Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands
13 March 2020
Because (1)
“Necessary”
When you examine life closely with deep understanding, one day you will come to understand that life is a journey. Understand that there is an absolute journey and this absolute journey includes a relative journey.
Life will gradually express the relative journey to you and to everyone. Similarly, life will one day express the absolute journey to you and to everyone. You will understand that the absolute journey is not separate from the relative journey.
Life will make you understand that the relative journey exists as long as the ego believes that mind with thoughts controls life and the ego also believes that it is right.
Others are included in this relative journey. Others are necessary for this relative journey because dependency is required for this relative journey. You make this relative journey because of others and not without them.
The ego is necessary for this relative journey because it plays pivotal roles in the relative journey. Relative meaning that it is illusory and not real. This relative journey lasts until enlightenment.
The absolute journey is enlightenment. Life is such that, by teaching you that the relative journey does not bring contentment to every moment in life, it will make you understand what the absolute journey is. It is enlightenment which brings contentment in every moment of daily life.
The absolute journey is very paradoxical because it will happen if it is meant to happen and you cannot make it happen. You are alone in this absolute journey. Alone, meaning, with an identity which you understand is illusory.
In this absolute journey you embrace life as it is in every moment. If you are dependent on anything for this absolute journey, understand very well that it is still a relative journey. This is because the absolute journey, which is enlightenment, is not known to man.
Why the relative journey appears as if it is the absolute journey is a point to clarify. Sometimes the beliefs of the relative journey, supported by others, make you believe that it is the absolute journey. Is it not so?
The beliefs of others is bondage because the absolute journey, meaning enlightenment, is not known by anyone. The absolute journey is enlightenment or freedom. Enlightenment is lived and enlightenment and freedom are not known.
The enlightened live life as it is in every moment
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright: V.S. Shankar, 2020
Editor’s Note:
What is it that leads a man or woman on a quest, maybe for lifetimes, for what he cannot touch, cannot smell, cannot taste, cannot hear, cannot see and cannot know or experience? And when he does find it, he cannot know that he has found it?
Nor can he be taught it. What he can be taught and is taught is illusory and unreal. He requires the companionship of the ego to play many parts, albeit illusory, whether he likes it or not. Furthermore, man believes in, defends and is convinced of its reality. In their compassion for man’s plight, as it is, enlightened men and women generously gift their deep understanding of life as it is in every moment.
Julian Capper. UK
German Translator’s Note:
“If you are dependent on anything for this absolute journey, understand very well that it is still a relative journey.“ It is these hints that Dr. Shankar gives to his readers that can help them understand what enlightenment is not. In this way, the clues happen to the seeker so that he may turn away from what enlightenment is not: enlightenment is not something that the mind could know. The neti-neti of the ancient wisdom scriptures is still alive because there is no other way to formulate wisdom. Wisdom does not describe enlightenment, wisdom explains the illusory nature of the mind. Thus, enlightenment reveals itself whenever it is meant to.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.