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through which the Enlightened Being sees and knows. Knowing it can'tknow, it wordlessly revels in the Light. 50Enlightenment is knowing/experiencing oneself as the Self, PureAwareness, not the ego believing in or “experiencing” the Self. Christ's nondualisticpronouncement, "I and my Father are one," meant he was one withthe spiritual Self, the "father," sire of the universe. The Pharisees, caught upin the quaint illusion that God the Father was an old man in the sky, couldn'tconnect their idea of God with the Self conscious vagabond before them -and the rest is history.Enlightenment happens when the ego, like a salt doll dropped in theocean, dissolves in Pure Awareness, an experience similar to waking up froma dream. One moment you're a dreamer and the next a waker. The dreamerhas to disappear so the waker can come into being. The feeling of theawakened one is: "I am self-luminous Awareness. I shine on everything. Ishine on the objects in the world and I shine on the waves in the mind of theperson I once mistakenly thought I was. If that "me" is happy or sad whatconcern is it of mine? I merely illumine these changing conditions of mind.Not only do I shine on the former me, I shine in the minds of all beings astheir innermost Self.""To mistake a rope for a snake causes intense fear.Taking oneself to be the ego causes existential fear.Self Realization destroys fear."(26). In the twilight a thirsty traveler approached a village well. Reachingdown, she recoiled in fear when she saw a big snake coiled next to thebucket. Unable to move for fear of being bitten, she imagined terrible things,including her own death. At that time an old man coming to the well noticedher standing there petrified with fear."What's the problem?" he asked kindly."Snake! Snake! Get a stick before it strikes!" she whispered frantically.The old man burst out laughing. "Hey!" he said, "Take it easy. That'sno snake. It's the well rope. It just looks like a snake in the darkness."Though she was never in danger, the misperceived rope producedintense fear. Our existential fears come from mistaking the Self for thedualistic universe. The fear of the snake arose simultaneously with the50 This worldless ego revelling is sometimes called meditation and sometimes enlighenment.40
misperception of the rope. What happened to the snake and the fear when thewoman perceived the rope? It vanished.Because we are so identified with our misperceptions, we need to hearfrom an independent source, scripture or a teacher, that the snake is actually arope. However, hearing the truth is insufficient without an investigation.When the woman heard that the rope was a snake she looked to make sure,and her fear disappeared in the light of knowledge.Most fears are not legitimate physical fears. We fear love or the lackof it, life or death, success or failure - you name it. Myriad groundless fearsarising from the cloud of unknowing disturb the mind not established in rightknowledge. Rather than deal with a profusion of specific fears, the spiritualwarrior lops off the root fear (taking oneself to be the ego) with the sword ofdiscrimination. Such a person, having discovered identity with the Self, isincapable of fear.Actually, fearlessness is a negative way of describing Self-Realization.The Self is the Love that generates the cosmic harmony we call life, aharmony that exists because, like the snake, the universe is one with the Self.Can the illusory snake exist without the rope's support? Enlightenment is theexperience, I am that Reality, not this limited ego"Just as a lamp illumines objects in a room,the Self illumines the mind, which is composedof inert subtle matter and unableto illumine itself".(27)Someone who says, "I'm a rock," is either joking or crazy. But nearlyeveryone identifies with the gross and subtle bodies to some degree, anidentification causing pleasure and pain. We think of the mind as living, butit's only a mechanical collection of subtle material waves (memories,sensations, emotions, feelings, tendencies) in Consciousness. Having nolight of its own, unaware of its own existence, it merely bouncesConsciousness onto objects like a mirror.If the mind contains the happy/sad wave it is common to think "I amhappy/sad." But in fact, "I" is never happy or sad. In this case the Self isapparently confused, identifying with the mind wave, thereby sufferinghappiness/sadness until the wave returns to the Unconscious. To free the Selfthis confusion must be removed.41
Page 1 and 2: SELF-KNOWLEDGE"I am composing this
Page 3: REMOVING THE WALLIf happiness or un
Page 8 and 9: "Action cannot remove ignorancefor
Page 10 and 11: lowing blissful cosmic experiences,
Page 12 and 13: Something tells me this knowledge s
Page 14 and 15: ody.We aren’t our feelings and em
Page 16 and 17: The belief that I am a waker comes
Page 18 and 19: If I’m the sleeper ego, the bliss
Page 20 and 21: itself out and disappears back into
Page 22 and 23: imaginations; ego, filled with self
Page 24 and 25: The next few days saw many experien
Page 26 and 27: here, however, the subtle part, the
Page 28 and 29: state manifests as awareness and ac
Page 30 and 31: At this point in the text the “No
Page 32 and 33: time when it was appropriate? Greed
Page 34 and 35: Simply knowing that everything is a
Page 36 and 37: in the light of the Self.”(19)Tho
Page 38 and 39: ationalized or self-validating cred
Page 42 and 43: Of course the idea of a deluded Sel
Page 44 and 45: Since ultimately all transactions,
Page 46 and 47: Nearly everyone has, at moments of
Page 48 and 49: The complex process of experience i
Page 50 and 51: can't. The creative process is, acc
Page 52 and 53: eautifully mixed by the Mind (see "
Page 54 and 55: (Intellect's preoccupation with the
Page 56 and 57: attentioninwardsubtle bodystilledag
Page 58 and 59: attitudes, especially those which e
Page 60 and 61: specific results. For example, we t
Page 62 and 63: DESIRE IS STRESSOne major source of
Page 64 and 65: Meditation and Self knowledge go ha
Page 66 and 67: Put together, the sattvic elements
Page 68 and 69: Sleep is a symbol for ignorance, an
Page 70 and 71: THE BODYNo particular physical posi
Page 72 and 73: THE BREATHThe breath, as you’ve u
Page 74 and 75: If the ego insists on intruding, ma
Page 76 and 77: of objects in the Self alone and ex
Page 78 and 79: (40)One symptom of enlightenment si
Page 80 and 81: “As dawn dispels darkness before
Page 82 and 83: Listen carefully to the next conver
Page 84 and 85: This, the last, and the next five v
Page 86 and 87: Imagine Consciousness arranged in l
Page 88 and 89: nothing more is to be seen, and whi
Page 90 and 91:
The word, it is said, "killeth." Ho
Page 92 and 93:
agitationattentionfactor“Third Ey
Page 94:
OM TAT SAT94
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