someone might prefer to call it Consciousness. That's fine. It's just to take that understanding deeper.

So sometimes I could use them synonymously, but I often do make the distinction.

Awareness is fundamental.

It is not dependent on experience being there.

Instead, experience depends on Awareness being there first.

Yeah?

Q Yeah.

NSo once you see that, then it's just what Nisargadatta is talking about.

That consciousness brings all the joy and suffering.

Yes. He's talking about when there's the state in which there's experience, then with it comes that whole breadth of what's possible — all the joy, all the suffering.

But then he's pointing to what I started with by calling the "beyond," to the mind — that is the Great Beyond.

What is that "beyond"?

What allows for experience to appear?

It's not far away.

That's what's realized.

To the mind it is still the Great Beyond, but it admits: oh, it must be right here, perceiving what I am.

To the mind it's like: oh, what I thought was the Great Beyond, and what I thought of as the self, is all upside down.

Because what the mind thinks of as the self is just in it. It's just a puppet. It's not a real thing. It's a character. It's the memories, it's beliefs and all that.

And when the mind sees that, it sees that it cannot see.

It is being seen.

The "beyond" is the Awareness in which the mind appears and is being seen.

QSo sometimes I think I was struggled about the concept again in the mind, that Consciousness as non-personal but somehow manifest as personal suffering and enjoyment is a mix. It's kind of like a doorway, like one foot in the form, one foot in the formless.

NSo in the latest video I posted, it's this verse from Ashtavakra Gita, and it says: "The true knower [Knower of Truth] is never miserable in the world."

The True Knower is never miserable in the world.

And on the surface it sounds like, oh, once you are enlightened you are the true knower and you must never be miserable ever again.

And by that criteria everybody fails.

Nisargadatta was miserable at the end. He had cancer.

What it's saying is: the True Knower, the actual Self that knows, is not miserable.

Misery is there. Misery appears and disappears.

The True Knower is the Awareness which makes that experience possible.

Awareness is not miserable.

In Itself, Awareness is perfect.

It's peace.

It's like... It's the Beloved.

Who does not want it?

You might not want certain experiences. You might not want this life.

But Awareness is the Beloved, and never miserable.

But in it, misery can appear and disappear.

And that's what it's saying.

The True Knower is never miserable in the world.

And if you see it that way, then when misery is there it gives you a different place to take your stand.

Your misery or someone else's misery.

You are seeing from that absolute standpoint.

That's what this offers.

QSo you mean just use those as pointer, always remind us to what we truly are. Then once we get on that standpoint, that's the true knower.

NPointers are there until they actually land.

Then it's not about remembering.

At some point, your worldview has to flip, and the mind has to give up this idea that the Self is something in the world, and that the Self is individual.

And give up the idea that it can understand what is Self.

Because the True Knower is the "beyond" which knows the mind.

The mind is the thing being observed. It's not a thing. It's like all the... the one experience.

The flow of experience — that is the mind.

In that flow of experience is the idea of self. But mostly it never gets questioned.

In some lives, like everybody here, there's the question: what is that Self?

And eventually what should happen is the mind is giving up its worldview that the Self is something in the world that it can comprehend or it knows about.

And when that happens, the pointers have landed, and you take your stand as: oh, there's no self.

There's actually no self anywhere — beyond, here, there, in between, whatever.

And what is the Self then is obviously very clear, because Awareness is then not... like you said, Consciousness is not personal. It doesn't belong to anything, anyone.

Awareness is aware.

That's why it's called Awareness.

And that is the Self.

It's when the pointers land you see it that way.

When they're about to hit, you will start to see it both ways.

And then you see it this way and it's obvious.

And then all the rest is still there — misery, whatever.

The standpoint has gone back to what is... was always actually true.

QOkay, thank you.

NThank you.

Neil.

QHi Nabeel. Hi everyone.

I've come across this concept or idea in Advaita: comes a time when you have to forget everything you've ever learned, to kind of...

To see it, to get it.

And that you have to drop everything. And I'm not going to say, "How do you do that?" But how do you do that? And how far does that go? How far does jettisoning... jettisoning... like, you know, what's that saying about don't throw the baby out with the bath water? You know, how much... if there's an answer to that, Nabeel, like, well, how far does that go?

Because it's like, wow, there's so much, in quotes, knowledge, things I believe, things I think I understand... and they explain to me you have to... you know, it's all got to go. It's all... because it's holding you back. It's the dirt that's clogging your view. Well, that's the way I see it.

Could you fill me in on that a bit?

NSure.

So earlier I was saying there's something about experience: that whatever enters it, it's now part of that experience.

When you think about it, it's quite weird. Whatever enters, now it's your experience. When it's gone, it's not your experience. It's gone.

There's something like that about the sense of self.

So until a point — until the mind has given up the idea of self — there's still there a very clear sense: I am thinking, I'm the one trying to understand, and all that.

And your whole experience is defined by that sense of self.

And so you've gotten all this knowledge, you've read all these books, and you're still trying to figure out, and you've had experiences... it still feels: I've had those experiences. I've had those insights. I'm close. I'm close.

The "I" is still wrong, and it's still defining all of the experience, because experience is built around that.

It accretes around that core concept, whatever that concept of self is.

And to give everything up is when that idea of self... at that point it feels like the self, like that is me...

That "me," what it gets is that everything I've learned or will ever learn is never going to help me realize what is beyond, because I am not the thing that is conscious.

I'm a thing.

That "me" — that "me" — it's just a character built around whatever.

So when that is given up, that is giving up all the knowledge you ever gained.

That's, to me, that's what it means to give up everything you have ever learned, everything you ever known.

You've even given up then the idea that I am what is conscious.

I don't know. I don't know what is conscious. It's not me.

If you give that up, then it's immediately clear what the Self is.

Because all of that is happening in the Awareness that is the Self.

Because Awareness has no opinions, no thoughts of its own. No self-image of its own.

Whatever self-image appears in the experience then is controlling what the experience feels like, what's happening there and so on, how it's being interpreted.

That's how the mind operates.

When the mind gives up that core sense that "I am the thing that is conscious," then it's throwing away everything it has ever learned.

Because everything was built on top of that, and you've given it all up, and immediately to You it is clear what You are.

To the mind it is still not, because the mind is not the one that knows.

But what happens at the level of the mind is it realizes: oh, I am the object being observed.

And it's no longer an I.

The mind can no longer claim that I for itself.

It's no longer I.

It's an it now.

That's how I see it. The giving up of all knowledge.

It's not actually trying to forget what you read and so on, but finding the root and giving it up.

QI think in your latest one... after that, again, trying to... enjoying them all again at the moment, going through again and again, it just seems so full of wonderful stuff.

And that point that you made, I think, which was like the experience of... I can't think of a better word... that being in, being the Absolute, realizing the Absolute, realizing myself, isn't something extraordinary for superhuman supermen, sort of high souls, as I would have thought maybe not so long ago.

That it's... it's something that's available to all of us. That it is just such a fundamental part of us.

But I guess to me... I guess there's still the crossover between, as you're saying, like the mind... you think it thinks it's... it thinks it's in charge. It's the one. It's an understanding that the Self is... that's the... that's me. That's where I actually stand.

But there's still that... it's still, after all these years, there's still that kind of changing over of... and you know, you know Ashtavakra, all of that stuff, whenever I listen to that it's just like yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. It's just so marvelous. It's so marvelous.

And yet there's still sometimes that... I don't know, there's still there, I'm still not there yet, but I am there, you know. You know it's like this is kind of a crazy psychosis or kind of schizophrenia.

I'm like, well, but is it a case, do you think, that... and I don't know if I heard it right, understood, like: Know it once, that's enough.

Would you agree with that?

That okay, I know, I know it, you know it is there, but okay, I'll come and go and there's still dust flying up, and fundamentally I know it.

Once you know it, you know it.

NLook.

What is coming and going, that's just what's in the experiences.

So who can stop a concept of self coming up, and you know, the experience being interpreted in that way.

So what?

It does not change what the Self actually is.

You can think of it as like... I make the difference between what is I and me.

Okay. Me is a role. You can play the role. It's fine. Yeah. Whatever. That's the role.

And in that, in the same video, there's that verse: "He has transcended his role as a person."

The role as a person is there. You play it.

But you have transcended the role because you see what the Self is.

I am not in the experience.

You are not in the experience.

It's quite obvious.

What is in the experience? The light, the shapes, the sounds, whatever.

You're not that.

We could say yes, all of that is also Awareness. It cannot be separated from Awareness.

But that is not what is aware.

What is aware is You.

You are aware.

And Awareness in its purest form never takes a form.

As soon as there's a form, that form is not aware.

Again, that's an odd kind of thing you notice about Awareness: That well, as soon as I take a shape, that is no longer I... in a sense.

It's a reflection, and it is not what is conscious or aware.

But I am obviously aware.

And when I say that, again it's wrong, because who is saying that?

It's in the mind the thought appears, or the sound appears: "I am what is aware."

Actually, if you're doing it on your own, that is wrong.

Who is aware?

Actually the mind should say: There's no me.

There's no me. There's only You.

And when you hear this, your own mind say this to You, it is absolutely true.

There's nothing false about that statement.

It's only You.

At that moment, you're not speaking.

You are the Awareness which understands that thought and comprehends it.

Nothing else in the universe can comprehend a thought.

So all these teachings, they also throw in a lot of hyperbole and stuff too. It also is to flip the mind.

Like it says in that same chapter that the sage never closes or opens their eyes. They are never asleep or awake, and things like that.

It'll throw you off.

What do you mean? I saw their eyes closed.

Who are you calling the sage?

If you think of a sage as someone who closes and opens their eyes, you're again thinking of a self, a person.

You're taking their appearance to be what they are.

But they're telling you they are not that.

Who goes to sleep and who wakes up?

That is the body being observed. The body being experienced.

When the body goes to sleep, there's experience of sleep.

When it starts to function, there's experience of life.

It does not change what the Self is.

So you know it once.

That is it.

That is what the Self is.

What I am.

QYeah. Okay. Thank you.

NThank you.

So look, if you go out in the world and if I speak to everyone like this, it's crazy.

But in your own mind, you should feel free to let go of these ideas of us and we and you and me.

It's not true.

These are roles in life.

What do you mean, us?

Again, that means there's lots of separate conscious entities.

Produce one. Like, where?

How can they be separate conscious entities?

Because you can never observe in experience anything that is conscious.

You can only assume that beyond experience there's lots of these separate conscious things.

Let's say brains.

You're just assuming that's how Reality is.

But in Self-inquiry we actually look at things as they are.

And if you can admit that, yeah, in the experience there's nothing conscious, and everything I identified with in this life was just in the experiences, it's in the memories...

You cannot collect 10,000 unconscious things and make one conscious thing.

You can't.

So consciousness does not belong to things.

It's an aspect of Nature.

Just as rain is an aspect of Nature. Nobody's producing rain.

When certain process happens, rain happens.

When some stuff happens, experience happens.

And it's that some... it's fundamental to Reality.

Whatever allows experience to appear.

It's fundamental to what the Self is.

Marina.

QHi, Nabeel.

NHi.

QI don't know if this is of any... it has to do with the focus of this meeting. But since I've been in the nonduality thing, I kind of losing interest in making plans, in doing things. Everything looks more... I don't know. There is not much interest in the ugly things, and it feels confusing. It's a strange... it's like a midway.

It's in between. You know what I mean? It's not... I really don't care about... I'm not interested, but I'm curious to let this thing go on.

Yeah.

It's not a question. It's just something happening.

NYes, it's a common effect.

You look at all the history of all these traditions.

You don't realize this and suddenly start to build an empire.

It does suck away some of the compulsion the mind had to achieve something in this life.

But there's a balance, a harmony, that you must find for yourself.

From being totally cut off from life — then like walking away into the mountains, the hermit — or do you want to continue to participate?

I would rather... I think there is a middle way.

QThis tones down.

NLike if you look at the other side, look at all these people who are really motivated.

Where are they taking the world?

At this... this headlong let's-dive-into-whatever-happens-next, who cares. They just want to push ahead no matter what. Push the technology, create new weapons, whatever.

So there's some part of the mind which gets obsessed with progress, and that's how the human brain is made. It pushes us towards progress.

And then there's the other side which pulls it back.

What are you heading towards anyway?

What can you ever achieve in a life, or even a hundred lives, when you look at the scale of all this?

Do you find your happy middle ground?

QIt's kind of destabilizing. I don't feel my feet on a stable ground right now, but I do have lost interest in worldly things like making money, doing some kind of a future, something to achieve. That really is dropping, and it's kind of... I feel a bit shaken by this. I don't know. I'm just enjoying taking walks and I don't know. I really don't. It's like I'm almost feeling I'm living with some kind of faith. I don't know. I really don't know.

NBut the solid ground is there.

So that you should find.

What is the solid ground for all this?

That's what this all is about.

The beyond is no longer beyond.

It is right here.

The Awareness which is making every experience possible.

That is your solid ground.

But enjoying a walk is as good as anything in life, right?

If you work ten years and achieve something, is that better than enjoying a single walk?

QYou know, I really reject right now in this phase all the stress and preoccupations and stressful thoughts. I just don't want to go in that direction. I had enough, and I'm enjoying this quietness. But the other side of the coin is that many... there are no programs, there aren't any kind of plan of whatever. Nothing. I'm just very quiet, and like being in this quietness, which is very important for me, much more than the money or whatever object I want to reach, or I wanted to reach in the past. There is not anymore.

NSounds good to me.

QAnyway, that was my share. Thank you.

NThank you.

All those kind of objectives, they are based on the idea of self.

So when you see through that, of course you drop a lot of the objectives. They just drop away.

What are they for?

But you still keep what's important. If there's a family that depends on you, of course you continue your role. You do it the best you can.

But there is a blindness to how civilization works in its pursuit of progress and so on.

Like if the objective is to reduce misery and suffering, we have not come very far, as a human race.

We made some steps, but you've not come very far.

So all the objectives everybody sets, and what they aim for, and what they pursue, is actually quite self-centered.

And what you're losing is a self.

So all this happens.

Yes, Roo Chee.

QNabeel, a similar question I raised at the beginning. So Absolute is like a pure Awareness, that's true I, that's the I Am. The regular, when we say Consciousness, I Am, like a sense of I, is same with Consciousness, because that is localized to this body.

So my question is: During our daily practice, whenever we can remember, should we get in touch with the sense of I, which is on the doorway, kind of gate, or we should get a touch of sense of Awareness, like the invisible capacity, space, or Awareness. Maybe there's no difference, but sometimes I have to kind of verbally, with thought, lead me there.

So since the sense of I is not the ultimate true I, should I abandon that, then go straight to sense the Awareness?

NSure.

So Awareness cannot be sensed. Right?

Awareness is through which you would sense anything.

So what Self-inquiry hands you is really just two tools.

One is you could focus on the knowledge I am. I exist. It's true. I exist.

Yeah. You can't throw that away. You can throw away a lot of things, but that's very hard to throw away that you are here.

You're here.

What is the basis of that?

So we stay with that sense of I.

The other tool it gives you is then you have to question: what do you mean by I?

Yes I am. But what am I?

What am I?

So both held together. One is an affirmation. Yes you are. I cannot deny that. Nobody can deny that you exist, to you.

Because if someone says you don't exist, you're hearing them say that.

You are there. You are. You are.

So there's the I Am, the affirmation, the fact you cannot move.

And then there's the question, what am I?

And those two combine at the end and you realize that everything you took to be I is not Self, is just contents of mind, contents of consciousness.

And what is I is then whatever lands for you — Awareness, Sentience, whatever that is I.

The truest thing you can say about yourself is this: the fact of being aware.

So it's shifting you from the small idea of self of being an individual conscious entity, and repointing that I towards what is actually truly I.

QOkay, I get it. So the thing is, why I think of I, I'm still tied to the body-mind, not tied to the Awareness.

NSo then use the inquiry.

So what is that I?

If it is tied to this body and mind, then you should be able to identify it. This is exactly what is I.

So if you land on something, you question that, and you'll move past it, because actually nothing works.

QYeah. I have to like use... like suddenly verbalize in the mind, like "for whom?" Like, what's happening now? Like if I heard a sound, then it's a click: oh, I'm aware of the sound. So this type of talks in the mind.

NYeah.

And then once the insight lands, then again this can remain if you need a reminder, this is what it is.

So in the mind the question will still arise: to whom... who heard that sound of that pebble?

And the answer will be: To I.

And then the follow-up question is: What am I?

And then the answer is not in words or thought or anything. It's just there.

The answer is there.

The answer is You.

The answer is You being aware and present.

QThank you.

NThank you.

Yes, Andrew.

QHi, Nabeel. This is my first time here. And I've been kind of listening to nonduality talks, and I've done trips to Europe over to see Mooji and sit with Mooji, and I've been like on this inquiry for I don't know how many years, ten, fifteen years or something.

And still when it comes like just to the moment, there's an amount of fear of engaging, of actually showing up, showing the face. The sense of... that identity rises when I'm with others, sense of otherness, or a sense of being seen. And it comes as kind of a subtle fear that kind of keeps me from engaging a lot in the world.

And so the understanding is there. I understand that it's all seen by Awareness. I understand that Awareness has to be the most fundamental thing because everything shows up within it.

And yet that identification with that limited... or that... yeah, I guess the words, it's easy to get into the nondual jargon, you know... but that sense of me shows up again and again and again, and it doesn't seem as if there's any means of actually existing in that Awareness ongoing, living my life from there.

Like I noticed myself over the years have withdrawn from the world in a sense. I no longer find much interest in socializing, in going out, meeting people, even having general sort of conversations with people. There comes a strain with it because of that identification that arises, and I don't know what the means to disengage from that.

NSure. It's actually quite interesting.

So when... what happens is you see through, you've seen through...

There's no actual me.

And everybody's operating with that sense of me.

And then the idea is I should operate without this sense of me ever arising.

When the identity arises, you interact in that way, then me gets blamed for that.

See what's happening?

You've actually seen through that "me".

There's no self to blame.

And yet the self rises again and it blames itself for going wrong in its interactions, how it should behave, and how it should maybe guide others and so on.

So it's again thinking in terms of self and others.

Okay. Instead, in your... when you're alone, you deal with this when you're alone.

So long ago, when I was doing this kind of investigation, I would be running. I'm running and suddenly I have this sense, oh, somebody's looking at me. There's this sense of being looked at.

And that is not... if you look at it as, oh, suddenly now I'm taking myself to be an individual, then that becomes a wrong behavior.

But actually that's not what is happening.

When you're running you have to be aware, oh, there's a bicycle coming. I should move to this side without even looking. You're aware of that.

That is how the mind operates. It is giving you a sense. Oh, you're being looked at so that you can see, oh, there's a tiger about to hunt me down or whatever. Or there's a car approaching.

No one to blame.

The problem is the mind is still thinking in terms of self and others.

What you should do is allow... just slowly it's happening anyway. You see through that kind of thinking.

So if I go and meet people and then they're all talking about their lives and so on, and I can talk about my life, and it's fine.

Because who's... that's just how conversation takes place, how the mind operates.

And there are roles to play in life.

And there's no one to blame when the sense of me arises.

As long as you see through the me and know what is actually Self.

QAnd yet the fear still arises, and the fear is kind of... somehow the fear seems to be a problem, like it's not enjoyable, you know. And then that's taken to be the life, even though there's a... like it's almost like there's two seeings. There's the Awareness of seeing, but then there's what is seen, and still the identification just lands on the seen. But...

NWhat is the fear about?

Can you see that? Like what is it about?

QI believe that the fear is... I think it's like in my makeup from my life and from the journey of my life. Like there's the journey of a little child, and how the parents were, and what happened in early stages of life kind of set me up to be somehow nervous of the world. Yeah. Or somehow afraid of others. You know, I had pretty rough childhood in some ways. I mean, in other ways it wasn't rough at all, you know. But from my own makeup, there's a shyness that I generally live with, you know. And I've found myself in many, many situations where there's almost a shutting down in company, you know. The trauma arises in company.

And you know, like to a certain level it's even arising now with interaction with you, you know. The sense that I'm sitting here... and I mean ultimately there's just a computer screen and there's looking at images on a screen, and you know, like why should there be an underlying emotional response or reaction to that? Why should there be any fear in that whatsoever? Known. And yet there is.

And it's not as if I've not gone and sat quietly and observed the mind and looked to the concept-freeness. And it's not even as if I'm continually living with that fear, because you know, most of the day it's just life, you know. But somehow there's something in the mind that is... I believe is somewhat crippling me.

NSure. Yeah.

So I really... I have had the same problems, social anxiety and all that.

So it gives you a perspective that once you see the same thing happening... if you leave aside the idea of you being in charge of all this, or being to blame for all this, and then see the same process happening.

Right now, you know, my heart rate's very fine. It's fine. I'm happy to have this kind of conversation.

The other day I had to do an interview, a job interview. The heart rate goes up a bit more.

Now, should I say that because of that, that proves I'm not yet there, I haven't got it?

Yeah, I'm not a sage. I close and open my eyes and blah blah.

That is all... all those kind of pointers are showing you: look, that kind of criteria can never be met.

In a job interview, the heart rate goes up a bit. It's supposed to. You're supposed to care. You have to answer in a few minutes. You have to be prepared and all that. There's pressure. They make it feel like pressure.

In certain situations there's certain reaction.

And like you described, your life has built the mind in a certain way. You can't suddenly rearrange it.

There's no sudden rewiring of the whole system.

We're just finding a circuit breaker, the main switch, which you found.

And then if you see the same fear arise.

Yes, there's nervousness. Yes, there's anxiety. And it's fine.

It's just the setup here is like that.

But You are the Awareness in which all that is happening.

And Awareness never says no.

You start to see this is your nature.

You are aware.

Whatever arises, you will render it perfectly.

True to the experience.

If the experience is of fear, the experience is of fear.

It does not get nullified and become an experience of peace.

QUh-huh.

NBut then because of how you start to see yourself, like oh it's not... it's not "I am afraid."

Nervousness, anxiety, these are how the body reacts. It's just its response, flight and fight and all that.

And it's been shaped by society and all that, childhood and whatever. It's been molded in that way, and we let it be that.

Okay. But we stand... Take a stand... Take your stand.

What is truly I, and you don't budge from there.

The budging will happen. But you know You are not budging.

No matter fear arise. Oh, I lost it. I shouted at my daughter or blah blah. All that keeps happening.

Throughout all that You remain as what is aware.

You never did anything.

Because in any moment when you ask: To whom did this emotion arise? To whom?

The answer is there in that silence, as just That-which-is-aware.

That is You.

The rest is actually all happening through lots of intricate cause and effect which you can all tie together and go back all the way to the starting conditions of the universe.

It all depends on that.

QSo like if someone is existing with say PTSD or some sort of acute fear response to their environment... when I say someone, I mean the body-mind of a so-called individual... that's entirely fine because that's not truly what they are, and the Awareness is in the background untouched by any of it. And so but somehow life shows up as the experience. It shows up like, you know... there's no problem with Awareness but the experience is the problem. And even though I can see that Awareness exists beyond experience, because everything arises and disappears into Awareness, the experience is still somewhat my life.

NBut you see, even in the person who has PTSD, right behind that mind is a sage.

You should see it that way.

Behind every pair of eyes, it's the Sage.

The Sage.

We are letting go that idea of thinking of separate people, separate selves, and they're all to blame for all their actions and so on.

Society depends on that. Yeah, we got all that, fine.

But you can see through.

Yes, that mind was shaped through its circumstances, through its gene pool, whatever, all that.

Who experiences each and every moment?

Can you say you have control over the next thought?

You know you've seen all that, right, through your fifteen years of inquiry... you've seen all that.

What... why does the mind create this whipping boy when something goes wrong?

QSorry?

NA whipping boy.

QOh yeah. Yeah.

NThat's what it's doing. It's creating a puppet and it's sticking pins in it, and then you experience it because you are the Awareness.

QYeah.

NBut that whole process again is also because of evolution and all that, because it helps the mind say, oh, that's what we did wrong, let's do it better next time.

But where it goes wrong is it's getting carried away with that concept of self being real.

As soon as that idea of the wrong kind of self is taken to be real, the pain is much more... real.

QYeah. And that's I guess that's the question, is what takes you from disengaging from... like what shifts identification into Awareness from the experience, right? Does that make sense? What... there's nothing that I can do, because obviously everything that I... every experience or every way that I behave is just the process of conditioning and the process of mental synapses firing or whatever. Like it's self-running. That one can't do anything to remain in Awareness, because that one in itself doesn't really exist. It's a process that's happening.

So how does the identification drop?

Even to try to frame the question is like it's so difficult sometimes.

NYeah.

So right now as you're saying this, to me You are the Sage.

It's not you are saying this to me and here there's a sage. No.

Behind your eyes, behind the mind, behind that experience, what You are is the Sage.

Nisargadatta's guru told him: You are the Supreme Reality.

It shocked Nisargadatta out of his sense of self.

You are the Supreme Reality.

Don't disbelieve me. Don't disregard my works, my words.

That's why he said.

I am telling you the Truth.

He told him the Truth.

You are the Sage.

You are the Supreme Reality.

Now you find out for yourself how true this is.

Of course, to shift the standpoint of the mind, there is something that is quite hard. It's continuing to build this wrong idea of self.

But what is very easy is that the facts of the matter are really true.

You are what is aware.

And everything you're identifying as a flaw, or something which is yet to be overcome and so on, it's all in the experience.

It's not conscious.

It's phenomena arising due to causes and conditions.

We are not trying to fight the causes and conditions.

You are the Unconditioned.

Nobody gave you Awareness.

Awareness is never conditioned.

What arises is conditioned.

Stand up!

The mind should bow to You.

Right now it creates a sense of you, and then it has a sense of "beyond", and then it's going around about that, and oh, you cannot be That.

You're too small. You're too inconsequential.

There must be Greater Beyond.

No!

You know the mind.

Hence, You are the Supreme Reality.

You are the Great Beyond in which the mind arose.

QBut Nabeel, I've heard this so many times, and yet that holding on to that little self... it's not even I'm holding on to it, does it itself... you know...

Maybe there's an energy of subtle expectation that something needs to drop.

Something needs to go boom, and like no doubt anymore. No more uncertainty. No more doubt, you know. And yet another day, and another... you know.

Just as you're telling me you are the Supreme Reality, there's energy flowing in the system which is going, no, I'm not, I'm not that at all.

Like it's like an involuntary fighting against what is being told to me. It's not as if I'm choosing that. It just is, the energy seem to be coming up, you know. And I guess I guess it's just fear, you know. That's the energy somehow.

NWell, there's two things about that. Okay. Two things about that.

One is when the voice said, "No, I am not." Yeah, it's true about that thought.

That thought is not the Supreme Reality.

The Supreme Reality is in which the thought was understood.

Awareness.

You said you've seen it. You've seen how Awareness is fundamental. Right?

Can the thought deny that?

QI've not understood that it's seen. Yeah, I guess I've seen it. It's so hard to say with conviction that that's the way, because of this repetitive going back to the story or to the... you know.

NYeah.

So that's why I was saying to Roo Chee — right, or was it Neil? — the mind should say, "There's no me."

The mind is not the Supreme Reality.

And when a thought talks in the mind, that is just even a smaller speck in the mind.

That is not the Supreme Reality.

All of that is not the Supreme Reality.

But it should say, "You are the Supreme Reality," in your own mind.

You.

When it says You, who is listening?

QI am.

NYeah, You are.

And in that moment, what are You?

Are you a person, a man, and so on?

What really are you when you hear that thought?

QJust receptivity.

Just like nothing really, but nothing... nothing and everything, I guess.

NYeah.

You have no form in that moment.

You are purely just aware.

Hence, you are the Aware-ness.

Just aware.

Awareness.

That's what You are.

See that clearly, and we take our stand there.

Okay. Now the other thing is: because you've spent fifteen years or more doing this, and you've visited all these gurus.

There's the expectation which, like in Ashtavakra Gita, oh the guru never goes to sleep, never awakes — it's setting these benchmarks in a way which are ridiculous.

They're hyperbole.

And if you build someone an ashram, and you go, and everybody's very lovey-dovey about them and look up to them, of course they'll be glowing, they look amazing. Oh yeah, they've got the style of talking and so on, and it impresses you, and oh I should be like that.

But again that's going back to the appearances.

They don't have to work for a living and everything's nice and hunky-dory. Everybody's looking up to them.

They can play the role and they look very impressive and very charismatic.

Doesn't mean that that is the benchmark of Realization.

QNo, I agree. And yet I see people like yourself... like Mooji's just one of the ones that talks nonduality, but you know, there's Rupert Spira, there's yourself, there's Francis Lucille, there's many, many different speakers. But I don't know, it doesn't seem as if the ones that they're talking to are actually getting it.

Seems like the same crew going again and again and again back to the same person to get more and more and more and more, and nothing... it's like the penny's not dropping.

And it's the same in my case, you know. Like something... or maybe that's just a thought that's arising in the Awareness that says, ah, you don't get it, you know. But somehow that thought, that thought to some degree paralyzes me in life. Not paralyzes as in I can't get up in the morning or whatever, but paralyzes me as in there's a lack of feeling of freedom.

NSo look, you're already on to it. It's just thinking.

And like all the teachers you mentioned...

I openly say, I feel all kinds of... I don't hit those benchmarks of you always being very calm or always being at peace, let's say.

I'm not in a perfect state of bliss.

You can ask me anything. Do I feel nervous in an interview? Yes. Okay. Do I sometime lose it over my daughter? Yes. I love her. Yes. All that is there.

Should I lose all that before I can speak of the Truth?

Because the Truth is true.

The Truth is true, right?

And you're admitting it through this conversation many times you go back to: Yes, that is true.

And yet... And yet...

And you notice "and yet" is always about the behavior of this mind, of this body, and this life.

So we look at the scope of what is true, what it is saying.

And it has nothing to do how I will change in this life and what will happen and so on.

Many bad things will happen because that's guaranteed in life.

Many ways I will fail.

As a person, as a human being and so on.

As a human being, there's just no way to resist the forces of nature that's going to hit you, and have hit you in the past, that have shaped this mind and so on.

So each of "us", in terms of life, each of "us" has to learn to accept this mind.

Who is learning to accept this mind?

The mind itself, by giving up its idea that it is the thing that is conscious, that there's a self in control.

It is the mind which can clean its own house and learn to accept itself.

Because the Awareness was never judgmental.

The Awareness was always present, always there, aware.

And then you see how being aware in itself is a very gentle, calming, affectionate Presence.

It's just being aware. It's just being present, being real.

And You're living as that.

And You're giving the mind the space to clean its own house because it's no longer built around me.

It's a guest house, you know, like Rumi's poem. It's just a guest house.

Every day a new misery, a new depression.

Yes. Okay. Hello. Welcome.

QBecause there's no possibility really to change the character. The character is kind of... the character is a character, isn't it? I guess.

NIf we try to change it, we fail. Okay.

If we try... if I try, I've tried many years to fight my social anxiety and failed.

It just... yeah, it's impossible in a way. It feels impossible.

But as a side effect, it can definitely go away.

Just because you're not then interacting with that strong sense of being a person, like being a thing. The mind is clearing up its own house.

QAnd in that clearing up, there's like not much interest in the world in some ways. Like I've got friends that... or I have few tenants that live here, and they go out and they're socializing and they're off to this party or that party and they're doing ecstatic dance and doing this and that, and I get invites to it many, many, many times. But over the years, I've noticed the impulse to even try to show up in these places, it's fallen away. And there's the mind is kind of blaming me on that, or blaming itself, for not showing up, for hiding, you know, this sense of hiding. And...

NIf there's no interest, there's no interest. Of course.

I don't want to go listen to loud music in the club or something. So that's fine.

There you get to know the mind better.

Why... it's not resistance. There's just no interest there.

And that's fine, because it's not a great experience for some... somehow for some minds that's a great experience. So...

QI guess it's hard to give... It's hard to give up on the idea of wanting to be a superstar.

NThe mind sets its own threshold of what it will consider Enlightenment. And what it sets is always unattainable.

That's why in Zen they say, what is Enlightenment?

Used toilet paper, in modern terms.

You use it and you flush it. It's gone.

You don't need it anymore.

QSo in a sense all this, what we're talking, and what have you, in some sense it's a waste of time.

NIs knowing the Truth a waste of time?

It's a waste of time in terms of life, and what you will attain in life, and how you will perfect this character.

In that sense, yeah, it's not so useful.

But knowing the Truth is in itself of great value.

QYeah. Yeah. But something resonates with that because I see the likes of you and certain people that have understood, and there's an attraction to it. There's just something drawn to it, you know.

So I don't know as I can stop myself anyway if I wanted to. Thank you very much, Nabeel.

NThank you.

QThank you.

NAny last questions or comments?

All right. If not, we'll end there. Thank you for the conversation. Hope you all enjoyed it.

QThank you, Nabeel. It's awesome.

NThank you.

QThank you.

NThank you.