Fire does not burn it, water does not make it wet, and the wind does not make it dry. The Spirit cannot be cut, burned, wet, or dried. It is eternal, all-pervading, changeless, immovable, and primeval. Atman is beyond space and time.
–Bhagavad-Gita
A deeply thoughtful, inquisitive friend sent me this excerpt from Einstein’s “What I Believe”:
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.”
Einstein says this very beautifully, with exceptional candor, and I have no difficulty in feeling sympathy for the first paragraph and, also, for his assessment of a “judgmental god” in the second. As for the second part of the second paragraph, in which he refers to the soul’s annihilation, he assumes the ego, a social convention, to be the self. Here, I feel, he succumbs to a conventual bias.
As the Yogic and the Sankhya1 traditions affirm we do have an individuality, developed over time, perhaps developed over vast cycles of time, which survives the inevitable exhaustion of the ego, but which still exists non-materially and is our access to the deepest reality of the Self which is the “Pure Awareness” that Rupert speaks of and which mesmerizes each of us. This individuality may be characterised as a small “s” self, but “self” it is, and it connects to and is enlivened by the Spirit (Purusha), which is that Pure Awareness.
This is why Rupert Spira is vindicated in making the following, and similar, statements:
“It is our Self, luminous, open, empty Awareness, which gives experience its unmistakable reality. What we truly know and love in all experience is the reality of Awareness. It is that alone for which the apparently separate self longs.”
So, our individual experience does share in reality. Experience is not an illusion—our egoic interpretation is. The interpretation and the perception which is based on this is Maya. We are real, but it is important to know that the ego, simply a means for interacting with a so-called “separate” world, is not. Subsequently, we are capable of interacting in the real world, out of our individuality, the deeper self, with love, generosity and compassion. This does have meaningful consequences, drawing the world and our individual (not separate, but indistinguishably united) selves, ever-closer to the deepest Self, the creative awareness that—investing its very being—encompasses, truly embodies, and enlivens all things
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.”
Einstein says this very beautifully, with exceptional candor, and I have no difficulty in feeling sympathy for the first paragraph and, also, for his assessment of a “judgmental god” in the second. As for the second part of the second paragraph, in which he refers to the soul’s annihilation, he assumes the ego, a social convention, to be the self. Here, I feel, he succumbs to a conventual bias.
As the Yogic and the Sankhya1 traditions affirm we do have an individuality, developed over time, perhaps developed over vast cycles of time, which survives the inevitable exhaustion of the ego, but which still exists non-materially and is our access to the deepest reality of the Self which is the “Pure Awareness” that Rupert speaks of and which mesmerizes each of us. This individuality may be characterised as a small “s” self, but “self” it is, and it connects to and is enlivened by the Spirit (Purusha), which is that Pure Awareness.
This is why Rupert Spira is vindicated in making the following, and similar, statements:
“It is our Self, luminous, open, empty Awareness, which gives experience its unmistakable reality. What we truly know and love in all experience is the reality of Awareness. It is that alone for which the apparently separate self longs.”
So, our individual experience does share in reality. Experience is not an illusion—our egoic interpretation is. The interpretation and the perception which is based on this is Maya. We are real, but it is important to know that the ego, simply a means for interacting with a so-called “separate” world, is not. Subsequently, we are capable of interacting in the real world, out of our individuality, the deeper self, with love, generosity and compassion. This does have meaningful consequences, drawing the world and our individual (not separate, but indistinguishably united) selves, ever-closer to the deepest Self, the creative awareness that—investing its very being—encompasses, truly embodies, and enlivens all things