17 July 2012


Siddharameshwar, Nisargadatta’s teacher had a somewhat different ontology and a somewhat different method.

He said essentially there were two Is: the I of the mind and identification, and which was resident in the subtle body as a concept, and the much deeper feeling of “I Amness,” which was the Fourth Body, or Turiya.  This is exactly the same view as had Ramana Maharshi.

Nisargadatta, at the end of his life, had the opinion you only had to listen to his words, ponder their meaning, and abide in the I Am, in order to become liberated.  Siddharameshwar said the path was all about meditative introspection, hunting through the layers of consciousness to find the I Am.

For Siddharameshwar there were four bodies to be conceived of and found through progressive, guided meditation with the teacher, always hunting for the I.  There was the physical body and the world, the world of the mind (Subtle Body) with its thinking, feeling, discrimination, concepts, and the inner experience of space or the Void.  Then there was the body of forgetfulness (Causal Body), which takes away the knowledge of the body and the mind, leaving one empty and sensitive to more subtle layers.

Next is what he called the Supracausal body, which Ramana and he both also called Turiya, or the fourth state.  This is the I Am, the deepest level of embodied consciousness.

All three, Ramana, Siddharameshwar, and Nisargadatta said this part of one’s self is found in meditative introspection on the sense of I, or I Amness, or of just Amness.  Through meditation the successive bodies or layers are revealed as one get progressively more discriminatively subtle.  Ramana and Siddharameshwar placed far more emphasis on introspection and abiding in the I, or the I Am sensation, while Maharaj placed more emphasis later in his life on the presence of the guru, and listening to his words.  Earlier, he was far more devotional.

Now, Siddharameshwar said that with the guidance of the guru, the student finally penetrates through to the I Am level and needs to abide there.  The I Am level is all about love.  The I Am level, Turiya, in a sense is love itself.

This too is my discovery.  You can best find the I Am level inside yourself through love, first by loving that sense of I Am you find through introspection, and then also by borrowing the love you feel for another within oneself, and realizing you are love itself, for the Self, which is Turiya, is perfect love and devotion, and surrender.  Way before Self-realization, you will increasingly have experiences of bliss, awe, love, energies and ecstasies that both race through your sense of presence, and also fill it with ecstatic states.  Your body will seem torn asunder by unimaginable love flowing, bliss and even more.  It really cannot be described very well.

Then one day, after you have loved long enough and hard enough, the Self rises from within and exposes itself to you, and you, the small self, will fall to your knees in absolute awe and devotion.  You will feel the grace of God even if you do not believe in God.  You will feel the divine rising within you, just as Krishna revealed himself to Arjuna and you will fall to your knees in complete love, surrender and devotion. 

All three agree on the next step.  At some point during your devotion to the Self, to the I Am, while abiding in Turiya, Samadhi, the I Am, that sense of blissful, ecstatic presence, will abruptly leave and you will recognize yourself as that which has supported all, the principle that knows and supports the universe, and also supports the I Am.  The amazing thing you will also learn, is this feels like you are returning to be an ordinary you, Ed Muzika, Waldo, Victoria, Lila, Janet, except for the realization that all this too is you. Everything is you and not you at the same time.  You become ordinary, watching or participating in life; it becomes your “choice.”

Siddharameshwar here is both Jnani and Bhakti as is Ramana. Nisargdatta is no longer a Bhakta at the end of his life.  He says that even after the I Am falls away, even after you have penetrated through Turiya and have rested in what you are, you must continue to find and worship the I Am, the Self within, the Self of All.  This continued worship is what adds sweetness and wetness to non-phenomenal existence, because otherwise, so many Jnanis burn out and dry up, as happened to me, until someone blew life into me again.

13 comments:

  1. This is a very beautiful account. The force of LOVE is too powerful. I grew up in a Bhakti environment singing Namdev, Tukaram, Ramdas since I was 10 years old. Later on in life, I moved to New York, NY for career purposes. But Bhakti swept me eventually and I left a high-paying job for Tiruvannamalai. Here Arunachala has tied me down with LOVE. Love has a great 'wetness' to it both metaphorically and literally when tears flow unhindered while singing his songs. Self-Enquiry continues as it is powered by LOVE.
    Much salutations to LOVE.

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  2. Lovely. Thanks again Edji for summarizing and integrating the teachings of Nisargadatta, Siddharameshwar, Ramana and yourself; and for showing how your own realization is changing and how love is important. It's great.
    Love, Matthew

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  3. As always Edji, it is as you say! Especially the last two paragraphs. You answered my concern! Beautiful! Yes--to me--even devotion towards something disappears until only the steady gaze of awareness is devotion but so full it cannot be contained or defined by any dynamic, relationship, movement--beyond being/nonbeing! It has always been the True Self as Devotion to me, serving me, imbuing me. And here I rest.

    yes the bliss leaves. Yes a "quiet dynamic/awareness resides soley--seen as the source, as ME, in but not of anything. Yes life normalizes as does teh relationship of choosing identifying/participating with or not at all! Yes! it is exactly as you say.

    So back to the attending, to the sweetness!
    Peace,
    Ben

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  4. I Bow to Love though it is not always a pleasant force to reckon with. It is a consuming fire and I smell like smoke all the time.

    With Deep Gratitude for you Ed.

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  5. It's hard to speak of Love. There are so many conceptual frameworks by which we try to understand it. I don't think Love is something we do, it is something that does us; we don't choose it, it chooses us and when it does it can feel merciless at times. As I said in the above post, it is not always a pleasant force to reckon with. It is a consuming fire, jealous for its own self. It seems to have no regard for my man made dreams; it turns them to rubble and consumes them. I didn't know I was signing up for this. I thought I could make it through on my intellect alone.

    I BOW TO LOVE and deeply honor the object that triggered it.

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    1. Lila, even your prose is poetry. I bow to love with you.

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    2. Edji, as usual you say succinctly with words what cannot be expressed with words. My words can't do justice to the gratitude I feel.

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  6. "The amazing thing you will also learn, is this feels like you are returning to be an ordinary you... except for the realization that all this too is you. Everything is you and not you at the same time. You become ordinary, watching or participating in life; it becomes your “choice.”

    "This continued worship is what adds sweetness... because otherwise, so many Jnanis burn out and dry up, as happened to me, until someone blew life into me again."

    Whew, too spooky... Sometimes Edji, it's like you're telling me my own story.

    That's always a form of confirmation to the little me, if I was having doubts. And I was.

    After experiencing ecstasies and visions lately, and having been described as 'manic' by those who know me. I seem to have settled back into this usual state of commonplace consciousness, doing the usual routines. And there's a haunting anxiety that I will now plummet back into the slough of despond. I mean is all this self delusion? Do we bring anything of worth back from those peak experiences?

    This is where I've been at for a few days. But then I read the above and WHAM! It's like you're talking to me personally, and I breath a sigh of contentment and realise that if I am suffering delusions, then I'm sharing then with many other fine people and at the same time!

    Then so be IT! (that which cannot be named)

    I Am You,

    Love, Davey.

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    1. Of course, sometimes I continue to suffer from the delusion that there's someone to suffer a delusion. usually when things aren't going 'my' way, or I have to deal with some apparent conflict, then fear arises and I wonder where all the insight went.

      BUT, these 'lapses' seem to be of shorter duration, the anxiety seems to be fairly mild, and the solution seems to present itself unbidden.

      The 'trap' would be in denying that these processes are occurring at all, and telling myself some bullshit about how "it's just a thought or a feeling, and I am not that". This kind of rationalising kept me in the darkness for years.

      That's how my 'understanding' of these teachings bore no fruit, when I was merely using them to avoid pain. What makes the difference is honouring the everyday internal processes that are a part of being human. Then things seem to start unfolding effortlessly.

      But one does have to be willing to "step up to the plate" as you Stateside folks would say.

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  7. I hear you, Davey. I used to feel such a sense of despair when I would have experiences that lasted for days, or months, or more than a year... only to see them disappear...and the Door to Heaven [a term I use lightly] would slam hard in my face yet again. The feeling of loss was utterly inconsolable.

    As a result, I watched helplessly as the little me began to start denying the "awakenings" were gone...clinging to all that had been seen and felt, except now in conceptual form only. I could conjure some memories of perfect Joy and Peace, for maybe a few hours or a few days, and it would relieve the sorrow. But just a tiny bit, because I knew I was lying to myself, which inevitably only worsened the pain.

    I do not feel the need to do that anymore, and because I don't I am able to receive the real gift that remains. There is always a deepening understanding of the Unreality of this Dream of separate self, and the lie of Death. The more I do not cling to anything, the more my vision clears; the I Am can be seen and felt and loved, as the Witness that it is.

    So now I Understand. It is not about these "peak"--or any other experiences--at all, but about clinging to nothing and letting ALL concepts go to ground. Such "ground" is very fertile soil indeed; it is the Heart Itself and there YOU were all along; the very Lover you had always longed for was YourSelf.

    There is no more doubt about that. And so no concern if it is all "done" or not. I no longer care, for at last there is a growing freedom to Love with no aching need to be filled by something "other" than That. There is no "Other" anywhere. Life will test this, I am sure, but it doesn't matters. I Am already Home.

    Victoria will be here for as long as she lasts, seeing/knowing that what I Am cannot die. Love cannot die, dearest Davey. It is the ONLY THING HAPPENING. It is the only thing that ever HAS happened.

    We ARE the same One, and I love you,

    Victoria

    P.S.
    The invaluable gift that Ed is giving us all is absolute Love, and TOTAL acceptance. To feel That is to feel who You are, most directly. I am most grateful...

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  8. I'm laughing [sort of]...just happened to read this reply I wrote a few days ago. It is all true enough to be said. However, noticed the P.S. sounds like something a recruiter from the local Christian Church might say...and that is definitely NOT my perspective.

    So, for the record and from my heart, I will just say this; I really feel Ed's love...have felt it from day one. It healed--almost immediately--very deep old feelings of self-doubt. They are gone. Completely gone. The interesting thing is; I could sense this would happen before I had even sent him a first email. He is a beautiful, imperfect, heart-open rascal, and I love him.

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  9. Whoever is telling you that Nisargadatta was not devotional in the last years of his life is misinformed. He did bhajans and puja to his guru until his last days. To say he was not devotional shows a lack of understanding of a large part of his teaching.

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