Jnana is for the spiritually elderly

Nisargadatta said his last attachment, his last identification to his body, ended the moment he heard that he had cancer.  Bernadette Roberts said that the spiritual process she went through after full experience of unitary Christ Consciousness, was a gradual loss of everything, a gradual hollowing out of her identity as naturally happens with aging.

Robert Adams had his awakening experience to Christ Consciousness at age 14, but 34 years later he was still wandering India visiting teachers, including spending six months with Nisargadatta Maharaj in the late 1970s.  He still had an interest in spiritual knowledge.

When I knew Robert, he was already done with life.  He had no interest in the world, and just lived from day to day doing almost nothing.  He said if it were not for his wife and daughters, he’d be living alone somewhere doing nothing.  He said his dog Dimitri was his only attachment.

For all three of these teachers, Consciousness itself had lost its allure.

The intensity, the brilliant light and flash of the self-realization of the manifest consciousness, Christ Consciousness, gave way to the gradual or instant realization that they had nothing to do with consciousness. They themselves were nothing at all observing consciousness.  The states of consciousness came to them, one after the other, and they passively observed it, no longer engaged of very interested in its play.

All three were done with life, with their bodies, with consciousness.  The excitement was gone.  The bliss of the flame of consciousness was gone.

For these three giants, spiritual seeking, spitual seeking, spiritual knowledge, spiritual powers or siddhis, were all just entertainment within the field of consciousness, and when one’s interest in consciousness itself wanes, all seeking wanes.  Then one finds a different kind of happiness, one of being in peace, rest, with nowhere to go and nothing to seek.

However, old habits die hard, and Maharaj visited prostitutes after his wife died, and Robert became a notorious womanizer, both, I think, trying to overcome periods of emptiness or boredom.

Indeed, Bernadette called her loss of Christ Consciousness (Which she also called unity consciousness) a terrible catastrophe, and both Robert and Nisargadatta talked endlessly about nothingness.

So I ask all aspiring jnanis out there, “Are you ready to become nothing?”  If not, spend your time doing social work or practicing an energy yoga, or Kundalini yoga as long as you can, or continue to chase human love to keep you interested in life, because once your interest in consciousness itself leaves, you will have nothing, and can you tolerate nothing?  Are you ready for it?