37. Beyond Pain and Pleasure there is Bliss

You must realise first of all that you are the proof of everything, including yourself. None can prove your existence, because his existence must be confirmed by you first. Your being and knowing you owe nobody. Remember, you are entirely on your own. You do not come from somewhere, you do not go anywhere. You are timeless being and awareness.

Give up the idea of being what you think yourself to be. By imagining yourself as separate you have created the gap. You need not cross it. Just don't create it. All is you and yours. There is nobody else. This is a fact.

What matters is the idea you have of yourself, for it blocks you. Give it up.

You must not be compelled to think the same thoughts again and again. Move on! Don't be childish! Easier to change, than to suffer. Grow out of your childishness, that is all. Everything happens all the time, but you must be ready for it. Readiness is ripeness. You do not see the real because your mind is not ready for it.

Unready means afraid. You are afraid of what you are. Your destination is the whole. But you are afraid that you will lose your identity. This is childishness, clinging to the toys, to your desires and fears, opinions and ideas. Give it all up and be ready for the real to assert itself. This self-assertion is best expressed in words: 'I am'. Nothing else has being. Of this you are absolutely certain.

Before pain was, you were. After pain had gone, you remained. Pain is transient, you are not.

All experience subsides with the mind. Without the mind there can be no experiencer nor experience. The witness merely registers the presence or absence of experience. It is not an experience by itself, but it becomes an experience when the thought: 'I am the witness' arises.

Call it silence, or void, or abeyance, the fact is that the three - experiencer, experiencing, experience - are not. In witnessing, in awareness, self-consciousness, the sense of being this or that, is not. Unidentified being remains.

Your difficulty stems from the idea that reality is a state of consciousness, one among many. You tend to say: "This is real. That is not real. And this is partly real, partly unreal", as if reality were an attribute or quality to have in varying measures.

All consciousness is limited and therefore painful. At the root of consciousness lies desire, the urge to experience. Beyond pain and pleasure there is bliss. Body means burden. Sensations, desires, thoughts - these are all burdens. All consciousness is of conflict.

Pain and pleasure happen, but pain is the price of pleasure, pleasure is the reward of pain. In life too you often please by hurting and hurt by pleasing. To know that pain and pleasure are one is peace. As long as there is consciousness, there must be pleasure and pain. It is in the nature of the 'I am', of consciousness, to identify itself with the opposites.

What the mind created, the mind must destroy.

Without words, what is there to understand? The need for understanding arises from mis-understanding. What I say is true, but to you it is only a theory.

How will you come to know that it is true? Listen, remember, ponder, visualise, experience. Also apply it in your daily life. Have patience with me and, above all have patience with yourself, for you are your only obstacle.

The way leads through yourself beyond yourself. As long as you believe only the particular to be real, conscious and happy and reject the non-dual reality as something imagined, an abstract concept, you will find me doling out concepts and abstractions. But once you have touched the real within your own being, you will find me describing what for you is the nearest and the dearest.