"The very first step in understanding what this is all about is giving up the concept of an active, volitional 'I' as a separate entity and accepting the passive role of perceiving and functioning as a process." - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Ignorance

Sage Vasishtha

The ignorance or mental conditioning has but a momentary existence: yet, since it flows on, it seems to be permanent like a river. Because it is able to veil the reality, it seems to be real: but when you try to grasp it, you discover it is nothing.

This conditioning seems to grow, but in fact it does not. For, when you try to grasp it, it vanishes like the tip of a flame. Yet, again, even as the sky appears to be blue, this conditioning also seems to have some kind of real appearance! It is born as the second moon in diplopia, it exists like the dream-objects, and it creates confusion even as people sitting in a moving boat see the shore moving. When it is active, it creates a delusion of the long dream of world-appearance. It perverts all relationships and experiences. It is this ignorance that is responsible for the creation and perception of duality, and of division and the consequent confusion of perception and experience.

When this ignorance is mastered by becoming aware of its unreality, mind ceases to be - even as when the water ceases to flow, the river dries up.

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सर्वभूताधिवासं यद्भूतेषु च वसत्यपि।
सर्वानुग्राहकत्वेन तद्स्म्यहं वासुदेवः॥

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings,
who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being:
I AM THAT. -- Amritabindu Upanishad