I am enjoying some of the gems on Francis Lucille’s blog, including his response to a question regarding the practice recommended by Nisargaddata of holding on to the sense of “I Am”. The questioner is concerned that the practice is in itself a duality, despite its nondual intention. Lucille answers as follows:
There is dual practice as long as there is the belief in an individual, separate, objective consciousness who seeks liberation through this practice. In this case the goal is an object, a state to be acquired by this personal seeker. At some point, a shift takes place with the understanding that that which we are is not an object, gross or subtle, and we find ourselves open to the possibility that consciousness is divine and unlimited. As soon as we are fully open to this possibility, consciousness reveals itself for what it truly is, infinite intelligence, boundless love, absolute splendor, and puts an end to our misery.
Lucille points to what seems to me to be a common error for spiritual seekers (I include myself), of attempting to acquire some state for the personal seeker. And what he says changes is the belief. This to me is powerful: that our beliefs can be held implicitly, to such a deep level that they block our true nature.
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Hi Ron,
I recently saw an educational video sent to a friend, on masterpieces in art, and it showed the ‘Virgin on the Rocks’ by Leonardo Da Vinci. The narrator stated that the face of the angel was a ‘depiction of wisdom[portrait] unrivalled by any other’. Simultaneusly or just beforehand I noticed the small fingers of the cherub below it in a gesture – the two fingers, the middle and index, touching and thought this fitted the idea of non-duality beautifully.
(Strangely enough, before watching the dvd, I actually had been trying to explain to both of us the idea of the relationship between art and oneself, and I was gesturing with my own hand this very way.)