You are saying that the notion of an external world made of matter is the beginning of the illusion, whereas for a Western thinker it is the beginning of the notion of reality.
It might be the beginning of the notion of reality, but not of the experience of reality. We don’t need the notion of an external world to know that “we are,” and to know that “there is something rather than nothing,” as Heidegger would say. Reality is the primal fact, concepts are secondary. To think the other way around, even implicitly or inadvertently, is a big mistake. In this case, a notion creates an illusory reality. Even this erroneous notion in the mind of the thinker is the living proof of reality, because there is something rather than nothing, or quoting Parmenides, because “being is, and non-being is not.” From this perspective, everything is reality, every object is seen in its oneness, without the notion of a subject seeing an object.
So, every object is not seen as an object.
Yes. In the words of the sufis of the School of Oneness, “there is nothing that is not Him.” Everything is one and the same thing.
Why is the firm belief in an external world so widespread and so tenacious? Why are so few people able to even seriously question it?
The “Why?” takes us away. To know why there are so many people who think otherwise doesn’t get us one inch closer to the truth. The real question is, “Is there a world without awareness?” If anyone claims that there is a reality that exists independently from consciousness, he carries the burden of proof.
In psychoanalytic theory, the function of the ego is to put one in touch with external reality. We have seen that there is no such reality. What becomes of an ego so defined?
This definition of the ego becomes meaningless. I would define the ego as a concept originating from the “I am” experience, pure being without attributes, the absolute certitude we have that we exist. When we conceptualize this experience, we call it “I” or “I am.” There is nothing wrong with the pure concept “I am.” The ego comes in the moment we say, “I am this or that,” “I am a man,” or “I am a parent.” This superimposes a limitation onto something that, up until now, was limitless. The first step was the creation of the concept “I am” which directly refers to our most intimate experience. As long as there is no add-on to this concept, such as “I am a man,” “I am happy,” “I am unhappy,” this concept can’t maintain itself and brings us back to the “I am” experience.
So the concept appears in awareness . . .
It also refers to awareness, to reality. It originates from reality and brings us back to reality. We remain, so to speak, at home. But, the moment we say, “I am this or that” we create a division in reality . . .
Between the me and the not me?
Exactly, because if I am “this,” I am not “not this.” There is something that I am not. I have assigned a limit, a contour to my being. The ego is this contour. It defines two separate domains, creating duality.
So the ego is the first distinction, from which all others arise?
Precisely. This distinction, the ego, the dualizing thought, which has no real foundation, creates plurality. It is a larger definition of the ego than the division between the observer and the observed, which is one of its modalities.
It seems to me that defining the ego the way you have defined it simultaneously defines the world.
Absolutely. The body-mind complex and the world are two sides of the same coin, artificially created by the same dualizing thought out of what was, and still is, oneness.
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How can one know that a felt longing to know the truth isn’t the ego still attempting to remain secure?
A real longing for the absolute, for the impersonal, does not come from the ego. We can feel our own earnestness involving the whole of our life. It isn’t limited to our intellectual life, but manifests in all our daily actions and decisions: the kind of profession we have, the way we behave with our children, spouse, and friends. It has a deep impact on us. Our own genuineness, our earnestness, our longing are very well known to us.
Yes, That is true, but I was really asking about the other possibility: an intellectual pursuit, orchestrated by the ego, which takes over much of a person’s life. People can suddenly, and continuously thereafter, spend much of their time talking and reading about these questions in a way that looks earnest, but is really just an academic interest.
What matters is the motivation. If the motivation is the absolute itself, there is genuineness. If I want to be acknowledged as an expert in non-dualism, make money, or be admired by others, if there is a personal motivation, there is no earnestness. There is only one motivation for a truth-lover, and that is truth itself. This motivation is not driven by the ego. Truth pulverizes the ego. How could the ego desire that?
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The mind arises in awareness, but awareness somehow acts through the mind. Could you clarify this interrelationship?
The mind is a concept which, like any other concept, refers to other concepts or to perceptions. In this case, the mind is seen as the container of all mentations. The mind is not an organ like the brain. It isn’t perceived. It is only a concept. So, there actually is no mind; there is only the concept of a mind. What then is there? There are just thoughts and perceptions, or more precisely, mentations. A mentation originates from awareness and, sooner or later, dissolves into awareness. Thus, any mentation is awareness, in the same way as a gold ring, which originates from gold and later melts down into gold, is always only gold. So there is only awareness.
The interval between arising and dissolving is an apparent informing.
You can call it awareness with an object, with a form, or with a concept. But, it still is awareness. There is only one thing. Where has your question gone?
It has vanished. There can’t be any interrelationship if there is only one.
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What would you say to those who find your perspective either too theoretical, or too difficult to apply in their everyday life situations?
This perspective is the least theoretical of any. Theoretical means based on concepts. Non-dualism leads to a total disbelief in all concepts, so it is radically non-theoretical. Since the sage isn’t interested in any theories, his vantage point is eminently practical. When confronted by a non-objective perspective, those who have been conditioned to understand in conceptual terms, by moving from one concept to another, fail to find a concept to grab onto, and attribute their failure to understand to the complexity or theoretical character of non-dualism. The only obstacle is their own beliefs, theories, and habits which prevent them from having the direct experience of their own real nature. Don’t worry if you don’t understand every argument used by the instructor expounding this perspective, because each of them is one side, one face of the same truth. Any of these paths lead to the ultimate. You need only take one of them to get there and to stay there. In time, as you establish yourself in the single truth, all questions find their final answer. From the top of the mountain, looking down on the valleys, we can see all the paths leading to the summit: the one we have followed, and also many others we could have taken.
Coming back to the original point, a theoretical approach never leads to a fully satisfactory answer to any question. To the question, “Why A?” the theoretician answers, “Because B.” Then the question, “Why B?” arises, to which he answers “Because C,” and so on. He remains caught in the endless regression of causality.
It is clear that in assuming this perspective to be based on theoretical presuppositions, they have made a mistake. But have they made a mistake in thinking that it is very difficult? It certainly doesn’t seem easy to transcend concepts.
It is very difficult. In fact, it is impossible for the ego to have a clear understanding of this perspective; but, it is easy for the heart to have an inkling of it. So I would tell them, “Let your heart be your guide. Whatever brings you a flash of joyful understanding, keep it, cherish it. Don’t start from
the negative side, from the ‘I don’t understand’ side. Start with what you understand, with what makes you happy. There is no need to understand everything, because there is only one thing to understand: your permanent inner core. Only you can understand you. Only you can be you. You can’t see you, you can’t think you, because you are you.” Isn’t that simple?
What you are saying is very simple. However, life situations are far from simple. They are fast, difficult, and complex. How do you follow your heart in the midst of all that?
Then, it isn’t what I am saying which is not simple . . .
No, it is their daily experience.
The concepts they have about themselves and the world are not simple. The non-dual perspective has to be explained in their own terms, in intellectual terms to the intellectual, and so on. The instructor, having in this manner established a bridge to communicate with them at their own level, will eventually bring them back to simplicity. But the pure soul, the earnest seeker, feels this simplicity directly in his heart, almost immediately, without any need of lengthy reasoning.
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What is meditation?
Meditation is our natural state, what we spontaneously are, what we have always been and will forever be. Devoid of duality, of the fragmentation generated by the I-concept, it is pure being, pure awareness, pure happiness.
This is fundamentally different from the way in which the word “meditation” is usually used. It usually refers to a technique or process whereby we can reach our ultimate nature. But, you are saying that it is our ultimate nature.
Who is there to reach anything, and how could we possibly reach what we already are? Any dynamism keeps us in slavery, in the chains of time, and postpones the moment of our liberation to some point in the future. It makes an object out of what we really are, the eternal subject. Any effort to reach our ultimate nature is bound to fail. It may leave us in a pleasurable state, a samadhi, but since this experience has a beginning in time, it will also have an end in time.
Meditation, then, does not take time, does not occur in time, but is, rather, eternally present?
Our true nature is permanent. It may, and will, call us at every moment of our daily life. It is important to remain available to it and respond with our whole being. There are privileged moments when this invitation is felt with more strength: upon awakening in the morning, just before falling asleep in the evening, after a task has been accomplished, when a fear or a desire comes to an end, when we are astonished, when we find ourself off the beaten path. We should make good use of these precious moments, especially the transitional states between sleeping and waking. If there is no compelling reason to be busy, we can live these moments completely, without dynamism, remaining open to our thoughts and to our bodily sensations, enjoying our freedom and the close presence of the peace of deep sleep. This quiet welcoming of our thoughts and sensations should not become a drill or a habit. This would kill the freshness and spontaneity of these moments. Like a lover, we should be ready to respond to the slightest sign from the beloved, knowing that there is nothing we can do to bring about this invitation, because it comes from grace. In this way, we remain in our innocence, without any agenda, having nothing to lose and nothing to gain in the game of life.
This attitude of openness may be misinterpreted by an external observer who, projecting his own concepts, may think that a person is practicing esoteric exercises to achieve some mystical goal, when, in fact, there is nobody there, nothing is being done, and there is no goal to be achieved.
Could we go into the difference between the gradual and direct approaches to the truth?
The gradual approach is based on the assumption that we are not the truth and that we can get to it; that something which is not the truth can reach the truth, can gradually change itself into the truth; that progress can be made in time toward the timeless. Since the ultimate truth is our real nature, awareness, we can’t travel toward what we already are. Any step in any direction moves us further off. Clearly, the gradual path can only be followed by an individual entity who, getting better and better, purifying itself, weakening itself, would step by step come closer to the goal. It is, of course, a game for the ego.
It looks like the kind of progress we experience when learning factual information or skills in other fields. But, if you take a closer look, the pretense is of a slow, deliberate suicide of the ego, which is absurd.
Yes. From the point of view of the ego, there is progress toward its death. The ego can only understand happiness objectively, as a state to be attained in the future.
Would you say that in the face of a genuine impulse toward truth, one of the most effective defenses for the ego is to take that in charge, and maintain its own existence by engaging in a slow deliberate movement toward the truth, a slow suicide?
Exactly. A genuine glimpse into the ultimate strikes the whole individuality of the seeker, bringing about more clarity, earnestness, and detachment. Such an act of grace is beyond the reach of the ego. During this timeless experience, the ego is not present. After the event, the ego, fatally wounded and desperately fighting for its survival, tries to take us in again, pretending that it was the agent of the glimpse, and attempting to take credit for it. In fact, the only real service the ego can render is to leave us alone. For all these reasons, any gradual path is bound to fail. The only agent acting in this matter is the ultimate, attracting the seeker toward his true self.
The direct path is based on the understanding that any gradual path is bound to fail. As a result of this, the mind becomes quiet, because it has no place to go. This silence, in the absence of the ego, is openness to the unknown, to grace.
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Can consciousness or awareness ever die?
Your question boils down to, “Can life die?”
The source of this question, the everyday understanding, would say yes, living things die, life can be extinguished.
Living things die. So the question is, “Can awareness be a thing, an object?”
Can it be a quality of an object?
Can we perceive awareness in the same way as we perceive an object? Can awareness, the ultimate perceiver of all mentations, be perceived as a mentation?
Of course, that is absurd, because there would have to be another perceiver.
Yes, and it would not be the ultimate perceiver. So, what we are deeply, what we feel we are, is the ultimate perceiver. We would not be satisfied with identifying our self with anything relative, objective. We don’t identify ourself with our hand. We have the conviction that, even if we lose our hand, we remain what we were before. The hand and its accompanying sensations would have left the picture, but the seer of the picture wouldn’t have undergone any change.
So the seer of the live hand and the seer of the missing hand is unchanged?
Yes, the missing hand is no longer felt or seen. So, in the same way that we wouldn’t identify ourself with our hand, as we move back toward the ultimate perceiver (which requires a deep understanding, a thorough investigation) it becomes clear, at some point, that the body as a whole is a perceived object, and we stop identifying ourself with it. Our thoughts are also perceived, and we stop identifying ourself with them, and understand that what we really are is awareness. We go beyond any limitation, and identify with life itself, with consciousness. At that level, everything appears in life, disappears in life, and life itself is the ultimate principle everything else depends on. Even the alleged birth, existence, and death at the relative level depend on it. Any appearance, disappearance, or change borrow their apparent reality from this eternal presence, life, awareness.
***
I suspect that most people rarely think about dreamless sleep. When they do, they probably think of it as a blank that isn’t very significant, except, perhaps, that it is needed for bodily health. In fact, it can serve as a key to the ultimate. Can we go into this?
A blank is an object: The absence of all objects is still an object. Durin
g the waking state, when thinking about deep sleep, the waking entity projects the notion of a blank because deep sleep is a non-experience: There are no objects in it, and knowledge of objects is the only kind of knowledge available to the waking person. Therefore, the blank state is not a fact, but a superimposition that occurs during the waking state. The actual experience of deep sleep remains beyond the comprehension of the waking person. In order to understand deep sleep, this superimposition also has to come to an end. Then deep sleep reveals itself to be the timeless background, our true nature. This same non-state is also present between mentations. When we wake up, we are still impregnated with the freshness, peace, and happiness of deep sleep. Before falling asleep, we feel the invitation that brings us back to our real home. Unlike the waking and dreaming states, deep sleep is not a state. It is, rather, the background of all states. Using an analogy, if we consider faces carved in a stone, the faces corresponding to the states and the stone corresponding to deep sleep, our attention is drawn, at first, by the faces. We see only them. Taking a closer look, we notice the stone around and between the faces, where there is no carving. In the same way, deep sleep and the intervals between mentations give us the opportunity to wake up to, and experience, pure awareness. Then, looking again at the carved faces, we see them for what they really are, stone. This knowledge doesn’t prevent us from seeing the faces, but, still, there is only stone. Similarly, having seen the background, the substratum (and when I use the word “see,” I don’t mean with our eyes, but, rather, that the substratum sees itself), when the objects arise again, they are now seen for what they are, awareness. There are no objects, there is only awareness.
Because of its revealing power, deep sleep is of the utmost importance in this perspective. Once experienced, this living understanding, the awareness of the presence of the background, is always with us. During the waking state and the dream state we feel the continuity of deep sleep. Since the identification with a waking or dream subject no longer exists, one could say that there is no longer sleep. The awareness quality of the waking state merges with the stillness of deep sleep. This non-experience is beautifully described in the Bhagavad Gita:
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