Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

Hi Edji, 

I found a poem that triggered a movement in me this morning.  It had a profound effect on me. I think it shows Rumi knew the absolute.

"In love...nothing is eternal, but drinking your wine. 
There is no reason for bringing my life to you, 
other than losing it.  I said, I just want to know you, 
and then disappear.  She said, knowing me does not mean dying."

 

~Rumi


"In love ... nothing is eternal, but drinking your wine." - only when I love deeply, in the authentic experience of Love, am I identified with the eternal aspect of Love that moves through a changing Consciousness from life to life. In that loving I know I Am, and I Am is eternal.

"There is no reason for bringing my life to you, other than losing it" - here I realized that in love all that was cherished and held dear in life is dropped.  The identity and life of the lover has disappeared and only the loving remains.


"I said, I just want to know you, and then disappear.  She said, knowing me does not mean dying." - when listening to this I asked myself who is the "I" and who is the "She," as a spontaneous self-inquiry. I saw both as spoken from the Absolute.  "I", the Absolute want to know all my attributes through you (all appearances).  And then the response from her being like an echo from the Absolute again reassuring us that this knowing doesn't mean death. 

In every moment I am loving you, I am eternal.  Through the experience of love we transcend death here in the phenomenal world.

Really really powerful.   

In deep gratitude and love,

Janet 


Edji: 


Janet, your depth is amazing. You challenge me. Through love you have come to know the absolute, or at least about the absolute, so intimately. No one knows the absolute directly through consciousness, only by consciousness' disappearance through the purification of devotion. The attributes of the lover disappear, leaving only the transparent I Am, through which the absolute shines.


You have brought Jnana and Bhakti together, so beautifully, combining Love, I Am and the witness in Rumi's poem, and as an embodiment of the truth of Nisargadatta's teachings--and mine--of arriving at the absolute through loving your I Amness, which was revealed when you loved me.


I am so glad God sent you to me, so that you could know and love your deepest self through me. What a  gift for both of us. You are beginning to articulate deep truths that will move many people.