The personality that results from all the contacts of the individual with his environment between conception and death, that which we have called the false 'me', the artificial ego, the persona, is necessarily the product of tridimensional consciousness - percepts and concepts. Being a tridimensional product such personality cannot but partake of the unreality and impermanence of all that belongs to that plane of seeming.
Obvious? Of course.
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'You cannot use mind to seek something from mind.'
'Mind and the object of its search are one.'(Huang Po) But these apparently unimpressive statements are probably of the utmost possible significance.
Long Fingers
Ramana Maharshi, our contemporary widely known in the West, and universally admitted a man of satori or enlightenment, allowed Swami Nityabodhananda to question him on this subject.
In reply to one query he answered, 'You asked me if any difference exists between the 'normal' state of ordinary people and that of men who are 'realised'. What have they real-ised? Only that which is real in themselves. But that which is real in them is equally real in you. Wherein lies a difference?'
That which is not real is clearly the artificial ego and everything pertaining to it, indeed everything tridimensional in the psyche. Following the Maharshi's pointing finger do we not find ourselves looking at the quadridimensional mind? If so, let us glance once more at the pointing fingers of Huang Po, cited above, and follow the direction in which they lead our gaze. Is that not at right-angles to the three visible dimensions? Is that not Within? (wherein lies the 'kingdom of Heaven', according to Jesus.)
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The Maharshi also reiterated to the Swami what he had already declared to Professor Sarma, that at no time in his life had he practised any kind of sadhana (spiritual discipline) 'worthy of the name', nor was any such practice necessary.
He added later, 'How could you doubt the reality of this 'I' which is questioning? This 'I' is your 'normal' state. What effort, then, would you have to make in order to enter into this normal state?'
He also said, 'That which you take to be your normal state is, on the contrary, an abnormal state ... Do you have to search for a long time before finding this 'I' that is none other than yourself? That is what I mean when I declare that no spiritual discipline (sadhana) is necessary in order to realise the Self. All one asks of you is that you abstain from doing anything whatever (of a disciplinary nature), that you remain calm, and finally that you be that which you really are. You have only to free yourself from the hypnotic spell in which your abnormal state holds you.'
The 'Self' in question - in case one should forget - is impersonal. It is also what the Zen Masters and the sutras called 'the self-nature', 'the original face', 'the Buddha nature.'
Let us remember that this comes from a man of our own times, living in a state of enlightenment. It is, as we say, 'straight from the horse's mouth'. And how perfectly it accords with what Huang Po and Hui Hai told us, also in plain straightforward words, a thousand years ago!
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