Sunday, June 6, 2010

Neti Neti - The Path that leads you to where you already are

Only two things are required - earnestness and openness. 

Earnestness is the stubborn pursuit of what is being pointed to - the impulse to get to the bottom of it, to know what the Hell it's all about.  But also necessary is openness - if that earnestness is there but there is no openness to the possibility pointed to, there will be a constant banging your head, the mouse will run around and around, it will remain a mental exercise because that's the platform of reality.

Lay aside what you think you know about the world and your "self" - these pre-existing ideas are the very veil which seems to block the clarity.  Be open to the possibility that you are not a person at all, you weren't born and are heading towards death, you are not a individual entity born into a world.

In fact the world is born into or within you.  Everything you know - the world, the body and the mind or thoughts - these are all experiences TO YOU.  They come upon you - they appear TO you.  That body is an experience to you, however with the incessant identification you take yourself as bound within that body.

These are all contained within the state we call Consciousness - Consciousness is itself the arising of the world and body-mind experience.  What you are is THAT which KNOWS Consciousness, knows the coming and going of the world, body and mind.

The world came to you.  The body is a field of experience.  Right now, without doing anything different, without having gained anything special or spiritual, what you are is that which knows this field of experience.  That field of experience includes everything you take yourself to be - innocently, inadvertently but also falsely.

There is nothing needed to MAKE it so - to GET liberation - you are already FREE.  Only see the world as it truly is and not through this imagined platform or filter of reality. 

So the spiritual path is a path which takes you home - only you aren't actually going anywhere - going home means realizing you never left.

7 comments:

No One In Particular said...

Just like Dorothy.

Julian said...

This life and its emergence from a seed seems more and more like a dream now - bloody nightmare in some respects. But the light and space, I remember that as always there.Its funny to look inside and see a nothing that seems so much like an old friend, newly revealed.It was always there but very little noticed. seems very humerous now that it could have been overlooked.
Keep pointing, keep pointing, cos the mind plays such tricks that the obvious slips in and out of sight.

Randall Friend said...

Julian,

And mind is an experience - a wave on the ocean. There is nothing to remember because you have never ceased to be aware OF mind, whatever mind is doing. You are that ever-present subjective presence/knowing which doesn't need to be found because it's YOU.


love
randall

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed this post and am grateful for them. They inspire me believe there is something beyond belief. However after so many years of reading such material I am beginning to feel that for me this activity is a trap. These are just more stories within my story, ideas that I imagine come from outside me, ideas that I must assign value to and place in what I imagine to be the story of my struggle to find something indefinable. I read the words “Only see the world as it truly is” and they feel right and lofty but practically it make no sense. It sounds simple but how does one do this. And then the chase is on again. Ok, I don’t know how to do this thing that is all I need to do so I think, right, I just need follow this guy or the next guy and find out how to do that. This is my trap of circular thinking which leads nowhere. I think eventually I must reject everything everyone else says. Not judging the writing just letting them all go, all the quotes I repeat, the text I re-read and seeing it all as just more chasing of ideas, grasping them only to find when I open my hand there is nothing there, then grasping again. Anymore, the reading of non duality or enlightenment just keeps energizing the idea that there is someone out there who has something I don't and I need to get it. Even though writings are often called ‘pointers’ the mind ignores this and still believes there is some hidden value in them, keeps on digging for something that when found will surely flip the hidden switch and break everything loose. I don’t mean to sound discouraging, only to say that I am seeing the truth of what I am doing in following these writings.

Scarfox said...

There is no separation or subject in reality, can you find an actual subject to all objects or are they one and the same?

Funny note, the verification word was : aulnesse .. allness?

Randall Friend said...

Jeffrey,

Yes - everything loses it's meaning in your personal world - this personal world is only as a dream, made up of imagination. There is really nothing that can be done except to be open and earnest - at some point even that is irrelevant.

In the absence of any desire or fear, born from negating even the clearest pointers, in the absolute release of all experience, freedom is not far at all.

In fact it's already closer than you think.


love
randall

Subramani said...

I love these posts. Each new post gives a new insight and it resonates within me. Thank you.