26 October 2007

All Preferences are for a "me"

An email arrives: In the "NowsLetter" you wrote, "deepest seeing". There's a preference here for just "seeing". ("Deepest" could imply a 'path' to getting deeper ...)

Glad to hear from you and I always appreciate your detailed approach to pointers. I will be posting this shortly to clarify the pointer for any else who may have a similar interpretation:

It's said that way as there is quite often, for the appearance of a seeker, a "seeing of this". But that seeing is not the deepest seeing wherein there is no one. It's pointed out to that dream-seeker, out of the dialogues I have with those appearances that are still a bit deluded by the subtle sense there is a see-ER of this Absolute see-ing. But no pointer will ever be "accurate" or "right" or "perfect." They're ONLY pointers! Focus on getting the words a certain way can be misleading as then the focus is off Presence, Being-Awareness-Aliveness, and onto the comparing and judging mind-stuff.

Ultimately all words only point, and so they appear out of nowhere. This is an absolute mystery here.

Finally, I am reminded of the Hsin Hsin Ming: "The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences." From no-point-of-view ALL preferences are for an entity. No worries, not having a go at anyone, this is just a natural aha! In this no-preferences no-entity Seeing This -- as it is -- arising in what IAMYOUAREALIVENESS.

Werd! Enough said... except, Love!

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26 October 2007

"You" were Never Born

A.J. Writes, Nisargadatta says: "Knowing you are nothing is wisdom. Knowing you are everything is Love". This suggests there are two steps. One step is the realisation: I am no-thing. Second step is the realisation: I AM LOVE.

A.J., I have one question for you, now: Are you suffering? All this philosophical meandering will never end the suffering of the seeker. You’ll have a library full of quotes and pointers that you can read while you’re suffering, OR you can look at what is Real and what is False and end the seeking and suffering right now. It seems that it’s “up to you.” But is anything up to this idea of a “you?”

1. Do you exist? YES, before thought is, you are this: I AM.

2. Who are you? Nothing but That.  Ask YOU, “Who Am I?”

So long as there is a belief in a "you," a "doer," put that doer-you to the task of asking "Who Am I?" and  ONLY THAT, until no “separate one” that believes he is and can do, is left to ask. “Who Am I?”

From listening to and watching the various expressions of non-duality-teachers I get the impression that most of those teachers only realized the first step. I am No-Thing. As I see it that looks like a DONUT. You know, donut, hole in the center, rest of the cake one perfect ZERO. The hole being the space where once the ego dwelled. The ZERO-shape can be seen as the remaining, persisting activity of what I call 'self-ing'. Consciousness has not ceased to be.

Pass the donuts, I’m hungry. I’ll have a chocolate one! Look: Consciousness is an ASPECT of Being. Call that Being-Awareness or Being-Consciousness; words that POINT to the indescribable Eternal Isness of The Whole.

But first off let’s get the Nisargadatta quote accurate: The above is an interpretation. That’s what the mind does, and that’s why the direct pointers of a Christ or a Buddha, a Ramana Maharshi or a Nisargadatta,  are lost in the mire of reinterpretation by ignorant minds that altered the sayings to fit THEIR conceptual understanding. And the seeker suffers due to this misinterpretation! Here is as close as we can get (Maurice Freydam’s translation, in “I Am That”): "When I know I am nothing; that is wisdom. When I know I am everything; that is love. My life moves between the two."

Leaving out the third pointer,”…life moves between the two,” is what the mind does to separate wholeness. The inclusiveness of the whole quote is lost as the focus goes on two apparently separate occurrences.

Of course the word “when” implies “time” and so we always have a falling short of the actual whenever words are used. Words ONLY point to the Timeless Wordless Isness of The Natural Eternal Being-Presencing-Aliveness.

And so dear One, this myth of “steps” and “realizations” and “becoming” will keep you stuck in the story of path and goal forever! The sudden Seeing is always right now and is spontaneously BOTH Nothing AND Everything … and all there IS, is That Love, loving to BE. Full Stop. All that arises is arising IN You As You: Not Two. This word, “Advaita,” is a description of an indescribable Seeing that all there is, is One-Essence, Aliveness. This cannot be repeated too often! So, this is the great death of paths and goals in what IS … This Being. Nothing Being Everything, if you like.

All you are doing here is analyzing pointers. LOOK where the pointers POINT!

Tony Parsons says that after the 'walk in the park' there were many years of alternating 'me-ing' and 'be-ing'. This activity finally died away and ever since LOVE shines. LOVE that embraces everything. The energy of the personal self has burnt up and no-self is the living reality. 'Gone, gone beyond' as the Buddha says. Nirvana! Beyond Being.

So that’s a description of a story and when you take the story as a ‘path” you stay stuck in becoming! There is NO “state” of “no-self, living reality.” Again and again comes the pointless pointer: All there is, is this Aliveness, and THIS includes absolutely all of it, everything: THIS IS IT: This Pain, pleasure, seeing, not seeing, apparent bondage, apparent liberation, being and not being … WHAT can be EXCLUDED from the Whole!!?? THIS IS the "LOVE that embraces everything!" It's never been ABSENT! This mind delusion is of a “person” trying to grasp the Whole and the “person” is merely an idea in your mind. All you are seeing is your own mind, which ultimately is the One “minding” but in this interim dark night you believe it is real and so try to figure out how to not be!

So okay, go ahead, get away from Being. Run! Run fast and maybe you’ll escape your Being-Awareness-Aliveness! RUN!

How’s that going?

Getting stuck in the first step is getting stuck in what Tony calls 'The Glasshouse". A sort of getting frozen in space. This can be very delusive.

To WHO? You believe all this crap? Tony would be laughing his head off I suspect, at how you re-interpret what is being shared. This is YOUR delusion, no one else’s, dear friend. The simplicity of The Message is not being heard, because "you" are "trying to hear it!"

One can have the notion of being enlightened. But underneath the self is subtly lurking in the dark. The final frontier is not yet passed. Is there a final step beyond Being? And is there a total cessation of consciousness? A total and absolute death before the dead of the body.

This death is what IS. “You” were simply never born! All that was born and can die is an idea, a fixated belief in a separate entity called “me” that OWNS “this body” as “my” body” and these thoughts and feelings as “my thoughts and feelings” and this apparent universe as "my universe." But HOW can what was never ever born ever “die?” You are already dead. Dead man talking!

See that all that is happening is a “me” identity is fixated on stories of paths and final steps and someday and perhaps there will be a dropping off of the false. Seemingly it dawns on “you” that there IS no “you” and there never WAS. But that will ever and only be Right Now Right here … and since you are and you cannot escape that you are, Being Itself, then there may be a hearty laugh and then it’s off to the pub!

How do you look at this Charlie? Does what I'm saying make sense or is it Bullshit?

It may “make sense” to a mind. BUT: All that “makes sense” is FALSE! Why trade the Unborn Aliveness for “understanding?” That’s to sell a diamond for the price of spinach!

Again, A.J., I have one question for you, now: Are you suffering? All this philosophical meandering will never end the suffering of the seeker. You’ll have a library full of quotes and pointers that you can read while you’re suffering, OR you can look at what is Real and what is False and end the seeking and suffering right now. It seems that it’s “up to you.” But is anything up to this idea of a “you?”

Do you exist?

Who are you?

Thank you for your wonderful reply!

De Nada! :-)

...my question came from reading the works of [names another writer]. I don't know if you are familiar with her writings?

Nope.

She wrote three books ... In these books she writes about a journey, a passage through consciousness (or self) and the gradual falling away of that, finally resulting in a total cessation of the human experience and the mysterious arising of Christ-Consciousness, which is -in her view- the same as the Buddhist 'Dharmakaya'. I have always regarded these writings as a monstrous piece of 'spiritual' bullshit, but still intriguing.

Intriguing to the mind only. Bullshit is nearly always interesting to a seeking mind because it thinks it's finding some answers to the I DON'T KNOW of Non-Conceptual Being-Awareness-Truth -- and the Mysterious Abyss is to be filled with concepts so that the mind-me entity which never was avoids it's own demise ... totally paradoxical and utterly ridiculous!

Especially where she throws up the possibility of a second step of going beyond 'the unitive state' as she calls the falling away of the I-thought. This is where the donuts come from. Her description of ego-less man. In your reply this is being exposed as total and utter bullshit, absolute phony baloney! THERE IS ONLY EVER THIS. FULL STOP!!!

Yep.

The simplicity of the message is obvious. There is NO-ONE. Period!!!! What Tony Parsons calls the 'Glass box' is a mind game, that's how I understand it. All mind games are illusions. Survival-games of holding on to the belief in a separate entity. Tony also often says: 'Having a clear understanding of this message doesn't mean there is liberation'. Now that's an interesting statement. It has to do with leaving out Nisargadatta's third pointer "...life moves between the two". Isn't it Charlie ? I really enjoy this communication. Going mad over THIS"!!!! WOW!!!!!!!

I say that this way: (I think Tony might also) -- "Understanding" Being-Awareness-Aliveness is NOT Being Being-Awareness-Aliveness. Being-Awareness-Aliveness IS. The understander is a phantom, an idea appearing and disappearing IN Being-Awareness as a "facet" or "aspect" OF Being-Awareness. That's all there is to this clear seeing, which no-one sees and nobody knows.

Much fun in the Unborn!

 
You ask me: "Are you suffering?". The answer is: "I am not suffering !" You are right. All this philosophical meandering will - as far as the mind is concerned, go on for ever. I can go on reading another 10 billion books and still get nowhere. Here the seeking has ended for sure. The question: "Who am I???" got lost in infinity. There is no-one here!

And there (here) "IT" IS, glaringly obvious never lost never found. Being-Awareness-Aliveness. Welcome Back to The Home You Never Left.

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26 October 2007

Nothing/Everything appears IN You: Being-Awareness-Aliveness

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25 October 2007

I Am ... HOW Can I know This?

A.M. Writes, First of all: thank you for the website and the many videos on YouTube! I just love watching those! You invited to contact you and here I go:

Happy to hear from you!

The basic message as I get it is:  stick to the 'I am', look who is doing/wanting/thinking ... I looked, no doer was found, just thoughts arise and body moves - or not.

All fine thus far!

Still is confusion here, disagreement and questions, still searching for something not understood.

Okay, that’s what is happening. Oneness, Totality, arises as confusion and clarity, doubting and certainty, knowing and not knowing. WHAT is the Unchanging Presence IN which all that is arising presently?

In actuality there is nothing and no one, and THIS is what That Nothing and No-One looks like. It’s all in imagination, mind-feeling story, but Being itself, your inescapable Presence-Awareness, is untouched by any of that. It's good to "understand" that what is pointed to is BEYOND agreement or disagreement. I nearly always say do NOT accept, believe, agree with, or trust what any book or any 'person' says. Don't believe anything I say! At the same time drop the disagreeing as well! Leave the self-center out of this: Listen as Oneness hearing Oneness and all will be well. This Unborn Oneness is your true nature; don't trade the Unborn Being-Awareness-Aliveness for empty concepts and paltry beliefs.

I am - how can I know this?

"You" CANNOT "know this!" YOU ... Being-Awareness ... ARE this! This is already known as the Being-Awareness you can never get away from. Try right now to get away from being! STOP BEING, RIGHT NOW! Cannot be done. BEING  IS … BEING. Full Stop.

What is that 'I' if that me, I thought to be, does not exit, is just a thought?

That's why we use the pointer that Aliveness IS 24/7, including "in deep sleep;" that Aliveness beats the heart, breathes through the lungs, grows hair, fingernails ... and "you" are not there! The "you" is an idea arising in Aliveness waking as Consciousness ... this unbounded Consciousness is the Primordial Aliveness appearing as Isness and then the mind kicks in (the brain-mind machine) and translates Pure Unbounded Consciousness into the THOUGHT I, I Am, Other-than-I is, etc. The THOUGHT I AM is NOT the NON-Conceptual I AM.

In deep sleep seems to be nothing.

In deep sleep there IS nothing! Not seems to be. There is no one to whom there seems to be nothing! Hello!?

All I can say next morning is that I missed something out (i.e. because of night/day shift). But all this is kind of experience, thus not real, not to be trusted?

EXACTLY! All that's troubling or confusing is imagination.

So what is left to be me - nothing?

Nothing/Everything. That Thou Art. Not Two Not One!

Right now experience is here - is that being? Table, PC, breathing - is that being?

YES! Being being table, being PC, being breathing, ONLY being IS. And the story of being is Being, storying! This Being IS and IT is all there is. Being appearing to NOT be Being is still always and only Being. Being That Too (NOT Two.)

Where is being than during deep sleep? Or is the sleep memory not real?

Experiencing IS. Experiencer is NOT: That division of experience/experiencer is the delusion of mind. Memory is a story arising presently in Aliveness ... Being-Awareness cognizes all including all the stories of past (memory) and the stories of future (imagination) and stories of present (here now me you other experience knowing not knowing all STORY and WHO is the storyteller? WHERE is this 'me' starring in the story of now?)

Awareness is just a word; I can't put a meaning to it. So it does not help to read, that awareness is there, but just no memory of it next morning.

All story! WHO tells THAT story!? WHO ARE YOU? NO Answer! ASK Who Am I? Accept NO definition or identification, not even "I AM AWARENESS." This is what you ARE and cannot be grasped, known or conceived, it is NOT perceivable, NOT imaginable, NOT any thing, not even NO thing (as the mind conceives no thing.)LOOK! The word Awareness is NOT Awareness, any more than the word rock will break your bones! Seeing this is the natural arising of Awareness RE cognizes itself as empty and meaningless, yet the FULLNESS of pure unabashed unalloyed NON-conceptual aliveness. Don't get stuck into a concept! YOU ARE and that is undeniable. YOU ARE NOT an object nor a subject, NOT a label or a name, NOT any thing whatsoever. Looking into the belief in a separate "me" with that name and form with the question, Who Am I? Is a timeless pathless path to the home you never left.

A bunch of questions and yes, I know, most important question: who asks those questions, who wants to know? No who is here, but those questions are, together with changing feelings of importance.

So what? WHO cares what arises as Aliveness bubbles into everything from nothing? Who??? "No one here BUT..." That's an addiction to the story of "me" who will forever argue for its limitations. You are welcome to keep these yes buts, dear One ... or Investigate and be Real.

How can you be so sure? To me there seems nothing to be real, true or provable...

"I" am NOT “sure”. There is NO "I" apart from Other. There is ONLY BEING arising as Awareness, Not Knowing. Prove to yourself: Do you exist? Are you BEING? THAT is all the proof there is. The mind will never grasp or be satisfied. THIS is ORDINARY AWARENESS or the Simplicity of Being ... One-without-a-second.

There is no me, just because I can't find one?

Well? There's your direct evidence of the absence of a separate person!

Take a blind person who can't see the colour red. Does that mean that red not exists, just because it can't be seen by this person?

Stop with all that conceptual  speculation and imagination and stay with what YOU know directly: You DO exist. That is what you truly are ... Existence Itself, Life Itself ... and all else is a story that makes for "the great suffering ego!"

So still questions arise, nothing seems to be knowable anymore, no safety here.

Yes. This is Unknowing Unsafe Free Fall! Being, Aliveness, Absolute Freedom, in that there is No-One to be either secure or insecure.

Maybe there is a me (which I am just to blind to see), maybe not. Maybe the world is real (with all consequences), maybe not. How can you be so sure??

Oneness already said that "I" am NOT sure of anything. Your question is based on the assumption that there is a person here who knows. That's the mind's false premise. There is NO person anywhere. It was all a story, imagination. NOW: WHO does not see this?

The "world" is apparently real, apparently solid. But where is this "real solid world" in deep sleep? It is all imagination. Mind is Being Minding, World-Appearing. Empty, meaningless until "a me" steps in and claims this appearance to be real .... but it's a false assertion devoid of actual evidence when investigated.

Is there anything I missed out?

No: There is something here that seems to keep this Presence hidden: "YOU."

Is there any change that needs to happen (a shift of perspective as it is sometimes called)? Or is this just as good as it gets? ;-)

Look: Who asks? Who wants an answer? Who wants assurances? WHO? Waiting and hoping for some “shift" to happen puts you back into the imagined future ... "someday" "I" will be "Shifted. NO! These are three totally false beliefs: "I," ... "Time," ... "Shift," or "Enlightenment." Never gonna happen dear One. THIS IS IT.

Thank you for listening! I would enjoy any answer - and not take it too seriously, it's just bullshit anyways, isn't it? But that doesn't mean that I would not love to read it!

Stay in touch as Aliveness moves you to ...

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24 October 2007

Full Stop!  Yes!   ......  But .....

R.G. Writes, Thank you so much for your detailed answers. ‘I’ seem(s) to be struggling and fighting with your questions and all the while the silent background is probably simply noticing the struggle (but that’s not yet my continuous experience- it’s still ‘reasoning’, at least, partly.

You seek an experience and what is being pointed out is NOT an experience. Those come and go. What is it that NEVER changes?

You ask me: “Who is listening and who is speaking? Ultimately I would say being-awareness is doing both.   

The question is NOT to be answered!!  

And your second question/ pointer: What is it that energizes this seeking for what isn’t here now? Who wants what is not? I’m intrigued by this one. It gives me goose bumps.  

Again NO answer is wanted. ONLY ask that question! It’s unconcealing that One-Eessence, Pure Aliveness. That happening CAN arise as goose bumps. But there is NO litmus test!

Maybe it’s just the same answer as above, but it doesn’t feel that way. My first answer would be: a thought arising now which projects something ‘over there’ and at the same time creating a ‘me’ –wanting ‘that’- at the same time ‘denying’ the changeless background. Am I on the right track here, or full of shit? Another comment would be highly appreciated.  

You are totally OFF track. There is NO answer that matters. ALL answers are bullshit. Look with your inescapable Being-Awareness at that thought, “I.” “Where is this “me,” this “I?” IS there one. The false storyteller ignoramus mind-me asserts, “I am ME!!!” You have worn that mask so long you forgot who you really are WITHOUT the mask! The “person” is a nonexistent phantom idea, a mask (‘persona’.)

I’M ME!!!! Is that TRUE? NO. You see, this question will dismantle the false belief in a separate thing called me, and all that remains is the always so … Being Awareness Livingness and only That…

GIVE UP ALL QUESTIONS EXCEPT ONE: WHO AM I? 

And another paradox: When I go in to ‘notice the noticing’, to watch ‘ awareness’ I can’t find a ‘me’’, there is just seeing, being, awaring. Full stop.

FULL STOP.  .................... “Yeah BUT” …

But……………. A few seconds later (unnoticed)  a story arises about a ’recently broken relationship ’that “I” need(s) absolutely back and “I “ is back one hundred percent. It hasn’t (so it seems) really really deeply been seen.

There is NO problem with thoughts, feelings, sense of loss, longing. All that is a functioning of a human organism. The problem lies in the identified fixated cast-in-stone BELIEF in a separate entity called “ME who laments this and that about “MY life, MY broken romance, MY career, MY car MY money." My My My!!! WHO!??

WHO AM I? Where is this “me?” Can you find one? NO. All the ideas of I and mine rush back out of habit. Breaking that habit is simple: It takes a committed no-kidding get-to-the-bottom-of-tgis-shit earnestness, a willingness to give up all thoughts and stories and ask WHO AM I?

Now ultimately there is no person who can ask that. Yet as long as YOU believe in this “me-myself-I”  … like a conviction out of long habit, you accept the false assertion of the mind that says "I am the manager and director of 'my life,’ the doer of actions, the thinker of thoughts, the feeler the knower the experiencer" … NOW: PUT that “doer” to the task of doing this One Thought. WHO AM I? WHO am I?

Mind you the simplest and ultimately final approach to the free fall is the simple recognition that you cannot escape ALIVENESS. You ARE That Alive Presence of Being-Awareness and none other than That.

Please doctor, finish him off and do it gently and patiently and slowly and now. I may not totally understand what I’m typing here… 

Finish WHO off? YOU will NEVER be "finished off!!

Saty in touch as Aliveness Moves "you."

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22 October 2007

Does Awareness Care? WHO cares?

AJ writes, While watching one of your videos I heard you say: 'I am interested in ending your suffering'. This kind of struck me and so the following question arose: Does Awareness care???Who cares???Is it nonconditional Love with a capital L that cares????Who's the one that's interested??? Would you please elaborate on this. Lots of Love and a warm hug from a Dutch friend!!!!

This is an excellent question!

This caring "happens." Nobody cares: This is the happening of  nobody caring. Through some organisms there is apparent caring or empathy i.e. Mother Teresa or "sailor" Bob Adamson or John Wheeler or Stephen Wingate. Through some organisms there is NO apparent caring, NO empathy... i.e. Saddam Hussein or Charles Manson ... OR even some VERY direct no-bull Nonduality "teachers" (Wayne Liquorman comes to mind, no disrespect, just how it appears "here.") But LOOK! On investigation it is seen ... there is no "person," no "entity" DOING or CREATING this naturally arising "caring."

So when the expression comes out, regarding a caring about ending your suffering, that is simply Oneness, appearing as This and Being That Caring. There is nobody caring, and THIS is what "nobody caring" looks like ....!

"Who is the 'one' that is 'interested'?" No-One is interested. There is nothing and no-one caring about anything. THIS is what "no-one and nothing caring about anything" looks like! You see, the mind-brain machinery thinks of love as the opposite of hate. And it thinks of caring as a person caring, offering some pity or feeling-sorry-for. That is all bullshit. This LOVE (as you say with a Cap L) simply IS. This Love, I call Aliveness (ALL LIVE-NESS), Isness, Being-Awareness, or Deliciously Inescapable Choiceless Cluelessness, or .... "Marmalade!"

Call it whatever, "it" (words! "IT is not a thing, the words is a lie!... but words are what is happening here, so .....) "IT" (Livingness-Beingness)  IS, and "IT" stands alone as Nothing and Everything. Aliveness equally loves BEING both love and hate, both war and peace, both caring and not caring, both Saddam and Teresa, ALL the "pairs of opposites." Being-Aliveness-Lovingness (Sat Chit Ananda) has NO Opposite expect in the story of "me and other-than-me." THIS is a dear friend, Tony Parsons, puts it, "Nothing Being Everything."

THIS Being-Aliveness is "IT." NOW: Where is any exclusion OR inclusion in THAT!??

19 October 2007

Understanding This is NOT Being This

JJ Writes, This has been a dilemma that has been arising lately. I want this experience of samadhi, but then the "I" that wants that experience is not me, and does not even really exist, right?

This is the “guru-mind” of a seeker, trying to figure this out. You will NEVER figure out No Thing! That, what you are, IS No Thing being Every Thing and all life is the happening of Oneness arising as a dreamer dreaming that he’s separate and real, ranging wildly between nothing and everything and trying to land on some imagined blissful state of being a "free man" or "free woman" in the middle of that. But that which wants freedom is a phantom non-person, the idea (idea ONLY) of a “me,” arising IN Boundless Clueless Freedom Itself.

 It is just a mental formation labeling itself as me.   So there is oneness arising as wanting to have samadhi, so what?   That is what is. 

YES. BUT … understanding this is not BEING this!

Does this desire ever get satisfied? 

NO. NO desire can ever be completely and ultimately satisfied! The “samadhi” experience is just that … a passing mind-fancy, an experience arising in Being. The mind IS "time," "me," and "desires"... attachment and aversion, the wanting of this and not that. The mind will NEVER “know Oneness.” What is called “samadhi” is the ABSENCE of the seeking-mind. This Absence is what IS … The Always So. You can point to That this way: What appears to be what is, is NOT. What appears as what is not, IS. Ponder that one.

What wants anything?  Something that is temporary, something that comes and goes does the wanting.  But nonetheless this desire arises.  It also just goes away when I stop resisting it.   Well it doesn't always go away quickly, and it tends to come back.  

Re-read the response in the paragraph above that one.

Help me Charlie.

Help WHO? There is no-one to help and no one to help that no-one! WHO “needs help?”

I want to experience samadhi.   I want to feel the experience of oneness with everything.   I want to know for myself that everything all these advaitins are saying is really true.   I already have a feeling that it is, but there are still doubts. Thanks, you always help me just because...

There IS NO TRUTH! There are NO “advaitans!”  That is to turn nondual pointing to what is into a new "advaita religion!" LOOK! There is ONLY THIS, apparently happening presently. There are no REAL “individual persons” anywhere, not here not there not anywhere. All that is a story, the “tale told by an idiot, filled with sound and fury, signifying … nothing.”

I want I want I want I want I want! WHO wants? WHO “wants to know for myself?” WHO asks the question? WHO whines and complains? The mind is an ill-tempered three-year-old brat! See this now. Ask WHO? DO the inquiry, so long as you believe in you! ASK that mind: Who ARE You? Ask your “self,” Who Am I? WHO AM I? Abandon all thoughts but the one: WHO AM I? As thoughts arise, ask, WHO thinks this? WHO AM I? As feelings arise, ask Who feels? WHO AM I? As long as there is a thinker, feeler, "doer," ASK that ONE thought-query: WHO AM I?

… and that really means a lot.  Few would take their time out to do what you do.  (Or don't do.)  I really appreciate it.

All this is happening without agenda, with no forethought, all spontaneously arising presently, no one doing asking, no one doing answering, no doer … the IDEA of a separate doer-entity is patently false; this is seen by no-one when there is the arising of an investigation into this supposed separate entity vial Oneness Asking Itself  ... WHO AM I?

That is ALL.

And Only Nothing Being This appearing manifestation … every damn blessed thing! Actually IS. THIS is the Unconditional Presence of Absolute Freedom in Absolute LOVE. Full Stop.

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16 October 2007

The Mind Has Endless Questions. WHO ASKS them?

Follow-up from G.H. The questions keep coming up. Seeking continues. Once the body mind is no more (death) how is Presence realized?

Awareness-Presence IS. THAT is NEVER either "Realized" or "Unrealized."

There is still strong identification with this body mind and not the Presence awareness behind it.

IS there? What a sad sad story!!! WHO is this that stubbornly and egotistically SAYS SO!??

How does the shift happen?

If you are waiting for some "shift to happen" you are gonna freakin' wait FOREVER, my dear "person." LOOK: Consciousness, the knowing of Awareness arising as "I AM" before the thought "i am," is not there in either deep sleep or "death." Awareness-Presence is Unborn and deathless. Be That (easy, as you already are That.)

WHO asks HOW? LOOK. WHO asks the questions? Give up all your questions except this one: WHO AM I?

In the sage words of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi: "The thought 'Who am I?' will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-Realization." There is a lovely paradox in all this: While there is in Truth no such thing as a separate “I’ and you already ARE what you seek, as long as there is the false BELIEF in a “me, myself, I” then this investigation is clearly called for.

So long as you believe there is a doer, just do that. (Go HERE for more on this.)

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15 October 2007

My Empathy is destroying me

Q: I am a 45-year-old male living in Hobart Tasmania, Australia. I think I may have actually met the sailor your site mentions many years ago. I have traveled Asia quite a bit and have deep contacts with Theravada Buddhism. The basic trouble is my empathy is destroying me. I have seen way too much suffering over the years. Far more than most. e.g. Cambodia as a community volunteer.  If we all turned our minds away these horrific things will continue.

This is focus on a story of Me/Other-Than-Me and that story is a big sad suffering one. LOOK: What or WHO is the "storyteller?" Who says this dream, this appearing world, is horrible or wonderful!?? Only a subject-me called (your name).) And that person is a phantom.

You are awake, aware, living, that is inescapable. This Awareness is always "on" and THAT is what you actually ARE. Focus on THAT ... the pure knowing-sense " I AM" ... and drop all the rest. You are NOT the story, NOT the I telling that story, NOT THAT NOT THAT NOT THAT.

Please tell me I am wrong. LOL

Okay. You're wrong. What good does that do? LOOK and see if you can find this "me" that is "empathic" or anything ELSE apart from Awareness Itself.

I too have found simple temporary release from drugs in the past and now it is alcohol (manageable) as it is the only way to make life bearable for me. Life is dysphonic if you know what I mean. 

I am NOT a doctor or a psychiatrist or psychologist. Get hold of a medical professional for help with these depression, anxieties and restless feelings that you use a fancy word for. These pointers are simplicity itself: Notice you are aware and present, always. That never changes. Then look to see what and where this "poor me" actually IS. Find out directly by LOOKING, see if this "me" is actually a solid separate entity that chooses, suffers, has pain and pleasure experiences etc.

Best to you... look these ways and stay in touch if you like.

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14 October, 2007 ... from Springfield MO 

This Is It: OK, What IS "This?"    

Hi there! Here I find this bodymind in Springfield, Missouri, hanging out with my beloved friend Kali and a couple of dozen of her dear friends, people who are presently (seemingly) uncovering their True Nature (which of course no one ever left!), and LO and BEHOLD! There is WiFi in this Yoga Center where we are all hanging out talking about Nothing. So even while the body-mind-world is appearing to be traveling these e-mails are getting answered by no one! Anyway .... LOL ..... 

G.H. Writes, Charlie, I just watched part 4 of your  "This is it video" [on YouTube, HERE] ... again. I appreciate and agree with everything you're saying.

Please don’t agree or disagree. This idea of a person agreeing with another person is the ignorance of the mind … an alive energy that appears to divide up the whole, that splits the ever-fresh Totality of Everything into the appearing “pairs of opposites” ...  Me/other, agree/disagree. Body/world and so on ad infinitum. But only APPARENTLY! 

I guess the main thing that keeps me questioning is I know "This is it" my question is "What is this?" We seemingly come out of nothingness against astronomical odds.

WHO!?? Where is this WE?

We go through this life trip with all of it's experiences, pain, joy, elation, despair, and then check back into the nothingness once again at the end of our earth trip, never to be heard from again.

What says all these words? Where is the ventriloquist talking through that G.H. puppet figure appearing IN Nothingness Itself?

"What is ‘this’?"

NOT any experience. Not any concept. Not even nothingness … the I - the ignorant me-mind thought that ignores that Awareness it arises in - turns nothing into a something “it” calls “nothing” that “it owns.” In THIS there is NO experience, NO experiencer. ALL there “IS” is, this Noticing Seeing Presence-Awareness, the clueless knowingness of non-conceptual Being.

Mankind wants more…

Where is “mankind?” Only is a story, imagination appearing presently!

I want more.

THAT is suffering!

All I really know is that I'm here right now.

FULL STOP!

Once my brain, mind has turned to dust, where am I? Nowhere.

Where is that “I’ now? On direct LOOKING, into this idea OF “ME,” THIS THOUGHT  of an “I?” from Naked Awareness (your true Being-Nature) … where is this I”?”

Can it be seen that this “I” is ALREADY “nowhere?” right NOW? And right NOW!? Right in this seeing the search for more or different or better stuff (concepts, experiences etc.) just ends. Before NOW, YOU ARE. THIS … Awareness Being THIS,.

All of the religions give us "HOPE" heaven, reincarnation, whatever.... from what I can tell, these are only ideas, beliefs, thoughts...not reality. Not "this"

Hope is icing on a turd! 

I used to think that once I shuffled off the mortal coil, I would be given the answers. I know now that that was just more wishful thinking. I can't say that it worries me, this date with nothing... but the question still remains..."What is this"?  Respectfully, G.H.

Okay after all is said and done, this is a great sort of "Final Questions." Comes up at the edge of the cliff!

Now, the first pointer you can look into is:

What asks this question? Who or what is the questioner? Where is that “one?” Is there any such thing as a question without a questioner? Where!??

THIS. What IS This? THIS. Just what IS, AS it IS. That is to say, NOTHING appearing as EVERYTHING.

Being IS. You know this: YOU ARE:

Isness IS, Izzing! That's THIS.

Silence IS THIS. Noise IS THIS. Nothing IS THIS. Everything IS THIS.

Word is NOT what word POINTS TO.

Everything Being Nothing.

THIS can NOT be grasped and owned by the "mind" (which is only a THOUGHT appearing in THIS.)

IT IS THIS.

Beyond word, before concept, being whatever appears and disappears and Being Space-Like, Empty-Fullness

All words!

THIS. Does exist. THAT YOU ARE IS THIS.

IT IS. Yet IT ... THIS... What YOU ARE...

           Cannot Be Expressed, described, or known.

THIS. Clueless Mysterious Awareness Just THIS.

LOL!!!!
 

Always Only Love,

Charlie

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11 October 2007

Maybe This Bodymind Is Right Where It Needs To Be

S.A. Writes, I greatly enjoyed the conference call. I hope I wasn't too disruptive! If you can't have fun with total freedom, what good is it? It's always interesting to me because we have to use dualistic speech to try and communicate non-dualism. I have great empathy for you and those who teach because of this. Now before you chide me for using "I" three times let me state that I know Santa Claus isn't real but I can still use the word. Using "I" in language is much easier than stating 'this mind/body thing' every time a self refer once is made. LOL

Oh ABSOLUTELY. It is only in a meeting and QandA context that I get after people who are still using personal pronouns in a suffering sense of being a separate entity!

Hell, Charlie, maybe this mind/body thing is right where it should be.

It’s right where it IS, so to say … . “Should” implies better/worse, right/wrong and even more difficult to see, “should” implies some controlling force or entity  (‘me’ or ‘God’) “somewhere not here” that is pulling strings or wanting to. On investigation none such can be found. And another aspect of that is a belief that there “IS” “Time.” That’s a LOL matter of nattering nonsense!

But on closer looking, IS there an “it,” a “bodymind,” at all, apart from a story, a thought-feeling storm with a mouth? IS there any such THING as IS?

Or is there only What IS … Presence-Awareness, Nothing being everything … an exploding imploding Aliveness and Just That!

Have a look and LOL!

Don't know. Life is pretty good and seemingly getting better. Regardless, I would look forward to meeting you. 

Living Peace, effortless living, uncaused joy! This is The Natural State. Home … the Home You never left. Life itself livingness dyingness all arising in THIS. Yee ha!

I look forward to getting together. As soon as the schedule firms up I’ll e-mail and set something up… 

And, I loved your expression on the conference call!

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10 October 2007

The Mind's Arguments against This

RZ Follow-up: The mind's argument is; what if the space like awareness is just part of the brain, that all of this is just brain waves with no real expanse behind it. It is all chemical and electrical reactions. The quiet knowing awareness is just your brain without thought. There is no great anything, just monkeys with brains that got too big. You sleep and your mind is in a quiet area, you wake and the reaction just begins. I know a pretty sad view, but it seems the mind keeps asking this question, and I have no answer. I hope I have articulated my question well; it is hard to put into words. 

Rather than speculate about brain body ape etc stay ONLY with what you can actually experience directly: That you exist is beyond speculation but what you are is always only imagination or speculation.

Do you exist? You are and you know that you are.

That’s all there is to know.

ALL else is bullshit.

There is NO answer that is not more bullshit story.

I suggested that you call or that I can call you. Strongly suggested. What is the mechanism that avoids this? You as a lie of mind, a conceptual ego-center that does not want to be exposed as empty and naked.

The answer is not where you are looking. The answer is not in the mind.

I will not answer questions that are coming out of a false assumption or a storytelling ego.

Enough!

I love you. And Love, the Compassion of Oneness, is ruthless.

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Always Only Love,

From I AM to I AM

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8 October 2007

Awareness Is NOT A Belief

There is a notion circulating that when you believe you are a separate “person” you suffer, but when you believe that awareness is real you don’t suffer.

Bullshit.

Seriously, you must reject this notion. All suffering comes from believing the thought of an "I" or "me" to be real, separate and solid, apart from Totality. When that shows up as a believer, there will ensue suffering. Count on that!

The suggestion is to believe in presence awareness because that is being seen right in front of you. But what is this "you" that would believe? What is right here always before, during, and after any thoughts arise and subside? Self-knowing Being-Awareness, just That. And that is NOT a belief. It’s what IS … nondual, Oneness, and That is not a belief, nor is there any “believer” in That!

A clear pointing from One to One will never suggest that anything be "believed!"  Especially believing in a "thing" called pure conscious being or awareness or being! That dualizes the clear NON-conceptual seeing! It’s subtle ignorance at play … look out! Suffering will follow that belief as the believer is a false mental construct and not the actual NON-conceptual Awareness ... Nondual Being itself. The mind tries to objectivise the non-conceptual formless timeless Being ... But that is YOU, Being, and as That, there is no conceptual structure of believer and believed. It's only in a thought-story that believing and a believe-ER can happen. Imagination.

Looking into the space from the space, I just cannot find a "believer." Can you?

           All that is found is Naked Aliveness, sans belief/believer/believing process...

That is why I always say, "don't believe anything, look and see what you see in the nonconceptual silent Space when you ask, "do I exist?" That Silence is a Knowing "YES" and that is NOT a belief... nor is there a believer ... it's all NON conceptual in This as-it-is Aliveness.

The truth believed is a lie. This is certain here. Not "right!" Just ... certain, here. For no one.

All of the above said, the bottom line is, don't believe anything. Seen "in front of you" (where is this "you?") or not, pointless viewless Awareness-Presence there is no believer, not here nor anywhere else and True Being simply will NOT mislead a seeker into believing in a believer ... which would HAVE to be a subject "you" believing an object "awareness" ... and THAT is patently false.

Full stop! 

"It's an illusion that 'you' exist--the entity 'you' is imagined. The imagination that 'you' exist as something or someone separate is the cause of acceptance or rejection of something known. It is illusion telling the story of its own deception. The knower and the known are just concepts seemingly dividing natural non-conceptual knowing."

(And the same is true regarding believing and believed.)

7 October 2007

The Believed-in "Me" Feels Insecure and Wants To Take Control

JT writes a follow-up: Some years ago, I read a book by Krishnamurti.  In the book, Krishnamurti said that the "I" is nothing more than a thought.  It was the most radical thing I'd ever read, but I couldn't argue with the logic, the simple truth of that statement. 

That’s bang on! This thought “I” appears and then in the insecurity of feeling lost adds to itself endlessly; then an expression of Oneness appears in the dream of “I” and say to that “I,” LOOK! What you believe yourself to be is naught but a thought! And a thought is powerless, empty and meaningless. Can a thought do anything?

But I didn't want to accept something so simple.  Fear arose.  What would happen to MY life if I stopped believing that I was a separate entity?  I imagined something like complete chaos.

The belief in a controlling entity produces chaos! Have you read the newspaper today!?

But it’s ALL imagination! All the energy of belief has gone into believing that this thought was a real, solid, separate entity we call “me,” and so when first heard that this is an empty imaginary non-person, the believer-I rejects the pointer. One way it rejects the pointer is to feel threatened, and an energy arises that the “I” LABELS fear. But what IS fear? Energy, motion, moving energy that this “I” thought latches onto and makes it “Mine” and labels it Fear. Without a belief in “I” or “mine,” without a belief in solid separate things staring with the solid separate “I” … where IS fear or me or you are any “object?” Where IS this separate “I? Can this be found in directly looking from awareness … from Being (inescapably you are and you know that you are; looking into this space-like awareness, where is the “me?”

So the seeking began again.  I notice that a lot of people who read Krishnamurti assume he was different, a "special" person.  Which completely goes against what he was trying to convey!

Quite correct. Now have a look. What is this “I” that began seeking itself again? Chasing its own tail?

A question:  Did you have these fears too? 

Two answers. First, from a relative dualistic (actually false!) perspective, a simple yes. Terror! “Sailor” Bob at one point suggested that rather than resist the fear that it could be a practical attack on this to try to magnify it, make it worse, imagining the horrible ways “I” could die (for me it was burning alive in a crashed race car as happened to a very dear friend, Lorenzo Bandini, who burned alive in a crashed Ferrari F1 car at Monaco way back when I was still racing.) My experience in doing as Bob suggested was a burning (even feeling heat) and that burning “burnt though” the self-conceit, the self-concept, leaving what was always already present … NOTHING.

Secondly, from the No-perspective No-viewpoint of Reality, Being-Awareness: The question is arising out of a faulty context, a false premise, a point of view held onto by the “I” – thought, that there IS a “you” called “charlie” and there is a “me” called JT who “wants to know if “you” experienced this “fear.” So an answer offered to a false self-center can reinforce the self-concept of a “me” that has “fear” (and doesn’t want that!)

… That if you really recognized the unreality of the doer, that life would fall apart because there would be no one left to manage it? 

The believed-in “me” feels insecure and vulnerable; that’s quite natural owing to the fact that IT IS A FAKE, and a fake does not want to be found out! S “IT” attempts to control and manage life to get pleasure and avoid pain.  Having taken on first, the acceptance of the false as a fact (I am separate, I am this body which can be hurt or killed) and then taking on a belief in a counterfeit "money" called “my free will," and then ignoring that brute fatc that this counterfeit free will, when one attepmpyts to use it, one finds it has no buying power, then repeatedly ignoring the awful fatc of having NO real control over the appearance of life, the entity either shrinks in terror or through ignorance fights its heart out until the body dies (and then freedom is seen by no one to be the only Reality.

To paraphrase a text supposedly “dictated” by the aspect of Oneness called Christ says, Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. This is the re-cognition of the underlying Peace that Surpasses Understanding. (Understanding “I Am Being-Awareness” is NOT BEING Being-Awareness!)

 There it is in a nutshell!

So you can settle this issue for yourself right now. Take on controlling every thought, feeling, emotion, sensation in the machine you call “me” for the next two weeks. Start now. Do this for ten minutes, then come back and read the NEXT e-mail. I will wait ten minutes then send that.

STOP. DO NOT do read anything else until you have tried this …  controlling your life for ten minutes.

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6 October 2007

JT writes, Thanks for the videos you've posted on YouTube.  They are direct and free of pretension.

Your clear Awareness, Seeing itself, has no pretenses and no persona, no mask. Once that's clear the end of the game of hide and seek is here! Allee allee in free! The metaphor of hide and seek is that the Self hides from ItSelf, and it hides in everything everywhere which appears to the mind-persona as nowhere and in nothing. So the Clear Presence of Awareness itself simply shines the light of The Self, Oneness, on itself and then the little “I self” can no longer be believed to be a thong apart from all there is … Totality, Oneness, The Self.

What you say rings true.  I recently noticed the non-reality of the 'doer' when I sat down to write.  I'm working on a novel and wasn't getting anywhere with it.  I thought my effort could make the words flow.  Then I thought, "To hell with effort!  Let's just see what happens!"  With that, I put pen to paper.  The words flowed once again...

Now simply get that idea of cause and effect out of the way. This notion that "I thought, to hell with effort" is just a thought of “I” and then more thoughts are appended to that false identity, all presently appearing in Awareness. Do these or any other thoughts have a "source?" Is there in fact any cause of the effects? There is one root idea that is at the root of the root of suffering and effort: "I."

Now, this makes it sound like "I" did something, adjusted my mental attitude, etc.  But that's an illusion.  All actions happen like this, spontaneously.  It is believing in our thoughts that creates the tension we call "effort."

Actually, it is believing only ONE "core thought" ... the "I" as a solid separate entity. Once the seeing into the cloud-like non-solid nature of that "I," from the infinite Presence of NON-conceptual Awareness-Presence that is never ever not here wherever and whenever there is "you" ("I") ... ever fresh and always HERE BEFORE and BEYOND "you," that fries to a crisp the idea that there is a "me" that is "doing" or that the "I" is "my body" ... these all burn away as Oneness fries "not-oneness" idea and feeling, that sense of "me" falls to burnt pieces and all there is, is (as you noted) the spontaneous happening of aliveness itself. 

It is nice to see this confirmed in your talks.  Thanks once again.

De nada!

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06 October 2007

RZ  follows up: I investigate who am I, what is found is empty – nothing.

That is all there is to see.

The mind tries to jump in and describe. I get it intellectually but the mind jumps in, describing, moving the topic off the investigation. I think I know the me is false but its strong attraction and reactions in daily life befuddle me.

That’s what’s happening. So what? Who cares? All that is Oneness, Onenessing. Just That. Nothing is happening. This is what “nothing  happening” looks like!

As I wrote you previously: Awareness-Being that is noticing Itself ... Its Self ... appearing as a "suffering entity." But so what? It is as it is … Oneness, Onenessing! But all that is still a dream, and you will be the dreamer until you are not. Nobody is here and nobody is there. Emptiness alone IS and all that seems to be real is a dream “me” dreaming “it” is separated from the whole. The dream goes on … until it is seen by no one that there is dreaming happening in Oneness as Oneness and that’s all there is … that’s the full stop. What you are … BEING … is inescapable, unavoidable and absolutely UNKNOWABLE. You are simply NOT LISTENING, sir! You try to grasp this unknowable spacelike Presence with the mind. But the “mind” is an object appearing in Awareness. How can an object (thought) ever know it’s Source (NO thought, Awareness, Being-Oneness Itself …)

I find myself in expansion-contraction throughout the day.

Yes. And what is it that wants that to be some other way? All that is ALSO Oneness, Onenessing. Just That.

I see my ego as nothing more than a reaction design created by my life, x happens I react as y. I see my thoughts are not my thoughts, but they still hook me most of the time. I know the separation is false but the separation is my experience more than it isn’t. I know there is nothing to do, no one to do it.

"MY ego?" Oh lord! Where is this "me" that "owns" an ego? That's pure ignorance, my dear friend. LOOK! The “separation” is nothing but thoughts held onto for dear life by the ego-mind. "You" will NEVER get this! If you had a choice you would NEVER let go the illusion! You as the thought "I" think yourself up to be this dream character who wants to make its dream better. No chance! But that’s just what is happening. All that is ALSO Oneness, Onenessing. Just That. Where is any problem in THAT unless you judge with the mind and invalidate what is? Look for the I and you find nothing, as you said. So WHAT makes you keep telling "your story"!?

You want what IS to be different and that is simply impossible. You argue with gravity and wonder why you can’t win. This is ignorance and arrogance rolled up in a furball of thoughts and feelings of a “me” that wants desperately to become NOT me. Forget it. It ain’t EVER gonna happen!

That is the contradiction and dilemma I guess. Let it be, I suppose.

And what in you can control THAT happening or not!?

But there is still a sense of yearning that I never overcome. Knowing there is no one to satisfy leaves me in this desert.

All that is ALSO Oneness, Onenessing. Just That. WHO is “in a desert? An imaginary character with wants and wishes to not be what it is and struggling against what is in absolute futility and that IS frustration … suffering big time. But for WHO? Where IS this "ME?" Does it exist in Reality? What is controlling all that appearance of thoughts and feelings of a separate seeming ?I?" IS there any controlling personal entity called "I" in Reality? Find out!

LOOK! Do you exist? Are you BEING. That is all that you are, Being Awareness, as in No Thing yet Presencing Here and Now as your knowing that YOU ARE, undeniably and inescapably! YOU as Your Self ARE ...ONLY being, Aware and present before during and after all your “poor poor me” stories! Stop telling this sad sad story and LOOK:

Do You Exist?

Are You BEING? Yes. Inexorably Undeniably So. What you THINK is "you" is only imagination, and that "you" does not really exist! You are NOT any “thing” at all. Yet YOU as Being do undeniably exist.

Any problem in Being Awareness itself? Why trade in Awareness Being Itself for thoughts of "your" crappy little life!?

You will never wake up. You will never die. You were never born.

This is it. Nothing ever happened. It was all a dream of a character that only exists as a belief. "The earth IS flat" "I am Me." "I am cuz I Think I Am." "I am this body." All just beliefs! What is the believer? Where is the one who believes and accepts the false assertions of the idiot mind? WHERE?  If you meet the doer show it to me!

I wish the ego would dissolve or become more of a back seat driver.

I wish I had a couple hundred million dollars. I wish I owned a Formula One racing team. I wish I wish I wish … SO WHAT? Who cares what you wish?

I don’t know what I am asking really. Just putting it out there.

That won’t work! You need to get real with this stuff or quit altogether (if “you” can!)

What I resonated with you and Paul was the story of surgery. I had back surgery a week ago and had similar feelings as him of being put under. As a child and teenager I would be deathly afraid to sleep, that I would disappear for 8 hours, I would die for 8 hours terrified me. It lead to experiences I can’t describe and I think led me to investigate religions. The fear would lead to thoughts of death, like I was when I was asleep, this lead to strange and exciting experiences, a giant all knowing expansion, indescribable, I was everything and nothing, expanding light, silence, knowing. My mind or me was not there, it was pure bliss, but inevitably the mind would come back and BAM the expanse would disappear and I was back as a sweaty scared boy. Maybe because I have tasted that I am looking for the Ah-Ha experience, I don’t know.

Your expectations will NOT be fulfilled! This is IT. There is nowhere to get, nor any such thing as time or “someday.” All there is is All there Is As It Is and as it AIN’T. This Oneness, this appearance, this awakeness, this Presence, THIS IS ALL THERE IS.

I can almost taste it but always back to the ego and mind, worries of family and work, taken as real.

By WHOM? What says this crap and then believes it?

I know all the above is a story, not real, doesn’t exist now, so it really doesn’t mean squat, just giving a little bit of my history.

ALL of that stuff is immaterial and irrelevant. It’s a bunch of empty meaningless sounds, words going  around in a loop that is all about a “me” that you “know” yourself to be, You are the man who knows too much. Try NOT knowing! All your knowledge is crap. It’s the arrogant ignorant ego-me that is refusing steadfastly to LOOK.

Like I said, you ain’t listening. When you are ready to STOP this bullshitting of yourself, get REAL, and LISTEN and LOOK, call or write again.

I love you!

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05 October 2007

RZ Writes, I have enjoyed your talks with Paul. The understanding of the 2 basic points of reality are understood by “me”.

The “me” is false. If you are still convinced there is a “me” that “is convinced,” where IS that thing? You are and you know that you are. All is Oneness appearing as a dreamer that dreams it is a separate me apart from the whole. But how can anything be apart from ALL THAT IS… Oneness Itself IS and even this false idea of a “me” IS that Oneness appearing as two and many and all. No separation anywhere. Even the conviction of separateness IS Oneness, One Sourceless Being, appearing as two-ness-ing.

Understanding this in the mind is the booby prize! Who understands? A dreamer.

 I still find my day goes in and out of suffering.

That’s what is happening. To whom?

I have a time where my mind is engaged, suffering happens. Something in me notices it,  full stop…

That is not accurate. There is nothing “in you.” The noticing happens from nowhere, it is (so to speak) Awareness-Being that is noticing Itself ... Its Self ... appearing as a "suffering entity." But so what? It is as it is … Oneness, Onenessing! But all that is still a dream, and you will be the dreamer until you are not. Nobody is here and nobody is there. Emptiness alone IS and all that seems to be real is a dream “me” dreaming “it” is separated from the whole. The dream goes on … until it is seen by no one that there is dreaming happening in Oneness as Oneness and that’s all there is … that’s the full stop. What you are … BEING … is inescapable, unavoidable and absolutely UNKNOWABLE.

… the truths are again realized and the suffering fades. I would say the suffering to not suffering ratio is still 80-20 unfortunately. Sure when I first saw the truth it was 99-1 before I started “full stop” when my mind was racing.

That is what is happening in the dream.

Is this how it is?

This is how it appears to the dreamer.

What am I missing, my mind is stronger than the apparent reality, at least 80% of the time. Thanks.

What the “I” always forever is missing is Nothing. Because Nothing cannot be either missed or known, found or lost, you might very well have a good laugh and head for the tavern or the whorehouse!

I’ll meet you there!

[Note: Of course, in Reality all these 'words, words' are empty and meaningless pulses of energy ... no one is dreaming, no one wakes up.]

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Q: "Could awareness ever not be, sometime? What if all the universes collapsed, and take awareness with it?? Would there be anything left? LOL..."

There isn't anything now! There is Awareness but Awareness is No Thing. There never were any "universes" apart from Awareness Itself (all else is a dream appearance, only real in essence, not real as separate or apart from The Whole...)

All else ... EVEN including the concept Awareness as well as the concept  "I" and the concept "time" (that concept of a me in time says says what if, meaning not now but someday) IS imagination, just mental speculation!

Be as you are. Being IS and you are that. You are and you kow that you are. That Being is NOT a concept or imagination. Stay with the ONLY thong you know for certain: I AM. THAT is NOT a CONCEPT. It IS and THAT YOU ARE, BEING, IS REAL. All esle is Imagination ... FULL STOP.

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On 29 September 2007 S.C. wrote, I recently discovered your site and renewed my hope of understanding this. I have been listening to the audios and videos on your site and have questions, if you don’t mind. I guess that I expected this to clear up without my participation but ….

That’s common, it’s a misunderstanding of the way some point to what is and say things like “there is no one so there is nothing that 'you' ('I') can do."

As a pointer to the actual Real essence of what you are, there is perhaps value in the pointer that “there is no one.” But when taken on as a belief by the “person” who still is convinced that he or she "IS" a real separate controlling entity, all that belief usually results in is resignation, ennui, despair. Saying or believing “I am no one so obviously there’s nothing I can do” is a false belief held by a “person” egoically claiming to be no one. And since "I believe" “I am no one” and therefore “I am powerless” to rediscover what is true, as a consequence of believing this lie I must be doomed to a hopeless state of despair at worst or “quiet desperation” at best. Then that hopelessness is covered over by what a “me” calls “hope.” It says, "Maybe 'I' CAN find this peace I seek!" You will NOT.

This True Perfect Peace is the absence of "you." So that hope is like icing on a turd! It’s a product of the false beliefs in a “me” and “other than me”, of  a personal attainment for “me,” and a false belief in "time," and a "someday" when “I will get there.” But you cannot get TO the HERE and NOW. You already ARE HERE NOW!

So, these beliefs, when unexamined, operate at a deep level, and result in a certain yet totally false conviction  ... the conviction that there IS a separate "me" that must somehow get control if "its time and its life." This conviction is like being sentenced to life by a conceptual judge, to a conceptual prison of endless suffering as a seeking and never finding what is sought. Whether through money, sex, drugs or accomplishment, or religion or spirituality, and finally "nonduality," there is this endless seeking for  ...  and never finding ... true satisfaction! It's horrible.

Something you said (in the audios and videos on your site ) about understanding who and what you are really hit home. I have read that before but I don’t think paid close enough attention to what was really meant by it. I must know who I am first? I must ask myself this?

Let’s go over the “basics:” The good news (very good news indeed!) is that the suffering has a cause and when the cause is looked into and rooted out at the core, suffering ends and then there is simply what is, unmodified, uncorrected and unaltered, and life in true freedom happens … for no one (paradoxically!). Elimnate the cause and its effects cannot remain. Here's how:

First off: Again, asking yourself right now, “Do I exist?”, it is absolutely certain that you are. This is absolutely known … I AM. No one can say “I am not.” So Being, your Awareness of Being here now every moment, is primary and inescapable. THAT is what you are. I AM. Nothing added, nothing but this NON-conceptual I AM. You as This are already awake, already home.

Secondly: What IS the cause of suffering? An uninvestigated claim that there is such a “thing” as a separate solid “me” that must manage and control its life (“my life.”) What is the nature of this claiming mechanism? It is “naught but a thought!” The I AM of your undeniable Awareness of Being IS and That  exists before the thought “I.” Then the thought  “I” comes before all else. As in "I ... am ... this body."  And the thought I is NOT the true “I-Consciousness that you actually are. The I thought points to what is … points only! Looking right  NOW: Is the thought of a thing ever what is pointed to or represented by the thought? Can you burn a log in the fireplace by shouting “fire” at the wood? Can you put a fire out with the word “water?” NO! (And without a thought added to the I thought, where is this "body?" That "body" you are probably still convinced that you are is also "naught but a thought!")

So the word “I” is NOT the true I of Presence-Awareness. You are and you know that you are. That I AM that you are is the one same I AM that everyone is. Again, asking yourself right now, “Do I exist?”, it is absolutely certain that you ARE. That’s “step one of two” in this final seeing of the real … and step two is a matter of seeing what is false and discarding that. That knowing awareness arises as the thought I am. That I AM is certain and Real. The thought "I" that appears to divide what is into concepts of I and other is false. 

Another thing that I was hanging onto is what the state of enlightenment would mean. I had ideas of a totally secure feeling of joy and well-being that would allow me to go through life untouched by negative thoughts, feelings or events. I don’t really believe that now but still find myself hoping there is something (soothing, comforting, etc.) here somewhere.....

You will never get “there!” There is no attainment. No such thing as peace of mind. No such thing as “my” well-being. It ain’t personal at all. And there IS NO teacher, no student, all this is unborn and the ONLY reality is I AM. Your TRUE SELF, the Being-Awareness that you inescapably know and are, JUST IS, beyond ideas of a me who is either “secure” or “insecure.” You see, so long as the false belief in a separate I entity is still at play there is often a feeling of insecurity and vulnerability. This was my experience until it was seen clearly that there simply is no such thing as a “me” that can be vulnerable and insecure.

What you are describing is a STATE. A state that will "allow me to go through life untouched" ... that's one of what Stephen Wingate calls The Outrageous Myths of Enlightenment!" You get free of a myth by seeing that it IS a myth! "The earth is flat!" That was a myth. Now no one believes that one. Just seeing the false AS false is an aspect of this clear knowing of what is real and what is not real.

All "states of 'me' being this or that" come and go. What never changes? Only THAT is real. And nothing real can be threatened and ”feel insecure.” And nothing unreal actually exists.

There is joy and well-being. But not for “you!” That joy and well-being is your Natural, Eternal state. But THAT is NOT “personal!" THAT is, in a way of speaking, the ABSENCE of “the person.”

So besides acknowledging (I Am) how do I proceed?

Asking who am I comes after the knowing I AM. There is NO “acknowledging” needed. It is simply the direct nonconceptual knowing of your own presence of being. Here and now you ARE. Full stop!

So that is known. Period. Now, what is “next” (actually it is simultaneous but appears as a “process in time”) is that you set into investigating WHAT IS this “identified pseudo-subject” that calls itself “I” in thought and considers itself separate from “other than  I” also in thought … this is in “part two” of this seeing, discovering once and for all what you are NOT. "I am a person:" Is that TRUE? Is the thought the thing? What AM I? I AM. What am I NOT? Any thing at all. I AM No Thing. Yet, I AM. Don’t try to get that with the mind! It can’t be known that way. THIS is in a way, NOT-KNOWING.

I AM THAT. What? NOT KNOWING. Yet I AM. Got it? Drop it!

From experience I can confirm that you must know beyond doubt BOTH what you ARE (Presence-Awareness, Being-Consciousness) and what you are NOT (a thing apart from all that is.) Then the suffering ends right here right now. Then (now)  there is Absolute Freedom, the Home you never actually left. But this is not freedom for “you.” It is Freedom FROM the false belief in the idea of a separate “you.”

I AM. That is certain, inescapable; you know that Your True Nature, your own Being, simply, IS. Then looking at WHO or WHAT I AM is the investigation into all false beliefs, beginning with the belief that the thought I is what I am. You are not a thought! You were never a concept and never could be. It was a mistake made in ignorance that the thought I was believed to be what you are. Asking “Who am I?” and (importantly!) rejecting all answers as “me” is part two of this nondual seeing.

So that’s the “drill:”

1: I AM. That is certain.

2. I am NOT a thing apart from That I AM. That is proved to yourself on investigation.

Stay in touch. Call if you like! Let’s get this completely nailed down for you straight away. Life in True Freedom from all psychological suffering is your birthright and your true nature so if there are any remaining doubts, questions or ‘yes-buts’ lets get ‘em resolved.

Re-read this a few times and allow the pointers to "sink in."

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What about when I'm asleep? I'm not aware then, so does nothing exist when i'm asleep???

What is your experience? You are awareness itself. Then that awareness becomes consciousness when the unknowing awareness awakes as the NON conceptual "I am" -- That awakes as being I, i am, i am here now, But Awareness is that Eternally Present aliveness that beats the body's heart in sleep. Just ask, Do I exist? You are and you are aware that you are. That awareness is what IS, before the conscious mind translates That into I Am, IS your True Nature. That's all there is to this.

And YES, Nothing exists when “i” is asleep. You ARE that No Thing. Presence Awareness Being Emptiness ... whatever label you like. All labels point to No thing NO where Now Here THIS. Just This. Smile. You are already free and home in No Thing.

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03 October 2007 - with Followup 03 October 2007

Q: I found a book where the author makes the case that to be free from the ego, the seeker must practice self-Inquiry like a formal meditation practice. He recommends a minimum of 2 hours per day of Awareness Watching Awareness and to devote longer periods of time to the practice when possible. I wanted to know what you thought about this.

That's easy. He's fulla shit! In a manner of (vulgar) speaking!

Who would "practice?" Only an entity trying to control it's life, manage aliveness, manipulate the experience of life.

It's pure bullshit.

You are and you know that you are! That's all there is to this. Ordinary Awareness. Where is a me that would inquire? Find out, is there one? Where is it? This natural looking is not a practice.

As I have said on the blog: Perhaps the habit is to identify your self as the thought "I" - as in I Am. Notice right now if the Presence behind the I thought has been overlooked. Break into the habit, being aware of That Presence as your True Identity. This takes no time nor practice. It's just a natural seeing, right here, right now. And that's the end of seeking; the Natural, Eternal State has been found to be never missing.

Self-inquiry can happen but who does it? Finally it must be seen that there is no person in charge, no person to inquire. It's a myth. "Self-Inquiry" is a way of pointing to the investigation of the mind's assertions that for example "I am this body." Is it true on direct looking?

The seeing is direct from naked awareness that there is only a movement of thought, energy arising as concepts from the self-concept of an “I” who is not already awake and aware of their being. In tis eternal Being-Awareness there is no solid separate entity anywhere, not in you or anyone else. No practice is necessary for you to BE and know that you ARE.

Don't complicate the simplicity of the natural state ... You are this eternal never-changing Being-seeing, just that and nothing else.

Re-read Chapter 9 of “From I Am to I Am, With Love,” re practices.Being, loving to be. That Thou Art. Full Stop.

Follow-up

Thanks for your no non-sense answer Charlie. Just for clarification, I wanted to make sure you had a look at what the author of the book is suggesting people practice. He words the instructions differently so that if someone doesn't quite get what he talking about one way, then they might get it from a different way of wording the same thing. 

These things really mislead the seeker, as he or she then believes that there is some attainment for a person who applies a teaching tool as a practice. It's more effective to stay with the simple message: You are and you know that you are. Then is there is a "me" that believes it is "not done" the practice is taken up by the idiot mind, and leads only to frustration. I simply do not endorse that conceptual structure in whatever form it might arise. This sharing is direct and does not accept the concepts to be real that "someone doesn't quite get what he talking about one way, then they might get it from a different way of wording ... there is NO someone and NOTHING that no someone will "get!" THAT is the ignorance and it merely keeps a seeker believing in his or her existence as an entity with some control and who will "arrive someday."

Really, just see that this is a load of crap.

Remember that you are no thing and have no thing. There is nowhere to get and no one to get there. Full stop!

That's it in a nutshell.

As Sri Ramana Maharshi pointed out from Timeless Naked Awareness: 

"You impose limits to your True Nature of Infinite Being. Then, you get displeased to be only a limited creature. Then, you begin spiritual practices to transcend these nonexistent limits. But if your practice itself implies the existence of these limits, how could they allow you to transcend them?”

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Q: On a YouTube video you talk about suffering being imaginary. My question is, if, say, bodily pain is just an object in the field of Awareness or the One Consciousness (which is impersonal) why do I, as Consciousness experience the pain (physical or psychological) of this body I call me and not the pain that you perceive through your body?

This question is, as so many questions (maybe most!) are, based on a false assumption, an assumption masking itself and parading before awareness as a fact: That there is a “body” called charlie that calls itself me and a body called <seeker's name> that calls itself “me.”There is NOT. Prove this to yourself by investigating these false claims of an ignorant mind, that conceptual structure rooted in the belief in a separate “me” called “this body” that ignores its own meaninglessness and insignificance, its own powerlessness.

There is no entity here or there; all there is is thoughts of a person who wants to know an answer to a question of “why.” That's an immature approach to a timeless question: Ask What am I, not why this or why that. ALL “why” questions are the mind's quest for an answer that will make it feel safe and secure. But the freedom you seek consists only in NOT KNOWING. So all answers are crap.

The real question I ask you is, are you suffering? A philosophical discussion of concepts of why this and what about that will NOT help you get at the core of your suffering.

So ask yourself do I exist? Inescapably you ARE. Now what you are is what needs looking into: Are you a body? Are you the experienc-er of pains that arise in a body?

Consciousness does not experience. Consciousness is the Absolute witnessing Presence, Being and only That. That is not apart from the experiencing, but there is NO experiencer! That idea of “me” and “other” is the imagination of an entity called “me” that TAKES itself to be “a body.”

Where is a body unless there is a thought? Where is a body or a “me” in deep sleep? You are simply fooling yourself with this false conviction in this “I am the body” idea. Root that out and there is only what you ARE, Unborn Being Itself

In other words, I see intellectually that objects can be both exterior, (like a bird, a cloud, a wave in motion, a person) and interior (a thought, an emotion, a feeling) and that both appear in consciousness. Awareness is then reflecting indifferently a bird flying as well as an emotion and its effect on the body.

Drop the modifier "intellectually" and what you offer here is a pretty good "description" of the indescribable yet glaringly obvious True Nature of Awareness-Consciousness-Acceptance – the acceptance of all that is with no exertion by the mind to control, alter, modify, fix or change a blessed damned thing! Now STOP HERE! But you don't stop; you go on with,

The fact is that I see the emotion as my own, me having an emotion and not as object in the field of awareness.

Fact!?? NO! You assume and assert fact that is, in Reality, nothing but a false assertion. This is your ignorance, the mind-ego you hang onto for dear life to survive as your fake identity. Look for evidence for the mind's assertion that there IS a “you” that “sees emotion as my own” and you find out the assertion is bullshit! That's what is needed at this “stage” of this “process.” WHERE is this YOU that OWNS emotion? Is that real? If so why not use that to control what arises and never ever again have an unwanted emotion or painful experience? Try to control that for a couple of weeks and report back how successful “you” are in controlling all that happens to arise in Awareness??

I thank you in advance for any help in clarifying my confusion.

De Nada! 

Just recognize that all your confusion and suffering is due to your taking yourself to be an object “the body.” Drop that story like the hot potato it is. Be as you are ... presence, being awareness itself, and get rid of the tendency to define your being as this or that, I and other. You ARE and you know you ARE. Stay with THAT.

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"You give no attention to your [True] Self. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self. Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to your self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the sense "I am" is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except "I am", and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the "I am" is over -- you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are. All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define your self. All definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly."  - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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03 October 2007

Q: I just stumbled onto your YouTube talks a couple days ago and LOVE the simplicity of your teachings... thank you for your generosity.................

De nada! :-)

It seems that I am understanding the pointers but there is like a looking for something to end the search............which is really kind of crazy if I think about it.... looking for something to stop the looking...

Do you exist? You are and you know that you are. That’s inescapable, ever present. Awareness is inescapable and THAT ordinary clear awareness is your true nature. All that arises is arising IN that Being-Awareness. Any problem seeing this? It’s obvious now, is it not? Keep this real simple: Directly there is the knowing wherever you are, that “I am, and I know that I am.”

The end of the search consists in seeing that you already are what you search for, and that the seeker is the sought.

Now: What is it that wants more? Where is this entity that wants to stop looking for its true self-knowing awareness? Where is a separate personal “me-entity” that has a desire to control what is and end its seeking? Where is this controlling personal doer, thinker, feeler, experiencer?

Can you actually find a separate entity called by a name-label and which is apart from the whole? Or is that “me” merely a movement of thought, a thought appears, an “I” thought, and out of force of habit is taken to be real and solid, separated from “other.”

“I” and “other” are two separate thoughts that arise together, having no existence apart from Awareness. Being IS and all appearances – including the notional (only notional!) “I and Other-Than-I” -- arise and disappear again in That. So where is any separation apart from a movement of thoughts arising presently?

What in you never changes?

What can never be escaped?

What changes is thoughts and feelings. Can stuff that changes actually be the real, infinite presence of being itself? Or is that all just mind-stuff and no more substantial than clouds in the empty sunlit sky?

Two questions to ask yourself:

1. Do I exist?

Absolutely always, YES. Being is and you are That.

2. What Am I?

Am I a separate entity? No. Absolutely always NO. You’ll never find such a thing; looking in the space wherever you are whenever it is can you find a real solid personal entity? Where is a body or mind or person apart from a thought? Are you a thought? NO. Find this out and freedom is (as it always is) yours forever.

Stay in touch. Let me know what your seeing is after looking into this with these points.

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1 October 2007 - UPDATED 2 October:

Charlie, I'm definitely a seeker. I found your YouTube videos after reading a John Wheeler book. What is being said in the videos has a very strong ring of truth for me. One of the things I get hung up on is that since life is just happening, so called "people" can not take any credit for their apparent triumphs, and conversely can not be blamed if they turn out to be a child molester or a murderer.

"Charlie, I'm definitely a seeker."  Who says so? Where is the separate “I” apart from the whole that claims to BE and then claims to “be” a “seeker?”

What is a “seeker?” The REAL NON-CONCEPTUAL I ITSELF simply IS. THIS IS the REAL … the Not-Two Being, unknown clueless awareness. The WORD “I“ only POINTS to that Unknowing Presence Being Itself, and that is what IS, BEFORE the I-thought IS.

Before God and Man are, I IS.

IS appears as a murderer or a saint. Light appears on a movie screen as a murderer or a saint. Is the screen (Consciousness of being I AM,) touched by the appearance of colorful lights and shadows? ? Is the Light that the images appear to be sourced from touched or affected by the appearance of images on an empty screen?

Only This Light IS and You are That. Full Stop.

I, Being, metaphorically the Unseen Unknowable Light, always eternally IS.

I AM, Consciousness, comes and goes IN the Light of Being as a wakeful Awareness-Of-Itself Being awake as I AM. Oneness is I AM. Being is Prior to Oneness-I-Am.

What all these words are attempting to point to is that what You are is Being, ever-yet-never -- existence-existing, the Unseen Light of Being-As-Itself … which the mind cannot grasp because to the mind, Being is No Thing.

When Being seems to be identified as an imaginary separated concept of I AM, this arises as subtle suffering, and so a “Seeker” is born. What you ARE is Unborn. What APPEARS is a thought I, devolving to I AM, then further devolving into I AM a seeker or whatever else is said to be an identity, as in “I am a seeker.” I am this body with this name is a belief that inevitably brings with it suffering … insecurity and vulnerability … until rooted up and out at the core. You pull a weed at the root, not at the leaves.

The end of suffering consists A) Knowing that Existing IS and you are THAT, and B) Starting from the FACT that you arleady always ARE what the seeker seeks, setting into uprooting the false, thereby getting all the way "back" (so to speak) to the ever-present Beginningless beginning of now. This Presence IS, and This is always Here observing that what we have taken to be “me” or “I” is only a thought appearing in Consciousness and Consciousness is only Intelligence-Energy moving on it’s own with no cause in what IS, existence itself.

This is the true essence of the ancient pointer in the various Indian traditions:

Sat-Chit-Ananda.

·        Sat = existence, Light Itself. This is what You are.

·        Chit = Consciousness, awareness, I AM, being aware. Inescapable. Light awake AS No Thing, the silent ordinary awareness of presence. Wakefulness as I, translated in mind as “I am.” Knowing without a knower.

·        Ananda = Bliss. Peace, the substrate of all that is appearing, true-nature of Consciousness bubbling into uncaused natural joy, loving what is as it is. Loving Being Awake to Itself, Light seems to become one then many, a sport of the joyousness of Life as the Light plays within itself. “The Nondual Play Of Being-Consciousness-Joy.”

I guess residual thoughts from my Christian upbringing still require some sort of responsibility for what I once thought of as bad choices. If we are truly only along for the ride, there can be no kudos or blame for anything that takes place.

Just watch the “mind” and observe that the Light of Conscious Awareness is never missing; without That Presence, there could be no appearance of any thoughts, feelings, sensations, knowing, not-knowing, memories or imaginations. All arises IN That. You are THAT. If there is a residual belief that “you” or “anyone else” remains as an entity with control apart from That Light look and see where is it? Can you find such a separate entity? And if there is still a belief in control or intentional will, exercise that: Try really commitedly to make your thoughts disappear or only think thoughts you like. Try with all you got to control emotions, feelings, sensation. Try to stop seeing from happening through those eyes! Then make sure you don’t have any beliefs or stories; don’t have any “residual thoughts of a past or upbringing." Stop all thought and seeing and feeling for two weeks.

Are you trying? Try HARDER!

   How’s that going? 

LOOK: Can you stop the seeing for even one nanosecond? Seeing IS, isn’t it? Seeing thoughts, stories, emotions, seeing just …  IS. You as Consciousness are the SEE-ING. The see-ing is 100% real; the se-er and the seen is 100% false. The Dream.

Find this for yourself by trying to stop thinking-feeling.

I realize that thoughts like the above could just be my mind trying to stay in charge, and confuse the issue.

Okay! Now ask yourself WHO or what “realizes?” It dawns on the mind from beyond the mind, from Being-Awareness-Peace Itself, that these ideas of "me" are merely movements of energy-consciousness-intelligence, out of Clueless Beingness, and are just a signal that a nonexistent entity is being believed to be the Real, the I, and that there actually is no such thing. The machinery has no operator!

One more thing, if you don't mind...I once was anesthetized for a leg operation. Afterward I had the feeling that I ceased to exist for those 4 hours while on the table. There was absolutely, no consciousness, awareness or anything, during the time I was out. I have since come to believe that this must be what death is like. If our true nature is the I AM, where is the I AM during an experience like that?

You are getting down to the fundamental questions: what IS death? What IS this “I AM?”

You exist and you know that you exist. When there is a “me” aware of itself we call that being alive. When there is no me we call that death. But we (the mind) have that exactly backwards! What is always existing is That which was awake when you were gone. Deep sleep or anesthetic, That knows NOTHING and YET IT IS. It arises as Consciousness and Consciousness reports, “the feeling that I ceased to exist for those 4 hours while on the table.” FWIW I had the exact same happening, six hours gone during open heart surgery for a quad bypass in 2000. It was only after I met John Wheeler and “Sailor” Bob that I “understood” all that (not comprehended but deeply SAW) WHAT  IS  REAL  -- Being Itself -- and what IS NOT REAL – the dream of “me.”.

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts from you, to help me clear up some stumbling blocks and help me drop the psychological suffering that I experience at times. Thank you for doing what you're doing.

A phone talk would be good to get at any residual confusion. Call any time. If you have pay a toll cost for long distance I can call you at no toll cost for long distance, via Vonage. Just e-mail your phone number.

Meanwhile, be what you are. The IS is inescapable. BE. Full Stop.

Thank you for your detailed reply. I want to take a little time to digest it all. Also, thanks for the invitation to call you. I will take you up on it when I can formulate just what it is that I'm still having trouble with. At this very moment all is well.  You are indeed a friend.

No problem exists apart from a thought of a false entity, a "me," taken to be solid and real. See through that and the seeking ends in the full stop of each and every NOW.

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More Feedback from the Norman Oklahoma Talk on Sept. 30^th 2007…

To the host of the Talk, I wrote:

Just a note to say thanks for breakfast and lunch! And I loved Being with everyone. Any questions, comments, doubts, what-abouts or anything else? Is it clear that what you ARE is the Unborn Clueless Being and what you are NOT is a thing apart from all that Is and appears to exist?

Waking to the dream is all that is necessary; This is seeing the false as false, and directly knowing (without a knower) that Only Being never changes ever! ... and there is life itself appearing now in effortless living, aliveness in true peace, watching all that appears ...
 

Here and Now, There is Always Only Nonconceptual Eternally Love, Loving love and hate, war and peace!

Freedom in True Peace is Your Natural State. Invincible and Alone (All One.)

This response arrived today from the host:

That was a lot of fun.  I’ll be interested to see if anyone wants to pursue it further or just drop it.  I saw a few furrowed brows in there.   It is all clear to me. 

Awesome!

Yes, in my case meeting John Wheeler the seed was planted. My brows were plenty furrowed until the investigation proved there is no entity choosing or deciding, not in this charlie-thing or in any other pattern of the 'person' appearance.

So seeds get planted. The IS plants 'em and might or might not sprout them into the inquiry into what I Am and what I Am Not.

Always interesting to watch! To state the ever present obvious. Not preaching to the choir here ... just babbling on about no thing. :-) ...
 

By the way, looking in a Crichton book at the library while seeking a put-the-organism-to-sleep book for the evenings in the Unborn I came across a quote you might like for the group ...

"What interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world." - Einstein

It might arose for you to share that That idea of course is essentially arising out of a bullshit premise (!) but that idea can lead to the investigation that ends psychological suffering once and for good: What is God? Where can I find God? What is me? Where can I find "me?"

Emptiness here emptiness there ... yet all appears and is loved!

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, There is IS. Is-Ing! As you now know, That Is Always Only Love.

          ---------------------------------------------------------

Another attendee and co-host writes, THANKS SOOOOO MUCH CHARLIE! We had a BLAST! I think that your words touched more folks than you know. I think that those who did bristle were fighting with the simplicity of Advaita - I know I do!

And that battle is suffering, isn’t it? This is so simple; they are, as you are, and that is known. That’s it in a nutshell. Notice the shell, not the nut inside it! Then notice the space both nut and shell appear in and know that you are that. Then it’s truly all over. Life lives itself in endless peace as has always been the true nature of things.

For a few people it may have been too just too non-dogmatic but I would say the majority were married to an idea of complete secularism and your words hit hard to fracture that facade.

Good news! That’s what John Wheeler offered to me and it does work. Isn’t THAT cool? 

My dualistic monkey-mind just won’t let me believe that it is that goddamn simple…

Yet the space of Being-Awareness is untouched and so let the monkey-mind chatter. Never mind. No matter!

When you stir the pot with this group you have no idea what you will get. I think there some (perhaps many) who think it is a load but some have already got it, some are close, and some need more persuasion for the house of cards to fall. 

No persuasion is needed … only a mind could get persuaded and convinced (conned!) and this natural Knowing-Awareness of Being is prior to all that mental stuff and beyond either conviction or doubt. The seeing of this part of the message comes along as the seeker investigates for himself or herself! No words from another will ever let the false be convinced it is false (how could it!?)

In the story of me and other, the con seems to be in full force for some, has been crumbled a bit for others, and others are “on the edge.” But a con is a con! It isn’t real, only falsely accepted in the absence of investigation. So in most cases simply seeing “I am, and that is known absolutely,” will seem to the AHA! Of natiral seeing of what is real, and then seem to be obscured again,  until what is doing the obscuring … the “me” idea … is looked at head on with Naked Awareness. And then it stops like a deer in the headlights. In that stop the search ends … just NOW.

I would LOVE to have been a fly on the wall after the session - I saw several people discussing it, which is GREAT! 

The One Self is the Ultimate Agent Provocateur!

Keep on with the pointers Charlie!!!!

I am not doing a thing so what could stop that from happening? Not one not two. Even “one” is too many!

Anyway, I’m glad to hear all this! Sounds like it’s going exactly as it is going. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

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29 September

Q: If I am not controlling anything, then how does anything happen? 

That is a good question. The answer, however, will not satisfy the questioner, which is merely a thought-form arising in Presence here and now. This Presence is what is real, never changing. So all that “is happening” is not actually “happening” at all. Nothing is happening. You are dreaming of happenings and dreaming a question and dreaming a questioner. If there is a sleep dream at night, when waking happens the dream is seen as a dream and no longer troubles you. You don’t ask “ If I (the dream I)  am not controlling anything how does anything happen?” regarding that sleep dream because you know beyond doubt that nothing ever happened in the dream. It was never real, only imagination and in a way ONLY a movie arising that was watched. By what? Who or what watches even now as these questions and answers arise? In this “waking dream?”

Right here right now golf is being watched on TV, then typing is being watched, reading is being watched, watching as hearing sounds of a TV announcer is happening, seeing the fingers dart around hitting little black squares with white squiggles is happening, black markings appearing on white space is being watched. What is watching all this?

This is Not-Knowing, the Unknowing witnessing Awareness, Being-Consciousness, Aware and Awake as the silent Witness of the dream. Looking for, and failing to find, a separate entity doing or controlling ANYTHING is what Leo Hartong elegantly calls "awakening TO the dream." (NOT waking up from it. Awakening to the seeing that this so-called "waking state" of consciousness is a dream we ...  as out True Self ... are simply watching.)

Is there any way to influence what manifests?  

Asked and answered. What would control or influence in the dream? Watching the dream (drama) is what is real. All notions of influence or control are stories of a dream character. Thoughts of an “I” that can “influence” or an “I” that wants to know if it can control what happens in a dream … do you get the irony?

This is the dream character that wants to exert control to make things go its way. But where IS this entity, this character? You are dreaming. Can a dream-entity do anything? The dream is being watched by what you are … being, aware of all that is arising in this waking dream. Just watch. And see if you can locate the “one” who asks the question and see if that is a real thing or merely a wisp of thought!

I know it probably comes from some separate sense trying to control everything, but it keeps arising.   

If it keeps arising, so what? It’s a thought-movement, just energy arising as movements of sound and silence, feeling-thinking…  the only thing problematic is when this movement of energy is fixated on, taken to be “about me, “ and then resisted in some attempt to modify, correct, alter or fix it. There seems to be a notion that this is somehow indicating “something wrong.” But to whom does this energy arise? Is there a controller or is this also appearing as a “happening” … as part of the waking dream of isness?

There are kind of two parts of me I guess. One of them wants to control what is going on, and the other part is glad that it never has to be worried about controlling anything ever again.

Now THIS is TOTALLY FALSE! There is no “me” … and no “parts" of that nonexistent “me.” That is the still-extant belief in a separate controlling entity! Root that out through investigation! Where is this “me” that has “parts?” Where? Where is a me that either “wants to control” or wants to be unworried about being responsible for what it does and has and is in “its” life!? WHERE IS IT!?

You are and you know that you are. That I AM is known and totally certain. All else is false. Who or what believes any thought to be real and be pointing to any real object apart from the pure Subject-Awareness, that I AM which is your True Nature?? Hunt for that separate one and you’ll never find it.

If you are not the doer, then who is responsible for anything? 

You answered the question that you asked! There IS No one. There IS no doer in the machinery! But do not take this as a new belief! Find out by LOOKING for that "doer" yourself, to see if you can locate such a thing!

What asks this? What wants to know? Stop look listen and BE.

Full stop!
 

Follow-up:

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28 September

    False "Teachings"

Just a niggling but crucial bit of misunderstanding that can be heard erupting from the mouths of some organisms that appear to be false "teachers of oneness" ...

"Consciousness is time bound." Consciousness - Being-Awareness, One-Without-A-Second ... can THAT ever actually be "time bound?" Impossible. There is an APPEARANCE of "time." There is no time, no separateness, no bondage, no liberation. This story of consciousness is false. What is REAL? Being, I AM prior to any thing, and the essence of all apparent things. THAT is No Thing. Can any thing come from no thing and be "bound?"

Q: Ha ha. Better email him and meet at sundown ...

LOL! Nothing serious, just loving poking a bit at false concepts in case there is still someone who cares!

I love the guy.  It ain't "personal!" Ha!!

Who would care either way? Only a fasle entity that still believes in its own separate existence!

Yeah that is my modus operendum ! i think i wanted that to come out as latin for thats how i operate. if there was an i ... thank god there aint.! 

And the non-existent flock said, amen!

"At the moment of inner enlightenment there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness. The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance." - The Hsin Hsin Ming

Another reader comments on this: This teaching of "awareness prior to consciousness" is very misleading...I was in a state of confusion with (yet another teacher) a few weeks ago, because he was saying that awareness is still a shadow,that there is something beyond that!...but that's just a nice story!...because all that can be known is I AM...the rest is fiction...

Q: I have read where you answered awful obliquely to the straight question "when did Realization happen for you?" I want an honest, straight answer, dammit!

I can only answer a question that is based on a false premise with a false answer! This is the mind that believes there was a separate person and now wants to know when that person "became whole." That whole premise is bullshit. It's like believing in a flat earth.

So: The question assumes several assumptions of fact, but these alleged facts are devoid of proof, there is NO evidence, so the assertion of fact is discovered to be completely false in Truth: Assumption #1) There is an entity that was not realized and now is, and assumption #2) There is such a "thing" as "time." This is to mistake an appearance in a mirror for the real.

Relatively speaking, in the way Sri Nisargadatta answered this same question from a seeker, "I met my final teacher John Wheeler in 2004. In 2007 I realized my true nature as Presence-Awareness." But this is a RELATIVE understanding ONLY and has NO basis in FACT. I say that because on examination I find NO separate personal entity that could attain or not attain "realization."

The Absolute Truth is, there is no teacher, no student, no path, no attainment, no time, no separateness, all is One Essence, One-Without-A-Second.

So who gets enlightened or realized? And when? The question is unanswerable in Truth because the premise is false. The mind wants to know these things, but do these answers end the suffering? Not possible. All answers like this lead to more ignorance in a mind that now believes there is such a "thing" as "realization" and such a thing as "me" (the seeker) who can get realized "in such a thing as "time" ... someday (time concept, me concept, realization concept, all mind, all false!).

Consider this from The Hsin Hsin Ming:

"All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power. Here thought, feeling, knowledge and imagination are of no value."

Full Stop.

Your answer sounds like a bunch of nondual bullshit. Why not just be straight and say, "2007?"

Who cares?

Have a beer. Get laid. Drop the search for answers and just BE as you are.

You are. Ask yourself, “Do I exist?” You are and that is known. That is all there is to this.

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27 September

Q: It seems to be that there is free will because if it weren't then the future would already be set. I don't know…. sure a lot of things happen on their own without ourselves having any say about it but people still make decisions every day...  

Ignorance says "people make decisions." But on looking it's seen that "decisions" are simply thoughts happening in Awareness. Where is the "thinker? Where is the "decider,” the “chooser?" Rather than argue for a false position look for yourself and see if you actually find a controlling entity. Freedom from suffering consists in knowing what you are (Awareness, just That) and knowing what you are not -- this is seen on direct investigation.) There IS Absolute Freedom. But not for you.

LOOK instead of trying to make your position on choosing and free will RIGHT and the Absolute Freedom that You already ARE will be known, by no one.

I have chocolate and vanilla. I can choose chocolate.

Cut through this dream story! Seeing is happening, seeing is what You are. What “chooses” chocolate? You say "I choose chocolate." Are you now believing in some conceptual chooser with volition that you learned in a seminar like est or Landmark!? If so then do this: "There is NO chooser, NO choice." Choose THAT. LOL ... LOOK! Who's that believer? The truth is there is NO you and no chooser. You are No Thing. You DO No Thing. You HAVE No Thing! Find this out: Where IS  this "I" that believes it chooses? What controls the choosing or the chooser? Where is your control? Where is any chooser apart from a series of thoughts arising in Awareness? Did you control that commenting? Where is the entity that is seeming (only seeming!) to exercise choices? The end of suffering consist in finding out that there has never been a chooser apart from Being Itself. You ARE. Stop wasting time and energy trying to be right about an "enlightened concept!" Do you want to be right or be free? Is that choice yours? Then exercise that choice and choose for the next two weeks to NEVER have a feeling or thought that makes suffering appear. Lots of luck on that one.

Obviously the entity making the decision makes the decision. it may be an unconscious decision though but hey...

What entity? Where IS any such actual separate entity!? You are and you know that you are. All else is a story that keeps you in imagination and there is suffering but only for an imaginary entity. Cut the nonsense and LOOK instead of trying to make your position on choosing and free will RIGHT and the Absolute Freedom that You already ARE will be seen, by no one. That is the Home you yearn for.

Freedom is another word for no one left to choose.

Actually I’m not really ok with my life, I just don't really get this non-duality stuff. It’s one thing to know about something it's totally another to really know it. Amen.

Now we are getting to the heart of the matter! And this is the point: Find out the source of your being "not okay." That "not okay-ness" IS suffering. Suffering ends when you try and fail to find a controlling entity called "me," and at the same (no) time see that you ARE, Being IS, and that is known. You are. Awareness, that is simple and real. All else is imagination ... the entity trying to control its life, and therefore suffering in effort and struggle,  IS only imagination.

Where IS  this "I" that believes it chooses? What controls the choosing or the chooser? Where is your control? Where is any chooser apart from a series of thoughts arising in Awareness? Did you control that commenting? Everything is happening -- to no one! Where is the entity that is seeming (only seeming!) to exercise choices? The end of suffering consist in finding out that there has never been a controlling entity, a.k.a. the "choice-making chooser."

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25 September

Hi Charlie, it seems now that the sense of an individual is less and less and what happens, simply happens. Things seem new and fresh and the sense of wanting to control or alter what is in anyway seems to be fading.

That is the natural eternal state being unconcealed, in a manner of speaking …now, just notice that this appearance of a seeming individual is also simply happening, and that too is not two! That too is happening. Where is any doer of that happening of an appearing belief in an individual controlling entity? Where is the doer of all the happenings? Can you find such?

In a way there is almost a resignation that this entity has no control anyway so why bother trying to control the uncontrollable. The looking for the person who was in control and the inability to find him was and is very helpful.

That resignation is a signal that there is still the subtle belief that there is a doer that can control even the not controlling (!) … The bothering or not bothering … and thereby do something as a doer to end the search. It’s very subtle.

Interestingly enough a seeing of what I am not (i.e. a controlling entity) appears to be more effective here than a seeing of what I am.

That was also the case here. Ultimately, in my view there must be both sides of the non-dual coin to bring the search to an end: 1: Seeing that what you are Awareness, just That, the nonconceptual I AM, Being and only That. And, 2: If there is  still any vestige of a subtle belief in a separate controller, a doer of all the doing, a director of the happening of livingness, then that needs to be got down to and seen to be absolutely and doubtlessly false. When the false is no longer believed only the True remains. The truth is in Being NOT Knowing. Only the non-conceptual imperceptible unseable unknowable, arising as the pointer to that in words, I KNOW THAT  I AM. THAT I AM, alone (all one) is true. All else is imagination. And that imagination, the false entity-appearance taken to be real, survives as a seemingly separate thing apart from the whole only through beliefs that are not actually real!

The seeing of "what I am not" appears to allow the emergence of a subtle awareness that is in the background. The seeing of "what I am", still seems to generate a somebody looking for or trying to notice the spacelike awareness which feels a little contrived and effortful.

It appears that this pointer has done what it could to show the natural state. Now drop it! It might well seem contrived and ineffective once it’s done the work. Remember Ramana Maharshi’s pointer that these conceptual tools are like a thorn you use to remove another thorn imbedded in your foot. Once the thorn has done its job and the imbedded thorn has been dug out you discard both thorns. Like that throw away all the pointers and BE what You ARE … Awareness-Consciousness-Loving to BE ... just That! Nothing else!

What also appears to be happening here is that the body is feeling a huge amount of unrest and tension. There is an understanding that there is no"I"  that created this in the first place and no "I” that can do anything about it.

Full stop!

Now that this Understanding is clear, let’s move on to experiencing the Teachings rather than merely comprehending them.

However the body feels like a highly-strung coil that is about to snap. There is an urgency and unrest here that shows no sign of subsiding, If you had a comment on this I would be very interested in getting your thoughts on it?

Been there! Know the feeling! But what is there in you that wants that to be different and resists the appearance of that tension, urgency, unrest? That false doer, the apparent “entity” that wants to fix that or change that, is what is under investigation. Simply LOOK. Where is the one that wants to take control of the body? This energy is happening and that energy is appearing presently as a bundle of conceptual sense-feelings and then what arises is a wanting to control or fix that tension, that discomfort. But what is the experiencer of the discomfort? Where is that experiencer!? Is there any such? Or is what is happening simply this experiencing!?? Where is that “experiencer” in deep sleep? Yet the body lives on just fine without any doer, in deep sleep.

Where is the doer of the experiencing? Where is any doer? Can this doer actually be found? If it cannot be found can it actually be real? Or is this energy moving and the subtle identification as the doer OF that energetic happening still at play and not yet seen to be a chimera, a phantom, NOT solid and NOT in control of anything whatsoever?

Have a good look into that and let’s talk soon.

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24 September

Q: I was wondering if you could help me with some thinking that has been happening.  If the mind cannot know the nondual Source, what can know?

An answer did bubble up in some detail, as you will read below. But I came back to the beginning because what occurred in the space here is to ask you first, why do you want to know these things? Let’s get down to it: Are you suffering? Will the answers to arcane abstract questions like this end your seeking and suffering? Who cares about this? I enjoy these kinds of discussions but my main thrust here on my site and with my talks and videos is to point out directly what is causing suffering so you can root that sucker out and enjoy the rest of your life without suffering, living in the freedom of perfect peace and effortless ease.

So: ARE you suffering? Let’s get into that. Write back and tell me what the suffering is like for you. And we’ll delve into that. Meanwhile when you finish reading this e-mail, read (or re-read) the essay on the front page of the website, “The BASICS.” Read a few times. Read each time as though you never read it before. (You haven’t ever read it “before.” Each moment is new!)

Meanwhile here is what came up in response to your questions:

If the mind cannot know the nondual Source, what can know ?

Nothing can “know” the nondual Source, as there is nothing OUTSIDE That to “know” That. It IS “NONDUAL!” The idea that Source can be “known” is the mind’s attempt to turn Source into a thing, an object that is known. Source is neither subject nor object. To the mind it is No Thing. Source is space-like Awareness, empty, meaningless, unbounded, infinite … but all these words are absolutely insufficient to describe Source which is patently indescribable.

What the mind will try (and always fail) to do is to grasp the ungraspable. This goes on until it dawns on the seeker that the mind is, quite simply, the wrong tool for the job. The mind is a thing. Can a thing ever grasp NO thing? It’s akin to the eye trying to see itself. It’s hopeless!

Is this just another thing that is kind of self-evident always, or is knowing that you cannot know as far as that goes? 

Yes, the Truth of your Being, that I AM that I am and that I AM that YOU are, is Self-Knowing Awareness. But this truth is NOT the words, concepts, thoughts. As Lao Tzu put it, “The Tao (Source) that can be named is NOT the Eternal Tao (Source.)

The I AM you know beyond doubt. And, anything else must end up in the beauty and silence of what I call “the gift of unknowing!” So it’s getting to the heart of this when it is seen by no one, seeing with N aked Awareness Itself, that all the mind can EVER say in Truth is, I don’t know.”

I guess what I am really trying to figure out is: what is realized when you realize the Self? 

In a word? NOTHING.

What is “realized?” That there is nothing to realize. Nothing. This is seeing by no one that there never was a division in Source. You ARE what you seek. Already always awake here and now. The seeking seems to divide Source into a subject seeker and an object called self for it to realize. Enlightenment can be said to be the simple knowing that there is nothing to get and no one to get it.

But to the Ultimate Unknowable Source, these are all dead words that are empty and meaningless, and the word enlightenment or the words self-realization are pointing to MYTHS!

If you are interested in ending suffering and living in natural freedom, ponder this: What or who is this “I” that says “I am trying to figure this (un-figure-outable nondual Being) out?" The mind is machinery. You, when identified falsely as the mind-thinking-machinery, will endlessly ask questions like these and try to grab and own That, Source, which is OUTSIDE the mind! Seeing is happening. Seeing thoughts is happening. That is Consciousness, your knowing directly I AM before the thought arises that I am 'me,' is Presence, Awareness, arising as seeing without a seer, knowing without a knower, clarity without a subject or object. The mind is a thought, “I” that as taken to be a solid separate thinking feeling controlling entity, “I apart from “Other,” then that thought-structure SEEMS to divide up totality. But can a thought do anything? Can a feeling/thought actually divide the Whole?

Do you actually come to know the Source of this I AM or is it just realized that you can never know, so the search gets called off and you get back to being?

What search? What Source? What being? Who would get back to that which has never been left? Being IS. Unknowable, That is the silence of deep sleep, pure Awareness before Consciousness arises as the knowing “I AM” and then is translated by Infinite Energy into the thought-form I AM “me.”

These are very good questions, it seems that you are on the precipice of this and I’d say, as John Wheeler once said to me, “get ready for a life free of suffering!”

For now, I’d say, write back and tell me the nature of the suffering for you, and also I’d suggest you watch the video series “This Is It” on YouTube… HERE. There is also a link on the site to a dialogue wherein the seeking and suffering ended for a guy named Paul. That one’s on the audio/video page. The download is free.

"Earlier I was sure of so many things, now I am sure of nothing. But I feel that I have lost nothing by not knowing, because all my knowledge was false. My not knowing was in itself knowledge of the fact that all knowledge is ignorance, that `I do not know' is the only true statement the mind can make."

     - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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21 September

Q: I have read and listened to another teacher who goes on and on about "final understanding." But when I have tried to figure out what that means I am baffled. Can you help?

I am not a teacher, in the sense of the traditional roles of "guru/disciple," but I will be happy to share my own experience with you. So long as you see that the ball is gonna end up back in your court! You must discover this for yourself.

That said, as I see it, the so-called "final understanding" is simpy a direct, non-conceptual recognition that awareness IS, and I am That. On investigation I can find no "controlling me-entity" here at any time in any place. Yet the knowing that I Am is always here and always now, never absent.

So you can take this on for yourself and see it clearly: Is that knowing that you are (the knowing of that Consciousness-Being that the mind knows as "Yes, I Am, I cannot deny that I am) ... is that ever not here and now being aware of all that happens, wherever you are and whenever it is?

As I have shared elsewhere on this website, Investigate. Does this "I" or sense of "me" that has been accepted as what you are actually have ANY control over what thoughts arise, what feelings or emotional experiences come up, what happens in its world?

The key to seeing that this "I" is a powerless concept is, try to control your thoughts and never have an unhappy thought or emotion for, say, two weeks. Then let us know how it went, and if you still believe that "you" are the "managing director of your life." For me, my gut-sense of "who I am" was "charles in charge!" Yet there was so much that didn't go my way that I finally had to look at that belief: "I'm in charge:" Is that TRUE? So see what you consider to be your gut-sense identity and challange that belief by giving it a 110% effort to "be in charge" in your life . . .

And while all that is going on, just notice that the awareness of your being, present as the ever-knowing consciousness of "I am," has never gone away.

Awareness is never lost nor found. IT IS. That is what you are ... the aware presence that sees thoughts, feelings, changes, happenings, effort and struggle, trying to control, trying to not control ... all is witnessed by that Awareness that you are.

So you are what you have been seeking. Perfect peace arising as effortless living.

Consciousness is all there is, and you are That.

Full Stop.

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20 September

Rob Ek writes, What are you doing here and what am I doing on my (most Dutch) website on Advaita?

Who is speaking to who? Why would 'you' want to help another 'you'?

Is the fact that a 'you' realizes there is no 'you' the essential moment for the No-You? Who receives these notes and video's? No one. Who is writing these for me? It's a dialogue between No-one and No-one. Does it help hearing these things? Is this hearing necessary for 'getting' it? Or will it occur when it occurs. Even without reading books or attending satsangs? And who's getting it?

There is seeing of non-understanding and there is seeing of understanding. That's all there is. I'm pure awareness.

I understood these lessons 30 years ago, but even now they sink deeper and deeper...the suspension of disbelieve? Is it the pace of this game I see?

Tony Parsons says on one of his video's that you are already what you're seeking. So there is absolutely no-thing to do. And yet on the following video he speaks about awakening and how fantastic that is. So....there still is the promise of bliss and happiness.

For who???

My conclusion is that is all a game. Being a plummer is a game, being a seeker is a game, being George Bush is a game and writing this is a game....and there is only one Player.

Quite right!

What are "we" doing "here?"

NOTHING.

All that appears is nothing appearing as everything!

One Self One Being One No Thing One Every Thing.

Mind boggling?

"I" Hope So... LOL

Rob's website is HERE

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18 September

Q: When (a more or less precise date please) did you realize that there was no-story, no me and no suffering? That is that suffering finally ended?

Date? Precise specific date? What is time? A concept.

What is it that asks that question? Who wants to "know?"

This seeing is happening NOW. Just NOW. Only NOW. Never was or will be. Only NOW!

Got it?

Paraphrasing the Zen patriarchs:
The Way (Tao) is BEYOND language (time). In It there is no tomorow, no yesterday, no today.

No one saw this "then." It is seen. Here, now, forever.

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A note from Rob Ek regarding the latest video:

Hi Charles, Yes this is the core question.

Who is looking? What is looking? As soon someone thinks he's doing something to reach one's Self, there is movement. There is no you that can do anything. All is oNe. You are already the One and only Self. Who is thinking he's separate? There is no-one separate.

There is only seeing or being.

The observed can never be an independent actor. So what can we do. No-thing. Don't try to see. The seer, seeing and the 'seen' is One and the Same. One is One so there is no movement necessary. Even putting the question is movement. I'm not there already. Jesus... What can I do? The answer is No-thing. Just 'understand' as Nisargadatta said in 'Prior to Consciousness" that you are already One.

Bang ON, Rob. Thanks.

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Follow-up from KC, 16 September

Thanks. Now I am aiming at the reality in the direct way, and pointing to Ananda

(This reader likes the Sanskrit Sat-Chit-Ananda as a pointer to True Self)

He respoded to my pointers, the three questions I offer, with the following: (Note, The three questions are, 1. Do I Exist? 2. What are you? 3. Who cares?)

1. Do you exist? My Answer*: It is obvious and evident that I exist, denying it will imply that I must exist to deny it.. Note*: Here we are pointing at the Sat aspect = beingness.

2. How do you know that you exist? Answer*: Simply, I know it. I exist and I know that I exist. Note*: Here we are pointing at the Chit aspect = Knowingness.

3. Who knows that it exists? My Answer: When I try to find the knower, there is nothing only knowingness, aware peaceful space, silence no-thingness, that includes a sensation of fullness and well-being. Nowhere I can find an entity separated from Consciousness. There is no "me", nor a substantial, autonomous object to which it is possible to ascribe the function of knowing and existing by himself. I can only find ideas and sensations emerging/disappearing in this Present space that I am. Note: Here we pointing at the Ananda aspect = bliss, or peace and to the absence of a separated autonomous I.

In summary:

The realization of our true nature and the absence of a volitive and autonomous I, existing by itself, separated from the Present Awareness that we are, is only a mere illusion reinforced by the social conventions. When the cause of the suffering [ taking the idea of an I as a fact, victim of the suffering ] is revealed as a fallacy or mental creation, immediately disappears its consequent effect, that is, the suffering.

All clear! This is a loving articulate pointing to Home.

Well Done, Sir. 

KC: You know there is no seeker no finding ,only an story of seeking [God playing hide/seek with itself]. But the show must going on and here we have Atagrasin and Charlie one in english the other for the spanish people as character in the dream of the me story.If you go to sleep and dream about a sage and dream about a ignorant guy when you awake where is the sage where is the sage? jejeje    "after the chess game the king and the pawn both goes in to the same box."

Atagrasin

(KC shares as 'Atagrasin'  in Spanish HERE.)

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15 September (Follow-up)

Thank you very much for emailing the questions. Very helpful to go back and remind myself. One of my biggest problem is a kind of "core belief" that I am some how flawed/bad/damaged (along with the opposite belief - I am special/gifted/superior). In moments of clarity I can see that both these polarities are rubbish. Yet, I am easily influenced negatively and react strongly to any real or imagined negative feedback/ feeling ignored/criticism. I tend to hold on to these for a very long time. I know it is all in my mind and I should not take these thoughts seriously, yet I do. Please help if you have any suggestions or pointers. I will continue to work with the 3 questions. Again, I appreciate you sending me these questions.

You are right on track!

I wrote to another seeker today, to point out a little of the essence of the "me" and how "it" shows up.  

When there is a still-operating "me-sense" ... a subtle deep conviction that when I look at who am I there is a deep "knowing" "I'm ME!" -- then there is a fundamental (actually false but seeming to be real) beingness-knowingness that this "me" is totally and nearly irrevocably convinced of: There IS something WRONG. It shows up as, "something's wrong here" (the furnace is broken, godammit, and it's cold! as it happened here last night) ... or something's wrong with ME (I thought this 'me' had been seen to be false but... psychological suffering arrives ... the 'me' is baaaaaaack! .... much weeping wailing etc), or something's wrong with THEM (whatsamatter with this apartment manager she can't get someone up here to fix my furnace!?) ... that is the litany of the self-concept called I or me.

All of that can be observed in most any human after the age of two or three. It's a play of self-identity and once seen AS a play it does crumble and die. Then you watch as these happenings bubble up from habitual thought-constructs that arise in the organism, but the Empty Being watches and is not caught up any more because there is no energy of "believing" the story to be real going into the play any longer. And THAT is Absolute Freedom, your True nature. 

2. Who Am I? Or What Am I? The mind will answer all sorts of stuff. Discard ALL answers - you are NOT a concept or feeling or a body or mind. You exist. Not as a thing, as No Thing. Simply come back to "Who Am I? Then it may be seen that what you thought was a separate you has disappeared and all is Empty and Meaningless, and a beautiful knowing I call "I Don't Know," the GIFT of Unknowing, is revealed and recognized. A silent Being-Knowing is now arising as YOU, AS Not Knowing. Absolute Freedom, Absolute Peace.

3. Who Cares? Having a good laugh as it is seen that there is no one to care or not care! And never was. It's empty and meaningless and that TOO is empty and meaningless. LOL! Now: If this is not your actual experience, go back to question number 1. 

This non-practice of non-duality seeing dismantles the false leaving only what is Real and Never Changing ... Awareness, just That.

Here and now you are already That. Dismantle the false and only the Real remains.

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14 September 

Q: I wonder what society would be like if our leaders began to allow the blocks to be removed to see existence and oneness for what it is. As you can probably tell, I have a keen interest in social equality and how duality, in particular duality masquerading as religion, propagates a myth of hierarchy and exclusion… even Jesus preached this but there is so much bathwater in documents like the Bible that only rarely does the clarity of the naked baby of Awareness shine through ...."The first are the least and the least are the first" ....."what you do for the least so also you do for me" … Isn't it easier to come home to that which has never left than to make up stories of separation? I guess not if you want to keep confused people (or better people's money) coming back!  

Love your insight!

Hell, if "everyone” all at once (whoever “THEY” are!)  saw their true nature, once and for good, the whole manifestation (which never was) would disappear. And the wondrous Game of Hide and Seek could not happen. So.... This Happening goes on in the Eternal Dance of Freedom .. Oneness pretending to be in prison, the Infinite goes on seeming bound, light to seeming darkness etc etc ...

Most don't want to leave the movie in the middle!   - LOL  -

Allee Allee In Free...... 

YUP ... The "false prophets" (and there are millions!) are only into profits. To me there is no integrity in amassing followers. Just a few meetings, or talks on the phone, and the pointers are "imbedded," then quite soon it is seen, Aha! I was never anything but That Infinite Un beginning Unending Awareness Itself! Then it's on to McDonalds and the ball game or the movies and and and

Life is Onederful for the Unborn IN The Unborn.

And Now you know ... You Are the Unborn Here Now and ONLY That.

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08 September

Q: I had a Oneness experience many years ago in Vietnam, (during probably my most boring period over there).  Had never heard of such a thing and just a couple weeks later I was sent to an LZ where I came across Alan Watts' "The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.” Well this triggered another such experience except this time I tried to possess it, to keep it for myself.  And, like quicksilver through my fingers, it was gone.

This is a very familiar story. Many seekers have had such misleading occurrences happen and they are then really fooled into believing there are such “things” as “enlightenment” and “Liberation.”

When awareness of the nature of reality dawns in the mind of the seeker, that there is no such thing as permanent “enlightenment” and that any experience, of oneness or any other “state,” must necessarily pass away, the seeking begins to fade away. The realization begins to dawn that ONLY what NEVER CHANGES, never comes and goes, could be the Eternal State, the natural freedom of Being itself. The "experience of oneness" is ACTUALLY, TWO-NESS: There’s the experience and the one experiencing! So in actual fact it is a fake, a delusion of mind masking as “oneness.”

In Oneness there is NO experiencer and NOTHING experienced. There is only the experience-ING. Then when it is pointed out that any experience comes and goes in awareness and awareness itself is never changing, always clear, present and open, allowing whatever appears to come and go, then it’s coming up to “game over,” and being completely free of suffering.

Then the clarity of the simple seeing that what we are is Presence-Awareness and that the personal entity is actually nonexistent becomes the living experience-ING. This is an impersonal occurring and not anything attainable or hold-onto-able, of course: There are NO enlightened “people.” A “me” being “enlightened” is the ultimate oxymoron, because the “one who seeks enlightenment” is nothing more substantial than an idea of an "I" who can “get” something he or she is not. You already always were, will be, and are Awareness. Just that and nothing else.

At any rate my life since has in a particular sense. One of "suffering", looking for the door to that experience again (while I raised a family).   Along the way, I tried to vanquish my ego, which I perceived to be the primary obstacle to my quest, doubted my goodness (purity of heart), my discipline. Meditation seemed like taking a very roundabout road to get to where I already was. 

All suffering is for a personal “entity,” and there quite simply is NO such thing anywhere. Look for the separate person, do the investigation in the way the sages have always pointed out, and you find that the “me” is conspicuously ABSENT! This is very good news, because it ends the suffering once and for good. When the false is seen AS false, there is no longer any urge or motivation to “dissolve or destroy” it. How can you kill a ghost? Try to capture a phantom. It’s like trying to grasp a cloud. Impossible. But each must find this out for himself or herself.

The investigation is key… looking for mister or miz me and finding that there ain’t no such actual separate entity, not in you, nor in anyone else, puts paid to the seeking and the concomitant suffering. You simply wake up to the dream, and the realization arises that there never was a problem for the Real You, the Unborn Naked Awareness, and that all suffering was imagined owing to a mistake in identification … the idea that “I am a body, I am a mind, I am a person, a me. All that happened was an innocent error usually around the age of two, wherein a thought that bubbled into awareness from nowhere was believed to be a real thing that described an individual separated from the “world out there.” Clear up the mistake, root out the false cause, and the whole house of cards collapses, leaving what is always present, never changing, your True Natural State of Being-Awareness … just That and nothing else.

Correcting the error is simple; a little investigation is all it takes. Don’t let anyone tell you that suffering is “just part of what is.” That is a useless piece of nondual crap. Suffering can end, and has ended for countess seekers who take up this commitment to completion in earnest. “Sailor” Bob Adamson’s search ended in the presence of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj 30 years ago, and he has since pointed out what is real and shown the way to see the false and discard it for many, many fortunate “former seekers.” Now with the advent of the Internet the good news is spreading all over the world. And you are the beneficiary. Look: It's even happening in rural Oklahoma!

So please just take up these simple pointers: You know that you are aware, you are being. That being is inescapable. Then challenge the lies the mind tells you … don’t keep accepting the false assumption that you are a separate entity. Freedom is what you are and you can taste it. Make that your living reality. You have friends who have done the investigation and can help to shed light on the pathless path and that is most fortunate indeed. Use them!

Perhaps you can help me understand my enigma and help me take the next step toward "dis-llusion-ment"! 

These pointers can take the seeker beyond the need for "help." See how these work as you get into them with some earnestness. Do keep in touch; feel free write or call with any questions or doubts or “yeah-buts.” Let’s get this done once and for good. Thanks for writing, see you soon.

Follow-up: I recall looking at the mountains in the distance and suddenly becoming aware that they were ME...i was THEM, no separation!  The mud puddle i noticed was a 'perfect" expression of the natural world i was part of.  Even the army vehicles, concertina wire, i associated with "war", were simply, "man's folly" if i had reached for a definition at the time.  A guy i knew slightly, (I had only been in that locale a couple weeks) walked across the compound and i knew HE was ME too, i was him, in a “personal me” costume and my love for this stranger was quite boundless.  I didn't think of "God" or anything but a sense of total unity with everything.  I walked around by myself for a good while so i could avoid words or thoughts that i sensed would inevitably give boundary and an end to this feeling i was encompassed by.   I may mis-identify what occurred at the time, but it seemed distinctly "not" a part of my mind...as a matter of fact, i realized "this" was actually what existed when my mind ceased it's eternal internal & infernal monologue.

This is more (probably needless) info ,in case i didn't express myself well in my initial e-mail to you. 

Well wow, that is amazing. And, that too was an appearance in Timeless being. Key word. WAS. What never changes? That's what we are pointing out. I had nearly exactly the same thing happen for several weeks in 2002. When it faded I was REAL interested in getting that back, and that ultimately brought great suffering. Nothing that comes and goes can be The Eternal Timeless Witnessing Presence...

Not to denigrate that seeing, either "yours" or "mine," which clearly was (is) a natural being-seeing of Unicity... yet still that is a “spiritual experience” and NOT the Ultimate, the Eternal  Reality ... and, it's just that any attachment to that as something to strive to "attain again" will no doubt be a cul-de-sac that can keep the mind spinning in dualism.

In what we are pointing to there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today. Spacelike, beginningless and endless. That is the Real "Natural State."

In any event your expression here is beautifully put and has the unmistakable aroma of authenticity.

Feel free to stay in touch as Spirit moves. See you soon.

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2 September

30 August

Q: Thank you very very much for all the pointers being offered from there (here) to here! Yes, I am with you on this.  It has been seen for a while, but the doubts (thoughts) have been quite torrential and seemingly seem to obscure the simplicity of being (true and free).  Needless to say, intense identification happens (with the story) and again being appears seemingly "lost".   In other words cant say all is beauty and peace.  Moments of peace happen and is known.  Identification happens and is known.  Thats the way it is and has been. Thanks again, and please keep the pointers coming.  Truly appreciate how you seem to unerringly pick up the best of the best.

A: Being-Awareness IS That which knows the various movements of mind ... that is, simply put, what You really are. Take your stand as That ... Naked Presence-Awareness. All is well in That ... the Unborn "Buddha-Mind." That which knows that it can or can't say 'all is beauty and peace' IS the Self-Knowing Awareness. That Thou Art. Can you know that there is peace OR turmoil without Awareness? Your being is inescapable! You must first BE to "know" or "experience" anything.

YOU ... the True Self ... ARE Impersonal Self-Knowing Awareness, just that. Don't get caught by a mind story that claims to be other than That. The appearance "seems" real but only seems so, it is not, in the actuality of right now. What is wrong with right now unless "you" arise as a thought story and think or believe any ideas of lack or limitation, that arise in YOU ... space-like Awareness???

Existence Is. Awareness IS. All that is appearing is a story that this peace comes and goes. Drop that story like a hot potato!

What NEVER comes and goes? You as Your Self. Being, just that. Full Stop.

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