The Seer

“To know that the known cannot be me nor mine, is liberation enough. Freedom from self-identification with a set of memories and habits, the state of wonder at the infinite reaches of the being, its inexhaustible creativity and total transcendence, the absolute fearlessness born from the realisation of the illusoriness and transiency of every mode of consciousness — flow from a deep and inexhaustible source. To know the source as source and appearance as appearance, and oneself as the source only is self-realisation.”

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

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 your eye is single, your whole body shall
be full of light, having no place dark.” ~ Jesus

How many eyes are you looking out of? Of course other people see two when they look at you, and you see two in the mirror. But how many eyes do you see from your own point of view? In this experiment I am asking you to take another completely fresh look at yourself. Perhaps you have been overlooking something both obvious and wonderful.

My experience is that I am looking out of one eye. In fact, it’s not even an eye — it’s an edgeless, undivided space, a frameless, open window. From this clear window I can at this moment see my desk and computer, and beyond these things my garden. The view out from this edgeless window is of course unique to each person, and always changing. But how could the view in — into this frameless window — be different, or change? There is nothing here to see differently, nothing here to change.

To bring your attention to this clear window, this single eye , hold your hands out in front of you as if they were a pair of glasses you are going to put on. If you wear glasses you can take them off and hold them out instead.

You now have two holes.

Then slowly bring them towards you and put them on.

What happens to the dividing line between the two holes when you put the ‘glasses’ on? Doesn’t it disappear, leaving one undivided, edgeless space you are looking out of?.

Observe the edge of your field of vision. Notice that you can’t look directly at it. Is there a definite edge there, a clear line, or does it fade off?. Into what? Into the void? Into your single, edgeless eye?

This eye goes on and on forever, in every direction. All things are within it.

You can notice your single eye anywhere, anytime. Discover how relaxing it is to be edgeless. Here in this spacious clarity there is no tension at all. What a fantastic resource we have been overlooking.

~ From: Seeing Who You Really Are — A Modern Guide to Your True Identity by Richard Lang.

In essence the entire spiritual endeavor is a very simple thing: Spirituality is essentially about awakening as the intuitive awareness of unity 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, 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 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 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. 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 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. 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, 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

BTW, If you’re looking for some light on True Love & Relationships (and who isn’t?), you’ll find Adya’s new 5-CD album really worthwhile. We had some a little while ago and they were gone in a couple of days, but now we’ve got a few more albums in again so, if you missed out before, get in quick with your order. It’s only $66.95 but Pearl says it’s worth thousands! For full details >>>Click Here.

This story illustrates the uniquely human ability to cling to the past by holding on to our stories.

When two ducks get into a fight, it never lasts long — they soon separate and fly off in opposite directions. Each duck then flaps its wings vigorously several times. This releases the surplus energy that built up in him during the fight. After they flap their wings, they fly on peacefully as if nothing had ever happened.

Now, if the duck had a human mind, this scene would go very differently. The duck may fly away peacefully, for a moment, but he would not put the fight behind him. He would keep the fight alive in his mind, by thinking and story-making.

The duck’s story would probably go something like this: “I can’t believe what he just did. He came within five inches of me. He has no consideration for my private space. He thinks he owns this pond. I’ll never trust him again. I know he’s already plotting something else to annoy me with. But I’m not going to stand for it. I’m going to teach him a lesson he will never forget.”

And in this way the duck’s mind spins its tale, still thinking and talking about it, days, months, or even years later. He man never see his adversary again, but that doesn’t matter. The single incident has left its impression and now has a life of its own deep within the duck’s mind.

As far as his body is concerned, the fight is still continuing, and the energy his body generates in response to the imaginary fight is emotion, which in turn generates more thinking. This becomes the emotional thinking of the ego. The emotions feed the story and the story feeds the emotions. Endlessly. Unless the duck chooses to recognize that the fight is over, unless he drops the story, he will suffer from the endless cycle of his mind’s creation.

You can see how painful and troublesome the duck’s life would become if he had a human mind. But this is how most of us live all the time. For the average person, no situation or event is ever really over and done with. The mind and the mind-made story keep it going.

Unlike the duck, we are a species that has the power to remember, which is both wonderful and problematic.

Our duck has an important lesson to teach us and his message is this: Flap your wings, which means “let go of the story,” and live your real life — here and now, in the present moment.

~ by Eckhart Tolle

What do you see when you look over here, at what you call ‘me’? You see a bag of flesh and bone which appears to move and act and speak in fairly predictable ways. You see this behaviour, and tell your story of Jeff Foster. That is your ‘me’. That is me, to you. But is there actually a ‘me’ over here to which you are referring? Is there a ‘Jeff’ in here that you are somehow recognising and putting a name to?

Over here, all I can find is an open space, filled with sights and sounds, smells, thoughts and feelings. But here’s the great discovery — there is simply no ‘me’ to be found at the centre of it all, no ‘me’ in charge of things. There is nothing solid here, only an openness to the constantly shifting scenery of the world, and ‘me’ or ‘I’ or ‘myself’ is just a story appearing in this open space.

All I can find here, when I look afresh at life, is the rumble of traffic, the tweeting of birds, the beating of the heart, breathing happening, and the story of a person called Jeff Foster. And this story can be a wonderful story to tell, but it cannot even begin to capture what I really am.

Now, when you look over here at this bag of flesh and bone and its associated behaviours, and when you address it as ‘Jeff’, there is a response here, because that seems to be the appropriate thing to do. Not to respond would be socially unacceptable, and this bag of flesh and bones might then be cast into the loony bin, or at least heavily medicated.

Yet, one can’t help wondering that perhaps it is dishonest to answer to a name, to identify who I am with who the world says I am. Because I certainly do not experience myself as a person, as an individual, as something separate from the world. No, if I am anything, I am this open space in which the whole world appears, and indeed I am not separate from the world which appears. If I am anything, I am what is happening, right here, right now, in this moment. If I am anything, I am this, this and this.

That’s the true meaning of nonduality. And it’s what the Buddha meant when he said: “Suffering alone exists, but none who suffer; the deed there is, but no doer thereof; Nirvana there is, but no one seeking it; the Path there is, but none who travel it.”

‘Jeff’ doesn’t even begin to capture it. ‘Jeff’ is a relic from the past, part of a narrative that everybody seems to spin for themselves and by themselves. Indeed, there appears to be as many ‘Jeffs’ as there are people who know him! This is not to deny that there’s an idea here of a ‘Jeff’ floating about in awareness, as thought. But that’s all there is, over here. There is no Jeff having thoughts of ‘Jeff’ – that’s the illusion. There is only the thought of ‘Jeff’ here, only the narrative floating through.

It all happens for nobody, it all arises in this open space, in the vastness that holds everything, lovingly, unconditionally, in the clarity that allows everything to be. And there is simply no ‘Jeff’ outside of the vastness, which is to say, there is no ‘Jeff’ at all. I simply do not exist.

‘I’ am not here. No self — no problem, as an old Zen monk once said.

And yet, and yet … to all intents and purposes, I do exist. In the eyes of the world, anyway, there most definitely is a Jeff Foster — he has a birth certificate and a National Insurance number and everything! To function in the world, a basic assumption seems to be necessary: that there is an individual here, a person. But it is an assumption, an idea, nothing more; it has no deeper reality.

With that realisation, the entire world self-liberates. Freed from the stranglehold of thought, freed from the burden of ‘me and my problems’, there is a great ease which permeates everything. Freed from goals and meanings, every moment is a goal in itself, everything is intrinsically meaningful, because every moment is all there is, or ever was. Set free from self-consciousness, anything is possible: there is no authority, there are no rules, and whatever happens just happens.

However, that doesn’t mean you go round beating up old ladies. No, when it is seen that there is no separate self, it is also seen that there are no separate ‘others’ either. No others separate from yourself, at any rate. So this is the end of violence, the end of me-versus-you.

Beyond that me-versus-you illusion, there is such intimacy, such unconditional love and acceptance, that the idea of beating up old women, or anyone else for that matter, simply falls away. That old woman is myself, and I don’t find myself beating her up. I find myself helping her across the road.

The paradox: there are no others, and yet there is such love for others, such spaciousness to allow them to be exactly as they are.

Beyond the sense of separation, there still may be pain, anger and sadness. Yet a funny thing happens: pain, anger and sadness are no longer owned by anyone. They are no longer claimed by a seeker hungry for an identity. We could say that they still happen, but because they now happen for nobody instead of somebody, they simply don’t matter anymore (since there’s nobody there to whom they could possibly matter!)

There’s pain, anger and sadness, but since there is nobody there at war with experience, these sensations just dissolve of their own accord, in their own time, as they always have done. There’s pain, anger and sadness, but there’s no problem whatsoever, and therefore no desire to be ‘free from suffering’.

Everything being talked about here is already the case, for all of us, and yes, that includes you, of course. Already, there is freedom. Already, there is nobody in control. Already, things simply arise of their own accord.

Look:

The heart beats, and you are not doing the beating. Breathing happens, and you are not doing the breathing. Sounds in the room happen, and you are not making them happen. Pain arises, and you are not causing it. Joy happens, and you have no choice. The sun rises and sets, flowers grow, wither and die, seasons change in the blink of an eye, and you are not in charge of this astonishing dream world.

The play of opposites plays itself out, and there is an undetectable silence that continuously embraces it all, allowing everything to arise exactly as it does. The entire world arises in this open space, in this vastness which is utterly free from separateness and solidity, but which embraces separateness and solidity the way a mother embraces her newborn baby.

The secret is there in your heart beating, in your breathing, in the sights and sounds and smells manifesting themselves exactly where you are, right now. The secret is here. Do you see?

This cannot be understood intellectually. But somewhere beyond the words, there can be a resonance, a recognition, and that is the place to which these words are pointing right now, a place that has no location – which is to say, it is nowhere, and everywhere. It’s there in your heartbeat. It’s there in the breathing. It’s there in the sensations in your body and the space around those sensations. It’s there in your thoughts and the gaps between them, and in the sights and sounds and smells in the room.

Yes, all life asks of you is that you see it for what it is.

~ by Jeff Foster, from The Wonder of Being

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’.)

Well, in the southern hemisphere, we’re here again, in the dark of the year and approaching the winter solstice in a few short days.

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

To discover our autonomy is the most challenging thing a human being can do. Because in order to discover our autonomy, we must be free from all external control or influence. This means that we must free our mind from all that it has collected, all that it clings to, all that it depends on.

This begins by realizing that we are in a psychological prison created by our minds. Until we begin to realize how confined we are, we will not be able to find our way out. Neither will we find our way out by struggling against the confines we have inherited from our parents, society, and culture. It is only by beginning to examine and realize the falseness within our minds that we begin to awaken an intelligence that originates from beyond the realm of thinking.

If spirituality is to be meaningful, it must deliver us from all forms of dependence�including the dependence on spirituality�and help awaken within us that creative spark which all beings aspire to. For the culmination of spirituality lies not only in discovering our inherent unity and freedom, but also in opening the way for life to express itself through us in a unique and creative way. Such uniqueness and creativity is not to be found in anything the human mind has ever created, nor is it to be found in our ideals of human perfection or utopian dreams.

True autonomy arises when we have broken free of all the old structures, all psychological dependencies, and all fear. Only then can that which is truly unique and fearless arise within us and begin to express itself. Such expression cannot be planned or even imagined because it belongs to a dimension uninhibited by anything that has come before it.

True autonomy is not trying to fit in or be understood, nor is it a revolt against anything. It is an uncaused phenomenon. Consciously or unconsciously all beings aspire to it, but very few find the courage to step into that infinity of aloneness.

~ by Adyashanti 2009

It’s easy to say that you want to discover the Truth, but when you understand that the Truth is not just the experience of love and peace, you may not be so sure that you want it any more. Recognising who You really are will rob you of your deepest held ideas, beliefs, hopes, and dreams. It will turn your view of yourself and your life upside down. You will either hear this and find it unimaginably liberating, or you will find this extremely challenging indeed.

This message is very radical. Perhaps, although you say that you want to discover the truth, you really enjoy the ‘search’ far too much to actually find what you are searching for. What would you do without the ‘spiritual search’? What else could provide such addictive emotional highs and lows? Do you really want to know the truth of who you are? Or do you still want to hide behind who you think you are or who you would like to be?

I’m pointing to the true nature of who you are, beyond who you would like to be, or who you believe yourself to be. This is not always what you want to hear. This is not a pep talk to make you feel better. This is simply pointing to the reality. Do you want to know the way it actually is? For better or for worse? Or do you want to go on living in a dream, hoping that one day things will change?

Who are you right now? You have a name. But are you just a label? Who are you really? It seems to take some courage to really see who you are beyond labels and appearances. Are you a bunch of memories and a story of who you have been or who you would like to become?

Are you limited to what you think or what others have told you? Are you really someone who has problems, needs, and desires? Or have you always known that somehow, no matter what happens in life, that things are really ok? Somehow you always know that life is not as complicated as we often make it out to be. That no matter how hard life appears to be at times, that actually it is all really so easy.

Beyond all labels and ideas, what You are is Awareness itself. Aware of what ever is happening. Presence itself. Only ever present with no future or past. Timeless. Without reason or meaning. Meaninglessness beyond any idea of that being a depressing thought.

Freedom beyond any idea or imagination. Freedom which is right now, which never needs to ‘break free’ from any bonds. Absolute fulfilment which has always been fulfilled even when you were searching for fulfilment. Absolute wholeness even when you believe that there is something missing.

~ by Unmani, who is at Gurukula this week.

You can now get Unmani’s CD Weekend in Findhorn from Clearsight at a discount price.