Sumiran: In the beginning of our dialog I�d like to say a couple of words about practice. Namely, about the process of falling asleep, because the za-zen practice facilitates this process very much. The most facilitating practice (laughter).

In the morning we were speaking about the fact that keeping attention at the �I am� feeling is one of the methods of not falling asleep, because when you are falling a deep sleep, you lose the �I am� feeling. But there are two possibilities for you to fall asleep. The second way to falls asleep is not to fall into the phase of deep sleep, but to the sleep with dreams, When we have a sleep with dreams, the �I am� feeling is not lost, because we are present at the observation of our dream. What does it mean to fall asleep in this sense then, because I have not disappeared, I am present? This happens this way � you start seeing some images inside, that is the mind is projecting images and till some moment you remember that you are sitting to practice and these are simply images. There is a distinction, you are adequate � you evaluate what you see in an adequate way, as some projection of your mind. But sometimes a moment comes, when you a kind of jump into these images, that is you start taking the images as reality - it means that you have fallen asleep. You completely lose this reality and you are in the reality of a dream, and you don�t know this is a dream. I.e. when you sleep you don�t know that you sleep. When you sleep and know that you sleep it is not completely a dream. It is a conscious dreaming � I go on dreaming on one part, but at the same time I know this is a dream, I am lying in bed, or sitting. One should be attentive to this phase of falling asleep, because often the people who are sitting start losing themselves in the images. Just be attentive, don�t lose the adequacy � when you start seeing the images you have to all the time remember that these are images, pictures, and you are the one who is observing them. Otherwise this phase of forgetting will be the moment of you falling asleep. When you go on seeing pictures, but have already forgotten that these are just pictures, the dream becomes some reality where your psychics starts existing, and the reality of this world is no more existing for you. In deep sleep both the experiencer and the universe disappear. That is in a deep sleep there are neither objects of perception, nor self-consciousness of the subject. And in a sleep with dreams there is self-consciousness of the subject which perceives the objects of the dream, but the subject itself is not aware that the objects it perceives are the projections of its own thinking, that is it has forgotten about it, and this is called a dream.

Lets move on. What is meditation? When the images appear in this case meditation is to remember that I am an observer and these are just images. In the other case you keep attention at the �I am� feeling. If all the images disappear then consequently the observer disappears as well. That is the observer and what is observed exist together, if there is nothing to observe, there is no observer. The observer is the one who is connected with what is observed by the observation process. If there is nothing to observe at all, then I as an observer don�t exist. Exactly as an observer, because there are no objects for observation. That is why I exist simply as the �I am� feeling. That is I cannot define neither my characteristics, nor my form, nor my dimensions, nothing. How do we define ourselves? We repulse from the objects. Pay attention, we can define ourselves somehow only in relation to the objects. That is in relation to somebody I am a mother or a father. I always need something, what I repulse from in order to self-define. Even when we say that we are people, we define ourselves in relation to the existing biological species. If there is no biological species, it�s not comprehensible what is a �human�. We introduce the concepts of the types of biological creatures, and we are one of these, and thus we are being defined as people. If there is nothing for me to �repulse� from that is there are no objects in relation to which I define myself, then consequently I cannot be someone. I can only BE, but not someone. The �I am� feeling remains, but the feeling �I am someone� cannot be confirmed, because there are no objects in relation to which I can self-identify. Moreover, I disappear as an observer, because there is nothing for me to observe. That is the observer is some point, from which I observe let�s say, another man, or images, or thoughts, or emotions. But this point nevertheless should be defined in relation to the other point which it observes. If there exist only the observer, and there is nothing to observe, the observer cannot define himself as a certain point in space, because the space implies a coordinate system, and the coordinate system implies already not one point.

If you keep the �I am� feeling, while losing the objects this state is called nirvicalpa samadhi. That is you aren�t someone, but you are nevertheless present. Even not as an observer, because there is nothing to observe. The state of deep sleep is sometimes called unconscious samadhi � the objects are gone, but you disappeared also, you lost yourself as some experience. They say that there is another variant, when the objects disappear, but consciousness remains self-conscious due to the intensity of attention to itself. That is you go on experiencing the feeling of presence, but don�t perceive any objects, including your body, emotions, thoughts. Actually as form you are absent, but present as an experience. This is what is samadhi. There is no time and no space in this state, because there are no objects and no thoughts. In order to set space, objects are needed, in order to set time, comparison of two thoughts is needed. As this is absent there you are in a state that is beyond time and space. In order to get there a certain intensity of attention is needed. Well, the variant of conscious dreaming is familiar to many people, when while dreaming we remember that this is a dream. It sometimes happens in practice, too, you are sitting, start seeing images, pictures of the past, or simply some abstractions, but at the same time you feel the body, you remember that you are sitting, but the dream goes on. The most important here is not to lose this feeling � I am in practice, and these are just pictures. Be attentive to this.

This may be practiced sometimes when you fall asleep. While falling asleep try to discover this point � what does it mean � to fall asleep? Try to feel what it means. That is don�t try not to sleep, but try to be conscious till the very last moment, and you will see that there is a transition there. As if one moment you are in bed, and then suddenly the bed disappears, some dream appears and you are there� Or simply everything is gone. This point is very interesting to observe, when you fall asleep. And the same point of transition appears when you wake up. A moment ago you weren�t and suddenly you, perception appeared. You didn�t perceive the room, your body, thoughts, and at some moment all these appeared in the sphere of perception. Or you were watching the dream, there was one reality, and you were thinking that this was the reality. Then at some moment you wake up, that reality disappears and there appears the reality of this space. One can experiment with these points a little, I recommend it to you. Because they are a certain hint for the search of the unchanging. That is, understanding what is changing we can touch the immutable, on the background of which the changes happen.

One of the components of our meetings is the talks which we call investigation, or in the East it is called jnani. This is an attempt to study some issues that cause problems in the life of a man; and while studying, with a certain understanding, com� to the solution of these problems. Many problems don�t exist actually, while being created by the wrong, distorted perception or fallacious concepts of life, life attitudes. Such problems should be solved not by changing life events, but by a review of certain ideas of life, or certain forms of perception of life, and at the moment of a dialog this happens. That is a dialog is not simply an informational exchange, but a review done on spot. We study something that we cannot understand, or that bothers us, and start studying this with the help of attention, and bringing in consciousness into this sphere. And often people set free of some tensions and psychological problems with the use of such dialogs.

Seeker: It�s not a kind of question, but to have a more precise definition. What does it mean za-zen?

Sumiran: The translation of Za-zen is to sit still.

Seeker: And zen? Is it to be translated?

Sumiran: �Zen� is �meditation�. In India meditation was denoted by the word dhyana. When it came to China, it was transformed through the local dialect to chan, dhyana became chan. And when it came to Japan, chan turned into zen. Dhyan, chan, zen is meditation, it is simply to meditate.
Za-zen is to meditate in a sitting position without movement, simply a form of meditation. �Without movement� by the way has to do not only with the body. We move internally a lot. True zen is when a man finds the really unmovable. Ever. Za-zen is the search of the ever unmovable, that never moves, had never moved, and won�t ever move. It is not a position of the body, not a thought.

Sometimes it happens like this � we sit and the thought stops. It is not za-zen however, because in some time the mind starts being active again. The same with emotions, they can calm down, but someone has been noisy, someone said something wrong, and they start being active again. I.e. za-zen is the search of what can never be disturbed in a man. And when a person finds this, and becomes firmly established in what can never be disturbed, one can say that he is in the za-zen practice. And the still position of the body is just a symbol.

Seeker: Sitting helps feeling this state, doesn�t it?

Sumiran: It does. Why? Pay attention � when you sit you can feel that you are not the body, remember this. But as soon as you start moving, you at once identify yourself. Any of your actions, or when you start speaking, and immediately there arises a feeling � this is Me who is speaking. There appears a feeling of oneself as the one who is speaking. Any form of activity is not something wrong, but it focuses our attention on itself. And unless we are well established in the �I am not this� feeling, it is very difficult to keep self-remembering in it. I exist, but I exist as a certain form. The easiest way to do this is when we sit still. It�s a kind of�

From the audience: Light variant.

Sumiran: Yes. It�s a kind of � greenhouse. That is in this state, in a certain atmosphere, when certain people do practice together with you, and there are no distracting factors, it�s easier for you to remember about this. It�s much harder to remember about this in ordinary activities. Only because of this people sit down. When you are steady enough to hold this quality in the activities, you don�t need to sit anymore. You are doing what is your nature, but at the same time constantly remember.

Seeker: It seems to me that I am not afraid of the death as such. Of the physical death. But I have a great fear of dissolving. All who describe these states, when they sit to meditate or this state comes by itself, when a man starts connecting with the divine, give different names to it. It scares me very much, for me it is as if I will never any more exist� never, this word NEVER is a panic word for me. It is an unconscious reaction that doesn�t allow to take a step into this experience.

Sumiran: To figure it out a little bit� So you say that you are not afraid of the physical death, but you are afraid to be dissolved, then the question is the following � what does it mean for you to exist?

Seeker: Well, I think to be conscious of oneself. It�s a difficult question.

Sumiran: What does it mean to be conscious of oneself?

Seeker: Well, to breath.

Sumiran: It order to breath you need the body, and you are saying that you are not afraid of the physical death.

Seeker: Yes.

Sumiran: When there won�t be a body, what are you going to breath with?

Seeker: There is consciousness. And this consciousness which becomes.. There is an image of the drop merging with the ocean. And you become not a part, that is I�m afraid of, but become one with something, and I stop existing as a personal consciousness. I become nothing, but again I say that I have never felt anything like this, it�s an intellectual fear. As far as I imagine, when a drop merges with the sea, it�s difficult to single it out of it after that.

Sumiran: Just impossible. But do you want to be a drop?

Seeker (laughing): It�s a kind of more understandable, let�s say. I don�t understand anything else absolutely.

Sumiran: And what is the difficulty?

Seeker: It seems to me that I stop existing as something single.

Sumiran: You stop existing as something particular, to the contrary. You start existing as single, and stop as the particular.

Seeker: Aha. I see what you are saying, but now for me I is something single. But if� mmm� my separation�

Sumiran: Yes, your separation.

Seeker: This is more comprehendible for me. And when being there, I merge and that�s it, nothing remains any more.

Sumiran: And you don�t want there, do you?

Seeker: I am afraid.

Sumiran: I am asking now do you want there or not? The fact that you�re afraid I have understood already. Look, if you want there, but you�re afraid � this is a problem, but if you don�t want there and you are afraid there is no problems. No one pulls you there.

Seeker: It�s difficult for me to reply this question.

Sumiran: Think a little. Because we are working here with a situation that causes difficulty in life. Some people are afraid to go to India � there are lots of weird Hindus, a billion. (Laughter in the hall) But they don�t want indeed. And they don�t have problems with India. And some people want, but they are afraid. They do have problems.

It�s important to decide about this dissolving, because if you are afraid and don�t want to, then don�t go, and that�s it. They say that God is very considerate, He forces no one to go there. Unless a person wants to feel himself separate, he feels himself separate. However if you want there, but have fear, then one can sort it out.

Seeker: No, I am afraid for all that. I am afraid that I merge and cease existing.

Sumiran: First, I want to cheer you up a little bit then. You have a certain idea now that you exist now (Laughter). An idea of that then you merge, but now you exist, you are assured in this. Here is a dangerous place, let�s have a look � is it really so? When people say �I am afraid of death� or �I am not afraid of death� - the fact that a person says �I will die after�, or �I will merge after� shows that he is sure that now he by no means one with this, he is separate.

And then we can study this situation, is the separation real, or it is simply an illusion; a man has convinced himself that he is separate, and his separation has some objective confirmation. You will merge or you will die is not what we should start with, we should start with the investigation whether you exist as a person in the present or it is simply your idea about this, you just imagine yourself like this � being separate. If entering deeper in this, everything may come out to be not as it seems. There should be a desire, a willingness to look at these things, that is to understand what I am at the present moment, this feeling of separation, how it is manifested. How do you feel your separation? What is your uniqueness and separation from this world?

Seeker: Well, it�s easier for me to start with the physical body. I perceive those opposite to me as others.

Sumiran: If taking the physical body, what is it? There was a dad�s spermatozoon and a mum�s ovum which you don�t call yourself now. But your body consists of the dad�s spermatozoon which is not you, and the mum�s ovum which is also not you. Then these cells, when they join, they start dividing. In order to divide they need food that comes from the outer environment to the mother�s organism. Thus, your body consists of two cells from two people which are not you plus the food that comes from the outer environment which you also define as not you.
(Silence in the audience, then giggling)

Seeker (pensive): It comes out, yes.

Sumiran: This is when speaking about the physical body. Then, if speaking about your ideas, thinking. You hadn�t have thinking till a certain moment, because you hadn�t got the speech. Since some moment you were downloaded information from the outer environment, which you didn�t consider yourself to be. Till some moment you had the understanding that this is the opinion of the farther, of the mother, of the party, of the teacher. Since a certain moment you began telling � this is my opinion. But did the information that you operate with change? That is all the information that you use for your opinion was received from the outer environment from other people. Where are you there?

Seeker: Ideas close to me I kept and operate with them.

Sumiran: Ideas close to me. But these ideas were also received from the outer environment.

Seeker: So what. This is close to me. And me, my identity consists in what I have taken from here, from there, from there. And now from this set�

Sumiran: When you say �close to me�, what do you need to do to understand that some idea is close to you?

Seeker: My mind is completely out. I have cleanliness in my head�

Sumiran: Listen to me attentively. Assume we take an idea and we need to understand is it close to us or not. This box, is it big or small?
(takes a match box)

Seeker: It�s middle.

Sumiran: How did you know?

Seeker: It is relative.

Sumiran: In order to define whether it is big or small, what do we need?

Seeker: To compare.

Sumiran: To compare. That is we define the characteristic by comparison. Look on further. You take some information or idea from the outer environment and then define whether it is close to you or not. That is you need to compare it, in order to define. What do you compare it with?

Seeker: It must be something inside of me.

Sumiran: With what?

Seeker: Is this thought in tune with me, is it mine or not.

Sumiran: What do you compare an idea with? Assume, the weight. We cannot compare weight and length. Two centimeters they are not more or less than three kilos. That is why when you take an idea, it is a thought, a set of thoughts, you cannot compare them to an emotion, you can compare it only to another idea. So, when you are speaking about some information being close to you, you should compare this information to that being stored inside of you that you call yourself, whether this information matches with the information that is already in you or not. This is how you define whether an idea is close to you or not. That is you either agree or not. But you agree or don�t agree on the basis of some information that already exists for you. So I am asking where did the first information come from? How was the informational unit in relation to which you compare other units, and which you call yourself formed?

Seeker: It comes out that everything is from the outside.

Sumiran: Yes. Because you know that a child, when it didn�t have any idea yet, wasn�t comparing, it didn�t have any close ideas. Do ask Gosha: Gosha, is the idea of enlightenment close to you? He would say � I don�t know what it is. It is neither close nor far for him. It is so-so for him. Because Gosha doesn�t have his ideas yet. But soon they will be formed for him, soon he will be explained what is good and what isn�t. And through these explanations later on he will orientate himself regarding other information. That is he is ingesting the information received from an authority, let�s say from a mother, and since some moment he starts to call the ingested information himself, and compare all the further coming volumes of information with this one, supplement it, restructure. But initially everything was received from the outside. So where are we here?
The body appeared from the fusion of two cells of two strangers, plus the food received from the outer environment; the mind which we possess is a set of information, simply restructured in a certain way, but nevertheless, received from the outer environment. Where is our individuality?
Even if we take the emotional source. What is our emotions? This is a set of psychological patterns, traumas, imprints of the up-bringing � we were brought up in childhood in a certain way, we had some psychological reactions. Plus the inborn data: neurotic, sanguine, choleric. It is all set by the central nervous system, by the speed of running of the impulses, electrons in the nervous system, it is inborn, it comes from mother and father also. It comes out that my psychics is inborn structures, plus some situations of external events � someone hit me, something happened in life � thus was my psychical state formed, my vision of life. That is all was formed by the external environment, plus the biological heredity. And where is my individuality at all these?

Seeker: Altogether. The set of these complexes is individuality.

Sumiran: This I call my�

Seeker: This is me�
(Laughter, noise.)

Sumiran: The matter is that it is done by agreement. There are people who are tired of the personality already, well a little bit.
A man is admiring his personality as a rule. The overwhelming majority of people in the world are exactly building up the personality. This is the process of becoming - I become better, a little better from the right, from the left, oh, I look so good, etc. I started looking not bad inside already. And if there is something wrong inside, then I can make up something outside. (Everybody laugh) Many people are engaged in this, but some part of them sees that the process itself is a trap. Curiously enough the process of becoming brings some pleasure to the personality, to the ego, on one hand, but at the same time it brings suffering. This is like two sides of one coin, one cannot have only one side. And a part of people enquires if there is something that doesn�t have the other side in a form of suffering. Can we try to find something that doesn�t have the opposite in the form of suffering, negative, and has only a light side? Can we remain a person which has some accumulations and stops suffering meanwhile? We don�t manage to, by now there is no one who has managed. If I can�t then I want to sort it out, who is a person, may be the point is in this person?

Seeker: May I ask about illusion? Illusion is born by our thought, isn�t it?

Sumiran: Yes, by an idea, as a rule.

Seeker: Some idea? It is born, as a mosquito, for instance. It is living for several hours, isn�t it? And an illusion, too, it is living for a short time and disappears. But when it is living, is it the same reality as everything which is real, does it influence with the same power as everything which is not-illusion?

Sumiran: No, it doesn�t. Illusion may influence only an illusion. Like a computer hero has an opportunity to influence only computer images, not you sitting in front. That is something on the screen influences what is on the screen.
Seeker: But it is capable of evoking certain emotions in us, something else�

Sumiran: No doubt.

Seeker: So it can influence, and by this impact can evoke some real things in us.

Sumiran: In the East they define Reality in a very specific way. And then everything clicks into places. In the East they say that you should find something that doesn�t change in three times � past, present and future, and that doesn�t change in three states � awakened, sleep with dreams, and deep sleep. When you find that which doesn�t change in time and doesn�t change in three states of mind, i.e. is constantly present, 24 hours during all your life � this is Reality. Everything else is defined as illusion by them, including emotions, thoughts, the idea of oneself, because everything else changes.

Seeker: Everything else may be ignored.

Sumiran: Not ignored, just known as an illusion.

Seeker: So, the �I am� feeling is reality, hmm?

Sumiran: What happens to the �I am� feeling during deep sleep?

Seeker: Well, it is simply not registered.

Sumiran: Probably. Look, there are two feelings. The first is what is called the consciousness of a man. This is the reflection of consciousness that is one, from the body. When consciousness is reflected from an object then personal consciousness appears. Usually what we call �I exist� is the feeling of a personal consciousness that disappears with the disappearing of an object like a reflection which disappears as soon as the mirror breaks. Our �I am� feeling is the reflection of the light of God from the body. But the reflection is the only connection between us and the Source of light itself. That is the �I am� feeling is personal�

Seeker: Reflection of reality?

Sumiran: Yes, reflection. Why? Because it is connected to the body. But through this feeling one can go out into the light itself, the Source of light itself. If you go out into it, then the dream as such stops existing for you, or gets another quality.

Seeker: Sumiran, can we reason like this? A man is born, or for example something happened in life, and he became humpbacked. He is. It is what is not an illusion. And the fact that he is humpbacked is an illusion, But this illusion doesn�t allow him to live, does it? And life is an illusion, too. And nevertheless it influences his �I am� feeling. What should he do, how can he realize this �I am� through such an image of him which� May be he even doesn�t want to exist because he is like that. What to do with this illusion?

Sumiran: The first illusion is that he was born.

Seeker: He is humpbacked, and consequently he�

Sumiran: No, no, no. The body is humpbacked, what has this to do with him?

Seeker: But he is living in this body. Perhaps he wants to love and be loved.

Sumiran: Wait, wait, wait. Whether he is living in a body is under question.
First, I don�t agree that he was born. Second, I don�t agree that he is living in a body. The body is living in him. Because the body is living in Consciousness. There is no body without consciousness. When he is sleeping, he hasn�t got a hump, because he hasn�t got consciousness. When we are sleeping in a deep sleep state, we are all the same. No body. That is in order to register the body, the mind is needed, in order to register the mind, consciousness is needed, in order consciousness to be, self-consciousness is needed that is what we call Reality.

Seeker: This is why to live always in a dream and not to live in reality or how can we denote what we now�

Sumiran: Look here. What you are experiencing now is reality for you and the Source is a conception. It is your matrix of perception. If we turn it over, the Source will be a reality for you, and this Universe will be a concept, a thought, a projection of consciousness. Both the Source and the Universe exist. But for us the Source is only a thought now, an idea that there is something higher, and this world we perceive as a very much real. When we turn over the perception, we take higher as a fact, and this world as a conception. That is this world remains, it goes on living it�s life, but it is perceived as a kind of secondary, i.e. a kind of some manifestation of Reality which we sense as lively as we perceive this world now. Everything remains.

Seeker: I just want to set it clear for me, if stand on this spot, deeply accept it and look at this world, as a poet says, as at a soap bubble. Our life is something like a rainbow soap bubble, and nothing else. Some illusion.

Sumiran: No. There is a trap here � you can look at the world as a soap bubble, but yourself you consider to be real. This is me, real Yarika, who is looking at this world as a soap bubble. This is a mistake. First of all one should look at oneself in the same way as at the world. If you can see yourself as a soap bubble as well, then you won�t have a disbalance. When you don�t perceive yourself as a soap bubble, but perceive the world as an illusion it is a disbalance. That is your body is a part of the world.

Seeker: But will it help me to live here and now, or will it help me when the life is over, or when? How can this, how can I� mmm�. what, what kind of instrument it will be, so that I could live this life?

Sumiran: It will remove fear from life.

Seeker: It can remove fear? Such a stand?

Sumiran: Sure. But it is not a stand, if it is a stand, then fear remains as it used to be. It should become a fact, and not a conceptual stand.

Seeker: Then a question appears � and where am I? Where am I in? I am in this life, but I am not in this life � this life is an illusion.

Sumiran: ΅

Seeker: I am WHERE?

Sumiran: Yes, an interesting question, where are you?

Seeker: In which space, where am I?

Sumiran: Where are you?

Seeker: Where am I in order not to have fear, not to be scared?

Sumiran: You ARE, but WHERE are you?

Seeker: So where am I?

Sumiran: Where are you?

Seeker: I don�t know (breast into laughter. Laughter in the audience also).

Sumiran: Look, if you define yourself as a certain form, a person, then you have to be somewhere. If you deny yourself as a person, as a form, that is you know that you exist, but deny yourself as everything perceivable, and any form is perceivable. Thus you exist, but you don�t have a residence. Jesus sais that God�s son has got no place to bow his head. That is you don�t have a place where you live. Consequently, you live nowhere, but if you live nowhere you are then also simultaneously all. This is a paradox indeed. If you are no one, but at the same time you exist, then you are any form, which you perceive. This is the reason why they say in Tibet, that there is perception � this is a fact, but there is no one who perceives. There is the space of perception, where there are a lot of objects. This is a mystery - there is no the one who perceives, only perception is.
Further on, the mind at the background of perception and objects creates an idea of a subject and an object. That is the mind divides the objects into the one who perceives and the perceived. But this is the thought already that joins in. Actually you already perceive yourself and the others, but with the help of a thought you say that me is me, and others are others. This happens with the help of a mind. The nature of the mind is to divide. Then, knowing this nature you don�t allow the mind to spoof you. That is you are all the time aware that you are simply perception which registers the objects that are in the field of your perception including your body which is not something separate from all the totality of the objects. And from now on you start living from this position. And look what goes out of it. So now you ask and what will go out of it? Do and have a look.

Seeker: One should be a little bit not in the body but above it. Because�

Sumiran: No, one should be nowhere at all. Above the body is another spot in space, another kind of position. What for? What for to be above the body? If you are above the body then again you define yourself as something that is in space and time. And again you become bound by space and time, understand? You don�t change anything in particular. Even if you escape the astral body you just come out to be some object just of another functional quality. So what? But here you completely transcend space and time.

Seeker: May this modified perception of oneself, may it be constant? Or it is temporary as meditation until you stay here�

Sumiran: In the beginning it is like flashes, you remember about this from time to time, you have remembered, then you forget, that is your attention is again being captured by some idea of an image of oneself. Then you remember again. First there is a struggle, you overcome the inertia, the habit of the mind to define you as a certain form. Because you are not a form. But the mind from moment to moment defines you as something. First you overcome this inertia. That is you remind yourself all the time, the more often, the better. Even in the night. Sometimes I sleep at night and have a dream, and I remember that I am doing this practice, I remember that I am nothing. Even in the dream, that is this is being transferred into a dream, into the subconscious of a man. Earlier or later this habit of reminding yourself becomes automatic, that is you don�t need to make efforts, it stops being practice and becomes meditation. That is you remember without an effort that� As now you remember without an effort that you are a human, you don�t repeat to yourself �I�m a human, I�m a human�, you do know this, there is not an effort; in the same way you will know without an effort that you are not a human.

Seeker: There might be memory about past states, lives that arises through this�

Sumiran: No, you have past lives as a certain person. If you know yourself as Nothing, you don�t have the past lives, because you weren�t born.

Seeker: In order to get rid of the fear, I see that the fear of death and life and everything will leave when you understand where you are.

Sumiran: When you understand not WHERE you are, because until you are somewhere the fear remains anyway. But when you understand that you have never had a form, and what has had no form is never born, and consequently, never will die. That is death is completely out of the question. The question about birth and death is important for the one who has form. If you know your self as something that hasn�t got a form, birth and death are simply out of the question. Such events don�t exist for you. That is in the field of your perception there is that which has form, which is born and dies, but you as perception itself was never born, and never died, because you don�t have a form. And, consequently, there is no question about your creation, because there was created only what has a form. And you all the time remember about this. That is why the question about death doesn�t interest you at all, it has nothing to do with you. Let that which has a form be interested in this, not you. You die immediately, now, from moment to moment. You say �I am not a thing� � this is death indeed. You are not waiting for death; you die at once and forever. How? You stop knowing yourself as something that has some form. Death can touch only that which has a form and lives in time. And if you are Nothing, you don�t have a form and don�t live in time. That is why death cannot touch you. And you just know this all the time.

Seeker: This is very much difficult, because this is, well, I don�t know how� Because we live in this body, yeah?

Sumiran: No.

Seeker: But nevertheless, why is the body given to us? It is given!

Sumiran: To whom?

Seeker: To any of us.

Sumiran: You are speaking from the part of the mind now, that is there is the mind�

Seeker: Year. The mind doesn�t allow�

Sumiran: The body is given to the mind, but you need to find out who is the owner of the mind. Who is the mind given to?

Seeker: What is all this for? Such a high philosophy, why do people need it, those who didn�t go to the mountains, didn�t leave the society, the family? Why do they need such a high philosophy? One can go crazy, because the mind will fight for its positions, it won�t allow thinking this way.

Sumiran: Because, look�

Seeker: What for do I need it, how does it help me to live this life? Or do I need to go to the mountains in order not to go crazy? Or what should I do so that this philosophy helped me to live! And not going crazy. This is what I want. Why do I need this?

Sumiran: The way it helps. This understanding makes you deprived of isolation. If you are not isolated, if you are not afraid, because fear is a consequence of the feeling of isolation, of the protection of one�s isolation. If you are not afraid, then you won�t be aggressive in this life. Because aggression is simply a reaction to your fear of life. And if you are not aggressive in your life, you won�t create a conflict for other people and for yourself. This is the result of understanding. Unless I feel myself isolated, I am afraid, and I am aggressive as a result, and I create conflict, problems, as a result. If I know myself as something not separate, I stop having fear, consequently, I stop being aggressive and creating an internal and an external conflict. If I have really lived through this, I lose the state of confrontations and aggression towards people and a feeling of fear actually. This is what could be achieved. The point is not that I am just having some idea. This is a real state. And people who approached this, manifest it with their life. This is not a matter of going to the mountains or moving your body somewhere. This is a matter of the quality of our life.

Seeker: Well I need to live with this thought, because I have it like a Russian doll � there is always a second question arising to the first one (laughter)

Sumiran: This is good. You should ask them and we will sort them out, because the aim of these dialogs is to remove doubts. Now we are convinced in one thing. But by the way of a dialog we can probably change our attitude, out position. For this we need to talk about this, talk, doubt, ask. And some doubts start solving. This is important. The aim of the dialogs is you to have no more doubts and misunderstanding. You should see everything yourself. This is important.