Copping out

Look, more meaningless concepts. If you're anything like me, you're likely very tired of hazily reading more words about something that already IS. A great podcast on Charlie's site with John Wheeler really emphasizes getting down to and investigating this for ourselves. It also exposes the whole trip about "there's no one to do that." If there really is no one to do that, it's game over, as John potently points out. This is just more food for thought, when what's being pointed to is the delicious buffet of life itself. Don't give up on this, if the issue isn't resolved. Just keep looking into this notion of the seperate self, and ignore all the needless conceptual jargon. This is so basic, I already regret this sentence. It's just a simple matter of seeing into this directly, right now. Where's any problematic self? Send me some evidence of a seperate self, and then we can see what we're dealing with. In the mean'time', all there is, is Oneness.

How enlightened am "I" today?

Waking up in the morning as a 'seeker' wasn't pleasant. I had to deal with the whole enlightenment or liberation thing for another day, as well as deal with all 'my' day to day activities. Since nonduality had become my most important preoccupation, I had to make sure I had things lined up to make sure that my trek towards liberation was on course. The focus was always within this "me" idea, and my enlightenment happening or not happening, and what "I" could or should do about it. Scott Kiloby pointed this type of thing out quite nicely, how the focus always seems to be kept firmly in self centred notions, which create the idea of a search in the first place.

I set up little markers for my 'self' about where things were in terms of liberation happening or not happening. Good feelings generally meant good 'progress,' and bad feelings were indicative of losing presence, or enlightenment power, or some equally ridiculous notion, arising in thought. Of course, what I failed to really look into was the whole notion of the seperate self, it-self.

Instead of looking into the shaky platform of "me-hood", I wanted to reinforce the platform by throwing some cool ideas about nonduality on top of it, which actually made it shakier still. What I really failed to do, was get down and busy with looking into this directly. It isn't necessarily fun or pleasant to challenge these notions. Becoming enlightened sounds so much nicer than seeing through the self that would become enlightened. Unfortunately, there's no 'self' in any case, so the issue is rendered moot. If there is still a trace of a self, just look for it, instead of paying lip service to concepts in the way I did for months. Thanks for reading, you can check out my Kilologue with Scott at http://www.kiloby.com/kilologues.php

Good feelings for "me", please.

My modus operandi for most of my life was basically, "let's get good feelings for me, right now." Life was lived in a sort of unstable pendulum, where things were good if "I" felt good, and things were bad if "I" felt bad. What I didn't notice was the lack of contentment that was present even if the mind was judging something as "good." It seemed like even in the moments of peak pleasure, there was a knowing that it would end. This was true of both physical pleasure, and the much sought after "spiritual" pleasures as well. I didn't realize that what I really wanted, was not having to seek feeling better. Wanting to feel good seems to be just a natural part of conditioning, for humans and animals alike. Once this "me" notion gets going, feeling good becomes a sort of all-encompassing obsession, since the apparent seperation is experienced as quite unbearable. (At least that's how it was here!) Moments of pleasure seemed to be all that life was about, along with an insane and vague hope that one day I would "make it," and be alright forever.

Even in my field of counselling, I wanted to make myself feel better, by making others feel better. Everything came back to this sense of a seperate self, that wanted to suck something out of the situation for its own good. I felt sort of like a complex parasite, that went along looking for better food to keep itself going, even though I loathed my own existence a lot of the time.

Once the message started hitting home, and the investigation happened, I started to deconstruct the whole hedonistic attitude I'd been living under. "What's so important about feeling good?"
"Who am I that needs to feel good?"
"Who am I that feels bad?"

In getting right up close and personal with this stuff, it's seen that there are really just movements of energy, and thoughts happening. No self in the midst of the chaos, just the chaos happening in emptiness. It seemed like I had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and get down to the bottom of the "want-er." Just a simple and earnest looking reveals the absence of this irritating and irritable 'self' that always wanted something from the "other."

Nothing for you here

Hello, if there's someone reading this, then that someone will be disappointed. Any self that reads these words will undoubtedly be looking for something in them, a hidden meaning, something to grasp hold of, a new belief system. There are no such things here, the self reading and writing isn't even acknowledged as real. The SELF that we are, though, is being pointed to as ordinary basic awareness. It reads this before "you" are even there to monkey with the message. Love doesn't need a "you" or a "me", it does fine without us, thank you very much. All of this self-perpetuating craziness is just like an attempt to put an errupting volcano out with an ice cube. Love can be red hot and fierce, burning away all our feeble mind tricks and tired resistance patterns. The reason there's nothing for you here, is because there isn't a "you" here anyway. This isn't about being cruel or hateful, it's about love reclaiming what seems to have been obscured. In my arrogance, I thought I could win the game, beat the system. Love patiently wore me down, until I gave up what I never had anway. This isn't about you, me, or anyone else. There's nothing for you here, but there's nothing for "me" either. Love is an equal opportunity destroyer.

Why am I me?!

My life was full of why questions, as I've discussed already. The core of this dilemma, is "why am I me, why am I seperate?" That was the question I wanted my parents to answer when I started to experience myself as an entity apart from What IS. Instead of seeing the root of it directly, I settled on asking more roundabout questions, like why is the sky blue, or why does daddy go to work. The answer I was really seeking, was why does it feel like paradise has been lost, in favour of "me being me." The concept of a seperate self seemed to become more apparent in experience, and I soon found myself in more complex versions of "why." The content doesn't matter, the root of it was always the same. Waking up in the morning sometimes had a terrible desperation about it, as if to say "Why am I still me?!" The experiential seperation was always the motivator for my actions, and all the actions were about making me feel better. The honest answer I could give anyone about why I did anything, was that "I want to feel good, and who cares about anything else?"

After meeting those who pointed clearly and directly, the whole dilemma of "why me" started to be investigated. There's no one that would benefit from the answering of another question, even the most profound spiritualized inquiry of "why is this so?" There's no 'me' to ask why, and no 'me' to obtain any benefit from the answer. Looking directly, there is simply wholeness, with none of the problems attributed to an imagined self. Of course, I also asked "why bother even looking into this?" A good answer might have been "why bother enduring needless suffering?" If there's suffering, it might as well be investigated, until the suffer-er is seen to be another dreamlike appearance. As one friend said: "Why? Because."

How good is "your" nonduality?

The game of nonduality can become very petty and dogmatic. I compared where "I" was in my seeing with where others seemed to be, and compared the concepts about our various 'truths.' Like many different Christian sects, there seemed to be a splintering off into these different versions of the message. I tried to find the "proper" nondual platform to stand on. I disputed with others about their version of it, and tried to find a safe place for "me," in the correct version. This isn't about any of that stuff. I don't know Jesus, but I would speculate that he wouldn't have suggested that we construct a religion, let alone many religions, around what he was saying. When the words are heard from one who is "clear" on all this, the tendency is to put that one on a pedestal, and construct a set of concepts around the message they deliver. The intention, if there is one, is to deconstruct the pre-existing concepts.

Forget about nonduality. It's not even real, there's no such thing. Instead, check to see who believes in nonduality. Find that one that's so obsessed with this new "thing" called nonduality, or whatever the mind calls it. This has always been about what You and I really are, not about fancy concepts. I don't know what nonduality is, I never did. There's no need to know what this stuff is, because it doesn't mean anything anyway. It's just a matter of seeing into this for ourselves. Who am I, that needs all this crazy stuff? I carried a world of nondualisms, different teachers, points of view, and arguments with my 'self.' Who needs all that baggage? Who would choose to carry such a burden? Just look and see, no need for more jargon. Behind all this craziness the mind becomes obsessed with, I am empty awareness. Just take the "I" out of it.

Who would choose to suffer?

Basically, the only reason I got into this nonduality thing was because I wanted to stop suffering. The things I had tried previously gave some relief from suffering: drugs, religion, therapy, and so on. Relief was experienced by an imagined entity, who seemed to need to work hard at keeping the suffering at bay. It seemed like even when these things were working well, there's was a storm cloud of personal suffering, just waiting to strike when my anesthesizing methods wore thin. Of course, what none of these things never got to the root of was the notion of a "me" who could suffer, and who seemed to be choosing to do all these various things. If I were this entity with so much power, control, and personal will, why would I choose to suffer so much, sometimes for no "external" reason? Jeff Foster speaks about how suffering IS the sufferer. I didn't want to let go of identity, so suffering seemed to be acceptable, as long as I could be a "someone." Charlie Hayes pointed out a sort of indulgence or payoff in suffering, which really struck home. The addiction to this misery is the epitome of insanity. Who would choose such a thing for him or herself? It came to the point where I would rather die than suffer anymore. Fortunately, the thing that thought it was born and could die was a total illusion, even calling it a "thing" is far too much substance. JD Hazlewood discusses the invalidity of this "I" notion, and undermines the suffering apparently generated from this conceptual spider web. Suffering is what started the apparent search, and a desire to stop suffering is what fueled it. When competent pointing was come across, the potency was always in throwing the looking back into the concepts, and revealing the absence of the suffering, defective "person." Who would choose to suffer? No one. Who's suffering right now? Check and see, if the suffer-er is found, email a detailed mug shot of it.