the booby prize

[Guest guest]

Dear friends

 

Maitreya has asked me to send this as his last comment.

 

greetings

firak

 

********************

 

 

Maitreya Ishwara

www.ishwara.com

 

The Booby Prize

 

Beloved Friends

Love

Advaita is not just the philosophy that

Shankarcharya and his followers define

and discuss. It preceeds all written

scriptures, even the Vedas. Advaita is

actually the closest words can come to the

reality of conscious silence. In fact, the

concepts advaita uses were designed by

ancient Buddhas to lead the mind to

silence.

The endless intelectualisation of advaita

today by many of its adherents trivialises

the impact of the Truth it points to. The

whole point of advaita is to provoke

surrender to What is. Surrender flowers into

silence and enlightenment when the time is

right.

Intellectuals never find freedom from the

suffering of the human condition by thinking

about truth. This is the the trap that those

who don't understand the value of silent

awareness, beyond all trace of subtle

thought, languish in.

When the understanding arises that

surrender is the door to freedom, then

advaita has tremendous value in giving the

rational support for let go to happen.

The following is the essence of advaita and

is enough to give the intellectual support

that surrender needs, in mind oriented

seekers:

Consciousness is all there is. The

indivisible reality of unified

consciousness is the core of enlightened

experience. Therefore, since the

universe is intrisically intelligent and

cannot be self created (it has a

beginning) its source must be conscious

intelligence of an unknown type, with the

capacity to design, create and sustain

the universe. This means the source of

the universe is God. And since

consciousness is all there is, the

universe is a manifestation of divine

consciousness. Therefore, humans are

also that One, and their ego/minds that

appear to separate them from the One

must also be a play of the One. Since

your ego is divine consciousness with a

tendency to separation and dualistic

thinking, it must be there to allow the

Leela to have depth and meaning by

creating your suffering. Then eventually

letting go and experientially merging

again with that which you already are,

the One.

This is the experience of all Budddhas.

 

The key word here is 'experientially'. Just

believing or thinking about all this doesn't

help that much.

Real Truth is not cheap. It requires the total

transformation of all your individual

systems. And is much more arduous than

the booby prize of intellectual

understanding and continued suffering.

More blessed is a simple surrendered soul

who lives with the four most potent spiritual

words ever spoken: Thy will be done.

 

Love

Maitreya