This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
That's what they call in Hinduism as Veda, non-duality. And they try and explain that by saying it's one without a second. And they put one without a second on it because even the idea of one implies there could be other than one. Getting back to the basic fact that there's only that. And that is the Mahabhagya, the great word, the great mantra. I am that, this is that, thou art that, whatever, that's that. That, which is ineffable, indescribable, is what they're pointing to. In Dog Chin, the ultimate scriptures of Buddhism, they say it's non-conceptual, self-shining, ever-fresh, presence awareness. Just this, nothing else. Isn't that describing you right now?
If you're not involved in any conceptualising, can you negate the beingness? Can you negate that presence awareness? Is there anyone who is not aware of being present? Or that presence of awareness is not with you right now? That's why we say here, start from the fact that you are already that. And let's see from that point if you are already that. Any search or trying to get something, any search, implies that there is something you are and you believe you are not. That's something you are trying to get. Now another way they put it in the ancient traditions is omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. Total presence, total power, total intelligence.
Not three things, but three aspects of the one thing. And if what they're saying is true, it's total presence, total power, total intelligence, does that leave room for a you or a me, or anything at all, to be outside of that? It's a possibility. So there again you see why we're saying that what you are seeking, you already are. Coming down from ancient times where communication wasn't as easy as it is now, and somebody in some little village, remote village somewhere, might have come upon this understanding and passed it on to a few, and not everybody could grasp it. We get this idea that it's only available for the few.
And that's the trap we put ourselves under again. Oh, I could possibly never be so sure. I could never be so sure. I could never be so sure. But today with some of the ancient text being translated properly by people who have understood the language and getting proper translations, communication by computer and all the rest of it, it is available to everybody. And everybody has that chance of investigating and looking for it. And it's not hard to see. It's not any long journey or this, that or the other. Everyone has their own way of thinking. So the message we put on it, it is immediate.
Isn't there that immediate knowing that you are? Can anyone say, I am not? Each one of us knows I am. But that thought I am is not it. That's how it translates through the mind as a thought. That sense of presence, the knowing that you are, translates as the thought of I am. that thought, I am, which we add events, experiences, conditioning, form a mental picture, conceptual image, is really what we are. That's why they call it, in all traditions, it's ignorance. And they're not talking about we're dummies or anything of that dimension. We are ignoring our true nature, ignoring our natural state, and going into the conceptualised mental images we have about ourselves and believing in that.