Who or what knows that there is no self ? (key to enlightenment ?)

[Unedited extract from my journal. (edited version for LU people to follow.) ]

Saturday, 10th December 2011

07:51:Hrs;

Finally my question has produced some reaction ..

“Who or what is it that knows there is no self ?”

That’s the core of the whole thing right there ..

My tendency is to immediately say God ..

But looking in one has to narrow it down to present  consciousness with no thought .. quite hard to find and maintain .. and seemingly pretty boring too .. (no entertainment value .. quite tough presumably the true aim of meditation) ..

I looked at the universe thing yesterday and if it was the result of the Big Bang then for me it is almost like a ‘proof’ of God .. something came out of nothing .. yes it can happen (according to modern physicists I read somewhere) .. but how ? .. Answer must be something completely beyond our ken .. God .. His great act of creation ..

People seem to equate the big bang with some sort of proof of no God .. (evolution doesn’t even do that for me .. as even the dear old archbishop of Canterbury said .. maybe that was just God’s way of creating man .. what’s obvious is that man is distinct from the animals and his distinction resides mainly in his consciousness and his self-consciousness or awareness of himself as a separate entity .. his awareness of awareness etc etc )

However if you take the big bang theory away and recognise that it is just that .. a theory (always disprovable when some fresh information or knowledge comes along) .. then what ?

Let’s just say that the universe has always existed .. kind of puts a different spin on it doesn’t it ?

With the Big Bang thing I can imagine God unmanifested always existent bringing Himself into manifestation as the universe .. like a continuum squeezed through a tiny hole and then bursting out into what we now know as the universe ...

But the universe as always existing .. Uh ? .. No cause .. just always there ? Uh ? .. doh .. ummm

What does that do with belief in God ? How does that fit ? Are God and the universe the ‘same’ thing ? I mean I haven’t even thought about it like that .. How does that work ? I mean if the universe were always there that would make it eternal .. & really (up til now in my understanding) .. only God can be eternal .. etc etc etc .. maybe the universe has to be put in the “Don’t know.” file ?

If we are talking about what exists even when you stop believing in it .. I’m back to present awareness .. no thought .. but I still wonder .. how does that happen ? ..What is the nature of present awareness no thought (i.e. no dualistic interpretation) ..

No doubt that it exists .. that it is happening .. but what is it ?

Is this what is meant by Self-Realization ?

Is this what is meant by “He who knows himself knows his Lord.” ?

What is that knowing ? .. Who or what is the one which is aware ?

perhaps that is what Massarro is pointing to & so pleased with .. & his 2 to 5 seconds thing .. I guess it is .. & also Tolle’s big thing ..

I have assumed .. (& I’m not sure how or since when .. though I’ve tried looking) .. that it is God “looking out through my eyes” as Rumi would say.

It still seems very tenable ..

The other thought that comes is .. if I was really truly one (with everything) .. then I would have like an omnipresent awareness .. I would be actually one with everything .. in all places at all times .. I kind of total consciousness ..

My individuality and “point of view” is like a filter on that .. but .. for now the best I can do is try to find out Who am I ? in the sense indicated above ..

Mark’s “process” doesn’t do it either .. though I know what he means & it is a very Buddhist type view .. All is just happening .. but that never accounts for the ‘how ?’ ..

I suppose if one was happy with that .. that would be the answer to everything .. it all just is .. punto .. fin ..

Then what ?  ..

I suppose what I would say is that, what sees or knows that there is no self is .. pure present awareness or consciousness with no thought.

(I equate this with the real Self or God.)

This experience as an abiding state is what is commonly agreed upon as enlightenment.

Abiding non-dual awareness.

The key to it is the seeing of and realising of no separate self.

The root cause of dualistic awareness is abiding in the separate self. This identification with the subject causes subject/object awareness in which everything other than me becomes an object.

It’s weird because the only thing to do after realising no-self is to use the self to express it.

No-self or abiding non-dual present awareness expresses itself through the medium of dualistic words and a ‘persona’ which has essentially become one with the one ..

In seeing or knowing no-self .. is the subject shifted back to the “knowing” in order to see the illusory self .. or ...

Does the whole thing just “drop away” ?

I mean that this is somehow the difference between those that have really seen it and those that understand it in  an intellectual way

If it is not an immediate “dropping away” can there be a process of continual shifting back into present awareness/no thought .. until it becomes continuous ..

Is this what is happening in the world at the moment in a general way .. and what is happening in the no-self groups specifically ..

Is Unleashed like a group of people in process .. continually shifting back into no-thought-present-awareness by watching the false self and all that apparently arises in it and because of identifying with it ?

No-though-present-awareness comes first .. thought .. labelling the experience comes after and then thought about thought .. and labelling of labelling gets one really away from it ..

It being abiding non-dual awareness ..

What Ramana Maharshi would have called the I-I .. or the Self in Self-realization .. that which is aware of the separate or false self ..

What Rumi would have experienced as looking out through his eyes and called God ..as in the famous hadith ;

“He who knows himself knows his Lord.”

What Adyashanti calls Emptiness .. and everything that rises as a consequence of it as “Emptiness Dancing.”

Emptiness or void is present no-thought no-self awareness .. form is emptiness dancing .. hence emptiness is form .. form is emptiness .. the no-self returns to express itself through self and other .. subject/object .. manifestation .. and multiplicity ..

We can see it happening in and through ourselves .. I’m so amazed by it I tend to call it God ..

Nothing being something .. or nothing hiding itself by being everything as Tony Parsons would say ..

A method might be encapsulated as

1st see no-self .. then find out what it is that knows no-self.

(Should be quick route to enlightenment!)  ... hahaha tee hee .. hee hee hee ...

Deep breath in ... aaaahhh ! Relaaaax !

Disseminate for “approval” ? i.e. if it works share it to relieve others of the burden of dualistic consciousness longing for unitary awareness ..