Does It Matter?

The New Year is here again.  They come quicker nowadays.  Another one down, who knows how many more to go.  And if it’s all a play, then what a grand play it is.  I don’t get upset much, but I’m susceptible to becoming hacked off at the politicians in this country of mine.  We’ll elect any damned body.  Mostly lawyers, but sometimes professional wrestlers, actors, comedians, Ku Klux Klansmen, doctors, and even “community organizers” (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean).  Anyway, I don’t know why I think it should be any other way than the way it is right now.  I’ve got a good friend who shares my views and he happens to be a web wizard.  Last night he said, “www.mikespissed.com” is open.  Thanks Dave.  I had to sit with that for a minute or two.  Think of the possibilities… my own bitch session website about how fargged-up our politicians are.  But wait, that’s not me at all.  Well… at least not me all the time.  It gave me pause.  Time to think.

I got into a nice philosophical debate with a good friend yesterday about chance and destiny, and whether or not we had any control over the outcomes of our life’s circumstances.  Remember, I’m the ultimate determinist.  Things just couldn’t have happened any other way.  That kind of view tends to remove you as a controller of your own fate, doesn’t it?  Then you step back and look at something like this…

…and you can’t help but be in complete awe at what’s going on here.  How in the hell can any of this matter in the least little bit when you see something like that?  I mean really, what is the damned point?  All I can come up with is, “there isn’t one”, and you damned Advaita clowns will go, “YES!  YES!  Exactly!  That’s what we’ve been telling you all along.”  Alright already.  But damn it, you can tell me ’til the cows come home.  I have to realize that for myself, right?  Beat me with a sledge-hammer, but if I can’t see it, I just can’t see it!  And… I CAN”T SEE IT!  All I’ve got are a bunch of unanswerable questions, and the answers I do get are supremely frustrating.  I love the quest, though.  It’s really fun sometimes being absolutely mind-bogglingly frustrated, hoping at any moment that I could be on the precipice of losing my FRIGGIN’ MIND!  Yes, hoping to lose my mind… that’s right.  The one thing I can agree with you clowns on is that my mind is in the way.  If I could unzip my head and reach in there and flip the on/off switch I would.  But nothing worthwhile is ever easy, now is it?

OK, well I go into another year (which is a pointless, and meaningless statement anyway) with only one goal.  The awakening, or the realization, or enlightenment, or I really don’t care what the hell it’s called.  You know, the mind stops, and the sudden realization of what I really am sets in.  No more character blindness, no more seeking, no more wondering.  Everything else seems to be on a sort of autopilot.  I have never had to worry about a damned thing, ever.  Even as much as I did worry, it ALWAYS turns out that there was no need.  So I’m flowing with this life in that regard and it’s working out beautifully.  The other thing… well, it doesn’t seem to obey the same laws.  Oh, I can feel the comments already.  Bring it on beautiful people!

Happy New Year!  Only three more to go, right?  (I love the internet!)

Reading Minds & The Gong Show

There’s an interesting comment thread developing on a recent post that started with somebody asking a question to the effect of: Why, if everything is all ONE and I am THAT, can’t I know what you are thinking?  Immediately, I got visions of Carnac the Magnificent.

Then I thought about the Goo-Roo doing the finger tips-on-the-side-of-the-head routine, straining with all his might in order to read the minds of others.

I gave a very weak attempt at a half-assed answer, at least from the limited perspective I have on the Advaitic mysteries.  I figured it would be a good topic to post about.  Maybe some of the pros can add a bit to the discussion, and we could all get us some of that ol’ time Christmas Enlightenment.  No jingle bells… only the sounds of gongs…

Aaaaaneeeewaaaaaay…  So maybe I’ll set it up with the actual comment from Philippe (hope you don’t mind Philippe):

If there is only ONE individual, how do you explain that Randall’s perceptions, thoughts, sensations, etc., appear to Randall but do not appear to me?  I’m really having a hard time with that.  And please, do not tell me that there is no sentient “Mike” or “Randall”.

There’s more, and it gets more interesting, so you’ll have to go here to read the rest, but please comment here if you don’t mind.

So this will probably be the last post before Christmas, maybe New Year too, who knows.  I’m finishing the year off in the best mood of my life!  I have the most incredibly blessed life you can imagine.  No money!, but I’d figured out long ago, when I was broke and starting over, that I could have nothing at all and all the happiness I wanted was always with me.  I only needed to flip the switch, to choose to have it.  I don’t even think about it much anymore, but it’s always there.  Happiness is the way (you know the preamble to that, right?).  You guys please be safe, think deep thoughts, love BIG, and enjoy everything!  Merry Christmas to you all and have a FANTASTIC New Year!

Sittin’ On Top O’ the World

Guess who?

Melancholy

Feeling melancholy today.  I wanted to write, and this is what happened.  Looks like poetry, doesn’t it?  Not much of a poet.  Never written any poetry, matter of fact.  We have to call it something, so “poetry“, I guess, will do.  WordPress isn’t helping me with this.  There are line breaks in here that won’t show up, so it all looks like a jumbled bunch of crap.  Read it slowly, feel it.  Then, if you know how to put stupid line breaks in, please hook a brotha up!

Oh, and this doesn’t have a name, so if you want to suggest one, I’m open.

Untitled

Futility wears to the point of apathy.

How far from apathy, surrender?

Beating and banging and kicking and crawling and scratching and finally…

Finally contentment settles on its familiar plateau.

No worry, no agony, everything right with the world.

The search recedes into the crags.

The light of contentment and happiness gently sneaks in until

Crescendoing, the flood complete.

Shadows overpowered, snuffed out of existence.

Intense light, intense love, intense…

No, nothing else matters.

Then…

The light, pierced by a familiar demon

So insignificant, so infinitesimal, so benign.

Aimless cracks fissure outward from the piercing.

Instantly, the play of light crumbles away.

What of a dream?

How fragile, how paper-thin the scaffolding.

How perfectly unsupported and temporal.

How non-existent, dream-like.

So easily disturbed and destroyed.

What is real?

What remains when all fades away

into the nothingness

that this illusion is surely built upon?

Futility wears to the point of apathy.

And this…

This, as low as it is,

never, never remains as low.

The heaviness of that darkest hour inhales.

In rushes a refreshing.

Clean, light.   Fog begins to breathe.

The eyes of darkness open just a little more.

All is not as black, nor as cold.

Another breath.

The shivers of depression shed their painful pricks.

Remembering hope, the beast arises,

begins its ascent once more.

Beating and banging and kicking and crawling.

And scratching with hope and memory of how it once was.

And finally…

finally…

Yeshua Was NOT a Christian!

You don’t think about that much, do you?  Nope, Jesus wasn’t a Christian.  Jewish?  Yes, and a very disruptive one at that.  He pissed all those big hat wearin’ holier-than-thous off BIG TIME!  I mean, those guys were like the Mafia.  Jesus was a spiritual rogue in his day.  Folks didn’t know what to think of him.  And why “Jesus”?  His name was Yeshua, which we translate as Joshua for the other guys in the Bible who got tagged with it.  Why Jesus?  Wasn’t he supposed to be named Emmanuel anyway?  What happened to that?  Fuggedaboutit.

So Joshua pissed off the dominant, controlling Pharisees, and Caiaphas finagled a way to get him offed for it.  Wouldn’t you just have loved to have been around, sitting under an olive tree, or something poetic like that, and hear what he really said?  Yeah, me too.  I guarantee you it isn’t even close to what is being said today, or for the last 2,000 plus years or so for that matter.  Next?  Buddha.

(Oh, and Pee Ess… I gave up posting The Randall Dialogues and just made it another page – look up above seekers and saints!)

Which way do I go?

The Randall Dialogues: Part 5

Continuation of the seemingly never-ending dialogue with Randall.  Seemingly never-ending due to complete ignorance on my part, that is.

Mike

OK, I’m getting to the end of understanding here.  I suppose at some point I just have to believe in order to be able to drop anything.  I haven’t yet realized that I can’t figure this out with my thinking/analyzing because I’m continually doing that, waiting on this endless “do while” loop running in the background to all of the sudden find the answer.  It’s not gonna happen that way though, and I can’t seem to stop it.

You said, “Direct experience isn’t any particular experience.  It’s just pure seeing without any overlay of concepts.”  As I understand things, everything is a concept.  Any thought whatsoever, by definition, is a concept.  Direct experience, therefore, means no thought.  Maybe this is where I’m stuck.

I can agree that I am that awareness behind all of this.  I can’t… uh, OK, how do I say this… the thoughts don’t stop.  I want to say I have no control over this.  And now I think I understand that if I were to discard thought, suspend it maybe, then the realization would be there of what I truly am.  Stop the mind to have the direct experience.  But saying that isn’t true either because the direct experience, as you say, is already there.  The mind is just in the way, sorting shit out and dividing everything up into little buckets and doing the organizing thing.

It all brings me back to a how.  If all that’s preventing me from realizing my true nature is a busy mind, then how is the mind shut up?  Bullet to the head would do it, but I’m not interested in that particular path to enlightenment.  You said you just gave up, f__k it, and then the mind stopped, then the tree and all that.  So, is all this searching bullshit just a necessary means to bring about ultimate frustration and giving up only to realize it was a futile exercise to begin with?  Is this a joke?  I can’t stop the mind, the thoughts.  Trying to stop thought is nothing more than having a thought about stopping thought.  It’s an impossibility.  How in the hell does anyone realize their true nature at all?  It doesn’t even seem possible.

Jesus Christ, Randall… this is just pure ludicrous!  This can’t be right, man… tell me I’m messed up somewhere in my logic.

Randall

Understanding is wordless – just like the recognition of the flower as real or man-made.  That understanding is beyond the mind – mind then translates the understanding – oh, it’s not a real flower – it’s man-made.

This is how self-realization is.  It is a wordless understanding which the mind then translates into words such as awareness or limitless.  Before that realization, mind is translating otherwise, falsely, based on a misunderstanding or misplacement of identification.

Translation is mistaken for understanding.  That you are a person bound to a body-mind is a translation of present experience.  Is that the only possible translation?  Is there incontrovertible direct evidence of this?  No – actual present experience is that every single thing, every perception, every sensation (and the body and mind is nothing but sensations/perceptions) appears to something which itself does not appear.  THAT is direct evidence – THAT is actually present understanding – the translation is added on.

What you’ve taken yourself to be is due to this false translation – sensations and perceptions which appear TO you are taken TO BE YOU, as a separate thing.  That’s really it in a nutshell, isn’t it?  So recognition of what you are is really very simple – as long as that root translation isn’t held onto with a death grip.

That certainty of existence which is undeniable is translated in the paradigm of separation.  Therefore what I AM MUST BE a thing, and in that “thingness” the world is automatically assumed as the opposite or outside or separate from WHAT I AM.

It’s a false translation – the understanding is already there only seemingly covered up by the translation.  “I am this or that” is the natural tendency of the mind to split everything up into parts.  So that I AM-ness must be just a part.  But it’s not – and that understanding doesn’t come as some new experience.  The false translation falls away naturally as false, just like the mirage.  The mirage IS water, through this false translation.  Reality is obscured – translated reality is water in the desert.  But when investigated, the water is known to be false, just a reflection.  So nothing is needed to be done to MAKE the idea of water go away – that false translation falls away naturally because it’s obviously false.

“How” is mind.  Trying to figure it out is a bottomless pit.  There is no answer there.  Understanding is wordless and nonconceptual.  It just IS.  It IS already.

The search leading to frustration is not necessary – it is only seemingly so because this particular pattern of mind is conditioned to overanalyze.  That burning out of analysis is one way, so to speak, but it’s a f__ked-up way.  It sucks because the search is then a grind, real hard work, the possible answers are endless.  From experience, it’s best to just realize that it cannot be analyzed away – figured out.  It just cannot.  It is like looking for your car keys – you overturn each item – you know what car keys look like.  The instant they are seen there is a recognition, yet they cannot be found.  So we engage in a search to find them – we walk around and look.  If there is an overly-analytical process, we might call in a protractor and compass and map out our previous steps.  We might use a tuning fork to calibrate the exact resonance of the metal in car keys – walking around waiting for the correct vibration.  We may graphically represent all places car keys could sit, then go about a process to eliminate each square inch.  Yet all that searching and analysis ends with roaring laughter when we realize the keys were in our pocket the entire time, and the search was ultimately irrelevant.  We forgot to look in the most obvious place.

That obvious place to know yourself is awareness.

You say you don’t want faith or belief, but you have faith in every single concept you know.  You trust that the word or concept IS that thing.  But it’s actually glossing over the reality.  That’s all so-called Maya is – glossing over it – being spellbound by concepts, actually taking the word or name and form to be the thing, to be the absolute reality.

Are you presently aware?  There is instantaneously a recognition of the truth.  You are.  You are, means – awareness IS.  The rest is merely deconstructing concepts.  But at some point that is just a meaningless exercise.  You are present and aware.  This is the reality being pointed at in so many ways.

If you pause a thought, something is there to know the ending and beginning of thought.  That something isn’t hidden.  If we investigate the nature of this “something” without first applying pre-conceived notions about it, we find that it’s not bound in any way – it’s there without any effort – it’s there before we noticed it – in fact it IS the very LOOKING.  It’s not changed by the changing of appearances, by the fluctuations of thought.  We find that if a concept comes ABOUT that something, that concept doesn’t actually limit that “something”.

And that something isn’t a “thing” at all – it’s not objectifiable – it cannot be pinned down with the mind.  It cannot be analyzed.  It is simply present.  That something is entirely subjective – it is the capacity by which the world, body and mind are known.  That something, that background activity of knowing is in fact always there – like a light which is left burning and therefore isn’t noticed, like a loud sound which, after a while, actually is not heard consciously until it stops, then the absence of that sound is deafening.

Therefore what you are is so incredibly simple and obvious that it is glossed over – but when it’s pointed out, it’s really very easily noticed.  That presence of awareness IS the actual “I” – what is referred as “I” – that sense of “I” is so well known, in fact, that we don’t feel it needs to be questioned.  But if we have a false translation about it, a mistaken notion, then we’re seemingly stuck by that translation of “I” as limited, “I” as a separate entity.

The sense of “I” is taken to be limited – it is taken to be the body or mind or brain.  It is taken to be the person.  But without exception, these “things” appear TO “I”, within awareness.  Awareness or “I” is unchanged while the world, body and mind go on their way.  That has actually always been the case but it’s just been overlooked.

Therefore the mind can go on analyzing forever – it will never make any difference except as to burn out the mind.  And in that burnt-out-ness, there is that same pause.  That pause may bring the recognition of what is already the case.  But there need not be a burnt-out-ness of mind.  That clear and present awareness is already shining, already the case.

So just notice the nature of this “I” or awareness – notice it is already shining clearly.  Notice that the computer screen and the wall both are dependent on that awareness for their appearance.  In fact if we try to place our finger on that awareness, we can only point TO the appearance as the “substance” of awareness.  If we try to find or locate awareness, we MUST point to it’s content.  We may see that the computer screen and the wall are both zero distance FROM awareness, and the idea of distance comes as a conceptual measurement within and AS awareness itself.

That clear and simple recognition which comes in answer to the question – are you presently aware? – that recognition is it.  That’s all the recognition needed.  That is the entirety of the search, if it is allowed to resonate, not submitted to the analytical machine for a full report.  There is nothing ever needed outside of the simple and obvious seeing that you ARE, that ordinary and mundane awareness.  And then it becomes clear that awareness or “I” is not ever limited.

You ask “How in the hell does anyone realize their true nature at all?”  They don’t.  There is no separate entity who realizes – the story of realization comes within the space-like awakeness which is already the case – already what you are.  It’s not about stopping thought – although pausing thought, what Bob calls “full stop” may bring a recognition that you are not the mind, the intellect, the analysis.  Every single bit of this activity is part of the changing appearance within THAT which never changes.  That changeless reality is what you are, right now.

Ultimate Determinism

On this morning’s news they were interviewing a State Senator here in Georgia in his office.  They commented on a list that he had tacked to the wall behind his desk.  Written in black marker on yellow legal sized paper was his list of top 10 reasons to be optimistic about 2010.  Here’s the list verbatim:

1.  
2.  
3.  
4.  
5.  
6.  
7.  
8.  
9.  
10.  

Isn’t that funny?  I had a good chuckle at it.  I don’t know if he was trying to be funny, or if he really was trying to come up with ten good reasons to be optimistic, but couldn’t find anything.  He wasn’t laughing about it, though.

What are you optimistic about for next year?  I’ve just asked myself that question, and all I can equate optimism to is hopes and dreams.  Wishes, reasons to keep going, reasons to wake up and do it all over again, and again, and again.

No one really knows enough to be a pessimist.  – Norman Cousins

There, I like it said that way much better.  I don’t want to search for things I might be optimistic about.  Why would you need to search for optimism unless you see things in a negative light already?  I believe in “ultimate determinism”, meaning that things couldn’t possibly be any other way than they are right now.  Things could never have happened any other way than they happened.  Things will happen exactly as they will happen.  There’s no other way they can, or cannot, happen.  There ya go.  No room for optimism, no need.  And no one really knows enough to be a pessimist, right?  I’m done.

Advaita / Nonduality: The Actors and Their Roles

The Players

The Randall Dialogues: Part 4

Mike

You’re very good with this stuff, Randall, you know that?
You said that if it’s not seen in direct experience, then it’s only belief.  I agree, and that’s all I’m after here; the direct experience.  I’m tired of belief and blind faith.  I have no use for any of that silliness.

I’m good with challenging assumptions.  That’s what helped me get over the Heaven/Hell, God/Satan, Good/Evil thing when I started questioning the Christianity I was brought up under.  It’s just that some of these assumptions are what I would’ve considered hard facts, such as my answer to your question, “…is there actually a brain?”  I answer with a fair amount of trepidation because I honestly want to evaluate it based on the evidence.  I’ve held a human brain in my hands, and I have seen how brain injuries can affect a person first hand, so I have to say yes, there is actually a brain.  How much that brain has to do with who I am, I don’t know.  So, if you’re questioning it from that angle, I’m with ya.

I loved your story.  That sounds exactly like me, even the “f__k it” part.  I’ve given up many times, but I guess the mind never just shuts up.  I wish the hell it would, then maybe all this searching bullshit would finally be done with.  See, something you said, “The tree and the seer of the tree are entirely creations of mind, that subject/object equation is created by mind doing it’s job.  There was no separation.  And there isn’t now – for you.”  I guess I can see that the mind “creates” the tree in the sense that it’s a pieced-together representation, or projection, based on what is captured by the eyes.  Who the hell knows what a tree really looks like?  Nobody.  We only “see” what our sensory system allows.  So, yeah, the tree is a mind creation.  But the seer?  That one’s a bit more difficult to swallow.  I see.  I, the one that sees this picture created by the mind, can’t be a creation of that same mind.  See what I’m saying?

All of that makes me confused when you say, “The point is that there IS no individual ‘I’ APART FROM the world.”  To see the world, there must be sensory input projected as a scene, which is seen by me. In that line of thought I necessarily have to be apart from the world in order for it to be seen.  Maybe the version of the world that is presented to me by my senses is horribly incomplete, but it is still seen apart from the mind that’s generating it by “me”.  I am really missing something fundamental here, and I sense that very strongly.  What is wrong with my thought process here, Randall?  Seriously, I really want to understand this like you can’t imagine!  I think you’re trying to tell me this in the latter half of the last email, but something’s not clicking for me, and I can’t put a finger on it.

You also said that appearances get their being from me.  I can see that… sort of.  Obviously, if I were not here, with the senses I have, then none of this would exist… to me.  Could it be that the world is there, independent of me, and that my looking brings it into existence for just me?  I am always here?  What about in deep sleep?  I don’t know if I’m aware or not then.  I have no recollection of it, I can’t say I existed in deep sleep except only after I wake up.  I’m aware of having gone to sleep, then waking up, but not in between.  What if I died in deep sleep?  There would be nothing.  Strange to think about.

I hope for that recognition you talk about that will be spontaneous, and not derived from analysis.  I really, really don’t want to have to analyze it and make it make sense because I know I can’t.  But I know of no other way.  And I’m certainly not looking for a mystical experience.  A plain ol’ truth recognition would do just fine.  I don’t want the mouse to go on vacation… I want it to DIE!  Any ideas?

Randall
This has nothing to do with being good at anything.  It’s just a clear recognition of what you are, something so simple and blindingly obvious that it’s overlooked.  From that relative perspective, years were spent analyzing it just like you.  And that stubborn insistence on analysis was NEVER helpful in the smallest way.  It is a roadblock.  And then there is frustration.  It seems that discussion with Bob really shined a light on how much that analysis was the operative factor and reality, simple reality, obvious reality, was being overlooked in so many ways.  That was like punching a hole in the constant intellectual acrobatics.

Direct experience isn’t any particular experience.  It’s just pure seeing without any overlay of concepts.  For instance, if you look at the computer screen, THAT it is a computer screen is a concept.  The language convention and belief in WHAT it is are readily available in mind, and we can talk about it just fine.  But WHAT that “thing” is, is not known.  Without that concept, we have no idea what the hell it is.  You believe it to be what the words say – I know it to be nothing I can put my finger on, in actuality.  For it’s made of reducible parts, each part is reducible.  I cannot ever come to the ultimate essence of that “thing” – no matter how many ways we divide it or measure it, we cannot really ever say WHAT that thing is, or really what anything is.  That is what direct experience means.  Not-knowing – seeing that the conceptual layer is not reality.  Division or separation is only MENTAL, not actual.

Take anything at all – an iron ball.  THAT it is an iron ball is a concept.  Do you follow?  Ball is a concept – ball is a creation of mind – there is no such thing as mind except as a reference in mind.  Iron is also a concept – it’s an element but we can look deeper.  It’s a molecule, simultaneously an atom, simultaneously a quark, etc.  These things aren’t separate or apart from “iron ball” – they ARE the “iron ball” – each one is a mental division, not an actual one.  We can go on forever dividing it into measurements – yet we are never actually dividing the essence of that.  This is called mithya – everything we know and take to be separate is just name and form, mental constructs.

Even the brain is like this.

Explanations are not understanding.  Explanations are mind.  Understanding is beyond mind.  As an example – you have a flower.  It looks like a real flower.  It smells like a real flower.  Mind says it’s a flower.  But then you touch it.  It’s soft, it looks and smells like a flower, yet something KNOWS it’s not.  Something knows it’s a fake flower – a man-made flower.  That knowing is beyond the mind.

It is the same with this – that intelligence is functioning and is not dependent on mind.

It is not a giving up.  It’s seeing for real that there is nothing to give up, nothing to gain – all stories of gain are mind.  Clear seeing/understanding is already the case – you already ARE that which you are seeking.  There is a condition being placed, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly.  The condition is that experience must be a certain way, mind must be a certain way.  And then seeking is an attempt to manipulate mind or experience.  That is 1000% off base.

“I see” is mind, is that not blindingly obvious?  What is there to register that thought?  What is there to register the creation of the story “I see”?  That seeing/knowing is already the case, already shining.  That is YOU.

“I hope for that recognition” – this is a simple misunderstanding.  You ARE the recognition – the recognizing – there is nothing to get.  What you are is simply pointed out, already-always-here, always shining.

Right now, peeling back every concept, all you are completely certain of, is that you exist.  What does that mean, to know that you exist?  It means there is certainty, trust, that you ARE.  How do you know?  Why are you so certain that you ARE?

It’s because you are always here – something is always here, unchanging.  THAT is the knowing of Being.  You know you are here, right now.  And you know that you are aware.  Presence and awareness, as words, mean nothing.  But as direct evidence they are unquestionably true.  That you are a body, a human, a brain, an individual, a person, “mike” – these are all conceptual overlays – just like the computer screen they are concepts created for the comfort and abatement of anxiety of mind, for communication.  But all these things are not true in reality.

The first instant of recognition, before the mind has a chance to come in to split it all up into nice conceptual parts – in that split second there is no subject or object, no ME-seeing, no individual.  The mind hasn’t had a chance yet to make something out of it.  It’s the same when the mind is sort of lost in the moment – either dumb-struck or shocked or, like with the birth of your baby, the seeking mind is gone.  There is only pure Oneness.

And that’s already the case – that is the real state of affairs.  That pure cognition or recognition is already there – it is what we call “awareness” – your true beingness is that knowing.  That’s why neti-neti is effective, as a provisional step.  It’s eliminating all that is known IN awareness until your nature is known to be that awareness.

Any concept that can come is dependent on awareness – yet the concept cannot limit awareness.  Instead of saying “I am the brain, so how can I be awareness?” – say “I am awareness, so how can I be the brain?”  You are awareness or knowing or cognizing FIRST, then we can go into the appearance, the mind can try to figure out how it all works.  But first see that you are not limited in any way.  That concept of brain, that appearance of brain is zero distance from awareness.  The mountain in the distance is also zero distance from awareness.

You are that capacity of knowing the brain and the mountain.

The Randall Dialogues: Part 3

Here we go… round 3, from November 3rd.  As always, your comments are welcomed and encouraged.  Enjoy.

Mike

Good stuff, Randall!  I read this almost as soon as you sent it, so I’ve had it to mull over practically all day.  I’ve been printing these so I can make notes as I ponder again, and I think, after reading it for like the 4th time, I’m ready to dive again.

First, the mind.  The mind is the story teller, I agree.  That’s its job.  It has to arrange the data, and present the story, then store the story for later retrieval, then make judgments about the compilations of stories based on history (thus programming).

You asked if it’s the mind that’s knowing, or if there’s something that knows the mind, and talked about thoughts and how they’re seen, so they can’t be “me”.  I agree with everything you’re saying about thoughts, but I do have some confusion when it comes to the ability to control thought, such as when concentrating, or solving problems, which is something I do for a living.  I suppose I could say that the concentration and problem solving happens and I watch it, but it feels more like I’m controlling those activities.

The argument you make about the screen, and the pictures is one I’ve been through myself many times.  I don’t know how it works once the information gets to the brain.  It’s all synthesized and organized somehow in there, then presented to “me” who “sees” it.  I don’t know enough to say for sure that it isn’t the brain that does the seeing as well as the presenting.  I could liken it to submarines.  They don’t have windows, but they get around the ocean very well by taking sensory inputs (sonar, magnetism of the Earth, radio signals) and presenting them to the captain, who then is able to navigate and make sense of this information.  So maybe there’s a region in the brain (which I know they have NOT been able to locate) that is the command center?  I don’t know.  But the assumption I would have to drop would mean that I am nowhere, as if I don’t exist.  But I do, and that’s all I can know for sure.  Certainly not the body, certainly not most of the brain, but I can’t necessarily rule out ALL of the brain by deduction.  It’s almost a leap of faith to believe that the fact that I see the world out there – somehow, somewhere; I don’t know how or where – but there’s nothing/nobody there to see it.  Who sees then?  Is there a “who” to see?  There is seeing, obviously, so there must be a “who” to see.  Why see if there’s no seer?

Dude, I just got a weird chill up the back of my neck and through my jawbone.  Who sees?  Uh… I’m… hold on…  OK, I think I just got lost thinking about this.  Drew a big ol’ blank just then, and it felt as if I were just about to go… Ahhhhh.  Nope!  Didn’t happen.  Weird though.

You said, “…what we take to be the world ‘out there’ really is just a picture ‘right here’ – a picture created out of input from the senses.”  Yes, that’s right.  But does that negate the existence of “out there”?  No.  Is this what they mean by the world being an illusion?  It’s a philosophical stretch to use that as the logic behind that conjecture.  Just because “out there” is always presented “in here” doesn’t mean “out there” is an illusion.  What would be more accurate would be to say that what we sense “in here” about “out there” is an illusion, a trick played on us by our limited senses. What’s “out there” cannot really be known by us.  But does that make it maya?

OK, last thing.  You asked what knows the coming and going of Consciousness.  How do I know of the picture and that it comes and goes?  The picture is there only when I’m aware of it, which is usually when I’m awake.  I dream, I’m sure, but I rarely am aware of them, even after just waking up.  How do I know of the picture?  Hmmm… Sounds corny, but I have to be present, or aware to know of the picture.  Admittedly, even when awake, sometimes I’m not aware of the picture.  It is there, but I don’t notice it.  Swoon, I think the sages call that.  Daydreaming maybe, but not really.  I don’t know.

Please know that I’m not trying to debunk you, Randall.  I’ve been through this with other guys and they’ve given up on me, maybe because they thought I was being a smart ass or something.  I don’t know, but I’m honestly seeking answers, so if any of this sounds smart-assed, just know it’s not.  It’s a genuine seeking from utter confusion with a huge desire to know the truth.

Wooo wee, man… My brain’s wiped out from pondering.

Randall

This is all just challenging of assumptions.  It doesn’t make any of it true.  It’s stretching the assumptions out – seeing what cracks.  Ultimately understanding is there without the first necessity to describe it or analyze it.  In fact the description and analysis is automatically false, as soon as it comes.  But if it’s not seen in direct experience, then it’s only belief and just more bullshit.

We’re talking about Consciousness as a function of the brain, but is there actually a brain?  You say you’ve seen through the identification with the body yet you attribute your Self to the brain – when the brain is truly only another assumption, a root assumption which has solidified as to be unquestionable.

It’s clear that the intellect is not only strong but also experienced in the nonduality “game”.  So what that means is that anything that comes has already been heard, analyzed against this framework or template of assumptions, and passed on.  Sometimes, and it was certainly true in “this case”, that strong intellect is the worst enemy of getting to the root of this.

I was just like that – I had to figure everything out, see how it works.  And along with this need came frustration, because it cannot be figured out.  It cannot be dissected using the baseline of existing assumptions like the brain.  So what happened was that the mind was like a trapped mouse in the corner, constantly banging it’s head against the wall over and over and over and over…  there was no way out with the mind.  At some point the mouse just said “f__k it” – it just died of exhaustion and frustration.  And in that pause, just sitting there without the first attempt to “see differently” or “figure it out” or “gain a new experience” – I was looking at a tree – there was no mental activity at all, just the looking.  And that was it.  That literally was IT.  That’s what the entire freaking search was about – it’s JUST THIS, just the knowing, the seeing.  The tree and the seer of the tree are entirely creations of mind, that subject/object equation is created by mind doing it’s job.  There was no separation.  And there isn’t now – for you.  Mind is doing the same thing.

So let’s get to the root of it, discard the bullshit.  Yes?

In nonduality we are often told – there is no “I” – drop the “I”, etc.  This is pointing to the idea of the separate “I”, the individual “I”, the ME that is apart from the world.  THAT is the assumed reality.  Therefore we are told to somehow get rid of this “I”.  But that’s only a provisional thing, a pedagogical device.  The point is that there IS no individual “I” APART FROM the world.

Yet you know “I” intimately – that’s why it’s so frustrating and apparently paradoxical.  It’s not really possible to drop it, except in just blind faith.  It’s not possible to drop it because it points to something real, something intimately known.  That “ME” isn’t false, it’s just falsely applied, applied to something which isn’t true, the Self that is here and the world that is “there”.

So that ME or “I” is already known intimately.  The confusion is not that the ME or “I” is there, but WHAT IS that ME or “I”.

If “I” is taken to be a small part of the universe, that is suffering.  That is limitation.  That “I” has been referred to for a lifetime – but it’s boxed into a body, into a thought, into a brain.  So THAT the “I” is limited in this way is only an assumption.  It requires thought-stories to come in and create this scenario.

Direct experience holds no evidence of a limited “I”.  Therefore what IS, is “I”, is that “ME”-ness.  It is entirely a creation of mind that this ME-ness is placed upon some objects and not all.  ME means YOU.  YOU are not limited to the brain, the body.  That computer screen is YOU.

Anything experienced holds the flavor of your Self – what you are is the IS-ness or ME-ness of all appearances.  Just take a look – that hand has never appeared without YOU.  You have always been here – your presence has always been the case for that hand to appear.  If the hand goes you still ARE.  So appearances get their being from YOU.

This is direct pointing to your Self – without the provisional, without first seeing the witness or neti-neti.  You are always here – that always-here-ness is IT.  What IS that always-here-ness?  It’s the present opening or capacity, present right here and now.

The first idea that comes upon that always-here-ness is the thought “I AM”.  That is the concrete slab upon which the foundation of separate-self-ness is built.  I AM is true, yet as a thought it’s not.  As a thought it requires “thingness” – it requires existence in time and space – it requires the opposite of I AM.  To the mind, the opposite of “I AM” is “world-out-there”.

Do you follow?

Therefore “I” as a separate “thing” is false – “mike” is only a conceptual container.  “I” is the universe itself and the absence of the universe.  “I” is the always-here-always-aware, singular presence – there is only one INDIVIDUAL – only one ME.  That is YOU.

Now don’t spend all day analyzing it.  Give the mouse a vacation.  Just relax and see if it resonates.  It doesn’t really matter if it does or not, because you already ARE that and cannot be otherwise.  A recognition may come but it will only be spontaneous, not derived from analysis.  That recognition isn’t a bright light or mystical experience.  It’s just a struck-stupid realization that this entire life is built upon “pillars of sand”.