"Movement in consciousness is considered creation; and when the movement is seen to be false and non-existent, that is nirvana." - Vasistha's Yoga
That word "nirvana" has sure been through the wringer ever since Vivekananda embodied it for Americans in 1900. The wringer, of course, is irresistible accretion of human hope and expectation of a nirvana, of escape into something better than this moment--which is just another craving camouflaged in spirituality. In the 60's the Beatles put Vivekananda into hyper-drive with their dalliance with a supposed Maharishi, added drugs to the mix and vvrrooom! This chase after nirvana then became the single greatest hindrance to awakening. But Vasistha tells it like it truly is, and all of the sages concur: nirvana is not to be acquired, but to be exposed, revealed, and this realization is the direct result of recognizing the false as false no matter what our minds and senses tell us to the contrary. Nirvana is experienced as absence, as the end of all craving, as grace, not effort, as the home we never left. This is not the nirvana of the Facebook crowd of hatha contortionists, tantric wet dreamers and Osho-worshippers. These folks lock themselves into half-way houses of the soul. No. We must step outside, burn the houses, the false concepts, or better yet, see right through them, because so long as we have body-minds they will haunt us. But they are ghosts, mirages, secondary to what we truly are: consciousness. And when this world, this life, this dream in which we dwell from day to day dies, only then what we truly are, nirvana, only that abides as it ever has as the great, silent space ever undisturbed by the brief breezes of our lives passing through.
"Brahman is unconditioned and unmodified. The entire universe is absolute Brahman, without any division whatsoever." - VY
And while I'm touching on the Beatles, let's have a shout out for George Harrison:
That word "nirvana" has sure been through the wringer ever since Vivekananda embodied it for Americans in 1900. The wringer, of course, is irresistible accretion of human hope and expectation of a nirvana, of escape into something better than this moment--which is just another craving camouflaged in spirituality. In the 60's the Beatles put Vivekananda into hyper-drive with their dalliance with a supposed Maharishi, added drugs to the mix and vvrrooom! This chase after nirvana then became the single greatest hindrance to awakening. But Vasistha tells it like it truly is, and all of the sages concur: nirvana is not to be acquired, but to be exposed, revealed, and this realization is the direct result of recognizing the false as false no matter what our minds and senses tell us to the contrary. Nirvana is experienced as absence, as the end of all craving, as grace, not effort, as the home we never left. This is not the nirvana of the Facebook crowd of hatha contortionists, tantric wet dreamers and Osho-worshippers. These folks lock themselves into half-way houses of the soul. No. We must step outside, burn the houses, the false concepts, or better yet, see right through them, because so long as we have body-minds they will haunt us. But they are ghosts, mirages, secondary to what we truly are: consciousness. And when this world, this life, this dream in which we dwell from day to day dies, only then what we truly are, nirvana, only that abides as it ever has as the great, silent space ever undisturbed by the brief breezes of our lives passing through.
"Brahman is unconditioned and unmodified. The entire universe is absolute Brahman, without any division whatsoever." - VY
And while I'm touching on the Beatles, let's have a shout out for George Harrison:
Without
going out of my door
I can know
all things on earth
Without
looking out of my window
I can know
the ways of heaven
The farther
one travels
The less one
knows
The less one
really knows
Without
going out of your door
You can know
all things on earth
Without
looking out of your window
You can know
the ways of heaven
The farther
one travels
The less one
knows
The less one
really knows
Arrive
without traveling
See all
without looking
Do all
without doing
--Inner Light
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