THE POSSIBILITY OF GOING ALL THE WAY
The genuine pursuit of Liberation, the one and only Goal of the Advaita teachings, is the pursuit of unity and singularity. Unity is not only the fact of our ultimate nature, but it must finally become the very essence of the living expression of the individual who claims to have achieved the Goal. The true Goal is and must be the final attainment of Nonduality, not only as inner vision or being IT, but as undivided purity of intention and action that leaves no room for doubt, confusion or ambiguity. This undividedness, this singularity, inner and outer in one, equals ego death.
As the Truth demands such a high price from the seeker after IT, those who are not ready to go all the way seek for easier routs. But as long as the seeker wants to survive, as long as he or she still wants to be somebody or keep the right to do what he/she (the ego) wants and be Free, the result can only be a condition that continues to be fundamentally divided.
If we desire Liberation, if we sincerely want to go all the way Home, if we are ready to renounce ego once and for all, then we have to unconditionally, nondually accept responsibility for our intentions and actions past, present and future. We have to be willing to wholeheartedly come to a final reckoning with life for the first and last time. The Advaita definition of Enlightenment is that once enlightened, one ceases to create karma or does not act out of ignorance in such a way that causes suffering to others. This includes having destroyed or burned all the karma that one has ever created. For the liberated one there is no longer any karmic debt to pay – nothing left undone and nothing left to do: to acquire, to overcome and to become – whatsoever. This Freedom of karmic debt, felt as utter purity, innocence, nakedness and vulnerability, is inevitably tangible, obvious for an attentive outside observer, unmistakably seen through all the motives, intentions, actions and reactions of the individual. The explosive and liberating power perceived through the ancient scriptures and through nowadays’ teachings of Advaita or Nonduality is this Freedom, the integrity and inherent perfection of life, impersonal, untainted, uncorrupted and unambiguous.
Each time a person, no matter how conscious or unconscious, awake or unawake he or she is, acts out of ignorance, a momentum is generated that over time accumulates weight, speed and mass. Through constant repetition this movement becomes self-generating. Gradually, this movement, which is ignorance, becomes a tremendous and very destructive force. It is maya, the veiling power of this karmic momentum, that creates walls of separation and duality that are ego, impurity or sin. It is only through staying in unshakable willingness and unwavering determination to take responsibility for every last drop of it all, otherwise understood as unconditional, nondual surrender, that we can ever hope to know Advaita, the Freedom, for what IT IS.
