Be Yourself!   Om, shanti, shanti, shanti, om, peace. Good evening. It is an honor to be with you once again, to see you, talk to you, say my piece and go home. Beautiful evening. Nice breeze blowing. All is well. Everything’s in its right place. There are no mistakes. And you are all divine spiritual beings, whether you like it or not . It has come to my attention that many of you are trying to stop your thoughts, control your thoughts. You cannot really do this. Trying to stop your thoughts, as Ramana Maharshi says, is like a thief becoming a policeman to catch the thief. In other words, the thief that becomes the policeman will not catch the thief, because he’s a thief himself. And so it is with our minds. When we use the mind to stop the thoughts, the mind will not stop the thoughts at all, because the mind wants to go on living. Stopping the thoughts is annihilating the mind, and the mind does not wish to be annihilated. The mind wants to live on, to fill you full of nonsense, superstitions. Therefore we do not try to stop thoughts. What do we really do? We do absolutely nothing. There’s really nothing you have to do to make the thoughts cease. Always remember when you do things according to the sadhanas you've learned, the spiritual exercise you've practiced, the meditations, the yoga, this will make you free for a couple of moments, and then the thoughts will come back to you with full force, knocking you over. You cannot stop the mind or control the mind with spiritual practice. Again, you cause the thoughts to cease by doing absolutely nothing, by being your self. In all the scriptures we read, unless the mind stops spinning there will be no realization, no liberation. Only when the mind stops, the thoughts cease to be, is there liberation. Yet we use the words "To stop the mind," "to stop the thoughts." This is sort of a misnomer, for again you have to use the mind to stop the thoughts, and the mind does not want to do this. It does not wish to cease thinking. Yet by ceasing to think, you do acquire unalloyed happiness, infinite peace, divine bliss. When the thoughts do stop, these verities come forward, and you become free. You do not have to watch the thoughts, analyze the thoughts, be the witness to the thoughts, or observe the thoughts in any way whatsoever. All of these symptoms simply make the mind stronger, really. Most of you have tried to stop your thoughts with various methods like these for many years, and if you look back in retrospect you will see, it made the mind stronger. It caused the mind to have more power. Thoughts hit you from all directions. This means we do not wish to use any method whatsoever to stop thoughts. Yet the thoughts have to be stopped. They have to cease. By doing absolutely nothing, the mind will begin to slow down. When you think you have to watch your thoughts, observe your thoughts, you're saying to yourself, "I'm going to observe my thoughts, I'm going to watch my thoughts." You're using mind energy to do this, aren’t you? You're using energy to stop the thoughts and you'll never do it this way. But again if you do absolutely nothing, you just sit there, doing nothing, the thoughts will get weak. Now really, no sage on this earth or anywhere else, really stops the thoughts. As long as you see a body, and you call that body the sage, there will always be some sort of thinking in that body, some sort of thought. For instance, I can be sitting here and I'll say to myself, "When I go home I'm going to eat a dish of ice cream." This is a thought. But what happens when I say it and what happens when you say it? When I say it, when I think it, it is similar to a burnt rope. A burnt rope may appear to be strong, but when you pick it up it turns to ashes. It's burnt. There's nothing there. When you say it, it is like a real rope, that is not burnt. You give it energy, you give it power. Again when the sage thinks of something, it is like a fan that has been pulled out of the socket. It's still turning, but there's no power.. The power is dead. The power has been cut off. In other words, the thoughts of a saint are dead. The thoughts of the sage have no power, no power whatsoever. This is why it is said, a sage does not think. A sage has no thoughts. What it really means is that the sage's thoughts are dead. When the thoughts are dead, you live in absolute reality. You live in pure awareness. When the thoughts are dead you live in sat-chit-ananda, in nirvana. So what are you to do to also cease the thinking, so the thoughts can become dead? You simply do not attach yourself to the thoughts. By not attaching yourself to the thoughts, by not reacting to the thoughts, by not responding to the thoughts, they lose their power and begin to fade away. Yet do not give any energy. Do not give any power. Do not say to yourself, "I have to stop my thoughts." Do nothing like this. Just slow down. Slow down. Let the thoughts do what they may. Allow the thoughts to go their own way. Do nothing with your thoughts. Do not think about them. Do not fight them. And above all, do not try to stop them. You may think this is soft of difficult, but it's not. It's like when you first wake up, before the thoughts come. You're still drowsy from sleep. And when the first thoughts come to you, you hardly pay any attention to them. That's the attitude to have. Do not pay any attention to your thoughts whatsoever. But when you say, "I’m not paying attention to my thoughts," you spoil it. You're not to utter this. You're not to say this. You're just to become this. As you begin to let your thoughts alone, not to pay any attention to them, not to be attached to them, you'll notice something very interesting happening to you. You’ll begin to notice that you're becoming very peaceful, very calm. You become happy for no reason whatsoever. All of these dastardly things are still going on in this world, man's inhumanity to man, you have your own so called problems. Yet you become happy, you become peaceful, you become blissful. This comes all by itself, because your thoughts have slowed down. And you have had absolutely nothing to do with it. You, have not slowed your thoughts down. This is an important point to remember. You have not slowed your thoughts down. Not you, whatsoever. For you are the mind, and you have not used your mind to slow down your thoughts. You have done absolutely nothing, except to ignore your thoughts. Ignore the thoughts completely, totally, absolutely. Again, do not fight your thoughts. Ignoring your thoughts is not fighting your thoughts. Do not try to change your thoughts. Above all do not try to stop your thoughts. Just do not be attached to them, and ignore them. The example here is, what happens to your friends whom you ignore? If you have a friend and your friend is talking to you, telling you things, and you ignore your friend, what happens? The friend will walk away. The friend will go away and that will be the end of the friend. He or she will no longer be your friend, for you have ignored them totally, completely. You have not scolded them. You have not lectured your friend. You have not been evil to your friend. You have just ignored your friend. Your friend will back away and go away, because your friend gets no response from you whatsoever. This is how you want to treat your thoughts. Same way. It makes no difference if the thoughts are good or bad, they're both impostors. In reality there are no good thoughts, there are no bad thoughts. We're not trying to replace bad thoughts for good thoughts or good thought for bad thoughts. We're trying to leave the thoughts alone. Not to do a thing about them. I want to make this perfectly clear. This is the highest way to handle your thoughts. There are so many practices. You have Vipassana meditation. You have pranayama. You have so many different methods to stop your thoughts. All of these methods are good to an extent. They make you sort of one pointed, but they will not stop your thoughts. This is why people who have been practicing pranayamas, breathing exercises, Vipassana meditation, even Zen meditation, and other forms of yoga meditation, have been practicing for years, and years, and years and years. Perhaps they have achieved a semblance of peace, but they have not become liberated, due to the fact that they are using methods, whether it is a koan, or it's watching your breath or your feelings, or whether it's changing your thoughts to something positive, whatever you've been doing, you're using your mind to do it. And your mind will always fool you. It will make you believe you're getting somewhere, you're becoming something great. But it's really the ego. It is the ego that is controlling the mind, and you are the ego, the ego trying to control the mind. So again, what do you do to stop the thoughts? Absolutely nothing. Now why is the word nothing so important? You do absolutely nothing because in truth, everything is nothing. This is the reason you do nothing, to stop your thoughts. In reality there are no thoughts. There’s no one trying to stop them. There’s no liberation, there’s no bondage. There’s nothing. You're using the same nothing to stop your thoughts. Doing nothing, because you are nothing. Nothing plus nothing makes nothing. Can you see why I tell you to do nothing now? Because you're using your real nature when you do nothing. You are your self. You are the absolute reality when you are nothing. Consequently when you are doing something, to stop your thoughts, you're fooling yourself. Nothing will ever happen. But, like I say, you’ll acquire a little peace. That's it. But by slowing yourself down, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, doing nothing, being nothing, your thoughts will stop completely, totally, absolutely, and as I mentioned before, you will feel beautiful happiness, peace of mind, bliss. You'll be free. Practice this right now. Allow the thoughts to come, whatever they are. Do absolutely nothing. It makes no difference what the thoughts are. Let them come, no matter how much they seem to frighten you, no matter how powerful they appear to be, let them come. Where do the thoughts come from to begin with? They come from nowhere. They do not come from consciousness. They do not come from true awareness. They do not come from the self. Where do the thoughts come from? From nowhere. They're an optical illusion. They do not exist. They’re like the appearance of the sky on top of the mountain. The sky appears to be resting on top of the mountain, but it's an optical illusion. Thoughts do not exist, whatsoever. Therefore you ask yourself, "Who’s thinking?" and you will find out, the ego is thinking. So here’s another point. When the thoughts slow down, so does the ego. The thoughts and the ego are synonymous. As the thoughts slow down, the ego slows down, and begins to also disappear with the thoughts. When there are no thoughts, there’s no ego. When there’s no ego, there’s nobody left to think. Then the question you will ask is, "How do I function without thinking?’ As I mentioned in the beginning, the sage's thoughts are like a burnt rope. They appear to be real, but they’re not. In other words, your thoughts are not real. They are false. How do you function without thoughts? Very well, thank you. Many of you still believe you have to have thoughts to function. You think you'll become a vegetable, but you will be spontaneous without thoughts. You'll be motivated by the self. You will know what to do, where to go, whom to speak to, whom not to speak to, much better than you do now. Much, much better. Things will happen to you spontaneously. Everything we always talk about is very paradoxical, and the paradox here is, even though you have no thoughts, you will still think about certain things. It has to be done. But there’s absolutely no thinker alive. There’s no thinker. There is no one left to think, yet you still appear to be thinking about certain things, so you can function. It's similar to what we were discussing on Sunday. People always ask me, "What do you see? Do you see the world?" Of course I see the world. If I didn't see the world, I wouldn't be able to function. But I see the world as the self. In other words, I see the world as images on reality, like in the movies, the images on the screen. I’m able to see the screen and the images at the same time. I see reality and I see the images. So it is with the thoughts, the same thing with the thoughts. You appear to be thinking, but you're not thinking. This is a very important point to remember. You will think whatever you have to think about, but the thoughts will be dead, like the burnt rope, like the fan with the plug pulled out, but the blades are still spinning, until they stop. Why do you want to do all this? For life passes. Pretty soon you become old, and you appear to die. Do you want to believe this lie, that you die, that you get old, that there are problems in this world? This is all a lie. It's the mortal dream. Do not identify with the mortal dream. Know who you are once and for all. You are that which was never born, which does not prevail, and can never die. You are that which is beyond all concepts, all reasoning, all thoughts. You are that which has always existed as pure awareness. You are that which is not female or male, which is neither good nor bad, which is neither right or wrong, which just is. Beauty, joy, love, harmony, peace, bliss, this is your real nature, this is who you are. Why not accept this and become free, right now? It all begins by removing your thoughts. Now you have an idea how to remove your thoughts, get rid of your thinking process. You have to do it. You now know you have absolutely nothing to fight in this world, nothing to fear. It makes no difference what's happening to the economy. It makes no difference if there are earthquakes, cataclysms, hurricanes. What do you have to do with these things? What do these things have to do with you? You are the source of all creation. In this gap that I give you between sentences, at that time you are in samadhi. Every time I stop talking, you are in samadhi. Feel your divinity. Feel your bliss. Feel your love. Feel the truth, reality. Clean yourself out. Feel all the karmas, the samskaras, all the things you’ve carried around with you for so many centuries, flowing away from you, completely and totally. You are absolutely free right now. Absolutely free. Absolutely free.