Awakening Now

"Who Am I?" Self-Inquiry Is The Path To Liberation With Tom Das

• Ilona Ciunaite / Tom Das • Episode 69

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Tom Das is a teacher of self inquiry and in particular, who am I inquiry as taught by Ramana Maharshi. He holds weekly meetings in person and online with the intent of sharing this wonderful message of freedom from suffering. He is also available for one-to-one sessions.

You can find info about Tom on his website 
https://tomdas.com/about/

Resources mentioned in this interview 
https://tomdas.com/2019/03/25/ramana-maharshi-upadesa-saram-the-essence-of-the-teachings/
https://tomdas.com/2018/11/03/who-am-i-nan-yar-by-sri-ramana-maharshi/

If you are ready for a transformation work with me. 
http://www.IlonaCiunaite.com/sessions 

Liberation Unleashed book on Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com/Liberation-Unleashed-Breaking-Illusion-Separate/

Info about free monthly meetings on Zoom 
http://ilonaciunaite.com/events/

If you need assistance with your inquiry, come to Liberation Unleashed, where you can register for a free account and receive a volunteer guide free of charge. 
Liberation Unleashed
Http://www.liberationunleashed.com

Music by Valdi Sabev, Visit his channel for more calm and relaxed music 
https://www.youtube.com/c/ValdiSabev/featured

#awakeningnow #ilonaciunaite #howtodoselfinquiry #selfinquiryquestions #liberationunleashed #seeingthroughselfillusion

Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

Welcome to the show.
This is episode number 69 Who am I self-inquiry is the path to liberation with Tom Das
my name is Ilona Ciunaite. I am a guide, author and a co-creator of the Liberation Unleashed community and this is a place you want to be if you are interested in all things awakening. In the last 13 years, I have been guiding, pointing and supporting seekers on their awakening journeys and because of that I have acquired experience on how to end seeking, how to find inner peace and enjoy life. on the show I talk to seekers and teachers about the fundamental shift, what leads to it, what happens after and how to navigate awakening life.  

Tom Das is a teacher of self-inquiry and in particular, who am I inquiry as taught by Ramana Maharshi. He holds meetings in person and online with the intent of sharing this wonderful message of freedom from suffering. 

hello Tom hello Ilona so great to meet you um I have seen your posts and your presence on Facebook for years now so it's really nice to talk to you finally thank you so much was very kind of you to say I'm I'm glad you've enjoyed what I've been sharing there and today I'm talking to Tom Das and he's a teacher he holds satsangs he holds group meetings works one-on-one with anyone and everyone who finds him in the search for freedom and what I like about Tom and his post on Facebook is that he shares a lot about Ramana Maharshi his pointings bringing bringing awareness to the true teachings and so I hope this is going to be helpful for everyone who joins into this podcast into this conversation because these days there's so much information so many people are talking and talking and talking and seems like never ending but time to time it's good to come back to the

source I agree and I hope it's helpful too okay before we get into all this I ask every guest and I'm going to ask you Awakening what's your definition what does that mean to you Awakening well um I tend not to use that word very much whichever word you use sure um well just cuz you asked about Awakening I mean Awakening literally means waking up right waking up from sleep sleep waking up from dream and I don't use that word very much but for me it means for me it means when someone is awakened to um a deeper more profound maybe a deeper way of living or a deeper aspect of life so a shift outside the everyday common sense um Paradigm of living the materialistic Paradigm whatever that is it can take so many different forms but it's a moment of shift maybe a Moment of clarity for some it can be a moment of Calamity um but it's realizing that oh the way I've been living my life the way I've been thinking about my life there's a different way so it can happen in many different ways it it doesn't have to be what what I consider Awakening you know it could be what you can awake become awake to so many different things but I guess we're talking about spirituality or I call it spirituality I don't know what you call it um I don't know what to call it sometimes but that's what Awakening is for me and it's it's not the same as um what I would call

self-realization and what's the self realization and how is that different so so Awakening is is becoming aware of something or seeing something or feeling something that you weren't previously aware of you weren't previously perceiving or feeling or seeing that's what it is for me in the in the way I Define the word and and self-realization is something that it's quite different because and it's not for every you know it's not for everyone meaning not everyone is wanting this this is not what everybody is going for consciously right I would say unconsciously this is what we're all going for we all want self-realization what I call self-realization you can call it what you like um it can be called Enlightenment it can be called Liberation um and the way I first came the one of the simplest ways of conceiving of this um that I came across when I was younger was um the way the Buddha phrased it and he said it's the cessation of all suffering and he was very it was very interesting the way he defined suffering and he defined it in many different ways but he defined in a very peculiar way that I didn't understand I I understood what I thought was suffering I understood what I thought suffering meant so I thought the end of suffering that sounds great that's what I want so that's that's self-realization that's Liberation that's what it promises but Buddha said birth is suffering I didn't understand what that meant I read the words birth is suffering um what else did he say um growing old is suffering illness is suffering death is suffering so I didn't really understand what that meant when I read it when I was much younger but Liberation freedom is say it's the it's the on a con conceptually it's the idea that suffering has a cause and if that cause is removed it can be ended just like a disease a disease might have a cause like a virus or a bacteria or something and if you treat that if you treat or remove or destroy that virus or bacteria or that cause whatever that cause is then the disease is eradicated and that suffering isn't necessary so well thank you for making that distinction that's the way I think about it you know obviously everyone uses words everyone has their own relationship with words right and uses words in a different way yes that's why I feel I have to ask every guest what is Awakening because sometimes we you know people bring different ideas and we are talking about something together then it's good to know I I agree I I'm I I really en when I was when I was younger I always wanted to understand how what people meant by the words they were using because otherwise how can you communicate effectively you know sometimes we can't Define things clearly and that's fine too and there there can be there can be actually greater communication when words are not clearly defined and this is one of the powers of poetry and things like this but sometimes Clarity of definition is very good for Clear communication I think

precisely precisely yes well the show is primarily for Seekers Seekers who are looking for awakening self realization truth Enlightenment Liberation whichever words they want to use and yeah and I would like to invite you to discuss about you know what are the biggest points of these Seekers what are they really looking for and maybe they don't even know that they're looking for and yeah it starts from there what are the biggest points of the Seekers pains pain points pain yes because you're meeting them every day say like me I meet Seekers every day yeah so you're asking me what's the things that the challenges that I see and Seekers the most yeah yeah um it's funny cuz I I don't okay let me try and

answer it's usually usually things that I find in The Seekers that I come across that is the this hurdle for them it are their own ideas about what Liberation is and what spirituality is and what spiritual ... is

what they think they don't know um these are for in my experience the biggest hurdles um you know I don't think I'm the most popular spiritual teacher in the world so often people discover me um I mean some people I'm the first spiritual teacher they discover or they come across but often people have been seeking searching for um years sometimes decades and seen Lots all the popular teachers or and things like this you know before they come to me so many of them have accumulated all these ideas and spiritual Concepts so maybe that's why that's the sort of first thing that comes to mind I think that's the one one of the biggest hurdles there are many others as well um one of the other hurdles people have that I come across is they haven't figured out how to integrate their daily life with their spiritual practice so that leads to a lot of confusion and suffering whether that's um in their relationships with their family that maybe their parents their children their spouses their Partners or at work in the workplace or their finances their relationship with money or um their relationship with their own habits their own addictions or habitual Tendencies they haven't people many many Seekers I come across have haven't figured out sort of the basic rules of how to live in relatively successful life in the world on these different domains and that can often cause a lot of stress anxiety and um impede their spiritual progress and again many people have wrong ideas or maybe not wrong ideas but ideas that are no longer helpful to them now they may been helpful to them earlier but those same ideas are now holding them back again so it's just about often showing them a different way a different understanding that's what I think yeah the reason the reason I have difficulty answering the question is because whenever I meet a Seeker who's looking for assistance from me um it's so different every time I I I you know maybe it's the same for you as well um but I I just there's it's I work intuitively essentially so there's an there's an intuition an intuitive connection um if it if if it works there's there's an intuitive connection and that's what guides me really and um so it's very different for everyone I think the specifics yes the specifics are often very important

right oh and there are these General Tendencies like like you said that all these conceptual baggage expect I call it expectations everyone has expectations and these are sometimes very difficult to let go because the mind has a picture how it should be what this Awakening life should be and how you should behave or feel especially that there shouldn't be any thoughts anymore and things like that people come in with all these ideas absolutely right

yeah well it's great that there are people like you and others out there who help them to remove all these ideas and put them on the side or really just break through and start looking into the essence yeah and sometimes it's not about I mean ultimately it's about removing the ideas but sometimes it's about giving ideas you know sometimes ideas can be very helpful and sometimes people sort of look down on certain types of ideas but those the ideas that can be very helpful for example Faith or belief in a deity if you're interested in things like non-duality which is you know what I what I share essentially um you you might look down on the idea of a dualistic path where you're devoted to a god or or a guru or something like this but and but for many people that can be incredibly helpful um depending where they are whe where they are in their journey and and what kind of personality or what kind of person they are so sometimes people are stifling themselves often people are stifling they're not following actually their own path within them which will naturally take them to the Divine so sometimes a lot of what I do is just help people find what they already um their heart is already telling them to do I just bring them back to what their heart's already telling to do you know their heart might be saying set up an altar in your living room with a picture of Jesus and pray to Jesus every morning or something that might be what they want to do inside but because they read teachings that say something different they've suppressed they've rationalized away that because it sounds to them so stupid or so dualistic or illogical they suppress it but actually there might be a role for something like that in someone's journey and that can be really beautiful when between myself and the Seeker we discover what that thing is you know I had this moment yesterday with someone and um we they just between the two of us it was mainly them to be honest but I'm taking a little bit of credit I thought i' take a little but they they figured out they figured out I think through the conversations they got permission they felt they had permission to explore other things and they found something that's just improved their life massively it's not it's not a liberating thing it's not led to Liberation but it's just massively improved their life you know and it's different for everyone you know it's and you mentioned permission because sometimes that's all it takes is like giving yourself permission to be yourself yes exactly to follow your own path that's it yeah like full permission to enjoy life sometimes they I get this for people to repeat three times I say okay give yourself permission to enjoy life and follow your own path yeah that's something that does something I agree yeah I mean in a way the entire teaching is about being yourself learning to be what you actually are being

yourself sweet that's one way of putting it at least

yeah right so let's talk about Ramana Ramana yes

I know you love his teachings I also love his teachings so direct and I read his book first book not so long ago many maybe a few years ago and it was such a joy to read it because it was not the the first book I read only a few years ago I I knew Ramana I knew some of quotes but I 
never sat down and read a book so maybe five six years ago I read the first one and what was delightful for me it wasn't the words I was reading but there was some some Joy or some kind of energetic thing going on out of these pages that was alive book yes it wasn't yes the words that were reaching me but I would just open the page on my iPad and I was just like oh really feel that something coming out through these words yeah that's lovely that's wonderful yeah I me I meet many people well I sometimes meet people who tell me oh I know Ramana's teachings I know I know Ramana's teaching I know Ramana's teachings already

of the things he's written and they said oh he's written things I thought his teachings were silent teachings I said oh yeah yeah that's true that's true you know he did say the highest teachings are in silence but he also wrote things I said all right um and oh I don't want to read his things you know his teachings are in silence I don't want to read it and so that's fine you know if that's if that's what people want do that's fine but yeah reading his he he wrote several different texts that make the spiritual path really clear super clear and very simple do you want to share that do I want to share that yes like just maybe somebody doesn't know Ramana and is listening yeah yeah I mean he I mean it's in again so there's a text called Upadesa Saram and here like the words can sometimes put people off because they're Sanskrit or foreign or Tamil foreign language words Upadesa Saram means Upadesa means spiritual teaching or spiritual instruction or it just means instruction but it usually means spiritual instruction Upadesa and Saram means the essence um so it means the essential instruction or the essence of the spiritual teaching and it's just 30 verses long and each verse is only a few lines so and it's very easy to read and it just summarizes the entire spiritual journey for a Seeker in a very practical way that um but it's very concise you know how you said that um did you say it was a living book these teachings what I found it's quite mysterious I've never I've never come across another teaching in the in the words like this but when you're at a let's say a lower stage of seeking when you're first starting you read the teachings the teachings will speak to you in one way but as you start to gain more and more insight and more understanding and you start to penetrate the teachings more deeply the same texts the same 30 verses that you're reading for example they they become deeper the same things you thought you understood the verses before and now those same verses are saying something even deeper more profound so that the the texts kind of grow with you and it's because of this sort of peculiar way the texts are worded and written it has got quite an unusual quality of not come across in any other spiritual writing before oh wow you'll see you'll see this in this text who am I which is just like 10 or 12 pages long and it summarizes again pretty much everything you need to know for the spiritual journey in these 10 12 pages and when I first read it I thought this is written in a really strange way it doesn't seem logic super logical there is logic to it and there are a few things that are thrown in there I'm thinking why is that in there that doesn't need to be in there you know that's not an essential spiritual teaching and then lo and behold you see all these teachings have value they have a point and they all sort of come together and they grow with you and then sort of verses in the text or sentences in the text you might not notice the first time you read it you know your your eye just skims over it and then later on like a year later or sometime later that sentence leaps out to you oh my gosh that was there the whole time it said something so profound I never saw it before and many people have come across had this experience with his writings you know they grow with you it's it's very magical peculiar wonderful quality and it means that no matter where you are in the journey you can resonate with the teaching on some level and then as you as your understanding becomes more refined you know as you spiritually mature let's say um the deeper teachings come out at you in the same 10 pages or the same 30

verses sounds mysterious I no I haven't so I'm very curious now can we put a link to this text under our the link yeah you have these links you have the text somewhere yeah the link yeah definitely you'll find them all on my website which is tom.com right so we'll put the link specificly to this text and so maybe people who are listening and watching can um share their experience with them yeah I would love to do that yes great it sounds like uh in these 10 verses there is some very compressed information in many different dimensions so you download it into your brain and then it unpacks or installs the software that is that's true running deeper and deeper and deeper yes that's true that's right in fact Upadesa Saram this 30 verse text, there's a story I heard where um I call I call Ramana I 
call him Bhagavan Bhagavan is a word that means beloved it also mean it also implies God or the Divine so I call him Bhagavan because I consider Bhagavan to be my Guru my teacher so um there's a story where Bhagavan was teaching young children I don't know how old they were maybe like six or seven years years old he was teaching to memorize these 30 verses and it's written in quite terse language quite difficult to understand you know it's not easy to access for a child so some adults around were saying why are you teach why are you bothering to teach these children these things they don't they're not interested they don't understand and Bhagavan said it's I know they don't understand but if they learn it now it will fructify later it will it will bear fruit later on when they understand the teachings now and later on when they're older because they memorized it and this is true with many spiritual Traditions right you know things we learn as a kid about maybe we're brought up in some kind of religious culture and we don't really care about it when you're like six or seven you just want to play with your friends or whatever you want to do but when you get older because you've learned those teachings that wisdom that you've been taught as a child can now come out and support you when when it need when it's needed hopefully sometimes sometimes sometimes it can do the opposite sometimes it can traumatize you but um you know the way we're brought up but ideally that's what can happen as

well sounds sounds very

deep I think I think it's like as you say it's a technology It's a Wonderful technology um these teachings they can go into you and they have an effect on you like a medicine like an antidote you know maybe an antidote to a poison you might not even realize you have right you think I don't need that I don't need that like antivirus for the all the conditioning patterns and all these yeah painful beliefs yeah and it works on different levels as you say you know some of it works on a verbal and conceptual level and that's usually how Seekers First come to the teaching Mhm but eventually we have to go to much deeper subtle levels where it's in silence and the more the more subtle vibrational aspects of the teaching more energetic aspects of the teaching and we often flip between them you know sometimes it'll be the energy sometimes it be the concepts you know simultaneously yeah but these teaching

yeah yeah cause we are multi-dimensional beings so not just the mind or emotions or body or spirit I don't know that's that's what we know like four things physical mental emotional spiritual but what else is there we don't know yes there is silence what else is there what what do you think I don't know that's what I think I don't know I like that mystery I like not to put any something like that into Concepts some some things you know we feel or we know they're so deep that they don't need words when they become wrapped up in words they kind of lose their

brilliance yeah and I hear you

another thing I would like to say though is when I first read Ramana's teachings um the for the very first time I came across Ramana's teachings I rejected them I did I just thought it was a load of rubbish I thought it didn't make sense I could see I could see problems with the logic so I just dismissed it and I was interested in more Buddhist style teachings at that time because they made more sense to my more analytical mind the way the the Buddhist teachings I was reading at least the way they were presented and then a couple years later I was very attracted to Ramana again and I started to feel a huge amount of love and affection for him in my heart and I started reading about his life and it had a profound effect on me and I again I found I found myself um compulsively almost not compulsively um I found myself
magnetically drawn to him you know um I just found myself very drawn to him that's what I'm trying to say and so I started to read some of his teachings and I still didn't like them I still didn't like them for for for many years I didn't like it wasn't I actually thought my the truth is what I thought is that I could explain it better than Bhagavan could oh wow congratulations thought I had a better I thought I had a deeper understanding well not a deeper understanding I just thought I I knew what he was trying to say and he wasn't saying it very well and so whenever I read it I didn't quite like what he'd written and I would reformulate it in my own mind so it made sense to me I didn't know at the time I was distorting the teaching but I felt a huge love for him and huge attraction to him how interesting on one side there was like this magnetic pull and on the other side it was just rejecting yeah the way he said yeah and it was only many years later I came to understand the beauty of the actual conceptual side the written teachings the verbal teachings you know I could I could um I didn't completely dismiss the written teachings there were aspects of it I liked and there aspects of it I thought not sure about that and there other aspects I probably just didn't understand you know but it was I was drawn to a sense of

him so I just wanted to share that as well because I think I don't know if other people when they first I I think what I've I think my experience is quite unusual because most people I come across as soon as they see him or something they have this profound love or connection with him you know that's what people say to me oh you know I was I was in a bookstore I was looking for a romantic comedy novel and then Who Am I by Bhagavan just fell out the bookshelf and I saw his face I knew he was the one you know that it wasn't like that for me no have these dram dramatic stories right everything falls into place but it wasn't like that for me at all you know so I just wanted to share that as well in case someone reads his teachings and thinks Hm you know but the seed is in he needs time to germinate

great well one of the most famous or well known pointers is who am I the inquiry of who am I can we talk about that how do you teach that or anything to say who am I yeah um well one way you can phrase the teachings verbally is what you can say this is about discovering who or what you actually are and what who or what you actually are cannot be discovered by the

mind it cannot be discovered by the senses or the body  the sense organs are parts of the body we can say um and cannot be discovered by the mind now for most Seekers that is those are the instruments that are being used on their on their search whether it's reading texts or thinking about things observing their thoughts observing their feelings engaging with the with with objects whether it's gross objects in the world um objects in the level of the body or subtle objects in the mind the feelings you know or energies or experiences these are all gross and subtle objects I would say mhm and what you actually are is deeper than all of these things now because it's because what we are is actually the the Supreme the Divine the ultimate that which always is that which is infinite that which is glorious that which is ever Blissful because this is actually our nature we actually from the per.. from the point of view of of being a a Seeker there's a part of a Seeker that always knows this there's a part of a seeker that's always in touch with that and from again from the point of view of being a Seeker it's the innermost essential aspects of that Seeker that that which never changes in that Seeker is that truth the question is a question the question who am I can

draw it's it's mysterious so words are can't accurately describe it I'm just going to use words they're not completely accurate the question who am I can draw our spiritual sense to ourselves what we actually are in a way that if I say um you know what is that or what is that what is that object what is that object and I'm pointing to a car or tree you can look at that tree using your eyes or you can maybe feel the car with your fingers with your hand so you can discover through the body through the Mind through the senses but when I want I say who am I to know yourself doesn't require actually we we will Discover it doesn't require the body or the mind it knows itself poetically speaking by itself through itself so the question who am I can introvert the mind it can turn the Mind away from the sense objects away from the body the mind the world the thoughts the feelings the emotions and discover itself as it actually is and this is what is intimated and hinted at in this exploration in this question this inquiry who am I is an intuitive spontaneous discovery of what you are which is that which everyone is actually looking

for that's one way of saying it yeah again it's some mysterious technology exactly that question is supposed to lead one to the silence yeah well silence when Bhagavan says silence he's talking about your true it's it's another name for your true nature so it's to lead you to yourself the silence means the self it doesn't just mean um an empty mind it means self-discovery it means when your fictional identity of being a body mind is no longer there and he explains this in the text who am I if you read who am I he defines what silence is not in a logical coherent way but it's the definitions there in the text if you look for it you'll find it if you don't look for it you can easily miss

it and everything I've just said is also written in that text who am I thank you so much for sharing oh so welcome thank you yeah like there is this presence that is always here ground of being Natural State The Self with the capital S and that there's this arising mind with all this display with all its you know

imaginations it's flickering here and the question who am I go like yes that's it I love that yes that's it in fact um Bhagavan
says that as well in who am I and he does this in who am I but obviously he can't do it with his hands is this podcast audio only for some people as well will they or is it video for everyone there is video and audio because you're because for the listeners when we what's happened is Ilona is putting her hands up like a almost like a a sprout or a plant see um emerging from the soil and then becoming like the branches of a tree that's the way or or a flower opening and then she's withdrawing her hands together back down into the soil or into the into itself and Bhagavan gives us this imagery in a different way he uses a completely different metaphor but it's the same thing he says and this is a um this is a traditional imagery you find it in the Vedas in Upanishads as well um so he didn't invent it but he used he says it's like the spider he said it's like the spider emits a web and then withdraws it back into itself again now I don't know if spiders actually do that I don't know if spiders actually create a web and then withdraw the web back into themselves again maybe some they eat it they eat it oh do it and reuse the the glue the the is it yeah ah there you go they build this spiderweb and then when it gets broken when it's something happens it eats it back I didn't know that to make it fresh so it makes it makes even more sense of the analogy I used to live in England and there were lots of spiders now you're putting me to shame because I live in England and I don't know this about spiders I mean apparently I should know about spiders if I live in England so now there are lots of them where I live here there's there are no spider webs where are you I'm in Mauritius no spiders they didn't make it across the Indian Ocean there are spiders there are some quite big spiders like this you know but they live in a house but we have cats they catch them but they don't make spider webs I never ever walked outside and spider web went on my face never and there are some little tiny ones jumping spiders they make I don't know I never seen a Spiderweb I actually one I saw one in the garden but it's like nothing at all like in England I never thought of that I never thought of that because I always think of the UK as being a country where there not many bugs you know because you don't really get bitten by things and there's not much there not many dangerous things like poison spiders so but you're right there are spider webs I've got on one of my Gates where I live if my neighbors ever see me opening the gate what I do I have to open this gate to put the rubbish out once a week you know the trash so I open the gate and I do this with my hand as I open the gate because if I I realized when I first moved here if I didn't if I just walk through that gate because I only open it once a week to to put the rubbish out typically if I don't do that and I'll just walk through I get all these cobwebs in my face so now if anyone I always think if anyone ever sees me they think what is that guy doing because I open the gate and I I do this as I walk out just to make sure that the web doesn't you know doesn't go anyway but Bhagavan 
uses back to the teaching right right Bhagavan uses this analogy of um just as the spider emits the web and withdraws into itself we create and this is a very weird teaching and again people miss this I missed this the first time I read this text the first probably you know 20 times I read who am I I missed this but he if you read it you'll see this is what he's saying or you know your viewers can let compare the comments what they think if there are comments he says we emit the body the mind and the world right and then we withdraw that back into ourselves again later so what he's saying is you are the Creator you are the Creator the sustainer the destroyer and you are that which is before creation and that which is during creation and that which is after creation that is your actual

identity so it's it's quite an extreme radical teaching in some ways but this is what this is the analogy he gives us in who am

I well it kind of reminds me you know every day we have waking experience dream experience deep sleep experience of nothing and everything is just comes up online goes back to nothing every day that's right yeah that nothing um Bhagavan calls it the

self he says that's what you actually are from the point of view of the mind it seems like nothing you mean the Deep Sleep nothing yeah from the point of view of the mind because the mind can't perceive the self the self is infinitely more subtle than the mind so the mind being coarse cannot in relatively coarse compared to the self cannot perceive it so from the mind's point when we think about deep sleep we go oh it's nothing you know some people even many people in our society in our societies think that sleep is a waste of time you know they'll try and they'll just think of it as something you just got to do and it gets in the way of actual real productive life you know and um but Bhagavan says no deep sleep there's a treasure there there's a treasure there we see the same teachings in the Upanishads in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad we see this teaching in the Mandukya Upanishad we see this teaching too about deep sleep being a treasure being where our self is it's a great clue and right at the beginning of who am I Bhagavan has written an introductory paragraph also mentioning this Treasure of deep sleep from the mind it seems like that's nothing that's just a blank it's a zero but actually the for the realized that is the true waking state for for the for the ignorant that's sleep that's ignorance that's knowing ignorance means not knowing or knowing nothing right you know or not knowing um and so deep sleep is a state of ignorance because you don't know anything in deep sleep but Bhagavan says for the Ninyani which means the liberated person liberated being that is knowledge that is pure gold he doesn't literally say pure Gold I'm saying that but that is what he says he says it's a jewel it's a

treasure it's quite funny if you think about it if you think where you if if you were the devil and you wanted to hide the greatest treasure which is the self where would you hide it when no one would find it and well in the obvious yeah so we could metaphorically say the devil has hidden the self in our self as deep sleep oh wow because that's the one place that totally uninteresting we like to explore the chakras the world travel the world go to the Himalayas go to this place go to that place we like to um you know explore physical phenomena mental phenomena we even like to analyze our dreams and talk about our dreams and dream analysis but how many of us want to discover the truth of deep sleep it's like well that's boring sleep's boring sleep is nothing this is way some people think right but Bhagavan said if we go into deep sleep consciously that is

self-realization there's again this is an ancient teaching it's called jagrat sushupti

jagrat means the waking State sushupti means the Deep Sleep state where there's no dream no experience of the waking State or the dream state so jagrat sushupti
means the waking sleep waking sleep and Bhagavan

says if we can go into people fall into sleep unconsciously they lose Consciousness they fall asleep it's a blank but if you can go into deep sleep consciously retain your awareness you discover that which is prior to the entire manifested universe your original face the source source literally Source means that which was there before creation the source of creation is there before creation you discover it through going to Deep Sleep consciously

jagrat sushupti do you have experience of that yes I do yeah that's why I can share about it because if you don't have that exper in fact every everyone actually has that experience but people are not conscious of it because everyone has the experience of Deep Sleep sure but I know that's not you're asking so but we all have the experience of it actually but yes I do have that experience that's why I can talk about

it but when I say like that it might make me to make me out to sound special I don't want to sound special I want to empower other people who are coming to me and I want them to feel like everything I claim they can also have for themselves and not only can they have they already

have but if this is the same thing as who am I phrased differently so that can be experienced with eyes open well it's it goes beyond the body right right so the the consciousness of the body actually

disappears but the other people looking at you they you know they might see you having your eyes open they might see you having your eyes closed they might see you sitting in a cave in a mountain in South India or they might see they may see you um you know cup of tea in your living room you know so you would appear differently to different people depending on your body mind depending on your karma depending on your conditioning depending on what's Happening you know in your life but inwardly there wouldn't be an experience of diversity of of um Duality this is why it's non dual

 and from here what would be your advice to somebody who's looking for that well you know first of all you don't have to be looking for that if you don't want to you know I would I I would encourage people to do what they want to do you know just because I've said there's this thing called jagrat sushupti isn't this amazing I would say what does do is that interests you you know for example the question who am I I've come to realize this is the who am I is the direct path to Liberation it's the clear path Bhagavan said it's the direct path it's the easiest path he said he said it's the direct path meaning it's the quickest path he said it's the easiest path he said it's the sure path he also said it's the only path again if you read it who am I you'll see he's written it it doesn't it's not it's buried in the text you see it's the only way and he says it many times but so many people think oh Ramana has said it's the easiest way it's the sure way it's the direct way oh I better do who am I and I've realized and I used to encourage people to do that and I do but I've realized a lot of people aren't really interested in who am I they want Liberation sure and they they then they read in a book that who am I is the way to Liberation so I want Liberation who am I you know I've read this text it says who am I is the way so I'll do who am I but they're not actually interested deeply in who they are you know they're interested in something else maybe they're interested in you know meditation or chanting so now I say to people yes who am I is the direct way yes it is the only way too but you it only works if you're interested in it if you if you have a connection to it and you will eventually have a get a connection to it how that happens differs for everyone Bhagavan says there's only one way to Liberation this is through self-

inquiry you don't have to call it self inquiry you don't even have to know it's called self- inquiry but that's the only that process that is called self inquiry is the only way but everyone but all the other practices eventually will lead to self-inquiry he says all the other ways will eventually lead to who am I you have to eventually ask if you enjoy chanting who is doing the chanting if you enjoy meditation who is doing the meditation you have to always come back to yourself ultimately so most people I've realized are not actually interested genuinely deeply in who they are they're interested in in experiencing or retaining something outside of them so I say listen to the teachings but follow your heart this is what I figured out through teaching this is where my understanding is now of this teaching process you know I'm still learning about that so now I'm sort of saying to people you know what do you what are you interested in and I help guide people through that because they might say you know what actually what I really enjoy doing it I enjoy ecstatic Dance I'm like ah well you should do that then and let's keep in touch and they go off and do their ecstatic dance and they have all these wonderful heart openings or emotional healing or they find a group of people that perfect for them you know might not be perfect for someone else and then eventually over time especially if you come to a meeting like my meeting for example we're always talking about the teachings we're always coming back to the teachings so if you expose your body mind to the actual to Bhagavan's teachings you're drummed into it gets drummed into you how important this who am I is thing is and through a combination of following your heart and listening to Bhagavan's teachings we we eventually start to genuinely have a real burning desire to know who we are whereas initially it's just like it's like an empty formula you kind of just doing it going through the motions because you think it's the way to get what you want you're not actually you don't you're not actually deeply concerned with who you are who am I you know and that's what I've that's what I'm seeing at the moment anyway so I'd say follow your heart but also hear the teachings be open to the teachings and you might be see you might be going in different directions seemingly but actually you'll come full circle I think that's what I'm sort of sharing these days that's beautiful yes cuz you kind of need to be ready for it and complete all the tasks all the levels before that Readiness is full on yeah yeah and just to be clear ready for it all it means is that you have a desire to do it right in the way I think of it yes ready no matter what I want to see see this no matter what I want to know I am no matter what that's for me is the readiness yeah and if it's if it's on a scale from 1 to 10 it should be 11 yeah exactly I agree so you know for some people so what the reason I said that is you don't have to necessarily go through steps prior to it you know if you already have a burning desire to know yourself then you're ready yeah no matter what whether it brings peace whether it brings suffering

 so for the lucky ones who live in London come to Tom's weekly Satsangs is that right well you know what we have we have satsangs we have meetings twice a week but it's online uhhuh and um in London we have meetings once a month so where we and we do that they're also online as well and um some it's quite you know sometimes people come and visit as well from abroad and they can you know so if we time it right they can come to those um monthly meetings and it's also live streamed as well um but I wouldn't say I mean it's it's funny because um some people have when they come and meet me in person it's like oh wow it's so much better in person but many people it's like what it's no different you know it's it's or you know it might even be a letdown I don't know but um hopefully not but it might be so I just encourage people to come to the online meetings because um if you if you resonate with what I'm sharing then come on to online meetings you can get a really strong transmission um online it can be so powerful I think um and many people who come to the meeting say the same I feel that though I feel like online is really good I I feel like why why make all the effort to come and see me in person when you can just be in your own home and turn the computer on some people are kind of old school and they think that oh no I've got to be there with a teacher in person it's physically better and for some people maybe that's true

um and some people say the same for me there there's one person I know who never comes to any of the online meetings they just don't like it you know and they and they they love to see me in person you know so I don't know I I think the online ones are really good but I guess everyone's different I agree with this online now it's such a beautiful way to come together over past distances yeah and whatever is being transmitted or shared energetically or spiritually whichever way you want to call it it's not limited by the computer screen it's not limited I I say it's not limited by geography by Time by space it comes from here from within it's just a resonance it's not like your presence is being perceived through the screen no exactly same one own own yeah it's when I say transmission it's not actually a transmission yeah it's more resonance it's a resonance yeah so they're actually what's been transmitted is from themself to

themself but for many people um they will feel it's from me you know especially like the same way I feel I I felt it was from Bhagavan Ramana so that's I've also come to appreciate that if I'm too if I'm always banging on about the fact that it's actually from themself to themself for some people that can be an obstacle because for some people they feel it so strongly from me or whoever you know maybe from Jesus or from another teacher or from a book they feel it's from that and that can actually be useful because it can be useful for them to for their psyche to gather around a person or an object because that's what actually what happened to me I start my energy go went towards the form of Ramana I started um enjoying thinking about him and worshiping him as a person outside of me which again was against my non dual um programming my non dual teaching programming because I'd already been seeking for many years was that you shouldn't conceive of God as being outside of you Bhagavan Ramana says this as well he doesn't say you shouldn't conceive of God outside of you he says the high end of version of God is God is yourself which is true but there can be a stage where you fall in love with um an end an apparent entity out and that can be very um helpful for you so again I've learned not to um get in the way of people's processes ultimately it's true it's got nothing Tom's nothing at the end of the day Tom's just an empty thing you know but temporarily and I try and make it really clear because I don't want anyone to worship me actually you know it's not very fun being worshiped to me anyway I don't really like that but for some people it can be a past their process to feel loved towards a teacher or something like that you know and I don't mind sort of temporarily well so far I don't mind maybe I will if it becomes Troublesome but so far I don't mind sort of temporarily taking on that role especially online because there's a screen you know it's it's less it's less dangerous for them you know what comes to mind is the tuning Forks you know tuning Forks they produce very clear Signal right and by that signal you can adjust the instrument that is Out Of Tune so that tuning fork has got a function of bringing the clear signal for self adjustment that's right self correction so then that form can also ring at the same frequency at the same sound yes the same Clarity so yes these instruments like Ramana like you like other teachers they are doing that service of ringing the clear signal that makes sense yeah I know I not thought about it that's resonance means as well isn't it yes well resonance is is is subtly different to that but yeah it's the same idea is needed for self-correction yeah well you're talking about I'm being a bit pedantic here but you're talking about hearing a hearing a clear signal and adjusting to meet that aren't you is that right resonance is something slightly different resonance say say I'm a tuning fork and say you're a tuning fork yeah and say you're spiritual teacher and arm a Seeker when you ring yourself as your tuning fork if let's say I'm a tuning fork and you're a tuning fork we're the same frequency this when you ring your tuning fork I will it will also make me ring if you have two tuning Forks in the same room the same frequency yeah if you Bash one and ring one the other one will start to ring as well slightly yeah so it literally awakens the other dormant tuning for that's resonance right yes and plus whatever is in the way of that clear signals can drop like it cancels the noise what do you mean I mean you know our systems are noising thoughts beliefs ideas feelings traumas everything is a noise it's a lot of noise going on thereof we do not feel that deep Silence but we know it's there we know mentally it's there but we don't know it because of the all the noise but let's say somebody comes in with a Clarity with a clear signal of pure love bliss being silence right yeah yeah that silence come through as that noise is ceased ceases I see what you mean yeah so it's still here that resonance is still here but that noise is not letting it be known so when somebody is clear next to you it it eats that noise away I see what you're saying yeah totally I totally see what you're saying with the with the resonance analogy I'm thinking of if you imagine if you're a seeker and you're a tuning fork and imagine you've never vibrated in your life yeah you're just you're just a still Fork not emitting any sound and then a teacher who's another tuning fork is emitting this sound and when you go near that teacher their vibration makes you vibrate and for the first time in your life you feel this vibration because of the vibration of the teacher so their their frequency is sort of transmitted to you and you resonate with them so you feel something in yourself that's always being there that's always been dormant or latent in you it's awaken through something you know this is what I feel what happened to me when I came across Bhagavan in my heart at first I thought he was something outside of me I knew he wasn't because I'd done all the reading and stuff already but I was I was um in my actual day-to-day experience I was relating to him as if he was a power outside of me and through that um I kind I my mind first was going towards him and then it started to settle in itself and then I then he sort of metamorphosed from being here to being here so still a duality because before he was there now he's here so now I was worshiping him

here and then go into him and then it's just one this is kind of what happened to me and then I didn't like and all this time I didn't really like the verbal teachings that much and then afterwards I started to realize how beautiful these teachings were once the process was near completion and completion then I could start to appreciate the verbal teachings more and even though I share the verbal teachings now that wasn't my actual even though I'd read a lot that wasn't my actual

path so I call that the path of bhakti devotion love that's what my experience is but because Tom did a lot of reading he also understands all that stuff as well well not all of it but you know he's got the understanding he

has well Tom thank you so much thank you thank you thank you thank you for teaching me about

spiders because I should already know that living in the UK so that's good and now I've got the tuning fork thing I hope I didn't hope I wasn't too fussy on the tuning fork thing oh no it's great it's great to explore together but I love the way you phrased it where the silence I I totally um get that too yeah so everyone who wants to know more about Tom can click the link below in the description get to his website yeah and continue sharing the presence thank you oh can I say one more thing yeah please there's there's um a load of free resources on tomdas.com there's a recommended reading list um of books you can read about some are very old books um some are from the 20th century some are contemporary from the 21st century almost all of them are free um some of them you got to buy you know none of the money goes to me it just goes to the people printing the book so there's a recommended so highly recommend people check that out if they're interested there are also some introductory articles so so on Tomdas.com there's loads and loads of resources there so I just encourage people if they want to to go there and explore what's on

offer oh thank you so much and thank you everyone who watched listened and if you have comments please it's always nice to hear your thoughts and I'll see you in the next one bye for now