I entered onto the religious path in earnest at a time when the profound esoteric knowledge of the East was being pursued earnestly in lots of circles.
A few of us determined to pursue awakening and enlightenment with single pointed dedication. We lived in communities, did excessive quantities of practices, traveled to India, frolicked with lecturers and browse sacred texts.
Revisiting the Roots of Awakening
Recently I really feel myself referred to as again to those roots and the novel spirit of discovery that had been embodied there. I wrote this essay as a result of I really feel referred to as to precise my understanding and expertise of the esoteric traditions of the East as clearly as I can.
My religious coaching occurred inside the Hindu custom of Advaita Vedanta and particularly within the lineage of the good Indian sage Ramana Maharshi.
In that custom enlightenment is spoken of by way of religious liberation and non-duality and so this shall be an essay in regards to the discovery of religious liberation and non-duality.
What Is Freedom?
Most easily let’s imagine that religious liberation means freedom from the constraints of the small self into the direct recognition of the self absolute or large self.
It’s as one other nice Indian sage Nisargadatta described it, the popularity of ”I’m That.”
This implies that it’s the recognition that behind all of our concepts of self there’s nothing however pure consciousness – a supply of consciousness that isn’t certain to any perceiving entity.
We discover that consciousness shouldn’t be a attribute of a cloth being, however fairly the alternative, our materials being is an phantasm, a perceived entity that’s made from pure consciousness.
The Limits of a Materialistic Worldview
We stay in a deeply materialistic age and our perception in our personal materials existence is so unquestionable that it’s all however inconceivable to interrupt the spell of solidity and are available right into a direct recognition of our personal true nature as a free-floating locus of consciousness that’s the supply of every little thing.
As a result of our language is constructed on the belief of separation it doesn’t lend itself effectively to speaking non-dual actuality.
Even utilizing the descriptor “free-floating” is problematic as a result of it implies the existence of some medium that consciousness floats in. That might suggest the existence of two – consciousness and the medium it floats in.
What Is A Consciousness-Primarily based Worldview?
The non-dual view is the popularity of oneness, of being one and not using a second, it’s the direct realization that aware consciousness is all there’s.
Not a aware consciousness that exists within the universe as a result of the universe itself is an phantasm generated by consciousness.
Every part that we expertise, together with ourselves, is a part of a digital expertise of actuality that’s generated by pure consciousness.
The assertion above might not appear surprising to you. Maybe you’ve heard comparable issues earlier than and discover it straightforward to know and settle for.
Expertise Versus Understanding
Nonetheless, it’ll assist us to maneuver slowly right here, remembering that understanding and acceptance of a religious reality shouldn’t be the identical as experiencing it.
Understanding and acceptance are a distant second place from the last word prize of being swept up within the direct recognition of our personal non-existence as a separate self and the inconceivable notion of pure consciousness.
The language of digital actuality is useful as a result of it factors to the truth that every little thing we see and expertise as actual is solely a perceptual assemble – an expertise of issues that don’t exist.
The language of digital actuality can also be problematic as a result of most of us will assume that the phantasm of actuality is being generated in our personal thoughts, or in our mind.
However our expertise of thoughts and mind can also be a part of the digital actuality. They don’t exist to have an expertise.
In non-dual teachings we be taught that the entire of actuality is a dream and not using a dreamer.
There isn’t any time and house as a result of these are a part of the dream. There isn’t any self and different. There isn’t any internal and outer expertise.
Go searching you. I’m right here in my favourite espresso store. I’m seeing baristas and clients. I odor espresso and I see the bricks on the wall in entrance of me.
Every part seems to exist in house and about an hour of time has handed since I first sat down right here.
None of that is actual in the way in which I’ve been skilled to think about it. None of it has an existence impartial of my expertise of it. I’m not seeing baristas and clients.
I’m having an expertise of baristas and clients. If I had been to the touch the particular person subsequent to me. I wouldn’t be touching an individual, I’d be having an expertise of touching an individual.
The world and every little thing in it’s a assortment of experiences that we assume are experiences of actual issues being had by an actual experiencer, however they aren’t. They’re pure experiences.
Actuality is timeless, spaceless and empty. It has no thickness or depth. It has no future and no previous. It merely is.
It’s an elaborate and meticulously constructed sense of being a separate aware entity current in an unlimited universe of time and house.
If we’re lucky sufficient to vanish into this expertise of absolute being we’ll by no means be the identical once more.
We might stay in comparable methods, however we’re now not fooled by the looks of the world of separation. As helpful as it could be to narrate to the world of time and house and separate beings as actual, deep down we all know it’s not.
We Are One
Once we meet somebody we might discuss to them as if they’re over there in that physique and we’re over right here on this one, however we all know we’re one.
We all know that the supply of consciousness that’s taking a look at us by their eyes is similar consciousness that’s wanting again at them.
There usually are not two beings interacting. There may be one consciousness that has created the expertise of separation by producing the phantasm of two entities in order that it might have the wonderful expertise of assembly and relating with one other.
There isn’t any entity having the expertise you might be having proper now. There may be simply an expertise that’s inherently awake and conscious, however there isn’t a entity separate from that woke up consciousness that’s having the expertise.
Our perception that we’re an entity that has experiences is the primary supply of duality. It’s the first supply of the perceived separation of the indivisible non-dual wholeness of being.
Are you able to let go of your sense of self so deeply that you just change into the one consciousness there’s?