Love UG

Watch "UG Krishnamurti met Luc Sala in 2002 in Amsterdam full interview" on YouTube

The Niz

Watch "Awaken To The Eternal part 1 of 6" on YouTube

Harry Dean knows it's "just this"

Watch "Repo Man Interview - Harry 'Zen' Stanton" on YouTube

Very nice

Watch "Abide as the Self ◦ Ramana Maharshi ◦ Full Movie" on YouTube

Just This

There exists only the present instant... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence. Meister Eckhart

Just This

There exists only the present instant... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence. Meister Eckhart

Just This

Two Zen monks meet in the road. "Where are you, Brother?" asks the first.

"I'm in the place where nothing ever changes," comes the reply.

"But I thought everthing was always changing."

"Yes, that never changes either."

Just this

Two Zen monks meet in the road. "Where are you, Brother?" asks the first.

"I'm in the place where nothing ever changes," comes the reply.

"But I thought everthing was always changing."

"Yes, that never changes either."

Thanks Dr. Robert

In Memorium

I am not subject to space, therefore I know no 'where', I am not subject to time, therefore I know no 'when', What space-time is I am, and nothing finite appertains to me.

Being nowhere I am every 'where', being everywhere I am no 'where', For I am neither any 'where' nor no 'where', Neither inside nor outside any thing or no thing, Neither above nor below, before nor after, at either side of any or no thing.

I do not belong to that which is perceptible or knowable, Since perceiving and knowing is what I am, I am not beyond hither or thither, within or without, Because they too are what I am.

I am not extended in space, I am not developed in duration; All these are my manifestations, all these are conceptual images of what I am, For it is my absence, my absolute absence, which renders concepts conceivable.

I am ubiquitous, both as absence and as presence, Since, as I, I am neither present nor absent. I can never be known as an object in mind, For I am what is knowing, and even 'mind' is my object.

WEI WU WEI

Just This

Watch "The Most Astounding Fact (Neil DeGrasse Tyson)" on YouTube

watch the entire film

Watch "Adi Shankarachariya - Full Movie" on YouTube

alan

Alan Watts - 08 - Fear of enlightenment by Amrit on SoundCloud

Who is Running the Show ? Leela Maya ∞ Alan Watts perspective

A Christian and a Buddhist Walk Into a Cartoon

simple as this

Watch "Pure Gratitude and Love from Nisargadatta Devotee" on YouTube

Just This

Watch "Suppose You Met God" on YouTube

Lenny Bruce on The Truth

Alan Watts - Willing To Die

This is it

The Fear of Life

Watch "Ramana Maharshi ◦ Abide as The Self ◦ Full Movie" on YouTube

Awakening To A Chair- Jeff Foster

Who Are You.....Really?

"Non-Duality Life as it is"

Alan Watts - The Way of Waking Up

U. G. Krishnamurti: The Mystique of Enlightenment - Thinking Allowed DVD...

Zen Master Sosan's Hsin Hsin Ming

Arthur M. Young: Self and Universe

Why Quantum Physics Ends the Free Will Debate

illlusion of free will

"The Lost Satsang" Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die,
and I know it.

I pass death with the dying
and birth with the new wash'd babe,
and am not contained between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good,
And their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people,
all just as immortal and fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Walt Whitman

"The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides taught that the only things that are real are things which never change... and the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything changes. If you superimpose their two views, you get this result: Nothing is real." — Philip K. Dick--

Jeff Foster - how would you know if you are enlightened?

F.M-W Aphorisms 52-56

FM-W Aphorisms 39-52 of 56

Consciousness Without an Object: aphorisms 1-19 of 56

ZEITGEIST: MOVING FORWARD | OFFICIAL RELEASE | 2011

I remember talking with Ernest Callenbach some 40 years ago about this. Although it is a bit out of character for this blog I felt it should be made available.

Jed McKenna discusses his Awakening

What Will You Do With Enlightenment?

I withdrew from the world to search deeper into myself. And, the moment I came to know myself, I was filled with revelation. In a state of blessedness, I merged with myself. Yes, I came to stand and rest in the silence and stillness. Through an unknowing knowledge. I came to know the One who exists in me—The One who is unknowable, the One who, himself, eternally stands at rest in silence and stillness.’
-Allogenes-

Now

I withdrew from the world to search deeper into myself. And, the moment I came to know myself, I was filled with revelation. In a state of blessedness, I merged with myself. Yes, I came to stand and rest in the silence and stillness. Through an unknowing knowledge. I came to know the One who exists in me—The One who is unknowable, the One who, himself, eternally stands at rest in silence and stillness.’
-Allogenes-

Rene Dumal, author of Mountain Analogue: "You have to come down from your summit, so why climb in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below. But what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees, and one descends. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by what one has learned higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least know." know."

Nondualism and No Self Explained

Genpo Roshi On Great Doubt And Great Enlightenment Part 1

Contemplate This! ~ Mooji

Ken Wilber

We Are All One

The New World Order Library

Einstein on God

For those who are "made of sterner stuff"

Who We Really Are & What We Appear To Be

The McGurk Effect - Horizon Is Seeing Believing?

Senses are unreliable. What you see/hear has no meaning except in relationship to your personal map. If this vexation isn't illustrative nothing is

The McGurk Effect - Horizon Is Seeing Believing?

Senses are unreliable. What you see/hear has no meaning except in relationship to you personal map. If this vexation isn't illustrative nothing is

Gangaji - Simply Stop Looking

"you" can't handle the truth

there is no spoon original english

American Beauty - There's so much beauty in this world

the magic we are is self evident and ubiquitous

haven't we all been there?

Steven Norquist at SIG

Steven talks at SIG

Steven Norquist at SIG
click for video

Reality Emerges from Consciousness

Steven Norquist The original 2003 essay

My friends and family have been after me for some time to write about my experience and understanding of this topic. I have hesitated to write about it not because enlightenment itself is so hard to describe, but because enlightenment tends to make one quite lazy.

Before my change I was a busy beaver, reading and writing and playing music and sports and really actively getting out there. But after “the change,” as I call it, there was a clear vision of how silly all this activity was and how much incredible effort is required to perform it.

But before I get ahead of myself, let me lay out one basic fact: I am awake. I woke up about a year ago. I know what I am, what I have always been, and what it is impossible to stop being. Some call this enlightenment or ultimate truth, unity consciousness, infinite mind and so on. But all those names don't tell the non-awake what it is. Even calling it “the change” is not really accurate because nothing really changed, yet paradoxically, huge change took place.

In simple terms, I was once Steve living his life, but now I am the experience of Steve living his life. It is a shift in perspective. Before this perspective shift occurred, I had practiced about three years of medium-intensity meditation consisting of some breath watching, a little mantra repetition and some light self-inquiry Ramana Maharshi style. These techniques were coupled with an intense desire to find and know the truth.

I read everything on enlightenment I could get my hands on.

After about three years of this I had my first experience of “nonduality,” as it is called.

I had just read a passage in Ken Wilber's “The Spectrum of Consciousness” where he points out that ordinary awareness is ultimate awareness. This struck a chord in me. I set the book down and stared at a paper that was sitting on the table in front of me and after about a minute or two an exciting and frightening thing happened - I disappeared!

By that I mean the middle fell right out of the equation. Normally there would be Steve over here looking at the paper on the desk over there, but now there was only the experience “paper,” and no Steve over here seeing it. It was clear that the middle that normally separated the paper from Steve did not really exist; there was only the experience, “paper.”

Now let me try to make this more obvious by giving an illustration.

Imagine as clearly as you can that you enter a large house that you have never been in before. You feel strange and kind of scared; there are furniture and drapes, but no people.

You wander around feeling the creepiness of being alone in this big house. You go from room to room not knowing what you will find. You start to get nervous and a little fearful being alone in this big house. You wonder how long it has been empty like this.

In time the sense of the bigness and emptiness of the house starts to weigh heavily on your nerves. Finally, when you cannot stand it any longer, a shocking realization occurs to you: you're not there, either! Only the experience “house” exists.

This is how nonduality feels, and it is the real truth of existence.

Remember the question, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

Now you know the answer.

You see, with enlightenment comes the knowledge that even though there is much activity in the world, there are no doers.

The universe is, in a sense, lifeless. There is no one, only happenings and the experience of happenings.

Enlightenment reveals that the universe emerges spontaneously.

Its emergence and pattern are perfect in mathematics and symmetry and involve no chance.

Nothing is random; everything emerges exactly as it has to. There is no random chance, or evolution based on chance.

The universe is perfect.

Nothing is wrong or ever could be.

There seems to be chance or unpredictability from a human perspective, but that is only because our time frame reference cannot see the universe emerge through its whole lifespan in a matter of minutes. If we could see that, then we would clearly see how every event was not only perfect and necessary, but even predictable. Now let's summarize so far: the universe is perfect, no one exists, yet the experience “universe” persists.

How can this be?

Consciousness.

Consciousness is aware.

If it were not, then there would be no universe. The very nature of existence implies consciousness. One cannot exist without the other.

There can never be a universe that does not involve consciousness. There are no universes or dimensions where there is no consciousness. Matter and form would never arise without consciousness.

Universe/consciousness, mind/matter, wave/particle - call it what you will - the reality is that the manifestation, the very appearance we call the universe, is consciousness.

Now don't mistake me here: there is no observer. There are no persons in existence experiencing the universe.

But more than that, there is no Ultimate Person, God, Mind, or anything else observing the universe. There is only the experience of the universe being there with no experiencer.

This seems like a paradox, but who cares, this is the way it is.

Experience “is,” that is all.

It is the way the universe is - an experience by no one.

The universe spontaneously arises out of consciousness, yet at the same time is itself consciousness.

We must lose the idea of matter being observed by something we call consciousness; that is not true.

Some teachers talk of the Witness, the ultimate passive mind that observes all things moment to moment. This implies some level of separation, a witness over here watching the universe over there. It's not like this; there is only the experience, universe.

There is no observer.

Even if there were no manifestation, the feeling would be the same.

Once again let me make this clear: consciousness is not Aware of the universe, consciousness is aware as the universe.

Now don't mistake that last sentence. Don't think, “Oh yeah Steve, I get it now, consciousness is not aware of the universe from a vantage point separated from it, like a disembodied soul - consciousness is instead aware of the universe as one of the billions of beings in it, like man, or dog, or fish.”

No! Such thoughts are false.

When I say consciousness is aware as the universe, I mean the very act of existence is consciousness.

A carrot is itself consciousness, is itself awareness. There is not carrot aware of itself as carrot, nor disembodied invisible consciousness aware of carrot as carrot; there is only the experience carrot, and that is consciousness and that is enlightenment.

There is no observer.

Let's talk now about how this fits in with human life.

All people who do not know what's going on believe that they are the people that they are, an individual with thoughts and desires and hopes and dreams, a body and a house, a wife and a child. The list goes on, but you get it.

Now the truth.

Even though the above is happening, it is an automatic machine-like emergence out of Universe/ Consciousness and is following a strict non-chance pattern. More importantly, no one is performing any of the above, and Universe/Consciousness is what is going on.

To make it more clear, stuff is happening but no one is doing it. Emergence proceeds, and consciousness is aware.

The unawake person, the person that doesn't know what's going on, believes that they are acting, that the human “them” exists. The reality is, the body exists, the thoughts exist, the memories exist, and that is consciousness, and that is all.

Someone might say consciousness has temporarily mistaken its experience of the body and the body's memories as a person. But even though that answer may seem to explain the why, really there is no mistake at all.

Universe/Consciousness has never been confused.

The person can fall away at any moment restoring the original state of matter and consciousness which has never actually been obscured.

This happened to me, but in that happening nothing was lost because there never was a “me” to lose, only a confusion to correct that never existed.

Knowing this - I mean really knowing this, not Intellectually, but as a direct experience of everyday life - is enlightenment.

Now once this is known it is impossible to go back.

Once you have drawn the curtain and seen who Oz really is, you can't cover him back up and pretend not to know the truth.

So how do we proceed once we know?

We let experience manifest unmolested.

It has been said, “The Universe is perfect; intervene at your peril.”

The enlightened person never acts. This is the riddle of karma solved: there is no karma - never was, never could be. There is no reincarnation. How could there be? Who is there to reincarnate? There are no persons, there is no birth or death, there is ultimately nothing except Manifestation/Awareness.

99.999% of the spiritual books and teachers out there are completely wrong. They are wrong for one simple reason… they are not enlightened. They don't know what's going on.

So in order to keep the illusion of personality, of the idea that there is something or someone, they invent stories, or theories, or ideas, wear special clothes, perform certain rituals, and so on. They teach this stuff. But the truth is so simple, it is laughable.

Now let me make a clear distinction on one point:

Mystical experience is not enlightenment.

You may have mystical experiences, see God, get abducted by aliens, receive messages from an angel, contact your spirit guides… the list could go on. But always and forever, no matter what is going on, the truth is that every experience, mystical or ordinary, is a happening of Universe/Consciousness.

If I could teach the world a lesson, it would be this - no matter what you experience, always remind yourself,

“There is no experiencer. There is no observer.”

If you do this long enough and often enough, you will one day know what's going on.

When that day comes you will realize nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. It is a feeling and a knowing. An inescapable falling away of untruth. If you think you know it then you don't. When you know it, you do. And when you do know it, no one can take it away from you.

Some points to clear up. When I said the enlightened person never acts I did not mean such people sit in a cave and die of starvation and exposure. I mean the body can be quite active and manifest all manner of good and bad behavior. The mind can be racing with thoughts and feelings, but consciousness, now enlightened, knows no one is acting. It is only the universe blossoming forth spontaneously and perfectly.

As consciousness you are more aware of the feelings of the body, physically and emotionally. You don't feel these things, but you are aware of them because there is no division between them and consciousness.

The Universe and Consciousness are equivalent - remember the equation,

U = C

Also, the thing we call personality or ego does not totally vanish. It can remain intact along with the body. It behaves and interacts and changes over time like any person would, but the enlightened one knows they are not that ego.

Some schools emphasize the destruction of the ego as the only means of liberation. All that is really required is the realization that you are not that ego. That the ego doesn't actually exist, but is rather an illusion of sorts that can be left to its own designs. It's not really there, but it appears to be there. And that is just fine - don't worry. If the ego begins to fade that's okay too. Remember, there is no experiencer.

Let me talk briefly about practice. Meditation and book study are useful and can ripen an individual towards awakening, but the most important thing is to change your perspective. You must learn to see what is really going on.

Understand, in reality everyone is enlightened, but not everyone knows how to perceive this. The reason is, enlightenment is so natural, so obvious, that from birth we have become accustomed to ignoring it in preference to anything else that manifests.

Meditation can train you to still the mind and gain concentration, but it will not give you enlightenment. A radical shift in perspective must occur; the habitual focus of your awareness and your way of perceiving must be changed.

Study of books will not get you there. You need a shock.

The easiest way I know is for an enlightened person to talk you into this perspective shift. The best books I have read were the ones that talked you into enlightenment.

Feeling experiments such as the house scenario we looked at earlier are good ways to help evoke the feeling of enlightenment.

Feel what it is like to “not be there.”

The real breakthrough will come when you “feel” the truth.

It's creepy, not blissful or ecstatic. It should scare you, the body should react defensively, or there could be uncontrolled laughter at how stupid you have been for so long.

It's like one of those 3-D dot pictures - you stare and stare at those dots until, bingo! - the hidden picture emerges. After that, you can always see it; it can't be unlearned. It's the same with enlightenment.

Basically any practice that can shock you into seeing what is really going on is acceptable. But understand: you want to know what's really going on, to feel it, to contact reality.

It shouldn't take long, a few years at most, less for some.

If a practice or a teacher tells you it will take 10 or 20 years, find a new practice or teacher.

Remember, you are your own salvation. Ultimately it is you who will wake you up. Any method that can shock you into seeing what is really going on is acceptable, but the perspective shift must occur.

Let me try to bring some clarity to the subject of enlightenment and morality.

It has been said that enlightenment produces compassion and love and that many enlightened ones forgo release into Nirvana and reincarnate again and again until all souls have obtained enlightenment, the Bodhisattva vow and such.

None of this is enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not about morality or vows, it is simply existence in the truth, that is all.

Enlightenment carries no requirements and expects nothing; the universe manifests, and just that is enlightenment.

We don't seek enlightenment to be happy or to give our lives meaning or to feel bliss or ecstasy.

Loyalty to a flag is not enlightenment, love is not enlightenment, hate is not enlightenment.

If you see these as the fruit of enlightenment then you are wrong.

Instead, each of these are enlightenment themselves. They are each spontaneous emergences out of and as consciousness.

Action, feeling, creation, performance, love, hate, murder, salvation, compassion, each is enlightenment itself.

There is no doer, no experiencer. There is only manifestation.

This is the truth.

This is enlightenment.

I want you to understand that while nothing ultimately changes, in human terms much change takes place. This happens because once you recognize what's going on, the main motivations of life begin to drop away.

The level of dropping away is no doubt unique to the individual, but is directly proportional to how much you desire to resolve into reality.

What I mean is, it is possible to be enlightened and still try to retain a level of unconsciousness in order to interact in human affairs. As time passes, this state will be harder to maintain.

It is similar to suspending your disbelief when watching a movie. You pretend to believe in the reality of what is going on. You cry with the characters, you laugh with them, you hope with them, etc. You do this for the entertainment, to get your money's worth.

This is the way real life is with enlightenment. You know there really is no one. You know that it is just a display, a machine-like emergence out of and as consciousness. Yet you must believe it at some level, or you will simply lose the ability to interact in the world.

I can see why some enlightened ones have isolated themselves or become hermits. For the last year this has been an issue I personally have struggled with. How to know the truth and continue to interact with the world as if you believe it?

You basically have to employ a little Orwellian “1984” doublethink. You have to pretend to believe, while always knowing the truth.

Some things are unavoidable of course; I was an avid reader but now can barely open up a book. I loved and played the guitar for years but now have zero interest in picking one up. Even writing these few words is a colossal effort.

The reason? Deliberate effort is an affront to reality, where nothing is deliberate, everything is spontaneous, and nothing at all is going on.

But don't mistake me here. I have not invented a rule of behavior where I have decided I must act less because to do otherwise would be an affront to reality; rather, the natural outcome of enlightenment is less and less action, less and less thought.

This is a natural development within the enlightened person. Eventually all action will be spontaneous and the person will not be acting.

Of course, this statement is not ultimately true, because in reality no one ever acts. But from the human vantage point this is how it plays out.

Memory is also a tricky thing. The memories of your life are still there and can be jogged into awareness, but as time progresses and enlightenment begins to dissolve you, your access to them becomes more difficult.

Your awareness becomes centered in the events of the present as they manifest. This is natural, since these are the only events that actually exist. The person and the ego are simply dissolving. They don't really exist but the illusion that they do becomes less a part of awareness.

You don't remember and you don't care.

Let me make a point about Zen breath-watching.

Most people just don't get it, and most Zen schools don't make it any easier for students to get it. There are all kinds of books on Zen meditation, catalogs where you can buy all the cool silk clothes, cushions, gongs, incense, and a host of other aids to Zen breath-watching. But once you have all that stuff and finally sit your butt down, close your eyes and start watching your breath, what exactly are you doing? Why are you doing that? I ask people this all the time and really piss them off.

“Why do you meditate? What are you trying to accomplish? Why do you watch your breath?” I have never met anyone that has given me the correct answer.

The reason they don't know is because they are not enlightened. If they were, then they might not even meditate anymore. Or maybe they would. Either way, it would make no difference.

You see, the simple truth that is missed by almost every meditator is this: the act of sitting there watching your breath is enlightenment. That is all. You are not doing something to gain something, just sitting there is enlightenment.

That still state with calmed mind, just that is enlightenment, yet that annoying gossip over there interrupting your meditation, just that is enlightenment, and that guy flipping you off in commuter traffic, just that is enlightenment.

There is no doer, no experiencer, no one who acts.

Manifestation emerges, actless, mindless, and just that is enlightenment.

People meditate today because it is popular or because they want to have a mystical experience or just relax. The latter reason may actually be the most legitimate for the average person. But no one I know says they meditate because they are deliberately engaging in an actless act, or attempting to resolve a false sense of being into a beingless existence. And of the many meditators out there, I suspect that the majority would be shocked if I told them that the guy flipping them off in traffic is more enlightened than they.

The point I'm trying to make and have been trying to make is that enlightenment is so natural and so easy, that any attempt at deliberate practice towards it will get you farther from it - and yet paradoxically, you have never once not been enlightened and no matter how strained and deliberate your efforts towards it, you never once acted!

So in closing, Enlightenment can be talked about, it can be understood, it is not mysterious, nor does it need to be cloaked in a secret “Boys Only” club language.

Enlightenment is the feeling/knowing that no one exists including you, and that everything that happens does so spontaneously and perfectly.

Enlightenment is the feeling/knowing that what exists is Universe/Consciousness.

They are the same.

U = C

Existence is itself consciousness and that is why there is something, rather than nothing. This is the real state of things, and because it is so natural, so simple and so obvious,
we miss it daily.

Henry David Thoreau - Enlightened Tribute

Really terrific work here.Ahab's Pipe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WATe4jC-zOA

Dude, check out my new Karma!

John Wheeler @ 'Sailor' Bob Adamson meeting. He is meeting Bob again Sep...

What Is My True Nature? (Part I)

We Are All One

Ramana Maharshi - Who am I?

we are all one

U.G. Krishnamurti

Suffering from misplaced be(lie)f? U. G. will straighten that right out.

Walt Whitman Tribute - Enlightenment

A Lotus for the World

2001: A Spiritualized Odyssey - Part - 18 - HD - I Think I'm In Love

This is a friendly holiday reminder from Stanley and me.
Dave Bowman: You see, something's going to happen. You must leave.
Heywood Floyd: What? What's going to happen?
Dave Bowman: Something wonderful.
Heywood Floyd: What?
Dave Bowman: I understand how you feel. You see, it's all very clear to me now. The whole thing. It's wonderful.

Zen Biology Lesson for Enlightenment

This vid is via my friend David.

Poems by Kabir

All around us the truth is screaming. Set down your heavy burden. We are all one.

Who We Really Are & What We Appear To Be

We Are All One

Bhardwaj on Papaji of Lucknow

Thanks Katie and Rafe

Ashtavakra Gita

Truly dualism is the root of suffering. There is no other remedy for it than the realisation that all this that we see is unreal, and that I am the one stainless reality, consisting of consciousness.

I am pure awareness though through ignorance I have imagined myself to have additional attributes. By continually reflecting like this, my dwelling place is in the Unimagined.

For me here is neither bondage nor liberation. The illusion has lost its basis and ceased. Truly all this exists in me, though ultimately it does not even exist in me.

Recognising that all this and my body too are nothing, while my true self is nothing but pure consciousness, what is there left for the imagination to work on now?

The body, heaven and hell, bondage and liberation, and fear too, all this is pure imagination. What is there left to do for me whose very nature is consciousness?
Ashtavakra Gita

New Digs for Sailor Bob

Sailor Bob has a new website. It is splendid. Drop by and Check it out. If you are not acquainted with Bob's message, now is the perfect opportunity.

http://www.sailorbobadamson.com/

UG Krishnamurti - Unique Early Talk

Great Minds: Richard Feynman - The Uncertainty Of Knowledge

The Meaning of Life in 13 minutes part 1 of 2

A little film from Chuck Hillig http://www.chuckhillig.com

What it is

Thanks Rafe!

we Are all ONE

Civivakkiyar

In bricks and in granite,
in the red-rubbed lingam,
in copper and brass
is Siva's abode --
     that's what you tell us,
     and you're wrong.
Stay where you are
and study your own selves.
Then you will BECOME
the Temple of God,
     full of His dance and spell and song

          .

From the Crest-Jewel

....attributes caused by Maya and her effects are superimposed upon God and upon the individual soul. When they have been completely eliminated, neither soul or God remains. If you take the kingdom from a king and the weapons from a soldier, there is neither a soldier or a king.

Vivekachudamani

Learn to look without imagination, to listen without distortion; that is all." -- NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

Levity?

Become a Lake!

Become a Lake!


An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so, one morning, sent him for some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.
"How does it taste?" the master asked. "Bitter," spit the apprentice.


The master then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake nearby. Once the apprentice swirled
his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake."
As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the master asked, "How does it taste?" "Fresh," remarked the apprentice.
"Do you taste the salt?" asked the master. "No," said the young man.


At this, the master took the young man's hands, offering, "The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain
in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in.
So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things a bit. "STOP BEING A GLASS. BECOME A LAKE."

now.......what?

To what shore would you cross, O my heart? there is no traveller

before you, there is no road:

Where is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore?

There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there;

There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw

it.

No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford!

There, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place

that shall still the thirst of the soul? You shall find naught

in that emptiness.

Be strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold

is firm. Consider it well, O my heart! go not elsewhere,

Kabîr says: "Put all imaginations away, and stand fast in that

which you are."

now.......what?

right here, right now

	Even faith in God is only a stage on the way. Ultimately, you abandon all, for you come to something so simple that there are no words to express it. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

NISARGADATTA TATVAMASI YOU ARE THAT

the Niz is the Wiz

we are all one

The Reality As You Know It Does Not Exist

Tagore

On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying,
And I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.
Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.
That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to me that it was the eager breath of summer seeking for its completion.
I knew not then that it was so near, and that it was mine, and that this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart.
Tagore

one, not two

A little perspective from Alan Watts

Timothy Freke

New web site.

"Welcome to Seeing-Knowing.com"

From the Concious Flex blog

The Secret of All Life Revealed!

Posted by: Nicholas Powiull

April 10, 2009

Through the recent articles (all recent articles categorized under the label: enlightenment) what I have been pointing to is this ever-present never-changing awareness. This is who you are, unaffected by observing the images/appearances of life. In this article I am going to point to how this awareness is ever-present, how this awareness is unaffected by observing everything in life, what the mind does, what life is, what death is, how fear is self created, what the purpose of life is, if goals matter, why there is no growth, and more.

In order to point to this awareness, I am going to a metaphor that closely relates to how this awareness perceives life.

The Movie Screen Metaphor
This awareness is stuck, it has nowhere to go and nothing to do. It's comparable to watching a movie screen. All of life is this playing movie on the screen of awareness. To the awareness the whole of life is the totality of the movie screen.

For example, when you walk, to the awareness you are not walking at all. To awareness, when you so called: walk, all that is happening is the images/appearances on the screen are changing. Nothing else is happening except the images/appearances changing. In other words, when you see your legs moving, you are not walking, you're just noticing the screen of the movie. When you're watching a movie, you're not going anywhere, the movie screen is just changing the view that you see. If you were to take your finger and feel the screen, it would be flat, just like a picture on the computer screen.

All senses even feeling are like this to the awareness. When you feel your leg touch the ground (while the other leg is in the air not feeling the ground yet), to awareness all that is happening is the feeling of the screen is changing it's image/appearance of the feeling sense.

To better understand this, take your finger and place it between two keys on your keyboard. Do you notice the space between the keys because the solidness of the two keys between the finger? Or do you notice the space between the two keys on the keyboard because the space is there? In other words, is it the space that gives rise to the feeling of the keys, or is it the keys that give rise to the space? There is no way to distinguish between the two because there is only one awareness being aware of it. To awareness when you feel something, all that is happening is the feeling of the screen is changing. The awareness does not change, the screen changes. To awareness it does not matter if something is felt or not because either way awareness is still there. The awareness does not change, the screen that awareness is viewing changes. Rather the view of the movie is changing through seeing or feeling, the screen is still just a screen.

If you comprehend this correctly then you realize that it doesn't matter what you do or where you go in life because life is still the same movie screen. There is no way to escape or change awareness, awareness is stuck in the theater watching the movie screen. This is why all is life is one thing because it's all the movie screen. The body you see is part of that movie screen, the people you see are part of that movie screen, everything you can observe is the movie screen. When you move your head, the head is not moving, the images/appearances are moving on the movie screen.

To awareness (which is who you really are) there is no such thing as spiritual truth because it's all on the screen. People spend most their lives seeking truth, thinking they are getting somewhere, but they are not moving, they are not going anywhere and every truth they find is just part of the image/appearance on the movie screen. There is no image/appearance on the movie screen that can be truth because the truth of who you are is the viewer of the images/appearances on the movie screen.

The Keyboard Example
That awareness is aware of both the keyboard keys and the space between the keys simultaneously because both are the same-thing (on the movie screen), they both are the same-thing because there is only one thing being aware, your awareness doesn't separate the difference between these two things by observing it. The mind separates things by thinking that it is observing something different and this is what causes suffering.

The Mind Separates the Movie
You don't go to watch movie that has nothing but joy in it, you like to watching the conflict/sorrow because you know that it's temporary and makes the joy parts much more fun to watch. You like sitting there watching the movie, because you do it out of entertainment value. You accept whatever images arise on the screen because you know you're unaffected by it.

The problem here is that people have forgotten that they are only watching a movie and at best they think they are watching a series of movies, so they divide the movie into segments. When one 'segment' of the movie 'ends' (pain), they rate the movie. Yet that was not the end of the movie, you can't rate a movie until you watched the whole thing. That pain was leading up to some joy but they missed the joy all together because they focused on the pain. All pains will eventually lead to joy because the movie is always changing.

The suffering starts when you start trying to change the movie. When you stop trying to change it then pain is allowed and when pain is allowed, then it's moved through quite quickly and now the joy can come faster.

People experience more pain then joy because they hold onto that 'segment' of the movie: they keep talking about it, they keep remembering it, they keep bringing it back up, they keep showing to others, they keep replaying it over and over again. That part of the movie was not meant to be played over and over again, let the movie keep playing.

Just enjoy the movie: it could be a horror, a comedy, a drama, a inspirational film, etc... but whatever is playing, enjoy it by knowing that it can't be changed by you. Learn to enjoy all the varieties of movies, you can't have an inspirational movie playing all the time, eventually that would cause boredom, that is why you can't have joy without sorrow.

This Life (Movie) is Only Possible Thanks to Opposites Appearing
This movie would not be playing at all if it were not for the opposites of everything being there.

If everything was empty-space, then there would be no forms to experience the empty-space. And likewise, if everything was solid-form then there would be no empty-space for the form to be aware of itself as something. Take away one and the other could no exist, therefore neither is independently there on its own. Take away all the solid-forms and nothing would exist. Take away all the empty-space and the solid-forms could not exist. They need each other to be anything. Everything/nothing complimenting each other. Take away one and the other is not there.

In other words, if everything was only joy, then no joy could appear on the movie screen. The concept of joy wouldn't even be fathomable. It's through the appearance of sorrow on the screen of awareness that allows the appearance of joy to exist.

Life is the Only Thing Existing, Everything Else is Appearance
The only thing that doesn't have an opposite is life (life is the awareness of who you are). People assume that the opposite to life: is death, but really the opposite to death is birth. Nobody knows what this present moment right now means. If one could take all the ideas, concepts, beliefs, and all the assumptions they have about life and discard them, they would see that life (this movie screen) right now holds everything.

In other words, this life (this movie screen) can not be understood, it's a mystery that can't be solved. The mind likes to solve things, understand things, and see meaning/purpose. It sees meaning through labels: "This is a computer screen" now it has a label, a meaning to it. This thing you're seemingly looking at is not a computer screen (or piece of paper, if you decide to print this off), it's an appearance on the movie screen of awareness.

The mind can intellectually understand what I am pointing to, but understanding it and having a direct experience of it is vastly different. People who point to enlightenment/awakening/ascension/nonduality/liberation/nirvana/advaita, etc.. , they are living in a world of paradox, everything that has an opposite to anything else is one thing (one movie screen) and because everything has an opposite, either or choice becomes irrelevant. They cancel each other out.

When you really realize this, you will not care what happens on the movie screen because you will see that you don't have control over how the movie plays itself out. The whole movie of images/appearances will become irrelevant because once you try to change the movie, you will cause the movie image/appearance of suffering to take place.

Death
When you realize this, you will see that this awareness of who you are is there even if there are no images/appearances arising. This awareness is infinitely boundless. Beyond this awareness where there are no images/appearances of anything arising on the screen, you will be unaware and aware at the same-time because this is the place you came from, it's above and beyond any logic or understanding: it's pure unmanifestation. Everyone has awareness, but in the larger sense, this awareness is one awareness.

In other words, 'everyone' seeing different images/appearances on their movie screen is the same one awareness that derived from this same one unmanifestation. There is only one of us here viewing the images/appearances from another perspective of itself (another seemly location in the seemly world of the same one movie screen). This unmanifestation is the all of everything, it is the everything/nothing that allows the one awareness to be aware of seemly individual movie screens, yet it's the same movie screen appearing. Therefore, the awareness being aware of the images/appearances from its own perspective, is a limited perspective but only limited by that perspective. The perspective doesn't limit the awareness because the one awareness is the whole of everything viewing the one screen. The one unmanifestation and the one awareness are the same one thing.

You can intuitively sense this through the awareness that is aware of all the images/appearances. The direct experience of this intuitive knowingness is found by realizing yourself as this awareness and as the awareness of images/appearance on the movie screen of awareness.

Therefore, upon so called death, all that is happening is that the movie screen of appearances/images changes to viewing the unmanfestation. The awareness is who you are and that awareness can not do anything except be what it is, when there is no movie screen being viewed, then unmanfestation will be viewed.

No fear
There is nothing to fear what-so-ever on the movie screen because it's just a screen. Even the fear of death is ridiculous, but 'instincts' will arise on the screen of awareness in order to keep the movie screen playing. Other than that, there are no other fears that arise when this is seen.

Purpose
I can't see any purpose to any of this from here, other then experiencing oneness as oneness itself. In the unmanifested/awareness that oneness can not be experienced as something because it's known as everything/nothing as it is. Experience can only happen on the movie screen and from the images/appearances on the screen changing. Having said that, I can't say it's purposeless, it just doesn't seem to matter to form a conclusion of purpose or purposeless.

However, the more I experience this movie screen from sitting in the seat perspective of knowing myself as awareness, there seems to be a purpose that is provided through having fun with the images/appearances.

In other words, it's like having a lucid dream (being aware that you are asleep in your bed having a dream) and when a lucid dream happens you can do almost anything. I like trying to fly in my lucid dreams because I realize it as a dream and I know even if I fall from the air, the pain is not real. It's much like a lucid dream, there seems to be aspects that can be shifted.

Goals
Now realizing it's just a movie screen in which you have no control, doesn't mean that goals don't arise (life goes on much the same, what arises on the image/appearance screen still arise). Goals can be quite rewarding in the image/appearance, but don't be disappointed if the goal doesn't appear the way you imagined. When the image/appearance of desire arise on the movie screen of awareness: have fun planning to accomplish that new appearance (hence goal), have fun working towards creating that appearance, have fun with all the appearances you have now while you work toward that new appearance. Life can be fun when you realize it's all appearances. The whole point seems to be saying 'enjoy this life while it's here'.

Growth
Everything covered in this article is pointing to you as infinite awareness and since awareness is the whole of everything, you are already complete, perfect, infinite, full. There is nothing to add to you here on this movie screen.

Therefore, don't get lost in the concept that any goal is going to add to you or cause you to grow in anyway. There is nothing to learn, nobody to grow, nobody is growing, nothing that you can experience will add to yourself. You do not grow through life experiences (How can you grow through an image/appearance?).

You are not here to remember anything, in fact forget everything you know and you will see the truth of you as described here. As conscious as you are of this life (movie screen), consciousness does not grow because the awareness behind consciousness is you and that awareness is the one of everything.

Unmanifestation Verse Manifestation
This life is awareness being manifested as images/appears on the movie screen (life is the movie screen). This life is fun when it's seen as that because the unmanifestation is seen as well.

In the unmanifestation, there is oneness, just like the manifestation. The only difference is that awareness is viewing the oneness of the one movie screen, rather then viewing oneness as everything/nothing or uneverything/unnothing. When there is nothing to view, no images/appearances, then nothing/everything is happening as unnothing/uneverything. As you can imagine, that is a very unlive/living place to reside, you are always residing there but when it's unknown that you are still there because the movie screen is distracting you, then you can now play. Can you see how life is a gift to yourself for yourself to experience yourself as seemly separate parts of yourself?

Life's Secret
The secret of life is that there are no secrets, everything in this article was starring you in the face the whole time. None of the explanations in this article were ever kept hidden from you. How can oneness hide from itself? Everything that seemed hidden was only an illusion. Illusions are not real so how can illusions hide the truth of you. Illusions are only possible if you buy into the illusion being real and that was the whole point. How could oneness experience itself as oneness without this movie screen?

Any Questions?
Not like I have all the answers, in fact I know nothing, which is where the explanations in this article derived from. Anyone coming from a place of not knowing anything and innocently looking at what is appearing, would arrive to the same conclusions in this article because the truth of your being can not hide in the illusions forever.

Thank you Conscious Flex

The absurd notion of one