Self-Realization is not about attaining or discovering some exalted spiritual state, ecstasy, or Samadhi even though that is what you get when you read Ramana's students.
Self-Realization is finding that breath of life within you that is you, and just abide there. That I am sensation is illusive. You can grab it for a moment, two moments, but staying there is difficult. And lots of unsuccessful practice will dry you out.
But if you are dying or intensely in love, the Self comes alive as it did for Ramana when he felt his body dying. Everything intensified, and intensely attentive, he was a able to grasp the entirety of the "force of his entire personality" as well as the full energy of his life force which gave the body life, which held the body within its awareness.
It is easier to discover that Self that you are, not in the quieter transition states, but when you burst with energy and feel your body brought alive by the force of your own awareness, which you are.
What? No transcendent states? No ever-knowing bliss? No certificate to sit smiling smugly, or unable to smile at all, during dinner parties? What kind of a sales pitch is that? ;) Just kidding. Love the advice, Edji. Of course this is the truth: the joy of being alive, and the mystery of the entire life force. I have a friend who plays violin on the streets of the world, named Ezra. He could be a concert violinist but he's too much of a rebel, and a mystic. Originally from Israel. He talks about finally understanding Mozart and Beethoven through playing them, and through the music finding God's voice. We were sitting having coffee last week and he looked around and said, "Sometimes I forget and then I remind myself that I'm going to die, then I love (gesturing to take in the coffee shop, the busy street with all the people going about their mundane lives and the world with all its conflicts, selfishness and pain) THIS."
ReplyDeleteThis dying you talk about.....would digging up a deeply buried past, something horrific, where you want to die and not look at it qualify for this state?
ReplyDeleteSomething you don't get over in a day, week or year but tags along seemingly forever.
Not a physical illness but an emotional one.
No, what you are talking about is an open gate to enlightenment. Follow that feel, that depression, that fear to its source. It is a gate but it is not a death experience. It is a full life experience.
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