Yes, I appear to hear and see and talk and act, but to me it just happens as to you digestion or perspiration happens. The body-mind machine looks after it, but leaves me out of it. Just as you do not need to worry about growing hair, so I need not worry about words and actions. They just happen and leave me unconcerned, for in my world nothing ever goes wrong.
Do not make the mistake of believing that this functioning is bound up with a choice on the part of the limited individual. Do not imagine that because you feel some sense of “doership” that this makes your self-volitional actions a reality. All IS functioning spontaneously – whether “you” are Realized or not. What difference does it make then, you may ask? The reality is that the person identified with the conditioned or corrupted consciousness, and with a limited range of perception, suffers. Ego-bound, the “separate” individual is deeply affected by the “slings and arrows of fortune”. The instability of a persona-driven existence creates unbelievable stress. The bondage of separation; the intense pain of feeling separate or cut off from this naturally functioning flow of life – these are part of the package for the Non-Realized.
The Advaitan Teachings are the Ultimate Medicine; the antidote to suffering. The LOVE whisperings are those words that call to You, that remind You to identify with Your True state. This return to the state beyond knowing awakens the intuitive understanding in which the functioning of the Unicity is directly perceived. The intuitive sense of THAT – what is form-less, limit-less, beyond conception, prior to birth and death, beyond description –when overlaid on the relative provides this view of eternity, this non-dual state, and the end of suffering.
Does this mean the end of the ups and downs of the relative existence? Of course not. Life continues, the so-called individual continues to play the part cast. The spiritual chocolate-box picture of the Realized existence accompanied by saffron robes and angelic harps is a myth. However, in the total absence of individual volition, the role simply plays itself out – without the blood, sweat and tears that characterize the emotion-filled ego-driven Pre –Realized state. Some days the sun shines; other days it rains – with Realization these differences of weather are entirely irrelevant. Again, as Maharaj explains:
You are all drenched for it is raining hard. In my world it is always fine weather. There is no night or day, no heat or cold. No worries beset me there, nor regrets. My mind is free of thoughts, for there are no desires to slave for.
For many seekers, to abandon the network of desires and fears seems impossible. Remember – even the desire for freedom, for Realization is a desire. Even the fear of not reaching the Realized state is a fear. The total absence of selfhood, the dissolution of ALL desires and fears, may seem an impossible task. Have courage. Allow the intuitive knowing, the sense of trust in the functioning of the totality, these whispers of LOVE to embrace You. There is nothing to be afraid of. When everything is given, what is left to desire? Hear how Maharaj expresses this:
If you imagine yourself as separate from the world, the world will appear as separate from you and you will experience desire and fear. I do not see the world as separate from me and so there is nothing for me to desire, or fear.
Let us end with a series of questions that may point to where you are clinging to some falsehood:
- Are You aware of the natural functioning of the physical body; the physiological process that take place without your intellectual understanding, volition, or self-directed planning?
- Are You able to discern that You are not this physical body -- that it functions spontanously and the body-mind apparatus is not Who You Are?
- Are You aware of the natural functioning of the natural environment; the functioning of everything in nature that takes place without your intellectual understanding, volition, or self-directed planning?
- Are You aware that the natural environment occurs within You; that You are not a body-mind apparatus located in the world?
- Are You in touch with the intuitive sense of the non-dual functioning of Noumenon and Phenomenon: I AM THAT; I AM?
- With this View of the functioning of the Unicity, are You able to abandon the final conceptual image of Realization, and the remaining desires and fears that You are clinging to?
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
(For the explanation of the cycling that explains how the beingness appeared and how the source and the end are the same point, see From the I to the Absolute – A Seven Step Journey to Reality. Click on the “Non-Duality Books” link on the right hand side of this blog.)
Comments / clarifications may be sent to louise.advaita@gmail.com
