Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
26th July 2016
Meet
“To know yourself"
Man likes and loves to meet the one he loves or likes. When he does meet them, the meeting may either be loving or cordial. The meeting may also be neither loving nor cordial. This is accepted as normal but it is nevertheless paradoxical, because love is unconditional. So what could the understanding be that, whoever we meet, the meeting is unconditional?
Paradoxically also, when man meets those who he neither likes nor loves, the meeting may not be loving, but social etiquette makes the meeting only cordial, or the meeting may turn out to be both loving and cordial.
When man meets another, what could the understanding be that would make the meeting governed by unconditional love? The meeting would be governed by unconditional love when man understands that, whoever he meets, the meeting is always unconditional.
Now, how could man ever understand that, whoever he meets, the meeting is unconditional?
The first human child born on earth is a mystery, because it is impossible for the human child to be born of human parents. Therefore, it is obvious that the first human child has evolved to be a human child from animal birth.
Therefore, the first human met another human due to evolution and propagation of the human species. This signifies that humans met each other in the process of evolution, and not because a human wished or planned to meet. The first meeting of humans was evidently unconditional.
Similarly, humans meet to this day as a process in evolution and not because they plan, wish, like or love to meet, although the human mind thinks and believes it is so.
Therefore, who we meet in life is unconditional and whatever each one says or does when they meet is also unconditional, but the human mind thinks and believes it is conditional, which is merely a belief and not the truth.
You meet so that an understanding could evolve as to who you really are. The enlightened have rightly proclaimed that, when we meet and believe we know who the other is, knowing is who you are and not who the other is. The enlightened indicate that knowing is not who you or the other really is.
The enlightened have declared that who you really are is lived, as you are, in every moment of daily life. Furthermore, that what you think and believe you or the other are, are illusory thoughts of who you and the other are and not who you and the other really are.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2016
Editor’s Note:
Man’s life, as he or she matures from early childhood, becomes governed by conditions. Even very young children set conditions for playing together. Meetings with others are a frequent and regular part of man’s daily life. Scarcely one is free of expectation; scarcely one is free of condition. Remarkable, therefore, is the revelation and understanding gifted in this article of man’s life as it really is.
We meet; let us accept life’s gift and understand.
Julian Capper
German Translator’s Note:
Meeting with others, with animals and things and also with a certain place in the world does not happen because of planning. It does not happen the way the mind expects it to happen. And meetings are not under any condition man thinks to have chosen or wished. This is the wisdom shared in the article “Meet“ by Dr. Shankar. As part of a singular evolutionary flow we meet what and whom we are meant to meet, unconditionally, wherever and whenever it is meant to happen. The implications of this understanding are huge. It can change our life, or better, how we perceive life. No room for expectations any more. No more disappointments. Instead of that: admiration of how life flows as illusory meetings in the mind of man.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.