Is it ALWAYS "True"??

Dear Ones:

Recently I met a fellow who attended a Satsang with a small number of other "spiritual seekers", most of whom were imbued by Source with a quiet sincerity and openness, and a palpable earnestness to get at what the root of their suffering is. In this man's case, however, there was a most interesting form of denial at play, which manifested as the claim (the FALSE mechanical claim) that "I, as a creating entity, hereby predict that I can and will leave this satsang at the end, then I will drive my car to my home, and I will arrive unscathed". Why do I say this is "denial?"

Because, the false sense of being the source, the creator, of what we do and how we do it (i.e. *I* WILL be responsible and cause the trip to be done carefully enough not to run off the road on the way home,and of course *I* am responsible to make sure my car in in good operating order etc.). So where is the denial? If there was an openness to look (and I am NOT saying that the so called individual could create that openness for himself .. that openness itself is a gift!) then perhaps there would be a recalling and admitting that while these "plans" often DO appear to unfold as desired, there are innumerable yet conveniently forgotten instance where, despite these well planned excursions through life and living, SHIT HAPPENS and one's car breaks down, or someone runs  a light and smacks you broadside, or any one of a trillion other unfoldings of totality "interfere with 'MY' plans, despite the utter conviction that *I* an in charge and can ALWAYS make happen what *I* Intend* to make happen.

This is delusion, and ignores all those instances where, as the infamous saying goes, "shit happens". The dream play is just so bloody convincing, and that due to what the great Being Ramesh Balsekar called the "divine hypnosis", that is, the SENSE (not merely the IDEA) that the assumed entity which every human is programmed with somewhere around the age of two or three is responsible and able to create and manifest its intentions 100% of the time DESPITE all the evidence to the contrary;  this is falkse yet not-seen-AS-false SENSE fo being the creator of "my" destiny, or what the Advaita sage Wayne Liquorman calls the False Sense of Authorship (FSA).

Of course, this delusion is ALSO the perfect functioning of Totality!

Totality works through every organism, every star, every blade of grass, AS IT DOES. Then, after the FACT of any apparent occurring, the False Sense CLAIMS the happening as ITS happening, ITS design. It is so jammed up in a furball it is rarely seen. Look: Find out! That false sense DOES NOTHING; it is merely a claiming mechanism with NO power and no substance. In fact, when a deeper looking to see if its claims are TRUE, it's seen that there never WAS a separate entity with any ability or power to cause anything whatsoever.

This is not an assertion I ask anyone to believe; rather, this is an invitation to seeing a vastly greater possibility that what the False Sense of being "in charge of life and living", namely, the open possibility that this assumed author, fake playwright, phony managing (or mangling!) director, not only does nothing but claim the creation of action as its own, that when sought ought, when proof of its existence as a separate entity with and vestige of control is demanded, what is revealed is IT IS NOT REAL and never was! Wild, eh?

So please believe nothing. These are simply pointers to encourage the looking and deeper seeing. And whether the looking happens, as well as whether such looking fructifies in a deep insight, is also out of the false sense of illusory-separate-entityness's control.

The final question is simple: What is truly operating here, 100% of the time. My friend mentioned above can perhaps offer his dubious proofs that things happen according to his "intentions" 75% of the time, or even 95% of the time (though I know of no one who would go that high except perhaps Mr. Trump!) But I demand One Hundred Percent as the only irrefutable proof. So far I have had no one claim that (at least, no one HONEST with themselves!)

What is That which is operating through every organism, and every blade of grass, etc. ...? Why settle for less that Absolute Truth? Meaning, That which is ALWAYS TRUE!?

Have fun looking. And feel free to get in touch if you'd like to be supported in getting down to it!

The "two sides" of the "coin of nonduality"

In expressing the inexpressible non-dual Wholeness, using language which in itself is inherently dualistic, there seem to be two aspects or "sides" of this basically up close and intimate sharing: A so called "negative side" and a so called "positive side". Heads and tails of the one-unicity coin, if you like.

What is the "positive" side? Just this. Noticing, I AM, Being. Noticing and honoring that Beingness, which is absolutely never absent in any "state", as What-I-Am (What-You-Are). That One Consciousness, the Universal I AM, has never been missing and therefore cannot ever be "lost". How could you or I "lose" BEING? So dwell in the absolute incontrovertible Knowingness- I AM, Being. It is clear and ever present, and it is That which ALLOWS all the relative expression, the relative "twoness" of this magnificent, scary, lovable, amazing manifestation. Like the sky allows tornadoes and hurricanes, sunny skies and clear days and nights, that Being which You ARE allows it ALL.

As the Sage Ramesh Balsekar noted: "You are not an individual being, let alone an individual doer.  You're not even an individual entity!  You are nothing.  You are merely a pattern of vibrating energy.  Truly understanding that, with conviction, will help tremendously."

Understanding. The entry point to Paradise is this Understanding, this simple Seeing-Knowing sans Seer-Knower! SOOoooo simple that the machine-mind overlooks That as it seeks and searches for That, and all the while That is hiding in plain sight, EVERYWHERE EVERYWHEN. As Sri Nisargadatta said so powerfully, "Understanding is ALL!" Indeed, that is a pure FACT, NOT a speculation or opinion. Seeing that, "getting" that, is essential (in the view from Here).

Then we have the so-called "negative side". This is generally expressed as not this tot that. In short, to answer the question that leads to the home we never really left, "Who am I?, with, not this not that. Negating everything, what is left? Nothing. Abd That is truly sacred!

One brilliant expression of "negation" is expressed by Buddhism's Nagarjuna: Nagarjuna's philosophy of Madhyamika proposed that things are without essence and have existence only as they relate to other things. Thus, to say that things exist is not true, and to say that things don't exist is not true. The Eight Negations express Madhyamika -- the "middle way" -- between dualisms:

1. No cessation

2. No arising

3. No annihilation

4. No permanence

5. Not one

6. Not many

7. No coming

8. No going

So: What IS That which is NEITHER Being NOR Non-Being? The answer to this question cannot be found. And in that Non-Finding what is forever unconcealed is What You Are. Eternally just That and nothing else.

Finally it is present, clear and plainly obvious. At the end of the search we are found at the pointless point prior to the beginning of the search. Beyond, before, after, these are all seen NOW as meaningless concepts. And since we are no-concept, that is realization: There never was anything"missing". What we are is never and could never be hidden. We are no thing no where and not even THAT!

Home.

"Be aware of being conscious and seek the source of consciousness. That is all." ~Sri Nisargadatta.

Severing the root cause of seeking - and suffering:

Question: What is the First Concept?

Charlie: The first concept, which is at the very root of seeking and suffering, is the concept "I". That single root-conceptual "identity" has been endlessly added to, supported and surrounded by an enormous number of additional concepts, such as "I am the body', "I am not you", "I am separated from all else", and so on and so on ad infinitum!

But when challenged, that is when the question is asked at the deepest possible level, "Is this 'I' REAL?" "Is that CONCEPT what I am, what we all are?" "Are we really a whole bunch (billions!) of 'individual I's'?" Or, "Does that 'I' actually exist? If so, where the hell IS it?" Find the separate individual "I", take a picture of it, and e-mail it to me!

This "I concept" arrived out of nowhere (Now Here) at around the age of two or two and a half. Notice how a two year old moans and wails; good reason we call it the "terrible twos!" Because when the "I" - "I Am" - "I Am MEEeeee" is born (and that is all that is ever "born!) the shit hits the fan. As that I is imbued with a sense of being separated from the Whole, thrown out of Paradise, there is ALWAYS (but ONLY always) "much weeping, wiling and gnashing of teeth.

The good news is that this wailing and weeping DOES have a cause: The BELIEF (acceptance despite absence of reason, logic or authentic proof that the "I" concept IS "ME"). And when the cause is rigorously examined it can be removed, ;leaving What-We-Really-ARE, i.e. No Thing AKA Everything. Nowhere and Everywhere.

The core question I prefer is a simple one: Do I actually exist? The absence of an answer shows the Absence that we are ... and the clear seeing then is, "Existence IS, but there is nO I that exists in Truth. Try it and see for yourself.

These are not concepts to add to any belief system; these are pointers BEYOND the so called beginning as in the phrase "In the beginning is the word". What That which ALWAYS IS, That which PRECEDES ANY word? What is right Here Now before the I-concept is cognized (and mistakenly taken for what we are!?)

Look at it. As if your Life depends on it. It DOES depend on it. Taking oneself to be a concept leaves one walking upright but dead. Check your experience: Are you alive an loving what is? AS it is? Or is that I concept convinced "there is something missing for "me"; something is wrong and "I" don't know how to fix it!?

Have a deep look. And feel free to write of you'd like to be supported in this profound and necessary inquiry. Write to non.duality@yahoo.com with any questions or issues that may seem to be in the way of taking the inquiry deeper. and remember, as Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living".

I can vouch for that!

This is Being-Beyond "God" or any "Other"

A reader sent this one in:

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

This is pure DELUSION. I know, that seems harsh, but as my friend Dr. Jerry Joiner said, 'the truth can set you free but first it will piss you off!" If YOU are "pissed off" by the above assertion, look and see WHO is pissed off about some belief? As another friend, Fernando Flores, once said, "God exists only in the domain of belief ..." and, "when I say 'I believe' I am about to say some bullshit I can't prove."

Got that!?

My friend John Greven (Author of "Oneness") and I were at a rally for Sen. Tom Coburn last year... A preacher was droning on in "prayer" before the event ("invocation" I think he called it.) John turned to me an whispered, "Who's he talking to?" We both giggled for the next few minutes!"

The potent QUESTION that needs to be asked with a commitment to get at TRUTH is, simply: Where is this "me" and where is this "one who says yes" to what "me?"

This unprovable and delusive belief in a SEPARATE "God", or ANY separate "other", is just flat insane. But of course, the insane never know they are insane! They believe those who challenge their cherished false assumptions are the nutty ones. That evokes a deep wave of compassion here. But when there is a sincere interest, that compassion can become ruthless. It is a ruthless Love that wants only that there be truth and freedom.

A character on the TV show "House" who had left Seminary to go to medical school commented: When I was in Seminary and I was upset I talked to God and pretended that someone was listening".

Spot ON.

"Tortured and stultified by the utter failure of his intellect to grasp the ultimate reality, man has conceptualized God in the image of himself attributing to it the noblest sentiments and qualities he himself wants but lacks. To reach that which is beyond this God, the transcendent and immanent ground of all manifestation, the intellect is powerless. There is no path to that which is timeless and present everywhere and which is itself the source of all thought."~ Sri Ramesh Balsekar

The Drug You Can't Buy

Recently I was watching a Formula One race, and noticed that seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher was struggling around in mid pack. What a come-down for a great driver! But having had the experience of being used by totality to "be" a racing driver, what is absolutely clear to me is that motor racing, especially at a world class level, provides the organism with a sense of being awake and alive that is simply not available to the average person (expect perhaps through exotic chemicals!). The point is, in racing at that level, the 'person' disappears into the merger of being and doing such that there is a suspension of the rules of space-time and temporality. Seconds becomes as hours. As one Ferrari driver put it, "If a man is awake and alive he can live ten years in two hours on Sunday". That was exactly my experience.

So, coming back to Michael Schumacher, this "drug you can't buy" called motor racing has a world champion unretire and come back into what is absolutely a young man's game, Grand Prix Formula One racing, at over age 42. Gotta have that drug, you see. I had the same experience, when I attempted a comeback in 1985 after 17 years out of the game. I was very quick still (that is how the DNA formed this charlie-thing!) BUT on applying for a license and getting the medical exam and EKG, the doctors found an "anomaly" in the heart and I was refused a license. THAT was a blow. How would I get my drug high? (Through drugs, of course. And seminars. And through spiritual practices. That went on for 20 years, until my meeting 'Sailor' Bob Adamson!)

This is a perfect metaphor or parallel to the search for Spiritual Enlightenment. The elusive "thrill" of an unbelievable and glorious "high" that happens for many in meditation, chanting, satsang, study of scripture or any one of a thousand other "circumstances" that provide that profound human thrill, very akin to the thrill of sex and intimacy with a beloved partner. The thrill is so awesome that the organism has no choice but to seek to regain it and forever dwell in it! But this is absolutely impossible. Because the thrill is the ABSENCE of the "me" that is seeking it!

It is another "drug you can't buy!"

Who will you be when the thrill is gone!? When the racing is over? When the partner leaves or dies? When the satsang is over? Who will YOU be when the HIGH is over and you are right back in the soup of daily life, the roller-coaster of highs and lows that go on and on seemingly forever? While you seek escape from what is, what is remains as it is... and could not care a whit about what "you" or "I" WANT! Haven't you noticed? I sure have. Yet this is not always terrible news. As the Sage Ramesh Balsekar said, "The beginning of inner transformation is a deep feeling of utter dissatisfaction with life, otherwise called dispassion.  This is the point of the inward turning of personal consciousness.  It is the point of no return in the quest for life's source."

"With realization, or apperception of WHAT IS, the existence of the physical body ceases to be relevant.  The psychosomatic mechanism will then exist for the rest of its life merely as a part of the totality of functioning without any illusion of personal volition."

Obviously "you" and "I" cannot cause this apperception. It just happens. Bang on time! Regardless of whether the seeking goes on or not, regardless of whether the racing or the sex is available or not, this happens, despite (not because of either the earnest seeking or the giving up into the dispassion (Vairagya) that Ramesh points to, IT HAPPENS or it doesn't. Either way it is a matter of non-volitional Wholeness "doing it's own thing" as we are being lived, whether we believe we are living life or believe we are being lived, Being-Lived is what IS. So the Sages have said in 5000 ways for 5000 years. 

So it is.

Don't believe this. Just ponder what is written here for a bit and then drop it and go on, seeking or not seeking, but with the deepest possible understanding that whatever is happening is Wholeness-Dancing and we are being-danced. There is great joy in this. May That find you now.

Thank You All...

I am moved deeply by the generosity of so many of you that have contributed to assist with medical bills. Without your support this site and our newsletters, consultations, meetings etc, could not continue, So I THANK YOU with all my heart! I Love You All.

What is 'wrong' with SPACE? (updated)

Just pause here now for a few moments and notice that pleasure, pain, body, thoughts, emotions, trees, people, rivers, mountains, computer screens and keyboards all APPEAR in ... what?

Space. SPACE is so obvious and clear that 'we' miss it. We overlook the obvious ... why? Because it is always Here. 24/7, Space IS. So look around. Notice that preferences and other mental movements of energy appear and disappear in that Space. There may seem to be persistence, like furnishings in a familiar room. But it does not take rocket science to see that in fact everything that appears to be solid and lasting is in fact temporal and always disintegrating right before our eyes, whether seen to be or not. Make no mistake, the ONLY PERMANENCE is Space! Space is YOU; Space is The Eternal! Moreover: Is there ever anything 'wrong' with that SPACE ITSELF?

Really ask that of yourself; insist on a clear and direct answer from the machinery of mind, the incessant mental modifications that are no more than a product of, as the man who won the Nobel Prize for decoding DNA called it, "nothing more than the movement of a vast number of nerve cells". 

BUT: There is no possibility for  ANYTHING, any phenomena, to arise, to appear then disappear, UNLESS that Space, which is never missing, is Here First. So drop the attention OFF of objects, OFF of content, and just allow the Natural Noticing of what is REAL. The Space, which is your True Identity.

This Seeing requires absolutely NO effort. All that "effort" actually is, is Mental Modification which until it is pointed out to be just movements IN Space that come and go while Space remains unchanged and unalterable, is taken on board as the identity. "What we have (ALL we have) HERE is a "Case of mistaken identity'."

You see, Space is clear, open, empty, free and utterly invincible and when that becomes obvious, the search for freedom and peace is done. That Space IS the freedom that was sought; the Perfect Peace beyond mental comprehension or linguistic labeling. There is no label for what You ARE. 

Isn't it obvious that Space As-It-IS is NOT the word-label with five letters? Get clear on this. There is no way to describe, represent or 'language' Space As-It-IS.

To know thy Self is to know prior to any identity that True Identity is this clear and obvious always-present Space. And at the core you already know this! So BE This and nothing else. This is Freedom. This is Peace. This is Love! And since it is already what you are, that seeing is the "allee allee in free" for the seeker in the cosmic game of hide and go seek!

So welcome thyself Home. And if doubts or yes-buts arise, notice that none of that, no object, no changing phenomena, can EVER alter or modify the Space That You Are.

I love You.

Read a great comment from my dear friend, the Arkansas Sage JD Hazelwood, HERE

Sometimes there is great pain...

Q: I hope your surgery went well and you are on the road to feeling good.

C: The surgery happened Tuesday at 10 AM, galling damn gallbladder is out! Man, the first 48 hours there was wicked pain! More even than when there was open heart surgery on this old corpsy body-thing. Afterward there has been a gradual easing. Also there was (still is) much weakness. Of course it was barely able to move for the first 48.

Q: After reading your post of April 3, and asking who’s thinking and who’s listening, I was floored with the response.  It wasn’t “me” who claimed the process but that “I” me has been seeking.  Me would call it “Thou”.  Then searching for language me couldn’t find a term for the “I” equivalent to “Thou”, the holy I, but that’s what it is.  Boy! Babbling here.  Then somehow the question became “who’s seeking?”  And the answer equally flooring was not “me”, but “I”.

C: Nice! Yes, the "I" which is NO "me" (and for that matter not even such a "thing" as "I") is the direct, always-on Aware-Cognizing-Emptiness. which paradoxically is a deep fullness, a deep Love-Of-What-IS, requiring no intellectualizing or feeling to Always BE ... As one Sage, Sri Nisargadatta,  puts it:   

"The real is simple, open, clear and kind, beautiful and joyous. It is completely free of contradictions. It is ever new, ever fresh, endlessly creative. Being and non-being, life and death, all distinctions merge in it."

Q: Loving the game...

C: THAT is GRACE!

"What happens when you make a serious quest for the Self is that the `I'-thought disappears and something else from the depths takes hold of you and that is not the `I' which commenced the quest." ~Sri Ramana Maharshi

Who is thinking, speaking? Who is LISTENING?

Ever notice that the brain is nearly constantly "talking to itself" so to speak "in your head?" Have you ever asked your "self" WHO is speaking to WHOM? And WHO is listening to WHOM?

Consider this: If you ask the question (and please do this now): "Who is thinking?" (i.e. speaking-in-my-head as it is assumed)? "WHO is thinking now"? You will notice that the brain is pre-programmed to answer, "I Am". Now ask "Who is listening"? Same response, isn't it? "I AM". Now to just read this will never produce the available insight: To get that you have to DO it. (And before the "Advaita Cops" jump all over this with "well WHO is supposed to do that? There is no one!" pause a moment, let that go, and realize that the one who does that is the one who asked THAT question! To dismiss the possibility of freedom out of some stupid dogma of so-called teachers who assert there is no one but will still pass the salt if asked, is to reject a profound possibility for absolute freedom from the tyranny of ALL beliefs, "holy" or no!

Anyway, if you DO this little exercise you will experience FOR YOURSELF that the only "thing" either listening or thinking (or speaking out loud for that matter) is, "I AM".

So if that one and the same I AM is BOTH the listener and the speaker, WHERE is any DUALITY!?

Now expand the exercise by finding a friend to speak with, in person or by telephone or Skype. Ask them to speak about whatever they like. Then when they are done ask them "Who is speaking?" They will answer from pre-programming, "Me". Then ask who is thinking and speaking now?" They will respond (given a little time to look) "I AM". Then invite you friend to ask YOU those same questions. Notice the automatic answer aloud is "I AM". Then you can say "Well over here, I AM speaking and I AM listening; yet you are also saying "I AM speaking and I AM listening. Yet don't we think that the I AM I say I am and the I AM you say you are two separate and different I AM's?" Isn't that weird?

Now can you see that "I AM" is an IMPERSONAL and totally OBVIOUS "Awareness-Of-BEING"? And that the WORDS "I am" are no more the REAL I AM of Naked Open Awareness of Being which EVERY human being shares, than the word Sky is the Open Empty Space we LABEL sky? And that no label is the actual phenomenon labeled!? The word fire won't burn you or anyone else no matter how loud you shout it!

As John Greven points out in his wonderful book, "Oneness":

“The simple and obvious is frequently overlooked or taken for granted by the mind.  You look at a page and see the words, but not the space between them. You watch a movie or television program without noticing the light changing to form the images. You mentally talk to yourself and assume that someone is listening. The mind is trained to focus on content. While reading this paragraph, the mind sorted, labeled, and tossed out what it did not consider valuable. Perhaps the mind is looking for something within these words.  Perhaps there is an expectation to be fulfilled.  Yet, if someone were to go back and point something out in the paragraph, it is possible that you would see something that was there all the time, just overlooked.  Perhaps the answer is right in front of us all the time.”

In fact the "answer is SO obvious and clean and clear that it is (UN)naturally overlooked as we are programmed to believe that labels are more real than the Space-Awareness-Presence IN which the labels appear (to POINT, not describe or represent what is). But IS THAT TRUE? Are YOU a "label"?

Looking into this you can discover for yourself what IS REAL and distinguish That from what is merely words, labels, thoughts etc. That distinguishing is what Adi Shankara called "Viveka Chudamani", The Crest Jewel of Discrimination. And when this is seen (and it is always seen NOW) then the emptiness we are falls in love with ItSelf in Natural Wonder ... and The Self which was never not already Here Present-yet-overlooked becomes the foreground as all the words and pictures move to the background in the merging of Knowledge and Love (Jnana and Bhakti).

That is about all there is to this. A little questioning in these ways ends the seeking (and obliterates the assumed speaker-listener duality and annihilates the seeker him- or herself) because it gets crystal clear that the Self is the only Reality and that all there is, IS That Self, appearing as Emptiness and Fullness, Clear and Clean ... and That is the Perfect Peace we ALL are.

Stuff always happens (apparently!!) In This DREAM :-\

Just when it seems we are coming out from under ... three unexpected co-pay bills arrive in today's mail totaling about $600! No way, I shout, all the time realizing that it is all the natural functioning of the Unbroken Whole. But whosoever thinketh that so called "enlightened ones" (whatever THAT means :-)) never have a "bad day" gots another think coming. Stuff happens!!

Anyways if anyone is moved to assist with this financially that would indeed be MOST welcome. In any event it is clear here that somehow unbeknownst to any '"mind", The Unborn registers and manages it all with absolute perfection.

What a dance! Ya just NEVER know what's up next in this amazing dream of Grace :-)

PS ... Great Thanks to M.H for the €50 (Euro) donation which also arrived today. SO awesome. Yay!

A Different Satsang" ... April 23rd, in Edmond (Oklahoma City) OK

"A Different Satsang" in Edmond (Oklahoma City Area)

Saturday, April 23rd, 11 AM - 3:45 PM + Lunch . . .

"Finding and Using The Keys to The Kingdom"

The Satsang is being hosted by Brian and Kitty Sullivan. Please Call Brian at 1.405.863.3442 for Exact Location info and directions, and to reserve your space (seating is limited.) 

You can also e-mail Brian to confirm your seat, at: bsullivan@cisriskgroup.com. 

The suggested minimum donation for both Saturday meetings is $60 (or $35 for one meeting). More or less is fine, according to your means and what the Heart guides you to offer.

"The purpose and intention for these two sessions has to do with realizing the Natural, Eternal Being which We Are, removing seeker and seeking from the 'path to realization' effortlessly. And, it will be FUN! PLUS there will be lots of time for very deep Silent Meditation on The Self in both sessions. I look forward to being with Brian and Kitty and their friends, including YOU." ~ Charlie

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj said: "The final stage of meditation is reached when the sense of identity goes beyond the 'I-am-so-and-so', beyond 'so-I-am', beyond 'I-am-the-witness-only', beyond 'there-is', beyond all ideas into the impersonal Pure Being."

This is what the day is for: Knowing how to ACCESS The Nectar of Immortality.

I look forward to BEING with YOU on the 23rd. For 'Charlie", all that there is here IS YOU.

Go HERE for the latest Newsletter. Also, you can download a flyer for the event HERE.

Crazy ...

One of what I call “The Keys to The Kingdom” is to accept, at least provisionally, that we humans are machine programmed (by Source if you like the term) to BE CRAZY.

My definition of “crazy” is NOT KNOWING we are crazy. Meaning, the crazed do not know they are crazy and don’t know that they don’t know that. I add this definition of crazy to add to the paradox of all this “nonduality” stuff:  Crazy is believing a thing to be true despite often overwhelming evidence that the thing believed is FALSE. Here I point out that human craziness consists in believing we are “things” somehow separate from “everything”. If that ain’t crazy then I am full of crap. (Of course you may well decide that I am full of crap anyway! That’s coo. I already KNOW I am full of crap!)

So let’s add the pop definition  of crazy: “Doing the same thing(s) over and over expecting a different result”. This point to the incessant seeking for some “enlightenment” for an individual that simply cannot be found anywhere on intelligent investigation. For example asking the mind-body we have assumed to be “me”, “Who am I”?, produces NO answer. Rather than take the No-Answer to BE the ultimate finding of our True Nature, some (many?)  keep going endlessly asking and trying to  find an answer that we can understand with the mind-body apparatus (which is by definition a MACHINE and how can a machine KNOW it is a machine? It cannot.) All the while in this ever-present awareness, that appears as “I AM” and This Now”, silently registers all that crazy goings on. Watches it all unfold out of ItSelf like the spider watchers a web emitting from its belly and hen the disappearance of that web back into itself.

That is the frightfully deep and incomprehensible PARADOX of the seeking for wholeness: Seeking wholeness must by its own circular reasoning DENY wholeness! That’s the Catch-22 of “Advaita Nonduality!”

A Catch-22, coined by Joseph Heller in his novel Catch-22, is a logical paradox arising from a situation in which an individual needs something that can only be acquired by not being in that very situation; therefore, the acquisition of this thing becomes logically impossible. Catch-22s are often spoken with regard to rules, regulations, procedures, or situations in which one has knowledge of being or becoming a victim but has no control over it occurring. As Heller wrote brilliantly:

Yossarian ... [a character in the book who had had many near misses, nearly getting killed flying combat missions] decided right then and there to go crazy.
"You're wasting your time," Doc Daneeka was forced to tell him.
"Can you ground someone who's crazy?"
"Oh, sure. I have to. There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy."
"Then why don't you ground me? I'm crazy. Ask Clevinger."
"Clevinger? Where is Clevinger? You find Clevinger and I'll ask him."
"Then ask any of the others. They'll tell you how crazy I am."
"They're crazy."
"Then why don't you ground them?"
"Why don't they ask me to ground them?"
"Because they're crazy, that's why."
"Of course they're crazy," Doc Daneeka replied. "I just told you they're crazy, didn't I? And you can't let crazy people decide whether you're crazy or not, can you?"
Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. "Is Orr crazy?"
"He sure is," Doc Daneeka said.
"Can you ground him?"
"I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule."
"Then why doesn't he ask you to?"
"Because he's crazy," Doc Daneeka said. "He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."
"That's all he has to do to be grounded?"
"That's all. Let him ask me."
"And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.
"No. Then I can't ground him."
"You mean there's a catch?"
"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane then he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

OUR (though this is no we or us, we are pointing beyond words with words here!) Catch-22 arises at the moment we realize we are nuts … then we are no longer nuts. The difference, however, for the majority of “seekers of truth” is that they immediately and automatically make that into a NEW ANSWER which turns the insight-seeing into yet another load of spiritual CRAP. Or try to comprehend it, like Yossarian, leading only to inescapable circular bonkersness!

And so it goes in the unfolding dream of “Us-Ness!”

When I first met the modern Sage Werner Erhard, who was contemplating driving racing cars as a project to see what he could find out about the core principles that have teams and organizations work (or not work, more prevalent), the first thing he said to me, after learning I had been a world class racing driver,  and might just be an asset to him for the project, was, “Isn’t it interesting how the universe unfolds” or something very close to that. I recall being stunned , not so much by the words, as the direct experience that I was in the presence of Pure Presence and Absolute Peace. His eyes were truly “windows to the soul”, MY soul, YOUR soul, THE soul. (By the way, I call that, “The SOLE”. The only One there is, in other words.)

So what is That which is “watching the universe unfold?” This is a key question: Clearly there is SOMETHING that IS and silently observes ALL the unfolding regardless of what it is, war or peace, pleasure or pain. The fact that perceiving-conceiving   is arising proves that there is a SOMETHING (incontrovertible) that exists PRIOR to perceiving and conceiving and that THAT is immutable, eternal, ever fresh and always-so, always- just-before-here and just-outside-now, ALLOWING now-here. THAT ain’t NOWHERE! Yet … YOU ARE that Nowhere, which is, when  you notice a space, becomes Now  Here.

Prior to Now-Here is what You-ARE. Don’t try to “get that”. Sit there and let it simmer!

So: The point is, what is patently crazy is the assuming-languaging-mindstuff that claims, “I am the body” or “I am my thoughts” or (talk about circular nuttiness) “I AM ME!” I understand that by this definition 99.9% of the Earth’s populace is flat crazy! I stand by that. For evidence of this assertion, watch cable news!

Listen to Ramesh Balsekar as he shares his insights from the Sage Jnaneshwar Maharaj’s “Amritnubhava” (Experience Of Immortality):

“The spiritual seeker asks himself, ‘Who Am I’?' In asking this question, it is the light seeking out the darkness of a "me" and finding that there is no "who" [or “I” or “me”] or any other object,  only the absence of that  which was seeking:  the absence of the presence of that which was asking and seeking. The seeker is the self is seeking something as an object as the "other." Jnaneshwar points out that in such a search, the not-finding is itself the finding.”

Bingo.

Got it? Then,  drop it!

If you like: Meditate on the Sages pointers: Take up the profound insight, look at it, sit with it … this is called (in the ancient traditions of Nonduality) Shravana, Manana and Nididyasana … Shravana is to listen attentively (I call it hearing without ears), Manana is meditation, reflection, discriminative thought, and  Nididyasana is profound and repeated contemplation (I call “sitting with it without resistance or opposing thought.)

Then the apperception MAY dawn, this is absolutely FUTILE. And there IT IS, the Not-Finding ending the seeking once and for good. The there is the Perfect Peace of true sanity, the knowing without a knower that YES! I AM THAT!

May it be so for you now.

I Love You. I AM You. 

All there is Here, is YOU.