An Advaita Vedanta realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga site discussing non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, and dwelling in the natural state as revealed by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
FROM A SITE VISITOR: Dear Floyd, I have been reading and contemplating about enlightenment/non duality/advaita heavily. I have a tendency to reconcile science with enlightenment. Off lately I have been reading Advaita in books by Nisargadatta Maharaj, and i understand whatever i have been reading. Its been said that whatever that exist is timeless awareness. It is that God principle which makes up everything and every being. Its also been said that we are not our body and mind but we are that all pervading God principle which manifests whatever that is manifested. All sages and saints in the past and present have always said that we are not this gross body but we are beyond. If body is such a gross principle then why is it that we are not born enlightened irrespective of the body/brain development. Why is it that when we were child we dint have that matured consciousness or understanding of enlightenment. The point i want to stress here is that why the brain (or say body) is not given importance when a person gets enlightened. The very fact that for meditation and contemplation our brain is used and some how we get enlightened , then why is it said that body is gross and we are not the body, cause in the first place itself we use our brain to attain enlightenment or universal ever present consciousness. If body , with body here i mean matured and developed brain too, if maturity and development of brain were so unimportant then we would have been born enlightened but that is not the case. According to my understanding brain plays a vital role in enlightenment, in attaining universal consciousness, then why is body(this includes brain obviously) discarded as gross principle and not in reality belonging to us but just considered as five elemental play.Please shed some light on this and clarify my doubt. Also please let me know if i was unable to put forth my doubt in an understandable form.Thanks,
F.: Hello
The effects of your programming become obvious when you report in one sentence that whatever exists is “timeless awareness” but contradict that in the next sentence by saying it is a “God principle which makes up everything and every being.”
Nothing more will be said of that contradiction other than to invite you to enter the quiet and consider your statements until the understanding comes. As for not being “this gross body” but something “beyond,” understand: that which is witnessing that it is not this gross body is not currently “beyond” but is very much present (consider “body-cum-consciousness”) in order to report that finding.
During a retreat conducted recently in-house, the guest was asked, “If you lose your arms and legs and undergo heart and liver transplants, are You still You, even without those appendages and organs?” He answered in the affirmative. That which was conscious of its presence (namely, the consciousness) was quite present and was well aware that it was something other than the body by which it is currently manifested.
The distinction is that the elements that have come together will not stay together, but the consciousness that recognized the facts concerning the phenomenal and noumenal is a form of energy that has been, is, and shall be; yet even that consciousness will not know “ItSelf” once unmanifested.
As for why you are not born enlightened, it is because (1) You were not born and because (2) “enlightenment” is merely a concept and “infant ravi” had not yet been programmed with the concepts required in order to discuss concepts. Thorns must first be imbedded, and other thorns must be available to remove them, before thorns can be used to remove thorns.
Too, You are light, and light cannot be enlightened. “The awakening” can, in some respects, have an element of “event-ness”: “Oh my gosh! It has all been nothing but untruths, all myth-based lies!” though there are stages involved as well since the early awakenings to truth are not as clear as the later degrees;
similarly, enlightenment is not an event but is a process of stages by which (A) all false identities are cast aside in order to make way for an awareness of an identity that can be understood via the inner guru and is the means by which (B) belief in lies is cast aside in order for Truth to be known. How could "infant ravi" possibly be freed of the lies that make up "the mind" before that infant has been programmed and conditioned to have a lie-filled "mind"?
More to the point, understand the condition which calls for light, namely, the darkness...the darkness of learned ignorance that will be taught to "infant ravi" someday but to which infants are not exposed.
Next, for you to understand that which you do not understand and that about which you are raising questions, you must find the roots of the brain, the “mind,” and the consciousness. You are invited to consider the nature of all three until the discussion continues tomorrow. Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THIS SERIES, see “The Advanced Advaitin Seeker’s Package”: From the I to the Absolute, Consciousness/Awareness, and From the Absolute to the Nothingness. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm .
