Garden of The Secret – Part 3
In the last part we talked a little about meaning of the poems in the Preface section of the Garden of The Secret and we ended with the meaning of discernment, let’s continue now:
Once Man saw himself as an individual
Questioned and thought “What am I?”
From individuality, traveled he to unity
And looked at the universe with a new perception
He saw that this universe of diversity
Is truly One that appears as many
Here, Universe was created as one
One became many and many became one
All the division that you see is out of your illusion
As a Dot may look like a circle when circulating high speed
Once you start asking yourself “Who am I?” if you are sincere and seeking with a pure heart, you’ll initiate the process of finding your true identity.
In fact, one of the greatest Spiritual teachers of all times, Ramana Maharishi, majorly thought the practice of self-enquiry, in which people meditate on the question “Who am I?” As one of the most important spiritual practices for finding your true identity.
What is your true identity?
Again, if I answered that for you, it’ll just become a belief, not only it won’t get you any closer to the truth, it might even prevent you from seeing the truth. Because once you adopt a belief, you tend to think that you already got the answer, and you will destroy the possibility of finding the real answer.
On the other hand, if you keep seeking without forming a conclusion about your findings, you might get there.
I might not be able to tell you who you are, but if you examine clearly and think about it, at least you’ll find out who you are not! You are not the identity that the society or your parents have given to you. you are also not your physical shape and form, your physical form has been constantly changing since it was born. When your body was born it was very small, now it looks very different, and it is constantly changing.
All spiritual traditions constantly tell people that you are not your body, neither your mind which is same as “identity”, you are not the adopted identity that you think you are.
Now the question that remains is finding out who you are, I cannot tell you how to find who you are, but I can tell you that it all starts with seeking and seeking, and not believing, just keep seeking until you find the answer by pure experience.
Belief systems and true spirituality are usually against each other. Many religions tell you to blindly believe in this or that, believe that God exist, and he or she looks like this, and there is an afterlife that looks like that, and so many other things.
But a true spiritual teaching aims to show you a method to find the answer yourself, by experience and direct perception.
If you believe in something you might destroy all the possibilities of seeing the truth, if you disbelieve something you’ll also commit the same mistake. Belief and disbelief are the same thing, one is a positive belief and the other one is negative belief, there’s a lot of things to say just about this subject, but the most important thing to remember is this:
“Don’t make strong conclusions about anything”, you should not think that you already know the answer and that is the absolute answer! Because if you do that, you might destroy the possibility of ever finding the answer, even if the answer comes right in front of your eyes, your belief system is going to prevent you from seeing the answer.
From individuality, traveled he to unity
And looked at the universe with a new perception
He saw that this universe of diversity
Is truly One that appears as many
When it comes to seeing the truth of your true nature of universe, how you see it and what you see it all depends on the level of your perception. Imagine you’re standing in front of a building, you see things in a certain way, if you go up the stairs you see it differently, if you go to the fifth floor you see it differently, if you go stand on the roof you see it differently, and if you fly over the building on a balloon you see totally different things. perception of truth is like that, the higher you go, the better you will understand the bigger picture and more precise is your understanding.
The different levels of perception, or consciousness, is kind of like the story of elephant in the dark!
In his retelling, “The Elephant in the Dark”, some Hindus bring an elephant to be exhibited in a dark room. A number of men touch and feel the elephant in the dark and, depending upon where they touch it, they believe the elephant to be like a water spout (trunk), a fan (ear), a pillar (leg) and a throne (back). (Wikipedia)
So people with different levels of perception can see and interpret things in different ways. So, it is also good to consider that the reason for many conflicts between human beings is different levels of perception, and lack of the ability to see that you could be wrong. The solution to stop the conflict is to not come to strong conclusions, because there could be infinite levels of perception about truth.
Buddha is considered to be one of the most enlightened human beings whoever lived, who had the highest level of perception. In his earlier stages of his awakening, he talked about many dimensions of truth, but as he ascended higher and experienced higher states of consciousness, he finally realized there is no such thing as the highest level of perception, or highest truth. He said that depending on your level, your realization is different.
Although from a human perspective, there could be a highest level of perception that generally human beings can achieve, such as experience of unity, that is well documented in spiritual traditions, when you realize you are on with existence. But ultimately there is no a highest level of perception, even if you are an enlightened being, you can still go higher! Even an exalted being like Buddha says, I don’t have the highest level of perception, because there’s no such a thing! You can always learn a higher truth!
The moral of story is, never think that you got answer! Or what you know is absolutely correct.
There is a story in a Buddhist tradition, about a seeker who went into meditation and experienced higher states of consciousness, and he looked at a sacred text that he was well familiar with and realized that in his higher level of consciousness, this text has a totally different meaning! Then after some time he ascended to even a higher state of consciousness and when he looked at that scripture, he realized that even now it has a deeper meaning before! As he reached higher and higher and looked back, each time he found a new understanding of that scripture.
This is another meaningful the story that telling us that depending on your level of perception you can understand things differently. Only a fool is too sure of himself.
“This universe of diversity, Is truly One that appears as many”
What Shabestari wants to say, is the same thing that every Guru and spiritual master in any authentic spiritual tradition has tried to tell people, that existence is one and we are all one and the only thing that makes it seem as many, is our limited perception. If one goes beyond the normal level of consciousness, and the limited intellectual mind, everything is really one!
Merely talking about this, might create even more confusion, although we might be able to explain this using science and quantum physics, and many different types of logic, it won’t help us to experience it.