M: That can only happen if you give undue importance to your mind. At a certain point, you'll see that mind actually is very fickle, very flimsy, nothing at all. You will not take it so seriously.
Now, only silence is here. If I'm using words now, silence, space, peace...
Can you stay there now? There's no "you" there. Not the you that you can introduce. But, you are there. The You without you is there.
Seen from here, all of manifestation can play beautifully. All the tastes are there. It was never about that. Whether you are vegetarian has nothing to do with truth. Whether you eat eggs, or whether you are fit or unfit, whether you are clever or not clever, religious or not religious, has nothing to do with this. In this authentic seeing, no one can be exempt from this discovery. It is earlier than belief, earlier than religion, earlier than the first thought. It is pure innocence beyond even the concept of innocence, in recognition of itself.
How? It cannot be known.
(silence)
There is no "and then...", "and then...", "and then..."
"And then" is all past. Come to this place which your mind dreads, and which your mind will come to worship at the altar of this discovery, because it springs out of this.
I have not spoken to you in a language about do's and don'ts. When you discover this, all of your actions are being carried out by the vital force and the universal being.
The sense of individuality and autonomy may be seen as an expression of this. It plays like this. In that perfect place of seeing, it's not that individuality has to change, has to become a better individual. It may happen, of course. Automatically and spontaneously. But the focus is not that. "Improving myself" is not on the front page of consciousness now. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj puts it beautifully. He says, "I leave my human nature to unfold according to whatever its destiny is. I remain as I am." He did not say, "I really worked on myself so well."
Tiruvannamalai, India, January 2009
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