Tagged: dualism
Is Consciousness fixed ? Question by a Brahma Kumaris follower
“(“Souls come down here to play a part. The part is of 84 births. You play all-round parts. This drama is predestined. Everyone has his own imperishable part within him that can never be erased. You will continue to experience 84 births.”) Sir what I understand from above lines is that in every ‘Yug’ whatever part or role we play is prefixed and we play this part or role according to our state of consciousness (soul conscious or body conscious state). For e.g. like when a director gives a role to an actor/actress, that actor plays it according to his own capability, strength & qualities….Does it mean that in Golden & silver age we are more of soul conscious & near to God (means Godlike) we play that role perfect but in Copper & Iron age we are more of body conscious this is why we are suffering so much? means we didn’t play that role perfectly and thus our karma became vikarm. Every time we played that fixed role it means our state of consciousness is also fixed??? Plz explain this i am confuse… 🙂 “
Dear reader,
Thank you for your question!
To understand the above with greater depth, I hope that you realize that dualistic language will make things hard to grasp.
It is an experience. It has to happen in your awareness for you to see it, otherwise you will remain confused with only intellectual information, concepts, reasoning, logic, all of that.
Consciousness is not fixed. Consciousness is. There can be less or more consciousness accordingly in life. Those are called “roles” in life.
When avyakt7 says : “you,” he is not referring to you as part of existence, but you as a concept, something separated from the rest when there is truly no separation.
“You” as what you think that you are…. doesn’t exist.” It is an illusion, Maya.
Forget concepts, definitions… those will only increase that sense of “I.”
This eternal movie plays through “you” but “you” truly don’t exist. 🙂 You are part of that movie. There is just eternal consciousness, once “you” experience that, all your troubles about understanding beliefs and dualistic thought will be over.
Consciousness is the movie.
Descartes said:” I think therefore I am.” That just shows basic consciousness.
“I am, therefore; I am not;” has way more validity.
When you are consciously aware of yourself, that is when you observe yourself; (when you remember God alone in your belief system) then you will see that there is a consciousness of “I” appearing where there was none before. From that point, “I” against the world became alive. That is suffering. That “I” is known as ego.
In this movie of life, if your consciousness is able to discern that you are not the role being played through you, that is when the dreamer realizes that everything is just a dream. From that moment you will start enjoying the dream as something to experience. Then, you will be a “detached observer.” Then you will perform “neutral” karma, then you will be “soul conscious,” then you will be “illuminated,” then the “I” from ego will not bet there, so you will be “egoless,” then you will have “all relationships with the Father,” then you will be “equal to God.” You will be beyond duality.
How?
Because “you” are not there. 🙂
At this point the concepts of predestination or free will, do not have any meaning. Concepts of time and “yugs” are meaningless.
If “you” are there, then you will experience duality and with that suffering and pleasure, because there is a center, this “I” which feels separated from everything else and rejects one side of duality to pursue the other.
The above is Brahma Kumaris knowledge in its depth. It is also Buddhism, Taoism and Zen in a nutshell.
Best wishes!
Are you a dog or a cat? :-)
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0ljWFe0BiY]
From one of my favorite cartoons of all time, “Top Cat.”
This is exactly what a belief is. You may think that you are a “dog” until someone else tells you that you are a “cat” and then you believe in that as “the truth.” That “truth” may come out of an interpreted experience, an intellectual reason, an opinion from someone up in the hierarchy, etc.
The amazing part is that we usually thrive in telling ourselves stories to believe about ourselves. Usually those stories have a negative connotation: “I am not good,” “I can’t do it,” etc. However, even if those stories have a “good” message to subliminally believe in; the fact is that those are beliefs.
Avyakt7 is not saying that those beliefs are “bad or good;” but just is pointing out the need to realize that those ideas are beliefs.
To be a cat means to close the opportunity of being a dog. Someone who is not caught up with labels and mental duality, will be a dog when there is a need to be one. The same one, will be a cat, when time and circumstances require that, just as “Top Cat” showed us in the cartoon.
When we go beyond that labeling, which many times is needed to deal with the world and the “normal” people accustomed to label each other, then there is a chance to know who we are without labels.
In that knowing there is no need to believe but just to be.
“To the ordinary person, the body of humanity seems vast. In truth, it is neither bigger nor smaller than anything else. To the ordinary person, there are others whose awareness needs raising. In truth, there is no self, and no other. To the ordinary person, the temple is sacred and the field is not. This, too, is a dualism which runs counter to the truth. Those who are highly evolved maintain an undiscriminating perception. Seeing everything, labeling nothing, they maintain their awareness of the Great Oneness. Thus they are supported by it.”
Hua Hu Ching, Ch 19.
Point in Depth: The mystery of Shyam and Sundar
Baba mentioned in today’s Murli (8-8-12) about “explaining to others about Krishna being the beautiful one and the ugly one.”
That is the knowledge of gyan in a nutshell.
Here it goes: We become the 2 extremes and anything in between. The difference between a BK soul and any other soul is this: BK souls are the only ones who experience soul consciousness and that is the reason why BK souls go to the Golden and Silver ages where soul consciousness is the “rule.”
Our “Shyam and Sundar” then is between soul consciousness and body consciousness.
Everything moves between those 2 extremes: “new” and “old,” “creation” and “destruction,” “Rama “and “Ravan,” “Good” and “Evil,” etc.
To know about Shyam and Sundar then is to know the “seed” of gyan.
Therefore, because we will experience both extremes, nothing is wrong, but necessary. Nothing is evil, but needed. Nothing is “personal,” but part of the Drama.
Ego is the one who clings to a particular state, a particular “setup,” a convenient place.
To be in the unlimited means to realize that whether we want it or not, we will keep on “becoming.”
The trick is only known at this time and that is to enjoy the present while knowing about the future.
That is living with wisdom.
Realization, experiences and transformation
In the Avyakt Murli of 11/15/09, Baba explained that “Maya comes to make us experienced.”
It is important to see the full meaning of this. There is no possibility to advance in our spiritual life unless we realize the importance of experiences.
One of the greatest assets of being a BK is that we do not have a textbook to carry around and to refer to. If a teacher gives a class it better be while using the authority of experience; otherwise, we are either repeating what someone else said or using our thoughts to make up a reality which we haven’t experienced. There is no power in that neither much benefit to the listener.
Our experiences dictate our qualifications. I wouldn’t bother to hear a class about “living a good marriage” if it was given by someone who has not experienced being married.
I wouldn’t feel competent to give advice based on Godly knowledge about how to “bring up a kid” unless I had the experience of bringing up a kid myself.
Most of the time, without experiences there are fewer realizations. This does not mean that we need to experience more either. There is no need to engage in sex-lust to “realize” lust in ourselves. The art to balance experiencing and avoiding unnecessary experiences is what makes up wisdom.
The interesting aspect about experiences is that many times we tend to generalize them and use them for everyone. “That Chihuahua chewed my little toe. It is a “bad dog” therefore, all dogs are bad. I must not trust any dog.”
When we do this based on our experience, paradoxically; we close the door to experiencing. Newness is out. The comfortable but suffocating “same old thing” is in. We get bored.
Therefore realizations will happen as long as my “door” to experiencing is open.
There is a difference between realizing something out of the pleasure or pain of an experience (dualism) or to realize something based on Godly knowledge.
Our experiences are limited. If I use my own experiences to advice other people, I am not giving an advice but rather I am trying to affirm my authority in such matters.
The most fortunate aspect of being a BK in my opinion, is the fact that we can experience as long as we are under the “canopy of protection.” (Maryadas) That protection makes a big difference between an ordinary experience which could lead us into experiencing pain and pleasure (dualism) and to obtain a teaching, a lesson a realization and being saved from dualism and bondages.
As a matter of fact, in the laboratory of our own life and experiences we can test and see how Godly knowledge works and through those realizations of putting Godly knowledge through the test in our own life; we can transform ourselves.
A “worldly” so called “normal” experience on the other hand, will not give us the opportunity for transformation of the self, but rather to react based on the pain or pleasure that we have received through a particular experience. As in: “All men are the same. They just like to argue.” Godly knowledge on the other hand recognizes the vice but does not label a person as “argumentative” or a “critic”, because by doing so, automatically we cut off the opportunity for that person to change in our mind. Under those eyes (vision) no matter what that person does, the stigma of being argumentative and critical will be there. This is an experience which does not allow us to experience further and thereby there are no realizations, but “dogma,” close mindedness, traditions, etc. Repetition makes it deeply engrained in our sanskaras , and inner transformation is next to impossible. The meaning of being ‘easy and light’ is not understood.
The same happens when we read the Murli. “Baba said this” not realizing that Baba will say the complete opposite at other times. In that case, we will choose whatever is convenient for us. Baba plays back and forward between the limited and the unlimited, until we have experienced this, we will not be able to realize paradoxes. We will call it then ‘contradictions.’
Transformation happens when our power of realization is not limited by our own thoughts and ideas. It is about understanding that everything is alright, perfect and accurate. That things are neither “good nor bad” (unlimited) but that “it is good to be good” (limited.) To be, to become and to let it be.
Brahma Kumaris Knowledge in a Nutshell: Beyond traditional Western thought
13. Brahma Kumaris gyan in a nutshell for Westerners
Everything that exists has always existed but its form changes in “time.” In other words, “matter cannot be created neither destroyed; only transformed.” (First law of Thermodynamics)
For Westerners this concept requires a “creator.” Things cannot come out of nothing. Someone has to create things. Welcome to the concept of God as a “creator.”
In Brahma Kumaris gyan (BK,) there is no need for a “creator.” (but there is a God who does not create.) Since existence has always existed.
For Westerners, time is linear. For this reason a “Creator” is needed or a “big bang” to originate things (Although the “Big Bang” does not explain how the original elements got there in the first place) to find a “beginning.”
In Brahma Kumaris gyan, time is cyclical and eternally repetitive. There is neither beginning nor end.
Nature presents that pattern already. Day becomes Night then Night becomes Day, and so on, in a repetitive fashion. There is “eternal recurrence.” Therefore, we; human beings cannot be essentially matter (matter changes form after death,) we have to be spiritual in nature for spiritual/immaterial energies are immutable to the changes in matter. Thus, reincarnation is a necessity for existence to continue.
This identical repetition of cycles emerges the concept of “predestination.”
Westerners believe in “free will.” However, there is no realization that all the “gifts”/”weaknesses” when we are born, are not a matter of choice. These characteristics give every human being tools for their own development in life. It is almost as pre-determined.
The concepts of “free will and predestination” however, are faulty for it is neither that thoughts appear out of our own volition or out of compulsion due to some force of destiny. The understanding of paradoxes is important here as well as the understanding of the “movement of life,” which in Brahma Kumaris is known as the “Drama.” this is known in Taoism as the “flow of the Universe.”
The Drama represents the ‘story of life’ in our planet. It is a story representing dualistic forces at play: Day changes into Night. New becomes Old, just to repeat again. There is a process in time. It is the story on how “Yin changes into Yang and Yang into Yin.” These changes are what bring experiences in our lives.
When the Drama is viewed as an individual part, related to a particular soul performing actions; those activities have causality. Which is known as the law of “cause and effect” or karma. When we see “karma” as a totality, we can perceive what the “Drama” of life is.
As population tends to increase, we can realize that not every soul is in this planet at the same time. Therefore; we have different experiences according to the time that we “first” arrived. This easily explains the differences in religious views and understandings. Everyone points to the truth, but not everyone could understand a particular view point other than their own. Many times, our own experience makes up our own’s reality. Every religion has adherents as well as school of philosophies. BK knowledge (when studied in depth) points out that every belief system is the “right one for every individual” because “variety” is the norm at this time. It wasn’t like this always. From variety we go into uniqueness and from uniqueness into variety. Those different degrees of change of quality from one extreme to the other in the experience of matter, is what is commonly known as “entropy.” (Second law of thermodynamics.)
This drama of life is beneficial and “souls” experience the range of duality according to their own capacity. The paradox is that even though we are essentially the same (souls,) we are different. That difference makes different tasks that a “soul” (through a body) could perform at a particular point in time, that is known as a “role” or the “mission” in a particular lifetime.
For a Brahma Kumaris adherent, this explanation is the “proof of God,” for even though several philosophies/religions have touched different aspects of the above explanation, no one was able to put this together. The primary questions of Who am I? What am I doing here? Where do I go? have remained a mystery.
Those questions are finally answered within the premises of its own knowledge. It has a supportive basis within its philosophy and the experiential part, in its practice. Brahma Kumaris philosophy is 100% experiential. It is the study of the self to know everything else.
The understanding of the above is not something easily “digestible” for an analytical mind (usually westerners) for many concepts are highly paradoxical and contradictive, ( for things are not “black or white” but there is a range of colors in between which labels and definitions cannot describe.)
The “truth” is not logical nor reasonable but highly paradoxical. It can only be experienced but not talked about. That is the challenge! 🙂
Exploring the Depth of Living 