I’ll Have A Slice of That Truth, Please

If you’ve read my posts of late, you might get the impression that I’m angry.  I wouldn’t want to leave that impression, so I felt the need to clarify my position a bit.  For that, I believe a little background is necessary.

I was raised in a Christian household, and we spent quite a bit of time in church.  Seems like we were there whenever the doors were open, and it seemed like there weren’t any doors, if you can dig it.  I was well versed in the dogma of our particular flavor of protestant Christianity.  I was later baffled at the enormous amount of variation in that religion.  And all used the same Bible.  I digress…  The point is that I never questioned anything.  No reason to.  It was just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  No, I never saw them, but they had to exist because the only authority figures I’d ever been exposed to, whom I deeply trusted, told me they were real.  I believed.  Something happened to me when I was about to be a father for the first time, though.

I got a renewed interest in my religion, but had some serious questions about why things were the way they were.  For instance:  I was taught that God was Omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient – all powerful, everywhere at once, and all knowing.  The creation story, the very beginning of the Bible started to become very difficult for me to swallow.  God, who knows everything, created man knowing he would “sin”, then put him in a garden and told him to eat whatever he wanted.  Well, not completely.  Everything except for a couple trees… don’t eat that ’cause you will die!  Now why did He do that?  A test?  Why?  He already knew what would happen.  Man didn’t have a damned choice at all!  What was the point of that?  Then I started thinking about Hell.  Why, if God already knew what would happen, would He create all these people, and let them decide if they’re going to Hell or not?  God knew if I was going to Hell.  Can’t argue that point, can you?  Let’s say He knew I was going – 1st class ticket.  He created me anyway.  He made me so I could reject him and burn in Hell FOREVER!  The more I thought about it, the more it sank in that this was just as silly, no, sillier even, than the Santa Claus shtick.

Christianity’s main agenda is to save me from Hell.  I figured it out on my own, with relative ease once I thought about it, that I did not need saving.  There was nothing to save me from.  Jesus is supposed to be my ticket to Heaven because he paid for my sins so I don’t have to go to Hell if I only believe.  I don’t believe.  Sorry, I know this must sound heretical, but it’s silly.  I would have loved to be around Jesus when he taught.  That would’ve been really amazing to hear.  I don’t believe the Bible accurately depicts what he actually said, which is a shame.

Now that my religion was obliterated, what was I to look to now?  What’s the truth?  Long, long story short, I don’t know what the truth is.  I’m investigating Advaita now.  Have been for a few years.  It resonates with me more than anything else.  It’s just as crazy sounding as a lot of other stuff, but it’s the one thing I think I can prove for myself because I’ve seen and heard others who’ve “got it”.

To say I’m a “seeker” is quite the understatement.  It’s been a long journey for me, and a whole lot of questions – most of which remain unanswered.  So now Advaita, and it’s just so damned esoteric that I can’t quite figure it out.  It’s the only thing that’s kept me coming back.  It’s not a religion.  Religions are silly, and way too many people have died for, and from them.  Ridiculous, actually.  But then again, the advaitins would say that this whole shebang is ridiculous.

So I seek.  I’m not angry.  I just really, really, really, REALLY want to know the truth.  That’s all.

Advaita And Metaphor (allegory, simile, or whatever it’s called)

Oceans and rivers, cinema screens, dark rooms with closed windows, reflections of the moon on the water, the rope and the snake, a desert mirage.  These are some of the things used to describe the relationship between the real and the unreal, what is versus what seems to be.  I’m a guy who digs metaphors.  I used to teach complex satellite communications technology to squids for a few years in the Navy, and I got pretty good at teaching folks something using all kinds of allegory and simile to get the information to sink in.  I really got a kick out of watching the “Ah ha!” moment.  Maybe you’ve seen it.  The brow furrows a bit, and you can see the person looking within, trying to comprehend what was just said.  Then, in a flash of brilliance, you see the eyes open wide and the mouth drop open, and finally the person goes, “Ohhhhh… I get it!  Wow!”  That was a really rewarding job.  Best one I think I’ve ever had.

That “Ah ha” moment, that sinking in and finally getting it moment is what I long for with the subject of Advaita.  I don’t even want to call it Advaita because that seems to pigeon-hole it, and label it, making it one particular thing, which is not how I think it is.  But then again, what the hell do I know?  I have been blessed to have so many patient teachers come into my life recently.  They keep throwing this stuff in my face.  You can’t get it, there’s nothing to get.  It’s all just as it should be.  It will happen, or it won’t – either way, it’s perfect as it is.  I guess I need to hear all of that.  Why?  Because that’s what I’m hearing.  Oh just listen to me.  I’m talking the same jazz, and I haven’t even had that shift in perception yet.  I say “yet” because I fully expect it to happen.  It’s inevitable you know.  There’s no way it can’t.  Except, of course, if it doesn’t.  Then “No One In Particular” will tell me that it’s exactly like it should be.  I’m laughing at the thought of my next communication with you, you know.  I do look forward to those.  (Thank you, by the way)

So I trudge along, feeling my way through the muck, trying to make sense of it all.  Meanwhile, those kind souls keep prodding me on, telling me exactly what I need to hear.  Thank you all, and please don’t stop!

You Are Getting Very, Very Sleepy

It’s after midnight and I’m up watching the talking heads speak about Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and how North Korea’s pushing buttons again.  I can’t help myself from thinking, or wondering rather, that if I weren’t here, would any of this be happening?  It certainly seems obvious to me that the world exists independent of me being there.  I could die, and the world and all it’s inhabitants would all wake up the next morning and go to work and talk about the politics of the day.  Or would they?

If a tree falls in the woods, and nobody’s there, would it make a sound?  Remember that one?  If a tree falls in the woods, and nobody’s there, would it matter that it fell?  Did it fall at all?  How would you know?  So, from that standpoint, if I die, the world dies.  I will be asleep in less than an hour, and judge Sotomayor, and Kim Jung Il, and my wife and children will all disappear.  I won’t know they exist at all until the morning, when I wake up and remember everything again.  In essence, the world will disappear, and I won’t even care.  I won’t know to care.  In fact, I don’t know that if I got stuck in that deep sleep state I would even exist at all.  Do I exist when asleep?  It’s easy for me to say yes, only because I wake up and there appears to be continuity again.

Maharshi used the deep sleep state to prove a point, one I don’t thoroughly understand.  Nisargadatta also.  They ask, “Did you exist in deep sleep?”  Me?  I don’t know.  Who am I, and why am I not aware in deep sleep, or why don’t I remember it?  The continuity of life is obvious, up until the point when I don’t wake up.

I guess the point is that the mind, or the ego, or whatever the label is, that arises when I wake up in the morning is what has served as a definition of existence for me.  It interprets the world through the sensory inputs, categorizes experiences, and puts them in a file to use for predicting and reacting to what happens next.  Without that interpreter, who am I?  Who is it that sees the interpretation and labels it as such?  And is that “I” there when the mind/ego is in deep sleep, completely cut off from the external inputs?  Hell, I don’t  know!

Advaita, Realization, and Night-Vision Goggles

I had this funny feeling today while thinking about the fact that I’m in communication with others who have realized, who are providing exceptional feedback to my blog posts, feedback that sometimes makes me feel like a disciple at the foot of a master.  Now, I don’t take these people that serious.  They are, afterall, the same as me.  Matter of fact, some would argue they are me.  How to describe this feeling that came over me today?  I’ll try in the form of a story…

I was in the Navy for about 8 years during the late ’80’s and early ’90’s.  On the first ship I was on, we had a couple sets of night-vision goggles, which our department was in charge of.  On a US Naval vessel at night, no light is allowed to leave the skin of the ship, so when you need to walk outside there’s a great deal of adjustment that goes on.  There are switches on the doors to the outside that turn the lights off to a space that you are leaving.  As soon as you get outside it’s pitch black.  You can’t see anything at all!  At that point you have two options:  1. Stay in one place until your eyes adjust to the pitch blackness of a night at sea (can take up to 10+ minutes), or 2. Feel your way to where you’re going (usually the fastest route, especially if you know the ship well enough).  As you can imagine, most of us took option 2, feel.  Well, on this particular outing, we had the unfortunate duty of performing a burial at sea, which meant we had to carry a coffin on deck until we reached a certain location.  It was between the aft stack and the CCTV room.  A buddy and I decided we’d take these night-vision goggles and wait for unsuspecting victims taking the outside route to the CCTV room.  We had the advantage of complete sight, the victims were relegated to fumbling around the deck with their hands out in front of them like Frankenstein’s monster.  Oh, it’s hillarious what we did to those guys, but the point is that we watched them fumble about and stumble and be afraid of stumping the casket while we had the advantage of clear sight all around.

That’s how I think of those “realized” friends of mine and what I must look like to them.  Am I as fun to watch as my poor Navy buddies were back when Iraq was actually an ally of ours?  These realized folks have the advantage of already knowing the truth, and I, with my binoculars on, still looking for said truth, am stumbling about in the dark, poking my hands and stepping this way and that, hoping not to trip on dead bodies.

A guy got on to me for quoting too much from Maharshi, so I offer this from Nisargadatta, which I read this afternoon:

“There is nothing to practise.  To know yourself, be yourself.  To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that.  Just be.  Let your true nature emerge.  Don’t disturb your mind with seeking.” – “I Am That” p. 259

I’ve copied that quote down before.  It’s come to me again.  I better take heed, huh?

Effort… No Effort

While playing the seeker role today, reading Maharshi’s “Talks”, I found the following:

“…you are always that and never away from it.  There is nothing so simple as being the Self.  It requires no effort, no aid.  One has to leave off the wrong identity and be in his eternal, natural, inherent state.”

Contrast that with my post a couple days ago where he says effort is needed.  Those of you that have commented on my blogs, trying to help me understand, I really, really do appreciate your comments.  Thank you!  But, of course, still playing the “seeker” role, I have to re-state that I don’t get it.  Actually, I believe I conceptually understand it, but not practically.  Let me see if I’ve got it right:

Who I am, who you are, is the all-encompassing background in which all of this appears.  There is no one thinking, seeing, hearing, doing.  Thinking, seeing, hearing, doing happens… to no one.  Right?  Great, but it just sounds so ridiculous to me.  If I am all that, then why is it that this consciousness bubble appearing as me has such a one-pointed awareness of it all.  Why does it seem that I am looking through my eyes, hearing with my ears, tasting with my mouth, etc?  Why does it seem so isolated and alone?  I alone experience this world, and to that extent it is my world.  If I weren’t here, then nothing else could exist.  That’s awful selfish-sounding, but I guess from an existential point of view it’s true.  If all that’s necessary is a shift in perception, and it really is that easy, why is it so damned difficult?  I cannot not be.  I understand that.  I don’t even have to think to know that I am aware.  However, I am not aware in sleep.  The body could die, and that would be the end of it if it’s the same as sleep.  I have to have the awake experience in order to even say that I slept.  If I just slept all the time – deep sleep, no dreams – then I assume there would be no awareness, no happiness, no experience, no bliss, just nothing.  Is that what “this” is that so many Advaitins speak of?  The nothing of deep sleep… is that it?  And what of those that have realized?  There’s nothing, yet they go to sleep and wake up each day, transferring from one realm to the other.  Are they aware during deep sleep?  Does that change for them?

One day, it will dawn on me, of this I’m sure.  But if what I’ve read and heard is true, then this is it, and as long as I’m searching for it I won’t find it because I am that which is sought.  The seeker seeking itself.  The missing sunglasses were on top of my head all along.  What will it take for me to realize this?  What a cosmically cruel joke this is playing on itself.  And for what purpose?  No wonder many who realize laugh uncontrollably.  I bet it is funny as hell when it happens (or appears to happen – see, I know how the jargon goes).

The Seeker: Me

There was a comment to my blog from yesterday that suggested that the effort I questioned was more of an effort of non-action, and just being.  My confusion was that some say no effort is necessary, and even that effort takes you farther from the goal, and others say that there are certain efforts that are necessary – all for reaching the same goal… enlightenment, realization, moksha, satori, whatever.  This commenter started me thinking about that again.  Just be!  Hmmmm…

I have wondered many times what it would be like to just see without thinking.  To be able to just watch the scenery and not have an internal commentary on what I saw, or what was going on.  Just yesterday I was in the back yard looking at the grass.  I’ve had a difficult time with the back yard, and now it’s really green.  Some of it’s weeds, and some of it’s bermuda grass, zoysia grass, and fescue.  I was walking the yard, labeling all the variations of grass I saw, claiming them good or bad (grass or weeds).  Why do I have to do that?  It’s the mind.  It’s the damnedest thing.  See, interpret, judge.  Why not just see only?

I have this idea of what enlightenment will be like.  You know those 3D pictures where you have to stare at it a certain way before the 3D image miraculously appears?  Like this one:

The first time I saw one of these I thought I was on Candid Camera.  I seemed to be the only one that couldn’t see it, and people were pointing to it, trying to tell me where the image was, and I was looking around for the hidden camera’s.  But then someone told me how to see it.  Just stare at it, but don’t look at it.  Your gaze will relax, then the image will appear.  The effort to see it is no effort at all.  That’s how I imagine enlightenment will be when, and if, it happens to me.  So when this guy suggests I relax, and that the effort is in not doing, but being, I kind of understand that, and somewhat understand that that’s what’s necessary.

I don’t expect the world to change.  I don’t expect a bolt of lightning, and angels dancing on my head.  I expect that my perception will change, and all of a sudden I’ll see things completely differently, although nothing will really have changed.  It doesn’t make sense really, but then again, it does.  So another day passes, and I still am… “The Seeker”.

Watch Me Squirm!

Reading “Talks with Ramana Maharshi” today, I found this:

“Effort is necessary up to the state of realization.  Even then, the Self should spontaneously become evident.  Otherwise, happiness will not be complete.  Up to that state of spontaneity, there must be effort in some form or another.”

Now, I’ve read enough of the experiences to know that most, with few exceptions, of the realized of the world have had spontaneous realizations.  Byron Katie, for instance, was laying on the floor in an attic, and was startled from sleep by a cockroach crawling on her foot.  Her telling of that moment is much better than I can do it justice, but she instantly realized she wasn’t who she thought she was.  Another, which I have just moments ago read, had just been through a horrible, “dark night of the soul” encounter that left the person sobbing, in fetal position on the floor when, shortly after hoisting theirself up on to a chair, suddenly saw that their thoughts were not their own.  Maharshi’s experience was somewhat similar in that he had a thought of death and followed through with it in his mind to see who, or where, he was after the body died.

Then I read the quote above telling me that there is effort necessary in order to realize.  What effort?  Should I be at the end of my rope, destitute and depressed beyond reason, with nowhere to go, and no shoulder to cry on before I can expect to realize the truth?  My brother, I wonder if maybe he’d have held off taking his own 35-year-old life for one more day… would he have realized after reaching the absolute bottom of his hard-fought life.

I’ve had it pretty good, see.  I’ve made all the “right” choices in life, apparently.  I’ve had good jobs, done fairly well for myself – not anywhere near rich or well off, mind you, but I’ve done alright.  Things have always come to me in good measure, and I’ve never really had to worry about how bad things are, or laid on the floor, knees to chest bawling my eyes out, pondering ending my own life.  Is that what it takes?  No, I don’t believe that for a second, and that’s why I continue to question everything.

I remember telling someone that I wanted to experience God, and that person telling me that I couldn’t.  Oh, how I abhor being told I can’t do something!  That was over 10 years ago.  My definition of “God” has changed drastically since then, but I still long for that experience, that knowing.  This can’t be all there is to it, can it?  Everything I read about Advaita says it is.  Oh hell, give me the kool aid!

So, Maharshi, what is it, exactly that I’m supposed to do?  What effort is necessary on my part?  Clear my mind?  Meditate?  Prostrate myself to someone who has realized?  What effort?  Oh, you guys are gonna love this blog if I ever do realize?  Watch, though… somebody will turn it into a book and say, “this is the path to realization… do what he did”, and we’ll start yet another religion.  All the while, I’ll be in the background saying, “you guys don’t get it… don’t do what I did!”  Isn’t it fun watching me squirm?

Who Remains After Enlightenment?

Once a person is, or has, realized, what must it be like to still be… here?  I mean, once you have realized that all is one, and you are that, how do you reconcile the obvious dichotomy of being all and yet still being trapped inside, or attached to your body?  It seems to me that when realization occurs you instantly recognize that this is all a dream, an imagined existence, and therefore unnecessary.  Why doesn’t the world disappear at that point?  Why in the world does anyone who’s realized feel the need to tell others about what’s happened if we are all just one, attached and part and  parcel of the entire beingness of existence?  What does it matter?  Why do gurus give satsangs?  Aren’t they giving them to no one?  Aren’t they no one themselves?  It all seems a waste of time (if that even exists).

I say all this from my own imagination of what it would be like to realize the truth.  It just seems like, once realized, none of this would matter anymore.  Why continue with this current existence?  Why still pay your taxes, or go to work, or be nice to anyone?  What the hell?  Somebody please help me understand.

You Are Not Who You Take Yourself To Be

Nisargadatta was asked once how he came to realize.  He told the questioner that his guru told him he was not who he took himself to be, and all he did was simply remember what his guru told him, and in a relatively short amount of time he realized.  I’ve thought about this.

If I’m not who I think I am, then who am I, and why wouldn’t I be who I think I am?  (But wait, I don’t even really know who I think I am.  Forget it, I’ll work on that later.)  Ramana Maharshi talks a lot about the deep sleep state, and the fact that you are completely disassociated with the body.  Agreed.  But, the only reason you know that is because when you wake up, you don’t remember.  Your body was asleep, the mind is assumed to have been completely shut off.  Who are you when this happens?  Who the hell knows?  I assume that the mind is necessary to be able to concoct a story to explain that you were indeed in deep sleep.  So, and I’m just rambling here, we need to be awake to be able to understand, or make sense of our existence.  What makes us awake, or aware?  To me, it happens immediately upon waking up from sleep.  All the senses come alive, and the brain begins processing the inputs once again, and we stand to our feet and that’s that.  We are aware of ourselves once again.

Now, if all we are is non-conceptual awareness, then isn’t this awareness only aware in the awakened and dream states?  It all seems to hinge on memory.  When I awaken from a deep sleep, I have no recollection of being asleep.  I was unaware.  If I awaken immediately after a dream, I am aware that I was just dreaming.  The I is always the same, and it appears to be what is aware.  But what is that I?  And how ridiculous is it for me to inquire as to who, or what that I is?  The I is obviously me.  I, being the subject, can never find the I as the object.  I can’t see I.  Who am I?  I am!  Sounds profound, but any other answer is ridiculous!  So, when I read Ramana or Nisargadatta, and they constantly remind me to ask to whom is all of this happening, I stop short because I know the ridiculousness of the exercise.  “Who is the I that knows this as a ridiculous exercise?”, I can almost hear Ramana asking rhetorically.  Damn you, Ramana Maharshi!  Damn you, Nisargadatta Maharaj!  Both you guys piss me off because I can’t understand you.  That goes for all you modern-day Advaitins, too.  You know who you are, and I’m jealous.  Jealous, I tell ya!

Love, peace, and chicken grease!

The Gurus…or…Man, WTF is This Mess All About?

So now that I’ve rejuvenated the blog, I guess I’m comfortable with the “seeker” title.  Maybe someone can gain something from realizing that they’re not alone in their non-realization.

I’ve read so much from the masters that I’m confused.  They’re said to have responded to questions in the frame of reference of the questioners, which is a good thing to keep in mind while reading.  Everyone, including me, wants to know, “what should I do to become enlightened?”.  To me, the obvious answer is “nothing”.  If I’m to believe what is touted by the advaitins, then there is nothing to do, nor is there anybody to do it.  Yet I read time after time in Nisargadatta Maharaj’s and Ramana Maharshi’s works where they tell certain seekers to do this thing or that.  Constantly ask the question, “who am I?”  If something happens, ask, “to whom is this happening”.  Nisargadatta tended to a shrine to his guru.  Many of the gurus we see today are seen sitting in front of a gathering of seekers with a photograph of their guru nearby.  Come on!  If there’s nothing that needs to be done, and especially if there’s no one there to do it, why have all the guru dedication?  I would guess that, once realized, you would immediately see that paying homage to a guru, or lineage of gurus, would be a worthless, pointless exercise.  If all this is just a play passing in front of the eternal stage of non-dual awareness, why speak of “my guru” at all?  Who is the guru?  It’s you, right?  All is one, there is no duality.  Why pay respects to an image of a man that so clearly represents duality?

There are so many contradictions that are easily explained by saying that words cannot express reality, they can only point to reality.  I just don’t get it, and honestly, I want to more than I care to admit.  It all resonates in me, but I want it to make sense.  It doesn’t.  It can’t, and I know that, but I can’t get past it.  Damn it, who turned me on to this crap anyway?