Non-Duality and Awakening, by Other Means– Two
Responses to various folks regarding non-dual/spiritual teachings- two
2.24.23
You do not actually exist in a dualistic world. therefore “you” cannot "escape the paradoxical position of the ego."
This seeming "you" who is asking "how" to "escape," IS THE EGO. An illusion in other words. An illusion cannot "escape" the fact that it is an illusion. Or in other words, illusions cannot, by their very nature (of being illusions), "become" real.
The Light of Consciousness does not cast a shadow. EVERYTHING that casts a shadow is merely more shadow, illusion, beliefs.
First and most importantly of all, it must be understood that beliefs are not real. We are free to believe in what seems or even maybe is real, and we are also free to believe in illusions.
But in BOTH cases the beliefs themselves are not reality, they are only and will forever remain merely beliefs. By themselves alone, and most especially in the absence of consciousness (Light), ALL beliefs are delusions – that is, illusions being reflected back upon themselves.
Belief in a belief in a belief in a belief in a belief.HOWEVER deep and far as you want to go, in what can only ever be a never-ending quest to make illusions true, you are “forever” (in the beliefs of time) free to go. Or not.
THIS choice is actually the one and only true (real) freedom (or choice in other words) that you or anyone ever has. EVERYTHING “else” is determined by what is NOT this belief that you believe is you, may it be “other” beliefs, or may it simply be the nature of the Universe itself.
And do notice where this choice, which we humans in the depths of our collective unconsciousness have agreed upon (that we are "separate"), has brought us, not to mention all of life, now. I.E., to the brink of destroying our very planet, the earth itself.
If you are not seeing this in spades these days then you are not paying attention. Our "history" (his story!), is now writ large and stupendously (aka stupidly) overwhelming over everything on earth.
At some point along this endless way though, because Truth is our Source and therefore the source of all that truly IS, you and every soul WILL begin a process of turning around, and in that “turning” (sometimes called a spiritual journey) become willing to see that you, this very you who is asking this very question in other words, is an illusion.
And even as your very asking of this question is (or at least has potential to become) part of that turning.
What is wasted “in the meantime” is time, the one and only illusion we have made up that the Source of you (that you also are) can use to help YOU turn (yourself) towards the truth that is you.
But only when you are willing to actually plunge, not take half steps, nor even "leaps" in mere thinking, but actually PLUNGE your very life itself into the totality of all you “believe” yourself to be (and experience and discover and plunge further, over and over and over), into the very center of all that disillusion, dissolution, or we might say into the dissolving away of this ego and ALL that you believe YOU are, all the while as you remain willingly and fearlessly right here in the midst of all these swirling identities of separation, which we as a human collective now call the "world'.
You must become willing to die in other words, all the while as you paradoxically live out your one unique blessed and beautiful trajectory of life, here in this seeming world where all our trajectories are intermixing and crossing and interacting, together, in the fullest and most truest ways you possibly can, and in each and every given moment you notice that you are here. As in Here.
And also all the while as you release ALL seeming "previous" (and imagined "future") moments you also already and always are, release to God, Goddess, Spirit, Love, Krishna, Allah, or whatever term you might use in any given moment, each release as another doorway through which you again plunge and again surrender all that you are finding yourself to be, to what you always and already are. Over and Over and Over.
Zen's gate-less gate. On the other side of that gate you will briefly look back, and see that there was no gate, no door, and that you always and already are what you always and forever have been.
In the meantime, ALL of these seeming "efforts" to "escape" are merely more self-deluding and never-ending (because they go nowhere) attempts to prove (to yourself most of all) that you are NOT in fact an illusion, that separation is NOT in fact an illusion, and that illusion is NOT in fact an illusion..
In other words, with this question you are still trying to convince yourself that there is something or someone "real," called you. Or in further words a "me" you believe is real, who is asking this question, and "who" is still trying to "escape". AND who, by this very "effort" to "escape" is making this "prison" and the "prisoner" (both illusions) seem ever more "real".
The question THEN becomes, can this "you," who you believe yourself to be in order to even ask such a question, and who does not actually exist, and especially does not exist within and as part of a greater illusion, aka this so-called "dualistic world," turn around and really actually face the very most immediate fact of all, that you really do not exist as something separate, let alone exist in and/or as all these mere illusions of a "dualistic" continuum through which we are all here playing at these questions and answers.?
In further and further words (with ALL words being metaphor in these terrains especially), this seeming dualistic world is itself a grandiose illusion, a play with the earth itself as the stage shall we say, and "you" who believe you are a separate identity are actually all of the characters as well as the audience.
All the while as you are pretending to be merely one of the characters in the play. A character "who" is most of all trying to survive as a character in a "dualistic" universe where there is a "you” and an everyone and everything else.
And then of course there are all of these what I'll call the "grey" areas, for brevity, where there are certain special ones or things or “persons,” who are sometimes as if various aspects, dependencies, attachments or extensions of "you," and then at other times it is as if "they" are merely "them," "that," or “other,” etc.
And even as all the while you are also attempting to become one of the more "special" characters. That is, special to at least some seeming others you believe might also be real (and special?) in their beliefs that they are also some of these characters we are playing here. And further, that by being "seen" as special by "them" (us?) you "yourself" will now also be more likely and able to "survive" as another special and separate character..
In other words, the more we are able to believe we can get other characters to believe we are the special character we are playing in this "play," the more we can believe in the possibility that we will “survive” as the character.
This last is actually a deep trap a whole lot of so called "spiritual teachers” can easily, and do, get lost in. Many many well known ones even.
In reality there is neither play nor audience nor characters. Or more precisely, characters and audience are all mixed in together, all this unconscious and the relatively conscious sentience, human and non-human, continually coming and going, changing, growing, evolving and falling away, altogether as living, energetic, inter-weavings, self-weavings and woven by nature threads, to stretch all these metaphors a bit further, and with some of us who have become able to still call ourselves humans and yet are also to various relative degrees free simply pretending to be both. That is, all these individual separate characters as well as the audience.
You have forgotten that you are only playing at all of this, and now instead believe you are one of the special characters who is trying to understand "non-duality," advaita vedanta, kashmir shaivism, zen, sufism, etc., or even that the “play is only a play,” as in “not real”.
But the real play is actually ALL of this, without exception, and it is actually ALL of this that is not real.
All the while as you continue to use “non-dual” concepts, pointings and ideology so as to continue to make this play seem real to you, by “playing” around with pieces that say that it is not real.
THIS last is a “rabbit hole” of major proportions. And then you add to the pretense by believing that there is no audience, only "other" characters in the play, against whom you believe you must somehow assert, through all these various and myriad complexities and mixes of competitions and alliances we humans play at, "your very own" destiny, separate from, and therefore more special than, the seeming destinies of most, any, or some of the other characters in this play.
The blessing or grace in all of this of course is the wondrous opportunity as humans (or what some Buddhists call this auspicious human birth) to awaken to the reality that we and Source are not separate, and that separation is an illusion.
To awaken is to simply BE this "awakeness" that we always and already are.
There is now no one left to awaken.
Just this.
It most definitely is not about becoming merely another "someone" who is "awakened".
It takes willingness, though only just a little bit of willingness if it is real.
But definitely NOT willfulness.
And then Grace does all the rest.
Or to borrow from Richard Rohr, God(dess) loves us by becoming us.
The Gift of our separate will, what we have been mis-calling our freedom, has now been surrendered back to Source. And so True Freedom is found, once again.
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2.24.23
No. This is merely another thought in the beliefs of separation. Temporary scaffolding only and at best, a step for some, sometimes, perhaps, and sooo easy to grab onto by ego. "I ego can now see my ego thoughts." So now I am "awake". And another identity or may we say face of separation is born.
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Memorizing and/or bandying about (or copy/pasting) other people's words is merely more playacting and dreaming, at best, and a kind of hiding behind words, at worst.
You are still the ego here, using quotes to dream about freedom, or worse imagining that you can somehow puzzle together your own freedom out of some of the myriad breadcrumbs left along the ways of some of the real and actual freedom journeys of seeming others.
Real freedom is the end of ego. "You" do not wake up, not any more than you can make dreams real.
"You" are awakened out of. But only as much as you are actually willing to surrender to your own complete, total and utter demise, as something separate and other.
It is not complicated, nor is it a puzzle to solve. But it is also not a hobby, or an ego trip.
Stop wiggling and instead just be still.
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3.2.23
As I suspect you actually are beginning to realize, an illusion, or we might say a belief in a belief, is imagining (devising) this "puzzle" you are pondering, so you can "marvel" over it, and thereby continue to identify as a "puzzle solver" who will somehow become "real," "awake," or whatever term you favor.
“If only I can just figure it out,” in other words.
This belief that we and all seeming "else" are separate things, entities, identities, processes, etc., is the one single meta belief nearly all humans agree upon, and it is literally all that sustains and maintains all our identities of struggle, and the angst, suffering and pain that almost always accompanies such struggle.
Such "puzzles" can never, repeat, never be "solved," simple because they are illusions. Every attempt to “solve” an illusion just extends into more illusions. If you are really serious about all this then stop making up more and more puzzles, and also stop believing you need to solve puzzles in order to be what you always and already are.
Instead be still, and let yourself sink into the void all this effort of yours is actually running away from. You may begin to discover you actually and really are that void, and paradoxically that it (and by extension you) is the source of everything, including you.
Paradox is to be lived, not solved. IF paradox could be solved it would not be what it is, nor would we be who and what we are.
Take a deep breath into the natural world, in a manner of speaking. Immerse yourself in it. Notice that there is neither puzzle nor puzzle solver "in" or "as" any of it.
Except "you," that is us humans. And of course this very insane "world" we have altogether made up out of our collective “solutions,” all the while as we continue to (temporarily) re-form ourselves and all else, including our very earth itself now, around all the innate contradictions and limitations that come along with our collective and insane beliefs in separation (solutions).
All the rest of this "unfolding" (some call it Creation) is simply Life. Life experiencing life, surrendering to life, nourishing life, discovering life, becoming further and greater and various different expressions of life, and soooo many more ever-unfolding, infinite variations on, and ways of, this Play, right here on this one little planet in a very obscure corner of our Universe. A planet that we humans, through the incredible blessings of myriad languages and all our many ways of making sound and scribble, call Earth.
A choice is born in the very first moment that we notice ourselves, and then notice that we know. Do we want to figure out, understand or “solve” (control) this Life/Existence, OR are we actually called to Be this Life/Existence, Knowingly. ?
This is the only real, final and “relativity” free choice there is. And it surely seems that humans are the only lifeforms on planet Earth who are presently being called to make this choice. And what an incredible miracle it is, that it is we humans, or at least some humans, who are becoming able to bring this choice alive. Awaken into Life, in other words. HERE is God’s greatest (and only) gift, this eternal ever-unfolding gift of Herself to Herself, as each of us and all of Us.
And simply because this choice has now been born in us, we will be called to make it over and over and over, unconsciously, half-consciously or consciously, until we eventually realize, deeply enough and fully enough, what it is that we are choosing. For it is only then that we can begin to willingly (rather than willfully) choose differently.
No one who really sees what they are choosing would continue to choose this insanity that we presently call the “world,” a world in which we are separate from the earth, separate from life, separate from ourselves and separate from each other.
THIS is where (and when) the real journey begins. We now understand that all this is a Play, a singular Verb so to speak, and that all nouns, pronouns and adjectives have always been imaginary, creation and destruction, temporary, coming and going.
We begin to realize that Existence always and already knows Herself, without any "other,” such as “I,” needed or necessary. And that we are also That. In further words yet saying exactly the same, it is only God(dess) Who recognizes Herself.
None of the reality of this can be be told, taught, shared or imparted. We can only nudge each other, and be nudged, as much as we wish, or not. As I am attempting to do here. Nudge us. Sometimes obviously, sometimes not so obviously. And with more or less care.
Let this curiosity I believe you are experiencing become your last, vast resting place as a separate identity, just plain old simple curiosity.
Curiosity is the highest vehicle for awareness, for as long as it needs a vehicle, and for the little while that we remain here, seemingly entangled in this imaginary "world" we have formed out of all our collective and sooo very conflicted and conflicting beliefs in separation.
And yet, all of this is also indicative of the vast Possibilities and Power of our human imagination. In a sense WE are God's gift of Herself to Herself, through and as all of us and each of us.
We have only and merely forgotten.
Let curiosity carry you, and show you the way. Become more and more familiar with what reveals, all on its own, and allow THAT to slowly become what you also truly are.
Until your very curiosity itself becomes the end of you. Willingly, naturally.
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3.20.23
All of this for me are simply ways to explore these sorts of terrains with any others who might be called to wander along some similar paths, so to speak.
Who or what is this that is experiencing all this has always been the central and deepest curiosity of all for me. Sort of that the whole of the Universe is an abstraction in a sense for something I believe is much more immediate, simple, deeply meaningful (full and over flowing with meaning), and real..
In my view it is these sorts of human awakenings in a collective sense that might make the one and only real difference possible, to all that is happening on our planet these days. And because of how so much of this we are exploring here is perceived as being “against “the tide of ignorance that is overwhelming our world these days, I also think that a willingness to believe in miracles is probably also required.
Part 2
The problem with “complicated ladders” "toward the simple" is that we drag all those complications "in" with us.. So to speak..
'Toward" is a journey that never ends. But at some point along the way (at least in these "ways") there becomes a dawning choice that gets stronger and stronger (speaking from my own simple experience), that a plunge into the totality of what I am reaching for is going to be necessary, if I really mean to keep going fully this way.
After such a plunge Grace, as it were, begins to offer opportunities to us to pass through more and more dimensionless passageways, or doorways, so to speak. Reminding that this is awareness we are talking about now, not our bodies. Though our bodies can and usually do benefit, as a “side” to all of this.
We can keep "willfully" cutting in half the distance to this "dimensionless" realm of “edges” forever. The final choice to actually plunge seems to come about through a combination of grace, willingness (not willfulness), and a curiosity that burns so hot by this point that everything else that might have been in the way of our plunge has been burned up.
Metaphor, metaphor. There is no ladder that leads anywhere, and the throwing away these ladders (concepts) becomes a recognition and acceptance of this. A teacher who was a student of Jean Klein said it another way, that the singular purpose of a practiced and educated rational mind and intellect in these ways is to take us to the point where we become willing to leave it behind.
Once that point is passed the rational mind will become sort of like a servant. No longer the master. When needed it is here, does whatever heavy lifting is necessary, so to speak, and when not needed it is nowhere.
On this gross physical level perhaps like some of the muscles in my arm when I reach for the cup of tea beside me. I become aware of the strength of my muscles in the moment I reach, when I put the cup down this awareness recedes.
And of course the danger is that for most of us, we become so identified with the activities and outcomes of our rational minds and intellects, and our bodies’ gross physical abilities and limits, that it seems impossible that anyone could leave any of it behind. Sort of like mental as well as physical body builders, in a sense.
And so, we cannot see the distinctions between beliefs and actuality, we will finally die to form, so to speak, believing we are our bodies, and/or our minds. Our body-minds.
Or whatever it is we have spent our lives identifying with, defending, making, only, merely, and seemingly, stronger, by “building” ever more and more virtual walls of belief around all these identities as body-minds.
In terms of the usefulness of all these sorts of ways, to the trials and concerns of our present day world, I actually believe, pretty near as I can be to the point of certainty, that all of "this" we are now sharing, so to speak, conversations like we are having here, in other words, is and are the only things that will ever make a real and true difference to all of that. I am also saying this in the sense that, for myself, the whole of our very Universe itself is also a Conversation, in some fundamental ways.
Politics, the sciences of matter and energy, technologies and engineering, digital/virtual realities, AI, militaries, mainstream corporate owned media, industry, institutions, corporations, banking systems and governments, hierarchy, patriarchy, etc., etc., by themselves, will only keep making things worse and worse, as they all keep trying in a sense to pave over all the destruction they themselves are causing, and that is now going on literally everywhere and at every level, here on this planet we call earth.
In other words, all that “paving over” IS the destruction. If we leave it to them, a huge and rather "final" destruction on a planetary scale is inevitable.
To bring this very sort of conversation deeper and deeper into the world, that is really the only thing that makes sense to me. All other ways based on the above mentioned ideologies of separation only lead further and further into the depths of separation, and therefore ever deeper into conflict and destruction.
Do I think there is a chance.? No, probably not. Do I believe in the possibilities of miracles.? Yes definitely so.
And In the meantime what better actions can there be.? And where shall it happen, if not here.? Where ever we are, in other words.
Different is the name of the only game in town that really matters now, everywhere these days I fervently believe, and so much more so than most people even realize.
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3.21.23
The mind is limited by its own beliefs, and that is all.
Awareness as you are labelling it (awareness aware, including of itself, without need for any other) gives no “attention” (importance) at all to mind, even as it is fully aware of all that arises within it, which of course includes all of the mind's acting out while lost in its own illusory beliefs in separation.
The central core of that acting out, and which holds all the rest of its beliefs in itself and all seeming “other” together, is the mind's meta belief in its very own illusory existence as something separate.
'God sees only God,' is a shorthand way of pointing to all this, in some various teachings and traditions.
Your question being merely more example of what may be an overly sharp mind trying to erase, or "transcend," etc., etc., its own beliefs by formulating ever more different, higher," "better," "spiritual," "non-dual," etc., etc., beliefs.
It goes exactly nowhere, or in other words always and forever to more mere beliefs, without exception.
And it also tends to make your own “nut,” so to speak, harder and harder to crack. More and more precise, tightly and intricately woven layers between the fiction of you and the truth of yourself, in other words.
With 'nut' in this context meaning your very own identity of separation, aka, the seeming "special" collection of beliefs, memories, aspirations and conditioning that is presently calling itself “you”.
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3.23.23
"Yes. Liberation from the Wheel is possible only from the Human Realm.."
In answer to a question about these words of mine, basically– do I know it, or am just repeating something I believe.?
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In times past it made and actually continues to make perfect sense, and can maybe make sense for you if you study into it some.. Which is what you will need to do to come to what may be a similar place or “sense” for yourself.
From there, and if you are truly called, it can slowly become a process of letting go of your willfulness, coupled with what might be a newfound courage to enter ever deeper into (though it cannot ever really be described) a willingness that reveals more and more of simply what is, just and merely.
. The more that willfulness is let go of the more this can begin to happen..
All this I am speaking is from my own journey, my own direct experience.. I never speak in these realms except from there.. Or more clearly, Here. “Remembering” is no longer necessary for this one. And it is all non-journey actually, these days.. I was always here, and only forgot for a while, lifetimes, whatever.
The teachings are only good for so far.. And only some teachings even then.. After that we let them go.. Unless we just and only want to be students and/or clever experts at all the myriad “maps,” or shall we say the many stories, signs, trails and breadcrumbs of other true and actual journeys..
Someday though, one will have to put down all of the maps and really, actually and truly enter the forest, and allow the forest itself to show us the way. This same very Wilderness that we always, already and also are.
And then at some point, like now for instance, teachings will come back to us on their own, perhaps changed by our own direct experiences. And, as needed, they may even give form, imagery, words and symbols to these natural and innate inclinations of ours to share all this with each other..
Our natural inclinations to have companions upon the Way, in other words. Without any need for a doer or a teacher or any sort of “other” in any of it.. We are all now talking to ourselves, and sharing our different and differing unique paths, as we walk each other ever deeper and deeper into our original nature, or home.
This willingness I am trying to point to is actually and simply pure curiosity, prior to any and all identification with it, and without any need of either subject or object.. What is revealed is now being revealed to itself. So to speak.
Think of the pure curiosity of a new-born baby.. That’s all there is, for a while. No “one” curious, just curiosity discovering itself. And then differentiation begins to happen and an “identity of separation” aka ego starts to take form, simply by taking in ever more and more belief, and then of course making all that belief into a “me”.
And we are now here at the other end of that cycle, while we are still here in form.. We find our way back into this curiosity however we can, or more accurately however Grace shows us the way. Because we have now become willing. Simply willing.
Yet we are now consciously curiosity, knowing itself, discovering itself, knowingly.
These days for me it is simply a direct knowing in what I’ll call for simplicity’s sake a “realm of knowing,” that by its very nature can never be about nor ever need “proof,” so to speak. In the same way I can know love, and know beauty, and know that I am, and even show you that I am, no proof needed, in this way I can also know Truth, and simply so. without effort or “evidence”. This knowing is just and simply knowing itself. Just like my breathing right now is breathing itself.
All of this also of course is just a play of words, writings on water, waves of temporary meaning, for none of this of course can ever be captured with words or symbols or Tibetan paintings or whatever.. But some of this can still be pointings, for anyone who is really called to enter, and is also ready to let their very own auspicious human birth, aka Life, this very same life itself, right here where we are actually meeting for a few moments via these words, show the way.
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Ahhhh.. You are missing it completely, still looking for mere answers to simplistic questions that you are making up out of a fear of loosing control. Sink into the long answer above, which is actually a rather deep and profound offering or gift, and let yourself fully drown in it. Then see what happens. If you dare.
Here is where I will leave you.
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3.24.23
We are neither.! Only your beliefs, which are never ever reality, say otherwise. Choose better beliefs, over and over, until you are finally ready to let all belief fall away. Therein is the path of freedom.
But ohhh the work, identifying deeper beliefs that keep all these surface beliefs going. The "roots" so to speak of all our identities of separation. The fear of that work, and what it might turn up, stops almost everyone.
Almost.
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3.25.23
I write for people, not for myself.. Though by writing for people it is also for myself. Of course.
And so when I can (or feel moved) I put what I write where more people can see it.. In case it is helpful to others.. Can you not grasp this.? It is what writers tend to do, a human inclination that has filled up literally countless libraries all over the world, since ancient times.
And all together this is called communication, or some might say relationship.. You asked me a very direct question, and I decided to respect your question as being a sincere one, by giving some of my time and attention to a proper answer.. It was literally an offering.
Do you really believe short quips and succinct “one liners” are spiritual teachings.? Or that tossing a few flip words over great virtual distances at each other is relationship.? Or that you can awaken on your own and all by yourself.?
If it is too much effort for you to actually read my words and let them sink in a little bit (it keeps appearing that this is the case), then my efforts are of course totally wasted on you..
Ahhh, but, out here in the open my words are, or may be, helpful to someone.. And so I write.
And of course always in no knowing, everything both in and of existence being merely an offering.. In the same way a mountain offers up its springs. Before and after they emerge they were always an offering. If a passing deer or mountain lion drinks, or not, no matter, the water keeps flowing..
Everything eventually returns back to the deep aquifers and to the oceans, the source of all springs, and therefore also the source of all things that move and express life.
You call yourself a “spiritual teacher”.. Probably you shouldn’t be doing that. So far I see exactly zero evidence of any direct experience of anything truly spiritual, and this is most certainly so here in your engagement with me. Other than a mere self-assigned title.. Metaphor and parable also seem to totally escape you.
True spiritual teachers, mystics and sages do not ever claim titles.. They also very much tend to shy away from people who try to lay titles on them.. The ones, that is, who don't eventually get lost in all the imagery and rewards. And only always. It is the nature of these ways.
All of this is for the helpfulness of all of us, don’t you think.?
Part 2
You just keep going ever deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. Apparently even unable to go back and review (let back in?) your very own written words.
My exact statement to someone here who is very truly and fervently seeking, was, simply, “𝙔𝙚𝙨. 𝙇𝙞𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙃𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙢.."
I included with those words a link to a page that explained as well as detailed some of the context for why this is understood to be so in one of several traditions or lineages that are hundreds if not thousands of years old. I will bet a dollar (from the evidence of this latest deeply misinformed reply of yours), that you have not gone to where that link leads, let alone read any of what is there.
The rest of your words now being just more total ever deeper down your own rabbit hole of confusion.
You've studied teachings obviously, I suspect rather selectively and in some pretty limited ways, and now seem to have (actually) decided that what you have merely and only "pieced" together (not lived in other words), out of the pointings, stories, footprints, signposts and breadcrumbs that have been left behind by the actual and almost always difficult (and very much lived!) spiritual journeys and unfolding realizations of a few select various others, somehow makes you an expert, aka "spiritual teacher".
You also seem to be rather attached to being in control of the conversations you are part of. I am a wild creature, uncontrollable. We share this forest, you don't own it. And if you were or are ever able to put a fence around this part of the forest where we are presently meeting, you will discover that I am gone elsewhere.
You will forever need to let go of your urge to control, that is if you ever wish to discover where that elsewhere I have gone might be.
You really should be still now. Take a few days, just sit, let all this sink in.
There is ONLY experience, ever unfolding in more and more profound ways.
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3.27.23
We follow this Way as if we are currents moving through an ocean, in and through all these realms of form, creation and destruction, and yet forever also dissolving away back into source.
All of us together, as we become ever more fully this play in awareness.
We stop believing that all these beliefs are real, and in this very same stillness (the “stopping” in other words), we begin to actually recognize that all is a play (as in playfulness, not a production), and that we are all of us choosing which beliefs we want to both play “as,” and play with. We also learn to go deep, and deeper still, into where all these choices are coming from, in order to discover and realize our original meta choice. And right there, or more appropriately Here, in the midst of this original meta-choice, we re-choose, remake, everything, fresh and new. A fresh and new meta-choice, in other words.
The play then becomes conscious, and slowly transforms “everything” on its own, with no need for a “doer”. Transformation becomes like the very winds of existence Herself, moving us through life, and we need only let our true heart of hearts tip and tilt our sails this way and that, as we follow the sun, follow the storms, the moon, the currents, and most of all follow the scents and yearnings that call to our souls.
Do understand, thoughts and ideas are also just beliefs. And that they can become embodied into form as emotions, unhelpful desires, fear, if they remain unconscious. Also understand that all such embodiment begins early, at birth and even before. With most of those original source experiences either forgotten or not even recorded by a mind that was just beginning to form.
And yet we really don’t need to figure all that out. Just become more and more familiar with it, and then follow it back and back, to the first meta belief. And remake THAT belief. When and as THAT belief is remade, all the rest really does dissolve aways and/or slowly transform, all on its own.
—
3.27.23
There is paradox in all of this, because the words are never ever it. And even paradox does not say it. Of course.
But we must also be willing to live in the midst of what seems to be paradox, if we really wish to go these ways with our actual lives, and not just play more games of accumulation, identity and ego.
Sink back into yourself, and begin to do this “sinking” with all your life, rather than merely using it as some sort of “exercise” or “practice”. Every activity, whether it be work or play or being still, becomes also this sinking back.
Like you are falling back into You, through everything that thought and worldly distractions and activities keep running away from, with all of that commotion being merely a looking for “somewhere else” that is not you.
Back into, through and beneath all of that running, in other words. Only this “back,” that I am pointing to here, is with the face of your awareness towards all of it, so to speak. Your eyes of awareness open, yet turned away from this made up world of beliefs, because now you are facing yourself, finally.
No hurry. Your whole life has become also this. Be willing to take forever.
It is now a falling back through all that your life and thoughts and reactions have been trying to leave behind, because you finally understand all of that is what is also determining everything that keeps appearing before you, in so many scary ways. And you now also understand that it is able to do this exactly because of (and through) your very own efforts to get away from it.
Every effort to escape determines a whole huge lot of what becomes of our lives. And we are always, no matter what else we believe it is, trying to escape the original meta belief, a choice about which we feel, in some really deep core place, both horrified by and terrified of, and do not ever want to remember that we made. A choice to believe what is not possible, that we could actually become separate from and independent of the Source of everything.
For each one of us, whenever we finally come face to face with that original choice, all the while staying present with eyes open, running will slowly die.
And what is slowly rediscovered there, anew, will appear original, unique and fresh to each one of us. No words, thoughts or memories can go there with you. And yet you will still totally recognize it for what it is. And there is exactly where you get to decide once again. And that meta decision or choice fully remade enables a whole new journey of transformation to literally take over our lives.
The “eyes of awareness” I am talking about here are of course not the body’s eyes. They are a sort of a willingness, combined with a deep and profound curiosity, though these are actually the same, two faces of the same thing. Seeing without a seer.
Let’s emphasize that none of this is about intellectual games, competition, or anything of the sort. Nor is it about gaining a new identity or lifestyle. First and foremost there must be a strong calling or we might say soul desire that expresses into our lives through what is our very own, genuine curiosity and willingness. And also do understand that none of this, if it is real and not just more games, is for the faint hearted.
Willingness, NOT willfulness. People confuse those two things, but they are totally different “animals”. Willfulness is ego. Willingness is active and curious trust, openness, faith, innocence. Think of a newborn.
Intelligence helps, but it can also very easily become the problem. And in these realms it almost always is a problem, until we begin to realize that intelligence is merely one of the tools, along with our bodies and our hearts and our yearnings, to make it possible for us to be doing all of this together.
And, all of this together is sort of like going on a long journey with an unknown end that we will only recognize as it happens.. Willingness and a deep curiosity that does not falter is what prepares us for it. And yet such a miracle it is, for this willingness is really all that is needed.
The speaking here is only to people who are ready to hear what is being said. Altogether just drops in the ocean, writings on water, nothing more.
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4.3.23
You (so clearly) have a very precise and intelligent mind, and I suspect this precision and intelligence is innate to your nature, in the QR code of your birth into this lifetime so to speak.
As a result, you want to make this seeming outer world, or we might say journey through manifest existence (a journey that we altogether ARE as well as share), just sooo very precise and intelligent as well.
Naturally, you want the world around you to reflect precision and intelligence back to you. Of course and understandable. And, because existence very much includes precision and intelligence, it will naturally do so. In other words this collective world of ours will definitely reflect what you project onto existence right back at you.
But you maybe forget that we are so much more than mere precision and intelligence. And all that “more” gets projected as well. And “the more” you are unaware of that “more,” the more its projections are distorted, repressed, frightening.
And so, you look for and very “expertly” piece together all of the most precise and intelligent spiritual and non-dual directives and explanations you can find that make sense to you, all the while as you re-assemble them into your very own sometimes unique and always precise and intelligent spiritual and non-dual “understandings”.
This ongoing activity continues to allow your mind to surround itself with all of what are merely, and just ever so carefully, re-assembled and re-fabricated concepts of what you’ve gleaned from the leavings of others, into what you are trying to believe is a “spiritual reality,” the “non-dual journey,” or whatever terms you wish to apply here.
And so all these concepts, directives and explanations become just more “building stones” for your mind’s high castle walls (and sooo high they are!), behind which it will continue to believe it is “safe,” has a “true purpose,” and most importantly has some hope that there is truly “a way out”. Or in other words that “freedom” from your own castle that feels like a prison is possible.
But ALL of THIS, as well as YOU, is and are just sooooo much more, as well as sooooo much less, than all your’s or anyone’s precision and intelligence.
In other words, you as well as all of us are projecting a whole huge lot more than merely precision and intelligence. This includes whatever our innate and unique natures may be, for we are many and varied. And, most of that at this stage probably remains for you unconscious, un-faced, and bound up in a great deal of equally un-faced and unconscious judgements and conditioning.
Your mind cannot escape itself. All these high castle walls and your mind are the same. And your mind will just keep reassembling and reinforcing itself forever, if you let it. And you let it simply by believing it.
And, of course, it is all just sooo precise and intelligent, how could you possibly not believe it.?
And exactly this is what your mind of course keeps telling you, in the midst of all of it, implicitly and ever so subtly, over and over and over.
It will simply never ever happen. Your “mind” cannot escape itself and take you with it. Eventually, if you ever decide to venture out past these castle walls that the mind keeps erecting around you, a venture that becomes real through your questioning your beliefs in the walls themselves in other words, and actually GO on this journey, you will find that all this precision and intelligence must also be surrendered. This fire of true awakening will take all of that as well.
The paradox is, and though it truly seems to be otherwise for a while, all of that goes nowhere. And yet you must surrender it. Eventually.
That is if your heart is able to have its way. It will only be then, so to speak, when your heart finally holds sway, that you will be able to take this unique journey (that you also are) into its final completion.
No matter how much your mind tries, nor how intelligent and precise it becomes, it will and must eventually surrender. Maybe even this will occur in this lifetime for you, no knowing.
You can keep trying to assemble all the best and most precise ashes and residuals of other people’s spiritual fires, their leavings and trails and tracks. Forever.
Or you can simply sit still in your very own blessed fire, and become willing to actually face all the demons that will seem to arise up out of the flames, and finally allow your very own heart to lead you ever deeper into it.
For the way in is the only true way out. Out of the castle walls, so to speak.
Right back into this very core nature of you that you have never not left. So to speak. 🙂
Or in other words back into the true Heart of our true Self. The Source of all that is.
🙏🌻 🙂💕
John Fridinger
Talent, Oregon
Going into Spring, 2024