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#4342 -
Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
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Interview on Nonduality Street with Advaita student and
educator Dhanya:
Listen here:
http://nonduality.org/2011/08/17/nonduality-street-interview-with-advaita-student-and-educator-dhanya/
Download link:
http://nonduality.com/nondualitystreet_dhanyamoffitt.mp3
You are the Material of the Dream
By Dhanya
http://advaita-academy.org/blogs/Dhanya.ashx
Some might ask, if who I really am is ever-present, my natural
state, and the truth my very being, why have I not recognized
this before? Is it because I was looking for it?
No, that’s not the reason. If one is looking for the Self as
an object, one will never find it.
The cognition of objects is all that we initially are familiar
with. It is the way, as individual entities, we navigate through
this vast 3D appearance which is known as duality.
An analogy: For a dream character to recognize that he or she is
the very material, the stuff of the dream isn't all that easy.
We take the all pervasive dream material, upon which is our very
existence depends, and assume that it is unique to this one
individual body mind alone, and that other body minds are
different.
We superimpose our individuality onto the material of the dream,
and the material of the dream onto our individuality, taking them
to be one entity alone. This process is called mutual
superimposition.
Thus I take That, which is the most real thing about me—my
very being—to be different from your being, different from
the being of everyone else, and different from the being of all
objects.
This process is the hallmark of self-ignorance. Everyone is born
with self-ignorance, and thus everyone makes the mistake of
mutual superimposition, until the person gains self-knowledge.
Another analogy that is used is the red hot iron ball. If one has
never seen an iron ball that wasn't red hot, one would think that
red hot and iron ball are one and the same thing.
As human beings, with the types of minds we have, we have the
possibility of making the distinction between the unchanging
baseline reality upon which our existence depends, and the
changing objects (i.e. the body/mind) that we previously thought
our existence depended upon.
We also have the ability to recognize that all changing objects
have this same baseline reality for their baseline reality.
But it isn't all that easy. and it takes time and teaching, which
is done through some very clear pointing out.
Also, one has to initially accept that I am that One unchanging
reality, the being of the entire world of experience, prior to
having recognized the truth of the statement, in order to be
willing to undertake the investigation.
So again that's a big step.
Here is another analogy which is used. Say there is a giant clay
tableau, and there is nothing else, it has no edges or sides.
It's total. And in that giant clay tableau there are trees and
rivers and rocks and animals and human beings. And then say some
of the clay objects can move around, and some of them have minds.
For the clay figure to recognize that 'I am the clay, and so too
is everything else,' isn't all that easy, and yet it is the truth
of the whole thing.