Robert, Ramana, and Nisargdatta are all correct:
Self-Realization of the Manifest Self is NOT the final truth.
It is just that my own experience on my own path and well as
arose from being a teacher, is that the personal self, the energetic self,
one’s sense of presence, and the divine within, which I call the Manifest Self,
should all be realized and fully explored before moving on to the Absolute,
before “realizing” the final witness prior to Consciousness.
I have seen seekers caught time after time, in emptiness,
boredom, depression, and even suicidal ideation because of trying to bypass the
human self, the personality quirks, negative emotions, emotional pain such as
guilt, shame, and rage, and thereby miss the aliveness of the Manifest Self and
one's own divinity altogether.
Many seekers seek the ultimate understanding, the ultimate
states, etc., prior to working through buried, repressed, and denied emotional
pain, and therefore never taste of states of grace, surrender, identity with
love itself, nor experience internal energies, let alone bliss and the great
joy of complete surrender.
In spirituality you have to do your homework.
Recently, because Michael is staying with me and doing many of
the chores I usually do, and recently I have had fewer medical reviews to do, I
have been able to be quieter and go deeper into myself and thereby experience
once again the pure Robert states of complete peace and rest far more
satisfying than any of the bliss states ever encountered before. I did not
exist, and everything, EVERYTHING, was experienced to be Consciousness; the
external world, my body, my Manifest Self, were all experienced as
Consciousness with no sense of separation.
Only the experience of my body was somewhat different because I
could experience it as “feeling” from the inside, which is different from my
experience of the rest of the world through the five senses; yet even the body
was just Consciousness too.
The sense of peace, rest, and relaxation was unsurpassed, far
deeper than the Manifest Self that I discovered after being lost in emptiness
for a dozen years. The Manifest Self was seen as separate only in an illusory
way. It too was just Consciousness, like the walls, table, or my body.
I remember having had such peace before and it was when I
visited Korea and Zen students and Zen monks did everything for me. When you
don’t have to attend to details of day to day living with the constant
decisions and activities required, it is much, much easier to reside in bliss
or in a state where everything is recognized as Consciousness alone.
Nice entry Edji.
ReplyDeleteThe final part it's true, for sometime I was wondering why driving my car put me in some kind of blissful estate. It's the same reason: as driving is automated, you feel free as que world takes you to the destination while you dont have to tale any conscious decission. It's really blissful and liberating, and even more when someone drives for you :)
Hug!
I seem to recall one description of this process is called "spiritual bypassing" and has been designated as such by a few spiritual teachers.
ReplyDeleteMark