UNTIL IT IS SEEN

“Until the ego is seen not to be true you are living in the world of Maya and samsara. There is no you to which this life is happening to because you, we, are life itself.”

The above most likely is an accurate existential observation of how it IS, how you are and are not.

You’ve read those words before in a book or heard some similar utterance in a retreat or meeting or satsang. And if you are a certain type of person, say a seeker of wisdom and truth, or just a casual passerby with time on your hands, you might be inclined to toss those words into that cart some of us seem to haul around without much thought, notebooks or journals or photo albums or just short term memory banks, along with all the other maps and charts and signposts accumulated over the years. Because, after all, we don’t want to be stuck in Maya, we want a way out.

Of course, it’s not an easy matter waking up from Maya, leaving it behind and being a lamp unto oneself. Teachers and guides can be very helpful, even fellow travelers can provide useful tips from time to time. “Watch out for that ditch by the side of the road hidden by the overgrown weeds. You can take a nasty spill if you’re not paying attention. I cut my knees up pretty badly. Come to think of it, someone probably should post a warning sign or something there.”

Imitation is supposed to be a form of flattery. And maybe it is. But in the journey of awakening it can lead to unintended consequences. We may recite the words to ourselves, write them down, memorize them, and make rules of them. And little by little, perhaps without any overt intention, we come to assume those words are our words, after all, “They’re bouncing around in “my” head. Who else’s could they be?” Gradually we may find ourselves dressing up in someone else’s clothing. In this way mind can usurp any epiphany, once meaningful, and turn it empty and hollow because of no true ownership. This can happen without any malicious intent to deceive. We simply want to be more like our teacher, guide, guru, friend, or companion.

But in doing so, we unintentionally do a disservice to them and ourselves. Because we now have an idea, or ideas, or even a whole “teaching”, of what “awakening”, “consciousness”, “emptiness”, or whatever is suppose to be like, we may find ourselves, knowingly or unknowingly, trying to manipulate and control our experience so that it approximates, or looks like, or feels a little more like our imperfect understanding of how IT is suppose to be. It’s like trying to force a size 10-1/2 foot into that stylish size 9 Italian jobbie. Maybe it can be done, but it doesn’t make for comfortable walking.

At some level we just want to do the “right” thing, according to Ramana Maharshi, or Papa Ji, Sri Aurobindo, Krishnamurti, the Bible, the Koran, the Sutras, the LAW. And so we make them our “maps” to guide us through life. This reliance on “other” can go on for years. “Until it is seen” that we are what the maps are referring to. And belatedly it crosses mind’s attention that maybe; just maybe, it might make more sense to look directly at our own experience instead of through someone else’s glasses.

This reminds me a little of that Nasrudin story, where Nasrudin comes out of a café late at night and sees a man on his hands and knees at the foot of a street lamp groping around in the dirt. Nasrudin asks him what is he doing and the man answers, ‘I’m looking for my house keys.”
“Is this where you dropped them?” asks Nasrudin.
“Oh no, I dropped them somewhere over there,” and the man points over his shoulder into the darkness.
“Then why are you looking here?” a bewildered Nasrudin asks.
Drum roll please, bada-bing, bada-bang, “Because this is where the light is.”

Well actually, the light is in us, wherever we go, wherever we are, right here, right now. And it’s not even a light, that’s just metaphor.

That internal silent “listening” - that allows us to “hear” “thinking mind”, that “silent voice” or “voices” in our head - is consciousness itself. That silent witnessing is what we are. Not a who. Not a thing. Formless awareness. Everything we experience as our life unfolds within consciousness, is knowable because of consciousness, is ultimately . . . .

But please don’t take my word for it.