The Seer

“When the dream self is seen to be nothing but an illusion, physical death is no longer feared. The fear of death arises only because the dream self believes it is a real entity totally separate from the rest of life — an entity that can die. But your real identity is beyond the cycle of physical birth and death. When the fear of death dies, the fear of living goes with it. That is non-dual freedom.”

~ From: Reflections of the One Life, by Scott Kiloby

The Awakened Eye blog is about the eye that perceives without labeling — we could also call it the innocent eye, or the eye of beginner’s mind.

Many artists and artisans have understood that the practice of drawing and engaging in creative encounters in the visual arts can — by making obvious one’s conditioned reactions — open the mind to another way of seeing, a way that transcends habitual dualistic assumptions.

There have been, and are, many wise teachers who speak of this transcendence of duality as one’s original or true state — a state which we seem compelled to seek and reject simultaneously. Their teachings are sometimes referred to as Advaita, which means “one without a second” — or more simply, non-duality. In this context the awakened eye is synonymous with the awakened “I”; this topic forms the wider agenda of this blog.

This blog and the website have been conceived as places where ideas and teachings on this topic put forward by artists, educators, scientists, philosophers, sages and saints, can be accessed. There will also be personal notes from she-who-scribbles, and hopefully plenty of useful links.

The author, Miriam Louisa Simons, says: “As the website and this blog develop, I hope you find inspiration and encouragement there to support your inquiry, and that you realize that your awakened eye — your vast, open, non-dual understanding is here, this very moment, reading these words …”

Also, Matt King has just launched the Non-Duality America blog which is devoted to celebrating the message of nonduality and bringing it to a wider audience. This blog is characterized by openness, inclusion and the diversity of voices that are now speaking about the truth of our beingness.

If we have learned
Our lessons from life’s
Losses and failures, and
All that makes it worthwhile…

If we have learned
From our journey
And found the new fullness
Of our human-hood,
We begin to see
The patterns beneath
The surface of things.

Everywhere there is
Something that is lasting…
That doesn’t change
In the center of all
The changes made…
All along the journey
To what we are,
Where we are
In this moment.

Deep and untouchable
Divine patterning
Like arrows
Pointing always to
Something undefined by mind,
Something still
but in motion,
Not old or new.

Gathering both together
Seamlessly being
What has always been
In the unabashed
Nakedness of reality,
Just here, just this,
Unadorned.

~ by Alice Gardner

A big dog goes into a Western Union office, puts his front paws up on the counter in front of a clerk, and says in a husky but quite audible voice: “I want to send a telegram.”

“What’s your message then?” asked the astonished clerk.

“Woof woof, woof woof, woof woof woof woof woof!” replies the dog.

The clerk diligently writes it down, looks at the dog and says “We have a promo going on today, ten words for the price of nine. Shall I add one more woof?”

The dog replies “Then it wouldn’t make any sense would it?”

~ Passed on by my dog, Turlow (who can almost talk). Thanks Mr T.

All things, all beings and all activities, no matter how ordinary, are equal expressions of the Infinite.

There is no more or less Infinite, no higher or lower Infinite. Therefore, all attempts to either find or hold onto the Infinite are based in illusion. And illusion itself is none other than the Infinite.

The Infinite uses all measures in order to awaken in all the various forms in existence. It uses birth, life, death, happiness, sorrow, clarity, and delusion in order to awaken.

All of your seeking is in reality the activity of the Infinite as well. No matter how far astray or deluded you become, you can never get a single step away from the Infinite’s embrace.

If you could all at once stop believing your dreaming mind and be completely still right in the midst of your present state, the Infinite would effortlessly present itself.

~ Adyashanti

When the ego is at war, know that it is no more than an illusion that is fighting to survive. That illusion thinks it is you. It is not easy at first to be there as the witnessing Presence, especially when the ego is in survival mode or some emotional pattern from the past has become activated, but once you have had a taste of it, you will grow in Presence power, and the ego will lose its grip on you.

And so a power comes into your life that is far greater than the ego, greater than the mind. All that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it, since awareness and ego are incompatible.

Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment. This is why we may also call it Presence. The ultimate purpose of human existence, which is to say, your purpose is to bring that power into this world. And this is also why becoming free of the ego cannot be made into a goal to be attained at some point in the future. Only Presence can free you of the ego, and you can only be present Now, not yesterday or tomorrow. only Presence can undo the past in you and thus transform your state of consciousness.

What is spiritual realization? The belief that you are spirit? No, that’s a thought. A little closer to the truth than the thought that believes you are who your birth certificate says you are, but still a thought. Spiritual realization is to see clearly that what I perceive, experience, think, or feel is ultimately not who I am, that I cannot find myself in all those things that continuously pass away.

The Buddha was probably the first human being to see this clearly, and so anata (no self) became one of the central points of his teaching. And when Jesus said, “Deny thyself,” what he meant was : Negate (and thus undo) the illusion of self. If the self – ego – were truly who I am, it would be absurd to “deny” it.

What remains is the light of consciousness in which perceptions, experiences, thoughts, and feelings come and go. That is Being, that is the deeper, true I. When I know myself as that, whatever happens in my life is no longer of absolute but only of relative importance. I honor it, but it loses its absolute seriousness, its heaviness.

The only thing that ultimately matters is this: Can I sense my essential Beingness, the I Am, in the background of my life at all times? To be more accurate, can I sense the I Am that I Am at this moment? Can I sense my essential identity as consciousness itself? Or am I losing myself in what happens, losing myself in the mind, in the world?

~ by Eckhart Tolle

“Learn to live without self concern. For this you must know your own true being as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious. Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas, and live by truth alone”.

~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“All the deep wisdom texts talk about nonduality,” Gil said. “Can you explain this to me?”

Hamid had become more preoccupied by Oy, who had stopped to photograph the paw prints of a large tiger that had preceeded us toward the pass …

Gil persisted. “Does it mean that whatever we see is actually taking place inside our heads and therefore does not really exist?”

“Something like that,” Hamid responded … “Enlightenment philosophy reveals that what appears as external and self-existing is ultimately a function of consciousness; it has not inherent existence. To say that reality is nondual doesn’t mean that all is illusion, but that appearances arise in conjunction with our perception. When we recognize that perception dictates our reality, the forces of greed, anger, and delusion lessen and we attain a freer responsiveness to the events around us.”

“You mean we don’t get attached?”

“Right, we just recognize them as the play of consciousness, a kind of virtual reality. This isn’t just artful fantasy,” Hamid continued. “Science recognizes the same thing; that reality does not exist separately from our perception.”

“So what’s real then?” Gil asked. “Just this collective and intersecting delusion?”

“No,” Hamid answered. “That’s the whole point of Enlightenment — to wake up from this collective dream and to recognize that there are no inherent boundaries between external reality and the circuitry of consciousnessness. If we could live in full awareness of this nondual reality, there would no longer be any basis for alienation, greed, anger, fear, and all the other mental poisons that the teaching speaks about. We would take responsibility for our own perceptions and begin to work with them, in full consciousness of our interconnectedness with other beings.”

~ From: The Heart of the World: A Journey to the Last Secret Place, by Ian Baker

A professional genealogist had accepted a very handsome fee from a wealthy client to research his family tree.

In writing up his report, the genealogist was dismayed to learn that one of the client’s ancestors had been executed in the electric chair.

Wanting to be tactful, he wrote up the relative as follows:

“Your Uncle Henry occupied the chair of Applied Electricity at a leading government institution. He was attached to his chair by the strongest of ties, and his sudden passing came as a great shock.”

~ Nigel Rees

“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” ~ Paul

In essence the entire spiritual endeavor is a very simple thing: Spirituality is essentially about awakening as the intuitive awareness of unity (oneness with God) and dissolving our attachment to egoic consciousness. By saying that spirituality is a very simple thing, I do not mean to imply that it is either an easy or difficult endeavor. For some it may be very easy, while for others it may be more difficult. There are many factors and influences that play a role in one’s awakening to the greater reality Jesus called, the kingdom of God, but the greatest factors by far are one’s sincerity, one-pointedness, and courage.

Sincerity is a word that I often use in teaching to convey the importance of being rooted in the qualities of honesty, authenticity, and genuineness. There can be nothing phony or contrived in our motivations if we are to fully awaken to our natural and integral state of unified awareness. While teachings and teachers can point us inward to “the peace beyond all understanding,” it is always along the thread of our inner sincerity, or lack thereof, that we will travel.

For the ego is clever and artful in the ways of deception, and only the honesty and genuineness of our ineffable being (Christ nature) are beyond its influence. At each step and with each breath we are given the option of acting and responding, both inwardly and outwardly, from the conditioning of egoic consciousness which values control and separation above all else, or from the intuitive awareness of unity with God, or Christ-consciousness, which resides in the inner silence of our being.

Without sincerity it is so very easy for even the greatest spiritual teachings to become little more than playthings of the mind. In our fast-moving world of quick fixes, big promises, and short attention spans, it is easy to remain on a very surface level of consciousness without even knowing it. While the awakened state is ever present and closer than your feet, hands, or eyes, it cannot be approached in a casual or insincere fashion.

There is a reason that seekers the world over are instructed to remove their shoes and quiet their voices before entering into sacred spaces. The message being conveyed is that one’s ego must be “taken off and quieted” before access to the divine is granted. All of our ego’s attempts to control, demand, and plead with reality have no influence on it other than to make life more conflicted and difficult. But an open mind and sincere heart have the power to grant us access to realizing what has always been present all along.

When people asked the great Indian sage Nisargadatta what he thought was the most important quality to have in order to awaken, he would say “earnestness.” When you are earnest, you are both sincere and one-pointed; to be one-pointed means to keep your attention on one thing. Paul said, “This one thing I do …” I have found that the most challenging thing for most spiritual seekers to do is to stay focused on one thing for very long.

The mind jumps around with its concerns and questions from moment to moment. Rarely does it stay with one question long enough to penetrate it deeply. In spirituality it is very important not to let the egoic mind keep jumping from one concern to the next like an untrained dog. Remember, awakening is about realizing your true nature — the unborn, deathless Light of Christ — and dissolving all attachment to egoic consciousness.

My grandmother who passed away a few years ago used to say to me jokingly, “Getting old is not for wimps.” She was well aware of the challenges of an aging body, and while she never complained or felt any pity for herself, she knew firsthand that aging had its challenges as well as its benefits. There was a courage within my grandmother that served her well as she approached the end of her life, and I am happy to say that when she passed, it was willingly and without fear.

In a similar way the process of coming into a full and mature awakening requires courage, as not only our view of life but life itself transforms to align itself with the inner mystic vision — the ‘God’ dimension. A sincere heart is a robust and courageous heart willing to let go in the face of the great unknown expanse of Being — an expanse which the egoic mind has no way of knowing or understanding.

When one’s awareness opens beyond the dream state of egoic consciousness to the infinite no-thing-ness of intuitive awareness, it is common for the ego to feel much fear and terror as this transition begins. While there is nothing to fear about our natural state of infinite Being, such a state is beyond the ego’s ability to understand, and as always, egos fear whatever they do not understand and cannot control.

As soon as our identity leaves the ego realm and assumes its rightful place as the infinite no-thing-ness/every-thing-ness of awareness (Christ-consciousness), all fear vanishes in the same manner as when we awaken from a bad dream. In the same manner in which my grandmother said, “Getting old is not for wimps,” it can also be said that making the transition from the dream state to the mature, awakened state requires courage.

Sincerity, one-pointedness, and courage are indispensable qualities in awakening from the dream state of ego to the peace and ease of awakened Being. All there is left to do is to live it.

~ Adyashanti 2008