No 'Person' wants to Know - No person Can know.

During one's life, there may be points where one contemplates things in a broader sense.
Some drama may force one to re-assess things.
If I say “I don’t know why all this is happening to me”, what could that really mean?
Is there really ‘someone’ that ‘things’ are happening to?
Of course, it appears that there is but is it really true?
You won’t find many to discuss such a subject with.
Everyone takes themselves to be a ‘person’ because that is what they have been told, more or less.
To suggest that there is no ‘person’ is a preposterous suggestion and will be quickly dismissed as the ranting of a madman. - No one wants to investigate such ideas or facts.
However, this question of being a person or not actually cuts to the core of things.
To be told that there is no person is a highly potent ‘pointer’ but it is also a very threatening suggestion.
The standard belief system is undermined or shaken up.
Who is going to explore such fundamental beliefs?
It is a destination that no one ‘buys a ticket’ for.
What does all of your personal history amount to in this moment, right now?
The mind will immediately start to recall memories of this and that.
But I am speaking about this moment, not the past of memory.
Is any of it actually needed right now?
If you don’t refer to those memories or give it some thought, does it have any bearing on this moment at all?
The ever present freshness of simply being present, right now, has no discernible foundations on the past.
All past experience is no longer present.
Is the past just an echo of the present?
When all those experiences were the actual, as they happened, it was the present, because nothing can happen except in the present.
What is a person? Is a person conscious?
Or is there an awareness of the apparent person and all its memories?
Such questions can be rather interesting to explore but not for everyone.
Are you an echo of the past?
Or are you the actuality of this moment?
Without a thought, you are still present and aware.
Thoughts come and thoughts go.
States come and states go.
Are you any of them?
Or all of them?
Whatever happens you remain as a witness to them all.
You are also aware of the process of witnessing.

Email: Good morning Gilbert,
I am always happy to receive e-mails from you, which is not only a response to my mails, but also a further help, in dissolving more of the ‘me’ that's still left or seems to re-establish itself. - You’re honest and direct and I appreciate that very much.

Your fresh pointers are setting me straight!
"Not a member of a special club” - “no endless fees nor homage’s
required to an earth-bound egoistic teacher”.
I also liked your sentence in your book "The First Instant”:
Accept the message and GET OVER ( forget about) the MESSENGER!

This natural response of gratitude to the teacher and then wanting to worship him, this devotional spirit is so deeply engrained in some of us - however I do understand, see the
truth of what you are writing in your books.
The true teachers, not seeking to collect followers, sets his pupils free!
- Free to BE.
A deep respect and honoring of the teacher remains, however!
Thank you so much! – D, in Canada.

Hallo D, in Canada.
Yes, I see that you recognize some of the salient points well enough.
The ones you mention have a flavor added from your background, in that you change some words slightly, words that I doubt that I actually wrote or said in the same way.
I am not being rude in pointing this out.
– It shows how the mind translates things into what is familiar and remembers the translation, which slightly obscures the original impression or what was said.
Earth bound egoistic teacher - implies a teacher higher up in a System.
This is a subtle holding on to old religious beliefs.
The mind will assert its old notions repeatedly - as if it needs to survive in tact.
The dissolution of such beliefs is a threat.
Many get offended by the rawness of life.
When one goes to a third world country, the impact of the rawness of life is often overwhelming.
The old conditioned view of things is useless there and one may feel exposed and anxious.
A relaxation may happen and we may discover the richness of life in the freshness of each moment.
The apparent rawness turns out to be the livingness which we have sought, and have hidden from, for so long.
The same applies to hearing the clear message, the clear 'pointing' to what is true (in oneself).
In the 'appearance' of being separate individuals, most of us don't want to 'go there' because it is too threatening to our habitual and uncomfortable way of being semi-conscious.
Therefore, my books (including similar books by others) may only find a few readers and fewer still may realize this freedom from all 'things'.
The 'cutting to the core' reveals that there is no 'person' that is separate or alone.
The space like awareness which we all are, is not divided up into parts.
(It is) One without a second.
No teacher! No teaching!
No Higher Being or lower being.
One is ALL.
You are That.
Zero degrees of separation!

Email: Dear Gilbert,

I have a question? - I know questions are what keep me here in the trance yet….
Even though I believe (yet haven’t experienced) that all is One, I find it annoying that others seem to see the ‘light’ at a much younger age and have a seemingly unfair advantage because they have lead ‘princess’ type lives anyway etc. - I have a ‘heavy’ storyline of woe in me. - This and that happened, so I have problems trusting that there is a sense/experience of belonging and a connectedness to all. - So I would like to know why some folks appear to just fall into non-duality so much more easily (than I). - And why would one handicap oneself with a ‘heavy’ storyline before birth so to speak? - I hope this makes some sense. - Thanks, - Pauline.

Dear Pauline,
Even though I address you as a seeming separate ‘person’ - There is actually NO separate individual with any independence.
All these apparent ‘others’ are only appearances ‘in what you are’. – What can you say about ‘before birth’? – In this immediacy, why postulate about some time in the past and so entertain concepts about ‘things’ that are not present. - If you believe that any such conditioning exists, then the time to explore it is now. – Consciously invite it to come forward.
– You will see that it is nothing but concepts based on memories or imagination. – Those who go on about past lives are entertaining themselves with nonsense.
– Grandiose stories or ‘poor me’ stories have no power over pure seeing. – Direct cognition cuts through them instantly. – However, very few can discriminate between cognition and re-cognition or what the mind is bringing up from memory or imagination etc.
- This discrimination is necessary for knowing what is, as opposed to what is not.
Where the pure function of seeing is actually happening - is from beyond phenomena - appearances. – This is very clearly obvious but few seem to grasp that fact.
-Why? - Because they are caught in mind stuff and the ‘bit’ that is caught is a habitual reference point called ‘me’.
Your true essence is free of all phenomena. - That may seem rather fanciful but I assure you it is not.
It is only identified consciousness that refuses to acknowledge such ‘pointing’.
In that pure and empty space like awareness, everything is witnessed without there being any substantial ‘form’ called a witness, as such. – In recognizing that, some have ventured to call it liberation. – That label becomes another trap for seekers, because it is a conceptual postulation for the seeker and it lies somewhere in the future for them. – It will never come any closer than the perpetual ‘tomorrow’, which you may have noticed, it never arrives. – At the stroke of midnight, this moment of now remains as it is. – It is One Moment.
A story is a story. – Heavy or otherwise, it is still a bunch of thoughts. - They are all space-time patterns appearing in and on (your) awareness.

Stay in that empty space of knowing ‘long enough’ without fixating on anything and you will see that nothing of the story is real. – The mind may feel uncomfortable and resist by grasping at familiar, habitual concepts. – Watch the mind and relax into seeing whatever arises.
There is nothing to achieve and nothing to get. – There is no one to get anything.
All the usual spiritual proper gander is propagated nonsense - spread about by ignorant gurus who are in love with their own self-image - but that is all in the appearance of ‘things’ only.

There are two aspects to what you are.
The empty 'space', or No Thing-ness, which is suffused with Knowing - and then there is all of the manifestation that appears in THAT, including the body, mind, thoughts, emotions, states and what have you.
These apparent ‘two’ aspects are actually One in essence.
You cannot separate them except conceptually.
Understand that the stories are all dependant on your attention. – If you see through their foundations, they can no longer infiltrate your natural presence in the same way.
Belief in them is naturally cut off simply because you have seen them for what they are. – To identify with them, there must be the energy of belief flowing into them.
Once known clearly, why would you give them any validity at all.
All we need is to UNDERSTAND what thought is and what it apparently does - then thought can serve us and do what it is meant to do – simply translate ‘what is’.
Imagination is a useful thing at times but it so easily deteriorates into self-destructive notions, when it meets and is challenged by the apparent ‘forces of a selfish, self-centred world’.
The mind only ‘appears’ to divide That One, that which can never be actually divided.
Oneness is registering in that knowing presence ( that you are) just ‘as it is’ – ‘before’ the ‘time bound’ processes of mind translates those impressions into the habitual notions of what is real.
What is real is never a notion or concept. – They can only ‘appear to be’ and the only place and time that they can appear is NOW.
Knowing THAT fact is all you need to know.
You are the light by which you see and know – and nothing other than that.
What story do you need?
Get behind the translations of mind - that is where you are anyway - then the identified consciousness loses its apparent hold over you.
It is so simple – effortless - but near impossible to convey to another - all we can do is point and say FULL STOP.
I will let you into a little secret. - Some of my friends think I am a bit of a loony and they write me off as not knowing anything worth knowing. – They avoid reading any of my books and my website. – I am not phased one bit by that. - In fact it is rather amusing but I must not laugh in their presence about that. - They get very annoyed.
What they miss is that they are making judgments about me based on their own habitual views.
This freedom is inexplicable and it ‘appears’, as things go, that only a rare one can clearly recognize what is being pointed out. – Even so, I KNOW that this is totally available to everyone, no matter what their circumstances may be. – All that seemingly prevents its recognition is a resistance to ‘what is’ and that resistance must be tackled from within and dismantled. – A shock from ‘outside’ may deliver something that is necessary but it must be met with by an equal force of presence. - Otherwise it just flows round and round in the old habitual space-time patterns.

In that space - one sees that without thought, I do not fall apart - the pure functioning remains - untouched.
I am THAT - (You are That).

Warm regards - Gilbert