[First, a message to site visitor Gerard. Your e-mail system in returning mail sent to your new address. If you correct the problem, the information requested will be sent.]
FROM A SITE VISITOR: Here’s what I’ve read or heard throughout my study of Advaita: “Everything is one. Any difference you think exists is just your wrong perception. All just cycles—no death, no life. Do not take the form you see to be what is real.” When I was in college, the more I studied, the clearer the lesson became. The more Advaita lessons I study, the less clear things are. Help! John
F.: Hello, John. Consider the following passages from an Advaita novel that was published in 2003. In this exchange, the seeker called “Kirk”—who is actually only seeking peace at this point in the novel—is being visited by a chieftain with the Advaita understanding. This excerpt addresses most of the pointers in your list. The exchange begins with a discussion of the “death/life issue” you raised as Chief Two Hawks guides Kirk through certain Advaita lessons. (The “two” part of Chief’s name is used ironically, as in I AM and I AM THAT, so he could have been named more accurately Chief Not Two Hawks.) While floating on the lake in Kirk’s boat, Chief continues with the dialogue which had been on-going:
“…There is no ‘death’.”
FROM A SITE VISITOR: Here’s what I’ve read or heard throughout my study of Advaita: “Everything is one. Any difference you think exists is just your wrong perception. All just cycles—no death, no life. Do not take the form you see to be what is real.” When I was in college, the more I studied, the clearer the lesson became. The more Advaita lessons I study, the less clear things are. Help! John
F.: Hello, John. Consider the following passages from an Advaita novel that was published in 2003. In this exchange, the seeker called “Kirk”—who is actually only seeking peace at this point in the novel—is being visited by a chieftain with the Advaita understanding. This excerpt addresses most of the pointers in your list. The exchange begins with a discussion of the “death/life issue” you raised as Chief Two Hawks guides Kirk through certain Advaita lessons. (The “two” part of Chief’s name is used ironically, as in I AM and I AM THAT, so he could have been named more accurately Chief Not Two Hawks.) While floating on the lake in Kirk’s boat, Chief continues with the dialogue which had been on-going:
“…There is no ‘death’.”
“No death?” Kirk asked.
“No death.”
“Why?”
“Because there is no life. There is only this moment of ‘I-Amness.’ Should you come to know the Real, then the knowingness of That which is beyond the ‘I Am' can happen. And in the moment when the realization happens, you will know That which is forever, and then only shall the peace you seek actually manifest. All the movements of your thinking, conditioned 'mind' will stop. The 'mind' will dissolve. Dis-ease shall disappear. You will know the Real You, which is ‘THAT.’ And nothing will ever appear the same to you again, for you will know that all which is observable with the eyes is illusion, nothing more than movements in consciousness.”
Kirk realized that he might be getting more than he had bargained for from this visit. How could an old Indian, reservation-schooled, come up with this? Without any formal education, the Chief certainly didn’t get this from any advanced academic training. Kirk sensed it coming from within him, or from some wise teacher, or from beyond. But Kirk realized something else about the Chief. Shakespeare had concluded that what might seem like madness can have method to it. Kirk knew the ways of Far Easterners, and he knew Chief’s roots could be traced back there for as many as 35,000 years or more. And he knew that those Easterners and their “Native American” counterparts used a similar technique to the one which Kirk was now witnessing. They seldom came right out and made a point. Rather, they tried to allow their listeners to have an experience with the truth of the point being offered. That indirect, experiential method is the same one Jesus had been schooled in when he studied under some advaitic teacher; thus, like other teachers schooled in the method, he used parables and indirect tales to allow the listeners to come to Awareness.
Still wary, Kirk looked toward the shore, touched the Chief lightly on the arm, and pointed toward the heron standing there. Chief’s head turned. The heron was shaking its head about energetically, trying to maneuver a small fish trapped between its upper and lower bill into a position more favorable for swallowing. In that act, Kirk felt he had found an example to impugn Chief’s ‘no life-no death’ remarks.
“OK, Chief—you see the fish in his mouth? The heron is going to swallow that fish, and eventually in the acids of my buddy’s stomach, that fish is going to die, is it not?”
“Oh, as far as most can see, yes.”
Kirk sensed that the Chief could see farther than most.
“But what, if not the eventual death of the fish, do you see happening?”
“I’m glad you used that word ‘happening,’ for it is accurate. All just ‘happens.’ What is going to happen is that certain combined elements, once exposed to the acids of the stomach of the heron, will un-combine. The LifeForce, which you take to be a rotting fish and which is considered heron food by you, will actually manifest in the space of heron cells. The fish does not ‘die.’ That which it Really is will cycle via another manifestation, wrongly perceived by you as a new 'form' of something ‘living’ as it cycles from ‘living’ fish cells into ‘living’ heron cells. Now that which is ‘living in' the space called 'fish' will be that which is ‘living in' the space called 'heron,' but heron cells and fish cells look enormously different under a microscope. What is Real you cannot see, and it is one and the same in all; what you can see, the form or the cells, is not the real but is an illusory figment of your imagination. Consider, for example, that what looks like a door to you, the scientist with an atomic microscope could prove is instead something quite different, without the slightest similarity to what you think you are seeing and labeling as ‘door’.”
Kirk’s expression told the Chief that more explanation would be required. He continued, “Do you see now, Kirk, that in reality no ‘conversion’ or ‘change’ or ‘living’ or ‘dying’ is taking place with the fish? That force which enables ‘life’ in the fish will now enable ‘life’ in the heron. It is not different, that aspect; it has not changed as it shifts from manifestation in the space of the fish body to manifestation in the space of the heron’s body.”
Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
