I I'd like to ask a question about the state if it can be called that of being awake or awakening
I I feel like there's disbelief these beliefs that we have about the awake person being in
bliss and being you know in constant love and constantly walking around being aware
that they're aware am i a disappointment no no no yep on the contrary um my realization did
not come with bliss it came with a deep sense of aloneness and after when the mind came back
and uh you know I was almost like I want my money back where's the bliss you know like this is not
what I've been searching all did all this time and yet the clarity of it could not be denied
but even when I'm in the process of being every day and that this body is not there this mind
is not there the story is not there I can't say that I'm aware that I'm aware I just AM you know
I don't know what I am I can't know what I am I can just be what I am and so I get confused
in terms of you know what is it you know what is it that we're supposed to know and what is
it that's supposed to what it's supposed to look like so to speak and of course there's
always the mind that comes up and says you did it wrong or you got something wrong or there's
something wrong and yet there's a knowing that there's nothing wrong does that make any sense
everybody knows that I am but not everybody knows the nature
of the I that I am so a further discovery is required other than simply knowing that I am
now in order to know the nature of what I am we have to attend to what I am in exactly the
same way that if we want to know the nature of anything we attend to it we give our attention
to it so having discovered that I am the next step is to give our attention to the I that
I am now what would give its attention to the I that I am who would give attention and what
exactly would the attention be that we attend to the I that I am are you with me yeah well
obviously the only one that can give attention to what I am is the one that is aware that I am
because that is the only one that knows or is aware that I am in other word it is the very I
that I am that attends to itself so that that is this turning a round of the attention that
Ramana Maharshi called self-inquiry falling back of attention into its source in order
to discover not not just the fact that I am but the nature of the I that I am and it is
that in this this attending to ourselves or this abiding in or as our self that the memory of our
true nature comes to us when I say the attending to our self I know that you understand we cannot
attend to our self as an object the son cannot turn round and shine on itself as an object so
to attend to oneself simply means to be knowingly oneself and as we abide knowingly as ourself the
the qualities if we can call them qualities the qualities that are inherent in ourself
begin to it as he were emerge gradually in most cases from the background and and the the first
quality to emerge in most cases is peace this undisturbed oval quality but awareness has that
no matter what is going on in the foreground of experience thoughts and feelings and activities
and relationships and perceptions etc in the background or at least it seems to be in the
background first there is this imperturbable peace and that is what's called in sanskrit
ananda sad being chit consciousness or knowing the knowing of being the knowing of being as it
is is the experience of ananda the experience of peace and it was wrongly translated by the
early travellers to India as bliss or ecstasy or because it was mistakenly considered to be a state
that you go into a kind of blissful ecstasy that you go into and indeed some people do
go into blissful ecstasy's but they come out of them again so they're not profoundly satisfying
because nobody wants a temporary blissful state of ecstasy or or happiness we want lasting happiness
so an Ananda really is this peace which is in most cases felt in the background of experience
and then in time as this as this imperturbable peace in the background the peace that passeth
understanding as its as its felt more and more and more it begins to outshine the objects in the
foreground the the agitated thoughts the agitated feelings that they it's as if they begin to get
drowned in the piece they can no longer stand as agitated thoughts because that they're just
beginning to be to be drowned by the piece or the piece it's as if it as if it comes from
the background into the foreground and begins to spill over into the foreground of our experience
that is thinking sensing and perceiving it begins to infiltrate the way we think and feel and then
in time the way we act perceive and relate and it is it is this spilling over of the piece from the
background of experience into the foreground of experience that piece turns into happiness
it is experienced as more as happiness as it begins to flood the foreground of experience
that that's what ananda is it's not a state it's not a gleeful state where
you walk around the streets all day in some kind of ecstasy it's not like that
sometimes it can it can bubble over in into great feeling of joy or gratitude or but it
it doesn't bubble at high frequency all the time and when it stops bubbling it just it just goes
back down to peace again even I'm expressed it so beautifully he said happiness is peace
in motion peace is happiness addressed it's the same substance and for most people we find it
first and not for everyone but for most people it's seems to be in the background first and
only gradually to infiltrate the foreground of experience so is it accurate to say that
sadness frustration all of these things come up but they're permeated by a deep peace or a sense
of peace what would frustration permeated by deep peace feel like I have no idea nor do I it
wouldn't be very frustrating but as a feeling sense these these residues of these feelings
may still come up for a while but they would very quickly be eclipsed because you know for instance
in order for us for frustration to be maintained it needs to be supported by resistance I don't
like what's going on I wish it was different I don't want to sit in this traffic jam I want
to arrive where I'm supposed to be going who is saying that is awareness saying I'm don't want
to be stuck in this traffic Ram I would rather be in awareness is not saying that so you might
be sitting in a traffic jam you might realize that you're about to miss your plane a series
of feelings may come up but but very quickly that would it would give way the piece would win
and then in time because the frustration knows that it's days are numbered it would
just it wouldn't bother to show up in the end it's not worth it it knows it can't win so it
just it just starts showing up less and less it doesn't mean you become a perfect body mind and
you never feel the slightest frustration or a moment of irritation or no that may continue
but but less and less and and above all when those feelings do arise they no longer have
the power they used to have to persuade you to buy them they rise and because there's
nothing supporting and supporting them they they fall very quickly and in time they they
show up less and less you can never say they never show up because how do we know what's
around the corner so it's best not to say never it's best just to say less and less
and as these kind of feelings show up less and less that innate peace and happiness of
our true nature just prevails more and more in our experience it's like the constant background
of our experience that at the slightest provocation bubbles over into the foreground
so don't don't think of an and there is ecstasy or bliss because in in in the English language
bliss means something different from what it means in India it has this exotic colourful
connotation to it it's it's just the happiness that is inherent in the knowing of your own being
now if you find that these feelings are showing up often in other words they're not gradually
showing up less and less and lasting for less and less time then you have to check and make
sure that the the I around whom the irritation or the frustration or the loneliness or whatever you
have to make sure that that is really not there these feelings can still show up for a while
after the separate self has been truly seemed to be non-existent in other words after we have truly
realized our nature of ever-present unlimited awareness but these feelings still show up as
a habit as long as they're just showing up as an old habit that's fine in time they gradually die
down but what's important is to make sure that the root which is the separate self has really been
uprooted one of the ways and I'm not suggesting that this is what you're doing but it's just a
passing coming one of the ways on the contemporary non-dual scene that these feelings are dealt with
superficially is by these feelings plus the separate self around whom they revolve
is still very much alive and in order to accommodate the separate self that some
contemporary expressions of Advaita just say oh well the separate self and all its
suffering is is welcomed in the awareness that I know myself to be everything appears
in awareness including my suffering including my irritation including my frustration and I still
get just as upset and angry and irritated as I used to be but now I know that it all appears
in open empty awareness that that's that that's it's kind of pseudo at my turn it's
the separate self appropriating the invited teaching in order to subtly perpetuate itself
so this is a big difference between the separates of really being uprooted and as
a result these kind of feelings gradually disappearing and the separate self being
still very much active expressing itself in these feelings as these feelings and then
somehow trying to persuade oneself that these feelings just all appear in awareness and that
the awareness that I am doesn't really mind these feelings kind of fooling ourselves and then as I
say I'm not suggesting you're saying this but we're fooling ourselves if we if we think that
so the important thing first to know what we really are and then these feelings when they
show up that they're just they're just empty they no longer have any separate
self at their origin and in time they just show up less and less thank you