Advaita Post - Volume 15, No. 2

March 2, 2014

Text Satsang

From an advaita talk with Douwe Tiemersma. Gouda, Retreat day, August 30, 2009, noon

You are everything and still there is freedom, because everything has been released

Stay aware of what is happening with your self while you are sitting here and everything has become still. See what happens when you let it continue. When you remain in your consciousness-space the expansion of your own self-being proceeds all by itself. Even when there is just a tiny bit of consciousness, the opening continues endlessly. Consciousness is always greater than whatever is given: the shape, the phenomenon, the field. As the field increases, you experience yourself more expansively in your consciousness. When your consciousness becomes infinitely great, these forms are going to dissolve in this space by themselves. That process of opening and dissolving infinitely proceeds.

Once you have experienced the infinity of your own consciousness, you realize that it's obvious that this process continues, because consciousness itself is simply infinite. So let it continue. Only then will you come to your natural self. This self indicates That which precedes all these possible forms of-and-in space and time.

When the clarity of consciousness disappears, the old patterns return 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 still, there's always the recognition: my self-being as consciousness is infinite and not dependent on time and space. Within it let everything go, that's surrender. In fact, you have always already been this openness. It's only the ignorance which disappears.

The mists rise. But even if the mists and clouds don't disappear right away, you always have the possibility to return to the space above the clouds. Everyone who has made a transcontinental flight knows 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 slightly upwards, you notice that the air is clear and remains so. Below you may still have weather conditions with areas of low and high pressure. All of that can't be predicted, even by the Dutch 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 is rain and there is sunshine. But you let it go.

As being-awareness you are the clear space in which 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 diving in. When you do that you take up a position there. That means there is 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, you see the danger of illusion within it. The world and life are not an illusion. The belief that this world and that life are absolute, that everything in it is so serious that everything there depends on it, that's an illusion. The world is not absolute, only because it's a temporary world.

In lucidity there is non-duality. You are everything - internally - as first person and yet there is freedom, because everything has been released. Then it no longer matters whether there are phenomena or no phenomena. If 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 also means that you are one with it.

In your being-awareness that insight is very clear: this is it. On the mental level there is a definitive knowledge. On the level of the emotions 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: this is it.

If you remain sitting on a mental level, questions and problems will consistently arise. If you are going to set all sorts of things apart, bringing on separations, creating concepts which divide and then absolutizing these concepts, yes, then you won't get it. Then, for example, the relationship between body and mind is an unthinkable issue. 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." If you let go of that whole conceptualization and just stay with experience, then you'll have to conclude that there simply are no boundaries between what at first was so separated. You can see in the great religions that there's always a certain sense of that Original. But all these different forms of conceptualizing and absolutizing it continue to create problems.

In Christianity, if a person imagines that he is God it's labeled as 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 you can do. As soon as dullness strikes, you pick up again on old patterns. When you remain lucid, the original non-duality manifests itself.

****