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Key concepts of Advaita - Non Dualsim
On the last day of the Seminar I attended in Germany, which was on the teachings of Advaita or Non-Dualism, Ramesh Balsekar kindly wrote out these ‘Pointers, which summarised the talks given at the seminar.KEY CONCEPTS OF ADVAITA – NON DUALISM
1. The master key to all doors of ignorance and confusion is the perception that nothing in relativity exists – neither space-time, not even knowledge. There is no creation and dissolution.
2. Space –time does not exist objectively. Science tells us this. In the absence of space –time, there cannot be any phenomenal objects – or any thinking about it. There can only be SUBJECTIVITY, what we surely must be: I, the Noumenon, the Source, spacelesss and timeless – INTEMPORALITY.
3. “Living “ is a movie on the screen of “ space”, an illusion of movement created by the serialising of the three-dimensional “stills”, perceived and cognised only so long as the light of consciousness is available. Once the light of consciousness is off, the screen of space, the three-dimensional characters and the events on the screen disappear. The movie no longer functions – This is called “dying”. What –we – are, is Unbroken Wholeness, what we are can neither live nor die.
4. The spatio- temporal framework enables “us” to experience phenomenality. What-we –are, is noumenality. The phenomenal manifestation could only have emerged into the framework of space-time from the noumenal source. If we objectify that conceptual medium of space-time into something independently external to ourselves – “ me” and the “other” – that means bondage.
Samsara is the presence of space-time phenomenality; Nirvana is its absence. Mutual negation of these concepts restores us to our noumenal being. This is Self- realisation.
5. Noumenon – pure Subjectivity is not aware of its existence; such awareness of its existence comes about only with the arising of Consciousness. – I AM. This spontaneous arising of Consciousness, the sense of PRESENCE, simultaneously causes a condition of Duality: the wholeness, the holiness, the equanimity of pure subjectivity gets split into contrasting elements of positive and negative, love and hate, pleasure and pain, and the many conceptual pairs of opposites, through the duality of subject and its object.
The conceptual bondage in space-time phenomenality arises only because each human object assumes itself to be an independent entity with volition, through Maya or subjective hypnosis, whereas, naturally it is Consciousness itself which becomes identified with each form in the process of duality. This conceptual independent entity exists subject to the bonds of space-time, as something extraneous to its own existence, whereas the factual position is that all the conceptual entities – the various “ me “s are as part of the total manifestation, only the phenomenal aspects of the noumenal “ I”, and are perceived and cognised by one another in Consciousness only because of the conceptual framework of space – time.
The spatio-temporal framework is not something independent of the various appearances but only an instrument and mechanism, to enable the various “me” s to perceive and interact with one another. The apperception of this fact is liberation from the conceptual bondage of subject –object relationship in temporality.
6. It is the ignorant person who is worried about what might happen, or about what he should do in particular circumstances. The sage does not volitionally accept or reject anything. He is open and impartial to everything that has happened, everything that is happening everything that might happen. He knows that everything happens according to “Cosmic Law” or Divine Will. He know also that all is illusion, everything is fun-and- games – “ The child of a barren woman” as the sage Jnaneshwar said – basically and inevitably invalid.
7. Whatever is happening is merely a reflection of, and on, what –I-am. What-I-am has identified itself with what-I-am not- “I” has identified itself with “me” – and it is this identification with a sense of doership that has to fall off. The approach therefore is necessarily and essentially negative: There is nothing to attain or achieve, the false identification has to fall off. Any positive approach seems apparently necessary only because our volition demands it, but the fact is that any positive approach can only strengthen this sense of doership. The difference is between “ I am meditating with a view to being enlightened “ and meditation happening without any meditator.
RAMESH BALSEKAR AT GUT SCHERMA AUGUST 6th 2000.
“ We cannot apprehend Consciousness, because we have never been other than it. We cannot integrate with Consciousness because we are never disintegrated from it. In relative terms we can NEVER understand what Consciousness is. The Whole-Mind cannot be known by the split-mind of relativity. " Ramesh Balsekar
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