"To be free in the world, you must die to [disidentify from] the world." - Sri Nisaragadatta Maharaj
The joy of dying is not about physical death, it is about ceasing identification with form. The true reality is god, the source, pure consciousness, allah, infinite awareness… whichever verbal label you wish to apply to something which is infinite, eternal, indivisible, nameless, omnipresent and impossible to conceptualize.
The true reality is that each of us is this pure consciousness. The body, the thoughts, the emotions, the circumstances that appear to separate us from each other, these are not our true identity, these are experiences that pure consciousness is having. To paraphrase Eckhart Tolle, you are the awareness that notices the emotions, the thoughts, the body, the physical world. You are not these things.
The material world is much like a video game. As we play the video game, we become identified with character whom we are playing. It becomes important to us that this character will win, we struggle to ensure the character stays alive, and avoids the pitfalls on the way. As we play the game, we forget ourselves, and the sole point of focus becomes the trivial game which we are involved in playing.
We are like this. In our physically transfixed (trance-fixed) existences, we become so identified with the body, emotions, thoughts and circumstances that we are experiencing, that we forget that our true identity is the pure, limitless consciousness which is having the experience of a body, thoughts, emotions and circumstances.
If we look back through history at our saints, sages and spiritual luminaries - the same thing has been indicated on multiple occasions, in a multitude of ways.
The question is: Are we supposed to accept this abstract belief as the truth because we are told by individuals supposedly more enlightened than ourselves?
My answer is: No. To each of us, the opportunity exists to realise this truth by direct experience. It is not a mental concept which we’re supposed to accept, it’s a direct experience each of us is allowed to have.
From hereon, let us throw out all belief systems, and forget everything we think we know to be true. The truth is within you.
