Imagine you have spent your whole life living in a large house serving a demanding man who lives on the top floor.
Although you never see the man you spend from morning until night doing his chores. One evening during a rare break you are lamenting your fate to a friend. The friend suggest you try and reason with the old man.
When he hears that you never see him, let alone speak to him he is puzzled and encourages you to go find him.
You are reluctant at first but after several such encounters with your friend, you venture into the old man's room.
On you first visit you only have the courage to peep around the door but you cannot see the man. When you report this to your friend he encourages you to be bolder and have a good look into the room.
You make more visits to the old man's room and each time you search his quarters a little more thoroughly. It is only after several visits that you are convinced that there is no old man.
However such as your habits that for some time you still continue to wake up at 6 am every morning and perform many of the tasks you used to perform while serving the imaginary old man. Some of these habits cease immediately, whilst others take time to come to an end.
In this story the old man is the separate entity and the friend is one who encourages you to look inside and find out who this one that rules you life really is.
As we look more and more deeply into the nature of our self we find that there is no entity there.
We spend our lives serving a non-existent entity.
It is only our imagination that binds us, and it is clarity that liberates.
In most cases this requires revisiting the issue many times, each time going a little more deeply into it, in order to be absolutely certain there is no personal entity there.
Our subservience to a separate entity consists,at the level of the mind, in the belief that "I am a separate, personal entity", and at the level of the body, as a feeling that "I am this body", or "I am in this body".
You are reluctant at first but after several such encounters with your friend, you venture into the old man's room.
On you first visit you only have the courage to peep around the door but you cannot see the man. When you report this to your friend he encourages you to be bolder and have a good look into the room.
You make more visits to the old man's room and each time you search his quarters a little more thoroughly. It is only after several visits that you are convinced that there is no old man.
However such as your habits that for some time you still continue to wake up at 6 am every morning and perform many of the tasks you used to perform while serving the imaginary old man. Some of these habits cease immediately, whilst others take time to come to an end.
In this story the old man is the separate entity and the friend is one who encourages you to look inside and find out who this one that rules you life really is.
As we look more and more deeply into the nature of our self we find that there is no entity there.
We spend our lives serving a non-existent entity.
It is only our imagination that binds us, and it is clarity that liberates.
In most cases this requires revisiting the issue many times, each time going a little more deeply into it, in order to be absolutely certain there is no personal entity there.
Our subservience to a separate entity consists,at the level of the mind, in the belief that "I am a separate, personal entity", and at the level of the body, as a feeling that "I am this body", or "I am in this body".
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment