Urban Guru Cafe

News: - Ramesh Balsekar has passed away. - On the 27th Sept 2009. - I looked through my old tapes and found two recordings of his meetings in Bombay. An edited section of one of these tapes appears on the Urban Guru Cafe as program #54. - Thousands of 'seekers' visited Ramesh over many years. Many will be sad to hear of this news. 'His concepts' will continue to assist seekers.
He may not have been everyone's favorite guru - but the messenger is not important.
Whatever turns you around to discover your true nature is VALID.

My new website is seeing-knowing.com On that site you will find my latest writings.
After some major hick ups in the 'technical department' we at the Urban Guru Cafe shave changed servers and so resolved many problems in one flash. - The Urban guru cafe is now operating well and maybe even better than before.

Something is happening?

NEW e-book IS available - "Who do you think you are?" Details of how to get the e-book are on the new 'seeing-knowing' website.


New book by Randall Friend is now published via Non Duality Press. The title is "You are No Thing". Visit his site by clicking HERE.

NEW: German translation of selected passages from "Everything is Clear and Obvious" appear on my new website in the Writings, subsection "Translations".
A FREE PDF of this same e-book translated into Portuguese is also there. "Todo - Claro e Obvio".

My new website is now in operation and is where new notes, videos etc, are placed.


Randall Friend's his first book "You are No Thing" is published by Non Duality Press.
An interview with Randall about the book is on the UGC - the title is the same name.

Check out the latest Urban Guru Cafe Podcasts.
Tapes from Nisargdatta are being presented there. The atmosphere of the meetings comes across very well.
There is a new face-book account someone has organized about the Urban Guru Cafe.
If you have a F/B page, join the friends on the UGC F/B pages.
Warm regards - Gilbert.

The 'teacher' has had enough?

Feeling the pinch? Things looking a bit gloomy?
Check out the Urban Guru Cafe.

Note: I have been trying to track down Puppetji or the guy that does Puppetji, so that we can interview him for the UGC. If anyone has details for contacting him, please let me know. If you have not watch his youtube videos, then check them out - very funny stuff.

Here is an ancient story:
A man, sleeping on the side of the road lay with his mouth wide open….. a traveling dervish saw a snake slip into the man’s mouth and disappear.
The dervish picked up a stick and beat the man. - The man woke up and screamed and objected to this treatment, as anyone would. - The dervish was unrelenting……and continued to beat the man. - Eventually the man lost consciousness and the dervish continued to beat the body. - Then the snake came out of the man’s mouth and the dervish struck it dead with his beating stick. - The man woke up and saw the snake on the ground.
The dervish smiled at the man and quietly said “I could not tell you that you had swallowed a snake or you would have died from shock. - I did what was necessary. - You are battered and bruised - but you are alive”.
Some ‘people’ dream that they are ‘awake’ in a special way, ‘enlightened’…..that dream adds onto itself the notion of being a guru and it is often just vanity parading.
They talk about love endlessly - but the poison of vanity in them prevents that love from glowing in themselves. - If the ’snake’ sleeps one may have a few moments of exceptional love expressing itself….but the slightest impression of being special awakens the snake and a spiritual empire is built upon vanity.
Examples of this abound this world.
King Solomon says “Vanity vanity, all is vanity under the sun”.

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A friend wrote and told me he was thinking of dissolving his web presence and opting out of the Non Duality 'scene'.
Who wants to be in a 'scene' anyway. - There is no option to get out of Non Duality - because it is what 'we all are' without the 'we' and the 'all'.
All is not One - One is appearing as All.
My response to his email is here below, as a matter of interest.
"Yeah - I know how that feels (to want to give it all away) - yet it all just plays itself out (as it does).
The 'truth of being' is like a light that shines...(As SEEING-KNOWING) - it seems to be dim in 'the many' - (and they long for it - but are unwilling to 'pay the price')
When the light of knowing shines on the 'me' - it is revealed for what it is -
getting anyone to look directly at 'the belief in me' is like trying to shovel runny shit up hill - yet every now and then ....one out of those 'many' - hears something - sometimes something that 'we' don't expect or intend them to hear - everyone is a unique expression of THAT.
Respect for everyone just as they are, is what we call compassion - it arises spontaneously - can't be taught, learned or contrived by the mind.
I always laugh when I read the spiel of some guru or teacher who proclaims to be able to teach compassion. - It is such a fraudulent concept but very profitable it seems - playing on the ignorance of the masses.
As messengers 'we' may well need to look at the 'driving force' and the 'spin offs', the perks and payoffs - and examine whether there is some expectation hiding there - some 'self-image' that needs to be fed.
Being 'a wise one' can be seductive (for any residue of belief in 'me' - evidence of that is found in many of the popular teachers).
Being ordinary is so easy and free from a lot of crap - 'I have avoided' getting labeled as a teacher so far.
I move around without being hassled by seekers.
I do a few emails and notes on the web - and a few HEAR something.
I cannot predict who will hear it and who wont. - Actually I don't care. - Even in the ones who hear it - there is no one left to be grateful - no big checks arrive - because they see through the me completely.
Gratitude may arise - but the one who would give all and everything for this understanding has gone, vanished - so no check comes.
Ramesh said when I was visiting his meetings in Bombay many years ago that "when the check arrives" he knows that they 'got it' - that is BULLSHIT - I reckon (But he was a Banker most of his life and old habits die hard). I am not having a go at him - only the behavior, the appearance and the guru game.
The best book that ever came through that pattern, in my opinion was the first one "Pointers from Nisargadatta".
I witnessed what I would call 'devious manipulation' going on - the power of 'suggestion' to donate larger sums of money - equivalent to their gratitude etc.
That 'bit' did not feel so 'right' and I ended up donated nothing at all.
Maybe you will notice how the teacher, in these 'tight financial times' will emphasize how important it is to keep your 'fees' paid up to date. They don't want to feel the pinch. "Your development depends on your continued contribution - and it will help you so much more if you sacrifice even more"...or some such bullshit.

You can't BUY this 'knowledge' and to imagine that you can is just imagination and ignorance.
Those who run expensive seminars and workshops are just business people dressed in the guru dressage.
Many times I had the impulse to pull my website down - because it seems that no one really wants to cut away the bullshit in their own lives. It seems that 'they' do everything in their power to preserve that believed in 'entity'.
If we drop the biased MISSIONARY complex - and just BE - our very existence touches others - in unexpected ways.
I don't care one way or another.
Everything leads back to non duality - or away from it -we have no choice which 'path' we are on - and BOTH are an illusion.
The Universe breathes OUT and it breathes IN.
Can't have one without the other.
The same Principle is self evident in us - is us and is everything.

Inner Guide - is there one?

“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.” Jane Austin from Mansfield Park.

In our ‘journey’ we have all been informed by life.
We may all have come to various conclusions about life and its meaning.
When someone asked Nisargadatta - “What is the meaning of life?” – He answered “Living is the only meaning of life.”
‘Living’ is not a concept. Without it, life, there would be no question about meaning and no answer(s) either.
If we study the ‘evidence’ presented by scientists about the activities of neurons and synapses in the brain it doesn’t take much to conclude that behavior and the belief system itself could well be related to the ‘network’ that ‘builds’ itself in the brain.
The argument about the differences between brain and mind go back centuries and NO satisfactory ‘answer’ has ever put ‘an end’ to the debate.
‘Quantum Physics’ has postulated that the ‘observer’ plays a role in the ‘observation’.
They are intertwined. So-called ‘objective facts’ are postulated and argued over.

In this so-called ‘field of self-enquiry’ or what we may call the subject of ‘Non Duality’ the concept of being an observer is ‘important’ – a useful ‘tool’ to investigate ‘present evidence’ or ‘what is’.
The usefulness of the concept of being an observer ceases to be needed in the ‘moment’ of recognizing that the ‘observer’ is merely a conceptual appearance in what we call ‘mind’. In the ‘moment’ of recognizing that the ‘thinker’ is merely another thought is the same equation. It does not matter how much ‘I’ or ‘anyone’ talks or conceptualizes about this ‘moment of insight’, it cannot have any true value unless this ‘moment of insight’ ‘happens’.
As the old saying goes “You can lead a horse to water – but you CANNOT make the horse drink”.
The attachment to these habitual frameworks in ‘mind’ is due to the identification – the fabricated ‘entity’ and the ‘patterns of belief’.
The apparent bondage is what we can call ‘identification’.

The fabric of this so-called identification dissolves in the ‘moment’ of SEEING the ‘fabric’ – One SEES from beyond the fabric that ‘I am not this fabric’.
The value of such ‘seeing’ can not be quantified or evaluated by the mind. In fact the mind is the fabric and yet the ever-present true nature of mind is ‘emptiness’.
The potency of “You are not the body – you are not the mind” has the capacity to cut through the habitual activities of mind.

In a way, to mention these ‘sayings’ or ‘pointers’ is not so helpful.
The problem is we get used to hearing these ‘pointers’ and the ‘mind’ may well have already built a ‘defense mechanism’.
Knowing this equation, it would seem that, I have made every effort to present new ‘angles’ for looking at these ‘things’.
Many, it would appear, have not reaped any benefit from this and it would also appear that a few have.
Looking at things from the perspective of being the phenomenal appearance, the pattern, it looks like THIS is a ‘big deal’.
Seeing from clear and present, naked awareness, it is no big deal at all.
In not playing any games about being an enlightened being, guru or teacher, leaves one free to move without getting stuck in the ‘honey jar’.
You may have a hundred horses at your water hole, or a thousand, yet you cannot make them drink.
The ‘odd one or two’ that actually ‘drink’ may be any one of them or even a stray that wanders down to the water hole.
Most usually that habitual attachment to body and mind is ‘seemingly’ to strong.
The grossness and the subtleness of that attachment appears to run deep.
Therefore many come up with a concept of ‘Grace’ and this would appear to be a self-calming ‘devise’ and the ‘dark side of it’ is that ‘I am unworthy’ – ‘I must strive to become worthy’.
All conceptual notions merely appear and disappear.
Awareness is ‘at all times’ beyond the grasp of conceptualizing and the realm of thoughts. That is WHY all these things are ‘known’.
Giving them some value, is the realm of mind content and an ‘entity’ that evaluates.
Awareness is clear and untouched by the content.
Knowing that is not the knowing of some entity – it is the nature of knowing.

There is ONLY self-realizing happening - without a 'self'.

....and 'WHO' is it that takes anything to be real and true or to be a problem?
Is it true versus false? - Is it right versus wrong?
Can duality have anything to do with Non Duality?
Can there actually be any duality in Non Duality?
The KNOWING is uncompromising - every falsehood is exposed before belief can get 'a foothold'.
Not Two is what One without a second means. There is ONLY ONE KNOWING happening - and that knowing is happening right NOW, right there where 'you' are 'appearing to be'.
The ONE does not need the 'appearance' - the appearance of 'another’ to KNOW.
So often ‘people’ learn the language of Non Duality but they still hang onto a ’spiritual self-image’ and all the concepts about time and progress - ‘I got it and they have not got it’. It is all crap - all of it. When a Guru sits on his platform he is indulging in a grand illusion of separateness - yet he speaks of Non Duality - what a sham.
The meetings are given a fancy name ‘Satsang’. I say Bunkum. A meeting is a meeting - simple as that - and anyone worth his salt (a so called teacher) meets others in equanimity BECAUSE he does not perceive separation and so he does not energize the fantasy of separation by inference or by his teaching or words.
If you can’t handle the HEAT, get out of the FIRE.
It is the fire that destroys illusions of ME.
All this preference for being NICE is bunkum - there is no entity - Full Stop. But this cannot be a belief or theory - it must be KNOWING.
AWARENESS is NON DUAL.
There is nothing stuck anywhere. This is clearly obvious in the very nature of SEEING itself. Everything without a single exception is an appearance in this clear and immaculate seeing.
What is appearing?
It is all LIGHT appearing as sensations, impressions and what we commonly call ‘matter’.
Does a light beam stop and get stuck anywhere - does it ever compound into anything? If it bounces between two mirrors does it need to take a rest and recharge itself?
Everything is awareness appearing as this and that.
The mind cannot grasp the essence of THIS.
The mind is only an appearance in THIS.
It is all energy - ONE singular EXPRESSION - too minute and too vast for the mind to grasp.
The INSTRUMENT of cognition is an appearance in the cognition. The EYE is not seeing anything - it is a mere instrument. The EAR does not hear anything either.
A dead body obviously cannot ‘do’ anything. Without that life essence the instruments which are actively functioning right now - they could not function.
It is the arrogating ‘ego’ that says “I see, I hear and I do all of these things”.
The ego is an image - it is not the enemy as long as it is understood for what it is, it can serve very well. If it believes it is the life-force then it runs a muck and ’causes all kinds of unnecessary dramas. Yet it is all nothing but this expression - non duality appearing as ‘many’.
Everything that ‘you see’ is the same expression - the stillness of the finest spiderweb or a Mac Truck speeding down a freeway.
It is ALL contained in the SINGULAR SEEING.
The WHOLE manifestation is the SEAMLESS GARMENT - no beginning and no end. No edge and no center.
Everything ‘you know’ is nothing but this IMMEDIATE Expression. There is NO PAST. A memory is the same expression arising NOW.
It is NAKED AWARENESS. Unadorned natural presence does not need a concept.
It is the mind that seemingly needs concepts for without them it disappears.
Even though the mind disappears - what you ARE remains.
This is the only ‘thing’ you need to KNOW.
KNOWING this includes everything of the relativity.
Each fraction of the relative is the Absolute.
There is NO individual self realization.
It is ALL Self-Realizing - Just AS IT IS.
In the First Instant (the ONLY instant) of recognizing THIS, there may ‘appear’ a dissolving pattern of belief and the remnants may ‘feel’ like ‘humbleness’. This passes just as everything passes - YET what you are remains.
For a ‘lucky one’ there will be an uncompromising intelligence that will destroy any concept that arises regarding ‘I am now enlightened’.
The ‘unfortunate ones’ engage with that concept and take on the story of being an enlightened ‘guru’ - which is a falsehood of the grandest magnitude.
This is how it has been revealed ‘here’. Since this in incontestable as the immediate and is the direct experiencing RIGHT NOW, and so it is NOT relying on any concept (which is time), ‘I’ can say with absolute certainty that ‘This revelation’ is totally available to ‘anyone’ and IMMEDIATELY - as long as there is a dropping of any concepts that may arise and that there is no engagement in them - in the habitual way that everyone (’people’) so often ‘appear’ to do.
Letting this revelation ’sink into ones being’ takes one beyond duality - where one has truly ALWAYS been - yet forgotten ’somehow’.
Understanding is SILENT.
This is impossible to share with anyone - yet ‘pointing happens’. Most often it is not recognized because of the habit of going with the minds translation and the BELIEF that that translation is reality. Reality is unchanging - you have NEVER not been THAT. But the mind will throw up all kinds of arguments - YOU must tell it to be quiet - even if only for a MOMENT - THIS moment is ACTUALLY ‘Eternity’. Self-Realizing - The ACTUALITY.
As it IS.

The Urban Guru Cafe - check it out.

The Urban Guru Café is a new incentive to make a variety of 'speakers' available in one 'spot' .
This last month of November sky rocketed in individual downloads of the programs.
The monthly graph of the site is a steady rising ‘mountain’ and it hasn’t peaked yet.
There are so many good programs on the site.
I suggest that you listen to the ones you have not listened to as yet.
The Urban Guru Café is a FREE service.
It is a fresh incentive BUT there are costs that are covered by the makers of the programs - Areti and myself - there is no one else directly involved in the programs 'evolution' - so to speak.
Actually, it is hard enough to get anyone at all to do the simplest thing for us, I find.
The UGC does not rely on anyone’s donation and the makers of the programs give their time and skills freely as do all of the participants, the guests.
If you wish to donate a few dollars, please use the donation tab on my website.
Half a dozen have ventured to take the plunge and we thank them for their generosity.
We will probably arrange a donation tab on the UGC site in due course.
If you do actually appreciate what is offered on the UGC and you find some value in it, then a donation is a way of expressing that appreciation.
It all helps but please be assured that it is NOT a requirement.

Well, on behalf of Areti and 'my good self' I would like to thank you for all the visits and downloads you may well have made at the UGC - Stay tuned.


Where is the immaculate, clear seeing right now?
It does not disappear just because a thought comes along.

Where is God now?

Check out the latest Urban Guru Cafe programs click here.

Relativity has no value whatsoever - unless you give it some - and SO..since everything is related to everything else - so nothing has any value unless YOU give it value.
Your Guru has no value except the value you give him.

And YET all relativity is nothing but the ABSOLUTE - which is the Ultimate Value.

You ARE the absolute.
THAT is stationary, motionless, silent.
It is THAT through which everything appears to move - as the sensations of LIFE - this Pulsation of duality appearing in this Singular Presence.
The life of this living movement is called Wakefulness.

Who is asleep? - Who is awake?

Everything is the potentiality of yourself.

There is no one who slips in and out of this NOW.

There is no one who 'becomes' anything other than what they ARE.

Everyone is THAT.

You will not be the last to realize THIS.

You are the FIRST to realize anything - everything else is an appearance in THAT wakefulness.

Are you not Awake?

Cease from entertaining stories about waking up in some 'future time'.

Those who speak of such 'things' as future deliverance are nothing but weak sniveling creatures - and notice one common theme - they always want your money, over and over, like Charles Dickens' character 'Fagen', living off the labors of the poor unwanted children of the world.

Are you not awake?

Where is GOD now?

Can you truly separate HIM or what HE is meant to 'represent' from yourself?

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
The ordering of my books or CD's has ceased to be available.- I do not have access to my website and cannot remove the notices and links for the ordering of the books and CD's....ect. - The one who handles such things has not been contactable for many months.
The only access I have to this site is to place these Notes here via a preset code. - Please do not, DO NOT order the books or CD's. - I apologize for this inconvenience. - It may be rectified or the website may cease to operate altogether at some point. - I know it looks unprofessional but there is nothing I can do about it.
Note for today:

Where is God Now?
Who wants to know?
The word ‘God’ could be said to be a most sacred name, a word for the creator of all that is. - Many believe this to be so. - That word is uttered millions upon millions of times everyday upon this insignificant planet, not to mention any of the untold number of other possible planets throughout the Universe.
"Acknowledge him in all thy ways and he will guide you".
"Do not take the name of God in vain". .....so says the scriptures.
In some religions the 'image' of 'God' is forbidden to be fabricated by the hands of man.
Isn't this because it is impossible to make an image of 'God'. - Since all things are 'made by HIM' so everything has 'His signature'. - The use of the male gender 'him' is merely a language issue.
'God' naturally includes both genders 'Adam and Eve' in HIS CREATION, the Garden of Eden (the Kingdom of Heaven).
At this point many will turn off and tune out - because of that word 'God' - it just brings too much up in the mind - so they have to tune out - go find something else to engage their mind with - distract them from the possible turmoil that this word brings to the surface.
But let's go on, without them......
Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden because they ate 'the fruit of the tree of good and evil'.
They began to believe in words as if they were reality - and it is words that separate and divide the 'Kingdom', the natural unity of One Presence. - So 'the drama of life' appears to have come about. - What is it that divides your mind? - What are the conflicts made of? -Beliefs? -Words?
Oddly enough many wars have been fought in the name of this ‘God’ and each opposing army may believe that ‘God is on their side’. - We even hear the concept of there being such a thing as a ‘Holy War’. - So, it would seem that within this creation that the singular creator has created, there appears extremely destructive forces at play, killing machines called ‘men’.
The problem of using the word ‘God’ is in the fact that everyone has their own ‘idea; of what ‘God’ is. - As soon as someone mentions the word ‘God’ a whole array of associative thought patterns line up in the mind like soldiers, usually ready to enter into battle. - So an argument, a battle, is already under way, before any ‘shots’ are taken.
The only way out of this battle is through agreement.
As soon as you agree with ‘the opposition’ the wind in their sails is taken away.
It takes two to tango. - If one party withdraws from the battle, the ‘dance is over’.
If you are in a heated argument with someone, watch his or her face when you say, “I totally agree with you”. - There will be a reconfiguration of the facial muscles; a flickering of a thousand expressions flash across their face, reflecting the way the mind is trying to re-arrange its ‘position’.
Where is ‘God’ during all this activity? - Isn’t ‘he or she’ the creator of it all?
Even Lucifer was created by HIM. - So if this is so, is ‘God’ playing games with us all?
All of the stories about ‘God’, the creation and everything are also included in this ‘creation’.
Now in the old book it says that ‘In the beginning there was nothing’. - Before light and time. - Now if one is to engage with this account, this story, then one must conclude that ‘God’ was ‘there’ prior to his creation. - Does not that mean that ‘God’ was the nothing out of which all the creation was expressed?
Does this not mean that ‘God’ is nothing?
For the mere sentient beings, even though the essence of what they are is ‘God’, all they have to play with is a concept about what ‘God’ is.
If one researches the meaning of the word ‘Allah’ you will find that the word means ‘nothing’.
At the center of the Mayan Calender, which is so popular at the moment, there is a symbol. If you research the meaning of that symbol, you will find that it means ‘nothing’.
Now if you investigate the space within which the SEEING is happening, in yourself, you will find that same ‘nothing’.
It is NOT an empty void.
It is the unborn mind. No mind.
It is One without a second.
Having the courage to investigate this does not come from a ‘personal volition’ or ‘self-will’. - The courage is that invincible ‘nothing’ which ‘was’ here before what we call ‘God’ created space and time.
No, how can you possibly separate that ‘God’ from what you truly are?
Like the prodigal son is celebrated on his return, when the discrimination between naked awareness and insubstantial beliefs happens, there is a ‘causeless joy’ self-evident in this realization.


Visit The Urban Guru Cafe and listen to some of the programs on Non Duality.

The Immediate nature of Presence.

Notice: The transcript of Bob Adamson's recent interview (parts 1 and 2) has been produced as a booklet. - This document will assist those who have a little difficulty in hearing what Bob is saying, due to the accent. - In my opinion this document is one of the clearest expressions of the barest essentials for breaking through 'belief'.
We have not set up a new ordering system for it as yet. - The easiest way is to use the donation tab on the shining through the mind website - donate $15 US and make a note that it is the Booklet called - "An interview with Sailor Bob Adamson" that you wish to be sent to your address or someone else's address.
Local Australians, or those in NZ, make a payment of $16AUS - (due to postal cost differences).
The booklet will be posted to you promptly. - Listening to the Urban Guru Cafe Interview while reading through the text, will dismiss a lot of confusion about what is being pointed out. The booklet is also a fabulous document on its own.

Note:
You may have noticed less notes appearing on this site. - Some of my time has been taken up with putting the Urban Guru Cafe programs together. - The most recent one is on John Wheeler.
The month of October saw approximately 3,500 downloads of programs from The Urban Guru Cafe. This is a bit of a surprise for us. And we haven't sold even one cup of coffee. Things took off with the two programs on Bob Adamson's interview.
Downloads doubled in a period of less than two weeks. It has not stopped climbing.
Being FREE and also free from advertising makes it clean from diversions.
The comments pages have been hot also.

I am going to 'go out on a limb' and predict that some 'small waves of change' are going to grow bigger and we will see some unprecedented 'things' start to happen.

Here are two extracts from comments I have placed on the comments page of the Urban Guru Cafe site, pointing out the difference between direct pointing and the time bound teachings that are far more popular.
"The ‘location’ cannot be found because the ‘loca’ is actually ALL INCLUSIVE.
There is no boundary to THIS Presence of KNOWING. - This a far too obvious and vastly more subtle than any concept - and it is ever present - that is why the mind misses it.
The mind divides THIS ‘one’ into multiplicity. - Into Higher and lower, Consciousness and Awareness etc. - Where is the problem? - “Who’ has a problem? - That is the key point but everyone seems to slip past that one. - Where is the problem? - It is in the naming of ‘things’ - that is where the ‘problem’ enters center stage - the naming of that clear and present space of KNOWING - naming that as ‘I’ or ‘me’. - If you investigate the object (any object) the ‘form’ appears to transform into ever more refined details, then (apparently) they dissolve into sub-atomic particles which all float in space.
They then dissolve into particles of energy called quarks - but this is naming - all theory. - The instant the fixation on the object dissolves in mind, the object and the subject vanish into Naked Seeing.
‘Mind’ is a ‘name’ just like any other named appearance in or on Awareness. SEEING remains whether you zoom in or zoom out. The change in perspective does not alter or change the pure function of SEEING.
The power of cognition appears to increase or decrease. - For example a pair of binoculars seems to bring things closer - (the loca appears to expand) the seeing appears to be further - yet the seeing is the same uninterrupted unbound SEEING.
It is NOT some mysterious acquisition - it includes what we call ‘ordinary seeing’.
Whatever insight one appears to have - the seeing remains totally available.
The ‘obstacle’ of closing the eye lids may alter the view but it does not alter the ‘function’ of seeing.
SEEING is not limited to the eyes. - EVERYTHING is ‘in the SEEING’.
Investigate this sense of presence - see if it has a hard core label attached.
In the Seeing that the ‘me’ does not exist NOW (and as Bob points us) there is (an impersonal) seeing that it never did exist at any time (in the so-called past). - Even the evidence that presents itself belongs to relativity.
The SEEING remains untouched and empty. - There is NO entity in the SEEING. - There is NO entity in pure Understanding. - Anyone who claims to be ’something’ is just a pattern appearing.
You can follow gurus or teachers, believe in all the spiritual nonsense and it remains the same. - The liberation from the idea of being a ’self’ is actually for no one - the SEEING is with Naked Awareness. - All arguments fall away. Are we all actors on a stage playing roles? - Is there a ‘me’ or a ‘we’?
‘The stage’ is just a feature of the ever-unfolding way it ‘appears’ to be. - How can ‘word’ create a problem? - Have a look - see for yourself." -



A more controversial comment:

"The traditional teachers merely pay lip service to Non Duality. - They do not dwell on this point because their whole teaching requires that the ‘seeker’ must stay ‘trapped’ in the ever-continuing search in ‘time, method and practice’.
The fact is that it only takes one moment to SEE through the concept of being ‘someone bound in time’. - In that ‘moment’ the whole business of teacher-pupil falls apart.
The ‘problem’ for traditional teachers and gurus is that that instant of insight is completely available right now and it cannot be SOLD.
How can anyone sell that instant of seeing reality? - You can’t.
The only thing you can sell to seekers is some sort of delay tactics, some method to learn and some practice to do repeatedly. - All of which engages the mind in a seeking mode, which enhances the belief in that ‘someone’. - It seemingly adds some sort of substance to the belief. The Urban Guru Café is here to give access to those who by pass the erroneous teachings."

A Note:

It is safe to glorify the dead guru. - We can make him into a ‘god’ without any fear of having to confront our erroneous beliefs. - Sri Nisagadatta Maharaj is admired from afar as a Great Teacher. - But how many of these admirers could actually have faced him directly? - He was naturally uncompromising.
It is fashionable to have his book “I am That” on the bookshelf or in the case of being a teacher, to say that “I realized that I was in the same state as him”. - It is good for business - 'name dropping' is what we commonly call it.
The living one, the one who speaks directly of this immediate freedom from ‘the bondage of self’ is mostly ignored in the scheme of things. - They make no distinction between themselves and Nisargadatta (or anyone else) - except to acknowledge that there appears to be separate bodies expressing the same essential message in different words. - It is interesting to note that Nisargadatta was not accepted by his peers and they complained that he was not teaching what Siddaharameshwar (their guru) had taught. - One may recognize that certain patterns appear to repeat themselves.
Someone like Bob Adamson is not celebrated far and wide. - Yet I know of no one who expresses the basics as clearly and as precisely as he. - There is a profound potency in his ‘teaching’. All of the Indian tradition has been eliminated making it far easier to imbibe but one must follow what is pointed out. - Seeing the truth of it is the recognition that is usually missing.
I see that it is, on the most part, just not ‘heard’ by so many – it is not appreciated for what it is. - Why is this so? - It is because ‘people’ do not know how to listen without the mind interpreting everything almost instantly.
Over several years, I have taken part in making Bob’s message more accessible, by doing some books, CD’s and more recently the Urban Guru Café incentive. - There is still an old pattern of belief that comes up here - "why don't they hear it?" - Of course the answer is obvious.
Few would be as familiar as I with what Bob is expressing over recent years and it is on that basis that I encourage you to listen to the latest interview with him. - I see most clearly that the two programs contains everything one needs to SEE through the mind and its habits.
- Visit the Urban Guru Cafe and listen. - A mountain guide can deliver you safely to the mountain top - and the view is crystal clear - but you must open your eyes (mind) and SEE it for yourself. - Bob's expose is an expression of 'opening the mind'.

There, that is one way of expressing it. - The rest is up to you.





News: The Urban Guru Cafe is asking for questions to be put to a guest speaker coming up soon. Please send your questions to the producer via the email contact at the top of their site: named as CONTACT.
A new program on the Urban Guru Cafe is uploaded regularly. - John Wheeler is the latest addition.
The recent interview with Bob Adamson, in my opinion, is the cream of them all. - It is a remarkable interview (Split into two parts). - Remarkable because of various things - one being that it has a quality of 'up close and personal' which is not always found in the meeting recordings. - Bob very clearly exposes one after another, many erroneous ideas that 'we' hold onto in our misunderstanding of Non Duality. - The accent may be a problem for some.
I am sure that insights will pop up from simply listening to it. - Listen to part 1 before part 2 as they are consecutive.
It does not matter 'who' your teacher is, or if you have one or not - listen to this interview with an open mind. - It is highly revealing for anyone, no matter 'who' you think you are nor where you are in this life - as long as you 'hear it' clearly. - It transcends all traditions and beliefs.
It is presented in two parts. - They are download-able NOW. - Click on the blue or mauve words in the first sentence above.

The UGC continues to provide a growing number of free programs from clear speakers on the subject of Non Duality. - It is a radical challenge to the traditional views on 'spirituality'. - The programs continue to draw more and more listeners as the weeks go by. - If you have not tasted what is on offer, then why not visit the site now.
You can download the various programs or listen on line.

The eye doesn't say "I see" - Listen



The second voice is Eliot Weber.

Voice cut 2


The other voice is Eliot Weber

Note: Private consultations via Skype with Gilbert are available: - Email contact, to arrange - gilbert.schultz AT gmail.com (replace the AT with @)

A NOTE:
“The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light.” - from the Bible

This can be interpreted as: There is only one seeing happening.
Seeing is not limited to the patterns that appear in the seeing.
In the simplicity of dropping the concept that ‘I see’ then one is freed from the believed in pattern of the ‘me’, which cannot see at all. How can a thought (the thought ‘me’) see?
So, what you are seeking (in the mind) you already ARE.
So, even the idea of something being freed from a limited view is just in the appearance - what I am has never been limited. As was expressed by one 'teacher', mid last century (paraphrasing): "You are the Unlimited Infinite Being. Then you take yourself to be a limited creature. Then you create methods and practice in order that you can free yourself from these limitations. But if these methods and practices themselves (actually) imply the existence of these limitations - HOW can they free you from those limitations?"
One may see that the whole 'seeker's journey' is a fabrication, one that has no solution - just more and more seeking.
What is being pointed to here is always about one fundamental equation. It is expressed in a thousand ways. Whether it is 'heard' or not is a mystery for the mind. What the mind itself appears in has no paradox or mystery to it. Realizing THIS indescribable FACT can only be pointed at. Seeing the truth of it appears to require that beliefs step aside to allow pure seeing-knowing to 'register cleanly'.
It IS as it always has been.
Wakefulness is un-interrupted, clear and precise, without an 'entity' to 'get in the way'.

(Ed: surely this sinks in by now?)

Today's Note:

Still looking for an answer?
The words are understood immediately, are they not?
You cannot slip anything between the immediate registration of the words and the immediate understanding of those words.
Our problems are beliefs in conceptual notions that we have taken on board.
The conflict between these concepts and their incompatibility with what is real, is not resolvable by reason - or are they? - Have you ever managed to resolve the restlessness of seeking an answer - by thinking it through? - Isn't that just an endless proliferation of endless thoughts, ideas and conclusions? - No lasting peace of mind is ever achieved and clear understanding keeps slipping away - or seems to.
There is no great understanding to gain or achieve. - The natural understanding that is happening right now is the only understanding that there is. - The knowing that is happening right now is the only knowing that there is.
This knowing and this understanding is not to be found in the translations of the mind.
The mind may express something clear about these pure functions but the expressions about them are not the pure functions.
Seeing, knowing and understanding are un-interrupted. - It is the character, the 'seer', the 'knower' and the 'understander' that are transient appearances.
The habit of believing what the mind tells us, as if that is 'reality', is where we miss the luminous evidence of immediate knowing, seeing and understanding.

'Who' is this one that misses the obvious?

Everything is actually clear and obvious.
Yes, it is.
The intellect may argue as much as it likes but it has no ideas of its own.
It does not even know the 'how or why' to these thoughts that arise in the first instant.
'The intellect' is intelligence appearing as another expression, appearing as an idea, another reference point, in the so-called mind. - Is there an intellect if you don't think about it? - There is intelligence - who would argue about that?
A story is attached to the idea of 'me' and a 'sense of self' is woven out of concepts – it is all nothing more than appearances - just like anything else.
We appear to particularize 'things' - It is one intelligence, expressing and appearing as everything.
One might say that such news is a violation of the self-center's private real estate.
It appears to be too shocking to even contemplate for some.
The resistance, if any, that may arise to any words that expose an old belief, is a perfect opportunity to immediately explore the central belief of being a ‘person’.
Any pointer that points beyond the mind's habitual activities actually cuts straight to the core. - It may stir up some 'primal fear'. - But let's not labels things too quickly.
Our habits of mind are not doing us any favors usually. - They just support the status quo. - The status quo is bondage of self - and the self that is bound is nothing but an idea. - The bondage is also made of concepts. - A mirage does not hold any water in it.
Now we might say that a seasoned professor has little chance of escaping his own mental prison - because he has covered everything from every angle - or so he 'thinks'.
Some professors believe that they have all the answers to everything - all tucked away in their intellect. - It is arrogance. - Some gurus play the same game.

'Many years' of believing in the personal powers of mind leave little room for a clear and open view to take place. - This is one reason why a simple man or woman, someone we may describe as 'not all that bright', they can and do recognize that what the mind is doing is not the living being-ness - it is not the clear awareness - it is just an expression within that awareness - that being-ness. - The simple one is often more balanced with all their senses actively present and so they are less caught up in the head, like most modern 'successful individuals' are. - What tortured lives some individuals seem to endure - simply because they have not explored what is really going on.
Hearing this makes one wonder, does it not?
But lets not get lost in thought. - Let me invite you to look now at your immediate experiencing.
This presence that you are is not an idea. - The thoughts that arise in this presence are quite often about the ‘me’ that one imagines that one is. - Everything is referred to that me. - Yet in looking right now, do you SEE any 'me' or any of those thoughts?
You may notice an ephemeral 'ripple' of where they seemingly were. - They cannot withstand the clear seeing - they vanish. - Were they ever there?

There is a clear space in which all the activity (of mind and also everything) happens or seemingly happens within.
That clear space is the master key – it is 'the way out' of the confines of the mind.
Explore this now.


The direct and immediate experiencing is WAKEFULNESS - it is NOT of being a ‘person’.
Explore what is being pointed out for yourself. - Don't take my word for it - that would be a total waste of this 'opportunity'.
It is extremely difficult to point out in terms that the mind can accept and yet it is extremely simple also because it is a FACT.
It is the most obvious factor of your immediate existence – and that is why it is overlooked by the mind, which is basically a process in 'time' - and it cannot SEE - it appears in the seeing-knowing.

The direct and immediate experiencing is not of being a person.
This presence is un-mediated presence.
What we call the ‘seeker’ can never access this direct and immediate experiencing not because it misses it or can’t find it but because the seeker is NOT the pure functioning – it has no senses whatsoever – its apparent being is a time-bound transparent belief, 'once removed' from anything real.
The experiencing is ONLY ever the immediate nature of presence. It is wordless and yet all words appear in that wordless presence.
The mind realm of belief is an ephemeral ‘floating’ commentary, like castles in the clouds.
What is fairly obvious is that everyone takes this running commentary (of theirs) to be very real and the substance of the subject (me) in it, to be also very real.
The direct and immediate, un-mediated experiencing of all such things is of them being appearances and that naturally includes the concept of being a ‘person’ that appears within that realm of patterns - appearances.
If that ‘person’ is not consciously included 'in the open nature of seeing', then the mind is weaving stories around that 'person', that ‘me’ and it is that basic story that obscures the clear view. - So, in such cases, instead of 'the pure experiencing' being the undeviating nature of presence, the ‘story of me’ consistently unfolds as a personalized drama - it is all interpreted as experiences of 'me'. - A believed in story.
'Who' is the believer?
Something is happening to 'someone' and the bias of that story is all about ‘me’.
It is translated by the mind as ‘My point of view’.
Strangely enough, people imagine that this 'story of me' can transpose into something called 'a personal enlightenment'. - Which is nothing but a fancy story, made of dreams, woven from all kinds of imaginary notions gathered from books and hearsay or faded past experiences.
It is a cloak one wears in a state of delusion – it has no substance, yet it gets to be very heavy (for me) after several decades of practices and methods that simply don’t work.
One grows tired of never arriving.
Demolishing these stories is not a welcome option ‘in most people's book’.
They would rather cling to their flimsy 'hope' than to discard the dream and really SEE what is truly going on.
The difficult 'point' to 'get across' (the boundary of imagined separation) is that no time or process is necessary. - That just seems to be totally unbelievable but as the old saying goes 'the truth is stranger than fiction'.
The personalized baggage (history) that is being carried around is weighing them down and their attachment to it is because of the habit and investment in ‘the story of me’.
It is my story – ‘I am going to get enlightened’. - ‘I cannot believe that all my effort over so many years has been unnecessary and what I believe that I have achieved already is of no value’.
Even what people describe enlightenment to be is obviously the burden-less nature of clear and presence consciousness. - What is the nature of your burden? - Is it not belief in things that are not real? - Like the story of me? - ‘I am not worthy of enlightenment’ and ‘I need to purify myself’? - The perpetuation of such notions is due to belief and because these beliefs have never been examined closely, de-constructed or revealed to be nothing but beliefs. - Insubstantial notions.
The mind says "It can't be that simple".
The simplicity of it is not a judgment of mind - it is a FACT of being.
If you drop all thought for just a moment – then clear and present naked awareness is revealed to be here. - It may be too subtle to recognize straight off – due to the habit of being with the gross nature of beliefs still reverberating (echoing) through you. - Drop the thoughts repeatedly as often as you can. - Taste this naked presence over and over and the subtle nature of presence itself will reveal itself most clearly. - You will not be able to describe it because the mind has no words for it. - Do not grasp at it – let it be.
At some point a revelation may arise – then a thought may come, ‘Ah, I am now enlightened’.
Have no truck with such thoughts. - Drop it because it will surely 'turn into' another form of bondage and you will end up like any one of these (very popular) dime a dozen gurus, who are so obviously pretentious salesmen of the truth.
Enlightenment is never a personal achievement – it is the very nature of All Existence – without a single exception. - It is ALL Inclusive - It is ALL Light. - Ever fresh - and it never compounds into anything that is separate from itself.
It is ALL THAT – Just AS IT IS.

No 'me' ever 'gets' enlightened.

'People' fall for it over and over - the personalized story of an individual who becomes enlightened. - Yet it is never 'me'. - The clear light of knowing is clouded by 'the story of me'. - The 'me' is a cloud, a formation of thoughts that comes and goes. - It cannot see or know anything. - Mass belief in a story is just that.
In the clear space of direct experiencing (always immediate) everything is an appearance in that - there is no one else, no others and the reference point 'me' is just another appearance. - Seeing that is not knowledge - it is knowing, direct and immediate - lose sight of it and the mind rushes back into belief in duality.
The 'me' gathers apparent substance and belief rolls out a whole 'new' realm of drama (old repeating patterns regurgitated as if real).
The popular beliefs of the masses, the 'herd mentality', is not going to help you - it actually enslaves that 'you' of belief - that 'me of memory'. - It is all stories and nothing but stories.
The only way to go is: Use the intelligence that is totally available (to you) - it is what you are. This investigation is not analysis paralysis - it is simply SEEING what is.
It is happening right now - belief in what the mind is telling us (about what is) is what seemingly obscures the view.
Take a closer look at things - especially that 'me'.

Dear Gilbert,

My name is P….. G…… and I live here in NYC. - I have been a student of Advaita Vedanta for close to twenty years now. - My Kundalini was raised during this time which I still don't understand and no one has explained it to me. - About 16 years ago my intellect (through the Teaching) saw that everything was nothing but Sat-chit-annanda, Brahman. - Everywhere I look I see the underlying oneness of all names and forms. - Despite this revelation, I have yet to get abidance in this Knowledge after all this time (Can you please explain what is the final experience of the one who gets enlightened?). - I have found it extremely difficult to rest in this realization. - I have almost had Nirvikalpa Samadhi on a few different occasions but was too scared to let go completely of my ego and now I do not know how to get back to that state.

I am wondering what I should do to get abidance in this knowledge. - It feels like when I am connected in this Knowledge that everything is an extension of myself - that everyone is a reflection of Myself - like a giant dream where everyone is me. - I feel that oneness. - It is like an inner orgasm where my breath becomes even and the prana does something to my lips (can you explain this - I still have no idea what is going on - I have read about the sushumna and ida and pigala and all that but still do not comprehend it). - I see the whole world as mithya - just an apparent creation and a joke as I am the only reality and everything else is superimposed on that I.
I am hoping you can give me some pointers as to what to do to make this state a permanent realization because right now this feeling comes and goes.

Is there anything I can do to accelerate this process? - I am willing to spend as much time as needed. - Any suggestions you might have as well as any references to books, teachers would be greatly appreciated. - I thank you for reading this and getting back to me. - Thank you.

Regards, - P.G.


(Devoted students are ripe for being sucked into a never ending pathway of belief - The reason that decades go by for these ones without any significant change is because they are chasing rainbows - they have been convinced by 'others' that an answer will come from devoting oneself to all manner of things.)

My Reply:
It is impossible for the mind to rest in 'this realization' or in anything but its own empty nature.
The 'connection in this knowledge' you speak of is only transient thought patterns - all thoughts come and go. - You are not a thought. - You are THAT which REMAINS Present throughout all apparent duration. - If you search for it, you will miss it.
The mind will take you forever away into thought realms and imagination.
One must rest in a clear space of 'no thought' for a true taste of one's own true nature - if only for a 'brief moment'. - Get a taste for it and 'return' to it frequently.
The 'things' that you search for are the makings of an erroneous time bound mission.
You are already what you seek. - WHAT you seek you already ARE.
Why have you begun to seek?
Because of a BELIEF in being separate.
The naked 'I am-ness' is never a problem - it is with the qualifications and labels added by the mind - that is where the problem enters. - You must recognize that - no one can do it for you. - Investigate this concept of believing yourself to be separate.
It is not a complex thing - it is far simpler than one imagines - yet so few are open to it.
The conceptual burdens they carry are too cumbersome and the identity investment already made is too great to let go of.
Recognize that it is just an idea that is commonly believed in - very rarely investigated - See it for what it is. - A 'rare one' actually sees through all mind content, including the idea of being separate - yet this is actually totally available to everyone.
I do not say that "there is nothing that you can do" - that is not true - WHAT YOU ARE
is actually free right now - the shackles will fall away just by SEEING them for what they are - IDEAS - only ideas - that is what must be 'done' - SEE the truth of this moment - this actuality of simple presence - thoughtless, naked presence.
Believe me, the concept of 'separation', of itself, has no power whatsoever - even though all the drama of life appears to arise from it. - It is belief in it that seemingly empowers it. - Cut of the belief (its source of energy) and it will wither away like a dead leaf.
Dissolve this concept of separation and all reveals itself naturally.
Hang onto that concept and you miss the very essence of LIFE.

A drowning man does not refuse a 'life buoy' thrown to him.

The intellect cannot KNOW or SEE anything - it is mind translations only.
There never was an individual.
The mind is TIME.
All of 'your' problems seemingly exist because 'you' of mind, believe in TIME.
All there is, is THIS actuality of PRESENCE (commonly referred to as ‘now’). When have you truly ever left this moment?

What you truly ARE is this ‘One without a second’.
You have always been THAT - it is timelessly so.
The intellect will find all kinds of ‘reason’ to defend itself against this fact – but it fails consistently – it requires constant maintenance, which is tiring and exhausting.
Give it up and your frustrations will dissolve naturally.

The body and mind are appearances - what you are is not limited to these appearances.

If you hang onto them by identifying with them, 'you' will suffer and drown in 'your own' excrement - yet this drama is only in the appearances of things.
You are not a thing - you are invisible - discover this fact and BE.

There is NO Knowledge - ONLY Knowing.

NO Knower.
NO Seer.
NO doer.
NO one gets enlightened.
Experiences come and experiences go.
You are 'the Experiencing' Only. - That, this, is ever fresh and it does not compound into anything called a separate being.

Out of silence appears 'sound' and it disappears back into silence.

Sound is vibration - what the ancients called ‘OM’.

Be quiet and SEE – KNOW what you are.


Warm regards - Gilbert

The 'Presence' that you ARE.

The more direct the message is, the less there is for the mind to play with.
This is why the direct message is not popular - the average 'seeker' just wants fancy concepts to embellish their belief system with. - There is very little here for those 'seekers'. - This is not about being popular or famous. - It is about 'pointing' to what is true - without elaborate stories for the mind to play with. - A 'pointer' when 'heard' will stop the mind in its tracks - and pure cognition will come to the fore.
There is no teaching and no teacher. - In the appearances of things a teacher and a teaching appear. - Gurdjieff says: "Beware of someone who wants to teach you something" and he also says: "The power to change oneself lies not in the mind". - Nisargadatta says "You are not the body, you are not the mind". - Bob Adamson says: "There is no answer in the mind". - The imaginary journey that I believed I was on was demolished, apparently with the aid of such 'pointers'.
But there was a definite resonance that rose up like the dawning sun. - ACTUALLY 'Hearing' what was (is) being pointed out was the key element.


The mind is time - time is mind - mind is 'me' - the 'me' is a seeming separate 'event' - and the believed in 'seeker' gets seemingly trapped in a circle, adding more and more 'events' or experiences to that 'me' - imagining that it will 'grow' and suddenly burst into a new and wonderful state of being.
All states of being are contained in the WHOLE.
What you truly are is all-inclusive - nothing is excluded - I am THAT. - The mind through thought differentiates oneness into fragments, like a cracked mirror.


The presence is knowing - the knowing is presence.

Could it be that the apparent ‘problem’ is the labels we put on everything.
We label something quite automatically and then we seem to believe that we understand it. - We call those labels ‘knowledge’.
However, ‘Knowledge’ is memory and it belongs to the past, which is dead and gone.
The essential life of any knowledge is the immediate knowing.
Without knowing, knowledge is nothing at all or at best some dried ink on some paper tucked away on a bookshelf.
‘Knowing’ is the unceasing presence of cognition.
Even in deep sleep, if someone knocks loudly enough, that cognition will stir and the waking state will arise in and on that ‘knowing presence’.
‘Enlightenment’ is a label, a word. - On its own it is harmless.
It is what we add to it that takes us off into a mind realm, a dream, a dream of whatever those added concepts ‘create’ in that mind realm.
It, what we have termed enlightenment is so simple and ever so completely available right now.
This being 'here' and that being 'there' is - ONE BEING.
There is no separation.
The efficient use of words can bring one (the mind) back to the immediate and obvious fact of BEING. - Being is not a concept. - The concept of being is a concept.
The concept of 'awareness' is a concept - one that can easily be mistaken for awareness. - That erroneous belief is an obvious misunderstanding, one that many get stuck on.
The concepts we have about what being is are all merely concepts 'appearing in being', on awareness.
We seemingly cover over that naked being-ness with all manner of conceptual notions and the only ‘time’ that covering over is happening is NOW.
Yet is really seeing that, the covering over ceases. - That should be highly informative.
There is no past where my being is covered over – no accumulation of conceptual goo smothering my being-ness.
In ceasing to add more and more notions onto this presence right NOW – so the naked being-ness reveals itself ever present clear and present nature NOW.
As the ancient text says: "Stop thinking and talking and there is nothing you will not be able to know."
Knowing IS.
You cannot not be THAT – this knowing right now.
The mind translates this into its 'learned labels' and words and we imagine that that is some valuable knowledge – and it binds us (me) into a conceptual realm.
You are not the concepts about 'this or that'. You are not a concept, full stop.
Do you not recognize the directness of this pointing?
Compare it with any other so-called 'teaching' – they lead you off in the mind with more and more conceptual notions about some special state to be attained in the future. - It is not much more than a tourist package sold to you by a travel agent.
No matter how subtle those gurus concepts are, they are all about ‘time’ and the future.
This direct message is about right here, right now.
Stop ignoring THIS.
A simple price to pay – yet seemingly so difficult, and all because of habit (the past seemingly imposed onto the present).
Habits can be broken but not if they are indulged in.
Keeping seekers on the path is the easiest thing to do.
'Getting them to SEE' that they are not what they think they are, that they are not bound at all, is an impossible task, without an impulse from ‘within’. YET seeing does not need to be taught - SEEING is happening.
There is no separation and in 'seeing that fact', the boundary of a 'within' or a 'without' is found to be non existent.

All the drama of being a seeker is a temporary 'condition'. - The friction that builds up in that imaginary boundary (that is the 'me') collapses the boundary and no separation reveals itself naturally because it IS already present as a fact.


Email:

Hi Gilbert,

The question I have at the moment is that whilst I am already that which I seek - it appears to me (or my mind) that in a state where I recognize the I Am that I Am, instead of considering myself the ego or mind, there has been a change in perspective. - What seems a paradox to me then is that I seek that change of perspective where I know myself as I Am - experience it, truly realize it - aside from merely conceptualizing it all in the mind as I do at present.

Is there such a sudden transition of perspective which I have termed 'self-realization', or is that not the nature of it? - And if not, how then does the change of perspective occur - what is it that changes to result in this new perspective, if there is no change to be sought?

Cheers, Daniel.

Reply:
One of the most direct ways of pointing to this is this: - There is only ONE 'seeing' happening. - The so-called 'me' cannot see. - The 'me' is a concept plus a series of translations in the mind, a story about a believed in 'entity'.
When the 'me' is truly seen through or seen for what it is - you do not disappear - your erroneous beliefs will disappear, because they all hang off the 'me' or are referred to that 'me'. - Without that reference point 'me' - everything remains 'as it is'.
If you can see this as a fact, directly and immediately for yourself - it is truly enough 'to break the iceberg' and it will melt back into its origin - 'water'.
In other words, in the mind content there will always appear to be an endless series of paradoxes - for the 'me' - tossing back and forth its apparent alliance with one side and then the other. - The paradox disappears when the 'me' is revealed for what it is - the mind is restless until the 'me' is seen clearly to be nothing but a concept, a habit of belief.
Have a look. - Isn't the 'me' merely a reference point in the mind? - It may appear to be threatening to even contemplate this but it must be done, otherwise it will just continue to plague you like a parasite. - Recognizing the 'me' to be merely a concept, just that alone is enough to bring the 'house of cards' tumbling down. - The fictional drama of that 'me' has no intrinsic value or integrity and it will fall apart in the face of 'present evidence' ('what is' the actuality of now) of what is true - Reality.
The use of the concept 'me' is not 'the enemy' - it, like 'the mind', needs to be understood clearly.
Imagination is where the trouble enters into the picture - or simply the belief in what is imagined.
There is no great event - no great enlightenment to be attained. - All talk of such a 'thing' is nonsense but it is exceptionally enticing for the mind and many 'teachers' appear to use that fact as their 'trump card' - all in the appearances of duality - 'gurus and devotees'. - No harm done - yet it keeps 'the seeker' seeking endlessly.
A gnawing unease arises consistently - because that 'me', the self-center, has not been seen for what it is.
Start from the FACT that you are THAT naked presence-awareness.
The concept of progress, process and method is undercut instantly.
There is no time but now - presence. - The apparent 'process' of time is an appearance - which when closely examined reveals itself as non-existent - merely a concept.
All these 'things' that are sort after are merely conceptual notions one has attached some imaginary importance to, without questioning their validity or if they are real.
So much fuss about enlightenment - the carrot that keep the donkey plodding along.

In the worldly sense of things, it is the perfect business 'product' - 'enlightenment' - you can't see it, can't prove it - but you can 'sell it' without ever running out of supply - and get very good money in the bargain - an exchange for mere ideas and enhanced beliefs - which by the way are all equally invisible.
We enslave ourselves to imaginary futuristic 'events' or 'possible states of being' - (dreams) - all the while we are ignoring THIS presence NOW, in favor of ‘an Ideal’ - one that we have been told of - told of by some innocent 'guru' or by some unscrupulous scoundrel - either way it does not matter.
We believe in some dream, a dream of some possible way things could be, some 'other-ness' and in giving that our attention we ignore our true nature - 'being present and aware right now'. - The completeness of this revelation is a 'seeming event' that can appear nowhere other than in this presence. - We particularize 'events' and 'create' a dualistic paradox, one that cannot be solved. - It must be dismantled consciously - that is one way of putting it.
It may be said that the Universe is a Singularity, ONE event - or that nothing is truly happening - 'No Thing' is happening. - The mind can't deal with such concepts.
Yet in Seeing-Knowing it reveals itself as No Thing - everything is still 'happening' and without a reference point to judge it from - nothing is happening.
The 'peace beyond all understanding' is THAT. - One may call it 'no mind'.
The mind is time - time is mind - mind is 'me' - the 'me' is a seeming separate 'event' - and the believed in 'seeker' gets seemingly trapped in a circle, adding more and more 'events' or experiences to that 'me' - imagining that it will 'grow' and suddenly burst into a new and wonderful state of being.
All states of being are contained in the WHOLE.
What you truly are is all-inclusive - nothing is excluded - I am THAT. - The mind through thought differentiates oneness into fragments, like a cracked mirror.

As for the practical side - it is SO SIMPLE no one BELIEVES it possible........and yet it is POINTED out over and over and over and over - yet few seem to 'get it'.
'Who' could get it? - It is what you ARE.
The simplicity of it all is just too subtle for the grossness of 'grasping consciousness' or mind.
The key:
SEEING is happening - it is already SO.
Knowing is already SO.

The mind translates what is appearing in the 'mind' (quite naturally) as concepts – it is conceptualization - and they are believed to be real - hence the apparent trouble.

DROP thought - even if only for a moment and the perspective you 'imagine' to be somehow attainable or 'somewhere else' or as something you need to acquire - is ACTUALLY found to be here now - AS IT ALWAYS IS. - Is- ness - or 'what is'.

So, Bob says that the only way out of the mind is FULL STOP ('period' is the word used in the US)

In stopping thought - you do not fall apart - you do not disappear.....

At first it may appear to be very subtle and we 'miss it' -
Keep dropping thought (as often as you can, whenever the impulse arises) and a taste of the subtleness will (appear to) emerge.
Then one sees, without a doubt, that I am THAT - that pure being, seeing, knowing.
Thought cannot encapsulate it - never could and never will.

Naked SEEING - Naked Awareness.......

The habitual 'ego', the 'me' - is not interested in THIS.......
So that is why Nisargadatta says: One must be earnest or sincere.......
The ego only pretends to be sincere and that ‘story of me’ just goes on and on, ‘metamorphizing’ (new word ‘I’ invented) continually - until it is recognized for what it is. - Pure Intelligence cuts through the illusion of 'me'.

Most teachers have conditions placed upon their message - usually it is 'time' and 'some event to come'.
The direct (and unconditional) message can be delivered by any (true and clear) messenger – it is all about the ‘presence’ that you ARE – it is not and can never be about any ‘becoming’ (Process or method).

The mind will state its case - bring up endless arguments just so it can continue to 'run the show' - but it never existed and it has NO power whatsoever. - It is all belief only.
Isn't it time (now) to stop the game? - Be singularly earnest and honest with and FOR yourself - stop this madness of chasing ones own tail, like a crazy dog.

Warm regards - Gilbert.
Please send your comments and/or questions to gilbert.schultz AT gmail.com - replace AT with @

Beyond what you call yourself

The Urban Guru Cafe is a 'Radio' program site where you can stream any of the 12 programs on line or download them onto your ipod or mp3 player. - The programs are professionally presented and are all 'aimed at' presenting the direct message (on Non Duality).
If by some chance you have not listened to any of these programs as yet, let me encourage you to do so.

You can also direct any of your questions or suggestions to the producer through the contact details on the site itself. - To check it out, click on these following words: Urban Guru Cafe


If we can postulate for a moment, that there is an absolute truth, an absolute reality, then it is surely even logical that it must be present throughout ALL 'time and space' - throughout ALL the universe and throughout ALL eons. - And so, even logically, it must be present right NOW. - It must permeate All Being - which of course includes 'your own being' right now.
Such a revelation may fill the mind with wonder.
This 'ultimate truth' permeates everything and nothing is excluded.
The mind, with its limited intellect, cannot capture it with a concept.
That Ultimate subtle fact is this immediate livingness that you are - it is the 'hum of being'. - In looking for it with the mind, we miss it. - It permeates ordinary awareness. - Silent and relaxed in being and also every activity, every movement within this vastness - this endless array of galaxies - everything that there is.
This living presence is its own activity of knowing - a knowing of everything, without a single exception and without ever moving away from THIS ever present 'now'.
There is NO separation that comes between this Knowing and the appearances of all that 'appears to be'. - One Being. - You are THAT. - There is no possibility that you could not not be THAT.

Let me share part of an email from a friend in the USA.
We were 'talking' about the direct message, this reply came:

I find this direct message in its unadorned elegance marvelously unpopular in general here. - actually less than unpopular - usually 'actively discarded'.
The self-promoters and folks willing to play the guru game are dominating the field, for the most part. - If there is no special enlightenment offered, no exotic Eastern terminology, no groovy guru on a platform, no retreats in which to look for mating opportunities and to hobnob with rich yuppies and fellow eternal seekers - then there is really not much interest in the straight and direct message.

"Franchise Paradise" is not about the truth - it is about money, sex and groovi-ness, obviously.

Comments or questions can be sent to me at gilbert.schultz AT gmail.com - replace the AT with @

The fine lines on the back of the contract usually tell us some things that we need to know but so often over look. - Here below is some of that 'fine print'.

* certain conditions apply


Please sign here...................................................

Witnessed by.......................................................


.....................
FINE PRINT

Taking delivery of the idea of being a sufferer is 'the catch'.
The ’story of ‘me’ IS the bondage of self.
See that, that ‘you’ does not register anything at all - it can’t because it is only an idea, see that, that concept about a ‘you’ registers spontaneously, the same as ALL impressions register.
No one can ‘get behind’ that spontaneous registering (cognizing) that KNOWING Presence.
All these thoughts appear ‘on (or in) awareness’ - there is no ‘entity’ there.

(to paraphrase Shakespeare) “no right or wrong, good or bad - but thinking makes it so” (makes it seemingly so).
...............

The current notes are on the following page. Meanwhile, here is an extract from The First Instant book (published 2004), a manuscript written several years ago, at a time when the message was flowing out of my elbows on onto my computer keyboard. Attempts to get the book published failed, for various 'reasons', so I published myself. This message that is written about consistently is not about any popular ideas or about seducing anyone into new beliefs, fancy concocted Philosophies or endless mind traps. - Here is that extract.

"Beyond what you call yourself"

In the bondage of appearing to be a limited being, an individual, there is a desperation, a trying to hang onto 'things' that are not there - here. - They are all concepts and mind projections. - You imagine terrifying things and you scare yourself to death with them. - You dream of pleasant things that are nowhere to be seen in the actual present evidence. - You dream a stream of dreams and you flutter about in imaginary worlds of past and future. - Anxiety is a regular visitor.
When all obscuring factors are seen through, the portal of what we can call 'Awakened Mind' opens fully - all is seen and the apparent 'believed in' substance of your dreams of separateness vanishes - forever - never to be believed in again. - They may still appear in a transparent form in mind, like a visiting butterfly in the garden - but they are known instantly for what they are.

In naked awareness there is no 'becoming'. - No coming or going, for it is non-dual awareness. - All that comes and goes is merely an appearance. - Everything appears in exactly the same way. - I cannot say what the difference is because it is actually undifferentiated and the problems did not exist in the first instant.
‘I am’, you are, this ‘first and only instant’. - At no point can any ‘I’ or a ‘you’ leave this. All manner of things appear and disappear in this first instant. - None of these appearances last. - All are transient. - The ‘master’ may appear to bring you back conceptually to this first instant (which you have never left). - Because he lives entirely from this first instant, his speech arises directly from it. - He is not speaking from any platform in mind. - His words may seem profound.

This profoundness is the living vibration of unobstructed expression. - It is expressed from and as the immediate knowing, it is a reciprocating resonance in yourself. - It is not some memorized thing that he is telling you. - He is the knowing of what he says.
You may believe that you come and go from this immediate presence. - It is not so. Only conceptually do you appear to depart from this first instant. - The remembering and the forgetting are just mind stuff. - All is as it ever was. - Yet it never was, is, or will be anything other than this first instant. - You are That.

Even though many things are repeated here in this text, direct cognition is unobstructed. - Our habitual way of being is full of repetition.
When the 'apparent shift' takes place, from habitual mind-stuff and recognized things into direct and immediate knowing, then this taste will not leave you. - It cannot leave you because you are this direct knowing and you have always been THAT.
You are in fact, nothing but this. - (Where is the doubt?)
The innate knowing of this is it (also). - The content of this immediacy seemingly arises within an experiential realm (mind) and this is nothing but direct cognition.
It is nothing but this. - It never splits into two.

Know it for yourself!
It is all immediate and never anything else but immediate (There is no ‘ever’ or ‘never’ - ‘past’ or ‘future’ in this). - All of the mind realms, words, images and concepts are nothing but this. - The dualistic mind cannot sit quietly with the non-dual.
‘You’ are taken beyond the dualistic mind. - To go beyond the mind you simply rest in open awareness.

Beyond what you call yourself
Within what you call yourself,
Is this vastness of direct cognition,
Unlimited
Unchanging
Untouched by anything.
The words are pointing at it
All that appears is it
Appearances never move or stray from it
The essence in what is seen
And the essence in what is seeing
are One.
All there is is Knowing.
Even what you call ‘mind’ is nothing but it
knowing.
When you look for mind, all you find is direct knowing
- cognition.


Because it is all there is - and because there is nothing other than this, there is nothing to compare with it. - So you do not notice its significance in what you call ‘mind’. And yet your very ‘seeing - knowing’ is nothing but this.

This knowing does not come and go
It is vast like the ocean
Does the fish notice the clear water?
No water - no fish
The water is full of fish
The fish is full of water
Not two.

See that what you truly are, in essence, which is this direct cognition, do not move - you are not this movement. - You ‘know’ because of this movement. - There is only knowing happening. - The immediate intelligence energy is the pure potentiality of this movement. - You are the movement of knowing - You are That.
I AM THAT.

- fin.

The expressions happening here today have not changed all that much since 'then' - maybe a little clearer these days- some may say a lot clearer. - This First Instant book may be re-printed with slight changes in the text at some point. - I have had just a few of it printed recently because someone requested it. - Email me at the above address if you wish to purchase one.

No concept can ever be the SEEING-KNOWING

NEWS: A few copies of The First Instant have been re-printed. Anyone interested in getting a copy, please write to me at - gilbert.schultz AT gmail.com- Replace the AT with @.


Note: Anyone who has not listened to the interviews with Mark West and wishes to do so: Click HERE.
Mark West is the 'author' of "Gleanings from Nisargadatta" a book of clear notes from Maharaj's meetings in Bombay in 1976-77. - An excellent record of the 'teaching'.
You can order the book by clicking HERE.

Today's note:

The major religions all point at Non Duality.
One can usually find clear evidence of this in the opening statements of their teachings. However, this is usually bypassed and everyone gets into the endless stories about ‘personal stuff’.
One without a second means exactly that.
There is no duality in Non Duality.
There never was any ‘entity’ ever – at no ‘point’ in any ‘time’ was there ever any ‘entity’ freed from bondage or caught in any phenomena whatsoever.
Seeing this FACT is the liberation of the idea of being a ‘self’.
It is called Self-Liberation. - But get this point clearly: It is not a ‘self’ that is liberated.
It is liberation from the 'idea' of being a 'self'.
That fact alone pulls the rug out from underneath just about every teaching there is.
There is NO separate individual to be liberated or not.
This can't be included in popular teachings because it would send them bankrupt very quickly. - Their 'high maintenance' 'capital' is based on a fraud, any way you look at it.
How long, how many years has your guide kept you 'on the Path'?
Why? - Because he or she does not really know the truth of it - they have not been liberated from the concept of 'me' themselves. - Why else would they tell stories about time and laborious work? - Blah, blah, blah.
So........
'Who' is it that is treading the Path to 'self-liberation'?
Being IS.
'Becoming' never arrives at BEING. - It remains as a conceptual construct - a bondage for an erroneous believed in character 'ME'.

The natural function of seeing is happening.
In that seeing it can be quite easily cognized that there is no ‘self-center’.
Where that is seen from is a clear and empty space – some call it ‘space-like awareness’.
All of the drama of religions and the personal search is due to an ignoring of our natural state. - It is extremely simple – but the habit of believing is ‘seemingly’ hard to break.
As long as I take myself to be a ‘person’ then the liberation from ‘self’ remains elusive.
Expressing a clear message about this requires clear intelligence.
Intelligence that is burdened by a bias called ‘me’ is never clear.
Many so-called ‘teachers’ speak with a heavy bias and it is this bias of ‘me’ that actually makes them popular – because the ‘seeker’ can remain in its 'state of seeking' and not have to confront the fact that the ‘me’ is a fiction – even though it is this same ‘me’ concept that is the sufferer and the seeker, that fact is not exposed clearly.
Extremely contorted compromises are observable in the relationships between many gurus and their devotees.
Some are absurdly manipulated contortions full of suffering.
The direct message bypasses all such messy relationships.
No one is contracted into time bound service.
The clear message is delivered over and over until it is ‘heard’ and ‘acted upon’.
Hence forth, the message is no longer needed – but it is still expressed for those ‘others’ who are still ‘searching’.
Even that ‘situation’ is a mirage.
‘Who’ does not see this?
Seeing is happening.

Here is an extract from the comments page, on recent program, from the Urban Guru Cafe Podcast site:

'My' reply to a posted question:

1. Reading happens. - The words have been learned - no entity there. - All that happens is a recognition ‘happens’ - it is clearly seen that there is no one in the thinking - the ‘thinker’ is merely another thought - thinking spontaneously appears and disappears.
This must be seen and recognized - it is useless as a concept only.
2. Can you separate the ‘reading’ from the thoughts that arise from the reading?
Decisions are seemingly made - don’t take my word for it - HAVE a look - SEE if you can find a decision MAKER. - There is not much point looking for conceptual support for the habitually identified mind pattern called ‘me’. - You wont find any. - All that seemingly happens is that we keep propping up a fabricated self-image. - It is not a small point to say that ‘most seekers’ have no wish to see through ‘the bondage of self’. - There is just too much invested in it - and lots of stories of ‘progress already made by that ‘entity’.
We build our ‘house’ on ‘the shifting sands of the mind’ - or a castle in the air - all ‘made of’ concepts.
That is the old saying “Build your house on the ROCK” - ‘Rock’ symbolizes ‘what is true’ or Truth. - “Know the truth and the truth will set you free” etc.
Beliefs need to be questioned - or they will bind the mind in ‘endless time’.

‘We’ ‘think’ we are so important within our erroneous beliefs.
‘We’ chisel our definitions and cling to insubstantial ‘things’ that are only transitory appearances ‘in the mind’ - There is no ‘mind’ apart from thought - so it is more correct to say these transitory appearances, thoughts, concepts and images ALL appear nowhere other than ‘in or on’ awareness.
Has any one of them ever stayed stuck in the head or mind? - No.
They may appear to go around and around but they all disappear without one exception.
Have a look now.
Don’t they all disappear from view when you really look?
Understanding is in BEING - not the mind.
BE - just BE.
Stop trying to ‘become’ something ‘other’ than what you ARE.
Be what you are.
It is very, very simple - yet so FEW actually take a good look at the believed in self-centre.
While taking a good look for that self-center, ask yourself this: “Where am I seeing FROM?”
The arguments that are often put forward are all ‘postures’ taken in the dualistic nature of mind, a posture taken by a believed in entity.
This is so obvious. - If you are so convinced that this ‘decision maker’ exists - then why not ‘decide’ right NOW to investigate the ‘me’? - And SEE IF it is true and real.
Don’t get me wrong - I am not being rude - just being direct. - ‘People’ don’t like direct because is disturbs the illusions of that imaginary ‘entity’.
Then they complain that they just don’t ‘get it’. - It is ‘too difficult’ etc.
Endless blah, blah, blah is not going to bring anything fresh and new.
This moment is fresh and new - is that not so very, very obvious?
So many extremely direct pointers, free of time stories, are available and ’seekers’ expect to be spoon fed, or roasted pigeons to fly into their mouths, while they lay back in a hammock in the sun.
All it takes is ONE clear view of the fact that there is NO ‘me’ there - and the whole story of me dissolves.
It will arise again but it has lost it intensity - it can’t grasp ‘you’ because you have seen through it. - Where are you SEEING from?
It is not from a concept in the mind.

Thought appears in Thought Free Being.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj & Sri Ranjit Maharaj - Bombay, India.


Note:

What the mind ‘sees’ is multiplicity, the world and things.
What actually registers in the 'pure seeing' consistently, without any division, is oneness. - No labels are attached to THAT because it is beyond the 'mind'.

It is the apparent ‘point of view’ of mere conceptualizing of that one-ness appearing as 'an individual', as a ‘seer’ and the 'seen', as a ‘knower’ and the 'known', that is what SEEMINGLY divides the indivisible One-ness into 'Duality'– but this is only in the 'appearance', which is 'happening' in the so-called ‘mind’ - The duality is only in appearance.
The habit is of the 'me' relating to the world and consequentially to 'that which is', via an ‘image’ of ‘self’. - That 'image of self', to which everything is referred to, it cannot actually SEE or KNOW anything.
This needs to be recognized. - The habit needs to be questioned.

One of the most potent ways to reveal naked cognition is:

Where is the seeing actually taking place?

Don't pass over this or dismiss it. - Well, not if you are 'serious' about this 'finding out what is really going on'. - We too often dismiss anything that threatens the fortress of belief.

All that that 'mind image of self' is, is imagination.
Mind is time - it is not the 'seeing-knowing'.
The 'I Know' is always questionable.
All there truly is, is Knowing - knowing beyond the limits of a 'knower' and the 'known'.

The 'mind' taking itself to be separate, it imagines ‘a puzzle of oneness’ - and all the pieces must be found – that is 'the seeking'. - The puzzle has to be put back together again - before completeness can be achieved.
It is a crap story, an endless story -a fragmentation of ideas in the mind. - It is a very popular business and very profitable for those who ‘sell’ the ‘lost pieces’.
In taking oneself to be a separate entity, a 'person' that 'oneness' of what we truly are enters into a dream - and 'People' in that dream are 'suckers' for buying those 'lost pieces' - 'hidden secrets' - 'buried treasure' etc.
The puzzle only 'appears' for the mind. - There is no puzzle to solve in Being.
The ONLY way out of that endless seeking is to start from the fact that you ARE that ONE, without a second. - Simply BE.
Drop the fragmentation concepts and simply BE….SEE…..KNOW.

The expansive sense of being is ever fresh in this moment.
Be open towards it, simply by letting go of 'old ideas' about 'self'.


"There is no good or bad (right or wrong) - but thinking makes it so"
- William Shakespeare.

Today's note:

The ‘teacher’ or ‘guru’ is only a signpost – a ‘pointer’.
Many aspirants gather around the signpost and make a lifestyle living near the signpost - "devotees of the signpost".
They ignore what the signpost is pointing at.
Some signposts actually point away from 'the actuality' of simple being and yet the ‘words’ on the sign 'seem' to be accurate.
A genuine signpost points you beyond the mind, into natural being presence-awareness.
Some signposts look 'real good', freshly painted and crisp - but they only 'pretend' to point you 'beyond the mind' - they actually point you back into endless mind stuff, with more 'work to be done', 'post awakening' and various other 'time bound concepts', which is the 'bondage of self' - all servicing 'a believed in entity' - or they point in multiple directions so as to occupy the mind on a 'merry go round ride' to nowhere.

Be careful to examine your preferred signpost carefully.
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating."
If an unmistakable resonance in being reverberates in you (a sense of expansion of being) then it is a true signpost.
If there is only an intellectual excitement and a proliferation of endless concepts, then one must certainly take a closer look at the signpost. - It is not about convincing the mind of some specialized concepts.
Such pointing is most certainly pointing the wrong way.
Non Dual jargon, like "There is no right way or wrong way" is just piffle and is just talk.

In seeing through the appearance of being a ‘me’ there ‘appears’ a ‘new freedom’ – this freedom is not actually ‘new’ because that freedom is the ‘natural state’ and that has always been ‘here’ – it has merely been overlooked through an engagement with ‘believing’ in that ‘me’ and its story.
In seeing that the body is merely an appearance, an instrument - and in seeing ‘these thoughts that come and go’ are not what I truly am, is it really helpful to say that I am these appearances?
In being free of it, in the ‘appearance of guiding others’, is it truly helpful to say that I am ‘all of it’, to imply that ‘I am that me’?
No it is not helpful at all. – In fact it is a misguided piece of advice.
Some ‘teachers’ may sense that they are very clear about everything – yet they need to realize that those who are attempting to be free of those ‘things’, things that they themselves were once caught in, these ‘seekers’ need clear advice that will cut through those forms of identification.
If your preferred 'teacher' sounds like 'a second hand car salesman', then he or she is most likely not pointing very clearly. - Adding new concepts about some process is NOT what is needed. - The negation of the belief in 'time' and 'me' is central to exposing what is true. - No personal benefit or achievement is in that exposure.
Emphatic statements implying that you are that ‘me’ and all of its attachments is actually not clear pointing – one could say it is counter productive.

If you want a clear and precise pointing to your own true nature – then drop all thought and simply be - that is the source of your own being – this living presence.

If that seems impossible then find a clear ‘teacher’ and there is no one I know of, other than Bob Adamson, who is speaking directly, without deviation, speaking from the natural state. – While Bob is still ‘with us’ an opportunity is available.
Why settle for second best?
These thoughts expressed here, just like all thoughts, appear spontaneously.

Bob will not tell you that you are that ‘me’ – others can do that but it will not free you. There never was a 'me' caught in phenomena - but you must see this very precisely for yourself.
You must see most clearly, in the immediacy of presence, that the ‘me’ is just an idea. Once seen clearly, one can use the word ‘me’ and ‘I’ without any trouble.
Without seeing through the ‘me’ then there will be endless trouble and you will drown in your own imaginary suffering.
These words here may cause a stir with certain characters – that is not my concern.
Telling it straight and true is what this is all about.
Whether it is ‘heard’ is another matter.


***

Where am I? - Watch short movie of the Earth rotating on its invisible axis and the Moon passing by - an actual film taken from 'outer space'. Click here.

The whole universe moves and turns upon emptiness - where are you seeing from?

Note: The last copy of "Everything is Clear and Obvious" has been sold. - The FREE e-book version is still available - see right hand side of screen on the 'shining' website.

NEWS: You can now order "Gleanings from Nisargadatta" directly from Mark West, the 'author'. - Click on following words: Click on here - Why not get both books - Bob's new one and Mark's.

The Urban Guru Cafe - a Radio Show (podcast) on the subject of Non Duality.
(free download-able mp3's - it is growing like Jack's beanstalk) - Don't miss it.
12 programs are already on the site. - Part 2 of the Stephen Wingate interview and part 2 of "What is Awareness" both appear on the site now.

Anyone who wishes to email questions or comments to me can do so, very easily. gilbert.schultz (at) gmail.com replace the (at) with @.

Today's note:

'Who' is it that gets caught up in thoughts?
Are thoughts free to come and go? - Is it true that anyone ever was caught up in thoughts - what are thoughts comprised of and what is the 'substance' of the one caught up in them? - Examining this factor alone, reveals what needs to be seen.

One without a second means exactly that. - There is no duality in Non Duality.
There never was any ‘entity’ ever.
At no ‘point’ in any ‘time’ was there ever any ‘entity’ caught in any phenomena whatsoever nor freed from such bondage.
The bondage of self is a fiction.
This fact may be totally confirmed in this instant - by simply dropping thought and recognizing the clear space of cognition. - That clear and empty space of cognition is not divided into parts, right and left, right and wrong, good and bad.
There is no 'point' in that space and there is no boundary either.
Close your eyes now and see if you can find a point or a boundary.
Sit with that clear space and recognize that that 'space-like awareness' is the 'place' where everything appears, the whole universe appears nowhere other than right there.
That space is not filled with Christians or Buddhists, Muslims or Jews. - In fact there is no one there at all - nothing except your true nature and that is not a form - it has no color, shape or form. - It is so familiar to you, you have overlooked it consistently.
Stop ignoring it.

The whole drama of duality, including the appearances of teachers and pupils, is an insubstantial ‘play of the elements’ and they are nothing but ‘images’ appearing on awareness.
Like the appearance of multiple reflections in a mirror, they can never jump out of the mirror or even bump into each other.
To say that awareness is just another story is to miss the fact that what the word ‘awareness’ refers to is not a concept.
Awareness itself remains ‘timelessly’ indescribable and indefinable.
All of our descriptions and definitions fall short, because every single description or definition is nothing but an appearance in or on awareness.
‘You’ cannot negate that instantaneous cognizing (knowing) that is happening – THAT activity of knowing is awareness.
Can you grasp the import of such pointing?
Not with a concept, nor with a ‘knower’– only AS the knowing does it reveal itself in its fullness.
The rest is merely concepts and floundering intellectual gymnastics.
Words appear on or in awareness, just like all phenomena appear in or on that same unchanging presence-awareness.
Just as LIFE, sentient or otherwise, is the prerequisite to all activities, awareness is the prerequisite to knowing anything at all.
Awareness and the activity of knowing cannot be separated.
It is only the ‘mind’ that seemingly separates THAT naked presence-awareness.
The seeker cannot get there. – That imaginary journey is totally useless.
What has truly been achieved by so much struggle and effort?
How close are you now to that, that which you strive for so vigilantly?
Have you ever truly moved out of THIS presence?

Be honest with yourself - why not?
Is fooling oneself such a good idea? - Convincing oneself that so much has been achieved and 'soon' I will 'get there'. - Oh what a tiresome story it is.
What is it that we are overlooking?

What is wrong with right now? - if we don't think about it.

‘Thought free being’ is the gem that we overlook and go off in the mind looking for some projected, imagined prize.
All the while the true prize lies ‘under our very noses’.
What a remarkable joke it all is – but few are laughing.
The effort to remain in a state of being a serious seeker is tedious to say the least.
To relax in being is effortless’
Try it sometime – you may be surprised.

The mind may play a game of being judge, jury and executioner - but where is that activity taking place and how real is it?
Does any of it have any BEING - or is it all as insubstantial as a mirage?

Contemplate these things. - If you wish to.

Because there is no entertainment here for the whims and wishes of seekers and all of their erroneous beliefs, 'my life' is not crowded by them wanting more and more fodder. - No submission is required. - No seminars and no big fees. - The clear message can be delivered simply and effectively within this unchanging presence.
Time itself is revealed to be nothing but a concept. - Knowing that simple fact is enough to release the distorted and convoluted 'form' of the seeker.
Oddly enough, it seems few are willing to let go of that 'person' that they think they are - and/or that 'spiritual-ized self-image'.



Some words from William:


"This above all: to thine own self be true". - Hamlet Act I, Scene III.

"Everyone can master a grief but he that has it". - Much Ado about Nothing Quote Act III, Scene II

“There’s a skirmish of wit between them”.
Much Ado about Nothing. Quote Act I. Scene 1.

“Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps”.
Much Ado about Nothing. Quote Act III. Scene 1.

“Are you good men and true?” ~ Much Ado about Nothing. Quote Act III. Scene 3.

"All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts." ~ As You Like It

"What's in a name? -That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." ~ Romeo and Juliette

"Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!" ~ Venus & Adonis


"There is no right or wrong - but thinking makes it so" (from memory)

Quotes from William Shakespeare

Irrespective of what you think - Being IS.

On the 'other side' of what is true, there are hundreds of 'teachers' who make a very comfortable lifestyle out of telling very indirect messages - elaborate stories of enlightenment and about the 'becoming' process - and that nonsense keeps thousands and thousands of seekers bound into erroneous notions of 'trying to become' those same conceptualized fabrications of mind - and the irony of it all is that no one EVER becomes anything other than what they ARE - they can certainly 'pretend' to have 'become' enlightened and many do - and they tell their stories about 'my amazing experiences of enlightenment' and 'how' 'I' achieved it - and make hundreds pay over and over for listening to their stories and their 'special' advice. - When I read their words the 'hooks' usually appear in the very first sentence - to suck you into the story.
They appeal to the 'spiritual ego' almost exclusively and it works very well for them.


The direct message does not suck anybody into a story - it pulls you out of stories altogether....and reveals the LIVING PRESENCE of what you ARE.....right NOW.

There is no personalized achievement to BEING.
Take a look.
Where did you get that body that you call your own?
Did you achieve that? - Did you make the life force that flows through that body?

The obvious self-pride of these teachers is just a puffed up believed in story about 'self'.

Is that what 'we' are looking for? - To become like them?

Oddly enough, few are grateful for hearing the direct message - because in most cases it is rejected almost instantly by the habitually engrossed mind. - A few manage to 'stay with it' and absorb the message of what is being pointed out. - They could be said to be 'the lucky ones'.

Today's Note:

Your freedom lies in this immediate ‘presence’.
If you look for it with the mind it cannot be found.
The mind is time, duration. – Your true nature is timeless.
There is nothing you can 'do' to 'get to' (implies distance and time) this freedom simply because it is timelessly present.
It is not hidden yet it appears to be hidden - for the biased 'seeker'.
The seeker’s 'journey to freedom' is nothing but a mental journey, imagination, image-ing, a journey seemingly made by 'a thought' (the seeker).
It is all 'made of' concepts, images – it is nothing but a ‘failure to find’, as soon as the first (virtual) step is taken.
In a realm of belief the 'I' is conceptually moving away from the natural state.
The only time that erroneous belief is seen through is in 'this moment of clear sight'.
There is no other moment of clear sight - this is it - you have never left 'this moment'.

The dualistic mind is the fruit of one of two trees in 'the Garden of Eden'.
The other tree is The Tree of Life.
This symbolism is significant.
One tree symbolizes 'living being' and the other symbolizes the realm of polarized thought, good-bad, right-wrong etc.
We inadvertently ignore the natural state and 'go with' thoughts, concepts and ideas - usually, if not always, about some other place or some other time.
In this way, 'this moment', of the actuality, is 'apparently' occupied by 'other-ness'. The ACTUAL 'present evidence' of THIS immediate living presence is ignored, not noticed - even though it registers cleanly and precisely - irrespective of the mind content.
(Understanding is not via the naming of things.)

Take a closer look, have you not been chasing after ‘things’, which you have projected from your own mind?
‘Things’ we have been told about, 'things' we have been seduced into believing, without any sensible questioning of these ‘things’.
Erroneous beliefs cannot withstand a clear investigation.
Why should we believe anything that we cannot verify for ourselves?
There are so many who 'pretend' to be ‘clear seeing’, those who are seduced by their own self-image, who seemingly lead us off on a wild goose chase.
The more the merrier.
Is it our own indulgence in a false self-center, 'me', that blinds us to seeing through all those stories about a 'journey' to a future time?

The radical nature of ‘direct pointing’ goes over the heads of so many.
Is it because it cuts through 'time' and leaves THIS present moment bare, naked?

Seeing this is not via concepts.

Glazed eyes, or a turning away, belongs to the resistance to letting go of 'old ideas' about who and what we 'think' we are – a resistance to actually seeing what is true about ourselves.

What could be more pertinent than to find out what I am?
What I truly am.
Freedom from all methods and practices (time and duration) freedom from all these ‘things’ lies in this immediate presence, totally available – but not as a ‘person’.

The ‘persona’ is the mask, a mere appearance – it is not the true nature.
That mask, if believed in takes on the nature of a prison - a 'cage of limitations'.
Freedom from all this ‘stuff’ is not to be found in the ruminations of the restless mind.
Decades may pass by, while so many go on and on asking the question ‘Who am I?’
These ones are nothing but the non-recognition of the fact that the foundation of 'the one asking the question' is nothing but a ‘thought’, an idea.
It is an appearance in mind - a mere concept. - Why is this so difficult to see? - It is so obvious yet the habitual engagement with thought is not challenged - because 'I' still believe 'I am' these thoughts or at least the owner of these thoughts - which lends them 'my identity'.
Illusions of mind will not dissipate just by wishing them to. - They must be released and seen for what they are.
The only way 'out of the mind' is to stop. – Cease from thought for a moment and allow the subtle nature of silent being to reveal itself.
Don’t hold onto some idea that silence is the key.
Once this silent being is recognized clearly, it does not mean thought ceases to appear.
No, thought will always appear and disappear.
It is the stream of consciousness.
All we need is to recognize it for what it is.
The unruly mind will lose its restless nature once the habit of believing is cracked – believing that thoughts are reality.

You can pull these words apart and argue as much as you want about them or any words at all – or you can recognize what it is that I am pointing at.
It is not up to ‘me’.
The resonance of being itself is the potentiality – the ONLY potentiality – irrespective of what you or anyone thinks.

Email: Quote from the above: “There is no other moment of clear sight - this is it - you have never left 'this moment'”

The above is very clear and crystal. - It is what we are. - It sees through the folly of seeking. -We are searching for our very self, our being which we already are. - It is as you say foolish. - It is the knowing and seeing the present moment, the Now, without the thought, without the movement of time. - It is not even hidden if we don't think it is hidden, even though it may be invisible. - Like you say it is clear and obvious. - We can see it clearly if we are not worried about seeking and searching by thinking.

Thanks again, - Sincerely, - M.

Reply: Seeing and knowing THIS is happening ‘before’ the mind translates anything. – Seeing is not affected by time - the appearance of this thing called 'time' is appearing in the seeing. - Therefore, seeing is timeless. - The mind translations ‘appear’ with apparent duration within THIS clear SEEING. – So in effect, all the mind can 'do' is make up a story about THIS via labels and words, all learned and they are from memory - the past. - So 'we use' the past to inform us about the present and believe in these translations.
The understanding is 'beyond the mind', it is actually silent, wordless - it is THIS totally immediate ‘knowing presence’.
What I am, what you are, has never been anything but THIS.
This information cannot mean anything unless the resonance of its obviousness is actively present. - If the mind is caught in 'translation time' it remains meaningless mumbo jumbo.

Ancient Wisdom is in one's own Being - not the mind.

Wisdom is intelligence expressing itself, naturally, without 'becoming' a 'wise one'.

Words are NEVER that actual 'thing' that they refer to.
Awareness is a word. - The words 'I am aware' are not the awareness.
The words 'I am' are not the being-ness - they are simply expressions.
LOVE is a word.
The love of being is at the core of our existence.
We love to be.
Light is radiance.
Love is radiance.
Love of Self is undivided 'presence' - all inclusive.
The 'healing' is in seeing through the illusion of separateness.
The sense and the feeling of separation is based on an idea - the feeling follows the idea, the concept. -The feeling of separation vanishes once the idea has been exposed as false.
The 'space-like awareness', where seeing is happening, is not actually divided into two or more parts.
That fact is so clearly obvious we miss it - because it is so transparently obvious.
That 'clear space' is not a thought - the thought 'appears' in it.
In that clarity, seeing is 'taking place' and in that, all concepts appear - they appear nowhere else.
None of these thoughts, concepts or images, have any substance that can ACTUALLY divide this 'space of knowing'. - Only in appearance does separation appear to take place - it can be recognized that all such notions are concepts only.
You can chop the waves on the beach, as vigorously as you wish, with the sharpest sword, but you cannot divide 'the Ocean' - you cannot divide the 'wakefulness' with a concept no matter how refined it may be.
That wakefulness, is Non Dual.
The mind only seemingly divides it. - See this fact right now.

We imagine that the wisdom of the ancients is hard to ‘get to’.
The fact that when reading those ancient words, the resonance that reverberates through our being, is because we ‘already know it’. - Being resonance is LIFE itself.
Do we exchange the living-ness for stale old concepts?
That wisdom is not something that one can come to through thinking about it.
No University can teach you how to be what you ARE.

See that there is clear and precise wisdom innately in being.
It is NOT concepts in the mind. - Concepts may be expressed from it but they remain as what they are. - They can appear to be vehicles for wisdom - however the recognition arises because we already know it. - It is re-cognized.
'To cognize' means 'To Know'.

It is not some difficult intellectual thing to strive for. - No one can give it to you - because it is already yours.
The old 'time bound' habit is to create, in mind, a sacred mountain to climb, a difficult terrain to traverse - a sacred journey.

We ignore the natural state and take up all manner of complexities, creating all manner of obstacles for ourself and it is all in vain - it is spiritual 'imaging' and unnecessary suffering.

Stop looking for answers in the mind.
All the mind has is, is second hand stuff, learned words, images and memories.

Wisdom is spontaneously here. – It effortlessly expresses itself and it does not rely on anything from the past.
See everything as fresh and new. – In this manner, we see into the true nature of everything.
However, as long as ‘you’ perpetuate the concept of being ‘someone’ searching for ‘something’, the natural wisdom of being will evade you.
The ‘self-image’ we have is a mind construction, a mix of pride and guilt, all about some thing called 'me'.

It reminds me of the joke about being nothing. – Two Rabbi’s are in the Synagogue kneeling each day, saying their prayers: “Oh God, I am nothing, I am nothing”.
The janitor goes about his cleaning each day. – Then one day he decides to join them. – The janitor (possibly a gentile) kneels and prays: “Oh God, I am nothing, I am nothing.” - One of the Rabbi’s turns to the other and whispers “Look who thinks he is nothing”.

"The truth cannot be organized", so said J. Krishnamurti. - Once you start to organize the truth, the devil steps in and says "Hey, I will help you organize the truth".

We can all have a good laugh about the 'Look who thinks he is nothing' joke. - It is very funny, especially the first time you hear it. - But when it comes to taking a good look at one's own spiritual arrogance, it is no laughing matter - well, not until it is seen through most thoroughly.

The following notes are not for the meek and mild.
My advice is to follow the resonance in being. - Make that your touchstone.
It does not matter who or where the message comes from.
Stop collecting a mish mash of spiritual books and concepts. - That is a sure way to bring confusion.
Just follow the resonance in being.


Added Note: on the Therapy illusion. (Business is business is thriving business)

In the clear and open view of ordinary wakefulness, ‘post awakening therapy’ is an illusion, all about a 'me' that does not have any substance or independence.

Some words pop up from memory: "Don't go sticking your head in a hornets nest".
Everything is happening spontaneously - there is no 'doer' - so what is all the drama about?

Where do all of our agreements and our arguments take place?
Where does all the clear and precise evidence ‘for or against anything’ appear?
Where does anything and everything appear?
Where is the witnessing taking place, the witnessing of all these ‘events’ (large or small, vast or minute)
Where does the ‘time’, the duration of this witnessing take place?
What ‘ground’ do you stand on and what bias is there to your opinions about all of these questions?
Where is it taking place?
Can you find the witness?
What knowledge do you have and where do you store it?
Can you offer it to another and ask for a hefty fee?
Can you stand straight and tall and parade like a peacock, full of vanity and call yourself a saviour of humanity?
Where does all the drama of life take place?
Who is the witness of the drama?
Can you find him (or her)?

There is no duality in Non Duality.
In the appearance of life, so-called non dualists have turned Non Duality into a circus of dualistic tricks and business opportunities.

Where does all of the drama of life appear?
What duration does it have?
What is wrong with right now? – If you do not think about it?

Incomprehensible for mind - yet natural for being.

Incomprehensible for the dualistic mind. - Being is Knowing.

Being a slave to concepts about ‘special states of being’ is foolish.

Let me state clearly that there are no concepts being indulged in here. - I have no investment in a self-image, that I am 'someone special' or that something special has happened to me. - I have not attained any state of being - either enlightenment or whatever name you want to give it. - It could be said that it is 'the ordinary' that contains the miraculous. - We overlook the ordinary 'pure functions of being' and go looking for some 'thing', some idea of 'becoming' - imitating what is suggested to us by 'suggestion' itself. - We ignore the FACT of wonderment - the fact of our own being - just as we are. - What a miracle.
You may imagine that you are in the process of ‘becoming’ – you may have been given many tools to achieve your desire of becoming something ‘more’ than what you are.
Who is the observer of this ‘becoming’?
Is that anything stable?
Is it not merely thoughts about becoming and self-assessments, more thoughts and judgments made about some self-analysis?
Where do all of these activities take place?
Isn’t it all simply an appearance in being?
We can re-arrange ‘the furniture’ in our minds but nothing of this activity will ever ‘become’ anything but what it is.
The appearances cannot be THAT, which is unchanging, that 'one without a second' – they are appearances and they cannot be that changeless fact of being, it is THAT, the changeless, in which ALL the appearances appear. - You are THAT - not the transient appearances - That fact is obviously here right now and it permeates this living moment - totally ascertainable (for anyone at all, right here, right now) because it is a FACT. - What prevents the seeing of that fact? - It can only be mind stuff that gets in the way. - Drop it.
Some say that such expressions are from the Absolute, not from where they see things from. - The fact is that ALL true SEEING is not actually 'happening' via the mind's content. - The translations of the mind cannot SEE. - These translations appear to be so quickly 'on the scene' we habitually believe that this 'believed in entity' is seeing - is knowing. - It is simply NOT true. - There is only ONE Seeing happening. - Where are you Seeing from? - Don't be tempted by any 'idea' about that. - Where is the seeing happening? - This question delivers the mind to beyond its realm. - No conceptual answer can satisfy - Frustration or denial is a usual response. - The SEEING is prior to all concepts. - Calling it an 'Absolute View' which only a 'sacred few' have access to is just a story for the mind. - Believing in stories in preference to the actuality is an 'insubstantial problem'. - A problem that dissolves instantly if it is truly questioned thoroughly and actually.
Believing in ‘the process of becoming’ is the error.
99.999% of teachers are ‘guilty’ of proliferating concepts of ‘becoming’.
It is all useless and it leads ‘you consistently away’ from the obvious FACT of Being.
Place your trust in one who ‘points’ directly at the facts.
Is it not obvious that all these years of following the practices of ‘becoming’ have not led you anywhere – that fabulous and imaginary ‘realization’ keeps slipping out of view. – It remains ‘up ahead’ somewhere in ‘the future’. - It will continue to do so – because it is only a concept. – Being a slave to concepts about ‘special states of being’ is foolish.
Stop ignoring the natural state of simple being. – It is non-conceptual.

I can almost hear a reply. – “That is too difficult, to just simply be”.
Why is that so difficult?
Are you so sold on the idea of making effort, that ‘the simplicity of being’ is turned into an unattainable ‘thing’?
Being is Being is Being.
A lion is not making an effort to be a lion. - Effort may appear in the activity of a lion chasing a deer - the Being of the lion or the deer is not changing or becoming anything but what it is. - Why do you imagine that you can become something 'greater' than what you are? - Because it has been suggested and it has been believed in - that is why.
Mere concepts - concepts that fill a space called 'mind' and thus an ignoring of natural being as one is, seemingly takes us away from that simplicity of 'being what I am'.
Being is there timelessly, naturally, 'before' such erroneous efforts are even indulged in.
Being requires NO effort whatsoever. – effort appears in being - not for the sake of being. - No ‘person’ has ever ‘become’ more than the being-ness. – The ‘person’ is just a bunch of thoughts. - See if you can stand on those beliefs. - They are an erroneous foundation - a delusion. ("Build your house on the Rock - not on the shifting sands")
Many aspirants go into hiding at this point, the shutters come down and a defensive mechanism kicks in. - Reaction is behavior - not being.

Why is simply being so difficult?
Being has nothing to do with that believed in ‘entity’ called ‘me’.
The ‘me’ is a fictional character. – It has NO Being whatsoever – it is only belief.
Empty rhetoric about "that me must be what I am because there is no separation".. is flimsy intellectualizing – it is 'a cowards excuse', NOT to investigate that ‘me’ and truly find out what is real about it, if anything.
Habitual resistance, to really taking a good look, is like a fortress wall around the ‘me’.
A self-made prison – full of fictional drama and suffering – all of it is unnecessary.
"I can't let go of this idea about 'who' I am, because if I let go of that, who or what will I be?" - Like the man who couldn't knock on God's door - self-exiled because the courage to really KNOW was smothered by self-doubts.

All these points may be a bit sharp, too probing for the average ‘seeker’.
It is not meant for them - they get what they need through beliefs - they are not happy - but they won't hear what is being offered - so what else can be done?

No matter how sharp it appears to be, it really needs to be looked into – putting it off is tantamount to another ‘ten year sentence’ in that ‘cage of limited views’.

We must recognize that the open view of 'simply being present to what is', is clear.
It is the belief in what the mind brings into the picture, that is what 'seemingly' clouds the view.

A certain concept may appear to help but if it is clung onto, it will obscure the view with a mind set, which is not the clear view at all.

Our habit is to believe what the mind translates from 'what is'.
All the while, 'What is' is totally available 'ever-prior' to mind translations.
In the midst of a 'sticky belief' the clear view is actually unobstructed for BEING, which is the SEEING itself.
For the believed in 'entity', all it has is concepts and it cannot truly see anything at all.
There is only one SEEING happening - and the 'me' is nothing but an appearance in that seeing. - See that fact and relax in being.

Seeing through the self-centre is not via the mind.

Extract from Everything is Clear and Obvious:

"Knowing is instant.
Words are (always) secondary.
In the realm of words and concepts, we appear to leave THIS immediate knowing and enter into a realm of descriptions.
In that psychological 'journey' of mind, you can only 'arrive back' at the place you have never left, which of course is now.
This 'space of immediate knowing' has never left you.
It is, in fact, what you are."


The following is a single paragraph extract from a 6 part Note written a few weeks ago:


The innate capacity of pure knowing belongs to our true nature - and it lies at the core of what we are.
What we truly ARE is not depending on anything at all.
It needs no time to find completion – it requires no method to adhere to and it requires no concept at all.
Its nature is NON conceptual.

Recognize that.

Some additional points are:

This natural BEING is not relying upon any concepts or conditional mind - it is non dual.
If you cannot see that that is what you are then simply 'Stay' with THAT and it naturally dissolves erroneous beliefs in dualism.
However, the holding onto the core belief in being 'someone' will appear to bring about a 'split' in that open space of knowing - SEE that for what it is.

Do not 'go with' any concept - and so the sense of separation will dissolve naturally.
Repeat this as often as possible and the idea of being separate cannot survive.

Then, be attentive, because the 'idea' of 'now I am enlightened' will pop up. - Do not entertain this concept. - It is separation weaving its way back into the picture.
There is No Duality in Non Duality.

The display of competition in the 'spiritual circles' is a joke and obviously fed by ignorance.


Today's Note:

If there is no impulse to be totally ‘honest’ with oneself, why should ‘what is actually true’ reveal itself?
Could it be possible that what you have been searching for, for most of your life, is ‘something’ that is so obviously present in ‘your very being’, so obvious that you miss it completely?
Have you fallen over and over for some ‘story’, some philosophical convoluted complex equation, some spiritual formula or have you simply fallen for some charismatic character?
Have you handed over your trust to someone, some teacher, who shows ‘signs’ of having, owning, what it is you are seeking?
If that teacher ‘allows’ you to spend year after year, treading the treadmill, chasing some exalted state of mind, then he is not pointing at what is true at all.
The ‘system’ of such teachers is a prison made of concepts.
It is a very profitable spiritual game, that is for sure – but it is not about what is true.
Everything but that.
The whistle blower may be a very unpopular ‘appearance’ in life.
But he still blows the whistle irregardless.
All organized spiritual groups contain an expectation of exclusivity.
The sense of separation is fed by such spoken or unspoken ‘contracts’.
As J. Krishnamurti says:– “The Truth cannot be organized” & “Truth is a pathless land”.
What IS is what IS.


Today's Note:
The error of seeking is so obvious, it is not even suspected.
The error is the insistence of being ‘someone’ that is searching for ‘something’ that you 'imagine' that you don't already have.
That is the hitch, the self-center 'knot' that cannot be undone by the seeker.
The angst of the seeker is a self feeding 'loop'.
The only way out of it, is to recognize it and drop it - and be what you are, just as you are.
The ‘pointer’ “The answer is not in the mind” can be put another way, “There is no answer in the mind”.
Stop looking in the mind. – Drop the concepts and see.

Then the mind usually comes up with: “How can I do that?”
There is no 'How' - that can only be an addition of more thought or concepts.

Just stop thought and see. - Drop it.
It may only seem to last a few moments - but see into those moments - simply be in the moment and let the mind rest on nothing at all.
That moment may appear to go away - but in the subsequent re-tasting of it, one realizes that THIS moment is all there ever is. - It is the mind content that comes and goes and that coming and going INCLUDES the IDEA of 'me'.

In that clear space of BEING, there is nothing that you can say about that no thought ‘state’. – We can call it a state but it is actually not a state at all.
In staying with that empty mind, it is found to be full of livingness – and we can call that 'thoughtless reality'.
There is nothing wrong in that. – 'Until' the mind re-enters with its 'me' stuff.
The IDEA of 'me' CANNOT see or Know anything.
So, in seeing that 'stuff' for what it is, without wanting to alter it, there is STILL no problem. - What a blessed relief (for no one).
It may be recognized that it is the re-engagement with the 'me', that is where the problems re-enter - and that 'happens' because of the believed in 'entity' 'me' has not been questioned or looked at closely. - It is belief - mere thoughts. - It has NO being whatsoever - so how can you BE that 'stuff'?

All of the mind content, no matter what it is, is only an appearance in or on the 'natural state’. - The mind is clear and empty - right now.
Reach in there and grasp a thought, if you can find the mind.
Thoughts have no substance at all.
Get a taste of that fact, over and over.

Stories in the mind go on and on.
Here is one: Some latest fabulous ‘guru’ comes to town and seekers flock to him imagining that he will be ‘The One’ - the one to tip the scales. - The local gurus get upset because their 'flock' numbers drop as these 'sorry souls' pop along to the 'The latest Pide Piper'.

The 'mind projection' of 'a savior' who 'comes to town' is just another error of belief - the belief that he will, most hopefully, be 'The One' - and it cannot be anything but an error. – Why?
Because what YOU truly ARE is that ONE. – Seeking that ONE through some other guru or teacher is a dualistic trap for the mind - a prison. - Why are so many spending decades with Gurus and teachers? - To get a certificate? - To give away half their wages?
(Note: Nisargadatta said eight days was enough to absorb the message.)

These traveling 'non duality minstrels' all come and go - and the seekers are left seeking - it happens over and over.
After the 'wham bam', the local gurus pick up the pieces and pull the flock back together and resume their 'trade'.
Don't get me wrong: - There is no judgment here about any of it - I am just telling a story - one that may be very familiar to you.
No one is 'doing any of it'. - It is all in the appearance of 'things'. - By investing hope in all these 'special teachers' and 'things' we entrap ourselves on a path to nowhere.
What is necessary is already 'right here' - there is nothing you need from someone else, in order to realize this moment of life. - No concept is ever this Life. - Drop all concepts and Life is obviously this livingness, without a single thought to support it.

The mind conceptualizes all of the ‘pointers’ and with those concepts, it creates another mind trap.
Seeing through the self-center is NOT via the mind. – Living without a self-center is not a memorized concept or something one can imitate. – There never was a 'me’ – just see that fact and be over and done with the 'latest fad' or the latest 'hot' traveling guru. - Surely you are exhausted by now? - How many teachers are you going to run along to?
What is needed is a simple messenger - it is extremely simple - but everyone is attracted to the 'teachers' who play the promotional game and dress up in all the garb and 'walk with sobriety and conscious intention' in an atmosphere of sacredness.
There is no need for long winded stories and contracts with gurus or teachers.

In five minutes, it is possible to point out the essential facts. - Whether it is heard is another matter.

The insistence on being 'someone' seeking 'something' and 'imagining' you don't have it, that is the hitch - the knot of self-torture.

Who is seeing?

The clear and precise intelligence ‘in’ one who has truly realized THIS, has no interest in telling elaborate stories about ‘how it was achieved’. – Nothing has been achieved at all – all that happens is the stories are seen through.
All mind content is known for what it is – no concerns over the past and the habitual fears about the future have fallen away altogether.
There is no dependence on any ‘thing’ in the present, past or future.
There is no indulgence or interest in ‘looking back’ into memory, it is known in an absolute sense, that there is no point in dragging up the ‘story’ of ‘the journey’ - and it is known for certain that there is no use in imposing those stories onto others, as if they had some relevant importance.
It cannot benefit anyone.
You may notice that almost all teachers indulge in 'their story of attainment' - and 'seekers', through ignorance, want to imitate that 'story'. - It is all useless.

In the direct pointing, above all else, there is ‘no impulse’ to imply that someone else should ‘do’ some sort of practice – not even one tiny practice, no practice whatsoever – none at all. - This fact alone eliminates 99.99% of teachers - useless, except as someone to imitate. - What joy can there be in that? - Endless notions of 'becoming' is self delusion on all fronts - the teacher is included in that conceptualized realm of mind stuff.
In the direct pointing, there is a knowing that all of the ‘appearance of how things are’, is nothing but ‘an appearance’ of being – it has no substance whatsoever – and the illusion of pushing some concepts via 'suggestion' about some elusive ‘substance of being’, all concerning the re-arrangement of ‘things’, so that enlightenment can ‘come’, that is known in an absolute sense to be a trap for the mind.
The natural state is present - it is just ignored. - It cannot 'come' because it already IS.
Stop ignoring it.
What is TRUE, along with a natural compassion, prevents any such ideas about elaborate time bound methods and practices from misleading the unwary, they never pass through the lips of 'the true messenger'.
The true messenger does not 'play a game' of being anyone 'special'. - He delivers the message. - There is NO interest in collecting 'followers'.
THIS ‘presence of knowing’ can never be about any kind of 'appearance' of any notions of BECOMING – because it already IS – As it always has been.

We overlook the natural state of simple 'presence with what is’ and go off in the mind with stale old habitual beliefs. – Those beliefs cannot stand up to a clear and precise investigation of the substance they are believed to contain. – Don’t be put off by some teacher saying that the investigation is just more seeking. – INTELLIGENCE and SEEING belong to 'presence-awareness' - the close examination of beliefs is revealed to be insubstantial, transient 'mind-content'.
This revelation is totally radical, from the perspective of mind.
Yet it is totally ordinary from the perspective of simple 'silent being' and seeing ‘what is’.

Telling this, does not win me any friends in 'the spiritual circle'. - The spiritual 'business' is rife with practices and methods all leading nowhere at all - good for business though - "good on 'em".
The messenger may appreciate an expression of gratitude but it is not sort after.
If your teacher has these qualities then you may well have found a true messenger.

Email: -
“When I first found your e-book “Everything is Clear and Obvious”, I remember well, reading it, and that night the sleeping was very good – I slept well. - And the next day, in the waking state, it was like, ‘I am in the background witnessing all that happens’. Later that view, (which is probably the 'knowing' you refer to) that view later seemed to diminish, it is like the ‘personality’, that type of limited perspective, came again." – Sergio

Reply: Yes, all manner of things ‘appear’ in that 'knowing', that ‘open view’ – whatever appears in and on that, they are all transient appearances.
The habit is to believe that "I am in the mind", a character in the body. – See it for what it is. - The body and the mind content both appear on awareness.
If the body (your body) is the 'first pattern' to appear in the experience of the world (for you) - The first 'thing' you see is 'space' and the body appears in that space - and if that pattern, which we usually associate our 'self' with, the body, is not recognized as an appearance also - then that is the obscuring factor.
Where are you seeing from? - Is it not from that space? - Does it have any boundary?
Does it have a form? - A color? - Is it not spaciousness itself?

This spacious ‘open view’ is always here – it is the very nature of 'being', of awareness itself. – It is the basis of every experience, prior to whatever the mind translates it into.
– It is knowing.

Note: The mentioned e-book is a free download-able pdf file on the shining through the mind website - top right hand side of screen.

Email:

Hi Gilbert, - Sometimes there is a seeing of the personality as a thought. - It is so simple that I can hardly believe it. - The seeing is usually brief and followed by a sort of return to the previous way of perceiving. - Is it really this simple?
I see the seen but not the seer. - The seeing seems to just happen out of nothing.
Is nothing the seer?

Although there are occasional 'glimpses' of this seeing, the understanding is not on gut-level. - I still suffer, although there is an increased ability to let emotions and states just be and float on by at their own pace.
Sometimes I feel almost desperate, because I really, really want to understand this now. - I do not want to seek anymore, I want to live. - I do not want to be obsessed by this anymore.
Best regards – Jens.

Reply:

Yes, it is so simple we miss it.
SEEING is happening. - Always.
There is No seer that has any independence or substance 'apart' from SEEING.
There is NO 'entity' that is seeing anything. - Believing there is is just a thought.
The 'thinker' is a thought.
"I am thinking" is just another thought appearing in the knowing-seeing.
It is the emptiness that is seeing-knowing.
This emptiness is not a void - it is pure intelligence.
There is no benefit or harm in it for anyone.
Believing there is is just a thought.
There never was a 'someone'.
The 'person' is NOT reality.

Whatever you see is not you.
The 'seer' is a thought only - 'I see'.
Have a look - does that 'I' have any substance?
If it did, surely you would know that by now. - You are not a fool and yet this obvious fact has eluded you. - Why?
The duality of 'the seen' and 'the seer' are only appearances in SEEING.

You say you want to stop seeking - that 'you' is nothing but thought based habits.
That 'you' may want to add substance to 'itself' by attaching itself to anything and everything - but nothing works for long.
What you actually ARE can never seek - because it is already THAT. - Start there as THAT and then the seeking cannot even 'get off the ground'.

The moments of seeing clearly (the glimpses) you speak of are moments when the 'me' is absent. - The 'space' in which a 'thick forest' appears in, is always there, whether deforestation happens or not.

These glimpses appear to come and go - but is that actually true?
The momentary glimpse of the Ocean does not mean the Ocean disappears. - SEE what it is that seemingly obscures the view. - It is inevitably 'mind content'.

The seeing is always present - what comes and goes is the thoughts, concepts, images etc.

In the appearance of 'things' you identify yourself with (those) thoughts.

My advice is: Drop them - and just BE the seeing.

Even though this is pointed out over and over, no one seems to hear it - actually quite a few have heard it and seen the truth of it - but generally the habit of identifying will not allow any 'space of knowing' to remain uncluttered. - The nature of mind is to divide. - Even though it has no power at all, that habit of believing in a 'me' reappears simply because it is believed in and never questioned.
WHO is it that believes it?

See if you can find any substance to that self-center that you believe is 'you'.
That is what needs to happen - it cannot be done by a 'you' - intelligence 'does' it.
Be that intelligence that you ARE.
Yes, it is indeed so very simple. - But you must persist in this examination - this exploration of what you are.
The mind will not want to stay with it - it will throw up all manner of diversions because that is the habit.
Do not hold onto anything - let the thoughts flow freely, let them appear and disappear - do not take delivery of them. - They will be 'Returned to sender' - They will lose their apparent 'attraction' and will recede into being only transparent 'visitors' or a slight 'buzz' in the background.
Realize this profundity: What you truly are has NEVER stepped OUT of presence.

You ARE present and aware - As Bob says: 'you are not asleep'.
Awareness is not a concept.
The concept about awareness is just a name, a concept.

Write again if needs be.

Warm regards - Gilbert.

The Profound Evidence is (the) Knowing.

Today's Note is not for the timid or the meek and mild - in fact many will not be able to follow what is being pointed out - if only one does, then these words are not wasted - As Nisargadatta pointed out about what he was expounding: "There are no customers for this knowledge".
Those who gather customers (seekers) are not telling it straight - because they obviously don't know the essence of it clearly. - Ironically, it seems, this one here makes virtually no money from this 'pointing' at what is true. - If there was any ambition here, this 'knowledge' could 'set me up' into a very comfortable life style, with hundreds of followers and all the trappings that come with it, women hanging around like flies, all wanting some 'shaktipat' or whatever you call 'it'.
- Not even a thought of such things can survive here, not for even 2 moments. - The direct message must be told. - It cannot have any conditions placed before it. - Payment is not a prerequisite. - It may 'come after' or not. - Whether gratitude arises anywhere for these expressions, is not of any concern to 'me' because there is no 'me'.
The 'seeker' is 'self-absorbed' illusion - a pattern of energy. - There is no self - 'who' really wants to know that?



The Profound Evidence is (the) Knowing.
The Knowing is the Profound Evidence. - They are One.
No separation.
The most profound evidence of reality is right here, right now. – The only ‘reason’ it is not recognized is because of ‘reason’ itself – thought patterns ‘apparently’ obscure reality. – The obviousness of ‘space’ is overlooked in the same way that this profundity of ‘presence’ is overlooked.

The reality that 'you are' is THAT in which space and time ‘appear’ – space and time are known from beyond space and time – These attributes of ‘the manifestation’ appear or register on THAT 'knowing', which is not actually subjected to clarity, nor to obscurity. – No matter how much thought is given to this – no matter how much ‘effort’ is made to perceive THAT fact – those activities are only appearances in THAT direct and immediate cognition. - This subtle point is registering in that knowing and the description, and the images in mind, are never the 'thing' being described.
That is a movement in mind, a process, in time.
Knowing is not in time - it never budges from THIS Instant. - It is only the description and mentation that seemingly moves away (into a landscape of thought) - but even that has no existence except AS the immediate vibration that IT IS.

Such information may still the mind. - The wonder of 'knowing' itself may arise (or not).

Any concept about an ‘entity’ being present in THAT knowing, is only 'a transient appearance'. – It has NO duration at all. - Repeated belief lends those appearances in mind an apparent duration and 'being'. - 'The source' of noticing this fact (or anything at all) is knowing and the mind content is an 'appearance'. - It may be an appearance of a ‘turning point’, a 'profound insight' – one that has no actual physical existence in space or time and it is totally impersonal. - It remains 'as if' totally stationary - it is THIS knowing-presence.
In THAT, there is no one (no separate pattern of energy) to indulge in fantasies or stories of someone that is 'enlightened'. - All such talk is fanciful notions and belongs to dualistic mind. - This is known to be true in your own essence.

One cannot, and need not, place oneself anywhere 'apart' from the 'knowing' - THIS knowing has no detectable form or location.

The simplicity of whatever is ‘happening’ (right now, as always) is registering in the ‘knowing’. – In THAT there is No ‘knower’ and No ‘known’ - No Subject and No object. – It is Non Dual. - ALL Inclusive. - Reality.
Because there is no separation, there is no one that can separate this knowing from whatever it is that is known - except conceptually (mind stuff). - To believe that there is, is mere transient content of mind. - No proof can ever support it - but such facts are avoided by the mind, because it is 'too close for comfort'.

A cognitive Scientist may spend a life time trying to establish what the 'I' is. - He remains searching with nothing to rest on - nothing substantial - all he has is theories. - Theories are patterns in the mind. - Not a lot to show for a life times work.

The ‘activity of knowing’ is the ‘foundation’ of every experience – 'the activity of knowing' is not what the mind translates that or any experiencing into.
This is where 'everyone' stumbles - and that could be said to be a natural occurrence because the 'personal approach' is weighted by the bias of an 'attachment'. - The subtle notion of a 'someone', (a thought of being someone) a someone that is wanting a preconceived 'outcome'- which can only ever be more transient content of mind.
The bias of the mind is 'ME'. - The 'me' is NOT reality.
This fact, when it 'finally sinks in', it confounds the intellect and leaves it in a ‘state’ of poverty (a sense of "I don't really know") - that may transpose as a very subtle experiencing of 'expansion' of this 'space-like awareness'.

(A weight is lifted from being)

The profound revelation that may be so easily missed is that at no point is the intelligence incapacitated. - Intelligence remains throughout all experiencing and apparent ordeals.
Knowing is presence.
One could say that 'intelligence' is witnessing 'the whole universal activity' - all 'time and space patterns' appear in THAT - 'IS That' - Intelligence.
The intelligence and the knowing are ONE.
You KNOW that you exist – any expression about that fact is a translation in the mind, words, concepts, ideas. - The expression may be witnessed and known to be only an appearance in what is 'totally indescribable'.

Belief has nothing to do with it. – Belief belongs to the realm of dualistic mind. Knowing is ‘at all times’ beyond the mind content. - We can call it 'Pure Mind' if that helps. - Pure Mind is not limited to any of the content of mind.
What you ARE is 'seemingly connected' to 'the world of impressions' via ‘knowing’ – not via thoughts etc. – The ‘entity’ one may believe one is, depends entirely on ‘mind content’. - And that does not have the capacity of knowing - only apparent 'connections'.
The knowing suffuses all.

A lot of ‘people’ get hot and bothered about ‘who is clear and who is not clear’, when it comes to the so-called Non Duality ‘teachers’, websites, books and so on. - There has been some not so subtle pointing out of erroneous teachers on this website as well.
It is all futile, nothing but a game of opinions and bias – all of it belongs to the appearance of transient ‘things’. - Entertainment only.

The point is that when one hears a clear message, it is like 'a hunting dog' picking up on the strong scent of ‘the fox’. - Nothing can put that dog off the trail, he is totally ‘one pointed’ from the moment he picks up the scent. – All he needs to do is ‘follow the trail’.
In other words: Follow that resonance in being. - Innately we KNOW.
One 'appears' to retrace ones own Being 'back' to this immediate presence - this Knowing.
In this 'way', one need not worry about who is clear and who is not.
You realize that you ARE the ‘space of clarity’ in which everything appears….and NOTHING can remove 'you' from THAT Knowing….Everything, without exception is known to be an appearance in THAT.
Such profound 'pointing' is not welcome for most 'adherents' because of 'erroneous knowledge' that is being held onto. - Knowledge that some guru or teacher has convinced them is true.
"Who cares?"

The Masquerade

Note to all concerned:
Due to increasing technical difficulties, or some sort of interference, the shining through the mind website has not been functioning as usual. - Some business type 'tycoon' (racoon) has purchased the name of the site in the 'dot com' side of things at some sort of 'dot com auction' and has been trying to sell me my own website name. - So my advice to all is to link to my blogsite, "Nonduality Notes" (the same notes appear there), instead of the shining through the mind website. If by chance the 'shining' website becomes in-operative, I will dissolve it. - I am not interested in playing extortion games with opportunists. - This is a non profit site.


Today's Note:

If there is no discrimination between what ‘appears’ as thoughts, concepts and story constructions in ‘your own mind’ – between that and the actuality of ‘what is’ – then what can you possibly know about reality?

Are 'you' searching for it 'out there'? - Using all manner of second hand wisdom to find it?

Reality cuts through all illusion - 'the mirage of water' is NOT water - it just 'appears' to be water. - All of our sacred beliefs are just like that mirage of water.

If you refuse to put aside your erroneous beliefs, even for just a moment, then what kind of shock is needed to shatter your stubborn resistance? - Who has the time and who has the effort to persistently 'knock on your door'?


How many times do you need to hear it - to be told?

What you seek you already are. - The fantasy character is chasing 'a concept of reality' or some other concept, like 'enlightenment'.

The ONLY 'place' to 'start from' is 'to be what you are'. - In that clear and open view everything is seen for what it is. - That natural open view does not depend on any concept at all and belief does not even enter the picture - or if it does, and belief kicks in to full gear, then the view is not open.

Without that clear and incisive seeing, isn’t everything mixed up in a concoction of floating opinions and beliefs? - Isn't that 'me' at the mercy of an unpredictable tide and that 'me' gets tossed around like a cork on the sea. - Is that the basis of... 'my personal knowledge of what is real'?

We fight like cats and dogs to protect our self-image and our beliefs, to protect that paper castle, imagining it will keep us safe.

There is no hiding from reality – it is clear and obvious.

Who do you image you are fooling, except yourself?

Hiding behind a semi-conscious persona, a mask is best left for the Masquerade Ball and party games.





The Urban Guru Cafe is soaring. - Click on blue lettering to go visit the site.

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The Urban Guru Cafe is a podcasting site, set up a few months ago - providing new material to contemplate, including interviews with those speaking 'directly' from their own knowing - rather than telling you what you have to believe. - All on this subject of Non Duality.
A new program is made and released every 2 weeks (approx). - If you have not listened yet - Do yourself a favor - take a listen.

I have just listened again to Bob on The Urban Guru Café (dot com) - program number 9. – It is extremely simple and direct - but you have to follow closely to what is being pointed out.
At no point does Bob rely on any story or belief about anything at all. - He simply tells it straight. - Any Buddhist, Zen or Christian, any follower of any religion whatsoever, can listen to this program and hear the essence of their own religion – because each religion is telling the same message, as long as you stay with the directness, the essential pointers. - With most religions that essential message gets covered over by all manner of ‘conditions’ and stories – That exclusiveness is ‘separation’. – As soon as you join a religion, you are most usually expected to be exclusive – you exclude all the other religions. – What Bob is pointing out is that essence of what you are is totally inclusive. - There is NO separation. – Take a listen to number 9.


P.S. - By the way, The Urban Guru Café is most definitely soaring - with about 10% exponential growth per day. – Amazing – word is spreading.