What is ME? The Ancient Method of Self-Inquiry Made Easy • Bentinho Live #32

Being is perpetual. It is ongoing and inescapable. Your awareness can also become perpetual of this simply by settling in an awareness of you being the aware self. When you wake up you become a co-creator of catalyst, co-creator of guidance, a co-creator of experiences, a co-creator of paradox, a co-creator of awakening. But until then you are more or less acting like a victim even if you don't think of yourself as a victim. At some point naturally you begin to wonder what is I am? Let the intensity of the question lead you into a silent looking towards... Hello can everyone hear me? Excellent. Welcome let's start with a few minutes of silence. Silence with attentiveness otherwise silence is useless. never alone. You're always with you. What is me? This is an ancient question. It's been around for as long as any sentient being was able to be self-conscious. It's a natural curiosity to anyone that has consciousness of itself. Any organism, any expression of life that has an awareness of its own present. At some point naturally you begin to wonder what is this me? What is I am? And in the Eastern traditions this is often simply phrased as who am I? But I find who am I not to be as powerful of a pointer because it stays more in the realm of poetry. Who am I? I'm an artist. I'm a sailor. I'm an accountant. I'm a this I'm a that. But the more technical version of the exact same question but just bypass some of our filters is what is me? So no personal associations. Who am I? I'm this. I'm this. I'm that. No. What is me is a scientific question. You have to then look at me and then what it is. Not who you think you are. So what is me? Literally. Not who are you? Very different. What is me? And the more you think about it the less you know the answer. So it forces a certain silence. It forces a 180 degrees inward looking. So just look. Let the intensity of the question lead you into a silent looking towards this me which is always with you. Demand from yourself to see it more clearly than you ever have before. Say no more nonsense. No more filters. No more false associations. No more layers of the onion. I demand to see what me is nakedly. What is naked me? Just me on its own without filters and associations. No attributes. Just me. Or if you prefer just I. What is I? Not who am I? What is I? I want to see what I is more clearly than I ever have before. You have free will so you can govern this. You can demand this of yourself. You can decree this. You can tell the mind to shut up and for you to see as clearly as you ever have before what this I or innermost me actually is in its own natural naked condition of being. Just stay with that naked me. Naked I. Try to see it as clearly as you can. Sense it as clearly as you can. I. Stay with I. Don't let anything attach to it. Everything slides off of it. Every thought, every memory, every bodily form, every image of yourself. Let it slide off and return more inward simply looking at the naked I am. The presence itself. Okay, I will break the method of doing this down a little bit more by reading a chapter from my upcoming book. This chapter is titled key number 25 as part of 50 keys into the kingdom of heaven. Into you. Into me. Capital M. Capital E. Me. The opening quote of this chapter is as follows by Yoga Vasistha. The great remedy for the long lasting dis-ease of samsara is the inquiry who am I? To whom does this samsara belong? Which entirely cures it? I'll repeat because it's a beautiful pointer. The great remedy for the long lasting dis-ease of samsara aka illusion and delusion is the inquiry who am I? To whom does this samsara belong? Which entirely cures it? So if you can figure out to whom this illusion belongs, it's a variation of the same method of who am I, what is me, is to inquire well okay there is all this suffering, there's all this pleasure, there's all this form, there's all this illusion, this perception. Let's call it samsara. To whom does it belong? If you can find out to whom it belongs, it will entirely cure it. In key number 10, just stop thinking yes you can, end in the chapter on the primary two to five seconds method, we have already discovered our innate ability to temporarily stop all mental activity and in that absence of entertainment and distraction thus realize the naturally perfect presence which shines forth as the real self. A slightly different method you can use to arrive at the same experiential realization is instead of stopping the thoughts to inquire to whom these thoughts appear or to whom they belong. When we hold this inquiry with mindfulness, meaning an alert presence in the immediacy of a newly forming thought, we will see how this thought appears through the concept and subsequent feeling of me, little me. For every concept that we develop of ourselves comes with a feeling. So we have our real being, then we have the concept of self and this concept of self, whatever your concept of self might be, any image you might have, any thought you might have about yourself, any belief about yourself, those concepts will form a sense of you. This is the sense of you as a person, this is the sense of you that if you're not particularly alert, that's what's taking over, that's what's governing your sense of self. So when you have a concept of self, you automatically get a feeling of self. The real self is not this feeling of self, it's not the concept and it's not the sense of self, it is the real self which is present to both. Continuing in the chapter, step one. See that the thought, so just practice with whatever thought arises for you right now, see that the thought belongs to your mind. Step one. It belongs to your personal sense of self. When you inquire to whom does this thought belong, you want to find that the thought arises and belongs to the little me, to that personal construct we have defined and carved out for ourselves over many years of mental self-abuse by means of self-forgetfulness. In other words, the thought appears to and belongs to the mind which formed it and which automatically perceives it as part of itself. In yet other words, the thought belongs to our self-concept, our automatically assumed sense of self, the Swami. Quote by Anamalai Swami. To whom does this idea come? Who has this idea? Once we have clarified the fact that the thought pertains to the mind or to the personally constructed self and thus not to the real me, we have already taken a lot of wind out of the sails of this thought's tendency to distract us from our self and project whatever it thinks about onto the assumption of a real external world through MUSA. MUSA stands for the Major Unscientific Assumption, which is a chapter earlier on in the book. But essentially it assumes that things have an independent external reality. So even once we've clarified the fact that the thought that we're having belongs to the mind or the personal self, we've already taken a lot of the power to juice out of that thought because normally we'd use that juice of our unconsciousness to just automatically project that whatever it's thinking about has a cause in the real world, that it's something out there. We think we're thinking about something real out there. But when we bring it back, the first step of this self-inquiry method is to see to whom the thought belongs. This is already you taking your attention back to source, closer at least, by looking within and noticing, hey, this thought belongs to the person, to the sense of the little me. And in that moment, you're more present with yourself. You're already not out there in the world. You're not just assuming that things are out there. You're present to the thought and the sense of the little self. As such, we have diminished our delusion, our samsaric indulgence, simply by having witnessed with mindfulness the fact that this thought is indeed just a thought, which belongs not to me, capital M, but to me, smaller case m, the mind or the person assumption. Then step two. Who knows this? Now, the second step of this inquiry is to ask yourself, who knows all of this, or what knows all of this? Who knows that this thought appears to the personal mind? Who knows the mind? This should naturally bring your attention 180 degrees back to your own witnessing self, or capital me. When you thus recognize the self that witnesses the personal mind to whom the thought arises, you can simply stay in the recognition of this naturally present aware beingness and rest in this natural clarity and its innate perfection. This method summarized 1. Bring mindfulness to your present thought. 2. Inquire, to whom does this thought arise or belong? 3. Acknowledge that the thought belongs to the person or the mind. 4. Inquire, who knows this mind or person? 5. Rest in the awareness of me, capital M, that stands revealed experientially. So, once you get a sense of the witnessing presence that knows the mind to whom the thought belongs, you can simply abide there, you can rest in that, you can settle into that awareness, make it more natural, make it more remembered, make it clearer, and therein you are actually abiding in the answer to the question, what is me? The question is answered experientially. The answer to the question, what is me, is an act of aware resting in a clear recognition of the presence of yourself. So, if you wish to answer this ancient question, you become quiet or introspective and recognize the clarity of natural naked being. In this way, we challenge each and every thought's arrogantly assumed right to project its biased nonsense onto an innocent, seemingly external world, and instead, we reroute its dynamic power back to its source by recognizing our ever-present self prior to the display of our mental gymnastics. We replace our lame and habitual indulgence in thought projections with an awareness of reality or me-being. This strengthens our ability to remain undistracted by thoughts and deepens our conviction in our changeless self. We simultaneously free ourselves immediately from the samsaric hubris of the emergent thought, which we have now challenged back into truth by asking it, to whom does it belong? Well, to me, the idea of me, the mind. And then, who knows this? Massaro University is a vibrant online community dedicated to accelerating your awakening and activating your purpose for the benefit of all. Join live sessions with Pentino and workshops led by experienced facilitators, deepen your wisdom, empowerment, and self-knowledge, and experience life-changing shifts week after week. At Massaro University, finding like-hearted seekers is easy and inevitable. Lifelong friendships and a shared purpose fuel profound, personal, and collective growth. Create your free account today at massaro.university and step into a community that's designed to elevate every aspect of your life. To whom has this thought arisen? The answer that would emerge would be, to me. Thereupon, if one inquires, who am I? The mind will go back to its source, the aware self, and the thought that arose will become quiescent. With repeated practice in this matter, the mind will develop the skill to stay in its source. So the first step takes you out of the world, that Moosa projection, that major unscientific assumption that there is an external reality which has never been proven, and yet most of our sciences are blindly based on this. So it's a very unscientific assumption, because there's no evidence for it. So this idea of an external reality, apart from experience, apart from consciousness, is what most of us live in most of the time on automatic pilot. Hence, Samsara. Ergo, Samsara. The first step creates that initial disconnect where we stop projecting this movie out there and we turn inwards by asking to whom does this movie arise? It doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't have to be a thought, it could be a feeling, it could be a physical observation, it could be you looking at the stars, it could be you glorifying the full moon, by asking to whom does this beautiful full moon ceremony appear? It's the same as to whom does this nasty little depressed thought arise? No difference. They're both equally as full of nonsense. If you don't know yourself. If me is not part of your awareness when you're staring at the moon. If me is not part of your awareness when you're having a nasty depressing thought. So you can apply this to every perception, not just thoughts. But every perception is a thought, that's why the masters typically speak in terms of thoughts, because everything is a thought. So that first step stops the projector from projecting an external world and it brings our mindfulness, our awareness closer back to ourselves. But not quite yet, typically, unless you're well practiced, then you can skip step one. But for most people we ask to whom does this perception belong? To whom does it pertain? To whom does it apply? Who is conjuring it up? To whom does it arise? And that draws the attention towards this sort of middleman between the world that the middleman projects, being lost in some sorrow, and the real me of awareness, the great causal body. So that's typically the first landing spot when you ask this question. To whom does this arise? Well, to me. Thereupon if you inquire, well, what is me? You will see that that mind, that person, that me, is not actually me. It's not actually you. Therefore your attention goes further back, that's the 180 degrees turn inwards, towards the witnessing self or presence itself. And once you get a sense of this natural naked awareness, you can settle there. What it means to settle is to simply relax without losing awareness of yourself. Being is perpetual. It is ongoing and inescapable. Your awareness can also become perpetual of this, become a natural part of your experience, simply by settling in an awareness of you being the aware self. Then you can see through the illusion while your mind is interacting with the illusion. But then you know it's your mental body, it's the subtle body and the causal body that are interacting with this world. It is not I. You remain naturally detached and therefore free and playful and joyful and expressive. Because detached does not mean you become a mute per se, or that you become dull and boring or serious. Freedom is playful in its expression, more often than not. Now it can be silent for long periods of time because it doesn't need to entertain itself to be content. But when it's meeting and interacting with the forms of this illusion, it typically carries a vibration of joy and playfulness. Unless it has the function to teach or to scold, to correct or to defend innocence within the illusion and to wake people up in dire situations. But other than that, other than those rare occurrences, the natural expression of an awakened being is playful, unpredictable, like a prankster. Now not everyone becomes like a prankster, but a lot of sages did become pranksters. Because it's fun. Because there's no other reason for this creation, which is a giant prank in and of itself. You all got punked by creation. When you wake up, you become a co-creator of catalyst, co-creator of guidance, a co-creator of experiences, a co-creator of paradox, a co-creator of awakening. But until then you are more or less acting like a victim, even if you don't think of yourself as a victim, but you're effectively acting like a to creation. Like a slave that's just observing this external reality that you have to deal with spiritually, mentally, psychologically, relationally, financially, and so on and so forth, physically. When you begin to awaken, to whom does this world appear? Who's making it up? And then who sees that? You. You see the one that's making up the world. You see the one to whom samsara belongs. You see the mind which produces and experiences illusion. So again, two-step process. Then you become a co-prankster, or at least you are free, however that might express itself in you. Maybe you do become a mute. Maybe you do become very quiet in your expression. Maybe you're too old for this prankster shit. Totally fine. You can sit under a tree and be. But more likely than not, there will be some aspect of your expression that will remain playful and dynamic, and like you're part of a movie. It will stay interactive, participatory. So then you will find that this freedom infuses that with playfulness, because why not? Freedom plus expression. Why would it not be playful? Give me one good reason. Why would it be static, predictable, based on some kind of set of ethics that some intellectual came up with in a university or this or that? Oh, those who know they're playing a video game are having fun. Those who don't know they're playing a video game might take their character very seriously, as well as the rules of the game. But freedom comes with an intelligence and a balance and a wisdom and a compassion and a love, and all those enlightened qualities we hear about and we seek to cultivate one at a time so slowly naturally exist within you. All you have to do is apply the remedy to whom does this samsara belong, which entirely cures it. Then there's no more rules for you. But only then, not before. The reason there's no more rules for you is because you've seen through the idea that this is a game. You've seen through the truth that this is a game, that this is an illusion, a play. And you no longer need external rules and ethics and morality and laws. It doesn't mean you cannot adhere to the laws, and you likely will. My point is simply that guidance and wisdom is no longer imposed upon you externally by some other human being that came up with some bullshit and called that this is right and this is wrong. You see, once you are intelligently self-guided, not before, but once you are, you replace all rules in your life. The spontaneous wisdom, the skillful means that naturally inherently reside within the intelligent energy of intelligent infinity are then governing you naturally. You become co-creator instead of slave of the matrix. You become co-creator, co-shaper of the matrix, co-teacher, co-source. Then you and you alone decide how you feel, how you want to feel. That instructs also what is proper and what is improper, or what is beneficial and what is not beneficial, what is useful, helpful, constructive, and what isn't. This will all come through your natural wisdom. Natural wisdom. Not before, but once it has been attained, it will be there. All you need to do is give up your concept of self and notice the beautiful, peaceful presence of your natural freedom. Let that govern you. Let that instruct you, inform you, reshape you in the image of God as was intended. Simple method. To whom does this belong? And what is me? What is the me that knows the little me? Which me knows the little me? What is that? Then you rest in me. You become clearer and clearer and clearer and clearer and on me. Your innermost me. Capital M, capital E. Me. What is it? Go look. Can't think about this. You gotta look. Directly. Only then can it liberate you. From the little me. The little you. The assumption you. But you gotta practice it. You gotta decisively cut through the nonsense with the sword of what is me. And to whom does all this appear? By whom is all of this known ultimately? Go there. Reflect back upon yourself. 180 degrees inward. Away from the world. And finally even away from the mind. Staying alert. Remain awake. Don't fall asleep. Be clear. Be vivid. Turn up your brightness. Go super saiyan 3. In your awareness of awareness. Don't become dull and sleepy. That's not the same as self-inquiry. Demand the highest clarity possible. And you shall know your freedom. And you shall become playful. And you shall become fun once again. After all these years. You shall once again be fun. That alone is reward enough for this little bit of effort required in applying this inquiry consistently. You will once again be genuinely fun. Playful. Without showing off anything. No display of drama. Just genuinely. Sincerely. Purely and simply. Fine. Moment to moment. No self-image. No posing. Just free-flow expression. But that's only one of the facets of the diamond of self-recognition. That's only one of the beautiful expressions. But even that one alone is worth it. It's a great way to be simply. Without pretense. Without games. Without strategies. Without drama. Without trying. Without validation seeking. Without showing off. Just be genuinely. Innocently fun. Moment to moment to moment. Naturally. Pouring over from this awareness. A formless I am. Me. And nothing affects that. Because everything happens to the mind. Not to me. I'm aware of what happens to the mind. That's what I am. I'm not the experiencer of this world. I'm the knower of the experiencer of the world. Thus I'm free. Unaffected. Untouched. Nothing can reach into me. Nothing the of perceptions holds can reach into me. Because to whom does this samsara belong? To me. But am I not aware of this me? Yes. Thus you are free. Free of the world. Free of the mind. And over time this will rapidly instruct you with intelligence. And joy. And playfulness. And healing. And bliss. And purity. Internal cleanliness. Simplicity. Humility. Confidence. Conviction. Fearlessness. Immortality. Power. Playfulness. Humor. Wit. Timing. Skillful means. The ability to know others and guide them too. All you have to do to unlock this trillion dollar prize is ask yourself to whom does my next thought appear? It belongs to the mind but it all appears to you. So if you want to skip the first step you can say okay to whom does it appear? And you can go straight to awareness if you're familiar with this. But if you're in a perception that feels a little more sticky, like you're attached to it, like you have some charge around it, then usually it's better to do the two-step process because you will then become clear on this little gremlin concept you've built around yourself that is assuming that it's stuck in this dynamic or that it's being detrimented by a situation or that it's a victim of some kind of event or that it's attached to some other self. So then ask yourself well okay if I'm attached to this other self or if I feel victimized by this event to whom does that belong? To whom does it pertain? To whom does that attach? To whom does that belong? And then you will find well to this little me. The sense of my personal I. And then you ask but who knows this? To whom does this appear? What is me? And that's all. And then you can be fun again. And I pray for your family that you take up this exercise so you can become pure and whole and clean once more. Return to the Garden of Eden. Retain to the Kingdom of Heaven. Donate the concept of yourself to that deeper me. Thank you all. I hope this made sense. I hope you can now apply this very clearly. That when you read the question who am I you are no longer confused. You don't have to philosophize about it. You don't have to intellectualize it. You just go straight to the source. To whom does this belong? And what is this deeper me that knows even the mind to whom the illusion belongs? And then you rest in your source. You keep the mind kind of submerged in that deeper intuitive presence of me. I love you all very much and I wish you a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you for watching the Spintinio live session. Spintinio now hosts these transformative live sessions completely free offering profound insights and guidance to support your journey. 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