Continued from Verse Eight
9. The duality of subject and object and trinity of seer, sight, and seen can exist only if supported by the One. If one turns inward in search of that One Reality they fall away. Those who see this are those who see Wisdom. They are never in doubt.
Commentary: Experiencing the outside world, thoughts, feelings, or anything at all always happens by a division between the seer, the seen, and the actual act of seeing. This trio, which comes and goes, and which has no life of its own, can only exist if supported by something which does not come and go, and which is fundamentally aware and alive, though in a profoundly different way in which we might normally understand those terms.
The One seems to cover itself up with thought and then it becomes these three instruments. But in fact these instruments are changing, transient, and therefore impermanent. They depend on not noticing the One that supports them. If that One is seen, it’s like a magician whose trick is seen through, or the cartoon coyote who, having walked over a cliff and gone 100 steps, suddenly looks down and falls. Instantly the suspension of disbelief is gone.
Again, this is because the seeing and the seen depend on there being a boundary between the me (the seer) and not-me. If there was no boundary, or distance, between me and something else, I could never say I saw it. But the me that this depends on is itself an ‘in here,’ me, small, atomic, indivisible — the ego. It assumes to itself the glory of the light of the One which it merely reflects. Like a candle next to the Sun, as soon as we see the Sun, the candle becomes invisible. Once the me cannot stand, the not-me (the seen and the act of seeing) cannot stand either. They exist only if the seer exists.
So if we turn attention inward away from the changing objects looking for the One, the usual trio of division falls away. Those who see and understand this are the ones who are truly realized. They are never in doubt, because the mind is the instrument of doubt, and that instrument is only credited if the One is not seen.
At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here.