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Nondual Highlights Issue #2034 Wednesday, January 26, 2005 Editor: Mark
Life
is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was
going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and
then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it
ends.
Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology,
contributed to AlphaWorld by Sandra
Awareness and Experience - Isaac Shapiro - September 2004.
Let us consider what we all call experience. The entire universe,
life, time, space, our family, everyone we know, is in this
moment simply experience to us. We experience all the above
through five senses, so I am calling all experience, sensations.
These sensations are then given name and form by our ability to
think and make distinctions.
Stop for a moment and simply experience the totality of your
experience simply as sensations now. Notice that what you
experience, your sensations, are changing every moment and
therefore cannot be described. In order to describe your
experience of Now, you would have to speak volumes and as soon as
you spoke, your experience would be already different.
Notice if when you experience like this, without trying to
quantify or qualify your sensations, if there is a sense of
boundary between you and your experience.
Notice that usually we think we can describe our experience and
in this idea there is a sense of "I". Notice that in
trying to describe our sensations, this activity appears to give
the non-existent "I" a sense of control.
Now notice that you are aware of any experience. This awareness
is already present. Whilst being this awareness, see if you can
describe awareness.
You will notice that this is impossible.
Where is it?
Everywhere.
Are there any boundaries?
Nope.
What is in it?
Everything. We have two words awareness and experience, but
really they are only words. We can’t describe either.
Notice if there is any boundary between awareness and experience.
We have the capacity to objectify experience and then it seems
like there is an observer and what is observed. This gives a
sense of "I." From this we can see that the sense of
"I" is an activity and does not actually exist. As soon
as the activity ceases, like in deep sleep, there is no sense of
"I"
When experiencing the totality of our experience of Now, there is
no possibility to objectify, hence no sense of "I".
Now notice what happens if you would like to have a different
experience from the experience you are having. Firstly, is it
possible? If the thought that it is possible to have a different
experience that what we are having is entertained, then it looks
as if "I" can do something about it.
As soon as we do not want the experience we are having, the not
wanting it is also an experience and adds another layer into the
tapestry of experience. Simply, what it boils down to is
tightening up. Mostly we never consciously examine this
tightening up and have an unconscious belief that this tightening
up helps. Very often, we have resistance to this tightening up,
which locks it in. What we can notice about experience, is that
it is always changing. When we don’t want the experience we
are having, we freeze-frame it, or objectify it, because we
can’t get rid of something that is changing. So in order to
get rid of an experience or change it, we have to make it into
something.
Check and see if what we make our experience into when we
don’t want it, actually exists?
The only human drama there is, is not wanting the experience/
sensations we are having now. See if this is true! Not wanting
the experience we are having, feels uncomfortable in the body and
this registers as a problem. Our thinking is the capacity to
solve problems, so our thinking tries to help by projecting what
the problem is and what the solution could be. When we don’t
want the experience we are having, I am going to call this
resisting, all that happens is that our experience gets more
intense or subjectively we call it worse. Now that it is worse we
don’t want it either, so we resist again, which makes it
worse and now that it is worse we don’t want it either, so
we resist, ad infinitum. In a matter of moments we feel out of
control, the experience we don’t want is still there and we
feel overwhelmed. Our experience feels bigger than us. Most
people spend their entire lives feeling overwhelmed. There is a
sense of too much to do and there is a constant underlying
feeling of stress and the feeling that we have to run just to
survive.
For most of us, the habit is to tighten up as soon as we wake, if
we don’t wake up already contracted, from what we have
dreamt. We do this by thinking of what we have to do this day and
unconsciously or consciously believing that this tightening up
somehow helps us to survive.
Once we have tightened up, this registers as a problem and then
our mind tries to help .. etc
In western psychology, what we call the subconscious mind is
everything we never want to experience again and everything we
think we want to experience, in other words all our unfilled
desires, that we think will make us happy. All of this is our
resistance to our experience NOW. This is what our thinking
produces when we have sensations we are resisting, in trying to
help us by identifying what the problem is and what the solution
could be. As soon as we think we know what the problem is, in
other words, whats wrong outside or inside of us, we project that
what is "wrong": needs changing or fixing. We spend
enormous amounts of energy trying to do the impossible. The
non-existent "I" trying to change, fix or get rid of
what doesn’t exist.
Stop. Notice what your mind is constantly busy with. Notice if
what your mind is working with in this moment brings you peace.
Could you for a moment simply let go of believing that thinking
will help? Could you let go of believing that tightening up will
help?
In this moment, being embodied awareness, aware in every cell,
simply being, how is it? Notice if there is any boundary. Notice
that all experience is welcome. Some call this unconditional love
or everything. It is never the experience we are having that
troubles us, it is whether or not there is an automatic habit of
trying to not have the experience we are already having that
troubles us.
Notice where in your body you experience not wanting the
experience you are having. How does it feel? Can you notice or
find anything worthwhile about resisting your experience? Could
you let go of resisting having the experience you are having?
Most people measure themselves and their lives by their
experience. What we could call waking up, is a shift, where we no
longer believe in the describing of our sensations. In other
words, we stop believing our thinking and the whole activity of
trying to separate from our sensations.
Notice, that, That which is aware, is not a thing, not an object
that you can sense. Some call this nothing. Where does this begin
and end?
No beginning no end. This answers the koan, where were you before
you were born.
A famous sage said, "When I know I am nothing this is wisdom
and when I know I am everything this is love and between the two
my life flows."
- Isaac Shapiro; more here: http://www.isaacshapiro.de/library.html
Buddhism is not a belief system. It's not about accepting certain
tenets or believing a set of claims or principles. In fact, it's
quite the opposite. Buddhism is about seeing. It's about knowing
rather than believing, hoping or wishing. It's also about not
being afraid to examine anything and everything, including our
own personal agenda.... Buddhism is about seeing. That's
all."
- Steve Hagen, Buddhism, Plain and Simple
published by Tuttle, contributed to DailyDharma by
DharmaGrandmother
Question: If I try to make the `Who am I?' enquiry, I fall into
sleep. What should I do?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Persist in the enquiry throughout your
waking hours. That would be quite enough. If you keep on making
the enquiry till you fall asleep, the enquiry will go on during
sleep also. Take up the enquiry again as soon as you wake up.
Question: How can I get peace? I do not seem to obtain it through
Vichara (enquiry).
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Peace is your natural state. It is the mind
that obstructs the natural state. If you do not experience peace
it means that your Vichara (enquiry) has been made only in the
mind. Investigate what the mind is, and it will disappear. There
is no such thing as mind apart from thought. Nevertheless,
because of the emergence of thought, you surmise something from
which it starts and term that the mind. When you probe to see
what it is, you find there is really no such thing as mind. When
the mind has thus vanished, you realise eternal peace.
Question: When I am engaged in enquiry as to the source from
which the `I' springs, I arrive at a stage of stillness of mind
beyond which I find myself unable to proceed further. I have no
thought of any kind and there is an emptiness, a blankness. A
mild light pervades and I feel that it is myself bodiless. I have
neither cognition nor vision of body or form. The experience
lasts nearly half an hour and is pleasing. Would I be correct in
concluding that all that was necessary to secure eternal
happiness, that is freedom or salvation or whatever one calls it,
was to continue the practice till the experience could be
maintained for hours, days and months together?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: This does not mean salvation. Such a
condition is termed Manolaya or temporary stillness of thought.
Manolaya means concentration, temporarily arresting the movement
of thoughts. As soon as this concentration ceases, thoughts, old
and new, rush in as usual; and even if this temporary lulling of
mind should last a thousand years, it will never lead to total
destruction of thought, which is what is called liberation from
birth and death.
The practitioner must therefore be ever on the alert and enquire
within as to who has this experience, who realises its
pleasantness. Without this enquiry he will go into a long trance
or deep sleep (Yoga Nidra). Due to the absence of a proper guide
at this stage of spiritual practice, many have been deluded and
fallen a prey to a false sense of liberation and only a few have
managed to reach the goal safely.
The following story illustrates the point very well. A yogi was
doing penance (tapas) for a number of years on the banks of the
Ganges. When he had attained a high degree of concentration, he
believed that continuance in that stage for prolonged periods
constituted liberation and practised it. One day, before going
into deep concentration, he felt thirsty and called to his
disciple to bring a little drinking water from the Ganges. But
before the disciple arrived with the water, he had gone into Yoga
Nidra and remained in that state for countless years, during
which time much water flowed under the bridge. When he woke up
from this experience he immediately called '`Water! Water!'; but
there was neither his disciple nor the Ganges in sight.
The first thing that he asked for was water because, before going
into deep concentration, the topmost layer of thought in his mind
was water and by concentration, however deep and prolonged it
might have been, he had only been able temporarily to lull his
thoughts. When he regained consciousness this topmost thought
flew up with all the speed and force of a flood breaking through
the dykes. If this were the case with regard to a thought which
took shape immediately before he sat for meditation, there is no
doubt that thoughts which took root earlier would also remain
unannihilated. If annihilation of thoughts is liberation, can he
be said to have attained salvation?
Sadhakas (seekers) rarely understand the difference between this
temporary stilling of the mind (Manolaya) and permanent
destruction of thoughts (manonasa). In Manolaya there is
temporary subsidence of thought-waves, and though this temporary
period may even last for a thousand years, thoughts, which are
thus temporarily stilled, rise up as soon as the Manolaya ceases.
One must therefore watch one's spiritual progress carefully. One
must not allow oneself to be overtaken by such spells of
stillness of thought. The moment one experiences this, one must
revive consciousness and enquire within as to who it is who
experiences this stillness. While not allowing any thoughts to
intrude, one must not, at the same time, be overtaken by this
deep sleep (Yoga Nidra) or self-hypnotism.
Though this is a sign of progress towards the goal, yet it is
also the point where the divergence between the road to
liberation and Yoga Nidra take place. The easy way, the direct
way, the shortest cut to salvation is the enquiry method. By such
enquiry, you will drive the thought force deeper till it reaches
its source and merges therein. It is then that you will have the
response from within and find that you rest there, destroying all
thoughts once and for all.
- posted to MillionPaths by Viorica Weissman
