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One of the common and wide-spread issues debated and discussed in the
spiritual circles

whether it is in physical satsanghs or in cyber based forums……..

……. is the issue of whether practice is absolutely a must for
spiritual enlightenment …..

…….*OR*…….

…..there being nothing else but the Self (or Bozo)……….who is to
do what and for what purpose, to what end.

The debate goes on and on with disciples of either schools absolutely
convinced about their own position
and the absurdity/foolishness of the other’s position.

Arguments go to and fro and supporting quotes from scriptures are hurled
by both sides
in order to clinch the debate.

The school of practice have even coined phrases like “neo-Advaita” and
the “Advaita-shuffle”
to disparage the “All-is-Self-anyway” proponents.

The debate is very interesting and reveals nuances in both the positions.

First of all the very debate is ambrosia for the “me-entity”.

For the “me”……..the very debate is it’s existence and the
continuance of the debate…………the perpetuation of it’s identity.

The debate lends the spiritual halo, the religious glow to the “me”.

For the school of practice (whether the specific practice is of
Self-Enquiry, aka Ramana or Nisargadatta,
or meditation aka the various schools of Zen,
prayer aka Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, or charity work to earn
merits useful for salvation,
it makes no difference)…..

….fundamentally the issue is the belief that an effect, any effect
needs a cause, separate from the effect.

The “me” having seen evidence where apparently without effort there is
no success in the material world,…..
…… this belief gets reinforced by Teachers, Gurus hollering from the
rooftops that the path of salvation,
is only through the practice of X, Y.Z,
which of course only the specific hollering teacher can show, teach,
transmit, deeksha-it.

The “me” which is essentially the sense of insecurity….
…..having sought security in the temporal icons like relationship,
career, money, social position, acquisitions knowledge power etc…
….realizes the hollowness, the transitory nature of these temporal icons
and now seeks security in the eternal.

The same equation is brought in with only a conceptualization of a new
icon to be sought.

The equation being there is a problem, for which there exists a
solution, if only the seeking
for the solution can diverted to the right direction
and the necessary cost be paid.

And there are enough characters who are skillful in utilizing the innate
sense of insecurity
to create “to-be-chased-solutions”,
in the process augmenting Bank balances and disciple numbers
with some good old sexual romps thrown in.

Why does the “me” not see through this charade?

It does but does not acknowledge…………because now the claim of
ownership of the meditation,
of the Pranayam, of the Self-Enquiry,
of the number of charities supported, worked for….

…….is it’s identity.

It is I who is meditating, doing Pranayam/Self enquiry 16 hours a day,……
……the sense of the “I” as the sense of the “me” is intact.

I have saved so many heathens by getting them to accept the Bible….
….surely I am ensured my rightful place in Dad’s pad in the hereafter.

No matter what practice is happening in the moment…………the claim
of ownership of that practice….
……lo behold the lurking sense of entitification.

The specific technique, the specific activity………….is not all an
issue.

The same is the case for the Guru/Teacher.

Without the practice and the disciples swearing by that practice….

….how can I the Guru remain a Guru?

How can I be a saint, unless there are sinners around to be saved?

If Pranayam is happening……if zazen is happening…….if massive
charity work is getting effected through oneself….

…if there descends moments of quietude where the heart is filled with
am immensity of gratitude..

….then that can only be a nuance of the movement of the moment.

Moment to moment to moment.

Apperceiving this…………

…….anything and everything becomes a practice.

In the gestalt of such an existing…….cleaning the accumulated dried
shreds of shit on the sides of a toilet……

…….is practice….

…… no less……. no more….

… than that of feeding the poor.

Thus real meditation is not the technique per se……not the practice
per se…….but that….

….. in which there is the end of the meditator.

And thus the end of meditation.

Meditation as conceived to be a means to an end.
As believed to be a cause for a desired effect.

Rather than time specific, condition specific meditation
sessions………….there is a meditative existing……
…..in which may happen……..a specific series of acts labeled as
zazen …….or KapalBhati…
….followed by maybe some lusty love making next to the altar……
…..followed by maybe some expressing of a haiku in the midst of a
noisy brothel.

In that meditative existing…….. can happen the honed activities as
required in running a global corporation…..
……existing side by side with agenda free compassion.

There is no sense of an agenda, there is no sense of an intention and
there is no sense of an expectation.

It is no longer a cause-effect plea bargaining.

There is a flowing……….a synchronousness……..there is just the
enacting of living.

Which is all powerful, all creative……and …..indivisive .

In the school of All-is-Self-hence-nothing-must-be-done….
……is also the prevailing sense of the “me”.

If All is the Self…………….if All-that-is-is
that-which-IS………………if this is apperceived….
…..then it is apperceived that the very biological sentient object
engaged in praying to a self-conceived symbol,
whether that is a deity, a principle or a Guru-known as zazen ….

….such a conditioned object…..

…… AND…

….the activity happening through such a conditioned object
can only be an expression of that-which-is.

How can it be otherwise?

And thus what is it in phenomenality, ………..which is wrong and has
to be condemned
or is to be negated?

What appears to be happening…………could not have been otherwise….
….. in that very moment of happening…..
…for all the stars in the Andromeda galaxy.

There is nothing which needs to be done….
…. AND……. whatever is to be done…….
…..gets done.

The very opposition to practice, the very need to deny…….
……..is the sense of the “me” at play.

For in the opposition, in the denial………. is the identity and
perpetuation of the identity.

Ramana was once asked………”Since you are enlightened…why don’t you
just wave your hand
and enlighten everybody else?

The dude in the diaper replied “When you wake up from a dream,
where are the dream-people who have to be woken up?”

And yet the dude while adjusting his diaper, used to be moved to copious
tears on hearing the narrations
of the grief-stricken seekers, visiting him.

He even suggested the practice of Self-enquiry to those
who had no existential reality.

At other times, the communion was in silence.

At all times……….it remained the Duet of One.

The arising of practice……….it’s run and finally it’s end or
cessation, whether temporarily or permanently……
…..are all nuances of the movement, known as the moment.

These set of squiggly signs getting transmitted through routers and
servers and modems and satellite systems
over cyber-space and finally appearing as pixels on a PC screen…
…..are not the doings by somebody, for somebody else to read and
apperceive.

They are like signatures on flowing waters.

Sketched by the same flowing waters.

And being viewed……

…… RIGHT NOW……

…. by the same flowing waters.

Dooooo Beeee Dooooo Beeeee Dooooooo

Author: Sandeep

Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nisargadatta/message/50193