Let us
consider briefly the causes of incomplete knowledge and how it makes our
present human condition. And how this makes up our ego, and its consequences of
fear, lust, anger, greed, delusion, pride and envy. And how we can free
ourselves. And what freedom means.
1.
Causes of incomplete knowledge. Things
are not what they seem to be.mHow do we perceive the world around us? Through
our senses. Through sound, touch, form, taste and smell, or through thinking.
All these six faculties are filters.
Let us
look at the nature of these filters.
SABDA =
sound: We
HEAR only what is in this room. We cant hear what is far away. Also we
can hear only the sounds in the frequency range of some 15 cycles/sec to 15000.
We don't hear the ultra or infra sounds which some animals can.
SPARSA=
touch: We
feel the TOUCH only within a few millimeters of our surface. Beyond that
we don't feel any thing. Our skin acts as a sharp cut-off filter within
and outside of the body surface.
ROOPA=form: We SEE nearby objects much bigger
than far away objects. Also we can only see one octave of wavelengths in the
entire electro-magnetic spectrum. Also we see things only from a single
direction. We cannot see a thing from all angles, and all distances. How
would an object look if we see it from all sides at once? From all
distances? With all magnifications? Would it be the same as our normal
vision ? How does a spinning top appear with pictures on it? How would
the world appear if we had X ray vision? Would our skin based cosmetics
industry survive?
RASA=taste: We TASTE only what is on our tongue.
GANDHA=smell: We SMELL only what enters our noses.
MANAS=mind: Our MIND reproduces these sensations
through remembering, and can some times overcome some limitations of sensory
filters by the logical thinking. Yet, it cannot penetrate other minds and
read what is in other thoughts as if the thoughts were its own. It can remember
the past and sometimes the future too; but that is rare. Thus the mind as
an instrument has its many limitations. It is also a filter.
The
world we are perceiving is not really as it seems to be. So, our
experience is an illusion. All the senses and the mind are distorting it
in so many ways. They are so immediate, so intimately connected to us
that we do not even suspect that our perceptions are wrong and that the world
we experience bears no resemblance to the reality. It is not what is really out
there.
What we
know or can know through senses or reasoning is infinitesimal. What we do
not see is far more important than what we see.
2. Ego
is illusion coming from incompleteness.
Ego is
the idea: this is me, these are mine; this is not me, these are not my
people.
Given
the filters of our perceptions, is it not natural that we give importance to
local experiences and no importance at all to things far away? The ideas of I
and mine, that this is what I am and these are my people, forms the core of
ego. All my life I try to protect these ideas.
We
understand that it is NOT our fault that we have the ideas of I and mine so
deeply embedded in us. But it is in the very nature of our senses that these
concepts are embedded.
If we
wish to overcome the limitations of ego, we have to let go of our attachments
to senses and the information they bring. Just as I can't get an idea of
a carpet if I attach a microscope to my eye even if I research for a thousand
years, I cannot get an idea of the universe with the limiting vision. I
have to let go of the microscope; I have to let go of the senses. Then
only I get a chance to perceive the reality. The freedom we talk about is
the freedom from the senses, or attachment to sense based information.
The
separation between I and world, mine and not mine comes from the local nature
of senses. Concepts of I and mine make the passions. How? I see some thing. I
don't know what it is. Fear comes. I like it, I want it, Desire/Lust is born.
If I don't get what I want, I get Anger, feel helpless, and hunger for power
comes. If I get what I want, I don't want to let go of it, possessiveness
comes. I get so used to it, I can't even live without it. Delusion comes. I get
the pride I have it; and jealousy some has it I don't have it. So, all these
passions are born out of I and mine.
Also, I
judge the information I receive based on what is good or bad for me. I notice
that good brings me happiness, reduces misery, and preserves my identity, that
is, maintains my separateness from the world. Bad is the opposite of
these things.
Judgments
form the core of the structures of ego. Hatred, doubt, fear, shame, aversion,
family, race, conduct: these 8 passions form the sub-structures of ego.
We HATE
something or someone who brings misery to us.
We
DOUBT if what is in front of us is good or bad.
We FEAR
animals or persons unknown to us, who speak a foreign tongue.
We are
ASHAMED of doing things we really want to do.
We
develop AVERSION to things we judge as bad.
We form
the idea of our FAMILY and try to do everything for them.
We
identify with our RACE and pronounce others inferior or bad.
We
believe that we have to conform to the norms of CONDUCT without questioning for
fear of punishment or rejection.
Thus we
develop the emotions of Hatred, Doubt, Fear, Shame, Aversion, Family, Race and
Conduct from trying to protect the ideas of I and mine. These are the sub
structures of ego. All because of the nature of our sense-based information!
Ego is separation,
of the one reality into two polar opposites: Subject and object. Ego is
illusion; illusion is based on sensory information which filters reality.
Ego breaks down if
1.
we understand the nature of senses,
2. the need to let go of our attachment to senses,
3. train ourselves to work free of filters and limitations,
4. and finally let go of sense limits by suspending judgments.
All
these are the objects of Goddess worship, and Tantra of Lalitha.
This is
exactly what Lalitha's form teaches us; she holds the five senses in one hand
and the mind which seeks them in another. " Mano roopa ikshu kodanda,
pancha tanmatra sayaka." Yoga is keeping mind separate from senses which
bring in limited senses to couple with unlimited senses. This is what we mean
by saying that we die to the profane world, to be born into the divine prospect
of immortal beauty.
3.
SOHAM: Object is Subject.
Object is mirrored in the Subject.
Every
thing that we see or know is mapped into our brain where thoughts are our first
reality. The world of our perceptions has no reality higher than our
thoughts, which are themselves unreal. The objective world is mirrored in the
Subject. Remove the Subject. Who observes? How can there be an
observed thing or phenomenon without an observer? The Subjective I
implies the objective world of experience. The object is like a mirror image of
the subject; it is the subject. The subject and object are mutual mirror
images.
Ego is
the deep rooted idea that the seer and the seen are different. It is
caused by illusion; it is an illusion. It has no basis. Just as
nothing is left after we peel off successive layers of onion, so also ego
vanishes when successive layers of ego like hate, doubt, fear, shame, aversion,
family, race and conduct are peeled off. Once the ego is even temporarily
suspended, subject merges into object, all separation is lost. That is being in
tune with our true nature.
(Even
with the ego intact, one can argue and establish that the subject and object
are one. How? How is I=World? Is it not egoistic and megamania to
say that I am the world? Logically, if A implies B and also B implies A, then
it is true that A is the same as B, A is identical to B. I want to prove that
Object and Subject are one. Object for me is the world. I am a part of this
world; so Object implies Subject. If I do not exist, will the world exist for
me ? So, I imply the world. The Subject implies the Object. World
contains me and I contain the world. These are precisely the necessary
and sufficient conditions for the equation "I = World" to hold).
These
considerations go to suggest that our awareness is a mirror. It reflects
what is in front of it. The mirror is itself never seen, unless it is
unclean; but then it is no more a mirror. The world is mapped onto the
canvas of our awareness. The canvas is the brain.
What do
I see if I stood in front of a mirror? My own image. If I am wearing a
hat, I see myself with it. If I had 10 heads like the Ravana, I see my
image having 10 heads. If I had 10 heads, 20 hands and 20 legs like Maha Kali,
my image will have the same things. Now 10 heads, 20 hands, 20 legs can belong
to 10 different people. If I were 10 different people myself, I will see my
reflection as 10 different people. Just one more step on the same lines; if I
was the whole world and stood in front of a pure mirror, I would see the world
as my own image; I=World. No matter how much variety I see 'out' there, it is
all me only.
Keeping
the ego created by our senses we can still appreciate that what we see is
ourselves, however much it appears to be different from us. That is
yoga=union: what we see is what we are. The world seen through
filters is full of play. If I remain a witness even when I participate in
the drama of the world, I can practice yoga of play, like Krishna.
4.
Yoga Aaraamam
Yoga is both play and rest.
This
play aspect of Yoga is very interesting. Krishna was said to have enjoyed
playing with 16000 milk maids. Let me stop and do a little calculation.
Assuming I spend one night with a woman, I need 16000/365= 50 years to be
with all the 16000. Assuming again that I start from the age of 15, I would be
65 by the time I finished the whole lot. How could I remain a child
during all this time ? What a prurient model for the repressed society of
India of 1998! Did he drink also ? Perhaps. There was no
prohibition then. Do the 1000 million Hindus care ? How come he could
have delivered the epic poem Bhagavad-Gita to Arjuna in the battlefield of
deciding between right and wrong (Dharma kshetra) and between action and
inaction (kuru kshetra)? Let us understand this play: when life is looked
upon as play, all is rest.
In the
neck, there is a 16 petal lotus; at the crown, a 1000 petal lotus. If we join
lines from each petal of neck lotus to the petal in the crown lotus, we get
16000 lines. Each line is a path in the brain; it represents a thought pattern.
What Krishna did then was to watch each of these thought patterns as erotic
play described as enjoying with the milk maids. Why milk maids? Milk comes from
breasts. So the loving interaction is at the heart level, the abodes of
Sri Devi the protectress and Sri Lakshmi, the mother who gives plenty. Immunity
from diseases and nourishment for the child both come from the breasts.
So the milk maids.
The
story goes that in the circle dance, The wheel of Sri there was a Krishna
between each pair of milk maids. And between each pair of Krishnas there was a
milk maid. Were there 16000 Krishnas then or did he clone himself that many
times?
The
word Krishna like the word Kali, means a dark, unknown power. The power of
time, moving silently like a river through the great void of space. It is
the great silence. Krishna is the silence which watches as the subject,
and Kali the silence in which the observer is absent. The circle dance
then means that between each pair of thoughts, there is subjective silence observing
the neighboring thoughts, and between each pair of silences, there is a thought
craving for the neighboring silences.
The
story of Rasa leela of Krishna with the milk maids is a story of silence and
thoughts alternating, in an erotic playfulness. The silence craves for
thoughts; restless thoughts crave for silence. Eros, craving, is the
fundamental nature of silence; and Thanatos, the death wish is the fundamental
nature of thoughts. Doesn't each thought tend to end itself ? That
is its death wish, the suicidal tendency of thoughts.
5.
Life is death
Life
and death are continuous experiences of time flow.
Life
seems so continuous, and death seems so final, like a full stop. We are
not afraid of living, but we are scared to death of the creepy death. Somehow,
death seems so final. Point of no return. Dead end. One moment I am
there. Next, I am gone, inexplicably. What in me goes away, where,
at death ? Where do these fears come from? But before that, who are
we?
What do
we consist of? Flesh, blood, bones, marrow, and billions of living cells.
This is what science teaches us. Millions of living cells are dying
and millions born every second in our very bodies. I somehow think that I
am an individual, though I consist of billions of living cells. To them, I am
God, not even aware of their existence.
Have I
given birth to these lives? Have I named them? Married them? Cared for their
off spring? Do I feel any responsibility to these billions of lives whose
community life is what I think I am ? The immunity cells are checking every
cell entering our body boundaries with questions like " Do you belong
here? Do you have a valid visa? A work permit ? Have you come to enrich
or poison our society ? " If the answers they receive are not
satisfactory, the visitors are killed and disposed of. Am I even aware of the
terrible wars going on between my immunity cells and their foreign visitors ?
Every
moment, a part of me is dying. Every moment a part of me is being born.
Am I experiencing my dying part ? Real death is never experienced nor
experienceable. Only life is observable, experienceable. My life is a
river. Old water is going out, new water is coming in. I am dying
every moment. I am being born every moment. With every out-going
breath I die. With every in coming breath, I get life. Every thought
in me is making chemicals called hormones, or catacholins or adrenalin. They
help nourish me, or put me in altered states of awareness, ready to fight or
run away with sudden bursts of energy.
Can I
show you that "me' sucking milk from my mother's breasts? That
"me" is dead and gone, as surely as I would be when my body burns on
the funeral pyre. Can I show you that "me' when I was a 7 year old going
to school now ? In a picture, yes. In reality, no. That is also gone, that is
also dead, never never to return. My childhood is dead, yet I continue to live.
My youth is dead, yet I continue to live. Life seems to go on merrily without
interruption through so much of unremitting death all around. Is death a
finality then ? Is it not just another way of looking at life ? Could it be
that death and life are synonymous ?
The
statement "I am living continuously" is completely equivalent to the
statement "I am dying continuously". Death then is not such a
finality after all. Because I am dying and I am living at the same time. Just
like a river, I have a name. The water is not the same, nothing is the same,
there is no constancy. The only constancy seems to be the concepts of
"I" and "me". Even the things that belong to me are not
constant. For some time, yes. Not for all time. All the things I own, all my
relationships, all have to fade away. I cannot own any thing or any one
forever.
Rama
told Sita once: like a pair of logs that were drifting and came together
in a stream, we came together. We continue together for some time.
And some whirlpool comes along and one of us sinks in it. The other
continues along.
The
only string that runs through all my life/death experiences is the subjective
"I" and the subjective "me". That seems to be the only
reality, the only constant.
Life
and death are two names for one process, called change. We can call it life, we
can call it death. Does it matter ? They not only co-exist, but in fact they
are one and the same. This is a very important realization to have. Then the
fear of death goes away once for all.
Let me
tell you about a dream I had. I was a king. I wanted to go for a royal hunt. My
wives told me to be careful. I was riding an elephant. Dogs were barking and
following. Some men were following with drums, others with fires burning at the
end of sticks. The forest we were going through became very dense. I sighted a
tiger. I shot it with an arrow. It got hit, and jumped on me. I narrowly
escaped death. I woke up, perspiring.
Now
that I am fully awake, I ask myself the following questions and get the
answers. Who was the king ? I. Who were his wives ? I. Who was the
elephant on which I was riding? I. Who were the barking dogs ? I.
Who were the men with drums and with lights ? I. Who was the forest?
I. Who was the tiger ? I. Who killed the tiger ? I. Who was
killed ? I. Who was afraid of whom ? I was afraid of myself. Who am I now
? None of these things. Such is the nature of illusion and such is the nature
of knowledge. Can we say then that knowledge is superior to illusion? A
thumping No!
In my
state of dreaming all these things were true enough. I had reason to be
careful, I had reason to be afraid. But once I am awake, I have no reason to be
afraid any more. I realize that I lived in two states; dream and awake.
Both denied the knowledge of the other state. In my dream, if the
tiger told me, " Hey king, don't be scared, I am going to eat you, but you
will not die", I would surely have my doubts. I would suspect the motives
of the tiger. When I am awake ? I could accept it with laughter, playing Siva,
who wins over death ( Mrityum Jaya).
-
Guruji Amrithananda Swami
1.
Causes of incomplete knowledge. Things
are not what they seem to be.mHow do we perceive the world around us? Through
our senses. Through sound, touch, form, taste and smell, or through thinking.
All these six faculties are filters.
Let us
look at the nature of these filters.
SABDA =
sound: We
HEAR only what is in this room. We cant hear what is far away. Also we
can hear only the sounds in the frequency range of some 15 cycles/sec to 15000.
We don't hear the ultra or infra sounds which some animals can.
SPARSA=
touch: We
feel the TOUCH only within a few millimeters of our surface. Beyond that
we don't feel any thing. Our skin acts as a sharp cut-off filter within
and outside of the body surface.
ROOPA=form: We SEE nearby objects much bigger
than far away objects. Also we can only see one octave of wavelengths in the
entire electro-magnetic spectrum. Also we see things only from a single
direction. We cannot see a thing from all angles, and all distances. How
would an object look if we see it from all sides at once? From all
distances? With all magnifications? Would it be the same as our normal
vision ? How does a spinning top appear with pictures on it? How would
the world appear if we had X ray vision? Would our skin based cosmetics
industry survive?
RASA=taste: We TASTE only what is on our tongue.
GANDHA=smell: We SMELL only what enters our noses.
MANAS=mind: Our MIND reproduces these sensations
through remembering, and can some times overcome some limitations of sensory
filters by the logical thinking. Yet, it cannot penetrate other minds and
read what is in other thoughts as if the thoughts were its own. It can remember
the past and sometimes the future too; but that is rare. Thus the mind as
an instrument has its many limitations. It is also a filter.
The
world we are perceiving is not really as it seems to be. So, our
experience is an illusion. All the senses and the mind are distorting it
in so many ways. They are so immediate, so intimately connected to us
that we do not even suspect that our perceptions are wrong and that the world
we experience bears no resemblance to the reality. It is not what is really out
there.
What we
know or can know through senses or reasoning is infinitesimal. What we do
not see is far more important than what we see.
2. Ego
is illusion coming from incompleteness.
Ego is
the idea: this is me, these are mine; this is not me, these are not my
people.
Given
the filters of our perceptions, is it not natural that we give importance to
local experiences and no importance at all to things far away? The ideas of I
and mine, that this is what I am and these are my people, forms the core of
ego. All my life I try to protect these ideas.
We
understand that it is NOT our fault that we have the ideas of I and mine so
deeply embedded in us. But it is in the very nature of our senses that these
concepts are embedded.
If we
wish to overcome the limitations of ego, we have to let go of our attachments
to senses and the information they bring. Just as I can't get an idea of
a carpet if I attach a microscope to my eye even if I research for a thousand
years, I cannot get an idea of the universe with the limiting vision. I
have to let go of the microscope; I have to let go of the senses. Then
only I get a chance to perceive the reality. The freedom we talk about is
the freedom from the senses, or attachment to sense based information.
The
separation between I and world, mine and not mine comes from the local nature
of senses. Concepts of I and mine make the passions. How? I see some thing. I
don't know what it is. Fear comes. I like it, I want it, Desire/Lust is born.
If I don't get what I want, I get Anger, feel helpless, and hunger for power
comes. If I get what I want, I don't want to let go of it, possessiveness
comes. I get so used to it, I can't even live without it. Delusion comes. I get
the pride I have it; and jealousy some has it I don't have it. So, all these
passions are born out of I and mine.
Also, I
judge the information I receive based on what is good or bad for me. I notice
that good brings me happiness, reduces misery, and preserves my identity, that
is, maintains my separateness from the world. Bad is the opposite of
these things.
Judgments
form the core of the structures of ego. Hatred, doubt, fear, shame, aversion,
family, race, conduct: these 8 passions form the sub-structures of ego.
We HATE
something or someone who brings misery to us.
We
DOUBT if what is in front of us is good or bad.
We FEAR
animals or persons unknown to us, who speak a foreign tongue.
We are
ASHAMED of doing things we really want to do.
We
develop AVERSION to things we judge as bad.
We form
the idea of our FAMILY and try to do everything for them.
We
identify with our RACE and pronounce others inferior or bad.
We
believe that we have to conform to the norms of CONDUCT without questioning for
fear of punishment or rejection.
Thus we
develop the emotions of Hatred, Doubt, Fear, Shame, Aversion, Family, Race and
Conduct from trying to protect the ideas of I and mine. These are the sub
structures of ego. All because of the nature of our sense-based information!
Ego is separation,
of the one reality into two polar opposites: Subject and object. Ego is
illusion; illusion is based on sensory information which filters reality.
Ego breaks down if
1.
we understand the nature of senses,
2. the need to let go of our attachment to senses,
3. train ourselves to work free of filters and limitations,
4. and finally let go of sense limits by suspending judgments.
All
these are the objects of Goddess worship, and Tantra of Lalitha.
This is
exactly what Lalitha's form teaches us; she holds the five senses in one hand
and the mind which seeks them in another. " Mano roopa ikshu kodanda,
pancha tanmatra sayaka." Yoga is keeping mind separate from senses which
bring in limited senses to couple with unlimited senses. This is what we mean
by saying that we die to the profane world, to be born into the divine prospect
of immortal beauty.
3.
SOHAM: Object is Subject.
Object is mirrored in the Subject.
Every
thing that we see or know is mapped into our brain where thoughts are our first
reality. The world of our perceptions has no reality higher than our
thoughts, which are themselves unreal. The objective world is mirrored in the
Subject. Remove the Subject. Who observes? How can there be an
observed thing or phenomenon without an observer? The Subjective I
implies the objective world of experience. The object is like a mirror image of
the subject; it is the subject. The subject and object are mutual mirror
images.
Ego is
the deep rooted idea that the seer and the seen are different. It is
caused by illusion; it is an illusion. It has no basis. Just as
nothing is left after we peel off successive layers of onion, so also ego
vanishes when successive layers of ego like hate, doubt, fear, shame, aversion,
family, race and conduct are peeled off. Once the ego is even temporarily
suspended, subject merges into object, all separation is lost. That is being in
tune with our true nature.
(Even
with the ego intact, one can argue and establish that the subject and object
are one. How? How is I=World? Is it not egoistic and megamania to
say that I am the world? Logically, if A implies B and also B implies A, then
it is true that A is the same as B, A is identical to B. I want to prove that
Object and Subject are one. Object for me is the world. I am a part of this
world; so Object implies Subject. If I do not exist, will the world exist for
me ? So, I imply the world. The Subject implies the Object. World
contains me and I contain the world. These are precisely the necessary
and sufficient conditions for the equation "I = World" to hold).
These
considerations go to suggest that our awareness is a mirror. It reflects
what is in front of it. The mirror is itself never seen, unless it is
unclean; but then it is no more a mirror. The world is mapped onto the
canvas of our awareness. The canvas is the brain.
What do
I see if I stood in front of a mirror? My own image. If I am wearing a
hat, I see myself with it. If I had 10 heads like the Ravana, I see my
image having 10 heads. If I had 10 heads, 20 hands and 20 legs like Maha Kali,
my image will have the same things. Now 10 heads, 20 hands, 20 legs can belong
to 10 different people. If I were 10 different people myself, I will see my
reflection as 10 different people. Just one more step on the same lines; if I
was the whole world and stood in front of a pure mirror, I would see the world
as my own image; I=World. No matter how much variety I see 'out' there, it is
all me only.
Keeping
the ego created by our senses we can still appreciate that what we see is
ourselves, however much it appears to be different from us. That is
yoga=union: what we see is what we are. The world seen through
filters is full of play. If I remain a witness even when I participate in
the drama of the world, I can practice yoga of play, like Krishna.
4.
Yoga Aaraamam
Yoga is both play and rest.
This
play aspect of Yoga is very interesting. Krishna was said to have enjoyed
playing with 16000 milk maids. Let me stop and do a little calculation.
Assuming I spend one night with a woman, I need 16000/365= 50 years to be
with all the 16000. Assuming again that I start from the age of 15, I would be
65 by the time I finished the whole lot. How could I remain a child
during all this time ? What a prurient model for the repressed society of
India of 1998! Did he drink also ? Perhaps. There was no
prohibition then. Do the 1000 million Hindus care ? How come he could
have delivered the epic poem Bhagavad-Gita to Arjuna in the battlefield of
deciding between right and wrong (Dharma kshetra) and between action and
inaction (kuru kshetra)? Let us understand this play: when life is looked
upon as play, all is rest.
In the
neck, there is a 16 petal lotus; at the crown, a 1000 petal lotus. If we join
lines from each petal of neck lotus to the petal in the crown lotus, we get
16000 lines. Each line is a path in the brain; it represents a thought pattern.
What Krishna did then was to watch each of these thought patterns as erotic
play described as enjoying with the milk maids. Why milk maids? Milk comes from
breasts. So the loving interaction is at the heart level, the abodes of
Sri Devi the protectress and Sri Lakshmi, the mother who gives plenty. Immunity
from diseases and nourishment for the child both come from the breasts.
So the milk maids.
The
story goes that in the circle dance, The wheel of Sri there was a Krishna
between each pair of milk maids. And between each pair of Krishnas there was a
milk maid. Were there 16000 Krishnas then or did he clone himself that many
times?
The
word Krishna like the word Kali, means a dark, unknown power. The power of
time, moving silently like a river through the great void of space. It is
the great silence. Krishna is the silence which watches as the subject,
and Kali the silence in which the observer is absent. The circle dance
then means that between each pair of thoughts, there is subjective silence observing
the neighboring thoughts, and between each pair of silences, there is a thought
craving for the neighboring silences.
The
story of Rasa leela of Krishna with the milk maids is a story of silence and
thoughts alternating, in an erotic playfulness. The silence craves for
thoughts; restless thoughts crave for silence. Eros, craving, is the
fundamental nature of silence; and Thanatos, the death wish is the fundamental
nature of thoughts. Doesn't each thought tend to end itself ? That
is its death wish, the suicidal tendency of thoughts.
5.
Life is death
Life
and death are continuous experiences of time flow.
Life
seems so continuous, and death seems so final, like a full stop. We are
not afraid of living, but we are scared to death of the creepy death. Somehow,
death seems so final. Point of no return. Dead end. One moment I am
there. Next, I am gone, inexplicably. What in me goes away, where,
at death ? Where do these fears come from? But before that, who are
we?
What do
we consist of? Flesh, blood, bones, marrow, and billions of living cells.
This is what science teaches us. Millions of living cells are dying
and millions born every second in our very bodies. I somehow think that I
am an individual, though I consist of billions of living cells. To them, I am
God, not even aware of their existence.
Have I
given birth to these lives? Have I named them? Married them? Cared for their
off spring? Do I feel any responsibility to these billions of lives whose
community life is what I think I am ? The immunity cells are checking every
cell entering our body boundaries with questions like " Do you belong
here? Do you have a valid visa? A work permit ? Have you come to enrich
or poison our society ? " If the answers they receive are not
satisfactory, the visitors are killed and disposed of. Am I even aware of the
terrible wars going on between my immunity cells and their foreign visitors ?
Every
moment, a part of me is dying. Every moment a part of me is being born.
Am I experiencing my dying part ? Real death is never experienced nor
experienceable. Only life is observable, experienceable. My life is a
river. Old water is going out, new water is coming in. I am dying
every moment. I am being born every moment. With every out-going
breath I die. With every in coming breath, I get life. Every thought
in me is making chemicals called hormones, or catacholins or adrenalin. They
help nourish me, or put me in altered states of awareness, ready to fight or
run away with sudden bursts of energy.
Can I
show you that "me' sucking milk from my mother's breasts? That
"me" is dead and gone, as surely as I would be when my body burns on
the funeral pyre. Can I show you that "me' when I was a 7 year old going
to school now ? In a picture, yes. In reality, no. That is also gone, that is
also dead, never never to return. My childhood is dead, yet I continue to live.
My youth is dead, yet I continue to live. Life seems to go on merrily without
interruption through so much of unremitting death all around. Is death a
finality then ? Is it not just another way of looking at life ? Could it be
that death and life are synonymous ?
The
statement "I am living continuously" is completely equivalent to the
statement "I am dying continuously". Death then is not such a
finality after all. Because I am dying and I am living at the same time. Just
like a river, I have a name. The water is not the same, nothing is the same,
there is no constancy. The only constancy seems to be the concepts of
"I" and "me". Even the things that belong to me are not
constant. For some time, yes. Not for all time. All the things I own, all my
relationships, all have to fade away. I cannot own any thing or any one
forever.
Rama
told Sita once: like a pair of logs that were drifting and came together
in a stream, we came together. We continue together for some time.
And some whirlpool comes along and one of us sinks in it. The other
continues along.
The
only string that runs through all my life/death experiences is the subjective
"I" and the subjective "me". That seems to be the only
reality, the only constant.
Life
and death are two names for one process, called change. We can call it life, we
can call it death. Does it matter ? They not only co-exist, but in fact they
are one and the same. This is a very important realization to have. Then the
fear of death goes away once for all.
Let me
tell you about a dream I had. I was a king. I wanted to go for a royal hunt. My
wives told me to be careful. I was riding an elephant. Dogs were barking and
following. Some men were following with drums, others with fires burning at the
end of sticks. The forest we were going through became very dense. I sighted a
tiger. I shot it with an arrow. It got hit, and jumped on me. I narrowly
escaped death. I woke up, perspiring.
Now
that I am fully awake, I ask myself the following questions and get the
answers. Who was the king ? I. Who were his wives ? I. Who was the
elephant on which I was riding? I. Who were the barking dogs ? I.
Who were the men with drums and with lights ? I. Who was the forest?
I. Who was the tiger ? I. Who killed the tiger ? I. Who was
killed ? I. Who was afraid of whom ? I was afraid of myself. Who am I now
? None of these things. Such is the nature of illusion and such is the nature
of knowledge. Can we say then that knowledge is superior to illusion? A
thumping No!
In my
state of dreaming all these things were true enough. I had reason to be
careful, I had reason to be afraid. But once I am awake, I have no reason to be
afraid any more. I realize that I lived in two states; dream and awake.
Both denied the knowledge of the other state. In my dream, if the
tiger told me, " Hey king, don't be scared, I am going to eat you, but you
will not die", I would surely have my doubts. I would suspect the motives
of the tiger. When I am awake ? I could accept it with laughter, playing Siva,
who wins over death ( Mrityum Jaya).
-
Guruji Amrithananda Swami
