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Fullness Cannot Be More Full
Sarah: Last time I saw Ram, I went up him for a second or so and was standing in front of him, and saw in him what he has been talking about all these years: the fullness beyond words, the fullness beyond full. How to access that?
Sundari: You don’t “access” that. You are that – but you need to know what that means. This is what self-inquiry is all about, investigating the true nature of reality in order to free the mind from identification with objects. Moksa is discriminating you, the fullness or awareness, from the objects that appear in you.
Sarah: It must be brahman. What else could it be, as it was more full than everything put together and then some?
Sundari: It is brahman, but “it” is not other than you. “Brahman” is just another word for the self, YOU. How can anything be more full than fullness?
What you are saying implies that fullness or brahman is something other than you. You seem to be objectifying fullness, you, awareness.
Sarah: Standing in front of Ram, put in another way, it was a fullness this level of existence in the world does not offer.
Sundari: What does “this level of existence” mean to you? The world is not real; how can it offer fullness?
There are only two things in existence: The subject – you, awareness – and the objects appearing in you – satya and mithya. You are what is real: Always present and never-changing. The objects are unreal: not always present and always changing. Ignorance (and the cause of all suffering) is not knowing the difference between the two.
The fullness is you, awareness. Everything else is empty, inert, appearing to be conscious because you, the light of awareness, shine on it. There are no levels to awareness because awareness cannot be more or less full, or more or less aware.
There are levels to ignorance because the mind can be more or less ignorant of its true nature, depending on how much rajas and tamas appear in it.
Ram/James is a symbol of the self, a fully self-actualised jiva reflecting the fullness of awareness in everything he stands for. He is not the jiva though, so be careful of projecting sattya onto mithya. It is not James or Ram who is full. Only awareness is full.
Sarah: I guess what I am wondering if this seems like experience, not knowledge. The knowledge comes in because Ram knows he is that, and what that is?
Sundari: Ram knows he is awareness. You experienced the fullness of the self, you, when you looked at him and projected it onto the jiva, Ram. This is why it feels like an experience, but it is actually knowledge because you know that you are awareness and not Sarah, just like you know that Ram is really awareness and not Ram.
Sarah: It is “experience” if I see as a jiva (duality, subject and object), and knowledge is if I, as awareness, see the same thing, as awareness?
Sundari: Yes. The jiva is the experiencing entity, and awareness is the knower of the experiencing entity. The jiva is the lens through which you, awareness, have contact with objects. Knowing this is moksa.
Sarah: If I look at Ram and see a jiva it is my experience, and if I look at Ram and see that I, awareness, am looking at awareness, it is knowledge. Is that correct?
Sarah: One year at the Trout Lake retreat I was in a pup tent one morning, and suddenly was no longer the body. Rather, I was the manifestation of knowledge.
How to put all these pieces of the puzzle together into one integrated whole?!
Sundari: No need to put the pieces together, because there really is no puzzle and self-knowledge does the integrating, not the jiva. It just looks like there is a puzzle because as ignorance lifts and the light of knowledge starts to shine brightly in the mind, it starts off patchy, contrasting with the ignorance. One day it is just you, the Light shining, no more patches. All is known, all is seen and understood. And the jiva continues as before, with her particular character and predisposition, but you are free of her. You do not have to change her, because even though you know that the jiva is limited and always will be, the essence of the jiva, you, awareness, is limitless and not conditioned by the jiva. End of suffering.
~ Much love to you, Sundari