From a site visitor: What can Realization do to help my unrest? I become furious (or depressed) when I see such diversity in the lifestyles of people across the globe. I want fairness and equanimity, but I see none. I look at this world and I see people in war torn nations fighting for their lives and I see other people putting all their energy into killing the innocent. I see people in prosperous nations like here in the U.S. who are fighting to get into stores to buy games and toys while other people are scrounging for a morsel to eat. I’d like to see some sense to this world, but I can’t. Can Advaita help me get free of this? Steven
F.: The short answer is, “No,” the Advaita teachings cannot help you since no “you” exists to be helped. Might the experiencing of fury and depression be removed if you understood the teachings and Realization happens? That might happen. How would that process unfold? You would take pointers into the quiet, you would focus on the I AM, the consciousness would be re-purified as all is questioned and all belief in lies would end, "steven" would disappear, and for a period You would abide as the pure conscious-energy and witness purely; then, eventually You would transcend even that and abide as the Absolute. In that abidance, there would be no “you” and there would be no world for you to be “furious” over or “depressed” about. As it is, the Am-ness is the very foundation on which your misery has been built. Such is, in fact, always the case.
Consider two facets of that Am-ness: sleeping and waking. In which of those are you “free of this”—free of being conscious of the fury or depression? Obviously, the sleeping state. Why? Because the consciousness is forgotten. It is there, driving the heart and lungs, but it is as if it had vanished for a time. When the consciousness has "vanished," no fury or depression is noted. That peace which you long for happens. In the waking state, you know the Am-ness, you are absorbed in the aspects of that beingness, and—violà—fury and depression and suffering and misery are experienced.
Yes, at certain steps on the “path” to Realization, Advaitans can tout the re-purified consciousness to protégés, but that consciousness is nothing more than a launch pad from which you can be “rocketed into the Absolute” (that is, into the awareness that You Are THAT) wherein abidance can happen even during the remainder of the manifestation. From the vantage point of that launch pad, You can—to use your words—begin to “get free of this” (“this” actually being the illusion in which you currently reside). Via the Pure Witness, You would be able to see that the number of worlds is equal exactly to the number of persons on this planet. You would realize that the world you hate is in you—in your “mind”—just as the world that others love is in them…in their “minds.” No two persons have the same worldview, so each person imagines a world that is different from all of the other views of “the world” that all of the other persons think they see. That imagining, as is the case with all imaginings, is rooted in duality and delusion.
What can Realization do to “help your unrest,” to use your words? Your unrest needs no help. It is thriving quite well, all on its own. What can Realization do to "help you"? Nothing, other than to provide an opportunity for you to see that there is no “you.” Should you understand that, You will understand that the world you hate is only in you. Thus, if that “you” were to be discarded, the world you hate would simultaneously fade away. One Advaitan teacher repeated the words of many other Advaitan teachers: “Heaven and earth shall fade away.” Let the world that you are imagining fade away (along with the "you” that you are imagining) and then the fury and depression will fade away as well.
At this point, you not only hate the world, but now you hate this response as well. You want something “practical,” do you not? You want fairness. You want to change the world. You want to know how to get what you want. So the response will continue tomorrow, and you may find then that even the wanting of fairness and the wanting to change the world are just other parts of “The Play of Corrupted Consciousness” in which you have cast yourself in the leading role. Until then, the invitation is for you to take these pointers into consideration…or not. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
F.: The short answer is, “No,” the Advaita teachings cannot help you since no “you” exists to be helped. Might the experiencing of fury and depression be removed if you understood the teachings and Realization happens? That might happen. How would that process unfold? You would take pointers into the quiet, you would focus on the I AM, the consciousness would be re-purified as all is questioned and all belief in lies would end, "steven" would disappear, and for a period You would abide as the pure conscious-energy and witness purely; then, eventually You would transcend even that and abide as the Absolute. In that abidance, there would be no “you” and there would be no world for you to be “furious” over or “depressed” about. As it is, the Am-ness is the very foundation on which your misery has been built. Such is, in fact, always the case.
Consider two facets of that Am-ness: sleeping and waking. In which of those are you “free of this”—free of being conscious of the fury or depression? Obviously, the sleeping state. Why? Because the consciousness is forgotten. It is there, driving the heart and lungs, but it is as if it had vanished for a time. When the consciousness has "vanished," no fury or depression is noted. That peace which you long for happens. In the waking state, you know the Am-ness, you are absorbed in the aspects of that beingness, and—violà—fury and depression and suffering and misery are experienced.
Yes, at certain steps on the “path” to Realization, Advaitans can tout the re-purified consciousness to protégés, but that consciousness is nothing more than a launch pad from which you can be “rocketed into the Absolute” (that is, into the awareness that You Are THAT) wherein abidance can happen even during the remainder of the manifestation. From the vantage point of that launch pad, You can—to use your words—begin to “get free of this” (“this” actually being the illusion in which you currently reside). Via the Pure Witness, You would be able to see that the number of worlds is equal exactly to the number of persons on this planet. You would realize that the world you hate is in you—in your “mind”—just as the world that others love is in them…in their “minds.” No two persons have the same worldview, so each person imagines a world that is different from all of the other views of “the world” that all of the other persons think they see. That imagining, as is the case with all imaginings, is rooted in duality and delusion.
What can Realization do to “help your unrest,” to use your words? Your unrest needs no help. It is thriving quite well, all on its own. What can Realization do to "help you"? Nothing, other than to provide an opportunity for you to see that there is no “you.” Should you understand that, You will understand that the world you hate is only in you. Thus, if that “you” were to be discarded, the world you hate would simultaneously fade away. One Advaitan teacher repeated the words of many other Advaitan teachers: “Heaven and earth shall fade away.” Let the world that you are imagining fade away (along with the "you” that you are imagining) and then the fury and depression will fade away as well.
At this point, you not only hate the world, but now you hate this response as well. You want something “practical,” do you not? You want fairness. You want to change the world. You want to know how to get what you want. So the response will continue tomorrow, and you may find then that even the wanting of fairness and the wanting to change the world are just other parts of “The Play of Corrupted Consciousness” in which you have cast yourself in the leading role. Until then, the invitation is for you to take these pointers into consideration…or not. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
