What is being pointed to and expounded here is the fact, the truth and actuality of non duality.  Knowledge is rarely ever expounded in polite society, as what  passes for knowledge there is concepts, words and ideas that have been acquired around the age of three years old when the young child picks up the language from the parents and a little later the teachers and society.  All knowledge in that sense is only a form of ignorance, a form of conditioning, necessary for daily living and functioning.  The only real knowledge is the knowledge I am, that is the only knowledge that one is absolutely certain of, and this is being ignored or totally overlooked or superseded once the ‘I’ thought comes over us around the age of two or three years when this capacity of reasoning develops in us engendered by the parents, teachers and society.  Prior to the age of three years the little child is still functioning naturally and spontaneously even without having any words or concepts.  This innocence of the no mind state of the small child is seemingly lost in the process of living and only much later if there has been an ample amount of psychological suffering and disillusionment, a spiritual search or seeking to reclaim this lost innocence may or may not happen. 

 Advaita, meaning not two, this singularity that is non duality is the most simple, obvious and direct no thing or essence that is always present, fully available and accessible when it is looked into directly and clearly seen, instead of looking away from it and focusing outwardly into the phenomenal manifestation which is appearance, Maya or illusion, if seen as existing separately or independently of this basic space of phenomena.  This basic space is a boundless emptiness suffused with naked non conceptual awareness or knowing, an energy of intelligence that is self-existing and ever present.
 In Advaita Vedanta which is not a religion; God, Truth or reality is pointed to in the Sanskrit expression, Sat, Chit, Ananda, nama, rupa, which means Existence, Consciousness, Bliss, name and form.  The name and form are included but are appearance only or Maya in Advaita.  The three aspects or properties of the non dual absolute, namely Existence, Consciousness, Bliss, which is innate happiness and completeness, are not three different things but only three aspects of the one non dual no thing or essence.  What is being emphasized here is the Chit, universal consciousness, the knowing, jnana or wisdom aspect of non duality which is jnana-yoga, the yoga of knowledge, the Jnana of the Jnani, the knower of truth, real authentic knowledge.  This knowledge or knowing I am, when fully acknowledged and investigated is the key that opens the door to Self-realization.
 You are, and you know that you are, you cannot negate this fact, yet you cannot grasp it with any word or concept.  What you are you don’t know, but that you are is certain.  Start there with your inquiry or investigation. if you are earnest or passionate in your inquiry into what is my true nature.  Whether at present you are happy, sad, neutral, depressed, elated, loving or hating, good or bad in the scale of social morality, there is an awareness of this.  This awareness, this  Chit or consciousness is ever-present and untouched by anything that is appearing in or on it so to speak.  This is what needs to be seen by no one, keep seeing that there is no one who sees, no “me” who can take credit for the seeing.  This seeing is happening spontaneously and is all inclusive without any conceptual seer or seen object.  This profundity is being ignored or totally overlooked by the imaginary person or conceptual entity “me”, So and So and This is what needs to be seen.  Seeing without eyes, hearing without ears, speaking without a mouth or tongue.
 Non-meditation is ceasing to be the seer, hearer, or speaker while eyes, ears, and mouths are fulfilling their function in daily life.  This undistracted non-meditation is the natural meditation of being – Sat – I am that I am, the natural state of pure being.  Note that there is no becoming in being, becoming is time and being is timeless.  When you identify with your beingness, time matters not.  You must get your attention off the mind and thoughts and return home to your beingness.  Release when you are high, when sattva, the element of clarity, purity, and harmony is in the ascendant.  When you go high you’ve got the energy,
the highest energy, move into this energy and confront the fear of dying and release it – the fear of living and the fear of dying and so you get rid of all fear.  Fear is not natural.  Your point of focus shifts from body-mind just on to beingness only.  You don’t think am I going to get approval or control.  Whatever anyone says to us it can’t hurt us because we are infinite beingness, how can what someone says interfere with that, they cannot.
 Being, I am That I am is perfect here and now.  There is only letting go of concepts to the contrary that we have troubles, we have limitations.  Anyone who says I have troubles is just in their mind, that’s the only place where it is because you can’t see anything anywhere else but in your mind.  Whatever you look at, whatever you hear, whatever you sense is through your mind, change your mind and everything out there changes.  The desire to let go of this mind stuff must be stronger than the wrong habits.  The desire must be stronger than the desire to make the world real, rather than its a fiction of our imagination, it really is a fiction when you see the truth, it turns out to be a dream that never really was, but first you have to see it as a dream then you see that this dream never really was, exactly as it happens in the night dream.
 

Chapter 12:  “The Person is not Reality”  from the book ‘I AM THAT’ by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
M:  The entire purpose of a clean and well-ordered life is to liberate man from the thraldom of chaos and the burden of sorrow.
D:  You seem to be in favour of a computerized life.
M:  What is wrong with a life which is free from problems?  Personality is merely a reflection of the real.  Why should not the reflection be true to the original, as a matter of course, automatically?  Need the person have any designs of its own?  The life of which it is an expression will guide it.  Once you realize that the person is merely a shadow of the reality, but not reality itself, you cease to fret and worry.  You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown. – End of quote.

 How can life be a journey into the unknown when one is weighed down by all the dead wood of acquired knowledge of memory from the past that is already dead in this immediacy of presence awareness that is ever-fresh and new from moment to moment?  To be a light to oneself means to go to no external refuge, no guru or authority here or anywhere else for that matter, but rather to be as you are in the natural state.
 Generally one’s head is full of other people’s words, concepts and ideas and this leaves no space for the unknown and the unexpected to reveal itself.  The word is not the thing itself and no word can capture or express the silence and stillness that is at the heart or core of being which expresses through the mind of memory as the thought or concept ‘I am’.  This amness is free of all becoming, which is time.  This non dual absolute is pointed to in Sanskrit in Advaita as Sat-Chit-Ananda, nama rupa., which translated is existence, consciousness, bliss, name and form.
 The simplicity of what is being pointed to to here is basically jnana-yoga, the yoga of knowledge, Nisarga yoga, the Jnana of the Jnani, the knower of truth; real authentic knowledge, is empathizing the Chit or universal consciousness aspect of Sat-Chit-Ananda – not three different things just three aspects of the one no thing – the absolute which is awareness-emptiness, a naked non conceptual knowing or cognizing that is ever-present and untouched by any and every appearance.  The name and form are Maya or illusion, appearance only, yet there is awareness of knowing of name and form that is ever present.

 Whether one is depressed, elated, happy, sad, good or bad in the conventional sense, there is a knowing of this.  The emphasis is on knowing, not the conceptual knower or the known, not the dead concept ‘I know.’  This activity of knowing, this spanda or throb ‘I’ – ‘I’, at the Heart or core of being is not the ego  but the Self itself, the whole.  This activity of knowing is in the ever-fresh presence of knowing with the ing indicating this ever fresh and new activity of knowing, not the dead concept ‘I know’ or ‘I understand.’
       ‘Everything in essence is that changeless natural knowing.’
 “It’s an illusion that “you” exist; the entity “you” is imagined.  The imagination that “you” exist as something separate, is the cause of acceptance or rejection of something known.  It is illusion telling the story of its own deception.
 The knower and the known are just concepts seemingly dividing natural non-conceptual knowing.  Believing in the thought “I am” gives seeming reality to the objective world which is constantly changing, yet everything in essence is that changeless natural knowing — nothing else.”   – Bob Adamson.
 

Chapter 23 – ‘Discrimination leads to Detachment’ from the book “I AM THAT.”  Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.  Translated from the Marathi tape recordings by Maurice Frydman.
Maharaj:  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, no regrets.  My mind is free of thoughts, for there are no desires to slave for.

Questioner:  Are there two worlds?

M:  Your world is transient, changeful.  My world is perfect, changeless.  You can tell me what you like about your world — I shall listen carefully, even with interest, yet not for a moment shall I forget that your world is not, that you are dreaming.

Q:  What distinguishes your world from mine?

M:  My world has no characteristics by which it can be identified.  You can say nothing about it, I am my world.  My world is myself.  It is complete and perfect.  Every impression is erased, every experience — rejected.  I need nothing, not even myself, for myself I cannot lose.
Q:  Not even God?

M:  All these ideas and distinctions exist in your world, in mine there is nothing of the kind.  My world is single and very simple.

Q:  Nothing happens there?

M:  Whatever happens in your world, only there it has validity and evokes a response.  In my world nothing happens.

Q:  The very fact of your experiencing your own world implies duality inherent in all experience.

M:  Verbally — yes.  But your words do not reach me.  Mine is a non-verbal world.  In your world the unspoken has no existence in mine — the words and their content have no being.  My world is real, while yours is made of dreams.

Q:  Yet we are talking.

M:  The talk is in your world.  In mine — there is eternal silence.  My silence sings, my emptiness is full, I lack nothing.  You cannot know my world  until you are there.

Q:  It seems you are all alone in your world.

M:  How can you say alone or not alone, when words do not apply?  Of course, I am alone for I am all. – End of quote. 

Don’t just read words, have a look at it, investigate, find out the truth of This for yourself and realize that the false can’t stand up to investigation.  The word is not the thing, the actuality, it is just a vibration.  Verbal expression does not exist.  Why?  It is like empty echoes.  You can teach a parrot to talk and it is just mimicking sounds and it does not know what it is saying.  These folks in some of these Satsangs are just like parrots, repeating what someone else has said, giving lip service to what is being pointed to without any authentic insight into this great matter of know thyself.
 The subject of Advaita does not admit of any duality at all.  To be a light to oneself means, to go to no external refuge, no guru, no teacher, no saviour whatsoever and simply be, silent and still in the natural state and the direct knowing that, I am That.  There is no guru, person, or thing there in that nondual absolute, there is not an inch of ground to stand on here in this no mind, no thing, self-existing awareness.  Because awareness is self-existing, there is no effort needed or anyone who can make an effort to get it or lose it.  The natural state is never lost.  It is not an appearance, and therefore it can never disappear. It is always the same, it is not an entity.
 I notice that some of these people who I know quite well are still playing this guru game even after 19 or 20 years. They are still playing this authority game, putting another limited human being up on some type of pedestal.  They are still good, loyal little devotees perpetuating this game of dependency on some guru or authority.  They are not in spite of years and years of this guru game, a light to themselves.  They will never be a light to themselves in that sense because they are depending on the authority of another, an external refuge, yet the discussion, the talk there is about non duality,  There is talk about this naked non conceptual awareness that is staring them in the no face, no head, empty space where they are looking from, yet they are not living this truth or actuality, a strange paradox indeed.
  “Denial has no choice and so is not the outcome of conflict.  Choice is conflict and conflict is immaturity.  Seeing the truth as truth, the false as false and and the truth in the false is the act of denial.  It is an act not an idea.  The total denial of thought, the idea and the word brings freedom from the known, with this total denial of feeling, emotion, and sentiment there’s love.  Love is beyond and above thought and feeling.  The total denial of the known is the essence of freedom.”

Related Posts