You Are Not Your Thoughts

[Catsquotl]

Mmmm yes the mind is indeed memory, I am still digesting your post atm

Amongst other things. In the abhidhamma and the sattipatana sutta the ability to remember is but one of the functions or uses of consciousness.
There are more. I realize I am calling the mind consciousness now, which may not be entirely the same, but for this purpose i guess it's close enough.

It seems that buddhists have several ways to talk about the nature of consciousness. Several ways of defining them that is. as soon as I can sum them up in my own words i'll put them in the consciousness thread..

With Love
Eelco

[Aianawa]

Mmmm the work of Rupert Sheldrake around the brain not being the mind ( he along with Hancock were banned from Tedtalk ), leads me to see the mind as separate from consciousness or maybe a component of. Will feel into what you have said again

[Hermit]

Mmmmm so does one disregard the philosophers that give their simple answer/perception ?

It depends on the explanation. And very rarely it seems is that ever simple.

Cearna: Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes. It's a small book, fairly inexpensive, and probably available on the net for free. However, if you'd prefer a hard copy, pm me your address and I'll mail you mine.

[Aianawa]

The short vid on page two appears very simple in it's explanation imo basically seeing/being to then living

[Aianawa]

Here we go, was looking for the full context of > your thoughts are not your thoughts < and came across this >>>



The DVD player is there, the wire is there, the power is there. Everything is there. What is missing in this? The DVD player is the mind, it is there. Then the DVD, whatever it contains, is shown on the television. So the teachings that will be given to you would become your realization. Now as I'm giving the teaching if you listen very carefully, and there is a sadhana [spiritual practice] which should upload it into the DVD player.



If it is done correctly when you put on the switch it's all over. Maybe today, itself, you can become awakened. Today itself, in this very hall you can become awakened.



People are becoming awakened everyday now. Are you ready to be enlightened today itself? So therefore you will listen very carefully to the DVD of the teaching. So you are getting it into the DVD now and then you go on to uploading.



The first teaching: Your thoughts are not your thoughts. The second teaching: Your mind is not your mind. The third: Your body is not your body; and the fourth: Your self is only a concept. We will go to the fifth later.



If you listen and understand correctly, then we will be able to upload the DVD. Otherwise, no. Please remember that your thoughts have evolved over millennia, for thousands of years your thoughts have evolved. They are not your thoughts. They are very, very complex and they have evolved over millennia.



Whatever thought you have got now, it has been there with your ancestors and their ancestors. No single thought is new. Your brain is only a reprocessing machine. For example, it takes an idea and goes on reprocessing it. It takes many ideas and keeps reprocessing them, different permutations, different combinations.



The brain itself does not create anything new. It picks up and does the reprocessing. These are very, very old. All thoughts, even so called modern thought is very, very old. It is just being recycled by your brain.



Now if you look at medieval man, his thoughts too are similar. If you look at ancient man, his thoughts too are similar. Your thoughts are just there, like in the thought sphere.



It comes in by what we can the ajna chakra [third eye] and goes out through what we call the bindu [back of the head]. That's all. Receiving and transmitting. Receiving, processing and transmitting. That is what is going on.



It's the same atmosphere. It has been recycled for millennia. All the animals, they share the same atmosphere. The plants share. So you take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide. Plants take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. So it goes from your mouth to somebody. He picks up that air. It goes to some ants, an elephant,and it comes out of an elephant then it goes to a plant.



So the whole thing is being recycled-the atmosphere. Similarly, there is a thought sphere. Thoughts are continuously being recycled. The reprocessing machine is the human brain. We are actually a collective organism.



Your thoughts are not, therefore, your thoughts. I'll come back to it later. You mind. Your mind is not your mind at all. This mind also is very, very ancient and there is only one mind.



Every mind at its center has fear. The core of every mind is fear. Whoever you are-you may be the bravest man on the planet or the worst coward-but still there is fear at the center of the mind. There is no change at all.



All minds move from the past through the present into the future, all minds. All minds are trying to become. Everybody's mind is trying to become. Every mind has comparison, has jealousy, envy, anger, and lust. Everything is there in everybody's mind.



So there is only one mind. It's not that you have a different mind or somebody else has got a different mind. You cannot say this is my TB or her TB or his TB. It is TB, tuberculosis, that's all. Similarly, the mind is a disease. Everybody is diseased with the mind and it's the same thing.



It's not different at all, and ancient man also had the same mind. He had the same mind. There is no change with regard to the mind. It is the same.



Some sounds come out. He will not try to get out of that. Any sense, like smell, any sense, it comes and goes, it comes and goes. He is just experiencing. Nothing is his. He does not identify.



If he says, "These are my thoughts", then we say it is called aham-ākhyam, false identification. Why? Because of prajnaparadha, failure of intelligence. Now, with intelligence awakened he will see he is not that. It is just there, that's all.



Now how is he going to see his mind? Let us say he has a business mind. His mind will continue to do business the way he is doing business. But now he will see that the mind is doing business. Not that he is doing business. He'll watch his own mind doing business. The only thing is it'll do business much more efficiently now than before.



Because when you identify, you mess up things. When you don't identify it's a beautiful machine, the mind works on its own. It's naturally doing business. So he will see his own mind functioning.



In his speech, he'll be talking. He will see his mouth is moving, sounds are coming. It's all being controlled by the mind. But he is not the mind. He will see speech is automatically happening, without his getting involved in any way. It's a real marvel. It's so beautifully happening and he will see it happening.



In body movements, let us say he has to repair his car or repair a machine. Whatever mechanical things he does or whatever he can do, the body does it; let's say playing tennis, everything-very, very beautifully. He will not feel that he is doing things. Everything is happening automatically. The body is functioning.



So you see thoughts are going automatically, mind is functioning automatically, speech is happening automatically. All the systems are happening automatically. The body is functioning automatically. In fact, everything is automatic.



Now for example you may wonder about this. You might be saying, "I decided to move my hand". But today science is so evolved that we can watch the brain in real time and moments before you have moved your hand, the brain has decided to move your hand and just before you move, it gives the illusion that you have decided to move the hand. Actually, you have no role at all because you are not there.



The truth is you are not there. Your thinking that you are there is an illusion. Thinking is happening. There is no thinker who is thinking. It's an illusion. There is no thinker called Deepak who is thinking. There is only thinking. Just like if you draw a circle a center comes into existence. Thinking creates the illusion of a thinker.



There is nobody there. Just thinking is going on. So everything is automatic. That is the whole beauty of life. So that becomes the fifth teaching, all things are automatic.



So once again, your thoughts are not your thoughts, your mind is not your mind, your body is not your body, your self is only a concept. That is, you don't really exist. All things are automatic.



That is how an awakened being, an enlightened being sees. All things are automatic. He is just merely witnessing and experiencing, that's all. He does not identify.



The fifth teaching: let us take Deepak again, as an example; he's unawakened, unenlightened, he's standing on some big road. Then there goes a bus and he says, "that bus is a red bus", he gives commentary.



Then goes Miss World. He sees Miss World and Miss World has gone away. Two hours since Miss World went away, still Deepak is thinking of Miss World. "Shall I follow her?" "Shall I stop her vehicle?" "Shall I find where she is?" He is following her in his thoughts.



Let us say Deepak is awakened. It's the same road where Miss World is going. He sees Miss World. There is a moment of excitement and Miss World moves away, and that's all. It is forgotten. Next, there is a donkey-equal attention to the donkey. The donkey passes by. Next comes a camel-same attention. Then comes a leopard-the same attention.



He did not follow them in thought because he has stopped naming them. He will not call her Miss World or donkey. Miss World or donkeys are the same. It's an experience of Miss World or another experience, a donkey-equally nice the experience will be, that's all. That's the whole beauty about it, experience or to experience. No identification, no follow through-particularly that. It's all over.



So we will quickly realize, your thoughts are not your thoughts, your mind is not your mind, your body is not your body, all things are automatic. Everything is automatic.



Just like breathing is automatic. Body temperature is automatic. Digestive system is automatic. Circulation is automatic. Thinking is automatic. Speech is automatic. Body actions are automatic. It's the same thing except that you have an illusion.



Your self is a concept. That's the fourth teaching. That is you don't exist there at all. The fifth is all things are automatic. The next thing is you must have passion to become awakened. Do you have the passion to become awakened? How many of you want to become awakened? That's very good.



What you must realize is all of you are in jail. That you must understand very clearly. What is the jail called? The mind. You are in a jail called the mind. Why? Because you cannot experience anything. Just like a man in jail. Can he experience the outside world? Nothing. He can't experience. He can't breathe the fresh air outside, he can't see the light outside. Nothing. That is your condition.



For example, you cannot experience a glass of water. You are thinking. The moment you start drinking you say, "I'm thirsty" or you say, "this is mineral water", or a "Coca-Cola", or whatever. Some remark you'll pass on that.



Or, you'll think of the cricket commentary and what's happening at the IPL match, or what happened at the office. Something will go on. Your mind will not allow you to experience that glass of water. Let's say your morning break with your chapattis, bread or whatever you eat, you're not enjoying it. You can't experience it because the mind will not allow you.



You look at your wife's face. You can't experience your wife. All the images come rushing in. The thoughts come in. The mind comes in. She's already old. Probably she's old because thoughts have come in, that freshness has gone. The experience is gone. You cannot experience your wife, you get soon bored, you start looking at other women or this or that, and visa versa, the same thing.



You can't look at your own children, except through the mind. You can't see the beauty of your children. Everything is destroyed. When you go to the roads, such lovely people are going. People are so beautiful, trees, cars-nothing you can experience. The mind will not allow you. So there is nothing you can actually experience because of your mind.



Once upon a time you could experience, when you were little children. You've lost it. Now it's gone. You're prisoners of the mind, and the mind I told you, is nothing but the past. The mind is a flow of thought. Thought is of yesterday. It is a memory, it is death. It has no life, it has no living quality.



Life is something just living. It is the presence. It is the present. Thought cannot touch it. Thought is measurement. It measures things. The presence or the present is immeasurable. It cannot be measured. Thought can nowhere go near it, and therefore you are missing that in your life.



That is what is living and therefore you are dead people. I'm actually addressing dead people who think they are living. No, not at all. Maybe if you become awakened this evening you are going to know what it is to live.



So you must realize you are prisoners, that you cannot experience anything. What you call experience is altered experience. It has nothing to do with what I call experiencing. So you are in prison.



What is your life? It's a mediocre, meaningless, purposeless life-artificial meaning, artificial purpose. The same mechanical life, everyday the same routine of getting up and all those things you do in the morning with the breakfast-maybe some slight changes with the breakfast, then going to the office or the university, or this or that. Some friends chatting and then TV, cell phones, newspapers-the same rubbish goes on and on and on.



Then finally some quarrel, some fight or some worry, worrying about the past or the future and trying to go to bed, not able to sleep, then nightmares and then get up. Then you get diabetes, heart problems, arthritis. All the things happen and then finally you die like a cockroach.



The same problems keep repeating, first for you, then for your children, then for your grandchildren. You keep coping with it and then one day you just breathe your last. You may have a stroke or something happens and you're gone. So life is so mediocre, so mediocre and you're living all the time in prison.



What is this life? Because you have no meaning, you ask questions like: Is there a God? If there is a God, who created God? If there is no God, how did this universe come into existence? What is the purpose of life? What is the meaning of life? So many fundamental questions and so many books and so many answers.



Now this jail has got two locks, one inside, one outside. Once you develop the passion to get out of the jail, knowing it is the jail and life is mediocre, the inner lock opens up. Who would open the outer lock? Yes, we'll come with two guns and blast that lock, open the doors and pull you out.



For the first time you'll come out of the mind. Then for the first time you'll know what it is to breathe, what it is to eat, to drink, what it is to look at your wife, your children, your parents, your house, your car.



Everything will look very, very different. For the first time you will know what it is to live because the mind is gone. With the mind gone, you are gone. Deepak is gone. It's all over for Deepak with Deepak gone. Deepak is the questioner who was questioning, is there God? What is the purpose of life? With the questioner Deepak gone, questions are also gone.



With questions gone, all the answers are gone. All the answers are a huge amount of waste. They mean nothing. You have carried that burden on your head.



So this mind, which is a donkey that is what you are carrying on your shoulders. When I look at you what do I see? I see a huge donkey, a complex donkey which you are carrying on your shoulders and the donkey's big head is resting on your small head and you're walking like that.



How pitiable your condition is and the greater pity is you do not even know your condition is pitiable. That's your life. You're carrying a donkey. So when you get awakened you'll put down the donkey and with that you'll bundle up all the questions and the answers, all that you have read and put it out. It's gone because now he is living.



If you are drinking a mango juice would you ask, "How does it taste?" If you are living would you ask questions like: "What is life, purpose of life, meaning of life?" "What is God? Who is God?" All things are God. You are living and when you are living it's all over. You are only witnessing life. It is all happening automatically.



Everything is beautiful. You can play tennis very beautifully. You can do all the activities. Everything is the same. Your job is the same. Your business is the same. The house is the same. The wife is the same. The children are the same, but they all look different because the mind is no more interfering.



You are in paradise, exactly in paradise. So now, who are you then? Who is Deepak who is now not his thoughts, who is not his body, who is not his mind. Poor Deepak, he has lost everything. He is a total pauper. He has nothing with him now. Who is he then?



Poor Deepak, he has lost his thoughts. He has lost his mind, he has lost his body. He has lost all control. All things are automatic. But yet you are saying, Deepak is seeing his thoughts, Deepak is seeing his mind.



Now, Deepak is gone. The concept is gone because he has lost everything. He cannot claim anything to be his. But, he is witnessing. Therefore Deepak exists but not as the Deepak he thought. Therefore Deepak is existence, or Sat. Then Deepak is able to experience it. For that he needs consciousness.



First of all, Deepak is existing there. So he is Sat. He is Existence, not as a small Deepak but as Existence. But then he is able to experience the tree, the leaf shaking. The leaf shakes and the whole universe is shaking for him. He is thrilled at it. He is Chit. There is no exact translation in the English language for that. It is consciousness/intelligence.



He is Chit. He is able to perceive. Now there exists intelligence to perceive. And then he is great joy, Ananda. He is nothing but, Sat Chit Ananda.



Who is Deepak? He is Existence, Consciousness, Bliss, if we were to use the English words. But the more exact words would be Sat Chit Ananda. But since we also use Brahman to say it has got no qualities, the Brahman with qualities is called Parabrahma.



So he is nothing but Sat Chit Ananda Parabrahma. That Deepak is gone, he is dead and he is gone, he is finished, that Deepak who identified himself with thought, mind and body. He is gone. Now that is not Deepak there, what is there is Sat Chit Ananda Parabrahma.



He is witnessing. He is experiencing. He is in bliss. He is in the present. He is the Presence. He is AmmaBhagavan. He is God Himself. That's all. It is all over. When he is God Himself, would he ask, "Is there a God?" "Who is God?" "What is God?"



When Christ was worshipping God, He was saying "My Father in Heaven." But afterwards what did Christ say? "I and my Father are one."



Whatever God you worship, of course you can see your God inside and outside. That is only the initial stage. But as you grow, the strangest of paradoxes is whatever God you worship, you become that God. That is the paradox of this universe and every mystic would discover this on his mystical journey. Just only the language changes later on.



I'm going to program them now and afterwards they must keep repeating what I'm going to tell for 49 minutes. Now we begin the mukthi teachings. After I give them the teachings they could repeat them after me.



Thoughts are not mine.

Mind is not mine.

This body is not mine.

All things are happening automatically.

There is thinking but no thinker.

There is seeing but no seer.

There is listening but no listener.

There is doing but no doer.

There is no person there at all.



Now we are moving to the main mukthi process. I would repeat the mukthi mantra 3 times after which you would chant it non-stop for the next 49 minutes. The secret is you must all do it together in one voice without a break.



What happens is there are changes which happen to the brain and because of which the mukthi mantra enters the unconscious and the unconscious becomes aware of the mukthi mantra. Then the deeksha takes over and brings about physical changes in the brain whereby you become mukhtas.



Now how do you know you have become mukthas? There are many ways through which you could know you have become mukthas but I will give you a very simple example.



Let us say there is a couple here. They will be going home in the next two hours or so, and let's say the husband hurts the wife or the wife hurts the husband and normally this pain could last for days or weeks, or even months. But now you would notice the pain disappears of its own accord the 31st minute without your doing anything, the pain would just disappear.



As you continue with the sadhana the following days and weeks-you could go back home and do this process-you would notice that very rapidly the time comes down to 25 minutes, 20, 10, and eventually to 5 minutes. No hurt, no pain, no suffering lasts for more than 5 minutes. It just disappears.



Getting to 5 minutes is quite easy. Thereafter, the time comes down to 4, 3, 2, 1. That's a bit difficult. Then finally 1 to 0. That's the most difficult part. But if you have the passion to become sampurna jivanmukthas, or fully awakened, then the next few months you would get to zero.



When you get to zero, of course you join the great enlightened masters. But then the majority of you would get to 5 minutes in the next few weeks or even days. What happens then? The entire atmosphere in the family changes: relationship between husband and wife, between parents and children, you and your in-laws, your relatives, your friends and anything and everything.



As a consequence of this changed environment, you would soon notice that in the external world your financial problems tend to disappear. You health problems tend to vanish. Your business problems and whatever other problems you might have, they also tend to disappear for the simple reason there was this charge, this suffering, this pain which in the first instance caused all these problems.



The coming years are going to be difficult years. But then if you become mukthas you would be able to effortlessly handle these difficult times.



I would now repeat the mukthi mantra 3 times after which you could start chanting. I would be on the screen for a minute or two then I will not be on the screen but Amma and I would be fully meditating and staying focused on you. After 49 minutes Amma and I would come and give you a Nayana deeksha, after which you must become fully awakened.



I am Existence, Conscious, Bliss [chanted in Hindi].







*******************


Messages that appeared on the video screen below Sri Bhagavan:




1. All learning is unlearning
2. Truth when not yours, still remains untruth
3. Where there is choice there is no freedom
4. There are no viewpoints only points to view
5. All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions, nothings exists entirely alone, everything is in relation to everything else.
6. Love is the essence of the universe
7. You become what you experience
8. Suffering is in the perception not in the fact
9. Not all problems can be solved, some have to be dissolved
10. True affection is to be affected
11. Perfection is not a concept it is in seeing all things perfect
12. How you experience the world depends on you
13. Happiness does not depend on the external world, it depends on how you experience reality
14. When you take what is not yours, you lose what is yours
15. God is where all contradictions coexist

[Aianawa]

Bumping for feedback ,

[Catsquotl]

Feedback on?
the question we are not our thoughs? or the Sri Bhagavan teaching.

I agree with the first.

I think the second is overly convoluted without saying much. A series of random statements that we have to accept face value or we aren't listening correctly. He lost me after that.


WIth Love
Eelco

[Aianawa]

Imo forget about the messenger

[Catsquotl]

Ehm ok, but what's the message he is trying to convey?

Reading through his discourse has me wondering... should I be with my experience? or become a muktah.
I really don't understand where he is going in his teaching, I'm sure he tries to point at something, but the way he speaks makes it so I can't understand at the moment.

Would you like to paraphrase the core of this discourse?
I can't find it.

With Love
Eelco

[Aianawa]

Your mind is not your mind - when one watches their mind, they are not the mind.

Your body is not your body - your temple is not who you are.

Your thoughts are not your thoughts -

[Aianawa]

Unsure if you got that ? ( above post ), the material above is like reprogramming as such with deeksha/divine grace added on top. The mind is a placed programme hence being called the ancient mind, a component of the/our veil. Our thoughts, PAH , knowing is our natural state, to not go fishing in that mind river is heaven on earth, holding all the time ( the mind river just is there as such ) is bliss. Service to others becomes normal, service to self ( mind/body/thoughts etc ) just happens, synchronicity while a marvel at first, becomes normal. The more people that reach this state, the more people that reach that state, the more people that begin journey to this state, a natural noospheric transmission. Still, for humanity, likely certain tribulations will be needed ( lovingly of course ) to transpire.

[Aianawa]

Being a slow day on the forum, I felt to explore my thoughts, ooopps, lol. Many times on close energy encounters with a person, I had thoughts that I knew were not mine, but for some seconds they were until feeling and logic stepped in. I muse how many times back in time did I not know this was happening.

[Aianawa]

Exploring the thoughts are not your thoughts a wee bit more.

If that river of thoughts became smaller, less easy to pick from to the average human being or more easy to fish for the more positive from it, due to said river getting cleaned up a wee bit through less negative thoughts polluting it, less desire to go fishing but instead having more aspiration to seeking divinely or intuitively, which in turn will help cleanse the river more, could then this itself bring about an event, an event that is not so harsh on the collective mind ?.

[Cearna]

Being a slow day on the forum, I felt to explore my thoughts, ooopps, lol. Many times on close energy encounters with a person, I had thoughts that I knew were not mine, but for some seconds they were until feeling and logic stepped in. I muse how many times back in time did I not know this was happening.

The first time this happens, it is so close to you and so clear, then each time it happens and you take no notice, it just slips by you.

This is what the first timer might recognise - OMG, where in the world did that come From? You know it is simply, not the type of thinking you would have yourself.

OK live in that second, next time, take notice of it, it does not only happen when in close proximity to someone else. Think on it, regardless of the fact that you are already in a conversation with some one else. This is a thought, not a voice. There is no reason for you to be linking with that thought, so why is it there?

Give yourself a good big hug next time, because all day long, some one within the field of your Soul, has mentioned something, your Soul has been itching to tell you, and you won't take in when it tries to let you know about this particular topic. The imminent tipping of your soul to this some one else, is the first encounter of the best kind you will experience, for it takes you into Soul life. Sorely missing in our Self, is the observation of elevating thoughts. This is wondrous to some - this is awareness of your insides. This is what the final link to Self is

This is the next step in your solid fear full self, beginning to solve "Who I am". These are now your thoughts, not any ancient thoughts in the river of life or whatever else you might like to call it, these are words of elevation, to name one way of putting it, or mind centring to place better wording to this, for this is words of your mind, hearing words of judgemental thinking and this is Soul wrong to you, so you are now tilling the soil, of getting it right, in just this second you have found the essence of life and let it go, without so much as a second thought.

Your Soul life gets caught out like this, until you realise, this is what the real Truth is to me in this particular life's work. These messages are what your Soul has been waiting for you to come to, and if you recognise this as your Truth, it will write this in your Soul for you to carry on through all time, if you don't recognise it, you will need to go through this experience in some way again. Soooooooooo - you are your thoughts, just as your illnesses are the result of re -occurring thoughts of yours, so don't be misled into thinking your thoughts cannot become you, - thoughts heal or harm - these are your simple life goals, start claiming them as your own, and don't logic them out of existence.

[Aianawa]

Felt the best way to reply to above post was putting original post here again, as when you read it and then the above post, stronger clarity may sensed about your thoughts not being your thoughts. Thank you for giving me your angle on how you perceive things Cearna.



What you try to do is you try to push out some things and keep the others. That is the mistake. You say this is good, that is evil. That is the problem. You say this is sacred, this is profane. That is the problem. You have to accept all that is there. You accept the most beautiful thoughts and you have to accept the most terrible thoughts because they are all happening inside of you. That is the truth.

Thoughts are millions of years old. They are not your thoughts. They are just flowing through you. That’s all. The structure of thoughts does not change. Only the object has changed. Thought has remained the same. Thought is essentially measurement. It is comparison. Ancient man was measure and comparing. You also do. He was comparing how many cows he had, how much the neighbor had. You are comparing how many cars you have, how many the neighbor has.

Comparing is thought. It is measurement. All thought is measurement. It is comparison. It does not change. They are not your thoughts. They are there. So your thoughts are not your thoughts.

Your mind. What is the mind? The mind is full of thoughts and the mind is a human mind. It’s very, very ancient. The same structure: fear, jealously, anger, hatred, worry about the past, worrying about the future. It has not changed at all. Only the objects have change. Desire is there. You had desire for a spear. You have desire for money. That’s all. You had fear of the saber-toothed tiger. You have fear of the share market. That’s all. The structure is the same and the mind is very, very ancient. So your mind is not your mind. It’s very, very ancient. It is just there. You assume it is yours. So your mind is not your mind.

Your body. Your body is not your body. You did not design your body. It was designed millions of years ago. The same structure: the nose is here, the ear is here, breathe in oxygen, give out carbon dioxide. It’s been the same for millions of years. You did not design it. You did not create it. You did not conceive it. You did nothing in fact. How come it is your body? It’s not your body at all. You have to think about it. Contemplate on that.

Then the self, the sense of separation. That’s again an illusion. It depends upon how fast the senses are coordinating—slightly slow down, the sense of separation is gone. There is only oneness. You don’t exist as an independent entity at all. There is no separate existence. Not at all. Just another big illusion. Your self is only a concept.

Now how to understand this? A very simple example would help you understand this. Mainly the dress that you’re wearing, you did not design the dress. You did not tailor that dress. You did not weave the textile in the textile mill. You did not grow the cotton or create the polyester that has gone into the dress. In no way are you involved with the dress. How do you say it is your dress? It’s not at all your dress.

Similarly your thoughts are not your thoughts. Your mind is not your mind. Your body is not your body. The self is only a concept. The moment you become awakened you’re out of all this and you see your thoughts automatically happening. You see your speech automatically happening and you see your actions. You may think you’re moving your arm by your control. It’s not so. You can watch the brain in real time. Moments before you decide to move your hand the brain had decided to move the hand. It’s only the illusion that you have decided to move your hand.

Now the problem is you’re identifying yourself with your thoughts, with your mind, with your body and the so-called self. This we call anatma. Anatma in Sanskrit which means false identification. And why is there this false identification? Because of what we call in Sanskrit pragnaparada or failure of intelligence which is what we try to awaken in level 2. Because of failure of intelligence you’re having wrong identification which leads to a sense of separation. The sense of separation is the cause of all problems. All problems inside yourself are caused because of this sense of separation. All problems with the family are caused because of this sense of separation. All problems in your country are caused because of this sense of separation. All problems in the world arise because of this sense of separation.

If you remove the sense of separation then there are no problems in the individual, no problems in the family, no problems in the nation, no problems in the world. That is the root cause of all problems. To be free of the self is the only revolution.

The only solution to all our problems is to ultimately awaken where we lose this sense of separation. That is the real problem