Satsang with Nome: None in Bondage, None Liberated

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Satsang at Sociaty of Abidance in Truth, (SAT) www.satramana.org

None in Bondage, None Liberated

January 5, 2004

 

[N. signifies Nome; Q. signifies Questioner; laughter means that

everyone was laughing, not just the speaker.]

 

Om Om Om

(Silence)

 

N.: None bound, none liberated: This is one way of pointing out the

innate state of Self-Realization. This the state of the Self as it

is, Being as Being is, with no trace of individuality to give rise to

bondage or its consequent suffering.

 

In the pursuit of Self-Realization, do you practice presuming that

you are in one state seeking to attain another state? Of course, you

don't want to retain whatever state that you think that you are in

now. Nevertheless, it is the nonexistence of the individual ego

entity that is said to constitute Self-Realization, or Liberation as

we also call it.

 

Whatever you assume yourself to be, that is what you seem to bound

by. Who is bound? The one who so assumed. The Maharshi has pointed

out that what is pivotal is the inquiry, "Who am I?", that is, to

know yourself and to be free of the "I" mode or "I" notion. This is

so important.

 

However the "I" is defined, so will be the corresponding experience.

If you define the "I" and misidentify as an embodied individual, your

waking state world is your experience. If you seek highest Truth, you

will want to vacate that experience. But how will you do so? Can the

waking state individual vacate the waking state? Can the body vacate

the embodied state? How is Liberation to be? How is there going to be

Self-Realization?

 

If the misidentification, or the attribute of the "I," is the mind,

inclusive of every kind of thought, the corresponding experience of

that mental experiencer is all the realms or states of the mind, its

modes and all of thought's permutations. Self-Realization is said to

be the state of no-mind or Liberation from the mind. How is there

going to be Liberation from the mind? Will the mind liberate itself,

or will that be, as the Maharshi says, like the thief dressing up as

the policeman to catch the thief which is himself? Will the thief be

apprehended?

 

Return to the Maharshi's quintessential instruction. Know yourself;

Who am I? Find out if you are an embodied individual to begin with.

Find out if you are the one who has mental modes or travels through

mental states to begin with. Liberation comes by clarity of Knowledge

regarding one's identity. This is not so much a transformation from

one self to another, but knowing, that is realizing, the Self, or

real Existence, that you are and ceasing to misidentify with a

second.

 

The Upanishad says that where there is One without a second, there is

no fear. Why is there no fear? Because there is no possibility of

disruption of one's happiness or one's Existence. Sat-Chit-Ananda,

Being-Consciousness-Bliss is one and the same.

 

Clear Knowledge is needed regarding your Existence. This is your very

Being. As long as there is the assumption that you are individual,

there is bound to be bondage. Because bondage is not your natural

state, you will yearn for freedom. If you are spiritually-minded, you

will pursue that freedom and happiness in Liberation, Self-

Realization. So, you should realize what your Self is. It is not a

body and it is not one who inhabits a body. It is not something

sensed, and you are not one endowed with senses. It is not in the

mind, and it is not something that possesses a mind. It is not

an "I." The real nature of "I" is utterly "I"-less.

 

So, Self-Realization is described as: neither bound nor free, no one

bound and no one liberated. It is because the ego, itself, does not

exist. In Self-Realization, the Self alone knows itself. There is no

second thing capable of doing so. You do not change from a bound

state to a liberated state. At the start of spiritual practice, it

seems that way, but if the practice be one of Self-Knowledge,

inquiring "Who am I?", the very one who is bound proves to be

nonexistent. In its place it That which is always liberated. So, none

bound, none liberated. There is no individual entity involved. The

infinite Being-Consciousness-Bliss, which is your real nature, has

never been born and has never been bound. Similarly, the ego-entity

has not been born for it has not started.

 

To inquire means to utterly abandon the ego, the assumption of being

an individual, and all that is appended to it by way of definition.

The entirety of that is nothingness, and that constitutes the

entirety of samsara, the repetitive cycle of birth, illusion, and

death.

 

You must deeply, thoroughly inquire within yourself, "Who am I?" What

do you take yourself to be?

 

Your desires are for someone. Your fears are for someone. Who is that

one? Your birth is for someone. Your death is for someone. Who is

that one? Everything between birth and death is for someone. Who is

that? Put the question to yourself in the innermost manner.

 

The state of Self-Realization is just the nature of Being as it is,

which has no birth, is utterly nonobjective, completely formless, and

forever undifferentiated. For it, nothing is created, nothing

happens. That alone is true. Therefore, it is absurd to say that you

do not have Realization or that you have Realization, as if it were a

possession. It is absurd to speak of this Realization as coming

slowly, as coming quickly, as coming in a piecemeal fashion, as

coming in degrees, or any other such manner. The Reality, which is

the Self, does not come and go; nor is there anyone else for whom it

comes and goes.

 

If, in your heart, you yearn for Self-Realization, with the

recognition that it is the highest good and that it is the sole-

purpose of life, know yourself as you are. You are not waking,

dreaming, and not in deep sleep. You are not with thoughts or without

thoughts. You are not with any kind of form. That which you are in

Truth, that you are always. The characteristic of Reality is its

being invariable.

 

If Self-Realization be true, it must be of the very nature of That

which is realized. If what you understand yourself to be is true, it

must be of the very nature of that Reality, which is nondual and

invariable. If what you take yourself to be, upon examining your own

mind and experience, is something other than the Reality, that is not

you.

 

(Silence)

 

Do not assume about yourself. Know yourself. Do not imagine about

yourself. Know yourself. If you know yourself, that is Brahman.

 

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I will post questions and answers in subsequent postings.

 

Not two,

Richard