Rupert,
The release of the sense of a centre is not so much an event (e.g., ‘an understanding took place’) as a release of any hope or expectation or need for such an event to take place.
Best wishes,
Dan
Dear Dan,
The implication in this statement is that ‘understanding’ is an event in the mind, that it has objective qualities. This view, common in many traditional and contemporary expressions of Advaita, dismisses understanding on the basis that it is ‘of the mind’.
In this view, it is realised (and quite rightly so) that the mind cannot apprehend reality, and for this reason any attempt to explore or express the nature of reality with the mind is dismissed. And because understanding is considered to be of the mind, it is dismissed along with the mind.
If it were true that understanding were of the mind, this approach would be valid. However, understanding is not of the mind. It is rather the opposite. Understanding is the experience of the dissolution of the mind into its source and substance.
Take the thought ‘What is two plus two?’ This thought is, as it were, the screen taking the shape of the ‘two plus two’ image. It is the form that presence is taking in that moment.
When the question or thought ‘What is two plus two?’ comes to an end, presence remains as it always is, simply being itself or knowing its own being, just as the screen remains present when the image disappears.
The next thought to appear is the thought ‘Four’. This in turn is the form that presence is taking in that moment. It is the form in which the image on the screen appears.
The thought ‘Four’ is sometimes mistaken for the understanding. However, it is not the understanding; it is an expression of the understanding, perfectly tailored to the form of the question. Understanding took place between the end of the question ‘What is two plus two?’ and the beginning of the answer, ‘Four’.
The mind was not present there and hence it is a timeless and non-objective experience. What else could account for the transformation of the mind between one appearance and another, between the question and its answer?
This non-objective, timeless experience is only construed as an ‘event’ by the mind when it returns. When the mind returns it creates a pseudo ‘I’ that it deems to have been present ‘there’ (between the two thoughts) as the creator and witness of the understanding. But the mind was not present ‘there’. The mind understands nothing!
Thus, understanding is not an event in the mind or of the mind, and therefore has no objective qualities. Understanding only knows itself. It is simply the non-objective experience of knowing our own being in the absence of mind. It is synonymous with love, happiness, peace and beauty.
We never understand an idea. An idea dissolves in understanding. Similarly, we never love a person. All that constitutes the ‘person’ dissolves in love.
* * *
To return to your statement, it is true that the ‘release of the sense of a centre’ is not an ‘event’ of understanding. However, it is much more than simply a ‘release of any hope or expectation or need for such an event to take place’.
It is the timeless, non-event of presence knowing its own being – which is sometimes referred to as ‘understanding’. It is this understanding that gives rise to the ‘release of any hope or expectation or need for such an event taking place’, not the other way round.
The ‘sense of a centre’ is not simply the ‘hope or expectation for such an event to take place’. This should be clear from the fact that the ‘sense of a centre’ is often still very much in place after the ‘hope or expectation’ referred to has vanished.
For instance it is still present in the feeling that ‘I’, this separate-self centre, is present here behind the eyes, seeing these words, or in the head hearing, or remembering the past, or choosing a particular activity or one of the many other ways that the sense of a separate self is perpetuated.
It is simplistic (and very common) to think that awakening is simply the abandonment of the search for enlightenment. Rather, it is the direct seeing that what we are is not a limited and located entity, but is nevertheless present and knowing, that truly liberates us from the belief and feeling of being a person, resident in the body.
It is this clear seeing or understanding that leads, amongst other things, to the abandonment of the search, not the other way round!
With love,
Rupert
