22 November 2001, 02:39am IST
Andrew Cohen.
‘‘In unity there is strength’’, the great swami krishnananda declared to the audience sitting before him in the satsang hall of his guru’s ashram. it was 1984 and i was visiting rishikesh, at the foothills of the himalayas. as the swami spoke, i was drawn into another dimension beyond time. while this diminutive man gave his afternoon discourse, an extraordinary power entered the room; it was as if krishna was revealing his true face to us, if only for an instant. ‘‘from the beyond there is a whisper’’, he said to us, ‘‘and if you listen closely enough, you will hear that whisper becoming a raging chorus, imploring all those who have the ears to hear its call to come together’’. he exhorted everyone to come together. ‘‘in unity there is strength’’. he repeated the message again. after listening to his discourse i was stunned, overwhelmed, not by what he said but by how he said it. i had never heard anything like it before. it was so simple, and yet, it was everything. it was as if the swami had lifted the veil of illusion, however temporarily, allowing us all to hear the voice of god, or more importantly, the wish of our maker: to come together as one. it has always seemed obvious to me that the inevitable response to the spiritual experience should be the awakening of the impersonal desire to come together with others as one. this spiritual experience of non-duality awakens in us the recognition of our own true nature of, ‘one without a second’. yet that awakening, for too many of us, more often than not, remains only an inner experience. but, in the end, does not the fulfilment of that inner revelation of wholeness, of non-duality, have to be the outer manifestation of non-separation? when an individual’s experience of revelation is not followed by a spontaneous and ever-deepening experience of communion with others, there is always doubt about the depth and ultimate significance of what had occurred. the solution to the current world crisis of globalisation, overpopulation, grinding poverty, pollution and desecration of the natural environment, not to mention the spread of weapons of mass destruction, is not political or technological, but spiritual, and that solution inevitably requires us to find a way to come together for the sake of everyone’s survival, including all life on earth. but coming together seems to be the greatest challenge for the individual and for us as a species. we only find reasons to come together during the times of intense crisis like natural disasters or war. when we all have become empty vessels, transparent manifestations of that one self as many, free from any need to see ourselves as being separate, free from any and all ego motivation to create separation on any level, gross or subtle, only then will heaven become manifest right here on this earth. it is the very desire to remain separate and to see ourselves as being separate, standing apart from the whole, that is from the perspective of enlightenment, in the realm of the ego and with a separate sense of self, that can and will go to any length to protect itself from surrender to the real self. this is a surrender which is — for the sake of love, for the sake of truth and for the sake of mankind as a whole. what motivates us to come together for a larger purpose is rarely more than survival or a mutual self-interest, that caters strictly to the fears and desires of the separate sense of self. if we do manage to pull ourselves together for the sake of our very survival, for the survival of our sons and daughters and of all the plants and animals and of the biosphere itself, will the sacrifices be enough to catapult us into a completely different relationship to life and death? a relationship to life and death which motivates us towards self-sacrifice would no longer merely be the preservation of life but would in fact be the evolution of life. what is this evolution? from the spiritual perspective, evolution is the movement from a self-centred relationship in life, to one that is based upon direct perception of the inherently undivided nature of life itself. it is that knowledge alone, directly perceived and recognised, that will have the power to completely transform our relationship, and would lay out the actual meaning of being a citizen of this earth. our evolutionary potential is so extraordinary, and yet we are not aware of it. it’s up to each of us not for our own sake, but for the sake of life itself. once again for the benefit of mankind, let us remind ourselves: ‘‘in unity there is strength. come together, come together, come together’’.
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