A Comment on "The Illusion is You"

What I wrote pointed to the tendency that most have to deny or trivialize experience. Notice how thoughts and feelings are perceivable. They are part of what is. I do not think it is helpful to dismiss them. I do not think it is helpful to netti netti them away. What is equally evident is that "I" is not perceivable. Seek as long as you like, you will not find any "I." What is not perceivable can only be mystery. Why speak of "I" when it comes to mystery? Why speak of "my" when it come to mystery? "I" is always a separate concept.

There is an idea that most have, and most seekers have of "I am 'I am,'" but this is just a clever story. It is an assumption. "I am not this so I must be that." This is just the association of two thoughts, "I" and "That." Let's deal with what's evident. Shall we? What is evident is that thoughts feelings and experience, all that is perceivable, comes from what is neither perceivable nor conceivable. When thoughts come is evident. When feelings come is evident, but where they come from, where they emerge from is not evident. We are in the realm of mystery, bewilderment, awe.

Thoughts not being real is neither the answer nor the question. They are real. They are real thoughts. They are real feelings. Who knows this? About "That" nothing can be said. It is neither being nor non being. Both being and non being are thoughts themselves. We are in the realm of opposites. Mystery has no opposite. Everything stated about it is a concept and is not mystery.

What I wanted to point out is that the moon to which the finger is pointing is not thoughts. The moon is where thoughts come from. Who can speak about that? Is there something? Is there nothing? Everything except that of which nothing can be said, is a concept, a creation. This "I" thought as you call it, is an inference. No "I" can be found. Feelings arise and there is an association of "I" "my" and the rest. Thoughts arise and it is the same. The thoughts can be seen. The "I" cannot. Feelings can be seen, who is feeling them cannot. Becoming aware of them is proof that they are, not that you are. Try to become aware of what is aware. Try to see the Seer. No one has ever done it, which is why it remains always mystery.

My point is, why are so many concerned with silencing, witnessing or controlling thoughts, feelings and experience? There is no need to netti netti them away. There is no real gold in witnessing them even. Try to witness what witnesses. That is the gateway to silence and peace, because it is intrinsically mysterious. It is not unknown. It is unknowable. The mind cannot grasp it or communicate it, because it is not an object. If it were, it would be perceivable, neither is it an "I." If it were, it would be perceivable.

Try to find this separate "I" that is perceivable, that is an object. Thoughts are found.Feelings are found. The body is found. The world is found. Experiences are found. Try to find your self. Is there a you that is perceivable and therefore evident? Even awareness is evident, but where is this you? It is a mental trick to say, I am the awareness. Where did this "I" come from? Is it not an inference? Is it not just an association of two concepts, mainly thought and the body, in particular the "I" thought and the body? As Papaji says, "Awareness isn't it. The one aware of awareness is it." But be careful. It is not an object, not a concept, so don't turn it into one.

The body is. It cannot be denied. Thoughts and feelings also cannot be denied. What about this "I," what does it refer to? Can you affirm it in the same way as the rest? Can you say, "it is?" You can neither perceive it nor conceive of it. You perceive only a label, the label "I". If you say "my" awareness who are you talking about? If you say "my" thoughts, who are you talking about? If you say "my" feelings or "my" body, who are you talking about? If you say "my" experiences, who are you talking about? If you say "I am me," where is this I? Where is this "me?" Look for that one. Can it be found? Is it an object alongside the others? Is it a separate something alongside the others? What good is meditation, if you haven't looked for the meditator? What good is seeking, if you haven't looked for the seeker?

Always,

Prakash

The Illusion Is You

If I look back, I must concede that netti netti wasn't ultimately helpful. The underlying story was thoughts were not real. This meant that I was real and thoughts were unreal. Hence, the task was left to me to discriminate between real and unreal. I had to keep on guard. What an exhausting work this is. I'm not this. I'm not that.

As I said, the underlying story was thoughts aren't real; I am real. The truth I found to be the opposite. Thoughts were in fact real. Thoughts were real. Feelings were real. Experiences were real. They were there and undeniably so. They were what was. The truth was that I wasn't real. Thoughts were, the thinker was not.

Having seen that, I saw that thoughts naturally diminished. Not having any self to feed on, the thoughts gradually diminished until there was effortless silence. Nothing was done, and nothing was left undone. It didn't happen by exclusion or discrimination. It happened because there was a seeing that there was no self to put energy into them. That is how thoughts diminish. There is no self there to provide them with a point of reference.

It's not about you diminishing thoughts. You are and have always been part of the illusion. In fact, the separate me is the illusion. It's not about not letting thoughts land, or not identifying with thoughts, or trying not to think thoughts. Why had I not seen this before? Practically everything I was reading in order to understand awakening was wrong.

The awakening had happened, but what I was reading was all pre-awakening advice not post awakening rest. Even teachers couldn't clarify what was missing. It was as if I was climbing down from the mountain and they were giving instructions on how to climb up. But I just came from there, and now I was climbing back down. Their advice was exactly wrong. It was the exact opposite of what was required.

What I needed to hear, was not, don't give rise to a single thought or don't identify, it was not, "who are you without that thought?" What I needed to hear was what realization actually was. Everyone was giving methods how to realize truth. But few were saying what realization was. So I will say it now. Realization is not an experience. It is not an event. It doesn't take time. It is not a process. It is not even a death, nor an attainment of any kind. It is not that there is an unchanging you aware of the changes. It's that there is no you, no separate self to be bothered at all, no separate self to be identified or unidentified, no separate self to control experience or refrain from controlling experience.

Most spiritual practitioners are inventing a mind in order to control thinking. They invent a control center in order to create a silence. Eventually, their invention disappears in the silence, but this is not even necessary. Thoughts diminish naturally when there isn't a self involved in the laborious task of acceptance and rejection, but even if they don't, what is it to you. After all, you are the illusion.

Unknowable

There is a connection between thinking and seeing form and not thinking and seeing the formless. When you are not thinking, what ever you look at, you are seeing the formless, and when you are seeing the formless, you are not thinking. That's the connection. That part is not so mysterious. The mind simply cannot wrap itself around an objectless experience. Such an experience is unknowable. That is the experience of reality without thought. It is both objectless and unknowable. No thought, no-thing; no thing no thought. That is the equation.

This is why reality is spoken of not as unknown but as unknowable. Reality, as it is, is unknowable. It is not accessible to the thinking mind. So long as thought is present, so long as you look from the thinking mind, reality eludes you.

What then is the option? What else is there besides looking from the thinking mind? Simple, there is looking at the thinking mind. When you look at the thinking mind, you are not looking from the thinking mind. In fact, you are looking from somewhere else, somewhere other than the thinking mind. In looking at the thinking mind, the mind is turned into an object. The paradox is, by doing so, the thinking mind dissolves. another way of saying this is that the mind reveals its objectless nature.

The reason is simple, even logical. When looking at the mind, you are looking from somewhere other than mind. This nether region is called no mind, Looking from no mind, or looking from objectless mind, there is no knowledge of objects. Thus, reality is unknowable.

Silence

Silence

Inquiry is not an intellectual endeavor. It is using your awareness to get out of your head. It does not provoke thinking. It arrests thinking. Rest is the result because something is arrested. For a brief moment, thinking is arrested. In that moment, the concept we normally hold of our self is not there. It is dependent on thought. Because it is dependent on thought, it is thought.

See for yourself. Whenever you look for an "I" there isn't one. The reason is: for the brief moment you are looking, you are not thinking. There is no thought. This vacancy, this absence is what is referred to as original nature, the true nature of the mind. The true nature of the mind is vastness. This vastness is so expansive, so empty, that thought perishes without a reference point.

The realization that you are no one that you think you are is not an idea. It is a direct experience of what remains when there are no ideas. The absence of all ideas, the absence of all "shoulds" such as: it should be like this, or it shouldn't be like that, you should be like this or you shouldn't be like that, I should be like this or I shouldn't be like that, the absence of all such ideas is called silence.

Does this mean that ideas must never return? Not at all, that would fall into the category of shoulds. It simply means, as ideas, they are welcome, but they are ideas; they are not you. You are what remains. The ideas can change, and will, but see for yourself, the silence has never changed. Silence is the unchanging eternal Truth. That is the moon to which the finger is pointing.

Since it is unchanging and eternal, silence cannot be acquired in the usual sense. In its fullness, it is here now. What, then, will you do? Will you let this silence have you, or will you continue clutching at passing ideas. So long as you believe there is choice, this invitation will be offered you. However, if it is seen that silence is, in fact, choiceless, and all else are ideas, if that is seen, then silence has, in truth, already dissolved you.

Total Surrender

Total Surrender

Trusting, acceptance, faith or self-realization; any true path, even a pathless one, includes one of these. A spiritual awakening that does not bring about one of these cannot be called an awakening. Unless there is either a seeing or a willingness to see that you are not in control, (the only realization that warrants surrender), the awakening has not happened or is not mature.

If there is a measuring stick of spiritual maturity, it is surrender. Trust is the way it has been talked about in the west. Trusting, or having faith, is their way of getting out of the way. Acceptance is an expression common to the east. Being synonyms, both achieve the same results and the same complaints.

If achieved, the result is rest, if not, the complaint is 'I can't." "I can't surrender." "I can't accept." "I can't trust." "I can't believe." When that is the case, when nothing else works, self realization or self-inquiry, is like the card up your sleeve. It strikes at the very heart of the dilemma. It asks, "who is this 'I' that cannot accept?" "Who is this 'I' that cannot trust?" "Is that what I am?"

Rarely, does one ask such a question. One who succeeds at trusting, surrendering or accepting will not ask such a question. He or she is satisfied, not curious. Either one is satisfied with being a separate someone who is surrendered, or one is satisfied with being a failure who cannot.

Self-realization is an altogether different approach. It challenges, it questions a very basic assumption. "Is it so? Is it true that I exist as a separate somebody?" "Is it true that this verbal 'I' is what I am?"

If the realization is deep enough, this belief in "I", along with the inner dialog, such as: "I have to trust." "I must trust." "I should trust." is vanquished altogether. The thoughts, "I have to accept." "I must accept." "I should accept." are seen for what they are.

To see that there is no individual controller, but only an illusion of control, is the freedom of self-realization. Their is neither one in the way, nor is there one to get out of the way. The surrender is total and irreversible.

Would We Now Believe It?

For a long time awakening has been kept secret. The simplicity of it was obscured by poetic language which was further obscured by prose. Add to that: cultural prejudice, gender bias, philosophical differences between east and west, spiritual and material polarities. We are not on any one side of this dialogue. What we point to is a universal experience.

All of us at some time have sensed something more. We have not only contemplated something more, we have experienced something more. We have realized something more. We have directly encountered the "something more," Call it the universe, call it God, call it Awareness, Consciousness, Presence. Call it what you like.

The point is, had we not been told, we are separate, that we are fallen, that we are apart from the totality of Life, would we now believe it? Would we look at "so and so" or "such and such" and say, "You are other than me?" Would we not have intuitively sensed on a very basic level, that we are all one, not just we but everything, the whole of existence?

Have we really had a chance to be natural? From the time we reached the age of reason, others were telling us who we were and how the world is. It's time to unmask this notion. It's time to return to our own wisdom, our own intuitive sense, that we are not separate and that nothing is.

Peace

Prakash

One Solution

Consider a solution that is the solution to every problem. What is it? Is it religion? Is it more money, more friends, more influence, more time? I assure you, it is much more intimate, much more radical. It is what the mystics have been saying for ages, but they are neither heard nor understood. This ignorance extends even to the authorities themselves. 

Whatever the problem, there is just one solution, not one solution for one problem and one solution for another but one solution for every problem. As my good friend Richard Miller beautifully put it, "the solution is dissolution."       

The seekers question that inevitably follows is how to effect or allow this dissolution? In my own experience, disillusionment is a good place to begin. To not be so quick to accept other's solutions which have proved dissatisfactory is the mark of wisdom. Not being satisfied with half measures, you are on the way to a true solution that doesn't involve better coping skills, more knowledge or more ways of how to best manage this moment. 

Even how to best let go of control is just another half-measure. It is just another coping skill, a way for the ego to adjust. When this is seen, when  there is a deep recognition that pseudo solutions are not enough, there is the possibility of a more radical solution.

Prakash

The Problem with Methods

The Problem With Methods

Whether awakening is sudden or whether it comes in stages, whether it is partial or whether it is full, depends entirely on Grace, but since Grace makes use of methods, let's explore a few of them. For the good of all, I have chosen four primary methods. If we go into them, perhaps we can deepen our understanding of what they are and where they fall short. The first is meditation. The second is witnessing, the third is self-inquiry, and the fourth I call investigating wholeness.

The goal of meditation being a thoughtless state, the concern is diminishing thought. Here, some are more successful than others. Regardless of one's success or failure, when the practice is through, although there is a glimpse, there remains a separate someone who has meditated, be it poorly or successfully. Here, one may suffer under the delusion that they are a separate somebody trying to get to where they already are.

The second is witnessing. In witnessing the concern is diminishing identification. Netti netti, "not this not that," is part of the method. The objective is to achieve or experience a kind of aloneness, a kind of pure space that is not identified with any of its arising forms. It is a type of discrimination. However, even if witnessing is successful, one is left not only with the thought or the belief, "I am the Witness," but he or she is left with the mistaken understanding that one is solely the Witness. Due to the diminishment of identification, what arises has nothing to do with what witnesses. This method often results in an experience that is transcendent, divisive, disassociative or dualistic.

The third is self-inquiry. Self-inquiry is the invitation to investigate the basic assumption of who or what you are. It is subtle and often misunderstood. If confirmed by one who has realized, it is the most direct path. It is so direct that it has been called the pathless path. The discovery that comes out of self inquiry is not what you are but what you are not, mainly: you are nothing perceivable or conceivable. Not being able to perceive a mind, a separate entity or individual is the immediate result of the method. It takes but a glance, and its significance, if understood, is irreversible and total. If it is not, self inquiry becomes just another practice and its greater purpose is missed. (In order to prevent this, the teacher waits for the right time, when the mind is silent, and truth can go in without ego defenses.)

When something becomes a practice, there is the goal of practicing and improving. The belief is that one is becoming better at meditating, witnessing or inquiring. With this understanding, the drive to better oneself continues indefinitely. There is a striving to achieve some exalted state. There is a projected future where there will be less thoughts, less identification or a truer seeing. There is a projection of some event when, for the "individual," things will be more peaceful. If meditation, witnessing, and inquiry were not turned into a practice, there might be the realization that there is no separate someone divorced from Being. Then, meditation, witnessing or inquiring could be enjoyed for themselves without a goal. This would put an end to the individual's search.

If self-inquiry were understood correctly, if the full shock of realization were felt, neither meditation, witnessing, nor inquiry could become a practice. They could not become a practice whereby an individual hoped to gain something that is not here now, whether it be a thoughtless state, a break in identification, or a grasp of who or what you are. If self inquiry were understood correctly, the seeker's search would end. However, even self-inquiry falls short. Even if it fulfills its purpose, the importance of the body or personality are often denied, undervalued or left out.

Because these methods come out of a tradition which challenges assumptions: mainly that you are only the body, that you are only the mind, that you are solely the person or individual, they begin from the perspective of overturning a prejudice. Since nothing can be said of what is discovered, what is seen upon inquiry, the focus is turned to what is not seen, mainly, there is no perceivable I or individual controller, and yet, there is the experience of I, the experience of ego, the experience of control and the experience of choice. I arises, I individuates and expresses as personal. This is the human experience.

Upon investigation, we find that Truth is all encompassing. It includes the human and the divine. There is not only the One, but the many. We can attach any number of stories or theories to this, but for whatever reason, it is the way Consciousness is expressing. It is personal, impersonal and neither. It is individual, alone and neither. It does not exclude. It diversifies. It does not separate; it includes. We may say, "not this not that," but the truth is: there is only That and That is all there is. Consciousness encompasses all that is. It is fully the One and the many. We may experience it as "not two." We may experience it as many. We may experience it as either, neither or both. That is the paradox.

Those who have woken up, as a device, have often underemphasized what was overemphasized, and overemphasized what was underemphasized. They skillfully tried to point to what was not being seen. If the majority were looking at the finger, that would say, "look at the moon." If the majority were looking at the moon, they would say, "don't forget about the finger." They were unpredictable. They could speak of freedom as freedom from, be it freedom from mind, self, ego, individuality or illusion, and in the next breath they could speak of freedom as nothing to choose between, as choicelessness, that Truth has no preferences and no need to be free. Those who have truly woken up, close the gap between the one and the many. They do not dichotomize. They are all encompassing and truly non-dual. For them, realizing that you are not the body is realizing that you are all bodies. Realizing that you are not the person is realizing that you are all persons, all places, all things.

Because the seeker begins with the idea that he or she is separate or cut off from the One, he or she commences the return to wholeness. The seeker doesn't see that he or she is part of wholeness, that seeking arises in wholeness and is an expression of wholeness. The whole is not considered. Only parts are considered, the seeker and the sought, and the dilemma arises how to make the two one. The truth is they are already one. If we start from wholeness, there is no need to deconstruct. Will we deconstruct only to reassemble what can never be separate? Will we try to heal the gap between two realities that can never be separate? The reality of the part and the whole cannot be separate nor can they really be two. That there is nothing to choose between is the realization of oneness, that there is no chooser, but just the appearance of choice, is self-realization.

There are, however, methods for realizing the big picture that don't begin with exclusion or disassociation, they don't suggest rejection death or turning away. They are in no way divisive or exclusionary. They leave everything in tact. The don't consider the mind and the body as obstacles. They don't see thought as something to be gotten rid of. They don't see the need to throw anything out, even initially. They are not deconstuctionist in nature. They simply point to what is subtle, what has been overlooked. Rather then clearing away the false to get to the true, they start from wholeness and look deeply into the total organic expression of consciousness as a whole.

You are not this moment, free of content. You are this moment and its content. You are the totality. 

Thou are That and That is all there is.

Peace,

Prakash