re: the moment just passed

[Guest guest]

Madathil Nair wrote:This space-time continuum in which we experience the

world is, in

fact, an error. We all accept that. The key to your conundrum lies in

seeing Consciousness as unravelling (to the deluded one, of course)

whereby space and time are projected. It is, in fact, very naive on

our part to assume that Consciousness can unfold only in a sequential

manner. The feeling of sequence itself is the very essence of the

error. Everything being at the same source all the time (Sorry, if I

am temporal due to limitations of language and expression), the

contents of a particular point of space-time, say in 1990, can follow

those of a point, say in 2003. In other words, at my present age of

56, I can regress back to my primary school classroom having

harrowing moments with my maths teacher whom I used to hate the

most. However, I would not then know that I had reached age 56! In

the same manner, I can also be on my death-bed (if at all my body-

awareness is to end on a bed!) at a space-time point I am not aware

of right now.

 

I would now digress to Carlos Castaneda. (Dennis-Ji, kindly forgive

this reference, if you are reading this. I know you don't accept

him.). In his "A Separate Reality" or another work that followed

(Perhaps, "Journey to Ixtlan" -I am not quite sure.), he narrates an

incident where his teacher, Don Juan, a Mexican man of knowledge

(sorcerer), calls his attention to a leaf falling from a tree. Then

again, after a few moments, the teacher asks Castaneda to look up at

the tree. Castaneda sees the same leaf falling again. I believe

there is a point for us there whether Castaneda was honest or not.

 

The experienced world is topsy-turvy as it is sequential. However,

from an advaitin's point of view, it is an error to see it either as

topsy-turvy or sequential. He needs to know only the truth and

nature of it.

 

Now to come to moksha - loosely translated as liberation. Moksha is

realizing the error mentioned above. We have a puzzle and we try

hard to solve it. When the solution is in hand and the puzzle is

solved, the puzzle is no more a puzzle. Like when the magician's

trick is known, there is no more any magic in it. So, moksha need

not necessarily mean a cessation of all experiencing. It is

realizing the trick of experiencing. Then experiencing ceases to be

the type of experiencing we all go through. Realization is knowing

that there is actually no birth or death. One who knows that cannot

be born or dead! Swamiji is very much here with us if we realize

that his birth and death (as also his moksha!) are our own delusion!

He is one of the legends experienced by us, i.e. in our awareness.

He can't therefore be apart from us. You can be listening to his

Chicago address right now if that is what Consciousness wills for

you! It is in Consciousness with all the rest of the events and

objects of this experiential world of the past, present and the so-

called unknown future! Consciousness is a big PRESENT.

 

Language has severe limitations. I may not have succeeded in putting

my point across effectively. However, I am sure the essence of it

all can be appreciated through contemplation.

 

********************************************************************************\

******

 

Hello Madathil and All Advaitins,

Your musing on the subject of time and consciousness is perfectly

intelligible to me and the anomalies that occur variously called prevision,

precognition and deja vu are enough to tell us that the normal concept of

serial time is a temporary habitation. These would be examples of

bilocation in time and corrospond to bilocation in space at simultaneous

moments. We have examples of whole lives being lived in the time it takes

for a pot to fall to the ground. I don't believe that these are merely

tales but graces at the gift of adepts.

 

A great theme in the Bhagavad Gita is the overcoming of time through the

surrender of the fruits of action. Attachment to product is what keeps the

machine running. We are released from the tyranny of time into process now

when that thirst for results is set aside. Even when the sage is talking

he's listening captive by his sacrifice.

 

At our best we move in and out of such 'spots in time'(Wordsworth?) This is

the subject of Eliot's great poem 'The Four Quartets' and there is a

specific reference to the Bhagavad Gita in 'The Dry Salvages'#3.

 

It's the heart of good work. Robert Pirsig in 'Zen and the Art of

Motorcycle Maintainance' describes it:

 

I think that when this concept of peace of mind is introduced and made

central to the act of technical work, a fusion of classic and romantic

quality can take place at a basic level within a practical working context.

I've said you can actually see this fusion in skilled mechanics and

machinists of a certain sort, and you can see it in the work they do. To

say they are not artists is to misunderstand the nature of art. They have

patience, care and attentiveness to what they're doing, but more than this

there's a kind of inner peace of mind that isn't contrived but results from

a kind of harmony with the work in which there's no leader and no follower.

The material and the craftsman's thoughts change together in a progression

of smooth, even changes until his mind is at rest at the exact instant the

material is right.

 

Ciao and Blessings, Michael

 

P.S. About Castenada and Don Juan : If it's a fiction then it's a marvellous

creation, a work of genius almost more amazing than if it were true because

we after all know that such siddhis exist!

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

michael Reidy <ombhurbhuva wrote:

 

Consciousness is a big PRESENT.

 

-----

 

Dear Michael,

 

In your post,the very essence of your communication is what you have stated as

above.

 

Thank you for this big present: "Conciousness"

 

Let us try to be in "IT" Always !

 

Hari Om!

 

Swaminarayan

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

How could you ever be out of it? --Greg

 

At 03:54 PM 1/1/03 -0800, Swaminarayan T wrote:

Thank you for this big present: "Conciousness"

>Let us try to be in "IT" Always !

[Guest guest]

advaitin, Gregory Goode <goode@D...> wrote:

> How could you ever be out of it? --Greg

>

> At 03:54 PM 1/1/03 -0800, Swaminarayan T wrote:

> Thank you for this big present: "Conciousness"

>

> Let us try to be> in "IT" Always !

Hello Advaitins All,

We are undoubtedly active in the present which perhaps leads to a question about

the status in reality of the past and the future. Do they suffer from a

deficency in being because in a sense they are not? Sankara speaks of the real

being unsublated in the three moments of time. In that way ajnana buys you

time.

 

For that reason Advaita would reject such conundrums as ' Can one prove that the

world and all its works and pomps did not start 15 minutes ago. It would

probably say that this question gains its sense from an assumption that would be

contrary to that very question. Because of inner contradiction it is not a

meaningful question. Such a procedure was used by Sankara against Idealism.

 

The inner freedom from time and from action of the Bhagavad Gita is freedom from

the present also. I speculate here, I have no idea what such a state entails.

This runs faster than the mind for sure.

 

Ciao and Blessings, Michael