I Am = Heaven: A Nondual Mindfulness Meditation

So,

There is comfort in your posture,

There is relaxedness in your posture,

But there is also a gentle alertness in your posture,

A gentle mindfulness in your posture.

So,

If there is any part of your body that feels more in pressure in order to hold yourself up,

Or if any muscle is more turned on as opposed to relaxed,

Ensure that you attend to it and you relax it.

And now,

Allow a gentle smile on your face.

Allow the gentle smile on your face and attend to this smile.

Now,

Become aware of the muscular pull in and around your cheeks as you smile,

How eyes are softening when you smile,

How the forehead softens as you smile.

And allow the breath to go in and out naturally.

Continue to smile and as you smile like this,

Just by smiling like this and sitting comfortably like this,

You are activating your vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve is activated when your parasympathetic nervous system is kicking in,

So to speak,

Which is responsible for relaxation,

For rejuvenation,

For healing,

So you are not in flight or fight mode.

You are in a relaxed,

So-called healing mode,

Just by smiling like this,

Just by a mindful smile and sitting like this.

And that's enough.

You don't have to do anything about your mind,

About the busyness of the mind,

About the commentary,

Judgments of the mind.

Just like this,

Sitting,

Attending to your smile,

Listening to something or not listening to anything,

Just tuning into your inner world,

So to speak,

Allowing time to attend to yourself,

This aspect of yourself.

So we'll stay with this aspect of yourself.

The self that sometimes we refer to as inner self,

We are allowing all the distractions to come and go,

All the thoughts to come and go,

But our priority right now is to sit like this and gently following some of the guidance that I give to you,

Such as,

If you're ready,

I'd like you to now bring your awareness to your body,

And when I say bring your awareness to your body,

I mean the sensation of body,

How body actually feels in your own experience.

So not the memory of the body,

Not the thought about the body,

The actual sensation in body.

For example,

I'd like you to now attend to the sensations arising in your palms,

And your actual knowledge of your palms right now is only via these sensations,

So you do not think about palm,

You do not bring up any memory or shape of palm,

It's just the sensation arising in the palm,

Just telling you that these are my palms,

And this is how they are feeling.

So now bring your awareness to your forearms,

And the sensation of the forearms,

Just that sensations of the forearms are in the foreground of your awareness.

The sensations now of your arms,

Your biceps,

Your triceps are now in the foreground.

Now you are aware of your shoulders,

And all the sensations in and around your shoulders,

Both left and right,

And now you are aware of both of your hands and arms,

Just the sensations.

Now you are aware of your chest,

Your upper torso,

Aware of the sensations in your chest,

The movement of it as you breathe in and out.

Even the sensation of heart you might be able to feel,

And now just be aware of the sensations in and around your stomach region,

Rise and fall of your stomach as you breathe in and out.

Now become aware of the sensations in the back of your torso,

Which includes your spine,

Back of your ribcage,

Your shoulder blades,

All the sensations in this part of your body.

And just the sensations,

Not the memory of this part,

Not the image of this part,

And see now if you can just hold on to all the sensations in your torso,

From stomach to your heart,

The spine region,

As one sensation.

And see how all these sensations are appearing and known in one field,

In one medium,

And let's call this field,

This medium,

Your awareness.

So see how in this field of your awareness,

Sensations are known,

Sensations of your hands and heart,

Stomach,

Spine.

If you remove the image,

If you remove the memory of that part,

If you just attend to the sensations,

See if you can feel any difference between the sensations.

Is there any essential difference in sensations coming from stomach and upper torso,

Without reference to your memory,

Thought?

Some sensations can be soft or hard,

Or in higher intensity or lower intensity,

But the essential nature of the sensation,

Just the sensation,

Are they any different?

So when you let go of the label,

See how all sensations,

Without any boundary between them,

Without any space or gap between them,

Are arising seamlessly in one medium of your awareness.

So let go of any boundary,

Any label,

As you become more and more abstract in your own awareness.

And see how when you let go of these boundaries,

Names and labels,

How it makes you feel inside.

How you may feel more free,

More open,

More transparent,

More available.

So you're letting go,

You're letting go of labels,

You're letting go of meanings,

And just attending to the raw sensations of your body.

Just as an exploration,

We have nothing to prove,

Nothing to disprove,

It's just an exploration of our own body,

From the perspective of your own awareness.

As if you're wearing a different lens today,

To see the same world slightly differently.

So now bring your awareness to your thighs,

Hips,

And feel the sensations arising from this part of your body.

Just the sensations here,

The sensations that you call weight might be more perceptible here.

The weight of your self is supported by chair here,

But the sensation itself doesn't tell you the weight.

It's the label or the thought about the weight comes to you,

And you're aware of,

Oh yeah,

That could be my weight.

But the raw sensation doesn't tell you anything about the weight,

It's just the sensation in your awareness.

In the same way,

See if the sensation at the soles of your feet is also just that,

Another sensation,

The soles of your feet.

Slightly different,

Of course,

In its intensity,

But nevertheless,

Just a sensation.

So now you are attending to the sensations of your soles,

And very effortlessly you are bringing your awareness now to the top of your head,

And feeling the sensation at the top of your head,

Any sensation.

Now you're including sensations in your face,

Any sensation,

All sensations in and around your face.

You are aware of your face,

And now you're allowing your whole body in your awareness as one sensation.

So you're letting go of all the parts,

But see how body feels as one sensation in your awareness.

And never mind if your mind takes you somewhere else in the middle of this exploration,

That happens all the time,

So don't worry about that.

But see right now how your body feels as one sensation in your open,

Empty awareness self.

So don't call this sensation anything,

Don't call this sensation body,

Just explore,

Just notice,

Observe this sensation.

So call yourself this awareness self,

That for now,

For this exploration,

You are nothing but this awareness self that is knowing everything,

That is knowing the sensations,

That is knowing my voice,

And see how effortlessly.

It is also knowing the meaning of all my words,

Or most of my words.

And you don't have to do anything,

You're just here as awareness,

Allowing things to come and go in your awareness,

And how effortlessly it just knows,

Knows the sensations,

Knows the words,

Knows the meaning.

With no effort whatsoever.

So stay in the spirit of no effortless,

Or effortlessness.

And trust your existence,

And let go of control or management,

But just be open,

Open to this experience.

Experience of knowing,

Knowing effortlessly.

And if I ask you a question as to what else is here,

Apart from your effortless knowing,

So a lot of answers can come up in your mind,

But the essential thing that is here,

Apart from knowing,

Is that you are,

Your being is here.

So we can't refute that something is here,

That is you,

And something is knowing here.

So the knowing and being,

Knowing and being are two essential,

Irreducible nature of your awareness.

Hence the word awareness,

Aware is knowing,

And ness,

The suffix,

Implies the presence of being,

Or something,

Ness means being of something.

Awareness is being of knowing,

Knowingness and beingness.

And you won't be able to reduce your existence further than this.

And if you explore other cultures where they have a word similar to awareness,

You will find that somehow they all reach to this same conclusion.

And awareness,

The being and knowing,

Are referred to in their own language,

In their own culture,

For thousands of years,

As the essential ingredient of existence.

Two things,

Knowing and being.

Nobody told us that because it's sort of taken for granted.

It is like the zero that we always start with.

So when we count,

We always count from one,

Two,

Three.

We never count from zero,

One,

Two,

Three,

Because zero is here.

Don't have to account for it.

Whereas one is more exciting,

So we start with one.

Two is even more exciting,

So we go with two,

And three,

And so on.

So zero is that taken for granted ground of our being,

Which is always here.

Hence ignored.

But not today,

Not now.

Now,

You're giving priority to this zero.

And it is not your own experience that when you are zero,

When you are here,

Doing nothing in particular,

When you are effortless,

You are at peace.

There is a sense of joy here.

And that reminds me to this,

Reminds me of this Sanskrit word.

The word for myself in Sanskrit is Sva,

Sva.

And the word for heaven in Sanskrit is Svarg.

As if heaven is made of myself.

As if me being just myself is equivalent to heaven.

How intuitive it is.

And there are many,

Many examples of how culture,

Many world cultures have known this for thousands of years.

And didn't take it for granted.

It may have been the simple joy that they probably attended more often than modern humans do.

We don't know.

We don't know,

But the meanings are very interesting.

At least to me.

So stay with this Svar,

Yourself.

And stay with this restfulness.

Let go of any effort.

Even let go of any meaning you may have found interesting.

And just come back to your own inner open sky of awareness.

And continue to explore this for a few more minutes.

Maybe next time we will talk about the word understanding which has similar roots in all or many cultures.

How understanding takes place in this placeless place of your awareness.

We talked about knowing and being.

But also the nature of knowing is also very interesting to explore.

So for now you know that something is knowing in you.

Very effortlessly as if it's first nature.

Things are just known without any effort.

Effortless knowing.

As if things appear in the sky of your awareness and instantaneously they know you.

For example a thought is known instantaneously.

A sensation is known without any time.

But nothing sticks.

How everything comes and goes.

Nothing sticks.

Sensations,

Thoughts,

Emotions.

Your happiest experience,

Your saddest experience.

Nothing sticks.

And if you assess very thoroughly you will know that in your experience nothing sticks.

Except this awareness,

Except this space of being and knowing are your two constant friends.

They don't change.

So sit here for just one more minute exploring your essential self,

Giving it a priority.

For just one more minute on your own and know that this is always possible for you to come here.

So if there is any narrative in your mind,

Meditation is hard or I can't do it or I don't like it.

Know that they are just words,

Sensations,

Splitting.

You are always essentially just this knowing and being.

When closing eyes like this and just remembering your essential nature of yourself is enough.

And sometimes half an hour like this will reaffirm so that during the day when you close your eyes for 10 seconds or 3 seconds you can come back to this home effortlessly.

And that's the power of this half an hour,

Just like this.

So I hope you recognize this.

I hope you come back again next week.

And if next week is not convenient,

Maybe in future.

And I hope you continue to come to this effortless home of yours until we meet next time.

So if you are ready,

You are welcome to open your eyes.