D: The way you are right now… try and understand what I’m saying… Are you now the way you were back in Bandra Café? Are you the same thing?
U: No.
D: And yesterday, an hour ago, 20 years ago… so what has changed? The body, you think, has changed – it’s grown from this to this. The world outside has changed. But the way you are internally – has that changed? And you can understand time only through the external thing, right? So you say something has changed, I say something has passed. In a vacuum you will not be able to, because there is nothing else. Will you see that there are some things changing? You won’t, right? And if you can’t see some things changing, how will you know, what will you call time then? There is nothing to call as time, correct?
Right now, because there’s an external thing to judge by, to say oh this went from here to there. Now, it went physically from here to there, OR you went from 0 to 25 years.Something moved, something changed, right? In physical space. And that is how you’re saying time has passed. Or let us put it more appropriately because with this ‘time has passed’ jargon, you actually feel time has passed. Stop this terminology. And what you actually are saying is ‘time has happened.’
Now there’s no word for it in your earth language, so you say time.
What is time? If you cease to exist, will that physical movement be of any consequence? That physical movement of going from here to there… who will go from here to there, first of all? There’s nobody to go from here to there. If you cease to exist.
Two, if you cease to exist, you will not go from 0 to 25 or 27. So you say, oh but if I cease to exist, time is still there. How? How can you say that? Who’s there to say time still exists?
U: For me, it’s not there.
D: For you meaning for the person who’s cognizing it. Or the cognizing faculty. Forget about the cognizing faculty being there in you, it’s there in everybody. So if the cognizing faculty disappears, how will you know if something moved – from left to right or from 0 to 25? Both are a movement but you can only say that something moved because of your being able to cognize it. Otherwise, what moved? Nothing moved. Correct?
See, U. You’re not getting the point still. Are you really moving from 0 to 25? Is it possible? What are you moving in?
U: Thought.
D: No, that is the continuous process going on. But the one who sees the thought happening to him – that cognizing faculty, does it change? Let’s say, its primary function is to cognize since it’s a cognizing faculty. To cognize. To see.
U: Like the eyes are seeing from the minute I was born.
D: Correct? Now what is changing? Some things outside are changing. The seeing, does it change?
U: No.
D: The breathing does it change?
U: No, it’s the same mechanism.
D: Everything is the same, right? So let’s take the example of the eyes forward. The seeing of the eyes – is it only dependent on the eyes being open? When you close your eyes, still now something is seen.
U: And we feel time.
D: Correct? So if you go behind… that is a good example to give. That over the years, seeing has not changed. Seeing remains the same. Now go behind a little bit. And if you close your eyes…
There was a jump I made. Seeing has not changed? That you understand now. But what is being seen has changed. So therefore, what has been seen has changed and you are saying, oh, time has passed. Okay? If you had to just stay with your eyes open in complete blackness, complete darkness for 25 years, how would you have known that something has passed, something has changed, something went from left to right? From 0 to 25? How would you know this? Would you know this? It wouldn’t be possible for you to know this. Right?
U: We are still with the example of the eyes.
D: Yes, we are taking the example of the eyes because this is what you can understand more easily. Right? Now we go behind – taking the same example’s essence forward – go behind and say, hey when I close my eyes, I can still see inside. So this seeing – has that changed? Has it changed in 27 years? What you see when you close your eyes, you know that you’re thinking something. Now what we are referring to as seeing is actually thinking, right? Has that ever changed?
U: No.
D: What one sees has changed, the content of the thoughts have changed. Has thought formation changed?
U: No.
D: No. Correct? And this… let’s go a little deeper or behind. So when I use the example of seeing for thoughts – and I say I’m thinking, not seeing, my thoughts. Suppose I use this kind of terminology. Again that seeing remains the same. We’ve just gone behind from the eyes to the mind. Right? This seeing has also remained the same.
U: Yeah, like a car I see now is and will always be a car to me. I’ll always see it the same way. The thought will be the same. The kind of car will change.
D: Something like that. Now the fact is, if you take the attention from the car onto yourself, the process of seeing remains the same throughout your life, no?
U: Yeah.
D: Ok. Now are we appropriate in using this terminology ‘throughout your life’. What does that mean? Let’s understand.
Everything’s clear till now, right? Now if I go a little behind or deeper and I say, what you are seeing now, at this moment as you see things. Or, if you can extend this to something else..
U: Like let’s say, we’re driving down this road now. And I’m seeing this auto, and now I’m seeing this scooter and ahead I’ll see my home.
D: Correct.
U: But in all that, the constant is me seeing.
D: Yes. And what is constant is that seeing is your being.
U: Yes, that is still. That is not moving.
D: Alright? Now, just because we were at the highway and now we’re in an inside lane – that object has changed – but you remain the same, right? Now are you the same as you were when you were in the highway or Bandra Café?
U: Yes.
D: You internally remains constant. The process of being…
U: Yeah. But earlier, when you asked me the same question, I said no, I’m different because when I was there, my thoughts were something else. Now I’m here and my thought is that I’m closer to home. So the thoughts changed which makes me feel that I was different here compared to there.
D: That I’m different. Correct? The scenery changes…
U: And it triggers different thoughts in my head…
D: And feelings…
U: And feelings… resultant feelings. Therefore, it makes me feel that I was different back then.
D: Correct? So let’s takes that also forward. Let’s not spare this one either. Okay?
But no matter how you were feeling as a result of those thoughts being triggered, are you feeling the Bandra Café feeling right now?
U: No.
D: No, right? Are you feeling today morning’s feeling right now?
U: No.
D: Or any previous feelings right now?
U: No. I’m feeling right now right now.
D: And is it possible for you to feel… meaning, getting rid of right now’s feeling, can you feel the Bandra Café feeling right now? Or the feeling of 10 years ago?
U: But that’s what we do with our memory…
D: Yeah, but that you can only imagine. But are you actually like that in that moment? Whatever your scenery is right now, you are only that, right?
U: Yeah.
D: When you broke up with S and you were crying, show me that crying now. Just become that moment, become that person in that moment. Can you do that? Nobody can do that.
Okay? So we’re taking this and that other thing you said forward now.
That means that every moment, you are not like the previous moment. Hmm? And it is this moment. Now this moment, if it is not like the previous moment, AND to take it further – suddenly, can you be what you will be at home now? You know you will be home. The way you can’t be what you were at Bandra Café, can you be something that you are going to be at home, right now? No, right? You can only be what you are right now. That means the Bandra Café and your home cannot be present in you right now. It is an impossibility.
U: Only imagine.
D: You can only think, imagine. And create certain feelings out of it based upon the association in the memory of Bandra Café and your home.
U: But if something happens, like if we crash into something right now, then those memories…
D: Will also disappear.
U: It will just be right now.
D: Correct? Only because you haven’t crashed, you keep fantasizing about Bandra Café and home.
U: And feel the passage of time.
D: Correct? Right now stays right now. Now, you are 27. So when you were fighting with S, were you thinking, but oh, when I’m at 27, I’ll be 27, what am I fighting over? There’s no S. I’m driving down Kalina. What am I doing?
U: You’re asking would I have thought that at 25?
D: Yes. The same way you can’t think ‘What am I doing in Kalina. I’m in Ghatkopar right now.’ Can you change your system to become what you will become at Ghatkopar? You can’t.
Okay. That means at 25, 27, 30, 35, 80, 85… what you call 35, 85, 25, 20, 15, 10, whatever… it’s just what your outside scenery is about. Bandra Café and Ghatkopar is equal to 25 and 85. Okay? 25 being Bandra Café and 85 being Ghatkopar. Something moved from Bandra Café to Ghatkopar, and something moved from 0 to 85. They are both the outside scenery. Am I clear about this?
Because you internally are always in the now. It’s technically impossible for you to be at 85 or 25. You are at 27. Right now, you are at this place – Kurla.
Now U, at Ghatkopar also you’ll be the same in the now. Correct?
Now, this thing if we hold on to from now onwards – the fact that it is our mind that fantasizes, and we are caught up in our memory which is filled with associations and according to which we are caught up in daydreaming and fantasizing. Brooding and fantasizing. Mr. T calls it brooding, meaning thinking about how to fix something that has already happened. And fantasizing is about the future. This keeps happening in our system.
Alright. So when you are about to die U. You spoke about the accident thing. Now if this car hits something, you will become more conscious of your now, right? And you’ll forget about your brooding and fantasizing. Correct? You’ll be in the now so much more because the accident has happened. You’ll forget about Bandra Café and Ghatkopar.
In the same way, why do you need an accident to happen when you can always be in this now state. Because technically, you already are. It’s just a fantasy you are creating which is basically false. In truth, you are always in the now.
Now, this now… is it a series of nows? What you were thinking about earlier. Can I say, can I really take my hand from left to right and say, 0 to 85.
U: No, because I’m just sitting stationary in a car that is moving.
D: Right. That’s a very good example. You are sitting stationary, the car is moving. You are not. The car is moving, the scenery is changing. Why do you attribute it to yourself? That I am moving? That I moved because the car took me from here to there? You never moved.
Why do we attribute it to ourself? So at the point of a car hitting another car, an accident happening, you will be more in the now than at any other point.
Now, this car has hit that car. You are completely in the now. And, you will get out of this car and you will go to the window of that car and ask, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ The moment you focus on that, you are gone, no? Again it will be the future – something to do.
But suppose if there had to be nobody in that car. You bang an empty car and you know you’re banging an empty car deliberately. And then, you wasted your car because that’s a much more powerful car. You get out of here, sit in that car and again drive away.
What has changed? Nothing. You are still sitting stationary in a car which is moving. It’s just that you changed cars. That’s all you did. You are going to be in the now when you were here and when you were there. There is no there.
U: Like what RV was talking about – that we experience time in a linear, horizontal way. But when we start doing the refining exercises and upgrade ourselves, we start moving vertically.
D: There is no movement. Let me go a little further. There is no movement also. This way or that way. There is no movement. It’s the eternal now. There is one moment – right now. There is no passage of time. No movement from here to there.
U: So right now when you said moving into another car…
D: No, no, no. It’s just that you leave your body and go into another body. The example I was giving you. Because you think you died and you went somewhere. What is that? There is no such thing. You are just sitting in a car. This car may have changed. The way the scenery keeps changing… why do you experience the car cannot change?
U: Yeah. And you experience the road in a certain way because you’re in a certain kind of car. If you’re in a bigger car…
D: Or a faster car…
U: Or a faster car, then you’ll experience it differently.
D: So when you’re in a faster car, that’s what RV means that the time will go vertically. The upgradation of awareness exercises. There is no such thing as movement of time. There is no time. It’s just that you keep changing your vehicle and you think oh the time is so slow, so fast, vertical, horizontal. There is nothing like that. What makes you think that if horizontal time is not real, how can vertical time be real?
There is no such thing. It’s all stationary. It’s only right now. So even to use that term is false. To say right now implies that there is something which is not right now. Okay? But what can we use now?
So, this is your thing taken forward. What was I saying earlier, when we were turning right towards Kalina? When I said we’ll take this forward and not leave this also… (pause)
U: The eyes.
D: Correct? Now, you withdraw your attention from what you are seeing. Close your eyes. You still are seeing right? And you know this. So now you know that this kind of seeing is also seeing.
U: Thinking is also seeing.
D: It is, right? You are seeing your thoughts now. Earlier, with your eyes open, you were seeing the scenery outside.
Now, we’re not taking the example of the car. Now, this seeing of the thoughts is akin to seeing things outside. It is the same thing. You were never seeing anything anyway. So the way the scenery was moving, the same way your thoughts are moving. Now because I’ve told you this, now you’ll realize, oh, whether it’s these buses or cars or people moving, or whether it’s my thoughts moving, something is moving. But what is constant is me seeing. We were talking about what is constant, right?
Now, it’s a very simple thing. Now, if my thoughts keep changing, let’s say from thinking about this car to that car but what is seeing is constant, whether I see outer space, whether I see whatever – thoughts of Kurla, Ghatkopar or outer space. If I have thoughts of this or that. How does it matter? The seeing remains the same. And the seeing is not affected. You don’t change.
Every moment, if you had to go deeper, behind that and you will see that oh, this car makes me happy, this man makes me happy, this truck makes me happy. And you’ll see, when you close your eyes, it’s not the truck, the car, the man that makes me happy. It’s my associations. I keep thinking and keep reacting, so I produce a feeling. That feeling is what I call happiness or sadness.
Now, when I go internally deep and I see my thoughts and I see, oh, these thoughts because they are, as Mr. T says, seeped in memory patterns and those patterns have emotions soaked in them, so this is what is happening.
I am not changing anytime. The seeing is constant. The feeling happens to what I call me but the car rather. Correct?
We’ll have to use that example of yours. Because what is me now? Earlier you were saying because I saw the man outside, oh I was so happy. Now your happiness was dependent upon the man. Now you’ve taken your understanding a little deeper and you’re saying oh, I was happy at 15, at 20, I was angry at 15, at 20… all the time I’ve been either happy or angry at looking at something. Thinking about something. Or being associated with something. Those were only, are only memory patterns.
Now that you can see the process of seeing is constant and the memory patterns keep changing, and you’re forever happy or sad depending on the memory pattern… so the memory pattern is creating feelings but the seeing is constant. And that is you.
Right? This constant thing, this you thing, suppose if it had to separate from the memory pattern and the feeling and reacting, would it be happy and sad?
U: No.
D: Has it ever been happy and sad? It has never been happy and sad. It has always been seeing. Correct?
U: Like if it rains, the car will get wet…
D: But you won’t. Correct? So, let’s use the word being for it. Because seeing is the quality of the being. (interruption)
Now, let’s call this seeing as being. Because the seeing actually, because it’s constant, doesn’t change the nature of the seeing. What it sees changes the seeing itself does not change. So then, can we assume that when we are saying seeing, who’s seeing? There is a faculty then. Seeing is not..
U: It has to belong to somebody.
D: It has to belong to somebody. It has to be owned by somebody. It has to be somebody’s property.
U: An attribute.
D: It’s an attribute. Seeing is the attribute, the property. But who’s seeing now? Now that thing which is seeing, let’s call it for the purpose of this discussion, being. But that’s also a property, right? So instead of going into whose property is this, who does it belong to, we’ll say – because the purpose of discussion was not who does it belong to, it was about what is this now, this thing we call life, from here to 85, time.
But we have been able to establish that this seeing is not dependent, it does not change by the scenery. So whether you move from left to right, or the scenery changes, or the car has felt rain and you did not… we’ve been able to establish that even if the car has moved, you never moved. Correct?
Therefore, if you don’t move and you’re always like this, always seeing – the property that does not change at all, that unchanging thing – unchanging and unchangeable because we’ve also established that no matter what the scenery, we don’t change, seeing remains the same. Correct? It’s logical.
It stands to reason, to conclude therefore that when the scenery changes and I don’t change… if this car moves from point A to point B… when we humans use our bodies, we say oh, I lived for 80 years. The body moved from point A to point B, right? I never moved. I hope we’ve been able to establish that since I did not move, how can I be 85? Obviously, no?
So now how do we say oh I lived for 25 years. I’m always in the now. It’s the car which is moving from 0 to 25 or 85. Clear? It’s a very simple and obvious thing, no? So obvious.
So the discussion began with you mentally telling yourself that what’s the worry, I’ll get the attention tomorrow also, he’s there with me for my whole life… you see, this worry about I’ll get it tomorrow too… but where is this tomorrow?
U: Like you were saying, if I can take all the attention at this moment…
D: That’s what I’m saying. There is no tomorrow. And all the attention, who is it going to? You can’t get all the attention anyway. What you’re doing is seeing the attention happening to your memory patterns. Whether you take everything tomorrow – which is non-existent – or you take everything today – which doesn’t come to you, it goes to your memory pattern – today or tomorrow, you’ll always be seeing.
U: And that seeing thing, that being, as long as it thinks of this car as itself will always keep wanting the attention, not realizing that it will never fill it. It doesn’t need it anyway.
D: Because the rain will happen to the car and you will say, oh it’s such a nice rain, this was fun. But where is it happening to you? And you will never say this, U. Who is saying this in the first place? The roof of the car. Not you. Not the one who’s seeing. So you have to go deeper, deeper, deeper or behind, behind, behind… and you will see, oh, there is no such thing. Why? Because there is no such thing as time.
When you tell yourself, oh I’ll get it tomorrow, don’t worry, there is no tomorrow. There is no tomorrow and there is no yesterday. Both are false. Because of the yesterday where you did not get attention, you are pushing the hope forward into the future. Am I clear? The last sentence wasn’t clear? Because yesterday, you didn’t get the attention, the fulfillment you wanted, you’re telling yourself you’ll get it tomorrow. That is false and this is false too. There is no such thing as yesterday and tomorrow. Because as we proved in the car, can you be now what you were at Bandra Café? No. Now can you be what you will be at home? No. And you will never be able to be that or what was past for you.
You are always going to be this. Because you are this only. Not the car which is moving. So, it’s not just the consolation which is false. The wanting itself is false. Who’s wanting?
U: It’s only the memory patterns…
D: That’s all. That’s all. End of lecture.
Postscript (phone call): Electricity flows and charges a computer, it makes a computer what it is. We think we are the computer. But we are actually the electricity. When we die, this computer dies and we are back to electricity form. But because we believed we were the computer, after death, we go into shock. But if we prepare ourselves in our daily lives by dissociating with all outside us i.e. thoughts, feelings, scenery, if we remind ourselves that we are the electricity, not the computer, then during death we will be prepared. We can then direct ourselves into the machine that we want i.e. conscious birth.