An officer after very hard work during the week had a hearty dinner on Saturday night and went to bed. He slept through the whole of Sunday and woke up on Monday morning. He was told by his servant that it being Monday he has to go to the office. The officer jumped up and shouted, 'But, where is my Sunday ?'
Two important ideas come out of this: (1) that his not being conscious of a Sunday moving along did not affect at all the Sunday which the world had; (2) that he could live independent of the flow of time that affected the world, a time in which the world was cooked but in which he was not cooked. By saying 'where is my Sunday' he was affirming a time which was imperceptible for him, in which he did not live "consciously", but in which the world lived. The world with its men and things lived through the Sunday consciously, making their choices and trying to become what they were not which is life. I am something and I want to be something else, this is life. When the officer was sleeping he never wanted to become what he is not. Becoming brings in suffering. He was not suffering at all. The world was being tossed about between pleasure and pain, but he was not. He was simply existing, whereas the world was living.
In sleep, love and suffering - well there are many other similar epochs of liberty and timelessness - we do not choose, we do not become. Rather we have no need to choose as we are in plenitude. And when we are referring to these three states we are not referring to their physical aspect, but to their aspect as non-dual experience, an experience to which nothing can be added nor from which nothing can be subtracted and for which there are no criterions or measures and for which reason, they are eternity.
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