75. David Carse – Perfect Brilliant Stillness
In this program the legendary British actor Terence Stamp reads selected extracts from the book that he says “changed his life”, Perfect Brilliant Stillness by David Carse. These extracts, like the full unabridged audiobook (which can be download for a reasonable fee from Silksoundbooks), is an exploration of our ‘existence’ – THAT, which cannot be denied. In The fine print at the start of his book, David Carse wrote: There are many books out there that will help you to live a better life, become a better person, evolve and grow to realize your potential as a spiritual being. This is not one of them.
It should be noted that the various audio selections used in this program amounts ot a mere fraction of the full version. The book is quite extensive and covers many aspects of this ‘subject’.
The hard copy of the book is available through Non Duality Press. Look for it in your local ‘spiritual bookshop’ or order it directly from Non Duality Press.
NOTE: These selected passages appear as one program. The contents here are only a fraction of the full Audio Book.
Music includes: Ruben Diaz (Guitar), a brilliant composer Thomas Dybdahl selections and a brief appearance of The Muse (Bliss).
The Urban Guru Cafe is a free podcast on the subject of Non Duality. The UGC breaks through the bondage to all paths and points to right here, right now.
So clear . . .So beautiful . . .thanks for these great podcasts!!
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PERFECTLY BRILLIANT!!
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Thanks UGC.
To have some WeWuWei with our coffee . . . now THAT’S strong!
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This one is a pearl! Thanks.
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Just picked up his book yesterday…fancy that.
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Of course..bad manners..my apologies
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“Effortlessness is not something that can be attained by effort. No-mind is not a state that can be achieved by the mind. Peace cannot be achieved by striving. Trying to be aware of ‘just being in the present moment’ is a contradiction in terms; being ‘self-consciously’ aware of it takes you out of it. Trying to be aware of “I Am’ is a similar contradiction, and for the same reason. You can’t try to be happy any more than you can try to go to sleep or try to act naturally. You only act naturally when you’re not trying, not thinking, but simply going about life.” (D:C:)
This is a very, very, very unsettling message for the ‘me’. And yes, it is useless, ridiculous and stupid to pretend that I know. The one who proclaims to know that life is but a dream is part of the dream – as it is said here. Yet knowing IS. I AM the knowing, and the known – ‘me’, ‘you’, all the stories and the whole world with everything in it – is, so to say, the byproduct of the knowing. No separation. Really, so unfathomably simple, that the mind shrivels up in no time.
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Those who cling to the ‘old mind’ are heading down a dead end street.
What is being pointed out is beyond the usual ‘stuff’ and the word radical only applies from the point of view of mind stuff.
What is being pointed to is beyond language and yet it is exceedingly clear and obvious. It is indescribable and so ordinary that no one usually gives it any attention at all. In fact you can’t really give it any attention. It is what the attention registers on.
‘We’ call it ‘it’ or ‘that’ and sometimes just ‘this’.
The mind is in poverty when it comes to give any suitable label to ‘it’.
Nothing could exist without it and yet it is No Thing.
You can twist your mind into a thousand knots trying to work out what it is and it is all useless.
This immediate ‘moment’ of pure cognition is it.
How could you ever say what it is?
You can’t – but you cannot negate it.
This ‘pure knowing’ is all that is happening – there is nothing outside of it.
All the pointers are pointing at THAT.
You are THAT.
There is no ‘other’.
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WOW! Thanks.
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One can try to explain a joke and does that make it funny to the non-understander? One can try to describe the taste of an apple. Does that give the listener apple flavour? A billion messages pointing to the unknowable will not make it known. No one will ever get this, even though there are tempting pointers such as ‘do not pretend to know’. No, i want the real thing, i dont want to pretend to be clear. Etc etc more instruction, more tittilation, more anticipation for the mind thats perfectly ok as it is. It doesnt need to understand, there IS NO understanding to be had. Relax. Let go. The next podcast wont do it. There will be no A HA! It’s like: if you keep breathing, i’ll promise you life.
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“The answer is NOT in the mind”…
You ‘catch’ the joke or not. Explaining the joke will not do it.
Basically, there are two points to understand:
The first: you are presence-awareness right now. You don’t need to think about it. You are and you know you are. Period.
And the second: you are NOT a ‘me’, separate from this presence-awareness. This point requires investigation. Is there something separate from presence-awareness? Look and see if something separate from presence-awareness exists. You investigate and find… nothing at all. There is NO THING separate from presence-awareness.
(This second point requires much more than a clever intellect. May be a fierce determination to go to the end of it.)
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Or maybe not Fernando. Maybe nothing more than a gentle willingness to give up will. Actually, my seeing of ten fingers and my hearing of family bickering and all the phenomena that appears is all thats required to live. ‘Do not search for the truth, only cease to cherish opinion’.
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Can you smell the truth? No, but you can smell. That is the truth. Can you read the truth? No but etc etc
You cant do or know anything. Rather, it is all being done, smelled, known THROUGH you! Voila. Finis.
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What a lovely thing this is, this opportunity to flap about the inexpressable. Who doesnt love it? Who finds it a bit pretentious? Who would really like to love it but cant quite admit to their deepest self that they get it yet? Who? Who cares? Not I said the fly. LOL
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I wanted to give this a ‘thumb up’, but I klicked on the ‘thumb down’… there you go, – does’t this happen all the time? I want to do or say this or that, or maybe promise myself not to do it, and in the next instant I see myself doing or saying the exact opposit…
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Hmmm… That sounds me familiar.
‘Gnana’ vs ‘Bhakta’ approach… But these are only words, concepts, especulation.
Surely, Gilbert has something to say.
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Oh yes, lets hope so, eh? Guru Gilbert will soothe our aching souls Fernando!
For ducks sake man.. Gilbert, for all his wonder, has nothing to say for better or worse. Surely you realise by now that this place is not for answers to silly questions. ‘Heal yourselves’ JC
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Well, OK Mark.
The ‘me sense’ hurts. Suffering push ‘me’ to investigate. What’s this f…g ‘me’? It’s just natural to investigate why it hurts! How this mechanism of suffering functions?
If ‘you’ or ‘others’ find natural to give up will… it’s OK. Anyway, ‘here’, a natural determination to go to the end of it arises.
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«No es tanto la Luz lo que me atrae, sino la Sombra la que me empuja.» José Bergamín – Spanish poet
(I’m quoting from memory…
Sorry, but I prefer not translate… My English is atrocious.)
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“It’s not so much the light that attracts me, but the shadow that pushes me”
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There is only one reality, one Life, one essence – it’s just THIS, just this “moment”, this unchanging IS-ness. Your true nature is THAT.
Spellbound by appearance – taking appearance as actual reality – you bind yourself to the changing content – imagine yourself as coming into existence with a world as your opposite, on your way to death.
Like a mirage, this world of “things” is a reflection, an expression. Yet you take your stand within that world, like a dream, wandering about. And within that dream you find the limitation distasteful, binding – you fear an end which you can only imagine.
Take your stand as reality – what else can you be? That reality or essence has not come into existence as a separate thing at all – in fact the evidence is staring you directly in the face, so to speak.
Have you ever found a dividing line between any experience and the experiencing itself? Aren’t these two words for the same reality?
It is the stubborn insistence on “thingness” or subject/object which is the only so-called veil. Realize that this is only an assumption, and the veil dissolves naturally.
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This moment is it, but taking appearance is actual reality? Why the split? You can’t say this is it, and this isn’t it.
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Read it again – see if that was the message.
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Ah quite right, this moment is it, and then in the next moment or so called next moment, I tend think that the thing I call body was me, and it was doing, and attitudes then appeared based on behavior, and then dissonance occurs when there is conflict with ideas, and what is. And thinking about past moments and objects. When really it is always just this moment of pure being and awareness. That is what I got from reading it again…spacious experiencing. The thought ‘I am experiencing” is experiencing experiencing itself as experiencing of the thought I am experiencing, and this is just a tiny facet of consciousness as a whole which is what I am.
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Don’t forget to get the forthcoming book called “The meaning of life according to scarfox the weasel”. You can say anything you want scarfox, anything. Whether it means anything to anyone else doesn’t matter. What does any of it mean to YOU?
And who is this YOU?
The words appear out of emptiness.
Can you go back into that emptiness and so come to understand what is going on?
No you can’t but in the attempt the mind will stop.
In that pause-ation everything is clearly obvious.
The absence of a ‘self’ is signified by absolute silence and is wordless.
Pure Understanding is self-shining brilliance of being AS you are.
You can never say what you are – and you cannot negate THAT YOU ARE.
Whatever ‘appears’ to bring about such, as a seeming ‘event’, is totally VALID.
There are no prerequisites.
There is only One and THAT is already complete and unsullied.
There is NO BECOMING whole and complete or merging with Oneness.
ALL EVENTS are known to be transient appearances, no matter how grand or minor they appear to be.
All that ‘appears to happen’ (or not) is the dissolution of BELIEF in being separate.
That is totally available NOW. Once ‘belief’ is understood it is impossible to be caught in belief again.
Why? Because the central character has been undermined and the fabricated ground upon which it seemingly stands has ‘fallen away’.
It just can’t get a grip any longer. If this is not recognized as being true right now? Then ‘when’ will it ever be recognized?
Stop and SEE………it is true…it is true……..it is true.
Doubt is merely a thought.
THERE is NO answer in the mind.
Why do you keep looking there for one?
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It starts with your birth and ends with your death. How depressing. Believing yourself to exist within these confines is conceptual madness. It’s all a passing show, why not just relax and enjoy the show.:)
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I read this book a while ago! really good feeling from it.
I need something new, need another non- duality fix. come on guys im hurting , please something new -need the buzz of a knew program. come on Man! come on!….. I dont want this searching to end , need more concepts…..Please!!!
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Ha, yes, more mind, more time, more concepts, more teachings, more suffering, more things or . . .!!!!
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Thanks for the translation, Claudia.
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Ok. It is seen that in this simple perceptual field, the world happens. Nothing can be divided from that. Thoughts belonging to the so called ‘me’ are seen to be merely another appearance in what is. But certain deep seated conditionings remain. I mean if a guillotine were coming down on my neck right now there would be a good deal of thought arising in resistance! Now if I’m being advaitically correct I could say that those resistances are just a thought, and without independent existence. But if I’m being honest I would say this resistance is painful, this clinging to the way ‘I’ think things should be is not easily abandoned.
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Haha pretending to have seen through it all, and then going back to your conditioning games? At least be more subtle about it if your going to lie to yourself.
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A quick story- let me know if it is off topic:
Saturday night- watching a video about non-duality.
14 and 11 year old sons sat down, watched a few minutes, rolled their eyes and went to bed.
The next day they decided to give me a commentary:
Older Son- “I think this is reality! What we are looking at and smelling and tasting is real, is reality!”
Younger Son- “It is totally pointless! Who cares if it is real or not, it doesn’t make a difference! Why don’t these people go out and do something instead of sitting around talking about this stuff.”
Older son was right, this is real, to a person. I would add that I have no idea what it is, including the appearance of the person.
Younger son amusingly mocked the seeker (me).
This seeking is repulsive. Self-ish. Self centeredness. Almost every thought is about this self. It is seen so clearly in ‘others’, yet close to home it is ignored or justified “oh but this and this happened to ME, poor ME”.
Ah Yes, but what is this knowing! What is knowing this self centeredness! What is animating this ‘joe’ with all of his issues!
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In stillness – without mental activity – it is evident that what is, IS. Life is already functioning 100% perfectly and naturally and doesn’t need a ‘me’ or a ‘you’ to think about it or control anything. There is absolutely nobody in control of anything. Thought appears (and disappears) like any other thing in this all embracing, all pervading space of presence-awareness. All appearences are non-stop registred and known, before the mind steps in to have its say. The mind is very selective. What is picked up by the mind will always and only be a minimal part of this undescribable “everything-going-on” – usually just one thing at the time. And of this one thing it then spins a whole story and makes such a fuss…
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Yes ‘seekers’ are self-centered. If the ‘me’ gets what it seemingly wants, then no problem. But when things don;t go the way ‘me wants’, then conflict and Unease – disease. When the mind turns on itself with ‘self-blame’ then the disease intensifies.
That is ‘why’ IT seeks a way out of it. To escape the ‘pain’.
But it is all psychological pain. It is the conflict between ‘ideas’ and the image of ME that ’causes’ the ‘pain’.
The ONLY way out of the mind is to stop.
It only takes one good clear glimpse or taste of what I am – and to know that I am not these things.
Whatever seemingly brings it about is totally VALID.
Who could argue with that?
ONLY those who have NOT had a good taste of it.
So, there is the ‘direction’ to go in.
It is even logical.
You have to do some ‘homework’.
No one can do it for you.
There is no point in cheating either.
For once in your life, be totally genuine.
No offense intended.
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What is clear and obvious is that there is nothing wrong with you. It’s not like you are this defective thing that needs to be fixed ‘then’ everything will be OK. That is the usual message of most spiritual paths. There’s always just one more thing to do. Drop the belief that there is a me that has to do anything and there is immediate relief. Then just deal with whatever arises in the appearance without always believing it needs to be different.
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For a lifetime of experience, you have always been here – present. Though the body has changed, thoughts have changed, the world has changed, that presence has never changed – that always-here-ness has never once changed.
What is it that has never changed? What is the common factor in ANY experience? If there is a happy feeling or a sad feeling, a headache or pleasure, what is it that remains unchanged?
That always-here-ness cannot be quantified, objectified. Yet it cannot be negated or denied. You cannot know WHAT you are, only THAT you are. And you already know that.
Simply recognize that presence which is always here. It’s empty of self, for “self” arises as a certain feeling, a certain way of thinking, a certain “image”. It is simply the ever-present presence – it is obvious BECAUSE the world, body and mind APPEAR.
Don’t try to analyze it – you cannot FIND it or become it or attain it. You already ARE it – only you mistake it as “personal knowing”.
How far away from awareness are you? How far do you have to go to REACH awareness?
Zero distance and zero time.
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There’s no path to what you already are.
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«Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 per cent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself – and there isn’t one.»
THERE ISN’T ONE !!
It’s just that simple !!
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Direct pointing in essence is the ‘potential’ recognition that spontaneously ‘springs forth’. Without that, it is just ‘talk’.
This isn’t about ‘thinking anything through’. Contemplation has it’s place, of course.
The clear and present evidence is your own true nature, which has been ignored by attachment to thoughts and ideas.
The mind cannot process direct pointing.
A year or two ago I put together a manuscript titled “Zero degrees of separation”. It was never published and will probably never be published. It appears that everyone wants to be soothed into a new belief system.
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Time (the illusion)
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.
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If you insist on a subject and an object – then notice what that is.
What is the subject? There is a world – you are the subject to that world, yes. There is a body – you are the subject to that body. Whatever that “subject” is, it is aware of the body, yes?
Same with thoughts – you are the subject to those thoughts. That “subject” is present always, as thoughts come and go. Feelings, emotions, memories, etc. All objective – you remain as the subject.
What else arises? If it is known to arise, it must be objective – you remain as the subject, yes?
So what is the content of the subject? What attributes does it have? Can you find it in any way? No – because to FIND it, it must have something to find, an attribute, a shape, a size, a color. That “subject” is pure and empty – it has nothing which is objective at all. Is it not true?
Isn’t the “subject”, in your direct experience, empty? Isn’t the subject without any particular quality? Isn’t the subject a “void” or space-like presence? It is there, obviously, but no attempt to quantify it, to place anything objective upon it, can be done.
You are the subject, yes? So in this investigation, in this honest looking – it is obvious that what you are, as the subject, is empty, devoid of any qualities – except one…
Knowing. That “subject” is that presence of knowing. So we might say, another word for that subject, for YOU, is AWARENESS. The body and thoughts aren’t evidence of your “Self”. It isn’t a sensation which provides the certainty of your “Self” – it is the KNOWING of sensations which indicates your presence, yes?
So we can say the world, body and mind are “objective” to YOU, to the subject. Any quality that can possibly arise, arises to YOU. And YOU aren’t a particular quality at all. You know yourself as the subject only because there are “objective experiences”. Yes?
So we have experience – objects – and that knowing, subjectivity or “experiencing”. But in calling them as such – there is still the subtle idea that they are apart, separate.
Are they? Notice any “experience” – notice the “experiencing” OF that experience. Are they two different “things”? Is there an object or experience apart from experiencing? Is there a dividing line between awareness and the world? Are they not the same “thing”, the same reality?
Take a look.
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+8
The texts in this podcast are so simple and beautiful. It is pure pleasure listening to it.
Why then is it so hard to just SEE (know or other appropriate word) the Truth? I understand it on the level of another theory but still I don’t GET it. Why?
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You and Truth are same same, no difference.
Undifferentiated wholeness is all there is. Zero distance between
you, and anything. All what is perceived are appearances in awareness, truth, and not seperate in any way. How could it be, there is only one substance. And you are That.
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Does anyone actually respond to people’s postings on here, or do they merely use the space to reiterate their own Neo Advaita spiel? Yes, the truth of this is simple. But it can be the most frustrating thing in the world for those that believe there are questions left to answer. If the ‘understanding’ brings with it this pure compassion, as so many suggest, then let that unfold in real listening to what people are asking!
Sara, I would say it’s, in fact, SO simple that it’s easy to overlook. It is literally so close to you that you can’t see it. It is everything in your perceptive field: the whole stream of the world coming at you in real time. You’re used to separating that stream into ‘me’ and ‘the world’, but if you look at it freshly, you see that it’s just world, containing a number of thoughts that seem to refer to a separate character within it. Rupert Spira’s book is brilliant at breaking this down accurately. Also, there’s a movie called ‘The Sea that Thinks’ that does an excellent job of showing you, without lingo, what original nature actually is….
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In relativity, all there is, is response, reaction – and the singular ‘animator’ remains hidden (The hand of God is always hidden).
Why make a distinction? Is the SEEING there clearer than anywhere else?
How could you believe that, without a biased concept?
Pointing the finger and being critical may be a pleasant way to go for you.
Why stick your head in a Hornet’s Nest?
Isn’t R. Spira reiterating his own Neo Advaita spiel, mixed with Lucille’s?
Thank you for your input – it may appear to assist someone, somewhere.
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“The mind is infinite and cannot be exhausted.” You said it! How can the simple truth be recognized when there are so many possibilities? The mind just goes on infinitely looking, searching, labeling. Full stop. There needs to be a recognition that nonconceptual awareness is it. This here and now is it. Even if it’s a thought about the past or future it’s all happening now. The immediacy is it.
Mind doesn’t like that much. Screw mind. Bottom line I just don’t want to suffer anymore.
Can the big why question ever be answered?
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Who doesn’t want to suffer
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PERFECT BRILLIANT STILLNESS.
Shhh.
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perfect
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Without words, I have absolutely no proof for the existence of any thing. Where do these words come from?
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The projections of thought are what make the infinite seem limited.
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Exactly, ‘we’ bind ourself up with a bunch of words – believing that they are real.
The ‘wet rope’ under the bare foot is believed to be a snake in the darkness of ignorance. Some call that ignorance ‘Self-Knowledge’ and wear it like a rose on their jacket.
Shine the ‘light of knowing’ onto whatever is seemingly binding you and it will be revealed to be not what it appears to be.
The ‘age old’ struggle of “I am Right and you are Wrong” is just a boring wallpaper pattern in the ‘Me Room’.
Get outta there and breath in some fresh air.
P.S. Every moment of being offended is a clear opportunity to see what is offended. That is the only use there in the grasping consciousness.
If you trace it all back into the clear and present naked cognition, it is plainly obvious that ‘you’ are not doing anything.
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The only ‘thing’ that resists direct pointing is called ‘me’.
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Yes, I have started to own every reaction I have.
Thank you for that!
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Is it TRUE?
What you are is invisible.
No owner of anything can be found in that clear and empty pure nature of immediate naked cognition.
Whatever is found is an appearance only.
Got it?
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Gilbert, I guess this is the same point I was on about in the last show’s forum. Does the mere seeing of this suffice? It seems to me that many simply rest on the laurels of non doership, freed entirely from any sense of personal responsibility! Yes, on one level everything which happens is God’s will. But on another, many of the great teachers in this tradition emphasise that consciousness manifesting as the individual person can and must dis-identify from the narrow identification with the body mind personality. What is occasionally propounded on this site is not this, but rather an amoral fatalism, the like of which Ramesh seemed to be declaiming in his last years…
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Where do all these great teachers, concepts about dis-identifying, God’s Will, and all other matters that SEEM to be……….
WHERE does any of it appear?
There is ONLY ever HERE.
It all appears in the SEEING.
Without the seeing, nothing of it could appear at all.
There is no geography to this and no chronological landscape.
What you are looking out of (without the ‘you’) is Non Duality.
‘People’ are imagination and so all that ‘a person’ has is imaginary.
The direct pointing is to THAT which you truly are.
Believing that I am something is the obstacle.
No one wants to be nothing but that is the truth.
You are No Thing.
That is why you cannot find yourself.
And isn’t that the very reason why there can never be a satisfactory answer, from the mind or from anywhere.
It is rather funny that quite often I see the uselessness of talking about this stuff – and the talking carries on.
Right here, right now it could not be any clearer than it is. I have written hundreds of notes, pointing in hundreds of ways – always at the same (non)thing.
It is clearly obvious when I read some comment or expression on this subject, I know instantly and EXACTLY where the writer is coming from.
I can tell you that there are a great number of gurus, teachers and pupils alike, who obviously believe that they have ‘got it’ and it is just not the case. In one sentence they betray themselves, without even knowing it.
If someone is ‘playing about’ it is also obvious.
Language is of course dualistic – yet it is all we have to use. Diagrams can be useful but ‘people’ get hooked on diagrams and the diagram becomes their prison. The Enneagram is a good example of that. Today there are so many experts on the Enneagram and frankly they are all way off beam and have missed the essence of it.
It is the same with all the major religions.
Where is it all appearing?
In the SEEING. And it IS the seeing. It is ALL SEEING.
In seeing and knowing that, the expression is naturally I am THAT.
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There is a lot of insight in what is being pointed out here but i just can’t quite seem to get it…i don’t even know what is there to get..The more i read comments and concepts the more i get confused.
What i feel is so true about how i see life is the whole concept of “me” and how for such a long time i have been going on and on about what i need to do and not do to be happy and make this “me” comfortable and safe. Thoughts still arise and the tension and fear of not achieving or becoming this or that occurs but i can’t trace the me that is afraid or worried.Yet i feel afraid and worried.
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Triza, it is good to bring this up. Insight and resonance in being cannot be contrived by the mind. It is as though these aspects arrive unexpectedly.
Living in a realm of belief is limited and full of conflict.
What needs to be ‘done’ is, when these feelings of restriction are present, instead of running away from them or trying to deny them, which is just more resistance, GO INTO them and explore what it is. Have a keen interest in it.
I could explain the mechanics of it, and I have done so in other comments recently, simply explore the feelings. BE the feelings and see what happens.
The false cannot stand up to an investigation.
Do not indulge in telling any new stories about it. Just explore and SEE.
You may be very surprised by what is discovered – re-discovered.
Your true nature is not an appearance, it is not a ‘thing’.
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The shift from using the mind to try and explain everything that goes to there just being awareness is honestly conflicting.This “no thing”
provides nothing to hold on to..What does it even mean to go beyond the mind?
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Thanks Gilbert for the unwavering direct pointing.
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Ha ha, yes I also see the funny side. We can’t change what is. As David Carse so eloquently says: What does it matter. Everything is Bhagwan, including J-Lo’s grandmother. Within that perfection, everything unfolds- including vast differences of opinion. Those who ‘get it’, ‘those who think they’ve got it’, ‘those who like telling other people if they’ve got it’ ‘those who’ll never get it’, ‘those who simply couldn’t care.’ In any case, deep gratitude for this brilliant site…
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Mind just wants to hang on. The question is to what?
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Many thanks, Gilbert.
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Right here and now, you are 100% free.
You are only imagining bondage.
Stop believing in the imaginary and be what you already are.
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If you see the Buddha, actually kill that jerk, look what he said “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” I wonder if Siddartha was being sarcastic, or if he was being foolishly cryptic…
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Scarfox, does really matter what the Buddha said or didn’t say?
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“And thus we can say, Shari Putra, that every existing thing is emptiness. Nothing has any characteristics of its own. Nothing ever begins. Nothing ever ends. Nothing is ever impure. Nothing ever becomes pure. Nothing ever gets less, and nothing ever becomes more.”
From the Buddhist Heart Sutra
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+6
Well Scarfox, who really knows what the Buddha said? No one alive knew him or ever heard him speak.
Beyond that, the text is both correct and incorrect.
Isn’t that why there is so much suffering – because we are what we think?
And in contrast to that, this is why the potency of ‘empty mind’ is full of pure knowing.
There is no entity in empty mind and so all those who claim to be enlightened are simply fanciful riders of imaginary notions.
You must come to know, without a single doubt, what you are.
No text can support the findings. No ‘other’ can be your guide in the last moments of realization.
And realization only appears to arrive without prior notice.
Every thought you can have about this ‘realization’ is not it and such thoughts are nothing but baffle.
What is on offer here is so clear and obvious – and it is not to be found in the mind. The mind must be understood – then it will stop being a restless ass on a lead.
Of all the millions of teachers and gurus that have ever been, very few are direct and uncompromising.
Out of the blue a message cuts through the ‘package’ and a resonance in being dawns.
Without the dawning of pure wisdom, you are doomed to be a mere thought, transient and completely vulnerable.
P.S. Only a friend will tell you what you need to hear.
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+13
hasn’t it been said many times that thought can’t do anything? but nonetheless I see what you’re saying. Thanks friend.
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+4
Whether something is said or heard many times or not does not change ‘a fact’. It is not a matter of brain washing. See for yourself. SEE.
See that the ‘thinker’ is a thought. See there is no separation between ‘what is’ and ‘thinking’.
It is the believed in ‘me’ that has set itself up on an imaginary border between inside and outside.
It is all a fiction.
Just because the majority believe in invisible border, which ’cause’ so much trouble, does not mean that the border actually exists.
The monetary demands of some borders cost more that it does to run a small country.
The ‘me’ is phenomena no doubt. But does it exist?
Well. Does it? Find out. Simple.
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+5
There is a spaceless space which is boundless, deathless, changeless, and knowing. The whole manifestation patterns in or on that space-like awareness. Like a screen unscathed by any image that passes on it! Everything is just patterns of light- so intricate!
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0
If you had a microscopic lens which you could look through, you would see the so-called “world” differently, like in another dimension. At that atomic or even quantum level, there is no form, only emptiness.
So what is being seen through the eyes is taken to be the absolute reality, ignoring the parallel but equally true reality of emptiness. Do you follow? That is why the Heart Sutra says form IS emptiness, emptiness IS form. It doesn’t say form is over here and emptiness is over there, emptiness is really cool and form really sucks, emptiness needs to be attained and form needs to be discarded… it says they are the SAME. What APPEARS as form is that emptiness. That emptiness expresses AS form.
That appearance of the world is simultaneously also emptiness – you see form and ignore that the form is also empty.
Yet you take that form, that appearance, as absolute reality. And from this perspective, the “one who sees” seems to be a separate part of this world of form. Because there appears to be a body, you latch on to that particular form and call it your own, call it “ME”.
Then “ME” really means – not the world – apart from the world. It is due to taking what IS as made up of separate things, taking this form-perspective as absolute reality, ignoring that this FORM is nothing but emptiness.
Is this not true? Can you deny that the very essence of any “thing” any form, is that emptiness? Is a rock a separate “thing”? Is it solid? It APPEARS solid – yet it is made of the elements, which are atoms. The atoms are really mostly empty space. At the quantum level that “atom” – that ROCK – is nothing but an empty field of intelligence – where does the “rock” end and the “rest of the world” begin, at that equally valid perspective of reality?
At that level, where do you exist? How are you seeing? When did you come into existence? There really IS no separate YOU at all, is there?
Is this not blindingly obvious? Can you not say with certainty that what you are must be that emptiness, that intelligence, which APPEARS AS the very universe itself?
The only idea which cannot stand along side this understanding is the “ME”.
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+10
So everything is a projection of mind then we label that projection and make judgments about it seeing it as separate. If we are seeing correctly we would see that all those labeled projections,and judgments about those projections, are just created by mind and have no basis in Reality. The trick is not to hold hard and fast to anything as ‘it’. Be open, be present, see those projections and judgments for the transient things they are.
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+5
“The invisible things of God from the foundation of the world are made manifest by the visible. What you see comes out of what you don’t see; what you do see interprets what you don’t see; what you do see is what you don’t see in the form of what you do see. It cannot be something else. The universe has to be an undivided and indivisible totality, whose whole essence appears at any and every point within it simultaneously and evenly distributed.”
E. H.
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+1
«It’s the very nature of illusion to dissolve on investigation. Investigate. That’s all». (Nisargadatta)
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+7
Exactly – and when the illusion dissolves – perfect brilliant stillness.
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+7
oh fuck there is nothing separate from seeing, I was a myth.
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+5
‘I’ is a label placed upon this perfect brilliant stillness.
In it ‘self’ it is harmless.
What is ADDED to that ‘I’ is where the problems appear.
‘I’ is just like the number ’1′.
It is ONE without a second.
What is added to ‘I’ is ‘not I’.
That is the foundation of separation – illusion.
The ‘me’ is not real – the Person is NOT reality.
How many times does this have to be repeated?
Sheesh.
As Nisargadatta says: No university can teach you to be what you are.
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+10
eye/I is no coincidence
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0
The simplicity to this ‘understanding’ is stunningly clear. It’s like a ‘kill’ switch in the matrix of experience, disabling the power of false ‘belief’ that had so strongly like a magnet attached and identified with a ‘thought-object’ claiming to be a separately existing ‘entity’. The ‘energy’ of maintaining the false ‘self’ is reabsorbed in what you truly are – boundless spacious awareness.(can’t really be put into words)
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+4
Interesting that the story of David Carse should show up on UGC. It’s a story for god’s sake. Once in a while “what is” and the non-existent “me” (story) embrace and dance their Self/no-self into eternity. It is one of an infinite number of possibilities. It’s an appearance . . . a particularly beautiful one. It’s a story . . . with a really happy ending. It is the story of “somebody got it.”
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+1
Is it the story of David Carse? ….or is it the story of Alex?
In the immediacy of the appearance there is no story….
Mind is time and in mind it is all stories, words, description, memories, images, which is all, in its immediacy, nothing but vibrations appearing ‘as things’.
Even so ‘we’ believe in so many things that are not, there is pointing happening.
“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” – Nisargadatta. Words shared from his story.
Why have fairy tales been preserved down through the ages?
Isn’t it because we recognize ourselves in the story? A recognition ‘happens’ without any explanation.
Ultimately it does not matter whether you ‘know it’ or not – because it is ALL THAT……it is All THAT appearing as everything.
The KNOWING is already happening.
The point is that psychological suffering is unnecessary.
In the moment of recognition there is no suffering entity.
Once tasted, it can not be forgotten.
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+9
Yes. Excellent pointing is happening.
The KNOWING is already happening.
Psychological suffering is unnecessary.
In the “moment” of recognition there is no suffering entity.
(Like your first mango), Once tasted, it can not be forgotten.
Some stories are worth preserving. (David Carse’s? . . . definitely a keeper!) But my personal library has been reduced to a single volume of “ultimately does not matter”, and I am burdened with a taste for better literature.
Feel free to put this one on the burn heap. UGC is a great website.
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+5
Maybe it is time to blow it all out…….have some faith in the fact that the discriminating faculty is functioning well. We all have a story to tell. It will never free another and in truth it cannot bind another either. It does seem a little over protective to keep avoiding the story. It is all story anyway.
Drop the story and everything is clear and obvious. And whatever we say about that is just an expression of that – it is only an appearance in the Clear and Obvious.
Nothing can truly taint THAT.
Some like the direct and avoid the story. But if an addiction to the direct message is happening, then surely the direct message has not done its JOB.
One would hope that the 1500 or so regular visitors here, is a floating population – not the same 1500. For God’s sake – isn’t anyone hearing the message?
Just stirring you up. Yes. YOU. How many times do you need to be told? ‘You’ as a separate ‘entity’ do not exist.
What an insult.
“I didn’t come here to be insulted”.
No, and you didn’t come here – you were always HERE.
Who is insulted?
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+8
1500 down. 1500 more to go. We’re falling like dominoes.
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+1
The truth hurts. But it only hurts the person I think I am. And that can only last a minute, in the moment it is seen through, it is clear that nothing can hurt you. For the ‘person’ it’s death, but from the viewpoint of being (that which you are, anyway) its freedom with capitals. Be ready to hear the raw truth and ‘it will set you free’ – though this is just another nice little story…
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+1
Pertinent quote from Annette Nibley –
<>
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+12
Can’t seem to cut and paste here dammit.
I’ll type it out.
Every single movement of mind is your story. It doesn’t matter what that movement is, it’s part of your story and does not present a true picture of anything at all.
Your story is 100 percent desirous of changing things to suit you, or keeping things as they are to suit you. So how could your story be saying anything true about that which is always spontaneously resolving, and needs no changing or immobilizing?
No part of your mind is clear enough to judge what is real and what is not. How can it? Even that with which we look at our own conditioning is, itself, conditioning!
What you are is clear and still, reflecting the images of the story like a mirror, but not being touched by those images. Even the effort of conditioning trying to see through conditioning is reflected in what you are, without touching what you are.
Right here, right now, there is no story, and here now is the truth of what you are. Without effort, and without having to see through conditioning, you are.
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+2
Yes, Annette Nibley is great and writes about this with a great clarity. What about her for the UGC?
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+1
My Perfect Brilliant Stillness has bad Indian music being played at full volume on a cheap transistor radio in the background.
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+7
What is the answer to there is nothing wrong?
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-9
Everyone believing something doesn’t make it true.
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-7
Whatever the appearance, it’s harmless.
Even the appearance of a ‘me sense’ is harmless.
All appearances come and go. No appearance remains.
What’s more, the substance of appearance is awareness.
Actually, awareness – what you really are – remains awareness before, during and after each and every appearance.
There is nothing to be afraid of.
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+4
Fear is imagination only. The knowledge(realization of one’s true nature) that what is coiled up in a corner of the room is a rope(Reality) and not a snake(illusion). Whether the room is in light or darkness will not disturb the state of mind of the ‘one’ who has the ‘knowledge’, but ‘someone’ ignorant(of their true nature) of the fact of what is actually in the corner of the room, will no doubt be in fear and much anxiety if encountering the rope and mistaking it for a snake when room is in darkness.
Whatever formula(appearances or manifestations) the divine algorithm generates, realize,all have their source in You.
You are the One Indivisible Whole, nothing can disturb what You truly Are.
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+4
Yes I guess it is a scary thought.:)
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-1
David Carse said the ‘Everybody believing’…thing- ha.
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-3
There is no way out for the person. Things won’t get better, all hope is in vain. The battle against what IS, is lost before it even starts. “Stop pretending to be what you are not!!” This challenge has hit home. Yes I KNOW, I have always known. How could I forget? Whatever I percieve points right back to what I am: not two.
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-1
I hear the clear message that I am not limited to this mind/body. But in this dream of separation it appears that consciousness uses this one body/mind as a vehicle independently from others to taste experience (in the dream). Given that the dream continues to appear every morning when the eyes open, it seems legit to acknowledge its independent nature in this form, i.e. “I hear”. This area is a little gray for this apparent “I”, would love some clarity.
Thanks
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+1
Clarity IS.
There is only one seeing happening.
The ‘I see’ cannot see……when we say it is a bit gray for the apparent ‘I’ – well it is not even gray – the ‘I’ cannot even see grey.
The expression is just happening in clarity.
The term ‘it is all a bit gray’ is the mind’s way of interpreting the fact that the ‘I’ cannot see.
Who wants clarity?
The mind says it wants clarity but it is ignoring the obvious clarity that is always here.
SEE what is actually present.
The mind’s terrain of explanations is just a ‘map’ and ‘the map is not the territory’.
So….do ‘you’ see? Or is seeing happening prior to the thought ‘I see’?
Be simple and know the truth – and the truth will set that ‘you’ free.
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+7
We cannot effectively communicate without the use of the pronouns’, ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘you’, etc, nor is there a need to, it would be rather silly and awkward. At the transactional level of reality (relative), there are the appearance of separately functioning body/minds. Each ‘one’ assuming an independent and separate nature from each other. This is the commonly held world view or paradigm for 99.9% of ‘human’ population.
The reason is simple. The assumption ‘I am a person’ goes unchallenged. On direct evidence see what the ‘I’ refers or points to. Can you find anything? Is there a location,shape, dimension for this separately existing ‘entity’, that you assume you are? You know that you are! this is indisputable. But where and what You are, cannot be determined. Can you find a border or boundary that can give you definition and define in clear and uncertain terms what and where You are?
No Sir! there are NO limiting factors in what You Are. Boundless, Clear and Empty is your true Nature. We call it Awareness, Seeing/Knowing, Reality – these are just ‘words’ and cannot truly convey what That ‘IS’, which is being pointed to. You may have traversed this ‘path’ of inquiry a thousand times already and not realized that what You are is No-Thing.
This is why the ‘mind’ cannot grasp it. To the ‘mind’ You are No-Thing. This No-Thing is Everything. When the investigation or inquiry into what I am is complete and thorough, all questions and doughts cease.
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+1
Separation never existed.
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0
«Realize that this common erroneous belief [to be a separate person] is actually transparent.
There is seeing of this immediately – in this instant.
Pure seeing is cutting through all transparent belief right now.
Drop the concept that you are a ‘person’ and simply be the seeing.»
(GS – Everything is Clear & Obvious)
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+7
The body/mind is a concept. You are not a concept. A concept is a thought. You are not a thought. Thought weaves a story. You are not a story. A story is a concept, etc..
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0
When your individuality dissolves there are no more individuals.
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0
You are. You see. You know.
There is no doubt about it.
Now, have you ever seen a ‘you’ that ‘is’, ‘sees’ or ‘knows’?
Nonetheless, there is ‘being-seing-knowing’ happening.
(‘You’ is just a name for ‘being-seeing-knowing’. That’s all).
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+2
There is NO ‘you’ that sees anything.
There is NO ‘you’ that knows anything.
All there is is seeing-knowing.
Without thinking about it, is there a ‘you’ anywhere to be found?
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+6