Advaita Post 14-05 Others can try to convince me...

March 10, 2013

Others can try to convince me otherwise, and I may try to convince myself otherwise, but I've seen through it: this is it.

Text satsang

An Advaita talk with Douwe Tiemersma Gouda, August 30, 2006

You are everything

Once you have experienced the infinity of your own consciousness, you realize that it's obvious that the process will continue, because consciousness itself is simply infinite. When you let go a natural situation arises that is infinitely spacious. So let it proceed. Only then do you come to yourself. Coming to yourself means: prior to all the possible forms in time and space, prior to time and space. There are many elements that are important in this movement towards the natural situation: dedication, trust, surrender. But the clarity of consciousness - insight - is the most important. When clarity disappears, all the old patterns come to the fore once again all too easily.

When the clarity and the space of consciousness remain, then it's clear what you are and what you are not. You'll have to confirm that for yourself. Becoming aware of that endlessness and letting go within it, that's surrender. You have always been that openness. Only now the ignorance disappears. The fog lifts. And even if the mists and clouds don't disappear right away, you still have the opportunity to return to a position above the clouds. Everyone who has ever sat in a Boeing knows it: then you're above the weather. Then there can even be a thunder cloud below, but it doesn't matter. So you see that what you perceive depends on your point of view. When you take on a limited stance, let's say a low position, then you know that you're 'in the weather' and that you have to deal with the alternation of rain and sun, with mood swings. If you're going to stay above, then there it's clear and remains so. Below you have all the different weather conditions with low and high pressure zones, all of which is unpredictable. You see it and you can release it. Therefore, everything goes by itself. Of course everything continues, but you have released it. That is the natural situation.

Fundamentally, you are the clarity in which these phenomena arise and that's why you can release them. Life goes on in the great whole and it is one great whole of energies and forces. But you're not staring blindly at certain things and certainly not diving into any one particular thing. Again: you see that every standpoint has a corresponding world. That taking a standpoint means an identification with yourself, there in that place. Once you have experienced something of this freedom then you'll also see the relativity of this identification, the illusion contained within it. The world is not an illusion. What is given, is given. Only the belief that it's the absolute, that you have to worry about it, that you have to work very hard, that's an illusion. It's not absolute, if only because it's temporary.

In returning to this clarity there is a non-duality. You are everything - internally - as first person and still there is the freedom through which everything stays released. So it no longer matters if phenomena are there or not. When there is a creation, there is the richness of creation, the countless forms, it's an immense wealth. But then also there is the clear being-experience that everything is one. Understand very well what that means. When the world is there, you realize that all is one and that you too are one right along with it. In consciousness it is an understanding, very clear: that's how it is. On the mental level: a very clear knowledge. On the level of feeling: a feeling of unity, a sense of love. Then in Love you can accept everything as your Self. Just see it clearly, then every doubt disappears, then every resistance disappears. That's how it is. The fog lifts, no doubts any more. Others can try to convince me otherwise, and I may try to convince myself otherwise, but I've seen through it: this is it.

*****