Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands
5 February 2020
Awakening (3)
“Process”
Understand that, when an action is going on, you only know it after the action is absent and not present. Also understand that action cannot be conveyed by an action in the moment.
Action cannot be conveyed by words in the moment because, when action is happening in the moment, a word is absent. Understand that when action is conveyed by words, the action is an illusion of sound and therefore not real.
Understand that you cannot convey actions by words. That is the state you are in, but you will say: I know what happened. You will say he did this. Understand that after the action has passed, you come to know your opinion and interpretations about it.
Understand that the opinion and interpretations about actions are optical and auditory illusions of light and sound, which is a singular flow of life in any moment.
Understand that light and sound are together in any moment. Understand that light and sound cannot be separated from each other, just as time and space cannot be separated from each other and are together in any moment.
Understand that you come to know knowledge through words, which are illusions of sound. And that is a stepwise manner: step by step you gather words from your school, middle school, high school, university. It is a stepwise manner.
But the question - who am I really? - is a deep, understanding process. This is a process through which one passes to remember what he or she has forgotten. It is a process and that process is life itself.
That truth, who am I really, is a process you go through to realise what you are not as yet. And that process is life. You have been told to find out the truth, but not told to be just aware of the truth.
Understand that you have just got to be aware. That is the problem. That is the barrier. Understand that you have the body, which is here, but your mind with thoughts is elsewhere. You are divided. Understand that, where you are, actions are illusions of light and sound. When this understanding cements, you will realise who you really are in daily life.
The enlightened realise that who the mind thinks they are is not who they are.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2020
Editor’s Note:
The mind may engage with whatever is said or experienced during the waking state. Such an engagement is usually followed by an instant and uncontrollable reaction. No pause for reflection is allowed by the reaction, which may be a positive or a negative opinion or interpretation of whom you meet or what is happening. These opinions and interpretations are our companions in our daily life and are in harmony or at war with others’. When you go to a party, you are very likely to be introduced to a person you have never met. All at once he or she becomes your opinion and vice versa - and that is whom you have met. This is a recognisable cameo of your life, isn’t it? The process of understanding, as the wise reveal here and elsewhere, is life itself. Life cannot be gainsaid: it is precisely what it is in each and every moment. Be aware in life and savour the gift of trust.
Julian Capper. UK
German Translator‘s Note:
The presumption about a person, about an action or about an utterance that we observe can easily amount to a certainty, be taken for reality. Whatever happens, it is usually not simply described by the mind as an observed and unevaluated process and then evaluated separately, however illusory. The most common way of mentally recording a process, an action or a person is that the observation is mixed linguistically with an evaluation without even being even slightly aware of it. As an example, if you see someone lying relaxed on the couch while others are cleaning up around him, and the thought arises that he is just lying around lazily. This judgmental thought does not allow any further openness about what might be hidden behind the apparent passivity, however illusory. The person may be tired because he or she has already cleaned the other rooms, so not lazy. And even if there is no reasonable explanation for his passivity, the evaluation of laziness is completely illusory, because nobody decides to rest or lie around, it happens to him, whether he wants it or not. Dr. Shankar's articles and the implications therein for our everyday life are very revealing when you observe them in your everyday life and begin to understand them more deeply. By taking his thoughts for reality, conflict and strife, or even harmony, arise, which depend on conditions. Understanding life as a singular spontaneous flow frees you from conditions and thus opens up unconditional inner harmony with life as it is, which then is more likely to be manifested in interpersonal everyday life.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.