Wednesday, November 19, 2008

You Are - That's It

Everything appearing, the world, the room, everything including that body and thoughts that have been identified with as "ME", everything is a projection of mind and is limited by the senses and this perspective. This "human perspective" is necessarily limited and cannot show reality directly. Even an ant has a different and limited perspective but it is of the very SAME reality. The ant and the human are part or appearances in that totality of reality.

The ant and the human are not separate from that reality. Reality is the totality, the Oneness, whatever IS. Whatever is appearing is it, already. Looking for something in the future, some future understanding or spiritual experience, is playing with concepts.

So there can be no seeing of reality directly, whatever that "substance" is, whatever that root essence is, we are only seeing through the limitations and filter of the senses and mind projections.

Yet we notice that the body and thoughts are part of this limited appearance, the body and thoughts are appearing and are only "body and thoughts" because of the projections of mind. The body and thoughts aren't reality as such - they are only appearances of reality, limited and identified appearances which seem to be broken up into parts and pieces, yet only when viewed through this prism of mind, this kaleidoscope of perception.

So what IS reality? Reality is - what IS. Whatever IS, whatever is happening, the rain, the trees, etc. Only we know it as rain and trees and body and thoughts and "ME" and "YOU" through the prism of perception.

Reality IS - that's it. So whatever you're "seeing", that's it. You're looking directly at pure and total reality, right now, already, without any effort, without any search, without any "enlightenment". Only there is a belief that you're seeing reality as it is and that there is a separate "seer".

Reality includes the seer, the seeing and the seen. Reality is all of it. We can only say it's broken up by using the mechanism of this perception, this mind, this limited perspective.

So see if any of it stands up to this realization that we can never actually know reality directly - we can only know that we ARE IT, that whatever it is, we can't know it directly, we can only BE it, but not as some individual "ME" character, which is just the prism.

You are reality - all of it - appearing as "separate things", individuals, trees, rain, cats, children, nonduality books, the idea of enlightenment, the suffering, literally all of it, anything that can arise. You're it.

You're not a separate person, a "ME" - you're reality, looking at itself through the limited and identified perspective called "ME". You are not a "human" - you are reality or God or Self or Oneness, looking at itself through the filter called the human perspective.

Any problems that arise, any suffering that arises, can only be thought, thought which is based on a misunderstanding of this limitedness of perspective. Once it's really clear that you are reality and the ideas are only appearances, then the thoughts of suffering or seeking just fall away naturally because it's just seen as obsessive stories playing in the mind, relating or referencing a character that never ever ever existed outside of the totality of reality.

All concepts of time and space and individuality and personality and an outside world and a "me" and suffering and seeking and finding or not finding or spiritual experiences or literally ANYTHING can only be a limited representation, a conceptual labeling or breaking up, mistaking this "dream" of appearance for pure reality, as it is.

Nonduality isn't about some special spiritual state or some liberation at a future point in time. Any "spiritual state" can only arrive through this limited perspective, as a limited and temporary appearance within this prism. Nonduality is about carving away all the bullshit beliefs that create these stories about people and a separate world and that reality is broken up into separate parts and pieces.

Nonduality is about, in this very moment, letting all the bullshit that we pile on as belief just fall away, as it is just the most basic and simple realization there could ever be - reality is THIS, right here, right now. And any idea of a "you" MUST be included in that reality. That "body" you've identified with and the thoughts which say "I AM" are reality itself, appearing as "this and that".

This isn't about trying to see something that is obscured. It isn't about trying to unravel the mysterious riddles of Zen koans or Advaita pointers. It isn't about trying to believe in some weird theory of Oneness. It is about SEEING that our perception of reality is necessarily skewed because the only tool we have is mind. We can never see reality directly - yet we can never deny that what we are IS reality.

In fact, mind is really nothing other than this thing we call "consciousness". Mind or consciousness is like the light coming through a prism, dividing up into different colors and shapes, yet never separate or different from the source. Mind or consciousness IS the presentation of the world itself, which includes that body and thoughts which are taken to be "ME".

No spirituality needed to know that - no Advaita or gurus or books or meditation needed - reality IS - "you" ARE reality - you are the basis for anything to appear - you cannot be separate from the essence of what IS. Simply stop telling these stories for a moment and just look... is there really a "you" separate from Reality?

You are. That's it. That's all you really can or need to know.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow & YES~

Anonymous said...

struggle struggle, years on.

some shrink shows you a picture of a young girl and says, 'can you see the old woman?'
all i see is a young girl. meditation, gurus, books, 40 years, etc. still no fucking old woman!

then some web guy sez:

Reality includes the seer, the seeing and the seen. Reality is all of it...You are reality - all of it - appearing as "separate things", individuals, trees, rain, cats, children, nonduality books, the idea of enlightenment, the suffering, literally all of it, anything that can arise. You're it.

blammo - old woman! i am old. i am woman. i am seeing. i am i. all of it.

there is nothing left to resist.

this is rather large.
thank you john wheeler.
thank you randall friend.

holy shit!

su said...

Alan,
The seer, seeing and seen angle also shook things up beautifully here.