Oneness University
The Vision
'To set man free' is the sole passion of Sri Amma Bhagavan. This vision runs as the nerve current through every activity of the Oneness Movement. The origins of this passion are to be traced back to the time when Sri Bhagavan was three years old. In His experience the whole universe was an extension of Himself. His consciousness had always been so. As Sri Bhagavan began to experience people, He became cognizant of the fact that people were not experiencing the world the way He was experiencing it. He saw they felt separate from the rest of the world. This sense of separate existence, he discovered, was the edifice on which stood human suffering. This was the very first awakening that Sri Bhagavan had of the human predicament that shaped His future work. Sri Bhagavan felt that the human consciousness was capable of a much vaster and richer experience of reality than it is experiencing today. To restore man to the magnificence and splendor of his natural state of being became Sri Bhagavan's passion.
Thus the vision took its birth.
The nature of existence is bliss. It is qualified by auspicious qualities like love, compassion, connectedness and silence. Man's consciousness is fettered by concepts, ideas, conditionings and mental constructions. Sri Bhagavan observes, 'When consciousness is purged of all its contamination what remains is life, pure consciousness or God'. Hence Sri Bhagavan defines Awakening or Oneness as 'liberation of life itself'.
This 'total and unconditional freedom' Sri Bhagavan speaks about is elucidated in the following verse on awakening.
'Moksho nama jeevasya vimuktihi ethasmath
.....iti satyam satyameva stayam'
Awakening
Is
Liberation of life
Is
Liberation of the senses
Is
Liberation from the self
Is
Liberation from the mind
Is
Liberation from knowledge
Is
Liberation from conditioning
Is
Liberation from society
Is
Liberation from work
This is truth.
~ Sri Bhagavan
Liberation of life
Awakening at a very fundamental level is to 'live life'. The scriptures define an awakened man as someone who is able to hold his senses under control. According to Sri Bhagavan, awakening on the other hand, is liberation 'of' the senses or freeing the senses from the clutches of the mind. The mind with its judgments and commentaries interferes with every sensory perception, making it stale and lifeless. If not for this interference of the mind, the human nervous system is capable of generating bliss through every sensory experience, be it seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or touch irrespective of the object of the experience. Thus one whose senses are liberated transcends the life of the mind and experiences the life of the senses.
Liberation from the self
Self is the sense of separate existence. Whenever there is the 'me' and the 'other', the result is fear - fear of what the other would do to me. Out of fear, struggle for survival, comparison, jealousy, hatred, all the rest are born. Sri Bhagavan says 'Self is only a concept'. A concept by definition is something that does not exist in reality. It is an illusion.
Liberation from the mind
The popular notion about freedom from the mind is either cessation of the mind where you enter a state of 'thoughtlessness' or transformation of the mind where the mind experiences greater freedom and peace within itself. The liberation Sri Bhagavan speaks about is neither of these. It is the cessation of the effort to stop or change the mind. Then you are free 'with' the mind. The mind with its contents exists independently only to aid you with practical issues of life but does not interfere with the experience of life itself.
Liberation from knowledge
When Sri Bhagavan speaks about liberation from knowledge, it is liberation from the bondage of knowledge and not knowledge itself. When knowledge is not translated into an experience it becomes a hindrance to the very experience that you have set out to achieve. Knowledge that is an obstacle to the experience of life is a burden and a bondage. Hence has to drop.
Liberation from conditioning
The ideas of communism, capitalism, equality, nationality, religion etc., have been developed by man over millennia. These ideas and concepts have a life of their own. They are making use of your life for their survival. They enter you as a 'thought-bug' and color every experience of life. Liberation from conditioning is not to be devoid of any idea or concept but to be free to choose them in functional matters of life.
Liberation from society
Ultimately man is bound by the concept of 'freedom' itself. He thinks freedom is achieved by going against the existing system and the norms of the society. 'Freedom' is essentially an internal state of existence where you no more arise from fear. Hence there is no suffocation or resistance against any structure, law or value that 'society' stands for. Freedom is not a revolt against something. It is a state of consciousness that has no opposites.
Liberation from work
Sri Bhagavan differentiates activity from action. Activity is an escape from inner void or pain of existence. It is done as a means to an end. You work, drive, cook, clean, pray because you have a psychological need behind all these that you want to fulfill. Action is where the destination or the purpose exists in a physical sense but not in a psychological sense. The experience is an end in itself. It arises from an inner state of joy and freedom. While the awakened man also works, he is free from the tyranny of work.
Message from the Founders
A Message from Sri Amma and Sri Bhagavan
In a world where mankind feels threatened by social upheavals, over population, wars, terrifying violence, callousness, each human being is more than ever concerned with his own survival.
Survival has implied living sanely, happily without great pressure or strain. Each one of us translates survival according to his own particular concept. The idealist projects a way of life which is not the actual; the theoreticians, whether Marxist, religious, or of any other particular persuasion have laid down patterns for survival; the nationalists consider survival possible only in a particular group or community. These ideological differences, ideals and faiths are the roots of a division that is preventing human survival.
Men want to survive in a particular way, according to their narrow responses, according to their immediate pleasures, according to some faith. All these can in no way bring security, for in themselves they are divisive, exclusive, limited. To live in the hope of survival according to tradition, however ancient or modern, has no meaning. Partial solutions of any kind - scientific, religious, political, economic- can no longer assure mankind, its survival. Man has been concerned with his own individual survival, with his family, with his group, his nation and because all this is divisive it threatens his actual survival.
The modern divisions of nationalities, of color, of culture, of religion are the causes of man's uncertainty of survival. In the turmoil of today's world, uncertainty has made man turn to authority - to the political, religious or economic expert. The specialist is inevitably a danger because his response must always be partial, limited. Man is no longer individual, separate. What affects the few, affects all mankind. There is no escape or avoidance of the problem. You can no longer withdraw from the totality of the human predicament.
We cannot possibly survive if we are concerned with our own survival. All human beings the world over are interrelated today. What happens in one country affects the others. Man considers himself an individual, separate from others but psychologically a human being is inseparable from the whole of mankind.
There is no such thing as psychological survival. When there is this desire to survive or to fulfill you are psychologically creating a situation which not only separates but which is totally unreal. Psychologically you cannot be separate from another and this desire to be separate psychologically is the very source of danger and destruction. Each person asserting himself threatens his own existence.
This assertion of separateness destroys our capacity to work together; to work together with nature, the living things of the earth and also with other human beings. As social beings we exist for ourselves. Our laws, our governments, our religions all emphasize the separateness of man - which during the centuries has developed into man against man. It is becoming more and more important, if we are to survive, that there be a spirit of cooperation with the universe, with all the things of the sea and earth.
One can see in all social structures the destructive effect of fragmentation taking place - nation against nation, one group against another group, one family against another family, one individual against another, religiously, socially, and economically. Each one is striving for himself, for his class or his particular interest in the community. This division of beliefs, ideals, conclusions and prejudices is preventing the spirit of cooperation from flowering. We are human beings, not tribal identities, exclusive, separate. We are human beings caught in conclusions, theories, faiths. We are living creatures, not labels. It is our human circumstance that makes us search for food, clothes and shelter at the expense of others. Our very thinking is separative, and all actions springing from this limited self, must prevent cooperation. The economic and social structure, as it is now, including organized religions, intensifies exclusiveness, and separateness. This lack of cooperation ultimately brings about wars and the destruction of man. It is only during crises or disasters, that we seem to come together and when they are over we are back to our old condition. We seem to be incapable of living and working together harmoniously.
Is it because our brain, which is the centre of our thought, our feeling, has from ancient days become through necessity so conditioned to seek its own personal survival, that this isolating, aggressive process has come about? Is it because this isolating process identifies itself with the family, with the tribe, and becomes glorified nationalism? Is not all isolation linked to a need for identification and fulfillment? Has not the importance of the self been cultivated through evolution by the opposition of the 'me' and 'you', the 'we' and 'they'? Have not all religions emphasized personal salvation, personal awakening, personal achievement, both religiously and in the world? Has cooperation become impossible because we have given such importance to this sense of separateness? Is it because human cooperation has centered on some kind of authority of Government or religion around some ideology or conclusion, which then inevitably brings about its own destructive opposite?
What does it mean to cooperate - not the word but the spirit of it? You cannot possibly cooperate with another, with the earth and its waters, unless you in yourself are harmonious, not broken up, non contradictory; you cannot cooperate if you yourself are under strain, pressure, conflict. How can you cooperate with the universe if you are concerned with yourself, your problems and your ambitions? There can be no cooperation if all your activities are self centered and you are occupied with your own selfishness, with your own secret desires and pleasures. As long as the intellect with its thoughts dominates all your actions, obviously there can be no cooperation, for self-centered thought is partial, narrow and everlastingly divisive. Cooperation demands great honesty. Honesty has no motive. Honesty is not some ideal, some faith. Honesty is clarity - the clear perception of things as they are. Perception is attention. That very attention throws light with all its energy on that which is being observed. This light of perception brings about a transformation of the thing observed. There is no system through which you learn to cooperate. It is not to be structured and classified. Its very nature demands that there be love and that love is not measurable, for when you compare - which is the essence of measurement - self has entered. Where self is, love is not.
When the truth of all this is seen and understood man's responsibility undergoes a radical change not only towards his immediate environment but also towards all living things. This total responsibility is love. This love acts through intelligence. This intelligence is not partial, individual separate. Love is never partial. Love is the sacredness of all living things.
We have stated the problem, the cause and now we must find the solution. Through no effort of his, could man possibly make it. All this is possible only when your heart is filled with the Presence. The Presence flows into you through Oneness Blessing.
Oneness Blessing would thus help create a new generation of human beings, with a new outlook, with a new sense of being citizens of the world, concerned with all the living things of the earth. It is your grave responsibility to help bring about this Oneness.
From the official Oneness University Website: http://www.onenessuniversity.org
© 2007 Oneness University
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