Which understanding will make you Real?

282 Pages·2015·2.45 MB·English

Which understanding will make you Real?
Which idea will define your Self?
What does Freedom mean to the Absolute?
Who can bind the Supreme Lord?
But I know now that this is all part of my game.

Yes, Beloved, all going to sleep and awakening is just a part of our game.
God became tired of His own game.

I Am the Immortal One.
This Being is my breath.
Life does not concern me, neither does death.
I Am the Immortal One.

This is my only song.
This song is not of love.
I sing of That way beyond.
The God of love serves me.
And his joy is in your Heart.

For some these are the ramblings of the mad-man,
For others they are the Truth.
When you find this mad-man in your Heart,
That will be the end of all words.

~ Ananta
About Ananta

Ananta gives satsang with the blessings of his Master, Mooji. He lives in Bangalore, India with
his wife, son and daughter. He often offers in-person satsangs twice monthly in Bangalore and
occasionally in Pune, India.

On-line satsangs on Youtube with Google Hangout and Youtube chat participation are offered
Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11 am and Tuesday and Thursday at 4:30 pm Bangalore,
India time.

Satsang with Ananta Youtube channel and satsang link is:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmc83jyrwpCNBT2xywXVoLg/feed

Website: www.anantasatsang.org
Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/satsangwithananta

Mooji and Ananta

This book is a distillation of full satsangs between Ananta and the sangha or guests who came to
ask questions and be in his Presence. All “in quotes” are shorted questions from those attending.
Are You Aware Now?
Table of Contents

Preface: “Ananta, how did this happen for you?”

Chapter 1: Beingness is Ever-Present

8 What Makes Up a Person
13 Freedom is Not a State
18 Can You Turn Off Awareness?
23 An Intimate Conversation with your True Being
25 What is Consciousness?
29 Consciousness is the One Doer
33 Guided Inquiry
36 Unity and Oneness
39 Not the Body; Never Born, Never Die
41 Doership
49 An Inquiry of Awareness

Chapter 2: All Arises and Subsides in Awareness

52 Desires and Aversions, Vasanas
57 Simple and Available to Everyone
67 You Meet Your Own Presence in Satsang
75 How Will You Suffer Now?
79 Find the Buddha Within You
84 I Have Come To Take You Home
90 You Can’t Step Out of Awareness
92 Be Completely Empty of the World

Chapter 3: Awareness Witnessing

97 There is Nothing to Fix
102 Consciousness is Not the Body
106 Trying to Hold onto Awareness
111 Am I Free?
115 Marinating in the Silence
118 About Problems
122 Appearances Can't Touch Our True Nature
126 The Witnessing of Every Appearance
130 As What Are You the Experiencer?
136 Get to the Root of It
Chapter 4: Are You Aware Now?

139 No Resistance Means No Suffering
141 Consciousness and Relationships
144 Special Relationships
149 Inquiry: Where Do Thoughts Come From?
155 What Brings Complete Freedom?
160 The Idea of Separation is Only a Belief
165 Awareness Itself in This Very Moment
170 Inquiry: Are You Aware Now?
175 A Game: Guided Inquiry

Chapter 5: Our True Position

178 Who is Aware of This Witnessing?
184 What it Means to Not Resist
188 Ego Rests on the Concept of Doership
192 Being Free in This Very Moment
196 There is No Separation
200 Contemplations
205 Where Am I?
212 Spirituality and Science
213 This is Home. This is Freedom

Chapter 6: You Have Always Been Free

218 What Is the Mind?
222 Awareness is the Starting Point
226 You Are the Untouched Free One
232 The Illusion of Control
238 Being in Silence
240 Who is Seeing This?
248 What Does Freedom Mean For You?
253 Resistance is Non-Acceptance of What Is

Chapter 7: Complete Simplicity

258 Don’t Try to Go Home, You Are Home
261 Consciousness Speaking with Consciousness
265 Rest in These Simple Pointings
269 What Sees Even This?
272 Truth is Not a Concept
276 The End of Suffering Itself
“Ananta, how did this happen for you?”

In the sense of what brought this Being into giving satsang or having satsang in this way? For a
long, long time in the life of this person, there seemed to be no belief in the concept of God.
There was this thought which was believed, which was that ‘All that don't have faith in
themselves have invented this concept of God, just because they are scared; that they need
something to rely on, therefore they have invented this concept of God’. And then some
experiences happened where I came across a Being who was able to foretell the future. He was
an astrologer; he was very accurate with foretelling the future. At the same time a lot of suffering
was coming up in life.

I came across this book called ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’. Because life created some openness,
so first this book appeared. Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda's book ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’. It
had some deep impact here. But if I were to look at it now, I am not sure what it was that so
deeply affected me then. In reading ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ something was there about
learning Kriya yoga, and doing some Kriya type practices. He was Sri Sri Paramahansa
Yogananda. In Bangalore there is a Master called Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who teaches something
called the Sudarshan Kriya. So I found that when I came to know about this, (this was in ‘97 or
‘98 most likely); when I came to know about this Sri Sri / Sri Sri coincidence, and the kriya /
kriya similarity, I felt that I must go and try this. So I went to The Art of Living, learned the
sudarshan kriya; and all the yogic practices actually helped in some way, because it gave some
space here for some contemplation to happen.

So there was a lot of interest in ‘The Art of Living’ here; and did many, many courses and
programs with ‘The Art of Living’ with the ultimate goal of becoming a teacher with ‘The Art of
Living’. But life, of course, had other plans. A lot of suffering arose because of some life events;
things happened where a lot of suffering actually arose. With grace, there was this question
which said ‘If you know so much, and you are so good at practices, and you are so spiritually
evolved, then how can it be that suffering still continues?’ And with that question, the entire
framework of the spiritual ego just collapsed actually; because I realized that I did not know
anything at all. It was all just concepts that I was parrot-ing that were heard from others; I was
just a parrot.

Then with Grace, I came across Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi]'s book ‘Be as you Are’. At a
similar time, Nisargadatta’s book ‘I am That’. Reading ‘I am That’ actually had a very, very
profound effect. It was a very frustrating experience also initially, because I just could not
understand. Many times when he would say ‘The sense I Am, be with the I Am-ness’ then all
these terms just would not make any sense at all.

Then in looking for a teacher I looked for a student of his, because I knew that Nisargadatta
Maharaj had left the body, so I looked for a student of his; and I found Ramesh Balsekar. So for
a few years, any time I was in Mumbai, I would visit Ramesh. Ramesh, as you know, speaks a
lot about non-doership; he used to speak a lot about non-doership.

Something was still not completely clear; and when I was looking for disciples of Bhagavan
Ramana Maharshi, then I came across these names Papaji, Lakshmana Swami, and there was a
desire to meet somebody from that lineage. So when I went to Tiru for the first time, there was a
feeling that I would like to meet Lakshmana Swami. By then I had seen a lot of Mooji's videos
on Youtube, but there was no feeling that this one [Mooji] is going to be my Guru. So when I
went to Tiru, it was mostly to do a lot of spiritual shopping actually; to meet all the Masters over
there in Tiru. As Grace would have it, I saw Mooji first.

I was late for satsang, I was waiting downstairs; and then I saw him come down the stairs. As he
was coming down the stairs, this strong feeling came over me that ‘I have come home’. That my
life is his problem now, and everything will be taken care of. This strong feeling came, and I
gave him a hug. It was a short meeting.

Then I always believed that the next day I went to him on the hot seat actually; but if you look at
the dates now, there was one day in the middle which I have no recollection what happened on
that day. There is no recollection of that day, of what happened in satsang, or any of that. I just
remember that when I landed up on the hot seat, in looking at his eyes, all that was spoken,
which was just an intellectual understanding earlier, was seen to be completely true. The person
had completely dissolved, and all there was, was oneness, and pure love that was being
transmitted from his eyes. All sense of separation vanished.

Then after that, Mooji just adopted me. It has just gone on like this very naturally in its own
flow. There was no very strong feeling here that I must do satsang, or this should happen. In fact
we wanted to do video satsangs with Mooji. That's how it started in Bangalore. We started doing
fort-nightly dvd Mooji satsangs here, and it just happened. His Presence was so strongly felt
during those satsangs.

Then these beautiful Beings started coming, Ram and Jyotika and Amrita; and Om would log in
online. These beautiful Beings started coming, and for some reason they started asking me
questions. Usually I was not very open for answering, but for them just these answers also
seemed to flow.

When these answers used to flow, I could also feel the Master’s Presence so strongly here. So
then I wrote to Mooji and said that ‘This is what seems to be happening’. So he said that I must
share, that grace is using this body / mind very well now, and the sharing must continue like this.
He said one phrase in the mail where he said that ‘We must bring more Beings into this sangha
of Being’. I felt that that is a very beautiful name for this sangha. So this name ‘Sangha of Being’
comes from there. Because there was not this strong motivation to call it ‘Ananta Sangha’. There
was no feeling to name it like that. It was just seeming like Mooji's prasad [gift] in some way.
So, that's how this whole thing happened.
Chapter 1
Beingness is Ever-Present

What Makes Up a Person?

This idea of a person or the idea that ‘I am a person’ is a collection of beliefs that we have picked
up over the years, which is also called conditioning. This collection of ideas that we have picked
up over the years, we have heard from our parents to begin with. Then some thoughts came to us
about this and we believed them to be our thoughts. Then all of these thoughts became our core
beliefs, and a ‘person’ was born. But we have not really looked at the creation or dissolution of
this person.

Many have asked this question in satsang as to ‘What is the purpose? What is the purpose of this
universe?’ Or ‘What is the purpose of the world?’ Even this question has to be eventually looked
at from the perspective of where it is coming from.

Look at the perspective of where the question is coming from. If it is coming from a very
personal perspective then we can clearly see that the purpose of the world is to make us fail at
this idea of peace or happiness that we have. It might sound a little strong, but the fact is that no
person has been able to achieve the happiness or peace that they have desired, from a personal
perspective. So when we fail at reaching happiness and peace from a personal perspective, then
we become a seeker of what is called the Truth.

We are now seeking. ‘What is really going on here? If I cannot get happiness and peace through
the conventional way, by trying out various things from a personal perspective, then what must
be the way to peace and happiness?’ Hence this ‘person’ now becomes ‘the seeker of Truth’.

At this point, the ‘person’ is still there but we change identity in a sense and now start identifying
with being a seeker of Truth. To the seeker, what used to be the cause of our suffering (the
world), can now be used to point us towards the Truth. Isn't it? A true seeker looks at everything
that emerges around him and uses that as momentum to go deeper within himself, to discover
who he really is.

Once that introspection and inquiry seems to happen then it is clear that this person or seeker
never existed anyway. No, it was just pure imagination. So what is then left? What is then left is
the pure Self which is enjoying the play of Consciousness which emerges for us. What used to be
the cause of suffering now becomes a sort of entertainment.

From a person’s or personal perspective there is always confusion, delusion, guilt, remorse etc.
All of these negative feelings emerge and we are identified with them. Hence we feel that ‘I am
undergoing this life, it seems to be very tough’. Then once we realize ‘Hey, I am not able to find
peace, I am not able to find happiness, irrespective of my possessions, my relationships, etc’ then
we start seeking a deeper Truth and a peace which is unshakeable. That is when people come to
satsang.
In this way the seeker of truth comes to satsang, and in satsang realizes that there was no person
here in the first place; not even the seeker personality. In this complete realization, whatever
might happen in the world around us, we are now unshakeable or unaffected by the content of
our perception.

In the fire of satsang, many of you will be having this experience that what seemed to be so
important just ten minutes ago, something that you were grappling with as if it was controlling
your entire life, now in the fire of satsang it seems to have lost its relevance, its sting. This is
because what is being pointed to in satsang is your own true Self, for which all of this is just an
appearance. It has no power.

So the same world, the same content of the world which used to reinforce the idea of being a
person, for the seeker, it now becomes a world where everything can be looked at as a pointing
towards their very own true Self. The same thoughts which used to reinforce the idea of
personhood can now be looked at to say ‘Who are these thoughts speaking to? Who is listening
to these thoughts? Who are they appearing for?’ In this inquiry we see that there is no person.

The same content of consciousness seemingly perpetuates the delusion of personhood, and then
also seems to point to a way of freeing ourselves of this delusion. Therefore the purpose of
satsang is to dissolve this concept of personhood. It is as simple as that.

Beingness is Ever Present

“How do we stay in this Beingness?”

It is good that you did not say ‘How to get to this Beingness?’ So, there is already an
understanding that ‘Beingness is already present, but I seem to go away from this Beingness and
get attached to phenomenal objects’.

Attention and Belief - Two-Step Process to Suffering

By giving our attention and then our belief to our thoughts which arise, we are seemingly pulling
off a supreme trick of believing God to be a person. This is not a single step process that happens
in a blur and is difficult to discern; it's actually a clear two-step process. If you were to merely
give your attention to your thoughts, just by this attention, thoughts would not have the ability to
convince you about anything or make you suffer. But what makes you suffer is when you give
them your belief. For you to give them your belief, first there must be attention that goes to these
thoughts, and then there must be a belief which follows, such as ‘Hey, this is my thought and this
is real for me’. This is how the individual ‘person’ is born, which says ‘I am feeling this, or I am
saying this, or this is what is happening to me’.

Without this two-step process of attention followed by belief, we are automatically in the natural
state of our own Beingness. Actually it is just as simple as letting go. Surrender actually means
to let go. To let go of what appears is the simplest way to surrender, because in our natural state
we are already in Beingness. We are not in satsang trying to create anything new, but only to
look at what deludes us. What confuses us to start believing that ‘I am this individual entity’?
Now if we do not give attention and belief to our thoughts, can you tell me what takes you away
from your own Beingness?

The feeling that the ‘person’ idea still has power over me

As we get deeper in this marinating, deeper into attending satsang and self inquiry, we will see
that, very subtly, it is still our own lingering/habitual attention and belief that gives the idea of
personhood power over us. Certainly, something that is imaginary cannot have power of its own.
It only gets power from our own attention and belief.

When Consciousness itself gives it this belief and attention, it seems to become real. But the fact
is you will suffer as a result of this belief that ‘I am this person’ and this suffering is actually
pure grace which asks us to question this identity which we have taken for ourselves, and points
us back to our true Self. It cannot be that something comes and takes you away without your
belief and attention. The easiest and quickest way to stop suffering is to just let go of every
thought that comes. Every thought that comes can be allowed to come and go.

Letting go of a thought does not mean we have to try and stop thoughts from coming; it does not
mean we have to get into some sort of a fight with the mind; because to get into a fight with the
mind would also give it reality. Let go just means to not engage. To let thoughts come and go. As
a very wise Zen master said ‘Let thoughts come and let them go, never serve them tea’. Then,
suffering will become very rare and will happen only momentarily. It will have no power
whatsoever over you.

Letting go of the ‘personhood’ idea

So long as we feel that there is a ‘person’ here who can let go, it is best to let go of thoughts.
Once this person is seen to be dissolved, you will realize that even this letting go of thoughts, this
surrender was pure grace itself. Like Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi said ‘While we feel that there
is a doer or a person that exists, it is good to exert all possible effort to realize our true Self’. And
once we realize our true Self, we will see that even this effort of walking on this path to self
discovery, it was grace alone that was doing it, because there was never a person here anyway.

So if this is clear in the heart that ‘I am not a person’ then all effort can be dropped simply. But
not as a denial. Many neo Advaitins today are using this just as denial to say ‘There is no person
here anyway’ and going along with their lives suffering every day; but refusing to actually see it
is only a concept. They have replaced one concept ‘I am this person’ with another concept that ‘I
am not this person’ while continuing to live the life of only this person. So if it is purely an
intellectual exercise, then suffering will continue. But if we see, really in our heart, that it was
just imagination, this person was just an idea, if this is simply understood, then at that point
effort can be dropped as well. The seeking can be dropped as well.

Letting go of thoughts is a natural effortless state

We must not drop the seeking prematurely. We will know in our heart, we will know clearly.
‘Am I free or not from suffering?’ Once there is freedom from suffering, then there is no effort.