Eliminating Identification with the Separate Individual
NOTHING. What does it mean to be nothing? The freedom. The ease. The relaxation. Stripped bare of any idea, any notion, any concept of what is or how things should be. Free from the expectations of a crowd of personas juggling to have their needs met. Free from the endless chain of competing thoughts and demands. Here, in the absence of anything – there is nothing to fear, nothing to desire.
For so many years, “I” searched for stability in the relative world, as a separate individual with needs, wants, desires. “I” had a fixed idea of how life should be, what relationships should look like, what enlightenment meant. “I” learned and practiced techniques for calming the mind, stopping the thoughts, being positive, creating abundance. “I” meditated. “I” worked hard at being compassionate, peaceful and kind. At some level, from very early on, there was the understanding that there was something wrong with the suffering individual. The false idea engendered by a confused society is that the individual needs to become better, calmer, heal the wounds, blah blah and the suffering will end. This is a hopeless paper chase, of course. The mind simply invents new blemishes, blurs, discrepancies, edges, opportunities for growth – and the self-help / spiritual movement matches these with therapies, visualisations, meditations, retreats … A never-ending story.
When this blog was discovered over two years ago, the words “Advaita” and “Nisargadatta Maharaj” were heard for the first time. The whisperings of Truth (like the one below) were recognized, but were so radical they were often read over and over with no intellectual understanding.
“The world disturbs you because you think yourself big enough to be affected by the world. It is not so. You are so small that nothing can pin you down. It is your mind that gets caught, not you. Know yourself as you are - a mere point in consciousness, dimensionless, and timeless. You are like the point of a pencil - by mere contact with you the mind draws its picture of the world. You are single and simple - the picture is complex and extensive. Don't be misled by the picture - remain aware of the tiny point - which is everywhere in the picture.” – Nisargadatta Maharaj
However, in every quote by Maharaj or blog entry by Floyd Henderson, the message was and is clear. Freedom from suffering is only possible when identification with the separate individual is eliminated; replaced with the clear and direct understanding that You are the formless, limitless Reality.
It is no surprise that the clouds of misunderstanding and misidentification do not dissolve in an instant. From the first moment of manifestation of consciousness in a body, there is the persistent brainwashing and conditioning that builds this picture of the self as a separate individual – special, chosen and different. Society’s message is that the self should be good, strong, peaceful, happy, stable –and if it is not, the self is fundamentally flawed and must be “healed” or “improved”. Why should this be disbelieved? The message is persistently and regularly entrenched by parents, teachers, the media, bosses, colleagues, friends, spiritual teachers. If the sky is entirely covered over with clouds, how would You know the sky exists? With Advaita, the teacher shows You the sky, and painstakingly explains how You are not the clouds, how this is a false picture, how You are already the sky. As a seeker, the only possibility is to trust the teacher – to reflect on the pointers that dissolve the clouds of confusion, until Who You Are is known directly.
Here, Advaita was the end of this exhausting search. There is no other teaching that so systematically explodes the myth of the suffering individual. With the radical discovery that there is no separate individual at all – that this is just a false understanding, a cloud of confusion, a mirage in the desert – the suffering can end at last, as NOTHING remains.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
Comments / clarifications may be sent to louise.advaita@gmail.com – a temporary email address available for the duration of these guest postings.
