NON-DUALITY ADVAITA LIBERATION
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Saturday 31st July.
Half-day meeting in Hastings
Saturday 11th September.
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We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot
A brief introduction to Non-Duality
This Is It And This Is Sufficient
These seven words, This is it and this is sufficient, are a simple way to sum up liberation. When Oneness is seen, it is realised not only that this is all there is, but that this is enough. When the veil of separation is not there, making us take the everyday for granted and clamour for something more exciting to happen, then the ordinary becomes transformed into this wonderful play of consciousness.
Seeing Oneness is the end of searching because when the everyday is seen as a miracle there is no need to search for anything else to spice up life with. This is why, when the sense of being a person has dropped away, there tends to be profound relaxation and an enjoyment of simple things, such as the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, the sight of water rippling on the surface of a lake, or the smell of freshly ground coffee.
The Spiritual Funfair
Of course spending time in the Funfair of Spiritual Seeking can be very entertaining. It can provide us with hope and purpose, a circle of like-minded friends, the company of charismatic teachers, and a way of spending our surplus income. It can also give us a colourful way of passing the time between birth and death, perhaps travelling to exotic places with our arms full of vaccinations and our rucksacks full of diarrhoea pills.
But seeking also guarantees that we do not find, because it takes us away from presence. As long as we are looking for the Secret Of Enlightenment over there in some far away place and some future time, we cannot notice that this is already it right here, right now. This is already what we are searching for, the promised land, the hoped for paradise. However, this can only be seen when our sense of separation falls away. When the self is there, muddying the view with its neuroses and its incessant shouting for attention, then it cannot be seen that this is already it.
If you are still heartily enjoying your spiritual search, it is probably best that you stop reading these words right now and also make a mental note never to go to a talk on non-duality, not even once. Because if what is written here or is spoken at a talk is really heard, that will be the end of spiritual seeking and “your head will be in the tiger's mouth”. Then there will be no escape.
Paradise Lost
Many of us today are breaking away from the old adversarial habits of religion and seeking for the common inner core that we feel must lie at the heart of all religions and spiritual paths. We no longer focus only on the astonishingly colourful surface differences. We try instead to find the shared hidden truth beneath. Something, we feel, must connect images as different as the crucifixion, Ganesh the Elephant God, Father Sun and Mother Moon, the communion supper, Kali with her necklace of human skulls, mandalas, whirling Sufi mystics, Golden Buddha statues, medicine wheels and Isis the River Goddess.
Nonduality, Oneness, lies at the still centre of all religions and spiritual paths although it is rarely acknowledged. Although we are each born into wholeness, at an early age we acquire self-consciousness, and in that process a sense of separation and loss arises. Somehow we feel that we have been thrown out of paradise, and whether this is recognised consciously or not, we spend our life trying to make ourself whole again so that we can re-enter paradise. We have wonderful imaginations and an enormous capacity for telling stories, and the great evolutionary tree of religions, of spiritual paths, of the sagas of prophets and gods and holy men and holy madmen, is the result of our forlorn and hopeless search.
Paradise Regained
Our search is hopeless because we never lost paradise. The paradise which we seek to re-enter is always with us, but hidden by the presence of the separated self. We do not need to find paradise, we need to lose our sense of separation to see that this is already it. But the separated self is unable to lose itself, precisely because it is a false self. The false self is unable to see reality.
The eye cannot see itself
Except as a pale reflection in a mirror.
The self cannot find itself
Except as a pale reflection in a dream.
Nevertheless, uncaused and unprompted, the false self can drop away and in that death of the person wholeness, unity, non-duality, can be seen again. The false self may drop away while the individual is still alive but it need be of no concern if it does not, because at the death of the body there is only liberation in any case. Before he died, Ramesh Balsekar wrote “What does death ultimately mean? It means the end of the struggle of daily living. It means the end of duality.”
Science, Mysticism And Unconditional Love
In the seeing of non-duality, in liberation which is the same thing, it is seen that there is no person with autonomy and responsibility who makes choices about something called their life. It is also seen that everything arises out of nothing, that at the heart of this wonderful manifestation there is emptiness. This emptiness has been realised and spoken about in many traditions, in Buddhism, in Daoism and in Hinduism, for example, and even in Christianity. Sometimes it has been spoken about openly. Sometimes it has only been whispered about, for there have been many times when it has been very dangerous to speak about this, because of the terrible power wielded by priesthoods. Recently, however, there has been a new phenomenon. The views that there is no person who makes any choice, and that everything arises out of emptiness, are now supported by science.
Developments in neuroscience now strongly suggest that there is no possibility of there being a unified autonomous person at the centre of our experience. Consequently many psychologists agree that free will is an illusion. And quantum physicists give us a picture of the universe in which even the smallest elements of matter disintegrate into mere vibrating energy, in which everything manifests, as it were, from sound. It is said in the Yogic tradition that the root mantra 'Aum' is the first and original vibration of the universe. In the beginning was the word, and the word was Aum.
Nevertheless, in spite of this coming together of science and mysticism, the views of science and of nonduality about the nature of consciousness are diametrically opposed. Science sees matter as primary, and conciousness as an accidental by-product of matter. It claims that we are essentially physical structures which have developed consciousness by chance because of the increasing complexity of the organisation of cells, neurons, chemicals and electrical impulses in our brains. In other words, without matter there is no consciousness. But in liberation it is seen that there is only consciousness, which is the same as saying that there is only emptiness out of which all phenomena, including physical phenomena, arise. In other words, without consciousness there is no matter.
The physical does not give rise to consciousness. Consciousness gives rise to the physical. Science can never discover this. It can only be discovered by direct seeing when the person drops away.
Nor, for all its instruments, can science discover that the ultimate nature of emptiness is unconditional love.
Drink Tea, Eat Cake
When liberation is seen, life becomes less complicated. All the stories that have fuelled our life drop away and we are left with the simplicity of this. In that simplicity, the small and ordinary things in life may really be enjoyed at last. I am often asked for advice and I usually refuse to give it. But if I were to give advice, it would be to relax and enjoy whatever simple things you like doing, because until the everyday can be enjoyed, the miracle of this is being missed.
In Zen they say “Before liberation, hew wood and draw water. After liberation, hew wood and draw water.” I prefer “Before liberation, drink tea and eat cake. After liberation, drink tea and eat cake.” But they add up to the same. Ultimately it is seen that there is no difference. Before liberation and after liberation, being asleep and being awake, are the same thing.
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In liberation it is seen that the individual that we think we are is simply an appearance. At our heart and at the heart of everything is undifferentiated Being from which all differences appear. There is no self, no individual, no person.
The most common misconception about liberation is that it is something an individual can gain. But liberation is a loss - the loss of the sense that there ever was a separate individual who could choose to do something to bring about liberation.
When it is seen that there is no separation, the sense of vulnerability and fear that attaches to the individual falls away and what is left is the wonder of life just happening. Instead of meaning there is a squirrel motionless on a grey tree trunk, legs splayed, head up, looking straight at you. Instead of purpose there is the astonishing texture of cat's fur or the incredible way an ant crawls over a twig.
When the sensation that I am in control of my life and must make it happen ends, then life is simply lived and relaxation takes place. There is a sense of ease with whatever is the case and an end to grasping for what might be.
Many teachers of non-duality suggest that there is someone who can do something to heal their sense of separation; in other words that there is a person who is able to discover that they are not a person. The absurdity of this idea is often camouflaged by highly complex and subtle thinking.
Teachings about non-duality frequently present the seductive idea that liberation can be realised through an evolutionary spiritual path. This has no actual connection with non-duality but it can offer us a convincing, although meaningless, story about it.
From this story arise the many paths, doctrines, techniques, gurus, teachers, mantra-salesmen, workshops and groups which make up the spiritual bazaar.
Any way of searching may lead to a person being more comfortable. That is fine but it is all that you get - a person who is more comfortable in their prison. If you are in prison, it’s far better to be comfortable but that doesn’t get the person out of the prison they perceive themselves to be in.
Nothing will get the person out of their prison because the person is the prison. When the person drops away, it is seen that there never was a prison in the first place.
Then it is seen that ‘I’ and ‘you’ are the light in which everything arises.
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“Richard's description of what has been seen in liberation is both eloquent and down to earth. His direct, uncluttered and concise expression can be readily identified with and speaks directly to that knowing which is beyond seeking.”
Tony Parsons on ‘I Hope You Die Soon’.
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Richard lives in England on the border of West Kent and East Sussex.
You can contact Richard by e-mailing
richardsylvester@hotmail.co.uk
Or by phoning
01892 549312
*
If you would like to order a copy of
'The Book of No One' (242 pages) for £14.80
(£13.45 + 1.35 p. and p.)
or
‘I Hope You Die Soon' (117 pages) for £9.35
(£8 + £1.35 p. and p.)
please send a cheque to
Richard Sylvester
The Old Stables, Sandrock Road,
Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 3PR
'I Hope You Die Soon' is available in German as
'Erleuchtet - und was jetzt?'
and in French as
'J'espere Que Vous Allez Mourir Bientot'
'The Book Of No One' is available in German as
'Das Buch Niemand'
For more information go to
www.randomhouse.de/ansataintegrallotos/
www.loriginel.com
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