The remarkable paragraphs below were written a few years ago as comments and messages on reddit, a social media site, and later compiled by a reddit member named veragood, to whom we offer our heartfelt thanks.
Readers’ comments about these paragraphs, including additional remarks by the author, can be found by following the links at the bottom of this page.
—Editor, Realization.org
Q: I am who?
A: Nobody 😂 at least, certainly not a person. I/you are the ocean of consciousness and everything that appears in it, there is no distinction between anything at all apart from thought. A single thought can appear to split the universe into two, though it’s all only imaginary ultimately.
The experience of going through the “gateless gate” was in fact very simple and almost uneventful in a way haha. I had experienced “no self” on several occasions, each for longer and longer periods, so that experience wasn’t new, rather ordinary by this point, but the sheer and utter relief of having finally detached from the habit of “thinking” was absolutely beautiful.
The part that surprised me the most was that the “ego” doesn’t disappear at all. It doesn’t die, because it never lived. Rather, my false belief that a thought was myself vanished. It was this belief that the ego was me was what was causing all this tension and suffering, not the ego itself; the ego being simply whatever idea of self I had in mind at the moment. There was no “ego being” that has been there all this time, rather, it was seen that I was making myself up every moment, albeit unconsciously. Now I see I can imagine I am whatever I feel like at any moment, though I never actually am it, though it IS an aspect of myself because it flows right from me, nowhere else.
I laughed and I laughed when I remembered all of the foolish unnecessary things I had done in an effort to be more awake. Then I laughed and laughed when I recalled all the thoughts I had believed over the years. Then I thanked nobody out loud for all the foolishness, because it brought me to this very moment. Thank you to the ego!
Allow me to elaborate. Certainly, “others” still appear to exist. I do not experience “aloneness” even though I am aware that at the root there is only my self. It is a strange feeling of paradox that I experience totality, yet individuality at once. I admit, one of my expectations from the past was that all sense of “other” or separation would completely evaporate, but it’s not experienced like that, not at all. If anything, it feels like I am truly seeing the being behind the person when I speak with others, etc. It’s fascinating, and I admit I don’t totally understand what I’m experiencing yet in this regard.
An image is coming to mind of a tree. I am a leaf on the tree, who has become aware that he is the tree, yet remains a leaf, amongst leaves.
I recall when I would “think” myself up, I was very much deluded, even right up until the final detaching from thought altogether. I was almost trying to actively enforce that others don’t exist and that people were fools who ruin everything 😂😂 yet now there’s only love, just love. I am much more curious and open to people now than i was before, human behaviour is fascinating.
Did that even elaborate much? 😂 Talking/writing just feels like streams of communication that just flow out of me now with no idea where the sentence is headed
Honestly, I don’t really feel any desire to meddle with other people’s lives at all. It’s a strange paradox again. I feel as though I have ultimate control (in a sense) yet no longer feel any need to manipulate or control anyone or anything at all. I enjoy just watching everything just flow.
I used to experience what you describe, like I was moving from “awake” back to “thought” back to “awake” and back and forth again. Now, not anymore. Only a feeling of constant presence, no matter what I’m experiencing. The unconscious/conditioned thought stream still appears, but it’s like, I just don’t care 😂 who cares? Thoughts appear, express, then vanish as quick as they came. Sometimes they make me laugh, but mostly I don’t even notice them now, they’re insignificant. I wouldn’t say I have a “strong grip” on my self, rather no grip whatsoever. A huge part of the lingering ego I experienced was obsessed with trying to be “still” or trying to remain only the “witness”, yet as soon as I realised the witness is a thought too, it popped like a bubble and I was just here, without cause, without effort.
And thank you for your response! I like what you said about the ego/identity being self-perpetuating, this appears how I experience it too yet you put it into words very eloquently in a way I couldn’t prior to now. It seems very much like the identity has always just gone about doing its thing and the only “problem” was my believing that the ego/identity was my root and thus trying to meddle with it and control it. Freedom is like simply taking a step back again and allowing the ego to just be. Or to re-phrase it, it could even be said to be a step FORWARD into the ego and becoming it, as opposed to creating the illusion that “I” am somewhere separated and manipulating it. Two opposing metaphors that both seem to fit what I’m trying to say 😂
Thank you for this. A huge belief I had, if not the final hurdle, was the idea that I had to leave this world entirely, in a sense. Like the earth and the world and everybody in it had to be given up, that the identity had to be removed, the memories purged, all humanity basically removed, yet I found that almost the total opposite was experienced. I found once I detached from ego, the world and everything in it was instead embraced, the whole universe became enveloped by one love, by myself, and it was seen it’s always been this way. I only thought it was otherwise.
All I know is I exist. Everything else seems to just keep unfolding itself. My feeling is that realisations will continue to unfold, but all I am sure of is my self. Nobody believes anything really 😂 my ego is there though it’s imaginary. As for what is nothing, hmmm. My initial reaction was to say “I am nothing”, or no thing.
I have no idea 😂 I do not know what I am, I can only see everything I’m not. A lot of things were said but I don’t take any ownership of them. It’s like they just appear. I don’t believe them, I don’t “do” speaking, it seems to just arise and arise by itself without any effort. It feels like I literally can’t make any effort, I can’t “do” anything, I only see it all happening automatically.
As for what is “a thing”, I don’t really know, nothing at all? It’s like, I still am aware of language and labels and all this distinction going on, but none of it feels actual, in a way. I’m finding it difficult to find words
Thank you, blessings to you also! Practise wise, I was very direct and thus uninterested in Buddhism or anything else that seemed to be about learning in steps and stages etc. I went straight for self enquiry.
To make a long story as brief as possible; I suffered from extreme anxiety of death, and was manifesting all kinds of things wrong within the body like tumours, etc. I wanted rid of the mind, and so turned to self enquiry. I watched many Mooji talks, and read I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. I practised being the “witness”, learning to simply watch and not get involved. Self enquiry became the total focus of my life, I didn’t half-ass it 😂 After around 3‒4 months I had my first awakening experience. This was about 2 years ago now. After that, I continued to enquire, knowing I was not “awake” yet I had experienced freedom so there was no longer any doubt, simply a matter of “cleaning house” and allowing that awareness to see through all my illusions I still felt tied to. My practise was very simple, I simply questioned my thoughts, watched how I acted, and kept asking myself “am I this?” whenever thoughts or suffering appeared.
I continued watching Mooji on YouTube, and various others, though it was Mooji and Nisargadatta Maharaj who appeared to resonate in ways others didn’t. I would re-read I Am That over and over, and it seemed each time I understood the words more and more. The first reading of it felt like I was just reading elaborate nonsense 😂 though now I read it and it appears as though Maharaj is speaking with perfect clarity and being very direct and obvious as possible. Over the course of two years, I experienced several more awakenings, each one wiping away huge chunks of the ego-thought construct. Eventually, a few weeks ago, it was like the final penny dropped, and I saw this entire play had been my imaginary self. I imagined my own realisation 😂 what a joke! I was left with nothing, and what a glorious nothing it is.
As foolish things I had done, oh there were many 😂 At one point, I gave away a lot of my belongings, mostly lots of books I had accumulated over the years. It was totally unnecessary looking back, though at the time I felt it was worthwhile so I guess it served its purpose. Ultimately nothing needs to be given away or given up, but I understand how obsession with certain objects or tendencies can become the fixation of attention and so therefore appear to be a barrier.
I did use to smoke weed, and found it very helpful initially as I felt that it helped the focus on my thoughts to loosen up and for there to be a bit more space and fluidity to the way my mind worked (as well as help calm my crippling anxiety). Eventually though it became another obstacle and had to be put down, though i did find it worthwhile for a time.
Though I must add, weed seems to have had that effect for me because I believed it would, much like people who believe they will be paranoid if they smoke it will induce paranoia. It was helpful to me because I believed it was, not really because it was offering me anything in particular. I can see that now, but was unaware at the time. I never tried anything else like LSD etc. I was of the mindset that I didn’t want to experience awakening as the result of a drug but wanted to do it “properly” myself 😂 very judgemental I was but oh well 🤷
It appeared that it was more a side effect of my continued self enquiry. The more of my habits, thoughts, etc, that were exposed, the more the belief in ego-construct “shrunk” and the more my true self came into ascendence.
After every awakening experience I experienced myself thinking “ah this is wonderful, how freeing! I am very happy and content, this will do” yet despite this I continued to question and enquire. It’s like I just kept whittling down and whittling down the belief in the identity, questioning every aspect of it, even my own happiness and joy were met with “is this me?”
Eventually the only mental habit left was the witness thought, and this one I was fooled by for a long while before I became aware of it. 😂 I actually started to experience a lot of anger, frustration. I always felt on the lookout, watching, waiting, but by this time much mental conditioning was gone so there was nothing to look for. I was like a paranoid watchman 😂 waiting for some thought, some enemy, to appear for me to expose. Tension and pain began manifesting in my body again because I kept trying to “anchor” myself to a certain still point in my body, mostly around the head, then when I would catch myself focusing on a point in my head (usually behind the eyes) then I would unconsciously move said point to another area of my body, the neck, the chest, many months I played this game of “paranoid witness” 😂
Finally, spontaneously, it dawned on me that that witness point too was imaginary, and I didn’t have to “anchor” anywhere, I had nothing to fight, nothing to lose. I finally surrendered to be nothing, and it was initially like a bottle of champagne being uncorked. All this energy and expression I had been bottling and trying to suppress exploded out (I had experienced this before after awakenings) yet i was never corked again this time. Now just free-flowing, always flowing out, never ending champagne 😂
Keep steadfast and earnest. You will try to trick yourself over and over again along the way. Keep going.
You’re more than welcome. I posted here in the hopes that my experience could be useful in some way to others on the path.
Absolutely no fear whatsoever. It just doesn’t happen at all without the “I” thought present. There’s nobody to be afraid.
Emotions can come and go but they don’t make any impact. There is a constant stream of love, peace, joy, it doesn’t seem like they arise and fall but rather I AM love and peace. Love quite naturally and effortlessly permeates and radiates throughout awareness.
Yes, I was working the entire time. I used to run a freelance graphic design business, and was working from home during the time I suffered from anxiety and began to really get into self enquiry. This did allow me to spend a lot of time alone, contemplating, even when I was working, which I was incredibly lucky for. After the first awakening experience, I realised I wasn’t happy with the business, so I closed it down and got a job working as a barista. For the following two years I continued to work as a barista, and I am still working there now. Work was never an obstacle for me, Your job will only become an obstacle if you make it one. You are always your self, even whilst working. Your self is available to be recognised 24 hours a day. Take my advice and don’t quit your job or make any issues of it unless you really feel in your heart that it isn’t right for you.
I had a superficial interest in spirituality before my health problems. I had read one Buddhist book and would enjoy reading inspirational quotes, but that was pretty much it. I would meditate occasionally and would feel a benefit from it, but other than that, my attention was elsewhere on typical things like partying, entertainment, etc. I was a bit of a party animal 😂 it really wasn’t until I was riddled with anxiety that I took it seriously. As for sexuality, it did change admittedly. I have never particularly been that sexual of a person, my sex drive has always been lower than average, and relationships have never been something I’ve been particularly interested in. During the “dissolution” phase of two years, my sex drive pretty much disappeared. It simply wasn’t important to me and never came to mind, but in the recent few months, I noticed my sex drive re-awaken, freed almost. I realised I had always suppressed it subtly, and now my sexuality was free to arise naturally whenever. My sex drive is still significantly less than average, though it’s no longer repressed at all. If a sexual encounter came along, I wouldn’t be adverse to it, but I don’t go seeking them either.
Feel free to ask any more questions, I don’t mind at all. Hope anything I’ve said can be some help to you along your path 🙂
Hello friend! I’m so happy that my answers here are providing worthwhile insight and pointers. You are right, many people are awakening and my feeling is this will continue to multiply at a fast rate; the more “awakened beings” there are, the more their influence spreads and yet more people are exposed to living truth.
My self enquiry practise was a deliberately very simple one. Nisargadatta once mentioned to take on the role of the witness or observer and to watch and learn the patterns and habits of the mind, and this I did. By consciously taking the role of witness, I was able to watch and question my thoughts, and often the question “is this thought me?” was enough to expose the thought as a phenomenon, as from the witness position it was inherently clear that I was watching thought arise and fall only. The thought then became irrelevant, it wasn’t my self, and that after all was what I was ultimately looking for. Whenever the thought then arose again in future it was simply ignored/discarded, it no longer mattered because I had already experienced and confirmed that it was not myself, so its impact ceased completely.
Meditation was helpful initially, though the practise did not last long. I found it worthwhile initially because it was a tool that allowed me to experience myself free from the storm of mind. I would meditate infrequently during the initial 4 month period of self enquiry, but once the initial awakening moment had been experienced and my true nature confirmed in my heart, if only for a short while, meditation was abandoned. Exactly why it was dropped, I do not know. I can only say it served its purpose as a tool/practise during the time of need for it.
Speaking from my own experience, I found enquiry much more useful a practise than meditation simply because I was actively exposing and deconstructing the mind and its conditioning, whereas meditation, though beneficial as it allowed me to experience true nature, did not deconstruct thought. Meditation I found to be passive; beautiful and relaxing yes, but it was enquiry that was my true weapon.
Enlightenment is perfectly and easily attainable. It is after all only recognition of what you already are. It only takes earnestness and dedication. If you half ass it then thoughts will create trap after trap after trap. Use your weapon, your conscious awareness. Understand your own mental habits and they will be destroyed, no thought can win against the gaze of your observing awareness. All thoughts fall. Channel your frustration, make everything work for you, use it as a driving strength. You are not a victim to anything, you are the source of all this and more.
I would wish you luck, but you do not need it, for you already are what you seek. It is only a matter of time before you see. Much love x
Certainly the egoic perspective has caused humanity to wreak havoc upon their habitat, though they are no different to the many other forces at work in the universe, fighting and consuming each other for survival and procreation. This is nature.
The fate of the earth is unknown to me, though neither do I need or want to know. I am as I am, and I will still be when humanity and the earth inevitably fade from existence, whether it be tomorrow or in a hundred trillion years. Humanity is but one expression of the absolute in an infinite expanse of expressions. The only importance is the now. The greatest gift you can give to humanity is to know yourself as its source. Only then will unconditional love and compassion flow from you freely, bathing all you encounter with the light of grace.
I did experience several energetic phenomena during the course of awakening. On a couple of occasions I experienced energy exploding out of the body, it seemed. As though a cork had been popped and years of pent up energy were released. I didn’t find it particularly important or interesting though. Changing energies are simply a side effect of expanding consciousness, nothing more. They can be wonderful experiences, though they are not the goal. I would advise people to not seek energetic experiences, as they will occur naturally anyway as you become more aware of your true being. I hope the Nisargadatta book proves as helpful to you as it did me on your path. Much love x
Hello friend!
Yes, the first time I experienced it, it was located very much in my pelvis/lower torso, then in later experiences it seemed as though it was flowing throughout my whole body. It was less a feeling of something travelling up my spine, and more as though my body was the epicentre of an explosion and energy was flowing outwards in all directions. Moreso like this:
[Editor’s note: At this place in the original comment, iamquiet inserted a screenshot from the movie “Dark Phoenix”. To avoid copyright problems, we’ve substituted a similar illustration that we made ourselves.]
It became apparent to me that energetic awakening is not a mystical force being awakened in the body. I would describe it more simply; there are multiple points within the body to which we “grasp” and have an unconscious lock or anchor on. As our consciousness expands, these grips loosen until they they are totally let go and the body’s natural energy is then allowed to flow unhindered. The pressure in your third eye area is very likely being caused by your focused attention on it, to put it in the most simplest terms. Try letting go of all ideas of energies and chakras, and simply relax, let go, and turn attention to the one who is aware of pressures and energy. You will soon find the pressure shall release by itself without your needing to do anything.
No, the awakening process was not finished even after the energy experiences. As I said, these energies are simply a side effect and they are not the goal. Do you want to experience kundalini energy or do you wish to be liberated? Turn your efforts to your own awakening and energetic experiences will arise when you are ready, not when pushed or forced.
Yes, I feel perfectly fine and settled. Old thought habits have arisen in the past few weeks though they are not battled or tangled with. They arise, I am aware and unaffected by them, and they simply fade. How could a thought cause me any trouble? They are only a barrier when they are believed to be, all thought is just imagination only.
The river is truly beautiful, peaceful, and full of light and grace, and is empty of suffering. Only by fighting its currents are you thrashed against the rocks. You do not need to jump in to it, only realise you already are it, and all thoughts of not being yourself are thoughts only. Let go and bask in your true being, you will not be disappointed. Nothing the mind can offer you will ever ever compare. Let go of the mind once and for all. Take a breath, be present, take a step, and never look back to the mind for reassurance or comfort, you do not need it, and you never have.
Much love x
Courage is moving with the heart even though fear is present in the mind. Courage is living in the moment without any armour, with no plan. Courageousness is your very nature. It is only when we believe in fear do we create doubt, do we create an illusory cover over our own inherent power. Yet, it is always there, YOU are always there. Courage is not something that can be removed or destroyed, only ignored, attention turned elsewhere, to thoughts, which can tell you all kinds of unreal stories about how you are not courageous, or strong, or free.
The “ego” is naturally afraid of the void, for the ego cannot exist there. But you are not the ego, you ARE the void. What appears as something frightening to your unconscious mind, is actually a triumphant homecoming to YOU. The ego will spin a negative context about the void in order to keep you from recognising the void as your self, because when you do, the power of ego is destroyed and you will bloom like a flower. To the ego, the void is frightening, dark, destruction. Yet the void is simply you, you are already that. Once free of the ego’s perspective, you will come to realise that the void, yourself, actually feels beautiful, expansive, open, indestructible, blissful, shining forever like a sun that never goes out.
Let today be the last day you believe your fears when they arise. There is always the choice; to be what your fears want you to be, small and afraid, or you can choose to cast fear aside and expose it as the simple thought that it is, totally dependent on you to even acknowledge its existence. Without you, what can fear do? Fear is your servant, your creation. Fear exists only because you exist prior to even be aware of it, coming and going. Cease bowing at the feet of your own imagination. You create your own demons then bend the knee to them. You are always in the position of ultimate power, love, and life. Your thoughts appear to wreak havoc because you have not recognised your own power, you have not recognised that the mind will create whatever you believe into existence. If you believe in fear, you will create fear, you will experience fear. Courage is your very nature. Fear is your creation. Recognise this, then forget fear ever even existed and it shall evaporate, back into the void, back into YOU, from where it was created in the first place.
No difference, the apparent differences only exist in the realm of conceptual thought. In reality there is no first “somebody” and a second “somebody”, no one who is awake nor one who is asleep, just consciousness. Consciousness appears in manifold forms, one of these forms may be aware of reality, yet another form it may believe its concepts, yet both are consciousness dreaming all the same.
The recognition is done and final. There can no longer be any doubt. There is a certain sense of finality in this regard, yet the opening, the deepening of understanding appears to go on indefinitely. I feel I could never truly grasp or understand my entire self, at least not in this form. More and more understanding is revealed, yet this understanding seems bottomless, infinite. I could describe it like, a threshold as been crossed, a point of no return, and now a constant unfolding, a sinking deeper and deeper.
My relationships with family and friends have only improved. I’m more open, understanding, completely non-judgemental, people relax around me because there is no face they must present in order to satisfy me, they can be whoever they are. My relationships with my parents are deeper, more loving. The same with my friends, It’s a joy to be around people, much more than before. Though it has been recognised that the appearance is not me, roles still appear. Life is a play, a joy, role playing is like a game. I can be whoever others need me to be. Loving son, hardworking co-worker, it all comes easily, flowing.
What you’re describing I’d say is common and I experienced it too. After a wave of great clarity will often come an opposite wave of mental noise. Do not worry about it, it will pass soon enough. That’s a beautiful quote by Alan, very apt.
It is certainly a different experience than before, to have no navigator essentially, but contrary to what the mind would have you think, you don’t become lost and aimless without an ego to guide and predict, you don’t become stupid, or passive, or an easy target. In fact life flows so easily, every action, every word, every decision comes perfectly naturally, without any thinking about it.
My motivation was very strong, I didn’t care much for anything else other than understanding the self. I wasn’t aiming to be “enlightened” so to speak, I simply wished for understanding of myself so I could be free from the minds apparent domination over me. I feared death greatly, I suffered from acute anxiety. All of this fueled my one track mind toward realisation. It didn’t feel an effort to be so focused on self enquiry, I wanted to devote all my time to it. From beginning of enquiry to first awakening experience was 3–4 months. It does not need to take a long time in order to realise the self, only earnestness and a drive toward the goal. If you meander about, you will imagine all kinds of obstacles and sidetracks for yourself which could turn your enquiry into decades or even lifetimes. I had no time for that and dived in directly. Ultimately, it does not matter whether your path is long or short, it is as it is, and all will reach the end at some point anyway. It is all a matter of you and what approach you wish to take. If you choose to dedicate yourself to your own realisation and concentrate all time and effort into destroying and exposing mental obstacles then you will wake soon enough.
This happens, I wouldn’t pay much attention to it. It is the self recognising the self. Though they may not be conscious of it, some others will sense your energy, your vibration, shining like a beacon, a power center. This is nature in action and can be beautiful.
Q: What do you mean by conscious beings?
A: A short hand way of saying other forms who had given up their illusions and stepped into conscious reality.
Whenever you wish it to, it can stop. The bullshit is only a train of thought. Nothing more. The ego never wants to hear this really because it values and worships its own story, its own thoughts, so highly that it wants recognition for them. But the truth is that it’s just a story going on in your head. If you want the game to be over then be present, turn your attention to the fact of your existence, recognise that you exist AS the present moment, and hold attention there. It is perfectly within your power. The bullshit continues to appear because you feed it with time and energy because you believe it is relevant or significant. It doesn’t need an ending, this story doesn’t need to be resolved, just drop it.
Free will is an idea, and the one who asserts free will is also an idea. The idea you have of who you are believes it has free will. This is the ultimate mind game one plays with oneself. You create the sensation of “I” as a witness-able form, then “believe” it has free will. But you are only looking, in essence. Without even trying, you are seeing, perceiving. THIS is you.
It is ultimately playful. There is no seriousness in it for consciousness. From the perspective of consciousness, everything perceived is unreal. It unfolds spontaneously and without a “driver” directing where the great play is headed, it just is as it is. It is the human mentality that complicates existence by trying to impose a meaning where there is none, an impossible task. You have the power to create whatever meaning you wish to experience, but this meaning however is only a filter, a projection, a lens through which to view the world in a particular way. But it is not the truth.
Actions and decisions still take place but there is no “me” thought that is claiming ownership of any of it. This was one of the big surprises, that the outward appearance of a “somebody” with desires, hobbies, etc, going about their life continues. Responsibility for it is just let go of. It is only the imaginary construction of a “me” that believed he was controlling any of it, was responsible for, or was involved in any of it, disappears completely. Enlightenment is the total cessation of an “inward/outward” perception of oneself. The “inward”, the me who is narrating, desiring, speaking, etc, vanishes completely. Everything becomes both inward and outward simultaneously. It becomes one. But there is no person left to even acknowledge this, when non-duality arises, life just goes on, and there is no big “shift” or some great final experience. It is the end of the experience. It is the end of the thought-self that has been on the journey of enlightenment. This whole perspective of yourself as a “me” who has been self enquiring and “getting closer” etc just vanishes instantaneously. What’s left is pure shining awareness, a non-entity. This non-entity, living presence, simply IS. With no agenda, no interest, no needs, nothing to lose, nothing to gain. The whole great play of life simply arises and falls within this beautiful silent expanse of awareness, and this awareness is the real you.
It is beyond easy to move without a plan. Without a “me” creating obstacle after obstacle, problem after problem, life simply flows unbound and free. You will move spontaneously, organically, without needing to think anything over. Over-thinking every decision appears stagnant, slow, your very nature will not want it. Rarely does any thought of the future arise, and if it does they are mostly just for fun. Certain practical thoughts may appear, like “the gas bill needs to be paid” or whatever, and action will take place and the bill will be paid, but there is nobody controlling it. I am at rest, whilst this life happens within me, decisions just happen within me, joy just happens within me, love just happens within me. You think your thinking mind, your “me” is you and is of great help, but it is in fact the greatest obstacle and hindrance. Without this, existence becomes full to the brim with love. I laugh that I held onto such an illusion about myself for so long when it caused so much pain.
The one who is miserable and coming and going from one state to the next is not really you but rather it is the story you have been imagining about yourself. You are here, always, as awareness only, at your root. Keep enquiring, remain conscious, and your illusions will continue to be understood and dispelled, slowly unravelling the web of unconscious mental habits you have formed since childhood. The more of these mental habits you expose as mere thought and let go of, the more clarity you will feel, and your natural essence of quiet presence will begin to shine through brighter and brighter. Ultimately, you will come to the final seeing, the realisation that even the “I” is not you and is rather a thought, a reflection, arising in consciousness.
Once recognition that you are the constant, you are the present moment, you are that which is always here observing every moment yet is uninvolved and untouched by everything it perceives, you will be freed of your belief that you are merely the persona you have crafted for yourself in thought.
Ultimately you are playing the game with yourself, the game of the “me” on the journey of lifetime, full of highs, lows, drama, and suffering, the one asleep and waking up. This character we play, and unconsciously believe we are, is not a sin or wrong in and of itself, rather it is the belief in the misunderstanding that we ARE this persona that causes suffering and pain. You are not something you can imagine. You are not something you can perceive. You experience all things, but the root that perceives all, itself cannot be perceived, for you ARE that. It is the simplest truth.
It appears to me in the larger universal sense that even the evolution of the “I” experience, from single cell evolving to plant, to animal, to human, developing consciousness and intelligence until finally reaching a point that the consciousness can become aware of itself, is all occurring within the same pattern that everything else in experience occurs; that is the pattern of nothing > the arising of a phenomenon > the fall of the phenomenon > back to nothing. All the manifest world is subject this basic pattern; a wave rises and falls, a flower grows, blooms then fades, entire galaxies form from nothing only to eventually disintegrate and fade. Time makes no difference, whether it takes a minute from beginning to end, or whether it takes a billion years, ALL phenomena arise then fall. It is the inevitable truth of all experiential phenomena. Only the self, the absolute foundation of consciousness from which the whole world of perception is dreamed into existence, remains untouched and beyond the pattern of changes for it is the source of the pattern, the source of time. The self is not bound by any of the creations that emanate from it, your true nature transcends all experience and phenomena and is untouched by all things. We create the illusion of time, then believe we are bound by our own creation. In fact, it is you who created the idea of time and you who can undo it, therefore you were never bound by time in the first place.
Upon the death of this form, your attention will once again recede back into your true being, yet if you have not realised this infinite void source as your actual self, you will once again reach forward to a new form, clinging to what you believed was yourself; a transitory form, and you will once again believe a new vessel for yourself into being, and will enter the dream state once more. Only those who have transcended their illusory state of being whilst still in the form will have no fear of death, for they know that death is merely the dropping of a shell, and that all that is happening is the passing of a long dream. When you awake in the morning after a dream at night, you do not mourn the loss of said dream form, no matter who you dreamt you were, for you know it was a passing state, and was not your true being. That dream in fact arose within you, and all in the dream, the town, the people, the adventures or nightmares you experienced were all simply spontaneously appearing in you only to later pass and be forgotten. The waking human life is a similar state, it simply appears to last longer and so we take this waking dream as the “real” and thus all the suffering arises from trying to control and remain within a dream of oneself that you cannot keep no matter how hard you try. All human impulses of grandeur and fame come from the root impulse of trying to make this form concrete and permanent in an ever changing world, and attempt to last forever, even though we know that this is impossible. One who knows themselves to be nothing perceivable is free from the trappings of the dreamstate. They “awake”, becoming lucid in a world filed with dreamers. Though the knowing is glaring obvious that everybody and everything else perceived in this lucid dream is also oneself, just as in a dream at night you know without doubt that all characters, persons and places you experienced in the dream emanated from your very self.
The “I am” feeling that is referred to is simply the recognition of your own presence, of your own existence. You recognise that the ever-present one, you, are here, having the experience of this moment, right now. You know your self very well, you are not some distant, otherworldly, meta-physical, mystical holy grail that you don’t currently own/have and must somehow gain, you ARE it. The most familiar of experiences is the noticing that you exist and become aware of the simple fact that you are here. It is so overlooked because it is so obvious. Do not take the “I am” feeling to be the “I am” or “I” thought. That is just a thought image of yourself. You know you exist, just become consciously aware of that fact, for one moment.
Earnestness and honesty will be your sword and shield as you enquire into the self. Illusions cannot be undone with more illusions, you must be truthful and question the validity of what you currently identify to be yourself. If a thought appears simply recognise it as just a thought, and you are the one aware of that thought. Just be that, be present in your purest nature, and the mental noise that appears to distract you will evaporate. When your attention no longer lingers on a thought because you have turned your attention onto the recognition of your own existence, of your own being, of your own presence, the illusory “I” thought fades away, leaving only clarity, joy, endless bliss and love. You are then free from the age of fixation on the mind. It is not experienced as a nobody interacting with nobody, in a hollow sense of the phrase. Do not mistake emptiness as experienced as void in the sense that there is no experience or everything is reduced to nothing or life is somehow deadened. Everything becomes everything. Everything feels truly alive. Your sense of self permeates everything, love permeates the entire sphere of consciousness. There is a sense of emptiness, but another word you could use instead of emptiness cloud be love, could be heart, could be spaciousness, could be clarity. It feels very much like self communicating with self, one heart speaking to itself in two voices.
Desire does not need to be let go of, it is the one who is holding onto desire that needs to be let go of. Peace and contentment are already present and are your underlying nature. It is only your thought of a “me” who wants peace that creates the illusion that you don’t already have it, are it. Ultimately it is only your story of yourself that appears to hide your reality. We imagine a “me” story who journeys toward enlightenment, but liberation is when the story of oneself is dropped, permanently. The story doesn’t need a resolution, the person you are playing does not reach “nirvana” as part of the dream story, nirvana is when the belief/experience of a “me” story has been extinguished.
I don’t want anything, and so I am blissfully at rest within myself. I reach for nothing, I want for nothing. Attention never leaves the self, peace has been found to be myself this whole time. You too are this. When you finally dispel the illusion that you are the “I” thought, you will find you are the presence that has been here this whole time, the background to everything you have ever experienced.
To centre oneself in the present, the self. It is the simplest thing yet the most overlooked. Constantly looking outside to mind, books, teachers, medicines for answers, when YOU are the answer. Bring attention to the self, to the present. Anxiety, like all thoughts, is fuelled by your attention and belief, and like all thoughts it can be destroyed by simply cutting its power source. When anxiety arises it relies on YOU to listen, on you to give it attention, on you to believe it, on you to give it power. Be aware that you are aware, and remain here. Anxiety will quickly wither and die without your support. Stay aware of your self. That is all. This is what all religions, teachings, paths, are all pointing to, your very self. You are more powerful than anything that can arise before you.
There are no stronger minds and weaker minds, there is no real distinction between anything. Layers and hierarchies exist only in your imagination. I don’t expect anything, and cultural mind has nothing to do with anything. All that truly matters is the self beyond mind, the source of mind. Your obsession with “mind” and it’s illusory nature will lead you nowhere but further and further into fantasies. Lay your mind down for a moment, and what are you?
What is your fascination with gender? The fact you are so engrossed with imaginary dualities exposes your own foolishness and ignorance of reality. Reality has no gender, nor religion, nor any other distinguishing factor. YOU are the proof for you are it. Not your personal identity, or your body, or anything else you may currently identify with, but you are the very source of awareness itself from which the whole of reality springs like a flower from a seed. I point you to the roots yet you obsessively talk about the petals as though they are significant.
You tell me to rethink thoughts that are not mine, yet NO thought belongs to anybody, no thought is true. Thoughts can tell you a million and one possibilities yet none will be true. I remain in a state of no-mind, beyond thoughts and their insignificance. As long as you take thoughts to be of importance you will be bound and swept away by them. Question, who even observes thought?
What more do you want? There is no battle that needs to happen with anxiety, no medicine that need be applied for them to cease. Let anxiety appear, it is only a voice appearing in your imagination. What can this voice do when you cease believing it? What can a thought do to you when you’re aware it’s only a thought and cannot “do” anything? Anxiety doesn’t even need to be observed, instead observe the self. The one that is watching, turn awareness back to this. You’ll find that as long as you are aware that you exist, no other thought may enter, they are powerless in the face of awareness of the self. Only when you turn attention back to anxiety does it appear to cause a problem, simply because you fuel and empower it by even taking the thought to be significant. Anxiety is nothing whatsoever. People don’t want to hear this because it flies in the face of what is commonly believed, but the truth is that society paints a cruel trend in having people commonly believe that they are powerless against depression, anxiety and the like. The reality is that you are more powerful than anything the mind can create and that by simply resting in awareness of yourself all thoughts that may try to rise against you will wither and die without your supplying them with belief. I tell you you alone are all you need and powerful enough, it is you that disbelieves it and instead takes anxiety to be something powerful and of significance. Only you can see through your own thoughts, nobody can do it for you. Why would I supply you with an imaginary antidote to anxiety that you can dream up in your mind when instead I can point you to the root of the whole story and chop it dead right there?
The truth is that there IS no immediate cure for anxiety other than the self. If there was a way of being free of the plagues of the mind that was available to the logical thinking mind it would have been found by now. Liberation from mind is to be without mind. Maybe this isn’t the answer you want, but there is no way to bring the mind to heel without exposing it entirely as illusory and not the source of self. To be free of attacks from thoughts one must be free from an “I” thought that can even be attacked. When you realise yourself to not be a thought, then thoughts cannot sway you. The simplest way to this understanding is like I said, to simply remain as the self. I can offer reassuring phrases and advices like “remember that anxiety is only a thought” or “no thought has any power when you do not believe it”, but these are temporary remedies that will not cut at the root of anxiety. With no understanding of the self in relation to thoughts, one will continue to feel attacked by thoughts over and over until one realise they are not a thought. I’m sorry, but the ego wants a convenient remedy for its own pains, but it is the ego itself that must be removed for there to be true healing.
The one beyond all notion of self or non-self. The only one that has been or ever will be. The one beyond identity. The one beyond the thought “I”. The nowhere from which awareness arises and watches the mind flow by, yet remains unmoved and unassailable. When I use the word “self” I do not imply anything to do with a personality or the “I” thought, no object. To use words to symbolically represent the self may mislead into believing I am speaking of an object, but it is totally object/subjectless. No word can contain that which I point; awareness, absolute, self, presence, they are all ultimately as useless as the next. The self is to what all these notions arise. Beyond even beingness, the awareness of awareness, lies the unknown, the void. It cannot be known, you can only BE it.
The manner of expression will differ amongst all forms as there is no right or wrong way to speak of the self for there ARE no words there, so use whatever particular phrasing you wish, it makes no difference to the self, the absolute, shiva, parabrahman, god, Buddha, whichever. All point to nought.
There is no particular will or wish to be understood. The song is sung, the expression emanates from me and I watch as it flows and falls yet nothing occurs to me. If there is understanding, beautiful. If there is no understanding, beautiful. Either way it seems the song will keep on being sung, it cannot be helped. Beyond words, it doesn’t matter anyway.
Enlightenment is when a state free from experiencing the illusion of personal identity, or ego, has arisen. That which experiences enlightenment is forever beyond all states and remains unchanged. All it takes is the constant recognition of that which is constant. Your identity, thoughts, constantly appear and disappear. Waking state and sleep/dream, appear and disappear, yet you remain constant through all states and experiences. This you, is beyond time and experience, and is in fact the source of time and experiencing. It is not required that you learn anything or pick up any “spiritual knowledge”, simply recognise yourself as being here right now, at this very moment, though you cannot see or perceive yourself, you ARE here. Keep your sense of self in mind as often as possible and the egoic mind will evaporate without your feeding it of attention and belief.
The experience of one’s true state of total emptiness is indescribable, I can only use words to roughly designate the experience, such as pure contentment, peace, happiness, love, all of these are simultaneous with emptiness and with your own self. No personal experience can compare. No pleasure or fleeting happiness or excitement I have experienced before even comes close. Nothing I can say will compare, experience it for yourself.
I focused all my efforts to simply keeping my sense of self in mind and by questioning all thoughts that arose of their validity. Even simple observation of the behaviour and thought habits that I saw taking place revealed their mechanisms and patterns and ultimately their unreality. When a magician casts an illusion on you, you will be duped again and again until you simply observe how the illusion is made. Once this is understood, the illusion is rendered redundant and no matter how many times the magician may try to cast it, it will not have any effect on you because you understand how it was done — the power of the illusion has been exposed as unreal.
The sense of self/being, however you call it, is the sense that you may reside in/as/with as you break down the mental prison you have built around yourself. Once the prison has been destroyed then the final exposure is of the sense of being itself. One sees that even that is experienced and is let go of forever. Then, one is as the pure self, beyond all object and subject, beyond time and space. Nothing can approach you there, the game is over.
Some conditioning and habits remain; accent, language, tastes in foods and other trivial and insignificant expressions. At this point the bodily expression/form has been released from identification and is free to flow in unity with the rest of creation. The body laughs, sings, dances and loves freely and openly, yet I am beyond yet one with the body. Language is rendered a complete and utter failure when used to try and describe non-duality.
Not a day went by that I didn’t self enquire. This bodily form is 31 years old. To make a long story short; I began to look into spirituality and through constant dedicated focus and self enquiry, I experienced an awakening 5–6 months later. From then it has been around 3–4 years (dates and timescales seem a bit of a blur at this point) of continued enquiry and dismantling of the ego structure. The final seeing occurred a few months ago now. Still, an experience of understanding oneself gets deeper and deeper, this deepening appears endless. My feeling is that the entire rest of this bodily life will go by and this deepening of understanding will still not have reached an end. The self is infinite and all facets of it will never be completely understood. I remain unmoved and uninvolved, yet the play, the experiential aspect of existence has changed dramatically. The walls of the mind have melted and all of consciousness is open, unfolding, forever. How can there be a stop when there has never been a beginning?
No it was not permanent. It was the first break of sunlight through the clouds, the first experience of oneness, nothingness, no separation or identity. It lasted only minutes but it had a permanent effect, my experience was changed forever. Now there was no longer any uncertainty, I knew in my heart that what all spirituality pointed to was true, it was no longer just a mental logical understanding of the mind, but an experiential one.
Same as always, at perfect peace.
Both are important but neither are necessary in order to awaken to your pure self. Enlightenment will destroy all blocks that repress your natural state of love, and forgiveness of all things will spontaneously occur anyway. It is not necessary to learn or bring about any special qualities in yourself before awakening. These will appear spontaneously anyway when your pure being is uncovered.
I questioned my thoughts and remained consciously aware as the “witness” state of mind as often as possible. I asked “is this me?” when a thought would appear.
Not as exact as this, it is difficult to put into words because it was a fluid, adaptable process, not one set structure or approach. I always questioned, because I believed my thoughts appeared to distract me, so I needed to uproot and destroy them from happening so I no longer felt distracted. It was all imaginary, of course, but this is how the story played.
3-D, 5-D makes no difference to the self. Dimensions of infinite variety can appear yet I am never changed or touched. Experience will change when a new dimensional state is present, but the self remains as it is, as it has always been.
Universal consciousness and the self are one in the same. You will laugh when you realise the familiarity because you have been the universal consciousness this whole time, just thinking you were something else. You are correct, the less of the ego is believed, the more of ones true self is made aware of, automatically. It will express clearer, like the sun’s rays breaking through the clouds. Like the analogy of cleaning a dirty mirror, the more you wipe away the dirt that obscures, the more you can see yourself clearly.
There are no beliefs because there is no person here. That figment of the imagination has evaporated. Do you believe you are a person speaking to another person right now? The mind does not need saving, the “mind” does not exist, it is a concept. It’s just thought, occurring one after the other.
All illusions dropped. I stopped imagining whatever it was I was imagining. I just stopped.
It was my only goal. It must be your only desire, it is the only desire worth having, after all.
It was absolutely nothing like I expected.
Beyond certain, there was no longer even a question, nothing to be certain about.
As I saw it, once even the beingness had been exposed and non-duality arises, the capacity for anxiety or psychological suffering to exist was extinguished. Thoughts sometimes still arise but they are barely noticed, incredibly quiet, and so weak they appear only for a moment. With no longer a personal “I” thought for anxiety thoughts to attach to, nothing happens. The anxiety no longer has any meaning. This type of psychological disturbance is gone.
For a long time during the awakening process there was a lot of tension and grappling with the body. This evaporated after the final seeing and the body just relaxed. The body looks after itself, I need not pay any special attention to look after it anymore. When the body is hungry, it eats, tired, it sleeps. Spontaneously the body looks after itself much better than the ego did.
Lots of energy experiences, but they’re not particularly significant, just effects in awareness.
All paths lead to the same end, annihilation of the illusion of an ego or an “I” thought. If there is still anybody left to question anything then the game is not over.
Dreams appear, they are just thoughts after all, but like thoughts, they are barely noticed and are just seen to arise and disappear with no significance. Karma has no bearing whatsoever in experience anymore. Karma and its concept are annihilated along with the “I”.
There is nothing to be aware of in the state of deep sleep which is why nobody remembers it, it is a state of total oblivion, of complete cessation of the arising of phenomena.
Enlightenment is the only desire worth having, it is the only desire that will actually lead you to reality. There is nobody to participate in the worldly drama, question this character of yours that is making choices to do “unenlightened” things. This is not your true self, but an idea of yourself that walks a path, telling a story. You are not this object.
Everything that occurs in thought is ultimately just a mind game, a daydream we’re having about ourself. Until this is clear we take the “me” and its story to be real, there is no sin in it, it’s just nature. It’s not a mistake. Though if the will is there to be liberated from the false sense of self, then continue enquiring into the nature of your thoughts and question their validity. The more illusions you dispel about yourself, the clearer your state of mind will become, and your pure self will begin to shine through. To use the metaphor of a dirty mirror again because it is most apt; as you clean the stains one by one off a dirty mirror, you begin to see your self more clearly with each blemish that is removed. Eventually the whole game will have been exposed enough that it will crash down and only your pure self will be left.
There is no such thing as right or wrong, these are just ideas. There is no need to grasp for anything, you are not the mind. Only your continued identification with thoughts has you feeling like whatever is happening in thoughts is happening to you, but this is not so. You are already “being”, you are already that which you are searching for. Recognise your self as here and now, be aware that you exist, be aware of simply being aware. It is most familiar, after all, realisation is only an understanding of the self that you have ALWAYS been. You are not something far away that you haven’t achieved yet, nor are you something you can imagine or dream up. You are HERE, regardless of all other phenomena.
If you wish to say it is you participating then you may say so. In my experience, I contribute nothing to the bodily experience and its comings and goings, it goes on as it does according to its destiny and requires absolutely nothing of me, like the sun goes on shining and the seasons come and go, all without any effort or a doer of them, it just is. I do not particularly identify with the bodily form any more than I do with anything else that appears in manifestation. You could say the entire manifestation is my body, or nothing at all. But to focus on a particular bodily form and assume this one is more myself than another is illusion and exists only as an idea.
As long as there is any idea that you are somehow “doing” or needing to control whatever expression arises within the body then you are identifying with the position of an illusion. As you are now aware, simply allowing whatever expression to arise spontaneously automatically collapses the position of “the doer”. It is more akin to watching these expressions flow from your heart as opposed to having a direct control over them in any way. You become one with the expressions, as opposed to “an other” who has the duty to control or manipulate life.
This is normal, your state of mind is shapeshifting from the shape of the “personal identity” into the form of “witness”, and back and forth again. The position of witness is a helpful state of mind to turn to as, from this position, you are in a detached enough state to examine and enquire about your own habits and thoughts and expose their unreality. Eventually even this witness state will be dissolved as it too is another thought-form, a position in the mind, and not the true self. The pure self is unchanged throughout all of this mind play, you are beyond, untouched, and ever present throughout all states of mind. If you can recognise THIS truth, then there will be no need to do anything about the mind whatsoever, you will already be beyond. It is not a necessity to put the mind in order, you can simply recognise your true self immediately and be done with it, but most seem to need to play the game of unraveling conditioning first, as did I experience it that at too.
All relationships improved. With no personality judging and playing games, all the drama and difficulties of relationships evaporated.
Using this metaphor, if the body is the hardware and the mind the software, exactly where is this body mind even appearing? What is the dimension in which a body or mind may even appear?
The self is not a state of mind nor body because both the mind and body are seen to be appearances WITHIN consciousness, not the source of it. It is like having a dream at night where you are walking through the world and assuming that the body in your dream is where the source of your dream is, which is impossible, because clearly the dream body is just an appearance within said dream, and cannot be the source of it. Same is such of waking state. What we call daily waking state and sleeping/dreaming state are actually both the same, two sides of the same coin. Both are appearing within consciousness. Again, like a dream at night, you could dream you were a king, and though it appears you may inhabit this body of a king and perform the part of the king, the body is just an appearance IN YOU like the rest of the appearances in the dream. You are the source from where the awareness that watches these two states come and go arises. You are the space/mind in which the dream arises.
You are correct. To use the dirty mirror analogy yet against again, the more you clear the filth from the mirror, the easier you can see your self. When you have finally seen yourself, it is done, the remaining dirt doesn’t matter, you’ve recognised what you actually are.
None whatsoever. The beauty of existence is that it has no purpose, goal or meaning, I am free to simply enjoy every moment.
Suffering has ceased to exist. There is absolutely no framework for suffering to exist on, it has ceased to have any meaning. Anxiety and sadness are just particular flavours of thoughts and feelings that come and go. Though an old reaction may flicker, they don’t stick, they get no attention, so they appear only momentarily and have no effect whatsoever on the state of mind/no-mind.
What I am speaking to is not a new belief that has been formed in the mind nor just simply an opinion or dogma, it is a recognition of what IS after thoughts have totally ceased, all imagination ceased, all beliefs ceased, the “me” story ceased. It can only be experienced as truth, not logically understood. The mind wants to receive some sort of mental or logical understanding of reality, a concept into which it can fit reality, this is why it constantly struggles with trying to believe in some sort of idea about reality, some sort of perspective. But truth will only be seen when this seeking mind is gone completely. The mind that wants to understand is in fact the obscuration itself. The very tool through which you are trying to understand reality is the very thing that must be given up in order for reality to be revealed in its absence. This is why it is said there is no path to enlightenment, no “way” to go. You already are it. All efforts must be dropped, all perspectives dissolved, all thoughts given up, all questions forgotten. Only when you finally rest in your natural silent presence will reality of universe reveal itself to you. Your very searching obscures it.
Words are easily misunderstood. “I” refers to the eternal presence/space/source/heart, that from which even awareness arises and views the phenomenal world. It refers to YOU.
The “ego” doesn’t actually exist as an entity. It is a name we give to a particular collection of phenomena; the body along with the “I" thought/voice in the imagination, along with memory, the five senses, to put it loosely. We combine these senses into a conceptual “me”, into an individual form and believe this concept into existence, we believe the individual “me” into existence by believing this concept of a being made up from these several phenomena. So the ego never actually exists, we just believe these several strands of flowing phenomena constitute an individual “ego”.
When annihilation of ego is spoken about, it is not meant that the several aspects of phenomena that we have conceptualised as “ego” cease, this is false. The body goes on moving, thought continues to arise, etc. etc. But what is destroyed is the CONCEPT that these phenomena constitute an individual {separate from the rest of existence}. The belief in the idea of “ego” disappears.
You cannot say thought has nothing to do with suffering. You claim suffering is ignorance and delusion, yet both these two aspects are themselves thoughts. Thought is the very root of illusion, a thought believed in casts a spell over consciousness. When the thought of ignorance is believed, ignorance is created. When the thought “I suffer” is believed, suffering is created. When there is no “I” thought being imagined anymore, when this aspect of imagination has ceased being identified with, all suffering evaporates. Only an “I” thought can suffer. The pure self cannot suffer, it cannot do anything, or be affected by anything.
The true I is nameless, shapeless, formless, ageless. The unassailable source of awareness, the self. Often referred to as Para Brahman, spirit, Shiva, God, self, Buddha, pure consciousness, the heart. It is the centre of reality, the source within which all of reality springs.
The “I am” feeling is the appearance of beingness, a sense of your own existence. It is there naturally and without effort, the very knowledge that you exist.
The “I” thought, is the voice in your head, the “you” that exists purely in imagination. The great psychological story we have been dreaming about ourselves. The one with a name, and likes, and dislikes, and wants, needs, beliefs, and so forth. It is the personal identity, the great story of oneself.
The you that is asking if it is doing good enough is just the idea of yourself you hold in your mind. You are not the mind, you are what is observing the mind, right now. You are what is hearing the voice in your head, not the voice itself. Turn your attention to this “I”, the true silent present “I”, and remain there and see what is revealed naturally.
Why aim for wu wei state when you can transcend all states and just be your self? Your true being is not the wu wei state. A state of mind is just that, a state of mind. You are not the mind, you are far beyond thoughts. You are the source of all thoughts, the heart of all things. Without you, nothing is, not even the wu wei state.
Be utterly selfish and focus only on yourself for a change. And by selfishness I do not mean indulge in every whim and sin that may pass in your mind, I mean do what’s right for you, choose what makes you flourish, choose what you feel, not what you think. Look after only yourself. Become aware of your own presence, of the fact you exist. Marvel at the very miracle that you even exist! It is a wonder! Whenever worries or thoughts arise, simply turn your attention back to the very fact that you exist.
There is no such thing as a waste of time or effort, forget about these negative contexts. If you hadn’t practiced being separate for months you may never have had the clear experience of feeling one again with the body. There is no need to condemn your experiences, use them to learn from. Remain as you are, present, one with being, body, world, self. Do not go out of your way to create definitions and divisions within experience, just be.
Thoughts can create the position of “witness”, which is when it creates the experience of being a detached seeing only, observing all phenomena but not being included in the phenomena itself. This state is a useful position to enquire from as from here you will be able to unbiasedly assess and question your psychological habits and deconstruct/expose them. Eventually though, this witness position must be revealed as also a thought, it is the final collapsing. When even the separate “witness” position is destroyed only the pure self remains with everything included in it, there is no longer any separation.
You needn’t worry about the witness position’s validity just yet. BE the witness, and from that perspective, enquire to your mental habits and conditioning and question whether or not they are actually you. From the position of witness it makes it clear, of course they are not you. But when you turn your attention to these thoughts directly then it appears we get caught up in them and become them. This is the power of your attention/identity. Whatever you centre/fixate your attention on becomes the very centre of your existence, it effectively becomes “you” in your experience. Only when this attention is turned back to awareness/presence itself does the centre of existence once again become the “beingness”, the awareness of our own existence. Remain in this conscious awareness as much as you can and your sphere of consciousness clears, becoming more open, spacious, detached.
You identify strongly with your self image, the body, question this. Are you the body? Are you aware of the body when you are dreaming at night?
Allow awareness to centre on your head, go into the centre in your head, consciously BE the centre in your head. If you feel there is a “you” watching the centre in your head as though it’s separate you have created a duality in yourself that is unreal. Be conscious of the whole body, step into it, and see how that feels. Do not attempt to create an idea to watch your body from afar from the position of a thought. BE your body.
From initial awakening experience to total cessation of ego concept, 3–4 years. I was not totally withdrawn. Self enquiry did become my main focus, so hobbies and other interests took a back seat, but for the most part I carried on about my life as usual, went to work, hung out with friends, etc. etc. I was lucky enough to have seen early on that nothing in my lifestyle needed to change, it was only my illusions about myself that were “in the way”. The self always persists, whether working, socialising, meditating, eating, walking, etc, it only takes your recognition of that fact to dispose of the illusion that anything experiential needs to change.
There is no “me” to sever any fetters. This conceptual individual has vanished, gone, gone, gone. I don’t need to do anything, nor can I do anything. I remain as the ever present self, without such, none of this experiential world can appear. Everything flows within and without me spontaneously. I have nothing I need to achieve, complete, understand or remove. All is as it is, and I am free to enjoy the miracle of my self.
I found at the time that I was easily distracted by old habits and trains of thought to which I had grown accustomed or fond of. Only through conscious examination and exposure of these thoughts was their power centre destroyed rendering them unable to draw my attention through inadvertence any longer. When the trick was exposed it was no longer of any interest to me.
If you are able to simply rest in conscious detached awareness without distraction then do so. There is no need to examine thoughts if they are of no interest or distraction to you, simply continue to leave them be. Though do not mistake this to mean thoughts should be oppressed or actively ignored, just leave them be. When identified with, the mind shifts into a limited personalised state full of turbulence and suffering. But, when detached from and simply allowed to be, thought allowed to arise and fall as it will without any interference or manipulation, you will find that the mind shifts into a state reflecting pure consciousness. The quality of thought shall change to reflect your true nature, and will instead reveal the secrets of the universe to you, spontaneously. This is the blooming of the mind, it opens like a flower.
Nothing particularly comes to mind. I don’t have much interest anymore talking about experiences, it is like discussing the mechanics of a dream, who cares ultimately, it is just a dream. In your disinterest in it, it will reveal itself, paradoxically.
Chasing understanding only causes said understanding to hide, because you have created the belief that you do not “have it” and so therefore must start looking about for it. It is right here, YOU are the knowledge. Look for the source that observes the eternal flow of dreams passing by, and remain there, and knowledge will flower within you quite naturally.
The self and external circumstance have become one and the same, there is no external and internal dynamic imagined anymore. I am simultaneously all that appears and yet beyond it. Everything moves quite naturally without my needing to do anything.
Your language sounds as though you place value in delays. There is no need to delay anything or search for a wu wei state when you are right here, right now. Conscious recognition of your self and refusal to abandon this position for any thought will lay waste to all states including wu wei, nothing will compare. Why meander around in your imagination following an imaginary process and reaching for imaginary states when you can instead be one with reality?
If you think imaginary states are fun wait until you realise the fun of reality.
I know you think you’re being very clever right now, with these magical avoidant “the self doesn’t exist” type tomfoolery that is often pulled, but the very fact you’re even pulling out this line shows you haven’t seen clearly. I’m trying to convince YOU, the pure self, the only reality that is actually here, to drop this nonsense about wu wei and dodging questions and to just be honest once and for all and drop this “lofty spiritual” act. I’m speaking directly to the one aware of this message right now, not your thoughts or the delusion of a “me” that you’re imagining right now,. I’m speaking to silence, I’m speaking to the eternal. Recognise yourself and wake up from this nonsense!
“I think, I think, I think”. Who is it that thinks whatsoever about this form right now? Label “me” all you like, believe this form is somehow defective or confused or whatever else you’d like to project, it does not move me in the slightest. I point you to yourself and you can only look out at this form and project. No matter how hard you may try you cannot find me and you’ll never be able to assail or understand me. You will never be able to find a projection into which I fit, You can only BE what I am. You already ARE what I am. Your very own self speaks to you through this body. Look into yourself, look at what looks. This is all that matters. Forget about the personal realm of him and her and me and them, it’s all imaginary anyhow.
What about anything I am saying to you is ill will? Is it you who feels attacked or just your thoughts? What I speak is full of compassion. I speak to myself, reminding myself that I am beyond all states and trials and experiences and the source of all things and in return I accuse myself of ill will.
I may leave you alone if you wish, and you may tend to your wounded ego, but I attest that I cannot wound YOU no matter how much I tried, only a thought.
The heart of being is a beautiful state, but it is a state all the same. You are beyond both the transcendental state, and the human state, yet there will not be harmony within experience as long as the “I” rests in either one extreme or another. Harmony shall arise within experience when both are allowed to exist, to flourish. Allow your human nature to arise, descend from the mountaintop of bliss and walk in the world once more, reborn, whole. If you reject the human dream in exchange for bliss, beautiful it may be, but it shall not be whole until the totality of experience is allowed to arise within you.
Give up thought altogether and simply allow yourself to just be as you are. You are already what your mind is so desperately searching for. The absolute root is already the absolute root. The body-mind is already just the body-mind aspect of experience. The body-mind cannot “become” the absolute. The root is the root and the body-mind is the body-mind and both are one, two sides of the same coin, two polar extremes yet intimately connected. Nothing has to change, it already IS AS IT IS.
Live moment to moment, move with each natural impulse, ride the natural flow. Thoughts are just distractions, abstractions. Reality is RIGHT HERE, look around. All of this is just here, without you having to “do” it or create it or maintain it. Just notice what you do not have to create. Notice what already IS. Thought will constantly try to project some sort of storyline or conceptualisation onto what’s appearing, just leave thought be. Don’t oppress thoughts, don’t fight with them, just drop having this push and pull relationship with them. There is no “I” having a struggle with thoughts, that is itself a thought.
You have no need for concepts like enlightenment or desire anymore, just forget about it, they have served their purpose, yet you continue to hold onto them and it weighs on you. Let them disappear into space and relax. You have no need for anything at all. Everything is already here. Look around. Isn’t it a wonder, a marvel? You need not lift a finger yet this whole world emanates from within you.
Why carry on this track of waiting for a dam to break when you could just drop it altogether and be free right now? You are already free, you’re just playing this imaginary game with yourself. Try this approach instead: take TOTAL control. Instead of trying to watch and oppress/fight thoughts and watching them spin into unconscious patterns, BECOME them, guide the flow of thought. Be the centre from which thoughts emanate. Both extremes of total control and total negation point to the same end, the destruction of the illusion of a delegated other. Be so in control that you ARE the thoughts, you ARE the body, move, dance, breathe, think to your heart’s content, completely and utterly give in and embrace all the qualities that you have been repressing and telling yourself were wrong or somehow had to be denied.
It seems that way because you are perceiving it that way. You have turned the state of mind into one of boredom and torture, yet you remain the same, untouched and unaffected as the perceiver of it. Turn the mind into joy, life, freedom, and yet you will still remain the same as the perceiving centre. Turn the mind to hatred, you remain the same. Turn the mind to love, you remain the same. Notice this, the state of mind does NOT affect or change YOU as the one who is aware of it all happening! The state of mind is ultimately irrelevant. If you are fed up of feeling tortured and bored then consciously take the mind and put it on a different track! Create love, create joy, it’s your dream, your imagination. It can be conscious and subject to your will, or you can leave it to be unconscious and it will just run along in the same patterns it always has done. There is nothing complicated about it.
The root of your problem is still believing that a conceptual idea of yourself is in fact your self. You take several aspects of phenomemal experience; the body, the thought stream, the five senses, memory, etc, and take this collection of phenomena and apply the label of “me” to it all, you believe the experience of this collection of phenomena constitutes what you are, and all other phenomena is not you.
Currently, you are stuck in a stage where you are expecting this collection of phenomena to suddenly transform into something else, to bring you past some illusory finishing line, to change from one state into another state. Through the idea of “I”, you are conducting a story where the body along with the mind is “on a path to enlightenment” and there are several checkpoints and expected experiences you must pass in order to reach the end goal. Right now the character you are playing is experiencing the phase of “dispassion/detachment”, and yet apparently still has more of the path to walk until some sort of further expected transformation occurs.
This is ALL a story.
Realisation/awakening or whatever you want to call it, is the moment you just see that it’s all one big imaginary adventure you are on and your actual self, the simple perceiving of this entire thing, has never moved or changed or been affected by anything at all. It is the simple flip of attention from being obsessed with the object of perception, ie: the “me”/ego idea, to finally recognising your presence as the subject perceiving all objects.
I say “take control” of the story and play with it simply as a means to get you to see that this is all a story! The mind can play out whatever it wants because none of it is significant. It is an attempt to get you to break out of believing this storyline you’re believing yourself to be. It sounds as though you have overthought everything, backing yourself into a corner where you appear no longer even able to make a conscious effort because you have convinced yourself you’re unable! This is just a story! ALL action ultimately flows from YOU, not some separated mysterious cosmic source that one day you will meet and recognise, it is YOU right now! We simply mistakenly ascribe the notion of “doing” to a thought and create a middle man where there need not be one. The notion of “source > doer > action” is illusion, in reality it is “source + action are ONE”.
When sages talk of having no control and no doer they are speaking from wisdom of the underlying truth of reality, they are NOT saying to restrict or oppress or force oneself to not act. In fact, this aspect of oneself that acts, the thought stream, IS NOT YOU ANYWAY and need not be oppressed or made to act in any certain way or repress itself. So I say, let action flow, let your mind flow, and be one with it! Stop trying to oppress it or grind it into submission, you need only recognise you are not these things and let go of them! The power of the “me” delusion comes only from you believing you are it! Cut that belief and the mind returns to a restful placid flow and not this wild turbulent painful state of the “me”.
It is like the infinite one looking down at a flower, believing it IS only the flower, then expecting liberation when the flower achieves some imaginary state of transformation, and until then, all natural acts of the flower must be repressed and removed. It is nonsense! You are always the unified perceiver! The flower need not “do” anything in order for you to simply recognise yourself, just the same as the body, mind, or anything else need not change or do anything at all because you already ARE that which is perceiving them.
Let what exists in this realm of motion — the body, mind, etc. — move! It is nature for body to move, for mind to flow, like the raging river or the tranquil pool, it is natural, let it go! Recognise that you do NOT move along with it, you are the one who sees, you are sight itself, you are awareness itself! Come to this seeing, and all this story playing will simply be exposed as a dream character that you have taken to be real, and then all suffering and confusion will evaporate along with the false belief. The perceiver has NO STORY! it has no game! It has no goal for you are already complete and right here! To imagine a set of phenomenal criteria must occur for you to be recognised is foolish because you exist already, right now, reading this! It is already done!
Consciousness, under the belief it is a “persona”, is afraid of its own absolute freedom and majesty. Unable to accept its own perfection, consciousness clings to its delusion that it is a speck in its own infinite creation. If consciousness continues to cling to the perspective of a “person” it can never realise its own inherent pure being. Only when consciousness becomes fearless enough, courageous enough, to drop the mental approach to existence and instead step out into the spontaneous unknown void will it realise its chains have only been its imagination.
It is seemingly rare, yet ultimately unavoidable. What Is can never stay trapped forever, for no concept or idea is powerful enough to truly contain the absolute power and glory of the pure being. All delusions inevitably rise and fall, the absolute is eternal. No delusion can outlast it. For some reason, consciousness enjoys playing this game with itself, but like all games, they have a beginning and eventually, an end.
Soon this false belief of yours will be over, simply remind oneself over and over that what begins unconsciously occurring in the mind is NOT you. Identifying with one’s thoughts becomes akin to seeing a storm cloud, identifying with it, and believing you are angry. Or seeing leaves blowing along the forest floor and believing “that is me, I am moving”. It’s just phenomena occurring IN you. You are the unmoving sky through which the storm cloud comes and goes. You are the stage upon which all of consciousness plays.
Yet you need not repress or hold back the human nature, it has its part to play in the dream world so let it! Do not assume you need to control every step you take or predetermine every word you say, just let all action, choices, words flow from you effortlessly, be one with all expression. I say, get up right now and have a dance! Play some music you love and let the beat guide your movements, dance, live, enjoy!
Enjoy this beautiful miracle of existence! You cannot “do” your natural self in a mental logical way, it is impossible so you might as well simply abandon trying right now! The more you let go, the more you just be, eat what you like, say what you like, without thinking, it will all be flowing straight from the heart of being, not being handed over to he mind to decipher and judge and determine what’s going to be expressed and what isn’t. Your very nature is simply love, and this will reveal itself when you simply stop trying!
What is ultimately happening is a belief, which is nothing but a habitual thought we identify with, arises and we fixate onto it. This fixation, or focusing on, causes us to lose conscious awareness of the “bigger picture” which is consciousness itself. This focusing or “zooming in on” limits what is being consciously perceived by the absolute. There is nothing inherently “wrong” with this ability to focus/fixate. But when we fixate for so long on a particular phenomenon arising in our total sphere of consciousness, we lose track of reality/totality. The longer we remain fixated, the more we come to believe this illusory centre of reality is what we actually are, and “forget” the totality. This is essentially what has occurred within consciousness since the beginning of this “universe/time”, it has fixated on particular forms and over time believed it IS them, or rather, came to believe it is what it is fixated on. It is almost like an act of dissociation — staring at the waves in the ocean for SO long that we forget we are the one perceiving the waves and come to think every rise and fall of the water IS us, is happening to us, when the waves are tranquil we feel tranquility, when the waves crash with rage we feel anger, but we are only ever always the one who watches.
Self enquiry is essentially a technique of questioning and dispelling the complex web of false beliefs we have acquired. As the false beliefs are uprooted consciousness spontaneously and naturally loosens up its fixation until eventually the focus/fixation finally snaps, be it suddenly or gradually, and consciousness finds itself as the totality once more. From this point, consciousness is then aware that it is nothing that is being perceived within the sphere of phenomena, and its source is in fact beyond perception entirely as it IS the source to which all information arises and is received by. Habitual fixation may still occur after this seeing, after all consciousness has spent lifetimes developing these conditionings, but from its rightful perspective it is able to dispel its illusions about itself much quicker and easier.
If there is a feeling of “I” experiencing “that” then there is duality. It is not wrong, quite natural. Though, the pure being is not entertaining the notion of duality, it is one with all experience. It is simultaneously the one aware, and the phenomenon that is made aware of. The idea the “I” am distinct from “that” and so therefore “I” am experiencing “that” no longer exists for awake beings. So while the action of the body picking up a cup may occur, there is no psychological/imaginary projection of a “me” picking up “that” going on.
Duality is not your enemy or something that must be forced away. Simply be aware that duality only exists as a mental projection. If you are not imagining the dual relationship of “me” and “that” then that duality simply doesn’t exist in experience.
You are correct, preoccupation with the notion of duality will not lead to non-duality. Simpler to just forget about the idea of duality and rest, allow your mind to just empty out and become still. You can not calm a body of water by constantly sticking your hands in and trying to make some sort of order or stillness appear, and same is true of mind. There is nothing you can “do” to bring about no-mind, rather just leave the mind alone completely and it will quite naturally relax. You just remain as the one that takes no effort to even exist, you simply are. Notice that simple fact, that there is nothing you can do to change the very fact that awareness is here right now and you cannot make it go away. You ARE that.
There’s no such thing as a “wrong” viewpoint ultimately. Consciousness, or whatever you want to call yourself, is looking and speaking through all forms, and whether they realise it or not, can often offer wisdom when you least expect it.
Anything you direct at yourself with also be directed at others, for every one and every thing is intimately connected. When you direct stress and loathing toward yourself, this energy vibration pulses outwards, affecting everyone and everything you come into the space of. But when you simply direct love toward yourself, feel love unconditionally for yourself in your core, this self love echoes out toward the whole of consciousness. Direct conscious awareness at your self and you will find you become consciously aware of everything. It always amounts to the same.
For you ARE everything.
You realise there is no “right” way to do anything, right? There’s no standard to uphold, no presentation of a persona that is the “right” one.
The obsession for the girl is a thought. The You who is obsessed with the girl is a thought. What you are cannot be obsessed with anything, you are the source and space in which obsession arises. Come back to the fundamentals and discern what you are and what you are not. This obsession only continues because you pour your attention, energy and identification into it. Only when you come to see that the obsession is simply a thought that you have become fixated on will its power be broken. Become consciously aware of it, that is all.
The meaning behind the act of sex is whatever you determine it to be. The act of sex alone is simply that, the act of sex. You can view it through whichever lens you like; the act of creation, act of pleasure, divine or sinful, good or bad. The act itself is none of these things; ultimately, it is what you conceptualise it to be. If sex appears in your experience to be more powerful or fulfilling than love it is because you believe it to be. The power lies in you, not in any act, object, or experience. Look into yourself and ask why is it that you hold the act of sex in such high regard? You do not have to demonise or suppress your sexuality, it is niether right nor wrong, it is as it is, simply be aware of what you are projecting onto it.
No difference in the sense of self, but the appearance of the ego, the “doer”, the verb, the duality, no longer appears. There is no longer any sensation of real distinction between anything at all. The sense of self permeates the entire phenomenal existence. Mind has become totally playful and harmless, it has been exposed as pure imagination only. Any idea I may try and hold of myself is purely imagination only. The life story of myself has been exposed as purely imagination only. I still walk in this world but aware it is imagination only. Mingling with people is a conscious act, playing pretend. In a way it feels a little like when you were a child and could play pretend as a number of roles; a cowboy, an astronaut, etc., and pick them up and drop them as I please. The only difference to childhood is now other “people” believe they are the roles they’re playing.
No specific memory of an experience comes to mind when reflecting on what was the hardest part. Rather, the perseverance. From initial awakening glimpse it took six years for the self to be fully realised. Perseverance and bravery and self love are essential. You must be strong to challenge yourself, your beliefs, and pull your safety blankets from your own hands. Again and again the mind will rise up against you, again and again you must persevere and expose it until finally its power of delusion is broken permanently.
Realisation in its simplest terms; seeing that the story of your life, the “me” and all its desires, fears, opinions, has been happening in your imagination only. When this is seen clearly and your fascination with whatever you are imagining at this current moment is dropped, you will be revealed to have been here all along, empty, like a blank slate.
Feeling compelled to share some love today just for the sake of love itself. I see beings on here going round and round, enraptured with their stories and their meanings, but I have come here to point out that you are allowed to put this story down for a moment, and just relax. Take a look around, have a few deep breaths, laugh a little, and recognise the capacity of love within you.
Just for one day, instead of questioning yourself, interrogating yourself, observing yourself, pushing yourself, pulling yourself, doubting yourself, just love yourself, unconditionally. In directing love toward yourself you may find that same love will envelop everything within and without.
This isn’t a post about “enlightenment”, “awakening”, “ego”, “non-duality” or any other highly regarded conceptualisation. Just love. Just for one day, why not turn to love? ❤
Hello my friend.
The only thing you left for you to “do” is to stop doing! 😂 The “I” who longs for the true being, the one who has brought you this far, has served you wonderfully and its part is now over. It’s time to lay your “I” down and let it rest at last. Your mind has brought you through the jungle, to the bank of the river of being. Be fearless, fall in, and allow the flow of the river to carry you the rest of the way. No thought can help you now, no tactic, no technique. Your mind will have no idea what will happen next. Your mind will have no choice over the words that flow from your lips. The time of the mind is over. There is nothing left to understand, let go of understanding, let go of the true witness, you do not need it, for it is just another thought after all.
Be still, close your eyes, take a breath, and without another thought, take a step, keep walking, and don’t look back. You are already free!
You already are and always have been the river, my friend. It is only a thought that is coming and going from its banks. From the river you are watching this thought coming to the bank then walking away, only to return again. It’s Only a thought that is afraid, only a thought that thinks there is more that needs to be done, something that needs to be integrated, something that is unfinished. All of this is only going on in your head. When you dream at night, do you feel the need to sort things out and organise your dream self’s life, to ensure your dream self understands before you leave dream behind and wake up? Of course not, it is but only a dream after all 😂 a beautiful dream, a cherished dream, but a dream all the same. The “I” does not need anything to be arranged or understood to satisfy it because that “I” thought does not exist 😂 it is your creation, not you. Be clear about this, or it will always lead you on with another task, a point it doesn’t understand, this is how the “I” thought keeps you under its spell, with the ultimate seduction that it can offer you something you need. You do not need it, you never have.
Laugh and the world laughs with you.
I’m so glad to hear this, my friend. You worded some of your points beautifully, it made me so happy to read them. You made some points I hadn’t even seen myself! You hit the nail on the head, my friend. The only thing to do now is absolutely nothing 😂
Try not to be so hard on your identity, it isn’t really a problem after all, it is simply a survival mechanism built to navigate this human world. The problem comes with identifying with it. Try leaving it be, let your mind flow if it wants, be one with it. Purposely and consciously think as much as you like, fantasise, tell yourself jokes, stop taking the mind so seriously. It seems serious because you take it to be so. The shape of the mind is only ever what you create it to be. “You are always determining your reality” was a quote by Mooji that really struck a chord with me and continues to resonate in experience. Do not create a mental image of yourself and try to control the mind that way, it is like creating an unnecessary middle man that doesn’t even exist. Instead just BE, allow the mind to just BE and existence to just BE. USE your mind but do not be used by it. Realise yourself as the one and only master of the mind, you are not its slave or subordinate. It is your tool to play with and so far you have been using it to imagine yourself trapped. Why not use it to imagine you’re free? Use it to feel like a child again and run and dance and sing and laugh. The mind is not your enemy my friend, it is not an other. Ultimately it is only an aspect of yourself that you do not understand your relationship with. Instead of resisting and oppressing it and finding problems with it, just embrace it. There is no harm or sin in the mind, and if you choose to operate consciously with it instead of stand at odds with you, you may find that together, you and mind working as one can understand great things.
My advise and practise for you today to try; just play! Have some fun with yourself and your mind. You may find it’s not so serious after all if you don’t will it to be that way
Bear in mind my friend that all apparent progress is only taking place in the realm of the imagination. You are already right here. How can you progress? 😉 just be here, where you already are, where you always have been. You never truly went anywhere, you only imagined it, my friend. You are waking from a lifelong dream of yourself is all. You are right, it will go on forever if you keep being the one who has to transcend thought, who is only a thought himself. You are only observing it all, just remain there my friend, and the mind will settle on its own.
I had a smile on my face as I read that, truly beautiful. It makes me so happy to see you coming out of the noise and returning home again. I experienced it in a similar way too, after a certain point, it seemed as though the real work was done, the illusion had been broken, and was in the process of evaporating away. It won’t be long now, my friend. As the Beatles so beautifully put, all that is left now is to turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream 🙂
Sounds like you have had many beautiful and wonderful experiences my friend 🙂 Though you seem ready to hear this; the one who is “dissolving”, is completely imaginary. You don’t need to hold onto that imaginary self anymore, you don’t need to dissolve him. Simply stop creating him 🙂 there is nobody there fading away, after all. Come be with me and be what you really are 🙂
I used to experience a lot of facial tension too, you’re right, it’s amazing how much of a grip we hold in our bodies, especially our head and face. It looked like I de-aged about 5 years once I let go of the facial tension, a happy little bonus 😂
It’s a beautiful thing for the roles we play to begin to drop, and to see our loved ones with clarity instead of through the veil of the roles they play in our lives. These roles aren’t bad, of course, but it is amazing how even the most innocent of roleplaying can mask the beauty of seeing the reality of being in those around us. My own relationship with my parents changed a lot — once the roles were gone, they no longer had to play a part in tune with me, there was no longer any expectations, no judgements, we were equals, just love, so much love. My family is closer than ever, my relationships with my mother and father so much deeper, truly a beautiful thing. In a way, it is like all of my loved ones, friends and family alike, are swept up in my wake. The more I love, the more they love, like a beautiful healing is taking place spontaneously. I now understand the meaning behind the phrase, “The greatest thing you can do for the world is to know yourself”.
I feel both gradual process and speaking on the absolute reality have their usefulness to a certain point. Ultimately, talk of both these ideas will need to be abandoned for true clarity to reveal itself.
This gradual process of layers being unravelled appears to be an unending experience, there seems to be no end to the depth of self, further and further the flower blooms and opens with no end in sight. An acceptance occurs that this unfolding is occurring by itself and any attempt at controlling or manipulating this process is coming solely from the mind so therefore should just be discarded, as indulgence in this thought will only throw a spanner in the machinery. Eventually it is seen that the thinking mind is a hindrance rather than a help, in this regard.
One need only relax into yourself, watch silently from the place of being, undoing any identifying that may habitually occur, and the rest will do itself. Your identification with thoughts that think they are “doing” is the only real habit you need to expose. In many ways this “me” will arise, just notice it is not you, that is all. Over and over your habitual thoughts will rise and over and over you will unidentify with them until it is over for good. Consciousness will continue unfolding itself, when you are no longer under the illusion that you are “doing” it, you can just watch and enjoy the ride. You’re already falling down the unending rabbit hole now, no need to control the fall or to grab anything that appears on the way. Let maya take care of the rest, you remain as you are.
I’m glad to hear that your suffering is fading away, such is the power of your own being, no thought can withstand the light of your own clear seeing.
The “end” of ego is nothing to fear, in fact it is only the ego itself that fears its own end. When the final seeing occurs and the ego disappears you will remain most perfect and content. Don’t think of the ego as the end of yourself, it is nothing of the sort. It is simply the end of all fear, all pain, all desperation, all depression, all anxiety, all belief in foolish thinking. You will look back at how you used to think ego was even significant at all and laugh! The sooner you realise that you are not the “doer”, that the “doer” is another thought identified with, and that you have simply just been the one that is quietly witnessing the whole time, the sooner you will be liberated once and for all.
I am right now in Crete, Greece. What a beautiful country! I hiked through the mountains and through a gorge yesterday and was supremely amazed by the wonder of nature. All mental foolishness is over now, I abide in the natural state, and I am blissfully happy. Come join me 🌞
Hello my friend.
I agree, the root of the egoic identity is insecurity, or rather, fear of death. All searching, grasping, and suffering branches from the root fear of ceasing to exist, and this fear itself arises from the misunderstanding of taking the “I exist” feeling to be ones actual being. We know, albeit we suppress the knowledge, that the “I exist” feeling is temporary, and so we constantly seek to ensure its survival and prolong its existence. This is the beginning of the great dance of maya, the attachment to the feeling “I am” and the dis-ease of knowing that this feeling will one day end. But reality lies beyond the “I am”, the I am/beingness/consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, is the great mirror which is held up to our true nature, verifying that you exist yet this reflection is not your absolute being itself. We attach to this feeling because we are obsessed with our own self-recognition, the idea of self being the ultimate addiction. Liberation lies in all ideas of oneself being completely destroyed, with no ground on which to stand. Only then is your true nature revealed as the eternal principle that witnesses the whole of existence and cradles the universe in its arms. From this ancient state no words apply. For the sake of pointing, I use common language and concepts in order to help turn your attention inward toward your true nature, but the reality is that all thoughts are empty, all language is conceptual and symbolic only, and all dharmas, dogmas, mantras, scriptures, concepts and the like must be laid to rest as they ultimately are seen to be non-truth. There is nothing you can say or think that is true. The truth is already apparent. It is the silence before words. It is the infinitude from which a thought arises. It is your very being that witnesses all experiences and yet remains untouched, uninvolved, unfazed. After a point you will realise the uselessness of trying to conceptualise or understand your true nature as you will see that it cannot be understood or spoken about, you can only BE that. Words take you to the foot of the cliff, but they must be left on the cliff edge as you jump into the unknown.
Much love ❤
That was beautiful to read, man, I’m so happy for you. You’re seeing through so much, I can’t help but have a big smile on my face 🙂
You are coming toward the end of the path now, my friend. Are you ready to step over the edge?
You are not the “I” who has pretensions. You are not the “I” who is on the path to enlightenment. The true “I” is wordless and silent, present and still, only looking. The “I” that is rolling through different states of tensions and relaxation, joy and pain, is the story of yourself, the “me”, that you have been most in love with for most of your life. This is not what you are. This is an idea of yourself. A thought stream. Your attention is fixed on it so you believe it is you, but you are that which is aware this story is even happening in the mind. You are here, even during the tension and the pretension, and you will still be here when you cease paying attention to this “I” thought, simply focus on your own presence, and watch as the “I” thought fades away, leaving only a quiet mind and clear seeing.
There is nothing you need to achieve nor any story you need to resolve or complete. Enlightenment is not a huge shift, a dramatic event, a glittering finale to the story of enlightenment. If you expect this then it will never come. You will be caught in the “me” trap, forever writing the story of how you are on a search for yourself and are waiting for the big enlightenment climax moment. Enlightenment is when you just drop this story of yourself. No climax, no resolution, it’s just dropped, let go, ceased to be dreamed up. You stop writing. You stop creating the story and just remain as you have always actually been, just quiet, just present, not doing or thinking anything in particular. No story, no resolution, no “me” to become enlightened anymore. THEN you will realise you are free.
Self enquiry goes on until even the enquirer has been questioned, uprooted and exposed as something phenomenal and not yourself. Then there is only your natural state left which is present yet non-conceptualised. Or to put it even more simply, you’re just totally conscious without ever “thinking” an idea of yourself up anymore. The idea is dead. And that doesn’t mean that your memory is wiped or its deleted completely, the capability to think and imagine and conceptualise remains, just your belief that you are something you can create in thought ceases. You just are, and this presence never questions itself, never doubts. This isn’t whimsical language, I’m trying to be as literal as possible. Awareness does not ask questions. Awareness does not get involved in anything that arises for it. This is all thought, all the idea “I”. The true “I” is ever-silent, and quite happy.
I didn’t really talk to anyone about self enquiry during that time. My flat mate knew and I would speak to him about it sometimes, but he was largely incredulous about it until he had an awakening experience himself during one of our conversations. My other best friend I also spoke to about it, but nobody else. I didn’t broach the subject with my family, I didn’t really see the point because they wouldn’t understand. I understand there’s an urge to speak to others about what’s going on and express the revelations you’re experiencing but ultimately they won’t understand unless they wish to enquire themselves so I found it best to just keep quiet about it.
Turn your attention to the looking, not the objects you’re looking at. Recognise that perception is spontaneously occurring without it being “done” by anyone. The “me” likes to claim ownership of things, to believe that it is controlling, but it is just a thought. Put it down for a moment, just be conscious.
The final seeing is described as spontaneous because that literal realisation, the ultimate realisation, occurs suddenly and clearly. There is no doubting when that recognition has occurred. You realise that the great silence, the ultimate absolute, the pure awareness, Buddha nature, all these great mystical, shrouded, divine concepts and symbols are all just pointing at you, that simpler than simple feeling of “me”. Not the thought “I”, not the voice in your head that you listen to, and have become so accustomed to listening to that you believe it is your very self, but just the feeling “me”, just the feeling “I exist”, the simple recognition that you are here. The simplicity and obviousness of it will be dazzling clear, and you’ll most likely have a great bout of laughter when you get that the joke is YOU 😂
Yes the immovable is invisible, it is you. You cannot perceive the root of perception, you can only realise you ARE it and you are looking from that point which is why you can’t see it. Because there is no “it”, it’s you!
Q: How to deal with intense, life-threatening fear?
A: You see the fear for what it is and expose it, it is just a thought. Is fear anything but a thought you’ve believed to be true? Is it true? Can a thought hurt you if you don’t believe it? Where does the fear thought’s power come from? Can it force you to fear it?
You are down to the “I” thought, the final obstacle. The “I” thought is the origin thought, it is the first thought to appear and the foundation upon which all other thoughts are built. “I” can branch into “I move” “I eat” “I’m in love” “I’m trapped” “I’ll live” “I’ll die” but always before any of these branches can exist, the root “I” thought must be imagined. When this “I” thought has become the “I witness” role and destroyed all your other thought patterns until only the “I” remains, it comes to the state you are currently experiencing. All that is left is to recognise that even this root thought “I” is not you but is also a thought and belongs to thought. It is most obvious that you are aware of your thoughts, watching from “somewhere”, just turn your attention to your self who is present, the “me” feeling. Recognise that you do not need to constantly think “I am, I am, I, I, I” and that you can actually think nothing at all and just be silent, yet the familiar sense feeling of “me”, the beingness, remains. This is the root state of consciousness, the primal state that is beyond time and mind.
Text © iamquiet; used by permission. Illustration generated by Realization.org using Midjourney (AI); not subject to copyright.
iamquiet is a name which was used for a while on Reddit.com by a self-realized person. Today iamquiet still posts on Reddit but under a different name, ssilencieux.
This page was first published on February 8, 2020 and last revised on January 18, 2023.