The Waking World is Not a Place

The following is from ‘The Paradox of Instruction’ by Adi Da Samraj

Chapter 2 ‘The World is Not Material, but Psycho-Physical

 

he waking world is not a “place,” an “earth,” but a realm, an indefinite dimension, just as the condition or region into which you enter in dreams is a dimensionless realm. It is not fixed, like a moon or any object, but it is fluid. It is operative as a play of possibility, rather than fixed mechanical destiny. And its conditions in every moment arise not merely according to physical laws, but psycho-physical laws. The universes in which earth appears are a psycho-physical system (psycho-spacial and psycho-temporal), not a mere physical or material one. The same world or realm, in other of its aspects, is seen in dreams and sleeping too. This view is ancient and must be tested. It is native to man and makes him wonder, fear, seek, and hide.

Every man represents only a limited realization of the psycho-physical scheme of appearances. The more psychic or conscious he becomes, the more he sees the world as a Psychic or Conscious Process. It is not only the man who is -a psycho-physical process. His world is also. Free life begins only when we begin to operate from this profound premise. This thesis is itself the most significant consideration of man. To enter into the Truth of our condition we must enter into psychic, heart-felt relationship with the world. Then we see not only the body of the world, but its mind also, its subjective or subtle places, and its degrees of self.

But when even this soulful knowing shows itself to be suffering, then Enjoyment is awake, prior to the birth of worlds, and beings, and you that contemplates the Mystery. The waking world is a psycho physical realm. Everything appears, then, as in dreams, in correspondence with the tendencies, high and low, which are the individual. When this becomes clear, one ceases to identify with preferences, judgments, perceptions, reactions, experiences, forms of knowing, or the pursuit of strategies, high or low, since it is all illusory, changing, and held in place by these very actions. When you awaken, you are no longer concerned about the dream world, since it is all phantoms, created in a moment by tendencies that are the real creators of every circumstance of dreams. Just so, when this waking world is seen truly, it becomes clear that the phantoms of its appearance are endless, appearing out of a formless depth, and that true responsibility is relative to the forces of one’s own apparent psycho-physical activity, which creates the theatre and calls up all that is good or bad. The realm itself is not to be valued or rejected in terms of any of its content. The realm cannot even be defined. Where do you dream? Where is a place? Rather, one’s own action, one’s very self must be seen as contraction. There must be awakening, through Ignorance, to that Condition which is prior to the Play. Such is the only real responsibility. The rest is the destiny of complication. When the true Condition is realized, the reality of all distractions, of self, of action, of world, of God apart, is undone. There is no necessity to the dream, but there is apparent persistence of the dream. See it truly and abide in the Presence and Radiance that is Real. That Communion is truly awake, even as the dream conventions remain, since it notices nothing, but abides as itself, whatever arises.

We appear in this waking world by the very same process by which we appear in dreams. And the solid waking world is, when seen in Truth, no more real, necessary, fixed, significant, or true than any random dream place. When this begins to become even a little obvious, a process of awakening has begun, similar to waking in the morning from your dreams. When you begin to suspect your life a little, then you begin to become distracted by another and formless dimension, much as the sleeper begins to sense his bed cloth, his solid body, and his room. At that point, one may become sensitive to the Spiritual Master, the Presence of the Condition of things, one who is already awake, the paradoxical man. He is, in person, that dimension which is Truth. He calls you constantly and roughens your feet. He intensifies the sunlight in your room. He does not awaken you to another place or dream, as if your mother shakes you awake to play in rooms protected or threatened by your father. Rather, he serves an awakening in which there is no realm, no implication, and no adventure. He does not awaken you to another place. He awakens you in place, so that even while the dream of living survives, the destiny or even noticing of all effects escapes you.