A visitor arrives to visit the awakened Master. The visitor feels a yearning from inside to discover and experience something more than the limited mind and body. He hasn’t begun his spiritual practice in earnest. And he’s keen to know more before his seeking can begin. The following conversation ensues.
Here’s a tip: Don’t read this as another story. Be the visitor, following the answers and pointers given, as if they were given to you. Your seeking can end too.
Visitor: Master, how do you meditate?
Master: I don’t.
Visitor: But, Master, I don’t understand. If you will forgive my bluntness, that seems hypocritical. As a Spiritual Teacher, I’m sure you teach your students to meditate, but you yourself don’t meditate!
Master: For one identified with a mind, there would be two choices. One, to let the mind move out into the perceived world of objects, of things. Another, to let the mind move inside into quietness. For one not identified with the mind, there is only Being, Awareness, and Peace, so, for such a one, who would meditate on what and why!
Visitor: Sincere apologies Master, I understand. Then why am I as a budding seeker hearing so much these days about the importance of mindfulness and meditation? What is that in aid of?
Master: You already are that which you are seeking. How can seeking work to get you to who you already are?
Visitor: But, Master, I experience myself as a normal human being, with limitations, with fears, with confusion, with desires. At the same time, I feel that there must be something more than this, and I feel that strongly inside me. I don’t know how to experience this, and that is why I’m seeking.
Master: Who is aware that you have fears, have confusion, have desires, feel something more should be there, and thus are seeking? Isn’t something simply aware of all this happening in you?
Visitor: [Pauses] Yes, Master, there is an awareness of all this.
Master: And this Awareness cannot be an artifact of the mind, because it is the same Awareness through which you are aware of the mind and its thoughts and its beliefs and memories and more!. Is that not the case?
Visitor: [Pauses] Yes, Master, this awareness stands apart and is aware of what I’m experiencing.
Master: This Awareness is the pointer to your true nature. And it is right here, and everywhere, and any time, is it not?
Visitor: [Pauses] Yes, indeed Master. Any experience ever experienced by me is known to me because of this awareness that has always been on.
Master: That is it. That which you’ve been seeking has always been there, always on.
Visitor: [Showing disbelief] But, Master, this cannot be “Enlightenment“. It cannot be this easy, can it? How can it be that I, a nobody, not a practitioner of anything, experience this truth, this true nature, just so easily? We see people talk about having to do decades of practice, sometimes lifetimes of practice before this can be revealed. Here, I just walked in five minutes ago and ask you questions, and you simply and directly are pointing me to the truth. I find this unbelievable!
Master: [Smiles] You are right. In a world of spiritual aspirants, it is commonly believed that recognizing your true nature, enlightenment as it is called, is a mystical experience that is unattainable. But this very sort of belief arises from the same mind that veils the Awareness that is always on. And it is that veiling that self-propagates the mind to move out into the world, now seeking the truth. But how can the mind know that which, through which the mind is even known to start with!!
Visitor: [Falls silent. Tears flow] Master, thank you. The seeking has ended even before it has officially started.
Master: Now, with this recognition, of true nature, it is helpful to continually return to abiding in the Awareness, and not to keep going back into the habitual grooves of the mind. Resting in and as this Awareness alone is practice enough! And when you undertake this practice of abidance, you won’t be doing so with a confusion that you are the mind, or the body. Also, doing this will be increasingly effortless, as the pull of an imagined separate-Doer dies.
Visitor: [Still in tears] You’ve opened these eyes, this body-mind, to clarity. As seeking ended, abidance in true self can begin. There is deep gratitude for you for shining the light on this truth. And helping me experience it so simply, so elegantly, so directly, for this the gratitude goes deeper. Thank you!
Master: Truth is ever present. Truth is all pervading. So, Dear One, go forth and abide in this Truth. And let that light of Truth shine on others to wake up other seekers from their endless seeking!
End your seeking now. Through just such a direct dialog between the Master and a Student, the book Awaken: An Experiential Exploration of Enlightenment, offers a thorough exploration of the essence of Reality, and your true nature. You too can directly experience Enlightenment, your original nature. Follow the guided Self-Inquiry to your own Self-Realization.
Love
Sundar.
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