I felt truly humbled and very fulfilled reading John’s
book, "You Were Never Born" (Non-Duality
Press, 2007, pp: 260, ISBN: 978-0-9553999-2-3).
“You Were Never Born” begins with
about 25 pages on the basics of John’s
approach to Advaita philosophy and proceeds to
present 77 dialogues (chiefly e-mail correspondences)
with seekers. At the very end is a very candid
interview given to a Dzogchen Practitioner. I
am amazed at the humility of his stance, clarity
in expression and his ability to hold the questioner's
feet firmly on the ground while demystifying
Advaita, but in the same breath conveying, in
simple straight forward terms, the great Gaudapada's
highest philosophy of 'ajativada' (Karika III-48).
John is not condescending in his responses to
the questions nor does he adopt a ‘holier
than thou’ attitude. No mumbo jumbo either.
He exposes in his dialogs a missed dimension
in the Questioner’s perspective and patiently
deconstructs our usually taken-for-granted worldview.
One is reminded of the depth of Ashtavakra Gita
(I-12) in his replies.
The dialogs # 52 (“Objects Appear, But
You Exist”) at p: 145 - 148 and # 68 (“The
Simplicity of Presence-Awareness”) at p:
185 are key essays and perhaps could
have been at the head of the Book. They constitute
the heart of the matter.
What To Do:
John doesn’t go with the radical positions
adopted by some of the Non-Dualists who say that
there is nothing that can be done, as “there
is no one to do anything.” He is categorical
that he would never say that. He questions, “If
there is nothing to do to end seeking and suffering,
why talk about all this?” (P: 97). Similar
views are repeatedly expressed in the book.
Richard, a pen friend of mine sent the other
day a link to Mr. David Godman’s blog on
What
To Do?
I quote from the above link:
“When the Guru says, ‘You are the
Self, you are Brahman,’ the disciple
often responds by saying, ‘Yes, I understand,
but what do I do to attain it? How do I discover
this for myself?’
The asking of such a question means that the
disciple thinks that Brahman is something
he should become, through effort, rather than
something that he already is. The assumption
implicit in this world-view is the premise behind
all sadhana.”
To this Ramana Maharshi’s response was:
“He who instructs an ardent seeker to
do this or that is not a true master. The seeker
is already afflicted by his activities and wants
peace and rest. In other words, he wants cessation
of his activities. Instead of that he is told
to do something in addition to, or in place of,
his other activities. Can that be a help to the
seeker?
Activity is creation; activity is the destruction
of one’s inherent happiness. If activity
be advocated the adviser is not a master but
the killer. Either the Creator (Brahma) or Death
(Yama) may be said to have come in the guise
of such a master. He cannot liberate the aspirant
but strengthens his fetters. (Talks with
Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 601.)”
John too does not advocate any ‘method’ as
all methods do deflect the individual from focusing
on that which really makes one ‘aware.’ He
desists from recommending even reading his books.
But he also does not leave the seeker in a vacuum
while he himself talks from the position of ultimate
Oneness. He holds his hand and unwearyingly guides
him to be ‘aware’ of that very background
which gives him the undeniable fact of ‘presence
and awareness’ the twin principles of ‘existence – knowledge’,
which the Upanishadic teachings point out. He
suggests a variety of pointers to bring the gaze
of the seeker on track from a misfocus on worldliness
or a “me”. His standard comment is “You
have to be present to be ‘aware.’ You
have to be aware to be ‘present’.
So the ‘presence-awareness’ is undeniable.” What
he suggests is to continue questioning all that
appears as a physical or mental object until
you are aware of your awareness and nothing else
remains with a subject-object differentiation.
That is same as the Drik (Potent-Looker)
state beyond triputi in Vedantic argot.
There is no glorification of advaita or statements
misleading the reader with false hopes of redeeming
one from worldly problems of hunger, penury etc. While
physical pain and sorrow are admittedly unavoidable
in the relative world, 'advaita' can free the
individual from 'psychological suffering'. ‘Psychological
suffering’ for him is “emotional
turbulence, doubts, worries, fears, concern about ‘myself’,
what people think of ‘me’, the feeling
of being a separate individual etc.” (p:
245). The key is about one's shifting the
focus from a memory-based fictitious ‘persona’ of
autobiographical 'self' to that very 'awareness'
which 'awares' (for lack of a better word) within
oneself.
John’s statements like "I am an advocate
of taking appropriate relative steps. The same
goes with medical issues, job issues and so on." (p:
178) and “Appearances are meaningful at
the level at which they appear. Engage in them
and make use of them at the appropriate level.
There can still be a relative enjoyment and interest
in things.” (p: 188) clearly indicate an
unambiguous pointer to guide us in our daily
life at transactional level pertaining to
matters in the mundane world. At the same time,
his profound words like "At this point you
can dispense with making a division between thoughts
and awareness" (p: 183) transport the reader
(or what remains) to sublime unseparating "Oneness." The
book abounds in many quotable gems, each with
its own flavor and uniqueness of appeal to individual
spiritual aspirants.
Snake – Rope Classic Advaita Metaphor:
“From ignorance of oneself, the world
appears, and by knowledge of oneself it
appears no longer. From ignorance of the rope a snake appears,
and by
knowledge of the rope the snake appears no longer”, says
Ashtavakra Gita (II-7) using the classic and well-known snake
metaphor to denote the apparent world. Aparokshanubhuti (Verse
96) too holds that “the substratum being known, the phenomenal
world disappears completely.” However, John is more realistic.
He thinks that the metaphor of a mirage, which continues to
appear even after it is known that it doesn’t contain
any water, more appropriately describes the position of a Jivanmukta
(vide his e-mail of April 8, 2008 to me). He explains adding, “As
long as there are sense organs, mind, consciousness, etc., in
working order, the appearance will be there. The whole purpose
of questioning the reality of the appearance is to dismantle
the fixation on it and identification with it, not to deny
that sheer fact that an appearance happens.”
‘Nothing’ From A Guru:
John’s clarifications that come out during
the interview with the Buddhist Practitioner
given in the Addendum are an icing on the cake.
It stands out in brilliance softly illuminating
any remaining dark patches of confusion in the
mind of the reader. John expresses himself and
his own past struggles to understand Truth with
child-like innocence but the understanding of
a complete sage. He describes vividly his own
thoughts and feelings before he met “Sailor” Bob
Adamson who helped him to demolish the “me” in
him. He rightly sums up, “Even though I
got nothing from “Sailor” Bob,
I will be forever grateful for that nothing” (p:
255 – italics mine). There is truly nothing
that Guru can give!
Continuing Questions:
Advaita doesn't explain the why or how questions
re: the appearance of phenomenal cause-effect
relational world or modifications thereof (except
through ‘unfalsifiable’ explanations
which are no more than ‘concepts’ within
the mind); or the variety of widely contrasting
disparities in skills in individuals or their
differing ‘pains’. There is a mathematical
precision and order in everything – whether
it is nucleosynthesis in a star or the working
of a molecule in DNA. John says that pain exists
in nature. He talks of “inexorable law[s]” like
death of what is born etc. Whose laws are they?
Why should they be there in the first place?
We have no answers for such questions even from
Sages like Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
We do not know as on date, but science searches
these issues and continues to do so, constantly
verifying, crosschecking and modifying itself.
The way Science is progressing, it does not merely
deal with material things any more. It
has entered the traditional terrains of
philosophy probing issues concerned with 'consciousness',
'self', 'awareness' etc.
Science has been able to tease out the neuronal
working during the states of wakeful, dream and
deep sleep conditions of brain. These
states are more tangibly understood and dreams
are not that much an enigma as they were even
ten years ago, though the last word is still
to emerge. We can, however, see that the
non-existent world of 'dreams' does leave its
footprint in the brain (in form of spindles waves)
of a man sleeping in the relative phenomenal world.
It is also known now that the medial prefrontal
cortex (MPF – behind the eyes) has a set
of neurons that function as a gateway in processing
the autobiographical memories giving rise to
a sense of ‘self’ and there may not
be a single ‘spot’ within the brain
as self. We derive a sense of self from:
- Continuity: of my self and personality in
time
- Coherence: my self is one though the thoughts
and experiences are varied
- Ownership: I own a body
- Doership: I decide to do or not to do.
The above four characteristics are helpful to
the organism (mind-body) in self-preservation
and propagation. This device of an identity as ‘self’ has
been useful to the organism in constantly assessing
its environment and to read the ‘minds’ of
others for its own survival in the wilderness,
particularly under circumstances of ‘unpredictable
futures.’ In the millennia of years of
its struggle for existence, the organism has
learnt newer and newer tactics of survival which
it piled layer by layer in its neuronal system
without deleting the older versions. As a result,
it is a ‘kludge’, a rough contraption
poorly designed but workable for the moment that
has developed. We now call it ‘mind’ and
find it totally unsuited to the present living
conditions of security and social relationships.
In terms of group living, the ancient hardware
that is existing as brain whose neurons stacked
all the past experiences in their own code is
found today not only inconvenient but downright
detrimental for our living as a harmonious society.
What has taken millions of years to build cannot
be undone in a day.
Neuroscientists are now understanding how neurons
code information, how memories are stored and
how they work as networks and singly and what
set of them produce the sense of ‘self’.
A ‘Jivanmukta’ that transcends the
use of the ‘self’ node in the brain
and clearly lives with a shift in ‘focus’ without
calling into action the networks of neurons that
direct his/her functioning from ‘self’ node
may be functioning using a distinctly different
node of neuronal networks. Let us call it the
node of “Universal Self.” A day may
come, hopefully, when the possible signature of "Universal
Self Of Oneness" node too could be
found in the brain! Then everyone may know the
way to shift ‘focus’ from the troublesome ‘self’-node
to that of ‘Awareness’-node while
still functioning in the world that appears as
a mirage, as John says.
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