It Is All THAT

As 'Sailor' Bob Adamson loves to say, "there is no duality in non-duality". If that really hits home, sinks in to the heart, the search for Oneness ends in a flash of pure insight.

Along the way (pretending there is "time" but "time' is only a concept falsely believed to be a solid and real "thing") there can be many, many paradoxical expressions, i.e. when you realize that time is only a concept the notion is no longer accepted or believed. The pointer implies time i.e. "someday". But we are trained to not notice that all there really is, is NOW, and really speaking from Space NOT EVEN THAT.

Another paradox, we don't notice the space or awareness of presence that we really are. Yet when this sinks in, it's SO bloody obvious that the Space IS what is real and eternal, and the acceptance pf a false premise of separation happens, then what is also obvious is that we have never been a thing at all, we are in fact "NO Thing", then clearly the search was carried on by a phantom.

As Bob also points out the "secret" so to speak is to start any looking, reading, seeking etc. from the True FACT that we already ARE THAT. As the ancient yet totally current timeless pointer goes, I am That, You are That, all of This is nothing but That.

Is this manifest appearance REAL? Or isn't it all merely a complex web of concepts (and yes, emotions and feelings are also concepts)? And if we come back to the essential pointer That is also THAT. There is only That. Nothing exists that is not That (as non-dual Kashmir Shaivism has pointed out for eons, "Nothing exists that is not Shiva."

Remove the idea of attempting to "get something, someday". Do you accept the idea that there is a someday when? Do you accept the flat earth notion that there is an "entity" called "you" apart from the entirety of what IS? Bring it all back to the ever-present awareness of presence that is truly invincible, regardless of whether the USA debt limit is increased or the world's financial system crash and burn; whether you fine the body in hospital (as happened twice to this one earlier this year (as if there was/is/will be time) or any other appearance, see this right now: That Awareness, that Knowingness of Living-Presence, NEVER changes, never has and never will, my dear friends!

Know Thyself! You are That, and have never been other than That. That is the fundamental Essence, the Energy-Intelligence that the whole show is made up of (akin to the Hologram's Essence being the light of the Laser. That is all there is. ALL. Ever. The whole show is your own play of omnipotence-omniscience-omnipresence. It is all You and none of it is You.

Chew on THAT paradox a while and feel free to get in touch: 580-701-4793, non.duality@yahoo.com, Pacific time zone (this body lives in Reno now.

All love to You!

PS: If you want to suffer, believe your thoughts! Believe you are the thinker-doer, you suffer. Enough already! Try this: drop into what IS and look for that "separate entity". You will find Nothing. and That, my friends, is all there is, nothing-being-everything full stop! 

"If we aspire to experience such an awakening, there is nothing else to do except recognize the true nature of our primordial awareness, our own essential being, our own birthright, which is within. This is the intrinsic nature of our own heart-mind, also known as bodhicitta or bodhi-mind. It is our own being, our own nature, this renowned buddha-nature. It is not a Buddha anywhere else."  ~ Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche and Lama Surya Das

After A Conversation Today, a Friend Writes:

Q: Just wanted to drop you a note saying, "Thank you."

Just before we hung up you "gave me" a beautiful customized pointer about there being a lot of clarity over here, but still a belief or two running about WHO this I AM believes itself to be.

The truth of your pointer landed over here and so "I" find myself asking, "Yeah, who the f**k do you THINK you are anyway!!???" And then NOT looking for any mind made mental answer (which isn't worth the air its written on!), but just resting as the aware nothingness that I AM, and that I know myself to be, which is PRIOR to any arising. Much Love to you my dear friend,

C: Perfect!

Q: Hi Charlie, How's it going in Reno? Glad you were able to make the move successfully! All the best, A.K. 

C: Reno is good. Funny, some people ask, "why did you move to Reno?" It's such a human habit, to assign a story of cause and effect arbitrarily. If there were really changeable causes then the kinds of upheavals that happened here in the last 18 months would be controllable and of course they are NOT. Everything happens by itself, then the human pseudo-entity ("subject") blames or praises its invented false causes! So now this old thing is in Reno and it seems there is some settling in. Humanly, Reno works for me. A good place to live that is affordable happened. Far better living circumstances than it had in Enid! In the bottom line It's All Good! :-) Thanks for asking, my friend. Love to you! ♥

Who?

There is clearly GREAT concern worldwide right now, regarding the possibility of an economic total meltdown, which could very result in a kind of nightmarish chaos, perhaps a revolution, more likely a global eruption of lawlessness, looting, killings, and most likely quantum increase in suicides.

The question really ought to be, WHO CARES?

Who is it that judges what happens, heavenly or hellish, and adds the fervent opinion "this should NOT be?" WHO? Are you really the thinker of, the author or creator of, the believer of what you claim to be "your" thoughts? Now really, do you BELIEVE the thoughts that show up :in your head" (or so it seems)?

My great good friend Byron Katie has some potent pointers around all this. She asks you to ask, "WHO would you be WITHOUT that thought?" Great question! Whether language seems to lead you into a serene state or a terribly unhappy state, ask that question, "Who would I be without that thought?" This is a wonderful variation of the teachings of a living Sage (Katie) on the great Sage Ramana Maharshi's instruction to enquire within, to seek the Source of thought (the No Thing that this all IS) via asking oneself "Who Am I?".

The late Ramesh Balsekar, another great Sage, wrote a marvelous book with the title "Who Cares?" (Who Cares?! The Unique Teaching of Ramesh S. Balsekar). That question is NOT an aggressive attempt to shut you up, or an attempt to minimize what may be happening to you or around you (such as financial meltdown concerns, or the sense of insecurity and vulnerability that accompanies such concerns) but rather to LOOK DEEP, withing the internal voices, the infamous internal dialogue, that the vast majority of organisms consider is who they are.

I don't care whether you declare "I Am the Space in which life happens" or down from that one, "I am the Space in which 'MY' Life happens"), I am insisting that it is all bullshit, all false, all a product of a split and deluded "mind" ... in short, "thoughts believed to be what and who I am". 

Asking "who cares" WHAT the bleep happens or doesn't happen MAY result in a kind of evening out of the chaos and a revealing of the Infinite Awareness in the  background, or a kind of natural seeing that what WE ARE is the depth of the Ocean Of Conscious-Awareness rather than the choppy (or calm) surface of the said ocean. No promise here, nor any request; just a gentle suggestion that you might like to have a deeper look. If you are suffering that can be a good impetus to look. 

And a helluva lot of people ARE suffering, the basis of which CAN be uncovered as "What is should NOT be as it is". That is what the infernal internal voice tells you, isn't it? What if it is a liar, a con? Who says what IT says? Are YOU the creator of these disturbing thoughts? Are you the creator of the thought "I" or "me"? Have a good look: If YOU are creating what is happening in and around you, how is it that you are creating things that are chaotic, disturbing, troubling? WHY would YOU do THAT!?

So now with respect to the above, the question to be delved into is "WHO is writing the script playing out in 'my' head and in 'my world?" I suggest you start with the obvious; that YOU would NOT create thoughts, conditions and circumstances that make you suffer! If that isn't obvious by now please do reconsider. Not for me; for YOU.

But then again, Who Cares!?

There is an Ultimate possibility of True Freedom Here. May it be yours right now. However, in the Final Seeing, this message will be seen NOT as a "prescription" or a "path to follow" but rather as  DESCRIPTION of what happens out of what Ramesh would call "The will of God and the destiny of the organism". 

We shall just have to see how it all unfolds in this entranced dream of being and world! Chaos or peace, anarchy or order, therapies or suicides, thermonuclear war or terrorist attackes, it will be what it is - No Thing - regardless of anyone's doing or not doing and certainly well beyond ANYONE'S control.

The final truth, as Ramana Maharishi, Nisargadatta Maharaj and sages before them have clearly stated, is that there is neither creation nor destruction, neither birth nor death, neither destiny nor free will, neither any path nor any achievement. ~ Ramesh

nobody driving the car ~ nobody driving the driver

Ever find 'yourself' driving along the freeway, the M1, the autobahn, and notice that you are several miles down the road yet there was no 'awareness' of having driven all that distance? That is a glimpse of Reality. The way life lives itself and takes all of itself along with no doer, no knower, no sense of control whatsoever. What's driving the driver!?

(Play MP3 ... "There Is Only Being" ... now) 

To point out that everything happens by itself and we are not needed for THAT at first may seem to be nonsense. But as The One comes back to clear seeing, THAT returns itself so to speak to its Real Nature, the Natural State of simply Being ... and the whole magilla is seen for what it is ... The Greatest Mystery there is ... the awesome dream of life and death, while THAT stands ever fresh and awake-alive, Being Life Itself. There is no driver, no driving. 

It's kind of like, LIFE is this immense River whose banks are the duality of this and this, and this River Of Life carries all the driverless cars along from Oneness through appearance-as-not-oneness to Oneness. While there is NO becoming, NO destination and NO traveler, the IS makes it seem as though 'I exist'. But what if that isn't REAL? 

Even our most sacred "truths" may not be REAL. What if everything we "know" is unreal? If all our "great truths? are really unreal, then WHAT is REAL? No answer is worth a penny so stop at the question and there is a noticing, a seeing and it is obvious. being no one, is being everyone. Being No Thing is Being Every thing. Not now not then no time no presence no absence (hunh?) No Word. I am That. You are That. All there is is That. 

What is it to "be human?"

That is a question that arises here from time to time, unbidden (as are all thoughts!) yet somehow provoking gentle )or sometimes not-so-gentle!) glints of insight, rather like glimpses of what may be gold nuggets in a California mountain stream being probed by a nineteenth century prospector.

One or two such appears tonight. First there was a seeing - there is an old man lying in bed awaiting the blissful death of sleep, a mind-though-machine murmuring, ah, another day, one day closer to the Final Home (long life is not particularly desirable you see, at least not here!)

Then there came one glimmer: What is is to be human is to believe. Believe what? Not all that relevant. To believe. As a friend, one Fernando Flores, said long ago (I shall paraphrase here as memory is of questionable accuracy!) "To say 'I believe' is to announce 'I am about to say some bullshit I can't prove'."

Works for me!

So what does THAT say about the insight - or possibility if you prefer - that "to be human is to believe?" Clearly (IF the assertion from Dr. Flores is valid) to be human is to be steeped in bullshit. Like the farmer growing mushrooms, who keeps them in the dark and feeds them bullshit (fertilizer) it seems that Totality, or The IS, or whatever other label we care to hang onto the unknowable un-nameable Life Energy that is the true essence of all that appears, has is it's human play a situation that has "what it is to be human" to be completely void of true intelligence. Or love of each other, for that matter. We seem to be walking piles of ignorant bullshit (if the above is valid; I leave that part up to you. But I offer for evidence the U.S. Congress and Presidency ...)

Another glimmer inside that space-like inquiry arose a bit later on: A dear friend whom I deeply admire, respect and love recently said "to be human is to think". WHAT IF MY FRIEND IS WRONG!? Referring again to Dr. Flores, I remember him pointing out that we as humans are immersed i.e. were born INTO what he (and others) called a "Cartesian Reality" - after the French philosopher Rene Descartes (Cogito Ergo Sum - I Think Therefore I Am.) To this brain that is MORE of the bullshit. 

An aside here: Years ago I came to see that a little more accurate statement could be, "I AM, therefore I think". As the Sage Nisargadatta said I AM comes before anything else (insofar as language goes.) Maybe better said? "I Am, therefore thinking happens - sometimes."

The point is, With no Being, there simply cannot be the appearance of thoughts (which, I remind you, gentle reader, COME UNBIDDEN and most certainly UNSCRIPTED by us or nears as I can tell after 37 years of looking into all this shit, anything or anyone else!) In any case: It is clear in my experience that Being precede, permeates, and supersedes language: The words I think therefore I am DENY that brute FACT that Being is fully present even in deep sleep or under anesthesia: breathing goes on. Fingernails and hair grow. Life is life-ING whether "you" as the NOTION "I", "I think" or "I Am" are present or not.

Hey, we cannot have it both ways. Either Eternal Beingness IS, regardless of concepts of I or me, regardless of the apparent "reality" of "Time" and "Space" and utterly regardless of our ignorant belief systems, or it is not. Even the most deluded intelligence MUST be able to tell the difference between Being-As-Itself and being-as-concept or being-as-experience (which requires a conceptual experiencer!! Yes? Go ahead, argue for a point of view. Go ahead, make what "you" believe to be true right. 

if so, the being we CALL human, ACCEPT BLINDLY as human, is utterly fucking bankrupt! Read the newspaper! Watch cable news! Ignoring it, as in "oh, I just focus on the spiritual" is just NOT gonna make it go away. There is WAY more than enough af THAT head-in-the-sand bullshit around these delusive spiritual circles already.

But wait: Maybe THAT is what it is to be human. Maybe what this is pointing at is the BELIEF that the thought "I" IS what I am! That is what is at the very heart of Descartes' claim, dear Ones. Hey? Take a picture of that "believer-I" and send it to me. Good luck what that one.

Maybe everyone is dead wrong. Lot's of evidence for that too. Look around at your well educated, wise, spiritual, religious, philosophical friends. Friends who have read all the books, taken all the seminars, studied "The Secret", practice creativity and positive thinking etc. in their lives. Just how alive ar e they? How alive are YOU? Really?

This is some tough ad nasty writing, it occurs here. But God DAMN it, just maybe it is time for a wake-up call, an alarm to go off, for humanity to reform, awaken, transform or whatever other euphemism for "a quote needed change unquote you like.

I know this and ONLY this: I DON'T KNOW.

It might be interesting to see this all unfold. Then again there is that ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times!" I leave you with this? What if ALL the current crop of great thinkers, pundits, so-called sages, gurus, philosophers, seminar creators and leaders, name your own poison, seeker-dudes ... what if every God damn one of these suckers IS wrong? From the President to the Speaker to the majority leaders to the Prime Minister to the Kong if Fucking Siam to the lowest deeply opinionated guy behind the counter at Denny's, what is the entire LOT are just flat dead wrong? (YES, 'me' included!) What is NOBODY knows? Despite all the elegant ignorant pretenses of knowing? What IF!? 

Meanwhile I am gonna take an Ambien and go back to bed; it's almost 1 AM here and the old body os still somewhat on Okie time (3 AM.) Goodnight. Sleep tight. Don't let the truth bite (uness it does of course. We shall see!)

Getting "It"

Q: Hey Charlie, I just want to say, "I get it!" the same way that you instinctively get Robert Plant playing harmonica. It's true. It's right. It's powerful. Thank you for saying it and putting it out there. I hope to talk with you someday soon. - B

C: VERY well said, B. As close as words can get, nice analogy. The IT the gets "gotten", as is clear between your words, is What-We-Are; Timeless Essence appearing as everything. Welcome Home!

Who you ARE Is THIS

Not this, not this, just That

The mind is a kind of repository of concepts and beliefs, sentences that sometimes sound sensible and other times are disjointed and devoid of meaning. All these concepts SEEM (to the mind) to represent or evoke something real. And we mistakenly call ALL this stuff "knowledge". But THE major realization ate arose here is that ALL such knowledge is really only ignorance, some seemingly elegant, some seemingly vulgar, but nevertheless all ONLY ignorance. I realized that beyond any doubt all I thought i knew, whether practical or spiritual, whether spiritual or philosophical, whether useful (apparently) or (really ultimately!) Useless (!), it was all, well BULLSHIT!

Smelly useless stuff.

And as Sri Nisargadatta verifies (In "I Am That", ""Do not try to know the truth, for knowledge by the mind is not True Knowledge. But you can know what is not true - which is enough to liberate you from the false. The idea that you know what is true is dangerous, for it keeps you imprisoned in the mind. It is when you do not know, that you are free to investigate. And there can be no salvation, without investigation, because non-investigation is the main cause of bondage."

That is also my shared experience and that of others I know and respect (Bob Adamson, John Wheeler, Unmani, Jeff Foster and a (very) few more... see the links in the sidebar). 

What is this suggested "investigation?" As Nisargadatta said, "Give up all questions except 'Who Am I?'. After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The 'I Am' is certain. The 'I am this' is not. Struggle to find out what you are in Reality".

Note well here that this reads and usually interpreted as a "method" or "prescription". IT IS NOT (as Nisargadatta points out many times elsewhere in "I Am That" It IS, in fact, a DESCRIPTION of an occurring that happens to a rare few who, on hearing or reading these words, find themselves IN the investigation, non-volitionally and more often than not, unexpectedly. That is why I call such occurrences "Grace", which as the Sage Wayne Liquorman says, is a fancy term for "really good luck!" I am on board with that.

The Final Understanding, which is beyond any "ownership" or "individuality", is simply this: There is only That, which IS and is beyond description, unattainable by the false sense of a separate "me", inaccessible yet Real and ever present ... right here, right now. You Are That. Not this or this or any "otherness" or any this, invisible, unperceivable, empty AND full, as some say Nothing-Being-Everything. Finally from the very beginning not a single thing IS, there is only That.

Just pointing. Don't mistake the finger for the moon. When THAT becomes so obviously what-YOU-ARE, there is no more suffering.

May this be so for you, right NOW. (When else could it possibly be!?)

I love You.

Whose script does the Actor (human doer) act out?

Watch a good TV show or move and a good actor will have you naturally believe he or she is the doer, as in fact they ARE the doer: body-mind mechanisms AKA humans are doing-machines; that is obvious, is it not? The deeper question is, "who (or what) is the AUTHOR of the actors' playing out of the role? On TV or in the movie it's the screenwriter or the script author. Also obviously, yet for the most part unnoticed or not consciously thought about as we are wrapped up in the drama. it's the same with what we call "our life" ... the life of an I or me which is following a script, so to say ... and the question is, WHO or what Source or Power WRITES that script which we are acting out from? An actor ONLY does what is on the page, says what the author wrote. But what of the life of "I" or "me"? Have we looked at this question? WHO is writing or authoring this play I am acting in? Is it "I" or "me"? And if so how the HELL is it that "I" am not writing a far better script to act out!?

Questioning this may prove fruitful (or not; no promises here, it is just something to 'try on' like a new suit coat to see what happens.) I encourage the inquiry, that is all ... to challenge the core assumption the the "I' (which after all is ONLY a simple thought with no authentic power) is the author of the life-story we seem to act out nearly unconsciously, through interactions in-the-world brought forth by the stimulus-response machinery of the brain-body apparatus.

It may transpire (where there is what we might call "Grace") that the inquiry will lead to the most profound realization available (insofar as I can tell) that the Source of all action and doing, the Source of the script-of-life, IS our own Infinite Self (but that Self AIN'T the "I" or "me" we have for most of life since around age two that we have believed and even "known" ourselves to be.)

What I point to here is what the ages of old called Omnipotence (TRUE and Impersonal Power), Omniscience (True and Impersonal Natural Knowing) and Omnipresence (True and Impersonal Absolute Being-Presencing AKA "I AM" and Just That.)

As the ancients repeated so often, That, Thou Art. Being That, there are no problems except in (mental) imagination, nothing was ever wrong nor could there ever be anything wrong, and the simplicity of Being is clear and ever present as What-We-Really-Are. May that be so for YOU ... right now (when else IS there!?)

(I am indebted to Wayne 'Ram Tzu' Liquorman who inspired this essay.)

The Dance of I-AM

"How can there be two selves in one body? The 'I am' is one. There is no 'higher I-am' and 'lower I-am'. All kinds of states of consciousness are presented to awareness and there is self-identification with them. The objects of observation are not what they appear to be, and the attitudes they are met with are not what they need to be. If you think that Buddha, Christ, or Krishnamurti speak to the person, you are mistaken. They know well that the vyakti, the outer self, is but a shadow of the vyakta, the inner self, and they address and admonish the vyakta only. They tell him to give attention to the outer self, to guide it and help it, to feel responsible for it; in short, to be fully aware of it. Awareness comes from the Supreme and pervades the inner self; the so-called outer self is only that part of one's being of which one is not aware. One may be conscious, for every being is conscious, but one is not aware. What is included in awareness becomes the inner and partakes of the inner." ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

This is all too clear and obvious for a "mind" to grasp, because what we call "mind" is nothing but an energy that seems to divide What Is into this vs. that, self vs. other, light vs. dark etc. This division, though unreal, has the quality of appearing VERY real (hence the concept "Maya", the grandest illusion of all, and in this grand illusion there is the seeming division of "birth and death", the ultimate duality!)

For a seeker, the delusive aspect of spiritual concepts serves to keep the illusion formly in place (but only apparently). Hence the magical sense of maya, the great Play of Consciousness, the Infinite Dance of the One-I-AM.

Welcome to the Grand Dance!