Why Don’t I Know The Self? It’s Due To Thought

Andrew Taggart

Dear A,

Ramana Maharshi’s Reply

Sri Bhagavan admitted the truth of the disciple’s statement and pointed out why the Self, though obvious, is yet [apparently–AT] hidden. It is the wrong identity of the Self with the body, etc. 

D.: How did the wrong identity arise? 

M.: Due to thoughts. If these thoughts are put an end to, the real Self should shine forth of itself.

–“Talk 379” of Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi

To Be Experientially Understood

Take some of your common conceptual divisions:

  • I make progress (or I regress). / The Self is the goal that is over there in space and in the future as far as time is concerned.
  • I meditate and come to the Self. / The rest of the day the Self goes on holiday.
  • I must get rid of or vanquish thoughts since the Self is, literally, thought-free.
  • I am a jiva. The Self is something else entirely.
  • I can get closer to the Self. I can be farther away from the Self.
  • The Self dwells in the past and in the future, but not in the present moment.
  • I have privileged access to the Self in some “sets and settings.” Otherwise, the Self hides somewhere–and who knows where?

Two Sticking Points In Particular: States & Confinements

1. Your mind thinks (“It’s due to thought”) that the Self is a state.

Then the mind gets attached to that very state that the mind has posited.

Then the mind has aversions toward whatever is not that state that it imagines.

But the Self is not a state. It’s not an object. It doesn’t come and go. It’s right here, right now.

2. Your mind often confines the Self to a particular mold: it resides, you say, during those 10 minutes at the end of a meditation. And then your mind posits that the rest of the day is precisely where the Self goes missing, goes on holiday. But all this is a mere concept–namely, the concept of confinement.

In truth, the Self is not confined.

In fact, the Self is not in space–so how can it be hemmed in by space? (Or by time?)

The Teaching Says…

  • The Self is everywhere and everywhen. In fact, the Self is all there is.
  • You are THAT.
  • It only seems as if  you aren’t ALREADY THAT because of thoughts.

Shift Your Perspective

When Ramana Maharshi says that one seems to be ignorant “due to thoughts,” he’s not suggesting that his interlocutor bludgeon thoughts to death. Instead, he’s inviting him to “go upstream” to the Self since the Self–i.e., what one essentially is–is prior to all thought.

The Self cannot be thought. It is prior to thought. But It can be felt or experienced. 

A Question

At any time during the day, just ask, “Is the Self here? Is the Self now?” Pause. Open. Sink back into the silence.

You can’t see the Self because it’s not an object. You can only be the Self. The good news is that you are already THAT.

“Then why don’t I know it always?”

“It’s due to thought.”

Be the prior-to-thought silence that is also silence-as-manifestation (lila).

Warmly,

Andrew

Do Feelings Appear Outside Or Inside Of You?

Andrew Taggart

Do feelings appear outside or inside of you?

The standard, commonsensical view is that someone does or says something that causes me to feel this way. It’s as if the feeling were to appear at “the border” between outer act and inner, private suffering.

If this view is correct, then we’d do well to change the outer circumstances so that negative feelings wouldn’t be so prevalent.

But is it the correct view?

It’s not. Feelings always appear entirely entirely inside of you. The truth of this statement, of course, turns on what you are.

You are open awareness.

The following can be confirmed in your own experience:

  1. What is a feeling? It’s either an arising thought or a cluster of sensations?
  2. Where is this arising thought or this cluster of sensations appearing? Entirely within me.
  3. Yet entirely within what exactly? Entirely within open awareness.

For a while, it may seem as if this experiential understanding according to which all feelings appear within open awareness is belied by counterexamples. “Surely, some feelings I’m experiencing are your fault,” I think. “You made me feel this way.”

Investigate the apparent outliers. Little by little, it’ll be clear that there are zero exceptions. When this is clear, then blame falls away and there’s only contentment.

How To Turbocharge Your Meditation Practice

Andrew Taggart

Dear W.,

You asked about how to turbocharge your meditation practice. Well, you didn’t use the verb “turbocharge,” but that’s the gist of it.

My answer falls into four parts:

  1. Motivation
  2. The ethical
  3. The metaphysical
  4. The technical

Motivation

All of us need to find–deep, deep within–our reason for doing something and, indeed, for continuing to do something. 

At some point, most secular meditators will discover that they’re just going through the motions. I’ve heard about this, in particular, with those who received a mantra through TM. Forget about secular meditation: the mind cannot, ultimately, be controlled nor can the body.

When we spoke, I argued that going through the motions is not meditation. It is, in fact, the very opposite: throughout the day, there is usually wandering mind (rajas), and when there is not wandering mind, the tamas (ignorance or darkness) predominate.

One must break this pattern just as one must break in a horse. Through determination. How exactly?

Ask:

  • What do I really want from life? What are willing to die for, to die to?
  • Indeed, what is it that keeps bringing me here? Just routine? Feeling a bit of momentary peace? Or much, much more?

You need to find your motivation, and then you must grab it by the horns. 

The Ethical

One reason, apart from others, is that you’ve already run roughshod over other people. (We all have.) You’ve been critical of them. You’ve acted callously. You’ve held grudges and spoken out of pettiness, sometimes out of anger. You’ve been cruel in ways small and large. “Fine,” you might say. 

Not fine. Because–trust me–your wife is already slowly accruing resentments toward you. They’ll take about 10 years before they start to become downright outbursts of anger. Before then, nitpicking and carping will appear. And your son, the one who’s not yet born, will slowly accrue hurts, many of which he’ll blame on you someday.

Unless–that is–you take meditation very seriously and start to dissolve the sense of being a separate self. For it’s out of the latter that suffering continues–for you and for your family.

Thus, once more, the second reason: stop harming others and, in due course, be able to help them. (You can’t really help someone so long as you take yourself to be a separate self.)

The Metaphysical

“Who am I?” is a question that cannot be answered by the finite mind. What’s more, at some point, it becomes very experientially clear that you’re not the physical body, that you’re not the senses, and that you’re not the mind.

Then who or what are you? That’s the question!

Only the experiential answer to that question can truly be liberating. Liberating in what sense? It liberates you from suffering and from continuing to harm others. It liberates you from–you.

The Technical

When you sit down to meditate:

  • Have the strong resolve to investigate your question. All other thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions are thus beside the point.
    • I called this “zest.”
  • Get into a proper posture: firm base, tall spine, soft arms and hands.
    • Occasionally check on your posture. Drowsiness is likely a sign that you’re not sitting firmly and in balance. Don’t be satisfied with pitching forward, falling backward, leaning left, or careening right. Sit straight!
  • See any discomfort that arises–be it mental or physical.
    • In fact, regard any discomfort as though it were a single star that’s temporarily appearing within the vast firmament of the night sky. You are that night sky. This star is no more and no less salient than any other objective experience. Treat all objective experiences as gentle, flickering stars; give none more or less weight than any others. Place the emphasis, meanwhile, on being the night sky, i.e., open awareness.

With immense encouragement,

Andrew

The Energy Body And Open Awareness

Andrew Taggart

To explore the “I am the body identity,” it’s best to take an experiential approach:

Begin by dropping all the weight from individual body parts, thereby letting all heaviness sink into the earth. In this way, the body is completely discharged of density, solidity, and a sense of weightiness. Indeed, what is slowly being discharged is the idea that there exists a gross body at all, let alone one with which one can identify oneself.

Next, let the body be filled–totally filled up–with energy. First, visualize waves of energy flowing through the body. Now feel what this is like. This tingling, humming sensation is the energy body or the pranic body. Give yourself up to this humming vibration, to these flows.

Next, notice that the energy or pranic body doesn’t have a clear outline, one that separate it clearly from the world. The border between the energy body and the so-called world is hazy, nebulous, ill-defined. Be curious about how far the energy body extends. Then turn around and note that what’s within the energy body is surprisingly large–larger than you would have thought.

Penultimately, visualize the space surrounding the energy body. Then with your feeling imagination, allow the surrounding space to be entirely filled up with energy so that the presumptive border between the energy body and the surrounding space melts away. Really feel what this is like.

Finally, notice that you’re aware of this single, seamless energyspace. That is, take the last step: knowingly be the awareness that’s aware of your object (i.e., energyspace). Be open awareness. Rest here.

Should I Curb The Mental Chatter?

Andrew Taggart

Question: During my self-observation, I’ve noticed what strikes me as needless mental chatter. Should I try to curb it?

What I learned from Zen was to really sit with whatever was arising. My Zen teacher would suggest that I sit without a timer. Just sit for as long as possible.

No doubt he had many reasons for making this suggestion, but one, I suspect, was this: when your intention (let’s call it that) is to just be with whatever is arising without trying any technique out, you’ll really feel the thought-streams (vritti, in Sanskrit). No technique. Hands free for now. At some point as you’re just being with whatever is arising, there will be a genuine sense of detachment, a genuine “felt sense” that it doesn’t matter whether this is arising or not. You’ll really feel that. 

We can, of course, discuss various skillful approaches as needed, but for now just see whether you can be with whatever experience is arising (give yourself license not to try to do anything with it at all).

When you’re just being with X, then you’ll soon notice restlessness or resistance. Be with that. Then you’ll notice fantasizing or desiring. Be with that.

Slowly and naturally, you’ll realize that you really, really are the welcoming with which all experiences are welcomed. You’ll “feel it in your bones,” as my wife Alexandra sometimes says. And slowly, as the firm grip of attachment (or aversion) will be released, you’ll feel not that you are relaxed but that you are relaxation, peace, love.