In the Fire The vital essence of nonduality so eludes the average, conditioned mind that would-be transmitters of it have spent decades of their life and succeeded in communicating it to only a few of their listeners. Why? Because the listener expects to remain intact while undergoing a “transcendent,” trans-personal process! The consequence of the nondual realization is that the “person” dies as an identifiable entity to him/herself. The “listener” who sets out on this discovery does not remain intact, as a recognized entity, beyond the point of real-ization! It is this unwillingness to die to one’s self-identity which makes nonduality unrealizable. Our dualistic, conditioned point of view makes it possible (indeed, necessary) for our self-identity to remain as a socalled reality. Hence, “I” become united with “God”: God continues to exist as God—a separate entity; and I continue to exist as a self-identifiable “person.” God = a unit. I = a unit. Two units. Duality. What Bernadette Roberts is referring to is burning up, as a coal, in the fire of God; and the fire of God evaporating into the ether of unspecified beingness. No longer a “God,” no longer a “person.” Not a first unit, and a second unit, but a condition (a presence, really) which exhibits no residue of God, no residue of you. No unit which represents something that is, in any way, apart from its co-relator. No object and no subject.
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