A-U-M: Awakening to Reality by Dennis Waite

Author:Dennis Waite [Waite, Dennis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782799979
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2015-09-25T06:00:00+00:00

Michael Comans’ view (Ref. 13) is that it is not a practice for attaining enlightenment at all. It follows from Self-knowledge. It is the abiding in the knowledge of the non-dual Self (j~nAna niShTha) and it is a ‘practice’ to the extent that it means maintaining the mind in this attitude.

(K4.78) Once I know the truth – that there is only the birthless, causeless brahman – I also realize that the world and all of the things that I previously sought to acquire or avoid have no separate reality. I know that they can neither harm me nor bring happiness. In effect, I attain to a ‘state’ without either desire or fear. These only exist when I mistakenly believe myself to be limited. (Gaudapada uses the word padam here, presumably referring back to the Upanishad itself and to the ‘fourth’ pada – turIya – which is not a state at all.)

(K4.79) As long as I continue to believe in the existence of an external world, I naturally pursue happiness there. Gaudapada uses the word abhUtAbhinivesha, which Swami Gambhirananda translates as ‘a conviction that duality does exist’, even though there is no such thing in reality. I see something that I find desirable and set about obtaining it. Enlightenment entails the realization that all these objects are mithyA. Their essential nature is also my essential nature – I already have everything! Once I appreciate this, all such pursuits naturally come to an end.

What is actually happening here is that I first realize that I am not the waker-dreamer-deep sleeper. Those are states, seen to be effectively only roles that I play. Only then, can I appreciate the mithyAtva of the worldly objects also. From the standpoint of the waker, those objects still appear to be real – mithyA sees mithyA as satyam. Just as the dreamer needs dream water to satisfy his dream thirst, so the mithyA waker needs mithyA objects in the world to satisfy his desires. Enlightenment is the spiritual equivalent of waking from a dream and realizing its unreality.

(K4.80) Instead, we become unattached to anything, unperturbed by events, ever serene and remaining uninvolved in external appearances, knowing them to be unreal. The knowledge that everything is brahman makes me immune to discomposure because I know that all is non-different from my Self, which is ever the same, non-dual Consciousness.

Whilst in dream, I take the dream world, which is entirely a creation of my own mind, to be real. On awakening, I know immediately that it was a dream and I automatically drop any concerns I might have had about what was happening, no matter how exciting or frightening. The same applies with respect to gaining Self-knowledge and the waking world. Despite its continuing appearance, I know that it cannot affect who I really am.

(K4.81) Nor am I any longer attached to the three states of consciousness, since I now know that they are mithyA, with turIya as their real essence. This intrinsic nature is ‘self effulgent’ – it

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