Discovering the Source

Discovering the Source

Ken:

The Thompson excerpt demonstrates something: it is possible to express the relative point of view; it is possible to express the Absolute point of view (to the extent that this can remain a possibility); to those who do not comprehend the difference (or even that there is a difference), this can create immense confusion!

For this reason (more than any other, I surmise) Maharshi, Ramesh, Krishnamurti and other prominent teachers are persistently misunderstood. If you speak strictly from the Absolute viewpoint (which some have done), how do you generate a dialogue with someone who (as yet) conceives only the relative viewpoint? However, when you initiate the dialogue by speaking from (or of) the relative (as Krishnamurti invariably did), how are they to recognize when you’ve shifted to the nonrelative viewpoint? A person to whom both contexts are thoroughly clear will recognize such shifts from one perspective to another. But these are not the ones who sit at the gurus’ feet. Ramesh is probably the most misunderstood teacher of Advaita today. Anyone reading his writings from the nondual perspective can follow clearly what he’s expressing. If you stop a man on the street (or woman, either) and ask: “How would you define ‘the Absolute’?”, he’ll stare at you blankly. But ask, “How would you define ‘God’?”… So, Ramesh (and others) use, for example, the word God as a synonym for what they perceive as the Absolute. No teacher of Advaita would assert that you are apart from the Absolute; but “everyone knows” that “you are not

God.” So, one allusion refers to something which you automatically are, and the other to something which you (automatically) are presumed “are not.” In the eyes of the Absolute, there’s no such thing as subject and object; but in your eyes, you are “just one of God’s subjects” (worshipping God as a distant object). Thompson suffered such confusion with Balsekar. However, he understood enough from Balsekar that when he turned to the writings of Shankara (who refused to speak from anything but the Absolute perspective), he seems apparently to have fathomed his misunderstanding. The area where most people misapprehend Balsekar has to do with non-doership. To put this in “layman’s” (relative viewpoint) terms, he refers to God’s will. But this assumes that you have already inculcated the understanding that you are God. “Your” will is “God’s” will; and vice versa. It also assumes that you understand that “will” is a relative concept—in the same way that “you” and “God” are merely referential terms the sage uses to try to awaken the seeker to his true nature. So, for those who’ve skipped over the math, they stumble on the algebra. Not having paid attention in class and done their own homework, they walk away from Ramesh talking about “destiny” and the “pre-programmed”; they missed the part about the Absolute being void of time or intent. Fortunately (for someone who’s willing to forge through Shankara), there are some teachers who make no attempt to build a bridge for the spiritual recalcitrant. Shankara put Advaita on the map; others, like Ramana and Ramesh, built highways. Put another way, you can get your Advaita from someone like Ramana or from someone like Shankara. Thompson got started by Balsekar and moved on to

Shankara. What he says, as a result of his study, is not anything Balsekar would be in disagreement with:

“In the instant of (Realization)…all differentiation ceases. There is no separated seeker, divided from what is sought. …the seeker disappears… no free will, no predestination…” [So what’s become, now, of “God’s will” and “my destiny”?!]

“…what we really are transcends…‘me’ and God, both of which…never existed. Advaita wants the seeker to realize just who or what he really is. And that realization can only be object-less… what he seeks is what he really is. [God?!]…selfrealization means simply returning to one’s own true nature, which is the unaffected source… all our experiences express that…all expressions of caring—or not caring—are superfluous.” [So: what if it’s “God’s will” or my “destiny” to care?]

Evidently, Thompson got Balsekar’s message—because Shankara’s message is Balsekar’s message, when they weren’t bothering to build bridges. Thompson’s discoveries (as quoted above) are not dissimilar from the quotations of Nisargadatta:

“When you understand that names (are) without any content…you will be…in the deep silence of reality.” [nondual “no mind”]

“Abandon all conceptualization…and objectivization… identity cannot remain; and in the absence of identity there is no bondage.”

Consider the idea you mentioned: “stay in touch with the undifferentiated Ground while going about daily life.” If this Ground is undifferentiated, it has no boundaries; therefore it is illimitable, ubiquitous: there’s no-where that it’s not. How could you be apart from it? If you can’t be apart from it, how could you get (or stay) in touch with it? The Ground and your daily life are in no way separate. Or consider your second idea: When “the mind is very still, very quiet: then we are in touch with the Unknown…and we do not attempt to know it…”

There are no prerequisites (requirements) for being in touch with the Unknown (or Ground), since there’s no prospect of escaping it. “Then” has no relevance to that which is eternally (timelessly) present. “You” and the “Unknown” are not separable, whatever state your mind (or no mind) happens to be in; even when your state of mind is that you are separate from the Unknown, that is the Unknown doing one of the myriad deeds that it does—along with ‘living’, ‘dying’, ‘breathing’, ‘not breathing’, etc. (Hence: “You are not the doer.”) When your state of mind is that you are one with the Unknown, that too is another of the myriad thought-forms of the Unknown: it’s all the same, one thing—just another expression or manifestation of the Absolute. Nothing special. See again how thought divisively isolates “forms” through concepts?: I “do not attempt to know it” (the Unknown). If there really was an isolated, independent entity conceived as “I” and an independent object described as the Unknown, it could be possible for the subject (I) to relate to the object (U.)—to know it or not know it. If I and U. happen to

in truth be the same, one thing, what “part” is there to “attempt” to know the other part? Ramesh: “The one who is seeking is already what he is seeking…” Thompson: “There is no separated seeker, divided from what is sought.” Nisargadatta: “…in the absence of identity, there is no bondage…” I’m enclosing a copy of the Hsin Hsin Ming that you might want to contemplate, from my book One Essence.