A special form of meditation with an object is one in which the object is a void or blank. In this process, one makes an effort to keep the mind free from thoughts or sensations. Sometimes a tool, such as the repetition of a sacred formula or some form of breath-control is used to achieve this end. As in any kind of meditation with an object, a temporary weakening of the ego ensues, and the mind may experience, for some time, a blank state, an absence of thoughts and sensations, or simply an absence of thoughts, depending on the depth and the nature of the experience. However, this is also a mind-created state which has a beginning and an end. This form of meditation is often mistakenly believed to be non-objective meditation. This is not the case because the absence of objects (sensations and thoughts) is still a very subtle projected object. Although this state may temporarily bring some satisfaction, and even unleash some mind powers, it turns out to be barren. The meditator remains within the prison of the mind, and the fullness of the heart remains unknown to him. This state is devoid of the absolute freedom, creative joyfulness, and wonderful immortality of the natural non-dual state.
In non-objective meditation, our attention is drawn toward the non-objective, the ultimate subject, consciousness. This occurs spontaneously as a result of understanding. At the first stage, the truth-seeker is asked to notice that the happiness for which he is really looking, the causeless bliss he experiences in the presence of his teacher, is non-objective, meaning “not contained in any object, gross or subtle.” When this is understood, the mind, which can only grasp mentations (thoughts and sense-perceptions), realizes that it can’t have access to the non-objective realm; that any attempt to secure happiness through the mind is doomed to failure. As a result, the mind soon finds itself in a natural state of stillness. In this natural form of meditation, sensations or thoughts are neither sought nor avoided; they are simply welcomed and seen off. It could be described as a total openness, in which we are totally open to our sense perceptions, bodily sensations, emotions, feelings, and thoughts.
We could compare these mentations with the different characters of a play. As long as we find the play interesting, our attention is completely drawn by the actors in the foreground. But, if there is a weak moment, our attention progressively relaxes until we suddenly become aware of the background, of the stage. In the same way, as our attention relaxes and becomes global, unfocused, open, and disinterested (this detachment follows from our understanding that these mentations have really nothing to offer in terms of real happiness), we suddenly become aware of the background of consciousness, which is revealed as the ultimate immortality, splendor, and happiness we were seeking.
It isn’t necessary for the actors to leave the stage in order for us to be aware of the background of the set. Similarly, the absence of mentations is not a prerequisite for recognition of our true self. However, when the actors leave and our attention relaxes, we have an opportunity to be aware of the background. In the same way, we have the opportunity to knowingly experience our real nature when a mentation merges with consciousness.
The attitude of welcoming, which is the essence of nonobjective meditation, is easily and naturally conveyed to a sincere truth-seeker by “induction,” in the presence of someone who has merged with the background.
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You imply that every gradual path is ego-driven. Should I stop meditating twice a day?
There is nothing wrong with two daily meditations. On the contrary, I recommend that you sit in stillness twice a day, preferably before going to sleep and right after waking up. Now, the question is, what does sitting in stillness mean? It means to sit free from dualizing thoughts, to sit in being; in non-doing, not in becoming, not in end-gaining. When the notion of a person arises, a person trying to achieve some goal, such as becoming the Prime Minister or a realized human being, simply be aware of it, take note of it. Don’t try to eliminate it, don’t judge yourself. It is simply a recurring habit which will lose its poisonous character if left alone. The moment it is noticed it becomes neutralized. Be aware of fear, desire, and boredom as they arise. Don’t try to escape. Welcome them and give them the opportunity to unfold in your loving presence. Notice that these feelings have thought-like and sensation-like components, related to the notion of being a person. The thought-like component can be swiftly dealt with by asking, “Who is afraid? Who is in a state of lack? Who is getting bored?” The bodily sensations should be given space and time to evolve, unfold, and tell their stories. Don’t try to get rid of them or maintain them. Simply welcome them and see them off. In this way, your attention is removed from the objective realm and is spontaneously transferred to your real nature. It is the only way to facilitate this transfer, because the mind can’t directly focus on that which is beyond the mind. Any attempt to do so would tie us to the subject-object realm and would, therefore, be doomed to failure.
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I am unable to realize the truth at the moment. This means that I am not realized.
There is only the truth. How could we possibly not see it, since there is only it? Whatever is known at the moment, in the timeless now, is the truth. The knower, the known, and knowing are one, and this oneness is the living truth. A second later, a new thought arises saying, “I just knew this or that” and this new thought demotes the non-dual truth to the rank of “this” or “that,” an object known by a limited subject, the personal entity. This new thought is also the truth. There is no thinker of this thought in the now. The thought, its thinker, and thinking are one, as always. We have never left the now. How could we? Equally meaningless as the concept of a “realized person,” is the concept of a “non-realized” person. If you think you are “nonrealized,” it implies that you don’t know what realization is. If you don’t know what realization is, how do you know that you aren’t realized? You might discover that you have always been realized, and like a man married to two wives, one divine and immortal, the other human and perishable, you simultaneously live at two levels: the relative level of subject-object relations, and the absolute and timeless level of pure, non-dual consciousness. In the meantime, don’t indulge in dualizing thoughts, such as “realized” and “nonrealized.” Get rid, once and for all, of these erroneous concepts which originate from the false notion that you are a personal entity, and don’t allow them to resurface in the mind. This attitude could be called “living according to one’s deep understanding.”
What does the “direct path” you describe entail?
The direct path means direct understanding, and the boldness to act according to this understanding. You don’t need to understand everything that is said here. Start with what you understand directly, not with what you merely believe. Start with what you feel in deep agreement with, and live accordingly.
Isn’t deep sleep a return of my ego to the womb where it can hide from the realities of life?
Speaking about your ego in this way, implies that you know your ego “which returns to the womb every night.” You are implying that your ego is an object of which you are the witness or knower. Do you know the knower of your ego? Find out for yourself whether this knower ever returns to the womb to sleep, or whether this knower is the ever-present and eternally aware womb of all appearances and disappearances.
The stillness we occasionally experience between two mentations in the waking state is totally aware, whereas deep sleep seems (admittedly to the waking state) an absence of any such awareness. How could both experiences possibly be identical?
You acknowledge that you are speaking of deep sleep as it appears from the vantage point of the waking state. In other words, you are referring to the deep sleep state rather than to deep sleep as it is subjectively experienced. From your vantage point, your remark is true. The subjective stillness between two mentations, which the Indian tradition calls Turiya, the ultimate reality, is alive and aware, whereas the deep sleep state, construed to be pure blank, or nothingness, is dead and unconscious. However, so is the stillness between mentations,
when seen from the vantage point of the mind as a blank state or an objective nothingness. Having had a glimpse of the awareness and liveliness of the interval between mentations, we are open to the awareness and liveliness of deep sleep, which is also an interval between two mentations. The ego is not present in this stillness and has no desire for it. It wants to maintain its existence through the dynamism of the mind. When this dynamism stops, the truth is revealed in the absence of the ego. The ego’s uselessness becomes manifest, just as the temporary absence of an incompetent, lazy, and nasty employee allows his manager to realize that the business can be run more efficiently without him. For this reason, it isn’t the ego who desires deep sleep, in which it is absent. The invitation comes from the absolute.
A purification is accomplished spontaneously if we welcome our thoughts and bodily sensations during the transition between the waking state and deep sleep. Our concerns leave the mind, one by one, and the traces of the struggles of the day that is ending leave the body, one by one, until the entire body-mind structure becomes a single fullness of light, awareness, and timeless presence.
This could be called “entering deep sleep knowingly.” The key is to do this welcoming meditation every night before falling asleep. During these moments you let everything that is not you depart, so that you can enter the sanctuary of the night with the nakedness, the humility, and the innocence of a newborn child.
Love Never Dies
People who pause and honestly ask themselves, “Who or what am I?” will quickly admit that they don’t know. What is our real nature?
I am not sure they should quickly admit that they don’t know, because a thorough investigation is needed to bring about the maturity of a deep experience. If, after trying to understand who you are, the answer is, “I don’t know,” I would say, “That is fine. Look again.” This inquiry about who we are is a serious undertaking. It has to become the only question in our life, not just a question we repeat verbally: “Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?” It has to come unexpectedly, when a task has been accomplished, when we are in a moment of openness. This question may appear in various forms, such as: “What is life?”, “What is happiness?”, “What is truth?” All of these questions are equivalent. They boil down to the single question, “Who am I?” When one of these questions spontaneously arises, we should respond by opening our heart, giving it all the attention and love of which we are capable, and by living with it. Then the quest remains alive in us. It opens up a path of understanding and clarifies the mind. We find ourselves in openness, open to the unknown, and in this quietness there is the opportunity to be taken beyond, to the understanding that we are that which we are seeking.
You pointed out that it isn’t wise to deal with the question, “Who am I?” too quickly. There are people who devote their lives to this question, or to a particular facet of it. For example, a philosopher may dedicate his life to answering the question, “What is life?” while the physicist may devote himself to understanding, “What is the world?” and the psychologist may spend his life with, “What is a person?” Are any of these approaches, carried to their natural end, possible routes to our real nature?
These ways of research don’t bring the seeker anywhere. At best, they bring him to the understanding that he was traveling down a dead-end street. This is already an achievement. The real question, “Who am I?” requires a great deal of maturity, otherwise the search is not genuine, because it is corrupted by the desires and the misconceptions of the ego. I may be a professional writer inquiring about my real nature, but if my investigation is corrupted by the desire to sell my books, or win a Nobel Prize, then I am not looking for truth, but for money and fame. Maturity comes when the seeker, in all earnestness, in all honesty, in all genuineness, arrives at an absolute, “I don’t know.” When this level of maturity is reached, he will meet a teacher who will help him on his way to the ultimate answer. He may find his teacher at an earlier stage, but this level of maturity will, so to speak, compel the encounter with a teacher. The presence of the teacher enables the seeker to break the vicious circle in which he is trapped due to the mind being unable to reach beyond itself. In the living presence of the teacher, out of an impalpable experience, out of a non-event, higher intelligence is born.
Is a meeting with a teacher necessary in order to understand the truth?
I assume that by “meeting with a teacher,” you mean a meeting with a living teacher.
Yes, on the phenomenal plane.
In principle, no, but for all practical purposes, yes. In principle, no, since the teacher is not a person. The teacher is the ultimate reality, not a body or a mind. In practice, yes, because the seeker can’t extricate himself from the vicious circle of the ego. The ego can’t kill itself. Even if an individual has a premonition of the truth and becomes an earnest seeker, when dissatisfaction about the usual objects of desire steps in, a living contact with what we could call a personification of the truth is still needed. During this contact, the teacher brings the student to a state of not knowing, in which the mind gives up the search. Only in this total openness can the real teaching begin, and the beginning of the real teaching, in the silence of the heart, is also its end.
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How can we live in harmony with others?
A person can never live in harmony with other persons. He can only live in harmony with others when there are no others.
Why does love between human beings seem so fragile?
When a man and woman meet (this kind of love seems to be more fragile than love between parents and children) there is a polarity between them. There is a sexual polarity coming from the male and female elements in them, and there is also a more general gender polarity that exists between men and women. Out of this polarity, an attraction is born, which has a biological mission to accomplish: the perpetuation of the human race. There is nothing wrong with this instinct. It has its own beauty and brings about enjoyment. But real love lies beyond. If there is no meeting in real love, the attraction eventually fades away, in the same way that a battery gets discharged when we connect its two poles. The conflicting desires and fears of both partners, which up until now were hidden by the cloud of their mutual attraction, reappear, and the relationship comes to an end.
In this case there wasn’t a real relationship in the first place. The love was fragile because the relationship was not grounded in real love. If there is a deeper meeting of the hearts, or rather a meeting in the heart, this love is beyond time and space. It can never disappear.
The saying, “Love never dies” comes from this intuition. Real love stays with us forever. It isn’t stored in memory. It is a kind of remembrance that comes from the core of our being. When we remember a loved one, we may at first see his face, hear his voice, but these objective elements soon disappear in real love, our common ground, awareness.
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Is sexual pleasure ever morally wrong?
Sexual pleasure per se is neither morally wrong nor morally right. It all depends on the purity of the heart. Purity of the heart means love. Love makes everything sacred. Real love is not a relationship between male and female, not even a companionship between man and woman. It goes much deeper. It is the friendliness in which two apparently separate human beings melt together. If a relationship is grounded in real love, sexuality is an offering, a celebration of life. It becomes sacred. In the absence of real love, it is only a function of the body.
But, whether functioning well or not, sexual behavior simply does not fall within the moral domain?
From this perspective, there is no such thing as codified morality. If there is love between two men, or between two women, for instance, and if sexuality becomes a way of expressing this love, it is sacred. Love doesn’t exclude anything. Love is all-welcoming, all-encompassing, open to anyone who is open to it.
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Is it possible to have a relationship in which the ego is not involved?
Yes, of course. I would e
ven say that it is the only way to have a real relationship, because relationship means relation, contact. If I take myself for a person, then there is another, and there is a relation between an object and another object, which means no relation at all, since two objects can never contact one another.
Why is that?
Real contact is in the heart. Objects, as such, have no heart. Real relationship is in the heart, in oneness. There are circumstances in which you can feel this beauty. One day, I was waiting for a friend at the airport. He was seated at the rear of the plane, so I had an opportunity to see the other incoming passengers, and their relatives waiting for them at the gate. I vividly remember the joy of a family being reunited, the tears in their eyes, their spontaneous and affectionate gestures, their smiling faces. So, of course, there are real relationships.
Are you saying that they weren’t people in that moment? They weren’t persons?
Absolutely. I could feel their joy in me. I was there unnoticed, but one with them, with the beauty of the scene.
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What is sin?
Sin is nonsense. There is no sin, because there is no sinner in the first place. The only sin is to take oneself for a sinner. I grant that there may be inadequate behavior, an action that originates from a fragmented view of the situation. Such an action will haunt one until the situation is seen again in its totality, at which point the underlying conflict finds its resolution in intelligence. But, there is no need to willfully recollect these “sins.” Such a recollection only strengthens the ego. There is no point in condemning oneself as a sinner or in trying to change oneself. Sense of guilt and desire to change also reinforce the ego. One only need see these so-called sins for what they are, not take oneself for their doer, and forget them.
Eternity Now Page 4
