The Seer

Meaning is inherent in life — life is meaningful. However, wanting meaning is just one more desire that we humans suffer over. While meaning comes from Essence, our essential Self, the desire for meaning comes from the ego. We only desire what we feel is lacking, and the ego is what experiences lack and therefore desires.

It doesn’t experience the inherent meaning that exists in any moment, so it desires it. It is out of touch with this, so it desires it. When we are identified with the ego, we are always looking for something to satisfy what is never satisfied — the ego — and meaning is just one more thing the ego seeks, when it is right in front of its nose, so to speak.

Meaning is right here, right now in the experience — the gift — of life. Being alive is meaningful, and whatever springs out of this moment is meaningful. Life feels meaningful when we are in touch with Essence and Essence’s experience of life. The ego, however, is looking for something more, as usual, something that will make it feel meaningful. It isn’t necessarily looking for the experience of meaning, which is already here.

What will make me and my life meaningful? asks the ego. The ego is what wants to be meaningful and wants its life to be meaningful. To whom? we have to ask. The ego wants its life to be meaningful to others so that it is cherished and loved and admired, which is why it wants much of what it wants.

Wanting meaning is a form of spiritual ego. It is a higher desire, not as materialistic as wanting a new car, but ultimately this desire is still in service to enhancing the ego’s self-image, and it imagines it will feel better about itself once and for all if it finally finds meaning.

The trouble is that the ego looks for meaning in all the wrong places. It looks for meaning in accomplishments and experiences, but these come and go, and the ego never has enough accomplishments and experiences to be satisfied. It experiences meaning briefly from these, and then it is back to lacking it, to needing more meaning.

The one place the ego doesn’t look for meaning is in the beauty of this moment. It doesn’t expect to find it there, so it looks everywhere else. How can there be meaning in just existing? This makes no sense to the ego. To it, only a fool or a child could be satisfied with that.

It overlooks the one thing that can satisfy — the moment.

But this should be no surprise because when we drop into the moment, the ego disappears. It turns out the ego is just thoughts about ourselves and our life, and when we are no longer engaged with our thoughts but involved in the experience of our being existing in this moment, the ego (the “I”) disappears.

The ego can’t experience true meaning because as soon as we do, the ego dissolves. Only when we drop out of our egoic minds and into Essence can we experience true meaning, and in that experience nothing else is needed, nothing is missing or lacking. What a relief it is to experience true meaning. We didn’t have to strive and struggle for it after all. It was here all along, only hidden from us by the ego that told us it wasn’t here and we had to go searching for it.

And so it is with the spiritual search as well: We think we have to seek enlightenment, when all we really have to do is just allow ourselves to be here right now in this moment without seeking, trying, striving, wanting, needing, doubting, fearing, judging, or doing any of the other things the ego tells us we have to do to be happy and safe. The ego is a liar, and once we stop believing it, we find everything we were looking for.

~ From the blog of Gina Lake.

We all begin our life vulnerable and insecure. As such, fear is our engine of survival and security becomes our main goal. The fear is evolutionarily designed for survival and will shape our mind for years to come. How? By affecting the lens through which we observe and interpret life events.

The bias in the lens is towards magnifying pain, risk and danger. The bad news is that this bias will shape the story of self that we identify with — our Ego.

To protect itself the fearful Ego will develop the following guards against any perceived threats: Avoid, Freeze, Attack and Run away. Together they create acronym that tells the impact they leave on us: They keep us AFAR from our core being, from our authentic nature and from each other.

These guards that were initially survival mechanisms may unfortunately become second nature to us. When this happens our attention goes to the guards at the expense of living fully at the present moment. We pay these guards a heavy price for their job.

Let’s look at their impact: Avoid exploring new experiences, fearing the unknown. Avoid acting on one’s dreams, fearing failure. Indecision (Freeze), in response to fear of missing out. Attack others — control, judge, blame — in response to fear of being vulnerable. Run away in response to attacks. As one can see the guards will ultimately prevent the authentic expression of who we really are.

Should we try to change the fears? Fears of pain, rejection, failure, abandonment, exposure and death are deeply rooted in the unconscious habitual mind. They are very hard to change. What is easier to change is the response to them.

Most people actually do choose to change their guards, but they often do so unconsciously in response to … a greater fear! For example, fear of disease may force you to overcome fear of injection; fear for the safety of her children may drive a battered woman to take action against her violent man; fear of separation may force a man to come to counseling and face the exposure he would otherwise dread and so on.

The reason for this unfortunate state is that most people operate from their conditioned mind — Ego — that feeds on the survival mechanism of fear of pain.

You can tell how much fear rules your life by how often you say ‘no’ to possibilities, avoid interactions or conflicts with others, present a false self and so on. This is how ego separates you from core being and from others. In the fortress it feels secure but isolated, inauthentic and lifeless.

We all use guards from time to time. We differ in how flexibly we do so. Flexibility grows as we learn to increasingly be aware and disidentify with them.

Self awareness allows us the freedom to choose CONSCIOUSLY. We don’t choose fears. They arise spontaneously from deepest parts of the brain. Yet, we can choose how to handle them. The way is to become aware of them and then respond with COURAGE.

Courage has been highly admired through the history in all cultures. Aristotle said 2500 years ago that “courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others”. In the same era, the Buddha said: “One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand men on the battlefield.”

Rumi, the Persian poet, said: “The lion who breaks the enemy’s ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself.” Emerson said: “Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.” Josef Campbell said “The hallmark of the advanced soul is a healthy relationship to fear”, He also said “The warrior’s approach is to say yes to life: ‘yea’ to it all.” My favorite one is “Feed your courage and your fears will starve to death.”

So cultivating the virtue of courage is the answer to our debilitating fears. Modern research in “positive Psychology” provides us with enough evidence and tools to support the idea that cultivating virtues is a gateway to a happier and meaningful life.

So just as your guards are at the service of your fears your courage is at the service of your potentialities. Courage will set you free from behind the walls to explore and discover the unknown, to express authentic sides rather than suppress them, to let go of beliefs, wishes and relationships that keep you less than what you can become.

Courage is what it takes to love. It will keep you open, vulnerable and connected in relationship in spite of the many wounds and fears. So, courage will ultimately get you to love and to fulfill the greatness inherent within you.

~ by Hagai Avisar

“You are not a being who is conscious. You are consciousness. Period. This core identity has none of the uniqueness of the individual self. Being beyond all attributes and identifying characteristics, your sense of I-ness is indistinguishable from mine. The light of consciousness shining in you, which you label as “I”, is the same light that I label as “I.” In this we are identical. I am the light. And so are you.”

~ Peter Russell

It is easy to turn awareness into a static mental conclusion. Instead of abiding in and as actual awareness, there is a tendency of the mind to repeatedly play the conclusion, “I am awareness” or “there is only awareness” or some other conclusory non-dual label.

A conclusion cannot see. It just repeats itself. A false sense of mental certainty often comes with this repetition. If any conclusion is repeated enough, it turns into a rigidly held position. Conflict is right around the corner. The need to be right arises directly from egoic insecurity. Conflict arises from attachment to thought — from an attempt to take ownership of reality. No one owns reality.

Actual awareness is not a conclusion. It is a deeply and relentlessly compassionate and loving awakeness to everything that is arising now including to any particular conclusion that may be arising or being held onto as ‘truth.’ The degree of conflict and self-righteousness in your life are good indicators of whether awareness is being treated as a static mental conclusion or whether there is true abiding as actual timeless awareness.

Awareness is naturally secure and confident. It has nothing to prove. This confidence is different than mental certainty. It is a confidence of the heart. It is a confidence with a deep resonance of love, compassion, and pure openness to what is arising now. Conclusions fragment life into pieces. Awareness reveals that the fragments are illusory. It reveals wholeness.

~ From: Reflections of the One Life by Scott Kiloby

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In introducing the audio CD — Discovering Your True Self — Richard Lang asks:

“If I were to ask you who you are, you would probably tell me your name. You might then go on to tell me other things about yourself, such as what you do and where you live.

“This is who you are. It’s how others identify you and how you identify yourself. However, it’s not the whole story about you — it’s not who you really are. You have another identity which is private and secret, which you may or may not be aware of — your True Identity. This is who you are deep down in the centre of your being. If you look there you won’t find your name or personality or anything at all — instead you’ll find pure, silent Consciousness.

“This silent Consciousness is boundless and empty, like space. It’s timeless — it was never born and will never die. And yet, though it’s empty and timeless, it’s endlessly creative and infinitely wise, the source of your life and of everything. If you cultivate awareness of this creative source within you, this pure silent spirit, you’ll find it benefits you in every area of your life.

“The idea of your True Self is not new. You’ll find it in one form or another within each of the world’s major religions. All great mystics have awoken to this Reality. Looking within themselves they’ve found total peace, unfading joy, eternal life. Many of them have tried to share their discovery with others, realizing that most people are unaware of their True Self, and are not receiving therefore the blessings that come with this awareness.

“If you’re not seeing who you really are, not aware of this pure, timeless Consciousness deep within yourself, you’re overlooking one of the most amazing things about yourself, and missing out on the many wonderful gifts it brings with it.”

Sitting next to well-known socialite, Ruthie Plotnik, at a gala ball, a newcomer to the glittering scene couldn’t take his eyes off the magnificent diamond she was wearing. He couldn’t restrain himself, he had to comment on it.

“Sure, it’s wonderful,” she agreed. “It’s the Plotnik Diamond.”

“It’s truly amazing. Tell me about it.”

“Well,” she replied, “unfortunately it has a curse attached to it.”

“A curse!” he exclaimed. “What curse?”

“Mr Plotnik.”

There’s no way *not* to live non-duality — everyone is being lived this way all the time, even if we think we’re not. This is the teaching of non-duality. Non-duality is not something that we must make true. It can’t NOT be so.

Here are some slice-of-life descriptions of experience that you might call mine, say in the last week. And how the being lived has a certain sweet fragrance that isn’t an experience.

My partner, Skye, and I once had a few wonderful slice-of-life exchanges like this, and I still remember them clearly.

Working, commuting on a crowded, hot, muggy, humid subway. Teaching computers, having to talk 8 hours a day some weeks. Friends breaking up. Girlfriend with Chicken pox. Friends living with AIDS, some smiling, some not smiling. Married couple, husband cheating on wife, telling everyone about it, she in pain. My eating too much too late, waking up with a stomach ache. Riding my bike through the city, no breaks, no gears, fixed-gear track bike, Zen-like motion connected to everything going on around …

…Taking dance-skating lessons, loving it but not being very good or having much time to practice. Weekly meditation meeting/satsang. Helping a friend buy new wardrobe. Attending the Budha’s Birthday celebration at a local Chan temple. Talking and corresponding with many people on the phone, in e-mail, in person, about non-duality. Going to the gym. Burning special Japanese incense. Not getting enough sleep. Paying bills. Reading Western philosophers who are similar to Nagarjuna in some respects. ….

The basic fragrance is an unbroken totally sweet miraculousness. Totally unaffected by the details of what happens. Things that happen are not really things at all, and do not happen by magic, or through a mechanistic scientific causal process. But a present miraculousness. Nothing left out.

It is not all pleasant, but it is all fine, perfect is-ness, because there’s no other way for IS-ness to be. Good day, Fine! Bad day, Fine! No difference, no distance. The meditation and bike riding can be seen as metaphors for how everything is, smoothly connected and not separate from anything. Things that aren’t pleasant aren’t in any way more or less separate than things that are pleasant — the difference is the same as the color red versus green.

None of it ever seems like an “I” or “you” is doing it, it’s all very direct, clear, very here and immediate, “things as it is.” There’s no thought that things should be this way, or that they should be some other way. No thought ever of a Greg or any other entity striving or grasping or letting go of anything. No thought that anything needs to be maintained or chased after or watched or kept. No thought that this is separate from what-is. No thought that a gap exists or must be bridged. Everything taking care of itself, in a smooth, uninterrupted flow. And the flow isn’t even a flow — it is just called a flow, the word arising in the context of this writing.

~ From: Standing as Awareness, by Dr. Greg Goode.

Advaita is not monism. Advaita means “not-two.” We and the universe are not “one”: then all distinctions would be destroyed. We are “not-two,” intricately interrelated with everything, both separate, unique *and* united. The astonishment of this dance of “not-two” grows slowly as the mind and heart open in divine love and wisdom.

Imagine that there was a heap of gold and a skillful smith. The smith made fir trees, geraniums, tables, human beings, lamps. Every object had a different shape, a different purpose and identity but was made of the same thing. Look at the sea. All waves are rising and falling differently, in different rhythms, with different volumes. Some catch the light some do not. You can see the separations between the waves but what you also see quite clearly is that all the waves are water. That is what the knowledge of “not-two” is like.

Things retain the separateness which the senses give them, which we use to negotiate this reality, but the illumined mind knows that all things are Brahman or God, waves of one infinite sea of light. You know, in other words, that you and everything and the light that is at all times manifesting everything are “not-two,” and “you” come to exist normally on all levels of the divine creation, and meet “yourself” in all states, events, conditions, beings.

This is sahaja, spontaneous negotiation of, and union with, all dimensions at all moments. Nisargadatta Maharaj explains most lucidly the marvelous transitions to this state: “When the I am myself goes, the I am all comes. When the I am all goes, the ‘I am’ comes. When even ‘I am’ goes, Reality alone is and, in it, every ‘am’ is preserved and glorified.”

It is wonderful that this the most ultimate and holy of all possible ‘experiences’ in this world, that of unity, of advaita, has to be enjoyed by everyone in their own profound solitude, at that diamond point of solitude at which everyone secretly joins and meets God and each other and all things.

This final ‘experience’ kept for this most sacred and secret moment and is too vast an precious to be ever completely communicated. This is the moment when the created one returns to the source of creation — the moment at which all laws, dogmas and techniques that helped the ‘mystic’ (or ’seeker’) arrive at that diamond point vanish in the silence of return to origin.

~ by Andrew Harvey, in Dialogues with a Modern Mystic.

“Advaita (non-duality) does not mean *one* in the sense of eliminating all differences. The differences are present in the *one* in a mysterious way. They are not separated anymore, and yet they are there.”

~ by Bede Griffiths, in: Woven Reflections of Silence and Stillness.

To awaken to the absolute view is profound and transformative, but to awaken from all fixed points of view is the birth of true nonduality….

Enlightenment means the end of all division. It is not simply having an occasional experience of unity beyond all division, it is actually being undivided.

This is what nonduality truly means. It means there is just One Self, without a difference or gap between the profound revelation of Oneness and the way it is perceived and lived every moment of life.

Nonduality means that the inner revelation and the outer expression of the personality are one and the same. So few seem to be interested in the greater implication contained within profound spiritual experiences, because it is the contemplation of these implications which quickly brings to awareness the inner divisions existing within most seekers.

~ by Adyashanti