Urban Guru Cafe
Discovering what you truly are
32. ‘The Great Way is not difficult’ by Chien-chih Seng-ts’an + Bob Adamson
Posted on 03.16.09 6:03PM under Bob Adamson, Podcast
One of the most profound texts of all time on the subject of Non Duality. If one were only to have this text to contemplate, it is enough. Its rich content touches the unfathomable nature of our existence. Written by the Chinese Third Patriarch of Chan (Zen in Japanese). His name, Chien-chih Seng-ts’an or Jianzhi Sengcan. The author is also known by the name Sosan in Japan. It seems fitting that so little is known about the author. The text transcends ‘the personal’ and reveals something profound about our true nature. If you have heard it before, then listen to it as fresh and new – because it IS fresh and new. Ram Dass said he read it for a very long time without understanding breaking through. Then it opened up into a profound meaning (paraphrasing). One can listen to it many times and its profundity is not diminished.
This program contains Part 1 of 2 parts of the text. Part two will appear in due course.
The excellent reading of the text is by Ram Dass. The second half of this program is a visit to a meeting at Bob Adamson’s Place.
The extract from Bob’s meeting is from a down-load ‘meeting’ from Bob’s website.
It is called ‘Melbourne Meeting #3′ Please Note: IS NOW AVAILABLE via the link above. – Highly recommended.
Music by Samwad – “Raga Bliss”.
Yes it is all FREE and it has to be that way. No one is excluded by any intention on our part. For those who can easily afford to donate, a newly introduced Donation Tab appears on this site – top of front page (very small icon) near the contact icon and another at the bottom left hand side of comment pages. If you truly appreciate this site, please feel free to support the continuation of the Urban Guru Cafe. It is a non-profit project. Those who do donate ensure that these programs continue, for themselves, and for everyone. All inclusive is the nature of Non Duality.
Posted by gilbert on 03.16.09 6:13 pm
This text is quite remarkable. I read it myself several years ago and it gradually opened up into something like poetry. Listen to it a few times. The meeting extract from Bob Adamson opens with a comment about the text. This talk by Bob is quite exceptional also.
Relax and enjoy this program.
Posted by Dan on 03.16.09 6:38 pm
Yes, thanks – this combination ended and melted me into space...
Posted by michael o on 03.16.09 8:39 pm
Hi Gilbert……
many thanks for a fantastic website & excellent pointing, you’re saving me months and years of pointless seeking & allowing me to just stop & relax into what is and always has been. enormous relief felt here & deep gratitude. – Love your direct Aussie no bullshit approach……very refreshing.
curious to know what you’d make of candice o’denver’s instruction (same thing i heard from a venerable teacher of dzogchen in nepal), namely, “short moments of resting as awareness repeated many times becomes automatic” additionally she points out that there is no separate self to rest as awareness.
‘i’ feel it is really skillful as it invites seekers to release the continual gyro-scopic efforting to “get it” or “see the no-thing as something” & to relax into being what they are and always have been.
Posted by gilbert on 03.16.09 9:09 pm
You can invite the seeker as often as you like to do all kinds of things. It is useless.
The seeker can’t do anything at all. It is an ephemeral appearance.
‘When’ the essence that you are ‘hears’ something that resonates right through your being, there is no mistake about it. A ‘true teacher’ speaks to that essence – essence to essence – no separation. Intelligence ‘acts’ spontaneously and ‘things begin to happen’ as if by a ‘new order’.
Yet everything stays the same. It is ‘as if’ there is an ‘inner life’ that awakens. The ancient parables speak of this. Many of the ancient Fairy Tales speak of it also and yet the story remains in tact and children love them.
It is said that true esoteric literature has seven levels of meaning.
All levels are subsumed in the empty space of cognition – that is what you are.
It is formless and yet all forms appear in it.
In ‘the story about seeking’, I have known a few who have ‘gone on and on about’ this ‘resting in awareness’ thing – but their ‘state’ in the moment is obviously not restful at all. More like someone on a mission to convince at least one other, to reassure themselves of their belief.
I have known missionaries who have gone on and on about whatever they do and believe also.
Some teachers are reasonably ‘good’ (no harm) but once they are popular the crowds of seekers turn up and it all turns topsy turvey.
It turns into ‘a business’ venture and very few actually get to have a ‘one to one’ with the teacher. The teacher most often turns into a psycho nut case.
The conflict between ‘inner and outer’ in them, rip them apart and the ones closest to the guru get the brunt of it. There is plenty of evidence of this about. It is all hush hushed for ‘the club members’. One famous Loving Guru is a tyrant behind the scenes. It is outrageous to say the least.
Phrases like ‘just rest in the awareness’ turn into a mechanical phrase so quickly.
I have never met this Candice. My opinion is an opinion and I am not a judge. I would say that compared to some of the others she seems to be OK. Although, some have gone to India to do ‘the course’ and never even met her. That seems weird to me.
The basic thing to stick with is whatever resonates with being. If something only echoes around in the mind like a mental mantra, it is useless. Whatever opens up all the senses and puts the mind in its rightful place is worth paying attention to.
The Dzogchen Teaching is remarkable. But even that has been distorted by modern so-called teachers of Dzogchen. It seems lawful that anything that is pure and direct soon gets distorted by those ‘who think they know’. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and the other major religions have all been distorted by ‘translators’ and ‘authoritarians’. The essence message is still there intact but it is ignored.
An ancient text, well translated can ‘speak to you’ across hundreds of years – so much so, it feels like the ‘teacher’ is in the room with you.
It is Presence expressing itself.
But if you look closely – Everything is THAT.
Posted by milton on 03.17.09 1:20 am
What resonates with this being/space is: “such erroneous views will disappear by themselves..let things be their own way and there will be no coming or going…resistance=conflict=disease/discontent.” Is it possible that openness/no resistance is all pointers need to take root, just a little fertile ground, no struggle/effort needed?
Posted by su on 03.17.09 1:58 am
Who is to have no resistance or no preference?
Moving towards the state of no preference immediately ……..creates tension.
Another state to aspire to or merely describing the perfect way.
So Gilbert thanks for the bird calls in the background.
They blew me away.
Their awakeness, their clarity of call, their harmony.
Such absolute perfection.
You and them birds.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.17.09 3:51 am
Really nice podcast.
I’m new to all of this so bear with me if I have questions.
Everything that I have read or listened to so far here is felt somewhere in my body as Complete Truth. But I have a feeling that the information that I’m hearing is not what I am describing as the Truth, but instead that “Sense” that is left after the words are perceived IS what is seen/felt as Truth. Does that make any sense?
It’s like a Very Familiar, always present….YES…. before anything else.
Well that’s it for now except WOW>>>
Warmly,
Jason
Posted by gilbert on 03.17.09 6:52 am
“Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will no be able to know”.
The text is like a crown of jewels. Each sentence shines with its own brilliance.
Yet the wisdom is not in the text. It is what arises spontaneously in ‘our own intelligence’ (seeming ‘own’) that rings true.
Remember that there is no transmission. What you seek, you already are.
There is no separation. Non duality.
Note: The word ‘truth’ isn’t used much here. It is our true nature that resonates with the expressions. That resonance in being clears up the seeing…..clears it of obstacles in belief. The clarity of expression in the text is remarkable. Instead of trying to pull it apart, one should be open to its message. It has an alchemical nature, if I can be so bold as to suggest alchemy in this ‘place’.
SEEING is always naturally clear of course. It is a re-discovery of something ‘we’ thought we had lost. ‘We’ thought many things – each thought appears in the knowing. Knowing is prior to each thought.
No matter how clear and direct the pointing is, none of it is equal to the discovery one makes oneself.
Anyway, I know that this text is something ‘out of the blue’. Yet like all profound ‘things’ it is so easily passed over or ignored. Making a chore of understanding it is not what is needed. It is all about openness. OPENNESS like the SKY.
All the stories about ‘me’….those special ‘me’s’ isn’t going to help at all. It actually feeds the idea of separation, like throwing fertilizer on weeds.
Posted by Cameron on 03.17.09 8:33 am
Dear friends,
I’ve just been hit with a large hosting bill for TPN’s servers and bandwidth and unfortunately I don’t have the funds to cover it this month. So I have set up a special fund raising exercise via ChipIn which will run for this week. Out of TPN’s hundreds of thousands of listeners, I’m hoping a few hundred will be able to chip in $10 to help us stay on the air. Please click on the widget below if you’re willing to help out.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Posted by gilbert on 03.17.09 8:51 am
Hi Cameron. Not sure your widget came through the system. So, I advise anyone interested in helping Cameron out should go to the Advaita Show site and make their donation through that site.
Here is the link……. http://advaita.thepodcastnetwork.com/
The world economy is ‘biting’ in many places. Some things deserve being supported.
Posted by gilbert on 03.17.09 9:50 am
He who visualizes material things as celestial ambrosia
Deludes himself that a dream is ultimate reality.
………….
Now there is a lamp lit in spiritual darkness
Healing the splits riven by the intellect
So that all mental defilements are erased.
Who can define the nature of detachment?
………….
‘What’, ‘where’ and ‘by whom’ are nothing,
Yet the entire event is imperative.
Whether love and attachment or desire-less-ness,
The form of the event is emptiness.
From an 8th century poem.
Posted by Cameron on 03.17.09 10:14 am
Thank you so much Gilbert and everyone!
Posted by Vat on 03.17.09 10:18 am
Amazing podcast. Very profound, no doubt.
Posted by gilbert on 03.17.09 10:43 am
The ego is a fiction but it seems very real because of belief. Its roots are shallow but poisonous.
The ease of being heals quickly – but the poison MUST be removed…one way or another.
The subtle pointing of this ancient text undermines belief. It has a healing quality, if you open to it.
What Bob is pointing to is equally healing.
Posted by Mark Ellis on 03.17.09 10:55 pm
How does one remove the poison that you speak of, Gilbert?
Posted by gilbert on 03.17.09 11:06 pm
By SEEING through the belief in ‘ME’, that is ‘how’. It is transparent, an ephemeral appearance, an idea. No one EVER has SEEN an Idea or the ‘me’.
The clear space from where the SEEING is happening does not contain any thing, least of all a ‘me’.
Pull the seeing back into the space behind the eyes. Look into that clear space that you call ‘the mind’. Isn’t it clear and empty. Is there anything there. There are no old ideas laying around in the corner. Nothing obscures the seeing. This should be highly informative – but not for ‘somebody’. The intelligence that you ARE needs to recognize that it isn’t a ‘person’.
This is very simple. It is not some complex thing that one has to learn. Seeing is already happening. The poison is only belief in something that does not exist – and this ‘me’ is the ‘thing’ that ’causes’ all of your troubles. But all your troubles are so unreal, just like the ‘me’. Wouldn’t it be wise to take a look at it – instead of blindly believing in it – take a good look. SEE if there is any substance to it – SEE if it truly has any separate existence. If it is REAL, it will be there in its full glory. What you truly are is not an image or an idea. People go looking for the true self. How ridiculous a concept is that? You can only know what you are not.
You cannot know what you are.
HOW can that which is SEEING see itself?
What you seek, you already ARE. Full Stop.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.17.09 11:24 pm
Again, I am very new to these views so bear with me.
I have, since yesterday, listened to about 10 or 12 of your podcasts and some questions keep arising here and those are….. How come I am hearing about methods like self inquiry or this Full Stop thing and about how certain podcasts, (if I open to them) are “Healing” for ‘me’. Then there are ones that imply that there is absolutely Nothing to DO and that I AM Already THAT and that there was Never anyone here to Do anything in the first place. So I am left, seemingly with a whole lotta Nothing to Not Do and a whole lotta Something that I never Did???
Confusing, to say the least. Please Help>>>>>>
Warmly,
Jason
Posted by gilbert on 03.17.09 11:37 pm
The text says everything you need to know. Listen to the text.
But since you ask, an answer is required.
All expressions arise out of the same basic space. The expressions are all uniquely different. Most of them ‘point’ back to that clear space of KNOWING that you ARE.
What is being talked about is inexpressible so no words ever do the trick, so to speak.
One expression may resonate with you. Follow it. Like a Bell ringing it will diminish back into silence.
Every thought that appears, disappears back into that emptiness.
Even if you follow a thought, it will take you back into that emptiness – the thought fades away but you remain. This is the profundity that needs to be recognized. Not by a ‘you’ or ‘me’. Intelligence is ‘behind’ everything and the true nature of every thing is emptiness. Therefore it may now be understood why they say that “your true nature has NO words” and “Understanding is silent”.
“What you seek you already are”.
Forget about anything that ‘creates’ confusion. There are hundreds of pointers in these programs. Find one that resonates clearly.
Go with what resonates loud and clear. Everything else is baffle.
The parable of the workers in the field points out that the late comers get paid in FULL.
You may be new to this but that does not put you at any disadvantage.
The introduction to your own true nature is simple. The mind ignores it because that is its habit. The mind is time.
Recognize that which never changes. Your essence remains untouched no matter what appears to happen.
You will not be able to name that unchanging ‘something’ – but you will not be able to negate it. The recognition arises spontaneously.
The cognition is already happening. Cognition is Knowing – Seeing.
It is the mind that SEEMINGLY divides the Oneness (of things into separate ‘things’).
As an old saying goes: “The sum of all the parts is not equal to the whole”.
And “All the Kings horses and all the Kings men could not put Humpty together again”.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.17.09 11:51 pm
I see, so as long as there is a believed in “me”, then there IS something that the “me” character Can DO, like “listen to the text”, pause a thought and such.
What “resonates” here is this Entire Message, no matter which mouth the words are pouring out of at the time, so I’ll stick with the basics and just watch this “Me” play itself out.
Thanks,
Jason
Posted by gilbert on 03.18.09 12:00 am
No, the ‘me’ can’t hear or see, think or do anything. There is NO you.
It is intelligence itself that is appearing as the instruments of pure functioning.
There is no entity.
But these words are only pointing. You are not asleep. So the wakefulness must be present. BE that, start from that fact. BE the seeing, not as a form. It is naked seeing.
Everything appears in the seeing.
P.S. Someone else may have some light to shine on this ‘matter’.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.18.09 12:34 am
Wow, that hit home….somewhere in here… it seems so simple if I remember that I’m awake right now and start with that. It feels like EVERYTHING is Right Here, like there is no separation anywhere…wierd. Thanks Gilbert
Posted by suki on 03.18.09 2:46 am
The ‘Seeing’ is always there. When intent or focus is drawn into mind content such as the appearance of troubling thoughts or arising situations which may appear overwhelming or excite the mind, the ‘Seeing’ seems to shift into the background.
And momentarily or for longer periods is forgotten. But when one is conciously attentive to ‘Everything’ there seems a shifting to the forefront.
Make no mistake the ‘Seeing’ is always there whether there is ‘Re-cognition’ of ‘IT’ or not. ( anyway this is how it is seen here ).
Warm rgds ~suki
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.18.09 3:05 am
That’s IT, Exactly, Suki!
Posted by milton on 03.18.09 4:17 am
Jason: Good to see some fresh comments! I cannot make any sense of nonduality whatsoever, so I have stopped trying. Apparently there is no method, guidebook, or map that I know of. If a pointer hits home, I just trust it and see what happens, like you apparently just did.
Posted by will on 03.18.09 4:23 am
Milton,
“making sense of nonduality” isn’t an option. How could it be?
NONDUALITY.
If all is one — then you’re it! Yes? WHO is to make sense of WHAT?
It aint in the mind. The mind is in it. (not that there’s any it or any not-it to know it…….)
Posted by Charles D Hayes? on 03.18.09 6:02 am
What is the “I”? – A label? – For what exactly? – Isn’t the I a sound, “i-ee,” a reverberation of energy suffused with natural intelligence? – Looking into what the mind calls ‘I’ and not taking any answer on board … what is seen? – By whom? – Is there any ‘one’ seeing? – Or isn’t it simply Space-like, this awake emptiness behind the eyes? – Seeing? – Can seeing “see itself?” – Could space “know space”? – How? – The incredible honesty of the sky is it cannot know the sky… isn’t it plain and openly obvious that Space is neither one nor two? – Being Space … where is “other”? – Yet all these meaningless words appear to come and go in The Mirror of clear and empty “glassy essence” … Gilbert, who is and is not, shows me what I am and then yanks the chain to flush it! … “it” drops into the what-am-I laughing itself alive! – Bodhi Svaha! (Please note the above is fictional and does not represent any actual person or event, living or dead!)
Posted by gilbert on 03.18.09 7:09 am
The seeing is happening.
The mind tries to use ‘reason’ to explain the clear insight.
Let it be.
“Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know”.
The knowing is clearly present, whether there is thinking going on or not.
The ‘pointing’ can vary tremendously – but what is being pointed at remains the same.
A black box washes up on the shore. Everyone from the village comes to see it.
They stand all around it at a safe distance. When new comers arrive they ‘point at it’ and say “That is it”. Others think to themselves “What is it?” Most are afraid to voice this question lest someone answer it with ‘some unbearable truth’. Nearby villages hear about the black box and come to look at it. Tents are erected and discussions go on into the night and voices become whispers. The black box merges with the night.
After a few days groups form and philosophy is born. One group has one theory and another group has a different theory. Weeks go by. The theories get complex and convoluted and a general disease is felt throughout the villagers.
One of them realizes that they are not afraid of the black box.
This one goes up to the box and takes a good look.
This one SEES what it IS.
Even though this one announces to the others the ‘news’ very few ‘hear’ what is said – because they are already full of theories and doubts. Their belief bag is full – no room for anything contrary to this sealed bag. The bag may burst otherwise.
After a few hours of inviting anyone and everyone to go close and see for themselves, only one other ventures to look.
Fear of the unknown is a deadening ‘thing’.
ONLY ONE ‘other’ ventures to take a look.
Cognition is prior to re-cognition.
In time and sequence 1 appears before 2.
1. Cognition (seeing-knowing) is prior to 2. Re-cognition.
Seeing is Non-dual. The mind is duality.
The ‘only one other’ dissolves into the ONLY ONE – ‘the One and only’.
This is your potentiality.
Will ‘you’ squander it on hysteria, fear and doubt?
Posted by Fenn on 03.18.09 7:52 am
Yes, the seeker, like everything else is an appearance. An appearance in/on unbounded awareness.
This is what is invited to be ‘seen’.
How else can it be put?
It’s not that the seeker becomes a finder.
It’s that seekers, finders, confusion, liberation… and all else are ‘seen’ to be nothing other than the display of ‘that One essence’.
There is no see-er… just SEEING.
Posted by Vat on 03.18.09 9:36 am
The problem arises with excessive interest in the content of consciousness. Lose interest in the outcome of events and learn to see everything as temporary and transient and know yourself as beyond it all. Peace and fearlessness will come natural to you.
Posted by gilbert on 03.18.09 10:35 am
It is correct.
Yet there is no need to learn to SEE. Seeing is happening.
Is it not a matter of unlearning, so to speak. All these things are concepts appearing in non-conceptual awareness.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.18.09 12:09 pm
Gilbert, What do you mean by “Is it not a matter of unlearning”?
Everything, excluding nothing seems to contain itself as One while manifesting into the myriad of dualistic opposites, which seem to be needed to experience the manifestation. It’s like god (pardon me) having to fragment in order to experience itself… or something. I know, cease thinking and talking….
Posted by Ralph on 03.18.09 12:17 pm
Wow !! … so many pointers on who you are not ……….. and yet, there you are.
It appears that Consciousness plays the part of the separate self too, the joy arises when it recognizes itself.
In Consciousness, all is included and nothing is excluded , including the ‘belief’ as a separate entity .
Posted by Ralph on 03.18.09 12:20 pm
Jason, do not cease thinking and talking…. just know thyself.
Posted by Jesse on 03.18.09 12:47 pm
I’ve personally found that speaking/thinking in tongues can be helpful at times when the mind gets overwhelmed.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.18.09 1:58 pm
Know Thyself, Ralph? elaborate please??
Posted by Ralph on 03.18.09 3:10 pm
SEE that ‘thinking and talking’ is also who you are . Do not separate anything from what is. You are ALL of it. There is no ‘other’ and there is no ‘me’. All there is is Consciouness playing all the parts.
To ‘know thyself’ is to lose the’ separate you’ that you believe yourself to be. This is my interpretation of what is meant by the quote “die before you die”.
Posted by gilbert on 03.18.09 4:53 pm
‘Know Thyself’ was found engraved in the Temple stonework at Delphi. Also on another piece of stone was ‘Nothing in excess’.
So much has been pointed out already. The mind is a cesspit. If you keep going back into it, there may come a time when everyone will appear to refuse to pull you out of it.
As for unlearning – has all that learning really helped any ‘you’ in working out this ‘repeating problem’?
There is NO answer in the mind. This is repeatedly pointed out over and over.
Why is it dismissed?
Why go looking for an answer where there is nothing but more and more concepts?
Drop the thoughts and SEE.
It is exceedingly simple.
But the mind steps in and says “Who is it that is going to stop the thoughts”?
So many of the activities go on without any need of an idea of being a ‘doer’. Why do you need that concept when it comes to stopping thought. It is just another thought that gets in the way.
Obviously this is not being taken seriously, so to speak.
Listen to the program. If you are open to it, it will sink in.
Posted by Karl on 03.18.09 9:08 pm
“Is there such a thing as One Minute Wisdom?’ “There certainly is,†said the Master.
“But surely one minute is too brief?†“It is fifty-nine seconds too long. “
To his puzzled disciples the Master later said. “How much time does it take to catch sight of the moon?â€
“Then why all these years of spiritual endeavour?â€
“Opening one’s eyes may take a lifetime. Seeing is done in a flash.”
~
From Anthony De Mello’s ‘One Minute Wisdom’
Hence all this seeking
Posted by gilbert on 03.18.09 10:42 pm
This latest program is a culmination of the essential message, in my opinion. It is a relaxed delivery of some of the most salient points and ‘pointers’. Any one of our programs is well worth a second and third listen. The latest program has a potency that may reveal itself gradually with repeated listen-ings.
I highly recommend that you do that. This text played a significant role in my own so-called ‘efforts’ to grasp this ‘subject’ of Non Duality. Of course no one ever grasps it – but you know what I mean.
Warm regards – Gilbert.
Posted by kale on 03.18.09 11:28 pm
Freedom from the “me” is the only freedom worth having….
Posted by milton on 03.19.09 12:20 am
“Listen to the program, if you are open to it, it will sink in”– Amen!
Jason: For me it has been helpful to jettison the whole issue of: learning or not learning, talking/thinking or not talking/thinking, doing or not doing, etc….., that is to not get entangled in it (but as Ralph always points out, not to avoid it either, it has its inalienable right to be part of the whole) just let it be, so to speak. When I start to wander in the mind fields, I remember Bob’s words “Are you awake?…what else do you need” or the Hsin, Hsin Ming, “are you two”? “No, just one, without a second”– thank you, UGC. The simpler, the better for me, anyway.
P.S. One of my favorite lines from the text is: “If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease.” However, I have no idea what it means, but that’s ok… just like it.
Posted by Roger on 03.19.09 3:14 am
Gilbert, you strike me as a know-it-all wannabe Guru, what with how you’re always delivering instructions and wise little parables and metaphors and such.
I LOVE YOU GILBERTS!!!
Hugs,
Roger
Posted by Mike in SF on 03.19.09 5:07 am
“Any one of our programs is well worth a second and third listen.”
Yep, I’ve listened to the first two Wheeler’s clips more than 5 times. I think Part 1 is the best clip on UGC, not only for Wheeler’s words but also for the music and editing. The “Crashing the California guru game” clip is a guilty pleasure and there is some great pointing in that one too.
On a side note to Cameron: I pitched in my ten bucks. I hope that means you’ll keep on doing Advaita shows. I liked the stuff you wrote on the pledge drive page, especially this paragraph:
“However, we do ask you to think about the idea of the people funding their own media. We all know that if corporate advertising is the main source of funding for the media, it influences the kinds of media that is produced and the messages they carry. We don’t want that kind of media to be the only kind out there. We want an independent media, run by the people and for the people.”
Posted by gilbert on 03.19.09 8:35 am
What we are talking about is Non Duality. One without a second.
You ARE that ONE without a second.
Every expression that ever gets expressed anywhere and by anyone, or as anything, is both true and false.
It is the mind that divides this ‘Unicity’ into and as more of the same content of mind – in and as ‘the appearance’.
If there is a ‘you’ listening or reading and a ‘me’ talking or writing, then it is dualism.
EVERYTHING that has ever ‘happened’, every ‘seeming’ event, from the vast and gross down to the most microscopic ‘event’ is ‘OF the Appearance’.
‘Your whole life story’ is an appearance. Everything in that life is an appearence – the only exception is LIFE itself.
It never appeared – EVER. That is why it will NEVER disappear. Or you could say it appears as EVERYTHING without exception.
YOU ARE that living spirit – that deathless spirit. (Where is the doubt?)
You have NEVER SEEN yourself – what you truly are is invisible. Yet it is ALL inclusive. Instead of hiding behind a mask, let the light shine.
Instead of seeing the ‘other’ as separate, embrace it all.
the problem is that there is a thought called ‘me’ or ‘I’ who seemingly ‘takes yourself’ to be what it ‘appears to be’ as being ‘the real’, as the body, thoughts, states, moods, opinion, judgments. You only condemn yourself when you strike at the other.
This cannot be learned – yet ‘a lesson’ can assist in its revelation. Mystery.
As Bob says: “Start from the FACT that you are that ONE without a second”.
Then the mind only seemingly divides – it is seen and known for what it is.
Even time is seen for what it is.
P.P. Roger, I am not concerned with what you or anyone thinks of me. I may be ‘a tad’ concerned about what you think about yourself. Maybe ‘MY STRUTTING EGO’ when recognized for what it is by ‘you’ it is ONLY recognized because laying right NEXT to it is YOUR OWN ego. Hence the recognition. Actually, there is no ‘next to’, there is NO SEPARATION.
The ME is a fabricated material which actually divides nothing at all.
If you wish to take over writing a few comments, please go ahead. Maybe it is time to step out of that conservative straight jacket and share something.
In the appearance of ‘things’ there is a WAVE rolling through the appearance. The Urban Guru Cafe may be a small ripple in that wave.
It is all about the ‘force’ running through the wave. The water doesn’t move (much) but the impact of that force cannot be denied. Many are seeing through the appearance and the evidence comes in everyday, in one form or another. What have you done recently to assist this Wave? I have been at it for 8 or 9 years.
Yes, yes, it is all an appearance – but that is no excuse for complacency.
I can stir a dead cat from its grave and I can stir up the most sacred spiritual self-image, so that steam comes out of the ears.
There is no point in pretending to be whole and complete. You can only BE THAT.
Posted by Karl on 03.19.09 9:29 am
Gilbert said (Although not to ‘ME’)”If you wish to take over writing a few comments, please go ahead.”
Kept saying to myself… leave it alone!!!
You know that Gilbert always has the last word…
But what the hell…:)Had a few pints down the road… hic
The Search for Me and ‘I’
Then, there ‘I’ is, as a foetus with no understanding, no knowledge and no religion.
Then, ‘I’ grows effortlessly in Nature, but not so in Man.
Man has the habit/need to acquire knowledge (to become a Me…)
So very, very strange that we believe this to be a good thing…
This knowledge comes from other Man (Me’es), in words or books etc.
This is Duality, because everything in it exists only by it’s relationship to something else.
The value of Everything in “This World Order†is established by Dual thinking.
It is the “One and Only†language known to Man. Nature doesn’t use, or need, it.
Strange… that it should claim to be ‘One’
)
~
What was once ‘I’ has become Me, and Me is clever because of Me’es knowledge.
Me then lives and grows in knowledge, wealth, power etc. and then Dies…
Many Me’es, usually more mature Me’es, become aware that something is wrong, or at least ‘not quite right’.
They become seekers…
This seeking can start, for oneself, from any age but is a very strange, usually, illogical process that is inevitably seriously frustrating and is often dropped for years before one is caught up in it’s clutches again… and again and…
Why is that?
…well that’s real easy:)
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at
the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
Albert Einstein 1879-1955
Translated…
Me’es learned ‘Duality Speak’, as Mys’ ‘One and only’ language.
The use of Duality thinking will not get Me’es anywhere near ‘I’…
…because ‘I’ is another ‘language’.
It is the ‘language’ of non conceptual awareness… learning who ‘I’ is cannot be achieved with words.
Mind, your Mind, exists only in ‘Duality Speak’ and until Me learns to stop relying on words, it can never discover ‘I’.
Me was invented by Mind and it’s perpetuation is a Mind Game…
…Yes, a game, and ‘I’ smiles sweetly at it.
~
Karl
The Nutter from Nottingham
Posted by CDH on 03.19.09 9:46 am
All appearance lives as “language” and we miss what language appears IN … That prior-to-language Awareness-Presence-Life … this is just more language vainly attempting to point out the un-point-outable. Mind? Where is such an entity? “The mind is an extremely stupid stimulus-response time machine” yet where IS it? Unfindable. Enough (too much) said. Ha! Pass that longneck Fosters, mate!
Posted by gilbert on 03.19.09 9:58 am
My advice is LISTEN to the Program. That is where the ‘gems are’. These comments are just corks on the sea, bouncing around.
This is all words. The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and The New York Post are full of words and numbers. What does any of it mean WITHOUT that Knowing Presence (that you are)? See the relevance of that and it is enough. Then it doesn’t matter what anyone says or writes.
That is the whole ‘point’ (without being a point) of THIS, isn’t it?
The mind may have a thousand answers to any question.
But WHO is the questioner?
In this ‘garden’ there are beautiful flowers and ugly weeds. They are all equal.
I think it is very funny. Some say that the Urban Guru Cafe is great except for that Gilbert character. There wouldn’t be an Urban Guru Cafe without ‘him’. The incentive behind that character is LIFE expressing itself. Same same.
P.S. I used to enjoy a beer, very much so. Somehow, it has ceased to grab me.
Posted by gilbert on 03.19.09 12:18 pm
The KEY point is this: The mind divides (seemingly divides). That is what ‘we’ are doing all the time, without realizing it. Realize it. What does ‘realize’ mean? It implies that something is made real. No, nothing is ever made real. What it means is that the mind loses its seeming power of division – and so what is already ‘real’ reveals itself.
This mystery cannot be explained. You can only BE it.
Self-Realization is a concept projected to the ‘top of the pyramid’ by the mind. Then the mind tries to reach for this mind projection by ‘doing’ all kinds of acrobatic tricks and labors.
But HOW can it reach something that is its own projection?
The KEY point applies at every point in so-called ‘time’.
The mind only seemingly divides that which is indivisible.
Knowing this most intimately does not turn one into a bland spiritual being that utters only profound knowledge. It leaves you as what you ARE, free to express freely whatever comes up, without any ‘you’ being involved and without any concern for so-called consequences.
What ‘self-image’ is there to protect or flaunt?
Posted by Terence on 03.19.09 1:12 pm
I like the questions and potshots posed at Gilbert. The attempts at “informed sharing” not so much.
In the appearance of things, what are these people missing — this is your work and website, regardless of the fact you may refer to yourself in ‘third person’ as moderator, or producer?
But must say this, I’m kinda bummed there’s nothing to get…
Frowny faces are THAT too, huh?
Also, the annoyance experienced whilst reading Ralph’s and Scott Kiloby’s brood’s comments are just conditioned mind responses, correct?
Posted by suki on 03.19.09 1:12 pm
Without this projected ‘self image’, there is this sense if I may put it of total ‘Fearlessness’.
I’m reminded of one of the games we used to play in childhood – ‘tag you’re ‘IT’!
In retrospect this game played in innocence is profound to say the least.
There is no ‘you or me’ in actuality!ONLY THIS EVERDAY ORDINARY AWARENESS which sees through these eyes that are looking at the screen NOW!
This is not ‘my or your Awareness’, it just ‘IS’ simply ‘IMPERSONEL AWARENESS’.
The realisation of this fact may invoke hysterical laughter………..it seems REALITY is not without a sense of humour:)
Warm rgds ~suki
Posted by Sully on 03.19.09 3:00 pm
If AWARENESS is looking through these eyes that are looking at this computer then why is the AWARENESS seeing thngs as seperate? Why wouldn’t this space like awareness cause things to be seen as they really are (not separate, non dual). It would cause a hell of a lot less seeking to happen, wouldn’t it?
Posted by mark on 03.19.09 5:28 pm
“What if’s” just won’t cut IT sunny !; “The Whole is more then the sum of the parts” as the old Aristotle guy used to say. JW puts it like this: “The whole world of time and space is the expression of presence/awareness. So, full stop right there. There is no need to know or embody anything. It is the pure knowing which is already in expression.”
Just remember the eyes do not see. They receive, in the appearance, in fact there is only THAT
Posted by Terence on 03.19.09 5:39 pm
“Christ lives in our hearts”?
Posted by herman on 03.19.09 5:41 pm
Gilbert,
With this Understanding, Knowing you speak of looking at the ‘human experience’. What exactly is the phenomenon which is called self-consciousness? This ‘homo sapiens sapiens’ with emphasis on the second ‘sapiens’ that the scientists say sets us apart from the animals and which everybody knows as self-awareness. What is it exactly, how does it come about? It’s not a just a thought, this knowing what makes ‘us humans’ unique? Is it some loop in the brain that makes us look in a mirror so we know we exist?
thanks!,
herman
Posted by suki on 03.19.09 6:36 pm
Sully,
Name one thing that is ‘separate from YOU’?
ANYTHING!?
Posted by Sully on 03.19.09 7:00 pm
The winning lotto numbers for starters!
Just kidding I get your point Suki… but it kinda bothers me that it has to be such a mystery & so few people ever see that they are THAT!
Posted by Sleepless In L.A. on 03.19.09 7:54 pm
This one’s for Karl: Wrote it one afternoon when me was sober (Me Thinks ?) But believe me, me didn’t write this because this is not who me is! Confused yet? Read on:
Me Thinks
Me…thinks sometimes that….I…must be in a drunken stupor to have dreamed such a cruel joke as ….me…A …me… that dwells in the sorrow of conceptulization; a…me…that has choice, responsibility, rewards and penalties.
Sometimes…me…becomes so enraged with…I…that…me…wants to take up a huge sword and stab ….I…right in the eye, ending this huge hallucination.
But then….me…realizes that we (I and Me) would then be left with…absolutely….no thing!
And really…me…likes …me…to much to do it! END
A little levity sometimes is good, no?
Posted by Karl on 03.19.09 8:38 pm
Posted by Sleepless In L.A
‘A little levity sometimes is good, no?’
Yes:)
From
Karl
Just woke up in Nottingham
Posted by Jesse on 03.19.09 8:40 pm
I think it is kind of confusing to say “awareness is looking thru these eyes.”
No thing, whether it be “awareness” or “me,” is looking thru these set of eyes, or any other set of eyes. That is the illusion.
Awareness IS the eyes, the body, the thoughts, the imaginary subject and all the seemingly separate objects . Awareness is nothing appearing as everything. Awareness is Oneness.
As long as there is an idea that there is something called “awareness” that is looking thru these eyes, there is subject and object (separation)— awareness (1), and then everything else it is looking at (2).
This is a bit misleading, but… Would your body exist without the feeling of it? The very feeling/knowing/awaring of the body IS the body. And the same applies to everything else. The knowing of the computer in front of you IS the computer. The knowing/seeing of a thought IS the thought. There is no thing that is aware of your body, the computer, or thought— whether it be a “me” or “awareness.”
Which, by the way, means that your computer is aware. Scary thought, huh?
Posted by mark on 03.19.09 9:02 pm
“Which, by the way, means that your computer is aware”
It is not aware yet not separate from awareness, One essence appearing as everything. You are THAT ‘in wich ‘ everything appears yet IT doesn’t appear.
Posted by Jesse on 03.19.09 9:10 pm
Whatever. Words. The point is, the computer is awareness. We are awareness. Awareness IS the appearances. The computer is no less aware than we are! Of course, by that I am not saying that it has sensory organs!
Is it not funny, tho, to think of the “geninuses” in Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience puzzling over this mystery of consciousness, trying to figure out how “it” emerges from the brain or how “it” might be duplicated in machines…when the brains they study and the machines they create ARE AWARENESS. LOL!
Posted by Bill Tys on 03.19.09 10:17 pm
The existence of immediate and everpresent intelligence is clear and obvious.
From spinning planets to opening buds to hearts pumping…the unseen intelligence ‘acts’…
The imagined entity does nothing…the intelligence does everything.
It does not matter what flavour of mind content arises…it is all intelligence.
Even if a ‘you’ arises… it is the intelligence.
The intelligence is the content.
Whatever arises…there is only intelligence.
The intelligence is the natural state…you are the natural state…
The intelligence knows itself by patterning endlessly…intelligence looking at itself…
Posted by gilbert on 03.19.09 11:16 pm
There is ONLY NOW.
The story of ‘time’ is a fiction.
Every apparent event throughout ALL TIME has NOT compromised THE WHOLE.
The concept of being a ‘me’, the SEEMING separation, has NOT compromised THE WHOLE, it has NOT divided anything from anything else. It is ALL one PRESENCE – undivided by Time.
This is obvious in the very space that SEEING is happening. Where that apparent ‘you’ is seeing from.
When you look into this space (without any fixation on being a ‘person’ seeing) there is immaculate emptiness. There are no old thoughts piled up in the corner. There is no conditioned ‘me’ anywhere to be found. This immaculate presence-awareness is un-compromised by any ‘appearance’. It cannot be.
It is NO THING.
There is no negotiation that is possible. You are THIS presence.
THIS is Non Duality.
There is no duality in Non Duality.
Full Stop.
See that the me does not exist NOW.
In seeing that it does not exist NOW, then when could it EVER have been real?
There is ONLY NOW.
In seeing the truth of this, the truth of this sets ‘you’ free.
In one instant of seeing the bondage of self, it is demolished. It is less substantial than a mist. It is known in one instant that it never existed. AND……THIS SEEING is already happening.
It cannot be negated by any thought – not only because a thought is merely an appearance and a disappearance in what you ARE – but because a thought is an ephemeral appearance and has NO POWER whatsoever – it only seemingly has some power because it is believed in. Remove the belief by seeing that a belief is only a belief.
Everything appears in the KNOWING.
Posted by milton on 03.20.09 12:00 am
Feelings of incompleteness, of a lack appear,
Seeking appears,
Habit patterns appear,
And there is absolutely nothing I can do, or not do, about any of it.
Posted by gilbert on 03.20.09 12:09 am
This is NOT the path of devotion. This is jnana – KNOWING. You are that Knowing. Knowing is instant. There is no ‘other’ to be devoted to in Non Duality.
‘Devotion to form’ may lead to the intimate knowing of formless-nes – but it is a long path and requires complete devotion. Few ever ‘arrive’ because ‘time’ is beginning-less and endless. (“I am the Alpha and the Omega”)
The ‘me’ is resistance to ‘what is’. So, the ‘me’ is the resistance to what is true. Therefore the ‘seeker’, the ‘me’, is not interested in the profound pointers.
At any cost, or so it would seem, the ‘me’ will avoid what is true. Therefore, the seeking itself is the problem. The ‘me’ is a lie and it is supported by many other lies. ONLY the true essence of what you are will resonate with ‘the message’. The resonance is LIFE. The ‘me’ is dead, an image which has no independent existence. See this – know this. There is NOTHING so intimate as the knowing of this.
Milton: There is only one seeker that you need to be concerned about and that is the one that is believed in which you call ‘me’.
To Herman. This KNOWING is self-knowing. (the words are used like the words ‘self-adhesive’ is used)
The human being is an appearance is BEING. There is only One Being.
Each seemingly separate pattern is unique. A dog is a dog – it has the nature of a dog.
There is no ‘self-consciousness’. There is only consciousness, undivided – COSMIC Consciousness.
If ‘you’ look into the space where seeing is happening, it is found to be clear and obvious that the body is an appearance in the knowing.
Because of (a habit) a ‘long standing association’ with that body, it, the body, is believed to be what I am. It is just a story.
One Awareness is ALL inclusive, it includes all appearances equally. Equanimity.
The mind seemingly divides THIS into separate ‘things’.
As Siddharameshwar says: Duality is due to the ‘seer’ and the ‘seen’.
Spelling everything out in detail robs the so-called ‘seeker’ of the immaculate discovery.
The intelligence that you are needs to ‘act’ and discover what it is.
The most profound pointing is usually passed over. Its profundity is not recognized.
The ‘seer’ and the ‘seen’ cannot exist without SEEING. SEE-ING is presently happening.
The ‘seer’ and the ‘seen’ appear and disappear – they are actually thoughts.
This MUST be recognized. No one can DO IT for you.
If I were to convince you of this truth, it would remain as a concept.
The actual SEEING the truth of it is NOT a concept.
The ‘seeker’ appears as a wanting to be convinced but the seeker is nothing but an ignoring factor.
Are you that ignoring factor? No.
Posted by Jesse on 03.20.09 7:21 am
The ‘I,’ along with all its striving and feelings of helplessness, is also the Seeing/Knowing/Awaring.
Upon asking the question, “who am I?” or “am I aware?” (two sides of the same coin, as John would say), what do we find? Clearly whatever I am must be aware of all appearances. But is there anything we can find that is aware of all other things?
Kinesthetic (feeling) sensations happening throughout what we call the “body.” Visual and auditory sensations. Verbal thoughts which coincide with sensations of the tongue moving. A stream of hazy images or mental cartoons, which often coincide with movements of the eyeballs. This sense of contraction in the abdomen and knots in the throat that seem to coincide with a kind of mental grasping (seeking, striving, suffering). What is all this appearing to? Can we find anything? Isn’t everything we find yet another appearance, even the attempt to find something? Can an appearance ever be aware of another appearance? Can a “thing” ever be aware of another “thing”?
Any “thing” that we might assume to be aware of any other “thing” is also appearing… but to what? Can awareness/consciousness ever possibly be an object of awareness/consciousness?
The only thing that “I” could possibly be is no thing at all!
We could just as easily say that there is no “awareness,” because nothing we find can possibly be aware of anything else. And yet, paradoxically, it is impossible to deny that I am aware! Even the statement “I am not aware” registers in awareness.
As such, there is no one, there is no thing, aware of what is appearing. There is no seer, no subject, for even the presumed “subject” is an appearance. Thus, everything is appearing to absolutely nothing at all. There is nothing that is seen, for there is nothing that is doing the seeing. Everything is the seeing. Everything that is appearing is the awareness itself.
Posted by nathan on 03.20.09 7:40 am
Hi Milton,
Look into that feeing of lack….what is lacking exactly? Can you say? What is incomplete?
Don’t confuse letting things be as they are with apathy or hopelessness…those are just the opposites of belief and hope….and really exactly the same thing…just thoughts that are again traded in for other thoughts and believed in producing a feeling in the body that is labeled lack. Is it though, that you may still be clinging to a notion of control?
The nature of this appearance seems to actually be abundance…what more could you want if you see all appearances as inseparable from you…what is there to fear if it is all appearing IN and AS what you really are?
You know…when this text says ‘hold no opinions’ and ‘cease to cherish preferences’
That’s not to say that I can’t like broccoli more than brussel sprouts…or The Beatles more than the Stones, or whatever….these preferences may still arise, but nothing is attached to them anymore…happiness is no longer dependent on apparent objects, the outcomes of events, or any belief or opinion whatsoever….I think that’s an important distinction.
Nathan
Posted by billtys on 03.20.09 7:54 am
One key will open the lock!
Find one pointer that resonates…and the job is done!
Posted by nathan on 03.20.09 8:16 am
Ha! Indeed!
“The thinker IS the thought”
END OF STORY
Everything hangs on that…NO ME….never was never will be. That is the crux of this whole thing…
Posted by gilbert on 03.20.09 8:46 am
Chop water – carry wood. Laughing at the moon.
Posted by Terence on 03.20.09 9:43 am
“Who cares?”
God, I hate Non-Dual platitudes…. Is the entire game just thought?
“God.”
Posted by gilbert on 03.20.09 10:02 am
Love it or hate it. Where is the choice maker?
Oscillating between hope and despair while sitting on a picket fence is ‘suffering’.
Who determines that it is a game?
The mind loves games or so it would seem.
The high moral ground is flooded with self-pity.
Posted by Terence on 03.20.09 10:09 am
Christ, man…
Posted by gilbert on 03.20.09 10:43 am
Not sure Christ will help you with this one buddy.
Posted by Terence on 03.20.09 10:48 am
No dou’…
Posted by Betsy on 03.20.09 10:48 am
Love it… Keep it coming!
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.20.09 12:34 pm
Morality is the white meat of delusion~
Posted by gilbert on 03.20.09 1:03 pm
Oh, I see we have wandered into the mire. Which way back?
Listen to the program and all these divergent issues will resolve themselves.
The silent majority simply listen to the programs and avoid the comment pages. That is sometimes very wise it would seem.
Send the link to the Urban Guru Cafe to your friends – do them a favor, why not?
http://www.urbangurcafe.com
Simply cut and paste the url address into an email. You can then discuss the programs with them. Who knows? They may just SEE what is being pointed out.
Posted by nathan on 03.20.09 6:15 pm
“existence and non-existence are both empirical concepts no better than illusion…”
you are NOT thinking your thoughts….
sorry, but this is f..king staggering….and so achingly easy to SEE….somehow it is constantly forgotten overlooked…..well….have a LOOK SEE
all this past future garbage….there is only this this this…
Posted by Vat on 03.20.09 9:27 pm
Take your stand in reality, that which is unborn and birthless. One who has realized their true nature would say, I am that which prevailed before consciousness, I am that which prevails now and I am that which will prevail after. I prevail for eternity. Nothing can take me out of reality, therefore there is no fear at all. No insult or situation can affect me, for the impact does not touch me. I am beyond it all.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.20.09 10:39 pm
Sorry, but this is f..king staggering….and so achingly easy to SEE….somehow it is constantly forgotten overlooked…..well….have a LOOK SEE.
Was there ever a time, Nathan, when it WASN’T so achingly easy to see (for the dream character called Nathan)?? Just curious as to why you act like an impatient teacher when you spout your seeming profundity>> WHO ARE YOU?????????
Too many cooks spoil the broth, and that’s why I usually stick to Gilbert’s and Randall’s comments. Everyone’s trying to teach all of us unfortunate one’s and it’s just adding more confusion. At least that’s how it’s going down “over Here”.
Less is more,
Jason
Posted by Roger on 03.21.09 12:35 am
Awwwwwwwwwwwwww, poor Jason.
Does lil baby “me” need Gilbert and Randall to hold him for a while? Sprinkle some powder on his bum? Spoon feed him from a jar of pureed carrots? Tuck him into beddy bye and read him a story?
Does anyone have a teat for this unfortunate little “me” to suckle on?
Posted by milton on 03.21.09 12:43 am
Melbourne Meeting #3 is a gem! Thanks.
Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
Jason, can’t go wrong with Randall and Gilbert, or Bob for that matter. Just take what resonates, and leave the rest!
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.21.09 1:40 am
Thanx Milton, ‘I’ will>
and Roger, thanx, as well>
Posted by gilbert on 03.21.09 2:49 am
Those who make silly comments have them deleted. They get offended and slightly abusive. The deletion is just to save others from having to wade through unnecessary baffle. Most of the time these ones have a made up name. Very rarely do those who reveal their correct given name make such silly comments. These pages have a potential for ‘dealing’ with misunderstandings, genuine questions and inquiries. There are umpteen Non Duality site where ‘nutters’ can have their say. It always turns into an ego battle and one-up-man-ship mind games. Go read them if you don’t believe what I am saying.
This site is unique and there is a liberal tolerance for comments. Of course many may accuse me of playing such mind games. I can assure you that at no point am I suggesting that I am an ‘enlightened being’. There is knowing ‘here’ that the WHOLE is ‘enlightened’ (if we can use that word). Intelligence wipes away the obscuring factors so that those who believe that they cannot SEE what is true, actually get a ‘glimpse of it’. This site is not about adding confusion.
All it takes is one glimpse and the whole belief system begins to lose its hold.
Some ‘teachers’ suggest that there is a SUDDEN shift that happens. This is a disservice to those who hear that, because it is not the case. Even in the case of one who says that, it was actually a gradual opening up and no sudden event actually happened.
The habit of belief loses its hold by repeatedly SEEING the falseness of belief. A belief is NEVER the ‘actual’.
Even so, SEEING is happening uninterruptedly. Once the seeing is clear of beliefs and obscuring ideas, ‘one’ KNOWS that the SEEING was always PRESENT.
SEEING and KNOWING are the same (non thing). Only those who experience THIS know it is true. ‘Others’ still only want to believe it. Belief is the problem.
SEEING is happening PRIOR to what the mind translates. The mind re-creates images from the seeing – and ‘we’ take this mind translation to be reality.
More than a few are getting very clear glimpses via what is offered in these programs.
Those who harbor ‘grudges’ are the ones who hang desperately onto old beliefs in ‘me’.
True compassion will not hold back from ‘pointing’ out the erroneous beliefs.
Gratitude arises spontaneously once the glimpse is registered cleanly.
The basic problem is the automatic ‘insistence’ on being a ‘person’ wanting to ‘get this’ glimpse. The glimpse is nothing but clear seeing. The ‘decisive glimpse’ comes spontaneously without notice. There is NO ‘me’ in the SEEING.
The pointers are only potent when they are truly ‘heard’. Nothing excludes anyone here – SEEING is happening and it is prior to all ‘things’.
Can it be put in any clearer terms? If you can’t find what you need here, then find where ever you can – but FIND IT.
Posted by Ralph on 03.21.09 3:32 am
If I may add this quote I read…….
Humility, very simply, is the absence of arrogance. Where there is no arrogance, you relate with your world as an eye-level situation, without one-upmanship. Because of that, there can be a genuine interchange. Nobody is using their message to put anybody else down, and nobody has to come down or up to the other person’s level. Everything is eye-level.
Posted by Karl on 03.21.09 3:45 am
Hey Look Guys & Gals…
No Gilbert, No Randall… Just the… Xin Xin Ming
“When the thought is in bondage the truth is hidden
for everything is murky and unclear.
And the burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived
from distinctions and separations?
If you wish to move in the One Way
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with enlightenment.”
Karl The Nutter from Nottingham
Posted by Ralph on 03.21.09 4:01 am
Yes nathan, you are NOT thinking your thoughts….
….. and yet in the very next moment you are thinking your thoughts again….. mind boggling, isn’t it ? …… ‘getting hooked ‘over and over again.
The beauty of it is when you ‘catch’ yourself when this occurs over and over again… this is where true freedom lies, not lost in thoughts but instead being in the present moment…….and seeing from there.
Posted by nathan on 03.21.09 6:06 am
Jason. Not trying to teach, not trying to offend or confuse….not trying anything. Was there a time when it wasn’t easy? Yes…there was a day or two when I wanted to rip my hair out and curse the day I ever heard of Non-Duality…but this ‘experience’ or whatever you want to call it is meaningless for YOU….that first sight however is timeless, a door that was seen to be always open if you just stop trying to open it! There seems to be a huge difference between taking these pointers and running them through the ‘mind mill’ in the hopes of becoming something other than what you are, and just simply letting go…letting a pointer shock you into silence…silence is the only answer…and that silence is always present…
But what does any of that matter? You are the only one that matters…
Ralph…yes…that beauty is a constant meditation…some call it ‘praying without ceasing’
But there is no you to who is catching….it is all only seeing….hahaha!! AMAZING!
Posted by tomvds on 03.21.09 6:12 am
Yes Ralph, wasn’t it Nisargadatta who said that life seemed to exist out of ‘hooks and eyes’, like VELCRO the experience of Life seems to be STICKY …”Life is SIMPLE NOT EASY”; the one who is supposed to catch him/herself over and over again (isn’t that the definition of HELL? calling that ‘true freedom’ must be some sick joke) is just a self-perpetuating story happening, completely impersonal.
“Seeing from there..”?
—> “Where are you truly seeing from” !
“The beauty of it is when you ‘catch’ yourself… ”
—>”Slowly, slowly, catch a monkey” Are you the monkey you see in the mirror? WHAT ARE YOU?
Posted by Ryba on 03.21.09 6:51 am
Hey Folks
thanks so much for this fantastic format to communicate the indescribable. Very enjoyable interviews Areti 
.
Just one question: whatever happened to podcast #13 with Scott Kiloby?
Keep up the great work! Greets from Poland
Posted by Ralph on 03.21.09 8:27 am
Who or what am I ?
I AM all that is ‘arising’ in the present moment. I AM all of it. Lost in thoughts is also who I AM, ….. also the SEEING of lost in thoughts is also who I AM.
In short, I AM ‘everything’ and ‘nothing’.
Now, either I have one HUGH EGO or there is ‘just seeing’ my true nature including the ‘little me’ that is still here arising as a separate self.
I AM THE WHOLE FUCKING THING AND NOTHING !! …..thats who I am .
…. sorry for yelling but I just wanted to make sure I got the point across
Posted by Ralph on 03.21.09 8:37 am
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together……goo goo g’joob.
- The Beatles.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.21.09 9:14 am
The mind wants to read this in hopes that a jewel lay within the vast amount of lines and dots. A jewel that will buy the seeking game out with all of its attendant suffering… IT NEVER HAPPENS this way, as the Jewels are Never Not Here and the Very Looking obscures the view.
Nathan, are you Thailand Nathan? AND I just wanted to know how it was when “you” were searching and if it was always so achingly easy to SEE, for Nathan.
But of course It Wasn’t and still Isn’t easy for Anyone with a name….who seeks.
The mind is SO used to finding an answer, it feels like a well worn groove that has an automatic quality to it and arises unnoticed, most of the time.
Now when Ralph says, “‘catch’ yourself when this occurs over and over again…
there is a sense that I can still DO something about this search, like Trying to be present or something.
Enough confusion may help the brain/mind to implode upon itself and
THEN I’ll BE FREE…. Just Kidding>>lol or Not>>
Thanks All,
Jason
Posted by Ralph on 03.21.09 9:30 am
Jason,
Use the mind to know the mind to get beyond the mind … but for god sake, USE IT, don’t be a zombie about it.
Yes, the answer is not in the mind but what other tool do you have to see that. Just telling yourself ‘I am not the mind’ or ‘the answer is not in the mind’ is simply NOT enough.
Posted by gilbert on 03.21.09 9:42 am
Listen to the programs.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.21.09 9:51 am
O’tay**
Posted by gilbert on 03.21.09 10:17 am
To answer the recent question from Ryba above:
We had a short straw draw. Scott drew the short straw and got #13. As we all know it is a jinxed number. So after a short while the program was removed with Scott’s instruction to do so. Other ‘elements’ were ‘involved’ but we need not go into those. So this ‘building’ has no 13th Floor. Everything you need can be found on the other floors. Thank you – Admin. This account is tongue in cheek.
Posted by gilbert on 03.21.09 11:03 am
EVERYTHING has is ‘place’ in the SCHEME OF ‘THINGS’. You are not ‘a thing’.
Only by taking yourself to be ‘a thing’ is there any catching upon hooks happening.
As Nisargadatta says: “Straighten the hooks and then everything slips by” (paraphrasing).
The FREE e-book “Everything is Clear and Obvious” is available on my website. It stops the mind, according to umpteen emails I have received, all saying more or less the same thing.
I know it is true because it happens when I read it myself. Something is re-cognized, as though it had been forgotten – yet it is nothing but cognition happening. This knowing (cognition) is always happening. It is an odd thing, I can tell you, to read your own writing and experience this stopping of the mind. The ‘old mind’ says “who wrote this’? – It wasn’t ‘me”. Ha.
I like the analogy that came up ‘here’ a few years ago, about being in the thick of a forest…….where the trees are almost crowding you with claustrophobia…..and then walking slowly in the direction of more light……the trees get less thick…..then spars….and eventually you find yourself breathing easy in a desert…(with no reference points)….outside of the ‘Me Forest’………it is only in retrospect that the seeing ever seems to have been not clear.
This analogy or metaphor is counter to the story about some sudden awakening. The ‘Big Bang’ concept of a sudden beginning is similar.
Our mental model of the universe is just a concept and it will NEVER fit the Actuality. The Actuality is Clear and Obvious RIGHT NOW.
- read the e-book.
Posted by nathan on 03.21.09 4:02 pm
Hey Jason…really not trying to be obfuscatory, but it doesn’t matter one bit what happened or appears to be happening ‘here’….you have to understand that it really doesn’t even matter to me…linking up ‘events’ and trying to ring out some meaning is a dead end. The past is dead. ‘This’ is doing everything….I can’t take credit for a damned thing.
‘This’ whole thing snuck up on me…but the kindling for the flame came from J. Krishnamurti ….’choiceless awareness’…just be aware…watch everything…you don’t need to ‘do’ anything to do that…and the funniest thing is that you never have done anything anyway!
Oh…and not Thailand Nathan….though being back on Koh Tao sounds mighty nice….
Posted by Sabine on 03.21.09 9:09 pm
Hi Gilbert,
I’ve picked up your book again and upon reading it slowly (a couple of pages a night) I have found that it resonates more than before, though at the time, I didn’t expect it to, as it does. Like you say there’s a gradual opening up when you relax in being, but knowing that the knowing has always been there. Knowing is Love. Thank you for the book, your patience and hard work.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.21.09 9:36 pm
Cool Nathan, Thanx**
By the way, I finally realized the futility of Hope, upon reading this in the NY Times:
Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and
oil, The Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off.
We apologize for any inconvenience
PS (puppetji is back on YouTube, spouting profundity on the economy & Easter)
Keepin it lite,
Jason
Posted by gilbert on 03.21.09 11:09 pm
The one reading this may be of average intelligence or even the brightest intellect of all.
All are equal at the source of Being.
You may be a Professor of History and imagine that you have a complete understanding of your field of knowledge. Biologist, Physicist, Computer programmer or any field of knowledge, it is all relative. All the knowledge in all the world is not equal to a nanosecond of pure knowing. This pure knowing is NOT located anywhere. In fact all living beings share it in THIS instant. Knowledge is dead. Knowing is LIVING.
You may imagine that your past weighs heavily upon your soul and that you may never escape its clutches. You may believe that your conditioning is insurmountable.
All that can be done is to POINT beyond such ‘things’.
By what intelligence does your heart beat?
By what intelligence does your brain function?
By what intelligence does the Earth move upon its invisible axis?
By what intelligence does the Sun move in the sky?
By what intelligence does this galaxy rotate on its axis?
By what intelligence does that body, which you call your own, heal itself from its ills?
By what intelligence do these words register before any thinking about them happens?
By what intelligence does a dolphin know how to navigate in dark waters?
By what intelligence does the Whole Manifestation appear in THIS instant?
By what intelligence does the ‘me’ believe that it is the ‘doer’ of so many things?
WHO are you?
Where are you SEEING from?
Posted by alcofribas on 03.22.09 12:19 am
OK Wannabe Guru,but don’t forget to pay the bills!
Posted by CDH on 03.22.09 1:49 am
Gilbert wrote “We had a short straw draw. Scott drew the short straw and got #13. As we all know it is a jinxed number. So after a short while the program was removed with Scott’s instruction to do so. Other ‘elements’ were ‘involved’ but we need not go into those. So this ‘building’ has no 13th Floor. Everything you need can be found on the other floors. Thank you – Admin. This account is tongue in cheek.”
Love that! I just watched an amazing film, “Revolver” with a great actor, Jason Stratham. See what happens as the character “discovers” something in an elevator near the end. Don’t try to figure this film out! It’s just a meaningless story BUT something can happen as the mind get’s “dumb-founded”.
Hey Gilbert? I have a later translation of this text on my site; authorized by Richard Clarke, the translator. The first line in the later translation reads, “The great way is not difficult for those NOT ATTACHED to preferences”. I found that line more potent interimly … preferences, clearly a function of the organism’s brain, its “operating system†of DNA and environment. I realize that is dualistic but … so what?
Or is that just looking at the finger and ignoring the moon? Sure. Again, so what?
Cheers Gilbert!
PS: “We add ‘ourselves’ onto what happens. That’s when the shit hits the fan!â€~Tony Parsons
Posted by CDH on 03.22.09 1:58 am
PPS: Ultimately the line, as read by RD, seems more powerful a “solvent” … “The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences”.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.22.09 3:03 am
It seems here that the author is speaking Not to “me” but to who I AM.
To HAVE no preferences implies a ‘someone’ who can have anything.
BUT>
A baby (before the ‘me’ thought) has preferences, dry to wet, warm to cold,
full to hungry and all is just a part of the natural functioning.
To “Take a stand” for one thing over another is all built on the pseudo foundation of this identity and has absolutely no reality of its own.
Just adding ‘myself’ onto what is happening oops… do you smell something?
Jason
Posted by CDH on 03.22.09 3:25 am
Gilbert,
It “seems to me” that for most who “seek wholeness” the core belief “I am this body” is the last to be seen through. I think it would be great if you could do a podcast on that topic, and/or comment about that from your perspective of no perspective … one point that came up for me as a semaphore is, resting my hand on my thigh, is the hand separate from the thigh? Aren’t both the body – neither hand nor thigh is actually separate at all … except as mental noise? In the same way aren’t both “body and universe” one Presence (as Bob says, PRE SENSE) … the timeless a priori being-aware-awake … never could have been “separate” but a sense-feeling-thought of separateness makes it APPEAR there is “separation” and “Changes that seem to occur in the empty world we make real only because of our ignorance.”
Love to hear you discuss this business of the false conviction “I am this body and the world is out there. Me and world, me and other, it seems like this lie depends on the idea of being a form with a name that is apart and can be harmed or could die.
What say you?
if you remember … give The Bobster a big hug for me today and tell him I LOVE that #3 meeting audio. Happy Sunday…
PS My favorite “unanswerable riddle” now … which came fist? The sperm or the ovum? The man or the woman? The Space called “Awareness” … or the Earth?
Posted by Sergio on 03.22.09 3:25 am
Gilbert said :
“Send the link to the Urban Guru Cafe to your friends – do them a favor, why not?
http://www.urbangurcafe.com
Simply cut and paste the url address into an email. You can then discuss the programs with them. Who knows? They may just SEE what is being pointed out.”
My friends are spanish … and they don´t trust me… they are on the guru game….
What to do with them? …… i doubt they will appreciate the clear seeing.
The people really need a guru?
… If i say, i don´t need a guru…. they think i´m an egotical being….
Posted by CDH on 03.22.09 3:33 am
Sergio,
There is NO One who is NOT Timeless Being-Awakeness prior to time, NO “you and other-than-you.” Where are you and other apart from words? The word I is pointing. To what? Wordless Thoughtless Being. There are no “others” who “need a Guru” yet in the appearance the happening of organisms that appear separate such as Bob and Gilbert will speak out of nowhere NOW HERE “From I AM to I AM” ….
I suggest, drop any concern about “other” and make sure YOIU are clear and then some expression might come out or not but there will be (as it is now) NO “idea” of teacher/student dualism.
I AM is NOT the CONCEPT “I am, I am this body, I am ‘me’” … NOT an object or thing that a brain-mind-organism appearance can grasp, own or know. The only thing the mind can say is, not that not that.
THIS is The Endless Gift of Unknowing Freedom.
All there is is That. Full Stop!
Posted by Roger on 03.22.09 3:45 am
Found some good quotes from Wei Wu Wei, in his book “Open Secret”–(I wonder if Tony Parsons knew there was already a nonduality book by this title?)
“The burden of the Heart Sutra
Is not the nature of objects
But the seeing of them,
Which is what they are.”
“There is no humility, only degrees of pride.”
“SEEING PHENOMENA as noumenon is true seeing.”
“There are no ‘things’ (objects) apart from the cognising
of them: there is no cognising apart from the ‘thing’
cognised, because there is no cogniser.”
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.22.09 4:13 am
Charlie Said:
Love to hear you discuss this business of the false conviction “I am this body and the world is out there. Me and world, me and other.
Until that happens here, I suggest Randall Friend’s podcast “The Subject I”.
VERY CLEAR on the “ME” perceptions including duration, distance and “Other”~!
http://avastu0.blogspot.com/
Posted by CDH on 03.22.09 5:22 am
Good suggestion, Jason. Randall is Crystal. Yet Gilbert often says things in his own style which hit home where others may not. Given that EVERYONE is THAT, ANY expression may plink the bell….
Another fave from Wei Wu Wei:
“It is necessary to understand that I Am,
In order that I may know that I Am Not,
So that, at last, I may realise that,
I Am Not, therefore I Am”.
Posted by gilbert on 03.22.09 8:17 am
The mind translates the impressions that register in the immediacy.
That which the impressions register upon is not small nor large, not microscopic nor vast.
It has NO dimension at all.
So, it has no location in time or space.
This mystery is impossible to solve because it is not a mystery at all.
Just like the ‘event horizon’ – no one knows what lies in that ‘Black Hole’.
The event horizon is what you are looking at. The world.
The Black Hole is behind the eyes.
Nothing is lost in the Universe.
Where does the information get stored?
It does not get stored anywhere. It never existed in the first instant.
“One small step for Man”? – One giant stumble for mankind.
“When I see that I am nothing – that is wisdom – when I see that I am everything, that is love – and ‘my life’ moves between these two” – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj quote.
‘When’ the knowing is clear and empty of the ‘knower’ the ‘world’ is No Thing.
It is not ‘seen’. The so-called event horizon ‘expands’ into boundless-ness – no boundary – no event. THIS is obvious right NOW.
Equanimity is not a contrived mind posture.
‘You’ never existed in the ‘First Instant’ – the ONLY instant is timelessness.
‘Who’ wants to know any of this? Truly.
There are NO customers for this knowledge.
I am ALONE (All One) One without a second. ‘Who’ can I tell about this?
Nothing ever happened.
This is clearly obvious in the clear space of cognition – right there where ‘you’ appear to be.
Have a look.
Did you see the tail of the rat disappear behind ‘the ice box’?
Posted by Margo on 03.22.09 8:53 am
Gilbert,
This question without answer begins to really drive me crazy -
” Where are you SEEING from? ”
Upon investigation it is known here that ;
1) I am Not this body or mind
I am this SEEING – all is included in this seeing
2) this “me” is just a thought-fictional entity created by the mind
3) this thought “me” cannot see
4) eyes cannot see and they are not windows to the world “out there”
5) if the eyes are not windows and there is no “me” that can see ,then there cannot be a world “out there”
6) this body-mind appears in what I am
7) I am space-like awareness
Where am I seeing from? and where is this world appearing?
I know that this understanding is not to be found in the mind or is a logical puzzle to be solved by intellect !
Can you answer this question or point the direction? THANKS
Posted by Roger on 03.22.09 9:11 am
“where am I seeing from?”
from nowhere, from nothing… and not even that, ’cause those are still just concepts (objects). there is no word to put on “it,” ’cause there is no “it” to label.
Posted by Ralph on 03.22.09 10:02 am
“where am I seeing from?â€
First, find out ‘who’ is asking the question ? and then see if you still need the question answered.
quote : “What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that” .
Posted by Ralph on 03.22.09 10:06 am
Is everyone still listening to the programs ?
c’mon… lets see some comments flowing again.
the cafe is still offering free coffees.. so take advantage of this
Posted by dorothy hoffman on 03.22.09 10:32 am
From where am I seeing?….is there a “me” seeing or is seeing is just happening…
Posted by CDH on 03.22.09 10:52 am
What claims an “I” seeing “from”?
There is no separate I yet “your” c;ear and empty being IS.
Find wjhat the mind refres to with that word I. As John Greven points out, BE RELENTLESS until the Source is clear.
It is absolutely clear and obvious, isn’t it?
THAT IS … yet THAT is Not-a-thing. Unknowable peace…
That I AM – That Thou Art – That is All
The First Instant is before now.
“Self-shining, non-conceptual, ever-fresh, Presence-Awareness; just This and no thing ‘else’…….
Posted by Margo on 03.22.09 10:56 am
I guess the answer to this question “Where are you Seeing from?” can be found in the introduction of “Everything is Clear and Obvious” (the free e-book that Gilbert offers on his website)
Here it is:
“Right THERE where these very words are registering, via the pure function of seeing, there is nothing that you can know of as ‘something’ which is registering all the (millions of) impressions.
It is not a screen, nor a bunch of brain cells. It is space-like. It is all too obvious and we normally miss it altogether.
There in that space-like awareness, there is an indescribable sense of open space with no boundary to be found anywhere. It has no qualities that one can objectify.
One could call it ‘clarity’ but it is best to leave it nameless.
In this vast open space the whole world appears, including the body with feelings, sensations, thoughts, states, etc.
Nothing actually alters this space-like awareness. It is unchanging and timelessly present. It is presence itself.
Discovering this ‘invisible presence’ to be your true nature, somehow, mysteriously, it releases the habitual identified consciousness. One’s natural presence is found to be an ease of being and totally unencumbered.
In this space-like awareness, there is no one to have or not have any claim or ownership of it.
It simply is.
It is pure wakefulness – absolutely stable, it is the Un-mediated Knowing Presence – of itself.
Everything else appears in THAT and is the movement and the changing – energy – Livingness.
It is by this movement that ‘knowing’ happens.
(If you move your arm about in that space, you may know first hand the immediacy of un-mediated knowing.)
Everything registers directly and immediately in and on presence awareness.
It is too obvious to notice as long as old ideas pervade the mind and it is impossible to objectively ‘see’.
The FACT is: it is the SEEING.
I am That.
Posted by Jason Freeman on 03.22.09 11:23 am
Holy Shi* and WOW, Margo>
Posted by Ralph on 03.22.09 12:14 pm
For me it is obvious, ….
If you have trouble ‘seeing’… perhaps you need to see an optometrist.
Posted by LarryThomas on 03.22.09 1:43 pm
I get that there is no “me” to see but is Space like Awareness seeing through each body’s eyes?
Posted by gilbert on 03.22.09 5:26 pm
SEEING is happening…..not through anything, any thing. Everything APPEARS in the SEEING.
Even the ‘eyes’ are an appearance in the seeing, a pattern of energy, facilitating this act of seeing but the eye cannot see itself.
SEEING is not limited to the eyes.
All of the senses cannot be divided from each other. All the senses register on ‘what’?
Isn’t it the same ‘place’ that seeing is happening?
SEEING is also KNOWING.
SEE that the body is an appearance in the SEEING.
When Nisargadatta says: “You are not the body nor are you the mind”, he is not reciting some spiritual jargon. It is an immediate ‘directive’.
Don’t get all hung up on any word like ‘who’ or ‘you’.
WHO is far too associated with the ‘stories of who’.
I don’t suggest the usual asking of “who am I”?
“Where am I seeing from?” is far more productive – but it is a total challenge to the belief system. The belief system will never come up with a suitable answer.
The question cuts to the very core of WHAT I AM.
Start there. BE THAT.
Everything falls into place, not in some superficial way.
The WHOLE manifestation is the Active aspect of awareness, the Dynamic Display of awareness itself. The Passive aspect is the instantaneous resolution of every action.
The Neutral is the Un-manifest – the Peace beyond appearances. (This appears as a ‘state’ of impartiality)
THIS clear and empty space of knowing is totally present – not as a ‘person’.
It is what you are. It is not made of anything. It is not a repeating pattern or habit.
When ‘you’ enter this space of clear and empty knowing ‘you’ NEVER return.
All beliefs are rendered passive and unnecessary.
KNOWING remains ‘forever’ and even though a ‘process’ of revelation may appear to happen. None of it is EVER anything but KNOWING.
It is ALL KNOWING – ALL PRESENCE and ALL Potency. You are THAT.
Where is the doubt?
Doubt is a thought.
The essence of what I am saying was pointed out to me by Bob Adamson.
The words are different but the underlying equation is the same.
Whatever you think you can ‘do’ – it is useless, compared to the discovery of this underlying equation.
It is obvious as ‘what you are’ (not ‘who’ you are).
Abide in the clear space of knowing and SEE.
Be patient, it is very subtle – and the mind is accustomed to gross sensations and experiences. It is expecting ‘something’ gross and ‘big’, an ‘event’ in ‘time’ because it is time – the mind is time. This is why the mind misses it, overlooks it consistently.
DO NOT imagine this subtle realm.
Stop thought and Taste it in this immediacy.
It is an introduction to your own true nature.
No one can give it to you.
Those who try to sell it to you are daylight robbers. Cast them aside.
SEE for yourself. There is NO OTHER way.
This information is freely given. There are no seminars, workshops or years of service required here. This Direct introduction is all that is necessary.
If you wish to donate something to assist the continued presentation of the Urban Guru Cafe, there is a donation tab on this page at the bottom of the comments section. Another appears on the front page at the top.
Posted by gilbert on 03.22.09 8:53 pm
Where do you imagine that you will find ‘the true’ (truth) if not in this ‘right here, right now’?
In the future?
In the past?
In the present?
Most will say ‘in the present’.
What is the present?
It is not the word ‘present’.
Could it be ‘Presence’?
It is not the word presence.
Most believe that they will need to ‘awaken’ before they can find it. It is a fairy tale.
Did some wicked witch enchant you? Are you sleeping for a hundred years?
Where do you think you will find this wakefulness?
In the future?
In the past?
In the present?
Wakefulness is not the word wakefulness.
Awareness is not the word awareness.
The enchantment was made and cast with words.
The enchantment is broken by and with words (a directive).
NO ONE can DO IT for you.
It is your own light of knowing that will release the bondage of self.
The chains of belief are melted by the light of knowing.
Shine the light into the dark corners of your mind and SEE that there is no bondage and no one actually in bondage.
Once this is done, it is known that this light of knowing is Universal Light – Cosmic Consciousness – Cosmic Awareness.
Unbound, unlimited Presence-Awareness. It is every ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how’.
These are not merely words appearing.
By what light do your perceive them?
Posted by gilbert on 03.22.09 10:51 pm
If you have a Guru and you have been with him for years or possibly decades, then he is useless.
I am not playing games. He is useless and he does NOT know what he professes to know.
Where is the freedom that he speaks of, if you are still in bondage?
He may be able to give a good impression of a ‘sacred personage’ but what good it that?
He may be a great entertainer and know how to tell great stories to keep everyone ‘happy’.
If he can’t do his job, then he is no guru.
What needs to be revealed can be done in less than an hour. Even a few minutes is enough in some cases.
Ask yourself this: Why does my guru need me to stay in bondage?
Why am I still seeking?
THERE IS NO EXCUSE for keeping anyone in bondage. It is an illusion that is fed by serving the concepts of being in bondage.
Any ‘teacher worth his salt’ will ‘point directly’ at the fact that the bondage is an illusion. There is NO NEED for delays of any kind.
The service to conceptual bondage takes the form of a ‘promise’ that in some ‘future time’ -’ IF you DO what I TELL YOU, then freedom will come’.
Implications of ‘the grace of the guru’ is a crappy story because there is NO transmission.
What you seek – You already are.
Posted by Karl on 03.23.09 1:57 am
“If you have a Guru and you have been with him for years or possibly decades, then he is useless.”
Wow Gilbert… :O)
Perhaps a bit harsh M8?
ADULTHOOD
To a disciple who was always at his prayers the Master said, “When will you stop leaning on God and stand on your own two feet?â€
The disciple was astonished. “But you are the one who taught us to look on God as our Father!â€
“When will you learn that a father isn’t someone you can lean on but someone who rids you of your tendency to lean?â€
Karl:)
Posted by alcofribas on 03.23.09 6:08 am
Stop kissing the Guru ass…die before you die,that’s the ultimate medicine!
Posted by LarryThomas on 03.23.09 6:50 am
Isn’t a “GURU” the same as leader of a cult??? Jim Jones, David Koresh, aren’t they just dead gurus!!!! Why bother with a guru at all….
Posted by Ralph on 03.23.09 8:14 am
There is so much talk about GURU’s. So much focus is put on the Guru and not much on what is being said. What one overlooks is that the Guru is also a separate entity. Who is to say that they are pure. There is no such thing as a Guru but there are so-called Guru’s (also known as spiritual teachers) who can help seekers find their way to who you truly are and of course there are also so-called Guru’s who, with your agreement, can keep you in bondage.
…. but remember, YOU choose your GURU.
Posted by gilbert on 03.23.09 8:51 am
‘We’ take things ‘personal’ and get ‘offended’. ‘We’ complain about anything and everything and then complain about being disturbed.
Nothing obscures awareness.
There is an abundance of some of the most direct ‘pointing’ offered on this site.
Don’t take it personally. SEE, KNOW, WHAT IS, AS IT IS.
The hooks must be seen and straightened. So. watch the mind and see the hooks.
For instance: “Ralph, you talk crap, as per usual. WHO’S focus are we talking about? Yours is the only one you need to be aware of. Gurus get a mention once in awhile. Maybe if you were not trying to be one yourself, then you would not be so anxious about the odd mentions of Gurus now and then”.
Tell ya the truth, eyez a bit tired of deez ‘preshus little clever dick minds’, these multi-colored, twisted rubik’s cubed mother f….s, sacred smelling, trash can cruzers, guru sniffing, wynjyn, moaning, self-inflated, back stabbing, stinking waterhole toads.
The smooth assed road dude, it don’t lead to ‘heaven’. You think that private suz tank gonna save your ass? Where you going anyways? Round in circles, by the look of it.
You spend almost your entire life on flat surfaces and on soft cushions. Am I disturbing your dream dude? Your ‘sleep’ gettin’ disturbed by a few bumps in the dream road?
You talk about progress when it is nothing but regression. Why do you remove all the goodness from the grains, then bleach the flour before you bake your ‘whiter then white’ bread? It clogs up your guts and has no nutrition at all. Your fancy soft drinks look like paint thinners and smell so artificial.
You think it is ‘Kool’ but it is probably killing you softly with its coloring.
Why do ‘you’ eat so much processed food and why do so many die of horrible diseases? Has your water been tampered with? By whom? Why do you allow it?
Chief Seattle asked for something in return when he made that sale.
Have ‘we’ ever complied to any of his requests?
We can put a man on the Moon and praise ourselves for it until ‘it all comes crashing down’.
Our children play computer games until the sun comes up and we turn a blind eye. What are we teaching the children?
What does the NEW DAY reveal in the naked light of conscious being?
If you spend ‘your life’ being offended by words and defending your ‘rights’, what is left of your precious ‘time’?
Is it not better to wake up and SEE what is truly going on? ‘You’ will be offended and that is for sure.
The question is, WILL YOU ACT.
Will you let the ‘robbers’ steal ‘your grandmother’.
There is a scam going on. The biggest one is the belief in the ‘offended me’.
This is just an alarm bell going off. Ignore it as usual.
Posted by josef on 03.23.09 9:49 am
I have visited a meeting with Tony Parsons today in Munich.
And I am totally frustrated now. He took away my every hope. I feel dispair.
I feel a great resonance when i read the writings of Gilbert and especially the writings of Randall Friend and John Wheeler. Especially when they make clear, that every one knows that they are and when they talk about presence.
Without thinking there is a knowing, that i am. Yes, thats true. It feels like vibrant space for me. But that are only words.
And I am feeling also a great resonance to the writings and experiments of Douglas Harding.
But Tony Parsons today said quite the opposite what gilbert & friends are writing or saying here.
He said, that any so called “teacher”, who gives me any advice to do something in order to get it (self investigation, resting in the feeling of “I am”, making experiments like thous of Douglas Harding) is telling me complete bullshit. He also said that i should disclaim such teachers. “The shift apparently happens or it happens not” he said. There is no you to decide that. That why every form of self investigation is complete bullshit, he said.
I am very confused an depressed now.
I think the only way to solve this problem is to jump off a tower
Warm regards
Josef
Posted by gilbert on 03.23.09 10:41 am
ENTERTAINING-CONTROVERSIAL-INNOVATIVE and INFORMATIVE - That is our Moto. We deliver.
At no point do we wish to mislead anyone or direct them into states of depression. Quite the contrary actually.
As long as you believe that you are separate, the ‘pointers’ are here to assist.
The light by which you SEE and KNOW cannot be diminished by the words of any teacher.
It is only a ‘me’ that can be depressed. SEE that. Tony says that there is NO YOU. Enough said. But it is not left at that.
Deflation at depth ‘works’ but ONLY when the SEEING is clear of conceptual constructions. The ego is a fiction. SEE that.
Just return to the clear and empty space of knowing.
What Tony says is correct in its own way – but it is just as much bullshit as that which he denounces. It may often feel like it is all about Tony.
It may appear as arrogance. Each ‘being’ is unique. The pattern of one, may not suit the pattern of another.
HOW this so-called ‘liberation’ arrived for one, does not mean that it MUST be the same way for others.
It is the longing for liberation that must be looked into – see if there is any substance to this one who longs for liberation.
Teachers are popular because of ‘seeking’. Without seekers, the teacher is ‘no one’.
Who is to denounce who or what? Saying that there is no one and then saying that that no one must denounce something is equally bullshit.
‘Who’ is he talking to? You don’t need him or any teacher.
All that is required is a clear directive.
The intelligence that you ARE is not a ‘you’.
There is a resonance in being. That cannot be denied or negated – it is LIFE.
Any ‘teacher’ ‘worth his salt’ is pointing to that LIFE.
In that clear and empty space of knowing, the pulse of life is self-evident.
THAT is not a concept. It is the intelligence that supports ALL LIFE without exception.
Gurus and teachers will always, ALWAYS be ‘counter’ to each other BECAUSE each expression is unique.
The commonality is ‘Love of Being’.
Intellects can argue forever – but the love of being is not separated into parts.
Look at this one who is depressed and disillusioned.
There is no SHIFT. The one who suggests that there is a shift that happens (or doesn’t happen) is telling bullshit. It sets up the mind in anticipation for an EVENT in the future.
It is like waiting at a bus stop in the vast and barren desert. No roads, no buses. Just a bus stop. What fool will wait there? And what fool will tell you to wait there?
Some ‘teachers’ rest upon some ‘past event’ – they are convinced that it changed their life and that that ‘past event’ will change your life. They ask for a nice fee to listen to this advice. It is a life style thing – comfy for them and keeps a plentiful supply of ‘those who ‘don’t get it’. Taking the high ground and giving useless advice on how to get there is a kind of madness.
It isn’t about HOPE. Hope is bondage to time.
It is all about SEEING in this immediacy.
SEE this one who is talking about depression – it is a story.
Cast it aside, once you know what it is.
Ultimately nothing is happening.
When a teacher says that ‘My ‘nothing is happening’ is better than someone else’s ‘nothing is happening’ – then that is crap.
It all reminds me of the Rabbi joke.
Pride is a slippery snake.
Here is the joke:
Two Rabbi’s pray each day in the Synagogue. They kneel and each repeats the words “Oh God, I am nothing, I am nothing” three times, in turn.
A Gentile janitor hears them each day as he goes about his business. One day after the Rabbi’s had finished their prayers, the Gentile came and knelt next to them and repeated the pray three times “Oh God I am nothing, I am nothing”. One Rabbi turns to the other and says “Ha, Look who thinks he is nothing”.
Tony should tell this one sometimes, he may get it’s implication.
Posted by gilbert on 03.23.09 11:56 am
In ‘the appearance of things’ nothing is achieved by anyone – yet much may appear to be achieved or lost. Such is the drama of life. A well known Shakespeare quote comes to mind (life is a stage). You know what it is, so I don’t have to repeat it.
The ‘mask’, the ‘persona’ is a translucent appearance.
ALL of your problems are equally translucent.
SEEING through them is easy, actually beyond ‘easy and difficult’. It is ALREADY happening.
This is totally obvious right now.
Look now and SEE if you can find anything with any substance in this SEEING.
KNOWING that there is nothing there right now – WHEN could any of it have truly been here? It is only belief and story, appearing in this ‘now’ that SEEMINGLY takes ‘us’ into a realm of confusion.
Be vigilant for two minutes and SEE that all is clear and empty.
Passing thoughts come and go – but you remain.
What ‘more’ do you need to know?
Posted by Randall Friend on 03.23.09 12:03 pm
Josef,
How fast we climb back upon the platform of I-AM-ness to claim our suffering!
What assumptions must be in play to even make the statements? I AM frustrated… I AM confused… I AM in despair!
Who are you talking about?
Are you talking about this Josef character, who comes and goes with the waking and dreaming states? Doesn’t he? Isn’t this character a temporary appearance, appearing within a state which comes and goes? You speak of Douglas Harding – isn’t the “state” itself simply an opening – a portal through which seeing is happening? If we don’t label it, isn’t this “waking state” just like the “dream state”?
Are you talking about this Josef character, which is seemingly made up of a body and mind, nothing but a bundle of sensations and perceptions, conceptualized into something solid and separate? Within all that, were did this Josef form? During which part of the conceptualization process did Josef end up appearing?
Are you talking about some idea of a spirit or soul? Are you talking about some concept that was learned, that wasn’t present until language was given, that wasn’t there until some basic beliefs were taken on?
Where exactly IS this Josef? Right now, point to him… go ahead, if you’re so certain he’s there, if he’s really beyond question, then point him out! That pointing (whether mental or physical) MUST be to an object. YOU are not an object – how could you be? Who would then be the subject in YOUR OWN experience of yourself?
Who is it that is now frustrated? Where is that frustration appearing? In the mind! The mind has a concept of what this is all about, then something came along and turned the truck upside down and all the prized new knowledge spilled out on the roadside! HA!
Anything gained will be lost. Reality cannot be something gained later. We are talking about what you really are – beyond concepts. But we don’t really want to investigate our true nature, do we? We think our true nature is crap – we don’t want it to be about our true nature, because we feel that it’s not good enough. We want a BETTER true nature – we don’t want our CURRENT true nature to be what this is about.
So we constantly ignore these pointers. We gloss over them and look to something better to come in the future, some “state” of enlightenment which will be much better, which will make ME better. Bullshit – full stop.
Your true nature is not Josef, not that body or mind. The body, mind and world are not reality. They are conceptualizations of raw data – stay with the raw data appearing to awareness. SEE that this is actual, direct experience. Then the concepts come later and describe everything.
Direct experience is simply raw data – appearance – appearing TO awareness, IN awareness. Simple. This is your true nature, isn’t it? Isn’t this what is meant by “I”? This invisible subjectivity? HA! Isn’t it obvious! Isn’t it the most simple and obvious reality? Haven’t you always known this “I”?
Isn’t all the other bullshit simply added on later in mind? Any sense of importance or frustration or anything else HAS to be a product of mind.
Direct experience is awareness – pure and simple, ordinary awareness. That’s it. Awareness IS. There is no further to go, nothing to get, nothing to gain – It’s not about making your true nature better, it’s simply realizing what your true nature IS – correcting the mistaken “I”-dentity.
Rest in that. See what happens. Either way – relax, my friend. As Tony says, it really doesn’t matter what you do because you can’t NOT BE what you are. And as Bob says, you already ARE what you’re seeking. Find out where these converge…
love
randall
Posted by Mike in SF on 03.23.09 5:15 pm
Thanks for putting that ‘donate’ tab up there Gilbert. I’ve gotten hours and hours of listening pleasure and pointers from this site and I know it takes countless hours to put all the clips together, not to mention all the great pointers in the comments section, so I was happy to donate.
Note to other would be contributors from the US: When you enter your donation amount, it’s in Australian dollars (It says AUD) and the current exchange rate is 1 USD = 1.43481 AUD. So if you donate say, $30 AUD, that’s only about $21 USD.
Later!
Mike
Posted by gilbert on 03.23.09 6:10 pm
Thank you Mike. Your support is appreciated. We have another Radio KUCI program lined up for the 26th of April. More details soon.
Posted by alcofribas on 03.23.09 7:43 pm
It usually begins with a donation and ends with a fee! ah,money,money!!
Posted by Fenn on 03.23.09 7:57 pm
Tony can’t seem to see the contradiction that he continually engages in.
Any form of pointing (which is what Tony does whether he would admit it or not) is an invitation to investigate.
For instance if Tony was to declare ‘there is no chair’, that would be an invitation to SEE if this is the case.
When Tony says ‘there is no one’, that is an invitation for that to be SEEN.
The invitation is seemingly dualistic. What is ‘revealed’ is pure nondual expanse.
(This seeming paradox is known as the gateless gate in Zen.)
Posted by alcofribas on 03.23.09 8:10 pm
Tony gives nothing at all…no hope, no help, and no meaning; but the hopeless-ness, helpness-ness,and meaningless-ness are the gift in a sense…this resonates or not…choose your poison anyway!
Posted by gilbert on 03.23.09 9:14 pm
A donation is freely given. A fee can be rejected and the goods not taken delivery.
Without any fees, this way everyone has access. A level playing ground.
Those who can afford to donate can if they feel like doing so. There is no obligation.
In the world of appearances, there are givers and takers. When the giver is sucked dry, the takers find another giver.
It isn’t a nice picture, is it. It is just concepts.
Posted by gilbert on 03.23.09 11:17 pm
It isn’t about the messenger. The ‘sign post’ is either accurate or not.
Whatever resonates in being – follow that resonance. It is LIFE.
Concepts are dead things. Argument is diverting the attention away from the ‘sign post’.
The ‘sign post’ ‘points’ and says ‘London – 20 Miles’. Who is going to argue and debate at length the meaning of the sign post?
You either understand it or you don’t.
It is as simple as that, when you get down to the nitty gritty. The messenger or guru or teacher is simply pointing at your true essence.
Once recognized that ‘seeming’ relationship dissolves. The appearance of duality dissolves into its true essence – Non Duality.
These long protracted teacher-pupil relationships are not necessary, so long as direct pointing is actually happening.
When ‘time’ is put aside, the sign post actually says ‘Welcome to London’.
In other words, you are already HERE – it just needs to be recognized.
If anyone wishes to call me to discuss their questions, they can do so via Skype. Simply email me for the details.
gilbert.schultz AT gmail.com
Posted by mark on 03.24.09 2:33 am
“He also said that i should disclaim such teachers”
That Parsons-guy is a ‘One-Trick-Tony’. He’ll rob you of everything, every concept and object you cling to, so that you ‘ll make that jump. Only problem is that this ‘total poverty’ he speaks of cannot be emulated or acquired by following some precept. In the end you’ll just be someone who is disclaiming.
Posted by Roger on 03.24.09 4:13 am
Yeah, Tony’s message can put a person over the edge. I know from first hand experience. That’s the beauty of Sailor Bob’s approach; he’s not prescribing a practice that will get you anywhere, he’s simply showing you a way in which you can verify in your own direct immediate experience that indeed I am already THAT which I seek, and there is nothing to get, which allows the mind to relax–rather than just taking someone’s word for it and spinning around in concepts like “there’s no one here, there’s no one here!!.”
This may sound harsh, but I would not be surprised in the least to find out that seekers have killed themselves after hearing Tony’s message. NOT TO SAY that’s actually happened–only saying that it wouldn’t surprise me if it has in the past.
Posted by alcofribas on 03.24.09 4:43 am
One great blessing Tony gives to desesperate ones is:”I hope you die soon”…once again it resonates or not…
Posted by Mike in SF on 03.24.09 5:27 am
alcofribas, you said: “It usually begins with a donation and ends with a fee!”
Actually, I can’t think of too many situations where that is the case. A lot of teachers offer donation satsangs and then if you want more interaction, you can pay more at that point. Most all internet sites that start out free stay free.
I chose to donate because I realized I can easily spend $20 going out for a meal/movie but what I get from UGC is way more valuable than a night at the movies so I figured why not pitch in?
And no, I’ve never met Gilbert and nobody is paying me to post this!
Later!
Mike
Posted by gilbert on 03.24.09 10:06 am
Listen to the program. Really hear what is being pointed out. That is what it is all about.
The true nature of the mind is immaculately clear and empty.
And yet the mind is also like a trash can. At the bottom of the trash can you find the scum binding everything in a stinking mess. ‘Living in the past’ can feel like that. Yet no one ever lived in the past. LIFE is present (tense) presence.
It is not about “I am right and you are wrong”.
What we are saying here at the UGC is that Psychological suffering is unnecessary. There is no answer in the mind.
That is more or less what is being pointed out. ‘Some’ are discovering the truth of it.
Some are bitter about not discovering it.
Nihilism is the intellects graveyard. A ‘place’ where Gothic characters sit around open coffins smoking poisonous weeds, complaining about the bright light of the lamp post.
There is no point turning on a dead spot.
What kind of mask is yours? Is there someone hiding behind a mask?
What kind of negative poison do you harbor in that ‘thing’ called ‘me’?
If you stay looking in the mind, you will only find more and more old trash – trash you have handled a hundred times before. Do you expect it to suddenly shine with new life?
Basically what you are is not a thought.
You are prior to anything arising in the mind about what you think you are -
You are prior to anything arising in the mind – Full Stop.
Where does that leave you?
Where are you seeing from?
Posted by LarryThomas on 03.24.09 10:36 am
Ok Gilbert I give up! WHERE AM I SEEING FROM…tell me…. I honestly don’t know where I am seeing from. I’m a very simple man so you need to spell it out for me.
Posted by gilbert on 03.24.09 10:45 am
Larry, read the extract from “Everything is Clear and Obvious” posted by Margo above 03.22.09 at 10.56. 29 posts above this one.
It is the introduction from my free e-book.
If that does not ‘answer’ it, or ‘point’ in the right direction, then I don’t know what ever will.
I sold a few hundred copies of the printed version. I consistently get emails from those who read the pages. They tell me that the book stops the mind.
Publishers don’t want to publish books that stop the mind. They want books that perpetuate more and more sales. Fiction is the best seller.
As Nisargadatta says: “There are NO customers for this knowledge”.
The majority are ‘happy’ to plod on with their ‘drama of life’.
Suffering, intense inner suffering, is what usually brings ‘people’ to look at ‘this stuff’.
The suffering will continue ‘until’ it is expanded and looked into.
The intelligence that you are, by simply ‘having a good look’ into that identified engagement (by simply seeing) then that retains the energy in the seeing, energy that ‘was’ going into the belief of ‘someone suffering’ – so in this way the fiction reveals itself.
(I am not making this up, it is NOT fiction)
Once truly seen, it can NEVER grab you in the same way again. This may ‘appear’ as a gradual dissipation of ‘engagement with it’ (the story of ‘me’).
Those who talk about a sudden shift that is possible in the future are talking crap. It may appear to be sudden but there is no point in going into a state of anticipation. There is ONLY NOW. SEEING is seeing NOW.
What time is it? It is NOW. ‘What’ are you waiting for?
Posted by gilbert on 03.24.09 11:44 am
Michel de Salzmann gave a talk to Psychotherapists in the USA many decades ago.
It this riveting talk he expressed many things and one thing that grabbed the attention, something ‘sharp’ and cutting was this:
“The Self-righteous man is a dangerous man”.
When the ‘ego’ gets woven into self-righteousness, into ‘I am right and everyone else is wrong’, then a great deal of confusion is spread about by those who cling to ‘this man’.
The devil may dress up as a priest but ‘who’ is it that is fooled by him?
Posted by gilbert on 03.24.09 2:11 pm
I have just completed the last program of Phase One of the Urban Guru Cafe.
It is the second half of this ancient text. There is no doubt here that this text is a profound document.
Some written evidence suggests that the author was a wandering beggar. Not having any story about ‘the man’ it leaves the mind with no ‘image’ to glorify and make statues of. With no ‘story of a ‘me’ to be found anywhere, the text remains clean, as it is. How ‘fitting’ that things are as they are, in this case.
To bring this document to the attention of a great number of listeners will no doubt bring profound insights for some. Even though this is all happening in the appearance, the resolution of the ‘old mind’ is nothing to be dismissed as mere conceptualization. The essence of an ‘insight’ is SEEING. And seeing is already happening.
Those who remain in the realm of arguments about non duality are unfortunate indeed.
Even though they do not truly exist – there is belief in the turmoil of their minds.
This document has the potential to resolve those torments of mind.
This last program will appear in a few days time. Warm regards – Gilbert.
Posted by alcofribas on 03.24.09 7:33 pm
Gilbert,
death of “me” is a shift…it’s not just a thought that comes and goes;Tony Parsons speaks about an “explosion”…but the “me” doesn’t want this,as it is the destroyer of it;
I don’t think Tony says total crap if he was interviewed by UGC;you seem to be very selective for the programs!
Posted by gilbert on 03.24.09 10:44 pm
Who is speaking about Tony? No one pointed at Tony and said anything directed at him.
You are a bit touchy about dear Tony me thinks.
The ‘me’ never existed so how can it die? What shift can happen with a mirage?
And what possible meaning could such a shift have, apart from some meaning that ‘I’ give it.
Everything is contained in the SEEING.
Everything that appears in the seeing is an ‘appearance’ even by its definition.
Every teacher you have ever known is nothing but an appearance in that space of knowing, which is labeled as ‘me’ or ‘you’ or ‘I’ or by whatever name that has been associated with it.
Tony would be the first to say that ‘he’ doesn’t exist as a ‘me’. He is a fun style, life loving character. If his pointing assists the non-you’s he speaks to – then all is good.
As for ‘you’, it seems that there is often some bitterness expressed in your comments.
What is all that about? Maybe you should be looking at that. But if you are into Tony so much, you can’t even do that……because HIS concepts deny the possibility. Am I wrong in my assessment?
What we say here is that the ‘knower’ and the ‘known’ cannot be, without the knowing.
They are the knowing but NOT as they ‘appear’ to be.
The universe is an appearance, as galaxies, stars, planets, moons, organic life forms etc.
In Essence it is ONE singularity. It is ALL KNOWING. It cannot be separated at all because there is NO duality in Non Duality.
NO Separation.
‘Who’ has a problem in THAT?
The ‘shift’ and the ‘death of the me’ is nothing but a concept, like the big bang concept. The experienc-ING is uninterrupted. What value are anyone else’s experiences to this knowing presence that I am? They are just stories ‘appearing’ in this experienc-ING. To imagine that I can benefit from these stories is the illusion. The ‘Great Transmission’ bullshit story. It is all base on TIME and so-called Knowledge. What gives ‘knowledge’ life is KNOWING. Without knowing, knowledge is dead. The great libraries of the world are full of books of knowledge. It is all dead until someone picks up a book and starts to read it.
Where is the potentiality arising from? Where are you SEEING from?
All there is is LIFE. You are LIFE. Unbound, birth-less, deathless LIFE. What interest could you have in the death of a fictional character.
Can ‘Donald Duck’ actually die? The ‘me’ has NO POWER whatsoever – it cannot ‘not want’ or ‘want’ anything. It is simply resistance to WHAT IS.
Giving it some seeming ‘power’ is just the old belief system kicking in.
There is ONLY ONE seeing happening. There is ONLY ONE PRESENCE.
Don’t hide behind transparent concepts, like ‘me’.
Everything is Clear and Obvious. There is nowhere to hide. Everything is visible except WHAT YOU ARE.
All your problems are simply conceptualization. Time is a concept. It seems to be one of the most difficult to penetrate. Why?
Time is a concept about division. PRESENCE is seemingly divided into, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries etc. Where do all these ‘seeming things’ appear?
NOWHERE but in this Presence. It is ALL Presence. Undivided Presence. Eternity is one name for it. This ‘moment’ is Eternity.
The mind divides THIS singularity, this presence into multiple ‘things’ IN THE MIND. Nothing of it exists ‘outside of the mind’. To postulate that something does exist outside of the mind is ludicrous. But the intellectual will fight tooth and nail to try and prove that something exists outside of the mind.
Where does this battle take place? In the mind. “I rest my case your honor”.
Now get this: NOT ONE of these ‘things’ whether they be concepts,states of being, arguments, seeming energy shifts, deaths of the ‘me’, a multitude of objects, all lights and all sounds, none of them has any independence or separate existence apart from the KNOWING. You are the knowing and this knowing cannot be negated. Be it knowingly, without any need of a concept to support it.
This is incontestable.
If you could truly see the pathetic mind games that are being played ‘in your name’, you would stop dead in your tracks.
Your famous ‘shift’ may appear to happen. But it would only be an appearance and it would disappear. An endless shift?
That which comes and goes is NOT what you ARE.
All this ‘This one is right and you are wrong’ stuff is CRAP, dualistic Crap.
Recognize it as it is, then there is no one to take delivery of the conflicting reference points (in mind).
‘The ball is in your court’ – but try not to be nasty or bitter in your reply.
Play clean – or the umpire will throw you off the court. OK?
Posted by alcofribas on 03.24.09 11:05 pm
Gilbert,
when you say:”the self righteous man is a dangerous man”, do you speak about “you”??
there was a lot of laughter when I read this!
Posted by gilbert on 03.24.09 11:31 pm
As expected. Every perception that ‘you have’ is composed from ‘your stuff’.
Anyway, I am happy that you got a laugh from it.
The dynamic display of the ONE, appears as every possibility.
One moment it can shine like the sun, then next it can tear the limbs off a lion.
Infinite Being has no limitations. Can you bear to be this Infinite Being?
Or will you hide behind a mask and play fiddle sticks for your remaining days?
Posted by alcofribas on 03.24.09 11:46 pm
Gilbert,
Definitly, I won’t kiss your ass! your sectarian view is one of a self righteous man! – you insulted me in your last comments, that’s not the aim of an “innovative non sectarian UGC”!!
Posted by Margo on 03.25.09 12:11 am
alcofribas,
you are wasting your time and energy on this ‘me’ being offended , but you have come to this side because this ‘me’ is causing you suffering and you wanted to get rid-off it. Now is the time.
Any way I wanted to post a different post.
Posted by Margo on 03.25.09 12:15 am
I want to extend my gratitude to Gilbert and UGC!
With this being one of the last programs of Phase One of the Urban Guru Cafe I want to thank Gilbert for his clear, precise and PERSISTENT pointing.
Without it this realization of SEEING would not have happened here.
I have recognize this place of seeing as ‘I AM’ only because of GILBERT’s pointing. Upon this place ‘revealing’ it self it become clear that it is a very familiar place where I had spend a lot of time.
It was always obscure by the ‘me’ filter and only used for ‘day dreaming’ or imagining future. I used to call this place ‘imagination’- I was seeing my life the way I wanted it to be. It never dawn on me that this clear and empty space from which I was seeing was awareness, because the emphasis was on the ‘me’ (thought) character and how to control and manipulate the world to get what I wanted.
Never have I used this process to see what IS and to be in NOW.
Never have I given any attention to this clear, empty space from which everything was originating.
As Gilbert calls it “The first instant of conscious-being”.
This place got the least attention, all focus was on ‘me’ thought – believing that it belong to the body.
I am amaze how precise and accurate Gilbert’s description of this place is, his pointing is immaculate.
Once this place of awareness ‘reveals’ it self it is so obvious, intimate and familiar – it shocks you that it took so long to see that.
As much as I had enjoyed listening to Tony Parson and Eckhard Tolle their way did not work for me. This ‘place’ of awareness was still obscured by thoughts and lost in the maze of the mind.
Gilbert’s free e-book “Everything is Clear and Obvious†is amazing and precise essence of pointing to this ‘place’ that we are all looking for.
Thanks a million
Posted by kale on 03.25.09 12:23 am
Alcofribas, if you would only keep quiet just for a nanno second, you’ll see where Gilbert’s driving at…don’t retaliate…just watch it come up…
Posted by gilbert on 03.25.09 12:26 am
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but names (words) will never hurt me”.
A child knows this. Words are words. ‘We’ beat ourselves up with ‘the word’.
How extraordinary ‘we’ are.
It is ONLY a ‘me’ that can be offended. We take everything personally and miss the value of what is being pointed out.
It is a challenge that one can meet face on.
Getting offended is not so useful, is it? Laughing at it all is better, maybe?
Listen to the program again. You may have missed some good sections in it.
The view is OPEN and not divided into sections. The expressions will always appear to be biased, that is the nature of language.
The aim of the UGC is too present clear directives.
If it means shaking up that old bag of beliefs, then that is part and parcel.
There is a scene at the end of the Mahabarata when the last warrior is at the ladder to heaven.
He is carrying a small dog.
A voice from above says “You can’t bring the dog with you”.
The warrior is challenged because he is attached to the dog, it reminds him of his father.
So, he protests. “You can’t bring the dog” was the stern reply.
He must let go of his attachment to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
What is your ‘dog’ made of?
Phase Two of the Urban Guru Cafe is on its way. Spread the news.
Posted by alcofribas on 03.25.09 12:44 am
Margo,
don’t make any projection…your suffering is your problem ,not mine!
I don’t care about Gilbert’s attemps to offend me,he wants as always to be right,and really I can’t anything against it! this is not about self righteousness,this is a laugh affair!
can’t you see the whole lot is a joke? the madness is in the seriousness…non duality is not a religion,this is nothing more than life apparently happening…when you said it other way than the wannabe Guru,you are a nasty guy…crap,isn’t it?
Posted by Margo on 03.25.09 12:58 am
This side is valid for one and one thing only!
To see through the ‘me’ filter and remove this illusory obstraction that never was.
Everything else is a mental masturbation of this fictional character.
Posted by gilbert on 03.25.09 1:31 am
Let’s leave the bickering out of this, please. If you have nothing of ‘value’ to share, then please take your comments to the Non Duality Chat sites. Taking pot shots at ‘others’ does wear a little thin after a short time. Crap belongs in the crap house, not here.
Some just don’t want to hear. They have their favorite ‘view’ and they stick to it.
Good on them. I see through my own eyes. It is the self-righteous that get offended at the mention of their ‘chief feature’. Good night – isn’t that ‘Get nicked’ in German.
Posted by alcofribas on 03.25.09 1:42 am
I won’t kiss your ass,as anybody ass…there is no ass to kiss!
Posted by Randall Friend on 03.25.09 3:54 am
Do you know yourself? That’s the only point to consider. The rest of this is all mental – see this and it falls away on it’s own.
Do you know yourself? What do you know yourself AS? A body? A mind? The chattering intellect? Some vague concept about a soul?
Do you know yourself? What is the truth of what you are? There is a false identification with objects. In what do the objects appear? What has remained unchanged while the entire totality of appearance comes and goes?
Do you know yourself? What is the “I” really pointing to? Is it an object? Have you investigated what is truly objective and subjective? This is neti-neti.
Isn’t the “I” a space of awareness, of subjectivity? Isn’t the “I” an opening, an absence of objects? Aren’t all “things” which you’ve taken yourself to be appearing in this “space”? As Gilbert points out clearly, this “space” is obvious yet overlooked in preference for the content – yet the content must appear somewhere. Where does it appear? From where are you seeing?
That space is not objectifiable. You ARE that space of awareness. This is the true “I” – the Self beyond concept of individual self. This is one SEEING. This is one KNOWING.
How can you miss yourself unless you’re missing the point? How can what-you-are be hidden or not known in the immediacy of this moment?
You KNOW “I” – intimately. Only you take “I” to be the body-mind and intellect. See that these are objects in the open space of invisible subjectivity that we call “I”. Then it’s done.
Posted by milton on 03.25.09 3:55 am
“When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend.
And when a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way.”
“Tis a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
Look forward to phase two!
Margo:I agree that “everything is clear and obvious” is just what it says, helpful to me too.
Gilbert: how does one purchase your other book, I can’t get to it from your website?
I can’t see any real difference between what Gilbert says and what Tony says, there is no “me,” no “you” ; there no method for “you” to get anything since there is no you and no thing, there is just seeing, being, presence awareness, aliveness, or whatever. Both seem to be pointing to the same thing from a place of ruthless compassion, destroying delusions. Many thanks to the delusion busters!
Posted by Mark Ellis on 03.25.09 4:10 am
I have never heard of Gilbert beating the Hell out of anyone,,, yet.
However, if you shelve this “Me” thought for Just a Moment, you may find that he is Really good at beating the “Me” out of Hell~!~!
Posted by gilbert on 03.25.09 8:57 am
Publishers want to change the text to what they think it should say. Translators of the ancient texts change the ‘meaning’ according to what they think it should mean. And yet one can detect the ‘life’ in an ancient text, even though it has been twisted and turned upside down. Presence is the key – it transcends ‘time and place’.
There is no one doing any ‘distortion’ or anything. It is all light appearing as this and that.
It is just like light passing through a prism.
The pure ‘white light’ is transposed into a colorful display. At no point is any of it anything ‘other’ than light.
The ‘pure white light of being’ passes through the ‘body’ and the world appears – for each seeming ‘separate one’ of ‘us’.
In relativity, the ‘same’ world appears to each one because it is the ‘same’ LIGHT.
The Moon’s (reflected) light touches each drop of dew and ‘makes’ it glisten with vivid ‘presence’.
The light is Presence – is One light.
LIFE is not limited to the forms that are ‘revealed’ in its expansive ‘radiance’.
Knowing is not limited by the ‘forms’ – all forms are ‘revealed’ in one presence.
Ashtavakra was a cripple with seven deformities of the body – he discovered this ‘Light of Knowing’ beyond the form.
After demolishing a dozen of the Kings ‘wise men’ in debate the King became his disciple and very quickly ‘realized’, discovered, the same ‘Light of Knowing’. (research The Ashtavakra Gita – the spelling may be a bit wrong )
By what light do you SEE and KNOW anything?
If you think that the intellect has some light of itself, you are in imagination.
The intellect is like the Moon, it has no light of its own.
Pure Intelligence is shining.
The ‘crippled form’ of a ‘seeker’ does not distort the pure light of knowing.
“You are not the body, nor are you the mind”.
What are you, if not this light of knowing?
Actually the ‘seeker’ beats the crap out of itself.
There is no ‘nice way’ to confront the ‘me’.
True compassion is ruthless.
The ‘me’ is resistance to WHAT IS.
It can lick its wounds in some dark corner – but the light of knowing WILL ‘find it’ and reveal it for what it is.
“They run, they hide, the won’t answer the phone – They pretend not to be at home – when the penetrating question is asked, the mind is stunned like a rabbit in a cars headlights on the road.
Their feeble intellect scrabbles to re-group, using poor ‘reason’ as a defense.
At no point is any of this activity anything ‘other’ than KNOWING.
‘Who’ cannot bear to SEE and Know ‘what is’?
Posted by LarryThomas on 03.25.09 9:51 am
Gilbert,
Bob speaks of how we stand in front of a mirror & what we see is just an illusion or something like that. Is everything we see just an illusion?
Also, I read somewhere that this awareness you speak of is hiding from ITSELF & longs to be revealed to ITSELF through our bodies? Is that how you see it?
Posted by Josef on 03.25.09 9:57 am
Thank you Gilbert and Randall and all others for your detailed advices to a comment of me a bit above.
I am so grateful that I have got the possibility to talk via internet from a small town in germany to such hearty persons like you are. Thank you for this possibility. In my town I would not have the possibility to talk to people about this subject. I am not sure but I think if i would talk to my neighbours, which are hardcore Christians, about this subject, they would burn me down on the stake.
I never would be able to fly into the USA or to the wonderful Australia in order to talk with Randall or Gilbert. Its so great to write you via internet. This tool internet seems so ordinary at that time but its really extraordinary for me.
Perhaps I was a bit misunderstood in my comment above. Thats my fault. I can´t talk and write the language English very well. Thats why its difficult for me to put my question or sentence in the correct english sentence and to express my request.
I did not want to critizice Tony or say that some one says a better truth than others. I don´t have the right to do such a thing. And it also doesn´t interest me. I don´t want to adore someone and defend him from others. I want to figure out what tony, gilbert, randall or john are talking about because it resonates with me and seems to give a possibility to ease the suffering, which I felt all my life, sometimes stronger, sometimes in the background.
And I don´t want to receive nice and cuddly words from for example gilbert, if i wrote bullshit in my comment. I want to hear the truth. And if the truth needs hard words, then this is quite o.k.
I just wanted to express my occuring problems during the search and my misunderstandings and i am thankful for the response.
I accepted the advice of Randall and Gilbert and looked the whole day, also during the work, to the place where I am seeing from.
And yes, absolutliy nothing of Josef to find. Nevertheless I did not stop to exist. I found existence. No, I did not find existence. Existence was simply there. The feeling of presence, of space, in which everything occurs. It is the same presence, which comes into the foreground when I read certain pointers or sentences of John, Gilbert or Randall. The most powerful sentence for me is a quotation of Bob Adamson, which I read on Randalls Blog. I copied this quotiation in here:
“If you are seeking truth, reality, God or whatever you like to call it, I suggest that you start with the only reality you are absolutely certain of—that is the fact of your own being. There is no one sitting here who can say ‘I am not’. Each one of us knows ‘I am’. But that thought ‘I am’ is not the reality. It is the closest you will ever get to it with the mind. That ‘I am’ is just a translation by the mind of that sense of presence, the awareness of presence or the presence of that awareness. That is the only reality we are absolutely certain of. Nobody under any circumstances can say ‘I am not’. That knowing is constantly and ever with us. And that is why we say that what you are seeking you already are.” (Quotation from Bob Adamson, found in Randall Friends Blog).
While reading this quote, this presence, this clear space is here again in the foreground.
But this presence seems to get darkend, when “I” feel pain or a strong fear, or when a strong appetite, for example a carnal appetite arises.
But I don´t think it dissapears. The focus changes. But it is not able for me to controll the focus. Sometimes the focus is on thougts or stories, sometimes the focus is on existence itself. But it is in no controll. I could say to me now: “Ok, in the future I must direct the focus more to this presence.” But this is bullshit. Immediately i am back in the story. There is no one there to controll it. It is only a thought.
The other thing I noticed while looking to that which sees is, that I can´t make a distinction between the presence or space and the objects.
That is why I don´t unterstand sentences like “awareness is never touched” by the content of awareness.
Right now, I feel pain in my back. O.k., it is only a story, that this pain is in my back.
It would be better to write: pain is perceived. There is space or presence, in which pain is perceived.
Hmmmmmmmm.
O.k. Pain is also a thougth.
Energy is perceived, which the mind translates into pain.
Energy is perceived by presence. But it feels nevertheless not good. Ok, thats only another thougth.
And its also a thought that energy is perceived by presence. In my perception there is no distinction between the presence and the energy which is included in presence and which is translatet as pain by the mind.
There is only this presence/pain-energy. It is one, not two. And it doesn´t belong to Josef. It is simply there.
But still it does not feel good.
Stop. Thats another thought again.
I come to the conclusion now that life is quite ok and tolerable, if I don´t belief the stories. But there is no “I” which can choose, if it rests in presence or if it beliefs in a fictional story. No I, just one block called life.
I can´t also make a distinction between thoughts and presence.
Life seems to include happyness and sadness, joy and pain. And this happens to no one. It happens on its own. One block which contains everything.
In my opinion it makes life not necessarlily easier, when it is seen, that for example pain happens to no one and not to Josef.
The relief is perhaps, that life is constantly changing and that the pain and suffering will change too. And perhaps the relief is too, that “I” am not responsible for suffering. It simply is and will change on its one way.
Perhaps pain is also more tolerable, when it is simply perceived without beliefing the upcoming horror stories.
Perhaps it is realy very simple. All my life time “I” talked about “me”. And this “me” is not a dream. Perhaps it was only ranged wrong. The “Me” is real. But it is not the body called josef but life itself, including happiness and suffering.
So far so good with my amateur insights.
Please feel free to point my failures out. And you can gladly use hard words.
Warm regards
Josef
Posted by Vat on 03.25.09 10:27 am
It seems as if you are trying to search for “enlightenment” as a personality.
“That is why I don´t unterstand sentences like “awareness is never touched†by the content of awareness.”
You have not investigated thoroughly. Before this consciousness came over you, you were perfect. Are you with me so far? Then this consciousness came over you and now all your troubles have come. Here in lies the problem, you are taking this consciousness as something real. You are giving that which is unreal, reality and denying that which is real, but ultimately the real can’t be denied because it will always prevail. After consciousness has gone, you will be back in the perfect state. Don’t you see that you prevail as awareness even now? Nothing can take you out of who you are. Do you also see now that awareness is never touched by its content? Remember, the universe doesn’t exist, it only appears to exist.
Posted by Randall Friend on 03.25.09 10:27 am
Josef,
Brilliant, my friend. This direct investigation of what actually IS, beyond what’s conceptualized, is the essence of neti-neti, not this, not that…
Look at what IS without applying labels or concepts. Then, as you are doing, see that whatever is arising is then conceptualized into something – “pain”.
Walk back from there, as you’re doing – “pain” is simply sensation conceptualized as “pain”, then “bad”, then “I am in pain”.
What you’re seeing is that “pain” IS – the ME part is added on.
“Pain” is sensation. What else comes this way? Isn’t the body itself just more sensation? Isn’t it conceptualized in the same way as “body” and then “my body”?
Isn’t this where the identification goes off-track?
All you know and have ever known appears TO YOU – within this pure invisible space of subjectivity. It appears as pure “sensation” then is later conceptualized. Isn’t this what’s happening? Isn’t this conceptualization what you’re referring to as “stories”?
So this pure space of subjectivity or awareness is really what you are, what the “I” points to. Hasn’t this “I” always been known?
All appearances are only “something” once conceptualization has been applied. And that’s ok – there isn’t anything WRONG with conceptualization – it’s just not actual reality as such – conceptualization creates the illusion of separation where none actually exists.
Looking in this way, can you actually find separation?
love to you
randall
Posted by gilbert on 03.25.09 10:28 am
I cannot speak for Bob but I can say that Bob rarely uses the word illusion.
What he pointed out for me (what I am) years ago and it was realized is this:
The reflections in the mirror are an analogy or metaphor for ‘the appearance’.
Everything is an appearance. One Essence appearing, expressing AS everything – Every-Thing.
It is ALL real in THIS immediacy. It is not as it appears to be.
You cannot separate the reflections in the mirror from the mirror.
You cannot say they don’t exist and you cannot grab them.
Awareness is the ‘mirror’ upon which everything appears.
We focus on the reflections and miss the mirror itself.
Close inspection reveals the ‘solid mirror’.
The reflections have no power to interact with each other.
They are merely reflections.
WHAT animates it all?
There is NO ‘through’ in the appearances. Nothing passes through the appearances. It is ALL light.
The singular essence SEES ‘as if’ through all of the forms.
BUT this ‘seeing’ contains everything.
Everything is the SEEING. All Seeing, All Knowing.
‘We’ by habit, associate the seeing from ‘here’, as this body is seeing the world.
But the body cannot see?
A dead body cannot SEE anything. All the faculties are there, the eyes, the brain.
What is missing?
LIFE Essence is not there animating the form. The Life Essence has moved into the micro organisms and the body is being broken down, via the activity of enzymes etc.
This LIFE Essence is THAT which animates everything.
It is called Intelligence Energy by Bob. Instead of calling is God, he chooses ‘Intelligence Energy’.
Intelligence is the activity of knowing. Energy is a movement, an activity.
These apparent 2 are One.
The Body APPEARS in the KNOWING.
The KNOWING is never obscured by any ‘body’ and to say that something realizes itself ‘through’ the body is not correct.
What you truly ARE is realizing itself constantly – the MOVEMENT is change and ALL changes APPEAR on the change-less.
You are both of these aspects.
They cannot exist without ‘each other’.
The Buddha is reported to have said: “Nirvana and Samsara (incuding Dhuka) are Not Two.
‘When’ the restless mind is stilled, by whatever means, these ‘two’ are known to be ‘one’. One aspect is emptiness (formless) – the other is Fullness (form).
One ancient text says: “Because it is empty – it is filled. Because it is full, it is emptied”.
‘When’ any ‘appearance’ is ‘seen’ to disappear within THIS conscious presence – the revelation of all revelations reveals itself – to no one. Awareness remains, no matter what appears or disappears.
Can you recall any ‘time’ when you were NOT? This is highly significant but the intellect will dismiss its potent revelation – it will divert the mind AWAY from the revelation – is it a feeble kind of ‘self-preservation’ of a belief in ‘me’?
As a ‘seeker’ you are doomed to never find.
As the true essence of what you actually ARE – there is no seeking in that.
That is why the ‘wise one’ says “What you are seeking, you already are”.
Pain is a sign that ‘all is not well’ in the body. Intelligence will do what is necessary to bring about ‘healing’.
Psychological pain is often unbearable, yet it is nothing but ephemeral appearances in the mind.
If the pain becomes to much to bear, the body will go into unconscious-ness – intelligence in action.
Stay with the pain. Go to the core of it.
Most run away from pain or resist it with a passion – thus they increase its unbearable-ness. Pain is usually quite bearable if you stay in the immediacy of its appearance. Pain does not build up into problem without thought support.
Let it be what it is. Act intelligently if action is required. Get professional help is needed.
Don’t bury your head in the sand like an Ostrich – and recite new age mantras.
BE the intelligence that you ARE.
It is effortlessly available….but not to any ‘person’. It is WHAT you ARE.
How strange that so many reject the direct pointing and cling to belief as IF it was their saving grace.
P.S. Some ‘teachers’ are exceptionally clear in their expressions. They are not necessarily popular because of this.
The most popular ‘teachers’ are the ones who give plenty of concepts for the ‘self-image’ to weave new stories of attainment for ‘me’.
Posted by gilbert on 03.25.09 1:00 pm
Basically, whatever it takes to open up a clear view of WHAT IS, must be valid.
‘Each one’ is unique – what works for one may not work for another.
Wanting the message to be delivered in a particular format is robbing ‘us’ of the element of surprise. The instant of recognition is unexpected. It cannot conform to any of ‘your’ expectations. If it did, it would not be a true recognition.
What effort are you making to be what you are?
The preconceived notions about ‘awareness’ and ‘how things should be’ is the problem.
Drop it all and SEE.
Quoting from my own notes from some ‘previous time’:
No matter what is appearing in ‘this moment’, by ‘returning’ to the pure nature of cognition (knowing) or this space-like nature of awareness, it will be found that there is no foundation that these appearances rest upon. They all float upon emptiness. This ‘knowing’ or the knowing of this, or anything at all, (this cognition) is beyond all appearances and as itself, it remains invisible at ‘all times’.
This is why you cannot find yourself (as an object). Yet this factor alone is THAT which cannot be negated.
Its own foundation is emptiness itself – suffused with the capacity of ‘knowing’.
You have never not been THIS. It is indescribably – yet some words ‘appear’ to reveal it.
This revelation, or recognition is marked by a sense of relief. It is not necessarily a flash or shift nor anything that can be called an ‘event’ in time.
Posted by Tj on 03.25.09 1:43 pm
Josef,
There’s ‘awake people’ some living in or visiting Germany.
(Editor – There are NO awake People. There is wakefulness and it does not belong to anyone)
“Each one’ is unique – what works for one may not work for another.” Yes and that includes ‘teachers’ who give plenty of concepts for the ’self-image’ to weave new stories of attainment for ‘me’.
That may be exactly what they need before possibly moving on to more direct ‘pointings’. How many can come to this stark pointing without a long search?
Very few. I sure didn’t.
Posted by Ralph on 03.25.09 3:28 pm
Well said, Tj .
Posted by mark on 03.25.09 5:36 pm
“The Life Essence has moved ”
Why does it come and go?
Posted by gilbert on 03.25.09 9:12 pm
The Life Essence NEVER moves or strays from THIS.
The movement is in the appearance. You are the experienc-ING. You are never an experience – the experience is a story – the past….Time…and mind is time.
Awareness is timeless. This is obvious – but not to ‘someone’. You as that believed in separate ‘entity’ will NEVER get this. NEVER. NEVER. NEVER.
Why do ‘you’ insist on being ‘someone’. You are not the body nor the mind. What is left?
Seeing is happening NOW. No time is needed to SEE.
All the stories about process and time to get it are in the appearance.
Th appearance appears in the seeing.
There is no separate ‘entity’, so WHO are ‘we’ talking about?
It ‘appears’ that some need time to move onto more direct pointing – yet the Stark Seeing is already HERE NOW.
Why isn’t that obvious?
Because ‘someone’ is using concepts about ‘time’, which is belief in those concepts.
All concepts ‘appear’ in the SEEING.
What use are these stories about time and attainment? For whom?
It is all crap. Pardon my bluntness. “Someone’ has to do you a favor and tell it straight, without the stories of time and process.
To say there are ‘very few’ is to automatically place that conceptual you ‘outside’ of the ‘few’. To include yourself in ‘the few’ is delusional mind.
There are NO two ways about it. There is NO separation whatsoever – except in the appearance of separation. Place your trust not in concepts but in the knowing.
Where are you seeing from? A concept cannot SEE so don’t attempt to be a concept that can see.
SEEING is naked, unadorned and totally void of any ‘entity’.
Those who imply that they are in a state ‘higher’ than ‘others’ are just pulling their own leg. There is NO two ways about it.
The WHOLE is complete – it is WAKEFULNESS. There is NO relationship to this wakefulness – it is prior to ALL concepts about relationship and individual existence. This may ‘appear’ as a rude awakening IN the wakefulness. The wakefulness is uninterrupted presence.
KNOWING is clear of all attachment to concepts – in this knowing there are no ‘others’ – only the appearance of ‘others’ – and the ‘appearance’ cannot SEE or KNOW anything.
So what are you talking about? It is just more crap. “Shake me – Wake me”. It is all in the mind.
Awareness is NOT in the mind. The so-called mind ‘appears’ in awareness.
Please do not post links to ‘awakened beings’ here on this site – they will be deleted. This site is pointing to WHAT YOU ARE NOW.
It is not about any future time of deliverance. The recognition can only happen NOW – just AS YOU ARE. Not how you want to be.
Filling your head with crappy stories about awakened beings will only keep that believed in ‘you’ in the fictional bondage of self.
Ruthless – well, if you don’t have the clear discrimination to know the difference between what if offered here and these crazy ‘enlightened ones’ then at least the directive is clear here. Take it or leave it. Have you not been ‘walking in circles’ long enough?
Posted by gilbert on 03.25.09 10:27 pm
J. Krishnamurti towards the end of his days said: “I have been singing to the deaf for forty years”. It is obviously from a sense of separateness, but I know what he is saying there.
Hard headed seekers just won’t let go of their sacred concepts about time, process and complex methods. All of which bring endless confusion for the mind.
They appear to be far too willing to glorify ‘another’, an ‘idol’ and do not recognize that it is all conceptual appearances in the knowing presence that they are. It is a blockage to seeing clearly.
Everything passes.
It all appears and disappears in the knowing presence.
Posted by su on 03.25.09 10:55 pm
Randall often speaks of challenging the assumption.
I went to sleep last night aware of breathing, but it was just the word breathing and the connotations thereof. What was this actually happening, starting in my chest and affecting the whole body.
Then I stuck my arm out from under the duvet, immediately the word cold sprung in. But what was the word cold. So for the first time in a very long time, the sensation on my arm was felt. Normally with the word cold, I put my arm back under, without ever experiencing it. It was sensational, this feeling in my arm.
This morning I awoke to a houseful of runny, yellow, odorous dog shit. Okay so that is just a concept. Scoop it up, feel revulsion, this is gross comes to mind, but then again it is soft like mud, it could be delightful if not for the smell and its nature and the stories this mind holds about it.
So it went from this is awful, what a way to start the day to what is this?
All 5 piles of it.
Posted by Roger on 03.25.09 11:37 pm
Gilbert says, “Hard headed seekers just won’t let go of their sacred concepts”
There is no seeker to let go of anything.
Gilbert says, “They appear to be far too willing to …”
“will” and the illusory self are equivalent. There is no one to be “willing” to do anything. “Will” is the very “sacred concept” that needs to be let go of, but there is no one who can be “willing” to “let go” of “will.”
Posted by milton on 03.25.09 11:57 pm
Josef: Thanks for your honesty and willingness to put yourself out here. Your amateur insights aren’t so amateur.
I think Tony has a valid point in that separation is more than a concept to be dispelled. When separation first appeared for us our conceptual apparatus was not well developed. The veil of separation seems a good metaphor. Therein lies the hard-headedness of us seekers. I apparently firmly believe that “me” as a separate entity is utter nonsense, and that there is nothing but intelligence/energy. However, the core assumptions of time, objectivity, and separation still seem to pervade my reality.
Posted by Roger on 03.26.09 12:08 am
Yes, you’re right Milton. It is more than just a concept. It’s a concept coupled with that feeling in the body of personal willpower–or as Tony calls it an “embodied contraction.”
I found it really helpful to notice this feeling happening throughout the body as thoughts arise. It’s easily recognizable. And once you begin to notice it it really seems to lose its grip.
Posted by alcofribas on 03.26.09 12:10 am
Yes indeed,Milton,that’s also called “divine hypnosis” by some!
Posted by gilbert on 03.26.09 1:12 am
Excellent. Stirred up some responses from a few ‘no ones’.
There is nothing divine about hypnosis.
The wakefulness is clear- of all such nonsense.
It is only the appearance that can ‘appear’ to suffer from anything like hypnosis – belief in being some substance.
Is that clear wakefulness hypnotized? Have a look. It is most certainly not.
In this wakefulness the body appears.
The apparent embodiment is an appearance. Sensations are appearance also.
All of the appearance is sensation, subtle and gross. What registers any of it?
Belief is certainly not merely a concept, no one here suggested that it was – the energy of belief is adding seeming substance to the belief and belief cannot stand up to a clear investigation by the intelligence that you are.
What appears cannot be separated from the knowing of the appearance. And yet the knowing remains untouched by the appearance.
You cannot remove reflections in the mirror from the mirror.
None of the appearance has any separate existence whatsoever. It only appears to.
All language is relative. It is of the appearance. What knows the language never appears.
Everyone appears to express themselves.
Wat gets stirred up and what needs to be protected. Knowing needs no protection. It is ever fresh. Opinions on the other hand appear to be coagulated around a self-center.
The opinions seemingly protect the ‘posture’ of the ‘me’. ‘I am right and you are wrong’.
Tony, Bob or Randall or Gilbert says this or that. So what?
If the essence of the pointing has not registered cleanly, what point is there in bantering about postulations and hear say?
This is obviously what is going on in many of the argumentative comments. Attitude.
Yes, you may point the finger at me on that one. Sometimes by grinding grit against grit, things are seen in a fresh way and even start to break down.
When ALL the senses are wide Open, then it is what once was called ‘The Third Eye’. The third eye is ‘The Whole’. This is potentially ‘with us all’ yet it is seemingly not present because the mind content with its habitual ‘me’ demands almost all of the attention. Thus this ignoring of our true potential and the ignoring of our true nature, which is infinite potentiality, seemingly is dulled into being a ‘seeker’.
What is the simple nature of ‘KNOWING’ right there where you appear to be. Non-conceptual awareness.
‘We’ measure it with concepts and fail to recognize it.
It is useless repeating the words “There is no you” or “there is no me”.
It just sets in as ‘an attitude’, more stuff to deal with, seemingly for that believed in ‘entity’.
‘Seekers’ are ‘stuck-ness’ and can get stuck on any concepts and imagine they are getting somewhere or have gotten somewhere ‘better’ than ‘before’. They can ‘become’ teachers and sprout their ‘stories’. it is ALL in the appearance of things and they are all empty – so what is stuck on what?
The singular Essence or what we call Non Duality does not need to realize anything.
It already IS – complete just as it is.
Who are you?
Where are you seeing from?
Truly?
What substance in the appearance belongs to ‘you’?
Where did you acquire this substance?
Where is it stored?
What shape is it?
What color is it?
What does it feel like?
What is it that never changes – what is real?
Non Duality – how can you be anything apart from THAT?
Posted by Ron Marson on 03.26.09 6:21 am
The bottom line is KNOW THYSELF.
This is accomplished, always now, with simply SEEING.
This is what life ALREADY naturally does — what YOU did as an infant and still do.
Because of your large brain, you learned to substitute simple SEEING with what you think you see. This was apparently necessary to keep you alive, so you would look both ways before crossing the street.
SEEING has nothing to do with what you think.
SEEING has nothing to do with your brain.
SEEING is what you notice when your ‘mental dust’ settles.
SEEING has everything to do with simply looking, as if you momentarily forgot everything you learned since conception, and simply looked without mental filters.
But even forgetting isn’t necessary.
Notice that when you look without thought (or without belief if thought is present), that you have no history! (Did you stop and notice?)
No history is SEEING beyond believing. It is so ordinary, and natural, and present it is overlooked.
Stop overlooking (mind seeing) and simply SEE.
Transactional Analysis (Eric Berne / “Games People Play” / 1964) posits child, parent and adult:
CHILD: your animal self, or natural self; pure sensation and feeling; your body’s view.
PARENT: your conditioned self; all of the thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and explanations you copied from your parents and culture; your mind’s view chained to the wheel of becoming.
ADULT: your true self; pure being, seeing and knowing; ‘your’ undefined view (SEEING).
All of the wonderful pointers on this site route (by necessity) through your PARENT (through your brain).
Your PARENT is loathed to give up control.
Your PARENT maintains control by listening to the audio files once or twice, then endlessly trying to figure out what the pointers mean here in the comments section.
Pointers inspire your CHILD to feel through the PARENT to your fully functioning ADULT.
Notice the your ADULT is SEEING even now, and will never stop SEEING, even when the PARENT and CHILD both die.
Where do you want to live? In the CHILD, PARENT or ADULT.
Where you want to live is where you will live.
Posted by gilbert on 03.26.09 6:51 am
One thing that must be realized is that what is on offer here in these programs is radically different to what you have collected from spirituality.
You cannot incorporate this new ‘information’ into your ‘old ideas’. It won’t work, not only will it not work, it will ‘create’ confusion for the mind if you persist with such activities.
The baby, the child, the parent, the adult, the aged and the dying all ‘appear’ as forms of consciousness. All seemingly separate ‘parts’.
There is only One Consciousness – Cosmic Consciousness.
All these patterns do not have any capacity of themselves to know anything at all.
There is only One True Dharma.
There is only One True anything – and that is ‘No Thing’ for the mind.
The fixations on the sense of localization (me) is the ignoring of the vastness of this Open Space-like awareness.
If you truly focus on this idea of ‘me’ with a genuine interest to know what it is, it will dissolve into Open Space – within the seeing.
Witnessing this is a Key Point. A turning point. There is no need to ‘look back’ once this view opens up. The ‘past’ dissolves into emptiness.
Belief is belief – Knowing is knowing.
Believing in that ‘You’ will not allow it to give up ‘your arguments’ – not until this ‘key point’, this ‘turning point’ expands the habitual fixations on ‘me’ into their true origin – emptiness.
Whatever ‘brings this about’ is valid.
There are NO rules, no blue prints.
No one knows HOW or WHY (to anything).
If the fixation on being ‘someone’, a ‘person’ continues without a clear investigation of the foundations of that belief, then that belief will continue to appear as the pivotal point of a fictional personal life – full of vulnerability and doubt.
‘Who’ insists on being a ‘person’?
The question “Where do you want to live?” is an invalid one. No one ever lived a life. LIFE lives you.
You as that believed in entity has NEVER had a choice, it has NEVER done anything.
The fork in the road is in your mind.
You have NEVER chosen a thing and you have NEVER stepped out of this presence, nor have you EVER been anything other than what you ARE.
All evidence to the contrary is only made of appearance in the mind.
How are any of these appearing things known? They ALL appear in the Knowing. There is only One Knowing.
It is registering these words right now. What chioce do ‘you’ imagine that you have in regard to this, or to anything?
The perception of a ‘me’ in others is due to the belief in ‘me’ right there where you appear to be.
KEEP seeing through the ‘me’.
It is a life long belief….its foundations need to be ‘excavated’ and exposed.
If the ‘plant’ is not pulled out by the roots, then it will sprout again. Don’t worry about any of this. The message is sinking in.
At some point, out of the blue, unexpectedly, intelligence will ACT and the Decisiveness will be complete.
It will be KNOWN totally and decisively that you are not a ‘person’. This may sound like futuristic projection.
But I assure you that ‘when’ this ‘happens’ it will be NOW. The SEEING is happening….it is the SAME seeing that ‘was’ there for all the so-called great ‘teachers’ like Buddha, Christ and umpteen others. This moment is the SAME moment in which they all appeared.
You are not separate from THIS. It is One LIFE. Do not despair. Be OPEN and SEE. Make that your touch stone.
Everything will reveal itself………..and IS revealing itself Right Now.
It cannot be any other way.
Posted by Sergio on 03.26.09 10:37 am
All of this is very profound.
It may seem only words…
But is really very profound.
Is very difficult to express.
So, no more words trying to express what cannot be expressed.
Posted by LarryThomas on 03.26.09 1:22 pm
To all you guys,
When you really understood that you never lived a life …that life lived you .. & there is no one inside your body doing anything…how did that change your life? Was all the anxiety, fear, regret & guilt just gone? Sounds way to good to be true. No offense but I’m just amazed that you guys actually believe this……
it’s fascinating to say the least.
Posted by gilbert on 03.26.09 1:42 pm
To say the least is BEST. But communication needs to happen and sharing takes place.
You say…..”I’m just amazed that you guys actually believe this……”
As I repeatedly point out over and over IT IS NEVER A MATTER OF BELIEF.
It is KNOWING. Stop ignoring the pure knowing that you already ARE.
Others may answer your question in due course.
For this pattern here, this Gilbert, for want of a better description, I can speak of what ‘transpired’ in brief.
I noticed that if a memory arose concerning ‘some event’ from the so-called past, appearing AS presenc-ing awareness, a memory that would habitually have brought with it some strong emotional states – it would just appear as the facts of what ‘happened’ in the presence called the ‘past’.
The emotional content ‘was’, is, just not there, no where for it to lodge or be stored. No impulse arose to go looking any further for it. Why would I?
It is a wondrous relief.
The mechanics of it all, the habit, has been broken.
This was unexpected and extremely interesting.
Because of this interest, ‘I’ using the word loosely, delved into old memories that were once dynamically uncomfortable to sit with. To my own amazement they were all inert – factual and clear. This came as a confirmation. Many other aspects came as confirmations. NONE of them were woven into the ‘story of me’.
The minds tendency to weave stories was recognized instantly and the response was “Don’t go there”. It is like a voice or intuition but there is no voice to be heard.
It could be said to be more like ‘telepathy’ but that implies TWO and some sort of transmission.
Today I say this: Intelligence ACTS with decisive intent. It is certainly not a ‘me’ or ‘entity’.
You could say that what was seemingly covered over rises up and pushes away the obstacles of mind.
It leaves you present and aware – AS I AM. Timelessly SO.
It is indescribable. Yet ‘something’ is conveyed and it isn’t in the words.
This mystery will NEVER be worked out in the mind.
KNOWING is NOT in the mind.
IS there not knowing happening right there, prior to any words appearing?
What is wrong with that knowing? Nothing is wrong with it. It is only the mind that suggests, via old habits, that there may be something wrong.
This ‘Gilbert’ has never made a big deal out of these ‘things’ and have never implied that ‘I am enlightened’. The concept is a concept and just not true – unless we are talking about the TOTALITY. The totality includes ‘us all’ and everything. THAT is enlightened but the words are not necessary – and a word is just a word. Equanimity is another word that conveys something clear. Everything is equal. ‘Who’ has a problem with that?
The impulse HERE is to share the message WITHOUT the baggage of ‘pretending’ to be someone ‘special’. In fact it is our ‘specialness’ that gets in the way of the open view. Why present an example of specialness – it ‘creates’ a sense of separation instantly.
I am quite the ordinary chap and I like it that way. There is NO tolerance for any bullshit any longer – in myself, or in anyone else.
What is true shines – what is false is dull and uninteresting. There is no transmission. This revelation can ‘happen’ very quickly but it ‘appears’ to unfold in a gradual way like a sprout emerging from the earth. First a sprout, then a blade, then a head – then the harvest comes. It ALL appears in this moment of uninterrupted PRESENCE.
NO guru games, because the guru game is basically a fraudulent ‘story’ – because it implies SEPARATION. “I have something that you don’t have”.
What we point out here is there is no separation – you are already what you seek.
Just stop ignoring it.
Posted by Tj on 03.26.09 2:24 pm
Editor – “There are NO awake People. There is wakefulness and it does not belong to anyone”
That’s why I put ‘awake people’ in semi quote marks. That meant, yes there are no awake people as such but the seeing has been recognized through a seeming person who is ,in reality, non existent as a separate individual. Isn’t it just simpler to say ‘awake person’? So how would you refer Wheeler or Randall to someone interested? Tell me, who is Stephen Wingate?
And why would you not post the link? Why are you that controlling? The guy Josef is in Germany lamenting the lack of a non dual expression being vocalized through seeming individual entities there. (is that acceptable non dual speak?)
Did you even look at that site? Did you notice Tony Parsons is there? Many others there speak much like you and none of them imply they are in a higher state. Shouldn’t Josef decide for himself if he should go and see anyone or no one? There’s a couple dozen there, did you listen to them all in one day or just give a sweeping dismisal to them all? Are you the ONE… who passes judgement on all teachings and ‘teachers’? Who is this one? It judges? Isn’t that ego activity? Truth is only being spoken on this site? The Sailor Bob boys have cornered the market on true non dual understanding and ‘pointing’? C’mon.
You say “Each one’ is unique – what works for one may not work for another.â€
So where’s tolerance and understanding for people that are not all on the same page and are working in their own unique way?
This critique of neo advaita brings up many interesting things.
http://www.shiningworld.com/Home%20Page%20Links/What%20is%20Neo-Advaita.htm
Perhaps you could have the author of that on. He’s James Swartz. But I doubt he’d pass your narrow approval . Would be very informative, though.
http://www.shiningworld.com/Index.htm
in case you want to actually look at that German site
http://www.here-now-tv.com/
Posted by gilbert on 03.26.09 3:35 pm
Non Duality means that there is no duality.
Neo Advaita and traditional Advaita are just divisions in the mind.
This is not an Advaita site. Neo-Advaita is intellectualizing and nothing more.
What we point at here is that the KNOWING is undivided.
I did not look at the links. I have enough to do already, without checking out every link that someone want to put on this site. It isn’t for LINKS to what some ‘dude’ thinks is good.
Anyway, I take your point and will leave the links for the moment.
Jumping about from one teacher to another is what is termed ‘adulteration’.
Like mixing several fine wines on one bottle, it tends to turn into an unrecognizable concoction. There are many experts about in the subject of Advaita, they look at all the different versions and try to assimilate an over view. This is an absurd activity.
If you take one clear and direct message and stick with it, it does its job. If it is clean and clear it does its job quickly. In my experience most of these ‘teachers’ are not clear at all.
They have many subtle concepts being woven into their version of it.
Yes it is all valid in the appearance – but the ANSWER to this Life Question is NOT in the appearance.
It is what you are. How many pointers do you need, how many ‘teachers’ do you need to listen to? It just goes on and on, endlessly unfolding as more and more divisions in the mind. That is the nature of the appearance.
If these ‘teachers’ that you wish to send people to are indeed clear, then they will draw to themselves, quite naturally those who resonate with what they are presenting.
If every Tom, Dick and Harry starts putting up endless links to this and that, it will turn into just another non-duality entertainment center.
The fascination with the ‘details’ of non duality is a trap. People spend years filling their heads with new knowledge and it is ALL useless. But I don’t suppose you see that fact.
Warm regards – Gilbert.
P.S. I am well used to ‘people’ getting their knickers in a twist.
It doesn’t disturb me at all.
Find a ‘pointer’ that resonates in the core of you being and stay with it. Seeking will cease automatically. But the direct ‘way’ is not interesting for the mind. It wants lots of stuff to work with…..to try and ‘nut it all out’ with. Useless. But who wants to know that?
Posted by Ralph on 03.26.09 4:43 pm
Tj , ……. your on a roll …..
“The Sailor Bob boys have cornered the market on true non dual understanding and ‘pointing’? C’mon.”
….. it appears to come across that way , here at the UGC … doesn’t it ?
Again, well said.
Posted by Vat on 03.26.09 4:48 pm
“To all you guys,
When you really understood that you never lived a life …that life lived you .. & there is no one inside your body doing anything…how did that change your life? Was all the anxiety, fear, regret & guilt just gone? Sounds way to good to be true. No offense but I’m just amazed that you guys actually believe this……
it’s fascinating to say the least.”
I’d guess something like this would be worth investigating, huh?
Posted by gilbert on 03.26.09 10:47 pm
Stop guessing and SEE for yourself. What could be more ‘important’ than this?
You won’t get any stories about someone here being in some special state.
It is very ordinary. ‘We’ overlook the ordinary and go looking for conceptual constructs that ‘someone else has put in our heads, so to speak.
Get to the root cause of the problem. It is simple. The tendency in most seekers, is to wander all around it and embroider fancy conceptual notions on the edge of it.
Dive in and SEE if this ‘entity’ you believe that you are is actually REAL.
Why on heavens NOT? Reality is only scary for the believed in ‘me’ because it itself is a falsehood. It actually has no power whatsoever to do anything.
It springs back like a jack in the box, because you keep winding the bloody thing up, with the energy of belief. And because it hasn’t recognized clearly for what it is.
There are NO excuses. What you ARE is the SEEING, the KNOWING.
Everything is an appearance in that seeing-knowing.
Who is avoiding WHAT IS? It can only be a believed in pattern of energy.
If you SEE that the ‘idea’ of being separate, let’s call it ‘me’, is false, then what is the drama going to attach itself to? The ‘past ‘ is dead and gone.
As that young man from Nazareth said “Let the dead bury the dead”. It is only a ‘me’, the sense of separation, that can be anxious, indulge in regret or guilt.
Look it is very simple. If you don’t take a look and SEE for yourself that this idea of being separate is false, then that ‘you’ that is believed in, is going to be continuously energized by the energy of belief and it is going to feel like it is realfor that identified consciousness.
The story of me is endless – all about ‘me’. It is the story that keeps it rolling along.
It ALL appears in the SEEING.
An idea is phenomena – that which appears and disappears. What remains?
The IDEA of me cannot SEE. It is just a story. Stop the story and see if you can TRULY find this ‘me’.
You won’t find it, no one ever has, because it has no lasting substance whatsoever – BUT you must look yourself. Hear say is USELESS.
What is ‘me’ – it is an idea. The idea is not the problem. The ‘problem’ appears when the idea is believed to be reality.
The definition of ‘reality’ is that which never changes.
Was there a time when you were not? Seriously.
Don’t throw back concepts about forgetting and remembering, this way.
What you THINK you are comes and goes – so it is not reality – simple.
What you ARE is reality.
Who has a problem? Isn’t the the problem a story, ideas about ‘me’?
Drop it and SEE.
What is on offer here is RADICAL….totally radical.
I have witnessed dozens open up to this and the intelligence (which is available to everyone) OPEN UP and begin to shine, Relief spreads throughout their being.
It is a beautiful thing to see happening.
Most of these ones get on with their lives – without the burden of a false sense of self. Their openness I am sure touches many lives around them. Most are happy to be as they are. The resistance to them trying to share this from others is just not worth the hassle, so life goes on living them in more or less the same way it was ‘before’. A few take on the role of sharing this more actively.
Almost all of my family and friends did not want to ‘have a bar of it’.
I soon saw the uselessness in trying to help them see THIS. The River Flows as it does. It does not conform to some way ‘I think it should’.
Oddly enough, it seems, there have been many, many strangers from around the globe who were open to hearing something. And DID hear something.
Randall Friend was one of these. That intelligence shines clearly and brightly through that pattern called Randall, from beyond ALL the patterns – it is One Pattern. One Awareness. One Consciousness. One Knowing. Non Duality.
There is an expression which cuts through all arguments about any of this, it is this: There is NO Duality in Non Duality. Get that and be done with all these arguments and postulations.
Here is the KEY.
The SEEING-KNOWING is NOT in the pattern, the form. It appears to abide in the pattern, the body.
A dead body will show you this FACT very clearly: It has no ability to see or know, smell or touch of itself. What is animating that body right now?
SOMETHING is suffusing ALL the patterns, including concepts, with living intelligence. The ‘me’ is not the problem really – it is the belief in it as being real that ’causes’ the conflict – the conflict is because of the IDEA of being separate. Got IT?
THAT shining intelligence-energy is what you ARE. It is NOT a concept.
What could the resistance to this be made of, if not erroneous beliefs?
I have NOTHING to gain from telling all this. Why would I make it all up. I KNOW it works because someone told me to investigate the me and IT WORKED.
It did not happen in a flash or as some amazing shift. No lightening or thunder. NO story has ever been woven around it.
Intelligence simply ‘arose’ unexpectedly and the SEEING by its its own potency dissolved the belief in ‘me’.
The REASON that we recognize our true nature is BECAUSE we already KNOW IT – it is the cognizing – which has always been here.
You may often hear elderly people say “But I still feel young in myself”. The spirit is birth-less and death-less.
Got it? Boy you guys make me work hard. There are bound to be some smart assed comments about that last line.
Posted by Randall Friend on 03.26.09 11:41 pm
The world appears. The body appears. Thoughts appear. Can you deny it? These are “things”, objects, quantifiable, describable. Each one has a shape, a size, color… What is the subject to these objects?
There is awareness of these “things”. Can you deny it? Not “I AM aware”. That’s another thought appearing.
There is awareness, always present, always clear. Isn’t awareness the subjectivity to all objects known? Is awareness an object? Can you describe it? Does it have a shape, size, color?
Is there another subject experiencing awareness?
Haven’t YOU always been the subject in a lifetime of experiences? Yet what is missed is that the objects called “body-mind” are OBJECTS – not the subject.
The subject – YOU – is this clear and present awareness.
This is “I”.
“I” IS awareness. Only it’s been applied to the body-mind.
YOU ARE Awareness. The body-mind and world are appearances TO you. In You.
Yet caught within the shackles of conceptualization, the primary assertion is I AM – this is applying the subjectivity to the object – body-mind, person.
It’s like looking out – seeing a tree – and then conceptualizing that the TREE is the experiencer in this basic equation of your experience of yourself and the world. The TREE is an object.
In exactly the same way, the body-mind is an object arising in subjectivity, in the open space of “I”. It’s a simple and obvious fact that isn’t arrived at through more conceptualization. It’s arrived at through laying aside of preconceived notions – not more “worldly-knowledge” but Self-knowledge… looking directly at what Reality IS.
The apparent split between Subjectivity and Objectivity is ONLY apparent.
YOU are the knowing (subjectivity) in all experience (omniscience), ever-present in all experiences (omnipresence), and that knowing presence is the actual FORM and FUNCTION OF the appearance itself (omnipotence). Subject and object are ONE.
YOU are the Presence (Sat), aware or knowing (Chit) itself as everything (Ananda).
Step outside – look up at the trees, the birds, the clouds, the buildings, the people walking around… Notice this body with its faults and pleasures. Notice these thoughts coming and going, chasing themselves in seeking, tamping themselves down or finding joy in themselves…
YOU are the source of ALL of it. YOU are the Presence in which this beautiful miracle is unfolding. YOU ARE LIFE. Life, looking at itself. Life, living itself.
It can only be LIFE seeking itself. There is no separate “you”, no individual separate from LIFE. Whether LIFE finds itself or not is irrelevant. It cannot become anything but what it already IS. Where you look, life cannot find anything but itSelf.
It is not “you” – the individual – that finds anything in seeking. It is Life which, in realizing itSelf, dissolves the false idea, the displacement of I AM, the idea of a separated individual. “You” are dissolved. YOU – LIFE – recognize your own FACE as EVERYTHING.
Posted by milton on 03.26.09 11:49 pm
The resistance could be made of feelings below the conceptual level; the idea of separation is easier for me to deconstruct than the feeling of lack, loss, incompleteness, etc. Like Tony says, I can have seeming clarity on the conceptual level concerning nondualilty but the expansion, relief, energy shift, opening up and beginning to shine, release of burden, etc. doesn’t necessarily happen. That I am presence awareness/ intelligence-energy seems clear, that in fact, that is all there is. However, within that presence awareness this nagging sense or feeling or idea/feeling of constriction, loss, burden..keeps appearing, sometimes seeming to entirely obstruct the presence awareness, or the presence awareness….I keep flip flopping between these seeming states.
Maybe I am giving belief to these feelings, but they seem to appear spontaneously, and whether I believe them or not, they seem to have actuality. Is it best to ride these period out, so to speak, and leave the feelings alone, with the realization that eventually presence awareness will be recognized? Should I attempt to stop believing in the feelings? This would be hard because the feeling is just there whether I believe in it or not. It seems like I have two parallel processes occurring, one on the feeling level and one on the thinking level, and they are not in harmony. Does these make sense, or am I jumping off the tower of Babble?
Posted by mark on 03.27.09 12:09 am
Thanks for all the hard work you’re doing for us , Gilbert! It shows indeed that you still feel young in yourself
Posted by alcofribas on 03.27.09 12:14 am
Milton,
you can’t stop believing in the feelings,that’s the whole point;try hard if you can and there will be more of “me”! what a release when you see that nothing works!
as you said,clarity is just clarity,it can bring a lot of relaxation,but it’s just clarity…and it comes and goes…you can have the complete understanding of what awareness is and that’s still an understanding,as subtle as it can be…the hopelessness,helplessness and meaninglessness could be a great blessing if it’s not heard by “me”!:-))
Posted by tomvds on 03.27.09 12:14 am
Once again a very clear and beautifull post from Randall! Thank you for that !
Posted by gilbert on 03.27.09 12:51 am
Clarity does not come and go. Everything is Clear and Obvious in the seeing-knowing.
Even confusion of mind is clear as what it is. The confusion is due to tension between different ideas or thoughts and habitual attitudes etc.
When a decisive decision happens, the conflict disappears. No one makes the decision.
It is all energy flowing as it does.
There is too much concern about beliefs it seems. Let them be as they are. Do not engage with them. See them for what they are. If you tangle with them, they will drag ‘you’ into a web of disease in being.
Feeling follows thought. You may hear some music and instantly it draws up a sad feelings from the ‘past’ – this is called ‘by association’. The feeling appears to be there almost instantly. Thought and feeling or emotion are aspects of the same ‘thing’.
The feelings hang around longer because of chemical changes in the body. They all pass or disappear. What happens usually is that the sad feeling trips off more thoughts by association and it is a circular pattern, thought feeding feeling and feeling feeding thought.
What needs to be recognized is that it all APPEARS in this unchanging wakefulness.
It is similar when ‘we’ hear a very clear pointer. It resonates and a sense of ‘rightness’ is there, then thoughts are added to it by association and the clarity of the pointer ‘appears’ to disappear. What we call unclear is the ‘mind game’ tossing and turning.
Feelings of confusion or clouded mind seem to come. But WHO is it happening to?
Whatever comes and goes is not what you are.
‘You’ as a believed in ‘entity’ will NEVER find what is being pointed to – NEVER.
It can’t – not by any means.
By association, that ‘you’ seemingly gives meaning to whatever supports its continuation.
The SEEKING is the problem.
Be what you are. What effort is needed to be what you already are?
There are very clear pointers that Tony speaks about. The terminology is quite different.
What is communicated is not all in the words. We can argue about the meaning of words until dawn and nothing much happens. Essence to essence is the missing ‘element’ – and that only reveals itself more fully when the mind stops playing games.
Stop playing mind games and be open to what is. There is NO answer in the mind.
It is beyond the mind. To ‘get there’ all you have to do is stop thought. Drop the story of me. If this resonates with you, then the stopping of thought is easy. The impulse will come, not by any ‘doing by you’.
If there is a strong resistance, then it is impossible.
What are you afraid of?
You won’t disappear just because thought has ceased for ‘a short time’.
Posted by Karl on 03.27.09 1:53 am
Milton Hi:)
At the risk of doing a Gilbert…
Your parallel processes of thinking and feeling… are confused. A feeling only ever arises from a thought.
This originates in the MIND!!
Don’t go jumping off any tall towers!
‘I’ doesn’t have any thoughts… ‘ME’ does!
“Taking ‘ME’ seriously is the only mistake in this journey”.
Learn that… and the rest will follow
HTH Karl:)
Posted by milton on 03.27.09 2:44 am
“the hopelessness,helplessness and meaninglessness could be a great blessing if it’s not heard by “me— = There is NO answer in the mind = It is Life which, in realizing itSelf, dissolves the false idea, the displacement of I AM, the idea of a separated individual=“Taking ‘ME’ seriously is the only mistake in this journeyâ€.
So feelings and thoughts are appearances in presence/awareness so are basically the same. The feelings just seem to endure longer and hang around longer but are no more real. Just let them be and they will go their way. Feelings are more like a sunset and a thought is a bird flying across the sky; both are appearances in the sky.
Thanks UGC for continuing to blow “me” away. A refreshing cup of coffee indeed. Strong? Yes, strong will be good. Amazing. Nonetheless you hope to attain some other fruit than this elsewhere–amazing!
Posted by Ste Gunn on 03.27.09 4:04 am
Hi,
I seem to be hung up on where the appearance comes from if anywhere. I like the concept of sensations being interpreted by the brain and then an image being made based on those interpretations and that is where the ‘me’ lives (in the image) but I am not that ‘me’ or the image but the empty ‘space’ (or empty mind in this concept) in which that image appears\is made of. Seperation is added to this image in the brains interpretation of what is believed and so it is the brain that will work through this belief until it is dispelled and the seperation will no longer appear in the image, but it is still only an image appearing in the empty ‘space’. Due to everything that appears being made of the empty ‘space’ it is already one whether the image includes seperation or not.
That has to be a concept though as there is no way I can say those sensations come form a real world outside this empty ‘space’ as when I dream at night I feel many sensations that don’t exist, I see many things in my sleep even though my eyes are shut. The whole concept of the brain interpreting sensations falls apart and I’m just left with this idea of empty ‘space’ full of mysterious appearances that have no basis of existance.
It seems the appearance here is of ‘me’ trying to work all of this out. It seems pointless but I can’t put it down. I agree with Milton there seems to be a flip where the constricted feeling in the body just vanishes and then a flop as it returns.
Posted by alcofribas on 03.27.09 4:20 am
Hi Ste Gunn,
yes,it’s a “me” trying to find an escape…and it’s a “me” also trying to put it down!
there is no way out,there is no possibility to stop the trying…there is no control,no doer of it all! this helpnessness is the grace in a sense!:-)
Posted by gilbert on 03.27.09 8:49 am
There never was a someone that did anything.
Helpless-ness for WHOM? Isn’t it just another ‘story about me’? “I am helpless”.
It can only refer to a ‘someone’ who never actually existed.
What good is it?
Yet it may ‘appear to be’ that unexpected ‘something’ that needs to be heard. Mystery. Any ‘pointer’ that works, works not because it is expected to work.
It is always unexpected. “The expected rarely happens”.
There never was a someone that did anything -yet a ten year old boy is told by his mother to go to the shop and buy a pint of milk. The boy returns home with a pint of milk, not a bag of dirt. No one did anything yet the doing happened. Seekers go to see someone like Bob or Tony or whoever. No one doing anything. After a few visits someone is walking in the Park and the story of ‘me’ completely collapses and disappears.
Seemingly suddenly there is just walking in the Park. No one doing anything.
All there truly was was walking in the Park. Nothing has happened to any someone.
But it appears that something rather profound has ‘happened’.
Yet the story of me is disappearing many, many, many, many times a day.
I know people who have given up smoking a hundred times. Has smoking been actually given up? No, periods of not smoking happen between the smoking periods.
A smoker gives up smoking when he goes to sleep at night. Can’t smoke in your sleep, can you. Periods of activity and inactivity ‘appear’ in the totality. Deeds get done – there is no one doing anything. But the milk arrives. If the order had not been requested, would the milk have arrived?
If that someone walking in the Park had not heard the talks on Non Duality would the story of me have stopped?
You see it isn’t really about anyone.
The WHOLE manifestation appears in an orderly fashion. No one is giving any orders.
The difference between order and chaos could be the scale of observation. Up close and ‘personal’ it may appear to be chaos. Further away order reveals itself.
At what ‘point’ does chaos ‘become’ order? At what point does warm ‘become’ hot?
At what point does apparent ‘doer-ship’ become non-doer-ship?
There is NO SEPARATION.
You cannot separate anything from anything else.
The Buddha is reported to say: “Nirvana and Samsara (including suffering) are NOT TWO.”
They are just words, are they not?
The profoundity of the words is not in the words.
It is in the…….? in the…….. In the what?
In the revelation of their ‘meaning’? The re-cognition…..which in essence is cognition (knowing).
Where does that happen? Or where does that ‘appear’ to happen?
You cannot answer that truly. The totality is indivisible.
SEEING is happening.
Uninterrupted SEEING.
Everything else is a story.
“There is NO duality in Non Duality”.
Full Stop.
Posted by alcofribas on 03.27.09 9:12 am
The Buddha is also reported to say: “events happen, deeds are done – but there is no individual doer there-of”…how many Buddhists really heard that?
Posted by John Mellencamp on 03.27.09 9:23 am
“Just because you think this is how it should be only makes it just that: what you think; it doesn’t make it true. So let’s try to put our best foot forward and remember that anyone can stand in the back of a dark hall and yell obscenities but if you want a better world it starts with you and the things you say and do.” – John Mellencamp (musician)
(read the whole comment on ‘the state of music industry’ in The Huffington Post)
How many Buddhists does it take to hear a single bell ringing – or to find Oneness in non attachment?
How many rosary beads does it take to make a heaven?
Posted by alcofribas on 03.27.09 9:38 am
Hi,Gilbert Mellencamp!:-)
Posted by gilbert on 03.27.09 9:42 am
The next program will appear soon. Part Two of the ancient text.
The statistics on visits and downloads for the Urban Guru Cafe is soaring. Phase one will end on a high note, to coin a phrase. Phase Two will start on that high and take it much higher.
In the clear space of knowing, there is no higher or lower, no inside or outside.
Silence and Stillness reign supreme…..and yet these are exceptionally ordinary, everyday, normal (non) things.
What sound has EVER disturbed the Infinite Silence – and what co-motion has EVER disturbed the Infinite Stillness?
The clear evidence of this is right there (here) where SEEING is happening.
Posted by Mark Ellis on 03.27.09 9:42 am
Excellent comments appearing here.
I wanted to post a response that I received from Randall F. a few months ago when ‘me’ was absolutely…. um yea, chasing my tail, as it were.
It “cleared” a little space here in Da Abyss>>
ThanQ Randall ~ avastu0@blogspot.com ~
Good to see the mind is throwing itself in a ditch, gaining some understanding only to have it ripped out by the throat, left bare and naked, circling in an ever-tightening noose that is both inescapable and infinitely non-existent.
The mind continues down this path of compulsive analytical masturbation until it totally runs head-first into the brick wall, so hard that it’s left bleeding and convulsing, gasping for life support, left totally without any word to save it, left completely without any direction to go for help.
When that mental heartbeat weakens in exhaustion and self-inflicted battering, when that continuous stream of absolute and total self-referencing runs out of steam, there is simply a giant exhale, a release of the string pulled so tight it might snap in two. A resting in pure effortless seeing and knowing, a witnessing of the sensations that make up this illusion of body and mind and world, a confusion as to the reality of this that seemed so clearly understood with concepts.
The only “thing” that can BE is that seeing/knowing, against and within which these “sensations” come and go, not separate from the pure nonconceptual IS-NESS, a simple blade of grass, a slight cool breeze against the face, the sound of pitter-patter of tiny feet. THIS is the miracle, the mysterious nothingness which manifests as everythingness, the “secret” which is completely and totally and ABSOLUTELY staring you in the face.
Only “face” can never be found, only appears as a conceptualized idea of more sensation – no boundary can be located, no center or circumference can be found, no beginning or end can EVER EVER appear.
Seeing/knowing is happening – before during and after any concept which appears, before during and after any idea of a “mark” who wants to understand, a “mark” who seeks or finds or laughs or cries, a “mark” who sees or doesn’t see, gets “enlightenment” or falls miserably into the abyss of total ignorance.
At the end of this fictional story, the book is laid aside, a deep breath is taken, a sip of tea, resting against the soft pillow of now. The story remains only as a memory, a faint picture of “mark”, not worth the distraction from the bittersweet taste of tea, not worth the illusory effort required to maintain the drama.
All that remains is the seeing/knowing/being, the space in which these characters dance on the stage, the emptiness which overflows with sound and fury, the YOU which was before the big bang, the YOU which was never ever, for the smallest fraction of a moment, EVER involved in the world.
Posted by billtys on 03.27.09 11:44 am
Read these lines below a few times from Randall Friend’s post above…so clear and obvious!
“I†IS awareness. Only it’s been applied to the body-mind.
YOU ARE Awareness. The body-mind and world are appearances TO you. In You.
Posted by gilbert on 03.27.09 12:11 pm
Yes. And the ‘awareness of’, the ‘knowing of’ all ‘things’, without a single exception, all things appear in the ‘knowing’ which is no thing.
‘Things’ are No Thing appearing as ‘something’ and all ‘things’.
If you do not name anything, then is the unity disturbed by ‘no thought’?
Can unity be truly disturbed by thought? Or do ‘we’ just think (and believe) that it is disturbed? Don’t think about this.
As the ancient text says “The faster they run, the slower they go”.
Posted by billtys on 03.27.09 4:13 pm
There is only intelligence.
The intelligence does and is eveything.
We think we do things…but no…the intelligence does the lot!
The existence of intelligence is self evident.
Everything is just happening…the planets moving around, the little seed pushing through the dirt…the cell creation program in this body/mind running along quite nicely… without the imagined me doing anything.
The imagined entity does nothing…the intelligence does everything…you are the intelligence…you are the life and the living looking at itself.
The intelligence is instant and immediate. It is only now…right now while you are reading these words…direct cognition…nothing to wait for or expect…
Who or what is doing everything? The planets, the stars, the seed growing, the body/mind metabolising and assimilating…the intelligence runs the whole show.
Investigate the seed pushing through the dirt…there it is…up she comes…the shoot is seen…the flower unfolds…what is doing that? What is making that little plant unfurl and uncurl and display itself?
The intelligence!
Where or what is this intelligence? Has it got any colour, shape, size, etc. No!
It is NO THING that can be grasped by the mind! It is undeniable (are you aware?)…it is immediate…it is right now…obvious and clear.
The imagined entity is the same as the plant shoot…appearing in the intelligence as the intelligence…intelligence looking at itself!
No matter what arises…fear, laughter, objects, even the thought ‘I don’t get this non dual stuff’ is just appearances in the intelligence that you are.
…Friday afternoon ramblings of an old bloke up in the Dandenong mountains…playing didgeridoo…enjoying whatever is appearing…
Posted by John Cougar Killwallaby on 03.27.09 5:50 pm
Bill, there’s only DOING, friend.
Now, if some Aboriginal woman came up there and took a plop on you — would you really enjoy THAT?
C’mon, I mean in the appearance, of course… APPEARING, THAT IS. Without any conglomeration of mind stuff conceptualizing a conceptualizer in the Duality.
So what are you going to do when Gilbert’s crowned King Sailor Bob II, ‘uh? Envy and Jealousy are but unnecessary mind things, BT.
Be well, my friend…
-JCK
Posted by kale on 03.27.09 9:55 pm
It’s simpler than simple…prior to whatever arises…it always is as it is..
Posted by gilbert on 03.27.09 11:53 pm
There is nothing more simple than non duality. Doing is only in the appearance of ‘things’.
“One thing, all things move among and mingle”. – from the ‘Hsin Hisn Ming’ by Chien Chih Seng T’san.
Only a believed in ‘doer’ thinks that there is ‘only doing’. It is his ‘trump card’.
But the game is a mind game and the trump card is only a joker.
The ego ridden identified consciousness has no light of itself, just like the Moon.
It is just a reflection, an appearance.
By what light do you SEE and KNOW?
Is it ‘yours’? See if you can turn up the brightness or turn it off and on.
The body moves and the believed in ‘I’ says ‘I did that’.
Knowing remains beyond the grasp of thought and the intellect. Twist and turn as much as you like, jump over your own knees – you cannot get behind the knowing.
Everything appears on or in the knowing presence. It is not an individual (as the word is usually used). It is indivisible PRESENCE.
Posted by Ste Gunn on 03.28.09 1:04 am
Hi again,
It seems that in this investigation there can be a trying to get something, something better for ‘me’. It is pointed out that this is a mistake and that this ‘me’ does not exist and so the investigation then turns to trying to be rid of something, rid of this false ‘me’. It is then pointed out again that this is a mistake an that this ‘me’ DOES NOT EXIST. This can lead to confusion as this non-existant ‘me’ does seem to pop up now and then….and I’ve just realised I’ve totaly missed the point. If any ‘me’ appears is irrelevant. I see this ‘me’ thought tie itself in all sorts of knots chaseing it’s tail into a maelstrom and I feel I need to help it in some way, I love it and don’t want to see it in such a state, but I don’t know if that is just more of the same or what?
I go over these things in my head but it’s not until I express them here that they are revealed to be totally wrong. I’ve been waiting for this maelstrom to go away, trying to nudge it along now and then but I am increasingly getting the impression that it’s not going to go anywhere and there’s no need to do anything about it. It makes me sad and a little dissapointed to think there is no hope for this ‘me’ appearance. Like not wanting to say goodbye to an old friend and leave him to his woes.
Posted by kale on 03.28.09 1:12 am
great sense of relief arises yet again and again when this inner traffic policeman is recongnized for what it is…a Disney character, Chief O’Hara…so to speak….
so simple…yet, appears so hugely complicated; takes so many words to point to what is prior to the first word….
Posted by alcofribas on 03.28.09 1:24 am
Ste Gunn,
Believe me or not,the most you try the most you reinforce the sense of “me”…but it would be useless to suggest you to stop! hopeless,helpless,meaningless!…Nothing works,Alleluia!:-)
Posted by Mark Ellis on 03.28.09 2:22 am
Hey Ste,
Did ya catch my last post from Randall Friend?
It sounds exactly where “I” got stuck, spinning out of control into the deep abyss.
Hitting the “Wall” is a Blessing, in a sense, or at least it was here>>
Posted by Mark Ellis on 03.28.09 2:43 am
Hey Gilbert,
Wow, I just heard your boy on the guitar>>>>again WOW~!
myspace.gypsycrims for those who want to check it out~~
Posted by Ralph on 03.28.09 3:23 am
Hi Ste Gunn
“It makes me sad and a little dissapointed to think there is no hope for this ‘me’ appearance. Like not wanting to say goodbye to an old friend and leave him to his woes.”
There is no need to walk away from this ‘me’ appearance but it must be seen that who you truly are is NOT who you believe yourself to be. Instead of saying goodbye to this ‘me’ appearance perhaps it would help to stay present with this sadness and disappointment and SEE why there is sadness and disappointment there. To deny or judge or ignore this ‘me’ appearance just keeps the ‘me’ appearance in place. The struggle and frustration you feel is caused by trying to take someone else’s words and not seeing the truth of what is being said. So stay with it until it is seen and by no means try to just accept other people’s words including mine and make them true without investigation first.
There is work to be done UNTIL it is seen that the one doing the work is the one that stands in the way of true seeing and NOT before.
Posted by Margo on 03.28.09 3:47 am
” The more you seek the less you find.”
” The more you try the more you reinforce the sense of ‘me’.”
This only appears so because trying is obscuring what you are looking for.
You are looking for EMPTY SPACE like awareness while ‘covering’ it up with more thoughts.
The thought ‘me’ is doing the looking-seeking-trying , and so it is getting reinforced.
How can you notice this EMPTY SPACE when it is all cover up ( by thoughts seeking other thoughts ).
Some ‘spiritual’ writers suggest meditating on the space between the words – it never worked for me. But what works for me is reading very slowly over and over sentences that resonate within me.
The sentence that already resonates , like Gilbert’s introduction in the e-book ;
” Awareness is space like – Right THERE where these very words are registering, via the pure function of seeing, there is nothing that you can know of as ‘something’ which is registering all the (millions of) impressions. It is not a screen, nor a bunch of brain cells. It is space-like. It is all too obvious and we normally miss it altogether.”
It seems that by leaving the space between the words you are actually exposing what you are looking for – SPACE LIKE AWARENESS.
The tendency of the mind is that when sentence resonates to hurry up to read next sentence to understand more- but what you are actually doing is covering up this opening where this realization registered with more words and therefore obscuring what you were looking for.
If you leave enough EMPTY SPACE between the words or thoughts the meaning will ‘reveal’ it self to you.
The words are pointing to this empty space between thoughts and words.
Posted by stephen M on 03.28.09 4:46 am
Thank you , Margo
Posted by Mike in SF on 03.28.09 5:25 am
I’m a little concerned about “phase two” of the UGC. We have an old expression: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
But I’m still intrigued.
Posted by C on 03.28.09 6:20 am
much ado about no thing
Posted by gilbert on 03.28.09 10:32 am
Some believe that they are no longer ‘seekers’. Temptation comes along and anticipation arises (eg. a promise of Phase Two).
The SEEING is happening.
UN-interrupted SEEING.
The ‘seer’ along with the ‘seen’ are ‘appearances’ in the SEEING.
Seeing is the pure function.
The seer and the seen are content.
No one will BELIEVE this.
It reveals itself unexpectedly and it is a ‘decisive ACT of Intelligence’.
The mind is in expectation so often, it covers the unexpected which is already HERE – it is just not recognized – yet the mind seeks for it in the mind – and it isn’t IN the mind content.
No one EVER contrived or made THIS act happen (or anything happen).
In the SEEING, everything is an appearance – EVERYTHING.
The most subtle movement in the mind is an appearance.
Spiritual reputations are bullshit stories.
There is no one.
Take another look at your Guru with eyes wide open.
Only when you KNOW what you are, can you KNOW what everything is.
There is NO problem – but this MUST be recognized – not just conceptualized.
What is on offer here is totally radical and totally ordinary.
It is like a Golf Course with 10 thousand holes. But you don’t even have to put the ball on one T or take one swing at the ball to score ‘an Eagle’.
Stop playing mind games and SEE.
Do NOT believe in stories of not being able to do anything, impotency.
The KEY is obviously present – it is just overlooked via belief in being ‘someone looking’.
The SEEING is happening.
UN-interrupted SEEING.
P.S. This pointing is taking its tole. Many ARE recognizing their true nature. This is obviously happening and the clear evidence via responses (not necessarily on this comment page) come in. The ‘days of sitting for decades’ in a guru’s meetings are over. The message is being delivered with precision.
It isn’t all in the words. It isn’t all in the words. It isn’t all in the words. It isn’t all in the words. It isn’t all in the words. It isn’t all in the words. It isn’t all in the words.
“WORDS – the way is beyond language” from the text by Seng-Ts’an.
Posted by Ralph on 03.28.09 11:30 am
You mean its all blah… blah… blah…. ?
Oh, I get it… the way is beyond blah.. blah… blah…
I have an idea, tomorrow night during ‘Earth Hour’, in addition to turning out the lights, we all should ‘stop talking’ for one hour and experience our true nature..
(Editor – ‘Ralph’ can’t stop talking – he is the talking)
Posted by gilbert on 03.28.09 11:57 am
I just got an email from someone who is very familiar with Bob’s message. It doesn’t matter ‘who’ it is.
I will share it here.
“I listened to bob’s message twice this week and the second time it just made me cry – it touched my heart. Thanks for putting the program together gilbert. Nicely sent message.Would you please let him know.”
As I say “It sinks in”. It isn’t all in the words.
The resistance to ‘what is’ is the idea of being separate. When that idea is absent, the message ‘sinks in’. First as brief moments. The clear space of knowing ‘appears’ to widen and the ‘open view’ reveals that it was always HERE….NOW.
As I say repeatedly -SEEING is happening. In that clear seeing, gratitude arises from the relief that is obviously present.
Grasping consciousness loses its hold. Don’t invite it back. It is an unwanted guest.
Posted by Linda on 03.28.09 12:09 pm
Dear Gilbert,
thank you so much for all of this wonderful material.
I wonder at times if you have a life at all, you spend so much of your time responding to comments etc. Often burning the candle at both ends of the day.
You are a karma yogi. This is service to all beings.
Have you considered letting the comments go to preserve your sanity and just focussing on the talks?
Of course we know there is no you or your but we have to communicate somehow.
many thanks….
Posted by gilbert on 03.28.09 12:47 pm
No one doing anything. Knowing this leaves everything free to be what it is.
If you relax totally into being what you are – then everything is as it is.
The ‘old mind’ no longer plays its lonely tune, so there is no distraction and no belief in anything. This is radically challenging to any ‘person’.
The opportunity is always here for anyone to make suitable comments. I just keep the ball rolling. There are around 10,000 hits a day to this site. That doesn’t happen for static sites. The ever fresh message expresses itself without any reliance on the past.
If I think about it, it is usually a thought like: “Where did that expression come from?”
It can only come from the SEEING of WHAT IS and that is ever fresh, in the moment, the immediacy of SEEING.
In this seeing the expression unfolds naturally and with ease – so long as the ‘me’ doesn’t get in the way.
This ‘me’ here has been seen for what it is. It is merged in the background like a pattern on a rug.
The ‘me’ is translucent like the reflections in the mirror.
It is ALL light. ‘You’ cannot grab and hold light. ‘You’ cannot grasp space because your hand is IN space. Therefore the SEEKER can never FIND what it is looking for.
It is a most wondrous ‘thing’ to share and SEE that the message is delivered.
The ‘Harvest’ is happening. Joyous singing ‘in the fields’. Can you hear it?
Do not raise a platform for me or any guru. All is equal in Non Duality.
P.S. The comments only take a few minutes to write. I do not labor over any of it.
Posted by Mark Ellis on 03.28.09 1:06 pm
Gilbert writes:
The mind is in expectation so often, it covers the unexpected which is already HERE – it is just not recognized – yet the mind seeks for it in the mind – and it isn’t IN the mind content.
Just wanted to repeat that to myself~~ Soooo subtle this pinpoint As eternity~
Is time slowing down for anyone, stopping even, as if time is melting into itself, forward and backward and in every direction…… ? Yes, I am sober>>lol
I went back through the UGC archives and was taken aback at Just the comment page growth….. As few as 3 comments Total AND this month sets the record.
Plus we have no idea how many “nutters” get deleted (like Me’s)… simply RADICAL.
Since I don’t know what my next thought is going to be, I just Can’t “look forward” to phase 2, as if anymore is required after Gilbert and many other’s
Surgically Precise Pointing. AND Areti…. Bravo Dear~!~!~!
Posted by gilbert on 03.28.09 1:31 pm
Nisargadatta says: “Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you except in your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas, and live by truth alone.”
Truth or reality is not an object. It is No Thing.
Nisargadatta says: “When I see that I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see that I am everything, that is love…..and ‘my life’ (appears to) move between these (apparent) two.”
Paraphrase with additional words added to make it a little clearer.
Posted by dorothy hoffman on 03.28.09 11:26 pm
Staying with this presence is all that is required…until even that is seen as an idea arising…floating and disappearing…there never was anyone to stay with it to begin with….appearances arising from this and disappearing back into it….