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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3793, Sunday, January 31, 2010, Editor: Mark
If you imagine yourself as separate from the world, the world
will appear as separate from you and you will experience desire
and fear. I do not see the world as separate from me and so there
is nothing for me to desire, or fear.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
Q: I have a hard time making decisions or choices.
A: Probably harder now than before (initial realization) because
the reason is because the things you base decisions on before, in
the past, that's been part of what's been swept overboard.
Q: Yeah, exactly. It didn't work anyway.
A: Of course not.
Q: Took me places I wish I wouldn't have ended up in.
A: So it's not like you've lost anything.
Q: But it seems like decision-making needs to continue.
A: It appears that way. Yeah it appears that way and so you
appear to make them. (laughter) Right? So you just appear to make
them. You're not really making them. You never made them. You
never make them now anymore than in the past. But in the
appearance of things, we like to know what we are doing. Don't
we? We like to delude ourselves into thinking we know what we are
doing, that we are doing it correctly.
Q: Actually I don't feel like I am doing anything.
A: Good. That's a good benefit for you. A start.
Q: But it leaves a sense of not having any kind of investment,
it's happening. People are saying, 'oh, you did this.' No I
didn't do anything. I just showed up.
A: Right.
Q: There's a loneliness in there, there's a wanting to feel a
connection. I don't know what that's about. You do?
A: I understand, yes. We'll get back to that point. Let's do the
decision thing first.
The vastness that we are, it simply moves in the most obvious
way. It's not the same as making decisions. That's what confuses.
Its like your consciousness moves into a dimension where
decision-making is no longer valid. That's not the paradigm from
which you move anymore. And yet we drag these old paradigms
because we just don't know anything else, right? You feel the
paradigm, how do I make a decision here when there is nothing to
base it on? 'What do you want? I don't really want. What do you
desire. I don't really desire. What's the outcome you're looking
for? There really isn't one.' Kind if like that?
Q: Yeah, like that. Or more like something big in me isn't being
released. And so it's like the decision-making is wanting to be
made so this can get out.
A: Yes, okay. Good. That's the next step too. So that old way,
it's not going to work that way. That's the first thing we need
to establish. Trying to make or even knowing how to make the
right decision is an old paradigm, your consciousness has moved
past it, but your mind is a little slow on the uptake. Which is
the same way with almost everybody. Our consciousness moves like
that and our mind comes stumbling in saying, 'What the hell is
going on around here now?' (laughter)
Everything's different! Where did my desires go, where did my
wants, everything I used to base what I was on. It's all gone,
right? Your mind is slower, actually. There's usually a lag time.
So the mind looks at this in an old framework, in a
decision-making framework. As long as the mind is trying to solve
it from that old framework, it obscures how things actually can
work and actually are working right now. Because you are not back
there making decisions on what you can make them on.
Decision-making itself is a paradigm that is quickly disappearing
where you are, and it's totally not existing where you are going.
So when we stop looking at it, let's say there's five different
ways I can go but I'm not going to look at it as far as
decision-making, doesn't work that way anymore. And as soon as
you stop looking at it that way, even to solve it that way, it's
like you're there at the precipice. There's five ways you could
go and only when you stop trying to decide, stop trying to know
the right one, let go of the old paradigm, there's just a
knowing. It just arises. It's like 'that way.'
It's not a decision though. You haven't looked at your options.
When the old way is let go of all of a sudden at the moment its
really let go of. You're not trying to decide or to know really.
All of a sudden, that way. And there's no reason for it. 'Do you
want to go that way? I don't really care.' It's not based on
desire or reason or wanting and if your mind comes in as it often
does and goes, 'Why that way? How do I know that way's the right
way?' That's how it's used to operating, right? But none of those
questions in that new dimension, those questions, the reason they
can't be answered where you are is cause they don't make sense
where you are. You can never come up with an answer. That's over
with. That's why the answers aren't coming. Cause your mind's
asking questions that don't exist where you're consciousness is.
Right?
Q: Yeah.
A: Like if you're sitting on the ground and someone says, 'Which
diving board are you going to jump off of?' There's no diving
board so the question is irrelevant. You see what I mean? So as
soon as it's let go, all of a sudden it arises---this way.
Q: And the movement happens on its own. Cause there's the action
component.
A: Yes there is, it depends on how far along it's all gone, at
one point its all hooked up, you know, all one thing. The
noticing, the acting are just one movement.
But at times there's the 'oh, that way.' And then there's the
'Okay I'm going that way.' There's the appearance of the ability
either to go or not to go. Whether you actually have that
ultimately, that's not something, I'm not even interested in
talking about at this moment because that will just confuse the
whole subject. But at that moment, yes. It is useful then to
agree with it. 'Oh, that's the obvious way, okay. I'll do that.'
'Why?' 'I don't know.'
Because none of those questions exist in this different dimension
of existence, different dimension of being. You just go that way.
And you find out. 'Why' isn't answered in a concept, 'why' is
answered as you're actually walking that way and doing that. So
yes to have your agreement is very useful. In fact its absolutely
necessary. And it ties in to the last thing you mentioned too.
There's something that wants to express itself, right? It's
trying to get out but it's not quite breaking though.
Q: Yeah.
A: It will break though. It's like being; it's very much like
being pregnant actually.
Q: I feel like you're standing in as a midwife of sorts.
A: I am, yeah. I can't tell you how to get pregnant or any of
that but yeah basically a midwife. That's a good way of putting
it. And it does feel like you're pregnant with something, you
feel somethings coming, some way of moving, something and I have
no idea what it is. I can't make it happen. Anymore then you can
sit there when you are three months pregnant going, 'Now how am I
going to do that birthing thing.'
Q: It just happens.
A: Yeah you go to all your classes and then you get there, well
then you really find out, as far as I can tell, in a way, that I
could never actually know. It's very much like that. As you start
to move in these ways, as these new ways of being, like this new
way of deciding. This is a new way of being, this is a new way of
moving. It's the activity of awakening. Awakening is a
revelation...Ah! The truth. Then there's the flip side of
awakening which is the activity. And that doesn't just come
instantly. Bumble your way into that one. Stumble into it.
Q: That's where I'm intrigued and curious and want more.
A: I'm kind of midwifing you along on this particular point. And
just like, okay, decision-making doesn't work the way it used to.
I'm trying to say this is more kind of like what it looks like.
Decision-making looks more like this. When you stop trying to
make the decision, at some point it becomes more the obviousness
of a direction comes up. Then you just say yes and you move that
way whether you want to or not.
Q: Okay I'll look forward to that.
A: Yeah! As thing start to open up like this as the awakened
vision turning into awakened activity, how to function. Bit by
bit it becomes more obvious. At a certain point it becomes
obvious enough, you are just moving that way enough, that this
that's trying to birth itself, it can now do it. When the
activity part has gotten clear enough now there is almost like
gateways through which the expression can happen. And until then
you'll feel kind of pregnant like something wants to happen, it's
not quite...
Q: It's more and more uncomfortable.
A: It's just like pregnancy, I'm told. Yeah, it's just like that.
It gets more and more uncomfortable. But its totally absolutely
natural. This is the way it goes. And it's no, you heard me at
the beginning this morning saying and I've said it several times
in the past couple of months that as I see it that this whole
awakening and enlightenment thing, we think it's about our
revelation. 'Now I know the ultimate nature of what I am, of
reality.' You get that then later, much later you realize that's
not ultimately what its about. That's like a doorway that opens.
What it's really about is about this that's trying to be birthed.
The enlightenment has to happen so that can be birthed. That's
why awakening is important but its only important as a step to
this inside that gets birthed and manifest. That's what its
about. It never really was about our little experience of being
free and happy. That's a nice side benefit that we run into but
it's what you're pregnant with. That's what its really about.
That's where it's all been going.
Q: Halleluiah.
A: Yeah, yeah.
Q; Thank you.
A: You're welcome. That why all of have in our own way, even
those of us like myself that see themselves as horrendously
uncreative, whether I am or not, I don't know but even those who
we don't necessarily think are great artists or whatever,
everybody in them has this impulse, this sort of very creative
impulse, right? It's there within everybody. Ultimately it comes
from this place.
Adyashanti - The Fabric of Reality Disc 3, posted to
adyashantigroup
Once at Cold Mountain, troubles cease -
No more tangled, hung-up mind.
I idly scribble poems on the rock cliff,
Taking whatever comes, like a drifting boat.
- Han Shan, posted to AlongTheWay
The Guru is basically without desire. He sees what happens, but
feels no urge to interfere. He makes no choices, takes no
decisions. As pure witness, he watches what is going on and
remains unaffected. Victory is always his, in the end. He knows
that if the disciples do not learn from his words, they will
learn from their own mistakes. Inwardly he remains quiet and
silent. He has no sense of being a separate person. The entire
universe is his own, including his disciples with their petty
plans.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That
Papaji, and enlightened people in general, never have any reasons
for the actions they undertake. Since they don't have minds that
choose and decide, they don't generate reasons for future courses
of action.
I remember when there was a plan to go on an extensive foreign
tour. Tickets had been booked, visas had been obtained. When the
travel agents arrived with the tickets, he simply said, 'I'm not
going anywhere,' and the trip was cancelled. A few weeks later,
when someone asked him the reason for the sudden last-minute
cancellation, he said, 'Reasons? I don't have reasons for
anything I do.'
When you abide as the Self, you do whatever the Self prompts you
to do, without thinking or knowing why. There is nobody there who
can say, 'I should do this; I should not do that,' because there
is no one left who can make these decisions.
I once met someone who lived with him in Hardwar. They used to go
for walks along the Ganga every day, often taking the same route.
Sometimes Papaji would start off along one route and then, for no
apparent reason, he would veer right or left and head off
somewhere else. The following dialogue once ensued:
'Where are we going?'
'I don't know.'
'Why did you turn off the path?'
'I don't know. Something just impelled me to walk in this
direction.'
'How far do we have to go?'
'I don't know. I will know when we get there.'
'Where's ''there''?'
'I don't know. When we get there I will know why I started
walking this way.'
Eventually, they met a man in the forest, and that man had a
waking-up experience with Papaji. The Self knew that this man was
ready for such an experience and it directed Papaji towards him.
Papaji didn't know that he had been diverted towards this meeting
until he met the man. He simply accepted that the Self had
propelled him in a particular direction. He didn't question or
doubt the diversion. In fact, he didn't think or worry about it
in any way. He just let the Self take him to where he was needed.
- David Godman, from an interview with Maalok