You are IT

When we pull back the covers and look at Vedanta, or any other nondual tradition, we find the same message.

The self IS the Self - that which you call the individual self IS the Self, the one essence, Brahman, God.

But taking it AS individual is to take it AS limited, automatically.  Because to point out one thing, you automatically oppose it to all other things.  To assert the existence of an individual is to simultaneously assert the existence or reality of other separate things.  

Trying to get rid of the individual is ridiculous.  Many pointers say to get rid of the individual - how can you get rid of what is not there?  

See that what you call the individual IS itself the Supreme, only giving it individual existence binds it, limits it.  Taking the equation of "ME-seeing-WORLD" as reality, you are binding your true Self to the temporal and spatial limitations of a body-mind.

Find out what that self really is, then see if it's actually bound to a body.  How to do this?

Notice that the "Self" is that which is aware of the world.  That's easy enough.

Now notice that the "Self" is that which is also aware of the body and mind - thoughts and feelings.

Can you admit that what you are is presently and always aware of the body-mind?  Can you admit that the mind is an experience to you?  

Notice the almost automatic resistance to this assertion.  That resistance is the veil, the obscuration, the habitual application of assumption over reality.

What is it, that is aware of both body and mind?  Where is it?  You come to find that you cannot place it, cannot locate it, cannot describe it, yet can never EVER deny it.

That "Self" is present and aware.  That "I" isn't an individual for the individual is a created idea in thought.  That individual isn't "I".  

That individual is a feeling, a memory, a story.  The individual is another EXPERIENCE.  

It isn't "I".

"I" is the present subject-ivity - that which objectifies everything.  As such it cannot become an object of knowledge.  It cannot be known objectively.

So remain with that pure "I"-ness - untangle the identification, which is only a mixing-up or confusion of that present subjective-knowing with experience.  "I am thinking", "I am living"...

Stay with that pure "I"-ness alone - there is no need to focus on the experience at all - let it be, and in letting it be there is no longer a condition or need to make experience different.  There is a detachment, a dispassion towards experience.  It does not matter.

That "I"-ness, called Atma in Vedanta, is your Self.  That Atma IS Brahman, the Supreme, the totality, the one Essence.  It is obvious except for the insistence that it is limited by a body, born into a body, finite and heading towards death.

We often, in the spiritual search, find that teachings or pointers are confusing.  They are confusing because we are trying to figure out how a limited individual can reach limitlessness, Oneness.  Obviously it cannot.  If the individual is a reality then all the spiritual teachings are bullshit.

They are not.  Let go of the idea that you were born, the idea that you are a limited "person", and that Atma or "I" or Self is then obviously all there is.

You are Limitless

There are no requirements for the world, body or mind.  Nothing needs to change.  The first idea or attempt of a change in what appears is a hinderance.

What do you know?  What really do you know?  You know something - you call it "world".  You call it "body".  You call it "mind".  You call it "ME".

No matter what it's called - notice that calling it something creates the idea that it is something APART, something SEPARATE.

World, body, mind, and ideas about what you are - these are appearance - what appears is due to many things - dependent on many things.  The most basic dependency is the sense organs - without which nothing would appear.  The nature of the appearance is entirely due to the particular functioning of sense organs.  Another dependency is the framework of ideas and beliefs held in the mind - what is experienced is due to the ideas you have about it.

So we must look upon appearance as never absolute - it is entirely relative, negatable.  All worldly knowledge is this way.

Appearance is what it is - it isn't due to a single cause - the whole itself is the cause.  If we call it a "universe" then what appears in that universe IS the universe.  The universe is itself the expressions OF universe and the cause of the expressions.

Leave appearance alone - there is no need to understand it, to manipulate it.  Simply observe, notice.  Notice without the first inclination to want it to be different, to want to change it - notice without the first condition.

When this can be done, even for a few moments, a clarity comes in.  An openness.  All is allowed to BE, freely, unconditionally.  Even any arising tension or resistance is then allowed to BE, for it is part of the noticing.

Then notice, simply, without any need to understand or explain, that all appearance comes and goes within a limitlessness, within an openness, within an unconditional "space".  Notice that all that appears comes and goes to or upon an invisible yet undeniable background - we call it "subject" or "ME" yet along with these labels comes requirements, conditions - the ME or Subject is then just another limited thing within the appearance, something which came INTO the appearance and will depart FROM the appearance at some given time.

This limitlessness is always there - all already comes and goes within it.  It is never absent.  This limitless isn't reached or arrived at - how can limitlessness be arrived at by the limited?  The limited must already appear within limitlessness.

Can there be anything outside of limitlessness?  Can limitlessness have any conditions?  Can limitlessness have any boundaries?  Can limitlessness need anything?  Is limitlessness in need of Love or acceptance or attention?  Is limitlessness finite in space and time?  Is limitlessness in need of a change?

Other words for limitlessness are perfection, freedom, boundlessness, Joy, Peace, Happiness and Love.  These are all words pointing to the same "thing".

YOU are that limitlessness, right now, before the next spiritual accomplishment, before the next book is read, before the next attempt at figuring it out.  Notice this limitlessness, which IS.  You ARE.  "I AM".  Same "thing".

Watch from I AM

What do you mean when you say "I AM"?

I AM is a confirmation of Being.  But what are you indicating with this confirmation?  A body?  A mind?

What does it mean to BE, right now in direct experience?  Without any imaginings or projections, without any concepts, what does it mean to be able to confirm "I AM"?

What is this I-AM-ness?  This present Being?  If the layers of conceptual identification are peeled back, what is left?

Stay right in that I AM-ness.  From there watch as the thoughts come and go, telling stories about this or that.  Watch as the body manifests as various sensations.  Watch as the world situation or experience changes constantly.  Watch how the mind makes the changing experience good or bad.  Watch how the body tenses in resistance to that which is disliked.

Just watch from that I AM-ness.

Soon you will realize you have never NOT been watching from that I AM-ness.

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.

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.

Peace is another word for YOU

Peace isn't something which is found - something which comes after some pursuit or experience.  Peace isn't getting everything right - it's not when everything is going good.

Peace isn't the absence of conflict.  It is the acceptance of conflict.  It is the very absence of any conditions placed on the world or any experience - feeling - thought. 

Nothing needs to change.  There is no "doing it wrong" - no mistakes.  No manipulation of thought or experience is required.

Simply give up all false ideas about yourself.  Rest in what is certain and obvious.

Present knowing.  The light which illuminates the experiences we call body, mind and world.  That light is presently shining yet overlooked because it's taken as "I am looking".

Can you get out of this knowing?  Has anything ever happened outside of it?  Isn't it primary while all appearance depends on it? 

You are already home, only you don't know it.  Know it and be done.  Peace isn't a state to be reached and held onto - Peace is another word for YOU.

Your Self at Play

What are you presently aware of?

The first answer you give is already false.  Any answer is born from memory, from accumulated, relative knowledge.  The word used is entirely arbitrary - it could have been called anything.  This learned knowledge is not absolute - it is subject to re-definition, to re-interpretation.  Once the world was seen as flat - it was seen as the center of the universe.  This was absolute until someone took a boat to the edge or developed a telescope strong enough.

The world you take as real, made up of things, is entirely false.  It is merely a changing totality - if we must call it anything we can call it Consciousness, as Consciousness is the totality of it.  This world of things and people comes anew each morning and passes without a trace at night.  What we CALL Consciousness IS itself the world - in fact you never see anything BUT Consciousness. 

Consciousness is not a property of an individual - the individual is a relative appearance IN Consciousness.  Is this not the most obvious fact?  Without Consciousness this individual cannot be formulated, conceptualized, the various sensations and perceptions cannot be put together in a sweeping imagination and called "ME".

We can narrow the definition of reality down to two things - You and Consciousness.  YOU are that which knows Consciousness, including all that comes with it - the imagination which creates the idea of "World".  Yet what we CALL Consciousness is not actually apart from YOU.  When we look at it this way, it might become clear that Consciousness is simply a movement of that presence, a wave of that present ocean of knowing.  For Consciousness is not a thing apart from YOU.  It is simply a shadow of the absolute reality that you are.

Nothing needs to be done except to give up the relative definitions, the imagination which is taken for absolute reality.  When the appearances of Consciousness are no longer attached to, when the various changing attributes, the names and forms, are no longer taken as independent things but aspects of the totality, there is the possibility to recognize the wholeness of your Self.

Then that Self is not special, not new, not some spiritual revelation but the most ordinary and obvious reality.  It always has been this way, only it was taken as separate, a world of independent things.

All you ever know is Consciousness - and Consciousness is simply your own Self at play.

The easiest puzzle

No questions need answered.  No experience needs to come.  No realization is required.

Reality is one, one happening, one potentiality, one IS-ness.

The only way to grasp it is to not grasp.  The only way to find it is to be it.

The only way to see it is to be the seeing.  But you cannot DO that because you already ARE that.

Only the imagination about what you are falls away.

Without imagination reality has no walls, no borders, no separation.  Without imagination reality has no individuals, no lives, no deaths.

Without imagination reality has no subject nor object, although even the descriptions, in which subject and object are put, are not other than reality.

It's like the eye trying to see the eye or the finger trying to touch itself.  It is a puzzle which only has one piece.

It is so close it cannot be apprehended.  It is not hidden but the most obvious thing you've ever known.

Stop - you're looking in the wrong place.  Any place is the wrong place.  Any thing is the wrong thing.

Look where no one can possibly look and you will find what never needed finding.

Sailor Bob's new website

Have a look at Sailor Bob Adamson's new website.

http://www.sailorbobadamson.com/

The person is a product of imagination

What do you actually know? 

There is present Oneness - undivided Reality.  That's already the case.  Reality is nondual.  It doesn't need to be reached.  It doesn't need to be MADE nondual.

That present Oneness is conceptually divided beginning with the knowledge of existence - I AM - as soon as that recognition that you exist comes - it's a conceptual division.  I AM cannot be grasped by the mind as Oneness or Wholeness - therefore all that is NOT ME comes in as imagination.  That imagining is the root of limitation, lack, because to assert something other is to limit what you are.

Then there must be a quantification of reality - we must know what it is.  We must define it, label it.  So present reality is divided conceptually - we call it sensation/perception.  Experience.  And an experience must have an experienc-er.  Therefore reality is given an equation to make sense of it - subject/object.

That is an object and "I" am the subject. 

That "I" then must be defined.  What is it?  Imagination must be used to say.  That "I" is a person, a soul or spirit, an entity which came as part and parcel of this body-mind. 

But wait - what is the body or mind?  We haven't yet defined them.  This nondual reality must be sliced and diced even further to make some intellectual sense of it.  There are present sensations - experiences - a bundle of feelings - THAT must be the body.  There are various patterns - language - those are "thoughts".  We've now given a label, a name, a way of making it more comfortable because now we believe we know what it is.  It's no longer a mystery.  It makes intellectual sense.

So here we are, persons living in this body-mind, living in a world of things.  Now we're comfortable - we have it all figured out.  But along with these definitions, these quantifications, these translations of reality, there is by default a sense of limitation.  To define yourself this way naturally creates a division or limitation - you limit yourself by all that you are not.

So the spiritual search comes - now we want to find out what we are - we've long-since forgotten it was all conceptual, all imagination in order to make sense of it, to wrap borders around everything to obscure the inherent mystery and stillness.  We want to BECOME whole, because AS a thing, a defined entity, we are not whole. 

But we cannot BECOME it.  It was always only imagination.  It was always only conceptual, a translation, an interpretation of nondual reality. 

Reality is already nondual.  There is no making it so.  In applying any definition or concept there is a concurrent limitation imposed.  Simply recognize this inclination to describe reality.

Seeking nonduality is absurd.  What form or practice can change the inherent nature of reality?  What experience can reveal Oneness when an experience is by definition the opposite of Oneness?

What you are seeking is already the case.  Can there ever be a point when the individual person finds Oneness?  It's an impossibility.  The person is a product of imagination.

This Life Story

Realization of your true nature is very easy.  Simply give up all ideas about yourself that you have.  This isn't just roles or accomplishments, but the very life story which has been the center of everything you have ever known.

For this life story is a story of a phantom, a false character, a fictional individual who was born and is headed towards death.  This life story includes all goals, attachments, likes and dislikes, successes and failures.  This life story includes every other person imagined to be in existence. 

This life story holds no reality - it is a projection of memory, a figment of imagination.  The very individual you have taken yourself to be is in fact not real at all, outside of the appearance of various sensations and other objective experiences.

You are not an experience - you are the experiencing itself, the light by which all experiences are illuminated, known.  The experiencing includes all ideas of an object experienced and a subject experiencer.  Both arise as concepts within the present non-conceptual presence of awareness.

Realization is not for the individual - as an individual you are on a dead-end street.  It is only when the individual is examined honestly and anything which is objective is discarded, that the fragrance of realization is found. 

That fragrance is not presently hidden or difficult.  It is the most obvious aspect of this very moment.  Although experiences have come and gone, changed constantly, this present light or subjective presence is intimately known at all times.  It is ignored because it is so obvious and ordinary.  Yet it is the limitless realization which you've spent a lifetime pursuing.

This limitlessness is not a product of the spiritual search.  You aren't going to find it anywhere.  It isn't going to arrive anew.  It is the very foundation of each and every moment. 

Look to this moment and nowhere else.  Recognize what it is about yourself which is always here and never changes.  That presence doesn't require a search.  All that is required is to give up all ideas you have about yourself, realize the falseness of the life story, and be what you already are.

Ever-present and perfect.

Enlightenment is the absence of the seeker

No matter what experience comes, the undeniable fact remains that you are here and aware of it.  It's very existence isn't absolute - it's existence depends on your being aware - your presence, which really is the same thing.

In spirituality we are focused on the experiences, reaching or achieving a special state, some rare experience.  To achieve this goal we feel we must manipulate the world, the body or mind.  This common belief is exactly the wrong direction.

THAT you are here and aware is the realization.  So-called liberation isn't getting something new.  It's a seeing-through of the very idea of the individual - that individual is itself bondage, limitation.  It's noticing that the individual or sense of individual self is an idea, a thought, a story, a feeling, an objective experience. 

You remain, as always, present and aware - aware of that experience - that experience of limited self.  The experienc-er is limitless, because it isn't definable.  It has no structure, no image, no quality other than it is obviously whole, complete and perfect already.  It requires no manipulation.  It is not in need of improvement to reach some pie-in-the-sky state of enlightenment.

That aware presence or presence-awareness IS itself the enlightenment which is sought after.  And it's discovery isn't in the pursuit - it's found in the absence of pursuit or seeking.

It's found in the absence of the SEEKER.  In fact, it's already here.  Enlightenment isn't in need of finding.  Looking for it creates the seeker.

And even that is perfect.

From where are you looking?

Q:   How do I find my true Self?


A:   Find the emptiness of this moment

Q:   Where is that?


A:   From where are you looking?

Q:   From the eyes, from the body


A:   Do you know the eyes and the body?

Q:   Yes, of course


A:   Then can that be from where you are looking?

This "thing" called "ME"

Holding on to some future attainment is not only futile, it is an obstacle. It assumes there is someone to receive some special state and that this present moment is not good enough.

Life is not bound by it's manifestations. A tree, a rock, a body-mind - these various manifestations of Life hold no individual existence. Existence is not divided by it's expressions.

You are that one Life, that undivided whole or totality. You are presently caught by appearance, spellbound by sensations, captured by the concepts about reality or existence, which say each "thing" exists alone, on it's own, as it's own totality.

That which is presently looking through the eyes is Life itself, that intelligence which cannot be described by any attribute or form, that which is the source of everything.

No word, no form, no idea can bind that Life, yet that Life expresses as the word, the form and the idea. The body-mind which is seeking that wholeness is in fact that Life itself, simply exploring the nature of itself, coming to find it was never bound by any limited appearance.

Notice the transience of all forms, notice that any truth can only be from a perspective and as such is by definition limited. You are not limited in any way.

That Life doesn't need to be unbound, freed or liberated. Anywhere you look, there you are - Life itself, expressing in infinite ways, only taking itself as a small "thing" called "ME".