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When an inquirer seeks out and is prepared to hear a spiritually awakened director, teacher or guide, their association together (which is really just speaking and hearing within the one Consciousness) can be referred to as 'Satsang'. The following are some questions from inquirers to Clearsight.
My mother died from a brain tumor at age 59 and a customarily beautiful woman looked like someone out of a concentration camp. Was that suffering 'non-existent'?? It was horribly real to me. I would value your thoughts and reflections. Alan.
Dear Alan
I too am very familiar with suffering, my own and that of others, and it was largely because of this that I began some years ago to search for a deeper and more direct experience of God and a clearer understanding of what could be called Truth or Reality.
Like you, I was sure of one thing -- that the suffering I experienced or encountered seemed very (horribly) real to me and to the other body/minds I observed.
Adding to my mental agony were unresolved questions around 'innocence', 'deservedness' and the 'love' of the all-knowing, all-powerful God I believed in and endeavored to serve.
Of course, at that time, and until fairly recently, while I was grappling with God's supposed omniscience and omnipotence, I had not properly understood the full implications of His/Its being omnipresent, which I realise now is neglected or disregarded by most Christians, theologians and spiritual seekers due to our conditioning.
Why is the omnipresence of God (or of the Ultimate Reality etc.) so relevant to the issue of suffering, you may ask. Most Christians believe that omnipresence means that God is with us everywhere and in every way .... 'if I fly to the ends of the earth, O Lord, thou art there etc.' and 'Lo, I am with you always etc.'
This is not the correct meaning of omnipresence and the misunderstanding of this 'quality or characteristic of God' is what leads to so much suffering in the human mind.
Omnipresence means simply that 'God' is everywhere and that there is nowhere where 'God' isn't. If 'God' is everywhere, He/It must be everything! There cannot be 'God' here and something else over there or apart from 'God'.
In other words, it's all 'God' -- The Godhead or ground of all being and the trillions of manifestations of 'God' which appear separate, but are in fact, different expressions of the One.
If I claim to understand 'God', or have faith in 'God' or pray to 'God', such activity necessarily involves a subject and an object -- me and 'God', or vice versa. When comprehend the full and real meaning of omnipresence, we see that there can be no subject here and object there -- it is all 'God' -- all the One.
When Moses said/wrote: 'Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one ... there is no other beside Him.' he was misunderstood to have meant 'there is no other god beside Him' or that He was the only god.
What was really being conveyed was the truth, understood by all sages in all ages, that there is nothing else but 'God' or the Absolute or Consciousness or Whatever.
Incidentally, this truth or 'fact' regarding reality is now understood not only by mystics and sages, but by a growing number of top scientists as well.
For instance, the Quantum Physicist, Erwin Schrodinger, has written: "The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist. ..."
A friend of mine commented recently, "Unfortunately the implications of quantum mechanics are still being avoided assiduously by the majority of physicists almost eighty years after he made that amazing statement.
His colleague, Niels Bohr, said famously that anyone not profoundly disturbed by quantum mechanics has not understood it. Unsurprisingly perhaps, most scientists (like most theologians) prefer not to be profoundly disturbed."
So, Alan, are you beginning to see the connection between the aforegoing and suffering? Can you see what Gangaji was driving at when she writes: "In a direct meeting between subject and object, sufferer and suffering, both disappear. Both are discovered, in reality, to be nonexistent."
In the ultimate sense, there are not a lot of different people, some of them suffering and the others not -- there is only the One -- God if you like -- and within that One, different phenomena are arising and passing constantly -- including suffering.
There is no sufferer apart from God though appearances to us indicate otherwise. There is no suffering that is not God -- it is all God -- I and thou, subject and object etc. are seen to be non-existant in the final or ultimate sense -- it is all God!
The apostle Paul must have understood something of this deep and liberating truth when he dictated to his amanuensis (it seems that Paul apparently suffered from partial blindness): "... for I am making up in my body the sufferings of Christ."
He intuited that there was only the Christ, the One, and that he was in no way separate from the Christ (God -- I in you and you in me) and that the suffering that he was experiencing was in fact the suffering not of a separate egoic entity, but of the Christ or God Himself!
The deeper knowing that Paul had, that must have come through his 'it is no longer (the egoic) I that live' shift of consciousness, was that the omniscient, omnipotent God was not looking down on him from on high, nor was He even with him in his suffering, but that God/Christ/Spirit was him and that he (Paul) and the suffering were in no way separate from what God IS.
Now Alan, does that mean that your mother did not suffer greatly and that you, as a helpless onlooker, did not suffer greatly also because you wanted so badly to take the pain, or bring about a cure, but couldn't? No, in the relative sense, that suffering was very real while it lasted, but not in the Absolute.
It mattered greatly to all concerned, but it did not matter absolutely, because suffering, like all phenomena and experience comes and goes, but our mothers and we are essentially That which does not come and go, our true nature (our Christ nature) is that which eternally IS. Hence: 'O death where is your sting? O grave where is your victory?'
When one stands in front of a mirror, it looks like there is a mirror with a reflection in it. If anyone were asked, 'Is there a real reflection in the mirror?' they would probably say, yes.
But if you were to ask them then to go up to the mirror and take hold of the reflection or produce it as a reality in any objective sense, they of course, would be quite unable to do so.
The only thing that is ultimately real (in the physical sense) is the mirror itself and a reflection has no reality apart from that mirror -- it is a phenomenon that comes and goes etc. within the mirror.
This is a very crude illustration, but may serve as a pointer to the sublime Reality I've been discussing here.
In this light, of course, the more correct translation of Rom. 8:28 is: "In all things God works together for good as those who love him, as those who are called according to his purpose." because it is all God, there is no 'other' to work but God. There is only His overall purpose, none other.
It is all working out for the ultimate good of those manifestations of God that are aware of their true nature, AND for those that aren't.
When we see this, we shall, as Tony de Mello said: share something of that marvellous mystical vision of Julian of Norwich who uttered what for me is the loveliest and most consoling sentence I have ever read: "And all things shall be well; and all things shall be well; and all manner of things shall be well!"
Your ever well-wisher,
Pete S.
Gurukula
I would like to take up with you the assertion made by some spiritual teachers, "there is no doer and nothing to be done". Is this teaching meant to be applied to the spiritual path specifically, or does it have a much broader application to life. This topic came into my consciousness as I was considering a new avenue of employment. There are courses that would eventually allow me to find work as a personal care assistant once qualified. If I followed up on this opportunity, this would be a deliberate action on my part and I wondered if acts like this run against the grain of the teaching.
Dear Maria,
An important thing to keep in awareness is that all true truth teaching is sometimes paradoxical. Paradox means that two seemingly opposite teachings can be true at the same time. As we go deeper into the teachings, we discover that what seemed to be opposites are really two sides of the same coin, so to speak.
The coin, to continue with this metaphor, in this case is variously referred to as the One, the Absolute, God, Divine Mind, Consciousness or whatever. Let us use the term Consciousness for now.
The one over-riding reality kept in awareness constantly by the sage (awakened person) is that Consciousness is all there is ... and there is nothing else at all ... ever. All the different 'things' you see around you are really expressions or manifestations of this one Consciousness. That is what you are, what I am, and what everyone else is. All phenomena, including our thoughts, feelings and sensory perceptions, are simply manifestations of the Unmanifest.
OK, so you, as a particular form, can relax, because neither you nor any of the other forms are the doers of any action ... Consciousness is the doer.
Imagine a hand inside a glove. From a very limited (and illusary) perspective, we appear to one another like separate fingers with different shapes, all acting independently, but what we all are in reality is the hand inside the glove!
As a limited form, you are not the doer, any more than the glove on a hand is the doer which, for example, grasps a cup. But as the Formless One, you ARE the doer because you are also the hand inside the glove (and note, inside the whole glove and not just a particular finger of the glove!).
So this is where the paradox comes about ... in one sense you are not the doer, but in another sense -- the ultimate sense -- You are the doer.
When I say, 'You are the doer', I don't mean the Maria that was born on a certain date and who has a particular story etc. etc. but the One who was You before Maria was born! And who will still be You long after the form, once named Maria, has disappeared forever.
What does this mean in practical terms? Firstly, that you need feel no guilt over anything you ever did nor can you feel any pride of achievement because your life was simply unfolding exactly as it was (and is) meant to according to the Will of God (or Whatever). Realizing and accepting this, for most people, will lead to a big load being lifted off the mind (this is one of the meanings of Enlightenment).
It also means that nobody did anything 'good' or 'bad' to you ... it just happened according to the perfect Will of God. So, in the ultimate sense, there never was any other to harm or wrong you, and now, there is nobody to resent or even forgive ... forgiveness becomes a non-issue.
But this awesome truth also means that while maintaining your awareness of yourself as a particular expression of Consciousness, you also hold in awareness the knowing that you are Consciousness Itself ... that is who you really are ... the Formless beneath (or inside) the form (and so is everyone else!)
No doubt, you are aware, that as a form, you have a certain programming like a computer. You like some things and dislike others. You're good at some activities and not so good at other pursuits. You will think something is a good idea and you will do it or you will think something else is a lousy idea and not do it etc. Then there is the question of energy. You will find that you're either energetically inclined toward certain things or not so. It is clear then, that your life-experience in this dualistic realm will unfold according to your unique programming and the programming of those around you.
So Maria, if you feel inclined to be a personal care assistant and can see that it would help to bring in some extra needed income and the opportunity is there for you to do the appropriate training, then you can take it that this is Consciousness (the essential You) moving your form forward in this direction. Then, without any any sense of impulsion or resistance, you, the form, can consciously cooperate with whatever clear idea or good feeling to do a particular thing that has been given to you by the Formless. You act as if all the choices were yours (the form's choices), but secretly keep in awareness that your life, and everybody else's life, (as a form) is being lived by the Formless and impersonal Self.
As one who is well advanced in awakening, I feel you have much to give to the world through your active involvement in it. If you have an impulse or an idea to do something, take it as the prompting of Consciousness to enrich your life-experience and the life-experience of those around you. Awakening is not just for our own interior experience, it happens so the Light of Consciousness can shine more freely into this largely unconscious world, and so that others may be enlightened by our presence and inspired activity. Only a moving car can be steered and it's only when we take the first steps in a new direction that Consciousness can bring It's own work to fulfillment in and through us.
Your ever well-wisher,
Pete S.
Gurukula
Philosophers ask me, "Who is chosing not to think (to identify with the mind-made story)? Is it something that happens to me or am I doing it?" And, of course, the answer is, "When it looks to you *as if* you were choosing not to think, then that is what's happening." So all those arguments, for those philosophers among you, "Is there a doer?" "There is no doer." "Yes, there is a doer." They are both right and they are both wrong. So put the two together -- yes, there is a doer if you look at it from this perspective and there is no doer looking from that perspective, and then, let's forget the question and stop thinking ... Enlightenment begins when we awaken from our conditioned thinking. ~ Eckhart Tolle. The Secret of Happiness, DVD (disk 2).
PS. You might like to read Tolle on Awakened Doing.
"What does it mean to desire to know the truth, and what is the truth that you speak of? From Ron, who yearns for true freedom"
Dear Ron,
Thank you for your inquiry, I sense that you are in earnest, and if so, you are very fortunate, for it means that Grace is already working in you and that It is doing so for no small purpose.
Tradition tells us that the question, "What does it mean to desire to know the truth?" was once put by a seeker to the Buddha as he taught by the side of a great river. He immediately asked the seeker to wade into the river with him and when the water was waist deep, the Buddha suddenly seized the seeker by the back of the neck and held his head under the water.
The seeker struggled violently but could not raise his head to breathe, and only when he was at the point of being asphyxiated, did the Buddha release his grip so that the seeker could raise his head and gulp in the life-saving air.
When the seeker had recovered himself, the Buddha said to him compassionately, "When you desire the truth as desperately as you desired air just now, you will most certainly find it."
That is what it means to desire to know the truth. The Bible states the same thing in a similar way. It says, "You shall find Me when you seek Me with ALL your heart". ... not with some of it ... nor even with most of it but with ALL of your heart (and mind and body and spirit etc.)
Most thoughtful people have a passing interest in philosophy or religion or truth, and a few have a strong interest in these things, but very very few desire to know the truth so earnestly that they will sacrifice everything else to find it.
Jesus indicated this important principle when he told the parable of the merchant who found the One Bright Pearl, but to get it, he had to sell, to give up all his other good, beautiful costly (but inferior) pearls to get the One that became known as the Pearl of Great Price.
You see, Ron, it is not really the evil that is the enemy of the good or the out and out lie that is the enemy of the truth, the real enemy is much more subtle and dangerous. It is not the bad, but the good that is the enemy of THE BEST. It is not the obvious lie, but the half-truth that is the enemy of TRUTH.
What keeps most people from finding the truth and being free at last from all suffering is not the bad things (perhaps licentiousness, drugs, crime, materialism etc.) but perfectly good things like friendships, family commitments, careers, church or other religious activities, sport, hobbies, the television etc. etc.
It's not that our ordinary life is wrong, but that we want the truth AS WELL as the life we have been used to living. We want truth as an extra ... something more ... to what we already have and truth is never revealed to us on that basis. We must want truth first and foremost and be prepared to give up everything else to get it ...everything ... even the good things in order to get the best.
In the New Testament, Jesus often referred to truth as "The Kingdom of Heaven" so when the Master said: "Seek first the Kingdom ... and all these other things will be added unto you" He was teaching his disciples that when we put the discovery of truth first on our list of life priorities, then all the other 'things' that are needed by our mind and body will be provided, but if we put 'things' first, we will have neither. In other words, He wanted us to know that the best things in life are not things.
Now, Ron, let me ask, are you prepared to give time and money and effort to find and possess this Pearl of Great Price? Are you prepared to purchase and study carefully some books I may suggest to you? Are you prepared to get those books even if you have to miss a meal or two to pay for them?
You may feel you don't have enough time for such study, but are you prepared to get up an hour earlier, which may mean going to bed earlier or going without some sleep, to learn from the great spiritual teachers? If you really yearn for true freedom, as you say, you will show it by what you do and the lengths to which you are prepared to go in order to see, know and experience the truth that can set you free.
You may like to see our related page which explores the idea of Priming the Pump.
As for the second part of your question: "... what is truth that is spoken of here?" it is the truth that will radically change your view of yourself in particular and life in general.
If I am not mistaken, you have probably thought of yourself until now as only an object among many different objects in this world or universe. Truth will reveal that you, the real you are much much more than any object, that you are, broadly speaking, the Subject or Source of all objects or phenomena.
In your case, however, that Source is expressing Itself through your unique mind-body-personality which has been conditioned in a particular way. It is as if the Source or Consciousness (no word can ever describe It) is looking out through your eyes and having a (your name) experience. In short, you could truthfully say, I am (as the Source) now here as this (the form that you are).
In other words, when the truth is encountered, understood, and experienced, you see more than you ever saw before. You no longer see yourself merely as one wave among many waves that have arisen somewhere and are now rolling on to break on some distant beach. The size, speed, power, endurance, appearance, history and other qualities of your 'waveness' are seen to be no longer important.
Instead you see that what is important about you is your 'waterness' or 'wetness' which makes you one with the vast mighty ocean beneath the millions of waves. Oh, yes, you will still have an identity as a wave, but not only as a wave. Your true identity is with the wave AND the ocean of which your wave and all the other waves are just a tiny part ... a temporary movement on the surface of a limitless and eternal stillness.
Thus, when 'wave situations' arise when one feels sad or happy, disappointed or hopeful, frustrated or fulfilled etc. the individual who has seen, known and experienced the truth about the self and about life will be able to face these things without anxiety, fear, possessiveness or attachment. A great calm and equanimity is felt and a radiance best described as joy, peace and love is profoundly and deeply experienced.
I should finally add, that you do not feel or experience these wonders as 'someone'. The old conditioned ego that once posed as you has now been tamed and transmuted into a useful vehicle for getting certain things done in the transitory world perceived by our senses.
No, you do not so much experience this joy, peace and love as discover you ARE this joy peace and love -- you have realized yourself at last, you finally 'know' who or what you and everyone and everything else really is ... in essence, you are the eternal perfect Source of All.
"I see now that what is to be destroyed is not the ego itself but the malignant element in the ego ... the sense of 'me' being the doer in 'my' life experience."
Yes, it's a relief, isn't it. Destroying the ego, even if it could be accomplished (which I strongly doubt) would somehow mean that a 'higher' Self did the job on the lower self. If this was the case, then it would amount to self-rejection and worse, a kind of self-hate and this can never be the basis of true freedom.
By Grace, we know that Consciousness, is the Source of all things including our unique mind-body-personality -- or, if you like, the ego. This Consciousness, which we essentially are and which everything is, rejects nothing; it embraces all because it IS the ALL! Nor, of course, can it 'hate' anything because Its primal quality is love ... or to be more precise ... compassion.
Consciousness is also Truth or Reality. It is What-Is and stands against unreality or the lie. The more we awaken to Consciousness, the more the light of Truth reveals the lie ... especially the self-induced illusion or lie about our ego being a volitional entity separate from all others and the 'person' different from all other such persons or things.
Often the seeker goes from complete identification with this usurping ego to fighting it in an effort to win liberation. Of course, fighting with the ego becomes more than ever an exercise in dualism and only perpetuates our misery.
It is only when the light of Truth reveals the ego for the usurper it is and we quietly witness its pathetic antics from the still vast space of Consciousness, that it begins to deflate, like a blow-up toy that has had the plug removed. You could also say its 'usurping posture' dissolves like the rising sun burning away the dank morning mist.
Notice, I said 'its usurping posture' is dissolved and NOT the ego itself. Like the poor possessed wretch that the Christ met and restored to true humanhood again, so the deluded ego is healed and restored by Grace to its true nature and intended role. It is then, and only then, that we can fully accept our unique ego as a marvelous manifestation of pure Consciousness or the Unmanifest Absolute.
Then we can know that our humanness is exactly as it was and is destined to be and that all we need to do is be aware of the way our life-experience unfolds without the former false sense that 'I' (the ego) am making all the decisions and performing the actions etc. All anxiety, guilt and pride evaporates and we recognize a deep sense of wonder, joy, compassion for all forms (including oneself) and a deep deep peace.
Your ever well-wisher
Pete S.
GurukulaIf you would like to address a question to
Pete or Pearl Sumner, go to our Contact page.
