fear of samadhi

[Swami Vishvarupananda]

Charles A Hillig wrote:

     There's nothing that "you" can do to speed up your awakening....
     Remember, though, that "you" are not "here."  Since only the Self is
present, free will is completely illusory.  You cannot choose to walk either
the path of the saint OR the path of the sinner. ...

If it was so, then all the instructions given to us by Gurus and scriptures for speeding our awakening would be, though theoretically interesting, practically a waste of time. 
Creation gains its plasticity and realistic by giving its characters a free will within their limits. And we are meant to use exactly this free will to regain our true Self. 
The Gita e.g. is full from beginning to end with instructions, on how to use our free will to attain to THAT.
Just as a person who discovers in dream that (s)he is sleeping can do a lot about awakening from that state, so also a person who realises, that this is not his true state of being can do a whole lot to hasten Self-realisation.
You may argue, that even the desire of doing so awakens only with a certain ripeness, which is, of course, true. Still, how quickly this desire is actualized lies to a considerable extent in our hands, and even help from Saguna Brahman toward this goal is attained to a great extent by our effort through prayer and Sadhana.

Greetings and Om,
Vishvarupananda
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 2623 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: </archives/advaita-l/attachments/19970212/0d46eb74/attachment.bin>