Subject-Object Dualism

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Subject-Object Dualism

 

Hi everybody,

 

For some time I have been focusing on this issue. Every meditation worth

it's salt is supposed to dissolve this dualism.

Can one can see that all disharmony and difficulties comes from not knowing

what to do with this subject-object relationship.

 

Ordinarily the world is divided into subjects and objects.

I look at you, I go to work, I sit on a chair.

In all these activities I think of myself as the subject relating to an

object, you, my work, the chair etc. Not really dissolving the dualism(most

of the time we only think we have done so) I see the objects as the source

of my problems. You are my problem, my work is my problem, this chair is a

problem.

 

(When I see myself as a problem I have converted myself into an object.)

 

So I run from objects which I perceive as problems and seek those objects

which I perceive as non problems (in this New Age objects like

seeking,searching for truth, peace, serenity, Enlightenment, Ultimate,

service to other, charity, etc etc)

>From this point of view Life consists of me and things that please me, or

don't please me.

 

Much of the so called meditative techniques (Like Positive Thinking and

like) focuses on emptying the object of the "conditioning" that we have

attached to it. Conditioning like this gives me joy, that doesn't.

I then congratulate myself because such a state is blissful because the

empty object is no longer troublesome to us.

But the dualism still remains because somebody, some inner voice is still

saying "This is It".

A hidden subject remains observing a blank object.

 

When we return to daily life, the blissful state dissipates and we are back

into the subject-object dualism.

 

True meditation does not get rid of the object, but sees the object for what

it is. It is about "being" in which there is no subject or object and hence

no separation.

 

There is still me and there's still you but when I realise that I am just my

experience of you, there is no separation between you and me.

 

 

The other issue of true meditation is that if it is all about achieving

oneness with all things and let's forget the esoteric subjects like God,

Ultimate etc etc and let's look at just a mundane activity like washing my

car, if I can be just totally washing the car there is a paradox here.

 

The paradox is that in "trying" to be one with the washing, with god, with

Truth etc, we still create the dualism, the "trier" and the object of

"trying". In trying to become IT we are separate from IT. The very effort

defeats itself.

 

However there is something that I can do.

 

And that is to be aware of our thoughts separating me from the activity. I

can be aware that I am not fully doing what I am doing (eg eating dinner

and mentally planning etc) Instead of saying or thinking that I'm going to

be one with the washing of the car which is dualistic I can notice what I

am not doing (ie not really washing the car but getting steadily mad that

the car cleaner did not come and how out of shape am I )

 

To me meditation is not about having profound experiences, or great

realisations, not about getting to the 7th Light or becoming ONE.

For me meditation is simply maintaining awareness- of my activities and my

thoughts that separate me from the activity.

 

An Tibetan translation which goes something like this

 

"Awareness is our true self; It's what we are. So we don't have to try to

develop awareness: we simply need to notice how we block awareness with our

thoughts, our fantasies, our opinions, our judgements. We're either in

awareness, which is our natural state or we are doing something else. The

mark of a mature mediator is that most of the time they don't do something

else. They are just here and now, living their life.

Nothing special.

Ultimate freedom is when there is no object and no subject. What is left is

then only Awareness which itself is nothing and yet the whole universe

exists through it."

 

 

What to do when one gets lost in thoughts?

Nothing, just notice that you are lost and you are back in awareness.

For example thinking "I am meditating" is getting lost into the thought of

meditation. That's not meditation.

 

Noticing this thought, rather than looking for Lights, or Bells or Angels is

the real meditation.

>From this premise of awareness as real meditation one stumbles onto a fact

that if and when I am totally the activity I am engaged in, I as I, am no

more at least for this brief period.

 

For God or whatever that brief period is eternity.

 

 

In zikr

 

 

Sandeep