Satsang with Premananda, Tiruvannamalai, India, 2004
Prem: Welcome to Satsang! So everybody would like to be happy. All of humanity would like to be happy, but very often we don't feel very happy. We feel even unhappy. Sometimes a bit miserable and sad and even when it gets worse than that, we feel a lot of pain. So we need to understand what is going on. We have all been many times in this kind of meeting and we know that the reason for this pain is our identification with the body and the mind. We are very identified with 'my story'. We deeply believe that 'I am somebody'. 'I am somebody and you are somebody and they are somebody', and we experience this on the outside from the point of view of this somebody. This creates duality, it creates separation. And then the desire to be One comes up.
So we look for happiness, and naturally we look for happiness outside. We go and buy an ice cream or some chocolates, a new dress, we look for a new boyfriend, a new girlfriend. There must be something out there that can make us feel happy. We constantly play this game. This is called desire. We have the idea that there is something we can bring to ourselves from out there and it will make us happy. It works in one way. So if we are hot and sticky and we get an ice cream, for a few minutes we feel quite happy with this cold ice cream. But very quickly it is not enough and then maybe we buy a second ice cream and this one is a bit bigger and it has more flavours. This better, bigger ice cream makes us feel better for a little bit longer, but it doesn't really work. So when you come to this kind of meeting, you've probably already eaten a lot of ice cream, and you've probably had a lot of nice girlfriends and wonderful boyfriends, you've even bought a red sports car and the most fashionable clothes and still you don't feel particularly happy. You begin to feel a little bit hopeless and life gets a bit difficult, because how big an ice cream can you get? You start to feel a bit exhausted from the effort to get a bigger ice cream. What to do? You feel rather hopeless and in this wonderful hopelessness you come to Satsang. And there is somebody talking who tells you actually it was a totally wrong idea to try to buy a bigger ice cream, because you were looking in the wrong place. And this guy tells you that you have to look inside, so that's OK. But then how to do it? What am I looking for?
So coming here to Arunachala and to Ramana's ashram, we are somehow as close as we could get to the answer to this question. Because Ramana Maharshi was suggesting a way of coming to your True Centre. And when you come to this Centre you find out that you are happiness. There is nothing to do, because your very nature is happiness and actually even better than happiness, you are, in fact, stillness and peace. This is better than happiness because if you are sometimes happy then you will also be unhappy. Happiness goes together with unhappiness.
We are looking for something which is our True Nature. It's very peaceful, it's very simple, it has no boundaries, it's very still, nothing moves. The Buddhists call it emptiness - no mind. In the Hindu tradition they call it Atma - the Self. So this Self is our True Nature. When we take away the thoughts, we take away the emotions, something is still present - and this Presence is your True Nature. So there is no question of getting something - you are this Presence.
There is one difficulty and this is that for many, many years, we have been conditioned to look always outside. We completely believe in the story - 'my story' and that the world and we are separate. We deeply believe this. It is a kind of hypnosis. It's so deep that even as I speak these words your mind is probably telling you that Premananda is a little bit crazy. So it seems that if you want to come out of this game, out of this story, this story of me, then you need some help.
Ramana Maharshi suggested something he called Self Enquiry - to inquire about the nature of the Self, or if you like, to inquire about your True Nature. How to do this? What he suggested went like this: whatever you are doing, and it doesn't matter what you are doing, you can ask yourself 'Who is doing this?' The answer is 'me'. And then you can ask yourself, 'Who is me?' There is no answer. But the effect of asking this question is to bring your attention from the outside to the inside. It has the effect that this kind of hypnosis, this kind of attachment to the story outside, changes and you start to stay at the Source. So it's not that there is an answer to this question. You can find some kind of answers, but these are intellectual answers - they don't help very much. But when you deeply ask this question, 'Who am I?', then you find out that you are simply this potential. In fact you are just Pure Awareness. In fact you are just Beingness.
In one way you can say you are nothing. To be nothing sounds a little bit frightening, but I would suggest that being nothing is better than being so much! When you are so much, when you are 'the story', to each moment you bring a big luggage. So you can't really experience this moment. At least you can only experience it through many filters. These filters are for example, your beliefs. So if you are brought up in Japan, you have one kind of belief filter, if you are brought up in Brazil you have another kind of belief filter. One is based on Buddhism, one is based on Catholicism. And then we have a certain kind of family, we might be the oldest child or we might be the youngest child, we might have very sweet loving parents or we might have rather tough and tyrannical parents.
All this affects our filter. So there are many aspects to this filtering and we have grown up to believe that we are all these filters: that's me.
The whole effort with Self Enquiry is to go much deeper than that. We want to find out: what is in the very depth, what is our True Nature unaffected by all these filters? When you look at the sky you have the clouds passing by. Are you these clouds or are you this blueness on which you can perceive the clouds? And our True Nature is somehow like the blue sky. It's vast, it has no boundaries, it's a constant, it doesn't change. When we are really there in this True Being, there is no desire, because we feel absolutely nourished. It's like we are full of chocolate. When you are full of chocolate you have no desire to look for a piece of chocolate. So it's a wonderful moment when you meet your True Nature. And when you meet your True Nature you discover there is no you. So actually it's not meeting - there is nobody to meet this True Nature - because you are the True Nature.
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.
For example now we've travelled from many countries to come to this place, India. 'Wow, a whole new movie, called India! How do I relate with India? How does India relate with me?' But this is the wrong question. You don't want to be caught up with this question about India. You are just replacing one story with a new story. 'In Germany the trees lose their leaves in the winter and now I come here and the trees are in full green, waving in the wind. How interesting!' But this is the wrong place to put your attention. The whole point is to come to the Source and that Source is the same in India and it's the same in Germany and it's the same in Australia. My own experience of travelling to different countries is that it can actually be beneficial. It can help you to see that there is no point in being caught up in the story, it helps you to come back to the Source. So being together here in India, there is an opportunity, because everything is a little bit unfamiliar, even a bit strange, unusual. This can help you to break this kind of hypnosis. 'I am English.' 'I am Japanese.' 'I am a man.' 'I am a woman.' 'I am a dentist.' 'I am a fireman.' 'I am a daddy.' 'I am a mummy.' 'I am a husband.' 'I am a wife.' 'I am a child.' Whatever it is, we want to let all of that stuff go! This is very drastic when I say 'Let it go!'. I really mean let it all go! If you really want to know the Self, you want to let it all go! Not just the bad bits and to keep the nice bits. You are just as attached to the nice bits as you are to the nasty bits. We are looking for something that is much deeper than that, more fundamental - and this is the Self.
Q1: It sounds very simple to let go. Can you tell me how I can let go of 'my story'?
Prem: You can let go of your story by continually coming back to the Source. All your different stories are connected to this idea of 'I'. This question 'Who am I?' is a fundamental question. 'I am doing this and I am doing that' these are the different stories - but it's always this character 'I'.
Q1: But for me it's not always easy to come to the Source, because these many stories are there.
Prem: Right. It's very difficult to let go of the stories because you believe that you are the story! So letting go of the story is a little bit like death - because you believe in this 'I'. We've all spent many years constructing this carefully, brick by brick. You know, we have constructed something like a fortress which is called 'my story'. So what I am suggesting is that by using this Self Enquiry you will start to question this story - 'my story'. For example right now if you look inside can you find this 'I'?
Q1: Are you asking is this 'I' really there?
Prem: Yes, where? Where is this 'I'?
Q1: This 'I' I experience as the I who talks, the I who sits here, the I who kind of everything...
Prem: Right, yes. So that's OK, that is what most people believe and this retreat is designed to question that. To ask if that's really the case - is that really true?
Q1: So this thought arises that I can't really do anything. There is Grace and it just happens.
Prem: This is the point you see: am I doing this or does it just happen? For example if I raise up this arm - is it, 'I am raising the arm' or is it 'the arm is raising'? We have been conditioned to say, 'I am raising the arm'. So for everything we do we say, 'I am raising the arm'. 'I am talking'. 'I am drinking this water'. Yes? Is that true?
Q1: So there is no I?
Prem: There is no I, but you have to investigate this for yourself. It is important that you really know this - not as an idea, not as a belief - but as your experience, your knowing.
Q1: So somehow this is a paradox. Earlier you told us to put our ego in there, in this well, and then at the same time you tell us 'there is no I'.
Prem: And there is no ego. And there is no well.
Q1: And there is nothing to put in there?
Prem: Nothing to put in there, there is nobody to put it in and anyway there is no well.
Q2: A very practical question came up, came to my mind from this morning. When 'I' or who ever woke up this morning, it felt completely like I shouldn't stay in bed. I thought 'Oh, I have to be the good guy and get up'.
Prem: When you come to this kind of retreat, that's a certain kind of surrender, yes? You made a decision or a decision has happened for some reason to come thousands of miles on a plane to India and to come to this retreat, something has pulled you here. Now you are here and you wake up in the morning and 8 o'clock is yoga.
You simply get up and go to yoga and you just surrender to that. If you are feeling, 'I want to go to yoga' or you are feeling, 'I don't want to go to yoga' or 'I don't feel to go to yoga' - all these are stories.
Q2: But until that moment when I woke up and when I thought, 'I should go to yoga' then there was no story.
Prem: There was no story until the story began, then there was a story.
Q2: I don't think there was a story which said, 'I do not want to go to yoga' but there was no yoga until the moment the story began that I have to get up.
Prem: That's true, yes.
Q2: Yes, but if this is true, why I...
Prem: There is no yoga until it begins, yes, until you are part of it.
Q2: So if I stay in bed there simply is no yoga?
Prem: No, there is bed!
Q2: Ok, thank you!
Prem: The story is all the stuff that goes on in our minds, you know, 'I'd like to go to yoga, it's very interesting, I've always wanted to do yoga', or 'Yes I want to go to yoga, but oh, that teacher, I don't like him!' There are many stories. Many stories are possible. So this is all happening in the mind according to your beliefs, your conditionings of your particular mind. So you are having one kind of stories, some other person will have different kinds of stories.
Q3: What is the mind? Where does it come from?
Prem: What we are calling mind is all our memories, all these experiences that we keep in the mind, that we keep in the memory. We are also having various expectations about the future, maybe some fears about the future, so all of this we are calling mind. In this moment when you are not in the past and you are not in the future, when you are just present there is no mind. If you like you can say the mind is at rest. For example if you now are going to drive a car, you could walk from here down the stairs. Your body would take itself down the stairs and in fact your mind, if you like, would guide you down the stairs. Because when you were young you were taught how to walk and you were taught how to go downstairs - and that information is still kept in the mind. So when we use the word mind - we are not meaning that part of the mind. In a way we should really define it with two different words, functioning and conditioned mind, because without the mind you couldn't walk down the stairs, so the mind is a wondrous device.
It allows us to walk down the stairs. It's actually quite a complicated thing - walking downstairs - and at some point every human being had to be taught how to do that. And then you walk across the ground, even that is quite difficult - and again we were taught how to do that. And then you get into the car and then you drive the car - and again you had to be taught how to do that. So the mind, if you like, does all those things. Through the mind we can do all these things.
When I use the word mind, I mean the conditioned mind, I mean the stories and memories and the fears of the future that are attached to this 'I', the conditioned mind. It's, if you like, a bit like personal mind and impersonal mind. So it becomes a little bit subtle. For example when you take some food, the mind opens your mouth just in the right moment to put in the food - and you probably don't remember, but you also had to learn that. That's why babies have bibs. So this is one kind of mind. We can call it - if you like - impersonal mind. We are not really attached to the opening of our mouths - this doesn't cause our unhappiness. It's the attachment to 'I am opening my mouth', 'I am raising my arm', this attachment to this 'I' causes the unhappiness.
Q3: Doesn't everybody have intuition?
Prem: Well, I think what you are calling intuition is also part of the mind and what I am talking about is something else.
Q3: Like a voice from the highest level of my intuition. The connection to the whole.
Prem: Well, you see, the way you are talking, the way you probably are thinking, the way you are expressing is always that there is this somebody.
Q3: Yes.
Prem: I am saying there isn't any somebody and when you are really in beingness - when there isn't somebody - then there is no higher or lower or this or that. It's just a flow. Then one thing I can tell you is that when it gets this complicated you can be sure it is the mind. What is actually happening is that there are many different stories operating, not just two stories but several stories, and one of the stories you are saying: well this is my intuition, this is my higher something.
Q3: So no matter what happens and what's going on I never have to decide anything?
Prem: How can you decide something when there isn't anybody? So you can only decide something if you believe there is somebody.
Q3: Yes!
Prem: But that's my whole point!
Q4: Sometimes I wonder why I am here on earth. I can say I am here because I like to go to school, but this is not really it. And then I thought if I don't find something that makes sense then there is no sense to being here on earth. So then I can just be happy? What do you think? (from a fourteen year old)
Prem: This is a very good question. Why are you here, why are you here on the earth? Why am I here, why am I on this earth, why do I have a body? This is a kind of fundamental question. This question leads us to investigate about this 'I'. And then somehow amazingly you are here - in this meeting and maybe you are the only person in your school who would come to such a meeting, because most of your friends are not interested in this question. They are more interested in which pair of jeans they should buy. I don't have any answer - at least I don't have any answer in that way. We could say 'Oh, one answer is I am here to eat as many ice creams as I can and then I will be as happy as I can.' This could be one answer. I think many people believe in this answer, but this is not our answer. We have a certain consciousness and with this consciousness we can understand it's not just about eating a lot of ice cream, it's not about the right shape of jeans. It's not about the things we experience being in a body, by having senses with which we can experience the environment. It's not about 'our lives'. So what is it really about? It can only be about knowing who we are. All our life experiences can bring us to the answer to this question. This is not really an answer in the way of 'this shape of jeans is more fashionable than that shape of jeans.' When you really know who you are, everything changes.
Q4: I think this is a very good answer. (Laughter)
Prem: If it is a very good answer it must come from a very good question. It's incredibly beautiful that you are sitting here asking this question. When I was fourteen, I don't know what I was doing actually, but I wasn't sitting in this kind of meeting! So it's very beautiful that you have come here and also that you've asked this kind of question and when you keep asking this question you will certainly get the answer. Once you get this answer - which probably you'll get when you are still very young and your body is still very young - then your life is very blessed. And then in a sense there is no death and so there is no real life. So then this question just disappears. We can say there is no point. There is no real reason, it's just like that, it's the working of Existence. (Laughter)
Q5: I experience the Self and the ego as a kind of weighing scale. So if the contact to the Self is stronger, the ego loses its weight and vice versa.
Prem: So you could say that when my conditioned I - my ego - is not present, the Self is present and when the ego is present - when my strong sense of my personal I is present - the Self is not present.
Q5: Very often it feels like floating, changing sides.
Prem: Yes, we are all very conditioned by our personal story - by our ego - we are very attached to our ego. So then when you are in this attachment, there is no recognition of the Self. In fact everything is the Self, so you are always anyway the Self.
Q5: Yes, but sometimes the ego arises and comes in front of the Self or something like that. So it seems like Ramana lost this ego connection?
Prem: Yes, I was telling the story yesterday. When he was sixteen years old there was this sudden Awakening and for some reason he had the ability to see that it wasn't 'I', it wasn't me doing that something. This is a very rare case, so he became a great saint.In fact it's so rare there is no point in being really concerned by that - and if it's going to happen it will anyway happen in the workings of God, or the word Grace is perhaps a better word.
You know, I feel touched that Clara who is only fourteen can come to this meeting, in the middle of India, and ask this kind of question. I was nearly fifty before I could ask this question. So in the workings of Premananda it was like that and in the workings of Clara it is like that, there is nothing to say about it. I had never looked inside until I was about thirty, and when I was fourteen I was probably playing cowboys and Indians or something.
Q5: And because of this floating is it good to do Self Enquiry?
Prem: Yes, because what you are calling floating you could also say is like a transition. You are in transition from the person who just lives in 'my story' to the person who lives in the Self. So the more this Self Enquiry happens, the more you will become rooted in the Self at the Source and less in the workings of the mind. So Ramana said that you should do this Self Enquiry rigorously, meaning all the time, until the moment of Self Realisation. There comes a moment of 'Aha' when it is absolutely clear and there isn't what you are calling floating. If you like you are no longer in transition.
So I'd like to invite you right now to see what your story is, it might be a terrible story, a very sad story, it might be a very happy story. And then you can ask yourself: to whom is this story happening? The answer is me, and then ask yourself: who is me?
Q6: How can I handle this fear inside me, fear of transformation, fear of death of the I?
Prem: I think this fear is quite natural because when you are attached to the idea of this I, this somebody, 'my story', then naturally you would feel some kind of fear when faced with the idea of this whole story disappearing. Because actually it is death and death means that somebody, the body and the mind, stops and disappears.So there is naturally fear about that, so I think it is enough to be aware about that and when you are aware about that, you can also be aware that there are other times when actually there isn't any story and probably in those moments you feel very good, there is a kind of peacefulness and a kind of expansion. So in that moment when there is no story, when there in a way is nobody, and you feel very good, that is a kind of encouragement that death may not be what it seems to be. Because actually this is the death of something that doesn't exist. It's a death of an idea, a wrong idea, so it's not a real death, it's only the death of your idea. So when that idea is very strong it feels like death, because you believe yourself to be all these stories. That's not true!
Q6: It would maybe be nicer if it was easier.
Prem: I think naturally when you first meet this idea: that you are not really somebody, it's a little bit shocking and it takes some time to integrate that, to understand that.
Someone: Can you repeat that?
Prem: I think it's quite natural what you feel right now and maybe during the afternoon we had yesterday, there were moments when in fact there wasn't any story and you didn't really do anything. In fact by not doing something it happened. Because actually there is nothing to do. There is a lot to do to maintain the story, but there is nothing to do to maintain you. This also takes some time to understand as we have been so conditioned to do something to get something. So the idea that by not doing anything you get it, is a little bit difficult in the beginning. And then in that space things just happen. For example last night I had agreed only to shave Ratna, just one person asked me, then suddenly we had a hairdressing celebration! So things just happen.
Q6: So I don't have to make any effort?
Prem: First of all there is nobody to do the effort. Is Premananda lifting his arm? In actual fact, you see, the arm raises and then Premananda's mind says 'I raised my arm'. For example today I had a one hour love affair. I was sitting in a cafe having breakfast and I, Premananda, had a plan that he wanted to be very quiet and alone and read the newspaper. OK, this is Premananda's story - and then suddenly a woman came and sat at the table opposite. We were looking directly at each other and she was very cute. She was either Korean or Japanese, but I wasn't sure which. I had a Japanese wife for ten years, so I found her very beautiful. I started talking to her and she talked back and she was very open and lovely and then she came and sat with me and we had a wonderful meeting. It was totally sweet for both of us. Then we said goodbye. I also invited her to come and have dinner tomorrow night so you can all meet her and fall in love with her. (Laughter) She just spent three years in an ashram and so her energy is very open and she was rather surprised by our meeting. So this just happened and I enjoyed it for what it was, it was just that moment - about one hour. Then I got on my scooter and went to buy some distilled water.When I got to the town they were having a parade with an elephant and carrying the Gods around, and lots of people. It was like a celebration. So then I enjoyed that. And then of course there was no distilled water, but it doesn't matter. So did Premananda do that or did that just happen?
Q6: It just happened (Both laughing)
Prem: It's all just happening (Laughter)
Q6: OK, I'll just let myself be surprised.
Prem: You can just relax, it's wonderful!
Q6: OK, I'll do that! (Laughter)
Prem: Don't do it!
Q6: Why not, why not do it?
Prem: There is nothing to do!
Q6: Oh, yes, yes, exactly. (Laughter)
Q7: I would like to say thank you for last night, because yesterday I had a kind of horrible day and nearly everybody who was here noticed that. And everything just dissolved and disappeared when Premananda said: 'OK, enjoy being pissed off as long as it lasts.' This gave me the impression that it's also OK to be in this kind of state for some time. Nevertheless I have a question, how to handle this pissed-offness? It's not that I don't notice what happens, I just don't have any means to do anything about it, against it. I think I am aware of the fact but I just can't change anything.
Prem: What do you have to change? Who is deciding that you shouldn't be pissed off? Where does this idea come from that it is not OK to be pissed off? See, God gives us the possibility to also be pissed off, so why not use this facility some times? Quite nice to be pissed off!
Q7: But it feels so tight, my whole body feels tight. How am I supposed to enjoy that? Is it a good idea to enjoy that?
Prem: Why do you have to enjoy it? Who said you have to enjoy everything? It's nice sometimes not to enjoy. You see, another possibility is that you simply surrender, what this means is you give up the personal doer. You give up the person who is going to change it from pissed off to very happy. You simply are the Awareness of pissed off and you are the Awareness of very happy. So you don't have to do anything. Surrender means that you simply accept it as it is and as soon as you accept it totally as it is, it will immediately change, because in that moment you are absolutely present. OK, understand? (Laughter)
Q7: My heart keeps beating very much. Since yesterday I feel this area, my chest and heart very strongly. I can feel what Ramana means about the Self coming out of this area. It's very strong. It's a kind of weight, pulling the mind. My heart opens, it's open again for Premananda or better for the Self. It feels much better than tight and closed. Can you tell me what Ramana says about the spiritual heart?
Prem: The physical heart is on the left side. He talks about the moment when the mind really dies, that it kind of collapses back into the right side of the chest.
Q7: But he says two fingers from the middle, so in my feeling it's right in the middle. What was your experience with this?
Prem: Personally I don't have so strong an experience about that. What he said is part of the traditional vedantic wisdom in India. But as far as I know, it's a kind of rare observation. So it's not such a common experience that people actually experience that. What's more common is a strong opening of the heart chakra. It's kind of a significant moment, because there are three chakras below and three chakras above. The three chakras below are to do with emotions and body functions and the three above are to do with the spiritual aspect.So when the heart opens it's like it's opening towards the spiritual and for the spiritual teacher. His first job is to help somebody open their heart. Out of this opening some kind of Spiritual Wisdom is possible. So for example, this young Japanese woman I met this morning, I asked her about her experiences in the ashram for three years and she told me that sometimes it was very beautiful and peaceful with beautiful experiences, and other times it was a kind of nightmare and she felt the teacher doing all kinds of terrible things to her. But if you consider the whole package of three years, when I met her she was completely open, like a beautiful rose flower and then we could have this love affair, because our hearts were open. And from that meeting I have invited her here. It is like it's meant to happen; she is kind of brought to this Satsang. It just goes by itself. So this heart opening is very important and until that heart opening has happened not so much can happen.
Q7: I could feel it two days ago when my heart was closed and it felt really like it's impossible to get anything out of this Satsang.
Prem: There is one period when it's very important that the seeker or disciple actually loves the teacher or the guru. And the more intensely you love him, the more intensely this opening can happen. It's not really personal, it's a kind of device. The teacher is offering himself as a device to open the heart charka. For example in the last thirty years Osho Rajneesh was very wonderful at opening the heart chakra. When you meet people connected to Osho they feel very much in their hearts and since Osho left his body many of these people have moved to other teachers. So whatever the final decision would be about Osho's importance as a teacher, one great work he did was to open thousands and thousands of people, and this is already a great work.