The spiritual search is always for something better, something different. We hear of liberation or enlightenment and believe it will make our life better, make us special.
What we really seek is to know what we are.
We've tried everything - mantras, tantras, yantras, satsangs, meditation, yoga, reading, chanting, shaktipat, dressed spiritual, talked spiritual, acted spiritual...
Nothing has ever worked...
Someone comes along and invites us to find out what we are, what we REALLY are. To look directly at what we really are - discarding all the spiritual concepts and beliefs and practices. To really LOOK at what is the Truth of what we are - NOW.
We say "I am a person, I am a man/woman, I have this job, I have a family". But this is only describing the story, describing the activities or appearances.
What ARE you?
Can you deny that you ARE? What is that sense of BEINGNESS? What is that "I" that we speak of? Is it really that limited body-mind? Or is it the ground of experience? What does BEING feel like?
What present experience makes it impossible to deny that you are? What is it about NOW that you cannot deny your BEINGNESS?
Isn't it that "I" - that sense of "I AM"? Doesn't the appearance of the world and the body-mind appear in THAT? Right in that "I", that "I AM"?
The "I AM" is the "container" - this very Consciousness is the ground of all "things" that appear.
The "True Self" is never hidden - it is just YOU. No matter where you look or what is happening, THERE YOU ARE. YOU are the basis for all that appears. That "I AM" is undeniable and inseparable from any "thing" that happens.
What are you, in this very moment? Not tomorrow or in 5 minutes or 5 seconds - what are you NOW?
This immediate, direct SEEing is all there is - this "I AM", this sense of BEINGNESS which is undeniable and never requires a concept or belief to know or find or grasp. The very world appears in YOU!
You ARE and have only ever BEEN this Consciousness seeing itself, this Oneness being itself.
Writings on Nonduality and Vedanta from Randall Friend
8 comments:
Hi Randall
You say "The very world appears in You!"
Yet I see it as me appearing in the world.
Viv
Yes... of course.
And isn't this an assumption? Where did the idea that you appear IN the world come from?
This is a challenge to beliefs - simply look for yourself at what is true - DO you appear in the world or does the world appear in you?
What is this thing - "ME"? It's referred to the body-mind, but what is it, really? To what does it actually refer?
Can you deny that you ARE? And what does it feel like to be YOU, NOT the body-mind, but YOU!!!
YOU are the "container" in which all of this happens, in which the body-mind appears, in which the thoughts pass, in which the idea of a "world" comes and goes.
YOU are IT! Simply LOOK!!
love
randall
Hi Randall
Thanks for your reply.
This 'me' feels very personal. Very 'me'. Totally 'me'. which i s contained within this body/mind.
And perhaps it's truer to say that I don't appear in the world but the world appears to the 'me'.
But when a 'me' is no more, the world still is. Not 'my' world. But the world. Life goes on.
When I look, all that is found is the world and 'me'.
Viv xx
Viv,
What does "personal" even mean? We use words but never really know what we're talking about.
What appears? Doesn't the body-mind, which seems to be IN the world, appear somewhere?
So the world, the body-mind, the idea or feeling of ME appears. Simple.
What is KNOWING these "things"? Is that appearing also, or is it seeing/knowing all that appears?
And the knowing arises with the known, not "I" am "knowing the world", but simply knowingness, beingness, I-AM-NESS...
And this "I AM" is not the limited, temporary, changing "I" of the body-mind but the OCEAN of "YOU" - this very moment, this instant, this "container" which has always been the only time and place for ANYTHING to appear.
NOW. Is there anything else but NOW? Don't try to label or make distinctions about NOW - simply notice NOW - the immediacy of THIS!
love
randall
Well, that's easy for you to say ;-
No, there's nothing but now.
But always a now to me. I raise my arm.
I die, it goes on.
Someone walks in and says 'hi, Viv"
All appearing to me, but 'me' is knowing it....
Thank you for your time and reply. I really appreciat it. And I know I can't understand. Just want to stop.
V xx
Yes - a NOW to ME... that's the mind placing ownership to the SEEING.
If you had no mind, what would you know? What could you say about THIS? What would you BE?
"ME" is not knowing anything - the thought-feeling "ME" is APPEARING IN awareness. How else can you know it?
love
randall
..ok, but even dogs and Ramana have ownership, don't know why this is important, to me it begins to make sense defining 'the real' as the permanent and 'the dream' as the transitory, this I can deal with. From my readings the I AM came at a certain point and disappears at death, no? So the I AM is not it (or is it?) and can't we tell because we can feel the I AM, right, but who feels? There is an awareness that feels the presence of the I AM.
I posted elsewhere that I remember when "my" I AM came, it felt as a wad of cotton in my mouth. Not good, not bad; foreign. What is this I am? Is it sacred as per Biblical references: "I Am the Alpha and the Omega", "I AM THAT I AM," etc.
So, where I am w/ this today is that the I AM refers (perhaps) to the passage (strait gate)that which is the sense of "me" (ownership and all) in the body that is the first thing we remember and identify with and the last thing we know before death (after that we are one)...it is the door, the thing on which you knock. At any rate, I don't know about what the world is, why and how it appears or even if it is important to figure any of this out. My feeble undertanding today is that the one and only SELF is hidden by the I AM, that because "the I AM cannot stand the scrutiny" (Nisargadatta) it will dissolve into the heart' at which point we can see the self...bliss. In this regard to say that Heaven is just plain, everyday, run of the mill, here and now nothing going on but oh how wonderfull it all is and that there is no one here, nothing has ever happened, there is no history... well...that has never been my experience.
"My experience" is missing the point.
The "MY" is another experience.
To whom does the "MY" arise?
That is the Self which you are, even now, while the mind runs in circles with this analytical mess.
love
randall
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