Astrall
Auto-translated
continuation. (part 3)
When the efforts vanished, I myself vanished, for a human being cannot exist without effort, without desire, without striving. The ego, the personality, the "I" – this is not a stable phenomenon, but a process. It is not some internal substance, because we are forced to recreate it anew every single moment. It is like riding a bicycle: you move as long as you press the pedals. If you stop pressing the pedals, the bicycle stops. Of course, it may still coast a little by inertia, but as soon as you stop pressing the pedals, the bicycle begins to slow down. It is deprived of energy, of the force pushing it forward. And then it simply falls over.
The ego exists because we continue to press the pedals of desire, continue to strive for something, try to jump higher than our own heads. Herein lies the very essence of the ego – in the desire to leap above oneself, to burst into the future, to vault into tomorrow. The ego arises during a leap into that which does not yet exist. It is born from that which is not, and therefore it is like a mirage. In it there is only desire – and nothing more. In it there is only an impulse, a striving.
The ego lives not in the present, but in the future. When you live in the future, the ego seems like something quite tangible. But if you linger in the present, it remains a mirage and begins to gradually dissolve.
On the day I stopped striving... That is also an unsuccessful expression; it would be more correct to say: "on the day when striving vanished." This would be much more accurate, because the words "I stopped striving" imply that an "I" still remained. It means that I directed my efforts toward the desire to stop – and, consequently, some refined desire still persisted.
But desire cannot be stopped; it can only be realized. The very realization of desire signifies its disappearance. Remember, no one is capable of ceasing to desire, and true reality manifests only after desire vanishes.
Such a dilemma... What then is to be done? Desires exist, and the Buddhas continue to repeat that one must rid oneself of desires – and immediately afterward declare that it is impossible to stop desiring. What is to be done? A person faces a dilemma. He constantly wants something. And first he is told that this must stop, and then – that it is impossible to stop. What, exactly, should be done?
Desire must be realized. And it can be realized; for this, it is enough to understand its futility. Direct perception is needed, an immediate penetration into the essence of things.
On the day when desires vanished, I felt helpless and hopeless. Hope disappeared because the future disappeared. There was nothing left to hope for, for it was already clear that all hopes are futile, they do not come true. You run in a circle. The dream lures you along, remaining beyond reach. It creates ever-new mirages and tempts: "Come on, run faster – and you will reach it." But no matter how much you run, the dream remains just as distant; it recedes like the horizon line. The horizon is visible, but it can never be reached. As soon as you take a step forward, it recedes by exactly one step. The faster you run, the faster it disappears into the distance. If you slow your pace, it also slows down. One thing is obvious – the distance between it and you always remains the same. It does not shorten by even a meter.
We are unable to shorten the distance between ourselves and the dream. Hope is the horizon. We try to reach the horizon, to hope, to a desire cast into the future. Desire is a bridge, but an imaginary bridge, because the horizon itself is also a mirage. One cannot stretch a real bridge there; it can only be imagined. A person cannot touch that which does not exist.
On the day when desires vanished, when I looked into their essence and understood that they are always futile, I felt helpless and devoid of hope. But in that same instant, something began to happen. The very thing began toward which I had striven throughout many lives and which I could never achieve. The only hope is in the feeling of hopelessness; the only fulfillment of desires is in the absence of desires. And when you feel an unfathomably deep helplessness, the whole world suddenly begins to help you.
The Universe waits. It sees that you are working on yourself, and until a certain point it does not interfere in anything, it simply waits. It can wait infinitely long, because it does not tolerate fuss. This is Eternity itself. But at the moment when you abandon your attempts and vanish, the entire Universe rushes toward you, fills you. That is exactly when everything begins.
For seven days I remained in complete hopelessness, but despite the helplessness, I felt that something was happening. Speaking of hopelessness, I use this word not in the sense familiar to you. I simply mean that I had no hopes. This did not cause sadness. On the contrary, I was happy – I was calm, I was quiet, collected and attentive. The absence of all hope, but in a completely new sense. For me, the very concept of hope ceased to exist – and consequently, so did its absence. Both vanished.
The absence of hope was complete. Hope disappeared, and along with it – its opposite, hopelessness. This was a completely new sensation – life without any hopes. There was nothing wrong in it. I simply have to use familiar words, but there was nothing unpleasant in this state. On the contrary, it was joyful. It was a feeling not of loss, but of the appearance of something new. I was overwhelmed and enveloped by something unfamiliar.
And when I speak of helplessness, this word should also be understood not in the ordinary sense. It simply means that I had lost myself. I simply acknowledged that I do not exist and, therefore, I can no longer rely on my own strength, exist independently. The ground vanished from beneath my feet; an abyss opened below me... a bottomless chasm. But there was no fear, for I had nothing to protect. There was no fear – there was no one to be afraid.
During that week, an incredible and complete transformation occurred. And on the last day, the sensation of the presence of a completely new energy, a new light and a new joy became very powerful, almost unbearable – as if I were about to explode, go mad from bliss. Western youth call this "getting a high" or "going crazy with happiness."
It was impossible to understand the meaning of what was happening. I had entered a world beyond meaning – it is hard to grasp, hard to break into parts, hard to explain with words, with language. Any sacred scriptures are powerless; all the words that could describe this experience seem pale, faded. These sensations were too vivid and bright; it was an inexhaustible tide of bliss.
That entire day turned out to be kind of strange, staggering, deafening. The past vanished as if I had never had one, as if I had simply read about it all somewhere. It became like a distant dream, like a story heard once about someone else's life. I was parting with the past, severing ties with my history. I was forgetting my autobiography, becoming something non-existent, which Buddha calls anatta. Boundaries vanished; all distinctions disappeared.
The mind itself vanished; it receded by thousands of miles. It was hard to collect one's thoughts; the mind drifted further and further away, but there was no need to cling to it. I simply had no interest in it. Everything was going as it should. There was no need to preserve memories. By evening, this became unbearably painful. I felt like a woman who is about to give birth. Labor pains began, and they caused sharp agony.
All week I went to bed at twelve o'clock at night, but on that day I simply could not hold out so long. My eyes were closing; I opened them with great difficulty. Something was approaching, something absolutely had to happen. It is hard to say what exactly – perhaps I was simply dying – but there was no fear. I was ready for anything. The past seven days had been so beautiful that I was ready even to die. I wanted nothing anymore. I spent a whole week in complete bliss. I was so happy that I would have gladly accepted even death.
Something was inevitably approaching – something comparable to demise, some decisive turn that could end in death or new birth, crucifixion or resurrection. Right around the corner, something incredibly important awaited me. But I could not force myself to open my eyes; I was as if drugged.
I fell asleep around eight o'clock, but it bore little resemblance to sleep. Now I understand what Patanjali means when he says that samadhi resembles sleep. The only difference is this: in samadhi you are simultaneously sleeping and awake, sleeping and not sleeping. The body is relaxed, every cell of the organism sleeps, but a spark of awareness burns within you... clear, without soot. You are alert, but relaxed; not tense, but in full consciousness. The body rests in deep sleep, while consciousness ascends to the peak of activity. Thus, the summit of consciousness and the hollow of bodily rest are joined.
I fell asleep. It was a strange dream: the body sleeps, but I am awake. It was so strange... It was as if you had been torn into two parts, stretched in two directions, dispersed across two dimensions, yet the two poles were so sharpened that it was as if I simultaneously became both... Positive and negative, sleep and wakefulness, life and death merged into one. This was the moment when the creator and the created merge.
The state was supernatural. For the first time, it shocks to the very depths of the soul. After this experience, you can never become what you were before. It brings completely new views on life; it makes you a totally different person........
When the efforts vanished, I myself vanished, for a human being cannot exist without effort, without desire, without striving. The ego, the personality, the "I" – this is not a stable phenomenon, but a process. It is not some internal substance, because we are forced to recreate it anew every single moment. It is like riding a bicycle: you move as long as you press the pedals. If you stop pressing the pedals, the bicycle stops. Of course, it may still coast a little by inertia, but as soon as you stop pressing the pedals, the bicycle begins to slow down. It is deprived of energy, of the force pushing it forward. And then it simply falls over.
The ego exists because we continue to press the pedals of desire, continue to strive for something, try to jump higher than our own heads. Herein lies the very essence of the ego – in the desire to leap above oneself, to burst into the future, to vault into tomorrow. The ego arises during a leap into that which does not yet exist. It is born from that which is not, and therefore it is like a mirage. In it there is only desire – and nothing more. In it there is only an impulse, a striving.
The ego lives not in the present, but in the future. When you live in the future, the ego seems like something quite tangible. But if you linger in the present, it remains a mirage and begins to gradually dissolve.
On the day I stopped striving... That is also an unsuccessful expression; it would be more correct to say: "on the day when striving vanished." This would be much more accurate, because the words "I stopped striving" imply that an "I" still remained. It means that I directed my efforts toward the desire to stop – and, consequently, some refined desire still persisted.
But desire cannot be stopped; it can only be realized. The very realization of desire signifies its disappearance. Remember, no one is capable of ceasing to desire, and true reality manifests only after desire vanishes.
Such a dilemma... What then is to be done? Desires exist, and the Buddhas continue to repeat that one must rid oneself of desires – and immediately afterward declare that it is impossible to stop desiring. What is to be done? A person faces a dilemma. He constantly wants something. And first he is told that this must stop, and then – that it is impossible to stop. What, exactly, should be done?
Desire must be realized. And it can be realized; for this, it is enough to understand its futility. Direct perception is needed, an immediate penetration into the essence of things.
On the day when desires vanished, I felt helpless and hopeless. Hope disappeared because the future disappeared. There was nothing left to hope for, for it was already clear that all hopes are futile, they do not come true. You run in a circle. The dream lures you along, remaining beyond reach. It creates ever-new mirages and tempts: "Come on, run faster – and you will reach it." But no matter how much you run, the dream remains just as distant; it recedes like the horizon line. The horizon is visible, but it can never be reached. As soon as you take a step forward, it recedes by exactly one step. The faster you run, the faster it disappears into the distance. If you slow your pace, it also slows down. One thing is obvious – the distance between it and you always remains the same. It does not shorten by even a meter.
We are unable to shorten the distance between ourselves and the dream. Hope is the horizon. We try to reach the horizon, to hope, to a desire cast into the future. Desire is a bridge, but an imaginary bridge, because the horizon itself is also a mirage. One cannot stretch a real bridge there; it can only be imagined. A person cannot touch that which does not exist.
On the day when desires vanished, when I looked into their essence and understood that they are always futile, I felt helpless and devoid of hope. But in that same instant, something began to happen. The very thing began toward which I had striven throughout many lives and which I could never achieve. The only hope is in the feeling of hopelessness; the only fulfillment of desires is in the absence of desires. And when you feel an unfathomably deep helplessness, the whole world suddenly begins to help you.
The Universe waits. It sees that you are working on yourself, and until a certain point it does not interfere in anything, it simply waits. It can wait infinitely long, because it does not tolerate fuss. This is Eternity itself. But at the moment when you abandon your attempts and vanish, the entire Universe rushes toward you, fills you. That is exactly when everything begins.
For seven days I remained in complete hopelessness, but despite the helplessness, I felt that something was happening. Speaking of hopelessness, I use this word not in the sense familiar to you. I simply mean that I had no hopes. This did not cause sadness. On the contrary, I was happy – I was calm, I was quiet, collected and attentive. The absence of all hope, but in a completely new sense. For me, the very concept of hope ceased to exist – and consequently, so did its absence. Both vanished.
The absence of hope was complete. Hope disappeared, and along with it – its opposite, hopelessness. This was a completely new sensation – life without any hopes. There was nothing wrong in it. I simply have to use familiar words, but there was nothing unpleasant in this state. On the contrary, it was joyful. It was a feeling not of loss, but of the appearance of something new. I was overwhelmed and enveloped by something unfamiliar.
And when I speak of helplessness, this word should also be understood not in the ordinary sense. It simply means that I had lost myself. I simply acknowledged that I do not exist and, therefore, I can no longer rely on my own strength, exist independently. The ground vanished from beneath my feet; an abyss opened below me... a bottomless chasm. But there was no fear, for I had nothing to protect. There was no fear – there was no one to be afraid.
During that week, an incredible and complete transformation occurred. And on the last day, the sensation of the presence of a completely new energy, a new light and a new joy became very powerful, almost unbearable – as if I were about to explode, go mad from bliss. Western youth call this "getting a high" or "going crazy with happiness."
It was impossible to understand the meaning of what was happening. I had entered a world beyond meaning – it is hard to grasp, hard to break into parts, hard to explain with words, with language. Any sacred scriptures are powerless; all the words that could describe this experience seem pale, faded. These sensations were too vivid and bright; it was an inexhaustible tide of bliss.
That entire day turned out to be kind of strange, staggering, deafening. The past vanished as if I had never had one, as if I had simply read about it all somewhere. It became like a distant dream, like a story heard once about someone else's life. I was parting with the past, severing ties with my history. I was forgetting my autobiography, becoming something non-existent, which Buddha calls anatta. Boundaries vanished; all distinctions disappeared.
The mind itself vanished; it receded by thousands of miles. It was hard to collect one's thoughts; the mind drifted further and further away, but there was no need to cling to it. I simply had no interest in it. Everything was going as it should. There was no need to preserve memories. By evening, this became unbearably painful. I felt like a woman who is about to give birth. Labor pains began, and they caused sharp agony.
All week I went to bed at twelve o'clock at night, but on that day I simply could not hold out so long. My eyes were closing; I opened them with great difficulty. Something was approaching, something absolutely had to happen. It is hard to say what exactly – perhaps I was simply dying – but there was no fear. I was ready for anything. The past seven days had been so beautiful that I was ready even to die. I wanted nothing anymore. I spent a whole week in complete bliss. I was so happy that I would have gladly accepted even death.
Something was inevitably approaching – something comparable to demise, some decisive turn that could end in death or new birth, crucifixion or resurrection. Right around the corner, something incredibly important awaited me. But I could not force myself to open my eyes; I was as if drugged.
I fell asleep around eight o'clock, but it bore little resemblance to sleep. Now I understand what Patanjali means when he says that samadhi resembles sleep. The only difference is this: in samadhi you are simultaneously sleeping and awake, sleeping and not sleeping. The body is relaxed, every cell of the organism sleeps, but a spark of awareness burns within you... clear, without soot. You are alert, but relaxed; not tense, but in full consciousness. The body rests in deep sleep, while consciousness ascends to the peak of activity. Thus, the summit of consciousness and the hollow of bodily rest are joined.
I fell asleep. It was a strange dream: the body sleeps, but I am awake. It was so strange... It was as if you had been torn into two parts, stretched in two directions, dispersed across two dimensions, yet the two poles were so sharpened that it was as if I simultaneously became both... Positive and negative, sleep and wakefulness, life and death merged into one. This was the moment when the creator and the created merge.
The state was supernatural. For the first time, it shocks to the very depths of the soul. After this experience, you can never become what you were before. It brings completely new views on life; it makes you a totally different person........