December

14 2016

Awakening is not an experience. It's a recognition. -Michael Jeffreys

What is seeing cannot be seen, what is feeling cannot be felt, etc.

You carry Him wherever you go, yet you ask for Him. He cannot be seen because He is what sees
through the eyes. He cannot be thought of, because He is that which thinks through the mind. So
deeply hidden is He in your own heart that you cannot see Him. You yourself stand as an object to
Him. -Swami Krishnananda

The lie of self permanency

Michael: If everything changes, which is our own undeniable experience, then where can the "me"
set up shop, a permanent home base from which to conduct operations?

No where, since by our own admission everything is changing. So the jiva must lie to itself and
pretend that everything changes except it! This is the lie of self permanency and the price we pay
for indulging in this belief is suffering.

Now, even though the baby initially comes to believe the lie through conditioning, the point to keep
in mind is this: no separate person was ever actually created.

Thus one's belief in being a separate jiva is there for as long as its there, but the belief itself doesn't
make it real just like believing in the tooth fairy doesn't make it a real.

Katha Upanishad: Nachiketa & Yama (Death meets a teenager with earnestness)

From WIKIPEDIA: Vājashravasa, desiring a gift from the gods, started an offering to donate all
his possessions. But Nachiketa noticed that he was donating only the cows that were old, barren,
blind, or lame; not such as might buy the worshiper a place in heaven. Nachiketa wanting the best
 West LA weekly Satsang - December 14 2016 pg 2

for his father's rite, asked: "I too am yours, to which god will you offer me?". After being pestered
thus, Vājashravasa answered in a fit of anger, "I give you to Death (Yama)".

So Nachiketa went to death's home, but the god was out, and he waited three days. When Yama
returned, he was sorry to see that a Brahmin guest had been waiting so long. He told Nachiketa,
"You have waited in my house for three days without hospitality, therefore ask three boons from
me". Nachiketa first asked for peace for his father and himself. Yama agreed. Next, Nachiketa
wished to learn the sacred fire sacrifice, which also Yama elaborated. For his third boon, Nachiketa
wanted to learn the mystery of what comes after death.

Yama was reluctant on this question. He said that this had been a mystery even to the gods. He
asked Nachiketa to ask for some other boon, and offered many material gains.

We now we pick up the story from the Katha Upanishad:

YAMA: Nachiketa, be the ruler of a great kingdom, and I will give you the utmost capacity to enjoy

the pleasures of life. Ask for beautiful women of loveliness rarely seen on earth, riding in chariots,
skilled music, to attend to you. But Nachiketa, don't ask me about the secret of death.

NACHIKETA: These pleasures last but until tomorrow, and they wear out the vital powers of life.
How fleeting is all life on earth! Therefore keep your horses and chariots, dancing and music, for
yourself.

Never can mortals be happy by wealth. How can we be desirous of wealth when we see your face
and know we cannot live while you are here? This is the boon (wish) I choose and ask you for.
Having approached an immortal like you, how can I, subject to old age and death, ever try to
rejoice in a long life for the sake of the senses' fleeting pleasures?

Dispel this doubt of mine, O king of death: Does a person live after death or does he not?

YAMA: The joy of the spirit ever abides, but not what seems pleasant to the senses. Both these,
differing in their purpose, prompt us to action.

All is well for those who choose the joy of the spirit, but they miss the goal of life who prefer the
pleasant. Perennial joy or passing pleasure? This is the choice one is to make always. Those who
are wise recognize this, but not the ignorant. The first welcome what leads to abiding joy, though
painful at the time. The latter run, goaded by their senses, after what seems immediate pleasure.
 West LA weekly Satsang - December 14 2016 pg 3

Well have you renounced these passing pleasures so dear to the senses, Nachiketa, and turned your
back on the way of the world that makes mankind forget the goal of life.

Far apart are wisdom and ignorance. The first leads one to Self-realization; the second makes one
more and more estranged from one's real Self. I regard you, Nachiketa, as worthy of instruction, for
passing pleasures tempt you not at all.

Ignorant of their ignorance, yet wise in their own esteem, those deluded men proud of their vain
learning go round and round like the blind led by the blind.

Far beyond their eyes, hypnotized by the world of sense, opens the way to immortality. "I am my
body; when my body dies, I die." Living in this superstition, they fall life after life under my sway.

It is but few who hear about the Self. Fewer still dedicate their lives to its realization. Wonderful is
the one who speaks about the self.
Rare are they who make it the supreme goal of their lives. Blessed are they who, through an
illumined teacher, attain to Self-realization. Y

The death of Death itself

Death is for the body, not you. The body has been endlessly growing old and changing since its
birth, yet have you not been the unchanging witness throughout? And cannot the same be said for
the "self" you take yourself to be. Has not that one also been endlessly changing since it first
manifested in your mind? So, if the body and self are ceaselessly changing, where are you in all
this?

No where! You are not. That's the point... there's isn't a you!! Seeing this is freedom... for no one.
It's liberation from what was never so, but as long as it was believed seemed to be so. The "tooth
fairy" is a made up story and is no different from the story of "me." Both are illusory, but seem real
if believed.

The story of "me," like the "tooth fairy," is a fiction, and not your essential nature. Now it's time to
awaken from that imagined limitation. To shed our ignorance and see that you were never that
bound one, because you now know/realize/understand with your entire being that you have always
been eternally free. -Michael Jeffreys