https://open.spotify.com/episode/2EeXOBA6kTEN6LXa30zJKk?si=1BMuirxmRJq-xwtJ1A6P4g
The world is but a show — glittering and empty. It is, and yet, it is not. It is there as long as I want to see it, and take part in it. When I cease caring, it dissolves. It has no cause, and serves no purpose. It just happens when we are absent-minded.
It appears exactly as it looks, but there is no depth in it — nor meaning. Only the onlooker is real. Call it Self or Atman. To the Self, the world is but a colorful show, which one enjoys as long as it lasts, and forgets when it is over. Whatever happens on the stage makes one shudder in terror, or roll with laughter. Yet all the time one is aware that it is but a show. Without desire or fear, the Jnani enjoys it as it happens.
The Jnani is not alone or desolate. The state of the Jnani is a taste of the pure, uncaused, undiluted bliss. They are happy and fully aware that happiness is their very nature. And that they need not do anything, nor strive for anything to secure it. It follows them, more real than the body — nearer than the mind itself. You imagine that without cause, there can be no happiness. To me, dependence on anything for happiness is utter misery. Pleasure and pain have causes, while my state is my own — totally uncaused, independent, unassailable.
The world just sprouts into being out of nothing, and returns to nothing. But as long as you are outside of my state, you have creators, preservers and destroyers. But once with me, you will know the Self only and see yourself in all. When you are giddy, you see the world running circles around you. Obsessed with the idea of means and end, of work and purpose — you see me, apparently functioning. In reality, I only look.
Whatever is done, is done on the stage. Joy and sorrow, life and death — they are all real to the person in bondage. To me, they are all in the show… as unreal as the show itself. I may perceive the world just like you, but you believe to be in it — while I see it as an irridescent drop in the vast expanse of consciousness.
As the liberated one grows older, they grow more and more happy and peaceful — after all, they are going home. Like a traveller nearing their destination and collecting their luggage, the liberated one leaves the train without regret. The wheel of destiny is coming to its end — the mind is happy. The mist of bodily experience is lifting — the burden of the body is growing less from day to day. Every sensation is contemplated in perfect equanimity. There is no desire for it, nor refusal. It is as it is, and the liberated one looks at it with a smile of affectionate detachment. The suffering of the body is there, but it does not matter. Whatever state I am in, I see it as a state of mind to be accepted as it is. One who experiences the body, experiences its pains and pleasures. I am neither the body, nor the experiencer of the body.
You keep on insisting that my inner state is molded by outer events — it is just not so. Whatever happens, I remain. At the root of my being is pure awareness — a speck of intense light. This speck, by its very nature, radiates, and creates pictures in space and events in time, effortlessly and spontaneously. As long as it is merely aware, there are no problems. But when the discrimative mind comes into being and creates distinctions, pleasure and pain arise. During sleep, the mind is in abeyance, and so are pain and pleasure. The process of creation continues, but no notice is taken. The mind is a form of consciousness, and consciousness is an aspect of life. Life creates everything, but The Supreme is beyond all. Words do not reach there, nor mind.
The Liberated One is alone, but they are all. They are not even a being. They are the beingness of all beings. Not even that. No words apply. They are what they are. The ground from which all grows. Everybody dies as they live. I am not afraid of death, because I am not afraid of life. I live a happy life, and shall die a happy death. Misery is to be born, not to die — all depends how you look at it. I was never born, how can I grow old? What I appear to be to you exists only in your mind. I am not concerned with it.
I am a dream that can wake you up. You will have the proof of it in your very waking up. Your foolishness is thinking that you are born and will die. That you are a body displaying a mind and all such nonsense. In my world, nobody is born and nobody dies. Some people go on a journey and come back, some never leave. What difference does it make, since they travel in dream-lands, each wrapped up in their own dream? Only the waking up is important. It is enough to know the ‘I Am’ as reality, and also, Love.
The gospel of Self-Realization, once heard, will never be forgotten. Like a seed left in the ground, it will wait for the right season and sprout, and grow into a mighty tree.