The perspective of the individual does not witness, but experiences as a participant. It is like a game of chess. If it is witnessed impersonally, there can be interest in the game, but it is of no consequence whether white or black wins or loses, or if the game ends in a draw. From the vantage point of the separate individual, the individual IS a chess piece – with a distinctive color, a role to play , prescribed movements to follow, opponents to defeat, and a side to bring to success. Personal? Attached? Self-involved? Of course.
Realization means the dissolution of the self-attached view of the personal player. In the Realized state, the game as a whole is simply witnessed. The labels: white, black, knight, king, queen, pawn are just that – labels, attributes, flavorings that give the temporary appearance of duality. Freed from the bondage of self-identification, post-Realization, the purified consciousness functions spontaneously, naturally. From the vantage point of Reality, it is impossible for the limited, self-identified perspective to exist. Any yet, from the subject-object perspective, the appearance is that the “Realized chess piece” plays the role it has been allocated.
Maharaj explains it this way:
… both this subject and its objects are just objects... interdependent, and existing only in the consciousness within which all manifestation takes place... in the same way that the subject and objects of the dream are both images projected and appearing in consciousness. You are neither the limited dream objects nor the limited dream ego. In relativity, you are the totality of the dream, you are the consciousness through which all manifestation appears. But in truth, you are that which remains when this consciousness and all its busy-making disappears. Only when the false is seen as false and is removed, will the truth shine forth. Eliminate the false and what remains is true.
Perhaps this quote together with the stark clarity of the chess game metaphor will shine the light of understanding on this subject-object misidentification. Let’s choose an arbitrary chess piece – the knight. Identified with the limited sense of self, you imagine yourself to BE the knight. You perceive yourself as a limited subject perceiving the separate and different objects that surround you in the relative: the other chess pieces, the chess board, the three-dimensional space through which you move. You identify with the attributes or labels associated with the knight – your color, your position on the board, your particular movements, your role in relation to the other chess pieces. Here is your simple mistake. You are NOT the knight. The knight is simply another object in this relative scene. Because there is this tint of “I AM”, of consciousness-awareness, you assume it is individual and personal. It is not. You are the ultimate subjectivity. You can NEVER experience Yourself. Can the eye see itself?
Why have You held this mistaken view? How did the confusion arise? Again – this is simple. Imagine that from the time the chess game was set up, You are told that:
- You are the individual chess piece – the knight.
- You have a distinct and unique role to play.
- You perform your role competently or incompetently – in other words you could be a “good knight” or a “bad knight”.
- You are "born" when the knight is placed on the chessboard.
- You "die" when the knight is removed from the chessboard.
- ... and perhaps there is a giant chess board in the sky and you will become an angelic chess piece post-"death".
Add to these myths, a barrage of lies about the nature and function of the other chess pieces (enemies, comrades-in-arms, etc), the chess board and the space in which the game occurs, and you are hypnotically caught in The Grand Illusion. With the belief that you are the knight, you are trapped in bondage, bound up with the requirements of the particular chess game. Personal and limited, you will experience agonies with every defeat, ecstasies with every victory, endless boredom when you are not moving in the game. You are caught in the dualistic highs and lows of attached, personal living. Imagine the freedom and relief, when You see that You are not the knight, You have never been the knight, and You can simply witness the game with all of its objects (including the knight) arising within You.
Now, you hear this line of reasoning, and perhaps the thinking mind conjures up a million objections: flaws in the metaphor; emotions of frustration because the self-limited individual view appears real; boredom because you’ve heard it all before; doubts about the credibility of this writer, or the Teachings. Whichever comfortable railroad tracks the personally-attached fictional mind usually travels, it will move down at this moment. The so-called “free-thinking” person is in reality as free as one of Pavlov’s salivating dogs.
One in a million will listen, understand and abide by the advice of the Guru, that ‘you are everything’; he accepts with conviction and becomes the words of the Guru. In most cases, the beingness assumes that it is a body that has taken shape, so one believes that he is born and will die. When there is no death and no birth, one can never be born and die. The identification with the body is so strong, like the hold of the serpent, that it is not easy to do away with it. But we are the eternal principle and not what we appear to be, the one who knows the seed of this world, realizes that it is an illusion, sits quietly and doesn’t blow a trumpet about it. In this world, if you start investigating everything, it would be mind boggling. Once having understood that it is all Maya, one becomes speechless. -- Maharaj
The LOVE whisperings of Advaita invite You to enter the silence in which what is false dissolves and what is true is revealed. Ask Yourself:
- Are You blowing a trumpet (typical in the Spiritual Ego phase where “you” think “you” know it all?)
- Are You fiddling around in the world of objects, self-identified, yet looking for clarity, meaning and perspective where none can be found?
Or
- Are You speechless – abiding in the silence with the full knowledge of Who You Are?
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
(For extending teaching on the Advaitan Understanding – that guide You from the temporary fluctuating relative stance to abidance as Your Real Nature, see the links on the right hand side of this blog.)
Comments / clarifications may be sent to louise.advaita@gmail.com
