The Basics

What does it feel like to be you?

What does what-you-are feel like?

See if what-you-are might feel like awareness itself, what’s looking.

See if you can pinpoint exactly where this awareness is coming from.

See if it isn’t non-locatable.

See if it doesn’t seem to come from out of nowhere.

Notice that this awareness is already happening spontaneously — you aren’t doing it.

Notice how this awareness feels spacious and clear and immediate, here and now, right now.

What does it feel like to be you?

Recall how it felt to be you when you were younger, and how it feels to be you now, and notice how similar it feels.

Notice one constant thing about awareness is that it is always happening NOW. 

Notice how this now-ness or this present instant, and also awareness, are always seen together, inseparably.

Notice how it is always NOW.  

How mysterious is that? How miraculous.

Entertain the possibility that what you really are is this actual present instant itself, 

timeless and also inseparable from this light of awareness, formless, and absolutely mysterious, indescribable, yet very real, supremely real.

We can think of this presence-awareness as “spirit”, as the Holy Spirit even.

You are not the flesh. You are Spirit.

What it is

There is life. There is awareness. There is enlightenment. But it’s not Albert’s, it’s not the body’s. It’s prior to thinking or understanding, or it’s beyond thinking or understanding. There’s a higher power at play here. We only can know “it” by virtue of BEING it.  It creates us out of itself.

It is said that Enlightenment is realizing there is no person to be enlightened.  Some will even claim, “I don’t exist.”

But it seems more accurate to say that I don’t exist as the wielder of life — it’s not MY life, it’s just Life.  And it couldn’t be MY enlightenment, there’s just Enlightenment.  There’s no enlightened meat, the saying goes.

From the Ashtavakra Gita

Seeing yourself as distinct from the body and all perceptions,

know yourself as consisting of consciousness, the witness of these.

Remain resting in consciousness.

 

You are unattached and formless, the witness of everything - so be happy.

 

Meditate on yourself as motionless awareness, free from any dualism.

 

You are really unbound and actionless, self-illuminating and spotless already.

The cause of your bondage is that you are still resorting to stilling the mind.

 

 

After hearing of oneself as pure consciousness, the eternally pure witness of everything,

is one to go on lusting after sordid pleasures and drunken states of mind?

 

After hearing of oneself as such, it may effortlessly grow

into knowing oneself as such, being such already.

 

As such, you yourself are in all beings, and all beings are in you.

 

All this arises out of you, like a bubble out of the sea.

Knowing yourself like this to be but one, you can go to your rest.

 

You are not the body, nor is the body yours,

nor are you the doer of actions or the reaper of their consequences.

You are eternally pure consciousness - the witness, in need of nothing - so live happily.

 

Truly I am but pure consciousness, and the world is like a conjuror's show,

so how could I imagine there is anything there to take up or reject?

 

Desire and anger are objects of the mind, but the mind is not yours, nor ever has been.

You are choiceless awareness itself and unchanging - so live happily.

 

Your nature is the consciousness, in which the whole world wells up, like waves in the sea.

That is what you are, without any doubt, so be free of disturbance.

 

By your very nature, you are already free, unbound, unchanging and immovable,

so what will you achieve by working your brain?

 

Surely the supreme state is everywhere for the liberated mind.

He is neither awake or asleep, and neither opens or closes his eyes.

He is not averse to the senses and nor is he attached to them.

He enjoys himself continually with an unattached mind.

He is free from the mental displays of delusion, dream, and ignorance.

He just goes on doing what presents itself for him to do,

encountering no difficulty in either activity or inactivity.

The mind of the liberated man is not upset or pleased.

It shines unmoving, desireless, and free from doubt.

 

The realm of one's own self is not far away,

and nor can it be achieved by the addition of limitations to its nature.

It is unimaginable, effortless, unchanging and spotless.

 

 

 

 

 

Three types of pointers

Three types of pointers 

 1a.  Existential 

          - Presence, existence, being-ness

 1b.  Temporal

          - Nowness, timeless, eternal,

             the immediate present instance of time

2.  Awareness 

          - inward source of what’s looking,

              formless, space-like knowingness 

 3.  Peace

           - unchanging peace, stillness, silence,

               beyond thought/understanding, bliss

Sat Chit Ananda

Pointers

Pointers to what exactly?

To follow the pointers, you need a sufficient understanding of what they mean, meaning what “direction” they are pointing.

Why any pointers?

The suggestion is that there is a greater reality, a fundamental, absolute, divine Reality right under our noses that we are overlooking or missing or not aware of.  And the most basic pointer to this is that this overlooked Reality is “within” us and so to find it we should look “inward”.

What does “within” mean? Or “inward”?

 - As in: look within;

 - The kingdom of God is within you.

 - From your innermost being  shall flow rivers of living water.

Other “inward” pointers:

 - Your heart;

 - Ask “who am I?” Or what is this “I”?  I-I.

 - What’s looking:

    - “What you’re looking for is what’s looking.”

 - Be aware of being aware.

 - The light of awareness;

      awareness is like light,

      awareness is a spacious knowingness;

 - You are awareness itself,

      awareness is what you are.

 - Stay with the “I am”.

 - Stay with the sense of “I am”.

 - “I AM THAT I AM,” says God in Exodus 3:14

 - “Before Abraham was born, I am.”  says Jesus in John 8:58

 - Inward or within is not so much a direction, rather it is a negation of all directions.

 - To stop hearing/reading/thinking about the pointers and actually follow the pointers, it requires stillness, an alert stillness.

 - “Be still, and know that I am God.”    Psalm 46:10

The Present Truth

Simply paying attention to this exact present instant of time (“now”) inherently cuts directly to the truth.  To stay here at this perpetual present instant for the time being allows no time for anything else.  So there is a stillness about it, a timeless silence, yet it is vibrant with the natural light of awareness, the light of Life.  The suggestion or invitation is to come back to it as often as it occurs to you to do so.  Your ability to do so grows, and your joy and understanding grows.  Don’t dismiss it.  Try to be curious about it.  Give it your attention.

Always Already — Thoughts about alreadiness

“Already” is a loaded word.

“Already” means Now, the sheer now-ness of everything, everything is united as One in this precise immediate presence. Everything has this now-ness in common. Everything is pressed up against it and never separate from it.

It also means this imagined separate little me didn’t bring it — it brought me — it takes me along, it takes me in and has had full hold of me so fully that I AM THAT.  I was never NOT that.

It also means timelessness, in its absolute immediacy, its eternal alreadiness.

It also implies a certain peace, a timeless inherent stillness, without time for any movement or disturbance, peace beyond understanding.

Now I may set aside all this verbiage, and just quietly abide as what was always already here, as this presence-awareness. 
Om shanti shanti