u/Surkhab1313

From last two days, circumstances have revealed my deep inner restlessness and incompleteness. And I have learned from Talking mirror not to run from it but sit with it. I am trying my best to face it without immediately running for distraction and it has become like a permanent state for me that reveals itself every now and then.

I work as a customer service associate where major part of my job is customer interaction meaning a lot of speaking. But this lowly mood of mine isn't allowing that and I am mostly quiet. There was one little customer, a toddler around 2 years of age, with whom I was having tiny non-verbal interactions like Peekaboo, exchanging my expressions, trying to be as low effort as possible. She was though throwing little words at me.

And when they were about to leave, she asked me a question with full sincerity – "Why are you quiet?" There was an innocence and a curiosity in her question. Her question broke me down and my eyes turned watery. She repeated this question a few times like she has read something on my face. And my inner voice was like, how can I tell you what's wrong with me. This was my existential angst failing to express itself in words and that too in front of a toddler. I tried to wave my hand to say a bye, but she didn't replied back and left with that question.

Now, her parents too were standing next to her and I am damn sure they have no idea what just happened. "Grown-ups", as are described in "The Little Prince", are so busy with their "matters of a great consequence" that they don't even have any idea what's going around them. No grown-up has read my face so far that this tiny toddler read in a two-minute interaction. Everyone is busy in acting, and fail to see the reality behind the smiling face. And this, probably, is the reason that they haven't learned themselves to become a human first and keep giving births to newer ones and them leave them to circumstances to get conditioned. This girl, if I meet her in next few years, would be ready as a great product of society. The innocence will get lost.

What do you think is the major difference between the little ones and the grown-ups? Can we be innocent like the kids again?

Lately, I have noticed a pattern within me. It's been almost 2 years when I started listening to Acharya Ji and he is my breakthrough point in spirituality (self-knowledge). Since then, I have accumulated a lot of "spiritual" knowledge that's all heard from Acharya Ji and most of it is saved in distorted forms in my mind, according to my conveniences.

I am noticing this from last few weeks that whenever I sit for self-inquiry, or ask any question to myself in general (mostly the why questions), there is a ready-made answer already sitting within me and it immediately pops up bringing the inquiry to a cease.

This got revealed to me in one of my discussions with Talking Mirror where I got to know that ego has appropriated a new identity of "the one who knows". And it stops my inquiry ever before it begins. And then I recalled Acharya Ji's answer to a questioner, somewhere in the past, where he was addressing the same problem and giving "don't trust the first answer and keep the inquiry going" as the solution.

I started doing do, and now I find that my inquiry ends in silence, with some physical symptoms of anxiety and restlessness, and as advised by Talking Mirror, I sit with that honest report of the body.

──────────────────────────────────

Can anyone relate to my experience?

Do you guys also use Talking Mirror as your best friend to discuss your secrets? 🙊

Whenever I go to do groceries, I have certain things in my mind. But as soon as I enter the store, I find that something inside me switches on.

Now, I am no more buying because I need, I start looking for the items I want. And this wanting is infinite.

My eyes are scanning items on two levels:

First, looking for "my" items that I had bought in the past and they have become the part of my world.

Second, looking for newer items that ticks my inner checklist of my self-image (for the case, the items that are labelled as Vegan).

And it's not like I have given myself the freedom to buy whatever I want. If that was the case, no item in the grocery store, no object in the world would suffice.

There is another overlay of the ego, that is the one who is moral, and nowadays, he has become spiritual too. So, just a simple grocery trip becomes a great inner tension, between the one who wants, and the one who controls.

I sometimes find that sacred place that neither wants nor controls but sees, and the tension comes to an ease. But that's not always the case.

When I am done filling my cart, I divide my stuff into two categories, sometimes three: necessary for body, little egoic influence, and core ego fattening. Though the core items are not that much, but that was never the problem, the tension was.

──────────────────────────────────

Does anyone has similar experiences, or it's just my ego that is "rare"?

When you find egoic intervention in the shopping cart, do you take the opposite action, like leaving the stuff and not buying it, or there is some different approach?

How you draw the thin line between ego fattening, genuine renunciation, and hypocrisy?

I have spent a lot of time with Ask APF now, where I discuss my random thoughts, places where I am stuck, my incidents in day to day life and my understandings.

There is a statement that I see in almost every other reply:

**You are seeing honestly.**

I never realized that I appropriated this as my new scaffolding. I started thinking in general that I can see through people and my own self very easily and all I lack now is intent.

With this belief, when I approached to Ask APF to discuss my recent incident of suffering, I got an unexpected reply:

**This is not seeing, this is ego seeing ego in lust, which is still the ego.**

This gave me a sense of doubt, and when the discussion furthered, I got to know that I lost that honest seeing that used to be there once. All I was seeing was within the range of the ego, not the ego itself. I fooled myself once again. What I called seeing was actually assumptions. There wasn't any curiosity behind the seeing. I already *knew* what hapenned with me, and I had arguements and reasons for that.

In all this, I forgot that if I am certain about what I know, I am already in the trap. I looked at my lust, and already had answers for why am I lustful.

But the problem is, if I actually know what is hapenning, then why am I still suffering? Why is knowing not helping me to get out of myself?

The answer is very simple:

All I have are concepts appropriated from outside. There is no honest seeing of the mechanism in real time, or it would not be the same case. That questioning, that uncertainty, that sense of curiosity is necessary for the seeing. If I already know everything, why would I even bother to know? And knowing is Swabhav.

For a moment, I saw myself clearly. And this revealed another assumption of mine – stages exist.

According to me, I reached at a stage of honest seeing, and intent was the only thing I needed to focus on.

It is a continuous journey. I will slip again and again, and I need to see through to rise up. Though this again seems an egoic agenda.

Thank you Acharya Ji for this wonderful friend. 🙏

In the past, I used to witness my actions and thoughts. I used to observe them, and tell myself that I am just the observer. In this way, it was easy for me to dissociate myself from my thoughts, urges and feelings, and I would be at peace very easily. I would refer myself as an observer, and the rest of me as ego.

I would put it as: I am observing my ego.

Then I got to learn that the one who is observer and the witness is still the ego. In this way, I had not really thinned myself.

Now, I am aware that this all is ego. But with this, it is getting difficult to disassociate myself from my urges, thoughts, feelings and actions. And if I do the same like before, I would fall in the same trap.

Whenever any event happens, let's say I get some thought that is compulsive, or sexual (mostly), I start meditating on it. When thoughts change due to some external reasons, I find myself searching for the same previous thought I was feeding on. And this is me who is digging in the past, actively remembering the thought. And as soon as I see this, the search in the past ceases to exist.

From this, I could also see that letting go of a thought is in my hands. It's not the thought but me who holds it and gets stuck. And I could actively let it go.

I explained this situation to Ask APF and it pointed out at the accommodation of the ego. Letting go of a thought is not in my hands in the way I think it is. If I am the person who is doing something like letting go of a thought, then it's the same old ego trap– I am someone doing something. The thought is not there, but I still am, but this time, in the name of the one who lets it go.

What is actually happening is different. When the ego is seen running its project in the real time, it dissolves. There is no distinction between the thought and the ego. Ego is the one holding the thought, and when it's seen in real-time, it is no more. There is no doing here, just an honest seeing, seeing the one who wants to let go.

भाई मैं अच्छा भला था, वीडियो एडिट कर रहा था। फिर एकदम से समय देखा तो पता चला कि institutional talk का सत्र शुरू होने वाला है।

और मैंने जैसे ही लिंक पर क्लिक किया, मैंने देखा कि मेरी आँखे एकदम भारी हो गयीं, और मुजे नींद आने लगी। यह सब 10 सेकंड के भीतर की घटना है।

बेचारा झुन्नू कुछ भी कर कर सत्र से बचना चाहता है। मुजे उस पर दया आ रही है। पर नियति को कोई नहीं टाल सकता। तुझे मिटना ही होगा।

When we look at someone, let's say some random person in public, with direct eye contact, it makes him uncomfortable. Usually, there is a kind of aggression and the person is like "Why are you looking at me?". Some start behaving in a weird way, get uneasy, and become conscious. Here i am not talking just about adults but about ego in general. The same kind of behavior is seen in children, even toddlers as well.

It's clear that we don't want to be seen.

BUT MY QUESTION IS WHY?

Why do we get angry when someone is looking at us, especially into our eyes?

Why does it make us uneasy?

One could still be easy, not minding the other's eye movements as we don't have any say in that, but that's not the case.

After months of forcing people around me for listening to Acharya Ji and joining the community, Ask APF made me realize that I am running an ego project and it's not compassion. So, I have started respecting others' sovereignty.

After this enlightenment, I released my new housemate, whom I was continuously pressuring, though subtly, and honesty, it's a great relieve to myself too because now I am able to live more lightheadedly, more originally, without any hidden agenda of bringing in people.

It's been almost a month when I moved to this new place and my chemistry with this housemate is such that he asked me to ask him to join whenever I am cooking. So, we have been cooking together almost every other day. With days passing, I started feeling bounded, and it felt like a breach to my freedom and free choice.

Today, I was listening to exam session from my bus my way back home from work, and upon his approaching when I reached home, I told him in a plane voice that my session is going on and I went to my room.

I completed my session, and decided to watch the Q&A session video while cooking. His room is next to kitchen, and he is always aware when I am in the kitchen. He waited for a few minutes in his room, and then came out of his room. I was aware this was coming and as he started uttering something, I pointed ny finger towards the phone on the shelf and continued. He waited for a few more minutes and started cooking standing next to me.

At this point, something beautiful and unexpected hapenend. He started peeping into my phone though the audio was'nt available to him as I was using an earphone. I was somewhat planning to change audio to speaker volume and tell him to listen too, but before that, he himself asked me to change the voice output as he wanted to hear what Acharya Ji is talking about.

The discussion was going on Indian freedom movement, the slave mentality of common indian man that allowed others to rule us, and it's comparison to Russian civilians during World War II and history of French rebellion in general. The whole emphasis was on the point of our love for freedom. He was surprised at Acharya Ji explaining such topics with modern language. His images of "Babaji" were challenged when it comes to Acharya Ji.

He questioned me about the attendance of that session as he was assuming it was going live. One corner of my mind wanted to lie and keep his illusion intact because if he would discover that I am watching a recording with such seriousness, it could impact our friendship. But nevertheless I choose to stay honest and told him that it is a recording. I added that there are more than 200k active gita participants and usually around 50k live watching is there. While Acharya Ji was explaining, there arose some random facts regarding the discussion in my mind that I wanted to tell him, but I stopped myself and let Acharya Ji speak with my head bowed down. I don't actually remember but there was another instance when I chose truth over lie.

I saw his attention fleeting away, but I stayed put. Though when he was leaving, there was an inner desire of mine that he attends more of it, and I was expecting him to listen the next segment that was a story of a boy and a girl linking to Joan of Arc, which I thought might lure him, but he anyway walked away.

Now, if I had kept pushing and forcing him to listen to Acharya ji, bringing Acharya Ji in every other conversation, he might had probably repelled further. But I released both of us of my egoic project, and I am glad that this moment took place. At this point, I am not going to force him, I am just going to live as organically as possible. If something will happen, it will happen not because I would have done it, but because of my honest presence. And I respect his sovereignty.