“Suffering in this physical world leads the Soul to seek to develop Inner Strength. Then the individual can discover the I AM and know that within them lies all the power to make the Soul and to fulfill every one of their deep needs. This search and this knowledge might never come if the person were not driven by the storms of life to seek an inner plane of Peace and Calm. When they become aware that I AM represents the fulfillment of their Soul’s desire, the desire can be fulfilled. They know well that seeking the fulfillment of this desire outside the Inner Essence is obviously destined to fail. Consciousness, before being able to shape what is desired, must discover the Spirit. The Creative Principle resides within us, which Is the I AM, but it is always and only through the intercession of the Higher Consciousness, which Is the Spirit, that things are obtained”.
Process of Disidentification
Drawing on the ancient Vedanta teaching of Sri Ramana Maharshi, this is what we need to know about the basic process of disidentification from the I and connection with the Spirit.
- The existence of the Ego, in whatever form, is in itself an experience.
It is a fundamental experience in favor of structuring our Personality, which will lead us, in the first decades of our life, to activate and reinforce our first three energy centers, essential for building our “Temple” – our physical body, but also our psychic and energetic body – and also for our survival.
But once this Personality has been structured, if this psychic scaffolding is not put to work in favor of the Higher Energy Centers, while at the same time being depowered in its fleeting desires and its protective and compensatory separations, we remain entangled in a loop of lack and demand, simply due to a lack of Awareness.
We therefore live this experience of the existence of the Ego with the proper spiritual filters. But for those who are deluded into thinking that the waking state and the material world, as they perceive it through the senses, are real, the Ego seems real too!
- The Self has no individuality. It is in fact our identification with matter that divides us and provides us with individuality.
It is the mind that considers the body as the Self and from this derive all the false beliefs that give rise to the Ego.
The mind is formed from the subtlest essence of the food we eat, grows with passions such as attachment and aversion, desire and anger, and manifests as a discriminating entity based on the superstructures of the Ego, which we ourselves create specifically for protection and survival.
Sri Ramana Maharshi writes:
“Thinking of an object, the mind takes its form, and together with the knowledge that flows through the channels of the five senses in the brain, it unites with objects by means of the brain (which is associated with knowledge), and in this way it knows and experiences objects, obtaining satisfaction. That substance is the mind, even though it is called by different names: mind, intellect, memory and ego, depending on the difference of its components, that is, what it makes use of.”
Whatever one does, one should not allow the “I-thought” to arise. How? By allowing the mind to integrate with the Heart. In this way the “I-thought” will be prevented from externalizing itself, remaining within the Heart.
Sri Ramana Maharshi continues:
“To know one’s own Self means to know God: this is true liberation.”
And further:
“When the I dissolves and the Self manifests in its place, one has the true direct experience that is Samadhi. It means accepting God, who is Supreme Unconditional Love, and being able to completely quiet the mind.”
From the book “In the Footsteps of the Master” by Baker-Hansen:
“Ancient wisdom teaches us that we are Existence, Consciousness and Bliss (the Sat Chit Ananda of the followers of Vedanta). These are the qualities of the monad, which is the true ‘I.’ The lower reflection of this ‘I’ in man is the soul, the vehicle of the monad on the lower planes, made up of Atma, Buddhi and Manas: divine will, love-wisdom and active intelligence. The soul, in turn, has its own vehicle on the lower planes of manifestation, namely the personality, with its physical, emotional and mental bodies. Before we can identify with our Higher Self, we must learn to purify and integrate the personality and its vehicles.”
(pag. 34, “In the Footsteps of the Master” Baker-Hansen, Crisalide Editions)
The main qualities of the ordinary mind are inertia and excitement: this means that the desires of the ordinary man are full of weaknesses and selfishness.
The ordinary man is simply unaware and believes that the film is more important than the screen. In truth it is not the film that matters but the screen: the film passes, but it is the screen that remains. The film consists of the identification with form that we ourselves project onto the screen, which Is our Essence and which Is the only thing that truly exists.
- All that is necessary is to disidentify from the form, from matter, from the film.
The screen, then, is the Self, while the film represents the world and its images and they come and go continually as a result of our identification with matter. If one is aware that without the one who sees there is nothing that can be seen, then one does not fall into this deception.
Quantum physics too states that without the observer, the wave function does not collapse into the three-dimensionality of matter, and nothing is manifested.
- The world/reality is not reflected on the Self, but is reflected on the I-Ego-Personality.
For there to be a reflection there must be an object and an image but the Self does not accept this duality: only after having transcended “I am the Body” is one the Self.
To eliminate all thoughts (that is, “our mind”) one must meditate on the question: “Who am I?”
If one does not identify with one’s own thoughts, with what one does, with one’s own body, with one’s own actions, expectations and results, ultimately with the world around us, any action can be pursued within Self-Realization. When other thoughts arise, one should not follow them but should inquire: “to whom do they arise?”. When the answer “To me” emerges, one continues to inquire: “And who am I?” until the mind returns to its Source and the arisen thought subsides.
Work by Etreart.com