This is the Tuesday Talk held January 13, 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 January 13, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. with minimal editing.
Q: I can say I had a pleasant time since I woke up from a nap today. I just started feeling like everything was just right. It's sort of an unexplainable thing. I guess I've always thought things were... I knew that things are just right at times, but somehow, it's also... I see it's possible for...
But, you know, words are tricky because you say something's right, and that could appear to mean that you know something about it. But this is just right the way it is, everything is just right the way it is, it has nothing to do with words or even... I always thought it had to do with feelings too, but I see that...
I guess earlier today I saw that there's something totally invisible Presence that has to be there for anything else to be present. And I guess that aligns with what you talk about a lot, that this invisible, anonymous identity. It's like a value that can't be specified or limited to any value, but something about it is...
As soon as you say something about it, you're limiting it. So, it's... But there's something that feels really...It's like everything is all right. So, everything, but nothing in particular is recognizable as... I guess it's recognizable from a standpoint of...was that, okay, you have a division is something you can do. It's something that we think of when we divide. We have done the division.
It's like the invisible ability to divide is not... It must be there, but it's not divided. It's not one of the divisions that comes out of it. So, all divisions would be appearances within. I mean, you say division is a concept, but that's not really saying anything either. Because division, the ability to divide is not...It's like invisible. It's there, the ability, the potential, but it's invisible. So, you see where I'm getting at?
John: Yeah, I mean, invisible, anonymous, unidentified identity. And the world is all right. Everything is perfect without you, like without creating a you.
That's what you're basically saying, it is like when it's just that formless, just I, just I, the sense of Presence, everything is right. Even if things appear not to be right, because they're occurring within your own self, and because you're not trying to create a local identification and get involved in whatever's happening, that's why it's just, oh, okay, this is just a happening inside my own self without having to say it. Because within your own self, there is no division of you.
There are appearances within you, but even then, you're not dividing. Like you're, and even, again, a dream is a perfect example. The formless dream consciousness creates an entire dream world, populates it, a lot of activities going on, but the dream consciousness wasn't divided.
It was just that all these appearances started appearing, and then moving, and all this, and when you wake up, you know, oh, it wasn't true. So, you can't even say that it was like individuals, even though within the dream, it appears as individuals.
Q: Yeah, it kind of makes everything, it turns everything into a joke. As soon as you start thinking something is something, you can, it's like the joke's on you, because you're the one that's making it out to be a certain way, as if it's dependent on what you think it is, and then...
John: Well, that's the power of your attention, or the power of awareness. Awareness directed towards something is, I am aware of. Awareness, quote-unquote, pure awareness, just I, just I, is not directed towards anything.
There's no subject-object created. If you look at something, and you say, oh, that is something, then there is a seer created to have seen this object, but the seeing, just I, just I, there is seeing. Am I seeing?
I don't know. Seeing scenes appearing and disappearing, and without a need to create anything, any obstacles in the way, because as soon as I even say, oh, wow, I'm seeing that everything is myself, then again, that's taking egoistic, kind of, I'm seeing. I see that everything is one with me, but there's no need to say this, because again, you're prior to the very first word, so uttering a word only creates a world of concepts, all within the bubble of illusion.
The you that you are, can't speak, much like, again, they talk about the flute. The flute is giving off all this music and all this, but it's not doing anything. There's a flow coming through that creates these things, but without a flow, without blowing in, the flute, it's just an instrument, just a dead body.
There has to be that power, that energy to come through to then create, to do something, to make a sound, but the flute is totally unaware, and the sound is not, the air that's going through doesn't know, oh, I'm going to be making these sounds. It just flows. No individuality.
Q: Dasbodh talks about wind. I'm just reading the page where he was talking about wind and mind mixing together to make creation or something like that.
John: Well, again, Dasbodh, the whole concept of Dasbodh is that there is no world, and then this is how the world was created, if there was a world. That's the idea of the elements. But in the very end, too, Dasbodh gives you from the perspective that God wrote the book, because it talks about everything you've heard and this and that.
It's all divine. It came from the divine, and as you can understand, it's the divine that's written this book, but it's not necessarily like people would think of God on some throne that comes down and writes a book. It's, again, the flute.
Q: And the words just come out of that.
John: Yes, yes, well, because within the bubble of illusion, these instruments have communications. But again, it's the same as in your dream. All the little dream bodies may be carrying on conversations, maybe talking.
You may even have a dream that there's a police officer, and you have people, and you have a fireman, and you have all these. Nobody went to school. Nobody had any professions.
Nobody did anything. It's you. And when you wake up, it's not like you totally destroyed the world.
All the people have a nice view of the lake, and everybody's enjoying a nice sunny day, and you wake up, basically like Armageddon for all these people.
Q: But it's Armageddon, well, it's putting, well, it's not Armageddon. It's like making something out of nothing as soon as you think it's you that did it or something.
John: Because something appears out of nothing and goes back to nothing, because it always was nothing. The something, the dream, came formlessly. Your dream consciousness, as we'll say, for instance, laying down sleeping, creates the dream world.
And then on the other side, there is no more dream world, because the something appeared, but it's just an appearance. And when you know yourself in a real sense, it's one long continuum with appearance and disappearance.
Q: Yeah, I was sort of getting a sense of that, of what you're talking about, things just appear and disappear. It's very simple. It's nothing super profound, except that it makes it easier to go into a sense of ease and what could be called bliss. It makes it sort of more accessible, but less special, maybe.
John: I mean, when scenes appear and disappear, it's just like you say, okay, I'm not working anymore. I come home from work and I watch television. There's this scene of television.
And hopefully, your mind is not, like, continuing to try and place you in the illusory existence of work. That's why you say, oh, the person is very stressed. Why is this person stressed?
Because they are living in many different places, worrying about the work, worrying about the bills, worrying about this, worrying about that, all these sorts of things, and creating each one of these worlds and carrying them all with you. So even while you're at home watching TV, the concept is of work, because you're identifying with all these thought flows of work. And your physical body may not be at work, but that mind flow identification is at work while watching TV.
And then you say, oh, this TV show is terrible. I'm not relaxed. Well, you're not relaxed because you're at work, even though you commuted home. And that's only because you've created a local identification.
Q: Although the boss will tell you that if you don't get this done in time, it all depends on you. And his point, he's making a you out of you.
John: No one can make a you out of you. You make a you. Somebody gives you an assignment to do, you do your job, do your duties, and you leave it.
If my manager said, oh, you have just like, okay, we're coming up on our transition time. And from where I work, all the new Congressmen, as soon as they get elected, we have to create all websites for them and get them all set up and do all this sort of thing. There's going to be a lot of work.
And I will be working at home and in the office and at home and late. But again, it's just do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities, and finish. Only you can create a you.
Your manager can't say, okay, I want you to be Keith right now and do all this stuff. Be working, Keith. It's not.
It's just, I mean, it can be, because again, you are the ultimate reality, and the creation of any illusion is totally possible. I mean, you're creating this whole illusory waking world, and you create a whole illusory dream world. So, you can quite easily create a working Keith, but there's no need for this.
Q: That's not all. That's not all there is.
John: But there's no need to create any Keith. Because in reality, when you know yourself in a real sense, body is available, but it's no longer a tight suit. It's more like linen suit, just very loose and fluffy, except in the cold, of course.
But then you have a puffer jacket. It's not constricting you. It's nice and puffy, keeps you warm, but you're not constantly focused on it.
Q: Sometimes when I don't know if this is true, but sometimes it seems like when I'm in a little bit more of a loose state of mind like that, that the coldness affects me less or sensations me. Coldness is a good example because sometimes I'm usually very sensitive to cold, more so than most people. And then I make a concept out of it, and then I’m ready to resist the cold.
But sometimes it just doesn't affect me because I'm not, I'm in a better state of mind or something. It's not affected.
John: Because again, awareness of body sensations, your attention grows anything because your awareness is like, oh, I'm cold. I'm really, really, really cold. Just like the concept of time.
If you go to some lecture and it's just a totally boring lecture, and this guy is almost, you're dozing in and out and you have to keep checking your watch. And that one hour seems like four days, or you do a lecture and the guy is right on and it's, and it's so fast. And you're like, wow, it went by so fast.
Because again, all of that is within you and your attention. If you're constantly looking at the clock do this even at work if you're sitting at work and you're Constantly checking the time. Oh boy. Is that going to be a very long day for you?
But when you're sitting there and you're just doing your job doing your duties taking care of responsibilities. Oh, oh, look, it's lunchtime Okay, go to have a lunch come back. We're doing job, doing responsibilities. Look at that. It's time to go. Okay, good, good.
Q: Even if you're like sitting with nothing to do and you could turn that into a state of boredom you could also Just appreciate everything and feel that sort of peace that's there all the time, too you know, and then and then you won't think of it as being bored that you'll actually enjoy it because you're just open to not making it into anything
John: Appropriately in each situation But yes that reminds me of when I first was in spirituality like 2010 I guess it was and I Was reading all these books and doing these different meditations and I had this big screensaver of an aquarium That not screensaver But like a video that you could play and I had a big screen from work and I played this aquarium and I had this little Zen garden and everything at my desk and I would break the little sand and put the little things and stuff and the manager walked by and saw this was like What the hell are you doing? I was like, oh, you know, this is just a very nice relaxing I'm just taking a moment to you know, just feel the universe and be one with it and all that He's like, okay. Well, let's do that during lunch break or something like that. So well, no because it was more terrible than getting caught and like I said in 2010 I went through a lot of different very crazy stuff and it was like, you know And I was listening to Mooji at the time too and the whole concept of not doing anything I didn't actually understand it. I didn’t have; I hadn't been in touch with my own self.
I was just hearing this “Don't do anything, you know, you're not a doer. Don't do anything. Everything will get done for you basically”, so I'm at work, you know watching the videos and playing with my Zen garden and I go outside for sometimes an hour at a time and meditate by the fountain and it was just it was too much sattva like they talk about the different gunas when the sattva guna really hypertrophies it's very crazy That's why when I went to go see Maharaj the beard that was all out the long hair the Rudraksh the dashiki Isn't all this kind of stuff? Because the sattva guna had just gone absolutely just bizarre but then once you know yourself in a real sense somebody says oh, you don't do anything. You're like, yeah, of course.
How could I do anything? Like that there's no there's no You know yourself in a real sense. There's no deed. No doer. No birth. No death. But when it’s just conceptualized in the mind You wind up watching fish and raking Zen gardens.
Yeah, just like Eckhart Tolle. When I very first started reading that was the very first book I ever read of any spirituality. He mentioned the Presence around the flower and I literally went to the flower and would stare. I wanted to see the Presence of this flower. I wanted to see That, and I didn't really understand the Presence and these sort of things but the good thing was I had this burning desire to know myself and Although it may have seemed silly to sit there and stare at the flower It was a burning desire to know this Presence.
What is Presence? I want to feel this Presence I want you know if this is true I want to see this and this of course is what you must have You know that that burning desire. I must know myself or in the beginning if it's just I must know this God or I must know how to surrender to God or whatever because when I went to go see Maharaj, I had felt the Presence and I had identified that with a power greater than myself and was going to Maharaj the sole purpose was to bow down and thank God for having changed my life so dramatically through the 12-step program that I was in at that time. Because my life was in shambles before it was just all over the place and I wanted to Bow down to this power greater than myself and say, “Thank You” and now whatever's left of me. I leave it your feet How can I best serve Thee and thank God Maharaj was a real one.
Because there are some out there Okay, give me all your worldly possessions shave your head, you know go to the airport and collect some kind of thing and saying God because I was in that state where I would have been like, okay, let's shave the head let's go to the airport. Let's do this. But even that because the Selfless Self the more you have that desire there's Nisargadatta Maharaj talks about like the self is interested in you and you're interested in the self and it it's an exchange. Actually it's Siddharameshwar Maharaj who talks about that exchange it's like a magnet
Q: I guess for some of us it takes longer than others to really to sort that out to where You finally recognized that you Like me, you know, I'm good I feel like, you know, I took another step today into like I could call a clarity or something And it's taken me so many years, but I've always had a sense of it, but there's always you know, this push and pull where Identification takes over or you know, it takes over. It's not like I’m doing that.
John: Remember that's illusion, too. Yeah, because when I was going through my quote early stages, I Would go have times where it was just total peace and bliss and I was just like, oh, this is it. This is what they all talk about and then something happens and I'm like, oh then I lose it. Then I of course go online or I go to like the Mooji chats or whatever and it's like, oh I was there and then I lost it and then it came back and then I lost it. But see again concepts and because I was looking for other people who are experiencing these concepts. We're all trying to explain these concepts to one another rather than like Maharaj, it's finished. All these concepts are illusions. Their layers on your Presence. Discard the layer. Presence is there.
How do you discard the layer? Meditation Mantra. Oh, so that I, I am that. Then, you know, it can't come and go
Q: Actually, I could feel the way much are working now.
John: Right on the spot more so than yeah, it's the magic eraser for illusory concepts like etch a sketch. The old etch a sketch where you would draw something and create these all-beautiful pretty pictures and all that, and then you just go shoo, shoo, and it's all gone. Shoo, shoo is the Mantra
Q: Although concepts. Well It's not working that much.
Why did okay? I did the Mantra a couple minutes ago How come I'm not feeling perfect now, you know, that's because then there's a you in the Mantra You just have to continue and Mantras all the time.
John: It's not just sitting for meditation That was one thing that was huge in the beginning too. Because as soon as we got Mantra, we all sat around and it was like do like hour or two of meditation But then there was this continuum and that's when the walking around all of India started and it was understood that this Mantra is just consistent cooking hot dogs, Mantra. Getting in the shower, Mantra. Brushing teeth, Mantra. Going to work, Mantra. Commuting, Mantra. Then eventually you just hear Mantra as it's naturally circulate and actually running through the body and then when you're hearing the Mantra, there's an understanding that oh, I'm not doing the Mantra. As much it’s just the invisible anonymous unidentified identity is being texted.
Q: Parallel You go with its watchers parallel breathing. It's the background. This is the concept
John: Background of everything because you're just like, eventually meditation won't be a thing for you because the entire world is the meditation. You're no longer sitting for meditation because you're not a body, you know, you're not a body So if you're not a body, then the world is actually the meditation. Thoughts are coming and going. Various forms are coming and going. All within your own self and there you are meditating. You don't have to sit there and say oh, I'm going to meditate unless you want to oh That was the thing. I said I was going to do New Year's Eve. Was and I have been doing this previously sitting there and listening to Maharaj all through the evening do the talks and all of that on YouTube. Commercials are insane nowadays. I was like I couldn't do it for more than like four, maybe four or five different talks and I had to stop because every talk it interrupted four times I was like man, this is the worst It was on YouTube or something that was on YouTube.
Yep, you know where we have the YouTube channel and You know all the Maharaj Talks are there in the whole playlist I hit play and all the previous years I've been able to kind of just sit there and kind of doze in and out and hear Maharaj and All throughout the evening all the way into the morning, but this time too much commercials Like I mean four times in a 10-minute speech. That is ridiculous Yeah, and they're loud like he'll be like, you know Invisible not in the Sun identified 499 come on down, you know, it's like oh my god, man. Come on Or that crazy Limu we knew that keeps popping up.
I'm like, oh my god. This is just it's too much so I was not able to do that this year, so we'll see if this year turns out to be Absolutely terrible Now I'm kidding but you know those So even that and see that truly it was like, okay, I can't do it and that's it finish but In the very beginning that would have really bothered me a lot. Like I said, I would have been like, oh my god You know what's going to happen now.
But that's only because you create a local identification. Without a local identification nothing can stick to you. You have nowhere to hang the hat of any concept. If you have a whole bunch of pegs. You know I'm this, I'm that, I believe this, I believe that. Then every hat of every concept can hang If you have no little pegs. Whatever concept tries to hang drops. Very nicely, very easily.
Q: We're talking about Being on the job or something and being whether things depend on me or not and it occurred to me that what things will seem to depend on you if they seem to depend on you and you will be living as if You as if what you think is true and you will be feeling that way according to what seems to be true according to the way you think but that's exactly the kind of Spinning wheel we want or Do we want to get off of?
So no, it doesn't depend.
John: I mean. Again, this is practical spirituality. I work in a team. If I just sat there and said, oh, you know, everything's going to do itself everything is lovely everything is beautiful The world is beautiful. Nothing relies on me.
Q: Well, I'm saying the opposite if everything seems to depend on me and I think I'm the one that's controlling the team Then you know, it's going to go well, no you do your part.
John: Yeah, we go back to the Bhagavad-Gita. When Krishna told Arjuna you have to fight. Don't try to be this great warrior. But you have to fight. You, you must do your duty. And do your duty but just in the moment. Without ego. Without taking pride or ownership or doership. It's just in the moment. But if you're on a team you do teamwork. You do what's assigned do your duties and take care of you assigned duties.
Q: Excuse me. It's practical. It all doesn't, it all doesn't not Ultimately depend on me. Because even though I'm part of a team if I drop out or if I die The team's going to go on it doesn't depend on me.
John: So, I mean in in everything. There's always a replacement for the person. But again, you do your job. You do your duties, take care of your responsibilities. If you are put in charge doing your job and doing your duties, is making sure that everyone else is taking care of their responsibilities and that is your duty. Again without ownership.
Q: But I've always thought okay like sometimes I feel free and sort of blissful and then I don't anymore. And somehow, I end up I could get the idea that somehow that depends on something I mean, I don't me that did that can do something about it or because again, you're taking your bliss.
John: From outside yourself. You're taking your peace and your bliss and all this sort of thing from outside yourself. You don't want to do this. You're the fountain. Right. Everything is within you. I really don't you start trying to seek happiness and peace and bliss outside Then yeah, you're absolutely right. You're chasing your tail. But the fountain is within. And I really don't. Nectar of immortality sipping just I, just I, Presence there is no person responsible for that. It's just That. There has never been. Are the people in your dream responsible for all the things and yet. Maybe you dream that somebody's walking the dog. Well, they're taking care of their duties. Yes, the duty is being done. Activities are happening. But it's all within your own self.
Q: The word one word kept coming to me today. Was it felt perfect. Everything was kind of feeling perfect and that was nice and I could still feel it. You know, it's just kind of perfect It's a concept. I guess you can make a concept out of it, but it's also Beyond concept two or something.
John: Well, the absence of any disturbance because you're not there. If you're not there, there's no way to be disturbed. If I have a local identification, then I have a position then I have concepts. I have thoughts about myself If I have no local identification, none of these is true. And that's why Nisargadatta Maharaj said If you say that I'm a very great saint, I'm not impressed. If you say I'm a very terrible saint, I'm not depressed. Because you're not speaking about me. This body form that you see is not myself.
Q: I know this There was something there was something Extraordinary about this Nisargadatta Maharaj, the way he expressed things. The guy was just coming from. He's speaking from ultimate reality the bottom of reality He was an intelligent guy, even though he wasn't educated. He was super intelligent or something. Well again, he's speaking from it.
John: It's not like he went to school and learned all these things. It's just coming from within. The responses are coming from within. He even says in the book that the responses just come. A question is put and the answer is appearing along with the question. Because there is no questioner and there is no answer. Just like in the dream. If you had one person asked somebody a question in the dream. The questioner and the answerer are exactly the same. Even if the answerer seems very profound in their answer, it's all you.