Hello dear James,
Thanks for your email! I read it a few times to understand better what you say. There is no reason to hurry. At the end, there is no time!
James: You are welcome. Yes, and at the beginning there is no time either. Even right now time I absent. There is only timeless existence shining as consciousness always.
Sandy: I think that when you talk about application of knowledge, it is the same as going beyond the concept? You talked a lot about that during Ramana´s Satsanga and what you said was going on and on in my mind. I asked myself many times: what it means to go beyond the concepts? We must not collect knowledge but apply it to see what we are.
James: Yes, it is abiding in Awareness, the knower of the mind, the thoughts. It is keeping one eye on the thoughts and one eye on “I am existence shining as consciousness. I shine on the thoughts. They aren’t me.” This practice is Vedanta meditation, looking at the thoughts from the perspective of what you really are. If you don’t practice you will resort to the programmed orientation which is that the thoughts are real and I need to take them seriously which creates karma and keeps you in samsara.
Sandy: The most difficult to understand in your email is when you speak about time. If I am waiting for an event, it creates time. I have a hope, I wait for something to happen in the future. When I am looking forward something to happen, my attention is not at what I am….It is caught in the samsara field. What I am does not imply time, is out of time. It is unchanged presence. Sugar is sweet, was sweet and will always be sweet. What we prepare with sugar is on time, but the essence of the different cakes is sweetness. Time and change follow together. Out of time implies no changes.
When I order a glass of water and the water is in front of me, I do not wait anymore for the water to come. Why should I wait to be what I am when I am already what I am?
Hope is on time. I play the role of an individual, when I look to the future. The I waits something to happen. The I that waits is distracted from appreciating the I that never waits.
I write this, I think I see what you mean, but I feel some resistance to accept it… This “waiting for something to come” is an old buddy. I have never thought about it so deeply as I do now. I see the face of my buddy, but I feel not prepared to say goodbye. I will give it to Ishvara, till Ishvara accepts it. )
James: You understand it well but if you wait for Isvara to make you say goodbye you will wait a long time. Isvara loves you as much when you wait as when you don’t. So my suggestion is to leave Isvara out of it and accept it now. You can’t lose anything, except waiting and you have everything to gain, which is to say complete peace.
Sandy: You gave me some good exercises and I must now practice:
1 – Turn the desire and the time over to Isvara. “Ishvara I give you my desire to see and to be what I am. I am already what I am. I do not have to wait for that to happen.”
2 – Subtract the body and mind when I say I. I try to do that in meditation. I repeat many times: I am Awareness. I am not the body, I am not the mind. When the mind goes away, I try to observe it and say: These feelings, these thoughts are not what I am. I am trying to observe also during the day, but it is more difficult. But I will go for it. Observe and subtract.
I have a lot of work to maintain my rajasic doer under control… :-)))
Ramji: It’s good work, Sandy, keeps you off the streets. And it’s better than waiting.
Thanks a lot Ramji for your friendship and love.
You’re welcome. Much love,
Ramji
