Urban Guru Cafe

gilbert says:

The whole universe is an energy shift. Ever changing. Those who emphasize the need for an special energy shift are just ‘selling’ something. They believe that they have had an energy shift (an experience) and they believe it changed their life. Then they imagine that everyone else can benefit from this energy shift. They sell the idea and the ‘products’ associated with it – methods, practices and they believe they are an expert in making this energy shift happen. They spend all their time describing this required energy shift and by the ‘power of suggestion’ many believe they have the same and it is all hypnosis and not much more. It all turns into a ‘clicky scene’.
Being is enough – of course – but the mind imagines special states of being – so this being right now is judged by the mind as not being enough or good or special enough.
If you listen to the ancient text in this program it is enough to reveal more than you need to know. It is probably one of the clearest texts that have been recorded on paper.
It comes from the Chan (Zen) tradition and is supposed to have been written by the third patriarch of Zen Buddhism. It is so rich in content, one can read it a hundred times and still find ‘new depths’ in it. “I can’t believe anymore that something has to shift”……It is not a matter of belief. You KNOW that there is no need of a shift.
There is no one here trying to trick anyone into new beliefs. No fees and No Club to join. That should demonstrate something, at least.

Rate it!   +1

gilbert says:

“When love and hate are absent – then everything becomes clear and undisguised”.
You won’t find much use of the word ‘love’ here. It is far too volatile and dream inducing a word. It is a favorite with gurus and teachers possibly because it is very effective in keeping the seeker believing that they have found something truly valuable in this guru or teacher etc.
Personal love turns to hate in an instant – that is the dualistic nature of it all. We all know good examples of this. “I hate the bitch now” etc.
We can speak of love if necessary…….but it is not personal love – it is universal by nature – and the ground of your own being is the same (non) thing.
Love is Light. Light is energy. Energy is an activity. You cannot separate the activity of KNOWING from any ‘other’ activity. It is all one activity. Therefore it is all love.
Love is not for sale. Just as your own true nature is not for sale.
It is totally FREE. Yet you must re-discover this before all your doubts will dissolve.
Love yourself completely – and then that love embraces all within its bountiful presence.

Rate it!   0

kale says:

This would hold true once the “my” has been really seen through. Otherwise, it is just adding one more belief to the existing ones: “there’s nothing to do etc.” The “my” arises again and again but it is somewhat recognized for what it is and in this recognition it begins to lose its “hold”. This has begun to happen automatically…

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

Yes….the claiming of ‘I, me, mine’ happens almost instantly via the habit of belief.
It would SEEM that one needs to get into the space before the automatons ‘claim’ takes place. In the sense of expansion that happens, once we investigate, we find that ‘What I am’ pervades ‘all space’ and everything is naturally seen for what it is. This is ‘how’ the old habit is loosened. The engagement slackens off and the old ways fall away naturally.
Puppetji: Contact has been made with James Murray (Puppetji) – at least a message has been delivered. Yes, a good laugh about all this stuff is always welcome. Sending up the guru game is fun – but it isn’t getting to the core issues necessarily. Well let’s see what happens.

Rate it!   0

Bill Tys says:

The words from the ancient text sound like the words flowing from a guru trying to keep the followers in line by outlining a bagful of techniques and practices.

How do I be serene? I don’t do anything!
How do I hold no opinions for or against? I don’t do anything!
How do I set up what I like or dislike? I don’t do anything!

I am an animated body/mind totally automated and appearing in the unseeable knowing!

Areti’s question and Bob’s definitive answer cuts through it all!

There is no “I”…and opinions, serenity, likes and dislikes simply arise.

Rate it!   0

milton says:

If I embrace “I am That” as a concept then I am already caught by duality. There is an “I” and a “that.” It would seem that I would need to experience “I am That” to understand it. The text said to me that our suffering arises when we live through concepts. I didn’t hear anything about techniques.

Rate it!   0

kale says:

I remember Gilbert saying in one of the earlier posts “drop thinking as often as you can to get a taste this subtle presence” That is very potent pointing…

Rate it!   0

nathan says:

hmm…this is getting to the meaty part!

‘who is doing the dropping and tasting’….who asks the question ‘who am i’?

might it be that the arising of the question coincides perfectly with questioner…that they are actually the same thing? the thinker “I” only exists as the thought ‘me’?

if upon investigation of this so called ‘me’, it is seen not to exist NOW, it of course follows that it never did. and what’s more is the FACT that really there are no ‘other’ me’s running around this world. there are no ‘other’ people! this sounds absurd to most.

what is absurd, is that ‘I me me mine’ is hardly more than a collection of preferences

‘do not search for truth, only cease to cherish opinions.’

ceasing to cherish opinions is the ending of the fake entity.

but if it was never ‘real’ to begin with…then what ends? just an irrelevant thought pattern?…ahhhh…then what…maybe…… silence

i came across the hsin-hsin ming several months ago…it continues to floor me…some of the most perfectly placed squiggles ever to appear on paper…wonderfully put together podcast as usual…

Rate it!   0

dorothy hoffman says:

Who is doing that dropping and tasting?

You are that tasting…

Words just tend to create more and more ideas leading to more confusion. The mind is always painting a picture of “this beautiful realization” which will be attained if I “stay present”. And then staying present becomes a technique. It’s all thought. What is prior to thought?

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

Who is doing the dropping? ‘Who’ wants to know? The questioner is the question – both content of mind. They appear in the SEEING. Be the seeing only – the ‘seer’ is an appearance in mind – it is the thought ‘I see’. It is not the seeing but ‘we’ believe it is – it is a story. This profundity dissolves back into pure seeing. ‘We’ don’t need a story about it.
A child on a roundabout calls out to mummy “I am dizzy”. “Get off it then my dear”.
The mind is like the child – whirling around caught up in the ride.
We have two options – one is to make our way to the center, the axis, where the motion is almost stillness – or get off the wheel.
If you make your way to the stillness of mind, retrace your steps and drop the attachments via negation “I am not this” – “I am not that” – what is left?
Intelligence shining – without a mask (persona).
THAT is doing everything.
This intelligence is always present. It is the ‘things’ we attach ourselves to that seemingly obscure it.
The mask needs to be seen for what it is – otherwise it drags us back into the shit.
Here is an ancient story:
A man, sleeping on the side of the road swallowed a snake in his sleep….. a traveling dervish saw the snake slip into the man’s mouth.
The dervish picked up a stick and beat the man. The man woke up and screamed and objected to this treatment, as anyone would. The dervish was unrelenting……and continued to beat the man. Eventually the man lost consciousness and the dervish continued to beat the body. Then the snake came out of the man’s mouth and the dervish struck it dead with his beating stick. The man woke up and saw the snake on the ground.
The dervish smiled at the man and quietly said “I could not tell you that you had swallowed a snake or you would have died from shock. I did what was necessary. You are battered and bruised – but you are alive”.
Some ‘people’ are asleep and they dream that they are ‘awake’ in a special way ‘enlightened’…..that dream adds onto itself the notion of being a guru.
They long for love….and talk about love endlessly – but the poison of vanity in them prevents that love from glowing in themselves. If the ‘snake’ sleeps one may have a few moments of exceptional love expressing itself….but the slightest impression of being special awakens the snake and a spiritual empire is built upon vanity.
Examples of this abound this world. King Solomon says “Vanity vanity, all is vanity under the sun”.

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

It is the ME that sticks to its story because that is all it has got. Without its story, it vanishes. So ‘who’ is sticking to their story? The paramount ME, the first and last story.
Anyway i do understand where you are coming from Bill. The judgment about the ancient text is unwarranted. If things are crystal clear there, then lets see some expression of it in three lines. Whatever is expressed is valid whether it be three lines or three thousand lines. Who can predict what will register cleanly for the reader? If one imagines that one selects what is said or written then it is likely that that ‘one’ is deluded.
What is so unsettling about serenity? No one is suggesting any methods or techniques in that text. As an ex-journo you should be able to read what is written of hear what is spoken without bias or pre-conceived ideas getting in the way. Anyone who finds fault with that ancient text must be on a ‘trip’. Well, all this may be of some benefit to some. It is easy to judge the past and generalize about all manner of things – but no one can predict the future – whatever sample one chooses as data for making the prediction, it must be a finite sample. The present contains ALL there is. The future is unknown – the present is unknown and the past is unknown. What can you be absolutely certain of except your own existence? Everything, without a single exception, appears – APPEARS – in THIS.
Some have left traces of a WISDOM far beyond the apparent capacity of the normal intellect. When those traces, for example, this text we are speaking about, appears, it appears as a portal to that wisdom. Of course such concepts remain as ideas or expressions so long as that portal remains shut. If all the senses are wide open, without any bias from the past, then a ‘spark’ is ignited. Once ignited nothing can put out the ‘fire’. Ignorance is consumed, gradually or in an instant. The ‘man’ who wrote the words of that text was not on any ego trip. You will barely be able to find any information about him – a name, an occupation and nothing much more. This example is in keeping with the text itself.
Listen again, if you can bear to – others seem to find value in it.
If ‘we’ at the UGC (there are only two of us, Areti and Gilbert) are misleading the listeners, I will be the first to take a fresh look at things – because our intention is to present programs of unusual clarity and precision. That is why certain ‘teachers’ will never appear on this podcast site.

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

Exactly. And this is why everyone misses it – what usually happens is that there is a belief in being ‘someone’ – someone that is going to get ‘the understanding’. The core of understanding is KNOWING what I am first and foremost. As has been pointed out by those who know, you cannot say what you are – you can only say what you are not.
In recognizing that everything is appearing in this knowing, so one comes to understand ‘what I am’ – yet it remains as it is, it is not an object – it has no boundaries and no center.
The investigation that is repeatedly suggested is to explore that self-center and SEE if it has any substance or independence. Now, there may appear to be some substance to this ‘me’ but that substance reveals itself to be totally transient, while the observer-less observation remains stable. This stability of SEEING is not passing through the ‘mind’.
The mind simply appears in it.
What I am is this intelligence that pervades the universe, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. As the ancient text of Hermes ‘The Emerald Tablet’ says “As above so Below”. One Substance. That substance patterns and shapes the whole manifestation.
It is never exhausted and cannot be depleted by ‘time’.
These words touch upon our true nature. However the habitual notions keep popping up and if they are not recognized instantly, then this intelligence moves into the patterns and ‘we’ believe in being a limited creature.
Reality IS. This intelligence shines like the sun. Start from the fact that you are THAT.
Then the mask, the facade is transparent. SEEING passes straight through it.
If there is no belief in being a ‘someone’ then there is nothing for anything to get stuck on. It all flows without any interference. This will not make much sense to those bound up in beliefs. Those who already see through it all, in brief moments, they will understand what I am getting at.
THIS is for everyone – not just the few – yet it seems that only a few respond.

Rate it!   0

milton says:

I find two lines in the Hsin text particularly helpful: “If the eye never sleeps all dreams will never cease” and “to come directly into harmony with this reality just say when doubt rises ‘not two’.” Seems to be in line with what you are saying; if one stays with naked awareness, then entanglement in dreams and concepts will be avoided. For me the text is illuminating in a fairly succinct way. Thanks

Rate it!   0

Emily Lopez says:

Thanks for this web site. I would so much like to understand what is being said here. One statement made by Gilbert was: “What I am is this intelligence that pervades the universe, from the microscopic to the macroscopic.”
I have been thinking about this quote all day, wondering why I have such mental torment from time to time – if this statement is true. Is it because I don’t believe it and therefore I suffer? I do feel a sense of something inside when I read your post & listen to the downloads. Even if problems don’t change for me, I’m hoping to be able to have peace in the middle of the storm.

Rate it!   0

Gary Wright says:

Which ancient text is being quoted? In flavor it seems very much like Huang Po but he was the 6th patriarch wasn’t he? Maybe you have already named the source but I am unaware of this if you have. I reckon that it is always good practice to name the sources of important quotes especially when what is quoted is written material.

Rate it!   0

michael o says:

Hi to all at UGC from outer-cyberia (cape town s.africa) & deep thanks for the podcasts which i’ve found incredibly helpful , allowing me to drop seeking, effort in the struggle to attain, so to just relax into what already is and has always been. Such a relief.

I have a whole bunch of the podcasts on my phone and listen whenever i get the chance.

One question, why does the one all pervasive intelligence-energy arise currently as the gruesome conflict in gaza, is it because a nightmarish dream will serve to awaken more from the dream of separation to the truth of the one reality?

again, heartfelt thanks

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

It is a provocative subject……World conflict….Everyone has an opinion. And opinions vary extremely and the basis of the opinions are very often based on scatty information.
Borders and boundaries are mind projections or agreements between ‘men’.
It may be difficult to see this but the whole conflict is because of the belief in being separate. I, Me and Mine. Borders and boundaries do not exist except as relative concepts. The concept of separation is a fiction. Where does it start? It start right here, right now. If you drop the thoughts, the mind projection disappears. It starts with ‘me’ and ‘not me’, or ‘I’ and ‘other than I’. It begins with the labels we have learned to put on ‘things’. It happens right now. It is not the past that is to be changed. It is this immediate engagement with thought that needs to be ‘broken’ – at least for long enough to SEE what is. Explore this boundary of ‘me’ and SEE that it is a concept. If you go to the Great Wall of China you will not be able to find any boundary. You will find a magnificent wall that stretches for hundreds of miles as it roams across the rolling hillside. The boundary is an agreement between ‘men’. An agreement is a concept. When ‘men’ fight over land and property it can get very bloody.
Move out into space and look back at the Earth and it is easily recognized that the whole is undivided. Of course such information is bound to touch the core of beliefs and a response may spring up automatically to defend the core beliefs. A belief is never the actual.
If it were the actual it would not be a belief – it would be a fact. All conflict is due to relationship – and basically the basis of it all is ‘me and not me’. Vulnerability brings fear – fear often leads to violence. At the base of anger is fear. It is all energy patterning into forms and activities. Thoughts resolve themselves naturally if they are left alone. When masses are fixated on strongly biased ‘mind sets’ against a foe the resolution of the conflict is postponed or maybe it is because the conflict is re-ignited constantly. Many Nations get involved and the conflict spreads through the media. Everyone has an opinion and takes sides according to their preferences. people argue over the issue at work, at home and on public transport. It all feeds the conflict. It is not creative – it is destructive.
It takes months to build a house and one match to turn it into ashes in a few minutes.
Only the individual can drop the issue and cease from feeding the thoughts.
If enough were to do this, then the resolution would happen naturally.
It is madness. Do not get involved in the affairs of others – deal with what is right here, right now.
“A thousand may fall at thy left hand, ten thousand by thy right hand – but none shall come near your dwelling place”. From the Old Testament.
Look at the ‘space’ where you are in this immediacy.
Do not postulate the situation of others far away. What is wrong with right now?
Without a thought – is there anything wrong? This profundity is missed by almost everyone. The media bring a world of troubles into our living rooms via TV and the internet. And we feed upon it and get ulcers and play with our worry beads.
If you stay simply with present evidence – you will be able to cope quite easily with what is. Of course the intellect almost instantly says “Yes BUT……….what about those people over there….etc. First get yourself free from illusions, then you can look at these things with a fresh vision.

Rate it!   0

Albert says:

Gilbert,

Would you please explain what the statement: “Dream within a Dream” means?

Are we just dreaming this life? Is it really real?

Rate it!   0

abbocarnu says:

Gilbert Stated,
“Thoughts resolve themselves naturally if they are left alone. ”

The tendency to engage thought dissipates when it is seen that the “Habit” of thought is just that, a habit, a pattern, a rut, like the grooves in a record, having no volition of its own….yet playing on endlessly, the same sorry song, the same old story, over and over, going unnoticed, until one day someone or something Bumps the record player and the needle pops out of its groove.
The tendency to try and “Fix” it is almost overwhelming, but if left alone one finds that a “new” song is playing now, very quietly at first, poking, prodding, reaching beyond the illusion of time and mind, unable to be grasped or held as “Mine”.
It’s like an air conditioner that is Not noticed till it is turned Off….
The Silence of That is Deafening…as are the Pointers here at UGC…
Thought Grows, just like a little child when it is fed and given attention…
But again, what is thought, but a “movement of energy”, rippling through the space that you ARE, having absolutely No substance, till it is given credence through Attention and Belief~

This forum is one of the clearest I’ve visited, Gilbert’s pointing is obviously, painfully, potently and patiently present**

Rate it!   0

Richard says:

Thanks for the reply Gilbert.

I ask the others in this group, has anyone here had Self-realization due to words (other than from face-to-face teaching)? And if so, why are you here and why do you still listen to podcasts, read books, and read comments in forums?

Conversely, if Self-realization (pardon the “z”) has not occurred by these activities, why continue them?

Said Bankei (more words—I know), “If you priests would just live in the Unborn, there wouldn’t be anything for me to tell you about it, and you wouldn’t be here listening to me.”

Rate it!   0

Gary Wright says:

Sorry Gilbert I should have looked more closely. Anyway, if anyone is intereted in a copy of this text (soft copy that is) it can be had at http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/fm/fm.htm

Rate it!   0

Sully says:

Thanks Richard for your reply…I just thought from reading all your previous post that you were still seeking. I apologize.

Have fun!

Rate it!   0

areti says:

I’ve just completed an interview with Gilbert and we talked about Gilbert’s explanation as to why the Hsing Hsing Ming is not a technique – so Billy, from talking with Gilbert, let me tell you what I think he means:

In other words – hold no opinions for there is no you to hold opinions – it is pointing to what you actually are – anything else is a technique – opinions are a technique – holding opinions is a technique for reasoning there is a you there to reason. (and a technique takes time – what you are is timeless)

You cannot hold an opinion and be with senses wide open because you are (then) engaging (the me) the mind – which is time.

I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not a person to hold opinions, I am not……

Is this a technique or direct pointing?

Rate it!   0

Richard says:

Hi WeNoTwo,

I’m no guru or teacher or seeker. I just know what I know and am what I am.

Never have I claimed that this Richard thing is realized or enlightened. How could that be?

Sometimes I see addictive behavior in those ceaselessly seeking down the same blind alleys and wish I could convey in an acceptable way, “Don’t go there”. But I don’t have the ability to say it any other way, lacking social skills as I do and not wanting to impose in my unskillful manner.

I do not have confidence in my ability to light up others but instead point them to such lightbearers as Bob, Nisargadatta, Ramana, and others such as Bankei.

I prefer to be, as some ancient Chinese mystic said, a gnarled tree that no one pays attention to nor chops down for lumber (nor gets nailed to a cross). Would much rather tell jokes (like the previous ‘man hiding in the closet’ gem) and help non-people from taking themselves so seriously. What you call, “playing safe”.

But I may be wrong.

Best regards,
Richard (A Duck walks into a Bar, looks around then turns to the barman and asks him “Do you have any quackers?”)

Rate it!   0

Emily Lopez says:

Gilbert,

Would you say the eyes see and the brain translates just as the heart beats and blood flows rather than awareness/intelligence being inside this body looking out?

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

The previous comment is radical for the mind. One may see that there is no need of introducing the concept of ‘love’. Those who make a big deal about love are just caught up in psychology and emotional baggage. Indulging in that realm will never release the ‘bondage of self’ – in fact it merely perpetuates it. The ‘lover’ and the ‘beloved’ belong to duality. What we are talking about here at the Urban Guru Cafe is Non Duality.
All talk about Non Duality is dualistic YET some clear expressions are ‘pointing’ at your true nature. All one needs is to re-cognize it. The Cognition is ALREADY happening.
It is the ‘me of memory’ that introduces a ‘grasping at’ and that is the obscuring factor.
‘When’ this is seen, without any idea of being a ‘seer’ it is simply naked SEEING.
Taste that and the meaning of ‘life’ is stripped of mental obscurities.
As I say “One Moment of Eternal Realization” – THIS is IT. It could not be otherwise.
If you leave the mind alone, in not agitating it, things resolve themselves. You do not need the ‘me fixation’ to BE.
Note: These comments are not a ‘resource’ for Gurus – “get your own material somewhere else”. This is for those who are genuinely making an investigation into the meaning of their own existence.

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

The perception appears in the SEEING. The perceiver is an appearance.
Stay quietly AS the SEEING – it is what you ARE.
This profundity cuts through it all.
It may bring a speechless, thoughtless state to the fore. That will appear to recede as thoughts reappear – YET it does not disappear.
Like the mirror – all we are seeing is the mirror – the reflections ARE the mirror – yet the mirror is difficult to ascertain unless one examines it closely. The ground of being is this SEEING-KNOWING. It is the uninterrupted experiencing. There is no ‘experiencer’ except as an appearance, a story, in mind. Mind itself is just a label.
This knowledge is transparent and is in fact nothing but KNOWING.
Once re-tasted fully, it can never be forgotten.

Rate it!   0

Bill Tys says:

There is no need to say “I am” to know that you are.

The seer and the seen are patterns appearing on or in the seeing.

The seer and the seen could not appear without the seeing.

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

Bravo Billy. It took a few days mate. Things slowing down there? Just kidding. Folks, Bill and I are friends from hanging out at Bob’s. It has been my pleasure to witness things clearing themselves naturally ‘around Bill’. This is reflected in something I often say “It sinks in”. When one is attracted to visit someone like Bob on a regular basis, the message sinks in and a resonance in being rises up and shines through the Mask, the persona.
This shining is observable in and around the eyes and the infinite intelligence brings the mind into alignment – so the mind then serves rather than dominate as a ‘me’.
This ‘phenomena’ I have witnessed over and over around Bob. Bob makes no big deal out of it. If you get a chance, go see Bob. Many have made the long trip from Over Seas and many more have experienced the ‘sinking in’ via Bob’s Books and CD’s etc.
When the mind is faced with the immediacy of being – it loses its habit of fabricating ‘reality’. Then one may sense what lies beneath the mind games of seeking and the direct ‘pointing’ can touch what needs to be touched.
Any words can be pulled apart and be accused of dualistic notions. You know and in that knowing you know what I am saying.

Rate it!   0

Ron Marson says:

Thanks Gilbert for the cafe, and to all of you who participate in this forum. I’ve listened to every audio production over the months, and have read most of the comments with interest. Urban Guru Cafe is really popping with energy, insight, good controversy, good humor and love.

One of the repeating controversies I keep reading concerns the nature of seeking. Gilbert, to his credit insists that seeking is the very activity that ties us to the wheel of becoming. If we could just back off believing our incessant mental overlays about reality even for two seconds — we might notice the obvious: we already ARE that pure seeing-knowing we seek. Our mental image of what we think we seek is never IT. This might be summed up in the saying:

He that seeks SHALL NOT find.

Some challenge this notion They defend the value of speaking from personal experience, even if it is a story tied to a time-bound, dreaming mind. They argue that seeking is a legitimate and important piece of the apparent journey, that pithy pointers or lengthy intellectual arguments have no heart, and ultimately convince the survival-oriented mind of nothing. They would argue, along with Jesus:

He that seeks SHALL find.

I would like to offer a short article by Ken Wilbur, making a distinction between spiritual TRANSLATION and spiritual TRANSFORMATION. He seems to solve the paradox by agreeing with both sides. After all, there is no duality in non-duality.

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j12/wilber.asp

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

Yes, the Dzogchen Tradition has many remarkable texts. Some of the translation work is not so good, at least it appears that way. Of all the Dzogchen literature available, i find that only a few are translated well. Those texts bristle with ‘life’.
As for Ken Wilber, he is a philosopher. Non Duality is not philosophy, no matter who says it is. I find that only the last chapter of each of his books is at all clear. He organizes his books usually in some sort of pattern, leaving the Non Dual view till last. The main body is about ‘the path’ and methods etc, from my memory, and there is no path and no method in Non Duality, even if Wilber says there is. It is all mind stuff. He may be well established as an author and admired by many – but that does not mean all that much when it comes to direct pointing. I won’t even bother reading the suggested paper, mostly because it will ‘smell’ of Wilber from start to finish.
Many major cities have Wilber Meetings. I have friends who have attended these and they all report that it is a waste of time – ego trippers showing off. Similar to the the E. Tolle Meetings all over the place where everyone wears their spiritual heart on their sleeve. An ‘clever intellectual self-image’ or a ‘spiritualized self-image’ are sticky creatures that cling like ‘doggy doo’ to a blanket.
I find that the clever intellectual types, who are attracted to Wilber are the one’s who have most difficulty in dropping the clinging mind. I would not advise anyone to go out and buy his books, and there are many, many of them. The stimulation of the intellect is part of the problem. We are yet to see a clear, concise and precise ‘pointing’ from Wilber without a whole lot of other unnecessary information packed in for good measure. The publishers like big volumes – yet what is true is always simple. You don’t need a 3 inch thick book to get the message across. Large books obviously only stimulate the mind. It is good business. Still, it is his career and his books sell very well.
However, a ‘good’ text will stop the mind. Most popular books perpetuate the mind and so the seeking goes on and on. Well, as the old song goes “To each his own”.

Rate it!   0

Emily Lopez says:

Gilbert,
Would you say this “knowing” or ‘seeing” that we all are could also be:

omnipotent – all powerful
omniscient-all knowing
omnipresent- present in all places, thus present everywhere

Like the bible tells us God is? If so, is it because we don’t know this, we live such miserable lives at times.

Rate it!   0

Emily Lopez says:

Thanks that makes it clear Gilbert… just one more point:

“If you drop the story about a miserable life – drop the story of the past- be totally open in this moment – a very different view opens up.”

Many things happened in our past that we have no memory of therefore there is no story..is this correct? It is the memories we have about the past that keeps the story going?
From reading your post I don’t think you would have us deal with the memories because that would just keep the story going?
Would it be correct to say, drop the memories? I’m just not sure how that is done.
Is it enough to just realize that there is no person here who lived that story?

Rate it!   0

howdie says:

hi emily,
curious what gilbert has to say about this too
from my own form’s experience i have seen that even though the mind may not have any memory of some past event, the body still remembers- especially if there was some type of trauma for the body…
as awakening opens, those hidden things in the body just begin to “float up” on thier own to be dealt with. that deep stuff will have to rise. how it is worked through is specific for everyone, but at least there is no hiding from it anymore.

i once heard awakening brings a sense of radical honesty, and that starts with everything we have been trying to hide. one may know the body does not exist, but the body sure thinks so, and it may have a lot of stored conditioning in it.
so you may know there is no person to have a story, but that won’t help the body for some time, depending on what is stored there…some oriental exercises may help the body get more flowing and let this stuff move easier-
so many hope awakening will allow them to run from their problems or what they don’t like or transcend it. i liken it less to waking “up” more to sinking “down” into the honesty of form’s experiences. i found you can’t drop the memory until you honestly see you have it.

maybe not the best explanation. gilbert?

Rate it!   0

Emily Lopez says:

Thanks Howdie and Dan,

I appreciate your posts and yes I’m beginning to get glimpses of this. I think what drew me to this website was the effortless living feel of it. I have tried many , many things over the years and frankly I don’t want to DO anything else.
This really appeals to me:

“Awareness is what allows the natural lack of separation with life to overrun us.”

Thanks guys

Rate it!   0

Emily Lopez says:

Thanks Evita for taking time to share that with me!

Rate it!   0

Ralph says:

“What value can a memory have regarding what I truly am?”

Well, perhaps that ‘memory’ is what is obscuring what you truly are. This is why an investigation and not a denial is necessary to see why the ‘stuckness’ is still present and running your so-called life.

By the way, thanks Ron for posting that short article by Ken Wilbur, I enjoyed reading it. He does seem to solve the paradox by agreeing with both sides.

Rate it!   0

audrey says:

Hi Nathan

in the words of that lyrical and wild Irishman Van Morrison….’its non attachment, thats what it is’, enjoyed your description.

Hi Ralph

there is no end to why..the mind is falling down on the job if it doesn’t come up with an explanation or a solution, its humiliating,,be humiliated. A.

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

NOTE: There is a notice on my website regarding an offer of selected programs from the UGC to
University Radio Stations and Community Stations (anywhere).

There is no one to be proud and no one to be humble or humiliated.
Isn’t this the obvious ‘thing’ to discover?
The one who pulls down vanity is vain.
Have no truck with it and it will shrivel up and die.
These ‘things’ only seemingly exist because we give them energy through belief.
Cut the belief off and SEE what happens to them.
This experiencing of the disappearance of all fixations is priceless.
Naked unadorned presence awareness is in need of nothing.
It is what everyone is looking for and they look for it in the content of the mind.
The ‘Me’ cannot see or know anything.
So it is all about being misled by belief in something that is not real.
What you are is reality – but not the ‘you’ of belief, which is just a story.
The immediacy is what ‘I am’.
This immediacy is prior to everything that the mind presents to awareness.
All the mind is is a response to impressions – mechanical and habitual.
When did you ever have an original thought?
Awareness does not need thought.
The concept of what awareness is is nothing but a concept.
What is aware?
If it is not what you are, then what?

Rate it!   0

Emily Lopez says:

Gilbert,

“Awareness does not need thought.”

I always thought ..that we think something then we do it. So thinking has nothing to do with what is done in this body everyday? Does that mean we are just like trees and animals except we have evolved to the point where we think and reason? Would this “awareness” that I am be able to be aware of ITSELF if there was no thinking?

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

Thought and action are just different aspects of the expression. An Earth Quake ‘starts’ with a small rumble. An action may ‘appear’ to be preceded by a subtle thought or movement – it is all vibration – it is all the expression of the ONE Essence (As Bob calls it). One thought may appear to be connected to an action and another thought may appear to be divorced from actions.
There is no separation – there is no duality in non duality.
Non Duality is radically confronting to the mind of habitual beliefs. The core beliefs will be shaken and they will appear to fall away. The investment in ‘the story of ‘me’ will be threatened – so precede with caution if ‘you’ are not deadly earnest about being free. The bondage may tighten up before it is cut free.
There is no ‘evolution’ because that needs time and time is a concept – so evolution is a concept. Our brain could be said to be a pattern recognizing computer. ‘We’ recognize repeating patterns (duration-time) in the mind – mind IS time.
The subtle ‘thing’ we always seem to miss is the absolutely motionless-unchanging ‘place’ of cognition. ‘We’ are identified with the body and the mind content.
Awareness is not aware of awareness, as some ‘clever gurus’ tell ‘us’. Their insistence that you need to be aware of awareness is an insipid and insidious concept – just another mind trap – one that THEY have not freed themselves from – they wallow in their own imaginary specialness – which is just another concept.

Awareness is simply awareness. Awareness is NO THING. Every thing is actually no thing in essence. In taking yourself to be a ‘thing’, a somebody, automatically introduces ‘other things’. It is actually all ONE Thing or NO THING.
Because ‘we’ insist on being someone, that fixation introduces the ten thousand things.
Multiplicity is ‘created’ by mind. In the actuality of pure seeing there is only one seeing and objects only ‘seem to be’ because of naming them. If you cease to discriminate and name ‘things’ can you truly say that there is any separation anywhere?
As Siddharameshwar points out: “Duality is due to the ‘seer’ and the ‘seen”.
The ‘seer’ is the thought ‘I see’ – a story, a description.
The mind is time – and dualistic.
Awareness is Non Dual. This is a profound pointer – timelessly true.
There is no separate ‘I’ or ‘me’.
Clear understanding will never reveal itself so long as the belief in separation continues.
So investigate this ‘me’.
It may appear as the most undesirable ‘direction’ to go in – but it is the only ‘way home’ back to the natural state and ease of being – which we never ever left – ‘we’ just believe we left it. It is all here now – it is simply ignored. Stop ignoring it and recognize that there is no coming or going.

Rate it!   0

Bob Seal says:

Emily Lopez on 01.28.09 5:29 am
“Awareness does not need thought.”

Emily,
If I can point you to a cartoon on awareness that might be useful.
follow this link: http://advaitatoons.blogspot.com/

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

There is no ‘becoming’ to what is always ‘immediate and self-evident’.
It already IS timelessly immediate and self-evident. There never was a time when it was not so.
What is it that stops this from being clearly re-cognized?
Isn’t it belief in thoughts and old ideas? Even if thoughts and ideas are arising, they need not obscure this immediacy, this self-evident immaculate clarity of being.
You are not the MASK – you are not the ‘interface’ between the essence of what you truly are and the world of appearances. The ‘persona’ is not what you are.
The target is a mind projection – how can you dream of ever striking it? For one it has no substance and secondly it is your own projection.
‘People’ go in search of themselves and they look ‘out there’ – they exhaust themselves in a quest that is totally useless. Encouraged by pretentious gurus and teachers, they wander around is a self-induced daze of delusion. Re-trace your ‘steps’ – come home to right here, right now.
Give up the target practice – give up all practices and all methods and recognize you are THAT which is beyond the reach of any arrow or any concept.
Another way of putting it is: You are the bowman, the bow, the arrow – and the target is nowhere to be seen. All arrows fly away from it.
All concepts appear in this non-conceptual awareness.

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

The recognition arises in this immediacy because it is already cognized.
There is no one functioning on a relative plane. Where did that concept come from?
Did you ‘think’ it up all by yourself?
No, it has been heard and believed in – added to the belief system and used to explain a ‘reason’ why I have not reached the absolute or whatever I believe I am missing out on.
To project a realm of the Absolute is nothing but a concept.
Many concepts can be useful in de-constructing the belief system but the usefulness of the concept is limited – once it has done its job, it is no longer needed.
Because ‘we’ take ourselves to be a limited creature, ‘we create’ an obstacle for ourselves.
The energy of belief ‘gives’ the imagined limited ‘form’ a seeming substance and ‘we’ believe that we are that form.
Having faith in his gurus words was not a method – the faith arose naturally. It does not need to be worked at. Being what you are is effortless – it is not a method.
The illusion of methods is that they are time bound activities – and they never work.
Neti neti is not a method. The negation of belief is instantly ‘achieved’. “I am not this”.
It is a recognition. You don’t ‘work’ at it in ‘time’.
What I am is already transcendent to what I may believe I am – which is simply a bunch of thoughts.
What I am is this shining intelligence that can be called the light of knowing.
Everything appears by this light.
As apparent duration the patterns of the appearance appear to unfold.
But I am are not in the patterns – I am are not in the body. I am not this ‘me’.
All these ‘things’ appear in what I AM.
Now simply pay a little attention. Watch what the mind comes up with in regard to this ‘pointing’. Whatever the mind translates this information into can only be from ‘the past’, learned words and associative thought patterns.
Now, is the KNOWING altered or changed by any of these appearances?
What am I if not this knowing presence?
Does not this knowing presence embrace the body and all its sensations?
Does it not embrace whatever appears in the mind?
Expand it and see…SEE….that this knowing embraces the most distant galaxy, without a fraction of a seconds duration.
Space and time appear in this knowing and without naming them and without engaging the mind in a story about space and time – isn’t everything clear and obvious? Just as it is.
Questions like “Does it occur spontaneously?” lose all their meaning.
There is ONLY now.
However the mind is TIME and it will not be silent unless the KNOWING is including it – consciously and immediately.
The mind (seemingly) divides THAT which can never be divided.
Contemplate these ‘things’ and everything will unfold naturally – but the believed in ‘me’ will lose its hold. Naked awareness may seem to be threatening – this false threat will dissipate naturally so long as you do not grasp for the past. If you grasp for the past it will drag you back into mind and time.

Rate it!   0

Dan says:

Geez…people talk alot….

Kind of abstract sounding….

The experience isn’t abstract….why all the abstraction…?

Rate it!   0

suki says:

Right, direct experiencing is not abstract but thoughts and communications about
it are or appear to seem to be that way.
suki

Rate it!   0

suki says:

There is no path to get where you “ARE”! Equally no path to get away from what
you “ARE”!

There is only the “HERE”and”NOW”!

All manner of phenomena and appearances arise in the “EVER PRESENT TIMELESS
IMMOVABLE NOW”!

suki

Rate it!   0

suki says:

Ralph,
“Most overlook the importance of what is truly being said.” Possibly?

More importantly, most overlook at what is truly being pointed at?! (myself not being
excluded)

This is ultimately where words fail! Because what is pointed to is………hmmm, for a
lack of f***** words! all meaning and i mean everything just dissolves into the
“OCEANIC IMMACULATE PURE CLARITY” that you “ARE”!!!

warmest rgds,
suki

Rate it!   0

Kimo (Jim) says:

Who’s worried about being happy? The character imagined to be happy, depressed, getting this, or not getting this–is not who you are. To some, this may sound like escapism or resignation to a “blah”, unfeeling existence; but nothing could be further from the truth (no pun intended). No kidding–There really is no independent you who could be happy, yet the aliveness & experiencing is undeniable. There’s just this, wide open, full aliveness with no reference point where you can say “this is me” and then proceed to hang defining moods upon. The full stop comes in seeing that nothing can get behind the knowing–it’s primary. Why fixate on something within the knowing and say “this is me”. Does that make sense? Any thing, any idea, any experience, any thought appears in the knowing. I never “become” an object that contains the knowing. It’s always the knowing that IS and objects appear within the knowing (even the idea of “others” knowing); there’s no becoming. And there’s no object or concept that knows anything. Your co-worker or spouse standing in front of you talking doesn’t know anything. There’s only the one knowing with the appearance of bodies, bodies talking, ideas of “my thoughts”, ideas of “others thoughts”. Really weird huh? But tell me I’m wrong after you’ve looked. You’re stuck as the knowing–congratulations!

Rate it!   0

Ralph says:

Milton, my take on this is those ‘oh so real obstacles’ IS what obscures pure naked awareness in the relative sense. Contemplating the pointers alone will in most cases not remove the illusory obstacles of ego consciousness because the belief in a ‘separate’ you is still there so there is work to be done. In addition to ‘pointers’ , investigation as to why one appears to be ‘stuck ‘ is necessary. Investigate the obstacles and walk through them when they arise is necessary to see that the snake is really just a rope (just thoughts believed).
In my case, pointers alone was not enough so again I say that in addition to ‘pointers’, an ‘inward searching’ and being ‘earnest’ is most helpful for the clear and obvious to shine through which of course in the absolute sense is always shining but oh those so real obstacles.

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

A ‘man’ may believe he is in the thick of a forest where the trees are 3 feet apart – he may feel locked in, lost. He may see some extra light in a particular direction (Something may resonate in him – a glimmer of recognition). As he moves through the forest (in time), towards the light, the trees get further apart. More is seen. The trees eventually become sparse and then he reaches the clear open field of vision where nothing obscures his view………walking further he finds himself in a desert, alone.
In the desert there is very little to identify with – few objects to attach oneself to – no habitual comforts etc.
At no point throughout his ‘journey’ through the ‘relative unfolding landscape’ is the clarity of vision actually impaired. Our true essence is sometimes called space-like awareness. Nothing actually obscures awareness. Everything registers cleanly, all of it, including what the mind interprets as good and bad.
The forest and the desert both appear in this space-like awareness.
Every ‘step’ takes place in the present, the reality of NOW and the concept of ‘time’ is also appearing in the ‘space-like awareness’.
Realizing one’s true nature does not depend on being out of the forest. One realizes that everything appears in what I am.
Many obstacles can disappear in an instant – the ‘ghost’ of those believed in patterns may hang around but they are no longer anything of interest.
It appears that the mind will not be convinced by mere ‘pointing’ or hearsay.
In the instant of ‘liberation from self’ all obstacles vanish.
The mind is not the enemy – but it sure helps if it is a friend – a friend does not resist or struggle against you.
At the core of our being there is a brilliant intelligence and it spreads throughout the being once the doubts and erroneous beliefs are seen through.
It appears to take time and it will appear to take forever so long as the resistance to what is true is indulged in. It is the ‘me’ that resists. What you truly are, what I truly am, is not resisting – it will help far more efficiently so long as you drop the fixation with being a ‘me’. The story of me draws some comfort from the story about ‘it takes time’ and if you invest in that story, it will take forever. The direct insight is instant and outside of time.

Rate it!   0

suki says:

Yes indeed Gilbert,
“The direct insight is instant and outside of time” and may I add ‘Ever fresh and pristine’.

This ‘Knowing’, never accumulates or dissipates.(does not change and is contentless)!

The ‘Knowing’, does not know that it does not know!

Yet ‘Knowing’ mysteriously knows!

Question:What does ‘Knowing’, know?

~No answer~

Rate it!   0

nathan says:

to milton…

i think the ‘faith’ that is mentioned in the hsin-hsin ming is not the faith that is nowadays more commonly associated with belief or hope…the two most extremely overvalued and under-examined words in our lexicon!

‘faith’ is just your being/knowing/seeing…it is the mind at rest…no thought, no belief …NOTHING at all is required to be…it is the ending of ALL worries and the ending of ALL entanglements with the past… i.e. “ME”!

the unfoldment that appears to happen is reliant upon the continuity of thought/time…it’s a story…a story that is seen by WHOM?

Rate it!   0

abbocarnu says:

belief in the separate me keeps the knowing as a belief ~

So, the “belief” (a movement of energy, a sensation, an appearance)
Keeps (a verb, movement of energy, a sensation, an appearance)
The Knowing ( )
As a Belief…………………………………………………………………………………………?

Care to elaborate, Kimo>?

Rate it!   0

milton says:

So if I get this right, the multifarious, entangling obstacles are not to be despaired about, resisted, or fought; there is space to navigate around them, no need to be in the desert to be free of them, they lose their power when deprived of belief. Being in forest is ok, doesn’t really matter. And faith is trust that the present awareness is just what it is and it is all that is needed; no need to make it into something else, or go searching for something else, no need to leave home, it’s all right here. And the keystone to the delusional edifice is the belief in a separate me, let that go, and the whole thing collapses, no need to sort through all the rest of the ego stuff. What a relief!

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

Any belief can only seemingly have any substance IF the energy of belief goes into it.
So, this ‘me’ that seemingly has so many problems is only a pattern appearing, believed in and as soon as the light is shone upon it, it must lose its ‘ability’ to fixate the consciousness. This ordinary awareness is all that is necessary. Once the ‘me’ is being examined the energy of belief ceases to give it apparent substance – the energy stays with the naked seeing. That naked seeing may form into a ‘witness’ – which is just another concept – and if that ‘witness’ is not added to, is not embroidered by the mind – then it dissolves into the seeing. Everything is contained in the seeing. Everything IS the Seeing. There is no separation. The ‘me’ is based on a concept of being separate.
It is habitual but it cannot remain if it is investigated. It is not the ‘person’ that investigates. The essential core of ‘the investigation’ is SEEING.

Rate it!   0

Sully says:

Why are you waiting for what you all ready are? How can the fish in the ocean be thirsty?

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

There is no ‘I as a me’. What kind of mind gymnastics is that? This clear naked awareness does not need a name (I or me) – it is immaculately clear and obvious.
The mind games that these Satsang teachers play is very transparent. How so many get sucked in by bullshit is quite remarkable.
They say that Satsang means ‘A meeting in truth’ – then they start to bullshit in their opening statements. It is all dualistic nonsense and quite frankly I think it is time to put a stop to these self-indulgent egoists. (Watch the response in the mind) What is true cannot be challenged by words – what is false is shaken to the core by any challenge to its erroneous foundations.
Despite what these self-indulgent ‘teachers’ say – There is nothing to teach. Those who make a fuss about the teaching are selling something.
On this point I say this: The introduction to your own true nature can be as brief as a few minutes.
The seed is planted – it will come to fruition naturally. All you need do is attend to it with care – respect.
As for these Dualistic Teachers, if you drop the belief in the concept of ‘time’ the bullshit these chaps go on about it extremely obvious.
But of course they will tell you that you can’t drop it – and you may agree or tell yourself you ‘can’ but then never actually do it. Then punish yourself in the mind with a story about your unworthiness or some story about how you are enlightened and no one will acknowledge it, especially your teacher. Can you SEE what a trap it is and how tempting it is for a ‘teacher’ to misuse such circumstances. Young women end up in the Gurus bed and wealthy seekers end up broke. It is an endless roundabout of mind games and then they call it satsang and they walk in and out of the room with an air of a ‘holier than thou’ atmospherics dripping from their silk robes. How is it this obscene drama of ‘Being Separate’ is not seen for what it is? What is it that obscures the clear SEEING? It is belief in ‘things’ that are not – belief in appearances. What IS is always clearly obvious. This is not about attaining some ‘state of being’ – It is about SEEING that you are prior to all states.
‘What is’ is not a state, it registers ever prior to the minds translation of ‘what is’. In our ignorance, ‘we’ take the mind translation as being REALITY.
“Wakey-wakey”, as they say. The ‘doer’ is a concept yet ‘doing’ is happening. The intelligence is ‘doing it all’.
THIS instant, right now, is totally unencumbered non-conceptual intelligence – the brilliant ease of being – the first and ONLY instant – prior to the senses, prior to the mind content.
Only because you insist on being in the mind amongst the content of mind, as a ‘someone’ is this brilliance SEEMINGLY obscured. That believed in ‘You’ can sit in satsang for fifty years, and in the basic nature of ‘things’ nothing will change – any state seemingly acquired will dissipate naturally.

You may have all kinds of wonderful experiences but they all disappear – and ‘we’ become a slave to our own memory of ‘what was’ and so we miss the ‘what is’ again and again – and we call it satsang. ‘People’ get offended and defend their offended-ness, instead of cutting to the core and SEEING what is true. The true essence of what ‘I am’ can never be offended. All offense is happening in the mind as ‘a story of me’. It will never leave you alone until you SEE it for what it is.
The only way out of the mind is FULL STOP. (We call the dot at the end of a sentence – a ‘full stop’).
Advaita means “One without a second” – and Vendanta means “The end of the Vedas – The end of the song”. When the story (song) of your personal life is over the clarity of One without a second is Obvious – it is obvious NOW. Why not SEE it NOW.
There are VERY FEW so-called ‘teachers’ that are pointing clearly and directly. Almost ALL of the popular teachers are perpetuating bullshit.
The Urban Guru Cafe may build a guillotine for ‘beheading’ these ‘pests’ one by one – in that ‘famous future’ that never comes.
But to return to the core issue:
All I can do is ‘point’ at the essence of what you are – you must recognize it – there is no teaching – nothing to learn.
There is no waiting to SEE. Seeing is happening. SEE what it is that seemingly prevents the clear cognition from happening. Going in this direction reveals that pure cognition is already happening and nothing is actually obscuring this wakefulness. It is not as difficult as you imagine it is.
What is true in uncompromising.

Rate it!   0

Sara says:

Gilbert,

Do you know anything about Ramesh Balsekar & Papajii?

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

Pausing a thought is easy. Don’t get drawn into the mind game about ‘who’ is going to pause a thought. What you truly are is the potentiality. Pause a thought. SEE that you do not disappear without a thought to support you. It is the idea of ‘me’ that needs constant support. It, the idea of me, may nudge its way back in but that ‘moment’ of SEEING without a thought is truly significant. SEE that when the mind returns it must be appearing ON that which was there prior to the thought. The wordless ‘I am’ is there prior to the words ‘I am’. The word is not the thing it refers to. The word ‘apple’ cannot be the essence of the apple. You cannot drink the word ‘water’. etc.

Let me say up front that it isn’t about the messenger – he or she appears simply to deliver the message. As John Wheeler points out in his programs somewhere, it is better to look at what is being said, see if it is true, rather than who said it. Basically follow what resonates clearly.
However, ‘humans’ melt down their gold to make an idol, just to comfort themselves, to stave off the unbearable nakedness of unattached conscious presence.
I have met Ramesh. I did not meet Papaji. They both have obviously had their moments of clarity.
Those who indulge in collecting seekers are not telling things straight. The fragments of the ‘me’ when faced with admiration and devotion well up and become a monster of the most insidious kind.
Putting that aside – the messenger can appear as anyone or anything. Once the message is delivered then the messenger is given a silver coin and ‘sent away’.
When the messenger is worshiped, then all manner of distortion arises and ‘seekers’ remain in bondage for decades and life times. Oddly enough the bound up ones will defend their guru to the death. How absurd.
As for Ramesh, I did feel something of Nisargadatta was still hanging around him.
However, since then, I have heard that he admits to having to re-examine Nisargadatta’s teaching in recent years – and he decided that Maharaj was WRONG. So he re-made his own teaching. You have to admire his blatant gall. He makes a very good living from it all. There are always thousands ready to wallow in a gurus ‘darshan’ – whatever that is.
Frankly speaking, I found him to be a loving being – but the message is loaded with all kinds of concepts that are extremely and clearly obvious to me to be erroneous.
Be that as it may, he attracts many from across the Globe and as I mentioned earlier – the message can come from anywhere – even from the most obscene representative of what we call ‘guru’. I am not referring to Ramesh there.
One of his disciples is parading himself as an enlightened being. That is absurd and the fact that Ramesh has not dealt with that crap, is significant.
There are NO enlightened beings, except in your own imagination.
One without a second – there is no duality in non duality.
No teacher, no teaching, no pupil and NO separation.
The glorified guru is just a distortion of the concept of separation – a glaringly obvious one – yet so few recognize it. How strange.
I don’t know if you get a glimpse of what is being pointed out – but this radical ‘pointing’ is uncompromising and nothing will be spared not even the one ‘pointing’.

Rate it!   0

suki says:

The word ‘Guru’, is commonly held to mean dispeller of darkness? (ignorance)
But I have been informed that it means heaviness in sanskrit?

He who is heavy with self knowledge! will attract ones’ without self knowledge like
a large planet attracting smaller celestial bodies to it self.(via gravity)

No where in the ancient (authentic) texts does it mention that outrageous sums of money or gifts be traded for teaching or pointing to self knowledge!- Nor the hideous
and totally unscrupulous demands by spineless corrupted teachers over their students!!

This ‘Knowing Intelligence Awareness’, that you already ‘Are’! Cannot be negotiated or become a transaction with a so called ‘Guru’!

True authentic pointing is never a negotiation or a transaction with a ‘person’!
It is totally ‘Impersonal’!

rgds,suki

Rate it!   0

abbocarnu says:

Writers write, dreamers dream, actors act, singers sing, lovers love. It is all the same and it is not the same at all.

Kindred spirits seek out their own kind, drawn like amalgamated quick silver back into the oneness we never leave.

I listen to the echo of your words and slide through them into my own and I believe this is the way it is supposed to be. We are the muses, the reflection of a creation so magnificent its possibilities are absolutely endless.

Now I see you. Now I don’t. One eternal game of hide and seek, peeking around corners, wondering — and discovering it is not so different as I might have thought.

Rate it!   0

Pricilla says:

Seen we are all putting forth opinions, I think Ramesh is probably the clearest teacher available.
The difference between the two of you is that he probably would not have any need to put you down in any way.

Rate it!   0

Randall Friend says:

The intelligence that is obvious, manifested as this world and that organism, the “body-mind” – is not split up – not two separate “things” – the intelligence/emptiness IS the form. That intelligence, knowing itself, is called consciousness or awareness. Only you call it “my life”.

Right now Life is looking at itself – in this there are patterns called “thought” which claim individuality of this organism, doership or individual sentience of this “life”. This “thought”, this intellect, is not YOU. What you are SEES this movement of thought, the intellect, as Ramesh calls it – the “thinking mind”… this intellect is an appearance. Yet it’s identified with as ME.

Pure consciousness or intelligence is the nondual reality – the appearance and the knowing of the appearance are not-two – it is only the intellect which says “I am seeing the world.” This split isn’t real, it’s an assumption of the intellect. This is blindingly obvious yet constantly overlooked as unimportant.

The ocean is waving yet the waves are only ever ocean. This intelligence is spinning planets in perfect order, functioning that body-mind organism, causing the plant to lean to face the Sun… The appearance is not other than this intelligence, manifesting itself TO itself, Life looking at itself.

We attribute this obvious intelligence to some superior and separate “Being” – that omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience is not somewhere OUTSIDE OF the universe – it IS the universe itself, which includes that “body-mind.” Just a “speck of dust” among a million billion – insignificant, a vast lack of importance – yet for this intellect that’s just not acceptable – to be insignificant…. so therefore the search for Enlightenment AS as “special” state.

What you are is that intelligence, that trinity of being/knowing/bliss, that “substance” which is not split up into a seer and the seen.

How to know this? Just look – whatever is happening NOW is it. Whatever the content of this moment is, that’s it. There are no “special” experiences, no “special” significant actions necessary – There is nowhere else to look. There is nothing else to learn. There is nothing to GET. The looking and the seen are THAT – that assumed separate God is only a concept – God is seeing Himself right now AS this and that, AS the seer and the seen. There is no “special” enlightenment experience – ALL experience IS THAT – ALL experience is PURE – pure experiencING – no seer or seen.

That is what you are. Pure power, the Universe itself, aware of itself, seemingly through an “individual” perspective, through “mind”, which is like a prism, breaking up the light of consciousness into “this and that”, into a “seer and seen”, into subject/object… yet the light is never actually broken up.

As Gilbert says – the SEEING is all. All is contained IN the seeing. That SEEING is consciousness, Life seeing itself, the intelligence that IS the world, aware of itself.

Where can you look and not SEE? Who is DOING the seeing? What is being objectified? These are all mental distinctions only. Full stop means STOP – right here and now – nothing is needed. Either there is a false assumption or there isn’t. Either way, it is absolutely irrelevant. Consciousness doesn’t need to find itself to BE itself.

Therefore it’s said – you are already what you seek – full stop.

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

Whatever resonates with you – follow that. It isn’t about the messenger. The true essence cannot be put down. The mask can be taken off at any ‘time’. Believing in the mask, one takes things personally. It is very simple.

Thoughts are seen from ‘space-like awareness’ and so thoughts need not stop – however for many the stop provides a cleaer view.
This ‘space’ is between each thought, surrounding each thought and penetrating each thought. There is infinitely more space than thought.

Rate it!   0

abbocarnu says:

It’s strange. We think we want to see Who we are; we think we want to be free.
But in all of us I perceive a great resistance. This resistance to seeing Who we are is largely due to the fact that seeing we are nothing seems to be the end of the story. If we can quickly go on to perceive that as nothing we are also all things, that it’s a case of trading one little guy for the whole world, then we can see it’s very good business. It’s not losing out. Quite the contrary. But the threat seems to persist. (Face to No-Face, Douglas Harding, edited by David Lang)

Rate it!   0

Kimo (Jim) says:

We see that we are never a thing separate from this Knowing or that which is Aware. The loving person, the angry person, the confused person are not who we are at center. Not because spiritual books or an autority figure tell us this, but because we look and see that we have never separated from this Knowing that I Am.

Rate it!   0

Dede Amescua says:

Thanks Dan, That does help. The recognition of thought, or noticing of thought IS the awareness and I can rest in that.
Until the next thought comes and sweeps me away, and I’m back in the story. But then the recognition of thought again- and awareness is there.
It seems to keep playing out like that for me.
I have had this expectation that “realization” has to occur in some some way that there is no getting drawn into the story again, like Eckart Tole or Byron Katie or others that report they just woke up one morning and the mind was suddenly and mysteriously quiet
I’ve wanted it to be that way for me.
Dede

Rate it!   0

tammy says:

are you saying none of the things like eckert tolle sitting on a bench and people being drawn to him and getting enlightment didn’t really happen or it happened but these people were duped?

couldn’t being lead to people like echert or byron katie be a stepping stone to seeing the truth?

Rate it!   0

tammy says:

i really do want to understand..

is it like when i have a dream while sleeping that my mind projects (as u say) stories of people and things and upon waking up my mind is still projecting all that i see?
does the mind project things according to what it has been programmed to see?
thanks

Rate it!   0

Pricilla says:

The truth of what I am is timeless – but the me that imagines and lives by concepts and stories is time bound.
I get what they are saying same way as I get what you are saying.

Rate it!   0

howdie says:

Eckhart is actually rather dangerous when you get to know his full story…why he keeps so much wraps on his past. and i assure you “no one” has enlightened around him, but many have had altered states of consciousness that those people are using to inflate thier egos.
besides. if he really did awaken, his path was via suffering, depression, hopelessness and total fear- not this being in the now pitch- thus he is selling something that was not in his story. but being in the now has sold well for 5,000 years…must be the “porn” of the spiritual industry.

b.katie is a master of hypnosis and nlp…not the best “leaders” to have if no self is your goal (their selves are doing very well off what they preach)

however i would caution against the no doer, nothing to do, don’t make any effort. while true, try that for 10 years and see what happens. in fact you have to work and be committed like hell, to find out surprisingly that no effort was ever required. a paradox that can only be seen from the doing. while there is ultimately no doer and no actions taking place independent of ONE action- only through total commitment could that glimpse ever be given.
I read a lot of these “new advaita” satsang givers that have sprung up all over the place…good gig if you can get it…and while they all preach no effort, stop doing, there is nothing you can do- if you really dig into their “story” there was immense effort and questioning or at least great life challenge that obviously forced them to search inwardly for answers. one of the most awake folks i know did almost no “spiritual work” but a divorce and career disruption really forced him to look into the depths of himself as to who he was and what he was doing here

this is such a good topic of discussion…

and gilbert i agree, controversy is good
“Knowledge comes from conflict”

Rate it!   0

Robin says:

Thank you Gilbert for being blunt and direct…I went to Byron Katie’s school for the Work and somehow “knew” something was not quite right…It goes back to what you said regarding following what resonates with you. This was extremely helpful to “me” to hear your thoughts regarding these teachers who talk about getting something in the future…A load feels lifted from here!

Rate it!   0

gilbert says:

NEW program about to appear. “In the name of your GOD”.

Rate it!   0

Dan says:

Dede -

Good point, but that is how it starts. Starting to develop a relationship with that Awareness behind the thoughts starts to transform the old way of functioning. It can be a subtle thing, but the important thing is that the relationship is beginning to form…

Eventually, there is enough time with the Awareness behind the thoughts to naturally allow yourself to realize that, instead of being the conception of a limited person that it feels like you are, you ARE actually that Awareness behind the thought. At that point there is no more going back, and that is the beginning of the direct knowing of ourselves and everything as Awareness.

I’m rooting for ya

Rate it!   0

smenon says:

A lot of it makes sense while reading, a lot of it sinks in. However, there is no denying the fact that when the actual drama of life unfolds we seem to be absorbed in it, it takes us in its breath. After a few moments we may find looking at non duality again, and amused at all this unfolding but the absorption that happens when an event hits you is undeniable. Isn’t it then that total absorbtion with what happens – that’s really happening? There are no trophies to get here, despair, sadness and anger are normal reactions which is delivered with fullest authenticity? Gilbert, could you please throw some light on this?

Rate it!   0

Kimo (Jim) says:

True enough, knowing doesn’t arise from any thing but still not a bad overall pointer given by ET. I enjoyed the soap, suds, and sand paragraph. Maybe something resonated with that guy after contemplating that even logically all things are contained in emptiness.

Rate it!   0