Monkey tree - monkey mind & an email or two.

If you are in the USA, go see John Wheeler, Steven Wingate, John Greeven or Burt Jurgens.
If you are in the UK, go see Tony Parsons, Nathan Gill and see what you can make of it.
If you are in Australia, then you are most fortunate - go see Bob Adamson affectionately known as 'Sailor Bob'.
Seekers do not become finders, at least not in 'the realm' of Non Duality.
The 'true teacher' points you back to 'the essential knowing' - 'that you are'.
Science attempts to construct 'knowledge' about 'links' between various patterns of 'matter' and yet they have no idea how that 'sense of I' in themselves happens to be there, or appear to be there.
In your search for meaning, are YOU the missing link?
I heard that Richard Dawkins was intimidated by some high flying fundamentalist Christian in a Documentary recently - a believer confronted by a non believer. - I must have a look at it.
Each party is convinced of their 'rightfulness' and conflict appears. - I wonder if they suspect that they are both wrong? - The 'I' is invisible and un-provable - just like God - can you not see that these apparently two 'things' are the same?
In exploring 'the sense of I', you discover the absolute nature of existence - yet it is far too subtle for a mind full of biased views and beliefs. - This is why very few realize their own true nature and yet it is totally available and ever present - just ignored.
It is more subtle than any concept - it is your own presence awareness and THAT is no 'thing' to the mind.
What we 'humans' (the crown of creation?) are more used to is really gross sensations, gross concepts and highly biased opinions and ridiculous unfounded beliefs.
Where are you in all that?
The monkey, as it flings itself through the forest trees, sometimes leaps through empty space and lands on a branch or limb of the next available tree. – Usually it will use its long arms to swing from one tree to the next with ease. – It does not let go of one branch until it grasps the next. - Humans are not that much different.
When it comes to changing relationships, many people appear to do something similar. - Security is paramount, or so it seems and deceitful behavior comes in as a necessary evil. - Selfish types have several relationships going all at once - the complexity of such an arrangement is just too much for the average 'relationship game player'. - Some would say: "I prefer to stuff up one relationship at a time, thank you very much - juggling is for circus clowns".
People change their religion also, when their ‘belief system’ is disturbed by new information concerning another belief, another religion. – They will be scorned and ostracized or even destroyed by their old colleagues in that religion, as they declare their intention to leave the flock. – This is the nature of 'tribal man', with all his compromises, conflicts and beliefs. – Belief is just a set of ideas, usually highly biased and necessarily exclusive – they exclude anything that threatens those beliefs and that includes the truth.
The truth, if you will excuse my use of the word, the truth is ruthless upon the fragile realms of belief. - Look at the ridiculous beliefs of the major religions who wage war upon each other.
– Do you believe in One God? - If so, do you imagine that He would punish his own created beings simply because they hold onto certain beliefs? - Don’t you think that if there was such a God, that he might look down upon his Earth bound beings and ponder why these unfortunate creatures go about killing each other under the thinnest disguise – and do such horrors to each other in His Name! – My God – what a pathetic thing it is.
Politicians appear to gather more and more self importance and behave like 'gods' on Earth and dream of a New World Order. - It is the drama of life and the old idea of evolution seems to be crumbling around our ears.
- I am playing with common concepts here - you don't have to believe what I am saying - better not to.
- But let me go on:-
Fundamentalism is wiping out 'the age of reason' and many unscrupulous ‘powerful people’ are taking advantage of manipulating the masses – at least, it is one way of looking at it.
Endless points of view do not add up to suddenly become reality.
Reality is.
You can say that 'I exist'. - Anything that you add to that sense of existence may be questioned but no one can convince you that you do not exist - it is actual - factual. - That is not belief nor is it subject to reason.
Each of us has the power of reason but there are areas of our belief that we do not want to expose, especially to ourselves. – Don’t get all non dualistic and criticize my words – YOU do it all the time! - Language is dualistic.
You may have devoted many years to exploring your own ‘self’ and you may have come up with a set of beliefs, values, ethics and conclusions. – They are just concepts.
They are not fixed, static or permanent in any way. – In fact, they are morphing all the time.
Are they not just a cloud of ephemeral particles floating in your psyche?
Where are you in all of that ‘stuff’?
Are you willing to go out and kill other people because their ‘cloud of belief’ is different to yours?
The old cliché - “Variety is the spice of life” is ‘on the button’.
We cannot penetrate the state of hypnosis in another. – Our potentiality is conscious presence.
Now, every guru will tell you a bunch of stories about evolution of the spirit of whatever his sacred terminology dictates. – It is all fanciful nonsense and it is time that you cut that crap away from yourself.
I will be blunt and direct. – The news may be a shock – but it is overdue.
An emergence into conscious presence is not possible.
The indubitable fact is this: The conscious investigation into habitual beliefs is the negation of those beliefs and as they fall away, conscious presence emerges, because it has always been here – just covered over by mind stuff, a cloud of erroneous beliefs.
The profound discovery is that I am present and aware – and I have always been so.
The one who ‘thinks’ it is seeking freedom or whatever it seeks is just a conceptual pattern – a belief. – The actual, the factual, is conscious presence.
A beautiful peacock ‘appears’ to emerge from an egg (in time). – A magnificent Oak Tree ‘appears’ to emerge out of an acorn (in time).
Awareness is the ground of all being.
In stopping the ignoring of your own ‘conscious presence – awareness’, you banish the realm of mere belief and the bondage of self. – It may appear to be gradual and the life time habits may appear as a resistance – but they have no power or independence – they will evaporate in the face of conscious presence.
The ‘intent’ necessary is in the very nature of awareness itself.

Note: Things may go quiet here, for a short time, while I relocate to Melbourne.

Meanwhile here is an addition:-
I have been corresponding with R in Middle America for a few weeks. - I have with held putting the emails on the website until now. – Actually there may have been one on the site some weeks ago. – I have witnessed a dissolving of a hard intellectual stance and a lack of warmth towards his own presence. – There has been a shift.

Gilbert replies :
The sense of 'I' appears from a bunch of elements, molecules - you cannot stop it appearing – you know not how or why it appears - but you can know most definitely that you are prior to it all – even logically. Since you are aware of it all temporally - you must be beyond whatever it is.
You cannot set up camp there as a finite observer – in that no thing space – no need to - but the ‘habitual slope’ of the mind will attempt to claim some territory there - it is a natural tendency - don't fight it – instead, just see it, witness it most clearly.

These habits of a life time will not go away in a flash - (rarely do they ever do that for an apparent individual, Ramana or whoever. – Anyone who brags about any such event is a wanker.)

The essence is in the seeing, IS the seeing - you are THAT and nothing else.

In my case it took two or three years for the old patterns to lose their hold - relativity.
Infinity is no causal – it is all inclusive.
Relativity is the apparent connected-ness. Patterns engaging with each other.
The sum of all relativity is not equal to infinity - one is contained in the other - and yet they are not two.
I may write things that you already know – yet it is no harm to reiterate various points.
You are truly beyond anything that you can witness, so, it does not matter what the details are, of what is happening, noise or silence - but in the early stages, one can or even should arrange some quietness for contemplation - which of course can easily turn into habitual mind stuff in a flash - so one needs to relax and watch, let intelligence come to the fore.

It is all paradoxical until paradox dissolves. - The answer is not in the mind. - Study Bob's pointers - find them and write them down - contemplate them - there are over a hundred or more in his books. - I cannot penetrate your world - all I can do is throw a line - into it via emails.
Talking one to one with Bob is far better than emails, he is patient - but will be ruthless if you back step too much.
It is good for the mind to be confronted - is not our usual way of going about things though. – Warm regards - g.

R replies:
The drive to become something, to achieve in "life", to do right - all these things have been washed away. The old habits of wanting to be noticed, wanting to be important, this type of ego craving, is mostly gone. There is a sense of peace and acceptance of "life" as it comes and less of a sense of controlling it.

The attachments to material things and “people” are mostly dissolved... if I am not, then there cannot be "others". All is impermanent - but nothing is lost nor can anything be held on to. It is all one substance, seemingly broken out into forms, organisms, either actually or just perceived that way through senses which only create an illusion. What I AM is that intelligence that is aware of itself through an apparent infinite number of reference points. I witness this apparent body functioning in an apparent world of forms and organisms... the activities and thoughts of this body are not me and not under my control. All that happens is spontaneously happening in this moment according to the nature of that form which is actually the universe itself acting.

The entire "spiritual" search has been transformed from trying to figure out the meaning of life and God, to looking within. The understanding that I am nothing perceivable, nothing I can witness, because I am the witness...

Please correct this statement if it sounds false - however it is spontaneously flowing... I AM - in the "world" as consciousness, the witness... I am not - in reality there is no thing, only this intelligent cognizing emptiness.

If I am the absolute, the source of all, the infinite and eternal, then all is one substance and form is emptiness and emptiness is form... all appearances are "illusions" - only appearing as part of the whole and seemingly separated by conceptual thought. Between apparent solid forms is empty space or air and it is also made up of elements... in essence it is all one solid block of emptiness/form. Whether that form is fast-moving energy or thinned-out form, as in air/gas, or slow-moving energy or condensed for, as in "solid" form.

There is confusion around the understanding of this being part of the point and trying to get the answer in the mind. The only thing that arises to this question is - the real understanding is an unshakable knowing of what I am, not a mental or intellectual understanding gained through logic.

Maybe logic is necessary in the beginning to see through the concepts we've lived under for so long. Once these are seen through logically, it allows a relaxing of the search, a releasing of identification with the body and thoughts, and allows for the real KNOWING to arise.

But in the end all of this is bullshit because I am already that... that consciousness is seemingly looking out these eyes right now. This awareness never stops, is unavoidable... no matter what is happening, suffering or bliss, this awareness, this seeing is happening. The undeniable fact is that seeing is happening - all that arises, arises against or upon or with-ing this awareness.

And as you say, this sense of "I" happens in this awareness, in time. Even if the sense of "I" is there what I am is prior to that.

I hope this free-form writing is ok with you. I guess it is more of a writing to myself. The writing seems to be coming spontaneously instead of being the product of thought or mind trying to figure it out. You and Bob have been a radiant light illuminating the night...

With the warmest regards,
R.