Walk with Moojibaba
Know Thyself This Is the Highest Knowledge
13 November 2020 (with subtitles)
[Mooji] We've all had a period of time in our life
when we studied something.
Even your career may have started out of your study,
what you have become good at.
So, from childhood we are learning.
It is put before us to learn something, to eventually discover, perhaps,
a particular subject that is appealing to you.
We are always learning and studying,
discovering how the world works,
how certain kinds of instruments or tools
can serve our ideas, our inclinations,
what we feel we are attracted to.
But for many of you, life has brought you here, to myself.
We have come to meet.
And, I myself am asking you,
now that you have studied so many things in life ...
Not everything. Nobody can study everything.
Now, I ask you to study your Self.
What does it mean? Of course, it is easier if I say,
study a little bit about this land, or about the water flow,
or about the seasons, and so on, or about some instrument.
Because you take yourself to be the one who is doing the studying,
and you are in some way engaged with some objective pursuit
to understand something, to gain more skill,
to be able to make use of your knowledge for some outcome.
But you have come in search of Truth,
so I don't send you out,
to go and study the hills, study the water, study the fire, anymore.
I say, study your Self. What does it mean?
How to study your Self?
Is it one self studying another self?
Is it a lower self studying,
or learning about observing, discovering a higher Self?
So how does one begin?
And of course, for many of you,
who have been following satsang for a time,
I don't feel that this question is out of place, again,
to refresh your looking.
How does one study one's self? What is the one self?
The body you can study.
I think there is a name for that. Human biology, or medicine.
You can study about the body's system and function.
You can study about the prana, the vital breath.
You can study about your blood type.
But these are not the one who is observing them.
Then you say, you can study your character.
Your character, how do you study? How do you observe your character?
When the ancient ones said, 'Know thyself',
what were they speaking about?
What is this 'Self' to know? And who will know it?
Is it something apart from the Self that will know it?
Is there another self,
to know one self knowing another self? Is it like that?
If we put it to the mind, and we are thinking like that,
of course it will feel, 'Whoa!' It gets confusing.
'Who is studying who?' Or, 'What is studying what?'
But at all times, you have a natural sense of your own being.
So let's start there. What is that?
If all the people on the Earth vanished,
you would know that you are still here.
If all the thoughts that could come in the mind, came and went,
it would be you who observes them.
Again, if all the thoughts, all the concepts that were perceivable
would arise through your being, in your mind,
they would be noticed by something.
That which notices them, is it the same as them?
We can look a bit more deeply.
We may say, 'No, it cannot be the same'.
The one who is witnessing them,
is this one also witnessable?
'Aah!' That seems to create some strange warp in the mind.
Like, can the one who is seeing everything else,
can this one be seen? Is there a one?
You are asked to look. And you know what?
At just about that time,
some laziness starts to come up inside, some sort of resistance,
some sort of justification of, 'Why are we doing all these things?
We know who we are already.' And all of this stuff.
So, you are pointed, you can observe this also.
Even the resistance that is coming up to the question
is also noticeable.
The one who appears to be resisting,
is that really our self, is that really you?
How close is it? How close?
If I say, come close, we get very close,
even centimetres close, when we touch, are we one, even?
Even if two things come together and they merge together,
even their merging is also observed.
So the point is, not what you are seeing forward,
but that whatever happens, it is perceived!
And that which is perceiving it,
where is that, where is its location?
Can it be said to be behind, or in front,
or to the side, or the above, or outside, or inside even?
So for this you must sit.
And when I say sit, I simply mean be quiet with this.
Can anything that you perceive,
that you can say is studiable,
meaning that you can observe it,
its quality, its nature, its character,
its weight, its size, its design, all of these things ...
But all of these are perceived also.
From where does even the perceiving of them ...
Even the perceiving of them, can we say, is also perceived?
The very act of perceiving is also ...
There is an awareness of this.
Look what is happening.
Even the sense of yourself in memory,
the very archiving of one's history
and the sense of your place in the world,
there is an awareness even of that.
What does it mean?
It means that, at the place of awareness,
does awareness have any content?
Our memory, our identity has content,
but that which is aware of content, does that have any content?
And who can receive this question?
Is it a person, when even the person is perceivable?
So, these are the questions that come with the quest
for awakening to the real.
And I want to tell you ahead of time,
no objective answer will satisfy you.
It cannot be seen.
That which perceives all things, itself cannot be perceived.
But I am going to go subtler still.
The mind itself is the first one to stand in the witness box to say,
'All these things I can perceive, all these things I can perceive.
All that has shape and size and quality, it is I who perceives them.
Time and change, it is I who perceives them.'
But then we say, 'Isn't mind also perceived?'
And if mind is also perceived,
what is it that is perceiving then?
I don't want a word, or a conceptual answer.
I want the question to become like a searchlight
scanning to see if an entity can be found
as the witness of anything.
So that's one of the pathways of Self-awareness,
it leads to Self-awareness.
You may find that, somehow, all the questions just seem to nullify,
or they just evaporate, or disappear.
And what is left is really nameless and shapeless,
and curiously, is self-aware, as a sort of self-awareness field.
This kind of introspection also grows inside its own power.
It becomes more acute, much more tight and powerful,
but all of it is leading into a spaciousness, an intelligence,
that's deeper than a state, because states are also perceived.
Now, someone may ask, 'But what's the benefit of this?'
Such a question can only come from
the one, again, who wants to have some benefit.
As you proceed in your inquiry,
in your devotion, in your surrender,
you are tasting the fruit of that surrender.
And you will see, along each step,
you will realise, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa! I need to go more deeply.'
And it is not a trap. It's a freedom!
The trap is behind, what you are leaving.
But you are moving more, again so to speak, back into your natural state.
And you will not need someone to tell you that this is natural!
Just like, if you are the only person around, if you are sick,
you don't need someone to tell you are sick. You'll know it.
When you're happy, you don't need to ask, 'Am I happy?' You know.
In the same way,
when you are free from the clutter of conceptual noise,
you know it, and you know that it is natural.
So, thank you. Good, good, good.
Later in the morning walk someone asks,
'If a contemplation has not ended up in spaciousness,
does that mean the contemplation
has not come to its natural fulfilment?'
Let's say that all contemplations, if they are true and successful,
they come back to the Self, they come back to that awareness
in which the conflicts that come with personhood,
the doubts, the confusions, all of these, they are eradicated.
And what remains is just an awareness.
An awareness is here
and in it, it feels like, all things find their place,
whatever that may be.
Even this body moving in space is finding its place inside.
All things are seen to be flowing in their natural place,
where even the sense of disorder is inside a greater order,
the sense of disharmony is inside the great harmony.
And even as one comes to that recognition, somehow,
there is a silence, there is a stillness.
There is a stillness which is not against movement.
Movement is taking place. It is part of its expression.
But inside the core of the movement
is this emptiness, this silence, which is its source also,
and this is the mystery.
Because it is not merely ...
Some may say that it is not very scientific.
It is pure science!
When science reaches the very core of its origin,
it will see it's pure science!
It is pure! It's the purest, like the whole universe is built
inside the purest concept of God!
It's the purest mind,
but that which is even aware of the purity of the mind,
is the unnameable, you see.
It's no distance. It's not like,
'If you go over there, you come closer to the unnameable'.
Everything is unfolding through and in front of us,
to finally come to see that what really is here is the unnameable.
[Questioner] Guruji, sometimes the vibration of personhood is felt.
[Mooji] Yes. [Q.] Usually the mind quickly comes and says ...
There is a sense of a problem when that is felt in the body.
[M.] That is fine. That is also an exercise that will perhaps be needed.
The consciousness needs to exercise and to discern these things.
I find I'm OK with all of them!
Because the same one is in the body
in which the sense of some personal noise or energy manifests,
and the one, also, who feels troubled by it.
They are all together, part of this dance of the manifest consciousness.
So knowing that, they say, 'It's taken care of'.
Why now bring in an 'I' to be troubled about it?
Like this, no? But these things, they take time.
It's a very slow cook, but sometimes it is like [sound of blast of fire].
A big blast of fire comes and everything is singed!
We can never ... It's simply happening.
It's a very natural,
a God-natural, unfolding in one way,
but at some point, even the unfolding becomes,
sort of like, superficial for you,
the interest in the unfolding.
That's not cursing the unfolding. It is just that we are using it ...
In a sense, everything in life is a mirror reflecting the true.
The mirror keeps on reflecting more and more subtle things.
In this mirror you can see the most subtle, subtle, subtle,
until actually, there is no duality in the mirroring.
But I feel it does take time.
Time is also part of the story of consciousness,
and development and maturity, and all of these.
It's not that, 'Oh, we start off so low!'
In a sense, we can look at it from a worldly perspective,
but it seems like, the whole thing, on every level, including hell,
the Supreme is there, somehow taking care of the beings.
Some are destined to be in a hellish state.
Forever? I don't know what forever is.
For as long as they suit their role,
but because the nature of movement
is always to evolve to a certain place,
and even to evolve, and then be back to an ending, it seems alive.
Some things must spend their time
and return to whatever their source is,
in the play of time, inside the Timeless.
[Q.] And some things, over spending time with you and in satsang,
what I am noticing is that,
I know certain roads are going to end up in a dead end,
certain roads within the mind.
And something is not entertaining,
not taking any subtle road inside the mind towards a something.
And the consciousness is more staying home ...
[Mooji] Yes, it's simmering. Because for a while we are on fast cook,
and then, somehow, something is simmering.
But even the simmering, there's an awareness of the simmering.
But it feels much more ... [gentle exhale]
It's like ...
Some plants give a bad smell.
And some things give a very nice smell,
and it becomes a very nice fragrance, this simmering.
It feels, somehow, a harmony is there.
At some point you can even see harmony in a disharmony.
It's a strange thing. You say, 'Why should that be happening?'
Something accepts it's because it needs to happen.
Does it mean you should do nothing about something you see?
If it moves inside the body and it wants to use this body
to participate in changing the course of an action, then it will come.
If it's coming a lot through the mind,
it also will come, as that's where the energy wants to flow,
either through mind, or in spirit, or in form, it finds its way.
It is so excellently wise! It never makes mistakes.
So any mistake is only made in the mind.
And it's amazing, this Father, this Supreme!
[laughter]
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