Understanding the philosophy of Nisargadatta and Advaita Vedanta Advaita Vedanta a periodic Blog by J A Ward |
|||||
Advaita
Vedanta – a periodic Blog 27 May 2009 20:31 BST | Posted by john ward Someone on the Crossroads discussion group web
site made this statement.... 'Leon MacLaren once said something about recurrence
which struck me as true. Referring to South Africa (during the time of apartheid), he said that “those who now practised
apartheid would find themselves in the next life being practised upon”. I took this to mean that, if you practise something,
you get good at it and the more you practise the better you get. An extension of this would be that, if you practise duality
(apartheid), you get good at it, that is your world, but there's a twist in the tail. From being the bully you next become
the victim. [Note: Leon MacLaren 1910-94 was the founder in
1937 of The School of Economic Science in London, now a world-wide organization, which first taught Economics based on the
ideas of Henry George and later in the 1950's gave lectures on a non-academic, mystical form of Philosophy which at first
was based on a large collection of philosophical quotations collected by Peter Goffin, and then in 1953, after a meeting with
Dr Francis Roles, switched to teaching the ideas of PD Ouspensky, which in the early 1960's became modified by the Vedic version
of Advaita Vedanta taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and finally modified again from 1965 onwards by direct contact with the
purer Advaita Vedanta teaching of Shantanand Sarasvati, Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, India.] This was my reply.... I think that any attempt to understand the words
and methods of Leon MacLaren is aided by a little knowledge of his particular biography, especially the esoteric philosophies
he encountered in the first part of his life, which left impressions deep in his mind. Here is a short meander through some
of them. The concept that 'if you practice something unethical
upon others, then in your next life the same will be done to you' contains several philosophical principles as well as several
assumptions. It seems to be based upon a particular view and variation of the Hindu philosophy of karma, which essentially
states that merits and demerits are accumulated in life and these condition the next life, via the subtle instrument of the
chitta which transmits karma from one life to the next, by means of the impressions left upon it. A common assumption is that the next life will
be different from the present one, but this is denied by some esoteric philosophers, eg P D Ouspensky, who state that we are
in for a surprise... because the next life is this same one again. We find ourselves placed in recurrence. If we are unable
to remember our past lives we will not realize that we live the same life over again. An appropriate attitude towards such
a recurring life is to become tired of it, bored with it, seek to escape, work for liberation or release from it... moksha.
Another esoteric quasi-philosopher was Ouspensky's teacher, G I Gurdjieff, who hinted that the next life is indeed a recurrence
of this present life, but with the 'twist' that the roles are reversed. He gave an example from Christianity: Jesus and Judas
are the two principle characters in the Christ drama, but whoever played Jesus in one life may well play Judas in the next.
The roles would be reversed. Strangely, this seems slightly similar to what Leon McLaren was saying? Such an idea is not merely
a Gurdjievian invention since it is found in older Greek philosophy to which Gurdjieff, as a Greek-Armenian, would have had
cultural access. It is interesting to note that SES lecture material in the mid 1950's to 1970's period, written by Leon McLaren
himself, was largely derived from P D Ouspensky's writings and lectures, especially 'In Search of the Miraculous', although
publicly such a source was not acknowledged at the time. The Study Society was more open, and both acknowledged and revered
Ouspensky as a source, whereas SES seemed embarrassed and generally tried to hide the fact. Ouspensky came to realize that something was missing
from the teaching he had received from Gurdjieff, most probably some type of practice which would facilitate higher states
of consciousness? After Ouspensky's death, some members of the Study Society and SES were given the task of trying to discover
the source of the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky teaching. Gurdjieff was a member of a small group of 'Seekers of the Truth' who studied
and absorbed the philosophy and practices of many Central Asian religions, and claimed to have found the source of them all,
the enigmatic Sarmoun Monastery, which was said to have had three branches, one vaguely in the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan Hindu
Kush, one in Tibet, and a third in Himalayan India. Gurdjieff had hinted that he had gained most of his knowledge while staying
at the remote Hindu Kush Sarmoun monastery Many, including Gurdjieff's direct followers, went looking for the Hindu Kush monastery
but no one is ever reported to have found it. (Desmond Martin reports finding it in northern Afghanistan in 1965 but his account
is suspect?). It would have been difficult for the Tibetan branch to exist after the aggressive Chinese invasion and then,
just as today, the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan branch was believed to be located amidst very hostile tribes. Not finding anything,
some began to speculate that Gurdjieff, rather characteristically, had invented the whole idea, as a teaching alegory, and
there was no inner circle of mankind on Earth, periodically putting beneficial influences into humanity in the form of philosophical
knowledge, religion and culture. Ouspensky actually hints that the inner circle is located in heaven. No one found anything significant for years until
Maharishi Mahesh appeared in London in 1960. It was not at first realized that Mahesh was a link to the deeper knowledge and
special practices that were being sought. Contact was made with Mahesh, meditation taught, and discovered to be beneficial,
and so Mahesh's version of the advaita teaching began to be incorporated into the philosophy material read out in groups.
Even tape recordings of the Maharishi were played in an atmosphere of induced reverence. The Maharishi had initially created
an extremely strong and favourable impression. Soon Mahesh proposed that the Study Society, SES, and his own organisation
be combined together under his personal direction. Leon MacLaren and Francis Rolls discussed the proposal together but MacLaren
found it difficult to reach a decision, saying that whatever Dr Rolls decided he would agree to. Francis Rolls decided to
keep the organisations separate. That was quite a decision, without it the two schools would probably have gone down the same
line of development as the TM movement, and become engulfed in endless vedic ritual and the idealized science of being and
art of living that Mahesh developed. Later Maharishi Mahesh angrily denounced SES in a public lecture given at the Hilton
Hotel, London, attended by the Beatles, accusing them of stealing mantras as well as combining meditation with philosophies
that caused harmful stresses. It is probably true that SES did steal many mantras that the Mahesh system of meditation employed,
particularly by getting one of his female initiators drunk and encouraging her to reveal everything she knew. Ironically,
having tried the mantras and found them to be less effective than the traditional mantras employed in the Jyotic tradition
as revived by Brahmananda Sarasvati, they never used them. Mahesh's teachings and tapes were quietly dropped from SES and
School of Meditation group lecture material. Previously, further encounters with Mahesh took
place in India circa 1961, where Francis Rolls coincidentally met Shantanand the successor to Brahmananda (who was Mahesh's
own 'teacher'), and heard him use the same language as Ouspensky... emphasising the importance of 'self-remembering' etc.
An astonished Francis Rolls then sought audience with Shantanand at his Shankar Math ashram in Allahabad, believing that he
had at last found a living source of Gurdjieff's philosophy. (Shantanand spent the winter in Allahabad, summer at Jyotir Math).
When McLaren was informed, he naturally imitated and, starting in 1965, arranged his own audiences with Shantanand. As a consequence
the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky lecture material, a mix of Sufi, Christian, Indian, Asiatic and Western philosophies was replaced
by a purer form of Advaita. Nevertheless those who had been studying the Ouspensky ideas for years would not be able to easily
discard the old valued philosophical material, nor erase the methods completely from their minds. It is easy to detect that much of Ouspensky's subtle
influences and philosophy still remains embedded in SES, especially in the attitudes of the old hierarchy. Examples are: the
secrecy, the habitual slyness, the emphasis on payment, the school's negative methods of teaching, rarely answering student's
questions and frequently turning the question back on the questioner with a 'what do you think?' the rigid catechetical style
of teaching, the cryptic double language employed, the emphasis on discipline and absolute obedience, also the tricks played
on students, particularly the unpleasant artificial teaching scenarios the hierarchy act out and create for the purpose of
testing their unsuspecting victims, and in particularly the attempt to take over of the personal lives of almost everyone
who comes within their influence, often with disastrous consequences. All the negativity in SES can be traced back to an imitation
of Gurdjieff's methods. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky believed that doing something negative to someone, through the invention of
an unpleasant scene woven around and exposing the student's chief feature, could produce good teaching results, enlightenment,
first-hand knowledge, a hard lesson never to be forgotten etc. Consequently, as a result of the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky residual
legacy, I think you will find that Leon McLaren's publicly expressed beliefs about karma were a somewhat confused mixture
of Fourth Way Philosophy and Advaita. Recurrence is in eternity, reincarnation is in
time. Leon McLaren appeared to believe unquestioningly
in the cast iron law of karma. I heard him say: 'you can not remain where you are, for ever in the same place, either you
work and evolve or you go down'. 'If you don't take advantage of the opportunity you go down into the lower forms'. 'There
is great competition for human life, and everything must have its chance'. 'Criminals are those who will soon be out of the
universe'. 'God is that which puts things up and puts things down'. In old age, the now frailer shrunken MacLaren, walking
with the aid of a stick, would explain that it was 'his karma'. Being relatively authoritarian, McLaren, a barrister by profession,
would probably have enjoyed the concepts of retributive justice and corrective punishment that forms the basis of the law
of karma, but relatively lacking objective reasoning powers he may have failed to see the fundamental contradictions and paradoxes
within such a doctrine. The chief paradox is that the self is pure consciousness
and is not an agent of action. The self does nothing. If the genuine self never performs action who is it that accumulates
merit and demerit for actions? Who is performing the actions? How can the self reap the karmic consequences, be put up and
down by God, for actions it never performed, but simply observed? The self is never born, nor ever dies, universes come and
go and it remains unchanged.... so who is there to be reborn, reincarnated, and beneficially or detrimentally affected, or
ethically responsible for, and even improved by, the effects of karma? No one. The idea of role reversal in reincarnation, even
of you becoming your enemy and he becoming you, is also found in the Russian Leo Tolstoy's writings, but to date I have not
detected the same idea in Advaita Vedanta. In Advaita you and your enemy are the same, there is only Brahman, and all separation
and differentiation is illusory. It is the same Brahman in both South African whites and blacks, and to reverse incarnations
in any subsequent life as an administration of justice because of the unethical practice of apartheid is ultimately meaningless.
The concept of role reversal appears to contradict
the principle of karma, since in the Gurdjievian Christian example a meritorious Jesus with good karma will next play the
role of a despised treacherous Judas. And the reverse, Judas having allegedly accumulated bad karma is apparently rewarded
by the role of the paraclete Jesus. Someone who plays their part extremely well, even if it is the part of a villain, must
be rewarded according to such an interpretation of karma. To many minds this may appear extremely puzzling. One resolution
of this contradiction is to view the whole world, life itself, as nothing more than a subtle drama. Shantanand and many advaitins
say that 'the world is a show which God, (Saguna Brahman), is staging all around you in the shape of the universe'. That,
I feel, is an essential clue by which one can escape the paradoxes within the law of karma If life is merely a drama, then it is not completely
real. Karma and reincarnation are therefore both part of Maya, illusion. The Self does nothing therefore it cannot be subject
to karma. It is the false self, the me, which is subject to karma, and the illusion persists for as long as the individual
self is identified with the part in the drama, identified with the suggestion 'me'. Francis Rolls reports Shantanand saying: 'The way
to rid oneself from evil is to cultivate the attitude that it is nature (prakriti) that is acting through the body, and not
the self.' Recurrence and reincarnation continue as long as,
the me, the person, the soul, the jiva, believes it is the cause and originator of action. Consciousness and knowledge enable
the jiva to realize that the self does nothing and it is prakriti, nature, that performs all action, as part of the drama,
as the characters in the play being performed in the theatre of the universe. As long as an individual self believes it acts,
it is subject to karma, and it appears to experience of the effects of past actions. Knowledge removes the effects of karma by the realization
that the self does nothing, accumulates no samskara, and is invulnerable, quite beyond the law or effects of karma. Karma
is realized to be merely a subtle aspect of Maya. To the genuine self, the Parabrahman, which is beyond the limitations of,
and entanglement with, Prakriti, beyond both time and space, karma is illusory. Therefore it is Prakriti which is practising apartheid.
But.... who is it practising on? 18 May 2009 21:51 BST | Posted by john ward Atman has separated from Brahman Heaven, Brahma-Loka, can be known. It is a golden world. We are expelled from
Heaven when we sound an "I" for the first time. "I" indicates separation. I and the world have become separated, in truth
they are not. A separate "I" cannot stay in Heaven, and we pass out through the gates, which close firmly behind us. This
can be remembered. Some advaitins say that Brahma-Loka, Siva-Loka, and Visnu-Loka are all part of the illusion, and merely
aspects of the Vyavaharika. Heaven is not the Paramarthika. 17 May 2009 01:30 BST | Posted by john ward A warm welcome. There are cycles of Creation, Maintenance, and Destruction. No one has ever understood anyone else by means
of words and language. Why? Consider how language operates.... you have an
experience, but being human you cannot share your experience directly with someone else. You conceptualize the experience,
attempt to capture it in thought, then you attempt to transpose the thought into words, but realize that the right words are
difficult to find, you realize that no words exactly represent what you are trying to express, you keep trying and compromise
with words, eventually accepting some that approximately correspond to the thought, then you sound the words via some flaps
of membrane in your throat and observe them come out through your mouth, noting that the particular sound, timbre, rhythm,
pitch, colour, phrazing etc that your inherited body makes doesn't quite correspond to the quality and dynamism of the original
thought, and now has, by a series of transformations, become even more distant from the living original experience. You realize
that your words sound slightly contrived and empty, almost random, a very poor approximation to what you had hoped to express.
Nevertheless the sentence has now been spoken, and you watch your beloved listen to, and react to, your words. You see her
struggling momentarily in her mind to match the sounds that you made with words, as she personally and uniquely understands
them, and next to match them with what she believes are the conventional meanings that she has absorbed from the society within
which she has grown up. She also struggles momentarily to match your words with her own experience, and then match those experiences
with concepts already present in her own mind..... and amazingly, suddenly she seems to connect the sounds with something.
She smiles, and says; Yes, that is very interesting. You have no idea whether or not she understands
you, whether what is now in her mind is exactly the same as what is in your mind. Her words may reassure you, but ultimately
you are confined to your own mind and she to hers.... unless you have direct access, which is possible. But direct access
doesn't use language. Let us take an example.... I give you a peach.
You hold it in your hand, touch it and smell its subtle paradisal fragrance You bite into it and taste it. Oh... magnificence.
Pick up the telephone and tell your beloved what you have experienced..... without using the word 'peach'. All you have to
do is to convey the essence of peachness in language. Difficult? Even impossible? I agree. No one has ever understood anyone else through
the medium of language. You haven't understood one word I have used so
far. Nor have I understood anyone who has ever spoken to me. Nor have I ever understood anything I have read, neither what
the author was expressing, nor why he wanted to write what he did. Poignant? Melancholic? Separate? That is the human condition.
The human nature is one of unbearable limitations. The gods do not use language. They have mouths
but they do not open them. They are silent. If it is necessary to communicate... they have a much better method. Unlike human
language which is almost random and uncertain in result, their method is exact and certain. They use darshan, showing. If
they wish to demonstrate something to you, they put the experience directly into you. Their experience becomes your experience.
Of course you may misinterpret the experience, fail to understand it, but any misunderstanding can no longer be due to misconceptions
of language. Time is strange, in the divine world the past has not disappeared into oblivion, it is still present. Therefore
the divine being can put any experience directly into to you, for you to observe and understand, even as far back to the beginning
of creation, and so reveal the forces at work. The divine being can, through the process of darshan, show you Great Brahma
discovering the principle of creation. Then you know as gods know. Advaita Vedanta teaches that there are many Brahmas.
Probably that is true. The Brahma associated with our world, did open his mouth and a sound came out, continues to come out.
Advaita says it is the sound OM. It is a sort of rhythm, a vibration, a rhythm of huge overpowering force. It creates everything.
The traffic noise in the city, the cooing of the pigeons in the trees, the sound of the pedestrians walking along the pavement,
even your own heart beat..... all are part of the great rhythm. It seems impossible to escape from it, since it both encompasses
everything and holds everything transfixed. Our Brahma seems to suffer from a compulsive creation disorder. No one seems to
be able to stop him. Maybe he has a reason, an instruction, we know not of. For myself, looking at the world and the things
that are in it, evaluating its nature and quality, I can't help thinking it is all somewhat immature, bizarre, cruel, appalling.
Maybe that young immature Brahma should have kept his mouth shut? Great Brahma is of a different quality to the young Brahma
who creates our world, and of him no criticism is made. Reluctantly, I tentatively have to propose the thesis that all our
problems, all the imperfections of our world, result from the immaturity of the gods. Silence is a finer state than sound.
Someone once said: 'All actions are ruled by three aspects, attraction,
repulsion or neutral'.... Agreed, different words for the same idea could be: positive, negative,
neutral. These are in fact the three gunas acting and interacting with each other, rajas the positive, tamas the negative,
sattva the harmonizing neutral. Rajas and tamas are at war with each other, their eternal conflict is the basis of all the
creative and destructive tendencies we experience in the world. The incarnations of Brahma are the benevolent creative rajasic
types, the incarnations of Siva the malevolent destructive tamasic types, and whatever guna predominates in yourself, so you
become attracted to other people of the same guna type, and conversely repelled by the opposite type. The incarnations of
Visnu are the types who are the maintainers in society, those who naturally gravitate to the work of keeping it all going.
Brahmas are attracted to cultured Sarasvati's, Sivas to voluptous Kalis and Visnus to maternal Lakshmis. Sarasvatis are noble, beautiful, lovers of culture and wisdom,
they have light and love in their eyes, their ears are large and plainly shaped, their legs are strong practical and relatively
unattractive. Kalis are ignoble, they are lovers of the dark arts, they have blackness and malevolence in their eyes, their
high cheek bones, flared nostrils and subtle primitive facial features are not genuinely beautiful, their ears are pointed
or kinked, but their legs are perfect and very beautiful. Lakshmis are neither noble nor ignoble, often they are quite ordinary
and plain looking although sometimes they have a sweet homely appearance, they are lovers of children, family happiness, wealth
and good fortune, look deeply into their eyes and you will see utter slyness there, their ears are of medium size and simply
formed, their legs are heavy with the calf muscles distinctively pulled down towards mother earth. These are the main characteristics
by which each of the three main types of women may be recognized. Mate with a Sarasvati and you will live a creative cultured
life, mate with a Lakshmi and you will spend your life rearing children and amassing a family fortune, mate with wild sexually
dissolute Kali and you will end as one of the skulls in her necklace, as is the usual fate of all her lovers. In Karma Yoga Schools it is taught that the aim is to come under
the will of Brahman. Critics of Karma Yoga say that there is an error in such a principle because when you say you are doing
Brahman's will it is merely the 'I' or ego making the choice to be neutral'..... To that objection one could reply like this...
Yes, it looks like the I or ego is making the choice to commit 'suicide'. The ego has to fade away. It depends what you want,
whether you are completely happy with your nature, and want to stay as an individual, or whether you can't stand your nature
and are in search of a lost finer self. Because the genuine self is everything you may realize that the I or ego is not yourself,
it is actually an imposter that has taken possession of one. Brahman is everything, therefore the true oneself is everything
and not an individual. Brahman is unity, and it depends if that wholeness, oneness, is what you want. Because we identify
with the I, with the ego, we are apprehensive about dissolving ourselves into the whole, fearing loss of identity. The I doesn't
want to lose its grip on one, it doesn't want to be anhilated. It is always the I or ego which believes it has choice, and can
do, and that it does the deciding and performs all the actions. But careful observation shows that everything just happens,
and the self never does anything, including making choices. It is your nature, prakriti, that is acting through the body and
mind, not you. Advaita says the only thing that is possible is for you to change your attitude. Attitude is free, and is not
determined. You can change your attitude to what is happening, either you can enjoy it, or resent it, or you can regard it
with equanimity. If you have a nature which decides to do and say whatever is necessary in the moment, then you happen to
come under the will of the all, Brahman, if you have a nature which ignores or neglects what is necessary then you happen
to come under the will of the unseen force which suggests, induces and controls your separate egoism. It is your attitude
to what is happening that makes some difference. We are not our natures, we have become identified and entangled with parkriti
(Nature). Because we are identified with our I, our me, it is very difficult to see this. Only the witness, the sakshin, can
see this clearly. Become the witness. Christianity proposes the trinity of Father-Son-Holy
Spirit and it is interesting to attempt to see what this may be related to in Advaita Vedanta? If one takes the Son to be
the child in us, the Father to be ageless wisdom in us, and Spirit to be the finest and holiest level of being in us.... then
the mystery begins to unravel? Study any young child and it can be observed that
they are essentially pure consciousness, therefore the Son perhaps represents consciousness, which in Advaita is the Atman.
Wisdom depends upon knowledge and understanding. Knowledge is very cold. When one meets a pure intellectual in ordinary life
you can observe how they look at oneself, study one, as an object of knowledge. They love knowledge more than they love people,
and they never see the 'you', only you as an object of knowledge. Observing intellectuals more closely it can be detected
that they are operating in a two-way direction, they look out at the object of knowledge, and look within, relating what they
are seeing to what they already know. Knowledge is already within themselves, and to them the whole enjoyment lies in connecting
the knowledge outside with the knowledge inside. Therefore perhaps the Father represents Knowledge in Advaita? There is a
third type of person one meets in life who are almost wholely inturned. Their attention is turned within upon themselves.
They are the enjoyers of their own being. This is the season of the Christmas Party, and people are encouraged to 'enjoy themselves'.
If you go to a party in the next few weeks observe the moment when someone is laughing, or expressing pure enjoyment, or happiness....
you may well observe that they are completely turned in, turned momentarily in upon themselves. They are in love with their
own being. They are enjoying their own being. Therefore the Holy Spirit perhaps represents the happiness-joy-bliss of pure
Being? Playing with the words, one arrives at: Consciousness
is the Son, Knowledge is the Father, Bliss-Happiness is the Holy Spirit. Consciousness is Sat, Knowledge is Chit, Bliss is
Ananda. Advaita is always reminding us that our true nature is Sat-Chit-Ananda. Therefore it can be concluded that Atman,
which is pure consciousness only and is looking out, lacks knowledge, which looks simultaneously in two directions, in and
out, in order to regain contact with our true being which is inturned within. Perhaps this partially explains why Advaita
states that only knowledge, aided by the study of Jnana Yoga, leads to self-realization? Usually Sat-Chit-Ananda is translated as Being-Consciousness-Bliss,
but I suggest that this is a slightly incorrect translation of the sanskrit, due to a slightly incorrect understanding of
our true self? It is better to understand the self, as far as it can be put into words, which is doubtful, as Consciousness-Knowledge-Bliss?
Just to throw everything into confusion again,
just as one is begining to think one understands Advaita... the young god of consciousnes, the ancient-ever-new god of knowledge,
the holy inturned god of being.... are all masks of Visnu. Visnu is playing with us. He is hiding behind these three images.
He projects himself as these three forms. Then he peeps out from behind and lets you catch a glimpse of himself, just to make
you realize that it is all an illusion. Visnu is utterly, utterly sly. Because you react, and conclude you can never trust
the sly man, Visnu intentionally induces mistrust in you, intentionally confuses you, so that.... you have to discover everything
for yourself. That is his unseen sly aim... to create a self-evolving being.... You. You may desire to evolve. You may, as
a limited nature, long for perfection. But it is prudent to remember that all evolution is in Prakriti. The self is already
perfect and doesn't evolve. The self is not Prakriti. The self is not a nature. The self has no nature, no characteristics.
It is all a trick. This explains why Vaisnavism, the worshippers of
Visnu as the supreme godhead, come closest to Christianity... both are dualistic systems proposing self and god as separate
beings, with the individual wholly dependent upon the god. Both Visnu and the Christian God appear in the form of Father-Son-and
Holy Spirit. But Advaita goes one step further when it unequivocally states, self and Brahman are the same, not two, without
duality. It is Purusha, the real spirit which, being the highest witness, is located above the three gunas, above Brahma-Visnu-Siva
(which are personifications of the three gunas), and it is this highest witness, the Purusha which sees everything as mere
Prakriti (Nature). Beyond Purusha is Brahman, the self. When the Shankaracharyas are addressed as 'your
holiness'... it may simply be an indication that they have, at least, reached the level of Purusha, Holy Spirit, and realize
that everything in Nature is merely the action and inter-action of the three gunas? All the words, all the voices, all the ideas and
concepts in our head, come originally from an inner silence. As an impulse, originating in the silence, something stirs and
rises up in us, which is first perceived as silence, then seen as an intense soundless vibration, then as a dynamic sound,
then passing through various transformations the rising bubble finally breaks at the surface of the mind as.... words.
Such frozen, almost random, words, so stale and disappointingly transformed, changed beyond recognition from the initial magnificence!
The silence, the dynamic sound, the pure comprehensible idea, the tamed concept, the transfiguration and translation into
words... is exactly the same impulse which merely passes through different levels of the mind. Mind is inner space, subtle
inner space, and connects internally and transcendentally with outer space, subtle outer space. Subtle outer space is universal
mind. Therefore there are no individual minds. Mind is
one continuum. The individual mind is simply a terminal of the universal mind. The two are connected in a straight line. Therefore
if you go very, very far within, plunge very, very deep within, beyond the usual limits, you find yourself outside yourself
in vast space. It is from that transcendental unknowable inward, but outer space, that our thoughts originate. Inner and outer
lose their distinction. The source of language, the source of an idea, the source of all words, appearing in our mind is silence.
Silence is the only word that can attempt to describe the source. The source is simply something intensely compressed beyond
the range of our ordinary cognition. Inner cognition has a limited range and the source of concepts, ideas, and language is
beyond the extreme limit of that range. If we could think and speak at a level even a little closer to the source.... our
lives would be quite different. Individual mind and universal mind One can never be sure that one knows what is in
the mind of another person, unless one has 'spiritual consciousness'.... in which case you can know the mind of another....
because it is all in universal mind. We tend to think we have an individual mind, which is quite private and into which no
one can trespass.... but that is because we are generally unaware that individual mind connects directly, in a straight-within
direction, with universal mind. Some one who has managed to dive deeply enough in their individual mind and reached universal
mind.... has the same mind as you, shares the same mind. In reality mind is one, not multiple. Individual
minds are simply branches or terminals of the one universal mind. Call it the mind of God, if you wish? Just as God knows all, so can you know all, know
all minds, if you dive sufficiently deep into your own mind. Very young children, say a few months old, have something of
that quality of mind.... they see what is going on in your mind, although you may not realize that. The problem is that they
do not yet have any language with which to communicate with you. And by the time they have developed language... they have
lost the power to see inside your mind. So you can never know how an infant child sees
you, unless you remember what you were like yourself at that age. Most people can not remember that far back. But
those who have managed to remember what they were like at a few months of age... all say the same thing.... they saw directly
into adults minds, they saw what people were thinking. |
||||||||||
Enter images and other content here |
Enter images and other content here |
|||||||||
Enter images and other content here |
Enter images and other content here |
|||||||||
Enter supporting content here
|