I've Been Seeking for Years. When Does This End and How Do I Know I've Arrived?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH_d56Bv-jo

Video Summary:

Every serious seeker arrives at this question eventually. You've read the books, attended satsang, listened to the teachers — and something is still not complete. The seeking continues. So when does it end?

The answer is uncomfortable but liberating: it doesn't end — because it never truly began. The seeker, the I that wants to arrive, is itself the problem. Like a pink elephant in the mind — the thought is real, but it doesn't point to a real thing. The I thought is exactly like that. Present, persistent, but pointing to nothing actual.

The mind conditioned over decades to claim every experience — I feel, I think, I know, I want — has simply traded lollipops for seeking. The I remains intact throughout. And the I cannot witness its own dissolution. It will not be there when the destination arrives — because there is no destination. There never was one.

You haven't been travelling toward freedom. You have always been it.

If this points to something you've glimpsed but can't stabilise — a Clarity Call is where we look at it directly together.

Full Video Transcript: I've been going to satsang, reading books, listening to teachers for years. When does this end? And how do I know when I've arrived? That's the question. A question that many seekers have on the path of nonduality, Advaita, Self-realization, awakening — when you are in search of the truth.

So the assumption in the question is that there must be a destination. I've been searching for years. I've been reading the books. I've understood it all. I've attended satsang, listened to the teachers, but I still am seeking — where does it end? And when it ends, how do I know that it has ended?

The assumption is that there must be an ending. The path must lead to a destination. And the reason the mind is asking these questions is because the mind wants to be there. The ego, the identity, the person that you are, that I thought — wants to be there when the destination arrives. Wants to be there to see this end. It wants to be there to say yes, now it's over. I am done. Not realizing that the I will not be there, cannot be there. It is the very reason that you're still searching.

So let's try to answer this in the best possible way. I've probably spent about 15 years on this now. I spent 8 years studying the texts until you've got to know that you don't know. And you have to know why you don't know and why it cannot be known. That's the only way to know that which cannot be known.

That's the only reason I'm making these videos and talking about it — because everyone on the nondual path is talking about Awareness, Consciousness, the Absolute, Truth. Nobody's dismantling the illusion. And until you don't understand the illusion, nonduality cannot be complete.

You have Awareness and you have the universe. If you separate these two in your mind, now you're still in a dualistic state. There's I am Awareness and there's the rest of the world. I am none of it and I am this. You're still in a dual state.

Nonduality is only complete when you have understood I am Awareness and you have understood the illusion to be Awareness within Awareness. The illusion is nowhere else apart from the Awareness. The reality of an illusion is exactly where the illusion is.

There are so many examples that can be given in everyday life. Right now you're watching me on a screen. The reality of what you're watching is nothing but the screen, yet it looks like I am talking to you. You don't pay attention to the screen. You're paying attention to the person that you see on the screen. Your phone has everything on it for you. We never pay attention to the screen. We are always paying attention to the apps and what the screen is showing us.

So when does this end and how do I know I've arrived? I've given you the clue. You will not be there.

For decades, our minds have been conditioned since childhood. 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, 80 years — whatever your age. Five decades of conditioning the mind to understand that I am this, this is I, this is me — which means nothing else in the universe is me. This is individual and it is separate from everything and I am this.

So decades of conditioning — not only decades of conditioning, but it has been embedded so much that everything that this person experiences in life is claimed by I. I am going through it. I feel, I know, I think, I understand.

When we are babies and we start exploring life, we have our parents, our siblings and the other people around us who start teaching us. The conditioning starts then because at that point the mind is absolutely empty. It has no bias towards anything. It does not know anything. It starts to learn. The intellect starts to develop from childhood — and the first thing is this is my name. Everyone is calling this a certain name and I understand, oh okay, when they say Sukhdev it means me, and I refer to myself as I. I don't call myself Sukhdev when I'm thinking — it's I am, I, I, I.

So decades of conditioning for this to be identified with an I thought.

Now what does the child want when they're young? I want toys. I want ice cream. I want sweets. I want to go and play. When you grow older — I want this phone, this gadget, this TV. It changes.

So when you were young, you wanted lollipops and sweets. You grow older, you want gadgets. You grow older, you want a spouse, a partner, somebody to share your life with. And then you come to a point whereby I want to understand the truth. I want to know the reality. I seek God. I seek to know myself.

Why am I saying all this? Follow the pattern. I want a lollipop when you're 2 years old. And I want to know the truth when you're 50 years old. The lollipop has just changed to seeking. The I remains intact.

You've just traded — the lollipop for a gadget, for a spouse, for a house, for a car — and when you come into spirituality, you have traded those for the seeking. I am a lawyer. I'm a doctor. And now I am a seeker. The I is still there.

This is the conditioning of our mind over decades. Let's see this from a different perspective. We have a tree. The tree grows from the seed. The seed contains the entire tree. When you plant a seed, it sprouts. The shoot goes up and the root goes down. And it grows slowly — becomes stronger and stronger, bigger and bigger with all the leaves, twigs, flowers, and fruits. The roots grow deeper and deeper.

Now if we take the mind — when you were born, your mind was in seed form.

Absolutely new, unsprouted, nothing has grown out of it yet. And then you start receiving information. You start taking in from the five senses. You hear things. You smell things. You see things. You are told things. And the watering of the seed starts and it begins to sprout and grow.

So after 30 years, 40 years, 50 years — here we are. The mind has grown to understand that this is me.

So if you want to cut down the tree — you say I am not the flowers, cut them off. I am not the twigs, cut them off. I am not the branches, cut them off. And by the time you cut one off, another one has grown. You can keep doing that. You'll never get rid of the tree.

By the time you answer one question in your mind, another five have popped up. By the time you understand one philosophy, another three have come up. No ending, never ending.

How do you get rid of the tree once and for all? You cut off the root that is feeding the tree.

So what is the root of the mind? The identification. The ego. The I. Every part of the tree is connected. It can be traced down to the root that is feeding it. Every thought, every emotion, every action, every experience of your life can be traced down to the identity — I.

Until that I is not gotten rid of, the tree will keep sprouting. Until you don't get rid of the I thought, 10 thoughts will come, you solve five, another 10 come up. It's a never-ending process.

So how do you get rid of the I thought? To understand what the I thought is — number one, it's not real. Number two, because it's there you can't deny that it's there. It's like the mind — if you try to find the mind there is no thing called the mind, but if you try to stop the mind you find the mind everywhere. So the I thought, the ego, is like that. You can't say it's not there. But if you go into the inquiry to find out what it is, where it is — it's not there.

All the teachers on the spiritual path will tell you the words — illusion, mirage, dreamlike, false, untrue, unreal, relative, appearance, reflection.

When the I thought is there but is not real — then it must be an illusion. It must be false. It must be an appearance. It must be an imagination.

So the I thought is there but the thought does not point to a real thing. It's an imaginary thought. How do you get rid of an imaginary thought?

I'm pausing so that you can think about it. How do you get rid of an imaginary thought? Can you think it away?

Think of a chair — you know a chair exists. It's a real thing. Think of a pink elephant — a pink elephant appears in your mind but you know there is no real elephant that is pink in color. It's an imagination but the thought came. The thought is real but it doesn't point to a real thing.

One more — think of go. Nothing comes to mind because you've probably not heard of that word before.

So — the chair, real thought pointing to a real thing. The pink elephant, real thought, imaginary thing.

The body is real physically. Every part of the body has a name. All the parts put together make the body. The word chair is a thought in the mind and it points to the real physical object called a chair.

Here is the I thought — the ego. The I thought does not point to any part of the body. This is a nose. That's a cheek. That's an eye. That's a forehead. That's hair. That's my shoulder. That's my neck. Where is I? There is no physical part of this body that is called I.

Within this body I have thoughts and that's where the I thought develops. The I thought — if it's not pointing to a real object, then it's an imagined object. You see this body, it's real, but it's not you. So you imagine this to be you. The mind has imagined this to be you. The thought is real but the object it's pointing to is not real.

How do you get rid of the pink elephant in your mind? You stop imagining it. As simple as that. Once you know the reality of it, you stop imagining it.

You can't get rid of it by thinking about it. You can't get rid of the I thought, the identity, by thinking about it.

How do you get rid of I when it's not real? You stop imagining it.

Now you can say — I tried that for a few days, a few weeks, but it keeps coming back. Yes it will — in the same way that it has been conditioned when you were young. You kept forgetting your name when you were young and you had to keep remembering it until it was ingrained in the memory, in the subconscious, so strongly embedded it becomes the root.

So to uncondition it — yes, you can do it for a few weeks, it will come back. You can do it for a few months, it will come back. And you keep doing it. That's the only way to uncondition it. But if you try to understand what it is using thoughts, you're in a loop. And that's what the mind likes. That's how it survives.

Finally, at the edge, when the ego is pushed right to the back, it says — I want to get rid of I. I want to get rid of me. And what does that do? It puts you into action. Oh, I need to learn this. I need to understand this. Maybe when I understand that teaching — and the ego survives.

How does the ego know that it has come to an end? How does the pink elephant know that it no longer exists? It can't. It will not be there.

The last part on the path of the seeker's journey is the seeker himself.

The final realization would be — it's been me all along. I didn't need to feel a certain way. I needed to know who is the feeler. I didn't need to do these things. I needed to find out who is it that's doing it — because that was imaginary all along. I didn't need to know all the different things in the dream when I wake up from the dream. I just needed to know that it's a dream and it's not real.

So the I will not be there — and it's not there right now.

There is no end to seeking. The moment you say the word seeking, you've put the ing, it becomes a verb. It's an action word. There is no end to that because there are a million ways of seeking. Without cutting the root of the tree, without cutting the root of the mind, the ego, the I thought — it's a spiral of thoughts.

You don't arrive. There is no way to arrive. You have always been.

How do I know it? Your very existence. Just the fact that you exist. You can deny everything else in the world. You cannot deny that you exist. Even to deny that you exist, you must exist.

When does this end? There is no time when it will end because there was no time when it began. Then how come it was there? It was imagined. It wasn't real.

When did the pink elephant die? Never. Because it was never born. It was never real.

When does silence end? Silence will never end because it never began. Existence can never end because it never began. Consciousness, Awareness — all the words — nothingness, emptiness, take them all. They will never end because they never began.

When does this end? And how do I know when I have arrived? You will only know that you never left. Ever.

So the question of arriving somewhere does not arise.

We'll leave it at that.