The end of becoming

In the teachings of Vedanta we sometimes speak of 'the end of becoming.' What does the phrase, 'the end of becoming' mean?

The thing is, one cannot become what one already is. And what one already is, is what one wants to become. (So that's the good news.)

But one does not know that as yet. (The not so good news.)

However, that ‘not knowing’ can end. (The very good news!)

Let's say right now I don't know what I am. I know that I am. I know that I exist. I know that I am a conscious being. So, I know that I am a conscious/existent being.

But I don't know what that existence/consciousness, truly is. So, I take myself as limited. The mind, being the great labeler (as that is its job) takes whatever is handy (in this case the body/mind) to be me.

The mind takes my existent conscious self to be limited, and a product of, the body/mind and sense organs. What are the implications of taking my self to be the limited mind and body? (Not so good.)

I 'as though' (and it really is only 'as though') become subject to birth/death, disease, pain, old age, unhappiness, you name it! Not a pretty picture.

Even though it is only 'as though', that doesn't matter in terms of the effect this has on the mind. It's the scariest thing there is. Like even if I'm walking along a path on a dark night, and I take a crack in the road to be a deadly cobra, it doesn't matter to my mind what the reality is of what I'm seeing, if I don't know what the reality of it is. If my mind projects 'deadly cobra' onto the crack in the earth, and has no doubt about it, trauma will ensue.

And then, even when some kind friend, noticing my distress, shows me what is really there, and I see, "Oh, it is only a crack in the road," my heart may still be beating fast from the residual effects of the mental trauma caused by my totally incorrect conclusion.

Taking my existence/conscious self to be the body/mind is the most traumatic experience there is. There is nothing worse, and it is completely untrue.

But if someone walks up to you and says those words, I'm not sure that they would help. You would have to feel the person knew what they were talking about, and that they were not crazy or deluded, and be open to hearing and wanting to know what they had to say.

If all of the above criteria were met you might ask that person: "If you know that I am not the body/mind, and if you know that you are not the body/mind; if that is your direct experiential knowledge, is it possible that I can know the same thing? And, if so, how I can I know it? Can you actually prove to me and show me that what you are saying is true?"

Although there is nothing you can do to become who you are (because you are already that), there is something you can do to know who you really are.

Although you don't know it now, you can know it, because you are here to be known.

The truth is here to be known. It is only a matter of having someone, whom you trust and who is skillful, logically point out to you certain incontrovertible facts about yourself and the nature of your experience, and then giving your mind time to assimilate those facts. Then you yourself will recognize the truth.

The end of becoming is knowing that you never could, and never have, become anything in the first place other than what you already are. And what you already are has never been subject to becoming ever.

When the Gordian knot of ignorance (taking my self to be the body/mind) slips apart, then I see, Wow! This existence consciousness which I am, never becomes, never changes, is ever the same, and it is the most wonderful constant 'me' that I have always loved in every changing moment.

It is what I always wanted to be! And what I always wanted to be, I am! Amazing!
There is nothing that I can do to become my self, because I am already my self, and the recognition of that is called freedom!

- Durga
http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/becoming_durga.htm

Freed from bondage

For the Realized mind at one with the Way
all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish
and the Truth is confirmed in you.
With a single stroke you are freed from bondage;
nothing clings to you and you hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no need to exert the mind.
Here, thinking, feeling, understanding, and imagination
are of no value.
In this world "as it really is"
there is neither self nor other-than-self.

- Seng-ts'an, Third Zen Patriarch
Hsin Hsin Ming

Translated by Richard B. Clarke
-Nonduality Highlights 3424

True nonduality

To awaken to the absolute view is profound and transformative, but to awaken from all fixed points of view is the birth of true non-duality.

- Adyashanti
Nonduality Highlights 3419

Fixing the world

Adyashanti: Good evening.



Questioner: This is my first retreat with you.



A: That's funny. It's my first retreat with you.



Q: But I'm the beginner.



A: You better believe I am too. More than you would imagine.



Q: Well, I'm struggling with something and its going to sound a bit theoretical but its really very personal.



A: Okay.



Q: A little background, I get paid to think. I'm a teacher. Okay that can become an addiction. My background is Christian and I'm still hanging in there. 



A: Very good.



Q: Trying to preserve what I think is really valuable in the tradition although I must admit I am a bit religiously promiscuous in my Christianity.



A: Apparently so, yeah.

Q: You might say I sit around a lot. 



This is it, it goes back to the question that came up the first evening, with the gentleman who watches CNN and BBC and gets upset. I watch CNN and BBC too... and get upset. Now what I'm trying to do; I want to be as brief as I can, I'm trying to make connections between what I've been and what I'm trying to be - all that I've learned, I think I've learned so much during these past days. But part of my tradition that I still want to affirm is what we Christians inherited from our Jewish parents. It's called 'tikkun olam;' fixing the world. We've got to fix the world. That's especially the Jewish prophets - including Jesus - and they all said 'you've got to fix the world.' The main reason they said 'you've got to fix the world' is because they saw not only the suffering within each of us that we cause ourselves so often; not only the broader, but they were kind of specific, Adya. They saw the suffering of people who are suffering because of what some people do to them. In other words some people who are not very enlightened of course but it's the suffering that is inflicted and it comes under the rubric of 'justice.' Or 'injustice.' And responding to injustice, we've got to fix the world. 



You addressed this and I got part of it but I guess I just want you to say it again once more for me. How do I put together, 'everything's okay the way it is,' 'surrender to it,' and 'the world needs to change.' 'Accept it; fix it.'



A: They seem diametrically opposed. 



Q: And it gets really... I feel it. When you look at the suffering that is inflicted on innocent people blown away by bombs, either terrorist or military. By families in the inner city that can't feed their kids. Children denied health care. And the biggie that touches us all, what we are doing to this wonderful Earth. I know you're going to tell me...

A: Well this will save time, won't it?

Q: I think you're going to tell me that before you can fix it, you've got to accept it. I see because of the trouble with our fixing it, I guess I tend to get fixated on our fixing. Ego enters into it.



A: Yeah.

Q: Just help me; what's the gap? I think we've got to overcome the gap between accepting it and trying to do something about it. How does one move?



A: Because either one of those - even the accept everything as it is - if that gets taken as the 'truth,' then that's just as illusory as 'it's a mess, we gotta fix everything.' You see it's more like a medicine; it's a prescription, right? If we have this terrible disease of apparent division and strife, then one of the prescriptions is 'allow everything to be.' But it's like taking antibiotics if you're sick. True health isn't taking antibiotics for the rest of your life, is it? True health isn't contained in the drug and true health isn't contained in the sickness. It's contained ultimately outside of either one of them, so... - by the way, these are two difficulties that people run into even in their own realization.



Sometimes we start out from a divided point of view, seeing seemingly everything's a mess and division and hate and ignorance and greed and violence and all of that, and that leads to a lot of division. And then we can have a great awakening and see there's nobody doing it. It's all done spontaneously, and then the mind still jumps in and makes a conclusion, "Ooh, why get involved?" 



It's just doing - and even then the realization becomes, as I have said many times, a new fixation. Right, so let's see it this way... If you're gonna think of it, more importantly; feel it, allowing everything to be as it is. It's sort of restores a sense of balance. It heals a certain anxiety and if there's a total of spontaneous happening of truly allowing everything to be, which is like surrender. Our nature is surrender; the ground of our nature is "allowing every thing to be." So let me talk to you in concrete terms. because I could keep going abstractly...

From my own experience, (because again, my teacher was smarter than me; she never tried to teach me any of this); its all inherent within being. But there was a time when; it was after a certain realization, and I was standing at a wedding, after the wedding, and it was a big wedding and it was a gymnasium after the wedding and I went over to get a second plate of food which is one of the best things about weddings, you know? So I went over to get a second plate of food and I'm going over there... And of course, I'm the first to get the second plate of food because I eat almost as fast as any one I've ever known - I'm not very Zen in my eating habits, you know... - "steam shovel version," yeah.



I get a plate of food, and I turn around after I get the food, and I look out in this big room and there's the whole wedding thing; after the wedding, the dancing, and the kids and the grandmas and all of humanity, and you mingle for awhile so you get to know, "Oh there's a little tension over there in the family, and these people are having a great time."



It's like it encapsulates humanity in a sense, and I sit there and look at it, and just this realization dawns, and I realize it's over... I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever see life the same way. It sounds separating, but its not - the way that these people are seeing life. I will never see life ever again, the way that most of humanity is seeing it. And it was at that point I felt just a tinge of what I would call the "taboo against being totally free." It's like, and then I felt; "how dare I?" "How dare I leave humanity totally behind?" 



You feel like a taboo; like it's not right. You must stay in the muddle and help make it. I'm not saying that I had all these thoughts; it was just a feeling, right? 



And there's a taboo in the collective consciousness that most people actually feel at a certain point of development, and I felt it, and it was very obvious to me, luckily, that it was just time to let it go. It was "let go" and it was no big explosion; nothing like that; very, very simple. And all of a sudden I'm there, plate in hand, looking at the wedding like I was before, and the next moment it was like, well,.. into the fray. And so I walked right back into it; it was like leaving the dream unequivocally, and then walking right back into it and its hard to make sense of that, but what arose was "from this place, everything is accepted."



Because everything IS accepted. Literally... Literally. I can feel great compassion for hideous things that humanity does to each other, but I don't go into emotional psychological division. And that's the taboo... You feel that in the collective consciousness; that it's like not okay "not to go into division..." You must go into division; you should go into division. 



That's what the collective consciousness feels. 



And there I was not feeling it anymore... 



But what would happen, instead of division, would be a great outpouring of love or compassion when I see inhumanity. And out of that came a response; not from anxiety; not from "we've got to fix it," but from that state of non-division -from the love itself.

From the state of "everything is fine exactly the way it is;" there's nobody to do anything anyway.

Right out of that state, arose an action, an activity, that looks like helping, contributing to the welfare of others. It's not a disengaged, "there's the disengaged everything is just God happening," and then there's the "everything is God happening," with the emphasis on happening...

It's a verb; it's not a place to hide. And this to me, is a true expression. I mean you see it: all the realizers - they all have the same message basically. "All is well." "All is unimaginably well - you can't imagine how well it is." And they're spending their whole life dedicated to the welfare of others. It's very odd, you know?



Q: So you end up fixing the world not by intending to...



A: Right.



Q: ...but by loving...



A: Yes.



Q: And the fixing results...



A: ...from the loving... Right, and that was Christ's message. Was it not?



Q: Yes, absolutely.



A: Right; "treat your neighbor as yourself." So many of his teachings were basically saying, "Don't act from division." He could just as well have said, "Don't act from hatred.... Love your enemies." Right. And we hear that as a commandment but actually what he's telling us is, "This is the way Truth is. This is the Truth of your being." "This is how it works if you're just awake to it." But that's the funny thing; ultimately egos are afraid of love because they think, "If I was really undivided, I'd have no response to what I see." Where would the motivation come from? 



Q: There also may be, or I should say, "we're also afraid of... I don't know afraid of; but you end up, excuse me, you end up loving the bastards who are doing the oppression." 



Adya: Exactly. You have to... Otherwise, your division creates another bastard to do more oppression. Get rid of one, and remember - if you understand the dynamics of it, your division must manifest. It will manifest, it must manifest. So you can get rid of one nasty character but all that division inside is mysteriously creating another one over here or two or three. And this is what the world hopefully is starting to catch up to... 



We'll see, but we've tried everything else. We've tried to just get rid of all the bastards; get rid all the bad people...



Q: ...evil doers...

A: ...Right. The funny thing is you notice all the evil doers - most of them really believe in their heart they are doing the right thing. Do you really think that somebody who has the wherewithal to literally sacrifice their life = like fly a jet into a building - they have to think they're doing the highest good. Just like me and you do. And when we see that, we go: "Umm, the problem here isn't some disembodied evil force. The problem is actually illusion" We do the same things. We've done it. We may have not driven a plane into somebody but we've driven our mind into somebody, haven't we? In many ways just as violently. Yeah. Does that make more...?



Q: ...Oh yeah...



A: ...more sense...

Q: ...Yeah... Thank you very much. 



A: You're welcome.

Adyashanti - Omega 2007 disk 15, transcribed by Mark Scorelle, posted to adyashantigroup

- Nonduality Highlights 3415

Mind exists, mind doesn’t exist

Nothing to do, something to do. Practice, no practice. Past, no past. Self, no self. No need to stick to either polarity, or even negate both polarities. It happens so often: people go to see nonduality teachers (or non-teachers), and hear that there is nothing they can do, so they give up and sometimes get very depressed. But look: part of the dance is that on this astonishing planet there are a million things to do, or so it would seem! This world – as every child knows – is an adventure playground. It neither exists nor doesn’t exist, but either way it’s a play. And so the whole thing ends in the absolute paradox of it all. Nothing to do, lots to do. Nothing, something. Self, no self. There is nobody, there is somebody. The opposites collapse into each other, and what is seen is that nonduality could never be understood. Run a million miles from anyone who claims to understand this! This is a plunge into the mystery, totally beyond words. That is what all the words in all the books are really pointing to.
- Jeff Foster

Not this, not that

To say "it is" is to grasp for permanence.
To say "it is not" is to grasp at nihilism.
Therefore a wise person
Does not say "it is" or "it is not".
- Nagarjuna

Nothing happens next - Beware of false gurus

Over the past four years it has become quite clear that endless YouTube videos, the plethora of so-called "nonduality websites" and the hundreds and hundreds of books on advaita nonduality (yes, including MINE) do little else but feed the seeker's addiction to more and better and different whilst that addicted seeker steadfastly ignore what never changes - The True Self.
 
There is nothing to get and no person to get that nothing. So what makes you keep seeking? Look at that and see what energy is here now that drives the seeking. That same energy propels the planets and makes the sun burn.
 
You are That. That is the entirety of this message.
 
So for this New Year I have removed the 130+ videos from YouTube. I refuse to feed this addiction! I shall for the most part let those who want to play guru continue to constantly express this in more, different and better ways on YouTube. I for ONE have had enough already! It's SO simple - This you seek is just this plain old everyday waking aware being. Nothing special!
 
I shall continue to speak - by telephone or in person (not in e-mail q and a) with sincere people who are truly committed to ENDING the search rather than argue concepts and play the guru game. I am NOT a guru, make no mistake. If you want a guru look elsewhere. Moreover if you are looking for a quiet, kind, always polite and spiritually correct charlie, forget about it! The programmed personality of charlie hayes can be described as "asshole". It may be that the primary difference between charlie and you or these gurus on YouTube may be that I KNOW that "I" am an asshole where you and they may NOT know that the Human Condition is we are all upset three year old assholes. (Look at the news!)
 
Ever notice in video clips of Nisargadatta HE appeared to be a virile, loud and red-faced angry guy? Yet can you have any doubt that his sharing was immensely potent?
 
Please read the following essay and do "beware of false prophets". The guru game comes out of a bankrupt paradigm! Ponder this also ...
 
Seeking "Wholeness, Completion, Happiness, Love or "Liberation" from "Another", whether that "revered other" be a "Guru, Guide, Lover, or Friend", is a perfect way to avoid Paradise. Paradise is THIS. Just as it Is and just as it Isn't. All seeking "out there" is a dream of a "me", foolishly knocking on the door to Paradise, from inside Paradise. Paradise is only lost in seeking it. This Loving Oneness Cannot Be Known. To "know" Oneness there would have to be a sense of separation FROM Oneness. Who cannot see the fault in that logic? 
 
Don't Buy Into "The Guru Club"!
 
A pitfall for some who are exposed to Nonduality It has been observed by many who share the Timeless Message al all being one essence, one love, one being appearing as this multidimensional dream of "me in the universe" that a common pitfall comes and the false sense of ego self comes back in the back door to claim "I GOT IT" and "I will teach it to you!"

This is a manifest lie and an expression out of a bankrupt paradigm of "guru-disciple" that has been propagated by false teachers since this so called dream began.
 
Here is how it works: You talk with a true expression - one offered by The One through such authentic non-teachers who have no students as John Wheeler, Bob Adamson, Gilbert Schultz, and John Greven. They point out the obviousness that YOU ARE and all that any book or so-called sage has EVER said is THAT is Being and THAT is inescapably what you are. And it is rigorously reaffirmed that every human  IS already THAT. There is only THAT.
 
Then you get hooked into a whole new ego trip: You join "The Guru Club". You look for others who claim "I GOT IT and I TEACH IT to those poor ignorant seekers", hang out a satsang and retreat shingle, put up a website, and proceed to rake in the bucks and rupees and euros form hapless seekers desperate to "get what YOU got".
 
This is nothing more or less than a new "spiritual ego trip". If you encounter these sites and books that hold out a promise of gaining some magical mystical "state" grab your purse or wallet and run like hell for the exit!
 
So any teaching that claims to offer "you" something you are not already, namely "enlightenment, awakening or liberation", is just flat bullshitting you. You do NOT need to go to a retreat in Arizona or India or California or a satsang in Oregon or Paris or anywhere else to BE. As Bob Adamson likes to point out, the only problem is the search itself" - how can we find what already is the fact: Your own Being, which could be called "Ordinary Awareness"?
 
So don't get sucked in by these moneychangers, these false gurus who speak one message and yet live another. They have the concepts down pat BUT that is ALL they have - concepts and "spiritual truths" (THERE is an oxymoron for you). The bottom line is that the true sharing of this Oneness simply cannot come through these Guru-Ego trips.

You cannot get what you already are any more than space can know it is space. You cannot lose what you already are any more than a tree can not be a tree.
 
You need not ever buy a "Nonduality book" again - though they can be fun to read. Just don't take 'em serious or personal!

Don't give these fakes your money! Get real and get with one who really knows that YOU cannot gain anything from them and have no agenda to rope in a flock of seekers and sell books, tapes and seminars.
 
Whether you have been seeking The Self for a long while or just starting, this website is about ending that search RIGHT NOW.
 
Then you will be neither a buyer or a seller. You will be as you are here and know: Ordinary Awareness.

Take that and BE.
 
My final concept is this: There is Only Love. All else appears IN, ON and AS That One Love, One Essence. All Is One Full Stop.
 
You cannot GET That. You already ARE That. It is an Eternally Done Deal and whenever it is and wherever it is Here You Are. The One, God, Awakeness, Buddha-Nature, Christ-Consciousness or whatever other label you like to use to point to the timeless labelless IS that IS.
 
Charlie Hayes: http://www.theeternalstate.org/

Nonduality Highlightes 3411