Non Duality is never divided.

There is no problem in 'the Actuality'. - What we are is naturally THAT. - What we conceive ourselves to be is a fiction.

One of the most common 'problems' for 'seekers' is the addition of a 'spiritual self-image'. - This 'image' is a 'self reference point', which is totally fabricated in the imagination. - It is this 'image' that clouds the 'mind' and prevents a clear 'hearing' of the 'message' - because it 'resists' any information that undermines its foundations - even though such foundations are merely belief and fiction, the resistance persists and a self-indulgence in that 'image' takes on gross proportions to the point of absurdity.

Tip # 1: The Urban Guru Cafe is an excellent podcast - it is not worth missing for anyone 'interested' in Non Duality. - It is having record numbers of downloads and is on the increase daily. - Have a listen and tell a friend.

Tip # 2: There is an excellent podcast series called Radiolab - from New York Public Radio - many programs to listen to - they are curious guys who delve into things that capture our imagination - ask difficult questions. Click here to download or listen on line to a podcast on "Who am I?" - a semi-scientific exploration.

Back to the Urban Guru: - Check out Randall's interviews, they are excellent. - You may think you have 'heard it all' - these two programs may change your view on that. - I think the younger generation will respond well to these.

Note: I perceive, after many encounters, that the younger generation are significantly 'more open' to 'the message' - maybe because the 'believed in conditioning' has not 'crystalized' in them. - Therefore there is a plan 'here' to address this younger generation - in a way that they are more accustomed to. - In the 'older generation' it seems that those 'old habits' need to be 'hammered' at from 'inside' - or from 'outside' especially since the resistance to examining their beliefs is quite 'ingrained' - so it would seem. - The simple fact is that in dropping thought, all conditioning vanishes and yet this fact is not often recognized. - Pause a thought now. - What conditioning is there without thinking about it?

Check out the Randall Friend interview now - Part 1 & 2.

Emails:

Gilbert, - Ha! “Everything is Clear & Obvious” . . . just read the free version online -Thank You! - Listened to the Urban Guru Cafe too but it was definitely the above that offered the renewed "aha" moment-s! - J - in Sydney.

Email: Hello Gilbert, - I write now after listening and reading several of your writings and talks. - While I have found accord with what you have said I feel very alone in my interest in self realization. - There is nobody in my circle of friends to whom I can express my interest in self-realization. - Often I feel I am play acting all day.

I go to work, talk to people, do things and then I wonder who is doing all this. - I look in the mirror and see a face. - I remember things that happened to that face and yet when I am still and turn attention to that me, that person, aside from memories I cannot find a me that I could point to as an entity. - I feel like I am living as I have always lived but now it is as if the ground beneath me is shifting.

-Everything is as it was and yet it is not. - I realize that all my life I have been looking for the story of the truth as if it was something out there that if I touched would change me, that it was just a matter of searching, recognizing the truth and doing what was required. - I now realize at least mentally that this is just a another story I have imagined, the story of the unhappy me and the happy blissful enlightened me.

I really don’t know anything for sure least of all what the me is. - What I am writing here is more imagination.

I imagine I am here, you are there, you and others have something I do not and I need to get it, why? - I don’t know. - For some forty years I have imagined there is something called enlightenment - a state different from what I am now, that it was/is some variation of some pleasurable experience I have. - It was out there if I could only find out how to get it. - I still feel I don’t like what I am now and want to get to this imaginary state. - The only difference is that at times I see that it is just more circular mind stuff, that I am blinded by mind stuff. - I am not looking for advice or encouragement.- I believe it is as Nisargadatta said that self awareness is not the result of effort or practice. - Still, I would be grateful if you had the inclination to write.

Thank you for what you have published, I have found it encouraging.

- Jeffrey

Reply:

Whatever appears to happen is NOT IT. - Reality is THAT which never changes.

One could say that all motion is a movement of 'forms' (large and minute, subtle and gross) - it is all moving upon this emptiness - this stillness. - You can find these two aspects 'in yourself' quite easily. - What you need to recognize is that all that can be noticed is the movement, the forms, the play of the elements. - What it all 'registers upon' is this KNOWING. - This knowing is 'absolute knowing', it is not 'a belief' and it is not 'made of anything'. - No one (no form) can claim it as their own property and such claims are obviously fraudulent.

Behind that 'oh so familiar face' there is 'a space' which is clear and empty.

See that this is truly the case. - Hearing about it is not enough. - It must be tasted directly in the immediacy of BEING - not 'becoming' or 'memory'. - All forms are appearances 'appearing' nowhere else than 'in this immediacy - they MUST and can only appear in 'this moment' - IN that 'space-like awareness' - and that includes the body and all of its regular functions. - Include the body in the cognizing - see it as an appearance.

Many 'things' start to unfold once this factor is recognized - but it cannot be a theory held in the mind - that is useless and it is where many stay stuck - theoretical understanding is useless (in this case). - The activity of 'knowing' is 'from beyond' the form - (this is so obvious we miss it). - That knowing-ness, itself, is formless, colorless, tasteless. - All these aspects, forms, colors, flavors etc. are all appearances in the knowing which is obviously prior to these transient appearances. - Yesterdays flavors have gone. - The taste is always NOW.
Nothing that 'spills out' of the singular source, that formless-ness, ever touches the source of those forms.
Those forms are in fact empty and that fact needs to be recognized.
Everything we believe in is 'supported' by a fundamental belief in being a form, a someone, a 'me'.
There may 'appear' a great resistance to uncovering that 'me'.
The story of the man who found God's house and erred at knocking on the door is symbolic of that resistance.
That 'door' is non existent yet one could say it is that space from which you are looking out from.
As Nisargdatta says (paraphrasing): "You think you are in the world - (wrong) the world 'appears' in you".
The courage to SEE what needs to be seen is with you - it is your own true nature.
What you truly ARE is reality.
What the mind 'tells' you is just conceptualization - it all appears and disappears.
Many believe that they have 'arrived' at the 'Understanding' and yet they are bent on 'changing the world' and their minds are plagued with the 'drama of life'.
Right NOW before any thought arises, there is a clear 'knowing' there - it is not 'the cogs of the wheel' it is the still fulcrum from which everything is relative to - there is no 'me' in that.
The 'me' appears on the turning wheel and it appears to 'do' things to alter things - yet nothing needs to be done.
All we need to 'do' is 'come back' to the first instant, the only instant that there IS.
This instant is full of clear knowing - it is not something that comes out of the mind.
There is NO answer in the mind ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
You are not 'in the mind' - or the body.
All these things, mind and body, objects and world, all these appear within the nature of what you are.
Forget about "Who am I?" - It can only be a transient story.
'People' are full of their own story, that is what they are attached to. - Prising them from their story is useless.
Forget about 'others' - find out what you ARE.
It is simple yet very subtle.
I am often accused of being 'false' and in each case the accuser is obviously not seeing their own bias.
Anyone who imagines that I get some satisfaction from all this stuff, is deluded.
I, like anyone else, am just an appearance in THIS - this cognizing emptiness.
Stop looking for answers and just relax into this presence that you Are.

What is offered here is just a 'pointing' - No big fees to pay and no 'service' to the guru. - No gratitude is expected in return. - 'My reward' has already been delivered, so to speak. - For some unknown 'reason' I am moved to share these simple things - and I have witnessed the fact that it works - it is no big deal but some lives have changed significantly - yet the underlying 'truth' remains undisturbed as it always IS.

Psychological suffering is unnecessary. - Leave it behind you - and 'don't go back' to pick it up.

Warm regards - Gilbert.

Jeffrey writes again:

Thank you for writing back. - I read your message several times and what you say rings true for me even though I do not yet know it. - I have contemplated Nisargadatta’s words:

"You think you are in the world – where the world 'appears' in you" many times. I am fascinated by the idea that the accepted view of an objective world access through sensory organs is in reality the inverse of the way it really is. - If the world is in me it follows that there can only be one thing, one awareness….this is the point that my thinking cannot go beyond, I cannot imagine it.

The only way I can relate to the awareness you and Nisargadatta speak of is in contemplating my experience of nighttime sleep. - In nighttime sleep everything and everyone that is so real including your-self is seen as insubstantial and imaginary when one awakes. - It is as if others are awake in the room where you sleep. - They talk to you and tell you that you are asleep, that all that seems real to you, even that there is a you has no independent existence and that this will be clear when you awaken from the dream. - They tell you that while they have awakened they cannot do anything to awaken you and further there is nothing you can do to cause yourself to awaken and yet it happens. - While they speak to you from outside your dream, within your dream they appear the same as everyone else in your dream. - Others in your dream may tell you these people are deceiving themselves , that the dream is reality and it is all there is. - Still you feel something is about the dream is false. - In nighttime sleep when one wakes up the dream suddenly ends and all the concerns and things that felt so important are just as suddenly irrelevant. - What puzzles me is that if as Nisargadatta says that ultimately ‘there is no one else’ why would one such as Nisargadatta who has awakened to a greater awareness be concerned about the helping people awaken that existed only as part of a his former dream. - Perhaps I am trying to ‘explain’ something that if I ‘knew’ would not need explanation.

I am curious about your experience if it could be called that. - Do you remember what it was like before your awareness expanded? - Did it just come upon you or did you search make effort and anticipate as I have done?

- Jeffrey

Reply: - Because of ignorance the apparent separate one searches for completeness - we ignore the first instant of being-ness, which is this 'presence' - this emptiness. - We ignore it because it is No Thing and we look for 'things'.
That No Thing is reality, the un-manifest. - It is that which is unknowable and yet full of clear knowing.
No Thing is the source of all things - they appear and disappear.
Each thing is actually no thing in essence - its life and duration are only an appearance.
Now, it is impossible for anyone to enter that No Thing - the dream of being someone cannot survive its own dissolution. - and as stated earlier everything disappears back into No Thing.
No Thing is the original and authentic 'identity' for everything.
There never was a 'person' - included in that 'never was' is the term 'enlightened person'.
There 'never was' anything.
Now, this is only known to be true through direct experience-ING.
Neti neti is one way to negate everything and realize what you are.
Thoughtless reality is presently evident yet we ignore it and we go with any thought that arises and we believe in 'the thinker' - and 'the thought' - the thinker is nothing but a habitual 'identity' that appears as an extra thought added onto other thoughts.

What thinker is there if you don't think about it?
What 'I' is there if you don't think about it?
What 'me' is there if you don't think about it?
What 'creation' is there if you don't think about it?
What 'time' is there if you don't think about it?

You see that everything we believe in is based on ideas, thoughts.
The ONLY place a thought can appear is in the 'space of immediate knowing'. - the 'space' itself is also an appearance.
Cast it all aside and what is left? - KNOWING.

You can't go beyond KNOWING. - pure thoughtless knowing is this 'presence'.

Everything 'passes through' this - as appearances.

In relative terms, yes I was a 'seeker' and it appears that I found the answer - after many years of searching.
But it is clearly known that I was overlooking the Obvious - the Present empty nature of pure knowing.

My book is called Everything is clear and obvious - my dear friends laughed at my apparent arrogance - since they could see that everything is not clear and obvious - But the 'last laugh is mine' because it is absolutely true that I see that everything is clear and obvious. - It is they who hold onto opinions and seemingly obscure their view - clouding the obvious.
By insisting on being 'someone' we place an obstacle before us. - one that could easily be walked around or cast aside - but it seems that we need to be told about it. - told many times - it seems.
Resonation happens when the message is heard.
Nature resonates in us, a flower, a tree, a flowing river or anything at all - a child singing, a bird.
That resonation is IT.
IT appears as everything - yet if we are already 'gone' with belief and thoughts, we miss that direct connection.
Make some space to simply be.
Drop the thoughts over and over -they will abate - just be.
There is only One Being....and it is Timelessly Here - always available.
There is no hero worship here for Nisargadatta and no claims to be like him.
I can read his words and they resonate clearly. - and what he says is known without having to work on it.
One teacher claims to be in the same state as Nisargadatta - that is crap - Nisargadatta was not in a state - even if he called it a state, it was only a description of something indescribable.
The wisdom that flowed from him could only come from ‘One Place’ – and that place is our ‘true essence’ and THAT is totally available to everyone.
There is NO need to ride on the back of dead gurus.

Warm regards - Gilbert.

Todays' Note:

THERE IS NO DUALITY IN NON DUALITY.

That fact appears to by pass everyone....especially the intellectuals.

All that is ever seen, by anyone at all, belongs to 'phenomena' - that which 'appears to BE'.

That which IS is non-dual and THAT is never divided - it is this un-mediated knowing - the fact of being - Knowing that you are - that you exist is IT. - Not knowing that 'I' exist as 'someone' or 'something' - just knowing. - That knowing is empty - not a void - it is the fullness of being.

All of our talk belongs to the appearance - where it emerges from is the 'unknown'.

You can't 'go there' - what you truly are is THAT unknown.

In the 'Appearance' there are some folks who display a belief that they are experts on Non Duality or Advaita.

There are many so-called ‘teachers’ who pride themselves on being ‘a gift’ to ‘seekers’ and spent a lot of energy in ‘promoting themselves’ as being ‘rare’ and even ‘holy incarnations’. – It is all imaginary nonsense and self-indulgence.

Some of these ‘rarefied beings’ appear to behave as extra special ‘beings’.

They ‘conceptually’ divide Non Duality, through ‘mentation only’, into categories and make distinctions about the so-called Teachings of Non Duality.

- There are in fact NO teachings of Non Duality but this fact eludes these ‘experts’ and they do not even suspect that they are ‘going down a dead end street’. – This activity of theirs is a kind of madness, a fanaticism and nothing but an intellectual exercise, which is really, in the most basic sense, a misunderstanding and nothing more than that.

Non-Duality or Advaita means ONE without a second.

Dividing Advaita (Non Duality) into Traditional Advaita and Neo-Advaita is simply a conceptual division and that belongs to ‘dualistic mind’.

It is nothing but conceptualization. - The ‘thinker’, the ‘expert’ is just a believed in ‘entity’, a concept - and when it is explored thoroughly it is found that that entity knows nothing at all. – In that imagination there is a belief that they are doing ‘everyone’ a favor by explaining their complex ‘mind matrix’ and they can talk endlessly in circles about their favorite 'toy'.

It all belongs to dualistic mind. - The bare fact is that no word or words can ever express the essential nature of Non Duality.

All that is possible is a direct ‘pointing’ which may or may not convey to the recipient their own naked presence - this presence of ‘pure knowing’ – this immediate presence of ‘space-like awareness’. - That is not a thing - it is not a concept.

Within this ‘space-like awareness' ‘everything’ appears – there is no exception to this – everything that can be seen or witnessed is an ‘appearance’, appearing nowhere else than in this ‘space-like awareness’.

No matter what concept, no matter how profound or profane it may be – it is nothing but a concept and all concepts are equal – they are all appearances bar none.

Knowing that to be the case is not a ‘knowing made by any entity’.

It is pure knowing – not ‘knowing this’ or ‘knowing that’.

The so-called ‘knower’ and the ‘known’ are simply objectified ‘references’ that appear and disappear quite naturally in this knowing presence.

Neither the knower nor the known can exist ‘outside’ of this knowing.

Nothing useful can be arrived at by reading the words of these ‘experts’, in fact it only brings confusion – and that confusion is an unnecessary conflict in the mind.

Of course the ‘intentions’ of the ‘experts’ is ‘good’.

Many ‘good people’ do ‘good deeds’ and often it brings about more havoc than if they had not done anything at all yet it all belongs to the 'appearance' only - That which 'appears to be'.

The equation does not vary.

There is only ONE without a second – No concept ever divided THAT.

There is NO duality in Non Duality.