Question:

Sutras from the higher chapters of Ashtavakra Gita and Narada Bhaktisutras clearly mention that you are already enlightened and that there is no need to meditate, then why are meditations encouraged by so many? How do I get to a stage where no meditation is necessary, where while walking-talking-working, I can be in a meditative state?

Answer:

According to Advaita teachings like Ashtavakra Gita, Ramana Maharshi’s Direct Path, Upanishads as well as the Vedic teachings in the higher chapters of Narada Bhaktisutras, the only goal is enlightenment; not merely calming the superficial level of the mind; not merely pasting a temporary smile on your face.

The only purpose of spirituality is awakening to the true nature of your own Being!

Therefore these scriptures slowly take the understanding of your own being from addressing the ‘physical body’ as ‘I’ to a higher understanding of ‘there is NO I’. When one graduates to the highest level of understanding of ‘there is No I’, then who remains to meditate? Nobody! It does not take a lifetime to get there, just a few simple steps for grasping this experientially are sufficient.

Here are the stages that every spiritual seeker can identify with:

Stage 1:

He clearly sees that ‘I’ am awareness, that witnesses the one reading this post; that witnesses the mind analyzing this information, and that which is always in the background.

Stage 2:

His awareness now turns to the one who is aware. Awareness is aware of itself now. Now it knows itself as awareness.

Stage 3:

He now graduates to a higher level where he clearly sees that:

• • that which I call ‘I’, is actually this awareness, this quiet witness, this empty limitless space-like-subject. The body is its object because it can experience the body. The mind is its object as it can experience the mind.
  • This same space-like subject is in me, in him, in her, in everyone. My space is not different from her space or his space. Space cannot be divided. It is more like a field of awareness.
  • When ‘he is awareness’ and ‘she is awareness’… everyone is merely the same field of awareness and not individual physical bodies, then is there an ‘I’ that is only mine?
  • Aho! There is No ‘I’. There is No ‘You’.

No I! No You!

Stage 4:

Then what are these physical bodies? What is Matter?

• • The physical body is like a condensation of this all-pervading awareness, just like ice is a condensed form of water vapour.

How to understand that experientially?

Ask yourself when you touch this screen where you are reading this post, what are you experiencing? Are you experiencing matter or are you just experiencing your own sensation of touch?

• • It is a ‘sensation of touch’.

Is a sensation of touch, mind or matter?

• • It is ‘Mind’.

So in actuality, when you think you are touching matter, you are actually experiencing the mind and you are inferring it as Matter.

Same applies to the objects of sight, sound, smell and taste too. It is all ‘Mind’.

Stage 5:

What is the source of this Mind?

The mind is nothing but thought. Let us follow a thought. Look within for a moment.

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Did the thought just die?

• • Of course, it did.

What did it die into?

• • It died in me.

What or Who am ‘I’?

• • There is no ‘I’. It just died into its source. That is the same field of awareness.

Stage 6:

He finally reaches a thorough understanding through experience that everything is just the same field of awareness, the same consciousness or energy. It doesn’t matter whether you call it God or Brahman or Atman or Chidakasha or Isness or Knowingness or Shunyata or Purnata. Everything whether mind or matter is just a condensation of it. It is born in it. It plays for a while in it. It dissolves into it.

There is No ‘I’ OR in Ashtavakra’s words, ‘I do not exist’ OR in Ramana’s words, ‘I’ is not an experience of individuality but a nonpersonal, all-inclusive awareness’ OR in Buddha’s words ‘There is no separate self’.

This understanding does not need any meditation if you can attentively follow these 6 steps above in your own experiential understanding and recognize the truth of the present moment as it actually is. You are awakened! Then you walk-talk-breathe-work meditatively as you have awakened to the TRUTH!

#Non-Duality