Hello, folks! Today we are here on the terrace of the hotel, from where we can see one of the entrances of the main temple here in Tiruvannamalai. This is the city where Ramana Maharshi came to live when He was 17 years old, after Awakening.
Hearing a conversation between his relatives, He discovered the mountain of Arunachala was in this city. The name kept coming back to him until He discovered this name was exactly this mountain. He thought it was a heavenly place, that there was not this place on the Earth. And now here we are, in India, visiting this mountain every day. It is a sacred mountain! This mountain is one of those mysterious geographic spaces. Why does the Grace do that? Nobody knows. The Grace has set apart this place, where many have realized God for several years. And here we are, in this same place, visiting the Ramanasramam and the buildings built around it, most of them were built after Ramana had left the physical form.
Those who have the opportunity, granted by the Grace, to come to this place, are brought by Shiva, by the Presence of God. There is something in you that is Arunachala. There is something in you that is this Presence. There is something in you that recognizes this Presence.
There is a sense of disquietude in everybody that only ends when this Realization is settled. This search for the Divine, this search for God is a paradoxical thing. Everyone has a searching movement, but some are searching for It in pleasure, in every form of personal fulfillment: in money, in material comfort, in sex and everything else that you know. But all this is still a search for God, a search for the Divine, as it is a search for Happiness, Rest, Freedom, Peace, Silence, Consciousness. It is still a search for God, because only God brings Stillness, only God brings Quietness, only the Truth is Silence, Peace, Happiness.
But the mind does not accept it, so it keeps on this search for God in things outside. Mind seeks the Truth in knowledge; it searches for Joy in pleasure. Mind searches for Self-realization in economic success, in financial success. It seeks Love in relationships. So, the mind does all that in its own way. The problem is not in the searching. The problem lies in the misunderstanding of the illusion of someone in the search. This "someone" is the illusion of a present identity that believes to be able to realize That. But the search is natural. There is no problem in it.
The question is: who is present in this search? When you come to Satsang, I show you that the search is not necessary. The search maintains, upholds, keeps, strengthens the idea of a seeker. So, the search is not necessary. The search must end! I have just said the search is not the problem and now I am saying the search is a serious problem. Do you understand it? Let me try to make it clearer.
My proposal is for you to keep yourself still, stop searching. However, if you do stop searching, if you do not become really still and yet keep on believing the search has ended, then your situation will be far worse than the situation of the one who is still searching. Do you understand the difference? I can simply hear the quest is not necessary and find it very nice, because I hear all Sages saying this ... They say: "Stop searching!" Then, I completely stop. I do not want to go to the temple, to pray, I do not want to know about guru, sadhana, I do not want to receive upadesa ... Now, I say: "I do not need this anymore. I do not need any of this. I am Consciousness, I am the Truth, I am Buddha." But it is the ego saying that. It is still the old mind saying: "I do not need anything else." So, I begin to quote Buddha: "Buddha once said, 'Be a light to yourself'. Do not depend on anything! Do not depend on anyone!" Buddha is an ancient Master, who said this thing. So, I put He aside and quote a more recent master – a master who plays this role of a master saying that you do not need a master, however, the master himself is teaching that. Then, the master says: "I am not a teacher. Do not follow any master, but I am here. Every time you walk in through these doors, you will hear my speech. I am not a master, but I have a lot to tell you!"
Do you understand what I mean? Do you understand the trick? A great divine joke. I am not saying this is right or wrong. I am saying that God is playing, playing with you, playing with all of us.
So, if I repeat as a parrot that the search is needless, the guru is needless, just because I learned it, because I memorized it, so now that is only part of a new conditioning. Everything remains the same way. "I do not need a guru; I do not need a teaching; I do not need a search ... " What now? What happens? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This is another illusion, a "new" illusion ... as if there could be a "new" one illusion. What are you going to do to get out of this? Such talk explains. It says: "Do not do anything!" So, you do nothing. And when you do nothing, what happens? Nothing happens as well.
One day someone told me that he has found out there was no need for a guru. He had been in some of our meetings and then discovered it was not necessary anymore. I asked him: "What happened?" He said: "I do not need it anymore." So, I asked: "and now?" He said: "Now it is okay!" I said: "How well?" He said: "I am just waiting." I said: "Waiting?" And he: "Yeah ... I learned that this is like a lightning. It comes and hits your head and I cannot do anything." So, I said: "Okay. I see."
So, this boy is waiting for the lightning. While he waits for the lightning, he keeps his old life, in his old model, in his old practices. He does not care about self-investigation anymore, does not care about this surrender to the divine and keeps on playing his guitar. He is a musician. While he is playing the guitar, he waits for the ray of enlightenment to hit him. This boy did learn very well. He has on his tip of the tongue the whole teaching that says you do not have to do anything. So, if you listen to him, he looks at you and you realize his eyes are opaque, his mind is excited... He does not like the word God, he cannot stand the idea of a guru and hates everything that is sacred. If we tell him about a mountain that is the manifestation of the Grace in a form of rock, or of rocks, trees, monkeys and snakes, he will laugh at. Do you get what I want to say?
Ramana Maharshi himself said this mountain was God for him! It was the Guru for him! He considered that every span and every stone on that mountain as sacred. And this boy with his guitar, carrying all the conflicts of the illusion of separateness, says that Ramana was wrong; Not only Ramana, but thousands upon thousands of men and women who realized God and ended their days free from the sense of separation, free from suffering, free from the illusion of a separate identity. This is very funny to me [laughs]. The mind is very stupid in its arrogance, in its vanity, in its presumption to know.
So, I have something to tell you at this meeting: without humility it is impossible. If you already know, there is a wall in front of you. I recommend you have a real approach: look without prejudice, look without fear, look without conclusions. You can refuse and turn your back on everything, but this will be no more than a stupid behavior.
Let me tell you something as an illustration:
They say that a man was coming down a slope driving his car, when, suddenly, in the other way, a woman was passing, also in her car; she opens the window, looks at him and shouts loudly: "pig!" He looks at that woman and says: "But how come? What did I do?" At that moment, he is overwhelmed with anger. That woman called him a pig and he did not do anything! He gets very angry and starts call names. He is now angry and continues to go down. Up ahead, he reaches a next turn and when he passes it, he comes across a huge pig in his lane and then he has no more time... He ends up crashing the pig! This is called reactivity. Reactive mind.
If you are not open, there is a wall. You cannot realize God in this way without humility. I do not use that word so often. My favorite word for this is simplicity. Humility can be a cultivable thing and that is not what I am dealing with. I am speaking of simplicity: to live without reactivity, without a reactive mind, without prejudices, without conclusions, without ready-made opinions, and to remain open, with an open heart to listen, to be taught, to discover, to investigate.
OK? Let's stick around? Thanks for the meeting. Namaste!
No comments:
Post a Comment