Advaita Post 14-09 - Stay wit the silence...

May 6, 2013

Text satsang

From an Advaita talk with Douwe Tiemersma in Gouda,
April 4, 2007

Stay with the silence that arises when everything has
truly fallen away

Are there any questions?

I had expected that everything would be dissolved with
openness but that's just not the case. On the contrary, actually. So I don't
know anymore.

Notice that there are so many things that you believe in. For example,
you believe that you should work for a better world, that people should change,
that there are still all kinds of things you need to do, that all kinds of
things are important and that when you do it this way or that it will go
smoothly. I can say it a hundred times but you'll have to experience in your
own life that that just doesn't work.

I thought if there was no 'I' anymore, more and more space
would come, and that this was the openness.

That's a concept, an idea. As soon as you create an idea somewhere, once
again it's "I think", "I believe that", "it will have to be done like that",
and so on. Even when it comes to very beautiful things such as receiving more and
more space, you still hold on to exactly the same structure. Can you see the
limitation of every structure? It's not about particular ideas. As long as there
is still a sense of "?I believe this and I believe that", "I want this and I
want that", it's a limited structure and it will certainly lead to shipwreck.
Of course it may be quite useful to have those expectations at some stage but
at a certain moment there will need to be the: stop. I've tried just about everything,
but that's over now. You see the limitations of it. That just can't be.

Sometimes I think: "you'd be better off dead", because
it always goes the same way every time.

Yes, the 'I' will have to die. An 'I' can't do anything other than say, "I
want this and I expect that." A time will come when you can no longer speak, can
no longer act.

It's not under my control to dissolve the 'I'.

No, but there will certainly come a point where the whole thing is
broken apart. That element from that center of your little 'I' will truly
disappear. So you can't control any of that yourself, it just happens.

Yes, there's nothing left of what I had in my head.

From this higher understanding you can just let it happen. From that
higher insight, when it actually proceeds, you feel that you are free, free also
from whatever is still yet to happen in life. So then also there is no
resistance to all the different things which just happen. Currently there is
resistance because you say, "I want to go in that direction" when things are already
going in a different one.

It's so disappointing. I have already given up my belief
in all sorts of things: friends, my work for which I always had such
compassion. There's just nothing left. There's only That which is still the most
important.

Yes of course, but see the different levels. On the level of the ordinary
life in which you want everything, there everything breaks open. But when that is
completely released then you get a new situation of total freedom. Then what do
you see happen? In any case, that life flows on in an open manner. Then it no
longer runs from an: "I want this and I want that", "I must have friends",
"I must do a good job". All orientations will disappear. There will be a point in
which everything completely disappears, including the 'I'. That means that the
'I' is going to die. Understand that it is an experience of dying because you
were identified with the old situation. Be happy that that disappears.

It's just there is absolutely nothing left.

That's a point where everything can truly disappear. Just let it happen
and then see what comes. That falling away will certainly need to happen, because
otherwise a being-attachment still remains where you can stay stuck. Then there
is still a limited 'I' and that is an 'I' of suffering. Then it's an 'I' which
says, "Oh, that's terrible, everything has fallen away and there's only misery."

You can't hold on to anything anymore. There's nothing
left. There's no idea left that I can still believe in.

Accept that. Suffering remains wherever you don't accept it. You will need
to accept that everything has fallen away, because you know that it is temporal.
Sooner or later you will have to deal with it. When you see this very clearly
then you understand how it is. So then just let it proceed. Then let everything
that initially was fixed fall away.

The only thing I understand is that there is nothing
to understand. Really nothing.

Exactly, and when you accept that, life will take care of itself. It does
so it all the better the less stuck you are in yourself, the I-self. Stay with the
silence that arises when everything has completely disappeared.

****