My present understanding of Liberation as a key mechanism to access non-dual awareness.

Tuesday, 29th November 2011

10:05:Hrs; ..

 Main points .. the self cannot be found anywhere .. broken down it is found to be just thoughts, memories, repeated patterns associated with a body ..  Through careful analysis it is found that the self that one took oneself to be is in fact an illusion created of those factors .. Mind/body association and memory and learned responses associated with a name.

In seeing this it is realised that there is something constant that has been conscious or aware of the self all the time .. with repeated attempts to remain in that consciousness or present awareness while looking at the self a new sense is created .. or accessed .. The sense of self is realised as something constant behind all passing phenomena including the self-character that had been assumed to be oneself before.

In the welter of sense impressions thoughts and memories as well as projections into the future there had been no time or objectivity to realise the nature of that constant conscious awareness behind all the activity of the brain plus emotions causing regret for the past and fear for the future ..

The reality of seeing no-self is not really no self at all it is non-identification with the self and seeing that it is a fiction .. Like a fictional character it is known by oneself and by others .. but it can’t be found anywhere in reality .. as a substantial entity ..

To really see myself as not existing it is necessary to see everything as not existing .. If I am an illusion .. so is everything else really ..

I’m sure that is nearer to the Truth .. if all that is seen as objects is really an illusion in time and space .. then maybe the one who sees is real .. the one who sees only exists right here right now .. which when honed right down is known as the eternal moment .. present existence .. present awareness is all there really is ..

How do all the objects exist ? (including the assumed self) .. some say they are all just consciousness also .. some say they are mutually arising and all exists only in relation to everything else .. some say all is God .. That which exists in everything and everything in it .. I am That ..

I .. the sense of I as the constant present moment consciousness in all lived experience is the essence of the human and the essence of all else .. therefore I and that are not different .. subject and object are one as is any apparent movement or action .. all is and occurs as that One ..

Therefore the looker the looking and the looked at are one .. even the false self, when looked at turns out to be the same as the looker and the looking ..

In Oneness I am seen as one with all .. so either the self is an illusion (or non-existent) and therefore nothing exists and I am nothing or the self is not an illusion and exists and therefore everything exists and I am everything.

I am nothing .. I am everything ..

Nothing exists .. everything exists ..

I am an illusion moving in an illusion .. the whole illusion is mutually arising .. from who knows where ..

I am an illusion moving in an illusion the whole thing created by an unknowable God ..

The real self is not knowable as then it would be an object knowable by a subject ..

The true nature of the subject is only known by being it .. the subject cannot know the subject because it already is it .. the real subject cannot stand outside of itself to see it ..

Seeing the illusion of the temporary ego-self for the first time shifts one into being just subject .. for a while .. or (I contend) if it remains a permanent state .. then it is enlightenment ..

There is a sense of total security (beyond trust because trust requires a trusting subject and a trusted object) and flow in the now of being.

Communication from that place really affects others (even over the internet it seems) .. gathering around an enlightened one with that state of consciousness brings separate-seeming individuals into the same “field” .. it is the point of satsang .. there is a possibility to taste the state of unity .. Sometimes a state near to sleep is induced around a powerfully enlightened person for the first time or after some time away from them as the mind gets “turned off” & cannot cope with the powerful field of non-dual consciousness.

Cares and worries are often forgotten .. there is an opening of the heart to others and feelings of love and brotherhood occur quite commonly .. There often may be laughter especially a group laughter apparently way beyond the commonly percieved reaction to a joke or a funny remark .. one experiences a kind of communal cosmic joke ..

If an enlightened person is speaking it will often be found that any individual listening may feel that the talk is directed personally to them .. often with coincidences of phrasing and subject matter which leave one asking “How could he possibly have known that ?” etc .. even to the point of embarrassment or feeling exposed in front of others until it is realised that somehow the talk is “universal” in nature and many of the listeners will be experiencing the same thing .. the universal has somehow come into the present .. time and space collapse into an amazing synchronicity and apparent coincidence ..

It is often experienced that after such a talk the listeners will say “wow what an amazing talk!” & then cannot remember a thing that was said ! the power and the experience was way beyond the words .. coming from a place beyond rational,logical, dualistic, cause & effect, subject object language and consciousness.

Then afterwards a thread will be found .. someone will tug on it and the talk comes back to everyone .. but as one guy around my Sheikh once said “He could just go out there and count ‘one, two, three, four, five.’ & we’d all be knocked out !”

Way beyond words .. way beyond thinking ..

 as Rumi said ..

“Out there beyond right & wrong is a field,

I’ll meet you there.”

It’s not “You don’t exist.” But rather “You don’t exist as the illusory (fictional) self you thought you were.” And, in seeing that, non-dual reality may be apprehended.

It is seen that the lived reality of present awareness is not different from the apparent present arising of everything else .. a unitary reality of everything mutually arising in a never-ending interconnectedness of self .. and others .. subject and object and the consciousness in which they both arise is experienced.