— A Follow-Up to The Meeting, the Message, and the Mirror of Ego and the video https://youtu.be/n0ZVMonwAws?si=bgd_grbsLQZ4qvLo
In “The Meeting, the Message, and the Mirror of Ego”, I explored the liberating (and often terrifying) art of letting go—not just of material attachments, but of our deepest spiritual fixations: identity, purpose, and even the craving for enlightenment itself. Alan Watts brilliantly observed:
“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.”
In that post, we began to explore the wisdom of non-interference, of ceasing to grasp at the currents of transformation and instead allowing Being to reveal itself in its own time, in its own way. The message was simple, but not easy: stop trying so hard to awaken.
This current reflection serves as a natural extension of that theme—moving from the general act of letting go to a more specific, subtle trap: what Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj called the “yogic illusion.”
Nisargadatta’s teachings carry a rare purity, a kind of unfiltered transmission that cuts through even our most cherished spiritual ideas. For those of us on a mystical path—drawn to the teachings of Jesus, Paramahansa Yogananda, Adi Shankara, Lalleshwari, and others—his message may initially sound harsh. He does not romanticize spiritual experiences; he dissolves them.
He says, in essence:
“Even your deepest samadhi, your most exalted inner vision, is still an object in consciousness. It is not the Self.” Adi Shankara calls this "not this, not this"
This is the yogic illusion: the belief that spiritual states, no matter how elevated, are a reliable bridge to Truth. Nisargadatta does not deny the existence of these states—only their ultimate significance. They, too, are phenomena. They arise and pass. They shimmer in the still waters of awareness but are not the awareness itself.
In a striking parallel, Alan Watts once quipped:
“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”
Nisargadatta goes even further—he tells us that even the one who tries to define themselves spiritually is illusory. The one who “seeks God” is itself part of the dream [the dream of Maya, I would add].
As someone deeply devoted to the idea of a science-spirituality synthesis, I can’t help but see resonance between this concept and the strange paradoxes of modern physics. In quantum mechanics, the act of observation collapses a wave function into a particle. But the observer themselves is still a part of the system—never truly separate. Who, then, observes the observer?
Nisargadatta’s radical assertion is that the true Self is not even the observer. It is prior to the play of subject and object, beyond the duality of knower and known.
In this light, the “letting go” I discussed previously was just the first gate. To truly pass through it is to let go even of the spiritual path—not in cynicism or apathy, but in radical stillness. As Watts reminded us:
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
This teaching is not a rejection of the path—it’s the maturing of it. It invites us to see that spiritual milestones, however beautiful, are part of the dream. The awakening Nisargadatta speaks of is not another peak experience, but the dissolving of the one who longs for peaks.
For someone like me, who sees the world through the intertwined lenses of mystical devotion and quantum wonder, this is both humbling and freeing. It gives space to the sacred—visions, ecstasies, devotion—while gently releasing the illusion that any of these are “closer to Truth.”
Instead, what remains is the silence behind all phenomena—a silence that does not arise, and so can never pass away.
So, how do we live this?
Not by suppressing our spiritual longing, but by seeing through it—with love, with clarity, with radical honesty. We allow experiences to come, we honor the path, but we do not cling. We do not seek to become “awakened” as a future state to be achieved. We rest in the mystery of what already is.
In the end, as I suggested in my last blog post, the real surrender isn’t to the Divine as an object “out there” or even “in here.” It is surrender to the vanishing of the one who surrenders. And that, to me, is a very mystical statement which I strive (with limited success) to make the only focus while I'm walking around and doing stuff in my day to day existence. I hope I can inspire others to do the same, to "unstrive" their striving, to rest in the Eternal Present. Sri Aurobindo, I truly feel, meant precisely this by the third, or surrender, stage, of his three pillars of wisdom:
Sri Aurobindo's spiritual path "Integral Yoga" is described as three central steps or movements in the practice:
Aspiration
This is the soul’s upward yearning for the Divine. It is a focused and
persistent longing for spiritual growth and transformation—a reaching
out from the lower nature to the higher truth. Aspiration is like a
flame that must be kept alive constantly; it is the dynamic will to
become divine, to transcend the ego and ignorance,
and to realize one's true Self.
Rejection
This involves the active refusal of
everything in oneself that is opposed to the Divine truth. It means
rejecting the movements of the ego, desire, falsehood, and ignorance
in the mind, life, and body. It's a purification process, where one
must be vigilant in identifying and discarding all that obstructs
spiritual progress. Without this step, aspiration becomes muddied by
lower influences.
SURRENDER
This is the complete offering of oneself to the
Divine Shakti (Divine Force or Mother). It is giving up the illusion
of separate will and ego and allowing the Divine Consciousness to take
over the transformation. In surrender, the sadhak (practitioner)
recognizes that it is not by personal effort alone, but by the
Divine’s power and grace, that true transformation happens. This
surrender must be total and unconditional.
Sri Aurobindo emphasized that these three must go together:
Aspiration opens the door.
Rejection clears the path.
Surrender enables the Divine to act fully.
To repeat the wisdom of Nisargadatta Maharaj: It is surrender to the vanishing of the one who surrenders. (A gentle suggestion: go inside this until it is fully comprehended by your soul, not your mind.)
And in that vanishing, something astonishing may emerge—not a person who is enlightened, but a presence that never needed to become anything at all.
— April 23, 2025 (rzc)