110. 'You' cannot know ‘Reality’.

You cannot know reality because firstly there isn't one, other than what we experience now, however we experience it to be. Even that is unreal, because it can be altered with drugs or other means. Secondly it has to split reality into a knower and the known, as if each can be, without the other, which cannot be. So the apparent reality that we experience, believing it to be absolute reality is limited reality as we experience it. Mostly we live reality mentally and stress ourselves out. So reality is limited to the mental only. Or else, this body, never bothers about reality or unreality and loves life as it comes, as if, it were the eventuality without escape. Like in animals..

There is this reality as we are forcefully taught- about events, situations, objects and ourselves. It also includes reality of religion, time and space. Its a collective thinking that ‘this is real’ and that is real. However it doesn’t take time to understand that all such realities are just a understanding of what we are taught in order to experience them, because all knowledge are thought forms and we experience thought forms for what we sense, which is the knowledge of them. The world is a sphere and all are just popping out of it or hanging out of it. We are separate entities and real and are above other species, which are also some sort of entities and real in life, etc etc. This is more accumulation of learning to memory or knowledge.

Some suggest that there is reality beyond what we know and we would be able to gain insight about such absolute reality, which apparently supersedes relative reality or learnt reality through knowledge or through thinking or through mind. They also suggest that it the space where there is 'peace' on a permanent basis.So they offer hopes about becoming someone that can know absolute reality. So they may urge the 'other' to get hooked about this teaching, as if they can attain such a state of peace by following some prescriptions of the teacher.This is simply more seeking for pleasure in the same manner that mind seeks out any other pleasure, be it in relationship, material wealth or habits.

The mind or the reasoning dynamic of psyche, is a pleasure seeking, pain resisting tool, and through knowledge, passed on from generations, is able to grasp, what is pleasurable and painful, as communicated down the centuries. It gathers meanings as told by others, makes some sense of such learning and stores as memory to be used in the future. So all that we can know is only  through our 'knowledge' of them. Trying to see things without knowledge or experience things without knowledge, is basically absurd to explain, because the feeling inside is a stimuli to sensation outside, as a solitary movement. Its like asking an Alzheimer patient, to explain his feeling for what is going on. You will never know. Or like asking a dog for its experience. You will never know. You and me, in that state may not experience anything similar. You will never know at all. Its the unknown zone. Experience is there, but it doesn't have a description. Nothing registers to memory, unless stored as 'known' with some form of knowledge of the past, in order that, it can be recollected from memory when the situation calls for it.
Seeking for 'reality' or unknown is simply seeking for 'more' than there is, because, we seem to know the unknown, since, we can only search for the known. So it puts the result into the future Seeking is a pain by itself. It just means that there is scope for fulfillment of some more than, what already is and which is not enough. Or, it gives a sense of insufficiency. Seeking for more is to mean that ‘I’ have less. This dynamic, keeps a sense of seeker alive and that’s about the essence or role-play of the dynamics of the mind. A mind cannot know creation in any other manner than it is designed for. It should convert the seeing into a subject object format, so as to give reality to subject and also to object, and this it can do, only with the help of memory, which is also in subject object format. The very tool that is used to ‘imagine’ the reality of the world as we know it, cannot be used to seek another reality that is beyond its style of functioning, called imagination in subject object format. In fact the present world itself is an imagination of mind because life plays out the mind to perceive in subject – object format, using imaginary skills, as if they could exist so, in separation.

Time is a imagined reality, space is an imagined reality and therefore all life that happening that is happening to us in separation is also a imagined reality. It does not mean that there can be an imagined reality that is beyond imagination. Nor can there be an unimagined reality. It simply means that reality is always in the realm of imagination or conceptualisation and there cannot be anything else beyond what the thought interprets in a way that it can be known in separation.  Even if there was, it would not be an experience, unless projected through memory or knowledge. So what is known is always in the realm of thought and also all experiences are body reactions associated with thoughts, to make them an experience as if reality could exist in separation.  So the experiencing of a thought, makes the thought about what is sensed, as if a reality of what the thought suggested it to be. So when the sensation of seeing a rope is judged as a snake by thought, it feels real.  The feel of fear there give a stamp of reality of snake to the rope, as a snake.  The idea of what is, as a memorised knowledge or an assumed meaning to form,  accompanied by its feel in the body as a reaction, gives the stamp of reality to forms as separate objects. These are only psychically created by life through learning to ‘feel’ through knowledge. There ends the logic of reality.

In the realisation that forms are just forms and meanings to forms is mind generated assertions  to forms, to make feel them as real, there is knowing of its unreality. Should there be an absence of the dynamics of the mind, the world of objects would have no ground or stamp of reality.  This allows seeking to fall away, as all reality is then known to be a mind game. When the game of this dynamic ends, what is seen there is an absence of an urge to know anything more than for normal survival of the body. So the reality of –is there life after death, is just brushed aside as a topic that is not knowable and so of no interest. In fact all of life that is happening around us, would be in the category of the unknowable and even the reality of the ‘know-er’ as independent from what is happening would be seen through as unknowable. Life is then simpler since there is no projection of what is –into the future- that would otherwise generate anxiety or fear, to keep seeking as a function of living in separation.

Knowing somehow that reality of things is a mental image and that any other form of reality is a myth, allows the mind to relax and accept the reality as forced on us, just to co-ordinate with others and live normally, simply because all is unknowable. At the same time, since reality itself is unknowable and there is no other reality to achieve, the game of achieving, or becoming is abandoned. The mind adapts to playing out assumed reality in the background for the play of 'what is happening' to continue in the realm of unknown. This allows stillness and silence as always the ‘natural state’ of mind,  in which all that is happening seems to arise and fall as images. It is also known that ‘what is happening, as a manifestation in this ‘moment’ is created and ends only to be seen as another new  moment of creation. There is less judgement and peace around what is happening, since they seem to happen uncaused for, moment to moment.

There is no urge to ‘know’ reality from then on, as ‘all of creation’ is just a manifesting as ‘unknown’. and the know-er is only an effect of the dynamics of trying to know. Knowing life as a know-er would have to split the know-er and the known as two different realities, which somehow would be known to be unreal to the knowing.

So nothing is real and the so called unreal is simply not definable as unreal must mean something other than real that is not there. Its too complex. However when seeking stops and real and unreal is simply not a topic to the mind, life simply goes on automatically or spontaneously and becomes very light living. The do not know state is simply a state of wonder. There is no urge to know content and so all content is just one context and is un-knowable. It cant be sought. Its a falling away of the need to 'know' and so falling away of the know-er with the urge to know. So there is no known.
Finally, in the words of the spiritual Masters, Brahma is real. The world is unreal. Brahma is the world. It just means, when the world is seen in separation or other than as an expression of Brahma, such knowing in separation is unreal. God is all and all is God.

109. Living Life in fulfilment

We put in a lot of effort in living our life to the best of our abilities. We have our own milestones of how we should live our lives. A robber wants to make a robbery, A normal man wants to be good, as defined by society etc. We live according to some notion of how life must be lived. It is not a spontaneous living. It is a conditioned living, as we learn to live it.

Can we know what should be the only way to live? In fact there cant be just one way to live. Or else all would have been butchers or all would be teachers. We may presume that life knows what is living 'as' us and so it is continuously living itself as people, thereby having a variety of lives being led. There is no a wrong way or a right way. Since it is unfolding in some way, that's it. It fools around unfolds in a way, so that I am always right and normally all others could be wrong. There is a justification in thought as to why and how we lead our lives, the way we lead, either taking credit for how we live, or blaming our parents or circumstances or others, on how we could have lived better. The justifications creates an opinion, as if there could be a choice that was not.

Circumstances decide how our life is lived, more than what we can design it to be. You are born in a particular family, at a particular place with a particular intelligence and particular acquaintance. From then on life becomes a sequence of events, as if negotiating the immediate world around us. There is a pressure that the world pushes us to be deal with, in a way, that is always forcing us to seek pleasure and avoid pain. However this could effect pain to others, at the cost of pleasure to us. It would be like killing a chicken for a tasty meal. The thought structure that gets formed to condition our thinking process, to evolve a basis of living a life, however right or wrong it would be. We then fill in explanations to make the wrong a right. Humans are genius in the field of excuses called explanations .

Very few could be less bothered about the the way unfolding of life happens around them, as if, their role is already being lived by life itself, effortlessly, as if in the flow of life or being at peace with ‘What is’. There is no intention there to change the world. There is no fear or anxiety about what should be versus What is. He may be useless to the society generally, or useful as a teacher or preacher, but he is in awe, about life playing itself out as creation, including playing out as many people.

The truth of what we are, is that, we are not individual entities  at the core of ourselves, even though it feels otherwise. Life lives itself out as if, each of us is an individual entity. We may feel like entities, because life is living itself in a subject –object format, to make feel one of the objects of seeing -as if a subject, verses the rest -as if the objects of that subject. This version of the play of life creates a real feel of entities. However, there ends the reality of being an individual entity.  Its not as simple as we see it to be. It is simpler than that. We believe that such an entity, has freewill and choice and has to negotiate the world, in order to live happily. This sense of doership to the body, is what causes the pain when things do not go as per one’s liking. It never does, because, all love permanent happiness, that cannot be reality. If unhappiness would never be there, happiness would have no value or place. So happiness and otherwise are passing experiences in consciousness, that arise and we could only react to something that already took place, as if , it is not as per one’s liking. If only we learn to accept the past as it is and be curious about the future, as if that also would pass in a manner to be known only as it happens, there would be less anticipation and less heart burns. To come to that understanding, it is necessary that one understands his own reality, in the unfolding of life, that this ‘creation’ offers as a world of objects. We are not individual entities that we think we are.

We are. That we know. Since we always know, all experiences that are experienced, we are the knowing of it all. That is all that can be said to be of us, in reality. The aliveness that knows itself is what we are. Aliveness lives itself out as this creation, seeming of separation in space and events in time and the knowing as it’s faculty is what we are. We appear to contribute, to the unfolding of life, changing the world, as required by us. But this gesture is life, playing itself out as ‘us’. In knowing this reality and living this reality, peace could prevail, even when events does not show up as seemingly ‘happy’.

Learn to analyse what we are at the core of ourselves. It’s just a body that is living itself through experiencing the expression of the world, including itself as a part of the world, contributing to the experience of oneself and others. The body is an expression of life, expressing itself, as if, a sensing body for the rest of its expressions. Thought adds to justify all experiences as if to be opined by an individual, thereby creating a sense of separation from the rest of the world. This is a very light play of life. How else could Life recognise itself and its expressions. When we see the ultimate dance of life, we will fall in love with the whole dance, even though it may have its happy moments and its sad moments as if for an individual ‘me’ .

Life is a dance and ‘you’ are IT as the experiencing of  IT. Just allow the experience to flow itself, contributing once in a while to the experience as it happens.

108. Awakened Living - A note by Adyashanti

What it's like to live an awakened life into a large nutshell.

"While the world is trying to solve its problems and everyone around you is engaged in the same, you’re not. While everybody around you is trying to figure it out, trying to arrive, trying to “get there,” trying to be worthy, you’re not. While everyone thinks that awakening is a grand, noble, halo-enshrouded thing, for you it’s not. While everybody is running from this life right now, in this moment, to try to get there, you’re not. Where everybody has an argument with somebody else, mostly everybody else, starting with themselves, you don’t. Where everybody is so sure that happiness will come when something is different than it is now, you know that it won’t. When everybody else is looking to achieve the perfect state and hold on to it, you’re not.
When everybody around you has a whole host of ideas and beliefs about a whole variety of things, you don’t. Everyone on the path is getting there; you haven’t gotten anywhere. Everyone is climbing the mountain; you’re selling hiking boots and picks at the foot in the hope that if they climb it and come back down, they may be too exhausted to do it again.
When everybody else is looking to the next book, to the next teacher, to the next guru to be told what’s real, to be given the secret key to an awakened life, you’re not. You don’t have a key because there’s not a lock to put it in.
When you’re living what you are in an awakened way, being simply what you’ve always been, you’re actually very simple. You basically sit around wondering what all the fuss is about.
When everyone is sitting around saying, “I hope that happens to me,” you remember when you did that. You remember that you didn’t find a solution to that. You remember that the whole idea that there was a problem created all of that.
When you’re being what you are, when you’re living the awakened life, there’s nobody to forgive, because there’s no resentment held, no matter what.
The truth of your being doesn’t crave happiness; it could actually care less. It doesn’t crave love, not because you are so full of love, but because it just doesn’t crave love. It’s very simple. It doesn’t seek to be known, regarded highly, or understood. When you’re living what you are in an awakened way, there’s no ideal for you anymore. You’ve stepped off the entire cycle of suffering, of becoming; you’re not interested.
It’s a curious life you find yourself in. You find yourself… where you are. Not where I am, where you are. Where you really are. Where we really are. It’s a curious place to be (especially in the beginning) not to be driven by anything—pleasure or displeasure, helping or hurting, loving or hating. The only thing that will move you (and I don’t mean to be too poetic about this) is the same thing that moves a leaf hanging from a tree. It’s simply because the breeze blows that way. So you always know what to do: The breeze blows that way, and that’s the way you go. You don’t ask questions anymore. You don’t evaluate why the breeze is blowing that way because you know that you don’t know why. And you know you can’t know why. There’s never been a leaf anywhere that knows why the wind blows that way on that day at that moment. That breeze changes the orientation of your life, moment to moment to moment, simply because that’s the way life’s moving. And when you’re living in your awakened self you have no argument with the way it’s moving because it is the same as you are.
And you know that the breeze was always there, from the very beginning, and that it wasn’t reserved for special people. If you didn’t notice it at some point in your life, you know it was because you weren’t listening, or because you thought you had to figure something out before you could listen, or because you thought there had to be some conclusion before you could just listen so deeply, so without agenda, so without hope of a better future that you would feel the movement.
Many of you know what I’m speaking of.
Truth never explains why it’s moving that way at that moment. And if you ask, it won’t give any information. It would be like a leaf asking the wind, “Why are you moving that way right now?” The question doesn’t make any sense to the wind.
But your argument with the way the truth would move—whatever that way is—is no longer there for you. You’re no longer arguing with it. You’re no longer trying to figure it out. Mother Mary didn’t figure it out. Buddha didn’t figure it out. Ramana didn’t figure it out. None of them figured it out. They just became That. Simple. Ordinary—in the same way a leaf is ordinary.
When you’re living in your awakened being and living in an awakened way, power on any level is not an issue for you. It’s not interesting. The power to control another human being is not interesting. Intellectual power is not interesting. The power to control yourself is not interesting. The power that people want to give you is not interesting to you—not because it shouldn’t be; it’s just not. What would you want to do with it? You see that there’s nothing you want to do with it.
You realize, in the truth of your being, that you are the totality itself, but you have no interest whatsoever in doing anything with that knowledge, with using that knowledge.
Finally, you realize that you really don’t want to change anybody, not because you shouldn’t want to change them, because you just don’t. You might not want to be around everyone, but still you don’t want to change them.
None of this is an ideal—it’s the end of ideals. None of this is holiness; it’s the end of holiness. It’s the beginning of wholeness. None of this is something to achieve, because it’s not achievable. It’s simply what is in the truth of your being. It’s just what is. You can’t attain what’s naturally so. And nobody anywhere can ever tell you when or why, or to what degree you’ll let go of untruth; you will let go when you let go, usually when nothing else works.
When you’re living in the awakened way, in the awakened being that you are, you’re alone, and you’re finally comfortable with it. You’re alone, but you’re not lonely at all, because the only one who was ever supposed to meet you where you are—the only one who ever could meet you where you are one hundred percent—was you. Nobody else could ever fully meet you where you are—maybe ninety percent, maybe ninety-five. Nobody can meet you fully but you. When you finally do, then you don’t need anybody else to do it for you. Then you’re alone, more alone than you could ever imagine. And strangely—very strangely—you are more connected, more intimate, more at one with everything. More. And you would have never thought that those two could in any way be together: total aloneness and total oneness. You would have never guessed that that’s the way it would end up. But it does, and it always has.
And finally, when you’re just living in the awakened way that you really are, you’ll never form an image again of what it’s like. Even as it’s happening, you won’t form an image because you’ll know they’re all images, dust. The way it was yesterday won’t be the way it is today."

107. Experiencing Reality.

The world around us, in our direct ‘knowing’ is just a sense perception. Meaning, its content is made of knowing material or the material of sensations, whose material is non matter at the most, or material of awareness.  Generally speaking, sensing of pain is pain. No objective pain apart or separate or outside the sensing of it could be perceived. Perceptions are only perceived and the contents of perception are then interpreted as separate concepts which then has an equivalent hallucinated experience or a conditioned experience or a imagined to be 'objects'. These concepts, or so called 'objects', actually have no direct relation to the sensations. For example, we make a concept of Budweiser Beer as very good over a period of time, even though the same ‘we’ knew this taste to be more like that of urine, when there was no concept of Beer. So we experience concepts and these experiences ( mostly learnt )  are defined  into memory as Good or Bad, or other attributes, somehow giving them an aliveness as objects, being no more than a mental projection of them being so.

When we just take a look at the scene around us to ‘know’ what we know in our visual see-ing, we are actually, pushing our mind to tell us what is seen, We apparently, experience each object of seeing as separate and stand alone items in the general sensation of visual knowing. So the mind, interprets seeing as a collections of objects like buildings, rivers, trees, roads etc. It’s always and always, interpretation of mind, conceptualising what is seen, as separate stand alone objects in the seeing, that seems to give the reality to what is seen, there by making a notion of a subjective see-er. Such, conceptualisation, helps record into memory, what is seen, as a format of ‘story telling’ (conceptualising) knit around a self centred notion of ‘me’. So ultimately and initially too, we ‘experience  ‘concepts’ as interpreted by mind, about our perceptions, rather than experience perceptions, un-interpreted. In absence of conceptualisation, all seeing and hearing etc., is a shock, as if someone from behind made a shout and you jumped.  We can’t experience a non-conceptual world, other than as a series as shocks or breathtaking experiences, because  every sensational shock  could be too much for the body handle. It would be like walking on the edge of life. Could be better than what it is, like living in a permanent ‘adventure’ mode.

The split mind is conditioned to make meanings or concepts to parts of perception, which is the basis of objectification of ‘forms’ or more correctly, subjectification of forms, to convert ‘forms’ or shapes  into objects or ‘things’ in our understanding of them as ‘other’.  Thing-ness to forms is plain and simple conceptualisation or imagination of reality to forms, separated in space, mentally. It is purely a mind function rather than an existential reality which apparently seems to be something that is existing  ‘realness’  ‘at’ the object. Its more a projection of ourselves as mind, onto the sensed ‘form’ for purpose of objectification or giving forms, a stamp of reality, whatever reality could mean. Eventually, such objectification, being the functioning of mind, is what leads to perception to be felt as  ‘separation’ of subject that perceives an object, and independent of itself. It generates the reality in feel of ‘me’ and the ‘other’ as if independent entities in space time. Hence separation, in absence of conceptualisation,  is something that could not be a possibility, as perception of full wholeness rather than in bits and pieces. So separation is a ‘mental’ activity, which is not  a ‘reality’ in the true sense of our sensory perception.

The ‘reality’ of objects is nothing more than making ‘objects’ of forms, using mental hallucination, in the absence of which, all forms would seem as extensions or ‘parts’ of a single whole form, of our sensory perception of this creation. This would then just be the knowing of ‘ wholeness’ as depicted in pre-conceptualised perception.

All of this is theory about non-conceptual and conceptual perception, and we could only perceive from a place where our perception apparently functions. However such non-conceptual or pre-conceptual  perception is an activity that is already happening to us, for very short intervals, until conceptualisation  takes place, as a further functioning of the mind, involving its conditioning as the basis of such conceptualisation activity.

In its nascent form, perception is 2D for a newborn, that can’t gauge depths, 3D for slightly grown that can’t gauge time and 4D for most of us, that can gauge time as content of perception, as if time existed, in its own right and not as a measure of the object.  In fact space ( volume) and time are just inherent properties for perception belonging to the object as their property, helping in their mental grasping  as separate contents to ‘knowing. Objects keep changing and their measure as property keeps changing so that a changed object is per say not the same object, but in our hallucination, there is a tendency to keep the same object in continuity, even with the change of all its property. This gives a base of reality to ‘objects’ that keep changing. So I am the same even though I am changing and not the same. Paradox. We at times accept changes to forms as new objectification, like tadpole is not a frog and at times maintain the same objectification through all changes, like Mumbai is Mumbai, even though its population and looks changed drastically over the last 200 years.  All measurements ( fixed or changeable)  are properties and all properties are stories and attributes that help in objectification of forms, as if objects were isolated and could stand alone, in their own right, unconnected with the rest of perception, enduring in time.

Waking up shifts the perception to the next level, wherein, time and space are seen for what they are or rather what they ‘were’ not and this progression of perceiving also could shift or transcend into higher or other planes,  to notice more mystery of creation.

“The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into awareness”.

~ Lao Tzu

106. Why Suffer.

Suffering or pain is a human element. In fact a universal element. In trying to negotiate the world, to suit ones state of mind, there arises a gap that cannot be achieved. There is always or atleast mostly, a not reconciling to the present moment. Till such time the content of creation can be reconciled, the mind is in turmoil. The turmoil of the mind leads to anger and frustration causing suffering to oneself and whatever or whoever is around him.

We think that we can change the world or content, to suit the limitations of the mind to reconsile. This we think can be advised by specialist in that field. There is elaborate analysis of how suffering and pain can be handled. Psychiatry, Medicine, Motivation, Holiday, Meditation, Yoga, Prayers, Guru seeking, Black Magic, etc are results of such analysis. The causes and effects are analysed, logic applied, actions taken positively or negatively until the suffering ends or until there is some new pain that replaces the earlier one. Each of these therapies would seem to be apparently working on someone or the other and would therefore be assumed to work across all section of 'people'and so there is a continuous effort across the globe to conquer suffering.  However there is no analysis of an entity that suffers. Such an entity that could suffer is an assumed reality, that, there is a  ‘me’ ' in there', solid and real, that really suffers. Of course its true that there appears to be a ‘me’ entity in there with choices to make it feel more real.  How solid is this notion of an entity that could be real and solid, is what needs to be resolved, but very difficult or rather impossible. So in the sentence ‘ who suffers’, the suffering is put under the microscope rather than the sufferer.

When some one tells us that he has a problem, we ask what his problem was. There seems to be no weight on the ‘who’ that seems to be owning the pain. So what to do?. Just do what is normally not done. Search for the ‘who’. Answering the questions about who suffers, imposes reality to the who. So best, is to probe, if there is a who, and where the hell does it reside, how or why does it behave in a certain pattern etc. Soon, when the attention is diverted from suffering to the sufferer, there seems to more to discover.

Who am I is an age old question.. Why? Because it remains unanswered, and like a myth, it can go on for ages. Its like answer for ‘why’ the sky is blue. There is no sky, but apparently yes, and also ‘blue’. In absence of a solid sky, there cannot be a solid colour, that such a non existing sky can take on to exhibit itself. So a notional sky, would seem to need a notional colour. Such is this ‘I’ business. Notional and real, apparently.

Thus the simplest of the question, who I am, seems so complex, that it has never been part of a basic teaching that a child needs, before it can face the world. A chicken that is born, flaps its wings, ready to take on the world, and happy, until, in language, it learns that it could be a breakfast item for all beings on earth, out there hounding for it. Once this sinks in, its running away from all beings, trying to secure itself, a survival chance, rather than enjoying, what the world has to offer, for which its birth, was a cause.

Finally, no matter, how you analyse the source ‘me’ that appears as the centre of all problems, you would derive that a notional centre of all problem, that is causing an apparent me and a solid ‘me’ as an individual entity,  is non-existent. The aliveness which is a cause for all sensations does exist, but the experiencing of all sensation, makes feel that aliveness is separate from life, and individual to a form, but, which has no derivative truth. This should be enough proof that aliveness is all there is, and sensations is all there is , as an expression of aliveness and brings about experiences, as if real, a mental notion that a ‘me’ is real and volitional, is kept in place in psyche. Try as much, the trying is the effort and the effort is the ‘me’ but the whole goddam thing is a GAG. 

Suffering is real and tangible. The moment or content of the moment is not going to change. Only the perception of the moment to reconcile mentally is what matters. We need to know that the ‘me’ that does or does not suffer is simply notional.  This can change the perception. In fact the perception changes first to drop the 'me-sense' and there seems nothing to do. So what to do?  Find the one 'to do or not to do', then see if do or not do, needs doing by the non existent me.

105. Pure or Real Existence.

In reality only Consciousness exists. Its the power to 'know' or the knowing activity.The essence of all that ‘appears’ to exist is purely the knowing of it. It can be conceptualised to be an essence or as a source and named Consciousness, as if to be some kind of 'physical matter'. This Matter being a FACT or 'matter of fact 'is another thought. In the meaning that we put to the word ‘exist’, pure existence or consciousness - is the only thing that doesn’t exist as something physical (or non physical like thought ). Being that ‘thing’ that doesn’t exist, its very light or as heavy as “light”. That’s what we truly are. The very light of consciousness that is very light. No burden. How light can ‘something’ be that doesn’t exist in the ‘measurable’ sense?. How light can ‘nothing’ be? Zero. Even zero assumes that its something measurable. So we are very light, lighter than light could weigh. That’s what freedom is. That’s what life is, as we, if only thought did not distort it to be what it thinks we are. We are like the weight of space or the burden of an non-entity to be burdened. That’s what we all in our pure essence and are when we are ‘not’ as a person or body or engineer or ‘person’. Just pure Neti Neti.

Existence of anything as a matter of fact, involves time. It should exist in time. Creation always presents itself as change. Nothing stays unchanged, except that which knows change, 'being the power to know'. A change actually cannot exist. What exist is something in stillness or when it is still. If time was cut into very very small pieces, until it was so small, that change could not take place, then, that frame of creation existed at that point of time. Not before and not after. Or else, we would have to say that, such and such existed or will exist in future. Its pure logic to assume so. A small change in a painting is not the same painting. Its a fresh new painting. So is creation. Stills of fresh new creation all the time, born-ing and dying, along with the moment of time. Time is not separate from its content. Time is a dimension of measure. Like area includes length, volume includes area, so that time include volume and there by all its content. So origin of the next microsecond, is to say, the death of the previous microsecond with all its contents. 

So we cannot be sure of the 'existence' of a 'change', unless we are able to measure the past and the future, like the legs of a 'divider' measuring distance between two points, NOW. The only way that such a measure can happen is in the mind. Only mind can help to 'fix change' in the 'NOW' to make a measure and KNOW it. That's its job. Mind is the tool to make feel change is existing, by making its measurement in time, NOW, in this moment of stillness. That's the magic of life. The whole creation is mental material, appearing physical using thought to project the thingness to shapes and 'events' to change, as a magical machine that can project knowledge to sensations. So we see and enjoy our knowledge as if in shapes separated out n creation. Its a complex game played out simply by 'Life'. So existence as an element of change is a mental construct rather than a physical existence. Hence existence as change is non-existent and paradoxically, change is the only thing that exists. Where, in mind of course, and so be it, as if hiding this fact to be revealed by life, when 'time' comes.

Language gives shapes to words until they become beliefs or existence. Hinduism exists!. Bullshit exists. We make meaning in duality that just is not the basis of existence in the true sense. Its just there in a scientific sense or objective sense or in a sense of separation of me and an outer world that’s separate from ‘me’.. Meaning making is grasping of an idea or making ideas as a measure of grasping. Its simply a game of conceptualising for registration to memory to form a continuity for ‘future’. However meaning making or understanding is a ‘shock’ whenever it makes and it immediately impacts or imprints to memory. When the final meaning happens that all meanings are mental, including a notion of ‘oneself’ as an entity, the shock is so powerful, that all meanings or hallucinations disappear as factual reality and isolate even the grasp that we could be an entity as a reality.

That is what happens as an end result of seeking or the seeker. The seeking stops and seeker dissolves like a salt module seeking the bottom of a deep ocean. You become the ocean that seems to have no depth. You are That, the infinite potential that has the capacity to ‘know’ all that arises in it.  What makes an 'entity to an apparent body' is the magic of life and will never be known simply because such a knower as a separate entity, is a part of that magical hallucination. Separation is an illusion and no separate entity can ‘see’ through that because such separation is simply a mental effect and there are no separate entities seeing through such separation. If only the separate entity knows that it is inseparable whole, the game of wholeness as separation would be seen as a charming play, enjoyable to its fullest, even in sorrow and death.

Separation does not exist. Paradoxically, we feel separate and really so, which is just an idea. And all seems to exist in separation. That's why, existence in separation does not exist and is the only thing that existence is, to make feel existence 'is' in separation. Purely magical mystery, like a double effect.

104. Existence ‘in’ reality.

Let us analyse what we mean by something that ‘exists’.

We see objects around us, hear sounds etc and say that they exist. They only point towards our existence more than theirs. So we need to go a little deeper.

When we say all that around us is real and exists,  we are into the game of subject – object.  There is a ‘me’ that is the subject and there is other than me that is the ‘world’ which exists factually, as my object.

What is not ‘me’ is the world and what is not the world is ‘me’. So we demarcate ‘me’ and the world as separate and real. However, without me, there is no experience of the world and so ‘no world’. Similarly, without the world, you can’t experience this ‘me’, that we think we are. This means, there is something that need to be understood here deeply. Experience of the world, includes the ‘me’ness to this body and otherness to other forms which forms the ‘world’. However, an inside me and outside other can't exist independent of each other.

So subject and object is indivisible aspect of each other like a smile and a face and the way we imagine life as we have believed it to be, with such a separation is only an idea or a concept, like the equator.

So what are we and what is the world? This is like asking what is the relation between subject and object? Subjects and objects do not exist in and by themselves, separate from each other. There isn't anything like subject separate form object. That is a myth and also our direct experience.

We only know the objectivity of objects but think they exist as real and separate from 'us'. That which knows these objective reality, as its content, is the subject or ‘me’ or ‘I am’, in the real sense. Now in order to know the subject, such a subject must become the content of knowing, or an object of itself,  which is an impossibility, as this would then need to have a subject to know it. So, since only objects are really existing and since subject cannot be an object, subject cannot exist. If subject does not exist, then subject and object being one unitary phenomenon, objects also cannot exist, in the sense that we always wanted something to be existing. So nothing exists as real existence.

Pure existence is the only thing that really doesn't exist. Other types of sensations arising in consciousness, which seem objective to another objective object, is a magical play in and of creation.

So ‘me’ as an object is not what I am. I as a subject, doesn't have an objective reality. So why worry about what is happening. Happening is happening by itself, as if you and me. Life is living itself as multiplicity of sensations to itself, making believe an objective world to itself, and aslo behaving as an objective subject called ‘me’. So nothing is happening to who or whatever you really are. This is paradoxical, but a fact. All facts objectively exists, which doesn't mean a thing. This fact also is included in it, which also doesn't mean a thing. So all is well, but for no-one.

So all there could only be - is subjectivity or what we could be or what we are, appearing as objectivity or  'all there is' or what is happening.

All so very simple.

103. Knowledge and 'me'.

This is a funny topic. All knowledge is to 'know'. To know is to understand or grasp or measure. So knowledge is a measurement or grasping. All meanings, data, logic etc are mind based and also memory based. Its the mind that has to grasp meanings and store them as knowledge. So grasp of meanings is actually meaning making of forms for conversion to objective reality. In fact objective reality, as separate from ‘me’ is taken as a basis, unquestioned, and mind works on this faith to make meaning of what is sensed, as if a real outside world, which also caters to fabricating a ‘real’ me inside. All this is basically mental though.

We read words and meanings seem to happen to them as if its the word that is fabricating the meaning and then giving it to us. So words 'become' meaningful. Similarly our intelligence is magical in making meanings to forms as if separate from the whole and thus objects start behaving as if they were really what we made out of them. So minds have the Supreme capacity to inject ‘thingness’ to forms. Intelligence can also relate oneself to such objectiveness, so as to complete the mesmerism of subject and object being separate from each other, even though all were just objects in the knowing including what seems to be a 'me' and what appears to be 'other than a me' implied as being the world. This takes shapes to include opinions like good and bad, desirable or undesirable, friends and enemies and such other opposites.
For the first time, as a child, it is difficult for the mind to make meanings as suggested by the mother, as there is no basis of individuality to the body. But repeated patterns of the mothers behaviour as if being separate from the child, help the mind to learn the game of separation as a psychic ability and the game of separation begins. Once the trick is learnt, it gets easier. Thus reality becomes a bundle of knowledge, basis on a real me and a real world of objects with time being real to make events in space also real. Space becomes another reality. So time and space, which are imagined basis, for grasping changing looks of 'now' into events of reality conceived by a 'me' , also gets a stamp of existence. The very tools that created a feel of reality, become independent realities within the conceived reality of imagination. Its a non-failing psychic game. The game is going on from the birth of the human species and will continue, unhindered to eternity. So will suffering as an effect of this cause of imagination, continue feeling real for eternity.

So all objective reality, including me and mine,accumulates as knowledge. All stories of reality or world, gets accumulated as acquired knowledge to memory. We seem to know all about the universe and that caters to hell of lot knowledge. Reasoning is also is a game fed to the mind, to make more knowledge and store as logic. However in the absence of an objective world, separate from us, all this knowledge becomes known as the primary cause of ‘bondage’ mainly due to ignorance. More the knowledge, more is the range of ignorance. So the complete universal play of events in time and space (which is just the changing forms is the frame of now ), seems to be  happening in ignorance, as if real. No body questions  the reality of realness because such a somebody to a body itself is questionable.

Within the hallucination of 'seeing' events in time and space, Knowledge is used as security. When it doesn’t seem to work, more knowledge seems to get churned out as to why it did not work. So even when there is good evidence that reality should be suspected or otherwise, we present the case to this intruder called reasoning or to knowledge and take a call. The bundle of knowledge, then plays havoc with life, as if one is in bondage with this body until death. At one stage when knowledge and reason cannot defend you, free action takes charge, as if without the ‘doer’, something like ‘reflex’ action, or that which is not really ruled by the mind. All types of games are featured in creation to hide the truth of what we are and at the same time it is also continuously pointing out to the hidden truth at the background of the theme, as if an open secret.

Intuition is a mechanism for direct living. It is as if the ‘soul’ takes charge of life and lives ‘you’ and keeps the 'assumed person' free. It plays itself all the time to unfold our next act. Knowledge interferes with intuition to rev up the scene with reasoning, creating a sense of 'me' and world, as if real with joy and suffering to take the play of life to its peak performance. We become a implicated victim, but its a light play as such a 'we' is just notional and not factual. There are no facts. It is a losing game, to come out of the trance of having a ‘me’, because the very effort generates a strength to the ‘me’ sense that wishes to remain forever in the game that life plays out, as separation. In fact knowledge and ‘me’ are connected. We can say, knowledge and so reason, creates ‘me’ and maintains the ‘me’ notionally, as if real to an extent that this knowledge starts ruling the ‘me’ like its ‘boss’. Its an intruder, working for itself that has been created in the form of ‘me’ and keeps messing around without your permission. This ‘me’ deserves nothing less than a complete dissolution, as it is the root of all desires ( followed by sorrows in the absence of meeting the desire). However to come to this situation, wherein ‘me’ should be dissolved, there must be some grace or utter surrender in terms of hopes that has been keeping the suffering of ‘man’ in continuity. The 'man' as a separate sense should end or dissolve or 'die', whatever one may call it. 

Can knowledge about reality lead us to know what we truly are? How can we get there?. This is a funny situation, wherein we want to get there, but such a 'there' is actually ‘here’. So the option left is to trust a Guru, who has been anchored in Truth for a while. These type of advisers ‘happen’ to you like all else happens in this universe and you find yourself trusting in what is being advised. You can then reach a place where in you are willing to dump knowledge on the platform, without having to despise it, as it carries your identity (of me) and go beyond knowledge to intuitive based knowing. This also grasps the absence of ‘me’ which can lead to knowing of 'presence' as 'immutable' sentience that is the essence of ‘all there is’.

So get real by knowing  if thingness to forms can be real or conceptual. This sets in a viral effect in the mind to re- cognise forms as forms with a light feel of no-thingness rather than a heavy conceptualisation of ‘reality’ to forms that ‘words’ depict them to be. Life becomes ‘lighter’ with this perspective and take you ‘Home’ to where you belong at the cost of losing your individuality or 'me-sense' to the body, that never was. Haha. Its a cosmic joke. Enjoy.