The Eternal State

Life - Life-ING

2012-01-29T23:10:00.001-06:00

Q:The only challenge I have now is what to do with all the time I have since I'm not spending hours pouring through philosophy, psychology, and spirituality books, lectures, and talks! Motivation for what is 'normal' can be tough in a way as the vested interest has dropped away.

C: Motivation, and Actions of an organism, like the burning sun or the tides, happen by-Itself. EVERYTHING is the happening of the Totality, which is that Awareness which is ever fresh, ever present, and which powers the appearance of consciousness and the play thereof.

In the Buddha's pointing: Actions happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual do-er thereof; not in "you" nor in "anyone else".

Thanks again for writing; the Seeing-Being-Livingness happening there is very good news indeed!

Q: You weren't kidding when you said 'more later.' Most people never write more! Thanks for getting back to me.

C: All sounds good. Welcome back to the Home You never really left!!

Followup: Q: How do you answer when people ask the meaning or purpose or life? John Greven in his talk with you said he didn't see a purpose or a meaning. I often tell people I simply do whatever comes into my head, but I find no ultimate purpose. Without the importance of the 'me' there, life gets a lot less serious!

Thanks.

C: You are welcome!

How do you answer when people ask the meaning or purpose or life? John Greven in his talk with you said he didn't see a purpose or a meaning. I often tell people I simply do whatever comes into my head, but I find no ultimate purpose. Without the importance of the 'me' there, life gets a lot less serious!

Your understanding is good; life is just life-ING, and it's absolutely empty and meaningless. The brain is wired to MAKE UP meanings. (And THAT doesn't mean anything either!!) Once all that linguistic brain farting is seen for what it is, just clouds coming and going in the Emptiness that you are, and is seen as only "machinery" you are spot on that all the seriousness drops off.

Much Love!

PS: That Emptiness is also the Fullness of the All-Embracing Love-of-What IS.

NOT TWO.

"My Silence Sings. My Emptiness Is Full. ~Sri Nisargadatta

What Mind??

2012-01-18T19:05:00.000-06:00

Q: Is not all speech just definition or the assigning of a relative meaning based on an imaginary “subject” or “knower” and the “other”, “object” or the “known” and the comparison or contrast of it to the many “others”? When mind compares one concept to another is it not just comparing one dream or story to another – is the mind thinking about thoughts the same as a dreamer dreaming about dreams?) an Eternal State, we assume (we think/imagine without being aware that mind [we] is imagining) all other states and (mind [we] assumes a “someone”, “me” or “separate subject”) someone who can find it (mind imagines a separate “me” that must search for the separate “object” or “experience” of enlightenment rather than realizing what is aware of the seeking IS enlightened and free).

C: There is no mind! All there is, is thoughts coming and going in the Space you are. The apparent problem arises when A) you believe YOU are the thought “I” or “me”, and B) you believe that these passing thoughts are ABOUT this fictional “you”. This is simply a case of mistaken identity. The solution is dirt simple: Stop BELIEVING the thoughts. Take your stand IN and AS the Space-Like Awareness which is NEVER absent! As Nisargadatta pointed out, REFUSE all thought except “I AM” (which is a close as language, thought, can get to the Eternal Isness; and reject any and all questions except “Who Am I”.

It always seems to come back to “WHO OR WHAT” is doing the asking and the answering. And it seems that it is the mind, which we think or assume to be our true Self - that is doing the asking and the answering. If the mind is a total illusion that only thought or assumed itself to be real, then the asking and the question and the answering and the answer are also illusions ….and thus only the Awareness of the asking and answering is real and there are no questions and no answers????.... Fuck!!!!!! said the mind….I am useless except in navigating the temporal world of the created or the known, Damn it!!! – I assumed/thought I was the intelligence of an individual person that could know the absolute truth).

The “individual” is a fiction; a believed thought that has no ACTUAL independent nature or personal power whatsoever. You as an organism are Being-Lived; life is life-ing. YOU are not a noun; you are a verb, world-ing, life-ing. The Livingness is totally alive and nondual. There is NO duality unless you give the energy of belief to the thoughts that arise unbidden in the Space … YOU are SPACE, No Thing, “being dreamed" as a dream character in a play that has no author and no star. Just BE. Simple. You ARE, BEING. No escape. There is no “realization” to get for there is no “individual” to realize. Seeing that, the search ends in the absolution dissolution of belief in a “me”.

Seeking "Wholeness, Completion, Happiness, Love or "Liberation" from “Another”, whether that "revered other" be a "Guru, Guide, Lover, or Friend", is a perfect way to avoid Paradise. Paradise is THIS. Just as it Is and just as it Isn’t. All seeking "out there" is a dream of a “me”, foolishly knocking on the door to Paradise, from inside Paradise. Paradise is only lost in seeking it. This Loving Oneness Cannot Be Known. To “know” Oneness there would have to be a sense of separation FROM Oneness. Who cannot see the fault in that logic?

Ponder John Greven’s pointers:

The below ponderings are just concepts to rattle around in the brain.
See that while this is occurring - you remain - as you always have been.
Present and Aware of the every changing appearance.
Anything in front of the mirror is still something in front of the mirror.
Even if that something is nothing.
Can you identify a single thing that is not an object to the subject that you are?
Is the you, that is attempting to do this, an object as well?

No Mind

In thinking about the mind, there is often a sense that the mind and brain are two different things. The thought may be that the mind is somehow an ethereal private world that is cherished or is perhaps a tormentor - while the brain is often ignored as having anything to do with the mind. As an example, a friend recently made the statement, “I’m going to sell everything I own and move into my mind - since I live there anyway.” The mind gives us a sense of place, whereas the brain just appears to be an idea in the mind.

We know of course that the brain is storing information and carrying on bodily functions. But this is really more of a belief than a true knowing because we can’t see or feel the brain carrying out its functions. There is no sensation of the brain sending a signal to blink the eye, no seeing of the brain storing or retrieving information from memory, or even translating these words. If something is touched with a finger, there is contact with that something, and it is known. But, trying to make contact with the brain seems impossible. Therefore, the idea of a mind receives the attention – contact is possible with thoughts and feelings and they become the focus. The mind appears to be active – in the head- while the brain appears to be silent. Perhaps the two different labels of brain and mind appear to mean something different, but are, in actuality, referring to the same thing. Perhaps if we got square with the facts things would appear differently.

Is there a mind separate from the brain? Is what we refer to as the mind just the thinking process of the brain? Perhaps, if we dropped the label of mind and just saw the brain for what it is, a complex network of cells that make up a limited, habitual, machine type organ, the mind would loose some of its seeming authority. An analogy has been drawn from the computer function of “garbage in garbage out”. The brain is truly no different. In regards to what we refer to as the mind, all the brain is doing is organizing information, combining information, and bringing ideas and behaviors back out. The brain is a conditioned organ. It is nothing but a machine. The conditioning that it has received was started millions of years ago and through a seeming series of events, is what it is, right now, down to the last cell, memory, and thought.

There is no mind.

Pointers from 'Sailor' Bob

2012-01-17T12:55:00.000-06:00

"Recognise the naturalness that you are--pure, all pervasive, space like, ever expressing, spontaneous presence-awareness, with no reference point (self nature) having any substance or independent existence. Failing to recognise naturalness (the unity of appearance and emptiness, space and its content), delusion happens and there is a grasping of or fixation on appearance--me and the other--a seeming duality. Without that fixation there is freedom as naturalness, delusion dissolves and evenness (non-duality) remains--the natural state--simply this, nothing else. Naturally remaining as naturalness (equanimity) is the natural (effortless) meditation of no one to meditate and nothing to meditate on--no trying to get or trying to avoid, just effortless being which is always already so. Recognise this again and again". ~Bob Adamson

The Delusion of “Intention” and “Personal Power"

2012-01-13T16:25:00.000-06:00

The Delusion of “Intention” and “Personal Power"

Q: I have a friend who is still in a spiritual group" ( that I used to belong to till Non-Duality came along ) who keep carping on about "setting or having an intention about goals whether they be about spiritual, financial or health issues." I know that "intention" is just another thought. Can you please say a few words on "intention" and why it is meaningless? Thanks & love, M.

Charlie: Sure. To start with you are spot on in seeing that “intention” is just another cloud in the mental sky. Yet that word is imbued with endless meanings by so called “teachers” whose own ignorance prevents THEM from this direct seeing and nondual realization that all thoughts .... ALL ... are empty, meaningless movements of pure energy. As Nondual "Kashmir Shaivism" points out, thoughts are made of sounds. ALL there is is energy-sounds and nothing. In that set of pointers, it is seen directly (NOT conceptually or intellectually) that all there is, is Nothing, and Energy, which are The One Essence appearing as duality. And that this stillness-moving of Nothing As Energy arises as letters, words, sentences. This is known as Matruka Shakti. And since all there IS, IS Nondual Shakti, no collection of sounds can possibly be more “significant or meaningful” that any other collection of energetic impulses.

WHY is it meaningless? “Intention” requires a deluded belief in an entity, which entity then makes up these “meanings” about the totality, stating with the belief in separateness and time! IT makes up the notion that there really IS a separate “Me” or “I” with power of its own apart from the whole! This is bizarre yet looks “normal” to 99.999% of human organisms.

Eventually each apparent “person” MUST test and see, if there REALLY IS any “I” or “Me” with a speck of independent power to create and intend. WHERE exactly IS such an entity? On investigation (which happens ONLY spontaneously, sans that delusion of intention, as a function of the Grace of Totality, can any such entity be found? Where?

In This Now, This Here, this open clear NONconcepetual and INconceivable Aware-Space-That-This-All-IS, in direct Seeing-Being, it is absolutely clear and obvious that there just AIN’T no such entity anywhere; not in these ignorant gurus or teachers or their equally ignorant students in these deluded “schools”, or anywhere else. Look: It is the blind leading the blind. Yet to assign blame is also incorrect: ALL there is, is the Impersonal Functioning of the Infinite Energy of Awareness-Being-Consciousness.

As Bob Adamson repeats, THAT is What IS, and there is ONLY THAT, NOT TWO. Full Stop.
The key point however, seen as it is from Here, is that ANY belief or acceptance of some separate power or separate “person” that attains or has such power is the root cause of human suffering. Ask one of these deluded souls how often "their" "intentions" are actually REALIZED!!?? Ha! IF they are honest (a BIG if, of course) they will have to admit that never are anyone’s "intentions" realized 100% as visualized or thought up; never mind the events where intentions are not fulfilled at all. Of course, some will CLAIM (that is what egos do) is that “I" (this ego-claim of a powerful “me”) "intended X and by God it happened". What stays hidden from view, often to themselves (!), is the fact that these ideas of a future accomplishment FAIL more often than not. (Besides where IS a “future” unless you think about it!?)

I can give you countless examples on request, from the apparent universal life, that would absolutely prove these points, yet, that would be NO more valid than the opposite, it is all unproveable! Either way it’s just a popular yet delusive story the ego tells out of its own sense of separateness (and self-importance.) It’s like a rooster who takes credit for intending the Sun to appear as the earth circles around.

In any case: As the wag said, "Tell God your plans, if you want to make her laugh!) Or as our dear friend Byron Katie says about such deluded false egoic claimers, "Who needs God when we have YOU!?" And consider the thousands who said they would “end hunger” back in the seventies. How’s THAT going?

You asked a good question; this shows that you are zeroing in on Reality and rejecting the false sense or power or control. Good for you! Please feel free to keep in touch as Totality inspires you to. Love ya!

A warm, open all-embracing Love:

2012-01-11T12:42:00.000-06:00

Pause thoughts, let it all be in This Now, and NOTICE: Your True-Nature. The warm, open sky of Awareness-Loving-ItSelf is ever present. Just notice that. It is, Here. It is, Now. This Love is invincible. As the body ages and dies, that Open Warm Space remains forever, unaltered, clear, and welcoming. That, Thou Art. So It Is, whether the conceiving-mechanical 'min d-brain' sees That o not. IT IS and IS NOT.

Not Two.

Facebook No Mas

2012-01-11T12:33:00.000-06:00

In my view Facebook has become the province of politicos and newsies. I find it so cluttered with concepts and opinions that this space will no longer participate. So long as donations and book sales allow for it, this space, the videos and newsletters will continue. Thanks for your support! Love, Charlie

(Scroll down for a NEW video posted today.)

Where and What ARE 'Problems' REALLY!?

2012-01-11T12:17:00.002-06:00

With deep love and gratitude to 'Sailor' Bob Adamson and Ramesh Balsekar who inspired this talk. As Bob says, "Subject-object thinking seems to cover the natural state (awareness). But without awareness, thinking could not take place. Because thinking appears in awareness (like a cloud appears in the sky), realise that thinking is in essence awareness. Understanding this, thinking cannot obscure awareness."

And as Ramesh said, "To any conceptual problem there cannot be any valid answer except to see the problem in perspective as an empty thought. There is no such thing as a 'problem' which is other than merely conceptual."

Consultations: Update as of January 2012

2012-01-10T09:41:00.001-06:00

If you would like to more deeply explore The Pathless Path Of Being, consultations are available... in person if you can travel to Reno, Nevada, or by telephone or on Skype. Consultations take 60 to 90 minutes, and are recorded for your later use, when possible. Unlimited e-mail followup is included. Usually only one session is needed.

Advance payment and booking required: The suggested fee is $100. But if that will not work for you please request an exception (I always grant them!) and make any donation you can afford.

To book, Go HERE for details. Call to arrange a Time and Date: Telephone +1 775-342-3561 or Skype charliehayes36, or e-mail non.duality@yahoo.com, and specify 2-3 options of day and time that work for you.

Charlie also answers brief questions by e-mail and phone by donation (any amount is fine.) Consultations are One on One and take about an hour. If you are interested in ending the search for your true Nature, please do get in touch about scheduling a talk.

And note that MANY Books and Podcasts are also available. Immersing oneself in these expressions can dissolve confusion, leaving what You Always ARE shining with the pure radiance of Non-conceptual Self-Knowing Awareness.

Keeping It Simple

2012-01-03T14:07:00.000-06:00

Keeping It Simple (aka: K.I.S.S.)

A transcript of an Original You Tube by Charlie, offered by Rich Hay (Thanks, Rich!)

OK, what do you say we keep this real, real, real simple this time?

You exist. You can’t doubt your own existence. You know you’re aware. That Presence of Awareness, that’s what you are. Are you a separate entity? Is there ‘a me’ apart from other than me? Isn’t ‘me’ and other than me just thoughts arising, and don’t you have to be the Aware Presence for any thought to arise?

So where’s the problem, unless you think that there’s a problem? And even the thinking there’s a problem is simply stuff arising in the Presence Awareness. If there’s no Awareness can anything happen? Can anything be apart from Awareness, if Awareness is required as the substrate, or the underlying or silent background, of everything that happens? Without that background of Awareness can anything be?

So, perhaps, you can see that you are Aware, you do Exist, that I Am is absolutely certain, you can’t deny It. And, perhaps, you can also see that the ‘me’ which you’ve taken yourself to be, and believed yourself to be, if you look for it you can’t find it. But who would do that? Well, ‘the you that you believe that you are’ could do that, and find out if there’s really such thing as ‘a me that’s in charge of its life.’

So I want to keep this real, real simple and brief for this little, maybe the last video, perhaps, I don’t know; but It seems like, it’s feeling like this is gonna be it for awhile. Because It’s so simple that It’s Simplicity Itself: What you are is Presence Awareness, what you’re not is anything else. And the Sages over eons have pointed it out this way. That, simply, ‘know what you are and also know what you’re not.’ The second is really required. Just knowing that I Am Presence Awareness, once that’s taken on, and as a belief, that just turns to crap.

So the direct knowing I Am, of Presence Awareness, is all that’s been pointed to and you can’t escape that.
But if there is a subtle belief, or a thought energy going into the idea that there’s a separate person, that there’s I and other than I, then you can just see that that is something arising in Awareness, so it can’t be apart from Awareness; and you can also see if it’s valid by seeing if it has any control or free will about anything.

If you think you have free will then, you know, consider the possibility that what you consider you’re free will is like counterfeit money. You try to spend counterfeit money and you can’t buy anything with it. It’s the same thing with this appearance of free will. If you believe that you’re in control of your life, then control your thoughts for the next 10 or 15 minutes; and don’t have one single thought that you don’t want or intend and don’t have one single feeling or emotion or pain in the body or anything else that you don’t want or intend, and see if you can actually control any of that for that length of time. You might seemingly be able to control a few things, but this is 100% or nothing. Either you’ve got 100% control or you don’t have any control at all. So just find out for yourself which it is.

So the bottom-line, the bottom, bottom, bottom-line: I Am, Awareness Is, you know that you are, and that’s undeniable, and that’s what you are, and that’s open, empty, meaningless, space-like, and that’s the Real. What is false? All the stuff you believe that you are, which you actually are not. On investigation can you find a separate me? No! Can you find a controlling entity? No! So that’s It. That’s It. Mind you that the bottom, bottom, bottom, bottom, bottom-line, is that all of this is simply Oneness appearing as this entire manifestation of dreams, and individuals, and seekers, and sages and all that’s simply Oneness appearing as this vast phantasmagoria of appearances and what you are is never touched by any of that.

I Love You.

There are no 'shoulds' in Your Reality-Essence

2012-01-02T17:52:00.002-06:00

Q: I had an experience once where I also felt the is-ness of existence, but I lost that feeling is it something that will come when I’m ready? Should I just sit in silence everyday and have faith that i will see it eventually?

C: There are NO 'shoulds' in (and AS) the Essence-Presence-Awareness that you truly ARE. That ‘should’ would assume that the false sense of separation, AKA the core belief-assumption of being an independent doer-entity are true. In actual fact, what will be will be, in perfect accord with “the will of totality”. Mind you that is ONLY a pointer: In Reality nothing ever happens, despite appearances! So there is no “Willing-Force”; these pointers are merely poetic non-descriptions of what IS. What IS IS … forever, always and beyond any description or pointer; beyond even the experiences of “oneness” that keep the seeker seeking what he/she already always was is will be (then when the concept of “time” drops, all there is, is THIS. Not-Two-Ness, non dual impersonal Being. Self Aware, yet NOT separate in any way shape or from. Language will always fail here!

What may happen there is that you find that it so happens that you look and see if you can you find, in deep looking within, any such 'entity'. You may well discover It just not there, yet YOU as-You-Are, are always fully present and aware. That, Impersonal Presence of Awareness, or Awareness of Being, clear and forever unfettered, IS the true You. THAT is empty and devoid of meaning, thought, language … and also, THAT is appearing as all there is. There is ONLY THAT, Not Two, as the Sage Bob Adamson powerfully points out.

So, in Essence, all there is, is YOU and You which you and others erroneously call "other" ... until Totality arises as the resonance in the heart that allows and nurtures a deeper look INTO What Is. If no separate entity-'me' can be found to exist, did it or could it ever exist? So while you may do all sorts of stuff, meditate, self-enquire, chant, do selfless service etc etc, the real doer is Consciousness.

Realizing that (as is the case with the entire appearance!) happens absolutely beyond “your” control … simply because there IS (which the effortless investigation proves beyond doubt) absolutely no “you” to design or author or control anything whatsoever (despite beliefs and appearances.) Look into that, and all the while just notice, You ARE, Being, awake present and aware.

Take your stand as THAT, Your True-Essence, as Bob days “One Essence Appearing As Everything”, i.e. Spacelike Awareness. Reject all identities and all and any content, experience and concepts that come and pass in That and are also included therein. THIS (That Pristine essence) appearing as no thing and everything, is ALL THERE IS. Ben That and nothing else. Refuse any belief of conviction of identity-in-language. Let us know how that unfolds! With Love, and a happy new year to you!

“When Realization dawns, then what happens? You are no longer 'you'. You remain established in the inner silence and freedom without any concern for your welfare, content with whatever comes along -- and life goes on in perfect effortlessness.

When you see that you have no control over the results, you stop worrying about the results and concentrate on the work that is being done.” ~Ramesh Balsekar

What about guilt??

2012-01-02T10:05:00.001-06:00

Q: Where does guilt come from?

C: The false sense of being a separate 'me' with independent volition. That sense of separateness is at the root of all suffering. It manifests as "I" and then as guilt) a deep hidden inner conversation of being cause of action (I did that) and the negative assessment of that action (I should NOT have done that.) The should/should not is of course rooted in the firm FALSE conviction that "I COULD do things differently!"

In short guilt and fear the products of belief in a false self with free will!! That belief, when challenged DEEPLY (surface agreement or disagreement will simply not do) evaporates in a mist of unknowing, the Natural and Eternal State that I call the what-we-are-ness.

Takes a commitment and hard work, and yet, in actual fact, that commitment and hard work are NOT in "your" control! It must arise from Source. Call it Grace; when the question arises to really ask deep "who am I", "what IS Eternal", and there is finally NO answer, that, the No-Answer-ness, leaves one as one always was is will be ... space, aware of Being, just That, no words. No description applies to this final seeing.

All the while YOU ARE and no one can tell you "you are not". Dwell in That, the simple Knowingness, I AM. Add nothing to I AM!

A remembrance: The Manifest Appearance is born of Being.
Being is born of Not-Being.
THAT - Not-Being - is the Eternal what-we-are-ness.

Happy Now-Year

2011-12-28T18:30:00.000-06:00

To paraphrase a good friend, Leo Hartong:

Have a great NOW in the dream of living Reality we label 2012!

Whenever you are, it is NOW, isn't it?

Wherever you are that wherever is always known naturally as HERE, isn't it?

Look at the ONE FACT no one can deny: I AM! As the great recently departed Sage Ramesh Balsekar put it so elegantly: "True understanding is of the same nature as the simple knowledge I AM ... that I AM alive, that I exist, and that I do not need anyone else's confirmation to prove that I am alive and present."

The non-dual spiritual teaching of "Kashmir Shaivism" proposes, "Nothing exists that is not Shiva". Let us take that deeper: NOTHING (No Thing!) Exists. And THAT is Not Shiva. "Shiva" is a word invented to point to Everything i.e. God i.e Totality. The Nothing that is Eternity is neither Shiva nor not Shiva. Hmmmm??

Remembering another quite different expression, that of Benjamin Franklin, a man of tremendous appetites and great wisdom: "The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end there (HERE!) it is."

The Eternal, Self-Evident and Self-knowing Truth cannot be put into words. It is too big! Only in the Eternal Silence that IS may the truth be naturally known. That said (pun intended), to BE is impossible to attain and impossible to escape. Can we "get to" Here from Here?!?

So when the Sage Ramana Maharshi noted, "Be as you are", he was not offering an instruction, he was stating a FACT. You ... ARE. Being. Just That and nothing else ... or as

'Sailor' Bob Adamson likes to say, "One essence appearing as everything". As Bob always loves to say, "Full Stop!"

However: When your "identity" is stuck into the content of the Empty Sky of Freedom that you are, there will be suffering. That's the deal!

The livingness-aliveness of the Real You ... IN (and AS) THAT, i.e. the ever-fresh always-open HERE-NESS, NOWNESS, there is NO suffering.Yet when the "identity" (I AM) is the Sky, there may well be pain and pleasure (that is also the deal!) The freedom You ARE is not "freedom for 'me'" but rather freedom FROM any 'me'.

Got it? Cool! May all your poker pots be monsters and all your pockets contain Aces in the Happiest Ever Now, 2012.

With greatest Respect and Love to you all,

Happy New Year!!

What Never Changes?

2011-12-20T18:42:00.003-06:00

This question, when answered beyond all doubt, leaves the seeker ... well. BEREFT. Bereft of any and all concepts, bereft of "identity" or and so called real and solid "beingness", bereft of nothing, everything, etc ad nauseous! Bereft thou shall BE in nowhereness, where (where?) nothing Happened never did never will... Absoluteness, bereft of any and all of the usual "nondual spiritual 'pat answers'", i.e. when the question is answered with nothing by nothibg for no one, there is That which has never changed never has never will. full stop.

You are not That and You are That. Or, as succinctly phrased by John Greven, a man who exists only in an appearance of an ocean wave-ing (and saying "hello waves"):

"From nothing comes something and to nothing the something returns. But having never left, there is no returning, for something into nothing. In the end nothing happened in something and something never happened in nothing".

Never Changing, therefore unknowable by "you and me", yet ... That IS.

Questions? Comments? Arguments? OK, write nondualityexpressions@gmail.com. Sincere questions are most welcome. But don't bother with agreeing. Look into it and have fun.

PS: "The final truth, as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj and all the 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. All there is is Consciousness." ~Ramesh Balsekar

(Maybe not even that?!)

The Myth of "Cause and Effect"

2011-11-21T10:02:00.003-06:00

Q: Thanks for creating the videos and posting on YouTube.

C: You are very welcome.

Q: I felt an urge to share 'my story' with you. I have been confused of late as being seems to very gradually take over. I trained to be a medical doctor but resigned from residency training because I was clearly losing myself in the process and having desires for life's circumstances to be other than they were. I was depressed, burnt-out, self-sabotaging and in denial.

C: Watch the mind here. IT assigns "cause and effect" where none actually exists. Every time the mind-brain claims "this happened BECAUSE that happened" there are lies being told that ignore the Space you are, and worse yet, these thought-stories are believed to be real and to relate to and even BE what we are. This is absolutely false. Where is the evidence for these assertions? Only in more thoughts, all seeming related but not related in FACT. The ONLY Fact operating anytime or anywhere is, "I AM." You ARE and you know that, with absolutely NO proof, NO language, NO mind, NO belief. The belief "I AM" is NO MORE the TRUE I AM-Ness than the word water will wet anything or quench thirst. Get this part straight first.

A great example of this delusion is contained in the ancient text of Yoga Vasistha. An oft-recurring expression in this scripture is 'kakataliya' - a crow alights on the coconut palm tree and at that very moment a ripe coconut falls. The two unrelated events thus seem to be related in time and space, though there is no causal relationship. Such is life. Such is 'creation'. But the mind caught up in its own trap of logic questions why, invents a 'why' and a 'wherefore' [i.e. a ‘because’] to satisfy itself, conveniently ignoring the inconvenient questions that still haunt an intelligent mind. Vasistha demands direct observation of the mind, its motion, its notions, its reasoning, the assumed cause and the projected result, and even the observer, the observed and the observation-and the realization of their indivisible unity as the infinite consciousness.

Q: It is coming on a year of personal change/alignment and a greater sense of peace has certainly come in to awareness. I realize that I was looking outside for something what was not missing.

C: That has nothing to do with what is pointed to here, which is absolute nondual awareness-presence. There is no such thing as ‘more” awareness! Awareness is actually NON-conceptual stateless Being and is never absent. Not being an “object” there can be no “more” or “less” awareness. In final “seeing”, which is what IS right here and right now, and appearing AS the knowingness "I AM", all there IS is Awareness, appearing AS Consciousness. Consciousness (I AM) appears IN Awareness and is MADE OF that self-knowing, self shining self-same Awareness. That’s all there is.

Q: I fear that I will continue to do the same thing under stress. I feel far more grounded in the body, far less need for imaginary successes. I feel a strong pull towards work that will allow me to pay $200,000+ in loans. It feels as though going through the conventional medical system nearly requires a greater identification with the 'me', stress, suffering.

C: And exactly what IS this “I or me”? What is it made of? Is “it” really a separate thing apart from Awareness? If so take a picture of that “I or me” and e-mail it to me! There certainly are THOUGHTS of a “me” or an “I” but once again a thought of an "I" is no more that True I-Consciousness which appears in Awareness as an aspect of Awareness than the word “water” is the real wet stuff! Not seeing this, or in other words accepting the thought as the reality, is called delusion. Inquire into this “I or me”. What is the SOURCE of these thoughts? Who is it that believes and accepts a mere THOUGHT as the True I Aware-Conscious Self? Who AM I? What am I? Where am I really!? ASK these questions, and accept NO answer: As Sri Nisargadatta pointed out, ask NO other question except “Who Am I?” and accept NO other thought but “I AM”. This knowing-being “I AM” is the closest the brain-mind-machinery can get to the Non-Conceptual Is-ness, the True-I-Am. That which we ARE is prior to, and beyond, ANY and ALL concepts (including “feelings” and “emotions”.)

Only YOU can investigate the false identity and dismantle it. Whether “you” will do so is a matter of what the sages call “grace”. The gift of grace begins in my view with GIVING UP ALL YOUR KNOWING, EXCEPT THE BEING-KNOWING, "I AM". The GIFT of Unknowing is the full stop that arises in starting from the FACT of your very Being, expressed as I AM, and completes itself in the investigation of the assumption of being a separate entity apart from wholeness and rediscovering that no such entity has ever existed, not within “you” or anyone else. As the Buddha is purported to have said, “Actions happen, deeds are done, but there is NO individual ‘doer’, not in you are in anyone else. Final enlightenment consist in this direct and immediate apperception: I AM, and That I Am is all there is was or will be in this dream of “Time and Space! That’s IT, my friend. Let that sink in all the way.

Q: I am quite cut off from the world despite being rather extroverted and adventure seeking previously. It is okay. I have not been taking action towards any goals outside of moving towards the truth, reading, being. This is also intuitively okay. At times, the 'me' feels an urgency to 'get somewhere' so I can take 'meaningful and goal-oriented action' to help explain myself to others and earn love/admiration and security.

C: Reread the above, out loud, a few times, and see what sees what is read, see who is seeing-hearing-knowing-perceiving. You are the Emptiness of open, pure Awareness-Being-Love. Love yourself as you are and are not. Please! And let the Teaching work on you. Take it easy. Take it slow, and just BE with what shows up. Okay?

Q: These are some 'truths' that seem hard to fully realize: there is no separate self. There is nothing in the future to fear. There is no need to create a self to earn anything in the world (particularly love and money).

C: These are apperceptions that HAPPEN; they are not “realized by the person (which ‘person’ is ONLY a False-yet- believed-thought with NO actual existence in the What-Is that you TRULY are. Make sure this is clear! Drop all expectations, efforts, and beliefs and simply LOOK. Investigate the false self-center, but do not make a big deal of it. Be gently loving as best you can (as best as Totality allows you to, that is!) Know that YOU ARE the Love, Fearlessness and Freedom you may be seeking. As so many have reaffirmed, the seeker is The One in search of its own Self. You ARE That. Full Stop.

Q: I wanted to share with you. I would love to hear your thoughts.

C: Thanks again for writing. Let’s see how the above does as you ponder lovingly, and please feel free to get in touch as the One moved you to. Much Love to you, my friend!

Charlie

PS: To paraphrase Sri Ramana Maharshi: The inquiry (thought) 'who am I?' will destroy all other thoughts, and like a stick used for stirring a burning fire, that thought itself will also in the end be destroyed. Then, there will arise what is already fully Present here-and-now: The Eternal State, realized at once as What You already always ARE.

“I AM not speaking to any body; I AM not speaking to any mind. I AM speaking to THAT I AM, that I AM. To that PRESENCE AWARENESS that expresses through the mind as the thought I AM. Just THIS, NOTHING else.” ~ Bob Adamson

"All that is necessary is to see through the concept of Self as limited. Where does that limitation manifest? Only in a persistent and stubborn assumption." ~Randall Friend

Happiness Is An Inside Job

2011-11-18T12:33:00.000-06:00

Happiness is NOT something we "attain". Happiness (or closer in words, Peace) is what we ARE. The modifications of the conceptualizing machine we call "mind" certainly SEEM to produce happiness, or anger, or sadness, or joy. But do they really? CAN they really?? This is what we invite the seeker to fully investigate: what are we in FACT, i.e. what are we ALWAYS? What we are is akin to the sky on a day when there are sometimes clouds, sometimes clear sunny light. But is the sky ever affected in the least by the appearance of EITHER clouds or sunlight? Is the sky ever affected by the pitch black of a starless night? The sky stands supreme, unfettered, untouchable. In that way the sky is like our natural Pure Awareness, or pure nonconceptual (NON conceptual and NON dual) Being.

Being IS. All else is appearance within That and is made of That.

The following is a great quote I received recently from Snow ion Publications: It says in perfect pointing what is being articulated by my website and books:

"All attachment and aversion come from what we have mentally created. We have made an image and that is our mind as we normally experience it. In order to solve this problem in a more profound and permanent way, we have to look at our mind and see its true nature. In our innate, unfabricated nature, which is the basic state of our mind, there is no problem. We make all our problems by creating concepts and all kinds of mental conditioning.

"Seeing the true nature of mind means experiencing the way the mind is when we do not fabricate and contrive anything. We need to look at our mind when it is devoid of our creations and free from mental elaborations. If we can see this state of mind, there is no grasping, no grasped object, and no subject doing the grasping. There is simply perception or seeing, which in itself does not cause a problem.

"When the true nature of mind is seen, there are just appearances without any evaluation. One thing arises in the mind and then another thing arises. The arising that is pleasant is no better than the one that is unpleasant. They are simply different manifestations of the mind. There is no need to grasp one and reject the other. Once this is seen clearly, we see the true nature of mind. This is something that we need to experience directly. When we see the truth, we become liberated from our struggle within the nets of aversion and attachment.(p.97)

~from Daring Steps: Traversing the Path of the Buddha by Ringu Tulku, edited and translated by Rosemarie Fuchs, published by Snow Lion Publications

More From Ramesh ....

2011-11-08T18:36:00.001-06:00

"Any thought or notion that arises in the mind is provoked by an outside stimulus for which the corresponding image or substance is evoked from memory. This is how thought is born. Thus, the reality of any object, whether as near as a chair or as far as a star, stands only as an image in the mind. And mind being nothing but the content of consciousness, where there is no consciousness, there is neither mind nor universe."

~Ramesh Balsekar

Fact vs. Imagination

2011-11-08T05:28:00.001-06:00

Look head on at the one FACT that is absolute and beyond any dispute. Existence IS. Call it Being, Timelessness-Spacelessness, Awareness, or Living Presence, Consciousness, Knowing-Sans-Knower; call it by any name you like, whatever you call it, IT IS. HERE. NOW. Prior to time or language, IT IS......

This that IS does not change and cannot be avoided. This that IS is not in time (not even ‘now’), not located any where (even ‘here’), yet, IT IS.

Enlightenment is simply seeing what IS as It Is. But a linguistic appearance or assumed ‘entity’ CANNOT know or see this; why? There is no separate entity in FACT (Reality!) to know or see what IS.

What is, IS. What ain’t, ain’t.

So any effort to “get to” what IS already must be finally recognized by no one as futile for someone still seeking enlightenment.

To repeat a simple pointer, what is REAL just IS and THAT is nowhere-at-all.

So yes, the search is hopeless. When that is recognized by you there is frustration and despair; but all that jazz is driven by hope! As a good friend said once, "Hope is icing on a turd". The abandonment of hope (as in "all ye who enter here") is NOT under the seeker's control. So any admonishment to "abandon hope would merely reinforce the false notion of a separate "me" that could accomplish such a patently impossible feat. Isn't that obvious, if the seeking has been going on a while now? Living in hope (or fear or any other notion of a future which NEVER arrives) brings suffering, doesn't it?

The hapless seeker (I speak from much experience, over 30 years worth) is doomed to seek and fail until the seeker's time of seeking expires (always at physical demise, and for some, before that event, as an event that leaves a body body-ing and mind mind-ing but sans any trace of an "owner".)

When ALL OF THAT is recognized (as Sailor Bob Adamson says,RE Cognized", i.e. as seeing the Original that always is rather than It's reflections), meaning,see-ING of and by the No One That IS, the game is over. WHAT IS LEFT? WHAT NEVER CHANGED. AS RAMANA MAHARSHI POINTED TO IT, ALL THAT IS AND ALWAYS IS IS CONSCIOUSNESS, WHICH HE DUBBED "I"I".

What IS, IS. And THAT is a FACT, not the imagination of dreamlike time and space!

PS: As the great Sage Ramesh Balsekar powerfully pointed out, "Seeking must continue until final frustration results in the surrender and disappearance of the seeker himself."

And That's That.

NEW Video 24 October 2011

2011-10-24T22:01:00.002-05:00

What Is and What Appears

2011-10-22T23:29:00.000-05:00

What IS is the timeless Reality of Being-Knowing, arising in the appearance as the first knowledge you have had for eternity, that is, "I AM". This I AM is the one Universal Natural Knowing that NO "other" can argue you out of, no matter how persuasive that argument may be. If some wag were to say to you, "you are NOT", or if YOU were to say "I am NOT", is there the faintest wisp of truth to that assertion? Isn't it clear and obvious that to even utter such a lie, in order to do so, you must first BE, you must know "I AM" BEFORE any truth OR lie could be uttered?

Just notice that in this apparent manifestation, all that appears is appearing within the Absolute Subject, your own Eternal Being, which is clear, empty and open like space? To deny your Absolute Oneness-Nature is the task of religious zealots and misguided philosophers. This expression is neither religion NOR philosophy (and haven’t you had quite enough of both!?) This that is pointed towards here is best understood by the brain as “I AM and That is That! Nothing that follows “I AM” is but a false identity, a fiction believed at your peril. (A precise technical term for that is, “bullshit”.)

Anything that follows I AM must finally be rejected: The ancients used the term “Neti Neti”, Not This Not That. I AM is almost the Absolute; BUT The Absolute Subject which you are cannot be “known” as a concept or experience. THAT – which You ARE – is unknowable yet utterly REAL: THAT is expressed (made to appear) by Itself as “I AM”. So stay with I AM and reject all else. Reject any and all “identities”, even the so-called “holy” ones such as I Am Shiva!” Or “I am all that is!”

Now: Please do NOT turn the pointing-concepts into a new “Advaita Nondual RELIGION". Please. That will only prolong the arrival of the final Absolute Knowing.

So stay with I AM. Just That and nothing else. Because, another pointer (ONLY a pointer) is, “There Is Only THAT. All Is Consciousness, and That is Not-Two.) Just I AM and nothing else. Let THAT be Who-You-Are until even THAT disappears.

Wei Wu Wei from "Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon" & More

2011-10-21T12:51:00.002-05:00

There seem to two kinds of searchers: those who seek to make their ego something other than it is, i.e. holy, happy, unselfish (as though you could make a fish unfish), and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation and play-acting, that there is only one thing that can be done, which is to disidentify themselves with the ego, by realising its unreality, and by becoming aware of their eternal identity with pure being.

***

(From "Reality and Manifestation:)

What did the Monk Realise when Overtaken by a so-called Satori-Experience?

    The reality of anything is confined to the Instant, which we cannot normally seize and of which we only experience a reflection or an echo in the form of a memory.

    Our mind is only a collection of reflections or echoes, preserved by memory, of the reality that we have missed. Our mind is merely a shadow which we mistake for the substance which we have never been able to see.

    Perceiving the substance should be Satori. After seizing the Real, becoming Real, we realise that our mind was only a shadow - and that may be why the reaction was often a laugh. Past and Future vanish when the shaft of light falls upon the shadow, and only a Present, renewed every instant, remains, for that alone is real.

    'We' are not the reality, not the substance, but its reflection. The substance is there, in Reality, hidden from us by the screen of Time. 'We' are a shifting shadow on a wall, but the substance of that shadow is in every Instant that our consciousness is not able to seize. Our 'life' on the plane of phenomena is a continuous misapprehension by which a reflection is mistaken for its image, an echo for its voice, a shadow for its substance.

    We are phenomena, but we pretend to be noumena.

A'convention of enlightened beings'? Really!?

2011-10-05T04:43:00.006-05:00

From time to time (whatever that may mean!) there appears to be 'Jnani conventions' in various locations (that itself a conceptual phantom) that nearly always seem to appear in California or Bangalore, other exotic locales. This brings a softly whispering reminding in the Space That We Be, of one Robert Adams, a departed True Sage of recent times, who quipped, "We should announce a convention of (warning - oxymoron alert!) 'personally enlightened Sages' (Jnanis), and then anyone who turns up would be automatically disqualified".

To wit: "When one is free from attachment, all things are as they are, and there is no coming nor going". ~ Seng Ts'an ... in short, where are 'others' in the Absolute Non-dual Singularity that Ultimate non-conceptual and impersonal Seeing-Knowing that is Naturally What-IS?

A gentle ponderationing, may for what it's worth appear...which may be rediscovered as, hopefully, worth Nothing.

"Nothing is sacred. ONLY Nothing is truly sacred" ~Wayne Liquorman

"When you believe yourself to be a person, you see persons everywhere. In reality there are no persons, only threads of memories and habits. At the moment of realisation [immediate-apperception] the person ceases [as does any vestige of illusory 'otherness'.]. ~Nisargadatta Maharaj

'ONCE UPON A TIME... the Play of Ten Trillion unconnected dreams appears, out of NowHere......

What is, IS!

2011-09-21T17:49:00.002-05:00

Q: I work in a retail shop and I seem to have a mental loop occurring after interactions with certain customers who are unreasonable in their demands or accusations and where the situation remains somehow unresolved in some way where I didn’t get to say what I wanted . This mental loop occurs as thought replays of that scene with that customer saying & doing what they did & I act in different ways in response to them . These thought replays are like mental video clips that are triggered by nothing in particular and can occur anytime and very often over the next week or two weeks after the incident. These replays are irritating and frustrating because logically I realize that the incident is over & that I can do nothing about it. I also feel that I have a desire to get rid of this mental loop. Should I let them play on till it plays itself out meanwhile experiencing lots of frustration & irritation every time these memories resurface? Could you please advise me as to what if anything I can do about this?

C: That reminds me of what my son said when he was working computer tech support many years ago: "This is a great job except for the customers!" :-)

Here's the thing: So long as there is the trace, the barest vestige, of a 'me", there will always be "others". Then those others may stimulate a response that the "me" thinks "should not be". THAT, the sense of a "should" about what IS, and the passion of a conviction that the "Should" is RIGHT and that the "me" is RIGHT and of course that the other is "wrong" is real suffering. All there is is what is, and the afterthoughts, or subsequent interpretations, are a product of the notion of being a separate entity who "should" be different, implying that what is COULD be different, which is patently impossible! What is, IS. Full Stop.

Each thought is fresh in the moment. You seem to believe that there IS a "loop". It is all happening JUST NOW though.

As far as "advice" goes, who would give advice to whom? You are along for the ride! Totality does it all, and then the machine that you are claims "there is something wrong and I want to change it". Right? But you might just as well wish to change New York into London.

You as an entity are completely powerless and devoid of any trace of independent existence apart from Totality. So WHO is it that needs or gives advice? Phantom storytellers, nothing real and nothing valid. Regardless of the empty claims of the masses.

As I wrote elsewhere, see beyond this conceptual entity that is essentially nothing put a passing fancy, a notion with no properties, that ONLY TOTALITY DOES ALL DOING and the false sense of a separate entity-I is an OVERLAY or afterthought that is no more connected to actions than the boat ride in the amusement park's three "steering wheels" are connected to any steering mechanism. The seeker who CLAIMS these "realizations" is like a leaf being carried by the river toward the ocean, asserting that IT is doing the traveling, IT is steering toward the ocean where IT will "merge" etc etc! And then CLAIM "I made it!" (And then it may well start to "teach!") Hehehehe ...

Lookit: When the storyteller assumes it is the story, the star "entity-I-me" ... and assumes the authorship or control of the doing and the action, the seeker remains in the delusion of doership or authorship of what is actually just the natural and unscripted Being-And-Doing of the Whole. So drop the idea that anything is missing, There is NOTHING to get. As there is NO ONE that can "get" anything, or even a thing called "nothing" (a popular delusion in spiritual circles: OH, 'I' get it, 'I am Nothing'." THAT is just more bullshit starry-eyed story!

I say, NOT as a "prescription" but rather a description of what may well happen in the reading and pondering of this, that it MAY be clear that all suffering and all ideas of "wrongness or rightness" or "mental loops" or ANY "me" or "other" etc is nothing more that BELIEVING THOUGHTS TO BE TRUE. As that conviction drops off and is replaced NOT by "disbelief in thoughts" or anything else but rather is replaced by Nothing, the No Thing that YOU REALLY are, peace will be clear and obvious, while the dance goes on but without the "personal attachment" that makes What Is into something that causes suffering. May it be so for you... Right Now!

The possibility here is the freedom of being POWERLESS. For an example ...

In my experience, TRUE Freedom consists ONLY in Being absolutely Powerless! This first appeared for me when I was racing and lost control when a radiator tank burst and dumped water on the right rear wheel in a 125 MPH left hand corner. As the car was spinning out of any possibility of "my" controlling it, there dawned absolute Freedom, absolute Peace, and this continued as the car leapt a guard rail and spinning around, landed in a clearing 50' down a steep hill, ruining the springs and shocks and whatnot. I was uninjured.

It's a profound Possibility: The Freedom of Being Powerless! Seeing-Knowing THAT, there is no suffering, and no should or should not be. What IS, is accepted As It IS and Is Not ... by No-One i.e Your Self.

Much Love,

Charlie

“Anyone who has truly apprehended that it is impossible for him to live independently according to his own "will power" would naturally cease having any intentions. When he is convinced that living is a sort of dreaming in which he has no control over his [or her] actions, all tension ceases and a sense of total freedom takes over”. ~Ramesh Balsekar

“Spontaneous, natural action happens only when the mind is vacant of the slightest trace of intention and planning. The greatest liberty is in having total trust in that final authority that makes the grass grow and our limbs, organs and minds work by themselves.” ~Ramesh Balsekar

What If .....

2011-09-21T16:40:00.005-05:00

Conversations For Transformation
Essays By Laurence Platt
Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
And More

September 11, 2001 - Ten Years After

Diamond Mountain Appellation, Napa Valley, California, USA

September 11, 2001

"When I don't know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you." ... Hanuman speaking to Ram in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana

"When I don't know who I am, I hurt you. When I know who I am, I am you." ... Laurence Platt contemplating September 11, 2001 ten years after

This essay, September 11, 2001, is the final essay in the quadrilogy September 11, 2001:

in that order.

It is the companion piece to

What Happened As Distinct From The Story About What Happened

Road Warrior

in that order.

Imagine you're on another planet. No, imagine you're from another planet. Imagine you're from another planet looking down on planet Earth, and you see its people fighting each other, making war on each other. Now imagine the planet you're from, doesn't have fighting or war. Imagine the planet you're from, doesn't know fighting or war. What could you say about what you saw the people of planet Earth doing to each other? You wouldn't know what it was they were doing to each other, would you? Whatever you saw them doing to each other would look very strange indeed ...

Of course, you're not from another planet. And you're not on another planet. So you'll never be able to look at what we the people of planet Earth do to each other, from the perspective of not knowing what fighting is, from the perspective of not knowing what war is.

But you can consider it like a possibility. Can you look at what we the people of planet Earth do fighting each other, can you look at what we the people of planet Earth do making war on each other, can you look at all of it from the perspective of ie coming from not knowing what fighting is, coming from not knowing what war is? Can you consider the possibility of no fighting on planet Earth? Can you consider the possibility of no war on planet Earth?

This is what's bass ackwards about planet Earth: here, no fighting and no war are the possibilities which are very strange indeed ...

I won't publish this essay, September 11, 2001 - Ten Years After, on the actual tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001 out of respect for the commemorations held on that day for the people who lost their lives and who gave their lives on September 11, 2001. There are times when it's easy to hear new ideas which intrude into our already sensitivities, and there are other times when it's not so easy. The actual day of commemoration of the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001 may not be the most appropriate day to look newly at who we are in the matter of September 11, 2001.

Be careful. When I say "... who we are in the matter of September 11, 2001", I don't mean us. And I don't mean them either. That would just keep the conversation within the same conflict: "us / them", "good / bad", "right / wrong". And the trouble with keeping the conversation within the same conflict is we already know the outcome of this conversation. We already know "we're the good guys, and they're the bad guys". And it isn't even a stretch of our combined imaginations to realize "we're the good guys, and they're the bad guys" can be voiced evenhandedly by both sides in the September 11, 2001 conflict - indeed, by both sides in any conflict. This is the nature of conflict. So when I say "... who we are in the matter of September 11, 2001", I mean all of us. I mean all of us nearly seven billion people of planet Earth.

"Oh no!" you say. "You're wrong, Laurence. We are the good guys, and they are the bad guys.". No. It's all of us - if you're willing to look at it from this perspective. We're all the people of planet Earth fighting each other. We're all the people of planet Earth making war on each other. And from the perspective of someone on another planet, from the perspective of someone from another planet who doesn't know fighting or war, what we do to each other looks very strange indeed ...

I assert fighting and war are the natural results of not knowing who we really are. When I don't know who I am, I hurt you. When I know who I am, I am you. "Too simple!" you say? Yes. Entrenched as we are in "us / them", "good / bad", "right / wrong", it is simple. We can't get it from the already always listening we are. And maybe we can't get it today, the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. We have to wait until the commemoration services for and the remembrances of the people who lost their lives and who gave their lives on September 11, 2001, are over. It's hard for us to listen this if it intrudes into our already sensitivities. But when the ceremonies are complete, when it's alright to re-look at September 11, 2001 after an appropriate time has elapsed, when you can re-look at September 11, 2001 with new ideas ... then invent it - like a possibility. Try it on for size.

Republished here with permission of the author. I find this a stunning example of what is possible "coming from NOT Knowing" (as my friend Unmani might say). I am profoundly grateful to Laurence for this amazing essay. It is my wish that this move you as it moves me. Or as my friend Werner Erhard may have said, moves both "me and me called not-me!")

With Infinite Love,
Charlie

It's all That...

2011-09-16T04:49:00.004-05:00

A.K. says, Glad your move to Reno worked out well.

C: Thanks!

A.K. It's been awhile since I last contacted you! Just saw the latest newsletter and video--great as always! A question for you: Lately when looking at presence,(the looking/seeing has been happening a lot lately), uncaused happiness arises and with that laughter also arises; any thoughts, comments, suggestions? Namaste, All Love and Light…

C: So that's what happens, and sometimes there is the serenity of what IS and sometimes the uncaused joy of What IS and sometimes there is the appearing of a shitstorm of what IS etc!! Meanwhile what is That which remains forever changeless-timeless? You are That; there is Only That!. Anyways, all of That sounds good, my friend! Much Love, A.K.

A,K. Thanks for your wisdom. It's funny how what is, is, cause a shitstorm of health stuff occurred after all of that! It's all the same, shitstorm and all!---LOL Thanks again with love, A.

C: It’s a pleasure.

Potent Pointing from Ramesh Balsekar, thanks to Helena!

2011-09-16T04:33:00.002-05:00

The existence of ego is purely conceptual. When a person sleeps, consciousness is absent, but he is not dead. We are neither the warm body that is alive nor the cold body that is dead. We are the birthless and deathless vital current of Consciousness itself. The very first step in understanding is in giving up the false concept of 'I' as a separate entity. It is also the last step.

The sage is one who has offered as a sacrifice his own individuality, and this annihilation of identity is tantamount to a merging with the Totality in complete love.

What you appear to be is the outer body perceiving the outer world, but what you are is that Consciousness in which the body and the world appear.

Although thought, words, logic and reasoning are obviously necessary to lead a moral life, they do not by themselves constitute living. They are all based on memory of the known and are products of the split-mind, the mind divided by the intrusion of a spurious 'me'. To LIVE without thought, without words, is to be receptive to the unknown with the whole mind.

True teaching is in reality the SILENCE of the SILENCE in which there is neither talking nor the absence of talking. It is like drawing the figure of a fish on the water's surface with a stick.

Apperception of the highest Truth is not, and cannot be, a matter of gradual practice. Apperception, in fact, occurs prior to consciousness, which is the basis of intellect. It can only happen by itself, spontaneously and instantaneously. It is not in time, and there are no stages in which deliberate progress is made. Furthermore, there is NO ONE to make any progress.

There is no causal relationship between Consciousness and the universe. The truth is that Consciousness alone exists and is immanent in what appears as the universe. They are not two, by which any sort of relationship could exist.

Ramesh Balsekar

By whom?

2011-09-11T11:52:00.003-05:00

MS Writes, Hey their old friend... whats to be done when life serves rotten apples over and over?

C: Done? By whom? Apples happen, some rotten, some tasty. That's Life In The Big Dream!

MS: Ahhh nice. the big dream where am i.. really. Damn your magic charlie!

C: Ha! Love ya! ♥

The Light of Being

2011-09-07T13:19:00.001-05:00

There is a Light that shines prior to and through the "mind" ... the thought-machinery ... and that Light allows, permeates and animates all that appears in this wondrous dream of being-and-the-world. As Sri Nisargadatta said:

"Even the sense 'I am' is composed of the pure light and the sense of being. The 'I' is there even without the 'am'. So is the pure light there whether you say 'I' or not. Become aware of that pure light and you will never lose it. The beingness in being, the awareness in consciousness, the interest in every experience - that is not describable, yet perfectly accessible, for there is nothing else."

That Light is a palpable Presence, always ON, always FREE, always and ever fresh. Just notice that. Without that Light of Being, could anything else BE? Noticing that palpable Presence prior to and infusing what is "present" frees the "seeker" fro the false self-center, which is nothing more than a believed fiction, an insubstantial and utterly powerless storytelling machine with and assumed but unfindable "false entity" at the center. The assumption "I am the center of the universe, all this is happening to me" IGNORES the Light Of Being and obscures the freedom and love that We ARE in Truth, but only "apparently". Suspend belief in the fictional self-center and right now, right here, the Truth is obvious and incontrovertible> I AM the Light, and that is all there is.

This is about the end of seeking and seeker, not about attaining a "special state" for that false self-center. Seeing IS happening and registering these words appearing now, here. But what is That which makes the seeing possible? What is That which animates, and registers, the seeing? That is NOT the story; that allows the story. Repeating this pointer happens a lot, because the habit of mind is to think "i am me" and that this "me" IS separated from "everything else. Bit can anything, even a believed story, ACTUALLY exist apart from the Light of being?

There is no separation between the sky and the clouds and the sun, the sky and the moon, the sky and the stars. Right? Have a look! Even darkness, the pitch black of a deep cave, is still lit by that Light. To know darkness AS the Self and as the Light is freedom. And in this there is love, impersonal and palpable as the I-Light. Yes, we are all That. There is only That in Truth. But do not "believe this" please; just let the pointers sink in and notice the ever fresh and fully present light of Being, and BE THAT and nothing else.

Despite our false beliefs, all truly IS The One Light. So, BE That. Love That. Respect That. It's so simple; since you already are That, just allow the false belief in being other than that evaporate naturally in the Warm Light of True Being. That is the greatest gift of the end of seeking: Being as You Are.

The Eternal Tao

2011-09-06T02:02:00.001-05:00

Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible.
These three are indefinable;
Therefore they are joined in one.
From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark:
An unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
The form of the formless,
The image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.
Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.
Knowing the ancient beginning is the
essence of Tao.

Tao Te Ching, v.14

No Exit from Your Humanity

2011-09-05T00:13:00.027-05:00

Many "spiritual seekers" have bought into the various myths surrounding the notion of "transformation", "enlightenment", "final understanding" and have struggled valiantly to capture this "special state" ... for ME. But those concepts only point, to the dissolution of the false sense of being a controlling, separate entity with some power apart from the Universal Life-Force that is at the heart of everything. That "One essence appearing as everything", as Bob Adamson put is. In that space, of pure Knowing-sans-knower,the "me" is no more powerful than a cloud. Is a cloud s9olid and real lookimg? Yes., But don't you realize you can do nothing wahtsver with na cloud> The "Me" idea is just like that cloud; it is a movement of subtle energies with independent power to do or not do a damn thing!

Can a cloud set an intetntion and attain some goal life say for enlightenment??

The problem is, the myths tend to propagate the false idea that to be "enlightened" or "transformed" means to be always "nice", always loving and kind, always a really good person with no emotions like anger or sadness, and one who is always helpful, compassionate, generous etc. That is to say, that sort of seeker is attempting to be somehow NOT HUMAN!

Perhaps there are people whose lives seem to be "saintly" as described in brief above, and others whose lives may appear to be nasty, unkind, even evil. What is rarely fully grasped is that for a Sage, there is no way to predict his or her behavior, by anyone else or even by himself or herself. Once the Understanding has happened, life goes on living Itself THROUGH both the organism of the "saint" and the organism of the "sinner".

To try to NOT be human is a tricky old trap! A friend once said, "It is a privilege to be angry when you are angry!" Indeed. It’s human, it’s natural! When the entire range of human-ness is accepted as part of the wholeness of what is, there is no more pretenses, no more actor-persona, no more hiding behind masks, no need to cover up our insecurity, vulnerability, moods, emotions etc when they are extant … and that means no more suffering.

Of course, we must recognize and sit with what I call the Advaita (Non-separation or “not two-ness"). Caveat: That this absolute acceptance can only arise as a function of the Whole; it cannot be forced. A metaphor I heard thirty-six years ago that I paraphrase fits here" The snake cannot rip ff its own skin; only Nature (Totality) will remove it, and only when it is "in the molting season".

So being human is an all-inclusive play which allow all and anything can arise at any moment, is it is out of the human beings ability to force any outcome. To say it in spiritual language, perhaps, whatever is to be done will be done through all the instruments, all the human animals, as well as all the other creatures, plants, trees, oceans, planets etc. All s a "Play of God" or again in Bob Adamson’s words, the “One Essence appearing as everything".
During the lifespan there is NO EXIT from Being Human, (apart from physical death), nor a need for any such; as Being, who you really are, us always fully present and aware whether a body-apparatus notices it or not. What happens to being when you die? Same thing that happens to water when it evaporates. While its essence is unchanged its appearance has transformed. In other words it is always water in essence no matter what the form is: steam, hot liquids, cold liquids, clouds, sleet, ice, snow… all that one-essence. That is indestructible, as That is not a “thing”; That is No Thing yet It empowers and formulates and patterns into the phantasmagorias we call the Universe. And It does That all by itself!

The billions of human names and forms are of One Essence, called Intelligence, Pure Possibility, The Absolute, Love, Energy, Breath or Prana, and many more. Remember, the name is not the thing. And neither is the form. (Form is formlessness; formlessness is form … not two.)

So if you are attempting to “be one with being” or Be one with everything, you MUST fail but ONLY because you are already the Energy-Love-Peace of the Absolute at all times in places (no matter where you go you're Here), and the attempts just seem to obscure That, like the move seems to obscure the screen, Next time as a move or watching a good TV show notice actively the undeniable background existence of the screen,

In this living transformation teaching, the purest context you can adopt that can perhaps empower your looking at these points is to create the consideration that everything IS perfect. As it is and as it ain’t. I am not saying to believe that, Nooo; embrace, sip, taste, drink it in a relaxed pace, and see what show s up!

Please read Randall Friend’s post below, to complete this evening's sharing.

Much Love to You,.

What Is "The Eternal Tao"?

2011-09-04T11:54:00.006-05:00

Nameless, timeless, locationless, yet fully present right Here right Now as what You are: Is there presence where You are? Is there Awareness where You are? Is there "time"? Show what "time" is: Can we? To paraphrase a favorite teacher of mine, Bob Adamson, "where is "time" unless you think about it? Whomever uttered the wonderful pointer "there's no time like the present" was a wise old owl.

To paraphrase another favorite teacher, we are constantly looking to find a truth that fits the appearance of reality, the incredible display of time-space-stuff and us. But given THAT "reality" the truth just doesn't fit!

Lao Tsu said it: "The Tao that can be named is not the Eternal Tao". Full Stop.

Now what? Here is a question you can play with if you like: What is being sought? Who or what is seeking what cannot be named or known? IS there a "seeker" or just seek-ING, appearing as part of the whole functioning of Being AND non-Being? Yes, there IS know-ING, Be-ING. And, as Lao Tsu also pointed out, "Being is born of not being."

Which are YOU? Being or Non-Being?

Neither. And Both.

Stop now and BE. Simple. YOU ARE, Being. Inescapably and unavoidably. That, Being, is NOT-a-Thing yet IT IS. Eternal, Real and appearing NOW-NOW-NOW as Your own invincible I Am-ness.

When that Natural Knowing is complete, it's clear and plain that "mind" is a tool of The Eternal, creating spontaneously, inventing live and living moment by moment. And for that, as that, IN that, anything is possible.

Anything.

"Dwell in the Possibilities" ~Emily Dickinson

"Keep very quiet and watch what comes to the surface of the mind. Reject the known, welcome the so far unknown and reject it in its turn. Thus you come to a state in which there is no knowledge, only being, in which being itself is knowledge. To know by being is direct knowledge. It is based on the identity of the seer and the seen. Indirect knowledge is based on sensation and memory, on proximity of the perceiver and his percept, confined with the contrast between the two." ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

"Thought, desire and fear are based on time or duration through memory -- they are not of the present moment. They disappear along with time itself when volition has been abandoned or surrendered." ~Ramesh Balsekar

Perfect!

2011-09-03T17:25:00.001-05:00

Whatever is going on right now, whatever has gone on, and whatever may go on, is perfect.

If you "aren't there yet", that's perfect.

If you just have an "intellectual understanding", that's perfect.

For it to not be perfect is to suffer.

To suffer is to have a condition - a condition on whatever is going on.

For it to be ok is to not suffer. To resist is to suffer. To argue with reality is to suffer.

So in the midst of the spiritual search, we must somehow be ok with our present level of "achievement" or understanding. We must know deep down that it will work itself out. As long as we are determined to inquire into the nature of reality, we cannot fail. As long as we are willing to question our dearest beliefs, we cannot fail. The false cannot stand up to that spotlight.

But if we go about it as a way to make life suck less, then we are missing the point. If we just want to see through the illusion because the world sucks so bad, then we are only making suffering worse. Because our life may suck and we want enlightenment to save us - when it doesn't then we add onto our suffering.

Whatever it is that brought the spiritual search, let that resolve it. Let that drive come and do what it may do. Don't judge, don't want it to be otherwise, don't argue with your current level of understanding.

If we are resisting, we are suffering. That's just a fact. To resist resistance is still resistance. To see the futility and insanity of resistance is the end of suffering.

~Randall Friend

Redesigning the web site underway; a fresh approach is coming

2011-09-01T23:54:00.003-05:00

Hello all,

This site and my work is undergoing a radical and wonderful transformation, and the expression here, and elsewhere where I participate, will be taking a different focus. Strange though it may seem, that is all I really know about this shift; that's happening in and as a Space of Possibility for a "Living Transformation" for all regardless of age, knowledge or circumstances: This project will be about the Natural Power to transform the quality of your life in any and all circumstances. Yes, that is bold. Yes, I mean it!

I do know that the expression is Being-Changing-Itself. Rather that just stop posting or corresponding, as has happened for a few that have shared their insights and suggestions about all this spiritual good news over the last 3-4 years, I am welcoming and embracing whatever this is that is arising, and see how it unfolds. I look forward to sharing it with YOU, and I must say It's somewhat fascinating to be "dreaming" in this way! And wicked-thrilling to be given the privilege by Totality (Or God, if you prefer) of participating in the "burning away" of the excess baggage that seems to obscure the Natural Freedom that we are: Burn Baby Burn!

The core commitment here is that whatever comes out to be written or spoken will make a positive difference for the souls who find themselves in the space. How that will now express remains to be realized.

Stay tuned if you like, and thank you for your ongoing support over the years. It is your donations and your questions and comments that make this possible. Meanwhile the books, consultations, and previous posts, which seem to have had a positive impact on many folks, will remain available as this interesting "process" of Totality-In-Drag unfolds itself.

With all my love,

Charlie

1 Sept. 2011

New Project, Book,, Auduis and More: "Living Transformation"

2011-09-01T23:44:00.000-05:00

All coming soon. Stay tuned, announcements will arrive over the next few weeks...

Ownership of What Appears brings Suffering

2011-09-01T22:42:00.000-05:00

Everything happens. That is simple and stupidly obvious, unless it isn't.

When it ISN'T obvious, the assumption is what happens happens "to me". "I" (the false identity of a separate entity with name and form) "own' this or that. This or that is MINE. Even more delirious is, "I caused it!" And therefore since I am suffering, "It should not be! I should have and could have 'caused' a different happening.

Suffering is in large measure, I have observed, a product of this idea that a) I am separate from everything else except my body (MY body!) and b) I am responsible for what happened TO me (or some other that I love) and for the happenings of the body I call mine. This "ownership" is a persistent belief that virtually all human beings are infected with, like a mega-virus. Or better said perhaps, like the air the bird never notices or the water the fish is not aware of. All of these metaphors just POINT to the source of our blindness, our suffering. Yet: It simply IS happening, seemingly invisibly. Including suffering. THAT happens as everything happens; there is NOT everything "plus" x.

All the while there IS something that always IS, fully present at all times and in all circumstances, that is AWARE of the fishness and the waterness. Think of a silent observer (the "fly on the wall in the room; or a Single Eye that sees it all and loves it all as it is. taking your stand THERE, as THAT, can reveal the Truth of what you really are. But that Truth is beyond language, beyond words, beyond representation. Wordless, Timeless, Beginningless, Endless ... these are pointers and NOT descriptions.

Being as you are means (as far as I am concerned) Simply Being, Silence, Stillness, and noticing that Everything Happens all by itself. That includes ... EVERYTHING.

No exceptions. Beyond belief, both being and nonbeing and beyond being and nonbeing.

Hoo YA!

Belief, any belief, is based on the sense of insecurity. Only when all belief is given up are you free to know yourself. In self-discovery what you find is the Truth - that Truth which is total, self-evident and which needs no outside support or justification."~Ramesh Balsekar

Nonduality 101

2011-08-26T21:52:00.003-05:00

Notice...

2011-08-24T19:54:00.000-05:00

In the apartment complex where I live, there are signs that state, "NOTICE: This property is under video surveillance". This prompted a bit of pointing that might be useful:

Notice: Are you awake? Notice: Is there Awareness here now? Notice: Is there Presence here now? When (during wakefulness) is there NO Awareness, NO Awakeness, NO Presence? Find a "time" when there is no wakeful aware presence. Can you? (Don't say deep sleep; sleep is not present NOW, is it!?)

Consider the obviousness of Wakefulness, Awareness, Presence. Does that ever change? Is that ever modified or altered in any way shape or form? Does that HAVE any "form"? It is Formless, isn't it? And yet it is SO obvious when pointed to; this Unchanging Wakeful Aware Presence. As a friend, Gilbert, like to say, "The first instant is Wakefulness. Who is there to argue about that? You-AS-Wakefulness must be present and aware to mount a challenge. Look: This is not a philosophy, not spirituality, this is pointing only to the Reality that NEVER changes, and proposes that YOU look to see if maybe, just maybe, THAT is what YOU really are.

Have a look. What do you have to lose? Only any perceived or imagined limitations on your actual Being. Might as well see what can be seen, in looking BACK behind the ubiquitous sense-of-ME and notice. Just NOTICE. YOU have never changes and never will. Noticing That any search for wholeness, God, or enlightenment is over, in this Wholly Instant Moment outside of space-time, ever present, here now. That thou art, as the ancients reminded us over and over.

And That's THAT.

The Infamous "Flip-Flop"

2011-08-24T10:43:00.000-05:00

Q: Things remain interesting here. Still a bit of flip flopping back into and then out of the sense of a separate self, but that is seen through much quicker now.

C: The flip-flop can go on, nothing wrong with that. Since you already ARE what the seeker seeks, anything is possible and none really matters! It is all Totality functioning perfectly. Of course one can always ask, "to whom is this 'flip-flop- happening?" The mind-machinery responds with some variation on "ME". Then the question is, who or what is THAT? Where exactly is this "me" or "I"? Who am I? We shall see if that arises.

Fundamentally there is no one to suggest asking "Who Am I". There is no one to ask "Who Am I?". AND sometimes for some there is the natural functioning of totality rediscovering its True-Self that brings these things forth. I do encourage that (though I know there is no "me" here encouraging that; it is ALL a part of the Totality of What IS and what APPEARS, the Not-Two of wholeness-Beingness-Love!

"Who are You/Who Am I?" No answer is valid. In that open No-Answer your true-Nature is seen to BE ... clear and obviously ever-present. Being is unavoidable and indescribable.

Nonduality and Creativity

2011-08-20T20:48:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it seems that creativity, inventing new projects, expanding the arena of possibilities, all gets a bad rap from "nondual purists." It is curious that some wags like to claim, "creativity? That's totally dualistic!" I ask them, how is it that you EXCLUDE creativity from nonduality? What could possibly be apart, how could anything be separated from, TOTALITY!? (Even the most clouded intelligence MUST allow this truism: Totality is, well, TOTAL!!)

I heard the great Ramesh Balsekar address this nonsense once a while back: A student was saying, "Ramesh, what about Reiki? What about 'est'? What about the Landmark Forum? (The implication being that perhaps these things were somehow dualistic ... and that dualistic was somehow "wrong!") Ramesh replied, in essence, "There IS Reiki. There IS The Landmark Forum. There WAS 'est'." Etc! Here is the point: OF COURSE these things ARE, in the manifest appearance; these events, and all such events, are absolutely an inherent part of The One Totality. As 'Sailor' Bob says, "It is One Essence appearing as Everything." Key Word! Everything!

So despite the protestations and lamentations of the "Advaita Cops" IT IS ALL "THAT". One without a second. How many times have we heard from Sages both current and ancient: All Is One.

This is it. Everything is It. Nothing is It. IT is all.

So what?

So: Anything is Possible for Who You Are And that means ANYTHING. Certainly, creativity is absolutely possible. The mind, being a perfect servant, is a tool for the One to use as Its Creative-Intelligence manifested. You are that Creative Intelligence, so here is an invitation to access that Creativity that you Are a,d create FOR YOUR SELF a world of joy, of freedom, of LOVE.

Why not??

As Emily Dickinson wrote decades ago, "Dwell in The Possibilities". That statement, in a beautiful large calligraphy, has pride of place in my Satsang room. Come see and dwell in the Ultimate Truth of Being:

Anything is Possible, and that means ANYTHING!

And, duality and nonduality are NOT TWO. Because there is NO duality in nonduality, the Nondual Essence which is, simply put, All There IS.

With great respect, and great love,

Charlie

Where IS any "I" unless you think about it?

2011-08-19T13:56:00.000-05:00

Q: I can see that all possible experience can only happen within the present self-aware space, and that it has only ever been doing this.

C: Okay, but WHO or WHAT exactly IS the “I” that says “I can see” this? There is a thought-story of some “entity” that CLAIMS “I can see”. Where IS this entity? IS there such an entity, apart from thought? Where IS any “I” unless thoughts CLAIM the existence of such? WHO claims “I can see?” This is the “investigation” that is called for by Sages such as Nisargadatta and Bob Adamson.

Where is any “I” unless you THINK about it? Pause thought right now. Where IS that “I”? It is a fiction, unreal, a thought-story that comes and goes. What does the story appear within? Or on? Open naked presence, Self-Knowing Awareness. THAT is what You are; THAT is NOT any thought or experience or any “thing” at all. IT is NO Thing. You are That No Thing. Do not trade that No Thing, Unborn Naked Great Perfection, for paltry and limiting thoughts!

Q: But, prior to the birth of this body, there was no experiencing going on at all. So my question is on the eternity of the present self-aware space. How do I know that this present self-aware space was in existence prior to any experiencing going on? And how do I know that it will continue to exist once this body dies?

C: Reread the above response. WHO is it that wants an answer? Haven’t you noticed that the moment an answer arises, or is given to you by someone, the question no longer matters? And that then another question shows up, and you are apparently stuck once again in the fiction of a ‘me” that craves answers that nevertheless NEVER bring satisfaction or completion? ALL of this arises only in (mostly stupid) thought-stories of an “I” that is just NOT real.

You must of course discover this through your own gentle and persistent LOOKING. Investigate the claims of that mind-stuff, the mentation which is no more than a claiming machine that asserts its reality despite the absence of real evidence or reliable proof. The machine claims “I am ME and separate, and must become whole”. Yet YOU are already Wholeness Itself. As ‘Sailor’ Bob asks us to ask, “What’s wrong with right now unless you think about it”? As Baba Muktananda said, “All suffering is due to ‘thinking-about’.” Chew on Bob’s question, along with mine: WHO wants an answer? WHO are you really? Are you a thought which comes and goes? Who says so!?

As Ramesh Balsekar said once, “The individual self can exist only as a process of becoming, whereas THAT WHICH IS is the perennial state of BEING. Therefore, its realization is the annihilation of the individual.”

Let the mind go in this Full Stop: Where IS that “I” that claims to “see” in deep sleep? And can the thought “I” actually “see” anything? Consider the possibility that thoughts have no real power to see, to hear, to know ANYTHING. And let yourself discover the truth of that! Realize THAT and the search is over in the clear non-conceptual (natural) knowingness that the only “claim” the human can make that cannot be argued is, “I AM”. And the THOUGHT “I am” is no more that actual I Am-Ness than the THOUGHT “table” is something you can set your coffee cup on.

Start with the only FACT you can know beyond doubt: I AM. Stay with that and refuse to grant legitimacy to those "buts" ANY other thoughts of lack, limitation or becoming. And refuse to ask ANY other questions save for "WHO AM I?". Full stop!

“Subject-object thinking seems to cover the natural state (awareness). But without awareness, thinking could not take place. Because thinking appears in awareness (like a cloud appears in the sky), realise that thinking is in essence awareness. Understanding this, thinking cannot obscure awareness." ~'Sailor' Bob Adamson

From Love to Love, With Love,

Charlie

What's Happening is Life, Living Itself Through All

2011-08-16T13:37:00.003-05:00

Q: Dear Charlie, thank you for all your words I have read and for the seconds of no - me - bliss or emptiness.

C: You are most welcome!

Q: "I" have become disinterested in "my” life story which is good, but "I" have become disinterested on others' life stories too, which makes me a bad listener and not engaged in social situations.

C: So that is what is happening! Labeling what is arising as “good” or “bad” is a product of the judging mind with its attachment to preferences and it’s propensity to involve itself egoicly in what is simply HAPPENING. Life IS what IS. The labeling is a mental involvement after the fact; it’s a false sense of wanting power, wanting to be in control. That sense of ennui, that disinterest, does seem to happen as the Teaching sinks in! It is Nature, Life itself, living as that exact happening, THROUGH you. It cannot be otherwise. But you can investigate this: Are YOU the author, the designer, of this? The assumption is that "this is MY life" and also the sense (usually quite deep and cellular) that "something is wrong" (with "me", with "life as it actually is,” etc.) IS THAT TRUE? Investigate the claims of the sense of being in charge of life and living! Who or what asserts it is in charge and not only should, but could, make things different (meaning "better")?

Q: If I can't be in silence with people, I have to act as if I am interested. What a chore!!

C: Of course. ANY pretense is a struggle, because it is going against Nature. Against What Is. Yet again, you can investigate: For whom is this a "chore"? The label “chore” is again a product of the judging mind.

Q: "You" are living out an enormous service with writing, teaching and talking. Will "I" find a service? Right now, "I" am in idle.

C: I, like everyone and everything else, am “being lived”. By WHAT? That is a question for you to look with, dear One. Look at this one: Right here, right now you ARE. Adding the after-words “in idle” brings forth unnecessary suffering. Stop at “I AM”” as best you can and keep looking BACK, behind the mind’s assertions: Are YOU the Source of What IS?

Are YOU as the egoic entity with a name the actual power behind the throne? Or is there something far greater, vast actually, Living THROUGH what you call your self? Looking BACK, rather than attempting to ask questions such as “”will I find service” to what ASKS that question and what Power is operating that causes thoughts, feelings, a beating heart, and makes the grass grow, the sun shine, what IS That which animates all of Totality? What is breathing you? Are YOU breathing? Then where are you, the breather, in deep sleep wherein breathing is still going on? Without Consciousness itself, would you even BE? Could anything BE sans Consciousness?

Keep looking and feel free to stay in touch. Much Love to you!

Meeting Postponed Indefinitely

2011-08-14T14:12:00.001-05:00

Dear Friends,

This old body is still going through effects of the bad fall that happened in Oklahoma, therefor it seems appropriate to NOT schedule any public meetings. I would still be happy to meet you on a day and time that works for you, but more than two people imposes a bit of a strain. If you would like to come up to NW Reno at some point, try and give me a couple of dates and times with at least two days notice.

As always, it is the will of Source (so to say) and one never knows whats next, isn't t!?

Much love and thanks again for your great support of the Message.

Charliewww.theeternalstate.org
~

PS:

Ram Tzu loves you...

So he is out to destroy you.

He knows you are your own
Worst enemy
So to destroy you
Is to save you.

Your ego must be smashed
Or you will surely die.
Yet words are like
Sledge hammers with greased handles.
They're difficult to guide
To their target,
Dangerous,
Liable to hit anything.

Ram Tzu loves you.
You can trust him.
Just put your head right here.
That's it.
Nothing to worry about...

Why do you hesitate?

Plans?

2011-08-13T19:53:00.001-05:00

Man Plans. Then: Totality does whatever happens. And so often, the plans we make and the actions, and the actuality, is very, very different! Don't we notice how often our cherished plans and preferences are NOT fulfilled? That very different stuff happens? Never did this old guy DREAM it would end up in Reno, Nevada. And despite the "plans" that seemed that a studio apartment here would be available for a measly $400 a month, and there would be a steady paying job, NONE of that actually did happen. (Though I did earn enough to buy a TV, that seems to have been the extent of the gig! Plans .... !)

What DID happen? A crazy near-nightmarish several weeks of no home, no job, markets going down and finances shrinking. All the while there was a noting that plans and "quote reality" were remarkably different, and nowhere is lovely as dreamed of while still in Enid, Oklahoma.

Furthermore, despite some very good blessings of finding, finally, an affordable apartment and cable TV service that one living on Social Security (mois) can just barely afford, and having a place to stay while looking that was also affordable, other "shit happened" like the old Jeep breaking down and refusing to start, and said Jeep developing some other issues that would preclude driving top commute to the job from one side of Reno to the other, but of course totality having conspired to have the job disappear coordinates well with that.

Then of course there is the matter of losses of capitol from the already meager retirement savings owing to totality's "credit downgrade" and the "volatile markets", AND the fact that donations have dropped to near Zero, as have book sales, and well ... so much for them there plans hunh!?

Then the cable system lost most of its channels, and with no job, and nothing to "do", now there was (is) no cable TV. The company said they were working on it, and because it had been a few days not working gave me a $20 credit. At this point I was happy to get the credit; screw the TV! LOL ...

All the while the Presence-Awareness that IS what-we-are remains untouched. But that sure as shootin' doesn't mean that some things just do SUCK. Ask any Sage and he or she will share with you that so long as there is an organism drawing breath (or "being breathed if you prefer") shit happens and some is nice and some is freakin' NASTY.

All in all, simply trusting the Unborn-Isness may occur or not. Presence-Awareness could care less. The Self has no interest in what appears to happen. Yet so long as the organism lives it will have unrealized plans, unexpected travails, unmet expectations, thwarted intentions and occasionally, blessings and good other shit.

Anyway, so much for "the best laid plans etc". As a major Network Exec who developed fatal cancer said a while back, "If you wanna make God laugh tell him your plans".

No kidding!

(PS: If this sounds like a manipulation to try to get you to donate, well shit yes it is [no not really]. But you already khis stuff costs money; bandwidth, computer upkeep and all that plus newsletter fees, podcast storage fees etc add up quick. Hey, maybe totality will conspire to eliminate this expression altogether. Who would care? That said, if YOU care and you feel like helping, that would be great. No manipulation truly intended; all just a spontaneous and UNPLANNED expression coming out of these fingers pecking away. FWIW!) Everything happens by itself. Or, is there anything that does NOT happen all by itself? Check that out if you like...)

Donate Here.

~"You are not going to get out of this alive". ~ Ram Tzu

The Freedom of Being Powerless

2011-08-11T18:49:00.001-05:00

Anyone who has truly apprehended that it is impossible for him to live independently according to his own "will power" would naturally cease having any intentions. When he is convinced that living is a sort of dreaming in which he has no control over his [or her] actions, all tension ceases and a sense of total freedom takes over. ~Ramesh Balsekar

In my experience, TRUE Freedom consists ONLY in Being absolutely Powerless! This first appeared for me when I was racing and lost control when a radiator tank burst and dumped water on the right rear wheel in a 125 MPH left hand corner. As the car was spinning out of any possibility of "my" controlling it, there dawned absolute Freedom, absolute Peace, and this continued as the car leapt a guard rail and spinning around, landed in a clearing 50' down a steep hill, ruining the springs and shocks and whatnot. I was uninjured. This was addressed recently by Wayne Liquorman in a fantastic one hour audio which I request you get and listen to with an openness to see another profound Possibility: The Freedom of Being Powerless!

This is my direct experiencing Here./ Now.

Here is the link ...

https://advaita.3dcartstores.com/WITNESS--A-Talk-with-Wayne-Liquorman--51211-AUDIO-DOWNLOAD_p_450.html

Much love!

The Freedom Of Being Powerless - 2.0

2011-08-10T21:10:00.000-05:00

(This is a follow-up to "The Freedom of Being Powerless").

Note: I speak pronoun-laced English. Yet it is utterly obvious here that there is no independent "entity" here. So I use "I", "me", "my" etc. for communicating and sharing the experience of nonduality with you, dear readers! With Love, Charlie H.

Today here there arose a very potent set of "reminders" of what true Powerlessness really IS: Zero control over circumstances, plus a complete absence of any suffering. It is all well and good to "know" such "aphorisms" as, "It is what it is", or, "this too shall pass", "All Is One", "I am Shiva, untouched by this" and ten thousand other "'positive declarations". However, have you noticed (if there is still suffering happening there where you exist) that such statements rarely bring authentic peace or real lasting freedom from that suffering? In ay event, what happened today:

The stock market lost over 500 points (on the Dow-Jones) and this has now accumulated to a very big drop over the last several days. (I've watched my meager retirement savings shrinking as this was happening.) Then at around noon Pacific time, as I was observing (on CNBC TV) the nutty goings-on and the wild and crazy conversations of heady and unfounded opinions across a whole spectrum, AND was watching people's faces, which for the vastly most part, writ large in their pained expressions (evoking some sense of compassion but NOT pity) the Cable System went down all over the neighborhood.

So I called, was told a provider server had melted down somewhere and their techs were hard at work.

Okay, time to go for a nice long walk!

This doesn't mean there wasn't annoyance with the breakdown. But there came NO suffering. No "It should not be... which assumes it COULD somehow be other than IT IS, totally foolish and utterly impossible!" I also do NOT mean that anger never arises. Anger is a function of the organism's programming, and is a quite often LOUD expression of "I don't LIKE this!" But that does NOT devolve to "This should not BE as it is." THAT insanity is gone with the wind, fried by the Light that Always Is. And there is NO suffering; just a passing storm, when and if it happens to occur. There is just simply nothing wrong any more, regardless of WHAT appears and HOW the "charliethingie" reacts!

As of now (about 9:10 PM here) only a few of the channels have been restored (and CNBC ain't one of 'em). The sense that there is "something wrong" simply has no energy and cannot arise. Owing to the fact that, in my experience, there is no one in here to carry an assumption that "what is ought to be better, different etc. This is a product NOT of some "practice" or "declaration" pr ANYTHING in the relative-appearance of whet we call Life. NOT. Never, NO.

Then what IS this all about? Way simple. It is what I call the death of the notion of a me with any trace whatsoever of independent or "personal" power. and what "caused" that death? Nothing. Or everything. Totality-In-Expression.

Somehow along the way a crack appeared in the stone wall of an assumes-as-separate and independent entity called "me". As Leonard Cohen elegantly put it, it's the crack that lets The Light (that Light of Eternal Presence-Awareness) SHINE THROUGH. In my experience, this Light is always present, despite the fact that from about the age of two it was seemingly obscured by that false sense of a controlling-me (or what Wayne Liquorman powerfully calls "The False Sense of Authorship".

Of course, as those concepts are seen to not some "truth to believe or accept" but rather to POINT at the indescribable Light-before-Consciousness, then they are no longer taken to be some holy grail, and what is pointed TO appears in all its loving radiance. Yet again in my experience, that seeing is NOT a matter of something NEW. It is what has forever been, indestructible and omnipotent.

So this happening destroys suffering because the one-who-suffers is toasted in the beginningless-endless Light of what is REAL. And what is REAL is ... YOU. That Light that You are has ever gone away to return. It's... forever thou.

So what does all the doing" What makes all the happenings appear and fade? What is the True Source of whatever appears in-the-life, in-the-world? What is the root of the root of the bud of the bud of the tree called life, as the poet ee cummings put it?

No concept can get anywhere near That. We do use concepts, words, to POINT, i.e. "Totality", Omnipotence", "Universal-Life-Energy" etc. But as you know, at least conceptually if you have seen my expression before, the concept is NOT what the concept describes or represents. This Light that Is has NO properties, and cannot be represented!

I am grateful to my Guru Wayne (Ram Tzu) Liquorman who inspired this expression.

May that Light find and erase 'you' now!

(More to Come. And there will likely be a NEW Book, the working title of which appears to be "The Freedom of Powerlessness".)

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is Alive, Well and Unborn ... in Everyone

2011-08-06T22:20:00.001-05:00

It Is All THAT

2011-07-29T01:29:00.002-05:00

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:

2011-07-25T23:00:00.001-05:00

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!

2011-07-25T10:43:00.000-05:00

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?

2011-07-24T04:03:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-22T19:30:00.000-05:00

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?"

2011-07-22T03:05:00.003-05:00

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"

2011-07-21T11:31:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-20T23:01:00.000-05:00

Not this, not this, just That

2011-07-20T17:24:00.002-05:00

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?

2011-07-11T22:19:00.001-05:00

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

2011-07-06T10:15:00.001-05:00

"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!

Standing In Reality

2011-06-30T14:35:00.001-05:00

Q: I have seen some of your videos on YouTube and because they have touched me, I have read your book "From I Am to I Am with Love". Thank you!

C: You are very welcome! And thanks for purchasing a book. It all helps to keep the message Live and On Line.

Q: You wrote that there are two sides: 1. Absence of a separate "I". I understand that. I have investigated and search for an "I" but I haven't found one. It is obvious that there isn't one.

C: So far so good my friend... THAT IS the KEY Insight!

Q: 2. I am Presence-Awareness. I understand that. E. g. I receive the picture at the wall. I am aware of it. Without this awareness the picture wouldn't exist. So the picture and all is awareness. I understand that (but just with my mind).

C: See below.

Q: You wrote: "Do you exist? Are you aware? That simple awareness of being is "IT".. your true nature". I don't understand the point. :-( My mind says: "so what? OK, I am aware and I exists but so what?" :-((

C: First off: These are pointers to SEE beyond language that indeed, EXISTENCE IS AND NO ONE CAN POSSIBLY DISPUTE THAT! Secondly, I address "the mind further below:

All the while that "your mind" says "so what" (and a whole lot of other irrelevant stuff) YOU remain, as You ARE, Present and Aware. That Presence-Awareness is empty, meaningless, and clear. All the words, thoughts, mind-stuff, emotions, strong sensations and feelings occur IN that Present Awareness. You identify as a word, thought ... namely "I" or "me"; that is the ONLY error. Stay with That which allows everything and anything to appear, come into being, remain a while, and fade away. You are That which allows all the manifestation t appear. Take your stand as That!

The "I" (mind) is a mere fiction, yet so long as the energy of belief goes into that concept it will appear (ONLY appear!) solid and separate from Totality.

There is nothing that the "I" (or "me") need do; indeed there is nothing it CAN do (remember that it is a fiction!) The natural unfolding of the seeing consists in the absence of that energy of belief in the fictional "me" or "I"; and that can only happen as a functioning of the Totality, which is happening there (clearly). Only other suggestion I might make is, relax and allow this to happen as it happens without goal, resistance or striving ... as best you can.

You say you understand with mind. Take away that qualifier "with mind". The Understanding IS THERE.

The simplicity is that YOU ARE. Period. Full Stop. That You-Are-Ness is forever aware of all relative states, waking, dream, deep sleep. I repeat, take your stand THERE, in what is Eternal and absolutely unchanging. THAT never changes. You are That. That's all!

The Pathless Path That Leads Nowhere

2011-06-26T11:08:00.031-05:00

It would seem to the "seeker" - on initial investigation - that there are specific well-defined "paths" ... proposed by any one of a great number of "Gurus" leading to the promised yet ever-elusive "personal-Realization. The notion that IF one just is led to the "right" path and follows step by step that path (usually one the Guru was led onto) that THEN "I will attain Realization". But after 10 or 20 or 30 or more years of great effort, sincere practice in accordance with "the path", and highly disciplined actions of a "personal will", there has been no such Realization of the Ultimate Isness for the person, the person may well come to see (rather reluctantly to say the least) that NO specified and prescribed path leads to home. Then there may well be "much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Then when the seeker finally understands that there is NO prescribed path but rather only the pathless trek through the appearance which is given NOT by a Guru but by Totality itself there comes a kind of effortless surrender to What Is, and the fact that as a "person" there is no possibility of attainment since the elusive Realization of Reality is "person-less", at that juncture there arises the natural knowing that indeed, all is well and perfectly unfolding in accordance "not with 'my' will but Totality's no-will of a profound Play of light and shadow with no end or beginning and no intrinsic meaning whatsoever!

This Play lifts and leads the individual collection of energy-cells on a merry chase in the same way a tornado uproots, lifts and moves and leads a tree on a wild and utterly unpredictable path, and the collection of cells called a 'me' has no more volition to enact or resist what occurs than the tree Yet the assumption, the premise, that the typical organism is imbued with is "I am the master of my fate". That assumption requires a profound dishonesty!

As an example of what I am pointing to, recently I had planned to be in my home in Enid, Oklahoma indefinitely, yet a series of events arose that uprooted the old charlie-body-brain thing and it is now awaiting a new home in Reno, Nevada. Some tornado! My point is, to assume we have ANY control or will in the arising of what happens in this dream-life is really, really foolish. The Is will take the seeker and all the rest of this dream-content of Awareness) right where it will. Control is a persistent yet plainly false premise.

"Control" is pure illusion. So is "Path"

There is no control, no path, no goal, no seeker, no Guru. Life is but a dream.

And YOU are the simple Presence-Awareness, the pure non-conceptual BEING, IN which (and AS which) the dream appears.

It's Not Complicated!

2011-06-21T19:39:00.000-05:00

Just notice that you are, aware, and present. before the next thought you are, aware and present. Before the next feeling, you are, aware and present. The ancient Tibetans called this uncomplicated presence "Dzogchen", meaning, "The Great Perfection", which is then defined as "Non-conceptual, ever-fresh, self-shining, presence-awareness, just this and nothing else."

That's a lot of words. But what is it that sees-hears-knows the words? What is that which IS, before, during and after the word-sounds reverberate in consciousness?

You. As You Are. Aware and present. This is what always is, the just-so of radiant being, which energizes and illumines the entire appearing totality of what looks separate and distinct yet is in fact All One (AlOne)!)

So let the simplicity of what is pointed to here "sink in" and rest as what you are, letting the words and pictures come and go like the sun, clouds, moon, dark night, mountains, and rivers, all come and go is What never has/never will change ... YOU.

This is the Home we never actually left. It's free and clear, and that thou art. Loving to BE.

A Perfect Servant

2011-06-20T21:41:00.002-05:00

An ancient and profound Zen saying goes, "The mind is a perfect servant, but a terrible master". What does this imply? First off, it is altogether too common (in my view) to 'make the mind wrong'; to dismiss the wondrous power of mind which is in fact the perfect expression of Totality ItSelf, as something undesirable which must be got rid of for the transformation of what it is to be human to arise or more accurately, to be unconcealed. This state of affairs is very common in so called "spiritual circles.

Make no mistake: The mind is a necessary and powerful part of the human organism; it allows for unique possibilities of pure creativity to be invented, and magnificent structures to be designed and built. Who cannot but gaze with wonder at the Eiffel Tower, or the New York (or the Singapore) skyline, realizing that the gifts of the servant-mind are indeed magnificent and nearly infinite?

That said, to give the mind's UN-natural propensity for limiting and corrosive statements about the human organism and the life occurring for and around that organism is to allow the mind to take over YOUR job, which is to all a gentle creative spirit to be expressed. There is a unique possibility here that I invite you to try out for yourself: The possibility of being that Self-Shining Awareness-Presence AND living a created life, a life in which you have a say about how things occur for you simply because YOU say so.

Now before the "non-duality police" jump all over this and deliver there cherished beliefs that this is just dualistic as hell, let me be absolutely clear: We live BOTH as unbounded Presence-Awareness AND the duality of the world-appearance of which we are an integral part. The non-dual and duality are NOT TWO! Try THAT awesome paradox on, my dear friends....

Here is my invitation: To observe the mind, and refuse to allow T to declare who you are. Because NO identity is inherently free and open. To state even "I am Consciousness and Bliss,) as some proponents of Eastern religions or philosophies suggest, is to impose a limit while what I ask you to see for yourself is that you are the Space in which ALL "identities", huge or tiny, arise in language.

Further, I sincerely invite you to engage is the glorious and shining possibility that it is our birthright to live creatively, to invent a life worth living, moment by moment, stepping outside the mind but then re-engaging it on YOUR terms, rather than it's false ideas, phony assertions, and - lets face it - damn lies regarding who you are and what is possible in living this wonderful dream called The Universal Totality of What Is.

The invitation is here. Now you are free to accept, and play with this with fun, ease and power, or decline and allow the mind to rule the roost.

A hint? the former is a devoid of suffering.

Have fun with this, if you like, and feel free to write or call and share whats happening for you.

As always, I Love You.

“What is called the ‘mind’ is a wondrous power residing in the Self. It causes all thoughts to arise. Apart from thoughts, there is no such thing as mind. Therefore, thought is the nature of mind. Apart from thoughts, there is no independent entity called the world. In deep sleep there are thoughts, and there is no world. In the states of waking and dream, there are thoughts, and there is world also. Just as the spider emits the thread (of the web) out of itself and again withdraws it into itself, likewise the mind projects the world out of itself and again resolves it into itself.” ~Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

Simplicity, Just That

2011-06-06T17:49:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows the one simplicity: I AM. This I AM is NOT the concept, not the word, but That Space of open Awareness IN which the words come and go.

Juts keep noticing that this open space, the aware presence, NEVER changes, and as the sages have pointed out from time immemorial, You Are THAT, that open space-like Presence which is never missing and never not fully here now. To have this deepest possible understanding that You Are That is all there is to this ... it is simplicity itself; YOU are that Simplicity, just That and nothing else. That Non-dual Is-ness is unavoidable, inescapable and ... indescribable. These words are pointing to that which registers and observes the words in Natural Peace that cannot be disturbed by any appearance that arises in It.

If doubts arise come back to what you know beyond doubt: I AM. Then seek the source of that I AM feeling, the beingness; look gently in the space called I AM for a separate thing-entity called "me". Where is a "me?" Find out that there is and never was one! This is enlightenment ... for no one.

THAT is already always SO. Thusness and suchness - Simplicity!

This is Love, loving-to-be all that is. This is Home.

What is REAL?

2011-05-29T15:45:00.008-05:00

What is REAL?

You.

We call it "I" but do you know absolutely WHAT that "I" IS? And WHERE this :I: IS? Seeing that the thought of feeling of being i.e. "I am a separate thing CALLED 'I' " (in short identifying as a one letter WORD) is NOT what the True I is. The natural and eternal I is a stateless timeless Is-ness which is inescapable, unavoidable and incomprehensible. This "I"-Consciousness is an OBJECT appearing to the True I which cannot be known except in its ASPECT of "I"-Consciousness. For an analogy, it is as though Totality is seeking Itself, while pretending it is separate from Itself. Totality is TOTAL and only THAT is Reality AKA YOU, and as pointed out in so many wonderful and strange ways, THAT, Thou Art. Tat Tvam Asi.

I am That.

You are That.

All of "this" is nothing-but That.

Caution to the reader: Do not now make this into a belief! Top paraphrase what my one time friend and teacher Dr. Fernando Flores once said, when I say "I believe", I am about to say some bullshit I cannot prove. What I am pointing at here is NOT a belief, as for That there is no believe-ER. That is beyond religion, not spirituality and not even no thing! So what if the language-bound mind-essence tries to make this into a something, especially if it makes No Thing into a thing. To repeat a simple pointer what you ARE is NOT an object; NOT a "separate part" of Totality.

Look and see: can you locate anything that is NOT an object arising for the awareness that you are? That awareness ... where does it begin? What are it's dimensions??

Have a look. What you are is hiding in plain sight. It is. That is all, nothing/everything. Does exist. Cannot ever be put into words.You are That, the undivided Whole, and that Whole, as said above, is appearing to be divided up and then searching for itself!

Game over.

Q: I am often VERY angry and seem to have a hot temper and a short fuse. It gets me in a heap of trouble sometimes! Is my search for my true Self prevented from getting over with by this? What should I do about this? Can you advise me?

Charlie: Anger happens as a product of the DNA (and perhaps subsequent conditioning) of the machinery, the organism. It has absolutely nothing to do with the "final understanding" or the end of seeking; the anger is just another happening, another expression of Totality, and a completely natural function! I have been with Sages who get really pissed at some people, including at me. And consider Nisargadatta Maharaj, who was a hot tempered guy with a short fuse also, yet beyond doubt a great Being. Same with Muktananda.

Whatever is to happen will happen. Re advice on anger, this is not a place for that; I leave that to the therapists and other medical professionals. Maybe there is a brain chemistry imbalance that is correctable with meds. But I must add that here I don't generally give advice because WHO would I give it to? This is Self talking and Self listening; there is only One Self and the FACT is You Are That and nothing else, regardless of the lies the mind might tell you. There is nothing wrong with you! So be as you are. And we'll see if Totality moves that organism along to a doctor as part of the natural unfolding of Life, the livingensss happening that is animating that mechanism. That said, I wish you the best and hope the Peace that You ARE obliterates the false sense of there being a separate me for whom there is "something wrong. Much Love to you!

NEW Review of 'Thy Will be Done by Peter Dzubian, author of 'Consciousness Is All'

2011-05-27T19:59:00.002-05:00

If the reader is not already familiar with Charlie Hayes' work, in the book [Thy Will Be Done] one will notice an adeptness at removing or helping the reader to "see through" the sense of a separate "personal me" each time it tries to raise its head. It's as if Charlie has already seen every question or wanna-be objection that has ever come over the pike, and knows how to deftly handle it. By providing pointers, examples, or by asking questions of the reader--every type of argument that a so-called separate personal self or ego might try to raise--is dealt with. Charlie's relaxed, informal, plain-talk style also helps debunk the myth that "enlightenment" is reserved only for some kind of spiritual elite. Then it goes on to make clear why there really isn't such a thing! Thankfully, Charlie doesn't sugar-coat either, but makes clear that it requires one to Stop, Look and Listen. The placement of wonderful quotes at key places throughout the text is an added bonus.

Peter Dzubian, "Consciousness Is All"

Are you suffering?

2011-05-26T11:36:00.000-05:00

The essence of suffering is the belief in a self that asserts, "what IS should not be the way it is". That stance obviously assumes that things COULD be different, which is basic ignorance ... a product of the false sense of "control". You are OUT OF CONTROL but you don't know that. That is why I will now ask you, WHO is it that thinks or feels there is "something wrong" ... with ANY appearance!?? As Byron Katie says, "who needs God when we have 'you'?"

"In reality all is here and now and all is one. Multiplicity and diversity are in the mind only." ~Sri Nisargadatta

Moving to Reno, Nevada Mid June

2011-05-22T18:40:00.004-05:00

The good news is I am all set to make the move from Oklahoma to Reno, Nevada. Ha! When a happening is to happen totality provides the push ... whether it "looks nice" or not is irrelevant!

As it happens, a very good friend of mine is a realtor in Reno and has just rented me a studio apartment that I can move into on the 15th of June! So I now have a place to move to firmed up, and that's a relief... so, I will be 'getting outta Dodge' around Noon on the 13th and heading West with just what will fit in (and on top of!) my fine old Jeep! Looking forward to it. My friend Dennis, is a long time graduate of Landmark Education's programs (as am I) and has also met my dear friend Werner Erhard.

Dennis is a really cool guy, whose 'search' is also complete, and he's very successful as well. Moreover, it appears there may be a part time job for me at his firm. How cool is that!

As always, it is all perfectly managed by The Unborn. THAT seems to produce ... well ... MIRACLES! Even when (or maybe especially when) it looks like the opposite :-) ... !

Being Awake

2011-05-21T17:53:00.004-05:00

One of his students asked Buddha:

"Are you the messiah?"

"No", answered Buddha.

"Then are you a healer?"

"No", Buddha replied.

"Then are you a teacher?" the student persisted.

"No, I am not a teacher."

"Then what are you?" asked the student, exasperated.

"I am awake", Buddha replied.

(Get Charlie's Book, "Being Awake And Alive" HERE.)

A Very Moving Happening

2011-05-18T17:35:00.013-05:00

So it seems that finally Totality is pushing this "charlie-corpse" outta her! Over the last week there were THREE (count them) times it became necessary for me to call 911 due to threats from people nearby. The week before there had been another, someone being threatened by i believe an angry ex. The bottom line is I no longer believe this area is a safe place for me (the body-'me') to live. So: I am looking for a new abode; I need to have a new space to move in to by about June 10th... and am seriously considering heading out to Reno, NV, where I have a very good long time friend (who knows who he is and who I am!)

It seems there are quite a few people around Reno interested in the straight talk of the Message shared here, which points beyond religion, spirituality, and any "ism" at all. It's a privilege and a joy to share the Message with those who are ready to "hear without ears" and end their search for "God, Buddha, Love, Source" or any other "object of affection" (or affectation! :-))

For more info, or to book a consult, please contact me on 580-701-4793 or e-mail charliehayes36@yahoo.com.

Love,

Your Self called Charlie

PS: There is a "teaching"available in this happening: WHO did the actions that prompted the calls to 911? In the clear seeing of What Is, there is no chance to "blame" the "perpetrators" no matter who or what they may seem to be. It is simply put: The Understanding provides the simple knowing that what ANYONE does is NOT in their control. It is ALL the happening of Totality, THROUGH every organism, every blade of grass, every single thing with no exceptions. When this is not seen clearly there is often "much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth". What is usually required is a solid and unswerving investigation.

As one of my Gurus, Ramesh Balsekar, said: "There must be an honest and thorough investigation into what you think are 'your' actions from day to day. This investigation is really one step further from Ramana Maharshi's famous 'Who am I?'. This investigation that I suggest is based on theory: 'Am I the doer of what I think are my actions?' "

Left In Deep Peace

2011-05-16T20:29:00.001-05:00

Charlie Hayes is a unique spiritual teacher who persistently and powerfully points you back to your True Nature. You think you are looking for a better life or being more comfortable in your body, but he shows you that your spiritual search is really about waking up to the fullness of Life. Charlie begins each session with fresh ideas that show you the way home. Charlie has a keen and cheerful wit and an open heart. He always has a poignant quote from a large number of genuine spiritual teachers that speak to that instant. At the end of a meeting with Charlie I am left in a deep peace and with a focus on what is important. ~Brian S.

It is ALL spontaneous

2011-05-15T18:07:00.001-05:00

Q: ...have just read your blogpost "Severing the root cause of seeking " and now I am writing to you and have no idea what I'm going to say. I am spontaneous.

C: Everything is always "spontaneous!" The "I Am" is only a claim of the false sense of authorship (as my Guru Wayne puts it) that this is "created" (or "owned") by the "I" as in the statement every bodymind seems to know itself as, namely, the "I AM". But this "I AM" is merely a concept, while what-You-Are has NEVER been any concept; concepts or ideas come and go while Awareness- Consciousness does not. It is this UN changing essence which is pointed out as the "True-Nature" of all that is. It is just THIS, the suchness and thusness of Life-Energy-Happening ... spontaneously and uncausedly!

Q: I am at a place of understanding now that calls every-thing into question. The other day I no longer knew what the word "change" meant. Knowledge and concepts seem to be falling away like memories. The idea that everything is in a constant process of change makes a lot of sense but I am no longer in the business of making sense of things. Sense is dropping off the edge of a cliff and I'm happy to wave it goodbye. So I no longer see change anywhere.

C: Yet "changes" ARE happening ... as ASPECTS OF the Unchanging Absolute Being-Stillness but for no-one ... I reckon this is just some semantic difference; just a linguistic interpretation that is absolutely utterly meaningless and empty yet filled with the awesome Wonder-Of-THIS!

Q: Twenty years ago I was trying to be a writer and one day whilst working on a short story a phrase appeared that was totally unconnected to the work in hand: In a sense, all sense is nonsense. It has taken until today, as I walked through the park a few hours ago, to understand this phrase in clarity.

C: Lovely!

Q: I used to understand it with doubts and reservations, in the mind only. But now my whole insubstantial being seems to grok it in a way that words won't capture. So there is a crumbling of these conceptual foundations. And they don't get replaced.

C: Quite correct! There is no concept needed, to "replace" what never truly existed from the start! :-))

All sounds good ... now for your question:

Q: In your blogpost you mention looking for what is here right now before the I-concept is cognized. Take a deep look. But I have no concept of what a "deep" look is.

C: "Take a deep look" is a pointer for those who are still mesmerized by the sense of the "I Am" concept-structure which has obviously been transcended there ... so there is no need to figure it out or "understand with the mind" any more.

Q: This word has no meaning whatever for me.

C: Cool!

Q: What is here before the I-concept? I don't know what the I-concept is because there is nothing here to tell me.

C: Yes. There IS no separate independent "I"" in Reality. The clear seeing of this (the IMpersonal seeing-knowing of this) defuses all the seeking and suffering and all that remains is the play, with no sense of a "me" authoring that play.

Q: I don't know what is there before it because there is only this, which I don't have a name for.

C: To state "there is only this" while a fantastic pointer, is of course another "naming" of the nameless! But hey, no problem; the organism's functioning in the appearance needs that natural working-identity (which is imbedded in the organism's DNA) to know the difference between the food and the computer so eating a computer doesn't get attempted! That natural functioning lives with language for communication. It doesn't go away in liberation.

Knowing that there is no separate "I" doesn't mean you won't pass the salt if asked at the dinner table.

Q: I think my mind is trying to pin things down in the old conceptual style and it isn't working anymore.

C: It never will work, never did. So that mental gymnastically occurring DOES drop off naturally with no will or effort required. After all is said and done EVERYTHING is simply ... HAPPENING-BY-ITSELF and when the claiming-mechanism has run out of steam there is (as you mention) THERE IS ONLY THIS (for which there is NO name!) And that "when" is of course NOW ... and not even THAT!

Q: My gut is quivering with excitement and my mind is churning out the usual schizophrenic voices. Life is beyond description. Thank you for taking the time to read this splurge.

C: Life indeed “beyond description”. That is a natural seeing of complete clarity. VERY nice!

It is my privilege and my pleasure! As far as I can tell you are absolutely spot on in your understanding-seeing and expressing that beautifully. Thanks again for writing! So, welcome Back Home to the Abode you never left. And great thanks again for your generosity.

Much Love,

Charlie

"Our lives are in fact being lived for us rather than by us as we seem to think. All our experience, if carefully analyzed, would clearly show that volition is really not a significant factor in our lives. Only the most minute fraction of our total physical and mental functioning even appears to be subject to volition. Did you exercise volition when you were conceived? And when the conceived material grew in the mother's womb? How long can you live without sleep, without food and water? How long can you go without the excretory movements of the body? How do you breathe and digest your food? Do you have the absolute certainty of remaining alive for even the next five minutes on the strength of your own volition?" ~Ramesh Balsekar

~ ~ ~

Follow-up

Q: Thank you dearly for replying in such detail and with such clear vision. It was much more than I could have expected. I've been waiting for months to feel a rich upwelling of gratitude for something, anything. And it has finally happened in response to your words. It's wonderful.

C: You’re of course VERY welcome. And, it is your ripeness, your already open and clear heart, that draws out the Living Expression. I am very happy that this is “resonating” for you and is of value to you. That is always great news to receive! I look forward to hearing from you again, any time you feel moved to share what is..

Once again … I Love You.

New Video ~ Abiding In Silence, Satsang on 14 May 2011

2011-05-15T03:17:00.002-05:00

What is the SOURCE of thoughts, and actions?

2011-05-12T12:22:00.000-05:00

Q: I try to figure out something that I do not understand. Thinking and doing is not adding up, I think or tell someone that I will do something and I really mean to, but then I do not do what I say.

C: Good honest question. However I want to point you BEHIND this mental play: The deeper question is, what is it that designs and “authors” the thinking and the doing … whether there is a “match” or not! What is the SOURCE of thought? What is the SOURCE of what you call “your” actions? Is that “I” that is merely another passing thought endowed with any trace of power to “do” anything? This premise begs to be challenged, dear One. The assumed entity with the name “I” is but another arising thought. Is that “I” idea what and who you really are? Is that idea eternal? Or not? Check this out … have a deep look, not at what that “I” believes IT thinks or does, but at where the thought comes up from.

"Man has become addicted to the drug named "intellect" and under its influence compulsively analyzes everything, cogitating, speculating and making all simple things complicated. This addiction can only be gotten rid of by unconventional surrender to the process of pure receptivity."~ Sri Ramesh Balsekar

Q: At first I thought it is OK to chance it but it happens so often that I got angry which did not help, so I take a look again……it seems that I am in charge to make money, to do what I say, to take care what I put in the body and so on…but all I can find is likes and dislikes and they change also.

C: Again can an IDEA do or decide or choose ANYTHING? Does an idea have any power or independent existence apart from pure naked awareness, that Space which you REALLY are, IN which there is all this kerfuffle arising? The core issue is that we are trained to believe, and accept, and decline to challenge, that this IDEA of a separate “I” IS what we are. What if the Sages are correct when they say in a thousand way, that “I” is NOT who or what you are!? Then what if what you know your self to be is NOT what you e=really are? Than everything that follows “I” is what” an incorrect (albeit persistent!) false assumption. It’s the near-universal dream or delusion.

Q: The question: what is wrong with right now ? helps to calm me and lets me recognizes the space until the next scary thought is popping up. I see that every thought that scares me has something to do with surviving ……..as if I could do anything to make the ride pleasant and everlasting. Could you shine a light on that?

C: It is not that the false sense of a separate “you” i.e. that IDEA-I” can do or not do anything about what appears to happen in the play. It is that the very idea of being the producer or author of the action is dimply FALSE. Seeing the false AS false is a good first step. Then ask the question of all “I” assumptions of thought and/or action (whether it “fits” or not!) … IS THIS REALLY TRUE?

Take it NOT from what arises in thoughts or actions AFTER the assumed entity “I” but look to see if that “I” IS really what and who you are. See if there is light down below that I idea, an energy-awareness that illuminates the idea and makes it appear. Find out if that light, the energy-awareness is more real (eternal) than the passing idea(s) that come and go. I assert that what you are is intemporality itself, the non-objective un-figure-outable eternal light-energy-awareness, that forms the cells and the stars, that moves as the energy arising as thought, action, and the whole shebang! Life is a dream. The only issue is, WHOSE dream? Yours? Mine? Nah. It is the Dream of Consciousness-Being, Light-Energy.

This entire appearance is like a hologram, which cannot appear unless there is the Laser light to shine through is and display it in and on the space of naked awareness. Seeing this ends the false sense of being cause in the matter; then life plays out like the dream at night and the natural (uncausable!) awakening to the dream happens in accordance with Life’s dance of manifestation. All the while what you are is serene, ever-at-peace and untouched by the play like the movie screen or TV flat panel remains untouched by the play of light and shadow that appears as the electricity-energy that appears to make that play possible. Focus the attention on the True Source, the Unmanifest Light-Awareness that powers the play. THAT, thou art!

And trying to figure out totality, the Light-Energy-Appearance, is a lost cause. YET That IS "knowable, as it is always fully here as Aware-Presence, prior to, between, beyond, after, all that appears as its own Divine Dream-Play. Shiva's dance as Shakti! So: It is simple: It is ALL a Mystery to the mind of humans. Simply BE. That is all there is … Being-Consciousness-Love. At play in the dream.

I Love you,

Charlie

"When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure witness. We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer, and stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two. The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining oneself to be something: "I'm this, I'm that", continues, but only as a part of the objective world. Its identification with the witness snaps." ~Sri Nisargadatta

'Health Issues' ... and True-Nature

2011-05-10T18:32:00.003-05:00

MC Writes, "How are you ? I hope you have recovered from your fall and other ailments"...

Many other great friends of this space have written in here and on Facebook inquiring into the health of this aging bodymind called “Charlie”. I can report that the Gall Bladder removal was successful BUT that did not solve the various Gastrointestinal issues as was hoped. There is “GERD” and Irritable Bowel disorder, serious loss of vitality, anemia, muscle degradation, and other various aches and ailments. Hey: As said by so many, “getting old ain’t for sissies!” And so there are ongoing bills for medicines and treatments etc. But that is what's happening; that is how Totality-Wholeness is appearing. So what!?

Sometimes there is also a pissed-offed-ness that comes, and a frustration that all the doctors and all the kings men ain't been able to reassemble this humpty! So what!?

And I am as always reminded of Sri Nisargadatta, who, when asked as he was ailing, by a devotee, “Maharaj, are you in great pain”? Maharaj replied, “There IS great pain”. What does this indicate? That there is pain yet, there is no “one” who assumes he “caused” that pain. Pain, like all the rest of it, is a naturally happening APPEARANCE, an objective temporary stuff-ness that comes and goes.

That said, there is a way finer distinction we can make: When and why does SUFFERING kick in, and where does it arise from? The pain that is apparently "owned" by Nisargadatta and not his devotee is a knowing of the natural identity of a functioning organism. But what Nisargadatta was pointing to is the absence of any "CLAIM" of being at the source or cause, or "authorship", of that pain.

Certainly the pain and illness is in my body and not yours! But here there is a very subtle yet crucial bit of "dividing-up" (distinguishing) of the assumed "I" that is at play: One's natural functioning I knows it is this body that has pain and not that one over where you are. BUT (and it's a BIG but) ON:LY if there is a secondary sense of being the architect of, the cause of, the pain, along with a subtle yet potent sense that "this should not BE as it is (desoite the utterly opbvious fact that IT IS the way it is!) The deeper questions include: Who assumes he or she “OWNS AND CAUSES” said pain, or any other temporal passing appearance/experience? And if there is the assumption “I” CAUSED or CREATED the pain then it's appropriate to challenge that assumption: “Is that true!?” Of course, while I encourage this, it is clear that whether that challenge HAPPENS (or not) is NOT going to be "caused' by the false author, the assumed cause or architect of the happening.

When it does so happen, this can ameliorate the attachment/aversion cycle of wanting pleasure and resisting pain. But simpler yet is to simply SEE, right here, right now, that there IS an Always-So-Ness, a space like or naked presence.

As Ramesh Balsekar pointed out so directly and poignantly:"In one’s natural, immediate attention or awareness there are no boundaries, no separate items of manifestation, unless and until thought intrudes and directs specific concentration on a particular thing. And this is what creates separation along with the whole chain of other thoughts and reactions that lead to every kind of conflict and unhappiness, which we then interpret as bondage. But the realization that boundaries are a product of thought is at once the realization that the separation caused by these boundaries and the conflicts that ensue are all an illusion".

In large measure this direct Seeing-Sans-Seer is a function of Grace, that is, a natural NOTICING that this that Always IS has NEVER really been "missing" or "obscured" in any true way. What IS simply ALWAYS is; that's the core definition of "Eternal". So it may happen as there is a reading of this text that the noticing of the Always-Presence happens. Perhaps beginning with a simple noticing of the white space around the black squiggly marks that the brain translates into words; then a noticing of the computer screen or entire book page; then a seeing that naturally there is always Space AROUND said screen or page, and without that essential Space nothing could ever appear. So Space, i.e. the Space-Like Awareness or Natural State of Isness-thusness-suchness, is the Absolute Nondual True-Nature or True-Subject, the non-objective non-temporal that ALLOWS whatever comes and goes to be exactly as it is and as it is not.

Noticing. That's all.

Simplicity, YES?

Happiness

2011-05-03T13:10:00.000-05:00

What if .....

Happiness is a function of your DNA? Set at the moment of conception? And NO amount of "action by the assumed individual", no matter how highly touted, can ever bring the happiness the false sense of a separate I seeks?

What if "the pursuit of happiness", a so called guarantee of the US Declaration of Independence, is a completely FUTILE (though not for a "me" a trivial pursuit!) and absolutely CANNOT produce the desired state regardless of all the false promises made by all the fake gurus etc. and has no more chance of changing what IS (that DNA) than changing slate to hamburger?

Ponder. And maybe (if there is, well, "Grace"), there may be a relinquishing of the chasing an unattainable mythical happiness?

THAT would certainly bring, if not happiness, at least a measure of peace and a great fading of suffering. That has happened here, and for others I know. Perhaps you will find this a worthy inquiry.

We shall see!

With my Love,

Charlie

Are 'My' Assumptions TRUE?

2011-05-01T15:37:00.001-05:00

Is it ALWAYS "True"??

2011-04-28T23:50:00.004-05:00

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"

2011-04-28T22:36:00.000-05:00

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:

2011-04-25T12:40:00.002-05:00

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"

2011-04-21T14:04:00.009-05:00

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

2011-04-17T09:19:00.006-05:00

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...

2011-04-13T11:57:00.000-05:00

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)

2011-04-13T07:18:00.003-05:00

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...

2011-04-08T12:22:00.002-05:00

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?

2011-04-03T12:54:00.002-05:00

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 :-\

2011-04-01T19:19:00.000-05:00

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

2011-04-01T19:10:00.004-05:00

"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 ...

2011-04-01T13:15:00.001-05:00

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.

Update ... and Much Gratitude for your support

2011-03-30T17:36:00.001-05:00

So many have responded to the call for support it is very moving. The Heart is SO generous ... and thanks to those who have offered some much needed financial assistance, we are viable for now and the expression can continue, through this blog and our newsletters. It is truly a privilege to "be lived" in service to Truth, and it is clear here that The Self is transforming ItSelf ... through each and every one of you all.

Some have asked about the health situation, so here is the latest: It is always an interesting life ... the "waking-dream!"

Had several bad days since the accident and hospital stay; mainly just tired plus bad gas, some diarrhea and a day of intense stomach pain and vomiting on Saturday 3/19; almost went to ER but Totality 'toughed it out' and by Sunday noon it was much better.

3/21 was VERY strange! Got super dizzy and faint, could not walk more that 3-4 steps before nearly falling!! Dropped hard to knees once (ouch!) Used a director’s chair like a walker to get around. Better by about noon Sunday. And got me a cool cane!

But there are (finally) answers.

Had a Gallbladder Ultrasound test and it seems the issue actually is Gall Bladder Disease, which hid itself until it got bad enough to be discoverable. (15 months worth! Ug.) I will be in for Gall Bladder surgery to remove the offender next Tuesday April 5th. (UG, MORE Bills!! LOL) That it is fixable is some good news, to finally discover what the culprit is after many months of dream-illness. Maybe there will be light at the end of that tunnel which is not the train! At least for this so-called Now :-))

Anyways ALL is ALWAYS just fine in and for The Unborn which We Are. And my Unborn Cane helps too! :-) More later, after surgery and recovery... And again Great Thanks to all for your support. This blog is for you, with Love and Gratitude. Freedom is your Real Nature. Remembering that is a great step forward (so to speak) on the volitionless pathless path to the Home you never really left!

As my dear friend and Sage Ramesh Balsekar pointed out over and over: " Any reality that can be conceived by an individual entity is based on a belief of personal absoluteness in temporality which is a complete misapprehension in itself. The individual human just cannot accept the fact that his individuality and, more importantly, his individual volition or free-will is nothing more than an illusion."

Yep. That is a FACT. Everything else is speculation, or dreamlike supposition and makes for much craziness for the hapless seeker ... until there is a "sinking in" of the Message of Freedom, Love and True Joy.

May you see NOW that the sages are spot on in telling us all, "Indeed, You Are That!"

You Are Already THAT Which You Seek ..

2011-03-26T17:06:00.004-05:00

Sri Nisargadatta always said (and I usually repeat from this place in the Absolute out-here-ness) that we must start with the FACT of the very immortal Being that We are, which has never been bound for an instant. In other words, what we are is already-liberated and there is no necessity to "negate" what doesn't have any actual substance or independent nature. I sometimes ask students, "how will you get rid of what you never actually had"? So though for some patterns of cells there is a resonance with the so called "negative way" that way is ultimately futile as the seeker continues to ignore What Is whilst trying to eliminate a ghost!

You see, there is a kind of craziness to seeking what we already are. And one who is really "crazy" never KNOWS he or she is crazy. That is the definition of crazy ... being insane and not having a clue we are insane. By "insane" here what I mean to communicate is that we are deluded by our believing that we are separate, and "individual" with free will, despite the overwhelming evidence of our own experience to the contrary!

Why? So Life can Live Itself through you. Because Life is the potential for manifest-livingness, that potential simply must "potentiate" i.e. APPEAR as duality, the "pairs of opposites. But what APPEARS to be is not What IS, and that is where the insanity takes us. Now, when Totality begins to recover the sanity of Being-Knowing, as a natural unfolding, through a particular organism, the rediscovery of what we really are arrives (always unexpectedly, by the way!) and the "becoming" urge ends in the palpable experiencing of Being-Lived by The Absolute, and there is no longer the crazy belief in being a separate (and unfindable!) entity woith any vestige os control.

Sanity rocks. Knowing what we really are ends the insanity. And it happens all by itself! So the "bad news" is that You cannot attain enlightenment (sanity). The great GOOD news is "you" cannot AVOID that happening. Your destiny is to BE rather than "become". In the paradigm (false though it is) of Time and Space the Absolute Liberation form craziness is inevitable. So meanwhile relax, enjoy and have a blast. This is an AWESOME dream! Of what? Of LOVE, loving-to-BE. As it all IS; and as you are, You - and All That IS - are Already That.

But please do BOT believe a word of this. Let these pointers POINT to That-Which-IS, the NON conceptual Livingness-Experiencing of Life being lived through what you call "you". Meanwhile, let the good times roll!

23 March 2011 - New Podcast: Superstitions, and What IS

2011-03-23T15:39:00.001-05:00

Click the link to listen; right click and save to download.

http://charliehayes36.tripod.com/superstitions23march2011.mp3

Great Thanks to "Herb" for giving permission to share this.

There is no charge. Enjoy!!

"'me' and 'my' shadow"

2011-03-21T18:25:00.000-05:00

Have you noticed that in the light of a sunny day your shadow goes everywhere you go? You are NOT confused that you are that shadow, are you? You may not have given this any thought. The suggestion is to do so now, because that shadow is a perfect metaphor for the irreducible fact that a shadow is NOT the substance that casts it. Without the substance of the body-form there would be no shadow. Clear, isn't it?

Now in the very same way without the Substance of the eternal Noumenal-Subject, i.e. That which IS, prior to the phenomenal-appearance of the body form, is akin to the the appearance of the shadow cast by the bodyform. Step up the abstraction, the Understanding, that as your shadow is not you as that body-form, NOR is the body form the You which mirrors Itself as the appearing bodyform, a temporal appearance with ZERO independent substance apart from the Noumenal-Eternal which mirrors Itself as that bodyform with its shadow.

Now let us step out further in the Understanding (which as many of you will recall, was said by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, to be the ALL: "Understanding is ALL". What does that mean? Exactly what it says. Do not "qualify or quantify Understanding please; this is immortal Understanding that belongs to no-person, n0-mind, No Thing! Stepping up and out, ponder this: Could the shadow of a bodyform, what we call "my shadow" on that sunny day, even appear UNLESS the Sunlight was there to "make it appear"? In the same way the bodyform itself cannot appear, for that matter the entire manifest appearance could not appear, without the Pure I Consciousness which ITSELF is a mirrorization of the Eternal Light of the Absolute (non-relational) Being which you truly (and s0o lovingly-Being) are?

Everyone LOVES TO BE! Even when the dung hist the wall! I speak from experience here, NOT theory. That Light we are is the Eternal Being Loving To Be.

Now: Can the light of the full moon illuminate the SUN? In this pointing the suggestion that you are invited to ponder, is, "I am the Sun, NOT it's illuminations!" As has been elucidated so cleanly by many sages, "YOU are The Light of The World." Full Stop.

Don't pretend to be otherwise!

"Keep the "I am" in the focus of awareness, remember that you are , watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part. Wrong desires and fears, false ideas, social inhibitions are blocking and preventing its free interplay with the conscious. Once free to mingle, the two become one and the one becomes all." Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Back In The Saddle...

2011-03-20T11:01:00.001-05:00

A few readers have wondered, what happened? No new posts for weeks... well, Stuff Happens! Around the first of March a serious gas and bloat condition. Treatment was sought and was in process, when, on Friday night March 4th, I went for a nice long walk outside in springlike weather. Somewhere along the way a series of crazy accidents happened in this Dream-Play we call "Life": This 74 your old body tripped and fell, hitting the head hard! Then after a time, it got up and tried to walk on but was addled and fell again, twice. Then some hours passed, and the temperature fell well below zero, and the body had only the meager protection of a light windbreaker. I recall waking, and feeling freezing cold; attempting to rise, I discovered my legs would not work! St that point I blacked out again. What follows was reported to me by my BFF John Greven and the very kind police sergeant who picked me up after my comatose body was spotted laying motionless and who transported me to the ER at the great local hospital, St. Mary's.

I was admitted with a core temp of 85 degrees F., the lowest the hospital had ever seen. Another hour and this report would be of the body freezing to death! There ensued three days of intensive care by the kindest bunch of people I have ever met, 2 days in the ICU, then another in the PCCU. (Post Critical Care Unit).

John was and is a rock! He cut short a trip to return to Enid to assist me, and spent hours with me while I was in the Hospital; then transported this olde bod back home on Tuesday, March 8th, where a rather long and painful recovery began. I simply had no energy to write anything! As it turned out I WAS able to talk to two really wonderful "seekers" for Self to Self consults around the 14th, but for the most part it was sleep 14 hours a day, plus wearing a track from bed to bathroom with serious GI problems. Today is the first day I have felt enough energy to update y'all! Even yesterday, I had a serious bout with excruciating pain which kept me up most of the night. But I am reminded of what Sri Nisargadatta said when asked if he was in great pain from his Cancer:" There IS great pain". In other words the pain, which is NO fun of course, is clearly an impersonal happening. Our True Identity is The Unborn, space-like Being-Awareness, IN which the dream arises....

I dread seeing the hospital bills for the co-pays, endless tests, etc. but, somehow these things always seem to be worked out by The Unborn, which manages everything perfectly. (With I must add a lot of support from the readers of this blog for which there is immense gratitude!)

Now it appears there will need to be (perhaps) surgery on the Gall Bladder which was tested last week and which is "partially abnormal". I see my primary care doctor on Tuesday so we shall see what happens with that. But as I type this there is great gas, bloating and near constant belching, same old stuff I have had going on for over a year, which ain't a lot of fun! :-) Funny thing is, though, when I talk on the consultations it goes away! I would call that Grace.

As always all of this is absolutely perfect. Totality is Totality, including that, as many are aware, "getting this old ain't for sissies!"

There is no 'there' there!

2011-03-09T14:19:00.002-06:00

On a friend’s site, this question appeared and I was invited to "chime in". This is my response...

Q. I don't think I'm there yet, enlightened or whatever I shall call it

C: Dear One:

Where is this one who claims "I am not there?" There is no 'there' to get to, there is only here and finally even less than that. The state of the sage is akin to deep, dreamless sleep, where there are no thoughts, no experiences, absolutely NOTHING and yet ... on waking from sleep or dream is so seems there is a "me-in-here" and a "world-out-there!" BUT IT ALSO SEEMS THAT THE EARTH IS PLAT AND THAT THE SUN ROTATES ROUND THE EARTH to mix a couple of absolute fallacies. The fool is a seeker / the seeker is a fool / BUT is that which is in fact nothing more than a passing thought. YOU are NOT a thought (or any other thing!) YOU are NO THING. That is why "you" cannot attain this; because you already ARE this. Between each arising thought, YOU ARE. Can you deny hat FACT of Being-As-It-Is?? In other words, what you are is empty and meaningless, and that doesn't mean anything either! Seeking for something other than what-is at some imaginary time-not-NOW is the fools errand. The mechanisms of thought go on for the Sage; BUT! It is just, as JD points to, from many angles, "nuttin' serious." It ain't about YOU, dear One. There is NO separate "YOU!” It is about the absolute death of the False-Sense-of-Me (FSM) which happens when the forces of Nature (God, Source) bring that happening about. The bad news? You cannot bring this death-of-FSM about. The good news? You cannot prevent it!

Relax as best you can, forget all this and go have some fun, Seeking is misery. Why keep beating your head up against a brick wall? Just stop. Just rest. You are Awareness, fully and always Present Eternally. As Ramana Maharshi said, "Be as you are!"

Is it true?

2011-03-02T20:33:00.005-06:00

In the normal course of events, i.e. in our everyday assumed common-sense world-view, we "know" that "I am HERE" and the world of other people and all those trillions of "things" are "out there" ... i.e. NOT "here" where "I or me" is.

But is that TRUE?

Look and see: Isn't it believed, for the unexamined assumed-me, that "I am here"? As in: "Wherever you go there you are (meaning here you are)... And if I ask you where this text is appearing wouldn't you automatically say, "there" (On the page or on the computer screen)?This assumption of a "me or I" IN HERE (meaning perhaps, inside the body somewhere, gives rise to the assumption all the rest of it is NOT "in here".

Look at this body of text. Doesn't it appear as an object out there apart from the "in-here-ness" of what you call your self? This is a fallacy ... but don't take my word for it. Take a good look. Maybe Socrates had a good point when he said, "The unexamined life is not worth living. Perhaps, to challenge our deeply believed assumptions is what Socrates was urging when he said that about life and it's worthwhileness being tied to investigating the everyday commonsense quote reality. Meaning: Investigating deeply that assumption of a separate being "in here" (or more simply put, just "here", which brings along with it the correlate assumption of "there" i.e. NOT here. Using a simple yet very potent question: Is it TRUE?

Maybe what is real is that YOU as-you-really-ARE are HERE AND all those trillions of objects that appear what you call "there" are also HERE? A pointer has been coined to point to the fact of what is seen when the assumptions are challenged that there is such a thing (factually) as a "me in here" and a world out there. Look in your direct experience. Look again at this body of text; just look without reading it. Where does this body of text appear? Where exactly, in your own actual experience, does it arise? Is it not "out here" i.e. an arising all at once with what you call "I or me" AND the body that also appears IN THE SPACE i.e. in the no-thing-ness that we can label for the sake of our discussion "this out-here-ness?"

So is it true that there are two things going on i.e. "here" and "there"? Or is it that experience (NOT concept or belief or theory) shows (before the mind, language, gets into the mix) that there is only "hereness" as what is the actual fact of the matter and the assumption of there being two things, "here" and "there", are simply wrong?

Perception seems to show us this "here" and "there" as reality. Nut IS THAT TRUE? Perception shows us that the sun travels around the earth. We know that THAT is not true. Although that assumption was at one time firmly believed and any challenge to that assumption seemed like nonsense. Now we know that the assumption was the nonsense and not the challenge, which in essence said, what if this assumption that the sun rotates around the earth is not true?

To examine the assumption of there being a here and there separate and apart from each other is my proposition tonight. I suggest dropping all our cherished beliefs and checking this out IN OUR EXPERIENCE. Then there may be a valuable insight into what provides for a "life worth living"; a life of possibility, a life of being Space rather than being a "thing among other things, a freedom, power and peacefulness rather than a life of effort and struggle trying to "get life to fit some picture or ideal". In short, perhaps, when your stand is, as Sri Nisargadatta's was, I am That, "That" being the Space IN which life arises and subsides, there will appear an unpredictable freedom and power, not for the "I or me' but rather for who you REALLY are.

The ball is in your court. I invite you to take it and BE, to rediscover the freedom and love that is your true nature when you have challenged and undone those fallacies of beliefs and concepts that bring you no peace. Please feel free to write non.duality@yahoo.com if you would like support.

I Love You.

(I am indebted to Werner Erhard, who inspired this conversation. For more: Go To "Presentation by Werner Erhard" , Then click "One Click Download".)

Heart-Felt Thanks

2011-03-01T10:46:00.000-06:00

There have been some good responses to the call for financial support to keep the site, podcasts and newsletter live and available to all. THANK YOU for your generosity and for recognizing that the Living Message impacts life and living in ways that make a positive difference! Your support is crucial, and very deeply appreciated. It has been a great help in dealing with the ongoing health issues, which can be quite costly!

It warms the heart to know that there are those who are willing to share their resources to benefit readers of these pages. YOU are making a difference in the quality of life for those who are sincere and yet are not able to share financially. Much Love to you all, and I hope the support will continue and I will be able to keep sharing in these formats! My heart glows with your good wishes. Thanks again and again, your own,

charlie hayes

01 March 2011

What Is Reality ... REALLY?

2011-02-27T13:14:00.002-06:00

In the tradition of the Zen Koan, such as “What is the sound of one hand clapping”?, or, "What was your face before your parents were born”?, if there is a deep looking head on at the QUESTION without succumbing to the programmed brain’s addiction to getting “the answer” then perhaps, the assumption that there IS an answer will snap – and along with it, the question-ER might just snap or fade as there simply IS no question without a questioner, and no questioner without a question.

In that snap life is seen to be utterly and absolutely meaningless yet filled with an Energy of Aliveness. Perhaps THAT could be called the No Thing of Everything – Energy. But without language where is THAT?

Answers are all irrelevant. What you are is beyond all language, all questions, all questioning, all of it and even what you are is prior to this “Nothing” that “Everything is made of.

Undoing the "knot of the me"

2011-02-26T11:48:00.000-06:00

M.P. Writes, I am neck deep in the juicy stuff Charlie and have been indulging my ego with this is this and that is that and your opening line alone was enough to pull me up short. I started questioning the whole darn story and more and more space was noticable as the knot unwound. thanks Charlie :-)

C: That's great news, M! much love to you.

M: Love you back, Charlie, big time!

This a follow-up to "Question until there is no questioner left"

All happens in the Presence-Awareness that You ARE

2011-02-26T11:47:00.001-06:00

What is a Who?

Q: I am asking "..who am I?" 24/7 as much as I can…

C: Okay: Now there is just one tiny question ... What is asking 'who am i'? All arises from out of no where - to whom? And who asks this? Love asks for itself to be known yet it is already here already now already forever for noperson everywhere now. Love!

Ponder this from "Paradise Found" – Chapter 75:

Q: Awareness of I AM seems to be the key that unlocks the door that isn't really there. Staying with the Awareness I AM seems to be so simple, pure and natural. But then along comes an identification with some event or aspect of "the story" and whoosh a trap door seems to open into the jungle of thought and confusion. No light in that jungle. A complete "forgetting." Round and round I go trying to see and sort it out (suffering) until finally I give up (Surrender). That Surrender seems to lead back into the light.

C. And ALL of that happens in this Presence of Awareness. This Awareness is NOT a “thing” that comes and goes. IT IS. And this Isness registers all the comings and goings of thoughts, sensations, identifications with a story, feelings, sensations … sentience appears in That and THAT is what NEVER changes. You cannot escape That. IT IS, Being-Awareness-Aliveness, present and clear prior to and during and after all movements of thoughts feelings etc. Surrender? Who is there to do that? Dissolution of the false happens when there arises an investigation into the nature of the I or me we have mistakenly taken our self to be.

Q: How to stay in the Awareness of I AM and let the story flow?

C. You cannot escape that. Wanting to “stay in That” is happening IN that. It is like water to the fish: So clear and obvious that it is overlooked (but the analogy falls short because Awareness, unlike water, is NOT a thing you can grasp or know.) Awareness is the Silence of Stillness knowing; the knower and known are illusions arising IN that Being-Awake-And-Aware Aliveness that is the Real. THAT is non-conceptual and therefore cannot be grasped by the “I” which is itself only another concept. That I can never “know Oneness.” You are NOT that I-thought which tries to stay with I AM. Being IS and that you are. Attempting to stay in That is a flip strategy for avoiding That.

~ ~ ~

Q: Thank you.

C: De Nada!

Question until there's no questioner left

2011-02-21T11:46:00.002-06:00

Q: Hi Charlie - your writings are of great help for me.

C: I am happy to hear that!

Q: My interest about spirituality started about 12 years ago. I was in spiritual group for about 10 years. I was not happy in this group and I left. After some time I have found these teachings I must say that the non-dual pointers are very direct, simple and liberating.

C: Yes. Taking up the two basic pointers with unswerving commitment just WORKS - maybe not always - but often enough to make it worth the shot for the ending of your suffering:

1. I Am, and that I Am is a simple and indisputable fact

2. I Am NOT anything other than That. If I think I still am separate, asking, "WHO thinks that" often works to burn the false belief away. Ask, "Who Am I?" THAT is a question that counts.

Q: After short time of inquiry, the understanding of the simple truth that I am awareness is clear, and it is great relief for me. But this dream character sometimes believes …

C: Yes. Now watch as the ego-mind pops right back up like a jack-in the-box and claims, "I know I Am That, Presence-Awareness, … B U T" …! That is why the inquiry must continue until there is no one left to ask any questions whatsoever.

That “But” is the actually false ego protesting against being "killed" by the inquiry. That is all. And that ego is actually non-existent – it is not solid or real. Yet all that "I – me – ego" IS is a thought arising IN presence-Awareness, like a cloud in the empty sky. It is only a thought believed in as "what I really am." WHO believes? Ask that believer-thought: “Who are you? What are you really?” See that IT IS ONLY A THOUGHT.

Q: But this dream character sometimes believes that this entity and the world are real, and this false belief is a cause for arising of fear, jealousy suffering... In the moment when the fear is arising I forget about this simple fact that I am not this fear, and the suffering is reaction of this misunderstanding.

C: So, at the end of forgetting ASK who forgot? Who needs to remember? RIGHT NOW, look at this one! What does all forgetting arise within? BEING. You ARE. Being is always ON. Forgetting is an occurring within that same Awareness. If you are not being then where could forgetting happen? This teaching is not about remembering ANYTHING.

Q: Thank you.

C: It is my pleasure. Thanks for a great, heart felt, and sincere question.

Follow-up Q: Charlie thank you for your beautiful and clear response. It is true that false ego protesting against his death. He wants to control the thoughts. This entity who wants to take control is another thought. He wants to know everything, and is afraid of not knowing. Not knowing is the death of the false, and what is left? Nothing.

C: Well said. This clear seeing of what is false, along with the undeniable seeing that the pure Awareness, "I Am" before the thought I am arises, is in your True-Nature, is all that is needed. Welcome Back to Timeless Being - the Home you never really left.

"Stay with that which lovingly allows for everything to appear in peace that cannot be disturbed. Allow it to show you the depth of its void and the fullness of its emptiness." ~John Greven

"Human beings actually have no more independence or autonomy in living their lives than do the characters in a dream. Neither do they have anything to do with the creation of the dream or anything in it. They are simply being lived along with everything else in this living dream of the manifested universe. The entire dream is unreal. Only the dreamer is real, and that is Consciousness itself." ~Ramesh Balsekar

"Don't fight with what you take to be obstacles on your way. Just be interested in them, watch them, observe, inquire. Let anything happen - good or bad. But don't let yourself be submerged by what happens. The mind must learn that beyond the moving mind there is the background of awareness, which does not change. The mind must come to know the true self and respect it and cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun during solar eclipse. Just realize that nothing observable, or experience-able is you, or binds you. Take no notice of what is not yourself. You are aware anyhow, you need not try to be. What you need is to be aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as being conscious." ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Request For Support

2011-02-20T17:17:00.001-06:00

Recently I have encountered much unexpected expense, for the computer system, and physical health. There have been a boatload of medical expenses which were only partly covered by medicare and a procedure is needed that is not covered at all. And alas,my old 1998 Jeep needs some work too in addition to my 1936 bodymind :-) ... So while I hate to ask, I must again make a gentle request for assistance: We can only continue the living expression (the newsletter, the blog, podcasts and videos) if there is monetary support, given health and finance circumstances. Rent just went up again. Internet access, bandwidth, hardware, and other costs, are ever increasing while income decreases. This is a NON-Profit site; all revenue goes back into resources for the Expression. So, IF you are able to help, and you feel in the heart that you are getting value from this space, please make a donation of any amount that is comfortable for you, to help keep this Message from Self to Self "live on line". I know these are tough time for many, so great thanks in advance!

And A BIG thank you to those of you who have already responded; your contributions make a real difference! Your love and support is VERY moving!

To contribute (any amount that is comfortable for you) GO HERE:

http://charliehayes36.tripod.com/

Enlightenment - what IS it?

2011-02-20T13:34:00.007-06:00

"Enlightenment" is NOT transformation, not change, not "ascension", not "buddha-mind", not some sort of "energetic shift", not some "transmission", not any change whatsoever. These are all stories that are told by idiots that believe THEY are enlightened and YOU are NOT! There is nowhere to go and no one to go; the seeker-persona is a MYTH and nothing more. Those who tell stories abut "an energetic contraction" are simply misleading the seeker by reinforcing the totally false notion of dualism, the assumption that there IS a "person" for whom there is something wrong! There is no person in Reality; only in the delusion of language that some "gurus" use to get attendees to meetings! Warning: There is no food for such egos here.

My friends: This is definitely not a "saintly state". It is not a "personality modification. It is not a 'shift". It is NOTHING. And nothing cannot be attained by nothing! You as what-you-ARE cannot ever ATTAIN what-you-already-are. It would be like the sky trying to grasp itself. Like the knife trying to cut itself. The "Sage" does NOT undergo some magical mystical transformation from something to no thing; rather the ideation and conviction that there is some "one" (an individual) somehow separated from and different than no thing simply gets squelched by that no thing which the sage is and, dear reader, which YOU already always Are. To accept the intellectual understanding that you are no thing may be a start but it is not the ultimate Full Moon of Reality, because so long as there is "me" accepting, then that same "me" will also reject it when the going gets tough e.g. when illness or hard financial times or loss of a love etc. happen. This was my experience; so long as the understanding was superficial, i.e at the level of a deep belief but not the actual apperception, then life is a roller coaster. The point of nonduality is to share what takes one off the roller coaster altogether, not to keep one up on some "peak high". The "Advaita High" is no different than another drug like experience; it always passes and you crash. Have you not seen that yet?

All attempts to gain some state of self-realization WILL fail. Bad news, eh? Nah! That is the good news! Because if it is deeply apperceived that there is no one separated from wholeness to get whole, that there is no point in a phantom belief in a "me" to make endless efforts to become "no me" (OR to STOP all efforts to become "no me") well then by God there might just happen to be Grace; the Grace that comes from no thing no where (IE from Who-You-Really-ARE) and removes the delusion of a mind split ONLY by language and falsely convicted to a life in a conceptual prison. Grace can pardon the convict in a heartbeat. However watch now: Do you have some belief lurking in deep back-story that "you" (or ANY "me") can MANUFACTURE Grace? Lotsa luck with that. That one will keep you on the hamster wheel forever. Who cannot see the arrogance in the notion that this little ego-thought of separateness, of "me", can somehow make the universe and one's life better?? As the poet Leonard Cohen wrote, "There is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man putting the universe in order".

Recently one of my teachers, the modern Sage Wayne Liquorman, wrote: "The ever practical brain wants to know what earthly good is such esoteric understanding? How does it help us grow more and better grass? How does it feed us? How can it enrich us? The answer is that it is of no practical value. It does not help us to manage life better. But its mystical value is immeasurable. It enables us to be at peace even when our minds and bodies are in turmoil...not as an act of skill, not as an achievement but as an act of Grace. May it find you now!"

Full Stop and Amen!!

PS: Now please remember: ALL words are conceptual POINTERS. Those who believe the words of any teacher or teaching, no matter who, or where they are, are simply deluding themselves. So don't bother spouting out "well so and so says xyz and so you are obviously wrong. EVERY teaching is wrong inasmuch as they are all concepts that ONLY POINT. These pointers are NOT representing or describing! Do not believe any of it; rather, LOOK at where the pointing is pointing (to the Non-conceptual Eternal Love that you really are!) Pure Apperception of that (i.e. know-ING sans know-ER or thing-known) is enlightenment ... for no one. And all the while YOU remain as You Are, have always been and will always be in this dream of spacetime: PRESENT AND AWARE.