response to mario's message

[Guest guest]

Struggle and the teachings in " I am that " are at

complete opposites of the spectrum. To live as

we are told in this book involves no stuggle.

 

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[Guest guest]

Michael Pen

 

nisargadatta

Tuesday, March 26, 2002 12:55 AM

response to mario's message

 

Struggle and the teachings in "I am that" are atcomplete opposites of the spectrum. To live aswe are told in this book involves no stuggle.

 

And yet Mario is quoting Nisargadatta's words. N's teachings are full of such paradoxes. He speaks of struggle in a way that involves no struggle. He speaks of the folly of practicing technques, exercises, forms of sadhana and yet spent every day of his life performing devotional exercises to his guru. He suggests that the outer world is empty, an illusion, and, at the same time, that it is not other than the glorious I Amness; that I Amness is the summum bonum of existence and, at the same time, has nothing essential to do with who we really are. He also suggests that any effort on the part of the individual ego to achieve liberation only takes one further away from the goal and, at the same time, spent every day of his life assisting individual egos to see through their self-reifying illusions. Please note that I term these paradoxes and not contradictions or logical inconsistencies. No wonder the old masters said the deep truth cannot be spoken. In light of Nisargadatta's stunning paradoxes, existence appears to be some sort of sleight-of-mind, a cosmic shell game in which death is the punch line of a joke almost no one gets. Yet, this mysterious play of consciousness is perhaps as it should be if love is the source, for only love would make conditional existence, with its occasional horrors, an illusion and Nisargadatta's stateless state, "prior to consciousness" perfectly safe and natural. The effortless fall into the highest, hard to attain goal is inevitable. Thus, Ramana, when he was about to pass from this world... a disciple implored, "Master, please don't leave us." To which Ramana replied, "Where could I go?"

Colin Yardley

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

I find it hard to understand why would anyone like to continue on with their

petty ideas and concepts, in spite of what Nisargadatta has said.

Ok if you don't like the word struggle read the following passage

 

Q: By suppressing my thoughts and feelings I shall provoke a reaction

M: I am not talking of supression. Just refuse attention.

Q: Must I not use effort to arrest the movements of the mind?

M: It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between the thoughts

rather than at the thoughts. When you happen to walk in a crowd, you do not

fight every man you meet - you just find your way between.

Q: if I use my will to control the mind it only strengthens the ego

M: of course. When you fight, you invite a fight. But when you do not resist,

you meet with no resistance. When you refuse to play the game you are out of it.

 

 

Now you can interpret this to mean that you can hold on to all your past

tendencies and desires, that everything is perfect and there is nothing to be

done. But in fact can you say without a doubt that you KNOW who you really are?

I mean aren't you still holding on to an idea only? There is a big difference

between intellectually understanding something and actually being it. The Self

cannot be understood with the mind, because it creates the mind. Can a torch

illumine the Sun? One needs to become the Self to KNOW the Self, even talking

about it is useless.

 

The other way to interpret it is to realize there is a chipping away, a

cleansing to be done, a paradigm shift to be experienced, an acceptance of

reality, and because of the natural resistance that will arise as a result, the

attachments to our ways, there will be struggle that will follow.

 

If you can simply turn your attention away, then don't respond to this e-mail,

and see if you don't experience supression of anger as a result.

 

Mario Laing

 

 

Michael Pen <law_of_creation on Tue, 26 Mar 2002 03:55:43 -0500 (EST)

wrote:

 

 

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Mario Laing