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#1936 - Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - Editor: Jerry
Cee
http://www.presentnonexistence.com/location.htm
I recently visited Cee at her home in Berkeley,
California, which also serves as an ashram and retreat center. It
is an immaculate, well-appointed, peaceful space. The backyard is
spacious and offers privacy, a garden, and a feeling of
connection with nature. I've visited Cee before, and I never want
to leave! The following are selections from a new book she is
writing.
~ ~ ~
Spiritual Entertainment
People get tired of seeking in the world and turn to spiritual
seeking, often continuing in their same old mode of looking to be
entertained. There are plenty of quick fixes and show-time gurus
to feed this new search. Shaktipat, glorious kundalini rushes,
miracles, lights and colors; yet at some point even spiritual
entertainment ceases to fascinate you. As good as it gets - it is
still fleeting and unfulfilling.
The only lasting entertainment is your own Being. It is nothing
like watching a movie or even witnessing a life. You yourself are
the movie. You yourself are Life Itself. Without the appearance
of anything and without witnessing anything, there is just this
one perfect Existence. You are That.
~ ~ ~
You don't even need a teacher
The surest way to figuring out what the world is about; your life
is about; and who you are, all boils down to one thing. You.
Then you don't need to look outward for the answer any more.
If you intuit how to delve into the core of your own existence,
you are on your way.
You don't even need a teacher.
If you are on your way.....where are you on your way too?
How far a journey is it to get to yourself?
If it seems like a journey, take it.
You can never do anything more sacred or more important.
When you arrive back to what you never left, you understand how
no journey has ever been really taken.
When you get on the right track of inward-turned attention
you understand that every teacher you have ever had (in fact
everything that has ever occurred) has always been your own
consciousness.
So you throw away your outward teachers and let Consciousness be
it's own teacher.
Can consciousness see itself?
Can your consciousness find itself? Stop reading words and start
meditating.
~ ~ ~
Fantastic stories, mystical experiences, amazing worlds.
Everything happening from breakfast to the Big Bang is just more
stuff.
One piece of stuff is not better or worse than the next piece of
stuff.
When you get tired of all the stuff, look for what is beyond all
the stuff.
What is all the stuff resting on? Experience that state in which
all the stuff is gone.
~ ~ ~
Waiting until death for freedom:
It must be now. Make the dream over now.
It is never over as long as you participate in it.
It is unwise to think that the end of births and deaths will
happen after your human death.
You can’t wait for it to be over.
Of course your current identity will perish, yet another will
take it’s place, as long as someone is there.
It is never over as long as you participate in it.
-----------------
Being fully in the present means not (taking a position and)
looking at the present objectively.
Don’t be in the present.
Be the present.
~ ~ ~
No matter where you go, how many times you change your
circumstances, there is still this gnawing need. This wanting to
be fulfilled. This yearning for an answer. Looking in the world
of form produces no satisfactory results. Only momentary relief,
which is only a brief respite from the search itself.
Some spiritual teachings proclaim the search itself to be the
culprit. They suggest you to stop searching because the
assumption of a problem initiates the search, and in truth there
is no problem. Yes it is true that in full Self Realization there
is no problem. Yet to think about that, is not to realize it. To
try to stop searching is not really stopping. Such efforts are
the same search in a different disguise.
The more fruitful way to approach is to search in the right
place.
~ ~ ~
I once got an e-mail in response to the Present Nonexistence
website that read, “oh Mighty cee, why not get a
lobotomy?”
I laughed out loud.
Well, because it wouldn’t work.
To make changes on the physical level does not result in
understanding. Do you think the ego would cease to exist because
there was little or no brain functioning? Is physical death the
end of the ego’s adventure? As long as there is an identity,
there will be an adventure.
~ ~ ~
Stick with one teaching
All wise teachings are beautiful and valid. When someone wants to
find the truth he will
find his or her own truth in the most appropriate way. Some of us
have had many spiritual
mentors. We have studied and been touched by many spiritual
teachers and teachings. If
you pray to the divine, begging to know the truth of existence;
some kind of a way will
occur to you. Take up a teaching and follow it Study and practice
a teaching long enough
to know it for yourself. In the end you have to make the teaching
yours.
Words and practices ultimately fall away with understanding.
Until then, follow one
teaching explicitly until you make it your own. You can make an
ancient scripture come
alive if you find it's deep inner meaning and know it for
yourself. Scripture comes alive
in the most wonderful way. When you study and ponder ancient or
modern wisdom teachings
from any tradition, you will find the pure esoteric thread that
binds them all together.
They are all from the one perfect existence, the one perfect
Being. There is just one
existence. That one perfect Being is the one who wants spiritual
knowledge revealed. It's
(his/her) own existence is what is revealed. All teachers appear
at the right time for
the right person, if they appear at all.
With intense study and practice one may find that the teacher and
the teaching and who is
being taught are all one and the same. In ultimate truth there is
just the one Self
always perfect and changeless and blissful. In ultimate truth you
find that you always
had what you are looking for. No teaching has actually occurred.
~ ~ ~
Sometimes there appears to be a world and a body in that world.
That body (what everyone calls "me") can take any form
at all. The Upanishads say: "Whatever the infinite
Consciousness considers itself to be, that it appears to
be".
You can find the truth of this statement by looking at your own
dreams. In bed at night you take on many different bodies. While
you are that dream character you really FEEL like yourself. As
far as you know you are yourself and everything in your dream
seems real and ordinary. That (you) is the Infinite Consciousness
considering itself to be something. By deep considering of your
own Awareness understand that the bodies you assume are temporary
and superfluous. One comes to know that all the states of mind --
waking, dreaming and deep dreamless sleep -- are arising in the
same consciousness. Your consciousness. The Consciousness.
Many sages have proclaimed: I am not in the world; the world is
in me. Finding out how this pertains to yourself effectively
eliminates the fear of death.
http://www.presentnonexistence.com/location.htm