Preparing To Unclutch

So the first understanding is, both the identities which we carry don't have a base. They are not real. The second thing is, how to go beyond these two? It seems difficult because from the moment you come out of your sleep till the moment you fall into the dream state, these identities have a continuous hold over you. They have a say over you. They have an influence over your being. How to unclutch or unclutch detach from them? This is the word that we will be using again and again. We will be using the word 'unclutch' repeatedly for this kośa.

While driving a car, in order to change gears, you have to first press the clutch, come to neutral and then move to the next gear. In the same way, between any two thoughts there is silence, a neutral zone. When you move from one thought to the next, you will experience the neutral zone.

You have to disengage from the moving wheels before you change the gear, is it not? That is what is unclutching. You have to disengage from the moving thoughts, from the moving identities. Whether it is from the first gear to the second gear, or from the

second gear to the third gear, or any movement, you have to completely declutch or unclutch from the movement first.

In the same way, any state you fall into, whether it is from the waking state to the dream state or from the dream state to the deep sleep state, any state that you move into within your inner space, you have to unclutch first. You have to first come to that zero zone. You have to come to that neutral zone. You have to come to the centre space.

The centre space is continuously happening in you without your involvement. If you can experience that centre space with your awareness, suddenly you will experience what I call 'freedom'! What I mean when I say freedom is really freedom from these two main identities. You will experience a state beyond these two identities. Let me try to explain with a small example.

In North Bharat, you might have seen in the forests how they hang a small stick between two trees in order to catch birds. The hunters use this trick to trap birds. The stick will hang between two trees in this fashion. You may wonder, how the bird will be caught by such a small thing. The bird will come and sit on one side of the twig. The moment it sits, because of its weight, the stick will turn over and become topsy-turvy, and the bird will hang upside down. The poor bird will not understand that if it lets go, it can simply fly! It will think that if it relaxes, it will fall and die, and so it will be continuously hanging on to it, for maybe even two to three hours. The hunter will come, slowly catch the bird, put it into the cage and go. Understand: just like this bird, we too have a great fear that the moment we let go of the 'I' and 'Mine', the ahaṅkār and mamakār, we may become mentally imbalanced or we may not be able to