We hear the words, but we do not understand. Why? because we are confused with all the concepts and ideas we have gathered all our life.
Let's examine this all closely.
What does ONENESS mean? it means there is only ONE. Nothing else exists. The ONE is all there is.
What is DUALITY? Duality means what we perceive. The world of OBJECTS. There are MANY - this is duality. Everything has an opposite. Everything is within TIME and SPACE. Everything has a beginning and an END. Everything is BORN and DIES. Everything has a SHAPE and a FORM and attributes like COLOUR, WEIGHT etc.
FORMLESS - what does that mean? It mean NO FORM - NO BOUNDARY. NO SHAPE.
How many FORMLESS 'things' can there be? Only ONE - because it has no boundary - no limits - it never ends - it extends to infinity. If it ends - then it has a form and is not formless.
We say that GOD is FORMLESS and INFINITE. GOD is therefore the ONENESS. Nothing except the ONENESS exists. The ONE is all there is. Because it is infinite - it encompasses all time and all space.
GOD is therefore outside of the realm of TIME and SPACE.
Now let's go into this a little deeper.
God has NO FORM so cannot live in a particular place. Why?
Because only if you have a FORM do you exist in TIME and SPACE. God does not exist within
TIME or SPACE. Therefore He does not LIVE ANYWHERE. He also does not MOVE, THINK,
ACT, JUDGE, GIVE COMMANDMENTS, LOVE or HATE anyone, or HEAR YOUR PRAYERS.
GOD does not have a MIND, otherwise he would be within time and space. Therefore he is not like anything you can think of. In fact you cannot say anything about God because all you have is a concept of God and God is not encompassed in a concept.
In the hindu shastras it describes God as NETI NETI - meaning neither THIS nor THAT.
Okay - so we have established that God has NO FORM.
Next question - does your SOUL have a form? It is said that the soul is a particle of God and shares the same attributes. This means the soul also has no form.
Again remember that all this is a METAPHOR and not literal. There are no literal particles of God.
You have a soul that occupies your body and is the REAL YOU. This soul also have NO FORM.
Hmmm.... interesting.
God has NO FORM. The soul also has NO FORM.
So what does that mean? can there be two formless entities that co-exist?
FORMLESS means that there is no BOUNDARY - no SHAPE - no FORM. It means that the
formless thing is INFINITE - it occupies ALL SPACE - it is EVERYWHERE.
Can there be TWO infinities? Of course not - because then neither is INFINITE.
If there were TWO or more - then they are all FINITE. They have a boundary.
So there cannot be TWO. There can only be ONE.
It is impossible for TWO or MORE to exist. There is only space enough for GOD.
The soul cannot co-exist with God. So there is NO SOUL. There cannot be. If you
believe there is a SOUL then you have mis-understood the nature of NO FORM.
The ONLY WAY you can have a soul is to say that it DOES have a form. In which case
it is FINITE and LIMITED. It cannot then be of the same essence as God.
In which case the soul is FINITE, LIMITED and DIES. All things that are IN FORM
are FINITE, LIMITED and they will all DIE.
However, everyone who believes in a SOUL also says the soul is ETERNAL and never dies.
DUALITY
Duality means more than one. You live in duality. Everything in duality has an opposite. Duality exists in TIME and SPACE. Everything here is dual.
Hot - Cold; Up - Down; Big - Small; Here - There; Good - Bad; Right - Wrong; rue - False; High - Low; Success - Failure; God - Devil; Sat Purush - Kal; Life - Death;
As long as you live in duality - you are in illusion. You are living in MAYA. Now here is the interesting thing. Sant Mat teachings are DUALITY TEACHINGS. What that means is that they encourage you to think in duality.
What do I mean? Well - first of all - you are MEDITATING and TRYING to GET to Sach Khand. Well that is duality. In your mind you create a CONCEPT of Sach Khand. You believe Sach Khand is a PLACE somewhere. Maybe you're not sure where - but if it is a place then of course it must be somewhere!
Sat Purush LIVES in that place and is the ruler of Sach Khand. The goal of every sant mat disciple is to get a personal audience with Sat Purush. And once you get there - you live there forever. The method is MEDITATION.
Now the truth is YOU WILL NEVER GET THERE. Why? because it is impossible. There is no such place - except in your mind. Of course you CAN get there IN YOUR MIND - just as you create dreams every night. The dreams APPEAR to be REAL. So Sach Khand or the inner flight of the soul will APPEAR to be real.
Sant mat gives you a CODE OF ETHICS - which is trying to make you into a GOOD PERSON. Well - that too is duality. GOOD is a duality concept. In reality there is no GOOD and no BAD. Good and bad only exist within DUALITY.
Good it that which BENEFITS you or others. BAD is that which HARMS you or others.
Krishna in the Gita appears to be BAD because he encouraged Arjuna to fight and kill. However, you need to understand duality before you will understand krishna.
If your car is stolen is that GOOD or BAD?
If a certain person (call him FRED) DIES - is that GOOD or BAD?
If you get MARRIED is that GOOD or BAD?
If you get DIVORCED is that GOOD or BAD?
Now let's answer:
If you car is stolen - it could be either. Perhaps it was insured and you got paid out more than it was really worth and you wanted a new car anyway.
Maybe FRED was a BAD person and had killed many people - so him dying would be good.
Maybe you are marrying someone who is going to make your whole life a misery.
Maybe getting divorced is the best thing because you were so miserable in the marriage.
My point is this:
GOOD and BAD requires a PERSONAL VIEWPOINT. If there is no personal viewpoint then there is no good and bad. Then life is simply life and what happens is simply what happens.
If something BENEFITS you - you consider it GOOD. If it HARMS you - you consider it BAD.
If there is no personal perspective - there GOOD and BAD disappears.
GOD has no personal perspective - so there is no GOOD or BAD for him.
So when you PRAY - you are talking nonsense because you are asking for something GOOD
to happen - or to avoid something BAD. Both of which are meaningless in NON-DUALITY.
To God they are meaningless - because in GOD's WORLD - there IS NO MEANING.
MEANING only exists in DUALITY. No Duality = No Meaning.
Meaning is created by the MIND. God has NO MIND.
Sant Mat is a DUALITY teaching. You are putting in EFFORT to get salvation (get to Sach Khand). You are assuming that it will happen ONE DAY in the future.
You are trying to be a GOOD person. You believe that Master is Sat Purush In human form and if you obey his commandments - you will get to Sach Khand. This is all ILLUSION. Let me explain why.
ONENESS
There is a state one ONENESS. It is the opposite of duality.
Everything that duality has - does not exist in ONENESS.
Good, Bad, Right, Wrong, Up, Down, High, Low, Hot, Cold, Big, Small, Here, There, past, future, present, God, Devil, Enlightenment, Ignorance etc etc etc.
All this is within DUALITY. In ONENESS it does not exist.
In ONENESS - only ONE thing EXISTS :- NO-THING or NOTHING - or the ABSENCE of ALL THINGS. ONESS is a VOID in which only the VOID exists. That VOID is YOU - it is also GOD. The two are ONE and the SAME. YOU and GOD are not TWO. Why? because there is ONLY ONE.
The ONE is ALL THERE IS. You can also call it the NOTHINGNESS. Because there is nothing there. It is not even a place - it does not exist within TIME and SPACE. It is the ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS - there is not even any EMPTY SPACE there. There is also NO TIME there.
You cannot ARRIVE there because (1) it is not a PLACE and (2) there is NO TIME and (3) there is NO YOU to arrive. As long as you think in terms of YOU and GOD - you are in DUALITY.
"What does ONENESS mean? it means there is only ONE. Nothing else exists. The ONE is all there is."
--- If there is only oneness, what has made us percieve all this illusion?
"Everything has a beginning and an END."
--- What about a geometric circle, where is its beginning or end? Is it possible that the universe itself is eternal?
"Everything has a SHAPE and a FORM and attributes like COLOUR, WEIGHT etc."
--- What about energy? what about gravity?
"GOD is therefore the ONENESS ... Because it is infinite - it encompasses all time and all space ... GOD is therefore outside of the realm of TIME and SPACE."
--- How do you know what is beyond TIME and SPACE? How could you know what is beyond SPACE and TIME?
Your body and brain has evolved from space and time, those are its very building blocks, as is your consciousness which has unfolded with it - by what other sensory means are you able to come to some sort of REALIZATION or RECOGNITION other than through the perception of your human brain?
Every thought and feeling and realization we make is filtered and recognised through our mind, however distant we believe we are from it. REALIZATION may not be an intellectual thought process, but it is still somethying which requires the mind to make it. If not, provide an alternative explanation for how a REALIZATION is made if not through the mind.
"Can there be TWO infinities? Of course not - because then neither is INFINITE."
--- what about infinite positive numbers and infinite negative numbers. What about inifinte irrational numbers and infinite prime numbers and a universe with infinite reality in which every particle or time or distance can be infinitely halved?
"The dreams APPEAR to be REAL. So Sach Khand or the inner flight of the soul will APPEAR to be real."
--- As REALIZATION might appear to be real?
"GOOD and BAD requires a PERSONAL VIEWPOINT ... Both of which are meaningless in NON-DUALITY."
--- But this is based on your REALIZATION that non-duality actually is reality. This is not the realization that most others have. Instead our realization is that there is world with many things, where people are capable of good and bad, however these qualities are defined. Humans are in fact capable of a spectrum of differnt behaviour, some exhbit more altruistic behaviour than others.
What happens if this reality is all we have and the reality is that those who behave according to a moral code benefit all of society to alleviate suffering insofar as possible, surely this is a desirable thing? I can assure you that a person living in abject poverty does not have the time or tendency to ponder these NONDUALISTIC luxuries. When our closest family members die or suffer we suffer with them, that is what makes us human, we dont enter some sort of existential nondualist nirvanna, cold hard reality bites and there is not a damn thing one can do, unless the reality becomes unbearable and we invent all sorts of psychosis that are more bearable.
Posted by: George | 09/20/2009 at 07:21 AM
"Now the truth is YOU WILL NEVER GET THERE."
--- Again, do you have any evidence at all for this claim or is it merely your word against RS?
How could you possibly know the truth?
Why do only a select few ppl know the truth?
Posted by: George | 09/21/2009 at 02:06 AM
The reason I am saying YOU WILL NEVER GET THERE is because there is nowhere to get. It is not my word against RS. I am not even asking anyone to believe me. I am simply saying that Sach Khand is NOT a place. So it is not possible to get 'there' when thers is no 'there'.
I asked a question in public some years ago - and this was Gurinder's reply:
Me: My God is HERE.
Gurinder: My God is also here
Me: But the sant mat books say....
Gurinder (interrupts) - burn all the books.
Me: Yes - that is fine - but the books say that God is in Sach Khand, and you have to traverse the REGIONS to get to Sach Khand.
Gurinder: It is just a way of explaining. It is not literal - there are no regions - they are just levels of consciousness - levels of awareness.
So there you have it - from the current head of the RSSB - and this was a dialogue in front of around 3000 disciples. Not a single person went to the mic to question huim further on this point.
So it's not my word against RSSB. It is what the current head of RSSB says.
Posted by: Osho Robbins | 09/21/2009 at 11:14 AM
Sure, I understand you are saying Sach Khand is not a place, but the satguru says it is a place.
I also understand that there is nowhere to get, you've explained that copiously, and then at other times you explain for real dialogue there needs to be a REALIZED person and someone who wants to 'get it'. So this is confusing cos if there is nothing to get, why would someone want to get it. LOL.
Anyway i am pulling your leg here, your logic is crazy, but you are a pretty patient person, so good luck to whatever you believe or REALIZE.
Posted by: George | 09/21/2009 at 01:39 PM
George,
The current head of RSSB says it is NOT a place.
Exactly George - you need to 'get it' that there is nothing. It is not the same as simply saying there is nothing. Saying and 'getting it' is different. Once you 'get it' the search for 'something' ends but if you simply say it - it makes no difference and the search goes on. The search may change from 'something' to 'nothing' but the search is the same - it is a future goal again.
Yes - my logic is crazy because it is not logic at all. Hence you cannot understand and you are not meant to understand, because this is not a convenient philosphy or a teaching. Truth is not a philosophy or a teaching. It is a journey into your own true nature.
Posted by: Osho Robbins | 09/22/2009 at 05:50 PM