RE: Interim delusion

[Guest guest]

Hi Sridhar,

 

You asked:

 

"In the interim state where there is some kind of intellectual appreciation

but not the complete experience will not every sadhana be a bit of self

delusion?"

 

The simple answer must be 'yes'. Ultimately, all sAdhanA is part of the

illusion. There is no separate entity, nowhere to go and no path by which to

get there. It seems that, if it is genuinely believed that there is an 'I'

making progress towards some goal, then the related practise must be

counter-productive. One remains at the level of mind, possibly becoming even

more entrenched in the mistaken belief. Providing that the truth of the

matter is genuinely understood, then I guess that nothing that we (appear

to) do can do any real harm but then that also renders sAdhanA a bit

pointless.

 

I recently made the following post to another list:

 

"You rightly point out that the metaphor of our true nature being somehow

'covered up like a seed in a husk' is not a good one. There is no one to

become realised and so on. It is an illusion that something is being sought,

etc. Agree with all of this of course.

 

However, think instead of the metaphor of the gold and the ring. I remember

many years ago when I first heard the similar one of the clay and the pot. I

thought at the time 'but of course it is a pot. Someone could have spent

months moulding the lump of clay into a thing of beauty - now it is

obviously far more than mere clay'.

 

I suggest that you will find that many will take exactly this sort of

stance. They will find it incredibly difficult to accept that the ring is

nothing but gold, never has been and never will be. And this is the point -

there is nothing hidden here, nothing to go and find. You can actually see

that it is gold right now. The problem is simply an attitude of mind -

inability to look at the matter in the right way, even wilful refusal, but

ultimately ignorance. You don't have to go out and dig somewhere to find

your true nature, it is here right now. But this covering of ignorance has

to go somehow before we can look in a new way and see (realise) this truth.

For example, someone has to point out that I could take the ring away, melt

it down and make it into a thimble. It is this apparently new knowledge

coming in apparently from outside that enables us to see things as they

really are, as they always were. And it is only when this happens that we

know that the knowledge was always there, that nothing new has happened,

that we have always been 'realised', that the ignorance was an illusion."

 

Accordingly, my own view is that the only thing that is of value is the

shravaNa, manana and nidhidhyAsana that we discussed some time ago. And,

with respect to this, the aspect that would be of most value would be

shravaNa, which I would understand as listening in person to a Sage (rather

than reading the shruti, for example).

 

Best wishes,

 

Dennis