REFLECTIONS on ADVAITA: PART 3 – GUEST WRITER: LOUISE STERLING

Dissolving the Cloud Cover of the Body/Mind/Personality Construct

So, if the clear blue sky can be a pointer to Your Real Nature, why is this not immediately obvious, and what are the clouds that obscure this view? On this site, the teaching pointers offered describe seven degrees of separation from Reality. Imagine that these seven degrees of separation are layers of cloud cover temporarily obscuring the sky and hiding it from view.

The teachings here explain that these layers of cloud must be dissolved in a particular sequence for the sky to be clear and unobstructed. It is hopeless to dissolve the final layers, when those nearest have not been removed. The first three layers of cloud cover are the densest – and for most persons walking this planet, these layers are so impenetrable, that there is no impetus to attempt to dissolve them. These three layers are identification with the body, mind and personality.

Many seekers in the spiritual market place are searching with this body/mind/personality construct firmly in place – believing they are a separate person who can be healed, inspired, have spiritual growth and … for the bonanza prize … achieve enlightenment. Can you see how these seekers have not even yet begun to dissolve the first three layers of cloud cover that separate them from knowing the Final Reality?

This is the way it was for “louise”. Endless years of on-and-off seeking – beginning at age 13 with the books on Zen in the local Durban public library. In fact, there were many years of accumulation: spiritual books, mystical experiences, meditation techniques, etc. By the time “louise” pitched up on this site, she felt she had a pretty good handle on all this “stuff”, was quite far along the path. An initial query to “floyd”, and she was located on around the third step, with likely vestiges of body and mind identification still in place. A beginner. Quelle horreur!

Bizarrely, despite the rigorous research, as seeker “I” had never encountered the direct teachings about the myth of the body/mind/construct. “I” was a separate individual looking for freedom for “herself”. Reading the early writing of Maharaj – I Am That – quotes like these were shocking and liberating. They offered a glimpse of the freedom of the Sky.

“Somebody, anybody, will tell you that you are pure consciousness, not a body-mind. Accept it as a possibility and investigate earnestly. You may discover that it is not so, that you are not a person bound in space and time. Think of the difference it would make!” –Maharaj

“I am not my body, nor do I need it. I am the witness only. I have no shape of my own. You are so accustomed to think of yourself as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.” –Maharaj

These Advaitan teachings were inexplicable to the conditioned mind, yet recognized instantly by the Inner Guru. The wild, joyful, uncompromising discovery of pointers to Truth after years of conditioned nonsense – including that offered up in the spiritual marketplace! Perhaps it has been this way for You too?

There are many sayings about Advaita. It is said that finding the Advaitan teachings is like putting your head into the jaws of a tiger – there is no escape; this knowledge will have its effect …”you” will be consumed and nothing will remain. This is an accurate description.

Can You see how “louise” could seek, meditate, discuss spiritual texts, ask intelligent questions, and have a “self-image” of an accomplished practitioner, while all the time deluded by a fog of cloud cover unseen and unidentified trapping her in the first three degrees of separation from Reality? Can You see how the sophistication of the mind and intellect when applied to spiritual concepts can mask or mimic understanding? Can You see the level of self-denial that a society that reveres the separate individual engenders?

In those early teachings, Maharaj emphasizes the value of earnestness in the seeker. This too is accurate. The seeker may be misidentified, but an earnest longing to identify the false and see what is True means that when the cloud layers of body/mind/personality identification are seen, they are recognized as false, and hence can be easily dissolved. Remember, what is untrue dissolves away … until NOTHING remains.

(For further teaching on the seven degrees of separation, see the ebook available on this site entitled: From the I to the Absolute).

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.