What makes you feel alive is actually killing you

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

Thank you for being here when instead you could have thought that every thought that comes to you, you have to take care of. That every thought that comes to you and says, I have a problem, you say, Oh no, I I'll I'll take care of you, I'll help you. That you think you have have this responsibility to every thought and every emotion, that you need to fix the problems of your own emotions and thoughts. Or you could have been out thrill seeking, trying to feel alive, trying to feel like you matter, trying to feel like you exist more when that is truly not needed by the true self. And instead of being here, you could have been out there starting fights, arguments, just to get a thrill, just because you're bored, just so that something is happening in front of you, as you used to do for so many years. Just to have some action, some drama, something going on. You could have relished in that, you could have felt alive from that, rather than now, as you see that this is an obstacle to the state of peace.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

I came here with an idea that maybe the future is a false belief. Maybe it doesn't exist. Um why I say that is because I've never seen the future. Um I've never known it. Um these questions in my head, like, oh, this should have happened, could have happened, would have happened. It's just hypothetical, right? Um anything that happened, happened. You cannot change it. And you cannot undone it, undo it. Um realizing this has, or maybe just in confusion, but this idea has in a way freed me of you know fear of what's what's to come, right? Um listening to you talking about intentions and you know belief. Um correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like those are the two things that you're fully in con control of. And yeah, no, it's it's been helping me a lot with being at peace, with not worrying too much, just keep living in the present, enjoying it, because you know, that's all I have, the present. Um so if I'm not enjoying it, then when, right? Um, so yeah, yeah, I just want to hear your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_06 2:56

Well, my thoughts, first of all, are are congratulations in the in a profane sense. You know, this is there's no such thing as, oh, you did good or you did bad, right? We need to get away from that idea as well. But congratulations in the sense that you have uh taken out something in your life that never needed to be there, but that most people keep around, right? And that is a false belief. And all identities come from false beliefs, and all suffering comes from identity. And so what you're doing is you might think, or you might, you probably are aware of this, that even though you're just talking about one issue, one idea, one belief, something that sounds like a topic, you are really doing everything. Every, I mean, your whole life, right? This is not just a part of it. This is just not a little area, or it's not just a little uh rumination of yours. This is everything. And everything is inside of certain single things like this. And you're absolutely correct. We there has been never a single human being that has experienced the future, and there has never been a single human being who's experienced the past. Everything that they experienced in the past, as they were experiencing it, it was the now. There's never anyone who has not experienced something, uh, or there's never been anyone who has experienced something in any other place than the now. And so when we make a projection, which is our ability and and most of the time fine to do into the future, when we say, Well, I see this going here. And uh, so is that a good thing or is that a bad thing? If it's bad, I can prevent something. If it's good, I can encourage it. So there's nothing wrong with that. Here we are, back again in the logistical realm of things. This is why it is so confusing when people tell us, stop thinking. The thoughts are driving you crazy, the emotions are driving you crazy. And then you think, well, how can I not think? Ever. How can I not feel ever? Yes, the thoughts are driving me crazy. You are right, but why are thoughts there then? Have we been created as conflicted beings? Have we been created to suffer and need the suffering? Right? Because we we believe that we need thinking, and we do. Um, and so we we're saying, well, that which is driving me crazy, I also need. So that sounds like we're we're created to suffer in many ways, right? But thinking, just like a physical tool, such as uh money or any other resource, is exactly that. It's a resource, it's a tool, it's it's whatever, whatever you want to call it. When we look at our house and we see water dripping, just a small little drip. I mean, no big deal at all. You wipe it up, it happens only every few months. But you say, look, water is coming into this house. We know where this is gonna go. And so we patch that little hole up now and we prevent everything, right? The whole house can collapse due to that. But we've prevent that just by being able to project into the future, in the sense of how you're talking about it. And we do that projection, of course, by thinking. But that again is a logistical thing. When we think about what is after this life, what happens when we die? Is there a God? As people speak about God, right? They say a God. Is there heaven? Is there hell? Um, is is morality the most important thing in life? Is how how do we come about thinking about the past? Who created us? Why, what created us, how? When we think about all these things, we are not doing anything logistical. We are not doing anything proper. We are, as you have correctly pointed out, we are speculating. We are speculating. And when we speculate, even when we are right, we are wrong. Even when we are right, we are wrong. Why? I always give the example of the lottery, right? When people win the lottery, how do they win it? They put in the correct numbers, which are only revealed in the future. So they did not know at the time. They were speculating, they were guessing. And it turns out they were correct. They put in exactly the right numbers. But did they put them in out of knowledge, out of wisdom, out of a knowing, or out of sheer speculation and random guessing? So even when they were putting the right numbers in, they were not doing so knowingly. They're doing so out of imagination, out of luck, out of randomness, whatever you want to call it, speculation. And so, even though they were right, they were wrong. And that again is just a physical example, right? Because in the non-physical realm, there is no such thing as putting in random numbers and still winning the lottery. In the non-physical realm, you are never asked about numbers that you cannot know about. It is us, our mind, our imagination, our identities, our ego, whatever you want to call it, that's the one who asks us such silly questions that are well and truly irrelevant, unreal, and illusory. It is not real. And so when we, such as you are doing, let go of illusion, let go of imagination, let go of unreality, we only concern ourselves with what is real, and everything that is real is true. Because there's no such thing as something being real but not being true, or being true, but not being real. No such thing. So when we give up projecting into the future, trying to guess the future, interpreting the past or the future, then we come out of our imagination, we come out of unreality, and we take our rightful place in reality. And consequently, we live a real life and not a dream. Because we don't only dream at night, we also dream. It's called daydreaming, right? What do people do in while they're daydreaming? Has anyone ever daydreamed about exactly what they're experiencing already in the current situation? No. Everyone, when they're daydreaming, either they're going into the past or they're going into the future, or they're making up a scenario altogether that is neither in the past nor in the future, that has never happened, will never happen, can never happen. And again, this connects with our question of the Fortnite. They're getting a thrill from doing so. It is thrilling to make guesses about the future. It is thrilling to make fantasies about the future or about the past. But a thrill, a fantasy, an imagination, a dream is not real. And the more we engage in imagination, in image making, the more we live within the images that we have made that don't really exist. We live a life of illusion, we live a life of unreality. And so there is no such thing. It's not possible to live in reality, to live in truth when we are still treating the future as a real place, as you are saying. We have to realize that the future is not real. The future does not exist. It literally does not exist yet. But never really, because the future is always the future. If it is now, then it is now, it's not the future. And so you're absolutely correct. This great gift of mind that can send the rockets into space, that can understand the way other species think and see things and experience things, and how other species even came about or become extinguished. This mind that can do all of that and so much more. When it goes with that same thinking into the non-physical realm, it gets lost. It gets lost. And so this is why we say there is nothing to run away from, there is nothing to kill, there is nothing to destroy, there is nothing to fight, there's nothing to overcome. Thinking is not wrong. Thinking is not your enemy. But it is also not you. It is also not your salvation, it is not your way of salvation. Everything has its place. Thinking has its place, very much so. But it is not in these matters, it is not about the self. The self cannot be known. The self need not be known. This is why we get lost in identities, in the ego, in the false self, because we apply thinking to something that cannot be thought about. We try to think about ourselves and we say, hmm, okay, I was born in this country, so I am a so-and-so in terms of nationality. I was born at this time, so I am a generation so-and-so. I had these kind of parents, so I am I've been born into so-and-so class. And I was always good at math, so now I am a so-and-so career. And then we say, okay, that's me. And all our misery comes from that definition of me that was produced by, of course, nothing other than thinking. Because everything that can be thought about can be destroyed. Everything that can be thought about can be destroyed. And so when I think I'm an Italian and I go somewhere and I hear someone talking about how Italian food is actually highly, highly overrated, and there's nothing good about it, and it's unhealthy too. What happens? I get offended because I'm an Italian, right? Okay, yeah, so okay, so once we once we accept that, what comes next? Uh anyone who attacks Italy, Italian history, Italian culture, Italian language, whatever, then now they're attacking something that I am a part of, that I am. And since I am identifying with being an Italian, now I feel that I am being attacked. Of course, if I am Italian and someone is talking uh like that about Italians, then I'm being attacked. No, makes perfect sense. See, to the thinking, this makes perfect sense. But it is unreal. Because you get one knock on the head and you forget that you are Italian, that you're 38 years old, that you are this and that. You forget everything. What do you not forget? What do you not forget? When the person who has this knock on the head and they don't remember, they don't remember their own wife or husband, their own children. What are they doing that non non-remembrance with? What is it that is in the state of non-remembrance? What is it? Who is it that can't remember? That's still there. That is the self. That is the self. That is being, that is existence, that is I am. I am, I am. Well, I don't know any further what I am anymore because I forgot, but I am, I am, I am. I am forgetful. I can't remember. I have lost my memory. Who? That one is still there. That one is still there. And so when you let go of all ideas like this, future is a real place that I need to strive towards, and that will prove me right, and that will make me complete, and that's when I will finally become this one thought, fundamental thought, will destroy you. And again, there is no destruction in this. It will destroy the person that you think you are. And that's not a bad thing. That person needs to, you know, the attachment to that person needs to go. The person doesn't need to die. Once again, nothing is against us, nothing is our enemy. You can have a personality, you can be a person, you can be an Italian, you can be so and so, and not identify with it. Because when someone asks, uh, you know, we always say, at the airport, it's like, what's your nationality, nationality age? Please tell me. You're not gonna say, I am the being that pervades the entire universe. I cannot be contained to one nationality. It is all false, it is all an illusion. You're not gonna say that. Neither should you. Because here we are back again in the physical. We are in logistics. You say, I'm Italian, I'm Italian. But do you have to identify with it? Do you in yourself, in your beliefs, believe that you are an Italian? You do not have to. See, nothing needs to die. Even the idea that uh the future is a real place, the future is a real uh entity that we need to work for and prepare for and strive for and wait for. That can be let go of, that can be logistically worked towards, logistically know that sure, future events are coming. Of course, there is something is happening always, but we we don't need to identify with it. So that's what that makes me think of, and and we could, of course, go on because the thing that you have stated is fundamental, universal, timeless, you know. Uh there's never been a human being that didn't think about the future or didn't take the future as a concept, whether they'd later let go of it or not, like you are doing. This has always been happening. This was all this will always happen, right? And so I appreciate that very much. And um, I do want to ask you the question of the fortnight. You don't have to answer if you didn't think about it or you don't want to answer, that's totally fine. But I just want to ask you, give you the opportunity. Uh so the question of the fortnight is are you a thrill seeker? Are you a thrill seeker?

SPEAKER_03 19:15

Um I I did think about it.

SPEAKER_04 19:18

Um first I thought about what is is a thrill good or bad?

SPEAKER_03 19:27

And then I realized um it's not it's neither, um, or just just my own opinion.

SPEAKER_04 19:36

Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

I I'm I'm trying to live this lifestyle of being fine with everything and anything that come up being fine with them being there. Um and obviously using my reason as as as you've said to guide me to to let me know what's the proper way to communicate with them. Um but uh the identity of being a thrill seeker, um uh I don't think I'm that but um I don't know I I don't I don't want to judge anybody who is thrill seeking, but it just seems to me to be limiting limiting your source of happiness because if you're thrill thrill seeking, you're placing a very great importance in the thrill, um, just like truth seeking, right? Um so I feel like they kind of limit whether or not they're happy. Um uh if and if they don't experience the thrill, or if they do. Uh so yeah. Um, but I do catch myself sometimes um distancing myself from reality to maybe get a thrill or do something for a certain reaction um externally. Um still trying to work on that, but uh I do not seek it. Yeah, that's my answer.

SPEAKER_06 21:28

Beautiful. Thank thank you for that as well. And yeah, see, it takes a lot of openness uh to even talk about this. Uh someone who is trapped in the ego, so to speak, or has a bunch of ideas about themselves, right? Uh, which is an identity, uh it will be offensive to someone like that. Or that a lot of the things you're doing in your life is just thrill seeking or trying to escape, right? Reality, as you said, right? Trying to get away from reality uh by thrill seeking. And so that that just to Fact that that is not offensive, this question is not offensive to you anymore. Um when I'm gonna guess, just because most humans are like this, I think at some point it would have been offensive to you. I think you will confirm that. Yeah. Yeah. And so observe that. Observe that. I want you to uh I want you to take this maybe from this conversation. Also, you said you're working on this, right? The the mind is so focused on what it's working on, on what it is not yet, but what it could become. And it so easily dismisses what it what already has been done, right? So I want to draw your attention rather to that which still needs to be done. Rather than that, I want to draw it to what has already been done, which is this offense is gone. And it is taking offense that keeps us from working on something. Notice that too. You could not work on something that is so offensive to you, you can't even think about it. You don't want to be talking talking about it, you don't want to be asked about it or anything. And so that you have dropped getting offended at such a question as, you know, asking if you're a thrill seeker or not, and being able to admit that, yeah, I thrill seek sometimes, um, but I'm getting better, whatever. That's an amazing, amazing thing. Again, in regular language, if we thought of these things as that there is such a thing as an accomplishment in the non-physical realm, or that there's a failure in the non-physical realm, this is a huge, huge accomplishment. If we still thought that way, we don't, right? So, but I just wanted to say that in in the old sense of thinking about it, this is a huge accomplishment because you mentioned I'm still working on it. That implies that you're still thinking about these things as accomplishments or as failures. Oh, today, even though I'm working on this thing, I I regressed a little bit. I did it again, I made this mistake again, I sinned again or whatever. Um, I want you to see that you can get away from that and still develop, so to speak, in these areas. You don't have to think of them as I'm working on it, I'm making progress on it, I'm succeeding, failing, whatever. You don't have to think about that. Okay. Because it's the mind who does that. And you don't need it. You will naturally gravitate to everything that is good, and you will naturally gravitate away from everything that is bad. You will lose interest in it. That's all it is. Right. So I want you to notice how how far you have come again with the language of the mind. So um, thank you for being here once again. Thank you for the idea, the very, very valuable idea that you've shared here with all of us. We're very grateful for that. And thank you also, of course, for your response to the question of the Fortnite. I will move you back to the audience for now. Again, thank you very much for being here, for speaking here once again. This was um very, very beautiful expression of the unreality of time. It really is unreal. It's a concept, it's just another thing we thought of and are thinking of. It is not something that is actually showing up in our experience as much. Right? We're supposed to use the record of a past event as something that informs the now. And we're supposed to use the logistical, physical uh projection ability that we have into the future, again in the service of the now, not to get lost in it for no reason. So, with that being said, many thanks once again to our speaker, and I will invite our next speaker.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

I want to talk about the question of the fortnight.

SPEAKER_06 25:55

Yes, the question of the fortnight is are you a thrill seeker? And I, you know, I'm just realizing that I'm sort of framing the question like an identity. I am a thrill seeker, right? That's like an identity. Um, don't let that thought bother you because we talk a lot about identity. Maybe we should change the question and just say it uh, do you thrill seek? Right? Same thing. Because we're thinking about the activity of doing so, not as an identity. The identity part is not the problem.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

So I thought about uh what is a thrilling experience and how many uh variety and uh of forms and possibilities it can uh take. Um either we have, for example, the thrill of discovery, victory, a movie with a lot of thrills and chills, the thrills of uh pride, pleasure, anticipation, creative endeavor. The thrill takes many a variety of forms and possibilities. And um they are those moments where something causes to achieve a higher state of awareness, being uh truly present, and uh most importantly, um feeling alive, that feeling of aliveness that comes with uh with those kind of experiences and um gliss, euphoria, contentment, those are the main, I think uh this can also be personal, of course, but the main result of uh a thrilling experience, so it's not always the uh let's say uh adventures like uh riding on a roller coaster, for example, or I don't know the thrills of running. It doesn't have to be like that for as I as I as I see it, it can be the thrills of uh doing a uh a painting, uh something creative and um I myself I think I I am a a truth seeker in a sense that I am also a truth seeker because with that aliveness that I talked about I think it it uh can lead us back to our to our true selves because when when we do something that makes us feel alive um that can take us back to to our true selves that we always talk about here. So uh that's when we have a deeper desire to feel alive and connect it to something greater. So it can be it can also take uh like a less less speaker um spoke, it it can can uh can either be negative or positive.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

It's it's like more of uh how we we we personally deal with it and um the intensity we can uh take from uh a thrilling experience, the joy, the the bliss. Yeah. In the in a way that's my answer.

SPEAKER_06 29:25

Thank you very much for that answer. Um clearly you considered it, and you're looking for, you know, in my experience, how does this question show up and is is it even relevant, right? And you're seeing that wow, uh I am a thrill seeker, first of all, that's a big realization. And um I believe that there's such a thing as uh thrill seeking or thrills as an escape, but that that is also possible to uh for thrills to make us feel more alive, and and we can use that ultimately in coming to the true self or finding or seeing the true self, being in a closer connection with the true self. And so I want to ask you a couple things about that. And again, thank you very much for thinking this deeply about it, because the value of what we're doing here is not how much we studied at university or what we studied in university and how many years of experience we have with it. But these are questions, these are conversations, and especially in the way we are the way we are having these conversations, it's such a rare thing because generally these questions are not talked about. These things are not talked about, right? And we're never challenged, we never discuss these things, we never exchange any ideas on this thing. But growth happens every single time that we do exchange thoughts about this. And so this is a very valuable thing, and this can only be had between two people who have thought of this. If we've never thought of it, we can't have this conversation. As it happens, uh, I keep hearing from everyone, and of course, this is my own experience too. Whenever we do think about something deeply and we want to talk about someone else about it, they usually just say, Oh, that's deep. But they have nothing else to say about it because they've never thought about it. So, rightfully, there's nothing they can say. If they would say, they would just be making something up that they've never thought about before. So this is a very beautiful thing, very valuable opportunity. So I want to ask you, uh, sometimes we talk about, sometimes I come up with certain uh ideas that to me seem to be the law of truth, the law of life, right? These common fundamental so-called rules that I see, that I think I see anyway, pervading truth itself. And one of them that keeps coming up for me often is the idea that everything that is truly good is wholly good. In other words, everything that is really good is entirely good. So when we talk about thrill seeking as some of it is bad, but some of it is also good, we are going against that rule, clearly, right? Because we're saying thrill seeking is not all good. But we're also saying is thrill seeking is not all bad. So we wanna take the whole thing, and we wanna take the whole thing because there's good in it. We don't want to live leave that good behind. So we take the good with the bad, as they say. Take the good with the bad. So I want to ask you if anything that you've found found true in your life, anything that you have benefited from, without doubt, and that has proven itself time and time again to you, has it ever asked you to consume something nutritious together with poison?

SPEAKER_02 33:19

No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_06 33:21

Okay, so now we're suspicious. Now we're suspicious of this idea that thrill seeking we we clearly see it's bad, right? We clearly see it can be an escape. We see that, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yeah, no way it can be an escape. Yeah. It has both sides, it's like light and shadow.

SPEAKER_06 33:40

Right, okay. So that's what I'm saying. So the shadow part would be that it can be an escape. Sometimes we're not happy with the current situation, and we're looking for a thrill to escape the situation, whether that's you know, daydreaming or some people like to stir up drama just when they're bored. We experience that too, right? That's that's definitely negative thrill seeking, right? They're bored, they don't know what else to do, they have nothing to do, nothing productive, nothing creative to do. And so they just stir the pop. They gossip or they they lie or whatever, and they and they like to create drama. They like to see people fight. And if they can't do that, they'll turn on the TV and watch drama there. They'll watch two people arguing there or fighting physically there. And so that's thrill seeking, and we see that to be a bad thing, we see that as an escape, we see that as going into illusion, into unreality. And you said though, that there are positive thrills. Um let's talk about a positive thrill. What's a positive thrill that is that is just good?

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Um I will talk you personally. For example, uh I am uh uh a photographer, and when I I in a way I think uh when I I do that not for a living, just a hobby, but uh I can experience a thrill from that because um it gives me that blissful feeling. Something I can't really explain, but uh it's when the moments when I feel most present. It it takes me to the present when when I do that I I'm so focused on it that uh the ex the exterior problems or whatever it is, I tend to set aside and just be in the present. So for me I think we can call it the thrill because of that uh that intense uh living in the moment. It's what it it it is something that m that um makes me still alive. And we all we all have uh those kind of uh at least I think I hope we all have those kind of you can't call it an escape, but uh ultimately it's it's uh to think that give gives us the opportunity to to uh feel really connected to this world in a particular way. And I don't know if I'm getting away from your question.

SPEAKER_06 36:36

No, you are absolutely so you so you're saying uh, for example, photography, a creative endeavor such as cre uh photography gives you a thrill, and and you're only looking for that thrill because it is providing something good for you, you're saying. You're saying it that thrill, even in turn, is just a tool to get what to be more present, you said, to feel more alive, right? Or to feel alive, period. Um, and so I want to ask you are you ever at any moment on any day not present, not existent, not alive?

SPEAKER_02 37:22

No, I am physically, and uh I am present, but my mind isn't always living in the present. Like we can we can let's stop there, let's stop there, let's hold on to that.

SPEAKER_06 37:35

You said of course I always exist, of course I'm always alive. There's never a time when I'm not present, when I'm not existent in this world, but my mind is not always in the present. Are you your mind?

SPEAKER_02 37:52

No, I'm not my thoughts.

SPEAKER_06 37:54

So let's realize this: the good and the bad thrill, the good and the bad thrill is communicating, is in partnership, uh, is giving its effects to whom? To the true self, to your being, to your existence, or to the mind.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

I think when it is positive, when it is a positive thrill, it is benefit, it's it is beneficial to our to our true selves. It it gets in the way of the mind when it is something uh we do for uh okay.

SPEAKER_06 38:32

How is it beneficial to the true self? Because you you you the this how you explain now with photography the positive thrill, you've explained very well how it is serving the mind. So I'm very clear on that. So that was a very good explanation, but now you're saying uh it serves the true self, it's good for the true self, but that we haven't talked about yet, we haven't explained that yet. How does it benefit the true self?

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Yes, we always say the true self is uh it's like a constant, it's it doesn't shift either to a positive or a negative side, but uh it can in my perspective get some nourishment from uh that blissful state when that gets to the mind. Okay, so so let's maybe I haven't thought about that.

SPEAKER_06 39:27

That's fine. Now we're thinking about it now, right? Um so let's talk about that. How how is the true self nourished? How can it be nourished? Um if something can be nourished, it can also be starved. Is that correct? If it can be benefited, it can also be harmed. Right? So if if nourishment is a benefit, and of course it is, that which we are nourishing, we can also damage then. So how is the true self, the true self, that is always here, you don't have a choice, you can't turn it off and on, right? That true self that is always present, that is always alive, of course, all your thoughts, all your thrill seeking, your good and bad thrills, everything you ever do, you're doing with your being, with your existence, of course, with what else, right? It comes after existence. So, how can something that you're doing after, an activity, a happening, uh, something that you are experiencing, right? This is an experience. Who's the experiencer? How can an experience which comes after, which is done with existence, travel back and benefit the very thing that give is giving it life, the very existence, the very being that this activity is being done with? How does it do that?

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Yes, I know what you say, because the true self is independent of of uh of any activity we may we may do.

SPEAKER_04 41:17

Right.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

Maybe maybe it's the false self then. Maybe it's the false self, the ego.

SPEAKER_06 41:24

Isn't it isn't it beautiful? Isn't it beautiful to see that this benefit, this wonderful thing that made me feel more alive, that I'm naturally chasing, of course I'm chasing it. If something makes me feel more alive and it makes me present and it makes me finally live and not think about the past so much or the future so much or what other people think and say and do, isn't this a wonderful thing? And it is a wonderful thing, but for whom? For whom is it a wonderful thing? Is it a wonderful thing for the true self? And what is the true self, the self that you truly are, that which you truly are? Is it a beneficial, beautiful, wonderful, amazing thing that is worth, very much worth chasing to the true self? Or is it is it a thing that the person of me, the mental construct of who I am, what I am, what can do me good, what can harm me, what can damage me, is it good for that thing?

SPEAKER_01 42:33

Yes, it's uh good for that identity.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

There is a construct because the true self is untouchable.

SPEAKER_06 42:42

Exactly. So if the true self is untouchable and we know this and we see this, and we can always rest in this knowledge, in this seeing, in this observation, why? For whom are we going out in the world, whether it's through such a beautiful thing as photography or such an ugly thing as um drama, whatever it is, however, we are thrill seeking, what is our motivation then to go out and seek this thing?

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Like I said, I think I think uh that aliveness because the mind sometimes um creates uh like you said, drama and uh you get away from uh the present moment and and what it feels to to be alive and to be on this earth and in this exact moment and uh experiencing uh the people around us, uh watching the trees, I don't know, being present and mindful.

SPEAKER_06 43:54

Do you ever go out on the balcony and and take a big water balloon and and Hit someone, throw it at someone's head just to get a thrill out of that.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

No.

SPEAKER_06 44:06

So if if the mind told you that, like I just suggested it to you, just just think like I'm a thought. And this thought probably came to you at some point in your life, right? And it could come now. It just did come now. And it would be kind of fun. Like in a video game, I would totally do that. Um, so so let's say this thought comes, hey, let's make a water balloon. Let's go on the balcony at night. When the street light is lighting up the people, but we're in the dark, right? And let's let's throw that from the button. Let's let's try to hit someone. Let's at the very least, it will, it will explode right next to them and it will confuse them, and that'll be funny, and we'll get a thrill out of that. That'll be a very thrilling thing. When that thought comes, since you have never done it or you wouldn't do it now, you are clearly able to say, no, no, no, no. We're not gonna do that. So the mind can come. It's the best. The mind is free to come. And the mind does come, as you say, as you point out. It does come and it says, hey, let's do this. This will be very thrilling. This will give us excitement. This will make us feel alive. This will uh certainly make us feel present. We'll forget about all those things that are going on. I've got exams coming, I have health issues. Uh, we'll forget about all that. We'll we'll live in the present, we'll feel alive, we'll be excited, we'll do a thrilling funny prank or whatever. What if every single time this happened, whether it's suggesting to throw a water balloon at someone from a balcony, or it's suggesting to make a beautiful painting and to impress all our friends and family with this with this beautiful creative object that we've created? What if every time a thought that that thought or a thought like that came and we saw it for what it really is? A thrill, an opportunity for the person, the the personality, the ego, the identity, the false self, for that to feel more blissful, for that to uh be nourished, for that to forget its problems and its wishes and desires, which it can't get and is so frustrated. What if we saw that it is for that and not for us, right? I am the one seeing it. It is for this thing that I've made. For this, it is thrilling, for this it is blissful, for this, this it makes more feel more alive, and it makes it feel more like it really exists. If I'm the one observing this, don't I now know that I'm doing it for this and not for myself, for the true self, and that this is like a fake little illusion baby that I'm taking care of and that I'm trying to nourish? Can we not see that?

SPEAKER_02 46:56

Yes, I'd say yes.

SPEAKER_06 46:58

Now, I want to say something very important though. I want to weigh against that, okay? Because now what the mind is saying is oh, so art is bad, photography is bad, helping friends is bad, helping animals is all this bad just because I'm getting a thrill from it? No. What you're doing is not bad. Why you're doing it is bad. And when I say bad, I just mean it's an illusion, it's not, it's not um truly nourishing what you think it is nourishing. Um, it is done with a certain anxiety. It is, it is not right for you. It is not in your nature, it is not something you want, it is not something you need. As you yourself said, the true self doesn't need any of that. The true self cannot be touched for good or bad. So now the mind is saying, what about art? What about all these beautiful, genuinely objectively beautiful and correct things to do in this world? Charity. What about charity? I get a thrill from doing something nice for people. What you're doing is not wrong. Why you're doing it can only be wrong. This goes back to our conversation on intention versus outcome, which was also a question of the fortnight, and we dealt with that, right? Intention versus outcome. The outcome can be the exact same. One person can do charity because they're getting a thrill out of it, and another person can do charity for no thrill whatsoever. All they're thinking of is you know, I've made a lot of money in my life and just I really don't need it. I have no desires. And this is a beautiful thing that these people are doing here, um, helping so-and-so. And so I would like to give some resources to that. It just makes complete sense to me. It's a logical decision. Now, the one person is feeding their ego, literally, as you have said yourself. Now we can talk about these things. Before I didn't want to say this, but when you said nourishing, you're saying feeding. When you're saying nourishing the self, you are saying feeding the ego. Because what you were calling self before was not the self. Now you now you know the true self. Yeah. Before you were calling the false self the self. Now you know the difference. Right? And so this first person doing charity is feeding the ego. The second person doing the charity is exactly where they should, where they should be, and it's exactly doing what they want to be doing and should be doing. And they and they get no thrill from it. They're not nourishing anything, they're just doing the right thing, plain and simple. And they don't need to do charity to feel more alive. They don't need to do charity to be more in the present. They're just doing it because it makes sense. They're feeling alive and they're feeling in the present and being able to actually live in the present without being pushed and pulled by the mind into the future, into the into the past. That comes from something else. That comes from something else. That does not come from thrills. What that comes from is something that you too also already have, which is rare, but you too also already have it. It is the knowledge of the true self. When you say, I know the true self cannot be touched, I know the true self cannot be benefited or damaged or offended or exalted or excited or depressed or disappointed, whatever it is. The true self cannot be touched. You know this. You know that the true self is where all activity comes from. But it is not the activity itself, it is not the mind, it is not the thrill, it is not the bliss, it is not the fear, it is not any, it is not any of that. It is the one that can give life to all of that. And it is the the it is the observer without whom nothing can be observed. Your world view, your world, everything that you're living, everything that you're calling my world cannot exist without you. If you didn't exist, your worldview, of course, would not exist either. And so when you're experiencing a thrill, it is you are actually experiencing it through the false self, by identifying with something that you are not, by identifying with something that can be thrilled. You're experiencing life or that activity through that, and that's why you're saying, I am thrilled, I am feeling blissful, I am nourishing myself, I am, I am, I am. That I is not you. And now that you know that, what needs to change? Nothing. Go out, do your photography. I know from personal experience, I love photography. When I go out with the camera, I look at the world differently. I am more present as well. I know what you're talking about. When you're holding a camera, you're looking for potential compositions, something that would look nice in a frame, right? And so that way of looking, uh, you're not thinking, you're not doing other things. You're more present. You're absolutely right. But it is the photographer who's present. It's a pleasant activity. It's certainly not harming anyone, and it's art and it's creative and it's it's beautiful. So keep doing it. But don't ever do it because you think you're doing, you're bettering yourself. Don't ever do it because you think you're nourishing that which otherwise would die or be damaged or be starving or whatever. Do it because it's a beautiful thing to do, because it's the right thing to do, because it's a pleasant thing to do. Fine. Um, I want to be more in nature, and uh, photography is a great little excuse to say, ah, I'm doing something, that's why I'm going into nature. And so I'm spending more time in nature through the intermediary of this activity of called photography. Absolutely fine. Not only fine, beautiful. And now that you're looking at it like this, you might do it even more. Because before, perhaps, maybe I'm not saying this was the case with you at all. I'm just giving a random example. Maybe before we were going out and doing photography or anything else, again, with the expectation of getting a thrill from it, getting bliss from it, feeling more alive during it. And there's a voice on the back of our head that says, What if you don't get that thrill this time? I remember a year ago or last or two times ago when we were out doing photography, it was the most amazing thing. I've never gotten so much bliss out of it. I never felt so alive doing that. But the time I did the time after, it wasn't so great. I didn't feel that same. But so maybe I need to go to a better place, maybe. And all suffering, all coming out of the present moment comes from this kind of thinking. And that thinking is activated by what? By the identity who sees themselves as the photographer who can go out and nourish themselves, who can go out and do this beautiful thing and get a thrill. And that's why they say, and I agree, and I think you agree, all suffering comes from identity. This is an identity, the thrill seeker through photography. I mean, you can get as specific as you want, it doesn't change the nature of the thing, right? I used to do photography for thrill seeking, but I realized that was thrill seeking, so now I'm cooking. It doesn't matter. It's the intention. The intention. You can do anything and everything with the right intention, and it will be the right thing to do. And you can do anything and everything with the wrong intention and it will be the wrong thing to do. Do we see that now?

SPEAKER_02 54:57

Yes. Um, so can identity ever be a good thing?

SPEAKER_06 55:03

Yeah. Um and this is just my one little opinion, my my little uh example of how identity, I think objectively, is also serving us. Again, I don't want to say good and bad, maybe that's uh the wrong word, but it can serve us. Yes. How can it serve us? Look, this identity, for example, of being the truth seeker, that's another identity. Okay, let's be honest about that. That's another identity. Uh, but when I identify as the truth seeker, what am I not identifying as? I am not identifying as a student, I am not identifying with uh my past. I know that the things in my past don't have to determine my future. As a truth seeker, I know that other people's opinions and beliefs cannot make me better or worse. They cannot make me less virtuous, less in touch with truth, right? Uh, they can my my success, so-called success in my career, cannot bar me from having truth. It cannot prevent me from getting truth. Truth is free and it's simple and it's available to everyone. So I don't need to worry about that either. And uh again, of course, money, you know, uh one can be poor and have complete truth, be a truth seeker. Right? And um, one also need doesn't need to run away from money thinking that, oh, now I can't be a seeker. No. So this beautiful thing. So it it allows you to transcend so many other identities that would not serve you as well or would not serve you at all, would in fact be very damaging to uh your your little truth seeking, right? So that identity, for example, of the truth seeker, for example, uh, is an identity that is objectively higher, um wider, broader than other identities. I don't even need to name any, I think we all know, that are more smaller, more constricted, more hyper-focused on a little thing. And so in that way, that identity served us beautifully, beautifully for a very, very long time. And yes, ultimately, the truth seeker needs to realize that truth is not something that needs to be sought, it's not something that needs to be achieved or gained or put together or over many, many years. Truth is already with you. Socrates says that all learning is actually remembering. Doesn't he say that? Yeah, and so truth is already with you. Truth is already with you, peace is already with you. All learning is remembering. And he says, you know, he Plato has this theory, as you might know, that um the soul is immortal and the soul knows many things, and so when it comes into a body, it brings that knowledge with it, blah, blah, blah. This is all dogma, right? This is all, if it was part of a religion, you would just say this is just religious stuff, right? But in its essence, it's true. All learning is remembering because, and I'm talking very scientific here. Look, it happens so many times in our day, even where we hear something, we've never heard it before, we didn't study it, we didn't, we don't have a degree in it, we don't, we, we, we didn't read a book, but it strikes us as true. And say, Yeah, yeah, I knew that. I've never said it, I've never written it down, I've never heard it before, I don't think. But yeah, I knew that. How did I know that? I didn't know it in the sense that I already had this piece of information. No, I just received that. But it it struck something inside of me where uh clearly this is cohesive to my nature as a human being. So even though I just learned about it, it feels like a remembering. And I didn't have to do anything about it. I just needed to hear it. I didn't need to hear it and then uh prove it over the next three years, make a bunch of experiments and say, uh, okay, so this is true. No, I immediately knew it was true. It changed my life in many ways. Um and uh that's what we say when we have a conversation. We say, wow, that was life-changing. Or we read a book, that was life-changing. It's not that we read that book and then learned something and then had to read a bunch of other books to confirm that. No, it was life-changing then and there, as soon as we heard it. And so, in that sense, in that sense, I repeat that sentence of Socrates when he says, All learning is remembering. So the mind, which tells you that you need to seek truth, that truth is not yours yet. You don't know anything yet, but you can learn over many, many years, read many books, or do many things. And then you might may have truth. That is the mind, ego, identity, whatever speaking. And again, that serves you in transcending, in in foregoing, and not believing so many other things that you could identify with. Instead of all you can say, oh no, I don't need any of that. I'm a truth seeker, I don't need any of that. Right? And then eventually you realize when the truth seeker finally realizes that they had truth all along, that learning is just remembering, they say, Well, even the identity, even the truth seeker, I am not, and I need not, and I am not dependent on. You see, so in that way, identity can serve us, okay? And so in that way, I think that identity of the thrill seeker, whether you call it that or not, or whether you know about it or not, has served you in the sense that, well, okay, I'm a thrill seeker, but I would never harm anyone else, right? The thrills I seek are for peace, for truth, for being in touch with uh myself, for feeling more alive, for being more present, because I know life is in the presence. Life is not in the past or in the future. I know all these things. And so it served you beautifully. But now is the time to let go of all three thrill seeking, because if it was a good thing, it would be entirely good. Thrills and thrill seeking, such as the most obvious ones, right? Gambling, alcohol, any kind of substance, um, again, uh fighting, drama, all these things, all those things would be good too. If thrill seeking was a good thing, those things would be a good thing too. And we should all go out and do them. But we know better, we see the damage in that, we see the trap in that. And so, once again, according to our rule, that we and and truth does not call this a rule, I call it a rule, right? Humans call it a rule. Everything that is truly good is wholly good. And so this is a beautiful guide for us, in my opinion, because every time we say, Yeah, you know, this this thing harasses me, this thing is bad for me, uh, a lot of times, but so many times it's such a beautiful thing. It's blissful, it's peaceful, it's amazing, and it makes me feel so good, so alive, so in touch. Say, wait a minute. I just said that something that sometimes harasses me, literally bullies me and keeps me from sleeping at night. That it is also the very thing I need to find peace and contentment and happiness in this life. What a sad thing to say. And uh is the universe really something that has set things up like this? That I need to take poison with every bit of nutrition which I genuinely need to stay alive. Or is this universe all good? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

Yeah, it was very enlightening once more.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:46

Yeah, only because you came here and spoke about it, and only because you in your experience thought about this, right? If you didn't think about this, you the even the questions are you a thrill say, Well, what's that supposed to mean? No, I don't gamble, I don't, whatever. It is the deeper we engage with anything that comes to us. Anything that comes, we don't have to make that which comes to us happen. We can't make that happen. But things already come to us all the time, every day, in various ways, and we dismiss some and we do all that. But if we engage with it deeply, we can always draw an advantage from it. An advantage from it, even if it has to hurt, it's a good thing. And this is once again where we have a confusion where we say many people run away from truth. You see, we see it all the time. Many people run away from truth. Why are they running away? If you ask them, they would say, Well, you know what? The truth can be very painful. Painful to whom? It can only be painful to the identity, which now must go. When truth tells us, points out to us that this thing that we've been doing is totally futile, unreal, uh, it's an escape, it's a damaging thing. Then that thing is hurt. Not the true self. But of course, the true self was identifying with that thing, and that's why we say truth can be painful. No, it cannot. The truth has never hurt you. Truth has never hurt you. Whenever it hurt, it hurts something that was hurting you. Of course, again, not the true you, right? There are so many levels to this. But so, in that sense, truth cannot hurt us, and truth can only be discovered by engaging with things deeply, and that's why, once again, to quote our one of our friends, uh Socrates, who said, an unexamined life is a life not worth living. So you've examined something, you brought it here, and you had the um the the the will and and the the knowledge to stay. With it, to not be offended, to not say, oh no, a part of me needs to die. I see that. No, it was never a part of me. And that's okay. And all this time that I thought something that is good is actually not good, that's that was not wasted. It was it was nothing. Without all those experiences, I would not know now. I couldn't know. And the knowledge of this is gonna unfold in so many other ways. I mean, I'm almost thankful, not almost, I always say we should be thankful to identity. We should be thankful to everything we've ever done wrong, so to say. Because uh, and I always say too, right? We should be thankful to anger, to resentment, to hatred, to jealousy. Because whenever I am angry, whenever I have resentment, I can be 100% sure that the one who is angry is not me, but that I am identifying with it. And so that's an opportunity. Whenever I feel anger, it's an opportunity to go to the region of that which has caused the anger and to go find yet another identity there and to deal with it. And once that identity is gone, it's gone. And this identity gone, that identity gone, yet another identity gone at some point. I mean, there's a threshold. We don't need to be perfect, not at all. And there is a threshold. Once that is crossed, the obstruction is gone. Once the obstruction is gone, we see that we always had truth. We didn't need to be a truth seeker. We always had peace, we didn't need to pursue peace. So this is all that is helping us, all that is serving us. And I am telling you, the whole world, everything that has ever happened to you and everything that exists within the world, the whole world is serving you. The whole world is serving you if you have the eyes to see it. And even if you don't, it's serving you. That's the beauty of it. Even if you don't, it is serving you. But to see it and to draw an advantage from that too, that really is amazing. Right? And so once again, uh every time you come on here, I think it's uh we realize great things. And and thank you for this opportunity for me too to go deeper into this, uh, to hear, not only know my own experience, but to hear your experience and to see uh to confirm that thrill seeking sometimes feels so like it's it's doing something good for us. It's making us feel alive, more present. All those things you said. I feel it too. It's the same thing. Everyone's dealing with the same thing. And so I appreciate you confirming that, you going deeper into it with me. Of course, with what's only possible with the honesty and openness that you brought here and the intention, right? I keep talking about intention. This was brought that that brought you here and that allowed all of this to happen was your right and proper intention, nothing else. Nothing else. You might think, oh, because I think about things deeply and I thought about this and I brought it here, and I can talk about no. Ultimately, it's the intention behind it all. And when that is right, I always say, when your intention is right, nothing can happen to you. Nothing can happen to you. And so, yeah, once again, thank you very much. I appreciate you. I'm gonna uh move you back to the audience for now. Again, very, very grateful. Thank you so much for bringing here. Um, and uh I think we should all thank you for um this openness and honesty and this very, very important thing that you just brought to us. Uh, I hope everyone is truly listening, because this is not just something that is uh that was happening to our speaker and and myself. This is happening to all of you, whether you know it or not. And uh our experience is all the same. And uh the solution, so-called solutions, there are no problems, but we the words are limited and we have to use them. The solutions to are the same. All problems are the same, and the solutions to them are the same. That being said, I will invite our next speaker here. Hello, hello, hi.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:23

Hi, hi, it's been a little while. Yeah, um I uh I wanted to talk about the awareness and how you catch yourself being oh in on awareness. Um and the reason I want to bring it up is an experience I had a few days ago. Um in this experience I I had prepared my taxes um and had done all the background work and the checks, and I was sure that what I had done was uh proper. But I had even agreed with myself that if it was improper, then I would take the consequences afterwards and um and not uh feel it, so to speak. Um and then I get a message from the customs from my home country, and they uh inform me that they have revised my customs uh paper and and that I owe um a lot more money than I originally had calculated that I did owe. And immediately when I hear this, I went into sort of uh chaos, even though I had informed myself prior to this that I had done what I could and that I would fix the the issue um if it did occur. But now that there was an issue, I panicked and I lost myself completely to unawareness. So I spent about half an hour uh running back and forth in my apartment and calling the customs and they don't pick up, and I try to figure out where this error occurred and who it occurred from. And I even at one point did think, you know, relax. Suddenly, I mean, whatever has happened, you can fix it. And if you can't fix it, it is not like it is the end of the world that you lose this money. It's just something that needs to happen. But it was something that I still dis um I didn't listen. You know, I I fell immediately back to this uh unawareness state. And after a while, um I mean I did get a hold of the customs and I was informed that there was an error on that end, uh and they retracted it, and there was no issue. And immediately after I hung up the phone, I felt first of all relieved, of course, but afterwards I felt very silly. You know, it's it's back to this as you previously talked about. Uh sorry, I lost my train of thought. No, take it.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:56

Um but I already have something that I want to ask you if you want to just go into that while you're uh also thinking, maybe in the background.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:05

Um I don't uh I don't mind coming.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:08

I want to ask my question. Who was the one who was overwhelmed, and who was the one who then felt a relief, and who was the one who after that even felt silly for having felt overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:20

Yeah. And now we come back to the false of and uh and and that that is something also afterwards I was aware of, you know. Um I I think back to the previous talk we had back in December when uh the question of the photo night was if you have any problems, and uh then it became very apparent to me that that I don't uh or I am not my problems, you know. Um that I can feel the that I have problems, or that I can feel my pro feel problems, but uh that they inherently are not me.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:55

So is it is it a problem for you to have problems? If it's a problem for me to have problems to the true self, not to the one who's overwhelmed, not to the one who's relieved and then feels silly about that too, and whatever, and gets a thrill and all that to the true self. Is it a problem to have problems?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:20

Not at all.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:21

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:22

Not at all.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:23

Isn't this very interesting? What does this tell us? If it's not a problem to the true self, and you are the true self, nothing else really matters, right? Everything else is just logistics. If to the true self having problems is not a problem, then do you need to fix the problem that you have problems? I'm gonna say this again. So I'm not saying that we don't need to fix logistical problems. I'm not saying let's not call the customs and make sure that it was an error or what needs to go on and to clarify all that. No, no, that that that needs to happen. That's a logistical thing, right? But do we need to do anything about the problem that we have problems?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:20

What I have felt at least myself is that um that they sort of dissolve, you know, if you give them if you if you live with peace of mind and you don't give them any unnecessary emotional energy, they sort of dissolve, and as you say, I really like your word uh your term logistical issues. It makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:42

It's logistical because the the customs is logistical, the taxes are logistical. Um really everything that can happen to you happened to you, right? The world is doing this to me. Other people are behaving, and that affects me in this way. All that, all that is logistical. It's an it's an animal body interacting with events, uh, other animal bodies, their actions, the consequences of their actions. All this is logistical stuff. Does this mean that logistics are unreal, that they're an illusion? No, not at all. Many people will say that. Many people say the world is an illusion. We've all heard that before, right? And problems are an illusion, and and fear is an illusion, and everything is an illusion. Not everything is an illusion. Logistical uh events, uh, other people's actions, other people's existence. Of course, these are real things. The real things. Of course, the the tax situation is real. Of course, like you get a bill and you're gonna have a hard time paying for it, or you don't have the money to pay for it, or you have all the money in the world, but it's just it's just not right to get this bill or whatever, then we don't say, oh, this is unreal anyway, whatever. No, we we go and do something about it, but is it a problem to have a problem to the true self? To the true self, is it a problem to have problems? Because that's what's really bothering us, right? When you're overwhelmed by dealing with the situation, you're not overwhelmed because you have to deal with something, you deal with things all the time. You take care of your body, which you don't really want to do if you get down to it, right? You do that every day. Eating can be fun, but you don't really like the idea that you have to eat to survive. It's just another thing to do, right? And you and ideally you wouldn't have to shower. Ideally, you would never have to take care of anything, right? So it's this thing, we're we're constantly dealing with things that if we attach meaning to them, it's the worst thing in the world. There are, in fact, a lot of people uh throughout time and now who see the body as a nuisance, who see the body as a problem, who see the body as a burden. And they say this is terrible, you know, everything's terrible in this body, and it's just decaying and it's dying in front of me. I have to take care of it every day, I have to feed it, wash it. But to whom is that a problem to? Now the true self, just the being, the existence. The I am, as we keep saying. The one without which the problems wouldn't would not exist because the problems could not be perceived, they could not be thought of, they could not be dealt with, they could not be run away from or run towards. Ah, I'm so strong I can deal with any all of that is done with the true self. It comes after the true self. And so when we say this is a problem for me, we always need to ask ourselves who's speaking right now? Who's speaking right now? The voice that just told me that identify yourself, and in this situation, it will be the person who needs to pay taxes, the person who needs to deal with the the the my personality, my being, the narrative, the story of me. I was born and then this happened, and I grew up here, and I got educated like that, and now and now we're here, and now I'm dealing with this. That is the person of me. Look, the person of me, my body, my my my my right, whose? So once again, the person doesn't need to die. We don't need to go out in the forest and uh renounce everything and never pay tax, never do anything that requires us to pay customs, anything. You can go that way. But you can also just say, why am I attaching to that? Is this necessary? Or can I have problems and be perfectly fine? Can I have problems and be perfectly fine? Because that one that already has the problem but does not know about it yet, right? You already had the problem before you knew about it. The customs people already decided that you owe this kind of money. They just hadn't told you yet. So the one who already had the problem but who didn't know about it yet was perfectly fine, right? There's nothing, okay, there's no problem right now. Ah, so beautiful. And then you receive the email or the call or whatever, and it's like, oh no, now I have now I'm bad. Now I'm in a bad situation. No, you're not. You are the exact same one that you were before, before you had the problem, or before you knew about it, rather. So doesn't that show us that it is possible to have a problem and to for that to be not a problem to the true self? And that we can still deal with it. Do every logistical step that needs to be done, that should be done, that is a good right thing to do. Can we not do all of that without it being a problem? I think we can. I think it's possible. I think people have done it, are doing it, will do it. And I think that anything that someone else can do in the non-physical realm, in the non-logistical realm, we can do too. Because again, I'm not saying if one person can do it, I can do it too. No, I can probably not be an Olympic athlete. That's not what I'm trying. That's a physical, logistical thing we're talking about here in the non-physical realm. This person does not have an attachment to the particular thing that I have an attachment to. Right? I think my career is so important. Or uh the trauma I experienced, the wrong that was done to me is so important. It defines me. But this other person, them, it does not define. Now, if they can do that, why can't I do it? I think I can. It's it's being demonstrated to me, right? There are a lot of people with a lot of tax problems, customs, customs problems. And the vast, vast majority of them get overwhelmed. Many even, we have to say, many even end their lives because they owe something, owe money, or or they're ashamed, or they think they can never get out of this debt, or whatever. So, how can one person be in that situation and admittedly few, but still these people exist, have no problem whatsoever. They just go through it, whatever happens, happens. And they deal with it very competently, by the way, very calmly. Um but they take no color from it. If that person can do it, why not me? And the only reason for that, uh first of all, it's not true, of course I can do it, but the the why I feel that I may not be able to, it's all because I'm identifying with something. I think I am the person who is experienced this problem when I am really the one due to whom and thanks to whom, and without whom this person could not exist. I am the one observing the the this person of me having a problem. I am the one observing that, not the one being observed. And so uh all you have to do next time or right now, you know, is not to try to fix all your problems in a way where they can never occur again, because that's impossible. But all you need to do is observe yourself having a problem. Observe yourself being relieved. The problem came and it went, relief came, and if it's still there, fine, but it will go, it will go again, it will go again. So there's a coming and then and a going. Who's observing the coming and the going? The one who's observing the coming and the going, that one doesn't seem to come and go because otherwise it could not observe the coming and the going. It would go with the one that is going and then it would be gone and and and it would be gone. Right. So there's there's someone observing the coming and the going. Why not identify with that rather than the coming and the going? Because if I am the room and I am seeing oh, a person's coming in, they're sitting, they're drinking tea, they're finished, now they're leaving and they're gone. Am I the person or am I the room? Because if I'm the person, then how are they gone? Why am I not with them? Right? And it's the same with anything that happens in your life that you are observing. Ah, this is a problem, this is occurring, this is happening, this is not being resolved to my satisfaction at all. Let's see what happened. All of this is being observed. So why identify with the one that is being observed rather than the observer? And when we identify with the observer rather than we say, okay, that is clearly the true self, that's that's as much as I can zoom back. That one never made any money. That one doesn't know what money is, that one doesn't know what a problem is, that one doesn't know what relief is. That one doesn't know what disappointment is or excitement is or being proud of someone is or being stabbed in the back by someone is. It doesn't know any of any of these things. All of this is for the person, for that which comes after, for that which is changing. The person of you is changing all the time. Your opinions are changing, the kinds of thoughts you have are changing, your your beliefs are changing, uh, the events in your life, nothing is standing still. Everything is coming and going, even within that which is coming and going. But the one without without whom any of this could not even be perceived, that one, that one is not coming and going. That one is always there. And that one is not changing, that one is not growing. That one was never eight years old, and now it's 30 years old and will be 60 years old or whatever. And that one does not have a nationality, that one does not have a religion. It existed even before it found this great philosophy that it believes in now. It existed before that too. And if tomorrow it would it would be disappointed in that religion and that philosophy and never think about it again, it would still exist. So that one, I think, is at least closer to the true self than any other thing that it can observe. So why not simply make the best move that you can, as our friend Marcus Aurelius says, right? Just make the best move you can. The best move in anything seems to be to observe the observer, right? To observe the observing, to not be the one that is observed, but the one who's observed who's who's observing. To be conscious of consciousness, to be aware of awareness, whatever you want to call it. But in everything we do that, if we do that, anger can come up. Look, we just we're talking about problems, but it's the same with emotions and thoughts and every other thing. A thought can come, a terrible disgust. Thought, right? Depressing thought. It can come. It is observed. Anger can come up. It is observed. And the thing is, when it is observed, it usually is not communicated with. When something says, you should be angry about this. I mean, this person is so disrespectful, so rude. They're harming not just you. This is not just about you. They're harming the whole world. This is not right. You need to get angry about it. You need to do something about this. You say, hold on. This is being observed. And it's true this person is doing something wrong, but that I need to get angry about it. That I don't accept. I don't accept it. I am the one who needs to accept that. I'm not accepting it. I know I can do every single just, fair, correct thing that needs to be done logistically, once again, about the situation, I can do it without anger. I can do it without hating this person. I know the nature of ignorance. I know that this person is not evil, that no such thing as evil exists. That it all wrongdoing comes from ignorance. I know this. And so I will deal with this accordingly. You you go you go sit down. You know, you can go tell anger to go sit down. It's not needed. This is observation. This is not only the the peace in observation, but this is also the power of observation. Right? So in every single way, shape, or form you can possibly think of thinking is not the answer. Emotion is not the answer. To take things personally, personally for whom is not the answer. To be overwhelmed and to be relieved is not necessary, but it can it can happen. It's allowed to happen. Let it happen. To whom is this a problem for? To whom is it a problem to be overwhelmed? To whom is it a benefit to be relieved of this problem? To whom? It's not an issue. You don't need to kill everything that overwhelms you. You don't need to chase relief. You don't need to do anything. And the more you observe, the more you will observe this too, as everything else. And so I hope that answers whatever you were thinking of before you lost your train of thought there, but it might be relevant stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:34

I mean, you even came back in on it. What I what I lost my train of thought on was actually uh that you mentioned that emotions, or anything that you can do with uh emotion, you can also do without it. And you I mean you came in on that, so no issue then. And a uh something, a talk, a previous kinship talk that I thought was extremely useful was uh I don't remember with whom, but I remember it started uh uh with the Buddhist story between the two monks and the woman who had to be carried across the water. And and you and this person had a discussion that led to uh a sort of scenario where you see yourself in a house, and that is your peace, you know, um your foundation, and any external thought uh or happening comes knocking on the at the door, and you can decide to open it or leave it shut and stay in peace. And I I come back to that um because it it's sort of a good foundation, I think, to as a reminder. Um however, what I find difficult is reminding myself of something like this um when I am in a state of unawareness, you know, and suddenly I am dragged along. And as you say, that probably isn't even even a problem because as soon as I am out of it, I see it and I have learned something from it. Um a question that perhaps you already have answered here. I I think I need to go back and re-listen to this if it comes up. It's uh is how to catch yourself in a moment of unawareness and come back to peace.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:18

You already caught yourself in the scenario that you're talking about. You cannot know that you were overwhelmed without catching yourself being overwhelmed. You're you're not responsible for preventing yourself from becoming overwhelmed. That might be something that you are chasing that you don't need to be chasing. Again, because the overwhelmedness is not a problem to you. So you don't you are not responsible for never becoming overwhelmed again. That can happen, it's allowed to happen. What you can control and what you are therefore responsible for and can decide if whichever way you want to go is what you're gonna do with that afterwards, right? Because the overwhelmness, it doesn't, it doesn't last that long. And even the observation of it um calms it, right? Because you know, I'm the one who's uh overwhelmed. I am not my overwhelmedness, it's just something that is happening in the space of me. And so as soon as I know that, even when I'm in the middle of it, I can say, oh, okay, you know, it caught me off guard there. I was overwhelmed for a little bit, but now I know. And so the more you do this, the more you're gonna catch it earlier and earlier and earlier. Now, I'm not saying practice observing all of these things in order to get this result out of it. Don't have that expectation. Right? Don't expect because the expectations are misleading us. All disappointment comes from expecting something. Without expectation, you cannot be disappointed. So don't create this expectation. But uh it seems that that's what naturally happens. The more you are aware, the more you observe yourself. Look, you caught yourself um being overwhelmed, and you caught yourself afterwards too, when you were relieved, saying, How silly it is for me to be relieved now because my relief only comes from my mistake of being overwhelmed or of letting overwhelmedness consume me. So you're already catching yourself. This is already happening, and now the mind is coming in again. Why didn't you catch it earlier? Why didn't you prevent it altogether? You're not responsible for that. Okay. Yet at the same time, the more you practice awareness, I think you're gonna find naturally that you're catching yourself earlier and earlier and earlier. And many things don't even overwhelm you anymore because to begin with, you know, as soon as they say, This person, like today, um, you know, the the customs thing, the tax thing has caught you off guard and it did manage to overwhelm you. Okay, fine. But if on the same day I came to you and said, you know, this person, this friend of yours, or or whatever this person that you know, they said this about you. You know, they said that you're not quite an honest person. You would say, I think, yeah, I mean, correct me, but you'd say, I don't care. That doesn't that doesn't change anything. I'm I'm just as honest of a person as I really am, whatever they say. So, but so many people that would have overwhelmed. They would say, Oh no, what how or how dare they say such a thing? And they would have become angry, and then they would have said, perhaps asked their friends, say, Why didn't I catch my anger? Or how can I catch my anger in the future? And if they had asked you that, they would say, Wow, I would not have even gotten angry about that to begin with. But um, I guess what I would just tell you, just observe yourself. Observe yourself getting angry, getting offended by what someone has said about you. And the more you observe it, the earlier you're gonna you're gonna catch yourself in the middle of being angry, and then you're gonna catch yourself earlier, you're gonna catch yourself in the beginning of getting angry, and you're not even gonna let it go any further. And then perhaps one day you're even gonna catch yourself before you're getting angry. It's never even gonna happen. Someone's gonna be able to come and tell you this person said this or that about you, and you're gonna say, so what? See what I mean? It's so much easier to see it in other people. You see all the time people getting offended, and you to yourself thinking, wow, why are they even offended about this? That seems silly. So it's easier to see in other people. Um, but when it happens to you, it seems like this very complicated thing. And it's so easy to be caught off guard. No, it's all the same. It's all the same. It's just that we don't have practice in that, right? Or there's some identity that is making us that we're identifying with, obviously. And that's why we're getting angry. And that's why we can't see that same truth in this particular thing. Right? So it's all about perspective, all about perhaps a little bit of experience of of having observed everything, right? But the but the answer doesn't change. The the so-called advice is the same for everyone. It's just it's observe. Observe that too. Observe how once again you couldn't catch yourself being overwhelmed. Observe how, oh, this time, this particular thing didn't overwhelm me, it used to overwhelm me. Okay, interesting. Observe, observe, observe. And um can one observe without awareness? No. So essentially, what I'm saying is just be aware. You are awareness. You are consciousness, you are that which is conscious, you are that which uh consciousness results from, whatever you want, however you want to think about it. But so, what's more natural to awareness than to be aware? And all overwhelmeness, all anger, everything, all false beliefs live in unawareness. So rather than saying, how do I not become angry? How do I not become fearful? How do I not become overwhelmed? We should just ask ourselves, how can I be more aware? How can I be aware longer? How can I not fall into unawareness? This is really the only thing to practice and to think about. Right? Well, awareness uh is is strengthened by living in the present, not letting thoughts and emotions carry you. They can come up. Again, it's not a problem for a thought or an emotion to come up, but you don't have to communicate with it, you don't have to go into this hour-long dialogue with it. Just realize that you have this ability that no thought can go any further without you interacting with it. So all you have to say when a thought comes, and you can literally say this, you know, who cares if someone thinks you're you're crazy or even you yourself thinks you're crazy. When a thought comes, say not now. Not now. Maybe later, we'll see, but not now. Not now. And if you always say not now, when is it ever gonna happen? Right? And you are the one who's able to say not now. I think we all have experience with this, correct me if I'm wrong, but sometimes a thought comes and and we in our head say, not now. I'll think about this later. Like this is a work issue, I'm not at work yet. I'll think about this in two hours, okay? So not now. Haven't we all done this? So we have this ability. Let's let's practice it, let's strengthen it, let's let it broaden itself. Not now. Okay. Anger is coming up. Well, if I'm still angry about it tomorrow, okay, then I'll do that with anger, but not now. We can all do this, and so this is what awareness is is to become aware, first of all, you need to be aware of the will of the visitor that comes to your door. Right? And then you need to be aware that you can look through the little eyepiece and see who it is, and that, and then you can be aware of what that person is saying. Oh, I want to come in because I want to talk about this. And then you say, not now. Go away, not now. Or it's a logistical thought, it's just like, hey, uh, here's a delivery, uh, I need you to sign for this. Okay, yeah, come in. Okay, sign. Okay, bye. No problem, no problem. There's never a problem, right? If we're aware, you can say not now, or you can say, yeah, yeah, please come in. And there are only these two responses, there's nothing else. And once you're in control of the okay now or not now, once you're in control of that, there's nothing. There's nothing. And of course, you always are, always were, always will be in control of that. It's just again, that vision is might be obscured by what? False beliefs, identities, which with reason we can one by one, one by one, get rid of. And then there's that threshold. Again, we don't need to be perfect. There's that threshold where it's like, okay, uh, I can see enough, not now. That's all it is, right? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:47

It makes sense. And um previously it was nice actually that this also became a discussion in previous kinch because uh I have had the issue when I didn't even realize I was, and I think it's funny to say, but I was I wasn't even aware that I was allowed to say no to my thoughts. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 1:42:04

There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:06

I I didn't even know if if an issue came up, uh I I was not even uh I didn't even know that I could say no to it. I thought, okay, I would have to uh deal with this before I can go back to doing whatever I was doing.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:19

You're so right, you're so right. And and that's such an important thing that I hope everyone is listening right now to you because that's everything. I was thinking about this the other day, and I see I I too keep forgetting because the mind overrides it. I too keep forgetting this realization. You're so right. I do remember also, of course, from myself that time when I thought I had to deal with every single thought, every single emotion, that it was my responsibility to take care of whatever problem that thought was having. You know, a thought comes in and says, I can't pay my rent. Oh, okay, I'll I'll somehow figure out to pay your rent. Right? I was taking care of every thought. The emotion comes in. Oh, I'm I feel bored, I feel anxious, oh, okay. Uh, what can I do to help you? I thought it was my responsibility to deal with every single thought, and that's exactly what identifying with your thoughts is. You think you are your thoughts or you are one with your thoughts, you are responsible for them. So, so important point here. This is the this is the first thing, but it's also everything, right? To realize that separation, that discrimination between me and thoughts. And to say, well, I don't need to deal with it. I don't need I can dismiss it altogether, or I can say, not now, I'll deal with it later, and actually deal with it later, or again say, not now later, or say, yeah, right now I'm gonna deal with this because I want to. This is everything. It's everything. And the more we do this, the more even the thoughts themselves are gonna learn. They're gonna say, There's no point for me even going to his door because he's gonna say, not now. You know, I've never been let in by this person. And so the thoughts like not certain thoughts are not even gonna come anymore. So what an amazing thing, right? And if they came, again, it wouldn't be a problem. We would just tell them not now, we would just send them away. But the amazing thing is the more you live like this, the the fewer thoughts come that you would send away, right? The the the logistical ones, the necessary ones, the so-called good ones, they're still coming because they know, you know, I'm good, I'm gonna be let in. You know, it's an amazing thing. But again, that not even that needs to happen as long as we are aware of this ability of ours to say, not now. So, yeah, that's a beautiful thing. Thank you for um thank you for sharing that experience. So, so vital. I mean, look at the conversation we got out of it, right? Because this is so relevant to not only me, but uh everyone here, I would bet. Because we're all dealing with thoughts and we all need to see that we're able to say not now to them, right? And even so much more, but that's all we need. And so thank you for that. Um once again, uh great conversation. I'm I'm very grateful. I'm gonna um move you back to the audience for now. But once again, thank you, thank you, thank you. And um that was so important. If we just talked about this one thing forever, we'd be fine. We'd be fine. This is so important. And in fact, I'm gonna leave it at that. I think I think it's important to leave it at that. I know we have a few more speakers. Um I I'm telling you, please, next time put your request in to speak first so that I can get to you first, right? Because you waited all this time. I'm sorry, but I just think it's the right thing to do. If we just think about this, what we've learned today or are seeing from now on, actually, about the true nature of thrills. Right. And about our golden rule once again that everything that is really good is entirely good. There's no such thing as taking having to take the good with the bad. And so thank you once again for being here. Thank you for bringing all these things up. I am very grateful to the openness, to the honesty, and to, as I've said before, the the non-offensive nature of all of this. These are such offensive things. Do we realize that? It used to be anyway, so offensive, and it still is so, so offensive to most people that we meet, most people that we know of. Yet here we can come and either not be offended at all and just straight get to truth, or to be offended even and say, Well, uh I'm offended right now, I'm having a bad time technically, but I know that every time I get offended, I am shedding some identity, some falsity, some illusion. And so bring it on. Offend me, please do. Because I know that truth has never hurt me. Truth can only hurt that which I am not, which I thought I was. It can only hurt that. And if that's true, so then bring it on. I want to rid myself. I want to empty myself of myself so that truth can fill me up. I want to be empty for truth and love to fill me up. And if I'm already full with anxiety, with anger, with resentment, with jealousy, with disappointment, with frustration, or with my thrills, with my roller coasters, with my excitement, with my drama in my life, then I can never be empty in order to be filled up by truth and love and everything that is good and right. And so this is the beauty of your amazing ability now to enjoy almost to get offended, because you know that every time you get offended and you work through it, you achieve so-called the highest of all rewards. That is the vision of the true self, and in that vision, in that state, nothing can happen to you. Nothing can happen to you.