The Bridge Between Maya and Freedom Is the Mind

Satsang with Mooji Beloved Moojibaba, hello. Hugs and kisses to you. I am so grateful for your tireless service to us and to Truth. I often feel the urge to ask you for help, but when I try to form the request, it disappears into silence. Yet, it is not long before thoughts and identification come back. Joelle, New York City. It feels like I am playing a game of cat and mouse, while also knowing that the cat, the mouse, and the observer of them do not really exist. I hear your voice saying, But who is this I? I have been with you for some years now, yet the bridge between maya and freedom still seems to be extending and extending. Can you help me? I don't know how to ask for help without using I, yet I is the problem. With so much love, Joelle. Thank you, Joelle. I often feel the urge to ask for your help, but when I try to form the request, it disappears into silence. Yet, it is not long before thoughts and identification come back. Sometimes we say, the mind also, this mind character of the person, is very cunning and seems very, very clever. When you try to catch him, then he falls like a possum. He lies on the ground, like dead, but he is looking. And then you think, Ah, good. He has fallen out of the tree. Good. I can go and take rest. But he is not dead. The mind also, you say, he ... Sorry, dear. It's OK. Leave that. I can't ... It says, But when I try to form the request, it disappears into silence. But it has to disappear as silence. It has to become silence. It hides into pretend silence. And you think, Ah, I feel good. Thank you. Some people say, As I begin to enquire, it disappears. It is gone. And then you purchase that and think, Ah, how effective is this enquiry? I don't even finish enquiring. Boom! He is gone. But he is only hiding. So I say, Don't give up. You stay there. Now you invite him, Come, come. Come, little possum. Come, come. Let's take a look. He won't come. Because he knows now you are alert. When you are alert, it means what? You are establishing your power. He won't come. He will try to ambush you when your attention is lapsed. It is a bit of a game. Let's have a look and see. So it comes back. It feels like I am playing a game of cat and mouse, while also knowing that the cat, the mouse and the observer of them do not really exist. Why is that not enough, Joelle, if you know that they don't exist? Why is that not enough? I think that is my question. Well, I can tell you, because the admission, I know they don't exist, is still a form of I. To really anchor that I into its root, which is pure awareness, is not enough to say, I know they don't exist. Because some people say, I know I am the Self. I know I am the Self. Actually, the Self does not say, I know I am the Self. It is just the Self. So the tendency of feeling, Yes, I know I am not that, I know I am not that, can be a form of excuse that we allow to go. Because you feel, I know I am not that. Then if you really know you are not that, why would it trouble you? Do you see? Yes, I do understand. And it is not just an intellectual knowing. It is experience, not as an experience. Yes. It is a confirmation. You can confirm. Yes. Yes. Then hold it. Let me read what you say after that then. So, it feels like I am playing a game of cat and mouse, while also knowing that the cat, the mouse, and the observer ... So you really scooped completely back. The observer of them, which means the one who actually is suffering from the game also, does not really exist. I hear your voice saying, but who is this I who says, I know they don't exist? Let me put it another way. It is not even the very admission that, I know they don't exist, that is also perceivable. Isn't it? Let's try another way. Let's go another way. Rather than saying, who is saying it? Let's put it like that. It is also perceived that, the admission that, I know I am not that, I know that these characters don't exist, this I formerly had so much venom, had so much conviction, had so much identity and support to the identity, but now it is clearly seen that that is not true, that I is not real. Why does it keep happening? Why does it keep coming back? Why does it keep coming back? Coming back for who? Just slowly. For who do they come back? For the Self? So, what is the coming back? What is affected by the coming back of them? Because, of course, in your natural state, these things may come, they do come up, because the body-mind, as long as the body is there, consciousness is there, the vital force is there, the potential for some thought activity, even for some personal sense of identity, will arise and may arise. So, that is not the sin. That is not a mistake. Where do we go from there? What happens from there? Quickly, they are seen and quickly discarded. Discarded doesn't mean, get away, sweep out the house. No, not fear. Wisdom. Or you use them to see, on what is their strength based? Now I am looking at the full screen of everyone. Don't you see? Now, if they seem to persist, even though you have the conviction, they are not true, it is not real, then if they are not real, would, if you can imagine, Sri Ramana Maharishi, or Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, or any being you consider to be free, would they be disturbed by the coming back of these things? And does it mean that they don't come at all? They may come, and please listen now, because it is very important what I feel I am going to say now. They may come. The power is not in their coming, but how seriously they are taken. Do you follow? You can't stop anyone coming at your door and knocking. Bang, bang, bang. But if it means that every time someone opens your door, especially if you live in a very bad neighbourhood, and somebody opens the door, you go, ''Hello!'' But you have learned to say, ''No, let me just check and see''. And then you say, ''OK, no, not to that''. So not everything that comes into the space of awareness ... It is good to see that even if they come, use them as an opportunity to sharpen your discernment, to look, rather than say, ''No, no, no, no''. Because if you say, ''No, no, no, no'', it can have some touch of fear in that, ''Do you see or not?'' But if you look at it, and you have confidence in your discerning ability, you can look at it. Looking at it is not a temptation. Examining it is strengthening your discerning capacity. So when you look and you say, ''Yes, yes, OK'', when I ask, you say here, you see the cat, the mouse and the observer, or the one who is involved in them, they don't exist. I hear your voice saying, ''But who is this I?'' Now, I have been with you for some years now, yet the bridge between maya and freedom still seems to be extending and extending. Now, what is it that is able to see the polarities, or you say, the gap, the bridge between maya and freedom? Immediately, freedom becomes a kind of place, a kind of position. You see? Please listen. You see, the bridge between maya and freedom seems to be extending. Who is watching this extension? So, this idea, the bridge between maya and freedom is extending, are all thoughts. If you follow that thought, you will be enmeshed in all kinds of techniques to try and squeeze the bridges together. And if I tell you there is no bridge, if I say to you, what bridge? The bridge is the mind. Are you disturbed? Is something going, ''What is he talking? He doesn't know. He doesn't know this bridge. This is my bridge. How can Guruji say it doesn't exist?'' Then I can see why it would exist, because you support the existence of them. But if I tell you, what are you talking about? This bridge between maya and freedom is just imagination. The mind is creating these scenarios. Don't purchase them. This is not true. But don't say it mechanically, it's not true. See! Because, as I say, the very witness of this illustration, maya, freedom, bridge, is still going on. For whom is the bridge expanding? For the imaginary self, the one who is feeling, ''I'm not doing well. I'm not getting any better. Instead of the bridge just being from here to here, it's gone even further. You're getting into this calculation. If I say, Cut! Can you? Are you with me? Or are you on the bridge?'' Can you help me? I don't know how to ask for help without using I. And yet, I is the problem. Otherwise, the mind plays clever games with you. Because now I say, in this scenario, in this play, in your play, in you, even this I now becomes polluted. So even this rejects. And don't say, Who is going to reject it? Just say, You reject it. And what remains now? It's spacious and full at the same time. There's nothing. It's ... Yes. So, did I teach you a trick? No. Thank you. It is this level of earnestness that will come. Because the mind can also play the game of awakening. It can also play, Yes, but you know this. We hear it, Yes, I'm not this, I'm not that. I'm not this, I'm not that. And yet, the smell is not good. Because there's still an I who is saying, Yes, I'm not this, I'm not that. When I gave up searching, and now I don't ... There's neither God, there's no Self, there's no awareness. What? There's you! No, there's no me. This is foolishness we hear. Because the genuine seeker, they can experience what you are experiencing also. But it's just that it needed to be clarified. Because subtly, the I was still there. Now, it is said that there's a story of one man who didn't like his shadow. He didn't like his shadow. So every time he saw his shadow, he was trying to get rid of the shadow. Trying to get rid of the shadow. So what he did was, he never went out in the day. Because he went out in the day, the shadow was always sun, light, shadow. He only went out at night. But one day, he had to go out in the day, and he was walking a funny way, trying to hide behind the trees, to escape the sunlight. Then one man told him, But all you have to do is, you walk with the sun in front of you. Then the shadow will be behind you, you don't turn around. So he tried that after a while. But then somebody called him, George! And he turned around and saw the shadow. Anyhow, one day, he happened to see some burial, some funeral, and they were burying this body, throwing earth on it. And he had a bright idea, I will bury my shadow! So he dug a big hole, he dug a big hole, and then he stood right with the sun behind him, until he saw the shadow fall right into the hole. And then what happened? He started to quickly shovel the earth. He was feeling, I got him! As much as the earth is going in, the shadow is appearing on the top of the earth also. So how to get rid of shadow? You have to get rid of the one who is throwing the shadow also. But how to get rid of it? I'm not telling you a horror story, it's not a violent story, it's a very beautiful illustration. What is the point? That the troubles that we are experiencing don't exist by themselves, they only exist for the one who conceives in them, and believes in them, and identifies itself as personally. That is the shape we have taken. And so when I say, as you said yourself, I didn't say, before you said it, you said yourself here, that I feel like I'm playing a game of cat and mouse, while also knowing that the cat, the mouse and the observer of them do not really exist. And I ask you, why doesn't it stop here then? I hear your voice saying, but who is this I, meaning the one who is seeing all of this? Then you say again, I have been with you for some years now, yet the bridge between maya and freedom still seems to be extending and extending. Is that true now? No. No. No. What about tomorrow? No. No. There is only this that has no description, no bridge, nothing. Is that an experience you are having now? Yes. I mean, not an experience. It's not something that comes and goes. That's it. Thank you. That's it. That's it. So what do you have to do now? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. So, you are going to give up work and all this kind of stuff? No. No. No. No. No. Everything can happen. Everything can be here. I think what you said about, if for Ramana Maharshi some identification came up, it's not a problem. I think that point, that helps me so much, because it does come up, but it's not a problem. I think in my earnestness, I started to feel like, but it's coming up! And it shouldn't. Right. Right. Right. So, this is why I would finish that statement. So, the why is not a problem for them, because they don't have an idea that these things should not come. It can appear. Somebody can try and sell you your own car. Anything can happen. You see? You don't tell them, Get away! How could you dare? Somebody can come and ask you, Excuse me, I'm not feeling well, and I need a kidney transplant. Can I give you $100 for yours? And you say, Oh, I can't believe! Somebody, oh, look at the world these days! No, you can say, Hey, that's really good. That's really funny. Can you say that again? I'm going to run a court. The problem is when you think something should not happen, or should not appear. It can appear. Because it will disappear if you don't grab it and say, Yes, can we make a deal? No, you remember yourself, and by remembering yourself, you find a completeness and a sense of choice. Yes, I would say that's mostly my experience. It's there. It's in that space. Yes. Only to be honoured, no? Yes. Love you. Thank you so much. Love you so much. Thank you, John.