Continuing
on our series on
Freedom from Suffering.
In my last video, I spoke
about freedom from suffering
initial steps
which come from
getting rid
of false identity.
And I think we can continue on this
theme today, what is false
identity?
It is mistaking
appearance for reality.
It is mistaking perception
for seeing.
It is making
the mistake that
that which is
transient, ephemeral,
momentary, ungraspable,
dreamlike fluctuation,
perceivable,
knowable as form,
as phenomena...
is real.
That's the basic
mistake of the intellect.
And it creates all kinds of issues.
The first issue it creates is that
perception
gives us the impression of me
and other. There's me
and there's everything else.
When this is an expression
of whatever everything else
is, this is a moving expression.
So perception tells me I have a body,
but I can't actually grasp it.
It's a moving,
non-thing.
that which I call
my body is a movement.
It's a movement of existence.
As appearing as this
in what we call now.
But it's been moving forever
and it moves in relationship
to everything else that is also moving.
Inanimate objects
are also moving
at a very fundamental level.
Particles are popping in
and out at lightning speed.
So to have empty space here,
this is a result of the
electromagnetic forces
and ultimately
gravity and everything else
that is moving in the universe.
So this is
the same
non-thing, moving whatever it is,
and the same universe moving,
but buffeted by forces and elements
and apparently not
moving through its own choice.
On the other hand, this moves
as a result of choice or
thought or whatever,
when I set intention.
But this moves too.
And all is movement
and what is moving?
What is moving
is nothing that is conceivable
or perceivable.
It appears as the conceivable
and the perceivable.
But who you really are,
really,
you know, the fundamental
mistake of the intellect
is that you're not a body.
And that is an appearance, a
changing appearance, along
with every other changing experience
or appearance
that we call the universe.
Rocks and plants and
and rainbows and sun and moon
and sky and stars
and galaxies and bacteria
and animals and trees.
All is in the matrix
of the one movement.
And that one
that is moving is neither conceivable
nor perceivable.
And it is the real you appearing
as this and all of this
simultaneously correlated
in every moment
as the freedom
to move,
the freedom to create, the freedom
to love, the freedom to be,
the freedom
to evolve, the freedom to
imagine, the freedom to have insight
and the freedom to have intuition
and the freedom
to know reality.
So freedom from
suffering is knowing reality
and freedom from illusion.
In other words, we don't have to
impose my illusion
onto your illusion.
My illusion includes
this body-mind, and everything else
that goes with this body-mind.
And your illusion
goes with that body-mind
that is listening to me
and everything that's happening
with its own body-mind.
And it's all entangled in a
matrix of infinite,
infinite
knowers, infinite modes of knowing,
infinite objects known.
Infinite observers, infinite modes
of observation, infinite
objects received.
Infinite lovers, infinite modes
of loving, infinite entities loved.
Infinite seers, infinite
modes of seeing, infinite
sceneries manifested.
So just like a raindrop
can be a dewdrop
on a trembling leaf
with myriads of colors,
but can also be a rainbow can also
be a puddle,
can also be a stream, can also be
a rivulet, can also
be a snowflake, can also be
a glacier, can also be
a snow-clad mountain,
can also be a cloud,
can also be the ocean.
Just as they ...
It's not stuck with being only a puddle
or a rainbow
or a dewdrop on a trembling leaf.
It has the freedom
to be whatever.
If it was stuck and identified
only as a dewdrop on a trembling leaf,
then it would suffer.
But the "I AM" in the
water says
I am the water.
No matter what
else I am, I am the snowflake,
I am the rainbow, I am the puddle,
I am the stream,
I am the rivulet, I am the whirlpool,
I am the snowflake, I am the glacier,
I am the shimmering colors
shining in
the evening
sky as the clouds.
I am still water, no matter what.
So too, you and I,
are the inconceivable
and imperceivable constantly,
ceaselessly
expressing itself as the movement
that we call form, phenomena
and appearances of things.
To know this is to rest in peace.
To know this is to rest in joy.
To know this is to rest in being.
To know this is to know
that you are nothing
conceivable and perceivable.
And yet without you, there is nothing
perceivable or conceivable.
And the bridge
between these two is language.
As soon as we started
creating words
to express meaning to space-time events
in consciousness, and name them,
then we created
the so-called objective universe.
Then we identified with it,
and then we couldn't cling to it
because it was constantly
transforming, including that
which was part
of the transformation,
which is the body-mind
as a system.
So freedom, actually,
ultimate freedom from suffering,
is the freedom from the misconception
that you are a person.
You are a person
as the perceivable
and the conceivable,
but in reality you are not
perceivable or conceivable.
But by naming space
and moments in consciousness
and these space-time events
are activities of your own self,
you create the idea of an
objective word, an objective body
and all these other objective bodies.
And then as soon as that idea
says, "that's what I am and
that's the only thing
I am",
that leads to all kinds of suffering.
So there's
no joy in being stuck
in one form or phenomenon and/or
whatever that is,
that form or phenomenon.
Every form is a phenomenon.
Every phenomenon is the fluctuation
of the noumenon,
the inexplicable,
inconceivable, imperceivable
appearing
as all
this and constantly transforming.
And if you resist this, then you will
experience what is called "suffering".
So I'm going to
actually close today with another
poem from
Rabindranath Tagore.
It's about this freedom.
Okay?
I am like a remnant
of a cloud of autumn
uselessly roaming the sky.
Oh, my sun, ever glorious!
Your touch has not yet melted my vapor,
making me one with your light.
And so I count months
and years separated from you.
If this be thy wish
and if this be thy play,
your play, then take this
fleeting emptiness of mine...
fleeting emptiness of mine,
which is who I am.
Paint it with colors,
the perceivable, gild it with gold,
float it on the wanton wind
and spread it in
varied wonders.
And again, when it shall be
your wish to end this play at night
I shall melt and vanish
away in the dark.
Or it
may be in a smile of the white morning,
in a coolness of purity transparent.
So effortless spontaneity.
On many an idle day
have I grieved over lost time.
But time is never lost
in the divine.
The Divine has taken every moment
of my life in its own hands,
hidden in the heart of things.
The divine is nourishing seeds
into sprouts, buds into blossoms
and ripening flowers into fruitfulness.
I was
tired and sleeping on my idle bed
and imagined all work had ceased.
In the morning I woke up
and found my garden
full of wonders
of flowers.
Okay.
It is the pang of separation
that spreads throughout the world
and gives birth to shapes
innumerable in the infinite sky.
Do you
just want to be a raindrop forever?
Or do you want to be
the panorama
of colors and sounds and tastes
and textures and smells
and thoughts and ideas and sensations
and pleasures and triumphs and
joy and suffering and pleasure
and pain and birth and death?
That's freedom.
Freedom is letting go
of what never existed
in the first place.
Reflect on this
and we'll
keep moving
in the direction of freedom,
which is a movement
without distance,
a journey without distance,
the journey from here to here,
the journey
on the path
that is not a path...
to freedom...
More later.