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#3257 - Thursday, August 14, 2008 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
A review of Consciousness and Beyond: The Final Teachings of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, with Stephen Wolinsky.
Also, I posted a 4-part series of blog entries showing how this review was written, beginning with my extensive uncorrected raw notes and unedited personal remarks, here: http://nonduality.org/2008/08/12/inside-the-book-review-sausage-factory-part-1/. It's really too lengthy for anyone to read in full, but it's there.
Consciousness and Beyond: The Final Teachings of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj with Stephen H. Wolinsky
Find out more, view the trailer, and order: http://www.netinetifilms.com/beyond.htm
INTRODUCTION:
The final and most profound teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj are
brilliantly delivered through teacher and writer Stephen Wolinsky
and filmmaker Maurizio Benazzo, along with cinematographers and
editors Zaya Stoeva and Philip Safarik.
You could pause the video at any point and view a crystal clear,
detail-filled image of India, whether it is women hanging out
clothes on ancient lived-in balconies over the streets teeming
with people, or a man walking reverently into the home where
Nisargadatta Maharaj lived and being moved to tears with
gratitude.
Modern scenes of India alternate with footage of Nisargadatta
taken around 1979-1980 (he passed away in 1981). Thus you get a
feel for Nisargadatta's personal residence, the city in which he
lived, and significant spiritual locations.
NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ'S MOST PROFOUND TEACHING:
Wolinsky describes four steps of Nisargadatta's most profound and
final teaching. These are repeated several times throughout the
film. The repetition is necessary and assures the success of the
film.
To briefly summarize the four steps of the final teachings, the
first step is recognition that you are not the activities of the
mind and body. In the second step you know your essence as the
nonverbal I Am.
In the third step the silent I Am begins to dissolve, exposing
consciousness itself. It is recognized that there is only the
impersonal consciousness, the universe arising out of it. In the
fourth step this impersonal consciousness is known as temporary,
leaving the recognition that who you are is prior to
consciousness.
This "prior to consciousness" is the Absolute, which is
what you are. The Absolute knows itself through consciousness but
does not require consciousness. Consciousness is dependent upon
the Absolute. You are prior to consciousness. Existence swims in
you, like fish in water.
The words of Nisargadatta are shown on screen at strategic
points. Here are a few quotes that appear while Steven is
teaching the four steps:
"Even the experience of I Am is a concept, it's temporary,
it comes one day and it will go."
"Even the state of beingness consciousness is
temporary."
"When you realize consciousness is not the truth then you
are beyond consciousness."
As I said, Steven elaborates and painstakingly describes each of
these steps several times in different contexts: Buddhism,
meditation, spiritual trappings, death, desire, bhakti, jnana.
The film rises to become an education in nondual spirituality.
THE MEDITATION CD:
Supplementing the film is an audio CD in which Wolinsky leads a
meditation workshop. This CD is very important as it allows you
to experience the teachings of Nisargadatta.
The meditation identifies and opens the space between words,
between thoughts, between the ripples of the mind's activities,
exposing the steps in Nisargadatta's most profound teaching.
Steven instructs as follows, I am roughly quoting him; there may
be long pauses between sentences:
"Focus on the empty space after the sound of my voice. If
you do not depend upon the thoughts, memories, emotions,
associations, perceptions, or body, are you in the present, not
in the present, or neither? ...Is there such a thing as present,
not present? .... Do you exist, not exist, or neither? What
occurs if the awarer and the space are made of the same
substance? Are you the awarer aware of the emptiness or are you
the emptiness on which the awarer appears? Be the emptiness on
which the awarer appears. Be the awarer and notice what occurs
when I say what awarer is awaring this."
CONCLUSION:
Is this the most direct way of experiencing Nisargadatta? Does
Steven come between the viewer and Nisargadatta? Steven Wolinsky
is a teacher in his own right.
Steven personally discovered an inner relationship between
Avadhut Nityananda and Nisargadatta Maharaj (there was no outer,
overt relationship between them of which I am aware). Steven
states that there is one consciousness in the two apparent forms.
Steven could be said to be a third form. That consciousness is
"in" all of us.
So does it matter whether the teaching is from Nisargadatta or
Steven? No, not as long as the teaching comes from recognition of
the Absolute, effectively describes the most sublime spiritual
states, and communicates that even they are temporary, and that
who you are is ... nothingness, the Absolute.
This film is recommended to anyone who wants to understand
Nisargadatta Maharaj through many different themes and in the
setting of significant locations in India. Wolinksy organizes
Nisargadatta's teaching and makes it outstandingly
comprehensible. Part of that teaching is to discard the teaching,
or to have to drop away.
This is a film of the highest quality and meaning.
Consciousness and Beyond: The Final Teachings of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj with Stephen H. Wolinsky
Find out more, view the trailer, and order: http://www.netinetifilms.com/beyond.htm
