SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND THE ILLUSIONS OF THE EGO: WAVE AND OCEAN
The Tao We Can Deviate From Is Not the Real Tao
“If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the Earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.”
— Albert Einstein
“The meaning of religion is: to gather all one’s energies to understand the nature of thought, to recognize its limitations and go beyond.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti
Let’s imagine that life is like the ocean, and each individual is a wave. Just as human beings identify themselves with the body-mind and feel separated from universal consciousness, the wave, endowed with consciousness, perceives itself as separated and different from the ocean. Perceiving yourself as a wave, you realize how small you are compared to the immensity of the ocean that one day will absorb you. Reflecting on this fact, you must face—without any fear—the problem of death. The space that separates you, as a wave, from the coast will inevitably come to an end; the journey of the wave inexorably moves towards its meeting with the shore, and that is its Ending. The wave knows that when it laps against the cliffs, it will lose its identity as a separate wave and become an indistinguishable part of the ocean. Even worse, it fears losing its identity by being absorbed and made one with a calm sea.
The fear of “not being” has generated marvelous fantasies of paradises and heavens, and today, reincarnation is becoming increasingly popular. (From this perspective, resurrection and eternal life are completely misunderstood concepts). A frustrated wave may say: “Given that I am an insignificant little wave in this life that nobody pays any attention to, in my next life I will be a magnificent wave fit for expert surfers, and I will be a famous celebrity.” A second wave, whose thinking is confused, might say: “I hope all the dead waves from heaven will show me the right path for my life.” A third may think: “If I meditate all my life, through meditation I will remove all the ups and downs and achieve a kind of frozen immortality.” The narcissistic one hopes to be admired by everybody. When a violent storm, stirred up by powerful winds, lifts and buffets it, the wave feels strong and brave, probably believing that it’s dancing like Lord Shiva (the magic of the Indian Ocean). Yet another is preoccupied by the fear that other waves may be bigger than itself, and if any of them cause an obstruction in its passage over the surface of the sea, it gets very angry.
Another has the insight that it belongs to something bigger, and it imagines that one day it will meet God and become the highest wave ever, just as it has always dreamed of being. Just like those famous waves that come from the East. These magnificent waves, when questioned about themselves, reply: “We rise up effortlessly very high; we are so big only by the grace of the Ocean, and we are not different from you.” It is said that these giant waves reincarnate year after year because of the holy alignment of some stars (coincidentally, it always happens during the monsoon). The petty waves think: “These are the teachers we should follow. They reincarnate one life after another just to give teachings; they don’t have any pride in their greatness. On the contrary, they are so humble that they say they are no one, and they do nothing to be so great.”
Nobody ever listens to, nor understands, the message that has always been repeated by the big waves, which is: “It is not me, but the Ocean that acts through me. The Ocean is not different from me because there is no ‘Me’! It is the mind that separates the Ocean from me. Everything is the same indivisible Nature. Only the Ocean exists; my form is only a temporary appearance. The Ocean is the only truth, with its unchanging movement. So surrender to It and be at peace, and stop letting your illusory thoughts interfere.”
Very few waves understand the importance of this; the majority continue to look for the magic myths of the Indian Ocean to become “better waves” through time and practice. The very rare, less narcissistic waves, instead of competing for height, will direct their efforts toward finding the root of their own soul, establishing a serenity that liberates them from the ups and downs of life. The little wave guesses the depth of the ocean but is still influenced by the images of the superficial, polluted water, where many self-appointed gurus sell dreams of omnipotence. They suggest that once you find your soul, you will become a wave with a crest but no valley, and you will have the power to create your destiny and realize all your worldly desires.
But all mental efforts to become a wise and balanced wave lead to frustration, because storms, currents, winds, and earthquakes are uncontrollable natural forces. Finally, one accepts that it is so, and, above all, that a wave with a crest but no valley does not exist. Sudden hurricanes that elevate waves to the sky do not depend on the number of mantras the wave repeated, nor are depressing dead calms punishments for its impure acts. The most awakened ones understand that the solution lies in the reunion of their individual self with the ocean, but effort in this direction is useless as long as the wave sees itself as an individual entity.
Some waves think: “Maybe it was better to live like those waves that don’t search for liberation and just live day by day. What’s life about? It doesn’t make any sense, everything dies, everything ends… take the most you can, lord it over some smaller waves—there’s always someone to dominate—and enjoy yourself while you can.” But the wave that has reached a certain spiritual dimension cannot turn back. It feels that there is something bigger inside, and guesses that the depths of the abyss exist. After trying in vain for a long time to find a stable self, the wave understands that there is no crest without a valley, and no effective method to stand up when it is dead calm. Once it is free from this illusion, all of a sudden it remembers, in an unclear intuition, that a long time ago, at the moment of its birth, it felt it was part of the Ocean itself. In that moment it had no personality and no history; life passed spontaneously moment by moment. But this sensation soon vanished with the effort to create a character according to the ideals generated by those that surrounded it.
The spiritual path that New Age groups suggested consisted of using mental stratagems under the illusion that it is possible to have all one’s wishes fulfilled. It was said that wise waves handed down knowledge a long time ago, and that finally, some bestselling authors have rediscovered it all. Those stratagems, unfortunately, were totally ineffective. Upon deeper analysis, they appeared not to be inspired by the Ocean, but were merely distorted versions of the sages’ insights, diffused by fearful waves who were scared of death, afraid of facing life, and anxious to become saints (being waves without the “valleys”). They pretended that with these methods they would be protected, reach illumination, and, after death, reincarnate in happy seas.
Wise traditions were transmitted in a very distorted way, so the vast majority of waves keep looking for illusory hopes to escape from the inconceivable idea of “not being anyone.” The sages only realize they are one with the ocean, and they have no need to change anybody. They speak very little, because when they do, most of the time they are misunderstood. If you don’t stop identifying yourself with a separate ego, you live in an illusory world and distort all the deepest truths.
The wave doesn’t want to see the death of the illusory self it identifies with, even though this is the only way to eternal life and resurrection. The wave wants to get rid of its faults, but it wants to keep all the good qualities it is proud of. It doesn’t want to give up its illusory projects and the drama it has created in its mind: the samsaric theater of life. And so, persisting in the impossible task of becoming what it is not, the wave is the victim of the frustrating and insatiable desire to be better.
All of a sudden, the wave realizes how foolish it is to strain for everything, and it surrenders, accepting to be exactly the way it is. SURRENDER TO THE OCEAN, OM NAMAH SHIVAYA… These sentences are no longer a slogan to be repeated while staying firmly fixed in separateness, but a right action. At once, with great relief, the wave realizes that there has never been a separation between the Ocean and itself. It realizes that if you surrender to It, your life will go the way it should anyway. What happens is inevitable.
A clear mind reveals the illusion of the separated “I”; that is the end of dualism. Micro and macro, high and low, good and bad, heaven and hell—all coexist in interdependence, not in conflict with each other. Finally, this is liberation.
Nothing has really changed. The crest and the valley are still there exactly as before, nor does this awareness increase the height of the wave. It is only the end of all inner conflicts and fears. Without any effort, the problem of becoming someone, the problem of time and death, dissolves.
Eternal movement of waves, eternal abyss—silent and immutable! Mysterious creatures live within us, and dolphins play on our shoulders. Everything is one. Moreover, even the ocean disappears; it too is only a hologram created by consciousness. The Void of the Buddhist, the Brahman of the Hindu, the Holy Spirit of the Christian, the eternal Tao of ancient China, the unthinkable quantum mechanics of the New Physics, all pervade apparent reality. And you are That.
Filippo Falzoni Gallerani
