Randall Friend Writes:
"Paradise Found" contains all that a seeker needs to realize
what they are. Yet as author Charlie Hayes so eloquently and ruthlessly puts it - nothing is needed, there is
nothing to realize, what you already are is nothing - no-thing... any "one" who could benefit is more of the same illusion,
the false assumption of personal and limited being, the erroneous self-center which appears to need realization.
Charlie uses words and levity brilliantly to point to THAT which
is prior to words, THAT which contains the ideas of seeking and enlightenment, suffering and peace... THAT ON WHICH
the entire dream appears to appear.
"Paradise Found" combines quotes from various "teachers", along
with his own experiences and conversations with "seekers" to form a consistent theme - "YOU" ARE NOT! The YOU you've
taken yourself to be is a FICTION.
If you consider yourself a seeker, this book does only what any
clear and direct teaching can do - give you no ground on which to stand, give you no handle to hold, give you no self in which
to retreat, give you no hope or meaning, leave you totally and completely naked, swinging in the breeze... pointing
to the fact that the very idea of YOU is only ever an appearance in the clear ocean of timeless awareness which you've always
been.
Charlie does this over and over in “Paradise Found”.
Randall’s blog is at http://avastu0.blogspot.com/. Highly recommended.
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John Bailey offers:
There's no beating around the non-dual bush with Paradise Found. It's all here, one-pointed and direct, without compromise.
Whether it's breaking down the fictitious ego, getting at the nub of self-inquiry, or bringing in germane quotations from
non-dual teachers, Charlie Hayes has put together a concise, invaluable non-dual manual. Charlie's funny, blunt, and powerful
prose echoes his teaching approach. Love permeates his words.
—John Bailey, author of “Already On Holy Ground”
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Jerry Katz Says:
Jerry offers a gracious review of “Paradise Found" - in the 22 July 2008 issue of his excellent “Nonduality Newsletter" ... you
can read his newsletters and/or sign up for free at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NondualitySalon/.
Jerry writes,
In this issue a review and excerpts from Paradise Found: Recognizing
and Living As the Infinite Love That You Are, by Charlie Hayes. Great summer nondual reading, full of spirit and life. I liked
it a lot.
A 58 page sampler of
the book
https://charliehayes36.tripod.com/free_paradisefound.pdf
Download Paradise Found or purchase hard
copy:
http://stores.lulu.com/charliehayes36
“Paradise Found”, by Charlie Hayes, is one of those
"last books you'll ever need to read" books. It’s like one of those non-existent Mackinaw peaches from Oregon that’s only available for two weeks out of the year. Paradise Found possesses that
longed-for juice that pours out with every bite. It has the joy and summer of the peach. And it has the hard pit to roll around
in your mouth.
Sometimes the pit splits open (on its own for whatever reason)
and inside is a seed that’s smooth and cool. Paradise Found possesses all layers of the peach: the outer skin, the fruit,
the pit, the seed.
THE SKIN OF THE PEACH:
The Table of Contents is like the outer layer. There are 109 short
chapters. Here is a selection of them.
3. What Is Unreal? What Is Real?.....................................................19
7. Is This All There Is? ...................................................................31
8. The Addict You Believe You Are ...................................................32
14. What IS “Is”? ..........................................................................43
46. The 'Aha' Is Always Here and Now ...........................................
113
55. Who Cares?? .........................................................................
131
56. There Are No "Accurate Pointers"...................................
…………..133
60. “Teachings” Are A Distraction ..................................................
139
70. How Do I DO the Investigation? ................................................163
73. What Is The Source of SOURCE?................................................171
75. How To Stay In Awareness - I AM? ............................................174
77. There Are No Teachers Of This...................................................177
91. What Is Seeking Who?..............................................................203
95. Thanks for The No-Bullshit Approach ..........................................213
THE FRUIT ITSELF:
Questioner: How Do I DO the Investigation?
Charlie Hayes: Who Asks That Question?
Quite a few have asked, essentially, “HOW do I DO this investigation?
Do I just ask who am I over and over? I have tried that, it seems to reveal a sense of space and openness but soon I am right
back into the pain of being me, and I am still suffering. This goes on in spite of years of commitment to being earnest and
taking up practices and meditations etc. I am tired of flopping back into being a little complaining me and I want to end
this search for real. What to do? How to see that the I is a phantom as is pointed out by these Nondual teachings?”
The "pat answer" in Nonduality circles is to ask, WHO wants to know? That is a great pointer for some but for many it just
increases the frustration and is often dismissed as "fundamentalism” or "Advaita-speak" and is certainly NOT helpful
in those cases. It's almost kind of condescending...
I can share that the two things that helped the most for me were
the seeing that this that I am is not a concept or experience but a silent open background of space-like awareness that is
always here before anything else and that I am that awareness. As Bob Adamson and John Wheeler reminded me, we START from
that simple undeniable fact that, undeniably, I exist, I AM.
That led to a clear seeing that I AM what I was seeking. Then there
came a dropping back into self-identification, self-centered (selfish) thoughts, and the space of simply being appeared to
be lost again. That was painful! Then the need for a real down and dirty investigation challenging the mind and its false
concepts and assumptions became evident as the suffering … painful emotions and unwanted intense experiences of feeling
sad, contracted, angry, frustrated etc. happened again and again.
Something I found very helpful was listening to Stephen Wingate
talk about his own experience of this, and how our mutual friend John Wheeler had guided him to make the investigation personal
and real in his own experience. In Stephen’s case, as he shares, he began asking himself new questions, along the lines
of what exactly IS “Stephen?” He was looking into his own experience of being alive instead of applying a “one
size fits all” generic pointer. This did the trick for Stephen (you can hear him discuss in detail how specifically
this happened on his excellent audio CDs.)
So I started looking in these more direct personal ways, with support
from many friends, including Bob, John, John Greven, Stephen, and Annette Nibley. It is GREAT to have friends like these along
the seeking path!
I started looking more deeply at what or who IS this “Charlie”
person, what is it that I really believe I am? Several things, identities if you like, came up, and were tested for “truth.”
What I found is that the mind makes endless assertions about what I am and when I fail to seek evidence for its assertions
I leave the false unchallenged … and that leaves the cause of suffering in place and it continues to create havoc for
this boy’s life!
For example: I am “Charles in charge.” I am “the
boss.” I am" the actor, the doer, the decider.” I am “me” and you are “not me.” "I am
me and the way things work around here is we do things MY way.” It’s “My way or the highway.” And
so on. The I am as an identity that Charlie is, is bossy, arrogant and knows everything about everything. “I Am what
I think and I am right” was another one. A know-it-all. But all these fail the truth test. I am always finding out I
don't know about something. There is always a clear failure to "make life go my way" ... over and over! Wanting things to
go my way is as effective as telling the weather not to rain. Or trying to herd cats.
But that was all a sort of “array of branches” and
the root still had not been gotten down to. So the looking into this space of being I show up in for some root cause went
on for a while. Then it became clear that “I am the one who is looking for what I am." “I must find out what I
am.” This arises as a sense of frustration as there seems to be a power to think, I can choose what thoughts to focus
my attention on, however, while I CAN choose a created thought like "Who Am I?" what I have NO control over is that power
that causes thinking itself to arise! It happens!
Thoughts happen, whether I want them to or not! In other words
I can select from a menu of thoughts so to say, BUT I cannot choose to have NO thoughts come up. And I saw that experience
follows concept, that a thought of me that thinks leads to the idea that I can choose and decide and have it my way, and the
frustration of trying to practice choice and having my choices be thwarted is really painful.
The mind intends for example to never get upset again because I
know that when I get upset it hurts, and it’s unhealthy etc. BUT the next time I am triggered by some happening that
is not in accordance with what I intend, bang! I am in a tantrum, like a bratty kid, cussing at myself for (again) overeating
and getting fat, or (again) dropping something and berating myself for being clumsy, etc. So what this showed me is that for
me, who I am is “a stupid idiot who STILL can’t do anything right. Despite all these years of experience and practice,
I am still at the effect of some mechanism that runs me and makes me still believe 'I am me' and that 'me' is an old, clumsy,
stupid, angry person."
So I came back to what Stephen was pointing out and looked into
this more deeply than ever: What IS Charlie? What actually IS Charles? What IS "this person, here?" This "me" is subtler than
a thought, finer than an experience, less evident than the surface stuff described above. What IS Charles?
Finally the seeing arose, “I don’t know!” Abiding
as this “I don’t Know” brought the mind to a full stop and there was and is what was sought … Perfect
Peace, Absolute Freedom. Timeless Choiceless Awareness, like a blank clear transparent screen on which apparent choices and
chooser arise together; on which the apparent opposites of I and other arise together. THAT, I AM. THAT, THOU ART.
This is inquiry: the key as far as I can tell is the "making it
real for me.” Making it about my own experience instead of someone else’s, because no Guru or Friend can be alive
for me, no one else experiences life as I experience it, so it really HAD to become directly and personally MY looking. The
guidance from friends like John and Stephen that were complete in their search was invaluable, yet in the final analysis it
was up to me. And so, the final truth is clear and self-evident: I AM That I AM. Being, Choiceless Awareness ... Just That
and Nothing Else.
Finding your own path into this inquiry may take some new and fresh
personal ways to look into yourself for yourself. This site and my books are here to support that looking for yourself, by
yourself, as are the friends listed on my website links page.
I love you all as my own Self, and of course I wish you the very
best. Thanks for taking time to read this. I hope it helps, if you are still suffering.
THE PIT OR STONE:
Hayes writes [regarding
another teacher’s saying stuff about choosing]:
Who chooses? That is what needs to be examined. So, NO I do not
agree. There is NO ego! It's a ghost! You scare yourself telling yourself ghost stories where YOU are the main ghost character,
the star in your drama. It's crap.
Don't get me in the middle between you and that writer, whom I
do not know. If you keep roaming the Internet and writing to other teachers I will NOT reply to you again. As a wise man said,
if you are wanting to hit water digging a well, dig in just one place. Stay with one teaching. If you like that expression
what difference will my assessment make? The real question which you keep avoiding asking yourself is Who Am I”? I say
refuse all thoughts except who am I? If you can, just do it. If not keep looking in all the wrong places, in thoughts and
outside yourself. But get real with it, man!
THE SEED:
The Seed is either stumbled upon or not and no quotation can be
selected. However, you may have a better chance of stumbling upon split-open, seed-revealing peach stones via this book than
with most others of its kind.
CONCLUSION:
Richly supplemental are many delicious quotations of teachers influential
to Charlie Hayes. They include John Wheeler, Stephen Wingate, Leo Hartong, John Greven, Robin Dale, John Astin, Nisargadatta
Maharaj. Bob Adamson is often mentioned.
Paradise Found is the perfect summer nonduality book, all year
long, for generations to come.
A 58 page sampler of the book:
https://charliehayes36.tripod.com/free_paradisefound.pdf
Download Paradise Found or purchase hard copy:
http://stores.lulu.com/charliehayes36
-
Jerry Katz - www.nonduality.com -
_________________________________________________________________________
