The Room of Being
27 December 2022 (with subtitles)
[Mooji] I want you to be more aware that you are looking.
Not what's going on. What's going on, essentially, is just looking.
And keep the energy inside just the awareness itself. Just be with that.
[Questioner] Yes. Sometimes there's in the perceiving still a kind of ...
It's very subtle, it's hard to say it in words,
there's still a sense of ...
How can I describe it? The perceiving comes from here, in a way,
and it feels somehow still like ...
Yes, like I'm not perceiving fully. There's still some kind of ...
[M.] I've been giving a little advice recently,
like, say, you're sitting in a room and you're alone,
and there's a window, you're looking outside.
And outside is the mind, all that's going on.
And it is very persuasive, it's got a lot of ideas, suggestions,
it's like it's trying to talk to you ...
[Q.] Outside of the window. [M.] Yes. But you're here.
[M.] You don't need anything from there.
But sometimes some scenes go and, 'Ah!'
You get interested in that for a bit.
And when you get interested it's as though you get identified.
It's like you're on the other side of the window. It appears like that.
It's not true because you're still in the room.
And then, from there, you're involved in something,
and like this you get entangled, you're trying to get back out.
But all of this, if you stayed in the room, could be watched,
and you would still be untouched by it. It's very important.
Something inside said, 'I need to get involved in it,
it's something I want to do'.
You're watching from the beingness, from your natural being.
The beingness has a tendency to get involved in the becomingness
and then it becomes personal.
When it becomes personal, it's somehow,
like you're cut off from the root seeing.
So when I say to you, you can observe, but don't be too interested,
because if you get interested, you get identified very easily.
What's the reason? It's not to be afraid of what you see,
but that as you are observing and staying,
just paying attention, that you're looking from a stillness.
You're not telling yourself that. You're seeing that, actually.
The seeing, when you don't hook up with what's happening there,
it stays detached. It's like things are just coming and going.
You're not controlling them. There's no need to control.
They're just unfolding like that.
But every now and again some thoughts come which feel very familiar
and that familiarity becomes very engaging, like it's calling.
But all I'm asking you to do is to stay, be aware of just being aware.
Like this. Stay like this. Gradually, if you stick with it enough,
because nobody does it ...
Usually, something comes, after a bit, we're in.
And that's just in and out, in and out, all the time.
Actually, very rarely in.
Very few people are observing while staying detached.
So, if you do this for a while, what happens, at some point,
the scene you're looking at feels like it just becomes really separate,
it's like you're not troubled by it anymore.
It's like it's more distant for you.
Then what happens in this moment,
it's like some power comes up in you
that just holds you in this peace, like a deep sense of peace.
And it's a very powerful peace and a sweet detachment
[Mooji] and joy inside. [Q.] Yes. Yes.
[Mooji] Don't celebrate!
You're simply in that and stay in that, just stay with it.
Keep staying in that. The more you get used to this,
the less influence your mind will have, when it rises, to catch you.
Just keep staying like this, gradually.
Because even when you realise that you're not it,
mind will still come, it will still come.
And you have to keep exercising your discernment,
that you're looking.
Of course, there are times when the mind comes and there are things to do.
The point I'm making is that, when your power stays here,
then what happens is that the world that you see,
the life that's flowing from your body as well,
it gets flavoured by your beingness and not by your person,
and when it is like this, your world becomes more harmonious.
When it goes from the person, it's very erratic.
And that's what I'm sharing, to keep looking.
It's not to dismiss the world, 'Oh, it's horrible'.
It's only horrible for the person. The reaction is usually from the person.
'I don't like this, it's so hard, I don't know what I'm going to do,
I'm not getting anywhere, I need to try ...' This is the voice of the person.
But you're in the room, in a room of silence and it's quite impersonal.
It's the room of being, I'm going to call it a room.
It's your natural space. And you must preserve this space.
When the mind is calling you to become personal,
you must keep looking with detachment.
It feels difficult in the beginning,
but as soon as you experience the beauty of it,
then you have more resolve in you to stay with it.
You stay with it and stay with it and gradually, the mind will ...
Sometimes it's almost like the mind is like someone
that comes and says, 'Come!' And you're gone, so easily.
Because it feels like it presents you with a history
and habit and tendencies and things,
promised things, that will promise to fulfill you
and to be good and dreaming and so on.
So very few people are really staying in the place
where they are observing with detachment. Very, very, very few.
But as soon as it begins to work for you,
you'll see what a huge difference it makes.
You won't be struggling with life.
Even the things that feel very painful and difficult for you,
you start to appreciate that they help you to stay here.
[Q.] Yes. And today I had an experience with shame.
It happens sometimes a lot that my head is turning red.
And then somehow, I started seeing it as a blessing,
because it is possible that the head is turning red
and it doesn't disturb me,
because then if it turns red or not, it doesn't matter.
But when the mind clings in and it's like,
'Now you feel uncomfortable or people around you feel uncomfortable',
then it starts ... comes the stickiness.
[M.] That's discerning the difference between the person and presence.
Presence is the witness. Person is the involved, the false self,
and its projections and so on.
And now, after so many years of sharing and talking with people,
the guidance just becomes simpler and simpler.
And why it becomes simpler and simpler,
is when I find people who will listen to it and follow it.
If you're following it ... If you're listening from a person,
you're always going to need more advice, more learning, more study,
more practice, more places to travel.
If you can listen in the place of being and just follow it,
you see, 'Wait a second, where do I need to go?
I'm really happy just here in my being.'
It doesn't mean the mind is going to give up.
It will keep coming for a while. Just stay with it, stay with it.
[Q.] It was so powerful when you said, 'Just sit with it'.
Actually, it works.
And it was just so powerful, because you said, 'Who's doing that?'
Like, 'Just sit with it'. It is also a reminder for me,
because as you said, going or running away or finding other things,
it can happen so fast.
[Mooji] Yes, very quickly.
[M.] And even if you feel like, 'Oh, I got identified again',
don't register that as a failing. Don't worry. Just again come back.
The minute you come back and honour just looking from here again,
that action before is forgotten. It doesn't have any ...
It's not like you're building a history of failure.
But the mind will tell you that. Just stay back, keep coming back.
Every time come back. You're simply here.
You're just here, in this place.
And it's the most simple and the most effective.
In fact, every other kind of advice,
teaching this and learning, they are secondary to this.
This is the primal, the primary advice. If you can do this,
this is what I mean that you catch the whole ocean with one hook.
Follow this thing, just stay with it.
Because you may find that your mind is making other suggestions
and telling you how another spiritual practice might work.
It will do this. You just have to grow.
And when you get the result, you don't need to, 'Oh, I think it's ...'
No, you get the result, you acknowledge the results,
and that will give you a lot of confidence to continue doing it.
Just like that.
[Q.] And also without ...
Like the mind can also try to get the advantages of like,
exposing and observing.
This can also be very fast that the mind tries to ...
[M.] Take the credit for it. [Q.] Yes, take the credit for it.
[Q.] It can even do that.
[Mooji] You'll not find anyone
that can create delusion in you other than your own mind. [laughter]
OK? That's the only thing you have to master.
You don't have to master anybody else. If you can master ...
By mastering I mean just being aware of what is happening
and seeing that, actually, it's just a movie.
Actually, so many thoughts you may experience in a day
and at the end of the day you cannot remember any of them.
They have no value, they are nothing at all!
But if you catch one, it will stick with you.
So just be aware of that and just keep looking and checking in.
This simple thing.
And what happens, how clever and how strong our conditioning is,
is that sometimes you'd rather go and do 50 other practices,
rather than just this one thing.
Why? Because this works. And the mind comes with resistance.
But over the years I came to a conclusion that
you don't need to regard your mind as your enemy.
Actually, it's one of the best helpers,
because he's going to give you such a hard time, that it's only by ...
If he was giving you sweet times, you would never wake up.
But because it crashes so often
and you get tired of struggling and suffering, then you become more open
to looking for a guidance that really works.
And this works!
[Q.] Thank you. [Mooji] Good, good, good.
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