Get Real

Get Real

Asked what is the major lesson of the spiritual teachings, I’d have to say that it is impermanence. As Ramana Maharshi points out, all forms (whether material or immaterial) arise then dissipate; they are impermanent. The actuality in which they originate and subside is infinite and eternal, and is itself without form. Thus, this ground of being is the only element which is not impermanent. Ultimately, as Ramana says, this Being-ness is the only lasting reality. In Buddhism, it is emphasized that “all things change.” That formless reality, which is not one of the nameable things, and which is not limited by time or space, is the Unchanging. The spiritual teachings urge us to focus attention on what is permanent and ever present (which Ramana would call real), rather than on the ephemeral, the fleeting forms (which Ramana calls unreal). The ultimate reality is said to be the source of all that is; and, as such, is what all the relative things hold in common. What the enlightened masters perceive is sameness, the essence which links “the ten thousand things” in unity, Oneness. The sage perceives this indivisible essence as one’s true nature. It was “your face before you were born”; your form appeared in this empty presence, and will disappear into it—the ground of being remaining entirely unaffected. From the standpoint of the Ultimate, each “individual life” is meaningless.

The recognition of impermanence places petty, selfgenerated concerns in their proper perspective. It leaves attention undistracted, to contemplate each unsecured moment in awareness that it may be the viewer’s last. Pick up a newspaper any day, and you’ll read about someone who walked out their front door that morning and never returned. Nonexistence for an organism may be only one breath away. You might rinse your wine glass this evening and never fill it again. Paul Krassner once told me, “The central fact of my life is my death.” To live one’s life not taking any of its conditions complacently for granted is to appreciate the presence which is manifest. It is, as Krishnamurti titled one of his books, A Wholly Different Way of Living. It is to have incorporated the teachings regarding impermanence.