As long as you take yourself to be something finite, your search for wholeness will continue. To sit and read spirituality and hope for some experiential change is bullshit. This is about what you take yourself to be. It is about Self-Knowledge. Knowing what you are.
Right now you settle for identification with the finite and limited. AS that you naturally seek to be free of that limitation. But what is finite and limited cannot, by any means, become limitless and whole. You seek freedom because you believe yourself to be bound.
No resolution can come of this through any means except knowing what you are, finding out IF you are this limited entity or not. If you are in fact limited then the search is over. If you are NOT limited then the search is also over.
To sit identified WITH the finite and limited and then wait for some spiritual revelation is bullshit. Dive deep into this idea you have about yourself, this idea that you are actually limited and then see if it's true. See if the identification is true.
We often say - I have read such and such for many years, done this and that practice, yet I am still not there yet. This is still ignorance of your true nature or Self. WHO is it that has done this? WHO? There has been no actual investigation into the root idea of what you are.
"I have done this or that, yet I am still suffering." WHO is being referred here? WHO has done this and that - WHO is suffering? THAT is the identification in action. THAT is taking yourself to BE the limited - the body, the mind. So this statement is saying that I AM that limited body-mind and that body-mind is still suffering. That body-mind is not YET FREE. This is absolutely a fantasy. The so-called body-mind, as we take it to be, IS limited. IF you are that, then you will always be limited. SEE if this identification is true before accepting the limits of BEING that.
There is only one question of concern - AM I a limited entity or NOT? IF I am a limited entity then I can quit searching right now, seeing that spirituality is just the mind's fantasy of BECOMING something. That has never worked in any other pursuit in life and it won't work in spirituality.
IF I am NOT limited then the search is over also. I discover that the idea of myself as limited was only ever an assumption, only identified with the finite and limited, taking myself as a form, an appearance, a thing-among-things.
Don't fall for any spiritual bullshit. Don't think this is about just reading a few books and then sit back and wait for enlightenment to come. You must LOOK for yourself at the root idea you have about what you are. You must LOOK at the identifications which are there and see if they are true or not.
This isn't about someone telling you the truth and then you have to come to believe it also, to pick up a new belief. It will NEVER be resolved until you come to that truth for yourself. When you SEE that you were never limited then the search is over, seeking ends naturally, the false falls away naturally.
The suggestion is to stop waiting for some golden nugget to set you free. Dive into the root idea you have about yourself and see if it's true or not. If it's true, the search is over. If it's not, the search is over.
But the false cannot stand up to investigation. IF you truly do dig into it, poke around that idea, the false disappears like darkness when the light is turned on. The only freedom is freedom from the IDEA of bondage. In other words, you only BELIEVE yourself to be bound, to be limited.
Find out if that's true or not.
2 comments:
the thing is, what does it means to investigate, that what brings me to read and listen and so on, because there is here something that doesn't quite click about how one should proceed with investigation without stopping just at the first unanswered question or to the obviousness of things like "not being in control of anything", being not the one who runs this body that I believe to be mine, that nothing can be found if one looks for the so called "mind", and so on; there is a feeling of limitation and confusion that arises quicly when I go that way, a friend of mine suggested that I might be "concluded" thru the mind and in so doing generate a new limitation towards a honest looking, he calls it "contempt prior to investigation"; it might also be that I do not investigate continuosly ... any suggestion? Thanks
Sarita
Sarita,
Hello my friend. Good to hear from you. This is an excellent question.
In seeing that the entire issue is the idea I have about myself, that I take myself to be limited. In doing so, I can either continue to take myself this way or investigate the only other possibility, that I never WAS limited to begin with.
This is where we must begin. The second possibility means what? It means that IF I am not now limited, then the only issue is the idea I have about myself - that this idea is already false. It has always BEEN false.
So my idea is incorrect - therefore I must find out how this idea came to be - I must take a look at how that idea is built or constructed - where is it constructed - how is it constructed. If I overlook the most basic identity, leave that intact, and then go from there, then I will always be chasing a fantasy. The root idea of myself is left intact and then that limited individual is supposed to find something or get something. THAT is the false.
So HOW does this idea come about? Isn't it in identification with the limited? Isn't it in identification with a particular form which DOES come and go, which DOES begin and end?
That is the body-mind. We realize that the entire idea of what I am is built on the idea that I am the body - identification WITH the body.
So we take a look at the body, at all FORMS really - what ARE they? Are forms standing alone, standing apart, standing on their own? In other words, is a form an existence of it's own? Did existence begin with the appearance of a form? What IS a form? A form of WHAT?
This is the direction of investigation. We dive into these ideas we have about reality and see if what we assume to be true is actually true.
Your friend is right that "contempt prior to investigation" is a problem. It is a refusal to look reality directly in the eye - a refusal to poke around under the assumptions about existence. We don't really want to go there, because that existence as we take it, no matter how finite, is all we have. We sort of skirt around the issue because we have, for so long, swept that under the rug, that our existence will someday end. We don't like it so we avoid it.
Don't avoid it. Look directly into it. Don't be afraid. You will find that existence is not something which begins - only forms OF existence begin and end, just like waves OF ocean begin and end.
What you are is unborn and undying existence itself, formless existence which expresses as form, limitless Brahman which we CALL the "World".
Sarita is just another form. If you take yourself to BE Sarita, then you must accept the inherent limitation which goes along with it. If you investigate what IS Sarita, what IS a form, what actually IS existence, then you cannot help but realize what you ACTUALLY are.
We read and listen to a lot, then wait for some revelation to appear. This may be helpful but usually it helps to have someone to point out where we are going off the track. If you are serious about the investigation, find someone who resonates and they will help you. The only caveat is to be open and willing to truly dive into it - contempt prior to investigation makes it practically impossible.
love
randall
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