Teaching Aids-“Clay in the Pot”: When Advaitans speak of “the clay in the pot,” the pointer being offered is that one can take a quantity of clay and shape it into a pot, a ball, a bowl, a vase, etc. Yet no matter what outward appearance or form the clay might take, the appearance or form is not what that really is which is supposedly being observed. Regardless of the appearance, it’s just clay. So it is when consciousness manifests in what appears to be various forms: humans, animals, plants, things, “husbands,” “wives,” “teachers,” "spiritual persons," etc. The outward form or appearance is never the real. It’s a temporary form only. That which is forever is the consciousness. The pot, ball, bowl, and vase shall eventually disappear. The clay will remain. Similarly, humans, animals, plants, things, husbands, wives, teachers, spiritual persons will all disappear from the view of those who believe they are seeing those things correctly...but are not. Images and illusions will disappear. THAT which is unseen is real and shall BE forever, just as it IS and ALWAYS HAS BEEN. Realization allows the images and the wrong-seeing to disappear now and allows for the knowing of the Real to happen, now.
Teaching Aids-“Thorns Used to Remove Thorns”: The Advaita teacher repeatedly extends invitations to protégés to cast aside ideas, emotional intoxication, beliefs, and concepts once and for all, yet the Advaitan teacher uses concepts during the entire process of guiding students along the seven-step “path” to Realization. How to resolve the seeming contradiction? Advaitans draw upon the ancient practice of using thorns to remove thorns to make the point. After a pain-causing thorn was removed from a hand, that thorn and the one used to remove it were both tossed aside. So it is with concepts used by Advaitans to remove the pain-causing concepts of persons. Use the Advaita concepts offered as pointers during the teaching process, but once the persons are Realized and thus freed of all concepts, then the teacher’s concepts are to be among those tossed aside as well.
Teaching Aids-“Snake in the Rope”: This analogy is used to help illustrate the notions of “perceiving wrongly” and of “images taken to be real” or of “seeing a thing as being other than what it truly is” or of how “enlightenment” works. Imagine students walking into a dimly-lit area and seeing a rope coiled up in a corner. Imagine them believing with all their heart that what they are seeing is truly a snake. Imagine the fear, the over-reacting to a mistaken image, and the emotional intoxication that seeing wrongly can inspire. So it is with concepts, with not seeing the truth but believing in something false. Now imagine the effect if a teacher takes the students back into the room and turns on the light ("enlightenment") and shows them that what was believed to be the truth was false. Upon seeing that the belief was false—that there was no threatening snake but only a coiled rope—imagine how quickly all the fear, the over-reacting, the belief in images, and the emotional intoxication will disappear. Realization springs forth that quickly when the light is cast on all false beliefs. Peace happens that quickly. When light is cast upon the false—making way for the truth to be seen—then all deception ends, reality is seen, and happiness begins.
Teaching Aids-Rope in the Snake: This is one I offer as another antidote to a miserable life in the relative existence when persons do not see clearly. As marred by misery as life is when imagining that every coiled rope is a snake, a relative existence can be equally miserable if one sees a rope in a snake. To deal with persons absorbed in their ego-states without seeing that they are projecting an image is to ignore a snake by thinking it’s just a rope. The Realized do not take ropes for snakes or snakes for ropes and thus live an AS IF existence, free of the slings and arrows of living an outrageous life that happens when persons do not see the false, when they develop dependencies on persons who are asleep, and when they also fail to see the truth. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
TOMORROW: Sleeping Aids
Teaching Aids-“Thorns Used to Remove Thorns”: The Advaita teacher repeatedly extends invitations to protégés to cast aside ideas, emotional intoxication, beliefs, and concepts once and for all, yet the Advaitan teacher uses concepts during the entire process of guiding students along the seven-step “path” to Realization. How to resolve the seeming contradiction? Advaitans draw upon the ancient practice of using thorns to remove thorns to make the point. After a pain-causing thorn was removed from a hand, that thorn and the one used to remove it were both tossed aside. So it is with concepts used by Advaitans to remove the pain-causing concepts of persons. Use the Advaita concepts offered as pointers during the teaching process, but once the persons are Realized and thus freed of all concepts, then the teacher’s concepts are to be among those tossed aside as well.
Teaching Aids-“Snake in the Rope”: This analogy is used to help illustrate the notions of “perceiving wrongly” and of “images taken to be real” or of “seeing a thing as being other than what it truly is” or of how “enlightenment” works. Imagine students walking into a dimly-lit area and seeing a rope coiled up in a corner. Imagine them believing with all their heart that what they are seeing is truly a snake. Imagine the fear, the over-reacting to a mistaken image, and the emotional intoxication that seeing wrongly can inspire. So it is with concepts, with not seeing the truth but believing in something false. Now imagine the effect if a teacher takes the students back into the room and turns on the light ("enlightenment") and shows them that what was believed to be the truth was false. Upon seeing that the belief was false—that there was no threatening snake but only a coiled rope—imagine how quickly all the fear, the over-reacting, the belief in images, and the emotional intoxication will disappear. Realization springs forth that quickly when the light is cast on all false beliefs. Peace happens that quickly. When light is cast upon the false—making way for the truth to be seen—then all deception ends, reality is seen, and happiness begins.
Teaching Aids-Rope in the Snake: This is one I offer as another antidote to a miserable life in the relative existence when persons do not see clearly. As marred by misery as life is when imagining that every coiled rope is a snake, a relative existence can be equally miserable if one sees a rope in a snake. To deal with persons absorbed in their ego-states without seeing that they are projecting an image is to ignore a snake by thinking it’s just a rope. The Realized do not take ropes for snakes or snakes for ropes and thus live an AS IF existence, free of the slings and arrows of living an outrageous life that happens when persons do not see the false, when they develop dependencies on persons who are asleep, and when they also fail to see the truth. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
TOMORROW: Sleeping Aids
