Change/Changeless/Charles/etc.

[Prashant Sharma]

On Thu, 6 Nov 1997, Allan Curry wrote:

> Namaskar
>
> Gummuluru writes:
>
> >This intellectual self would not put it the way Charles put it, but:
> >
> >The SELF pervades all, here, there, everywhere, you, me and everyone.
> >SELF is the rock, the animal, the plant, the human. SELF does not
> >speak. SELF does not act. But it is the SELF that powers you to speak.
> >What is spoken is the intellectual self's understanding of the SELF.
> >
>
>     I've read scriptures which put it almost exactly as you
>     have and I "believe" it is true. The question I've been
>     wrestling with for the last few weeks concerns those
>     people who imagine they have realized they are the SELF.
>
> As I just wrote to someone else off the list:
>
>     If enlightenment is no more than the recognition that
>     there is no one here who recognizes there is no one
>     here, then "I" am enlightened without a doubt. The doubt
>     is that this is not enlightenment and non-people who say
>     so are not enlightened either.
>

        I think that what you are asking is some kind of a definition of
enlightenment.  I dont see how it is possible to give such a definition
but allow me to say that if one looks at the life of enlightened souls
then one thing stands out very clearly and that is an element of
certainty.
This certainty "burns" away all the doubts that one has.  Also it cannot
be conveyed since it is not an idea. This certainty cannot even tell you
that there is a "self" or an "atman" or any such abstraction. Its
my personal feeling that such abstractions are expressions of doubt and
therefore pervade the world of the "unrealized".

Regards,
Prashant.

>
> regards,
>
> - Allan Curry
>