Knowledge and Religion

Settling into your experience

Bernard had some more questions and comments:

Hallo Michael,

Just to let you know of my progress.

Yesterday I had the following realization. In thinking why it is so difficult to escape from the mind trying to be in charge of awareness I realized that the problem was the nature of mind to always position the I somehow. Awareness I realized has no centre, it is non-local. Suddenly in a flash the I centre disappeared and the mind had to let go of trying to find a place to view the world from.

Awareness is now everywhere and no where in particular. Too much for the mind to deal with but somehow it makes perfect sense to awareness.

In your recent answer of the 31^st you deal with a difference between attention and awareness. This has created a real quandary for me.If I have no control of awareness which just is present anyway whether I am conscious of its presence or not and that all the rest is just mind stuff playing

Games with itself then what is the purpose of the whole spiritual process. Awareness remains whether I am aware or not. Mind plays its games and I can decide or not decide to pay attention to it. If I pay attention I become aware of my limitation but I am not that.

I am awareness which continues whether the mind/body/ attention is present or not. Having seen through this whole process I suddenly feel stuck and with the question …….so what now.

I have followed the spiritual path for 25 years to come to this place of seeing the most strangest of illusion …..that who I thought I was is a total construct of such deep dimensions that it is a little frightening. Having said this I realize that Awareness is what I have been seeking and now I understand I can’t seek it because the only thing that can seek is the mind and I will get trapped again into the same cycle of splitting myself into two.

Having come so far it is almost a let down because I need to let go of everything I thought I was. What appears is a very simple human being just living his life in a very ordinary way but right now that does not seem very special Perhaps I just need to let things be and just live the simple life in a very complex world but is that it????

Best wishes and thanks so much for your correspondence,

Bernard

PS It just happens that in two weeks time we leave for India with a group of 12 people and a guide to visit northern parts of India. It was planned 9 months ago and the synchronicity of going right now seems very appropriate. We start in Delhi and then go north to the mountains. Also west to the desert and east to the Ganges. Perhaps you know some teachers we should visit in the area.

Hi Bernard

Congratulations on your insight into the true nature of awareness. In one sense self-realization is just ordinary. You see things just the way they are. But you found that what you thought was your center, wasn’t; that awareness is everywhere. Is that ordinary or extraordinary? But don’t worry, you will not be forsaken, stripped of your identity and left with nothing.

What you will see is that you are Awareness, and not a thought in the mind. You will start to see that being Awareness is just being at home; it’s just normal and natural. As an example, right now you do not struggle with being a human. You are not trying to decide whether to be a cat, dog, cow, or human, right? In the same way you will not find yourself wrestling with your real identity either. You will just be in the natural state.

Now that you had the experience that Awareness is everywhere, you know that it does not fit neatly into the categories that your mind puts up. That’s why the saying, “Those who know cannot say.” If you look closely, you will see that the thoughts in your mind were always too crude to capture the richness of your experience.

So now that you have had an experience that is completely outside the boundaries of your mind, your mind is struggling to get a grasp on what just happened. In my practice this often happened after an insight into the truth of things. Just know that your mind is incapable of grasping the truth that you now see by your direct experience. Whatever your mind thinks about your insight, consider it a computer error, and just ignore it.

Now in truth awareness was always there. I’m sure you saw that awareness was not just created a second ago. But there was an imposture. A mere thought, ‘I’ was taking credit for infinite and undying awareness. And so you thought, “I am limited.” and “I will die.” But now you see awareness in its real form as your own identity. Now, you will not be fooled again no matter how hard you try.

One little suggestion, notice that when you deal with your patients and with your relationships, that you are just dealing with your own self-nature, awareness, and not some foreign substance. Notice that when you think you are doing, it is just awareness dealing with awareness without a separate doer. See how this changes your experience in your day to day life.

I noticed in my own practice that my life would change and I would have an insight. Then I would have an insight and my life would change. This happened until I felt no separation between my life and my meditation. This is not an objective measurement that shows that I never make mistakes or leave my desk a mess after a days work. It is rather that what I see I am. It is the feeling of no separation. It comes from knowing that everything is awareness.

As far as teachers in Northern India, I am going to ask my wife and my friends who have been there for their advice. Also perhaps some of my readers will know of teachers in this area. Please let me know of your impressions of India, as I am curious and have not been there myself.

Also, please let me know if this raises more questions. As you know my mantra is ask questions. It is only flimsy assumptions that keep you feeling limited and in suffering. Questioning is the weapon that destroys these assumptions. And if you need help with any of these questions, send them here and we can resolve them together.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael 

Awareness Verses Attention

If you feel like you are caught in your mind, thinking about self-knowledge, instead of standing in your rightful place, it is time to see the difference between attention and awareness. That’s because the aim of self-knowledge is not to increase the volume of your thinking. Rather it is to step out of the mind completely.

Attention is a state of mind. As awareness you stand free of the thinking process completely. And yet I am always surprised when I see how many people, who wish to find their innate awareness, practice paying attention. What they end up doing is splitting their thoughts, and having half the thoughts chasing the other half.

This is not a recipe for self-knowledge. This is a recipe for a major headache. Already your job and your life is complicated enough without having to split your mind in half.

Then as you pay attention certain thoughts pop up, and you assume that they indicate that you are stuck. This can be problem because your mind is in motion, and that means you will have all sorts of thoughts pop up. How can you ever sort out the “good ones” from the “bad ones”. No wonder you feel stuck.

So as I hope you can see, the practice of attention will not help in your pursuit of self-knowledge. But you are awareness, which is free from thought. That’s why you are aware when paying attention, and also aware that you forgot to pay attention. Awareness is just by its nature aware. It is not under your volition. You do not decide when to be aware; but you try to decide when to pay attention. And sometimes you are successful.

The good news is that because awareness is not a state of mind, you know your mind without having to split it in half. So you can feel comfortable putting your full attention into your life. Then in your meditation you can notice that all throughout the day, without attempting to take thought of awareness you were aware.  

Also when you see thoughts it is not proof that you are bound or that you are free. It is rather proof that you are awareness. You should know that when you see suffering, by your own awareness you are free.

Now if you attempt to imitate awareness with your attention, you will often fail in your effort to pay attention. That’s because attention is just a state of mind. Thoughts wander and states of mind change. In fact, try as you may, you cannot hold them in one place. Sometimes your thoughts get pulled completely off the object that you are trying to pay attention to.

I had this experience a few days ago when I went to the dentist for a root canal. I could look out the window into the beautiful fields that surrounded the office, or I could look at the pictures on the walls. But when the pain came attention went away from the beauty and right to the pain. Yes, the pain in my mouth filled all of my attention. But standing in my natural state as awareness, I could at least avoid fighting with my attention. After all the pain was great enough, I didn’t have to struggle with my attention too.

So in your practice find your home in your natural awareness which is changeless and always free from thought. Don’t waste your time imitating awareness with your mind by attempting to pay attention. Remember that awareness is aware of attention and inattention too, without you getting in the way.

And I hope that this raises lots of questions. Just remember that with questions you can jar old assumptions free that were born out of ignorance. Without assumptions there is no place for your limitations. Without limitations awareness is I. And if you need help you can ask right here and we can explore and find answers together.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael

Where is the world anyway

Bruce has some comments and questions on where the world is anyway:

I understand that the world appears in the mind but how can space and time be explained? If I see a mountain in the distance it appears in the mind but it still takes time to arrive there. Also, why do objects appear to increase in size as we approach them? Time and space make the world appear to be "out there". I enjoy reading your blog everyday and I would love to hear your response to my questions.

Thanks Bruce

Hi Bruce and thank you for your comments and questions. Often times when we look at the world we try to explain it like a scientist. We measure it, try to determine its history, and try to determine the composition of things etc.

But then there’s another way to examine the world that we often overlook. And that is the subjective way or how do we actually experience it? Now I know your first reaction to this might be that the subjective way is flakey. After all it is very difficult to quantify your subjective experience, to measure it, and put time-lines on it etc.

But after trying some of the inner experiments that I mentioned in the last entry, you may begin to see that the support and substance of this world is your mind. When you see this your inner experience becomes supremely important, because that’s where reality lies.

To measure the world is like trying to measure last night’s dream. As long as the dream holds up, so do the measurements. But when your state of mind changes all of the measurements in the waking state become irrelevant, and all of the measurements in the dream become relevant.

For instance last night if I told my brother that this dream started five minutes ago and he laughed. “What a joke”, he said, “I have parents, grand parents, and great grand parents, and my children are over ten years old. So how could this dream have started five minutes ago?”

Then I said, “But there is a waking world with a whole different time-line, and in that time-line this world is only five minutes old.” My brother just laughed and said, I never heard of such a thing.” Indeed when the dream state starts, the waking state is so gone that it’s as if it never came into being. When you start to remember the waking state the dream is about to end. When you start to remember your own self-nature, you get to see the reality behind the world.

And then when you go into dreamless sleep all the worlds disappear. With the end of the worlds comes an end to time and space. But you remain in perfect peace. And of course this raises the question of what happens when the body dies. Do we die or does the world of objects that we see disappear. Are we the body, mind, and world that disappear?

Now here are some examples of seeing things as we experience them. According to scientist light has speed. So it might take light .05 nanoseconds to reach us. But if we look from the point of view of our experience, we haven’t experienced the mountain until we see it. Or if you think of stars that are 100 million light-years away, by our experience we are not seeing something that’s 100 million years old. We are seeing what is now.

Even perspective is filtered by our mind. As a beginning photographer you might take a picture of your friend. When the picture comes out, your friend is a tiny speck on the frame. That’s because in your mind you saw your friend at the right size; but the lens saw your friend as being very small. So the first thing you have to learn when studying photography is to see things the way the camera lens does, and not the way you do.

Similarly, when your aim is self-knowledge you have to notice how you actually experience thing, as opposed to how you’re supposed to experience things. This opens up a whole new world; one that never get boring.

For instance, you can measure time, but everyone notices that the rate of time is variable. When you are having a good time, time seems to fly by. In your worse class a minute seems to take forever. When you look back over your life you wonder how it passed you by so fast.

And finally when we view the mountains in the distance are we viewing them over there or over here? If we are limited to this mind and body, then they appear to be over there or outside of us. But if we notice that we are the seer of our mind and body, and not limited to them, the world, including space and time, comes right inside. That’s because we are everywhere.

So have fun with this and see what you actually experience. If anything this will surly give a new meaning to meditation. And please let me know if this answers your question. I hope I didn’t skirt it too much because it is a great question. And if this raises more questions please feel free to ask. If you want to find your freedom ask. Questioning is the weapon that destroys limitation.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael   

 

 

How can there be oneness

Here is another verse from Sankara's poem on Self Knowledge:

Doubt: What about the numerous individual souls that we see?

(10) Answer: Just as the all pervading space appears fragmented in different objects (as in a pit, a jar, a house, and a theater hall, etc.) but remains undifferentiated when the apparent limitations fall away, similarly with the single non-dual ruler of the senses (seeming to function as gods, men and cattle, etc.)

Sankaracharya
From “The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi
Translated by Arthur Osborne
©Sri Ramanasramam,
Tiruvannamalai, S. India

Space is one of my favorite metaphors for the oneness that pervades and makes up the substance of the universe. Space appears to have many forms, pot space, room space, etc. And yet when looked at from the point of view of space itself, does space have many forms? Of course not! The space pervades the inside of the pot, it goes through the walls of the pot, and the space is outside of the pot.

You do not have to break the pot to prove that the form of space does not change. We can see that the space in unaffected by the coming and going of the objects. Also, if we fire the pot the space does not burn, and if we break the pot the space is not broken.

Now what about the world that we sense? We see many forms and we hear many sounds. We also smell, taste, and feel. Through these five senses we put together a world of sights, sounds, smells, textures, and tastes. Once we sense an object we have the ability to walk towards it, and to pick it up, and to act on it in many ways.

Do you see how neat things fit together in the world? There are senses and things to sense. Then we have the ability to act on the things that we sense. Is it any wonder that the world seems so real to us?

And yet this neatness overlooks one thing, the place where we actually sense the world from. If we can find that place we will know what we really experience when we sense the world. The way we can find this place is by examining our own direct experience.

The Buddha, as seen in many of the Buddhist Sutras, devised many inner experiments to help you trace your experience to its source. If you follow any of these experiments, without a preconceived idea of how they should turn out, you will find that your actual experience of the world is a lot different than you think.

And I should add here that it is richer and more beautiful than you could ever imagine. That’s because, as you will find, when you experience the world, you are actually experiencing the sparkle of your own mind. So are you ready for a little adventure; an opportunity to discover by your experience what the world is.

First, where do you experience the world? Is it over there or is it here? The objects may seem to be over there; but you experience them right where you are, don’t you? If we were in a room first we would see the window frame then we would see the forest outside, wouldn’t we?

Similarity, if we were in a room in our head, first we would see our eye sockets, which would be the window frame, then we would see the objects outside. But that’s not our experience, is it? So were do we actually see the objects in the world? Are they out there or are they in here?

And what are these objects anyway. We see a horse walking down the path. Like a camera, our eyes pick up the image and turns it upside down. The image goes through our optic nerve and to our brain where the image comes out right side up again. From our brain the image gets to our mind; we see our mind. So are we seeing the horse or are we seeing our own mind? The Buddha said that there was nothing outside of the Buddha Mind.

Try these experiments for yourself and you will find that the substance and support of the world is just your mind. Like the space in Sankara’s verse, your mind is the substance that pervades the universe. The forms may come and go but here lies the essence that remains.

Ok, so the world appears to have an infinite number of objects. But when you notice the place where you actually view it from it only has one object, and that is the essence of your mind. We call this the one mind, the source of non-duality.

If you can see the world is just the essence of your mind, you are just a hop skip and jump from waking up to the reality that lights up this world, and makes it seem so real. The reason the world looks so real is not because of the objects; it is because of the one seeing it.

What I said here is unusual enough that it should raise lots of questions for you. If it raises surprise or if it raises fear, ask and find out more. One thing you can say for sure about this type of meditation. It will never get boarding.

If the comment section of this blog doesn’t work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael 

Your mind is not your enemy

Bernard has some more questions and comments:

Hallo Michael,

    You are throwing me incredible signposts so thank you for that.

Your recent signpost is the following statement you made ‘Awareness is not dependent on the state of your mind’. That just reminds me again how my mind wants to be part of the action and constantly give me a platform to view the world from its point of view. The idea that ‘awareness’ is very powerful. It feels that once again the ‘I’ wants to be seen as the controller, the one that can move me into the awareness doorway and stand there.

We were walking in the mountains today (before reading your words to me) and I was ‘trying’ to be just aware. Many years of meditation has very much brought me to a place where thoughts are really not a bother most of the time so that silence is the space in which walking in nature can be. In that silence conscious awareness seems to take place but after reading your lesson for the day I am reminded of what a spiritual teacher once said to me…..’'Stop trying so hard you are becoming very trying to your soul’.

    I think that perhaps I am a little stuck between wanting to get out of the mind and using the mind to get there, between being and doing and trying to be aware and just getting on with the job of living life fully.

So the idea of retiring while still working is something I must pay more attention to

                         Have a great and joyful week.

                             Bernard

Hi Bernard and thank you again for your great comments and questions. It is good that you recognize that awareness is not dependent on a state of mind.

I’m sure that you can see that if silent awareness was based on a state of mind you would be in trouble. That’s because your state of mind changes very quickly. It changes as you work with each different patient. It changes as you have good outcomes and not so good outcomes; it changes as you enter dream and sleep; it changes with the lack of sleep. Side effects from drugs can cause it to change as well as diseases such as Alzheimer’s and on and on.

Indeed the one constant thing about our mind is that it changes. So if you make the state of deep silence dependent on a lack of thought or on having certain thoughts you will find yourself in a constant battle. It will be like trying to meditate with a swarm of flies around you. You kill one and it seems that 20 more appear.

But fortunately by our very nature we are on the right side of these changes. We know this because we are aware of the shifts in our mind. The silence that knows about these changes is the silence that we are looking for. That silence is the space that the thoughts travel through, as well as their substance. The proof is that when you look for your thoughts you only find awareness; there is no separate thought there.

So it is not like there are two things here, thoughts and awareness, struggling with each other. When you are thinking you are only experiencing awareness and not a separate thing called thought.

I know that with this statement I’ve just destroyed about ninety percent of the meditations created by man. You go to your meditation teacher and the teacher says, “The obstacle to your enlightenment is your mind.” You say, “Oh I hadn’t thought about that.” The teacher then says, “I have some great techniques to deal with your mind.”

Now you’re off on an interminable practice. Interminable because you have just made an obstacle out of something that doesn’t really exist. It is like trying to control the movements of the clouds in the sky, or the waves in the ocean. You never quite succeed.

So stop making your mind into something that it is not. Don’t make it into an obstacle. It’s a great tool and a big helper in your job and in reading this article. It is not designed to tell you who you are. If you ask it to do that you will just get garbage. This is not because the mind is mean, or spiteful, or out-of-control. It is because you are asking the mind to do something that it isn’t designed for.

Besides, you can know yourself directly; you don’t need a filter called mind to tell you that. So keep questioning and putting in the energy that you are putting. If you ask me, you can never try too hard. At the same time eliminate everything that you take to be an obstacle or different than consciousness. With that type of intensity you will not have to go towards consciousness; consciousness will come to you.

As for the sense of ‘I’, Ramana Maharshi likened that to a stick use to stir a funeral pyre. At the end the stick gets burned up too. So continue to eliminate all the little assumptions that support the sense of ‘I’. Just throw them in the fire and burn them up.

As for controlling, you can control all that you want. Just continue to see that there is nothing separate from consciousness for you to control. If you practice like that and still see controlling as a problem we can take that up in more detail later. So if anyone asks you, “Who is practicing?” you can say with confidence, “I am practicing.” You will not end up stuck with that I.

So please continue to ask questions until all your assumptions of limitation are gone and only consciousness remains. You will find that these assumptions are not real concrete obstacles. That’s why with a little questioning they will disappear. And if you need help send your questions here and we can destroy them together.

If the comment section of this blog doesn’t work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael 

 

How to find an end to war and suffering

Craig had some comments and questions:

Hello Michael and Brigit,

I'm still grinning from reading your interview. Interviewing your wife, Michael, as properly disclosed, has a playfully sweet and delightful tone. Thank you both for this collaboration. Your comments, Brigit, were simple and clear. I like being "the Source of Love," ...I like that we intuitively feel we are nice, (maybe even when we're grumpy, which probably arises from a feeling of separation from our actual nice self), and I like that we can find Truth if we have our hearts set on it.

Questions do arise. I may have to "shoot from the hip" a little to formulate them into words from feelings. Someone once said that compassion is a response to a call from suffering, or something like that. It seems true to me. And it seems that when an injured, hurt person does not receive compassion, violence can result. An extreme example may be war, such as

Iraq

. Would people commit such atrocities on each other if they were feeling compassion? It seems like a vicious cycle of violence, hurt, guilt, agony, revenge, anger.

How does compassion gain a foothold? I heard someone make a compelling argument that all wars are connected through centuries of injury. More than we know, injury ripples through generations. How does compassion reach through traumatic stress, which as I recently realized in my own family is much more prevalent, discreet, and unrecognized than most people imagine.

The short of my question, I think, is: is there enough compassion to stop the cycles of injury, extinction, violence? OK - perhaps this is a mind question since we have no choice, regardless of the answer, but to be compassionate. I guess it’s just hard to be compassionate without feeling pain and ineffectiveness when the extent of damage is so much greater than my compassion's capacity to hold or imagine.

Hi Craig and thank you for you’re your comments and questions. It’s good to hear from you again. I really did enjoy interviewing my wife.

When you see war, stress, and hatred you are seeing the intensity of a persons drive towards freedom and happiness. Looked at from this point of view, you can see that self-knowledge is not an intellectuals pursuit to be discussed over a cup of coffee. Here you see how intense people are in their longing to rest in the source of fulfillment and happiness. After all even the most gruesome wars are fought with the desire to find peace.

In war you are seeing people’s gut feeling that something is missing. They don’t know what it is, and they don’t know where to find it. But they long for that place with the intensity of a hurricane.

And so they look outside to the objects and people with the hope of finding the fulfillment that they need. But there is one problem, lasting happiness and fulfillment cannot be found in objects and people. If people looked carefully at their experience they would notice this essential fact. A wife can’t provide you with happiness; children can’t; cars can’t; larger and more expensive houses can’t; better jobs can’t; jobs with less stress can’t; more wealth can’t; becoming president of the United States can’t; and of course conquering other countries can’t either.

After all when the objects and people that you peruse are changing, and your senses are changing, and your emotions and thoughts are in motion, how can you hope to rest in lasting happiness? When that which you call “me” is in motion, and that which you call “other” is in motion, where could you find oneness and harmony?

Even if this sounds reasonable, it cannot stop people from running after happiness, and fighting off the things that they see as obstacles to their happiness, even if these obstacles turn out to be whole nations or races of people.

But what I am say here sets up quite a dilemma. People are desperate to find the peace and happiness that they deserve, but there is not a place in the world where they can find it, unless of course, there is a place that they overlooked.

This place would have to be so deep that it would completely satisfy this intense need for peace and happiness. This place would have to be more than just a theory in their mind. It would have to be a place that they could experience directly and rest in.

But fortunately people do have times when they experience joy and satisfaction. If they would notice that this joy does not come from the objects that they see or the thoughts in their mind, they would be well on the way to solving this great dilemma. Happiness comes from who you are and not from what you see.

Did you know that you are already on the right side of this problem? If you look to your own being, and the source of your consciousness, you will discover an uncaused bliss that does not change, even when the objects that you see like your mind and body change.

When you see frustration and pain, it is not a sign that you are stuck in frustration and pain. It is rather God saying, “Look here and resolve this. Don’t take yourself to be the things that you see. They are too small for you. They are like a shoe that doesn’t fit!” Once you notice this you can return to your natural state of innate freedom.

I think that some people mistake compassion for pity. They say, “You poor thing; you suffer so much.” But to me real compassion is to be able to stand in the place of freedom. Then by your example you will point the way for those who wish to follow this path. But you will never see people as stuck and in pain. You will see the peace and freedom that they really are.

By the way, I asked my wife to look at this and she felt my comments were ok, but she wished that I  spent more time on compassion.

I hope this raises lots of questions for you. Did you know that the best way to step beyond the assumptions of limitation is to ask? It surprises me how many go through life, plodding along, assuming that they know who they are and thinking that suffering is just normal.

But if they just take the time to question, they will discover a peace and joy that is so close to them that they just overlooked it. And if you need help in resolving these questions just send them to me and we can resolve them together.

If the comment section of this blog doesn’t work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael 

 

Retire before you retire

Bernard had some comments and questions;

Hallo michael ,  

Thanks so much for this dialogue it is really useful in getting me out of the traps constantly generated by the mind.

I understand that all the traps are generated by the mind and positioning of the mind especially with reference to the ‘I’ thought which constantly wants to be present ‘somewhere’ in the picture.  

I understand that the world is all happening within and that all I perceive as the world is not who I am.

I understand that I can’t find the one I truly am and awareness is the only clue I have to my true identity.  

One of the most useful statements you made for me right now is the idea of ‘Let awareness unfold in its own glory, Perhaps there is an impatience and excitement about feeling so close to the heart of who I am.  

At the moment there still seems to be a split in just being and enjoying the process of awareness , walking in nature or just being and letting awareness unfold and my everyday self and the constant call of patients wanting answers and having to decide on programs and other major and minor decisions throughout the day. Its not that awareness disappears but simply the act of moving through the day and dealing with everyday moments. If I was retired it would feel much easier.

While I have done major work dealing with relationships and emotional stuff there is still elements of emotional resistance that arises.  

I sense that these questions will resolve themselves as I continue to practice and as you say let awareness unfold in its own glory.

Have a great weekend.  

Bernard

Hi Bernard and thank you for your great comments and questions. I like that you are impatient and excited and getting a sense of how close Awareness really is. The energy for completing this practice comes from the fact that what you are seeking is so close. Just the slightest change in perspective or turning the door knob to the right instead of to the left and the door opens.

While the mind tries to figure out how to step through the door you are aware of the mind, right? Standing as the awareness is the key that opens this door.

Now if you are afraid that your thoughts are attempting to imitate awareness, here’s the best practice. Retire before you retire. I’ve worked in the printing industry for most of my life and I’ve seen this again and again. A person suffers with his or her job. Then that person quits and gives a two week notice. All of the sudden that person starts enjoying the job.

Now what changed? He is still attempting to solve the same problems, and he is still doing the same actions. Yet he feels a sense of freedom that he didn’t have before. For the people at work this sense of detachment comes from the fact that they quit the job.

But for one who seeks liberation this sense of detachment comes from a different place. First, you know that you do not have to wait to be happy, that the source of happiness lies within and is not the result of what you do or don’t do.

If you are like most of the people in the printing plant, and if you don’t know where happiness comes from then you get strung out like this: When I grow up then I’ll be happy; when I graduate from school then I’ll be happy; when I get a good job then I’ll be happy; when I get married then I be happy; when we have children then I’ll be happy; when we finally pay off the house and the car then I’ll be happy, and when I retire then I’ll be happy.

And so your whole life passes by, and you never quiet find the happiness that you were looking for. But if you can find the happiness that you are looking for, right in the midst of your hectic schedule, then guaranteed it will be there when you retire. That’s because you will find happiness that is not dependent on the state of your mind or body, which, as I am sure you know, can change quite a bit when you get older. So use your present opportunity to notice that happiness does not have to wait until quitting time, or until you go on vacation.

The second element of this sense of detachment is really important for your practice. During the day as you work let your mind and body focus on the job. Do not attempt to stand back or in anyway take notice of awareness.

Then after work you can meditate, and notice that you were in awareness the whole time, without even stopping to take thought of it. You will soon see that awareness is not dependent on the state of your mind.

I also used these after work meditations to notice where I suffered during the day so that I could find the concepts and beliefs that kept me limited and clear them up.

One thing that I noticed was that sometimes the outcome of my work went the way I wanted it to, and sometimes I tried but things did not work out. In either case I did not have to suffer, that I could always do my best work, but I couldn’t always control the results.

Also, I saw that I could only do one thing at a time, no matter how much I had to do. In that way I could be at peace no matter hectic the job seemed to get.

With this knowledge I had the detachment of someone who was about to retire, but the energy of someone who cared about the job, both at the same time.

Do not read this as advice on if you should retire or not. You are free because of who you are, not because of what you do. So I never advise people on what they should do. It is only advice on how to use your present situation to your best advantage.

And now for your emotional resistance. You should assume that suffering does not resolve itself by itself. That you have to take the bull by the horns, so to speak. If that’s too much of an American expression, it means that you have to consciously resolve your suffering. When you wait for things to resolve themselves, it takes too long.

For one who seeks self-knowledge, I think that relationships are the perfect experience. That’s because they will point out your conceptual frameworks like nothing else in the world. I know that the suffering in relationships can seem very intense. But now because you are empowered to resolve this suffering, the growth and freedom that you will experience is enormous.

At one moment you may feel heart or gut wrenching suffering; the next moment you are free. The power of this practice is that your experience can quickly turn from suffering to freedom.

Just note that when you feel suffering it is not a sign that says this is the way things are. It is rather a sign that says look here and resolve this so you can be free. Once you find the knack for resolving suffering you are at the end. Then it will not be you seeking freedom, it will be freedom seeking you.

Now that you know that the world is inside of you, see that it’s not a different substance than you. Use this knowledge to help resolve relationship challenges. Sometimes the knowledge of oneness will help you to see the limitations that you were living with before, where you viewed the world as a different or inimical substance.

Sometimes you just have to learn that you don’t have to run for acceptance. That even in a relationship with someone who you really love, you can be true to yourself. Remember that people grow at different rates and see things from different perspectives. When you love someone it does not mean that you always have to agree with them.

If you need help with this emotional resistance fill me in on the details either on the blog or off of it. We can take a look at how you are viewing the world, or life, or your mind that seems to keep you in limitation. Remember just free your self from one little bit of suffering that at present seems real to you, and you will start an avalanche that will not stop until limitation is gone.

If the comment section of this blog doesn’t work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael

When you see the universe what do you see

Grace has a comment and a question:

I enjoy reading your blog profoundly. I do not miss it.

Today's blog reminds me of something I read recently. It went something like, nature can also help us know being. That is for example if you looked at a flower, a pet etc not using your mind or analysis you can be taught being.

What would your comment be?

Grace

Hi Grace and thank you for your question. This is an excellent question and shows that you have a good sense of what I am talking about here. One of the most surprising things that happened in my own practice was that my perception of the world changed.

It is not that the shape and the color of the objects in the world changed. It is more that the place where I saw them from changed. This was like seeing the words on a page of a book, and noticing the paper that supports the words. Are any of the words apart from the paper?

Or seeing a movie and observing the screen that movie was playing on; is anything in the movie separate or away from the screen? Or seeing the objects in the world and noticing the space that goes in and through the whole thing.

I saw that the world was supported by my mind and heart. The world was inside of me, not me in the world, and what I thought was outside of me turned out to be on the inside. The beauty that I saw was the sparkle of my own mind. This is the experience of oneness that so many people have heard about. Things became very close and intimate; instead of over there and far away, everything is right in my heart.

Now my reaction to this was, “This is what everyone must see and experience.” I thought that I must be the only one who missed this. That’s because it seemed so ordinary and natural to notice that the world was on the inside, and not out there somewhere. I guess the best way to describe it is both ordinary and beautiful at the same time.

So I ask my friends and the people who were practicing with me if they experienced that the world is in their mind. None of them knew what I was talking about. That’s why I developed the experiments that I described in my entry, “The world in your mind” on March 20, 2007 (the first entry on that date, which is at the bottom).

Just make an attempt to notice where you actually see the world, and it will become clear to you what I am saying here. Then you will find that whatever you see whether it’s a beautiful flower or an ugly rotten flower laying on the ground it will show you your own being. That’s because the substance of everything you see is your own being. And everything rests in you.

If you have questions and comments as you meditate and try to discover the meaning of these words please feel free to ask. These words are the best pointers that I can give. So use them for what they are meant for, to find that which is within you. If you need help just ask and we can explore and find an answer together.

If the comment section of this blog doesn’t work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael 

Don't sell yourself short, a new meaning

As I read Sankara’s verses on self-knowledge I am enjoying them more and more. So here’s a few more:

Doubt: But the world is so diverse, yet, you say there is one only.

Answer: (8) Like bubbles rising on the waters of the ocean, all of the worlds arise from, stay in and resolve into the Supreme Being who is the root cause and prop of all.

(9) In the Being-Consciousness-Bliss, which is all permeating eternal Vishnu (Preserver) all these diverse objects and individuals appear like various ornaments made of gold.

 From: The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi
           Translated by Arthur Osborne
           © Sri Ramanasramam
           Tiruvannamalai, S. India 

 

You may have heard of one of the many references in spirituality to the oneness that pervades the universe. Here Sankara tells you where these references come from.

If you look at all of the bubbles rising out of the surf in the ocean, you may forget that the bubbles come from the water, they abide in the water, and when they pop, they again become the water. As bubbles they seem to come and go. But as the water nothing changes. We are that water.

Similarly, the gold rings, the gold bracelets, the gold cups, and the gold earrings are all gold. You can melt down the forms, and then make new forms. Even though the forms would change, to the gold nothing changes. The gold is the real support of the forms.

Likewise, we see billions of planets, objects, animals, and people. We see them come into the world, change, and pass away. But we overlook the substance that supports all of these objects, and all of these changes. Now wouldn’t you agree that it would be remarkable if we could see the very substance that supports the whole universe?

Since this substance is who we really are, we can’t know this support like we know an object; we would have to find a different way of knowing, wouldn’t we? This type of knowing, knows by being.

Usually when we think of knowing, we think of knowing something separate from us. But we can also know something by the place where we stand. This is knowing where there is no separate knower standing apart. Here we know because of our identity.

In this case if we want to know what the bubbles are, we have to stand as the water. If we want to know the gold cups, we have to stand as the gold, and if we want to know what the universe is, we have to stand as the Self, and not as an object that we see. From here the substance and support of the universe is the I, in my original form as Consciousness and Bliss.

However I think you would agree that standing as an object would be too small for me as my cosmic self. Fortunately this is not a real problem. That’s because I stand as the seer and not as any objects that may seem to limit me. Of course as a body and a mind there may appear to be limits, but I am the Awareness that sees these limits, and not the one who appears to be caught by them.

But here’s the important thing to know. If I could discover the nature of my Awareness I would discover the very substance that supports the whole universe. We already experience this Awareness but it is so close to us that we just overlook it. In fact it is so close that when we experience it the I who seeks it gets swallowed up.

So in your meditations endeavor to stand as Awareness. Don’t attempt to imitate this awareness by making it into a state of mind. Let it unfold in its own glory. Let go of any limitation in the form of objects that you see. Don't identify as limitation, identify as the consciousness that sees limitation. Let the Self revel itself by itself. Then by your very nature, you will know the secret of the whole cosmos.

And I hope that this blog raises lots of questions. That’s because it is questions that cut the anchors of limitation. Then we can see ourselves in our true glory as the Consciousness and Bliss that pervades the whole universe.

If the comment section of this blog doesn’t work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael

 

What is this world anyway

Here’s the next verse from Sankara’s poem on self-knowledge:

Doubt: Because the dream is negated on waking, I know it to be unreal; but the world persists and I find it only real.

(7) Answer: So long as the substratum of all, the non-dual Brahman is not seen, the world seems real—like the illusory silver in a piece of mother-of-pearl.

Ok first a few terms so we don’t throw you for a loop. When Sankara uses the word Brahman he means Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss without boundaries.

Non-dual is a term that is often used in this exploration, which I call self-knowledge. It has a double meaning and this is not a joke. First, when you look into the substance of the cosmos, the thing that makes it seem so real is one without another thing. Second, here there are no opposites. You do not know long by short or happy by sad etc. You know Brahman because you are Brahman and not as a second thing.

Now you can see that a dream is unreal, can’t you? That’s because it last for a short time and then you wake up and it disappears. But this world is different. As the other states come and go, you come back to the waking state, so that must be what’s real, right?

You might be surprised to hear that this word is unreal. That’s because I hardly ever talk in those terms. Rather I say that you see your own consciousness and that lends the sense of reality to the world. So what Sankara means is that the seer makes the world seem real. The world has no reality of its own.

If this confuses you, let’s go back into last night’s dream to try and clear this up. I remember that dream very well because I was talking to you. Remember, I was telling you that this world was unreal and that it was only because of your consciousness that it seemed real.

And I remember what you said, “I’ve lived here for many years and every day, no matter what state I was in, I always come back to this world. So this world must be real.”

I hope that you can see from this brash illustration, from inside the world that we are in, at the time we are there, that world seem real. But when we leave it, it’s as if the world was never there. As an example, if you ask a person in the dream state if the waking state is real, that person would have no idea what you were talking about. Neither would a person in the deep sleep state.

So if we wanted to see if the waking state was real we would have to step outside of it, right? But you may wonder how we could step outside the waking state. The answer is quite simply that we are already outside the waking state. That’s why, when I gave you the exercises in yesterdays blog, you could begin to see from your own experience what the world is.

So what’s this silver in a mother-of-pearl. Certain shellfish seem to have a lining of silver. But when you look closely you see that it is not silver; it is merely shell. Similarly at first glance the world seems real; but when you look closely you realize that you are just seeing your own mind and not a world.

But the most important thing to know from this verse is that by examining closely your own direct experience you can see the world for what it really is. And you can rest in your own true nature, which is existence, consciousness and bliss that is free from the ups and downs of the world. When projected out this consciousness seems to be a world. But at the source it is completely free of the world, like the waking person is free of the dream.

I hope that this raises lots of questions for you, because what I said here is not common everyday knowledge. But if you can discover the meaning of these words you will know the truth of this world that seems to sit before you. And if you need help with anything that I said here just ask, and we can explore and find an answer together.

If the comment section of this blog doesn’t work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael