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New Book!
"I AM UNBORN"
Talks With Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Go HERE to Read On Line Now
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"Before you know your
Self you suffer. With Self-Knowledge that comes
to an end." - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
"Life After Death"
A "spiritual autobiography"
by Charlie Hayes
EXCERPT:
Prelude
To A Dream
A Ferrari Formula One racing driver, Alfonso DePortago,
once said, “If a man is awake and alive he can live ten years, in two hours on Sunday.”
That one is right on.
It reminds me of the high
wire artist who said, “Life is on the wire. Everything else is just … waiting.”
Yeah. Like the Samuel Becket play, “Waiting
For Godot.” It’s horrible; Godot never comes! That can create suicidal despair. I know. I was there. Until my
auto racing career started.
And after my auto racing career ended.
But understand this: It's Just A Story. It's
like a dream or a movie.
Anyway - herein there is the story.
A story of a tiny body that appeared (as the substory 'time' would have us believe) in December of 1936, destined to become
first a jazz musician, a reckless drug and alcohol user, and a dangerous driver.
Then that unruly thing was tamed somewhat into a world class professional racer - but then again it devolved
into a drug and alcohol addict, a thief and con man.
Ultimately, it became a "Spiritual Seeker" - one looking for what he was missing that had its life be a miserable
mess!
Before the search began in real earnest, and some messes were cleaned up, this was not a nice person at all!
You'll find some disturbing things in this book - tales of cruel indifference to other people, even family,
and what it was like to be really, really crazy. Mental hospital crazy!
You'll also find steps that this crazy man was led to take - so to speak - that helped to free him from the
idea of being a bad guy, a rotten father, a terrible insult to others, and a madman.
And ultimately to the natural dropping of all stories and the welcome re-discovery that our story is NOT what
we are.
So the crazy man was led home.
Led by what - or whom?
Perhaps these four ways to say it will make sense:
Ultimately, the real You - the Real Self - are the True Teacher - your own Divine Beingness is the Teacher -
and That teaches you from within you.
THAT True Teacher-Self leads the confused person to Home in Being. And then - as always - wherever you go, whatever
time it is, you ARE.
Always Here Always Now.
And In the Here and Now there is NO suffering. It's all over.
Now there is a resting in the arms of the Beloved.
Loving to Be.
Unpredictable? Yes. Possible for anyone? Yes.
If it could happen to that jerk, it can happen for anyone!
This
ending of all beginnings - and this resting in the arms of the beloved - begins right here, right now. Exactly where you are
and no matter whether you are new to spirituality or a "seasoned seeker."
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - Lao Tzu
Look at it this way: whenever "I think" I know what is real, that very thinking is making me suffer.
Therefore I must somehow be led by Oneness to an inner examination to uncover the false to know what is REALLY REAL.
Discovering what you don't know that you don't know begins with not knowing. Be willing to know nothing
at all. Your bringing that not-knowing to this book might make a real difference in the ending - by Oneness - of your own
suffering.
Take on reading this book from a space we can call Not Knowing and see what is revealed. Give up all knowing
and believing - and believe nothing. Let Oneness take you by the hand and lead you to see for yourself. Let Her use the ways
of looking described in this book to prompt you to look and discover who you really are - beyond beliefs, beyond concepts,
beyond history, beyond imagination, beyond words, beyond language, beyond emotions, beyond sensations, beyond feelings, beyond
love and hate, beyond good and evil, beyond all - and then beyond the beyond.
What can happen then?
Anything?
Everything? Nothing?
I don't know.
Excerpted from Charlie's book,
"From I Am to I Am with Love"
Available HERE in Hard Copy. Download version also available
Chapter Five: Before Time Is, I Am
I Am. What is this I Am? Is it a word, a sentence? Is it an object? Or a subject? Is it anything REAL?
Or not? What about language? It says I Am in sounds interpreted by a human brain to be representative of a real thing... a
table is, a bottle is, an ocean is, and “I” Is. But what if these sounds are nothing more than subtle vibrations
of energy, the same energy that beats your heart and rotates the earth around the sun and makes the tides come in and go out?
Energy, pulsating, alive in itself, formed from nothing into vibrating livingness, breathing through all these bodies, seeing
through all these eyes... intelligence-energy, uncaused in itself, known directly here and now in just stopping and seeing
the seeingness, hearing the hearingness... just now, Just Being.
I Am. This core thought, and make no mistake, this I Am is ONLY a thought, arises... from where? Have
a look right now. Can you locate a source of the thought I Am? No. Then look again: Is the thought I Am the ACTUAL I Am-Beingness?
Without thinking I Am you still exist and are aware, right?
Verify This for Yourself
Stop thought right now:
Repeat:
“I” – I – I – I – I – I – I – I – I –
I – I – I – I – I – I – I – I – I
STOP!
In that STOP did you fall apart? No. Why?
You are NOT the THOUGHT “I”. BEFORE the thought I, then I Am, arises, you already ARE! The
thought I is only a pointer to the pure Oneness-I-Am. And the pointer is NOT the thing being pointed to (in this case the
NO Thing.)
See right now that the word is not the real. And that the word is made up of sound, and that sound is
of the nature of vibration, and vibration is a movement of energy. Look at this and you simply cannot believe the thought
I is what you are. Then you begin to see, your True Nature is Awareness, Presence, the knowingness of that One-I-Am, Universal
energy intelligence, in motion and at rest... One essence, simply this non-conceptual, self-luminous, natural, always-fresh
Awareness-Presence. That and nothing else.
That is the real I Am, before language translates that pure Presence into a concept dividing the Oneness
into I am a thing, separate and alone, vulnerable and shaky, insecure and fearful of an imaginary future “when I will
get hurt or die.”
That thing is always seeking safety and love out there in a world that does not even EXIST apart from
the imagination built up on top of the core misunderstanding that thinks the I Am THOUGHT is what we are.
The sages remind us, from the beginning, not a thing is. This can be realized directly and effortlessly
right now by simply looking: Awareness, Existence, IS... where does this Awareness-Presence START? Does it have any edges?
Borders? Where is the center of Awareness? It does not have one. That, Awareness, is free, unbounded, indivisible, and invincible!
And when you know that you ARE That, the search is done.
Mind you, the knowing is NOT something known by a knower. The mind divides what is into this/that, me/not
me, knower/knowledge. This knowing is not a personal attainment. That is the antithesis of what is being pointed out: Oneness
IS the Knowingness, and That is NON-conceptual, BEFORE language, Timeless Being-ness, Endless Peace.
Before Time is, I Am. That I Am, Presence Awareness, IS your true nature. Don’t refuse to be what
you are. Don’t keep pretending to be what you are not (a limited “entity.”) And what is time? Without
a thought or imagination, where is time? There is no time. In Being, time arises as a concept only. Have you ever been away
from NOW? Where does NOW begin? Or end? Timeless Being is all there is, and you are that.
What is all that in Reality? Apart from an idea, a thought, self-imagination... is there a real, separate
“me?”
Go back to that state of pure being where the ‘I am’ is still in its purity before
it got contaminated with ‘this I am’ or ‘that I am.’ Your burden is of false-identifications - abandon
them all. ― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Without a thought story, I still exist. I don’t have to THINK I Am to BE. I cannot NOT
BE! I DO exist... obviously! But as what? Who or what is this me that exists, and seeks a blissful state of
freedom?
Am I what the sages refer to as Self Shining, Non-Conceptual, Ever-Fresh, Presence Awareness? Just This,
and Nothing else?
If I say, “yes, I am That,” who is claiming this understanding as a personal attainment?
Who is this person who wants freedom, peace, and happiness? Where is it? What is it made of? Is it real? Or imaginary? What
is this Me, Myself, this I?
WHO Is Asking the Questions?
We are That, ‘That’ meaning the seeming place in awareness where awareness shines out. But
in ignorance of the true nature, That we are, that seeming place in awareness is called me or I.
― “Sailor” Bob Adamson
Right now, right here, it must be clear... self-shining, ever-fresh, non-conceptual, timeless Presence
Awareness... That Thou Art.
The body does not say “I.” No one will argue that even in deep sleep the “I”
ceases to exist. Once the “I” emerges, all else emerges. With a keen mind enquire whence this “I”
emerges.
― Sri Ramana Maharshi,
"Forty Verses on Reality”
Available HERE in Hard Copy. Download version also available.
An excerpt from "Perfect Peace:"
The idea that suffering is inevitable comes
out of the notion that who we are is totally powerless. But in actual fact what we truly are IS ALL power, ALL knowingness,
ALL Presence. Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience. That Source of ALL life and the entire manifestation is what we REALLY
are … and one of the worst things the mind does is limit that with words.
This is the grand paradox: There is NO such thing as a separate person in the organism apart from this Omnipotence,
Omniscience and Omnipresence. AND the innate intelligence-energy that keeps the stars in perfect order can certainly come
to bear on human suffering. Now hear this: Suffering Is Optional! Keep it if you like, but if you are interested in living
free of that unnecessary evil keep reading and looking within, with your OWN natural intelligence (NOT the mind; the answer
is not in your thinking mind!)
By the way what to do with a paradox? Don’t try to resolve it … that will make the mind crazy. Sit with
it like a brick in your lap. Just BE with it. And put it to inquiry: Who thinks this is "true" and that is "false?" Neither
are "the truth. NO concept is "the truth!" Words only point. Try to quench your thirst with only the WORD "water!" The
menu is not the meal ... the map is not the territory.
Here is a central pointer toward the end of suffering: ALL suffering is based on the idea of a separate “me”
… a person in the machine. But is there any such thing?
Apart from a thought of an “I” is there any actual entity anywhere in there? For “me”, looking,
looking like my life depended on it (because it did!), was the key. I absolutely cannot find a “me” or an “I”
or a “myself” … it is absent.
But this cannot be accepted or believed. IT HAS TO BEEN SEEN through a no holds barred investigation. Do or die.
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A Reader
Says: I downloaded "Perfect Peace" on your website a few days ago and just printed it out. I have been reading and it is just wonderful the way you put things.
Thank you.
De Nada
:-))
Note: Charlie's books, as well as a book written by Sri Nisargadatta
Maharaj himself, are available direct from the printer, Lulu press.
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