The Seer

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Just as the fist is the activity of clenching an open hand, so the ego is the solidifying of open, non-grasping awareness, which is inherently egoless. Ego continually arises out of and subsides back into egolessness, like a fist tensing and relaxing again. If so it is clear that ego cannot exist without egolessness, which is its ground.Everyone has little glimpses of egolessness in the gaps and spaces between thoughts which usually go unnoticed. Ego is dying and being reborn at every moment. We continually have to let go of what we have already thought, accomplished, known, experienced, become. A sense of panic underlies these births and deaths, which stimulates further grasping and clenching.

Existential anxiety arises as a sense of impending death, a dawning realisation that the I is nothing solid, that it has no true support and is continually threatened by the possibility of dissolving back into the egoless ground from which it arose. Ego contains at its core a panic about egolessness, an anxious reaction to the unconditioned openness that underlies each moment of consciousness.

… And in the end, it is only egoless awareness that allows us to face and accept death in all its forms. Recognising ego death as an integral, recurring aspect of life makes it possible to overcome our fear of letting go. When we are not so driven to prove, justify, defend, or immortalise our bounded self, we can breathe more deeply, appreciate death as a renewing element within the larger circle of life, and embrace reality in all Its forms in which it presents itself.

~ by John Welwood

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The momentum for the ‘Cosmic Game’ is created whenever you pretend that what isn’t, somehow, is far superior to what is. Although this belief keeps you focused on a never-ending journey towards happiness, enlightenment, etc., it also guarantees that you will never reach a point of permanent satisfaction and peace.

Why? Because this whole notion of being on a `journey-to-fulfillment’ is actually the secret method that the desperate ego uses in order to survive in the face of personal annihilation by Consciousness.

In other words, as long as the ego stays more focused on making the ‘journey,’ it can continue to avoid disappearing entirely in the blinding realization of the true identity of the mystic ‘traveler.’ This frenzied activity around pursuing enlightenment helps the ego to maintain a sense of personal doership. When what is not present is perceived as better than what is present, the precious reality contained in this very moment is inwardly resisted.

Consciousness has no opposite, it’s the only thing that’s present, and it can never really change into ‘what isn’t.’ It just is what it is. However, by pretending that something else is better,’ the ego hopes to survive by enthusiastically pursuing the disowned `other.’ Of course, the cosmic joke, is that the ego is caught on a self-generated treadmill because it already ‘is’ what it’s looking for.

The valiant struggle to be enlightened secretly protects the ego from being exposed as the phantom it truly is. As long as the search continues unabated, the searcher is validated as being separate from the very thing that he or she is searching for. But, in Truth, we can never really run away from ourselves because we already are who we are running from, and we already are where we are running to.

~ by Chuck Hillig. To get a giggle and a wink from Chuck’s book, Enlightenment for Beginners, >Click Here.

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There are always two possibilities at any moment in your life. Either you are fully present or you are in the mind. When you are fully present, you are in a state of consciousness called Presence. You are here now. You are experiencing the truth and reality of the present moment. The illusion of separation has dissolved and you are in a state of inner silence, relating moment to moment to that which is here now with you. When you are in the mind, you have abandoned the truth and reality of the present moment for an illusory world. When you are in the mind, you are somewhere in the past or future. You are not here now. What you are experiencing is not real. Using the power of thought, memory and imagination, you have
created a world of illusion and now you are condemned to live in it. Nearly all human suffering is attributable to this simple fact.

~ From: Journey into Now by Leonard Jacobson

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To assist students of non-duality with an interest in quantum theory and consciousness, the work of Stanley Sobottka, a Professor Emeritus of Physics at The University of Virginia is one of “best of breed”. His Course in Consciousness covers the spectrum of physics to spirituality.

For instance, in response to the question, “What is God?” Sobottka offers:

a. God is another word for Consciousness, which is what You are.
b. Transcendent God is pure Awareness, while immanent God is the Background of the objects of Awareness.
c. Thus, God is What is aware of objects, and God is also the Background from which objects arise.
d. The Background is not different from its objects. Together with Awareness they comprise Consciousness. God, Consciousness, and What-Is are all pointers to the same thing.
e. God, Good, and Love are all the same. Therefore, you are God, Good, and Love.

For more: >Click Here. To read a brief question and answer for the course: >Try This.

Also, we highly recommend Peter Russell’s book, From Science to God which is available on line >HERE.

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A small boy was attending his first wedding. After the service, his cousin queried, “I wonder, how many ladies a man can marry?”

“Sixteen,” the boy responded.

His cousin was amazed that he had an answer so quickly. “How do you know that?!

” Easy,” the young wiz-kid said. “All you have to do is add it up, like the minister said: 4 better, 4 worse, 4 richer, 4 poorer.”

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To be still is to be conscious without thought. You are never more essentially, more deeply yourself than when you are still. When you are still, you are who you were before you temporarily assumed this physical and mental form called a person.You are also who you will be when the form dissolves. Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet – because it is the purpose of humanity.

Your inner purpose is an essential part of the purpose of the whole. Your outer purpose can change over time. It varies greatly from person to person. Finding and living in alignment with the inner purpose is the foundation for fulfilling your outer purpose. It is the basis for true success.

The energy field of old but still very-much-alive emotion that lives in almost every human being is the pain-body. The pain-body, however, is not just individual in nature. It also partakes of the pain suffered by countless humans throughout the history of humanity.

~ by Eckhart Tolle

You can see new video clips featuring excerpts from several of Eckhart’s DVD’s. From the DVD The Deepest Truth of Human Existence, Eckhart reveals secrets of true meditation. From Freedom From The World, Eckhart sheds more light on his understanding of enlightenment.

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Eckhart once remarked that the hallmarks of a truly ‘enlightened’ life are: non-resistance, non-attachment and non-judgment. The ego’s tendency to ‘rush’ to judgment of others is amusingly illustrated by the following story sent in by one of our readers, Tony Grantham, in the UK:

There was a man who worked for the Post Office whose job was to process all the mail that had illegible addresses.

One day, a letter came addressed in a shaky handwriting to God with no actual address. He thought he should open it to see what it was about. The letter read:

Dear God,
I am an 83 year old widow, living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension payment. Next Sunday is Christmas, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with, have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope. Can you please help me?
Sincerely, Edna

The postal worker was touched. He showed the letter to all the other workers. Each one dug into his or her wallet and came up with a few dollars.

By the time he made the rounds, he had collected $96, which they put into an envelope and sent to the woman. The rest of the day, all the workers felt a warm glow thinking of Edna and the dinner she would be able to share with her friends.

Christmas came and went. A few days later, another letter came from the same old lady to God. All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened. It read:

Dear God,
How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of your gift of love, I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day and I told my friends of your wonderful gift. By the way, there was $4 missing. I think it might have been those bastards at the post office.
Sincerely, Edna

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“Life is a mystery. A mystery so awesome that we insulate ourselves from its intensity. To numb our fear of the unknown we desensitise ourselves to the miracle of living. We perpetuate the nonchalant lie that we know who we are and what life is. Yet behind this preposterous bluff the Mystery remains unchanging, waiting for us to remember to wonder. It is waiting in a shaft of sunlight, in the thought of death, in the intoxication of new love, in the joy of childbirth or the shock of loss. One minute we are going about our business as if life were nothing special and the next we are face to face with profound, unfathomable breathtaking Mystery. This is both the origin and consummation of the spiritual quest”.

~ From: Jesus and the Goddess, by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy

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In 1809, people were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon and waiting with feverish impatience for news of the wars. And all the while in their homes babies were being born. But who could think about babies? — everybody was thinking about battles.

In one year, between Trafalgar and Waterloo, there stole into the world a host of heroes. Gladstone was born in Liverpool, Tennyson at the Sommersby Rectory and Oliver Wendel Holmes in Massachusetts. Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky and Felix Mendelson in Hamberg. But nobody thought of babies — everybody was thinking of battles, yet, which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809?

The great political powers fancy that this world can be managed only with huge battalions armed with sophisticated and ever more deadly weapons, when all the time ‘God’ is doing it with beautiful babies. When a wrong wants righting or a truth wants proclaiming or something needs discovering, a baby is sent into the world to do it.

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What we think is perception is actually perspective. Each of us is a unique opening lighting up a unique world and establishing a unique set of relationships with that world — relationships that bestow our lives with distinctive character. This point is well, but lightly made in a story told by the late Indian Jesuit, Anthony de Mello:

A woman stepped out of her shower stark naked and was about to reach for her towel when she saw, to her horror, that there was a man on a scaffolding washing her window and eyeing her appreciatively.

So shocked was she by the unexpected apparition that she stood transfixed to the floor, gaping at the man.

“What’s the matter, lady?” the fellow called cheerfully through the now spotless glass. “Haven’t you ever seen a window cleaner before?”

>Eric Best