20091019_SelfRealisation_Mystery

[Rumpelteazer]

Dr Roles had a lovely diagram on this with the now on a vertical line and the past and future on the horizontal line and where they crossed was the now and that was in line with Param Atman.

I think the diagram you are referring to is probably the one from his paper of 19th October 1981. I've inserted it below and also included Dr Roles' commentary on the diagram from that paper.

At this point some of some feel we need to have a simple picture to present to the mind in any situation—a picture which contains enough knowledge ‘in a nutshell’ to remind us forcibly and instantaneously of our aim to liberate ourselves from the Maya or illusion in which we live.

Though so much has been discovered about the structure and function of the human nervous system in the fifty years since “A New Model” was first published in 1931, we can take as our starting point the diagram (Figure 8) at the top of p.427 of the current third edition (with certain modifications) using its author’s main line of argument—6-dimensional spacetime.

“Let us take the line of time as we usually conceive it. The line ‘Before’, ‘Now’, ‘After’, is a line of the 4th dimension. Let us imagine several lines perpendicular to this line. These lines, each of which designates now for a given moment, will express the perpetual existence of past and possibly of future moments.”

Line of time.jpg (35.83 KiB) Viewed 7057 times

Comment. For our present purpose I shall take the short time-space of a day of 24 hours (say from 6 a.m. today to 6 a.m. tomorrow), which is made up of moments of ‘psychological time’. Though our worldly lives have to be synchronized by clocks and calendars we simply must not believe in the validity of this artificial line on which we live ‘round the clock’, day after day all our lives and maybe life after life. Its absurdity becomes apparent when we stop to consider for a few moments:

1. How this line has no beginning and no end,
2. How the future is not born yet and what was once the ‘future’ is always fading through the ‘present’ into the ‘past’ which is considered to be irretrievable and,
3. That the only freedom we get from this prison is when we are fast asleep and know nothing about it!

So continuing Mr. Ouspensky’s argument:

“The line of the 4th dimension is the only ‘time’ we know or recognise. But, though we are (mostly) not aware of it, sensations of other ‘times’ both parallel and perpendicular continually enter our consciousness; and the perpendicular lines which consists only of now are, as it were, cross-threads, the weft in a fabric over the surface of time, in relation to the parallel lines of time which represent the warp. But each moment of ‘now’ on the lines of passing time contains not one, but a certain number of possibilities, at times a great, at others a small number.”

Though we can talk endlessly about it, we ignore those lines of ‘Now’ which have the most possibility and try to meditate with the outward-looking half of the mind which lives entirely on the line of passing time.

Around 800 of Dr Roles' papers are currently being prepared and checked for uploading to the archive later this year.

[Rosalind]

I am thinking about what Ramesh Balsekar says:
"There is no event which is not connected to everything else that happens in the universe. You think you have pulled the blade of grass out of the ground.The real point is that the blade of grass has been pulled. By what hands is immaterial."

[Diogenes]

Rosalind asks “If we are not the doer, then what is to be cleansed?”.
Of course, we are taught that, in reality, we are the Atman and inseparable from Param Atman and the whole of Creation. It’s easy to say this and easy to keep saying it, but it is quite another thing actually to experience this truth and live it.
What needs cleansing is our psychology. To do this we have to start the long process of sorting out what we are from what we are not. The only way to do this is to be quiet. Being truly quiet is very difficult and requires much practice.

[Rosalind]

I was never taught Advaita. When I had a direct experience of Truth, I didnt know a thing about Advaita. So it was a bit different in my case.
If we are not the doer, then we also have no control over the outcome of our "purifying". In fact we have no control at all.
You said this -
"The only way to do this is to be quiet. Being truly quiet is very difficult and requires much practice".
When I had my experience, I was in a busy market! So your experience is your experience, but not necessarily what happens for others. If you believe this, then that is how it is for you.

[Rumpelteazer]

When I had my experience, I was in a busy market!

You are right. It is certainly possible to be still anywhere, at any time, irrespective of what is going on around you. And for those who are lucky enough to have had a very clear and powerful experience of unity with Param-Atman, this can provide a readily available source of encouragement, motivation and inspiration.

What many of us are looking for is that permanent experience of unity (referred to as Self-Realisation) as described on page 4 of the paper that was the starting point for this topic. The quote from HH makes it clear that “the elimination of hindrances or ignorance” is necessary and that it is a “gradual process”. Elsewhere in the Record (21st January 1970) he talks about the need to “clarify the Buddhi” and “clarify Manas”.

People have various approaches to this, but they all seem to involve learning to be completely quiet – not just occasionally but all the time, or at least that’s the aim. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it isn’t. So effort is needed, albeit a ‘non-doing’ kind of effort. As HH says later in the same quotation: ignorance “may be dissolved quickly or it may take ages. It depends upon the individual’s layers of ignorance, his desire to remove the ignorance, and his readiness to engage in disciplined work with consistency.”

In my case it’s the consistency that’s difficult – it’s so easy for the mind to become caught up in turning thoughts … So I agree with Diogenes:

Being truly quiet is very difficult and requires much practice.

[Rosalind]

It seems the Oneness unfolds in many different ways!

[excalibur]

Rumpelteazer wrote
"What many of us are looking for is that permanent experience of unity (referred to as Self-Realisation)"

There can never be such a happening as there is no "us" to experience anything. If there is unity, there will be no one to experience this, if there is it is duality not unity. Self Realisation is plain and simply realising and recognising that one is not a separate entity and therefore not the doer . There is only Consciousness. Everything is a manifestation of Consciousness and has no existence as such, therefore also illusory . Any experience one has is an event in phenomenality and can never be a permanent experience.