Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3942, Sunday, July 4, 2010, Editor: Mark
Ten
The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle: Totally
fascinated by the realm of the senses, it swings from one desire
to the next, one conflict to the next, one self-centered idea to
the next. If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let
this monkey go. Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts
go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and death go. Just
remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are
there.
- Lao Tzu, from Hua Hu Ching, translated by Brian Walker
... no matter how powerful the illusion of suffering or emptiness
is when we are identified with it, identification is still simply
a movement of thought followed by a movement of our sense of self
into that thought. Since thought is always a temporary
phenomenon, no identification is ever permanent. In fact, every
identification only lasts as long as the thought triggering it.
We become "stuck" in identification by repeating a lot
of similar thoughts. The sense of an egoic self or no-self are
both created by a pattern of repeated thoughts that identity
moves into.
Because this movement of thought is always temporary, there is
always in every moment the possibility of touching the deeper
reality of our true nature as presence and Being. Even more
amazing is when, with repeated experiences of true nature, our
identity or sense of self moves into the realm of essential
reality. Eventually it becomes obvious that the expanded
spaciousness of our inner presence is actually who we are. When
our identity moves into true nature, there is no suffering and no
dryness or emptiness. We simply are all of the peace, joy, and
love in the universe.
- Nirmala, from Beyond No Self
So if in deep meditation you have come to rest as the see-er of
all thoughts and forms that are arising, you can see the
difference between who sees and what is seen. And no, you can't
see the who that sees, but if you know that as your Self, then
you can understand how this whole world - with your own body in
it (the body you call your own) is an object. It is the seen. So
stay with the ground of being. Stay with who sees. The more you
see what is fleeting, temporary, and illusory, the deeper your
understanding will be that it (the seen) is utterly unreal to the
extent that it has never occurred.
- cee
Turn your attention away from the dream right now. Just for right
now, you don't need it. Let the thoughts and worries of the dream
character continue as they will, but just step back for a moment
and watch it happen, watch the dream character involved in its
dream.
And while the dream character is going about its business, turn
your attention to the one thing right now that is shining and
clear, peaceful and unassuming, steady and solid: the
consciousness with which the dream character is being observed.
Just rest here, in the unchanging consciousness which reflects
but is not changed by what it reflects. This is reality. Nothing
else is.
Rest your attention here. Get to know it. Let the reality of
consciousness be known to you, as you. Nothing needs to be done
here. No thought affects it, and so thought is not needed. No
action affects it, and so action is not needed.
It's not possible to do anything with this consciousness because
this consciousness is everything already. Pay attention to it for
a moment right now and it is easily noticed that consciousness is
complete. And since consciousness is complete, you are complete.
The only thing that ever makes you feel like you are not
complete, not whole, and that you need to "return"
somewhere to find wholeness, is that you have put your attention
into the dream life, and forgotten that wholeness is all that you
really are.
So observe the dream character as it desires enlightenment, and
as it desires love, reassurance, respect. Watch the dream
character as its life plays out. It is not who you are. You are
this consciousness, which has no mortality, no vulnerability, and
no limits. Beyond all imagination, the nothingness within which
resides the seed of all existence, the shining creation of
infinite universes - this is you.
Put your attention here, and allow your sense of this to grow. If
you are looking for Wholeness, here it is. If you are looking for
True Love, here it is, in the One Unlimited Self that is Reality.
No other love is possible. And this Love is already here, as You.
- Annette Nibley
The Self
O Master,
Tell me how to find
Detachment, wisdom, and freedom!
Child,
If you wish to be free,
Shun the poison of the senses.
Seek the nectar of truth,
Of love and forgiveness,
Simplicity and happiness.
Earth, fire and water,
The wind and the sky -
You are none of these.
If you wish to be free,
Know you are the Self,
The witness of all these,
The heart of awareness.
Set your body aside.
Sit in your own awareness.
You will at once be happy,
Forever still,
Forever free.
You have no caste.
No duties bind you.
Formless and free,
Beyond the reach of the senses,
The witness of all things.
So be happy!
Right or wrong,
Joy and sorrow,
These are of the mind only.
They are not yours.
It is not really you
Who acts or enjoys.
You are everywhere,
Forever free.
Forever and truly free,
The single witness of all things.
But if you see yourself as separate,
Then you are bound.
"I do this. I do that."
The big black snake of selfishness
Has bitten you!
"I do nothing."
This is the nectar of faith,
So drink and be happy!
Know you are one,
Pure awareness.
With the fire of this conviction,
Burn down the forest of ignorance.
Free yourself from sorrow,
And be happy.
Be happy!
For you are joy, unbounded joy.
You are awareness itself.
Just as a coil of rope
Is mistaken for a snake,
So you are mistaken for the world.
If you think you are free,
You are free.
If you think you are bound,
You are bound.
For the saying is true:
You are what you think.
The Self looks like the world.
But this is just an illusion.
The Self is everywhere.
One.
Still.
Free.
Perfect.
The witness of all things,
Awareness
Without action, clinging or desire.
Meditate on the Self.
One without two,
Exalted awareness.
Give up the illusion
Of the separate self.
Give up the feeling,
Within or without,
That you are this or that.
My child,
Because you think you are the body,
For a long time you have been bound.
Know you are pure awareness.
With this knowledge as your sword
Cut through your chains.
And be happy!
For you are already free,
Without action or flaw,
Luminous and bright.
You are bound
Only by the habit of meditation.
Your nature is pure awareness.
You are flowing in all things,
And all things are flowing in you.
But beware
The narrowness of the mind!
You are always the same,
Unfathomable awareness,
Limitless and free,
Serene and unperturbed.
Desire only your own awareness.
Whatever takes form is false.
Only the formless endures.
When you understand
The truth of this teaching,
You will not be born again.
For God is infinite,
Within the body and without,
Like a mirror,
And the image in a mirror.
As the air is everywhere,
Flowing around a pot
And filling it,
So God is everywhere,
Filling all things
And flowing through them forever.
- excerpt from The Heart of Awareness - a translation of The
Ashtavakra Gita, by Thomas Byrom