The three dualities

Dear readers,

As I am currently reading a truly amazing commentary about the Gospel of Thomas, I would like to quote some paragraphs of that book. The book is called “The Nondual Teachings of Christ”. I will give further details about that (partly finished) book at the end of the quoted text. As spirituality, when it comes to teachings about nonduality or oneness, goes beyond religions, creeds, beliefs or rituals, and brings us to the highest commonalities shared by all mystics from all traditions, it does not really matter if teachings in this subject matter are originally from Jesus Christ or from the Upanishads. Here is a part of the commentary on the forty eighth saying:

There are different  dualities which exist that need to be penetrated, and they are often penetrated in sequence.

The first is the duality of value or aspect to things. We conceive of phenomena as good or evil, pure or impure, pleasant or painful. However, when we apply the principle of being a mere “passerby” to them, and do not make any conceptual elaborations about them, then comes the realization that there is no real purity or impurity, good or evil, etc. in phenomena at all, and they are of one taste and characteristic. Our thoughts of them do not define them or characterize them, and, as such, our thoughts are baseless and without merit. As this is seen, then all phenomena become clear in the sense that what they are is precisely unfathomable. When we do not think of things, or picture them to ourselves, then we see them as they are in terms of our experience. This is the first duality that is surmounted.

The second is the duality of subject and object. Paradoxically, one surmounts this by seeing a new, different “subject” behind the commonly perceived subject. Normally we perceive our sense of self to be identified with our mind, our wishes, our thoughts, etc. but these are all objects which occur in a more fundamental awareness. When we negate our mind and all its attendant phenomena, then we break through to the awareness in which this mind occurs. It is as if the former subject becomes an object of a new, deeper subject. This new “subject” has no sense of “I” or “mine” at all, but is like a clear, vast and empty presence in which all things live, move and have their being. Here we know ourselves to be the soul, and not the mind or body, and from this realization comes the first real breakthrough into the kingdom of God. We see that there can be a way out of ignorance, because we are not ignorance, inherently. We are awareness and awareness is the very definition of existence. The calm that comes from this truth is deep and joyful, but it is not the end, however.

The third is the duality between essential, nondual awareness and phenomena. Once the witnessing awareness is realized, we often begin to reify or solidify its difference and distinction from phenomena. Awareness is empty while phenomena are full; awareness is still while phenomena are in motion. By resting in this awareness more and more, however, such distinctions also begin to fall away and one realizes an unbroken unity to all things. It is not the same as conceiving of all things as consisting of primordial matter – as materialists and secularists do – nor is it like viewing all things as God’s creation. It is something inconceivable.

I think that the author has done a great job in skating around a subject matter that is beyond words. One should always remember that such texts are only pointers. Everybody has to inquire on his own in this subject matter to realize what has been described here.

About the Gospel of Thomas: “The Gospel of Thomas is perhaps one of the most enigmatic of religious scriptures. Yet it is also very likely that it is the earliest account of the teachings of Jesus, and therefore the most authentic record we have today as to what he truly taught. Therefore, to understand this Gospel is to get at the heart of what the historical Jesus said far beyond how he has been (mis)interpreted through the centuries and by later followers.”

The quote is from the e-Book “The Nondual Teachings of the Christ” from Charles Limcango. Please note that this book is still not finished and new volumes are published regularly. The latest (9th) has been published this month. He releases sets of 4 volumes in one book as the work gets done. So, books with volumes from 1-4 and 5-8 are already available.

Seeking Realization

The Seeker

Realization is not an action somebody accomplishes. The idea of realizing the self implies a path from an unrealized self to a realized self. Realization of the self as a goal cannot be permanent. Something permanent has no beginning and no end. Hence the goal is already there, the self is always realized. The intention to realize the Self is itself a hindrance. Our nature is always free but we are making huge efforts to become free. Who is making these efforts and trying to realize the self? It is the I-thought that has wrongly identified itself with the mind that veils our happiness and makes realization of the self a goal. This implies two selves. A non realized self and a goal, a realized self. And here starts the whole process of searching. Going to a guru, performing rituals, reciting mantras, doing prostrations, meditating, reading books and taking all kinds of hardships upon us to walk firmly on the path towards realization hoping to reach our goal in this life. The irony in all this striving for realization is that we have never been separated from our true self. We falsely believe it to be found somewhere, to experience it, to realize it, because we search with our mind and the mind can only exist in duality. So, our task is to find the real nature of the mind. We will discover that there is no such thing as a mind. It is in understanding that we are not the body, neither the mind that we will unveil our true self and the I-thought will be transcended eventually. We already know this freedom. If we wouldn’t know it, why would we spend our lives searching for it? But we must take care not to use wrong tools. It lies in the palm of our hands. It is beauty and love in its purest essence. We are that, lets embrace it in silence and cut those chains that hold us prisoners.

Love,

Shanti

How much closer can we get?

Gulliver’s View

Going out in the world as an individual and visiting an abandoned house gives me the sensation that I am close to those objects outside of me. I can touch them, I can smell them, I can see them and I can hear the noises around me. But what does the perceiver really perceive. Are the perceptions and sensations my body and sense organs deliver, really the world that is there, outside of me? Where do these perceptions and sensations really appear? Where do they come from? What makes me perceive something as beautiful that somebody else perceives as ugly? Is it me that creates this world or am I only perceiving the world? Am I the world that I create? Who am I?

I am the screen and the film projected on it. As long as I know that I am the screen and the film, I know that I am the perceiver and the perceived, hence I don’t “know” anymore. As soon as I forget the screen and believe the manyfold appearances on the screen to be different from me, I start to name them, to like them or to dislike them. My vision gets veiled and I fall into the confusion called ignorance of the true self. With that ignorance rises all the suffering inherent to that wrong belief of a world outside of me, apart from me. At the same time the belief that I am a body or I am a mind comes into being. Both, the belief of an outside world and the belief that I am a body and/or a mind always come into being together bringing about all the thoughts and hence the suffering inherent to that illusion. This illusion brings about distance, it brings about suffering, it brings about all negative emotions like attachment, aversion, pride and jealousy. But, behind this illusion is a pristine unborn, unchanging consciousness that has never been affected neither by the illusionary outside world of thoughts, neither by the suffering the thoughts generate themselves. It is the ‘I’-thought that separates itself and creates this world of suffering because it has forgotten its true nature and believes itself to be the body and/or the mind. It has forgotten that it is the screen and the scenery playing so beautifully on it. And it is only in moments of beauty and love that the veil opens a little bit, like the clouds sometimes open up and make visible the ever present and pristine sky unaffected by them. Be-ing… is meditation, is awareness. It is not awareness of something. There is nothing to be aware of. As soon as there is something to be aware of, there is ignorance of the true self. The true self IS pure pristine awareness. It is the screen and the film. The screen has no limits. It is vast radiant space, unborn, limitless and indescribable. How can we find the screen? We can only find the screen if we do not search for it. If the mind searches it, it is damned to never find it. Because the mind is thought and always arises in duality. Atman, which is Brahman, is beyond duality and can never be found as something, as an object of perception or thought. It unveils in pure pristine awareness, which is meditation, oneness, which is love and beauty in its purest essence.

 (Please let me know if you find some errors or misinterpretations in my text. English is not my mother language and I do my best efforts to be clear, but I guess that sometimes I make mistakes or use words in wrong contexts. Thank you for reading my blog.)

Where has the dream gone?

What am I? I am the screen and the image projected on the screen. There is no image separate from the screen. The image is the screen, there is no independent image on the screen. “The world is Other, the body is Me and the Mind is Me!”, thinks the I-thought that has fooled himself. All is One, all is perfect in Love. As life happens to Me the movie goes on in all its beauty and love in its continual flow in the Now. There is no ‘I’ and there is no ‘Other’. The past is gone and the future is an illusion. There is nothing witnessing the ‘I’ and the ‘Other’ because the ‘Witness’, the ‘I’ and the ‘Other’ are all one in the ultimate present Now. What and where is the world, the body and the mind without Me? Where has the dream gone when I woke up?

To reflect on yourself

Shunryu Suzuki

The big mind in which we must have confidence is not something which you can experience objectively. It is something which is always with you, always on your side. Your eyes are on your side, for you cannot see your eyes, and your eyes cannot see themselves. Eyes only see things outside, objective things. If you reflect on yourself, that self is not your true self any more. You cannot project yourself as some objective thing to think about. The mind which is always on your side is not just your mind, it is universal mind, always the same, not different from another’s mind.

— Shunryu Suzuki – Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (p. 128)

(image source: http://www.delphinequeme.com)

Like a Dream

Nagarjuna

There is no reality in a dream but nevertheless we believe in the reality of the things seen in a dream. After waking up, we recognize the falsity of the dream and we smile at ourselves. In the same way, the person deep in the sleep of the fetters (saṃyojananidra) clings (abhiniviśate) to the things that do not exist; but when he has found the Path, at the moment of enlightenment, he understands that there is no reality and laughs at himself. This is why it is said: like in a dream.

Moreover, by the power of sleep (nidrābala), the dreamer sees something there where there is nothing. In the same way, by the power of the sleep of ignorance (avidyānidrā), a person believes in the existence of all kinds of things that do not exist, e.g., ‘me’ and ‘mine’ (ātmātmīya), male and female, etc.

Moreover, in a dream, we enjoy ourselves although there is nothing enjoyable there; we are irritated although there is nothing irritating there; we are frightened although there is nothing to be afraid of there. In the same way, beings of the threefold world (traidhātukasattva), in the sleep of ignorance, are irritated although there is nothing irritating, enjoy themselves although there is nothing enjoyable, and frightened although there is nothing to be afraid of.

— Nagarjuna – Mahaprajñaparamitopadesa – Chapter XI

 

Love

Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi Devi)

The common expression is ‘I love you.’ But instead of ‘I love you,’ it would be better to say, ‘I am love — I am the embodiment of pure love.’ Remove the I and you, and you will find that there is only love. It is as if love is imprisoned between the I and you. Remove the I and you, for they are unreal; they are self-imposed walls that don’t exist. The gulf between I and you is the ego. When the ego is removed the distance disappears and the I and you also disappear. They merge to become one — and that is love. You lend the I and you their reality. Withdraw your support and they will disappear. Then you will realise, not that ‘I love you,’ but that ‘I am that all-embracing love.’

— Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi Devi)

(image source: hinter-den-schlagzeilen.de)

Nasadiya Sukta

The Hymn of Creation

There was neither non-existence nor existence then.
There was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.
What stirred?
Where?
In whose protection?
Was there water, bottlemlessly deep?

There was neither death nor immortality then.
There was no distinguishing sign of night nor of day.
That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse.
Other than that there was nothing beyond.

Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning,
with no distinguishing sign, all this was water.
The life force that was covered with emptiness,
that One arose through the power of heat.

Desire came upon that One in the beginning,
that was the first seed of mind.
Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom
found the bond of existence and non-existence.

Their cord was extended across.
Was there below?
Was there above?
There were seed-placers, there were powers.
There was impulse beneath, there was giving forth above.

Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced?
Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen
– perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not –
the One who looks down on it,
in the highest heaven, only He knows
or perhaps even He does not know.

— Rig Veda – Mandala 10 – Nasadiya Sukta (Hymn of Creation) (transl. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty)

(image (c) Gary Tonge – Grand Universe)

When you see thoughts as they are, they will dissolve like clouds in the sky

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

If you vanquish ego-clinging today, tonight you will be enlightened. If you vanquish it tomorrow, you will be enlightened tomorrow night. But if you never vanquish it, you will never be enlightened. Yet ” I ” is just a thought. Thoughts and feelings have no intrinsic solidity, form, shape, or color. When a thought of anger arises in the mind with such force that you feel aggressive and destructive, is anger brandishing a weapon? Is it at the head of an army?

Can it burn things like fire, crush them like a rock, or carry them away like a violent river? No. Anger, like any other thought or feeling, has no true existence—- not even a definitive location in your body, speech, or mind. It is just like wind roaring in empty space.

Instead of allowing wild thoughts to enslave you, realize their essential emptiness. If you subdue the hatred within, you will discover that there is not a single enemy left outside. Otherwise, even if you could overpower everyone in the whole world, your hatred will only grow stronger. Indulging it will never make it subside. The only truly intolerable enemy is hatred itself.

Examine the nature of hatred; you will find that it is no more than a thought.

When you see it as it is, it will dissolve like a cloud in the sky.

— Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

(image source: unknown)

Meditation

Swami Vivekananda

Meditation has been laid stress upon by all religions. The meditative state of mind is declared by the Yogis to be the highest state in which the mind exists. When the mind is studying the external object, it gets identified with it, loses itself. To use the simile of the old Indian philosopher: the soul of man is like a piece of crystal, but it takes the colour of whatever is near it. Whatever the soul touches … it has to take its colour. That is the difficulty. That constitutes the bondage. The colour is so strong, the crystal forgets itself and identifies itself with the colour. Suppose a red flower is near the crystal and the crystal takes the colour and forgets itself, thinks it is red. We have taken the colour of the body and have forgotten what we are. All the difficulties that follow come from that one dead body. All our fears, all worries, anxieties, troubles, mistakes, weakness, evil, are from that one great blunder — that we are bodies. This is the ordinary person. It is the person taking the colour of the flower near to it. We are no more bodies than the crystal is the red flower.

The practice of meditation is pursued. The crystal knows what it is, takes its own colour. It is meditation that brings us nearer to truth than anything else.

— Swami Vivekananda – Washington Hall, San Francisco, April 3, 1900