Illusory thoughts. Don’t get caught up in illusory thoughts. Every thought about ‘me’ myself’ or ‘I’ or ‘my story’ is an illusory thought. As Maharaj says “clouds coming and going, don’t accept these illusory thoughts”. Any thought that is flowing through that has to do with a ‘me’ or my circumstance, my job etc. that is an illusory thought, because it is based on illusion. Someone that is not existing, so that thought should be discarded immediately. When the thought comes in and it is discarded immediately, it does not get to germinate, antivirus software. In keeping with your Selfless Self through Mantra, a thought comes in ‘oh, I wonder how my boss thinks I am doing, or I am so busy at work, etc.’ No, no, no, Mantra, this is an illusory thought, I know it is an illusory thought because it is about ‘me’. Keeping with your Selfless Self through Mantra and you will see that it was not as your mind was presenting it. It never is. Keeping with your Selfless Self through Mantra allows you to see things as they are, observing this body moving around, and your reactions coming universally, rather than through the lens of individuality. ‘My boss might fire me’; that is a thought about the illusion. It is appearing on Presence, everything that appears on Presence is an illusion, this ‘me’ that I am worried is getting fired, is illusion, this job is illusion, so this is an illusory egoistic thought. Right away you discard it with Mantra and remain with your Selfless Self. There is no getting caught up in the thinking process. The mind wants to say ‘If we don’t think about this something bad is going to happen to you, we need to try and fix this’ but in reality there is no fixer. It is all occurring in mind, through belief. And you are believing, these thoughts that are put together using mind in sequence, ‘this is going to happen’. Before you know it you have lost your house and you are homeless living under a bridge. In reality nothing has happened. You are experiencing all of this through the instrument of mind, feeling emotion and ‘living’ the moment that is not. It is not the reality. It is going to be what it is anyway. It was Ramana Maharshi who says “If something is meant to be, it is going to happen no matter how much you try to avoid it. If it is not meant to be, it is not going to happen no matter how hard you tru to make it so. Best just to keep quiet.” Keeping quiet through Mantra and remaining with your Selfless Self knowing any thought about a ‘me’ is illusory and nothing is required.
There is nothing that needs to be protected. Someone can say something, whatever, there is not that self-consciousness because there is not a little me that is created through mind identifying with the thought flow and bringing attention towards ‘this is me’. When that idea takes shape than ‘I’ have to protect this idea. I am supposed to know something and I don’t. I either lie, or become aggressive, try to deflect or something. Remaining with myself through Mantra, slowly, silently, permanently, all the ash is removed exposing the fire that was always there. Lighting the Arati that fire is there, it is pure, there are no qualities and nothing is covering it. It burns bright, and the light, You Selfless Self are the light, the spontaneous Presence on which everything appears. Everything that you are seeing is just an illusion. All the thoughts about what is seen are illusion. The ideas that there is a seer, who that seer is, if there is an idea formed about that seer, that is also illusion. There is just the seeing. No experience, everything is just moving about in front of the seeing, images flowing. Everybody is experiencing this in various different stages in different ways. You ‘see’ sometimes, like an athlete being ‘In the zone’ taking the basketball effortlessly to the hoop and slam dunk. He is ‘In the zone’ it is just flowing. That is that Selfless Self type state. After the shot I might think about it. I might analyze the shot and try to bring up thoughts about it, or that I needed to change something. Even though this nice shot was made, I may analyze the action and then start believing ‘Oh, I was a little too much on my left foot, maybe I should have taken off on my right foot’. That is the after effect, the commenting after the fact of the action, in essence creating the doer, because I am sitting there thinking about what has been done.
Take one step forward, Maharaj takes the other step. Not Maharaj in body form where you need to talk to him, or do anything. Maharaj, the Maharaj, Selfless Self. Act as if. In that moment know, it is an illusory world, and I am just moving forward. Without saying it. Mantra allows you to do that. You will see your body moving, remaining with yourself through Mantra, you see you are making a sandwich, your doing this thing, every thing is getting done smoothly and not a single thought has come. Mind has been kept busy with Mantra. As the challenges seem to progress it will be automatic, remaining with yourself through Mantra, until there is no arising of anything. No matter what may be happening outside, there is no experience, no experiencer, because there is nothing here anymore. Every moment is a test and you just have to stick with it. Stay with yourself whatever challenge, of course because we are human beings in these bodies, there are going to be challenges. These challenges, turn up the heat, so that you the Selfless Self can see. Using Mantra I remain with my Selfless Self through this, and there will be amazing peace that can not be described. You start to see that the whole world is projected from me. Not me in body form, this Selfless Self is continuously projecting, there is a recognition in the projection through the eyes, of the person that you believed yourself to be at one time, and now you are aware that you are using this body as an instrument. Moving about in this world, but there is not someone in this instrument. This body is just an instrument. An instrument with no need to give it any identity, no need to fill it, not to worry.
Of course what needs to be done is done, no need to form a doer. There is no deed there is no doer. There is no need to form a doer, no need to form an experiencer, you are formless, remain as you are. Without form, without identity, no next. In the next moment, no next. Mind wants to go to a next, no next, just here. What am I going to do, nope, no next, here. Like Nisargadatta Maharaj says “when there are no customers for thought, thought vanishes”. If you think about any economy if the factory of thoughts are making thoughts and no thoughts are being purchased, they lay off the factory workers, they close the factory, because no one is buying the thoughts. If no one is buying the thoughts, than you are no longer creating a you. Thoughts are flowing to poke and prick a you. Do you believe in this thing? Do you believe you are this? Because if you have this idea about yourself and whatever form you have taken, the thoughts will come in and prick that form, that’s what identification with thoughts does. You create this ‘my mind’ and as soon as ‘my mind’ is created, it starts to buy thoughts under the table. Black market thoughts. All because of a belief. Thoughts that are flowing and they are not used to create or form a ‘my mind’ are just thoughts flowing. Like Maharaj says “clouds, coming and going”. The only time the clouds appear to not come and go is when there is a form that is created, a mind that is created, and then ‘This is happening to me’. I take form as person, that person has this and that, these are my possessions, this is what I do, this is how I feel, my friends and family etc. This is who I am. Thoughts then will be given attention if they have anything to do with any of those ideas being held I am believing about myself in any moment. Remaining with yourself through Mantra allows you to see this process, thoughts can come and go and cease, as there is no attention paid to them. They may still be flowing, I don’t know because there is nothing here that has attraction to any passing thought. No interest of thoughts of what needs to be done, or taking a position as a man or a woman, these just are not there. You are just here, with no next, no nothing. Fully here. Using this body in the moment and dropping, something. nothing, another scene arises, 100% in to this, and then dropping. Knowing inwardly that it is just scenes passing. Nothing is sticking. There is not even an idea that you are continuous in all of these scenes it’s just here is the scene now, then finished, not taking anything with you.
John Richards
Sadguru Shri Ramakant Maharaj Dakshina