An Advaita forum focusing on Realisation, enlightenment, non-duality, Real Love, peace, freedom, Your original nature, abiding naturally, the Oneness, the Nothingness, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, and domesticated to believe so that you can be free, period.
(Please note: The Annual Fall Book Sale is now under way. Most Non-Duality eBooks at floydhenderson.com are on sale at 30-50% off regular price.)
Pointers to the Ultimate Reality, Your Own True Nature, are freely available, but their secrets or spark-like illuminations are only grasped when the mind of the seeker is ripe for the understanding. For this reason, pointers could be written in sky-high letters on billboards or screen printed on the sides of taxis and buses in every city and town, but the masses will simply not notice, care or understand. Those who are attached to false concepts and identifications will simply not have the clear sight to see. So it is.
In the same way, pointers must be level appropriate to have an effect. The seeker can only grasp a pointer that dismantles the level of false identification at which the seeker is fixated. Again, let’s examine an example:
After listening to my wildly virulent talks you may not come again tomorrow, it doesn’t matter. I tell you again and again, you might run around and around the world, but nobody is going to give you the knowledge. Recede into your own Self. Surrender to your own beingness and that alone will give you all the knowledge necessary for you – no one else will. You don’t inquire into this, you blindly follow the rituals of spirituality. – Nisargadatta Maharaj
For the seeker bound at the level of body-mind-personality identification, this pointer, despite its explicit instructions, will be ignored. Far more likely, the seeker will read the pointer, and do the exact opposite of what is advised – look externally for more teachers, teachings and methods, and engage in rituals and practices with renewed vigor. Why? At this stage, the mind of the seeker is not sufficiently stabilized to withdraw from the external. The belief in the false concept of subject-object duality is still too strong. The conviction in the accuracy of the Teachings is not yet unshakeable.
However, for the seeker who has dismantled much of the false identification with the mind/body/personality construct, and who has some stability in the sense “I am” without attributes, this pointer may be crystal clear and provide a direct guideline.
It is the nature of egotism to seek to acquire and accumulate, to skip steps, to fast track, and to perceive the self as special, advanced and chosen. So, the egotism of seekers often causes them to mis-diagnose their level of spiritual achievement. For this reason, seekers will choose the advanced pointers before the elementary pointers.
This is like wearing several layers of clothing and trying to remove your underwear before removing your jacket. It is not possible. However, eventually, the dedicated seeker will give up these grand notions, and will simply begin with the elementary pointers.
As “floyd” explains: The “journey” begins with a recognition of the falsity of the “I,” not with abidance as the Absolute.
As described by Maharaj earlier, the truth of Your Own Nature is contained within, just as the acorn contains the blueprint of the oak tree. This is hard for the mind to grasp, as it is in direct contrast to the way in which knowledge is acquired in relative life – through reading, learning, doing and accumulating. Usually, the seeker only relaxes into this understanding, when there is direct proof of how this knowledge unfolds itself naturally.
Does this mean a Teacher is superfluous? The removal of the false layers of understanding that camouflage You Own Nature must be completed in a systematic, step-by-step order. This is an “inner journey” until all notions of inner and outer dissolve in the non-dual state. While each seeker must make this “journey within” on their own by taking pointers into silent consideration, there is no question that a Teacher is invaluable.
Often the terrain will feel unfamiliar; however the Teacher has travelled this pathway and can provide clear directions, offer level-appropriate pointers that are “just right”, and point out any misidentifications or false assumptions. The Teacher can also simply provide the model of possibility – of an apparent separate individual who has realised the Self and is stabilized in Reality.
Maharaj’s words below describe the unshakeable trust in the fully realized Teacher and the accuracy of the pointers when followed with conviction:
I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence. – Nisargadatta Maharaj
The nature of the Teacher and the Teachings is love. When the layers of conditioned confusion dissolve, You will find Yourself limitless, unbound, unconditioned – outside of the rollercoaster of the ups and downs that characterize the relative life, outside of the suffering of birth and death. The Teacher wishes only this for You – to be this Deathless State and for your suffering to cease.
A Note on Capitalization: Advaitin writings often use the grammatical convention of capitalization to distinguish between relative and ego-bound concepts and concepts that point to the True Self. This device is simply to assist the seeker who may easily confuse the ego-self with the Real Self when reading these teachings.
A Note on Inverted Commas: In a similar way, inverted commas are often used to indicate a temporary concept used for teaching purposes (a thorn used to remove a thorn). So words like “seeker” or “inner journey” may be encapsulated in inverted commas as the terms are neither true nor accurate, but are conceptual labels needed for explanation at a particular level of understanding.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
(For extending teaching on the Advaitan Understanding – and removal of the false that obscures Your Real Nature, see the links on the right hand side of this blog.)
Comments / clarifications may be sent to louise.advaita@gmail.com
