Satsang Talks

Text:

There are many ways to pacify the Mind. There are breathing techniques, there are meditation techniques, there is chanting, there is Japa - counting the beads. One day I went into an electronic shop and the owner was sitting at the cash desk and he was talking to me, but he was always writing something. So I looked over the counter to see what he was doing and he was writing 'Ram'. He had books, books and books full of this 'Ram'. This man was writing the word 'Ram' hundreds of times, thousands of times and in a way this is very beautiful, because his attention was not on selling refrigerators, he was bringing his attention to God.

So there are many kinds of techniques we can use to help us, to bring our mind first under control and then bring it into Stillness. And these practices are all very traditional as they have been passed on for hundreds of years. And all these practices work very well - they help you to look inside and they help to bring your mind into some state of Peace. So this can support your life, it can make it more manageable and more enjoyable, but it is always still duality. There is still somebody who is doing this meditation. Somebody who is aware of the breathing. So when people came to visit Ramana Maharshi and they didn't have any particular practice he would suggest Self Enquiry. If somebody came to him and he asked them, 'What is your Practice?' and they had a practice, he would say, 'Very good, just continue it!' But he knew that at some point they would have to come to Self Enquiry. 

Self Enquiry, he said, was the most direct method to know the Self. He said whatever you are doing, you ask yourself: 'Who is doing this?' The answer is 'me', and then by having this answer, the energy which normally is outside comes inside to the Source. If you continue to do this, then your attention remains inside. So in the beginning you can do this by sitting down with closed eyes and bringing all your attention to this practice. But after you have mastered this looking or rather inquiring, then you can do it whatever you are doing. As you pass through your day, whatever you are doing externally, you can use this to bring your attention to the Source. So in a way you can say it doesn't really matter what you do on the outside, because the whole effort is to come to the Source. The Source is a constant. When you keep coming to the Source you come always to the same place. It's you, it's the Real You. »Read more ...

Text:

When you are in your twenties, maybe you have a red sports car and again it's 'my sports car'. Maybe you get a girlfriend or a boyfriend and they're, 'my girlfriend or my boyfriend'. This fortress, this castle is built up brick by brick. You don't exactly notice it because all around you other people are busy building up their fortresses too. So it seemed very natural. Everybody's busy with their bricks and cement. You can see it around here in the outside. First thing that happens is that people put a little fence around their bit of land and then they start to build up their house using bricks and cement, 'this is my house'. It probably has a front door and maybe a gate and it maybe has a padlock and a bell or maybe it has a security guard, maybe it has barbed wire and guards with rifles. So what you see on the outside is a reflection of what's actually happening on the inside. If you go to some local village here you'll find that they don't even lock their front door and they probably only have a front door to keep the monkeys from coming in and they're constantly inside each others' houses. But if you go to somewhere like Los Angeles and you go to one of the rich areas you find, first of all, there are tall walls. You can't even see the house and then the gate has some kind of fortifications, probably some video cameras, a little guard house and if you should come to enter there then they check your credentials.

Once we've built up our fortress then naturally we need to protect it. So in Los Angeles you build a big wall and in our own psychology we have all kinds of defences and occasionally we let somebody come across the bridge, over the water and into our castle. We call this person a friend and this friend is only let into the outer room, whether it's the outer room of the house or whether it's the outer room of the psychology. And then occasionally one of these friends becomes more intimate and they're allowed to come a little bit deeper into the castle. They maybe get invited to the dining room and in special cases they get invited to the bedroom. This is very intimate. Almost nobody gets invited there because we have to defend our castle.

Generally speaking, the ones who get invited more closely they're the ones we like and what that means is that they're the ones that agree with our story. I have my story and you have your story and if your story agrees with my story then you can become a friend and if your story's very different from my story you become an enemy, no chance to come into the castle or even you might be throwing things from the wall of the castle, 'Go away! Don't disturb my story'. I like my story very much. In fact, I've come to believe that this story is me. So, of course, I have to be very careful with my story and who I allow to come close to my story. 'This is a terrible person. She's always wearing pink. I can't stand pink!' »Read more ...

Text:

At the Source nothing happens.
It's very still and as you experienced yesterday this stillness feels very peaceful. You recognise it as something very familiar, very close because this is our True Nature. There's nothing to do. The mind would always like to do something and this is a completely different project. You don't have to do anything. In fact, any doing is taking us away from our True Nature. As we come into this non-doing we lose interest in the stories. We lose interest in our own story and we lose interest in the other person's story. We lose interest in the story of the world. Everything falls away and as it falls away we don't want to go anywhere, we don't want to do anything because we understand that the Self is complete. Nothing is missing. There's no desire because desire comes from the idea that I am missing something. 'If I had that then I would be complete.' Desire is always making us move to the outside. The Self is complete. There's nothing to get. It can't be any better because right now it's complete.

Once you come to see that 'I am the Self' you don't want to go somewhere and you don't want to do something. Right here is enough. Of course, you may go somewhere, the body may move, the mind and body may respond to something. Maybe it suddenly starts raining and you move to a dry place or maybe you're cold and you move to the warmth. There's no better and there's no worse. So life becomes a kind of play, lila, divine play. Things happen, body moves, the mind is active, but all the time I know I am the Self, I am whole and complete. Nothing is missing. There's a deep relaxation. All our striving and struggling finishes. The beauty of Arunachala, that it seems to make this statement that this is the place. Stop here! As if it's the end of the road. Here we can stop and everything is taken care of. »Read more ...

Text:

Its' very important to really understand about this falling in love. It is only possible if you believe in me and you. It's always in duality. What happens if your girlfriend or boyfriend goes away? And even worse what if they go away with somebody else? Terrible suffering because I've lost this love.

When I'm the Self I know that I'm whole and complete. I don't need something. I don't need my boyfriend to give me something and anyway, I'm love. Nothing is missing. I'm absolutely whole. When you become really established in this love, in this Beloved and then you meet another Beloved there's the possibility of play, divine leela, that you can simply rejoice in this love.

In Satsang I often talk about the mind and stories. You can listen and you can nod your head, but when suddenly, your girlfriend is with another man then you feel it deep inside. Then there's a real opportunity to understand. So these moments when strong stories happen are a great opportunity because these are the moments when you can really take a distance and see what is going on. Actually, it's going on all the time, but the stories are fairly minor. They don't touch so deeply, but when it's our girlfriend or boyfriend, then it goes very, very deep and without even a moment we go into tremendous depths of suffering. For most people the greatest suffering is from the person they love the most. When your best friend comes and says, 'Oh! My girlfriend has gone off with the team captain', you can easily console him and you can understand his pain and suffering. But when your own girlfriend goes, then it goes so deep. It's as if your whole existence is threatened. Worse than death because it's a kind of living death. So it's very important to understand why it goes so deep. It goes so deep because you believe you are somebody and this somebody is needing something. Something is missing and this other person, the girlfriend or the boyfriend, is giving me this thing that I'm missing. We call it love and I need a certain amount of love everyday and then I feel complete. When this love suddenly goes away, I experience my whole existence as being in jeopardy, being threatened. »Read more ...

Text:

Very often the spiritual journey begins with some kind of tragic event. One day in your daily life, you lose your job, you lose somebody who is dear to you, or there is some kind of illness or accident and this event is a kind of shock. Somehow in this shock you suddenly have an Awakening. This moment, the life that seemed to be going along day by day suddenly has no foundation. The ground where you were walking which seemed to be solid, suddenly disappears. The pain becomes unbearable. You start to look for help.

Maybe you go to a bookshop, you try meditation class, and yoga class. Anyway, you start to really look at your life and this is a very important moment. In Papaji's words, ' In this moment you realise that you don't know'. And this is actually very rare. Maybe one or two percent of the population come to this moment when they realise that, 'I don't know'.

If this longing to understand is really deep and sincere, then in this moment a teacher appears and he can help you to understand and he will suggest some technique. If you carry out this technique, then your mind will start to become peaceful. This intense mental activity will start to become still. And you will start to notice things changing in your external life. Things that brought you happiness will start to seem unimportant. And along the way of this technique, you will probably have some strong glimpses of stillness and peace.

If you have a good teacher, he will confirm that this is your True Nature and it's not such a big deal, but continue with your practice. And after some time, maybe twenty or thirty years or it may only be a short time, your mind will become quiet and peaceful. Very few people come to this point.

If this longing is still true, and if it's still your priority, then the right teacher will appear who can guide you to truth, maybe the same teacher, maybe another teacher. But you don't really look for this teacher. He will just appear in an unexpected way and you will immediately know it.

Then staying in the Sangha of this teacher, in the community around the teacher, staying in the Satsang with this teacher, you may have even stronger experiences of your True Nature. Often you will spend the Satsang time in this True Nature, but in your every day life you will somehow lose it. Of course, you can't really lose it because it is your True Nature. But the mental activity, the attachment to our story, our hypnosis with our boyfriend or girlfriend and our belief in the world out there, all together conspire to put dust over this True Nature.

But at this time you can say your head is already in the lion's jaw. There is no going back, because you know it doesn't work. Your friends have started to change and the things that worked before, start not to work anymore. So there is no going back. You are firmly in the jaws of the lion.

Then suddenly one day, for no apparent reason, not because you've done something, there is a moment of 'Aha!' And in this moment, seemingly by grace, you see with total conviction, your True Nature. This is the moment you can say, of Self-Realisation. »Read more ...

Text:

Something opening inside. A kind of emptiness, expanding, seemingly without boundaries. The odd thought passing. Sound of the traffic. Wind on the cheek. Bird songs. Traffic sounds. Bird songs. Some thoughts arise and suddenly we identify with those thoughts and then those thoughts lead to other thoughts. The whole story starts. We no longer hear the sound of the birds because suddenly we're absolutely in the story. We're feeling terrible. We're remembering last year's holiday. It was a terrible holiday. It rained everyday and the food was awful. There were so many mosquitoes and the traffic was terrible, awful pollution and anyway, the room was uncomfortable, had no view at all and I fell out with my girlfriend.

It was just the most terrible holiday. You become absolutely attached to this movie, the movie of last year's holiday. You even start to get emotional about it. It seems to be absolutely real as if it's happening right now but in fact, it's just a memory. However you become totally attached to it. There's no sense of Presence. You don't hear the traffic. You don't notice the wind on your cheek. You just remember the mosquitoes and the rain, breaking up with your girlfriend. It was a terrible holiday.

So we lose this Presence because we become attached to our mind, to some thoughts or stories, mostly from the past. But they can also be from the future. Sometimes we get in tremendous fear about the future. This fear takes over our daily life. We have no idea how we can get from here to there. 'How can I pay the rent? How could I buy that train ticket? How will I survive?' An enormous fear comes inside. We're as if transfixed by it. It's 'somebody' who's not going to survive.

I completely lose touch with the Pure Awareness. So these attachments are always a wrong identification. We're always getting again identified with somebody. When we're present there isn't anybody. There is Pure Awareness, if you like, an empty screen and the sounds impinge on that. It's like being in the flow of the river. Moving without effort. Things seem to just happen. »Read more ...