The Wonderful News of Non-duality

[Guest guest]

The Wonderful News of Non-duality

By

 

Sri Swami Chidananda

 

http://www.dlshq.org/messages/wonderfulnews.htm

 

Worshipful homage to the one, non-dual, transcendental Universal

Spirit! That Spirit is at once omnipresent as well as invisible, in

that Its essential nature is far subtler than the subtlest faculty

that we human beings possess in our human personality. It is beyond

the reach of the senses, mind and intellect. Therefore, being ever-

present, all around us and within us, yet we fail to perceive It

directly or experience It within us as an indwelling presence or all

about us as an all-pervading presence.

 

But there is something we should not miss in the truth about the

Supreme Reality. This truth about the Supreme Reality has been

proclaimed by our ancient ancestors, who after directly experiencing

the Absolute declared to us the truth that the Supreme Reality is one

and non-dual. That alone exists. No other thing besides It exists.

 

This wonderful truth that they proclaimed, as a result of their

living experience of the Reality, has an extraordinary value for us.

It makes it clear that That, being the sole thing existing, It must

then not only be the subtlest of the subtle, but also the grossest of

the gross. Therefore it is not only beyond the reach of the mind and

the intellect and the rational processes, but it is also directly

perceivable through our senses.

 

Whatever you behold, you behold nothing but God. In the stone, in the

tree, in the mineral, in the metal, in the grossest thing conceivable

He is there as itself, as that itself. He has taken all names and

forms. Nothing exists other than Him. Whatever you see, hear, taste,

touch, smell, whatever you perceive, you are perceiving only God,

including all gross outer things.

 

The question therefore changes. The question is no longer, how can we

see Him? The question is, how on earth can we fail to see Him when

everything that exists is nothing but that one Being in multifarious

shapes, names, forms? Even if you want to, you cannot miss Him. Even

if you say, I will not perceive Him at all, and close all your

senses, there He is within the inwardness of your being. Because, He

is within and without.

 

You cannot say that I will wear a cotton cloth, but I shall not have

anything to do with the warp and woof, the horizontal and vertical

threads, of the cloth. The cloth and the warp and woof are one and

the same. They are inseparable. Our statement would be laughed at.

Our statement would be absurd.

 

When you behold the universe, you behold God. When you are dealing

with the universe, you are dealing with God. Being one without a

second, He is not only the subtlest of the subtle, He is the grossest

of the gross. He is everything. His absolute non-duality means this.

Therefore, no matter what we are encountering, we are encountering

God.

 

For days together it has been raining. It has been raining non-stop.

Torrential rains slanting in this direction and then that direction,

coming under the doors and through the windows. But did it ever occur

to you that this rain which is swelling all the little mountain

streams all over our northern Garhwal region, and which is coming

from all different directions, eventually joins the Ganga and flows

towards the ocean?

 

In this manner, if all the various data of perception that comes as

input into our interior is looked at from the unified angle of there

being nothing but one Brahman manifesting in multifarious names,

forms, colours, shapes, appearances, then no matter how much comes

from what direction, it only takes us towards that one unified

thought: "This is God. This is God. God is appearing before me in

this form, this form, this form—all around me—through all my

senses. I am surrounded by that one element alone. There is no

diversity. This is only unity. It is God sporting in these

innumerable names and forms. It is God alone coming into me through

all the five senses—sights and sounds, everything.

 

If you keep on firmly rooting yourself in this one truth proclaimed

by our sages in ancient times, if you become completely established

in this one idea, one truth, then diversity ceases to be diversity

for you. There is only One, and all these things flow only in one

direction because That alone exists. Our entire life becomes an

unceasing Godward flow, a Reality-oriented onward flow.

 

May thus the truth proclaimed by our ancients help us to see that, in

fact, in truth, we are all the time experiencing God and God alone.

May this truth make our entire life and all its movements a concerted

and unified total flow towards that great Reality—always in God-

thought, never in any other thought, always remembering, always in a

state of awareness of God and God alone.

 

This, therefore, is the living of the truth. This, therefore, is a

Reality-oriented movement of our life-stream. This we must very

clearly see and thus live in awareness of this inner meaning of our

life. Then God is not a sometime-to-be-experienced Being, God becomes

an ever-experienced reality without any barrier of time and distance

between you and God. It is only a manner of speaking about it in

human language. You and God are ever in a state of unity.

 

May the awareness of this truth be a gift that we ask of the Supreme

Being. May this awareness be the only thing that we seek from revered

and beloved Holy Master. It is said that what you ask will be given

to you, what you seek you will find without fail. Therefore, asking

and seeking for this ever-present experience, may we be blessed by

Its bestowal upon us by the Supreme Being and the Holy Master. May

God bless us all!