"O sage, this is the only path to salvation: one should be totally devoted to the desirable cause, one should be instructed in the right effort for its attainment and one should again and again engage oneself in such right action. By the right effort ignorance is dispelled and the ignorant become enlightened." - Vasistha's Yoga
So what happened to the "pathless path" and "gateless gate" of Eastern philosophy? What of all that effortless effort and doing without expectation? Phrases like "totally devoted" and "follow instructions" and especially a word like "salvation" all smack of religion with a savior such as Jesus or a book such as the Bible, do they not? Actually, no, enlightenment through any tradition, whether it be religious or mystical, usually requires sustained and structured effort. Bhakti yoga and Karma yoga accomplish this through sustained devotion or sustained action, respectively, while Jnana also entails sustained effort through study of scriptures and continuous self-inquiry. These are not paths for a lazy man. Jnana is a prolonged effort to use the thorn of the mind to remove the thorn of ignorance, an ignorance long reinforced and validated from the day of our supposed birth. The thorn must dig deeply to penetrate layers of accretion:
"False relationships have been forged by persistent effort; they should also be resolutely abandoned by persistent effort to the end of one's life." - VY
Mystical pointers such as "gateless gate" refer to the post-awakening recognition that we are always already enlightened (to borrow Ken Wilbur's phrase); With hindsight we recognize that regardless of self-effort nothing is attained, per say, just as nothing really changes when we awaken from a dream. However, for the seeker sustained, determined, persistent self-effort--contemplation of scriptures, mindfulness and self-inquiry ever uprooting the false as false--is necessary to break the spell of our deeply conditioned minds, to at last recognize the paradox in which we live. Reality is completely counter-intuitive to what we believe true:
"The obvious is unreal and the unreal becomes obvious....The truth is omnipresent and matter is but illusion, even though it may be experienced - just as the 'braceletness' of gold is an illusory appearance of gold." - VY
Everything we normally do must be undone, everything we believe put to the lie. What we understand to be physical reality is no more than "water in a mirage." And those pleasures we chase after day after day of our brief illusory lives?
"Momentary pleasure is pain. Real delight is unmodified, beginning-less and endless. Hence, investigate the truth with the help of direct experience. One who abandons this experience and runs after illusory 'realities' is a fool." - VY
Direct experience is almost always the result of sustained right effort. Only then, like an Atlas flipping the entire world from his shoulders, will we shrug off the ceaseless sensory input and reflexive cogitation besieging us. Only then are we left alone without distortion, in truth, as we really are.
"One alone is." - VY
So what happened to the "pathless path" and "gateless gate" of Eastern philosophy? What of all that effortless effort and doing without expectation? Phrases like "totally devoted" and "follow instructions" and especially a word like "salvation" all smack of religion with a savior such as Jesus or a book such as the Bible, do they not? Actually, no, enlightenment through any tradition, whether it be religious or mystical, usually requires sustained and structured effort. Bhakti yoga and Karma yoga accomplish this through sustained devotion or sustained action, respectively, while Jnana also entails sustained effort through study of scriptures and continuous self-inquiry. These are not paths for a lazy man. Jnana is a prolonged effort to use the thorn of the mind to remove the thorn of ignorance, an ignorance long reinforced and validated from the day of our supposed birth. The thorn must dig deeply to penetrate layers of accretion:
"False relationships have been forged by persistent effort; they should also be resolutely abandoned by persistent effort to the end of one's life." - VY
Mystical pointers such as "gateless gate" refer to the post-awakening recognition that we are always already enlightened (to borrow Ken Wilbur's phrase); With hindsight we recognize that regardless of self-effort nothing is attained, per say, just as nothing really changes when we awaken from a dream. However, for the seeker sustained, determined, persistent self-effort--contemplation of scriptures, mindfulness and self-inquiry ever uprooting the false as false--is necessary to break the spell of our deeply conditioned minds, to at last recognize the paradox in which we live. Reality is completely counter-intuitive to what we believe true:
"The obvious is unreal and the unreal becomes obvious....The truth is omnipresent and matter is but illusion, even though it may be experienced - just as the 'braceletness' of gold is an illusory appearance of gold." - VY
Everything we normally do must be undone, everything we believe put to the lie. What we understand to be physical reality is no more than "water in a mirage." And those pleasures we chase after day after day of our brief illusory lives?
"Momentary pleasure is pain. Real delight is unmodified, beginning-less and endless. Hence, investigate the truth with the help of direct experience. One who abandons this experience and runs after illusory 'realities' is a fool." - VY
Direct experience is almost always the result of sustained right effort. Only then, like an Atlas flipping the entire world from his shoulders, will we shrug off the ceaseless sensory input and reflexive cogitation besieging us. Only then are we left alone without distortion, in truth, as we really are.
"One alone is." - VY
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