and I wonder if you can say also something about because in this time this is very
bodily exercises we had to do if this Gurdjieff movements and it helped me then and it
still helps me now to be in this presence to be here you know so maybe you can say
something about I also did the Gurdjieff movements for many years so I know what
you're referring to if I were to ask you now are you aware what would you say yeah
how do you know it's not I'm not it's not a trick question it's just a genuine question
how do you know that you are aware em - the voice and - the bodily sensations and
you know okay wait well yesterday I asked you are you aware of your bodily sensation
mm-hmm you go to a bodily sensation and you say yes I am aware yeah if I say
are you aware of the flowers you look at the flowers and you say yes I am aware of
her flowers now if I ask you are you aware mmm yeah where do you go to get the answer yes I
noticed it's it's at this moment it's hard to answer this question there's no it's it's very
simple if I ask you are you aware of the flowers you you look at the flowers hmm and you see them
yeah as a result of seeing the flowers you can say yes I am aware of the flowers if I ask you are you
aware of the sensation of the soles of your feet you direct your attention away from the flowers
to the sensation of the soles of your feet and you experience that sensation yes as a result
in that experience you answer yes to the question now if I ask you not are you aware of the flowers
or are you aware of the sensation the soles of your feet but simply are you aware yeah now you
don't direct your attention towards the flowers you don't direct your attention towards the soles
of your feet where do you direct your attention in order to get the answer yes I am aware
for instance why didn't you say I don't know hmm or no you said yes what made you say yes
where did you go I'm very much aware of sitting here and oh no no I'm not sitting here how do
you know that you are aware what experience do you have to go to just as you previously
went to the experience of the flowers or the sensation I have to call insight insight what
be more specific you don't go inside the body if you go inside the body you just find sensations
all you know when you go inside is sensations yeah you don't go to the body if I ask you are
you aware of the sensation in your chest you will then go to this sensation you say yes yeah
now I'm asking you a different question are you aware I'm aware where do you go you say yes I am
aware with such conviction and you're right but what experience do you visit in order to say yes
go to the experience of consciousness Mariners of being aware yeah am i aware pause yes hmm what
happens in between the question am i aware and the answer yes something happens where do I go
I don't go to the flames I don't go to the feet I don't go to the chest I go to the experience
of being aware mm-hmm yeah in other words I am aware that I am aware yeah how difficult was it
for you to go there not if it took you about two seconds to answer the question how many
bodily exercises did you have to go through how many years to the of meditation did you
have to practice in order to answer yes to the question am i aware of course none anyway if you
want it helped it hell if meditation how could meditation help you answer yes to the question
I am aware I mean let's say we stopped someone on the street and said to them are you aware
presuming that they answered they understood the question someone who had never heard of
non-duality or who had no interest in spiritual matters yeah we just stopped someone casually on
the street and we asked them the question are you aware pause yes yeah how could meditation
help them how communication help them arrive at the answer yes what help do you need to be
aware that you are aware how could anything you do with your mind help you know that experience
what you do with your mind on your body is absolutely irrelevant it makes no difference
whatsoever I mean I sympathize with you I spent 20 years yeah doing mantra meditation yeah yeah yeah
but the experience of knowing that I am aware is everybody's everybody's most intimate experience
all that is required in fact not even this is required but that as a concession that said
all that is required is to be able to understand the question are you aware that question is the
cleanest clearest and most direct form of self inquiry that I know more efficient than Who am
I because people have been misunderstanding what Ramana Maharshi meant by who am i for 50 years you
only have to read commentaries on Ramana Maharshi is teaching to know how confused people were by
what he meant by the question Who am I I'm not suggesting it's not efficient it is efficient but
it's ambiguous and it was misunderstood by many people for many years there is nothing ambiguous
about the question am i aware it is absolutely clean clear and direct and it doesn't require
practicing anything with the mind or the body I'm not suggesting that you don't do those practices
I'm not saying that I think you're the Gurdjieff movements are beautiful practices I used to love
doing them I'm not saying don't do them but they won't help you realize your true nature or let me
put it another way I let me say it in another way that's a little a little tough it's not necessary
it's not necessary there is a direct route you don't need to go to your true nature via the
body or via the mind you can if you want it's fine but it's not necessary awareness awareness
knows itself before it knows anything else you're absolutely - but those teachings you are giving
us now they were not available okay yeah he said that that's true yeah true then not yeah I had
to make this be bigger to come around here you know join the club I understand
but it's not necessary now that this we live in a in a new age the direct path is available
to us now in a cleaner clearer simpler way than it was before if we want to take the
progressive path and I say this with no judgment we can there's nothing wrong with that but it's
not necessary this direct path was in fact always available even in India but due to the prevailing
religious and spiritual attitudes most people most people didn't want this direct path most people
wanted something more progressive and elaborate I was mistaken about this for many years I thought
that India was the place where advisor was just spoken about on the streets no most Indians didn't
want the absolute truth that the pure non-dual teaching because it and I say this with no
judgment but most most Indians were bought up in a devotional atmosphere and therefore teachers
out of out of compassion tailored their teaching to meet the demands of their students and couched
their teaching in devotional terms gave them an object or a person to devote themselves to but
that was only a concession to the understanding of those people what those teachers or the least a
few of them like Romano wanted do was to take people directly to the truth he said my entire
teaching could take place in silence but very very few people are ready for that therefore I have had
to elaborate a series of means the first means he developed was what he called self inquiry or self
surrender which were his two principal means but that way even that was a step down from the top
of the mountain and if people as many people did most people in fact found self inquiry to
difficult although it's suffering very easier than breathing but nevertheless people found it too
difficult he would then take another few steps down the mountain and elaborated a means that
was more in line with the way people already thought more in line with their conventional
religious attitudes in order to just help them take the next step but we live in a different
culture now a different age we we don't have the same religious cultural baggage we're more we're
more intellectually inclined we don't need lots of myths and stories and parables many of us not all
of us but many of us we just want we just want the absolute truth we just want to know about
reality we don't want to have to devote ourselves to a person or an object or a practice so we just
want the juster the clean simple truth because that's what our our culture has has encouraged
us to be less hierarchical more direct more honest in some ways so I feel this direct path is
the path for our era and our culture our world culture