Resending : So Who Are You?

[Guest guest]

Folks,

 

This is the first day I'm receiving mails after a system failure.

I'm not sure if my mail are being sent successfully since I'm

not receiving any acknowledgement from the system.

Can someone on the forum let me know ?

 

[Greg]

>Let me ask you something. You say that:

>> Nobody gets enlightened, sir !

>> It more accurate to say that when enlightenment happens there is no

>>"you" around. "You" don't see or experience anything rather "you" are

>>that experience itself ! "You" are identical to what is happening, there is

>>no separate watcher or looker, else you would be presuming duality.

>If nobody gets enlightened (which I agree with), then what do you mean by

>the "when enlightenment happens"? Is that an actual occurrence? So we

>have an event instead of a person? How is that any different? Where/how

>would the happening be? Is there somehow a "you" up until that time, but

>not from then on? Does something actually disappear? Did it really exist

>before? Even the thought of the thing? (Thoughts are no less thing-like

>than oranges) If there's really not a "you" after, then how can there be

>one before?

[cut]

 

Dear Greg,

 

Because of the duality of our language, whatever is said about such

deep matters, turns out to be false or distorted, and according to

Hegelian dialectics, for every thesis there is an equal anti-thesis,

which can be logically argued and proven. It eventually boils down

to a game of words and the true experience is missed.

I am tempted to clarify the phrase "when enlightenment happens"

by replacing it with "enlightenment is already the case, not caused"

but this can be equally disputed by some bright novel individual.

 

All your inquiry concerning this "you", is because of our self-

obsession and the fact that we have so much investment in the

ego, we believe in it to the point that we become auto-hypnotised

and there seems to be an apparent "you".

As such, the false has become the real, the dream has become

reality, the shadow has become substance. This is our sad

predicament. Now you may very well ask how do we correct this

error? If this "you" was real then we can actually do something to

remove it. But because it is not real there is nothing we can really

do, in terms of personal effort.

 

Only understanding and a direct penetrative insight is needed,

My understanding of Shankara is that by clearly seeing the point

(its unreality) it vanishes spontaneously, effortlessly.. it automatically

drops off (or surrenders) no effort is needed. Could one then ask

for some method, technique or yoga to drop a shadow, a dream.

You have a good laugh it was all nonsense....but to arrive at

"this moment" requires our understanding to be complete

and perfect. This may take from a split second,as Vashishta tells

Lord Rama, to one or many more lifetimes.

Already we have spent many lifetimes and so few of us has seen

the point.

 

To use an analogy, understanding is like heating water and

enlightenment like the point of evaporation. Understanding takes time

and grows and is equivalent to the heating process from 0-100 deg

but still in the water phase. Enlightenment is sudden and is independent

of time, just as evaporation is a sudden flashover from water to steam

at 100 deg, independent of external heating.

(It may be noted here too, that the boiling state which is a reversible

intermediate state between water and vapor is comparable

to the pseudo-enlightened state called satoRi, where one gets a

glimpse of reality, but due to a lack of full knowledge, it is unsteady,

momentary and reversible.)

During the understanding phase we are called upon to do some

spiritual practices, yoga etc. or more directly to remain alert, aware

or vigilant as to how we entangle and bind ourselves, and then

irresponsibly look to someone else, perhaps a guru, for release.

The guru may be effective in pointing out our crazy game, though.

We must be ever conscious of this habitual self-action, how we

keep clinging and identifying with the familiar transient surface ego,

(thought-forms, imagery, past memories, future dreams and desires)

while avoiding, resisting and fighting the Unknowable moment (Now)

which is really the eternal and permanent part of ourselves.

When we start becoming sensitive and disgusted by this compulsive,

unconscious and obscuring activity, when the confinement of the ego

starts suffocating us, when breakdowns and crisis starts occurring in

our life ....maturity and true viaraGya develops.

Suddenly the evaporation, the point of perfect radical understanding,

complete letting go, total surrender, perfect seeing, the enlightenment,

at a moment's notice, completely independent of time.

 

So with intense perspiration, effort and a burning aspiration, one looks

forward to an early Dawn, as if realization is a gradual logical process,

but also waits patiently knowing that "this" moment is totally

unpredictable and transrational. Mere effort cannot hasten its

realization, since it beyond effort or grasping.

Enlightenment is sudden and ultimately depends on Divine Grace.

 

This is about all I can possibly share with this forum.

Now its time to rest and relax in my native delightful, unformulated

childlike Innocence, listening.....

 

Om shanti, shanti....,

 

~dave