Being: Satsang February 13, 2005 Questions and Answers -1

[Guest guest]

Q.: I have been noticing the effects of different chemicals on my

body and the apparent changes during some recent illness that may

have been some form of pneumonia. It focused me very much on the body

and the impossibility of this being myself. It is objective to me,

and I know that I am not it, but none of that did I find very

convincing at the time. I could not breathe in or out and was stuck.

The only thing that relieved this was to say, "Jai Bhagavan." That

would produce a release from this not being able to breathe. The

chemical changes seemed real to me. Meditation on what my identity is

showed me that all these things that were objective to me could not

be myself, particularly the process of not being able to breathe in

and out. How am I to release all the things that I think about

myself, including not being able to breathe? In order to release this

impasse that related to breath or prana, the only thing that I can

think of is "Jai Bhagavan," and once I think of that, as you have

said, there is no more scope for the ego and all that I think of as

being true or not true. I am a fish in water complaining about being

thirsty, so Jai Bhagavan.

 

N.: In the scope of your description, you have, more or less,

answered your own questions.

 

Q.: Not to my own satisfaction.

 

N.: Then, be sure of your identity being free of the body, inclusive

of your breath, and everything of which you think. The very fact that

you have a great variety of thoughts, some of which are

contradictory, yet your Existence remains unchanged and

uninterrupted, should be more than ample proof for you that your

Existence is not thought. Remain free from thought.

 

The very fact that you observe the prana, the animating life energy,

which seems to be connected with your breath, means that it is

objective to you. You see its changes. What changeless thing sees all

those changes?

 

You are not at any kind of impasse? Who are you?

 

Q.: I am not any kind of what?

 

N.: Any kind of impasse. You are not bound. Who are you?

 

Q.: Remain free of thought. That is part of the identity. Being free

from thought means having thoughts but not being identified with

them. How is that I become identified with these thoughts?

 

N.: Are you thought? Are you what you think?

 

Q.: Obviously not, but I seem to hold them. This focused my attention

in identification with the body and all these misidentifications?

 

N.: What do you mean by saying that it has focused your attention

more?

 

Q.: More thinking about the body, in one way or another. Worrying

about the body.

 

N.: Are you the body?

 

Q.: I cannot possibly be the body. I don't know why I don't accept

that.

 

N.: The one who says that he does not accept it: is he a body?

 

Q.: (laughing) No bodies around here! (Laughter)

 

N.: Thinking about the body does not make your Existence equivalent

to a body. Wisdom has everything to do with the Knowledge of your

identity, with who you are in your real Being. There is no similarity

between your Being and the body. Your are not bound by a body. The

same is true with thought. Is this clear?

 

Q.: I would like to say yes.

 

N.: But it just runs against your grain to do so? (Laughter)

Certainly, you have become more keenly aware of how experiential the

Knowledge must be. What you think about will not save you when your

breath is gone. What you know as your identity, fused with your

Existence, remains. There is where you find peace, and there is where

you find freedom. That does not depend on thought, breath, bodily

action, or any state of the body or mind. That is why, with all the

questions that you have ever asked about spiritual practice and Self-

Realization, I have never placed any emphasis on the activities of

your body, the activities of speech, or the activities of the mind.

Self-Knowledge alone is Liberation. Action does not lead to

Liberation, be the action subtle or gross.

 

Certainly, you can see how tentative and flimsy the bodily condition

is. It is not something upon which to depend. Likewise is it with the

breath or prana, the animating energy. Certainly, a train of thought

in one direction or another is not steady. All the while, your

Existence is steady. You never cease to exist, and you never cease to

know that you exist. Abide in that Knowledge, free of

misidentification. Do not give rise to the confusion that you are

something else. If you have given rise, inquire, and the Truth about

you nature will become self-evident. Then, you see life and death

with an equal eye.

 

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Not two,

Richard

 

Material from SAT's "Reflections" Magazine, March/April 2005.

www,satramana.org