Advaita Post 09-15 - A little more insight can lift the suffering...

Year No. 9 15 (October 14, 2008)

Relationships InZicht 10. No. 3 (September 2008)

Interview with Douwe Tiemersma by Pia de Blok - Part 2

Karma

Our cat Polle naturally lets all cats come into the garden. The young cat of our son was there recently and was hissing at Polle, but he did nothing.

That’s an enlightened animal.

So with enlightened people too, it doesn’t matter?

No, the energetic I-dynamic no longer plays a role. Because there’s always the infinity of self-being. They get along well with one another.

As energies are extinguished, for one person a relationship may end while for another it may continue for some time. Where do those energies to continue to hold on for a long time come from? Is that karma perhaps?

As the energetic fields of two self-beings come together in a larger field, it is a very positive experience. That keeps people together. If someone prefers to make a separation, that happens because he or she sees it as a way towards further expansion. Then he withdraws his energy back from the earlier togetherness. If the other person still perceives the togetherness as a positive experience, then of course you have a problem. There is little to say about the way it happens. You can say it's a matter of karma. Karma is a certain structure and quality of very basic energies.

If you believe in karma.

I see the energetic patterns of people that have formed in their own lifetime. You can call that karma. The patterns of feeling, guiding, expectations, ideas, focal points, responses all play a role when two people come together. Some pairs of patterns get along better together than other combinations. When it clicks between two different people, you say “each jar has its own lid.” You can see it energetically.

Yes, in one life, because as long as you believe in previous births you will again be speaking about an interest or a goal.

Yes, but I leave that open.

Relaxation of the ego

Is extinguished energy like that of a shooting star, a worn out star?

Then, you mean the star as the extra energy that is released by the coming together of two people, by the togetherness. That brings an enthusiasm, an energy, a joy and that extra energy can of course disappear when the combined energy is no longer experienced. Then you get a retreat back to their own individual territory. That has to do with the karma of this life. You can say that on an energetic level there are certain leftovers from processes that have expired. When a relationship has been present and has in one way or another ended, then there always remain leftovers in the individual energetic atmosphere, and that is what we call karma.

I frequently see that it resolves itself in time.

Yes, it’s a question as to whether it’s really one hundred percent resolved, or if there's still a residue.

Can people do something about it?

Then you come right to the principal point, and that is no longer energetic. Then you really experience that all the processes are not important. That there is always unity. That it’s not something that a man can arrange. The only possibility is to stay with that understanding.

Do people need conflict?

People stay in conflicts so long as they stick to themselves as a “I”-person, an ego. Egos always want to expand themselves. We have already spoken about it, especially about the possibility of a relaxation of the ego when a person is in love. If there is not a total relaxation and release, the ego uses its strength to expand itself at the expense of the other person. That means that it’s always in conflict with others. So you see the fundamental inner conflict, that it really wants unity while still retaining it’s limited form.

In non-duality, there really are no energies any more that work in a limited way. As long as openness is not achieved you see people running after relationships that seem to be impossible. Sometimes they even alienate themselves from society by throwing themselves upon an unrealizable relationship. What do you say to such people?

They will have to see what is going on within themselves. Such a fixation arises from a very limited standpoint and blinders. From a somewhat greater distance you can see how such things bring problems. Of course, if it is so then so it is. You have to accept it. All you can hope for is that the suffering of others will stop and that can happen only by their realizing how things really are: that such a limited view is not necessary, that a much larger space exists. In the course of a lifetime you frequently find that certain things wear off. Anyway, see all the suffering it has nevertheless caused.

Non-duality and individual energies

You can thus view the dynamics of the relationship between two “I”- persons from the level of the sensitive energies. So there is life, the individual living atmosphere, a sort of territorial field. One field can connect to another and then you get the dynamics of a relationship. When two people come together, there is still a separation, but they can touch each other (Douwe took two round coasters and lay the two coasters just touching one another). Thus they have a communication. Also from a distance, “I say something against the other” (the coasters move a bit apart from one another), there may be a communication and information transfer. That’s how it usually happens. But in fact with real communication there is always a degree of overlap (one coaster moves a little over on top of the other). And really, a relationship is only possible because there is a unity in the depths. (The one hand laid a small section of one coaster over another and the other hand motioned to the floor in order to indicate depth). The depth of unity is usually not experienced in the field of the duality of individual people. So people want on the level of duality to achieve a complete unity, but on that level it doesn’t appear to be feasible. You always have to deal with the experience of a practical situation with differences and separations. To become completely open is only possible if you recognize the depth of unity (he lay the coasters flat on top of one another and with the other hand motioned depth, towards the floor).

A third person may come along (picked up a third coaster and laid it near the two that lay precisely upon one another), who attracts one of the two and tries as much as possible to make a unity. That means competition, because the other half focuses there also. Then strong energies arise. That is a whole dynamic.

But that is all on the personal level.

That is all on the personal level; that’s how it works. If you try to look at it in this way though, you can get a clearer picture. You can recognize the processes. This also shows that the possibility of partial integration on this level of everyday life is only possible because there is that deep basis of unity, which is always there (hand goes again to the ground). And that you therefore do not need to remain on the personal level.

If there truly are those rare continuing connections between two people, including a one hundred percent experience of unity, what can you say about that?

Then apparently there is the realization of complete unity, where the forms no longer function in a restrictive manner; then there is absolutely no relationship and no relationship problems, then there is over all universal love and Silence, which goes beyond everything.

In conclusion, the position: What to bustle around about: do people really live in a fictional world?

What is fictional in the world stems from the individual and societal projections. As you see through this, the problems caused by it fall away. For so long as people are stuck in their projections, they suffer. That is sad, especially because it is not necessary. A little more insight can eliminate the suffering.