Aug
09
09
One task is enough.
Your only task is to investigate whatever it is that causes unnecessary concern or worry for you…….
AND……..to discover that it is always a concept or an image of self that is the root of it all.
Duality is an appearance within the scope of that which is non dual.
Unicity is not divided by anything.
A concept cannot divide anything except another concept.
The sunrise appears to divide the night from the day.
One sun, one earth, one unceasing movement.
Where is the division?
Awareness is non dual.
Mind and appearance are one. Everything can be traced back to the one………and the one…..’appears’ as duality.
Seems as soon as I start to write the thoughts unravel. I will try to knit them together. I have recently witnessed death afresh and thought I’d have some NonDuality shield that would bounce all the notions of Separation from causing pain.Not that I didn’t feel great beauty marbled in with grief,. But death seemed as easy as cutting the strings on a marionette. All the energy, intelligence, eccentricity, evaporates. You can start to wonder: what is the purpose of it all. So you flip through all the Concepts of Death. Many seem quite comfortable and safe and put the purpose back in life and some control. But even the concept of ‘this could be no other way’ gives a sinking feeling. It seems like that is another way of saying ‘at least I’m not responsible’
No purpose? Just Oneness dressed up in flesh and blood doing the dance of life. Being, witnessing itself. I realized I’m seeing Oneness as aloneness and there is almost a panic of separation.that steps in. Like I’m missing the equal sign out of the equation. All the negative none of the positive
I listened to one of the UGC podcasts. (Thank you for them, by the way) There was one with Isaac Shapiro, who I heard in a totally different way before. He talks of Oneness, the ultimate lover, allowing, enjoying. And it was like I was some chump on the other side of the door experiencing living as a vacuum, not fullness. That I was missing the flavor of life. Is the feeing of separation the result of a Me? Is this what you are saying here? This must sound like a bleak rant. If you have any thoughts I’d appreciate it.
How can there be a task if there is no you to investigate it ? Nothing cannot be investigated. I of myself can do nothing, investigate, point or anything else. Because I do not exists, i just think i do. Only Nothing exists , so call off the search, the investigation and any other BS that can be talked about and enjoy the ride and see what will happen next. NOTHING, you just think it will.
The mind is time, concept, memory, images, thoughts, ideas, concepts. Everyone is unique. Every so-called ‘teacher’ can only point directly by using words in a straightforward manner……or they can tell stories. The only value any of it has, is in the recognition of whatever is being pointed to. True understanding is silent and wordless. It is sometimes called the natural state. The beloved is your own true nature. Identifying with an image or an idol is the long way home. You are already in the Temple. Many teachers stand outside the Temple and promise to show you the way to the Temple. Foolishly many go out and follow the false teachings of others. Start from the fact of your own being. You are existence itself. The only time that any realisation can happen is now. Now is the only time there is. You do not have to take one step in any direction. All directions are in the mind. Be what you are. Investigate the notions about this ‘me’ – that is a label that is put upon the naked truth. Throw it away or simply investigate it and SEE that it is a label….a story. There is no duality in non duality. You cannot get to non duality from duality. Stop the stories and see.
David, you contradict yourself. Who is this ‘I’ that does not exist and yet it says that ‘I just think I exist’? You ARE existence and anyone who tells you that you don’t exist is either a fool or a second rate ‘teacher’. You can deny that you exist but it is a meaningless denial. You cannot truly deny that you exist. Everything else is a concept……but your being, here, now, is not a concept. Of course concepts arise about this being here now. But the concepts come and go. What you are does not come and go. Realise that.
This whole “you know you exist” thing is a pointer but can be taken the wrong way. For the average, the response would be “duh, of course I exist”. For the seeker, existence is also obvious but as a recognition of non-conceptual awareness. BUT, an unknown stow-away usually still lurks in the reverberation of “I know I exist” and that is the “ME” no matter how small it is imagined to have become. All the I know I am Awareness, I know I am not the body, I know I am not the mind, I know that I exist – all those mantras have an “I”. And this isn’t said from a non-duality police perspective. I think it was Leo Hartong who also said he went to a retreat knowing what this was all about backwards and forwards but it still hadn’t sunk in, and Wayne Liquorman told him “but you still say “I”. Leo rolled his eyes of course but he went past the non-duality policeness of that statement and let it sink in. There really is no independent me. It’s not just something read about or a nice aspiration that Sailor Bob has attained. There really is no separate controller or doer in Life. No need to keep blabbing about “I know I exist” so “what am I missing”. “I almost had it, then I lost it”. Who? Who? For crying out loud? There’s nobody to get this. The only one to be happy, sad, get the understanding, lose the understanding is JUST A STORY. A story cannot see, hear, or know anything. So who or what is confused? Ah, nothing is confused! Who cares if confusion is arising? It’s not arising to any independent entity, so who is it who has the problem? But a story can surely arise about the one who is confused or about the one who knows he exists and the one who knows he is awareness. If a confusion state seemingly arises, why does there need to be in tandem with experiencing a “something that is confused”? That’s only the mind doing its job. Sadness, Happiness, sore muscles, confusion, getting it, not getting—all these seemingly arise—but seriously, to whom? Why does a doer or an experiencer need to be assumed in the equation? Anger arises. Ok great. Happiness arises. Ok great. Who is angry or happy? If “me”, what me? You won’t find the me and you also won’t cure all discomfort in life by the recognition that there is no me. It’s just something that is determined to be seen because the seeking path started. Well, then see it.
Thank you.I know why I read this blog, why I write .I have never once met one person in the flesh who talks about this. So here I am. A concept arises. I’ll put something out there and it gets ground to dust!. Not bad.
All human experience is only ever through the instrument of a limited, programmed mind. The programming can be changed or rebooted but as Wingate says “its like turing dog shit into cat shit”. “Let it be”. All human experience is known in this aware presence.
Kimo ……wow,thank you!
And you Gilbert,allowing me to express myself on your blog the way it goes.
I know (later),always and again these language faults are there. But to know what is really going on here apparently i had to write.
As you said Gilbert,”all is valid in the appearance”,or something like that.
Thanks Divo. There was never a movement away from “what is” for “anyone”. Seekers hear what this is about but still immediately, even if subconsciously, re-insert a “me” who can get super-charged or lead a better, less-stressful life due to a present or future understanding. A few months ago I read an excellent blog by a newbie (who is all the rave now) who, I must admit, pointed very crisply at the lack of an independent self. Then, a couple paragraphs later, how the new life should be more loving and accepting of others now that the understanding kicked in. Left me chuckling–who is this new person that is now more loving and understanding of others? This is probably totally unknown to the writer. The me is so insidious it just re-inserts in the blink of an eye. This writer is probably walking around saying “yes! I finally see that there is no me, now here’s what I need to be doing for mankind and here’s the acceptable image I must portray”. And they don’t see the contradiction in that. Years ago when Areti interviewed me, I didn’t know what to say when she first asked me how my life had changed. Not wanting to sound like a smart-alec, I didn’t say “whose life?” but that was my honest and humble first thought. “Everybody”, so it seems, wants an attainment or an attainment for “no-one” and then to go on about how this no-one is leading an improved life. Nobody it seems catches the bump in that line of thought. But hey, even circular arguments or seeming inconsistencies are just “what is” and perfect freedom as it is.
Yes it is easy to point out contradictions in others and much harder to see them in a me who is a thought , not a reality. Judge not according to appearances or words that ego thinks it knows.
So the seeking starts to cure the pain of me, my life. and until the formula for better life, a enhanced me is attained, any other discovery along the way is discarded. Like searching for the cure for the common cold, discovering the formula for immortality and saying: Yeah but I still have this shitty cold. I admit that is what it feels like a lot of the time. Discover but looking.
And thank you, Invoke for clarifying the Wingate quote. ( I always thought he was talking about my cooking. ) That is a great way of seeing working of the mind.
You say: “So the seeking starts to cure the pain of me, my life. and until the formula for better life, a enhanced me is attained, any other discovery along the way is discarded.” SEE that the seeking never started. The seeking is a story about a ‘me’. That me does not get better or worse in actuality – it is a story about a fictional character. There is no process to self-realising consciousness. All there is is now. Now is all there is. Now is consciousness, just as it is. There is no entity with any substance. Sensations appear and disappear. The mind translates the sensations into a story using words that have been learned. ‘You’ did not have a problem until the words were learned. The words ‘appear’ to divide the natural oneness. Find the original wordless being-ness. It is not somewhere else. Drop the story about process and SEE what is left.
Beautifully put Gilbert…there is no separate existence this Now is the absolute appearing as this …
I find the pointing very clear.
When the story runs , division starts, endless, exhausting, division of time and seeking answers that cannot be found. Why that happens and what it is; I know not.
SEEing. It is right there before the eyes. We don’t SEE it. It is almost too amazing, too simple to be true.
No one can do it for you. Yes, you do the last yards into the wind on your own.
Gratitude for directness, to all who posted here.