Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#2760 -
Nondual
Highlights
Highlights home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
In the excerpt below, Cee
says, Do not let the statement, "Who you really are is
beyond doing and thinking," be an excuse to avoid the work
of disassembling the false identity.
The Way of
Knowledge
by Cee http://www.pne.cc/
(not yet published)
Excerpt:
To Do or Not to
Do
There has been some
confusion spawning from a few modern day teachers of Advaita
Vedanta that teach "there is nothing you can do." This
has spurned in some people a lazy and ineffective
"method" of spiritual practice. Let us spend a moment
to clear up the confusion. The Way of Knowledge recommends effort
in practice as long as there is any semblance of an ego. The
inquiry should be practiced until complete and perfect
enlightenment at which time spiritual practice falls away
spontaneously.
It is true that there is
a real ego that is a performer of actions. And it is true that
the perfect nondual Self is not an entity that can partake of
action. As you delve into inquiry, freedom and happiness become
natural. You may discover that right actions are occuring without
much effort. You may find that there is no one doing anything.
There is simply no doer. Is the body itself actually performing
actions? The fleshy body of blood and bones certainly has no
power of its own. Is there someone or some thing inside or
outside the body who is the performer of actions? As you become
more adept at the inquiry there may be a relinquishment of
attachment to doership.
Similarly, you may find
that there is no one thinking anything. Where exactly is the one
who thinks? Hidden in the brain somewhere? Who thinks
"your" thoughts? If you find no thinker, do you still
exist? Of course. To know there is no particular entity causing
your thinking is liberating indeed! If thinking goes on, so what?
Don't think twice about it. To be free from thought is a
tremendous relief.
Still, there should never
be confusion over what to do. The practice of inquiry is simple
and straighforward. You should put in great intention and effort
toward your own liberation and enlightenment. Do not let the
statement, "Who you really are is beyond doing and
thinking," be an excuse to avoid the work of disassembling
the false identity. Just because the ego turns out to be unreal,
is no excuse not to examine the ego. Who performs the enquiry?
The enquiry itself will answer the question. The inquiry starts
out as a doing. It is an effort made by the one who seems to be
in bondage. If you assume you are somebody, you cannot avoid the
effort of spiritual practice. You make a heroic effort until you
understand real Existence without a single doubt, until you are
utterly free.
What starts out as doing
ends up as _being_. The inquiry, "Who am I?"
ends up as Existence - Consciousness - Bliss, pure Being. Real
Existence has no actor or action. Once realized, it is understood
that there was no action taken, the entity who thought they were
not enlightened never existed, and no time was involved.
"Being" is spontaneously revealed. _Until then, do
practice!_
~ ~ ~
Video Satsang with Cee: http://www.pne.cc/