We are talking about death of the apparent individual. Of course, there is physical death, the death of the body. A world without death would have no beauty, no yellow leaves in the autumn. It would be boring. There would be no change because change implies death. A world without death would be a frozen world. The fact is that we want to make the world better than God does.
When we see a young person dying and everyone is crying, we wonder, “Why is this necessary? What function does it have?” The sun has a function. We understand a lot of things as a function, but what is the function of an occurrence such as the death of a young person?
We cannot judge from the outside. We can only see from the inside. See that all events in our life, the happy ones and especially the unhappy ones, have made us grow in beauty, understanding, wisdom, and love.
So these times offer the possibility for growth?
Yes. I have a friend who is very ill and is dying of lung cancer. She told me that she gives thanks for what has happened to her, because without it she would never have been interested in life and would never have experienced and known what she knows now. She does not want things to be different. Her teacher, Robert Adams, used to say, “All is well and everything is unfolding just as it should.” We want to play God, to tell God what to do and how to make the perfect universe. We would like no mosquitoes, no death, no flu, no cancer, no autumn, no seasons, and no bugs. We want everything in the right place. By thinking in this way, we are forgetting the perfection that is evident from moment to moment. We are living in the past, in the future, in thinking. The now is always free from suffering, problems, and separation. It is always free from ego. In the now there is no ego. The ego cannot live in the now.
If we think there is a problem with the world, we have a problem! We are not the problem, we are freedom. The world appears in accordance with our views. It is for this reason that keeping our mind on the problem only perpetuates it. You have to de-hypnotize yourself from the problem, which is the object, and to turn towards the Self. The Self will deal with the problem in an appropriate way. Surrender to the Self.
Don’t allow yourself to think in terms of problems. Think in terms of solutions if you want, or in terms of the universal solution, which is the Self. Solution means to dissolve. Everything gets dissolved in the Self. You didn’t come here to have your ideas about suffering reinforced. You came here to hear a different tune, a shocking tune!
Sometimes I feel that this impersonal approach is cold and distant.
The opposite is in fact the case. “Impersonal” means not based on the thought or feeling of being a separate entity. When we are free from this belief and feeling, we are compassion itself. “Compassion” means to “feel with” or to “empathize.” When our experience of a so-called other is not filtered through thoughts or feelings of separation, we are simply present as this openness, this pure sensitivity, this impartial, loving, benevolent space. As a result of this, we empathize with the so-called other. We do not project our own interpretations, our beliefs, our fears onto them. As a result of this our response is appropriate and effective, even if it may not appear to be so to begin with. True intimacy is only possible when thoughts and feelings of separation are not present. That is what intimacy is, the absence of separation. We are never intimate as persons. That is why so many relationships go wrong. We want to be intimate as separate entities. It is not possible. The person is the refusal of intimacy. In the absence of the person, we are intimacy itself. Intimacy with animals, people, the universe, everything.
You say that there is no death, but I can’t see how one could possibly know whether there is or is not. In the now there is the now and we know what happens there.
In your idea of the now there is a future, but in reality there is no future, change, or death in the now. The now is not the opposite of the future or the past. It contains past, present, and future. The future in this present moment is a concept. If you believe that this concept is actually true, you are being eaten by time. Show me the future! If we take a close look at the body as we actually experience it in this moment, we realize that it is simply made of changing sensations. It is very different from the body we conceptualize or from the one we see in the mirror. Each time a sensation vanishes, the body as we actually experience it vanishes too. The body dies at every moment.
In fact everything vanishes from moment to moment, except the consciousness in which it appears. By associating consciousness with the body we make it an object in time. The consciousness that is in time is not true consciousness. The consciousness understanding these words right now is beyond time. It is changeless and timeless. Everything else, the body, the mind, and the world, is changing all the time, coming and going. Consciousness is the antecedent of the body, the mind, and the world. Hence Jesus’ saying, “Before Abraham was, I am.” There is no goal, motion, or change in consciousness.
That which comes and goes is not you. It comes and goes in you. How often have you said, “I come, I go, I will die?” But you don’t know what “I” means. You have to find out who you are, what this “I” is, which means what this consciousness is. Then you can ask the question, “Do ‘I,’ this consciousness, die?”
Logical reasoning cannot answer this question one way or the other. When we say, “I die,” we imply that we already have the answer. However, if we inquire about our actual experience, we discover that we cannot answer the question, because the mind has no access to consciousness.
Having discovered this, we find ourselves genuinely open to the possibility that consciousness is not tied to the body, because the body obviously dies. Without this openness, fear will prevent us from looking in the right direction. We will not have the courage or the will to move on. It is from beyond fear that we receive the answer. It is beyond the ego.
At times when the path is clear one reaches for something to depend on, but it is clear that any technique is simply going to take one into the past by virtue of its being a technique.
That is good because there is no path.
But there seems to be a process in time.
A path implies someone to travel on it. Find out who wants to travel and it will take you to the end of the path, to the pathless path.
Is desire a hindrance and should certain objects be avoided?
This is not a path of detachment from objects, of depriving oneself of life. On the contrary, life should be a celebration. We need to discover what life is before we can truly celebrate it. When we find out what life really is, a natural detachment takes place. This detachment is effortless, because our discovery gives us such absolute happiness, cures us so radically of fear, gives us such an ease of being and freedom, that the usual objects of desire seem pale in comparison. In other words, we are not detaching ourselves from objects through practices or disciplines; they are detaching themselves from us as a result of understanding and causeless joy. The objects are all still available but the difference is that we no longer use them to obtain happiness. We use them to celebrate happiness. There are no regrets on this path. We can still do whatever we previously wanted to do but we do it in freedom, because we understand everything we do as a celebration of our freedom, not as a means of fulfillment. When we have this understanding and attitude towards life, the universe cooperates with us. It becomes our accomplice.
There is a Sufi story of the prophet Mohammed who, before he fell in love with God, had the desire to be a great speaker. However, he fell in love with God and became a truth seeker and then a truth lover, and he forgot about his desire. It left him. One day, God appeared in a dream and said, “Mohammed, I am going to give you the talent of speech.” Mohammed replied, “But I don’t have that desire any longer. Now I am in love with you, so I no longer care for such things.” However, God said, “Nevertheless, you once had this desire and I am going to make you such a famous speaker that your name will be sung five times a day in all the minarets on the surface of the earth.”
The univ
erse has no choice but to appear as true. We cannot only grow in confidence and certainty on the inside, although we may have tremendous inner experience. If this was the case we may wonder, after a few days or years, whether or not we dreamt it or made it up. We also need the universe to confirm that what we know on the inside is fully consistent in all realms of our outer experience. Therefore, it is very important to implement what we have understood; otherwise it remains frozen. We need to take it out of the freezer, put it in the microwave, and eat it!
How can we be free of sensations or feelings?
A mirror is not stained or damaged by the images it reflects within itself. In the same way, consciousness is not hurt by, and is completely free from the images, fears, perceptions, thoughts, and sensations that appear in it. Therefore, as you are already free from all these sensations and feelings, and always have been, why do you want to practice in order to become free?
They sometimes leave some agitation.
Only the memory of them does.
However, simply the memory of the truth of the consciousness may not have the power to remove the agitation.
Your question implies a desire to get rid of the agitation, a dislike of the agitation. By disliking it, you move away from the mirror. You no longer understand that you are the mirror and that the mirror can never be hurt, touched, or put into motion by the agitation. If the agitation bothers us, it means that we have mistakenly identified with something in the mirror instead of with the mirror itself. We should take our stance as the mirror again, which we always are anyway. The mirror doesn’t care about the agitation. It is unconcerned whether the images reflected in it are static, slowly evolving, or hectic. From the vantage point of the mirror, it is all the same. However, if we return to being the mirror, the images themselves will slow down.
In this celebration of life, it is a relief that one doesn’t have to exorcise the ghosts of insecurity and all those things, that we don’t have to dig them out of the cupboard and get rid of them.
Yes, digging them up doesn’t get rid of them. It perpetuates them. The one who wants to dig them up and get rid of them is the same one that is at the root of insecurity. The ego can never get rid of the ego. Just find out who feels insecure.
Does one just leave all that alone, without addressing it?
Don’t go back to your fear if fear is not coming to you; that would be masochistic. Don’t worry about anything. It is not even necessary to think in spiritual terms. When we are happy and free from problems, we are in our true spiritual state, the perfect state. That is what God wants us to be and at these times we are fulfilling God’s desire. It is only when we think that things need to be changed that we start getting into trouble.
There is the idea that you have to look at all that.
Let ghosts sleep, don’t wake them up. Celebrate and just get used to celebrating more and more.
God Is Very Mischievous
I have a sense ofreturning to the fundamental consciousness that everyone has. Is it a recognition rather than a process?
There is nobody to return and nowhere to return to. All bodies are in this “nobody.” The entire “where” is in this “nowhere.”
But is it a recognition?
In the Advaita tradition, the example of a necklace is often used. A woman is looking for a necklace everywhere, only to find at the end of the search, that it was always around her neck. While she is looking, she thinks, “I have lost my necklace,” and when she finds it, “I have found it again.” The question is whether she had really lost it. She only thought that she had lost it.
What is the role of the teacher?
The teacher does not give you a new necklace but just asks you to look in the mirror. The teacher does not give you anything new. One should be careful about any misunderstanding in this respect. Indian society is very hierarchical, highly differentiated and, due to these social traditions that have nothing to do with the truth, the guru is way above the fray. For instance, the Brahmin caste is above everybody else and this is an impediment at some point. Although Ramana Maharshi was a Brahmin, he would eat with everybody else at his ashram. There was a special dining room for the newcomers who were Brahmins and initially they would eat there. However, since the teacher was not there, they would eventually move in with everybody else. He was always very careful not to be put on a pedestal. He would even become angry if he received special treatment and rightfully so, because he didn’t see himself as different from anyone else. One has to be careful about traditions that make a god of the teacher. It is true that the teacher is speaking the truth, but from his or her vantage point, everything is speaking the truth. For instance, when the student is asking a question, it is truth speaking to the teacher. Usually, when the teacher dies, when his body dies, his pedestal is raised up to the ceiling at least. Then, each subsequent year, it rises a couple more meters, and so eventually it is at an almost infinite distance from us! We forget that the teacher was and is what we are.
A teacher is very human as a person, very much like us. There is a beautiful poem by Thayumamavar, a sixteenth century Indian poet, in which he compares the teacher with a deer who is sent towards a herd of deer, in order to lure them towards the hunter. God is the hunter in this metaphor and the teacher is the deer that is sent to the herd. There has to be a real deer or the herd would feel that there was a trap and would not follow.
There should not be any difference between the teacher and the student. It is natural that there is respect because the teacher sees the Self in you. Respect calls for respect. Love calls for love. At the same time, the teacher should make realization seem easy. If a teacher makes it seem difficult and out of reach, then find another one!
The teacher that takes us to freedom, known in India as the Satguru or the Karana guru, wants our freedom above all else. In the Karana guru’s presence, we feel this total freedom with respect to the rules. Deep inside we know that there are no rules, although it may be appropriate to follow the rules if a situation requires it. There is this total freedom. The teacher doesn’t judge you. Everything is OK. You are OK.
Take Robert Adams, for instance. He was a beautiful loose cannon! He was an expression of this freedom. It was this quality that enabled you to be free from your own conditioning, from what you thought you ought or ought not to do.
Freedom is the highest good. It is that which is closest to the Self. Above love, above intelligence, above beauty, there is freedom. That is why this game we are playing is called the game of bondage and liberation.
Although I appreciate what you have just said, the conditioning is deeply rooted. I am not sure whether I am doing things the right way or not, and I feel that I could, in freedom, make some big mistakes.
In freedom there is no right and no wrong. There are no mistakes because there is nobody to make mistakes. If we are afraid of making a mistake when we do something, the most important thing is to take a closer look at the original intention. If our original intention is pure, that is, if it is motivated by our interest in, and our love for the truth, for freedom, we may make a mistake but it will not matter. Life will take care of us. For instance, imagine a student who goes to a teacher out of love for the truth and, although he is unaware of it, the teacher is not genuine. In this situation the student will compel the teacher to speak the truth because of the sincerity of his intention. Nothing is lost. The student, who had obviously gone to the wrong place to find the truth, will still receive the correct guidance at that moment. Of course, later on the teacher will be dropped. What happens to the teacher is a different story.
Would you say that at that point the student needed that teacher?
Everything that happens to us teaches us. Everything is our teacher. The beautiful friends that we have known and who have helped us on the path and the plank that hit us on the head were both our teacher.
When having to make decisions in terms of other people’s freedom, for example one’s children, there is very of
ten a concern that what is happening is right. It is not always clear where the freedom lies for the person you’re looking after.
It is not for us to decide what his or her freedom is. All we have to know is our own freedom. Once we know our own freedom, this freedom will express itself spontaneously in whatever we do and say. When the child hears and sees this, it will resonate with its own freedom and it will subsequently discover what its own freedom is. To make people free, all you have to do is to be free. It is our freedom that makes them free, not our desire to make them free. The desire to make them free binds them. In this freedom, we don’t know what is going to happen.
How do you achieve freedom?
We are freedom. We cannot achieve it. Whatever is achieved can also be lost. That which we are, is free from everything. To begin with we discover the freedom that could be called “freedom from,” just as the mirror is free from the objects that are reflected in it. We discover that we are the mirror. Later on, instead of being like a mirror, in which everything appears to be reflected from outside, we become more like a television in which everything that appears on the screen is the creation of the television. Then we are not only free “from,” but also free “to,” free to create. Everything that comes out of this freedom is our own creation. It is not something external.
If I imagine that I am free just as I am, with my ego as it is, is this freedom?
See what you call “my ego.” This is the first step towards freedom and the last one. You say “my ego.” How do you know you have an ego?
I am aware of separateness.
So what is the ego? Is it the separateness or that which is aware of it? The ego is the separateness and that which is aware of this separateness is not ego, it is the Self, and that is free. The moment it is clear that the ego is not what we are, but that it is something perceived in the mirror, we realize that we do not need to make the mirror free.
The Perfume of Silence Page 10