An Advaita Vedanta realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga site discussing non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, and dwelling in the natural state as taught by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
FROM A SITE VISITOR: [Received 22 March 2008] A woman in my office sent me a copy of what you wrote today. When I read the words from the woman who said she’d never been anything but Waynes wife, I froze I felt paralized. I got a chill because I’ve felt the same way since my husband passed. You helped her in a retreat but I can’t get off work to come there. I feel like my life has been on hold since his funeral and that has been years ago. I go through the motions, but I do not feel like I am even there. I want peace. I had to get a job and I got busy with work and church but here I am years later and nothing has changed. I have read some other things from you but I can’t begin to understnd what youre talking about but if you helped her I figure its worth asking. Can you help me?
F.: You have dreamed during sleep and the dream seemed completely real. At times, you might begin to come out of the sleep state but the dream can still seem to be very real until fully awake.
If you grasp how real your dreams seemed to be while asleep, and how real they seemed to be when not yet fully awake, then you can understand the condition in which the relative existence of most persons unfolds: they walk about, they drive, they talk, etc., but it’s all more or less in their sleep. They are not fully awake, aware, and conscious.
Were the dreams during sleep real? No. Did they seem real? Yes. Is the relative real? No. Does it seem real? Yes. But the fact is that all which seems real to you is just your dream. Anything pertaining to the phenomenal that you seemingly observe is just a dream-like illusion, never seen for what it is.
As an example, refer again to the example of the steel beam: most think they know what they are seeing when they look at a steel beam, but if they were to observe the beam by using an electron microscope, they would see that it is actually nothing at all like what it appears to be.
So it is with what persons call “the world.” How many versions of “this world” are there? Billions. There are as many versions of what “this world” is as there are dreamers. And there are as many versions of “who you are” and “who floyd is” as there are persons claiming to know you or “floyd.”
And among the non-Realized, there are as many versions of “who they think there are” as there are assumed or assigned personas. And all personas are the result of the adulteration of the formerly pure consciousness. All roles are limited and finite. All will generate shifting emotions of instability and ambiguity as they seemingly come and seemingly go.
In the U.S., 50-60% of the time, the role of “spouse” is guaranteed to come and go as a result of the “marriage-divorce” cycle. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the role of “spouse” is guaranteed to come and go as a result of the death of one member or the other of that dualistic pair called “mates” (since mates rarely die simultaneously).
Recall the earlier example in this series:
WHO believes he or she has married? Who told you that you are married? A man in a robe? Another man in a robe can as easily tell you that you are not married. And the non-Realized on the planet will unquestioningly accept that the statement from the first man in a robe is true and they will as readily and unquestioningly accept the statement from the second man in a robe as truth: “I pronounce that you are Mrs. Jones.” OK. “I pronounce that you are no longer Mrs. Jones.” OK. (Can marriage happen, or not, during the relative without assumption of limited roles as identities? Yes, just as teaching can happen, or not, even in the absence of "The Teacher" ego-state, but it is rare.)
To the contrary of accepting temporary roles as identities, understand that truth is truth. It is Absolute and unchanging. What is true now has always been true and always will be true, so anything based in the “relative” is fiction.
Anything that is temporary, like the roles being discussed, cannot be Who/What You Are. The body is temporary, the “mind” is temporary, and the personality is temporary. Every relative label ever applied is temporary.
THAT Which You Are is all You have ever been and all that You will ever be, and it need not even be named. In the effort to know Your Real Nature, to find Who/What You Truly Are, find first everything that you are not. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (Tomorrow: The Conclusion)
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TODAY’S POST:
Click LIBERATION
and
Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)
Notice: Because of requests from people who want to limit the time away from their job, some weekend retreats will be offered in ’08. You arrive on Thursday PM or Friday AM, depart Sunday PM or Monday AM. All of the content will be presented, just as during the retreats that take place during the week.
Visit AN ADVAITA VEDANTA RETREAT
