Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Purnam

There isn't anything wrong with you.  There is nothing you need to change, get right, correct, do better.  Nothing needs to be manipulated or controlled.  Nothing imperfect needs perfecting.

You are perfect, right now, even if you don't know it.  What you are is limitless, perfect and free.  It is ALREADY so.  There is no making it so.  There is only realizing your present perfection, your present limitlessness.

It is the idea that you are not perfect which gives rise to suffering, the idea that right now, what IS, isn't good enough, should be better.  In taking yourself to BE a separate entity you automatically limit what you are.  But even this idea of separation is a perfect expression of that limitlessness that you are.

So the call is not to correct or change anything, but simply take an honest look at how you imagine reality, to investigate the platform you build and stand upon.  From that platform the world is made up of separate things, of opposing goods and bads, and then there is always the pursuit of what is better.

There is literally nothing in existence outside of this moment.  This moment contains the entirety of existence.  And that existence isn't a static existence, something which can be captured in a pointer or some spiritual experience.  Experience itself IS the pointer - whatever that experience might be.  Qualifying experiences and calling some good and some bad, some spiritual and some "un-enlightened" is simply bullshit.  It is entirely missing the point.

Experience itself IS the pointer - not this experience or that experience - experience ITSELF.  Everything you know, everything you imagine yourself to be, is contained WITHIN experience.  From this perspective you cannot truly find yourself at all - you are not an experience - how could you be?  Can you be an experience to yourself?

Yet if we just take an honest but simple look - just discard all the spiritual bullshit and hoping for some special state to suddenly appear - if we just rest in what IS without requiring it to be something else, without placing demands on it, without expectations - if we just remain with experience as a friend, as a gentle companion - it may dawn that the one who knows the experience is not something different from experience.

The experiencer and the experience are one and the same experienc-ing.  Knowing.  Awareness.  The present presence of your own true Self, a Self which was never hidden or yet to come, a Self which was always shining brightly - a Self which IS all that it expresses.

In Vedanta, the Self is called Purnam - this is the Self that is perfect - full - complete - whole.  Without changing anything, without arriving at some future state, without some brilliant flash of light and spiritual revelation, you are already THAT - Purnam.  Give up all false ideas about yourself and that Self is obvious, already present and complete.

Your true Self is Purnam.  You can't make it so - it already IS.

5 comments:

No One In Particular said...

BRILLIANT. Jealous! But nicely so.

Cat said...

"There is literally nothing in existence outside of this moment. This moment contains the entirety of existence."

I suppose it is a common occurrence (speaking from personal experience) to want to be outside of the present moment. My friend keeps saying that life sucks and if she could just win the lottery everything would be fine. It's like we wish our (conceptual) lives away not realizing we already have everything we need in this moment. This moment is perfect.

Thank you for this post Randall. I remain earnest and open.

Cheers.
C

Diane said...

Your writings are so clear and ring true. Just wanted to say hello and tell you that your blog is beautiful.
Blessings.

Randall Friend said...

Cat,

It isn't that we need to stop wanting to be outside of the present moment. It's directly realizing that there ISN'T anything outside of this present moment. THIS is literally all there is.

If we just try to stop drifting in imagination or memory, try to stop living outside of this moment - it's nothing more than a self-help thing.

Notice once and for all that all memories, all imagination, is always present thought. It always happens NOW. There is nothing but now. This. All else is projection.


love
randall

Randall Friend said...

Diane,

Hello my friend. Love to you.