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Question: I have a couple of questions, I've read your book "Awakening to the dream" and I kind of get the idea that "I" only appear in awareness, as does my body and everything else. I am trying the suggestions in Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's "I am that" where I concentrate on "what I am not", and whilst listening to my MP3 player the other day I almost had this sensation of the music just happening in awareness and even my walking along seemed to be just happening without much effort. There was absolutely no effort required to just be present.
However, there seems to be a huge leap between being aware of music/walking taking place in awareness, and seeing that awareness as "all there is". I still couldn't escape the idea that (as a Christian might argue), maybe the awareness was just "my soul" that could easily have been created by "God the Father" and the awareness that people such as yourselves speak of is a fake illusion created by Satan to trick people into blasphemy. I know this is ridiculous but I'm just trying to play devil's advocate (please excuse the pun). I guess what I am trying to ask is how can you be sure that the awareness you feel is the same awareness that the universe exists in - surely if this were the case you should be able to see all the galaxies etc.? Even if you did experience awareness as "all there is", how could you be 100% sure this was real and not some trick of your brain (or the devil)? Answer: It sounds a bit as if you have to choose between different assumptions: God, devil or awareness. As long as they are all assumptions this question cannot really be settled. On investigation it may be seen that all that appears, appears in awareness and nowhere else. I cannot tell you HOW one can be absolute and 100% sure of this. The same goes for being. There is the clear and unshakable knowing that 'I AM' but the 'how' of this 'certainty of being' is like an open secret; it is clear and obvious yet it cannot be explained or grasped. At this moment the reading of these words happens and they are known as they appear in awareness. Although this is self-evident and without any effort, here there is no knowing of how this is 'done' nor is there a need to have a conceptual story -amounting to some sort of proof'- about this. The assumption that awareness is a function of the brain is a bit like believing that music is caused by the radio. What is 'seen' here is an undeniable energy -or livingness- which animates this manifestation. It expresses via the brain/mind as thought. The primal thought is 'I AM.' Clearly 'you' have to be prior to learning the words that make up this conceptual expression of Beingness. A lamp's wiring seem to be the source of the light that it casts, but actually it is the invisible electricity -made visible as light- which is the source of the lamps ability to shine. It is the same electricity that powers heaters, fridges, radios, TV's, and countless other tools and gadgets. The Animating Energy (Life) expresses via -or as- this body mind, much like electricity expresses via a lamp. To look for the source of the light in the lamp's wiring is like looking in the brain for the source of awareness. The brain, thoughts, and al that is perceived or conceived, are objects appearing in Awareness. This Awareness cannot be objectified. It is 'upstream' of all appearances and just like invisible sight is indirectly proven in and by all things seen, Awareness is indirectly proven by all that appears in it. Direct proof requires duality in which 'this' leads to 'that' but Awareness -or Beingness- is its own proof.
If or when you have a question you'd like to see answered in this newsletter send it to:
author@awakeningtothedream.com Q & R en Français Art by: Rassouli Title: 'The Unfolding' Found at: http://www.rassouli.com/ Fair Use Notice |
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Q: I can always observe the observer, in endless recession.
M: You can observe the observation, but not the observer. You know you are the ultimate observer by direct insight, not by a logical process based on observation. You are what you are, but you know what you are not. The self is known as being, the not-self is known as transient. But in reality all is in the mind. The observed, observation and observer are mental constructs. The self alone is. Q: Why does the mind create all these divisions? M: To divide and particularise is in the mind's very nature. There is no harm in dividing. But separation goes against fact. Things and people are different, but they are not separate. Nature is one, reality is one. There are opposites, but no opposition. Q: How can I become universal? M: But you are universal. You need not and you cannot become what you are already. Only cease imagining yourself to be the particular. What comes and goes has no being. It owes its very appearance to reality. You know that there is a world, but does the world know you? All knowledge flows from you, as all being and all joy. Realise that you are the eternal source and accept all as your own. Such acceptance is true love. Q: All you say sounds very beautiful. But how has one to make it into a way of living? M: Having never left the house you are asking for the way home. Get rid of wrong ideas, that is all. Collecting right ideas also will take you nowhere. Just cease imagining. Q: It is not a matter of achievement, but of understanding. M: Don't try to understand! Enough if you do not misunderstand. Don't rely on your mind for liberation. It is the mind that brought you into bondage. Go beyond it altogether. What is beginningless cannot have a cause. It is not that you knew what you are and then you have forgotten. Once you know, you cannot forget. Ignorance has no beginning, but can have an end. |
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All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the Universal Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong too the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, traces, and comparisons. ~ Huang Po ~ 
Fair Use Notice |
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