Brahmanubhuti I Talk 63
Transcending the Duality–18.04.2017
You have to understand the difference between duality and dualism. What is dualism? In nature, everything is polar opposites. Darkness, night and morning. Light and darkness. Heat and cold. Good and bad. Birth and death. Everything is dual. It is like a movie. Movie has a villain and a hero. War and peace. Like that, creation is dualism. There are opposites.
But, the problem starts when I identify with one of the characters. A movie has a hero and villain. You enjoy the movie. Suppose, you identify with the hero, you like the hero. You say, ‘I like the hero’. Then, when the hero is getting beaten up by the villain, you will also start feeling like crying. That’s the identification. When you identify with a part of creation, it is called duality.
The creation is called ‘Leela’, or Play. It is a beautiful Leela or Play of the Divine. The moment you identify with one of the characters, then, the suffering starts. The fear starts, the anxiety, and jealousy starts. The polar opposites create stress in you. Unless, you come out of the movie and understand that, ‘I am just a witness, not a part of the movie’ and stop identifying with the movie, you are in trouble.
The good and bad, both are there. We get stressed out when bad things happen. The entire spiritual life is about going beyond this duality, identifying with good or bad. How do you go beyond duality? By stopping the dualism? That’s a part of the creation. You cannot stop the good and bad, in the creation. You may have a vision that one day all bad people in the world are destroyed and only good people will remain and you can fight for it, but, that won’t happen. Because you identified with good. Good and bad will be part of creation. The painting has to have colours. Otherwise, the painting cannot happen. The creation requires polar opposites. There is no point of time in the world, that, there will be only good people, or only bad people. Both polar opposites will appear together or disappear together.
Only thing you have to understand is that good and bad are only relative in nature. What is good for you may be bad for somebody else. There is nothing called absolute. But, good and bad together complement each other. They are not opposite. If bad is removed, good is also gone. If darkness is removed, light is gone. The nature of our mind is that it can think only in opposites, rather than thinking that the opposites complement each other.
The moment you start thinking in opposites, a stress starts developing in you. ‘I want this’, ‘I want that’, ‘I like this’, ‘I don’t like that’. This, again, builds up stress. Until you understand that duality is not the opposite, but, complements, you will not be free from that. That’s why it is said that an enlightened one accepts life as it is. He has a balanced view of life and accepts good, bad, happiness or sorrow with equanimity.
duḥkheṣv anudvigna-manāḥ
sukheṣu vigata-spṛhaḥ
vīta-rāga-bhaya-krodhaḥ
sthita-dhīr munir ucyate 2.56 (Bhagavad Gita)
An Enlightened being is not depressed in difficult times, nor he gets elated when joy comes. Why? He knows that sorrow and joy are not opposites of each other. They are complementing each other. How do they complement? What brings you happiness, will eventually bring you sorrow. It is a package deal. What brings you sorrow, will eventually bring you happiness. Will it? Lets say, that you got a good job with a high salary, you are very very happy and then after sometime, you didn’t get a promotion. You start feeling very sad. The same job which gave you happiness, has given you sadness also.
An enlightened one sees both equally. Because, he knows, both are events. You should stop labelling the events and understand it as an event, and handle it. That’s how, you transcend the event. You have to know how to transcend the duality in our life and transcending this duality is called Spirituality.
How do you transcend the good and bad, in life? The good and bad, is an event. Do not say, “I like this or I dont like this”. It is just an event. Handle that event. Stop labelling the event. That’s how you transcend the good and the bad. There are so many dualities in life. Transcending the duality is what is called spiritual life. Take one by one, the dualities and transcend it.
If we take the duality of birth and death, we think that, “I am born and I will die”. There is always a fear of death. This duality has to be transcended. How do you transcend the duality? By understanding that, you are birthless and deathless. If you can understand this, through Jnana, you will be transcending the duality of birth and death.
Another duality is, ‘I am small and the universe is big’. ‘I am finite, the universe is infinite’. There is a fear that I am finite, I am powerless, against the universe. This duality can be transcended, only when you understand that, you are not finite, you are infinite. The universe and you, are both made up of the same stuff called Consciousness, which has given birth to both of you.
So, you are not the body, mind or intellect. But, you are Consciousness. If you understand this, you will transcend the duality of, I am small versus universe is big. Transcending duality, doesn’t mean, destroying the duality. It is only understanding. I have heard that, there was a teacher, who came to the classroom. The teacher put a line on the board, and told, ‘if anybody can come here, and make the line smaller, without touching the line, they are bright students’.
So, one student went there, and drew a line, bigger than that line. Then, the first line became small. So, transcending duality is not touching the line. Transcending duality is not about changing good and bad. Transcending duality is going beyond good and bad. Transcending birth and death is, going beyond birth and death. How does it happen?
With clarity, with Jnana. There is no other way. With jnana, you have to move, beyond birth and death. Understand that, you are birthless and deathless. Jnana alone gives liberation. The understanding that ‘I am not finite, I am infinite, I am not the body and mind, I am inifnite’ also comes only through jnana.
“No, no, no, I am feeling like, I am a body, I am within this body”. Do you feel like that? So, that’s where there is a deep rooted feeling within us, this is called belief. Belief called, ‘I am a body’. So, with proper questioning, this belief can be loosened or removed. Then, you will understand, you are not the body. Belief is what holds you to the body. Belief is what gives you the feeling that I am the body.
The spiritual teaching will question this belief, it will shake your belief. It will help you to drop the wrong beliefs, so that you are in tune with the higher beliefs. The teaching will help you to remove the wrong beliefs. Become free from beliefs. In other ways, I can say, the bondage for you is your wrong belief. The liberation for you is a right belief, or dropping the wrong belief. Bondage and liberation is from belief, not in the physical sense.
When we speak of Mukti, we say mukti is, ‘I don’t want to take a birth’, because we have a concept of rebirth. We have a concept of birth and death. This concept is there. By proper spiritual teaching, questioning your beliefs, the teacher will make you understand that you were never born, and you will never die, you are that Pure Consciousness which has no birth or death. So, that is liberation.
Then, there is a concept that I have got a lot of karma, how many life times karma I would have made. How do I get out of that? Now, the teacher, with the right teaching, will make you understand that you are not a doer at all. The concept that I am a doer, itself leads to bondage. You have never been a doer. Then, where is the question of karma? You will be free from karma.
Like that, spirituality is nothing but, questioning the wrong beliefs, one by one, dropping wrong beliefs, and becoming free from beliefs. That is liberation. There is another wrong belief, ‘I am small, weak, and God is so powerful, God is infinite, I am limited, there is Jiva and Ishwara, ‘I want more power, I am powerless’. Then, people start worshipping God, and due to the grace of God, some things happen in their lives. So, you derive some power from the Divine, God’s power. Still, there is a feeling that I am separate from God. A clear spiritual teaching from Guru will help you understand that you are one with God. You are amsha of God, you are not separate from God. Infact, the Consciousness in you, and Consciousness in God, is one and the same. That gives you freedom.
The freedom from the concept of birth and death, freedom from the concept of, ‘I am the body’, freedom from the concept of, ‘I am separate from God’, all these are real freedoms. Then, people may say, ‘I want to get more powers’. For the purpose of more powers, human beings have created so much of technology. All technologies give power. The fan, the light, electricity, the aeroplane, everything is giving power. These are all the powers of the human mind.
Similarly, people want to do something for the power of the Divine, God. They do sadhana, and some power of the Divine manifests in you. That is called siddhi. How does siddhi come? Siddhis come, because your mind becomes more and more focussed. The focussed mind has a lot of power. And, those powers are the Divine powers that manifest through you. You means, the body-mind-intellect. They are called siddhis.
Either you derive power from the technology, or you derive power from the grace of God, or you derive power from the siddhis. But, ultimate power is freedom from all these concepts. “Balam, balam, Brahma tejo balam, Atma balam”. The power of the strength of the Self, is the highest. To know that, you are not the body, mind, intellect, but, you are the Atma. Atma is nothing but, Brahma, pure Consciousness, is the highest power. Because, it will free you from all concepts of power or duality.
Because, duality is what is making you seek, all these powers, and struggle in life. So, you understand that you are free from duality. Then, there is power, power of equanimity. Because, anything happens in our life, good or bad, it doesn’t matter to you. You will face it with equanimity. That is the greatest power. Even for the greatest Scientist, who has discovered the medicine for Cancer, still, he will die. Still, fear has not gone from him.
Only, when you transcend the duality of body, mind complex, and understand that, you are Consciousness, you become really free. That is the highest power, freedom from bondage and liberation. You have to get liberated, or freedom, both from the concepts and bondage also. This is called Nirvana, Mukti, whatever you may call it.
You experience non-duality. There is no separation between you and the world. There is no separation between the Consciousness and the matter. All are part of one reality. Matter is an appearance in reality, but not real itself. Only truth is Sachidananda, Existence, Consciousness, Bliss. Everything else is mithya, appearance. So, that appearance will not scare you. Appearance will not create fear in you.
You will be afraid of the rope, thinking that it is the snake, until you understand. After that, you become free. Like that, you have to realise that, you are Brahman, you are Consciousness. Nothing can affect you. That is freedom.
Pranams