Question:

Didi, I realize that all the vows from Buddha’s path are basically a reminder that I am taking a stand as the mind or body. The moment the recognition happens I get thrown into awareness! I experienced this at work today – it totally helped me today! The vows cover all possible pitfalls where slipping can happen. So when things are peaceful I can practice Advaita contemplation more easily but in too much chaos – vows are helping me not to take the stand as body or mind. I keep shuttling between the two.

Answer:

Go with your flow.

The recognition that ‘I am the Witness’ propels you automatically into the quietness and silence. The Ego does not like this because it exists only in the story. It does not exist in the silence. So it is going to propel you into the story of the mind. This shuttling is natural for a while. Story>Silence>Story>Silence.

A point arrives when the realization happens that ‘I’ am not the Witness, ‘I’ am not the story of the mind. In fact, ‘I’ does not exist. There is no I’. Everything is happening by itself. There is neither a doer nor an experiencer. There is just a silent void.

So how can I say that I am shuttling? How can I say that I am in 2 boats? How can I say that I am struggling? There is no ‘I’. This realization propels the last straw to let go.

Then whatever happens at the body-mind-world level is witnessed truly as happening somewhere else… is witnessed as ‘out of control’ and ‘involuntary’, just like the heart-beat & breathing.

When this final truth hits home that ‘there is nobody controlling anything’, you give up struggling with the current and simply float dear. Then you are home!

May the Advaita wisdom take you home!

#AtmaNirvriti #AtmanandaKrishnaMenon #AdvaitaVedanta #Non-Duality