Satsang with Mooji
14th October 2007
Brixton, London
Dialogue 2
[Questioner] For a long time, and I think I still do,
I confused bliss,
feelings of bliss or relaxation with this space inside.
[Mooji] Yes. [Q.] When I am agitated,
[Q.] it is much harder to feel the awareness,
or to enjoy, or sink back into it.
I suppose my question is ...
I don't know what my question is. It is just an observation.
[Mooji] I am picking up a little bit where you are going with this.
[Mooji] It is good that you ...
[Mooji] I quite often hear people saying this,
[Mooji] 'I have experienced bliss,
also a great sense of relaxation and joy'.
Some also experience that something comes in the mind
and it seems to actualise very quickly.
All these different things happen.
And there is, also, sometimes a longing that
that would just perpetuate and continue.
Because something would just like it to be that way.
But inevitably, it also changes.
And it is replaced, sometimes, by feelings of huge contrast!
That can happen.
So
we are not to reject the bliss,
or to reject that pleasure, or that space, or the sense of relaxation,
or that joy, or the feeling of lightness; we're not to reject it.
Simply, don't label it, 'OK, that is it!'
Obviously it cannot be it.
And I can understand why it is taken to be it.
Because for much of our life,
we are striving to reach a state where we are just happy.
And it seems, as though, in most spiritual books and teachings,
happiness comes up all the time, that one needs to be happy.
I am also in agreement that your natural nature,
your natural state is to be happy,
not happy about something, just happy, and at peace.
Not at peace with all things, just at peace.
But within that, there is space for all expressions to come,
to express themselves, all emotions can express themselves.
Then eventually, they will exhaust their expression
and then subside into quietude by themselves, unaided.
You don't have to try and move things around.
You simply notice, that actually, it seems to be so.
And it is when you have arrived, you may say,
at that space or that state, where you simply don't mind what shows up.
Everything is allowed space to express,
to stretch, to yawn, to burp, to happen,
without that inner traffic policeman
sending things this way or that way.
Then there seems to remain
a sort of a state of equanimity and peace
which is not depending on circumstances. It is simply there.
And I call this peace, this joy,
the perfume that arises out of this emptiness itself.
This flower has no shape.
So this quality of not minding,
a quality of 'same-ness' in all situations, all circumstances, is there.
It is not that the consciousness becomes bland. It is not that, in fact.
Sometimes intense joy happens, and that is enjoyed.
Sometimes, unexplained feelings of sadness come also.
But they are given room, they are allowed room to express themselves.
Because the interpreting tendency is held in abeyance.
Simply because the identity that feels, 'Oh, yes I like this',
'That I don't', 'Why, why' and 'who' and 'me',
and 'if', and 'but', 'only' and 'when', and 'should' and 'could',
all of that stuff, all that noise has nothing to hang on to.
And there is that beautiful state
where you are free from 'I -me' identity.
As I said before, there is an 'I' sense that arises from time.
It comes from the past, it has a history.
It has a sort of psychological force.
And that 'I', I call the 'I' which is synonymous with the mind.
There is always a story. It is always on the way somewhere.
There is also an 'I', which I call the natural intuition,
the 'I' intuition, which arises out of emptiness.
It is in that 'I-ness' that observing happens.
It is the observer,
the witness, you might call it, of all that appears to happen.
Initially, when we are not accustomed to it,
I mean not accustomed to recognising that it is already so,
initially, the witnessing or the observing, I call it more active.
Meaning that there is a consciousness
that I am observing and not identifying.
But as something relaxes and sees
that there isn't actually a personal observer as such,
there is just a quality of observing,
then the observing itself moves into what I call passive observing.
It is recognised, that it is just happening.
There is no one particularly observing. But that is also observed!
Don't go heady with it.
Somehow, it is an intuitive recognition,
and there is a silence in that recognition.