There’re countless articles and philosophical discussions on the idea that the body-mind organism susceptible primarily to pain and suffering is a sort of imprisonment in what seems to be hell.
The body is fragile, and even the slightest strike from nature can disintegrate it. The mind is even more delicate. It’s eternally restless, running after sense pleasures in bits and pieces, here and there.
In the early ages, humans formed religions in an attempt to solve the problem of human suffering. But that didn’t help cause the religious beliefs and dogmas themselves became the primary source of suffering.
The rapid advent of science in the last century created conveniences that alleviated physical suffering. The rise of new technologies in the previous two decades has made every consumable item available at a click of a button. Additionally, there have been groundbreaking breakthroughs in medicine and neuroscience, but psychological suffering remains.
In fact, with all the progress and advancements, we are witnessing more isolation, loneliness, anxiety, depression, and a host of other ailments in this day and age. Despite having all the technological means to be connected with thousands of people, we have never felt so disconnected.
No matter how much we try to change the world to be a better place, either through religious ideas, spiritual teachings, scientific explanations, facts, or data, we’re experiencing a surge in separateness resulting in interpersonal conflicts.
In the war between emotional impulses and reasoning, emotions win, for the most part, because ego identified mind creates and enforces the sense of separation.
Such a mind survives and thrives by embracing new ideas and beliefs, which it believes will put an end to its suffering. However, the mind can never get the liberation it desires most.
So why can’t we find a solution to this problem of separateness? The answer is that we’re relying on a tool designed to create and perpetuate duality – the mind. Any solution conceived by the mind to solve a problem will create a host of new issues.
Therefore, in the realm of separation, both: evil and good, right and wrong, moral and immoral, happiness and unhappiness exist as interconnected opposites.
And often, non-duality is proposed and taught by some people as a solution to dualistic problems, but that’s not the case.
Non-duality is not a solution to duality. It is the dissolution of duality into the void from where it arose. The human ego thinks it can solve worlds problems using the intellect, but intellect is subservient to identity.
A scientific mind may use scriptures to find answers to “that” which can’t be explained, whereas a religious mind may cite scientific studies for doing the same.
The western world believes that science alone will solve everything that ails and threatens human existence, while the eastern world is mainly stuck with traditional teachings and scriptures.
You may assume I’m proposing a pessimistic or a nihilistic view, but that’s not the case. Freedom from this realm of separation is possible right now, in this moment. The thing is that it is not the intellectual mind but the heart that needs awakening.
By heart, I don’t mean that organ in your body. I’m talking about the spiritual heart, the eternal consciousness whose true nature is unconditional love.
It is impossible to awaken this heart until the mind wrestles with the ideas of eliminating human suffering or knowing the highest truth through effort and struggle.
It is incapable of doing that because its very nature is to create assortments in the form of ideas, concepts, and beliefs. When given a challenge, all it does is to conceive a new idea from its limited perception. Immediately afterward, the ego steps in to take ownership of that idea.
Once the ego fully grasps the idea, it seeks to convince other egos of its effectiveness. So the ego creates an emotional story of perseverance and human sacrifice. That’s how the collective ego is born.
But since we live in duality, there will be egos that accept this idea, and others will reject it, hence the conflict. The duality is characterized by conflicts where every thought is a force paired with an equal and opposite force.
Therefore, the concepts such as hell, heaven, and everything in between are creations of the mind. Freedom is beyond concepts. It doesn’t mean that we have to eliminate all concepts – that would just be another concept, but “see” things for what they are rather than through the conditioned and filtered perception.
Concepts are essential for the survival of the organism. Therefore, I’m not asking you to let go of every concept. That isn’t possible. I’m offering a possibility to see things for what they are rather than how the mind thinks they should be.
For example, when you can see a flower without creating labels and concepts like name, species, beauty, fragrance, color, and so on, you discover something. You’ll see your own essence in the object of experience, and that is the end of separation.
Similarly, if you can see concepts, ideas, and beliefs for what they are without applying the filters of conditioning, you see them simply for what they are. Then this whole idea of “things should be like this or that” disappears.
It is the surrender to “what is.” It is the end of all suffering by the dissolution of doubts and conflicts that arise from separation. Separation is suffering. The natural outcome of “moving” (for the lack of an appropriate word) closer to our true essence is a feeling of peace or bliss unperturbed by external circumstances.
When this knowledge is absorbed in the core, it is a message that destroys every belief, including itself. The closest analogy would be the trojan horse that contains warriors waiting to fire the pointers for spiritual awakening.
Your mind mistakenly brings the trojan home thinking it’s a gift, but the pointers are waiting to pierce the core of the ego so that the eternal sun of the spiritual heart reveals. For some, this process is slow (dark night of the soul). For others, it’s instantaneous.
We are not the constrained living organisms we believe ourselves to be. We are limitless and timeless. The closest thought in words to describe this feeling of freedom or liberation is unconditional love.
