Who are we

[Earthspirit]

dear members
who is our real self?? are we two,, mind body,, and soul?? or are we one,, only soul?? please give your oppinions

Earthspirit

[Warrior]

Our ultimate reality is oneness...

Plurality exists merely to make our experience more enjoyable, it provides contrast.

Have you ever observed it, that if you are in the midst of much noise, the silence afterwards is much deeper, more profound? So it is with existence, always there exists contrasts to make the opposing pole more meaningful.

We can become a totality, or we can become a half - we can either accept the whole, or choose and create an inner civil war. It does not mean that both poles should be renounced, simply observe and enjoy both. Allow a centring of your own being, then watch in amusement as the reality keep going back and forth as a pendulum. Positive and negative will come to your body and mind, to your very spirit, but you are not any of these. You are simply a drop on the ocean moving with the current.

Only ego can choose, all choices are of mind. On one side, you can identify with the negative - asceticism and monasticism is of this extreme. They go on rejecting the material in favour of the spiritual. Then there are those that go on choosing the positive - they want to do good works in the world, helping everyone because it will allow them into heaven. In both cases, there is a deep denial of reality - reality is neither positive or negative, it simply is. It will create a misery because your ideal cannot be realized, existence cannot function without contrast.

If you accept the whole, you are on the path to the ultimate. Simply say yes to everything, ego wants to choose and now you are not choosing at all, you are accepting wherever the current carries you. Gradually, ego will stop, it is no longer being fed so it will die. When the lower self - atman - has died, there is only the higher self - brahman - remaining. Now you have arrived, now you have transcended maya.

Illusion can only exist through mind, and ego is the conclusions and choices of mind. When ego stops, mind no longer goes on pushing itself to the forefront. Mind functions as it should, a way to access brain, rather than its current use of perceiving reality. In Hindu texts, maya is illusion, and keeps us jailed within samsara. When this is transcended you are liberated.

warrior