Download PDF - Stillness Speaks

The complex process of experience is so instinctive, subtle, andfleeting, most of us don't even realize it's going on. To find out why it’s sodifficult to re-discover the Self, meditation’s goal, the experiencelessexperience that frees one from life's treadmill, let’s make an examination, notof the ordinary experiences that bulk up our lives or the peak experiences thatgive flavor, but the way we experience.Let's take a trivial event - a drive to the supermarket - and see what'sreally going on. First, before we've even suited up for life's ball game weneed a playing field. No material universe equals no supermarket, noautomobile, no roads. So what is this universe that makes cars, supermarkets,and a plethora of gadgets possible? According to Vedantic model, whichmay seem slightly crude to our modern minds but is nonetheless worthy ofconsideration, immaterial Consciousness evolved five material elements.How the object of meditation, the eternally self-existing, indivisible,non-dual Awareness has managed to transform into primordial matter andintelligently divide into five elements which in turn split and combine witheach other in a creative orgy that gives birth to the unbelievable diversity ofnames and forms confronting our senses is difficult to fathom. Perhaps it’ssimilar to the creation of a web by a spider. The spider miraculously bringsforth a substance from its body to shape a web according to its own idea. Isthe cosmos, as Vedanta claims, simply the Self masquerading as matter?We can never factually verify the brass tacks reality of any model,because spiritual models are meant, not to rivet clever concepts into ourintellects concerning the precise nature of a given physical or psychologicalobject or process, but to get the mind to think radically about the nonconceptualSelf behind everything - including our own experience. Whenmeditation brings the Self into clear view, It’s relationship with the universebecomes clear. Over the centuries the following model has provided areasonable explanation of the relationship between the senses and theelements, one helpful in understanding the role of the senses and mind inmeditation.If we analyze our automobile, for example, we find all five elementsrepresented. It occupies space and is made up of space. The majority of itsparts are composed of the earth element: iron, chromium, aluminum, etc. Itbreathes air which feeds the fire burning in its innards which is in turn cooledby water. The body sitting in the driver's seat, a breathing moving soulvehicle,is also composed of the same elements.Space isn't tangibly elemental like the other four but exists as aframework or support for the other elements. In the Self, our spiritual48