Sunday, October 3, 2010

Perfectly Present

We can't seem to "know what we are" or "find our Self" without trying to find that "self" as some "thing".  What does this mean?

It means that we are forever trying to make the subject into an object, an experience.  Isn't this what identification is?  The body is objective to you - you know the body - the body does not know you.  Thoughts are objective to you - you know thoughts - thoughts do not know you.

So to be the subject means to be that which knows, that which is aware of.  But "that" isn't a thing - that "subjective self" isn't a thing which is found in any terms the mind can present.  Nowhere can you locate the actual subject.  You are the subject of this present experience - but the subject cannot be found AS another thing.  Therefore it isn't difficult because that subject is always perfectly present at all times.  It just isn't something the mind can turn into something, it cannot make a NOUN out of it.

So we might notice that almost all of the spiritual search is trying to make a NOUN or "thing" out of the subject - some bright light, some sublime feeling, some mystical experience.

The subject is perfectly present at all times - you are here.  That is undeniable.  But how to do you know you are here?  How do you know the subject?  You know it BECAUSE awareness is happening.  You know it BECAUSE experience is known.  For it to be known the subject must be present.

So instead of searching for a special experience as a manifestation of the subject or "knowing your Self", recognize that simply because experience is known, you know yourself.  Simply because any experience is present, YOU must be there.  You are that capacity BY WHICH the experience is known, whatever it is.

Therefore no experience is discarded - there are no conditions on experience.  ANY experience is evidence of your Self.  Or we might say, to know experience is to know your Self, automatically.

This is where the search goes down the rat hole, because we want to discard particular experience in preference for a special experience of our Self.  It will always be futile, because the "Self" is evident in all experience.  There is no validating experience.  THIS is IT.  You are HERE.  You are present.  And you are aware.

That presence of awareness is the evidence of your Self.  Coming to find what you are is simply giving up the need for some special experience and acknowledging your perfect presence as it is, right now.

2 comments:

benjamin said...

Hi Randall,
I'm a bit at odd with what you are saying, but perhaps it's just a matter of words. It seems you present the experiencing as dependent on the subject. But if it were so, how could there be self-knowledge? Can the knower know itself if it is naught?
As i see it, the subject-object is dependent upon (or the fruit of, daughter of) experiencing. It is then more feasible to understand the experiencing knowing itself as such, an experiencing that has both the attribute of subject and object, and therefore on its own it has the capacity to know and to be known.
But that wouldn't be quite accurate either, and perhaps i am misguided by emotion. The idea of "all being a dream" if not figurative, is so unsubstantial. Experiencing, even if i am ignorant of the truth about the experience, is undeniable. That to me feels (is interpreted as) fullness, rather than emptiness. It somehow feels "saner" to view it that way.
What do you think/see?

Randall Friend said...

Hi Benjamin,

Yes, all words are intermediaries - ultimately all concepts are irrelevant and just what IS is the truth. Because what IS can't be grasped, it is put into concepts. The concept of the individual is that which divides the world. The "subject" is a pointer, still a concept, but seeing the actuality of the subject as no-thing at all, we might see through the identification or assertion of the individual as reality and see it for what it is.

Only a concept.

Then all concepts are free to fall away without that central foundation.


love
randall