We define it by what we sense. Different experiences appear — happiness, sadness, hot, cold, enjoying, suffering. These experiences come and go. Usually there is thinking; occasionally, not thinking. Every object is changing. Your experience is changing, your body is changing, and your thoughts are changing. Now, look in your own experience. Do you change? You were a young boy, and now you have the body of a man. Inside, do you sense yourself as different?
No.
You don’t feel different, and if you ask somebody who is eighty, they will tell you the same. Beliefs might have changed, the body is changing, yet the essence of you does not feel different at all. You are the same. Speak in this moment of your own experience of this which is unchanging, You.
I want to hear how you speak because up to now you have never spoken about this. Nobody ever invited you to speak about this, not your teachers nor your parents. Nobody invited you to speak about This that is unchanging. What is your experience?
Love.
Yes, and you have been thinking that someone else is the source of love.
Yes.
This is what they sing about in country western songs; “looking for love in all the wrong places.” Most of us believe that love is outside of ourselves, and someone else is necessary for us to feel love. We do not know where to find love.
Now, This that is unchanging, what do you have to do for it?
To connect with it.
Who is connecting with it?
There is nothing in-between. Only getting rid of the hurdles.
What hurdles? What hurdles are there at this moment?
Nothing really. But when I go outside it might start.
Outside of where?
Outside of this space. Outside of love.
How can you go outside of love? Where does love end?
No, it does not end.
Okay. How are you going to go outside of love?
I’m getting distracted.
If I give you a diamond worth five billion dollars, will you forget where you keep it? If you have never had five billion dollars, will you go now and party and leave it on the beach somewhere?
No, no, no.
You won’t be distracted from this diamond.
I would run out of money very quickly. I’d give it to too many people.
This love you can give to as many people as you like; it can never run out. You cannot buy it for five billion dollars. Now, how can you get distracted from love?
Before you were distracted because you did not know love. You thought love came from women, and you were running after them, thinking that one of them is the source of love. Then when that did not work out, another one. Then trying to get the intuition which one was the correct one, right? Where was love hiding?
Now it is not hiding. I love connecting with it.
There are no hurdles. There never were any. At this moment, you don’t recognize the value of what you have just now discovered. Once you know the secret, nothing can distract you from it. Old thoughts can come up, but they push you back to love, because every time you pick up a thought that hasn’t been seen through yet, it is so painful compared to this love. Once you have found love, you don’t want to kiss anything else.
Is it a matter of love neutralizing the effects of old thoughts? Not trying to shove anything away or leaving them, but neutralizing them?
By simply staying with love every old pattern, based on this idea of non-love, will come up and be seen to be love itself.
The love affair at this moment does not seem overwhelming. I imagined it as a huge experience. Also, it does not seem like it is not existing. It is sort of constant, like a hum.
What you are saying is beautiful. Some people experience themselves as peace, silence, nothing, or everything. The truth is, It cannot be named, and the danger is that people think the experience should be a particular way. You are speaking from your own experience. Once you listen to this hum, really listen to it, really be it, it fills everything. This is the beauty. If you only pay a little attention to it, then you only experience it a little. The more you kiss it, the more you love it, the more it loves you.
Like during meditation in the morning?
This is permanent meditation. The experience you are speaking of now is about knowing who you are. What you are speaking about is Yourself, right? That which is unchanging, Here, always present. To be with Yourself is to be love, peace, and silence. Not as an idea, but actually, Now! This is the ultimate truth. There is none higher than this. This is the end of the search. Once you know this, you know everything. So simple.
I will take that in.
Yes, beautiful. Simply be. When attention wants to move from This that is unchanging, the moment you notice, simply return attention to yourself. Instant by instant, that’s all. Because through the senses, the entire universe is appearing in you. In This that you are, all time, all space, everything is appearing. Everything that is changing is appearing in That. All of eternity, every known universe, every known reality, every known galaxy is appearing in you. All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, everything is appearing in you. To know You is to know the source of everything.
How do we construct our life around love in our daily activities?
Very clear question. Now I have to ask you from your own experience. This instant now, breathing is happening. Who is breathing?
My body.
Okay. Who is seeing?
Somehow seeing is happening.
What are you doing to see? What are you doing to breathe?
It is happening automatically.
Now, how is life happening?
I am initiating things.
Who is this I that is initiating? Let’s find this I now. At this moment, your head is shaking. Who is doing that?
The automatic.
But then we say, “I am doing everything.” This is arrogance, isn’t it? It is a lie.
Yes, I am not doing anything.
But we think that we are initiating, yes?
Yes.
Okay. Find out who is initiating.
In this moment, I am not initiating. Everything is happening, and love and support surround me.
Even this I that is surrounded by love, look at what this is. Up to now you have been imagining that you are somebody. When you simply keep your attention on the truth of yourself, on this “unchanging,” then all the habits to think a certain way will reveal themselves and show themselves to be mirages that give the appearance of suffering. You will find that daily life has always taken care of itself and will always take care.
As funny as that sounds, there is nothing you have to do, because you cannot control anything. There is not a you to do it! If you earnestly look for the you that is supposed to be doing everything, you will find there is nobody. This becomes your own experience that is absolutely unshakeable. Who is it that you think you are? Really check this out. You will make a fantastic discovery.
It is beautiful.
This is your first time in Satsang,and immediately you wanted to know. Beautiful! Somehow there has to be a ripeness to hear. If you have beliefs and are attached to them, then you cannot know this. When you are really willing to look for yourself, or if it happens by grace, then you realize! Once you know and you notice that different thoughts come up by themselves, you either keep returning to This that is unchanging, your own Self which is always present, or you investigate the thought/feeling and see if it is true and what you get for believing it.
You will find that something interesting starts to happen. We have a stream of thoughts which gives the feeling there is something wrong and that you need to get or do something to be happy. For example, that you have to meditate and search, work on yourself, or some strategy to try to become happy.
The moment you keep quiet with who you are, what is needed? You bathe in the ocean of love. This is too simple for most people.
But we still do physical things.
Even when physical things are happening, there is awareness of no doer. Attention can stay with You. You can check this now. We can talk together, and by simply staying with You, the talking is happening in space. Somehow the whole perception of everything is different.
Yes, it is growing.
In one instant. Just like that.
There is a constant pressure from society. If you are talking to somebody, they always want to know who you are. They want to know what you identify with. This could be a distraction.
Of course, it could be a distraction, but have you ever fallen in love with a woman?
Yeah, all the time.
When you fall in love with a woman, not much will distract you. Even eating and sleeping don’t distract you. You can only think of this person.
Not quite that much. But yeah. I did feel like cutting my whole day short.
This is a love affair with Truth.
Oh yeah, okay. (laughter)
Beautiful.
So falling in love with Love.
Falling in love with Love itself.
And then it is always there.
Of course.
Yes, in abundance.
You know the Secret.
Okay, ways to fall in love with yourself?
Just this instant. Any way is a distraction, because a way is a postponement. A way means not now but later, in other words, a postponement. To be in love with Love means to be it, walking down the street, eating, making love, playing music. Everything, everything! You are simply Love Itself.
You can be in prison or in any circumstance, it does not stop you from This. Nothing can stop you from being with yourself. This is not dependent on time, place, circumstance, or anything else.
You may still be active, but you are with yourself. Then everything you say comes from That, and That shines through. Others may feel that and be attracted or not.
Thank you, that was good.
One correction, not “was” good, “is” good!
Oh, “is” good! Fine. That solves that. (laughter) Next.
~~
It is so beautiful here tonight.
Every night, no?
Yeah. Tonight I understood something. When I first met you and I sat with you the first two years, it was so beautiful, very strong. It was emptiness. There was no one here. It was continuously going into this nothing, and it is not like that now. It is full, and it is empty!