Download PDF - Stillness Speaks

world are nothing but Awareness.”(10)Melt down a golden ring or bracelet and it becomes a lump of gold.Though the form modifies, nothing substantially changes. Similarly, all theobjects in the world are only Awareness, but conditioning projects them assolid and separate objects. Melt down our conditioning and everythingappears as Awareness - a difficult task because we have invested ourperceptions with so much personal meaning.How far is a wave from the ocean? From the wave's standpoint it is aseparate form. From the ocean's standpoint, however, waves cannot existwithout the ocean. To think of oneself as a totally separate and uniqueindividual is the spiritual equivalent of a wave imagining itself apart from theocean.The purpose of spiritual life is to discover in what sense we are and arenot separate from our Source by disassociating from our conditioning. Onlythe Self is free of conditioning. We cannot become “perfect” i.e. turn ourrelative selves into the Self by changing our conditioning, but whenattachment to conditioning is severed, Self realization exposes therelationship between the conditioned and unconditioned selves. From thestate of the Self there are strong arguments for letting the conditioned self be,however: it isn't real, it isn't you, and it can't affect you in any way. And, asthe verse insists, “all the forms of this world are nothing but Awareness.”"Space seems broken and diversebecause of the many forms in it.Remove the forms and pure space remains.So too with the omnipresent Self."(11)On a perfectly empty flat space sits a roofless house with many rooms.Looking down from above, notice how each space (bedroom, kitchen,bathroom, and garage) seems different because of its association with thewalls and objects in the rooms. Destroy the walls and only indivisible spaceremains.The inner self or psyche, a manifestation of formless Consciousness, iscomprised of several rooms: mind, the emotional or feeling function,furnished with love, anger, feeling, greed, tenderness, passion, lust, hatred,jealousy; intellect, decorated with ideas, thoughts, ideals, dreams, fantasies,21