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.