"Our
divine perfection – not registered by the physical eye but only by the heart’s
knowing – is who we truly are. Our mortal imperfections – registered by the
physical senses – are not who we truly are. Yet we keep trying, in love, to
find each other’s perfection within the world of imperfection. And it simply is
not there." ~ Marianne Williamson
Liberation,
bondage, what are they to me? What do I care for freedom? For I have known God,
the infinite Self, the witness of all things. ~ The Heart of Awareness
We can
characterize the spiritual path as it is stated in the Upanishads as the
movement from the unreal to the real, from darkness into the light and from
death to immortality. It involves a
growing awareness that we are not these bodies, not our temporary personalities
even, but something deeper, more essential and ultimately beyond measurement,
quantification or definition. We are
beings of consciousness, which is essentially unlimited by either space or
time.
It is the
dawning recognition that this world of dire circumstances is basically
ephemeral. It has no substance beyond
the belief we are willing to invest in it; the projection of our collective
hopes and fears. Although many would
argue that this is a retreat from the very real problems of the world, it
really means empowering ourselves. By
waking up to who we truly are and seeing our circumstances for what they truly
are we are in a position to make whatever changes we deem necessary.
Imagine
being locked in a prison in a dream.
While dreaming, you search here and there looking for a way out. Maybe you even give up. But what if you start to awaken and realize
that you are dreaming? Everything
changes. The circumstances by which you
were victimized no longer have any power because you recognize that they were
only in your mind. You can turn the
prison into a pumpkin pie with ice cream.
I liked
the film “Inception.” Many people made
fun of its underlying premises because they were not terribly logical; dreams
within dreams where one could be killed, etc.
Of course the nature of dreams is that they don’t make sense to the
rational mind. The rational mind wants
to analyze everything for some kind of linear causal connection. If we pay attention “reality” is often more
like a dream than a linear sequence of events.
You think of someone you haven’t seen for a years and then suddenly meet
them unexpectedly. C. G. Jung described
these kinds of phenomena as synchronicity.
Just as when we start to recognize the linear inconsistencies in a dream
and awaken, synchronicities remind us that this supposed waking world is also a
dream.
The
problem with dreams is that they are pretty much always based on previous
experience. They reveal our samskaras,
our collected mental patterns.
Occasionally perhaps we might have a truly prophetic dream in which the
gods speak to us. However, mostly
not. True awakening means transcending
the three conditioned states of waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep. It is the recognition that we are not part of
the system at all. We are always
absolutely free and immortal. As Deepak
Chopra, MD puts it, “We are not victims of aging, sickness and death. These are part of scenery, not the seer, who
is immune to any form of change. The
seer is the spirit, the expression of eternal being.”
Meditation
is a primary means of disengaging from the dream, from unreality, and being
real, letting go of the darkness and revealing the inner light and realizing
that there is no birth and no death. Our
very nature, swarupe, is freedom and bliss.
Practice and realize this. Then
keep on practicing until you are established in that realization.
