Satsang with Nome - Eloquent Silence

[Guest guest]

April 10, 2005

 

Om Om Om

(Silence)

 

N.: Absolute Truth is the continuous silent teaching of the Maharshi.

Truth refers to Reality as it is, while "Absolute" is indicative of

it being invariable and of its not being in relation to anything else—

in other words, its utter nonduality.

 

That which truly exists alone exists. It is of the nature of Being-

Consciousness-Bliss. This is your Self, the only self that there is.

This is what exists, apart from which nothing else exists.

 

According to what it is with which you identify is established your

relation to the Absolute and all else. If you misidentify yourself

with the form of a body, you will be in relation to a supposed

external world and God distinct therefrom. If you know the truth that

you are not the body, and the body is not a definition for yourself,

that you are neither a body nor embodied, can there be a relation to

a universe? Can there be a relation to a God apart from yourself?

 

Look at this more deeply. The Truth as expounded everywhere in

Advaita Vedanta is Tat tvam asi, That you are. How are you going to

realize That? That is something that cannot be grasped and cannot be

lost. It is ever existent. According to how you regard your identity,

you will conceive of your relation to That. So, if you misidentify

with the mind, that is thought, you will conceive of yourself as one

thing and That as another, though the instruction, both in aphorism

and in silence, is "That you are," and not "That you are not."

 

If you imagine yourself to be an individual, you will then be, in

some manner or another, in relation to the Truth, but the Truth is

absolute and is not in relation to anything. How can the Real be in a

relation with that which is unreal? Or the Self with what is not the

Self? Where is the connection?

 

So, if you regard yourself as a thing, there will always be this

distinction or difference. Nondifferentiation, Nonduality, is Truth.

And Truth is supremely blissful. So, to realize that Truth, you must

set yourself free of all the imagined differentiation, the imagined

duality. To do so is a matter of ascertaining your identity.

 

If you are distinct, even in the least, from the Self, from Brahman,

and that is true even for a moment, it is true for all eternity, and

there is no liberation, which is absurd. For everyone who feels bound

seeks Liberation as an intuition of the natural state, just as

everyone who feels suffering seeks happiness as an intuition of the

natural state. That seeking for happiness cannot be stopped, though

it can be fulfilled.

 

The Maharshi gives the instruction to inquire, "Who am I?" If you

thus determine, in Self-Knowledge, what your identity actually is,

you yourself are the Liberation. You yourself are the Bliss sought.

You yourself are the very Being, or Consciousness, of That. So, in

order to find out the Truth, realized experientially, first-hand as

That you are, Tat tvam asi, inquire as to who you are. See for

yourself that you yourself are not in relation to a body, to thought

or a mind, and that you are not an assumed individual who could be

any such thing.

 

Though the Maharshi's answers to questions posed to him were always

extremely relevant to the questioner, the glorious beauty of his

answers was that the answers always uprooted the imagined identity,

thereby revealing absolute Truth in which he was giving instruction

silently all the time. That Silence still is. Absolute Truth is

eternal. Realize that Absolute Truth as your very Being. It is a

matter of Self-Knowledge.

 

If you misidentify as an "I," as a mind, as a body, and so forth and

so on, you will assume that you are, in some way or another, in some

kind of relation to the Absolute. If you cease to misidentify with

the body, the mind, or the ego, there is no relation. There cannot be

a relation where there are not two.

 

(Silence)

 

Attempting to inquire to know the Self, therefore, do not regard

yourself as one thing and the Self as another. If you do have that

idea, "I am a self attempting to realize the Self," leave the Self

alone, for it is fine, and inquire as to who you are. If you inquire,

that which is unreal is revealed as such. What is known as unreal

cannot bind and does not remain. Then, Reality knows itself, as the

Reality, Brahman, the real Self, alone can know itself. Only the

Nondual Truth can realize the Nondual Truth. Do you understand? There

is nothing objective in this Knowledge. There is nothing objective,

except that which is negated, in this inquiry. All is

resolved in indivisible, nondual, absolute Reality.

 

 

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Questions and answers to come in further postings.

 

Not two,

Richard