The key to discernment, the master switch, is the simple recognition that only the mind is causative and that the mind cannot create beyond itself. You have everything because you are everything. To accept this fact is to hit the master switch. The sovereign ego, with all its armaments and fears, its backward-looking resentments and forward-looking worries, was simply no more, and there was no one left to mourn its passing.
The ego seems to take myriads of forms on the surface. As a fragmenting thought, the ego seems to fragment again and again. But it has one common characteristic by which it can always be identified.
The single, faulty premise behind the ego belief system, regardless of the many forms it takes, is the belief that there is a real cause other than God and that ideas can leave their source. This is the belief that there are causes in the world, apart from the mind, and that one is at the mercy of them. If one can understand the impossibility of this premise, then the ego is out of business.
The ego is identifiable, regardless of its many different forms. By consistently mind-watching with the Holy Spirit and noticing one’s thoughts, ego thinking is seen as unreal instead of fearful. Once one can calmly discern ego thoughts, seeing them for what they are, immediately they are released.
As soon as one can see the false as false, a belief as just a belief, then one is no longer at its mercy. At an “advanced” state of mind training, one can prevent ego thoughts from even entering the mind at all.
The key to discernment, the master switch, is the simple recognition that only the mind is causative and that the mind cannot create beyond itself. All miscreation, the time/space cosmos, is the unreal effect of an unreal cause. The seeming reversal of cause and effect is the basis of the ego.
The characteristic of this insane reversal is the belief that there’s something causative in the time/space cosmos, on the screen of the world. In simple terms, it is the belief that something of the world can give or take away one’s peace of mind.
⦁ The ego is saying you, as a body, need to find a peaceful environment to live in.
⦁ The ego is saying that if you, as a body, have good medical insurance that you have peace of mind.
⦁ The ego is saying that if you, as a body, find the right partner, the perfect mate, then you will have happiness.
⦁ The ego is basically saying that if you, as a body, just get the right pieces of the puzzle, if you get the script to come out just the way you want it to, you’ll be happy and peaceful. What a scam!
How long will one play that game before seeing that there’s no cheese at the end of that tunnel. Seeking the right mate, the right job, the right place to live, the right climate is truly a wild goose chase. That kind of seeking attempts to bring about peace of mind and happiness by changing the form instead of accepting the Holy Spirit’s purpose.
One can never find lasting happiness and peace in the world. Accept this, but do not stop with this. The Holy Spirit will lead one to happy dreams, and on to waking from the dream entirely.
Whether one seems to get what one thinks is desirable in form or feels deprived of something in form, the Holy Spirit gently reminds: You are Mind, wholly Mind, and purely Mind. What you think you did, separate from God, has been undone. You have everything because you are everything. To accept this fact is to hit the master switch.
The sovereign ego, with all its armaments and fears, its backward-looking resentments and forward-looking worries, was simply no more, and there was no one left to mourn its passing. Yet something had succeeded it: this bare disembodied awareness, which gazed upon the scene of the self’s dissolution with benign indifference.
When I think back on this part of the experience, I’ve occasionally wondered if this enduring awareness might have been the “Mind at Large” that Aldous Huxley described during his mescaline trip in 1953. Huxley never quite defined what he meant by the term—except to speak of “the totality of the awareness belonging to Mind at Large”—but he seems to be describing a universal, shareable form of consciousness unbounded by any single brain. Others have called it cosmic consciousness, the Oversoul, or Universal Mind. This is supposed to exist outside our brains—as a property of the universe, like light or gravity, and just as pervasive. Constitutive too. Certain individuals at certain times gain access to this awareness, allowing them to perceive reality in its perfected light, at least for a time.
If the ego is outside, and unreal, why does it need to be involved at all?
`The ego is an invented and imagined thing, and it has nothing to do with the relationship between the individual consciousness and the universal consciousness, which is a transformation of the psyche, a revolution which takes place in the psyche itself
The ego is right out of the picture, but we cannot separate ourselves from it, as long as we are alive we are connected to it, and our awareness of its existence is related to our awareness of Life and the degree in which we perceive It.
The Real is essentially Non-dual. It is neither existence nor non-existence, neither affirmation nor negation, neither identity nor difference, neither one nor many, neither increasing nor decreasing, neither pure nor impure, neither production nor destruction. It is beyond Ignorance and beyond intellect.
The ego is neither real nor unreal nor both real and unreal. It is only an illusion (Bhrama).
Liberation, therefore, is only the destruction of illusion or ignorance.’ How unfortunate it is that people directly perceiving the truth of Dependent Origination forget it and take recourse to a so-called independent ego.
How deep-rooted is this Ignorance which makes a complete fool of a man and tosses him like a shuttlecock from affirmation to negation and from negation to affirtnation ! What sort of Ignorance is this which obscures the truth and makes a man fall upon either existence or non-existence?
Truly speaking, there is absolutely no difference between Bondage and Liberation. Still, from the phenomenal point of view, we say that by good deeds and true knowledge, the cycle of birth and death is stopped and liberation is achieved.
A Bodhisattva first realizes that external objects are only imaginary and that mind alone exists.
Then he realizes that individual mind too is as much an imagination as any external object. Thus shaking off all duality, he directly perceives the Absolute which is the unity underlying phenomena (dharmadhitu).
The Supreme Reality wherein all categories merge removes all the defects of the intellect just as a strong medicine removes the effect of poison.5 By becoming one with the Reality, a Bodhisattva realizes the Last Meditation (chaturtha-dhyana; like turiya) and ever dwells in the Blissful Brahman.
He becomes fully qualified to work for the real emancipation of humanity just as a bird, when it has developed full wings, becomes able to soar high.’ When a vessel containing water is broken, reflection of the moon is not visible in it. Similarly in impure persons the reflection of the Buddha is not visible”
But knowing the ultimate unreality of the ego and of the dharmas and realizing that Reality is essentially non-dual, a wise man will embrace it recognizing it to be Pure Consciousness. After that even this recognition will be transcended and that indescribable state is called Liberation where all the cries of intellect are satisfied and all its cate-gories are merged.’
Buddha has never taught the Doctrine by speech because it is to be directly realized by Pure Consciousness.”‘ Every phenomenon is merged in the harmonious bosom of Reality.
‘No appearance is so low that the Absolute does not embrace it Knowing this world to be merely a composite of Forces (samskaras), knowing that the ego and the objects do not exist, and knowing further that all this is merely suffering, a wise man will leave far behind the baneful existence of the empirical ego and will embrace the Universal Soul (mahatman).
Setting on the right path, understanding the true doctrine of Nairatmya, and clearly grasping the real meaning of Shunyati, the Enlightened Ones transcend the individual existence and realize the Pure Soul and thus become one with that Universal Soul.
This is the Pure Existence of the Buddha and is called the Highest Soul.
Rivers after rivers pour themselves into the Ocean, but the Ocean is neither satisfied nor does it increase; Buddhas after Buddhas pour themselves into Reality, but the Absolute is neither satisfied nor does it increase. How wonderful it is.
Different rivers with different waters flowing through different places are called only ‘rivers’ ; when they merge in the ocean, they become one with it. No more are they called `rivers’; they are ‘the ocean’. Similarly, different persons holding different views are called ‘finite intellects’. But when they merge in the Buddha, the Absolute, they become one with it; they are the Absolute.
The Yogacharas stress the importance of different Viharas and Bhumis which purify a Bodhisattva just as fire purifies goldes and by which discursive intellect is transformed into Spiritual Experience.
