I finished "Living Noduality." It was wonderful to read as it took me Home. I can't thank you enough. Seems as if 99% of the understanding was here, but there was this residual belief that, "Surely I can't get it. Who am I to think it could happen to me?" Just a doubt. But that doubt kept a veil of separation, just enough to leave me with some, still lingering, sense of not fully knowing. Your book really did bring the "understanding" home.
The sense of there being no me was already here. Knowing that nothing ultimately matters was here. But, I think I was still, at least unconsciously, thinking there had to be some big, mind blowing experience that would let me know I had arrived. But that wasn't that way it turned out for me. I just knew that I knew, felt a deep satisfaction, and went to bed.
Over the years I have had many mind blowing experiences. A heart chakra opening that put me in the hospital overnight. Of course the doctors couldn't figure out what had happened to me. Short description: Walking with my wife, a huge amount of electrical, prickly sensations started moving down my shoulders to my fingers and I kept asking my wife, "What is this."Then I had an overwhelming tiredness come over me, and I had an internal voice saying, "If you take another steep, you're dead." It was a very powerful internal voice.
Then I collapsed next to a telephone pole on the ground. An overwhelming experience of expansion took over. It was like someone had put a super high pressure hose into my center and was blowing me up like a balloon. My body felt like it was exploding and expanding into the universe. I was certain that I was dying. I gave up.
There were other experiences of absolute bliss where I was not. I could not stay there as there was no me there. As the experience left there were these words, "You are always surrounded by Absolute beauty, always were, and always will be, whether you are aware of it or not."
But that is NOT enlightenment. I had studied Nisargadatta and he repeatedly said, "Understanding is All." James Swartz has some books out, and he also stresses that enlightenment is an understanding. I knew that to be true, but it escaped me. I didn't feel that I needed all the rest of the Advaita Vedanta that Swartz taught. I was looking for something simpler.
Then I read your "Living Nonduality." As I told you, I had read everything J. Krishnamurit wrote, years ago. And I got a sense of the presence from his words. Very mind blowing, but the final understanding did not come home then. "Living Originally" gave me the same sense of presence I had when reading Krishnamurti. It's a sense of the space from which the words come. Not the human author.
I felt the profundity of the words In "Living Noduality." I had the sense that in this book you were writing to yourself, clarifying the understanding you had arrived at. The writing was very clear. It was like a sense of coming home, coming home to the understanding. It's like the completion of something that was vaguely known. Like coming to the end of a sentence and placing the period.
Swartz reinforced the point of coming to the "Understanding." It seems that "Living Originally" gave me permission to stop looking for some particular experience, something special. After all, don't the teachers say it's ordinary. Anyhow, the simplicity of it was brought home. All is That. There is nothing outside of That.
Your call to me, although very short. was confirmation, as you said, there is nowhere to go, the presence is here now. It's not in the future. So, I'm really just writing to you, out of gratitude. The understanding was suddenly just there. I didn't need to have any experience. No particular experience of any kind required. Many teachers I found unhelpful. I didn't doubt their knowing, they just weren't helpful.
What is there to do or know when you are That? Whether you realize it or not, no difference in the big picture. Yet, the satisfaction of knowing is better than not for this appearance.
I am sure there will be many questions of curiosity that will arise, and further unfolding, but there is deep satisfaction here. Remaining questions will all be answered in the knowing "I am That." The implications of the knowing "I am That," will unravel whatever concepts and beliefs are still hanging around, but their days are numbered. Thanks again for your books. The clarity came through for me.
Again, I thank you for writing so honestly and clearly that the knowing came home to roost here.
Robert Wolfe's book is free on his home page at http://www.livingnonduality.org/home.htm
The sense of there being no me was already here. Knowing that nothing ultimately matters was here. But, I think I was still, at least unconsciously, thinking there had to be some big, mind blowing experience that would let me know I had arrived. But that wasn't that way it turned out for me. I just knew that I knew, felt a deep satisfaction, and went to bed.
Over the years I have had many mind blowing experiences. A heart chakra opening that put me in the hospital overnight. Of course the doctors couldn't figure out what had happened to me. Short description: Walking with my wife, a huge amount of electrical, prickly sensations started moving down my shoulders to my fingers and I kept asking my wife, "What is this."Then I had an overwhelming tiredness come over me, and I had an internal voice saying, "If you take another steep, you're dead." It was a very powerful internal voice.
Then I collapsed next to a telephone pole on the ground. An overwhelming experience of expansion took over. It was like someone had put a super high pressure hose into my center and was blowing me up like a balloon. My body felt like it was exploding and expanding into the universe. I was certain that I was dying. I gave up.
There were other experiences of absolute bliss where I was not. I could not stay there as there was no me there. As the experience left there were these words, "You are always surrounded by Absolute beauty, always were, and always will be, whether you are aware of it or not."
But that is NOT enlightenment. I had studied Nisargadatta and he repeatedly said, "Understanding is All." James Swartz has some books out, and he also stresses that enlightenment is an understanding. I knew that to be true, but it escaped me. I didn't feel that I needed all the rest of the Advaita Vedanta that Swartz taught. I was looking for something simpler.
Then I read your "Living Nonduality." As I told you, I had read everything J. Krishnamurit wrote, years ago. And I got a sense of the presence from his words. Very mind blowing, but the final understanding did not come home then. "Living Originally" gave me the same sense of presence I had when reading Krishnamurti. It's a sense of the space from which the words come. Not the human author.
I felt the profundity of the words In "Living Noduality." I had the sense that in this book you were writing to yourself, clarifying the understanding you had arrived at. The writing was very clear. It was like a sense of coming home, coming home to the understanding. It's like the completion of something that was vaguely known. Like coming to the end of a sentence and placing the period.
Swartz reinforced the point of coming to the "Understanding." It seems that "Living Originally" gave me permission to stop looking for some particular experience, something special. After all, don't the teachers say it's ordinary. Anyhow, the simplicity of it was brought home. All is That. There is nothing outside of That.
Your call to me, although very short. was confirmation, as you said, there is nowhere to go, the presence is here now. It's not in the future. So, I'm really just writing to you, out of gratitude. The understanding was suddenly just there. I didn't need to have any experience. No particular experience of any kind required. Many teachers I found unhelpful. I didn't doubt their knowing, they just weren't helpful.
What is there to do or know when you are That? Whether you realize it or not, no difference in the big picture. Yet, the satisfaction of knowing is better than not for this appearance.
I am sure there will be many questions of curiosity that will arise, and further unfolding, but there is deep satisfaction here. Remaining questions will all be answered in the knowing "I am That." The implications of the knowing "I am That," will unravel whatever concepts and beliefs are still hanging around, but their days are numbered. Thanks again for your books. The clarity came through for me.
Again, I thank you for writing so honestly and clearly that the knowing came home to roost here.
Robert Wolfe's book is free on his home page at http://www.livingnonduality.org/home.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment