An Invitation to Freedom

Can I take it for granted that all of you here, and also looking via broadcasting, all of you sitting outside and wherever you are hearing my voice now, that you have come open and with the purpose of discovering your true Self? I will ask you for feedback now and again, because we have to move in this way. This search for Truth is not merely an idea to have in your head, as something that you believe, but it must be experiential also. Is it true? Yes. And also for you who are watching, the same thing. So, if I would assume that you have come, and each one of you now, you say inside, you have come and you have said, Mooji, I hear that you can help me or guide me into my true nature, what is here, what is original to me. And I have come for this. I want to be in this. Because my person doesn't really work. It doesn't bring the joy and the completeness that I hear you speak about. I feel quite unfulfilled in that respect. But I know and I believe that there are awakened beings on this planet. They have always been. And I want to be one of them. I want to be awake to who I am. Not as a novelty, but as just my life has come to this. I feel that it is my good fortune in this life to desire and to aspire for liberation. Would I take this to be so? Yes. So, I say to you, OK, then, I am in this certain space, a room of my own being, this being, where we all are. Just like when you came into this room, into this hall, this mandir, you left your shoes outside. I say, Please leave your shoes outside. But also, I want you to leave your mind outside. I say like this, Leave your mind outside. And you say, But how can I leave my ...? That is the very thing I want to get rid of. How can I leave my mind outside? So I say, Don't worry. It is very simple what I mean by that. Before you come in, as you leave your shoes outside, I want you to just suspend your thoughts about the past. Leave everything about the past outside for a moment. Because after we finish our exercise and invitation, you can go and take them back. I don't want them. Nobody wants them. I don't think anybody else wants them. Not even your parents don't want all of that stuff. But it will be there waiting for you. So just suspend that for a while. Leave all the thoughts about the past, the memories, and all of that, and who you take yourself to be, and what you were like when you were 18, or whatever it is, and what you have done before, where you have studied, what meditations. We don't need to know that. So just leave that, the empty of that, leave that outside. And also, any thoughts you may have about the future, we don't need to engage with that. We won't talk about that. Because no one really knows what the future will be. You may have some idea, but it will not be experienced in that way. So don't hold on to any idea about the future for me. Leave everything. So, past and future, also leave. And the present moment, it doesn't need any interpretation. Just leave it alone. Just leave everything. Can we agree on this? Yes. Sure? OK. So we are just going to suspend that for the duration of this invitation. Afterwards, you can take them back, all those things. Also, your idea of yourself, who you are, your identity, and all of this type of thing, we can just suspend that. I don't want to know about that. Just be very empty, empty, empty. And then come in, and just be here. You are in a space where you are simply empty. You are not carrying any information about yourself. Just be empty, empty, empty. It is all left. And I won't be giving you any new concepts now, to replace old ones. Just be completely empty of identity, of past, of future, of even present. Don't be thinking about anything. You are simply here, empty, empty, empty. Just like an empty room. Nobody inside, just empty. And if I say to you, Don't think about what is next. No next. Like, OK, now what are we going to do? Just don't be concerned about that. Leave that for me. We are simply here. No expectations, no past, no future, no present. What is happening now? Just leave everything. You don't need any imagination, or any kind of creative thinking. So, just empty. All can do this. Totally empty. And leave it. Don't go back to pick something. Just leave everything here. Let it fall completely now. You are so empty, and you are not in a state of hypnosis. Just clear, like an empty room. Now, I am going to open up this room, take away the walls also, and windows and doors, everything. There is not even a definition of this room. It is just open space. And you are still here, aren't you? Yes. Now, I needed to ask you to do this, to let this just be. Don't hold on to anything, so that you can be clear that you still exist. Your existence is still present. And the senses are still present. They are fine. But there is no information. It is almost like there is a camera with no film or SD card in it. It is completely empty. Just like this. Beautiful. But your being is here. Now, this that remains by itself, this space, I don't know what the word is. There is no particular word for it. I call it the Is-ness, what is the Self. Does it have any colour? Please answer me. No. No colour in there. Or shape, or size? No. Does it have any weight? No. No weight. Can it be touched? No, it cannot be touched. Can it be photographed, for instance? No, it cannot be photographed. Can it fade, disappear? Can it be confused? Does it have fear? Are there any judgements there? Is it religious? Stay in this emptiness. Can it be blocked in any way? No. Does it have any desire? Was it born? Are you sorry? No, it is not born. Can it grow? Can it be manipulated? Here is a good one. No. Can it die? Is there anywhere where it is not? How about, how much distance exists between yourself and it? A few centimetres, perhaps? No distance, no separation? Does it have a personality? So, hang on a second, let's check again. You are saying, it has no size, no shape, no colour, it has no weight, it cannot be shown, it cannot be photographed, it cannot be blocked. Can it go away? Are you imagining all of this? No. You are not imagining this. It cannot be confused, it cannot be depressed, it cannot be broken. There is no distance between yourself and it. And with one voice you are saying this, no rehearsal, then it means, this can only be your Self. This can only be what you are. It was not born, it cannot die, it does not grow, it was not imagined. I am only returning to you, what you have agreed, what you say. Is this true? Let's just take a few seconds and just sit with this, what we have just shared now. Where did it come from? Did it come? Can it go? It can only be what you are. And it must be universally so. Because never has it been that a group of beings, coming from different places, different backgrounds, different ages, perhaps different religions, can come together and answer questions without opinions. And it all tallies up. And the reason for that is that you are not answering from your mind, but from direct experience inside your heart. Could I be right in saying this? Because from the mind you will be giving your opinion. I would say, this is yellow. You would say, no, it is more orange. This is opinions. What if what you have just answered is true? Let's just take a few seconds. And you may change your mind if you want. Well, it wasn't your mind, was it? You are no distance from this. It cannot ... It is not born. It cannot die. It cannot fade. It cannot be manipulated. It cannot be depressed. Can it be lost? Let's just marinate in this for a moment. And are you sure you are not under a spell? And it is clear for you that this is so? So may I ask you, is there anything wrong in your life? Did you have to do any kind of intense spiritual exercise for this? That is simply incredible. Now, it was very important that you see this for yourself, inside your own heart, that it has not been grafted on from one place to another place. Because what you have seen inside your heart, you cannot unsee. Have you accepted this invitation? Well, for those of you who feel you want to go and take your things back from outside, of course, you are free to do this, as was agreed. Now, having come to such a profound seeing, nevertheless, your mind is going to come back with all the force it can muster to raise doubts in you, to show why you are not ready for this, to threaten, and I want to tell you about it. Not because the mind has any power of its own. It does not have power of its own. In the beginning, all the power was with you. But gradually, we imparted power to the mind by believing its suggestions, its ideas. And so, little by little, we began to accept its judgements, its fears, the insecurities, and so on. And they got a little bit embedded somewhere in consciousness. It is fine. It is fine. Because you are beyond that also. But because of long association and habit, these forces will begin to come to the surface, and they must do. And you will find that your attention goes back into the old regime of identity, and thinking, and so on. And you will doubt yourself, as we have done a very long time ago, how all of this started. But now, you have walked through the forest of personhood. And something inside has matured enough to have caused you to come here. Now you must hold firm in this understanding, when the tree of the mind begins to shake. It is as though we have within us the capacity to go towards the dark, or towards the light. But also, the real knowledge that you are the unmoving one, that going towards left or right only was necessary in the play of manifestation, where we took the role of personhood for a time, and began to interact with other beings in this theatre of consciousness, of diversity. It is how the play of good and evil could creep into the manifest world. But now you have the sword of truth with you, to cut the lie, to expose the unreal, and to remain as the unchanging. Your mind will bring up ideas that you are crazy, that you are wasting your time, that this is not for you, this is not your path. I am telling you ahead of time, so that you know that you always have the advantage. Why? Because you are already the Self. It is only a question of where the attention is directed, or is habituated towards. Because even your attention is not you. The attention is watched to go this way and that way. Be in the place of the watching. If you stay here with the most purest, quintessential attention, then everything else, the mind will follow and come here, be here. What I am saying to you may feel challenging in the beginning, but this is a bridge we must all cross. Do you follow? It is a bridge that is short, but the more you prolong and go back to personhood, it is like the bridge will seem to keep extending. All that I am saying now is in the play. You are beyond the play as the What Is. And yet, at the same time, you must walk in this play. Do you follow? Because it will come. We have families, we have a world, we have a job, we have things. That makes sense, in a way, in the manifest functioning of consciousness. Consciousness uses it for some reason, to keep the garden of life alive, active, and producing the fruits it wants. You must know your dynamic life and your essential being. But now, you have been shown, and you are in the experience of your original Self. So, we are aware of the dynamic play, and also the non-dynamic Self. This is the most important discovery. In my words, I say that this is the most important discovery in the human kingdom. Even if you could build spaceships to go to all the planets, it will not compare to this. As yet, maybe you are not able to appreciate what you are discovering now. It will keep on growing inside you, more and more bright, more and more intense, more and more profound, if you keep your attention and your presence here. But it is as though an old voice, a serpent's voice, calls us, come, come, come back to the familiar, come back to the past, come back to the person. And it can sometimes be so strong, because it will not come through your strength. It will try and come through your weakness. But you are going to remember, are there any weaknesses in the What Is? Are there any weaknesses in the What Is? No. Is it personal? No. This is your place. A place, while you have the sense that you are a phenomenal entity, that you are a person, you will forget your Self. Do you follow this or not? And you have the experience to back up what I am saying. While we keep believing in our Self as a person, and what you may call our context of personhood, we will tend to forget, so to speak, our Self. The more you put your attention here in the What Is-ness, you will continue to grow in appreciation for what it is. You will begin to love what it is. You will know what it is in your heart. And you will be what it is. A little time of curing, because each one must become fully cured of the delusion of personhood. Do we understand this? Do you see it or not? So like this, you will continue to look. The storms of the mind will come, the tornadoes will come, the waves will come from time to time, but you will hold your ground in the Is-ness. So now I will use a metaphor that you came and you spoke about, this metaphor about the example of the currency. I use it because I think it is a very useful one. And it goes like this, because in some countries, particularly in Europe, your old currency may be a certain kind of currency, and sometimes the government decides they are going to change, they join the EU or something, and they are going to change currency. So the national currency is going to come from, say, lira to euros, or from pounds to euros, or something. Can you follow like this for a moment? And what tends to happen is that they say, from such and such a date, we will officially declare that our currency is going to be euros, or something. But we are brought up to be used to pounds, shillings and pence, or liras, or something. So all your value system is in the old currency. Do you follow? So when the new currency comes, some people have not adapted yet. And so they will say, how much a pound of tomatoes is? How much? They say, what? Two euros. What is that in the old money? And we have to go back to the old system to try and see if you are being cheated or not. Because many people think, with this new money, it is a new way of cheating us. So they go, what is in the old money? OK, that is OK. So they pay the new money. So it takes a certain time to get accustomed to the new currency. I am calling it, what is a new currency. It is a very cheap kind of example, but it has to serve for them. I don't know a better one yet. So we are coming from the old way and find that in the new way. So for a while, it may take a little while before you get used to the Is-ness. Living as Is-ness is like a change from manual to automatic. Some people drive only manual, and some people just ... Automatic. So the more you are moving to automatic, the more spontaneous existence. Will you need to use your mind? Yes, of course, for practical things and so on. But you will not go there for who you are. You will not go into the region of the mind about who you are. It is not necessary. It is a poor job. But for practical things, of course, the mind is used for things like this, because it doesn't leave a bad smell then. Gradually, by itself, you will find your way. Maybe for some people, in a short space of time, somehow everything comes clear. And for others, maybe another year is still ... Yes, but Mooji, I have this problem. What are you talking about? Did you accept the invitation or not? Yes, I did. But what? This thing keeps happening to me. Who? Can anything happen to the What Is? No, no. I go back to my person. Each time you go back to the person, you will feel this kind of, I can't cope, things are too difficult, I don't know what to do, and so on. When you stay in the place of the What Is, where will you find this What Is place? How far do you have to go to get back to the What Is? Any idea? No distance. So it is a question of just habit. The more you are aware and stay in the What Is-ness, gradually the old identity will merge naturally into the What Is-ness. The more you go back trafficking, the more you still ... It is the What Is plus, Mr. Me. Do we follow or not like that? So, this being said now, you will find that questions keep coming now. How to, what if, and so on will come. But for now, I want that we simply digest and absorb, assimilate, marinate in this that is taking place now. That is the most important part of this retreat, and it will be repeated, it will be pointed out to you from time and again. This is your greatest friend, your greatest teacher and guide. Walk with it. Be with it. This time, you have chosen this time, and you have been chosen for this time also. And to give this space, the most important, to Self-discovery. And so, use your time, because everything you discover here can be worth a thousand points. In every way you will see that something will keep expanding. Not the What Is, but your sense of being, your wisdom, joy, peace, all of this will be expanding more and more. And what do you have to do for that? Abide in the What Is.