Class-Stop Meditation

Sathyam: Let us remember the reason for which we arrived in this room, to honor that reason, to try not to deviate from it, or get sidetracked. As we are sitting here, this is our time, for a few minutes we are absolutely without a past or a future. As we take a breath in and out, we consciously let go with every breath and sink in our own okayness, in our own Home. When we start meditating, just bring your attention to the stillness and remember the thoughts can wait. You can always pick them up after our meditation is done, for now just shift your attention to the quietness as the thoughts come, so we don’t get involved with them and waste our time.


Meditation takes place for a few minutes

Sathyam: How was this meditation for you?
-One of the women talks about this meditation being new and different for her, hence feeling as though she is out of her comfort zone. She also talks about how when she is meditating alone, she is in her own space.
Sathyam: Yes, sometimes you will experience that the mind has the habit of being alone that way, and therefore you have a less peaceful meditation [in a group]. At other times, you realize because everyone is having a deep meditation, it actually makes it easy to go deep. So, it all depends and each time is different.
Did all of us experience a certain amount of peace tonight?
-Most people in the class nod yes.
Sathyam: I would like to ask a question and see what we come up with. We don’t have to say anything intelligent or convincing; we can say whatever we feel. I would like to see if anyone can explain how one can have peace.
(Sathyam asks for volunteers to answer this question.)
One of the men says: By not fearing anything.
Another man says: I guess we can find it by accepting it when it comes, by giving peace a chance.
Sathyam: Yes, in other words let it be.
One of the women says: I think it is an inner feeling of contentment.
Sathyam: And how does one get it?
One of the men says: Let it be.
Another man says: Enjoying your present moment.
Sathyam: Yes; anyone else? (Everyone remains quiet.)
As long as the mind has a tendency to grab your attention, there is no peace. Ultimately, as one of you said, “to be” is peaceful, but as long as we don’t know how to quiet the mind, which is the first step, being in the State of Being becomes impossible. Or, if we are able to be in that state, it would be very temporary; here for one minute and gone in another.
Earlier, one of you said that peace is “being here and now,” and that is perfect. However, “be here and now” does not mean that you are in a peaceful position. It only means that you are consciously available here and now. The mind that starts calming down in its intensity of thinking is a peaceful mind; it is a mind that is going towards peace. When it loses the intensity, like one of you said earlier, it has more of a sense of fearlessness. And yes absolutely, the ultimate goal in life is to be fearless and to be in the present time.
But as long as we do not unmask the mind, as what we believe it to be, all of this talk is just theoretical- simply words that would comfort us or make us feel good. The mind that no longer has aggressive or strong thoughts is beginning to be a Yogi mind, a mind that has union with God.
Do any of you have any daily practices in order to develop such a mind or to calm it down? Do you do anything that is not limited to feeling that calmness only in your meditations?
-One of the men talks about how he still “thinks,” but his thoughts have changed from stressful worries to dissecting everything.
Sathyam: When we are beginning to be familiar with the Truth, what happens is our priority of thinking changes a little bit. What used to really bother us begins to get tilted more towards self-inquiry.
However, it is only when we learn to Stop that we can have peace of mind. Stop what? Not to stop the mind, the mind has a tendency to think. That is its job and we know that. We need to stop believing and paying attention to it, and this work is very, very effortless; it is almost effort in effortlessness! This is because as long as we are looking at the mind and facing it actively, we are never at peace; we are like a snake crawling in a zigzag pattern.
What then is the difference between the Christ mind, the mind of the highest nature and the worldly mind? It is only this: a calm mind that has not gotten any attention is like the dirt that has settled underneath the water. It is water that you can see yourself in, such as the water in Lake Tahoe; you can see yourself in it.
That same lake or body of water can become very agitated by thinking- good thinking, bad thinking, this type of thinking and that type of thinking. The only exception to thinking is self-inquiry, which is one way of dissecting the mind. When the water is agitated, you cannot see yourself in it at all. Why is that? It is because it gets too dirty and polluted.
As we Stop, the dirt or the false identification with the thoughts and beliefs settle down. We are now able to see ourselves, just as we could see our reflection clearly in the water at a lucid lake. The same mind that can fool us can also liberate us. It depends on how actively we are conversing with it. It is amazing that once we start doing that, how much we come to realize the small tricks of the mind. (Chuckles) there is no word for how unbelievably tricky the mind can be! Then because you did not go with it, you are now standing back far enough from it that you can see it beautifully.
For example, say you are standing outside a house and someone comes to you and says “we are having a huge fight inside; you must come in and help us.” Because of where you are standing, you can clearly see what is going on and you can be a good judge of who is right and who is wrong. The people who are personally involved in the fight will all think it is someone else’s fault. By standing outside, through the method of Stop, what happens is that after a while you begin to see yourself as who you really, really are.
Now, the purpose of self-inquiry that we have consistently engaged in here for the past five years, has been to put our attention on a place that is much more meaningful, and then to stop the whole thing all together. It is like Ramana Maharshi says, “Each time a thought comes, to whom is it happening?” and that takes you to the source of the mind. Stop, however, is the easiest method.
We are going to practice it tonight. It is a practice that is highly valuable. What we do is we either leave our eyes open, half open, or completely shut; it simply doesn’t matter. We allow the thoughts to come, we have absolutely no problem with them; we just stay unmoved!
Say for example that we are the candle jar on this table and these are our thoughts (demonstrates by moving Her hand rapidly around the jar in a circular motion). You see, we are unmoved, like the jar that stays steady; we don’t have to swallow each movement or thought that comes. We just let it go and stay unmoved. We don’t have to search for a thought, but if a thought does come, we just don’t move. Let’s do that for a few minutes.

Meditation takes place for a few minutes

Sathyam: Slowly open your eyes or come to. How was it for everyone?
-One of the women compares the experience to being catatonic.
Sathyam: It is really amazing, because you really cannot explain it, because there is no word to explain Stop. Just Stop!
-Another woman talks about going very deep in her meditation and being unable to get a thought.
Sathyam says happily: That’s it, this is it. This is not psychology of the mind. I tell you when you go to the source of the mind, you realize there is nothing and that is what you did.
What we are talking about here is truthfully the truth. It is the work of thirty years in the making, so it is not of this world at all. It is not out of mere suggestion, it is not a way of looking at things; it is the truth. When you look at the source of the mind, it will not exist, and yet how many people are enslaved by it to the point of insanity? How many people do we know personally in our lives who are affected by it?
So this wisdom is priceless, we had a lot of merit to sit here tonight and get this wisdom; I will tell you that- a lot of merit.
-One of the men asks Sathyam about Her comments on “waking up to the Truth.” He asks if there is a definitive answer as to what the Truth actually is.
Sathyam: Yes, thank you for asking Me that question. The truth is when the false is not! Everything you ever believed is false; the Truth does not need to declare Itself. It is Sat-Chit-Ananda, which is Truth, Awareness & Bliss. In a very, very un-mindful state, you are in the Truth. Truth is when there is no fear, no worrying, it is just “being” infinitely, and there is not a way of describing it in words. This is because anything we say would be incorrect. Therefore, for you to ask [this question] is wonderful, but for Me to be able to answer your question is impossible.
-The same man asks about how to not fear the unknown, such as death. He also asks if Sathyam has seen the “other side,” and therefore knows if there is nothing to fear there and if there is no annihilation of the spirit there.
Sathyam: You look at the Truth as the end of your physical body; whereas in reality not only is it the farthest from what you are describing [the Truth to be], but actually by knowing the Truth, you become immortal! Do you understand what I am saying? Knowing the Truth does not mean that you leave your body. Your body will live for as long as it is supposed to- whether you go after the Truth or not. The Truth only makes it peaceful while you are going through the experience.
You may have read somewhere that an enlightened soul cannot be in the body for more than thirty or sixty days, etc. 99.9% of the time this is absolutely not true, except for the .1% that it is supposed to go that way for.
You asked Me about My own experiences; unfortunately I am unable to talk about them. You will know a little bit about what I have to say, if it pierces your heart, if it transforms you. This is because for Me to talk about where I stand on the spiritual path would seem almost arrogant to the listener. My husband is the only person in My life who has witnessed what has been happening to Me privately.
The mind and the body will always fear the Truth, but something in you will push you forward anyway. If you look at your life, you will know that you went forward with fear and anxiety, and sometimes you had to quit for a while, and you came back to it again. That prompting is who you really are and it is trying to take you beyond fear, anxiety and maya (Sanskrit word for illusion). Is it easy? No, sometimes you may even feel like saying, “Oh, this is not for me.” But just because this thing is awakened in you, it sends you to different places [in search of it], and that itself will see to it that you get there safely. This is the truth; the same essence will take you where you want to go, and you have nothing to worry about. The mind might fear it; so many times I went to India terrified out of My mind, but I went anyway and it paid off, because that prompting was so strong.
We always give the good news on Tuesday nights (laughs). The good news is like what My Teacher has said, “You are not the body, you are not the mind. If you were, you wouldn’t say my mind, my body, my foot, my toe.”
Do you get it? If you were the body or the mind, you would not say “my mind and my body,” you would say “I am the mind, I am the body.” So then “Who am I? If I am not the body or the mind, who am I?” Then the Truth will speak, but if we just speak the Truth audibly, it will not be the Truth, because it is something so incredibly subtle, that the moment you want to think of it, it is no longer there. It is like what one of you experienced in your meditation earlier, you knew you were deep, you don’t know what happened to your mind, but I’ll be darned if you can sit here and explain to Me how you went there. It just IS; the Truth just IS!
My Teacher says very beautifully that if you are a prince, who is attractive, rich, mentally, emotionally and physically healthy, as well as a joyful person, it would not amount to even 1% of the joy of those who experience the Truth.
Now, how do we find this Truth? First, we find it by eliminating what is not the Truth. Anything that has an opposite is not the Truth; good, bad, ugly, beautiful, skinny, fat, sane, insane, sinner and saint, etc. All of the opposites in the mind of a realized person have to go. Once these are dropped by self-inquiry, then the mind begins to Stop and we take the path of stopping it. This is because there are not too many things for us to stop, they’ve already been stopped by being dropped, by un-masking them with the Sword of Truth.
Then the mind comes to the region of the heart, where the Truth is. So, what we are left with is the Sat-Chit-Ananda, or the Truth. Until we realize this completely, we will have little tastes or just a drop of it here and there.
You might now ask “How come we don’t talk about God and we talk about the Truth?” This is because if you had not loved God with all your heart at one point, we would not be ready to sit here and talk about the Truth. It would have been impossible! Maybe not in this lifetime, but you adored God with all your heart at some point. Why is this necessary? Loving the invisible makes the heart ready to accept the Truth.
-Everyone appears confused, so Sathyam clarifies: In other words, the heart that knows how to love an invisible being is able to understand the Truth.
One of the men asks: Would loving anything with all your heart be loving God?
Sathyam: Yes, that is right.
He asks: Material or invisible?
Sathyam: That is right! Except ... are you ready to hear My answer? I am going to say it anyway! (Everyone laughs) when you love something of a material nature, say money, fame, etc. with all your heart, it will also open your heart beautifully; however it will also take you through the consequences of the temporariness of your desire and of your love. So, it has a double-edged sword! Yes, it does help you in the heart, but it also captures you in the mind, because you took your lover from the wrong place.
I will give you an example of this, which I find funny and I think I have mentioned before. There is a story about an older lady who lost her sewing needle, as she was sewing beneath candlelight. So, she goes outside looking for the needle under the street light. A passerby stops and asks her what she is looking for. She tells them she is looking for her needle. They ask her where she lost it. She informs them inside the house. “Why are you looking for it on the street then?” they ask. She replies, “Because there is more light out here.” (Everyone laughs) that is how it is with us!
There is another story, which My father tells about a man who goes to the bazaar in the Middle East. Amidst the very busy and crowded bazaar, he sits down on a bucket and pulls out his fishing gear. He also has a friend sitting next to him, helping him out on this pretend fishing trip. After a while, passersby begin to question him about what he is doing, they ask him if he thinks he is at the ocean. They tell him that he looks ridiculous trying to fish in the middle of a busy bazaar and call him an idiot. He responds by saying “If you think I am an idiot, my friend next to me is waiting for me to catch the fish, so I can share it with him too.” (Sathyam laughs wholeheartedly.)
This is how we go through life, we throw our net out in the wrong place and we have a whole group of people keeping us company, witnessing our stupidity. Truthfully this is why this world goes to the edge of destruction.
And then there are those of us who look for freedom in the right place, not by going to other people’s countries, not by taking it selfishly, we look for ultimate freedom, ultimate peace; the word that is very important here is “ultimate.”
This is because ultimate does not have an opposite; it is ultimate peace and freedom. Those of us will be guided from here (pats Her heart), the Guru is here, the Teacher is here. So, the outside Teacher will point you to the inside Teacher, and then you are on your way, then you take off all on your own.
Do you have any other comments or questions?
-Everyone remains quiet.
Sathyam: If you feel confused by this talk, allow yourself to be really confused, because this type of talk is not for the mind, it is for the heart to understand, as the mind will probably doubt it later on. And that is o.k., because that is when we Stop and we do not go with it. There is absolutely something that brings some of you here week after week and that is the Teacher.
-One of the men talks about having read something earlier that day which said when you meditate and put yourself in the “now,” you take yourself out of thousands of years of collective human conditioning.
Sathyam: Yes, again this absolutely sounds like the truth, but you need to have a method for being in the “now.” What does “being in the now” mean? “Now” doesn’t even exist!
-Everyone seems confused.
Sathyam laughs and continues: I know I am causing trouble! “Now” does not even exist; you know why? Again, I cannot put it into words, “now” signifies time; but what we are trying to accomplish is to Just Be. The “Being” is from beginning-less to endless, so how can you say past, present or future? It just IS, just IS, peaceful, infinite, just IS. So, can we say that “just IS” is in the present time? No, there is no time, it has always been and always will be. How then can we put It in the timeframe of past, present or future? It is Omnipresent. Time is also a part of the maya.
All of these readings and things that you are doing are wonderful (referring to the man who had asked the previous question). As you were saying, you are now taking yourself from being an ordinary person enslaved by beliefs, tendencies and concepts, living as a puppet and therefore not really living at all, to beginning to give yourself ideas based on the Truth. You are saying to yourself, “Wait a minute, I have to question all that I am reading and all that I am seeing. I swallowed all this knowledge, now I am going to question it.” That is when the person is on the right track.
The same man says: As I mentioned before, when I meditate, I try to not think of anything; You said that, that is just another escape. And when I thought about it, I understood that You were absolutely correct and it was just another escape at that point.
Sathyam: Yes; but all of these steps are truly necessary. I am not expecting us to practice and perfect overnight what we talked about here tonight, not at all. It may take us a lifetime, but what is happening is that this has been thrown in your consciousness now. And because it has been thrown in your consciousness, your Inner will bring everything possible to get you ready for that point. It is like taking a train from point A to point B, and then a bicycle from the next point to another, and then perhaps a donkey to get to your final destination. Was your trip aboard the train a waste then? Neither was your time on the bicycle- nor on the donkey for that matter!
Sometimes if I throw something out there that seems far fetched, accept it anyway! If it makes sense to you, allow it to stay in your mind! This is because eventually when you get here (demonstrates by moving Her fingers from one spot on the table to another) you say to yourself, “Oh my God, it makes so much sense. Yes, I get it! This is exactly what She had said.”
I would like to tell you something from the bottom of My heart, in life no matter how much we create anxiety or concern, if we can stay on the ground of confidence and Trust, things will be completely all right.

Namaste
CLASS
Stop Meditation
December 1, 2004