Saturday, December 19, 2009

You are what IS

Have you ever left this moment?  The mind runs away into the past, recalling events, and into the future, anticipating events, yet when does it do this?  Aren't these thoughts present thoughts?

So this sensation of back and forth, this pendulum of thought - this happens right here - right now.  You never move away from NOW - this moment - whatever you want to label THIS, this "present", this presence.

What is it about NOW that you know so well?  Every single bit of it changes constantly, but what doesn't change?  Isn't it that presence?  That knowing-you-are-here?  You must be here to witness the arrival of these thoughts, to witness the passing of these thoughts -  you must be here for any event to be known.  Yet it isn't the event we're concerned with - otherwise we're always trying to manipulate events - trying to make thoughts calm or spiritual, trying to make situations happy.

What we're concerned with is reality.  And reality cannot be anything but what IS.  WHAT IS.  What is, is reality, yes?  So what is the content of what IS?

The mind once again interjects - it "buts" in, it asserts it's knowledge base - it applies its model of reality, it's translations - what IS, is made up of parts, ME-seeing-WORLD, me as an individual who is a small and limited piece of what IS.

Yet is that actual experience?  Is that what IS?  We may say the translation is also "what IS" - and that's correct, but is that translation describing reality correctly?  Can any translation capture reality?

Any translation, any description, is negatable.  It's always from a point of view.  It's always from a perspective.  If the perspective shifts, the truth shifts with it, necessarily.  Is it not true?  So absolute truth cannot ever be arrived at through translation at all.  Absolute reality cannot be grasped in words, in definitions.

Reality has been defined as THAT which cannot be negated.  Yet we can negate any point of view, any perspective - really any APPEARANCE can be negated ultimately -simply because an appearance must be the result of something, some essence which then is formed.  We can't arrive at that essence yet we know the appearance is dependent - it's dependent on the limited senses - it's dependent on the filter through which we're translating.

Is there any such thing as that which cannot be negated?  Is there something we can know directly which is reality as defined?  Yes.  There is.

It is YOU.  Your presence.  Can that ever be negated?  Can you negate your Self?  Can you negate your presence?  You are THAT which can never be negated.  But if that "you" is taken to be a limited entity - a separate person - of course it can be negated, simply because that limited entity is an appearance.

Yet that ever-present presence that you are can never be negated at all.  It's always-here.  It's always the capacity to know any appearance and the passing of appearance.  It's that which never changes.  It's YOU.

It's YOU.  Your true essence is this presence of knowing that you are, this presence of "knowing what IS" - is that presence apart FROM what IS?  No.  It IS what IS.

You ARE what IS.  Start there.

19 comments:

No One In Particular said...

Hi Randall, just read something interesting that complements this entry: if you identify yourself as a seeker, it's difficult to start with "I am what is". It starts and ends with I am.

Yet another crystal clear post!

Anonymous said...

What Is, happening as the silent movement of this eternal, ever fresh moment that never arrives. What Is, fluidly going on as a Saturday night exchange of vibrations, as sweet quietness, as unforeseen carnal complications... Ha! Who gives a rat's ass?

Christine said...

"But if that "you" is taken to be a limited entity - a separate person - of course it can be negated, simply because that limited entity is an appearance."

This entire article is great, but that above statement explains so much! One of these days after I get this information beat into my head enough times, maybe I'll get it. :) Thanks.

Consius said...

Now, NOw and Now!

It is like being on second life without any time or date index on it, walking around in a vaste endless I don't know what......apparantly doing stuff...evrything just happens...hard to explain what THIS is. I don't even want to call it awareness cause that is what is looking. That is not this vaste endless happening.

Randall Friend said...

Christine,

"Maybe I'll get it" is always false. As long as you take yourself to be a separate individual, that sense of being apart or isolated will always be both the reason for the search and the reason the search continues.

How can an individual, through seeking, find wholeness? Will there come a day when wholeness comes? Will there be some future event which brings wholeness? Will some future experience bring wholeness?

How can an individual find wholeness? It is the belief that you ARE an individual which obscures the PRESENT wholeness, which is just WHAT IS.

Therefore investigate the present sense of being an individual - start from the whole - see where that apparent division exists - find if that isolation or limitation is the reality, or if it only exists as an assumption.

Question the very existence of Christine - is that a solid and separate entity or just an issued set of beliefs, a constructed image, a vague and slippery concept.

What IS, is reality. Is that not obvious? What IS, is not made up of parts, individual and independent parts. The first error comes with the name, the label. There is awareness and then it's broken up into subject-awareness and then object-sensation - in concepts. In calling it "sensation" we've split up what IS into subject and object - experiencing becomes experiencer and experienced.

Then experiencer is given a name - Christine - and experience is given a name - computer screen.

It is and only ever was pure unbroken, unseparated awareness or Being. The concepts cannot actually divide THIS. Yet if that story made of names is taken to be the real, then we have a Christine operating in the world, which she is separate FROM.

You are the whole, right here and now. There is no lack, no isolation, no division. Continuing to look to the future is continuing to miss your essence AS the whole.


love to you

Anonymous said...

Have you ever been unconscious?
I had 2 operations, and was TOTALLY unconscious for hours. I did not feel, think, had dreams, no sense of time, I had absolutely not awareness of myself, my body functioned as an automatic device.
When I woke up, I had absolutely no memories from the time I was unconscious. If somebody told me I was unconscious for 2 years, I would believe, as I lost any sense of time.
What made me unconscious? Chemicals! They blocked my consciousness, and there was no more „me“! But I did not die!

So, if simple chemicals are able to totally block somebody’s consciousness, what is consciousness but chemical activity of brain?

Simple chemicals (drugs, narcotics) are able to change/twist your mind/consciousness in many ways.
If consciousness (awareness of being alive) has anything to do with divinity, why simple chemicals have so big influence to them?
The same happens when you die: no chemistry, no mind! This time for ever! Thanks

Christine said...

Thanks for your response Randall! But now that leads me to another question, if you don't mind. So what does one do to get rid of these images and beliefs, these ideas of separation? You suggested that I question my own existence. Is that it? Question the existence of everything?

Randall Friend said...

Christine,

It's not a manipulation, not denying anything - not forcibly getting rid of images or beliefs. It's just taking a look at how our concept of reality is built. How those ideas and assumptions arrived.

Yes - question your own existence. What does that mean? You know that you ARE - you exist. That cannot be negated, no matter how you look at it, because you have to be there to even question. But is that obvious existence actually separate from Life itself? Is that "Christine" anything but a projection, an assumption? Is the "person" an actual independent entity or is it only a belief.

If we notice - there is an emptiness behind the eyes, a no-thing-ness - there is no entity seeing - yet seeing is happening - and within that seeing comes the idea of "Christine". "Christine" is nothing but a thought-story. It is incidental, it is objective.

Christine is built from memories of sensations. It is presently a bundle of concepts, it is imagination.

So "what" you are is something which isn't incidental, something which is ever-present - that PRESENCE is what? What is it? It's this present activity of knowing. Yes?

I AM means Awareness IS.


love
randall

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said,
"I had 2 operations, and was TOTALLY unconscious for hours."

You ARE what IS, not what was.

"The same happens when you die: no chemistry, no mind! This time for ever!"

You ARE what IS, not what will be !

Cheers Rik.

Julian said...

As Wayne liquorman said, you can't be lost unless you are seeking for something.

To know I have never left this moment is amazing. It has just been here, as this all the time. There is a stillness in this, an unfamiliar sense of reality floating that convinces whatever is here that it is not part of the story. It justn't isn't me tapping these keys. This is felt without fear.
Thank you for your patient willingness to uncoil the obvious.

GreenSkink said...

Anonymous wrote:
"Have you ever been unconscious?
I had 2 operations, and was TOTALLY unconscious for hours. I did not feel, think, had dreams, no sense of time, I had absolutely not awareness of myself, my body functioned as an automatic device.
When I woke up, I had absolutely no memories from the time I was unconscious."

What was your experience at the point of waking up? Were you aware of having been unconscious for some period of time, even if you couldn't tell how long?

My experience of waking up in the morning is that there's awareness of having been asleep, a sense that time has passed since I was last awake. I interpret that to indicate continuity of some kind of awareness while consciousness seemed to be absent from the body.

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su said...

My Friend,

You say "I AM means Awareness IS."
It is the only truth I know.

Anonymous said...

I am typing, thinking of the words I will put down; I hear the TV chattering behind me and this is all there is. I stay here each word typed and experience rising 'stuff'in the present awareness that I AM. I am not lost in thought. I am aware that I am aware and present. This is peace, serenity, love.

BUT--in the hubub of daily living; the cacophony of life I am lost again in thought-land; I become an expert in Banking & Finance, I instruct and correct friends and strangers; I am angered or please at their responses; I am back in the STORY of BSfeeling pain, anger, happiness and attribute this feelings to me or to 'them'. Sometimes I see the story being played out apparantly people who are really not people but programed beings playing out the role of the moment. Other times I identify with the play and I am that imaginery me with a curiculum vitae. Periodically I am here now seeing the movement of life. I am urgently aware and pleasantly calm and there is an ease and beauty and peace and love that I am.

RB

Randall Friend said...

Julian,

Yes, it is blindingly obvious. How can What IS not be?



love
randall

Randall Friend said...

RB,

Nicely said. Yet you are never actually lost in any of this, angered, pleased, back in the story. You are the panorama upon which these happenings seem to happen, and that which you are is never lost for one instant.


love
randall

The Crow said...

I am a crow.
I am a fox.
I am a still pond.
I am the forest.
I am me.

In fact I am none of these things.
I am all these things together.
All these things are what I am.

Anonymous said...

You are very clear Randall, thank you.

Love

Einrich said...

What 'is' is just as important as what 'is not', but perhaps I'm just reading it wrong. It's no good putting focus on 'things', per se, but rather the relationships between and among them. After all, nonduality is about seeing the 'connection'. :)