The Seer

On the human level, many give their lives in dedicated selfless service of mankind, and there’s nothing more noble than this. But Jesus said, despite all he did, “Greater works than these shall ye do,” and that is where the work, the consciousness, the vision, and the awareness of the mystic comes in.

Indeed, “among all those born of woman [the mortal] there is none greater than John the Baptist; yet even the very least in the kingdom is greater than he.” Such is the kingdom of Consciousness.

Universal Christ-Consciousness constitutes the true nature of Individual Being and is that towards which we journey. It is the coming of that Day of Awakening for which we must prepare, the awakening to Christ within ourselves; then the realization of Its omnipresence, the omnipresence of the One Indivisible Life.

This is the goal and Call of God in man, the life and world God intended for Man.

Any sense of waiting for “Christ to come” or the “Messiah to return” is but the out-picturing and perpetuation of man’s ignorant belief that Christ, “The Messiah” of every faith, is not ever present; as if Reality ever went anywhere and if only Reality could come back, all would be well.

Yet how many there are who well-meaningly entertain such a belief, thereby overlooking the original revelation of the Masters of all religion throughout all time that God constitutes Individual Being and is ever present.

Awakening reveals the nature of “this world” as a state of hypnotism, and the true nature of Man as eternal through his oneness with God.

“I and the Father are One” is not a personalized reference, true of one man alone, and is certainly not true of any “person,” no matter who, but the truth of Individual Being universally. When Jesus admonished, “Why callest thou me good? There is but One Good, thy Father in heaven,” he was revealing the good in us all through the Father of us all, rendering us all Children of the same Father.

Then when he went on to say, “but I go unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God,” he was saying that all, unconditionally, are children of the One Father and as such, each one an emanation and offspring of the fullness of God; that we are all Children of God, “My Beloved Son,” that One in all, that One that is all, “in whom I am well pleased,” who through true recognition is known to be none other than Christ, the “Son of the Living God.”

It’s a state of being, potentially available to and attainable by all men, in which man realizes and experiences himself as that One Divine Presence. It is a dissolution of all that man the mortal has ever known and a revelation of all that Man the Immortal truly IS and has ever been.

It is Man’s true eternal Identity as the Child, or Son, of God.

~ From: The Day of Awakening, by Tony Titshall. See: TonyTitshall.com

The real search isn’t a search into tomorrow, or to anywhere other than now. It’s starting to look into the very nature of this moment. In order to do that, you have to “stand in your own two shoes,” as my teacher used to say. What she meant by “standing in your own two shoes” is you have to look clearly into your own experience.

Stop trying to have someone else’s experience. Stop chasing freedom or happiness, or even spiritual enlightenment. Stand in your own shoes, and examine closely: What’s happening right here and right now? Is it possible to let go of trying to make anything happen? Even in this moment, there may be some suffering, there may be some unhappiness, but even if there is, is it possible to no longer push against it, to try to get rid of it, to try to get somewhere else?

I understand that our instinct is to move away from what’s not comfortable, to try to get somewhere better, but as my teacher used to say, “You need to take the backward step, not the forward step.” The forward step is always moving ahead, always trying to attain what you want, whether it’s a material possession or inner peace. The forward step is very familiar: seeking and more seeking, striving and more striving, always looking for peace, always looking for happiness, looking for love.

To take the backward step means to just turn around, reverse the whole process of looking for satisfaction on the outside, and look at precisely the place where you are standing. See if what you are looking for isn’t already present in your experience.

So, again, to lay the groundwork for awakening, we must first let go of struggling. You let go by acknowledging that the end of struggle is actually present in your experience now. The end of struggle is peace. Even if your ego is struggling, even if you’re trying to figure this out and “do it right,” if you really look, you might just see that struggle is happening within a greater context of peace, within an inner stillness. But if you try to make stillness happen, you’ll miss it. If you try to make peace happen, you’ll miss it. This is more like a process of recognition, giving recognition to a stillness that is naturally present.

We’re not bringing struggle to an end. We’re not trying to not struggle anymore. We’re just noticing that there is a whole other dimension to consciousness that, in this very moment, isn’t struggling, isn’t resentful, isn’t trying to get somewhere. You can literally feel it in your body. You can’t think your way to not struggling. There isn’t a three-point plan of how not to struggle. It’s really a one-point plan: Notice that the peace, this end of struggling, is actually already present.

The process is therefore one of recognition. We recognize that there is peace now, even if your mind is confused. You may see that even when you touch upon peace now, the mind is so conditioned to move away from it that it will try to argue with the basic fact of peace’s existence within you: “I can’t be at peace yet because I have to do this, or that, or this question hasn’t been answered, or that question hasn’t been answered, or so-and-so hasn’t apologized to me.”

There are all sorts of ways that the egoic mind can insist that something needs to happen, something needs to change, in order for you to be at peace. But this is part of the dream of the mind. We’re all taught that something needs to change for us to experience true peace and freedom.

Just imagine for a moment that this isn’t true. Even though you may believe that it’s true, just imagine for a moment: What would it be like if you didn’t need to struggle, if you didn’t need to make an effort to find peace and happiness? What would that feel like now? And just take a moment to be quiet and see if peace or stillness is with you in this moment.

~ From: Falling Into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering, by Adyashanti

I saw myself as a rock-pool on the edge of a vast ocean.
Late in the afternoon, as the sun sank toward the far horizon,
I became aware of a shining path, stretching o’er the distant waters,
Beckoning, it seemed, to something more than sea-weed, sand and anemones.
I suddenly longed to follow that Luminous Way but did not know how
Nor even if it were possible … for one set in earthbound-rock, as I was.

Then, as the tide rose, a few small wavelets washed o’er my rocky rim and into me.
I welcomed these infusions from the great immensity beyond and longed for more.
The tide rose higher and soon I was overflowing with its cool, translucent freshness.
How blessed, I thought, was I to receive of the ocean’s bounty.
But still, relentless in its high purpose, the tide came on, and on.
Till I was quite overwhelmed and submerged beneath the all-filling, all-embracing sea.

The deepening waters above and around became evermore still and silent.
Even the once-welcomed waves were now strangers to this tranquil realm.
And then the gnosis gleamed … and shone … more radiantly than any sun,
Revealing … that in truth, I was not in this luminous ocean, nor it in me,
But something far more wondrous — much more than I’d ever imagined,
Verily, there was only the omnipresent ocean — always … nothing else!

It was the realm of Beingness, a formless Self long forgotten by a form.
Nothing had been lost … except someone’s idea of being just a rock-pool.

~ Peter Stafford Sumner

Until you actually awaken to deeper levels of freedom, it’s inevitable that you will try to hold onto a story — some thought, belief, concept, or philosophy — which gives you the flavor and feeling of the freedom you seek. This is okay up to a point, but eventually it will become clear to you that even the words and philosophies, no matter how accurate or succinct they may be, have to be released.

One of the last public talks I attended with Jean Klein was in a church hall in Sausalito, California. There were fifty or sixty people in the room, waiting patiently for Jean to come in and take his seat at the front. When he arrived, he had to be helped to his chair. He seemed very old, thin, and frail, yet his gracious European bearing was still very much in evidence, and he was dressed as elegantly as ever.

He sat down with some difficulty and smiled at us. A beautiful, clear light emanated from his eyes. We sat in silence for a while, and then he began to speak. He talked of the need to see through the “person” so we could come to our real presence, our true being. There were some questions, and subsequent dialogue.

About half-way through the evening, a serious-looking young woman in a business suit raised her hand. When Jean acknowledged her, she stood up. She looked like a banker, or a stockbroker. “Dr. Klein,” she asked, “what is your philosophy of life?”

There was a long silence. Then Jean beamed one of those disarming smiles of his. “Madame, I have no philosophy … That is why I am a happy man.”

Laughter rippled throughout the room. The young woman smiled rather self-consciously, and then sat down.

For months after the exchange, I found myself thinking about Jean’s words. It was so simple. Forget the philosophies, the stories, the beliefs, the theories and just abide in the openness and freedom of our true nature. Then we really will be happy. We’ll live out of wholeness, with wisdom and compassion, and we’ll do what needs to be done — without fuss, without bother.

But if we hold onto a philosophy, a belief system, or an agenda of any kind, we create a barrier to the unfolding of something deeper, something more authentic, fresh, and alive. When our beliefs reinforce the idea of being a separate “self,” a lonely wave on the ocean of life, it is that separation that breeds feelings of isolation, insecurity, and fear.

But when we let go of all philosophies, all stories, and just be, happiness is ours.

~ Jim Dreaver, author of End Your Story, Begin Your Life.

~ Jim, originally from Auckland and now living in Los Angeles, is coming to Australia this month! He’ll be leading a workshop in Perth Fri. Nov 18 (free) Sat. Nov. 19 & Sun. Nov. 20. To book, see:
Jim’s Website or contact Pete on 08 9336 4737 or via: peter@peterspearls.com.au

Now I come to that which is the most difficult to explain — the meeting with Eternity. While I was still on my way, I noticed how Time and Space had loosened my handcuffs. Yearnings and painful longings were diminished, whether it be toward places or people whom I had become attached. Not that my feelings had grown cold, but I could no longer feel separation with the old force. There is a condition in which it ceases to exist.

Every object which we know has been christened by Time and Space. Every name means limitation, every word is an expression for something in distinction to something else. In the everlasting Now there is neither Space nor Time, neither limitation nor distinction. Even the language of the gods would be inadequate to describe it, and the ‘language of Heaven’ cannot be spoken or written; it is lived.

Tongue and pen can tell lies, the language of Heaven is the life of true reality in man and imparts itself directly from soul to soul, with those who are wholly and really living in truth. Words cannot describe the wordless, and I am no artist in handling words, even within the realm of words. But now I will try to express myself on the subject as plainly and simply as I can. I select a summer day’s meeting between Time and Eternity and describe it in as far as it can be described.

I had been sitting in the garden working and had just finished. That afternoon I was to go to Copenhagen, but it was still an hour and a half before the departure of the train. The weather was beautiful, the air clear and pure. I lighted a cigar and sat down in one of the easy-chairs in front of the house. It was still and peaceful — around me and within me. Too good, in fact, to allow one to think much about anything. I just sat there.

Then it began to come, that infinite tenderness, which is purer and deeper than that of lovers, or of a father toward his child. It was in me, but it also came to me, as the air came to my lungs. As usual, the breathing became sober and reverent, became, as it were, incorporeal; I inhaled the tenderness. Needless to say the cigar went out. I did not cast it away like a sin, I simply had no use for it.

This deep tenderness which I felt, first within myself and then even stronger around and above me, extended further and further — it became all-present. I saw it, and it developed into knowing, into knowing all, at the same time it became power, omnipotence, and drew me into the eternal Now.

That was my first actual meeting with Reality; because such is the real life: a Now which is and a Now which happens. There is no beginning and no end. I cannot say any more about this Now. I sat in my garden, but there was no place in the world where I was not. During the whole time my consciousness was clear and sober. I sat in the garden and acknowledged it with a smile. There was something to smile over, for time and space, characteristics of the Now which happens were so to speak ‘outside’.

But what is the Now which happens? It is continuously active creation with all its birth throes. I saw time and space as instruments or functions of this creation. They come into existence with it and in the course of it, and with it they come to an end. The Newly Created stands in the Now and discards these tools. The freedom, the real Being begins.

~ Johannes Anker-Larsen (1874-1957), from: With the Door Open

Arthur Stace, or “Mr Eternity” as we kids used to call him, was one of Sydney’s eccentrics. He was born in 1884 in a Balmain slum of parents who died of drinking methylated spirits. He had little schooling and by his mid-twenties he had only ever worked as a brothel pimp and a two-up school cockatoo, had a long police record and was already a chronic alcoholic.

One night he went to a Christian mission-meeting in Sydney because he had heard they served tea and hot pies afterwards. That night, Arthur Stace was converted. For the next twenty-four years, he worked tirelessly, caring for derelicts and down-and-outers of all kinds, preaching in the open air and visiting mental institutions, men’s hostels and the leprosarium.

In 1930. Arthur Stace heard John Ridley preach. “I wish I could shout “Eternity” through the streets of Sydney,” Ridley called out. The words forcibly struck Arthur. After the meeting, outside on the footpath, he found a piece of chalk in his pocket. He felt a powerful urge and with the chalk wrote “Eternity” on the pavement.

“The funny thing is,” he said later, “That I could hardly write my own name. I couldn’t have spelt “Eternity” for a hundred quid, but it came out smoothly and in a beautiful copperplate script. I couldn’t understand it and I still can’t.”

For the next thirty-seven years, Arthur chalked the word “Eternity” into the footpaths of Sydney and into the character of the city. He also chalked it into the minds and lives of countless people who testify to the power of his one-word sermon. Later on I met Arthur when he spoke at our church — a small, quiet man in an old suit.

He said eternity was something for all of us, something to lift us out of our ordinariness, out of our sin and give us hope. Arthur died in 1967, but today, near the Sydney Square waterfall, set in the paving stones in letters about 21cm high in white wrought aluminium, is the old word “Eternity” exactly as he used to write it. Arthur Stace is still held in the city’s memory.

~ by Rowland Croucher, in: High Mountains Deep Valleys – Eternity in our hearts.

It was a quiet way –
He asked if I was his –
I made no answer of the Tongue
But answer of the Eyes –
And then He bore me on
Before this mortal noise
With swiftness, as of Chariots
And distance, as of Wheels.
This World did drop away
As Acres from the feet
Of one that leaneth from Balloon
Upon an Ether street.
The Gulf behind was not,
The Continents were new –
Eternity it was before
Eternity was due.
No Seasons were to us –
It was not Night nor Morn –
But Sunrise stopped upon the place
And fastened it in Dawn.”

~ Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886), From: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Ed. Thomas Johnson.

Death ALWAYS Delivers ~ Jed McKenna

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The teaching is based on nondual wisdom. It is called nondual because ultimately, there is no difference between the spiritual and the material. It is all one reality. The nondual approach is also known as the direct path to awakening. It confronts the one obstacle to true inner freedom — the belief in the sense of “I” or “me” as having a real, separate existence apart from consciousness—and reveals it to be the illusion that it is.

The world between our ears, in other words, the world of “I,” “me,” and “mine” is not real. It is a fabrication, a story we have spent a lifetime making up and believing. By inwardly examining our thoughts, beliefs, reactions, and ideas about ourselves, we begin to realize our personal stories are always changing.

The more we see this, the more the internal drama falls away. When we are simply present with our breathing, our body sensations and feelings, and our immediate environment itself, the story lets go of us. We start to know ourselves as the pure, luminous awareness which sees and experiences reality here and now, including the stories we tell ourselves.

This knowing may be somewhat intellectual at first, but gradually it becomes embodied. More and more frequently it becomes our lived experience, and manifests as a feeling of ease, flow, and relaxed yet alert presence. As our head clears and our heart opens further, we awaken to the true beauty and meaning of life. The mind is then no longer a distraction, but a powerful ally. Our life purpose becomes clear and love ultimately guides us in everything we do.

My upcoming Perth workshop (see below) will support you in making the shift toward inner freedom. Much of the content is drawn from actual dialogues I’ve had with countless truth seekers, both privately and in workshops, over many years. In addition, I tell many stories to clarify my meaning, as well as offering short mini-meditations in each chapter.

Woven into each session is the entire, seamless, nondual approach to awakening, which states that realization is a matter of seeing you are neither your story nor your thoughts. You are the clear, ever-present consciousness which is aware of everything, including the contents of your mind. Throughout this book I will emphasize this teaching, repeat it in many different ways, from many different angles, again and again. This is the way to have it sink into your mind and consciousness.

For each participant, it should become very clear as to what is involved in seeing through your own “story” and letting go of whatever beliefs, ideas, or concepts of “self” you may still be holding onto. The more you are able to simply be present and release all you inwardly hold onto (by seeing it is not real), the more you will find yourself relaxing into the awakened awareness that is your true nature.

Then your times of inner peace and freedom will occur more and more often, and the periods of conflict, stress, and suffering will be fewer and shorter in duration. Increasingly, a heartfelt sense of love and gratitude for life will be your predominant emotional reality. Then you can share the gift of awakening with others. You can share the new story you are creating for your life. In this way, our world will gradually be made whole.

Eventually, the day will come when you will pass through the final door of self-knowing. A profound and unshakeable sense of ease, presence, and beauty will then be yours.

~ Jim Dreaver, author of End Your Story, Begin Your Life.

~ Jim, originally from Auckland and now living in Los Angeles, is coming to New Zealand and Australia in November. He will be leading a workshop in Perth Fri. Nov 18 (free) Sat Nov. 19 & Sun. Nov. 20. To book, see:
Jim’s Website or contact Pete on 08 9336 4737 or via peter@peterspearls.com.au

Lying in bed,
Luxuriating in a few minutes between waking and arising,
I listen to the sound of my breathing…
Where will I be when the bellows are silent?
What will I be?
After years of searching within, I discovered the answer –
I recognized what I am
that subtends the waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep states,
that remains unchanging with the passing of nights and days,
of seasons, of years, of life.
Life and death I now see in perspective …
And see that they don’t affect me.

~ by Art Ticknor