Advaita Vision

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Advaita for the 21st Century

Eliminating Suffering
David Spero

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David Spero

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The following is the transcription of a talk given in Palm Springs, California on 24th February, 2009.

Moderator: Another viewer says, 'When I sit here with you, I experience tremendous Love and Bliss. What is your teaching for bringing this more completely into moment-to-moment life, in which I am experiencing much suffering?'

David: I would say, try to alleviate the suffering that you can alleviate, in the waking state, with the waking state mind. If there is a perceptible solution to a problem that exists in the waking state, find it. You might have to discover it. You might have to research to find out what the solution is. All that can be done is in the waking state and that is one form of eradicating suffering - the suffering that has causes attached to it.

There's another kind of suffering, which is just that you exist. There's a suffering built into separation, that separation itself produces, a relentless and subtle form of friction, which is felt as suffering. That suffering can only be dissipated through meditation and communing with Reality, communing also with the Enlightened Mind, with the Mind that is Light.

So just to sum up, you can adjust your life in certain ways to eradicate the forms of suffering that are caused, the relative forms of suffering. There's a non-relative form of suffering known as the 'me', the 'I'. The only way to dissolve the 'me' or the 'I' is to come into communion with a form of the Transcendent Consciousness. That confrontation will ease the impact of the 'I' and dissolve its solidity. As the solidity dissolves and falls away, you will come into the primordial memory of your own Bliss-Awareness.

Now don't get confused when I use the word 'Bliss'. I don't mean a hyper-emotional state. I don't mean an exaggerated emotional condition, as what you see in certain religious traditions. When I use the word 'Bliss', it's synonymous with Consciousness, with Pure Consciousness, with the Absolute. I say it's Bliss because, for me, it is connected with the complete eradication of sorrow. That's how I have come to understand it. So rather than merely call it 'the Absolute', even though it is Absolute, I prefer to call it Bliss, because of its ability to dissolve the suffering characteristic of the 'I'.

Moderator: 'Before I met you, my ego seemed to be the inner core. I could bring peace, but it would go away. Now there is a switch. Inner peace is at the core.'

David: This is very important. This is very important. This describes the displacement of the source of 'I'-based suffering. When the solid sense of identity is prominent (the identity that is accrued through experience) and that manifests in the waking state, when that is dissolved, it's replaced by something which has no relativity about it. It's Absolute, and that is your true nature. You could also call it your Original Mind, the mind that has no mind in it.

Moderator: The viewer says, 'My ego is on the outside now.'

David: That's correct. It always was on the outside. It's just that you were not paying attention to what was on the inside. When what's on the inside begins to shine, the ego or I-sense is automatically displaced into an external phenomenon, and that is a symptom of liberation. That, indeed, is the taste of release.

Moderator: 'I would like to express my gratitude to you. After I started attending the meditation sessions, my environment has changed and I don't feel much sorrow anymore.'

David: That will be one of the first benefits to dawn, a very real sense that a deep state of innate happiness is coming to the fore and dissolving the encrustations of unliberated Consciousness. My suggestion is, continue to enjoy this relationship, now that it has become open to you. Let's see what else there is to enjoy.

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Page last updated: 10-Jul-2012