You do not want to give up either worldly knowledge or so-called spiritual knowledge, and yet, through these worldly concepts, you want to understand the riddle of your existence, and that is precisely why you are not able to understand
Nisargadatta Maharaj (Consciousness And The Absolute)
The mind remains keen on solving this mystery called existence and wants to do that on its own terms. It wants its self-conceived conclusions. The mind is opposed to the new and wishes to stick to the old (past). The past is fodder for the mind. It helps with the mind’s never-ending desire for self-propagation and self-enhancement.
Existence is a painful riddle for the person. The belief in separate existence is suffering. It is human desire to avoid suffering and cling to pleasures. The pleasures reassure us that there is something to live for. That life is a quest and there is a reward waiting for us in its fulfillment.
But clinging to pleasures itself creates more pain. The seeking for peace creates more unrest. The desire for enlightenment pushes us more into darkness. Any idea to solve the mystery of life brings more confusion and conflict. The thought seems like a good solution to life’s problems. It is the best tool we have here with us. It works to some extent but it is a limited tool. The thought being an appearance in duality brings about division, which again, brings us back to confusion and conflict.
The notion of separate existence – the individual with the sense of personal volition is itself the confusion. Therefore, any movement (as thinking) to solve the riddle of life takes us away from our true nature that is ever-present as the here and now. “This” is where everything happens. “This” can’t be known as it is the irreducible principle. It is the substratum of all thinking, and therefore, it cannot be reduced to a thought. Any attempt to make it an object of our experience activates the mind.
So how do we solve the problem of existence and suffering associated with it? Bring the attention back to the pseudo-subject or “me” that wants to solve the riddle and the riddle will dissolve. The questions will dissolve. And so will dissolve the greatest illusion of all – the sense of separate existence.
