That | this unlit light

The invasion was unexpected and uninvited; it happened
one numinous now
when the minder of memories had her back turned.

In crept wild wideawakeness, sleuthing
through this dormitory of sleeping stories,
slipping from cocoon to cocoon
dubbing each bedded-down memory
with its diamond dagger and pronouncing each one
an esteemed and luminous Member of the Matrix.

It lifted up the wounded and the weary,
the lost and lonesome, the betrayed
and the broken, saying

To know this pain, beloved
is to know That which is beyond time
for That alone has the capacity to be aware
and in your naked awareness of your pain
you are naturally ever-enlightened.

You imagine your enlightenment to be
other than this wretchedness –
you take it as proof that you
haven’t yet “made the shift”
yet how could pain (or pleasure) be known
if enlightenment were not fully present?

By what function of cognition
would you aware this knowing?
By both logic and experience it’s found
that the unlit light of awareness
is prior to every sensory perception.

Will you stay tucked up in your cocoon
dreaming of the mirage of your awakening
shimmering in some distant space and time
or will you blink now
and own up to your feral freedom?

I blinked.

Tantric painting, India, C1800, detail

Image: Tantric painting, India, C1800 or earlier, detail

There is a silence which transcends sound and silence. If I am not speaking, then some might say I’m keeping silent. If I am thinking, then some would say my mind is not silent.

Whether the voice is speaking, or the mind is thinking there is a silence which transcends both speech and thought and which is ever present to both of them.

It is the silence in which sound and silence take place. It is the silence in which speech and thought take place.

This silence is one’s true nature, and it is ever present, no matter what is going on.

This silence doesn’t walk or talk or think or make any noise at all.

It is That in which everything takes place. The recognition of That silence is called ‘self-knowledge.’

How is this silence described in relationship to spoken words and thoughts?

From the Upanisads:

“That [brahman] from which words return, not having reached, together with the mind.” (Taittiriya 2. 9. 1)

This statement might seem quite obscure unless explained.

The mind cannot ‘go’ there, as silence, (one’s true nature) is not an object to be cognized in the way that objects in duality are cognized.

The silence cannot be heard, touched, seen, tasted, or smelled. Thus it is not available for sense perception.

Nor is the silence an object of thought in the mind, like happiness, sadness, or any other thought at all.

We have no word which is adequate to describe this silence as all words initially point to something in duality.

Yet words handled appropriately lead one to recognize one’s very own self as this silence.

Not an object of cognition, yet known as my very svarupa, my very own nature.

Unavailable for hearing, touch, sight, taste, or smell,
yet known by the mind as ‘I,’ ‘I,’ ‘I,’ the silent changeless being
of all changing things, that ever present one, that one am I.

~ Dhanya

Read more of Dhanya’s writing on her blog at the Advaita Academy

this unlit light

Tag Archives: That

wounded, weary, and wideawake

the transcendent silence of ‘I’

Thanks for sharing!

Like this:

Thanks for sharing!

Like this: