Satsang with Mooji
[Mooji] Somebody told me once,
that the mind is saying ...
There is a cake and it is for your brother's birthday,
but you're very hungry and you can smell it.
And you love chocolate cake.
And the mind says to you, 'Just take a piece. Just take a piece.
And then take it from the other side and fill it in.'
'Just take a piece', he says. [laughter]
And then you go and you take this piece and you eat it.
And then the mind says,
'You shouldn't have done that!' [laughter]
The same mind is doing it.
So he's very sneaky and we are listening to this.
Then, the whole game of spirituality, you may say, is to wise up,
that this mind is not on your side. He's on your back!
First you think, 'The mind is on my side,
walking hand in hand, helping me'.
Then he comes on your back, a monkey on your back, let's say.
Then somehow, some wisdom is coming,
you're smelling, 'Something is not true about this'.
So now you come and say again. What do you want to say?
[Questioner] I want to get done with it!
Really. Because I see it!
And still it has this influence, that is incredible!
[M.] Even the greatest salesman in the world
cannot sell to you, if you don't buy.
Some salesmen are very good.
They get you to buy something you already have plenty of,
but in that moment you are mesmerised
and you think, 'Wow! That's a good idea!' [laughter]
Until you take it home and then think,
'Wow! What is all this about?'
So if you say, 'The mind is very powerful',
it's because you feel somehow under its power.
We have forgotten that without you, the mind has no existence.
It is for you that the mind speaks.
A thought cannot think itself.
A thought cannot believe in itself, it is inert.
When it ignites with the thinker thought,
that, 'I want to do this', then somehow, you may say,
the process of thinking comes alive.
So the mind doesn't start off with power.
Maybe you can say, it arises as suggesting power.
Then if you take the bait then somehow it ignites into that,
it feels like a fact or something.
So how to overcome this?
Because it will come again.
Even though you understand, 'It's not what I am', still he comes.
How to transcend this? How to get rid of this influence?
Then I say, You begin to observe.
Don't fight the mind, because the mind loves a fight!
If you get into a street fight with your mind, you're going to lose.
Because the very fighting means
that you've taken it to be so real already.
So what you must do, is first begin to observe.
Because very few people are really observing.
All the attention is only on the activities appearing in consciousness,
but no one looks at the one who is observing it.
And like this the mind grows.
The mind grows like this,
because you're not aware of your own power.
So then you feel like the mind has got the power,
but the power is yours.
This is the paradox.
So first you begin to observe. Nobody is observing.
Observe, wait a minute,
everything that comes, it also goes.
Everything comes and goes.
Who's the witness of the coming and going,
of every thought, every emotion, every sensation, every feeling?
Every image is witnessed by what?
And you might say, 'It is by the mind!
The mind is witnessing all of these things.
Because it's the mind that has the interest in all of those things.'
Then if that is your response, I may ask you,
But what is aware of this even?
What is aware even now of the mind?
And with this question you must search yourself.
The mind is seen, the activity of the mind,
of judgement, fear, projections, doubts,
all of this activity is watched somehow.
Find out what watches this.
This is closer than intimacy, this recognition,
because even the most subtle thought ...
And I say, there are some sensations which are so subtle,
there aren't any names for them.
There are no names for them,
because we don't know what to call them, they're so subtle,
and yet you are aware of them.
So what you are must be even subtler than that.
This contemplation, you stay in this contemplation, focused,
but everything comes.
OK, it is something that is noticed, so don't go with that,
don't combine yourself with that, just notice.
Some things which feel very powerful
are those which have the strongest identity information in them.
So this also you notice.
In this type of noticing, all those sages,
all those beings, men and women from all religions,
all places in the world,
who have come to that innermost seeing,
they have done just that, they focused like,
'But all these things, even great beliefs and ideas,
they are just as they appear in my consciousness.
And without consciousness they have no existence.
Who am I who is able to perceive them?'
And being with that, looking and finding no image of 'I',
finding no description,
because all descriptions are themselves noticed,
one comes to a place that cannot be described.
It is beyond form, beyond intention,
beyond concept, beyond emotions even.
A place where even silence is perceived.
An undivided space where you have gone now beyond name.
Names and forms also, they were appearing before you.
You have seen now, they don't dwell here in this place.
And you abide there, keep your attention there.
It will take some effort in the beginning, to do that,
but don't give up, stay with it.
Get used to being in that imageless space.
The mind will come even here.
It will say, 'You have done it! You have done it! Now you can go!'
Or it will say, 'How can I keep this?'
And then you are asked, 'How can who keep it?
Who is the keeper of this?'
Each time you're there, because when you are silent,
then your wisdom comes to the surface.
And this wisdom alone can defeat the mind.
This wisdom arises out of the silence of being.
No one can see him, this wisdom.
But in this place when the mind comes up ...
Because I've said before, that at a certain point of your seeing,
when your clarity is bursting open,
you're coming back into full understanding,
the mind has a certain period of time to sabotage your seeing
and it will come with full force!
Somebody says also, 'When I'm not here, everything seems to be fine,
but when I come here, then I start to feel miserable and angry'.
I said, Yes, because here, this mind, it cannot hide.
Out there he can hide!
When you're in distraction, he can hide.
Turn up the music and he will hide.
But in the silence of your being, he cannot hide.
Then he comes, 'Grrrr! Grrr!'
And then something begins to panic.
And which is the one that's panicking?
You also must look, which is the one who's panicking?
And the one who is panicking,
is the idea you have of who you are.
Your self-image is afraid, not your pure consciousness.
And that self-image is shaped out of consciousness and conditioning,
that makes you hold onto an identity.
And the mind can attack your identity,
but it cannot attack the pure consciousness.
The mind grows because you are not aware of your own power.
You feel that the mind has got the power - but the power is yours.
Video extract from the Satsang DVD 'Cocooned in Presence'
30th January 2011 Tiruvannamalai, India