MOKSHA-AN INQUIRY II
My teacher James Swartz regularly says that the spiritual world is full of hundreds of thousands of people who have all had profound experiences of non-dual reality, experiences of oneness, bliss, transcendence – and yet still live their lives from a firmly dualistic relationship to life. A dualistic relationship to life means a conviction that I am this body and this mind and these feelings and I am separate from the whole. Why do we keep living life from a fundamental belief in limitation when so many of us have had direct experiences of the unlimited?
The Self does not need to get enlightened. The Self is already the light. You can´t make the Self enlightened because the Self is the Light, awareness is the light, that is what enlightened means – it means in the light. Light is a symbol for knowledge. What you need to know is that you are whole and complete awareness.
Because we don´t have one hundred percent confidence in this fact, we think that we need to attain a special kind of knowledge in order to be free, but the knowledge that I am whole and complete is not any different from the knowledge that the sky is blue or that I am wearing a green shirt right now.
The question is: what is the implication of this knowledge (or of these experiences mentioned above)? The implication is that I am free. I stand free from my fears and desires – free from my thoughts and feelings. That is the implication. When you have confidence in this knowledge you do stand free of your fears and desires and they will no longer bother you! That is called full confidence. That is called Moksha.
Therefore contemplate the teachings of Vedanta – Jnana Yoga – study them, discuss them, ponder them, meditate on them so that your understanding and confidence in the fact of your essential freedom, the fact that you are the eternal Self, will deepen. The Vedas say that the Self is limitless bliss and unending pleasure – supreme happiness. You are that. Knowing this is Moksha.
Harry Dijkshoorn
Harry defines himself as: ” I am the husband of my beautiful wife Mirella and father of my daughter Leela”. He is the manager of Suryalila Retreat Centre in Spain and life long student of the teachings of Vedanta: ” My current teacher is James Swartz – the article above is taken from his teachings”.