You Have Arrived...

Mooji: In truth it is not possible to become enlightened as you put it because no one is there as such to become enlightened in the first place. The firm recognition or realisation that there isn't a 'somebody' in reality to gain enlightenment, and that there can never be an entity at any time, either now or in the future, to gain any such state, is what amounts to enlightenment. This direct realisation occur and become revealed, confirmed and convincing truth through the process of self enquiring. 'Self-enquiry', also called atma-vichara, is one effective means of exposing the unreality of the 'I-concept', or ego, ordinarily felt to be the fact of oneself, leaving the pure immutable Self as the single an perfect reality. This is the ultimate truth.

You ask: 'Is there anyone who through attending Satsang has become awake'. This has already been addressed in my previous statement but I will further add here that there has been and continues to be the constant recognition of this fact that the ego identity is a myth, a fictitious character. That individuality as such is an expression of pure consciousness/beingness and not the fact or definition of that Beingness. That oneself remains behind as the witness or the noticing of the phenomena arising spontaneously in consciousness. That ones true self is formless and nameless presence only which arises or shines as peace, joy and happiness felt as loving contentment. When this recognition occurs within each individual point or expression of consciousness known as a person, that state is called 'awakening' or 'enlightenment'.

You ask that I point out if there is such a person present here ? In common language I will say a number of persons here have arrived at this point of clear seeing/being beyond mere intellectual or academic understanding or acceptance. However, the mental tendencies and identification aren't instantly or completely destroyed and the ego-sense, posing as the seat of reality, though expose through enquiry as mere illusion, continues to appear; this is natural. The duty and challenge here is to repeatedly bring this I-individuality sense back into the heart/source whenever it arises and by training the attention to stay in the source, which is your true self, it gradually merges in the source and become the source itself.

Finally, who could the 'I' be who will claim 'I've got it' or 'I am a realised person'. Who or what can be the possessor of enlightenment ? Isn't it the same ego ? Do you see my point ?

However, some masters have indeed declared and affirmed themselves as the one pure, qualityless reality and have spoken so from pure, direct ego-less knowledge/conviction. This is also correct in my view and is most refreshing, authoritative and natural, so that we may know it is not possible to frame or limit the pure self by any human standard or logic.

Q:But I feel myself as a 'someone', I cannot feel myself as a 'no-one'.

M:Again you put this 'myself' as an object of perception. How can you be an object ? An object must have a perceiving subject. If the subject is also perceived it automatically becomes an object and must have a deeper perceiving subject. Do you see ? You cannot be any object perceived, you must be the perceiver/subject. Who or what are you that perceives ? Take hold of that. Your statement 'I feel myself as a someone' contains three aspects: I, my feelings and the someone that I take myself to be. This someone is merely your idea of yourself, not your real self. And your feelings, merely the feeling concerning this idea of yourself. Finally there is the you who is the subject/perceiver of this observation. Am I right ?

Q:Yes.

M:Who or what are you exactly ?

Q:I am me, myself !

M:And what exactly is that ?

Q:Me ! Or rather my knowledge of myself.

M:So, not the body ?

Q:No, I know I am not the body.

M:How do you know you are not the body ?

Q:I can see my body and I just know that is not what I am, although sometimes I feel I am that too.

M:Ok, fine. Can we go back to your answer that you are your knowledge of yourself ? Are you sure it is the knowledge of yourself and not merely the knowledge of the idea of yourself or your personality ? How did you come to know yourself ? How are you knowing yourself here and now ?

Q:When I began perceiving the other things and people.

M:Yes, how does perceiving otherness brings you to yourself.

Q:Because I know I am perceiving. That I must be there in order to perceive.

M:Therefore any object perceived cannot be you, am I right ?

Q:Right.

M:Exactly ! Very good ! Now who or what exactly is it that perceives or notices ?

Q:Me ! This !

M:Is 'me' the same as 'this' ?

Q:Yes.

M:And again what is that ? What is its quality, its substance ? What makes it you exactly ? Look and tell me. Is it some particular you ? A person ? As distinct from a she or he or him or them ?

Q:Well yes…no…it is vague, I don't quite see.

M:Remain compose, do not drift off, be steady and look. What are you here ? In this looking can you say ?

Q:I am not any person or anything, but I don't know what I am. There is nothing there, I cannot answer that. There is a feeling of not wanting to look, of tiredness, resistance and irritability.

M:Ok. Don't engage in any evaluation, don't touch anything, just be one with that noticing. Stay here without trying.
(There is a long pause here)
You seem puzzled what are you puzzled by ?

Q:There is just this blank.

M:What is witnessing the blank ?
(the questioner looks up and smiles, eyes fixed on Mooji)

M:Where is this smile coming from ?
(Silence…)

Q:I don't know, there is a feeling of relief, space and peace, a kind of lightness.

M:A kind of ?

Q:No. Lightness, space and peace.

M:This lightness and peace shines where there is no one. This is peace. This is real joy. This is pure love. Only now don't clutch at this. Don't own it or claim it. Remain the witness.

Q:Yes, yes (smiling) I see I am just the witness here. Thank you, thank you. (she clasps her hands in the traditional Indian way of greeting or gratitude).

M:Don't go just yet..
(few moments pass)
Now drop being the witness.

Q:I am confused.

M:No, you are not confused. Confusion is being witnessed. Don't identified with that. What remains ? Don't touch anything, even the witness, don't be a 'witness-er'. Witnessing without witness-er, do you understand ?

Q:Yes.

M:Who is understanding ?

Q:No one, just understanding.

M:Very nice. Very happy to meet you. Now from this placeless place in total emptiness as emptiness, beyond the concept of emptiness, you effortlessly are. You didn't become this or gain this because there is no one here to gain anything. Out of, yet within this indescribable awareness the consciousness rises and shines as I-ness perceiving. And whatever arises here are mere apparent forms of I-consciousness being perceived.

Q:Thank you.

M:You are welcome.

Anthony Paul Moo-Young, known as Mooji, was born on 29 January 1954 in Port Antonio, Jamaica. In 1969, he moved to the UK and he is presently living in Brixton, London. Anthony worked in London's 'West end' as a street portrait artist for many years, then as a painter and a stained glass artist, and later as a teacher at Brixton College. For a long time, he was well known as Tony Moo, but is now affectionately known as Mooji* by the many seekers and friends who visit him.

Mooji is a direct disciple of Sri Harilal Poonja, the renowned advaita master, or Papaji, as his followers call him. In 1987, a chance meeting with a Christian mystic was to be a life-changing encounter for Mooji. It brought him, through prayer, into the direct experience of the Divine within. Within a short period, he experienced a radical shift in consciousness so profound that outwardly, he seemed, to many who knew him, to be an entirely different person. As his spiritual consciousness awakened, a deep inner transformation began which unfolded in the form of many miraculous experiences and mystical insights. He felt a strong wind of change blowing through his life which brought with it a deep urge to surrender completely to divine will. Shortly after, he stopped teaching, left his home and began a life of quiet simplicity and surrender to the will of God as it manifested spontaneously within him. A great peace entered his being, and has remained ever since.

For the following six years, Mooji drifted in a state of spontaneous meditation oblivious to the outer world he formally knew. During these years, he lived almost penniless but was constantly absorbed in inner joy, contentment and natural meditation. Grace came in the form of his sister Julianne, who welcomed Mooji into her home with loving kindness, and afforded him the time and space he much needed to flower spiritually, without the usual pressures and demands of external life. Mooji refers to this period of his life as his "wilderness years" and speaks touchingly of a deep feeling of being "seated on the Lap of God". In many respects, these were far from easy times for Mooji, yet there is no trace of regret or remorse in his tone as he recounts these years. On the contrary, he speaks of this phase of his life as being richly blessed and abundant in grace, trust and loving devotion.

In late 1993, Mooji travelled to India. He had a desire to visit Dakshineswar in Calcutta where Sri Ramakrishna, the great Bengali Saint, had lived and taught. The words and life of Ramakrishna were a source of inspiration and encouragement to Mooji in the early years of his spiritual development. He loved the Saint deeply but as fate would determine, he would not go to Calcutta. While in Rishikesh, a holy place at the foothills of the Himalayas, he was to have another propitious encounter; this time with three devotees of the great advaita Master Sri Harilal Poonja, known to his many devotees as Papaji. Their persistent invitation to Mooji to travel with them to meet the Master made a deep impression on him. Still he delayed the prospect of meeting Papaji for two whole weeks, choosing first to visit Varanasi, the holy city.

In late November 1993, Mooji travelled to Indira Nagar in Lucknow to meet Papaji. It was to be an auspicious and profoundly significant experience on his spiritual journey. He felt it to be his good fortune; he had met a living Buddha, a fully enlightened master. He gradually came to recognise that Papaji was his Guru. Mooji stayed with Papaji for several months. During one particular satsang meeting, Papaji told him: “If you desire to be one with truth, 'you' must completely disappear.” On hearing this, great anger arose within his mind, full of judgement and resistance towards Papaji. He decided to leave the master's presence for good, but later that day a huge dark cloud of anger and rebelliousness suddenly lifted, leaving his mind in a state of such peace, emptiness and a love towards the master, so intense, that he knew he could not leave. Through 'Papaji's' grace, his mind was pushed back into the emptiness of source.

In 1994, with his Master's blessings he travelled down to Sri Ramanasramam in Tiruvannamalai. This is the ashram at the foot of Arunachala, the 'Hill of Fire', where Sri Ramana Maharshi*, the Sage of Arunachala and Papaji's Guru, had lived and taught. Mooji felt very happy and at home in Tiruvannamalai. He stayed there for almost three months before returning to sit at Papaji's feet once again.

A week after returning to Lucknow, Mooji received news from London that his eldest son had died suddenly of pneumonia. He returned to England. The bliss of earlier years gave way to a profound emptiness and inner silence, imparted by the Grace and Presence of Papaji.

Mooji visited Papaji again in 1997. It was to be his last meeting with his Beloved Master, who had by now become ill and frail in his movements, but whose inner light and presence remained undiminished. A month after returning to London, Mooji received news that the Master had passed away. Of this Mooji declares: "That Principle that manifests as the Master is ever HERE NOW. The True Master never dies, it is the mister that dies. The true Master, that Sat Guru* within, alone is the Real".

Since 1999, Mooji has been sharing satsang in the form of spontaneous encounters, retreats, satsang intensives and one-to-one meetings with the many seekers who visit him, from all parts of the world, in search of the direct experience of truth. Few amongst the modern teachers of the advaita tradition expound the 'knowledge of Self', and the method of self-enquiry, with such dazzling clarity, love and authority. There is an energy that radiates from Mooji's presence, a kind of impersonal intimacy, full of love, joy and a curious mix of playfulness and authority. His style is direct, clear, compassionate and often humorous. Once caught in the grip of his questions, there seems to be no place to hide. So unsparing is his scrutiny and uncompromising stance, that the 'I' concept is inescapably exposed as a mental construction, when viewed from the formless awareness we are.

Presently Mooji shares satsang in Brixton, London, where he lives. He also travels regularly to Ireland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Brasil, North America and India where he conducts satsang meetings, intensives and retreats. He is ever open to meeting sincere seekers of truth, whatever their background.

Note:

Question: Can I ask about integration ? When I spoke to you last year I told you that my sense of myself was behind me. It appears sometimes that I have two types of experience that seem quite apart; it’s my perception that there’s a split, but I can confuse myself a lot. Some of the things I’m involved in talk a lot about an integration process. Is there a time where you feel you have arrived home ?

Mooji: If I were to talk to you on the basis that something is separate or separated or that there is some split, then we may talk about integration. There is no end to that talk. But you say there is a ‘sense’ of some split. This is still related to the things we discussed the last time I spoke to you - the sense of there being more behind here. They are just thoughts. Perhaps the question you could ask is, what is aware of some split ? We feel we understand the split, but what or who perceives that ?

Q: My real self. My natural awareness, I suppose.

M: Okay. In your natural awareness, what form does awareness have ? What form do you have as awareness ? When you say awareness, are you aware of yourself as something measurable ? Is there something tangible about awareness ?

Q: What seems to happen is it collapses very quickly in an object.

M: What witnesses collapse or the sense of collapse ? Is that collapsing ?

Q: No.

M: Stay there. In the field of consciousness, innumerable sensations arise. It seems inexhaustible, this flow, this traffic of thoughts. Sometimes a thought or some sensation arises, and you have a feeling that you are affected by it. Sometimes what really happens is that the energy of that thought or sensation is already exhausted but you are living in the memory of it perpetuating it through memory.

Q: At the moment it’s a feeling of extreme tiredness, too much sensation. I can’t take any more.

M: Don’t take it. How do you take the sensation ? What’s the payoff ?

Q: I suppose the payoff is someone who is experiencing.

M:If there is no pay-off, does it amount to no experiencing ? Does payoff imply experiencing ?
Does experiencing have a particular aim ? You are simply observing consciousness acting, and it’s ever shape-shifting. You think you are going to make a nice comfortable place for yourself here, and you go to sit and everything vanishes. There is nowhere you need to locate yourself but a sense of location arises in you. You are aware of that. There is this tendency to give some quality to what you call yourself.

Q: I identify with the feeling that arises.

M: You identify with it. The feeling arises. Perceived. Do you identify with all the thoughts that arise in you ?

Q: No. Some strong feelings I identify with.

M: Some feelings arise and you experience them strongly. Maybe sometimes in childhood you picked up some impression that this was actually happening to you, because once the consciousness resonates within this form in the feeling ‘I am’, quickly that feeling rushes forward and identifies with the body and borrows the body’s qualities and says ‘I am that’. Originally, that consciousness is not personal, but it feels itself to be personal by feeling ‘I am this particular form’. It is just like the electricity supply; in a lamp it produces light, in a fridge it is making things cold, but electricity is none of those things.

Functioning through particular things, it appears to make things cold or bright or whatever, but electricity cannot be described as being light or cold. As this consciousness or knowingness, you are simply perceiving. But when the feeling arises very strongly ‘I am the body’, the experiencing seems very impactful for consciousness expressing itself in various bodies known as people. The intensity varies according to the degree or potency of belief in the identification, ‘I am this particular form’.

Gradually, that identification is coming under a lot of stress in what we call ‘life’, because having identified as a particular body, the consciousness sets about trying to perpetuate life in that particular form, taking that form to be itself. It regards any threat or injury to that form, or the passing away of that form to be the passing away of itself. It experiences fear, anxiety, restlessness and all of that stuff because it assumes itself to be this particular form. As the particular form - known as ‘ego’ – it feels itself to be distinctly different, borrowing the unique quality of a particular body to be its body and seeing other bodies as different from itself. This is how it comes into this field of otherness. In this way, the consciousness which is pure and universal in origin experiences itself as independent and as separate.

For some time it is invested in that separateness and even proud to be separate. But it cannot sustain this; gradually it is being buffeted by world, by circumstances, by frustrated dreams and disappointments. It loses its conceitedness and arrogance and becomes more pliable, more receptive to spiritual truths. You don’t have to know that this is occurring. You may not think this is happening, but at some point it sprouts up in your consciousness, somehow, as an affinity and an attraction for some teachings, perhaps, or some questions arise naturally in you. You may not be able to trace how it came about. Why you ?

Maybe you are here and perhaps you have a family, friends, who don’t share this interest. Where did this particular interest arise in you ?

Q:I think initially from the discomfort.

M: So in a way you have to be grateful to the discomfort if it brings you to want to be free from that.

Q:Thank you. That’s a very good description of what’s been happening. It seems to have reached a crisis point or an intensity that I can’t – that I don’t want to bear; the thought that arises is somehow to get rid of the self to stop the feelings - sort of an impasse….

M: Don’t get too good at talking about your feelings.

Q: Yes, because I’m involved in group therapy at the moment.

M: It gives you that kind of skill.

Q: I actually wanted to move away from it, and the facilitator said I would disrupt the group if I removed myself.

M: Are you inclined to feel overly responsible for other people ?

Q: No, and I actually wondered was I being cold. I would have been at one point. Maybe I’ve gone from one extreme to another.

M: What is it that’s aware of the extremes ? You speak so easily about that, naturally, extremes. Something is aware of this jumping, this twitching. What is aware of that ? Can you refute that there is something which is not that flitting, in which that jumping around is observed ? What do you have to do to be where that awareness is ?

Q: To be fully with it.

M: What will be with what ?

Q: It’s already there without…

M: Is there something pressing arising for you right now ? Don’t touch some past thing. Right now, this instant.

Q: Right now it’s clear. There are feelings, but right now it’s okay.

M:When does now become then ? Stay now.

Q: Immediately now stays, and then is gone; it’s almost simultaneous.

M: Now, right now, what are you, just now ? Where is any of this stuff, right now ? Don’t go to the past.

Q: I don’t know.

M: How does it feel not knowing ?

Q: Quite nice.

M: How are you going to be from now ?

Q: Pay attention to now.

M: You are aware of attention. You are not attention. Ordinarily, what we call ourselves, when we really investigate it we are speaking about our attention. You are aware of attention. If you are inclined to feel ‘I come and I go’, something witnesses the sensation of coming and going. If I ask you what that is, whatever answer your mind comes up with will not be it.

Q: I think I was identifying with my attention and thinking that was the awareness.

M: It arises much more strongly when you feel yourself to be a particular person. It matters to be successful, it matters to be happy, and it matters to make money. But the feeling of yourself as a fixed personality, when you investigate it, it’s only an idea. It’s like we speak about the weather; English weather, Irish weather, but can you produce a sample of the weather ? We speak about it like a noun, but it’s more like a movement. Inwardly in the landscape of your consciousness all these sensations are moving like the weather too. You are more like a verb than a noun, but you think of yourself as a noun, you sense something solid. But what the solidity is is the basic feeling ‘I am’. The continuous unbroken basis. And a little bit of a cocktail of that basic I am-ness mixed with the feeling ‘I am the body’ that produces this thing. The body-mind feels ‘I am the person’, and ‘I am constant’. It borrows the constancy and the solidity of the I am-ness and says ‘I am that’. I the personality am this solidity. When you investigate the personality it’s simply a movement, an aggregate of memory and conditioning and all of this stuff playing out like a kind of software.

Q: There’s a huge difference. As opposed to identifying with the body I would identify with a feeling.

M: And if you don’t identify with anything ?

Q: There is just I am, but it’s interesting you mentioned solidity because I would seek that out…

M: You see, I asked you this question, what’s there when you don’t identify and you said the basic ‘I am’, and so quickly you have moved off. ‘Just I am’ was an answer that you were giving rather than being one with that. It is really the mind that accepts the answer ‘I am’, it says ‘yeah, I know that, but there is no juice in it’. It’s still looking for a fix. It’s collecting this feeling ‘I am’ as a kind of an answer. You are not really being pointed to recognize and be one with that which you already are, because there’s this athlete’s foot mind, itching for a good scratch and you are scratching and you are never satisfied and you need to just recognize that tendency. Stay with that. Be aware that they are just arising. It’s not wrong that they should; they just are. They will arise as long as the consciousness is here in this body.

Activity is not contrary to truth; just let it be, and you can observe. Function naturally. Everything is just happening by itself. But once you adopt the position of being the doer, then there is difficulty, and you have to sign up for a long time; for therapy and all this type of thing. But you will have to return to the very basic truth if you are to be satisfied, happy and free. you are now free, but somehow your attention caresses 'other' and your facinations - your conceptual investments which spring from the belief 'I am the body' amounts to an eclipsing of your natural Self-awareness/beingness. There is a tendency to think that there is still something to work out, something more to get. This sense keeps you at the nipple, in a suffering state, so the sense of suffering itself is a very deep invitation to put an end to that.

Q: Stop looking.

M: Start real looking. Whatever is arising, don’t jump on its back so quickly. It has only gathered strength because you have been looking after these feelings for so long, thinking that somehow you are deriving some benefit from it. Give it some time; don’t try it for five minutes.

Mooji: This emptiness is not a trivial thing. It's the most supreme state. But in the consciousness there is this itching, and I use this term: the athlete's foot mind. In the mind the thought is coming, there is this itching, and it feels it needs a scratch, you know. Like a question arising, something more to be solved, or resolved. But I say: only stay as this, and that itchiness will subside. When this itchiness is there, there is the temptation to start to scratch it, but it just makes it more bloody and awful. So just take note of that for the moment. But stay as you are. Because you cannot improve this emptiness. So many of the beings are longing to be this emptiness, to return to this emptiness, you see, consciously. When you go to sleep, you leave all your cares and your concerns about yourself and your life. And you love to be without these concerns. How much money we spend on the bed, on the bedroom, to get the best sleep so you can forget everything ! And when the waking arises there is refreshment in the being, you see, because it puts away all these concerns.

This emptiness that you speak of now seemed eclipsed by your concerns and where you put your attention, and while you're attending to your concerns and activities and affairs of life, then you're being disturbed actually. So a little bit of meditation or self-enquiry returns you to this affirmation in yourself, this recognition: all there is is just a sort of emptiness, beyond the concept of empty even.

So can you step out of this emptiness now ?

Q: Not willingly. I know I can. I never tried to escape...

M: In the emptiness, what are you ? Are you IN the emptiness like you are in this room, or are you the emptiness ?

See, if you say you're in something, then there is like two: there is a sense I and a sense I'm in something. It's the point I'm driving at, because if you feel you're in, then emptiness becomes kind of an experience, and you remain as the experiencer, and there's a sort of duality in that. So it makes possible the sense of leaving it, it becomes much more alive and real, a possibility. That's why I'm asking you: in the emptiness what are you ? What form do you wear in emptiness ? Are you in it, or are you it ?

Q: I'm it.

M: So if you are how can you step out ?

Q: Something comes and covers it. Garbage.

M: You see, if you are on earth, you can say: a cloud covers the sun. But the sun doesn't know covering. It doesn't know the sensation I am covered up.

Q: OK. So that's important who is seeing.

M: Yes. When you say I'm covered up, it's as though I'm hidden from myself. I'm just getting you to look at it, it's very important actually. It's just through this subtle overlooking that this pain creeps in, this sense of separation, this sense of split in yourself. But when you really investigate it, it's exposed as a kind of fraud. You are just you. Yesterday we spoke about it, that the knife can cut so many things but it cannot cut itself because it is itself. And the eye can see so many things, but it cannot see itself because it is itself. And a scale can weigh so many things but it cannot weigh itself because it is itself. And you are yourself, you cannot perceive yourself. You can only perceive some idea of yourself. You are this unicity, you see. There is no split in you. Only by this function of the consciousness it appears as though you become something qualitative, something you can evaluate. But whatever you can see it cannot be you.

Q: Emptiness as well ?

M: Emptiness is only an idea at the present moment. A word in the consciousness. But it points to something actually that you intuitively feel. It's like the emptiness perceiving the emptiness somehow. Or consciousness perceiving consciousness. There is not really a form being observed in this. There is no words really adequate to convey. At this point you are at the very periphery of language even, and the words are exhausting the energy of themselves, because no words will do. Just this acknowledgement I am, but what I am I cannot say. You cannot define what this I amness is.

Any disturbance ?

Q: Yes, I'm feeling uncomfortable...

M: Don't feel it should not. Sometimes you feel: "Well I'd be fine if only..." Today we spoke one example: a friend rang "Allo, I wanted to say hello, how are you ?" - I'm fine, and you ? -Actually I'm still at work and it has been a very stressful day and I have another couple of hours to do, but it doesn't matter because I'll be at home and have a bath, and everything will be ok... - I said no, no, don't let your mind cheat you out of three hours ! why say "...and then" ? We're always doing this thing. "When the kids grow up, then I'll start living again, I'll have my life back !" "If only I could sort this mortgage..." When and then, always, this promise, you see. It's a thief. So I said: No, right now, you are. And instantly his response was: Thank you. He just needed this to catch again. It was enough, the argument stopped, you know. So sometimes this bubbling is going on, if you don't carress them, you can ignore it. It's like if you're cooking soup or some dhal is bubbling away. You turn the fire off, -still bubbling away. But eventually everything will calm down because the source, the fuel is exhausted, you see. So this unplugging is only your conviction: Whatever is arising, no, it's not me. Still, bll bll bll bll ! It will slow down. But you won't be waiting.

Q: I need you reminding me.

M: No, you don't need it. You enjoy it. You don't need anything. You enjoy being reminded. Thank you.