Sunday, November 14, 2010

Stop expecting.

What are you waiting for?  What will arrive as confirmation of your proper understanding?  Some experience?  Some blue light?  Some blissful state?  If that state arrives permanently, how long before it becomes normal and then you're off searching for something deeper?

It isn't about the arrival of some state, making the universe whole, becoming something that you presently are not.  It is about seeing that our current idea of reality as split, is false.  It is about seeing that there is nothing missing, nothing lacking - that there is nothing to get OUT OF - nothing to change.  Nothing is needed.

As long as we have the idea that something is needed, whatever that is, then the search will be self-propagating, self-fulfilling, endless and futile.  It is the search itself which is the problem - the search IS the idea that something else is needed, something better.

But we can't just disregard the search, trash it and go on.  The search is uninvited - it is an irresistable pull - an urge - a compulsion.  So we must make sure we are looking at it the right way, we must ensure we are not running off in fantasy-land, imagination about what enlightenment might mean, about what it might bring, what it might change.

Reality is presently whole - not divided.  This is about the most obvious statement that can be made, it's almost silly to have to say it.  Yet our entire life is dictated by the idea that it is divided, that we are something apart from it, that it needs to be healed, brought together.

Reality isn't anything but what IS, right here and now.  It is not anywhere else.  It is not spread out in space and time - it is only what IS.  Isn't that the definition of reality?  So where is it split up?  By what mechanism is reality divided?

Are there multiple essences?  What IS reality?  If we stick with the appearances, then we can say there are an infinite number of separate things.  But what IS that apple, that rock, that body, that cloud?  What is the essence of any "Thing"?  Wouldn't the essence be this intelligent emptiness or space or fabric, this "substance" or raw Being-ness?  Is the essence apart from the appearances?  Isn't the essence the cause of that appearance?  IS the appearance it's own cause?  IS the appearance standing alone?

Is there any appearance anywhere which stands alone apart from what IS, from pure Being, from existence itself?  Is existence divided?  ARE you a separate existence?

These are questions we must ask - these are questions about present reality, about what you are NOW, not what you can become through spirituality.  There is no becoming - there is the realization that reality IS whole and you cannot be other than THAT.

Therefore there is no condition on present reality.  There is no wanting experience to be different.  There is no wanting the world to be different.  There is recognition that what IS is already whole, already perfect, already complete with nothing lacking.  So the search falls away because it isn't needed.  Nothing is needed to bring in wholeness.

Nothing is needed to complete the search.  No new experience is needed - and whatever present experience IS, is perfect.  THAT is the peace and joy we are looking for through spirituality.  But it isn't found by looking for it to come in anew.

It is realized to already be the case - when we stop expecting something.

6 comments:

NetiNeti said...

So much has been cleared up by your sharing. I cannot truly express the gratitude I feel. Thank you.

Randall Friend said...

Love to you, my friend.

Deanna Black said...

Thank you so much, Randall for this wonderful and inspiring text :)

billtys said...

Hello Randall,

Thank you for sharing this great insight you have.

You seem to be able to approach this subject from so many different and interesting angles.

Once seen from one angle...all the other perspectives you present are so good to read.

Love to you,

Bill Tys

Randall Friend said...

Hi Deanna and Bill,

If we watch a movie, we must suspend reality for a time, the characters become real. We have genuine emotions for them - we fear for them, we are happy for them, we laugh or cry because we have the capacity to truly lose ourselves in the false, for a time.

As that movie ends, we may genuinely care about that character - after a while we might look back and wonder how they are doing, what they are up to, where they are. If only for a moment.

This character at the center of the life story is the same - we must suspend reality to take on the belief in that character as someone real.

This movie must also end, one way or another. Will we finally honor that character for what it is, a fiction, or continue suspending reality in trade for a few fleeting emotions? Always trying to make that character something better while missing that it's always been only a story?

When I-the-individual is realized to be a story, then the real "I" doesn't go missing. THAT which you truly know as "I" still remains but that "I" is no longer a separate reference point - the only true reference point is the whole itself.

Shankara said - ultimately there is no difference between Brahman and Individual Self.

What you presently know as "I" is the whole - can you find a division between "I" and the "world"?

Therefore "I" isn't in need of a change - only know "I" for it's true reality and see through the false overlay - see the character as a character and "I" remains as it already is - whole, perfect and complete.

love to you
randall

benjamin said...

You are your own answer.
You need not work hard to come to this understanding.
Live hard, full on, do not waste your life in doubts, burn!
You are your own answer,
already.