Advaita Post Volume 17 No. 4
Text Satsang
From an Advaita talk with Douwe Tiemersma. Gouda, Retreat day, August 30, 2009, noon
Stay aware of what happens with yourself when you start sitting and everything becomes still. See what happens when you let that proceed. The expansion of your own self-being proceeds all by itself when you remain in the consciousness-space. Even when there is just a little piece of consciousness, the opening proceeds infinitely. Consciousness always remains greater than what is given: the form, the phenomenon, the field. When the field increases, you always experience yourself in your consciousness more expansively. When your consciousness becomes infinitely great, these forms are going to dissolve all by themselves in this great space. That process of opening and dissolving proceeds infinitely.
Once you have experienced the infinity of your own consciousness, you realize that it’s obvious that that process continues, because consciousness simply is infinite. So let it proceed. Only then will you come to your natural self. That self points towards That which precedes all possible forms of-and-in space and time.
When the clarity of consciousness disappears, the old patterns come to the fore all too easily. That’s why it’s necessary that the clarity remains, the space of consciousness. Then it’s clear what you are not and what you truly are. You’ll have to consistently affirm that for yourself. You’ll have to dedicate yourself to it. Sometimes the development goes slowly, sometimes very quickly. But there’s always the recognition: my self-being as consciousness is infinite and not dependent on space and time. Letting everything go within it, that’s surrender. In fact, you have been this openness all along. It’s only the ignorance that disappears.
The mists arise. But even if the mists and clouds don’t directly disappear, you always have the possibility of returning to the space above the clouds. Everyone who has made a transcontinental flight understands that then you are above the weather. Below there can still be a thunder cloud, but it doesn’t matter. So recognize that what you perceive depends upon your point of view. When you take up a ‘lower’ position, you know that you’re ‘in the weather’ and that you have to deal with the alterations of rain and sun, with the changing of your own weather, your moods. But when you rise a little bit above, you see that the air is clear and remains so. Below you might still have weather conditions with areas of high and low pressure. All of that can’t be predicted, even by the national weather service. But you see it and you can let it go. Then there is a natural situation. That’s how it goes in life: there’s rain and there’s sunshine. But you let it go.
As consciousness you are the clear space in which the phenomena come and go. This indicates that these phenomena are not different from yourself and that you are not absorbed by them. Life is one great whole of energies and forces. You are that life, but you’re not obsessed by it and you’re not completely absorbed by it either. You do that when you take up a position there within. That means an identification with yourself, there, in that place. Then the free space is gone.
Once you’ve experienced something of freedom then you see the relativity of the world and of life – and you see the danger of illusion which sits therein. The world and life are not an illusion. The belief that this world and that life are absolute, that everything within it is so serious that everything there depends on it, that’s an illusion. The world is not absolute, simply because it’s a temporal world.
In the clarity there is non-duality. You are everything – internally – as first person and yet there is freedom, because everything is released. Then it no longer matters whether there are phenomena or not. When there is a creation there is the immense wealth and splendor of that creation. Then there’s also the clear being-experience that everything is one. Understand well what that means. When the world is there and you realize that everything is one, then it means that you are also one with it.
In your consciousness that insight is very clear: that’s how it is. On the mental level there is a definitive knowledge. On the emotional level there is a feeling of unity, a feeling of love. Then through love you can accept everything as your Self. Just see it clearly, then every doubt disappears, every resistance disappears. The fog lifts. You affirm: that’s how it is.
When you stay sitting on a mental level, questions and problems will constantly arise. If you are going to start naming all kinds of things apart, bringing on separations, making separate concepts of them and then absolutizing these concepts, then yes, you won’t get it. Then, for example, the relation between the body and the mind is an unthinkable question. When it concerns human beings and the environment, and first you want to make a separation between nature and human beings in order to dominate and manipulate, then yes, you’re going to have difficulties. Internally there is no separation. There is one whole of being, of life. If you’re first going to create a concept of God and then a concept of man, there will be all kinds of theological problems which have kept people busy for millennia. Because then what about the ‘divine man’, someone like Jesus? Islam is consistent. There it is said: “There is an absolute separation between man and God. Jesus was just a prophet.” But when you let go of all that conceptualization and just stick with your own experience, then you’ll have to conclude that there simply are no boundaries between what at first was (conceived of as) so separated. You can see that in the great religions there’s always a certain sense of that Original. But all these different forms of conceptualizing and then the absolutizing of them continue to create problems.
In Christianity, if a person imagines that he is God, it’s called a great sin. Of course, that’s right. Be honest. Only when there’s absolutely no more separations, is there the complete love that mystical union means.
Stay clearly aware, that’s the only thing that you can do. As soon as dullness strikes, you pick back up on the old patterns. When you remain clear, the original non-duality manifests itself.