F.: A follow-up e-mail was received from the visitor whose questions began this discussion:
Visitor: Again, my questions bring out the best answers. (Ha) So, when I go to sleep, I return to / I am the Absolute. In fact, whenever anyone goes to sleep, they return to the Absolute, the test being whether or not consciousness is aware of Itself or not, not whether Consciousness resides in a body or not. Pure consciousness manifested is a person Realized who is distinquished from the Absolute by the fact that the body is not "at rest." Damn, now I know why they say that the way to being Realized is to throw away all the books and just experience it! I keep trying to catch you in a contradiction. You‘re pretty good at this.
The responses:
Visitor: Again, my questions bring out the best answers. (Ha) So, when I go to sleep, I return to / I am the Absolute. In fact, whenever anyone goes to sleep, they return to the Absolute, the test being whether or not consciousness is aware of Itself or not, not whether Consciousness resides in a body or not. Pure consciousness manifested is a person Realized who is distinquished from the Absolute by the fact that the body is not "at rest." Damn, now I know why they say that the way to being Realized is to throw away all the books and just experience it! I keep trying to catch you in a contradiction. You‘re pretty good at this.
The responses:
Visitor: Again, my questions bring out the best answers. (Ha)
F.: The best answer is the one that is appropriate to the status of the seeker, depending on whether the seeker is at a wet charcoal, dry charcoal, or gunpowder level. Maharaj was often accused of contradicting his own message in the talks transcribed in I AM THAT, and he did say “white” to one and then “black” to another who asked the same question the very next day. It’s true that the content of that book is more confusing than those with transcriptions of his final talks, yet pointers are to be appropriate to the seeker depending on which of "the seven steps to Reality" she/he is working on.
Visitor: So, when I go to sleep, I return to / I am the Absolute. In fact, whenever anyone goes to sleep, they return to the Absolute…
F.: Well, the Absolute is the Absolute: pure consciousness. The reason “I AM THAT I AM” does not express a duality is because temporarily I AM the manifested consciousness in a purified “condition.” But I AM THAT, that which is pure consciousness, when at rest and unmanifested. There is nothing but THAT ultimately. Now, to the second part of your statement: if you speak of "going to sleep" to mean what most call "death," OK. You may remember a year ago when you spoke of death, you were reminded that you already had a dry-run practice at merging into the Absolute some 21,000 times. To “die” is to “sleep” when the consciousness unmanifests. No big deal, huh? To “die” the death of ego is to awakened while the consciousness is manfested. Too, only think of any "going" as in the fashion of the water that came from the ocean, formed a cloud and then rained back on the ocean. The “going” (and the “coming”) are merely stages of cycling. Might the ocean water that had cycled once be pulled into another cloud with other water and form another cloud followed by more rain falling on the ocean? Yes, but you won't have the exact same water or cloud, though you will have the same quantity of H20 forever, merely appearing to take the different forms of rain, oceans, clouds, rivers, vapor, etc. Might some of that rain in our example remain forever in the ocean and never be recycled? Of course. So it is with the energy-consciousness.
Visitor: …the test being whether or not consciousness is aware of Itself or not, not whether Consciousness resides in a body or not.
F.: Right. The wording around “resides in” is never precise, but the brain waves being measured with an EEG are a measurement of electrical activity and manifested consciousness, so good enough.
Visitor: Pure consciousness manifested is a person Realized who is distinquished from the Absolute by the fact that the body is not "at rest."
F.: Again, “distinguished” is another word that is not exact since the water in the ocean or in the cloud or in the rain once again falling back into the ocean is still H20 and nothing more. Nothing is distinguished or unique or different. It is all conscious-energy, merely vibrating at different frequencies that result in seeming differences in appearance. There is only that one thing which All is. Only false perceptions imagine things to be different. Consciousness is consciousness; all is only consciousness. But forget "the body" you mention. It cannot be a measuring point. It is at-rest in deep sleep or it is at work or it is in movement, but beyond that, the similarity with consciousness ends. Too, a person who later Realizes is no longer a person. All manifested consciousness, however, is never at rest and is always in movement, occasional lapses into a samadhi state notwithstanding. Even then, the Oneness is perceived. Consciousness is not even at rest when asleep, dreams being movements in consciousness (whether asleep or in persons thinking they are awake but who are also dreaming).
Visitor: Damn, now I know why they say that the way to being Realized is to throw away all the books and just experience it!
F.: It is the only way. A book like FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE can point to the seven steps to take along the “path,” but after reading it and sitting in the quiet and contemplating each pointer, then...yes...Realization can happen and the book can be tossed.
Visitor: I keep trying to catch you in a contradiction. You‘re pretty good at this.
F.: Contradictions are dualities. What might appear to be a contradiction can happens when, as mentioned earlier, the teacher determines what is appropriate for each protégé at his/her level on the journey. (For example, there’s no need to discuss Step 3 fixations with persons stuck in religious or spiritual ego-states if they have not yet taken Steps 1 and 2 and become free of body and mind identifications.)
Of course, there is no “good at” either. There is no “good,” no “bad,” no “right,” no “wrong.” When you know that you are not a body but are this temporary space, then you will also be done with any talk of any dualities. But what you may be touching is the fact that nothing offered on this site comes from any professional religious or spiritual persons, nothing comes from any “holy” books, and no one is revealing the spiritual knowledge that they’ve gained from books or “holy” people.
No one here would suggest that you believe any beliefs. To the contrary, the pointer is to be rid of all knowledge and to be free of all pointers…including those read here. You must find who you are not and then be open to remembering Who/What You Are. You must understand how this body came to be and where You were during the days prior to conception. Even more significantly, find what You Are when nothing is because That Which You Truly Are NOW is what You Will Truly Be “then.”
The words that are happening here (or the words that happened spontaneously which were taped and transcribed into FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE) are not words that come from any scriptures or persons. All scriptures are revisions of prior, pagan stories. These words come after actually experiencing the lies of the body, the mind, the religious ego-state, and the spiritual ego-state. They come after having returned to the Child Ignorance state, after transcending that as well as the witness and the Pure Witness states, and then merging directly into the Absolute. Is that “good”? No. It is real…the only thing that is real and true. Yet the truth of it cannot be stated. It can only, as you point out, be experienced. After that, all experiencing ends and the beingness begins and continues until the consciousness is no longer manifested. After that, there is no beingness, and there is no non-beingness. There is nothing and there is everything; thus, “I Am That; I Am.” Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
