Our true nature is not a new state or experience that will arrive in the future. It is already present, though we may have overlooked it. It has been called awareness, existence, spirit, essence or the heart. It is simply what you are, that knowing presence that is the basis and support of all thoughts, feelings and experiences and their manifold expressions. We have been looking elsewhere for the answer, yet is has been right with us all along.
What could be simpler than being present and aware? It is totally effortless. The fact of our being and its nature of awareness cannot be doubted.
Try it! Even such a doubt appears right here in clear, doubtless awareness itself.
Acknowledging our identity as this presence of awareness, a clarity and joy naturally reveals itself. From here, life unfolds as a spontaneous expression, without reference to a limited, separate person. It is the natural state.
In the end you see that the mind's questions are based on imaginary problems. Even the question, "Why did ignorance ever arise in the fist place?" is a last attempt by the mind to grasp onto a doubt, rather than simply acknowledging the clear and certain presence of the heart. No harm. Nothing is lost or out of place. The questions come up, but they must dissolve back into this undeniable clear light of knowing and being. You are what you are. This cannot be doubted. Being is. Awareness is. You are that and nothing but that. Not in the future, but now. It is simpler than we ever imagined. Know this and live in the peace and joy that are your natural birthright.
~
Writing from: You Were Never Born -John Wheeler
Art from: Hartford Courant, Oct. 30, 2001
One to One
Q: How can I better understand this?
A: Well, it's not a matter of taking up a new theory, but there is a conceptual structure at play here making you think you are separate and walled off. Without this structure in the mix, there would be no presumption or experience of separation. Let me ask—to you right now, what is the difference between you and me?Q: You're sitting over there, and I'm right here.
A: And this couldn't make any sense unless you thought of yourself, as well as me, as bodies with awareness inside them. The great Advaitin, Krishna Menon, said, "What we take ourselves to be is what we seem to see." If you take yourself to be a body, then the world seems to be made up of physical objects. If you take yourself to be a mind, then the world seems to be made of subtle essences including minds. And if you take yourself to be awareness, then the world is experienced as nothing but awareness.Q: But I know I'm not the body. The body changes over time, and I am what watches it, and I have remained unchanged.
A: Yet you feel like you are "inside" the body?Q: Yes, I can see things only from this angle. If I were not inside this body, I would be able to travel anywhere, and see anything from any angle.
A: Do you feel like you are in any specific location inside the body?Q: Umm, let me see....
A: Do you feel that you are above the waist or below the waist?Q: Above, definitely.
A: Okay, do you feel you are above the neck or below the neck?Q: Above the neck.
A: Okay, above the nose or below?Q: Above.
A: Can you narrow it down any more?Q: I feel like I am behind the eyes.
A: How big are you? What shape?Q: Oh, about an inch wide, maybe round.
A: Behind the forehead? On the left, right, or in the center?Q: I feel like I'm in the center behind the eyes.
A: How far back from the eyes?Q: Oh, about an inch.
A: Okay, we've found you!! A marble-sized ball about an inch behind the center of the forehead!Q: I guess so (smiling).
A: Now, what is it that this marble appears to?
Q: What?
A: Well, as we talk about this, does the little marble seem to appear as an image?Q: Yes it does!
A: So if this image is appearing, what is it appearing to? That is, it doesn't seem like the marble is doing the seeing; it seems like the marble is being seen.Q: Yes, I understand. The little marble isn't the seer, it is being seen. I guess it's just an idea I have of myself.
A: Yes, based on a few habitual things, such as the prominence of the visual sense over hearing, taste and smell. It’s also based on the association that arises over time between thinking of one's self and the subtle muscular contractions in the forehead region. It makes us think that this is where we are.
But now think of the marble image, and that which is aware of the marble image. If you had to place your true self on one side or the other, would you be on the side that is seeing? Or the side that is being seen?Q: The seeing side, definitely. I feel that I'm looking at this marble. So how can I be over there inside the marble?
A: Okay, the seeing of the marble; think about this seeing. As the seeing arises, does the seeing have a location?Q: No, it isn't experienced as being in a location. I can say it must be in the brain, but that's just an idea. The experience itself doesn't have any location at all. Aha!
A: That's it! Nothing else has a location either. And that awareness in which experience arises is your Self. It is the non-separate Self of all.
Photo: Art.com~
Dialogue from: Standing as Awareness -Greg Goode
Beautiful Words
When I turn
To look at you
I cannot see
Where you end or begin
You are deeper
Than the deepest well
More refreshing
Than the clearest water
When I drink
Something both unusual
And utterly ordinary
Happens
Yin and Yang become
A drop in the ocean
Before my Eyes
In my Heart
My presence
In your presence
Dissolves the ownership
And voids the owner—Narayan
Only You
Sights & Sounds
Eckhart Tolle
"On Enlightenment"
8:32 min
Funny One
A very religious man lived right next door to an atheist. While the religious one prayed day in, day out, and was constantly on his knees in communion with his Lord, the atheist never even looked twice at a church.
However, the atheist's life was good, he had a well-paying job and a beautiful wife, and his children were healthy and good-natured, whereas the pious man's job was strenuous and his wages were low, his wife nagged him more every day, and his kids wouldn't give him the time of the day.
So one day while deep in prayer, the pious man raised his eyes toward heaven and asked: "Oh God, I honor you every day, I ask your advice for every problem and confess to you my every sin. Yet my neighbor, who doesn't even believe in you and certainly never prays, seems blessed with every happiness, while I go poor and suffer many an indignity. Why is this, my Lord?"
And a great voice was heard from above, "Because he doesn’t bother me all the time!"
Back to Index: Back to Newsletter Index
Back to Website: Living In Peace - The Natural State
The One Life ● One Heart ● One Love newsletter is compiled by Stephen Wingate and is not for profit. It is distributed freely for educational purposes. Copyrighted material may be used in accordance with the doctrine of "fair use" as set forth in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act -Title 17 U.S. Code. If your material has been used and you'd like it removed, contact us and we'll remove it: stephenwingate11@yahoo.com
To subscribe to the free One Life ● One Heart ● One Love newsletter, send an email request to stephenwingate11@yahoo.com
