(Pointing not teaching: Mooji’s method and key terms defined)
Mooji prefers to use the term ‘pointing’ rather than ‘teaching’ because Truth cannot really be taught as it is infinite and formless. He says that to teach, there must be a ‘someone’ to learn which requires time and practice. What Mooji means by ‘pointing’ is actually ‘pointing out’ or making clear what is obvious and already so within ourselves but not yet recognised. He doesn’t encourage note-taking, but more a focus of attention and an earnestness to recognise Truth.
Ego, Identity, Personhood These terms are used to refer to the false self-image or separate self that most of us are conditioned to believe we are. It is the state
in which consciousness is identified with the body-mind and the conditioning that was consciously or unconsciously received. It is the sense of being a limited personal entity with its individual habits, history, beliefs and identity. Ego is synonymous with the I-person feeling, which is the illusory entity inside the mind. This sense of personhood is a highly limited, contracted and reactive state of the functioning consciousness, and seemingly covers or hides its source, the pure, infinite Self. In the state of ego all actions are self-serving. While the gross forms of ego are generally easily discerned, its subtler aspects may hide behind seemingly virtuous and spiritual qualities but this is also a mask to protect its falsehood. Self-realisation means to wake up from this long sleep of ignorance, in which the state of personhood is taken to be one’s self, into the recognition that one’s true Self is beyond all forms, states, concepts and conditioning.
Mind Generally speaking, mind refers to the capacity of consciousness to interpret, measure, evaluate, name and categorise the phenomenal world. It is the instrument through which thoughts arise. When mind functions in its natural purity, it is a highly powerful and effective tool that Mooji sometimes calls the natural, practical or heart-mind. However, when the Being is identified as a personal self, the mind takes on a more deceptive quality, often in tandem with the emotions, memory, feelings and imagination. This is the birth of ego which is also referred to as the psychological, carnal or maya-mind. In this state the mind’s functioning, taken to be real, reinforces the idea that one’s own self is a separate, autonomous entity, vulnerable to the unpredictableness of life. Since the natural mind represents the mind devoid of personal identity, tendencies and beliefs, Mooji sometimes uses the term heart-mind as a synonym for consciousness and vice versa.
(The call home: freedom is neither difficult nor distant)
I have come to call you home. Those who have a place for my words or my voice inside their heart, you already know or you will soon come to this place. You will discover its completeness, its joy and its fullness. I have come to call you away from suffering, from fear, from a life of sorrow, into your own divine Being. I have not come to give you any stories so as to excite your imagination or to sign you up for some long course or to call you into some membership. I have come to show you the unchanging and ever-present Truth and to remind you that you are already That, you are not separate, that the sense of separation from God, from Truth, is mere imagination believed into existence. This is how suffering is born. Know it is possible to wake up out of this long dream.
Take courage. Being free is neither difficult nor distant. I know it has often been conceived, perceived and presented to be rare, remote and difficult, but all that is delusion—a great seeming. I don’t know why awakening happens in one heart so completely and in another there is some delay or postponement.
don’t delight in the imaginary. I need nothing from your past. This is not how I know you. I don’t know you through your story. I know you through your heart—through your own divine Being.
Sometimes feelings of doubt, resistance, lethargy and distractedness will come, and I want you to be aware of that ahead of time. Do not fight with that, but rather keep your attention in the place that I am pointing to: the infinite Self.
It is this that causes everything to come alive, to sparkle with new possibilities. In my view, there is nothing higher in the human kingdom than discovering our divine nature whereby beings are raised from the sleep of ignorance of the Self to the bright joy of awakening. As everything else is perishable, find that which is imperishable, and fall completely in love with it.
Don’t go to sleep until the night of ignorance disappears forever. Remember, the light, peace and presence of the Lord shines inside your heart eternally.
(The way as depth: sitting inside the Heart and the unmoving Self)
The way is not really a way. It is a depth. It is not a distance. It is a deepening into the stillness, deepening in the unmoving. It is not a walking journey. Journeys are for the body and the ego-mind. But listening takes you deeper into the bliss of the unknowable.
Everything comes right when you are sitting inside your own Heart. When you become empty of identity, all is Buddha.
Know that it is totally possible for you to discover yourself as imperishable, unborn Awareness.
(The Yes: replacing “me” with Truth and surrendering to the Lord of the Heart)
If freedom is your heart’s desire, say Yes to Truth without hesitation or compromise. Say to the Lord of the Heart, ‘Replace ‘me’ with You. Rid me of ego and merge my mind in You. If there is identity, replace this identity with Truth. Let there be only oneness here. Dispel any arrogance, any ego and let me melt in You, beloved Lord of my Heart.’ This Yes is very, very powerful when it comes from the heart itself. It comes from the heart and goes straight to the heart and sets off a time bomb in the earth-bound mind. This Yes without compromise is the divine Grace that comes to guide you back to your original innocence, to the timeless and limitless Being.
Only by returning to zero can we see that all this investment in the dream called ‘I-me’ is just a massive distraction from the glory of the Truth we are.
Mind is habituated to giving and also carrying out instructions in order to reach somewhere or to discover something phenomenally. However, true understanding occurs in the Heart. The Heart does not seek to accomplish anything. It is already perfect and reveals the ever-present and timeless Truth we already are.
(Truth as our essential nature: veils of ignorance lifted in satsang)
Truth is spirit and life. It is what we are. It is our very source. It is our essential nature and being. It has been so from before the beginning of time. Truth is timeless. The veils of ignorance, delusion and personal identification hold everyone hostage, causing us to be distracted from the indivisible Self and to be fixated upon the fleeting things of this passing world. This is the cause of all suffering. Here in satsang, these veils are being lifted so that the clear light of awareness alone shines. This is love, truth and lasting freedom. It is available to everyone, because we are already this, choicelessly. All that is needed is to come with an open mind and a thirsting heart, with this urge inside: this very day I must be free.
How can you, as pure, attributeless awareness, be less than the age of a star? Awareness is the source and substance of all knowing and perceiving. Reflect upon this.
Your life should not be okay. Your life should be sparkling. Happy, contented, complete. A Buddha’s life is not okay. Bankei’s life is not okay.
Ramana’s life is not okay. They are K.O. You understand? They ‘knocked out’ the nonsense of ego. An ‘okay’ life should not be accepted by any intelligent being. You have to discover, to undress your own Buddha Self, your own Christ Consciousness, your own Shiva Being. If you wish to know how, come to satsang.
The ego is like God’s egg that must hatch open to bring that divine light into the world. To hatch means to discover one’s real nature. Through one’s own satsang, something inside is maturing enough to be merged in God. And remember, God is not different from you. It is not like you move out and God moves in.
He is you. God is your truest Self—the Supreme Self. Keep saying Yes inside your heart and fall fully inside the Beloved.
Whatever comes, do not push away; whatever goes, do not grieve. Everything appears just like clouds floating by; they just come and go. Stay only as the unmoving awareness. Awareness and Truth are one.
Wide are opinions, narrow is experience when perceived only by the mind. Shallow are opinions, deep is experience when perceived inside the Heart.
I have not come to burden you. In fact, if you are open, I have come to unburden you from all this needless suffering, to free you from this costly belief that you are a mere person. You have tried it your way, now try it my way.
Observe: it is the nature of the personal mind to distract your attention away from the Truth, to limit your sense of being, to drain your natural energy. And yet, while we keep pursuing the wind, the Self, in its perfect harmony, is overlooked and unknowingly swapped for misery.
For many years I worked as an artist. At times I felt I had produced my best work, but now I realise that my being, and all beings, are the living work of art in the hands of the master artist, the Lord himself.
If you feel yourself to be any form of ‘I’, take it for granted that awareness is its root. ‘I’ sprouts from awareness, shape-shifts in awareness and subsides in unchanging awareness. This pure ‘I’ or ‘I am’ is called by the sage, the child of the Absolute.
(The one Self: beyond all states, beyond all description)
There is only the one Self, unchanging, unmoving, uncreated, imperishable, timeless. It is ever-perfect and complete. It is without parts. It neither contemplates, reflects, aspires, renews nor upholds itself. It is not resting. It is not a state, nor is it in-between states. It is not the gap between thoughts. It is not a space between things.
It does not hide, nor can it be hidden. It cannot be seen. It cannot be touched. There is nothing that can reach it or become it. Self-knowing, yet without knowledge. Self-realised, yet without mind. Beyond sin and beyond righteousness. Being beyond being and non-being. Unfathomable, unconquerable, ungraspable. Who but itself can know this?
(Grace as white fire: the urge to throw existence into the Limitless)
Grace sometimes touches life in such a way that one’s entire being is set on fire. One becomes filled with such an enormous urge to be free of the limitations of personhood that there arises the confidence to throw one’s very existence
into the abyss of the Limitless. And yet from within arises a voiceless plea: ‘Burn everything. Leave nothing unburned. Let all that is false be dissolved.’ Unexpectedly, a great sense of being unburdened is felt. A completeness, a peace and a deep joy permeate one’s heart. All that remains is an effortless silence, an unbound stillness without even the least trace of an ‘I’ to receive it. Here, a deep knowing: ‘Nothing exists but You, O wordless One.’ And yet, the lips of one’s heart whisper, ‘Thank you, Beloved.’
Attempting to understand consciousness with one’s mind is like trying to illuminate the sun with a candle.
Just keep quiet. What it means? ‘Keep quiet’ is the same as honouring yourself. When the mind wants to run, you stay put. You are not the mind—know and confirm this. When the ego wants to go to the red-light district and calls, ‘Come, come, it’s time to play,’ you instantly detect the lie and the temptation dissolves. Your peace remains undisturbed. That is what it means to keep quiet.
The little self always wants to know if it has reached the true Self yet. It wants to be able to say, ‘I have reached it, I have done it. Eureka!’ But the true Self does not know any such thing as a little self, its aims or its achievements.
Don’t be a storehouse of memories. Leave past, future and even present thoughts aside. Be a witness to the life unfolding by itself. Be free of all attachments, fears and concerns by keeping your mind inside your own heart. Rest in being. Like this, life is always fresh and imbued
with pure joy and timeless presence. Be happy, wise and free. What’s the other choice?
I don’t want to become anybody’s good story or even to be a good read. I’m here to kick you out of your false existence, basically, but only with your approval.
The ego claims to want Truth but always on its own terms and only when it is convenient. It says, ‘I am ready now. This is my time.’ But Truth does not come when the ego is ready. Truth reveals itself inside the earnest Heart, because Truth and Heart are one. You have to turn away from ego. Jesus himself says, ‘Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.’ It means: Deny your personal self, deny arrogance, deny ego and its seemingly cosy little identity. Don’t believe in it. Drop it. Turn away from it. And ‘take up your cross’ means what? Whatever life brings, bitter or sweet, don’t complain, attend to it, knowing that challenges are God’s gifts
I am never talking about tomorrow, yesterday or even today. I am pointing only to the timeless now. Here there is not the concept or anticipation of ‘next’. Only the full awareness of being and presence. No intention, no investment here. None needed. If there appear any plans, they are only sketches and all sketches are made in pencil. Everything erasable, everything changeable, and yet one’s being is neither fickle nor flimsy. Here. There is a strength, but also a lightness. There is power, but also softness. There is firmness, but also flexibility. The being is like solid emptiness. Immeasurable.
Weightless. Yet more solid than a mountain. Lighter than space. Full yet empty. Sublime.
Just a very thin veil keeps that necessary sense of individuality functioning now. Beautiful. It need not be lost. One’s being simply becomes like space moving in space. My words are not a promise, just a pointing. Sometimes I may say the Self is like a feelingless feeling. Yet, in truth, it cannot be described at all. The being is without story. Just the subtlest vibration. That vibration itself is presence. That vibration and joy are one and the same.
That vibration and peace, same-same. That vibration and contentment are synonymous. But mysteriously there is witnessing to the vibration, to presence. Paradoxically, even this subtle witnessing and vibration are also perceivable. By whom?
(Ego thinning in satsang: the meteorite in the Heart’s atmosphere)
Egoic identity is kept alive through habit, practice and the unquestioned assumption that we are our body and mind conditioning. We are living with the notion that we are the constructed self. This constructed identity is our root belief and nearly all our activities spring from there. And we keep all this up because it is all we believe we are. We are faithful and loyal to this habit of associating with impermanence, and like this we become a loyal member of the community of ignorance. But once the ego is immersed in the energy field of satsang, its power and influence begin to thin away quickly. As soon as the ego enters the Heart’s orbit, it is like a meteorite vanishing in the atmosphere before it reaches earth.
The true perceiver escapes every trick and trap of the psychological mind. In fact, for the perceiver who is aware
of his own formlessness, there are no traps.
You have to get cured. This understanding has to cure you inside. You may have the sense you are consciousness, but it is not yet in the cells of your being. The sleep of ignorance has to be washed out of your eyes, out of your being. You are the consciousness already, but you are still in the field of duality believing in non-duality. And as soon as the urge arises to go beyond duality, duality starts to fight for his life. The resisting mind comes, trying to capture imaginary lost ground. It struggles for a while, but then you are spontaneously reminded: what you are searching for is already timelessly
present, watching you as the dreamer seeking.
If there is an ‘I’ who can ‘get it’ there will be an ‘I’ who can ‘lose it’, and this ‘I’ is nothing but thought. When believed in, it is the most costly thought, for it exchanges your spontaneity for inhibition and your innocence for complexity.
We think it is the other who causes us distress, but actually we carry the offending quality inside ourselves. Now, if you become free from this trait you don’t like, you would cease being affected by or judging it. And when you are free of that judgement, the trait ceases to appear, both inside and outside of you; you have resolved it internally and all its charge is drained. We are not ignorant by choice. It seems like something is hiding the real seeing, but we see this only as our capacity to discern clearly is growing. So when you meet someone whose presence triggers discomfort within yourself, often it is because there is something within you worth inquiring into. A wise person feels grateful for what is exposed inside them, knowing that without the external trigger, the poison within would remain undetected.
Change your perspective. Like the wise ones, who rather than rejecting, welcome all things, transforming them into opportunities for profound seeing.
Sometimes God challenges you to find strength you don’t have.
Only like this will you go beyond your imagined limits. You must be pushed so far that you are forced to be humble. Only then, when your pride and arrogance are crushed, will you discover muscles that are not yours. You will find and use the muscles of God. When you completely abandon yourself, your ego, this miracle becomes possible.
When you insist on bringing so many domestic problems to satsang, I feel like a heart surgeon given the job of cutting your toenails.
Now, presence, understanding and actions are one. Your understanding reveals your oneness with the great harmony which is taking care of everything effortlessly. You find yourself in the front row seat observing God’s play. If you remain loyal to personhood, yours will be a donkey’s work. I don’t recommend. When you perceive from and as the Heart, you realise that all things in God’s play have been unfolding perfectly all along. Just that you were looking with
imperfect eyes and a false identity. It is not that suddenly the world began to move more in your favour, as though you became God’s VIP. No. Not this. All is working in perfect harmony with the will of the Supreme. But you could not see this, because you were blind to the Truth you naturally are.
Without your interest, maya is like a cut flower, soon to wither away. Grieve not.
You are the imperishable Self.
Yours could be a tongueless spirituality in that your very presence exudes the perfume of God. We are too good with words. When we study so much, we separate the Self and make it into a distant goal. Then we write big fat books on consciousness, super consciousness, super-duper consciousness. So of course people say, ‘Oh my God. I cannot even get to the first stage of consciousness. How can I move beyond?’
Simplicity is not so attractive to the personalised mind, which wants shining stones and crystal caves. You imagine a didgeridoo vibrating on your stomach will heal all your bullshit. So we fancy all this stuff, but the Truth we don’t give a second glance—it’s far too simple and effortless for our complex minds. Could we meet in such simplicity? In fact, there lies our magnificence.
In satsang we are exposing and discarding the unreal. When the unreal is discarded, you don’t have to go and search for the real. The real alone remains. It is ever here. You realise it never left. It is always here as your own Self.
The sage within us emerges when the ‘we’, ‘me’, ‘you’ and finally the ‘I’ merge into the inseparable Oneness.
If your heart is burning for freedom, you will merge with the infinite.
My mind is struggling with thought activity. How to stop this? Actually, the truth is that mind is struggling as thought activity. Mind and thought activity are one and the same thing. Do not be fooled by this. Even the one struggling is itself a thought construct. Observe. Clarify. Confirm you are none of this.
The fact is that as you become more aware that you are the unmoving witness behind attention, who observes even the movement of attention itself, the sense of being pulled away is exposed as merely a sensation and not the truth of the moment. The power of presence is naturally self-aware. It cannot be distracted. Just like the clouds moving
do not carry the sky off with them, awareness is immovable, silent, perfect and complete. Thank you. But how do I manage to fulfil the various tasks that are my duty in life? Do what you can or what you must. Don’t stress yourself about the rest. Leave it to God. Once you know who you are, you will find that your being can multitask in the midst of so many things without any stress or sense of fragmentation arising within you. A great tranquility remains in you that doesn’t panic. In that stillness, the being functions much more efficiently and joyfully. All this takes place without any need for identity.
(The natural “I am”: the untaught sense of existence before any thought)
We all know the sense of being. Without practising anything, all beings naturally refer to themselves as ‘I’, I am or I exist. ‘Am’ means to exist, to be. But do we know who is the ‘I’ that am? The ‘I’ that exists? The sense of existence is naturally present within us and is an unquestionable conviction and sense for all living beings. It is there at the beginning of perception. It functions during the waking state as the witness and observer of all that appears within us, consciousness. This feeling, ‘I am’, ‘I exist’, is the natural, untaught way by which we recognise our very own existence. Avoid the tendency of thinking that the ‘I am’ is some special state that we have to search for. It is just the very natural sense of being. Recognise and confirm this.
What is here when everything else is swept aside, including even the intimate and subtle sense of being alive and present? That which is simply here and cannot be swept aside is formless. It is also impersonal. It is beyond time. Unchanging. Be aware of this. This is the Self.
If it should be said, ‘Stay in this’, you will understand that there is no one and nothing, or no-thing, to stay in this, because there is nothing really apart from this, at this level of seeing. Everything appearing is only apparent, like clouds passing. Nothing sticks. It is not a function. It is simply yourself.
(Happiness in pure presence: the maya-mind’s ancient dance of avoidance)
Without the intrusiveness of personal mind, life is observed to be unfolding in a natural harmony. Don’t waste time wishing for things to improve. The whole world does this and no one is really happy, all the while missing the true life. Happiness arises when we stop chasing something other than our true nature, and this happiness never goes away. The universal tendency in human beings is to seek lasting happiness in the transient field of names and forms. Believing this is all there is, we seek happiness in experience after experience, relationship after relationship, therapy after therapy, workshop after workshop—even ‘spiritual’ ones, which sound so promising but never address the root cause of suffering: ignorance of our true nature. This is really a form of avoidance, a very ancient play. It is maya’s dance of deception, a distraction from the timeless, unchanging and ever-perfect within us. Ignorance and arrogance are the main causes for all sorrows and misery in the world. Avoid expectations and especially be aware of the tendency to wait for ‘next’ as a promise of happiness—the next good feeling, adventure or invitation from the mind. This tendency pulls your attention away from pure presence, which is actually the very source of joy itself. No one has ever experienced ‘the future’. Reflect. It is all imagination. How to transform these tendencies? Simply begin by paying attention to the natural, thought-free state, the sense of existence, the feeling ‘I am’. It is the root intuition, the first-born of all concepts, the beginning of experience. Only after it appears, can experiencing begin. The ‘I am’ is consciousness itself.
(The sword of satsang: freedom from the person, not as the person)
Trouble will come from your treasured belief in this personal ‘self’ that you aim to improve. Whereas in authentic spirituality, the unreality of this little person-self is exposed through the sword of satsang. My words may at times seem brutal or even unkind, because you may think you are doing so well personally, but from my standpoint, you are actually drowning in delusion while dreaming you are close to freedom. All this is the mind’s deception. You cannot be free as a person. You can only be free from the person. If the sickness is strong, the medicine must be equally strong; we are not talking about just changing clothes, but forces that can oppress your mind and send it into hell. When I speak like this, people may take offence, but it is actually a chance of resurrection into eternal life. If your heart stops, sweet words are not going to get it beating again. You need a defibrillator. Sometimes it is not enjoyed, and I know how it is felt, but some delusions have to be crushed immediately, directly and without seeming compassion—which incidentally is true compassion. If not, you end up protecting the very thing that is suffocating your being.
The one who is personal has no authority for me; they cannot challenge what I am speaking. They can resist it, but they cannot challenge it authentically because the ground they stand on is quicksand. When we are identified with the ego, we have no real power—we have deluded power, aggression perhaps, but never the power of God. Instead, we need to come out of the black hole of egoic identity, to re-embrace the power of the living God within. Rise up into a life of joy and peace; leave behind sorrow, vain investments and delusions.
So I don’t come lightly. I come with love, but not always with a bouquet of flowers. I come with a sword, a loving and living sword that cuts the root of suffering. People don’t see or appreciate a loving sword—until their head falls off. Such is the power of Truth.
Thoughts arise arbitrarily and unannounced, but this by itself is not thinking. Thinking begins when the arising thought connects with the thinker-thought, the thinker-identity. Out of this communion, thinking is produced. Know that both the thoughts and the thinker of thoughts are one: mind. When it is seen that even the thinker is a thought believed into existence, the power or force of the psychological mind dissipates, and peace prevails.
(The self that cannot get closer to the Self: effort and the effortless)
We strain to attain the effortless. We get up, shower, dress in nice clothes, only to throw out the trash. In the same way, we overwork the mind in pursuit of the effortless, missing all along the fact that we are already the thing we are seeking. Why all this craziness? The maya-mind is very happy to keep sending us on imaginary journeys we quickly believe in and somehow strangely enjoy. But how can you get close to the Self when the Self is without distance?
Carry nothing and be carried by tireless Grace.
When you are one with this recognition, all becomes pure and clear. Only then are you able to exhale the accumulated tensions and burdens of conceptualisation.
When the old tendencies flare up again, do not lose heart. Do not say, ‘When will this ever end? Will I ever be free?’ Take courage. Take the attitude: ‘This is an opportunity. Thank you for yet another chance to flush out whatever remains. I stand firm in you, O Self Supreme.’
Expansion and contraction are only movements in you. What you are in truth remains unaffected by the movements of time and change. It is fully alive within as your own immortal Self. The immortal needs no practice or assistance, being perfect and complete in every way. It is unchanging, ever present, without desire or need—inscrutable. The awakened being needs neither courage nor faith, neither hope nor trust. He is beyond the realm of duality, the imperishable one.
Be where seeing arises from, where even the function of seeing is seen. Remain rooted in this unseen place. This is your Self and your home.
When you discover the here which is beyond place, and the now which is beyond time, then you will be unable to doubt your limitless Being.
What can the mind give to the Heart, to its very source, the Self? Mind’s seva is to prostrate to the Self. Mind is to be in service to the Self, nothing else. You are the Self. Stay as the Self. Don’t serve the mind.
Be humble and wise. Neither compare nor compete. Don’t belong to anyone. Don’t belong to anything. Be one with your own indivisible being. You needn’t become. Just be.
Life yields the food for every living thing to evolve. There is a great compassion and harmony in that, though few recognise it. One should trust this. If you are too intent on the fulfilment of your projections you will never be happy, because life is not here to satisfy your person. The wise one, recognising the fruitlessness of such pursuit, relaxes into a deep state of surrender
You are this unchanging sky of consciousness. You can never not exist. When you fully grasp this, you will cease existing as what you are not.
Be grateful for the mind, whose role it is to molest the false version of yourself and its world and dealings, until it becomes unbearable and you are left
with no choice but to give it up and realise you are already Home. This is Grace.
When you are empty, it does not hurt if you have to suddenly change direction in life. Like when a fly has to change direction, it does not deliberate or complain. Everything is a spontaneity. It can fly in any direction. That’s why it’s called a ‘fly’.
This body-mind must be in service to God in this world. What other real purpose could it possibly have?
Best is just be nothing. See if the mind can speak to you when you are nothing. Invite this.
What is real is the ‘I am’, the sense of conscious presence, which witnesses all this but remains unaffected.
You are not here to cope. You are not here to survive. You are here to bear witness to and shine in and as the glory of God.
because the real cannot be imagined. It can only be discovered. When the seeker gets tired of imagining and seeks to find only the real, God reveals Himself.
You are pure awareness. You are not awareness sometimes and other times not. The idea that you are only sometimes aware and sometimes not aware is itself an idea appearing in unbroken awareness.
Real surrender is when that which you most treasure
is offered wholeheartedly to the Infinite. Include yourself in this offering.
you are here effortlessly watching, like a camera without film, seeing without capturing, being without becoming. This laughing and crying needs no reason or explanation. It is just the spontaneous outburst, a blissful freedom. It is at once the most eloquent, and yet ineffable, the early sign of Divine madness. I so wish it upon you.
We are divine beings in a state of recovery, re-discovering our divinity, winning back ourselves from states of delusion.
If you stay stuck in personhood, life will kick your ass. But if you are open to Truth, then you are continuously expanding into greater and greater seeing. Finally, you will exclaim, ‘I love this stepping out of the shadow of myself into the bright light of my Self.’
Truth is eternally here. The question is whether the one who has any doubt about this, is really here.
The beautiful thing is that the more you are removed, the more you are revealed. A beautiful paradox.
Love does not need an intention or object to love. It is the highest expression of the being in recognition of itself. It is the unity of being. Just as the fragrance and the flower are one, your being radiates this love—effortlessly.
You are the Self. Silence, wisdom and joy are your perfume. It is here when you leave your luggage aside. Luggage means identity, desire, memory, projections —who you think you are and who you want to be. This beauty awakens in you when there is space for the beautiful One.
The mind is like the wind. The Self is like space. It is the nature of wind to blow about, but space, being infinite, cannot move about. Space exists whether there is wind or no wind. But if there was no space, there could be no wind. Judge which is the greater and be one with that.
The nature of any illusion is that when it is seen clearly, it loses its power. You can never lose yourself. Everything else you may lose, but your Self you cannot lose, because it alone is real. The person is only a t-shirt worn by the Infinite for a moment or two.
Be fully in your heart. Otherwise, whatever you do will be merely average or, at best, impressive —not miraculous, not magnificent. Only when you commit or surrender with all your heart will you enter the realm of the divine.
First you must come to recognise presence. That which is aware of both presence and absence is beyond them both. You don’t have to talk about these things.
If you were struck down and couldn’t speak another word, the Truth would still be alive in you. That which I point to, none can alter or remove.
I am the experience of myself.
(Awareness as substratum: synonymous with Truth, prior to all arising)
What is the relationship between Truth, awareness and liberation? Truth and awareness are one—not different. Awareness and Truth are synonyms for the Absolute, the all-pervading oneness beyond any concept and beyond which there is nothing. However, liberation is linked to an outcome. It implies that something is bound, waiting to be freed or liberated. Awareness is not an outcome or a result; it is the field in which all outcomes are seen. Awareness is not a happening. It simply is. Before anything manifests, awareness is already present. You could say it is the substratum; everything appears in it, through it and because of it. Everything ‘else’ is a separate thing, but awareness is indivisible.
It is completely untouched by any terminology. It is timeless and free from the effects of time and causation. It is unnameable, ungraspable, uncreated, imperishable, attributeless, indivisible, unborn, immutable Reality —and it is your own Self. It can never be an object of perception. It is not an experience that can be had. Experience, experiencing and experiencer are perceived in it. It is pure subjectivity without the slightest trace of objective content.
One cannot equate awareness with life, because life is a movement perceived through and in awareness. Even the sense of ‘I’ itself is not as great as awareness; the ‘I’ indicates the sense of being, the perceiver, the experiencer, the witness of the world. ‘I’, even in its highest meaning as consciousness, pure sentience, arises in the space of awareness, but awareness does not arise.
Awareness is not a noun. It is not a verb. It is not an adjective. It’s not even a state. We could say it is the stateless state in which all states are perceived to be momentary or time-bound. Awareness itself cannot be known through the instrument of the mind, which itself is a mere phenomenon appearing in and witnessed in the Immutable. Awareness can only be known by itself, for it is the totality apart from which there is no other. This is the play and paradox of liberation.
I am That. Consciousness. The womb of existence. I am unborn awareness, dancing as life itself.
You prioritise your projection, thinking that somehow if you surrender to the unseen, it may not give you what you want—as though what you want could be greater than what the Lord would reveal in you. It seems ridiculous when it is put like this, but some arrogance is inside making us think, ‘If I had a chance to run the world or let God continue
running it, I think I could do a better job.’
(The Master as white fire: your own true nature made visible)
The Master is neither ‘other’ nor ‘another’. Suddenly it is you who feels like the ‘other’, for the Master is a visible reflection of your true nature and Self. When you encounter the presence that you cannot impress, inspire or manipulate, then all kinds of insecurities come to the surface to be burned. Only then can surrender and transcendence take place. This is the greatness of the Master. Let the Master be your white fire.
Then I woke up to the fact that nothing, apart from misconceptions, veils the natural freedom I Am.
To try to clean your person is like trying to clean a garbage bag. Why waste time when eventually you are going to throw both the bag and its trash away?
After the realisation of the Self, you are not necessarily going to sit around doing nothing. Of course, this could also happen, but you may even find yourself more active than before while retaining full energy, and yet internally there is a total serenity, unbroken peace, a clear and empty mind. A mighty presence prevails. None can explain. Don’t try to gauge the Self by activity. Someone’s life could appear full of activity, but yet it’s all springing
from tremendous peace. They claim neither action nor the sense of doership. Everything arises spontaneously out of the consciousness and the life force. Whether active or still, the one Self is the guru of each expression. None can fathom its ways. Exposing the person and its life as illusory is all that needs to happen. This is done by resting one’s attention solely upon the witness of the mind.
Throw off the belief that you are bound. In fact, you may also throw away the belief that you are free, for that which truly exists is beyond even conviction and belief. It simply is. Unsupported. Not holding onto a single thing, including the auspicious sense ‘I am’, what remains? Inquire.
Say Yes inside your being; Yes means ‘I protect nothing untrue and offer everything, including myself, for the sake of Truth and lasting freedom.’ Fall fully upwards into the embrace and Grace of the Lord within.
If today was your last day in this body, would the opinions of your mind make any difference to you? Why not then live with this attitude?
When you are empty of opinions, you discover an effortless synchronicity that you cannot deny. There is a higher power working beyond and behind the human world that is orchestrating things beyond our capacity to comprehend personally. The one who is empty of personhood and free of its attachments
Fear and resistances appear to shake your house to the foundations, but you will see their illusoriness as you remain without identity. At times like this, you may feel a wobbling, as does every earnest seeker, but by not compromising your ground, things turn out to your advantage. You will build spiritual muscle out of such challenges. You have to! There is no other way for the seeker.
Fight not with blows but by staying as the unmoving seer. Remember: it is not that you are going through these things, but rather that they are moving through you on the way to oblivion.
All things pass, except the Infinite.
You don’t have to strain to get rid of anything —just discover that which is being pointed to time and again, here and now. That is all.
vaccinated against the intoxicating effects of maya. Something remains untouched. Seemingly touched, yet untouched. Apparently affected, yet unaffectable —immaculate Being.
You can only be that. Seek no place to be.
Ultimately, there is no ‘other’. The truth is that you are always one and alone. Even when you are with others, you are essentially alone, as consciousness. This is a beautiful aloneness; it is not a psychological state. You are not alone
as a person. You are alone as everything —as the one Unity. All the various ‘others’ are only fleeting impressions in the indivisible Self.
You are discovering that many old, stale things are thinning away unforced. A magical something-nothingness comes alive in you and all you can do is Be.
At any moment, one of these pointings is going to detonate inside you and dispel many delusions. Not all of them have to, but if one of them detonates, the rest will follow. In an instant, an entire bank account of illusions—gone. You are bankrupt as a person but fully alive as Being.
Be the mighty sea, not merely a wave, a lake, a pond or a fish bowl. You cannot flow like this. Therefore, first be still, then surrender yourself completely here.
Awareness is even more subtle than a feelingless feeling, more subtle than one’s primal intuition, ‘I am’. You are not separate from That. You are That itself.
When you meet the Master, he puts a spiritual cowbell around your neck so that wherever you go, both he and you know where you each are and so can laugh together. For when you hear that bell, you are immediately reminded of your inseparableness from the Master.
I am not a library, I am a lighthouse. You have to attune yourself to my vibration. Don’t bother studying me. Just tune in and soon you will discover the vibration of the Self we are. To try and study takes a long time. If you tune in, you actually expand a hundred times faster than studying, but it requires a trusting and a letting go—the thing your mind is most afraid of.
Mind presents options Heart offers recognition Mind imagines Heart reveals Mind strays Heart stays Mind thinks Heart knows Mind is becoming Heart is being Mind introduces creature comforts Heart introduces the Creator
However, you always keep a watchful eye. Never think you have beaten the weeds. Just enjoy your space in the here and now. Should the weeds return, uprooting them becomes increasingly easy for you. Just don’t let a weed become a bush, and a bush a mighty tree.
Mind arises and assumes the shape of our hidden tendencies. Mind cannot think. It is you, the Self, who thinks by identifying with thought.
Actually, mind and the thinker are both thoughts. Do think about this. Or don’t.
And while you are busy chanting, you miss God, who is more here than you. Such delusion!
You are in the atmosphere of the Self and far too joyful to be bothered by as insignificant a thing as the mind.
My Father is the source of all. Trust in Him. Offer yourself up fully to His grace. This is the way to salvation.
When there is a ‘you’ and Truth, effort has to be made to bring two things together. When there is you as Truth, effort falls away. What brings this about? The understanding that transforms you and That, to you as That.
You are looking for something, but you are already looking from that very place. Who gets it?
The greatest sadhana is to confirm and joyfully abide in the living and effortless recognition of your own Self.
Where do you imagine the Truth to be, and behind what can it be hidden? And from whom?
Please say.
What is there when there is nothing to be swept away? That which is here and cannot be swept away, that is your ‘I am’ vibration Self.
Mooji, how can I become nothing? There is no need to want to become nothing. You are already nothing. Remain empty. Don’t pick up any concept or go into any shape. It is a beautiful nothing, and complete also. It is neither a curse nor an insult. Nothingness is beauty itself. It needs no admirer.
Sometimes there will be an intensification of your sense of merging into the Self. Be completely open inside your heart. Don’t say, ‘Let me travel at my own speed, on my own terms.’ No. Surrender. Let God’s hand be on the gearstick. Let Him drive. Don’t try to control, in any way, the speed of your deliverance. Don’t ask Him to slow down. When He drives, you don’t need a seatbelt. Be in full trust, knowing He moves the whole world.
Why do you cling to memories so much? Is it because we have the sense that the present is incomplete? Why go to past or future? Or even present! Is there not something even more alive than time? As you come to verify this, spontaneously you will discover that you are the timeless One.
The person is a localised, contracted mode of consciousness appearing within the natural, uncreated sense of presence, the sense ‘I am’. This we are. It cannot be improved.
It can only be discovered as it is, perfect and concept-free. It exudes a fragrance which is experienced as love and joy, naturalness, peace and a unity of being.
There is no need to try to be. Find the ‘be’ before the trying-to-be, and be one with it.
Whatever happens, you are already here. Somehow an ‘I’ arises with the desire to reach you, but you are already here, watching this ghostly intention.
We sometimes create so much worry and fear about life which is not true of life. It’s your mind that interprets life in this way or that. It’s quite a subjective thing. You say, ‘Life is difficult!’ Life is not difficult. You are living it difficultly, you see.
Remain empty. Resist the pull to enter any state. Remember all states are temporary, they come and go. The Self is not a state. All states appear and disappear in the immensity of the Self—the stateless state.
just keep pointing you to the place where you are naturally and effortlessly happy, but you insist on this habit of grumbling, wallowing and whingeing. You are just too lazy to follow my pointer and look inside yourself. What can I do?
As pure awareness you are beyond names and forms, concepts and descriptions. Comings and goings are noticed from here, but there is no fuss, no interest. This is the natural state. There is no need to hold onto anything here because there is no fear and there is no need. You are not imagining, not creating, simply noticing —and it takes no energy.
Don’t pick up any big jobs such as balancing life or trying to be one with the universe. Mind loves this. However, the position’s already filled. You needn’t apply.
Does the sun know night? Does it even know day? You can worship the sun. You can dry your clothes in the sun, but this is not the sun’s job. It only shines. The Self is like this.
Anything you perceive cannot be what you are. Simply observe this internally until it becomes naturally confirmed in your mind. You are before anything that comes in your mind because you are the one that perceives whatever comes and goes. This understanding is timeless. Stay as the awareness in which this is perceived.
Observe that all phenomena—thoughts, images, sensations and so on—come and go in front of you, like clouds floating in the infinite sky. But you, the observer of them, are like the sky itself, still and unchanging.
You will feel a sense of expansion inside the immensity of being. See it all in and as a movement inside the Unmoving.
Let this be your exercise as you move about in daily life: keep your focus on the sense of being or presence rather than the appearances arising in the mind space. The harmony of presence is the perfume arising from its source, the unchanging Awareness.
As you watch, you will come to recognise that identity itself is unnecessary and is merely a force of thought.
Here the personal mind cannot breathe. It fades in its seeming power to influence the presence. When the idea ‘I am the person’ is sieved out, what remains is the excellent and immaculate ‘I am’-ness.
The earnest seeker, blessed with grace, is imbued with forensic vigilance that exposes the ego in all its gross and subtle manifestations. The true siddhi or supernatural power is to be firmly established in one’s true and natural state of unborn awareness.
When you are no longer ‘you’, only That is. That alone is. That is you.
The one who remembers the Self, will forget the Self because the one who remembers belongs to the realm of time and change and is not stable.
Doubts and habit keep reviving this ghostly opponent, but each time he is watched in the clear light of pure understanding, he vanishes. Therefore, grant this dragon no compassion. Strike each time with the double-edged sword of wisdom and devotion, which cuts his seeming existence, until he can rise no more.
How incredibly strange that there are many people who, at the first sign of the smallest pain, rush to the doctor for some cure; they take it that seriously. But amazingly, due to ignorance of our original nature, the greatest suffering—the fear of both death and life— has been going on for lifetimes, and yet so few inside the human kingdom seem to recognise the magnitude of this phenomenon.
Find and be the silence that has no keeper, the being that needs no help. It shines by itself.
In this ‘I’-cocktail of person and presence, the person aspect is the aspiring aspect and the presence aspect is the witnessing aspect. Understand this. If you identify with the person aspect, journeys of successes and failures roll out in front of you. However, if you stay as the witness, there is a stillness which glows with silence and peace, an unbound emptiness inside, where there is no sign of an aspirer. To know this is freedom. To not know this is bondage.
But beware of routine doubtfulness, for left unchecked, it quickly induces fear, suspicion, resistance and personhood —the poorest company one could keep.
Even what is preserved, eventually deteriorates. Whatever is manifested, returns to emptiness. I am emptiness—unborn awareness. I am here before all names and forms appeared. I am nearer than your breath, closer than intimacy, so much so that your trying
to find me is watched in me, the indivisible One.
Use mind sparingly for it easily flavours life and overwhelms its real taste.
If you want to understand or grasp Truth in the way that Buddha has, you will have to disappear personally. When you disappear personally, you don’t then appear impersonally. You remain as you are and have always been —the unchanging and ungraspable Truth.
The consciousness, ‘I am’, receives the instructions within itself. Spontaneously, the appropriate ministering power, inherent within the Self, carries out the instruction in accordance with the will, wisdom and authority of the higher Self. All this is the effortless functioning inside the one wholeness. One of the greatest joys of consciousness is to solve its own mysteries.
Then self-inquiry is not merely something you practise, it becomes the mirror you, consciousness, look into to see the imageless face of God.
You don’t have to fight. You only have to keep choosing Truth. Only Truth. Let Grace fight for you if needed. You just keep choosing, ‘Yes, I choose the true.’ And when the exposing power comes, be completely naked in front of it. This much courage you must have. When the impulse arises to look deeply into a thing, be fearless, because the power is with you in this moment. Be empty. That’s it. When you’re empty, you’re the most powerful, because you’re present.
It’s not what the mind says. It’s how seriously it is taken.
When the pain of separation becomes unbearable, duality ends.
There is a way to remain in real time with the universe, but it is not through force, imagination or manipulation. It is by finding and recognising your true Self. When you do, you will not need to manipulate anything. All will be observed to be flowing in perfect harmony.
You never hear a prophet or a sage say, ‘I think,’ or, ‘This is my opinion.’ Why? Because they have lost interest in the personal sense of being. For them, it doesn’t exist. The person has no credibility at all where truth is concerned. The liberated one, who is free from egoic identity and its influence, becomes the embodiment of universal consciousness.
If you don’t know who you are now, how are you going to know how you’re going to be in the future?
Throw yourself inside now. Take nothing with you. You will find me there.
Realise that you are the formless one, that pure and imageless awareness. Know this with your entirety and let the life force and consciousness dance in the presence of that unmoving vastness. Intuitively you will know there is neither limit nor end to that which you are.
There is a passage in the Bible, in the book of Psalms, where David declares, ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.’ Our attitude should be to offer everything up to the Heart of life, to God—our inmost Self. Hold firm to your resolve for Truth. Your spirit is mighty in the Lord and will transcend every shadow of death.
Like this plant, let your life unfold in effortless grace and joy.
What is so precious in your life and about you that is worth exchanging the eternal for? What are you holding onto so tightly that feels more valuable than the emptiness? What are you clinging to inside your heart when even this body one day will leave? What is so precious to you now that Truth is something left to be discovered later?
What can you not bear to separate from, knowing that one day all things will go?
What do you desire and what are you so attached to, that brings all this neediness, fear and mistrust of life?
Why can’t you trust that life can take better care of you than you can yourself? What keeps you so loyal to personal identity and its delusions? Has it all been worth it?
You say that you can see everything is coming and going, but that you yourself are not coming and going. You say you have glimpses of the Truth, but then you say fear arises, a fear of death. Something inside says, ‘One more step and you will never be able to come back. It will be irreversible.’ But I want to ask you something: can it be the pure Self that is saying all this?
Everybody has at least one biting concept that keeps them behind the line of the mind. ‘It’s irreversible!’ says the mind, ‘You won’t be able to come back.’ Back to what? Reflect. Who understands that all of this is just an illusion?
Presently you think you are mixed up with the mind and are trying to disentangle yourself
from the turmoil of thoughts. But both the mind and the one trying to disentangle from it are unreal. This is perceived in the Real.
The mind is like an inner journalist that attacks your self-image and then reports all about it. But all the time there is a pure witness within who is not caught up in the bubble of this paparazzi carnival. This witness is you.
Just quietly vanish inside yourself. Disappear. So beautiful. A form is still here, but inside—no one. Speak to nobody about this for they simply cannot understand. This is something only between you and your Lord.
The one who prays to God should not pray regarding God as ‘other’ but as the core, the all-encompassing essence of one’s Self. True life is to live this realisation.
God knows nothing. Why? Because there is nothing independent of God. There is nothing apart from Truth to know. You must hear and feel my words not merely as words but as spirit and truth. Therefore, listen with full attention and inside your Heart, because this is not merely a mental exercise.
Actually, the mind gets exorcised by the Master’s words. The Buddha’s words are direct, timeless, immediate. My words must resonate. In the search for Truth, resonance is the fastest and highest way. Through synchronicity, everything is assimilated very easily, like a natural osmosis.
If duality has any real purpose, it is that god may look at God and enjoy his perfect reflection.
You are God’s present being unwrapped. Don’t identify with the paper.
You close your eyes and see darkness, but it is by the light of consciousness that darkness itself is seen.
Sometimes I meet beings who believe or claim that they have realised the Self. They say they know and understand the Truth and are convinced it is what they are. But I often sense that though they may have come to a place of genuine seeing, the mind slips in to take credit for this understanding and purchases further life as the egoic ‘achiever’ of ultimate Truth.
Don’t let my pointings disappear in your mind like incense smoke in the wind. They must land as a firm recognition of that which cannot be blown away by anything.
Just as it is the nature of the eagle to soar joyfully in the infinite sky, it is the nature of the ‘I am’ to be free—unbound. For the ‘I am’ to be compressed into as small a thing as a person, is like caging the eagle and expecting it to be happy.
When you don’t know yourself, you think others can know you, but when you know what you are, you realise no one can know you. No one can grasp the magnificence of that which you truly are.
The wise do not need to choose their teachers. They learn or grow from everyone and everything, from both the foolish and the wise. Even from the arrogant they learn something. Therefore, their mind retains its universality. Being one with consciousness itself, nothing gets wasted. Be inspired by them.
The universe is playing on your behalf. Every move is tailor-made for your transcendence. Even slipping on a banana skin —all is for your awakening.
There is a peace that does not go. It does not want to go. It does not want to stay. It has no place to go. It simply is. It has no appointments to be somewhere else. Allow yourself to fall away from the shape of your mind. And don’t ask how.
Seek forgiveness of those whom you have judged. Keep your heart empty, light, open and free from all worries and grievances. Remain quiet inside your being.
The one who is seeking to stabilise in the unchanging Self is himself a thought watched from and inside the unchanging Self.
You must digest, acknowledge and respect your seeing. Otherwise you just keep going back and forth from personhood. Some people attend every satsang but they don’t evolve. They just want you to do something for them. But if you listen deeply with your full heart and attention, then you can do everything for yourself! I keep putting a mirror in front of you, but you keep asking, ‘How does it work?’ What to do…
Where is silence until you discover it? Where is peace until you find it? Where is the real Self while you are searching for it? And who might you be?
This Self is not really ‘you’ at all in the physical, psychological or historical sense. The Self is pure bliss, nothing else.
Sometimes you should stand up and defend what you know is true. Sometimes you are too attached to being comfortable. Don’t shrink away; this is all the play of consciousness—to expose that we put our person first. It’s so uncomfortable to stand up and to have your sense of integrity challenged or to
point the finger or to be disliked or to get into a fight or to become bright red in front of everybody. And it could be much worse. I say this is a small price to pay for freedom and Truth. Sometimes life compels you to stand up. Even if you are only one against seven billion, what an amazing thing! You stood for this!
You also have to be willing, in a way, to die somewhere inside yourself for the principles of the Heart. I’m not sending you in front of tanks and machine guns. I’m just telling you to stand up in your truth as guided by the Heart. Even in small matters, life gives you the chance to stand up and live from the Truth that you have discovered.
There is a gem that is rarely seen in this world. This gem is one whose heart is free of desire but is full of love for Truth. Such a one shines with the light and presence of the Supreme Lord. Don’t keep looking outside to find Him. Find Him within yourself.
Just stay inside your heart without prejudice, projections or desires. Notice how life flows of its own accord. Nothing here is a chaos, just a harmony. Your activities are inside this flow, but your Self is one with it.
The sense ‘I’ in you becomes a synonym for peace and harmony.
The mind of an awakened one is like a space in which phenomena appear and disappear, yet nothing sticks.
The most powerful sadhana is that as you see, you are free. As you understand, you are liberated right there and then. Not that you understand and then go practise after. Now grasp this completely. This is instant awakening. Quicker than Zen.
When a rocket is launched into outer space, initially a tremendous amount of energy is required and exerted. Huge amounts of fuel are consumed to raise the craft from the earth. But as soon as it leaves the earth’s atmosphere and enters into orbit, the rocket burns up and falls away irretrievably. The spacecraft, the very kernel, now floats effortlessly into infinite space. It can feel just like this when one is on a journey for Self-discovery. In the beginning, like the rocket, it can seem like so much energy is required to ascend on the path. The gravity of doubts, distraction and resistance emerge from the shadows, threatening to pull you down and off course. But with the grace of persistence
and earnestness, the effects of the resisting forces are overcome. Grace is burning up all personal tendencies and finally the person itself. As the Self is recognised, mind finds and floats in the vastness of great joy, peace and silence. Unbound love fills everywhere. Effort has subsided into effortlessness as mind and Being become one in the orbit of the Absolute.
It will suffocate your spontaneity and clog up your pure intelligence. Who amongst us will shake off the ego? For the ones who succeed, it won’t matter where they go; only the scenes will change, but they, the seer, remain unchanging. You will stay untouched —not by effort or skill or yoga or meditation, but through perfect understanding of your true nature confirmed inside the heart. Grace must be there, but for Grace to reveal herself, the thirst for Truth must come first. Arrogance cannot be there. It may appear in the beginning
You don’t know how well you are doing; you don’t know anything at all. You are just a child sitting happily in the lap of God.
For a while, the mind seems earnest in its urge for Truth. But as soon as the fragrance of Truth arises and the flower of freedom is about to bloom, mind strangely begins to back-pedal furiously, as if fighting for its very existence. Its initial earnestness is replaced with riotous resistance, and unexpectedly, a mutiny to sink the ship of freedom surfaces. Though it may seem that the chance for awakening is slipping away, you are actually at the edge of victory
itself! Don’t panic. Don’t be distracted. Remember, you are held in the embrace of the Supreme. This battle ends here.
You are not going to become the Truth. You are going to unbecome the lie.
Nothing belongs to you or me. Nothing belongs, neither you nor me. Everything, everything, everything just Is.
As mind is returning to the heart, whatever is not in service to the Truth is being openly exposed, through the light of grace. When God is chosen, one feels more
and more deeply pulled into the very heart of the Self, and cannot help falling completely in love with Truth. Like thieves seeking to hide in a glass house, one’s being has now become so transparent that the disharmonious can no longer remain hidden.
Don’t know anything at all. Meet everything in the moment as it arises. Meet life like this and you’ll be effortlessly happy. Then your life is not a series of events, but more a quality of being. Start with being empty before you make your first step. Then, when you make that first step, see if this beautiful emptiness is left behind or not. When you are grounded in and as the source, it won’t matter if one, ten or a hundred steps are taken.
We have a lot of concepts about what truth is. Truth is not a ‘thing’ that can be perceived at some distance away or even right in front of you. It can never be an object. Truth and source are one, the formless core of perceiving. Therefore, don’t keep looking at what is seen, but instead acknowledge that empty space from where the seeing begins. By habit, mind will be pulled to something for the attention to land upon, but here attention should not land on anything phenomenal. You can just leave all that alone now. Resting in your own imageless awareness, recognise that all the activities of the mind are not a definition of what you are.
The capacity to witness the activities of the mind is naturally and effortlessly inherent in you. But avoid holding onto any particular impression or expression which will pull you into a shape, when your natural state is shapeless. What truly exists is before all—before all shape and movement. This you can easily confirm. Once you confirm this, keep confirming until it really registers inside that this is the fundamental nature of things. Otherwise, you can get pulled back into the mind flow and keep re-identifying yourself as the thinker of thoughts and the doer of actions.
Thereafter, there’s an inherent and profound harmony in the activities that emanate from you, or around you, or happen through the body. Your energy field becomes very attractive to people around you. Even without thinking about it, they find a natural peace in your presence. Your being becomes an inspiring, uplifting, peaceful contribution to life. This is a phenomenon that can happen even beyond your conscious knowing of it. So I’m not saying you should try and attract people to you. It is a natural thing, that even animals are attracted to egoless presence. In the field of the one who is established in his own silence, the restlessness in others finds rest.
You say the mind gets in the way of finding the Truth. This is simply not true. Nothing can ‘get in the way’ of the true, for Truth is not an object and therefore can’t be found in any direction. It is always present as the core of being. For anything to be ‘in the way’, you must be trying to get to some place other than where you already are. Nothing can stop you from finding Truth. You are not going on any journey. Truth is discovered right where you are. Let us be clear about this.
Surrender existence to existence. Discover this freshness, this spontaneity. To entertain a belief that one knows what oneself will do in the future is sheer madness posing as intuition. What restriction, what oppression—how depressing. Even one’s greatest plans and best intentions put together cannot compare with the life that flows out effortlessly from the presence of God.
You cannot surrender and have something hidden behind your back. You have to put everything on the
table of Truth.
(Heart as Guru of mind: the only relationship that does not end in duality)
Heart is the Guru of the mind. Mind is the devotee of the Heart. This is the only relationship that doesn’t end in duality.
Go for the greater, and the lesser will be taken care of. Don’t worry. Life is not a puzzle. It is the ego that gets puzzled. You don’t have to work things out. Simply keep quiet and let it all unfold. If you think you can work life out, you create an identity as a solver of life. Big trouble! Nobody can work it out. It is not to be worked out.
Watch as life takes care of life. It flows spontaneously and perfectly in each form. Let go to the dance of existence. Why miss the best show on earth?
The state of presence is what you are, in fact—that intuitive sense ‘I am’. There is no such thing as coming out of it, except through the belief that you are a person, which is imagined. This person is actually a distortion of what the ‘I am’ truly is. It’s a personalisation of it, such a misconception and a falsehood. And yet it is fiercely protected by the dreaming self. I don’t know if you grasp the profundity of my words here, but should you contemplate them deeply, your delusions will end.
Just absorb what you can and leave the rest. Do not dwell on old mistakes or missed opportunities. Do not strain to become any shape, for this creates and sustains a personal identity and drains the being of its naturalness and veils its vibrancy. Remember, no-one can live a fault-free life. Accept this. It is the conditioned and programmed mind that gets caught up in the sludge of perfectionism
and vain morality. Don’t empower these tendencies. While appearing to be vital, they actually stifle real seeing, contributing nothing towards the realisation of the Self. Recognising your true place as the impersonal witness and abiding as true Self-consciousness is itself freedom.
When you search inside to try and find yourself and can’t find yourself, you’ve found your Self.
A thought declares, ‘This is really too much. I simply can’t go on,’ and a feeling of being overwhelmed shoots up. But don’t be distracted. You are stillness itself. This is a truth you can immediately confirm. So who does this thought come for?
The ego cannot live without interest from you, without identity, which came because you were distracted from your true state. Some subtle tension will always be there, which is needed in some way in order for you to keep exercising your spiritual muscle. Somebody once asked my Master, ‘Papaji, you often talk about vigilance, but in your own case, do you have to be vigilant?’ And he replied, ‘To my very last breath.’ This vigilance is not a job. It is a joy.
‘I know’ is the restless place for all beings. ‘I don’t know’ is the resting place for all beings.
Be with the sense ‘I am’, the natural sense or feeling I exist. It is not something you learned. It is effortlessly present and instinctively known. The sense ‘I am’ is one’s natural self. It is the feeling of being aware but not aware of anything in particular. It is no distance from you. There is no separation. It is already present right where you are before any thoughts arise. It is there even when thoughts arise. It is the one that perceives the thoughts arising, though itself is not a thought.
It is not an object. Therefore it has no shape or size. It’s like a space and at the same time it is that which is aware of the space. Just be aware of this. Don’t let this natural feeling of presence become attached to anything that appears. Just remain as you are —that itself is ‘I am’.
If you have a very literal mind, you might feel ‘I still need to know the first step: how do I pay attention to ‘I am’?’ Well, how do you pay attention to anything? So far our looking has mostly been a play of the sense of a subject being aware of an object—a duality. We are forever paying attention to ‘other’ but does anyone
pay attention to themself, the one who perceives ‘other’? We believe that in order to pay attention to the ‘I’ sense we are, there must be at least two things involved: the one paying attention and the thing being paid attention to. However, in this case, it would be to its own self. How does one pay attention to or observe one’s own self? It’s very natural. We are naturally self-aware unless we doubt this; then we just shift our attention to the doubt, and that is called distraction. Distraction means while giving attention to the sense of ‘other’, you feel you abandon yourself. This is not true. You cannot abandon yourself, for yourself is consciousness, and without consciousness nothing exists. Let’s not make it complicated—it’s very easy. Simply pay attention to that which perceives thoughts
or any other activity of the body-mind. Is it a person? Can it be seen or touched? That which is aware of these questions, that which is even aware of being aware, is it apart from you? No. Know this to be yourself.
(Glossary: consciousness, ego, God, and the Self as Mooji uses them)
Consciousness The dynamic aspect of the unchanging Absolute Awareness-Self. Mooji sometimes refers to it as the Child of the Absolute or the Breath of the Absolute. It is the light by which the entire world is seen. It is the lens of the Absolute, the conceiving and perceiving power and function through which the world of manifestation arises and is seen. Consciousness is formless but gives rise to all forms. It is intangible and simultaneously the catalyst or spark for all that is tangible. It is the pure ‘I am’ presence arising naturally within each living form. Mooji uses the terms impersonal witness, being or beingness, the sense of presence and the intuition ‘I am’ as synonyms for consciousness. Mooji also uses the term pure consciousness to point to the Absolute itself, the supreme principle, the substratum and Source of all.
Ego, Identity, Personhood These terms are used to refer to the false self-image or separate self that most of us are conditioned to believe we are. It is the state in which consciousness is identified with the body-mind and the conditioning that was consciously or unconsciously received. It is the sense of being a limited personal entity with its individual habits, history, beliefs and identity. Ego is synonymous with the I-person feeling, which is the illusory entity inside the mind. This sense of personhood is a highly limited, contracted and reactive state of the functioning consciousness, and seemingly covers or hides its source, the pure, infinite
God When Mooji speaks of God, he is speaking of the omnipresent One, the Absolute—the formless, Supreme power and intelligence that is inscrutable to the human mind, yet directly accessible through the heart. In fact the God-Self, who is perfect awareness, alone exists—this is the ultimate Truth. Out of His absoluteness, He manifests the dynamic, manifold universes and all that is animate and inanimate. He is simultaneously the creator and perceiver of everything He causes to be, and He is beyond all. Without any change to His immutable nature, He expresses as the God of grace, of loving kindness, perfect wisdom and compassion. God imparts the gift of perfect Self-knowledge to those He causes to contemplate their true nature and to those who seek and serve Him with all their minds and hearts. No concepts can capture or convey what the God-Self is. He is the all-pervading yet invisible and indivisible Spirit, the core of all existence.
It is not an idea, event, creation or object hidden in some sacred vault. It is changeless, ever-present, ever-perfect and beyond any characteristic or condition. Truth and God are one. God, Self and Truth all point to the single ultimate reality that Mooji speaks of. He also uses these words to encapsulate that same Truth: Awareness, pure Consciousness, the Unborn, the Immutable, Absolute, Indivisible, the Supreme, Heart, Nothingness, Emptiness, Is-ness or the What Is and That.