There is NO separation + Note on Lineage

DON'T MISS OUT ON THIS NEW BOOK on Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj - "Gleanings from Nisaragadatta" now available for Ordering.
- "There has been little published in recent years that comes near to it's direct impact."
- We anticipate a great deal of interest in this book, a book that could be described as a 'potent extension' of the book "I am That".
- It contain a very clear expressions of extremely salient points concerning Maharaj's teaching.
- In my opinion, it is 'sharper' and so, more 'cutting to the core', than what appears in the book 'I am That' and that book is held to be a classic by many.

If I were to leave a 'mark' in this world from my so-called 'existence', then finding Bob Adamson and Mark West and getting their books published, is more than enough.
Actually that all happened quite naturally. - To witness 'others' finding some truth through these books is more than satisfying.
- This book on Nisargadatta's teaching is a gem." - Gilbert.
Note for today:
Bob Adamson took delivery of the full impact of Nisargadatta's 'pointers' and his life immediately changed. - After it all settled, Bob began to speak to others about this freedom from 'the bondage of self'.
- It is 30 years hence and the message has been 'passed on' in numerous cases. - Take advantage of this yourself and leave the 'troubled mind' behind, assigned as a vague and distant memory.
- That is how it is for me, so the same can be for you also.
There are many pointers within what Bob Adamson is expounding in his meetings.
For a few, there is a resonation that is felt, a (so-called) ‘deep hidden truth’ is felt and that resonation ‘appears to deepen’ as the mind finds more and more evidence of the truth of what he is pointing out.
- It is now seven years since I first heard Bob’s pointers.
I can still sit and listen to him, or one of the recordings which I made at his home, and see things in a fresh way, through his pointers.
- Even though the message delivered its full impact some years ago, for me, I still feel or resonate with the message.
- It is in contrast to what we normally believe and challenging in no small way.
There needs to be a kind of willingness to explore oneself and how the message resonates and all that it brings to the surface. - A desire to find the true.
By absorbing that fresh information, those pointers and in testing it all in my own life, all beliefs were freed of their hold over me. - It was very simple yet it has such wide spread ramifications, in (the appearances of) how one views life.
I would put it this way: - There is an ease of being in which everything flows as it does. - Everything is witnessed and any responses in oneself are also witnessed without getting lost in the drama of it all. - That drama may appear to be very dramatic at times. - In truth nothing sticks anywhere.
In the relativity of the appearances: - Few things ever ‘stick’ for any ‘length of time’ and most so-called ‘problems’ are dealt with without drama. - Any drama dissolves quite naturally.
- In my dealings, others may demonstrate some sort of drama happening but it never touches this clear space of knowing that I am.
Even though I have written extensively about what has arisen in this understanding, I would advise anyone that is truly interested, to read Bob’s two books thoroughly.
All of the insights that have flown through this mind here, have come about naturally due to Bob’s most profound and insightful pointers.
The 'blockages' to natural intelligence were removed.
The pointers of Siddharameshwar and Nisargadatta are equally potent (for me) in a slightly different 'language' and style.
- Being a straight shooting Australian, Bob is most clear (for westerners) with the same potent information, although his comes directly from his own experiencing, with the odd reference to his teachers words. - He made it his own through the potency of the pointers. - That is how it comes about. - Direct knowing in being, as the actual and immediate knowing.
- Bob's discussions with Nisargadatta were animated and direct.
Those living words, spoken so animatedly by one so free of the trappings of life, resonated with him so profoundly.
- That is also how it happened for me, with Bob.
One critical non dual teacher (popular) in Europe said I, or anyone speaking about non duality, should not quote others.
- He has no one to quote because he did not have a teacher.
- I find his own words to be rather sloppy and rather foggy myself but others hear what he says and apparently 'get it'.
- There is no problem in any of that, so I will let him sort out his own critical mind.
It is quite natural to draw upon such potent 'pointings' and why not quote the words now and then, of a message that clearly destroyed one's own misunderstandings?
- If I had not absorbed Bob's pointers so completely and found their truth in my own direct experiencing, I doubt that anything would have been written (by me) about any of this Non Duality at all.
– The writing that does happen here just flows of itself, often without any wish to.
The bottom line is that it is all, the whole manifestation, it is all ‘of one intelligence’ expressing itself.

For any westerner, who is searching for an answer to the deepest questions of their own existence, Bob’s clear pointing is a gift of the greatest magnitude.
The fact that few recognize that is not surprising.
- The fact that those few who actually do resonate with it and that they experience a new freedom beyond description is no surprise to me.
You can visit Bob’s website from a link on my Link Page.
If you feel a deep desire to liberate yourself from the errors of belief and mis-information and have a sincere approach, read his books, follow what he is pointing out and I say that it will clear away all misunderstandings as it did for me.
- The world may appear to conspire to prevent that 'clearing away' but if you meet the challenge, this natural freedom will reveal itself.

Today's Note:

Zero degrees of separation.....is this immediate fact of being.
It is the direct and immediate nature of awareness and of all the pure functions of the senses, seeing, hearing, taste, touch etc.
- Memory may be postulated as being ‘time bound’ but actually all memory appears in the immediate nature of awareness and nowhere else.
Time and space are like a polar axis running through the apparent 3 (or 4) dimensional universe.
- Time equals duration and space equals volume.
- One cannot appear without the other yet they are one and the same.
- Energy is matter, matter is energy and these apparent two are one and the same.
- All of the dynamic display of energy and life as we know it in our daily lives, ‘appears’ between these two polar opposites commonly called the North Pole and the South Pole.
- A Living Earth we call home.
What we do not commonly realize is that Life is not localized in any specific spots in the universe and it is not separated from anything at all.
Life is all.
- The intelligence that suffuses the whole is not a hairs breadth removed from your own true nature.
The singular factor which we have overlooked because it is far too obvious is the factor of ‘knowing’.
- The natural presence of your own being is nothing other than this intelligence, which displays itself not only as your body and what you call mind but it is the Planet Earth and the Whole Universe with not one degree of separation in time or space.
- Everything is of one instant and it is THIS knowing presence right now and it is the one and only instant.
- We could call it the pure duration of eternity.
When have you ever left THIS moment?
It is not a trick question or some intellectual game.
Contemplate it.
Even a moment of contemplation is simply intelligence looking at a pattern in mind and that apparent recognition of ‘something’ profound or ordinary is nothing but a movement in this Moment which in itself never moves.
- It neither comes nor goes.
Only identified patterns in mind appear and disappear within THIS.
Is it not so obvious?
My first book is called “The First Instant”.
The second is called “Everything is Clear and Obvious”.
A third book is planned for next year and it is titled “Zero degrees of Separation”.

Note 2:
Some apparent sorry souls imagine that you just have to learn the 'Non Duality' lingo and just go on pretending to yourself and everyone else that there is no 'me' and that is it.
Wrong!
It is rather common but a shallow way to be and it is full of dis-ease in a restless mind.
So some have missed the point completely and with some of the advice they get from popular gurus, it is no wonder.
Binding devotees into believing in a future time of deliverance is just ignorance.
Nothing could be further from the truth and it is unnecessary to propogate or postulate such nonsense. - Anyone awake to the moment can see that it is clearly the notions of a bound mind.
- Best I drop this point, because so many get ruffled up about it.

Seeing, knowing and all the senses are nothing but this immediacy of NOW.
Nothing will come from ‘time bound concepts’ and postulations or beliefs.
All such nonsense can only fall away in THIS immediacy and that can only happen if we really look, investigate what ‘appears’ to be.
In This instant of seeing, one can know without any doubt that all these conceptual frameworks are just mind content. - All mind content comes and goes. - Nothing sticks in the mind unless you fixate on some concept and even that will disappear in the night. - Each morning is a fresh opportunity, each moment in fact, is an opportunity to see directly from the pure awareness that you are.
There is ONLY NOW.
Some say we have to learn to live in the now. - Bollocks!
You cannot live anywhere else than right here 'as' this now.
That is how it is and how it has always been (but even that is a 'time bound' expression).
"There is only now": It is not a cliché.
It is the Essence that you ARE.

Note on Lineage:
A lot of importance is placed on the gurus credentials but to do so is to miss the point, the living and immediate nature of the potency which he is pointing to. - ‘The investigation’, which this lineage ‘encourages’, is the pivotal point of ‘a turn around’ in consciousness, for the seeker.
Bear in mind that awareness is untouched and already clear and present ‘before’ and ‘after’ the investigation. – The apparent ‘journey to freedom’ is for the mind only. – The bondage of self is a fiction but knowing that and not knowing that are ‘worlds’ apart, so to speak.
To pretend that one has been liberated from the erroneous beliefs, when no such freedom from bondage has transpired is an insidious situation that an increasing number of seekers face.
Absorbing the language and the various cliché’s is no substitute for a direct and immediate inquiry.
Natural freedom from the ‘bondage of self’ remains for the usual mind, as a mysteriously inexpressible ‘non thing’, outside its domain. - The usual mind set is ignorant that it, itself is only a transient appearance in the timeless.
Being introduced to this ‘investigation’ is the basis of the expression of ‘the lineage’.
For the one introduced, it appears as some sort of lineal series of events and experiences.
However, as soon as one attempts to form a matrix of references, story of what happened, for a another, a listener to relate to, the essential impact is mostly likely to be missed, since the mind ‘goes’ into ‘time and story’.
– To my view, this is why Maharaj rarely spoke of any ‘personal past’. - It is the nature of our apparent ‘history’ and its stories which seemingly hide the clear and obvious, apparently obscuring direct cognition of what is true. – Beyond all such explanations about anything at all, cognition is shining. – Revealing that for a seeker is the great mystery and the apparent cause of so much misunderstanding. – Understanding is this living presence of conscious cognizance. – What presence is there without That?
Here below is how Nisargadatta responds to a question about his lineage:

(Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is of the Navanath Sampradaya, the ancient lineage of the nine gurus. Maharaj did not place any stress on ‘time’ or his lineage, especially with his western devotees.

- However, he did speak about it once in awhile and one account appears in the book ‘I Am That’. - This book is what aroused my attention and it led me to the right place.)

Question: - I see here picture of several saints and I am told that they are your spiritual ancestors. Who are they and how did it all begin?

Maharaj: - We are called collectively the “Nine Masters”. - The legend says that our first teacher was the Rishi Dattatreya, the great incarnation of the trinity of Brahman, Vishnu and Shiva. - Even the ‘Nine Masters” are mythological. (Ed: ‘Yesterday’ or ‘ten thousand years ago’ are equal – they are not the livingness that is with you NOW – the ‘lineage’ in essence is this living presence, now.)

Question: - What is the peculiarity of their teaching?

Maharaj: - It is simplicity, both in theory and in practice.

Question: - How does one become a Navanath? By initiation or by succession?

Maharaj: - Neither. the Nine Masters’ tradition (Navanath Parampara) is like a river—it flows into the ocean of reality and whoever enters it is carried along.

Question: - Does it imply acceptance by a living master belonging to the same tradition?

Maharaj: - Those who practice the sadhana of focusing their minds on “I am” may feel related to others who have followed the same sadhana and succeeded. they may decided to verbalize their sense of kinship by calling themselves Navanaths, it gives them the pleasure of belonging to an established lineage.

Question: - Do they in anyway benefit by joining?

Maharaj: - The circle of satsang, the company of saints expands as time passes.

Question: - Do they get hold thereby of a source of power and grace from which they would have been barred otherwise?

Maharaj: - Power and Grace are for all and for the asking. - Giving oneself a particular name does not help. - Call yourself by any name—as long as you are intensely mindful of yourself, the accumulated obstacles to self-knowledge are bound to be swept away.

Question: - If I like your teaching and accept your guidance, can I call myself a Navanath?

Maharaj: - Please your word-addicted mind ! - The name will not change you. - At least it may remind you to behave. - There is a succession of gurus and their disciples, who in turn train more disciples and thus the line is maintained. - But the continuity of tradition is informal and voluntary. - It is like a family name, but here the family is spiritual.

Questioner: -Do you have to realize to join the Sampradaya?

Maharaj: -The Navanath Sampradaya is only a tradition, a way of teaching a (simple) practice. It does not denote a level of consciousness. - If you accept a Navanath Sampradaya teacher as your guru, you join his Sampradaya. - Usually you receive a token of his grace—a look, a touch or a word, sometimes a vivid dream or a strong remembrance. - Sometimes the only sign of grace is a significant and rapid change in character and behavior.

Questioner: -I know you now, for some years and I meet with you regularly. - The thought of you is never far from my mind. - Does it make me belong to your Sampradaya?

Maharaj: -Your belonging is a matter of your own feeling and conviction. - After all, it is all verbal and formal. In reality there is neither guru nor disciple, neither theory nor practice, neither ignorance nor realization, - it all depends on what you take yourself to be. - Know your self correctly, - There is no substitute to self-knowledge.


News:

In a new CD set Burt Jurgens presents a very clear expose of the basics and subtleties on Non Duality. - There is also a CD compilation called "Non-Dual Expressions Volume 1", which has music tracks included.
Anyone within traveling distance to Portland OR should go and attend his next meeting.
Check his website for details: Beyond Description dot net.