Tag: eternal

Two Things In Common

On By centerlesscenterIn Consciousness, Experience, Non-Duality2 Comments

Every human being on the planet has two things in common: birth and death. We are all born and we will all die. Beyond that, whatever else our lives might share in common depends on our culture and conditioning, and there will be very little consistency in this area when you consider that there are almost eight billion of us.

Actually, there are three things that we all have in common: birth, death, and consciousness. The beauty of consciousness is that it isn’t subject to the laws of time and space. Our body-minds are born into a world, live for a period of time, and then perish. But consciousness is always present, and therefore is never born and never dies.

And what is this consciousness? It’s that element of our being that knows all experience, but is not itself an experience. The element of our being that allows us to say unconditionally, I am, or I exist. The element of our being that knows the coming and going of all things, yet doesn’t come and go with them.

Most importantly, consciousness is the element of our being that exists prior to our being, and then manifests as a body-mind, allowing us to experience thinking, feeling, sensing, and to perceive the world through sights, sounds, tastes, textures, and smells.

And what a world it is! As manifestations of consciousness, we have this unique moment in time and space to think myriad thoughts, feel intense emotions, sense pleasure and pain, and see, hear, taste, touch, and smell the extraordinary world around us.

And then it will be gone. Not consciousness, but the body-mind, with all of its fantastic abilities, limited as they may be, and the world, with all of its wonders.

Consciousness, as it is everywhere and, therefore, everything, never goes anywhere. It never appears or disappears. It just is. Can you find any place, any object or thing, any self, where consciousness is not present? No. It would be like saying you can find a wave without an ocean.  

Look at your experience and recognize that consciousness is not in you, us, but that you, we, are in consciousness. Therefore, none of us are ever born and we will never die. Yes, our body-minds appear at birth and disappear at death, but the stuff we are made of, consciousness, is ever-present and unchanging. Infinite and eternal.

As you, I, we, are that . . .

. . . be that.

All that is.

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.

Skyless Cloud II

On By centerlesscenterIn Advaita, Awareness, Non-Duality9 Comments

You don’t have to go far to discover your essential being. In fact, you don’t have to go anywhere. Does the sky have to travel to find itself?

We think and feel that we are an individual self, a body-mind housing its own personal awareness or consciousness, viewing the world through its five senses. But this is not our actual experience.

Try to imagine a skyless cloud – a cloud without a sky. Or to put it another way, can an object appear without space? Not possible.

Now try to imagine a cloudless sky – a clear blue sky. Easily done.

Isn’t it true that the sky exists without clouds, but clouds can’t exist without the sky?

Now try to imagine you, as an individual self, without the aware knowing presence that has been with you, unchanging, since you were a child. Can you remove this awareness from your body-mind? Can you take away the aware presence that knows that you exist, that says I am?

If you answer yes, you are contradicting yourself. You would have to be aware to know that you have taken away the awareness that says I am.

Just as the sky exists with or without clouds, awareness exists with or without the individual self or body-mind. Clouds appear and disappear in the sky, but the sky doesn’t appear and disappear with them. Thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions of the body-mind come and go in awareness, but awareness doesn’t come and go with them.

Now ask yourself, when a cloud appears in the sky, where does it come from? Does it come from outside the sky? Could it come from outside the sky? Obviously not. Where would it come from?

Then ask yourself, when a thought appears, where does it come from? Does it come from outside awareness? Could it come from outside awareness? Obviously not. Where would it come from?

Just as a cloud must be made of sky, the individual self or body-mind must be made of awareness. And if you look at the qualities of awareness no limits can be found. It never begins or ends and is ever-present. And this being the case, there can only be one. Where is there room for two in the infinite and eternal?

Identify with this unchanging, limitless, ever-present awareness and relax into the cloudless sky of our collective being. With this recognition, you, I, we, will effortlessly share the peace, love, and happiness that resides in and as the centerless center of our original self.

One Of Two Things

On By centerlesscenterIn Happiness, Love, Original Self, Peace4 Comments

As someone dedicated to discovering your original nature, awakening or becoming enlightened, you’re either one of two things: a separate self seeking the everlasting peace and happiness of absolute consciousness, or absolute consciousness manifesting as a separate self, but only ever being itself.

If you look closely at your experience, you can only be the latter – absolute consciousness manifesting as a separate self, but only ever being itself.

So the first thing you can do is relax. Enjoy your life experience, your manifestation as a so-called individual body-mind with its endless parade of positive, negative, and neutral thoughts coming and going, waves of diverse emotions washing through you, the ever changing array of sensations coursing through your body, the variety of sense perceptions of the world experienced through your five senses.

Then ask yourself the question, is this separate self, this seeker, real? If it is, then we should proceed with our search using the various tools offered to the seeker, e.g., teachers, gurus, study, retreats, meditation, mantra, yoga, etc. If it is not, then we can abandon our search and live our lives in accord with our essential being, that is, absolute consciousness, whose very nature is one of peace, love, and happiness.

When we seriously investigate the elements of the separate self, that is, its thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions, we discover that they are all temporary occurrences, forever changing, and therefore can’t be considered real in the truest sense.

For something to be considered real it would have to be ever-present and unchanging, unmoved by any experience of the body, mind, and world. It would have to be beyond time and space, and therefore infinite and eternal.

So trying to prove that the separate self, our body-mind, is real is like trying to prove that we have captured wind in a bottle. The separate self, the seeker, can never find the infinite and eternal because it is already a manifestation of it. It’s like the wind looking for the sky.

For just a moment, shift your perspective from that of an individual self made up of temporary attributes seeking the infinite, to the unchanging infinite itself, the ever-present knowing within you, that seeks nothing as it is all things. You can do this, as you know intuitively that this ever-present knowing is at the core of your being, the source of your being, our being.

At first glance, it seems as though we have two choices, to identify as one of two things: the infinite and eternal Self manifesting as a human being, or the finite and time-bound separate self forever grasping after the truth. But, in fact, there is no choice – there is only the choiceless awareness of just one thing that is not even a thing.

Nothing To Know

On By centerlesscenterIn Advaita, Non-Duality, Original Self2 Comments

When you are searching for ultimate reality there is nothing you need to know. All knowledge is a hindrance to realization. Basing understanding on knowledge is like thinking that the reflection in a mirror is the real thing.

All reflections in a mirror are made only of mirror, just as all appearances of the body, mind, and world are made only of awareness, or that which knows them.

To say that all knowledge is a hindrance to realization is not exactly true. There is one thing you do need to know, and that is the knowing element at the center of our being that knows all experience. And even this is not quite right, as it’s not something you know, it’s something you are.

All you can truly know is your original self, or the unchanging awareness that is at the core of your being, or more accurately, at the core of our shared being, because if you investigate the qualities of awareness you find that it is borderless and beyond time, or infinite and eternal, and therefore there is no room for two.

So polish your mirror, the one mirror, recognize the unchanging awareness at the core of our being that knows all experience, but is not itself an experience, and reflect all that is real – our original one self.

Then throw away the mirror.

Pebbles On The Shore

On By centerlesscenterIn Consciousness, Happiness, Love, Peace, Uncategorized2 Comments

Just as each pebble on the shore is unique, yet shares ‘rockness’ at its core, each individual self is unique, yet shares consciousness, or knowing, at its core.

Don’t just cast this off as some interesting concept. Recognize the truth of our original shared nature and witness the division, the separateness, fall away, and ultimately feel the love, peace, and happiness that remains.

And this shared nature isn’t just with others. As the nature of consciousness itself is infinite and eternal, no thing can exist outside of it, and this being the case, all things are made of consciousness.

Acknowledge your unmoving, unchanging nature that is at the source of all things, including that of the pebbles on the shore, and relish your, our, unshakeable ‘rockness’.

I, Awareness, Cannot Be Followed

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Bliss, Non-Duality2 Comments

I, Awareness, cannot be followed.

To follow someone or something infers that there is something to obtain from that person or thing being followed. That they or it inspires you in some way and moves in a direction worth pursuing. It also assumes that there is someone to do the following.

We play ‘follow the leader’ as children. We’re encouraged to continue the game as adults. We follow a religion or a philosophy, a spiritual teacher, a political leader or a revolutionary. We sing songs about following, e.g., ‘I’ll Follow the Sun’ and ‘I Will Follow Jesus.’

We follow our thoughts. Actually, we’re obsessed with following our thoughts to the point that, for the most part, we live in a fantasy world created by them. We follow our passion, our bliss, our dreams, Don Juan’s ‘a path with heart’, and Buddha’s ‘Middle Way’.

But I, Awareness, cannot be followed because I am not going anywhere. I am unmoving. And I have nothing to give you because I am nothingness itself.

Remain still and I am there. We are there. Move through your daily life and I am there. We are there. You cannot lose me for I am everywhere, in you, as you, of you – the essence of your being, of all beings, as I, infinite and eternal Awareness, am the source of all manifestation. I is we. We is I.

You want to follow me, but how do you follow yourself? In what direction do you move to find me, yourself, who is everywhere, everything? Can a cloud follow the sky? The cloud arises in the sky, from itself, and dissolves back into the sky, into itself. So in essence it is following itself, from itself, to itself, knowing only itself.

And the irony of it all, which was established thousands of years ago by the sages of old, is that you, the follower, are an illusion made up of ever-changing thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions – there is no you to to do the following in the first place.

I would suggest that you ‘un-follow’ me, but for all the above reasons that’s not possible either. Now, as you like to say, you’re caught between a rock and a hard place. But, funny thing, there are no rocks in my world, nothing hard, as there is no matter in the truest sense – all is a manifestation of me, emptiness. I, Awareness, am the stuff of all things.

So from my perspective I would say that you’re caught between a cloud and the sky.

Now what do you do? What can you do? There are not two answers.

Forever

On By centerlesscenterIn Consciousness, Experience, Love, Natural State1 Comment

Our

Centerless Center

Dissolves

Vanishes

Into Its

Centerless Center

Never To Be Found

Never To Be Lost

Never To Be Ever

Never To Be Never

Again

Forever

All You Need To Discover

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Consciousness, Experience, Uncategorized4 Comments

All you need to discover is the limitless, timeless nature of awareness – that which knows the coming and going of all things but doesn’t come and go with them.

Discover this and all your questions about the meaning of life, the truth of existence, enlightenment, awakening, or liberation will be answered.

Simply look at what in you exists prior to any appearance in the body, mind, or world. Or even more simply, notice that whatever you are aware of you are not.

You are the awareness or consciousness with which all things are known. Because your nature is limitless and timeless nothing can exist outside of you.

Recognize this limitless, timeless element of your being and experience freedom from the bondage of the body, mind, and world, and in this recognition experience the one true experience, your essential self, whose nature is one of unbounded joy.

How do you recognize the limitless, timeless nature of your essential being? Look at that within you that is aware, or awareness itself, and see if you can find an edge or boundary to it. When you firmly establish that there is no end to awareness, in other words, it is infinite, then see if you can discover a time when it is not present. When you firmly establish that there is no time when it is not present, or, in other words, it is eternal, you are home free.

What else do you need to know? This discovery, recognition, understanding – the infinite and eternal nature of awareness or consciousness – dissolves all separation between self and other, you and me, subject and object, this and that, and reveals the indivisible nature of all experience. All things are made of the same stuff – consciousness if you’re a scientist or pragmatist, awareness if you come from a philosophical or spiritual background – and therefore all of our actions spring from the reverence of this oneness and promote nothing but peace, love, and happiness for all beings, all things, and all worlds, inner and outer.

Are You Experienced?

On By centerlesscenterIn Advaita, Awareness, Experience2 Comments

‘But first, are you experienced?
Have you ever been experienced?
Well, I have’ ~ Jimi Hendrix

We are all experienced. We live our lives one experience after another. We hopefully avoid repeating old experiences that were unpleasant and often seek new experiences to keep life interesting. We might even go to extremes, thrill seekers in search of the ultimate experience, one that will take us beyond ourselves, like feeling the adrenaline rush of skydiving or meditating ten hours a day to reach a blissful state. If we have a particularly powerful experience we may spend a tremendous amount of time and energy trying to duplicate it.

Not only are we all experienced, we ourselves are an experience. For starters, each of us is someone else’s experience – the ‘subject/object-object/subject’ paradigm.

What is the nature of an experience, of all experiences? They are temporary events, arising and passing away. Experiences don’t linger, and the individual self is made up of experiences of ever-changing thoughts, emotions, sensations, and perceptions of the world.

The individual self thinks that it is experiencing all these experiences, but is itself an experience being experienced by something beyond itself.

What experiences all experiences, yet itself is not an experience, cannot be experienced?

There is an element of our being that is aware of all experience but does not share the ephemeral quality of all experience. What is this? Where is this? It can’t be named and it can’t be found, but is undeniably present at all times.

It is unquestionable that we know that we are. We are aware beings that know we are aware, but often overlook this fact and identify with the fleeting qualities of our ever-changing thoughts, moods, sensations, and perceptions. Identify with the unchanging, dimensionless awareness that is always with us and experience the changeless, formless, all-embracing source that we all share, as there can be only one. (Where is there room for two of something that is dimensionless and unchanging, infinite and eternal?)

This is the ultimate experience. No need to seek any further.