So here i am again, am now in Darwin where am having a warm winter! Been mostly moving around since the time we last corresponded. I find my churning over the modern day western approach to Advaita usually falls short of the mark; of not completely rejecting the apparent transitory manifestation. I wouldn't be so persistent in the subtle difference between lets say final reality and what i would call relative reality, if i didn't sit at the feet of a real master in the form of Ranjit Maharaj.
Since everything appears once consciousness becomes aware of itself the very awareness is the point of entrapment in all form and formless domains! What's very interesting and confounding to mind is that everything is reality or the same substance, although lets say the pure substance never ever changes or takes on any modification due to the appearances that are always changing.
Ranjit Maharaj was always pounding away; put a zero on everything because what comes from zero how can it be true. You are prior to zero(space) without any touch of a you......So space is consciousness formless and all that appear in form is coming from this nothing, I find that the modern day satsang gurus are saying that this nothing/awareness is the final destination, i don't agree very few seem to go beyound the nothing to the final resting place where everything dissolves.
Only in this final reality is there a complete freedom from everything because the screen of final reality is not at all in the movie showing on the screen.
ED:
That is, you must go beyond the appearance of nothingness by becoming nothing, resting in the total silence.
The real point though for you, are you happy there?
Is it worth taking the sting out of life that you may also take some of the life out of life? Look at Maharaj, he was filled with life and talked about going back and forth between everything and nothing. He was not just beyond consciousness.
Robert, on the other hand, always was beyond. He had a very weak connection with the world. But you could feel his silence.
The real point though for you, are you happy there?
Is it worth taking the sting out of life that you may also take some of the life out of life? Look at Maharaj, he was filled with life and talked about going back and forth between everything and nothing. He was not just beyond consciousness.
Robert, on the other hand, always was beyond. He had a very weak connection with the world. But you could feel his silence.
Yes very straight forward letter. As soon as you talk about space... The appearance of space it's conceptualized, it's seen. It can be extraordinarily subtle yet it's a super-imposition 'of the mind' an appearance only. The problem with talk about nothingness... Is that it really needs to be investigated and to be simple. All pointing fails on the threshold... Zero.
ReplyDeleteThis is great letter. Cheers!
If this being is in Darwin then it would be nice to make contact as I am only in Cairns. And Cairns is in the middle of nowhere. Thank for this posting , it was very direct pointing. Will keep in mind the point about being prior to the zero space before consciousness.....
ReplyDeleteNamaste
Please feel free to criticise what I have written...
ReplyDeleteYet as expression, this Love to Be is valid as an appearance... like the joy of playing/listening to music. And yet to talk of a Final Truth and always be critical(not that this is what is implied by the letter)... Every-thing is still valid as an appearance and nothing is really in conflict.
Nothingness Resting. I love this non-image! Feeling of nothingness? Stepping beyond the entanglement of duality's material hold? Desirelessness leads to nothingness resting? Any techniques? Enjoy your warm winter in Australia...being from Canada; I can certainly wait for winter! Namaste!
ReplyDeleteSilly me, what a fool I am. I thought Advaita was nondualist.
ReplyDeleteThese jnani's hyping up and preaching emptiness while denying the world they walk through. Hiding in the emptiness bubble.
If the world is just an appearance, then there is nothing to reject.
Boom!
-Shawn
Just watched your lastest satsang Ed... I am so glad I stopped by, I am merely another aspirant, but found much resonance in your satsang... Wonderful to hear you reminisce of Robert, articulating spending time with a 'nobody' who is just not there and the breath of your current expression. Good Cheer. W
ReplyDeleteEd,
ReplyDeleteNot trying to start a long coversation here, but when you say are you happy there? what do you mean? Who is there? I mean what is your point? If it's Non-experiential state, then who is happy or sad or nothing or everthing there?
I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but
ReplyDeleteGod is hiding and
God does not want to be discovered.
God actually prefers being totally incognito.
He comes here because he is lonely
and tired of knowing everything that’s going to happen.
He wants to meet a nice girl and settle down
He wants to feel really angry and surprised and afraid every once in awhile
It doesn’t suit God’s purpose if you remember who you really are.
In fact all of this effort toward realization kind of ticks God off a little bit.
It sort of ruins his game for a moment.
But only for a moment and then He remembers and says
"Oh yeah, that’s right!
Sometimes I forget what I forgot."
The real story is not what you tell your friends later,
the real story is the actual living of it,
feeling anxiety, animosity, pleasure or an upset stomach
and believing it is real.
At least that's my understanding at this particular moment.
To anonymous:
ReplyDeleteWhen you rest in the witness, all things appear as the witnessed. Though the witness is beyond consciousness, consciousness, the body, etc. are still available.
To function in the world of appearance, you must be in it as is everyone else functioning.
It is consciousness that feels happiness, joy, bliss, depression, anger, pain, etc. If consciousness goes, such as when the body dies, of course there is no happiness.
But you, as the absolute, still experience the I Am, consciousness.
The first question Robert asked when when I relayed my awakening experience was, "Are you happy." Why is this so hard to understand? Even after a prior awakening when the Edward-I disappeared, there still was happiness and unhappiness pervading consciousness--as an experience.
Read Ramana, the spiritual search for him was all about attaining unalloyed happiness.
It is only with the death of the body and the disappearance of the I Am that all experience, including happiness, disappears.
This is really a fundamental misconception on your part that the Jnani is beyond all affect and experience. It is just that the jnani sees the world is appearance only arising in consciousness, which itself is not real. So, is the jnani supposed to refuse happiness, bliss, or any affect as it arises in consciousness just because he recognizes such experience is transitory?
You see, he is free to experience anything without fear: joy, anger, peace, loss and a full range of love.
I think Nisargadatta said it best: Wisdom tells me I am nothing; love tells me I am everything. My life flows between these two points.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteThe person who wrote a letter is talking about the Absolute state, beyond the world,beyond everything and nothing and now it is clear that you were talking about conciousness, that created some misunderstanding not misconception.
offcourse, it's obvious that jnani is not like a dead body all the time and doesn't experiance or feel anything, but jnani is beyond all this while still having body and other experiances that other people have. janani knows that he is not this conciousness and whatever is experianced in conciousness.
Thank you Ed!
True, Ramana was all about unalloyed happiness, happiness beyone the human happiness.
ReplyDelete