THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part Seven

[These discussions of the Asia-India-“Native American” use of Advaita pointers are in response to an e-mail regarding the May 27th HBO presentation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” You may visit http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/ if interested in details.]

CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S. (Continued from yesterday)

F.: In sharing a description of the means by which a foundation was laid by a “Native American” grandmother for a search that would end with Full Realization and abidance as the Absolute, do not assume that you are at a disadvantage in completing the “journey” to Realization if you did not have a similar background. It is not a requirement because it is likely that somewhere along the way, you were also exposed to a taste of Nirvana, if only for a moment.

You were afforded the opportunity to see the lie of timelines that claim to mark “birth,” “life,” “death,” “judgment,” and “eternal reward or punishment” and the lie of body-mind-personality continuity. You had the opportunity to observe the reality of the cycles. You are looking for that taste again or you would not be searching the internet engines that brought you here. It matters not where either of us “were.” It only matters that you clicked on a link to this site and that those sharing in this reading today are all now on the same page.

There is no place that is "more spiritual" than another; there is no “best place” to realize; there is no "one place" where one must reside in order for what happened at Grandmother’s to happen for you.

During the long and trying and tiring search for Self—when it was not even known exactly what was being searched for—trips were taken around the world and always, eventually, back to Grandmother’s old home site, again and again. The same red-dust lane was walked; the stone walls around the old water well seemed shorter than in the days when it was a major effort for a small boy to use a rope to draw up the heavy water bucket and pull it over those high stone walls that framed the well.

The four stones on which the legs of a black kettle had rested were all that remained in the area where Grandmother boiled water, washed clothes, and made soap. The same trails through the woods were followed, to the degree that new growth allowed. The vision that would come years later and described at http://www.floydhenderson.com/article1.htm would be set in that forest. But none of that brought back in a lasting way that elusive peace, that elusive calm, or that sense of loving (and being loved) unconditionally.

So many efforts to “change” were undertaken: change locales, change religions, change partners, change myself. Change…change…change. It was not understood that those “changes” could avail nothing. Seeking out Grandmother-like teachers led to shams instead of a truly enlightened shaman; led to remote places across the planet; led to “holy” books and to “holy people” and to “holy” places; and then led to “spiritual” books and to “spiritual people” and to “spiritual” places.

In all of those places, "floyd" was told that (a) he had to change and that (b) they knew the ways I needed to change and that they knew (c) the means by which I could change. The venues of religion and spirituality sustain themselves by claiming that “they can lead you to change and to a better life.” They never offer to guide anyone to find that which does not, and cannot, change. They never offer to purify the consciousness by eliminating the garbage of programming and conditioning. They never realize that all they are passing on is the ignorance that they have been taught.

After trying it all and visiting so many venues and studying so many of the "holy or inspirational writings," and just when it seemed that all searching was futile, and just when a “hell with it all” attitude manifested, a chance search led to the words “Advaita Vedanta.” That chance happening would finally lead to Realization and to the end of the search.

It was seen why the searching had been futile to that point: more and more and more was being sought and acquired and accumulated and learned. So much effort went into trying to be “this” or to be “that.” Wealth had been accumulated, yet that was not fulfilling. Then it was seen that it was actually de-accumulation that was being called for. After so many summers at Grandmother’s, and during so many visits back to old home place, the most obvious elements that had provided those first tastes of Nirvana has been overlooked: the joy of simplicity, the lightness of “less-ness,” and the freedom of minimalism...all of which had been modeled.

It was also seen that the programming in the city obscured in a child all his later efforts as an adult to find truth, truth that had been available to any observant witness during those summers that were passed in a natural way in a natural setting. Eventually, the path to realizing the truth that cannot be stated began not with any discovery of who I AM but with the understanding of all that I am not.

Once the manifestation called "Grandmother" ended, the remaining childhood years and all of the adulthood years were passed in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian culture. Enculturation led to the acceptance of one role after another, of belief in one lie after another, of a sense of separation from Self...and therefore a sense of separation from all. Via the Advaita Teachings, it was seen that I am not white, I am not Anglo-Saxon, I am not Christian, I am not Buddhist, I am not a Taoist, I am not an Indian, I am not a Cherokee, I am not anything that “they” have been telling me that I am, not anything that was definable by non-Realized persons who want to label and differentiate. And neither are You.

It was revealed that I was not “bad” or “evil” or “immoral.” It was revealed that I Am not “good” or “spiritual” or even “Realized,” really. It was seen that I am not anything that persons name with the thousands of false identifiers that they use after the words I AM. It was seen that anything which follows the I AM as a label, labels that are all dreamed up by persons, is a lie. It was seen that not only did I not need to change but that I could not change from THAT Which I Truly AM.

Then, the pure voice of the eternal consciousness spoke again, and this time it was heard, and this time it was understood:

If in doubt, be still and wait.

That which is inhaling and exhaling is an illusion; truth can only be found in the empty space of the absolute quiet and the empty moments in between.

Peace can only be found in the silence; once found, it can remain under any conditions.

It is possible to be alone and truly like the company kept in the empty moments.

Only excursions into that which is natural (never excursions into dogma) can reveal truth.

Even the seasons form a great circle, but they always come back again to where they were.

The life of a human is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where energy moves.

There is no birth. There is no death. There is no creation. There is no destruction.

There are only the cyclings of elements, air, and energy; there is no body-mind-personality continuity.

Harmony with all things is possible, but it cannot manifest in the presence of inner turmoil or in the absence of Full Realization.

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be concluded tomorrow)
FOR INFORMATION ON A BOOK TO GUIDE YOU THROUGH THE SEVEN STEPS:

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part Five

[These discussions of the Advaita-Asia-India-“Native American” unicity are in response to an e-mail regarding the May 27th HBO presentation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” You may visit http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/ if interested in details. In an interview with actor-American Indian Adam Beach who plays Ohiyesa/Dr. Charles Eastman, Beach noted how the white man’s dualistic judgments affected him during childhood and into adulthood: “Imagine people trying to tell you being Indian is bad, is wrong and that your culture, your tradition is dealing with the devil. It affects my generation. After a hundred years of this manipulation of 'you're not a good person,' it really affects us.”]

CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S. (Continued from yesterday)

THE FIRST TASTE OF THE CYCLES AND A SECOND TASTE OF NIRVANA
F.: (Are you seeing that the consciousness that was called "Grandmother" can still teach us all?)

With Grandmother, witnessing happened more than anything else. During walks in the woods, deer and owls and hawks and rabbits and coyotes and eagles and snakes and foxes and fish in the nearby stream and scores of species of birds would be witnessed. Once, while gathering herbs with her, I asked, “Can we get into trouble for trespassing if the owner catches us?” She said something that, at the time, made no sense at all: “Do not be concerned. No one owns the land.” I thought but did not say, Grandmother, all land is owned by somebody." Each morning, Grandmother would go into the woods alone after sending me to the garden where I picked the vegetables that we would prepare for lunch and dinner and placed them in a bushel basket: Let's see...for lunch we'll have okra and tomatoes, corn, and cream peas with cornbread, and tonight we'll eat blackeyed peas, potatoes, and the chunks of smoked ham that the woman gave Grandmother in gratitude for curing her migraines.

Many times at night, while sitting with her in the rockers on the porch, the plaintive cry of a bobcat could be heard in the distance as fireflies passed before our eyes. Grandmother could lift an upturned hand and the fireflies would land on her palm and walk about. On the few occasions when I could be still, they would do the same with me. (It seemed that I could not unwind during the first days of my visits with her, but the longer I was there, the more slowly I began to move.) The rustle of insects’ wings could be heard. Chirping crickets provided a musical background for a small child sitting next to his Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya Grandmother. But a happening one evening provided another taste of Nirvana. (Those early tastes would eventually drive me throughout a multi-decade-long quest as an adult to try to recapture the calm and soothing sense of at-one-ment that came in those early Nirvana moments to a child on retreat.)

It was late one evening when Grandmother and I were using paring knives to strip away willow bark in preparation for making a healing potion. Another woman would be visiting early the next morning, also for treatment for migraine headaches. After the bark was taken into the kitchen and put to soak with other herbs, we returned to the front porch and sat in rocking chairs. I was unaware of how vigorously my chair was moving on the dark porch, nor how still Grandmother’s chair was in contrast. Unconsciously, when my rapid rocking walked the chair to the edge of the porch, I stood, moved it back, and began the process all over again. Later, the full moon would clear the tops of some of the trees in the piney woods in front of the house, and a gap between the limbs of the taller trees allowed moonbeams to strike Grandmother.

I glanced to my right to see that she was looking straight ahead toward the trees and the moon. She was enlightened as the moon bathed her in a bluish luminosity that was still bright enough to reveal the brown spots that covered the top of her hands, hands which looked to be more bone than skin. I looked at my smooth right hand, then at the rough skin on her left hand, and then at the lines that crossed her face. Nature would not allow those lines to be ironed out into a smooth texture ever again. An obscure awareness of something about “patterns” or “cycles” or “phases” tried to surface from the brain-stem, but I had no tools to use to clear the way for it to come into consciousness: even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.

So there sat a child that had not yet cycled one decade with a grandmother that had cycled many. There was smooth skin and rough, there was a day that had cycled into night, there was a moon cycling across the sky, and that full moon would soon complete another cycle as well. There was something there to be understood, but it was beyond my grasp, so the nervous rocking began again. And again to the edge of the porch. And again, a chair pushed back beside Grandmother’s. I looked to the right and saw Grandmother’s blue, expressionless face looking forward into the moonlight, then my rocking began again as I looked at her hand, at mine, and at the moon that had moved diagonally into a higher position in the sky.

With my chair moving front-to-back, front-to-back, front-to-back, I looked again at Grandmother, beautiful now in the subtle color that was fading into a darker blue. Something wanted to be realized, yet I was decades from that happening. Then suddenly, my rocking stopped...and did not start up again. And when it was obvious that something had stilled the chair and would keep it still for the rest of the night, I looked at Grandmother, still looking straight ahead, but I saw a smile form on her lips. Remember the peace that may be found in silence.

Then, I began to feel a calmness. Next, I felt her left hand move from the arm of her rocker and rest itself atop my right. In the stillness, I had finally become…available. The moon had moved so high into the sky that the roof of the porch was beginning to cast us into shadow. I looked down at those two hands and, for some reason, they did not look so different anymore when viewed in the fading light. I looked at her and she looked at me, and she smiled and I smiled, and then we both looked back toward the piney trees and the sky above, and I knew, by nothing more than the touch of a hand, exactly what it was like to love and to be loved, unconditionally. I felt in harmony with all things. Being Indian is an attitude…a way of being in harmony with all things and all beings. It is allowing the heart to be the distributor of energy on this planet. Yet that feeling would last but briefly. After reaching the “adult years,” it would take decades for it to manifest again.

Yet for a few moments that night, I sat back, in Nirvana, experiencing something that was indefinable to a small child, without a clue...but also without a single fear or a single desire. I felt, but did say out loud, “I feel whole; I feel complete; I feel safe; I feel happy; I feel like all is well; OK, Grandmother, I have learned another lesson and I am not concerned.” When I sneaked another glance at her, it seemed that Grandmother was even closer than by my side. I could not understand, but that did not interrupt the peace. The first peace, which is the most important, comes from within when people realize their oneness with the universe. I would barely remember being gently shaken some time later, coaxed to my feet from the rocker, guided to a bed from my rocking chair with her arm wrapped around my back and side as she half-carried, half-walked me out of the shadows and through the night and into the comfort of very, very deep sleep.

How about you? Have you had a taste of Nirvana that you might be recalling once again? Was the taste sweet enough to trigger a search to find it and keep it? If not, is the bitterness of not having that sweet taste enough to inspire you to begin to follow “the path” that will lead you there? Are you ready to walk out of the shadows and through the night and into the comfort of Realization? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS, Part Three

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Please explain consciousness as opposed to awareness. Thank you. Harish

F.: The excerpt from the book, CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute), continues and the picture referred to is in the 3 May 2007 post:

Please review the picture posted yesterday. Next, for purposes of illustration, take the foreground in the picture to represent the I-Amness and the background to be the I AM THAT-ness. Take the foreground to represent Consciousness and the background to represent Awareness. Note that consciousness involves being conscious of (something) so consciousness is always, ultimately, about duality: “this” is conscious of “that.” (Thus, the seeker who thinks he/she is Fully Realized and is the unicity because he/she knows the True Self is mistaken. That seeker might be Self-Realized, but That Which Truly Is is beyond self-ness, Self-ness, beingness, non-beingness, and realizing. It is even beyond “conscious of-ness.”)

PLEASE NOTE: The (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute) referred to in the aforementioned title manifests when abidance “beyond conscious of-ness” happens. The relative existence comparison offered by Advaitins is "the deep sleep metaphor" wherein peace happens beyond relative consciousness. (Compare the “beyond conscious of-ness” to the awareness of the body’s need that automatically, spontaneously keeps the heart and the lungs functioning even as there is no “one” present to consciously “do” that. Also, understand the automatic, spontaneous functioning in order to understand how your relative existence can happen with no illusion of a “do-er” being present and with abidance happening even beyond conscious of-ness. That happens when abidance as the Absolute happens.)

To continue with the discussion of the picture from yesterday, the doingness in the foreground is marked by consciousness and a sense of duality. Persons unaware of the unicity believe that they are conscious of some vast multiplicity of things: houses, roads, crops, intersections, buses, mercatos, etc. In the background of the picture, which includes trees and clouds and mountains and sky and sunlight, there is no sense of duality. Why? There is no “one” to be conscious of anything, yet there is awareness. In what way is “Awareness without Conscious of-ness” present in the background?

Observe that there appears to be a variety of “cloud” formations, but see that “the clouds” are not the real. What is “real,” for the sake of this example, is H20. As for awareness, a series of two hydrogen atoms are aware of an oxygen atom, but there is no “one” that is present to be conscious of anything. Awareness is just happening, so Awareness is not dualistic in its nature. (Yes, this explanation is beyond what has been offered on the site to some seekers who were not ready for this level of discussion. By virtue of the fact that Harish asked, there is evidence that he might be.)

The H20 can manifest in various "forms" or "spaces" which persons try to separate with labeling into “rain, rivers, lakes, clouds, vapor, water, snow, snowmen, snowballs, snow cones, snow flurries, snow flakes, snow piles, slush, ice, steam, lakes, pools, waterfalls, streams, fog, ponds, hail, drizzle, floods, mist, swamps, oceans, seas,” ad infinitum, but it’s really all one thing, all H20, merely appearing to be different. (See why persons live in the delusion of duality? See why persons are not "in the world" and why "the world" is in them...in their wrongly-perceiving "minds" that take what they think they see to be real and that try to support "differentiation" through labeling?)

Similarly, consciousness can manifest via the spaces labeled as "plants, animals, humans, birds," etc., and though it’s really all consciousness manifested, it appears to the non-Realized to be multiple and different things. For any perception of rain, rivers, plants, or animals to happen, conscious of-ness must also happen, and as a result of inaccurate suppositions rooted in distorted perception, the illusion of duality manifests.

(Again, it should be seen why it is frequently repeated on this site that, ultimately, there is no “goal” of abiding as Consciousness. For full freedom to happen during the manifestation of consciousness, abidance must happen as the Absolute.)

As with the “atoms as clouds,” whereby awareness can happen without any “one” being conscious of, so it is as the Absolute. Awareness is, even as there is no “one” to be aware of. Thus Awareness involves no duality. To use the second analogy, the glue is considered “sticky” as it adheres one thing to another (so it is dualistic in its very nature) but that which is independent and eternal is the glue's fundamental essence of “stickiness” (which is non-dual in its nature).

In both the foreground and the background of the picture from yesterday, everything is merely happening; however, in the foreground where consciousness has been corrupted, consciousness takes itself to be something it is not and leads persons to believe that they are making things happen and that they are seeing separate things. Persons are taking themselves to be “do-ers,” are lacking an understanding of the unicity, and are, therefore, strapped with delusional thinking generated by an illusory "mind."

So Harish, are you beginning to understand why you were advised that “in the no-concept, non-dual reality, there is nothing ‘opposed to’ anything else” but that your question could be addressed by discussing the supposed “attributes” of Awareness and Consciousness? Glue sticks and Scotch tape and Post-It Notes can be discussed; while manifested, they can each exhibit the "attribute" of being sticky; but someday the atrophy process will happen and those elements will return to the universal pool of elements. Then, what remains? Not glue sticks and Scotch tape and Post-It Notes but only “stickiness.”

Now, please understand what can and what cannot happen with the Post-It Notes in order to understand what cycles and what does not. If you understand this, then you can be free of nonsensical beliefs such as the Dalai Lama's “New Orleans was struck by Hurricane Katrina because of the bad (dualistic) karma of the people” or such nonsense as “Harish is going to cycle and cycle and cycle again, until he gets it right (duality)”:

it could be that millions of old Post-It Notes might be processed through a pulper that chops the paper into small bits and then heats them in a mixture that breaks them down into fibrous strands of cullulose (which is merely organic plant material). Then, the pulp can be screened and, if necessary, de-inked and color-stripped. After bleaching, that can be processed in a manner that results in it again taking the form of paper which can, in turn, take the form of Post-It Notes again. But what cycled? The organic elements. Are these the same Post-It Notes that existed before? Of course not. Will all Post-It Notes be recycled? No. Can their “form” end permanently? Yes. Can the organic material used to make paper be destroyed? No.

If recycled, it is the same organic material which can cycle into a form that appears to be the same, but that material could as easily take the form and appearance of a legal pad, a magazine, or a book. (That is how trillions upon trillions of "humans and animals and birds" have cycled into and out of manifested form on the planet while the planet has experienced zero-gain and zero-loss: organic material is merely being cycled, and it all happens with a speck of energy manifesting via plants. In the relative, you are what you eat and nothing more. It happens spontaneously with no master-control or Master-control involved. With condolences to those who take themselves or their offspring to be "gifts from God," what is really going on, and on-going, is a simple and natural organic happening, not a supernatural happening.)

Conscious-energy cycles (or not) in the same manner as the Post-It Notes. In the case of the legal pad, the magazine or the book, the attribute of "being sticky" would not happen, yet “stickiness” still remains though the original "sticky note paper" does not remain in its previous form. (Dennis Waite makes this clear by noting that those who are inpeccable with their words will talk of "tably wood," not of a "wooden table.") Do you grasp fully the functioning of the totality? Do you understand completely what cycles, how it cycles, what does not cycle, what remains forever, and what is only temporarily manifested? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (Tomorrow: The Conclusion)

ONENESS, PERCEPTION, LIFE, DEATH, CYCLES, AND CLARITY, Part Two

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Here’s what I’ve read or heard throughout my study of Advaita: “Everything is one. Any difference you think exists is just your wrong perception. All just cycles—no death, no life. Do not take the form you see to be what is real.” When I was in college, the more I studied, the clearer the lesson became. The more Advaita lessons I study, the less clear things are. Help! John

[Continued from yesterday. If you did not read the post on 25 February, please scroll downward to read the prior installment first]

Kirk’s unchanged expression conveyed to Chief that his very simple offering was being received as a very complex notion by Kirk. Chief tried to clarify by adding, “What is actually happening is that the conscious-energy force is in motion, thus allowing for the continued manifestation of consciousness in the space which you call ‘heron.’ What happens in the heron’s stomach will happen with no thought on the part of either the heron or the fish. That core element of consciousness-energy, universal to the fish cell and the heron cell and also moving through all so-called ‘living’ things, knows everything that must occur for all those happenings to take place spontaneously.

“Do you not see that there is a common element of energy that moves about this manifestation, moving via flora and fauna from one form to another, taking on the appearance to the naked eye of 'this type cell cluster here' or 'that type cell cluster there'? The energy of the sun arrives on this planet in a form not usable by humans or animals, but via photosynthesis, that energy is converted into a usable form; therefore, it is not the eating of the salad that sustains ‘life’ and consciousness. It is the 'consumption' of that energy that is manifested within the space of the plant that sustains what you call ‘your’ consciousness. Again, it is not really an ‘absorption’ or any ‘conversion.’ More accurately, It Is What It Is, and what is happening is happening, automatically. You Are That. The heron Is That. The fish Is That. It does not change, for It Is The Real. All else is an illusion, perceived as ‘varied forms’ to the eye. Yet the forms with their varied appearances are merely the spontaneous happenings that involve three basics: the elements, the air, and the energy-consciousness.

“You are actually that consciousness-energy that can manifest in forms or spaces with nervous systems. That energy moves from the space of the plant to a space called ‘Kirk’ via consumption of the plant. But isn’t it clear that beyond all the varied appearances in manifest form, that ‘beneath’ all that, is energy? And is it not clear that it is the energy which allows what most call ‘life’ to manifest via forms or spaces? And is it not also apparent that the conscious energy—which knows how to function as it functions automatically—is the common element? And do you not sense, therefore, that whatever is common to All is the Real, and do you not then perceive that all of the manifested forms that materialize and de-materialize cannot be the real part for they do not ‘last’? Were you not told that the cycle is ‘dust-to-dust and ashes-to-ashes’ with different forms ‘in between’?

"Understand that what you call ‘death’ is just the distillation of all that has been attached or ‘added’ since manifestation to the pure consciousness via the teaching of concepts. The distilling (or the cleansing or stripping away of all of that which is not essence-only) is an act of re-purifying consciousness. But you call it ‘death’ as if it were something to be detested. The dirtied ‘mind’—filled with its myths, lies, concepts, beliefs, emotions, ideas, and superstitions—hates the notion of such cleansing and purification. Programmed humans love their beliefs and concepts, defining themselves with those ideas. Don’t dare try to cleanse their ‘minds,’ for they’ll want to kill you. The last thing most want is to be freed of the garbage that is their ‘minds’ which they think is so valued. To challenge their beliefs is to attack them personally, so they think. Filth loves filth. Corruption loves corruption. The familiar is attracted to the familiar.

“But that energy is what You Are and is what I Am. ‘Born in sin?’ Surely they jest. It is at the moment that is called ‘birth’ that one is closest to the pure, to the Real, to the essence because that moment precedes the bastardization of the consciousness that will soon happen via programming. Short of Full Realization, not again until what they call ‘death’ will the consciousness be freed of all the crap and the impurities that this culture pumps into it. ‘Sin’ is the corrupting of the pure consciousness by the so-called ‘leaders’ in any society as they disseminate their self-serving lies. They are the leaders in the corruption process. Their ‘power’ is the power to corrupt. Even the people who have finally realized that all their politicians are liars still cling to their every word on the evening newscasts.

But back to the common element that is All. Modern physicists at first called that smallest building block ‘strings’ until some decided that an even more basic element exists which they call a ‘sparticle.’ Names and labels notwithstanding, there is only one single 'ingredient' to what we call ‘everything’ or ‘the diversity’ or ‘the entire universe.’ I call it ‘That,’ That which is the one and only whatever that is Real, typically Unmanifest, occasionally manifested, or not. ‘Everything’ is really one thing. The term ‘unicity’ is accurate.”

If “blown-away” had a face, it would look like Kirk Wildman at that moment.

So, John, possibly some clarity came from that explanation. If not, you’re invited to continue to submit your questions. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
TOMORROW: “Part One” of a short story written by Dennis Waite entitled, “What is Advaita?” Dennis has been a student of Advaita for over 20 years and maintains one of the most visited websites on the subject. He is the present Chief Moderator of the Advaitin group, has published several books, has been a guest columnist on this site in the past, and is sought regularly for satsanga.