The Other

I have a very subtle feeling that someone is watching me read this book. It is not a person, but it is enjoying watching me read, watching me smile, watching me savor a good line.

This Other is here with me, but there is no person in the room with me. It is not another person who is watching. It is an unknowable watcher, formless, tasteless, but it tastes what I taste, feels what I feel, knows what I know. And it enjoys it.

Since I have given up knowing, the watcher has appeared. Perhaps it is the humility of giving up, of letting go, that allows this Other to be felt. I know that it watches over me, protects me.

It's not that this Other will keep things from happening to me, but that this Presence is there, and by it's presence, I am safe.

Waking up may simply be becoming aware of this Other. The Other is always there. In fact, it is so there, and been there so long, and so taken for granted, that I didn't notice it. I was too busy being myself to notice.

While we are busy being ourselves, our focus is narrow, limited. Any sense of any other is dimmed. Others are just a means to an end. We may get what we are focused on, but miss everything else.

In our busyness we forget we have excluded others. The downside is that we miss Otherness, and the big Other of others, is the One.

The Other doesn't tap you on the shoulder. It doesn't say, "Hey, here I am. See me?" No, it is a very humble presence. It is presence that is willing to stay on the sidelines, unnoticed, until you look.

When we are busy with trying to understand, assuage our egos, protecting our positions, we don't notice any other, especially a quiet, subtle Other. The Other has infinite patience and will wait as long as we live, and longer, perhaps many lifetimes.

Lately, having given up knowing, praying only for revelation, perhaps I opened the door to the Other, just a crack. But that little crack has revealed a presence. And it's fun to notice the Presence. It's interesting to be aware of It.

I am just walking down the hall at my office and I am aware of something other walking with me, knowing I am walking, knowing I am aware of It. There is a confidence in the person when I know I am not alone.

It is a soft presence. And I wonder why it has come now? I can only guess it is because I know that I cannot do this understanding alone. It is not my understanding, but the understanding of the Other.

I cannot figure this out myself, for myself. No, I have to submit to It. For I, a person, an idea, built of experience in this body, did not create myself. I am a created being. To understand, I have to give myself to the Other.

As long as I am defending my ego, feeling that I am going to figure this out myself, with my own mind, my own effort, I could not sense the Other. How could I?

This body/mind is a product, a program through which something greater than myself experiences. That greater power, that greater consciousness, is the Other.

This body/mind is just the container of content, limited content. And when I focus on the limited content, I get limited results. If I want to know Otherness, the context must be included.

Context is the greater, the broader, the Other. I the person/body/mind am a vehicle only. One among many vehicles. As long as I believe I am the driver, I have lost the larger context. For I am a created being, a product of something greater.

I am the driver, experiencer in appearance only. The Other is the real driver, for he created the vehicle, and the space, and all the others. This experience of being in a body and having a mind is really His.

I am the content, the object through which the Other experiences. My miss perception, that me, myself, is the experiencer is only eclipsed when I become aware of the Other.

That Other is looking through my eyes, and through my neighbor's eyes, and through my boss's eyes.

I am in the play, unconscious that I am an actor, until I am willing to admit that I know nothing. When I know I know nothing, then I am open to what is really here. And what is really here is this Other, this creator, this force, this Source.

My only prayer is "Source, reveal yourself to me, so that I may merge with you. Reveal yourself to me, for I cannot find you. I can only ask for revelation, so reveal what I cannot find and understand."

And with this prayer, made in earnest, I begin to sense the Other. And in this Other's presence, I can merge. And only in merging can I know.

Intuitively We Know Nothing

"...I wanted to cry with joy and just lay with him in the bed and stay that way for hours, saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing, thinking nothing, just loving him and becoming nothing but one nothing inside another nothing and that nothing not bothering with anything."

~ Denise Chavez ~ from her novel Loving Pedro Infante.

I like light reading sometimes, especially if it's funny, raw, and well written. Escaping into this novel, I was surprised to run across the lines above. Who doesn't know this? Who hasn't experienced the above when madly in love.

What this tells me is that we DO know this. We just don't stay there. This is what enlightenment is all about, that merging into nothingness. Nisargadatta stated that "When I am nothing, then I am everything."

When it comes to enlightenment, at the end, one finally admits that "I can't do this." Perhaps this is getting close. It doesn't mean you don't want enlightenment. It doesn't mean your longing has ceased. I just means that you know YOU can't do it. You can't remain an individual separate self and do this.

The only thing left to do is pray, and that prayer goes something like this, "Lord, you know I want this, don't want to live without this, but I can't do it. I know I can't do it. Lord have mercy on me and take me there, into that nothing that is everything where I can be at peace."

Peace is only in the oneness that is everything. Since that is the natural state, it is not too much to ask. But you really have to want it, and you have to know that you as a person, a mind, can't do it, can't go there. Give it up.

Endearment

First you fall in love
because you are blinded by
your own projected light.

When you pull back your light
and the projection ends,
you can choose to love.

Choose to see past your ego,
your judgments and condemnations,
which block the light.

And if you keep on choosing love,
and seeing where you are not love,
Endearment can only come

Beliefs and Nonduality

Belief is a position, a perspective. Truth simply is. Our beliefs about it are simply limitations. If one listed all one’s beliefs and then tossed them out, would you still exist? Where would you be standing? What would you be standing on? Wouldn’t you simply be awareness, open, willing, waiting to see what came next? Wouldn’t you simply react without choice? Wouldn’t that be pure action?

Without belief, what is there not to love? Without belief, wouldn’t there be less conflict, less violence?

Pure awareness is when all mental positions and beliefs are set aside. Then there is more space, more openness, more peace. In that space, love becomes easy.

Without beliefs, without the need for positions, the background in which all of these play is seen, perhaps for the first time. That awareness then may experience itself. That recognition is non duality, or oneness. The non dual recognition is unshakable. It does not need to be maintained. Truth is when all else is left behind.

Searching for Universals

Most of us who have been on a spiritual path have to admit to a fatal flaw, and that flaw is the inability to give up the search.

The search causes a lot of misery. Some of us even claim to be cursed with the search, as for us it is comparable to an addiction.

It is a well known fact that fundamentalists tend to be happier because they don't question their beliefs. As long as they can function with them, they tend to be a happy, (although perhaps self righteous).

It is only when reality roars it's ugly head that the whole personal facade of beliefs collapses. Then depression sets in. If it is serious enough, we call it a nervous breakdown.

When an idea held by a state or country collapses, we have a recession or depression. Notice the correlation?

The social structures of the world are not immune from belief. Just as personal selves rise and fall on beliefs, so do states.

A manic depressive person does not have a true center, so thoughts can grab them easily. A good thought causes manic, and a bad thought depression.

Since universals are part of the search, it is rather a small step to look from personal beliefs and their consequences, to cultural and market beliefs, and their consequences.

What do teachers of enlightenment have with some of the great financial gurus? What universals do they share?

On the personal level, J. Krishnamurti gave talks for sixty years. His pointing was that if you want the ultimate truth, you have to submit all thoughts, beliefs, positions to criticism. One of his greatest works was titled "Freedom From the Known."

Now, to step from everything one knows and believes into the unknown, is not something the average person aspires to. And the person who attempts this will be tested indeed.

To subject oneself to this level of self examination is painful, shattering, and dangerous. If one manages to do it well, perhaps enlightenment will result.

Dr. David Hawkins, perhaps the wisest living person currently on the planet, says to keep all beliefs, tenets, positions as tentative. This is the only way to stay open to change, to raise one's consciousness. His term for the misperception of reality due to beliefs is "positionality."

Positionality holds that one cannot see the truth while holding on to a position. And hold on we do. There is an unconscious fear that if we let go of our beliefs, we will no longer be able to function.

George Soros, the great financial guru, who himself would prefer to be a great philosopher, has also come to the same conclusion as J. Krishnamurti and Dr. David R. Hawkins.

George Soros, however, writes more on the level of culture and society, rather than from a strictly personal perspective. Rather than write about being open as a person, he writes about the "Open Society."

George Soros, just like the mystics and enlightened gurus, elevates the unknown to the highest consideration. Like the mystics who experienced the mystery, the scientific Soros, embraces the mystery as ultimate.

Like the physicists who became mystics due to Heisenberg's "Uncertainty Principle," Soros takes this into account in his philosophy of "Reflexivity."

Soros' theory of Reflexivity is based on the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle. As applied to humans, he calls it "The Human Uncertainty principle."

I doubt that George Soros is familiar with J. Krshnamurti or David Hawkins, but he has come to the same conclusion regarding respect for the unknown. Below is an excerpt from his book, "The Bubble of American Supremacy."

OPEN SOCIETY

"As participants in any given social situation, we must have some beliefs on which we base our actions. But on what basis can we act if we accept that our beliefs are likely to be false or incomplete renderings of reality?

The answer is the same as the one Popper gave for the scientific method: We must treat our beliefs as provisionally true while keeping them open to constant reexamination. This is the foundation principle of an open society."

~ George Soros http://www.soros.org/

It appears from these great thinkers, that any of us who want to know the truth need to be aware of our own fallibility. We need to make effort to see how our positionalities distort the truth and fall short of reality.

From personal experience, it is clear here, that one can experience the truth, but one can't express it in words. It is beyond any idea. It can be pointed to, but it is so subjective that it cannot be repeated, captured, or explained.

As for the world as it is, we can only work to be more open ourselves, to keep our views tentative, and yet to act. Perhaps the best we can do is to "Be what you want to see in the world." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Ordinary Enlightenment

What do you get when you finally give up searching for enlightenment? What is, as is, now.

Rather ordinary, isn't it? But, there is one subtle difference, you're not resisting anymore. When you're not resisting, suffering lessens. When you're not resisting and suffering, your brain quiets down.

When your brain quiets down because it doesn't have to figure everything out, and it's not resisting anything, then the ordinary can seem pretty nice. At least it's mostly peaceful.

No, you won't be blissed out all the time. You might not even be able to say you're happy.

Allen Greenspan and Bernadette Roberts have something in common to say about this.

Greenspan, while considering macro economics and the level of happiness, has noted that once people get used to wealth, they no longer have a sense of happiness from it, although they may be more content than the poor. Soon enough, they want more.

Roberts, observing her internal states very carefully, stated that one had to write down current states, such as happiness, in a journal, because once one was in that state for awhile, it became the norm and was no longer experienced as ecstasy, or a change.

It must also then be noted that a highly evolved, or enlightened person, may feel their state is ordinary. However, outside observers might describe them as ecstatic, or blissfully peaceful. It is merely a matter of the position one is viewing from.

Homeostasis may occur at various levels. Once a high level becomes the norm, it is ordinary. But this ordinary may be vastly different from the ordinary of the average person.

Absolutism

Absolutism doesn't mean that we know what all the absolutes are. It means that we understand that the universe is based on laws, whether we are aware of them or not, whether we understand them or not.

Absolutism often has a negative connotation, such as expressed in "My country right or wrong." Fanatics also provide a negative connotation, willing to kill the bearer of opposing views, rather than confront the possibility of being wrong.

Being willing to kill another over bumper-sticker-wisdom is the travesty of the modern world. Fanaticism is a choice to die rather than confront one's own insecurity. It is the exact opposite of all universal spiritual teaching -- the opposite of "Know thyself" and the tradition of self inquiry.

Absolutism is the knowing that all that is, is God, by whatever name you give: God, Source, The One, Natural Law, The Force. All point to an acknowledgment of the absolute nature of reality.

Absolutism does not eliminate uncertainties about choices we make, but it may provide an ultimate security, a serenity, due to knowing that all is covered in a blanket of Oneness -- the security of Love.

Under the mantel of the security of absolutism, we may also hold on to humility, taking all knowledge as tentative and subject to change, providing us ground to stand on, while being willing to listen, being willing to amend. This is the opposite stance from fanaticism

Before the earth was flat, it was round. It was round when we knew it to be flat. It is still round now that we know it is round.

Before quantum physics, Newtonian physics was the only law we knew. Now quantum physics has expanded our understanding to embrace the non linear Absolute. Quantum physics has expanded our knowledge, bringing science into the realm of consciousness research.

The absolute does not change, but our understanding does. This ability to act on what we know, yet remaining tentative about what new understanding may come, keeps humility in place. We agree to be changed as understanding deepens.

The fanatic believes that his mental position must be defended at all costs. The fanatic would rather die than allow his position to be questioned. In the end, fanatics have to make all others like themselves. This is the opposite of freedom.

On the other hand, the spiritual person embraces the Absolute with humility, knowing that any position taken is only a step on the road home. With an open mind, there is less to defend, yet the position is stronger.

Humility is the strong suit in the game of life. The face of the Absolute is seen by few, but we are all on the way. Let us journey on, knowing that the Absolute is there with open arms. The end is sure, but the journey must be taken with freedom from the known.

Karma, Souls and Oneness

The "not two" of nonduality poses that although manifested bodies appear separate, they are all One. Countless sages have proclaimed this the fundamental reality.

However, sages are not in agreement on the issue of souls, reincarnation and Karma. Why not? It appears that some have had direct experience of past lives, and some have not.

For those that have, Karma and reincarnation make sense. For those that have not had such an experience, Karma and reincarnation are irrelevant. They point to the actual nondual nature of reality. What more could you want? Why get into those details?

It is already a big step from duality into nonduality. This step requires that one knows that all bodies are one, despite the evidence of the senses. This knowing is huge. Is it any bigger a step to postulate that souls travel through various bodies over time? If many bodies are part of the One, souls also are part of the One. Both are equally outrageous to the five senses.

A human being learns only so much in a lifetime. The level of human consciousness has remained rather stagnant over millennia. It would stand to reason that it would take the average person many lifetimes to really change, grow, and learn the truth.

If we are here to learn, to grow, to rise above ourselves, certainly more than one lifetime would be required. Isn't it clear that certain individuals have risen far above the heap. How is this best explained?

Reincarnation is certainly the best explanation. A soul that has traveled through more lifetimes would certainly be more experienced, would have had more opportunities to learn, and would likely be at a higher level of consciousness. More experience, more lessons learned.

Haven't you known young people who seem to be wise souls? Aren't there many who seem wise beyond their years? Is it not the youth who often rise up and require change? Is it really far out to believe that they may have the advantage of having been here more times?

If there is a soul that travels though various bodies over time, then the concept of Karma comes in very well. Just as a person's current reputation precedes him, just so, a soul brings with it the weight of the good and bad from previous lives. This certainly explains why a particular life may seem lucky or tragic. The trajectory is in effect.

Karma helps relieve a lot of tension around the question, “Why me? That lives are the way they are may not be accidental, but the effect of previous lives. Just as the sins of the father are afflicted upon the son, just so, the sins of your past lives may be affecting you now.

I have tried to make three points.

One, that it is no bigger leap to believe that souls travel through various bodies over time than to believe that many bodies are actually appearances in the One.

Two, that souls are appearances in the One, just as bodies are appearances in the One. Non duality is actually a bigger leap than believing in reincarnation.

Three, Karma is the result of each soul's travel. The soul is the real traveler, changing bodies for a different view, and gathering good or bad energy along the way.

In the end, whether you are a soul or a body, you can be nothing other than the One. You are both.

Non Attachment

Non attachment is not, not caring. Non attachment is letting go. In The Little Prince, the story says that if you want to know if someone is really yours, let them go. If they return, they are yours, if they don't, then they never were.

At a certain level non attachment comes fairly easy. It comes with the recognition that nothing is really yours, not even your own body, or the thoughts that randomly come and go. If you don't own your own body, how much can you own another?

We are all on loan to each other. Our bodies are the vehicles loaned to us. We are not the lender. Well, if you are enlightened, perhaps you would say that we are both the lender and the receiver. But from the body/mind's normal perception, we are on loan. We will die!

If you have a child, you will get to practice non attachment. At some point you must release the hand, or suffering will surely come home to roost. When you let go, it doesn't mean you don't care. It means you've grown up.

As long as you hold a leash, they will suffer and you will suffer. To be available is different from holding on. A leash creates enemies, being available creates friends.

Non attachment also comes with trust. If you know there is a greater source than your personal self, or a random universe, if you know that nothing happens by accident, then non attachment is easier.

Consider that wherever you have attachment, you lack trust. A daily meditation could easily be noticing attachment and looking for what it is that you are not trusting.

At the peak of consciousness, one might be able to say, "I trust in that which is." What else is there?

When you really look deeply, you don't know where you are, who you are, or what you are. Science can't explain it, but as it ponders more and more the abstract, things such as intention, synchronicity, and consciousness, it's getting closer. One can certainly love science, but not be attached to it.

Everything must be taken as provisional, except the One -- the unnameable, mystery, the no thing that supports what is. Krishnamurti said it so well in his book, "Freedom From the Known."

Consciousness and Scientific Reductionism

It's rather entertaining how many studies there are trying to prove that out-of-body experiences and near death experiences are just biological, physical brain experiences.

These efforts claim to be based on science, on rationality, with the aim to uphold scientific inquiry. Once thus explained, how dare one question the conclusion?

To question the integrity of these efforts is to be irrational, unscientific, unsophisticated. But really, what are these so-called experts up to? Don't they have an unconscious agenda? Don't they want to deny that which requires them to look more deeply into what is going on?

There is a term for this, it is called "Scientific Reductionism."

SCIENTIFIC REDUCTIONISM:

Anthropology --> Psychology --> neurology --> biochemistry --> chemistry --> physics --> math?

Each theory absorbed by and explainable by the other.

Descartes' Rules of Method and principle of analysis. Tree of Knowledge.

culture is NOTHING BUT psychological laws
red is NOTHING BUT vibrations
heat is NOTHING BUT movement
anger is NOTHING BUT high adrenalin
Knowledge is NOTHING BUT neurology

... but in each case ask what is "NOTHING BUT? "

All science is an attempt to explain one thing in terms of another, to give the causes of the phenomena.

from: http://www.mun.ca/phil/phil3920/scientific.shtml

As you can see, if one is not careful, one is easily convinced that somehow, by saying something, such as an "an out-of-body experience" is simply a biological, neurological event, that somehow the experience has been explained -- that it was an illusion and can now be dismissed.

The mind separates and labels. This is satisfactory to the mind. It allows it to feel secure, and to dismiss that which is not easily labeled.

The spiritual can be denied, but it cannot be dismissed. The mystics throughout generations have been talking about, and pondering this "No Thing." In fact, they have said, from every culture, that this 'nothing' is the essence of all that is.

It is just that, the formless "no thing" that gives rise to all manifestation. The mysterious "nothing" is the spirit that pervades all form. Just having a body is an experience in what? Consciousness. That's all there is.

Meaning without Concept

Once one has experienced meaning without content, without concept, it's hard to ever mistrust again. For when one experiences the authority with which that meaning comes, there is no possibility of questioning it.

This meaning without thought, without content, causes no conflict with any other position because it contains all other positions. It is not a meaning attached to this or that.

To be sure, it was an experience. It has passed like all experiences, good or bad. But, the lingering taste of that knowledge stays with me, though it is now background.

There is only gratitude here for having had that experience. For in those brief moments, the whole universe was laid bare. Bare of concepts, bare of content, bare of specifics. But it was full of meaning.

Funny, but I can not tell you what the meaning was, other than saying ALL IS MEANINGFUL. Not this or that, for all content was gone, except for This -- All That Is.

As far as the human experience goes, it was a very rough time after having a number of such experiences, for after they were gone, life as it is lived, seemed barren, empty, meaningless.

It was a long time before this one was able to adjust -- to let go of comparing the experience of that, with this, the ordinary. But the knowledge remains that the ordinary is in This.

So now there is gratitude for the experience, but there is no wishing for, attachment too, or holding on to that. For to cling, to desire for the return of that, is to invite suffering.

But, I can live with the knowing that was given in that experience. I don't have to demand that this bodymind remain in any state, even bliss. It is enough to have had it. It is enough to know that there is a grandness to all this, though I may not be aware of it now. Or ever again.

What state I am in is irrelevant. For there is a grander scheme than this little "I." And though there is just the wonder of every day, and mostly peace, there is the knowing that all is well, forever now.

Mission Impossible

"You're role, should you choose to accept it," is to arrive on earth, naked, unable to walk, talk, or remember where you came from.

You will arrive penniless, without choosing your race, gender, country or home, hopefully to good parents. And you will have forgotten where you came from.

You will be born into the Actors Guild, like all other humans. You will remain in the Actors Guild until you begin to seek the playwrite, the source of the stage, the lines, the character you are playing.

The paradox is that only the actor who knows he is a character, on stage, playing a role, will find any freedom at all. To wake up on stage, and choose the role, is the only choice you have

The difference between this mission impossible, and the Mission Impossible TV series, is that you don't get to choose the mission before taking it. You can only accept the mission, after you are in it.

Your only escape is to wake up to the mission, the role you are cast in. And you can only choose to accept your mission if you wake up to it.

There is no choice in resistence. Choice is only in seeing, realizing the role. All resisters remain in the Actors Guild. Resisters never get to walk off the stage and sit in the audience. True joy is being able to see the play, Lila, the greatest show on earth.

Remaining in a role, saying the same lines over and over again, leads only to staying on stage, asleep under the lights.

"All the world's a stage, and we are but actors upon it." Hope is discovering your mask, admitting the wearing of it, and taking a good look in the mirror. Laughter is a common response.

To be a real actor, one must know one is acting, and the role one is playing. Seeing the role one is destined to play, and choosing it, is the flight into freedom, off the stage and into the audience.

When the actor knows he's acting, and plays it to his utmost, then he is awake. Then Source smiles back at him through all the actors on the stage, and freedom reigns.

I Dream of Nothing

I had a dream last night. I was at a high school function honoring a sports team. The team was standing against a wall in uniforms, looking prim and innocent.

A child who was not on the team told his mother that he was afraid of some of them. "How so she asked? Who are you afraid?"

Very bravely the young man pointed to three of the team members. "I'm afraid they will kill me," he said.

Just then, another young man on the team got a grimacing look on his face and stepped forward. "You should be afraid of me too." He walked over and sat on a bench just in front of the boy.

He pulled from his pocket a small revolver, pointed it at the kid who had called them out, and cocked it. He was ready to shoot. Seeing this, I reached out my hand, placed it on top of the pistol and gently pressed the arm down. "How could you do this?" I asked.

"He's nothing," the young man said, looking disgusted. I looked him in the eyes. "You know you are absolutely right. He is nothing, and so are you. You are brothers in this nothing."

The young man looked at me wondering how I could say such a thing. I continued, "Don't you know that this was the Buddha's message? It's a Hindu and Buddhist tradition. We are all nothing."

Somehow, this struck a deep cord in the young man. He uncocked his pistol and laid it on the ground. Then he pulled up his pant leg and pulled out an AK47 and placed it on the ground.

Somehow, the knowledge that they were all one in nothing struck a deep understanding in his heart . The fact that he saw what the Buddha saw brought an acknowledgment he needed. His fear and anger were gone. The forgotten knowledge of oneness was remembered.

Shortly, his friends pulled up their sleeves and pant legs and pulled out weapons and placed them on the ground. All these innocent looking boys had been loaded with weapons. Soon there was a huge pile of weapons on the ground.

The event was over and everyone went home. I wanted to leave, but couldn't with this pile of weapons laying in the middle of the school grounds. I went looking for a place to stow them so they couldn't be used. I woke up.

The Experience of Freedom

The experience of freedom is not freedom. It's just an experience. Does this get your goat, get under your skin? What else would be disturbed by the thought that there is no free will, other than ego.

True freedom is beyond freedom or bondage. It is prior to the concept of freedom. It is prior to any experience of freedom. It is so free it doesn't know the experience of freedom.

If there is only one Source, one Being, where is anything other to choose?

The body/mind doesn't have all knowledge available, so making choices can seem like options actually do exist. But this is surface experience. It is not fundamental.

If one goes deeper, it is easily seen that thoughts and feelings contribute to the decision made. But even these thoughts and feelings are the results of manifestation. Results of DNA, conditioning, experience.

Freedom is what all this is manifested from. All freedom belongs to the absolute, not to the individual. Like all other experience, the experience of freedom is just that, an experience.

True freedom will join you to your destiny with grace. It is choiceless, accepting, and beyond the necessity of any experience of freedom. You are that freedom. Enjoy!

Two Perspectives

There are two basic perspectives in life. The perspective from the absolute and the perspective from separation. 99.9% of people experience only one of them. The experience of separation.

The fact that 99.9% of humans have only experienced separation does not invalidate the experience of the Absolute. Both can be defended, neither can be proved.

There is a personal embodied self which we all know very well. There is the impersonal One Self, without form. We are both.

The embodied self is hard wired to survive, and as long as survival is our primary motive, this is the only self we will ever know. To know the Impersonal Self, one will have to go a lot deeper, and risk everything into the unknown.

Since the path into the unknown, is by definition, unknowable, we find ourselves in a quandary. Very much like a who-done-it, we have clues, but no end in sight.

The major clue we have is the "still small voice" that is heard when we hope without knowing. A faith in things unseen. Unbidden, but there. Not always a gentle voice, as it is often a gnawing in the gut, a feeling that something is missing.

Do we follow the "still small voice?" Or do we resist because we do not know who is calling, or where it will lead us? If we are quiet and listen, we faintly hear, "Go to the tiger's lair, and stick your head in the tiger's mouth."

You sane one's quickly turn up the volume and walk away, so the still small voice cannot be heard in the din. But the crazy one, whom you shun, seeks the tiger's lair, places his head in the tiger's mouth, and shouts,"Bite, you son of a bitch, Bite!"

Moonbeams Guide My Way

I don't chase rainbows anymore.
Moonbeams guide my way.

I land nowhere,
where everything is okay.

Where is nowhere?
Right here. Right here!

Traveling this way,
where everything is okay,
just the way it is,
is very light.

The ordinary has no limits.
It sets no agenda.
No conditions.
No expectations.
Freedom reigns.

No horse to rein in.
No clouds to chase.
Just sitting here, nowhere,
is good enough.

Be in the world, but not of it

Being in the world.

As manifested, we humans come into the world with physical needs and desires. We come, forgetting home, feeling alone, having to survive. And so the travails of the world fall upon us like so many thieves. We hoard, we fuss and fight.

And thus we struggle. There is no path that we discern. In darkness we travel on. We stumble, fall, and pick ourselves up, again and again. Tired and weary, we see that things might be better a different way.

We don't know how we got here, or why we are here. We search the stars, wondering if we might be star dust, lost here without our light. And then, perhaps, we start to see another way.

But not of it.

Some still small voice keeps telling us that things are not as they seem. It tells us to look at our troubles in a different way. Only a change of perspective will free us from this woe. With this, our only hope, we accept that this is a pathless land.

When we begin to acknowledge that helping our neighbor, and treating them as ourself, makes things easier. And then we wonder why this works.

A little light comes in, and though there is no path, the light does show us one step at a time. So we learn to be here now, moment by moment, trusting something, we know not what.

And if we persist, and open to this truth, our neighbor becomes ourself, and we are not alone. And then, in time, with letting go, and with letting be, the whole thing opens to a new light, a new world. And we are One. We are now "in the world, but not of it."

The Semantics of Enlightenment

When someone wakes up, we say they are awakened, or realized, or enlightened. How can we tell a friend to go see that person if there is no one there? We are speaking here of the awakened teacher's stance that there is no one here, only "awakeness."

Despite what the teacher says, he says it from a body. And what he says isn't heard out of the mouth of others. If you want to know what he has to say, you have to go to him. Although the guru experiences no separateness, and says that his condition is impersonal, it is very personal to seekers and students.

Obviously words are not adequate. There is a body-mind out of which wise sayings, paradoxical statements may come, but the teacher says, there is no one here. In fact, that may be the teacher's experience. "The eye with which I see God, is the same eye through which God sees me," said Meister Eckart.

And yet, there are other teachers who willingly acknowledge that they are enlightened. Why the difference?

Valid teachers take both positions. Ramesh Balsekar for one, willingly admits that he is enlightened. But his teachings are certainly non dual, and his stance in the Impersonal is clear and profound. Karl Renz is another.

Valid teachers speak both ways, some claiming there is no enlightened person, and the others claiming they are enlightened. Tony Parsons is a good example of the no teacher, no student, type, yet the truth of the non dual reality shines through his apparent self very well.

The student goes to the teacher to hear this wisdom because he can't get it from his neighbor. Surely this points to the fact that enlightenment exists in some body-minds, and not others. Or better said, Awareness reveals itself more through one form than another. Still, the students will flock to the teacher with more Awareness.

Saying that everyone is enlightened misses the mark. Everyone is, ultimately, awareness Itself. But Awareness manifests the multiple, and the multiple is separate in body, needs, temperament, etc. So it does little good to speak of "Everyone's already enlightened," and forget any other teaching.

We in enlightenment circles have got ourselves in a semantic quagmire, and for the sake of students, we need to dig ourselves out. We speak of "apparent" persons, "apparent" teachers, and saying "There is no teacher, and no student."

On the level of Awareness, this is correct. But in normal experience, and for the average person, ignoring their perspective, their reference points, is of little help.

Of course the frustration of some students might catapult them into understanding. But these would be few. The majority of seekers will be simply lost. They won't be helped, They won't get understanding.

Do we want to increase confusion? Or do we want to attempt clarity. What is wrong with standing up and saying, "I am a teacher. I know something." Why not be a teacher? And why not let the student be a student?

At some point the student may understand that there is neither student or teacher, but do we start out teaching from there? In Nisargadatta's later years he got picky, saying that his teaching was only for advanced students. This was great discernment on his part.

Many are being lost in enlightened semantics. This may be why Jesus spoke in parables. A parable steps beyond words into a story. If you get the meaning, the truth of it, without words, you've got more than if you read a thousand books.

If you teach so as to confuse, to cause a break in the seeker's mind, go ahead and confuse. But the seeker isn't coming for more confusion, he's coming for clarity. Clarity from the position he sees, stepping stones to greater understanding. If you can't acknowledge where the student is, why are you teaching?

Speaking from the Impersonal Absolute may be fine for the advanced student, but for the majority of students, speaking only from the absolute perspective doesn't help. You need to point from where they are.

The awakened one can shout from the rooftop all day long that "There is no one here," but who will believe him? There is obviously someone up on the roof shouting. One has to conclude that there is certainly a different point of view coming from observers on the ground, and the one shouting from the roof.

The Process

Remember that heaven can be a inch from hell. The suffering burns up the resistance - not that one should look for suffering, or prolong it.

For some it is not really helpful to think of the Ego as an illusion. Just experiencing oneself as you are is enough. Calling it ego, or any other label is just mentalization.

If you are suffering, just be with that suffering. It is only made worse trying to analyze it as "illusion" or any other label.

Whatever you call it, ego, small self, separation, at some point relief may come from letting go. For those of a religious background, the prayer, "Thy will be done," may be helpful.

On "Realization" many say they are home. It is so familiar that the question arises, "How did I ever feel that I had left this place?" You may not experience being "home" now, but that is your destination. Self never left. Only the experience of self, embodied, feels separate.

Your real Self is already there. Pure awareness. At this time it may be covered with the veil of ego, separation, embodiment, however you name it. But the veil is a veil. It does part. Every curtain is opened a different way.

Self allows whatever experience you are having now. You can only trust that your real Self knows what it is doing. Just acknowledge that all there is, is what you are. There is only this, it knows, and it is love.

The way is through a pathless land. Every person will process differently. If you've done a lot of reading, just let it all rest in the background, your path is unique. Yours will have similarities to some, and not to others. If you believe in karma, it may help to know that you may be undoing something from the past of which you are not currently aware.

The first time I read Krishnamurti, I had no idea who he was, or what his background was, or what his message was. Halfway through the book, "You are the World," I was overwhelmed with a sense of forgiveness, reduced to a fetal position on the bathroom floor. The crying was so intense, I fled had fled to the bathroom so as not to scare the other residents of the home. Since that time I have tried to find what page or passage brought on the breakthrough of self forgiveness, but can't.

For about six months after that I cried watching TV, seeing movies, reading. I would cry at the beauty of everything, faces, trees, people. There were many unitive experiences. They have all passed. If I wanted to suffer now, I could tell myself I'm not there because I'm not having those experiences any more. But why would I do that to myself? I no longer place conditions on what is.

Some eggs crack in half suddenly with a great blast of light. Some fissure and crack in a thousand little lines and see the light brighten slowly.

After the break into self forgiveness, reading K., I could only continually gush and talk about the experiences I was having. My father, a Baptist missionary, knew the signs of conversion, but he knew nothing of enlightenment.

All he could say was that I had had a conversion experience. He had no way of knowing that it was deeper than that. The experience of oneness, of unity, of love for everything is not a belief, it is not a conversion to any sect, but a break. A break from any sect, any religion. No prescribed beliefs can contain Oneness.

There is no way to know for sure whether you are experiencing kundalini or just mundane aches and pains. When the experiences are intense and extremely varied, and doctors can't find anything physically causing them, then maybe one can say it is kundalini. As with anything about the process of waking up, there is no Rx, no prescription. Keep any knowledge tentative.

With the ecstasies, when most intense, I felt that I had to let it go of the experience because there was no way of functioning in the world while in that state. At the same time, I don't know how I can say that "I" let go, because in that bliss there is NO self. The most intense ecstasies only lasted a few minutes. The long unitive states, less intense, allowed me to function but gave a whole new perspective to what life really is. Seeing beauty everywhere was a big part of that.

The Buddha said that simply knowing of enlightenment is a great boon. However, knowing that there is an alternate way of experiencing the world, but not being there, can cause suffering. Psychologically it is called cognitive dissonance.

Therapy does help. This one did Gestalt therapy in groups for many years which resulted in Primals as described by Arthur Janov. That was the process experienced here. Again, not an Rx, not a prescription.

You are the One embodied as a unique one. Your process will be yours alone. But home is home for all alike.

You Already Know

In the end, you just give up. Then you see that you already knew it. You were just trying to spin it to suit your intellect. For example, I read everything that Krishnamurti ever wrote. I knew that he knew It, whatever that was, enlightenment, the absolute, God, Krishnamurti had it.

In reflection, how could I possibly know he had it, if I didn't have it? Many times I heard myself speaking to others about how I could read one page of a spiritual author and know if he REALLY knew. How could I possibly have known that if I didn't?

Somehow, I didn't stay with that, pursue that question. It seems I was just not ready to acknowledge that I must know as well. How little I thought I was. And yet, if we are That, then aren't we grand? Was I not listening?

So, some part of me knew absolutely. What I was doing was looking for confirmation. I was willing to know through someone else, someone on whom I had projected that knowing authority; someone with whom that knowing could resonate. But I was unwilling to acknowledge my own knowing.

What does it take, for those of us who sense that knowing in others, to take ownership for ourselves? Where do we get this self distrust? Is it innate? Is it conditioning? These questions need not be answered. What needs to be answered is this: How is it that I know that "X" knows.

If "X" knows, and I am certain of that, how can I not know? I must know! I do know! And if you've had that experience, then you know too.

Are there markers on the way? Do we have to put notches on our bed post? One for each experience we think we've passed on the search? I don't think so.

Remember, any experiences, even kundalini experiences, are not necessary. They may happen. They may not. Descriptions of happenings are just what happened to one individual. They are not prescriptions. Just take note. Be aware.

Knowledge is great. It can help you relax. But knowing is being. Real knowing is subjective. You have to learn to trust yourself. When you trust yourself enough, you can let go. Only then, when you relax, does the still small voice sound loud and clear.

Only the experience of this is personal. In truth it is all Impersonal. The Atman is having a personal experience. You are that. A personal expression of Impersonal Being.

Kundalini pains and pleasures may occur. They may not. They may come and go depending on what chakra is affected. They don't necessarily open in a certain sequence. Don't dwell on it. Some people don't have them.

Of course the ecstasies are great. But they too pass. Kundalini is not something to pursue. But it is good to know that kundalini experiences may occur. Just the knowledge might keep you out of the hospital. Especially when the doctors can find nothing wrong. Kundalini experiences are just sometimes a side effect of moving though blocks to deeper awareness.

In the end, the ordinary is beautiful.

And when you wake up, just being awake doesn't make one a teacher. Many complain that as great as a teacher may be, some just don't seem to have any awakened students. Krishnamurti is one of whom this has been said.

In my case, Krishnamurti woke me up. I just didn't recognize it at the time. My own father, who was a Baptist minister, told me I had had a conversion experience. He was pissed off because he thought I had been converted to Zen. But it was deeper than that.

Of course this pointing to the absolute is useless if you can't own it yourself. The words are just pointers. And poor ones at that. What you are looking for is the subjective, personal, experience. That which comes on so strong that you can't deny it, or even question it, because it comes with so much authority.

However, YOU already know. Just allow yourself to savor that. And Keep in mind that you can't do anything with it." This is not personal. It only seems that way. In fact, it is an Impersonal experience.

It may affect you personally, but it's not something you can own. It is an impersonal process that is happening through you. Don't take it personally. Just align yourself with IT. That's all the personal you can do.

Keep the prayer in mind, "Thy will be done." That's your only contribution. If your intent is strong, the part of you that knows, the still small voice, will be heard.

True seeing has often occurred, but the ego self just won't acknowledge it. You then spend another 20 or 30 years looking for what you've already found. You just want the seeing to be a certain way, a way that your intellect will agree with.

Just relax, and what you already know will come forth. The truth does not need to be forced. It is not loud. It is gentle. It speaks in a soft voice, even silence. Just "let it be."