THE UNREAL TO THE REAL
When I first read the words of the Buddha, "All the world is suffering," I was trekking in Nepal. I remember sitting alone on a rock looking down upon a Buddhist monastery, hearing the drones of their prayers, watching monks carry heavy loads of food and logs. The day was beautiful, the air crisp, the near-by snow-covered peaks towered majestically overhead. On such a day, feeling so alive, I could only laugh at what the Buddha had said. "How could this beautiful, magnificent world be filled with suffering? Did not the Buddha see the beauty of the world? Obviously, he must have been very unhappy," I said to the faraway monks.
And off I continued on my adventure and into the future.
It was four years later, at the beginning of my partner's pregnancy, when she was attacked in the middle of the night with a severe migraine, that his words, like the metaphorical arrow he often used, struck my heart in their truth. It was in my partner's pain and in my anguish over my helplessness that all doubt was removed about which direction to turn. For in my mind's eye, as she screamed in agony, I saw her dead, and experienced the sorrow of her passing. Though she recovered in the morning, my sorrow remained; because I knew that she, like all things of this world, will pass. All those people and things I considered my happiness I knew must go, and all that would be left in their wake would be sorrow.
All things change. And the world is composed of things. No thing can be changeless, for time whittles away anything it touches. No metal has been made to withstand time. No mountain range will ever stand up to time. Even the Earth, the Sun, and the Universe will one day dissolve. Relentless is time.
If we place our hopes, our happiness in anyone or anything, even if we attain our desired end and hold onto it with all our might, time will wield its sword and the objects of our desires will crumble in our bloody hands. All that is made of dust will return to dust. What comes, must go.
THE BOWL
What makes a clay bowl a clay bowl? Obviously, the clay as well as the shape. But it also has a taste, a texture, and perhaps a smell, and sound. However, being that our eyes are things, or phenomena, they see only things, or phenomena. This holds true for every sense organ, each experiencing a different aspect of some phenomenon. So when we come to the bowl it is our senses which define the bowl.
Yet, there is also space. Inside the bowl as well as without. Without that space the bowl cannot exist as a bowl. Without the inside space the bowl could contain nothing. Without the outside space there would be no place to be and it would have no separation from any other object, and thus no definition.
But space is something we ignore. For it is nothing--no thing. Being that our senses cannot make contact or experience space (it is only by observing gaps between objects do we through our senses notice space), and because our senses have become our guides, we simply ignore space.
We are only interested in objects. We see (sight is the favored sense of modern times) only the forms--not what's inside, nor the common space outside all forms.
Focusing on the form we then come to beginnings and ends, creation and destruction, life and death. And so arise questions and theories, theology and science. Ramana Maharshi, a modern sage of India, when asked about reincarnation, life after death, and other such metaphysical matters, like the Buddha, seldom indulged in such speculations. However, one analogy he would use would be of the bowl. The bowl when moving point to point appears to carry the space within it. Yet, in truth, it is only the bowl moving through space and space not moving at all. And when the bowl becomes shattered and destroyed, the space remains as it has been and always will be.
SPACE/CONSCIOUSNESS
Space is another term for Consciousness: The space that surrounds and fills any object, no matter how subtle, that can be perceived. Consciousness is the space around and within the objects perceived by the sixth sense or the space around and in the objects perceived by the mind, the ideas and thoughts. It is the space around and within the mind itself. And it is the space within space and around space.
To become aware of space or Consciousness is not as simple as it might immediately sound. Remember, if space is perceived--by any sense organ, the psychic organ, or the mind organ--then it has become an object, and thus exists space around and within it. It cannot be touched, seen, smelt, tasted, heard or thought of. It can only be experienced. Yet once the thought of the experience arises, space shifts to the background and the object of thought presides. The transitory is once more focused upon.
WHAT'S THE POINT ON FOCUSING ON THE POINTLESS?
Why bother with all this talk of space? If it is just talk there is no point. Then it becomes only more intellectual stuff, more intellectual phenomena. Yet, there is a point to experience it. If what the Buddha said is true, that striving to attain the transitory things of the world will in the end result only in suffering, then it is wise to find That which is permanent--the Infinite.
To come to the knowing of the Infinite there is no point in discussing metaphysics, debating on whether God or Goddess exists or not, or how did creation arise, or what happens to the soul after death, or whether the world is illusion or real, etc., etc. All of these questions--being that they are questions--are simply of the mind. They are conjectures. It is like the famous poisoned arrow of the Buddha. Does one try to figure out the composition of the arrow when one's heart is impaled by it, asking from where it came, why and how it was made, who made it; etc.? Or does one just pull it out?
Becoming aware of space or Consciousness one becomes aware of the changeless, the Infinite. By becoming aware of the Infinite as our true nature, sorrow ceases to be. For the Infinite or space cannot be touched. Nothing can be taken away from It. Nor can anything be added unto It. It encompasses all things and is within all things. There is no fragmentation. Only wholeness. Only One. Only when there is a second can there be pain.
Ramana Maharshi used repeatedly the analogy of the cinema screen. Whatever movie is played upon the screen, whether a movie of lovers, the life of a saint, or a bloody war, the images can never affect the screen. The screen is Consciousness. By being aware of the screen as Oneself, as the only Reality, one is no longer moved by the world, the film. One no longer attempts to hold onto the images for one's happiness, nor does one become afraid of the images.
Only the Infinite becomes meaningful.
HOW TO BECOME AWARE OF THE INFINITE?
The problem with the question is that it is the finite self asking how to become the Infinite Self. Or the imperfect self that must always evolve, growing into the Perfect One that never needs to grow.
It cannot be done.
The Infinite or Consciousness is always present. Being Infinite there is no time when Consciousness is not. Therefore, the only way to become aware is to be present. To be here and now. Nothing needs to be added; no new powers to be gained; no good deeds to be done. Simply, it is the removal of ignorance--the ignorance that the Divine is out there.
As Ramana emphasized: Find the root of ignorance. Remove that and the Self will be known.
Where is the root? The root of ignorance is in the mind. It is the belief that one is finite and separate. It is the thought: I am this; I am that. The mind always objectifies and defines, placing everything in a box. And by objectifying it ignores space, the Infinite. The mind drifts into the past in search of objects of recollections, and a procession of thoughts will arise like kicked-up dust. Then the mind jumps into the future seeking objects of possibilities, and thoughts emerge in streams of probabilities. Never does the mind sit and focus on the present, on just being; for the mind is nothing but a collection of thoughts gathered through experience. And thoughts are phenomena. They come and go, moving through time.
It is by quieting the mind, ignoring all thoughts and recognizing that they are meaningless that Consciousness will be found. Ramana stressed the importance of self-inquiry as a method to reach That. Being that the mind is nothing more than a collection of thoughts, self-inquiry is a technique of tracing the thoughts as they arise back to their Source. The mind is turned inward by asking :"To whom do these thought arise?" The next response of the mind is: "To me." Then asking: "Who am I?" The true answer is no answer. It is silence. It is space. It is not an affirmation I am God or I am an angel or I am That, etc. For an affirmation is strictly mental. This is the last attempt of the mind trying to stay alive.
Even the subtlest of mind, that which is perceiving the silence or void, must go by asking the question: "Who is perceiving the silence? I am. Who am I?" Only when the inquiry cannot arise, is one there. The space within and around space.
Only then, when we have realized the Infinite, is our true nature known. By holding onto the Real will true peace be attained. For by being Infinite there is nothing to be gained, no desires to be satiated, no cravings of the mind to burn. And by being Infinite fear has ceased, because no thing exists outside.
All is but the Self. One without a second.
Janaka Stagnaro 2003
janakastagnaro.com