Advaita Post #16-04 - Advaita as direct path

March 31, 2015

Text Satsang

From a talk with Douwe Tiemersma, Groningen, October 9, 2011

Advaita as direct path

Advaita is fundamentally a direct path. You go back to the origin and say: yes, this is it. You can say that through a direct insight. In energetic yoga too, there is a certain notion of this direct path. In a classical yoga scripture you'll find the statement: yes, this is a yoga book, but it is only for people who have been misled and who cannot follow the direct path. So they must just follow the path of means, of exercises.

Even though you have seen that insight on a direct path too, there can still be a certain kind of cleansing. That also happens, doesn't it?

The more you stay in the origin the less of a factor that other is. Purification processes will still go on, but when you stay in this original source, they are less and less important. Secondly, when you stay there, you see that these sorts of processes go quickly. The more you stay in it, the quicker these dissolving processes go.

The more I go into this openness, the more clearly I see where my shadow side is. That doesn't make it easier, on the contrary.

Of course, the area of ??yourself which you had no sight of in the past becomes visible from the origin, especially the more subtle area. Indeed that's going to be a factor. However, it's still true that the more you stay in this openness, the faster the process goes. What must dissolve, then truly dissolves.

Through relaxation, the clarity increases and so you can see even better what lies beneath, creating even more clarity ...

Yes you can experience that this way. So then you will need to actually remain there: this is a new situation and this is a new wakefulness. That's mostly how you experience your spiritual growth. Of course, it can also be that you stay put somewhere or even that you back off a little.

An attachment can always rise up again.

You'll have that until the end. When there is universal bliss, the 'I' says it is happy there: I want to stay here. Many people have experienced it like that. They say: isn't this great? That further radicalising impulse is no longer necessary for me.

(...)

When it really continues then there is a feeling of movement, an expanding of your self-being that initially was more limited. This experience that it is more spacious always brings a great feeling of joy. Conversely, you can also say: wherever joy is, expansion is. Every joy comes through expansion. All people seek joy and happiness. They all seek this expansion. And when you truly grasp this mechanism, you say: everything can be taken away from me because this lucid space is the most important. Then you fully allow yourself to slide into this lucid space and it is the direct path of enlightenment.

Can't you still encounter all kinds of personal things?

In this movement it may be that you notice for instance, that there is emotional pain, but you can go through it, towards your center. It's the same with mandalas. With all mandalas you have more external and more internal layers. The most important meditation is the meditation on the point in the center. So you go through and beyond all existence levels, towards the center, the bindu. Subject and object come together there. This is a movement that goes along with the expansion that we were talking about. With the expansion this aspect of returning to your center is also very important. That is also the image of the koshas. The incarnated self is surrounded by all kinds of veils. First you come across the dense, heavy veils of matter. Below that you have some lighter veils of your energies, your emotional, mental, and so on. But precisely because you enter in with your clarity those heavy veils drop away. And the deeper you go, the more they disappear, until you enter in to your core, into your own most authentic self, which was trapped in there. When you do that with your insight-self, there is the recognition of your Self. That is enlightenment. So this takes place, there, in your exact center. There it is. The more you go to that center – in this model then – the more space there will be and the less heavy it is. You let more and more go, you dive in deeper and deeper, you let more and more go, all chunks in which there's still a limited piece of self-being. The self within is thus liberated by the action of your consciousness. That's the idea of ??Shiva who enters the dark area as consciousness and illuminates everything there. He coincides with that being, that Shakti, so that subject and object come together (see Chakra Yoga – experience knowledge and liberation of life energies and bodies). When you fully focus directly on this origin, you shoot through all these processes in no time and the path is immediate.

*****


Er is geen tweeheid

als je ontspannen bent
in zelf-bewustzijn
is dat duidelijk.


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