Why the same dream?

[Miguel Angel Carrasco]

On Tue, 2 Dec 1997, Greg wrote :

                        >>The problem starts in the experiencing. >>

        >Why is there a problem at all?  Sounds like you're understanding this
        teaching pretty well.  Maybe I don't get what the intellectual conflict
        is.>

What I meant with ^ÓThe problem starts in the experiencing^Ô is that we quite
agree in the essential, but appear (only appear, I hope) to disagree in a
minor point related to the Consciousness´ experiences.

By starting this debate, which I fear might seem banal for some of you, I
just tried to gradually approach a much more sensitive point, which I don´t
yet know how to focus on properly. I just wanted to proceed step by step
from the clear and accepted (the unicity of the Self) to the less obvious
(e.g. how to deal, if at all, with ^Ómy life^Ô, and other related topics).

Let´s re-start with the premises:

1. We have only one God, the Absolute, per se pure contentless Awareness,
who at the rising of the Content-Consciousness begins to function as the
Witness of the manifestation. Then also starts the (apparent, not-real)
duality Subject-Object, Self-World, and the sense I-Am, that is,
Self-Consciousness.

2. ^ÓConsciousness [...] needs physical forms for its functioning^Ô (page
183) and ^Óthere are millions of psychosomatic forms but no two exactly
alike^Ô (p.182)

Ergo:

3. The above appears to affect the One Consciousness in two ways:

A) Self-identification with the body-minds, resulting in the appearance of
pseudo-entities : the egos, which are doubly imaginary: because like
everything else they are only objects in Consciousness, and because, on top
of that, egos are erroneous concepts, silly mistakes, the false origin of
the false bondage.

B) Besides, as Consciousness ^Óacts through the physical bodies, each of
which has its own temperament and character^Ô (p.182), the result is that
the Self, the Subject of Consciousness, experiences the World in similar
but different ways. That is why the egos do not appear to be exactly the
same. The One Self in Hitler saw the World not quite like the One Self in
Nisargadatta did. (Do I need to repeat that both the World and the
individual visions of it are just contents in Consciousness, unreal,
uncreated?)

These were just the premises. If we agree so far, we can proceed.

        >Ramesh, Wayne Liquorman, and another modern teacher named Satyem Nadeen
(also from the Ramesh/Nisargadatta branch of teaching) all say that there
is nothing that can be done.>

With this, we have gone a step further in the direction I expected. And I
think it is here that the problem becomes tangible (though imagined, of
course).

        >Can you boil it down to 2 sentences, like (A) seems to contradict (B) or
something like that...>

Let´s do it.   (A) will be the no-responsibility, no-anything to do,
teaching.  (B) will be the teachings and seeming evidence that do not quite
to fit into the first.  I tend to align myself with (A). I wish there were
no (B) on my way!

So far, all quotations were taken from Ramesh Balsekar´s, Pointers. Now
I´ll revert to his teacher´s I Am That.

(A) About this no-responsibility, no-action position, Nisargadatta said:

Don't try to reform yourself, just see the futility of all change. The
changeful keeps on changing while the changeless is waiting. Do not expect
the changeful to take you to the changeless - it can never happen. Only
when the very idea of changing is seen as false and abandoned, the
changeless can come into its own.  (521)

Do nothing, just be. In being all happens naturally.  (227)

In reality things are done to you, not by you. Your desire just happens to
you along with its fulfilment or non-fulfilment. You can change neither.
You may believe that you exert yourself, strive and struggle. Again, it all
merely happens, including the fruits of the work. Neither is by you and for
you. All is in the picture exposed on the cinema screen, nothing in the
light, including what you take yourself to be, the person. You are the
light only.  (481)

Liberation is not the result of some means skilfully applied, nor of
circumstances. It is beyond the causal process. Nothing can compel it,
nothing can prevent it.  (456)

There is nothing to do. Just be. Do nothing. Be. No climbing mountains and
sitting in caves. I do not even say: "be yourself", since you do not know
yourself. Just be. Having seen that you are neither the "outer" world of
perceivables, not the "inner" world of thinkables, that you are neither
body nor mind, just be.  (331)

Having realized that I am with, and yet beyond the world, I became free
from all desire and fear. I did not reason out that I should be free, I
found myself free, unexpectedly, without the least effort.  (269)

>From all this, it becomes quite clear that liberation consists not in doing
things but just in seeing correctly, in being what I already am anyway. And
that seeing correctly is not caused, not a result, it just happens.

(B)   Against (A), we have the huge ammount of advice and rules given by
practically all teachers, including Nisargadatta, in order to do this and
avoid that. Even in just seeing correctly, there seem to be steps to
follow, therefore choice and action. For example:

Your first task is to see the sorrow in you and around you; your next, to
long intensely for liberation. The very intensity of longing will guide
you; you need no other guide.  (236)

Try. One step at a time is easy. Energy flows from earnestness.  (528)

For this [self-realization], you need a well-ordered and quiet life, peace
of mind and immense earnestness.  (491)

Mere physical renunciation is only a token of earnestness, but earnestness
alone does not liberate. There must be understanding which comes with alert
perceptivity, eager enquiry and deep investigation. You must work
relentlessly for your salvation from sin and sorrow.  (534)

Contradiction? One could adduce that these pieces of advice were meant for
beginners, who cannot stand not doing anything. So also Nisargadatta:

The people who begin their sadhana are so feverish and restless that they
have to be very busy to keep themselves on the track. An absorbing routine
is good for them. After some time, they quieten down and turn away from
effort. In peace and silence, the skin of the "I" dissolves and the inner
and the outer become one. The real sadhana is effortless.  (483)

Unless you make tremendous efforts, you will not be convinced that effort
will take you nowhere. The self is so self-confident that unless it is
totally discouraged it will not give up. (523)

But if advice to do this or that is just playing along with the beginners^Ò
restlessness, while the (A) position is meant for those who know better,
why bother at all to say anything?

On the other hand, the (A) position implies that I, the Self, have no
responsibility at all for my mistaken Self-identification with the
different body-minds, and that I needn^Òt do anything about it, just let it
be. But
while such an identification with the false egos lasts, I cannot help
suffering, I cannot but try to do something, and just hearing about the
position (A) doesn´t make me realize my mistake. So (A)  would be useless
or unoperative. While I do not realize my-Self, I try to act and thus I am
not in (A) , and when I do realize my-Self I do not need (A).

I will make a provisional stop here. I am afraid of becoming a bore.