Saturday, August 15, 2009

The openness of "I AM"

Looking for wholeness presupposes the present lack of wholeness. It presupposes the concept of separation, and from there the search for wholeness or oneness goes on.

How can the next thought of a special spiritual state, some blissful state, whatever that concept of enlightenment is - how can that even arise as a future state when it's read over and over that what you are seeking, you already are?

Instead of seeking some future state, something different than THIS, right here and now, take a close look at now, at this, right here. If you are already that, if this is all there is, then something about this moment MUST be it. It must have to do with this moment and not some future moment. It must be something about this present state and not some future state.

The instant a thought comes about BECOMING something, it should be obvious that the search has gone off the rails - seeking something better, something new, and overlooking the very point of the search.

When this happens, return again and again to this very moment. What IS, right now? Remain in that as often as possible. And this moment is divided by concepts. The idea of "ME-SEEING" is a conceptual division.

How do you know yourself, right here and now? You point out the body and thoughts. You point out experiences. You point out feelings. You point out more concepts. But how do you know yourself?

You already intimately know yourself. You are always here, always the presence which is the basis for this moment. You are always the capacity for all experience. You are always the knowing in which the knower and the known arise.

Except you call yourself body. You call yourself mind or thoughts or intellect. You apply an objective experience to yourself, when all the while you are the subjective capacity for ALL experience. That is actually quite obvious and not in need of a search, except for all the concepts chased after.

This pure "I" is actually the knowing itself, the "awareness" or subjectivity or openness or wakefulness. But that is translated by the mind as "I AM". So you KNOW that you ARE - you know "I AM". That translation by the mind is an attempt to place "thingness" upon that presence of knowing. And the only "thing" which is convenient is the body, the chattering thoughts, the intellect.

Stay with the pure and absolute certainty of existence - "I AM". Watch as the mind mixes this up with the objective content - body-mind.

In reality every single thing known is arising IN the openness of "I AM". And the body is an object of knowledge. Thoughts are objects of knowledge. Each of these changes, comes and goes, is subject to the polarity of opposites. The pure "I" or "I AM-ness" is the background of knowing, ever-present and never changing, watching even Consciousness come with it's play of life and death, and fade into the darkness, stillness and natural "state" we call deep sleep.

19 comments:

No One In Particular said...

Lovely, clear pointing. So simple.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful expression. Thank you Randall!

Sam said...

http://www.slate.com/id/2224932/pagenum/all/#p2

It is an emotional state Panksepp tried many names for: curiosity, interest, foraging, anticipation, craving, expectancy. He finally settled on seeking. Panksepp has spent decades mapping the emotional systems of the brain he believes are shared by all mammals, and he says, "Seeking is the granddaddy of the systems."

Anonymous said...

A couple of questions if I may:
(1) Is there a difference between the Self and objects. Whenever I read about the Self people seem to pay lip service to the notion that they are all God but yet they descibe the Self somehow apart from its objects. How can that be?

And (and this is not meant to be discouteous - but just for my understanding). When I hear you or others write about the self position it doesnt sound that good in terms of its feeling. It comes across as being free, calm, happy, humerous and still. Yet when I read mystical sages (although I understand at least intellectually why they are not as advnced as the self position) - they sound ecsatic! They sound God-intoxicated - full of bliss and joy and boundless energy. Why do the writings of the mystics sound like they are happier than the language of one who has realized the Self.
Again i do not mean to be discourteous - just so I am understanding all this better - because there is a lot of stuff oput there.
Thank you
David

Randall Friend said...

David,

The Self is just a word. It points to that ever-present presence of experiencing. The subject AND all objects appear IN the Self or presence.

In reality there is nothing but the "Self" - One Reality - Wakefulness - whatever word you like.

That one Self isn't split up into a Self that you must find. You ARE the Self. But not the personal "David" - not the separate individual - that is itself the illusion.

Holding on to this illusion, there seems to be a "David-seeing" - that is the framework or template through which reality is translated.

You speak of the "Self" as not sounding good in terms of feeling. All feeling is appearance - experience - from the most blissful to the worst grief. The natural state is not an experience, good or bad. It is the very "space" or wakefulness IN WHICH all feelings come and go. It is the basis for ALL feelings.

You already know the Self. No experience can arise without it. And that experience is not other than the Self.

As you said, there is a lot of stuff out there. It's taken from within an already-solid concept about Enlightenment. Enlightenment is simply the realization that what you are is not a limited, separate, independent entity with free will or choice. You are the totality appearing as the world, as a "david" who wants to find Enlightenment. Therefore Enlightenment is only for the person, which never actually existed.


love
randall

No One In Particular said...

Just rereading, and realise that the pointers dealing with expectations, in a nonexistent future, for a different "state" from the perfection that is, are my favourite pointers. The ones that really grab my character, or something like that. You rock, Dude.

No One In Particular said...

"You" taken with a great big grain of salt, of course.

Charlie Hayes said...

Pure Grace out of nowhere but Love ... as always, Randall, so potent and poignant. Much Love my friend!
charlie

su said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
su said...

Blogger su said...

So i am no-thing.
i am no-one.
these thoughts, feelings, questions, hopes, fears, aspirations, decisions, actions, defence mechanisms, survival strategies, outlook, perspective, beliefs, absolutely everything that arises cannot be what I am as i am no-thing and no-one.
If there is no-one to effect or choose, or stop all these effects then they loose their burden and restriction.
Instead they become an absolute source of wonder, in the absence of personal doership.
Free of the effort of having to stop thinking, analyzing, or doing anything because of the simple fact that there is no one to stop or start .....
Shew, the miracle of them appearing out of nowhere onto pure emptiness.
Wow.

Anonymous said...

When the Self is Realized is there just forever happiness?
And, if that state is forever surely it will change with death of the body? I mean enjoying the Self-Position from the point of view of a human must be different than from the point of view of an Alien or a mushroom - or of no physcal body?

After death of the body what is experience like? Is it just like bright white consciousness? or dark nothingness? Is that home?
Thank you
Marie

No One In Particular said...

Anonymous up there, saying STFU, which I had to look up, would perhaps find it interesting to examine why certain pointers or comments or apparent bloggers of oneness bring up such hostility. Pointing out the paradox is a source of great merriment, and joy. Who is it that buys into anything? Buying in may happen. The burden of life, however, and the need to figure it all out, can slip away. The awareness that is behind it all is pointed to, sometimes by pointing to the consciousness that attempts to work it all out, and sometimes that consciousness is wry. In addition to all that, "I'd" suggest that Anonymous keep it nice. Thanks again Randall, for the clear voice.

Randall Friend said...

Marie,

Happiness or sadness is the mind. You are not the mind but that which knows the mind.

Realizing the Self means knowing what you are - the Self is not the body or mind, as separate "things". The Self is that ever-present source of everything that is known - the mind and body appear IN the Self already, only there is the concept of "marie" as a separate "person" seeking the Self.

"Marie" is an appearance - the Self is THAT which is not a thing yet is the very principle necessary for all "things" to appear.

Therefore you are already and always the Self - there is no finding the Self.

Forever is a concept - there is only THIS, only right here and now.

Enjoying the "Self-Position" from the point of view of a human is also false. The human is an idea appearing in the Self - the Self is prior to the human perspective.

There is no death for the body in actuality - the body is nothing but a concept - how do you know the body? Do you truly know it as some separate "thing" which had a beginning and will have an end? All you truly know is a bundle of passing sensations which are conceptualized and labeled "body" and then "my body".

All these concepts - forever happiness, bright white consciousness, dark nothingness... these are all spiritual concepts which have nothing to do with what you are. What you are seeking you already are - the goal of the search is already attained but overlooked in seeking all these spiritual concepts.

Can you be outside of the totality? Can you exist apart from Life? Right here and now, Life is looking at itself. There is no "marie" except as a concept.


love
randall

Anonymous said...

thank you - that is a intersting answer. the there is no forever comment stood out. and as i am sat here now i am appreciating that there is a space. and i can at least a little feel that there is ony one thing. yet i still i am entielry IT. Is this how it works? you appreciate the space of I am and then little by little through growing insight you let go of presumptions until you are nothing except I am?

Unknown said...

Marie,

Yes - that "space" is the knowing prior to all - including the perceptions we call thought and body. Thoughts and body appear in this "space-like" awareness or knowing or cognizing. That is always there - simply notice that it's always there and is never changed or affected by any of the content. And thoughts are content. Simply notice that. Once that is noticed then it's obvious that what-you-are is THAT which is knowing thought, always. And THAT isn't more content - that isn't appearing - that "space" isn't objective, or else there would be another "you" prior to, knowing that space, describing that space.

You are that space of no-thing-ness - and that is in fact the very intelligence or essence of all "things". There is only one, without a second. And you are already THAT.

love
randall

Anonymous said...

Thank you again Randall.
I have been observing this thing in the last days and it really is a space. I thought maybe it woulsd just be a momentary thing but i know I am subtly aware of it all day. It feels like a skin. Or the skin of all things. I have a sense that it is curved although i might be wrong about that because i cant see it. Like a background skin. and when i am aware of the skin and i look at things inside and feel them to be God I feel a flow from the heart - like love! But I can also see that that love is inside and not the skin. So is this what there is for me to do - be the skin and ignore things therin (including mind)?

Randall Friend said...

Marie,

Notice how this "space" or "skin" is attempted to be objectified - "I have a sense that it is curved" - "when I am aware of the skin".

You cannot be aware OF what you are, because you ARE it. You are the subjectivity to which all objective content appears. Therefore anything that is curved would be objective and not it.

There is a compulsion to locate what you are - simply because the habitual identification of the Self is with the objects body-mind. The Self is formless, invisible - it does not appear as an object. It is the capacity in which the body-mind and world appear.

Therefore you cannot find what you are, you can only recognize that you are the Self because you are always HERE and you are always AWARE - you are always the aware-ness.

The Self is pure nonconceptual, "space-like" awareness or background of knowing. That is obvious and present right now - it is THAT from which the looking or knowing or perceiving is happening. Can you get behind that knowing to describe it?


love
randall

Anonymous said...

You are right!

When you said that i immediatly realized how stupid or blind to not see that right away. i notice the skin and then think its my skin - or i try to 'do' the skin. But you are right its in the times when i am simply being that i am more fully aware as the skin. even when i just wrote that i went to write "of the skin" - like a habit of thinking or not really observing what is going on when i am being IT. So let me see - the thing to do then is to abide as this skin (space) and to ignore anything object to it - including habits of mind?
Thank you again.
Marie

Can I ask a more mundane question? As a human being abiding as the self do you have interests and enjoyments and realtionships and a sex life? lol i dont mean to be invasive i just wonder how a person who knows the self lives daily life?

Randall Friend said...

Marie,

The concept of the separate human being abiding as the self is false. It is the Self IN WHICH the concept called the "human" appears. That's the case right here and now.

Investigate this separate individual - this person you've taken yourself to be. You are not limited by a body and mind. You are the totality - the singular essence which is expressing itself through a conceptual "human" perspective.

It is the totality which is presently knowing itself - as we walk outside and look up at the sky and the trees, Life is looking at itself - the idea of "marie" is only a convenient conceptual container.


love
randall