In this annihilating experience [of advaita] one is no longer able to
project in front of oneself anything whatsoever, to recognize any other “pole” to which to refer oneself and to give the name of God.
project in front of oneself anything whatsoever, to recognize any other “pole” to which to refer oneself and to give the name of God.
Once one
has reached that innermost center, one is so forcibly seized by the
mystery that one can no longer utter a “Thou” or an “I.”
Engulfed in the
abyss, we disappear to our own eyes, to our own consciousness.
The
proximity of that mystery which the prophetic traditions name “God”
burns us so completely that there is no longer any question of discovering it in the depths of oneself or oneself in the depths of it.
In the very engulfing, the gulf has vanished.
If a cry was still
possible—at the moment perhaps of disappearing into the abyss—it would
be paradoxically:
“but there is no abyss, no gulf, no distance!” There
is no face-to-face, for there is only That-Which-Is, and no other to
name it.
Swami Abhishiktananda aka Henri Le Saux (1910 - 1973) was a French monk who, having moved to India in 1948 in search of a more radical form of spiritual life, adopted sannyasa in accordance with the Advaita tradition and became one of the pioneers of Hindu-Christian dialogue.
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