“…Including Me”

“…Including Me”

I understand that the very nature of the Absolute must mean that everything is That, including me. It could not possibly be otherwise; otherwise the Absolute would be something less than absolute. So the world which I am experiencing is not a world of separate forms, but a world which just appears as separate forms. And yet even after I contemplate this, and understand that it must be the case, there is the continued perception of separation. There is no shift in perspective that gives a first-hand experience of this being the truth/reality. My moment-by-moment experience remains one of separation.

If the illusion is seen as an illusion, then why does it not end immediately?

Your query is well-stated. It is perhaps the most prominent of the quandaries posed. Every explanation, or response (a roshi pounds his staff on the floor) is directed to it. All of my books speak directly to it. “Everything is that, including me.” If it’s truly “understood,” it’s recognized that anything “you” say, do, or think is That doing what is done. As the Vedas say, “You are not the doer.” So, to whom is any “continued sense of separation” occurring? To whom would a “shift in perspective”— or lack of it—be perceived? By whom is an “illusion” seen— or conceived?

The concluding sentence in the main paragraph begins “My.” But it’s been asserted that the “me” is That. To have

it both ways—That, as a premise / me, as a perspective— is duality. Is it “the world which I am experiencing,” or is the world That, and the experiencing (by the experiencer) That? “The very nature of the Absolute must be that EVERYTHING is That.” Absolutely so. If you’re being absolutely consistent, and not identifying as me one moment and That in the next, there will be not two but one: then you have eradicated what “appears as separate forms.” So, if the “me” is seen through (as a separate form, leaving the Absolute which is without form) to whom will there be a “shift in perspective”? When there’s a recognition that both “shifts” and “no shifts” (or any other conceivable dualistic distinctions) are included in the everything which is That, this is what is known as Realization. Duality is the “illusion.” That there is a me who would be united with That is duality. Nonduality is the realization “there are no two things” in actual truth, despite the appearance of “separate forms.” Those appearances, too, are That! The sense of “separation” is also an appearance. “Contemplate this…it must be the case.”