Dear Fellow Explorers, Here is a 'companion piece' to the earlier posting 'Dwell Not in The Inner Void', Love, Colin
Dwell Not in Outer Purity
Pursue not renunciation,
Dwell not in outer purity;
Be serene in the oneness of things,
And dualism vanishes by itself.
When you strive to gain purity,
The purity thus gained is ever illusory;
As long as you tarry in the dualism,
How can you realise oneness?
Adapted from, and acknowledgements to, Seng-Ts'ans 'On Believing in Mind'
Many people think that by 'purifying the body' (whatever that may mean …) and avoiding desires, by renunciation of the world, they will achieve peace and freedom. In fact many spiritual paths have this aim and whilst they can evoke a certain amount of peace, when the desires have been submerged, this soon evaporates as they resurface, disturbing the temporary peace than has been gained. Moreover, unless the practice reveals the 'oneness of things' and one sees that the 'separate self' is an illusion then one tends to 'tarry in the dualism'.
Also, whilst they may think that, by adopting a certain diet, the body is being purified, unless the process promotes bodily health and harmony it will be counterproductive. The clinging to specific 'purifying' dietary practices also tends to promote arrogance as there is a tendency to judge others as being 'impure'. This is also the case with being a follower of any fixed ideology which regard their adherents as being a 'special group' who have sole access to 'the Truth' and also with any caste (or class) structure where members of the 'higher' castes/classes look down on the lower castes/classes. This whole approach to life will obviously lead to 'tarrying in dualism'.
This attachment to outer purity, or a fixed set of precepts, can also lead to overlooking (and denigrating) pointers provided by awakened beings from other paths. For each has its own list of 'precepts' including those who have none at all! As no group, or ideology, has a monopoly on The Truth this overlooking can be counterproductive in the quest for freedom and the 'realisation of oneness'.
If one attempts to overcome 'tarrying in the dualism', by renunciation - disengaging from the world, then this may lead to some relief from desires as one is not exposed to the objects of desires, which may lead one to believe that a certain amount of 'mental purity' has been achieved. However, this is inherently unstable as exposure to any of the objects will soon reignite desire, even mental exposure (thinking of the desired) will have the same effect. In fact if desire is 'squashed' in this way it often resurfaces with greater intensity.
Actually, of course, the whole notion of purity and impurity stems from a dualistic outlook. For if 'all is one' and everything has the same source, ground of being and final dissolution (The Absolute) then nothing can be impure, for nothing can taint this Absolute as all things just come and go in This leaving It unaffected by their passage. Relating to this there is a famous story about Sankara, the famous Advaita guru of the 8th century, who was returning from his ritual early morning bath when he was touched by an untouchable. He was very angry about this saying that he would be forced to retake his bath as his ritual purity had been violated. The untouchable pointed out that the Atman (Brahman, The Absolute, the essence of each being) is the same in all, so how could he have made Sankara impure by his touch for there was no essential difference between them! At this Sankara came to his senses, realizing the truth of what was said - for this is what he himself had been teaching all along!
This Absolute is Consciousness at rest in which all manifestation (cosmic energy – Consciousness in motion, or motion in Consciousness) arises, abides, and subsides. For all motion arises in (and from) stillness, exists in a substratum of stillness and finally returns to stillness. Thus there is only oneness, Consciousness, existing in two modes – at rest as Pure Awareness and in motion as Cosmic Energy. Within this our body/minds (thoughts and sensations) are just ephemeral movements (fleeting objects) whilst our essence, the unchanging presence that has witnessed our entire lives, is Pure Awareness. This is easily realized, see the appendix, but the momentum of our minds and previous misidentification tends to swamp this realization. So what is required is to reawaken every time this 'swamping' occurs by repeated investigation. The main symptom of misidentification is unnecessary mental suffering caused by viewing ourselves and the outside world through the murky filter of (small) self-concern, -interest, -aggrandizement, -loathing, -promotion, etc… the list is almost endless.
When this occurs it should act as a wake up call to the fact that misidentification has occurred and the investigation, that reveals that we are Pure Awareness, needs to recommence. Eventually this becomes almost instantaneous just by seeing that we are aware of this suffering and we are this Awareness, which never suffers being totally unaffected by what comes and goes within it. When this occurs all notions of purity/impurity and renunciation become irrelevant, for we become 'serene in the oneness of things' and 'dualism vanishes by itself'.
In this there is no standard 'model of behaviour' for this will vary greatly from personality to personality type, and the behaviour of some awakened beings may seem to go against all recognized standards of living a 'spiritual life'. Take, for example, Chogyam Trungpa who died at 48 from liver failure due to excessive alcohol consumption and 'slept' with many of his female followers. Yet he was greatly loved and admired, with over 3,000 at his funeral including lamas that had flown in from all over the globe. There is a case where the husband of one of his 'mistresses' who was asked whether he was jealous, to which he replied "Yes, jealous of my wife for being able to get so close to him!". Another example is Alan Watts who also drank heavily, which contributed to his early death in his late fifties. However, he is, and was, greatly revered for his wisdom and I am an avid reader of his books. For all their foibles they were both charismatic, centred, inspiring and happy individuals. This is the key, that they will be 'serene in the oneness of things' no matter how strange their actions may seem at the external level of body/mind.
For information on my books, including the new one "the Happiness That Needs Ntohing', and more articles and poems see the attached.
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