The Seer

In general, most people are running from some kind of pain, usually an infantile one resulting from needs that were not met in childhood. The pain may have both physical and psychological components. It may have a story attached to it, or it may just be an energy field, such as sense of negativity or dread.

Multiple wounds are part of every life, even among the most privileged. Unless you are successful at dissociating, the whole of human woundedness is somehow present in you. Some people are successful at creating scar tissue over their psyches, over their emotional and physical wounds, and then just getting on with daily life.

But I suspect no one is entirely successful, and this failure is a good thing, because then the wound calls attention to itself just as grit in your shoe won’t let you be comfortable until you actually attend to it.

Of course, we search in multiple ways, both spiritual and worldly, to make that core ache go away. The thrust of most of the mind’s activity is to escape this essential, primal hurt and all of the peripherals of that hurt. Perhaps at some point we even turn to the spiritual life with the hope that a particular teaching or enlightenment will take our wounds away. We try to do what the teaching or the teacher says, and we do it over and over in the hopes that the suffering will leave us.

Surprisingly, a true teacher and a true teaching will throw you, with the greatest compassion and ruthlessness, directly into the center of the wound itself.

The deepest, most essential wound doesn’t even have a name. You can call it “the human condition”, or “conditioned existence”, or “the fact of suffering”, and there is a huge drive to escape it even though it is actually that very drive that eventually brings you full circle to meet the wound. Maturity evolves after you have tried the numerous avenues of escape, only to find that same woundedness still waiting for you.

Many of us have attempted to heal our wounds through psychotherapy, and psychological work can be very useful. Western culture in particular is a psychological culture. Psychological work can be useful in that it fosters a mental maturity where particular patterns and habitual responses can be seen.

But psychological work can only take you so far. While it can generate insights that are amazing and humbling, it doesn’t really touch the true ground of suffering. It may lead you to the recognition that even with all of your psychological or mental insight, the ground of suffering still remains, and in this way, it serves enormously.

It is at this point that you can ask yourself the question, Well, then, what will remove this ground of suffering? Even if you have worked on yourself psychologically for twenty, forty, or fifty years, if the ground of suffering is still in place, there is something essential that is yet to be revealed.

Healing wounds is appropriate. There is treatment for all wounds, and wounds that can be tended are to be tended. The problem only arises when truth itself is sought through healing. While the emotional, physical, or mental wounding is addressed, that which by its nature is whole, pure, free, and at peace goes overlooked. Truth is already here, regardless of the state of your body, your emotions, your mind, or your circumstances.

I invite you for just this moment to stop searching for relief from suffering. The invitation is neither to become oblivious to suffering, nor to give up in despair. It is an invitation to stop searching for something to rescue you from yourself.

~ From: The Diamond in Your Pocket, by Gangaji www.gangaji.org

“There were numerous varieties of ‘Christianity’ within the early Church. A Roman emperor (Constantine) selected one of the varieties and, to put it crudely, bought it out and backed it with the might of the Empire. The other varieties were denigrated as ‘heretics’ and suppressed. A number of those varieties had been labelled by the Church Fathers as ‘Gnostic Christians’.” ~ David Miller

The original ‘orthodox’ Christian Church bowed to pressures from Emperor Constantine, rejecting doctrine and gospels not supportive of the ‘orthodox’ worldview of Jesus.

During the first three centuries, debates raged over the divine nature or the divinity of Jesus. Yes, imagine that, for three hundred years, the Christian sects were not convinced that Jesus was the only Son of God.

The debate raged between Jesus being a man verses Jesus the only Son of God because the decision affect the outcome of the orthodox Church; if Jesus was just a man then the teaching of the Resurrection from the tomb did not happen and the orthodox Church had no power to save or damn one’s soul.

Some orthodox Christian bishops taught that Jesus was not a god, but a prophet. It was not until the Council of Nicene in CE 325 that the Church voted Jesus to be divine, the only Son of God, at the request of Roman Emperor Constantine who converted in CE 323.

Emperor Constantine required that Jesus be equal to his own god, Sol. Even after the Council voted to make Jesus divine, some bishops refused to accept the decision and continued to teach that Jesus was not a god, but a man who was enlightened.

Jesus taught that you find God within yourself, not through an external source, such as a church. The sapiental (wisdom) Christian view is that God is within everyone and everything, that nature and the universe is the very embodiment of God and contrary to the orthodox Christian teaching that the natural man is an enemy to God.

When you accept his teachings and the awareness that God is within each person then this is the second coming. The second coming is not a physical event, but a spiritual enlightenment. Looking within oneself is the path of directly experiencing the Divine and the path to salvation.

This teaching was in direct conflict with the Council of Nicene because there would be no need of bishops or the Church to find salvation and therefore, the Church did not control who was saved and who was damned and thus its power and financial empire would vanish.

~ Ed.

‘Illusion’ simply means ‘a play’ or ‘deceptive appearance’ — not ‘non-existence’.

The self, the ‘me’, is an illusion, not because it doesn’t exist, but because it doesn’t exist in the way we imagine it to. You’re not what you think you are.

The ‘me’ seems to be solid and separate — a ‘thing’ at the centre of life, a separate entity running my life — in the same way that there seems to be a wave separate from the ocean — but upon investigation, those assumptions crumble. The ‘illusion’ is seen through — the wave is inseparable from the ocean.

Now, it might also help if I were a little more clear about what the word ‘existence’ actually means. In the past I used to use this without realising what it actually meant. It literally means ’stand out’ (ex-sistere).

Does the wave ’stand out’ of the ocean? Yes, it appears to, AND no, it doesn’t stand out in reality, because it IS the ocean. Depends on the angle from which you’re answering the question. Both are true, both are not true.

The wave appears to exist, AND it does not exist — it does not exist SEPARATELY from the ocean. If it has an existence, that existence is inseperable from the whole. (And instead of the word ‘ocean’, you can use the words consciousness, beingness, aliveness, source, void, wholeness, nothing …)

If you can’t handle paradox, time to get out of the nondual kitchen!

In the same way, the ’self’ (the story of me) only exists as a story. I never, ever found Jeff outside of a presently-arising story about Jeff. Jeff is not there ‘lurking’ in the background — the story of Jeff appears and disappears as a story.

The story of Jeff does not appear to Jeff — that would be another story! The story of Jeff simply appears.

And where does every story appear? Here, in this wide, clear open space — awareness, consciousness, Being, Life, doesn’t really matter what words you use to point here. They’re just words. Perhaps this is what some are referring to as the space of ‘no self’.

You could say the story of the self arises and falls in this space pointed to by the words ‘no self’. Every story, every thought, every sensation, every form, comes and goes in this open space.

I gave up years ago believing that this could be captured in words. It’s like trying to capture water in a fishing net. The best we can do is point and know that we are only pointing.

Thoughts, sensations, sounds, do not happen to a ’self’ — there’s no evidence for a solid central self whatsoever — they arise and fall here, as waves appear to do in an ocean. In reality, even what we call ‘forms’ are inseparable from this formless openness, this emptiness which is actually totally full. Then we cannot talk of ‘emptiness’ or ‘void’ at all! The Heart Sutra says ‘Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form’. Langauge fails here, totally. It collapses.

And all language simply comes and goes in this space. All concepts of self and no self arise and fall away, leaving no trace. All concepts of duality and nonduality, choice and choicelessness, collapse. All we can do, in the end, is use words as pointers. The rest is just arguing over our favourite pointers.

Years ago, I was very certain that there was no self, and tried very hard to convince people that there was no self. I couldn’t see back then that this constant need to convince others, this sense that I was right and needed to wake others up, WAS the very self I was denying! It’s absolutely ingenious, this whole game.

Seeing the impossibility of putting this into words, the total inseparability of what I am from all that appears, the total intimacy with all impermanent forms as they arise and fall, brings much lightness and laughter. And we can still carry on debating whether or not there is a self — there’s room for that too.

There’s room for everything here! So let’s play! The only question left is — what are you defending? Even the certainty that there is no self, and the need to constantly prove that to others, can simply be something else to hold onto.

The ego becomes a ’spiritualised ego’ and pretends there is no ego. “I know there is no self, and I am right, and you are wrong… and by the way, there’s no you and no me, and it really pisses me off when you think otherwise. But there’s nobody here being pissed off.” Ingenious. And totally innocent too, by the way. And it’s all available to be seen for what it is. Always.

It’s not that I believe any of this — belief doesn’t hold up for very long. This inseparability and intimacy is confirmed in every single moment, as everything appears right here, not to Jeff, but to the wide open space that holds the story of Jeff, just as the ocean ‘holds’ all of the waves that are, intimately, itself….

And the ‘play’ goes on…

~ Jeff Foster, www.lifewithoutacentre.com/

Seer and subscriber, Peter Dimitriou, has discovered a website by an artist known as “Unasleep.”

On the site, there are dozens of short videos by this artist that are visually quite powerful and direct pointers for undoing illusion within oneself.

One of Peter’s favourite videos, is titled “Atom can you hear me?” You can view it >>>HERE

More at: www.unasleep.com

Lost in myself I reappeared I know not where
a drop that rose from the sea and fell and dissolved again;
a shadow that stretched itself out at dawn,
when the sun reached noon I disappeared.
I have no news of my coming or passing away –
the whole thing happened quicker than a breath;
ask no questions of the moth.
In the candle flame of his face
I have forgotten all the answers.
In the way of love there must be
knowledge and ignorance
so I have become both a dullard and a sage;
one must be an eye and yet not see
so I am blind and yet I still perceive,
Dust be on my head if I can say
where I in bewilderment have wandered:
Attar watched his heart transcend both worlds
and under its shadow now is gone mad with love.

~ Farid ud-Din Attar (1120?-1220?), The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry Trans. Wilson & Pourjavady

I’ve discovered that it’s actually impossible to find happiness. As long as you’re seeking to find happiness ’somewhere’, you’re overlooking where happiness is.

As long as you’re seeking to find God someplace else, you’re overlooking the essential truth of God, which is omnipresence.

When you seek to find happiness someplace else, you’re overlooking your true nature, which is happiness. You’re overlooking yourself.

I’d like to offer you the invitation and the challenge to stop overlooking yourself, to simply, radically, and absolutely be still — to put aside, at least for a moment, all of your ideas of where God is, or where truth is, or where you are.

Stop looking anywhere. Stop seeking. Simply be. I am not talking about being in a stupor, or going into a trance, but going deeper into the silence of your heart where the revelation of omnipresence can be revealed as your true nature.

I’m asking you to be still in pure presence. Not to create that, not even to invite it, but simply to recognize what is always here, who you always are, where God always is.

At this point in our human history, what was once reserved for the most rare beings is available to ordinary people.

Because we have considered ourselves ordinary, we have kept a certain door closed within our brains and within our hearts to the truth at the core of it all.

But at this time there is a crack in our conditioning. If you are reading this you are already aware of it to some degree or you wouldn’t be subscribed to this eZine.

This is a time of the ordinary awakening. This means you, not only those born under the brightest stars but the ordinary person as well.

~ Gangaji — From: The Diamond in Your Pocket www.gangaji.org/

After centuries of philosophical inquiry and intense scientific exploration, for the first time in history we now know with certainty exactly what the material world is made of. Physicists have announced it, astronomers have proclaimed it, and technicians have proven it without a doubt in their laboratories; and yet hardly anyone in the world seems to be aware of the fact that everything is made of light.

Even those physicists who describe how the primordial photons of light transformed themselves into material particles do not seem to fully grasp the significance of the fact that everything in the universe is made of light.

Everyone has heard of the ‘Big Bang’, how all material particles were formed from that initial ‘fireball’ of high-energy photons; and yet it still has not sunk in to the contemporary psyche that everything is made of light.

Scientists say that the light from which the world of matter is made had to have come from the explosion of an unstable super-dense chunk of matter which they call a “singularity”, while people of religious or spiritual beliefs have understood since the most ancient of times that that light was caused by an act of God.

And yet still hardly any of the people in the world have fully grasped and understood the fact that everything is made of light.

Though so much of what passes as ’science’ today is merely the passing fashion of the moment or a speculative theory that can never be substantiated, the current understanding among scientists that all matter is an evolute of an original light is one which seems to allow of no possible future refutation.

That energy and matter are interconvertible, and that the light-energy of the so-called ‘Big Bang’ of fourteen billion years ago transformed into the quarks and leptons that make up the entire world of matter is a discovery that is so incontrovertible, so uncontestable, as to effectively put an end to all future speculation as to what our world is made of.

And, despite the fact that scientific thinkers believe that that pristine burst of light was a ‘natural’ phenomenon (whatever that means), and spiritually oriented people are certain that the light came directly from God, the fact remains that an unimaginably immense blast of high-energy light flashed at the dawn of time in a nascent universe, and each photon of that light became a matter-antimatter pair contributing to make the phenomenal universe of form and substance that we live in today.

Philosophers and sages from the beginning of time have declared that, in addition to the light from which all ‘things’ are made, there is a conscious principle at work in the world that functions as life and awareness, which has been referred to as “spirit” or “soul”.

Materialists deny that such a universal principle exists — even though by doing so, they tend to deny the existence of their own intelligence; while the mystics, seers, and all the worshippers of a transcendent/immanent God affirm the principle of a divine “soul”, and base their lives and actions upon it.

Some say that “soul” is a subtler invisible light that emanates from God and coexists along with the grosser light of which all physical bodies are made, giving life and movement to those bodies, along with awareness and intelligence. And yet, still, nearly everyone in the world seems to be blind to the undeniable fact that everything is made of light.

And even fewer have traced that light, both gross and subtle, to its ultimate source, and come to know the one Spirit who is the Self of all, the One who alone shines in this world as the light from which both body and soul are created.

~ Swami Abhayananda, Body And Soul: An Integral Perspective. available in paperback from amazon.com and Online.

The three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are largely about the historical Jesus who worked miracles, who taught, who promised us a new way of seeing, a new way of life in this world. It is seldom pointed out, however, that Paul is not talking about Jesus; Paul is almost always talking about “Christ.”

Paul hardly ever quotes the historical Jesus and never knew him in the flesh. Really rather shocking when you realize that his letters are one third of the New Testament! The phrase “in Christ” is his most common usage­over 100 times, I’ve been told. We take Paul as a touchstone of orthodoxy, the central, foundational teacher of Christianity -­- and yet he hardly quotes Jesus!

Something else is going on here, which has largely been off of the Christian radar. Paul has largely fallen in love with “the Christ” and it was Jesus who pointed him there. Most Christians still need to make the same movement, and to believe in both Jesus AND Christ. They are two distinct faith affirmations.

Jesus is the microcosm; Christ is the macrocosm. There is a movement from Jesus to the Christ that you and I have to imitate and walk, as well. A lot of us have so fallen in love with the historical Jesus that we worship him as such and stop there. We never really followed the same journey which he made, which is the death and resurrection journey –­ Jesus died and Christ arose.

As Bede Griffiths insightfully put it: “The real resurrection is the passing beyond the world altogether. It is Jesus’ passage from this world to the Father. It was not an event in space and time, but the passage beyond space and time to the eternal, to reality. Jesus passed into reality.”

Unless we make the same movement that Jesus did, from his one single life to his risen and transformed state, we probably don’t really understand what we mean by the Christ ­– and how we are part of the deal! That is why he said “follow me.” The Jesus that you and I participate in, are graced by, and are redeemed by is the RISEN Jesus who has become the Christ, which is an inclusive statement about all of us and all of creation.

Stay with this startling truth in the days ahead and it will rearrange your mind and heart and change the way you see everything, because you are the Christ Mystery too!

~ Richard Rohr. From his book: The Cosmic Christ

Life without a reason, a purpose, a position… the mind is frightened of this because then “my life” is over with, and life lives itself and moves from itself in a totally different dimension. This way of living is just life moving. That’s all.

As soon as the mind pulls out an agenda and decides what needs to change, that’s unreality. Life doesn’t need to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. Life doesn’t need to know the “right” way to go because it’s going there anyway.

Then you start to get a hint of why the mind, in a deep sense of liberation, tends to get very quiet. It doesn’t have its job anymore. It has its usefulness, but it doesn’t have its full-time occupation of sustaining an intricately fabricated house of cards.

This stillness of awareness is all there is. It’s all one. This awareness and life are one thing, one movement, one happening, in this moment — unfolding without reason, without goal, without direction. The ultimate state is ever present and always now.

The only thing that makes it difficult to find that state and remain in that state is people wanting to retain their position in space and time. “I want to know where I’m going. I want to know if I’ve arrived. I want to know who to love and hate. I want to know. I don’t really want to be; I want to know. Isn’t enlightenment the ultimate state of knowing?” No. It’s the ultimate state of being. The price is knowing.

This is the beautiful thing about the truth: ever-present, always here, totally free, given freely. It’s already there. That which is ever-presently awake is free, free for the “being.” But the only way that there’s total and final absolute homecoming is when the humanness presents itself with the same unconditionality. Every time a human being touches into that unconditionality, it’s such peace and fulfillment.

In your humanity, there’s the natural expression of joy and love and compassion and caring and total unattachment. Those qualities instantly transmute into humanness when you touch into emptiness. Emptiness becomes love. That’s the human experience of emptiness, that source, that ever-present awakeness.

For the humanness to lay itself down — your mind, your body, your hopes, your dreams, everything — to lay itself down in the same unconditional manner in which awareness is ever present, only then is there the direct experience of unity, that you and the highest truth are really one thing.

It expresses itself through your humanity, through openness, through love. The divine becomes human and the human becomes divine — not in any “high and mighty” sense, but just in the sense of reality. That’s the way it is.

The only price is all of our positions. The only price is that you stop paying a price.

~ Adyashanti. www.adyashanti.org

I have thrown from me the whirling dance of mind
And stand now in the spirit’s silence free,
Timeless and deathless beyond creature-kind,
The centre of my own eternity.

I have escaped and the small self is dead;
I am immortal, alone, ineffable;
I have gone out from the universe I made,
And have grown nameless and immeasurable.

My mind is hushed in a wide and endless light,
My heart a solitude of delight and peace,
My sense unsnared by touch and sound and sight,
My body a point in white infinities.

I am the one Being’s sole immobile Bliss:
No one I am, I who am all that is.

~ Sri Aurobindo, 1938