Tag: essential being

All Good Things II

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Experience, Love4 Comments

All good things must come to an end. In fact, everything, every thing, good, bad, or neutral, must come to an end. It is the nature of experience. All things appear from somewhere, linger for a period of time, and then disappear, vanish into . . . what?

Sit in silence. Observe a thought arising in your awareness. How long does it last? A few seconds, a minute? Then it’s gone like a cloud dissolving in the sky. Where does it go?

The same goes for all of our experiences of the body, mind, and world. Feelings come and go, sensations come and go, perceptions of the world are constantly coming and going. Where do they come from? Where do they go?

All things arise from somewhere and vanish into somewhere.

Where is this somewhere where all things come from and return to?

Just look to that which never comes and goes.

All things come and go, but our awareness of them is ever-present, unchanging, undisturbed by whatever occurs in the body, mind, or world.

Awareness exists prior to any experience. Before any thought, sensation, or perception arises, awareness is. Can you know a thought without the awareness of it? Does a thought come from somewhere outside awareness? Where would that outside be? Try to move away from your awareness. Try to move outside awareness.  

Obviously we can’t. No matter where we go, awareness is. And as nothing arises outside of our awareness, every observable thing must be made out of awareness. And if everything is made out of the same stuff, the stuff of awareness, there can be no perceivable separation between things.

And what is this stuff of awareness? What are its qualities?

No boundaries can be found to awareness. It is limitless, or infinite.

All ‘things’ come to an end, but awareness is never not here. It is timeless, or eternal.

This is your essential nature, our essential nature, as there can’t be more than one. Where is there room for two in the infinite?

And as the infinite cannot be divided, we can say that our shared essential nature is indivisible, again leading to the conclusion that there are not two things going on in the body-mind, world, or universe. And where we find no separation, we find love.

Do Unto No Others

On By centerlesscenterIn Advaita, Awareness, Consciousness, Non-Duality8 Comments

Once you discover that there is no self, and therefore no other, your relationship with all things, animate and inanimate, changes dramatically. You no longer say, I am this and you are that, but that we are this and that, or simply, we are.

We distinguish ourselves from others by our individual body-minds. We each have our own unique body type, our own private thoughts, conditioned as they may be, our own feelings, sensations, and perceptions of the world.

But when we examine our personal attributes closely, we uncover the truth of our being: there actually is no individual self. All of our characteristics are ever-changing, temporary occurrences, no more real than a cloud in the sky. Yes, just as a cloud appears in the sky, we appear for a moment in time, but then, just as the cloud dissolves back into the sky, we, that is, the body-mind, come to an end and, one way or another, returns to the earth.

What is the only thing in our experience that does not appear or disappear? Isn’t the one unchanging element in all experience the knowing of it? Discover this knowing element in yourself right now. What is it that knows your present experience, such as a thought?

Observe a thought as it arises in your mind – it appears, seemingly out of nowhere, lingers for a moment, and then disappears. In what is this all occurring? Don’t say ‘mind’, as mind is just a part of our temporary body. It is something beyond mind.

Whatever it is, you can’t really name it, you can’t see it, hear it, or touch it, but it is undeniably present and aware. A knowing within us that is always here.

We do try to name it, calling it Consciousness or Awareness, perhaps God or the Absolute. But it needs no name, as it exists before, during, and after any attempt at conceptual identification. It just is, and at our core, this is who we are.

Examining the nature of this consciousness, we find that it has no beginning or end, and is therefore limitless or infinite. And upon further reflection, we realize that it is never not here, thus it is timeless or eternal. And then it dawns on us that there can’t be two of something that is infinite and eternal. It would be like trying to make room for two skies.

With this ‘not two’ being a fact, where can we find an ‘other’? We are all made out of the same stuff, the same consciousness or awareness. When we look at each other through the eyes of consciousness, I becomes you and you becomes I. I is you, you is I. Whether we recognize it or not, there is only one thing going on. Knowing this, our interactions in the world are spontaneous and true.

So do unto no others as you would have them do unto no self and all will be golden.

Meet Divine Awareness

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Beyond Spirituality, Love, Natural State, Non-Duality

‘The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware,  

joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.’  

~ Henry Miller (1891-1980) 

Not just ‘to be aware,’ as that infers that we might be something other than that, but to recognize that we are awareness itself.

You, I, we, are divinely aware of all things that come and go, yet this divine awareness, our essential being in which all appearances arise, are known by, and made of, doesn’t come and go with them.

To be aware is to be our self – our indivisible, unchangeable, ever-present self. And it is the same for all of us. Everyone on the planet is a manifestation of this Divine Awareness.

Look into the eyes of a stranger and say to yourself, ‘Divine Awareness, meet Divine Awareness.’

*Thanks to good friend Steve Donoso for sharing this quote.