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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4060, Saturday, October 30, 2010, Editor: Mark
Always remember deep in your heart that all is well and
everything is unfolding as it should. There are no mistakes
anywhere, at any time. What appears to be wrong is simply your
own false imagination. That's all. You are the Self, that perfect
immutable Self. Nothing else exists. Nothing else ever existed.
Nothing else will ever exist. There is only one Self and you are
That. Rejoice!
- Robert Adams, from Silence of the Heart Vol 1
The key to recognizing our fundamental and essential nature is
the experiential Realization that individual, human consciousness
has no separate existence independent or apart from this
fundamental Background of Awareness:
We are not separate from the Natural Awareness we experience
within the present moment.
Since this Infinite Awareness is the backdrop for all individual
human experience, the conscious mind has "access" to
our innate Awareness within every moment. In fact, the individual
identity of the personality or ego cannot exist in the absence of
this fundamental, essential Awareness. Wherever the individual
"I" appears, it is as a reflection of our inherent,
Natural Awareness. In fact, the "I", or individual
identity, is nothing other than a reflection of our natural,
unitive Awareness within the limits of human consciousness.
Recognizing this is simply a matter of focusing our attention
(individual consciousness) upon our innate Essence (Awareness).
The Open Secret
Namkhai Norbu has described this Natural Awareness as the
"open secret:"
This is the open secret, which all can discover
for themselves. We live our lives, as it were
"inside out," projecting the existence of an
"I"
as separate from an external world which we try
to manipulate to gain satisfaction. But as long
as one remains in the dualistic state, one's
experience has always underlying it a sense of
loss, of fear, of anxiety, and dissatisfaction.
When, on the other hand, one goes beyond the
dualistic level, anything is possible.
- Namkai Norbu, p. 68: The Crystal and the Way of Light
The key, then, is to recognize the limitations inherent within
dualistic perception, and begin to identify with the larger part
of who we are - i.e., with the essential, fundamental, underlying
background of Awareness, which is the field within which all
consciousness and multiplicity appear.
As long as our self-identification is limited to the individual
personality, mind, or ego (i.e., as long as it is limited by the
dualism inherent in maintaining an individual perspective), we
remain frustrated by the inevitable limitions inherent within an
individualized identity.
However, when we begin to shift our attention and identification
toward that larger dimension of who we are, i.e., toward our
fundamental and essential nature (pure, unconditioned, Natural
Awareness), much of our individualized anxiety and restlessness
will begin to fall away.
We gradually begin to realize that the essence of Reality is not
separate from who/what we are at a fundamental and essential
level. And, we recognize the freedom inherent within pure
Awareness: the innate freedom to flow through our experience,
exactly as it is, without resisting even desire and resistance as
they arise.
Acknowledging the absolute completeness and perfection of
Reality, as it manifests within our own innate Awareness, enables
us to see the frustrations and limitations of individual
experience within their larger context: they are not separate
from Reality (All That Is), and as such, they, too, are a
manifestation of this vast and infinite wholeness. Even our
personal, individual desires, and the choices we make to change
"unacceptable" circumstances, ultimately can be
accepted and recognized as part of the essential and fundamental
perfection and completeness of All That Is.
- Metta Zetty
Don't make any effort. Stay quiet and the noisy surface dialogues
will cease. Then the substratum will rise up to the top. It is
simple. Follow this.
- Papaji
Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the
realization that you are the source and heart of all will dawn on
you.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Since you saw this spring, why didn't
you become water?
Since you saw the Friend near, why do
you still have love for yourself?
Since you are in the shop of the sweet-seller,
why this bitter look?
Since you are swimming in the river of life,
why are you dry and miserable?
Don't be stubborn, do not flee from happiness.
You are imprisoned in a net from which
you can't escape,
Stop struggling! Stop struggling!
- Rumi, Ghazal (Ode) 638, from Breathing Truth -
Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi, selected and translated by
Muriel Maufroy, posted to Sunlight