Lost

John Locke: I’m not lost anymore.

Sun Kwon: How did you do that?

John: The same way anything lost gets found...I stopped looking.

‘Lost’ season 2, episode 5

The enlightenment secret

You are not a separate being. You are Being, and never separate. This is the Enlightenment, the happiness, in which all apparent things consist. It is the very Being of you.

It's a secret not because there's anyone hiding anything. It's been proclaimed by sages around the world for millennia. Rather, it's a secret because enlightenment is often misunderstood to be a matter of personal achievement, like scoring the ultimate goal. But there's no person there! There's not even a "there" or a spatial location where a person can reside. There is no individualized or separate "you" or "me"; no goal, no task and no achievement.

There are no things, and no gaps separating things.

Greg Goode, Nondual Highlights 1763

To all so-called spiritual seekers and so-called guides

The present spiritual environment and particularly the neo-advaita craze is somewhat troubling to me. Let's sum it up in one short sentence for simplicity's sake: No matter what, shut up and return return return to That which is the Eternal Undying True Witness - and Poof...If you haven't already realized it - You Are That!
 
OK OK OK. BUT WAIT A SECOND PLEASE
 
If we take a look at the picture from a spiritual evolutionary perspective - which resembles (but not mirrors) Nature's evolutionary development, we can intuit rather easily that the whole process (however mysterious it may appear to be) is COMPLETELY IMPERSONAL, COMPLETELY RANDOM (as far as the individual ego should be concerned anyway) and COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR HANDS!
 
Aha - the truth can set you free, but did you feel it - yah it really stings the ego doesn't it. That's right everyone - nothing to do with you, your apparent efforts and beliefs, or your so-called teachers. Imagine for a moment we humans (actually all sentient beings) are caterpillars. OK, I'm a slippery hairy ugly mofo. The evolutionary objective is butterflies and possibly Pure Light or Consciousness at some point down the line. And there are of course various stages from mini-caterpillar to butterfly and perhaps on.
 
So here we are people! We're in it - part of a really long game - and we're not at all important to the BIG PICTURE! So let's go on a retreat. Hi teacher, oh you're a butterfly and I'm a caterpillar - boo hoo. My friends and husband are mini-caterpillars at best - boo hoo. The teacher repeats like a broken record - hogwash - you are Pure Light or whatever the formula is these days.
 
My favorite is meditate on I Am Thatness and the like. Funny how they don't say I don't really...can't really know what this is all about. It's all random and beyond me or you. There is no practice, mantra, so-called satsang or darshan, or other devices that can or will change that fact. No no. That doesn't create popular inspiring communities and sell books does it. That doesn't leave much place for a teacher does it. OK OK OK ... Back to the point
 
The whole thing is one big very mysterious evolutionary process - and we are all a part of it, but that's where the personal ends. Actually it's entirely impersonal and beyond our limited perception (even so-called enlightened perception I would suggest) So if it helps you to think that you are now a caterpillar headed for butterflydom, so be it. If it's comforting to think your teacher is now a butterfly, so be it.
 
Truth is though, no Guru, Saint, Yogi, Sage every did anything. They were simply naturally selected to participate in the next evolutionary step - like a field of yellow flowers that for some reason is starting to reveal some yellow and purple in a few cases.
 
Do you freak out about that? No, it's nature right. Same thing here - impersonal natural evolution. Teachers realize (at least authentic ones) that they are the future if you will, and they really really want to help the caterpillars discover the same. But truth be told, they can't do (and have never done) a single darn thing!
 
Nature is doing that and no teacher (or very very few) can predict which caterpillar is next and why...forget the why completely. So please please please... a message to all teachers and seekers, sober up out there. Come back to earth. Come down from your exciting, sexy, fantastic ego-induced trips and just sit with the idea that you are a yellow flower in a field of yellow flowers. In some spots there are yellow and purple flowers. So what right?
 
OK - now stay with that image. Not fun right. Not exciting right. Not stimulating? Perfect - that's closer to the truth than you've ever been so live with it.
 
Take care all you caterpillars, butterflies, yellow flowers and yellow-purple flowers.
 
Sincerely,
 
Hanumanji

Nondual Highlights no. 2481

There are

no others.

Ramana Maharshi

Looking for the me

is like the eye trying to see itself.

Seeing this, the illusion of separation shatters, revealing life just doing it's thing in myriad expressions...

Only one koan matters

...you.

Ikkyu
Japanese poet-priest, 1394-1481

What I am is Life itself

I am not this appearance of a separate individual. I am not this image of a body. I am not this label or thought. But in fact all of this is happening in what I am. I am not in this body. The body is simply an image appearing within what I am. I am absolute nothingness. Paradoxically, I am absolute everything. Everything is simply nothing appearing as everything. This is what I am. Language is limited and can never truly express this. However, all that appears: every word, every image, thought, emotion, physical sensation, is happening in Life itself. This is not special, this is not owned by any particular special enlightened people. This is most ordinary.

In this play of Life there is the play of searching for fulfilment or enlightenment. There seems to be a path towards reaching this goal. There seem to be things that ‘I’ can ‘do’ in order to get closer to enlightenment. These things seem to provide a certain relief for a while but then the pain of separation seems to return. This game of seeking is played out. It is eventually seen that any relief is simply temporary. Replacing one state with another is found to be totally unsatisfactory. Any idea of hope is seen through. The play of Life is seen as it is.

What I am is beyond all states. What I am is before, during and after any state. What I am is timeless. What I am is hopelessness. What I am is enlightenment. What I am is too simple for this long word ‘enlightenment’. What I am simply is. In not-knowing, I know.

This can not be understood. This can not be worked out. This can not be ‘got’. This can not be thought of. This can not be found or lost. This can not be experienced. But somehow this is already known beyond all experience. This is the nature of what I am. This, right now, is the enlightenment which is sought, and this is the enlightenment which can never be found.

Unmani Liza Hyde, ‘I Am Life Itself’

No "me" to get upset

James Braha: Bob, you talk about investigating the falseness of the "me" every time a mental upset occurs. I find myself doing that, and it's powerful. But sometimes the upset is so intense that it still takes a while for it to dissipate.

‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson: Once the mind gets into something, it's hard to stop it. But are you just saying, "There is no "me", or are you actually investigating? Seeing it - not the saying of it. Saying it is just the concept.

James: First I may say, "There's no "me"; there's no James." But there's no change. Then I actually start looking to find a "me". I ask, "Who is this happening to?"

Bob: Can you find anyone?

James: No. There's no one here. It becomes clear that there's no one inside.

Bob: That's right. It becomes clear there's no entity there. And you see it again and again and again. You keep seeing it again and again for short moments of time. There's no use trying to remember the concept that there's no "me". You have to investigate each time some upset occurs. The investigation will come up more and more frequently. And then it'll come up of its own accord. The same as you know two and two is four.

James: That's happening now. I ask, "Why is this upsetting me?" And then I look to see if there's a "me", and of course there's not.

Bob: Don't even ask, "Why is this upsetting me?" That's giving the "me" a seeming reality. If there is no "me", who is getting upset? There will be no upsetting if there's no idea of a "me".

James: Can I just say, "Upsetting is happening?"

Bob: There won't be if there's no "me" to get upset. Just look at the happening and investigate and see there is no "me" for it to happen to.

James: So when something is happening that doesn't feel good...

Bob: That's just what it is - unaltered, unmodified, and uncorrected. It's a happening. If there's no reference point, where can the upsetting lodge? It will play around for a while and then dissipate. It has to, unless you keep referring it to a "me".

It's time to let go of the "me". It never existed. You're nothing; you're emptiness. You're seeing that. You're convinced of it.

James: I sometimes have a concept that I shouldn't get upset.

Bob: You never get upset. If there's no "me", what was it that ever was upset? Patterns of energy appear, patterns of energy disappear. What was it that ever did anything? Once you know there's no "me", there's no need to even investigate. It's immediate.

James Braha, "Living Reality: My Extraordinary Summer with "Sailor" Bob Adamson"

There is no being called oneness

to create any play or illusion. There's just psychological separation arising from the dualistic nature of thought.

Clearly seeing the falseness of separation ends the search and relief from suffering may occur, although habitual mental-emotional patterns are likely to continue arising. What's different is that there's no longer an "I"/"me" reference point for the patterns to attach to, so they dissipate more easily.

No big deal, but pretty cool...

Awakening to enlightenment

does not happen to an individual,
it happens to and within
the very fabric of existence:
Life itself wakes up.
~ Adyashanti

This is It

and I am It
and You are It
and so is That
and He is It
And She is It
and It is It
and That is That.

James Broughton, quoted by Alan Watts in The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

It seems

that life/nature just is with no purpose or meaning, just livingness happening in the now with no supreme intelligence or pre-ordained direction, but evolving ecologically through the complex interaction of it's numerous life forms, including homo sapiens whose members have developed this destructive habit of psychologically separating from the whole. 

There the game begins, and the seeing of this is the end. 

"Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved". 

Except there's no mystery.

The very idea of going beyond the dream

is illusory.
Why go anywhere? Just realize that you are dreaming
a dream you call the world, and stop looking for
ways out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem
is that you like one part of your dream and not another.
Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining. When you
have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that
need be done.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That