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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3514, Sunday, April 26, 2009, Editor: Mark



How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.

- Trina Paulus, posted to adyashantigroup




Q: So what we're seeing appears real, but we know it isn't. Now, is the intellectual knowing of this significant or important?

Sailor Bob: It's not an "intellectual" knowing. An intellectual knowing is some thing. What's the only sure thing you can possibly say about yourself?

Q: I am. I exist.

Sailor Bob: There is a knowing that you are. You can't negate that. Pure knowingness is going on. Now, who or what is knowing that? Pure emptiness, or no thing, is knowing that. There's no entity there. That knowing is the cognizing emptiness. That's pure intelligence.

Q: It's knowing itself?

Sailor Bob: No. There's no discrimination of itself in there. It's one without a second. It's pure knowing.

Q: So, when I'm seeing nothing...

Sailor Bob: No thing. There's no object. Pure subjectivity.

Q: So, this is an understanding.

Sailor Bob: Yes. Understanding is all. Now that you understand, you get back into life. You've seen through the illusion. You don't have to get into concepts about all this.




You cannot know the knower, for you are the knower. The fact of knowing proves the knower. You need no other proof. The knower of the known is not knowable. Just like the light is known in colours only, so is the knower known in knowledge.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj




To see the beauty of the flower you need silence not analysis; beauty can never be understood through analysis.

- Osho




The Truth Of Who You Are

Experiences of truth have been given different names by different spiritual cultures. Heaven, nirvana, resurrection, enlightenment, satori, samadhi - all are names pointing to this supreme, un-nameable, divine beauty, empty of suffering and filled with grace.

In any moment, in a split second, there is the possibility of recognizing the boundless, limitless, eternal truth of yourself. Opening to the truth of our own essential being is simply a matter of receiving; but, because of our conditioning, this doesn't seem like a simple matter. We are conditioned to fear the unknown depths of ourselves, suspecting the worst.

Yet, when we are finally willing to face head-on the suspected worst in ourselves, we discover an amazing, unbelievable truth: Opening the mind to what has previously been feared and avoided reveals the capacity to bear and truly embrace discomfort, even pain. And eventually, we discover that whatever we fully embrace reveals the peace that we were seeking through all of our attempts to avoid discomfort.

To open your mind to the silence that is the source of your mind is to open to your true self. Conscious silence is already open. You are already open. Allow your mind to stop gathering information, to stop imagining the future, to stop strategizing for survival. Let your mind simply be held by its source. Recognize that the capacity to open to the truth of your being is always here.

The world is not as you think it is. You are not who you think you are. I am not who you think me to be. Your thoughts about the world, yourself, or me are based on perceptions. Whether they are inner or outer perceptions, they are limited. Recognize that, and you hear the invitation into the truth of yourself, which cannot be perceived or imagined, and yet permeates everything.

The desire for truth is the longing you feel in your heart. The mental relationship with that longing is all of the things you throw at it to try to make it go away because it's bothering you. But it won't be satisfied with anything less than pure authenticity, pure being. If you are willing to stop throwing things at your heart's longing, to stop searching for an escape from the longing, it will reveal its own consummation.

When all mental activity around who you think you are is stopped, there is a crack in the authority of perception, in the structure of the mind. I invite you to enter through that crack. Come in through that opening. When you do, the mind is no longer filled with its latest self-definition. In that moment, there is only silence. And in that silence, it is possible to recognize absolute fulfillment: the truth of who you are.

When the mind says, "Go here, do this, try that," you can refuse to listen. You can realize that time after time you have gone here, done this, and tried that without any satisfaction. The invitation now is to stop everything, to simply be still. When you stop all of your searching, all of your justifications and excuses, what power does thought then have? In a millisecond of stopping, a thought is seen for what it is. In that same millisecond, the presence of truth is recognized.

A very strong habit of mind is the perceived need to know what will happen if thoughts stop. In the end, you just have to stop and see. You have probably tried every technique except stopping. If you have not stopped, you are still searching.

Stopping is not a practice. It is simply the opportunity to see that within this seemingly endless flow of thoughts, there is a choice to not follow the thoughts. In not following thoughts, the mind stops and what is here, what is silent, and what is always stopped can be revealed.

In an instant of recognizing the silence that is always here, you recognize your true face. You recognize the presence of God. You realize truth. Then you can address the challenges of life - of bodily pain, emotional turmoil, or mental confusion - with greater clarity and insight, because you no longer identify these states with who you are.

This is so simple. What you are searching for, you are. I don't mean your body, though the body is no obstruction and is included in you. I don't mean your thoughts or your emotions, your destiny, karma, past, or future, though they are not obstructions, either. All of these appear, exist, and disappear in the truth of who you are.

You are truth already. You are consciousness. Consciousness is spirit. Recognize yourself, and you will see yourself everywhere - in every other human being, in every animal, in every plant, in every rock. Until you recognize yourself, you are still figuring out how to find yourself, how to get more of yourself, how to know what is and is not yourself.

Truth is already here, regardless of the state of your body, your emotions, your mind, or your circumstances. Stop and see.

- Gangaji, from The Diamond in Your Pocket

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