All understandings are conceptual. Even a living realization can be grasped by the mind and turned into another concept to be understood and shared. What if we stopped going into the domain of mental concepts altogether and simply rested in what is here without moving, without also going to the mind to label, describe, remember, or understand… Just experiencing whatever happens as it arises, purely and untouched.
and friend of mine brought up an excellent concern:
Can you imagine if after we process thought into concept and fail to SHARE it? So many others wouldn’t be touched, stimulated and motivated to realize more. I so enjoy following your travels and posts. It’s like a good shot in the arm, for you are always willing to SHARE freely. Thanks for that! ♥
Yeah, that hits right on the money on some of my concerns as well. What’s being questioned here, on a deeper level beyond whether we say something or not, is whether or not we have to take what is discovered through the heart and immediately bring it up into the mind to be stored, leaving the heart and quickly going into the head.
Scientists like to explore the idea of consciousness as if it’s something that a physical being has. You know, people have a consciousness and when hit in the head, can lose consciousness. Rocks don’t have a consciousness. They have a physical existence, but presumably no conscious awareness of their own existence. Pysicality is taken to be primary and consciousness is taken to be some sort of optional secondary manifestation that may or may not arise from physicality. What causes consciousness? Perhaps it’s a chemical reaction in the brain, a product of our biology… it’s somehow a functioning of physicality.
This is further evidenced by the fact that we can seemingly lose consciousness, and we even go unconscious when we sleep at night. Clearly our bodies still exist, and other people can confirm this for us, but we have no sense of self-awareness, and so it seems like physicality comes first, while consciousness comes second. If anything, the body, as temporary as it is, seems more continuous and experientially permanent than consciousness. From this perspective, it’s only natural that we perceive ourselves to be this physicalized being. At the same time, there’s “my” consciousness and “your” consciousness.
I’m sitting here reading through a copy of I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj and he just brought up something (Chapter 18) which shot right through the heart of a deep confusion and misunderstanding within me and triggered a big ‘aha’. In the book a questioner sits down with Nisargadatta and brings up the points and enters into a dialogue about this subject.
When we believe our thoughts, then perhaps out a love for truth or a sincere desire to finally end our suffering, we can begin inquiring into our own thoughts. Byron Katie offers a wonderful method.
Is this thought true?
Do we know absolutely for sure that it is true?
How do we feel when we believe this thought?
Who would we be without this thought?
Is the opposite thought as true as or perhaps more true than the original thought?
As we systematically begin letting go of untruths and misunderstandings, more and more we begin to discover ourselves to be not our thoughts, but actually this empty, spacious, expansive, boundless, and inherently free awareness.
That which is aware of these words. That which is aware of what it feels like to be a separate person who believes their thoughts and then inquires about their thoughts. Not some conceptual mysterious invisible Infinite Self thingy that we have to go find, but just this awareness that’s so clearly right HERE!
As awareness, somehow there is love, adoration, affection, and overflowing appreciation for all that is witnessed, and oddly enough, somehow that which is witnessed is not felt to be separate from or other than awareness. Freedom as awareness, with nothing to grab onto, not even a spiritual nondual idea or belief system to call the truth. Nothing to grab onto. Just being what you naturally are…
The gift of Truth, it is then discovered, is not contained in a mental conceptual encapsulation of some ideas or collection of thoughts that are “the right answer,” but in the living conscious realization of what you truly are.
This is the end of the search and perhaps the beginning of truly living. This is the revelation of the Divine equally in every ordinary and extraordinary moment. The two are one and the same. Summiting a mountain or sipping a cup of tea, both are seen to be ordinary and extraordinary. All is radiantly alive, and this aliveness is what you are, seeing yourself in and as All That Is.
Infinite Love and Joyous Freedom beyond the mind, as awareness, here and now.
It seems that when many people start seeking the Truth, we look for some conceptual collection of ideas to actually BE the Truth. It could be “We are all one” or “Jesus is the son of God” or “We are a spiritual being having a human experience” or “You are the creator of your reality” or whatever else. We want to gather up a whole set of conceptual ideas and call them “The Truth” and it is what ideas should represent the “Truth” that people argue about. This is all very valuable, helpful, and transformative and finding a better set of ideas can very much help change and improve the quality of one’s life experience. For sure.
At the same time, there is something more than the conceptual, so much more. The nonconceptual.
Notice in this moment, awareness is aware. In fact there can be two things happening simultaneously. See if you can tell the difference. There is a) the concept of awareness that exists in the mind and b) nonconceptual awareness that is aware of all concepts of awareness.
Can you differentiate between the two? Being able to do so is KEY. It is a doorway beyond.
In order to go “beyond the mind” as if often said, we have to go beyond the conceptual and recognize the nonconceptual.
Take a moment to notice nonconceptual silence. Stillness.
Take a moment to notice the now moment as it is.
Take a moment to notice nonconceptual being/aliveness/existence/I Am’ness.
Take a moment to notice nonconceptual awareness.
We can read about and study spirituality, metaphysics, religion, psychology, philosophy, and so on all day long in search for the Truth. I’ve done it and I know many of you have as well. It’s all good. This is all typically the domain of the mind, of the conceptual, of temporary ideas that come and go and can be learned or forgotten. It’s all part of the game.
But what about that which is already here and exists without any effort whatsoever? What is so constantly here that like the clothing against our skin, after a while we get used to it and simply overlook it?
The classic finger pointing to the moon is pointing to the nonconceptual. The pointer is conceptual, but that to which the pointer points is nonconceptual.
What is uncreated, unmanifested, unborn, and yet vibrantly and eternally present?
You are that and it is your true nature, and it is right here, right now.
Have you ever heard of the term “monkey mind?” It’s basically when your mind is running amok and your thoughts are going crazy. When that happens, what to do? What to do?
Well there’s two schools of thought (no pun intended) that we can discuss:
1) Quiet your mind
2) Direct your mind deliberately towards better feeling thoughts
Both techniques are designed to help you release resistance, experience your true self, and express your natural radiance as you live your life from moment to moment.
That said, there are some key differences such as the nature of free will, as we will explore some of these differences below:
There’s so many -isms out there, Buddhism, Taoism, Nondualism… so many traditions, Christianity, Advaita, Zen…
Yet NONE of these are the ultimate Truth. Some may be very clear pointers, yes, but that is the extent of their reach. The words “rich chocolate” pale in comparison to the richness and flavor of chocolate itself. The word “God” and the sound the vocal chords project are nothing in the face of the infinite presence of that to which the word points.
Looking around in this world, what are we looking at!? What is all this? What we look at in this world, in its very essence, is not of this world. It is nameless, formless, indescribable, and everpresent. Some call it Spirit or Essence or Consciousness or Presence or Beingness. It’s truly nameless. It resides in a domain beyond the mind.
Who is the one looking? Same thing. The awareness that is looking out through your eyes is the very eyes of God. It has been said that “God sees everything that you do. God is always watching.” Sure. God sees everything that you do because God is the one looking out through your eyes! You are that! God and this I/eye of consciousness are one and the same.
The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.
-Meister Eckhart
When we wake up to the reality of what we are, no longer do we need our teachings of the past in the same way we once did.
To be enlightened is to be free of all points of view.
-Adyashanti
Upon awakening, our previous teachings and points of view are seen to be very much like a bridge designed to assist us in getting across the water, and we eventually leave them behind as we rest in the unshakable reality of what we are. The bridge was a very helpful and often times necessary part of one’s personal journey, so whether we come home through the pathway of Advaita, Buddhism, spending time in nature, or whatever else, thank goodness for these paths. If we come home without following any traditional pathway, awesome. There are many “paths” back to where you already are. No path is necessary to be THIS. You are what you seek.
The experience of This, although powerful and beyond words, is secondary to the very presence of This. It’s easy to confuse This with the experience of This, yet neither perception nor experience are what you are. Our perception and experience of ice cream is not ice cream. The unchanging, everpresent, eternal, Isness that you already are. This is it. You are This.
…and for a fun little paradox, no tradition is the reality of what you are, and nevertheless the reality of what you are that appears as all things also appears as every tradition. No tradition is IT. Every tradition is IT.
Once upon a time, long long ago, in the time before time, which is not so long ago since this time we speak of is Now, there lived a vast empty space.
This space existed everywhere, all at once, simultaneously. It was omni-present. Yet it had no substance or form to point to that we could say it is “here” as opposed to “there.” Indeed, it existed nowhere. There is nowhere we could really point to to say there it is, for it existed in no location, and yet it was undeniably here.
One day the nothingness of space wanted to create matter, a non-thing creating a thing, but it was puzzled with the idea of how it could put matter somewhere given that it was already everywhere. “Ah,” it realized, “I may be everywhere, but there is nothing here to prevent matter from taking up this same space where I am. I love this matter so much that I want it to be right here with me, so close that the two of us will actually be one. It may look like there is matter over here and space over there, but if you look close enough, you’ll see that matter is actually mostly empty space. I may look to be outside of matter, but I’m actually deeply embedded within matter as well… the sweetest and most intimate kiss imaginable. Form will be infused with space, inseparable from it. We can talk about space and matter, but they’re really both me. Ah, what joy. I’ll have a playmate to play with that will actually be me, taking the form of something else. What a glorious game this will be!”
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