Something present right here and now never moves.
Something is not affected by the changing situations, thoughts, feelings, emotions.
Something is stable as the world is unsteady.
Something is rock-solid as the sense of a separate self is a fleeting image.
What is this? What is it that never changes as every single "thing" changes? What is it that remains as every single "thing" comes and goes?
Isn't it your own presence?
As the body changes - you ARE. As the thoughts change, come and go - you ARE. You are the rock-solid, immovable and unchanging presence. And that presence is not hidden. It is absolutely intimately known right this very moment. You know "I AM".
I AM.
I AM the body is an abstraction. I AM thoughts or I AM the mind is assumption. This is only learned, only believed yet not evident.
I AM is evident - Self-evident.
Remain in that I AM-ness - stay with it - follow the sense of "I". Does the true "I" ever change? Does the true "I" ever come and go?
Doesn't the world only appear because of that "I"? Doesn't the world depend on that "I"?
59 comments:
Dear Randall,
Thanks to your wonderful blog I can see that I am awareness in which everything appears.
However, I wonder whether this awareness is just a function of the brain or something else.
It seems that without a functioning brain there is no awareness. I also believe that Nisargadatta said something about awareness being dependend upon a functioning brain.
Maybe you can say something about this?
Thanks again for your wonderful blog
Love,
Roeland
Roeland,
Hello again my friend.
If you are awareness in which everything appears, AND awareness is a function of the brain, then what are you? An electrical signal? A certain combination of cells? Can these two concepts coexist?
Look for yourself - is awareness a function of the brain? This concept is due to the idea that you are seeing out the eyes and knowing through the senses. That's what "awareness" is a function of the brain really means, isn't it?
Yet the eyes are not windows. The eyes are not holes through which you are seeing. The eyes capture light and pass it back to the brain, which sits in darkness. The brain processes the data and where does this picture appear?
Is the picture projected back out the eyes to be seen again? Wouldn't there be two pictures or an infinite reflection like sitting two mirrors face to face?
Where is the picture appearing? If we take the "accepted" concept of seeing through eyes/awareness as a function of the brain - then where is that picture appearing?
Is there a little projector screen in the head displaying the pictures generated by the brain? If so there must be another set of eyes inside the head to view this cinema show.
If the surgeon opens up your head and gives you a mirror, the brain itself appears within that picture.
From where are you seeing?
Are you seeing out the eyes? Is that an obvious fact or an assumption? Are the eyes actually little viewing portals to an outside world?
love
randall
Dear Randall,
You said:
then where is that picture appearing?
It seems somehow the brain produces a picture based on data coming from the senses.
Data is coming from the senses and the brain changes this data into a picture.
There is no a projector in the brain, but yet it seems to produce a picture just like it produces pictures in dreams.
In fact it is even possible to artificially stimulate the brain so that it produces pictures.
If who I am is a function of the brain then the picture that the brain produces is automatically seen by 'me'.
Love,
Roeland
Beloved Friend,
Having read so many books on advaita, yours was the one that brought clarity to concepts.
And using that as a thorn to remove the thorn and then throwing away the concepts, understanding and the thorn a big thank you.
To those other posters, this book is a must. It results in clarity as opposed to confusion, lightness as opposed to funk and mostly it ends the seeking with the clearest understanding.
Roeland,
Yes. So if we follow the concept of the brain generating awareness or "seeing through the senses" - you say the brain produces a picture based on the data coming from the senses. So in this scenario the picture isn't happening "out there" - the picture is "in here" - inside the head - how is that picture being seen? Is there a little person in there viewing the output of the brain?
We know this picture intimately, don't we? We lay down on our pillow, close our eyes - we don't get up and move around, go flying airplanes and get chased by monsters - we lay perfectly still on our pillow and this picture returns. The eyes are closed - the picture is playing complete with a "world" and a "roeland". The picture isn't any different because it's the SAME picture.
We know that picture - it's Consciousness. Consciousness is only a picture - a picture appearing IN YOU. TO YOU. That picture isn't happening anywhere OUTSIDE. There is NO OUTSIDE WORLD.
So in that picture there appears concepts about awareness and a brain and pictures. Yet even within that "picture-knowledge", that knowledge gained from WITHIN the picture - supposed reality cannot be aligned with direct experience and investigation. The so-called "facts" don't add up.
Recognize that this "picture" is your very own Self. YOU are the only constant factor, the ever-present PRESENCE - and that presence or BEING IS KNOWING.
love
randall
Susana,
Hello again my friend. Love to you.
Thank you for the kind comment.
love
randall
Does anyone know what this means by Huang PO:
Perception:
...If you students of the Way seek to progress through seeing, hearing, feeling and knowing, when you are deprived of your perceptions, your ways to Mind will be cut off and you will find nowhere to enter.
Do not keep them nor abandon them nor dwell in them nor cleave to them. Above, below and around you, all is spontaneously existing, for there is nowhere which is outside Buddha-Mind.
Dear Randall,
Thank you, this is very clear.
Love,
Roeland
Before "I" you are. The body/mind are concepts, perceptions, or all in a ball--MIND. When YOU 'fall in' the mind falls away from what is untouchable: Knowing present awareness. KNOWING/SEEING is not sticky--concepts, ideas, sense-stuff can't attach to KNOWING. You see LIFE in a kind of FREE- fall; happening, seeing, knowing--no need to play at understanding because thoughts can't see or understand or explain. There's no explanation for the seemless, eternal happening NOW, NOW, NOW! In fact there are no explanations needed or possible. NOW is a place of rest, joy, and peace (just words). Cool huh?
Hi Randall!
What was Randall biggest belief before and what was the answer?
And is there some belief to day?
++Love Dennis
RB,
Very nice.
love
randall
Dennis,
The root belief is always the ME or ME-seeing, a separate ME over here looking at a WORLD "out there".
This ME is the product of conceptualization - taking present objects - sensations and perceptions - to be what-you-are.
Then it may be realized that THAT which you've taken yourself to be is ENTIRELY objective - what-you-are is aware of these objects yet untouched by them. This is neti-neti. From this perspective you are the pure invisible witnessing subjectivity - pure "I" which remains still as even body-mind comes and goes.
Your true Self is Self-evident and not appearing as a "thing".
This has been called "awareness" but no word is needed. It's already obvious before words.
Ultimately the subjective seeing and the seen are not-two - at first you are not this, not that, not body, not thoughts, not world. Yet it may become clear that the body has never arisen without that pure "I". The thoughts have never arisen without that pure "I". The very world has never arisen without that pure "I" - pure "I" cannot be separated FROM the appearance of the body-mind and world.
Therefore you are either "no-thing" or "everything". Nisargadatta says - when I know I am nothing - that is wisdom. When I know I am everything - that is love.
love
randall
Hi Randall
Is it not the identification whit the root believe of ME that's the "problem"?
I am what i want and i want what i am= What does this mean?
++Love Dennis++
hello Randall
Thank you again for a wonderful post. I have been really inspecting the I recently and everything you say is true, and I will continue to do that.
but to help me understand the 'big picture' of I a little better. I have two questions.
(1) The Self is prior to the human body and you abide as that but isnt it coloured by the human body. I mean if a redwood tree could abide as the self wouldnt that tree have a different experience of it than a human being?
(2) I appreciate this is a trite question but its important to me. When you Realize the self position does everything seem alright?
Blah blah blah. Oneness sure likes to talk about itself! Or consciousness, or nonduality, or the still source, or whatever we call it on a Tuesday evening.
Dennis,
Who is identified? Identification may be happening but to no one. Identification is simply recognized as false.
love
randall
Hello anonymous,
The Self or whatever you want to call it is THAT IN WHICH the body appears.
No one abides as the Self. The Self is all there ever is. THAT is you. Just THIS, right here and now, is the Self.
love
randall
Anonymous - you asked - when you realize the Self position does everything seem already.
Who is to realize the Self? You already ARE THAT. There is a present translation in thought - taking THIS to be made up of separate parts - the primary part is a ME-seeing.
When this translation, all translations, are seen AS duality itself, then nothing changes - THIS remains as it is, whatever it is.
We can speak of ease and a sense that all is well - simply because all problems are seen as only for the mind. You are not the mind.
Hello again Suzanne. Yes - blah blah blah. Oneness talking about itself on a Tuesday evening. What else is there?
Can anybody answer my question? :(
Scarfox,
What does the quote mean to you? Isn't that all that matters?
All seeking is looking outward - through seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. Seek your own self by staying with the "I"-thought - distinguish the pure "I" from the objective identification of body and mind.
Do not cleave to perceptions - recognize that everything you've taken yourself to be comes via some means of knowledge or perception. You are the formless knowing that doesn't require perception or knowledge. You are Self-Evident.
Isn't this neti-neti?
love
randall
It is confusing because I thought the natural being is being without thought, which would pretty much be the obviousness of existing which includes the seeing, hearing, feeling, without the translation of thoughts. But if its not even that, then I give up. I hoped this was just being without thought!
Scarfox,
First see that what you are is prior to thought, prior to seeing, hearing, feeling - all that appears through these means of knowledge cannot be what you are. You are THAT TO WHICH they appear.
If that is clear then recognize what these "things" are - what is seeing, hearing, feeling? What are thoughts? These all require more thoughts to say what they are. Translations.
So seeing, hearing, feeling - these are all for someone - someone must see, someone must hear, someone must feel. That "someone" is also a conceptualization or translation.
Therefore pure being is THIS - seeing, hearing, feeling are added on to THIS only in translation, and in doing so, the seer, hearer, and feeler are necessary components.
Every single "thing" conceptualized requires "someone" to be the recipient of that knowledge.
What is a "thing"? If you point out "chair", then that chair comes into being as a separate "thing", separate from all that is "not-chair".
If you point out your beingness as some "thing" - body-mind - then all that is not-ME comes into being - the "world".
That I-AM-ness or pure "I" is not a "thing" - therefore it has no opposite. All is contained WITHIN YOU without being separate FROM you.
You ARE that Oneness, already.
love
randall
Prior to seeing, what is the seeing then that sages speak of? The seeing of seeing hearing feeling :S ?
and so seeing, hearing, feeling without translation is pure being you say?
Scarfox,
Prior to the sense of seeing, vision - perception - the eyes don't say "I see". Seeing/knowing is prior to all the senses.
Advaita is THIS, right here and now. Whatever THIS might be translated as, might be conceptualized, even if it's taken to be "someone" seeing, THIS is it. There is nowhere outside of THIS.
The translations are infinite - the core or root translation is ME-seeing - I am seeing, I am thinking, I am doing this and that.
There is a certainty of being - an intimacy of existence which is undeniable - you know you ARE. That knowing that you are is nonconceptual - yet it's translated by the mind as I AM. But the mind can only do duality - it can only think in terms of "things" - categories, labels.
Therefore I AM MUST BE some "thing" - the most convenient "thing" is the body-mind. THAT is the nature of identification. That obviousness of existence is placed, through this translation, upon the body-mind. Then thoughts become what you are. Then "I am thinking" becomes reality. False reality.
You are not a thing - you are the pure "I" or I AM prior to the thought "I AM". You are the pure "I" or subjectivity which is the necessary ground of all objective experiences.
And that pure "I" cannot be separated FROM the objective experiences, except in more translation.
So THIS, right here and now, is YOU. You are Oneness, Life - looking at itself, seeking itself.
The only way out of the mind is full stop. And what you are remains, fully present and unaffected.
love
randall
So without translating seeing,hearing, feeling, I am abiding in awareness? Yes or no?
No. Awareness IS. You aren't abiding IN awareness - you ARE awareness, so to speak. Being IS knowing. That being is fully evident - not hidden - present whether seeing, hearing, or feeling is present.
The translation is an appearance only.
What is being if it is not hearing, seeing, feeling. That is sleep, those things only do not happen in deep sleep.
Scarfox,
Being is unqualified by these descriptions - WHO is seeing, feeling, hearing? These are functions of a body which does not exist apart from Oneness.
All you know, right here and now, is yourself. Nothing can be said about it without breaking up Oneness into categories, labels, descriptions.
Yes - hearing, seeing, feeling do not happen in deep sleep. Yet you ARE. You remain to witness the coming and going of the "waking state", in which these apparent functions happen to this "apparent" body-mind.
That pure formless beingness is the absolute nature of THIS, right here and now. It can appear however it appears - just like the flower is not absolute reality - it is only name and form. The entire world is only name and form.
love
randall
How to recognize this when hearing, seeing, feeling is happening? There is no point to divide myself from them?
Are they happening? Or are these only assumptions?
How do you know hearing, seeing, feeling is happening? How do you know?
You only know present perceptions and sensations - raw data - which is then conceptualized as "vision, smells, sounds"... this is then taken further - "I am hearing, seeing, feeling, thinking."
In fact you only truly know yourself. This pure nonconceptual raw data has never once appeared without your presence - that presence cannot be separated FROM this appearance.
WHAT the appearance IS is only mind's translation. Every single BIT of your knowledge is concept. Duality.
How to recognize? Are you present, right now? Yes. Are you aware, right now? Yes. Can you further quantify or know what you are beyond that, without using a concept or a story?
No.
You ARE. That "I" is pure knowing. "I" is not the body-mind. "I" IS Awareness.
It cannot be found or located or seen or heard or felt, simply because it's YOU. It's subjective. It's what-you-are.
Looking FOR your being always brings confusion. Stop looking outward for evidence of your being. You are looking FROM your beingness already. What you're looking FOR IS the looking, itself.
love
randall
Ah I see, drop everything except existing, and don't mind perception. Yes? Then something after that may or may not happen like bliss perhaps.
No. Who will do any of this? What state can come? Waiting for a future state is missing the point.
All states have their beginning and their end. You are not a state. You are the condition necessary for all states to come.
Bliss only means fullness - wholeness - oneness. THAT is already the case. You are THAT.
THIS, right here and now, is IT. The "I" is not the body-mind, who can drop everything and then wait for bliss to arrive. The pure "I" is awareness. THAT is what you are.
Simply verify this. That's all.
love
randall
I should still be aware fully of sensations and thoughts though yes? Or should I ignore them and only focus on the space around them?
Scarfox,
Isn't there already awareness of sensations and thoughts? What ignores? Only the mind?
Pause thought. What remains? Do you disappear? Do you fall apart? That knowing presence remains - yes? The activity of knowing is going on, right this very moment. THAT is not a thing - it doesn't appear as a sensation or a thought.
Isn't that pure knowing what is actually meant by the reference "I"?
"I" is tied up with the sensations which are "called" body-mind. Yet body-mind is objective TO "I". The thought-belief "ME" is objective to pure "I" or this knowing presence.
That knowing presence never changes, never comes and goes. It's the very basis for all experience. It is the EXPERIENCING. THAT is your true nature.
We are looking to objects for peace, to objective content for our true nature. When it is realized that you are looking FROM your true nature already, the confusion dissolves. THAT can never leave. THAT isn't affected by the changing content of mind. THAT is never altered or modified by ANY situation. THAT is an effortless registering of all content, whether the mind labels that content "good or bad".
You ARE THAT.
love
randall
Randall,
So if thoughts, feelings, hearing, seeing through the eyes...all functions of the body. I recall from somewhere that the eyes see .0058% of what is outside the body. Clearly if we use this measure what the senses convey to the brain can only be what is 'apparantly' happening! But this can only manifest in KNOWING.
Functions of the body also include hear beats, cells die and cells generate and RB doesn't control this. It's happening within AWARENESS. Also the body passes stools and urine. The stomach can wretch vomit up through the mouth. We also can't control what we think or see or feel (sadness, pleasure). All these are alike functions of the body. We don't associate ourselves to be our feces or our urine; why would we say we are our thoughts of 'me', the accumulated past of our minds, etc? These are all functions of a form which we can say no more than it apparantly exists---but only within the field of present awareness. HHHmmm....?
"You" are a sweetie-pie to include "me" in the recommended reading. Disbelief in great good fortune, generally, arises.
RB,
Yes - everything you know and take to be what you are is only what's apparently coming through the senses. There is identification with thoughts and a few motor functions - this entire "life story", this "story of me" is built around these.
Seeing through these false concepts, you are only the pure formless activity of knowing - the story plays itself out, the sensations and perceptions charge across the stage and then bow out.
Therefore THIS, right here and now, is IT. THIS is the oneness that was being sought after, yet the story was of a "someone" who needed to get it, "someone" who was searching for it.
This story crumbles away naturally because you already ARE THAT. THIS. Whatever THIS might be, in story, is IT.
See that WHAT "THIS" is can only ever be told using a story - yet THIS, this Oneness - right here and now, is ALL there ever is.
love
randall
Suzanne,
Believe it, my friend.... Great good fortune has come down upon your head... HA!
love
randall
So it appears that even oneness appearing as Suzanne can also go banging on about itself - and is also more blah, blah, blah....
Pot, kettle, black... three words that come to mind.
Yeah check out her blog, like 5 posts a day or something, talk about blah blah blah.... http://nothingexistsdespiteappearances.blogspot.com/
Am I attention, furthermore what is the difference between awareness and attention if not? this might help a lot!
Anonymous, oneness Suzanne-ing, talking about itself, is indeed to what "I" referred. Blah, blah, blah, indeed! The pot, the kettle, the colour black, oneness all.
Scarfox,
Awareness is seeing/knowing - the activity that is going on in the immediacy of this very moment. Seeing isn't vision - seeing/knowing is the openness or capacity in which vision, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching appear.
Seeing/knowing is effortlessly going on right now. Seeing/knowing isn't "being done" by "you". Seeing/knowing is THAT IN WHICH the idea of you appears.
Attention simply means "mind slices" or mental focus on objective content - attention is always on some "thing".
Once a "thing" is pointed out - the opposites are brought into being conceptually. So mind points out a "chair". What is "chair"? Does that word mean anything? Is there any such thing as a chair?
If we break down the wood, there is only now a pile of wood. Chair is gone. Now there is only wood. But what happened to chair? Did it disappear? All that is "chair" still remains, yet there is no longer chair.
Chair never existed. "Chair" is only name and form. The "thing" called "chair" doesn't ACTUALLY EXIST except in mind. There is no such "thing". Do you follow?
Vedanta calls this mithya - every single "thing" is mithya.
And if we point out "chair" as some separately existing "thing", then we automatically assume the existence of all that is not-chair. If we point out the computer screen as some "thing", we automatically assume the existence of all that is not "computer screen".
Therefore this presence of seeing/knowing is obvious - it's ever-present. You KNOW you ARE. That beingness is obviously there. You know "I AM".
Yet that "I AM", to the mind, MUST BE some "thing". So the mind ties that obviousness of beingness or seeing/knowing into the body and mind. So "I AM" then is "body-mind". And in doing so, all that is NOT "I AM" or "body-mind" is taken to be separately existing.
The opposite of "I AM" is WORLD.
So AS the body-mind, the world is the opposite of YOU.
Yet when we SEE that seeing/knowing, that obviousness of existence, isn't a "thing" but THAT which is the very basis or ground of the APPEARANCE of all "things", then what you are HAS no opposite. What you are contains ALL opposites.
Do you follow?
love
randall
Randall,
'...what you are HAS no opposite. What you are contains ALL opposites'
Very clear.
Kent
Randall's blog is recommended reading for me, and that's not good fortune as much as good sense. Follow what resonates.
Dear Randall,
I found your blog last evening while browsing through advaita sites. The 'I' has not been able to stop the thinking about that which you wrote dated May 31,2009 titled "How are you seeing?". I have read much about advaita before and attended seminars by the most prominent teachers, but I had never heard actual seeing described in this way, as well as questioned in this way. The 'I', the one called 'mine', seems to think it's "all-figured-out-world" has been rocked by the truth of which you speak. That is, regarding the statement that seeing does not exist except in the head as a mere projection based on thoughts and preconceived notions. The sense of the one that knows this to be true, welcomes the crack in the armor of "me" and "it's concepts". It welcomes you to further blast apart this constructed "I", this crack in the armor. Anything more you would like to say is appreciated.
Lucy,
Hello my friend.
The entire idea of ME-seeing or "ME-the separate person confined in a body and living in a separate world" is all due to the idea of seeing through senses - and the sense of vision is the predominant or most influential sense in this idea. Therefore the belief in this sense of "ME-seeing" is questioned - looking at exactly what we know of this sense.
According to the belief, there is an outside world that is "seen" through the eyes - this translates as the eyes being little windows or open portals through which the "outside world" appears with ME on the inside receiving this picture.
Yet we know the eyes aren't windows or holes. They are organs which receive only reflected light. The light never goes THROUGH the eye - light never gets "inside the head". The reflection is TRANSLATED by the eye - flipped upside down and sent as DATA via nerves - signals - on/off - vibrations. This data is received by the brain, again in this idea. The brain receives raw data - signals - a translation FROM the eye. The brain takes the data and creates a picture. That's basic science. That is something learned in grade school. Yes?
Yet it's overlooked. Ignored.
Where is this picture? Is it projected back out the eyes to once again be seen by the eyes? Is it only happening IN the brain? Is the brain projecting it inside the head, where another set of eyes must be there to again see the translated picture?
Where are you seeing from? Where is this picture happening?
There "seems" to be a world "out there" yet this picture cannot be reconciled even using the given description of this sense of sight.
So how do you even know of "eyes"? How do you know of a brain? How do you know anything?
Every single thing known comes via this means of knowledge - sensory data. And there is an assumption that "I am a body-mind" which HAS senses and "I am separate" FROM the "world out there". This is ENTIRELY built upon an assumption that the eyes are little windows. Yes?
There IS no outside world. This picture is what we "call" consciousness. It comes and goes. It appears as a dream. Now it is being called "the waking state". It's taken for something that it's not. It's taken as an accurate representation of a ME living in a body, looking out the eyes at an outside world.
Even the body is known via this sense of sight. Yes? And the body is also known via sensations - feelings. Is there any other way you know that body?
Therefore the existence of the body is dubious - it's doubtable - it's not direct experience - it's conceptual - it requires a concept - pulling together of concepts to say this "body" is some solid and separately-existing "thing".
It's very simple except for the fact that these existing notions are so taken for granted that they seem difficult to lay aside.
There IS no outside world and a "lucy" living in a body. That's entirely a conceptual creation.
There is only pure being - formless existence - knowing itself through this appearance - knowing itself as "everything" - that is satchitananda.
That is YOU.
These concepts of body-mind are believed in yet YOU are limitless, timeless being/awareness.
love
randall
Hello again, Randall,
Thank you for your response.
There is understanding of what you are saying. Again, there is this knowing that everything you are saying is correct. It makes perfect sense. (And, this seems so obvious now.) There is also then the mind jumping in ready to claim this understanding, categorize it and retell it again and again albeit to itself. But, at least there is the awareness of this too.
Then, if, as you say, the story, 'my story', is playing at this theater in my mind, there is probably nothing left to do but get some popcorn, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Because this is the way of it. Is this correct?
It would, of course, also mean that 'you', Randall, do not exist outside of 'me', lucy. "We" exist simultaneously, in and as oneness. 'You-Me' are sharing these profound insights with 'Me-You' (sameness)...but why? Just because? Is it because we, on some level, want to know our true nature? (But then who is it that would need to know true nature?) Or is it mere chance, that our perception, by some Grace, understands things from this different viewpoint? 'My' guess would be that it is simply playing out as it is. There is understanding, or no understanding; it doesn't matter. It simply is, as theater is: drama, characters, plots, stories, emoting, etc., just for the sake of theater, just for the aliveness.
Also, you may have already written in some earlier blog that I have not read, about what your experience is like as one residing in oneness; as one not believing what is playing in the theater of mind. This, too would be of much interest.
This that you share is much appreciated.
lucy
Lucy,
Yes. There is nothing to do, nothing to get, nothing to reach or achieve. You are already that which was being sought after.
THIS, right here and now, is all there ever is. So whatever THIS might "be", that's it. As you say, whatever is playing at the theater, who is to object?
So there is no longer a resistance - thoughts are known to be just more content in this play - they are not what you are - they are only appearances, patterns, vibrations, meaningless...
Life goes on with ease - it takes care of itself. And Life is nothing but this present Consciousness, which comes and goes like the clouds passing in the sky. The pure intelligence or knowing or being is the absolute or ground upon which this play of Consciousness appears.
That play no longer catches the attention in the form of belief. It's merely that intelligence patterning itself, seeing itself, looking at itself, living itself, loving itself.
Yes - there is no randall or lucy - these are only mental constructs, stories - taking the appearance to be some separate "thing" which then assumes other "things". There is nothing outside of THIS, right here and now.
Yet if it's taken that way, that too is perfect. This "oneness", or whatever label is applied, is just THIS, and THIS may be intense suffering, seeking, pumping gas, making love... there is no "residing in oneness" - the one who resides IS Oneness also.
As we take a walk outside, feel the warm sun, look up at the trees - Life is looking at itself. The "ME" who was apart from Life is known to be only a false belief. The "ME" who was the thinker or the doer never, for one moment, ever existed. And this very Life or Consciousness passes each night, dissolving into silent stillness.
Yet it is only the play which fades away, only to return anew, along with the body-mind and the idea of some "lucy" who could possibly seek THAT which was always and ever there.
love
randall
Dear Randall,
There is appreciation of your patient pointing back to the ground of being, such as when you noted that "there is no 'residing in oneness'- the one who resides is Oneness". Trying to describe THIS in words is tricky and shows the subtle, yet important misunderstandings that are present here.
You say, that this play of Consciousness, appearing on the screen of mind,in it's totality and containing the thoughts therein, "are known to be just more content in this play - they are not what you are- they are only appearances, patterns, vibrations, meaningless..." Are these patterns and appearances and vibrations, as meaningless as they are, in any way changed or effected by the patterns/vibrations of the (phantom) mind hosting the play? Or, is it totally random? Why does it seem like the same play picks up and continues, rather than a new one starting each time there is a loll? Is it because there is one believing in the story, and than that perpetuates it? But, this certainly cannot be the case, since the Oneness, from which everything springs forth, and is always present, everywhere and in everything, can never 'believe' in any story. Story is simply appearing as is everything else. More clarity on this would be helpful...
in peace,
lucy
Lucy, I love your inquiries! Randall, I love you pointers!
Lucy,
Consciousness is not appearing on the screen of mind - mind (thought) appears within Consciousness. We lay importance on the happenings within Consciousness. My mind, my thoughts, I am thinking, I am suffering... the very idea of who you are is nothing but more content within Consciousness.
Yet we miss that Consciousness itself is only an appearance.
We are absolutely certain of, yet we ignore, the fact that Consciousness itself comes and goes. We might say "I am conscious" yet we're actually saying "Consciousness IS" - and that idea of individual self only ever appears with Consciousness and goes with Consciousness.
We also ignore the fact that we are aware of Consciousness passing, coming and going. It's attributed to "I woke up" or "I slept" yet this once again only applies to a character and a belief only present IN Consciousness.
Something remains, something prior to Consciousness, something aware OF Consciousness as passing content - that pure being, that silent stillness is ever-present yet not dormant, not inert, not an absence - it's a presence - a solid beingness, an absolute existence - THAT remains right this very moment as the light beyond Consciousness, as the very witness of Consciousness, apparently "seeing through the eyes", apparently manifesting itself as a reflection we mistakenly call Consciousness.
Your true essence is THIS, just THIS - THIS is One - THIS is Advaita, right here and now. There is nowhere to go to reach it. There is nothing to get - nothing to achieve. THIS is already the Oneness being sought after, only it's NOT in translation. THIS is taken to be/translated AS manyness - translated as ME-seeing-world, translated as "lucy" living in a body, possessing a mind, thinking thoughts...
THIS is Advaita - one without a second - Oneness. The instant a translation comes, it's apparent duality. Only SEE that the translation is ITSELF duality. THAT is the only duality. And the translation is not a problem. It's also THIS.
love
randall
Is there a subject-object? When they say there is no subject-object, they mean that thought as the subject and everything else as the object right?
But there is the pure subjectivity, and then objects no? Or are phenomenal objects and thoughts subjectivity themselves? Like there is only bell ringing, so the bell is actually kind of aware of itself, and it is true self as well?
There is a CONCEPTUAL 'hairy ball' apparantly folded over and over again with energy waives emminating as thoughts of surety and certainty about what is real, feelings of fear, security, wanton desires, forms with identities all with a birth certicate, driver's license, baby pictures, college degrees, scientific and mathematical proofs, death of loved ones certified by the county coroners...men and women courting, loving, divorcing; comets discovered and measured and tracked--and yet all concepts arising in ONEness. The entire hairy ball spins within ever present awareness.
It's a meaningless kaleidoscope of LIFE in total free fall. It is THIS; always THIS. The mind machine grinds to a full stop. POOF! Like the Wizard of Oz---all illusion; we see behind the curtain. What to do?
Being surely does have a sense of humour.That "hairy ball" concept is the funiest expression heard yet. What next in this divine comedy,.... "me" getting "it"??
Scarfox,
If you consider yourself to be a body-mind, then that identification must be seen as false. This identification or mistaken identity is the root cause of suffering.
So we look, with the lens of neti-neti, at what we've taken ourselves to be.
We take ourselves to be the body - yet body is appearance, sensation, perception... objective... we take ourselves to be the mind - I AM thinking - yet thoughts are describable - the content of thought can be relayed or communicated. Therefore thoughts are also objective.
So what you are is the subject TO this objective content, TO the body-mind. The body-mind appears TO YOU. Yes? You know OF the body-mind. Yet do you know yourself?
You are obviously there, present and aware. So that identification is tying up the objects with the subjective quality or principle. "I" is glossed over as the body-mind, yet when we refer to "I" we're really referring to that beingness that is obvious - and THAT isn't an object - THAT is the pure subjectivity or formless knowing. "I" IS the knowing, which is going on right now, knowing the body, knowing the thoughts. Yes?
So you always know yourself, although you don't appear as some "thing". You always know yourself how? Because you are obviously here. How do you know you are here?
You know you are here BECAUSE experiencing is happening.
You are that experiencing - that root or source BY WHICH the world is known - BY WHICH all objective content is known.
Therefore all experience or objective content depends on that pure source that you are. And that content cannot BE without your presence.
The objective content cannot ever be separated, has NEVER appeared without that source of subjectivity, that pure "I".
That content IS that pure "I" - the world IS YOU. There is no line of separation, no division, no boundary, no wedge, no split, no demarcation.
Being isn't hidden. Being is only seemingly difficult to find because it is already EVERYTHING.
love
randall
RB,
Nothing. There is nothing to do. The hairy ball is as it is. Seeking happens, finding happens, the seeker was a reality and the seeker is known to be false.
Life is manifesting in a million billion zillion different ways yet it's always Life. Life is presently looking at itself, seeking itself, finding itself, having hair-balls.
Can it be an RB looking out the eyes? No. It is only Life. There is only Life, expressing as everything.
The Heart Sutra says - Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. It doesn't say emptiness is the bomb and form sucks. It says they are the same thing.
And AS the same thing - does either one then exist? Can form stand apart from emptiness? Can emptiness stand apart from form? Form IS Emptiness and Emptiness IS Form. They co-exist as concepts of one underlying reality - Vedanta calls it Sat. Being. Existence.
But we want to capture existence. We want to quantify it. We want to hold on to it. Yet in trying to do that, we automatically deny the inherent truth - we must conceptualize Being into beings, into separate lives, into persons, into a ME and YOU.
Being IS. Existence IS. We cannot capture WHAT it is - that is the mystery - the void which is absolutely overflowing - the rock hard substance which is nothing but an empty shell.
This mystery is quickly covered up by mind, this uncertainty is too unsettling to look squarely at. The truth is we know absolutely nothing - all knowledge is false - we're left with an absolute poverty of knowledge - absolute not-knowing.
We realize that we can NEVER know anything through this process of categorization and labeling and pointing out of "things" in opposition to other "things". We look at a chair and realize we don't know what the HELL it is. Words have been a comfort blanket which has been a veil to truth.
And the only way to truth is to embrace the mystery - to embrace not-knowing - to realize that no concepts or knowledge can EVER capture existence - yet they don't need to.
You ARE. That must you are certain. And THAT is all that is ever needed.
love
randall
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