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.

Simple!

You are the you that you already are. Simple and natural being-awareness.

So maybe you can help me with a problem I am having? I am angry a lot and I have a lot of guilt about it. I realize that guilt and anger are only an illusion, but still I am having trouble.

Don't look at your thoughts or feelings. Look to the simple fact of your own being-awareness. Before you can feel angry that light of your own natural being is already on. And nothing obscures this. This light is the you that you already are. See that you are never the anger and never the guilt; these only arise sometimes and pass away. They have nothing to do with you.

So you are saying that I am identifying with thoughts and that that is not who I am?

Yes. Seemingly you are entangling with thoughts. Only if you look right now you see that thoughts are mere arisings in the being-awareness. That simple awareness is you. Everything that you can experience happens in it. It has to be first before anything else can be. So everything depends on this being-awareness.

Eckhart Tolle says that one should simply watch what is happening without trying to change anything.

This is a simple practice that you may find helpful--to simply witness what is coming up. The pure awareness that you are is the space within which anything that arises appears and then passes on. Nothing but the awareness is permanent.

So all I have to do is remember to do that.

You are not doing anything. It's more simple than that. The light of your being is always on.

The World

The world is dead to me. It is a forgotten spark in a fire with no boundary.

I am none other than that fire.

If you look you can not see me for I am the very looking as it flows and beams through your eyes and your mind's eye.

The world's distress is laughable. It appears only to a pretending one who is ignorant of me. That distressing appearance is not the real.

The real is the looking itself.

The real cradles a beautiful and good little planet called earth. This earth is a gently-peopled shining out of pure love.

Nothing that is is outside of the real.

Any world is the fire that I am.

Mind is Like the Moon

Mind is like the moon
in daytime sky.

It's power

is not as great as it would seem to be

for being the imagined greatness
of an imaginary "I".

This imaginary "I"

once looked for spontaneously goes--

goes as it never actually was.

No Existence Outside of This

You are the you that you already are. Regardless of how the pretending character of "I am" is seemingly entangling with what is arising, and all the while feeling and thinking that something is missing, something is incomplete--you can not and will not ever "get to" yourself. You can not and will not ever "find" yourself. There is nothing to find outside of your own being-awareness and there is no separate someone within that being-awareness.

It is almost difficult to imagine how any person could even make such an assumption, when right here and now, all that there is--is this.

There is no "who" or "what" or "where" to this. This never happens as someTHING.

"What is this?" Who wants to know? Not this. This has no need of knowing. This is knowing-ness itself.

All arises within this. There is no existence outside of this.

And this is brahman.

And this is YOU.

Sri Ramakrishna: A Saint In Two Worlds

"If one analyzes oneself, one doesn't find any such thing as 'I'. Take an onion, for instance. First of all you peel off the red outer skin; then you find thick white skins. Peel these off one after the other and you won't find anything inside."

***

"All trouble and botheration come to an end when the 'I' dies. You may indulge in thousands of reasonings but still the 'I' does not disappear. For people like you and me it is good to have the feeling, 'I am a lover of God.'"

--Sri Ramakrishna

***

Sri Ramakrishna was a great jnani (knower) to be able to point to the natural state in all the ways that he did. AND he was also a great bhakta (lover), as he often sang songs and prayed to God as Mother and he would usually guide aspirants to increase their own love for God.

***

Advaita begins where it ends. It begins by pointing to the simple fact of the natural state of pure being, pure awareness--which is the "not-two" of atman, or being-awareness as a person, and brahman, or being-awareness as infinity, as these are as they are already. And so one quite literally has nothing to attain. You are the you that you already are. And that is that.

This is the way of knowledge.

***

The way of love takes a different starting point. It is a point A to point B course, as firstly the existence of "I" is presumed and then this "I" sets itself on a trajectory to become more loving. One seeks to, in the words of Christ, "Love God with all of your heart, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself."

And these two ways would seem to be very different from each other.

Only are they?

***

To love in this way that Jesus points to is itself knowledge and to live "devoid of 'I'" in the way that Ramana Maharshi mentions in Upadesha Saram (The Essence of Instruction) is itself love.

In the absence of "I" there is no one to think or do anything. There is only the thinking and action of God beyond either description or denial.

Right Here, This Instant

Papaji (Sri H.W.L. Poonja) used to all the time say, "I only want one instant."

This is because it only takes one instant to recognize the you that you already are.

And if you seemingly fall out of yourself and back into the character (which isn't even here)--this is no problem as it only happens in imagination, and so it can not stain or blemish the ever-shining fact of your own being-awareness.

You can look into the mirage of it all and in that very looking you can laugh. You are only ever this simple looking.

Right here, this instant.

You Here Now

Your "returning" to the you that you already are must be right here and now.

And now is not a "what" and here is no "where".

There is no "here" here.

There is only here.

There is no "now" now.

There is only now.

Nothing ever occurs to a separate "you".

***

There is only you.

Words

No one knows.

No one knows that no one knows.

This is not-knowing. And not-knowing is only knowing. Knowing-ness.

***

Is there something that you want to know? Only a pretending character can "know" and you can not. Who is that "one"? "Who" wants to know?

In this that always is no one wants to know or not know. There is no one "other than" in this.

Words about this are only words about this IN this. There is no trouble with words. "Who" would hear or believe them?

Words are an unsayable wonder.

Love-World

There is nothing to love in the world. As an object the world does not exist.

There is only a strangely soft orb called earth turning in space and covered with innumerable things and organisms. All shining out as a play within undifferentiated being-awareness. And happening spontaneously and for no one.

What is there to love when there is no one to "do" the loving?

And yet, and yet--love is!

***

Negation of the world is only to disentangle a pretending character. This character "swallows" it"self". And in that "swallowing" a world shines out in wonder and in love.

***

Nothing ever happens. So this, this has never happened before: the shining out of aliveness as a person, as all people, as a world and everywhere.

No one loves the world. And everyone loves the world and is the world. The world is the plain shining out--the expression of love itself.

There is no "other than" in this love.

Spiritual Journey

The entire spiritual journey can be reduced to a single question which is, "How do I get here?"

It is a seemingly paradoxical question. And it is either useless or useful for you depending on how you are taking yourself as you read these words.

If you are taking yourself to be someone (and even no one is someone) then you can have a look to this basic sense of "I am". This sense of "I am" always seems to be "in" something. And what it is "in" constantly changes.

"I am" may seem to be "in" the body one moment and then "in" the mind or emotions the next moment (and not that there is any such THING as time). So when you seem to be "in" it is because you seem to be in the first place. And when you seem to be, this is the sense of "I am". And this implies the question, "Who am I?"

"I am."

"Who am I?"

This is only the Self talking to Self.

A Great Mystery

"No one is ever away from the Self and therefore everyone is in fact Self-realized; only--and this is the great mystery--people do not know this and want to realize the Self. Realization consists only in getting rid of the false idea that one is not realized."

--Sri Ramana Maharshi

***

What you are is being-awareness. Plain and simple aliveness. This is the Self and this, as explained by Bhagavan in the quote above, is already accomplished and always the case.

It is only a pretending character who wants to get away from this and to that. There is actually no from this and no to that. There is only right here. And in this here there is no need to arrive any"where".

***

As a result of the fundamental assumption "I am" there is a play of "I am this." "I am this body." "I am this name." "I am this role that I am playing of father, mother, brother, sister, enemy, friend," and so on.

The simplest way of "return" to the natural state is to look for the "I am" that always comes before any particular thoughts of who, or what, or where this "I am" is.

And once this "I am" has be separated out from all objects, the "I am" is--in an instant--seen to be nothing at all.

Nothing, that is, save the Self which is also God.

Silent Fire

behind my eyes and before my tongue

space is a dancing flame

a rushing silent fire

consuming all

You Can Not...

You can not grasp your own hand. You can not kick your own foot. You can not bite your own teeth. You can not see your own eyes.

AND you can not attain to the you that you already are.

***

The one who wishes to discover or attain it"self" is not you. That one is only a pretending character. A play that is happening in you.

It can not be gotten rid of--which of course is no dilemma.

This character is all at once and quite naturally laughable when it is seen for what it is: a mirage of a barren and stoney desert within the lush and beautiful oasis of your own natural being. There is literally no findable thing, no actual someone to give up or rid oneself of--as this pretending character has no basis in reality.

***

Only have a look right here and now and see right through this character, this allegedly separate one.

That seeing through will be a laugh. That seeing through will be a burst of joyful tears. That seeing through will be sound and fury with out boundaries. That seeing through will be a crashing into great silence.

And in it the whole of existence will be shining out in the plainest way. Plain and simple. Easy and clear. Just like it is already and always shining out.

Just like this.

Go Into the Sky

Go into the sky and tell me if you can find any blue there.

Take up some water in your hands and tell me if that water has any blue in it.

Go into the person that you are right now and tell me if there is any separate person, any individual "you" present.

You will never find such a thing. You only seem to be separate when you take it on assumption that you are a someone.

Yet anytime you have a look you will never ever find any such one.

If you feel or think that you are only look.

In the looking you will tear down your own baseless and pointless assuming.

Naming

This is God. This is Guru. This is Self. This is me. This is you.

***

Never uttered by a single tongue, this has been the only uttering that humanity has ever uttered. An utterly, utterly unutterbale uttering.

There is no up or down in this. There is no big or small. There is no green or blue. Green and blue are only names. And any name is only a pointer to this.

***

God is the name of this. Guru is the name of this. Self is the name of this. Me is the name of this. You is the name of this. And all of this naming is a sheer impossibility.

Who names? I name. Who am I? Only a name.

A name is no trouble. A name is only a name. Name is only naming. There is only ever present and unnamable naming.

You & I

What it is like to be me is what it is like to be you. And it is totally different.

My being-awareness is exactly like your being-awareness.

Only different arisings happen in the play from "where" I am seeing it. Only I am a different person from you.

These differences are no difference.

I am no "I". You are no "you".

I am aliveness shining out. I am pure being-knowing-ness. As are you.

I am. You are.

You and I are the very lovingness that is IS-ing before there is the playing of lover and beloved.

There is no mystery or end to the mystery that is this here, now.

You

What is shining out of your eyes? What is feeling with your fingers? What is hearing with your ears? What is smelling with your nose? What is tasting with your tongue? What is thinking thoughts with your brain? Isn't it aliveness? Isn't it being-awareness? Isn't it you?

You have eyes, fingers, ears, a nose, a tongue, and a brain. Yet you are not any of these. They are only aspects of the person that you are. Yet this person is also not you. This person is only a vehicle of you.

There is nothing that is you. There is nothing other than you.

Nothing to Get

Chakras are chakras. People are people. Toes are toes. This room and the things in it are this room and the things in it.

Here there are fingers and ears. Fingers pecking at keys to type this and ears hearing the pecking.

Nothing is happening outside of this. Everything is happening in this. This is not any happening. This is simply this.

***

If you are trying to get this then that trying is also this. There is no actual mistake in your trying.

Who would make a mistake?

Dream Words

There is neither atman nor brahman. Nor is their the absence of either.

There is neither this world nor the absence of this world. For whom would it either exist or fail to exist?

There is no "I" and yet you are. This unsayable yet undeniable you does not negate any arising.

There is not lack or need within the you that you already are.

All lack or need is only the baseless imagination of a character that is dreaming itself.

A Fictional Line

Any knowing character depends upon knowingness shining out through the mind.

Any assumption of "I am" is an assumption made outside of your body and mind or any thing that is arising. "I am" pretends to entangle with some arisings. Say "I am" is like saying wave. For whom is there either wave or ocean?

Every arising, every thing is always spontaneously unentangled.

Your body is already free of "I am". You mind is already free of "I am".

If you doubt this only look now. You can not presently locate "I am" within your body. You can not presently locate "I am" within your mind. "I am" is merely an imaginary line dividing wave from ocean. Where does a waves end? Where does the ocean begin?

You can not presently locate "I am" within your heart even as your heart it is feeling and feeling and feeling.

***

What is an assumption aside from it"self".

You are not an assumption.

You are the you that you already are.

Neither Knower Nor Feeler

You are not a knower.

Your knowing self is a pure fiction and when this fiction is seen in this and every moment to be fiction no difference is found between atman (pure awareness as a human being) and brahman (pure awareness as infinity). All is this non-difference. All is not-two.

Nor are you a feeler.

The not-two that comes with seeing the absence of the doer or knower is still something. And there is not even this something. There is neither "I" nor "other-than-I". Neither duality nor nonduality. Neither bondage nor freedom.

***

There is no world other than this world that is arising now. There is no person other than this person right here. There is no awareness other than this very awareness shining out as a person with eyes reading these words right now.

This can not be said with words other than these.

Sounding Silence

You are great silence.

Since beginningless eternity you have never made a sound.

You have never made the faintest sound because every sound is only the sounding out of you within you. Any ear that would hear your would-be sound is itself more of the same sounding out of the you that you already are.

Listen now.

Do you hearing any sound outside of your hearing?

There is no sound ever heard and there is no hearer of sounds. There is only this ever-present sounding, only this ever-present hearing and only this ever-present now of you.

Unsayable, Undeniable

You are not a someone and not a something.

You are the you that you already are.

This you is pure being-awareness. It is absolute aliveness. Within IT every thing that is arising is simply an arising.

Nothing gets you to back to you (as you have never for even a fraction of a moment been way from yourself) AND nothing can block, keep or hold you away from you.

No separate, individual character exists other than a pretending character. And if that pretending character is playing out of being-awareness of you then even that, regardless of how that character may seem or feel unto itself, can not be other than the you that you already are.

You are not your body. Not your eyes. Not your tongue. Not your fingers or your toes. Not your ears. Not your nostrils as breath is drawing into them. Not your skin or your muscles or your bones.

You are not your heart.

You are not your brain or your mind. You are not the thoughts that you have in your mind. Neither are you your sensations or your emotions or your psychic knowing.

You are the knowing-ness which is without shape or form or beginning or ending. And the knowing-ness contains all arisings. All arisings. Arising are the simply the plain shining out of the you that you already are.

You are unsayable.

You are undeniable.

Spontaneous Arising

Assuming that you are the doer or knower or feeler is not a real obstacle to the you of you.

You are the you that you already are--already and always.

Nothing at all can or does or will obstruct or obscure this you, as such obstruction or obscuring is not possible.

You are not a doer, not a someone. And you do not fail to have every thing that is arising spontaneously arise within you.

The arising of you is a spontaneous arising.

My World

I live in a shapelessly shaping world. In it there is no "I" or "other-than-I". And time is all the time swallowing itself in a beginningless now which never ends.

To enter my world is to be the you that you already are--is to fall into your own immediate face. It is the end of a succession of myriad things and a present opening into ever-present no-thing-ness.

In my world you are not the one you assume yourself to be.

Nothing Other Is

You are.

You have no who, no what, no when, no where, no why, and no how to you that is not every who, every what, every when, every where, every why, and every how.

You are.

You are no this or that or someone or no one.

You are.

And nothing other is.