That Which Was Never Born

that which was never born Q You’ve used the word “absolute” afew times in your description of the enlightened state. What do you mean by that? A A b s o l u t e m e a n s f r e e f r o m l i m i t a t i o n . W h e n a h u m a n being directly experiences what enlightenment is, even if only momentarily, they find themselves infused with acon¬ sciousness that transcends time, aconsciousness that was never born and therefore is free from death. 1really mean that. They experience that which is immortal. And in that experience they discover aprofound inner freedom because they are no longer fundamentally limited by the conditioned human personality that they have exclusively identified with since the body was born. What do you mean when you say “a consciousness that was n e v e r b o r n ” ? If you and 1were able to transcend any sense of being sepa¬ rate, individual, or unique, the state of consciousness we would find ourselves in would be identical. In the mutual recognition of that one consciousness, we would discover that which was never born that we are the same One Self. In the consciousness of that One Self there is no time, no age, no memory, and no gender. Nothing ever happened there, and that is why there is perfect innocence and, in that innocence, afreedom from any sense of limitation. Again, that freedom is always untouched by anything that ever happened. So the reason that Isaid that this consciousness was never born is simple: The birth and death of any individual human being has no effect on it what¬ soever. Do you understand? Yes, Ithink so. As 1listen to you, Iget describing—a sense of something beyond my personal identity. At times, when Isit by myself, Ican experience the same state, but what always happens is that when Ire-engage with my busy life, all of the confusing thoughts and feelings come back and I find that I’m still the same human being with all the same self¬ c o n c e r n s . sense of what you’re But you see, you aren’t questioning in afundamental way what your relationship to your experience is based on. The state you’re describing is very important. That sense of something beyond your personal identity is actually the Self Absolute beginning to emerge in your own experience as atangible reality. But in spite of this, you still aren’t questioning your prior conviction that you are the personality, the separate sense of self that was born i n t i m e . t So how would Ido that? living enlightenment The mystery that we’re speaking about is always present when our attention falls away from the endless fears and desires of the ego. The more deeply we look into this for our¬ selves, the more we will become aware of this liberating truth. Underneath the ever-shifting sands of the human personality, that mysterious depth of our own Self that has no beginning and no end is always there. Most of the time we’re simply not aware of it because our attention is perpetually dis¬ tracted by the fears and desires of the ego. But our own Self never goes anywhere. And genuine spiritual experience always proves that to be the case. So if, as you’re saying, we are all actually the same One Self, what happens to our individual human personality when we have realized this? If we are able to remain in the realization of that one timeless Self without wavering, then our personality will sponta¬ neously become avehicle for the manifestation of that One Self in time. The individual self will become infused with the presence of apowerful and transcendent singularity and will become adynamic living expression of that which is absolute i n t h i s w o r l d . But how can the personality be absolute? It’s unique for every i n d i v i d u a l . Of course the personality is unique. Relatively speaking, every individual is different, because he or she came into t h a t w h i c h w a s n e v e r h o r n 9 being at aparticular time, in aparticular place and culture. But that’s not the point. I’m speaking about the potential for our unique personalities to express that which is absolute— that which transcends all differences. But shouldn’t we celebrate our differences what being free is all about? isn’t that part of The freedom I’m speaking about, the freedom of enlighte ment, is always only about the celebration of no difference whatsoever. That’s why it’s so powerful. You see, because most of us are so enslaved by the endless fears and desires of the separate ego, we are always striving to locate ourselves, always desperately trying to find out what it is about us that is unique. The separate ego’s constant refrain is: “Isn’t there something special about me?” But if we want to be free, if we seek for enlightenment in this life, then the relative distinc¬ tions that do exist between our personalities are not the things that should be most important to us. The only thing that should be important is winning our liberation from the ego’s voracious need to see itself as being unique. Because after all, that need to be unique is the essence of what ego is. And our liberation from that need results only from the unequivocal discovery of the truth of who we are beyond the separate personality. As Isaid, when we make that discovery, our personality will become infused with the mysterious presence of the Self Absolute. And in contrast with the end¬ less negativity, small-mindedness, and self-centered desires of the separate ego, the Self Absolute is utterly wholesome. In n 10 living enlightenment that Self, there is freedom from the relentless narcissism of the ego and, because of that, there is ecstatic liberation from the unending existential tension that it constantly generates. So, who will we be and how will we be as aseparate per¬ sonality when we have no need to see ourselves as being dif¬ ferent or special in any way whatsoever? The answer is that we will never know. Who we will be then will always remain unknown to us. That’s what is so extraordinary about this. The very part of us that wants to know will never be able to k n o w t h e a n s w e r. Did you say we will never be able to know? The narcissistic ego always wants to know who we are when w e l o o k i n t h e m i r r o r. B u t w h e n w e d i e i n t o o u r o w n T r u e Self and recognize ourselves to be that which is impersonal and absolute, we stumble upon the miracle of enlightenment. We find that the Self that we have discovered is amystery that cannot be seen with the eye and cannot be recognized by the mind. And that is why, if we want to truly know that Self, we have to be willing to not see it with our eyes and not know it with our mind. You see, if we want to be free, we actually have to let go of the very thing that we want to know in order to truly know it. We have to be willing to forget ourselves utterly and die into that ungraspable mystery. And from then on, we have to always be willing to live in astate of unknow¬ ing, astate in which we don’t know who we are. that which was never born 11