The Essence
The essence of all spirituality is being free from the self. Considering that this self is made of memories, some describe this state as living in the present. Some would call it a vision of oneness. The dividing factor, the self, is absent in it. Some others appreciate it as undivided awareness and say that is our essential divinity. Yet others prefer to highlight love, which again is natural when no personal concern raises its head. Personal concerns revolving around “I, me and my” are shackles indeed.
It is indeed a sweet puzzle that I realize my true nature when the ‘I’ in me ceases to be. The salt doll (the seeker), Sri Ramakrishna observed, realizes the depth of the ocean (God) when it dives and loses its own identity, dissolving in the salty waters. As long as the separate self remains, our search is a (never-ending) wild goose chase. When the self is not, who is to search for what?
We know not from where our restlessness arises. The state of unrest expresses itself as some desire or the other. The fulfillment of the desire then holds the promise of rest, of true adequacy or of real completeness. In reality though, all satiation of desire is only temporary quiet and it is no better than a calm before the storm. Worse still, many an enjoyment of desire leaves behind such residues of memories, which, upon surfacing in the conscious realm, would disturb our serenity with more force than ever before. A complex and vast network of thoughts, memories, desires, hurt and hope holds us captives. We are held hostage by the machinations of our own mind. How strange!
A very subtle dimension of this problematic situation is that the thinker is himself/herself a product of thoughts. The policeman going around the town in search of the thief is himself the thief (in police uniform)! Can we see the truth of this conundrum? If we do, we shall instantly see that all effort is a contradiction in terms as the entity (the self) that puts in the effort gets validated, if not strengthened, in the process.
Be free of the self just like that, and not through some method, effort or analysis. Even asking how posits the self! Pure seeing alone, not thinking or doing, is the freedom.
Swami Chidananda
Monday, November 28, 2005