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Nondual Highlights Issue #2119 Wednesday, April 20, 2005
When
the small mind finds its correct place in our big mind, then
there is peace - everything is our large mind.
"Transmission" of this big mind occurs with no loss
"of even a speck of dust" by the master, and no gain
"of even a thread" by the now awakened disciple. This
is because everyone is already within his big self.
- Shunryu Suzuki
The self's fear that it's existence may be called into question
can manifest in a variety of ways. Confronted with an unusual
experience that might be viewed as an invitation to inquire
further, the self may simply respond with preoccupation, deciding
that it has no time for such concerns, or no interest in them.
Instead, it turns back to the well - known stories that
proliferate from the founding story: stories of success and
failure, sorrow and joy, gain and loss, praise and blame. Other
concerns are rejected as childish, or as better left to
'professional' thinkers, or else derided as useless.
Another response to the momentary awareness that matters could be
different is to interpret such awareness as the onset of
confusion. Confusion is the self's response to the not - knowing
that calls a story into question - a way of twisting not-knowing
to gain control over it. The self expects to understand in terms
of the old categories and old stories, and interprets the failure
of the old ways as a failure of understanding: a sign of weakness
that it quickly turns into a shield against the new. Aware that
the old patterns have been brought under suspicion, it holds onto
them as tightly as ever, catching awareness 'in a bind'.
Such a confusion is the self's version of the deep not-knowing
that challenges existence...(and) in the substitution of
confusion for not - knowing, a fog descends...The resulting
emotional tone covers over the cutting clarity inherent in the
original not - knowing.
... (Or) the self may respond to the challenge of not - knowing
by moving to appropriate it, subtly turning not-knowing itself
into a position and a structure. "Yes," the self says,
"Yes, I understand! For so long I have held on to my
positions and my stories, but now I see the truth! What Beauty!
What Joy! What Openness! At last I have found my true home!"
Such affirmation is a ready cover for self - deception. Its 'yes'
is the comfortable 'yes' of old patterns. It turns understanding
into 'my' experience, something the self can manipulate through
new narratives and interpretations. The self twists its concepts
and meanings around until there is room for the element of
not-knowing to fit in. Reacting to openness as a void, it rushes
to fill it.
To appropriate not - knowing in this way is quite easy, even
'natural'. The self has a strong impulse toward the therapeutic,
toward making knowledge into something that can benefit the self.
Now it becomes a partisan of not-knowing. It sweeps the freedom
of the unknown into the shadow cast by the self, then pretends
not to notice as darkness falls once more.
- Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche from Love of
Knowledge
The soil is faithful to its trust: whatever
you have sown in it, you reap the same.
But until springtime brings the touch of God,
the soil does not reveal its secrets.
- Rumi, posted to AlongTheWay
Q: Bhagavan said yesterday that while one is engaged in search of
God 'within', `outer' work would go on automatically. In the life
of Sri Chaitanya it is said that during his lectures to students
he was really seeking Krishna within and he forgot all about his
body and went on talking of Krishna only. This raises a doubt as
to whether work can safely be left to itself. Should one keep
part of one's attention on the physical work?
A: The Self is all. Are you apart from the Self ? Or can the work
go on without the Self? The Self is universal so all actions will
go on whether you strain yourself to be engaged in them or not.
The work will go on of itself. Thus Krishna told Arjuna that he
need not trouble to kill the Kauravas because they were already
slain by God. It was not for him to resolve to work and worry
himself about it, but to allow his own nature to carry out the
will of the higher power.
Q: But the work may suffer if I do not attend to it.
A: Attending to the Self means attending to the work. Because you
identify yourself with the body, you think that work is done by
you. But the body and its activities, including that work, are
not apart from the Self. What does it matter whether you attend
to the work or not? When you walk from one place to another you
do not attend to the steps you take and yet you find yourself
after a time at your goal. You see how the business of walking
goes on without your attending to it. So also with other kinds of
work.
- excerpt from Be As You Are, The Teaching of
Sri Ramana Maharshi, edited by David Godman,
posted to MillionPaths
True Meditation
True meditation has no direction, goals, or method. All methods
aim at achieving a certain state of mind. All states are limited,
impermanent and conditioned. Fascination with states leads only
to bondage and dependency. True meditation is abidance as
primordial consciousness.
True meditation appears in consciousness spontaneously when
awareness is not fixated on objects of perception. When you first
start to meditate you notice that awareness is always focused on
some object: on thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, memories,
sounds, etc. This is because the mind is conditioned to focus and
contract upon objects. Then the mind compulsively interprets what
it is aware of (the object) in a mechanical and distorted way. It
begins to draw conclusions and make assumptions according to past
conditioning.
In true meditation all objects are left to their natural
functioning. This means that no effort should be made to
manipulate or suppress any object of awareness. In true
meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware
of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself.
Primordial awareness (consciousness) is the source in which all
objects arise and subside. As you gently relax into awareness,
into listening, the minds compulsive contraction around objects
will fade. Silence of being will come more clearly into
consciousness as a welcoming to rest and abide. An attitude of
open receptivity, free of any goal or anticipation, will
facilitate the presence of silence and stillness to be revealed
as your natural condition.
Silence and stillness are not states and therefore cannot be
produced or created. Silence is the non-state in which all states
arise and subside. Silence, stillness and awareness are not
states and can never be perceived in their totality as objects.
Silence is itself the eternal witness without form or attributes.
As you rest more profoundly as the witness, all objects take on
their natural functionality, and awareness becomes free of the
mind's compulsive contractions and identifications, and returns
to its natural non- state of Presence.
The simple yet profound question, "Who Am I ?," can
then reveal one's self not to be the endless tyranny of the
ego-personality, but objectless Freedom of Being - Primordial
Consciousness in which all states and all objects come and go as
manifestations of the Eternal Unborn Self that YOU ARE.
- Adyashanti, posted to RamanaMaharshi