N.L.# 111, I loved this one.
Question: Some ramblings here. If you have any thoughts, I would appreciate hearing them.
I thought that I was content with the ambivalence of being consciousness. But as I shift back and forth throughout my day between consciousness, mom, consciousness, wife, etc., I sense more questions.
As magnificent as your book is as well as other books like Tony Parsons are, is there more? Is it oversimplified to say that nothing really matters because we are not really the wife or the mother, as there is only consciousness? Could two things be correct simultaneously, that nothing matters and yet perhaps something else could matter?
I think of what I knew to be the truth back in the 80's, then the 90's. Then in 2000, with Advaita I believed that I knew the real truth. But, it can't really ever be completely figured out, can it? So what is the new truth for 2008 and beyond?
Maybe you could write a book from the place that we are all already awake, now what?
Response: "Now what?" is certainly a title I'd consider for a new book, if there's ever going to be one. Or perhaps, "Now This" or simply "This."
There is always more, because THIS is limitless, yet THIS is all there is and all there ever will be. Appearances including 'awakening', being a mother, or anything else, are neither real nor unreal. We could also say that such appearances are relatively real and in the absolute sense unreal; just like appearances in a dream are real within the dream and unreal when the dream is over.
While in the ultimate sense 'nothing matters' in day to day living many things matter; Love and pain, health and sickness, food and hunger, the warmth of the sun, the stinging cold of winter, the stars at night, feeling lonely or connected… to name but a few 'options' in this tapestry we call life.
So things matter and they don't; both and neither. Such contradiction may seem to make this complex, yet it is clear and simple and seeing this can be instantaneous. Let's take a metaphor like 'humor.' It is not something difficult, yet what it really is cannot be satisfactorily put into words. It can't actually be taught or explained, but totally different jokes and situations may be used to illustrate the idea of 'humor' and result in sudden laughter. It is not a formula to be understood, but thinking that it is may be a humorous indication that it isn't really 'grokked.'
The same is true for seeing through the idea of an independent character that could somehow 'find it', 'lose it', 'be awake' 'understand' or has to plot a course through life. The I-dea that there is a character that at one point seemed to know the truth shows the misconception, as there is no character to know this. The character is not the 'knower' but a 'known object.' There is no 'I' that has to figure out "Now what?" and no 'I' shifting back and forth; the apparent shifting back and forth IS the 'I-object' which appears in This-Unknowable-Knowing.
It is not that you are not really the wife or the mother. We could say that 'what you truly are' is not limited to these roles. You are both and neither, the character and THAT what appears as ALL characters. You alone are, and 'you' are not. It sounds like a contradiction, yet it is as simple as an actress both being and not being the role she plays.
This is not something to intellectually figure out, it won't really work, just like a joke when explained and analyzed, is not half as funny as when it is instantly 'grasped.' Here the joke is on us and yet there is no 'us', which is again the joke. 'Getting IT' is like a dog that finally caught his tail. He always already had/was that tail and 'grasping' it has added nothing to the situation and holding on to it is not a good idea either. This 'understanding' is the gateless gate: Once it is passed it is clear that there never was a gate or anyone to pass it. All words, all paradox, and there is no way of knowing whether this will result in laughter or confusion, but whatever appears, it is all IT appearing as such.
"So what is the new truth for 2008 and beyond?" Well, there is only NOW in which 'beyond' is just an idea presently arising. The 'truth' for now is that there is no one apart from 'the truth' to know it. The 'truth' for now is that there is only life appearing AS all… and what 'you' truly are is this One, being all.
"Now what?"
Now THIS! Emptiness full to the brim; "Chop wood and carry water."