Experience the space that existed before the emergence of the problems May 1, 2020

Advaita Post #21-05 From the book: Satsang, What About Yourself? (p. 154)  A talk with Douwe Tiemersma, Hoorneboeg, October 17, 2004  Experience the space that existed before the emergence of the problems  The stuck energies of the feeling body dissolve more quickly when the qualitative recognition of the empty space intensifies. [In physics] When it’s close to a vacuum a liquid evaporates very quickly. Even a solid evaporates within a very short liquid phase. That’s called sublimation. The solid form evaporates and “pop” it’s gone. In space, with such an underpressure, no form can survive. This also applies to the experiential realm. Perhaps you have once had an experience in which the quality of emptiness and underpressure are quite strong. All concentrated energies then dissolve, even if they are located quite deeply and are quite hard. They dissolve when the space arrives. And this impulse of expansion and dissolving is also directly joyful.  When, in a particular situation, it no longer works for you to experience space, perhaps you can still find a spark of joy somewhere. When you have found that, it’s going to develop. In such a situation, memory can play a positive role. Of course, memory often plays a negative role because then things from the past are held on to. [However] Memory can also play a positive role if you can rediscover a piece of joy somewhere. Everyone has had a joyful experience at one time or another and it’s never completely gone. When the recognition is there, the development continues and when it continues, joy arises, just like that, through the emergence of space. Then this joy can become total, infinite.  You have always known this joy. You recognize it from earlier, much earlier. Everyone comes from a realm where it was present. The first step of creation takes place in this realm of positive joy, even though it’s very rarefied. It’s the positivity of the expansion in the form of creation that is positive and joyful. If there were to be a negative quality in it, everything would immediately become cramped and obstructed. Then creation would stop. God creates the creation in joy, because he/she finds it so wonderful. That original joy precedes all fates and fortunes in the world. So whatever traumas have arisen, they are always secondary to that original joy and goodness. The point then, even with trauma and brokenness, is to recognize some of that joy. Then the basis is good again and all traumas dissolve within it. It is the space which is greater than everything. So everything dissolves within it.  Thus whether it concerns lighter problems, heavier ones such as in psychiatry, or fundamental ones such as those in the advaita approach, it’s always the same thing: experience the space that was there before these problems arose. That space is still there. You are still that space. Then there is direct joy again and right away that joy is a motor for further expansion and dissolution. This joy, that pleasure, has the tendency to become infinite. Perhaps you remember it from much earlier and you see it again in young children. When they enjoy something, such as running or doing crazy things, there is more and more joy and enthusiasm. So they continue and the process continues (if it is not stopped) into infinity. Of course, most of the time the impulse collides with the harsh world somewhere and then the enthusiasm ends in tears. However, the principle of infinite joy is certainly there. Once the fire gets a chance, the “pfiet” becomes infinite.  Douwe, wasn’t all that very normal? Then consciousness comes and then you have to rediscover it. Thought interferes with it and then you can hardly relax.  You see with such a child that it’s always looking for infinity through the senses, because it’s still so close to it. You recognize it in yourself. You certainly experience harsh reality, for example from a chair falling against you, and you think “Oh, I have to be more careful.” The stronger the separation, the harder reality manifests itself. “Me here and the world there” and “I have to be a little careful with that world.”  Of course, this world ensures that you can’t remain a child. Others don’t accept that either.  What applies to hard chairs and the ground also applies to people in the environment. So there is the process in which a shielded self is formed. Then there is separation. But, the longing for developing into infinity remains. The knowledge of it remains. That’s the basis of the longing.  So then what’s actually the difference between a child like that and the enlightened state?  That’s consciousness, the aware recognition. When you see the process of separation very clearly, the current situation becomes understandable. You also see that what precedes it is much more essential and that that still is. [So] You don’t need to connect that original self-being to this body. But when you do, you are conditioned by the harsh world because there are collisions of self and world. So return to your original identity and see that it still is, as it used to be: the non-dual, original realm. That’s directly there and that’s your true being. The ignorance of the child in paradise is now a knowingness, so there’s no longer any need for a recurring cycle in order to get to know That consciously.