West LA Weekly Satsang January-4-2017

THE KNOWER AND THE KNOWN

"If you know the misery in your mind, if you are aware of the misery in your mind, you are the
Knower of the misery in your mind. And being the Knower you cannot be miserable. You are the
Knower of the misery in your mind; you must be separate from the misery in your mind.

You are the Knower of the misery in your mind, you are not miserable. There's a world of
difference in saying 'I am miserable' and in saying 'I am having (meaning experiencing. -mj)
miserable thoughts.' There's a thought of sadness and suffering in my mind and I am sad and I am
suffering. There's a world of difference between the two. [The latter] creates that all important gap
between yourself and the mind.

TRAP: And then the thought/feeling comes, 'aha, now I am peaceful?' No! You are the Knower of
the peace in your mind, you are not peaceful! Do you see the trap here? The moment the mind
calms down, I own it again and I close the gap between the mind and myself.” -Swami
Sarvapriyananda

OUR TOPIC THIS EVENING: “THE POWER OF NOTICING”

Noticing what? Noticing how you slip into the jiva suit (your illusory identity, the
narrative/story/voice in the head that claims it is you, that x,y, and z is a problem and until it gets
sorted out you can't possibly be happy/at peace, etc.) without realizing it. This fear based mind
made entity is not you. As Eckhart Tolle says, "You are not the voice in the head, but the one who
hears it."

But Eckhart's pointer is of no benefit until you see/notice IN YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE what he is
saying. In other words, are you your thoughts or do you have thoughts? There is a world of
difference between having something and being something. If you believe you are your thoughts,
then you have to suffer because every thought is a limitation, and thus not what you truly are.

The thing about noticing is that you have to actually do it. Just reading about or thinking it sounds
like a good idea won't yield its amazing fruits. You have to actually do it, as in notice (and, imo, you
cannot notice too much or too often) that there is no hope for the jiva as its death is certain. This is
the fact that the jiva doesn't want to look at head on. However, what if it's noticed that you are not
the jiva and never have been? And once you notice this you keep on noticing until it becomes more
and more your direct experience. -Michael Jeffreys