(bell chimes) - So that we can relax into being, let go of the idea that we are doing a meditation here. So let's get rid of the idea of doing anything right now. Become comfortable with being, no next moment to look forward to or to fear.
No past moment that you need to think about right now. So the now is enough for being. Awareness of being implies transcendence of thinking, compulsive thinking.
And if there are spaces in yourself right now where you are not thinking, then it's working for you and you're not doing anything. What's left of you when you don't remember your past and are not thinking about the future? Because the future is always something that you think about, never an actuality.
So what's left of you when you don't remember the past? Don't refer to a memory of the past, don't think about the future, just this. Now what is left is the essence of who you are but you can't call that anything really.
The being, perhaps, the presence, the space and the consciousness, can use all kinds of pointers. They're all just pointers. The light, the light of consciousness.
Becoming comfortable with that space in which there's no conceptual knowledge, just a presence, formless presence, can't name it. The moment you name it, you give it form. It is who you are beyond form.
And it is deeply fulfilling. There's a joy in being who you are beyond the form as which you appear. It's the joy of being very subtle at first.
At first, you may not notice it as joy. It's just a space, a spacious presence. It is being.
In India called (indistinct). It is consciousness. In India called (indistinct).
And it is joyful. The consciousness of being is joyful, (indistinct) it's the Indian description of that state of realization of who you are. Underneath the form is such (indistinct).
Being consciousness, bliss, one single realization, not three realizations, one realization. And then in the truest sense of the word, you are enjoying yourself, not in the superficial sense. When people say, go and enjoy yourself, have a good time, this is different.
You are not having a good time, you're having no time. You are in joy in yourself, regardless of your life circumstances right now. It's not your life situation.
It has nothing to do with it. It's life itself. Something that may prevent you from dwelling in this beautiful realization and being consciously rooted in being is the compulsion to think even when it's not needed at all, when life would be more clear, more free, more enjoyable, more life without the interference of useless thinking.
Now in this world, in our culture, very few people as yet know about the possibility of not having to think all the time. When they speak of not thinking or no mind, the word is used mindless. It means you're falling below thinking, becoming unconscious.
And here we are going beyond thinking or rising above thinking. A few thousand people in different parts of the planet at this moment, transcending compulsive thinking. In a few thousand human beings at this moment, a new consciousness is arising.
Transcendence of thinking, presence, which is awareness of being, awareness of awareness, self-realization. And it's happening at this moment. Nothing to do really with the person, the different persons that are here on the planet or this person or that person.
The person has made room for this to arise. The person has become transparent. The person being complete identification with thinking, an illusory identity, a form identity, short lived form identity, me the person, my personal past and my personal future meets me, I have to think about that.
And here the person subsides, loses its density because spaces are rising in between thoughts. In that space, the person is transcended and something else flows through this form, the form becomes an opening for that. A little analogy, let's say you are an actor on a cinema screen involved in the usual personal dilemma, various dilemmas that are part of being a person who is unaware of the transcendent dimension.
If you're only a person unaware of the transcendent dimension, then your entire life is a dilemma. The dilemma takes on different forms, but it's always problematic, conflict ridden. So let's say you are an actor on a film screen acting out preconditioned roles according to the script in your mind, which is the conditioning of your mind.
Of course, the only reality, an actor or any figure or anything that happens on a cinema screen is the light that is shining through the film in the camera. And what is perceived as persons running around the screen getting anxious about this and that are really various ways in which the light is being obscured that's behind the film in the camera. So let's stick for a moment to this analogy.
The various forms that you see on the screen are ways in which a light is being obscured, that's being obscured in different ways. And so they're doing whatever they do. The only reality is the light, that is what gives it life, animates it.
Now we're coming to the end of the analogy but you're not quite there yet. Now the end of the analogy is say one or several of the figures on the screen are becoming aware of that light that makes up the essence of who they are, in the midst perhaps of acting out the drama or the short-lived happinesses, followed by unhappiness, in the midst of all that, they're becoming aware that in essence they are that light. And the awareness is not a thought, it's a realization.
And the very realization comes because there's a moment of not thought. When they've stripped the learned script, the conditioning of their mind, a moment has parted and spacious awareness is there, which is the light. And suddenly they're no longer totally identified with the role they're playing.
They're in touch with something that transcends the limitations of their role and their person. And they feel that light, that they are the light of consciousness in the background of their being as a spacious, stillness awareness. And then they go about doing what they do.
Perhaps for a while, nothing much changes. The conditioned script is still being acted out but then they notice little changes happening, even the script is changing because space is there in between the lines. And then the next line, suddenly there's something new in it.
Suddenly they say something that they themselves didn't know before. Something new, fresh, alive that doesn't conform to the script, the conditioning of their mind. And then perhaps where before they would've reacted to another character in the usual pre-conditioned way, suddenly instead of the reaction, there's a space, a non-reaction and something totally different happens.
So as they're becoming aware of their essential nature, even the way in which they deal with the world of form, the way in which they are here as persons, changes. That's the end of our cinema analogy. So this is very much what's happening here.
Awareness of the transcendent dimension. Without that, it's a little bit pointless to go on with just the limited, conditioned actor or actress. Just again, same thing being acted out, the same reactions, the same opinions and viewpoints and identification with mental positions and me and.
Now of course, the secret is to sustain that spacious awareness as much as possible in everyday life. Which means even when you do things, here we are not doing anything. We are just going into being.
Now what happens when you start doing again? Doing includes thinking. That's the primordial doing.
When you start doing again, is there still an awareness of a background awareness, so to speak, of spaciousness, presence? You're doing here but not completely lost in it. While you're doing, there's an awareness of being.
What is that awareness of being? You're aware of yourself, your (indistinct), consciousness, aware of awareness.
