Audio Transcript
I didn’t begin my life as a teacher. I began as a boy who had this incredible pull towards this vastness, this unnamed totality. And this pull towards spirituality, towards trying to know the reality, enlightenment, or whatever you call it, took me through a lot of different paths and a lot of different teachers. So I spent the next two decades roaming around the Himalayas, being in ashrams, being with a lot of sages, teachers, monks, spiritual people.
And the journey was both amazing and difficult. It was difficult because when you are trying to become conscious and awake, you are going against the grain of society. And you’re also going against the grain of your own ego, which is pretty challenging. And it’s exhilarating and amazing because you get to see the states of infinity, the states of immensity. You can touch that sacredness, you can touch that wholeness, that completeness, which all of us want, which all of us desire.
So this search took me to various teachers in the Himalayas across India. And one of the teachers I met, he used to live in the Himalayas at around 10,000 feet, which is pretty high. There’s a place called Gangotri. And it’s so cold that it’s covered with snow and it’s only open for four months in a year. So during the summers, winters for ages, the entire population moves down. There’s no one there.
Now this sage, Dinesh Anand, he stayed in that place, Gangotri, even during the winters in a cave. But that’s not the amazing part. He was one of the naked sages. He had no clothes on. And he stayed there for a couple of years. And when I was in Gangotri, the locals revered him a lot because for them, someone staying through the winter was unheard of. So I asked a few locals, you know, how did he stay in winters? So they said we used to give him all the rations and food supplies and et cetera, et cetera. And sometimes there would be someone who would come in for some time and help in and then go off. But again, the roads were closed. I’m not sure how they came in, trekking. So I had the good fortune of being with him for a long time.
So the first time I met him, it was in 2003. And I was a young seeker. And in my mind, in my heart, all I wanted was enlightenment. All I wanted was this reality ,God, the mystery. So I went to this teacher and he lived near the banks of the Ganga. And so I remember evening, I walked down and he was pretty old, simply dressed. And I met him. I did my prostrations. And then the first question I asked him was, how do I find reality? How do I find the truth?
To my amazement, he started laughing. And he said, how can I show you the way to yourself? Which was pretty puzzling for me, you know, I was a young seeker. And then he gave me a few examples. He said, you’re like a drunk person who’s sitting in his home and wanting to go back to his home. If you’re already home, I can never show you the way back. Of course, he was pointing to something which my young mind could not grasp. It took me decades to understand what he was pointing at. What was he trying to say?
And then there was another sage I met. His name was Ajjah. Ajjah in local language means grandfather. When I met him, he was 19. And I came across him through Andrew Cohen’s interview. So Andrew Cohen at that time was running the book called What Is Enlightenment? And he published a lot of interviews with other enlightened people. And I read it and I said, I need to meet this guy. So again, I had the good fortune of being with him for a long time.
And he was like Nisargadatta, if you know the sage, pretty fiery, pretty on your face. And even at 90, he was full of energy. And again, we used to have a lot of discussion. He only spoke the local language, so there was a translator. So I again used to ask him similar questions about reality and how to find that totality, what is a path. So one fine day, he questioned me back. He asked me, why are you seeking? What is it that is making you seek?
And that was a question which I had never thought about deeply. So it arrested my mind. Of course, I couldn’t give him an answer then and there, but I thought. And you know what I realized? Two decades of seeking was fueled with one underlying subconscious thought or desire that I’m not enough.
I’m not enough spiritually. I’m not enough awake. I’m not conscious enough. I’m not peaceful enough. I’m not calm enough in the wake of anger. I’m not desireless enough. The list can go on and on. I’m not complete enough. I’m not whole enough.
And that realization made me question the search itself. Why don’t I feel enough? What is this insufficiency that we all have? If you’re here in the room and most of you are here, you’re looking for something. You’re looking for an answer. And that insufficiency can take a lot of forms, not only spiritual. You might feel I don’t have enough money, enough security, enough love, relationship, health. This not enough can take innumerable forms, right?
So this was like a shock to my system. And though I thought, you know, I’m following the path, I’m doing all the right things. I’m meditating for hours, reading, going around. I never questioned this lack in myself. Where did it come from? Who created this sense of incompleteness in me?
And one of the answers that I found out was, of course, society with all its dysfunction. Parents, the spiritual teachers themselves. And this might be strange, but whenever you are sitting down in meditation or when you compare your present state, where you are, you’ll always think, oh, Ramana was here, or Nisargadatta was here, or that Buddha was here. Where am I? So again, you are comparing yourself to an image and you say, I’m lacking. I’m not enough. I want to be there where these people were.
And this is the entire journey, entire truth, which I learned the hard way, being with all the sages. Now, why is this thought process so universal and why is it a problem? See, the problem is right now you’re here. You think I need something and that something can be enlightenment. It can be anything. It can be material, spiritual. I don’t care. It is something.
And you say, I’m not enough here, not complete here. I will be enough here in the future. You are introducing time as a way of being complete. Right. You’re saying in time, when I have whatever enough, I will be complete. Now, that is the biggest illusion. If you see any of the teachers, no matter what the teacher you follow, the first teaching is the reality is here. It is here. It’s not in the future.
But this not enough creates a movement. It makes present a waiting room. And the future is your destination. But I question myself. What if I give up this image, this thought that I’m not enough, this thought of not measuring myself with any image? May it be the image of Buddha or Krishnamurti or Ramana or an image I have of myself in my head. Because without an image, things are just things. There’s no judgment I’m enough or not.
So that was a journey I took. And eventually, one fine day after 23 years of walking the path, I gave up the search for enlightenment. I just dropped it. I gave it up. I said, I’m done with it. Instead, I will try to accept and be here with the what is. I don’t want to be in the future anymore. I don’t want to look at or find a state which will make me perfect.
Now, the strange part was, and this is very paradoxical, and you might believe me or not, the moment you stop looking, the moment you find it, and those who have read my stories and those who have been with me for a long time know that I experienced a lot of spiritual states in between those 20 years. You know, bliss, the feeling of expansion, the feeling of oneness, universal consciousness, they came and they went.
But when I dropped the thought that I’m not enough, and then I have to improve myself and become something else, so whenever I say I’m not enough, I’m not complete, I want to become something else. I’m not happy with this here and now. Something is missing. So again, you’re creating that movement from here to the future.
But when I dropped that, something incredible happened. That immensity, that ache, that oneness which the boy was looking for all these years, it spontaneously arose without any effort. That immensity arose on its own. And so this is a lesson I learnt not only from the sages, from my own long experience.
And this is the reason I’ve asked you all to put this label, I’m not enough. So many of you would be wondering, why am I wearing this label? It’s to bring up to the surface, to your consciousness, this entire process where we as human things, we are not enough. And we do have a critical, I call it a parrot on our shoulder, which keeps squawking, you’re not enough, you’re not done enough, you’re not meditated enough, you’re not pure enough, you’re not as good as your neighbour, you’re not beautiful, you don’t have enough money.
So we have this squawking parrot on our shoulder. I wanted to bring that squawking parrot out in the open, there’s no shame in it, it’s there. And when you look at all of us together in a room wearing this label, there’s so much of lack in this very room, there’s so much of incompleteness in this very room. That’s a fact.
Now I want you to do a small exercise, just take a minute. Maybe look at your neighbour face to face, see their face, see the label, but it will be very awkward, very, very difficult because you know you’re looking at him with the label and you know you’re wearing the same label yourself. So you know he’s incomplete and you know on some level, he knows that you are also incomplete, you see.
So maybe let’s take a minute to just look at each other and accept and analyse that. It’s uncomfortable but the spiritual path is about uncomfortable feelings. How was it? Was it a pleasant exercise, easy, tough? Uncomfortable? Anyone wants to say how the exercise was? Was it easy, tough? He says it was uncomfortable. Was it easy for someone? Very easy? Tough? What does it invoke in you? Anyone? Yes. To look into somebody’s eyes like that. Yes, it is. It’s not something we do on a regular basis. Right.
And so we need to realise, even if you’re not wearing this label, everyone has this label here. Everyone. It’s a society of lack we live in. And if you see the advertisements and social media, it says the same thing, you know, buy this, you’re incomplete. If you buy the next purchase, you’ll be whole, complete and happy.
Of course, the materialistic, capitalistic society has a part to play and how we are brought up has a part to play in making us feel incomplete. Materially, that’s one part. And then we read all the spiritual books and we say, oh, this guy had such a great experience. This guy is here. This woman is here. Why am I not there? Again, the spiritual incompleteness.
Now we come to the next part. And this is a very important part of the entire talk. Is it possible to give up this conditioning? Is it possible for me right now to say, I’m enough. I don’t need anything. I don’t need to improve myself. I don’t need to become someone else. I don’t need more money. I don’t need more security. I don’t need more love. I don’t need more beauty. Don’t need more people around me. I’m done. I’m whole and complete.
Now, you see, when you even think of it, you’ll have resistance. The mind will resist deeply. The ego will say, no, no, no. There’s so many things to do. There’s money. There’s things I need. What I realized with my contemplation is the ego has this fear that if I accept I’m enough, I will stop growing. I will stop achieving. I will stop having more. I will be a no one. No one’s going to love me anymore. Right?
So we have to see this entire process of the ego which comes up because till you do not on some level question this conditioning, this thought, you will not find contentment. I tried it for many years. So you should learn from my experience that it won’t be possible.
But the moment you start seeing on some level in accepting and the ego resists, you’ll have to make the ego or the mind understand that I can do everything from a sense of wholeness. What I mean is I am complete. I’m whole. I’m bubbling. And I do self-improvement. What’s wrong in that? Rather than coming from a place of lack, I earn money. But can it be from a place of completeness and fullness and enough rather than from a place of fear and want?
Now this is a question you’ll have to ask yourself. And again, whenever you try to do this, I had intense fear. Because for me, of course, my mindset was not materially geared. So I come from a family of businessmen. My father had a real estate or has a real estate empire. I was supposed to carry on that legacy, but I was least interested in money. That was the last thing on my mind. And because of that, I faced ostracization from my society. And it was pretty traumatic. I was young at that time.
So money wasn’t an issue for me, but spirituality was. And the moment I say I’m enough, I stop seeking. Then what about my spiritual identity? What about enlightenment, which I have been wanting and craving for so long? And all of you will have a hook which you’re craving for. It can be peace. It can be healing. It can be getting rid of anxiety, depression, love. You’ll have something or lots of things.
Can I give up that image and an identity which keeps telling me I’m not enough? Now, what we’ll do, we’ve got these labels. So at the end of the session, I would want all of you to just peel it off and put it in the red bowl. Take a second before you peel off with the thought or give it a possibility that maybe this constant striving and seeking is one of the foundations of my suffering. Give it a thought.
I’m not saying just agree with whatever I say. I’m not saying that, I don’t want your loyalty. I want all of you to think for yourself. Come to your own conclusions. And then if you think that’s worth following it, follow it.
So again, everyone came here to listen to what lessons I learned from all the sages. So I have been with maybe 10, 15 sages and then a lot of other sages. And most of the sages I was with were unknown sages. For some reason, I was not drawn to pop sages, so popular ones with a lot of followings. I sought out people who were in the caves, unknown, because I felt they would have more integrity and knowledge and probably not a drive to exploit others. That was in my head.
And so I met all the sages and most of them said these things in a very similar way. You all would have read so many books and you all are seasoned seekers. So if you read Upanishads, it says, Aham Brahmasmi. I am that. That’s a foundational statement of Advaita Vedanta, the non-duality Upanishad. I am that. It ends there. It begins there.
What does it mean? I am that means I’m complete. I’m that. There’s no more transformation happening. There’s no more improvement happening. And most of the teachers say this in their own different forms.
So don’t seek for 20 years like I did. When you go home from this workshop, take this small wisdom with you. So one thing I want to stress on is most of the teachers will introduce time. So when I say I’m not enough in a movement to enough or not enlightened to a movement of enlightenment, I’m introducing time. I’m saying you can go to the timeless directly. You don’t have to introduce time at all. The timeless is waiting for you here and now. You’ll just have to open your eyes to it.