A reader from New England asks:

I was reading your post on the Precious Words of My Teacher. You wrote there about the “plane of equality.” What does that mean?

Most human beings experience various aspects of life as higher or lower, better or worse,  more attractive or less attractive. This is pure suffering.

We try to climb higher, get better, and cling to that which we find  appealing and attractive.

These reactions to life are the root of all war, prejudice and insecurity.

Yoginis and yogis travel from this limited View toward an embodied View that everything is equality. “Embodied View” means that you receive a direct transmission or insight about Reality and that is embodied in how you show up in the world. It is not merely a conceptual or intellectual understanding.

I clearly remember the precise moment when I first encountered the total equality of life’s manifestations. It was an all-encompassing and irrevocable insight  that occurred in the course of  my practice.

Equality is not subject to complete understanding without direct experience. However, anyone can have at least some intellectual understanding. If everything is nothing but consciousness and energy, then everything is equal on a fundamental level.

“Plane of equality” means we can experience the situations, objects and people we encounter in all of their variety. We can taste all of life’s flavors. And we can, simultaneously, experience all of that variety as equality. So there is something like a plane of equality – that place from which we can experience all of the flavors of life and their equality.

The embodied effects of understanding that everything is equality are many. All people are equality, and so there is no longer the desire for special friends or attachment to certain people above all others. All teachings are equality. All realms are equality, as are all happenings and activities.

From this perspective, seeking Self-understanding, doing sadhana and expressing compassion and kindness are not “better” than meanness, lack of spiritual awareness and mayhem. Illness and wellness are also equality. Gain and loss are equality.

From another perspective, compassion and kindness are less limited expressions, and meanness and mayhem are more limited expressions. Both of these perspectives are both valid at the same time.

All perspectives and all activities are part of the life process. Everything belongs. Nothing is bad or wrong. Even so, a person who is established in life’s equality will naturally express compassion and kindness. She will act in the world to end the suffering of others. Why? Because that is our enlightened essence and no other reason.

Encountering basic equality ends all egoic attachment to being kind, compassionate and good and sets the stage for these virtues to blossom in you naturally. It is the discovery of natural detachment and real engagement with life.

In Ma’s love,
Shambhavi

Listen to Equality and Seven Things to Forget – a teaching song written by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. Sung by Ari Goldberg.

Posted by Shambhavi on October 19th, 2009 | Explore More! Tags: Compassion and Generosity, nonduality