Andrew Cohen - N° 9 - LAST TEACHINGS - Dec. 24 _ Feb. 25

So my guru told me, my guru told me that when you stop making a distinction between samsara and nirvana, you'll be free. The mind's always making a distinction. This is this is enlightenment. This is not enlightenment. This is it. This is not it. This is the mind always making these distinctions. So when we stop making that distinction and we accept everything as a totality of reality without distinguishing between samsara and nirvana, we're always free. And we're not looking for proof of our enlightenment in our experience. Enlightenment comes with the end of experience. Understand? Well, imagine not to distinguish between samsara means hell. Ivana means heaven. So when you stop distinguishing between he heaven and hell, you'll be free. If I stop distinguishing between heaven and hell, what is there? Infinite space, infinite reality. It's all one. Experience can become an addiction. So what happens if you let go of experience? Because you see when you when you have a powerful experience, then you're always looking for another powerful experience. So unless you have a powerful experience, you say this isn't it. Which means you're pushing away part of reality. So if we stop pushing away and saying this is it, this is not it. That's the space of enlightenment. Enlightenment is not an experience, it's not a feeling, it's a knowing. Experiences have beginnings and endings. Enlightenment is eternal knowing. So the ego takes control of the seeking process and says this is it. This is not it. This is it. This is not it. The ego doesn't know anything about infinite space but it says this is it this is not it. So so that which has a beginning and an ending is not moa is not liberation. So at the beginning we have these experiences that give us in inspiration but eventually we have to be willing to let them go. When you let go of these experiences, what you have left, trust or not. If you trust in what you already know, you don't need more experience, do you? If you trust in what's already been revealed to you to you and these beautiful experiences you've had. If you trust that you saw God, do you need to have another experience to be sure? You sure? Then then all you then all you need to do is to trust what you already know. But it has to be unconditional. Not checking. The trust has to be unconditional and absolute. You follow? If you trust unconditionally what you already know, but it has to be absolute. No second guessing. Then then you what are you left with? The totality of reality as it is. The totality of reality. Now that includes bliss, sometimes ecstasy, joy. It also includes pain, suffering, fear and doubt also. And now your consciousness includes all things. And that's when samsara and nirvana become one and not two because now you're embracing the sum totality of all of reality as the truth. You're not allowing your ego to be the boss. So all the seekers, all the meditators are still letting their ego be the boss. This is truth. This is falsehood. This is truth. The ego doesn't know. The ego is the problem. So if you give up the e when you give up the ego, you give up this this false false knower and then you then you embrace the some totality of reality because you realize God has already revealed himself to you. You're sure. You don't need to have another experience. So you let go of the need to have experience. That means I trust God more than I trust myself. I don't need to have more experience. At the beginning we need the experience because we don't know what's truth. We read about it in a book. We heard about it but we haven't had the experience. Until you have the experience yourself, you don't know if it's real. When you have the experience yourself, you know it's real. Why? Because you had the experience. But then then the question is, how much experience do we need? Are we like a junkie who needs to have them again and again and again? How much does it take to become convinced? You can say the mature seeker has stopped seeking. They don't need more experience because now they know. How do you know that they know? Because you see that there there's contentment, acceptance, letting go and spontaneous wisdom and clarity. They're resting. They're not seeking anymore. Like a you know the guru Adidas Samraj he says you have to stop seeking. And I believe you can only stop seeking when you find what you're looking for. So when you find what you're looking for and you realize you found it, you stop seeking not a beggar anymore and you become rich. And then what what do you have? Nothing. Now you have absolutely nothing. You're empty-handed. That's your strength. If you're authentic, if you're the real thing, if you're authentic, you're not holding on to anything. You're utterly real, utterly spontaneous. There's no duality in you. There's no self-consciousness. There's utterly natural way of being. You're not you're not dividing your experience into two. And that's it. And so all you do after that point on is just continue to let go. Your practice is just letting go, paying attention and letting go. Nothing more to do. Experiences will come, experiences will go, joy will come, joy will go, pain will come, pain will go. It's all part of life. But none of it means anything anymore. You're just letting go. It's all you need to do. This can end the whole seeking process. Now if you're ser if you're serious about spiritual development you become interested in continuing to develop because you stop seeking because you become a find it doesn't mean you can still continue to develop you become more wise more clear more strong enlightened but you're not working on it anymore just letting it all happen. [Music] But if you want to be free, we need to let go of our attachment to history no matter what happened. If we don't let go of our history, we'll never be free. But the question is, if you want to be free, if you, whoever you are, want to be free, doesn't matter how much karma there is. If you're serious, it doesn't matter. If you're not a victim, if you're not a victim of your traumas, you just let go. So the secret is really giving up the past. No, you know the past is like heroin. It's like an addiction. My past, my feelings, my pain, my story. So we all have the same challenge. No. So the lucky person will give it all up. That's why I was speaking about the space between the thoughts. In the space between the thoughts, there's no karma, there's no history, there's no fear, and there's no doubt.