The Awakening of Francis Lucille
How did you discover your real nature?
You
are asking about the specifics in my case. Before I give you the
details, I have to forewarn you that this is not a one-size-fits-all
path to the truth. The way to the discovery of our true nature varies
from one seeker to another. It may be a sudden and dramatic experience
or a subtle, seemingly gradual path. The touchstone, in all cases, is
the peace and understanding that prevails at the end of the road.
Although
a first glimpse of reality is an event of cosmic proportions, it may
remain unnoticed at first and work its way in the background of the mind
until the egoistic structure collapses, just as a building severely
damaged by an earthquake remains stand- ing for some time and collapses a
few months later, gradually or suddenly. This effect is due to the fact
that the glimpse does not belong to the mind. The mind, which until now
was the slave of the ego, becomes the servant and lover of the eternal
splendor that illuminates thoughts and perceptions. As a slave of the
ego, the mind was the warden of the jail of time, space and causation;
as a servant of the highest intelligence and a lover of the supreme
beauty, it becomes the instrument of our liberation.
The
glimpse that ignited my interest for the truth occurred while I was
reading a book by J. Krishnamurti. It was the point of departure of an
intense quest that became the central and exclusive focus in my life. I
read Krishnamurti’s books again and again, along with the main texts of
Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism. I made important changes in my life in
order to live in accordance with my spiritual understanding. I
renounced what many people would call an excellent career, because it
implied my involvement as a scientist with the design and development of
sophisticated weapons for the French military.
Two
years after the first glimpse, I had achieved a good intellectual
understanding of the nondual perspective, although a few questions still
remained unanswered. I knew from experience that any attempt to fulfill
my desires was doomed to failure. It had become clear to me that I was
consciousness, rather than my body or my mind. This knowledge was not a
purely intellectual one, a mere concept, but seemed to somehow originate
from experience, a particular kind of experience devoid of any
objectivity. I had experienced, on several occasions, states in which
perceptions were surrounded and permeated by bliss, light and silence.
Physical objects seemed more remote from me, more unreal, as if reality
had moved away from them and shifted toward that light and that silence
which was at the center of the stage. Along with it came the feeling
that everything was all right, just as it should be, and, as a matter of
fact, just as it had always been. However, I still believed that
awareness was subject to the same limitations as the mind, that it was
of a personal, rather than universal, nature.
Sometimes,
I had a foretaste of its limitlessness, usually while reading Ch’an or
Advaita texts or while thinking deeply about the nondual perspective.
Due to my upbringing by materialistic and antireligious parents and to
my training in Mathematics and Physics, I was both reluctant to adopt
any religious belief and suspicious of any nonlogically or
nonscientifically validated hypothesis. An unlimited, universal
awareness seemed to me to be such a belief or hypothesis, but I was open
to explore this possibility. The perfume of this limitlessness had, in
fact, been the determining factor that sustained my search for the
truth. Two years after the first glimpse, this possibility had taken a
center stage position.
That
is when the radical change, the “Copernican shift,” happened. This
event, or, more precisely, this nonevent, stands alone, uncaused. The
certainty that flows from it has an absolute strength, a strength
independent from any event, object or person. It can only be compared to
our immediate certainty to be conscious.
I
was sitting in silence, meditating in my living room with two friends.
It was too early to fix dinner, our next activity. Having nothing to do,
expecting nothing, I was available. My mind was free of dynamism, my
body relaxed and sensitive, although I could feel some discomfort in my
back and in my neck.
After
some time, one of my friends unexpectedly began to chant a traditional
incantation in Sanskrit, the Gayatri Mantra. The sacred syllables
entered mysteriously in resonance with my silent presence which seemed
to become intensely alive. I felt a deep longing in me, but at the same
time a resistance was preventing me from living the current situation to
the fullest, from responding with all my being to this invitation from
the now, and from merging with it. As the attraction toward the beauty
heralded by the chant increased, so did the resistance, revealing itself
as a growing fear that transformed into an intense terror.
At
this point, I felt that my death was imminent, and that this horrendous
event would surely be triggered by any further letting go on my behalf,
by any further welcoming of that beauty. I had reached a crucial point
in my life. As a result of my spiritual search, the world and its
objects had lost their attraction. I didn’t really expect anything
substantial from them. I was exclusively in love with the Absolute, and
this love gave me the boldness to jump into the great void of death, to
die for the sake of that beauty, now so close, that beauty which was
calling me beyond the Sanskrit words.
As
a result of this abandon, the intense terror which had been holding me
instantaneously released its grip and changed into a flow of bodily
sensations and thoughts which rapidly converged toward a single thought,
the I-thought, just as the roots and the branches of a tree converge
toward its single trunk. In an almost simultaneous apperception, the
personal entity with which I was identifying revealed itself in its
totality. I saw its superstructure, the thoughts originating from the
I-concept and its infrastructure, the traces of my fears and desires at
the physical level. Now the entire tree was contemplated by an
impersonal eye, and both the superstructure of thoughts and the
infrastructure of bodily sensations rapidly vanished, leaving the
I-thought alone in the field of consciousness. For a few moments, the
pure I-thought seemed to vacillate, just as the flame of an oil lamp
running out of fuel, then vanished.
At that precise moment, the immortal background of Presence revealed itself in all its splendor.
Excerpt from Eternity Now, by Francis Lucille
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