The Seer

When we are living in confusion, in suffering, in the ego, it seems natural to deify or look up to those who appear to have all the answers, who appear to be very spiritual – the gurus and teachers of this world. Of course, they are a real and valuable asset to society and the evolution of mankind, but we put them on a pedestal at our peril.

It may be true that someone who is widely regarded as being an ‘enlightened master’ has great clarity about life and, in many respects, may appear to be light years ahead of everyone else, but in essence his true nature and our true nature are no different.

The person may be different, the energy may be different — but essentially what he is we are also, except that he is conscious of it and we are not. His body will die and his mind will go, just as will happen with our body and mind. He, as an individual, can no more escape death than we can — except that we would like to and he is not bothered.

A truly ‘enlightened’ master will never tell you that he is great or that he is enlightened. He will never tell you that he alone can realize the ultimate, that he is a perfect master or avatar, whilst you are an ordinary human being. There are people who will tell you these things, who will make enlightenment out to be something exclusive.

There are people who will put themselves on a pedestal and encourage you to bow down before them, to serve them, to idolize them. The world is not short of a good supply of such ‘teachers’. But do these ‘teachers’ encourage you to awaken inwardly to the point where you don’t need them anymore?

When one goes with such a teacher, one instantly gives away one’s power, one’s autonomy, and one becomes dependent on their grace, on their goodwill, on their method of teaching. Of course, such teachers do offer a refuge, a support and advice for those who, for whatever reason, do not wish, or are not able, to take decisions or responsibilities for themselves in this life.

But if one is seeking ‘enlightenment’, it is better to go to a teacher who does not have pretensions about his or her status in life. It is better to go to someone who offers you a pure and unconditional mirror in which to see into your true nature, rather than one which is clouded with ego and the spirit of control and manipulation.

We all have the potential to be awake, to be conscious, in the silent emptiness of our true nature. However, there are thousands of us who have studied spiritual writings and scriptures for decades and still are unable to break through the enclosure of the mind, to taste the nectar of realization directly.

Thought cannot take us there. No prescribed practices will jolt us into this realization. No book will lead us there. The fact is that there is nowhere to go, nothing to realize and no one to realize it. We have created this myth about enlightenment and the enlightened seer, out of our own frustration and confusion. We have set them apart from ourselves, as something to achieve, something to reach out for, and in doing so have made them unattainable.

Enlightenment is something we have put on a pedestal, knowing that it is beyond our grasp. Even though the enlightened seer may tell us that all we need to do is to rid ourselves of the notion that we are not enlightened, still we are unable to put this notion, this concept aside.

So where do we go from here? Clearly, any move we make in any direction is a mistake. So, we stay where we are, fully experiencing our unclarity, our confusion, our frustration. But, instead of indulging in emotional reaction and negative moods, we simply stay where we are. We live our life, aware of our thoughts, our feelings, our moods and emotions. We do our work, raise our family, whilst all the time watching what arises in consciousness. We see the play of the world, of life, and we stand back from any emotional involvement in it.

There are wars here and injustices there. We may work for peace in the world or try to put right injustices that are taking place, but we continue to stand back from emotional involvement. In doing so, compassion may arise in the heart. When we get involved emotionally, there is a personal reaction.

This personal reaction neither solves the problem nor allows us to move on. When compassion arises, it comes with an all-seeing awareness of the suffering of all humanity. It takes us away from personal reaction into effective action. This compassion spirits us closer to realization. It takes us out of the ego, out of the personal, into the universal. We are then no longer concerned about personal realization. The realization comes as a natural side effect of the blossoming of compassion in our heart and mind.

It is natural to have respect for those who have greater knowledge, understanding and wisdom than ourselves. But it is also a mistake to get pulled in by appearances. Be careful of the one who stands before you offering sugar and spice. What’s in his other hand? Why is he so keen to get your attention?

There are many characters in life who have learned how to act in order to get what they want. If someone keeps telling you he is a good man, does it not arouse your suspicion? If someone goes around under the banner of ‘enlightened master’, do you not have a few questions to ask? Of course, the teacher doesn’t always go around claiming that he’s an enlightened master (though some are not ashamed to do this), but he often doesn’t try to prevent his followers from doing so.

In my own experience, every teacher I ever met who really impressed me deeply, made no such claims. The moment that someone does make such claims, it gives away the fact that they are living in duality, in separation, in the ego. The bigger the guru, the more likely it is that they have fallen into this trap.

We take their advice at our peril. Listening to the voice of our own true nature is what we really need to trust in. Then we need no outward teacher. The outward teacher then becomes, maybe, a source of inspiration and a motivating force rather than someone on whom we become dependent.

~ From: The Texture of Beingby Roy Whenary, Web site: >>>Lotus Harmony

Dear Raphael,

Thanks for clarifying your situation for me … I now have a better idea of where you are in your life-experience.

With regard to the feelings of depression etc. which have arisen in your awareness over the past eight years, I take it that you’ve been having some therapy or counselling for this condition and that this is helping you return to a more normal state of wellness. Is that so, or have you been following some form or ’self-healing’? If you feel comfortable about it, you may like to tell me something of how the improvement came about.

One important thing we all need to know is that inner peace does not come about as a result of thinking or because one ‘masters’ one’s thoughts etc. If that were so, only highly intelligent people would experience inner peace and content, but that is obviously not so.

Peace is lost the moment we resist the way things are. We either want something we don’t have, don’t want something we do have or pass judgement by convincing ourselves that things ’should’ be different to what they are.

So, the way to find inner peace is to be able to accept the way things are at any given moment. That doesn’t mean you can’t try to improve your situation if you feel it is a bad one, but at least you can say to yourself, “Well, this is the way things are right now … is there anything I can do about it?” And if there is, do it.

I and many thousands of others, many known to me personally, have found the writings of Eckhart Tolle very helpful and indeed, quite liberating, in getting free of mind-made suffering and finding lasting inner peace. Eckhart is not the only teacher sharing this timeless wisdom but he is one of the clearest.

I would strongly suggest that you persevere not only with his book, ‘The Power of Now’, but also that you get and read his second major book, ‘A New Earth’. Eckhart has read both these books onto CD disks and I’d recommend that you get hold of these if you can and listen to them. There’s something about Eckhart’s voice that helps the understanding of these life-changing teachings.

Whether you read or listen, do not try to ‘comprehend’ everything Eckhart is saying. Just pass over the bits you can’t grasp straight away, just as you would put aside a bit of tough gristle while eating an otherwise enjoyable and nutritious meal. I myself could not understand everything Eckhart said at the first reading, but later, as I reread his books, it all became wonderfully clear and freeing.

What Eckhart is trying to say about time is essentially this … instead of feeling regret or guilt about the past, and/or anxiety or dread about the future (psychological time), we can just focus on this present moment, or, if you like the Now, enjoy what it has to offer, or at the very least, make the best of whatever is happening for us.

Actually, he is trying to help us to see that we are really beings of pure consciousness or awareness, that can never become injured or ill. Illnesses can and do happen to our body and mind structures, but these are temporary episodes, and do not affect our true nature, which simply observes all these comings and goings in and around our person.

When we discover who we really are, instead of what we appear to be or other people tell us we are, then we find that we can find new and creative ways to manage the arising challenges of our unique life-experience. Healing happens naturally when we don’t fight with what is at any given time and simply allow it to be. It’s a bit like allowing a cloud to be a cloud and knowing that it will eventually pass … and maybe other clouds will appear etc. and so on.

All the great sages point to the truth that there is a great providence guiding our lives and that ultimately, we aren’t separate from it in any way. That’s why the saint, Julian of Norwich, was able to say with such confidence centuries ago: “All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

So, Raphael, of course you have everything to look forward to, but don’t let that fact keep you from experiencing the wonder and richness of THIS moment, and the ‘next’ one, and etc. etc. etc.

You asked: “duz luv always hurt?” The answer to that, Ade, depends on where you are in yourself. If you’re immersed in your ’story’ and phenomena like thoughts and feelings, then, yes, love from this source always hurts.

I’m sure you know the reason why — love that comes from the ’soul’ and fixes on an ‘object’ makes us vulnerable … we open ourselves up to having our felt needs met or not met, to great happiness or bitter disappointment, pleasure or pain etc. etc.

Because nobody can fully or always satisfy the emotional needs of another, we are each bound to suffer if we look to other people or things to make us happy all, or most, of the time. We expect more from others than they can give and look for happiness in the wrong place … out there!

A love that focuses on some form always, however deeply disguised, inevitably has a hidden agenda that goes something like ,,, “I’ll remain truly happy if you do what I want you to do for me.” In other words, love that rises no higher than the level of form is a essentially a love that is dependent on or caused by someone or something else.

On the other hand, true love … the only love that lasts … arises from your true nature … your ‘formless’ Self … which some also call your unconditioned Self. This love is uncaused … it doesn’t rely on something else to inspire or engender it … and this love NEVER hurts … it just goes on shining whether it is reflected back or not. Nothing can ever touch your true Self of injure it in any way whatsoever … it just IS … always.

You can always tell the difference between ‘thought-based, emotional love’ and true love quite simply. Mind-made or emotional love is judgmental while true love is not. Love that arises from the story of ‘me’ inevitably thinks, “S/he should do/be etc. etc.” or “S/he aught to or aught not to have etc. etc.” and this soon leads to mind-made suffering and depression.

If we can ’step back’ inwardly and simply ‘watch’ judgments arising in our awareness, they will not take hold of us but drift on by like passing clouds. If we simply ‘notice’ our thinking processes and emotional shifts from the vantage point of spacious awareness, we find that there’s a loving acceptance of whatever arises in our world.

We notice the phenomena that come and go in our awareness, then notice that awareness itself does NOT come and go but always and already IS.

This pure, untouched, untouchable Consciousness is what you really are, Ade, and as you identify with ‘this’ rather than your transitory thoughts and feelings, I think you will find you are experiencing a true love that never hurts because it is never in opposition to anything that arises.

Your mind can be a wonderful tool but it can also be an obstacle to Self discovery and the discovery of the Love that never hurts (which is the same thing). The challenge is to move beyond the mind and rest in ‘that’ which was never born and will never die … the eternal, infinite and loving Awareness that you are.

Blessings,

You asked …

“Is what we see touch think and smell made of awareness or are they just objects and sensations appearing in awareness?”

Briefly, the answer is, ‘both’. All phenomena such as thoughts, feelings, sensations, sights, smells, sounds etc. arise out of awareness and appear in awareness — there’s no actual separation — it is all ultimately One. You could say it’s something like what happens when you dream. The dream comes out of your mind AND appears in your mind as the dream. You are both the creator of your dream and, at the same time, you may appear as a character in your dream. A wonderful mystery isn’t it?

You then asked …

“is awareness a substance and what happens to it at death?”

No, awareness is not a substance … in fact, it’s not a ‘thing’ at all. Awareness could be called no-thing-ness … or Spirit … or the Life force. Awareness was not born with our body nor will it ever die, even though our body will finally dissolve and disappear. Our body/mind/personality evolves and changes constantly but Awareness is always the same … it is ageless. Awareness can never die because it is life ItSelf.

Awareness is not something you have like a memory or a heart: Awareness is what you already and always ARE. Awareness cannot go anywhere when the body dies because it is everywhere (or beyond ‘here’ and ‘there’) … eternally, even though we presently experience it only within our own body/mind.

Imagine awareness as being something like the space behind and around these words. If you were to delete all the words, the blank space would still remain unchanged. Without the space (the blank background), the words would not be possible, but the space does not depend upon the words in any way whatever. It’s existence is constant whether words are on the page or not. That is the relationship between the true Self (Awareness) and the temporary self (the body/mind/personality known as ‘me’.)

Why are relationships so challenging for most people?

Relationships are challenging because we bring so much conditioning to them. By conditioning, I mean hopes, fantasies, expectations, and desires. We have so much we want another person to do for us — fulfill our fantasies, expectations, and desires, and if they don’t, we are angry with them and feel judgmental and critical of them.

Those judgments prevent us from loving them and cause them to judge us back and not feel loving toward us. So, the root of difficulties in love and relationships is our conditioning — the desires we have for someone to be a certain way in order to please us. This is conditional love — right? “I will love you if you behave and look a certain way, and I won’t love you if you don’t.” Conditional love isn’t love, and relationships don’t work when love is conditional.

But our conditioning doesn’t have to limit love in this way. If we can see that our expectations, desires, and fantasies are not important — that we don’t need these met to be happy and to have love in our life, then we can experience the other person just as he or she is, rather than as someone who needs to look and act a certain way for us to be happy and feel loving.

When we can just meet others, free of our ideas about what we want them to be or what we want from them and free of judgments, then love has a chance to flow from us to them. And love is more likely to flow to us from them as well. So relationships are challenging when we’re trying to get something from others or trying to change them to please us, and they work when we’re not doing that, but just being present to them as they are showing up in the moment.

Conditioning is really the only thing that interferes with love because we are all, by nature, loving, but our ideas about what we want others to be like interfere with our ability to feel that love. Love is our natural state, and when we aren’t paying attention to our thoughts about ourselves and others, then love naturally flows from inside of us to whomever we are with.

~ by Gina Lake