Vulture Heap Peak

"No Trespassing" it says, the gate padlocked
I slip the barbed-wire, follow the humming
Along this gravel path through swamp scrub slashed
To the foot of the first steel stanchion.
Above they perch like black blossoms
Gorged fat and sleeping, at home here
Attuned to the crackling lullaby of power wires.
This flock of vultures, carrion crows,
Slow to digest but quick to smell death
Patiently await the Mother, electrified
And fossil-fueled, to fill their trough.


Realize the Self to be without abode, unsupported, immeasurable, unparalleled, inherently pure, and eternal.
  

Immolation

"Self" is a word loaded with connotations difficult for our conditioned minds to ignore, especially the "Self" capitalized and used by Ramana Maharshi to signify the Absolute One without a second. For most of us this word has always denoted the personal self, "I," the body-mind we have been born and bred to preserve at all costs.  In his teachings Ramana tried to signify this distinction by referring to "I-I" as a means of separating the Absolute from the personal; but again, all letters, words, thoughts, concepts and best intended substitutes amount to halting, stammering attempts--pointers--to convey ineffable, transcendent Reality.  No matter how real it seems, a mirage is only a mirage, and the moon reflected in still waters is not the moon.

But "Self" is serviceable when we digest it parsed in relative terms such as "void," "non-void," or that which is neither "void" or "non-void," nor any aggregate between.  "Void" does not escape relativity (void compared to what?), and even terms such as "all-pervading," "all-encompassing," "pure," "unbroken," "stainless," "uncreated," "eternal," et.al., dance in a field of opposites. It is clear that this Self of Advaita Vedanta can never be comprehended in terms of the self between our ears.

However, simply abiding near the flame will eventually, inexorably kindle and consume ignorance. We can experience Being-Consciousness-Bliss. Our illusory personal selves are always already this Self of Ramana's instructions.  There may be no intrinsic reality in what we think or perceive, but just as a dreamer awakens from interminable, restless sleep, we, too, can awaken, recognize, realize and abide as this One without a second.

Realize the Self to be undefiled, unsupported, beyond caste, creed, name, or form, uncontaminated, and unqualified.             

Dissolution

To our mind a phrase such as "beyond the sublime void" is like the sun: too hot to approach, too bright to observe, too gargantuan to conceive from our perch here on earth.  Yet from millions of miles away the sun's effulgence illuminates and enlivens everything on this planet, and just so will basking in this phrase illumine seekers after enlightenment.  We will never wrap our mental arms around it, but like seedlings sprouting towards this sun our spiritual lives begin to quicken and flourish as we contemplate the ineffable. That is its purpose in these instructions, to impel us beyond assertion and discrimination, beyond negation or cessation, beyond thought or concept or anything born of or apprehended by mind. Ultimately we realize that even "beyond the sublime void" amounts to a veil over what it signifies.

Realize the Self as pervading and subsisting in the void and in the non-void, as different from both void and non-void, not as intermediate between them, nor as partly void and partly non-void.     
  

The Shining

Realization dawns as discrimination perforates and ultimately obliterates our mistaken identity with transience.  In most cases, yogas and meditative techniques are necessary--for a time--to fray and ultimately sever the ties that bind us. But in the end all of this must be abandoned when our boat reaches the far shore, because in reality there are no bonds, no boats, no shores--never have been, never will be.  That is the realization.  It transcends all of the pairs of opposites ("neither within, nor without, nor far, nor near").  All of that is discarded as born of mind, the veil of veils, from which our long years of servitude have created a Stockholm syndrome concealing our true nature.

Once  the bubble of mis-identification bursts, mind dissolves back into pure consciousness, here described as "Transcendence," and there we remain so long as we are not drawn back into the relative, transient, conditioned habits left behind.  At first blush this requires concentration, mindfulness, vigilance, but once ingrained as our primary orientation and recognized as the only reality, being the selfless Self is no more complicated than raising our eyes to the sky.

Realize the Self always to be neither above nor below, nor on either side, not without nor within, but to be eternal and shining beyond the sublime void.    

Open

So, neither our supposed selves nor our apparent world has any more intrinsic reality than a reflection in a mirror.  This is the fact, but how do we realize it, live it, despite every indication to the contrary? How do we penetrate the veil and experience this bliss promised by the Masters?

We are fortunate.  The father of self-enquiry meditation, Sri Ramana Maharshi, has left us specific instructions in his translation of Atma Sakshatkara (''All-Comprehensive Knowledge").  They are not for beginners, but should be preceded by prolonged practice of self-enquiry and discrimination. These practices soften the rigidity of a lifetime of conditioning, pounding the wood into paper and the paper into tissue in preparation for the flame.  As we begin to experience their fruits, quiescence and insight, the process of awakening will gain momentum of its own.  In time and with diligence and earnestness, the thousand-petaled lotus opens, ready now to bask in the effulgence of these teachings.

Here is the first:

Concentrate the mind neither within, nor without, nor far, nor near, but on pure Transcendence. 

     

Pointers

Enlightenment is direct experience of reality as it is, untainted by thought or conditioning.  Advaita is a philosophy describing reality as it is--non-dual, unbroken by subject and object, sans perceiver, perceived and perceiving, One without a second--but it must do so in words that cannot quite escape the baggage of conditioned thought.  Advaita points, enlightenment reflects.  Advaita describes an autonomic nervous system, while enlightenment is the heart, itself, beating in accordance with its nature.  Our heart beats continuously, although we rarely heed it.  Advaita turns our attention inward--a first, critical step in the "how," "what" and "why" of awakening.

Relinquish

Body-mind, subject, object, creation, none of it exists.  They are moon and stars guiding a ghost ship across a sea of dreams.

We are the architects of our own ignorance.  Within the empty space of an open field we construct walls of this and that, floors of me and ceilings of mine.  It is a rickety, termite-ridden habitation for tenants of childhood, youth, maturity and old age.  Eventually it will collapse of its own, but why wait when we already possess the tools to demolish it?  "Who am I?" is the powder-charge, "not this, not this" the fuse, and intuition of truth the spark  We must ignite every nook and cranny of this false, temporal structure, whittle it down brick by brick, wall by wall, until one day so little remains it simply implodes in a cloud of dust.  Perhaps a cornerstone called "I" will survive.  Blow it up, too.  Then the dust finally settles into clarity, reality, the empty space of an open field, there all along.