WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? OR DO YOU MIND?
The pure Self, or Atman, exists in its purest state of Naught, or No Thought. As soon as the thought itself appears, mind appears. There are 3 states of being.
Dreamless Sleep, which is Pure Awareness of the Self, the Self awareness of its Self with no taint of ego, the experience of which seems like a Void or Nothing, reality being masked by the Absence of thought;
Dreaming state, in reality is obscured by thoughts, which appear as real to the dreamer as do ‘objects’ do in the Wakeful state;
Wakeful state, in which reality is masked by objects, which are crystallized thoughts.
Enlightenment is in one interpretation, a process of realizing each state in such fullness and completeness that one’s Awareness (as opposed to one’s Mind) can move from one state to another at will with no restrictions. Again, Enlightenment & Liberation almost seem a process of becoming bored with Egoism and the “existence” that results from the very inception of Thought itself.
Again…Thought itself is the problem.
When one becomes tired with the constant dreaming-creating that results in our own imprisonment in the matrix, all desires and attachments, which are the offspring of thought itself, finally cease. Yoga is the science of the “Cessation of the fluctuations of Mind-stuff.”
The mind itself must be destroyed, as it is the vehicle of thoughts that arise from the Self’s Egotistic self importance, until the Self one day finally learns that it is one with God and has no use of thinking anymore. All thoughts are exhausted. All endless patterns of manifestation are explored and experienced, either in physical or astrally or just mentally. Once Egotistical experience is satiated, the Self can rest and stop endlessly creating within the confines of the Laws of this manifestation.
It is because the Mind itself that must be destroyed that Yogis often employ a technique that brings the mind and the thoughts that generate it, to a standstill. If one would desire Eternal Peace, the True Heaven spoke of by the mystics, one must DESTROY thought itself, which arise out of the Ego, which wants everything except such Peace because it knows that this Peace means its total destruction.
The Buddha used a method of meditation by which he brought to a standstill the thoughts in his mind. Enlightenment ensued. The destruction of Desire, which is the Cause of Life itself, brings about an end to this existence which is the True Hell, and a birth into a new existence of Eternal Peace.
Every time you desire anything at all, it causes ideas or thoughts and that requires mind. To destroy desire and attain enlightenment and liberation, one must cease having thoughts and ideas in general, which means one stops having desires (which arise out of ego) of different sorts, such as mental, astral, and physical. In part, desires are caused by reactions to everyday life. When one can relieve his egotistic soul of the need to react to any life-stimulus, which is caused by “leftover” subconscious programs, then one will experience a much more balanced, peaceful existence, which ultimately manifests as the naught, void, the realization of the Self experienced in Enlightenment.
The degree by which you are not affected by the fluctuations of everyday life, no matter how seemingly important one perceives the occurrences to be, is the degree by which you can measure how far away from enlightenment you are. There is an old Zen story. A student once asked his teacher, “What is holy?” The teacher replied, “A mountain of shit on a silver plate!” The lesson here is that when you arrive at the state of enlightenment, you stop applying artificial labels and identifications to all phenomenon you experience here in the matrix. Things considered gross by the common people simply do not affect the yogi.
Continuing in this vein, there is a saying from yoga philosophy which states that in the small pond-like minds of the unenlightened, the stirring of a small fish causes titanic waves of mental disturbance, but within the oceanic mind of a yogi the surging wave actions of whales cause hardly a ripple. Stated in more common terms, a terrorist attack such as what occurred on 9-11-2001 do not cause the same reactions in a yogi or adept as do the rest of the world. The whole world reacted with horror. But the enlightened experience such an event as just another occurrence which is ascribed no more significance than if only one person had died.
Again, when one possesses an awareness level approaching the Eternal, there are fewer and fewer distinctions, interpretations and labels applied to observable phenomenon. Stated another way, the Enlightened are Neutral to the endless dramas of life which affect the rest of us with such intensity. On the surface, their demeanor is one of total apathy. In fact, one could say that as one approaches Enlightenment, one would experience an attitude towards the world bordering on the boring, caused by their own lack of psychological and emotional interest in the phenomenal dream-world.
But that is not to say that they are without Love of Compassion. In fact they are more possessed of such feelings than most of us can ever imagine. They do feel compassion for those who suffer, which is everyone who is not enlightened. Remember Buddha’s words, “Life is suffering.” But there is a way out of suffering. There is a Path out of suffering. The way is to follow the example of the Enlightened. It is the ONLY way. No one can do the work for you. It must be done on your own with total concentration and devotion coupled with the same persistence found in the most diabolically evil people of history. Evil people never give up. That is why they succeed in causing so much turmoil for everyone else. Likewise the Enlightened succeeded because they never gave up. They persisted in the face of all adversity, trials and tribulations.
This is the way out of Hell, which is Life, which is Suffering caused by the very inception of Thought itself. Choose a method of meditation or some spiritual practice that can quiet the mind utterly. Practice it everyday. Never give up. Focus on becoming ONE with God. Sooner or later, depending on one’s own efforts at such, Enlightenment will happen.
Follow the example of those enlightened people who have come before. This is the only way…by example do they lead us and by example do we follow, thereby becoming like them and setting examples for others to follow us as well.
By following the example of the enlightened do we succeed in attaining our own enlightenment, where all other attempts at such have failed.
