The Fulfillment of One’s Life – 08.16.12

Excerpt:  “There is really no point speaking about the Absolute… we can talk a lot about the ego and the unconscious and it’s structure and dynamics, but when it comes to the Absolute concepts are futile… one always ends up with paradox, inconsistency, contradiction, inadequacy and usually it leads to a distorted understanding on the part of those who are listening… and so many of the great teachers have simply sat in silence without saying anything, or they have taught in parables using metaphors and archetypal images… but nothing can be said about the absolute because the absolute is not a thing – not an object… but even to say that is incorrect…  in the Vedas it is called Nirguna Brahman… the Absolute that is beyond even the question of whether personal or impersonal and has no qualities, no gunas, no attributes… but the egoic mind cannot grasp that which has no attributes… and in fact the Absolute cannot be grasped because there is no one to grasp it… what really has to be realized is that the ego mind that is attempting to understand is itself the illusion that must be transcended… for we are the Absolute and have never been anything else… but to explain that to a mind that is identified with its body, with its gender, with its family, its nation and religion and language etc etc etc is almost impossible… and so the approach of most spiritual paths have been to gradually strip away these identifications until consciousness receives a glimpse of naked awareness in which concepts do not arise… no narrative drags one away from the source of one's being into some imaginary discourse about what is… and in that moment of naked presence then the entire mystery of that which is revealed becomes impeccably and infinitely clear but what also becomes clear is that it cannot be transmitted in language to anyone else.  This is why the Buddha almost gave up before he began his teaching… you know he sat there – he attained Buddhahood – and then as he got up he realized this cannot be taught and then he sat looking at where he was sitting becoming enlightened for about seven days trying to figure out, “What do I do with this”?  It’s impossible to communicate that which transcends this entire dimension of illusion and yet it is what we are now….”  Recorded in the evening of Thursday, August 16, 2012.