THE NEXT THING

We are goal oriented, meaning that we live our lives in the future. There is always the next thing we are to accomplish. 

For instance, we are in preschool, then in kindergarten, then in grade school, then in junior high school, then in high school, then in college, then in graduate school, then in our first job.  Then we have the quota we are to attain in that new job, then an even higher quota, then promotion.  Then we want a new car, then a new house.

Along the way we get married, children coming next, whom we follow every step of the way as they hit their own road of goals, even though we are still on our own road.  Which is when grandkids come along.

All too soon, though, we're in retirement.  But do we really think we can just sit back and do nothing now, as though there were no more next things?  What about that trip to Europe, that tour of the wine country in California, that book we always wanted to write, those improvements to our home now that we have the time to do them?

Always there is something else to do.  There must be something else.  What about volunteer work? 

Missing in all this is ourselves, of course.  We've lost ourselves amid all this striving, amid all this attachment and striving.

Shouldn't the next thing be ourselves?  Shouldn't we stop with ourselves?

GOOD AND EVIL

When Oneness appears as many, it must, necessarily, manifest as pairs of opposites.  Good and evil are inevitable consequences of the One appearing as many.

Good is that which helps us see through the illusion that we are many.  Evil is that which keeps us from it.

DOING VS. BEING

We are doers.  Even when we are not doing anything we are doing something.  Sleeping is doing something, for example.  Not doing anything at all is still doing something.  It is doing nothing.

It is easy to get lost in doing.  Most of us are lost this way, most of the time.  Unfortunately it is at the expense of being, just being.  Doing is dynamic whereas being is static.  We don't like to be static.  To be static is to waste time.

Yet, being is who we truly are, and since we don't allow ourselves, even briefly, to just be, we are always out of touch with ourselves.  We see ourselves as what we do rather than as what we are.

Eventually our doing, like a house of cards, comes crashing down, and we are suddenly, possibly for the first time ever, face to face with our true selves.  "What do I do now?" we then say, which is precisely the point.  Our true selves do not require any doing.

MONKEY MIND

"Monkey mind," a Buddhist expression, refers to the typical human mind that jumps from one thought to the next to the next like a monkey swinging from branch to branch in the jungle.  The goal of Buddhism is to get the monkey out of the trees, to quiet the mind.

This goal can be realized in three ways.  The first is to take a look at the content of the mind and see what is causing all the commotion.  Is it some emotion, some perception, some idea, what exactly is the matter?  When the content is seen for what it is, often something insignificant, a decision can be made to put it on hold, that is to put it on the back burner, or to reject it outright.  The mind settles quickly with this.

The second means of calming the mind is through meditation, by centering the mind.  This traditionally is done by focusing on one's breathing, or by chanting a word or words, or by listening to a regularly struck gong or bell or chime.  In the case of the latter, one listens to the sound trailing off until it is replaced at last by the next strike of the gong.  The monkey mind stops here, too.

Finally, there is a method described by the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle.  It is a way of returning the mind to the present moment, the Now, which again is a centering of the mind.  He says that one should focus his attention on the body, feeling the life force there.  Feel the tingling in the finger tips, for example.  The mind thus out of itself, free of thoughts, again grows still.

WINDUP CLOCKS

In the old days, there were windup clocks that you put on your nightstand to wake you in the morning.  The trouble was, they made a distinctive tick-tock sound that often kept you awake half the night. 

These days clocks are electric, digital, and make not sound whatsoever.  As a result, you experience time as a soundless blur.  Indeed, there are people today who will live their entire lives as just this soundless blur, until one day they look up and find themselves in old age.

The advantage of windup clocks, accordingly, is that you can hear time passing, one second after another, which invariably reminds you of "memento mori," which means "remember death."  Pay attention to your life, the windup clocks seem to say, appreciate it, make the best of it.  It will soon be over.

WHO IS PRETENDING?

"You are what you pretend to be," Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his novel Mother Night.  What or who you are pretending to be is your social role, as defined by your social and psychological conditioning.

This, though, is not the whole picture.

In Vedanta, who you are pretending to be is called "maya," meaning illusion, but illusion not in the sense of unreality but in the sense of the cosmic play of Brahman.  Alan Watts said about it, "it's all a big act." 

What you are pretending to be is really what the Brahman is pretending to be.  The difference is, you don't know it.  The reason you don't know it is because you are it.

LATE BLOOMER

We are all late bloomers, insofar as the Atman in each of us is a late bloomer.  This is to say, it can take  many lifetimes over many eons for the Atman to at last awaken. 

This may not be literally lifetimes and eons, as philosopher Alan Watts pointed out.  The lifetimes may be the innumerable intervals of a typical individual life, for example, the school years, the child-rearing years, the career years, the retirement years, and so on.  Each of these intervals has a beginning, middle, and end, like any good story, like any good life. 

But then again it could just as feasibly be literally lifetimes and eons, covering your lives as a rock, many rocks, as a moth, many moths, as a frog, many frogs, as a horse, many horses, and then as a human, many lives as a human. 

Or it could be a combination of the two.

FIRST STIRRINGS TO LAST

When a person becomes interested in spiritual things, it is a sign that his Atman is beginning to awaken.

The Atman is like a chick in an egg.  As the chick grows, it becomes aware of the shell surrounding it.  Its instinct is to break out of the shell.  How it is going to do this, it does not yet know, except that it must.

As the Atman matures, there comes a time when instinctively it must awaken.  How, in real terms, it is going to do this, it does not know.  But then all of a sudden it does know.

FAVORABLE ODDS

The odds are favorable on whether or not God exists.  The trillions of believers over the centuries can't all be wrong.

BEWARE THE MESSENGER

Watch out for certain spiritual messengers, teachers.  They become the message rather than the message being the message. 

A good example of this is Alan Watts.  Watts never professed to be a guru, although many considered him one.  "I have nothing to sell," he always said.  "I am a metaphysical entertainer." A clergyman in the Episcopal church early in his career, then an academic, then a prolific author, and a lecturer, he had a tremendous influence on all who would hear him.  The trouble was, he left everyone feeling shortchanged somehow.  Something was missing.  He was not missing, but something about him was. 

Another instance is Ram Dass.  Born Richard Alpert in 1931, he went on to earn a doctorate in psychology and was subsequently a highly successful professor at Harvard.  With Harvard's Timothy Leary he did much experimentation with LSD and other drugs, until finally he was relieved of his duties when the drug experimentation got out of hand.  Alpert went on a spiritual quest to India after this, whereupon he adopted Vedanta and changed his name to Baba Ram Dass.  His work as a spiritual teacher, however, felt exactly like his work as an academic.  His knowledge of the details of Vedanta was, and is, exceptional, even as the messianic white robe and beard of his new identity betrayed him.

J. Krishnamurti was another one.  He could give talks for hours, and he certainly had a large following.  But it all felt hollow somehow.  It was all just words, he was all just words.

What these three individuals have in common, and there are many other examples of this, is the absence of God.  One never felt that there was a spiritual presence in them, or that they believed in God at all.  Maybe they kept it hidden.  It's as though they compensated for it by becoming gods, or godlike, themselves, not what it is supposed to be about.  The messenger is not what it's about.

RAM CHANDRA DATTA

Ram Chandra Datta (1851-1899) was the first householder-disciple to come to Sri Ramakrishna.  This was in 1879.  He was a doctor with the title of Chemical Examiner at Calcutta Medical College, and Professor of Chemistry at the Science Association.

In the beginning, he was an agnostic inclined to outright atheism.  His lack of faith, though, made him restless, and it stimulated his intellectual curiosity. 

His real gift was his intuition, to the extent that his first encounter with Ramakrishna left him feeling he had been in the presence of spiritual greatness.

Though gradual, it was clear that a profound change was taking place in him.  More and more his thoughts turned away from worldly matters.

Even so, doubts crept in upon him.  But the die had been cast.  His spirituality and devotion to Ramakrishna grew ever stronger.  Even his wife, Krishna­preyasi, became devout, and cheerfully helped him in his spiritual path.

When Ramakrishna became ill with throat cancer and neared the end of his life, Ram Chandra decided to record his experiences of the Master and his teachings. 

When Ramakrishna heard that his disciple was writing something about him, he cautioned him, saying: "Do not publish my biography just now. If you do, my body will not last long."

Ram Chandra honoured this request, until finally, in 1890, four years after the Master’s passing, he wrote his Ramakrishna biography which he entitled Sri Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsadever Jivanvrittanta.

Noteworthy is that Ram Chandra Datta was the first person to publish a biography of Ramakri­shna, and then the first to build a temple for the worship of the Master’s relics, and finally the first to preach publicly that Ramakrishna was an avatar.

WHEN THEN IS NOW

In the expression "when then is now," the "then" is either something in the past or something in the future.  In this sense, "then" does not exist.  The only thing that exists is the present moment, Now.  Life is happening now.

ROLE OF WATER

Water plays an important role in religion.  It is associated with the cleansing and purification of both body and spirit.

For Christians, baptism by water signifies spiritual rebirth. The word "baptism" comes from the Greek word meaning to plunge or to wash.

Certain miraculous events are associated with water, such as a vision of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes grotto in France.

Sacred healing rivers and wells abound in religion, including the grotto and holy well at Chartres, France, and the Chalice Well at Glastonbury, England.

Central to Vedantic religious practice are the pure and sacred rivers of India, in particular the Ganges, which comes directly from a holy source in the Himalayas. Immersion in the Ganges is said to bring believers purification and freedom from sin.

Those who have their bodies cremated on the banks of the Ganges are granted instant salvation.  If the death and cremation has occurred elsewhere, salvation can be achieved by immersing the ashes in the Ganges

HOW IT WILL BE

In his play "Our Town," Thornton Wilder has his character Emily Webb lamenting her immanent death.  She says, "Goodbye to clocks ticking---and Mama's sunflowers.  And food and coffee.  And new-ironed dresses and hot baths--and sleeping and waking up."

We all wonder what it will be like after we're gone, if not, as Wilder was exploring, what we will be thinking when we're about to go.

As for what it will be like, for the Vedantist there are two scenarios.  If the Atman in a person has not yet awakened, there will be a quick turnaround.  The individual will be reborn as someone or something else, depending upon his karmic load.  This transfer, however, will occur automatically and without the person being aware of it.

The other possibility is liberation.  This comes after the Atman has awakened.  Here, the Atman is no longer a consciousness that is an individual, but is just consciousness by itself.

As for what we will be thinking when we are about to go, we will be like Emily if we still identify with the world, are still attached to the world.  We will regret death.  If we no longer identify with the world, are no longer attached to it, we will have no regrets.

REFLECTED CONSCIOUSNESS

There is everyday, usual consciousness, and there is the background, pure consciousness that is the Brahman.  The former is a reflection of the latter.  It is transient and disappears with death.  The later is unchanging and remains after death.

BOTTOM LINE

All the individual is is a temporary collection of momentary events that are constantly in flux in their causal relationship to each other, with a consciousness that expires when the individual expires.

When you die, everything that is you, your body and all its processes, your mind and all its contents, will vanish entirely. There will be nothing left.

Only the one life, the one consciousness, the life and consciousness that is not you but that is the source of you, that you are the expression of, will remain.

IS NIRVANA ANNIHILATION?

The Buddhist conception of Nirvana seems entirely negative.  Nirvana means the end, "the blowing out" of a person's existence.

Since the skandhas, that is the elements constituting an individual, including the ego, are dispersed in Nirvana,  it would seem that Nirvana is annihilation. 

Yet the Buddha would not say this.  He did not know whether it was annihilation.  All he knew and all he cared to know was that Nirvana was the end of painful becoming, the end of suffering. 

Nirvana was the final peace, he said.  An eternal state of being, it was much more than just a negative condition.

HE WHO IS WORTHY

In Buddhism, a person who has reached the end of the Eightfold Path, who has perfected the Eightfold Path, is now called an arahat, a Buddhist saint.  This is the state of "he who is worthy." 

He has conquered "the three intoxications" that is sensuality, ignorance, and the "thirst" or attachment leading to rebirth.  His is the higher insight, termed sambodhi, experienced as joy, energy, calm, benevolence, and heightened concentration.

Already having a foretaste of Nirvana, the arahat's joy is deep.  His energy is strictly spiritual now.  He no longer feels suffering, and derives no pleasure from earthly delights.  He says, all the while, "I do not wish for death, I do not wish for life."

He awaits with calm contentment and without fear or anxiety the "putting out of his lamp of life," that is the entrance into final Nirvana at death.  Precisely what this final state will be, he does not particularly care.  Nor does the Buddha detail it.  All that matters to him is that he is no longer unhappy.

PAYING ATTENTION

Paying attention is being "mindful," to use the Buddhist term for it.  "Correct" or "right" mindfulness is the seventh element of the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path.  The earlier Upanishads also reference mindfulness, mindful meditation.

The Buddha taught that a person should practice mindfulness in his everyday life, maintaining as much as possible a calm awareness of his bodily functions, sensations (feelings), objects of consciousness (thoughts and perceptions), and consciousness itself.

He taught that mindfulness is important from the standpoint of attaining enlightenment, enlightenment being a state in which all misery-producing fetters have been overcome, abandoned, and no longer present in the mind.

To be mindfulness is to be aware of the present moment, as well.  This is as opposed to always thinking of the past, which has already occurred, and of the future, which has not yet taken place.  Mindfulness, or paying attention, is, in this way, an antidote to all that is delusional. 

A VIEW OF OTHERS

There is something to be aware of when, in a mall, for example, you are walking along shopping, and otherwise people-watching, as we are all apt to do.  You note to yourself or to a companion how that person over there is certainly pretty or handsome or fat or loud or poorly dressed, while the one down there is just the opposite, and so forth, all the while concluding that these folks have nothing to do with you.  You don't know them from Adam or Eve.

But the fact is, when you cross paths with other human beings, you are in fact crossing paths with yourself. All human beings, indeed all living creatures, have an Atman, which is the subjective aspect of the Brahman.

There is, however, only one Atman, just as there is only one Brahman. Since you share the same Atman with everyone else, you are, in the end, everyone else and they are you.  Indeed, there is a vedantist teacher known for beginning his every talk with "Ladies and gentlemen of myself."

When you identify with others in this way, what results is compassion.  You feel for the others' circumstances because they are your circumstances, the human condition, and for their suffering because you know exactly what suffering feels like yourself.  You must remind yourself that at the end of the day it is all one thing, all one life, all Brahman.

ATTUNEMENT

Arthur Waley, the distinquished English Sinologist, said that the word "Tao" means "the way the Universe works," and so the goal of the Taoist is to attune himself to this, to align himself with the Universe as it does its thing.

He must not, above all, get in the Tao's way.  He must practice what is called wu wei, or non-interference.

In Vedanta, the Atman/Brahman is the way the Universe works, because the Atman/Brahman is what the universe is, including how it works.

With regard to wu wei, or non-interference, Vedanta places blame on the egoic self.  It is the egoic self that gets in the way of most everything, as though it were in charge.

When the Atman, a person's true self, "awakens," it is in charge.  Indeed, the egoic self must first surrender to the Atman in order for the awakening to occur. 

With this surrendering and subsequent awakening of the Atman comes attunement.  This means that the person and the Universe are now on the same wave-length, are not working at cross-purposes.

The person finds, accordingly, that his life proceeds more smoothly and that he simply feels happier, which is the bliss of the Atman, if not the bliss of the Tao.

PRESENT IS LIKE A CIRCLE

The present is like a circle.  It has no sides.  It doesn't do anything.  It's just here.

WHAT IS REALLY REAL?

We see the various colors of the spectrum and take them to be something that genuinely exists in the world.  Yet these colors do not truly exist.  They only appear to exist and only under certain conditions, in this case only when particular wave-lengths of light pass through specified media until they strike a retina.

It is the old riddle, if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a noise?  The answer is, no, it doesn't.  There has to be an eardrum around somewhere for there to be a noise.

Early Vedantists were interested in this, but what they were even more curious about was not just the result of certain conditions, but what made possible the conditions themselves, and then ultimately what made possible all of existence.  This source of all of existence would, accordingly, be what was really real. 

They went on to give this source a name, calling it Brahman, which means "that which makes great."  It was a non-descriptive name, in fact a non-name, for it did not specify anything definite, either abstract or concrete. 

It was the absolute, though, the ultimate external reality, or as philosopher Alan Watts put it, "the which beyond which there is no whicher."

DISCRIMINATION

The task of a spiritual aspirant, according to Shankara in his Crest Jewel of Discrimination, is to learn the difference between what is eternal, i.e. abiding, and what is non-eternal, i.e. transient.

The purpose of such discrimination is to reach the ultimate truth.  That truth is Tat Tvam Asi, translated as That Art Thou.  You are Brahman.  Or as philosopher Alan Watts put it, "You're it. You're the whole works."

The place one finds this truth is not outside oneself but within.  As Christ said, "The kingdom of heaven is within."

Swami Brahmananda, one of Sri Ramakrishna's original disciples, said, "He who finds it within, finds it everywhere.  He who cannot find it within, cannot find it anywhere."

Discrimination has three steps:

(1) First, you have to hear about this truth, Tat Tvam Asi, from the scriptures and from an illumined teacher.  With the advent of the Internet, there is knowledge of this truth everywhere and from many illumined teachers.
(2) Next, you must reason upon this truth, understand it intellectually.  Does it sound feasible.
(3) Finally, you must meditate upon this truth.  You meditate until you feel in your bones that it is valid.  And with this, you no longer identify with your physical,  mental, and intellectual self, what is called in Vedanta the sheaths.  You must experience this truth to where you rise above body, mind, moods, etc.

One's true nature is immortal, abiding, eternal, blissful consciousness.  We experience this as the Atman, the subjective aspect of the Brahman.  The Atman is the experiencer of all experiences.  An important distinction must be made, though.  A person does not have the Atman, in the sense of having a soul.  Rather a person is the Atman.

The nature of the Atman is quite different from that of the body.  It is the ignorant man who identifies himself with the transient body, with what is non-eternal.  This is not to say that a person cannot be conscious of the body, as when he is hungry, but then he can quickly detach himself from such consciousness and return to Atman consciousness, ultimate truth.  This is discrimination.