Nothingness or unlimited potential? There doesn't seem to be a problem of choice here. But nothingness is chosen by the majority of "spiritual" people, most of the time. Why would you do that?
This phenomenon has been going on for thousands of years. The ancient texts use only negative terms to describe the Absolute. Neti-neti. Not this, not this. This has been the mantra.
The nothingness described is not empty, but fullness itself. The "neti-neti" stands only for the no "thing", nirguna, without attributes. The mind can not imagine a "thing" without attributes, as the "attributes" are part and parcel of the "thing". They ARE the thing to the mind.
But just as the mind creates and desires "things", it also creates and desires "nothing". To move away from this concept of nothing, this desire for an "empty" or "frozen" mind, we need to understand the dynamic quality of the Absolute.
From my standpoint, the Absolute is unlimited, energetic, potential. For convenience, I simply call it Love, as that is how it came to me, but whatever you call it, it is the direct opposite of "nothing". It is correct in that it is no "thing", but it is not the mind's view of nothing.
It is hard to have an understanding, and be unable to communicate it clearly. I want so to point out the swirling, dynamic that is what you are. Let me use the reflection analogy. If you take a large mirror into the woods, you can get a reasonable reflection of the look of the wood. Of course, it will, like a photograph, lack the sounds, the smells, the feel of the breeze on the cheek, and all the things that go to make an experience "real". Such it is with the Absolute. The world is a reflection. An illusion? Yes. Real? of course, it is the reflection of reality. It is not what it seems. It is not describable (only neti-neti), but it is real, as part of the functioning of the Absolute.
The mind does not understand unlimited potential, because the mind is limited, and potential is too vast. An understanding of unlimited potential is available only to that which is unlimited potential.
Once established in the "I", and meditation and practice have calmed the senses and mind, find a connection of earnestness, and devotion to God, or the Absolute, or however you wish to call it, and then remove the images of yourself, God, the Absolute, or whatever your "object" of devotion, and become the devotion, the earnestness, the Love, the unlimited potential.
Dear Bill,
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy your postings and find them very helpful and worth reading - comming myself also from a Christian context and feel drawn to Ramana Maharshi since many years now.
The poem "Shaper Shaped" by one Harindranath Chattopadhyaya in: "Day by Day with Bhagavan" by Devaraja Mudalair (5.6.45 Afternoon) - seems to express the same in poetic form.
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Gabriele
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Shaper Shaped
In Days gone by I used to be
A potter who would feel
His fingers mould the yielding clay
To patterns on his wheel;
But now, through wisdom lately won,
That pride has died away,
I have ceased to be the potter
And have learned to be the clay.
In other days I used to be
A poet through whose pen
Innumerable songs would come
To win the hearts of men;
But now; through new-got knowledge
Which I hadn't had so long,
I have ceased to be the poet
And have learned to be the song.
I was a fashioner of swords,
In days that now are gone,
Which on a hundred battle-fields
Glittered and gleamed and shone;
But now that I am brimming with
The silence of the Lord
I have ceased to be a sword-maker
And learned to be the sword.
In by-gone days I used to be
A dreamer who would hurl
On every side an insolence
Of emerald and pearl.
But now that I am kneeling
At the feet of the Supreme
I have ceased to be the dreamer
And have learned to be the dream.