Walk with Moojibaba (with subtitles)
Keep a Royal Distance From Your Thoughts 23 March 2020
[Questioner] It was so good in India, what happened.
Two days it went like that,
but I continued with that.
I continued with these things.
[Mooji] They continued? [Q.] I continued with the meditation.
It comes when I just sit silently for contemplating.
I just simply put attention on the Self.
[Mooji] Everything will settle down.
It is natural for the mind to come up.
[Q.] The first time for me was miraculous, but after two days,
I was still continuing.
And then after two days, for the first time I saw that
this attention just goes back, it's normal.
But it just stayed like that for two days.
[Mooji] It is good to ask, because our mind
cannot stay underneath too long, it has to come to the surface,
because of your own sadhana, your own satsang.
It has to keep coming up to the surface.
It can feel a bit like that, but at least it is more visible than hidden.
They come up like that, then they dissipate. It goes away.
[Q.] But Guruji, you say that if we go on practicing,
the attention can just stay, it just comes, comes, comes.
[Mooji] Even more than that,
I say, You are there before attention even.
You can watch where the attention is going.
If you can see that you can watch even attention,
you must try to understand where you are to watch attention.
You are already that place.
The attention can only come to you,
or it can go out towards phenomenon.
But really, when attention is here, it just returns to you.
It is not you. Very often, we identify with attention,
but attention is also capable of observing.
Sometimes people can say, 'My attention is very restless today.
I can't control it. Attention is going all over the place.'
I say, Don't worry. You're here.
You're not going all over the place. The attention is going.
If you pay attention to your Self, which is really here,
just acknowledge that you're already here,
that's the most natural attention, acknowledging that you're already here.
You cannot be the attention running about.
If you identify with that, you feel restless,
you take on the quality of restless attention.
Stay in the place where it's witnessed that the attention is going.
Don't worry about that. Just be with the stillness that is your Self.
That is so powerful! Because it doesn't mean that you have to go ...
If you are just with your Self, attention has to come back to you,
because it cannot live without you.
It's like, a parasite cannot live without the thing it is living on.
So in a sense, all these forces have to come to you.
If you acknowledge your Self, know what you are,
as the pure, formless awareness, resting in itself,
all your powers, like attention, the body, belief and identity,
all these have to come back to it, and they become quiet,
very naturally.
But sometimes, there is some storm in the body-mind,
and it is going to move like that,
and the way through that is to leave it.
Like Sri Maharaj says,
'I leave my human nature to play out its role,
I remain as I am, as pure consciousness'.
So that is a very clear seeing!
He sees human nature is behaving sometimes very irritably,
sometimes this and that; he doesn't identify with it.
He says, 'Something is causing that to be,
maybe past lives, or old behaviour, but I am not concerned with that.
I'm not identified with that state anymore. I don't call that state 'me'.
I continue resting inside my own awareness.'
If he is resting in his own awareness,
the human side that's running around can't do that much longer,
as it needs attention. If nobody is looking at it ...
The mind can only perform if it has an audience.
If there is no one to give it attention, it doesn't exist!
And the attention comes from you.
Even attention comes from you,
so you are not even the attention.
These few points, when really caught and remembered ...
Because what happens is, we tend to forget where we really are.
Where you really are is the Self. That's not moving.
When you remember that,
things like attention going and the mind behaving, mean nothing.
You see that they are just phenomenon, soon forgotten; they soon pass.
Just like any cloud, they keep changing.
Nobody has to force them.
So, it is all good.
Now, when people talk about these things,
they feel like, 'I am not doing so well at the moment'.
I say, Stop that! That's not true.
Don't judge yourself with your thoughts. You're not your thoughts.
But when they come, if you hold onto them,
you create a relationship and an identity with them,
then of course you'll feel, 'I'm not doing very well'.
No thought is doing particularly well, they keep changing,
even the nice ones, after a while, go into some silly place.
So it is good to be aware of thoughts, make use of them also,
but keep your royal distance from them, don't identify.
Your Self is not a thought, that is 100 percent sure.
But our self-belief is maybe thought-constructed.
So this difference we have to just keep recognising,
until the whole thing looks very silly, after a while.
So you have to keep watching it, and seeing that ...
This is the one thing you have to overcome and transcend in life,
your mind attachment, the belief in the mind.
It is only that, that has to be overcome,
the identity that is created in the mind and the mind-play.
You have to understand that is your ship, that is your house.
You have to understand how that mind works,
and that without identity it doesn't have any power.
Once you understand that, and you see that
you are neither of those two, you are the witness of them,
already the whole thing cannot hold,
and you again find your Self.
It is like one, one thing more and more. This is all, this is all.
Over the years of wrestling so much with different ideas about myself,
it became very simple, All that is all nonsense. It's not true.
My thoughts are not me,
but my thoughts make me feel like I am them.
If I believe in them, I start to feel, 'I am having a bad day today ...'
A thought cannot have a bad day.
It is just the believer in the thought that can have a bad day.
But the believer in a thought is also a kind of thought.
The believer in the thought, the one who says,
'I can't get out of this state. Please help me.'
That one is also a thought, the most dangerous thought, actually,
because nobody suspects it is a thought.
We all think it is us. And because we think it is us,
our life becomes very unstable and unsteady,
because even that identity is not steady.
The only steady thing is the Self, which is what we really are.
That is all that satsang is here to point out,
and to get everyone to see and to acknowledge.
And it takes time, because we have been a bit of a stranger to our Self,
for a very long time,
being in the role of personhood and identity.
We have been on the road for a very long time
wearing out body after body,
carrying this strong identification.
So I put it that, this life is the life to finish up that delusion.
It really is. And it's a wonderful feeling.
[laughs]
And you are well on your way. Well on the way.
[Voice behind camera] Thanks to you, Baba.
[Mooji] Well, we feel very happy to see you today.
[Mooji] We saw somebody has come, we didn't know who it is. [laughter]
[Q.] Just to come here and see Guruji, it is like ... Thank you.
[Mooji] Love you so much, Baba.
[Mooji] So nice to see you back, Talk to you soon.
[Mooji] Love you, love you. [Voice behind camera] We love you.
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