The True Lover

 

Reflection 163

Welcome!

The wonderfully strange and happy fact is that this Self-seeing (which is perfect anyway) self-forgetting: with the result that (for example) the once painfully-self-occupied public speaker, now wholly occupied with the audience, talks fluently and spontaneously and unanxiously; and the once painfully-self-occupied lover, now wholly occupied with the beloved, loves similarly well. In falsely self-conscious loving, which begins by being inefficient and ends by being impossible, each is using the other for personal satisfaction; each is attempting to enjoy his or her own body instead of the other's - so the enjoyment dwindles. In truly Self-conscious loving, on the contrary, each is the disembodied enjoyer of the other's body; each consciously makes way for and is occupied by the other, feels the other, knows (in the biblical sense) the other - and the by-product or bonus is that physical enjoyment flourishes, perhaps as never before. 

(Douglas Harding. Quoted in Seeing Who You Really Are by Richard Lang)

 
Please send your comments to Richard

I'm Back....

So....it's been a rather long hiatus. I don't know if I am going to be doing this on a regular basis again, but I felt to check in for some reason. Maybe it was the ayahuasca journey, maybe the increasing insanity on the planet, maybe it's the desire to make a positive contribution....probably all of the above. I know nothing about anything, really. It's all conjecture, a conversation I have with myself.

This is what I have come to realize....it's all in my head. Except that I really have no head to speak of, only this vast space wherein things come and go. As perceived, so appears. There is the conditioned mind constantly interpreting the data from the senses into this holographic reality according to preconceived expectations....one thing leads to another, and another, a seemingly endless panoply unfolding in time. And then there's the aware void, the still point, before anything begins, untouched, unsullied by all of it. When grounded in this awareness, it is more like a movie than anything else, something this "I" simultaneously watches and participates in. There is no investment in any outcome. But "I" am all in.

Oh, there are many opportunities to numb out and attempt to escape and certainly it is understandable why anyone would want to. In so many ways, it's all too much.  Even the spiritual stuff depends on us believing we are NOT THAT, even though we ARE THAT which we seek. So the marketplace lures us on, even in our attempt to escape this matrix mind-control hologram.

it's such a small step, so easy to miss. But you have to STOP. Stop seeking, stop buying, stop wanting something ELSE. Be here...now...as if you came to the end of the road and there was just a deep abyss, and you turned around to find where you had been no longer existed either. Think about it....what if NONE of it is real? What if it is just a story we tell ourselves over and over again because to stop is to face our fear of annihilation? What if we just let ourselves get swallowed by the nothing that we fear? The thing is, the fear itself is just part of the story, part of the script. It's the door to the way OUT. Sort of. Because all that happens is the bubble pops, and you are free.

Don't just take my word for it, try it! You'll be surprised....

One Buddha Teaching That Will Tell You More About Yourself Than Anything Else

 

by Andrew Barker in Collective Evolution

No Self

In Buddhism one of the ‘Three Characteristics’ is No-Self (the other two are impermanence and suffering which are closely associated with this). This refers to the illusion of reality having a permanent and separate self.

There is this notion that there is a permanent “I” or “me,” which is a separate entity that can be found. The obvious assumption of we are our body sounds good until we look at it and say “this is my body,” which implies at that moment that whatever owns the body wasn’t the body. The observer and the observed; duality denies our body being what we are. It is also in a state of impermanence, and at a sensate level it is made up of energy flickering at a similar rate to reality.

Perhaps thoughts are the “I.” They may seem more like the true “me” than the body does. But they come and go and are changing constantly too, as well as the majority of them not being under our control at all. They too aren’t something solid enough to assume they are the “I.” The ego is a process of identification with reality (physical and mental phenomena), not a thing in and of itself; it is like a bad habit. Not being a thing, it cannot be destroyed as some people say, but by understanding our bare experience, our mind, the process of identification can stop.

There is also something frequently called the “watcher” or “observer,” which is observing all of these phenomena. Strangely, the watcher can’t be found either, as it seems to sometimes be our eyes, sometimes not; sometimes it’s images in our head; sometimes it seems to be our body and sometimes it’s watching the body. It seems odd that this watcher to which all of this is being perceived by, which seems separate from reality and which seems in control of “us” is constantly changing and completely unfindable.

One of the biggest clues in solving this mystery is that if we are observing it, then by definition it isn’t us. Reality is made up entirely of sensations, and to begin to unravel this mystery is to begin to awaken. Reality with a sense of a separate watcher is a delusion. So who or what is it that awakens?

What Awakens?

In short, it’s all of this transience that awakens! Here’s an explanation, keep in mind this is an attempt at summarizing something quite complicated. (Not really!)

No-Self teachings directly counter the sense that there is a separate watcher, and that this watcher is “us” that is in control, observing reality or subject to the tribulations of the world. These teachings stop the process of mentally creating the illusion of a separate self from sensations that are inherently non-dual and utterly transient.

 

There are physical phenomena (everything we perceive with our senses) and mental phenomena (thoughts, feelings, emotions). These are just phenomena, and all phenomena aren’t a permanent, separate self as they are completely impermanent and are intimately interdependent. These phenomena arise and pass as we venture through reality, i.e. the sound of a bird singing comes into existence and then dissipates.

There is also awareness of these phenomena, but awareness is not a thing or localised in a particular place, so to even say “there is awareness” is already a large problem, as it implies separateness and existence of it where none can be found. Awareness is permanent and unchanging, and it is said that all things arise from it, and all things return to it. It could be called God, Nirvana, The Tao, Allah, the present moment, the Buddha nature or just awareness.

While phenomena are in flux from their arising to their passing, there is awareness of them. Thus, awareness is not these phenomena, as it is not a thing, nor is it separate from these objects, as there would be no experience if this were so.

True-Self

True-Self teachings point out that we actually are all these phenomena, rather than them being seen as observed. As phenomena are observed, they can’t possibly be the observer. Thus, the observer, which is awareness, cannot possibly be a phenomenon and thus is not localised and therefore doesn’t exist. Duality implies something on both sides: an observer and an observed. However, there is no phenomenal observer, so duality doesn’t hold up under careful investigation. When the illusion of duality permanently collapses in awakening, in direct experience, all that is left is these phenomena, which is the True Self.

There’s a great little Buddhist poem by Kalu Rinpoche that sums all this up:

We live in illusion and the appearance of things.

 

There is a reality, we are that reality.

 

When you understand this, you will see “you” are nothing.

 

And, being nothing, you are everything.

Spiritual Deconstruction: What is "Mind"?

This is the third video in my spiritual deconstructions series. This material is meant to present the possibility of liberation occurring in this lifetime, as is your birthright. It is a matter of re-identifying oneself with non-localized consciousness itself instead of the content of one's personal "mind". By questioning unexamined assumptions, one can open the door to this realization and be a conduit for the evolution of consciousness expressing through humanity on this planet.

The Real You - Alan Watts

“When you’re ready to wake up, you’re going to wake up, and if you’re not ready you’re going to stay pretending that you’re just a ‘poor little me.’ And since you’re all here and engaged in this sort of inquiry and listening to this sort of lecture, I assume you’re all in the process of waking up. Or else you’re teasing yourselves with some kind of flirtation with waking up which you’re not serious about. But I assume that maybe you are not serious, but sincere – that you are ready to wake up.

So then, when you’re in the way of waking up, and finding out who you really are, what you do is what the whole universe is doing at the place you call here and now. You are something that the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing… The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around; the real, deep down you is the whole universe.” 

– Alan Watts

Wei Wu Wei - Bits and Pieces

From 'Fingers Pointing Towards The Moon':

It is less what one is that should matter, than what one is not.

* * *

The qualities we possess should never be a matter for satisfaction, but the qualities we have discarded.

* * *

It is not for us to search but to remain still, to achieve Immobility not Action.

* * *

There is no becoming. ALL IS.

* * *

The Saint is a man who disciplines his ego. The Sage is a man who rids himself of his ego.

* * *

It is only the artificial ego that suffers. The man who has transcended his false 'me' no longer identifies with his suffering.

* * *

We ourselves are not an illusory part of Reality; rather are we Reality itself illusorily conceived.

* * *

Are we not wasps who spend all day in a fruitless attempt to traverse a window-pane - while the other half of the window is wide open?

* * *

Detachment is a state, it is not a totalisation of achieved indifferences.

* * *

The notion that human life has greater value than any other form of life is both unjustifiable and arrogant.

* * *

Wise men don't judge: they seek to understand.

* * *

How many of the ways (disciplines, exercises, practices) recommended as helpful, or even necessary, for the attainment of Satori are not in fact consequences of that state erroneously suggested as means?

* * *

There seem to two kinds of searchers: those who seek to make their ego something other than it is, i.e. holy, happy, unselfish (as though you could make a fish unfish), and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation and play-acting, that there is only one thing that can be done, which is to disidentify themselves with the ego, by realising its unreality, and by becoming aware of their eternal identity with pure being.

* * * * *

From 'Why Lazarus Laughed':

Living should be perpetual and universal benediction.

* * *

Doctrines, scriptures, sutras, essays, are not to be regarded as systems to be followed. They merely contribute to understanding. They should be for us a source of stimulation, and nothing more... Adopted, rather than used as a stimulus, they are a hindrance.

* * *

Of the many earnest, and how earnest, people we may observe reading, attending lectures, studying and practising disciplines, devoting their energies to the attainment of a liberation which is by definition unattainable, how many are not striving via the ego-concept which is itself the only barrier between what they think they are and that which they wish to become but always have been and always will be?

* * *

Play your part in the comedy, but don't identify yourself with your role!

* * *

On the phenomenal plane we seek pleasure and the avoidance of pain. On the noumenal plane we know the absence of both - which is Bliss.

* * *

When you give a shilling to a beggar
- do you realise that you are giving it to yourself?

When you help a lame dog over a stile
- do you realise that you yourself are being helped?

When you kick a man when he is down
- do you realise that you are kicking yourself?

Give him another kick - if you deserve it!

* * *

Reality alone exists - and that we are. All the rest is only a dream, a dream of the One Mind, which is our mind without the 'our'. Is it so hard to accept? Is it so difficult to assimilate and to live?

* * *

Even the intellectual understanding of the inexistence of our 'selves' is a rare and bitter attainment which few even attempt. And that is only the elimination round which qualifies us for access to Reality... Intellectual understanding should be not indispensable to a 'simple' mind, but, with our conditioning, it would seem to be an almost inevitable preliminary.

* * *

Past and Future are a duality of which Present is the reality. The now-moment alone is eternal and real.

* * *

Spontaneity is being present in the present.

Spontaneity by-passes the processes of the conceptual (aspect of) mind.

Reintegration with Nature, which we are, is the recovery of spontaneity.

* * *

What we know as 'life'
is the analytical realisation
in the seriality of time
of our eternal reality.

* * *

We have only to eliminate the ego-notion by succeeding in the difficult task of understanding that it does not exist except as a notion.

http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/bits.html

It's Not Personal

We must stop taking each encounter and thought personally. It no longer is about the personality or content of the mind. If you remember that thoughts are merely conditioning that we have identified with, then it is easier to see that whatever arises in consciousness, whether it looks to be outside in the world, or appears in our inner landscape, is to be considered a clue as to what is the next step in our collective healing. Approaching all content of the dream as markers that point to the unfolding of awakening, we see the direction we must go and the actions we must take. But it never is directing us towards further separation. The idea we should shield ourselves in any way, is entrenched in duality. In Oneness there can be no enemy.

That doesn’t mean we are required to play a part in the dream that would override our sense of integrity. Some behaviors and scenarios are dead ends and lead to further fragmentation. Since the goal of any organism is wholeness and coherence, we continue in that direction and avoid any enticement that would distract emotionally and pull us into drama. The “I” thought that differentiates, with its “own” values, perceptions, beliefs, etc. is the program, not the truth. We are Consciousness, aware of ITSELF, evolving through this dimensional dream world, and discovering its nature. It is always attempting to divulge its true nature, to look more closely and pierce the veil. It attempts this through us as its agents. So the invitation is to relinquish individuality, not to another belief system as presented by another teacher, but to LIFE ITSELF as it moves through us, breathing the new paradigm into existence.

There are always opportunities, more so now than ever, to surrender our personas of protection and become transparent and vulnerable to LIFE in its constant expression. Love is its language and would speak through action, not words. I do not mean action necessarily in the form of doing, but is more about the nature of Being. The intellect cannot reason out the manner in which the flow will appear, as each moment makes itself known completely fresh, neither encumbered by the past nor expectant of a future. It knows intuitively its directionality through time-space. It is like water, tumbling from stream to river as it seeks finally joining its mother, the ocean. It is inevitable. It is HOME.

When we enter this flow, surrendering control and entering the stream of alive Consciousness, we become instruments of harmony, joining the frequential and vibratory undoing of anything unlike the essential truth of Being, of Life ITSELF. We are the change agents as soon as we walk into a room. When you feel tension arising, know you have ushered in an invitation to freedom. There is nothing need be said, but Life’s presence through you will begin the adjustment necessary. It has nothing to do with you, so stay out of it. Be still. Allow. Love. That’s all.

Opinions and viewpoints are transitory and are constantly changing as we are upgraded in our understanding. Do not be a disseminator of viewpoints, please. Relinquish all viewpoints and join the infinity of Life’s awareness, which, of course, includes EVERYTHING in existence, including that which you cannot yet perceive. That means you cannot take a stand, anywhere. It is like an endless free fall, where you become accustomed to the inability to orient yourself to any reference point, where you finally stop trying to grab onto something to stop the sense of certain death. In fact, you stop trying to avoid anything, but instead become curious as to what it is you’ve been afraid of. It’s time to come to grips and get to know your inner terrorist, to face it head on and see what happens. When you’re ready, the universe will align with your intent, and your situation will morph to provide the perfect opening for you to transcend your self-imposed limitations.

True freedom is awakening from the illusion of everything you thought was true and encountering Truth directly, alive and always brand new as it moves through time-space moment by moment. It is the death of your fictional identity and the relinquishing of all desire to recreate a new one. It is not just getting off the carousel; it is leaving the amusement park altogether. What happens after that is anyone’s guess.

Love to All, Suzen

The Carrot and the Stick

By Robert Cinque
of Cinqueterra

The ego is born through an emotional recoil from its Origin.  This creates the appearance that God is distant and must be found.  The spiritual traditions of humanity are based on this search , this impulse for re-union with the Divine.  However, the search is based on an illusion of separateness and isolation, which reduces God to a carrot on an ego stick.

Throw away the stick. Eat the Carrot.

Creating the stick is an activity that produces “me” and then the “world”.    Authentic spiritual life is about recognizing this, not “overcoming the ego”, which cannot be done anyway because it does not exist in the first place, except in our imagination.  This practice is about Standing Prior to the birth of ego, not overcoming it after you created it.

Try picking up an imaginary rock, it’s impossible. The disease of egoity is self created and imaginary, too. When recoil is replaced with emotional intimacy, the ego is pre-empted and cannot form.

The spiritual traditions exhort us to overcome this fleshly “ego” and be more “spiritual” by identifying with our non-physical, “inner” being.  This so-called inner being is only yet another spontaneous patterning of this Infinite Consciousness, Whatever That Is altogether, but the inside of me is not the exclusive domain of truth, only That in which the inner being is appearing is the Domain of Truth, the Amphitheatre of the Heart.

I am in awe of This, I surrender in love to It. Ultimately, I am It, or rather, It became “me”.  Once it becomes clear that It is the basis of “me”, all dilemma disappears, all searching, all “other”.

Authentic spiritual life is about recognizing what is already true, not deifying my beliefs about it.  Conventional spiritual practice is like using a really excellent and detailed map of Detroit while you’re trying to find your way around Paris.  Conventional spiritual life places enlightenment at the end of the journey, the search is finally over, but authentic spiritual life places enlightenment at the beginning, middle, and end, as the very foundation of human life. It is based on heartfelt response ability, not belief, not technique, not method, not mythology, not search.

It’s about Discovery.

Jesus is reported to have said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure a man finds buried in his field.”

Authentic spiritual life is about love, which is truth.  Truth, whatever it is altogether, is identical with Reality.  What Is, is True.  Find out What Is, prior to mind, prior to “me”, prior to “world”.  That is the knockout punch and is why “you” won’t survive the “journey” to “God”.

Conventional religious belief, from fundamentalism to New Age metaphysics, is based on this search, on the “great path of return” to God, to Unity and Wholeness. Sounds great, doesn’t it?  It’s exciting, adventurous, and romantic.  The only problem with it is the fact that you’re not actually lost, not actually separate from That which you seek.  The problem with conventional religious belief is that it supports and enables a carrot on a stick.  At best, ordinary religious beliefs prepare us for authentic spiritual life if only by providing an illusion to demolish.

Only God Exists and You are not separate from It.That’s the truth that sets the heart free, not that I need to be saved from Original Sin or that I can have and do and be anything I want, that happiness can be found in the manifestation of my desires. Happiness cannot be found because it is not lost.

Happiness is the nature of Reality already and our spiritual obligation is to realize it, not believe in it, not seek it in pleasure or in the fulfillment of need and desire. Happiness is prior to pleasure and need and desire, and everything else. 

See for yourself.

To read more, CLICK HERE.

Waking Up Hurts

by Robert Cinque, Contributor

Finding out that my life has been based upon lie after lie is sickening and painful.  I threw up, like Neo in the movie The Matrix, when he discovered that his so called life was a dream, a nightmare of horrors, lie upon lie.

His awakening was bloody and painful. He did not greet it with a smile, he had to recover from it, his own awakening!  The truth is so massive, so crushing, no one can endure its weight.

The Truth literally crushes you to death, and that is why Awakening is about It, not “me”.   Your identity as a separate entity will not survive the journey to enlightenment. The Truth hurts, but it’s still the Truth, still Life Giving. There is no need for beliefs when you have the Truth, or rather, when It has you.

In our world, it’s not only the tyrants who lie their asses off, it’s the priests and doctors too, unwitting administrators of torture and falsehood.  They promote lies they sincerely believe.

But does the truth care about my beliefs about it? No. Do my ideas affect the truth?  No.

Maps are not the Territory.  Menus are not the Meal.

Eat the Real, Live the Territory.

The Territory is the Radiant Conscious Field of Intelligent Light, the Impossible Wonder of the Presence of Life.  The Meal is the ecstatic Whole Body Enjoyment of this undeniable Truth: the entirety of Reality Itself is your most fundamental identity now, we are absolutely inherently identical to Whatever the Fuck It Is that became us, little ole you and me, go figure.  When we finally come to grips with the mind shattering reality of our Actual Condition, now, we will be able to manage our lives and this planet without conflict.

The Map is a compilation of our scientifically materialistic, religiously psychotic, politically constipated, culturally anemic ideas about It. Our job is to move from the Map to the Territory.

In my last essay, Whatever Destroyed the Towers Could Power the Planet, I identified 3 lies, 3 social memes that infect the body of Humanity and regulate its behavior just as surely as our genes rule our bodies.

Here is one more, the most basic lie of all, the one that most enables our domination by the Matrix.

Ego.

The so-called ego is born from an assumption.  It is not an entity, but a belief in one, a belief in a separate self, one that is marooned on an island of flesh.  Belief in the ego is the result of a confusion about uniqueness, where individuation becomes the equivalent of separation. The ego is a belief, a primitive superstition, a cult of one, an emotional recoil dramatized as abandonment and betrayal.  Every ego is a fundamentalist, a fascist, and a tyrant in a drama of perpetrator/victim.  I call it the Poor me/Fuck you syndrome.

The truth is, I don’t have an ego and neither do you!  We have a belief in ego, an assumption about our state that has no basis in Reality itself. A belief in something doesn’t make it true, no matter how devout we are, no matter how dedicated we may be to that belief.  Pious devotion to falsehood turns people into fools.  When you unpack your “self” and all its contents, it turns out to be just a pile of old books and dirty laundry.

The One who did the unpacking, That’s Who I Am. You too.

There is only one Reality, not two. The One became the “two”.  Still, no “objects” actually exist, only Consciousness Exists.  You are That, showing up like a Fish in the Ocean.

You are the Ocean, the Fish, and the Observer, all at once.  How can this be?  No one knows.

It just is.

To continue reading CLICK HERE .

CLARITY

By Nathan Gill

"...That was it! Suddenly it was absolutely clear to me that these experiences - I call them transcendental events or experiences - actually have nothing to do with clarity. A transcendental experience can last a few seconds or ten years or maybe even the rest of your life, but a transcendental experience is just that. An experience. Many people have had these experiences and then the experience is gone and often the person is left with a desire for more of it. They think they have been given a taste of 'enlightenment' , when all that has happened is that they have had a transcendental experience. Walking down the street is an experience, but it's an ordinary one so you don't go looking for more of it.

The confusion was gone. I knew what I am without any doubt and it was obvious that I already had been that all my life. I no longer required any transcendental experience to prove it to me.

The whole of my 'spiritual' search had been added on to what I already am and I also understood why people are confused around this whole issue. Why they confuse 'spirituality' with clarity. This recognition of my true nature was not associated with any transcendental event or experience. It was clear that a transcendental experience of any kind is easily confusing if it occurs before you recognize with clarity your nature as Consciousness.

It is obvious that the transcendental event that was experienced had nothing to do with clarity of recognition. The occurrence of the event brought my confusion to a head and allowed me to see clearly how I had been subtly waiting for an event as permission to be what I already am.

I see now that no transcendental event has any significance in the light of the plain, ordinary, everyday clarity of what you really are."

Read the entire book HERE.

Be Yourself.

"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."

~ Oscar Wilde

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------

When anybody laughs, he has no mind, no thought, no problem, no suffering.

~ Papaji

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------

You impose limits on your true nature of infinite being. Then you get displeased to be only a limited creature. Then you begin spiritual practices to transcend these non-existing limits. But if your practice itself implies the existence of these limits, how could they allow you to transcend them.

~ Ramana Maharshi

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To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

~ Eckhart Tolle

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"Who cares if you're enlightened forever? Can you just get it in this moment, now?"

~ Byron Katie

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Be still. It takes no effort to be still; it is utterly simple. When your mind is still, you have no name, you have no past, you have no relationships, you have no country, you have no spiritual attainment, you have no lack of spiritual attainment. There is just the presence of beingness with itself.

~ Gangaji

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------

For a day,

Just for one day,

Talk about that

Which disturbs no one...

And bring some peace

Into your beautiful eyes.

~ Hafiz

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------

There is no profound knowledge. There are no good words. Everything you've been told is a lie. The only truth that exists is your self, but who is the self? The self is you, just the way you are. The mistake most people make is they want to change themselves. How can you change yourself? You think you've got problems, or you think you've got a bad mind, or you think something is wrong and you want to change that. Those things don't exist. There is nothing to change. That's what I mean when I say, "Be yourself, just the way you are." Yourself, just the way you are, spontaneous, live in the now, has no time to worry or think. When you are yourself you are God, you are consciousness, you are absolute reality. You are always yourself. You never were anyone else. You never were anything else. Your nature is divine. You are not what you appear to be. The only thing to remove is the appearance, or the belief in the appearance, for the appearance is false.

~ Robert Adams

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Nothing is born, nothing is destroyed.

Away with your dualism, your likes and dislikes.

Every single thing is just the One Mind.

When you have perceived this,

you will have mounted the Chariot of the Buddhas.

~ Huang Po

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------

"I can walk on the clouds!" says a child.

But if she reached the clouds,

she would find nowhere to place her foot.

Likewise, if one does not examine thoughts,

they present a solid appearance;

but if one examines them,

there is nothing there.

That is what is called

being at the same time

empty and apparent.

Emptiness of mind

is not a nothingness,

nor a state of torpor,

for it possesses by its very nature

a luminous faculty of knowledge

which is called Awareness.

These two aspects,

emptiness and Awareness,

cannot be separated.

They are essentially one,

like the surface of the mirror

and the image which is reflected in it."

~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Just JUMP!

Listen!

Here’s all you need to know to become enlightened:

Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what’s true until you know.

That’s it. That’s the whole deal; a complete teaching of enlightenment, a complete practice. If you ever have any questions or problems—no matter what the question or problem is—the answer is always exactly the same:

Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what’s true until you know.

In other words, go jump off a cliff.

Don’t go near the cliff and contemplate jumping off. Don’t read a book about jumping off. Don’t study the art and science of jumping off. Don’t join a support group for jumping off. Don’t write poems about jumping off. Don’t kiss the ass of someone else who jumped off.

Just jump.

~ Jed Mckenna

*******  ***  *******  ***  ******* 

I said Oh no! Help me!

And that Oh no! became a rope let down in my well.

I’ve climbed out to stand here in the sun.

One moment I was at the bottom of a dank, fearful narrowness, and the next, I am not contained by the universe.

If every tip of every hair on me could speak,
I still couldn’t say my gratitude.

In the middle of these streets and gardens, I stand and say and say again, and it’s all I say, I wish everyone could know what I know.

~ Rumi

*******  ***  *******  ***  *******

First, the question itself is the obstacle to progress, not lack of an answer. The question is the key. Once we truly understand the question, we’ll have the desired answer. The desired answer is always the removal of the obstruction a correct question represents. The question, understood correctly, is the obstruction. If it’s not, see the second point.

Second, come up with the right question. There’s always only one. Wherever you are right now is where you’re stuck, and the only question that ever matters is the one that gets you unstuck, that takes you one step further. All other questions are fear-based ego-sparing time-killers. Forget concepts and ideas, forget past and future, forget mankind and society, forget God and love, forget truth and spirituality. Find that one question; the exact question that ego doesn’t want you to ask. Put your full attention on it. That’s how progress is made. Everything else is a stall tactic.

To move forward, you must figure out exactly what is obstructing you. Whatever it is, it isn’t really there; it has no reality, no substance. It’s your own creation, a phantom lurking in the shadows of your mind, a shadow demon. Your obstructions are your demons, and your demons are shadow dwellers. They live and thrive in the half-light of ignorance, so the way to slay a demon is by illuminating it with the full force and power of your focused attention; by looking at it, hard. Banish shadow with light and see for yourself that no obstruction exists, nor ever did. We create our demons and we feed them. To awaken we must slay them. That’s really the whole process: Slay one demon, take one step.

Repeat.

~ Jed McKenna

Freedom "To" vs. Freedom "From"

...And this myth that I can rest in some assuredness. That I will  never again feel insecure or feel fear, or feel doubt, or feel those emotions we don’t want to feel. If I'm truly enlightened I will never feel those emotions.
Forget it. That’s not it. That's the pipe dream. That is the opium that is sold to the masses. And they eat it up and they never get there and they end up disillusioned.

Freedom is never freedom "from." If it's freedom "from" anything, it's not freedom at all. It's freedom "to." Are you free enough to be afraid? Are you free enough to feel insecure? Are you free enough not to know? Are you free enough to know that you can't know? Are you free enough to be totally comfortable, to know that you can't know what's around the next corner? How you will feel about it? How you will respond to it? That you literally can't know? Are you free enough to be totally at ease and comfort with the way things actually are? That's freedom.
 

~ Adyashanti

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You are not "in the now"; you are the now. That is your essential identity--the only thing that never changes. Life is always now. Now is consciousness. And consciousness is who you are. That's the equation.
 

~ Eckhart Tolle

If this were your only spiritual practice, it would be enough: to withdraw identification from opinions, positions, thoughts.

~ Eckhart Tolle

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Not to know is profound; to know is shallow. Not to know is internal; to know is external. 

~ Chuang-tzu

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To one who knows naught it is clearly revealed. 

~Meister Eckhart

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Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment; Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition. 

~Rumi

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Rejoicing in nothing and knowing nothing are the true rejoicing and the true knowledge. 

~ Lao-tzu

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All I know is that I know nothing. 

~ Socrates

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When you’re blind to your own nature, the Buddha is an ordinary being. When you’re aware of your own nature, an ordinary being is the Buddha.
 

~ Hui Neng

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Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead it's about becoming more fully human. . . . It is the end of ignorance. 

~Lama Surya Das

Take A Good Look

You cannot have made the decision to look, because that would mean that reality was split between you and your decision. The present is the entirety of reality. You cannot have something that stands before it, making it happen, because the only time anything in the past existed, it existed as the present.

~ Cieran

“I” does not exist. It is a referential concept only. A way to put our collected memories of experience over time into a handy photo album we can pull out and display at whim. We think it is real. We “think” it into reality and then turn it into a narrative, a story about “me”. It is fiction. It is a fantasy, a fairy tale, no different then pulling a children’s book off a shelf and saying “Here’s the story of my life.”

Have you ever actually looked for this “I”? Where is it here and now, as you sit reading these words? Who is reading? What is reading? Is there an “I” present? If asked, does there appear a roster of qualities, a list of personal attributes, as if by magic? Is there a recitation occurring, is there a voice in your head?

Do you believe that voice is you? Does it speak with your voice, spell out your ideas and beliefs? Has it a point of view you call “yours”? Is it the way you present yourself to “others”? Do you seek validation through it? Is it true?

You probably have never really thought to look at the possibility that there is no self and never was. You might consider the idea preposterous. But there’s no harm in looking, is there, to scientifically examining the possibility that the idea of self is merely conceptual and has no reality? If there is no self, what would that mean? Would that change the way you actually function? Is a separate self necessary to operating in the real world or is it an obstruction, a detriment? Is having a separate self actually helpful, or does it cause arguments, dissatisfaction, and disappointment?

Does this separate self have real needs or are they imagined? Could it be that this separate self is just a thought, a symbol of an idea dressed up as a body? Could it be that this idea has parasitized the life in the body by encumbering it with myriad desires, plans, expectations, feelings, motivations, and more, all in order to perpetuate itself? Has this virus of mental/emotional selfhood so overcome humanity that it has completely forgotten its natural state of freedom and joy?

Have you ever stared into the eyes of a newborn? There is nobody there. Only emptiness. But there is tremendous life force. It silences you completely. It is the state we are born to, before words, labels, ideas, and beliefs become the predominant way we interact with the world. A child has no concept of separation from experience. A child is its experience.  It is fully immersed and one with life, right at the start. And then the parents begin injecting the generally-accepted version of reality into its vulnerable brain, starting with the labels of “boy” or “girl”. Before you know it, the child thinks it’s the label. Identification with labels, words, and beliefs leads to the formation of the fictional idea of “I”.

“I” relates to categorized experience, listed and filed under headings such as good/bad, right/wrong, like/hate, etc. The categories are arbitrary and are not necessarily connected to what happened, only to how it was perceived. This remembrance of experience is not a bad thing when applied to what is actually happening. No one wants to forget what “hot” means, or repeat an action that could cause bodily harm. But when a concept replaces an experience of actual knowing, then life is immediately corrupted, disconnected, and disjointed. It becomes a lie.

Living a lie leads to intense suffering. Living in a world based on this lie spreads the suffering to everyone. And this all begins with the erroneous and false belief in a separate, individualized self.

This lie can be seen through. Prove it to yourself. Look for yourself. There is no “I”. It is only a concept. Concepts are not real things. They can only point to real things. What does “I” represent? What is the sense of it? Take a good look. Take a real good look.  Look into the face of what you fear most, the demise of “you”. What is real cannot die, what is unreal never existed.

Take……….a………..look.

Marked Eternal: There Is NO SELF

This is the simplest, most logical; most obvious truth- there is no such entity as self. There is no self at all, no nothing, but life flowing freely, all is one reality, one life. Life just IS.

It is so simple, that it's most difficult to see. Thinking that we all have a special separate self that is in charge of our lives it's nothing else, but unquestioned assumption. It's a core belief, through which a human sees life. The feeling of separation persists in everyday life, making one always stressed, depressed or seeking for more. There is deep constant feeling that something is wrong, that there is something to find out, that life is not full, not abundant, stressful.

Of course there is something wrong! There is this feeling that something is wrong. It rises up from deep and keeps us searching for answers.

The answer is simple- there is no self! There never was. We are not doing anything in life, life is happening as us. There is no manager involved that decides what, when, with who, why. Life just happens, by itself, for no other reason. It's life alive. It's Life-ing.

The big question is how to see that there is really no self in reality at all. If you accept this as a belief, without testing, nothing will change. You will have one more belief running in the system creating more conflicts than before. To see the truth of it you need to look.

Looking is also very simple- one just needs a clear intention to finally see the truth, no matter what distractions stand in a way. It's not scary, it is not magic. One just needs to start thinking for himself and answer some precise questions with whole honesty like never before. 

When you start looking first thing to do is clear the path. This can be done by writing. You can have somebody guiding you or just do it yourself! Take nothing for granted, question everything. There is nothing at all that you need to know to start digging. Just begin writing and clarify stuff for yourself. No one can do the looking for you. Don't even think about that.

(Don’t start just yet. Read the whole thing to the end, then start)

I came up with these steps as a result of seeing what really works for most people. 

CLICK HERE to continue reading......

The Myth of Yoga or Integration

The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following definitions:

Yoga - System of meditation and asceticism designed to effect reunion with the universal spirit.

Integration - The combination of parts into a whole.

Common questions that one sees are 'how to integrate self-realization into one's day to day life?' or 'how to achieve yoga - union?'. However, both of these questions are based on a false premise which is that there is something separate which needs to be reunited, or combined, into the universal wholeness. Now it can be readily seen, on the experiential level, that each moment is just an experience consisting of thoughts/mental- images and sensations appearing in Awareness (I.e. we are aware of them). So that deeper than this flow of objects (thoughts/mental- images and sensations) we are this constant conscious subjective presence - Awareness. For a more detailed exposition of this see chapter two of Beyond The Separate Self or chapter one of A Light Unto Your Self.

Once this self-realization has occurred one sees that there never was any separation, as that which one truly is - pure Awareness, consciousness at rest - can never be separate from the Totality of consciousness. In the same way it can be seen that nothing is ever separate from This (consciousness) which exists in two states, at rest as pure Awareness, and in motion as cosmic energy. Every thing in existence is a configuration of this energy for modern physics has shown that matter is equivalent to energy, and the string theory posits that all matter is composed of strings of energy vibrating at different frequencies.

Now all motion arises in stillness, exists in stillness, is known by its comparison with stillness, and eventually subsides back into stillness. For example, if you walk across a room, before you start there is stillness, as you walk the room is still and you know you are moving relative to this stillness, and when you stop once again there is stillness. In the same way every 'thing' (consciousness in motion) arises in Awareness (consciousness at rest), exists in Awareness, is known in Awareness and subsides back into Awareness. Awareness is still, but is the container of all potential energy which is continually bubbling up into manifestation (physical energy) and then subsiding back into stillness.

Therefore pure Awareness, that which we truly are at the deepest level, is the substratum of all existence, the source, ground, seer and dissolution of all things. So there is, and never was, any thing that needed to be reunited, or combined, with the universal wholeness; for no separation is possible. In the same way our 'day to day existence' is never separate from This (pure Awareness) and thus no integration is necessary. For when examined living is seen to be a series of momentary experiences that seem to merge together to form something we call my life. As previously stated, it can be readily seen on the experiential level that each moment is just an experience consisting of thoughts/mental- images and sensations appearing in Awareness (i.e. we are aware of them).

So we need to be very careful when contemplating reality not to fall into the trap of assuming that we need to integrate ourselves, or achieve yoga (union), as there never was any separation. Any mode of thought that seems to posit a separate self which needs to be integrated, or united, subtly reinforces the myth of separation, and thus should be avoided or treated with care.

~ Colin Drake

Order Colin Drake's books as ebooks or in hard copy at

http://nonduality.com/colindrake.htm

Invitation to Liberation

This is not new. People have seen this before. All that's changed is that we've broken it down to the core trigger mechanism. That means it can be spread. That means that if you're not free, reading this, you can be. In seconds. There is no you. Look.

The self doesn't exist. There is nothing there. But because we assume some outside cause for reality itself, we assume there is – and because it's THE fundamental cause, it's so important to us. It's almost as if, when you look at the lives people live, the lie of self is like a kind of disguise that thoughts and feelings use to sneak up on people and eat them alive. We are so often the puppets of ideas and emotions that we think of as being us. That is why we have so little control over our lives - over our internal lives.

The fundamental problem of a life lived under the delusion of self is that your life is limited. If you want something too much, you get consumed by that wanting, and it takes you over and plays you like a puppet. Almost always you lose the thing you wanted anyway. Or if you care too much about something, or someone too much, you get consumed by that caring, and it takes you over and destroys you. And then you lose the thing you cared about anyway. Often if you love someone too much you get can get consumed by that and it takes you over and destroys you. And then you lose the person you loved anyway. That's the fucking devil right there, laughing all the way to the bank. Or how about anger? What about when we encounter something horrific, something terrible, something that needs to be confronted? But we shy away from it, because we know that if we let that genie out of that bottle, we'll never get it back in. And everyone knows it. I think that's maybe why we all tolerate such horror in the world we live, because anger, which is often necessary and justified, sucks us up into this whirlwind we have no way to escape.

Liberation is not the end of anger. Or pain. Or sadness. But. There is no you. There's nothing there, just an emptiness where that you should be, but isn't. That emptiness is always at peace, and can never be consumed. So - that nothing that you are, and your sight of it, means that you will always have a way out of hell. Now yes, if you want to, you can simply stare off into that void for the rest of your life, and bliss out, and feel the peace. You have that option now. Billions do not. Billions of real people living real lives chained to a process that is eating them alive.

I don't really have time for or respect for recreational zen. I think that when you look around, look at the scale of this, the scale of the problem and the scale of this opportunity, there is another option than sitting down and wallowing in peace for your own amusement and the adulation of whatever followers you accrue. That's Enlightenment. This is different. It has the same core, the same trigger mechanism. But what we do here we call Liberation. And Liberation is different. Because once you have that freedom, you can experience life to the full, and never be crippled or destroyed by it. Even if the whole world was free, I would still not choose to wallow in peace. There's just so much living to be done. And freedom not exercised is no better than a cage. To those who wallow in peace I say, you have exchanged the metal of your bars for cushions and comfort. But you are still not free.

And the world's not free. It's trapped, and we now have enough of a handle on how to trigger this freedom that it's not in any sense crazy to imagine that we can, in one generation, free this planet. I think we can do it quicker. And to be honest, I don't know of any adventure I'd rather live.

Are you in?

~ Ciaran in "Brutal Beginnings"
http://www.mediafire.com/?73x9ap155nh20ey#2