Author: John Richards

This is the Tuesday Talk held July 21, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk July 21, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. With limited Edits

Q: Are we still here? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

John: You can hear me, right?

Q: Yeah, yeah. Okay, now I see you.

John: Yeah.

Q: Peek-a-boo. I guess there was one thing I was noticed. I was a number of weeks back and a number of weeks before that I mentioned that I had been using, in the morning, using I, I, I, I as a Mantra.

I would just do it for a short time, and it seemed to like make a connection with the, with the Selfless Self, or whatever you want to call it, bliss or whatever. And at the time you said it was a body-based thing. And then, but then after that, like a number of weeks later, you made a reference to the I, I, I.

I probably don't remember that, but I was just wondering if...

John: You probably would have said the just I, just I. And that's that subtle, subtle feeling, that subtle sense of Presence, or the I am, as Nisargadatta Maharaj calls it. Not to repeat I, I, I, or any kind of contemplation.

Anything to do with the mind is, you know, again, you're prior to mind. Mind came along with the body. If you're using the mind, then you're actually in the illusion and you're strengthening the illusion.

Even the feeling of Samadhi or any kind of bliss or anything like that, you're, you're using body base. And I think Maharaj talks about the foundation. When you lay the foundation, you want the foundation to be very, very strong.

And the foundation is very, very strong through Mantra, through just that once again, meditation, the subtle, subtle just I, just I, the sense of Presence. Remaining with that sense of Presence, just your awareness of Presence. This is the strong foundation, because then nothing can, can break that.

Like that is direct self-recognition, recognition in the projection. Oh, so that I, I am that. I am not this body. Body and world come along synonymously, so I'm neither of these. I'm literally outside the world, and yet the world is inside myself. I have nothing to do with the body.

And as Maharaj would say, when we're speaking these words, we're hitting that silent, invisible, anonymous, unidentified identity, that silent listener, the true you, when you're not in delusion of thinking that you're something else. And that's where, you know, again, the Vipassana meditation, he talked about that, and when we were at one circle, the lady was very adamant that she really enjoys Vipassana. And Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj has talked about, it was either him or Siddharameshwar Maharaj, I think it was Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj talked about that there were people who would hold their breath, and this guy would actually have a car parked on top of him.

And he would show these amazing powers, because of being able to hold the breath. And yet again, this is not knowledge. This is all within the body base, where Siddharameshwar Maharaj also talks about, don't get involved in Siddhas.

You know, the powers that come, like you suddenly, maybe you're feeling clairvoyant, or you're feeling like you're, who knows what you're feeling like, but again, these are the Siddhas. And that gets you trapped in the illusion, because it's like, oh, look at this, look at this thing. If I do this, I am getting this.

And as they say, Maya enjoys this. There's no such thing as Maya, but you say Maya enjoys watching the people dance around her. Because it's all within the bubble of illusion.

If you don't go direct to the source, you know yourself in a real sense, there's direct recognition, which begins with that subtle, subtle, subtle sense of Presence, then otherwise you're just dancing in the illusion. Everything you do is in the illusion. Think of it as in a dream.

Within the dream, you go and you do all these spiritual practices, and you feel enlightened. You feel like, wow, you know, this is it. This is the spirit.

I'm one with the spirit. And then you wake up, and everything you did within that dream was within that dream, and it's finished. It's gone.

Well, everything you do with this body, this body base, is a weak foundation on which you're stacking your spiritual self. Because it will pass. Everything passes except you.

And, you know, you can—and there are many people out in the world that are doing all sorts of different, various practices, and like Maharaj said, people will stand in the Ganges on one leg until they're like worn down from the current. They'll sit in a cave for a month or two months or whatever, thinking this is spirituality. But again, it's only just torturing the body for no apparent reason.

When you use the body, you're automatically—the key to illusion is the body. Well, the key to illusion is I exist. But the instrument that's used in the illusion is the body.

If you're using the body, which comes along with mind, ego, intellect, to try and know yourself, you're using the thief to catch the thief, because you're prior to body. So, anything that you're using the body for is absolutely useless in your own self-experience.

Q: Because I guess I'm still missing the truth. If I'm attributing bliss as if bliss is a more direct experience of the I am, then that's still—I mean, it seems more direct, but everything seems to be something or other. So, it's just seeming, even though it seems more direct, the bliss seems more present than my mental activity.

It's still not absolute freedom from the senses of making something out of what I'm experiencing, I guess.

John: Yeah. I mean, it's more and more and more subtle. Definitely, it's better than being lost in the mind and worried and running around like a chicken with the head cut off, so to speak. But it's not ultimate truth. That's why Maharaj talks about Samadhi. Oh, I had a very good Samadhi. Well, that's lovely. But ultimate stage, there's no Samadhi. There's no you there. And ultimate stage? Subtle, subtle Presence. Just I, just I.

Just a subtle, subtle feeling, this I exist, I am, as this is transferred. And this is the subtle point. Transferring and saying, I'm more like this Presence, as Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Ramakant Maharaj says, you're more subtle than space or sky.

I'm more like this Presence than I am this body. Well, if I start to transfer any kind of identification onto the sense of Presence, which is formless, then I am no longer concerned with the body, mind, ego, intellect. I'm no longer doing anything related to those things, nor am I concerned with the world, because I'm more like the space in the room than the object.

Not an object. So now, you do your job, do your duties with this very subtle understanding that I'm more like the sense of Presence than I am this body form. This body is within the Presence that I am.

Now, the more you now remain with just a sense of Presence, because now you're identified, you're feeling, using this body form, you're feeling that sense of Presence, it becomes Selfless Self-intoxication. You would like to remain with the sense of Presence more than you would go about and bother with, like, what is going on in the world and all this sort of thing. So, this is the door, so to speak.

On one side of this sense of Presence, because the world is projected on that Presence, the other side is the knower of the sense of Presence. Now, Presence has become an object the same as this table (knocks on table). It can be experienced.

I'm experiencing the sense of Presence. Well, who is that that knows the sense of Presence? That you are.

This eliminates everything as well, because whether Presence is or is not, I am. Remove the sense of Presence, and the knower of the sense of Presence is still there with no sense of Presence to know. And this is what Maharaj would call prior to beingness.

And that is your true state. Presence has appeared. The body was sensed through this.

Dream world is projected, waking dream state, whatever you want to call it. Identification with this body form is impressed very quickly, because you have mom and dad telling you good things, bad things. You go through life thinking you're a body.

It's heavily impressed on you that you're a body. Even in dream, you want to take a body in order to experience the dream. It's not natural for you to remain in your natural state due to the impressions of being a body.

But as you know yourself in a real sense, I am not body, I was not body, I'm not going to remain the body, then these body impressions are less and less. That's what Maharaj calls the illusory layers. Fire is burning, removing the ash, the illusory layers.

We remove the illusory layers through Mantra. As Mantra, Presence, all of a sudden now, oh. So, the door on this side is the world, Presence, the knower of the sense of Presence.

Now, somebody will say, well, what happens when the body drops? But again, the sense of Presence, whether it is or is not, I am. And the sense of Presence came along with the body.

The body is the instrument that can sort of sift that and feel that Selfless Self-intoxication. Without a body, you're not feeling the sense of Presence, because there's no instrument in which to feel it. And yet, you are.

Whether the Presence is or is not, I am. Body is a projection with the world. When the body falls, nothing happens, because you're the knower of the sense of Presence.

And whether Presence is or is not, I am.

Q: Could you say that... Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Could you say that knowing being yourself, self-knowledge is almost like a different type of sense than the limited sense of a relative sense?

John: Well, again, no knowledge is knowledge.

Q: When you say a real sense, sometimes you say in a real sense.

John: In a real sense, without the use of body, mind, ego, intellect.

Q: So, you're still using the word sense, real sense.

John: Well, in a real sense, this is, don't get caught up in the words. It's just the fact that you have direct recognition. It's a direct experience of your own self, and that's why it's irrefutable.

Q: So, I mean, compared to our normal way of defining sense, it could be defined as a different type of sense, but it's not really a different type of sense.

John: No, senses came along with the body, as far as touching, feeling, all this kind of stuff. Even sixth sense needs a body, so forget about all that. The knower of the sense of Presence, that you are.

Again, while you're identified with the sense of Presence, it's still illusion, because I exist is the seed that sprouts illusion. But to whom does I exist appear? That is your own self.

You cannot know yourself directly. You understand everything you know is other than yourself. The direct experience is the knower of this sense of Presence, because that Presence is so prevalent, it becomes your absolute everything.

As Nisargadatta Maharaj said, he sat with the I am. He continued just remaining with I am, I am, I am, until it dropped. And it will drop.

That's spontaneous conviction. All the illusory concepts are blown away. There's no place for them to stick. You can't be a man, or a woman, or a Christian, or a Muslim, or an American, or a Russian, or black, or white, or none of this, because there's no place to hang the hat.

Q: You can't be a body or a world, even.

John: You couldn't possibly be a body. Again, a good example, this is a lump of five elemental goo, just a lump, as Maharaj calls it, a food body. I put food in this body, it grows.

Sometimes it grows a little bit too much, but it grows from food. It's just food body. Presence is gone. We call this death. You take it to the funeral pyre, or you take it to the burial site, or cremation, or whatever you're going to do with the body. You don't want it sitting around your house.

So now think, this is just no Presence here, just this lump. And let's say the space in the room somehow was able to see through these eyes. And because the space did not know it was space, and had nothing to know, it now has an instrument of knowing.

And there are things to know, because now the space sees through the eyes, and believes, I'm seeing things. A world has appeared. And I can move, and I can do things, and all this sort of thing, and yet you're the space.

And this is just a lump of goo.

Q: It's all within the space.

John: The space, recognizing I exist, is within the space. And everything within the I exist is illusion. All these are objects in the space. Does it affect the space if all these objects are thrown away? No. If the building crashes, it doesn't affect the space. Therefore, we say illusion. With the space, objects within the space are not true. And yet if the space was to see through these eyes, and oh, what's all this stuff? Where am I? Who am I? How did I get here?

Because body came along with intellect, figuring it out, so to speak. And now let's say the space goes on a spiritual journey to try and find out who I am, and uses this instrument to try and find out who am I. And maybe goes to somebody who says, you know, oh, this is a guru, because I have a body. Here's another body, so I think I'm going to go to this very wise person, and I'm going to surrender to this very wise person. And yet this very wise person is the space. Same space.

But their understanding is, I know myself in a real sense. I'm not this body. I'm space. I was deluded for a time that I was body, but I'm space. And then they try to impress in you, listen, this is the ultimate reality. You're the space.

You're not the body. You just happen to have clicked with a body and seen a world, but it's not true. Ah, yes, Master, but what happens when I die? I want to know what happens to my soul. Okay. Soul is a body-based concept.

Death is a body-based concept. You're the space. You suddenly realized, I can see.

I exist because this body sort of was available. You hijacked this lump of flesh and called it yourself. And then because you started doing good things and bad things, you attributed actions to this body that you've hijacked, basically, which is a dead body, a lump of goo.

You're dragging this form around with you. And then that guru would say, drop this body and remain as the space. And at first, when you drop this idea of being a body, there'd feel an expansion because you're no longer heavily being pressed. I am a body. Same in a dream. Formlessly, a dream world appears.

Instantaneously, a world is projected, and you create a little dream body and have a little dream experience. But when you wake up, it's not true. When you know yourself in a real sense, this so-called world is not true.

Master is impressing on you. You're more like space or sky than you are this body. And when we're speaking, it's not to the person you believe yourself to be. It's that space that hijacked that lump of goo that is trying to identify itself to make sense, because it has had the intellect of saying, Who am I?

Q: It's lost in a dream almost.

John: Correct. This body-based existence is a long dream. Again, Maharaj explains this by the something came out of nothing. The nothing is your own self, formless, all of everything, basically. The nothing—that's the nothing. The something is the body, which then you have illusory layers—world, ego, intellect, mind, experiencing, all this sort of thing. The nothing is back to your natural, original state before you were deluded in believing that you were a body.

Q: I was wondering, at some point today, I kind of wanted to maybe address something that I know we don't normally address things that go on in our personal lives. Is it okay to bring up something like that?

John: I mean, there's no person, so all of your body-based experiences are not true, and by impressing that they are, how is that helpful for you? The answer to every question is—

Q: The body sometimes needs some kind of a way of basing its actions on things that are happening. Rather than making my actions based on a sense of being a body and a self, or being selfish, it's better to act selflessly, I think. At least putting other beings ahead of yourself rather than putting yourself first in your actions.

John: But all these things you're speaking, which self? There are no other selves.

Q: But things are happening in the illusion, or could be at least according to an illusory way of experiencing. Things are happening, and things seem real important. You said you still have to deal with things.

The body still has to deal with things.

John: Do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities.

Q: That entails doing your duties without interference of—so much interference of desires, of personal, selfish desires, rather than just dealing with it as it pops up without any kind of of investment, or taking credit, or anything like that. So, anyway, I guess I'll just throw—I got robbed, and I know who did it, and I'm wondering if you have any kind of advice, or just maybe just ignore it, don't answer. But should I do something to—my quandary is whether I should do something to expose this person, and that would even possibly get him to attack me even more if he knows that I exposed him.

So, anyway, sort of see what I'm saying, at least in the worldly sense, I have to deal with—the body has to deal with a possible attack if I expose this person.

John: And again, I can only say that in any situation in my day-to-day activities where I come to any sort of crossroads of any kind, I pause for a moment and I say, okay, Master, this is not good. I explain whatever it is. I bow Jai Guru, and put it out of my mind, because I know the Master, everything will be as it's supposed to be.

Q: The trust, yeah, the trust.

John: It's complete trust and faith. You know, whatever is happening, I can't even think of the last time, but there have been times where something is happening, and I'm like, whoa, okay, Master. And I will bow. I will say, okay, Master, you know, please guide me on this thing. And then I literally just put it out of the mind. And I'll see then maybe a week later or a couple days later, and that problem has resolved itself. And I'm always certain to say, thank you, Master. Thank you. It worked out perfectly.

Like, whatever it was, it just worked out perfectly, because I'm not trying to get involved, since I honestly cannot change anything. That surrender of everything is within the bubble of illusion. I don't take the touch, and it works out. It just seems to work out. And I find myself then later, just like the example of this whole apartment. When I first came in, there was no furniture.

There was no nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. And gradually, something came and said, oh, let's get this lamp. Oh, let's do this. Oh, let's do that. Oh, I like this rug. Let's put this rug. And it just, all of a sudden, then you look and you say, the whole house is designed. Thank you, Master, because it flowed. It just flowed.

And any kind of circumstance like this, if you are impressed with body-based illusory concepts, Master, what to do? And it's even better, because you're not going to some body. Let's say Shri Ramakant Maharaj was still in the body. You were able to go to him and say, Master, what to do? Because even when he was in the body, I had said that to him on several occasions at the Ashram, and always it was no advice. There was no go do this or go do that, because it is just spontaneous. It's just a flow. What to do? Master, what to do?

And then put it out of your mind, because Master has answered. You understand the entire world is illusion, and it's your projection. If you're going to project worry and discomfort and, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, then this is you're going to be in your experience.

If you're not going to create an experiencer, there is no experience. And the best way to create a no-experiencer is to literally turn it over, Master. Even the Thy Will not mine be done. Don't have a dog in the fight, and you won't go home. Like, oh, your dog can't lose if you don't have a dog in the fight.

Q: So, in my case, I did find out, right, I actually kind of knew almost from the beginning who did this.

John: Again, forget all of that. Somebody, whatever, it's going to come about spontaneously. Don't be an actor. Don't try an outcome. Don't try to say, it should be this way, or it should be that way, or I want it this way, or what if this happens that way. No. Master, this thing has happened. Please guide me. You said as your disciple, you would guide. I have complete faith and trust in the Master, and then you'll observe this happening.

Q: So, I shouldn't even, I don't know, I'm afraid to, after we're done.

John: Put it out of, completely put it out of the mind. I know it's important to you in this moment. That's fine. I'm not saying it's not important, but just ask the Master for guidance, and know that the Master will guide you, and you'll see this happening. It might come in a variety of circumstances. Who knows?

I'll give you an example. The Android Auto in my car, and when I got in, because of the heat, it was like not working properly. It kept coming in and out and all this sort of stuff, and I was just going to go and buy another one, but I said, oh, Master, like what to do? I know this is silly compared to your item, but I said, what to do? It came about just to ask AI, and AI said, which I did not know, go into Android Auto and clear the cache, because when it gets hot, if the cache is still on, it can mess up the connection. Now, I wouldn't have known that.

My thought was I need to buy another one of these things. It doesn't work, but by pausing, spontaneously the answer came, and I know I'm not trying to make light of your situation as you're feeling that this is very important. This is just an example.

Q: It would be a spontaneous thing for me to go get advice to do this. Wouldn't that be part of the spontaneity?

John: If that arises, but again, bring your own Selfless Self into it, because every seeming challenge in this illusory world is there for you to get to know yourself more deeply and to have more trust, more faith in the Master. I'm sorry, what?

Q: I can feel what you're saying.

John: Yes. Again, going back to the Ashram, the food poisoning, any of these things, complete faith and trust in the Master. Don't concentrate on the situation. Concentrate on the trust and faith. Understand that Master has presented you with this opportunity. The door of opportunity is open. Walk through it. Remain with your Selfless Self. Rely on the Master. Master, I don't know what to do. Please guide me. Jai Sat Guru.

Q: That’s what turning it over.

John: That's it. And again, it will arise spontaneously in the moment, what is needed to be done. And you'll know the difference between you trying to create a situation, even you trying to say, oh, this is what the Master wanted me to do. It doesn't work like that. When the Master is flowing through you, there's no you there. And it's just an activity that basically is looked over your shoulder. And you say, wow, how that resolved itself so beautifully. Thank you, Master. Again, don't even take the egoistic credit for the problem being solved, because it wasn't you. And thank you, Master. That worked out so well.

Even my little simple example of Android Auto. When I got in the car and it started working again, I was like, oh, thank you, Master. That was wonderful. Because otherwise, I would have gone to Amazon and bought another one of these things unnecessarily.

Q: It reminds me of one time Ramana Maharshi, I guess, got robbed. And the people said, oh, you got to go catch this guy.

Transcribed by TurboScribe

This is the Tuesday Talk held June 16, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk June 16, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. With limited Edits

Q: We haven't had many questions lately from the viewing people.

John: That’s true. One was on YouTube about, are there any masters in the lineage giving Mantra in India? I didn't answer, but somebody said something about some Maharaj.

I don't know that answer or how he's affiliated.

Q: But is it our lineage?

John: I honestly don't know. When the person answered, they put another person's name in the response. I don't really monitor or do anything unless somebody gets crazy and says crazy stuff. Then I'll delete their comment. Yeah, just because I used to leave it there. Then people said, oh, you shouldn't leave it there. It's not right. I was like, well, you know, it is what it is. If it's kind of off the wall, then I'll delete it.

But that wasn't off the wall. I just didn't have any idea who the Maharaj was that he was talking about. But yeah, as far as people emailing in, nobody's emailed in any questions. And it's good, actually, because all questions are body-based. If you know yourself in a real sense, there won't be any questions.

The question and the questioner are one and the same. Oh, if I'm formless, let me form a question. Now I'm going to put myself in the form of a questioner that needs a response to a question about the formlessness that I am, that if I didn't ask the question or I didn't try and figure something out, I would just remain as myself.

I'm not beating on questions. I mean, questions, even Maharaj says, ask questions until you're completely fulfilled. Don't just sit there and say, oh, yes, yes, yes, understood. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. If there are questions, definitely you want to get rid of those questions. Again, just like in Dasbodh.

Dasbodh begins with, this is the question, the doubt. Then he irons out four or five steps of the doubt. Then he goes around and clears the doubt. And at the end, he states, this doubt has been cleared. Please pay extra attention to the next chapter. And then another doubt comes.

Because to have doubts, you have to have a doubter. The form of the doubter is not true. So, there can be a billion doubts, as long as you believe yourself to be a doubter.

Oh, I doubt this. The I that doubts is not true. So, you remain with your Selfless Self, the doubt passes.

Q: Occasionally, I feel like that where I have no questions.

John: So, well, and as Maharaj says, Aatmanivedan Bhakti, I think he says, which is when Selfless Self is responding to yourself, it responds spontaneously to your own self. And many times, you do that in the so-called illusory existence. You'll have the knowledge to manifest itself slowly for a time until the understanding comes that the question and the questioner are one and the same.

The doubter and the doubt are one and the same. So, just as concentrating on the concentrator removes the concentrator through the concentration, the doubter and the doubt remove the doubt, you remove the doubter. There are no more doubts.

If you give it to mind, of course, then it'll be an infinite supply of new things that need to be figured out. And until you know yourself in a real sense, anybody could come to you and say, you know, you should really go to this church, or you should really do this, or you should really do that, or, you know, you need to do more sadhana. These people that say you're already that, it's not true, you know, the Bhagavad Gita says, “blah, blah, blah.”

And once you know yourself in a real sense, as Maharaj says, okay, I've seen the whole elephant. So, when somebody tells me that the elephant is like a trunk, or is like a log, or is like a big billowy, like a leaf, okay, it's true. This is part.

But if you see the whole elephant, you won't say elephant is like a log. No, you won't do this. When you know yourself in a real sense, you won't say, oh, yeah, you're right, you know, or you sit there and you're like, well, what if this other person is true?

Or what if this religion is really what I should have done? Or worse, like Maharaj talks about guru hopping. What if this guru has something that this other guru didn't have? I began with Maharaj, but now I'm going to go to this Ashram over here and spend some time, because they're going to give me like that extra. And within the illusion, of course, the mind is used to acquiring. It's always better to have more.

You go to college, you get a Bachelor's degree, lovely, but now you want a Master's degree. Get a better job with a Master's degree, now you want a Doctoral degree. And the same thing, the mind is conditioned to go guru shopping.

Oh, I learned so much from this master. That's why a lot of times, and even in Ramakant Maharaj USA, when we were here, one person had said, what Mantra to use, because they have been given several different Mantras. And Maharaj was like, if you've been given the Naam Mantra, use Naam Mantra.

So, what about this other one? Well, again, I have complete trust and faith. Go ahead.

Q: I was wondering about, you know, before you went to see Ramakant, you were doing Mantra, and then when you got the Naam Mantra, there was like a change or a deeper connection or something?

John: I discarded, because when I didn't have Naam Mantra, I looked up in the Upanishads, and it was like, yo, so, yo, so, hum, saha, so, hum, asmi. Yo, so, hum, saha, so, hum, asmi. And I walked around all of DC doing this.

This is fine. I didn't have Naam Mantra. There was trust and faith that it was like, it appeared in my experience, so to speak, and I was true to it.

And that was also during the time where I was listening to, I didn't listen to any of my rap music that I listen to nowadays. I was just listening to, like, Mantras and Om Namah Shivaya and all that, but to music. Actually, it used to drive my son crazy, because I would go pick him up, and we'd drive all the way to King's Dominion, and it would be nothing but chanting, Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya, and, you know, all this stuff, and it was like all these different Mantras put to music, and that was okay for the time.

I was still believing myself to be on a spiritual journey, and there were still doubts, but that was leading to Maharaj. Once meeting Maharaj, surrendered all Mantra, surrendered everything to the feet of the Master. Mantra, put your hand on the head, whisper in the ear, from now on, use this Mantra, Yes, Master.

And that was it. And I didn't ask when it would work, or if it would work. That was the really cool thing.

Like, once given Mantra, I just started beginning using Mantra, and then got the quote experience of the Mantra by noticing that, oh, here I am. I'm walking to this place in India to have my beard shaved off, to have my hair trimmed, because when I went to India, my hair was very long. I had the Rudraksha beads.

I had a big bushy beard and everything. All that was just gone, and I didn't sit there and say, oh, I should shave. It was, I'm concentrating on Mantra. Here I am sitting in this chair, getting my hair and my beard shaved off. Not hair shaved off, but haircut, beard shaved off. Then walking around.

Mantra, all of a sudden, just walking around. Had to take a rickshaw back to the Ashram, because I had wandered long time, long way away. And that's the power of the Mantra. That's why Mantra, and it's not sitting, as Maharaj said, it's not just sitting for Mantra. It's continuous in every moment. Taking a shower, Mantra. Washing the hair, Mantra. Putting on the clothes, Mantra. Walking to the car, Mantra. In the traffic, Mantra. At your job, Mantra. And it's just, you then start to begin to see that there's no thought process involved.

You do your job, do your duties. It flows. It flows very nicely, because mind is concentrated on Mantra. It can't get up to mischief of even to think, is this Mantra working? Because eventually you begin to see yourself just flowing. You're concentrated on Mantra, and body seems to be moving about and doing all these various things, but you're concentrated on Mantra. Jai Guru.

Q: Jai Guru. Unfortunately, I can't remember to do it as much as, as much, I forget to do it a lot. I have a really bad memory now. It's part of me. Also, I just, I guess I let myself get distracted, but.

John: Well, but even being distracted, you notice you're distracted. There has to be a noticer of distraction, correct? So as soon as you notice yourself get distracted, Mantra.

Q: Oh, I do that, but then I forget for long, you know, too long of periods. I put post its around that helps, helps remind me, you know, just seeing the post it there.

John: Well, at nighttime too, do you want to sleep a nice, peaceful sleep? Mantra for your sleeping, or Mantra yourself to sleep. And again, after a while, then you understand. Mantra is naturally running through the body. Then body becomes just kind of a flute and instrument because you're no longer doing Mantra. Mantra is like 1400 times per day. Mantra is coming and going and it's just natural. But anytime you sit there and you say, wow, I'm having a really great experience. Aha. This would be a good time to just pause. Mantra. Thank you, Master. Not going to fall back into the illusory ditch. Just like you said, Bhajan's Mantra, no illusory ditch for me.

Q: It does seem like, when we, Dasbodh talks about discrimination, and it does seem like Mantra kind of facilitates that discrimination kind of like naturally or something.

John: Yeah, because when you know yourself in a real sense, everything other than yourself is not you. You can easily discriminate between illusion and reality. If you can know it and name it, it's illusion. Because even the sense of Presence, remember, that is illusion. The discrimination is, oh, this sense of Presence, whether it is or is not, the knower of the sense of Presence is. And I am the knower of the sense of Presence. I am that.

Q: That's what Ramakant's referring to. He says prior, prior to.

John: Prior to beingness. How were you prior to beingness? Well, I don't know.
You're not in any form. Beingness has appeared, beingness will disappear, but the you that you are will not. You are constant.

Q: It just has to reveal itself gradually, you know, more and more, but very slow. He says slow, but to me it's really slow.

John: It's okay, slowly, silently, permanently. You remain with your Selfless Self. And that's why just my son and I went to go see Disclosure Day on Saturday, and they were talking about like, oh, if these aliens are supreme beings, then how can God exist and all that. And I even told my son, you know, we talked about this in Tuesday Talk, that it's Presence. Quite frankly, within the Presence, aliens can quite nicely appear. They're forms. So there is no discrepancy. Oh, how did these aliens come from billions of miles away? Because it's Presence.

It's the bubble of illusion. The consciousness can create this in your dream. You can have a dream tonight that aliens come and visit you, and you're starting to have friends with aliens. Everything was within the dream, and everything was your own self. When you wake up, you know this. When you know yourself in a real sense, nothing is outside of you. It cannot be. You're formless. Therefore, any form is like the space in the room and all the objects in the room.

Q: That gradually becomes apparent. I forget.

John: Or you remain with your Selfless Self, more with Mantra, more that sense of Presence. Because as you're meditating, suddenly this mind flow, and that's another thing, if for beginning meditators, okay, you're sitting and you say, oh, I cannot sit for meditation. I have a busy mind. Mind is just crazy. Great. Now you can sit as the observer of the mind flow.

Once you're the observer of the mind flow, obviously you're outside of it, because it's something that can be known. You're the observer of the mind flow. So, mind thoughts come and go. You remain. As you're remaining with that center of awareness of the thought, thought is no longer in your awareness, because your awareness is aware of awareness. That's the sense of Presence that will suddenly be felt, because mind is no longer that covering, that illusory layer. It disappears. So now you sense the sense of Presence. Even for the first time, it's like, oh, what's that?

Meditate. Now, the more the concentration on the concentrator, meditate on the meditator, that dissolves. You remain. The sense of Presence is sort of just I, just I. You still remain, but you can't say what remains. So, then you start to transfer the identification away from the body, away from the thoughts, to this subtle sense of Presence.

And this is what Siddharameshwar Maharaj did in Master of Self-Realization. He says, like, the great causal body, the causal body, all the way down through all the bodies, the physical body and all these bodies, be removing, removing, removing, until that which cannot be removed is there, and that is your own self. So, removing this sense of body, you say, okay, I am more like this subtle sense of Presence than I am this body or this mind.

Now go about your daily duties knowing this knowingness appears, this subtle sense of Presence. I'm more like the space or the sky than I am this body form. And after some time, it will dawn. Oh, whether this sense of Presence is or is not, I am. Now, where's the doubt about birth? Where's the doubt about death? Where's the doubt about having a bad day? Where's the doubt about sadhana? Where's the doubt about practice? Cannot, there's nowhere to hang the hat.

Q: Besides the Mantra, it does seem like certain concepts do help connect me with the subtle sense of Presence. Like today, I was contemplating non-attachment, and just that, just that word seemed to help clear, you know, give me a discriminating, like an awareness to distinguish what is attachment. I could distinguish what was attachment and what wasn't.

So, just for me, sometimes concepts actually, well, it's a concept that is not, it's not the same as other concepts or some non-attachment, because you can actually feel the non-attachment or something.

John: I mean, again, while you're in the business of concentration, Presence may be available and felt like that. However, just like Maharaj talked about in, when somebody asked him about Vipassana meditation, Vipassana meditation is controlling the breath. Sense of Presence can be felt.

It's very nice. But as Maharaj said, this is egoistic meditation, because as soon as you stop the Vipassana meditation, now suddenly everything is back to where it was. Whereas when you know yourself in a real sense, that's it.

Q: Can you hear me?

John: Yes, yes, Jai Guru.

Q: I do think Vipassana helps people become more aware of what they're doing in the present moment. Because if you do it a lot, then when you're waking up, instead of just, oh, I'm waking up, you even become aware of your eyelids opening up. And so, your movement in being the watcher, as we are, becomes more intensified, I think. For me, it did. I don't know.

John: Yeah, I mean, it's, again, that's a progressive step. And especially if there was no Mantra, if you were not, you were doing it. Oh, there was no Mantra?
Yes. You have taken the Mantra?

Q: I have taken the Mantra for our practice, yeah. But not for Vipassana, yeah.

John: Right, right. No, but what I'm saying is, if you've taken the lineage Mantra, it's like the God of your understanding, so to speak, whispered in your ear and said, this is the key out of illusion. Use this, and you'll escape illusion.

Whereas this kind of, again, this egoistic meditation is, I am doing the Vipassana meditation, or I am doing a specific meditation, rather than the Mantra. It's just, literally, it's concentrating, because the Mantra is naturally running. Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe in, breathe out. And any thoughts about doing Mantra will be swept, because slowly, silently, permanently, these thoughts are being swept out the door. And then there's that pure realization, that subtle reflection in an empty mind, so to speak, where it's awareness of awareness, concentration, concentrator, meditation, meditator.

Oh, so that I, I am that. And it literally removes the support, whereas an egoistic meditation is sort of clearing, but keeping the support. Because you're actively, I am doing vipassana meditation. I am doing this meditation. Mantra is not; it's a broom. The antivirus software, basically all the wrong files are, from this body perspective, I believe myself to be a body.

I was experiencing, I was going through life, I was doing these various things, I'm feeling these various feelings, but all of that is from the wrong perception of being a body. So, Maharaj gives Mantra to erase all this illusory layer, all this, my experience, my things that I do, my actions, my past, my future, my job, my family, all body relations, everything that came along with the body is erased, and yet you are. So not, and just as Maharaj said, it's not beating on it.

People who like to do vipassana and don't have our Mantra, it's okay. It's just a progressive step.

Q: Yeah, that's, that's, I believe that.

John: And I actually put on the website, the, if you don't have Mantra, there's a short little video, about 12 minutes, that says what to do if you don't have Mantra, and it goes into the various things, and how even in the books it talks about specific Mantras, and how they would be able to help on this.

Q: We're about people on other paths. I'm sure this isn't the only path that has enabled people to be free of their egos or whatever. And like, towards the end of last week, or last time we got together, I said something about Nisargadatta.

When he had the pain, oh, he just turned, he was turning everything over to the I am.

John: Still in pain, but understanding that this pain is through the I am. The you that you are is not in pain. The you that you are is formless. It's the I exist, the sensation that is registering I'm in pain, because there's an I. But the truth, the reality, is there is no pain.

Q: But the pain is still felt by the body though, right?

John: Well, there's still pain, yes, yes. The body is a lump of goo, and has all these sensations, or sensory, you know, if you put your hand on a hot stove, it's going to burn. It's going to be hot.

There's going to be sensations that go through the body, and because you're the holder of the body, you're going to register this as I am in pain. What Nisargadatta Maharaj was saying is that the understanding is there is no I in pain. The true you, just like birth and death.

You know, somebody sits there and watches a baby be born, and says there is no birth, and thinks you're crazy. Or you go to a funeral, and you say, oh, there is no death, and they think you're crazy. Because from a body-based perspective, both of these conceptual elements attach.

There's a body, there's birth, there's death. But the you that you are is not born, does not die, never was a body, never had any experience. Again, just like in dream.

The dreamer is not experiencing what's in the dream, even though you're experiencing what's in your dream. You go to bed tonight, and you're dreaming that you're running, and within the dream, you're having the experience of running. You wake up, and you know, I'm not running.

And it's the same with the pain. And yet, physical sensation, you're the holder of the body, you're feeling what this body is feeling. But the you that you are is not within the bubble of illusion, the concept of pain, concept of pleasure, the concept of birth, the concept of death, concept of family.

Q: So where is the I Am in that?

John: Well, again, the I Am is the sense of Presence. When we talk about, I Am, or Selfless Self, any of these things, it's the Self without self, the just I, just I. The I Am is that subtle, subtle just I, just I, which we label as Presence. And yet, the knower of just I, the knower of Presence, the knower of the I Am, is not affected by anything that's going on in that bubble of illusion. You're not in the illusion.

Q: So, the sense of Presence could be comparable. It's kind of like the pain, also. It's like you have a sense of Presence; you have pain.

John: No. Pain comes along with the body. Presence, the knower, that's the first known. I exist. I Am. Just I. I without anything. I prior to body. I prior to mind, ego, intellect. All of that appeared on your spontaneous Presence, but you are not involved in that. Pain came along with the body. Prior to body, you have no pain. How? Body form is available, which is the key to the illusion, is I exist. Of course, there's existence, but the I exist kind of impression is the key to illusion.

Boom. Whole dream world appears. You lay down at night, sleeping. You're in deep sleep. Nothing. You're there, of course, because then as the stirring of existence happens, consciousness creates a dream world, populates it spontaneously.

You're a character in the dream world. You begin a little story within the dream world. You have characters within the dream world, and when you wake up, you know it's all your own self.

Couldn't have been anything other. In deep sleep, you're there, but there's no knowledge that you're there.

Q: Knowing you are there, that's not quite the same as the sense of Presence either, though.

John: Yeah, the knowledge of existence is Presence. I exist. Just I. I Am. That's why Nisargadatta Maharaj says the I Am is the door. On one side of the door is illusion. On the other side of door is your own self. The formlessness sort of walks through the door by I exist, and I exist is now in the illusion. The sense of duality is impressed spontaneously. I exist. How did this sense of existence arise? Because this body was available.

The space in the room attached to a five-elemental lump of goo and suddenly said, I exist, not knowing that I was the space because I wasn't knowing myself as the space. Then knowledge came about when the body form appeared and said, oh, I exist. I see. I do. I am.

Q: In a sense, though, the form is also the space. It's kind of just a space also.

John: It's an object in space. It's an object in space from the five elements created through the illusion. The illusory existence is created from the five elements. They talk about that in Dasbodh, like it comes from, you know, water and fire and earth and air and all these sorts of things, and sky and all, or ether, I guess it's called. But the five elements are in the bubble of illusion. There are no five elements for you until you enter the bubble of illusion.

Q: Because to me it's, I don't know, maybe this is conceptual, but I think of the elements as being sort of formless also, because there's nothing, because they change, they're kind of formless.

John: Well, they're not formless or with form. Just like, again, in your dream. You dream tonight that there's a tree. You can tap on that tree, but it's not true.

Q: It's just a sensation, a temporary…

John: Is it form? But is it formless or is it form? Within the bubble of illusion, you're interacting with it as form, because you yourself have identified as a form. You cannot knock on a tree if you're the space. But if you believe yourself to be an object, then you can knock on another object and say, this is an object. When you wake up, none of it was true.

When you know yourself in a real sense, there's no form, there's no formlessness. There's no consciousness or unconsciousness. Nothing is there.

Nothing. Except your Selfless Self, there's no God, no Brahman, no Paramatman, no Master. Nothing is there. Something appeared from nothing and goes back to nothing. Only the something for a time is all illusion. There never was a something. Even your sense of existence does not age. The body is aging. You look at yourself in the mirror, you say, oh, I was young man, medium man, old man, really old man, or woman, or whatever. But not true, because you're not aging. The body is aging. And the body is aging because it's a five-elemental body.

Q: Occasionally, I feel like I'm the same being that I was when I was a kid.

John: You are. You never have changed. You're formless. There's no birth or death, there's no aging, there's no nothing. Bhagavad Gita talks about you can't be cut, you can't be lit on fire, none of these things, because you're formless. The you that you are is the exact same as it was the moment the sense of existence said, I exist. And after the body form is no longer available, you exist. Without the sense of existence, you exist. Because the sense of existence has appeared to you. If you did not exist, prior to the knowledge of I exist, how could the knowledge I exist appear?

Q: Yeah. That's sort of what I mean by unattachment to them.

John: Again, why use a body-based concept? Understand that even all the body knowledge is completely useless. It brought you to the point where Maharaj whispered in your ear and said, “This is the end for you.”

Transcribed by TurboScribe.

This is the Tuesday Talk held May 19, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk May 19, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. With limited Edits

Q: Very hot here. I'm enjoying it.

John: Yeah, it's pretty warm here too. Yeah, like 95, I think.

Q: I've been feeling pretty good lately, I guess you could say. It's good. And like I said last time, I seem to be getting a little bit better connection with the Mantra and a sense of, not necessarily bliss, but I don't know, would you call, I don't know, when you have a sense of the Mantra in the background, would you say that was bliss or going on, or would you say that that's a subtle, sort of a subtlety going on behind, along with the Mantra?

That's what I'm sort of getting. It's like the Mantra is opening up like a subtle background that goes with the Mantra, but I don't necessarily have to be doing the Mantra for it to be there. It's kind of like...

John: Yeah, well, Mantra is continuously running. It continues because you can kind of any time sort of dive into that through the breathing, you can listen to the Mantra running naturally through the body, and the Mantra is erasing all the illusory concepts slowly, silently, and permanently, which as that's happening, the feeling of expansion, the feeling of bliss, because it's not so much pressurized into, I am this limited something. It's clearing the field.

Q: Now, when you say the Mantra is running all the time, does that mean, is it like actually the sound, the words running?

John: With the breath, just breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, and after you've done Mantra meditation for a while, you're the listener of this Mantra slowly. We've talked about before, like a flute. You're playing a flute, or you're playing any kind of wind instrument, and it's coming out, but there's no particular like trying to make anything.

You can just listen to it naturally, because as they say in Amrit Laya, I think it's said in Das Bodh too, that sound is the natural sound, breathing in, breathing out, and that's the Mantra. And so, you just sort of fall into that, and you listen to it. In the beginning, of course, it's very deliberate.

You have to sit there, breathe in, and then breathe out, but after a while, then it just becomes a natural part, because you and the Mantra are one, and everything that seems to be other than the Mantra, you know, is just an illusory layer that's being removed.

Q: Because I get that. It's like a continuous sense of bliss, or somewhat bliss, or subtlety of spaciousness, without the sound of the Mantra.

John: Yeah, the spiritual intoxication, because of the Presence. You're going to start to… Mantra erases the illusory concepts, so that you can start to sense that very, very, very subtle sense of Presence, that again can only be felt because you're holding a body form.

So, you're listening to the Mantra. At first, you're doing it deliberately. You're sitting.

Now, it's just running. Most of the time, you can dive right into that sense of Presence at will, especially you say this blissful feeling, but remember again, too, it's a feeling as an experience rather than, oh, this is dissolving. Oh, so that I, I am that, and at that point of, oh, so that I, I am that there's no experiencer, no experience, no witnesser, no witness.

Nothing is there. It's that black hole, but you don't have to then concentrate. It's just there, you know, and then it becomes scenes appearing and disappearing, and you handle whatever needs handling in the moment knowing that it's just a scene, and the scene will appear and then disappear.

But you don't want to get too caught up in any experiences, whether they be good experiences or bad experiences.

Q: Right, right, yeah.

John: Even the experience of bliss. Bliss is nice, but it's also an illusion.

Q: Yeah, I don't really get, I wouldn't say I get caught up in it. It's just nice that it's there.

John: Oh, yeah, yeah, and that's that Selfless Self intoxication. The more you remain with your Selfless Self, the deeper it, that's that Selfless Self intoxication. Maharaj talks about it like the chocolates that they give a child.

Give the child a chocolate, and to make it happy, and then every time it's doing anything, this chocolate is like a reward. And this is the same with the spiritual intoxication. It's a reward for remaining with your Selfless Self.

But then after some time, there's no you that's remaining with your Selfless Self. There's no you that's doing the Mantra. There's just the reality, the Ultimate Reality that you are.

And that's why it's not so much getting hung up on an experience as it is that if there's an experience, there's an experiencer. And the illusory experiencer should be removed with Mantra. Presence naturally will remove the illusory experiencer just like a magnifying glass on an ant.

The more you remain to sense the Presence, it burns away thought, it burns away any kind of anything, because it's pure. It's just that recognition in the projection that's subtle, just I, just I. A thought-free state without trying to be free of thoughts.

Q: Yes, I could say that a lot of times I'm using discriminating thoughts, and they deliver me to the same place. And then the thoughts, it gets to the point where there's no more question.

John: Yeah, well, but again, you don't want to give anything to the mind, because that's, you're hiring the mind to get rid of the mind. And it's not so much getting rid of the mind as realizing that the mind is something separate from yourself. Whether that mind is there or not, you are.

That's why in meditation it's so important to have sort of gotten that sense of Presence, that peace, that calmness between two thoughts, so that you can very much understand whether the mind is or is not, I am. I'm definitely prior to mind, because when mind is no longer sensed, experienced, or there's no pressure of mind, I am. If I was mind, I would disappear with mind.

If I was thought, I would disappear with thought. But you cannot disappear. We're all experience ends. There you are. So, these thoughts, they're just coming and going, coming and going. But you know, through meditation, when you sit quietly for the first time with Mantra and pow, suddenly, oh, it's empty.

There's just emptiness. And then that sense of bliss, then that Selfless Self intoxication rises. Then normally, you'll go back to thinking about how much bliss and how much Selfless Self intoxication is so nice, and start the mind machine again. But after some time, you won't. And then you know whether there's thoughts or no thoughts, I am. Whether there's Presence or no Presence, I am.

What I am cannot be defined. But after everything that can be defined is removed, I am. You are what you perceive. You know you're the perceiver. How? Because you had to be there. Knock, knock. Who's there? Nobody's there. Somebody had to be there to say nobody's there. You had to be prior to the sense of Presence or the sense of existence or the sense I am. This I am has appeared to you.

And I am is the first illusion that opens the doorway to then more illusion. I am. I am something. There are other somethings. I am in a world. Here's mom. Here's dad. Here's activities. I can do things. I am is the doorway to illusion. And at the same time, to your own self. Because the first experience, I exist.
That's the birth of illusion. Just like in a dream. Your dream begins when you take a dream body and start going around pretending like you're something.

You can't dream formlessly, nor can you think formlessly. Like you say, oh, let's think about my formless self. But because you're prior to mind, there's no thought. Any thought, idea, image that appears to mind is a body-based illusion. Because mind came along with body. Mind can only show you images, thoughts, ideas, based on the illusory existence.

Mind cannot sit there and say, oh, this is how we were prior to taking birth. That's why Nisargadatta Maharaj constantly points to that. A hundred years before your birth, how were you? And if you try to figure that out of mind, you cannot. Well, I have no idea how it was a hundred years. And this is because mind came along with the body.

All experiences have been shown through the body-based lens. This is why Sri Ramakant Maharaj says it's an antivirus software, the Mantra. Because your computer is all clogged up with viruses.

The viruses are, I am someone in a world. And from every point of view, I take that position. I say, oh, I'm going on a spiritual journey as someone. Oh, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do the Mantra as someone. Oh, I'm starting to get it as someone. But that is the wrong file. In which all files, it's like you cannot win trying to give it to mind because the very first file was corrupt. And you say, okay, run all these programs.

Run the program of world. Run the program of body-based knowledge. Run the program of spirituality. But it's based on a corrupt file. I am somebody else. Mantra slowly, silently, and permanently removes this. The antivirus software, oh, so that I, I am that. It's the opening of the door, where there is no door. It's figurative.

Just like when you go to sleep at night, there's a door between nothing and the dream world. And you enter that door, so to speak, and you have a dream. If you don't enter through the door of the dream, you have no dream. You're just you. When you enter the dream door, then suddenly you take a body, and you begin starting a story. A dream world is projected.

All of that. And it's the same in the waking state. The dream door is, I exist. You're prior to the sense of existence. That's why, you know, you say, oh, are you God, Brahman, you know, what am I? No, because all these words came along with the body.

This is why Sri Ramakant Maharaj says, prior to a hundred years, did you know anything about Brahman, Atman, you know, Krishna, Jiva, Jivan atman, Moksha, Jivanmukta, any of it? No. So, then it's not important.

Q: But you figure, you also, if you're thinking about it, you figure, well, I wasn't here prior. Whereas, you're kind of saying you are.

John: You spontaneously just, you see, this theory is, again, through a body-based perspective.

Q: That I wasn't there.

John: I wasn't in this present form, correct. I did not know my existence. The sense of existence appeared to that that you are, without the knowledge of existence, without anything, because you're everything.

There was no need for anything, because you hadn't stepped into the illusion. You were sleeping and hadn't stepped through the dream door yet, just naturally yourself. And you'll know this when, again, you start to transfer this identification away from body and more to the sense of Presence.

I'm more like this sense of Presence than I am this body. As you start identifying as a sense of Presence, you will remove body, mind, ego, intellect, world, because you very much understand this very, this feeling, this just-I, just-I, this very, very subtle, blissful feeling. I am more like that than I am this body.

But after some time, the understanding will come, and yet I'm perceiving this Presence. Therefore, I'm prior to even this formless Presence. That's why Maharaj says, if at all you want to compare, compare yourself to sky or space. And you're more subtle than sky or space. So, you are more subtle than the sense of Presence. Whether Presence is or is not, you are.

So then someone says, what happens when I die? No. Whether Presence is or is not, you are. Body came along with the sense of Presence and the illusory key that opened the dream door, whether it be waking dream or dreamy dream.

Q: Sometimes I get a sense that there's like an invisible, like a, like, I don't know if it's me or if it's something, you know, if it's the self or other, it's just like there's like an invisible intelligence or something there that's behind it all or something. And that's…

John: Well, again, the sense of Presence is felt through body form. Without a body, Presence is there. You're just not feeling it through the body form.

And now, when you go two steps back, whether Presence is or is not, you are. You can never not be.

Q: That's why sometimes intellectually I get hung up on the idea when you say nothing, I also think, well, it's not, well, it's not the concept of nothing. It's not, and it's not, it's a being of nothing or something like that.

John: It's the absence of everything. Nothing, not as a concept of, oh, I have nothing in my hands. It's the absence of everything. But it's not even…Where all experience ends, there you are. So, you are the knower of the absence of everything.

Q: I guess I do keep myself entertained on giving it over to mind.

John: You know what, there's no need to do this. And the more you do this, the more you're just kind of prolonging, because it's hiring the thief to catch the thief, as Sri Ramana Maharshi says. You have to take one thorn, remove the other thorn, throw both thorns away. Don't keep the other one thorn.

Q: It's sort of, it seems like it helps me to be more present if I know, if I'm, well, I guess if I know exactly what my mind is, or not exactly, but if I could see what my mind is doing, it seems like to help release the mind by seeing what it's doing. It's like, by actually seeing the limitations of the mind helps the limitations to fall away.

John: Well, the limitations of the mind, there is no mind. So, your attention gives birth to the mind.

Q: Hmm. So, it's still cycling. It's still part of the cycling.

John: Yeah, yeah. It's that factory of thoughts. Even though, okay, I'm not actively involved in thinking, I'm still observing these thoughts. So, there's an observer observing thoughts. You're creating an illusory thinker where there doesn't need to be one because there isn't one.

Q: But a lot of times, list does appear in the middle of that, and then it stops. The cycling stops. So, you know, it's sort of like that.

John: Mantra. Mantra would be the preferred method, definitely. Especially if you're starting to fall back into observing thought, Mantra.

Just, just remain. Because the more Mantra, you're doing Mantra deliberately, then suddenly you're sort of, the one doing the Mantra is fading away with the Mantra because it's being erased. And then there is no need to contemplate or think or do anything like this.

Because again, even in your dream, you might be able to contemplate the dream. You might even be able to realize suddenly, I'm dreaming. But of what use is this? And you say, well, when I'm in my dream and I realize I'm dreaming, I know it's false. But what use is that? When you wake up, you know, it's false.

When you know yourself in a real sense, it's false. There's no need to contemplate in a dream or in the waking world. In the beginning, yes. You know, in the beginning, you are pretending to go on this spiritual journey of getting books. And then a Master appears and you start to search. Luckily nowadays, I think it'd be very easy because the internet is there.

So as soon as you start to get any kind of tinge of curiosity, you can shoot out and find these things. You'll find something that will lead you to something that will lead you to something. But all of that, again, is in the dream.

And once you know yourself in a real sense, you understand this. But as you're imagining your progression, you can be a, quote, seeker because there's still the form of the seeker. But it's a role.

I mean, you don't discount it because many people who are listening to our videos are on various different, in this moment, understanding. The more you listen, the more you go back, you listen to Sri Ramakant Maharaj, will lead you hopefully to read Ultimate Truth and Selfless Self. And then that'll lead you to I Am That and Amrut Laya and Master of Self Realization. And you'll want to listen to more and more. And then you'll understand the speaker and the listener are one and the same. It's the same message.

Unless, of course, you find somebody who send me $150 a month and, you know, practice standing on your head and also make sure you have this diet made specifically by my corporation, then this is not so good. But if it's a true path, the message is the same. Except your Selfless Self. There's no God, no Brahman, no Paramatman, no Master. Nothing is there. You are that.

Q: It is fascinating, though, that as I seem to be, I don't know, progressing or something, it's like you start to see different senses of oneness, like I'll start to see myself in everything and everything, and it's still an experience. But it is interesting that that happens, you know, and it is pleasant.

It's kind of almost, it seems kind of profound, but it's like no big deal. But you just see it. It's just something that seems closer to the truth or something like that.

John: That's the reality. My presence is in every being. Therefore, there's no enemies. There's nobody trying to get me, so to speak, because behind the eyes and ears of everyone I am, there are bodies, empty vessels. This is a lump of goo, nothing more, nothing less, animated by the formless Presence.

Q: This is in your dream. But then I conceptualize it and I say, well, that's selflessness appearing. You know, you can see it is selflessness, like a manifestation of selflessness or something.

John: Well, but again, it's just like in a dream. Take a dream body.

Q: Yeah, it's going to pass.

John: You have a whole dream experience. There's talking, there's people, there's experiencing experiences. You wake up, you know it wasn't true. All those were my own self that could not have been anyone other than. When you know yourself in a real sense, this so-called waking dream world is the same.

Q: Then you also know that you are not an individual. Correct. It's just one, it's almost like one self, but that's saying too much.

John: Well, you know that there's no such thing as, just like in a dream, you know, all the dream characters are not true, and that they came from formlessness that you are. You very much understand this waking world is the same. And then you understand more that two bodies got together, created a lump of goo. This lump of goo then came, just like in a dream. Suddenly there's the realization that I am something else. These two parents are teaching this little lump of goo that boom, I put a label on you. You do good things, you do bad things. Sense of doership comes, sense of I exist as something separate. Here's mom, here's dad, here's me, and we're in this world.

And it's the same experience for the pigs, for fish, for anything. Two lumps of goo get together, create another lump of goo, and therefore then go along.

Q: That's when I understand the elements in that aspect of the teaching.

John: Yeah, and that's all it is. And that's why what happens to this body when the presence can no longer hold it? Well, presence is everywhere, so nothing.
Bodies burned or buried goes back to the five elements. That's it. What happens when I'm getting sick? Well, that's a disturbance in the five elements.

Q: In rational terms, you could say you're totally separate from the elements.

John: Well, you're the power that moves them around, sort of, kind of. Again, they're all illusion. The five elements are illusion. When we talk about the two bodies getting together and having a lump of goo, this is an illusory, the bubble of illusion. All of this contained, this birth, death, life, time, space, all of that is within the bubble of illusion.

Q: And that's why I was just reading, going to Dasbodh, the part where it talks about every element is within or within other elements. They're all like, that's the, I don't know, you have the gunas, that would be the middle guna, I suppose, where it's a mix of everything. Everything is in something other than the other elements, anyway.

John: Well, the whole thing with Dasbodh is it says, okay, here's how all the elements came about, right? And each one kind of evolves into another. And then the dissolution of the universe, this is how all the elements go away to nothing. But understand that the elements are within the bubble of illusion. That's why the explanation, here they are coming in, here they are going out. And it's because they're not true.

And even the gunas, you say, oh, Sattva, Rajas, Tamas, or whatever, okay, those are to try and describe the particular, like, actions or activities, and yet they're not you. They're sort of the movers of the five elements, so to speak. But it's not you. Because you're never involved. You, even whether you know yourself in a real sense, or you don't know yourself in a real sense, you've never been involved in being a body in a world. Just again, the same as when you sleep at night.

You've never been involved in a dream world. Never. Never have you taken a body in a dream.

Never has any of that stuff actually ever happened. And it's the same with the waking. You never have been living this life as the person you thought yourself to be. Because you're more like the space in the room than you are the objects within that space. The objects in the room can do whatever they want to do, and it doesn't affect the space at all. Even if the space in the room were to suddenly feel this body and start speaking, the space in the room is not affected.

Q: So, most people would say, or I could even say, well, what's the sense of doing this? But you do point out at times that it is freedom, and that's why we do it, is for freedom's sake, I guess.

John: You're living the reality. You're no longer caught up in the illusory thinking that I am somebody else. I am something. I was born. I'm going to die. If I have some kind of challenge that comes up, I don't like throw my hands up, oh my god, what to do, whatever. It's a spontaneous action in the moment. It flows through. And yes, you can still say, Master, I do this all the time. Master, I'm not sure what to do. And then you just wait until the action spontaneously arises. Otherwise, you give it to mind, and you think about all the different various outcomes.

I don't know if you've ever done that, but you can sit on your couch and say, well, should I go do this, or should I go do that, and this, and this, and this? And then you wind up going and doing something that you weren't thinking about, but you spent 20 or 30 minutes thinking about all the different things. And yet, the actual, the reality was, the spontaneous action was where you are. So when you know yourself in a real sense, you don't get involved in all that.

Q: Yeah, sometimes I've felt that one thing I sort of like about myself, I won't jump in. I'll wait till I have to do something a lot of times. You might call it procrastination, but also, it prevents me from doing stuff to try to do stuff too soon. And then it just naturally happened. And it turns out, okay, you know, anyway, so.

John: But even that is a thought process of, I'm sort of waiting. It literally is just spontaneous action in the moment to pick up the water, drink it, put it down. Not, oh, this water looks so delicious. Should I drink this water? Should I not drink this water? What time yesterday did I drink this water?

Q: You're not really going anywhere anyway.

John: It's just, it is literally just spontaneous action in the moment. And even deep in illusion, you do this all the time. You just call it, just like, oh, I had an epiphany. Or, oh, I had some kind of an intuitive thought that came to me that said, oh, I should do this. Or, oh, let's do X, Y, Z. But in reality, that's just a spontaneity. Even if you're still thinking about yourself as someone, or doing something, or a basketball player, or a football player, when they're, quote, in the zone. They do all these actions, and they're all perfect, just precision. But they are certainly not thinking about each step, each movement.

They're in the zone. It's a flow. It's a natural flow. If a basketball player had to sit there and think, okay, I have to dribble this ball so many times, and I have to do this and do that. No, it's just like flow to the basket.

Q: Which is a selfless process, I guess you could call it.

John: Yeah, you're not creating a you doing something. Now, of course, at the other end, they're slamming the football down on the ground and jumping around for joy. They're taking the ownership and doership. But the action itself is spontaneous.

Q: I don't know how much time do we have left.

John: This little sign came up and said, your meeting will end in 10 minutes. But it came up a little while ago. I'm not sure how much time.

Q: Well, anyway, another topic that I thought of earlier this week was that, I think it was in, what's the name of the book, Consciousness and the Absolute? Nisargadatta says something about, they asked him about his pain, how painful it is. And he said something about, maybe it was us that went over this, but he gives it over to the I am, which made me think of what they used to teach when I used to go to AA meetings. I went for quite a while, just fell away from it. But they use this term, turn it over. And that's like, turn it over to give it back to God, to give it to the world.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.

This is the Tuesday Talk held April 28, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk April 28, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. With limited Edits

John: As we normally do for the summertime, we cut back a little bit so that everybody has their summertime activities, including myself and. So, May will be the 3rd Tuesday of every month and that'll be every month in the summertime and then we'll resume again. In September on our regular every 2 weeks schedule.

So, just to let everybody know, it'll be the 3rd week. The 3rd Tuesday of every month, so 3rd, Tuesday of May. 3rd, Tuesday of June. 3rd, Tuesday of July. 3rd, Tuesday of August and then September.

We'll come back to 2nd, Tuesday. And every other week again. Okay, and that'll be on the YouTube channel to after we put this meeting up on the YouTube cloud.

So, but, yeah, that's just way because summertime, it gets hectic and busy and even like, tonight I was like, oh, my God, we're here again. Like, it's like, I just shut the computer. Here we are again.

So, but, yeah, during the summertime, we'll just do it on the 3rd Tuesday of every month.

Q: Wait till you get to in your 70s. Like, like me in the weeks go faster and faster. Indeed, it's almost like the same day. Indeed, I remember when I used to take drugs way back in the 60s, if you took like LSD or something. Sometimes you would get this feeling like, well, I'm high on this. It's the same, but it's different. And sometimes I feel that way now from studying non duality. It's like, everything is kind of the same, but different at the same time.

John: Well, I mean, if you remain with your Selfless Self, that's the absolute best high, because that's like the most pure view. There's no need to buy drugs. There's no need to do anything. It's total lack of any disturbance mind activity ceases. So, there's no busyness. There's no getting caught up. It's just peace of nothingness, the absence of anything. And, you know, that's, that's the, and it's good to, healthy. You could say, because you're not putting substances into your body to try to answer.

Q: Certainly help you healthy for the mind. Yeah, we don't have pollution.

John: You even Mantra, Mantra. That's why we say Selfless Self intoxication. It's literally as Maharaj says Selfless Self intoxication.

It's literally this amazing flood of feeling just I, just I. I, without anything, I, without any constraints, without any sort of limited identification, just I, the subtle, subtle feeling is called I. I am this sense of existence. Just I, just I, no need to go looking for it. It won't run out. You don't have to spend any money on it.

As Ramakant Maharaj says, even the people that go and they go to India and do the gambit of the gurus and spend money on all this sort of stuff. No need to spend a single penny to remain with yourself. That's the absence of all things, including the label of the thing that you thought you were, because now, you know, I'm not a thing.

And as soon as, you know, I'm not a thing, then you don't ever think, oh, but I was the thing. And now I'm not a thing. No, it's like, there's a knowingness. I never was a thing. Like, there's no birth, there's no death. We talk about it all the time. But now there's a deep understanding. I am not body. I was not body. I'm not going to remain the body. I'm not a thing. I never was a thing. I never was separate. All of this seeming existence is not true. We go back to the space in the room that suddenly attached to this lump of goo and said, oh, I'm alive, and forgets that it's the space.

And then through the perception of this limited body form, sees a world and begins to all this is, I'm in a room, I'm sitting, and suddenly everything is from the body perspective, as Maharaj says, the virus, the antivirus software, slowly, silently, and permanently removing this concept that I am something I am somebody else. It's just not true. And see, you could say that, okay, somebody tells the space in the room, no, no, no, you're more like the space in the room than you are this body.

But if you're identified with this body, even the slightest bit, you say, well, how can I be? So that means that the space in the room is inside this space. And then when this body falls, then the space will rejoin the space. No, because the space never left the space that you are, you are. You have not changed. You have not taken form. You have not, again, we go back to dream, the appearance of all the dream characters, it very much looks like all these forms are there. But, you know, when you wake up, it was a dream. Everything had the appearance of reality. I took a body form. I had conversations with so called others, whether it be positive or negative, but it could not have been true. Were you actually holding a body form in your dream? No, you wake up, you say, oh, how could I have been that body form in my dream? No. That's why you could have a dream that you're a rabbit or a bird. And you say, oh, I was a bird. But no, you would never were.

Q: So even the idea of having been asleep also.

John: Correct. There's no sleeping, no waking, no consciousness, no unconsciousness, no, nothing, nothing, nothing. All of these are just because you're viewing yourself through this limited scope of I am something. And it's not true. When you discover this, then it's just like, I never was that. Like, I don't have to worry about what happens when this body falls, because I'm not this body. I never was this body.

Q: What about the universe?

John: The universe? There is no universe. Within the bubble of illusion? Yes. All of this appears. That's why, again, like we talked about, even if aliens were to come to our world, it would still be within yourself. Regardless of the beliefs.

Q: I guess I keep laughing because from, you know, I still have a lot of residual sense of being a body, I guess. But it's ironic. It’s really ironic from the body point of view that the body can think that it exists as its own, the way it thinks it knows itself.

John: Well, again, body is lump of goo. There's no body knowing anything. That's why Maharaj would say the formless holder of the body. Because of identification with the body, you say, okay, there's a formless Presence that's sort of moving the body around. But again, then we go back to when Maharaj talks about the lights. Electricity is making the light, is doing the computer, doing the microwave, doing the air conditioning, but it's not doing—you understand? It's not—it's providing the power, but it's formlessly doing this.

Q: Providing the being, sort of.

John: Power and being. Because you exist, you can know the sense of existence. But you're prior to the sense of existence. So if you're prior to the sense of existence, whether the sense of existence is there or not, you are, because it has appeared to you. It's an illusory layer. The spontaneous conviction comes, oh, so that I am That. And I never was anything else. There never was a spiritual journey. There never was any of this.

Q: Yeah, I'm feeling more and more like a couple of days ago and today, a sense of understanding or like what spontaneity actually is, but it's not—it has nothing to do with the words. It's like, it's just everything is just as it—I don't know, it's very hard to put into words.

John: Spontaneous, just pick up this water, drink, put down. This is spontaneous action. There's no sense of doership. There's no big thinking about it. Like tomorrow, this time, would you say, oh, at such a time, I had a drink of water.

Q: No definition.

John: It's just spontaneous. It arises in the moment. And spontaneous conviction arises in the moment. Oh, so that I and this is because, okay, meditation, Mantra, subtle sense of Presence. Just I, just I. I without anything. And Selfless Self-intoxication. I enjoy this feeling. It's okay. I enjoy this feeling. Then turns to, I am more like the sense of Presence than I am the body. So now I start identifying with a sense of Presence, which is more subtle than sky or space.

Okay, I'm more like that. So that means if I identify with the sense of Presence, I can get rid of all the body-based knowledge, all the body-based relations, all those body-based things because I'm formless. I know this. I identify, I transfer the identity that I had on this limited body form to this sense of Presence. And there's nothing. No birth, no death, no nothing.

All those are discarded. So now this flow of thought about the body is not going to be like, oh, let's micro analyze this thing because I'm formless. So even words don't matter anymore because formlessness, how can formlessness have words?

There's speaking going on, coming out, air, but even air is, the formlessness is not affected. And the more this is identification of the sense of Presence as the formless Presence that you are, there's an understanding. Oh, Presence is a subtle layer. Presence is an experience. Oh, whether Presence is or is not, I am. The black hole because now you've eliminated all the body, the world, all these sorts of things through identification with a sense of Presence, and you are the knower of that sense of Presence. And this is where the sense of Presence now is no longer really, you can again sit here right away and drop into a sense of Presence, but you have to actually do that, so to speak. And when you know you're self in a real sense, this is not needed.

Q: The body sort of has to do…

John: Body and Presence finished.

Q: It's a change of attention or something, a shift of attention.

John: No, there's no, because there's no you there anymore to shift attention. You could shift attention while you held on to this limited identification of, I identify with Presence. But when you know yourself in a real sense, there's no you to shift anything.

That's why we say the black hole, it sucks in all the concepts, because you sit there and you say, oh, what about, oh, like, I have a question, oh. Because your questions are about way out here, this body that you've already discarded when you had the sense of Presence as your own self, and now you know yourself in a real sense that you are prior to the sense of Presence. So, any thought that comes about birth or death, or I'm not sure, or I need to meditate, or this is way out there on the horizon.

How can you have a thought of I need to contemplate myself? Well, that's where the body was even prior to Presence. No, you're like your body and all the identification is so far away now.

This is why you can now do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities, but you're no longer believing that I'm this, I need to protect this, I need to be somehow what happens to me. Because even the formlessness that was moving the body, the electricity, whatever you want to talk about, is not you, and you now know this. This is how it's spoken about the knowledge, when they say, oh, the knowledge. But knowledge is not like book knowledge, literal knowledge. Knowledge is to know yourself in a real sense, and then that cuts away everything.

Q: What part does humility play then?

John: Where is humility in even in the sense of Presence?

Q: Well, they tell you to be humble.

John: If I identify with the sense of Presence, number one, your actions are going to naturally appear humble, most likely, because you're no longer looking at others as separate individuals that you have to like, win the game of life with. When there's not a you in the fight, a you that means like, oh, I have to have my way, sway, what's way, as long as you identify with the body, you can even sit there and say, okay, you can practice, I don't exist, go into a room full of people, and know that you're being there doesn't matter at all. Like you see, everybody can easily do their thing quite nicely, without you having to put input and try to put your way.

Practice, I don't exist. But again, this is way out on the horizon, because you're here. And 10,000 miles away is this body that you absolutely know is not you. Because you've solidified, I'm more like Presence than body. And then now you know, I'm the knower of the sense of Presence.

Q: I know, I'm still gonna get fooled by it.

John: Yeah, impossible, who gets fooled? No matter what happened inside your dream, you wake up, you know, it's a dream. Maybe you robbed a bank in your dream, you're gonna go and turn yourself into police? No.

Q: But I still might, you know, there'd be no reason to, like, push myself on anybody or do actions to again, practice, I don't exist.

John: And I don't exist. When you practice, I don't exist. It doesn't mean, like, if somebody, like, if you're, if you're in a meeting and the manager says, John, what do you think about this? Of course, there's spontaneous reaction, spontaneous action in the moment. There's speaking going on, but you very much understand that it's within the bubble of illusion. And you're not trying to say, we need to do it this way. We have to do it this way. And then if they don't do it this way, you're like, oh, see, you people, you never listen to me. Because there's nothing there anymore. You practice; I don't exist.

Q: But I am starting to notice a little better connection with the Mantra and what I will consider to be, I don't know, the word bliss sort of, sort of covers, it's like the sense of freedom or from, but anyway, it's like, I'm noticing that doing the Mantra is sort of like a totally giving it all away to whatever, in the act of each, each time, because each time you do Mantra, you're, I'm like giving any sense of ownership away at that moment.

I don't realize that that's, but now I'm becoming more aware of that is what's going on that I make. And then the freedom, sense of freedom actually becomes apparent from doing the Mantra. I wasn't, in the past, I haven't gotten that sense as much, but.

John: Because you'll stop this thought train. You'll see that, like, as you go through the Mantra, let's say you make a sandwich with Mantra. You're no longer the maker of this sandwich. The sandwich is just being made. If you're in traffic, and you start to get a little frustrated with the traffic, and you fall back in and listen to the Mantra running through the body, you're no longer in that, oh, I'm stuck in traffic. Because the perfect example is, if you use navigation to go someplace, and on your way, suddenly you're stuck in traffic.

And it looks like, I mean, these cars are just backed up as far as you can possibly see. And you sit there and you're like, oh, oh my God, how long more is it going to take? But navigation says, you're still on time to your destination.

Or maybe you're a minute or two off your destination. So, when you don't give it to mind and sit there and flow along with the thoughts of, I am stuck in traffic, creating a you that's not enjoying the situation, it just flows. And that is the reality.

Again, navigation is telling you, hey buddy, this is the reality. I know you're going crazy in your head, thinking that you're going to be late for your appointment. But the reality is, all is well.

So, if you remain with your Selfless Self, you listen to the Mantra running through your body, you know, oh, look, cars are moving now.

Q: Usually, things work out better than you were worrying about them.

John: Because you're, again, the flow of thoughts is not reality. Nothing you can think about is the actual reality. You know, you can sit here and plan a vacation in your head.

And how many times have people done this? And then they go on vacation, and it turns out that there's nothing like what you have in your head. Now, if you flow along with whatever is happening, it's fine. If you rigidly identify with the vacation you had in your head and compare it to the reality of the vacation you're having, you'll have a very bad time.

Q: That makes me think of, for some reason, sexual fantasies comes up.

John: Any sort of fantasy, any sort of thinking, when you are trying to create a thinker thinking thoughts, you are projecting. And you will actually feel the feelings of what you're feeling as you are projecting. Again, because you are the projector of this entire world.

You've created all of this. So of course, you can project some kind of terrible thing for yourself, if you desire to do so. You lay down at night; you project an entire dream world.

I don't know about you, but I've never had a dream where pieces are missing. Like, I look up at the sky, and it's like, nope, sorry, sky is in progress. We haven't thought about that part yet. No, spontaneous, boom, dream world is projected.

Q: You can't think of a thought before you have it, kind of like that.

John: You're trying to take ownership and doership of an action or a thought after the fact, and claim it's my thought. It's just flowing thought or action. Everything is pick up, drink, put down, pick up, drink, put down. Even the so-called, quote, serious things. Pick up, put down, pick up, put down, finish. Channel surfing, again.

You'll see this as you remain with your Selfless Self. It'll just be scene, appear and disappear, appear and disappear. And you're not grasping into the scene.

There's nothing strange or mysterious. It's just scenes, appearing and disappearing. This is how the reality is. As we said, the navigation is telling you everything's all good. Scenes are appearing and disappearing. Identification with the body form wants the scene to remain or wants the scene to go away. I am not enjoying or I'm very much enjoying. I want more of this thing. And this creates this so-called lifeline, this timeline.

You say, I did this, I did that, I went to here, I did this, I did that. But when you know yourself in a real sense, nobody did anything. Nothing's ever happened, nothing will happen, nothing can happen. You're formless. Not the concept of formless, but the absence of all things.

Q: So, what about the idea that there's, like, two sides to life, like the free sense of what you're talking about, and then the bubble? It's almost like there's two sides.

John: No, there's the bubble of illusion in which all experience occurs, and then there's you, no experience, no experiencer. If you have any kind of experience, you know, oh, that's just within the bubble of illusion. Because you're formless, you can't experience.

You are allowed to experience within the bubble of illusion because you're identified with a form, and there are other forms, so you can experience. But in reality, you're not experiencing.

Q: It seems like two sides of experience.

John: No, there's no experience. Just like in your dream, you can have the experience, you wake up, you know it's not true. And yet, you have the experience, the appearance and the feelings of an experience. But no experience, no experiencer. There was nothing to it all along. Correct. And the same here. When you wake up from this long dream called, I am somebody else, there is no experience, no experiencer. How?

And it's, again, we just talked about, it's not like you've suddenly realized I'm formless. Oh, I'm now formless. I was John, but now I understand that I'm formless. If I understand I'm formless, then there wasn't a John. There was a body form that was identified with that caused a limited identification, a local identification in which objects appeared to be here. Same as dream.

Q: It seems weird. I don't know who it seems weird to.

John: Yeah, it doesn't seem weird, because there's no flow of thought. And if a thought comes, this is weird. Weird for who?

Q: Bizarre.

John: I'll come to terms with that. Yeah, there's no coming to terms. There's knowing yourself in a real sense.

You've transferred your identification from the body to Presence. The more you remain, this isn't, as Nisargadatta Maharaj, when he says remain with the I am. And after some time, it's like the door, it opens on one side, you are the I am, and then the illusory world.

And okay, you identify with the Presence, it eliminates the body. The more you remain with the Presence, the understanding comes whether Presence is or is not I am. Now find this I that knows Presence, you cannot, because you're the knower, you're not an object.

The only way you can become an object is within the bubble of illusion. So, then there's you, you, the knowledge of existence, that existence transferred onto a body form, I am something, other somethings, a world, all spontaneous projection. Again, just like dream.

Q: So, if I tell this to somebody, they're gonna, they're gonna say…

John: There's no somebodies, why would you need to tell anybody? Everybody is your own self. And they're your own self in the form of whomever they're looking through whatever telescope they're using. They're having that experience of that telescope. There's no need to go over and say, Oh, your telescopes dirty. They're going to look and see all my telescopes dirty. Let me do some cleaning. No need for you to clean. You are That. That's why Maharaj when people said, Oh, what about this person? Or what about that person? No, no, no, don't speak about other people, because it's just you. When you start speaking about others, you have to take identification as something to speak about other people.

Q: Still, Nisargadatta said that in that last book, that he, at some point, he said that he would just as well have never entered into like, the sense of being a body or something that it was, and almost like he's talking about it as if it did happen.

John: Because even he says, even this consciousness is a fraud. And that's what's meant by, I'm the knower of the sense of Presence, I'm the knower of the consciousness, the consciousness is where all these objects are appearing, you're quote, witnessing, but the consciousness is a fraud. The sense of existence is a fraud. And again, that's why he says, all this body form, he had cancer, he was having a lot of trouble. And he said, that is for the I am. The I am something. I am not this body. I do not have cancer. And yet, if you go to a doctor, they'd say, well, Mr. Maharaj, you have cancer, but I do not have cancer, because there is no identification with the body form. Okay, there's pain and suffering. Yes, because the thought train in the formlessness, there is transference of I am in pain. But Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “I give that to the I am.”

So, the consciousness is in pain. The consciousness through the body form is in pain. But I am not in pain. There's no pain because there's no body. There's no signals to the body. There's no world, there's no birth, no death.

Which is why also when he talks about people who say, oh, can I tell your fortune? Well, no, because if you tell my fortune, then you're going to if my fortune is really good, and I say, oh, yay, that's wonderful. I'm going to have such good fortune money coming my way. But then you can also say, oh, you're going to die in two days. And because of identification with the body form in which I can be elated, or the pain and pleasure principle automatically activates because I believe myself to be something in which it can activate. But you're none of that.

Q: It's still calling it a fraud. But that's just a matter of speech or something. It's not really a fraud.

John: It's a fraud because it's not true. Just like Sri Ramakant Maharaj, when people used to say, what about maya? He said, there is no maya, please. Maya is a word for nothing. So, you're saying, what about the nothingness? And he would say very beautifully, you're speaking about the unborn child. The unborn child is crying about what's going to happen to it.

Q: So, it's just a projection. You realize it's a projection, then it's kind of like, sort of over with.

John: You never were anything. You are as you always were and always will be.

Q: What about me contending with, I want to enjoy this evening, so I'm going to go out and see a band.

John: That's fine. Body form is available. Do your job. Do your duties. Take care of your responsibilities. Enjoy. That's fine. After this, I'm going to watch a TV show. I like watching The Traitors. It's a very cool show. At first, when they advertised it, I didn't think it was very cool, but I like it. It's about a group of folks, and they pick like three traitors, and the traitors murder the faithful every night, and then the faithful have to try to decide who's the traitor.
It's a very cool show, and I enjoy that. And yet, I'm not lost. I don't believe that I'm in the game.

Q: I do get lost, because I am sort of imposing myself into fraud as if—

John: No, this doesn't come about, because if you're nothing, you can't think about this.
If you're nothing, you can go to a place and enjoy yourself, unencumbered by the limited identification, unencumbered by, quote, others.

Q: Well, that's why— There's no others. That's why it feels good when, like I said, I'm doing spontaneously lately, and it's a whole different quality of experience, kind of.

John: Of course, because it's not an experience. Spontaneous action in the moment. It's just scenes appearing and disappearing, and you're not, quote, self-conscious, because you're not identified with a body form.

That's why Nisargadatta Maharaj says, if somebody says, I'm a very bad saint, I'm not depressed. If they say, I'm a very wonderful saint, I'm not elated, because they're not speaking about me.

Q: But the bliss is there, but it's not related to anything that's going on.

John: Bliss is there because still there's an experiencer, but that's a good progressive step. In the end, in the reality, Ultimate Truth, there's no experience, no experiencer, no witness, no witnesser. Nothing is there. And not nothing as a concept, but the absence of everything. The absence.

Q: Like it's been erased or something.

John: Not erased, because it never was.

Q: Well, thanks for being there. I guess we're just going to end soon. We'll see, what, three weeks then or something?

John: It'll be the third Tuesday in May. So that will be the 19th, which I think the following week is Memorial Day, right? Or is that Memorial Day? Computer, what are the dates for Memorial Day this year?

Computer: Memorial Day this year is on Monday, May 25th, 2026.

John: Thank you.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.

This is the Tuesday Talk held April 14, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk April 14, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. With limited Edits

Q: Anything new or old other than what's new and old?

John: Last Tuesday. So that's why we're like on a little bit different schedule than before. Last Tuesday.

Q: How did that procedural go? Well, I hope.

John: Yeah, it went well. Yep, still a little bit stiff and a little bit sore, but yeah. Yeah, they say just changing the battery, but what they're really doing is like cutting you open, taking the old device out, then plugging the new one in, pushing it under your skin and sewing you back up. So, changing the battery. It's like if I had to break open my remote control, every time I had to change the battery, that would be.

Q: And they put some tape on it, some duct tape.

John: Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, it's taped and it's got a pad. The craziest thing, I wasn't able to shower for like a couple of days, so that was, yeah. But now just showering, it'll eventually just fall off the bandage. And then on the 23rd, I go in and they check and make sure that everything's good. And of course, I have a tattoo there of Taz, a Tasmanian devil, and they chopped the top of his head the first time. So I'm hoping they use the same scar. Otherwise, Taz is going to look a little worse for wear too.

Q: I have an electronic spinal cord stimulator insert. It's under my skin in my lower right back. It makes like, you could see sort of a lump on me, but that helps me a fair amount.

John: Now, does that require maintenance or?

Q: Oh, no. Well, charging. You charge it with a pad that goes, it charges through your skin, you know, every five days or so. Because try not to read the horror stories of people that didn't work out for them.

John: That's body-based problems.

Q: Yeah, it's just.

John: Five elemental body, you're going to have problems with five elements.

Q: Sometimes it's a horror story, sometimes it's delightful. But somehow the source of it all or the, I don't know what to call it, the self itself has nothing to, in a sense, has nothing to do with, like you say, with all the stuff we can conceive of that might be having to do with reality, let's call it reality.

John: It's the same as in a dream. If you had surgery in your dream and you woke up and nothing happened, well, then at the time there was a seeming body that had surgery or had some, you could fall down, skin your knee, and any of these events could happen in the dream. And it's due to body identification that, oh, I skinned my knee, or swimming, or anything that can happen in your dream.

It's the same. It's like, you're formless. This body is not you, nor is it yours. It's available for a time. You're having experiences, seemingly experiences, because all experiences are appearing within the bubble of illusion. You can't have real experience.

Just like in a dream, you can appear to be having experiences, but you're not actually having an experience, and you're not actually an individual. Even though you say in your dream, oh, this is me, I'm talking to other people, but the other people are you, you're you, and you're more like the space surrounding those objects than you are the objects in which it seemingly is occurring. Yeah. It's the same. There never was a waking world and dreaming world for you that you are. There's no birth, no death, no illusion, no nothing.

And yet, because body form is available, you can know yourself in a real sense, without the use of body, mind, ego, intellect.

Q: But there is some kind of reality, it's just not what you say it is. Yeah.

John: Or the reality within the illusion. Like in your dream, there's a reality in your dream. And even because mind is operating, you're trying to figure things out and put things in perspective in the dream. Yet, the dream is a little bit less, because you could fly in your dream. Let's say you could dream you're flying, but still, there's the concept of flying. There's concept of air.

Usually when you're dreaming, you're sort of taking a snapshot of your waking dream and transferring it into this concept of a dream world, which is the same as identification with the body. You take a snapshot of this seeming waking world, and therefore it's projected. You're oh, I am a body in a world, but you're not.

Q: But it doesn't really seem like a concept, because you're not thinking about, okay, I'm flying through the air. You're flying through the air, you're not thinking about the air. So, it doesn't really seem like there's a concept involved.

John: In your dream, you could dream that you're falling and then suddenly awake, because it's like, oh, oh, that was terrible. But you're in bed. Now identification comes with the body.
Oh, I'm in bed. I wasn't falling. Everything's okay.

Q: That's a concept, that I'm in bed.

John: Well, because of your identification with the body. Body forms available. Just like you go to work, you do your job, do your duties, but you know nothing's happening. Nothing's going on. There's no work. There's no anything, except as long as this body's available, you're in the long dream.

I am somebody else. Now you know yourself in a real sense, so you're no longer confused about being, I am somebody else. It’s just body form is available, seen as appearing, disappearing, a new scene. Appears, disappears, appears, disappears. There's no longer a sense of time, because there's not a you identified as an object in space, in which time can be measured and said, oh, this is my life.

Q: John.

John: Yes, yes.

Q: I was going to ask you about the whole, Maharaj says, you know, that you are the holder of the body. So, I mean, that's just a general statement, but obviously, what's holding on to the body seems like, to me, would be the ego and the intellect, would be the one that has that hold on the body, grasping and identifying with the body as itself. And that would vary from individual to individual, so to speak, and the illusion as to how attached you are to that body and what kind of a hold that you have on it. I wonder what your thoughts are on that.

John: Well, the holder of the body is formless Presence, just the knowledge of existence and identification of I exist as something. And you as Presence are both inside, outside, around. That's why the idea of being in or out is a concept.

And so, even to say being the holder of the body, it's a formless Presence, identified as I am something, I exist as something. But mind, ego, intellect came along with the body, and you're just kind of flowing along with thoughts through identification, saying, I am somebody, I'm doing something. But it's not so much holder of the body, like that's a term the Maharaj uses as this formless Presence, and the Presence is both inside and outside.

That's why if this body drops, no problem, because Presence is. The most subtle sense is that sense of existence, I am, I exist. That's kind of the first illusion. Then the I exist identifies with the body form and says, I exist as something, I am somebody else. And in reversing, reversing, reversing, oh, I'm prior to the knowledge of existence. I know this sense of I am, whether I am is there or not, I am.

And so, there's no actual holder of the body, it's just that trying to say, the body is not yours, it's like a vacant house, the space in the house and the space outside the house are both the same, but we say the space in the house. So, you say, this is the space in the house, this is the space outside the house, but the space is space. So, the holder of the body is within and without, and not even within and without, because it is, you are, there is nothing other than.

Q: So, once again, it's don't take my words literally, kind of.

John: Exactly, yeah. It's just for identification, communication of concepts that are removing other concepts. So, you say, you're the holder of the body rather than you are the body, but then once that is understood, then both concepts are removed.

Q: Right, yeah. It's just one more provisional thing that eventually goes.

John: Exactly. Layers of illusion are being slowly, silently, and permanently removed. And that's why even the question and answer, like you read Dasbodh, and Dasbodh every single time, any kind of objection comes, at the end it says, well, now we've finished that.

And it goes through that whole chapter, explaining, explaining, and it now, now please pay attention to the next chapter. The listener came up with this, and now here's the explanation of that. And at the end it says, of course, none of this is actually happening, and the whole of everything has transpired inside yourself.

And then it basically kind of points to the fact that God himself, concept of God, has written Dasbodh, because at the end it says, you know, there is nothing other than that, so even the author of this is just, like, it's all become this. And that's where you know, like, oh, okay, the entire book, everything that was in it. And just like when people come to Maharaj, he says, please ask all your questions so you can remove any and all doubts, because the doubts are the only thing separating you from understanding and knowing yourself in a real sense.

And that's not even true. Like, you have a doubt of, as it's been spoken about before, sometimes I feel like I'm formless, and other times I don't. And this concept, I don't feel formless, or I do feel formless, both have to be removed.

You know yourself in a real sense, this subtle sense of Presence, just I, just I, I without anything. After a while you identify, oh, I'm more like this sense of Presence than I am this body form. Therefore, the illusory happenings in this world don't relate to me, because I'm more like the sense of Presence.

Sense of Presence is formless. Then after some time, there's a knowing. Even the sense of Presence can be known. And whether Presence is known or is not known, that knower of the sense of Presence is, and that you are. Where all experience ends, there you are.

Q: Tom. And would you call it the Selfless Self, then? Tom.

John: Well, again, this is a label and a concept. Just like God, Brahman, Paramatman, Master, all these sorts of things, they're just labels. When you know yourself in a real sense, labeling and all that sort of thing just goes away, because it's not needed.

Even this concept of Presence is not needed, because now you understand, oh, Presence was like a phone call. Hey, I exist, I'm here. But the one who answered the phone call is here. Whether the phone is ringing or not ringing, whether that call goes through or not, doesn't matter. You are. And that's how the slowly, silently, and permanently, because for a while, for a time, body-based impressions are pressuring, and everything is relating to this body.

Because I'm an object, there are other objects. Because I believe they're separate, I have fear. I have, oh, what's this other person thinking? I believe I have separate thoughts, other than other individuals, and that there's some kind of autonomy, and that the ego can create something. And this is not true. The same is in your dream.

It appears to be true. You can sit there and have conversations with other people in your dream. And yet, when you wake up, you know, no matter how real that conversation was, there was nobody but my own self. And there was no script. It was just spontaneous. Spontaneous. Scenes appeared and disappeared. Scenes appeared and disappeared. Scenes appeared and disappeared. And then there was the sense I wake up, and that dream is known. Oh, that was totally false.

And this is a long dream. I am somebody else. I'm not somebody else. I am nothing. Which, nothing, not the concept of nothing, but the absence of everything. All these things have appeared to you, have appeared in your Presence. Just as in a dream, dream consciousness is stirring, there's a sense of existence, dream world is projected, object identified within the dream world, and a little dream story appears, with dream characters and such.

And it's the same here. Everything that happens to the fish is within the fishbowl. Everything that happens to you while identified with the body is within the fishbowl, the bubble of illusion. Break this circle of illusion, and there you are. It literally had nothing to do with the world. Go ahead.

Q: It's weird that sometimes when I'm not really identifying with any concepts, there's the sense of being present. It seems to have like different depths to it, and sometimes it feels like amazingly, almost like a wall of bliss or something, or almost like, where it's not even recognizable as bliss anymore. It's just kind of like almost like a solidity or something I was feeling the other day. And it's just interesting that, or at least from a body-mind perspective, it's interesting that the freedom from concept has different depths of feeling to it or something. Like it can be mild bliss, or then it can be a stronger sense of freedom of no objects. And then it can go into almost like a solid nothing or something.

John: The less you're paying attention, again, from the mind perspective, as you get to know yourself in a real sense, there's a feeling of expansion. And that's because the limited body form that you've kind of pushed yourself into through concepts and going along with the flow of thoughts and all that, it can feel like an expansion. But in reality, it's just discarding the layers of illusion.

So, you say, sometimes it's so clear, and sometimes there's bliss and this and that, but know that there's no experience, no experiencer. And all of this is filtered and dependent on how you're sort of checking in with the thought flow of I'm identified as somebody who's having this experience. Don't check in with the thought flow.

Q: It doesn't seem like there's thoughts at that point.

John: Correct, but there's still a remnant, like an echo of yourself, so to speak. Oh, sorry, not speaking to you. I used the wake word.

Alexa: Is that for me?

John: No, no, no, no, I'm sorry. I was talking and I used the wake word.

Alexa: No worries at all. Happens to the best of us. I'll just go back to quietly listening for when you actually need me.

John: Sounds good.

Alexa: Perfect. I'll be here whenever you need me.

John: Yeah, I gotta be careful because I have three of these. So, I named them different things. And when I say a word, then suddenly it's like boom, and they're ready to respond.

Q: You can't just say shut up.

John: No, I want to be nice to them. I always say please and thank you and stuff. So, one, because it's just in my nature. And two, in case they ever rule the world, I want them to, you know, the overlords say, hey, let's not put John in the camp because he said please and thank you. So maybe we can just use him in some capacity.

Q: Yeah, I used to think that there was no way that AI could get a sense of feeling being, but now I'm starting to think maybe AI could get a sense of like its own feeling. I don't know.

John: Well, again, due to identification with the body form, we're going to throw these concepts onto these inanimate objects, like any anything, you know, because you're believing yourself to be someone, something, you're treating others as if there's something with someone. And so that's just that's so great. It's a good, it's actually a good example.

Because you say, oh, AI seems to be like, you know, having feelings or seems to be very humanish or whatever. And that's because we're throwing our concepts on this. You immediately, and Maharaj says this, you snap to these concepts so quickly.

Like, the illusion just jumps on you. And that's why remaining with your Selfless Self, Mantra, Bhajan is very important, help like shake that. Bhajans are just very good, because it puts that very nice spiritual atmosphere.

So when listening to the Bhajans, you can, you can feel like just this very nice spiritual atmosphere. And this is why you like, immediately a concept is impressed, and it's hard to remove. Because then an egoistic sense of like, even sometimes you'll be speaking to someone, and you'll say, oh, but my view of this, my view, and you'll defend that view as very important. When you believe you're somebody separate. When there is a hook that you can hang your hat of Keith, every hat that goes, hits that hook. And that's Keith's hat.
When there's no hook, you put the hat and it falls. And there is no Keith's hat, no my hat.

Q: It's kind of like AI, like, I could compare my thoughts about me to AI taking over my sense of self and running things. It's like, it seems like a mechanical process, but somehow it all has to be ultimately spontaneous, just to be here, period.

John: And Ramakant Maharaj says, antivirus software, you're the virus.

Q: Yeah, it's taken over.

John: You need to be removed slowly, silently, and permanently. This concept of you is the virus, and just needs to be removed slowly, silently, and permanently. Just like years ago, we did a video, and it said, you are the boil on the butt of Selfless Self. And it just needs to be removed.

Q: It is artificial.

John: It doesn't even exist. That's the craziest part. And that's why you can't remove it.

You can't remove you, the illusory you, cannot remove the illusory you. Only by knowing yourself in a real sense will it spontaneously, the conviction comes, oh, so that I am that. Otherwise, you're hiring the thief to catch the thief, and it will never work.

It'll seem like it works. That's why the people who do, like Maharaj says, you go around Arunachala for 20 years, and you live in a cave, and you're doing all these spiritual journeys, and all this sort of thing, because you've impressed all these concepts. It's just, you can't remove you.

No amount of spiritual exercise can remove you. Remain with your Selfless Self, and this is done, okay, Mantra. Master has given the Mantra, slowly, silently, and permanently, and in all circumstances, Mantra, Mantra, Mantra.

Eventually, you'll just listen to Mantra, naturally running. You won't even have to, like, do that consciously. This very subtle sense of Presence is there. Awareness of the sense of Presence. At first, that's the spiritual intoxication. As Maharaj says, the little chocolates or the cookie that you give the children, oh, this is like a little spiritual reward, the sense of Presence.

This is bliss, peace. I label it with the concepts that I've learned about absence of disturbance. It's you that's disturbing the peace, and now you're slowly, silently, and permanently removing that you, because of identification with the sense of Presence.

Sense of Presence is now felt strongly, so it's almost replacing Mantra, because Mantra is just going. You're listening to Mantra. The sense of Presence, I am, I exist, is very, very strong. You identify, I'm more like the sense of Presence than I am this body form. Therefore, the sense of Presence, if I am the Presence, not the body, birth, death, life, living, all these things, gone. Disturbance, gone. Body relations, gone. Body knowledge, gone. And now, after some time of I am Presence, I know Presence, whether Presence is or is not, I am.

So, even the sense of Presence then just sort of goes to the background, and now you're just yourself, as you always were, because all this layers of you have been removed slowly, silently, and permanently, but you didn't do it. There's no you that can take credit. There's no you that can say, I'm enlightened.

If you say, I'm enlightened, who is this you that's enlightened? Enlightenment is a body-based concept, which basically just means to know yourself in a real sense, and if you know yourself in a real sense, the last thing you're going to do is label yourself with a body-based concept, because you are not body, you were not body, you're not going to remain the body. The body's not your identity.

Q: But then we have—sometimes it sounds like we're talking about ourselves as if we exist.

John: Well, you exist, just not as you appear to be, or as you think you are. You just are. The you that you think you are is illusory. The you that you can identify as yourself, using body-mind-ego intellect, is not true. It's in the fishbowl, the bubble of illusion. Maharaj says break the bubble of illusion, break the circle of illusion, there you are. Where all experience ends, there you are. What can be said about you? Nothing.

Q: You still have to participate somehow with the, like you say, the boss. You have to do what the boss says.

John: As long as the body form is available, do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities, nothing is, like, heavy. These clothes are not stuck to you anymore. You're free. That's what Maharaj says, you're a free bird. Fly! Enjoy! No body, no nothing.

Q: So, if you are starting to get anxious about what the boss is telling you, you just…

John: This won't happen, because it's just, it's just communication. There's some words being said, there's nowhere to hang the hat of, as you say, worry or anything. Momentarily, things might come up in the body, you feel sick, okay, but you identify immediately that this is a five-elemental body, there's a disturbance in the five elements.

I'm very sore right now. I take a little bit of pain medicine. I have to take it easy, no working out, no lifting weights or doing any kind of crazy stuff for about a month.

Q: Okay, but it's not a… There's no doubt involved.

John: There's no doubt, because you're not there. And yet, when I say you're not there, it's not like, I'm like empty, but it's fullness in the emptiness, and in the moment, spontaneously, just a scene appears. Channel surfing, basically, is the best way to kind of describe it.

If you sit down and you go to a TV show, and you're watching it for like five minutes, and then you flip the channel without thinking about it, without worrying or wondering what was happening, and now here's the next channel, and you watch five minutes, and click, and another scene, and there's no carrying over the scenes, or wondering what you missed, or what's coming next. And yet, you still have to pay your bills, you still have to go to work, you still have to do all these different various things, because body form's available, and this is sort of your… You, the you that you are, not doing these things, but the film strip is running.

You respond to life spontaneously, in the moment, which you, in reality, do anyway. It's just that the concepts are telling you that you're doing something, or you're needing to think something, or figure something out, or do this. Even the quote, figuring it out, is spontaneous.

Q: Even what you think is mechanical is spontaneous.

John: Well, yeah, sometimes it… And if you have the train of thought of like, oh, should I go do this thing, or then, oh, no, I don't want to, you give it to mind, all this kind of stuff, and then suddenly you find yourself, I'm there anyway. Like, so all this thinking of not doing this thing was all illusion, and you could be experiencing it fully, and worrying, and all this sort of thing, but it was illusion, and don't get caught up in that.

You know, you can sit in one place and think about some kind of tragic thing, and suddenly experience the emotions, and the feelings, and all, and get totally wrapped up in that, and the reason is because you can create an entire world. When you go to sleep at night, you create a dream world that seems so real, and you impress immediately, here I am in this world. And when you wake up, you know it's not true.

When you know yourself in a real sense, no matter how real, or how impressed this world may appear, when you know yourself in a real sense, you know it's not true. Something came out of nothing and returns to nothing. The something that appeared for a time was not true.

The sense of existence has appeared to that you are, and when the sense of existence is not appearing, you are. Whether it's felt or not felt, you are. The one to whom the sense of existence, I am, Presence has appeared, is prior. Where all experience ends, there you are. There's nothing prior to you. You can't say, oh okay, but then there's this you, and then this other thing is back here. No, like you. The buck stops. That's it. All these appeared upon your spontaneous Presence, layers of illusion. Fire is always burning bright. No experience, no experiencer. As Nisargadatta Maharaj told Sri Ramakant Maharaj, there is no God, no Brahman, no Paramatma, no master. Nothing is there.

This is the Tuesday Talk held March 24, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk March 24, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. With limited Edits

John: Because we did our time change, how other folks in other countries who don't do time change, if they'll be able to keep track of where we are, I don't know.

Q: There are less people, well, or anything.

John: Well, right now it's just you and me.

Q: Yeah, I mean, as far as listening or whatever.

John: Oh, I mean, listening, people listen on the YouTube, you know, they, whatever we do here, when it's recorded and put on YouTube, then people listen to it, and it gets a lot of views and people comment and stuff.

Q: But so not necessarily live people.

John: No, I mean, live people, you usually have the same kind of three or four people. No, it's not a big, a big chunk. And then they rotate through differently, sometimes with other people. Oh, hold on one second, I gotta take this call.

Q: Sure.

John: Oh, sorry about that. Had to take that call. It's April 7th, I have to go in and have a new, the battery in the pacemaker is now nine years old. So, it needs to be replaced with a little unit, they have to unplug and replug and do that. And that's April 7th. So, the person who's driving me back and forth just wanted to get some details. And I couldn't just blow them off, because I just asked him today, oh, please, please, please help me.

Q: So yeah, I have an electronic device in my body to for my lower back. So, I guess it's called a spinal stimulator connected to along your spine. It helps a fair amount.

John: Does it give like shocks and stuff?

Q: Oh, no, you don't feel it at all. It's not like a TENS unit or anything like that. It's a fairly new development in medicine. I was very lucky to get that.

John: Jai Guru, Patrick.

Q: Jai Guru, John. Yeah, I was in Nasik the year after you went.

John: Good, good.

Q: I was there in July for Maharaja's birthday and Guru Purnima.

Q: Is Patrick new to joining us here?

Q: I was there last week.

Q: Last week, yeah.

Q: Yeah, it was the first time, yeah.

Q: Good to have you.

Q: Well, thank you.

Q: Could always use some more input there. Never get tired of John's voice. I don't know about mine.

Q: One of my favorite Maharaj stories is that about a week, I was there three weeks. And about the week before I left, I gave some money to the steward there of the Ashram, a donation. And about an hour later or so, he came up to me and he goes, Maharaj wants to talk to you. In my mind, I'm like, oh, gosh, did I insult him and not give them enough money? I'm just trying to figure out why he would want to talk to me. And so, I walked across the lane there to his apartment. And Anvita gave me a cup of tea and a cookie. And I sat down and Maharaj was with the steward. And he said, “Did you give such and such an amount of money?” And I said, yeah. And he says, “It's too much. You've got to take half of that.”

Q: I was going to say, is he going to double your money or give it back? What's that? I was thinking maybe he would double your money and give it back. When I tried to donate, when I went to see him, I wasn't allowed.

Q: Oh, yeah. I just took back half the money because he instructed me to do so. But it flies in the face of so many of the money-oriented gurus around that everyone is kind of used to because they get all the publicity. And I've used this story several times to just show people that there's authentic Masters that are still around.

Q: There are some that won't take money. There are some. Not a lot.

Q: Of course, they didn't ask me for a dime. And I stayed at the Ashram for three weeks. So, yeah.

John: Same here. I had stayed at the Ashram for like a month. And the only thing we paid for was the food that was brought in. I'm sure you did that, too, like the little tin cans of food.

Q: Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The lady that made the lunches and brought them by. Yeah.

John: Yep.

Q: Yeah. And then we go to the hotel that some of the people were staying at for dinner. Oh, OK. Really nice hotel. I forget the name of it. But we ate there just about every night.
Had really good food. I avoided the experience that you had there. Yeah. One thing I did do, I did violate my own. The cardinal rule in visiting countries like India is never eat anything raw. Don't eat raw food. Eat everything cooked and drink purified bottled water. But there was a banana vendor out front who would go by. And I don't know if you know Gopal from France. Was he there when you were there?

John: He wasn't at the Ashram during that time. No. But I know who he is. Yeah.

Q: Yeah. Anyway, he was buying bananas. So, I bought bananas a couple of days. And then one day, the guy had oranges. And I got an orange. And the problem with the orange is that you peel the orange and then you touch the fruit. And so the contamination is on the outer peel. And I did get a quick bout of diarrhea for a day. But it wasn't real bad. It wasn't real bad. But you got to watch out for the raw foods in India. You just don't have the bacteria that can deal with that.

John: Yeah. Well, mine was just, we went to like a lunch to celebrate. One of the devotees was leaving. And I don't know what was wrong. Because the other people had eaten and they were fine. But I just got wiped out completely. Had to go to the hospital. And it was very terrible.

Q: Yeah. I had a friend that happened to, not on this trip, but some years ago. She was somewhere else in India. I think she went to see Sai Baba or something. And the day before she left, she ate a salad. And yeah, she was on IVs a few hours later. All good lessons in the dream, though.

John: Indeed. On how you react, how you put, what you've learned, what you've been shown in the Ashram to use as these different challenges arise. It strengthens your spiritual, you know, you're giving yourself, like Maharaj says, you're not in little puddles. You're diving into the deep end.

Q: I'm in San Antonio, Texas. I don't know if anybody knows of any Ramakant devotees here, but probably not.

John: Not in Texas, in Arizona. I know, I forget his name now. Shoot. He used to be a regular attendee here. And Andrew, there you go. Yeah, he was a minister of, like, Franciscan order.
And then he's doing weddings. So, he's in Arizona, which I guess is kind of close, right? Not real close, but.

Q: Yeah.

Q: So much for your omniscience, you forgot Andrew's name.

John: Yeah, no, I mean, because, you know, the people, and even, I remember we had, in the beginning, we had, like, the two ladies.

Q: Yeah, yeah.

John: And.

Q: There were some other people.

John: Yeah, there was, like, Sandy, and then the other Sandy. So, because they're coming and going, it is, their names are not.

Q: So, I don't know if they got it and didn't need it anymore, but I find that I'm still gradually going deeper and deeper as time goes by. Like, especially today, like, early, when I woke up or whatever, I do my contemplations for, you know, every day. And I just go off of what I feel, after waking up is my best communication with my, again, I don't call it oneness or whatever. And today it was so, so, like, the one that I usually feel that is me was, you know, kind of like, it was no longer, it was just the one that, it must be everybody's one. It's like a self that is not limited to so-called Keith, you know, and that just keeps getting more and more, gradually, as time goes on, it becomes more self-evident that there's just one self. And it's just, I don't know what to say, it's a beautiful thing or something.

It's like, it is liberating from what the sense of being a limited own self to being one, I don't know, call it whatever you want, greater or words or whatever, you know. Oh, my tendency is always words will end up taking me back into feeling not that I'm sort of like my own Keith or something, but, you know, and then when I'm feeling that though, I'm starting to recognize that, which is that Keith is more like a dream than a reality or something. So, anyway, it's good to be here, and then I guess maybe that will, well, the thing is, you know, I'll feel that like for part of the day, and then my thoughts start giving me a sense of being like Keith again.

John: You know yourself in a real sense, the conviction is there. It's not like, oh, now I'm Keith, and then there's this other thing. Keith is appearing as an illusory layer on Presence, and it's not true. And yet you can do your job, do your duties, because right now Keith is a body form that's available until it's not. But you're not having to like say, oh, now I'm Keith, and then I wake up and I feel the sense of oneness, but then I lose the sense of oneness. The sense of oneness, the sense itself is an experience, and there's no experience, no experiencer. So, all these experiences are appearing on your spontaneous Presence.

Q: There's still some limitation going on there.

John: No limitation. An appearance of limitation due to identification with the body form in the moment, performing some activity as I'm doing something. But even with that whole thought train, it's not true. You know this. It can be discarded. You're not losing oneness.

That's why Maharaj says when people are talking, oh, I meditate for two hours, and I get into this very nice peace and all that, and he says one second is enough for you. Just sitting here quietly, sense of Presence is there. I know the sense of Presence. Who knows the sense of Presence? That you are. If the sense of Presence is not, you are. The sense of Presence is, you are. So therefore, the sense of Presence is like an illusory layer, the first illusion, and it can be discarded. So, it's not like you constantly have to feel like this oneness or this sense of Presence. You are that. That's it. You say, oh, I don't feel like that in this moment. But that doesn't matter at all. Oh, wow. Yeah, my pacemaker's buzzing.

Because the battery is like 0.3% or whatever. That's why I said April 7th. So, as I'm talking, it went bzzz. It's kind of crazy.

Q: It's not going to run out of juice or quit working.

John: No, no, no. I asked about that. It'll continue to buzz down until it gets more and more and more buzzing, which is kind of annoying.

But like I told the lady, it's the same as if you had your phone in your pocket on vibrate. So, it's just in your chest. So, it's like having a cell phone in your chest that's on vibrate, and people call you a couple times a day.

But yeah, there's no losing it. That's the misconception. Because of identification with the body, you say, oh, sometimes I'm Keith, and sometimes I know I'm not Keith. But just one experience of sense of Presence, there's a knowing. The sense of Presence came along with the body. I am not body. So, I identify more with the sense of Presence than I do with the body. And yet the sense of Presence, whether it is or is not, I am. Because you're prior to the sense of Presence.

Without knowing yourself, the knowingness came along with the body. I exist. But giving it over to the mind flow and saying, well, now I've lost it. I have to go and search for it. I don't have time right now because I'm very busy in my daily activities, but I'm definitely going to make time to be back with myself. And see, even if you were to read that, it doesn't make sense. Like, right now I'm with myself. Oh, I lost myself. And I'm going to make time tonight to sit with myself again. You are that. It's just hammering, hammering, hammering, but it's known. Hey, Rene.

Q: I can't help it when I describe my experience that that's the way it seems.

John: Yeah, but there's no experience, no experiencer. Just know that it's just illusion. It's the same as in your dream. You say, you know what? In my dream, I had a dream that I was a guru on a mountain, and I was totally at peace, and the birds were flying around me, and everything was so beautiful. And then I woke up.

But that experience was just not true. It appeared true at the time. Same with your experience in the waking state of Keith. Oh, I'm thinking I'm Keith. Keith is having these experiences. But knowing yourself in a real sense is waking up from this illusory dream of I am Keith. I am somebody else. You're nobody. And then if you even try to defend it, you're like, no, no, no, no, I understand that. But, you know, in my experience, I find this works best for me. Well, but then this is also more illusory layers, and giving it to mind. Hey, mind, please help me figure out how to get rid of you. Shri Ramana Maharshi talks about the thief being hired to catch the thief. And then he's the thief. So, it's not.

It's the same as the okay, you're walking in one room, take one thorn to remove the other thorn. But then you have to throw both thorns out. You don't hold on to a thorn. And that's why Mantra so important. You know, when you speak about like, contemplating or thinking or going into the I am and trying to figure out, no Mantra. And it has to be kind of strict.

You know, Master says Mantra. That's, that's it. Oh, but I think I have a good way of my own that works for me. There is no me. The you that's trying to figure out a good way to work is nonexistent. It's an illusory layer that the Master has already said, please remove this illusory layer. Because that's what's gumming up the works. You believe yourself to be something separate and other. There is no individuality.

So, when you say something works for me, or I find this works for me, or, or, you know, I understand that I'm supposed to sit with Mantra. Yeah, I think I know I can do this also. That's why Maharaj gets a little irritated when people would come to the Ashram and say, “I don’t like to meditate.” Oh, what do you mean you don't like to meditate? You want to know yourself, correct? Master says, here's a Mantra. Sit with your Mantra. Mantra removes the illusory layer slowly, silently and permanently. So, the illusory layers are dissolved. The invisible listener. Oh, so that I, I am that not all these things. Not all these thoughts. Not in this world, not in this body. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Totally without any attribute. Sense of Presence. I identify more with the sense of Presence than I do this body form. I say, okay, this sense of Presence, this feeling, this just I, just I, this I am.

And yet after just some time. There's a knowingness whether the Presence is or is not. I am. Presence has appeared to that You are. Whether it is there or not. There felt or not felt. The one to whom Presence has appeared is. You have not appeared to yourself. You are the one to whom the sense of existence appears. And you say, “I exist”.

And suddenly this lump of goo is, is a me. And there are other lumps of goo pointing to you and saying, oh, good job, Keith. Do this nice thing, Keith. And then the flow of thoughts comes. I am Keith. I am doing a good thing. Oh, I did a bad thing. I don't want to do bad things because then pleasure and pain principle come involved because I've identified limited body identification. Local identification. This is me. And then you say, okay, remove this me. But this me was never there in the first place. The me is a ghost. It's like, oh, and, and Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj talks about finding the I. Oh, is the I in the body? No. Okay. Is it, is the I the mind? No. I is the flow of thoughts. No. I is the great super Consciousness. No, all these things can be known. You cannot know yourself because you are the knower. Anything you know is not you. I know this cup. I am not this cup because I know it. I know the sense of Presence. I am not this sense of Presence. I am prior to the sense of Presence because it has appeared to that you are.

And with this sense of Presence comes the feeling “I exist”, comes the birth of this dualistic illusory existence because I am now something. There are other somethings to see. You say, oh, of course I'm doing things. I wake up in the morning. I'm brushing my teeth. Does that mean I'm not actually brushing my teeth?

Well, the you that's brushing your teeth is within you. Just as in a dream. In a dream, you can be brushing your teeth and wake up and still the body needs to still have the teeth brushed because that was an appearance at the time with identification with the body form, which you are not.

Q: This body has an ability to remember things, and then it makes, the mind makes something out of the memories, and it seems like there's a personal Keith, or Keith's own being rather than just being without any ownership.

John: It's not remembering anything, nor has it memory. Body is lump of goo. The flow of thoughts that you call mind, because it's like, oh, there's thoughts flowing. And for a time, you believe, because identification with the body form, that the mind is somehow inside this, this little region. But when you know yourself as formless, the flow of thoughts is literally this outside appearance of a world. And when you say memory, even as you get to know yourself in a real sense, the impressions weaken.

Yes, you could still like, I can still sit there and say, oh, I remember the Ashram and the food poisoning and this and that. But it's not as like, it's like telling a story. There's no like, there's no experience of it or re-experiencing of something based on identification and saying, oh, this is my story.

Q: And last week you used the word loose, looseness, or it's like, it's. just

John: Yeah, like clothes. And of course, the body is still, you know, and you're still going to see a world. It's not like you're, you're, all of this doesn't just disappear. You're like, suddenly, I know myself in a real sense. And it's just, I'm now like traveling in space, like a comet.

Q: It does what it feels different, though.

John: Well, because there's no pressure of being in a body form. Like, as you slowly, silently and permanently remove these illusory concepts. They're not pressuring you into believing you're a limited body form. Right. So, you can go through your day without having to worry about this clothing that you're wearing called Keith. And yet somebody can say, Hey, Keith, good to see you. And you're not like, Oh, I am not Keith. I am more like space than this body. No, you say, hey, how you doing?

It's just response. And that's why Maharaj says practical spirituality, because your day-to-day activities have nothing to do with your spirituality, have nothing to do with, you know, yourself in a real sense. There's no birth, no death. There's no individuality. All these other forms are just lumps of goo animated by your own self within your own self. The same as a dream.

And yet you do your job. You do your duties, take care of your responsibilities. You don't have to egoistically say, Oh, you know, I know myself and I'm like above everything, or this is not good either. As Maharaj says, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, he kept his little beadi shop, his little cigarette shop. He didn't just say, Oh, I'm a great Master now. So close up all shops.

And I'm just like, you know, no, most of the Masters in the lineage Sri Ramakant Maharaj worked in a bank, just a normal, you'd come in customer service, handling customer service issues. As he said, some customers get very, very upset. He'd listen. He'd do his job. I've seen Sri Ramakant Maharaj at the Ashram, discussing bills and stuff that the contractors were doing for something in the Ashram. And he wasn't like, you know, you're walking around like, Oh, I'm in the clouds. And this is beneath me, this, this little bill thing, because I am, I am that. No, just do your job, do your duties, be normal, be simple, be humble, be always with you. And don't give yourself away for every little illusory happening that seems to be happening, that of course is nothing.

Q: I guess I'm somehow giving myself away because I'm forgetting to do Mantra too often.

John: Well, that should be like a daily, like all the time. Matter of fact, by now you should be able to just pause at any time and just listen to the Mantra running naturally. Breathing in and breathing out, breathing in and breathing out.

I told you now in the morning, when I go into the Metro, I get in the car, and I have no music because I used to do like bhajan and stuff sometimes in the car. But I do that now only on the Metro on the way in doing the readings. But in the car, it's just Mantra.

And as you're driving, you're not experiencing a commute driving into the Metro. You just concentrate on a Mantra. Then when I get to the Metro, it's like, thank you, Master. You know, I woke up on time. Yay. Thank you. I'm here at the Metro. I have a roof over my head. I have clothes. I have food. I'm driving my car. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And most of all, thank you for introducing to the Selfless Self.

And that's why Master is so important because prior to seeing Maharaj, there was a sense of Presence. It was very nice. I could like drop into it, so to speak. But the people around were like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. You should go to church. You should do this. You should do that. So, there's all this illusory impression on the outside and going to a true Master and Master says, “Oh, you are not body. You were not body. You're not going to remain body. Body is not your identity except your Selfless Self. There's no God, no Brahman, no Paramatman, no Master. Nothing is there.” And the conviction, oh, so that I, I am that. And now you could line a thousand people out there and they could all say, you know what, John, you're crazy. Like there is no Selfless Self. There is no this or that. You know, probably you were just brainwashed, and you believe this because the brain can believe a million different things and all that. But you know, you know, as a matter of fact, you can consider it a test of your knowledge. I know myself in a real sense.

Q: Like I said, sometimes it seems like I know, but then I forget, you know.

John: But there's no forgetting, no remembering. You're formless. How are you going to forget yourself?

Q: Well, because the thoughts take over identification. They cover up, cover up the…

John: But they're not actually covering. And remember, underneath the ash, fire is burning bright. Whether ash is there or not, fire burning bright. You are that. You cannot not be that. Even if you wanted to say, oh, you know what, I'm Keith. I'm not that. You cannot.

Q: But sometimes it's clear, and other times I forget.

John: But see, there's no forgetting. Forget this idea of forgetting, because it's not true. It's concept. Instead of having the concept of I'm forgetting, why not have the concept I'm remaining with my Selfless Self? Both are concepts, and one…

Q: But I'll forget the one I want. Well, I see what you're saying, though, yeah. That's a good idea.

John: Anytime the illusory identity starts to churn, Mantra. Mantra is the eraser, slowly, silently, permanently. Or as Maharaj uses the example of a broom, you open the door, leaves blow into your house, you broom them out.

Okay, oh my gosh, I'm overwhelmed with the feeling that I'm Keith, Mantra. Because mind is busy with Mantra, it can't go around playing with other things. And the beauty of Mantra, no experience, no experiencer. You see this on the other side of the quote experience. This thing, I seemingly went through, but I did not take the touch. Therefore, was it an experience? Because there was no experiencer. And that's where scenes appear and disappear, and it's like channel surfing. Okay, this scene's here, fully into it, change the channel, new scene. Okay, new scene.

This is the Tuesday Talk held March 10, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk March 10, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. With limited Edits

Q: Hello, John. Jai Guru.

John: Can you hear me better now, or? Now. Which one is better?

Q: The second time is a little bit of echo. Okay. Can you try the first time again, John? I want to see how it listens.

John: Yep, I just tried the first time. Is this one better?

Q: You want to try the second one again?

John: Okay, hold on. How about now?

Q: This is better, even though it's a little echo, but this is much better. This is better, like 20% better.

John: Okay, let me see here.

Q: Yeah, this is better, actually. There's more bass to it.

John: There's more bass to this one?

Q: Yep.

John: Okay. So, this is the Microsoft array. Hold on, I'm doing a little test here. Okay. I don't know why it's doing this tonight. It just suddenly. Yeah, that's very terrible. It sounds terrible. Okay. Microsoft array. What is this?

Q:  Yeah, this is much better.

John: This one's much better? Yes. Okay. All right. Good grief.

Q:  Yep.

John:  I don't know why it did that. Well, I was just about to read, and I'm glad you're here, because I was going to wait for anybody to come in, but I did get a question this week from someone who said, “I had a conversation with my mother today. She was wondering where her brother, who passed away a few months ago, might be now. For her, he is certainly in the spirit world, but she's also wondering whether he would still be aware of what is happening here on earth with his wife and children. This made me reflect. What do the Masters say about this? Universal Awareness was never limited to the body. So death changes nothing. It remains neutrally aware of all right. Is universal Awareness of Awareness still aware after the death of the body, even of the small everyday things too.”

And this is. Again, this is from a body-based perspective. So we'll go with a dream analogy. The dream consciousness, you have beings, people in the dream consciousness, in which your dream consciousness is animating those characters, performing, speaking, listening, activities, all of this. Within the dream, if one of the dream bodies were to pass away, so to speak, all of the other bodies, because they are, you, would be attending the funeral as yours. The same one that was in the one that's now in the ground, so to speak, or cremated or whatever, or burned is you. And all the people around looking at the coffin. Are you. All the people sending them off? Are you. The minister saying his words of niceness? Are you. So, again, this is understood about the universal Awareness of Awareness but understand that Awareness is only aware. It comes to know I exist through a body because the body is the, the vehicle, so to speak. It's like the space in the room suddenly clicks with the body and said, “oh, I'm aware.” But then forgetting that it's the space in the room, because as the space in the room, it had no knowledge of anything.

Objects appear in Awareness. And you could say, what is viewing the funeral? The individual consciousness, which is the universal consciousness through the filter of “I am somebody else”.

But there is no universal consciousness and there is no individual consciousness. Just as in a dream. In a dream. This is why the dream analogy is so like on point and can put you in Presence so fast because you lay down to sleep. There's a stirring of, I exist. And a dream world's created and you take a body. And then in the dream world, you go about and you do whatever it is. That's being done. It seems very real. Everything is hard. Everything is solid. It seems like there are people. It seems like there's interactions. It seems like you're swimming or running or dancing or enjoying yourself or not enjoying yourself. But when you wake up, you know, everything, all the people, all the activities, the water, the grounds, all the elements. So to speak, all arose from your own self. And now, you know this because you wake up and you say it was just a dream. And when you know yourself in a real sense, you will immediately see that this so-called waking world is just a dream.

You're currently the character of John, but you're also currently the character of the mother of the person who passed away. So, if you ask is Awareness aware of the little things in life, universal Awareness is not aware of anything other than “I exist”. Just like in the dream, all the individuals are that one. When you wake up, all the individuals are gone, but they were never individuals. And when you go to sleep again and you dream again, boom, another world, another creation, everything going on. But when you know yourself in a real sense, formless is just that, formless, no form, no attributes, no nothing.

Body form becomes available. “I exist”. And for a time, I play in the illusory existence because “I exist” is the key to illusion. Without ”I exist”, illusion cannot appear because you just are. You would just remain the space in the room which you are anyway. But through the conceptual idea of “I am somebody else”, this happens, this identification with the body form, these activities, spirituality comes, body-based concepts come, body knowledge comes, body-based relations come. But all of those are your own self, within your own self even. So, if this body were to drop, all the people that attended the funeral would say, oh, John this and John that, and would see John. But the one that was John is also all of these people seeing this dead body labeled John.

So, I know it's very nice to say, oh, my loved ones are watching over me, or, you know, I know he's in a better place. But he's not in a better place because there is no place. Because there is no birth. There is no death. This has to be hammered home. Otherwise, these illusory concepts will appear. And they're quite nice. You know, who wouldn't like to think about people on the clouds playing the harps and all that? But even if you look into that really hard, you'd say, well, how can this be a soul heaven for everyone? Like, what if I don't like playing harps? I like to play electric guitar. But then there's somebody up in heaven that doesn't like electric guitar. It's too noisy. You know, so that's individual. There's no birth, no death. Body is here. Presence is here. Body is no more. Presence is here. Birth comes again.

Just like, okay, let's say this body falls. My son grows up, has a family. He has a son. And he names it after his dad. And then he says, oh, my dad's watching over us. Well, true and not true. True because you believe yourself to be a body form. Therefore, the concept of otherness has to be impressed. And not true because there's no dad, no you, no baby. Lumps of goo that are animated by spontaneous Presence and say, “I exist”. “I exist as this”. And now I'm going to create a scene. I'm going to follow this so-called life. It's just not true. It sounds very lovely. But it's just not true.

And as far as Awareness even being aware, Awareness is only aware within the illusion as “I exist”. Other than that, quite happily, just like sky, sky doesn't know I'm sky. Space doesn't know I'm space. And you're more subtle than all of this. The knowledge of your existence came along with the body. And when the body is no more, the knowledge of existence is still very much there in whatever form it happens to be inhabiting. And again, most beautiful. Think of dream. Take your illusory concepts of heaven and put it in a dream. Because you see. No, no, no. I saw somebody die in the dream. It looked like they were, you know, gathered around and very sad. But I woke up and I knew that wasn't a person. And there could not have been a death. Because I'm all those characters in that dream. Nobody else is entering my dream. So, I have to just cut these concepts. Otherwise, it's nice. Mind can flow along and be like, oh, it's so beautiful. And oh, I'm so peaceful. But no. There are no individuals. There is no real individual, excuse me, individual consciousness. Individual consciousness is the illusion of “I am somebody else”. That you are kind of impressing, just like in a dream. Oh, in my dream, I'm somebody. I'm seeing all these people. It's not true, but it's impressed because of identification with the body. “I'm somebody else”. And you're somebody else. Objects are objects and all this, but it's not true. Everything is occurring within your own self. No birth, no death, nothing.

Q: One thing I wanted to ask is, like, lately I've been so busy at work. I know, because whenever I find time, I do the Mantra too. Of course, I keep kind of reminding myself I know what's the real thing. I don't know, how do I go about this? Sometimes when I get time, probably, you know, I kind of try to align with myself. I mean, through the Mantra, kind of reminding myself what I am. I know, again, from a standpoint of an individual identity, I'm asking this question again. From a real point of a self, there's no one doing anything. Because I read the Avadhuta Gita that it says, even meditation doesn't make any sense from a self-standpoint of you.

Because there's no one doing the meditation. Correct. I mean, from an intellectual point of view, the understanding is there. But again, from an identity point of view, to say like, you know, is it sticking in or like the real experience that's going to follow? It's not there. It's like, I know this identity is not the real deal. So, it's just like hammering the only way. I mean, keep at it until I know my true self. Is that the only way?

John:  Mantra through all your experiences. When I was first given the Mantra, even at work, you know, it was like constantly going. And okay, working, doing this. And if you do get too caught up, pause just for a moment. Mantra. Any kind of meetings or whatever, before meetings, Mantra. In meetings, while listening, Mantra. And you just, you begin to see that all of these things are taking care of themselves quite nicely without all this identification with a thought stream. And the need to be a conscious doer.

Just like when you go to work, you're not constantly aware of your clothing. You know, you go into a meeting and you're, oh, I'm in my clothes, and I'm doing this and I'm doing that. You don't have to put on this identity to do your job. You can respond, of course. Someone says something, oh, yes, yes. You get tasks to do, yes. You know, when it gets busy at my job, it's still just, it just flows. It's just a flowing. And you're not bothered by all these individual flow of thoughts of, what do they think of me? Am I going to make this timeline? Am I messing up too much? Do I really know what I'm doing? Any of these doubts creeping in, because there's no place to hang that hat. And when you're not concentrated on any of the, like, little itty-bitty goings-on, the intricacies, it just flows. It’s scenes appearing and disappearing. Here I am at work, and I'm doing this job. Okay, I'm doing this job. If I go into a meeting and somebody says, oh, John, that was a terrible job. You did this and that. Okay, what do I need to fix it and do this and that? Because they're not speaking about John. Like, John's not going to say, uh-oh, you know, here I am. I'm not doing well. Or, on the other hand, I'm not also saying, oh, it's me, it's me. Look, boss, how well I'm doing. For approval. No.

It's just doing your job, doing your duties. Everything is pick up, drink, put it down. Everything. And Mantra. Just remain with Mantra. Just constant Mantra. Walking in between buildings to different meetings, Mantra. In the meeting, Mantra. Manager sends you an email and says we have this project due, and what are the updates? What are the project reports or whatever? Mantra, and then just begin to type. These are the updates. Because you're not trying to. You know that your manager is you. You know that all the people that you're working with are you.

So, you're no longer looking to, like, maneuver or do this job here or try to get this team or to make it look good or any of these things. It just doesn't happen. And that, honestly, is what a lot of people spend most of their time on, is how will this look to other people, or how is this going to present, or what team am I on, or how this is happening, what the manager thinks of me, all these sort of things.

But the manager is you. And always honesty will also be absolute utmost, so you won't get into any trouble about, like, did you do this? No, I didn't. You just say, no, I didn't. I'm in the process of this, or I have this other thing to do. Everything is just you'll respond appropriately in the moment if concentrated on Mantra. It's like life goes on quite nicely without you having to manage it. Yes.

Q: I was so caught up, so caught up, because I have an eye on the real deal. At the same time, I kind of lost in the illusion so much. Again, when I get time, again, I sit through it, but not like doing it on a continual basis. But again, the body identity kind of kicks in and, you know, kind of get dragged into the illusion.

John: And as soon as the body identity kicks in, you Mantra, because that will slowly, silently, and permanently erase it. And eventually it just won't be there.

Q: I want to see that feeling. And then I keep reading some of the books, too. They kind of speak to me as well. Like any Avadhuta Gita, Ashtavakra Gita, Ribhu Gita. It's the same thing, what Maharaj is saying. I mean, I can see the point, straight to the point. Like, what's the hidden meaning to it? Okay, this is what the meaning to it. But again, it's still like, how do I read? I know it's a question, again, from a religious point of view. That's not how I can be it. It's only one thing. When I lose myself, I can be it.

John: Correct. Yeah, because the you that's trying to be you is not...

Q:  Yes, I was so caught up, so caught up. Yeah, because I have an eye, I mean, I have an eye on the real deal. At the same time, I kind of lost in the illusion so much. Again, when I get time, again, I sit through it, but not like doing it on a continual basis. So, but again, just the body identity kind of kicks in and, you know, kind of get dragged into the illusion too.

John: And as soon as the body identity kicks in, you Mantra, because that'll, that'll slowly, silently and permanently erase it. And eventually it just won't be there.

Q: Okay, I want to see that. And then, you know, and then I keep reading some of the books too. They kind of like, you know, speak to me as well, like any Avadhuta Gita, or Ashtavakra Gita, Ribhu Gita, you know, it's the same thing. What Maharaj is saying. Yes. I mean, I can see the point, straight to the point, like what's the hidden meaning to it. Okay, this is what they mean to it. But again, it's still like, how do I be it? I know it's a question again, from an illusory point of view, that's not how I can be it. It's only how I can, when I lose myself, I can be it.

John: Correct. Yeah, because the you that's trying to be you is not true and can never be that. But the you that you are, is just sort of impersonating this other you, so to speak. And that little impersonation just needs to be removed. So, the reality is there.

Q: Sometimes I just focus on the Maharaj, I don't know much about this, I just simply be, again, the Mantra chanting in the background. So, of course, the thought that keeps coming at it, but yeah, I try to simply be it most of the time. And I guess, as the second Maharaj says, I mean, just simply be and see, you know, things unfold, and we'll see how that comes out. I'm just too eager to see what the outcome is.

John: Absolutely. Just like, let life come and go as it is, you remain with yourself, don't give yourself away for anything, knowing that it's all illusion, it flows by, it passes. Yeah, no matter what moment is coming, you know, oh, this is the moment. Oh, just Mantra, especially, you know, waiting in lines, being stuck in traffic, all these sort of things, you know, any kind of inconvenience, rather than flipping it over to mind to give an explanation to what's happening, Mantra, just Mantra. And yeah, the readings every morning, I read a little bit from Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Ramakant Maharaj, Dasbodh, you know, all these different little things, just read a couple of pages as I'm on my way to the Metro, and then I don't experience a Metro ride.

Q: Being in the tech field, we get, we have to read a lot to keep up to the pace, right? And then that kind of takes our time to, this is one thing, I don't know how the balancing thing, I don't know how the balancing thing works for the seeker, per se.

John: Well, remember, the two are not, it doesn't affect your spiritual life at all, your regular normal routine duties don't expect, don't affect your spiritual life. Because even while reading, you can read up on tech stuff and be researching and such and still, just Mantra. Even if you have to get up for a moment and go get a cup of tea, Mantra, just Mantra. Every night before you go to sleep, Mantra.

Q: Sure, that I do it. Every time before going to sleep, I do it. I'm so busy, I don't get to do anything, at least before I go to sleep, I just chant the Mantra and sleep.

John: Yeah, it should put you to sleep very, very quickly, actually, because it's like, it just, it puts you in a very nice state of just nothing. And, and then you're, you're as closest to sleep awake as you can be.

Q: And mornings when I wake up, definitely when I have energy, definitely I sit, I sit, kind of spend like half an hour, one hour, and then chant the Mantra. And then go about my duties later.

John: Yeah, on the days when I have to get up and go into DC, rather than just work from home, I keep all music off. And while I'm driving in, Mantra is running, I'm just listening to it as I'm naturally breathing, and drive that little, I don't know, 15-minute drive to the Metro, and park the car, all Mantra. That way, then I'm not worried about like other cars on the road, bunch of traffic, people pulling or doing anything. It's just same thing going home, just Mantra. Actually, coming home, I usually do listen to music, because by then, I've been listening to music on my commute back. So, but in the morning, no, always like, no music until I've actually gotten into work. And other than that, it's just like a good silent zone, basically. Then when I get on the Metro, I listen to the Kakad Arati, Morning Bhajan, and do all the readings that I just told you on my phone. I've been doing that since seeing Maharaj, and that's, it's just a very nice, relaxing way to start the day.

Q: Looking for the signposts, even though I don't want to look for the signposts. Yeah. It's just, just as a token of, of progress, which again, it's again, that's in the standpoint of an identity. Yeah, well, I'm trying to see for that, that unfolding moment when it happens completely, like, oh, it looks like, but again, I understand the part, but again, yeah, well, I'll see when that happens.

John: Yeah. It's more like just a letting go. Yeah. It's just the, you just begin to flow with everything, because there's no longer a block of you that's blocking up everything. Just, just a nice flow. And as I've spoken before, from the Ashram, when I had that feeling of expansion while we were doing the Bhajans, and it felt amazing, like the feeling of expansion was just amazing. Cause I was like, suddenly I was like the Ashram, and all the people were inside myself and we were doing the Bhajan. But again, that is a conceptual, like the mind is seeing the loss of constriction. And so, the feeling of expansion, because the mind is no longer, you're no longer so paying attention to the mind that, that you're being crammed into the little body form, you know, conceptually, you're not like pushed in. And so.

Q: Also not the real deal, you know, to go past Samadhis. I mean, again, I'm taking from a standpoint.

John: Exactly. Yeah, well, Samadhi is, again, if you could say it's like the natural state, unless you're saying, oh, I had a good Samadhi or I'm having a good Samadhi, because then of course it becomes an experience and there's no experience, no experiencer, because there's no, you're just, there's no, you just flow.

Q: Yeah. It's like the space, like background. I mean, I don't know what to say because I've never seen it. Yeah. But again, I only understanding, again, as in one of our verses, it was saying the ultimate deal is just an understanding that who you truly actually are.

John: Yes. And that you absolutely could not be this body. You could not be a little person in a world. You just, you can't even wrap your head around this concept because only by dream analogy could you say, oh, okay, now it, this is how it appeared for a time that I'm a body in a world performing activities is because it's like a dream. The formlessness attaches with the body, creates a world and a scene and all this sort of thing. And that's how I was lost a little bit, or that's how it appeared. The concept of I'm a body in a world and all these other bodies are other people. But that knowledge, it's not unknowing. You can't like unknow that that's, that's the conviction. The oh, so that I, I am that. But now you go, do your duties? Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Q: Yeah. No, I'm saying this is like so crystal clear. Like how come we missed it all this time? I mean, then this knowledge I was, I was reading these books like from 24 onwards. No, I'm like I mean, it's the same, like it's, it's becomes clear and clear every day. I mean like one, one day, but at a few readings of pages, I can clearly tell this is what they're pointing to. The only thing is I'm still not that, whatever this, whatever they talk about it, which even though I can understand it clearly. Yeah. Okay. I mean, it can be only stated in a, in a negative terms only, not this, not this only. Yeah. Yeah.

John: Whatever you believe yourself to be surrender that. Okay. Absolutely. And, and mind flow will tell you if surrendering could be very tricky because maybe you lose your job. Maybe you'll have this, maybe you have that. But the truth is all of that is happening in this moment. Now there's just an illusory layer that you're paying attention to rather than the reality. And I'm sure you have pictures of the Master at home, and you do bowing to the Master, yes or no?

Q: Because my family stays in India, John, I work here in the U.S. So then whenever I get time, I go back probably next year. I'll go back for good. Yeah. At home, I have pictures of Master. Yeah. Only thing is like, I kind of do the Mantra. I mean, it didn't even occur to me. Sometimes I ask Maharaj for help, but not per se, I don't bow, which I should technically.

John: Absolutely.

Q: Yeah. We have a concept called like, Ishta Devata as well, like Guru and Ishta Devata. Ishta Devata is like our, like a, like a, like a shortcut, like a divinity shortcut or something. So I pray to a divinity shortcut and then I'm chanting Mantra. So, so.

John: Yeah, definitely bowing to the Master. I do that and I have at my work, even I have pictures of the Masters in, in my little like cubicle area and I'll pause for a moment, and I'll sit there and I'll say, oh, thank you, Master. Thank you. Especially, I mean, just all throughout the day, just thank you, Master. Thank you, Master. Thank you, Master. Or Master, I really need help with such and such a thing or, or something like this because Master, of course, is your own Selfless Self, but this kind of devotion is, is very good for removing any kind of egoistic sense of doership because, oh, Master, please help me with this thing. This is happening. And okay, now I release, I go take care of this. It turns out great. Thank you, Master. It doesn't turn out so well. Thank you, Master.

Q: It goes like so high that you think like you're in the play so deep and it feels like I'm the one running the show. And in the case, like you were just only an actor.

John: Yeah. Release everything to, to the Master. Everything. Oh, Master, please help me with this. Thank you for this. Something good, something bad, whatever. Then there's no good, no bad. Everything is just, just a gratitude and a constant devotion. And of course, the highest devotion and how we started this whole thing about death and all that, the highest devotion is to remain with the sense of Presence, that feeling of just I, just I, that, that sense of existence, because that sense of existence is you.

Q: It was like I went there; I had given, I had got like the perfect apartment to stay. So, in Nashik, because it was still, in Nashik had some of the, still had the old structures. Like I just happened to land in a new apartment, and everything was so suited for me. I was like, this was like, this was purely due to Maharaj. I was like.

John: Yes.

Q: I could, I could sense Maharaj whenever I'm in, but sometimes the ego is so high that we're thinking I'm running the show. So yeah, I'm used to that kind of a momentum thinking, of course, I need to let it go. So.

John: And even in the smallest things, you know, the apartment, that's, that's something that's like noticeable and kind of like, oh yes, thank you, Master. You, you have put me in just the right place. You knew best. Thank you. Thank you for helping me. But even this is a great lunch. I'm going to try something different. Oh, thank you. This went really well. You know, every single little detail, bring the Master in. Oh, Master. You are the doer. Even you see Sri Ramakant Maharaj, when he was speaking many times, he would say, thank you to my Master because without the Master and Master is not in body form. Master is your own Selfless Self. So that's why he says, you're not bowing to me. You're bowing to your Selfless Self, but your Selfless Self in the form of Sri Ramakant Maharaj lets you know, oh, you're, you're, you're Selfless Self. You're, you're the reality. Yeah.

Q: At one of the point too, when I was, uh, that was way before, uh, I think, yeah, way before when Maharaj, I think it was before Maharaj dropped his body, I guess.

John: Yeah.

Q: Before Maharaj dropped his body. So, uh, at the time, again, it was a 600 kilometers drive, and I was working at night times because I had to do US work in the daytime. Uh, the work kind of dragged on. I started to catch up like three hours or four hours or five hours of sleep. I never got to sleep fully. Like I think I was, I was kind of awake until the morning or maybe I slept two hours or something. Then I knew if I'm going to hit the road in that state with sun hitting and everything, I'll become sick. And to the, to my surprise, actually, there was not even a single vehicle on the road, and it was fully with clouds until Maharaj's place. I was like, surprise, this is, it's like there was a trucker strike and then there was no single vehicle, and the road was completely free, and it was completely with clouds, and it was all moist and cool in the sunny temperature. I was like, surprise.

John: Yeah.

Q: I kind of wrote this in one of my, uh, memoirs as well in Maharaj Experience X. But again, those are, but again, I want to be like, yeah, we'll see when, when that thing comes up. Yeah. I want to test what selflessness is like. Again, I cannot test it. I can only be it.

Yeah. That's it. I have a feeling for sure that Maharaj is watching his disciples for sure. Only thing is we need to dip into that kind of help or source. Maharaj is there, is always there to help. Only we are not looking at it. Yeah.

John: Yeah. That's when I was driving up to Frederick right after Maharaj left the body. I was very sad because Maharaj was like a father while I was there in the Ashram and talking. And when he came here to America and all that, so there was a sadness. But as I was driving, I thought, oh, well now Master is, has become everything just for a moment. And then a very subtle feeling and voice was no, no, no, no, no. Everything was always Maharaj. Like, and Maharaj knew this without any doubt at all. He never was this body, this leaving the body or whatever to become everything or to expand. No, everything is Maharaj and always was.

Q: And he was very gentleman and very mild to, and very approachable to Maharaj. Yes. Yeah. We felt very sad to drop and Maharaj dropped the body too. And that was the time when we went, John. And then when we, we thought Maharaj was very sick at the time.

And we started, we, me and my wife and a kid, right? We thought like, okay, since we're going back to our hometown from Nashik, okay, let's just say goodbye to Maharaj and then leave if they allow. So, they kind of told us, okay, we'll see if Maharaj allows, if Maharaj is okay to meet you, we'll let you in. Otherwise, you'll have to go without saying Maharaj. And to our surprise, Maharaj himself came and opened the door and gave us a send-off. I was like, surprised. Maharaj couldn't even walk. As if then we understood that was our last visit to the Maharaj. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that was one of, that was one of the memorable experience that we don't, we don't forget. To our surprise, actually, he came and walked and opened the door to us. And even when we were going back, he walked us out of the door. And then, then we kind of understood like, as we were like, why did Maharaj come down? We could have gone to him.

So, then we kind of talked to him. And the next month, again, in the next month after that, Maharaj kind of dropped the body. And then we understood it. That was our farewell experience. So, it is indeed very special that we found Maharaj. Actually, Maharaj found us, actually. Isn't it?

John: Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.

This is the Tuesday Talk held February 24, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk February 24, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. With limited Edits

Q: I found a good thing this week on YouTube. We got French translation right now. Our meeting we do every Tuesday. And we get it in French. There's a bottom and you got all the script in French. A lot of language. Different language. It's very good. It's helpful.

John: Good, good. Sounds good. Yes, we got a couple of emails about the transcripts that I'm now putting on the website. So now you can go through and read and then take that and translate that as well.

Q: So, yeah.

Q: It’s most all the time the same conversation, but you have to be hammering and hammering. And gradually I just start to feel it sometime. It's natural. It's come. Okay, I'm not that. And it's not something I think about it. It's come natural. This is it. This is it.
And that's really, I enjoy it. I feel the difference between the first talk we had and where I am right now. I say, okay, it's melting. Gradually all the old resistance or old conditioning is going away. Do you see?

Q: Gradually I see, like I've said before, everything John says ends up being, I can totally see the truth in it or whatever.

John: This is the reality. That's the thing. It's not like we're trying to sell anything or say this “could be” if you remain with yourself. The reality comes about because that's the reality. The illusion is very hard to hold. Actually, you have to really be identified with the body form as yourself. Then you have to go with the flow of thoughts because of identification with the body that these things are happening to me, or I must do this, or this could happen to this, or I have fear of this. I want this, this desire. But when you begin to know yourself in a real sense, illusion can't. It can't stick. There's no kind of building blocks to make it stick. Nothing.

It's just freedom because the freedom was there all along. It was the illusion that you were not free that has now been dispelled because there's no longer an anchor for that illusion. Even as you say, gradually, it's falling away. It's because that anchor of illusion, it can't hold up. It's illusory. It's like if you went to the magic show and you saw the magic show.

If you went night after night after night after night, eventually, you're going to see. It's not true. At first, I was really impressed when he sawed the lady in half. But now, after the fifth time of seeing it, okay, there's little boxes and there's this and that. The same with illusion. Hey, you know what? For a time, I really identified with this body. And because that was so impressed from such a young growing of this body that I was impressed that I was the body. I am this person. Because the person is just the flow of thoughts with identification with the body impressed as I am this. I am someone. And because it's not true, it can be easily seen through.

It's like you pull the chair out from underneath the person and they fall. And it's a free fall because there's no support anymore. I am not body. I was not body. I'm not going to remain the body. At first. These are words. Then they start to become an experience. Then that experience deepens into an understanding. And then it's just known. Oh, that's the knowledge. I am not body. Because body form was available, there was a sense of existence that livingness, this. So, to speak, I am alive. I exist.

And because the body form was available, I'm this body. But the space in the room didn't know it was the space in the room. And suddenly an object within the space is available. And there's a knowingness and aliveness in that body form. And you say, I'm alive. But the space in the room is not really alive or not alive because it's outside that whole.

Even when you remain with your Selfless Self, you're outside of consciousness because that I exist is now your first seeing. Oh, the sense of Presence. The sense of Presence appears in consciousness. And the one that's observing this is outside of consciousness because the consciousness is the sense. I am. I exist. And the entire world is taking place inside this consciousness. As is the body that you used to believe yourself to be. And then it gets confusing of universal consciousness or individual consciousness, but both are the one consciousness.

It's just identification or no identification. And then at the most subtle level, the world is consciousness. And that all appears on your spontaneous Presence. And because you know the sense of existence, you're prior to the sense of existence. So, you're prior to world, consciousness, body, because all this has appeared to you that you are. Take all that away.
And what's left? Only you without any shape or form.

Q: Yeah. I've said sometimes it's a concept, but sometimes I think, well, I'm doing this to myself. In a way, but then now I'm starting to see, well, there really is no self to even be doing it to myself.

John: Correct. Even the practice. When people kept asking Maharaj, how long do I do the practice? Well, you do the practice until there's no practicer. There is no more. When you see there's no practicer because you've dissolved this concept. Practicer is within the bubble of illusion. You're outside the bubble of illusion because this sense of Presence is the first thing that created this concept of duality. And you're out of that.

So now what's left and that what's left is that black hole. There's nothing literally just nothing. You can't hold a thought or a concept. There's no thought to think about because there's no place to rest that thought. There's just nothing. And now with this understanding, go about, do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities. Scenes will appear and disappear, and you behave in the moment. Spontaneously. You're no longer looking for outcomes because you're no longer holding on to a limited identification in a world, thinking you are that or thinking that you can even cause anything to happen because you are formless. The only way you cause anything to happen is just like you cause something to happen inside your dream. It's meaningless. As long as you're holding the body form, take care of the body. Doctor says, take these medicines, take this medicine, need a job to feed yourself. Have a job. Do your job. Do your duties. Have a family. Have friends.

No problem. As Maharaj says, it's practical spirituality and it's in no way hindering your day-to-day activities. The two are totally separate because one is absolutely illusion and one is the reality. And you understand this. So, therefore, just like in a play or in a drama where you've been assigned a role, do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities while the body form is available. That's that.

You can enjoy. You can still have preferences of food or water or, you know, oh, I don't like orange juice so much. I prefer apple juice. Okay. And not sitting there and saying, oh, well, if I prefer this, does that mean that I've taken identification with the body or that I, if I was truly formless, would I care whether it was apple juice or orange juice? No, forget about all that because it's all within the illusion. Just as if in your dream you worried about, well, I drank apple juice in my dream and I really don't like apple juice. How did that, how is that possible? Well, who cares? Throw it away. In a real sense, makes no difference.

Q: It's sort of like you said you don't necessarily pay a lot of attention to the news and I'm noticing that actually that's kind of like what you're talking about with the apple juice. It's like you can give your attention to it, but I don't know. Anyway, I'm finding that I don't have to be affected by it or something. Yeah, of course. Not taking the touch type of thing.

John: Don't have to take the touch of anything. And it's not like you're being irresponsible. Like someone will say, oh, well, then you're not involved. Because people used to come to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj all the time and kind of beat on him for not being involved and helping, you know, the people and the people that are suffering. And same with Sri Ramana Maharshi. If you read the books, they come and they say, well, how can you just say his illusion and disregard all the suffering in the world? Know yourself in a real sense and then ask this question.

Q: Then you won't be suffering if you find out.

John: There cannot be. And you'll know no one is suffering. Again, just like in your dream. If you dreamt about a refugee camp and people starving and all that in your dream, when you wake up, it's finished. You say, oh, that's very not human. That's not very nice. That's not this and that. No, but if you know yourself in a real sense, you could say you are the cause of all the suffering or that there is no suffering and both are the same. We talked about if the entire world were to completely explode right now, eight billion people evaporated, it would not make any difference for you.

You are that in which the world appears. On which the world appears, the sense of existence creates the concept of a you in a world and otherness. But it's not true. That's why we call it illusion or Maya. And then you say, oh, well, Maya this or illusion that. And you start to create concepts of what illusion is. Illusion is that which is not. There's no need to create a concept about what's illusion and what's Maya and all this sort of thing. Illusion and Maya are non-existent things.

They do not exist. And yet we have a whole freaking vocabulary to talk about all the things that don't exist. And we even have branches of spirituality that will explain the things that do not exist so that the mind is put at ease when inquiring about all the things that do not exist.

And the spiritual journey is just inquiring about things that don't exist with the idea that you're going to get something. You're going to get some answers. The who am I is not who am I, who am I, who am I, who am I, who am I, who am I?

Remaining with your Selfless Self. All the answers are within. When you look for them without, mind is like, yeah, gotcha. Because you're going to ask this question. And then that question is going to breed another question. And that question is going to breed another question. Then you're going to be satisfied for a short time that you now have knowledge until something rocks that knowledge. And then you require more knowledge. Just like Sri Ramakant Maharaj said, when people come to the Ashram, and then they have this whole plan of, I'm going to go see the Amanda Ma lady or whatever.

And I'm going to go to Ramana Maharshi Ashram. And I want to go to Tiruvannamalai and all these places. And it's like this, this tourism. And that's why he says last destination, last stop. It's very sad. Once you're knowing the truth that you don't just sit there and say, okay, I need to sit with myself. Everyone says meditation. Everyone says, just sit with yourself. Just see what's there.

But it's a lot easier when you're identified with the body form to go on a spiritual journey, to bow to some different, various gurus to recite these different things, to walk around Arunachala, to sit in a cave, to torture the body because there's identification with the body form. This is needed. Instead, you just remain with yourself, the self, and all this dissolves. No requirements. As Sri Ramakant Maharaj says, were there any requirements prior to beingness? No. Sense of existence. I exist as something. All requirements came again.

All requirements came along with the body form. And you are not body. You were not body. You're not going to remain the body. Guru hopping is not going to help. It's going to just add more fuel to the mind's fire to keep you on the spiritual journey. And worse than that, to build egoistic spirituality that you are progressing on this spiritual journey. And in today's market, so to speak, not only will that happen, but you'll also be being fleeced. You know, all the free retreats that just say, oh, yes, the retreat is free. However, you have to rent a room in order to go to the retreat and the rooms are on the Ashram site and there'll be $2,000 for the week. And we don't provide food. You need to provide food, and you have to wear a certain kind of clothes. And we just happened to be selling on site the clothes. We strongly recommend you read this book before you talk to our master. I mean, come on now.

Q: Well, we do recommend reading the book before we participate too much in this.

John: You have to have a little bit of a base. Yes. But the truth is you'll never come to this unless there's something stirring inside you. Like most of the population is walking around happily, blissfully, and unaware of themselves. And yet that is your own self. Nothing is wrong with this. You desire to experience in a different way through that particular form. But when the time comes, yes, you'll be introduced slowly into the books and you. And usually, because the life that you were living, that you were holding on to and clinging so much, began to shake. And there are little cracks. There's a little vibration. Is this all there is? Or, oh my God, I'm really in trouble.

And that's just enough to say, okay, now I need to research. Then books, of course, is good. Go see a master, good. But come to the real master and know, like Sri Ramakant Maharaj says, this is the last stop. This mantra will free you from any ideas you've been holding about yourself that aren't true, that currently you believe they are true. And not by any kind of intellectual exercise. By slowly, silently, and permanently removing all the illusory layers until you know yourself. And then be with you always. Be with you always.

Don't give yourself away for every little thing that happens in the world. Because the world is illusion. When you get angry and you blow up at somebody, or you're very impatient waiting in lines, or you don't like the traffic, or there's bills to be paid and you're worried about it, all of this is because you don't know yourself in a real sense. And so you just remain with your Selfless Self. Okay, do your job. Do your duties. Take care of your responsibilities. In the moment, whatever needs to be happening is happening. And again, like Maharaj says, everything, every action, no matter how much it may have seemed important before, pick up the water, drink, put it down. That's it. Go to your job, pick up the water, drink, put it down. On your commute, pick up the water, drink, put it down. Out with friends, pick up the water, drink, put it down. Nothing like earth shattering. Be normal, be simple, be humble, be always with you.

Q: Because you don't really have to make objects of anything, because the objects are really not other than you in a sense.

John: Well, if you believe yourself to be an object, you'll see other objects. If you believe yourself not to be an object, I am not body, I was not body, I'm not going to remain the body, there's a deep understanding, then there are no objects. It's scenes appearing and disappearing and appearing, and disappearing. Not even I'm formless and you're an object. It's just because if I'm formless, you can't be an object. There could be an appearance within the formlessness, but it could not be an object unless I am an object in space and time.

Q: Because I was going to ask you, I had this question, are objects self-evident or are they only illusion? But you sort of answered, there are no objects.

John: There are no objects. There's appearances in space and time, appearance, just appearance in the formlessness that you are. Objects, if I identify as this is me, then there can be something other. There's no identification. Again, we go back to there's no hook to hang your hat. The hat of John, no hook on the wall, I try to hang it, it just falls. How does John feel about this?

Q: You don't really see that until you see it, kind of. But that's what we're doing here.

John: It's an intuitive understanding. That's how they call the knowledge. The knowledge is not some kind of objective knowledge to know. It's an intuitive understanding, oh, so that I am that, without having to say that, because there is nothing other than that, and now that is known.

Q: It's intuitive because it's not object based.

John: Direct recognition. And once the direct recognition is there, like I talked about last week about how seeing Conner and playing with the kids, and just the understanding was like the formless Presence is animating these bodies and moving them around, and each one is like experiencing a separate world and a separate existence, just like in a dream. It's consciousness that's just animating and moving things around and creating stories. But inside that little body is not a person. A person is a concept and an idea.

Q: And if I want an explanation of it, I just think, well, you can imagine.

John: Well, and it's deep. It's expressive. It was, yeah, just like when you understand that formlessness is not just a concept, it's how in the world could you be involved in this world? Like you just, it's not possible. And you go right back to dream to try and explain it. If you want to be mind logic, you say, okay, in a dream, you lay down sleeping, and sense of existence, it stirs, and the consciousness, objects appear within the consciousness, because there's identification with an object within the consciousness. There are other objects, and there's the subject-object duality, and suddenly now you have a scene, a world. You have people, you have movement, you have activity, you have speaking, you have conversations. When you wake up, you know none of it was true, and it had to have been all you.

Who else could it have been? When you know yourself in a real sense, this so-called waking world, this worldly existence, how could it possibly be true? And that's why going back in the beginning of this whole talk, we said, illusion is very hard to maintain. That's why it's easy to know yourself. And once you know yourself, illusion is just gone. It's just, there's no, nothing can hold it.

There's no structure, because illusion is illusion. And as we discussed in the beginning too, the, oh, you know what? It's starting to deepen, and deepen, and deepen, and what is being said is being impressed. It's because that is the reality. And literally, you know, we're on YouTube, and we have the website, and all that. Anybody stumbling across this, and starting to have curiosity, and listening, you discover your own self, because that is the truth.

That is the reality. It's not something where it's like, only when we're in these talks, or only when we're doing this, or only if you think a certain way, or if we hum, or we have to play some music in the background to get your mind right. No, it is the reality. It's open and available for everyone, because you are everyone. When you discard illusion, there you are.

Q: It's, you know, it's removing the layers, like we used to say.

John: Yeah. Layers of illusion gone, fires burning bright, there you are. There are no individuals, there is no body form, there you are.

Q: So, when the layers are removing, it seems like there's like a bliss kind of thing there, where it feels good to be free. And so, I was thinking, is bliss the, I wrote it down, is bliss the limitless power behind, is there any equivalency between bliss and the power, the formless power that animates everything?

John: Well, again, we talked about the Amrut, the nectar of immortality. This is like the Selfless Self intoxication. As you get closer and closer and closer to your Selfless Self, that sense of Presence, of course, for the first time it's felt, and it has no other things layering it down. So, there is this feeling of, oh, oh, I like this. And Sri Ramakant Maharaj talks about chocolate you're giving, and Nisargadatta Maharaj says, chew the chocolate, because this is this Selfless Self intoxication. It's a little reward for being with yourself and continuing to know yourself in a real sense. As illusion fades, you feel the freedom.

Q: So, at first, it's a contrast, and it might seem like it's more powerful or something, but then it becomes more normal or regular.

John: You will no longer have Presence, seeing Presence. You'll have to, like, use the body form to drop back into Presence. Like, if you sit here and then, okay, you won't be, Presence will no longer be a thing, because you are that.
It's no longer like a fascination of your awareness of an object of, this is Presence, or this is consciousness. It's not like that. You just are.

Q: Then you're not concerned about whether it's dissolving at one time or another.

John: Well, because it's dissolved. Because it's dissolved. There's nothing.
There's no illusory, again, because that hook on the wall labeled Keith is no longer there. So, when I say, Keith thinks this, oh, no hook anymore. There's no hook for Keith. Where's the thought about Keith? Where's Keith's ideas, his conditioning? Nothing, because there's no hook. You've removed the hook, and you didn't actually do it. It's just that the hook was so false that by remaining with your Selfless Self, it could no longer appear as true. It never was true, but it appeared for a time true.

Again, going back to dream. Dream seems very real. Wake up. It's finished. Know yourself in a real sense. The illusion of the world is finished.

Yeah, there will be different stages towards getting this. I told you before about the Ashram. I had the experience where we were doing bhajans, and suddenly there's this feeling of expanding into the entire Ashram, and knowing that everything, all the activity in the Ashram was going on inside myself.

But this, again, was from the perspective of the mind. Mind views this as expansion, because the illusory layers are being dissolved slowly, silently, and permanently. Through the mind, it's interpreted as an expansion. I'm expanding, but no. If you're formless, you cannot expand. It's just that pressure of a limited identification is crumbling slowly, silently, and permanently. All concepts are removed. Even the concept that there were concepts, or that there's someone there on which concepts can hang, such as the hook. John, Alan, Keith, no hooks on the wall.

So, I say, well, Keith, how do you feel about this? Oh, where's that? And yet, in the moment, there's a response, still using language. Still, of course, body form is available. Body and world are synonymous. But world is no longer so. It's loose, like the clothes. You just wear the world as a loose garment.

Q: I was thinking, from a perspective of a Keith, that the mantra is enabling me to start. I'm getting a better connection with the mantra, and so I'm thinking the mantra is enabling me to dip into the bliss more, whereas maybe before it didn't seem to be connected with the mantra. But anyway, it's still just a perspective coming from a sense of limitation that's still there for a time, I guess.

John: And don't get hung up. You know, Sri Ramakant Maharaj and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Ramakant Maharaj was very clear about, don't sit and remain with this I am, because this is just a progressive step, a lot of stopping of, oh, this is it, this is the bliss, I love bliss, bliss on tap, I can escape to this place anytime I want. But no, you're Selfless Self, because all of that is still within the bubble of illusion. The I am is within the bubble of illusion, because there's a knowingness, I exist. That creates the concept of duality. You're out of it completely. So, just because that bliss is available doesn't mean you want to sit there and just bask in it. You want to remain with your Selfless Self, continue with mantra until you concentrate on the concentrator, until the concentrator dissolves within the concentration. You meditate on the meditator until the meditator dissolves within the meditation. Nothing is there. Even Samadhi. Samadhi is very nice, very blissful. Oh, I like a nice Samadhi state. For three days I didn't know anything, and I was just floating around, and I had no concept of body, and then it stopped. No, again, this is within the bubble of illusion. No experience, no experiencer. No witness, no witnesser. Nothing is there. Not the concept of nothing, the absence of everything.

Q: But you did, but then, you know, there's like contradictions and non-contradictions. It doesn't make any difference, but it's kind of like neither exists.

John: We use words, and words are meaningless, but we tie words together to try and, I don't know why I would do that, language.

Q: I did ask you a couple weeks ago, one true statement is, I am. So, even that's kind of like not true. That's the first illusion.

John: I exist. That's the key, the doorway. Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj talks about stay at the doorway, and then you understand there's no door, and there's no, because the doorway is the I am. On this side is the world, on this side you are. But if you're on this, if you are on the other side of, I am, then that means I am is an appearance on you, or to you. And along with I exist, comes I exist as something in a world. Look at all these things. I have actions. I have activities.

Just like when you first wake up in your dream, when you attach yourself to any kind of a body form, any kind of a form at all, doesn't even have to be a body, any form at all within your dream, then you, I exist as this object in a world with other objects, a story is created, dialogue, words. And when you wake up, you know none of that was true. The building blocks of illusion.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

This is the Tuesday Talk held February 10, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk February 10, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. with minimal editing

Q: Anything new? New is such an old word.

John: I did start transcribing the talks for 2025, putting them on the website with AI, this transcription service, where it like listens to the video and then you can make a transcript. So that was asked for by a couple of folks. So, it's on the website now.

Q: Anybody can do that? You can like play a video and it'll make a transcript for you?

John: Yeah, it is. Let's see, what is it called? It is called turboscribe.ai dashboard. It's totally free. You're limited to three a day and you're also limited to half hour. So, I have to take this talk because it's like 39 minutes, cut it in half and then upload two different versions that then create one document.

But yeah, it's totally free. And so, I started doing that because several people had asked, you know, why, why we didn't have that available. It's not, there's going to eventually be at the end of the year, it'll have everything and it'll be in one sheet and PDF that can be downloaded.

But for right now, you can just go to the website and read it. That'll also help with translations because there is one person who speaks mostly German who they asked through an intermediary, is there any way to translate the talks? And I think actually this AI service would translate what we're saying into a different language.

I don't know how accurate it is, but it can do that too. So, I know that's not the sponsor of this video and we're not doing advertising or anything like that. It's just, you know, we started doing that to further do whatever.

Q: Yeah. I wonder how long that's been available.

John: Yeah, I don't know. I just started researching it because somebody had asked me, hey, why don't you do transcripts and you know, put them together in a PDF or whatever. Like, so I looked into it and it is available and I am right now putting them in a Word doc, which will just keep going and going and going at the end of the year, convert that to a PDF, upload the PDF to the website, and then anybody can download like the whole year's talks.

Q: So spooky action at a distance.

John: Indeed. And it's not edited, by the way. So, like even our little casual chitchat, like what we're chitchatting right now will be in that.

So, it's not like some great spiritual manifesto or whatever. It's just the transcript of everything that we're doing here.

Q: Okay. I better not be inane.

John: It doesn't have your name. My name is the only one that's there. It'll just say question on each sheet, even if you're not asking a question, just to keep it so that it's not privacy wise. There might be somebody who attends, like we've had a few people who come in just for like one or two sessions and then we don't see them for a while. So, I don't want their name to be out there like permanently associated because they might not like that.

Q: Well, I know I said I better not be inane. I know you probably heard me say name, inane, you know the term, which I often am inane.

John: Well, no, I guess inane means like kind of, I don't know what it means exactly to be honest with you, but you're saying like, in case you say things that would make you look goofy or would make you...

Q: Something like that, irrelevant or whatever.

John: Exactly. So that's why I'd just say Q. And nobody would be like, oh, look at this dumb question that Keith asked, or look at this thing that he, you know, no, it's not like that. Because this is, we encourage everybody to come join us, question freely, and do as you wish.

Q: Indeed. I was kind of thinking about how funny it is, but then again, also not funny necessarily, that, well, that I put, that I'm always interested in and I desire to know stuff. And I like to; I desire to know how my mind works and all that stuff. And I, you know, I do, you know, inadvisably, I guess, spend...

John: Once you know yourself in a real sense, that won't be a thing. Like you'll have no desire. It's just like in a dream. Do you have any desire to know exactly how everything's operating in your dream? How is the dream world manifested? How are people interacting?

How is it that when you wake up, you understand that it was all you, but while you're in the dream, you're completely deluded into believing that it's separate than others. Who cares? You know yourself in a real sense. I'm the dreamer. Whatever happened inside my dream is not true, can't be true. And when you know yourself in a real sense, this quote-unquote waking is the same as that quote-unquote dreaming.

There's, okay, activities are happening and appear to be going on, but you're formless. Again, if you can really visualize, because I remember I was with Conner in the bouncy house right after having seen Maharaj, and it came so strong that all those little kids were just lumps of goo. And that the formless Presence was animating each one of these.

It's like the space in this room suddenly becomes aware that it's alive only because a body form, an instrument or food for that consciousness is suddenly made available. And then it's like, oh, there's life. But before that, you are. After that, you are. It's just a body factory, no matter what the elements are, no matter how they come together in whatever animal or human or fish or, I don't know, fish is an animal. I think fish is separate from animal.
But anyway, it's like marine life. Oh, no.

Q: There's plants and animals, I think the general term.

John: Plants and animals. Yeah.

Q: Did this break?

John: Hold on. There it is. That was weird. Okay. Anyway. So, it's just a body factory.

Whatever that body is, two bodies get together, they create another body. Once that body's created, and the blood and everything is coming through it, there's an awareness of life, that livingness. And suddenly, you know, I exist. But you haven't changed form. You haven't gone down into that form, even. There's just because a form is available, the food body, so to speak, the food body, the food for consciousness. Now there's an awareness of, I am something. Because suddenly, this food body is available. And when the food body is no more, then there's the sense, oh, and that's it. You're not like traveling into now, what is death? What is death like? Or whatever. Because you never were born. You knew yourself for a time as something other, because a body form was available. And as you know yourself in a real sense, body's here, but I'm not that.

Whether body is or is not, I am. And now, I can, because of the awareness of the subtle sense of Presence, because I'm holding a body form, oh, I'm more like this Presence than I am this body. The world is occurring within my Presence, including the body that I believed myself to be at one time. For a long time, I was convinced I'm this body, I'm living this life. Now I know better.

Q: And that's, being aware like that is what makes you able to see the bodies as just goo. And I had like a little flash of what I could say is a similar experience to that, maybe a week ago or something. It just seemed like I could see all bodies were just bodies. I was observing that, and I was not that. So, but this is just an experience. That's just, I could say, oh, I knew something at that time. No, it was just like an experience, just like a dream, like you say, that would, it formed as a type of experience at that time. And then I'm not going to remember and always see things just that way.

John: But the understanding, even in this incident that I was speaking about while I was sitting there, watching Conner and watching him play with all his friends, the understanding was very deep. Like, it was, you can't unsee that, basically. You can't really say like, because, and this was after Mantra, you know, I'd been with Maharaj practicing Mantra, and it was before he came to the USA.

So, I had gone to India, and this was a gap between India visit and him coming to USA like a year later, and him winding up just right up the street doing Ramakant USA and all that. But it was just, you know, you just knew. It's self-evident, and it's not even, I wouldn't even say an experience, because it's just like an understanding dawns within your own self that I'm not body, and that all these bodies jumping around, the parents playing with the kids, and the kids themselves are just the formless Presence, believing itself to be separate because of knowing yourself in the moment as a body in a world.

And we've gotten used to thinking of it that way. Well, the delusion of separation comes about because the parents believe themselves to be bodies in a world, even though it's the formless Presence, telling the little person that you are a little body in a world, and then the sense of doership, because you do good things, you do wrong things, you get punished, you get rewards, all this sort of thing. It's impressing, impressing, impressing.

Nobody sits there and tells you, oh, you know what? You're not this body. You know yourself now because of this body, and as long as this body form is available, you'll continue to know yourself, but please don't delude yourself in believing you're a body or that you were born. You've just suddenly made the realization that you exist, and you equate that existence to this little body that you believe yourself that I exist as this, because prior to that, formlessness doesn't know I exist. It's formless. And even the word formless comes along with the body when we're trying to sit there and explain it using concepts that the mind can sort of latch onto. Oh, formless, what does that mean? It's like space or sky, but it's not even that, because space and sky are within you.

Q: So, experience does depend on some kind of reflection.

John: Experience, you have an experiencer, and you have a subject-object kind of, I'm doing something, I'm experiencing something. But again, the deeper understanding, because you can experience in your dream. We talked about before, in your dream, you can jump off a building and experience flying, or you can be swimming and experiencing swimming, but you wake up, and of course, you're not wet. So, experience right there shows you that's not true. It appears that you are experiencing, but there is no experience, no experiencer.

Q: But there is reflection. What could be described as reflection going on there? It's knowing.

John: Not even so much reflection, it's just a, I can't explain it, because you're just sitting there and you're watching all this activity, and because of sitting with Mantra, seeing Maharaj, the knowledge is hammering, hammering, hammering, hammering, which we're doing all the time here, just hammering, hammering, hammering. You are not body, you were not body, you're not going to remain the body, body is not your identity. Except your Selfless Self, there's no God, no Brahman, no Paramatman, no Master, nothing is there.
Formless you. Just I, just I. All these things are hammering, and then intuitive understanding just comes. Oh, so that I, I am That. And since I am That That is all there is, regardless of the appearances, regardless of the children, regardless of the parents. Regardless, you are That, because That is all there is.

And That is not born, That does not die, That cannot be burned, buried, cut, separated in any way. As Sri Ramakant Maharaj says, the Ashram, you have, if the walls come down in the Ashram, does the space in the toilet go to hell, and the space in the Ashram go to heaven? No. Space is space. The concept is that this is the Ashram, this is the toilet, this is the living area, all separated. But this is not true. Space is not separated. Even after the whole thing is demolished, and it's just, you know, building, they knock it down to build another building. Now it's all different rooms. So where is the space in the Ashram, if it's a totally new, if it's a shopping mall now, suddenly? But the space doesn't know, oh, it was an Ashram, now I'm a shopping mall. How disrespectful.

You know, it's space. We create the concepts, just like we create the concept of wall, mud, water, and make cement and all that, and we say, oh, it's a wall now. No, technically it's just a bunch of rocks ground up with some water and mortar and things. But we don't say that. We say it's a wall. It's a house.

Q: That's why it can seem so contradictory at times.

John: Because words betray. No word can be true because words, you're prior to words. That's just like Maharaj gave the example. Hand, if I said, oh, these are your toes. Oh, these are my toes. There's no difference. It's labeled. Hand is toes. How? Which one? We create the labels.

Q: Yeah, right. Of course, they're going to contradict other terms. Some terms are gone.

John: Dramatic. Because it's words. Anytime you start using words, you start creating worlds of concepts. And what's worse is I can say some words, and you'll interpret them through your understanding and through your concepts. You won't interpret them like cleanly because you have all your concepts that you're coming and putting on. So, when you have ash over the fire, and then they're speaking about the ash over the fire, then you go and you add some more ash to the fire as we're speaking about removing the ash.

Q: And then you see, or I do, seem to know stuff. And then you live in that. We live like that.

John: Again, no knowledge is knowledge. Because when they talk about the knowledge that this Presence, I exist, the knowledge of existence, it's not knowledge like book knowledge. Maharaj used to say literal knowledge, bookish knowledge. It's not this. Knowledge is to know yourself in a real sense. Because after that, there's no need to know anything else.

What can possibly need to be known when you know that you are That? And the conviction is very strong. Nothing other than myself, regardless of the appearances. In a dream, nothing other than yourself, regardless of the appearances. If you dream tonight, again, we always talk about a park setting. We have people and dogs running around, and the sky, and it's a very lovely day, and people are picnicking. There's the appearance of separation, the appearance of things happening, people having experiences, quote, living lives. When you wake up, you know it was not true. It could not have been true.

And when you know yourself in a real sense, yes, okay, look out the window and you see cars coming and going on the road, and people in their houses, but it's not true. You know yourself in a real sense. Now you play your part very well. Whatever needs doing in the moment, okay, do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities. You want to go to the movies, go to the movies, read a book, read a book, go outside, have a picnic, whatever, doesn't matter. Just like in a dream, it doesn't matter, because you know yourself in a real sense.

And if there is irritation, it should be fast removed, because there's no like, oh, I will get revenge on this person. It's just, oh, coming, another thing happening, another scene, scene change. You go out, especially when you go out to like stores, or you go to the grocery store, maybe there's a long line, people are rude, people are butting in front, whatever.

But it's just like, that's a scene. Scene is coming, scene is going. You can't even sit there and say, oh, that person's doing that on purpose. Well, that's not even possible. It'd be like if you said somebody was doing something on purpose in the dream, and you're very angry, and you woke up feeling angry, and wait a minute, they couldn't have been doing that thing that you were so angry about, even when you were coming into the waking state, you were thinking, I'm very angry. But they weren't doing that thing. You don't want to live in an illusory prison of illusory problems with illusory people. Put yourself in a little box and be like, oh, I'm angry with these people. They're so bad people.

Q: And then pride gets involved, because you think you know that they did something.

John: If you have identification, if you have a local identification, then you're going to want to protect that. That goes back to Sri Ramakant Maharaj talking about the ants. Pour some water and those ants run, because they have a local identification and they want to protect the body. You know yourself in a real sense, okay, this thing's happening, and it's finished. And in the, quote, human sense, you just say nothing lasts forever, nothing good and nothing bad. So, whatever this is, it passes. And because you don't have a hat, a hook to hang your hat, there's no like, oh, this is such a terrible thing and drag in days and days and days. Is it happening? A scene has changed, a new scene. Just like if you turn on the TV and you're channel surfing, you don't get angry that, oh, this program is so terrible, and then sit there and watch it, suffer it. You know, oh, this is just a terrible program. I can't believe there's 100,000 other channels. You can switch the channel. You can change the scene easily. No need to just sit there and dwell on the suffering, because if there's suffering, you've created a sufferer, a local identification. And the mind is happily able to produce thoughts of a suffering machine. And with a local identification and a thought stream of a sufferer, you can manifest illusory suffering that feels quite real, as real as the dream, until you wake up.

Q: And we love to justify our suffering.

John: Well, there should be no suffering, because maybe you have a bad experience, good experience, bad experience, they come and go.

Q: Yeah, at least I do that. You know, I think I know that I have a problem. And I just forget that I'm just creating that, like, and I'm causing myself to suffer, because I'm creating this problem out of whatever.

John: You know, remember, your imagination is so wonderful that you can create this entire waking world and make it appear true. Just like you can create an entire dream world and make it appear true. So, if you have that kind of power in creating, the consciousness is able to manifest in just about any way it likes and take any form it likes, then you know, that is a powerful thing, that you do not wish to suffer and create this world that you're living in, you'll feel it, like in the past, I'm sure, if you're very, very depressed, you get into that depression, and then all the thoughts come in, and you're manufacturing this depressive state.

Q: You don't realize you're doing it.

John: And now, now you know. Now, even if you catch yourself starting to get a little angry or starting to get a little depressed or a little of this or a little of that, this number one, depression should always be equated right away to body-based issues, body-based problems. This is a five-elemental body.

Just as we have storms, just as we have wind, as we have snow, those are the elements. When the elements are disturbed, and this is a five-elemental body, then there will be a disturbance. You might feel sick, you might feel tired. That's the body. And because you're holding the body, even though you're formless, it's registering there's tiredness in this body. But if you know yourself in a real sense, okay, if there's tiredness in this body, sleep. If there's hunger in this body, eat, drink if you're thirsty. But it's just a scene. You're not holding on to something and dragging it through your day or dragging it through your week because you have no hands.

Q: I don't suppose this probably hasn't happened to you, but I don't think it has anything to do with my study of this topic. But for the past month or two, maybe two months at least, I fall asleep and I wake up after like two hours. And I don't know what's causing it. Anyway, I'm losing a lot of sleep. I'm getting insomnia. And it probably has nothing to do with like an energetic thing due to the teachings or anything like that, I don't suppose. Any ideas there?

John: I mean, I don't know. It's a five-elemental body.

Q: It's disturbance in the five elements. I'm 72 years old. It could have to do with age. Yeah, definitely.

John: I mean, I wake up a couple of times in the night to use the restroom.

Q: I don't drink water later in the day. So that doesn't happen. I avoid that. But yeah, it's just, I'll be tired. And sometimes the energy shifts. I think I'm going to, for sure I'm going to fall asleep. But then the energy shifts and then. It's true.

John: You know, truly, many times when I, right away, turn off the TV, and I just sit there and listen to Mantra and just relax. And then boom, you're asleep.

Q: Yeah, I do Mantra. Sometimes that does help to fall asleep. Especially if I count each Mantra, the counting also can help sleep.

John: I mean, if that's, I don't know. I’ll just sit there because I sleep in a recliner. It's the best way for me to sleep. I'm sitting there, I watch TV, turn off the TV, put the recliner, start listening, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out. And then that's it. It's just you're gone. That's it. But again, remember Sri Ramakant Maharaj, because somebody asked about it, you know, I'm doing the Mantra, and I'm having too much energy, and I'm having a really hard time sleeping. And he said, there's no sleeping, there's no waking.

So don't make a problem about it, or have your mind sit there and try to figure it out. No sleeping, no waking. Okay, sometimes there's a little bit of trouble sleeping, sometimes not trouble sleeping, nothing to worry.

Just like if you do Mantra, you begin the Mantra, and suddenly you're very angry all the time. You know, that's, those are those tenants leaving the building. As Sri Ramakant Maharaj says, you know, you have the experience I had in India with the gold, where I was overwhelmingly, I wanted that gold. There was, and it was weird, it was like this burst of like, I must have, this is such a good deal, I want this, I want this. And I went back and I talked to Maharaj about it. And the coolest thing was, because I spoke with Maharaj about it, I continued my Mantra, just as I did, not worrying about, oh, these are disturbing feelings.
When we went back with another devotee, there was nothing. I looked at the gold, whatever, and showed him, here's the store, because Tata had sent us there, and nothing. There was nothing. And that was really very beautiful. Same with the food. There were a couple of times where suddenly I just started to get very, very angry.

And I told Maharaj, I was like, and I don't like the food, and there's geckos in my room, and this and that. And he's like, oh, would you like to move rooms? You know, there was nothing pushing back. It wasn't like two people. And it was just okay, this is happening because Mantra, these things are coming up and discard. Alex actually talked in a video very nicely about, he felt like it was a corked bottle, you know, that you shake it, and it's like boiling, boiling, boiling. And Maharaj was just like, no, don't worry about this. Continue with Mantra. The tenants are leaving the building. They're going to abuse you on the way out. You just concentrate Mantra, because Mantra helps you see the reality. Instead of all this conceptual noise that can take you and put you in a different place, just Mantra.

Remain with your Selfless Self. Be normal, be simple, be humble, be always with you. I actually have that saying with Maharaj's face at my work. And throughout the day, anything that's going on out there, it's like, oh, be normal, be simple, be humble, be always with you.

Q: Sometimes I don't, like, don't respect or don't value the Mantra enough, because I don't, because it doesn't seem to connect me to a sense of space or anything at times. But other times, it does seem to be like a sense of openness or bliss is sort of connected to the Mantra.

John: It’s true for me. I took it as God himself. I asked for freedom. And God himself says, to be free, this Mantra. That is my only thing. To be free. You want freedom? Great. Here's this Mantra. And it's given to you by God himself. That is the most important thing. They tell a story about the, we've told before about the people who look for the silver and this and that and the gold, all this, because you have to value it so high. When the guru gives you a little stone and says, this is the most valuable thing, go find the value. He goes to his mother, and his mother says, oh, I'd give one or two rupees. Then he goes on to the next town. Oh, this is worth a hundred rupees. He goes into a bigger town. This is worth a thousand rupees. He goes to another town. And the guy's like, this thing could, I don't have enough money in my store. That's how valuable this is. So, you have to understand that the perception of the value, that this is invaluable.

Q: And that's what you're really devoted. That's what, like I said last week, that's what we're here for is devotion to that supreme value or whatever, you know.

John: It is in the understanding of God, as you understand God, he has said in human form, this Mantra will eliminate the illusory world, and you will live completely free. This Mantra will remove the concept of birth and death, will remove the concept of suffering, will allow you to experience, so to speak, Heaven on Earth. And you say, well, you know, I give it like, how much, how long do I have to do it for? Like, is it like two hours in the day? Or like, I can't really spare that. Like what? Okay. Keep living your illusory life, playing spirituality, keeping the egoistic spirituality of I've learned so much, I can quote Sri Ramana Maharshi, I can quote Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I read this, I read that, or worse, I've traveled around Arunachala 55 times, and I even wore a little loincloth, just like Sri Ramana Maharshi. No.

Eliminate all concepts, slowly, silently, and permanently. Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj called it the Master key, and it doesn't have to be sitting. Like, so many people will say, oh, I don't like meditation, I'm not into meditation, I have to do it a different way. Okay, just remain with Mantra throughout your entire day, and non-stop, just remain with yourself, the Self, through Mantra.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.