I am self effulgent . I am ever pure , the uncontaminated essence of pure consciousness.I am holy , infinite , blissful and action-less.
Rama Gita
As you analyze the problems of your life, you can see that there are broadly two kinds of problems. One concerning me or the "I" and the other concerning no "I". The first kind creates all kinds of issues while the second creates relatively less noise. The mind has its own way of telling you which problems are important to you. It has two powers for doing it. One is, past memories and impressions of experiences and our conditioning to it. The second one is called projection or a modified imagination of future situations. All experiences are not used for this. Experiences in which you have been involved intensely have special powers in gripping your attention. For projections and future it uses your belief system. You have a certain world view about everything. You might say " I want to be good in my work and help my kids reach their full potential". This is supported by your social perceptions, your own conditioning in life, your education and so on. Your mind uses this belief system in all projections. So when a thought or emotion arises in you, it is colored by the past memories and vasanas as well by projections about of how it would be in a different scenario. Because of these coloring, the thought that has arisen becomes interesting. In short the reality of the thought seems to carry force of attention because of these coloring. Not only is this process emotional, but also most of the times accompanied by sensations. When a worrying emotion grips you , you might feel a heartbeat increase, a slight chest congestion and so on. All these bodily responses carry more weight to the thoughts etc in your mind.
The purpose of the mind in doing all these drama is to make you act in specific ways and increase the thought system. So it is like a self preserving system. The more you think on these lines the more its power to guide you increases. It uses one more important construct for this purpose. And that is concept of the identity of the thinker. The whirlpool of thoughts seems to originate from a central thought called the "I thought". All the thoughts refers to or comes from this central thought. The central thought is the thought " I am this body". Once this thought is accepted , then your mind can guide your body into action. You would act based on a thought that is come up by using your body. This is the reason why you think " I am something inside my body". From the inside of my body i am seeing, hearing touching this world which is outside me. Whole through your life you have been living acting and behaving in ways directed by all this machinery. You have never been aware because our view is always outward.
In Non duality teaching we use the concept of " The view". what is the view?. It is a total perception of reality as it is happening. This can be understood with an example. Suppose you are driving a car. Your view is always fixed to the outside conditions. The road , the people, the trees especially whatever is in front and back of you. You don't bother much about what is going inside the car. If you did, you would be in trouble. But you are aware that you are not looking inside. In life, however the view needs to be more internal than external. Whatever it is, you will see that our view is often incomplete. It is partial. You have an incomplete view of reality. So the way of spirituality is to complete the view. This entails looking inside our inner world and completing the process of the view. So the sakshi bhavam as mentioned in the upanishads tells you to have a complete view of reality. So become aware of not only external things , but at the same time become aware of your inner world. This has the purpose of completing the view. A 360 degree view of reality.
Let us take a simple example of this view. In a normal situation when somebody is shouting at you for no reason or for no fault of yours, you would be angry. You might either start an argument or if you are not able to do so have a pathetic and sad response to it. If you just look at the partial view , you only see the anger expressing through the person who is shouting at you. That is you only see the sounds, the meanings of these sounds and so on. The situation presents a dangerous situation for you. You also have confusion , anger sadness and so on. Now look at your inner world. You would see that apart from the shouting , there are lot of things that are happening. Anger is rising in you. Interpretations are going on, reactionary responses are built . When you become aware of all of these you tend to understand that the responses in you are also as bad as the anger that is risen against you. Another thing is you see clearly, you are not this anger or sorrow. Anger sorrow etc are part of you. You are not that. It is only an arising in you. That is why you can see it If you see something then it cannot be you. Just as so many things have come and gone this would also come and go. Arent you the seer of these thoughts in you?. Arent you the witness. Now as you see this , anger would dissolve into consciousness as a wave subsides. Thus the mind has failed to provoke you into a reaction which would affect your later interactions.
So you need to have a complete view of the situation to see what is reality rather than just have an outward view and an interpretation based on that. It is an incomplete understanding. This is why vedanta says, we suffer because of ignorance. All religions usually say , do this and do that without properly telling you why. Vedanta and non dual teachings tell you this. There is ignorance. If you have ignorance, there is possibility of error. If there is error in perceiving things you would suffer because of the mismatch between your expectation and the actual reality.
If you look into our life we see that we have lived with this incomplete egoistic view so strongly that, we would fail to see the ignorance even after someone points out that. This comes from two things. One is failure to apply it into our own life. Second is the strong belief in the egoistic interpretation of reality. We tend to say all this is good , but in my everyday life i think the egoistic view is the only thing that can help me. Also i am not a realized person to transcend my suffering. So we continue clutching our own ideas of reality.
There is a story about a young man who was a trader and had a beautiful wife and baby son. Sadly, his wife fell ill and died, and the man poured all his love into his little child, who became the sole source of his happiness and joy. Once while he went away on business, bandits raided his village, burned it to the ground and captured his five-year-old son. When he returned and saw the devastation, he was beside himself with grief. He found the charred corpse of a small child, and in his desperation, he took it for the body of his son. He tore at his hair and beat his chest, and wept uncontrollably. At last, he arranged a cremation ceremony, collected up the ashes, and put them in a very precious silk pouch. Whether he was working, sleeping or eating, he always carried that bag of ashes with him, and often he would sit alone and weep, for hours on end.
One day his son escaped from the bandits, and found his way home. It was midnight when he arrived at his father’s new house and knocked on the door. The man lay in bed, sobbing, the bag of ashes by his side. “Who is it?” he asked. The child answered, “It’s me, daddy, it’s your son. Open the door.” In his anguish and confusion, all that the father could think of was that some malicious boy was playing a cruel trick on him. “Go away,” he shouted, “leave me alone.” Then he started to cry once more. Again and again, the boy knocked, but the father refused to let him in. Finally, he slowly turned and walked away. The father and son never saw one another ever again.
Sometime, somewhere you take something to be the truth. But if you cling to it too strongly, then even when the truth comes in and knocks on your door, you will not open it.
The view when completed to include our inner world has the calming effect on us in that our mind becomes less reactive, less extroverted, less emotional and rests in its true source. In turning inwards it has found its true effulgence . The supreme awareness which in the background of our inner world will start to reveal itself as the truth. Ignorance is the only hindrance to it. When the veil drops , the sun rays will come through illuminating all.
When the view is complete , our actions are different. When we don't have the view, the actions are guided unconsciously by the thought patterns , while with the view the actions are purified by responses which are not reactive and also less expecting. An expectation is often the result of an incomplete understanding. When the action is just done , without internal evaluation and expectations it is more pure and creates no impressions in us. Under the watchful eye of the mother dont the kids behave well?.
So we need to practice and extend our meditation. As we become aware in our real life, situations of the inner world in addition to the external things , a right view is developed. As we respond with compassion and love towards all, understanding as it is told the same awareness permeates the worm as the most exalted saint, how can we be affected by the external world.? It is only in the egoistic mind all sufferings arise. The pure awareness through which i see all including the egoistic mind is always blissful and I am that.
Rama Gita
As you analyze the problems of your life, you can see that there are broadly two kinds of problems. One concerning me or the "I" and the other concerning no "I". The first kind creates all kinds of issues while the second creates relatively less noise. The mind has its own way of telling you which problems are important to you. It has two powers for doing it. One is, past memories and impressions of experiences and our conditioning to it. The second one is called projection or a modified imagination of future situations. All experiences are not used for this. Experiences in which you have been involved intensely have special powers in gripping your attention. For projections and future it uses your belief system. You have a certain world view about everything. You might say " I want to be good in my work and help my kids reach their full potential". This is supported by your social perceptions, your own conditioning in life, your education and so on. Your mind uses this belief system in all projections. So when a thought or emotion arises in you, it is colored by the past memories and vasanas as well by projections about of how it would be in a different scenario. Because of these coloring, the thought that has arisen becomes interesting. In short the reality of the thought seems to carry force of attention because of these coloring. Not only is this process emotional, but also most of the times accompanied by sensations. When a worrying emotion grips you , you might feel a heartbeat increase, a slight chest congestion and so on. All these bodily responses carry more weight to the thoughts etc in your mind.
The purpose of the mind in doing all these drama is to make you act in specific ways and increase the thought system. So it is like a self preserving system. The more you think on these lines the more its power to guide you increases. It uses one more important construct for this purpose. And that is concept of the identity of the thinker. The whirlpool of thoughts seems to originate from a central thought called the "I thought". All the thoughts refers to or comes from this central thought. The central thought is the thought " I am this body". Once this thought is accepted , then your mind can guide your body into action. You would act based on a thought that is come up by using your body. This is the reason why you think " I am something inside my body". From the inside of my body i am seeing, hearing touching this world which is outside me. Whole through your life you have been living acting and behaving in ways directed by all this machinery. You have never been aware because our view is always outward.
In Non duality teaching we use the concept of " The view". what is the view?. It is a total perception of reality as it is happening. This can be understood with an example. Suppose you are driving a car. Your view is always fixed to the outside conditions. The road , the people, the trees especially whatever is in front and back of you. You don't bother much about what is going inside the car. If you did, you would be in trouble. But you are aware that you are not looking inside. In life, however the view needs to be more internal than external. Whatever it is, you will see that our view is often incomplete. It is partial. You have an incomplete view of reality. So the way of spirituality is to complete the view. This entails looking inside our inner world and completing the process of the view. So the sakshi bhavam as mentioned in the upanishads tells you to have a complete view of reality. So become aware of not only external things , but at the same time become aware of your inner world. This has the purpose of completing the view. A 360 degree view of reality.
Let us take a simple example of this view. In a normal situation when somebody is shouting at you for no reason or for no fault of yours, you would be angry. You might either start an argument or if you are not able to do so have a pathetic and sad response to it. If you just look at the partial view , you only see the anger expressing through the person who is shouting at you. That is you only see the sounds, the meanings of these sounds and so on. The situation presents a dangerous situation for you. You also have confusion , anger sadness and so on. Now look at your inner world. You would see that apart from the shouting , there are lot of things that are happening. Anger is rising in you. Interpretations are going on, reactionary responses are built . When you become aware of all of these you tend to understand that the responses in you are also as bad as the anger that is risen against you. Another thing is you see clearly, you are not this anger or sorrow. Anger sorrow etc are part of you. You are not that. It is only an arising in you. That is why you can see it If you see something then it cannot be you. Just as so many things have come and gone this would also come and go. Arent you the seer of these thoughts in you?. Arent you the witness. Now as you see this , anger would dissolve into consciousness as a wave subsides. Thus the mind has failed to provoke you into a reaction which would affect your later interactions.
So you need to have a complete view of the situation to see what is reality rather than just have an outward view and an interpretation based on that. It is an incomplete understanding. This is why vedanta says, we suffer because of ignorance. All religions usually say , do this and do that without properly telling you why. Vedanta and non dual teachings tell you this. There is ignorance. If you have ignorance, there is possibility of error. If there is error in perceiving things you would suffer because of the mismatch between your expectation and the actual reality.
If you look into our life we see that we have lived with this incomplete egoistic view so strongly that, we would fail to see the ignorance even after someone points out that. This comes from two things. One is failure to apply it into our own life. Second is the strong belief in the egoistic interpretation of reality. We tend to say all this is good , but in my everyday life i think the egoistic view is the only thing that can help me. Also i am not a realized person to transcend my suffering. So we continue clutching our own ideas of reality.
There is a story about a young man who was a trader and had a beautiful wife and baby son. Sadly, his wife fell ill and died, and the man poured all his love into his little child, who became the sole source of his happiness and joy. Once while he went away on business, bandits raided his village, burned it to the ground and captured his five-year-old son. When he returned and saw the devastation, he was beside himself with grief. He found the charred corpse of a small child, and in his desperation, he took it for the body of his son. He tore at his hair and beat his chest, and wept uncontrollably. At last, he arranged a cremation ceremony, collected up the ashes, and put them in a very precious silk pouch. Whether he was working, sleeping or eating, he always carried that bag of ashes with him, and often he would sit alone and weep, for hours on end.
One day his son escaped from the bandits, and found his way home. It was midnight when he arrived at his father’s new house and knocked on the door. The man lay in bed, sobbing, the bag of ashes by his side. “Who is it?” he asked. The child answered, “It’s me, daddy, it’s your son. Open the door.” In his anguish and confusion, all that the father could think of was that some malicious boy was playing a cruel trick on him. “Go away,” he shouted, “leave me alone.” Then he started to cry once more. Again and again, the boy knocked, but the father refused to let him in. Finally, he slowly turned and walked away. The father and son never saw one another ever again.
Sometime, somewhere you take something to be the truth. But if you cling to it too strongly, then even when the truth comes in and knocks on your door, you will not open it.
The view when completed to include our inner world has the calming effect on us in that our mind becomes less reactive, less extroverted, less emotional and rests in its true source. In turning inwards it has found its true effulgence . The supreme awareness which in the background of our inner world will start to reveal itself as the truth. Ignorance is the only hindrance to it. When the veil drops , the sun rays will come through illuminating all.
When the view is complete , our actions are different. When we don't have the view, the actions are guided unconsciously by the thought patterns , while with the view the actions are purified by responses which are not reactive and also less expecting. An expectation is often the result of an incomplete understanding. When the action is just done , without internal evaluation and expectations it is more pure and creates no impressions in us. Under the watchful eye of the mother dont the kids behave well?.
So we need to practice and extend our meditation. As we become aware in our real life, situations of the inner world in addition to the external things , a right view is developed. As we respond with compassion and love towards all, understanding as it is told the same awareness permeates the worm as the most exalted saint, how can we be affected by the external world.? It is only in the egoistic mind all sufferings arise. The pure awareness through which i see all including the egoistic mind is always blissful and I am that.
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