Being: Satsang February 13, 2005 Questions and Answers -5

[Guest guest]

Another Q.: (Explains how upon his return to work, he found several

people with hot tempers).

 

N.: Are the hot tempers helping things?

 

Q.: No, they are not! There is a belief in the company that such is

helping. I said that we could just solve the problem and that quieted

them down a bit. Yet, it weighs on my mind, as some of it was

directed at me because I wasn't there.

 

N.: (laughing) Because you weren't there, they are directing the

anger at you?

 

Q.: I become identified with the body, though I am looking for

another job offer.

 

N.: Are you inwardly indifferent to the opinions they may form of you

even in your absence? There is a certain irony to their blaming you

when you are not even there. It shows how much the problem is in the

mind.

 

Q.: They were in a screaming match about the faults of someone else.

It was not I, but I was trying to find solutions to the situation.

 

N.: They were too busy enjoying their anger?

 

Q.: (laughing) Yes. That does not seem worthwhile. The problem is due

to miscommunications between a woman and the others there. Why they

get angry at me I have no clue.

 

N.: Does it affect you?

 

Q.: Yes, definitely, though not in a deeper sense. It affects my

mind. I need to fix the situation, for it is my job to do so. When a

lot of anger is being expressed in my direction, the mind does not

like that. I am worried about fixing this issue.

 

N.: So, you need to place your mental attention on fixing the issue.

What has that got to do with you?

 

Q.: (quiet for awhile) It doesn't have that much to do with me,

except that I become overly concerned. For example, I sit in

meditation and think about it. It means that I am misidentified. I

should be able to drop it.

 

N.: It could be. Just thinking about does not prove that you are

misidentified. You have something better to do in meditation, though.

 

Q.: Yes, for sure! I am not always thinking about it.

 

N.: When you are thinking about it, is that which is keenly aware of

the thoughts bound? Are you a character in a dream that needs to work

all this out? Or is your nature the infinite Consciousness, entirely

formless, that never does anything, in which all this appears, in

which all this disappears, for which this appears, by which this

appears, and which, in truth, is the only Reality?

 

(Silence)

 

Q.: That helps. Whatever the mentality is there, it is not possible

to appease such convoluted thinking.

 

N.: They probably need a little more spiritual practice. (Laughter)

 

Q.: In terms of being in that situation, though…

 

N.: Are you in that situation?

 

Q.: Hmmm. OK. That is a good point. So, I am not in that situation.

 

N.: Stay with the facts, the Truth. It is far better to stay in the

Truth, abiding in Self-Knowledge, which, after all, is natural and,

indeed, the only thing that is real, than it is to imagine a

situation, which is only within you, as is all this universe, and

then imagine yourself as a character in that situation, and look for

a temporary remedy at the level of the mind for the interaction

between the character, who is in the mind, and the situation, which

is also in the mind. Do you follow?

 

Q.: Yes. Yes. This is the key. I am seeing the distinctions between

these imaginings and myself. The mind conjures this up, which is

definitely objective, but somehow I think that that is I.

 

N.: If you think that you are this, inquire as to who you are. If you

say all this imagination has its source in the mind, discern the

nature of the mind.

 

Q.: A "second" is thinking that the source of the mind is an

individual?

 

N.: A "second" is the false assumption of the individual "I" and

anything that follows thereafter. With the individual, God is viewed

objectively and so is the world, jagat-jiva-para, the world-the

individual-the supreme. The truth is that there is no second "I." For

all experience, there is an "I." If you inquire for whom is this,

your way of looking becomes nonobjective. If you make your outlook

nonobjective, you see what the Self really is. It is indivisible, of

a changeless, formless nature. It does not give birth to a

second "I." When the Upanishads say, "One without a second," such

means Brahman alone is. The Self alone is. There is nothing else.

Nothing else has ever come to be. Neither you nor the world, neither

a character nor a work situation---nor any other experience---has

ever come to be.

 

Q.: Pain comes in with the identification with the individual, the

mind, the body, etc.

 

N.: The individual "I" is the source of all other delusion and,

therefore, all kinds of suffering and bondage. With "I," comes "my,"

such as "my experience, my thought, my mind," etc. Bondage is said to

be characterized by "I" and "mine." Liberation, or Reality, is

characterized by the absence of "I" and "mine."

 

Q.: I wish I could say that I have the discrimination to always go

that inquiry.

 

N.: Who would be otherwise? You say that you wish you had the

discrimination to always go to the "I." Who would do otherwise?

 

Q.: I would. The individual.

 

N.: So, by inquiry, swallow the whole of illusion. There are no

excuses for bondage, for bondage does not exist.

 

Q.: This is just what you were saying to (name of another questioner).

 

N.: I tell the same thing to everybody. (Laughter) I have never

thought of anything new. (Laughter)

 

-------------

Not two,

Richard

 

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

www,satramana.org