Chapter from: Sanathana Sarathi – Bhagavan 70th Birthday Commemoration Volume, Nov. 1995
Transcending Duality
Dr. Sam Sandweiss
One day in November 1985 at the time of Swami's 60th birthday I was sitting on the verandah of the Temple holding my just published second book, "Spirit And The Mind," in my lap waiting to offer it to Swami. Swami paused in front of me and took the book. Thumbing through it and looking at some of the pictures, He softly asked, "And what is the mind?" Being a psychiatrist and having thought deeply on this question, and more so since meeting Swami, I had come to the startling conclusion. "Swami, I think the mind is a delusion." I even found it a bit funny that a psychiatrist searching for an understanding of the mind should come to the unlikely conclusion that the mind does not exist, is simply imagination, an expression of duality, and in that respect not real. Swami looked deep into my eyes and said, "The mind is a bundle of desires." Swami has also said that the mind is like a cloth made up of the threads of desire. Take away desire and the mind disappears. I have been meditating on this information since.
Swami brings us an extraordinary insight. His teaching that reality is one and not two is beyond the mind's ability to grasp. It is the mind's nature to consider reality as two and not one. Yet Swami tells us that no matter what the mind tells us, no matter what the senses tell us, no matter how much we play the game of desire, gratification, pleasure, pain, birth. death, that duality is just an illusion and that there is only one. This insight is absolutely mindboggling and revolutionary to every man walking the earth, for if we had transcended the delusion of duality, we wouldn't be here. And so this teaching is absolutely vital and central to everyone's life. Some of us may not grasp it5 meaning, may feel that it has no meaning whatsoever, still, Swami tells us that the whole purpose of life is to transcend duality and realize the unity that underlies the apparent diversity.
Swami states this grat message in so many ways, the most glorious of which is that man is divine, he is limitless, pure boundless love, constant integrated awareness, all-knowing power, the indivisible Supreme Absolute. What a marvelous declaration! How wonderful that in the darkest of night during this Kali Yuga such a bright light should shine and give us wonderful direction.
Can we grasp this great message and live accordingly? Can we grasp that although we appear to be immersed in grief and pain, sorrow and suffering, fear and anxiety, that in fact grief and anxiety can never affect us, we are ever content, fear can never enter us? What kind of thought, word and deed must we adopt to discover this reality? Swami answers --we must become love.
One time Swami called me to Him, on the verandah of the Mandir, in front of His students and asked me what it was that I wanted. "I want you, Swami." "And who am I?" replied Swami. "You are friend and Lord." Swami then asked, "Where is God?" I replied, "He is everywhere." And Swami asked, "How do you know that?" I paused a moment and replied, "Only through my relationship with you, Swami."
How could we ever believe and have confidence that I and you are one, and that I am God? It is because of our love relationship with Swami. It is because Swami has such love for us that He incarnated in this darkest of ages to attract us by His love, prompting us to become love. It is through Swami's love that we experience Him as omnipresent love, and through this experience believe that we are omnipresent love as well.
Swami's miracles, His being in two or more places at once, intimately knowing our lives, materializing objects both in His presence and at great distances, curing illness and even raising the dead -- these sorts of transcendental happenings, along with the extraordinary closeness of our loving relationship with Him, convince us of His omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, and limitless love. This gives us the courage to look for Him everywhere, including in our own hearts, so as to experience His omnipresence. In this way we have direct experience that I and He are one and that in fact I am divinity, omnipresent, and all-loving.
I have been struck by the similarity of certain psychiatric approaches which help us overcome distortions in perceptions, and the spiritual path which helps us overcome the delusion of duality. In psychiatry it has been observed that people project fear and expectations that they had towards parents and other important figures onto all relationships. When this happens with the psychotherapist it is called transference, and the therapist's role is to help point out distortions in perceptions due to these projections. The therapist helps clean up these distortions so that the patient can see more clearly the "real" reactions of the other and not their own projections painted on the other. This is done by the therapist pointing out unrealistic reaction to the therapist that the patient is not aware of. The patient may think one way, and be unaware that he is acting another. In other words there is disharmony in thought, word and deed. It is a symptom of the mind being unaware of some of its own motivations and thus not integrated. The therapist helps the patient to become a ware of this disharmony, and with awareness comes healing, and harmony in thought, word and deed.
In the spiritual dimension Swami teaches us that all of reality is God, and so to see otherwise is a projection of our own mind's duality onto unity. The senses influence us into believing that we can get happiness from external objects and distract us from finding happiness within. Thus, we believe I and the other are two - not one. In fact the pull of the senses and the bundle of desires we call mind are so strong that we can hardly imagine the other is actually God, our own self.
We wonder--how can it be that I am the totality, God. Baba draws our attention to a common everyday experience to help us understand. It is common believed that most nighttime dreams are nothing more than a projection of our own needs and wants onto a blank screen When in the dream state we cannot tell that it is nothing else but a projection on our own self. The nighttime dream seems so real. In it, we react to everything as if i: is separate and different from ourselves However, when we wake up, we realize that all names and forms are nothing else but a projection of our own inner life. nothing more. Similarly, Swami tells us that in our daytime awake dream we experience ourselves as different frorr: others, and everyone else is considerec separate and apart from ourselves. However, Swami tells us that there will be one day when we will wake up and realise that all these different names and forms are nothing else but God who is our own soul. Everything is divinity, our own self all we're doing in the wake dream is projecting duality onto the blank screen of unity. Swami says that the only way out is to wake up. He says that He himself has come as a player on the stage of our dream with the sole purpose of waking us up. And how does He do this?
The transcendental therapist, Swami, shows us how to break the spell of this delusion how to awaken out of our daytime dream. We must become aware of our own projection of duality onto unity. To do this, Baba instructs us to look for unity all the time - to look for Him in every place at all times and react to everybody and every event as if it is He. In the Gita Vahini Baba puts it like this, "See Him in every being, be aware of Him every moment of existence. Be immersed in the bliss ·of awareness, be merged in the relationship of profound love and devotion to Him. All acts big and small dedicate to Him--everything from beginning to end, with renunciation of all attachments to the self--in the spirit of worshipful non-attachment."
Now, it's not easy to constantly look for the one behind the many. If it wasn't for Swami I would never be convinced in a million lifetimes that the one actually is the basis of the many, and have the courage to look for Him. But because of Swami's love we are all taking to this heroic path in which we strive to transcend the desires and temptations of the mind that lead us deeper into duality. No, we tell ourselves, the world is not made up of different names and forms that we perceive through the senses and toward which we develop a bundle of desires. We gain confidence and conviction that it's possible to overcome and transcend this bundle of desires. And how is it done? By looking for Swami everywhere at all times and offering our love to Him by loving all and serving all. The key is Swami's love.
Swami first teaches us about love by loving us and awakening our love for Him, God. He then directs us to look for Him loving and serving all by practicing the five core values which should be at the basis of all behaviour. This is the way to experience and express love through our relationships with another “Love in thought is Sathya, love in action is Dharma, love in feeling is Santhi, love is Love, and love in understanding is Ahimsa," says Swami.
We all can understand that without these five values civilization would fall apart and we would be doomed to destruction. So on one level it is just common sense that we need to practice the values in order to survive. On another level these values, says Sai Baba, are the very nature of divinity, and by embodying these values we take on aspects of divinity and draw nearer to Him. And on another level these values challenge the senses and desires and cause us to purify our impulses and to detach from the world of duality. It is at once an act of devotion and an act of detachment and sense control. And it takes deep dedication to take to this road with conviction and steadfastness.
By the strength of Swami's love we are attracted to Him, by the strength of His love we practise seeing Him everywhere at all times, by the strength of Swami's love we are encouraged to practise the five values as we look for Him in everyone every moment of existence and in this way purify our impulses and develop equanimity, devotion, detachment, and sense control. This is the path to realizing the one behind the many. This is the secret life revealed to us by the blazing light of Swami's love.
Swami has such an amazing way of expressing this teaching both in speech and in action. As my relationship has deepened with Swami, when I'm in His presence I can hardly tae my eyes off Him. At these times, thank goodness, I am captivated by His marvellous form which I take as a pure expression of Atma. As I watch Him it seems so easy to see the rest of the world as just a passing dream and not to be caught in it. In this state of mind Swami called me and my family for an interview. He spoke so lovingly and warmly to all people in the room, and we fell in love more deeply with Swami. Then, directing himself to me, He asked what I wanted. I said "You, Swami." He then took a ring that He had produced for me some years back, off my finger. Holding it to His mouth, He blew three times and turned it into a diamond ring. It sparkled with great brilliance.
Then showing it to everyone in the room Baba played with the word "diamond." to instruct, "Die mind, die mind no more desire, no more attachment." I knew that Swami wasn't talking about me at my current level of awareness! hope that this level of attainment is close for all of us. He then continued, motioning outward all around the room saying, "Everything is nothing," indicating that everything passes and nothing is permanent. Motioning to the palm of His right hand which He held out for all of us to see, He said, "And nothing is everything." "Everything is nothing, and nothing is everything." The external world is fleeting and therefore is not real. And the unity which is the basis of all this diversity seems like it's nothing, but it's everywhere at all times and is everything. And to underscore the teaching, Swami told a simple story which anyone can understand. He said that when water is in a water tank all the frogs come out to play, but when the tank runs dry all the frogs leave. Then we will find out that we have only one real, lasting friend and that is God. So, let's detach from the bundle of desires that delude us into believing in the many and attach ourselves to our one and only friend, Swami, who is everything. That is the great, marvellous, priceless, and purely divine teaching that Swami is so patiently and unceasingly giving us devotees. I pray that with His grace He allows us, in this very lifetime, to merge into His heart, that ocean of divine love, and realize the omnipresent one. This alone will bring pure and lasting peace--to ourself who is the basis of the world. Jai Sai Ram.
Dr. Sam Sandweiss, U.S.A.
Man does not live by food alone. In fact he lives by the power of the Atma. So you must use your strength of body and mind, wealth and education with intelligence, in order to realise the Power of the Soul without discrimination, what is the use of physical strength?
- Sathya Sai Baba
