Day three began with doubt and ended with laughter. The laughter had a purity to it. It arose in the lottery queue for the evening Satsang, as 900 people stood in 15 lines waiting for lots to be drawn. Those lots determined in which order we would file into the hall. It started at the back of the block and spread in gentle waves throughout the silent crowd. Mooji had referred to someone’s joyful laughter the previous evening, saying, ‘There is no way that this laughter comes from the mind’. So maybe what I was hearing from myself and the pockets of people around me, was the sound of the is-ness. In any case, it was a very different feeling to how the day had begun.
After a restless sleep, I awoke at 5am feeling the same doubt other people had addressed in previous Satsangs. Mooji had explained to each one that it was a natural part of the process. The mind will want to defend its place; protect a status which was so clearly being undermined. Now it was my turn.
During the early-morning Invitation, I remained restless and struggled to gain any distance from the doubt. I returned to the room to do some of my daily exercises. The doubt was shifting through the gears. It was as if my mind, sensing that I was struggling, had decided that now was the time to make its play. It reasoned (and I went with it) that I am not good enough; that I don’t want this enough. It always seems to me that those who rest permanently in the place of pure awareness, are ones who have a devotion to God and a singular focus on being with God. I don’t have that, so it is easy to think I never will, and can therefore never succeed.
This escalation continued up until breakfast, where my mind played its trump card: ‘I am not worthy’. In an instant, things shifted and I was in the state I had sought all morning. From there I was able to observe the unworthiness. It was effortless. It was almost as if my mind had got cocky and gone too far, too soon. It was out in the open, exposed, and I could plainly see that I am not the unworthiness. In that state of pure awareness (the is-ness), from where everything can be observed, I cannot be anything other than pure awareness. Everything else is a projection of my mind.
This meant that all I have to do with any thought, feeling, or sensation, is to observe it from the is-ness and I will instantly know what I am and what I am not. I smiled to myself, shook my head at the effortlessness of such a shift. And for the countless time during the retreat, tears of joy filled my eyes. 11 hours later that joy could be heard, as I queued to enter the hall and be in the presence of love and wisdom.
Mooji silent retreat posts: Deep & Profound Gratitude | Everything Is A Distraction | The Mandala Of Personhood | Observing From The Is-ness | Effortless & Empty | The Silence Was Beautiful | It’s A Game Changer