Meditative Self-Inquiry with Mukesh Gupta, June 14, 2026

We met at the Swanwick Centre. Mukesh opened with guidance for the dialogue: It is a space to inquire into our daily life, a space not to judge anyone here but to listen, look openly — not a space to debate, offer any opinions, but to bring a quality of not-knowing, love. Though we may be using words, words are incidental. Listening as one consciousness. And then maybe there will be a shift in consciousness.

It’s important we bring one question and continue that thread. Not many questions. It’s’ like digging a well, we may never reach water. So this is an art, meditative self-inquiry.

Q: A participant expressed her desire to look at the sorrow of life, the suffering of life. She quoted K, who said that in love there is no sorrow and where there is sorrow there is no love; sorrow, love, and death are all connected.

Mukesh (M): Why is there suffering in myself and in life? I am humanity.

Let’s take up this question of sorrow and then see if there is a connection to love.

Can we distinguish between physical suffering? But what we are exploring is psychological suffering (although that can come from physical suffering). And there can be suffering from loss and not getting what I want. Suffering is related to wanting: can we see this?

Can we distinguish between pain and sorrow? It is important we don’t stop feeling this pain because it is what makes us human. We have to be careful to explain what we mean by sorrow: it contains self-pity, there is a self in there.

Q: Participants tried to agree on the experience of sorrow, to define it. One participant noted that he experiences a sorrow where beauty and joy come from it.

M: This is a sorrow that creates unity so it is not a problem; whereas there is a sorrow that creates conflict and separation.

Q: A participant observes that making ourselves the central character through the narrative we tell seems to cause the problem.

M: What is the key question now? Because there are endless expressions of it—we have described many of them. Now a question is required that could lead to a breakthrough.

There is one common ground of what we have said so far: we were in the field of thought. The ground of thought is necessary for there to be suffering. In order for suffering to be, there has to be a deviation from the now. There is no other way. We have to go forward or backward in time through thought.

What can I do other than feel the pain fully? I meet that fully: am I resisting it? Do I wish it were different? This creates the suffering. I can go through intense pain — and that is part of being human — but see the optional part of suffering.

Where is life? Is it somewhere other than here?

Q: A participant notices that when he wakes from a terrible dream, for a while his thought sustains it until I realizes it wasn’t real.

M: Suffering is real but what caused it is imaginary. So you see the power of the thought process, the power of imagination.

Q: Someone insists that there is suffering in the world.

M: Yes, we can feel it but not make it into a problem. Ignorance of the mind creates suffering.

There is something related to wanting.

Q: It seems like there’s something beyond wanting, that it’s a need for psychological security and safety that is behind the suffering.

M: Is the fear from not being in control? But then I see that I am not in control, I can not control things, so the fear remains but I do not give up the control.

Can we pause here and ask, what is the true question for me? Is there even a question? To find one, you’d have to go into the past. Seeing what is is enough, otherwise it’s a conclusion.

There is no separation between me and my fear …. If I see it as separate I will try to do something about what is. This doing is coming from the idea that there is a ‘me’ that can do something about it. If I see this, then there is the possibility for what is to transform.

For the mind this is not good news: I am nothing, no one. Seeing the truth of it is a relief. The burden of ‘I’ is released.

M: Sometimes we lose touch with the sensation of fear and stay only with the label and that is part of the problem.

Q: A participant observes that the constant narration in the mind of what’s happening is what keeps us separate from the experience.

M: What is left behind all these words? Do you feel at peace within yourself or a tension to grab or understand? This is the intention of self-inquiry: inner light and lightness. It’s not necessary to live with this burden of heaviness.

 

• Kathryn Jefferies