Aliveness!

Eyes looking. Fingers typing. Ears hearing. Nose smelling. Mind thinking out of shapeless empty silence.

This is not-knowing.

Taking a bite of food. Nothing but simple aliveness. Now and now and now.

The mind and body that are lined up behind this AND expressing out of this--this aliveness.

Minus the pretending character, the mirage of "I", it can not be any other way.

The Void

I look in the mirror and all I see is the void.

I look in the beautiful eyes of my wife, friends,

co-workers, and strangers and all I see is the void.

I look at any and every object arising and all I see is the void.

I look at God and all I see is the void.

Where is there not the void?

I look into the void and all I see is, again,

the void.

The void is pure looking.

***

There is no "I" outside of a word in this looking.

Does the World Exist?

Does the world exist?

Yes. It exists as an arising within your own being. Your being is more than your seemingly individual and self-conscious self. Your being is simple awareness. Your eyes see even without a separate someone trying to make them see. And likewise your ears hear, your nose smells, your fingers touch, and your tongue tastes. You have a vast panorama of physical sensations, emotions and thoughts and they all happen quite naturally. They all simply arise.

Only a pretending "I" tries to arrange thoughts or do things. This "I" is similar to a gnat perched on a steering wheel. The greater power of life steers left and the gnat is very pleased with itself. But then life steers to the right and the "I" is displeased and displeased again when it unexpectedly steers left again. The trouble is not with the way life is flowing. The trouble is imagined trouble that is the result of the gnat assuming that it has control.

So you can simply recognize that any control is imagined. You don't have any control because you don't need to have any control. This life IS already your own being and so the world that arises in it is your world and is you.

It is because you exist that the world exists.

I Want to be in That State

I understand the things you are saying intellectually. However I haven't gotten it in experience. I want to be in that state all of the time.

You already are. That is why it is called the natural state. I never ask you to find something or to attain anything new. The natural state is not anything that you can or will discover or attain. It is that ever-present ease of being. You can not be away from it.

Then why don't I feel at ease?

Who says that you don't already?

The ease of your own being has to be ever-present. Otherwise you would not be able to come to your seeming dis-ease. Don't worry about these feelings. Whenever they come up just watch them. What comes always goes, yet this that is spontaneously remains. And this is being-awareness, which is only you.

The Guru is Within

Do I need to meet a guru to discover who I am?

No. You are the you that you already are. There is no discovering this--except as a matter of speaking.

And yes. If you think you are someone separate you may be helped (again as a matter of speaking) to consider the words of a guru who is at rest in his or her own natural state--who makes no effort to become someone or something.

This absence of effort is similar to the way a magnet magnetizes all the iron around it or the way a black hole turns everything into itself. Only there is a difference in that the guru is turning you into the you that you already are.

***

It is common think that the guru is separate (albeit enlightened) and that I am separate (and unenlightened). However this is not the case. The guru is only the light of pure being and that light is your own. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj once referred to the outer guru as a milestone and explained that the inner teacher will walk with you to the goal as it is the goal.

You may meet an outer teacher. Or you may not. If you do meet one you will finally have to break free of that person by looking to the light of your own natural being.

What makes the lasting difference does not happen without. It happens within.

Past Relationships, Past Temptation

I recently left a difficult relationship. How do I deal with it?

You said you left it.

How do I deal with the feelings that I still have?

Oh, you don't. Don't deal with them. Whenever some feelings come up you might simply watch them come and then watch them go. You are always the pure awareness that any feelings arise in. That awareness that you already are has no boundary--so there is plenty of room for everything to be watched--and not only feelings. Thoughts too. And physical experiences like a headache or a sore back. Don't "deal with"; watch.

***

I used to party a lot. I don't anymore--only I still think about it sometimes and I am tempted.

You still do what sometimes?

Think about it. (Laughs.)

Yes. You can laugh at thoughts. They don't bite. If you laugh at them they might even stop barking. But even if they continue barking they are only an occasion for you to laugh.

And I do not mean only out loud. The way to laugh at thoughts is to look into the simple fact of your own being-awareness. It always comes back to this. You are the you that you already are. Awareness. You don't have to do anything or change anything within yourself. Just laugh over what arises.

Thoughts on the Ego

My thought of being separate is just ego, isn't it?

Your thought of being separate is just thought! What is ego? Ego is only a word. Leave ego out of it.

Then do I not need to get rid of my ego?

What is that question you just asked? That question is only a thought. Your assumption of being someone separate and having a thing called an ego that you then need to get rid of is also nothing but thoughts. Look to the being-awareness that your thoughts are arising in. You are already firmly established as that being-awareness. You can not tell me that you are not.

So the truth is that I am not the ego?

That "truth" is also just a thought.

Simple! (Part II)

I had a big breakthrough as I was thinking about how you said that I am being-awareness. I realized that I always thought of Christ-consciousness as something buried inside myself, when Christ-consciousness is really just the awareness that I already am.

Yes. This is the plainest fact. In it there is nothing to realize. "Realizations" are only more of the content--more of what is arising IN this awareness. They are no trouble, of course, AND they are not you.

I also realized that the being-awareness that I am is not different from the being-awareness of anyone else.

All of the classic sages have expressed this--including Jesus. It is only within the pretending character that there would seem to be some difference. Within the pure awareness it is just the difference of one body or another or another and one mind or another or another. These are arising in the awareness and there is not difference in that.

The awareness is spontaneously and naturally aware without being self-conscious.

Thank you for pointing this out. It really helps a lot.

It is only within the pure awareness that awareness returns to itself. That is not anything at all. It is simply the end of extraneous imagining.