HERE & NOW - what else is there?
News: The CD's "Shining through the mind" and "One Moment" plus the book "Everything is Clear and Obvious" is available through Amazon (as stocks permit).
Today's Note.
You are present and aware. - That is 'the briefness of it all.
The following is a field of conceptual 'frames' to explore in that presence that you are. - The mind may stall at any moment with a line or concepts but just be aware - (and there is no question of not being aware) - that all these words are just content passing through the 'mind'.
You are here ‘now’. – Yes?
Of course! - Can’t deny it. – Pointless in denying it.
What is the source of this being-ness that appears now?
The usual view of such things is based on conceptual notions which imply that you are somehow inferior and a subject ‘to and of’ some God or Absolute Superior Being – by who’s grace you have your place in the scheme of ‘things’. – In relativity, we do not usually question these notions until we are introduced to concepts that imply some other view of it all.
These are all conceptual by their nature and are all relative.
Sideline Analogy thrown in: Because 'the stage' remains stationary, 'the dancers' can dance freely with confidence. - If the stage were to move about at random, the dancers would find it tedious or impossible to avoid being thrown to the floor.
Your 'essence' is 'the stage' and the 'personality' is a dancer, an actor. - That is just an analogy, it may makes sense for some.
There is intelligence at the basis of all ‘things’, concepts and even dreams.
All 'conceptual views', in mind, are not 'the pure function of seeing' or what I call 'direct cognition' - unmediated knowing.
- The former is based on memory and the later is ever fresh awareness.
This 'pure function' of seeing is happening now as you read these words.
Although there is no such thing as indirect cognition - and as Bob points out "the word is not the real" - Those points may seem disjointed, they are not, just different views of the same phenomena - which is all that the mind has in any moment. - That may seem too abstract for some.
Cognition is ceaseless.
The mind is apparently stimulated by the words and (then)‘meaning’ appears quite spontaneously. - You cannot drive a thin bladed thought between the registering and the apparent response of 'meaning'.
It may all 'appear' to move smoothly until some words or meaning 'jar' with the consciousness or something is questioned, or whatever.
(What is all this? - Some sort of intellectual Gymnastic display! - Stay with it)
- 'All' is 'the actuality' of intelligence in action, so to speak.
How can one know intelligence? - How can it be known and by that same intelligence unless it is split into some sort of two-ness? - Mirror of the mind?
- In fact intelligence is never split, although it may appear to be.
Can you know the self that you are?
- All are seemingly useful questions in this so-called self inquiry - but have you ever found 'something' that you can truly call 'your own'?
‘Who’ is the owner and can you find ‘it’ in this now? - Have a look now!
- ‘Who’ is looking for the owner?
Is the apparent terrain of the mind divided into ‘me and mine’ and ‘not me and not mine’? - is it all apparently 'material existence' of some sort?
In this 'clear space of now', can you truly find any such things?
When we really look, they are not here and yet in memory we may be convinced that they ‘were there’ at some ‘time’. - All such notions are as if transparent in that seeing-knowing presence. - There is a subtleness to this 'pointing' which can be easily bypassed. - In being direct, all that is not real, is exposed or seen through.
– Mind is time and time is mind. – Is ‘mind’ an aspect of ‘mine-ness’?
What is this now-ness? - Do you know it? - Truly?
If you say that you know it, that implies a duality.
'Now' - & 'one that knows this now'. - (Not two)
Some so-called teacher’s talk about teaching 'you' how to 'enter' the 'now'.
How utterly absurd is that? - But 'people' flock to such 'teachers' by the thousands. - Then they get caught in conceptual 'progress' towards an ever receding conceptual 'now' - and so it is unattainable, even though no one has ever been 'out of the now' - Even a 'dreamer' cannot appear anywhere but in this now.
There are NO enlightened 'persons' and anyone who encourages you to believe such nonsense is a fraud - And a fraud in of the most devious kind.
How vague and absurd is 'the seeker' and how easily satisfied is it, with nonsense and adoration for a guru? - and yet it never gets truly satisfied at all, except as passing moments of indulgent thought patterns and self image preening.
Have you ever known yourself to be ‘out’ of this now?
Is this ‘now’ an object?
Don’t all presently known objects appear in this now?
In this ‘open view’ from this presence, this now, all of the so-called ‘past’ is memory and nothing more.
All of the so-called ‘future’ is nothing but anticipation or expectation.
All of it depends on there being 'a thought' about it.
Are there any objects in the future? - You can’t think about the future without some concepts about what 'it' is or 'will be', and yet you do not and never have known the future.
It ‘is not’ directly observable, since it is not an object and it can never be what you ‘think’ it will be.
Know this: - The future has never arrived! - It is a concept.
If even one concept were to actually ARRIVE in this now and settle in as something substantial, your world would be crushed.
Don't be afraid, it will never happen!
The NOW! - is an absence of anything substantial or continuous, except that which is 'knowing'. - Is it the now that is knowing itself?
Have you ever been separate from the now?
Such talk makes this 'now' sound like it is 'an object' but it is neither an object nor a non-object.
Is there a subject?
Well, I can say and know that I am.
Is this now what I am?
Can the mind separate now-ness from I am-ness?
Which came first?
The now is free of all of it.
This ‘space like awareness is here, there and everywhere, without there being any degree of separation ‘in it’.
- See this: Thought cannot separate or divide this space like awareness that I am.
Does this ‘here’, which you cannot 'get out of', have any boundary?
Is it a place?
If you were or are on a small deserted island, it may appear to be clear that there is an obvious boundary to 'here'.
One may say that where the water meets the sand is the boundary of ‘here’.
But hang on, the water penetrates the sand and probably right on through and below all the surface of the ‘island’. - The waterlogged sand also reaches out below the water line deep into the ocean and on as the same terrain re-immerges one way or another as every shoreline on this planet.
So, where is the boundary of ‘here’?
Even in ordinary consensus reality, if you put your hand into the Ocean or wade about in it, you are directly connected molecule to molecule with most of the water on this planet.
You can say "I am here" - no doubt about that!
So where does doubt enter? - In mind as conflicting content of mind.
That is no trivial point to pass by without further contemplation.
The air you breathe is connected to the whole atmosphere of this planet.
How separate are you? - Is any 'here' separated from any 'there' anywhere?
All is here and here is all.
Anything and everything that one could point to is phenomena and this phenomenon, by its own nature is changeful. - Energy. - Movement.
Without this intelligence and its vast array of movement, however gross or subtle, you could not know anything.
- Zero degrees of separation.
The first movement is that stirring of consciousness called ‘I am’ - just as it appears in the morning when you wake from sleep.
Without that wakefulness, there is nothing perceivable here at all.
In deep sleep, there is no witness and yet knowing remains and it, itself is no thing that is perceivable. - (It is in fact your own self.)
- Boundless presence.
All phenomena are nothing but the dynamic expression of awareness itself.
An ignorant one will ask why does awareness do that?
There is no 'doing', no 'time' and no ‘why’.
- It just IS.
Everything that you know of arises from the unlimited potentiality that you 'are' and that is awareness - the (unseen) light of knowing.
You are THAT. – No choice.
- What is this 'game' that you play of ‘not knowing’?
It is only time bound notions that occupy the mind with ignorant dreams of things that 'are not' - and these ALL are nothing but appearances which appear nowhere else than in this ‘space of knowing’ that 'you are' - No doubt!
In dropping these notions or in the 'full stop' of no thought or in not feeding thought with belief, they will be drained of energy and they will fold away into nothing. - This space of knowing remains as it ever does. – There is no ‘person’ in it or beside it or anywhere at all.
See that you are truly not a 'person' at all. – Where did that notion of being a person come from? - From a dream? - From ‘others’? – Conditioned mind?
In this immediate, pure space of Now, a concept comes in and a fascination with it attracts you to it and you associate with it. - A dream happens.
Is there a problem? - For whom?
This merging of 'space like awareness', which is one's true identity, with the 'dynamic aspect of awareness', which is phenomena, does it always turns into something unexpected?
– It is forever changing. - Suffering comes about or appears to come about because of a tension between two or more ‘points’ of reference. – One of these points is always the self-centered notion of being a ‘me’.
– You, as that 'appearance of being a ‘me’, adds to the equation a 'want' or a 'need'. - A need to escape or change that circumstantial ‘energy pattern’, the ‘appearance’, because of the discomfort, the tension, which is unbearable - for the 'me'.
But hang on, have you only apparently given 'yourself' over to this circumstantial pattern via associated thought patterns? - concepts and ideas or is it by 'notions' of mistaken identity? - Or has it happened at all? - All there is is Now.
Look Now. - This point I am getting at is so elusive and yet so profound.
You can never 'enter into it' - because you ARE it. - A clear space like presence in which all appears and disappears.
Have you really changed in essence, in this pure space of now?
I am telling you that it is clearly obvious right now, that you are free.
Only a belief pattern can appear to be disturbed or threatened by any notions of freedom.
Is it not strange that you could ever possibly believe that you do not know this?
- However, there is no one here or there that knows this.
As you take yourself to be a ‘me’, this unmediated knowing may appear to be unavailable to 'you'.
See and know directly that it is your very NATURE 'to know'.
All these words here are just concepts.
Know that - and know that this 'knowing' itself is NOT a concept.
This apparent discrimination, between concept and knowing is a fulcrum for the mind.
A kind of still point, which sees the duality and its swinging activity.
All apparent identities are 'content' of mind.
Knowing is beyond duality and discriminating mind and so the obvious is obvious, obviously. (How annoying for the intellectuals!)
- In that space of knowing, nothing 'more' is needed and nothing is truly divided.
It may dawn on you that you are free of all of it.
It is impossible to put it into words but I am trying my best to do it.
(In relativity, I risk being branded as a madman ranting about nonsense in a public place - who cares? - Why do I do it? - It just happens but I know what it is like, now only in memory, to feel that ache, that longing for reunion with oneself)
In the divergent mindscape, all this may seem to be beyond your understanding.
In that drama of life, the ‘personalized' consciousness, has seemingly 'taken sides' and apparently entered into duality.
It is only the way things 'appear' to be. – All the uneasiness is for that phantom, that ‘me’. It is out on the pendulum, swinging about, complaining about not 'getting it' and looking for peace of mind, like a monkey on a stick.
As an open space of freedom from thought 'opens' one may notice the restless activity of the mind edging to get back to its habitual activity.
Watch closely and see how it operates. - A glimpse of something may be informative in that watching. - You may notice something that you have been overlooking.
As one appears to slip back to the old ways - a sense of freedom may 'appear' to have been lost - but for whom?
It is NOT your true nature that is lost in phenomena. - You have truly never left this moment - never gone into time, ever.
There is nothing and no one that could ever be lost in phenomena or time.
It is all yourself anyway.
Why do you punish yourself with these old drama stories - all based on memory and a 'past' that is gone and dead?
Have you ever found another who can bear to hear your dramatic stories of that dramatic life? - Who really cares? - It’s your story and if you stop telling it to yourself and to others, it will subside of itself.
- This space, this clear space of NOW will reveal itself - not as a 'thing' but as that which all things come and go in - Just as it ever IS.
Do you have a choice? – have you ever had a choice?
In this pure space of now, there is no drama at all. - See and know that and know it without the need of any thought to support it.
Nothing touches this essential nature – that pure awareness that I am.
(Note added: I am reminded of a passage in the Bible which Bob Adamson once quoted to me and this passage, for me, expresses very efficiently what I have been attempting to convey in the above note. It is this: "A thousand may fall at your left side (by no doing of your own - passive)- ten thousand by thy right hand (by your own 'doing'- active) - but NONE shall come nigh thy dwelling place".
What is so subtle and yet so obvious is this 'space of knowing' - presence awareness - which is "the peace beyond all understanding".
Everything that appears, appears nowhere else than in this space.
The substance of 'that which appears' is equal to that space in which it appears.
It is full of knowing and yet it is no thing.
I am That.
e notions until we are introduced to concepts that imply some other view of it all.
These are all conceptual by their nature and are all relative.
Sideline Analogythrown in: Because 'the stage' remains stationary, 'the dancers' can dance freely with confidence. - If the stage were to move about at random, the dancers would find it tedious or impossible to avoid being thrown to the floor.
Your 'essence' is 'the stage' and the 'personality' is a dancer, an actor. - That is just an analogy, it may makes sense for some.
There is intelligence at the basis of all ‘things’, concepts and even dreams.
All 'conceptual views', in mind, are not 'the pure function of seeing' or what I call 'direct cognition' - unmediated knowing.
- The former is based on memory and the later is ever fresh awareness.
This 'pure function' of seeing is happening now as you read these words.
Although there is no such thing as indirect cognition - and as Bob points out "the word is not the real" - Those points may seem disjointed, they are not, just different views of the same phenomena - which is all that the mind has in any moment. - That may seem too abstract for some.
Cognition is ceaseless.
The mind is apparently stimulated by the words and (then)‘meaning’ appears quite spontaneously. - You cannot drive a thin bladed thought between the registering and the apparent response of 'meaning'.
It may all 'appear' to move smoothly until some words or meaning 'jarr' with the consciousness or something is questioned, or whatever.
(What is all this? - Some sort of intellectual Gymnastic display! - Stay with it)
- 'All' is 'the actuality' of intelligence in action, so to speak.
How can one know intelligence? - How can it be known and by that same intelligence unless it is split into some sort of two-ness? - Mirror of the mind?
- In fact intelligence is never split, although it may appear to be.
Can you know the self that you are?
- All are seemingly useful questions in this so-called self inquiry - but have you ever found 'something' that you can truly call 'your own'?
‘Who’ is the owner and can you find ‘it’ in this now? - Have a look now!
- ‘Who’ is looking for the owner?
Is the apparent terrain of the mind divided into ‘me and mine’ and ‘not me and not mine’? - is it all apparently 'material existence' of some sort?
In this 'clear space of now', can you truly find any such things?
When we really look, they are not here and yet in memory we may be convinced that they ‘were there’ at some ‘time’. - All such notions are as if transparent in that seeing-knowing presence. - There is a subtleness to this 'pointing' which can be easily bypassed. - In being direct, all that is not real, is exposed or seen through.
– Mind is time and time is mind. – Is ‘mind’ an aspect of ‘mine-ness’?
What is this now-ness? - Do you know it? - Truly?
If you say that you know it, that implies a duality.
'Now' - & 'one that knows this now'. - (Not two)
Some so-called teacher’s talk about teaching 'you' how to 'enter' the 'now'.
How utterly absurd is that? - But 'people' flock to such 'teachers' by the thousands. - Then they get caught in conceptual 'progress' towards an ever receding conceptual 'now' - and so it is unattainable, even though no one has ever been 'out of the now' - Even a 'dreamer' cannot appear anywhere but in this now.
There are NO enlightened 'persons' and anyone who encourages you to believe such nonsense is a fraud - And a fraud in of the most devious kind.
How vague and absurd is 'the seeker' and how easily satisfied is it, with nonsense and adoration for a guru? - and yet it never gets truly satisfied at all, except as passing moments of indulgent thought patterns and self image preening.
Have you ever known yourself to be ‘out’ of this now?
Is this ‘now’ an object?
Don’t all presently known objects appear in this now?
In this ‘open view’ from this presence, this now, all of the so-called ‘past’ is memory and nothing more.
All of the so-called ‘future’ is nothing but anticipation or expectation.
All of it depends on there being 'a thought' about it.
Are there any objects in the future? - You can’t think about the future without some concepts about what 'it' is or 'will be', and yet you do not and never have known the future.
It ‘is not’ directly observable, since it is not an object and it can never be what you ‘think’ it will be.
Know this: - The future has never arrived! - It is a concept.
If even one concept were to actually ARRIVE in this now and settle in as something substantial, your world would be crushed.
Don't be afraid, it will never happen!
The NOW! - is an absence of anything substantial or continuous, except that which is 'knowing'. - Is it the now that is knowing itself?
Have you ever been separate from the now?
Such talk makes this 'now' sound like it is 'an object' but it is neither an object nor a non-object.
Is there a subject?
Well, I can say and know that I am.
Is this now what I am?
Can the mind separate now-ness from I am-ness?
Which came first?
The now is free of all of it.
This ‘space like awareness is here, there and everywhere, without there being any degree of separation ‘in it’.
- See this: Thought cannot separate or divide this space like awareness that I am.
Does this ‘here’, which you cannot 'get out of', have any boundary?
Is it a place?
If you were or are on a small deserted island, it may appear to be clear that there is an obvious boundary to 'here'.
One may say that where the water meets the sand is the boundary of ‘here’.
But hang on, the water penetrates the sand and probably right on through and below all the surface of the ‘island’. - The waterlogged sand also reaches out below the water line deep into the ocean and on as the same terrain re-immerges one way or another as every shoreline on this planet.
So, where is the boundary of ‘here’?
Even in ordinary concensus reality, if you put your hand into the Ocean or wade about in it, you are directly connected molecule to molecule with most of the water on this planet.
You can say "I am here" - no doubt about that!
So where does doubt enter? - In mind as conflicting content of mind.
That is no trivial point to pass by without further contemplation.
The air you breathe is connected to the whole atmosphere of this planet.
How separate are you? - Is any 'here' separated from any 'there' anywhere?
All is here and here is all.
Anything and everything that one could point to is phenomena and this phenomena, by its own nature is changeful. - Energy. - Movement.
Without this intelligence and its vast array of movement, however gross or subtle, you could not know anything.
- Zero degrees of separation.
The first movement is that stirring of consciousness called ‘I am’ - just as it appears in the morning when you wake from sleep.
Without that wakefulness, there is nothing perceivable here at all.
In deep sleep, there is no witness and yet knowing remains and it, itself is no thing that is perceivable. - (It is in fact your own self.)
- Boundless presence.
All phenomena is nothing but the dynamic expression of awareness itself.
An ignorant one will ask why does awareness do that?
There is no 'doing', no 'time' and no ‘why’.
- It just IS.
Everything that you know of arises from the unlimited potentiality that you 'are' and that is awareness - the (unseen) light of knowing.
You are THAT. – No choice.
- What is this 'game' that you play of ‘not knowing’?
It is only time bound notions that occupy the mind with ignorant dreams of things that 'are not' - and these ALL are nothing but appearances which appear nowhere else than in this ‘space of knowing’ that 'you are' - No doubt!
In dropping these notions or in the 'full stop' of no thought or in not feeding thought with belief, they will be drained of energy and they will fold away into nothing. - This space of knowing remains as it ever does. – There is no ‘person’ in it or beside it or anywhere at all.
See that you are truly not a 'person' at all. – Where did that notion of being a person come from? - From a dream? - From ‘others’? – Conditioned mind?
In this immediate, pure space of Now, a concept comes in and a fascination with it attracts you to it and you associate with it. - A dream happens.
Is there a problem? - For whom?
This merging of 'space like awareness', which is one's true identity, with the 'dynamic aspect of awareness', which is phenomena, does it always turns into something unexpected?
– It is forever changing. - Suffering comes about or appears to come about because of a tension between two or more ‘points’ of reference. – One of these points is always the self-centered notion of being a ‘me’.
– You, as that 'appearance of being a ‘me’, adds to the equation a 'want' or a 'need'. - A need to escape or change that circumstantial ‘energy pattern’, the ‘appearance’, because of the discomfort, the tension, which is unbearable - for the 'me'.
But hang on, have you only apparently given 'yourself' over to this circumstantial pattern via associated thought patterns? - concepts and ideas or is it by 'notions' of mistaken identity? - Or has it happened at all? - All there is is Now.
Look Now. - This point I am getting at is so elusive and yet so profound.
You can never 'enter into it' - because you ARE it. - A clear space like presence in which all appears and disappears.
Have you really changed in essence, in this pure space of now?
I am telling you that it is clearly obvious right now, that you are free.
Only a belief pattern can appear to be disturbed or threatened by any notions of freedom.
Is it not strange that you could ever possibly believe that you do not know this?
- However, there is no one here or there that knows this.
As you take yourself to be a ‘me’, this unmediated knowing may appear to be unavailable to 'you'.
See and know directly that it is your very NATURE 'to know'.
All these words here are just concepts.
Know that - and know that this 'knowing' itself is NOT a concept.
This apparent discrimination, between concept and knowing is a fulcrum for the mind.
A kind of still point, which sees the duality and its swinging activity.
All apparent identities are 'content' of mind.
Knowing is beyond duality and discriminating mind and so the obvious is obvious, obviously. (How annoying for the intellectuals!)
- In that space of knowing, nothing 'more' is needed and nothing is truly divided.
It may dawn on you that you are free of all of it.
It is impossible to put it into words but I am trying my best to do it.
(In relativity, I risk being branded as a madman ranting about nonsense in a public place - who cares? - Why do I do it? - It just happens but I know what it is like, now only in memory, to feel that ache, that longing for reunion with oneself)
In the divergent mindscape, all this may seem to be beyond your understanding.
In that drama of life, the ‘personalized' consciousness, has seemingly 'taken sides' and apparently entered into duality.
It is only the way things 'appear' to be. – All the uneasiness is for that phantom, that ‘me’. It is out on the pendulum, swinging about, complaining about not 'getting it' and looking for peace of mind, like a monkey on a stick.
As an open space of freedom from thought 'opens' one may notice the restless activity of the mind edging to get back to its habitual activity.
Watch closely and see how it operates. - A glimpse of something may be informative in that watching. - You may notice something that you have been overlooking.
As one appears to slip back to the old ways - a sense of freedom may 'appear' to have been lost - but for whom?
It is NOT your true nature that is lost in phenomena. - You have truly never left this moment - never gone into time, ever.
There is nothing and no one that could ever be lost in phenomena or time.
It is all yourself anyway.
Why do you punish yourself with these old drama stories - all based on memory and a 'past' that is gone and dead?
Have you ever found another who can bear to hear your dramatic stories of that dramatic life? - Who really cares? - It’s your story and if you stop telling it to yourself and to others, it will subside of itself.
- This space, this clear space of NOW will reveal itself - not as a 'thing' but as that which all things come and go in - Just as it ever IS.
Do you have a choice? – have you ever had a choice?
In this pure space of now, there is no drama at all. - See and know that and know it without the need of any thought to support it.
Nothing touches this essential nature – that pure awareness that I am.
(Note added: I am reminded of a passage in the Bible which Bob Adamson once quoted to me and this passage, for me, expresses very efficiently what I have been attempting to convey in the above note. It is this: "A thousand may fall at your left side (by no doing of your own - passive)- ten thousand by thy right hand (by your own 'doing'- active) - but NONE shall come nigh thy dwelling place".
What is so subtle and yet so obvious is this 'space of knowing' - presence awareness - which is "the peace beyond all understanding".
Everything that appears, appears nowhere else than in this space.
The substance of 'that which appears' is equal to that space in which it appears.
It is full of knowing and yet it is no thing.
I am That.
Today's Note.
You are present and aware. - That is 'the briefness of it all.
The following is a field of conceptual 'frames' to explore in that presence that you are. - The mind may stall at any moment with a line or concepts but just be aware - (and there is no question of not being aware) - that all these words are just content passing through the 'mind'.
You are here ‘now’. – Yes?
Of course! - Can’t deny it. – Pointless in denying it.
What is the source of this being-ness that appears now?
The usual view of such things is based on conceptual notions which imply that you are somehow inferior and a subject ‘to and of’ some God or Absolute Superior Being – by who’s grace you have your place in the scheme of ‘things’. – In relativity, we do not usually question these notions until we are introduced to concepts that imply some other view of it all.
These are all conceptual by their nature and are all relative.
Sideline Analogy thrown in: Because 'the stage' remains stationary, 'the dancers' can dance freely with confidence. - If the stage were to move about at random, the dancers would find it tedious or impossible to avoid being thrown to the floor.
Your 'essence' is 'the stage' and the 'personality' is a dancer, an actor. - That is just an analogy, it may makes sense for some.
There is intelligence at the basis of all ‘things’, concepts and even dreams.
All 'conceptual views', in mind, are not 'the pure function of seeing' or what I call 'direct cognition' - unmediated knowing.
- The former is based on memory and the later is ever fresh awareness.
This 'pure function' of seeing is happening now as you read these words.
Although there is no such thing as indirect cognition - and as Bob points out "the word is not the real" - Those points may seem disjointed, they are not, just different views of the same phenomena - which is all that the mind has in any moment. - That may seem too abstract for some.
Cognition is ceaseless.
The mind is apparently stimulated by the words and (then)‘meaning’ appears quite spontaneously. - You cannot drive a thin bladed thought between the registering and the apparent response of 'meaning'.
It may all 'appear' to move smoothly until some words or meaning 'jar' with the consciousness or something is questioned, or whatever.
(What is all this? - Some sort of intellectual Gymnastic display! - Stay with it)
- 'All' is 'the actuality' of intelligence in action, so to speak.
How can one know intelligence? - How can it be known and by that same intelligence unless it is split into some sort of two-ness? - Mirror of the mind?
- In fact intelligence is never split, although it may appear to be.
Can you know the self that you are?
- All are seemingly useful questions in this so-called self inquiry - but have you ever found 'something' that you can truly call 'your own'?
‘Who’ is the owner and can you find ‘it’ in this now? - Have a look now!
- ‘Who’ is looking for the owner?
Is the apparent terrain of the mind divided into ‘me and mine’ and ‘not me and not mine’? - is it all apparently 'material existence' of some sort?
In this 'clear space of now', can you truly find any such things?
When we really look, they are not here and yet in memory we may be convinced that they ‘were there’ at some ‘time’. - All such notions are as if transparent in that seeing-knowing presence. - There is a subtleness to this 'pointing' which can be easily bypassed. - In being direct, all that is not real, is exposed or seen through.
– Mind is time and time is mind. – Is ‘mind’ an aspect of ‘mine-ness’?
What is this now-ness? - Do you know it? - Truly?
If you say that you know it, that implies a duality.
'Now' - & 'one that knows this now'. - (Not two)
Some so-called teacher’s talk about teaching 'you' how to 'enter' the 'now'.
How utterly absurd is that? - But 'people' flock to such 'teachers' by the thousands. - Then they get caught in conceptual 'progress' towards an ever receding conceptual 'now' - and so it is unattainable, even though no one has ever been 'out of the now' - Even a 'dreamer' cannot appear anywhere but in this now.
There are NO enlightened 'persons' and anyone who encourages you to believe such nonsense is a fraud - And a fraud in of the most devious kind.
How vague and absurd is 'the seeker' and how easily satisfied is it, with nonsense and adoration for a guru? - and yet it never gets truly satisfied at all, except as passing moments of indulgent thought patterns and self image preening.
Have you ever known yourself to be ‘out’ of this now?
Is this ‘now’ an object?
Don’t all presently known objects appear in this now?
In this ‘open view’ from this presence, this now, all of the so-called ‘past’ is memory and nothing more.
All of the so-called ‘future’ is nothing but anticipation or expectation.
All of it depends on there being 'a thought' about it.
Are there any objects in the future? - You can’t think about the future without some concepts about what 'it' is or 'will be', and yet you do not and never have known the future.
It ‘is not’ directly observable, since it is not an object and it can never be what you ‘think’ it will be.
Know this: - The future has never arrived! - It is a concept.
If even one concept were to actually ARRIVE in this now and settle in as something substantial, your world would be crushed.
Don't be afraid, it will never happen!
The NOW! - is an absence of anything substantial or continuous, except that which is 'knowing'. - Is it the now that is knowing itself?
Have you ever been separate from the now?
Such talk makes this 'now' sound like it is 'an object' but it is neither an object nor a non-object.
Is there a subject?
Well, I can say and know that I am.
Is this now what I am?
Can the mind separate now-ness from I am-ness?
Which came first?
The now is free of all of it.
This ‘space like awareness is here, there and everywhere, without there being any degree of separation ‘in it’.
- See this: Thought cannot separate or divide this space like awareness that I am.
Does this ‘here’, which you cannot 'get out of', have any boundary?
Is it a place?
If you were or are on a small deserted island, it may appear to be clear that there is an obvious boundary to 'here'.
One may say that where the water meets the sand is the boundary of ‘here’.
But hang on, the water penetrates the sand and probably right on through and below all the surface of the ‘island’. - The waterlogged sand also reaches out below the water line deep into the ocean and on as the same terrain re-immerges one way or another as every shoreline on this planet.
So, where is the boundary of ‘here’?
Even in ordinary consensus reality, if you put your hand into the Ocean or wade about in it, you are directly connected molecule to molecule with most of the water on this planet.
You can say "I am here" - no doubt about that!
So where does doubt enter? - In mind as conflicting content of mind.
That is no trivial point to pass by without further contemplation.
The air you breathe is connected to the whole atmosphere of this planet.
How separate are you? - Is any 'here' separated from any 'there' anywhere?
All is here and here is all.
Anything and everything that one could point to is phenomena and this phenomenon, by its own nature is changeful. - Energy. - Movement.
Without this intelligence and its vast array of movement, however gross or subtle, you could not know anything.
- Zero degrees of separation.
The first movement is that stirring of consciousness called ‘I am’ - just as it appears in the morning when you wake from sleep.
Without that wakefulness, there is nothing perceivable here at all.
In deep sleep, there is no witness and yet knowing remains and it, itself is no thing that is perceivable. - (It is in fact your own self.)
- Boundless presence.
All phenomena are nothing but the dynamic expression of awareness itself.
An ignorant one will ask why does awareness do that?
There is no 'doing', no 'time' and no ‘why’.
- It just IS.
Everything that you know of arises from the unlimited potentiality that you 'are' and that is awareness - the (unseen) light of knowing.
You are THAT. – No choice.
- What is this 'game' that you play of ‘not knowing’?
It is only time bound notions that occupy the mind with ignorant dreams of things that 'are not' - and these ALL are nothing but appearances which appear nowhere else than in this ‘space of knowing’ that 'you are' - No doubt!
In dropping these notions or in the 'full stop' of no thought or in not feeding thought with belief, they will be drained of energy and they will fold away into nothing. - This space of knowing remains as it ever does. – There is no ‘person’ in it or beside it or anywhere at all.
See that you are truly not a 'person' at all. – Where did that notion of being a person come from? - From a dream? - From ‘others’? – Conditioned mind?
In this immediate, pure space of Now, a concept comes in and a fascination with it attracts you to it and you associate with it. - A dream happens.
Is there a problem? - For whom?
This merging of 'space like awareness', which is one's true identity, with the 'dynamic aspect of awareness', which is phenomena, does it always turns into something unexpected?
– It is forever changing. - Suffering comes about or appears to come about because of a tension between two or more ‘points’ of reference. – One of these points is always the self-centered notion of being a ‘me’.
– You, as that 'appearance of being a ‘me’, adds to the equation a 'want' or a 'need'. - A need to escape or change that circumstantial ‘energy pattern’, the ‘appearance’, because of the discomfort, the tension, which is unbearable - for the 'me'.
But hang on, have you only apparently given 'yourself' over to this circumstantial pattern via associated thought patterns? - concepts and ideas or is it by 'notions' of mistaken identity? - Or has it happened at all? - All there is is Now.
Look Now. - This point I am getting at is so elusive and yet so profound.
You can never 'enter into it' - because you ARE it. - A clear space like presence in which all appears and disappears.
Have you really changed in essence, in this pure space of now?
I am telling you that it is clearly obvious right now, that you are free.
Only a belief pattern can appear to be disturbed or threatened by any notions of freedom.
Is it not strange that you could ever possibly believe that you do not know this?
- However, there is no one here or there that knows this.
As you take yourself to be a ‘me’, this unmediated knowing may appear to be unavailable to 'you'.
See and know directly that it is your very NATURE 'to know'.
All these words here are just concepts.
Know that - and know that this 'knowing' itself is NOT a concept.
This apparent discrimination, between concept and knowing is a fulcrum for the mind.
A kind of still point, which sees the duality and its swinging activity.
All apparent identities are 'content' of mind.
Knowing is beyond duality and discriminating mind and so the obvious is obvious, obviously. (How annoying for the intellectuals!)
- In that space of knowing, nothing 'more' is needed and nothing is truly divided.
It may dawn on you that you are free of all of it.
It is impossible to put it into words but I am trying my best to do it.
(In relativity, I risk being branded as a madman ranting about nonsense in a public place - who cares? - Why do I do it? - It just happens but I know what it is like, now only in memory, to feel that ache, that longing for reunion with oneself)
In the divergent mindscape, all this may seem to be beyond your understanding.
In that drama of life, the ‘personalized' consciousness, has seemingly 'taken sides' and apparently entered into duality.
It is only the way things 'appear' to be. – All the uneasiness is for that phantom, that ‘me’. It is out on the pendulum, swinging about, complaining about not 'getting it' and looking for peace of mind, like a monkey on a stick.
As an open space of freedom from thought 'opens' one may notice the restless activity of the mind edging to get back to its habitual activity.
Watch closely and see how it operates. - A glimpse of something may be informative in that watching. - You may notice something that you have been overlooking.
As one appears to slip back to the old ways - a sense of freedom may 'appear' to have been lost - but for whom?
It is NOT your true nature that is lost in phenomena. - You have truly never left this moment - never gone into time, ever.
There is nothing and no one that could ever be lost in phenomena or time.
It is all yourself anyway.
Why do you punish yourself with these old drama stories - all based on memory and a 'past' that is gone and dead?
Have you ever found another who can bear to hear your dramatic stories of that dramatic life? - Who really cares? - It’s your story and if you stop telling it to yourself and to others, it will subside of itself.
- This space, this clear space of NOW will reveal itself - not as a 'thing' but as that which all things come and go in - Just as it ever IS.
Do you have a choice? – have you ever had a choice?
In this pure space of now, there is no drama at all. - See and know that and know it without the need of any thought to support it.
Nothing touches this essential nature – that pure awareness that I am.
(Note added: I am reminded of a passage in the Bible which Bob Adamson once quoted to me and this passage, for me, expresses very efficiently what I have been attempting to convey in the above note. It is this: "A thousand may fall at your left side (by no doing of your own - passive)- ten thousand by thy right hand (by your own 'doing'- active) - but NONE shall come nigh thy dwelling place".
What is so subtle and yet so obvious is this 'space of knowing' - presence awareness - which is "the peace beyond all understanding".
Everything that appears, appears nowhere else than in this space.
The substance of 'that which appears' is equal to that space in which it appears.
It is full of knowing and yet it is no thing.
I am That.
e notions until we are introduced to concepts that imply some other view of it all.
These are all conceptual by their nature and are all relative.
Sideline Analogythrown in: Because 'the stage' remains stationary, 'the dancers' can dance freely with confidence. - If the stage were to move about at random, the dancers would find it tedious or impossible to avoid being thrown to the floor.
Your 'essence' is 'the stage' and the 'personality' is a dancer, an actor. - That is just an analogy, it may makes sense for some.
There is intelligence at the basis of all ‘things’, concepts and even dreams.
All 'conceptual views', in mind, are not 'the pure function of seeing' or what I call 'direct cognition' - unmediated knowing.
- The former is based on memory and the later is ever fresh awareness.
This 'pure function' of seeing is happening now as you read these words.
Although there is no such thing as indirect cognition - and as Bob points out "the word is not the real" - Those points may seem disjointed, they are not, just different views of the same phenomena - which is all that the mind has in any moment. - That may seem too abstract for some.
Cognition is ceaseless.
The mind is apparently stimulated by the words and (then)‘meaning’ appears quite spontaneously. - You cannot drive a thin bladed thought between the registering and the apparent response of 'meaning'.
It may all 'appear' to move smoothly until some words or meaning 'jarr' with the consciousness or something is questioned, or whatever.
(What is all this? - Some sort of intellectual Gymnastic display! - Stay with it)
- 'All' is 'the actuality' of intelligence in action, so to speak.
How can one know intelligence? - How can it be known and by that same intelligence unless it is split into some sort of two-ness? - Mirror of the mind?
- In fact intelligence is never split, although it may appear to be.
Can you know the self that you are?
- All are seemingly useful questions in this so-called self inquiry - but have you ever found 'something' that you can truly call 'your own'?
‘Who’ is the owner and can you find ‘it’ in this now? - Have a look now!
- ‘Who’ is looking for the owner?
Is the apparent terrain of the mind divided into ‘me and mine’ and ‘not me and not mine’? - is it all apparently 'material existence' of some sort?
In this 'clear space of now', can you truly find any such things?
When we really look, they are not here and yet in memory we may be convinced that they ‘were there’ at some ‘time’. - All such notions are as if transparent in that seeing-knowing presence. - There is a subtleness to this 'pointing' which can be easily bypassed. - In being direct, all that is not real, is exposed or seen through.
– Mind is time and time is mind. – Is ‘mind’ an aspect of ‘mine-ness’?
What is this now-ness? - Do you know it? - Truly?
If you say that you know it, that implies a duality.
'Now' - & 'one that knows this now'. - (Not two)
Some so-called teacher’s talk about teaching 'you' how to 'enter' the 'now'.
How utterly absurd is that? - But 'people' flock to such 'teachers' by the thousands. - Then they get caught in conceptual 'progress' towards an ever receding conceptual 'now' - and so it is unattainable, even though no one has ever been 'out of the now' - Even a 'dreamer' cannot appear anywhere but in this now.
There are NO enlightened 'persons' and anyone who encourages you to believe such nonsense is a fraud - And a fraud in of the most devious kind.
How vague and absurd is 'the seeker' and how easily satisfied is it, with nonsense and adoration for a guru? - and yet it never gets truly satisfied at all, except as passing moments of indulgent thought patterns and self image preening.
Have you ever known yourself to be ‘out’ of this now?
Is this ‘now’ an object?
Don’t all presently known objects appear in this now?
In this ‘open view’ from this presence, this now, all of the so-called ‘past’ is memory and nothing more.
All of the so-called ‘future’ is nothing but anticipation or expectation.
All of it depends on there being 'a thought' about it.
Are there any objects in the future? - You can’t think about the future without some concepts about what 'it' is or 'will be', and yet you do not and never have known the future.
It ‘is not’ directly observable, since it is not an object and it can never be what you ‘think’ it will be.
Know this: - The future has never arrived! - It is a concept.
If even one concept were to actually ARRIVE in this now and settle in as something substantial, your world would be crushed.
Don't be afraid, it will never happen!
The NOW! - is an absence of anything substantial or continuous, except that which is 'knowing'. - Is it the now that is knowing itself?
Have you ever been separate from the now?
Such talk makes this 'now' sound like it is 'an object' but it is neither an object nor a non-object.
Is there a subject?
Well, I can say and know that I am.
Is this now what I am?
Can the mind separate now-ness from I am-ness?
Which came first?
The now is free of all of it.
This ‘space like awareness is here, there and everywhere, without there being any degree of separation ‘in it’.
- See this: Thought cannot separate or divide this space like awareness that I am.
Does this ‘here’, which you cannot 'get out of', have any boundary?
Is it a place?
If you were or are on a small deserted island, it may appear to be clear that there is an obvious boundary to 'here'.
One may say that where the water meets the sand is the boundary of ‘here’.
But hang on, the water penetrates the sand and probably right on through and below all the surface of the ‘island’. - The waterlogged sand also reaches out below the water line deep into the ocean and on as the same terrain re-immerges one way or another as every shoreline on this planet.
So, where is the boundary of ‘here’?
Even in ordinary concensus reality, if you put your hand into the Ocean or wade about in it, you are directly connected molecule to molecule with most of the water on this planet.
You can say "I am here" - no doubt about that!
So where does doubt enter? - In mind as conflicting content of mind.
That is no trivial point to pass by without further contemplation.
The air you breathe is connected to the whole atmosphere of this planet.
How separate are you? - Is any 'here' separated from any 'there' anywhere?
All is here and here is all.
Anything and everything that one could point to is phenomena and this phenomena, by its own nature is changeful. - Energy. - Movement.
Without this intelligence and its vast array of movement, however gross or subtle, you could not know anything.
- Zero degrees of separation.
The first movement is that stirring of consciousness called ‘I am’ - just as it appears in the morning when you wake from sleep.
Without that wakefulness, there is nothing perceivable here at all.
In deep sleep, there is no witness and yet knowing remains and it, itself is no thing that is perceivable. - (It is in fact your own self.)
- Boundless presence.
All phenomena is nothing but the dynamic expression of awareness itself.
An ignorant one will ask why does awareness do that?
There is no 'doing', no 'time' and no ‘why’.
- It just IS.
Everything that you know of arises from the unlimited potentiality that you 'are' and that is awareness - the (unseen) light of knowing.
You are THAT. – No choice.
- What is this 'game' that you play of ‘not knowing’?
It is only time bound notions that occupy the mind with ignorant dreams of things that 'are not' - and these ALL are nothing but appearances which appear nowhere else than in this ‘space of knowing’ that 'you are' - No doubt!
In dropping these notions or in the 'full stop' of no thought or in not feeding thought with belief, they will be drained of energy and they will fold away into nothing. - This space of knowing remains as it ever does. – There is no ‘person’ in it or beside it or anywhere at all.
See that you are truly not a 'person' at all. – Where did that notion of being a person come from? - From a dream? - From ‘others’? – Conditioned mind?
In this immediate, pure space of Now, a concept comes in and a fascination with it attracts you to it and you associate with it. - A dream happens.
Is there a problem? - For whom?
This merging of 'space like awareness', which is one's true identity, with the 'dynamic aspect of awareness', which is phenomena, does it always turns into something unexpected?
– It is forever changing. - Suffering comes about or appears to come about because of a tension between two or more ‘points’ of reference. – One of these points is always the self-centered notion of being a ‘me’.
– You, as that 'appearance of being a ‘me’, adds to the equation a 'want' or a 'need'. - A need to escape or change that circumstantial ‘energy pattern’, the ‘appearance’, because of the discomfort, the tension, which is unbearable - for the 'me'.
But hang on, have you only apparently given 'yourself' over to this circumstantial pattern via associated thought patterns? - concepts and ideas or is it by 'notions' of mistaken identity? - Or has it happened at all? - All there is is Now.
Look Now. - This point I am getting at is so elusive and yet so profound.
You can never 'enter into it' - because you ARE it. - A clear space like presence in which all appears and disappears.
Have you really changed in essence, in this pure space of now?
I am telling you that it is clearly obvious right now, that you are free.
Only a belief pattern can appear to be disturbed or threatened by any notions of freedom.
Is it not strange that you could ever possibly believe that you do not know this?
- However, there is no one here or there that knows this.
As you take yourself to be a ‘me’, this unmediated knowing may appear to be unavailable to 'you'.
See and know directly that it is your very NATURE 'to know'.
All these words here are just concepts.
Know that - and know that this 'knowing' itself is NOT a concept.
This apparent discrimination, between concept and knowing is a fulcrum for the mind.
A kind of still point, which sees the duality and its swinging activity.
All apparent identities are 'content' of mind.
Knowing is beyond duality and discriminating mind and so the obvious is obvious, obviously. (How annoying for the intellectuals!)
- In that space of knowing, nothing 'more' is needed and nothing is truly divided.
It may dawn on you that you are free of all of it.
It is impossible to put it into words but I am trying my best to do it.
(In relativity, I risk being branded as a madman ranting about nonsense in a public place - who cares? - Why do I do it? - It just happens but I know what it is like, now only in memory, to feel that ache, that longing for reunion with oneself)
In the divergent mindscape, all this may seem to be beyond your understanding.
In that drama of life, the ‘personalized' consciousness, has seemingly 'taken sides' and apparently entered into duality.
It is only the way things 'appear' to be. – All the uneasiness is for that phantom, that ‘me’. It is out on the pendulum, swinging about, complaining about not 'getting it' and looking for peace of mind, like a monkey on a stick.
As an open space of freedom from thought 'opens' one may notice the restless activity of the mind edging to get back to its habitual activity.
Watch closely and see how it operates. - A glimpse of something may be informative in that watching. - You may notice something that you have been overlooking.
As one appears to slip back to the old ways - a sense of freedom may 'appear' to have been lost - but for whom?
It is NOT your true nature that is lost in phenomena. - You have truly never left this moment - never gone into time, ever.
There is nothing and no one that could ever be lost in phenomena or time.
It is all yourself anyway.
Why do you punish yourself with these old drama stories - all based on memory and a 'past' that is gone and dead?
Have you ever found another who can bear to hear your dramatic stories of that dramatic life? - Who really cares? - It’s your story and if you stop telling it to yourself and to others, it will subside of itself.
- This space, this clear space of NOW will reveal itself - not as a 'thing' but as that which all things come and go in - Just as it ever IS.
Do you have a choice? – have you ever had a choice?
In this pure space of now, there is no drama at all. - See and know that and know it without the need of any thought to support it.
Nothing touches this essential nature – that pure awareness that I am.
(Note added: I am reminded of a passage in the Bible which Bob Adamson once quoted to me and this passage, for me, expresses very efficiently what I have been attempting to convey in the above note. It is this: "A thousand may fall at your left side (by no doing of your own - passive)- ten thousand by thy right hand (by your own 'doing'- active) - but NONE shall come nigh thy dwelling place".
What is so subtle and yet so obvious is this 'space of knowing' - presence awareness - which is "the peace beyond all understanding".
Everything that appears, appears nowhere else than in this space.
The substance of 'that which appears' is equal to that space in which it appears.
It is full of knowing and yet it is no thing.
I am That.
posted by Gilbert Schultz at Friday, December 22, 2006
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