Advaita, Zen, Tao

Advaita On Zen And Tao

by Ramesh Balsekar

This is pretty much where all my interests lie and encompasses the three philosophies that contribute to my way of thinking (pun intended).

Balsekar is something of a controversial figure, but I have found his thinking and writing very much in tune with mine.

In an early part of the book, he writes the following which is as good a description of Advaita as I have read:

a) ‘You’ are not the body-mind organism that is composed of the five elements; you are that Consciousness which has provided that inert body with the sentience that evokes the senses to function in relation to their objects. It is sentience which makes the psychosomatic apparatus work as a unit.

b) ‘You’ are not the physical organism but Consciousness which works not as some entity in charge of the operations but merely as the Witness of the operations.

c) The Witness cannot be the doer of any action. With this understanding, you can detach yourself from the wrong identification with the body, and then you will naturally assume your true position as the Witness of whatever happens through any body-mind organism as the functioning of Consciousness, and not the doing by any individual entity.

d) Just as sunlight makes objects in a room perceivable but is not concerned with what happens to the objects themselves, it is in Consciousness that all phenomenal objects appear, and such objects are perceived and cognised by Consciousness through the sentient beings. But, Consciousness is not involved in what happens to the phenomenal objects, including human beings.

e) The state of being disidentified with the body, as the doer of any deed, is the state of witnessing. And that, indeed, is the state of liberation which is sudden and immediate.”

... and I noticed that I had saved this same passage when I first read the book a couple of years ago, so its relevance has obviously stayed with me