Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

AMENDED-Material Added

I offer nothing new regarding practice. Robert taught self inquiry, using the question "Who am I?," And many other methods--anything to get people to stop their worldly activity and look inside to find their source. People would come to him sometimes and say, some people say you don't need a method, that a method implies effort, and effort implies ego. To them Robert would respond, "Then wake up!" This is the method I used for many many years without much success. By the time I met Robert, I had long since dropped it; then my sole practice was just to stay near Robert.

Nisargadatta outlined a different method, which was discovering one's sense of I am, the love to be, to see it in all of its colors, fragrances and intensities, and to love the I am, to love to be. He told his own story in his spiritual autobiography, "Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization." In fact, this is closer to my own method of merely laying down, listening to sacred music, and going into myself in silence.

Yet so many take Advaita to be a philosophy and method of not feeling anything, having no emotions, of knowing everything is an illusion. That's why they adopt Advaita, and that's why they reject the method of loving oneself, stating that the "I am" is a concept. This is what Ramesh Balsekar said. In fact, this is what I said for many years.


It is true, often people use spirituality and spiritual methods to escape from negative emotions or self-critical thought structures. I even wrote a book on it, as well as a couple academic papers, especially how Buddhism can and is used sometimes to escape from psychological pain. These writings can be found in the Psychoanalysis section of our website, http://wearesentience.com.

Indeed the "I am" is a concept. In fact all consciousness is an illusion, but until this is your experience--that it is an illusion--the I am is an experience that can lead to becoming fully alive in happiness, bliss, and whole range of human emotions.

However, even the bliss is a part of the knowingness of existence, consciousness. What is more fundamental? What Nisargadatta calls the absolute, Ranjit Maharaj, who shared the same master, called "Reality." This is the mystery that is me and is everyone, and it is not consciousness or the manifest.

Here's what Ranjit stated in response to the question, "When I contemplate my real nature, the "I Am," a feeling of love without cause pervades me. Is this feeling correct or is it still an illusion?"

Ranjit: 


"It is the bliss of the self. You feel the presence of "I am." You forget everything, the concepts and illusion. It is a non-conditioned state. This bliss appears when you forget the object, but in the bliss there is still a little touch of the self. After all, it is still a concept. 


"When you are tired of the outside world you want to be alone, to be in yourself. It is the experience of a higher state, but still of the mind. The self has no pleasure or displeasure. It is without the "I" sense. The complete forgetfulness of illusion means that nothing is, nothing exists. It is still there, but for you it has no reality. That is what is called realization, or self-knowledge. It is the realization of self without self.

"All that exists, all that you see, the objects of your perception, all that is, is due to reality. There, ignorance and knowledge do not exist. They are not. So what expression can you give to them? When you give them expression, that means there is something experienced. As soon as you feel the least existence, it is still ignorance, and you are away from yourself. 


"You may feel love, and that is okay, but after all, it is still a state, and a state is always conditioned. The non-conditioned is stateless. It is the experience of the nonexistence of illusion. This is very subtle, and then both ignorance and knowledge don't remain. It is difficult to understand, but if you really  you will get to that stateless state. It is and always has been, but you don't know it, that is the difficulty. There's not a single point where reality is not. You experience existence through objects, but all that is nothing. It is omniscient, but you cannot see it. Why? Because you are the reality itself, so how can you see yourself? To see your face you need a mirror."

You see, this is a more detached attitude then found in Pradeeps’ "Nisargadatta Gita" or Nisargadatta's Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization. However, this is more along the lines of what Robert taught. A place beyond bliss and ecstasy, completely self-contained, wanting nothing, and as Robert pointed, peace beyond understanding.

Ranjit continues: "If you understand that you are not the body, your consciousness becomes universal. All limitation disappears. If you break the vase, the space contained in the vase becomes as big as the space of the room, and if you break down the walls of the house, it becomes vast cosmic space. It is  all together as one. In the same way, if the consciousness of the ego is broken, then you become universal consciousness, the "all." But here you must understand that this consciousness is also illusion, or ignorance. In effect, ignorance is the source of consciousness or knowledge. 

"So the source of consciousness itself is the forgetting, or the ignorance of reality. You become the total creation, the consciousness or knowledge of the world, but this is still illusion. The ego that becomes the universal consciousness is the worst of egos. "I am the creator of the world, I am omnipotent, etc." But this creator only creates illusion. So what is the use of it? Knowledge creates more illusion. This understanding will ripen with the help of the master, and this knowledge itself will be absorbed in reality."

Ranjit isn't nearly as poetic as Nisargadatta. But this is what I see. States come to me and they go. I am not touched. All the world come to me, and I am not touched. I know not what I am, only that the drama is not me, even though I can choose to be in and even identify with the drama. My fundamental knowledge which is experienced within the I am, is that I am not this way. I am beyond it entirely, in an entirely different dimension, or the "Unmanifest," unborn, silence.

Nisargadatta stated the entirety of I Am in a nutshell:


"Before beingness was there, look at that, the that state. That maya is so powerful that it gets you completely wrapped up in it. I am means "I am," "I love to be." It has no identity except love. That knowledge of "I am" is the greatest foe and the greatest friend. Although it might be your greatest enemy, if you propitiate it properly, it will turn around and lead you to the highest state."


You see, although I am teaching one to locate and love the I am, including the use of objects within the I am, within consciousness, to kindle the fires of love, you have to keep in mind that the I am is the gate, not the entirety of the unfolding.