The Seer

Most teachers talk abut waking up, but Saniel Bonder, in his book titled, Waking Down, says: “The up-ness in ideas of waking up has to do with a perceived need to get out of being mired in life as you have known it in order to get spiritual, conscious, awake, enlightened, or free.

“Traditionally, and in our time, there are innumerable methods to achieve such changes. In general, waking down, as we live and offer it, is different in that you “fall” into your fundamental conscious nature and your bodily, human personhood simultaneously.

“Instead of trying to get out of life, you realize more and more that you are infinite transcendental Being concretizing, crystallizing, incarnating as a divinely human person. So I use the phrase waking down to signal that this is very different from trying to rise out of this world and all your karmas here into some other state or dimension. In this process, you directly realize and bring the infinite divine reality to life.

“The reasons why so many people have been spiritual seekers for so long, and so few are finders, vary according to each school of seeking and each individual seeker. In general, it really is true, as many teachings suggest, that only a few in any generation are equipped to find ultimate awakeness, freedom, or salvation — at least, along the lines those teachings suggest.

“I’m proposing that infinite Being is struggling to achieve diverse human incarnations — that we indeed are that ultimate Reality, and that it is now becoming possible for many more to become true finders than before.

“But that means that new ways to really find must be developed, so that more ordinary people can actually do it. Otherwise, spiritual awakening tends to remain the province of a very few. How many of us can be Olympic gymnasts, Nobel laureates, astronauts? Previously finding has been an Olympic feat. Waking down makes finding possible for many more people. It makes their seeking obsolete.”

Saniel & Linda Bonder are planning to visit Australia early in 2010 and we’re hoping they will be able to give some talks and workshops at Gurukula in Fremantle. Details of their Australian tour will be posted in The Seer as soon as arrangements are fixed.

In the meantime, senior Waking Down teacher, Ted Strauss, has posted some excellent videos on his website. There’s an extensive interview with Ted that serves as a general introduction to Waking Down. You can find the videos: >>>HERE.

Ramana Maharshi recommended that one investigates by asking the question ‘Who am I?’

When asked who you are, there might be a hesitation as to what to answer; but when asked if you exist, there is no such doubt. The answer is a resounding, ‘Yes, of course I exist’.

When the answer to the first question is as clear as the answer to the second question, there is understanding.

The realization is that both questions have in fact the same answer. That which is sure of its existence – the innermost certainty of I Am – is what you essentially are. In other words: I Am this knowing that knows that I Am.

The Hindus say Tat Tvam Asi (That, Thou Art). In the Old Testament, God says, ‘I Am that I Am.’ This undeniable ‘I Am’ is not you in the personal sense, but the universal Self.

Ramana Maharshi called the fundamental oneness of ‘I Am’ and the universal Self ‘I-I.’

Watching from this understanding, I see how thoughts appear in ‘my’ awareness like clouds in a clear sky and then, without a trace, dissolve back in to it. There’s even no need to proclaim that thoughts appear in my awareness. In Awareness suffices. Thoughts and everything else simply happen.

Everything is, without a ‘me’ orchestrating it from behind the scenes. The ego is as non-essential to thinking or to the general functioning of the body-mind organism as Atlas is to supporting the heavens. Just as the ancient Greeks at some point realized that, in fact, there never was a titan named Atlas supporting the firmament, you can realize there never was an actual ego supporting the absolute certainty of ‘I Am.’

~ From the book: Awakening to the Dream: The gift of lucid living, by Leo Hartong

“A human being is part of the whole, the ‘Universe’; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison.”

~ Albert Einstein

There’s a fabulous new feature on Adyashanti’s Web site. In Cafe Dharma, he is offering a free streaming video of his basic teachings. In this specially-recorded 30-minute video, Adya outlines the essential principles that form a foundation of understanding of his teaching. By clarifying the fundamental ideas of suffering, ego, freedom, and awakened values, he invites you to look beyond patterns of thinking that cause suffering. The video is incredibly potent, clear, and direct. You can find it >>>HERE.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the (no-)face of God.

~ Pilot Officer, Gillespie Magee, RCAF

There’s a very good exchange between the US spiritual teacher, Gangaji, and a friend of hers on Youtube where the friend so clearly and passionately describes being free of the face he sees in the mirror, and being face to no-face with Gangaji. It’s only a couple of minutes. The link is: >>>HERE

A blind cowboy wanders into an all-girl biker bar by mistake. He finally finds his way to a stool and orders a cup of coffee.

He sips his coffee for a minute or two then hollers “hey, anybody wanna hear a blonde joke?’

The bar falls quiet but then in a husky voice, the woman next to him says, ‘Before you tell that joke, Cowboy, I think it is only fair, given that you are blind, that you should know something. The bartender is a blonde girl with a baseball bat and the bouncer is a blonde girl. Not only that, but I’m a 6-foot, 165-pound blonde woman with a black belt in karate and the woman sitting on the other side of you is blonde and a professional weightlifter. The lady sitting at the table right behind you is a blonde and she drives a truck.

‘Now, think about it. Do you really want to tell that joke?

The blind cowboy thinks for a second, shakes his head, and mutters, ‘No… not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times.’

I was sorry to hear that you’ve been in so much distress with the flu and hope that by now, you’re feeling more like your normal healthy self.

Regarding your inquiry: I’m so glad that you were able to be in Presence, however briefly, while in the throes of your illness, as this indicates a certain growth of ‘consciousness’ within you. Anyone can be in Presence with a minimum of intention when not in bodily or mental distress and in pleasant surrounds, but it takes more spiritual ‘maturity’ to be in Presence in adverse conditions and/or circumstances.

First of all, be wary of buying into the ‘it chose me’ concept — this is pure dualism — ie, the ‘it’ and the ‘me.’ In actual fact, there is only the One … and that is what we are. Ultimately, there is never anything outside our true Self doing something to us … it’s all happening within the Self that we are. Or, in other words, whatever happens, it’s the One playing games of limitation with ItSelf … experiencing the opposites of human experience, which sometimes includes health or illness, ability and disability, pleasure and pain etc.

We can never understand this with our finite mind, so don’t try to understand it rationally, it’s just part of the ‘dance’ of Consciousness. Nobody is ever doing anything to anybody else … despite all appearances to the contrary.

As long as you’re being expressed as a human form, you will experience loss (of health) and limitation. This should not surprise us as … all forms are unstable … no ‘thing’ or form lasts forever.

Illness matters, but it does not matter absolutely … only knowing Who or What we truly are, and resting in this sublime recognition, matters absolutely.

Whether enjoying good health or enduring painful illness, we can say to ourselves, ‘this too will pass’, as indeed will the form itself eventually. Nothing in phenomenality lasts.

By now you realise, I trust, that you are in essence Awareness or Consciousness or Spirit etc. etc. You do not have awareness … you ARE the eternal Awareness beyond all time and space.

As Awareness, you can be aware in two directions. You can be aware of the ‘content’ of your awareness such as thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations such as pain or pleasure, and then your sensory perceptions such as sight, sound, taste etc. In this direction, you were accutely aware of the terrible pain and discomfort of your flu symptoms.

The other direction is for Awareness to be aware of ItSelf, ie, not the content of awareness but of the ‘capacity’ that Awareness is. Some other teachers refer to it as the ’spaciousness’ in which all things exist and are comprehended. In fact, without the capacity or spaciousness of Awareness, nothing could be known at all.

When you focused on your breathing for a short time, you went beyond your thoughts (I am a very sick man with the flu) and into Presence, which is beyond the mind into the realm of pure Awareness. Your identification for those few moments was away from the form and with the Formless which is not, and never can be, touched by pain and fever. Your Formless eternal Self, can never suffer loss or injury of any kind … it is always pure, unchanging and inviolable. In other words, As Awareness, you were momentarily aware only of your true Self, rather than your manifest self, as RIchard, who obviously was still sufering from the flu.

Normally, the spiritually mature (or, Self-realised) person is aware of both directions at the same time — the ‘capacity’ and the ‘content’ — not just one or the other.

In reality, there is no difference whatever between Awareness, and what Awareness is aware of … they are all One. The unconscious person (the average person in the world) is only aware of one dimension — his or her humanness, and the world of opposites that goes with it. The conscious (or awakened) person, however, is always aware of two dimensions — that of impersonal eternal Beingness and one’s personal finite humanness. Thus, they are a fully realised ‘human-being.’

As we identify more and more with the Awareness we are, we will still be aware of pleasure an pain — even the pain of a severe flu when it occurs, but when it’s observed or witnessed from the standpoint of Awareness, there will be pain without suffering, there will be a causeless peace underneath the turmoil and distress of ill-health and an inner smile that knows that no matter what happens, nothing truly important can be lost or injured.

As we abide in Present awareness, new energies are released and our immune system is able to function uninhibited by the conditioned mind and renewal and healing are more likely to take place.

And when I say that pure consciousness is to be acknowledged rather than experienced, don’t think that I’m not extraordinarily content and thrilled beyond words in the periods when “the rubbish has been scraped away” and I am seeing clearly. Of course I am. The feeling is wonderful, and afterwards I even find myself labeling the occurrence an experience.

But it is not an experience. The definition of “experience” is “the apprehension of an object, a thought, or an emotion through the senses or mind.” Pure consciousness, or presence awareness, is not that; it is more like the absence of that. As I see it, it only appears to be an experience because of how dramatically the clarity contrasts with my normal activity where thoughts and feelings obstruct my true nature.

To call the clarity ‘an experience’ is similar to referring to a ‘blue’ ocean and a ‘blue’ sky. Of course, they both appear blue and we experience them as such. But in reality they are not. If we want to know the truth, we must remember that they are not blue. Likewise, if we want to know the truth of our existence, we must see that unboundedness, or presence awareness, is not an experience. It is who we are.

During periods when thoughts and feelings have so receded that I know my unbounded Self, the feeling is as good or better than anything I have ever felt. But under close scrutiny, it is clear there is no experience occurring. The unboundedness that I am is beyond experience. I am constant, with no beginning and no end.

And when I say that unboundedness, or pure consciousness, is forever present but is sometimes seemingly obstructed by ‘clouds’ (thoughts and feelings, and so on), I say ’seemingly’ because, again, this is our experience, but it is not reality. It may be our experience that a mirage appears to be water or, or a rope appears to be a snake, but that does not make it real.

The clouds of thoughts and feelings can obstruct our view, but they cannot obstruct our true selves any more than the rope can bite us or the mirage can quench our thirst. This is why the ancients said, ‘I am That, thou art That, all of this is That.’ They understood.

They understood that everything is an expression of consciousness, even thoughts, feelings and desires. In other words, even the ‘clouds’ are consciousness. And they understood this whether they felt unbounded and peaceful, or agitated and restless, whether they felt good, bad, or indifferent.”

~ From the book: Living Reality: My Extraordinary Summer with “Sailor” Bob Adamson, by James Braha

Everything is Consciousness – everything. When you ask what is Consciousness, there is no valid answer. When someone asks me to write a book or give a lecture, then I have to explain Consciousness in about fifty different words, and each word has another fifty words to explain that, then those words have another fifty words. So your volume of the book is written.

What does it say? “Everything is Consciousness.” I could have written one page. And in the middle of that page I would say: “Everything is Consciousness,” and the rest would be blank. This is the reason why I do not write books, because there is nothing to say. See how confusing it is? You read so many books during the week. Usually you do not remember what you read, and if you do, it’s intellectual. You are using somebody else’s words and not having your own experience.

I don’t know what Consciousness is, but I am That. If I knew what Consciousness was, it wouldn’t be That, because I would be voicing a word and the word would be limited by the very voicing of the word. So Consciousness is a no-thing. It’s nothing you can pin down. It’s nothing you can describe. It’s nothing you can write a book about. Consciousness is Silence. Sometimes I’m saying Consciousness is Absolute Reality, which is more words, and I have to explain Absolute Reality.

Consciousness is Ultimate Oneness, Pure Intelligence. Consciousness is all of those things. But what are those things? Again they are just words. Sometimes I say Consciousness is Love, Bliss, Sat-Chit-Ananda, Knowledge, Being, Existence. Those are just words. And you get a good feeling from the words, but the feeling doesn’t last too long, for you have not digested the words. You have not become a living embodiment of Consciousness.

You are an asset to the human race, an asset to your Self, an asset to God. You are a wonderful person just the way you are. Just the way you are! Do not judge by appearances. Do not even judge yourself. You are a beautiful person just the way you are.

When I say just the way you are, I am referring to your real Self, Consciousness. You are beautiful just the way you are. Not what you think you are. Not what you appear to be. Not what the world shows you, but just the way you are right now.

Stand up tall. Do not be afraid any longer. There is nothing that can hurt you. There is nothing in this world that can actually do anything to you. You are free ! You are the substratum of all existence. Everything is an image on Consciousness. The whole universe, all the planets, all the galaxies, are all images on Consciousness. And you are Consciousness. Know yourself and be free!”

From the book: Silence of the Heart, by Robert Adams