Knowledge and Religion

Immutable, unbroken Bliss,

Here’s the next verse in Sankara’s poem on self-knowledge.

57. What remains as immutable, unbroken Bliss, and as one only, what even the scriptures indirectly denote by the process of elimination as “not this–not this,’ know the same to be Brahman.

Once again Sankara is celebrating that state which cannot be encompassed by your thinking. Often times we imagine that we are centered in our thinking, so what we think must be true. But in reality our experience of our self-nature is much richer than our thoughts about it.

For instance what is unchanging and unbroken Bliss? The very thoughts that we could use to try and grasp this are in motion. So if there was a way that we could know this immutable, unbroken Bliss, it would have to be different than with the mind that you use to read this blog.

If it seems like a daunting task to find this unbroken Bliss, you should know that it is easier than you think. That’s because, even though this is not a description of what you think, it is a description of what you are. So to discover this you just have to take a fresh look at what you experience already.

Once you give yourself the freedom to explore a little, outside the usual boundaries, you will find that even the practice is a joy. You will find yourself having many, “Oh, so that’s it!” revelations, until you finally rest free as your own self-nature.

So how do the scriptures point to this unchanging and unbroken Bliss? You see that everything in the world is changing, don’t you? In time even the world itself will pass away. So this unchanging Bliss is not found in the world.

You see your body changing. Starting as a baby, it becomes a child, and then an adult, and finally you know that this body will pass away. So this unchanging Bliss cannot be in the body either. Similarly, your senses are changing. You notice that your eyes and your ears get weaker as you grow older. So unchanging Bliss cannot be there.

Well then, what about in your mind. You see both your emotions changing and your ideas about things changing. Sometimes your mind goes into different states like dream, and deep, thoughtless sleep. So one thing you know for sure, your mind is in motion. And so unchanging bliss cannot be found among your thoughts.

So we have eliminated everything that you see as ‘not this–not this’. The things that we see are in motion so they cannot be the place of unchanging Bliss. So if everything is in motion, can there be such a thing as unchanging bliss, or is this unchanging bliss a fantasy?

If you can get a sense for what I am about to say next, you will know the secret of spiritual realization. That’s because there is one thing that we have not yet considered. Where do you stand so that you know about all of these changes? If you are in motion, and the objects that you see are in motion, you would have no reference point for seeing these changes.

But it is from this stillness that you see change. And this stillness is what both spiritual and worldly people overlook. Thinking that they are centered in the mind, there is no way that they can grasp a substance that doesn’t change.

But the secret is that even now you aren’t centered in the mind. You are centered in this immutable, unbroken Consciousness and Bliss, and that’s how you know change. This changeless Bliss has its own intelligence. So you know yourself by Being yourself, without the need for the separate knower that we often call I.

People sometimes comment, I know this truth by I don’t experience it. Here the person is taking him or herself to be centered in the mind. But she is aware of the I that doesn’t experience, isn’t she? That’s the Awareness that I’m talking about.

Just stand as Awareness and look from here. Do you really have a question of experiencing or not experiencing, or is your very Being the answer to your question.

And you should know that here questions are welcome. Because you read this blog, you have the opportunity to discover the most valuable thing in the universe. That is your own self-nature. If you run into apparent obstacles know that they are just apparent, and not real. A little questioning and they will fall apart. Then you will stand as unchanging Bliss and nothing else.

And if you need help, ask 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

 

How are you everywhere

Here we continue with Sankara’s poem on self-knowledge.

56. What fills everything, above, below, and all around, itself Being- Consciousness-Bliss, non-dual, infinite, eternal, one only, know that to be Brahman.

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

The universe is, what you are. There are no two things out there. Like the screen is the support and the substance of the movie, your Consciousness and Bliss is the support and substance of the universe.

The most amazing thing is that this is not a theory; you can know this directly by returning to your original state and looking from here. You return to your original state by noticing that in reality you are in your original state now.

That which fills every corner of the universe also fills you. You do not limit this one substance. But if you take your true being, which is the infinite, eternal, one, Consciousness and Bliss to be limited to a body, a mind, and the thought of 'I', you appear to be limited. You also suffer and die as if you were limited.

But if you return your Being-Consciousness-Bliss to its original place, you live and you never suffer again. How do you get back to this pristine original state? You go back the way you came. Every little place that you staked out as 'I', you now take that 'I' away. This is where you added 'I' to your body, or concepts in your mind.

You do this by noticing that you are the seer of these limitations that you took to be you. In reality 'I' is connected with the Consciousness that is the seer; not with the objects that you see. Then stripped of your limitations like worn out clothes, you stand naked as the truth of everything.

Here you get to see the universe form the place where you really stand. From here it is plain to see that everything is just your mind and not outside of you in anyway. Abiding here things flip around. Instead of you depending on the world for your existence, the world depends on you.

If you want to verify this, here are some simple meditations for you to try; close your eyes and without any concept of the way things are suppose to be, take a look at your direct experience. Is the world there and you just don’t see it, or is the world not there at all. I think you will be surprised at what you find.

Also when your eyes are open, do you view the world or do you view your mind. The eyes take a picture like a camera. That picture goes through the optic nerve and to your brain. From your brain the image enters your mind and you see your mind. So what are you seeing, the world or your mind? When you meditate, verify this by your own experience.

If this seems a little scary think of it like this: when you see how you are really connected to the universe, it could make your worn out and boring experiences fresh and new. You will be like a baby seeing the world and your mind for the first time. Once again, your life will become very interesting.

In your practice, as you let go of more limitations, things will change in ways that you could not have anticipated. Finally, when you return to your original state you will be the freedom that Sankara described above where you are one with everything.

The key to this practice is to question limitation. What you take to be normal is not normal at all. Only complete and unending freedom is normal. Just remember that your assumptions of limitation cannot hold up to the power of questioning with an open mind.

And if you need help, ask 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

Knowing this is like knowing everything

We are now at the pinnacle of Sankara’s Poem on self-knowledge.

55. That on seeing which nothing remains to see, on becoming which there is no more return to samsara, on knowing which nothing remains to know, know that to be Brahman.

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

In this verse Sankara continues his celebration of your own Self-Nature. Here you stand as the seer, without the least bit of separation. You do not see Brahman as a separate object; you see Brahman because seeing is the nature of Brahman and you are that.

You even see the limitations that were supposed to be you like the body, mind, and sense of a separate I. These limitations are no longer you. They are just temporary appearances on the landscape of your mind. Without limitation you stand as everything and nothing can stand outside of you. Here as the fabric and substance of everything there is nothing else to see.

Now what’s this on becoming there is no more return to samsara? Samsara is a name that Sankara gives to the world because it’s in constant motion. It is out of desire and aversion that you enter this world. When you enter samsara you take on a body that has senses to see objects. Some objects you are attracted to and run towards; others you fear and run away from.

But even if you get the object you were hoping to acquire, you find yourself disappointed. Somehow it just isn’t what it was cracked up to be. That’s because the object itself changes, your capacity to enjoy it changes, or your mind changes. In fact, with all of this change going on it’s a wonder that anyone derives any happiness from the world.

Here is one of billions of possible illustrations that will make this clearer, an ice-cream cone. It’s a warm day and I am very hungry. There is an ice-cream shop. I walk in and order my favorite flavor, strawberry. As I’m about to take my first bite out of this cone, a dog jumps up, and takes a bite first. The object changes and all of a sudden my desire for the ice-cream disappears.

Now the first ice-cream would taste good; but I don’t know about the twentieth ice-cream cone in a row. That’s how my capacity to enjoy changes.

As for my mind, as I am about to bite into this ice-cream cone I see my dog getting run over by a car. I throw down the ice-cream cone and run towards the dog. When my mind changed my desire went away. What a wonder, despite all of this people still run after the objects that they see.

So here’s the way the theory of reincarnation works. In each lifetime you play out some of your desires, while gaining some new and unfulfilled desires. These new desires then get stored up for future lives. And so you return again and again to the world, taking on different forms with the hope of finding happiness.

This seems like an endless process, doesn’t it? Running after objects that don’t even contain the happiness that you are looking for. But fortunately there is an end to this process. That’s when you wake and discover this secret; the happiness that you were looking for does not come from objects, it comes from your own self-nature.

Here you get to rest as the very source of the joy that you were looking for. And with that there is no more reason to return to the world of objects. You just remain as you always are. For more information on this place of happiness go to www.light-up-your-life.com and scroll down to, “The kingdom of Heaven is within you.”

You should also know that you do not have to believe in the theory of reincarnation to find this joy. It is right inside of you even now in this life.

And finally in this verse Sankara says,  On knowing which nothing remains to know. This does not mean that you know every fact in the world and can win every trivia quiz on TV. Rather it means that you know what everything is. When the character in a dream wakes up, he or she sees that the substance of the world is just her mind, and her mind is not different from the mind of the waking one. The waking one in this metaphor is Brahman.

And so in this world when you wake up you see that this world that you thought was out there is really in here. The thing that makes it seem so real is your consciousness and that is the real substance of this world. Knowing this you know everything.

Thus abiding here as unbounded consciousness and bliss you stand as the source of the whole universe. Standing here you see that this is what everyone is really seeking, and when they find this there is nothing else to seek or to know.

Now that you know your potential as a human being don’t settle for less. If you feel anything less than your innate freedom described above, start questioning what you are taking to be normal. When normal and your unbounded existence, consciousness and bliss become one, you are free. You’ll be relieved to know that you do not have to create this freedom. You only have to find what you have inside already.

And if you need help, ask 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

Knowing by Being

Here are some further comments and questions from Victor:

Hello Michael

thank you very much for your view on this matter.

Yes you are absolutely right the happiness can be felt from inside our self. i think i can understand now the meaning of consciousness and when we are aware off this, then we can feel the happiness anytime, anyplace, anywhere, yes thank you very much for your thought

Hi Victor, and thank you for your comments. If happiness comes from the inside, the place where you actually experience it, then it is not dependent on the objects that you see, or the situations that you face. That’s what allows you to experience happiness at anytime and anyplace.

You do not know happiness like you know objects. You know happiness because that’s who you are. Happiness is not a state of mind; it is a state of being.

This is the biggest and least understood shift that you make when you meditate on your self-nature. Did you know that you can know something simply because that’s who you are, and not as a separate object?

This is different from learning a subject like mathematics, science, and literature. There you learn with your mind; here you learn by the place where you stand.

The name that the sages give to your true self is Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss. Existence tells us that you do not know this as a separate object. You know this because this is who you are. Bliss means that you are the source of the happiness that you experience; that’s what we’ve been talking about for the last few days.

And now here’s the secret for tracing your awareness to its source. When you learn a subject in the world there are two there, you the learner, which you call “I”, and the subject that you are learning. Most people think that they are only aware of the subject that they are studying. But in reality they are aware of both the learner and the subject that you are learning. Another way of stating this is that you are aware of the subject as well as the object.

Here’s an example: if you say, “I am learning math,” you are aware of the the learner, “I” and the object, “math”. The mistake that nearly everyone makes is to take that learner, “I” to be them. But as I hope you are starting to see, that learner is not really you. It is just an object in your awareness.

As for the awareness, you don’t see this awareness; you know awareness because that’s who you are. So self-knowledge is a shift in identity from a thought in your mind to your innate unbounded awareness. By unbounded I mean that you are not limited by the objects that you see. That includes the body and the mind.

So when you feel limitation and suffering notice that you are aware of the object of your suffering as well as the presumed subject “I”. Leave behind both of these objects and return to your true home where you can abide forever.

If you feel entangled in your mind and in your suffering, ask questions. The only thing real in the universe is your own self-nature. Although suffering seems real at the time you experience it, in a split second it can be gone.

We have that experience all of the time. For instance you get a letter that your brother passed away and your grief is inconsolable. The next day you get a phone call saying, “Sorry we made a mistake, it wasn’t your brother that died.” You feel a deep sense of relief.

When you felt the grief, the grief seemed real; when you felt the relief the relief seemed real. The sense of reality that you felt did not come from your suffering, and it did not come from the relief. It came from your being.

So the sense of reality that you give to your suffering is just an illusion. When you question it, suffering falls apart and the sense of reality returns to your true identity, innate consciousness and peace. And that’s why the mantra that I give you is to continue to ask questions until you are free.

And if you need help, ask 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

Standing here is the greatest pleasure

This is the next verse in Sankara’s poem on Self-Knowledge as it climbs towards its beautiful ending.

54. There is no gain over and above this gain, no pleasure over and above this bliss, no knowledge over and above this knowledge, know this to be Brahman.

Self-realization is natural. It is just who you are. You don’t have to maintain it with you’re body or with your mind. So often times sages talk about this realization as if it is nothing special. That’s because it’s just their normal state.

But then on the other hand, how many people do you know who get to experience Consciousness and Bliss right from the source, without any filters on it. Where you get to stand as the bliss that everyone is seeking in a million different ways.

But without knowing the truth of your own self-nature, you blame your happiness on what you do, what you think, and what you sense. By nature the doer, the thinker, the one who enjoys, and the objects that he or she enjoys are all in motion.

So like the full moon when the clouds float pass, your happiness appears to come and go. Even in the midst of the greatest worldly happiness there is still the anxiety that in time, this happiness will come to an end. That’s why people hope to find an answer for old age, disease, and death. They want to conquer change and remain in happiness forever, or at least as long as possible.

Little do they know that they are the source of the happiness that they seek. You without the limitations that you take to be normal equals unlimited and undying consciousness and bliss. Here Sankara calls this state Brahman.

So on this path of Self-Knowledge we don’t want to add anything on to you. Rather we want to subtract unnecessary limitations so that you can stand in your original glory. Here, in the last place you think, you find the happiness that you’ve been looking for. This is not because of what you see; this is because of what you are.

If this raises questions for you please feel fee to ask. Since limitation isn’t real, when you question it, it falls apart. Then the state that’s normal for you and the state that’s normal for even the greatest sages like Sankara, Christ, and Buddha, is exactly the same.

And if you need help, ask 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

 

Uncaused happiness

Here is a response from Victor based on my answer to his question, see “An experiment on finding happiness” in yesterday’s blog:

Hello Michael,
thank you for your view on this subject.

yes, in the middle off a difficult job i can find happiness for instance if i recall on my memory the great view off Arrábida landscape falling to the sea. This is one off the most wonderful place that i know and when i am there i feel a great happiness.
Is this the way that you mean?

Victor

Hi Victor and thank you for your quick reply. You know that when you are at Arrábida or when you even think of the Arrábida landscape falling into the sea you feel happy. This is a great place to start because when you meditate on happiness you want to start with what you experience.

But now you can take your experience of happiness even deeper. So here’s the question that you want to ask yourself; when you remember the Arrábida landscape and feel happy, where do you actually experience this happiness? Is it in Arrábida or is it in your own heart? You do not have to answer this question in words; you can answer it by your deepest feelings.

So dive deeper into this happiness that you feel, and determine what the experience of happiness actually is. I’m sure that you will notice that you actually feel the happiness here, and not over there at the cliffs going down to the sea.

You may be surprised to notice that Arrábida was not actually the cause of your happiness. Rather it reminded you of the happiness that you already have on the inside. This happiness is not dependent on Arrábida. It wells up from a place inside of you that was there before your first thought about it.

Now even more magical you will begin to notice that like Arrábida was not actually the cause of your happiness, your thoughts are not the actual the cause of your happiness. If you don’t believe me try this out for yourself. The next time you feel this joy start thinking about rubber bands, and ghosts, and goats, and dogs and cats and mice and buildings and work.

Let your thoughts go wild and see if they affect your happiness one little bit. This is the most remarkable result of this meditation on the source of happiness. Your sense of happiness is much deeper than the thoughts going through your mind. So you do not have to take thought of anything special to experience this happiness. The happiness that you experience comes right from your center.

Now let’s go back to this difficult job. If it was so difficult that you didn’t even have time to take thought of Arrábida could you still be happy. Of course you could; since your happiness is not dependent on your thoughts, even in the most difficult circumstances you can still be happy and at peace.

In fact you will discover that happiness is so deep that it is just who you are. No circumstance including death can ever snatch it away from you. This is the freedom promised by the sages of old like Christ and Sankara, and the sages of today too.

Please meditate on where you actually experience happiness and let me know if more questions arise for you. As you know, here questions are always welcome. When you start to question what you take to be normal you will discover that normal and happiness are the same thing.

And if you need help, ask 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

An experment on finding happiness

Here is a follow up question and some comments from Victor:

hello Michael

thanks for your last answer!! I never had a chance to be thankful!

When I was reading "Finding delight in the Self" on May 18, I came across one thing that I use to do, from a very long time. At night I tried to analyze my day, and extract all the thing’s that I been through that pleased me more, and I kept a note, and tried to repeat those thing’s in the next days, in order to get a more pleasant day.

The idea is if we replace some hard tasks in a more pleasant way, that can give us a better day. so we must understand by our life which is the best way to get the task done...and added to our coming days...

Thanks for your attention

Victor 

Hi Victor and thank you for your questions and comments. The purpose of the entry, “Finding delight in the self” is to show you how you can shift the place where you stand. Now if you feel that you are the one who does actions, and enjoys their results, you should know that in reality you are the one who abides as the source of happiness itself.

The only way you can know the depth of this happiness is by standing here. Happiness, as described here, is not an object that you see or feel. You know this happiness in a more direct way. You know it because you are it.

This is confusing to many people. How can you experience something if you don’t see it, hear it, or feel it? The best answer that I can give is that happiness has its own intelligence that you can only know by standing in your true nature.

An analogy might be that the sun does not need a flashlight to see itself. The sun knows light because the sun is light. In this very same way you are happiness. When you find a job that needs doing you are happiness; while you do the job you remain in your natural state. And when the job in completed you are the same bliss.

Now I know that many people have the concept that they can only be happy after the job is done. That’s why here in America we have the expression, “Thank God it’s Friday,” the last day of work before you get to enjoy the weekend. But if you think about it, out of a seven day week, you have only two days to be happy. So if this was the formula for happiness you would spend nearly three-quarters of your life in suffering. I hope there’s a better way.

Now here’s where a little experimenting can go a long way. In the midst of the most difficult and challenging task that you do; you know, the task that causes the most suffering, see if you can find happiness. Here’s a little secret that might help you with this experiment; happiness comes from the place where you experience it, not from the things that you do or the objects that you see.

So without breaking your concentration on the job at hand, see if you can find happiness in the last place you would ever expect. If you can find happiness even in the midst of this difficult job, you will find the unexpressed meaning of these words. And please let me know how your experiment goes, and if it raises more questions.

Never assume that suffering is natural. The only thing that is natural is your own Consciousness and Bliss. If your experience is anything less than this ask questions and find your innate freedom.

And if you need help, ask 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

What you are never dies

Here is another wonderful verse from Sankara’s poem on Self-Knowledge. It tells how a Sage is free from death.

53. On the dissolution of the body, senses, and mind the Sage now freed from particularities merges in the all permeating Being (Vishnu) like water in water, space in space, or fire in fire.

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

After reading this verse you may think, “I could never be like this Sage, free from death.” But when the sage finds that he or she is free from limitation, the Sage realizes that she didn’t obtain anything. The sense of a separate “I” encased in a body and a mind was just an assumption.

This is where she always stood. But attaching her sense of presence and of love to what she saw, she assumed that the limitations of the world where her limitations. Now she returned the sense of reality to its source, her being, and stands in her natural freedom; here she sees that it isn’t even a question of her being caught by the birth and death of the body. She was always free.

This is just the natural state and even now you are just this presence. The image of a Sage performing all types of miracles, floating through the air, with a body and mind bigger than life, healing everyone, raising the dead, and walking on water is just an image. It was created by people who thought, “I can’t be like that.”

But once you return to your natural state you will think, “How could I have ever thought I was anything else.” This is just the ordinary and natural state. But at the same time you discover your oneness with the cosmos and beyond. Ordinary and extraordinary, both at the same time. How can you ever limit this state to a few thoughts?

This is not something that you get to read every day. So it should raise lots of questions, and questions are good. They are the weapons that destroy your assumptions that you are a limited being, bound by the chains of birth and death.

And if you need help, ask 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

You are reality, not an immitation

Now we are moving towards my favorite part of Sankara’s poem on Self-Knowledge. Here as the poem draws towards the end it is like a wave about to crash into the sea. In the next verses he describes the power and the beauty of your own Self-Nature.

52. Like space which remains untainted by the objects contained therein, the sage remains untainted by that which seems to cover him. Being the all-knower he remains like one that knows not, and moves about like the air uncontaminated by the objects it touches.

The sage has found his or her true identity as unbounded Consciousness and Bliss. He does not have to imitate his identity  with his actions or with his thinking. Thus he appears as an ordinary person, and not as a special knower of the self.

This is like a man not having to imitate being a man, and a woman not having to imitate being a woman. That’s just what he or she is. It seems that when a teacher and an aspirant put on a big act it is out of fear that they are somehow defective. They attempt to mask this feeling of inadequacy by looking like something special.

Isn’t it ironic that before their pretentious act, and before their feelings of inadequacy they are really resting in the peace of their true nature? Here they are everything. What kind of act can you put on to be everything?

When a sage walks he is walking through himself; when he talks he is talking to the self; when he sits he is seated in the self, and when he appears to think it is only the self that thinks. There is nothing separate that can come in and pollute him.

He is like air, before they had air pollution. No matter what he touches he remains in his natural state. When you see body writing or mind thinking, to the sage nothing is going on at all. To the sage it is just the self being the self. How could there be anything else?

And if you don’t always feel like the self described here start asking questions. Remember the Self alone is real. A limitation is only an assumption, and an assumption can be easily destroyed by questioning.

And if you need help, ask 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  

How to be on vacation all of the time

Bernard sent some comments as he just returned from India:

Hallo Michael,

Just a short note to make contact again. We arrived back a few days ago. Interestingly enough my computer crashed to day I left and on returning even my printer was suddenly not working. Now that must be a message about new beginnings.

India was a remarkable adventure with the first two week especially so as we moved around, got use to the major food change and weather of 40C to 43C, petrol fumes and cars hooting, people everywhere etc. The last two weeks was more of a holiday spent in Kashmir and up in McCloud gange where the Dali Lama lives.The latter place was special with great views of the snow caped mountains, monks everywhere and of course the presence of the many beautiful and friendly Tibetans and at last a place to have excellent coffee.

I would not have missed any of the places we went to or the long traveling we did but I don’t think I would go back to many of the places again.

We saw a Vedic astrologist and the accuracy of his reading made a deep impression on me and I guess was one of the reasons I could really relax and just enjoy the ride. The sense that the universe was part of my journey and that my destiny was in the stars is a most inspiring and nourishing feeling to travel with and to bring back home with me.

I also understood a question I had asked you before about doing and being. I now realize that doing 'happens' out of the being. A good driver in a way is not driving the car but resting in the spirit of driving.

          Thanks so much for your contact and good wishes.

                   Bernard

 

Hi Bernard and welcome back from India. Also thank you for your descriptions of your travels . I can see that your computer was saying that it is time to let go of me and just enjoy your trip.

In traditional Vedic astrology when a person leaves his identity with thoughts, and becomes the background Consciousness they stop doing readings. That’s because when you wake up you leave the patterns in your mind behind, and thus standing free of your patterns you become unpredictable.

I like your insight into doing and being. Out of your being, which is the reality of the universe, comes this character that you call Bernard. Bernard then thinks, "I’m the one who does," and "I’m the one who enjoys." But just because he thinks, I’m the doer; it doesn’t make him the doer. The whole time it was the harmony of the universe that was doing and that was responsible for the results of the doing.

As for Bernard, he’s just another name for being, and no matter how much doing seems to be going on, he just remains in his original state of peace. So the mind and body can be very active but Bernard rest in his natural state.

This is like an expert driver who may have to speed up, slow down, or make a hairpin turn. But with all of these quick changes he remained unaffected because his identity is that of the expert driver. If you remain as the peace that you really are, no matter how much doing seems to be going on, you will always be on vacation in the land of your innate bliss. And the scenery in your home town will seem fresh and new, just like you were visiting a different place.

So instead of a vacation coming to an end, make this the beginning of never-ending vacation. In this adventure you discover the beginning-less Consciousness and Bliss that you always are. Here the sense of a separate you disappears and you get to remain in your natural state, which is your true identity.

Here your peace is not dependent on anything that you sense like the food, the smells, the sounds of the honking horns, the bustling of the people, or the heat. These are just sensations that pass through your identity like birds pass through space.

And if this raises more questions for you feel free to ask. Your curiosity is your best asset, and your willingness to challenge the humdrum everyday life that many people call normal is your assurance of freedom.

And if you need help, ask 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