"I" and "me"

These two words, "I", and "me", are both just that ... words. The question you are invited to explore is, what precisely ARE these two words pointing TO? (For example: What does the word "water" pint to? Is the WORD water wet?)

For 99.999% of human beings, the assumption is that the words "I" and ":me" BOTH represent the body, or mind, or body-mind. This can be called the assumed "consensus reality", ie that on which the 99.999% AGREE..One Sage suggested a :test for what Reality IS, and said that the initial test would seem to be agreement. That if 99.999% agree that a statement is true then it IS true ie Reality. But prior to Columbus 99.999% agreed that the earth is flat so the "reality" at that time was a resounding and unquestioned conviction that "the earth is flat" and THAT is Real.

What is the ULTIMATE test for Reality? That's where we suggest looking. If we start with a simple dictionary definition of Reality,"That which has necessary existence and not contingent existence", which could also be stated as "that which is not relative nor dependent upon agreement", or MOST concisely, "That Which Is and  Never-Changing", or in my concept, "BEING-NESS BE-ING", then agreement and consensus are out the window!

In the final Understanding ALL definitions are out the window. Why: Because all definitions are language and descriptions of  appearances and those are constantly changing!

What is That which is absolutely fresh, unchanging, and unarguably (ie nonconcpetually) REAL? YOU. YOU are Reality. The word that POINTS to That is ... guess what?

"I". This, the Actual "I" (call it by any name you like; Being, Presence-Awareness, Sat-Chit-Ananda, it matters not because no word is IT or can describe or represent IT!)  and IT is NOT the concept or sound of the concept, is the True Open Stateless State which you have always been. What were you before you were born? THAT. What will you be after you die? THAT. What are you now? THAT.

The pointer is that in this Understanding that "I" is NOT a changing thing. Conversely, the "me", as I shall put it for the sake of sharpening a distinction between the two concepts "I" and "me", points to the obviously separate BODY. I say "me" in everyday conversation with "others". There is a natural knowing that "me" is a body BUT since the body is constantly changing at every moment, the body CANNOT be the Ultimate Reality! Isn't that obvious in direct looking? Dropping all learned concepts of what we are ... staring into the abyss as one Sage put it .. we find that The "I: is simply open space, Being-Ness Be-ING, and the "me" is one tiny constantly-changing object appearing IN That-Which_Never-Changes, the "I" which IS and prior to the "word 'I'!".

This, when accepted as what is but by no one, comports the Final Truth: There is no creation, no dissolution, no path, no goal, and in Reality, nothing happens, and THIS, the manifesting-dreaming, is what "nothing happening" happens to look like!

Row row row your boat, life is but a dream.

What GOT him .....

what Got him was Noth
ing and nothing's exAct
ly what any one Living
(or some
body
Dead like even a Poet) could
hardly express what
i Mean is
what knocked him over Wasn't
(for instance) the Knowing your
whole (yes god
damned) life is a Flop or even
to
Feel how
Everything (dreamed
& hoped &
prayed for
months & weeks & days & years
& nights & forever) is Less Than
Nothing (which would have been
Something)

what got him was nothing

~ee cummings

A sincere Thank You

Some of y'all have donated to keep this natural expression live on line. This is great as we are good at least through the end of November. Hopefully there will continue to be regular contributions so we are able to stay on line. Huge Thanks to all who have chipped in a few bucks toward computer, utility, and broad-bamd costs etc ... much appreciated. Much Love to you all!

This Cannot be 'Taught'

Ya can't teach this. Why? Because this is all, this is one essence, one unteachable infinite and indestructible awareness. Ya can't teach what IS. What is IS. Trying to teach that assumes a student who doesn't have some ephemeral "IT" already, and assumes "the teacher" DOES have "it". and you don't. It's really, really arrogant to pose as a teacher and really really wrong-headed to pose as a student!

Consider what the late Sage Ramesh Balsekar wrote in 1987:

The Nature of Self-inquiry

I went to Nisargadatta Maharaj as an individual in a state of utter, spiritual exhaustion and intellectual frustration wanting to know what it is all about: this phenomenal manifestation which appears so very real and lasting and yet disappears totally when I am in deep sleep; and what is this "1" who intrudes all the time with demands and desires when awake, and disappears altogether in deep sleep until I wake up again?

Maharaj's answer was simple and direct: This phenomenal manifestation is the objective expression of THAT which is pure subjectivity, which may be called Noumenon, unknown and unknowable as substance or thing because it is in itself. You - and the billions of all other sentient beings - are part of this totality of phenomenal manifestation. Therefore, all the ‘me’s - and the ‘you’s- are merely appearances or mirror-images of that subjective Unicity without name (because it is pure subjectivity) but which EXISTS as "I", the Infinite, Intemporal BEING.

This answer, so direct, so spontaneous and sudden, was like a tremendous blow into the solar plexus, and stunned me into a senseless vacuum in which the intellect was not only hopelessly inadequate but wholly irrelevant. For some time I could only sit there with my eyes closed, drowned in the depth of that numbness. When I came to, I found Maharaj smiling benignly. Without uttering a word, he made a questioning gesture with his right hand; I could only join my palms together in silent reverential obeisance as an answer. I think we sat there for some time without a word being uttered.

I noticed later from experience that Maharaj did not use such a knockout blow too often, but he did hit you with a fairly hard, direct answer; and it was for you to gather the various pieces from his subsequent talks and to put them together to arrive at  the full picture. He took good care, however, to see that you did not let yourself go astray; he gave you several pointers about the way you should listen to his talks. Thus, he warned you repeatedly that he talked to you not as one individual to another (because an individual did not really exist) but as consciousness to consciousness, and therefore, nothing would be achieved if you listened to him as one individual to another. Further, you were supposed to understand that words were really quite inadequate to convey spiritual truths; and there must therefore be such concentration (not tension) in the listening - and such a type of receptivity - that the meaning behind the words would convey itself like- the point of an arrow piercing the target. In other words, care must be exercised that too much attention is not paid to the words themselves; words must be used like stepping stones, lightly and with nimbleness, because if you stepped on them too heavily you invited the danger of falling into the intellectual mire of logic and reason. It was not for nothing that Truth has been likened to a razor’s edge. Without consciousness a body is nothing but a carcass, and mind is the content of consciousness; Maharaj, therefore, certainly did not mean that the mind must be forsaken or shut out when listening to him, but that the mind-intellect must have the keenness to realize its own strict limitation, and therefore not to intrude unnecessarily into the listening as such. Mind had to be treated as the servant, not as the master.

Nisargadatta Maharaj attached great importance to the fact that listening to the Guru must be done with the full realization that the absolute or noumenal state cannot be described because that is the source of all thought (and of the "word" which is vocalized thought), and the shadow cannot know the substance. All that the word can do is to point towards That, and the irony of the matter is that this direction must necessarily be away from itself . In fact, Maharaj repeatedly reminded his visitors that all that the Guru himself can do is to give pointers, and no more; he cannot erect a tree but only plant the seed : the result would depend upon the nature and the quality of the soil. All that the word can do, therefore, is to point; and even in this limited objective the word will not succeed if the basic intention is not strictly honest: if the intention is to achieve something for oneself , and not the reaching of a very deep understanding or apprehension as such. If the listening is pure and devoid of any egoistic taint, it lends itself easily to the direct apperceiving of the Truth to which the Guru's words have pointed.

(From "Explorations into the Eternal: Forays from the Teaching of Nisargadatta Maharaj" by Ramesh Balsekar)

When I read this part, "I went to Nisargadatta Maharaj as an individual in a state of utter, spiritual exhaustion and intellectual frustration wanting to know what it is all about: this phenomenal manifestation which appears so very real and lasting and yet disappears totally when I am in deep sleep; and what is this "1" who intrudes all the time with demands and desires when awake, and disappears altogether in deep sleep until I wake up again?", it seemed as though I was speaking through Ramesh, it was so exactly in accordance with my own actual experience, which I took with me to my first meeting with the modern Sage Wayne Liquorman (AKA "Ram Tzu" of "No Way" fame) on August 15, 2002.  The ensuing few years were a period in which these pointers gradually but inexorably "sank in to the heart".

The realization that this cannot be taught, yet is continually shared out of the generosity of Awareness-Consciousness-Love ITSELF, is to me the most important Understanding of all... yet this is not a "personal understanding" ie mental or intellectual comprehension, and indeed that is further irrefutable evidence that "this cannot be taught", for there is actually NO individual "in the Sage" nor any individual "in the student."

So WHO would teach WHAT to WHOM?

Now it's your turn to have a good laugh, or at least a giggle or two!!

(Fair Use Statement)

Stuff still happens for 'the enlightened' Updated

UPDATE:

And sometimes there is Grace ... after canceling all the cards and getting a new driver's license, I got a call 30 minutes ago; someone had found the wallet in the parking lot of a restaurant I went to last night after the quick shop, but didn't go in as they were closing! The amazing thing is that everything including all the cash was intact! Honest people. This is what I love about Enid... I had to virtually force the lady who found the wallet to accept a reward.  So all is well but of course all been has been well all along!!

~ ~ ~

Original Post: In the space called "I Am ... Awareness, just That," stuff happens! The latest drama in the play here happened as my wallet was stolen tonight, with over $270 cash in it reserved for bills, food, etc. in it. Other than the obvious hassle of reporting bank cards gone, getting a new driver's license etc, new checks, all up probably a $350 loss with the cash and expenses. .  what was left was, I hope that whoever took it needed to buy food for his or her family. I do know that it went where it was need, in one way or another ... there are NO accidents in this dance of Awareness-Consciousness!

There is the insane MYTH that shit don't happen when the Understanding is complete. That is SUCH BS! And it sets up a totally unrealistic expectation for the seeker. So what needs to be clear is that when there is Understanding, that Understanding changes nothing in appearances whatsoever. All the Understanding does is remove that secondary suffering that arises the "stuff happens to a 'ME'!"

Incidents like these have a certain wonder to them when seen AS a play, rather than the mental reaction of the split-mind that makes such happenings mean ... immediately ... that something IS wrong. But given that everything that appears can ONLY appear out of the "will of source" then where is the possibility for anything whatsoever being "wrong"? Only in a divided mind that does not know the Reality that "Thy Will be Done"s is a pure statement of fact and not a""prayer' to some ultimate deity!

So: What is, IS. In THAT there is profound peace even amidst the upset of the ocean of awareness waving in whatever way it waves. Sure, there are preferences (but no attachment to them!) Certainly this sort of stuff is an unwelcome happening yet perfect in it's absolute absolutes! Including the body-mind mechanism highly pissed about it Last thing we needed here in an already cash-crunched situation is this! And yet. perfection is a state in which what is, is and what ain't ain't! Does no good to lie about that! And a little bit of perspective ... this body-mind could have been born in Pakistan and now be terribly ill and homeless. All in all it has it pretty dang good.

Thy Will be done.

A very silly argument: "neo-advaita vs. traditional advaita"

There is still a very silly argument going on: The battle lines are drawn, and sides are taken, and it's "neo-advaita vs. traditional-advaita!" 15 rounds, may the strongest wordslinger win! What an utter load of crap.

I find it unfortunate to say the least, that some so-called "teachers" viciously attack (verbally) what they call "neo advaita." The whole notion of neo- vs. traditional advaita is so out of whack with Reality one can only wonder at such vociferous and acerbic lamentations! "Advaita" is Sanskrit for "Not-Two". How is it that there could be Two different Not Two's!?

I only trust the Resonance, not the words, of ANY so called teacher. Hence, I LOVE the "so-called 'neo's" like Tony Parsons, Ramesh Balsekar, Bob Adamson, John Wheeler, Wayne Liquorman and other very sincere and helpful folks these people textually lambaste! As I told a seeker who wrote here not long ago, I try to not make assessments of any other teacher or teaching, as in my perspective all is The One ... God in Drag if you like ... and of course that includes any evaluation the mind might make of any of these folks who love to debate rather than look where the pointers POINT TO! 

And I have found that there is great ignorance perpetrated at a web space that these sorts seems to worship, where this argument is in full swing, rather like the now very nasty talk radio and cable TV "Democrat vs. Republican" arguments here in America. Noisy stuff that distracts the sincere seeker from finding the authentic truth. In any case I asked that site host to remove any mention of me or my books as I found he was making misleading statements about people who are sharing from the heart. He did so, but only after a bit of argument. :-) In any event, ultimately it is all That so who is to give a shit what anyone else says or does? Given there is no "anyone else"!

My friend John Greven summed it all up elegantly in this essay: 

"In what follows, the use of the word "One" and in the analogies the "sun," refer to the Supreme Subject, Self, Source, Consciousness, whatever label your mind prefers. Whether seen or not – let's assume the sun is always shining - ever present.

"Traditional Advaita - a kind of path using knowledge, reason, logic, investigation to dispel the clouds of false ideas so that the sun is realized.

"Neo-Advaita - a kind of path that pretends to ignore the clouds of false ideas and encourages seeing Oneness directly.

"Since the sun is ever present and the only reality, the Neo-Advaita is right that this is a seemingly shorter route. - But, the thought arises, "what about the clouds?" Don't the clouds need to be dispersed to see the sun? Yes - because they appear to block the sun. No - because they are not the reality and are not blocking the sun.

"The question of neo vs. traditional is summed up in the analogy of passing through a door to self-realization and then turning around to see there was never a door. I must agree that neo seems to forget that the stepping through the door occurred. As the One, a veil was thrown over the eyes, and for realization it must be removed. But, it must be removed by the One: how that seemingly occurs has spun countless religions and philosophies – including traditional and neo Advaita.

"It is the mind that thinks a way has been found, neo, traditional, meditation, or medication. The dream character thinking is problem one. The dream character thinking it is doing is problem two. The dream character thinking it has realized is problem three. The dream character thinking it can share what has been realized is problem four. Another, seemingly separate dream character thinking, that another can teach them how to realize the self yet another. Yet – it all goes on.

"Already – we must divert into more traditional Advaita – even the radical neo will.

"Some would argue that the clouds are in fact real because they appear to exist at the moment. And, since there is only the One – the clouds are that. This is a valid point, but to the One the clouds are the enjoyment of being, temporal and meaningless. The One, at any moment, can drop the clouds or the entire creation and no one would know.

"To the mind thoughts are real. To the mind, the mind is real. When we begin to investigate the mind (traditional Advaita), it is not difficult to see that the thought of something, which has been taken to be real, is never the actual thing. The thought of a rock is never the actual rock. The thought of "me" is not the actual beingness. If we apply a rather simple test for ultimate reality a definitive perspective is seen.

"If the definition of what is real is, "what does not change" then what is not real - is changing. The clouds are not real against the reality of the One. So rather than saying that the clouds are not real, let's just consider that they are temporal events, real from one perspective and not real from another, but ultimately without significance or reality since they are changing.

"The changing temporal reality is just an appearance within the ultimate reality of the One. As Nisargadatta Maharaj said, 'A man who moves with the earth will necessarily experience days and nights. He who stays with the sun will know no darkness. My world is not yours. As I see it, you all are on a stage performing. There is no reality about your comings and goings. And your problems are so unreal !'

"Nisargadatta Maharaj was speaking from the perspective of the One, not the perspective of the limited mind. If you imagine your nightly dream for a moment, knowing that it is just a spontaneous creation of the mind, could you not say the same words about the characters in your dream that Nisargadatta Maharaj said about the appearance of the world and the characters in it?

" Zen: A monk is walking back from a lecture at a distant temple and gets lost on the wrong side of the river.  He needs to get across to get home but cannot find the bridge.  Finally, he sees the Master who gave the lecture on the other side and yells out to him.  "Master, how do I get to the other side of the river?" The master replies: "Novice; you are on the other side of the river!"

"While the truth is, as the Neo-Advaita would say - "you are already on the other side." That truth does not benefit the monk, unless these happen to be the words that disperse the clouds. So, the traditional Advaita is right. But, the thought arises, if your true nature is always present - what difference do the clouds make?

"None -You are on the other side of the river - just because you don't know it doesn't change that fact. Traditional Vs Neo is representative of the disease of the mind. The very lie that both attempt to dispel - "not two." One river is not in many places.

"Neo, it seems, offers the opportunity of removing some traditional Advaita baggage that was born in a different era and culture. Ultimately, it is the One - not the temporal teaching or teacher that removes the veil.

"How does the monk see he is already on the other side? Traditionally, work it out through investigation. Neo-ly see what is. Practically, do both. In reality – the One enjoys temporal being - regardless of what appears to be happening."

John Greven, author of "Oneness"

And here I thought "Neo" was just a character in "The Matrix!" 

But seriously, people ... listen at the Man ... "Traditionally, work it out through investigation. Neo-ly see what is. Practically, do both!"