The ego constricts around a more-or-less fixed mode of being. So when the ego is transcended and the constrictions are released, then the manifest being reorients to a more natural, unconstrained mode. And we don’t have any real idea what that might look like. During the ego’s reign fundamental embodied modes of intelligence may well have been completely subsumed, and so after awakening, in time we might find that we become an entirely different person with different likes and orientations. Political and social views might change, new paradigmatic perspectives might emerge.

But profound flexibility allows all our manifest aspects and characteristics to transform while never losing one’s essential being-nature. We are now the clay not the pot, and it turns out that the clay is not fixed and fired, but infinitely malleable. The trouble is that (for now) we live in a world of pots, and the temptation is to listen to them. “You are a pot! That is your fixed identity and only mode of being.”

The great challenge and the great freedom is to find, establish, and stand in your own inner truth and not to evaluate yourself by outer authorities. You must be the measure of yourself and the world. You know best for you, no matter what others would have you believe. If we give away all our power to the other by allowing ourselves to be judged and measured and defined by those who would control us, it’s invariably in the direction of limitation. You have to take that power for yourself, stand free in your own truth and be what you must be, on your own terms.

 

What magic comes from Silence?
All of it
Can’t you see it all comes from Nothing?

I’m a voice crying out from the wilderness
“It doesn’t matter!”
None of it matters

Perhaps
What matters
Is that we suffer
Or that suffering is
Can be

What do we do with that?
What can we do?

More questions

Find the one who asks the questions
Find the one who could know the answers

Uproot the whole premise
That there’s someone who needs to know
And that answers
Are the answer

It’s easier
If you just stop!

.

I can’t see any other way
Than to give it all up
But that’s not as bad
Or as radical
As you imagine

After all
Each night
You give up all that is
The whole world
For oblivion
You happily let it go
Drop into silence
Peace

It’s not so hard
To drop it all
In favor of rest

So why wait
Until you’re exhausted
To release your burden
To walk in peace
To trust
?

Notice what’s already true
Remember who you are
The veil falls
What a strange illusion!

The truth is not ‘other’
To be acquired
Or achieved

When all that passes
When all that can be
Is swept away
The truth
Is what remains

The truth
Is never untrue

What a riddle

Whatever is
Is truth

Unspeakable?

Delusion is suffering
Suffering is delusion

It’s no-ones fault
It’s not personal

Suffering arises
As the play of consciousness
Delusion –
A concept

Love?
Is that more fundamental?
Does love remain
When all else is gone?
Is love
‘I’?

That’s a question worth asking
An inquiry worth making
An answer
Worth living
Being

Love is bliss in motion

And bliss isn’t pleasure alone
Something to chase
Some response to stimuli

Bliss is the heart of being
Bliss is the texture and taste
The fabric
The warp and woof
The root and the branch

It reveals itself
As you approach
Yourself

It sets the compass
To true
To real
To this
Now

The source of now
Is you
Is bliss

So is suffering bliss?
Is delusion bliss?
Is hate bliss?

Is pain bliss?

Such beautiful questions
What a worthy inquiry

Go find out
Find your own answers
If you want
Follow the questions
To their source

This is the way of inquiry

To follow outward
Is mind and confusion
To follow inward
Is wisdom and truth
And freedom

Herein lies the choice
Or so it seems
But who chooses?
Anyone?

The gravity of awakening
All efforts return
To their source
The clarity of stillness

Delusion thinks
“I am lost to myself”
And
“I return to myself”

But truth knows
“I am always in my nature”
“I am that I am”

We are all Buddha-nature
We are all already consciousness itself
And just because confusion and doubt are present
Doesn’t make it any less true

Thou Art That

This is the victory of Being
And the real hope and confidence
That the truth is true
And delusion and confusion
Are of the nature of smoke
Impermanent and insubstantial

All that can pass
Must pass

And what remains?

ॐ

 

This is new
It’s all new

Memory serves up similar visions
That give the impression
That you’ve seen it before
That you know this
But it’s all fresh

So stay awake
You don’t know what’s coming
The bleeding edge
Face first into the ocean spray of existence
The sharp breeze
Wake up!

The hum of Being
Alive, alive
This is no static field
The fabled flat equanimity
Equivalent to death
Or vanilla

This is life itself
Awake, alert
Even at rest
Electric
Energetic

But subtle
Transparent
Open

This.is.it

So stop what you’re doing
What you’re thinking
For now
Take it in
Rest here

Breathe

Yes

.

Meditation
Is the opposite
Of doing

It’s perverse
In fact
That we consider it
A thing
Rather than
Simply
What Is

It’s like flow
Everyone’s so busy
Trying to get
Into it

But flow is
It’s not a question
Of getting in
But are we ever out?

.

I Am

This Is

I Love

Love Is

Om

.

Be the space of gentle noticing
Be that which knows
Notice that you are
Already that

Meditation
Is effortless nature
Being itself
No more
No less

Zen!
Just so
Thus

And when are you not that?
When are you not thus?

“Confused in mind about Dharma”
The way it is

See clearly
But see

Begin
At the beginning

I AM

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God”

“Be still and know”

This

Look no further

Rest in the presence of God

I Am That

Thou Art That

All This Is That

Ayam Atma Brahm

.

All you need is here
All there is is here

Now

Abandon your seeking
Right now

Freedom!

Peace

Joy

Love

Bliss

Beyond, beyond

Gate, Gate, Paragate!

The farthest shore
Is here

“The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”

Home, home
We never left!

Whatever seeking you have left
Abandon it
Now

“Free at last, free at last!”

And never pick it up again
And never doubt

Throw away false notions
Stand free

.

The end of seeking
Is like quitting smoking

The habit is so familiar
That when it stops
It feels strange
At first
Like something’s missing
There’s so much space
A void

But the void
Is bliss itself

Throw away the seeking
Like a bad habit

Make friends
With the space of being

Abide
In your nature

As your nature

As nothing

No-thing

Just this

Not even

.

.

“Are we there yet?”

Yes.

 

ॐ

 

 

Nothing exists in isolation
So many conditions that we take for granted

For any single thing to occur
The existence of a universe is required
And everything that ever was

Funny that

So stay out of it
You’re doing less than you imagine
Nothing at all in fact

What a beautiful day

Of course the universe doesn’t exist
That’s a massive illusion
It’s like every time you go to look for something
Then you find it
But Reality is laying down the tracks as you go

Everywhere you turn
The universe is being created as you look
And destroyed the moment you turn away

If an atom bomb goes off in a dream
And all the flesh from all the bones
Is burned away
And turned to dust
Is that a real explosion?
Or just the dream of destruction?

And are you –
The dreamer –
Scorched by the heat?
Killed by the bomb?

Is this world
A real world?
Or the illusion
Of a world?

Where is it?
Except in your mind

Oh of course
You believe your mind
Is in your body
Which in turn
Is in the world

But is that true?
Is that how it is?
In your experience?

Have you checked?
Have you looked really, really closely?

Is your mind in your body?
Or is your body in your mind?

Advaita says ‘Awareness’
Zen says ‘Big Mind’
Dzogchen says ‘Rigpa’
Taoism says ‘The Nameless’

I say This, Now, Here, I.

Wake up!
You are awake!

ॐ

 

Drop it all
Leave it all alone
And if you’re still having trouble
It means you’ve picked it up again

Simple?
Yes it is

Do I need to elaborate?
After that is there any more to say?
Is that the final answer?
The only instruction?
Maybe

Any more would be just to assuage doubts

Like, “Yes, drop *everything*”

“Even *XYZ*?”

“Yes, even that”

“But what if *insert another possible exception here*?”

You see how the mind goes?

“What part of *everything* don’t you understand?”

We are wooly thinkers
We lack discrimination

We take things on trust
When we’re too young to know better
And then we hold on for dear life
To ideas that never get explored
Fundamental notions that never see the light of day

And so the truth is an alien concept
We don’t even know what it means to be true
We take everything on authority
And never look for ourselves
We’re lazy
And we’re ill-equipped for exploration

It’s a sad state of affairs actually
Really

In fact it’s this fundamental inability
To know shit from Shinola
Object from subject
Me from I
That wrecks our peace

And our ignorant grasping
And denial and defence
Of indefensible falsehoods
Is the endless wandering-on
Of samsara
The hamster wheel of suffering
On and on

But enough of the metaphors
And the spiritual rhetoric

“It is here, now!”
Is the truth
But drop all efforts
All mental engagement

What is here?
What Is?

Thoughts arise in this
But what is this?

Feelings happen
And sensations
Where?
How?
Who knows?

Whatever is known
Who knows?
Anyone?
Is there a knower?
Or just knowing?

Don’t answer with the mind
Just let the question be
Let it fall away

Where are you?
Who are you?
What are you?
What is?

This is how to look
How to inquire
The question is a mirror
That has you look
Not answer

The seer and the seen
The knower and the known
Are one
Are not two

.

Is non-mentation the goal?
Or the means?
Or both?

It’s recognising
That no-mind
Is the basis of mind
That no-thought
And thoughts
Are not mutually exclusive

Emptiness
Is full
But the fullness
Is empty

The silence
And the dynamism
Co-exist

But the silence
Is the womb of the dynamism

When you find the silence
The empty awareness-space
And you know it as your very being
Then thoughts can come and go
Without any problem

.

Ananda is the bliss of the Self
It is the attractiveness
The joy of pure being
That draws the wayward mind
Back to its source

Ananda is the Bhakti
Chitta is the Jnani

Without the bliss
Why bother?
Without Ananda
How would you know in which direction to turn?
To find Satya, the Truth?

Freedom is coming home
To where you already are

The deluded person
Is an amnesiac king
Or queen

Freedom is remembering
Smriti
Aham! I recall my Nature!
I know my Self!

The recognition and remembrance
Of that which is already true

The relief that comes
From shedding delusion
And living Truth

So take heart
And let go!

ॐ

 

If we stop giving the mind attentional objects then it will tend to settle into its own non-conceptual, silent nature. It’s simply a case of remaining in an open and non-grasping posture.

The mind wants to settle, remaining always in a state of engagement is exhausting. Openness and non-grasping are a relief. But there are a couple of ways to look at this and approach it (although both resolve at the same place). The first is by the ‘action’ of noticing and releasing tensions in the body-mind. This is a result of a penetrating attention that actively works through and dissolves energetic densities and contractions as it finds them in the present moment experience.

The second way is more profound. It’s noticing the ever-present, non-grasping awareness that underlies and contextualises all energetic movements and phenomenal arisings. This is a more fundamental and powerful recognition. In a single stroke it transcends the problematic nature of embodied contraction and tensions, and at the same time begins the spontaneous process of natural releasing and the ultimate dissolution of embodied trauma and stress.

It’s the recognition of this foundational aspect of our nature that frees the human spirit from the burden of identity and activity and the affliction of embodied stress. Once known, awareness becomes the catalyst for freedom, while also being the goal and also the context in which any perceived process of liberation unfolds.

How this plays out in an individual can be seen as a function of bliss. At some point in the life of a person a dawning recognition can come that their essential nature is blissful, and on the basis of this the attention becomes attracted and inexorably drawn within to its own origin, where it finds rest and satisfaction.

It may be seen that suffering was only ever the result of the habitual narrowing of attention towards objects of awareness at the expense of the apprehension of ones boundless source. So at the heart of our experience is bliss, an ocean of it, but we miss it because we’re preoccupied with a limited view. Fortunately, because bliss is our essence, at some point its presence inevitably reveals itself to itself. We begin to remember who we are, what we are, the nature of our being. This is the dawning of the light of truth, we become the living memorial of the divine presence.

It may be that talk of bliss is alien. It may be that one’s attention is entirely caught up with the experience of suffering. This is a perfectly satisfactory starting point also. Suffering is a great teacher. It may be that the presence of suffering for so long can become the inspiration and incentive to seek out its extinction. This can be the birth of spiritual practice and seeking. And although in the end practice and seeking must both be dropped, in the beginning and along the way they serve to give purpose and focus attention in the right direction.

Bliss at the source, suffering at the outer edges as identification increases in narrower and more fragmentary ways. The primary injunction is just to turn the mind to its source. Stop chasing out, out into the world, turn the attention 180° where attention becomes awareness. Rest in your own silent, blissful nature, until it dawns that This is all that is.

ॐ

 

Is there evidence for the existence of an outside/objective world separate and independent from the awareness in which it appears?

We can see that the awareness itself is malleable to an (presumably) infinite degree. Or not. Are there limits to the plasticity of relative arising? Is there a higher and lower limit, a range of phenomenality? Is there a finest and a fastest? A brightest? A subtlest? Or is it infinity in all directions? And infinite depth, an eternal well?

This infinite dance of appearances.

All the while the eternal Witness-subtrate is present, never changing, I AM, I AM, I AM. Always eternal Being, not personal but awake, alive, aware.

The nature of the ‘world’ is that no matter how closely you look it never resolves to certainty. There’s apparently no end to its kaleidoscopic blossoming at any scale. And what is scale anyway? It’s all relative to the nominal, containing space of awareness.

There are more questions than answers, and the bedrock we so desperately seek is ever elusive, yielding endlessly to emptiness and formlessness.

The heart of life is void of form, but filled with Being.

Ah! The bliss of This!

ॐ

 

If we saw the world at different scales we’d have quite a different experience and conception of reality. If we saw it at the atomic scale there’d be a lot of empty space and atoms but no material objects as such.

Looking beyond atoms we’d see vibrations of the underlying field.

Layers..

People at levels of consciousness report similar conceptions of reality. Like distinct patterns and forms emerging from sound vibrations through a substrate. Mind is a matrix/nexus of interlocking self-supporting structures of relative intelligence.

Emergent..

Mind is embodied.
It’s not just a superimposition, it’s the emergent conceptual correlate of the embodied intelligence.

Mind + Body
Thinking + Feeling/Sensing

Mind describes and expresses what awareness sees/knows.

In nature there is a progressive development of expressed embodied intelligence, from simple to complex forms and systems, expressed in stages of characteristic organisation, progressively becoming transparent to the underlying substrate of awareness.

The ‘personal’ unfolds in the context of the non-personal. The non-personal is not person shaped!

Reality is not defined by what it is not.

Non-personal is a description only for the benefit of the person.

Trans-personal is trans-everything.
Not to be defined in terms of what it isn’t.

Body is mind, mind is body.
Deeply connected and related.
Mind is an correlating expression of the somatic experience.

Drop into the body.

Atma Vichara is exploring the nature of the lived experience from first principles.

Is the body embodied?

Experience of embodiment..

Vision is a seamless, unified, kaleidoscopic image arising in awareness.
Sensing/feeling is a sea of energetic textures arising in awareness.

All appearances are differentiated but not fundamentally separated.

Separation is arbitrary and notional.

So the body is a range of feelings and sensations, supported by a notional body-image and a morphing self-conception.

Dispelling the illusion of separateness on the level of self-experiencing (felt and observed) informs the correlating conceptual expressions, mind.

ॐ