Transcend the Concept of Reality to Come to Reality
We must transcend both the idea that reality is real AND the idea that it's unreal to come to actual Reality; similarly, transcend separation and Oneness to reach true Advaita - concepts meant as pointers become prisons when we attach to them.
It just came to me while this song was going on that there are many spiritual traps actually and I want to spend a minute or two just discussing them. And they are actually meant to be pointers but they become new prisons. So the idea of Reality and unreality. So most of us start of with the idea that ‘All of this is real.’ Then we come to Vedanta and we say ‘It’s not real’, its mind. But then, we get aZached to that idea and we try to spend the rest of our life as someone who says: “None of this is real, none of this is real”. But we have to transcend even that. We have to transcend the concept of reality, to come to reality. Transcend the concept, the noHon of reality and unreality and then, when you transcend that that is Reality. So don’t take a posiHon, this is all so real, don’t take a posiHon this is all so unreal. Because neither are true, actually. If we are aZached to one posiHon, that it is all real, to allow us to let go of that aZachment, it is pointed to us that it’s not real. But the fact is that the noHon of real and unreal, itself is not Real. Who can meet me here? Like a child, let’s put it simply, does not have an idea of real or unreal and yet they are Free. You hear what I’m saying? Especially for the Vedan%ns it is important to hear this, because that which is meant to take them beyond the noHon of Maya and not Maya, then we can get stuck in the noHon that, all of this is Maya and therefore there is a sort of subtle opposiHon to this, you see? But the noHon of reality and unreality itself is not Real. Same way, we can feel like, we can start off by thinking, ‘I am separate, I am me, she is she, he is he’, all these kind of ideas, you see, and then we try to become One. “No, no, actually we are one, we are actually One.” And we get stuck in that idea of One. But it’s not like that. So we must be rid now of the idea of separaHon and Oneness. That is when you come to true Oneness. Just like when you transcend the idea of reality and unreality, you come to true Reality, when you transcend the idea of two and one, then you come to true Nonduality or Advaita.
How do I transcend?
Just don’t bother with it. It’s a good quesHon: How do I transcend? Because it feels like I have to take one of these two posiHons and that’s why I give the child example, a child does not have the idea of Oneness or SeparaHon and yet they are Free. Empty, you see. But, empty also of the noHon of empty. Because we can have an idea of empty, which is like a dark empty space, or we may be visualizing some empty. When I say ‘Open and Empty’ we might be visualizing [open arms] like that and the minute the feeling of some constricHon comes, “Ah, no, no, I’m not Open and Empty, I lost it.” But it’s neither of those. Open to both, Empty of both. Empty of aZachment to either, conceptual empHness, Empty of noHons and aZachment to ideas. Does it feel a bit confusing, it can be, for the intellect, because the intellect only understands here [PoinHng to head]. But the job in Satsang is to come here [PoinHng to heart]. So as we let go of this and our spiritual noHons especially… very importantly…and those of you who feel like you’ve been on a spiritual search for twenty years, thirty years, forty years, some of us, then this is what may be happening to you, because you may be ge^ng more and more aZached to spiritual condiHoning, which is not Freedom.
Key Teachings
- Transcend both the idea that reality is real AND the idea that it's unreal to come to actual Reality - concepts meant as pointers become prisons when attached to them
- Transcend the concepts of separation and Oneness to reach true Nonduality (Advaita); be empty of the notion of empty itself
- The job in Satsang is to come to the heart, not the intellect - spiritual conditioning and concepts can become new traps preventing true Freedom
From: Coming to the End of This Falseness - 27th May 2019