If you really want it, awakening is dead simple

What is awakening/enlightenment? It is the destruction of the false belief that you are a thinking, experiencing, doing person. When this happens, you live in your true nature, which is inexpressible, perfect, stainless, and unchanging. Actually, these last couple of sentences are not quite accurate, since the real truth is beyond words, but they are accurate enough.

If you have a strong, unconflicted desire to awaken, the steps are very simple.

Either self-inquire or ignore all thought.

Self-inquiry means trying to locate the self-evident knowledge that you have that "I am," (that is, the source of awareness) and not accepting any particular sensation, thought, or feeling as it -- because the "I am" is aware of all these things. Simply focus on trying to find the real I am at all times. How do you do that? Every time you think the word "I," a bell chimes somewhere. Follow, as best you can, the sound of that bell. If you think you've found it, you haven't. Keep looking until there is clarity. If you have to ask whether there is clarity, there isn't.

Ignoring all thought (also known as surrender) is exactly what it sounds like. It's the simplest way of all. It's not about stopping or fighting thought. It's about moving your attention away from it. The TV could be on, but you could refuse to pay attention. Refuse to pay attention to thought. All thought. Repeat till clarity.

Either self-inquire or ignore all thought every waking moment. If you "lose it," come back to it. Keep doing that until there is clarity. If you do it intensely, clarity will come. Again, if you have to ask whether there is clarity, there isn't.

That is all it takes to awaken.

Now if you do not have an unconflicted desire to awaken (this will become apparent if you have low motivation to do the above practices, or you keep getting seriously distracted by various other things), you can strengthen it by getting an intellectual framework around the awakening process (through asking questions of a teacher, scriptures, etc.) and by dealing with your emotional baggage (this comes to being more honest about what you want -- psychoanalytic psychotherapy and artistic expression of your feelings can be very helpful).

On the lack of free will and its abuse

I recently re-read an interesting passage from Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi today:

Talk 190:

There is a pet squirrel in the hall which usually retires into its cage before nightfall. Just as Maharshi was telling it to retire for the night a visitor who had announced that he had attained the transcendent consciousness suggested that water might be offered to it, since it was likely to be thirsty on this hot evening. His presumption to understand animals evoked no response. He repeated it. After a few minutes’ silence Maharshi said, “You are probably thirsty after your long meditation in the hot Sun on the hotter rocks and you would like to drink a jug of water.”

D.: Quite so. I have taken water.

M.: The squirrel is not so thirsty. Because you were practising austerities in the heat of the Sun you should feel thirsty. Why prescribe it for the squirrel?

Maharshi added: I noticed him standing on the hot rocks facing the Sun with eyes closed. I stood there for a while but did not want to disturb him and came away. These people do as they please.

D.: What I did, I did not intend beforehand. It was spontaneous. 

M.: Oh! I see! Whatever we others do, we do with intention! You seem to have transcended all!

D.: This is not the first time I did so. You yourself inspire me and make me do all these things. Yet you ask me why I did it. How is it?

M.: I see. You are doing actions being controlled by me. Then the fruits also should be considered similarly to be mine and not yours.

D.: So they are undoubtedly. I act not of my free will but inspired by you. I have no will of my own.

M.: Enough of this rubbish! So did Duryodhana of old (in the Mahabharata) say:

janami dharmam nacha me pravrittih, 

janamyadharmam nacha me nivrittih. 

kenapi devana hridi sthitena

yatha niyuktosmitatha karomi.

[I know what is dharma, yet I cannot get myself to follow it! I know what is adharma, yet I cannot retire from it! O Lord of the senses! You dwelt in my heart and I will do as you impel me to do.]

What is the difference between you two?

D.: I see no difference. But I have no will and act without it.

M.: You have risen high above the common run. We others are acting with personal will.

D.: How, Sir? You have said in one of your works that action can be automatic.

M.: Enough! Enough! You and another visitor behave as transcendental beings! You are both fully learned. You need not learn more. I would not have said all this had you not been coming here frequently. Do as you please. But these eccentricities of the beginner’s stage will become known in their true light after some time.

D.: But I have been in this state for such a long time. 

M.: Enough!

What Duryodhana says is highly reminiscent of Romans 7:19 (“For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.”), as well as of the fact that in the Old Testament, Pharaoh often is on the verge of letting the Israelites go, but God hardens his heart… why? So that “my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt.” (Exodus 11:9). Wow, what a motive for hardening someone’s heart!

Anyhow, free will — for most things — clearly does not exist… it’s confirmed by the Bhagavad Gita (18:60-61)… human beings are simply pieces on a machine whirled around by God. And Maharshi himself says “If the mind is worried over what befalls us, or what has been committed or omitted by us, it is wise to give up the sense of responsibility and free-will, by regarding ourselves as the ordained instruments of the All-Wise and the All-Powerful, to do and suffer as He pleases” and also, the body “is designed for doing the various things marked out for execution in this life. The whole programme is chalked out. ‘(Not an atom moves except by His Will) expresses the same truth, whether you say” that it “does not move except by His Will” or that it “does not move except by karma.” [i.e. cause and effect]

So what might be the exception? Well, Maharshi says, a seeker is “always free not to identify himself with the body and not to be affected by the pleasures or pains consequent on the body’s activities.” That’s a healthy thing for a seeker to think. Technically, of course, even the desire to escape identification with the body and mind is an act of God’s grace.

And at the same time, in a sense the real truth is not that there is no free will, but that free will and destiny (or God’s will, call it what you will) are two sides of a coin that the Truth is beyond. The real truth is that neither free will nor its absence is true; the real truth is beyond concepts entirely.

Now all that said, there is a matter of contexts. If one talks as if there are people and events, then in that manner of speaking, there is volition. There is no real difference between the spontaneous and intentional. To the one who knows, everything is spontaneous, including intentions.

And there is nothing about regarding everything as spontaneous that makes for a ‘get out of jail free’ card for the results of one’s actions. And if you lack free will, then certainly others lack it too, and in punishing or criticizing you, they too could simply say — “Don’t look at me, I didn’t do this with any free will.”

So given all this, what is Maharshi’s criticism of the visitor really about?

A sage could say that they are driven by the divine will, but a sage wouldn’t say it in this context. This is merely pride or vanity dressing itself up in the spiritual garb. One knows that because of the surrounding actions and attitudes — because of the seeming desire for the person to show how spiritual they are.

Maharshi, for examples, quotes Gandhi as saying in a letter to his friend that he is not thinking, that he is simply acting, and that God’s purpose is being fulfilled this way. But Gandhi says this not as a way of boasting but as a means of expressing humble wonder.

If there were arguments brought up against what Gandhi did, or moral accusations against him, he’d never use the “I wasn’t thinking“ or “I lack free will” excuse. He would recognize that unconscious intentions might be selfish and could have driven him in certain ways, and would have tried to correct those deficiencies. Even if he did things without thinking, he would still take moral responsibility — because the one who would avoid or take moral responsibility is in a sense the doer, equipped with free will! The real surrender, the real understanding of a lack of free will, is that one is not that person, not that that person lacks free will.

A lack of free will is not a lack of will. Free will is a theory about cause and effect; will is simply the instrument by which a human does things consciously. 

Nor is a lack of free will is a lack of intentions. And when using a lack of free will to show how one is superior — that’s self-deception and suspect.

In the context here, vanity is at stake. The visitor had announced he had obtained the  transcendent consciousness. That, first off, is not something that can be ‘obtained’ and wouldn’t usually be announced in this way. The visitor had stood, very visibly, on the hot rocks in the Sun to show everyone else how spiritual they were. He asked for the water for the squirrel loudly, repeatedly, again to demonstrate his importance and his spiritual insights. And when he was called on these boastful intentions, he retreated — denied his own agency and intentions — and attributed his actions to God/Maharshi, so that he could avoid self-reflection and make himself seem great.

So there’s a self-deceptive vanity at play, which is an obstacle to a seeker, and which Maharshi tried to point out. It’s an abuse of the “lack of free will” concept to protect the idea of the individual self as doer and experiencer. The one who really felt surrendered wouldn’t get caught up in this kind and level of self-deception. 

Self-inquiry just means attempting to focus on the movie screen and not the image on it

People often think self-inquiry as a technique to spiritual awakening requires asking of every thought “to whom does this occur?” That might be ok at the very start, but very quickly it becomes unnecessary. Just re-focus your attention on the background on which all these thoughts, emotions, and perceptions occur.

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