Bernard had the following reply to the last blog:
Hello Michael,
I love that comment of Ramana Maharshi about the last act in a cremation- throwing the stick that stirs the fire into the fire. I understand that to mean that right in the end the ???I??? has to finally let go. Perhaps I understand suicide a little better in that statement???it being an attempt to get rid of the ???I??? which is causing all the problem. Clearly physical suicide is not the answer but somewhere along the spiritual path one has to come to a place of such acceptance that the personal I disappears and that I assume is grace when it does happen.
So yes I see that my ???I??? is still very much in charge shifting its attention from one thing to another and that I just need to abide in awareness more and more without using the I to keep searching for it.
Perhaps I am afraid that awareness without the ???I??? who wants to be in attention can???t function without the ???I??? WHO HAS A BIG JOB TO DO.
Thanks for pointing me to the ???I??? who is just another stick that needs to also be burnt up in the fire.
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
Thank you for your reply. Ramana also has another meaning for throwing the stick that stirs the fire into the fire. The last thing to destroy is the one that seeks the truth, not the first.
What you are seeking is what, you really are even now. This is good to know because it gives the aspirant the energy to finish his (or her) practice. When you know that your freedom is right at hand it is hard to stay bogged down or stuck in the thoughts in your mind, or in self judgment and in suffering. You know that if you just look in the right way you will find this freedom.
But some aspirants think, ???If I am already the self, why should I seek the self? Once I know this there is no need to practice.??? However, they unknowingly remain centered in their mind and not in changeless Awareness. So as their thoughts change they seem to change.
Furthermore they leave certain concepts in tact where they identify with limitation. Although they may have some high experience, these concepts act like hooks taking them back into limitation and suffering.
Burning Up The Hooks
There is a certain stage in your practice where you will start looking for these hooks. That???s because you will know that seeing limitation is a sign that you are free from limitation, not stuck in it. You will then find your life changing in ways that you could never have anticipated. This is the meaning of stirring the fire so that you can bring up and destroy limitation. Once you get a sense for this, you will have the feeling that you want to destroy every limitation that you identify with.
The Final Hook
But long before you get through destroying all of these concepts something remarkable will happen. Even though I had studied the Vedanta on Self-Knowledge, this took me completely by surprise. You will see that the very sense of me, the one looking for limitation and suffering is not me at all. When you see this you will have thrown in the stick that stirs the fire into the fire. This is dying to the separate one who can come back into limitation.
Here you will finally live in your true home, which is reality. You will have the feeling that things are exactly the same but completely different both at the same time. How can liberation ever be described by thoughts and concepts? But you will know the meaning of, ???One without a second.???
This sense of me, the stick that stirs the fire, is sometimes called the ego. I don???t often use the word ego because it has so many psychological overtones that my readers start going into another world and to some extent I lose them. But if you think of ego as the presumption of self or the assumption of ???I??? you will get a sense of what I mean. Even now when you are supposedly unenlightened and ignorant you are not a thought; you are nothing but pure unadulterated Awareness.
So in the strictest sense there is no real ego to get rid of. Only if you feel limited by the objects that you see like the body, the breath, certain concepts in the mind like self judgment, or by the ego, do you have to return to your real home, which is the seer, Awareness.
The energy that you need to discover this is the energy to question the assumptions, which seem so normal, and to look at these assumptions through your new-found eye of wisdom.
An Analogy From the Dream State
This is like in the dream state. Even now all the objects, all the bodies and all of the minds in the dream are nothing but the mind of the waking one. All the dream characters are nothing but the one mind.
But since these characters assume that they are limited to that dream person, they seem to suffer the fate of that character. And so they seem to be born and to die, to suffer and to be happy right along with the changes to that particular person. When these dream people wake up they didn???t really create a brand new self. They just discover what they were the whole time.
Accomplishing What you Want To Accomplish
Now, as far as doing the jobs that you need to get done in life, big and small. Yes, the sense of a separate doer is gone, but you will find that there is a certain harmony in the universe. Where there is a job to do, the universe will take care of it. Although you may appear to work extremely hard, you will be completely at ease and unconcerned. And if the body gets sick and you are unable to work at all, you will still be completely at ease.
No rules can possibly govern a sage. But when you wake up, you will have accomplished the most important thing in life and everything else will turn out just the way it was meant to. So as an aspirant keep two things in mind. First, the kingdom of heaven is at hand and you can wake up at any moment. Second, have the determination to destroy any concepts which appear to keep you in limitation and to cause suffering.
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Michael Gluckman
