Quote from Sri Jewell:
“Everything really looks like paradox,but how can it not look like that when the mind and the one who is in search for himself are paradox itself. Vasanas are the obstacles,but then,the question arise,for whom are these obstacles. Who ownes vasanas,and who wants to get rid of them. Coz now thought occured to me that we like individuals are trying to get rid of our selves. Thats why it is circle without end.
And it is said that all is illusion only,projection. Infact,it seems that projection itself is the illusion. That there is no such thing like projection at all. It is I am which came and with it all else. So that I am must be false,if Supreme is beyond being and not being.”
Sure it cannot be cognized,who would be there to see it and understand it. And again, all this is again false,i feel that what ever i say or think will never be the truth,and that in the end there is no such thing like truth at all,like there is nothing to be false either. I keep thinking on words of the Wise Ones that we need to realise the truth,and i realised that is a lie too. What can I,imagined entity,Jewell posibly realize? Only my non existence,which again i cannot call realisation at all. If this indentity is false,and this perception too,and,most important,if I Am is birth,and birth doasnt exist,then this search belongs to all that too. Illusion.
What to do then,just Be,coz our Sadguru said so.”
Dear Sri Jewell,
Projection and reflection are all mere phenomena and therefore illusory. The Self, that we are, is the only Reality or Existence. But habits of the mind (vasanas) obstruct or hinder the realisation of the Self and make us believe that we are finite beings. Sri Bhagwan taught that the right way to overcome the habits of the mind (vasanas) is by ‘realising the Self’. So, on the one hand mental habits obstruct the realisation of the Self, and on the other by realising the Self only mental habits can be overcome. This appears to be arguing in a circle. But again Sri Bhagwan says that is the ego which raises such difficulties, CREATING OBSTACLES, and then suffers from APPARENT PARADOXES.
So, yes, the ego-self is not, non-existent, and is therefore illusory. And this ignorance, this bondage, all the troubles and pleasures, these apparent paradoxes are for the ego which is not, and are therefore all imagined.
Our duty is just to be or to be still and not to be this or that. But our delusion of being finite being, that is, the ego of the form I am the body, causes us to be this and that. All this is due to repeated mental habits (vasanas). Sri Bhagwan says that the light of the Self falls on the vasanas and produces the phenomenon of reflection called mind; and if the mind become introverted through Enquiry, mental habits or the vasanas become extinct. WHEN VASANAS BECOME EXTINCT, THE MIND ALSO DISAPPEARS. Ego-mind gone, there is neither seer nor the seen, neither the cogniser nor the cognised. Then only we can understand that we are ever realised and never non-realised.
Dear Sri Jewell, it is for the above reason that Sri Bhagwan taught to seek the source of the ego-mind or the ‘I’-thought, that is all we have to do, for then the false ‘I’ will disappear and with it will disappear the whole universe for it exists on account of the ‘I’-thought. So, the Self-enquiry is not mere mental questioning but the purpose of the ‘Who am I?’ enquiry is to focus the entire mind at its source. This is attending to the Self, or the Self-abidance which is to keep the entire mind steadily poised in pure Self-awareness. Sri Bhagwan taught that by repeatedly practicing thus, the mind becomes extremely pure due to removal of its defects and the practice will become so easy that the purified mind will plunge in the Heart as soon as the Enquiry is commenced. The power of the mind to abide in the Self thus increases.
Dear Sri Jewell, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Teaching is similar if not exactly the same as Sri Bhagwan’s. FOR SRI BHAGWAN AS WELL AS SRI MAHARAJ TAUGHT TO HOLD THE PRIMARY DATUM OF OUR EXPEREINCE which is the door to our Atma-Swarupa, the Real Self.
Thanks very much, dear Sri Jewell.
Pranam,
Anil