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PM.
You say that in order to let in truth, you have to forsake the lie. What does that actually mean?
The lie that has to be forsaken is that you are worth something, that you belong to yourself, that your life is yours. Your preferences, those things that you have made to be important — all of that is not true.
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PM.
And yet, the way that life is set up, I have all my experience forming this lie. I am just baffled why something as profound as truth, which is something that is inside of me, is just beyond my reach.
It's not beyond your reach — it's amazingly close. It touches you all the time, all throughout the day, every day. If truth were to be extracted out of your experience, then you would feel absolutely dead. There is a constant input of truth all the time. What makes it seem far away is that, when in your heart, you go up into your mind and through your thoughts, you ask, 'What is it that I am looking for?' Then you call it truth, you call it something. And because you are looking through the mind, you are looking for something that the mind can identify with, that the mind can take apart like a Rubik's cube, like a puzzle where you can take all the different pieces and figure it out and work with it.
Truth is something that is just as accessible to a little child or someone who has Downs Syndrome or is mentally retarded or insane. So, it does not require intelligence, you do not need a good mind. A good mind does not even help. It also does not make it worse — there is nothing that makes it worse or better because the mind has nothing to do with it.
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PM.
I have been engaged in a process of Self Enquiry — constantly deconstructing what I am not. But it is still a mental process and it doesn't tell me who I ultimately am. So what is the point of the mind?
The mind is there to express what we love. It is a vehicle of expression and we use it as a tool to acquire what we experience to be missing inside. We tend to use the mind to get something, instead of using the mind to express what is already there.
The mind is not a problem. The more you are not OK with the mind, just the way it is, the greater the problem will be. When there is 'not-OKness' in the heart, then whatever is presently filling your heart will express itself through the mind because the mind is for the expression of what is in the heart. So if your heart is in any amount in 'not-OKness', that 'not-OKness' manifests itself in the mind. Then you have all these thoughts of disappointment, confusion, trying, heaviness of mind, because that is what is in the heart. So the mind is just doing its job. When the heart in any way comes to rest and it is being quieted and there is a tenderness that is flowing through, then that comes through the mind and the expression of that is one of tenderness manifesting on the outside.
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PM.
So mind reflects this inner state?
Yes.
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PM.
So what's the heart then?
The heart is your conscious capacity to either close up or open up, to either harden and tighten or to open and soften. The heart has the capacity to exist as a holding energy that will then manifest want, need, insistence, demand, ownership, mine, 'for me'. Or the heart can be a capacity to be completely other than that holding energy, to be an energy of openness where it can see past itself, where it can enjoy something outside of itself, without having to pull that inside and make it about oneself.
The heart has a capacity to enjoy something on the outside without having to control it and pull it all in. The more the openness to enjoy anything without having to make it about oneself, then the more truth there is. So truth is not something that can initially be appreciated by the mind — truth is something that touches the heart. Truth then is like tenderness, like softness, it's like openness. Truth is the absence of needing anything. It is the absence of want.
When a little puppy comes running up to you and your whole heart opens up, that little puppy is 'doing truth' to you. When you hold a little baby, it is communicating to you — what is happening is that you are being touched by truth. Just look and see what happens inside of you when you hold a baby — that is truth. So that is how easy it is, that is how close it is. When you see a nest of little baby-birds, then you see what that does to you inside — that is truth happening. And this is happening all day long. Every time you see a tree or you smell something nice, the fragrance of something, immediately it does something within — it opens you up.
You are enveloped by it all the time. It is just letting yourself enjoy what you honestly enjoy, without you having to seize it. In order to enjoy it, you let it in. You are not taking it in but letting it in and continually enjoying everything without trying to fill yourself up or store it all up inside, so that you have this storage container with all the things vou enjoy. Just letting in and letting it through. So then there will be a simplicity of heart instead of having a complex heart.
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PM.
Yes, I have certainly experienced that — there is a pure loving flow. But then, so often, a fear comes in — I think I am going to lose the love, which provokes a grasping. As soon as that mechanism is put into action, then the love is lost. I don't understand why I have to do that or why fear arises, when I know from experience I will never lose that flow of love.
It is because consciousness exists, which is different from the consciousness of a tree or an animal or a plant or a stone — the consciousness of the human. There is a full spectrum of consciousness. The human being has the capacity to share in the consciousness of every kind of consciousness in existence. Because we have a full spectrum of consciousness, then what we also have is power — the ultimate kind of power. We have the power to be something that we are not, whereas a tree does not have that kind of power — a tree can be itself but it cannot be something else. It cannot be in non-acceptance of itself because it can only be itself.
The larger the spectrum of consciousness of anything, the more there is an increased capacity to have movement, to have internal movement. An animal has emotions, an animal can take in more, express more, than a tree. A human being has the most. There is a full spectrum of consciousness so that we have more power to self-reflect and experience things — tenderness or the enjoyment of love. We experience that and we have the power to say, 'This is truly what I am in love with, so any time it touches me I want to make it mine.' We have the power to grab that and claim ownership and we then have the power to push out anything that does not feel good.
Then we become this holding, pushing consciousness instead of a consciousness that is open and letting in and enjoying. The awakening of such a consciousness is to realize the truth — that the very thing we love most tells us how to be. What we love most is love.
When we begin to realize what love does to us, then instead of closing, we can let go of basically what we are not and let in what we know we are. What we are is that tenderness, that softness, that love. And when closure seems to happen, which is normal because we want to have that love, we see that all we need is to be gentle with ourselves.
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PM.
You often speak about a liquid OKness. Everything just being OK as it is, even in those contractions.
It is letting that be OK, so that the contractions within you are no longer an issue. It feels like a problem but you do not have to make it a problem.
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PM.
Sometimes when a contraction comes I think, Oh God, here I go again. And then I'm just off missing what is.
It does not matter if you miss. It does not even matter if you experience love and then you grab hold of it and say, 'It's mine, it's only for me, I don't want to share it.' It does not matter if that happens, just so long as, as soon as you see it, be gentle and not hard on yourself, do not judge yourself. Give yourself as much space inside as you see outside. When you see yourself contracting and being angry or hating or whatever, don't lock yourself up in a small space inside. Be gracious with yourself. Give yourself a lot of space.
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PM.
When I have been compassionate with myself, gracious with myself, the contractions naturally lose their sting — they just jail away by themselves. But there is such a habit of self-deprecation and seeing everybody better than myself. Like with teachers of truth — the idea that they've got it and I haven't or there's some club and I'm not a member or whatever.
In terms of teachers, it is not worth believing what any of them say. It does not make any difference what teachers say. The only real authority, your only real authority is not some teacher outside of you. Your only authority is what touches your heart, what nourishes you inside of you. And you may be impressed by a teacher because he or she can speak of great things and speak of things that perhaps you cannot argue with. But when you are being impressed by something that does not nourish you, that does not touch your heart, that impresses your mind and your mind goes wow! — that does not mean anything. If the mind is wowed, that does not touch your heart.
If there is something, anything, that you are hearing from a teacher or reading in a book that does not directly touch your heart and nourish you and leave you quieted and gentled, it is not worth believing. And it does not matter how great it sounds.
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PM.
At your meeting yesterday in Bristol, I was impressed by what you said. I've only met you a few times and to be here with you now, I feel very rested. But I don't want to start thinking that I have to be in your presence to be at rest — I don't want to have to need you. I don't want to get into that stuff.
But what is wrong with experiencing an inner pull or an inward needing? That is only an assault on your own sense of personal ownership or your own sense of identified personal space. As soon as you experience yourself being needy, then that is an affront to that personal space because that personal space wants to be able to be totally self-contained, because if it is not self-contained, it is not in control.
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PM.
But what I am trying to say is that I want to stand on my own two feet, to have the truth within me. Krishnamurti says that truth is a pathless land —you don't need to be a member of anything or follow anybody.
But if you are enjoying the rest that exists in someone's presence — that is worth being with because that is being with truth. Then as soon as you experience that there is a desire to be with that — there is a pull. That desire is fine, that desire is clean. As soon as you take that desire and turn it into a want — I must have that' — then immediately there is a closure. But the inner desire itself, as long as there is no closure, as long as there is no insistence that I must have that, if there is just a gentleness within, then there is a constant openness and a softness. You can call it neediness because there is a pull but that kind of inner neediness is totally fine.
The only kind of neediness that is not fine is the neediness that says, 'I must have it my way.' When a little child gravitates toward you in a way that is really, really open — there is something that melts you. If an adult is the same way toward you, then others would judge that adult as being needy but if it is a small child, then all of a sudden it is OK. When you see a small child being like that, it moves your heart because you see the openness of heart in the way that that little child just crawls into an adult's lap and is totally at home there. And it would rather be there than be by itself. We are not judging that as being needy, whereas when an adult is like that, we say, 'Why aren't you just being yourself, why do you need that person?'
So, there are two different kinds of neediness. The one that is OK is wonderfully open and very soft and very nourishing and that is an awesome neediness. And within that there is an attraction of being.
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PM.
How can one find a true teacher? If one is at rest with a particular person — great, go and see that person. Is that the only real litmus test?
People gravitate toward the kind of teacher who confirms most of what the individual wants to have. So if there is a teacher who has an agenda in teaching, then that will attract an individual who will want that kind of agenda and want to be able to hide and justify it in a way that that particular teacher does. A teacher who has no agenda will attract those who would love to live agenda-free and who do not want to cater to their own agenda anymore. Those who still want to have an agenda and are on a spiritual path — they are looking for a teacher, in some way, to help them have what they want to have. When an individual like that encounters a teacher who has no agenda, then for that individual it is almost like stepping into the room and quickly backing off before it destroys everything, before that individual's own wants and agendas are exposed.
Most people feel much more secure when they can detect some kind of agenda in a teacher. And even though they truly do not appreciate it, that agenda still makes them feel safe because they can say, 'I don't have to really deal with my agenda yet, this buys me some time, this gives me some space for my dishonesty' Most people are like that. Most people would be more comfortable, mentally more comfortable, with a teacher who has an agenda.
Whereas if you were to encounter a teacher without an agenda, it could pull your whole heart in because there would be a love of something there that you could taste that is utterly true. And there is a fear in that — 'Wow, this is the real thing and this generates such a powerful response within me that I feel myself just like a moth that just wants to fly into the fire. Wow, I don't want to get all burned up, I love the heat but it's just the real thing that is dangerous.'
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PM.
Yes, I don't always find that teachers today are teaching without an agenda. I find that worrying because I can't understand what the truth is anymore.
There is a huge misunderstanding with awakening. Awakening does not mean very much but there are a lot of people out there focusing on it — some of them teaching, many of them not teaching. What awakening is, is that you can see, whereas before you could not see. When you are given internal sight as to what it is that you already know is true, then you are awakened. But so what if you can see? Just because you can see, that does not mean that you will completely surrender, be in absolute surrender to what it is that you do see.
Awakening is not of such great value. All the value is mistakenly placed on awakening, so much so that when you hear of someone speaking of great and wonderful things, your mind is impressed. But that is not what you are in love with. What you are in love with is anything that touches your heart, that causes your whole heart to open.
You are not in love with your mind being impressed. When someone is awakened, he or she can speak of things that impress your mind. But that does not necessarily mean that it touches your heart. The only way that it will touch your heart is if that individual's heart is completely open and soft. If he or she has surrendered to what he or she knows is true, then you will be in love with that kind of heart. You will know it. Whether that individual is awakened or not does not make any difference.
You meet some little grandmother somewhere. You spend time with her and everything about her is just so incredibly tender inside but she is not actually doing anything right. But your immediate response is, 'I'd love it if you were my grandmother, I'd love to come over here every day and drink tea, just drop by for five minutes and then go — it sets my whole day straight because in my whole heart this is what I know it's all about.' That individual, that little grandmother, did not have to explain a thing — it was her presence that taught you. It is the presence that tells you what is true.
Just because someone is awakened, so what? Just because you know what is true, that does not mean that you have become what you know. You can see into reality but that does not mean that you are at one with it. You can speak the right things but that does not mean that you are one with it. You can have all the right information, so what?
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PM.
I've never heard it explained that way before.
With someone who is awakened — it does not matter how massive the awakening was. That is not impressive. What is impressive is when that whole heart just totally bows down to what it sees and knows is true, regardless of how tiny that seeing or that knowing is, and merges with it. If with the tiniest little touch of seeing that whole heart bows down to what is true and responds to that, that is impressive.
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PM.
When someone's heart is open — like a grandmother as you say —you're just suffused in love. You don't need to put it into words, there's just a knowing. You can feel it. I always thought awakening was this great bang, the dissolution of ego and attachment and all of that.
No, that does not mean a thing. The only thing that has any value at all is purity of heart. Awakening does not mean anything at all. So what if you can see? So what if you can see into all of reality? So what if I can see into the great ocean of reality and explain all of its wonders, so what? Seeing does not mean very much. All that seeing means is you are awake, you can see.
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PM.
And that's just a mind thing?
The mind cannot see unless the heart has been opened, cracked open to see. Once the heart has been cracked open to see, now it sees. But if it does not surrender to what it sees, then there is an impurity of heart. But once the heart has cracked open to see and once the mind also sees, then the mind always sees. The seeing stays. The honesty allowed the heart to crack open to be able to see — that may close but the seeing itself will remain open. So you can be awakened and have an uncleanness of heart or an impurity of heart or have an agenda.
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PM.
things and understand the workings of the mind. But, in certain cases, there can be something that's not quite right — there can be a kind of unease in their presence.
That is right. It is only purity of heart that has any value at all. And purity of heart is a heart that will allow itself to be completely aligned with whatever it honestly knows is true, with whatever it does really see. It does not have to be much. If you have a heart that is not awakened, it knows almost nothing but that whole heart is giving into a little bit of what it knows to be true — that heart is absolutely beautiful.
If you have a heart that allows itself to go through a massive cracking open and then the mind opens up and there is a full seeing by heart and mind and a surrender into reality, then that is someone who is home. But if there is not an absolute surrender to what it sees, if the heart does not just let itself completely fall in and turn into that, if it is retaining some sort of identity in the midst of being able to see so much, then there is the opposite of beauty there — there is more of a pungency of self-ownership. It is like dropping a fly into a perfume bottle. Just a little bit of a holding back and putting that holding into something beautiful changes the whole thing. It really stands out and we can experience the difference. When you are with someone like that, you might at first be impressed but it is not like being with that little old lady who, when she looks in your eyes, causes you to just melt. That is what the true value is. You are presently impressed with the awakened knowledge but that is not worth anything.
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PM.
Why does fear arise? Why can't I let go?
Fear is an interesting thing. There are different kinds of fear — some kinds of fear are extremely dense and have a tremendous edge to them. That is the kind of fear that hits and wounds. There is also a fear that is the kind that would show up in the context of innocence — like a tiny little child who experiences something so much larger than itself. It is not anything substantial but it is like a little baby when you take it into the wind or you blow into its face — it is like there is more there that is happening than it can presently take in comfortably. So you blow into a baby's face and it reacts — there is fear in that but it is a kind of fear that is touching to see because it is happening to an innocence, and that innocence is not losing anything with that fear being there.
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PM.
It's almost instinctive.
Yes. When inwardly you encounter something that your whole heart responds to and experiences, then there can be a fear because it is a fearful thing that your whole heart is moved to jump into. And the mind says, "Wow, what's happening, I've lost control of that.' The mind has lost control of the heart because the heart is just in love and is diving in. There is not a oneness between the mind and the heart. The heart is gone, it is diving, it is in love with what it sees. Until the mind and the heart become One, fear will always touch. When the heart stays with what it knows, then the mind has to come along and as it is taken along, then the mind ends up being dissolved in the very thing that the heart is diving into. So in that, the mind joins the heart and the mind becomes one with the heart — there is no other way.
The mind is to be the follower of the heart. Normally, we always have it the other way round, where the heart is the follower of the mind. Respond to what touches your heart. Be in love with what you find your heart to be in love with, regardless of what the mind thinks. When you have existed following your mind instead of letting your mind follow the heart, then when the heart does encounter what it is most in love with and dives in, the mind is going to do a lot of squirming. It will be saying everything that it was taught to say by the heart because the heart would always go to the mind and consult the mind and say, 'What do think of this? Should I do this? Should I not do this?' Always consulting the mind, asking its permission — What do you think I should do?' And then the mind just creates a whole story — it makes a great thing of it and after all of the consulting, the heart does not seem to know either.
When your heart stays with what touches it, then that touch moves your whole heart and that is simple. When you stay with that touch, it does not matter what the mind's input is. It does not make any difference. The mind has nothing to do with this. The mind was not involved in your heart being touched. The mind followed after the heart and then, because of how you used to feed it, the mind will keep being the way that you have taught it to be. The mind will come in and say, 'Well, you have not consulted me on this but I think such and such.' And if you are used to following the mind, then you will stop and think, 'That's a really good point and I heard that lots before and read that in books, there's a lot of back up to that and yes, I'll have to really consider that.' And now your heart is not touched anymore. You are not moved and the simplicity of heart is gone. So you are taken away from it.
Instead of trusting your own opinions, instead of trusting what you think, trust only what touches your heart. If it touches your heart, believe it. If it touches
your heart, you already know something because your heart can only genuinely respond to something that is just like itself. So when your whole heart is moved then your heart is already convinced. It already knows. And the mind may come in with all these objections...
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PM.
And evidence to prove otherwise...
Yes. But that does not mean anything because the heart is already convinced. As soon as it is touched and moved, it is convinced. It is already merging with something that is just like itself. The mind has nothing to do with this, so it can be left out. It might be uncomfortable because the mind will come and bring all of its objections and doubts. But doubt will never tell you what is true. Doubt will only tell you what might not be true. Doubt will present you with all of the maybes. That is the most that it can ever do, so doubt cannot give you anything. Doubt can only take away. So instead of listening to what you doubt, listen to what you know. What you doubt does not matter, it is what you know that matters. So then you just remain with what you know. Stay with what touches your heart. With anything that causes doubt, then instead of consulting the doubt, go to what you know, go to what touches your heart and let whatever touches your heart tell you about those things that touch your heart. And then your heart will be even more moved and more filled.
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PM.
I can see that there is that knowing in the heart but the mind keeps interfering with things because of past conditioning or wanting to behave in a certain way.
Then simply allow that to be, as is. And even objections such as, 'I don't want to be needy' — since when does what you want or not want have anything to do with anything? In terms of what moves your heart, all you will find is your heart responding. When a little puppy comes running over to you, even before it gets to you, it has already won your heart. So when your heart starts to respond to this little puppy that is bounding toward you, your mind can say, 'Aren't you being a little needy here? Your heart is going out of yourself here. Just stay within yourself, you don't need anything. Why are you going out to that puppy?'
But the mind just screws up everything that is happening, if you trust it. Stay with what you are in love with. If your whole heart responds to that little puppy, if your whole heart jumps right out of itself to that little puppy, let it. Your heart knows what is true. It knows what it loves.
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PM.
It does, doesn't it.
So then believe it — your mental opinions have nothing to do with the wonderfulness of what is happening between you and this little puppy that is bounding toward you. The opinions are all based on information that has an element of truth but which is all screwed up and turned around. They end up being used against people, instead of allowing people to respond to what they know is true. So in that way, there is this control that is placed on people.
Information is powerful but information does not touch your heart. So there is nothing impressive, truly impressive, with someone who is just merely awakened. Or even massively awakened — so what? Unless what is there within that, awakened being truly and genuinely wins your whole heart. If it does, then believe it because your heart already knows it. But if your heart is not moved, completely moved, then so what? The only authority that exists is the movement of your own heart — that tells you what is true.
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PM.
I seem to need an authority to say that my own response is valid. It's been crushed by so many years of being controlled by the mind and what other people have been telling me about the nature of mind. When I meet certain teachers there can be conflict within me between my mind and heart about how I respond to them.
It is because when you are getting together with these teachers they cannot give you something they do not have. They can only give you what they think they have. Teaching like that — as much as you might be amazed or impressed in your mind — if it does not move your whole heart, if it does not just take your whole heart and set it free, is not true. Then that teacher is using you — he or she needs followers to be the teacher. A teacher of truth will take a heart and just show it how to be. And that heart will just be totally in love with it. There are a lot of teachers out there who are awakened and can really see but inwardly they have not died. A teacher who has not allowed the inward death of self-created agendas is a danger.
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PM.
What needs to die?
Self-importance, the 'somebody'. What has to die is the importance of the mind within that individual to that individual's heart. The death of the authority of the mind. If the mind has any authority within that heart, then it does not matter how awakened that individual is — he or she has not died. It is not the heart that has to die, it is the authority of the mind within that heart that has to die because the mind is not an authority — we give it authority.
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PM.
Something that confuses me is the concept of individuality and 'I'. People speak of ego, being attached to the ego, how one should transcend the ego. But there is a sense of individuality within me that I am unable to deny.
There is teaching out there that says that there is no I and asks who is the I that speaks. That is just someone having information, which, when it is presented to you, entices your mind to say, 'Wow yeah, who am I?' And it is made to be huge and complicated and the grand prize of awakening is made to seem just like a universe away — 'If I could just get to that star out there, then I know that I'll be just like that star. When do I get there?'
And yet the reality, not of awakening but of living in truth, is something that a little child's heart understands. It knows a whole lot — it does not understand. A teacher understands but a teacher does not necessarily have what the heart of a little child has. So when a teacher does not have it, then the teacher is not the star out there that he or she is pretending to be.
And there are teachers who say that none of this exists...
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PM.
That it's all an illusion.
Yes, they say it is all an illusion but that is not true. It all exists. It is all exactly what it is. The only thing that is an illusion is your relationship with all of this. If this chair becomes something to you, such that you cannot be happy unless this chair is always clean, and then someone makes it dirty and you are not happy any more — that is an illusion because the well-being of your heart, the nourishment of your heart, is not in reality dependent on whether this chair is clean or not. That is the only part that is the illusion.
The chair itself is fine. The chair is real. This whole existence is all real. The only thing that is a dream or an illusion is the untrue relationship that we have with everything in existence, within our own consciousness.
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PM.
And does 'I' exist? Does Paula exist?
Well, not Paula because then you are giving a name to it, but yes, 'I' does exist.
When mummy says, 'Who wants ice-cream?' and this little two-year-old says, 'Me!' and it just brightens up — that one that brightens up exists. To ask that little child, 'Who is that "me"?' and then start doing this playing with the mind thing, would destroy the sunshine that speaks through that body.
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PM.
I've heard some people say that the concept of individuality is just a bunch of thoughts, that when one looks for a personal self one can't hold onto it. But something exists within me — I am here.
There is a personal self but you cannot take that personally. As soon as you take it personally — the personal self — then you turn it into something that it is not. But if you enjoy the personal self, then all that happens within is that the sunshine comes through.
The personality is a reality within consciousness. There is nothing that is untrue or wrong with the personality. The personality is a manifestation of consciousness itself. When consciousness takes the personality, assesses the personality and gives the personality a value other than its actual value, then consciousness is being something within that personality that is not true. When consciousness itself that is within that personality says, 'I have the best personality of any personality that I know and nobody had better dare touch it because if they try to hurt it, I'll hurt them back,' there is all this illusion surrounding the value of that personality. Let all of that illusion wash away and what there will be is this innocence of personality. An innocent personality is just utterly lovable.
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PM.
It's just someone being themselves quite naturally.
A little puppy that comes bounding up to you — there is an I in that little puppy, a personality that sees you and totally responds. The innocence in that personality is absolutely pure. There is nothing untrue about it.
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PM.
But some people interpret Advaita as saying that even I as a personality does not exist — that all I am is consciousness.
That is true but personality is consciousness too. Consciousness has two different flows. There is consciousness that comes out of its innermost, that comes out of the source. Coming out of the source, it begins to move into form. Then personality starts to come into being, the mind comes into being, the emotions come into being. The capacity to be in relationship with this whole existence comes into being — all of that comes out of truth, all of that comes out of the Absolute. When consciousness comes out of the Absolute and it comes into form, there is unending movement that never, ever, ever, ever stops coming farther and farther out into form. That is why we have a whole universe that has a physical reality to it.
And there is another flow that is taking place and that is a flow of dying but it is the sweetness of dying, it is a sweetness of returning to the source. The returning of consciousness to its own source is a yin energy or a dissolving energy or a letting-go energy or an energy of something solid returning to its form.
So there is this expression outward into the personality and the receding of personality as it is being drawn back into formlessness. The I exists — the I is what is manifesting itself in the personality, through that outward flow of consciousness.
And there have to be both. With the different traditions in the East, there is a gravitation toward the Absolute and there is an imbalance in that. Where there is gravitation toward the Absolute, there is no existence — all of this is just an illusion, all that exists is just the Absolute, all there is is the source. People end up in caves living with half a garment wrapped around themselves and they cannot in a complex way be part of this existence. So what they do is reduce their whole existence to eating a little bit of rice and wearing almost nothing. They can speak of wonderful things and there may be an incredible measure of purity in that but there is still not a balance. So you can have a purity of heart, have an absolutely wonderful heart, but it will be out of balance. To be with that heart is still totally incredible — that is different than being with a teacher who has an impurity of heart.
The natural balance to consciousness coming out into form is the ever deepening knowledge of the Absolute or the source that it is continually returning to. It is simultaneously letting itself be free to integrate everything within this whole existence. That kind of heart can exist within the Absolute at the same time as, for example, running a corporation and being involved in the complexities of this existence, without getting attached. That kind of heart is going so far out into existence, handling thousands and thousands of details, and yet still soaking in the Absolute. What an incredible balancing combination! And that is what you find lacking in the East because all that it is focused on is the Absolute, the source. The source is the most awesome of what there is because that is what we have all come out of. But then the source expresses itself into form, into all of this, so then to make this something less than it really is, that undermines the source because this is all its expression.
It is only our inner tightness, it is only our insistence on our relationship with wanting to be in the source or our insistence on our relationship with everything within existence that is the problem. We say, 'This is mine, don't touch it — if you touch that, I'll hurt you.' Any kind of insistence regarding going out into existence or going back into the source — that is the only illusion that exists. Outside of that, there is no illusion.
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PM.
I have found Eastern traditions quite gruelling actually — all that self-denial. I have been driven crazy with it. I don't know who I am any more but in Advaitic terms, that means, wow, great! But I don't feel fulfilled by that knowledge, I just feel very lost.
You have only been screwed up within the mind — that is all that has happened. This impressive information got hold of your mind and said, 'Wow, what a thought!' Then there was an ache inside because you were impressed by this thought. So what about that thought? When you see a mother bird feeding its young and experience what that does to you, that is telling you what is true. You were not impressed by that in your mind but your whole heart was filled as soon as you saw it.
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PM.
What happens in the meetings when you look at people? I've not come across it before, being so looked at.
I'm not doing anything different from what a little baby does. When you hold a little baby that looks into your eyes — a one-year-old — that look just goes all the way in, it goes right inside of you. But you do not feel fear with that because there is nothing you perceive within that little baby that can have control over you. Whereas an adult can hurt you, an adult can say things about you, an adult can say things to you that can mess you up inside. A one-year-old is not a threat to you. What is that baby going to do to you? It cannot do anything to you. So you are not threatened by it.
If anything, it quietens everything within you because it is looking past your issues, it is looking past your stuff, it is not seeing those things — all it sees is you. So then you love it, there is no threat. But when an adult looks at you or looks into you exactly the same way as a one-year-old, then all of a sudden it touches fear because you do not let anybody in — 'What are you doing inside of me? I don't want you inside of me because you can talk about me, you can talk about what you see, perhaps you can do spooky things inside of me.' When anyone has the capacity to look right inside of you and be inside of you and you perceive they have an agenda — you perceive you are in trouble. So then fear touches.
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PM.
There are two responses simultaneously occurring when you gaze at me. On the one hand, I think that I'm not going to look away, like it's some sort of competition almost. On the other, it's very restful. I feel incredible peace now, though there have also been flashes of intense terror.
The terror is there because with encountering what I am your mind does not have a chance. And any part of your heart that is up in the mind does not have a chance. The only thing that has a chance within you is that part of your heart that just .comes to rest. And then that part loves what it sees, loves what it hears. It is not threatened — it is nourished. It is brought to rest, so there is no issue. But any part of your heart that is up in the mind, consulting with the mind, saying, 'Wow, what do you think of this, wow, what's happening here?' — that part of the mind cannot handle this. It has no answer. So it just sort of seizes. It does not know what to do.
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PM.
You say that you are a living embodiment of truth. What does that really mean? Your mind no longer has authority over the heart?
When the mind no longer has authority over the heart, that heart is home. But that is still not an embodiment of truth. For there to be an embodiment of truth, then there needs to be a heart that is no longer ruled by the mind and a heart that is awakened to the whole ocean of reality. When that heart merges with the whole ocean of reality, without the mind having any authority over it, then that heart embodies reality. So then there is an embodiment of truth.
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PM.
Can I be a living embodiment of truth?
Right now you can be a living embodiment of the tiniest little bit that you know is true. So in that tiny little bit, yes. It does not have to be more. It is you letting your whole heart live being totally in love with the little bit that you are genuinely in love with. It is you no longer being pulled away by what impresses your mind about truth. Truth is no longer something that you wrestle with in the mind — truth is only something that you are totally in love with in the heart. Then you will embody the little bit that you do know is true.
[Interview conducted 2002]