An Advaita Vedanta realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga site discussing non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, and dwelling in the natural state as revealed by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
FROM A SITE VISITOR: The point i want to stress here is that why the brain (or say body) is not given importance when a person gets enlightened. The very fact that for meditation and contemplation our brain is used and some how we get enlightened , then why is it said that body is gross and we are not the body, cause in the first place itself we use our brain to attain enlightenment or universal ever present consciousness. If body , with body here i mean matured and developed brain too, if maturity and development of brain were so unimportant then we would have been born enlightened but that is not the case. According to my understanding brain plays a vital role in enlightenment, in attaining universal consciousness, then why is body(this includes brain obviously) discarded as gross principle and not in reality belonging to us but just considered as five elemental play.Please shed some light on this and clarify my doubt. Also please let me know if i was unable to put forth my doubt in an understandable form.Thanks,
[Continued from 11 may 2008. Please see yesterday’s post for the entire e-mail to which responses are being offered.]
F.: As for “why the brain (or say body) is not given importance when a person gets enlightened,” understand that enlightenment and dualistic concepts (such as “important” or “not important”) cannot “co-exist.” Additionally, there is no "person" that "gets" anything. Personas are imagined, not real.
Further, the brain is not the tool by which enlightenment happens. The consciousness is the tool by which Realization happens, or not.
Next, there is no “one” to attain anything, including “universal ever present consciousness.” Additionally, how could a brain be required in regards to consciousness if consciousness precedes any “coming together” of elements which might take the form of a body or a brain?
Yesterday you were told, “To understand that which you do not understand and that about which you are raising questions, you must find the roots of the brain, the ‘mind,’ and the consciousness.” Here’s the distinction:
Consciousness is rooted in the Absolute. The brain is rooted in the elements. The "mind" is rooted in wrong programming and faulty conditioning and lies and concepts and ideas and superstitions and falsehoods.
Ultimately, the teacher or guru guides you to the inner guru…to the inner resource. It is that pure consciousness, not the brain (and most certainly not the ‘mind,’ which is a storehouse of learned ignorance and myth-based lies) that already knows truth.
When the consciousness eventually unmanifests, the elements that form the brain and the space you take to be a body will return to the universal pool of elements. The "mind" will fade away as the brain and body elements return to the universal pool of elements.
Yet the consciousness remains, independent of the brain or the “mind,” merging into the Absolute. There, awareness is, even though there is no "one" to be aware of. That is the same case now: there is no "one" to be aware of consciousness. The case is simply that the consciousness is aware of its presence.
That is why the nature of the temporary I AM, if Realized, is no different from the I AM THAT. Once Fully Realized, once You understand that original nature, then the remainder of the manifestation happens spontaneously in the same natural fashion.
There is no differentiation, no personal attributes, no duality, no concepts, and no thinking. The “peace” of the Absolute happens NOW when You abide as the Absolute…as Your original and natural state.
In that “state,” no “importance” is assigned to the body, to the “mind,” or even to the consciousness. To be so concerned about (or to value) “the body” and “the brain” is to show that you are currently trapped at the first of seven steps on the “journey” to Reality.
The invitation is—when stuck at the first step and identifying with or concerned about the body—to stop jumping ahead to the third step (with your talk about a “God principle”) and stop jumping ahead to a step near the end of the “journey” (with your talk of “timeless awareness”) and deal with the fact that you are at the first step and should begin the “journey” as all journeys must begin: with the first step. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THIS SERIES, see “The Advanced Advaitin Seeker’s Package”: From the I to the Absolute, Consciousness/Awareness, and From the Absolute to the Nothingness. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm .
