Month: December 2023

In addition to “lower down” psychological samskaras like “I am unlovable” and “I am alone” (for more, see, e.g., here and here), there are at least three prominent “higher up” metaphysical samskaras that I would like to discuss here: namely, I am the doer, I am the knower, and I am the experiencer.

Let’s explore each in turn. The doer is the posit or the belief that there is an initiator of action or, on the other side, that one is being pushed around. Consider whether there is a doer making its discernible, entity-like presence felt in any direct experience. Is there a doer in any thought? In any physical movement? Next: is there evidence for a doer between one experience like a thought and another experience like a physical movement? Can that “link” be found? Last: can one discover doership “on its own” in the space between experiences?

Second, investigate the knower. While Atmananda often underscores the fact that our essential nature, as it turns “outward,” is knowing, it doesn’t follow that this knowing is an entity or is entity-like. Is there, for instance, any personality evident in the knowing, or awareness, of any thought, action, feeling, or sensation? Look closely. Or isn’t the knower just a post hoc posit, a positing that, in the form of a thought, occurs after some other experience has subsided?

Finally, scrutinize the experiencer. The latter is regarded as that something on whose behalf there is the experience of pleasure or pain. In the former case, the experiencer “enjoys” the pleasure while in the latter the experience “suffers through” the pain. Certainly, sensations ordinarily labeled “pain” or “pleasure” arise, but is there any “coagulated, existent something” involved in that experience? Or isn’t it actually true that the awareness that I essentially am is cognizant of, for instance, the thought “I am tired” or “I am elated”?

Part of the process of Atmananda’s teaching involves peeling awareness off of identification with the content of experience. Over and over again, it shows that the subject–the “I” of awareness–is actually untouched by any arising, including arisings that pose as the doer, the knower, and the experiencer. Maintaining oneself as this relaxed openness is freedom.

One of the nice things about Atmananda’s Direct Path teaching is that one starts to experience the lack of intrusiveness. How can there be intrusive thoughts when they’re all occurring in the space of (manifest) awareness–which is to say: in you? Or what about intrusive or unwanted feelings–how could that bit of discrimination be held on to? That is, how could any experience be that to which one is averse, that which is to be avoided, or that which is unwanted?

Take a simple example: you’re sitting down to meditate. Can there be any distractions, any obstacles to meditation once it’s understood that all experiences are appearing in the space of awareness? Does it matter (can it matter) whether the doorbell rings? Whether it’s loud or quiet? Whether there are funky smells or lovely scents? Whether there are fewer thoughts or more thoughts? Whether “a lot is coming up” or whether there’s a quiet, relaxed openness to manifest awareness?

What is it like to really understand that all experiences are unfolding in the space of manifest awareness? Let me offer but two remarks here.

First, the understanding is like letting your hair down. There’s a very relaxed, all-inclusive openness to whatever experience is appearing–and to the lack of any experiences as well.

Second, from here, there’s a natural “hooking up” with Self-inquiry since the fundamental question spontaneously arises: “What is That which is prior to manifest awareness? What is awareness pure? In other words, who or what am I?”

Atmananda’s teaching, often referred to as the Direct Path or the Direct Method, elegantly shows that everything is Consciousness.

Essentially, what one discovers through various prakriti–or lines of inquiry–is that any experience that appeared to be outside of Consciousness necessarily is within Consciousness.

To offer up two metaphors: First, you may find that what was believed to be outside of Consciousness “gets flipped” so that it’s understood properly as always having been inside of Consciousness.

Second, applying the principle that in order for the subject to apprehend any object the latter must be of the nature of the subject (e.g., in order for the mind to apprehend some object, the latter must be of the nature of thought), one comes to understand that every experience is “dipped in” and, indeed, is “dripping with” Consciousness.

In fact, so “dunked into” Consciousness is every experience that it is seen directly to be none other than Consciousness.

The result is that one can “let one’s hair down” just because the sense of separation, of an inside and an outside begins, with each investigation that confirms the understanding, to fade away.

The predominant force in human life could be said to be inertia. Energy easily dissipates, spreading out. Days wind down in desuetude.

You go to sit down and fall into a rabbit hole called “YouTube.” You listen to a parent over the phone and feel drained afterward. You make a resolution or set an intention to wake up early and slowly or quickly it fizzles out. In fact, most of your efforts are stymied by custom, habit, and disposition.

This is why the nondual teaching often stresses how, early on, one needs to have and maintain a vigorous sadhana. This sadhana requires considerable, deliberate, ongoing efforts to be made. You must sacrifice. You must notice whenever inertia starts creeping in. You must, for a time, renounce

If you keep your sadhana relatively constant over a long enough period of time, then effort will naturally give way to effortlessness and the force called “inertia” will untense itself. But this is not to be hoped for or expected. The sadhana, instead, is to be diligently, almost naively carried forth until grace is everywhere felt.

The nondual teaching often whispers, “Just be quiet.”

When thoughts subside, your senses might open up. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches may all feel crisper, quieter, more beautiful. The heart may pour forth in simple gratitude. Your dog might crawl into your lap and you might start crying.

Contentment like this is a pointer to the bliss of our true nature. It is to be savored, for it is as sweet and soft as it is tender and light.

And then one is to carry on, to go deeper into the wonderment: what is the quiescence that never comes and never goes?