You Are Not Book.indb - Stephen H. Wolinsky Ph. D.

THE SUBSTAnCE
266 / You Are Not
Prior to everything we see or know, including the seer or
knower or perceiver, is THAT SUBSTANCE. The 10 th century
poet, Saint Janadeva, called THAT SUBSTANCE the divine
substance. It is THAT of which, and by which, the universe
seems to appear. We can use a metaphor to “describe” this
SUBSTANCE: Imagine that everything is made of water,
and that we had billions of differently shaped ice-cube trays,
which formed differently shaped ice cubes. So too, this world
is made of differently appearing substances or shapes and
forms. Yet, all of them are made of only THAT SUBSTANCE
or, in this metaphor, water.
To illustrate, “imagine” the ocean. At the surface of the
ocean there are waves, bubbles, and drops of water, all crashing,
water into water, with different currents going in different
directions. Moreover, “imagine” that each wave, each bubble,
each water droplet in the ocean has a different perspective,
point of view, fantasized history, justification, and in a word,
it imagines that it is separate from the rest of the ocean.
However, if “we” were in that ocean and began to sink
slowly into deeper levels of the sea, the waves banging into
one another, currents, etc., would have less impact upon
us.
Sinking even deeper still, soon the ripples of the surface
of the ocean would disappear, and there would be almost
no movement. If we then could look up, we might “see” the
waves, ripples, and bubbles from far away. However, from
“down there,” it would be easy to “see” that the bubbles,
waves, etc., are all made of the same water (SUBSTANCE).
Moreover, as we sink into or “go back the way we came,” the
“I” bubble at the surface of the ocean clearly is Not-me,
and “we” realize that I am not the “I” “I” thought I was, but
rather THE SUBSTANCE of which all the “I” bubbles and
everything are made.