I am awareness

[Guest guest]

from another list:

 

subject-object dualism

 

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 I 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

"tryer" 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 the 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 meditator 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

 

 

 

 

"It is not the easy or convenient life for which I search but rather life lived

to the edge of all my possibility!" Mary Anne Radmacher-Hershey

------

 

There are 2 messages in this issue.

 

Topics in today's digest:

 

1. Subject-Object Dualism

"Sandeep Chatterjee" <sandeepc

2. (no subject)

SINGINGCAW