“The timeless non-state cannot be achieved because the mind cannot evolve towards it. The mind can only bring you to the threshold. Awakening comes unexpectedly when you do not wait for it, when you live in not-knowing. Only then are you available.”
~Jean Klein
Realization is beyond words and, ultimately, beyond the mind, though it (and what is referred to by its equivalent terms, awakening and enlightenment) first occurs in the mind, an apparently individual mind. Mystery of the timeless descending, as it were, into time, of the unmanifest becoming manifested, of the limitless appearing to be limited. Words, concepts, are unavoidable and, in this context, ‘experience’ and ‘knowledge’, are irreplaceable (experience-knowledge as one description of the ‘event’ – chit?). Consciousness, being the ultimate witness, sums it all up and, in itself, is not a concept. It does not admit of a description and is not relational.
I have a few questions on the concept and origin of the term akhaNDAkAra vRRitti. Will be grateful for any contribution and thoughts on my dobuts.
1. Does the term “akhaNDAkAra vRRitti” appear in any major upanishads or Bhagavad-Gita? If so, where (citation)?
2. Where and by whom was the term “akhaNDAkAra vRRitti” introduced for the first time in Advaita?
3. Is the concept “akhaNDAkAra vRRitti” an attempt to extend the process of ‘Object cognition’ by the mind as explained in Vedanta Paribhasha to the stage of Self-realization?
4. Does it occur prior to (and hence causal to) Self-realization or is the term “akhaNDAkAra vRRitti” a post hoc explanation of a presumed process that might have occurred in the mind on Self-realization?
5. Does the term have a practical utility for a seeker as a sAdhana tool? If so how?
Thanks and regards,
There is a very evolved state of realization that can easily be mistaken for the final realization brought about by akhaNDAkAra vRRitti. I do not mean the often mentioned state of samAdhi that also tends to be mistaken for enlightenment. What I am talking about is less spectacular than samAdhi. In my experience with Western students and friends, there is one moment in which an almost complete recognition of the true nature of oneness takes place. From that moment onwards, the general outlook of the person will change: suffering is going to diminish considerably and the person knows what it is that is actually sought by people asking the question “Who am I?”. He/she recognizes what is talked of in the scriptures as Truth. Continue reading
Akhandakara vritti is, in psychological terms, the certainty that ends all doubts, the moment of realization which happens in timeless time. Ontologically, reality irrupts, as it were, into unreality, whereby the mind is transformed, or re absorbed, into consciousness unalloyed. Prior to that atemporal moment there may have been momentary sparks or instances of awakening or clear vision, anubhavas. But the realization that akhandakara writti consists of is definitive, irrecusable. Three aspects of reality combine in that ‘moment’: power-will-fearlessness (sat), Knowledge (chit), and liberation, freedom (ananda). A symbol of it would be spacelessness (or wide space).
In some characters there is perhaps a sudden recognition of the true nature as oneness, and then – maybe, but not invariably – there might be a blissfullness associated with that, a kind of exaggerated relief at the release of tension. More commonly, because the seeing through of the ‘someone’ in the play has been gradual, there has been a gradual release of the tension associated with being a ‘someone’. And so there isn’t much tension hanging around anyway – therefore there isn’t necessarily any kind of great blissful release.
Already Awake, Nathan Gill, Non-Duality Press, 2004, ISBN: 0954779223. Buy from Amazon US, Buy from Amazon UK. Read Extract.
I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention,
I become the very thing I look at,
and experience the kind of consciousness it has;
I become the inner witness of the thing.
I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness, love;
you may give it any name you like.
Love says “I am everything”. Wisdom says “I am nothing”.
Between the two, my life flows.
Since at any point of time and space I can be both
the subject and the object of experience,
I express it by saying that I am
both, and neither, and beyond both.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
http://mysticson.blogspot.de/2010/04/focus-of-attention.html
“Attending to the Self means attending to the work. Because you identify yourself with the body, you think that work is done by you. But the body and its activities, including that work, are not apart from the Self. What does it matter whether you attend to the work or not? When you walk from one place to another you do not attend to the steps you take and yet you find yourself after a time at your goal. You see how the business of walking goes on without your attending to it. So also with other kinds of work.” Ramana Maharshi
Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, David Godman, Arkana,
ISBN: 0140190627. Buy from Amazon US, Buy from Amazon UK
Eskimo story — In the eternal darkness, the crow, unable to find any food, longed for light, and the earth was illumined.If there is a real desire, if the thing desired is really light , the desire for light produces it. There is a real desire when there is an effort of attention.
Arise, awake, and learn by approaching the excellent ones. The wise ones describe that path to be as impassable as a razor’s edge, which, when sharpened, is difficult to tread on.
Katha Upanishad 1,2,15
photo credits: Karl-Heinz Laube@pixelio.de