Satsang with Nome - The Self alone is - Question 4

[Guest guest]

Another Q.: I have been thinking about my attachment to work at my

job. A body has a job. Identifying with that is on a much grosser

level than the higher, bodiless and worldless level at which we were

speaking on Friday night.

 

N.: How do you identify with the body? It is not you, so how do you

identify with it?

 

Q.: Through imagination.

 

N.: Then, the association with its characteristics and activities is,

likewise, just imagination.

 

Q.: Yes.

 

N.: When you do something through imagination, is it real?

 

Q.: (laughing) No. No. It did not create a mark.

 

N.: So, in what way can you say that you are attached?

 

Q.: Even during the entire time that I was driving around in circles,

trying to get to…(ed. note: refers to a previous conversation in

which he described how, due to road construction, he could end up

driving around through detours in an attempt to get to a job

appointment)

 

N.: The fate of everyone in samsara. (laughter)

 

Q.: (laughing) Yes, it was sort of like that! (laughter) I was not

that frustrated. It was somewhat hilarious, I thought, while I was

driving around in circles, while I was also thinking, " O my God! "

 

N.: At least you gave credit to where it is due. (laughter)

 

Q.: Yes, my God. (laughter) I guess it was my prarabdha karma.

 

N.: Were you going in circles?

 

Q.: No.

 

N.: Did your happiness depend on it?

 

Q.: It was not really dependent, but there is a preference.

 

N.: Your ability to discern what is preferable and what not is not

necessarily an attachment. Confounding happiness causes suffering.

Did you suffer?

 

Q.: I was driving down a different street than the street that I

thought I was driving on and wondering how in the heck did they

change the buildings! It was so confusing.

 

Another Q.: Did you really think that they changed the buildings?

 

Q.: No, not really, but I was really puzzled because all the roads

were changed.

 

N.: Either you were confused about the directions or they changed all

the roads and buildings. (laughter) Did you suffer as a consequence?

Did you lose your happiness?

 

Q.: It was the third wrong turn, with each wrong turn resulting in

ten more minutes of traffic, which ends up on a freeway jam-packed

with cars. Even then, it wasn't so bad, yet I thought, " O my God, not

on this freeway again! "

 

N.: Did you suffer?

 

Q.: Hmm.

 

N.: Did you believe yourself to be a body in a car going around in

circles?

 

Q.: I was just trying to get there. I was not concerned with anything

else.

 

N.: There were thoughts about that. Where were you during the whole

experience?

 

Q.: (quiet for a while) I was not aware of where I was.

 

N.: Do you mean that you were not thinking about it?

 

Q.: Yes, that is what I mean.

 

N.: Is thinking Knowledge?

 

Q.: No.

 

N.: Whether you thought about it or not is rather insignificant. You

might prefer to think about it, but absence of that thought does not

mean absence of Knowledge. You may have preferred to arrive at the

destination of your intention, instead of touring the same few blocks

again and again, but that does not necessarily mean attachment. You

must be free of attachment and ignorance. To be free of ignorance and

attachment, you should discern what constitutes such. Then, inquire.

 

Q.: Without ignorance, things are very clear and space-like.

 

N.: Is the state of Self-Knowledge really a state? Is it a condition

of the mind? Is it like waking, dreaming, or deep sleep?

 

Q.: I shouldn't say that it is, but, because I invest reality in my

thoughts, that idea occurs.

 

N.: So, you must lend the reality to your thoughts, and, without

doing so, they do not have even a semblance or appearance of reality.

This tells you something.

 

Q.: Yes. Not even a semblance.

 

N.: In Truth, there are no such things as thoughts. They have never

been born. So, also, is it with this world.

 

Q.: I do not understand the connection. The thoughts have no

semblance of reality.

 

N.: If they have no reality except that which is imagined, if they

have no existence except that which is lent to them, they are, in

themselves, nonexistent. They have not been born, been created, or

come to be.

 

Q.: Oh.

 

N.: If thought has not come to be, the world, also, is likewise.

 

Q.: (quiet)

 

N.: The experience of the world is utterly dependent upon the state

of the mind. You, though, of the nature of Being-Consciousness, are

not in or of a state of mind.

 

(silence)

 

Q.: Looking at my state now, it is different.

 

N.: In what way is it different?

 

Q.: It is more difficult to comprehend illusion or to think that it

exists. It is clearer.

 

N.: Did your Existence become clearer? Did your Existence become

clouded?

 

Q.: This is interesting, because I definitely believe that.

 

N.: What is the nature of the one who believes it?

 

If the Self is real, it ever is just as it is. Clearer and clouded,

closer or further away, is for someone. Who is this other one? When

you say that you believe, what is the " I, " the source of your belief?

 

Q.: In that state, that is unquestioned. It is assumed to be

something.

 

N.: Question it now. You say that it is assumed to be something,

while it, itself, is the one who assumes. It is absurd.

 

Q.: Questioning it, I can't see any location. Investigating what is

the essence of me, it seems very space-like. I cannot define it as

someone to have something, as I did in my statement.

 

N.: Like space, it does not actually become enclosed by anything

else, does it? It pervades that something else, being inside and

outside of it. It has no form of its own. There are no corners in

space. If you imagine that there is a corner, you have only to dive

into the corner to see what actually makes up the corner. The more

you dive into it, the smaller the corner becomes.

 

Q.: That is clear.

 

N.: Likewise…

 

Q.: It is nothing more than…

 

N.: Imagination. It is just like that with the ego and the Self. If

you imagine the Self to be individualized as an ego, inquire as to

what that " I " is. Its " I-ness " or egoity vanishes. The Space-like,

the abiding Reality, remains. It is of the nature of utmost clarity

always. It never went around in a circle, whether that be on the

highway or in the samsara. For that which was never bound, the

Reality of Liberation is certain.

 

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Not two,

Richard