cee: at the last retreat you put to me the question "who sees this everything". i'd like to talk about this. it seems like there is a perceiver and a perceived and they always come together. but the be-er, the being itself, is prior to the perceiver and so if you don't perceive anything there is no perceiver, there is just the be-er.
nome: you better watch out how you pronounce that last word! it could make s.a.t. a very popular place. get your beer here! i can see it now. it could bring a lot of people in. (laughter)
cee:
and
thinking about the rope and snake. (which was discussed earlier that morning)
we are the rope. we can't see the snake, but we can't see the rope either because
we are the rope.
nome: it's only an analogy and can only be taken so far. the analogy is just simply that of showing knowledge and ignorance. a common enough, easy enough misperception, perhaps you think of it more in terms of a water mirage on a dry piece of highway . you see something that's not there, or you misperceive something, that's all the analogy is meant to show. and it's meant to show that, just like out of the rope no snake really happens or occurs, in a similar way out of the real self no illusion really comes out. illusion is not really arising and ceasing, arising and ceasing, in the real self. not in ultimate truth.
looked at for purposes of practice, you can discern that there is a perceiver and a perceiving and they rise and set together, very much depend on each other. you never have the perceived, the idea of a something, without someone who sees it. hence the maharshi's frequent enquiry addressed to various seekers who ask about the world, "who sees the world?" they ask about god, "who sees god?" he always directs the enquiry back into ones self. because otherwise we are just going on supposition. we deal with what is immediate. we deal with the actual experience of reality. of the two, you can see that the perceptions keep changing, but the perceiver has a certain similarity. the "i" rises again and again, the objects keep changing. of the two the object is dependant on the subject though they rise and set together. so we make the enquiry primarily into the subject, not the object. we are looking to find out "who am i?" not "what is this?" because "what is this?" already presupposes an "i".
if you eliminate all the objects of perception, weather that be in sleep, certain trances, in samadhi, in faint, or a number of other states,- or for some people in an isolation chamber, -if you eliminate the perception of the object, the subject also seems to disappear, to subside. that's a fine experience, the only difficulty is the subject tends to come back. the same duality arises again and again.
if however we discern the unreality of the individual experiencer or perceiver, and we discern that cleary, deeply, thouroughly, you're never the same.
if you do so completely there is no more arising of an "i" and a "this", but just one existence. one being, always present.
so the advice is not to eliminate the senses. you can do that in meditation, eliminate the senses one at a time and see what is left. by mental focus just strip yourself of the senses. the result may be insightful but it won't generally be permanent. if you don't stop there but enquire to see the nonexistence of the individual, enquiring to find out "who am i?" what you arrive at is permanent. it is reality. is it clear where i am pointing?
let the senses come or go as they will. obviously when you are in concentrated meditation you tend to not have as much attention to the senses, at points when you are more active, moving about, your senses are going to be there. what you need to find out is who you are with or without the senses. the rope, with or without the motion of the snake. that is what you need to see.