Tag: feelings

Human Doing Or Human Being?

On By centerlesscenterIn Happiness, Love, Peace3 Comments

We lead very busy lives. Most of our days are spent going here and there, working, shopping, meeting friends and associates, participating in recreational activities, picking up children, going to appointments, finding a shelter for the night, scrambling to make ends meet, etc. In other words, doing, doing, doing.

At the moment, our so-called freedom has been severely restricted. We have had to retreat into our houses, many of us under voluntary lockdown, only going out for necessities.

To retreat is to ‘draw back’. We are drawing back from our active exterior lives and spending more time at home, with others or alone. Our life of doing has been curtailed, leaving us more time to be with ourselves.

Many of us will spend this precious time . . . doing. We humans are masters of distraction. Even in our isolation, we spend time on our devices, talking on the phone, doing long ignored chores, planting gardens, listening to or playing music, dancing, playing games, reading, watching the news on TV, watching movies, binge watching series, eating, taking stock of our pantry and toilet paper, wondering what and how our neighbors and loved ones are doing. Some of these activities are necessary for survival. Some are not. Or should we say, many of the distractions are necessary for the survival of our separate self, our ‘doing’ self.

We have drawn back from the world, but we are still mostly doing. This could be a unique opportunity for many of us to stop being a human ‘doing’ and open up to our essential nature, that of being a human ‘being’.

For just a moment, observe your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions – your worried thoughts about the pandemic, the strong emotions regarding the health and safety of friends and loved ones, perhaps a queasiness in the belly over an uncertain future, and, looking out on the crippled world, wondering what terrible thing is going to happen next.

Now ask yourself, who or what is observing all these passing occurrences of the body, mind, and world? A thought is observed coming and going, but that which observes it doesn’t come and go with it. There is an element within you, within all of us, that we can call the ever-present observer, but where is it?

The observer cannot be found because it is not a thing, not an object, yet it is undeniably present. And it is your, our, essential being. Notice this timeless, unchanging, knowing presence in you, in us, that has no beginning or end, no time when it is not present – it is infinite and eternal. Then realize that there cannot be two of the infinite and eternal. This is who we are.

After years of abuse, the Earth is finally getting a chance to breathe. Because of the restricted human activity, pollution is down. The skies are clearing, the air more pure to breathe. Perhaps Earth will even cool down a degree as we stay at home, away from our vehicles and industries.

We are being offered the opportunity to slow down, to stop doing for a moment, to breathe deeply with the Earth and simply be. And in this stopping, maybe even recognize our essential self as the borderless, timeless, observing awareness that it is and find the peace and happiness at the core of our shared being.

All things come to an end, and the pandemic, with its great cost to humanity, will be no exception. And perhaps, just perhaps, having been able to spend some time just being rather than doing, we will recognize the one in the many, and love, respect, help, and serve our fellow beings in this unwavering light of unconditional awareness.

 

 

 

Whatever Happens

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Experience, Happiness4 Comments

Whatever is happening is happening in awareness. Not to awareness.

As individual selves, we think things are happening to us, but that is not our actual experience.

When we identify as separate selves, then yes, things happen to us that make us feel happy, angry, inspired, or depressed. But when we look for the self to which things happen, we can’t find it. All we find is a conglomeration of ever-changing thoughts, images, memories, emotions, bodily sensations, and perceptions of the world through our five senses. These are all temporary qualities, and therefore can’t be considered part of our essential nature.

The only thing that is not temporary in our experience is awareness – that which knows all experience but itself is not an experience. Experiences come and go, but awareness does not come and go with them.

Ask yourself, does awareness, the knowing element in all experience, happen in a thought, or does thought happen in awareness? This is easy to confirm one way or the other. Which comes first, a thought or awareness? Thoughts are continually coming and going, but that which knows them doesn’t appear and disappear along with them. For just a moment, sit quietly and observe a thought entering your field of awareness, lingering for a moment, and then leaving your field of awareness. You, that is, your essential being of ever-present awareness, exists prior to, during, and after a thought has appeared, lingered, and disappeared. And this is true for all of the temporary qualities of the body-mind, or so-called separate self.

These observations being irrefutable, we can only conclude that our essential being is awareness itself. And if we investigate the qualities of this awareness, no limits or boundaries can be found. It is therefore infinite and eternal, and we can’t each house our own private infinite and eternal awareness. Where is there room for two?

You, I, we, are this one and only awareness. So as you move through this temporary life form as a body-mind, remember that all things happen in you as infinite and eternal awareness, not to you as a limited separate self. And with this revelation, happiness prevails.

Whatever happens is happening in awareness, not to awareness. This is very reassuring, in fact, completely liberating when you are established in this realization. When you are having a difficult time, don’t worry. Just as a violent thunder and lightning storm leaves the sky unchanged, untarnished, and unharmed, similarly, awareness, our essential shared being, is untouched, unchanged, and unharmed by whatever is happening in it.

Die To Your Imagined Self

On By centerlesscenterIn Advaita, Love, Original Self

Die to your imagined self and abide in profound peace.

‘Imagined self’. What does this mean? You say, ‘I am this being, I am this self, and I don’t think I am imagining it.’ But is this you, this self, the real you or just an image that has been created by your conditioned mind?

The separate self we have come to call I, as in I am a woman, a man, I am old or young, etc., has no lasting qualities. All attributes of the body-mind we call the self are temporary and therefore unreliable measures of reality.

You imagine you are real, but you are only a conglomeration of passing thoughts, changing emotions, subtle or strong sensations, and endlessly shifting perceptions. What in this collection of characteristics can be considered real?

When you strip away the imagined attributes of your so-called self, what remains?

You still remain, or more to the point, your essential being, a knowing and aware presence, remains.

As you rest in this, as this, knowing presence, empty of the ephemeral, full of unchanging emptiness – your original Self – what is your experience?

Die now or die later and your experience will be the same. The knowing presence at the core of our being, devoid of the clutter of the body-mind’s thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions, is revealed as an infinite and eternal peaceful stillness.

No limits can be found to this great emptiness. It is always present in the background of all experience, and when experiences fade, which they all do, it alone remains, unchanged.

And, as the background of all experience, all appearances must be made of this background, whatever unnamable stuff that might be. And if all things are made of the same stuff, all things are, at their core, the same. No separation, no division, no self, no other. And when all boundaries dissolve all that remains is love.

How do we strip away the imagined attributes of our so-called self? ‘Strip away’ is just a manner of speech. We really don’t have to do anything. In the stillness of not-doing, our essential shared nature, ever-present awareness, is revealed. And with this revelation all of our imagined attributes fade into the background just as the darkness of night fades in the coming dawn.

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.

Don’t Name It

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Experience, Natural State

We all have feelings. We feel happy, content, peaceful, angry, sad, depressed, bored, lonely, anxious, etc.

What is a feeling, really? Most of us accept feelings as part of our essential nature, but is this our actual experience?

All feelings are temporary, coming and going in the empty, open field of awareness, the source of our being. Rather than name these feelings as good, bad, or neutral, and reacting to them in some way, don’t name them at all.

Go through a day without naming or labeling any of your so-called ‘feelings’ and see what happens.

If you do this, go through a day just experiencing feelings, observing them as they come and go without naming them, you will find that what you considered a previously uncomfortable feeling is nothing more than a temporary appearance in awareness that does not affect the unchanging, knowing presence of awareness itself.

And you are this awareness. You are that. All feelings come and go in you, awareness, but you do not come and go with them. Things happen in you, not to you.