TRUTH IS SIMPLE
Wednesday, August 24, 2022
Contemplation and Enlightenment
Mind is not consciousness and the inability to distinguish between consciousness and mind is the major difficulty in our pursuit for the ‘Real’. Mind is involved in twofold process viz. firstly, mind’s identification of being with becoming and secondly, mistaking consciousness for thinking. When we are ‘aware’, we are aware only through mind, and there seems no other way of being aware, so that our consciousness has become veritably a kind of process. The nature of being is not the nature of thinking - mind is not consciousness. ‘To think is to be’ has become our attitude in life but this is not the fact. ‘To think’ need not ‘to be’, and being is not thinking. The primary entanglement is the one between consciousness and thought, and the secondary entanglement is the engagement of thought in certain contingencies of experience. We are in the double bondage of being identified with the process of thought, and the process of thought having been identified with the limitations of space and time. This is the condition into which our true state has apparently degenerated itself. The purpose of concentration and meditation is to free the essence of experience from the extraneous factors of the world of space, time and causality in which the mind moves, acts and seems to be involved.
When you think about the past, it is only in the present. Likewise, we think of the future only in the present. We can never live either in the past or in the future because they do not exist when we talk of them. Now come to the present, it is so slippery like a ball of mercury on the ground that by the time we speak ‘present’, it will slip away from you. What is the meaning of time then? When there is no time, where is the question of birth, death, existence, all that we speak of. To think of existence or non-existence or even to think of God, there must be time. And that time has disappeared by your own analysis. Then where are we now? Let the mind dwell on this point. Quantum physics, which is very difficult to understand, is proving the same thing. Here we are using simple logic. Time dissolves. Can you prove the existence of past, present or future? Once you accept this, where is birth or death? Going deeper into the matter, the Upanishadic seers have, through intuition, ‘seen’ the ultimate cause or essence, the Consciousness which appears as the world. Therefore, they call this world of senses an illusion because it is not really as it appears. It is rather, pure Awareness, which is the Self of all. A man is, therefore, not a man but Consciousness masquerading as a man. A tree is not a tree but the Consciousness appearing as a tree. A mountain is not a mountain but the Consciousness in the disguise of a mountain. This is the case with all objects without any exception. So, our vision has to be reversed. To many this will sound strange if not nonsensical. The meditation prescribed is called the ‘neti, neti’ (not this, not this) method of reflection Every object, whether gross or subtle, a physical object or a mental concept, a name or a thought is really a limitation superimposed on Consciousness. Why does one negate everything? Because nothing can satisfy the conditions of Immortality and Infinity. Some say ‘sarvam khalvidam brahma’ (All this is Absolute) is the best definition of the Absolute, according to which even this body, a stone on the roadside, the sun in the heaven, etc, etc. has to be considered as the Absolute. Others argue that the best definition is the great declaration –neti, neti. according to which the Absolute is that which is after the complete negation of all that is objective and subjective. But whichever definition you use, don’t think that you have understood it. Neither can be understood by the intellect because the intellect itself is a part of the non-existent world. The Truth is there is no world except or other than God. Don’t try to think too much, that is dangerous. Along with this, cultivate devotion to Lord, some kind of prayer and worship to be combined with this reflection and meditation. Do not over exert because you are trying to think about that which is unthinkable. .........................Om Shanti!
Sunday, June 6, 2021
TIME IS ILLUSORY
When you think about the past, it is only in the present. Likewise, we think of the future only in the present. We can never live either in the past or in the future because they do not exist when we talk of them. Now come to the present, it is so slippery like a ball of mercury on the ground that by the time we speak ‘present’, it will slip away from you. What is the meaning of time then? When there is no time, where is the question of birth, death, existence, all that we speak of. To think of existence or non-existence or even to think of God, there must be time. And that time has disappeared by your own analysis. Then where are we now? Let the mind dwell on this point. Quantum physics, which is very difficult to understand, is proving the same thing. Here we are using simple logic. Time dissolves. Can you prove the existence of past, present or future? Once you accept this, where is birth or death? Going deeper into the matter, the Upanishadic seers have, through intuition, ‘seen’ the ultimate cause or essence, the Consciousness which appears as the world. Therefore, they call this world of senses an illusion because it is not really as it appears. It is rather, pure Awareness, which is the Self of all. A man is, therefore, not a man but Consciousness masquerading as a man. A tree is not a tree but the Consciousness appearing as a tree. A mountain is not a mountain but the Consciousness in the disguise of a mountain. This is the case with all objects without any exception. So, our vision has to be reversed. To many this will sound strange if not nonsensical. The meditation prescribed is called the ‘neti, neti’ (not this, not this) method of reflection Every object, whether gross or subtle, a physical object or a mental concept, a name or a thought is really a limitation superimposed on Consciousness. Why does one negate everything? Because nothing can satisfy the conditions of Immortality and Infinity. Some say ‘sarvam khalvidam brahma’ (All this is Absolute) is the best definition of the Absolute, according to which even this body, a stone on the roadside, the sun in the heaven, etc, etc. has to be considered as the Absolute. Others argue that the best definition is the great declaration –neti, neti. according to which the Absolute is that which is after the complete negation of all that is objective and subjective. But whichever definition you use, don’t think that you have understood it. Neither can be understood by the intellect because the intellect itself is a part of the non-existent world. The Truth is there is no world except or other than God. Don’t try to think too much, that is dangerous. Along with this, cultivate devotion to Lord, some kind of prayer and worship to be combined with this reflection and meditation. Do not over exert because you are trying to think about that which is unthinkable.
In a series of rapidly moving films, we see a man standing like a motionless statue. Our eyes and mind are incapable of coping with the rapidity of the movement of the films. Similar is the case with our perception of the world, including our own body. The eyes and other organs together with the mind, through which we perceive the external world of objects, are not able to catch up with velocity of the electromagnetic vibrations constituting the world. Hence, they appear as objects to the eyes, as sound to the ears, as smell to the nose, etc. So, the world is not really as it appears to our senses.
All created individuals in bodies are, like rivers, tending towards the ocean of the Absolute. Their reaching the pure Being, which is the Absolute, is just like the rivers entering the ocean. If you take a tumbler of water from the ocean you do not know which river-water you are taking. The rivers become the ocean and they do not know where they are, yet they are there. We cannot say that the rivers are absent in the ocean. So, it is not a negation of individuality, but a transcendence of individuality. It is not that the rivers are destroyed there, but they are absorbed into a larger Being, into a greater reality of themselves, which is their Self. So is the case with all of us. All Beings in creation tend towards the ocean of the Ultimate Being. When they go there, they cannot distinguish themselves, for they become ONE with BEING.
Like water, consciousness has no shape. As water assumes the shape of container, so the consciousness takes the shape of your thought and concepts. It reveals through your conditioned mind. Mind is not consciousness and the inability to distinguish between consciousness and mind is the major difficulty in our pursuit for the ‘Real’. Mind is involved in twofold process viz. firstly, mind’s identification of being with becoming and secondly, mistaking consciousness for thinking. When we are ‘aware’, we are aware only through mind, and there seems no other way of being aware, so that our consciousness has become veritably a kind of process. The nature of being is not the nature of thinking - mind is not consciousness. ‘To think is to be’ has become our attitude in life but this is not the fact. ‘To think’ need not ‘to be’, and being is not thinking. The primary entanglement is the one between consciousness and thought, and the secondary entanglement is the engagement of thought in certain contingencies of experience. We are in the double bondage of being identified with the process of thought, and the process of thought having been identified with the limitations of space and time. This is the condition into which our true state has apparently degenerated itself. The purpose of concentration and meditation is to free the essence of experience from the extraneous factors of the world of space, time and causality in which the mind moves, acts and seems to be involved. ....................Om Shanti!
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
The soul for the purpose of ensuing subject is not the Universal Soul; it is rather the bound soul and no one can be bound unless there is a concentralisation of desire at a spatio-temporal point. Why a child does choose only one particular set of parents, out of endless number? It is desire that is born, not a child. The human being is a shape taken by a mass of desires. Universal Consciousness arranges itself into a point of concentration and finitises itself. As from a huge conflagration several sparks shot out which are the individuals. But unfortunately, each spark asserted individuality of its own. Desire is the nature of the soul that incarnates, but desire is nothing but to fulfil a need; an unfulfilled desire is a malady. This point of desire has lost everything by disconnecting itself from the Universal Being; as if a person who has lost everything, wants everything, in a negative way. You have lost the Infinite and therefore now you want an infinite desire to fulfil itself through contact with numberless finite objects. But numberless finites put together do not make Infinite. Uncontrollable is desire because we have made a mistake in imagining that nature is outside us.
All different desires are but modifications of one desire alone. The different desires are only the different means adopted for the fulfilment of one single desired end which is Absolute Bliss. We do not want to be partially happy and partially unhappy because such happiness has no meaning. We want absolute happiness and peace, so it is termed as ‘Absolute Bliss'. Bliss is the culmination of all our struggle with the life; with the world or with the universe, whatever we call it. Our innermost being is also seeking God as a matter of spirituality and substantially, these two apparently opposite quests are not different in nature. The ‘outside-ness’ and the ‘within-ness’ have been created because of the body consciousness. Therefore, the Bliss that we are longing for and the notion of God are the same thing and identical. ...Hari Om!
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Friday, October 2, 2015
If we take any creation as one unit, its manifestation is produced by conjunct of two half units. 1=+1/2 & -1/2. One complete unit comprises of two aspects of the same reality. We inhale and exhale and that is one unit of breath. The rotation of a wheel is caused by forward and backward motion of the engine’s piston. A bird flutters its wings up and down and flies. We are not aware of waking world in our deep sleep and modest estimations hold that during half of our life, we are not really awake. Half of the earth shines brighter under the sun and other half experiences darkness. A pendulum completes one cycle by swinging in two different directions. Good and bad, life and death, day and night, cause and effect, masculine and feminine, positive and negative are apparently two features between which we calibrate our thought, attitude, judgment and action. We are always between two facets of One Truth and we unleash our mind to follow one flank, denouncing another. We are not here to judge what is correct and what is not. Accept all versions, enjoy and swallow them. We have to transcend all the conditions and ‘perceive’ the Truth. We represent the Absolute and Absolute finds its expression in the golden mean. ....................Om Shanti!