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Excerpt from Dr. Shankar's 1st book, Kaivalya Gita
Richard J MillerLife moves the body from cradle to the grave. Watch the movement. Understand that life expresses experiences as thoughts in the mind and not in life. Understand that life expresses many people in front of you, with all their minds, their duality, their past and their experiences, which confront your mind, to create a story of life! Understand that language is merely a tool to communicate an illusory story. Life happens and goes on happening; this happening is nevertheless a transformation of energy. So enjoy the illusory story as it happens and while it lasts. Enjoy life that is without a story every moment, as well as the illusory story of the moment! Understand that the story will also contain making plans to enjoy a story!
Slowly, steadily, but surely, the presence of life, which makes everything happen, i.e. the thoughtless and the illusory thoughts, will become apparent to you. That state will engulf you. You will be that state. You will be very observant of life, you, being the impersonal you. Judgements, condemnation, complaints, simmer down spontaneously, Before you were complaining, condemning and criticizing and you could not do anything about it. And now you will not be complaining, condemning and criticizing and you cannot do anything about that either. It is a quantum change. A spontaneous change, and man cannot bring this about. The ego cannot bring anything about in life, primarily because the ego is not present in life. The ego is always the past and the future. You cannot find the ego where you are alive. An illusion is created which makes man believe that he can do many things in life, while the first requirement, which is a doer, is absent from life.
Man moans and groans about life, not realizing that he is moaning and groaning about his own mind, his own story and not about life. Understand that a story is just a story and not life! Understand that this story is all about an illusory individual, illusory knowledge, illusory experiences and illusory possessions. Man tries to run away from his own story, which is a manifestation of light and sound, thinking it to be real. Understand that your story is momentary, it is temporary, and it is a passing phase. There is summer, there is winter, there is autumn and there is spring as states of energy. Similarly, there is summer, winter, autumn and spring in man's story in his mind, as an illusion of states of energy. This is life, both the real energy and the illusory story. Enjoy the show before the curtain comes down!
Many great writings are found in the Articles Section of his Web site.
Dr. Shankar is hard hitting, with no confusion about truth. Follow 3 Houston webcasts on April 3-4th. Be there, and be stripped of the bondage of false belief.
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Thank you very much for your swift answer, Marcus!
Your explaining really cleared up many things for me. Just to recap, i'd like to ask thou, what is the exact meaning of 'doer' and 'doership'. The word is used differently at times... does it refer to 'mind' activity or does it concern the body? Or is it both?
Also, you basically wrote that Life is energy. Now how does one approach this. Do you mean by that the particles that float around in Universe, or does it refer to the Potentiality prior to the manifestation? And how does all this relate to the supposed individual. We as sentient beings are constantly in the flow of light and sound, the atoms, therefore we are energetic beings. But i believe you are talking more about the pure potentiality or 'awareness' than of our perceptual awareness. So, The Potentiality, Consciousness or Life is the I AM? But how does the I Am manifest in 'us' as so-called human beings? By being still, keeping the mind silent; and nothing else need to or can be done on 'our' part, right?
Hello ahto,
many interesting questions!
A deep understanding of the mind is necessary. This also is a happening - nobody does it. Life creates the illusion in the mind and Life explains the illusion of the mind - for example in form of the live-broadcast with Dr. Shankar on Nevernothere, April 3rd - 4th.
It will be the best to ask all these good questions to Dr. Shankar himself, I think.
Hello,
First of all, thanx for this nice free chapter; it was a good and clear approach.
I have a few questions thou to see if i got it right. You wrote as a response to the previous reply that the ego cannot think thinking happens. Does this mean that the thought is not aware of itself; that when thinkin is going on, 'we' can't help but wait until the thinking plays out? How could this process be stopped, in case there are thought that the 'me' doesn't like? It's often the case that when one has been having a intense conversation with someone, the thoughts about what either one said linger on for a day or so. Howcome is it that the 'mind' can't let go of things as soon as they are over.
You also said that neither anything gets done for life is a singular flow of light which is spontaneous, uncontrollable and unpredictable. In the chapter 'Life' it states that not only light but also sound. so, does the statement that thoughts are made of light and sound mean that when 'we' have a thought, it is the inner voice/thinking in words which is also often accompanied by images/pictures about that something 'we' think of?
Lastly, could you please elaborate on the the fact that thought are at the same time right and wrong. So, it's basically up to 'us' if 'we' take them to be true or not?
Regards,
Ahto Elken
Hello Ahto Elken,
I would like to write something about your questions. I have read all the books of Dr. Shankar diligently and this is my understanding of them. Read the books on your own to come to your own understanding, please. Here are my thoughts about your questions:
Your Question: "How could this process (of thinking) be stopped, in case there are thought that the 'me' doesn't like?"
Response: The process of thinking could never be stopped, because, as Dr. Shankar points out, words (thoughts) are an auditary illusion of sound created by Life and not by man, meaning that sounds happen as a process of Life and not as a function of the "me". The "me" is also a thought which is sound in its essence. These sounds are made by Life and not by any individual. The individual is merely an illusion, magically created by Life in the "mind", one could say: The individual is a bundle of thoughts and as thoughts are sound the individual is also illusory and could not be not the doer. To be a "doer" there should be an "action", but actions are also not real.
More about the illusoriness of "Action" you can read on Dr. Shankar's Website:
http://www.evolutionofmind.org/Evolution_of_Mind/Articles/Archive.html
in the article "action". There are also many other beautiful articles answering your questions: e.g. the article "Word - Sound".
And the good news is: The dislike of the "me" about the thoughts is also an illusion, just a thought, just a sound - so there is no need to stop them (if at all it were possible)...
Question: "Howcome is it that the 'mind' can't let go of things as soon as they are over?"
Response: The "mind" lives in the past and the future which it considers to be real (and never in the timeless and thoughtless „NOW“). The mind is convinced that the "other" did this, that and the other... or that the other shouldn't have done something... The illusion of individuals being the doer of real actions (the illusion of doership) grips the mind and doesn't allow freedom to be - freedom from thinking that man were the doer; and this is freedom from worry, sorrow, responsibility and so on. The mind is not in Life. The mind is under the illusion to be the doer and to be responsible for fixing life and to do the right things in the future. Therefore it goes on thinking and thinking.
If it is realized that no individual exists to be the doer and that life simply happens as an illusion of light and sound as Dr. Shankar explains in his books, then the thought-process is realized to be illusory and it reveals itself spontaneously and without any effort that the mind is not in life. All the efforts to stop the thoughts only keep the sense of reality of the thinking alive, keep the "ego" alive.
For the question about "light and sound" and about "thinking in form of images" I would recommend you Dr. Shankar's latest book "Evolution of Mind" (www.evolutionofmind.org) It explains in detail all those questions. I like it very much. For example you could come to realize through this book that Life is nothing but energy, i.e. light. This light also appears as soundwaves which create the illusion of the "mind". So Life which is energy or light appears in form of sound too. Therefore Life makes the mind happen and not vice versa. This understanding is the gift of Dr. Shankar's book "Evolution of Mind". Dr. Shankar explains the illusions in which the mind lives in detail, he doesn't just say "Everything is an illusion..." Therefore I like his books very much.
Your last question: "Lastly, could you please elaborate on the the fact that thought are at the same time right and wrong. So, it's basically up to 'us' if 'we' take them to be true or not?"
Response: Thoughts are right and wrong at the same time because "right and wrong" are relative: right is minimal wrong and wrong is minimal right. Here is a link to Dr. Shankar's article "Right and wrong": http://www.acadun.com/en/articles/right_and_wrong.doc/
Nothing is up to "us" as explained by Dr. Shankar in his books. Man is not the doer, not the thinker and not the speaker. Doing, thinking and speaking happens as an illusory manifestation of light and sound.
This understanding reveals the possiblity to perceive thoughts as relative, and therefore untrue or „illusory“. A deep understanding is needed to enjoy the illusory show created by Life in the human mind. Would you be frightened in the cinema watching a film?
I wonder Dr. Shankar, if you would consider that the flaw in your statement is the "speaking truth." When truth is spoken, the ego is set aside, and there is indeed a "doer." The problem occurs when the ego thinks it is the "doer."
If there is an ego "doing," there is nothing getting done. If there is you who is not the ego, then something is getting done.
Dear Edward Jones
You write:
I wonder Dr. Shankar, if you would consider that the flaw in your statement is the "speaking truth." When truth is spoken, the ego is set aside, and there is indeed a "doer." The problem occurs when the ego thinks it is the "doer."
Response: Truth can never be spoken for truth can never be known or be the known. Speaking happens to man and man dos not make speaking happen. The ego cannot think thinking happens.
You write:
If there is an ego "doing," there is nothing getting done. If there is you who is not the ego, then something is getting done.
Response: The ego is false and not the doer.Neither anything gets done for life is a singular flow of light which is spontaneous, uncontrollable and unpredictable. This singular flow of light projects an optical illusion of a doer, speaker and the thinker.
For more articles by Dr Vijai S Shankar visit www.acadun.com