Advaita Post #15-10 - Being awake on the subtle level, Part II

November 1, 2014

Text Satsang

From an advaita talk with Douwe Tiemersma in Gouda on March 3, 2004 – Part 2

Being awake on the subtle level

Douwe, when you're truly free from conditions don't you have any more problems? Are you no longer influenced by the things that come at you?

Take a look at how you formulate the question: "Things that come at you". Even though everything continues normally in a certain sense, there is no specific standpoint of a "you" at which things can come.

This last year I've had a lot to do with my own family. I had taken quite a distance from them for a while, but now that has changed. Through dealing with my family again many of the old associations from the past have reemerged.

See which identification from yourself causes that.

I am aware of what happens. For example, I used to be carsick when I sat with my brother and sister in the car. That's happening again now, even though I've had no problems for years.

Who now is carsick? When you really are open, everything can just continue, but you are no longer identified with that little person, at that place, in that family.

I see that, but still, I feel drawn into the old image.

If you see that, then surely you're not totally drawn in?

No, on the one side, not.

So now it's about this one side.

Still I find it strange: I see it and at the same time I feel the things of the past returning.

See exactly what's going on with yourself. Where do you have your center of gravity?

Apparently there's something in those images in which I still believe.

Go back to the one who sees these forces. You yourself are that. What about yourself? As observer, isn't there a totally different situation? You remain free while the old processes are allowed to quietly operate.

Yes, you just let it go through you.

That 'you', who is that? That should be clear.

That is consciousness.

That is yourself as conscious-beingness*. As conscious-beingness you are not dependent on the phenomena that present themselves.

But still, I notice them.

What does that mean? Sometimes you seem to turn back again to this narrowing, to an I-being at a particular place, in a particular family. When that can open back up, you are once again the conscious-beingness in which phenomena arise. They can express themselves until they disappear.

Just by seeing it?

Yes, if you remain lucid regarding your own situation. You are spacious, independent of phenomena, free from conditions, while the phenomena continue. You can see that very precisely. You are infinite space and within it you have the phenomena. That is why they remain relative and transparent. Remain aware of yourself as that conscious-beingness. The rest continues by itself, apparently as long as it still must. Do you see that, the constriction and the recognition of space-being?

Stay with yourself, remain that conscious self-being that is always more spacious than whatever else may arise, including the physical, psychological and social conditions. You are greater than all tendencies and emotions, greater than all the events that exist there. Your own being goes deeper than time and space. That is your natural state, the most evident self-being. If you have a balloon filled with hot air or gas, then it is the natural state of that balloon to float up into the air. It takes effort to hold it to the ground. When you let go of the rope, the balloon goes up, quite naturally. That is much more natural than the artificial attachment to the earth. When you release the ties with all the things you consider important then there is an automatic freedom.

You have knowledge of that freedom. Don't just sit there with such an anchor in the ground, even if you slacken the rope a little and think 'that's nice'. You have knowledge of the total freedom, because that is your own nature. Then what happens further really depends on what you want now. Your fundamental orientation remains decisive, up to the penultimate phase. That is the most fundamental choice, even though, for it you do nothing. It is an increase of awareness and that is not doing.

The absolute sphere of silence without forms is always there. Only, if you're not aware of this silence, it disappears again and you've learned nothing from it. First there is still the silent space in which hardly any forms are, wherein only the last qualities of yourself are still present. In this silence it may happen that you glide over a border into a continuously aware silent-dimension that remains open. Then there is no return any more to the old limited situation. This silent-dimension then remains as the most essential, the most real and the most true personal reality. The inside is out, the outside is in. In is out, out is in, when phenomena return again, when the world continues. The mantra becomes increasingly subtle, ever more subtle, and leads you further up to the last, until a means is no longer necessary. When you really wake up, the differences in levels disappear. Then the independence from conditions is clear. Then clarity remains, even when there is physical unclarity; there is a wakefulness, even when the body sleeps. Everyone who is sitting here experiences a lot of it, the being-experience is there. Only the clarity therein, the wakefulness therein, allow this to increase in strength.

* Douwe is making a play on words here. 'Bewustzijn' means consciousness. 'Bewust-zijn', translated here as conscious-beingness, emphasizes the being aspect of consciousness.