The Invisible Man: Special Guest Memoir by Louis Brawley

Welcome to another offering in our Guest Teaching Series.  This is the fifteenth installment in a groundbreaking string of posts that's caught the interest and imagination of seekers and teachers around the world.  On a personal note, let me say that editing this series continues to be an extraordinary broadening process for me.  It's been my great fortune to become friends with numerous teachers in Europe, North America, and Australia.  Ours is a generous and loving community; I've found support and encouragement at every turn.  I look forward to hosting material from more countries and new continents as we go forward.  Thank you for your interest.

LOUIS BRAWLEY didn't want me to call this week's entry a "teaching".  I think it has something to do with humility.  I suspect his teacher would have approved.  Ever mindful of being the polite host, I agreed to modify the header if he'd agree to do what he does so well: write.  I'll post a link to my 5-Star Amazon review of his extraordinary memoir of his days with U.G. Krishnamurti, Goner: The Final Travels of U. G. Krishnamurti, published a littler earlier this year by our friends at Non-Duality Press, Julian and Catherine Noyce.  They are tireless servants of this teaching we all share, and they sent me Louis' book to see if I might be interested in reviewing it.  I was.

GONER is more about U.G. Krishnamurti, whom I have elsewhere termed "The Hunter S. Thompson of Gurus", than it is about Louis Brawley.  "Goner" was the phrase U.G. used most often about those people who hung around him, so Louis himself certainly qualifies as a goner.  His book is a travel log and spiritual documentary, at times almost an homage, but there is not a lick of boo hoo sentimentality in it.  That's smart thinking on Louis' part, because there's little doubt in my mind that U.G. would come back and kick his butt if he overheard his American travel-buddy getting sappy.  U.G. was nothing if not feisty, like an angel toting a tire iron.  His friend, Louis Brawley is a big, knockabout sort of New Yorker, self-deprecating to a fault, yet with a artist's fine sensibility, and a mystic's intuitive insight.  For five years these two odd humans were fellow adventurers, gonzo buccaneers careening through the weirdness that is Planet Earth.  U. G. died in the spring of 2007, leaving one of the strangest and most colorful legacies in the history of Nonduality.

IN THE BOOK, Louis' role is as that of a stand-in for us: a (somewhat) average person in an altogether amazing situation; a situation peopled by the mercurial U. G., and a band of the deepest, sweetest, nuttiest group of seekers you ever had the pleasure to meet and spend time with.  The whole thing is a grand affair on wheels and sofas.  Louis is so funny: I nearly cried laughing over his romantic pinings and self-seen shortcomings.  I didn't feel superior to one bit of it; I felt just like Louis felt, and that's the power of his pen and eye.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY told Scott Fitzgerald that 1930's Paris in all its splendor, wonder, and decadence, was a moveable feast.  So was U. G. Krishnamurti.  He was, to my mind, something like an electromagnetic force, or ambulatory gravitational field that caused whatever roomful of people he was in to drop their normal patterns and behave more in accordance with truth.  Not glossed over truth--gutter truth; truth truth.  I don't mean he was a genie.  I mean he was a whirling tornado who pierced trees with straw and tore down cathedrals while leaving a puppy and a fragile tea cup unharmed.  U. G. took no prisoners and minced no works, but he nonetheless had friends and followers--and lord, those financial supporters!--all around the globe.  His was a hot white light that burned furiously, but somehow helped to purify whatever it burned, wherever it burned it.

I READ THE INTRODUCTION to a book the other day that bears an anonymous mention here.  This opening passage was written by the book's editor, who is also a friend and follower of the book's author.  The editor was selling his teacher to us with the zeal of a Jehovah's Witness on your doorstep.  It was okay for him to do, I've done it, and in a sense it was sweet.  But then midway through his pitch he branched off into declarations of his own blazing enlightenment--meaning the editor's--and all the kind of stuff that made me close own eyes and say a silent prayer in gratitude that this time, thank God, it wasn't me showing my sleepy ass in public.  I've been there and done that, and it isn't pretty.  It was just the kind of thing you write when you have a good intellectual understanding of this teaching, but little actual experience of it. That writer was making his teacher--and by association himself--out to be very, very special people.

AS IT HAPPENS, I've shared email and talked to that editor's teacher myself.  And oh yes, that guy the editor was bragging so hard on is indeed wide awake, I promise you that.  (Meaning, of course, that Awakeness is consciously functioning through him.)  But that teacher is not special; he's not special at all and would never claim to be.  I should be so unspecial!  He is average.  He is plain and ordinary.  He is, in fact, utterly transparent.  The less special the apparent person, the clearer the vehicle, as it were, and the better that truth can shine though it.  It's never about the teacher, folks; it's always about the Teacher.  These human bodies--and those of our teachers--live and die with the regularity and import of houseflies.  We come and go within That which does not come and go, and even Methuselah was here only for the blink of a cosmic--or geologic--eye.  If anyone remembers Fredness twenty years after I'm dead it'll be because my wife has great genes and a good memory, not because I've left any sort of mark on the surface of history.  I could care less about leaving any sort of mark on the surface of history. Being involved right now is all that matters.  In fact, it's all there is.

U. G. KRISHNAMURTI knew all this in spades. Through Louis, he makes these precise points time and again within the splendid pages of Goner, just as he did between the covers called his body's birth and death.  Louis Brawley knows all this, too.  It's why he tells us the unvarnished truth about his beloved teacher and friend--and himself.  It's a take it or leave it proposition, and there's no investment in which way you go.  He's not about to make either one of them into anything they're not, because he knows there's no need to do so, and no point in doing so.  What Is is always good enough, and when it comes to teachers, the less there is the better they are!  It's why Louis insisted this article not be denoted a "teaching".  And it's exactly why he titled this article what he titled it.

AND NOW . . .

                                                        

The Invisible Man

By

Louis Brawley

AGREEING OR DISAGREEING had absolutely no place in my interactions with U.G. Krishnamurti. Teaching or not teaching was irrelevant. There came a time when I saw that there was nothing there to argue with, no entity promoting or defending any idea, rather it was life attacking all ideas as false. After that happened I was thrown back on the idea of control, supposed to spring from will and understanding. I can testify that my understandings were totally, utterly useless, what he called “empty words and empty phrases”.  Around U.G. this fact hit me with all the force and indifference of nature. Usually it came in the form of one of his 'blasts'. Before I met him I’d heard the expression 'blast' used to describe one of his rants. I assumed it was an exaggeration until I witnessed it for the first time. One evening we were sitting around while U.G. was talking to Mario about his job. The two were sitting face-to-face discussing Mario’s affairs after he'd just arrived after a long day of work and a six-hour drive from Cologne to Gstaad.  U.G. teased him quite a bit then suddenly an angry tone ripped into the exchange like a sudden tide, taking us all by surprise and focusing all of us on one point like a hot poker. Mario’s face turned red with the force of it. Because of his dynamic energy, the effect was like sitting inside a thunderstorm as we sat watching. It went on intensifying until it seemed unbearable, then suddenly it broke and he patted Mario on the arm after telling him to “Getoutofhere!” gently as a lamb. Later Mario told me he knew exactly why it happened and was grateful for it.

AFTER A LONG OBSESSION with the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, I discovered the books of U.G. Krishnamurti. When what U.G. said started to sink in I knew I was dealing with something far more immediate. His was the expression of a man who had touched life directly, rather than through ideas or practice. There was never a question of his talking from a platform to a crowd or charging for that service. 'Shop closed! No wares to sell!' he repeated to friends over the years, while making himself available free of charge to whomever made it to his door. His time was spent in a one-on-one attack on the false "ideation" in others, his closest friends. The intimacy of his company was so immediate that when one of his 'blasts' was directed at me for the first time it felt like death. It must have been the death of the familiar, because nothing he ever did threatened my life. On the contrary, whatever he did, if there was an effect, it was to make me feel less invested in bullshit.  Sometimes it looks like all U.G. did was knock the wind out of my pretentious ideas about things every waking minute of the day for the five years I knew him. It was more refreshing than I can describe, and painful at times in exactly the way healing is painful.  

WHAT BECAME CLEAR as I ‘hung around’ U.G. was that my body is operating just fine with no problems, and this was the case no thanks to my ideas about it. Rather, the stress these ideas put on my body is the only problem I have. I am absolutely at the mercy of life, yet I carry on as though I have a say in it. As I understand it now, any and every idea at my disposal has come to me from society. I do not own a single one.  Over thousands of years of human existence the ideas used by society to impose fictions like ‘happiness’ on us get more and more predominant, causing increasingly unnatural stress. Handy for doing a job or getting to a train on time, thought is a great tool, but what idiot cooked up this idea of happiness? A very clever one indeed because this classic model of self-improvement sets up the dynamic for a business of human exploitation in the name of spirituality that has been thriving for thousands of years. U.G. was serious when he called it criminal to partake in a business like this where the goods cannot be delivered but the ass of the exploiter is covered with the idea of ‘faith’. In nature if something doesn’t work, it dies. There is no place in the natural order for faith, which operates only when there is uncertainty in the area of results. With happiness, or better yet, permanent happiness known as ‘enlightenment’, when the practice doesn’t produce results we are instructed to have faith or work harder rather than question the teachers. So we pay them and blame ourselves for not having enough faith or working hard enough. What a racket!

THE CAPACITY TO IMAGINE not only a world of happiness, (as seen in every romantic movie), but selves to inhabit it, (as imagined in our non-existent heads), has been made possible by a series of grunts and noises that the human animal has been making probably since shortly after we stood on two legs. There is no way to get at the origins of this dynamic survival tool and no need. What good would that information do us? If the simple spacing of sounds is the source of language, how can any language claim to be sacred? This is the height of pretense. If nothing else, we are animals of dangerous pretense. Unlike most animals, we kill each other and other creatures over these supposedly sacred noises. Humans are animals of the most violent nature mixed with the capacity for unparalleled compassion; mixed up critters for sure, eager to be freed, but deathly afraid of freedom from our sacred words, terrified to see them for what they are. God, enlightenment, love, hate are all noise attached to images attached to feelings, accepted by us without examining their source. We are a collection of these noises held together by the fear that if we let them go or question their validity we will lose out on the promised banquet that never seems to materialize.

U.G. USED TO SAY, “If you saw something for once in your life that would finish you!” What does that mean? It means that if we slow down and see what we are doing, there is a threat that we might see through these idiotic ideas and stand on our own, and that would be the end of the societal bullshitter. We are now so used to this parallel universe of word-noise that we walk through the real one without seeing it because all our words have made it invisible. Somewhere along the way we have forgotten that the whole thing started as the grunting of one animal to another, exactly like a dog or a pig or a horse or a cow. “I am just a dog barking here, that is all.” U.G. said, and he meant it. That is why the man U.G. who resided beyond words just like the rest of us, but without the belief in them, will remain for the most part invisible in the pantheon of spirituality. After the ‘calamity’ [which is how U.G. referred to his awakening] he spent his life explaining how the business of words and ideas, spiritual, political and otherwise, have been leading us down a path to total destruction. 

PROPERLY USED, words are fantastic for gathering food, clothing and shelter, and thought is an absolute necessity for our survival. So what am I supposed to do when I know that all the words at my disposal for solving this dilemma of alienation or whatever my supposed problem is, including ‘consciousness’ and ‘meaning’, ‘insight’ and ‘enlightenment’, are included in the category of fantasy and imagination? Where does this lead me? U.G. saw that train coming before it rounded the bend. “That question ‘how?’ should be eliminated from the language!” Indeed for escaping this mess or worse, solving it, it goes into the same category. Useless. So any answer provided falls into the category of noise that will only suffice to keep the general racket of noise going more and more.

WITH NO SOLUTION, is it possible to leave it alone, or is this going to go on and on in an empty ritual of question and answer forever? Who knows? Having met a man who somehow lost the capacity to believe in the illusory meanings and images attached to the entirety of the vocabulary installed in him from childhood, how do I explain the impact of our meeting?  The effect of witnessing him daily was physical. Like a dog on a leash seeing another dog across a busy highway running free without a leash there was an instant primordial recognition from which language was completely excluded. U.G. was a functional human being who acted with total clarity and a living vitality familiar to me as one dog to another, one life form to another. Yet there were only a handful of people around at any given time.  “Why is that?” I used to wonder, so one day I asked him “U.G., what you are is so amazing. Why are there not more people around you?” His reply, like all his replies, was simple, unhesitant and clear,  “If I wanted to be famous I would have to sell something. I simply refused.”

I COUNT MYSELF insanely fortunate to have run alongside that wild barking dog for five years. The only difference between us is that I haven’t chewed off my leash yet. 

* * * * *

LINKS

Louis' Webpage 1 (writing):  http://louisbrawley.wordpress.com/

Louis' Webpage 2 (art): http://louisbrawley.com

On Facebook: http://goo.gl/ZexLX

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/uggoner

On Amazon: http://goo.gl/ozdqT

On Non-Duality Press: http://non-dualitypress.org/products/goner

Louis writing about Goner: http://goo.gl/wBujU

PDF of a Goner sample: http://sulochanosho.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/goner_sample.pdf

U. G. Krishnamurti's "Swan Song" (Dictated to Louis by U. G.):  http://goo.gl/ZuVG7

Louis on You Tube with U. G.:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lOhr6bTsPA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lOhr6bTsPA

U. G. Krishnamurti on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U._G._Krishnamurti

Housekeeping Notes:

Let me welcome Lithuania as country number 79 to join the ever-expanding Awakening Clarity family. Readers there now join others around the world who are helping to awaken Clarity where they are, which is always exactly Here, exactly Now.

And let me thank my beautiful wife, Betsy Hackett-Davis, for bringing me the season's first gardenia blossom while I wrote this on Wednesday night.  What could be better than a gleaming white star from Heaven hand-delivered by an angel?

The Wondrous Journey: Guest Teaching by Ilie Cioara

Welcome to Awakening Clarity.  If this is your first visit to our site, we're delighted to have you here.  If you're returning for time two or two hundred, we appreciate your enthusiasm and promise to do all we can to hold it. Interest remains keen in our Guest Teaching Series, of which this post is the fourteenth.  I can't properly offer enough thanks to the many people who've allowed us to profile them and their work, and for the work others are putting in to bring this to you on a weekly basis.  It's an honor and a privilege for me to help provide this service.  

THERE'S NOTHING I'VE EVER DONE that's opened me up any further or faster than this aptly named website, Awakening Clarity.  It certainly continues to awaken me, and to foster a clearer and clearer view of Reality.  And within my experience here, it is this Guest Teacher Series that has helped me open up to the many different approaches to the One Thing Going On.  I think it has helped sponsor within me what two of my mentors, Scott Kiloby and Greg Goode, refer to as plurality.  Somewhat counter-intuitively we encounter rich multiplicity within the Singularity.  Ramesh Balsekar called this Unicity, meaning--I think--that unity and diversity appear simultaneously.  It's important that you see this for yourself.  Let's face it: no teacher including this one is ever telling the truth.  We're all lying at the very highest level that we can.

 ILIE CIOARA is our Guest Teacher this week, and his appearance is a bit different from what we've done before. The author of this week's post died in 2004.  He was an almost unknown Romanian mystic who lived much of his life under Soviet occupation.  As a result, his practice was solitary and hidden.  He began his spiritual life as a Christian mystic, but at some point switched over to mantra meditation. After two decades of disciplined practice he came face-to-no-face with Reality in 1971, he shared his vision for the next 30 plus years.  Much of that was stowed away prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990.  He taught quietly from that time until his death.  Surviving photos of him are not clear, so I've kept them small to keep us out of pixel shock.

PETRICA VERDES (Deva Daan), whom I'm pleased to call my friend, is also a Romanian mystic, though he's lived all over Europe, is the editor and translator of not only this post, but also of four of Ilie's books.  Two of those are in already in print, a third is in the final stages prior to print, and the fourth is in the works.  Bringing this tetralogy to light is a noteworthy publishing event.  Petrica's organization and translation is as artful as his subject matter.  Those of you who have read multiple translations of the same text, or who've done some translation work yourself, know just how vital and difficult this can be.  How do you separate Coleman Barks from Rumi, or Rumi from Coleman Barks?

I FIRST MET PETRICA shortly after starting Awakening Clarity.  He bumped into it and wrote me about his first translation of Ilie Work, Silence of the Mind, and we exchanged several emails.  I was leery at first, because some of Ilie's background stretched into areas I didn't--and still don't--know anything about. Nonetheless, we continued to talk and each letter got warmer  on both sides as we grew to know each other, like each other, and respect each other.  He sent me the book, which I promised to either review positively, or not at all.  I don't write bad reviews for spiritual books; I could well be the one who's got it wrong.  Why let my ignorance harm someone else who's doing their best to be part of the solution?  At any rate, it was only after I read Ilie's poetry and prose commentary that I realized my new friend was a major talent and that his subject and muse, Ilie Cioara, was a deep, still water with the ability to communicate that stillness to us through both words and the spaces between the words.

PETRICA AND I have since written each other countless times.  I've reviewed his second book, The Wondrous Journey, and written a sort of "internal review" of another, I Am Boundlessness, that will appear within the book itself.  I'll share that with you here; it's sort of my final word on Ilie and Petrica's work.

I Am Boundlessness is a gift from one who has seen the truth to all of us who are trying to see it for ourselves.  Ilie tells us over and over that seeing this truth for ourselves is all that counts.  He asks us to simply use these words to cross the gap and then to let them fall and melt away like snowflakes on warm ground. It’s good advice.  If you are looking for a bridge, look no further. It is in your hand right now.

Ilie Cioara sings like an angel, calling us Home; his heart is on every page.  Ilie’s poetry actually guides us toward that Light.  It is beautiful, lyrical, and deeply moving.  Petrica Verdes is a gifted translator and an artist; he paints with the master’s words and his canvas is spaciousness itself.

Petrica was good enough to agree to write a short introduction about Ilie and to present a generous selection of what I see as their work to share with us.  The pieces that appear here are drawn from Silence of the Mind and The Wondrous Journey. As always, there will be links at the bottom of the post to help you locate Ilie and Petrica's work, and to find out more about both of them.  It's a great personal pleasure to feature Petrica in Awakening Clarity.

 

ILIE CIOARA was an enlightened mystic who did not belong to any lineage. He is unique in a way, in the sense that he lived in almost complete isolation, in Eastern Europe in a communist country, completely oblivious of nonduality, zen etc. Originally a Christian mystic, he practiced a mantra for over 20 years. One day, he felt an intuitive impulse to drop the mantra, and just practice the silence of the mind, by listening to the noises on the street, in the now. After following this practice for a few years, one morning, as he was waking up from his sleep, he suddenly experienced Enlightenment. His description of meditation is fresh and devoid of any tradition and jargon.

HIS WRITINGS in 16 books describe the experience of meditation and enlightenment, as well as the practice of “Self-knowing” using all-encompassing Attention. Like Ramana Maharshi, Krishnamurti, Ekhart Tolle, his is a simple message of discovering our inner divine nature through the silence of the mind.

THE SILENCE OF THE MIND and The Wondrous Journey are the first in a tetralogy by Ilie Cioara being published by Obooks. Soon to follow: Life is Eternal Newness in July 2012 and I Am Boundlessness October 2012.

PETRICA VERDES (Deva Daan) is a translator and seeker of truth. He has been practicing meditation and living in various meditation communes in Italy, Germany and the UK. Translating Iie Cioara’s work has been a labour of love and a process of spiritual growth.

AND NOW . . .

The Wondrous Journey into the Depth of Our Being

By

Ilie Cioara

IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE there is nothing static, dead or frozen. Everything, but absolutely everything, is in eternal movement. Even within the so-called still nature reigns the same intrinsic law of movement.

MOVEMENT AND NEWNESS, in perfect interconnectedness, affirm themselves as uniqueness. In this context, the moment represents the hand of the clock, used by Infinity in order to record the movement of Eternity. It is always new, as well as creative and transformative, in an ascending manner, progressively.

IN ORDER TO BE ABLE to encounter the newness of the aliveness in its movement, we must come out and greet it the same way. Thus, we don’t return to the past, to what happened, nor do we project ourselves into the future, in pursuit of an imaginary purpose or ideal to fulfill.

WITH A COMPLETELY EMPTY MIND we simply watch life as it unfolds. Nothing comes between us and the movement of life, in the form of images, opinions etc. Such a simple and direct meeting with the moment transcends us spontaneously from the finite world into Infinity.

AND JUST AS QUICKLY, like lightning, we detach, in order to be free again, and therefore completely available to encountering the next moment. Nothing is anticipated and nothing is accumulated from the lived moment.

THE PURITY AND INNOCENCE of the mind is our constant companion, as each moment becomes an opportunity of creative “being”. Through this way of “being” – as pure Consciousness – we ourselves create a new world in which Love, beauty, compassion and kindness become a reality positively influencing the whole of humankind.

                                   

The Power of Emptiness

The “void” or “psychological emptiness” is a strange phenomenon,

It appears spontaneously, in the pause between two thoughts;

As the old thought ends its course and disappears,

Its end is the gate, natural silence ensues.

Insist in being with it, as much as you can,

The mind is completely silent, we are attentive – a clear consciousness,

All meanings, boundaries disappear – us and the Infinite are “One”;

Practically, we have a new mind – always fresh.

Being in the pause – I become infinite!

It separates two worlds. I leave the limited world

And enter Boundlessness, through total melting;

The whole being is calm – a constant sparkle.

There is no time, no space – just everlasting Eternity;

I move in direct contact with life, in a permanent present.

I am Pure Energy, without motivations,

The simplicity of existence integrates us completely.

                                   

HOW CAN WE FREE OURSELVES from the past and the future? It is all very simple! With a lucid, all-encompassing Attention, we will watch every reaction of the mind, without pursuing any purpose or goal. Everything we encounter in such a manner disappears; in the void which appears spontaneously, an unlimited energy is available at our fingertips and we are able to understand the absolute Reality through a direct experience.

IN THIS STATE, we acquire a great sensitivity and everything that life brings forth in its natural flow is being regarded and appreciated with love and kindness.

MAN IS TRULY WISE only when, detached from his selfish “self”, united with Infinity through non-action and an aware passiveness of the mind.

THIS MYSTERIOUS ENCOUNTER is accompanied by simplicity. Once the past has disappeared, we are integrated in the now and, with a clear and lucid mind, we watch everything that comes as constant freshness from one moment to another.

                               

Encountering the Boundless

It is impossible to embrace and comprehend the

Infinite Universe

With the limited “ego”;

All is experienced in total silence,

Free from time – the being and the mind are newly born.

Thus, I am Immensity, in perpetual movement,

In Unity with the Whole – a creative structure –

I see, feel and act in perfect union with the Sacred,

I use language to describe Wisdom.

One with the Boundless, I am Happiness,

A divine gift, with no support in the thought process;

Happiness has no motives – a supreme satisfaction,

To which, consciously or unconsciously, each human being aspires.

                                   

THE LOVE DIMENSION is known by different names: Truth, Reality, God, Immensity, the Infinite, Intelligence etc.

THE VERY MEANING of the words which define it express the fact that this dimension has no bounds.

IN THIS DIMENSION, no faiths, ideals, desires or any such similar ideas can exist, as they are encountered in the limited dimension. For this reason, in this wondrous climate there is no struggle, contradictions, confusion, pain, hate etc.

BOUNDLESSNESS cannot be comprehended by imagination or by thought; there is nothing we can say about it. We can only describe and explain that which our mind can encompass. In the face of Limitlessness, the mind is poor, completely unable to understand it. In fact, the moment Immensity affirms itself within us, as a living state of the integral human being, the “ego” dimension and its limited way of expression does not exist anymore.

THERE IS NOT MUCH we can say about the experience of living in the dimension of Love. Nevertheless, we will try to express certain feelings and states of being encountered in this state.

IN COMPLETE UNION with Love, we are perfect peace, we live total freedom; the very notion of “self” is missing, although we are endowed with a clarity and sensitivity of the mind such as we have never encountered in the limited realm of thinking.

BY MELTING WITH SILENCE, we become that silence, equilibrium and harmony, free from duality: our being is extended into Infinity. Practically, by experiencing “psychological nothingness”, the “ego” disappears and, in its place, Immensity envelops us wholly and we become one with It. Integrated into the Great Cosmic Energy, we continue to exist as a state of super-consciousness.

                                   

THE MOMENT WE ENCOUNTER true Happiness, we are in fact outside time and space. The “ego” – with its intrinsic duality – has completely disappeared.

IF THE "EGO" DOES NOT EXIST anymore, who can evaluate this happy fulfillment?

IN THAT MOMENT, the Sacred within us, also existent in the whole universe, becomes one “Whole” and a Unique movement, in a permanent renewal.

DO WE TRULY EXPERIENCE this union, or do we merely understand it intellectually? You alone can answer this question.

EACH HUMAN BEING - from the moment of birth until the moment of the so-called death – persistently searches for this mysterious Happiness. Unfortunately, most people make the mistake of searching for it with the thinking mind.

BECAUSE HAPPINESS HAS NO MOTIVATIONS, It is not part of the limited world. Its nature is infinite; therefore the knowing mind cannot encounter It, or understand It, or imagine It.

HAPPINESS COMES TO US BY ITSELF, and It envelops our whole being when the mind becomes humble and silent, as it has understood its inability to encounter the Unknown.

LUCID ATTENTION – with Its flashes – dissipates all the darkness, as well as the baggage of the dysfunctional mind.

IN THE EMPTY SPACE of peace or no-mind, our being is extended into Infinity; in that moment, the Divinity within us reveals we are one with the Source of the Sacred. In conclusion, let us add that in the environment of “Pure Consciousness”, Happiness is present as a natural fulfillment and It is unlike anything that can be found in this perishable world.

 Petrica Verdes

Excerpts from The Silence of the Mind and The Wondrous Journey by Ilie Cioara

Copyright 2011, 2012 Ilie Cioara, Petrica Verdes

All rights reserved, used by permission 

LINKS

Website: http://www.thesilencebook.blogspot.com

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/silencebook

On Amazon US and UK:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Silence-Mind-Ilie-Cioara/dp/1846948290

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Silence-Mind-Ilie-Cioara/dp/1846948290

http://www.amazon.com/Wondrous-Journey-Into-Depth-Being/dp/1846949513

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wondrous-Journey-Into-Depth-Being/dp/1846949513

On Barnes and Noble:  http://goo.gl/mdhy9 

On OBooks: http://goo.gl/uyyFQ

Interview with Petrica at Nonduality Magazine: http://goo.gl/rGNAv

Article on Ilie Cioara in Yogi Time: http://goo.gl/ztZVK

Article about Ilie and Petrica on Clear Sight: http://peterspearls.com.au/cioara.htm

From Upcoming Interviews on Buddha at the Gas Pump: http://goo.gl/AwAEF



My book reviews of Ilie's books on Amazon:

The Wondrous Journey: http://goo.gl/HIlXd
Silence of the Mind: http://goo.gl/9lbMn


Housekeeping Notes: 
Many thanks to Chris Hebard, owner of the remarkable website, Stillness Speaks, for sending free, fabulous material (DVDs) to help broaden Awakening Clarity's reference library--and the librarian's understanding.  That kind of support means so, so very much.  Thanks, Chris! 

No Me and No You: Guest Teaching by Rick Linchitz

Welcome once again to Awakening Clarity's Guest Teachings Series, whether this is your first visit, or you're an old timer here.  This popular series is garnering accolade from the breadth of the Nondual community around the globe.  Creating this Who's Who in contemporary Nonduality is a long-term project, but it's a very exciting one. We have a lot of great people lined up to appear in the coming weeks, and I'm about to explode with enthusiasm over the fact that we've just added a new Assistant Editor, Greg Dean, to help things run more quickly and smoothly.  You can find details about Greg in the About the Staff section that's at the bottom of the right hand column.

Rick Linchitz is an absolutely uncompromising satsang teacher, and he's as clear as a ship's bell in the night.  To my ear, he brings to mind Tony Parsons on one hand and Nisargadatta on the other.  I've really enjoyed researching him this week by reading and listening to interviews with him online.  I'll have links at the bottom of his post so that you can do the same.  I absolutely recommend that you do so.  This is not hype; this is good advice, notwithstanding the source.   

I REALLY ENJOYED his book, and was quite touched by his story when I read him a month or two ago, but I didn't fall in love with him until this week.  Precisely as happened with Eckhart Tolle and Rupert Spira, as soon as I heard Rick speak, I was cooked.  I have no idea why that is, but it is.  Actually, I have no idea why anything is, but It All Is; I'm clear on that part.

NOW IT'S TIME TO TELL YOU my embarrassing Rick Linchitz story.  My ego can always use a good smack and there's nothing like a bit of public humiliation to bruise it.  I should tell you that this body retired from its former position as the Center of All Universes back in 2006.  However, it only did so in order that it might rise from the dead and claim a new position, which is not quite so lofty, but it's still special enough.  I became the Hub of All Things Nondual.  Now, as Hub of All Things Nondual, this body, of course, has all the insider info on every Nondual writer and teacher in the world.  Have a burning question about some of the people in our community?  Just ask Fred.  If he doesn't know them, nobody knows them.  I swear to you, this is just how this mind thinks.

SO WHEN NON-DUALITY PRESS sent me a copy of Rick's new book, No Me and No You, I thought, "Well here's a new guy.  Maybe I can "discover" him!"  Forget that he already has a book out from the largest publisher of Nondual titles in the world.  Never one to let facts get in the way of my blind enthusiasm, I, the Swifty Lazar of Nonduality, am single-handedly going to make him a star!  Can you believe this?  It's true.
 
HOWEVER, it was during the process of doing the research for this profile that Swifty got rather a rude awakening.  First off, I found out Rick wasn't exactly a newcomer: he woke up the same year I got sober: 2000.  So he's been around the scene--awake, mind you--for a dozen years.  Thus while I was still crawling walls and drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups, he was palling around in Costa Rica with Satyam Nadeen.  Oddly this somehow bothers my ego less than having a person who woke up after I did to have the audacity to be more clear than I am!  Scott Kiloby, for instance, had the nerve to wake up a year after I did and then become my teacher!  That is grounds for a serious resentment and is very nearly unforgivable. (By the way, throughout this article I am speaking plainly, not in the  revered and self-protective Nondualese  tongue.)

AT ANY RATE, the scales peeled and fell from Swifty's bespectacled eyes when he discovered that Rick has been doing satsang in Europe since 2001!  Rick was traveling around with Nadeen dispensing wisdom in distant lands while I was still running around my old backyard making amends for a lifetime of sin.  Next, you can imagine my outrage when I found out that Scott had once again outdone me by interviewing Rick three years ago on his Kilologues site. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, it turned out that Scott had a lot of company in beating me to the punch.

RICK LINCHITZ, whom the Hub of All Things Nondual had never heard of, had been heard of by damn near everyone else.  He had, in fact, already been profiled earlier this year by Matt King in the altogether excellent blog (grumble), Nonduality America.  He can also be found on Jetz TV in Germany, and he has a second book available over there in a German-language-only edition.  I did discover something this week: I discovered Swifty had also been outdone by Never Not Here back in 2010, when Richard Miller did a wholly wonderful interview with him in Rick's home on Long Island.  I also found Rick on YouTube, saw him on Kenneth Madden's website, and on the Guru's Feet wesbite.  And oh, did I mention that Rick spoke at the Science & Nonduality Conference in 2011 and will be speaking there again this year?  He gets around, let me tell you.

SO, IT IS JUST POSSIBLE that I am perhaps a wee bit late in discovering Rick Linchitz.  He is everywhere, now including Awakening Clarity's Guest Teacher Series. I am hereby officially retired from Hubdom.  At least until I'm not.

RICK LINCHITZ is a New York physician whose fields of expertise include innovative treatments for cancer (from which he is a long-term survivor after receiving a bleak prognosis) and alternative methods of pain therapy.  It's a distinct pleasure to host this post, for which I am greatly indebted to Our Lady of Mercy, Catherine Noyce, of Non-Duality Press, for her tireless efforts in helping me produce this post, which allowed me to rest my very sore arms.  Thank you, Catherine!

AND NOW . . .

No You and No Me

The Loving Awareness in Which All Arises

By

Rick Linchitz

 

 NO YOU AND NO ME: The Loving Awareness in Which All Arises is the title of Rick Linchitz’s book published by Non-Duality Press.   One of the Non-Duality Press editors, Catherine Noyce, says that the title alone encapsulates all teachings about non-duality; the book itself is a clear, humorous and very human collection of dialogues and conversations, edited to give clear themes based on the big questions that spiritual seekers ask. Julian Noyce, of Non-Duality Press, says that Rick doesn’t give any leeway for adulation or latching on to a teacher at the expense of the truth. In a gently incisive and relaxed way he gives no quarter!

THESE EXTRACTS from Rick’s book have been edited and rearranged specially for Awakening Clarity.

RICK'S OWN STORY has been relegated to the end, because he states so clearly that it’s unimportant - and yet most of us love to read such stories.

Why?

WHY DOES CONSCIOUSNESS invent so may billions of individual stories? Why do we sit here?

The mind is always trying to control and understand the story and it can never do that because it’s actually part of the story. It only exists within the story. When the story is seen through and no longer believed as having independent reality, the mind is also seen as complete illusion. And in that seeing, all questions dry up. You don’t get any answers but there are no longer any questions. The questions dry up because there’s a knowing, too, that it just doesn’t matter. There’s a deep trust in the perfection of all and with that trust there is an, ok, I don’t know and I never will know. It’s such perfection seen in what is that there’s no need to search for anything. It’s so complete that there is no need for any questions.

There’s a need for the concept of individuality to find reason and purpose for everything. The beauty of awakening is no longer needing to ask that question. There’s a perfect embrace with the world just as it is, right in this present moment; there’s no need for anything to change. And every moment is like that—every moment in this eternal present, absolutely new, absolutely perfect, nothing to do, nowhere to go, just enjoying the show.

It doesn’t make for a good interview because eventually all the questions dry up and there’s a lot of blank airtime! It happens in satsang too. People start out asking questions and about half way through they just sit there and it’s pretty peaceful.

(Long silence)

Teachers and Teachings

IN LISTENING TO TEACHERS it is easy for the mind to latch on to anything as a toehold on the mountain of seeking. If a teacher says don’t waste time, the mind picks up a subtle, or not so subtle, message that there’s something it can do. Even if the teacher gently encourages you to allow whatever comes up, the mind can still use this as a ‘path’. Sometimes the teachers don’t quite ‘get it’ and really are encouraging the one who you think you are to make an effort or try and attain effortlessness. It’s very tempting for many teachers to hold that door open. To close it and clearly communicate that there’s absolutely nothing you (or I) can do means there’s no need for the teacher and that’s not good if you depend on being a teacher for your livelihood. Other times, it’s the student that will misinterpret the teacher and the mind will run wild.

WHEN THE TEACHER clearly leaves no room for the illusion of the individual, the fear, confusion and shakiness and even hopelessness come. This is the mind, the concept of individuality, beginning to dissolve. From the perspective of This (if there’s readiness), there may be a tingle of excitement, a feeling of the mind stopping, bewilderment, clarity or peace. If there’s a tingle of recognition it’s because that’s what is, that’s who you are.

Why People Walk Out

EVERY THOUGHT, every feeling, every emotion and every idea arises within this All There Is. There’s nothing outside of this. There’s nothing outside that can affect All There Is and. yet arising within this All There Is, is this idea that there are individuals. And along with this idea there is a belief that the individual can affect All There Is and, out of this simple idea, this simple confusion, all the seeking, the pain, the suffering arise. This is a real threat to the idea that we are individuals in charge of our destiny. This belief, which is just a thought which is arising in All There Is, is very precious.

THE BELIEF IN THE INDIVIDUAL is held onto for dear life and, along with that belief, is the idea that the individual has to do something to get something it doesn’t have. So there’s a sense of lack associated with the idea that we are individuals, and out of that sense of lack all the seeking for completeness arises. So saying that there are no individuals with any independent existence is a big threat to this precious belief. It’s a real threat, an attack, so in the idea of the individual being threatened in that way, there arise all kind of thoughts, objections: What about creating my own destiny? What about personal responsibility? What about all those years I’ve been seeking? Is it a total waste? What about purifying? What about doing pujas, meditating—is it all a waste? This is tremendously threatening! Of course in that realization that you are already That all those fears and threats just disappear.

I SAY THIS BECAUSE I noticed that when I started talking about All There Is and that the idea of the individual is just a misperception some people started walking out. So now if that belief is too strong and what we’re going to be talking about is too threatening, you have to leave now. Because this is it, it’s All There Is. Right here. All There Is appearing as a bunch of individuals in this room. There’s absolutely nothing else, nothing outside of this, there’s not a future where things get better and there’s not a past that created all of this; it’s just this in the eternal present. And this eternal presence is not a sequence of events. It’s not a now and a now and a now; it’s only the eternal now. This is absolutely it; it doesn’t get any better than this, it’s absolute perfection exactly the way it is. And that’s including the idea that we’re individuals. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that idea. Not even that needs to be changed. Of course there’s no-one around who can change it anyway.

Personal Responsibility

IT STILL SEEMS TO ME like this is all a good excuse for being hedonistic, for denying personal responsibility and doing as you please without consideration for right and wrong.

WHEN I FIRST HEARD Nadeen talk that night that this awakening, or whatever you want to call it, happened, there was somebody in the audience who was furious about the idea of not caring about personal responsibility. This concept of individuality and individual responsibility is very precious, it is the most frightening thing to give up, even the idea. This concept is so precious that it has created this belief of an individual that has to maintain strict control over everything.   I see you shaking your head, so you’re absolutely convinced that you need this individual to prevent yourself from really going wild. This belief in our individual consciousness and in our story is so strong that we even say things like, I stopped myself from doing that. Who stopped whom? And with the knowing there’s a recognition also that life goes on.

THERE'S NO LONGER A BELIEF that any kind of unsaintly behavior on my part has any particular significance. It’s just what it is. And yet, I think along with that there seems to be basically—not saintly perhaps—but decent behavior (laughs), so what do you do with that? You can’t start out by trying to be good, because there’s nobody to try, and yet this recognition that there’s nobody to try seems to create basic decency.

THE LOVE IS SO APPARENT, the love for What Is is so apparent that there doesn’t seem to be any association with a desire to do violence to that love. It’s just there, there’s an embrace of all of life exactly the way it is. You just want to hug and kiss everything and everybody.

SUFFERING IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to the amount of control that the person needs to have over everything in their environment, and the people who are suffering the most, apparently suffering the most, those are the people who are the most upset about giving up that idea of individuality. But the greatest peace and freedom imaginable comes with the loss of belief in that concept. And the amazing miracle that comes along with it is that life goes along just as it did before. The story continues to unfold without that precious idea of me.

YOU HEAR ABOUT PEOPLE who are really humble—what can be more humble than no longer being anybody at all?

Rick’s Story

IT SEEMED VERY IMORTANT when it happened and now it seems less and less important to talk about. All my life, as with most of us, I’d had this precious notion of an individual in control of his life. If things seemed to be going my way I was very satisfied and proud, but when things weren’t going my way, which wasn’t unusual, I was angry, disappointed and generally miserable. But there was always the thought that I just had to work harder or do something different and I could make life go my way. I would meditate exercise, and work hard every day because I thought I would be rich, healthy and enlightened.

THEN ONE DAY I was diagnosed with cancer and I lost my health, my medical practice and my wealth, and every definition, every way in which I had defined myself, was gone...

OVER THE NEXT YEAR AND A HALF I sank deeper and deeper into despair. During this time I continued to try to gain control of life; since I still believed it was up to me to get myself healthy, it must have been my fault that I got sick…  In every way that I had defined myself I was finished. I had nowhere to turn and in every way I felt alone. It was in that state I first heard Nadeen.

I HAD NEVER HEARD OF SATYAM NADEEN and knew nothing about the place that he owned. He said something that I had heard before—but somehow I had never really heard it: He said, ‘Consciousness is all there is and you are that.’ And in that moment there was the realization that there was no Rick to fix anything, that there’s only one consciousness. There’s no-one outside consciousness to change consciousness. And in that same moment Rick disappeared.

AND IN FACT THERE WAS A REALIZATION that there was never any such thing as Rick. There’s only consciousness unfolding. And there was complete peace and relief. That peace never left. In this ‘story’ it seemed that the Rick character had had experiences before that in meditation, was deep peace and unbelievable ecstasy, but those were always seen as an experience happening to Rick and they were always seen as something that if Rick worked harder he could go get and get back. This was different. This was much quieter, less spectacular. It was a simple disappearance of any belief in the reality of individuality. It was not an experience happening to Rick, just a disappearance of anyone who could have an experience.

© Non-Duality Press and Rick Linchitz, 2012
(From Non-Duality Press: People are welcome to use or quote as long as they give a full attribution to Rick and NDP, and of course to Awakening Clarity.)

LINKS 

Rick's Medical Website: http://goo.gl/VR2rW

Rick on Facebook: http://goo.gl/Z6CH0

No You and No Me at Non-Duality  Press: http://goo.gl/3J2Jl:

No You and No Me, at Amazon: http://goo.gl/fO4yA

No You and No Me at Barnes & Noble: http://goo.gl/8WzqH

Jeder Augenblick ist Gnade (Every Moment is Grace) on Amazon, in German: http://goo.gl/fO4yA

Interview on Never Not Here: http://goo.gl/PtIvt

On Nonduality America: http://goo.gl/Dzrz8

  

On Guru Cafe, clips and whole interview on the same page: http://goo.gl/VRogl

At SAND11 (via YouTube): http://goo.gl/E0slC

At SAND12: http://goo.gl/SZk3f

On The Guru's Feet: http://goo.gl/e7tbH

On Jetz TV in Germany (In English, with translator): http://goo.gl/IoQik

Rick in Germany: http://goo.gl/hKYHG

(Swifty says, "See Catherine Noyce on Conscious TV." ( http://goo.gl/bqojk)

Housekeeping Notes:

Let me welcome Argentina as country number 78 to join the ever-expanding Awakening Clarity family. Readers there now join others around the world who are helping to awaken Clarity right where they are, which is Here.