The Aware Consciousness

Friction

2012-01-05T08:39:00.001-08:00

Energy is the currency of existence. You can't live without it. It is the basis of the survival of all beings. The more energy the more happiness. Happiness is the motivating force of all existence by the way. We all live to be happy afterall!

The source of energy is friction. Friction is the coming together of two parts. This is actually love. So if you want to generate energy you need only rub up against something. This is why sex is the highest consummation of human activity. Energy is creation. When the penis rubs against the vagina an enormous amount of energy is created which provides the basis for life in the womb. Friction is pleasure. We all love sex.
In these cold times friction will be a great consolation to us. Rub against yourself, love yourself. Rub against others and love them. Rub against objects. Rub against life. Mix yourself up with the present moment. Integrate. This will generate energy. This energy will keep you warm...
Think of Baloo the bear in the Jungle Book. Remember the scene where he's ambling around the jungle eating all the fruit and veg, enjoying every moment. Be Baloo! The 'bear' necessities of life are what we need in these trying times. Get back to the earth. Be earthy. Eat fruit and vegetables. Don't slaughter animals. Hug them. Stay away from death...embrace life. Don't eat meat. Stay away from chemically processed foods. It's all death energy. Fill yourself with life! Let life live through you! Be abundant with your embrace. Embrace everything. Embrace the present moment with its panoply of sights and sounds. Embrace creativity and thought.
Rub up against life! This will create the friction you need to keep warm!

He is watching!

2011-09-25T14:27:00.000-07:00

You are a vision in God's all-seeing eye...you and all your worries, all your plans, all your spiritual practices...just a vision in God's all-seeing eye...

You are a puppet into which God places his hand...you and all your moving, all your agitation, all your pain...just a puppet on God's all-holding hand...

You are a flute through which God blows his tune...you and all your laughing, your crying, your singing...just a flute on God's all-chanting mouth...

He is watching!
He is feeling!
He is singing!

Everything is his!

He is watching!

Being yourself

2011-08-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

Everything around us is shouting at us to be something we are not, to become someone else, something 'better'. Very little reminds you that you are PERFECT as you are.

I am.

I am here to remind you that you are PERFECT as you are.

That you don't need to do anything, that you don't need to become someone else, that everything is accomplished, everything is finished, everything is exactly as it needs to be.

Now you can lay back, put your feet up, and let out a sigh of relief.

Yes, it's OK to be yourself. You don't need to improve yourself. You don't need to become more like this or that. As Ramana said: just BE AS YOU ARE.

This is not a grand spiritual truth. This does not mean being 'nondual consciousness' or 'oneness' as the neo-advaitin hypocrits constantly claim. It means BEING YOURSELF. Doing what feels NATURAL in this body which is the ONLY REALITY.

Yes the BODY is the ONLY REALITY. And once you start living in accordance with what it wants, everything turns out fine.

So, if you fancy a burger, go and get it. If you fancy a wank, do it. If you fancy shouting at someone, do it. If you fancy lazing around all day like Bruno Mars, then do it. If you fancy watcing telly, then do it. If you fancy getting wasted, then do it. JUST BE YOURSELF.

Don't act out of IDEALS. Don't act for others. Act totally for yourself. Be supremely selfish. This is the only way forward.

Life is simply miraculous!

2011-07-23T17:52:00.000-07:00

I just can't get over how miraculous life is. I was watching this amazing film called 'The New World' with Colin Farrell and it blew my mind. Every scene was just so vivid and compelling. I felt like I was on weed. I got so involved in the story. It was like when I was a child. When I used to watch films they were so intense. It seemed I became numb as I grew older. The films became dull. But now they are coming alive again. Everything is coming alive. The world is so exciting, so unusual, so strange, so compelling. The tiniest things, like this little insect that keeps landing on my head tickling my hair. Like the wind mysteriously caressing the curtains in my room. Like this laptop in front of me, what a miracle of technology!

When you let go, you disappear and that emptiness allows life to take centre-stage and by gosh what a performance it is, what a magnificent spectacle! :)

Thank you, Life.

Stream of consciousness

2011-03-07T16:58:00.000-08:00

As I write this I do not need to think. Consciousness is simply producing these words. There is no deliberation, no hesitation. The keys tick and tock as my fingers punch them. There is no-one here punching the keys. The keys are being punched...that is all. This is a flow that needs no creator. The river needs no manipulator. The river flows by itself. Such is consciousness. Yield to it, and your life too will flow...

The Only Thing You Need To Do

2011-03-05T04:24:00.000-08:00

The only thing you need to do in life is simply be aware...everything else is secondary.

Ambitions
Work
Relationships
Studies
Helping others
Achieving things
Obligations

These are all secondary. IT IS YOUR LIFE remember. NO-ONE ELSE'S.

Just be aware. Be AWAKE.

Then consciousness will do all the above and more, without any effort on your part.

The World is WITHIN

2011-03-02T16:36:00.000-08:00

Stop believing in an exterior world, there is no such thing. The whole world is within your head.

Your quality of life depends on the thoughts you believe. Thoughts are the spiders that spin the world with webs of emotion.

There are two kinds of thoughts: devil's thoughts and god-like thoughts.

Devil's thoughts cause pain. They burn like fire in the body. Doubt, uncertainty, fear, guilt, shame, regret, nervousness, depression. They make life hell.

God-like thoughts are creative, joyful, stimulating, exciting. They animate the body, they confer immense strength and resilience. They make life a long sigh of deep satisfaction.

I offer you this simple tip. No bullshit. No complicated theory. No impossible intellectualisation. No frustrating koans. No platitudes. Practical advice.

Ignore the devil's thoughts. They herald their arrival with pain. Any thought that induces pain is not worthy of attention. It is unnatural, it is a blockage in the vital flow of creation, the stream of consciousness, our divinity.

When their yacking nonsense finally subsides, the god-like thoughts will start to flourish. You will not need to make an effort to oblige them. You will know that they are truth for they are perfumed with cosmic brilliance. They are the essence of all that is wonderful and miraculous in mankind, from Aristotle to Einstein and BEYOND!

The world is within. Choose devil's thoughts and your world will be one of devils. Choose god-like thoughts and you will live like a god and you will bring the light of truth and wisdom into the lives of all those you touch.

Faith is Grace

2011-02-25T17:23:00.000-08:00

Faith in the benevolence of consciousness
Is a gift of grace, granted to us mysteriously by the same
A vision of division
The soothing words of the sage
A soft, simple surrender
Are just some of the ways the hidden One
Seeks to purify our minds
And cleanse our tired hearts with
The sweet flow of being

The Wild One Knows His Master

2011-02-25T17:21:00.000-08:00

The ego must free itself. Consciousness does not care either way. Consciousness burns bright eternally, the light of cosmic brilliance, of crystal clear creation: the very essence of existence. Everything emerges out of that radiance. Including the ego. Consciousness loves the ego as it loves everything. The ego must see that it is in its interest to yield to consciousness. Then the river is unblocked and the stream of life, love and creation can flow. Life becomes a long delicious sigh of ecstasy. How this comes about, I cannot say, you can call it grace.

Oh God, may I never forget your cosmic splendor, the absolute munificence of your inspiration...

Brainstorm

2011-02-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

2011-02-22T16:05:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, there was disarray.

A chaotic struggle of beasts raged. These leviathans clawed at each other, pulled on each other's tails, screamed, howled and seethed.

In the midst of this stood the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Worried, hesitant, self-doubting, he stood in sheer impotency, wand by his side. A look of panic marked his fresh, young face.

What could he do? These beasts were making such a mess. He had no knowledge of magic. The wand in his hand was useless. He waved it endlessly to no avail. He had even waded into the fight on several occasions to try and separate the struggling pair, but every time the poor boy emerged dejected and humiliated. There was just no way to make them stop.

Then one day, the Sorcerer returned. The Apprentice was overwhelmed with joy. 'Master, Master, please help me separate these monsters. Show me how to make them disappear!' The Sorcerer waved his wand and the beasts miraculously disappeared. The Apprentice was amazed. 'How Master, how?' The old wise Master smiled knowingly. 'None of it is real my boy. None of it is real.'

The Sorcerer patted the Apprentice on his shoulder and disappeared. No sooner had the Sorcerer disappeared than the beasts got up and recommenced their fight in earnest, this time, it seemed, more vehemently than before. The Apprentice raised his wand, now emboldened by the wise words of his Master, and shouted at the top of his voice 'You are not real!'.

The beasts instantly vanished. The Apprentice was dumbstruck. It worked! Fantastic! Thank god! Praise be to the wise old Master! Supremely contented the young Apprentice proceeded to go about his business, tidying up all the mess the beasts had created. Brimming with satisfaction he carried out his chores.

Suddenly he realised that something was watching him. Spinning around he was stunned to see the beasts standing there in the flesh, totally restored to life, eyeing him with trepidation. Anxious he began to question whether or not the trick had work. What's more their eyes had a sinister, expectant glint that seriously unnerved the young lad.

The Apprentice was afraid. Raising the wand he stammered: 'D-d-disappear!'. The beasts began to smile. 'Disappear I tell you!'. Their tongues began to loll in a malicious fashion. 'Disappear, now! Damn it! Disappear you beasts!'. No sooner had he finished his encantation than the beasts began to writhe in violent struggle, recommencing the dreadful chaos, oblivious to his commands.

'Disappear!' he screamed, time and time again, but it made no difference. He was powerless. He sat dejected, crying. 'Why?' he cried. 'Why?'

After some time in this sorry state he was surprised to feel the hand of the Master on his shoulder, warm and comforting. The Sorcerer's eyes were full of compassion. 'My dear boy' he whispered gently. 'Remember what I told you.' The Apprentice blinked for a moment. The Master smiled.

Then he realised. A slow smile of contentment spread across his face.

Looking up he was not surprised to find that the beasts had vanished.

Enlightenment is dead

2011-02-20T09:59:00.000-08:00

The knowledge that ends all knowledge is the knowledge that there is no knowledge that can end all knowledge.

-

Enlightenment is not the end of suffering; it is the cause of suffering. For suffering to end enlightenment must die.

So I say to you not that 'God is dead' but enlightenment is dead.

-

Suffering is duality. For suffering to end, all duality must be exposed and thus, ended. Even the notion of duality and its dualistic antagonist nonduality must be destroyed. And so must 'enlightenment' and 'ignorance'.

What is duality? When it comes to the totality of life, there is no duality, there is only the totality. The totality is infinite and complete and perfect. It is ever-changing yet never diminished or augmented. It is flux yet at the same time permanence. All that can be conclusively said about it is that it is THIS, and THIS IS.

Duality is an aspect of the totality, i.e. a detail of THIS, that sets itself in opposition to the totality.

For example. the ocean as a totality is complete, perfect and totally one. However, a single wave discerned on its own gives rise to the illusion of dualistic opposition or conflict with the rest of the totality by virtue of its discernment.

In human experience, there is the totality of the present moment which is eternal. This timeless state creates the illusion of flux through the trick of memory.

Within the totality of this are a plethora of potential dualities. These come into being through discernment.

A field of grass is one totality, unified and complete. A blade of grass, however, when discerned in the totality, acquires a false independence from the whole automatically assuming a position of isolation/separation/antagonism with regards to the totality.

In human experience, the totality of THIS is collapsed into dualities through the discerning function of thought.

In sleep where thought is no more, there is no sense of separation, time, change, or any other dualities because in sleep all discernment ends. Only thought is capable of discerning.

Thought commonly discerns the physical body as an unchanging fragment in the totality, which it discerns as in constant flux.

This temporal split between an outer world constantly changing and a static inner world collapses the totality of experience into two opposing elements: subject (the body) and object (the rest of the totality 'outside' the body).

This is the fundamental duality of human experience and is the cause of all suffering.

However, this crude duality is relatively easy to dislodge through another form of discernment: awareness meditation.

Through meditation, self-inquiry and other practices, it is possible to destroy the duality of body VS world by exposing its fundamental falseness.

Typically, identification is broken with the body and the subject/object split assumes a more subtle form: awareness vs objective experience.

The notion of awareness as subject, however, is nothing more than a notion, or a concept, typically manifesting as the thought 'I am'.

Whereas before the subject was 'I am the body', now it is simply 'I am'.

This is, however, another duality. The awareness becomes the antagonist of its 'object': experience. Typically at this stage the spiritual search begins in earnest.

This search will only come to and when all dualities left in the totality are destroyed through a reverse form of discernment: negation.

Here are some dualities typical of the spiritual search:

Sense of limitation/separation VS oneness, the ideal of the search.

This duality is capable of hauning the seeker for the rest of their life unless exposed and revealed as falsehood.

Normally this notion arises out of identification with awareness as being a localised centre in the totality of experience.

The idea of the centre is impossible to shake, at times.

Often self-inquiries are performed endlessly and fruitlessly:
'Who am I?' = the mind returns to a centre.
'Who experiences the centre?' = another centre
And so on...ad infinitum

In fact the very practice of self-inquiry encourages the association with a centre of the totality. Duality is not exposed but actually progressively reinforced.

The basic problematic duality is the very notion of awareness/subject VS object.

While this duality remains, while there is belief in a subject, suffering will not end. If there is a subject, there can never be union and duality will always prevail.

How to dislodge duality for once and all?

By understanding, through attendance to the totality of experience (not discernment of a part or centre), that the notion of subject is just an aspect of the totality.

In this understanding all duality is destroyed.

Awareness of duality as simply an aspect of the nondual totality actually brings an end to all duality and therefore, suffering.

Duality is only feasible through discernment. Attention to the whole, the nondual totality, brings it to a swift end.

In that discovery is peace and oneness. It is not bliss or ecstasy but a simple recognition that this is. Other dualities may arise from time to time. To return to the peace of nondual realisation which is the end of discernment and subject/object antagonism one must simply see the duality for what it is: opposing aspects seemingly in antagonism but actually totally equal and united in the totality of experience.

Examples of other dualities:

'The peace isn't permanent, I don't get it. I must be doing something wrong'

Examine this fleeting thought carefully. At its heart is a duality. Somewhere there is an antagonism. In this case it is the idea of 'permanent peace'. This naturaly clashes with the reality, which is ever-changing, producing conflict and therefore suffering.

This duality, like all others, is just two aspects at odd in the same unified totality: idea of permanent peace VS a totality in constant flux.

In all cases, there is only ever the totality. It may appear dualistic, but even that interpretation, the apparent duality and its conflict = these are all parts of the same totality.

There is only this and only this is. This is never not this. Every passing moment is this, no matter what form it takes. This is flux.

As you are this then you, like this, are everchanging yet eternal. You Are This. This Is You. And This Is.

The subject is the object: so there is neither subject nor object, just this.

Even ignorance of this is still this, for this is flux: eternal flux = the nature of the cosmos.

There is nowhere to go.
There is nothing to do.
There is no-one to be.
There is only this.
AND THIS IS.

Even the idea that all dualities need to be exposed is just another duality.

But such are the mind's games that it needs to be given something to play with.

The ego is a child playing with crayons. It draws something then, disgusted, throws it away and draws something else. Disgusted at every turn it draws and draws until its crayons are blunted, its colours faded. It then draws desperately, ugly pictures that make it despair. Then the crayons finish and there are no more drawings.

When the witnesser is witnessed the split between subject and object collapses until the witness is reborn through mental habits.

It is only necessary therefore to stay as the witness.

The witness is free.

Free enough to accept death.

For the witness has nothing to lose.

For the witness is THIS.

Scream 'LIFE!'

2011-02-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

The future is just the projection of the past. Dead ideas spinning out a dull, tawdry, mediocre life, limited, narrow, repetitive and monotonous. No wonder so many people are depressed. Let us not seek security in illusions. Let us face the facts, what is happening at this precise moment. Let us just be with what is.

Oh so hard. So hard. To survive is to plan, to adapt, to learn, to be bound to past errors, to be shackled to the hard knocks of memory. In the world we inhabit we must fight, compete, accumulate. Survival is hard. To let go, to let go of all our weapons, all our knowledge, all our comforting notions: such a thing would seem like sheer recklessness, sheer suicide.

And yet that is freedom. Total freedom. Total blissful freedom. A freedom that fills the soul with ecstasy and makes one want to scream ‘LIFE!’ at the top of one’s lungs and soar like a comet into the stratosphere burning majestically before disappearing into the brilliance of being.

Only by abandoning it, can it be truly found

2011-02-06T08:42:00.000-08:00

There are two worlds. The black and white world, and the technicolour world. We spend our time in both. But it's the black and white world that is dominant.

We wake up and the black and white world slowly stains the technicolour world, making it lacklustre and glum. If you're quick though you can catch this, in those precious few moments in the early morning when your eyes register the bright colours around you, the sound of the birds piping sweetly in the trees outside and the sun flitting through the clouds. Those few moments before the curtain of ego descends.

You see it's only by abandoning life that we can actually find it. I mean the black and white world, of course; the world of past and future, those paltry thoughts that keep returning, over and over again - dead, inert, monotonous, grainy. 'I must do this. I wish I didn't do that. What about tomorrow?'

What about tomorrow? Tomorrow never knows because tomorrow doesn't exist. What about death? What then? - you may aswell ask. For tomorrow is death. Mental death. A death of consciousness. Slavery to the black and white world, to the tawdriness of the planning mind.

Abandoning the black and white world is the only way into the technicolour world. It can be a momentary abandonment, or it can be a total abandonment. It doesn't matter either way. The result is always the same, bliss, expansiveness, beauty. Sometimes it brings tears to the eyes. The magic of this is like an exotic perfume that cleanses your soul, a refreshing discontinuity in the monotony of mind, of the black and white world.

Abandon yourself and you will find yourself. Abandon life you will find it. Not black and white, but in glorious technicolour: a panoply of sensations, the sensual world.

Socratic Dialogues for Depression

2011-01-30T01:34:00.000-08:00

So many people are getting down and depressed all around me. Life just gets on top of them. I ask myself why?

The matter is one of belief. Fictions are fictions only until they are believed as truth. Then they become something else altogether. Levity is gone. Every page of the story is sullen and laden with doom.

People have so many beliefs. So many unchallenged beliefs. If only Socrates were around to question them.

The Socratic dialogues is an extremely effective way of destroying unchallenged beliefs. It simply involves cross-questioning yourself.

When a thought arises, like 'I am worthless' or 'Why do I keep making mistakes?' - typically depressive thoughts - employ the Socratic dialogues. Ask yourself: 'what is worthless?', 'what are mistakes?'. You can go even further, as Ramana Maharshi prescribed: 'Who am I?'

If you really sit down and do it you may well gain a totally new perspective. For example, let's take the first one, 'I am worthless'. What is worthless? Well perhaps it would be better to ask 'what is worth?'. Worth is value. Value is not objective. A tree does not have an objective value, nor does the sky, neither does a bird. Value is subjective. It is an opinion. So the question will naturally have to adapt itself in light of this discovery to 'I am worthless to...'. Worthless to whom? Your family? Can value be put on human life? If your family thinks you are worthless, it clearly implies they do not love you. For love is unconditional and has no notion of value. If they don't love you, then why worry about being worthless to them?

Then of course is the ultimate question, the deepest question of all, 'Who am I?'. And when you have really considered that one, you won't believe any fiction ever again, for you will know that you are the reader of these fictions and thus independent from their tales. And then you'll be free and depression will plague you no more.

So if you're feeling down, remember Socrates. Employ his dialogues. Chop through the confused knots of your mind.

Enlightened? So why teach?

2011-01-21T04:48:00.000-08:00

Enlightenment, from what I've heard (and I've heard a lot of different stories), is basically as the sanskrit word nirvana means: an extinguished light. (something like that anyway). The light being the ego, which is the central psychological concern of our lives, or perhaps, the only psychological concern. So that ends. As Krishnaji said: 'one must truly die to know what love is'. So the ego presumably disappears. A new centre is born, if you can call it that: a centre-less centre. Past and future disappear. All that remains is the brilliant present. The whole notion of survival goes out the window. Yes, you carry on with your daily routine as one Zen master once told me 'eating, drinking and crapping'. But it's like sitting in a cinema watching a film, there's no longer any sense of self invested in anything because oddly, the self has actually disappeared.

Teaching is a different phenomenon. Teaching is an activity motivated by anticipation. If not purely materialistic (which some, sadly are), people become teachers to make a difference, to impart knowledge to others, to influence them, to help them develop. All of these are self-fulfilling time-bound activities. Now if the enlightened person has no self, and time no longer is a reality...then why would he or she even consider teaching? The most common justification is compassion. Supposedly they are now filled with compassion and simply must help others. However, isn't compassion actually just a deep acceptance of the world as it is. If so, how could there be any kind of dissatisfaction, any kind of desire to change it? Francis Lucille says 'I teach in the same way the birds sing...for no reason. I teach just to teach' (or something like that). OK. This sounds more plausible. Teaching becomes like a game. Francis is just doing it 'for a laugh', as someone else would perhaps play darts or play a guitar. No competition, no pressure, no pressing objectives or goals. Just a bit of light relief.

Why is it then that there are SOOOOO many 'enlightened' teachers? It seems that anyone who becomes 'enlightened' suddenly because a teacher. Why not become an 'enlightened' musician? Or an 'enlightened' miner? Or an 'enlightened' water-carrier (as the old Zen expression goes).

The fact that EVERYONE seems to become a teacher to me implies a survival of ego. The ego is reproducing itself in the role of 'guru'. For the truly enlightened, there are no gurus. The world is perfect as it is. There are no lost souls to be shepherded. The nondual, akarmic reality is perfect, unchangeable - because that is reality.

No?

Each moment I am someone else

2010-12-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

Each passing moment I am someone else.

The world I inhabit moulds me and I seemingly tamper with and alter the world. Each minute this dialectic produces a new person a new 'ego' a new 'me'.

From minute to minute I am changing, assuming new roles, new positions, new feelings, new thoughts...but within the assumed framework of me.

This is life. Inconsistency from minute to minute.

Nondoership is a NOTION

2010-12-07T16:57:00.000-08:00

I've discussed nondoership a lot on this blog. While logically it is infallible, even that realisation is subjective and thus it is not a fact but a notion. A notion is not truth. Truth cannot be touched by humans. Only notions of truths, interpretations of meaning, ideologies...et cetera. Nondoership is just the same. No human can KNOW nondoership. Nondoership is the impersonal reality of the universe. How can someone know that? The knowing of nondoership is not truth. Knowing is never truth. Knowing is an aspect of truth, the totality but on its own it is only qualitatively truth. It has the essence of that total truth but it does not represent it totally itself. The problem with this is that it remains personal, it remains limited to this particular path, this specific individual life with all its idiosyncracies. You can imbibe the doctrine of nondoership and in many ways it will help to alleviate some of the worst human emotions: guilt, regret, confusion so and on so forth. But it may also sap you of all motivation, of all interest in life, as you sit back on your laurels and content yourself with the notion not the truth, that everything is predetermined thus NOTHING MATTERS.

This 'NOTHING MATTERS' absurdity is not compatible with the kind of life a human being must live: a life of survival. Disinterested survival is not possible. Strip Ramana Maharshi of his retainers, strip Nisargadatta of his acolytes, Balsekar of his mistress and you will see that these men have not realised the absolute, they are still individuals, only individuals that have imbibed certain truths that confer some degree of apparent 'grace' on them. You can intone 'NOTHING MATTERS' but it will never truly be NOTHING MATTERS - instead it will be your highly personalised 'NOTHING MATTERS' which is used by you for your specific ends. However as most people don't know what's good for them it can lead to a right royal mess.

There is no external truth. We make the truth. The world does not exist before we give meaning to it. That meaning is ours, it is totally ours, it is not the totality for even the notion of totality is ours. All of this is grounded in personal needs, anxieties, experience, conditioning. You can never escape the conditioning. Each passing moment you are the conditioning. Even your nondoership, your nonduality is conditioned.

I maintain that enlightenment is impossible. Anyone who claims such a thing is simply fetishising their own notion of enlightenment that fits in with their obscure survival needs. We are all animals, surviving in a harsh world.

The Fish

2010-12-02T17:11:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a fish. This fish used to swim around in front of other fish declaring to them great truths about the Pond. The others listened avidly. Some laughed and swam off. The fish said mightily profound things. 'We are not fish. We are all just the Pond.' The others pondered on this and concluding that it sounded deep swam off musing on it. Meanwhile the fish went about his business, eating bits of plankton and insects, avoiding being hunted by pikes and kingfishers. You see, at the end of the day, he was a fish.

Celebrating Change

2010-12-01T17:56:00.000-08:00

As you've probably noticed, a lot of the posts on this blog are inconsistent. It all depends on what mind-set I am in when I decide to post. I get this urgent sense of wanting to share what I'm experiencing. Sometimes it's a sense of the awesomeness of oneness. Other times it's some intellectual curiosity that I'm obsessing over. Sometimes it's just doubts and despair. None of it is bullshit though.

Some would say 'this is worthless'. Seeing all this inconsistency. But is inconsistency bad? Is it better to have a monolithic interpretation of things throughout one's life? Doesn't interpretation, like the universe, constantly change? Isn't this normal?

I think we make a fetish of ultimates. The power of the guru is in the consistency of his behaviour and teaching. It must be the same throughout his life...pure. We assume that purity of message, singularity of purpose, consistency is the essence of truth. But is the universe unchanging?

One could argue that the ultimate consistent truth is simply that there is no consistent truth and staying true to that. But personally I think that's a cop-out. I doubt that there is an end-point. I doubt there is a point beyond which there is no development, beyond which there is only a monolithic interpretation of things. Life goes on, why shouldn't our interpetations?

Change is something to celebrate. Like the ever changing hues of the universe, so our interpretations, our theories, our feelings, our thoughts about life...so they must change too. Is this cause for alarm? No. It's wonderful, it's artistic, it's an unpredictable dance. By resisting it, by fetishizing inertia or some fixed viewpoint I think we stagnate and suffer.

Well that's my excuse for the inconsistencies in my thought on this blog anyway...:-p

The purifying light

2010-11-23T06:48:00.000-08:00

Sickness is darkness is ignorance.

Shine the purifying light of awareness on it and watch it melt.

Feel the warmth of peace.

Zen & Material Dialectics

2010-11-16T07:37:00.000-08:00

Orthodox Marxists believe in the totality, just as Zen monks do. The Marxists refer to it as 'dialectical materialism'. Gramsci called it 'the philosophy of praxis'. Those are just fancy terms for 'what is'.

Marxists believe we need to become dialecticians, become conscious of our role in society, and society's role in the totality. This consciousness is itself the revolutionary praxis that can change the totality.

In Zen we are told to be aware. To sit and be aware.

Are the two the same?

It's an interesting question. Krishnamurti talked of the inner revolution. Was he inadvertently proclaiming the doctrine of dialectical materialism? Was he advocating class consciousness?

Perhaps the most revolutionary thing a person can do is meditate. Through meditation we still do but the doing is purposefully a not-doing. In this way it is the most radical 'doership' there is. This kind of action is open and embracing: accepting without conditions the totality.

Perhaps Lenin should have just sat down and meditated every now and then...

Forget about nonduality

2010-10-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Once I was in peace. Then I heard about nonduality. Then I heard about oneness. Then I heard about all these mystical revelations and my peace suddenly wasn't enough.

Now, a year or so on, I've just realised that all that is nonsense. Mental noise. No better than any other dull mental noise.

Awareness is always present, and it is my true nature. Abiding there is all that is needed. No intellectualisation, no 'mystical experiences', no nonduality, no oneness, no advaita vedanta. Just awareness, witnessing, being.

The dissatisfaction has washed away. The real, old, familiar, sweet, gentle peace returns. The simple peace of being. It's not 'bliss'. It's not mind-blowing. It's not mystical. It's not like taking LSD. It's just peace.

I remember about a year ago how I was looking at a bit of wooden skirting, just trying, trying, trying to be amazed by it. I berated myself endlessly: 'why am I not fascinated by this wood?'. I was frustrated, angry. I then went and watched hours of advaita vids, a sprinkling of Jeff Foster, a bit of Mooji, a bit of this a bit of that. All waffle. Useless, dry waffle. (no offense I love those guys, but at the end of the day it's waffle). All the while berating myself because my experience was amazing enough.

Why isn't the wood amazing? Because it's wood.

Once the comparisons with the 'ideal' mystical, advaita state die down, this moment becomes exactly as it always was and will be: perfect.

As for the wood, if anything it's woody.

What is nothing?

2010-10-16T07:31:00.000-07:00

At some point in the spiritual search it becomes clear that the real subject is not a phenomenal thing. Afterall, all phenomena are experienced by the subject. One has the idea that one is nothing, or no-thing.

And here's where the search often stops and becomes turgid. The seeker feels he can go no further but at the same time still hasn't found absolute truth. It's a frustrating affair, or in the words of Elton John: 'a sad, sad situation'.

In fact I think there's a term for this: nihilism. When we believe we are nothing then there is a natural rejection of everything we think we are not. Let me tell you that life in this state is not fun. As my earlier posts indicate I spent a while dwelling in this realm of 'no-thing' and life became a dull, tawdry affair. Following that I became intensenly dissatisfied with nondual pointers which simply served to stick me in this vague empty realm of 'no-thing'.

The reason why this 'neti neti' approach doesn't work is because there is a dualism at the core of it: I am the subject as 'no-thing' experiencing the world of things. If anything the dualism is worse than previous dualisms because then the whole world becomes alien and 'not-me'. In fact I became a miserable git in this period! I can laugh about it now.

But what exactly do they mean by no-thing? Recently I've had some bizarre revelations. I decided to stop playing around with intellectual pointers and self-inquiry and just get down to some good old meditation. I couldn't be bothered to entice the bull with green grass as Ramana prescribes, and instead got myself a nice cane and started whipping the bastard.

I meditated INTENSELY. I wanted to break out of the mould, the conceptual framework I had been imprisoned in, all this nonsense of nonduality and duality, pointers and enlightenment and subject and object. Then after a particular hard-core hour long session of mind-crackingly intense meditation I got this revelation that when they say no-thing they really mean no-thing.

It struck me like a hammer blow that if the subject is actually no-thing then THE SUBJECT DOES NOT EXIST. What then followed was a period of 2-3 days of no subject or object, just THIS. This is beginning to fade away now and the duality of subject and object is starting to return and I am having to manually undo it to return to that state. God-knows why.

So nothing is exactly that...nothing! If the subject is that, then the subject doesn't exist! If there is no subject, then the whole duality ends. When I remind myself that there actually is NO SUBJECT, then all that is left is the experience. Sometimes a wonderful feeling of expansion and lovingness towards what is occurs and that's the greatest thing in the world.

So if you are stuck in some idea of nothing, just remind yourself that THAT IS NOT IT, that NOTHING means NOTHING and that YOU don't exist!

Well it might work, I don't know. :P

Deconstructing dualities

2010-10-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

I am not enlightened. I am a frightened, tormented little ego bobbing around on a great black, incomprehensible seas of circumstance and determinism. Life consumes me, terrifies me and most of my existence is a clumsy blunder from day to day, tripping over my uncertainties and inhibitions, caught between desires and ideals. My only real peace is sleep which I embrace like a child embraces his mother. Life is a bad dream from which I perpetually seek release. Desires, ideals, drugs, meditation, spiritual seeking and finally sleep, the most effective of all.

This hellish existence that plagues my days is obviously the result of duality. All duality is conflict and conflict is suffering. The key then, surely, is to destroy or better, deconstruct all the dualities in my experience.

The deepest of all dualities and the core of all dualistic expressions is the basic human duality of subject and object. It divides up our experience into antagonistic elements, resulting in conflict and pain.

How to deconstruct them?

It would seem the most effective way is first to use the suffering as a point of departure into the inquiry into the duality present. Once discovered the inquirer should then cease to identify with one sole element in the conflict and instead see that both elements are both equally represented in direct experience.

If both elements of the duality are represented equally in the experience then the individual cannot side with one against the other because they are both equally 'him' or 'her'.

The duality ends as both merge into the totality and so the suffering comes to an end.

However dualities are not always linear affairs. Often there can be a myriad factors at play causing the suffering.

For example: the pain of indecision. There is a desire to get drunk. This in turn has three motivations: 1) the desire for relaxing effect of alcohol, 2) the desire to have fun 3) the power of peer pressure. Then, in conflict with this is a contrary desire to abstain from alcohol. This has three motivations: 1) the desire to save money, 2) the fear of damaging the body 3) the pride that is repulsed by the idea of having to bend to peer pressure.

These elements are all at play and all vying for control. The stronger the desire the victorious it will emerge. In some cases however the desires are all more or less evenly matched and then there is a period of indecision. This indecision manifests as a kind of anxiety. It too then conflicts with something: perhaps the ideal one has of oneself being a decisive person, or the feeling of impotency and childishness of not being able to decide. Further conflict then ensues.

This can go on forever, unless deconstruction takes place.

In deconstruction we identify all the components of our suffering-inducing conflict. Then we see how they stand in our experience. Inevitably, it becomes clear that they are equally represented in our experience, as is the conflict and the pain of the suffering (physical). Automatically any preference is withdrawn and the problem just becomes an aspect of reality. When there is no preference the duality ends. It only exists while there is sustained preference for one of the 'sides' in the antagonism (normally the strongest of desires).

This can be applied to any duality and I guarantee peace will ensue. All suffering can be traced to duality. Identify it, deconstruct it and then see how the elements stand in experience and you will so they are both equally represented in experience as aspects of the totality and in that seeing the conflict comes to an abrupt and miraculous end.

Self inquiry is dualistic

2010-10-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Self inquiry is totally dualistic.

It posits that there is a self that must be investigated.

This creates two.

Self inquiry must thus be transcended.

As must the notion of transcendence.

---

The seeker of truth, upon asking himself sincerely 'Who am I?' is conveyed endlessly to a new centre each time he asks the question. The first centre may be in the body. When that centre is questioned a new centre arises, perhaps more subtle. If he is persistent the subtle centre is questioned leading to anyother another centre, perhaps even more subtle.

The process can go on forever. The individual becomes a fetishist of centres, experiencing more and more and more, feeling he is progressively going deeper and deeper but ultimately never getting anywhere because there is no deeper; there is no going anywhere.

This will persist as a painful duality until it is seen that self-inquiry leads just to another false centre. The whole thing itself is totally dualistic. There is the inquirer, the object of his inquiry, the 'falsehood' in his experience he is supposedly rejecting, the resulting 'centre' of awareness and then everything else, 'falsehoods' or 'objects' of awareness. This resolves itself in the duality: subject vs object, observer vs observed.

When it is seen that even the duality of subject and object both arise equally in the nondual totality, neither more central than other but in fact both at exactly the same distance and both totally equally one with the totality, then the whole search falls away and all that is left is THIS.

Who am I?

2010-10-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

I am nothing.

I am emptiness.

I have no attributes.

I cannot be defined.

...But I am.

I have no motive.

No purpose.

No meaning.

I simply am...

Phenomena arise.

Colours.

Forms.

Movements.

Sounds.

Thoughts.

Thoughts.

They clamour for my attention.

Strange things.

Abstract images.

Dualistic.

Pleasure and pain.

Separation and fulfilment.

They are indulged, from time to time.

Like a dream they seem real, for a while.

Intriguing

Bewitching.

Like shapes in smoke.

Illusions.

Whether I pay them heed is of no consequence.

I can engage with them or let them be.

There is no need to do anything.

No need to become.

No need to achieve.

No need to worry.

I am complete.

Everything is already totally achieved.

It was achieved the moment I was born.

Who am I?

I am:

Experience.

Pure

Meaningless

Empty

Crystal-clear

Experience.

Of a meaningless universe.

Nothing more.

I have no purpose.

I simply am.

Present and witnessing.

The meaningless play.

Of phenomena.

What just happened?

2010-09-22T17:10:00.000-07:00

What are the obstacles preventing me from enjoying THIS?

1. A fear of letting go, a fear of abandoning myself, my life, of laying aside the plans, of neglecting my stake in the survival ratrace; a lack of trust in just being...

eg : 'but I must prepare for this..', 'but this needs to be done', 'but if I don't do this the consequences will be terrible!', 'but I'm going to miss out if I don't do this'...

This fear is actually guilt, coming from a sense of responsibility to one's life. But there is no free will: I have no say in any of this, these worries are thrust upon me, I am actually utterly vulnerable and exposed and have been so my whole life, I've just mistakenly believed I was doing things. But have I ever done anything? Haven't these thoughts and worries just been thrust upon me? And hasn't the sense of having to respond to them also just been thrust upon me? In which case, I have no options. I am bullied by these things. I don't choose them, they arise. I am stuck in the middle of these things. That I stuck in the middle, when investigated, is actually nothing. I am nothing. I am this, and those worries and the obsession with remedying them is also just this.

2. A deep need for understanding: the mystery of this must be labelled, understood, meditated on, contemplated, probed, dissected instead of just accepted...

eg : 'but why?' , 'but isn't that just a concept?', 'but how does this work?', ' but what's the difference between this and this?', 'but what has he/she done that I haven't?'

This experience is as it is and even when I try to dissect it nothing can be changed, it carries on being exactly as it is. It's actually hilarious. No matter what I do THIS is always going to be exactly that!...THIS! The thoughts trying to understand it are part of it, and are it. It is already known, there is nothing that needs to be done. It is being known right now. THIS is the knowing, THIS is the realisation. Whatever happens in five minutes or fifty years will also just be this and the knowing will be exactly the same, no more, no less. Everything is already known anyway, everything is already illuminated. It is always complete. It is never lacking. There is nothing missing. Even when there is a feeling of lack, that experience is totally complete! In fact there is only experience, no experiencer or experiencing, JUST THE EXPERIENCE. WOW.

3. A sense of dissatisfaction

eg: 'this can't be it', 'it's not good enough', 'i'm not there yet', 'it's not spiritual enough', 'I'm not free' etc

This is always it. Think about it, how could it not be it? This is always complete, always HERE, always NOW, always THIS. This is this WHATEVER is happening. If one is blissed out, if one is dissatisfied, there is no difference. In both cases this is THIS, this is COMPLETE, and this is KNOWN perfectly and completely. The moment is as it is.

All that can be said is THIS IS THIS.

The acceptance that this moment is perfect, that this moment is totally, completely known ALWAYS, and that whatever is arising is still perfectly part of THIS and integrated into THIS and therefore THIS is surrender and moksha.

Whatever sense of dissatisfaction that may arise, whatever sense of lack, whatever suffering, whatever pain: it's all just THIS, totally complete and perfect and totally known and totally all there is and so whatever happens is fine.

And then there is peace and all worrying ceases. Moksha..

(sigh of relief)

The truth about nondual pointers (NO B/S)

2010-09-19T07:16:00.000-07:00

What exactly is a nondual pointer? According to the host of nondual blogs out there it's something that supposedly points to absolute truth, the subject, God, 'consciousness', 'awareness' and other exceedingly vague terms.

Let's have a look at the pointer itself though. Is it not just a concept arising in the mind? This concept normally leads to a sense of 'stepping back from things' into a 'spaciousness' that 'transcends the ego' et cetera et cetera [insert similarly disconcertingly vague spiritual phrases here].

For instance, my favourite nondual pointer is 'Who or what is experiencing this?'. So, say a feeling of anger arises. The mind is offended by anger, it jars with it's conceited sense of a noble, wise, enlightened self (particularly if the mind in question has been down the spiritual, new agey route). It suddenly regurgitates a piece of 'useful' information it learned (the mind is only concerned with what it deems 'useful information', i.e. bits and bobs of knowledge that it can use to get instant gratification and fuel for its conceited needs). In this case the phrase 'Nan Yar?' springs to mind (for the more elitist, Sanskrit-prone seeker) or 'Who am I?'. This then diverts the attention away from the offending, anger inducing object to a sense of spaciousness, 'stepping back' and freedom from objects. What Eckhart Tolle calls 'the witness'. It's a nice feeling, kind of empty, blissful and numb. But it is a feeling.

So you see the result of the nondual pointer is not an experience of the subject because that is impossible. How can the subject be experienced? Can the eye see itself, can the hand grasp itself. NO! What actually happens is that another object is experienced: the sense of detachment.

THIS IS NOT ABSOLUTE TRUTH PEOPLE. THIS IS NOT 'GOD', 'REALITY', 'CONSCIOUSNESS' and all the other terms these people heedless throw about. This is JUST ANOTHER EXPERIENCE.

And let me tell you, it isn't all lovely.

I used to use non-dual pointers all the time. Anything uncomfortable that would arise was soundly met with a pointer which then negated it and left me feeling numb and detached. Anesthetised would be the more adequate term actually.

Once again, BEING NUMB AND DETACHED IS NOT BEING ENLIGHTENED.

Now I am not here to tell you what 'being enlightened is'. Far from it. I have no idea what that is. I'm certainly not going to talk to you about 'absolute truth' either. Because that's even more nebulous to me. In fact I haven't a clue really about either. But I do know ONE THING. NONDUAL POINTERS have NOTHING TO DO WITH EITHER OF THEM.

All nondual pointers do is leave you feeling empty and detached from life. They are good for negating unnecessary mental noise and childish crap. But they are not TRUTH or GOD or anything like that. They are palliatives, spiritually garbed aspirins. Nothing more. If used to the extreme, i.e all day long, they will make you a dull, detached, uninspired, disinterested, apathetic, limited and boring person. Life will become grey, meaningless and nihilistic. You can go down that path if you want and call it 'truth'. But personally I don't rate it.

Advaita's cunning concepts

2010-09-18T01:50:00.000-07:00

The concept of 'experience' consists of three elements: the subject who experiences, the time process of experiencing and the object that is experienced.

Advaita says that most of humanity is lost in the objects that are experienced: like the body or the mind, and this sense of limitation and separation from everything else is the cause of all suffering and human misery.

It then recommends through various methods, most notable among them being the method of self-inquiry, to dissassociate from the objects in order to experience the subject, the true self, which is bliss.

The neo-advaitins go further and say that there is absolutely no method, nothing to be done, that the objects experienced automatically point to a subject and thus we can rest assured in the indirect revelation of our true identity and stop seeking altogether.

Both are absurd when you think about it. The first tells us that we should come to experience the subject when all the objects have been negated. But how can the subject ever be experienced? It's impossible. Only objects can. What really happens when you negate everything is a kind of empty thoughtlessness, but even that is experienced and recorded. There is no way out of thought and objects.

The second argument is utterly unhelpful to man or beast. That's why you see the same confused faces at all these neo-advaitin satsangs. No one ever gains anything from it. The guru may aswell be talking to themselves. Telling someone there is nothing to be done does not bring about enlightenment it just reinforces a sense of despair and hopelessness. This idea that there is nothing to be done is just a concept which is conditioned and limited just like any other. When we subordinate everything to this concept, which is what the neo-advaitins call reality and what they suggest we do, in fact we deny life. I have been down that path and it is not a very enjoyable affair.

The real question I want these clever people to answer me is this: WHAT is the difference between an unenlightened person and an enlightened person? Also, WHAT happens to the mind in enlightenment?

Now these dualities EXIST. That is why we have the guru and the disciple. It's another duality isn't it? The two are supposedly of a different nature. My reasoned view is that the guru has just assimilated a piece of information that the disciple hasn't, or has reinforced it more in their habitual thought patterns. For instance Mooji has, through intense repetition, made the self-inquiry mantra 'Who am I?' so automatic that he automatically negates everything in life making him look like he's on local anasthetic all the time, blissed out and happy. But that doesn't mean he has touched ultimate truth. His disciplines haven't suspended disbelief quite so shockingly as he has and are doubting. Their doubting is their perdition. When the negation is doubted the temporary emptiness it confers upon the individual is broken up. But that temporary emptiness is not something absolute, some universal truth, it is just the consequence of subscribing blindly to a concept. If I repeat over and over in my head that I am a hedgehog, I will be less inclined to put on a nice shirt for fear of ripping it to shreds...conditioned thinking people, habitual, conditioned thinking.

Is motiveless meditation possible?

2010-09-13T05:44:00.000-07:00

Many spiritual types advise 'just being' or 'witnessing' or 'being without intention'. They point to a way of life that is beyond intentionality, that just is.

This all sounds well and good on the surface. However, even living without intention has an intention or motive at its core.

Why do people engage in spiritual practice in the first place? What is it that obliges someone to sit down and meditate? There is always a motive or purpose. Normally it is to escape from suffering, improve their quality of life or in some cases to attain nirvana.

I was trying to 'just be' the other day. In deep meditation it occurred to me that the whole meditation, while seemingly full of emptiness and witnessing, itself was just the result of an intention to meditate, itself fruit of a desire to alter my mental state.

Ramana Maharshi said that the tool of self-inquiry is itself burned up over time in the process, like a stick in a fire. Is this 'the suicide' of intentionality? Intentionality desiring death? I desire to stop desiring. How could a desire end a desire though? Surely it would just perpetuate the problem? Instead of a desire for sexual intercourse, chocolate or something material we have the desire for an ideal: desireless existence.

Osho called this the apeing of the Buddha. We see Buddha statues, so calm, so composed, so detached. There is grace in their timeless immobility, the serenity of their expression. We ape them, we want to be the same.

Is there a way of meditation that does not involve some form of desire, some form of Buddha-apeing? I simply cannot conceive of it. Without the desire, how would meditation take place?

This illustrates my point that we must be careful with concepts of 'witnessing', 'just being', and 'awareness'. By understanding the real dynamics behind these concepts and our relation to them we attain to a more subtle understanding of things.

Self-inquiry: just another ego-game?

2010-08-31T12:05:00.000-07:00

I was going for a walk before and I was just amazed by how un-present I was the whole time. It was really beautiful: the sun was setting filling the sky with soft, reddish hues, the grass was vibrant green, the trees old and mysterious. I could not appreciate it though because it just wasn't good enough.

It seems the very nature of the mind or ego is to be dissatisfied. Most thoughts seem to be dissatisfied thoughts, concerned with past or future. 'I' (as a concept of thought) am either dissatisfied about something that went wrong in the past or anxious to get/acquire/prevent something in the future.

The past one doesn't really bother me any more. I lost my preoccupation with the past when I realised there is no free will (see my writings on nondoership). This showed me the absurdity of regret because everything is essentially inevitable. In fact I can't think when I last thought of the past...(no pun intended).

The future, however, remains very present in my thoughts. When I think about it, if it weren't, there would be a real paucity of thoughts altogether. When you think about thoughts most of them involve abstract notions of time: planning, hoping, preparing - they are all a means to an end. That end is irrelevant, in fact most of the time we don't even think about the real end, but it remains there, hanging like a bias in the thought, powering its sense of urgency and importance.

What do I mean by 'the end is irrelevant'? Well, most thoughts, in my case, about the future, seem to be about getting somewhere, doing something, acquiring something, being something better or improved, but they don't really go into the reward of that, i.e. what I will be left with. As I pointed out ages ago in my post on desire, the end is actually non-existent. There is no reward, there is only the ending of the desire. What you are left with when everything is done is just the present moment. You may be miserable about not having any money but when you get it you won't actually get any kind of reward other than smug self-satisfaction and sense of superiority (both rather paltry if you ask me). What you'll actually get, your real reward if you will, is simply the emptiness that the ending of desire naturally leaves in place of the desire.

So this dissatisfaction is just pointless. It's a meaningless game that just plays in the mind for no reason. It ruins people's lives, makes them aggressive, impatient, exploitative and ultimately totally dissatisfied. While this is lodged in the brain, there can be no peace.

So I started thinking: how can I get rid of this dissatisfaction, this constant mantra of 'I am not complete'. I have always been fond of self-inquiry as a practice. I do it most of the time. Basically I just stay with the feeling of 'I AM' as often as I can. But then I realised that there was AGAIN an end to me doing self-inquiry: the end of dissatisfaction, which is itself...wait for it...DISSATISFACTION!

It's like you just can't get out of it...it's there in your very being and there's no way out. Spiritual practices are almost worse it seems than normal dissatisfaction because they are dissatisfied with everything!

I was mulling over this quite intensely when I realised that the mind is incapable of existing meaninglessly, that it will always be dissatisfied until the day we expire. All our spiritual practices are just manifestations of that dissatisfaction, a kind of seeking. Even the neo-advaita mantra of 'everything is complete' is again another kind of striving. No-one talks or thinks about that stuff without having some kind of motive.

Pretty depressing revelation. Would appreciate any feedback...

Imagine a day without thought

2010-08-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

It's called oversleeping.

There is only one period in our day when thought stops: deep, dreamless sleep. What do I mean by thought? I mean the human mind, the experiencing that constitutes the essence of our existence, which comes to an end during deep sleep and so brings us to an end too for we ARE it.

This mind is structured by thoughts and memories. In fact, memories give experience continuity and movement and flux and create this animation of life and living. Without memories how could you define experience? Without thoughts what would you do? The 'you' is a thought! Clearly without thought there would be nothing, a total death of self, just like deep sleep.

The advaitins say that awareness is the real state because it is there in deep sleep, the dreaming state and behind waking life and thoughts. That, however, is a disgusting assumption bereft of any kind of reason or common sense. To assume there is some kind of aware presence that is you during sleep is absurd. Who remembers deep sleep? No-one. Deep sleep is the death of the person. Therefore to artificially introduce the concept of awareness into deep sleep is an offence to any mildly logical brain.

It is just an assumption. What is an assumption: a thought that arises.

I ask all you advaitins sincerely and I expect a sincere answer: BEFORE YOU ASSIMILATED THE CONCEPT OF AWARENESS (EITHER BY SEEING A GURU OR READING SOME TEXT), DID YOU KNOW ABOUT AWARENESS?

Be honest.

The mechanics of faith

2010-08-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

Faith or devotion can bring great peace and happiness into life. When you have total faith in an idea or concept (eg: Jesus Christ, Buddha, awareness etc) then for all intents and purposes that idea becomes reality. Essentially, our personal reality is what we deeply believe it to be.

But what exactly is faith? What are the actual mechanics, if you will, behind faith. I love investigating the real meanings behind words and concepts. This way we can really find out what's going on in our minds.

Faith is a really interesting concept. Essentially, faith is the constant, unchallenged repitition of a particular thought. For Christians it may be 'Jesus is my saviour, Jesus will look after me'. To have that thought at all times is really a remarkable gift. Whether or not Jesus exists is irrelevant here, the fact that Jesus figures so prominently in the thought-patterns of the mind will make him real for the individual. So whenever a problem arises, a Jesus thought will come to the rescue and the individual will feel self-assured and peaceful.

The same applies to awareness. The advaitins and their neo-counterparts don't half go on about awareness and it's wonderful benefits. That's because they have assimilated the concept and intoned it so excessively that like the aforementioned Jesus thought it has become totally unshakeable and ever-present in their thought patterns. A nasty situation may arise but they will be fine: the awareness thought will negate it and they will be at peace. James Swartz refers to this as 'confidence'. It's an excellent term. Essentially faith is just absolute confidence or trust in a particular thought.

However, who actually does the trusting? Well no-one. There is only thought, reacting to stimuli automatically. There is no actual thinker. If there were a thinker then the universe would be dualistic. We all know it is nondual so there can be no free will.

The fact is that we have no say whether or not we are lucky enough to have this degree of faith. Faith is gifted to us haphazardly, depending entirely on our circumstances and conditioning and the interaction of the two. As faith is just the repetition of a comfort thought it is just as transient as all other limited objects. Due to this there can be no guarantee for long-lasting happiness.

You may say 'I am going to practice my mantra constantly for the rest of my life' but that's just a thought. Down the line who knows what other thoughts may arise. Some may contradict that. 2 years or even 2 weeks down the line you may have a thought that says 'This is pointless, let's try something else'. All the effort to establish that thought in the conditioning is then wasted. The peace and happiness is gone.

The transience of faith is especially marked if we don't understand what it is. If we harbour the false delusions that our faith thoughts are actually totally real (like 'I am awareness' or 'Jesus is my saviour) we lack the necessary sophisticated insight to properly manipulate these thoughts. If we understand the mechanics of faith and how and why it is useful to have we can then employ a wider array of techniques to secure it, perhaps increasing our possibilities for happiness.

This is why I believe it is vital to go into the mechanics of things, especially thoughts, ideas and concepts. By improving our understanding we are given more options. More options means more flexibility, more resourcefulness and more opportunities for a peaceful existence.

There is NOTHING beyond thought

2010-08-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

All these advaitin gurus and new-agey types yak on and on about this wonderful life they dwell in beyond thought where there is 'unbounded joy', 'unlimited potential' and other such inanities.

But how could there be anything beyond thought? Isn't thought the basis, the core essence of all human experience and endeavour?

Think about it (no pun intended). When you experience something you only do so because the mind records the event, memorising it and assimilating it. That's how it is experienced. Without that mechanism of thought there would be perception but no-one or thing perceiving. Without the intermediary of thought and the memorisation of the perception there would be no evidence of it ever occuring! You can look at your daily experience. When your eyes see something or your ears hear something it is picked up by thought and memorised (if it is relevant). The relevance of perceptions depends on what agenda thought has. That is why we miss so much of what we perceive in our daily lives. A lot of it is perceived but not recorded because it is irrelevant to what the mind considers necessary information. If you're listening to an enthralling lecture at college or are watching a particularly intriguing film you're less likely to be conscious of your heart-beat or your breathing or the touch of the fabric of your clothes against your skin!

Similarly all endeavours or actions are preceded by a thought. Try and do something thoughtlessly; it's impossible. All trying and doing is thought-based. Thought is there, always, planning and directing every action. Your day and everything you get up to is determined by your thoughts. This is irrefutable. Just observe your daily experience. When you are doing something ask yourself why you are doing it and what obliged you to do so. You will invariably find that thought or a series of thoughts was the cause.

The only time of day when thought isn't occurring is during deep sleep (i.e. dreamless sleep). What happens during those 7 or 8 hours of kip? You cannot say because YOU cease to be. You cannot remember anything about that period because there was no recording taking place, thus there are no memories. No thought = no recording = no memories = no experience. Deep sleep is the death of the individual and all experience. The guru and the seeker are identical in sleep because they are both essentially dead.

So to talk about going beyond thought is about as useful as talking about the afterlife because beyond thought there is the death of the individual, all human experience and the world. You may as well speculate about the existence of Heaven, Hell or Valhalla: a wholly meaningless, inane endeavour.

The quest for good thoughts

2010-08-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

A lot of gurus will tell you you should transcend thought or just observe thought. According to them, this way you free yourself from thought and attain peace.

I used to subscribe fully to this view (you can see that evidenced in my earlier posts). I was your real 'neo-advaitin' if you will: I didn't practice anything because I knew in all my intellectual arrogance that practices were just pointless seeking exercises. I knew, rather complacently, that everything was done, nothing needed to be accomplished and that this was it. This is a strong recurring theme in my earlier posts.

Let me tell you what came of this life. I was numb. Life became meaningless, and because of that it became dull. I didn't do anything. I just lived a routine, lacklustre existence. I was lethargic all the time. I had basically negated everything. What happens when you negate everything? Nothing remains. You become hollow. I had nothing to talk about at conversation, people were alienated by me, people found me dull and repetitive. After several months it became a real drag. Finally it all culminated in a weekend of immense confusion and despair (which I am still recovering from). It was a momentous thing...I had toppled my own deity, I had become disenchanted with the thing that saved me from my terrible depression all those years ago: my hallowed awareness.

I now understand why. The approach was totally wrong. I was seeking peace and had found a concept to help me get there (the concept of awareness). But a concept is fallible just like any other and just as transitory as any thought, for afterall, concepts are just thoughts. I'm not going to deny that in the instant of remembering 'I am awareness' (which is a thought, remember), sure there is peace. But to rely totally on that thought is folly.

The question isn't which concept, god, deity, idol, single idea will bring me peace. Peace and happiness are created by thoughts and so the question should really be: which thoughts will bring me peace and happiness and how can I get them? You cannot deny thought. That was my crucial error. By denying thought I denied life and by gripping to my concept of awareness (awareness can only ever be a concept if you can experience it, for true awareness cannot be experienced as it is the subject!) I misunderstood the whole process, killed all inquiry and potential progress and I became zealous and rigid and thus I suffered (suffering afterall is conflict born out of limitation).

Having reached this amazing revelation I now turn away from concepts like 'You are already enlightened' and 'Everything is accomplished', which the neo-advaitins rely so heavily on. I now focus on finding good thoughts and ways to achieve them. I now have a more flexible approach to life and am trying various things out which I thought a waste of time before like: a healthy diet, a hatha yoga regime, zazen meditation twice a day and even cognitive behavioural therapy, ASWELL as the old concepts of the neo-advaitins and self-inquiry (which I used to rely on exclusively).

The all-or-nothing quest for total moksha or enlightenment will inevitably result in enslavement to concepts because those are just concepts. The best thing, in my opinion, is to look into the mechanics of things, how things work. How does peace and happiness work? Thought is central to all our emotions. If we want peace and happiness we will need thoughts that guarantee those feelings. You can't just deny thought. Thought is pleasure and pain, thought is suffering and you cannot escape it. It is a central aspect of our existence. Perhaps the prime aspect. When you deny or negate thought it's just another thought, for afterall, awareness does nothing and all doership, afterall, occurs in thought. Awareness if reached, if inquired into, if experienced cannot actually be the awareness all these gurus talk about because awareness is the subject and the subject cannot be experienced as an object.

So my advice is to look for ways to get positive thoughts. Meditation, I find, is one of the best. I don't fully understand how it works but it has remarkable effects. It seems that when you focus your attention totally on a specific thing or the present moment and witness your inner workings (i.e. become totally alert), when you come out of it you get new, fresh, interesting, inspiring and motivational thoughts; or the bad thoughts disappear.

Guru = slavery

2010-07-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

When you think about what a guru implies it becomes clear that such an individual means slavery, an end to all inquiry and discovery and the most powerful obstacle to all progress. This is why I feel gurus should be abolished.

The old traditions stress the importance of gurus. In the west we have ordained priests, in the east we have sages dwelling in mud-huts offering gems of wisdom. Some gurus, however, go beyond these humble roles of community servants and become global phenomenons attracting huge numbers of devotees and accumulating massive amounts of wealth. Then things start going wrong. We have cults and people like Osho and more recently Mohan Singh.

Aside from the obvious worrying facts regarding cults, these gurus block individual progress and that's the theme of this post. When you invest all your faith in a spiritual leader, suspending judgment and signing on completely to their belief system, you have just killed all your hopes of progress and learning. From then on you are limited to the tiny little world of ideas that these men (normally men) inhabit. Instead of thinking for yourself you chain yourself to their 'philosophies' losing yourself in the details of their intricate wordplay (normally intentionally so in order to confuse).

You are taken in by their dramatic stories. Inevitably they started off as reprobates, alcoholics and delinquents. Then, surprise surprise, the great power (insert deity title here, 'awareness' could well be an option) selected them out of nowhere to spread the message. Clothed as they are in this perfume of mystique they immediately become unearthly and their words become gospel.

It's this mystique that gets them where they are. Most of the big gurus on youtube are not particularly intellectually gifted. Most of what they talk about is repetitive and illogical when examined carefully. In fact most of it is just platitudes dressed up with a few sanskrit terms here and there.

If a guru were to actually recount his life experience honestly, i.e. 'I discovered something interesting whilst reading a book that changed my perspectives and allowed me to enjoy life more', or 'I grew up', they would be no more interesting then your old grandpa who, in his old armchair on Sunday, likes giving you nuggets of wisdom and stories about 'the war'. For free incidentally. (Count yourselves lucky if you have such a grandparent).

A guru without his 'miracle life story' (i.e a budding intellectual) is nothing. He is boring. In order to be successful he then has to go through the more difficult processes of selection which tends to involve actual intellectual skill and hard work (getting higher education credentials, publishing articles, giving lectures etc). With a few lies here and there however and a convincing story of spiritual ecstasy all of that is unnecessary. The gormless seekers will flock in their dozens. And so we have the satsangs, the pilgrimages, and all the attendant fanfare and moneygorounds of the guru and his coterie of devotees.

This is a process of enslavement. The devotee joins his or her guru and then progress is briskly ended. While there is a guru there will be no independent effort to discover truth. Instead there will be subordination to another who thinks for you. This is the enemy of progress. Think about it. How are you going to progress if you are limiting your avenue of learning to one single source?

Don't listen to all that nonsense about the importance of a guru to guide you and 'channel' all the necessary knowledge to you through their divine presence. Go and read some books, live a little, think about things, question the world and most importantly yourself, try things out whether they be meditation techniques or brain-training programmes. Don't enslave yourself to some conceited fraud. Live and learn, that's my advice.

Why awareness is just another thought

2010-07-23T17:50:00.000-07:00

This is for my one reader 't'. I want to thank you for coming on here and participating. I have replied to your recent comments but I thought I'd elaborate a bit more. I don't mean to be brusque with you, that's just my arguing style. I respect you and your points of view totally.

Let me just explain why I think awareness is just another thought.

1) The fact that we talk about awareness means that we have conceptualised it. Concepts occur in thought.

2) When you become aware of something what actually happens? A thought says 'I am not this' or 'I am aware of this'. You probably find yourself 'falling asleep' from time to time until suddenly you become aware again and 'wake up'. How did that happen? What happens is that your conditioned mind which has assimilated all this stuff about awareness reacted to some stimuli and then produced an 'awareness thought'.

3) You cannot know awareness. All the gurus talk about it but you can't know it. Knowing and talking about things is just thought.

4) The deep-sleep argument is totally ridiculous. It's the linchpin of all advaitin theory. Be honest with yourself and ask yourself if you really can remember being asleep. Of course you can't, it's totally absurd. All doing and thinking and remembering takes place in thought. In sleep there is no thought, so there is no you. There is no experience. Thought is primary. Without thought you cannot experience. Even the notion of awareness cannot be experienced without thought...this brings me to the last point now

5) So awareness is experienced, and thus an object (thought). And this actually stands up logically. Afterall you cannot actually experience awareness as awareness is the experiencer. It's like the eye that tries to see itself, the hand that tries to clasp itself or the knife that tries to cut itself: an impossibility. So to talk or think about awareness and to incorporate it into some kind of practice, spiritual lifestyle, ritual or inquiry therefore proves that it is something to be perceived, i.e. a thought.

Hope that helped.

If not what has probably happened is that your thought process has become so conditioned by the awareness thought that there are simply hardly any intervals between your awareness thoughts which tricks you into thinking it is real and permanent, making it an unassailable concept in your psyche and thus impossible for any logic or reason to dislodge!

Awareness and how to use it

2010-07-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

Awareness is a double-edged sword. Most advaitin gurus out there will tell you that it is the solution to all your problems.

Let me tell you from my own personal experience that it is a little bit more complicated than that. In fact, awareness like all things has its good sides and its bad sides.

The good side of awareness is the peacefulness that it creates when we use it to negate harmful thoughts. For instance if I am experiencing depressing thoughts like 'I am unworthy', or 'I am such a loser', then awareness is brilliant. I can use it to negate those thoughts in typical 'self-inquiry' fashion by saying neti neti to them in my mind ('not this'). By breaking the identification with these harmful thoughts I no longer suffer quite so much and am 'free from them' to some extent.

However the bad side to awareness is that if taken too far it can negate the good thoughts and enjoyable moments in life. Life isn't all bad. For a depressive it mainly is and for depressives I think awareness or negation is brilliant. It breaks the self-destructive thought-cycles which really lower your self-esteem. But for normal people there are good thoughts and bad thoughts. Awareness or negation should only be used on the bad thoughts because if applied to everything it can lead to a very empty, dull and uninteresting life.

Now the problem with the advaitin gurus and their ilk is that they overrate awareness so much by claiming it will turn you into some kind of super-human, god-like Buddha figure. That is simply not true. Awareness does not cultivate anything it just denies things. If you want to be a compassionate person you have to work on that actively for long periods of time. If you want to be more relaxed that too has to be learned. You can just expect awareness to do it for you. Awareness only negates, it does not create.

Awareness is wonderful for bad situations and I encourage anyone to use self-inquiry in those moments. But for the good stuff it really isn't necessary. Just enjoy the good moments...drink them dry, live a fun, exciting life. Use awareness to cut out the crap. That's how to use awareness.

You have to remember that all 'awareness' is, at the end of the day, is a thought which says 'I am not this'. Knowing that it is just another thought ends the delusion of it being some kind of god-like ultimate thing to which we should devote all our energies.

Most of this blog is bullshit

2010-07-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

I hate to say it but a lot of the stuff on here is bullshit. Most of it consists of half-baked assumptions, shallow, unexamined concepts and very lax enquiries. It made me feel peaceful but that doesn't mean it's truth. I realised that recently. It was quite a shocking revelation but I am grateful for it. I apologise to the people who trusted in me, many of whom I talked to over email. What I suggested may work if you are looking for peace but let me just clarify that it would be exceedingly arrogant of me to say it's 'the truth'.

Be careful if anyone talks to you about 'the truth' or the 'absolute truth' or 'reality'. Do not confuse truth with 'what works for you', that's the mistake of most religious zealots and that's why they are so ignorant.

Doubt is the ally of truth, and sometimes the enemy of peace. Let's not confuse the two.

This blog is about finding peace but it's also about finding truth. Ideally I would like to combine the two...

Why you shouldn't care about what other people think

2010-07-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

It's so easy to worry about what other people think. I do it all the time. When in conversation with someone I inevitably find myself confronted with a thousand worries: 'Does this person think I'm a good guy?', 'Am I not intelligent enough for them?', 'Am I too intelligent?', 'Does he think I'm an idiot?'.

These questions arise and we react to them and use them as a basis for our relationship with the other person. If we feel inferior to the other person we do our best to impress them. If we feel superior we do our best not to make them feel too inferior, or if we are insecure we relish the novelty of our superior position and endeavour to triumph over them in all aspects.

All of these reactions are actually really rather silly. You see, you can never ever hope to know what another person thinks about you (unless we develop some kind of psychic technology that is!). My advice is to stop being a mind-reader and just react honestly. You don't know what they think so why bother trying to find out? You'll just end up assuming a load of fictional crap. Be honest and then deal with the circumstances. It's just so much simpler than skipping around a bunch of assumptions. Afterall, when you think you know someone in actual fact all there is is an idea of that person, nothing else, and an idea of a person is really just an assumption.

Stop assuming and just go with whatever bubbles up. You didn't ask for those bubbles. Why should you feel responsible if the other person doesn't like them? Their disliking is just another bubbling. All human life is just the bubbling up of fate anyhow. Everything is one and everything is predetermined. That's a relaxing fact to take in isn't it?

It's funny how things change

2010-07-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

It's funny isn't it?

Looking back over my blog my writings have changed in their approach quite radically. At first I was very into Krishnamurti (I still am, though I think he was a fraud). Then I became rather advaitery. Then rather neo-advaitery. And now I've had a breakthrough.

Neo-advaita is full of holes. One of which (THE hole) is that the awareness they speak of is only a concept. How could it be anything else? They claim that this awareness is beyond thought and that's where we truly are. This is exceedingly misleading though. If such a thing does exist (most scientists in fact argue the opposite, that awareness or consciousness is actually just an epiphenomenon of thought: an advaita heresy), it would be impossible for anyone to experience it. Why? Because the individual self is a conditioned, limited, thought process. The 'I', the 'person', 'John Smith' and all identity is in thought. As the old frauster Krishnaji said: 'the thinker is thought'.

Think about it. All human endeavour stems from and is dependent on thought. Thought is the guiding thread at the core of our existence. I believe we have no control over it and that it reacts automatically to the world around it, but ultimately we are it. When we become aware of thought it's actually just a thought remembering a past thought. The 'awareness thought' is just another thought!

When I realised this I was thunderstruck. Instead of feeling like I was there as some impersonal awareness, I realised that it was just another thought. Crikey! That's the end of ever-lasting peace, self-realisation and all that milarkey, I thought! And guess what? It was demoralising. I had toppled my personal diety: awareness or consciousness.

But I got over the pain. You can still have a peaceful life with thought. In fact, knowing that the process is thought-based is far more realistic and down-to-earth than all this awareness stuff. It's better to be honest than deluded. Afterall, blind faith is the enemy of progress and learning.

Anyway, that's all. I'm just pleased I made this discovery and hope I can an offer a more realistic alternative to the neo-advaitins here on the Aware Consciousness (I may need to change the title...)

Perhaps I should call myself 'The Dawkins of Advaita'...or would that be a bit pompous?

How to find peace in daily life by keeping things simple

2010-07-11T05:53:00.000-07:00

As the great Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti so astutely pointed out, suffering is conflict. Emotional pain is simply the offspring of the clashing of thoughts and other objects.

Desire, for instance. I desire a bar of delicious chocolate (hmmm, yummy). My mind runs off to the sensually-fulfilling experience of devouring the chocolate bar imagined. This creates an ache, an emotional response that manifests itself physically in the body as a pain. That pain is what fuels the desire.

This ache is the result of the conflict between the desire for the chocolate bar (which materialised out of thin air), and the moment in which that desire is born, in which there is no chocolate at hand (boo-hoo). This is a simple dialectic. Often more factors are involved and the problem can become labyrinthine in its complexity and the suffering far more intense.

For instance, fear can enter the mix. I desire chocolate. However, I fear the possible consequences: obesity, health problems, hair-loss, loss of money in buying the chocolate and other opportunity costs. The worrying consequences that present themselves are vomited out from the conditioning of the individual (memories of past events, conflicts et cetera) in response to the stimuli, in this case desire.

Simple conflict:

DESIRE for chocolate ----------------(clash)---------------- Reality of present moment (no chocolate)
================> Consequence: longing, craving (a physical 'ache')

Complex conflict:

DESIRE for chocolate----------------(clash)----------------- Reality of present moment (no chocolate)
================> Consequence: longing, craving (a physical 'ache')
LONGING/CRAVING--------------(clash)------------------Conditioned fear (obesity, etc)
================> Consequence: indecision, confusion, turmoil (a tangle of emotional pains)

THE SOLUTION:

Awareness or negation of the conflict diminishes its power. By observing and thereby negating the clash and not getting embroiled in the details, the suffering lessens. Afterall, the length of the conflict depends on the strength of the 'warring factions' (desire and fear). Awareness or negation saps them of their strength by stepping back from them, thus interrupting the clashes.

How to balance awareness and the fuflilment of desires/avoidance of fears?

It's all well and good to say 'be aware' or 'negate', but then what? We can't be aware/negating all the time. We wouldn't do anything. We would be stuck in emptiness, so to speak.

Awareness or negation should only be applied when the conflict is complex, intense and causing undue suffering. Simple desires can be fulfilled with playful joy. They are not problematic. They are linear and can be indulged in with all the play of an infant. There's nothing wrong with pleasurable gratification. It is our birthright to enjoy the world. Awareness should be there as a sword to cut through these convoluted chains of clashes and conflicts if the situation begins to become problematical.

For instance:

No need for awareness
desire for chocolate ---------- lack of chocolate ======> you go and find some chocolate!

Awareness is needed
desire for chocolate ---------- you look for chocolate ---------- there is no chocolate =======> anger, disappointment frustration
then
anger, disappointment (emotional pain) ------------ desire for peace
=============> (APPLY AWARENESS or NEGATION) =============> emptiness, peace

Awareness is also a desire

Bear in mind that the use of awareness or negation stems from an enlightened superior desire: a desire for peace, as shown in the above diagram. All desires are essentially this but the only difference is that they seek release in objects and object gratification. An enlightened mind knows by experience that the true peace is the peace of simply being. This can then enter into all conflict chains as a positive force, bestowing peace on the individual.

SOLUTION 2: Acceptance of nondoership (akarma)

You can also simply accept the desire and all attendant worries. You simply fulfil the desire and accept the consequences.

By surrendering to your lack of free will, by accepting that all this crap has been thrust on you anyway, you just go with it, letting the desire or stronger force win. You don't worry about the consequences, because you know you have no say in anything anyway. The universe decides everything, afterall.

This way you just go with the flow.

Conclusion: Keeping things simple

Both solutions are just methods of keeping things simple. The first method negates complex problems, the latter just accepts them. Both prevent the conflicts from getting overly complicated, and painful. They are immensely effective tools and can be applied with relative ease with a little practice.

Afterall, simplicity is bliss.

I have a confession to make...

2010-07-09T15:59:00.000-07:00

It's so easy to get embroiled in worries. Recently I have been worrying about nothing. Luckily, yesterday I had a 'grace moment'. What I call a 'grace moment' is when a thought bubbles up which says 'hold on a minute, should I really be worrying?' Those thoughts are gifts from the cosmos, that's why I call them 'grace moments'.

My grace moment stopped me in my tracks and I could, for the first time in a while (I must confess), appreciate the scenery, the simple suchness of the present moment. It was beautiful. Tears welled up in my eyes. It was like coming home. My whole body relaxed, my thoughts spaced out and instead of being temporal (i.e worried about past and future), they were inspirational, creative and concerned with what was around me. I felt seized by a great zest for life and a spontaneous urge to be artistic. I hadn't felt this good in ages. I realised that all my worries were optional: the past and the future don't exist; whatever happens the present moment will always be there, and I can take solace in the warm peacefulness it always endows.

It seems I had fallen asleep; taken unawares. Thank God, the cosmos, the universe, fate, material dialectics...whatever you want, for that 'grace moment', for waking me up. Thank God for awareness.

And let me tell you my sparse readers, this has really been a wake-up call. For so long now I have thought myself grounded in awareness, free and impervious to the ego's wily ways. I didn't notice it creeping in the back-door, implicit in that assumption. Forgive me my readers, I am not infallible. I have presented myself as such but I have realised that no-one is. We can only hope for grace to descend on us in the form of a beautiful, inspirational thought or an illuminating pointer to expose the falsehoods we take for truth. Afterall, there is no individual, only the will of the universe...

Zorba the Buddha

2010-07-05T16:33:00.000-07:00

Osho talked often of Zorba the Buddha. This seemingly contradictory invention is more than just a justification for Rajneesh's own unusual lifestyle, an existence of great material opulence alongside mystical, unearthly spirituality. This paradoxical character is the ideal state of human existence.

Zorba slaps the floor, cries 'Opa!' and dances until he is dead; he drinks, whores, gambles and enjoys life as much as he can - he is an unabashed hedonist, ambassador of the Epicureans, the ultimate lotus-eater. The Buddha, on the other hand, cuts a rather different figure. Sitting quietly, he watches life pass by, serenely unattached from it all, floating blissfully in the emptiness within.

When you combine both you have a truly remarkable being: with all the passion and zest for life of Zorba, yet tempered by the deep awareness of the Buddha.

How can we live this way? It's not that hard. It can only be achieved by accepting that life is a game, by enjoying the play, the costumes, the charades, while remaining anchored in the wisdom of knowing that it is only just a game. This way you are both in and out of life, everything and nothing, life and death. You are all dualities rolled into one. You are love personified.

So pick up your bottle of Grecian wine, throw off your inhibitions and dance on the sand, knowing full well in your Buddha wisdom that it's all just a wondrous, meaningless game.

World Cup Ego Fever

2010-06-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

The World Cup is really a wonderful time when it comes around: a great meeting of different nations competing fairly in exciting, tense matches.

If only it were that simple. It's so easy to take the games a little too seriously. I should know, I've been there. When your team scores it is truly a moment of elation: a glorious surge of triumphant energy explodes when you see that ball ruffle the net. If there are other fans around it heightens into a kind of mad, tribal frenzy. It's such a potent drug, let me tell you. When the opponents score, on the contrary, it's quite a different feeling: a sinking sensation, a nervous feeling that time is running out. I am well acquainted with that feeling, being an England fan (today was yet another example of our glorious incompetence).

What happens in these moments is quite remarkable. After England lost I looked at it in my mind. There was no logical reason why I should support England. As a simple conscious entity there was nothing there that linked me to England. Sure I'm English, but that's just a label afterall. It was like a thread dangling before my eyes, tantalising, and me like a cat just had to reach out and grasp it. What is that thread? It is the thread of belonging, the thread of being a part of something bigger. It is the thread of warming insularity, the thread of identity.

Without it what are we? The cold, meaningless present, naked and uncompromising, bare of all human qualities, alien and bizarre. It's not hard to see why we all grope after that thread. But ultimately, the strange emptiness of the present moment is wisdom and love and real uniqueness.

Easy for me to say when England's out of the running I suppose...

The miracle of nondoership

2010-06-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

I may have talked a little about this before but I think it's time to expand. A few months ago I became intimately acquainted with the truth of nondoership and I'm still feeling the amazing effects of that revelation.

You often hear the term karma bandied around. Please ignore this. Most people don't even know what it means. Karma is actually impossible. In reality, there is akarma, or in English, nondoership.

What nondoership means is that there is no free will. Now while this may seem, at first glance, a very unappetising, perhaps even frightening thought, it's really rather liberating in actual fact. Why? Because essentially there is absolutely no responsibility for anything. Embracing the simple fact of nondoership is the ultimate relief, as it is the ending of all unnecessary burdens and an acceptance of the FACT of nonduality. Say goodbye to guilt, regret and all those useless remorseful emotions.

It's funny how this features in religion. In Christianity for instance we are taught that Christ has paid for all our sins. That's just a fancy way of saying we cannot be held accountable for anything. That religion then neglects to address the subtleties that are implicit in nondoership with regards to human life and instead of elucidating what it means by that metaphor of Christ paying for our sins, it then contradicts itself by stating that despite our lack of responsibility we should actively choose to accept Christ. Just another one of the mind-numbing contradictions inherent in the Christian faith...

Now let's conduct a proper examination of nondoership in the clear light of reason, instead of getting mixed up in all these metaphors and mumbo jumbo relic-worshipping. When we examine nondoership for ourselves using simple logic it's undeniability is blatantly evident. If karma were the case, if we all were individual actors carrying out some kind of free will, then there would have to be evidence of discontinuity, i.e. that the thought processes we use to make these supposedly free choices would necessarily have to be outside of the realm of cause and effect.

Now this is impossible. Why? Because cause and effect is all there is. There's a good reason why materialism has triumphed in science: it's simply irrefutable. Now if we examine a thought, it really just consists of a series of electrical impulses, or neurones. These electrical impulses are not somehow outside of the universe. They, like everything else for that matter, are integrated into the great chain of cause and effect that determines everything. The electricity of a neurone, afterall, has to come from somewhere, no?

You can even observe this in your daily experience. Try to actively, discontinuously, creatively, freely think a thought. You cannot do it. Thought goes on by itself. It is like an animal with a life of its own, reacting constantly to external and internal stimuli. The stimuli and the accompanying response are one, united in one everlasting sequence of events that has been unfolding constantly over an infinite period of time.

If now you decide to think about something random, you are only doing it because this piece of text (a stimuli) has challenged you to do so. There is no discontinuity. There is simply the unknowable will of the universe as manifested in the simple fact of cause and effect, or in other words: nondoership (akarma).

Now why is this miraculous? Simply because, when one becomes acquainted with this truth, all sense of heavy responsibility for one's actions is gone and instead of needlessly suffering all the time and making life into a misery we can enjoy the simply flow of this. All religions exalt surrender and the acceptance of nondoership is exactly that: it makes no difference whether or not you believe it, it is fact. If you do accept it though life becomes a hell of a lot easier. Ramana Maharshi likened this discover to a passenger travelling on a train who instead of carrying his heavy luggage, puts it in the over-head compartment, sits down and simply lets the train do the work. Life is a train over which we have no control. The only thing we can do is relax and enjoy the ride.

The common objection to nondoership is that it is immoral and/or fatalistic. On the contrary it is actually realistic. As for immorality, what absolute twaddle. If anything it makes us virtuous and humble by accepting and surrendering to the fact of our total helplessness. With that realisation comes peace and a serene way of life that no longer craves after self-fulfilment because everything is accepted as one whole and thus totally and marvellously complete already. An end therefore to the childish games of the ego, amour propre, perfectibility and the constant quarrelling and bickering that defines us as a species. As for the accusation fatalism, it's equally stupid because in actual fact one can still live a dynamic, active life whilst believing in nondoership. The game of being an individual armed with volition can be played with even more vehemence and enjoyment now that it is seen as but a game, but instead of taking it too far and causing harm to others there is the all-important restraint that only wisdom provides, preventing things from getting out of hand. An enjoyable and full life can be lived, beautifully tempered by wisdom and insight.

So, in a nutshell, nondoership is simply miraculous and I advise you to examine it for yourselves. Do not, I repeat do not, take the word of some dusty old religious tome as fact. Ignore the confounding metaphors and mumbo-jumbo. Look at it for yourself in the clear light of reason and appreciate its subtle wonders.

Question and Answer

2010-05-31T11:23:00.000-07:00

Q: I'm a recent college dropout trying to "find my way". Living in Claremont, CA at a co-op type house and working at a health food store owned by the owners of the house. It's a pretty cool concept with a lot of potential. I've been meditating formally and informally for the past year or so, and feel this is a time to get "deeper into myself". I'm looking for a "being" to work for and be able to get support from "in finding my way home".

If you have any direction to point for me, any advice, guidance, or any response, any of it would be greatly appreciated. And especially if you know of any jobs or volunteer opportunities or ideas that could support me in this journey.
Thank you for your videos and website and any response!!!

A: This may not be of much help to you, but there's nothing you can do 'to get deeper into yourself' or 'find your way home', let alone some other 'being' like a guru. Why? Because you are already there! You are and have been at one with the truth and 'enlightened' since you were born, you just never realised it.

Self-realisation is a fascinating thing. It has been confused by many as a kind of possession or state of being; something to acquire over a protracted period of time through some kind of method or practice. So you see all these people performing hatha yoga twice a day for years on end, hoping one day to 'find themselves'. Similarly, people like yourself engage in meditation or raja yoga.

Yoga and meditation are wonderful things. I've started hatha yoga myself and it makes the body feel so relaxed and supple. The same occurs with meditation. However, all these activities do, essentially, is relax you or bring you into a relaxed state of being.

There is a misconception many people harbour: that enlightenment is a state of being. People often conceive of it as a moment in time in the hazy future when everything will come right and there will be peace. This is not enlightenment though, this is just feeling at peace, one of many transient states of being. Enlightenment has nothing to do with this. Consciousness or awareness is enlightenment and there is never a time in your life when you are not conscious or aware. Consciousness is always there, it experiences everything, lighting up the world. It even experiences you, or the thought of you, for all you are, as an individual person, is essentially just a thought, just as Tom Stuart is just a thought. This thought arises in consciousness which is ever present and is illuminated by consciousness.

All I suggest you do, if you want to 'go deeper into yourself' is accept this basic fact: that you are already realised as consciousness. Attend to your direct experience of the present moment. In that experiencing presence, in that awareness is there anything missing? Does anything need to be added to or taken away from it? Is it not already, totally complete here and now, in its wonderful unlimited capacity for experiencing, in its remarkably openess towards life? Seamlessly, from minute to minute, your awareness is constantly attending to everything occuring through the gateways of the senses. It is immutable and eternal. There is nothing the thought that is you can do to change or manipulate it. Accept that this is it, that experience is all there is, and therefore the impersonal consciousness or awareness that is illuminating the world and you is all there is. Then you will find peace.

After that you can do what you want but you will no longer be a seeker, because you will have realised that everything is complete. While you are a seeker you will always feel incomplete. The seeking itself is the problem. There is nothing that needs to be sought after because it is all accomplished, all complete, all realised. When you surrender to this, then you find peace.

Question and Answer

2010-05-19T11:19:00.001-07:00

Q: Hey Tom,

Hope you are well. I found your blog on the ET forum - your posts are amazing, really inspiring..
I am struggling a bit at the moment.... About 3 years ago i suffered from anxiety and panic attacks, but found ET's books adn they literally changed my life - after about 6 months of reading and regularly practising present moment awareness, i felt like my constant state was bliss and peace..... it was as if i was able to tune in and out of my thoughts at will - they had no control or hold over me - i would laugh at them if negative of fearful ones came up.......
Recently i have just had a baby girl (she is 5 months) and i am now unable to switch off from my thoughts - i find myself totally emersed in them everyday - even when i become aware of them, i still get distracted by them...
I love being a mum and my daughter but find myself waking up with that old feeling of dred like i used (not quite as bad as back then) - mainly because i feel i have so much time on my hands and often don't know what to do with my day. I used to enjoy every moment - now i feel like i'm trying to run away from it by making mysefl busy - its as if i can't just enjoy the present moment - like my mind has turned it into the enemy through having my daughter.......
I am not unhappy, or depressed..... i just want to get back to that place i was so at peacce nad content in - not searching or trying to run away from anything......
Can you help?
xx

A: Thanks for getting in touch. Congratulations on your baby!

I can't imagine how tough it must be being a parent: all the responsibilities, waking up in the night, the fears and anxieties. The wonderful thing though is that all that stress and worrying stems from the beautiful love and compassion you feel for your baby. However stressful it all feels it's good to remember than underneath it all is the love and tenderness with which you cherish your daughter.

One incredibly powerful thing for alleviating stress and anxiety, in my own experience, is the philosophy of nondoership (akarma). Eckhart Tolle doesn't really go into this. Basically what this says is that there is no doership or free will, that everything is simply a link in a long chain of causes and effects over which you have no control. If you think about it it makes perfect sense. Afterall, nothing in life occurs without causes. Accepting this basic fact brings a great deal of relief into daily life. The heavy responsibility one often feels for one's actions is lightened, there is less of 'you' invested in what you are doing, which makes it all more relaxing. In effect what you are doing is surrendering totally to what is.

When we surrender and accept completely what is our resistance to it automatically reduces and it can become more enjoyable. Try and view these daily chores as dances. Be totally present throughout, give your attention to every second of every moment of what you are doing: every movement of your muscles if the activity is physical, every thought and idea if what you are doing is a mental exertion. Appreciate the uniqueness of the present moment. If the anxieties and stresses start bubbling up don't seek to run away from them, just peacefully observe them. I find that when I give my attention to my suffering it often, miraculously, disappears. Remember, most of all, not to judge what is happening because it is not your doing, but the will of the universe. You are only the observer of what is going on. Also remember than all your anxieties and stresses are beautiful because they are all in the service of your baby daughter, and thus are rooted in the most wonderful thing there is: unconditional love.

The Parrot

2010-05-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

Squawk squawk squawk squawk squawk.

(reader solemnly nods head)

Why are you reading this?

2010-05-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

Why are you reading this? What has brought you here? The vague promise of enlightenment or self-realisation? Do you think that by reading something you are going to be awakened? Wake up pal. There's nothing to be learned here or on any of these pointless nondual blogs. It's a total bloody waste of time! You are already totally enlightened right now! No need to do or read anything! Get that into your head!

Question and Answer

2010-04-30T03:42:00.000-07:00

Q:Thanks for your feedback. You have been very helpful to me and I appreciate it.
I have some questions that maybe you can help me with.
1. When you are enlightened how do you know that you are?
2. When you are enlightened do you still get stuck in the ego, get mad, angry, upset?
3. When you become enlightened how is life different than that of someone who still acts through the ego?
4. Does the ego ever go away?
Thanks

A: 1. Total surrender. It's when you discover there's nothing you can actually do to become enlightened. You accept that this is it. You know that you are just this impersonal aware presence that experiences the world. That is immutable, so what can you do?
2. Yeah sure! The difference is it's no longer a matter of life or death, there's the depth of perspective that wasn't there before and which only self-knowledge can bring. Like Mooji says: the man in the desert still sees mirages but no longer chases after them.
3. Life is exactly the same. A totally ordinary life is lived. You still have your likes and dislikes, you still pursue your career, maintain relationships. The only difference is that it's no longer a matter of life or death. Failure doesn't exist because you are already totally realised. You don't seek release in the exterior world through gratification. You just enjoy the game of life, which is all it is afterall.
4. In my experience so far it hasn't. Others have talked of a total death of ego. Somehow I find that hard to believe. Why should the ego disappear? Isn't it just as much a part of life as anything else? I don't care whether it stays or goes. It doesn't cause me any trouble because I'm aware of it. Just like the man in the desert with the mirages.

Hope that helps.

What is love?

2010-04-27T03:07:00.000-07:00

The word 'love' has been bandied around so much that when scrutinised it seems meaningless. Listen to the radio and you will hear people crooning about love. Religions all tell us to love. When we whisper sweet nothings into our partners' ears we enunciate softly the word love. I love you. I love this. I love that. Love thy neighbour. Love is all you need. I need somebody to love. Lovey dovey.

But what does love actually mean? U.G.Krishnamurti called it a 'dirty word', claiming that love was just a fancy word for lust. It's an interesting definition. It's not hard to perceive the meaning in this. The Spanish seem to have it down to a tee. They use the verb 'querer' for love in the romantic sense, which literally means 'to want'. In fact, in relationships this kind of love is almost entirely possessive. If it weren't the whole nexus of the relationship would fall apart. Think about it, what is a relationship if not an unofficial contract guaranteeing the mutual possession of two people?

What about spiritual, platonic love? This is often referred to as compassion and charity. This is the kind of non-conditional love you see bandied around by so-called spiritual types. 'Saints' like Mother Theresa and Gandhi professed this kind of love in their tender compassion for the poor and the unrepresented. How selfless is this love though? The Dalai Lama once said that compassion is totally self-rewarding at the end of the day. You help others because you enjoy the sensation of being helpful. Compassion is warming, fulfilling and highly rewarding. To feel you are a rock to others is undoubtedly a source of great warmth and pride at the end of the day. Afterall, when you feel pain for another is it not simply the pain in you that urges on your compassionate actions? Perhaps we could go so far to say, and rather cynically so I must admit, that compassion is the act of healing one's own inner pain (clothed in the garment of pity) by extending a hand to a suffering other. While a bit radical, this view is truthful in essence. Nothing ever occurs 'over there' in our experience of life. Everything occurs here, all sensations, all ideas, all emotions. Even compassion.

It would seem therefore that love as a term is rather ambiguous. In actual fact it seems that love, as it is known generally, i.e. as a bind in a relationship or the substance of compassion, is ultimately self-rewarding and totally selfish. In relationships it is an excuse for the banal gratification of possession. In acts of charity it is the glowing medal of pride and worthiness. Love is nothing less than self-interest, clothed in vague unchallenged concepts of virtue which when exposed are totally hollow and meaningless and no more sublime than the basic animal instincts.

This view is rather pessimistic to be sure. However, I am not discarding love. I am trying to discover what exactly love could be, if such a thing exists. In my own experience there is only one thing that approximates this lofty concept of 'love' as a virtue, as a total selfless communion with someone or something: awareness. If you look at your awareness of the world what do you observe?

(ponder this for a while before reading on)

Most likely you will have discovered that awareness, like the lofty idea of love we all cherish, is totally unconditional. Your awareness of life doesn't deny or discard anything. It openly communes with absolutely everything that arises in the most fresh and vibrant way imaginable. Right now for instance. Attend to your experience at this precise moment. What do you observe?

What is clear is a total, unconditional acceptance of what is. A lively communion with everything around you. Your awareness is like a new-born baby, totally amazed by the world. It greedily takes in all your experiences with a remarkable youthful lust. It is always reaching out to the world. It doesn't judge, criticise or scrutinise. It accepts everything totally as it is with a degree of presence that is truly remarkable. Awareness is quite literally in love with the world. Seeing this, it becomes clear that love is not this or that. It is not conditional on doing something or being something or fulfilling something. It is always here. Awareness is love. Awareness is the hungriest, most spontaneous and most unconditional love there is and what's beautiful is that is is always here, loving the world every second of every day, for no reason whatsoever, and as you are awareness, then logically, you are love.

Question and Answer

2010-04-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

Q: Hi Thomas! your blog is very inspiring and helpful. I wanted to tell you about how I am doing since we last spoke. I kind of gave up on the idea of enlightment, and I stopped meditating everyday. You words were very helpful but something within gave up on an illusion I had created in my mind. I felt as if I was so far from my goal...and then I felt as if the goal I had was just an illusion. I still want to reach enlightment but I don't know what to do....I have exhausted all ways. I put maximal effort, but failed. Nothing happened. Nothing. I feel discouraged now because enlightment feels far. The odd thing is that I know enlightment is here in the now, but its possible to know something and not live it. I don't know what else I need to do or know or go through. I want to know my true self and live through my higher-self. If there is one or two things I can do to reach enlightment what would they be? I know nothing is a guarantee but its worth giving it a try. How did you do this?? Thanks for your help Tom.

A: Don't worry this is normal. This conundrum is experienced by most spiritual seekers: you desire enlightenment, but your very desire is keeping you in bondage.

I myself go through periods of mental activity of significant dissatisfaction with life. It manifests itself as a kind of heavy lump in the stomach and a confused feeling in my nut. In these moments the best thing to do is just to accept it. The reason why you are not accepting it and the reason why this dissatisfaction is there in the first place is because you have confused the issue, which is totally normal.

Most probably you have confused enlightenment with some wondrous state of being, full of peace and serenity and compassion and all the rest of it. Go into this assumption. Does it stand up? Aren't peace, serenity, compassion et cetera all just transient states of being? Enlightenment is not a transient thing, it is not a state of being. It is your natural state. It is the simplicity of your experience which is never not present. Right now you are totally enlightened, even in your dissatisfaction. The key is to remember this.The 'reminder thought' is what I call it. This thought says 'I am awareness' and thus accepts whatever is occuring. Problems then disappear!

I suggest you accept totally your condition at the moment, your dissatisfaction, confusion, whatever. Let it be. Accept it as you would accept a cloud passing overhead, or the melody of a singing bird in your garden. The wise man is pestered by mosquitos just like everyone else, but does he seek their genocide? Of course not! So why then do you seek the death of all suffering. Suffering still goes on. Many gurus and 'saintly' types have pointed this out. I can get you the quotes if it makes you feel better. Mooji, Jeff Foster, Nisargadatta, Eckhart Tolle among others, have all testified to this. My experience is no different. I am 'awakened' but I still experience 'negative thoughts'. My mind clouds over from time to time with the most mundane rubbish. I have learned that it is just another part of the magnificence of this. I accept it and it quickly dissipates. This is includes the notion 'I am not enlightened yet'. It is just another mind game. See that it is a temporary state. See that you are independent of it, for you are the space in which it occurs. Don't judge it, don't tangle yourself in it, don't try to sort it out, don't seek to destroy it. Accept it. Crazy thoughts are part of the magic of life, even the discomfort they inspire. Why shouldn't these thoughts take their place in the tapestry of life? Resign yourself to the fact that nothing can be done for enlightenment to come about, because it is your natural state. Put simply: you're already there!

This problem is a real bastard I must admit. It think it happens to all spiritually inclined people. These people, myself included, happen upon a very simple pointer which makes them realise something fundamental, but which they'd forgotten: that they are simply awareness. Sadly, if the mind is not one-pointed enough, if the mind is unruly, it can easily be forgotten. In my case I had read Eckhart Tolle and Osho and I discovered in a flash (when meditating) that I wasn't my mind for I was actually 'seeing my thoughts', and thus beyond them. That truth was enough. I was in peace for a good month, I mean total peace. Then along came a thought saying 'I wonder if there's anything more...' This thought was my downfall. I think it sprang from reading about mystics and gurus who purportedly had such spectacular divine experiences of bliss. I questioned my own humble peacefulness and then the problems began. I then spent an inordinate amount of time seeking. I read loads of books, watched loads of videos. It all just confused me further. My mind was dissatisfied with the simplicity of awareness and I indulged it. Had I been simply aware this sense of dissatisfaction would have disappeared after a while. After many months of futile seeking which had really exhausted me (sounds familiar?), I remembered this simple fact, applied it and the sense of lack soon vanished. It was like a soothing balm. Since then I have learned not to indulge these feelings of dissatisfaction. They are fleeting. It is the mind's nature to be dissatisfied, just accept it. It's quite funny really. I see the mind as a spoilt child. In the early stages of spirituality the mind is very sulky. It hates that you are negating it, it hates that you are grounded in awareness and aloof from it.

So in a nutshell, remember: you are already enlightened, for enlightenment is simple awareness, and as a sentient being, how can you ever not be aware? The problem is that you are devoting too much of your awareness to your dissatisfied thoughts. Awareness assumes the nature of that which it rests upon, so naturally you feel dissatisfied. Simply remind yourself that you are already there. Then awareness will be aware of itself, which is the essence of samadhi (nirvana). Let those thoughts be. You will find that soon they disappear. All that is sin vanishes under the light of simple awareness, as Osho once said.

Don't listen to the mystics

2010-04-12T15:42:00.000-07:00

So you have found peace. The noise has died down. You have become aware at last, freeing yourself from your conditioning. Everything relaxes. Now you can finally breathe.

Then one day you stumble upon the sagacious words of some mystic or another, words of great bliss, of radiance, of godliness.

Suddenly your little peace appears to be rather paltry.

And so you bite into the apple. Eden is lost and you must toil once more to find it.

Don't listen to the mystics. Have faith in the simple peace of awareness.

Don't try to understand

2010-04-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes (especially when one has spent some time thinking about the ego, awareness, enlightenment et cetera) it's very tempting to want to understand everything, to attain to some mighty, irrefutable, soul-resounding truth, to 'become one with the truth', to totally realize the self and so on. This is yet another desire and it can cause massive confusion and dissatisfaction with life if given attention.

When this desire arises, remember that it is the same as any other desire. It may appear more pertinent, more noble, more worthy of your attention, but in reality it is just another transient form. It is the mind playing its childish games again. Let it play its games on its own. Soon it will tire and stop playing. Then there will be silence and you will have forgotten all about this existential nonsense. In the absence of desire there is peace.

You are experience

2010-04-06T12:24:00.001-07:00

Everything is accomplished; there is nothing that needs to be done. Your body only needs maintenance every now and then: some water, food, toilet time etc. You are complete. You are experience. That's it. Nothing more to it. You can't add or take anything away from that, it is untouchable and totally complete. Even asleep you are experience. Your sleep, dream and waking lives are all illuminated by and dependent on experience. This is you: totally complete, from the day you were born until the day you die. So you see there really isn't anything to do. In fact there is nothing you can do. You are experience, not a thinker, not a doer, not an actor; just experience. You are always experience. You are not a person experiencing, or me, or John Smith or this or that, you are experience. You can't try to be experience because you already are experience. Everything experienced is just a proof of your nature, experience, not separate from it. When a sound is heard who is there to hear it? No-one. It is experience. When the notion 'me' arises in answer to that question, who is there to experience that thought? No-one!

Knowing this, what next?

The art of listening

2010-04-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

“So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Most of the time we hardly ever listen to each other. We hear a few words and then prepare for our response, which must be as clever, irrefutable and pithy as possible, naturally. While we are mentally composing our witty riposte, we really don't listen to the speaker. We may feign signs of attention - a deftly-timed nod or two, a sycophantic laugh - but in reality we don't care what they have to say. All we care about is our devastatingly awesome counter-attack; vindicating our sense of superiority over this dull and malinformed person.

But if we were to truly listen with all our unbiased attention - totally and impartially that is - to ever single word uttered, not only would we be paying the utmost compliment to the listener by way of our respectful, undivided attention, but also we would be able to suspend judgement and leap out of our conditioning. Consequently, in that vaccum of ego, we would actually be able to learn from our speaker friend, appreciate their stance, understand the inherent subjectivity of human existence and its conditioned slant on the world, and perhaps even develop empathy or compassion with them. It would be a marvellous chance to learn about life and other people and cultivate wisdom.

Or we could just draft our shoddy, childish riposte and gain a quick and vulgar hit of petty egoistic pleasure...

Anchor yourself

2010-03-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

Life can often be like a great, whirling maelstrom: chaotic and bewildering. At times it can be of great help to anchor oneself in the proverbial eye of this raging nightmare: awareness. By anchoring ourselves in awareness using self-inquiry, mantras, breath control and other such techniques, we can find great peace and rediscover our oneness with life. When the eyes start flickering and the kundalini starts rising, the barrier between self and other begins to dissolve, and the false notion of the individual self gently merges into the ever-present oneness into which we have always been integrated, but which in our dream of separation we momentarily forgot.

The Cinema

2010-03-30T04:09:00.000-07:00

The film is rolling. The audience is transfixed by the changing images on the screen. Some are pleasant. Some are horrific. Some conjur up laughter. Others draw tears. Elation and misery walk hand by hand in this visual flux. The audience, enraptured by the imagery, walks a tightrope between heaven and hell.

If only they had the originality, the common sense, the awareness to look behind them at the origin of the show. There they would see only light: the plain white light of consciousness; the light which is the genesis of all colour. They would then perceive instantly that the film is nothing more than an illusion, a play of forms. Knowing this, they would be able to sit back and enjoy the show.

Bad grammar

2010-03-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

Experience is only ever in present continuous: the noble suffix '-ing' is the mightiest of grammatical flourishes.

With the birth of 'I' came 'you', 'he', 'she' and 'they', and so was born the discriminator, the worrier, the judge.

When such bad grammar is corrected peace will reign.

The Wave

2010-03-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

The wave rises and seems alone

Its crest catches and dazzles the eye, with all its fury and foam

But its heart beats down below

Where no eye or ear can go

In the great oneness of motion

Of the deep majestic ocean

Dazzled by the lights

2010-03-18T09:53:00.001-07:00

Emptiness comes and goes. It's easy to become dazzled by the flashing imagery of thought. It is gaudy and appealing to the mind's eye. Once it has transfixed your attention, the ego has returned, this story of me, this pivotal 'I' around which all mental activity swirls and dances. In direct looking however it is seen that in truth there is no 'I', only the world, which having no permanency, is totally unreal and dreamlike.

Three Koans

2010-03-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

) Imagine you are the only person in the world

2) Imagine you are immortal

3) Imagine you could achieve all your desires in an instant

What would you do next?

(hold that thought)

It is clear that nothing needs to be done because everything is already accomplished.

The key is already here, right now.

Here you are ALONE: without the snaring web of egoic relationships and at peace with all.

Here you are IMMORTAL: without the fear of death there can be no death.

Here you are FREE: without the need to do and be things one is free and at last able to appreciate life which is only ever here and now - in whatever situation.

The problem of thought

2010-03-15T11:38:00.000-07:00

As Krishnamurti said, thought derives from knowledge which is experience. Now as all experience is circumstantial and humans develop under different circumstances, so experience and thus knowledge must be limited and subjective. So therefore, thought is partial and skewed from a very limited perspective.

How are we to obtain true objectivity free from limited, subjective thought? It is clear that thought is not the key for after all no matter how much we try and expand it with new and different experiences, there is only so much a human being can experience, for his lifetime is limited - and so thought will always be limited and thus never fully objective. Therefore we can out-rule knowledge being the path to objectivity.

All we can do in the way of objectivity is accept that we will never be objective i.e the recognition that our reality is purely subjective. The acceptance of our own subjectivity and falseness is the highest objectivity we can aspire to in that it is a clear unbiased understanding of the simple problem of the limitation of thought. This way we can lead a more objective lifestyle without necessitating the accumulation of a huge array of experiences, a hazardous and not necessarily beneficial process for objectivity. This kind of realisation is instantaneous in its simplicity of logic, but sadly to many people this simple truth is never revealed.

Living without living

2010-03-14T08:47:00.001-07:00

All this is is living without living, doing without doing, being without being. It's not being passive and giving up. It's more subtle than that. It's an acceptance that there is no control and a gradual movement away from the ever-so convincing thought that one is the actor, the controller, the individual agent of volition. Life goes on, but without the false notion that it is being lived by this persistent illusion of 'me'. So all the same actions are carried out, however banal or mundane they may seem from some great 'glorious' enlightened perspective. Chores are carried out, quarrels sometimes occur, there are ups and downs, but it's all seen as inevitable, and so completely and unconditionally accepted. It is not, as some would assume, a stepping back from life, a kind of fatalism. Instead it is a total embrace and acceptance of life, a surrender to life and a total communion with it. It is peace and love. Peace in the death of the 'I' and love in the communion and rediscovery of life.

Enlightening Quote: George Eliot

2010-03-12T05:43:00.000-08:00

All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the man of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality - without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly-earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.

George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860)

Awareness is not a toy

2010-03-12T02:32:00.001-08:00

When I first realised my nature as consciousness for a long time after it seemed awareness was a kind of toy for me, something to fall back on, a crutch to make me feel good. It undoubtedly did me wonders, ridding me of guilt and all other emotions for that matter, but at the same time it left me floating in emptiness, separated from the whole world. Also, there was the constant obsession with 'eradicating the ego'. Ironically this was just the ego talking again. Funny.

Now I see that I am the world. That there is no pilot at the controls. That there is just this, flowing on and on and I am it. It's bizarre. A totally new paradigm for the mind. But one which leaves me so peaceful because whatever happens, be it an 'egoic flare up' or 'little space' (to use my old much-loved terms) is Brahman's will - it is just another part of the eternal this over which I have no control and it really doesn't matter because I AM IT. Hence the incredible presence I have now. Hence the total disregard for past or future. Hence my forgetfulness and peacefulness. For the two go hand in hand.

Question and Answer

2010-03-11T05:38:00.000-08:00

Q: Thanks for the blog. Had a chance to read the pieces over the weekend. Enjoyed them.
Here is my observation. Every now and then I tune into this awareness where there is this rotation inside the body. It feels like slow waves. As the attention moves it moves too. It feels like awareness playing with itself in joy. It's peaceful and untouched. It happens all the time. Would you like to comment on this? I am trying to comprehend this.
Thanks again for sharing your experiences. Looking forward to your response.

A: Good to hear from you. I cannot generalise about this, different people have different experiences. There is a sensation of vivacity when I become present-centred, almost as if all my body's cells have suddenly become electrified: at least that's my experience of it. But remember, you cannot actually experience awareness! Whenever you feel these sensations, take the inquiry deeper and ask who feels these 'aware' sensations. The final realisation is that there is no-one being aware, there is no decision maker, no individual, that even your resolve to become aware was the inevitable part of this. That's moksha, if you ask me! Don't try to comprehend it, just observe it, or better still, simply let it be. You may think you are actively choosing to become awareness, choosing to tune in, as you say, but with time you will catch this out too. You will realise that there is no choosing, no chooser, just the reality of the present moment: be that the 'slow waves' of awareness or experiencing a dream or sipping a refreshing drink or hearing a bird sing. Just the magnifence of this. So simple.

Surrender

2010-03-10T07:29:00.001-08:00

For the enlightened man there is simply greater perspective on the unfolding of the universe and an acceptance of the chaotic movement of forms. And that's why he sees all as complete. And that's why he 'loves' everything and everyone - if we define love as total acceptance and non-judgment. And because he understands his own impotence - thus he is humble. Everything is fine for him. Nothing or no-one needs to be changed. They are perfect. He just enjoys the play of forms and lets the tide push him forward through life, peacefully letting it guide him like an infant.

Childlike adulthood

2010-03-09T07:59:00.001-08:00

Adults, having assumed the responsibility of survival, lost the wonder of their childhood. But this was by no means unavoidable. One can still live a responsible, practical, self-sustaining life whilst experiencing amazement at the small marvels of the life. The key is to drop the fear of death and all other losses and failures, and all other fears. The only way to achieve this is by ending fear, for it is the emotional movement itself of fearing which is the cause of all suffering, and it is suffering that blinds us to the simple, innocent beauty of life. How does one end fear? By being aware of it. By seeing it in the mind. For by seeing one is therefore out of it - detached from it - shifted backwards in consciousness to an invincible standpoint: present-centred being.

No free will: no big deal

2010-03-08T10:10:00.000-08:00

If everything is the result of cause and consequence - then we have no free will. For isn't every thought merely a reaction - and isn't our accumulated knowledge merely an accumulation of reactions we refer to as judgements, values or opinions? If this is so it would seem that we must wait for the universe, or whatever creative force there is - if there is one - to bestow on us its benevolence if we are to achieve bliss, peace or whatever. And so we must become truly passive. We must realise our impotence - we must acknowledge that life is a chaos out of our control, because by yielding to it we are ironically, free - for we are in unity with infinity, which being limitless is the expression of freedom. Now supposing as we are that this chaos is a part of some divine plan or unfolding, it would seem that this divinity is keen on expressing itself, for is it not man's highest goal to be free and at peace? And one need only take into consideration the myriad saints and gurus who have graced this planet and spoken of this universal 'truth' of oneness and non-duality. And is this 'divinity' or 'truth' not expressing itself once again through this very text?

Question and Answer

2010-03-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

Q: I've been reading a lot of John Wheeler. He insists that this "recognition", or whatever you want to call it happens quickly with understanding, not in any way a gradual process.

So far, my situation is I have a certain understanding of these ideas from much study; I'm sure I could pass the "nonduality" test, but I don't seem to have the understanding he writes about.
Was it just a matter of understanding or a gradual change for you?

A: The realisation is immediate, but naturally you have to be looking for it to find it! You must remember that nondual realisation cannot be found in books, videos, websites or thoughts: these are just pointers. It is discovered in direct experience, right here and right now. It seems like you may have had the realisation but your mind is coming in asking for more. The simplicity of nonduality is often unsatisfactory for the mind.

For me it was a massive, immediate discovery which I got while meditating. I had been reading some things about the 'ego' (Osho, Eckhart Tolle, Krishnamurti) but it was only in meditation that it really made sense. I realised that I was consciousness and not my thoughts and so I freed myself from my terrible depression. At the time it was a matter of life and death for me really as I was contemplating suicide a lot so I guess that gave me the strength and determination to really investigate.

I think there's two stages. The first stage is like a flash of light in which you break identification with thought. I call this finding the aware consciousness. The second stage is when you realise that there is no centre at all, that there is no subject, that you are just the present moment, this I would call nondual realisation. The second stage came to me a year or so after the first discovery.

Good luck in your searching and just remember that the answer is available to you right now at any time and anywhere, you just need to be earnest in your search for it, that's all.

Question and Answer

2010-03-03T04:10:00.000-08:00

Q: Ive been following your blog and I think the information you share is amazing and has alot of truth to it. I want to be enlightened and know my true nature. I'm working on it very hard. The one thing that I can still not get by is believing my mind. My thoughts seem to control me. They take over and I immediately identify with them. I know the concepts you write about very well, but I yet still to master them. It seems as if theres two of me. Any feedback?

A: I know exactly what you mean because it was the same for me at the beginning. It seems as if there is you, 'the witness', and then thought, separate from you - some kind of menacing entity constantly trying to lure you into its games. This whole process is driven by a belief that somehow thought is separate from you. So you try to deny it or fight against it. Probably if you are spiritually-inclined you take solace in meditation or perhaps self-inquiry. Maybe you mentally intone a mantra when the thoughts become irritating. Sometimes though it just doesn't help - the battle is too hard. Thought is too strong and overpowers you and you suffer. Yes I know the feeling. The solution? Well it's remarkably simple. Stop resisting it. Just let it take over. Accept it totally as you accept anything else. Accept it as if you would accept the air going in and out of your lungs, accept it the way you accept everything you see or hear or feel or taste. Let it be and it will cease to cause you trouble. Non-resistance and non-judgement are key here. Just let it bombard you with whatever it wants. You cannot control it. There's no point controlling it. It would be like trying to control the rising of the sun. There can be no control over thought - thought leads its own life. As Krishnamurti famously said the 'thinker is thought', i.e. there is no thinker, there is only thought. It is just another fabric of the world of maya as the Hindus call it: the world of transient appearances, objects and movements. Let it be and you will see that it cannot harm you. It is as harmless as a simple buzzing fly! Remember that you are awareness and you are invincible and even your suffering arises in that peaceful emptiness.

You are being lived

2010-02-25T11:15:00.000-08:00

Right now there is no 'you' living your life. Actually life is living itself through you: you are at once an expression and subject of all your experience, you are everything and nothing: you are life. There is no control or volition only a semblance of it, but that is also part of the great richness of this. There was never a point in your life when you lived it. It's totally impossible. There is no such thing as willed, creative action, there is only the interminable constant flux of cause and effect over which you have no control, but which is also your very nature: you are change, you are transience and variation, as well as the space in which such dancing takes place. You are both subject and object: there is no divide. There is literally just this: life living itself in which the notion 'I' arises, which is not separate from the rest of it. Let go. Let the tide carry you along. Accept that you are being lived. There is no active living, there is no action, there is no volition: just the seamlessness of this. What an inexplicable wonder!

Let me tell you what it's like here. I can see some wood panelling. Wrong, I'll rephrase that. There is wood panelling. Wrong again. There is this thing that I cannot describe, I cannot even name it for as soon as I have abstracted it, it is gone, lost for ever. It is just there, present, this unnameable thing, oozing life and meness just like everything else, I feel I am it, I am totally communing with it and that oneness is like a wonderful embrace. I feel like I'm splitting apart, all my cells turning into thin air as I literally disappear into this thing. I am in love! WITH WOOD PANELLING!

THIS IS IT

2010-02-24T09:47:00.000-08:00

There is nothing to do, nowhere to go, no-one to be.

All is accomplished.

THIS IS IT.

Listen to the birds singing

2010-02-22T07:04:00.000-08:00

It is the sound of your own voice

A step backward, not forward

2010-02-19T11:13:00.000-08:00

Awareness isn't in the future or after some protracted process. As soon as you even start pondering awareness you've gone beyond it. Awareness is a step backward, not forward. Anything that implies a step forward is unawareness and perdition. Self-inquiry is a reminder to return to the source. This is the key. Keep on stepping backwards.

'Skipping forward' - The Mechanism of Unawareness

2010-02-19T09:34:00.000-08:00

I was trying to determine what exactly it is that makes humans so unaware and the term 'skipping forward' came to mind. Like a jaded schoolboy who, when asked to read a particularly dull text, skips forward a few pages to hasten the end of his academic monotony in order to go out and play, 'skipping forward' is when we don't give our attention to something in a simple, direct, impartial way.

Most of the time it seems we live life indirectly, through interpretations, judgements, definitions, concepts and descriptions. Things arise to us purely but somehow we feel obliged to add something to them. We 'skip forward' instead of attending simply to the different phenomena that arise. A bird sings and we immediately think 'bird', or 'that's beautiful', instead of just listening to it. We see someone we know and instead of attending to our direct experience of that person a myriad judgements materialise in our heads based on our memories and past experiences of them. The guru says we should simply be present and immediately we skip forward and ask 'how?'

Why does 'skipping forward' happen? It's a kind of impatience, an inability to simply be, a judgemental view of the world that assigns labels and values to every conceivable phenomena. The sad thing is that through this lens of illusion we never actually experience life, and so we are, to all intents and purposes dead to the world.

Capitalist Society: Macrocosm of the Ego

2010-02-18T09:12:00.000-08:00

The unawareness that pervades most human minds is reflected in human society and culture. The current prevaling economic system worldwide is capitalism. In fact, capitalism is the macrocosm of the ego. What exactly is capitalism? In many countries now (the United States in particular) it is erroneously conceived as embodying individualism and freedom. In truth, however, as Marx wrote in Das Kapital, the central aspect of capitalism is profit-making. Let us examine profit-making and see how it correlates with the ego, or unaware mind.

Essentially profit-making is a future-bound activity. It is the desire to accumulate more wealth, arising out of a mindset that believes that more wealth will lead to greater happiness. This confusion of happiness with the object of money is the product of the unaware mind, i.e. the egoic mind. The aware man sees that true happiness is beyond all objects and thus can, if he chooses to, renounce the world and live humbly, unconcerned by grubby profit-making and other forms of accumulation and acquisition. The unaware man is not so flexible and cannot conceive of this kind of happiness and so continues chasing after profits and other such object-based gratifications. This is the capitalist mindset, and a capitalist society is merely the aggregate of such individual thinking, a society with a whole paradigm of egoic thought pervading all its strata. This is the society we live in, one primarily concerned with profit-making. Only an blind mind could refute this. Afterall, isn't the profit motive key to our so-called 'civilised' notions of private enterprise and freedom?

The problems of society are direct reflections of the problems of the individual. The cause: unawareness. The unaware man lives between pleasure and pain and spends his entire existence hunting different types of gratification: success, wealth, sexual release, drugs, possession, et cetera. Upon this unaware world-view the entire capitalist consumer society is built. It is a macrocosm of that unawareness. Capitalism is unawareness socially manifest.

Now let us imagine a society built on awareness. No longer concerned with excessive consumption and profit making, the image cannot be of a capitalist society. More likely this kind of society would be anarchistic or communistic in its nature. In awareness the stimuli for a happy existence (if there are any) and now more simple in their nature: appreciation of the present moment, communion with others, a love of art and beauty and creative endeavours, an interest in compassion and problem-solving and long-term practical improvements. This kind of society is the society mankind must evolve to if we are to progress as a race. Our very survival depends on it.

Capitalism is digging its own grave. Profit-making makes us object-fetishers. It makes us objectify life and others and places gratification and gain at the top of our list of priorities. It divides humans and pits them against each other, making our existence no better than the mechanistic savagery of the animal kingdom. But unlike animals who merely fight for survival, our obsession with accumulation knows no bounds and holds the seeds of war and immense suffering. This object-bound consciousness cannot know love and as Jimi Hendrix once said, there will only be peace in the world when the power of love has overcome the love of power. What is love? Love is awareness.

There is only walking

2010-02-16T06:22:00.000-08:00

Look at this beautiful country path. Imagine walking down that path amongst the trees and flowers, the azure sky above, the warmth of the sun on your skin, the birds merrily chirping in the hedgegrowth.

Who's walking down the path? No-one. There is no-one walking, there is only walking.

No-one at the controls

2010-02-16T06:17:00.000-08:00

Imagine that life is like a car. Through the windscreen and rear-mirrors the world is perceived; the road and all its colours, variations and obstacles. The steering wheel and gears manoeuvre the car through this maze of objects but sometimes the car is damaged and must be repaired.

Who's in the driver's seat? Well, actually, there isn't anyone there. It's vacant. The car drives itself. It's on autopilot. There's no-one at the controls.

Life is a car without a driver. There is no-one inside you controlling anything. There is just the witnessing of a constant unfolding from which you are neither separate nor the manipulator. There is just the car and the road and they are both one, there is no driver: there is just life.

Looking for 'Me'

2010-02-15T07:56:00.000-08:00

I, me, myself...the greatest assumption in the history of mankind. Let me tell you now that these words point to something that does not exist.

Right now I challenge you to try and find this infamous 'I'. Where is it? Where does it reside?

Is it the BODY? No, because it is aware of the body.
Is it the MIND? No, because it sees all the thoughts.

Where does this awareness and seeing start? Where's the reference point? Perhaps there I can find myself...

Is it this sensation in between my eyebrows in the centre of my forehead or in my chest area? This feeling of centredness, this anchor of 'me'? No, because it is aware of that.

So what is this me? It has no centre. It has no reference point. No origin. No starting point. No base.

So where am I?

The answer: There is no actual 'I'. The sense of self is just a single thought occurring, an assumption. The greatest, most infamous assumption of mankind.

THERE IS ONLY THIS.

You are this

2010-02-12T06:53:00.001-08:00

You are this moment, this present moment, in all its variety and flux. Sit back and enjoy the show!

The Tao: Nothing stands alone

2010-02-09T08:45:00.000-08:00

In reality, nothing stands alone. This is proven in direct experience and through scientific study. Firstly, in direct experience there are no actual dividing lines; just different colours in a single, unified tapestry of experience. Look at any object and you will see that its semblance of separation is only due to the contrasting shapes and colours of the other objects around it. It only attains its apparent individuality in relation to others thus proving that it actually has no individuality; it, like all phenomena are integrated variations of the whole, nondual reality.

In scientific investigation at the atomic level the apparent solid, dividing lines between masses are no longer so defined and what is observed is the sheer quantity of space permeating all things.

As Alan Watts says, you cannot have the hand without its shadow. All objects are integrated parts of the whole; only a cursory, superficial view of things could justify the bogus assumption of separation.

And so like the Tao you cannot have yin without yang. Though they appear to contrast, they are in fact elements of the same single reality.

Hell

2010-02-08T06:51:00.000-08:00

Hell is not some fiery realm that awaits the 'evil' when they die. This is childish nonsense. Those who spout such claptrap are either deluded, utterly fanciful or bent on controlling people through terror. In truth hell is to be unaware.

Hell is when a situation presents itself and is seen as disgusting because it contrasts with a 'better' imagined situation. Hell is when a conditioned mind meets the present moment. Hell is judgement and comparison. Hell is to be asleep, victim to a myriad possible nightmares. Hell is not other-worldly, it is here and now. Hell is a state of mind

The line between heaven and hell is the line that separates awareness from dreaming.

There is no witness

2010-02-05T09:02:00.000-08:00

Often in nonduality circles one hears talk of this mysterious witness character. Nisargadatta for instance talks about the importance of being a witness: simply experiencing life impartially. Similarly, the new mega-guru Eckhart Tolle often mentions the 'silent watcher' in his books.

Actually, there is no witness, and I think such a construct is actually dangerous in the long-run for the seeker. Becoming 'the witness' can often lead to nihilism and abandonment. The seeker is told that he is the witness of the world and not of the world and then ends up lost in the 'emptiness' that this witness role naturally implies. The technique is wonderful for disassociating with negative emotions and harmful conditioning, but actually it's another delusion.

In truth, there is no witness; there is just the present moment. Try to find evidence of there being a witness. You can't. There is just this. To say 'I am consciousness' is just another falsehood, another idol. The truth is there is no subject or experiencer, just this. You may think this sounds preposterous and I challenge you to disprove it. Try and find a witness right now. You cannot. In direct experience this is an incontrovertible fact: there is no subject, there is only the world of objects. When we start talking about an experiencer or subject of those objects then we go into assumption territory, and what's an assumption? An assumption is just another thought, happening now; just another thread in the tapestry of this. There is no thinker to whom it occurs. It just occurs.

ATMAN = BRAHMAN, because BRAHMAN is all there is.

A koan to still your mind

2010-02-04T10:36:00.001-08:00

When a mirror looks into a mirror, what does it see?

The Pond

2010-02-03T03:21:00.000-08:00

When talking about nonduality, the pond metaphor is often used. It is very effective in its imagery and in my opinion an excellent pointer.

The mind is like a pond, and consciousness the sun. Some minds are grown over with algae (accumulated experiences) and no longer reflect the sun. Such minds could be called 'unaware', 'unconscious' or 'egoic' minds. Others are limpid clear and tranquil and the sun blazes in the stillness of their waters. These people are what we call 'enlightened', 'awakened' or 'self-realised'.

However, it is important to understand that the mind cannot ever 'be enlightened'. All it can aspire to is to reflect the light of consciousness, the source of all. So the 'enlightened person' is only different from the 'unconscious person' in that his or her mind is a reflection of the truth. The truth can never be known, experienced or perceived, and so the pond metaphor is perfect in that it visualises 'enlightenment' as simply the mind reflecting the truth that was always there.

Becoming 'enlightened' is simply a pond-cleaning exercise. To clean our minds we must go beyond what we know: we must find ourselves outside of the confines of our knowledge and experience. This can be done by being present and attending impartially to what is happening right now.

Guided nondual realisation

2010-02-01T07:54:00.000-08:00

Look at an object. Just let it sit in your consciousness. Don't concentrate on it or manipulate it, just look at it. In this seeing, in this simple witnessing of the object, is there anyone present? Does it feel like there is an actual single witness perceiving the object? Focus on the direct experience of the object, not on your thoughts about the matter. Is there any evidence of an individual witness at a certain distance from the object being witnessed? Is there any space between this witness and the object? Look without any intention or design. Simply allow the object to sit in your consciousness.

In this looking it becomes plainly evident that there is no entity looking at the object. There is just the object. And if such a subjective entity does arise, isn't that entity simply a thought, itself experienced in the exact same manner as the object? In this moment of realisation it becomes staggeringly obvious that there is no subject - only a world of objects in constant flux, being witnessed somehow, almost by themselves.

It would seem that the only meaning of our existence is simply to provide the universe with a way of being aware of itself, through a pair of eyes, ears, tongue, nose, nervous system and brain. The mind may invent any meaning its whim dictates - but this is all just fiction; you may choose to believe it if you want. The choice is yours. The masks are there for you to wear, to carry out your dramatic tragicomedy existence, if you so choose. Or you can just be here now and marvel at the sheer awesome unity of all movements in their ever-changing dance macabre - of which you are the dancer, conductor and audience. My advice? Sit back and enjoy the show.

What is enlightenment? Time to get technical.

2010-01-28T10:13:00.000-08:00

Most of my posts recently have either been descriptions of my experience of nonduality or simple pointers. It's been a while since I really got technical about things. Technical pointers are great for the intellectually inclined person. As many seekers are intellectually motivated it's good to get technical from time to time. So here's a technical explanation of the process of enlightenment.

The moment of 'enlightenment' or 'awakening' is when consciousness becomes self-aware. In this moment the subject shifts from thought to consciousness. The choices and decisions of life are now no longer made within the chaotic, contradictory realm of thought. Instead free-will is seemingly exercised in the 'telescope' of consciousness, telescopic in its ability to focus in on things or flatten out into a more generalised awareness. The decision-making process, instead of being an 'event-then-thought' reactive affair now becomes one of choosing to concentrate on things or to be generally aware and non-attached from the different objects manifesting. This state of being is what I refer to as the Aware Consciousness. It is simply the self-aware consciousness. It is when the flexible 'substance' of consciousness becomes aware of itself as the witness or subject. It is the first and most important step to make and is wonderful at ending or at least healing psychological suffering.

Nondual-realization, which comes later, is the realization that this consciousness is not actually a substance of its own but is actually the same as all the objects that manifest in it, in that there is zero distance between consciousness and that which arises in it. In this moment, even the Aware Consciousness is seen as another illusion. Nondual realization is total surrender, the ending of a centre and a kind of relaxation of everything. The decision to contract or expand one's consciousness now becomes irrelevant for even that is seen as a part of the natural unfolding of things. In this state the centre just falls away. Decision making ends. Decisions are now seen as spontaneous events. Everything that was once seen as a personal intention leading to manifestation is now seen as just another thread in the tapestry of this.

To use a metaphor, it's like a theatre performance. In the first stage of the process (the stage most people live their lives in) one is an actor in the play, bound by its script and the laws of the theatre, totally without free will, unwittingly chained to the ups and downs of the tragicomedy. In the second stage one is the director, manipulating the whole show, seemingly making decisions (but still still bound by the 'laws' and confines of the show). In the final stage one becomes the audience, simply enjoying the performance without any need to intervene.

I believe Nietzsche refers to this in Thus Spake Zarathustra when he talks about the camel, the lion and the baby. The camel assimilates and reacts like a simple automaton. The camel is the egoic life, what I call the old 'insane' consciousness, or the MCC (measuring, comparing consciousness) which is essentially a reactive existence. I estimate that 99.9 percent of the world's population lives like this. Perhaps I'm being patronising to my fellow humans but judging by the mess and general suffering that prevails on this planet I don't think I'm that far off. The lion rebels against everything. The lion is the philosophical, existential life, the birth of the aware consciousness and 'total anarchy'. Finally the baby just enjoys the play of life. The baby is nondual realization and that blissful moment when one finally comprehends that there is no controller, or separate actor - only the play of life. In this state of being one is simply an infant with an intellect, filled with playful joy at the wonders of life but also capable of looking after oneself and surviving, what some, like U. G. Krishnamurti, call the natural state.

There is no centre

2010-01-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

I sit in a university computer lab. I hear the students around me studiously leafing through the pages of their books. Occasionally a cough or the shrieking of a chair breaks the monotony of typing and scribbling. The electric light of the computer screens flickers white. I am hot as I have several layers of clothing on and there is a tickling sensation in my throat. The dry clumping of shoes echoes into the left ear as a student shuffles past. Shrill laughter rises like birdsong nearby. Snippets of a whispered conversation are heard. Red chairs around a wooden table. A girl searches for her phone in the zip pocket of her leather jacket. My fingers rest poised on the black plastic keypad. My stomach growls.

As I sit here I feel like there is no centre to anything. These things just occur. There is no meaning to any of it. It is a totally absurd orchestra of forms. Just life for life's sake. Playing out its drama to itself. There is no-one hear seeing it. It is just happening. There is no subject, witness, individual person. There is just this. Occasionally a thought appears, like a fuzzy image overlaying the more concrete ones. Like fluttering scraps of tracing paper; another layer to the onion of this. To whom to they occur? To no-one. They occur to themselves. There is no centre.

There is nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Nothing to be. All there is is this, unfolding constantly.

Hold this thought

2010-01-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

If I am aware of my body, then I am not my body.
If I am aware of my emotions, then I am not my emotions.
If I am aware of my thoughts, then I am not my thoughts.

What am I?

Taking Responsibility

2010-01-24T10:45:00.000-08:00

You think you are a), a passive object being influenced, shaped and victimised by the world. In reality however you are actually b), a being that is unconsciously identifying with the many forms and illusions of the world. Awareness will remedy this.

Awareness and Objects

2010-01-22T07:48:00.000-08:00

Is there distance between awareness and its object? What a profoundly, mind-boggling question to be sure! In direct experience, no there isn't. There is just the object, no subject. There is no perceiver, so there is no distance. It's only when the frame of reference (incorporating distance, perspective and position) arises in the mind that there is a gap, or separation. The direct, immediate experience lasts only a mini-second before this construct arises, separating us into the 'perceiver' role which doesn't actually exist. It is very persistent, making it difficult to experience things 'purely' or directly.

In direct perception there is no:
- perceiver
- distance
- locality

Awareness of the object = object (ATMAN = BRAHMAN), as awareness creates the object. So both are one. So everything I see, hear, feel, taste, smell - all is me and I am all of it. I am everything.

Just try it. Look at something and simply ask yourself if there is any distance between your awareness of the object and the object itself. You will see there isn't. For me everything sort of becomes 2D and right close up to me when I do it, or I feel like I'm actually becoming the objects around me. A perfect way of verifying nonduality.

Thanks to Greg Goode.

DIAGRAM The end of association and the birth of awareness

2010-01-21T08:38:00.001-08:00

In the first skull we see that consciousness has identified itself with certain harmful emotions. In the second skull the emotions are still there but no longer associated with. There is no longer the same interaction typical of an ego-bound consciousness. In the Aware Consciousness they are simply left alone and allowed to be as they are.

The importance of being stubborn

2010-01-20T10:04:00.000-08:00

In self-inquiry you will find instant peace, but for some (myself included), the simple peace of mind it confers upon you can be, at first, a bit of a disappointment. One is so accustomed to all the frills associated with spiritual enlightenment - the ecstasy, the 'bliss', the sense of godliness and psychadelia etc - that the simple unassuming peace of mind of the present moment can be a bit of a comedown and so automatically thoughts will pop up begging for something more (inevitably involving some kind of future moment of enlightenment and all that nonsense).

The most important thing when this happens is to be stubborn; to stubbornly abide in awareness and to see this as just another transient object arising in awareness, because as soon as you follow and believe this thought you will once again be lost on the 'path'. Ironically, your only salvation will be when you remember that you are just awareness and that simple peace of mind is enlightenment.

The greatest sin: assumption

2010-01-19T05:33:00.000-08:00

If sins were to exist, the greatest of them would be assumption. To assume is to accept the false, to yield to guesswork and superstition: to take a self-serving leap of faith. It would be better to confess total ignorance than to assume, for assumption is the reign of self-deceit and falsehoods. To assume is to create objectivity out of subjectivity, to accept and promote illusions and to deny truth. To assume is to cripple the mind and become a coward, afraid of life.

All assumptions are necessarily harmful and enduce suffering. The assumption that a particular deity reigns supreme is one that leads inevitably to war with other differing assumptions. The assumption that a nation confers onto the individual his or her identity is another assumption that is inherently warlike in its essence. The very assumption that there is an individual, separated ego is to condemn oneself to a life of conflict with others and perpetual suffering.

And so it is that the astute man, the wise man, the aware man, never assumes, for he knows that the universe he experiences is totally subjective and that no truth can be found there; only assumption, blind belief and illusion. For ultimately, there is only one certainty: only that which is aware cannot be denied. While the world spins around you, you as awareness are eternal; and that which is constant is truth. So before you assume, be aware.

There is no-one to 'enlighten'

2010-01-18T02:10:00.000-08:00

Enlightenment is an incredibly tricky word. Look at it and see what it implies: an individual who is illuminated by some great truth. It connotes a particular state of being, one which needs to be reached in the future, as the end of some kind of protracted process or development. Hence we have the spiritual search, the path to 'enlightenment', the long struggle against the 'ego', et cetera, in order to reach that exalted state. Well guess what? It never happens. The search goes on and on and the individual is no more 'enlightened' than he was at the start. Why? The search, by definition, makes self-realization impossible by abstracting it into thought. In a search there is the anticipation or hope of finding something. This is imagined in thought to be somewhere in the distant future. This thought is appealing and has great resonance with a mind conditioned to believe thought's games. But what is thought. Thought is simply a movement occuring in the present moment, and the present moment is precisely the thing you have been looking for, that exalted 'enlightenment'.

Sadly, you have never found it because you have constantly abstracted it into the future through thought, and thus made it impossible for you to acquire, for the future is never here. Self-realization can only occur when the searching ends, when total acceptance reigns, when it is seen that the present moment is self-realization, that everything happening now is what you are. Then peace and all those qualities you have been looking for will flourish. It's as simple as that.

So the search creates the suffering that is endless because it is always abstracted into the future. It is a desire that cannot be satisfied. But it is the desire itself that creates the suffering, not the seemingly illusory object of that desire. It is the movement of desire itself, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Be present and see that the movement of desire is one like any other. I tell you now sincerely that the movement of desire or any other movement of thought for that matter is no different in essence to the buzzing of a fly's wing, or the crunching of popcorn in a crowded cinema or the sound of a bus door opening. In essence they are all one. You are simply giving too much attention to thought. Be present, accept all that arises, for all that arises is what you are. That is the realization you have been abstracting constantly into the future. There is no-one to enlighten because the individual identity resides in thought, but you are beyond thought. You are the field in which thought and all other movements occur, and that is already 'enlightened'. 'You' just haven't seen it yet. Stay present, be stubborn, don't fall victim to illusion: and you will.

Right NOW

2010-01-17T11:10:00.001-08:00

Here I sit, my fingers thudding against the plastic, black keys of my laptop with a folk song warbling away in the background. The room is chilly and coolly carresses my skin. The light of the laptop screen glows. Somewhere a cat whines. Footsteps upstairs. A thought flitters through my head, like an ephemeral butterfly. Out of the emptiness the world before me emerges, dripping in its essence, only to fall back into the abyss and disappear forever. This is it. All is accomplished. Everything is here and now; constantly in flux, empty yet manifest, nothing yet everything. This is it. This I am.