Between the Lines

I like the deep, profound thoughts of solitary men, because they point best beyond themselves. Like poetry that uses few words, and re-arranges them so the shock takes you beyond them.

Oh yes, this is it! But, who shall point to it with ordinary words? That which is beyond the words, ineffable, is waiting for you to stumble off them, and fall between the lines. There, in that empty space is everything.

The enlightenment-disease/

http://www.mushin.eu/en/blog/beyond-the-enlightenment-disease/

Karma or Choice

We are not here for our own individual purposes. All you have done is discovered that you are here. Granted, that makes you innocent.

However, if you are a soul who travels in and out of body life cycles, perhaps you are bringing unknown Karma with you? Your innocence may be mistaken.

Did you arrive trailing clouds of glory, with a little Karmic inheritance to fulfill? Perhaps an unknown agenda to live out? There may be choices to be made, a range that expands or constricts, depending on what you do.

Do you fall into temptation, or do you strive for some inner knowing? Do you hesitate? Or do you reach toward the light? Is seeking really a curse, or is it a choice you made, to claw and scrape beneath the surface?

On what grounds can you defend your seeking? Hasn't all your seeking been a response to this? Have you been driving or has it been driving you?

Intuitively you know your agenda is unique. It has informed your entire life. Your uniqueness is more than genes, more than nurture.

Your seeking pivots on an unknown source. The fulcrum is somewhere out of sight. But it drives you. Somewhere, deep inside, you know you chose it.

Language, Symbols, Words

What is language that we should pay it any mind? Language gives us the ability to step outside ourselves, to observe ourselves, to become the observer.

It is due to this ability, our naming, our symbols, that we step outside ourselves and know time, know eternity, know death.

It is this ability which gives us our greatest joy, our greatest sorrow. It is this ability, thinking, that was our fall in the Garden of Eden.

But this was a necessary fall, necessary for consciousness to know itself.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1

or

In the beginning was consciousness, and the Word was consciousness, and consciousness was God.

The Ocean

Waves arise on the ocean,
traveling they know not where.

Waves arise on the ocean,
traveling near and far.

Waves arise and fall,
collapse and merge.

The lighthouse is steady
on the shore.

The light shines for
one and all.

Waves are moving on the Ocean.
All are going home.

Each has its journey unplanned,
back to the sea.

One

One and one is two,
in the linear world.

One and one is ONE,
in the nonlinear world.

One and many are multiple
in the linear world.

One and many is a field of ONE,
in the nonlinear world.

The world of ONE is full of ones.
One and one and one are ONE.

Unbidden, Freedom Came Knocking

Unbidden, freedom came knocking. Just walking into the kitchen, taking a break from writing, simple freedom came walking too. It walked right in and sat down, easily.

The freedom was noticed, lightly, just here. It was breezy. It didn't need to do anything. It had no agenda. Ah, so easy to go with it.

The feeling is simple, and simplifies everything. Freedom is free, and it is not out there. It is here, right here. It doesn't bind the personality, it sets it free.

I don't care if I'm enlightened or not. I don't care if I'm eternal or not. I don't care if what I write pisses someone off. I just don't care. It doesn't bother me that there are a lot of "I"s in this paragraph.

The untouchable I is free. It doesn't matter whether a teacher, friend or foe is angered. I am free of those sentiments, those judgments. I am free to contradict myself. And surely will.

If I feel separate I will play with it. If only One is here, I am that. The big play is on, just like the little play. The dance is all.

The Open Teacher

There are a lot of teachers out there that get one thing, and poof, they're off to the races. I can read, or listen to some, and yet, whatever it is, they don't have it. Many don't speak to me. Many don't have it for me. And some are dangerous. Not dangerous in a good way.

Speaking mildly, there are a lot of teachers out there that are full of crap. They had some experience, their ego grabbed it, they crowned themselves and set up shop. They can't see their ignorance, and neither can the naive student. Caveat Emptor!

Getting one thing doesn't make one enlightened. It's a little more subtle than that. I've said before, a couple whami satoris doesn't cut it. A bird with one wing can sit on a stool, but he can't fly.

A true teacher will have authority, but it will be tempered with humility. Look for a light heart. If they don't laugh, if they don't have a sense of humor, run for the hills!

I've woken up at night from a bad nightmare, but I've never been awake in a dream. In daylight, I'm pretty awake, and crap looks like crap. I avoid it.

There seem to be two major groups of Advaita, one group says you don't exist, the other group says you do. One group insists that you are nothing, have no freedom, and no choice. The other says we do exist and have the responsibility of growth.

One group tends to sees things rather simply, the other group seems more nuanced. The later group accepts that people do exist, that enlightened teachers exist, that there is Karma, and there is some freedom within Karma. There are teachers in both groups that ring true.

If all is one, it can be easily said that the individual does not exist, is nothing, a fleeting image at best. Being nothing, free from responsibility, appears to be quite liberating. This group celebrates no individual, no meaning, no purpose, no goal. Yet, can you trust a teacher who has no meaning, no responsibility, no goal? If neither he nor you exist, why bother?

In the day to day lives we lead, in this appearance, freedom has never been separated from responsibility. Is it different than above? Is "As above, so below," a myth? Go ahead, try being free without responsibility in this appearance. It won't last long.

Both groups can agree on oneness, unity, and eternity. It is the individual which poses the difference. Is the individual real or not? Does the individual have one appearance and merge into the One at death? Or does the individual have many lives, and limited choice due to Karma, and join the One as a soul after death?

If you read the stories and books on the near death experience, it becomes pretty clear that consciousness as an individual can and does exist outside the body.

My own brother, fell from a bridge one winter day, hit the river, broke through the ice and sank. He tells how he floated up the river bank looking at his body under the water. He began yelling at it, "If you don't move, you're dead."

He could see all around. He watched his buddies get out of the pickup truck, scramble down the bank, reach under the ice and pull his body out by the hair. When they dragged him back into the truck, suddenly he was back in the body, cold and shivering.

My voice mail from him said, "I drowned, but I'm alive." He was so amazed! I also work with a guy who was in a near fatal car wreck. He was revived in the emergency room. He too can speak about being out of the body, conscious, as an individual.

Of course, those without the experience, or without an open mind, can dismiss these as hallucinations. To dismiss these accounts they will use whatever suites them. This does not however prove NDE's invalid. Studies show that an out of the body experience does not change the person very much, but an NDE does.

I marvel at the complexity of life -- the creativity and outrageousness of it. So, although the simple answer is easier to grasp, the outrageous that rings true, seems more like what I see around me.

Since I appear to be here, and sense that I am is here, I don't deny it. Will I merge with the One after this life, or after many lives? Is there a progression of lives, and Karma to be dealt with, or not? The end result is the same. Eternity reigns. The One is.

Is this appearance as an individual a lie? Can I discount it with impunity? I admit I didn't create myself personally as an individual, so I must be part of a larger whole. A part, expressing a part of the whole, is still not separate.

Are their levels of consciousness? Levels of enlightenment? Can a teacher, like the rest of us get stuck on one idea? Are some teachers more open after awakening than others? Does growth stop in the teacher?

All of this today is to keep things clear. No one has all the answers. No one has the one answer pinned down. It is still up to the individual to determine what resonates. The truth will set you free, but only if you experience subjectively.

What is Enlightenment?

Words are not adequate. They do not touch what is. Words cannot describe the experience of satori because they are too limited. They cannot describe enlightenment. But words can point. Some better than others. Presently, let me try and fail again.

In one satori, I realized that I had to let it go because there was no I there. No personal I. No Maury. It was an exquisite experience. The message received was that I was surrounded by absolute beauty, always had been, and always would be, whether I was aware of it or not. It was a clear message from absolute authority.

It was letting me know that after the experience, and the little I returned, that the beauty would still be there. It let me know that though the veil would return, and the beauty would be hidden, in truth it was there. In fact for weeks afterwards I cried at the beauty of many things. Yet, the beauty faded.

Currently, I am not as aware of beauty as I was during that satori. Have I lost something? Or have I just become habituated? I can recall the experience. But how does a personal I recall an experience in which there was no personal I? A conundrum to be sure.

Can we say that there is actually only One Subjective I? All other I's just emanations of that One? Can that Singular One, the One and Only I, not have an experience? Does the One have to have little ones to experience? My inclination is that the Great Subjective Single I, can and does experience itself.

When the little I dissolves into the Big One, there is only the Great Single I experiencing itself. Awareness becomes aware of itself. It experiences the little I as well, feeling the little I dissolve, feeling the absence of the little I's presence. It experiences the Oneness of itself.

All of this to say that enlightenment is not a satori or two. It is Awareness becoming aware of itself permanently. For a form, a person, to know itself as background, a manifestation only in the field of awareness, to know Awareness is the ground, the being, the Only One, that perhaps is enlightenment.

Where Is One After Satori

After a satori or two, many think they are enlightened. Is that so? The Unitive Experience, which always comes unbidden, arrives like a tsunami with overflowing ecstasy, overpowering oneness, and explicit absolute authority. There is no desire, wish, or possibility of challenge.

Many a satori lasts for only seconds, yet in those seconds it is eternity which is known. It is eternity one knows. Sometimes the unitive effect lasts for days, and giving and receiving are the same word. One and another are not separate -- separate appearance, separate form, but not separate in reality.

Yet long or short, satori doesn't last. Does one or two of these make one enlightened? After one of these, does the ego come back and grab it, like a crown.

Are you now anointed? Does one place this experience in the ego's treasure chest and pronounce oneself, enlightened, teacher, knower?

And how does one live one's life when this satori, this experience dissipates? How does one live when the normal state returns? When in comparison, normal seems so much less. When normal has lost it's meaning. When it is pale in comparison, with no blood, no life, no truth.

It's like being an existentialist, yet knowing better. Like being in the wasteland, having tasted paradise. The taste of paradise, like a beacon, a lighthouse, known but not seen. There is nothing to grab.

Here and now, the field seems dull, slow, passable. But nothing in comparison to the taste. There is a waiting, a wondering. Why the taste? Why the knowing? One seems unnecessarily placed in the position of eating the cake and wanting it too. No middle ground. There was a taste, now only these dregs remain.

Untasted paradise leaves no measure for God. The existentialist may feel the hero. But when paradise has been tasted, there is a measure for God. Then what? This here, this now, so doesn't measure up.

Only trust remains. Trust in the unknown, trust in having known. Trust that Oneness is, though ungrasped. Only humility may reign, only submission, surrender, asking for revelation.

The Spiral Staircase

The spiral staircase goes round and round. Take two steps up and one step down. Take a rest now and then. The railing is there.

The earthquake is calling. You fall. In the darkness going down, you see light at the bottom of the shaft, and realize that in the tumult, your bearings were lost, and you are hurling up, not down.

You pop out the top, into the light. You have landed on solid ground. You look down the spiral staircase and notice that it is nothing but a shaft of light.

Mark Your Territory

Mark your territory, like a dog. Let yourself be sniffed out. Stand your ground. Bang your gong. Mark your spot.

Be king of the hill. Manipulate the field. Bribe the feeding tube. Smother your friends in flattery. Smile at your superiority.

Just know that the sticky web you have built is your own prison, and will soon begin to stink. You have turned yourself into a toy, a cartoon image.

So mark your territory well. The sooner the better. For only then will you discover that it doesn't satisfy. Only then will you take off wandering the pathless path, leaving no trace.

The Sovereign Heart

You cannot be in service of an idea if your are in service to your heart. For the heart is beyond ideas, even good ideas. It knows what the mind can never grasp.

The full heart risks the mind, breaches its walls, and sets itself free. Love reigns, for the sovereign heart beats in all.

The Other Side of Nothing

Since all is one, there is in truth, no duality. So this thing, this body, this mind, is part of the non separation. We have already established that any separation is false.

There is nothing wrong with being a person, being a mind, having a personality, having therapy, working through a depression. All this is an expression of the One.

There is nothing but this. And what is this? It is fullness, and overflowing, and spawning endless fullness. Life in all forms, seething, writhing, jumping, cavorting.

One expression of fullness is personality. Billions of personalities. All important, none separate from the whole, none separate from the One.

Every single expression is That. Every single expression is one of the One, part of the wholeness. Each perfect in its expression and path.

Source is no thing in particular, but everything in its entirety. So nothing is everything. You can stand with the empty glass side, or stand with the full glass side. Either way, it's all the same.

I don't always enjoy my personality. But I certainly enjoy watching it. I get caught up in it and wallow in self pity, or get a big head about something I've done.

Then I step back and see what's been going on and have a good laugh. As a non separate part of the whole, I have to love the personality, don't I? It's doing the best it can.

Love is simply wanting the personality to reach its full potential. And perhaps have as much fun as possible doing it. Love doesn't mean I have to like every part of the personality, or even support all the parts. But having compassion for the ugly parts is love.

I can have compassion for people I can't help. I can have compassion for people I don't even want to help. And when I'm well aware of how much I dislike someone, and avoid them, I forgive myself. For "discretion is the better part of valor."

Each one of us is stumbling down the path, drunk with a small mind, and Everything is watching over us. We are our Friend.

Forget about Not Knowing

Forget about "not knowing." Not knowing is actually your natural state. Go take a walk in the garden, look at the grass, the flowers, the birds. You do not know anything about them. You do not know how or why they are.

You already know that scientific reductionism is sterile. One answered question brings up ten new ones. Each answered question opens the door ever wider to what is unknown.

You are already prepared for the next moment. When driving your car on a country road unfamiliar to you, without even thinking, you go left when the road turns left, and right when it goes right. You slow down for the unexpected deer.

You can know a lot of things. The earth is no longer flat. All your knowing is tentative. Labeling and defining helps one maneuver, but does not define what is.

Trying to get rid of knowing is an ego trip. The bars just changed from black to white. This kind of effort is not needed. Ask, who is doing the undoing? Slip into the background and just watch.

Acknowledge that all knowing is tentative. Only a fanatic holds onto beliefs as if they were crucial to life. Only a fanatic would insist on not knowing.

Not knowing is the actual state of affairs. Awareness is always present. It accepts belief and non belief. It accepts knowing and not knowing. Where your mind goes, it is already there waiting.

Awareness is already present, open, ready, willing, without prescription. It is prior to your knowing and forgetting. Your definitions and labels, useful or not, are pointers only.

The body-mind is a vehicle only, roving the field. What it knows is useful to it, or harmful, but all its knowing is temporary and subject to change.

Just step back from what the body-mind sees, and thinks, and feels. You are already awareness which doesn't know. See this and you need no longer worry about knowing or not knowing.

Awareness doesn't need to know anything. That is what you are. Forget about knowing or not knowing. You are prior to that.

Only Now, Always This

If you could just settle down into not knowing, and not caring that you don't know, and really getting a feel for that, then you would be close.

You are already close because what is, is already here, as all that is. All your thoughts and ideas are obstacles to seeing.

Let the not knowing overtake you, and unmotivate you, to the point that you just give up. Surrender to not knowing and drop off the cliff to nowhere.

You won't gain anything. You will loose the sense of I that thinks it had something, or lost something. You simply overlooked the obstacle -- yourself.

A subjective feeling, a knowing you can't shake, will overtake you. It is not bliss. Just ordinary truth. You can't grasp it, and you can't hold it.

The truth that sets you free gets rid of you. Not the body, not the mind, but the "I sense" of separateness.

Nowhere is everywhere. And you are here. One without a second, Awareness, Consciousness. You are that.

Where did the little you go? It was never really here. It was only a thought. Now there is only this. Only here. Only now, always and forever.

Beyond Voluntary Simplicity

Imagine a rainbow that needed to be told that it was beautiful, that needed to be told it was the most beautiful of all rainbows, that needed to be told it was special. That's the kind of image the ego holds for itself.

Because the ego is an image, a bundle of self defining concepts, unnecessary things are needed to support it. It seeks compliments. It seeks entertainment. It creates complexity in its effort to support the image.

However, as the ego dissolves and recedes into the background, all the energy that went into defense and self promotion becomes unnecessary. No need to try and drop effort, there is nothing left to support any effort. Effortlessness is what is left.

When understanding comes, simplicity has an appeal that it didn't have before. It's like the mother bird, finding her nest empty.

Who's Playing on the field?

The phantom character takes a position based on conditioning, beliefs, and genetic tendencies. We don't have to list the other five thousand unexamined causes.

None of the reasons for taking a position is important, it's only important to examine who is taking the position.

The bodymind takes positions, and later discards them. They're not permanent things. Positions are taken on and discarded like partners on the dance floor.

What positions the bodymind takes is not important. It's only important to see who is taking them on, and who is discarding them.

When you look it becomes apparent that this process is just a covering for the mind, like clothes are to the body.

To get down to brass tacks, stop looking at your positions, your judgments, of self and others, and look for what they are appearing on.

There is a blank mind on which a lot of trash has been dumped. You need to stop looking in the trash, and see who's looking.

At some point you look beyond the mind. You see the screen on which it is appearing, and realize that pure awareness is what you really are.

Pure awareness is the playing field in which conscious comes to play. Your bodymind is just one player on the field.

Be the field and enjoy the game.

Take No Position

To deeply trust the way things are, without fear, has the perfume of truth.

You can't change what is, as you are part and parcel of it. You can only stop taking a position about it.

Not much more to do. Just don't look for bells or whistles. The ordinary becomes extraordinary when expectations drop.

Hold no head above your own, as no description of satori or bliss prescribes.

Whatever is, is totally subjective. How could it be otherwise? The subject is, I. One.

Hold on to nothing, as no thing is everywhere.

Advaita Shorts

An I, identified as a seeker,
set off to find the Truth.
He never came back.

-----------------------

A seeker set a goal,
but never arrived.

------------------------

The tiger's mouth was scary,
but the belly of the beast
was warm.

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Truth bubbles up through the cracks
in your prison of belief,
and light slips in between the bars.