- I am, you know, that without
adding any qualifiers to it, without adding anything to the I am, it's a pure sense of being, which is I am. Some people hate themselves. I don't like my body. I don't like where I am. I don't like this. An awful way to live, I hate myself. It's much better to love yourself. So in new age teachings,
you learn to let go of this dysfunctional
relationship with yourself. And then this is a good thing. It's much better to love
yourself than to hate yourself. So, but you have to
achieve that transition. It's not easy. If the hating yourself
has been deeply ingrained, you may have to put little
stickers on your bathroom mirror, I love myself. Oh yes. And everywhere. You are lovable. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yes. And again, this is fine. It's a transitional stage. It's not the final stage. Sometimes a new age
thinks it's a final stage. It's a lovely transitional stage, but really it's the stage of awakening is that you begin to let
go of having a relationship with yourself so that
you can just be yourself, and you have to be in the present moment in order to be yourself. And that is, you can sometimes learn by looking at an animal, the animal is at a pre-egoic stage. What we are moving to or
into is a post-egoic stage. Now, the animal like
your dog, is pre-egoic. The dog has consciousness, but
not conceptual consciousness. The dog does not operate
through mental concepts. In other words, the dog does
not have an opinion about you. Isn't that, that's why
you love the dog so much? And also the dog does
not have a relationship with himself or herself. Humans have, but I have
not met a single dog that has a problem with
self-esteem, for example. I have not met a single dog that has a problem with body image. Even the ugliest dog is okay. Because the split hasn't happened yet. The split into me and myself so the dog, this is why the dog often is often joyful. The slightest thing you sometimes you go, if the you have a dog,
you go away for 10 minutes and you come back home. The dog acts if you had
been away for 10 years. He's so happy. And the happy is contagious a little bit. The happiness of a dog, the
wagging tail of the dog. Why is the dog so happy? Because the dog does not have a self. The dog is him/her/itself. The dog is and then the
tail goes, life is good. If the dog could say something, it would say life is good. In the present moment,
just give me my food and then it's even better. So the humans, they love
to be with their animals because it gives them a little bit of a little glimpse of self-transcendence. Because when they look
into the eyes of the dogs, they're not being judged. And that feels good. And you can sense by looking at the eyes you can sense the being of the dog. Well now, the dog, what you really love in just an example, dog, cat, what you really love in the dog is not the outer surface of the dog. Although it's lovely to
the touch and all that. Yes. But you know, there is
something that you cannot see that you relate to when you
look into the eyes of a dog. That is the essence of the dog. What you love is actually
the consciousness of the dog, which has no ego in it. It exists at a pre-egoic state. You love the consciousness of the dog. And when you look in the eyes of it you feel a little bit, you connect a little
bit to that in yourself for a few seconds. When you're not, you don't
need any defense mechanism or anything like that
when you relate to a dog. Although there are some
humans with huge egos, I have observed a few who relate to their pet through their ego. But that's another story. And that's a sad story. They have an ego relationship. I knew a woman who would, in the evenings would put food out. So her cat would go out. The cat would be in the garden, and she had the window open. That was a neighbor of mine years ago. And she would put the food out. And this woman had a
very accomplished person but a grand ego. She would put the cat
food for her cat out. And then if the cat didn't come because cat have many things
to do out in the garden and it was dinner time for the cat and she put the plate there and she was sitting there
waiting for the cat to come, and 15 minutes passed. And then she said okay. Then she would close the window, said if she doesn't want to see me, I don't want to see her. Oh my God. She has an ego relationship with her cat. So a relationship with yourself that eventually is transcended
so that you can simply be in the present moment, not, and let's go deeper now, so that in the present moment, which is a portal into the awakened state in this present moment, let's see who or what are
you in the present moment without reference to any thought, without reference to any
thought about who you are. That's an interesting pointer. In other words, what does it feel like to be yourself without
remembering your past or thinking about the future, just in this moment? You don't need to remember
your email address or anything. It's not necessary now or
what you ate yesterday. Without reference to past and future, what does it, do you disappear or what is left of you without the memory, the narrative that usually
you describe as my life? Without that memory of that you
need to revive continuously. Without that, what does
it feel like to be you? And I cannot answer that. I can only give it to you as a pointer and slow down a little bit as I talk so that you can perhaps inquire, investigate internally what it feels like. What is the most essential
thing about your identity? Are you still there when you don't think about your life like now. Are you still there? And what is that? I'm not going to answer it and I don't expect a conceptual answer. So that's me. Hmm, there was a ancient
spiritual teacher in India who his favorite meditation
was asking his disciples to ask themselves, who am I? You can also ask yourself what am I? Who or what, what am I? What am I? But don't answer it verbally, but feel or sense what it
means to be alive or to be you. What am I? There's a gap in the stream of thinking. Then what is there when there's a gap in the stream of thinking like now? And in that gap, there's a stillness. Yes. There's also a sense of there's something there
but it's hard to describe. There's a sense of presence, of beingness. And in that sense of
presence of beingness, you know that you are. You know you can say I am. You know that without
adding any qualifiers to it, without adding anything to the I am, it's the pure sense of
being, which is I am. It's very peaceful. You need an alertness to sustain
it just for a little bit. Without the alertness, you
will immediately fall back into the stream of thinking. But it's not, you don't use willpower to stop your thinking mind. That doesn't really work. So you don't hold your breaths
in order to stop thinking. That does, it might
work for a little while but then you think even more. It's like a boiling kettle, hold the lid on the boiling kettle. Just the alertness. And so Jesus said, as I
said at the beginning, and what I say to you, I
say to all, stay awake. In some translations, it's
translated as stay alert. What I say to you, I
say to all, stay alert. That alertness is
consciousness without thought. It seems at first just to be an absence. It seems at first like, okay, stillness one would say
is the absence of noise in a stillness, in absence. It might seem at first
as a kind of nothingness. And yet if you stay
with it for a little bit just a few more seconds, stay alert, then you can sense it's not
just the absence of something, it's also the presence of something. But not so much the presence of something, but the sense of presence itself, not of something. (waterfall rushing)
