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#3677 - Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - Editor: Jerry Katz

The Nonduality Highlights
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights


The Basics

Stay With The Basics


1. YOU are Awareness, simply being. No one can say they do not exist. That existence, the sense of "I" as in "I Am," is undeniable and inescapable. Try to NOT BE. Cannot be done. So the simple pointer is, what you are is That Presence or Awareness that YOU ARE. Being. Just That! This True You ... BE-ING... is POINTED TO in language with concepts like Impersonal Consciousness; Awareness, Being ... YOU are just THAT, prior to the mind's translation into the thought I Am and I am this or that.

2. You are NOT an "individual." There are NO "individuals" anywhere except in unreal stories. The idea of a separate person is a fiction, a mind-construction, a house of cards, as the story tries to say, “I’m ME! (Unsuccessfully!) This idea of a "me" is ... on investigation ... seen to be a false claim by the thinking machinery to its own separate existence. This ever-changing idea of a person is simply unreal. WHO says "I'm Me?" The mind. To be blunt, it's bullshit. The whole fabricated story of me is pure bullshit: all stories of “individuals” is actually a fiction. As Shakespeare said, it’s a tale told by an idiot, filled with sound and fury, signifying … NOTHING.

Look right now! Seeing with naked Awareness, where is any person … unless you (as a mind-identity) think about it? Thoughts come and go. What you ARE NEVER comes and goes anywhere. It is (You Are) fully Here Now and Eternally Free and Clear, Eternally Presence, Shining before the mind.

YOU are not a thought, not a concept, not a feeling, not a time bound entity. You are Awakeness, Aliveness, Presence-Awareness. Just THAT and NOTHING else. The story of “me” … ANY “me” … is irrelevant. Let's cut through that crap right now! Okay?

Let's bring this back to the basics: What in YOU never changes? Being-Awareness, just That. That is your True Nature. The Ultimate Subject IN which and AS which all apparent “objects” appear.

Where is a separate entity when you are in deep dreamless sleep? Or under anesthesia? There is none. Obviously! But some Presence beats the heart, breathes air in and out, flows the blood, grows new cells and disintegrates other cells, grows hair and fingernails, ages the body etc etc! Who or what is "doing" all that? Not an "individual," "amazing" or otherwise.

Look and see that you are present and aware right now. That is the "Eternal," The Natural State; there is no other, no attainment, no flashy enlightened state, no carrot on a stick. There is NO someday when “you” will “get enlightened.” It's what you are right now. There is no other than NOW. Wherever you are you are ... Here. That's IT. Big Casino. You already got it in total and there's nothing more to this Nonduality stuff than that simple seeing, that you ARE. Awareness, Simply That.

-Charlie Hayes


From the blog of Charlie Hayes:

http://beingisknowing.blogspot.com/

The imaginary individual does not progressively disappear! One does not see through a mirage by slowly bailing the water out of it cup by cup! All troubles are for this conceptual “I”, not your actual being. The most direct approach is a head-on investigation of the reality of the separate “I” posited in thought. Where is it? What is it? Did we ever see it? If it is an illusion now, that means it never existed. The cause of all the problems never was present in the first place. If the cause of the problems has never been present, then what happens to the problems? They cannot stand. Nothing external keeps the false “I” going. This is a bit of backwards logic! What keeps the “I” going is the continued belief in it. External events do not generate that belief. This is how the mind tries to slip out of the directness of the inquiry. In what do all things come up and disappear? What sees them? Only that non-divided, ever-present, pure awareness itself. You are that. In seeing this, you are home — because you were never anything other than that. Suffering only arose when self-centered thoughts came up and a bit of belief went into the “I” notion. What happens? One overlooks the natural state and assumes oneself to be something one is not (a defective, limited “I”), instead of the clear and pure sky of knowledge that contains everything.

~ John Wheeler


From “I Am That”, Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

~ Chapter 53

Questioner: I must confess I came today in a rebellious mood. I got a raw deal at the airlines office. When faced with such situations everything seems doubtful, everything seems useless.

Maharaj: This is a very useful mood. Doubting all, refusing all, unwilling to learn through another. It is the fruit of your long sadhana. After all one does not study for ever.

Q: Enough of it. It took me nowhere.

M: Don't say 'nowhere'. It took you where you are -- now.

Q: It is again the child and its tantrums. I have not moved an inch from where I was.

M: You began as a child and you will end as a child. Whatever you have acquired in the meantime you must lose and start at the beginning.

Q: But the child kicks. When it is unhappy or denied anything it kicks.

M: Let it kick. Just look at the kicking. And if you are too afraid of the society to kick convincingly look at that too. I know it is a painful business. But there is no remedy -- except one -- the search for remedies must cease.

If you are angry or in pain, separate yourself from anger and pain and watch them.

Externalisation is the first step to liberation. Step away and look. The physical events will go on happening, but by themselves they have no importance. It is the mind alone that matters. Whatever happens, you cannot kick and scream in an airline office or in a Bank. Society does not allow it. If you do not like their ways, or are not prepared to endure them, don't fly or carry money. Walk, and if you cannot walk, don't travel. If you deal with society you must accept its ways, for its ways are your ways. Your needs and demands have created them. Your desires are so complex and contradictory -- no wonder the society you create is also complex and contradictory.

Q: I do see and admit that the outer chaos is merely a reflection of my own inner disharmony. But what is the remedy?

M: Don't seek remedies.

Q: Sometimes one is in a 'state of grace' and life is happy and harmonious. But such a state does not last! The mood changes and all goes wrong.

M: If you could only keep quiet, clear of memories and expectations, you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. It is your restlessness that causes chaos.

M: At least it did not slow them down, as your kicking would have surely done! You want immediate results! We do not dispense magic here. Everybody does the same mistake: refusing the means, but wanting the ends. You want peace and harmony in the world, but refuse to have them in yourself. Follow my advice implicitly and you will not be disappointed. I cannot solve your problem by mere words. You have to act on what I told you and persevere. It is not the right advice that liberates, but the action based on it. Just like a doctor, after giving the patient an injection, tells him: 'Now, keep quiet. Do nothing more, just keep quiet,' I am telling you: you have got your 'injection', now keep quiet, just keep quiet. You have nothing else to do. My Guru did the same. He would tell me something and then said: 'Now keep quiet. Don't go on ruminating all the time. Stop. Be silent'.

Q: I can keep quiet for an hour in the morning. But the day is long and many things happen that throw me out of balance. It is easy to say 'be silent', but to be silent when all is screaming in me and round me -- please tell me how it is done.

M: All that needs doing can be done in peace and silence. There is no need to get upset.

Q: It is all theory which does not fit the facts. I am returning to Europe with nothing to do there. My life is completely empty.

M: If you just try to keep quiet, all will come -- the work, the strength for work, the right motive. Must you know everything beforehand? Don't be anxious about your future -- be quiet now and all will fall in place. The unexpected is bound to happen, while the anticipated may never come. Don't tell me you cannot control your nature. You need not control it. Throw it overboard. Have no nature to fight, or to submit to. No experience will hurt you, provided you don't make it into a habit. Of the entire universe you are the subtle cause. All is because you are. Grasp this point firmly and deeply and dwell on it repeatedly. To realise this as absolutely true, is liberation.

Q: If I am the seed of my universe, then a rotten seed I am! By the fruit the seed is known.

M: What is wrong with your world that you swear at it?

Q: It is full of pain.

M: Nature is neither pleasant nor painful. It is all intelligence and beauty. Pain and pleasure are in the mind. Change your scale of values and all will change. Pleasure and pain are mere disturbances of the senses; treat them equally and there will be only bliss. And the world is, what you make it; by all means make it happy. Only contentment can make you happy -- desires fulfilled breed more desires. Keeping away from all desires and contentment in what comes by itself is a very fruitful state -- a precondition to the state of fullness. Don't distrust its apparent sterility and emptiness. Believe me, it is the satisfaction of desires that breeds misery. Freedom from desires is bliss.

Q: There are things we need.

M: What you need will come to you, if you do not ask for what you do not need. Yet only few people reach this state of complete dispassion and detachment. It is a very high state, the very threshold of liberation.

Q: I have been barren for the last two years, desolate and empty and often was I praying for death to come.

M: Well, with your coming here events have started rolling. Let things happen as they happen -- they will sort themselves out nicely in the end. You need not strain towards the future -- the future will come to you on its own. For some time longer you will remain sleep-walking, as you do now, bereft of meaning and assurance; but this period will end and you will find your work both fruitful and easy. There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged. Such moments are most desirable for it means the soul had cast its moorings and is sailing for distant places. This is detachment -- when the old is over and the new has not yet come. If you are afraid, the state may be distressing; but there is really nothing to be afraid of. Remember the instruction: whatever you come across -- go beyond.

Q: The Buddhas rule: to remember what needs to be remembered. But I find it so difficult to remember the right thing at the right moment. With me forgetting seems to be the rule!

M: It is not easy to remember when every situation brings up a storm of desires and fears. Craving born of memory is also the destroyer of memory.

Q: How am I to fight desire? There is nothing stronger.

M: The waters of life are thundering over the rocks of objects -- desirable or hateful. Remove the rocks by insight and detachment and the same waters will flow deep and silent and swift, in greater volume and with greater power. Don't be theoretical about it, give time to thought and consideration; if you desire to be free, neglect not the nearest step to freedom. It is like climbing a mountain: not a step can be missed. One step less -- and the summit is not reached.

posted at
http://beingisknowing.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

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