Not Being Able to Get It (with subtitles)
Zmar Silent Retreat Portugal, May 2013
[Questioner] Then arises something
that's been coming up and you mention all the time.
Even though you mention it and say that it's not true,
[Q.] though, it still arises in me. [Mooji] OK.
[Q.] Which is a sense of not being able to get it, and of not deserving.
[Mooji] Yes. No, that is a thought now.
You must recognise that that is a thought or a thought-feeling.
And the mind will throw a lot of banana skins in your way.
If you decide to go on a way.
But I'm not pointing about a way that you should go now. You are here.
It says, 'Well, you know ...' It will put some subtle thing in.
You're not to follow that. It's just a thought.
'I'm not sure if I got it.' 'I' is who?
So 'I' is still burping up some trouble.
Now this 'I' itself is phenomenal.
You are more subtle than this phenomenal 'I'.
[Q.] It feels like a pretending that I keep on holding on to.
[Mooji] Yes. Now let's look at that, and please listen,
and insert yourself in his position in your own dialogue.
Now you say, 'It feels like ...' What?
[Q.] A pretending, to which I keep holding on to.
[Mooji] Yes. That is also watched.
There seems to be an 'I' that
now seems to only be pretending to be holding on to something,
but this is still phenomenal. It's still watched.
It is just a sensation, just thought.
This is what ... if your 'I' is itself a thought construct,
then it will attract other thoughts,
and you are never quite sure, more and more subtle thought.
Because only a thought can be intimidated by a thought. Only a thought.
When you make yourself into a thought,
then you will be intimidated by other thoughts.
But you can watch every thought,
even in its subtlest manifestation.
And now the thought is there.
You are cleaning yourself as you go. You are cleaning out.
Now in the residence of 'I' something says,
'Yes, but I see a subtle kind of something that wants to pretend'.
But there's something here earlier than that,
that is not in the bubble of that movement. It cannot pretend.
There is a part of you that cannot pretend.
It doesn't know about 'genuine' or 'ingenuine'.
It's totally out of the vocabulary of the mind, of the scope of the mind.
[Q.] Why would I deny its acceptance?
Why would I not accept it? Why would I stop?
[Mooji] You, now, don't exist. [laughter]
You don't exist. Only That is.
Because if I keep on going you will still keep the 'I',
'But why do I? Why would I?' You don't have any reality.
You finally ... we ousted you. You also are a thought.
The consciousness had become the most subtle. It became the 'I' thought,
And all other thoughts can only come into some virility
when they connect with the 'I-thought'.
But originally 'I' is not a thought,
or you may call it the purest thought of God.
But 'I' is not even so limited.
'I' can come up to even the Absolute, it can still manifest as 'I'.
But this 'I' that you speak now,
you say, 'But why? I still feel maybe something is pretending.'
But for me that doesn't mean anything.
If I said, oh yes, but you have to try and not pretend.
Then I am imparting a reality to that 'I',
that I know also, this is also a thought that must be seen and left.
And the consciousness has an affection for this thought, at some level.
I wonder if you are seeing. This is why it's going on for so long.
The consciousness has adopted the role of the person,
and it has some affection for what I call the 'infection',
which is the person. It is liking the uniform of the 'I-me',
and it wants to keep even a little bit.
Now it says, 'Still, I feel I am pretending'. This is still thought.
The 'I am' cannot pretend.
It is still being combined with the persona, the personality.
And this is why it still has some 'gluck-gluck'.
Some 'gluck-gluck-gluck' is still there.
[silence]
It is rare that we can have this kind of conversation on this planet,
that we can look like this,
because generally in the world you are not required to go so deep.
Nothing requires it of you.
You don't need this to get married. [laughter]
You don't need this to find a job.
Your employer is not going to ask you, 'So, who are you?' [laughter]
'Yes, I am John Brown.' 'Where are you from?' 'I am from Peckham.'
[Mooji] 'No, but who really are you?' [laughter]
[M.] 'What do you mean?'
[M.] 'Yes, I mean, John is not your name, it's not what you are!'
[laughter]
'What kind of job is this?' [laughter]
[M.] Your employer isn't going to ask you, nobody's going to ask you.
Somebody wants to marry you,
they ask you, 'What are you? Where is your family?'
And start to do some research, how well you've done,
where you studied, how much money you have saved up.
'OK good, all right. Do you snore?' 'No. OK, good.' [laughter]
'OK, well let's go forward.'
Nobody is going to go, 'Do you know really who you are?'
'Have you gone beyond your personality?'
No, no. Nobody asks you for any of this, to be in this world.
Where do you go for that? Nobody.
Even in church they don't ask you. In the temple they don't ask you this.
But here it is asked now because you, your bone self,
invites this question in you. You invite this question.
On some level, you brought this question up in yourself.
You wanted to know. Maybe you forgot.
But now your deepest wish, maybe you have had many wishes,
and you have been living in answered prayers,
but this wish now, its time has come. You wanted to find out,
'I want to know now, not what I can get, who I can get,
but now I want to know who I am'.
And that brought you to satsang. Now there is no 'after satsang'.
When you are directed here you won't be redirected somewhere else now.
Now you must solve it, this riddle of your own self.
Finally, this voice is still there, it was there,
I don't know if it's still there now, that said,
'Yes, there is still something pretending', or 'I feel I am ...'
Don't identify now with this 'I'.
There is space left for you beyond this 'I', which is the person.
Be there. The only space you have as 'I' is not a person.
You understand what I mean by this?
Sometimes you think, 'The only way I can be 'I', is to be a person'.
Then we point out what the person is,
that the personality ... you can talk about personality,
you can talk about your shape, your size as the body.
All this you present, and still it is rejected. I say, That's not you!
That's not you. Not here. It's not you.
'But where else do I have to go? I've told you everything about me.'
I say, You have told me nothing about you.
You told me only what your mind made up.
Then you have to find a space now
in which even the idea you have of yourself is housed.
So, your 'I' must expand beyond that limited thing of a person.
How are you going to be that now?
Beyond the person is the Immeasurable.
For a while you made your house, you made your room,
a very small room, a definable room, and you felt cozy.
You decorated that room very well.
But your spirit now has outgrown this room.
It says, 'I can't live in this room now'.
This is why we keep moving from address to address
because you get tired of this address,
then you move to another address, isn't it?
Now you have to move from all your addresses into That.
Your final home. You will not want to leave it.
I am right here with you. Now what?
[silence]
[Q.] I don't feel too much like saying it,
but I feel that I just need to keep quiet.
[Mooji] Yes, even this you cannot do.
If you are an 'I', you cannot be quiet.
For five minutes you can manage it.
[Q.] Then, what to do?
[Mooji] Ah, I am putting you to something that you cannot do.
You say you can be quiet now, 'I must just be quiet'.
But if you are an 'I' being quiet, it is not the real quiet.
Find that which is effortless, not being quiet.
Being quiet is a party trick.
Nobody can be quiet, only pretend quiet.
Come on!
[silence]
You have to do it.
[silence]
Now you are unable to admit, something is inside your head.
A kind of madness. You can't admit the obvious.
Missing the obvious. You can't admit because of what? Fear?
What is it? I am trying to find out what it is.
What is it that ... this little thin skin,
it is dangling, dangling, dangling, like a bit of snot. [laughter]
What is it?
Are you a bit of snot? No, you are not.
Something is a little bit disbelieved. It is nothing at all.
It is already ... the job is done.
But you still believe in the work.
It's said that at the end of the war
where the Americans were fighting with the Japanese,
a group of Japanese soldiers were living on an island,
and they had completely entrenched themselves in.
Then the war came to an end.
The generals met and signed agreements,
they shook hands and the country celebrated, 'Yes, peace at last!'
But these soldiers in the bush didn't know anything about it.
[Mooji] So, they sent a message, 'Comrades, the war is over'.
[gunfire sound] 'Some kind of trick!' [laughter]
'Look, we have the newspapers!' [gunfire sounds]
[laughter]
The war is over, but your mind, 'Hmmm'.
And you believe in it.
How is this war over? How did it come to be over?
You decide. You are the general.
Is it mere agreement, this one? Is it merely agreement? No.
It has to be a seeing, this one thing.
The most beautiful thing a human being can do
is to accept your own divinity,
your own divine nature.
Maybe we become too good living in the bush.
You know how to survive being in the bush, eating wild potatoes.
You are quite good.
[silence]
So, after that, no more.
So, I leave you like that.
You go and ponder over it.
Marinate in the juice of this moment.
Let's see what emerges out of it.
[Q.] Thank you, Mooji. [Mooji] Very good.
You have to find a space now,
in which even the idea you have of yourself is housed.
Beyond the person is the Immeasurable.
This one thing, the most beautiful thing a human being can do,
is to accept your own divinity, your own divine nature.
A video extract from a Satsang DVD:
Let Duality Be the Dream - You Be the Awake. May 2013
[music] 'Praise the Lord' by Kalima
from the album 'Take Me All the Way Home'