REFLECTIONS on ADVAITA: PART 2– GUEST WRITER: LOUISE STERLING

The Metaphor of the Clear Blue Sky Pointing to Your Real Nature

Yesterday’s blog offered this pointer:

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.

The impulse is to extend this metaphor to provide another view of the Advaitan understanding.

Today the sky over Cape Town, South Africa is covered with a thick bank of grey cloud. The dark, impenetrable cloud cover dulls the everyday surroundings with an overcast hue. On a summer day, the sky may be covered over by fluffy white clouds that allow light to penetrate, gently illuminating and brightening the natural surroundings. On another day, the cloud cover may be absent altogether, allowing the clear blue sky to be seen without obscuration.

The clear sky is a useful metaphor for the unchanging, limitless natural state. The clouds – both grey and stormy or white and fluffy – appear in this always stable sky-like nature. Prior to Realization, it is typical for seekers to identify with the clouds rather than the sky. Within the duality of the relative, the grey storm clouds can be a metaphor for what is incorrectly perceived as “bad” or “without clarity” – when identified with the grey stormy cloud atmosphere the seeker may experience anger, frustration, stuckness – everything deemed by our society to be negative, dark or “not good”. The fluffy white clouds can be a metaphor for what is seen to be “good” – happiness, bliss, calmness, clarity, compassion, kindness – everything deemed by our society to be positive, light, spiritual and “not bad”.

So – the typical misidentification on the spiritual “path” is to equate the bliss states or the fluffy white clouds with the unadulterated natural state and, consequently to equate the stormy grey clouds with “losing” the natural state or “getting it wrong”. This was a major cul-de-sac for “louise” as seeker, and is one reason why an authentic teacher is needed. On reflection, “louise” probably spent years attempting to find stability in the fluffy white clouds – a hopeless and thankless exercise. This erroneous view was systematically pointed out by “floyd” via a blog series (If interested, this series is entitled Shifting between the States of Happiness and Unhappiness: November 22 2007 and can be accessed via the buttons on the right hand side of this site.) As a seeker identified with the “positive spiritual experiences” within duality, the sky was not yet visible.

Can You see how an authentic teacher, fully stabilized in the natural state, can see the entire vista, the clear blue sky and the clouds – both white and grey – and can pinpoint precisely where You are located and where You are misidentified? Is it possible to make this discovery without a teacher? Of course, this has been the case for some. However, is it easier to simply and impersonally accept the location pinpointed by the Realized teacher, follow the pointers offered to enable a shift, and save years of unnecessary fluctuating and instability? Undoubtedly.

It must be pointed out that the “medicine” offered by “floyd” in the series was hard to take. The spiritual ego identified with the bliss states does not like to be told that this is a temporary and fluctuating condition – no different than feeling good on a holiday and feeling bad on a working day. This is why trust in the teacher’s authenticity and ability to guide You home is vital. Remember – the teacher does not want you to get lost. “He” or “she” will not leave you in a cul-de-sac just because it temporarily “feels good”. He /she will guide you to the Final Understanding – where You will take up permanent residence in the natural state – regardless of the fluctuations of days and weather. (Of course, when the teacher is finished, there will be no you and no teacher – these are fictional labels used until no longer required.)

Of course, as the consciousness is purified via the Advaitan teachings, the seeker – who is already the Nameless Reality – has ever-widening glimpses of this natural state, but until all conditioning and confusion is removed via true understanding, these glimpses will not be permanent. Imagine the stability of constant abidance in Your own nature – unaffected by the clouds that pass by – and totally free from the instability and fluctuations that characterize everyday life for the Non-Realized. This is what the Direct Path teachings of Nisarga Yoga offer.

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.