Are You the Mind? Guest Teaching by Sailor Bob Adamson

WELCOME to the sixth installment of our Guest Teaching Series.  One week at a time, one teacher at a time, we’re building what is effectively becoming an open resource of current teachers and teachings covering the range of Nonduality. 

WHEN IT COMES to counting the living giants of Advaita, we don’t need to use very many fingers.  One of those fingers surely belongs to Sailor Bob Adamson.  I first heard of Bob ten years or so ago, but skillfully managed to avoid his teaching for most of that, and thus probably remained a seeker for several years longer than I needed to!  Bob’s teaching is so direct, so completely uncompromising, that I think it stood a wonderful chance of opening up even my hard head.  If yours needs opening, it stands a wonderful chance of doing so.  I still find Bob’s teaching helpful in uprooting beliefs, opinions and position that manage to sneak their way into an ego that never seems to tire of rebuilding.  (I have christened my ego “Lazarus”, because it won’t stay dead for more than three days at a time.)

BOB AND I SHARE a common background: we were both drunks.  And that's how both of us found our way here.  It's also from that background that the "Sailor" tag came to be installed.  In Twelve Step groups, everyone goes by their first name.  In the area where Bob got sober there were a lot of Bobs, and since Bob was a tattooed ex-sailor, he became known as "Sailor” Bob.  He also became known as “the guy who talks that Nonduality stuff”.  Recovery almost always leads to a deeper spiritual life, and one thing led to another until Bob traveled to in India in the mid-1970s.  He’d initially gone to see Swami Muktananda, but life in the ashram seemed to be focused on energy and state management.  Bob wanted more.  Finally a book clerk pressed a copy of “I Am That” into his hand. Soon enough Bob found himself sitting in an upper story room with one of the Twentieth Century’s most masterful conveyors of Advaita, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.  

NISARGADATTA AND BOB immediately took to each other.  They argued loudly and debated sharply and came to love each other as the Self-reflections they were.  Nisargadatta helped Bob see truth on his first visit, but as with most of us, it still a while for that seeing to become being.  The two men became close, and when Bob left India, he and Nisargadatta hugged and cried.  The rest is modern spiritual history.  

SAILOR BOB RETURNED to Australia where he became a night watchman on the dangerous Melbourne docks.  He married his life love, Barbara, somewhere along in there, and they left the city to live the counter-culture dream of being farmers, "and living off the fat of the land" as Bob puts it.  After a few years of that, following a painful, restrictive, and theoretically incurable illness--that Bob cured with herbs and vitamins--Bob and Barb became the highly motivated proprietors of first one health food shop, and then another.  Eventually they each retired from that pursuit, with Barb taking up a Bowen therapy practice, and Bob becoming more and more of a full-time teacher of Nonduality.  Barb died this past December after a lifetime of loving service.  Bob, now in his 80s, is still teaching, still helping to wake us up, still bringing us into conscious awareness of the One Without a Second.  Thank you, Bob.

ONE TEACHER, who has been around a long time and who knows just about everybody who is anybody, confided something to me upon hearing that I was doing this post.  "Sailor Bob," he told me, "is the only satsang teacher I have ever met who needed nothing from anybody.  Not money or love, not approval, nothing."

 

AND NOW...

ARE YOU THE MIND?

By
 

Sailor Bob Adamson

AS YOU ALL KNOW, we talk about non-duality here.  The only reality you are absolutely certain of is the fact of your own being.  First off, we would suggest that you just relax.  Don’t try and grasp what is being said necessarily with the mind.  Because, as you see—or as you will see—the mind is the problem.  Just relax and be receptive, because the words that are coming out here presently are coming from that intelligence-energy.

IF THE MIND IS NOT ACTING as the cloud (as an obstruction), what will be receiving these words is that same intelligence-energy.  Then what is apperceived or grasped or understood will come up through the mind at the appropriate time, which will be presently, at the appropriate time, which will be presently, at the appropriate place, which will be here and now.  Then the appropriate activity will take place from that.  So, that is what we suggest happens here.

NO ONE--RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW--can negate their own being-ness.  Each one of us knows that ‘I am’.  That ‘I am’ is not much to grasp on to, if it just purely and simply ‘I am’.  So it adds to itself all the events, experiences and conditioning and forms an image, an idea.  This idea or image is believed to be what I really am.  All our problems arise from that.

 

THAT IS SO because the very idea of ‘me’ separates ‘me’ from ‘other than me’ or ‘non-me’.  Separation is isolation; it is loneliness; it is fear; it is insecurity; it is vulnerability.  This is what we continually do.  We separate, and we continually search for wholeness or security or happiness.  It is not our fault, it is not our parents’ fault.  It is the way we have been conditioned, the way they were conditioned.

IF I BELIEVE THAT I AM SEPARATE, an individual, a separate entity and person, then I am insecure.  So at the first level, the family level, I try and have a warm and loving family around me to make me feel secure.  Then, there is the tribal level.  And if I can be “in with the tribe”, then I will be more secure.  There, there is the nation.  And nations go to war with nations over that same self-centeredness or insecurity—divisions and separations.

AND YET ALL THE GREAT SCRIPTURE, all the great religions, all the great traditions will tell you that God (if you like to use that term) is one-without-a-second.  It is non-dual.  It is just this present awareness, just this and nothing else.  Some of the Christian scriptures will tell you ‘I am the Lord they God; there is none other’.  Another term they use is that God is omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence.  It is all-presence and all-knowing and all-power.  And they mean exactly that: non-dual, one-without-a-second, presence-awareness.

NOW WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE ROOM for a ‘you’ or a ‘me’ or anything else?  If there a ‘you’ and a ‘me’ in this all-power, all-presence and all-knowing, that means that it is not all-knowing, it is not all-presence and it not all-power.  So, from that point of view, all of this manifestation can be nothing other than That.  And that is one of the great sayings from the Hindu tradition: “Thou Art That”.  Because there is nothing other than That.  “I am That” is another great saying.

IS THERE ANYONE HERE RIGHT NOW that is not that presence?  You are present, right here and right now.  Is it your presence?  Is it my presence?  Is it each one of us as individual presence?  Or is it all-presence?  Is there anyone here that is not knowing that right now?  Is it your knowing?  Is it my knowing? Or is it somebody else’s knowing?  Or is it omniscience, all-knowing?  Knowing implies an activity, and all activity is energy.  You hear the cars going by; you hear the other sounds in the room; you can see the movement is the room.  All sound, all movement, is it yours?  Is it mine?  Or is it somebody else’s activity or energy or power?  Or is it omnipotence, all-power?

JUST HAVE A LOOK AT THIS and see it clearly.  Then ask yourself ‘Who am I?’ What is ‘I’ or ‘me’ that thinks itself to be separate?  Where does it start?  Where does it finish?  What is it?  You see the search as I said previously, is always going on ‘out there’.  ‘Out there’ is where we have been conditioned to look, gathering something that will make me secure, that will make me whole, that will make me happy.

IF IT IS NOT IN THE FAMILY, the tribe or the nation, then it is in a better job, more money, better relationships, a good house, all sort of things out there.  The belief is that the more I accumulate, the more secure I will will be.  Or, if I go on some spiritual search, I will become realized or enlightened or whole and complete—all anticipated to happen in some future time.

I CAN GO THROUGH ALL MY LIFE doing that. If it doesn’t look like it is happening in this lifetime, then what do I do?  If I am a Christian, I conceptualise a God somewhere who has a heaven somewhere in my future.  If I am not doing too well ‘here’ and I say my prayers and do a few good deeds, I will finish up ‘there’ at some future time.  All this is conceptualisation!  An idea of some future time, of some future place and some future deity or being that will make it right for me.  Of it I belong to an Eastern religion, I will reincarnate—at some future time!  I will have another life!  Never realising that there is only now!  Never looking to see what it is that is going to have this other life, to see what it is that has got ‘this life’ or seemingly thinks it has got this life.

IT IS QUITE SIMPLE.  If you look, you will see it quite clearly and easily.  What does this body consist of?  The essence of food.  Where does the food come from?  It comes from the earth, and the earth from the fire.  Fire, water, air and space—it is nothing but the elements.  Where do the elements come from?  Well, in that vibration, that movement, these things appear.  And so they are nothing but thought!  Thought is subtle sound.  Word is sound.  What is sound?  Vibration.  What is vibration?  Energy!  Omnipotence again, appearing as different.

SO, I HAVE NEVER EVER MOVED away from it.  I have never ever separated from it.  So it is foolish for me to try and seek wholeness, completeness or whatever at some future time.  If I look at the mind again and ask myself ‘What past is there, unless I think about it?  What future is there, unless I think about it?’—in looking at that, I can see clearly that there is no past and there is no future unless it is though.

I CAN BRING YESTERDAY'S EVENTS—from my memory—into my mind right now.  But they are not the actual.  For instance, I met ‘so and so’ yesterday, spoke to him and shook his hand, etc.  Well is the same today?  I may have forgotten some small details and added some that weren’t there.  So, I have made up this present concept or idea of what went on.  Or, I anticipate or imagine the future.  I imagine something in the future, which I can get fearful about or ecstatic about.  But look closely.  When is all this taking place?  Isn’t it taking place presently?  Can there be any other time that it takes place in?  You can say, ‘Oh yes!  It took place yesterday.’ But when are you saying that?  Isn’t it presently?  Or you can say tomorrow is going to be a different day.  When are you saying and thinking that?  Isn’t it presently?  Now it is all happening in that presence.  Is it any different from that presence, that omnipresence, all-presence?

YOU CAN SAY ALL IS GOD.  Wrong!  God is all!  All is only an illusion.  All is not.  ‘All is only a word.  A word is not the real.  It has never been the real.  ‘Water, water, water’—you can’t drink the word ‘water’.  These words—these words!—are nothing in the same way.  But isn’t there omnipotence, that vibration, that movement of energy?  Is it going on here?  There?  Or anywhere in particular?  You can feel it.  The hearing of the word—right now—is a vibration.  That which is hearing it is vibrating and pulsating.  There heart is beating, the lungs are expanding and contracting.  Feel the energy moving around in that body.  Is anyone not knowing that they are?  The omnipotence is functioning.  When is it all happening?  Presently.  And omnipresence is functioning.

           

SEEING THIS, UNDERSTANDING THIS, I can see how I have been caught.  I can see how I have put a seeming limitation upon myself.  I put a cage that does not exist around myself.  Have you seen a bird in a cage that has been there for many, many years?  You can open the door of that cage and the bird is not going to fly out straight away.  You can leave the door open for days but the bird will not take step to fly out of it.

 

WE POINT OUT HERE and continually point out at the cage.  But we say that even the cage is a phantom, it is a false idea.  It does not exist.  How many of us step into our freedom by hearing that?  It can be done, right here, right now.  The understanding is that you have never been bound, even though it may seem that you have been.

WHAT IS THE LIMITATION that I place upon myself?  First and foremost, it is this idea of being a separate entity, a ‘me’.  How does that come about?  Purely and simply, if I look at the mind and see how it functions, then I see that, being a movement of energy, it is only a vibration.  Being a vibration, it can only function in the pairs of opposites.  If it is not happy, it is sad, or pleasant/painful, loving/hating, good/bad, positive/negative and so on.  It is still functioning in the pairs of opposites.  And what is it using?  Words!  Purely and simply words.

OFTEN TIMES, WHEN THINGS HAPPEN, we say ‘It doesn’t matter’.  And when you mean it and it doesn’t matter, nothing comes of it.  But if you take some thought or idea aboard and it does matter, that is exactly what it does.  It matters and becomes concrete.  We beat ourselves over the head with a word.  We punish ourselves for the word.

CALL SOMETHING ANXIETY.  Show me some anxiety.  Show me some fear.  That word becomes very real when it is allowed to dance around and vibrate in the mind.  What is it referred to?  It is referred to a reference point, the ‘me’ which has felt this feeling before.  And it has named it ‘fear’.  And so, as soon as thought or whatever it is, is seen, immediately comes up the old response from the past, which it is referred to, the reference point or the centre.  The centre does not like it.  It doesn’t want to be here.  It wants to escape.  So, it immediately resists it and gets in conflict by trying to force it out, change it or do something with it.

SO, THIS WORD HAS NO POWER of its own (because it has got no substance, it can’t stand by itself), has now caused the blood pressure to rise, the goose pimples to rise on the skin, the hair to stand on end or whatever.  So, you see what ‘fear’ (or any other word) can do.  But if I am not taking that word on board, if I am seeing it for what it is, have understood that the word can never be the real, it is just let go of!  It appears presently.  It is witnessed presently.  The response is witnessed.  Nothing further.  Full stop!  Nothing further happens with it.  The response is not entered into.  Not trying to change it, not resisting it, just seeing it for what it is: it is a word.  So what happens?  You see, that energy hasn’t taken off, it hasn’t started.

           

ONCE THE ENERGY HAS STARTED and builds up, then what is it going to do?  The action must follow.

EVER WONDER HOW A CYCLONE STARTS?  It is only energy blowing the air around.  It builds up and builds up, and look at the damage it can do.  You have seen the storm clouds in the sky with the lightning and thunder.  It builds up and up and—bang!—down comes the rain.  It is all released.  Nature does not carry it around like we do.  We get a thought or an idea and the continuity of thought becomes feeling and emotion.  It is gone over and over and built on and built on continually.  Look at the damage it does to the physical body.  Look how seemingly real that cage becomes.  ‘Poor me, I have got no self-esteem’ or ‘I have low self-esteem’.  And it begins to show in the physical form.  I walk around with my head down and my shoulders hunched.  You look at somebody and wonder what they are thinking of me or what they are going to or not do. ‘This or that is going to happen’ or ‘How am I going to survive in the world?’

WHAT HAS DONE ALL THIS?  Purely and simply, all it is, is a word.  A simple vibration, a vibration that has become a cyclone, a tornado within us.  It rips us apart.  But when has it all happened?  Has there ever been any other time or any other place than here, right now, presently.  Has it ever moved away from that all-presence, that omni-presence?

SO THE WORD—as I said before—or the body or the mind or any of this matter is nothing.  Presence is that which appears as matter.  I can’t move away from that presence.  There is nobody to move away.  Any movement, any vibration, anything that is happening, it is that omnipotence appearing as something other, appearing as the matter, the shape, the form or as the name we put on it.

KNOWING THAT IS THE OMNISCIENCE. There is only this omniscience.  What it appears as is nothing other than That appearing as different.

RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, nobody yet has negated their being-ness of that sense of presence.  Is there anything wrong with that, unless you think about it?  When I do thinking something about it, what is thinking?  Can the thought think itself?  Or does thinking appear on that presence, on that awareness?  Is it anything other than presence, seemingly appear as different?

IS THERE ANY NEED FOR ANY CONFLICT?  Is there any need for any dissipation of energy?  When you look at the mind and see that the reference point doesn’t like this, or wants more of this or whatever, the ‘this I don’t like’ is just an idea or a bunch of words I have.  And what it likes or doesn’t like is another set of words.  It has a name for it.  If it doesn’t like it, it is trying to escape from it.  If it does like it, then it wants more of it.  So there again there is a struggle to acquire more.  That energy is seemingly fighting with itself, just through the wrong understanding.

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO is look at nature again, and you will see the opposites at work in nature.  They are there:  day and night, tides coming in and tides going out, seasons coming and going.  You will notice one thing in nature, and that is that the opposites are not in opposition to each other.  The incoming tide is not fighting with the outgoing tide. Winter is not fighting with summer.  Look at your own body.  The incoming breath is not struggling with the outgoing breath.  Your heart is not in conflict with the expansion.  It doesn’t get halfway in expansion and suddenly say ‘I am going to contract’.  It is only in the mind that this conflict goes on!  The only reason that it goes on in the mind is the idea that separate entity, the ‘me’.  When that is seen—that there is no separate entity—then who is there to get in conflict with anything?  Things will come, things will go.  That awareness, the alertness, the appropriate activity, takes place spontaneously and intuitively.  It is still going to happen in the pairs of opposites.  It might not be good at this moment.  It might be bad or something other.  If the conflict is not there it will resolve itself quickly and effortlessly.  It may not be the way that ‘me’ and memory wants it to be.  But I only have to look over my life and see many things—most of them—not the way that this ‘me’ of memory every wanted them!  Not the way that this ‘me’ thought they would work out or wanted them to work out.  Most of my life it has been like that.  Most of the struggle was because this ‘me’ wanted to change it.

ALL OF THE CONFLICT WAS CAUSED BY 'ME', and looking back over my life now I see how through all the dramas and traumas how beautifully it all fitted in.  I see how it has all fallen into place for this so-called entity at this particular spot in the particular time, without that so-called ‘chatter in the mind’ today.  It doesn’t mean to say that the chatter doesn’t go on.  But the chatter has no fire any more.  There may be lots of silence here—and there was a time when I looked for silence and peace—but that was just another experience also.  It does not matter.  It is not allowed to ‘matter’.

THIS IS SO because there is that understanding and knowing that that which all of this has appeared on—that omniscience that it is—has never been touched by any of that.  Nothing has ever come near it.  If we must put words to it, it is that still, silent, blessing being-ness, if you like to call it that.  All words, which are not the real!

BUT REMEMBER WHAT WE SAID AT THE START.  Never mind the words.  Just hear and feel the resonance in the word, the vibration, the energy.  Is it any different from the hearing?  Sense and be aware of the vibration where the hearing is taking place.  That knowingness, that awareness of that, is still presently.  Has it ever changed?

Excerpt from What's Wrong with Right Now?
Used by permission.
Copyright, Gilbert Shultz, 2004

LINKS:

Bob’s website: http://tinyurl.com/7fyuvdr

Audio of Bob’s pointing: http://tinyurl.com/75mu5vo

Video Interview of Bob on Never Not Here: http://tinyurl.com/88ufkpz

Audio Interview with Bob on UGC: Part 1: http://tinyurl.com/7ay8mrh

Audio Interview with Bob on UGC, Part 2: http://tinyurl.com/7uyhg8d

To view or buy Bob’s books on his website: Including an exclusive collection One Essence Appearing as Everything, edited by Gilbert Shultz, “What’s Wrong with Right Now?”, and Presence Awareness: Just This and Nothing Else, as well as Only That: The Life and Teaching of Sailor Bob Adamson (By Kaylani Lawry) http://tinyurl.com/7tdyz9f

For CDs and DVDs: http://tinyurl.com/7tdyz9f

For MP3s: http://tinyurl.com/7dpm38e

To view or buy Bob’s books on Amazon:

            1-“What’s Wrong with Right Now?”: http://tinyurl.com/7mlh7zx

            2-Presence Awareness: Just This and Nothing Else (with John Wheeler):
               http://tinyurl.com/6rfvs2f

To view or buy Only That: The Life and Teachings of Sailor Bob Adamson (By Kaylani Lawry), on Amazon:  http://tinyurl.com/6tx9nwp

To view or buy Living Reality: My Incredible Summer with “Sailor” Bob Adamson (By James Braha), on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/6nadt56

HOUSEKEEPING NOTES:  

1)

Let me welcome Bulgaria to the ever-expanding list of countries visiting Awakening Clarity.   It has become the 67th country to visit us. Readers there join thousands of readers from around the world.

2)
Next week we'll hear from Advaita master Francis Lucille, who has given me the text from a pair of guided meditations.  It should be a special treat for all of us. 

3) Email is spotty right now and I haven't the faintest notion as to why.  It didn't send out Peter Dziuban's post, sent out Richard Lang's, and I've yet to see Sailor Bob's.  So we get what we get when we get it.  New posts go up every Thursday.  If you don't have it by Friday afternoon, it's a good idea to check onsite.  Sorry...

The Headless Way: Guest Teaching by Richard Lang

 

Richard Lang is the dearest, most cheerful man I know, and I am absolutely delighted to have him with us this week in the fifth installment of the Guest Teaching Series. There's been a tremendous response to this series and thus it will surely continue until it doesn't.  I have guests signed up through the end of April, so we can all count on a lot of great teaching coming our way.  I very much appreciate Richard putting this article together especially for Awakening Clarity.  It is the opportunity for you to move beyond theory and into Being.

I've been on the Nondual path for thirty years, which seems like a very long time indeed.  At least it does until I realize that Richard has been teaching for over forty! The Headless Way has been at the center of Richard's life since 1970, when he and his brother took a train from Yorkshire to London in order to attend The London Buddhist Society's summer school.  While there, seventeen year-old Richard attended a seminar by a different sort of philosopher and spiritual teacher, a man named Douglas Harding.  That single seminar would change his life forever.  Harding had developed an experiential, indeed we could even say scientific methodology for introducing you to your very own True Self.  I'll leave it to Richard to explain all of that.

My Amazon history tells me that I first read Douglas' most famous book, On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious, back in the autumn of 2003.  I didn't completely get it, but this notion of headlessness really left a deep impression.  I sort of half got it.  At the time I was still completely harnessed to this body, and was loathe to give that identification up, although I wasn't aware of the depth of that attachment.  I remember there was a reliable Japanese reviewer on Amazon called Tepi who raved about the book and declared that this was how he/she, Tepi, came to see his/her True Self.  I was quite jealous!  I'd read enough comments and reviews to trust that this thing was for real, but I couldn't quite make the leap.  Timing comes into play even within the structure of science.  I can look through a telescope all night long, but if the lunar eclipse isn't to occur until the next night, I'll still come up empty handed.  Yet that simple backward-pointing finger, as shown below, left an indelible print in my mind and I would use it hauntingly for the next decade, throughout the seeking and awakening process--however merely apparent that process might have been!

Two or three years ago, when I was still the victim of "oscillation", as Scott Kiloby aptly dubs it, I signed up for Richard's free email course, available from his website, and which I recommend with all my heart and soul.  (Oscillation is the apparent movement between being conscious awareness and being unconscious awareness.  It's a hypothetical movement, but it sure feels real until it doesn't.)  I credit the combination of Scott Kiloby's deft telephone inquiry and Richard Lang's course, which he generously augmented with supportive personal emails, with helping to bring me into (essentially) stable realization.  It's interesting to note that both of those teachers took me out of theory and into an experiential process.  I've been out ever since!  

I realize I'm putting daggers into the hearts of some of you with my use of language here regarding such things as a realization 'event', 'process' and 'time', but as Rupert Spira says, "We use language provisionally in order to move beyond it."  If I want to hold true to Truth, I'll have to leave the page blank.  That would be far truer than anything I can put onto a blank page, but it wouldn't be especially helpful--or entertaining.  Perhaps the best thing about Richard's headlessness instruction is that it's always great fun!

In this article, Richard Lang introduces you to The Headless Way - a Way of Seeing Who You Really Are.  Richard has led hundreds of workshops internationally, has written two books, made a CD and many videos (available on YouTube), and is responsible for the content of headless.org.  He is part of a world-wide circle of friends who value The Headless Way.  I'll have helpful links at the end so that you can easily venture further into headlessness.  

And now...

The Headless Way

By

Richard Lang

I CANNOT SEE MY HEAD. Aware of my head’s Absence here, I am seeing Who I really am. I believe you cannot see your head either. However, you must speak for yourself. This is a principle of The Headless Way – you are the sole and final authority on Who you are. Why? Because only you are where you are. Everyone else is distant and therefore in no position to say Who you are at zero distance. (On the other hand, they are well-placed to say who you are from a distance – in fact, they are better-placed than you.)

THE EXPERIMENTS

At the heart of The Headless Way are the experiments. These invite you to exercise your authority and look for yourself at Who you are. A Greek friend, after about ten years of seeking, was feeling depressed because he had not yet found what he was looking for – truth, freedom, peace… He declared to his girlfriend: “I’m going to surf the internet and I’m not going to stop until I’ve found what I’m looking for.” After a short while he stumbled upon The Headless Way website, did the Pointing Experiment and found what he had been searching for – his own boundless Self. The One he was looking for was the One who was looking. He called his girlfriend over to the computer and she did the Pointing Experiment too. They could hardly believe it could be so simple – point at where others see your face and SEE WHAT YOU SEE, not what you are told to see. No face here but Space for the world. They contacted me a few months later and told me they had laughed and laughed for an hour and a half!

This story is not unusual. The Headless Way experiments are a breakthrough. They bypass words and point directly, non-verbally, at your True Nature – your Original Face as Zen describes it. Look at another person and see that the set-up is face there to no-face here. Riding in a car, see that you are still whilst the world moves.

There are many Headless Way experiments (see our website). Each approaches You from a different angle and reveals a different aspect of Seeing. But the Central Point they lead to is always the same – this Openness that is capacity for all. If a particular experiment means nothing to you, don’t worry. Simply do another one. If only one of the experiments awakens you to this headless Capacity, that is enough. Once Home by any one of the experiments – by any one of these fast-track Homeward-bound vehicles – from that moment you have instant access whenever you choose. The key is now at your fingertips. Or rather, the key is your finger when it’s pointing back at the place you are looking out of.

When we awaken to Who we really are, we discover that the One is kind - it has made itself supremely obvious and available. Whenever we look for it, it is here, welcoming us with arms wide-open. Of course, we have to know where to look – but now we do.

THE EXPERIENCE AND THE MEANING

“So what?” you might respond. “The fact I cannot see my head means nothing to me.”

On the other hand you might reply: “My goodness, I have no head! I am not a thing here at my centre. I’m looking out of a boundless single Eye. All is within me!”

None of us can see our own heads, but whether this means something varies from person to person. In other words, there’s a distinction between the experience of Who we are and the meaning we attach to it. The experience is available at all times and is the same for everyone – you can never see your own face, never see your own eyes. (Of course you can see them in a mirror.) Instead of looking out of two eyes, I am looking out of one Eye – an Eye that is forever open, forever clear, forever boundless. In contrast, the meaning I find in this Eye is always changing. What I felt yesterday I no longer feel today. And what it means to me is unique to me - no one else responds exactly as I do. If I am in a workshop and someone else has a strong, positive response, full of feeling and insight, but I don’t, it’s easy to assume that that person has ‘got it’ and I don’t. But the fact that I’m not having the same reaction doesn’t mean I’m not Seeing. I am simply responding differently. (In fact, the only authority on whether you are Seeing or not is you.) See your No-Face, your Single Eye, and keep seeing it – seeing from it – and find out what it means to you. Discover what insights flow from this Awareness for you.

SELF AND OTHER

What a difference Seeing makes to personal relationships. Seeing I am face to no-face with you, I give you my attention – you are present here at no distance, here in this Awake Space, here in me. I am not at loggerheads with you, head to head, but am capacity for you, head to no-head. Empty, I vanish in your favour – I become you. This is not in fact a relationship between two people – there are not two here but One. Seeing this, I see not only Who I am but Who you are too. I don’t have to imagine your Single Eye hidden somewhere behind your two eyes and then wonder if it’s the same Eye as mine - I see the only Eye there is here, my side of your eyes, my side of your face. This Eye I am looking out of – is it separate from you? Is it mine more than yours? Is it located ‘here’ but not ‘there’? No. I find no name-tag on this One, no address, no boundary separating it from you or anyone. Here is only one Consciousness in which all are happening – you, me, all people, animals, stars, everything. Here I am you forever. Whatever I say or do to you, I say and do to myself.

Of course there is much about you that is hidden from me. I do not feel or think what you feel and think. I do not hear or see what you hear and see - I only know about your experience second-hand when you tell me. But – even when I disagree with you - I hear our two voices in this one Consciousness. I see our two bodies in this one Space. There, being two, we are in part hidden from one another, but here in this undivided Clarity all is transparent. This separateness and this unity are two sides of one coin. Both are indispensable. Aware of my two-sided identity when I am with you, I am the One listening and talking with another who is both myself and not myself.

SUFFERING

If a problem appears in my life… Well, not if, but when! ... When a problem appears, I may forget Who I am and respond as if I am Richard (and only Richard). When I do this I see myself as a victim, up against the world, confronting others face to face, not in control, lacking resources, my will often thwarted. It’s not surprising if I suffer. But if I then awaken to Who I am, I see that my suffering body and mind are happening in and emerging from this wonderful No-head and No-mind at my centre – this freedom and peace. Now I’m no longer a victim but the Source and Container of all things – astonishing Fact! Here within me, nearer to me than Richard, is the Wisdom and Power behind the world, the Intelligence that invents and creates spontaneously, without effort and without knowing how, the Love that includes all. Seeing and being this Self-Originating miracle – this Deep and Merciful One – I am backed by the only true resource, the only real power. If I am gracious enough (or desperate enough) to say Yes to this One, to place my trust in it, it guides me. Being empty, I receive what I need – though it’s not usually what I think I need! As I continue seeing where my suffering is (there, not here), slowly or quickly my suffering dissolves.

BEING HUMAN AND DIVINE

In our lives we travel a long road. As babies and infants we are the headless One unaware of Who we really are. We are also the headless One unaware of being a special, headed somebody in the eyes of others. A friend’s young daughter brought home a photograph of her class. She named every child until she came to one: “I’ve never seen that child in my class!” Of course, she hadn’t – it was her! However, this unselfconscious freedom doesn’t last long. As we grow up we learn to identify with our appearance (and dismiss our native headless viewpoint as unreal or mad). We become profoundly convinced we are the headed one we see in the mirror, the one that others see when they look towards us. As a child I learn to imagine that face over there in the mirror to be here above my shoulders. (Imagine, not see.) Framing myself in this way, imagining what I look like from several metres through the eyes of others and imposing that regional appearance on this central Reality, I come to believe I am in my own experience a separate person, and assume others are in the same condition – for themselves headed, separate and mortal. Now I am no longer headlessly and timelessly Alone, the Centre of my world - as I was as a baby. Now, as an adult, I am ‘one amongst many’, a ‘cog in the machine’, here today and gone tomorrow. I am the One who has forgotten Who I am, the Prodigal Son lost in the Far Country, the Faceless One become a face in the crowd. Normally we assume this is the end of the story, that this must be as good as life gets. It seems growing up is about finding out who I am as a person and then doing the best with the cards I’ve been dealt. But this need not be the end of the story. Looking within and seeing my faceless Reality, I discover I’ve been dealt the highest card in the pack – a sure-fire winner! Taking this Vision seriously, accepting it, saying Yes to it at deeper and deeper levels, a new and exciting chapter of life begins unfolding – the chapter that makes sense of the whole story to date. Without this chapter I am like a rosebush that sprouts from the ground, grows stem and leaves and buds, but then fails to bloom. If I don’t see Who I am, I am not fulfilling my natural potential.

Sometimes people think that when you see Who you are, you will no longer identify with being a person. I do not find this. Of course, it depends what you mean by ‘identify with’. But, seeing I have no head now, am I oblivious to the fact that you see it? Of course not. Do I act in the world as if I don’t have a face? No. Realising I have neither name nor abode, have I now forgotten my name and address? I hope not. What does change, then? I see that my human identity is not central. My face and everything else are not here at my centre but ‘out there’ on my periphery – in mirrors, in photographs and videos and in others, just as others are here in me. Living in awareness that privately I am the One whilst publicly I am Richard, I live a two-sided life. I have the best of both worlds. I am like a king in disguise who is no longer fooled by his own mask. Though I appear outwardly as an ordinary citizen, I am aware of my inner regality. All is within me, all obeys my royal will. As a Sufi dervish once said (according to Rumi) when asked how he was:

“How should that one be, according to whose desire the work of the world goes on? According to whose desire the torrents and rivers flow, and the stars move in such wise as he wills; and Life and Death are his officers… No tooth flashes with laughter in the world without the approval of that imperial personage.”

But as soon as I forget to see, as soon as this Awareness goes out the window – as soon as I overlook this Open Window I am looking out of - I feel and think and act as if I am again a two-eyed victim. I have traded my fortune for a pittance. To align myself again with the truth, I must see again – I must see now, returning again to my Eternal Home, the Home I never really left. Yet even this rhythm of forgetting and remembering arises within the unchanging Self. Nothing has gone wrong. The person who never leaves home doesn’t really know home for he has nothing to compare it with. But the person who has travelled abroad and then returns, now sees home and all who live there with fresh eyes - and loves it, and them, all the more dearly.

What good fortune to awaken to Who we are. I would not disagree with you if, in spite of acknowledging all the suffering and evil in the world, you felt you had arrived in heaven – or rather, that heaven had arrived in you. We have stumbled upon a wonderful truth – the truth that makes the world go round, the truth that heals and guides and frees us, the truth that is Love.

A NEXT STEP

If you haven’t already done an experiment, I hope you do one - the Pointing Experiment for example. You will find it on our website. Don’t expect to have a ‘wow’ experience. Be prepared for something quiet or neutral. You may have a ‘wow’ experience of course, but be wise before the event and know that as with all things, it will pass. If you feel nothing, know that the truth is not always adorned. Do an experiment primarily to find out what is true rather than to feel good. If you have time, do several experiments – they don’t take long - and then read through some comments and feedback to see how others have responded. And if you value this Way and feel drawn to get in touch, please do. The One who appears as you will be contacting the One who appears as me! How wild is that!

 

Copyright, Richard Lang

February 2012

headexchange@gn.apc.org

LINKS:

Richard's Website: http://www.headless.org/

Richard's on No-Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/headexchange 


To view or buy headless books, CDs, DVDs, e-books, downloadable audio books and workshops by Richard, Douglas Harding, or others on Headless.org: http://tinyurl.com/78olozm


To view or buy headless books on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/6utkpmo


Richard will be on tour in Europe and Australia in March and April, in Russia in May, and in North America in June.  Go here to see dates and places on the pull-down calendar: http://tinyurl.com/7c3uplq


The headless You Tube Channel: http://tinyurl.com/83knjpq

To watch a terrific interview with Richard on Conscious TV: http://tinyurl.com/7e3oyet

To listen to an audio interview with Richard on The Truth Is You: http://tinyurl.com/7ujl5uc

Housekeeping Notes:

Just a note to remind subscribers and mobile views that there are three other pages beyond this main post page.  I've upgraded the graphics on those pages this week and changed the organization a bit.  It's worth your coming to the home site when you feel drawn.  

Living Reality: Guest Teaching by James Braha

 James Braha is our fourth author/teacher in this Guest Teachings Series.  Our selection from his work will come from Living Reality: My Extraordinary Summer with "Sailor" Bob Adamson.  It's a unique work in among the hundreds of Nonduality titles begging for our attention.  It's both a tremendously satisfying story, and a fine, fine teaching.  Here's part of what I said about in my Amazon review of it in November of 2010:

"Braha recorded his very first trans-continental telephone conversation with world-renowned Advaita teacher and master, "Sailor" Bob Adamson. Who would even think of doing that? Then, a few weeks later, Braha, who is not much of a flier, invites "Sailor" Bob and Bob's wife, Barbara, to visit Braha and his wife, Vashti, in Florida. And offers to pick up the tab. Who the hell THINKS of doing this? Who can pull it off? And who then does it? James Braha. And as it turns out, Mr. Braha is not only a bold and clever guy, but a fine and entertaining writer as well." 

That's the history of Living Reality in a nutshell.  So it was with a wonderful combination of seeker's heart and writer's mind that James called Sailor Bob Adamson for counsel.  He persuaded Bob and his wife, Barb, to come to the States for a summer, and it was James who primarily footed the bill.  I think he got his money's worth.  Sailor Bob, who studied directly under Nisargadatta, is easily one of the best known and deeply respected Nondual teachers in the world, a true elder statesman of this teaching.  The experience was priceless, and its wakes are still being felt around the world.  James' photo look like the cat who ate the canary, does he not?  There's a reason for that. I hope some of you will be doing the same by the end of this article.

I enjoyed Living Reality so much that I wrote James to say so, and shared my own story with him at the same time.  We've written back and forth numerous times over the last eighteen months, and he's always been generous with his time, kind with his praise, and encouraging in his spirit.  I mentioned last week that Peter Dziuban was the first Nondual writer to put a bug in my ear about doing some writing of my own in this field.  James was the second.  Without their nudging there would almost certainly be no Awakening Clarity.  Thank you, James.

I'm going to keep my introduction of James to a minimum, because I want to devote the space to our selection, which is going to be longer than usual, but which should be an easy read, because it's the text of the first conversation between James and Sailor Bob.  Let me set it up just a little.  James Braha is a writer's writer.  Reading him is like reading a wonderful novel: the pages seem to fly; you just don't want to put his book down, and you don't want it to end.  Yet Living Reality was far from his first book.  James had been chest deep in spirituality for years prior to the events related in his book.  He's a world renowned authority on Hindu and Vedic astrology.  Amazon shows seven titles to his credit.  So to say that James was fertile ground is an understatement. The ground was fertile, the seed was in the ground, and the area had been watered.  It was only missing one thing when James called Bob.  It was missing Direct Light.  That's just what Bob brought.

And now...

 

Living Reality

by

James Braha 

Our First Conversation

James: I am trying to understand the role of the intellect.  Does one gain realization through the intellect?

Bob: No. The intellect has nothing to do with enlightenment.  It’s that spontaneous presence awareness that is with you right now—and with you all the time.  If you look at the intellect of the mind, all the mind does is translate.

You’re seeing me right now, aren’t you?

James: Yes.

Bob: Well, if you look around the room and try to label what you see, you can only label or distinguish a small number of things.  In fact, you are seeing everything in the room.  You’re seeing much more than what you can label through the mind.  You may label four or five items, yet you’ve seen everything.

James: Right.

Bob: Well, that’s the difference between the pure intelligence, or pure functioning awareness [other terms for presence awareness, or the natural state], and the thinking mind.  The mind translates; that’s all it does.  It says, “I think this,” or “I feel that.”  That’s all it’s doing.

But the seeing and the hearing, the actual functioning, is prior to the labeling.  It’s always happening in its entirety, in the present moment.

James: I’ve been reading lots of Advaita and recently realized that I have been chasing enlightenment like it’s a thing, an attainment.  That’s ridiculous.

Bob: Of course it is.

James: I know, but thoughts keep coming up that “I don’t want to waste my life.  I want to realize whatever is possible to realize…” I know one cannot make enlightenment happen…

Bob: You see, enlightenment, or liberation, and all the rest of it, is something fabricated by the mind.  These are labels, concepts.

James: Exactly, but what do I do now?

Bob: You don’t do anything.  You never have done anything as a separate entity!  But the doing happens.

It’s the same as when the sperm and ovum that created you came together.  Where were you then?

James: I understand that.  But what do I do?

Bob: Just let life unfold, just the same as your life has been lived so far.  You must realize that the mind, which is the “I” that you take yourself to be, has never done a thing.  It hasn’t got any power to do anything.  All it’s doing is translating what is actually going on.

So the going on still happens the same way it did before, but you no longer attribute to it a separate entity, or an individual that gets itself into trouble.  It’s the separate identity, the idea of separation, that causes all the psychological problems.  There is no separation.  Everything is equal.

If you look in nature, you’ll see the equality of everything.  Day follows night, silence follows sound, the tides go in and out, seasons come and go.

We put these labels on everything, this differentiation on everything…  But really, all is one.  All is consciousness.  It’s like a wave on water.  The wave is still only water.  The wave that arise on the ocean is still only ocean.  There is no differentiation, except in the mind, in the labels.  All is one.  All is consciousness.

James: Well, for example, tonight I had the thought, “I’ll call Sailor Bob…”

Bob: Yes, well that thought simply came up at that particular time.  When the actual experience happened, you picked up the phone and dialed.  There is no entity who did that.  The thought to call did not do the calling; that was simply a translation of what might or might not happen.

James: Okay.  Well, I know that chasing liberation like it’s a thing is absurd, but every day thoughts keep coming up that “I want to get rid of this ‘me’ identity.”

Bob: If you look closely, you’ll see that this “me” identity has no power or independent nature.  Could you have that idea of a “me” if you weren’t conscious or aware?

James: So you’re saying it’s fine to have the ‘me’ identity?

Bob: Yes.  It’s going to appear, but now you know the falseness of it.  Look, you go down to the ocean, and you see that the water is blue.  But you and I know that you can’t get a bucket of blue water from the sea.

James: Right.

Bob: You’re not going to stop seeing the blue sea or the blue sky, but you know the truth about it.  And the same with the water in a mirage.  You’re never going to try to drink the water in a mirage.

Knowing the truth about it, you’re not bound by it.  Remember the old scriptural saying, “Know the truth and the truth will set you free”? So in knowing the truth that you are not a separate entity and never have been and never will be, you are no longer bound.

It’s the same with the idea of a “James” as an independent entity.  It’s still going to be there, but you know the truth about it.  You’re not bound by it.  It loses its hold.

James: So it gradually loses its hold.

Bob: Yes.

James: Or it doesn’t.  But it doesn’t really matter, either way.

Bob: That’s right.  It’s equal.  In essence, it’s equal.  It’s got not independent nature.  You couldn’t have that thought of an identity, or that concept of a “me,” if you weren’t conscious and aware.  When the life essence goes out of your body, the body still has eyes and ears and a nose and a heart, but none of it is functioning.  It’s like having all the information in the world on your computer, but if the power isn’t on, it’s worthless to you.

So you are that functioning intelligence energy, that presence awareness, that has never had any beginning and will never have any end.  It always was and always will be.  The energy vibrates into different patterns, into different shapes and forms, just like the ocean appears to be blue, but it never was blue.

So the self identity is still going to be there.  First, you’ve got to look through it and see the falseness of it.  When you take a stance in the concept of being a separate identity, that’s resistance to “what is,” and that’s stopping the flow of energy.  That’s where all our problems arise from.

James:  So the thing to is simply be with “what is”?

Bob:  Yes.  You can’t be anything else, if you examine it closely.  Look you’re aware of presence right now, aren’t you?  You know that you “are”.

James: Yes.

Bob: What do you have to do to cause that to be?

James: Nothing.

Bob: It’s spontaneous; it’s self-shining presence awareness.  It’s functioning by itself.  And on that presence awareness appear all sort of different patterns.

James: The problem is that I get everything you’re saying right now, and tomorrow I’ll probably feel great and peaceful, and I won’t be seeking like an addict.  But in two or three days, I’ll remember some spiritual book where the author talks about his or her fantastic bliss experiences and all the the miracles constantly occurring.  And then I’ll want my individual identity to go away completely, so I can have all that great stuff.  And I’ll start wondering what I can do to make that happen. 

Bob: You see, your individual identity started around the age of two, when you learned language.  That’s when your sense of separation started, and the seeking of wholeness began.  But not, you’ve seen clearly through that false identity.  That’s it. 

But the habit patterns, which have been constantly reinforced, day in and day out for so many years, will come up again.  Now as you immediately recognize an old habit pattern, then no energy goes into it.  Nothing can live without energy.

Now that you’ve seen through it, how can you believe it again?

James: So, what you’re describing is understanding?

Bob: Yes.  By realizing falseness, you can’t believe in it again.  Even though you’re seemingly caught in it, the energy drops out of it immediately, and the “head of it” will fall off.  The self identity, or false reference point, may come up for a while, but the more and more that you catch yourself just going back into a habit pattern, eventually the habit is broken.  Haven’t you had habits that you have broken before?

James: Of course.

Bob: Well, this habit can be broken also.  Just be seeing through it.

James: The times that I feel separate mostly occur when I am dealing with other people. You know, some upset or hurt feelings come up.  Then, later on I realize that what happened previously was absurd because there is no James to get hurt or upset.  James is a false identity, a false reference point.

Bob: That’s right.  Interactions happen.  That’s the functioning of the universe.  Things will happen.  But you know that there are no people.  If you see clearly that there is no self center in you, with any independent nature, then you must know for certain that there is no self center in anyone else, with any independent nature.  That puts you in the box seat, doesn’t it?

So you know where everybody comes from.  Ninety-nine percent of the world don’t see this, or grasp it.  So they’re coming from that false self center, even many who preach enlightenment—which implies some future time, and there is no future time—are coming from a false self center.

So others will have a concept about you.  And you will have a concept about yourself.  Now, which concept is right?

James: Neither one.

Bob: That’s right.  So you can’t believe the concept you have about yourself.  That’s garbage. And you can’t believe someone else’s concept about you.  That’s also garbage.  So there’s no one superior to you and no inferior from that point.  It’s all equal.

So you go along, and you have an argument with someone if necessary, but you don’t take it to heart, because there’s no self center, or reference point, where it can take hold.  They might, but that’s their perception.  That might be the thing that turns them around.  It’s generally suffering that turn people to this teaching, you see?

So it all goes along the way it should.  But the actuality is always this moment.  You can never live this moment again.  If we’re worrying yesterday or anticipating tomorrow, we’re not living fully.  Half our senses are taken up in that past and future, and we’re not totally with the present, where everything is happening.

James:  So, when I live my life …

Bob: You don’t live your life.  Your life is being lived.

James: Okay.  As my life is being lived, it’s just as well if I have no thoughts about gaining enlightenment?

Bob: Well, have a look at this, James: enlightenment implies something that you haven’t already got.  And that’s taking you away from presence, taking you away from omnipresence, which is all there is, into an anticipated and imagined future that doesn’t exist.  So, you’ve put yourself in a trap!

James: That’s a habit pattern developed over the last thirty years.

Bob: Yes, but if you see it as a habit pattern, are you going to believe it anymore?  Now that you see it as a habit pattern and see its falseness, it will drop off on its own.

James: Okay.

Bob: Now, you can’t force it away, because the idea of a “you” trying to stop it gain has got you subtly.  It’s got you into duality, into a false reference point again.

James: It’s really a strong habit.  Often, when I find myself not chasing enlightenment or feeling I’m thinking about it enough, I actually feel guilty. 

Bob: James, you always have been and you always will be.  What you’re seeking, you already are.  Start from that.

You don’t have to try to do anything; you only have to scrape away the rubbish that is stopping you from seeing that.  Recognize the garbage that is stopping you from seeing it.  It’s as simple as that.  It’s so simple that we miss it.

 

James: What about all these teachers who say you must do meditation and yoga and all the techniques?  What’s that all about?  Is it useful?

Bob: For some people, it might help to slow down the mind a bit; it might thin the cloud out a little bit, so they can see the sun shining in its fullness.  For some people, meditation and other techniques just happen.  But if you can see the directness of this teaching, all these things aren’t necessary.  There is no need to go anywhere or do anything.  Presence awareness is what you are.  Just relax into presence awareness.

James: I see.  Well, I appreciate your speaking with me.  It was a bit hard for me to call.  It took some guts.

Bob: Well, if you see that you have no self center, you know that no one else does either.  Then the fear of dealing with other people fades away.  No one is superior and no one is inferior.

James: My friend Kerry is going to see Ramesh Balsekar [a famous Indian teacher who was a disciple of Nisargadatta]; that will be exciting for him.  I often think about going to see awakened teachers, but then I wonder what exactly they will do for me.  They aren’t going to give me enlightenment.  I may feel good for a few days, and then in time I’ll feel the same as before.  The good feeling comes and goes.  It’s just the peak experience.

Bob: That’s the trouble.  Many seekers get stuck in experiences.  All experiences are in the mind; they are mind stuff.  I was with Muktananda in the 1970s when I met Nisargadatta.  I was in Muktananda’s ashram at the time.  Well, some people have been going to Muktananda’s ashram for thirty years, and they are stuck in the experiences.  They don’t move away from that.

James: You mean blissful experience.

Bob: Yes, people have all kinds of experiences, but they are transitory.  People have kundalini experiences [energy rushing up the spine], bliss experiences, all kinds of things.  But thse come and go.  They are not what you’re looking for.  Presence awareness is beyond experience, prior to experience.  I have long periods of silence, and I have periods of mental chatter.  It’s all the same to me.

James: You don’t prefer the silence?

Bob: No, because these things are experiences.  I am beyond experience.  What I am is that in which all experience happens—the experiencing, not the experience or the experience.  Just like seeing, in which the seer and the seen appear, the seer becomes the pseudo-subject, and the seen is the object.  But they’re both contained in seeing.  If there weren’t seeing, there couldn’t be a seer.  If there weren’t seeing, there couldn’t be a seen.

James: So, there really no need to do all those purification techniques, meditation and yoga and all?

Bob: No, no need whatsoever.  Of course, if it happens, there’s nothing wrong with it.  But all they will produce are experiences.  They come and they go.

James: Right.

Bob: You see, since you’ve been talking to me has the presence awareness changed?

James: No.

Bob: Thoughts have come; thoughts have gone.  Feelings have come and gone.  You’ve heard sounds and seen things.  But the presence awareness here is uncontaminated, spontaneously ever present, isn’t it?

James: Yes.

Bob: Well, that is what you are.  To the mind, that’s “no thing”.  That’s where the fear of that, or confusion, comes in because the mind is used to grasping at something.  The mind can’t understand no thing because the mind is a thing itself.

You are That.

James: Your teacher, Nisargadatta, used to say [in dialogues in his book I Am That], “Be with the ‘I am.’”

Bob: Yes. But be careful.  He didn’t mean the thought or the words “I am”; he meant the sense of presence, the knowingness that you are.  You can’t get away from presence awareness.  You can’t get away from presence awareness.

James: Yes, I understand.  But there seems to be some paradox going on in the Advaita teaching because non-dualism implies oneness, literally “not two”. And that means there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, and so on.  But Nisargadatta was teaching that we should focus constantly on the sense of presence, the “I am”.  That sounds like a prescription.

Bob: It’s true.  But remember that Nisargadatta was teaching all kind of people, from all walks of life, from all sorts of different levels, not that there are ultimately any levels.  And some people had no clue what he was trying to convey.  So he spoke differently to different people.  He was unable to teach many of his fellow Indians because they were consumed with their religion.  For them, he performed prayers and chants and sent them on their way.

James: So, it’s just a matter of being, and of being aware.

Bob: Yes, and that’s spontaneously and effortlessly with you now.  When you realize that there is actually no self center, or reference point, in you, then what must be there?

James: Everything?

Bob: Emptiness.  And what’s happening in life is what the ancients call “cognizing emtiness”.  It’s the emptiness that’s cognizing.  Cognizing is the intelligence factor, the knowing—the knowing that you are.  So, “intelligence energy” is not two things.  It’s emptiness cognizing emptiness, which everything appears and disappears on.

Something can’t come from nothing.  Everything is appearing in emptiness, so essentially the appearances must be emptiness also.  In other words, all the manifestation is an appearance only.

 James: Yes, I’ve read about that and I get it.

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but I want to make sure I’m hearing properly.  This whole enlightenment, liberation, self-realization business is really about understanding?

Bob: Yes.  As Nisargadatta put it, “Understanding is all.” Understanding is all that is necessary.  Look at what the ancient sage Patanjali spoke about.  He spoke about right understanding; that’s what he emphasized. [Note: Some non-dualists prefer the term “knowingness” because the feel the word “understanding” undwittingly conveys the idea that there is a person to do the understanding.]

Just remember that the mind is not you.  The mind is just a translator.  As an infant, before reasoning, you were functioning effortlessly, from the natural state.  There was no labeling going on.  You were in the natural state.  You were seeing, hearing, and you didn’t know there was an “I” there.  That came along after reasoning started.  From that point on, everything is acquired mind.  Everything is learned from then on.  But the natural state is still functioning, still beating your heart, growing your fingernails, digesting your food, causing your thinking to happen, and so on.

So, the natural state is still functioning, but it’s seemingly clouded over by that acquired stuff.  The acquired stuff is like a cloud.  It seemingly blocks out the natural state.  Our focus goes into that mind stuff, and we keep repeating it and believing it, so that habit patterns form.  And we gon on like this until we pause and question what has happened.

But you must realize that the natural state is still there and always has been
James: Is it us questioning?  The thoughts are just coming into our minds, right?

Bob: That’s right; it’s not us doing anything.  Get that out of your mind.  It’s one without a second.  That’s the simplicity of this.  The ancients have told us all the way through the ages that it’s non-dual, one without a second.  In Dzogchen [pronounced “zog-shen] Buddhism, it’s described as “non-conceptual, ever-fresh, self-shining presence awareness, just this and nothing else.” The Israelis say, “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

James: Well, where are my thoughts coming from?

Bob: They’re coming from that cognizing emptiness.  They’re nothing more than vibrating patterns of energy appearing on the emptiness.

James: And we have nothing to do with this?

Bob: No, the idea of “we” is just another vibrating pattern that is appearing on the emptiness.  In essence, the thought is the same as the emptiness.  It’s still that oneness.

So nothing has ever happened!  To no one!

* * * * *

Copyright 2006, James Braha

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Housekeeping Notes:

Let me welcome Uruguay and Zimbabwe to the ever-expanding list of countries visiting Awakening Clarity.   They have respectively become countries number 65 and 66 joining this fast-growing family.  We’re seeing a sharp rise in international traffic, and we're getting about 1,000 visits per week now.  There has been exponential growth thus far in 2012.  Thank you so much; it’s very gratifying to see this blog be of service to so many. Efficiency of effort was always the plan. Namaste!