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Class-Mask, Contemplative Meditation

In this Video, Sat talks about dropping the masks that we all uphold and the freedom that that entails. She then reviews the following Contemplative Meditations- Omnipresent Meditation, “Be Still & Know that I am God”, as well as “Be Still & Know.”

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Sathyam: What I would like to do is bombard you with short, Contemplative Meditations, so you can own everything we said tonight for yourselves.
-She asks everyone about their meditation, and if there is a certain topic that they would like to talk about.
-Everyone remains quiet.
Sathyam: Well, tonight I would like to talk about masks. How many of us, if not all of us, care about what people think of us? Honestly, raise your hands.
(Some people respond.)
Sathyam: What are the things we do to give them a good impression of us? Do we go out of our way and do we constantly veto our own nature to do that? In the process, are we harsh on ourselves for failing or falling short?
A man says: Not anymore.
Sathyam: Good, one mask down, more to go. Well, I have good news tonight, and the good news is that we don’t need to play this game anymore, because this is depriving us of our own potential. It really does deprive us. We are so involved with our surroundings and our actions towards the surroundings, that it doesn’t allow us to be in the State of Naturalness. It is therefore a fib, it is a lie.
We can look at it two ways. If you look at it the worldly way, if you let go, it could be disastrous. If, however you look at it on the spiritual level, the more you let go of this junk, the more you experience your Self. Ultimately, all the pictures have to be watched and stopped against.
I have talked about this before and I feel as though I should do it again tonight: as I think of you, I have an image of you, because I have not lived through you to know exactly what is going on with you. I do however have an image of you. Now, you can pick up My image of you from Me, just through the way I act towards you.
So, you want to maintain this image; not only did I create an image of you that you are not, but you will want to uphold this image of yourself- this mask, in order to please Me. So these are two sins we are committing!
Then within your ownself, you have to hold onto all these various images, the images of yourself in the office, in the family and in the society, etc. You go around in your daily life with all of these masks, and put the one on which corresponds with the people you are interacting with and what they think of you.
We get to the point that we are no longer feeding our soul; we are not feeding our natural state. This was My image that I made up of you in My mind; you had nothing to do with that image. You are not even responsible for My image; I did it.
Now, we go back to how we create our own images of ourselves. Every time we do not think of who we really are, we are making up an image.
For example, one of you might say “Darn it, I am a terrible businessman” or “I am a great father” and the image is created of a terrible businessman or a great father. Can you imagine how many faces we have to uphold, condemn and embrace? This is the masquerade of the mind. It is exhausting and those who have too many masks to hold onto become ill, because it is too much and too much is too much!
Here is the good news: every mask that we drop, we have to replace. What do we replace it with? We replace it with nothingness. How hard can it be? With nothingness! But we have to learn how to have nothingness. It is by silence, the more we keep silence and the more we tap into this pollen, this nectar, or honey producing pollen in our heart, the less we care about what other people have to say. The less we care about what they say, the more masks we drop. The more masks we drop, the easier it is to see who we are!
And the interesting part is, outside of us in this room or some holy ground in India, Tibet or somewhere remote in the Himalayas, most people do not know who they really are. They think that the masks are who they are. It is very unfortunate, because somebody should shout out who we are. However, the game continues on this way.
Now, what happens when you realize that you do not have to uphold any masks? Does your whole wellbeing fall apart? No, what happens is the game then becomes your game; you are no longer a victim or enslaved by the game that you think is a reality. The game becomes your game; you give it the role, its laws and regulations. When you want it, you pick up your mask as a game and play it; when you don’t want it, you drop it!
Right now what is happening here is that we are in a very serious game, where each and every rule and every opinion matters. This is a lie, absolutely do not buy into it; this is slavery.
Once we realize this is a game, we play it the way we want to and we have no shame. Why? I am not saying go out in the world and lie. What I am saying is that you do not take it (your role) seriously; you know you are not trying to harm anybody, you see it as a childlike game and you do not take it very seriously.
A man asks: Is this why sometimes You Yourself break out into laughter?
Sathyam: Yes, actually it is! Any questions so far?
Another man says: One observation I have had since I stopped caring about others’ images, is that my level of stress has really dropped. I used to really pride myself in how much stress I could carry and not get weird about it.
Sathyam laughs wholeheartedly and says: That is so true, we call that “strength.” Yes, what you are saying is very true, and now we reveal this lie for others as well and break it for them.
When I used to tell others that I am going into silence, it would feel disastrous for those around Me, and they would instantly panic about not being able to talk to Me for a while. They would think that I no longer wanted to be their friend. Or they thought they had done something wrong and because I could not talk, I could not explain anything to them, since I was in silence (laughs).
The thing is, if you uphold that nothingness in your hand, people adjust accordingly, and you actually help them advance. If we don’t feed the weakness of their imagination, what happens is that they quit imagining, at least towards you. Not only that, we also learn to not “imagine” other people either. The job of the mind, like one of you was just saying, becomes less and less crowded, with less and less thoughts, less and less imagery.
It was so misunderstood when the Muslim prophet, Mohammad came, saying to not worship idols, he broke idols. This is the outward impression, which I translate inwardly. Idols are the imagery we have of other people. Every one of them that we break, there is a freedom there.
There is no way to know one Self or to know God, if we are still in a position of holding on to millions of images that repeat themselves, a hundred times a day. So how do we get rid of it? Every time we listen to, see or hear the Truth or entertain the Truth, like one of you is doing with the Omnipresent Meditation- every time we do that, we are washing away the image in our mind. It is like it is washed away. Why is this? It is because we soak ourselves in the ocean of grace, Isness or God-ness.
Every time we do that, we come up different, something shifts, something removes itself. You cannot go by mathematics, you cannot go by logic and you cannot go with sentiments, feelings or emotions where this is concerned.
None of these things work in that place; only to be quiet and to dip into the source of your Being. Then, things begin to shift without your knowingness, it just happens, it expands itself. Now, if this secret goes out of this room, and everyone practices it, a lot of professions would go out of business. So, we can’t do that (laughs).
A woman says: Psychologists would be the first ones to go.
Sathyam: Yes, even the massage therapists would not have anyone to massage. This is because all those images we talked about become knots in our body that we go to massage therapists to take out. No one could fight with another. All the weapon manufacturers would also go out of business. No one would buy their weapons, because there would be no image to fight in the mind. That is the story of demolition!
The same woman as above asks: So, do you think we also play the game that we are not the Truth?
Sathyam: Oh my god, it is even worse than that, I am sorry to say. We don’t even know what the Truth is, to not be it; that is the epitome of ignorance! If you hear the Truth over and over and pretend that you didn’t, yes then that would be what you are saying.
But the images are so stacked on top of each other and we became so sensitive to them. And that is another thing that happens, when you believe the imagery of other people about you, you become sensitive to what they have to say, how they treat you, how they looked at you the wrong way, did they invite you to their home, etc. And, this is how sensitivity is being fed!
So, the person who is sensitive has believed all of those stacked up layers. How then can they see the Truth? They are too busy looking at the scenery of all of these idols.
So, the encouragement comes in by knowing that every one of us, each and every animal, each and every stone, every piece of Creation, is allowed to be quiet and to be peaceful. That is everyone’s right and we can do it- if we have the interest to do it. Practice, practice, practice!
Tonight, what I would like to do is bombard you with short, Contemplative Meditations, so you can own everything for yourself that we talked about tonight.
You can go to a lot of places where they might recite what they have read in a good book, but unless you can experience it for yourself, it is just temporary knowledge.
The first Contemplative Meditation I want us to do is the Omnipresent Meditation. Take the phrase “Since God is Omnipresent …” into meditation and dissect it. Take your Sword and do not be satisfied until it gets very deep.
“Since God is Omnipresent, then who am I or what can I be?” (Turns off the lights.) Say it in your own language, to whatever suits you. Also, these two sentences should not go together, first concentrate on the first part and then take it to the second part.
Meditation takes place for a few minutes.


Sathyam continues: Slowly open your eyes. I did not give you much time on purpose, it is best to dive in immediately, rather than linger around for too long.
Does anyone want to volunteer and tell us if anything happened- if at all?
A man says: I could feel that God is Omnipresent and I am a part of Him, so He should be inside me.
Sathyam: Very good
A woman says: I always have a hard time with Contemplative Meditations, so I tried to go beyond the intellectual aspect of asking questions. I felt this vastness of God. Then, the second part of it was that this is the part of me that can see while I am sitting here, with my eyes closed and everything being completely shut off.
Sathyam: O.k. Now this time we are going to go in and we drop the first part and only focus on “Who am I?” This time we will also have more time to do it.

Meditation takes place for about three minutes.


Sathyam: Slowly open your eyes.
(Sathyam addresses one of the men specifically) did the second meditation bring to you the first part, which you had not had the second time? The second time we just had “Who am I?” we didn’t have the “If God is Omnipresent …” And, when you asked “Who am I?” did the familiarity of the first part that you did not say come to you and uplift you?
He replies: I am not sure I am understanding what You are asking, because I don’t think I am fully here, in the mind at this moment.
Sathyam: Then forget it!
How was it for you? (Sathyam asks one of the women.)
She replies: I can’t say what it was; I just know there were no thoughts.
Another man says: There was no part of the first one in the second one for me.
Sathyam: Anyone else?
The man with the first comment says: I can try to answer you now. So, with the first part what I felt was this vastness. Everything melted into that. With the second part of asking “What am I?” it almost felt like I ended up in the same place.
Sathyam: This is exactly it. So, we take both parts together and then when we drop the first part, the identification with that Truth has already taken place. Do you all see the purpose of this? Every time you experience this vastness, there is a lot of imagery that drops by itself. You don’t need to take thoughts for it.
The same man says: I did not have an intellectualized answer.
Sathyam: I wouldn’t want that anyways. Since you use both and tonight we are using just one part of it, I just wanted to know if you can drive without the driver. This is really wonderful.
He continues to say: The first time You were asking me this question, I really could not understand what you were saying. I felt like You were speaking a foreign language.
Sathyam: That is because you weren’t in the body and that is probably why I asked you, for you to see the difference between the two.
With this meditation you actually eliminate the body, that is what happens and once you have body consciousness back, you are not the same.
A man says: I would like to ask You about something that caused me a little bit of a strain. There was a part with “Who am I?” where I tried to keep my eyes half open, and this helped me because I did not go so deep in the consciousness, where I would lose the question.
Sathyam: Yes, in your case, it is better to hold onto the consciousness, and experience that Oneness consciously, instead of constantly going unconscious with it. Just try that, because we know that you know the other side. That is what brings it in. Everyone talked about vastness and there is an extreme amount of bliss in going with that vastness.
-The same man says that keeping his eyes half open actually helped him not to lose consciousness.
Sathyam: Practice, practice and more practice helps you with that. When you first learn to drive, you are so tense and you feel as though you are holding on for dear life. And then gradually, as you practice driving, you don’t even have to be consciously there and it happens; driving happens so automatically.
It has to be the Art of Living consciously! Everyone can be a Christ; every person could become Krishna, Rama, Mohammad or Moses! It is not kept for only a handful of people from thousands of years back. Two things are very important: a genuine practice and practice of that genuine practice. Fake will not do it; fake will not give you freedom, only genuine will. And we are very lucky that we quit telling ourselves lies; it is just amazing!
Now, we are going to do another Contemplative Meditation, (turns off the lights) which will be a little bit longer. Contemplate on “Be still and know that I am God.”
Meditation continues for a few minutes.


Sathyam continues: Slowly open your eyes, before I lose it. (Referring to her own consciousness sinking.) Sorry guys, it was either now or never, I had a choice. (Laughs) it was either you guys would have to carry Me out of here, or you guys would need to come out [of your meditation now]. Oh My Lord, that really zapped Me, did that zap you?
A woman says: For me, it was very purifying, almost instantly.
A man says: I was not feeling any pain that I had had before. All pain was gone.
Sathyam: Yes, the Truth is incredibly good.
For the next meditation, I am going to have My eyes open, since I can’t afford to shut them anymore tonight. Just go in and say “Be still and know that I am,” drop the “God” part of it. “Be still and know that I am.”

Meditation continues for about a minute.


Sathyam continues: We slowly open our eyes. We are actually in Napa Sonoma, tasting different wines tonight. So welcome to Napa Sonoma (laughs).
Did you feel a difference between this one and the last one? Please if you did, come forward.
A woman says: This one was not as purifying as the previous one.
Sathyam: Yes and I will tell you why.
-A man talks about how when he was in high school, he used to take a speech class. When he was giving his speeches, he would look across the room at the audience and wouldn't really see anyone, because he would be so immersed in the speech he was delivering. He had no consciousness of anything else present in the room.
Sathyam: Yes, when this happens unknowingly, you might get terrified on the stage.
-The man agrees.
Sathyam continues: But when you do this knowingly, on that stage when it vanishes, it is because you shifted to the Omnipresence- you just shifted.
The reason it feels better to contemplate on the phrase with the word “God” for some of you here, and it feels better for some without the word “God,” is only because of dependency- for now!
You should use what fits you. It is just like wine tasting; if you like this one particular wine, use it and drink it until you are completely drunk in it. The key here is to use it … to drink it.
We are now going to contemplate on “Be still and know,” and the blank part will be filled in by your own Inner, whatever feels comfortable to put in that place. “Be still and know.”
Meditation takes place for about four minutes.


Sathyam continues: Take your time coming out and opening your eyes.
How many of you were really sucked into a silence [with this last meditation]? There is an o.k.-ness with being still, “Be still and know.” It almost goes back to the Trust Meditation; there is a letting go in that, that everything is o.k.
“Be still and know,” why does it say “Be still?” Because unless we are still, we are watching the movie in our mind, we are watching this imagery moving. But when we were in that stillness, did we have any movies passing by? There were no images there anymore, not even that of our own, they all just dissolved.
By practice, we bring this into our day to day activities. We become consciously aware of it. The more light we allow to come to our consciousness, the more this light will reach us and reach people around us. And without us knowing, it will help them tremendously.
Is it getting easier for you to do these Contemplative Meditations? (Sathyam specifically asks the woman who admitted earlier that Contemplative Meditation is challenging for her.)
She replies: Yes.
Sathyam: It is very important, because the belief of all of those images that you think you are or what others think you are, begin to dissolve by doing this type of Contemplation.
A man says: In that state of “Be still and know,” there really isn’t anything to know, but at the same time, when one is in that state, actual spiritual healing can occur.
Sathyam: Yes and we have experienced that.
(She remains silent for a moment.)
The Sword that we talked about a long time ago is very useful here, as we go through our lives daily. It is important to use that Sword to break away the belief of all these images; we just don’t bite into it. Each time that happens, we just Stop and go into silence, to stillness, with our eyes open or closed, whether or not we are engaged in various activities.
When a thought is having too much of a grip on our being, we just Stop, Stop and go back to the stillness within ourselves. You will see that what looked frightening, no longer appears so, it had no power whatsoever- none! We come to discover that it was no big deal at all.
With that, I am pretty much done. Is everybody doing well and happy? This is a different type of happiness; it is coming out of our Isness or our natural State of Being.
Namaste

-After Sathyam has said Namaste, some people continue to talk about how potent this class was and the effect of the meditations.
Sathyam: Yes, these types of things happen when your mind stops, you can hear the birds and you can even hear butterflies.
A woman says: Thank you for bringing this into our teachings.
Sathyam: You are welcome; thank you for appreciating the worth of it.
A man says: Tonight was definitely a special meditation night.
Sathyam: Yes, unbeknown to all of us. Well you know, in the other room where we used to meditate, we used to get too many newcomers. We had to do something about that (laughs). In this room, they can’t find us as easily (laughs).
Just the fact that the newcomers stopped coming, shows that we are allowed to go deeper and deeper! And even in our group, as we go deeper and deeper, we will lose more and more people (laughs).

CLASS
Mask, Contemplative Meditation
August 30, 2005

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