Agony of the soul (?) etc

[Charles A. Hillig]

At 01:48 PM 1/16/97 -0500, you wrote:
>     Charles A. Hillig wrote:
>>
>>
>>       Until we move beyond a spiritual hierarchy that seeks to stratify
>> people, how can we ever experience the loving equanimity demonstrated so
>> beautifully in how Maharshi lived out his life and related so
>> compassionately to those around him?
>>
>>      You cannot really "achieve" liberation.  How can you become freer than
>> you already are?  Moksha is not something to be gained, but something  only
>> to be discovered.   It is always fully present.  Bondage is illusory.
>>
>
>   Does this mean that we do not have to practice any discipline to "gain"
>   mokshha? If we are already free then why should we?

     I don't think that we "have" to "do" anything simply because we really
can't.
Why?  Because there is no separate  "do-er" here who is "doing-the-doing."
In short,  you have no real choice about practicing or not practicing.  At
best, you can only say that you have the choice between attaching yourself
to the practicing or not.    If you "choose" to practice, you'll discover
soon enough if it is appropriate for you.   Free will is as illusory as the
one who is supposed to be having it.

    But, either way, it's really OK.  As Buddha once said "At the end of the
road is freedom.   Untill then, patience.".


>   I think when someone says mokshha is to be gained, it means that
>  impediments to the natural state of mokshha should be removed. All
>  disciplines, studies, meditations, etc are meant for removing these
>  obstacles which obscure the natural state. No practice will confer
>  mokshha on us, but the utility of such practices should not be undermined.
>  Once we realize that we are free, we will understand that bondage is
>  illusory, nor before. When we dream, we do not realize that we are
>  dreaming. Only when we wake up, we dismiss all the objects that we had
>  seen in the dream as not real.
>
>  The tiger in the dream is illusory, and so is the fear of it.
>  But the fearful dream-tiger  caused the dream to come to an end.
>  Similar is the effect of striving for mokshha. (I don't mean
>  striving for mokshha is fearful. :-) )

     Actually, I think the very terror that it triggers can help to jar us
into realization.  Sometime the way out of hell, is to go further on into it.

                                          With Blessings,

                                                   Chuck Hillig