THE FINAL OBSTACLE TO FREEDOM

[Pravin Kumar]

The Final Obstacle to Freedom

It is generally thought that freedom, moksha, nirvana (call it what you will) is difficult to achieve and takes a long time. There is the well known story, attributed to Buddha, which says that it can take as long as it would for a bird to wear away Mount Everest by flying back and forth and stroking it with a silk scarf! In the eastern religions, which believe in reincarnation, it is generally perceived to take many lifetimes and one is encouraged to strive in this life to obtain a more auspicious birth to make spiritual progress. Talking to friends it is held by the majority that glimpses of awakening are quite rare and that one is normally governed by conditioning and the ‘small self’.

Whereas, I have discovered that these glimpses are readily available by investigating the nature of one’s day to day experience, see appendix, which reveals that at the core of one’s being is Pure Awareness and this is the constant conscious subjective presence that we essentially are! When one identifies with this the ‘small self’ is seen to be an illusion fostered by the ego and identification with the mind. This misidentification readily reasserts itself, due to many years of conditioning, requiring further investigation for another glimpse.

However, this is as easy as pie, and is worth the (minimal) effort, for the freedom that is felt during the reawakening is wonderfully relaxing. In this the burden of day-to-day living is instantly lifted giving a great feeling of en-lightenment … in the literal sense of the word. So what if you shortly revert to the small self, when you pick the load back up again, for this sense of life being a burden can be used as a symptom that misidentification has reoccurred which can be used to stimulate further reinvestigation.

So initially there is a constant flip-flop between being awake and asleep, but this is certainly better than remaining asleep constantly care-worn by unnecessary mental suffering. As time goes on the periods of awakening will gradually lengthen and the ‘ease of being’ will grow stronger. This does require vigilance not to sink back into the old stories perpetuated by (and the perpetuation of) the separate self, and cultivation of awakening by repeated investigation. This, itself, only takes a split second for as soon as the mind starts up with its stories (which causes unnecessary suffering) then notice that there is effortless awareness of these thoughts; and further than that you are this subjective awareness whilst thoughts and sensations are just as flow of ephemeral objects appearing in that.

Some of the main obstacles to this are the thought that this is difficult, or that I am unworthy of this, or that I am normally asleep and unable to do this, or that I am a separate object or that I am bound, or that I am any thing etc… These thoughts can appear to be very powerful and act as barrier to awakening, whereas in fact they are all rubbish … as Papaji used to say: ‘the final obstacle to awakening is that you think there is an obstacle’.

As it says in the Dhammapada:

Ch1 v. 1: Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it.

Ch1 v. 2: Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

In this case the thought that I am a separate object (or the ego or mind/body) is the ‘evil’ thought, whilst “I am Pure Awareness’ is the ‘pure’ thought. This is backed up by the first stage of the Bodhisattva Path when one has glimpsed awakening which is called ‘the joyful’. About the mind Ramakrishna said:

"Bondage is of the mind, and freedom is also of the mind. A man is free if he constantly thinks ‘I am a free soul. How can I be bound whether I live in the world or in the forest? I am a child of God, who can bind me?’ By repeating with grit and determination ‘I am not bound I am free’, one really becomes so – one really becomes free."

And Swami Vivekananda, his great disciple, added:

"We are ever free if you would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul (the Atman – Pure Awareness) free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute. … Therefore proclaim your freedom and be what you are – ever free, ever blessed."

Luckily we do not need faith as we can discover that we are Pure Awareness in an instant by investigating the nature of our direct moment-to-moment experience.
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Appendix

Below follows a simple method to investigate the nature of reality starting with one’s day-to-day experience. Each step should be considered until one experiences, or ‘sees’, its validity before moving on to the following step. If you reach a step where you do not find this possible, continue on regardless in the same way, and hopefully the flow of the investigation will make this step clear. By all means examine each step critically but with an open mind, for if you only look for ‘holes’ that’s all you will find!

1. Consider the following statement: ‘Life, for each of us, is just a series of moment-to-moment experiences’. These experiences start when we are born and continue until we die, rushing headlong after each other, so that they seem to merge into a whole that we call ‘my life’. However, if we stop to look we can readily see that, for each of us, every moment is just an experience.

2. Any moment of experience has only three elements: thoughts (including all mental images), sensations (everything sensed by the body and its sense organs) and Awareness of these thoughts and sensations. Emotions and feelings are a combination of thought and sensation.

3. Thoughts and sensations are ephemeral, that is they come and go, and are objects, i.e. ‘things’ that are perceived.

4. Awareness is the constant subject, the ‘perceiver’ of thoughts and sensations and that which is always present. Even during sleep there is Awareness of dreams and of the quality of that sleep; and there is also Awareness of sensations; if a sensation becomes strong enough, such as a sound or uncomfortable sensation, one will wake up.

5. All thoughts and sensations appear in Awareness, exist in Awareness, and subside back into Awareness. Before any particular thought or sensation there is effortless Awareness of ‘what is’: the sum of all thoughts and sensations occurring at any given instant. During the thought or sensation in question there is effortless Awareness of it within ‘what is’. Then when it has gone there is still effortless Awareness of ‘what is’.

6. So the body/mind is experienced as a flow of ephemeral objects appearing in this Awareness, the ever present subject. For each of us any external object or thing is experienced as a combination of thought and sensation, i.e. you may see it, touch it, know what it is called, and so on. The point is that for us to be aware of anything, real or imaginary, requires thought about and/or sensation of that thing and it is Awareness of these thoughts and sensations that constitutes our experience.

7. Therefore this Awareness is the constant substratum in which all things appear to arise, exist and subside. In addition, all living things rely on Awareness of their environment to exist and their behaviour is directly affected by this. At the level of living cells and above this is self-evident, but it has been shown that even electrons change their behaviour when (aware of) being observed! Thus this Awareness exists at a deeper level than body/mind (and matter/energy ) and we are this Awareness!

8. This does not mean that at a surface level we are not the mind and body, for they arise in, are perceived by and subside back into Awareness, which is the deepest and most fundamental level of our being. However, if we choose to identify with this deepest level – Awareness - (the perceiver) rather than the surface level, mind/body (the perceived), then thoughts and sensations are seen for what they truly are, just ephemeral objects which come and go, leaving Awareness itself totally unaffected.

One may then investigate this Awareness further to discover its wondrous properties, for more on this see any of my books on awakening.

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The Final Obstacle

Most think that awakening takes many ages,
As long as Everest being levelled by a bird
Stroking it with a scarf, reducing it in stages,
Such from Hindus and Buddhists I have heard.

They posit many lifetimes this will take,
Each one a chance to spiritually progress,
Many people make this same mistake,
Corrected by identifying with Awareness.

For if our direct experience we investigate,
Consisting of Awareness of thoughts and sensations,
The former is constant and does not deteriorate,
Whereas, the latter are ephemeral manifestations.

This constant conscious subjective presence,
In which our experiences come and go,
Is Pure Awareness our fundamental essence,
In which fleeting objects ebb and flow.

There is no obstacle to identifying with That,
But by the mind and ego this will be denied,
For them this simple solution is too pat,
Preferring to keep us confused and mystified.

Papaji said that the final obstacle is,
The belief that such obstacles exist,
Whereas, awakening one need not miss,
If from such thinking one can desist.

Rather investigate, so find and see,
That by becoming of Awareness aware,
And identifying as This sets one free,
So awakening is instantly obtained, not rare.

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I implore all those who like this to take it to heart and assimilate its meaning. 'Liking' is fine but it's only a start, imbibing and digesting is needed for the simple shift to occur.

COLIN DRAKE