Meditativeness is a way of being
Question: Dear Sir, we have been talking about how to use the ‘higher’ desire of brahman as a broom to clean up all the desires and then to burn the broom itself. Do you think I should simply sit back and read without this burning desire, this lust for knowledge, this burning need to go beyond conflict?
Answer: Burning desire has its own place. You would not have probably read so much without it. And that has helped you in its way.
Oddly so, one of the biggest problems with desire is that it cannot be permanent. Driven by desire, how long can one go? Desire subsides and one desire gives way to the other.
That is why desire-based reading (or any other activity) is going to be limited. As they say, there would be a ‘burn-out’ sooner or later.
Secondly, desire-based action would always have an objective. Desire is objective. Desire sees not beyond its objective, and hence focuses on a fragment.
On the contrary, understanding requires integration.
Can there be more peaceful reading? May be just a few pages. But with more of integration. Meditation and completeness.
Question: I just realized that when I am reading these days deeply, I am not there. There is no movement in time, there is no chaos or conflict. There is no naming and labeling except where essential.
You said that everything a person moves to is either completeness or annihilation. Completeness cannot come from the outside and when one goes inward, one finds the emptying of the contents of oneself.
Can one say that annihilation is completeness?
Answer: Both are probably the same.
Annihilation of self reveals the completeness of Self.
A person conditioned to look outwards will take the completeness route. Bhakti, for example: finding a complete, resplendent God outside, worthy of surrendering completely to.
A person conditioned to look inside will take the annihilation route. Dattatreya, for example: Recall, ‘I AM, I AM and I AM, I AM’.
Its much the same. Completion says, ‘I merge into the great Brahm’.
Annihilation says, All Brahm merges, and emanates from, me’.
Regarding meditation, I too have a similar observation. Following a method is not essential, attention is enough. Deep attention at all times is enough.
