The So Called “Flip-Flop”

Q: It seems that the seeing is clear, especially when talking to another person about this kind of thing. The ego sense seems to come back at times and is felt as a very tight contraction, with a lot of "thoughts about me." It seems as though there is no problem, until I come in and try to run the show, or try to figure things out. Sometimes there is a sense of desperation to end the seeking, which can turn into self-seeking or self gratifying behaviors.

C: Ramesh Balsekar calls this appearance the “flip-flop” – a useful metaphor, as it seems (but ONLY seems) that some “entity-called-me” asserts itself as language, words, thoughts of a separate person with some ownership of the appearance (this is MY life, MY words MY etc etc.).

Q: Is it simply a matter of letting the seeking fizzle out? 

C: The pointer is to keep looking for the “I” that would “let” ANYTHING happen. That “I” is merely a conceptual and utterly fictional storyteller telling the story of an I. Have a look and see what is “writing” and what is “playing out” the story of I or me? In a separate “world out there”? Where is the “author”? You are dreaming and in the dream you are dreaming that there is a way to wake yourself up from the dream. (To mix a few metaphors).

Q: Trying to end the search seems futile, as well as trying to just be a "regular person" and ignore the revealings or insights that have come. It seems like there is something that has to happen, some final seeing of the false.

C: This expectation of some “final event” is one of the many myths that seem to say there IS a person and there IS a “special state” that this fictional person can attain in an imaginary something called “a future”. But this set of suppositions is all imagination, assumptions, and ignores the timeless Being that is the Reality PRIOR to language. “You” as person apart simply do not exist. YOU as What You ACTUALLY Are is That Being which NEVER changes. To ignore this Beingness and consider your self to be a thing in time is the one and only mistake that gets corrected in clear seeing from and into Naked Awareness.

Q: Different teachers all have different messages and trying to decipher them with concepts is pointless.

C: Then what makes you keep doing that? Look into that. What Power makes you YOU and makes that you seek to end seeking? Where is the source of seeking, what is that which gives the organism life? What is the SOURCE of your very ALIVENESS?

Q: The actual seeing seems to be the only real thing, the fundamental awareness. Does the looking require some sort of maintenance, like a daily regime?

C: That makes Awareness into an object! This Awareness is the unchanging background to all appearance and needs no “maintaining” – look, where does awareness begin? Where is awareness located? What is looking and thinking and judging? That which is apparently “doing” all that is NOT awareness, it’s a witnessing judging false entity that appears and disappears IN awareness.

Q: In the absence of conscious looking it seems as though the ego sense goes unnoticed until the suffering becomes too severe, at which point the looking seems to happen more intensely.

C: That is a story the false author tells to survive and that is just plain bullshit.

Q: Is there any choice in this?

 YES. NO. Both answers are stories and FALSE. LOOK for yourself, see if "you" HAVE any choice in Reality. WHO claims to choose or claims to have no choice? You have got to do the work, not just get "an answer" from some imaginary author teacher guru etc!

Q: Being in bondage to this seems unbearable, just wanted to hear your thoughts. Thank you very much, there is something undeniably real here, if only I could just die already.

C: What was born that now wants to die? Find that one to be a chimera, a cloud-like non-entity, and the search ends. Are you looking or merely playing the concept game? Staying in concepts and trying to figure this out will leave you utterly frustrated. Come back to that which is certain and real, Being Itself. That Being is No thing. It appears as things but these things are not actually solid and real as physics has now shown. You are NO thing.

Ponder this from John Wheeler:

Awareness is self-evident and easily known, even now. Not by a “someone”. The someone idea is a concept. What you are is prior to concepts. The person comes afterwards as an appearance in awareness. Awareness is prior to the notion of the “I”.  Hearing is happening; no one  is hearing; later we say “I” hear, but that “I” thought is not present in the hearing, only in the subsequent labeling. All experience is “I”-less, or impersonal. What you are cannot be seen as a “thing apart” because you cannot become an object to yourself. All the problems come from trying to conceive of your being as something objective, which it is not. You are, no doubt. But being is not a thing, which is why we overlook it and identify with an object. Settle in with the awareness-presence, and whatever its characteristics are, naturally become evident. That is already present, but overlooked. Just as being and awareness are ever-present but often not recognized, so is the non-suffering and unchanging freedom of your ever-present true self. I can only point; it is up to you to see it for yourself.

Follow-up:

Q: Thanks Charlie, this was quite helpful. I appreciate your on-point response, and continuous patience.

C: De nada :-).

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