Updated 02 October 2008
Self To No Self
Q: I look at your video clips often. Thank you again for taking the time to spread the teachings.
C: My pleasure!
Q: Since I last wrote to you I experienced the dying process yet didn't 'merge'.
C: You say “I experienced the dying process”. That is impossible! When you're dead,
you STAY dead! :-). There may have been an appearance of some energy of aliveness, then a suspension of the sense of being
the person, then the person returning to claim that as “my” experience,
but all of that is but a passing show happening in the presence of being-awareness, which does NOT come and go (as the assumption
of being a “me-person” seems to).
This unchanging ever-fresh Beingness is inescapable and unavoidable, yet That is NOT a “thing”
that another “thing called me” can grasp. As one of my correspondents
sagely put it, “How can a "thought" (the thought I or me) have another thought?”
Indeed!
As John Wheeler points out, “Your natural being is present and aware here and now. It is not that there is some “you” and then this other thing (being or awareness). Even the
notion that “I am aware of it” is just a concept appearing in what you are. The separate “I”
itself is purely a concept. It is clear that you are present. It is not something “you” become aware OF. That
is entirely conceptual and based on conceiving yourself as something apart from your being. So the whole problem is conceptual
and delusive, because it is granting some separation from what you are. You are not a separate someone to be aware of reality
at some times and not others. You ARE the pure being itself. This being or awareness has no need to become aware of its awareness.
It is awareness itself. It is that clear, rock-solid knowing here right now that cannot be denied or contradicted (you cannot
say “I am not”). So, full stop in this moment. There is no problem with the fact of your being. Once you grant
the assumption of the separate “me” as a real, independent entity, then there arise other (assumed) difficulties.
But they are all delusive, because the root assumption is false”.
Conceiving of and imagining a "self" as an “I” - in other words, as a "real thing
apart from Totality" - which could merge - or not merge - IS that false root assumption, and the antidote is truth. The truth
is you ARE and That is prior to the assumption that you are a thought of a “person” who is born and can (or must)
"merge" - OR that could ever die!
Q: Have you had a near death experience and have you talked about it?
C: You talk about an I called Charlie that was born and could die. There is in FACT (NOT assumption
but FACT!) NO such thing! In this dream of the “charlie-life”, there were a number of so called “near death
experiences”. But any experience that appears in a dream is merely a part of the dream and as such really irrelevant
to what is pointed to as the true nature of what IS - The Eternal unchanging Reality. This confusion ends when investigation
is taken up and a deeper looking into this assumed “me” you take your self to be which then assumes there is another different separate “me” called Charlie. Is there such a separate entity?
On looking no such entity can be found!
So where des the sense of being-I am – come FROM? Find the Source of this object you think
of as you. What is seen?
There IS Awareness here and now, yes? But is this YOUR Awareness? Or there just simply Awareness
Here Now? And the idea or sense of "I Am" arises IN that Space-Like Awareness, the naked emptiness of the natural statelessness
that IS yet is NOT an object that the "I" can "know". Look into this naked beingness for the source of the idea I am, the
egoic sense of an I that owns and must manage its body, its world, its life. What is actually found?
As Sri Ramana Maharshi pointed out, "Meditating 'from where does this I come' the ego falls away".
As this phantom ego "falls away" in being found to have no substance and no independent power, the notion "I am the doer"
fades and with it, all notions of guilt or shame, or its opposite pride or hubris, simply die on the vine of Timeless Truth.
This Awareness that is Real is NOT an object - and the bodymind puppet-object called “I”
which is merely a belief or thought-feeling construction made of air, which is falsely identified as a thought of being a
me and a body with emotions and perceptions – has assumed itself to be an egoic god-subject and usurped the True Timeless
Subject-Awareness and taken it on board as “me apart from other. Get under that and sever it at the root! Ask that one
you assume is a real separate entity that was born and can die “Who ARE you?”
What is your SOURCE? Ask your assumed self "What am I REALLY?" What is the Source and what is
the substance of this assumed, fictional "persona"? Does this thought-assumption HAVE any actual substance? What is that "me"
made of? WHO AM I? Where does that "I sense" abide? Precisely what is "its" location? Is it real or permanent? If not
then what is it? Merely a thought passing in the Space of Being Awareness?
As Ramana Maharshi put that possibility, “The thought ‘who am I’ will destroy
all other thoughts and in the end will itself e destroyed, like a stick used to stir a burning fire”.
However, this I thought ultimately does not need
to be "destroyed" (paradoxically). Just see it for what it IS – a
wisp of cloudlike thought-feeling energy arising in the Timeless Presence that you actually ARE.
Again a John Wheeler pointer illustrates this perfectly: “How can the emptiness-clarity
of the unborn prior-to-consciousness state be a limited, separate, defective person in the appearance of things? And how could
any belief continue to go into that concept, once it is seen through”?
If there is no such separate thing as an “I” or “me” then what would need
to “merge” - with what?
There is ONLY The One. You Are That.
Seeking "to merge” is a perfect way to avoid Paradise.
Paradise is THIS. Just as it Is and just as it Isn’t. All seeking and questioning and
“desire to merge” is a dream of a “me”, foolishly knocking on the door to Paradise, from inside Paradise. This Loving Oneness cannot be “known”. To “know”
Oneness there would have to be a sense of separation FROM Oneness. Who cannot see the fault in that logic?
Dear One: If there is still a belief in "being someone" - turn that back to that Perfect
Stillness-Silence which is ever present within and all around. A simple means is to ask that assumed "me", WHO AM I? Stay
in touch if you like and let’s nail this down once and for good. I Love You.
Follow-up: Q: The little ego me agrees with all the organism that is you, says. I experienced non duality many years
ago and thought I had lost the plot. I couldn't have stayed in that state for any length of time. The little me did not die
but the ego dissolved into pure consciousness for a while but quickly came back out of it. So now I live in a world of duality
again, knowing there is a greater truth. "MY" near death experience was exactly as later read in a version of the Tibetan
book of the Dead. My favourite quote is from a Zen master " It isn't the wind that is blowing or the flag that is fluttering.
It is you mind that is moving." Thank you again.
C: You refer to a state, but what you are is the Stateless Being here and now. Nothing but that exists! In it's purity
of Being-Awareness AND the aspects of that we call "mind" or content OF Being-Awareness!
As you describe it, yes, that is what appeared to happen for that organism. Certainly we have memories. But are the
memories real or simply stories arising here now in awareness-consciousness as a sense of I am and this or that happened (happens,
will maybe happen) to ME? All stories! "Filled with sound and fury, signifying ... nothing!"
As far as what I share, it is NOT a "truth" and I suggest with respect and love that that rather than agree, you
take it for what it is, the blah blah blah of the brain's concepts that point to absolutely NOTHING. It's got very clear here
that the intellect and the emotions are of no value in seeing this correctly; nor is ANY experience of any value! Also there
IS no “greater truth”. If you are seeking something not already here now you have doomed yourself to wait forever
because time and someday are only imagination!
Sometimes I am asked, what was the "awakening" like for you, charlie? Simply. Everything disappeared; everything!
Then "I" came back and went "what was THAT!?" This happened in 1977 and the search continued to try to get "that" bliss of
not-being back until I met John Wheeler, and at that time the confusion that there was a "me" who is suffering was seen as
imagination (albeit very real seeming, like some dreams seem very real). The I me myself idea or feeling is still here (sometimes)
and yet it is seen as a fiction, again albeit a damn real looking and feeling one. Sometimes there is huge despair here, sometimes
glee and profound happiness. All arises in This Presence. When I identify (habitually) as the person it seems to by MY life
and that is the profundity of this "Maya" dreaming state of "consciousness, I am". Sure it seems like there IS a me that HAS
all these experiences! But believing the imaginary to be real doesn't make it real, does it?
Go here for a slew of great "interviews" with expressions of this around the globe, done in the Sydney area. They are all really good! http://urbangurucafe.com/wordpress/index.php ... particular expressions I favor are Bob Adamson's, Randall Freind's, and Jeff Foster's.
If the site doesn't load straight away just hit refresh.
Now here is the bottom line as I see it here:
I don't know "what works" to end seeking and suffering.
Nobody Knows "what will work". But go ahead and explore! Then,
ultimatley it may be seen that nothing works. ONLY ... Nothing.
There simply is NO "WAY".
Love, Charlie
PS A few points from John:
How can the emptiness-clarity of the unborn prior-to-consciousness
state be a limited, separate, defective person in the appearance of things? And how could any belief continue to go into that
concept, once it is seen through?
How can there be an adequate word for that which precedes
consciousness itself?
If there is no “I” then who needs or can
be realized?
Without alighting [on] any notions at all, the clear,
vivid presence of the true nature stands revealed in all its immediacy and glory NOW.
Doubts are only thoughts appearing [on or in] this
ever-fresh, non-conceptual awareness. Doubts make a subtle reference to the “me” whom they are about. Look for
the “me” and you will find it entirely absent. All there is, is this ever-fresh, non-conceptual awareness, here
and now and ever.
Your being is perfect, whole and complete as is. The
notion of some grand enlightenment is only that — a notion.
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