N: Many of you are meeting me for the first time today. Tonight is also an opportunity to ask questions which come up. I also remember, in a program, there is something written about true happiness. It is possible to talk about this- what it means — but just feel free to contribute what is important to you.
For me, we are all here to experience our true nature or our soul. That is why we are here. Not just only meeting it, but experiencing it so deep, so total, that you are one with it.
You might find out what it means, what it is to experience your soul, your essence, yourself or even no-self. Perhaps there is no one left over when you experience the self, but you have to find that out.
Please take the space to feel free to bring in what is important.
P: How to get out of the tyranny of mind, the mind just works and how to get out of it?
N: First of all is very important never to fight with the mind. It makes the tinking process it much stronger. It is also really worth finding out who is observing the mind, because you can see the mind. There is, let’s say, something that is not the mind, that is free of the mind. When you ignore the thinking mind and become aware of the ground of the mind, that is a shift and there you stay. What is prior to the mind? One can say, what is before the mind? What is able to watch the mind? Are you aware that the mind is just words in your head and they come and go? But you are also aware that you are seeing this process happening, you watch it happening. Actually, I would always say, just stay there in the watcher of the mind, not in the mind, in thoughts itself but that which is prior to the mind, that what is observing the mind.
What can also be very helpful here is that you pay much more attention to your body awareness. The mind is actually kind of a virtual world and the body is here and now, it is present. And what I observed in the past in myself and what I can see in people a lot is that there are actually not really incarnated. We are not really here. We don’t really feel home in our body or even on the planet. Many people don’t feel home even on the planet. You feel like a stranger, so body awareness brings you more here and now. Sinking deeper into your body awareness it brings you to all kinds of potentially uncomfortable sensations that are in the body. We are very sensitive and vulnerable creatures. We do a lot in order to avoid our feelings, our sensations, we suppressed a lot, we have a kind of feeling that we often have to defend ourselves. So coming deeper into our body awareness produces a lot uncomfortable sensations. It might happen. We have learned not to stay with it but to run away from it. So my definition of spirituality (I have many, so don’t worry) is “being what is.” So simple, but it seems for human beings to be a very difficult issue. Even when the mind is running through your brain like hell, you just stay there, you stay present.
N: What have you tried out for stopping the mind?
P: I was not successful with stopping the mind. The worst time is in the night when there is some problem which needs to be solved.
N: Breathing can be good company, movement too, dancing. Even when you are breathing, while you are dancing, your ever present presence is alive, is there. It is something like this: we might be talking now and listening but silence makes this possible. Silence is always there. The more often you just stay present in presence, your whole system, your body-mind system starts becoming more and more equipped with this. This is a kind of self education and self remembering. But this is not from the mind, this memory. You do not remember mentally who you are, but existentially. When we human beings, we are called beings, practice this and how often we remember, this somehow becomes more and more alive. Until it remembers you, it remembers itself and is that field of remembering.
You are just a character with history and habits, but what you really are you actually cannot define at all. When we stop our fascination with our small self, our biography, our religion, our family, our culture or history and really bring everything back to our deep essence, which is limitless and eternal, your soul will start dancing.
We have this theme of happiness. I am not talking about happiness as we generally talk about it, as the opposite of being unhappy. When we experience our true nature, what our true nature is we cannot really say in words. It is incomprehensible. But what comes directly out of the expression of our deepest, deepest nature, we can say something about that. And what is very close to that is silence and very near is love. But the silence is not the silence you might have learned as an absence of sound. It is such a present and alive and at the same time silent phenomenon. It moves and does not move. And love which comes from our emptiness, from our being, it has nothing to do with attachments. It is unconditional. There is no motivation. It is just there and you cannot help it. Out of your essence comes thankfulness, gratefulness. For no reason at all, for just being there. So we can call all these qualities happiness. This kind of happiness is so overwhelming, it is so blissful. It is so ordinary and simple. It is so rich what comes out of the silence, out of the deepest essence of life. When people listen to these words, maybe also feel these words, they might say, that is what I want but it also asks for an offering. That means, offer all your personal fears and personal ideas and concepts, your imprisoned world. That what the offer is. Who are you without all your concepts? Who are you without all your ideas? Go beyond the mind in not being entangled in it. It can be, let’s say, provoked by just entering your essence or connecting yourself with someone in whom this presence is completely fulfilled and alive. Still, you can become so quiet, but still the mind can function when it is needed in much a more intelligent and creative way. It is so effortless, so easy. I do not think what I am going to say here, it just comes in resonance with all of you.
P: How to get beyond the small me, what way to choose, how to get behind?
N: In a way the question is similar to what you asked before. In your question you talk about small me so you must have experience of small me and that means there might also be another me. One can ask: “Who wants to go beyond the small me? Who wants this?” Is this also the small me? So there is some sense of “I” consciousness. One can really enquire what does that mean — this “I” consciousness. In other words, self-consciousness. It makes us feel proud, arrogant, successful, ambitious. It can feel shame, inferior, etc. This self-consciousness, I say, it is not real.
Therefore you want all the time to protect it, you want to assert it because what is real does not need any confirmation from anyone. Even when you deny it, what is real does not care about it. Whatever you say about it, whether is right or wrong, it stays what it is. You cannot touch it, you cannot corrupt it, you cannot do anything about it. It is what it is. Whenever you feel this self consciousness, feel proud, inferior or whatsoever you can just move with your attention, it means with your awareness into it. This is actually a very scientific way. The scientists also discovered when they started examining matter that the deeper they go into the matter, they discover there is emptiness, nothing.
The same will happen when you enter your “I” consciousness, your self-consciousness, you will find out there is nobody. And “I” consciousness feels very uncomfortable with this because it means it will die. Dissolve in it! And the “I” consciousness is always fighting for its existence because it is not real, as I said before. It fights for it — I am there, I am there. When you dissolve in it, fear may arise because it feels like dying, but when you allow this, you experience what I talked about. Out of the emptiness you experience real love, real happiness, real silence, real reality. Then you start, according to me, to really live. You are not surviving anymore. Then life is so different, so different. And I can see it in you too, you recognize this, you know this in your heart. And your heart wants to hear this and wants to reveal it, express it. And we forgot this, children know this, without words but they know this. For no reason at all, they trust, for no reason at all, they love, they are happy, no reason. And somehow we lost this.
P: How can I get through this fear that comes up so strongly?
N: What is your own intelligence telling you? Is there something you know inside?
P: I am asking myself who is experiencing this fear and I am kind of feeling my body as much as possible.
N: The fear might be in your mind?
P: I believe so.
N: What is the fear for?
P: That is what I am exploring. What comes up is the state of my mind when I lose comprehension.
It is state of losing a normal state of mind, of comprehension.
And another thing which comes up when I kind of look into it is probably the feeling that when I kind of go there I will be completely lonely there.
N: So there is the fear to be alone, to be lonely. It is a deep fear to be lonely.
P: That is what comes up when I sit here right now.
N: That is a deep fear in human beings — loneliness. We do a lot not to feel our aloneness, especially our loneliness. Because it means you are not one with life, you are separate and then you feel as if lost. When the feeling is in your system, is so honest to face it. We can run away from it but somehow it always stays and we deeply face our loneliness. There might be feeling or sensation that nobody loves me, nobody notices me. Does it matter for life here on the planet whether I am there or not? This is a deep pain which we, as children, start to feel when we do not get attention or love and then we start looking for fulfillment in others and we do everything to avoid this feeling because it is terrible. The fact is that the love you are looking for, you are that. The company you are looking for, you are that. This is an art, what I call, a state of fulfillment, then you are out of the world of neediness and the thing is when this become alive in you – your self love – then everybody wants to be with you. You are very attractive. When you are very lonely people usually do not want to stay a lot with you. There is good news — we can transform it.
I remember I had a lot of this in me, too. I had a lot of fears. They are gone. I never feel fearful. You can also feel uncertain, unsure but I also never feel the opposite, I never feel sure, never feel certain. I am just there, that is all and I do not think about myself. I have no opinion about this guy. It is such a freedom because I also do not have any opinion about you. The projections stop, I can see you for what you are, because I am what I am. I can meet you. I can love you and I do love you. Effortless, because it is my nature. And I do not need you and that is incredible. This is so intimate and we can all meet each other from through this intimacy, being to being, heart to heart. When we stay in our virtual word we do not meet. We meet other virtual worlds and it most of the time just collapses. When two hearts meet they become one heart. There is nobody, in a way, from both sides. There are not two sides. Where there is love, there is no place for fear, no place for doubts, no place for denial. I was very much inspired by people when I was in their presence that this love is simply there in their presence. Free, not manipulating, not wanting anything from me except sharing their heart, their presence, their love. You cannot even say their love, it is just love. My whole system just wants to be with this people, not out of any psychological need but it deeply fulfilled me, not in a way that I become dependent, it destroyed any kind of dependency. What was present in their heart so strongly, it came alive in me too. It just woke up.
That is why we call this “wake up.” We are here to wake up. That means we are asleep. What does it mean? Why we often hear about it? That means we are living in a virtual world and your fear is part of that. You are real but not your fear.
It is a good thing to look at what the fear is. Do not let yourself be terrorized by it, but look deep into it. Then you have the fear of loneliness and you have the fear of death. That is another thing that is deep in people. All the great yogis were able to face the experience of their own death. Billions of people have died before you, they all managed. Explore it, there is so much wisdom in your heart, in your system. You can even go beyond the whole cycle of life and death. One who knows the secret of death feels really alive. One who really dares to die and died is alive. You die to your own convictions, they are not from you because they are from your society, from your friends.
N: Is there any fear left?
P: Yes.
N: How is that possible? Where? Show it to me. Show me your fear.
P: Here and here, I feel a little lost.
N: I am glad. I appreciate your honesty.
P: I hear you, I listen to you. I kind of take it in but do not know what is “taking it in.” I feel a little lost.
There is a part which says “yes” but there is a part of me which says “I do not trust it.” At the moment I do not experience, so is it ok if I can trust it or not.
N: That is again the mind which trusts or does not trust. I always say, I am not talking to your minds. Actually I just talk straight to your essence and I ask you simply — do not interfere. Just relax, you do not need to do much here. You just sit here and being receptive is a very fruitful quality. Even your mind say, there is any distrust as long as you are here you are in danger. I trust this so deep — that this will be revealed one day in you and in everyone here, by the way. I simply trust it so deeply. It is like planting a seed and even when you do not see the plant, I know that it is there and when the right circumstances arise it will come up. I do not doubt it. Even when the right circumstances are not there, it waits. The seed from thousands years ago can still become a plant. For example Maharajji always says that everyone who enters the gate of his ashram will one day attain jiva mukta — how that it in India -liberation- they will realize their true nature. He meant it, he was convinced. You are maybe not convinced, but he is convinced. It is so amazing that human beings doubt their true nature, their buddhahood, their Christ consciousness. Human beings do that, not me. I do not doubt that it is there. There isn’t a shadow of a doubt, I know it is there in all of us. I see it, I feel it, I smell it.
Maharajji did not say when. It is ok. It is just there, it is open. The possibility is always there. And you can operate with this, you can resist it. I even do not know what is better. Because sometimes people resist so deeply until they come to the turning point so quickly. I love this from Krisna — he said one day: “I do not care whether people agree with you or not or if they are against me or not. As long as their mind is focused on me, I know they are in danger.”
So powerful — and this is the most delicate quality in life. It is so delicate, but we cannot destroy it. We can destroy everything, all the forms we can destroy. We cannot destroy consciousness.
Consciousness means that which is always there, also including when you are confused, in your deep sleep, in your dream state, in your waking state. When I say remember this, it is not here from the mind, it is there, you cannot see it, you cannot touch it because it is nearer then any touch can go.
You can also say it in other words: God is always with us, but maybe not the God you project — but the divine quality of existence is always there. I do not say that because I believe it, there is no doubt, it is there all the time. I do not even say that I experience it because it is always there. I do not have to do anything for it to remember it. Just allow it, when there are no words, just be present in that gap.
P: I have just realized when you were speaking that there is some nature in me, doing, living this for a purpose. I have been doing things for a purpose. I do this and that and I get that.
N: That is neediness.
P: This is like losing any purpose, this is opening, and maybe it is also part of this fear.
N: The purpose keeps you going and without it just stops you completely in yourself. Trying to get there gives you the feeling “I am there” and “I am somebody.” When it stops you are something you cannot define. You are nobody and even the word “nobody” is not accurate. The body will continue breathing and whatever your qualities, they are now unobstructed. They are revealed because there is no fear. What you will do you will not know now because it will just come out of you unobstructed, creative, unmotivated — because you are flowering. I never had any desire to do what I am doing here now. It just happened in spite of me, but I feel for 100% it is right — there is no division. If it stops tomorrow then this was my last evening. Life might bring something else, I do not know. There is so much trust that life provides everything. It just gave me this body — I did not ask for it — eyes, speech, organs, hair, everything has been provided. We just sing a song for a couple of year and then it is over and we never know when. We can say that is a sad story. No, that is how it is. We are never sure about the next moment, but if you deeply know this in all your cells you love every second of your life but you are not attached to it. It never becomes a routine in a mechanical dull way. Never take anything for granted. Then you are alive.
P: I feel that everything in me desires to live the way you talk about. There is a tendency in me which tells me “you have to deal with this and that from your past.” I tried to communicate many things recently and I feel it is not resolved. I feel that the intensity which was there shrank now. I am not sure how to deal with the past that is still alive. I feel that I do not want to pay attention to it anymore. I somehow feel there is something what needs to be done to be able to say goodbye to the past and let it go.
N: I was recently with a group of people in Greece. Some people did a ritual for burying the past in the earth, giving it back to the Earth. Actually, they did not do it because someone told them to, it was just a spontaneous offering.
P: I feel that I communicated something but I dig too much into it. It is like you are trying to do something — believe in it, it is right — but then you can see the other side of the thing.
It is connected to some wounds which I needed to communicate, but it is like turning a circle round and round. I am aware that it has two sides. On one hand I feel I do the right thing, but then I see the other side. I would like to stop that – that kind of communication that goes on and on.
N: Your situation is like anybody else’s — if you do not transform your mechanical system, it will repeat itself over and over again. That is our prison. It is always a question how to come out of the circle of the mechanical, habitual structure.
P: For me it was not mechanical, it was something that I had never done before and because I started expressing things.
N: Then you do not repeat and repeat as you said before, because now you started expressing.
P: I started to do something which I had never done before. It is also connected to some people here so it is not easy to talk about it.
N: It is also an opportunity to work it out with these people. We have an environment now, here, we are creating that it gives another perspective to everything. We put the light on and then your can see with the light all the things where you are untangled, where you are fighting.
About the past — it is in our memory. It is not only a mental, it is also a cellular memory. We can even say that the whole past of humanity is in us. We can even go much deeper — not only the whole humanity, but all life forms. We can even leave the planet and find another history of our universe in us.
That is the past and there is also the present. What I call “present” is not only what I say in other words now. Present means to me pre-sent – it is before any experience. Present is out of time — there is no time, that is present. When you look at history, you can say that there is the past — that time — and there is here and now. They appear in a horizontal way, cause and effect. When we go so deep in ourselves we can even go beyond cause and effect. We can be full with our stories from the past and all the information is on a physical level, on the nervous system level, on the brain level, it is all there. And they leave traces in our emotions, in our psyche, everywhere.
P: I feel that I am hooked to the wounds — it is something that is holding me. There is vulnerability to the wounds. How to make peace, how to reconcile?
There is a feeling of somebody who was wounded and who has to express that it is not fair.
N: Where I want to bring you and what I want you to recognize is that in all these hooks you are talking about there is something completely clean, like a virgin, that has never been wounded, and I bring you there. That is all the time I want to bring your attention to it. It will heal all the wounds. I have many characteristics. I could be shy, proud, arrogant and I did actually not work on all these things. I was aware of it, that is true, but I did not work on these things. When I went to the root of all the problems, there is actually only one root of everything. Before I was calling that root “I”. When I dissolved, there was no arrogance anymore, pride, shyness, nothing. The whole biography somehow dissolved. Who are you without the stories? You do not need to answer it, just deeply sense what it means.
P: I feel it is connected that I also hurt others a lot to let it go.
N: Can you work it out with the other?
P: My husband who I divorced came to mind. I know I hurt him a lot.
N: Did you ever tell him?
P: Yes.
N: You were saying before that there are things with some people here. Work them out right now, you have an opportunity.
I would just go after the meeting to these people or to this person. You will feel so much relieved. Otherwise you carry it around — maybe you do not sleep well, etc.
Are you going to do that?
Just yes or no, it is quite simple.
P: I would like it to go away.
N: It is up to you.
