In the Fire

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.

That is the substance of the nondual realization: that there is but a singular actuality. Being a singular actuality, not anything else is it, but it. Ergo, there not being anything else which is it, it is all things which appear to exist. Being all that is, it is (among everything else) the very mind which realizes! It is, in effect, reifying itself; “it” is existent—by being real-ized in “our” awareness. Being all that is, it is not only your mind and my mind (whether or not that mind reflects its true nature), but it is “you” and “me” in any way in which we perceive our “self” (body, thoughts, emotions, actions, etc. etc.). So, the realized are in recognition of their true identity: Absolute Presence; Beingness. Every and all entities (forms; “things”) are subsumed in this one, over-extending actuality: this is the nondual realization.

When all things are That, not only are you and I That, but every other human (or animate; inanimate too!) form, equally as well. No body that has ever breathed earthly air is any different from you in this regard, in being That— our common denominator.

No one has ever been closer to That than you are at this very moment. You are That. (Drop the “you” and the “That” if you really cognize the point being made.) To the extent that you (and “others”) are That, you are not who you think you are. Recognizing the truth of this, your false self-identity falls away, like an adder drops its skin. The old “person”-ality dies.