The Seer

Centuries ago, In The Wife of Bath, the celebrated early English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer, portrayed the sufferings of Socrates, king of the hen-pecked, in the following verse:

He had by heart the whole detail of woe
Xanthippe made her good man undergo;
How oft she scolded in a day he knew,
How many pisspots on the sage she threw –
Who took it patiently, and wiped his head:
“Rain follows thunder,” that was all he said.

When asked for advice about marriage, apparently Socrates commented: “By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher: and that’s good for every man.”

In more recent times, David Godman recalled that the revered non-dual Indian teacher, Nisargadatta Maharaj, said that when he was married, his wife used to give him a very hard time. She was always bossing him around and telling him what to do. ‘Maharaj do this, Maharaj go to the market and buy that.’

She didn’t call him Maharaj, of course, Godman says, but he couldn’t remember what she did call him.

Maharaj’s wife died a long time ago, when he was in his forties. It is usual for men of this age who are widowed to marry again, so all Maharaj’s relatives wanted him to find another wife.

Maharaj refused, saying, “The day she died I married freedom.”

The dream self is created from identification with objects that arise. For example, you might think, “I am angry,” or “It’s a dreadful day.” But look more closely. If you can see a thought, is that thought you? If you can see an emotion, is it you? You are the seer, not the objects seen. That which is seen is an object that arises and falls — a temporary form. You are that which is looking at those objects as they arise and fall.

Even the notion that there is a seer as a separate identity is an object (an idea) in awareness. In looking inward, there is no separate entity there. There is only awareness recognizing awareness. Awareness is not an object. Your true identity is pure seeing itself. This can be fearful if there is a desire to hold onto some identity. But it is absolutely liberating if you see that even that fear is an object in awareness.

Suffering happens when you believe that you are your thoughts and emotions. In reality, you are not angry. Anger is arising. It’s not actually a dreadful day. The thought, “It’s a dreadful day” is arising in awareness. This is not about denying or suppressing thought and emotion. It is about seeing them for what they really are.

~ From: Reflections of the One Life by Scott Kiloby

You can catch some great interviews Scott does with Richard Miller, Charlie Hayes, Jackie O’Keeffe and Unmani on his Kilologues page.

What I notice in relation to my own awakening is that there are many areas where the actual living of the newly awakened perspective has been as easy and natural as water running downhill. But there have been other areas in daily life where earlier stages of development seem to naturally take over and temporarily hijack me into re-identification with familiar patterns of reaction and discomfort.

I had read that, once realization came, all the reactivity and discomfort would be finished. In an absolute way, that statement is totally true — it is all finished (based on the new identification with my always-already-awake Self). And yet at the same time, there still can be moments of disconnect from that awareness and then there is reactivity. Yes, this reactivity and discomfort are seen in the context of being a part of the grand perfection of everything, and yet that doesn’t mean that they are to be ignored as they are transcended.

The discomfort that arises is functioning as an attention-getting device that is part of a constructive process of gradual personal acclimation to that perfection, in order that it may be more fully lived.

A cognitive framework that allows discomfort and reactivity its place in the perfection of things then becomes important. If our internal thought structures are open enough to allow for anything and everything that shows up to have a legitimate part to play in life, (and we don’t reject some things and disassociate from them) then everything in life becomes a support for awakening. Life can naturally move towards greater and greater capability of the individual person to fully live in daily life that which we have realized ourselves to be.

I am fascinated to be giving the field of human development an overview, and am especially fascinated to see it correlating with the recent developments in both neuroscience and child development. It seems that we humans are at an amazing transition-point in history because we are now able to see and make sense of our own development over the eons in a clear way that has not been cognitively possible before. As we have developed the capabilities of our neo-cortex (pardon my oversimplification here) this has allowed us new perspectives on who we are and changed the world that we see.

Along the way, the increasingly complex ways in which we construct thought-based knowledge have also revealed themselves, as have the mechanics of perception.

This obviously pertains to the way that we construct the personal self in its entirety. This self-construction process that has occurred in us as individuals is the bedrock that lies under all the rest of our thinking. It serves as a foundation that allows or doesn’t allow whole spectrums of experiences in any particular life.

These new perspectives also bring in a new possibility — that we may be able to allow life to deconstruct parts of our personality structure that are outgrown and no longer helpful. This means that the real Self is now more able than ever before to maintain a personal identity (a small me) that is operationally functional at a high level, in that it is serving the real Self and allowing the One which is awake to live through the personality more freely.

We live in momentous times, and the dying of the old ways of operating need not cloud our perception of what is arising in its place.

~ by Alice Gardner

“Our real nature is mukti (liberation). But we are imagining that we are bound and are making various strenuous attempts to become free, while we are all the time free. This will be understood only when we reach that stage. We will be surprised that we frantically were trying to attain something which we have always been and are. An illustration will make this clear. A man goes to sleep in this hall. He dreams he has gone on a world tour, is roaming over hill and dale, forest and country, desert and sea, across various continents and, after many years of weary and strenuous travel returns to this country and walks into this hall. Just at that moment he wakes up and finds he has not moved an inch, but was sleeping where he lay down. He has not returned after great effort to the hall but is and always has been in the hall. It is exactly like that. If it be asked why being free we imagine we are bound, I answer ‘Why being in this hall did you imagine you were on a world adventure, crossing hill, dale, desert and sea?’ It is all mind or Maya (the world illusion).”

~ From the book: Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, edited by David Godman

You have to love
The antics of your mind,
Imagining life should only be sweet.
The bitter makes the sweet; and life is both.
It is whole, like you,

Before you think yourself to pieces.
Place this moment’s pain and confusion on the altar, too,
And give special thanks for such grace
That wakes you up from sleeping through your life.
Pain is greatly under-rated as a pointer to Unknowing,
yet greatly over-rated when taken as identity.

In this one moment,
Your eyes meet mine and there is
a single looking.
What is peering from behind our masks?
Can it touch itself across the room?
Place your palms together;
Touch your holy skin.
In another moment it will shed itself.
What will you be then?
What were you before you had two hands?
What are you now?
You cannot capture That
and place It on the altar of this moment.
It is the altar,
And this moment’s infinite expressions,
And the Seeing,
And its own devotion to itself.
You are That.

~ From the poem: “The Altar of This Moment” by Dorothy S. Hunt

A young wife came home one day and found her mother standing in a bucket of water with her finger stuck in the light socket.

The young husband was standing by the switch.

“Hello, darling,” said the mother, “George has had this marvellous idea for curing my rheumatism.”

Hello Himanth,

I had a look at your Web site and found it quite interesting. You are obviously an earnest spiritual seeker and I have the impression that you have begun to awaken to your true identity.

It seems to me, that at this stage, however, that the truth you have begun to glimpse remains as thoughts or concepts in your mind. To make further progress toward spiritual maturity and fulfillment, you need to move beyond the activity of your mind into the internal realm of awareness.

The truth is, of course, that you and I are essentially That which is aware of our thoughts, our doubts, our fears, our frustrations, our emotions, and our sensory perceptions.

It’s not just that you HAVE awareness, the awesome fact is that you ARE Awareness or Consciousness ItSelf.

This Awareness that we are is not a ‘thing’ or an ‘object’ that the mind can imagine, or picture, or define, or compare with something else, or even think about … it is the formless or spacious dimension that is capacity for everything that we are aware of.

Most people are unaware or unconscious of this ’spiritual’ dimension within and are constantly caught up in their thoughts and feelings which get translated into the actions of their life. As you ‘awaken’ to the truth, you will become aware of your thoughts and feelings without necessarily becoming involved in them. In quiet contemplation you will find YourSelf the calm observer or witness of your mental activity … this is the first step toward full awakening.

The second step comes when you can turn your attention (effortlessly) away from the objects of your awareness to Awareness ItSelf. You become aware of your constant, unchanging, ageless Awareness. You become conscious of that Consciousness that contains the whole of your world.

When you abide, even if it’s only for a minute or two, in this Awareness and simply be the witness of whatever Awareness is aware of, then you are present, you are consciously present with your true Self or Essential Nature.

When you are present, you will notice that everything that appears in your awareness comes and goes, it is constantly in a state of flux, it is alway in a process of change … but you will also notice that the Awareness does NOT come and go, that it is constant, without limits, without definable qualities,that it is infinite (and eternal).

You will also notice, that while your humanness as ‘Himanth’ is very personal, unique and temporal, the Awareness that sees or observes this humanness is impersonal, universal, and beyond space and time. Your essential Beingness is the same as ‘my’ Beingness, and is the Beingness of every form in the universe. We are all an expression or manifestation of that One Life or Beingness.

So, Himanth, to surrender simply meant to accept, without reservation (by the mind) what you find youself, your true Self, to be … Awareness.

The egoic mind, because of its conditioning since infancy, will try to get you to cling to the idea that you are ’something’ … even a ’spiritual something’, but the truth is that we are much, much more than that. The eternal Awareness that we are is not a ‘thing’ … you can call it Spirit, God, Brahman, the true Self or the no-self … it doesn’t matter, but when you accept wholeheartedly that this is What you are … then suddenly, you will see that you, the real You, are Everything.

Once this is seen or understood from the heart (or in your bones, so to speak), you will be able to enter fully into being ‘Himanth’ and play out the role that Consciousness (your Essential Self) has planned for you. You will then discover what it means to be truly free in every area of your life-experience … because at last you know, that you are none other than Life ItSelf.

Hello Mukesh, you asked:
“Do you mean you are self-realized?”
Yes, this happened by pure Grace in 2002 — after much seeking, there was a sudden shift of consciousness and there was the full recognition that there is only the One … there is nothing else. The illusion (Maya) of separateness dissolved and it was seen (Jnana), without there being a ’seer’ nor anything to be ’seen’, the awesome truth of our essential nature (Beingness).

You also asked:
“have you achieved enlightenment?”
No , for that would be impossible, for ‘enlightenment’ can never be achieved (or attained, or earned etc. ) Enlightenment comes only to the prepared ‘heart’ through ’seeing’ or as a recognition of the truth.

You must know the famous illustration of the person who goes to the river at twilight and steps on a wet rope. Suddenly he is seized with fear thinking he has stepped on a poisonous snake and leaps back in horror. Then, on closer examination, he sees it is only some discarded rope and his whole being is flooded with relief and gladness. What brought about such a great change in his feelings? Was it some ‘achievement’? No. It was the sudden clear perception of the truth … the supposed snake is merely some old rope. This is how it is with ‘enlightenment’.

To become enlightened means, among other things, to have the crushing load of guilt, fear and anxiety lifted from your mind … your load is lightened … you are made free from every (imaginary, mind-conditioned) shackle.

But most importantly, to become enlightened means to see that you, your real Self, is the Light of Consciousness (or Awareness) by which everything is seen or experienced. It’s not that you, as a person (Mukesh) have awareness, the truth is that you, your real Self, ARE Awareness.

Awareness (or consciousness) is the one thing that has been constant and unchanging in your life … it is ageless … and always is. Things constantly come and go in your awareness, but the Awareness you are does not come and go.

Awareness (Spirit, Brahman, God etc.) is actually not a ‘thing’ .. it is not an ‘object’ that can be understood by the mind or defined by words … it can only be experience as Awareness becomes aware of ItSelf, or as Consciousness becomes conscious.

One sees that we are That which the egoic self has been seeking. We see that What we have been looking for is what is doing the looking … right now, at this moment!

When enlightenment happens, it does not happen to a ’somebody’ ( a Pete or a Mukesh) … it is Brahman that awakens from ‘His’ Self-imposed sleep or illusion. The human form (body/mind/personality) is suddenly seen as a temporary expression of the Formless, a unique manifestation of the One.

The One (Brahman) has manifested in or as your humanness so ‘He’ can have an experience of limitation … why ‘He’ delights to do this is a great mystery but we must accept that it is so. The enlightened person (sage) is not only aware of their humanness (thoughts, feelings, sensory perceptions etc.) but of the spiritual dimension within them. This spiritual dimension is also referred to as the Light of Consciousness, or Awareness, or the Void, or the great Emptiness, or Spaciousness etc. No words can adequately describe your essential nature or Beingness.

I cannot emphasize enough that this ’spiritual dimension’ is not something you get, or attain, or achieve … it is there within us already … waiting to be noticed or acknowledged. Your essential nature is already pure, innocent, untouched, sinless, perfect, infinite and eternal. It is beyond space and time and all opposites. Your manifest form, however, is finite, limited and subject to all the opposites like , pleasure/pain, health/illness, success/failure, wealth/poverty, happy/sad etc. etc.

Enlightenment does not mean a life-experience free of worry or pain etc. No doubt, some of these things will be avoided by spiritual awakening, but while we are in the body, we will always experience some degree of the opposites occurring … this is intrinsic to the human experience. However, underlying all this, is the abiding in the blissful knowledge of What we really are. Despite life’s ups and downs, there is a causeless peace, joy and compassion that arises from the Source (Brahman, the true Self). Both Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj experienced forms of cancer that lead eventually to the death of their bodies, but while there was pain, there was no suffering, no fear of death, no anxiety whatever.

Enlightenment is not an escape from life, but an embracing of it. It means you can say, Yes, to whatever comes along and know that this is but the unfolding of God’s Will for your life-experience.

Here in the southern hemisphere, we are just on the other side of mid-Winter and moving gingerly toward warmer days. In the northern hemisphere, the heat of Summer is at last beginning to wane, the bracing beauty of Fall or Autumn is anticipated … and the bleak cold beyond that leaves the trees looking black, bare-limbed and lifeless.

As we move about in the outer world of things, forms and appearances, one thing we notice is that everything seems to be changing all the time — everything we put together eventually comes apart — everything that is born, dies — everything that we get is eventually lost again. The leaves that grow on the trees in the spring, fall again in the autumn. Everything in this world of form seems to shift and change, including us. We are getting older.

Sometimes, if we have seen enough metaphorical leaves fall in our personal lives, we can begin to notice what is hiding behind the changing play of forms. It is often most visible to any one of us when the leaves that we were most attached to are in the midst of falling. The ever-changing nature of the world of form is a constant opportunity to notice what is amongst us and in us that doesn’t change.

The world of changing forms is issuing an invitation to notice what doesn’t change. When we look in the same way at ourselves it becomes an invitation to acknowledge that the personal form-bound mind-constructed version of who we are (that we have learned to call ourselves by as children) is not what we truly are. There is something in us that doesn’t change when appearances or personalities change.

When we notice that our personal mind-created and form-bound identity is not who we are, we can begin to see the full beauty of the world of form and yet not be devastated by its changing nature.

We can move through the world of form and its constantly changing conditions, thoughts, feelings and appearances, realizing that every bit of it is as sacred as the most holy temple or mountain-top. We bow to the world of form in awe and amazement.

This is the invitation of this time when the wondrous form world has died back to its minimum — when the days are short and the nights are long and cold. At this time of year, there is a transparency about the forms of our lives. We are revealed to ourselves in our true raiment if we accept the invitation. We are life itself! We are the life rising in the baby lamb being born and the same life falling in the plants on the compost heap from last year’s garden — all at once.

All that has fallen away is still with us because we ARE what it all falls into.

~ by Alice Gardner, author of: Life Beyond Belief, Everyday Living as Spiritual Practice

We believe we’re separate creatures, and we know the creature’s existence is threatened every moment. What will death bring? We don’t know, so we latch onto beliefs and repeat those beliefs as a mantra whenever the subject of death passes through our awareness: We will continue on forever in the Happy Hunting Ground, in Paradise, in Heaven or our molecules will gracefully disperse back into the cosmic soup or we will slip placidly into the comforting oblivion of dreamless sleep. But those beliefs don’t really eliminate the underlying fear; they merely provide distraction, like sticking our fingers in our ears and singing or talking loudly when we don’t want to hear something someone is saying to us.

We believe ourselves to be individual human beings, irrevocably separate from whatever created us and from other human beings. No matter how close we get with another person, we never approach absolute knowing. And we feel even more not-one with whatever created us.

Our self-beliefs for example, that the self is a separate entity; is somehow dependent on a body that was born and is going to die; is or has an individual consciousness; is limited, changing, vulnerable, uncertain cause psychological turmoil and suffering. Like the amputee’s phantom limb pain, it is phantom-self pain. Panic attacks (fear of dying or going insane, which reflect the fear of losing the phantom self) and clinical depression (based on the conviction that something that’s necessary to our happiness is not possible to attain) are extreme examples.

Have you ever stopped to wonder how it is that we know we’re conscious? Our self-consciousness indicates a mirroring effect that’s already taking place in the mind. It’s as if there’s one part of us looking outward and another part of us that’s looking backward, aware of the part that’s looking outward. But what does that backward-looking part of us see? Nothing — no entity, no Wizard of Oz making things happen — an empty, boundless, changeless, aware non-space.

We have a feeling of what we are. Sure, that’s our bike, our car, our toes, and so on, but we feel we’re essentially something deeper than those things. We feel that we’re what’s aware — aware of external things but also of inner things such as thoughts and feelings — and also, somehow, mysteriously self-aware.

We believe mightily that we’re a separate, isolated entity attempting to know an unknown self — as if we needed to look into a reflection of our eyes and, in that mirror image, see a reflection back into our “real eye.” The hang-up is that we can’t conceive of direct seeing without an intermediary. We can’t conceive of seeing without a separate seer doing the seeing. We can’t conceive of our self as not being a separate seer. How do we get beyond this phantom-seer pain?

Looking for the self, we need to notice what we’re looking at (i.e., what we’re aware of) and continue looking at it until we see, intuitively, what its relationship is to us. To do this systematically, we begin with more exterior objects like bikes, cars and toes and move inward to thoughts, feelings, and beyond. Doing occasional credo exercises to identify our current beliefs about what we are, or what we become identified with, provides us with ongoing material for investigation. All the while, we compare what we’re looking at to the feeling of what we really are: that which is aware, which we sense (intuit) from the mirroring aspect of awareness itself.

Letting go of faulty self-beliefs may cause some jolts, but if we persist we will get down to a final faulty self-belief and a final jolt will leave us with a recognition of direct seeing and absolute knowing.

~ From an article by Art Ticknor