Rupert,
I have, in the last six months, become completely fixated on the idea of understanding my true nature. But equally, I’m aware that the search itself is the thing blocking understanding. During the day, I focus on keeping ‘myself’ out of it as much as possible and remaining in impersonal awareness. But at night my mind seems to go into overdrive, and the dreams are continuous and leave me exhausted in the day. Deep sleep is increasingly rare! When I wake up, the first thing I do is remind myself that the true subject (as in the dream) can be observed and is not ‘I’. But why is mind making so much use of this dreaming space, where awareness can’t keep it in its rightful place?
A second, perhaps related, point is the idea of waiting for something to happen. Clearly, at some point, some recognition must happen, and yet the waiting for this is a subtle seeking, that seems to resurface in the mind from time to time. It seems impossible not to want this to happen, or hope, despite how determinedly I remind myself ‘Who is hoping?’ or that there is ultimately no one whom anything is going to happen to.
Best wishes from this slightly dazed seeker,
Piers
Dear Piers,
Piers:I’m aware that the search itself is the thing blocking understanding.
Rupert:The apparently separate ‘I’ does not dothe search. It isthe search. So if we consider ourself to be a separate entity, then the search is inevitable.
If, as this apparent entity, we then add a new belief (on top of the belief that we are a separate entity) that the search is blocking our understanding and, as a result, try to call off the search, we are in effect searching for happiness by negating the search for happiness. We end up with suppression, frustration and resignation rather than peace and happiness.
If we were truly aware that it is the search that is blocking understanding (and understanding is just another name for happiness), then the search would cease right there. Rather, we have superimposed the belief that searching is wrong on top of our much deeper and truer desire to search for happiness. I do not say this with any judgement, but simply to lay bare the situation so that we are able to search intelligently and legitimately for what we deeply want.
See clearly that as long as the apparent ‘I’ is present, the search is present. Normally we think that it is the apparently separate ‘I’ that will find happiness, without realising that this apparently separate ‘I’ in fact veils happiness. So I would suggest turning attention towards this apparently separate ‘I’ so as to see very clearly exactly what it is made of.
We have no doubt that whatever this apparently separate ‘I’ is, it is seeing these words right now. We say, ‘I see these words.’ So turn your attention towards whatever it is that is seeing these words. Be very specific.
Whatever it is that is seeing these words is also experiencing whatever else is being experienced in this moment – thoughts, images, bodily sensations and perceptions. Turn your attention towards that one, that ‘knowing’ or ‘experiencing’ one. Can you find it? Can you see, touch, feel or perceive it? Can you locate it?
No! But do you have any doubt that you are that one? Could you ever find that one as an object? No, because you would be the one knowing or experiencing that object. And if you cannot find it as an object, how do you know that it has limits, that it is located, separate, personal, that it was born or will die, or that it has a certain age or gender?
See that that one that we intimately know ourself to be is present and aware. Could we ever not be that one? Could we move closer to or farther away from that one, that is, from ourself? Where would we go to get away from it? What would we have to become in order not to be it? We would have to pretend that we are something else. We would have to somehow veil the knowledge that we have of our self as that one and seem to be something else.
And how is this done? That one that we intimately know ourself to be creates the mind within itself, or rather takes the shape of the apparent mind, which has the possibility of all thinking, sensing and perceiving within it. It creates, as it were, a collage of thinking-imagining-sensing-perceiving. At this stage there is no duality, no separation of experience into separate parts, entities, objects, others or the world. All is simply known intimately to be simultaneously made of and known by that one that we directly know ourself to be.
That one then takes the shape of a particular thought which exclusively identifies it with a little fragment of the whole, that is, with a little fragment of itself. So that one now considers itself to be a little fragment rather than the whole, and everything that lies outside that fragment is considered to be notthat one, not ‘me’. At that moment, the peace and happiness that are inherent in that one, that is, inherent in awareness, is veiled. It is veiled by the apparent dividing of the seamless totality into two seemingly separate parts, a knowing subject and a known object.
I say all this to make it very clear that, one, we are already awareness – that is, awareness is already, always and only itself – and two, the apparently separate ‘I’ that we consider ourself to be is never found. It is simply a figment of the mind’s own imagination.
There are not two ‘I’s – a small, limited, unreal one and a universal, real, unlimited one. There is one ‘I’, awareness, which seemsto become a small, personal ‘I’ by taking the shape of a thought that seems to limit it by exclusively identifying it with a bodily sensation. But awareness, the only ‘I’ never actually becomes that little ‘I’. There is no little, false ‘I’. There is always only the true ‘I’ of awareness.
It is in the clear seeing of this that the apparently separate ‘I’ is truly undermined. That is, it is seen to be utterly non-existent as such. This clear seeing reveals the true ‘I’ to be utterly present as awareness. When it becomes clear that it is this apparently separate ‘I’ that veils the peace and happiness that are inherent in awareness, it becomes clear that this apparently separate ‘I’ cannot by definition find happiness, any more than the darkness can find light.
It is this clear seeing that truly dissolves the apparently separate ‘I’. It is not that something that really exists is dissolved, but rather that it is seen to be utterly non-existent. Thebeliefin its real existence is dissolved by seeingthat it is non-existent. Until this has become clear I would recommend continuing to explore your experience very deeply.
* * *
During the day, I focus on keeping ‘myself’ out of it as much as possible and remaining in impersonal awareness.
What does it mean, ‘I focus’? Who focuses? Imagine focusing on a pinhead. The pinhead simply appears in the centre of the picture that is appearing in awareness, in you. If there seems to be a ‘you’ looking, then that ‘you’ is simply part of the picture, along with the pinhead, your fingertips, the table, the sound of traffic, and so on.
That apparent ‘you’ is simply a cluster of bodily sensations with a story attached to it that appears along with everything else in the real and only you, awareness. And who is this one that is trying to remain as awareness? Awareness obviously does not need to remain as awareness, because it is, by definition, already and always only itself.
Do you know another ‘I’, other than the awareness that is seeing these words, that could choose to remain as awareness or not, or indeed to remain as anything else, such as a body or a mind? And when you are seemingly not managing to remain as awareness, what exactly are you being? Let us say that you are managing to be a body rather than awareness. Are you not the awareness that is aware of that body that you believe yourself to be?
Try right now to be anything other than the awareness that is seeing these words. And when the thought or feeling that you are a body, mind, person or entity arises, does that thought or feeling actually prevent you from being the awareness that knows the thought or feeling and that you always intimately know yourself to be?
And who is the one that is trying to keep itself out of the way? The one that is trying is the same one that is to be kept out of the way. The more it tries, the more it is in the way! The trying keeps it apparently present. However, that apparent one has no other existence than the one that seems to be trying. It is the ‘tryer’. The tryer is trying to get rid of the tryer! So then the tryer tries to stop trying in an attempt to get rid of itself, and simply perpetuates itself in exactly the same way, by trying!
What to do? See clearly that that one is utterly non-existent. It exists only with the thought that thinks it. It can neither try to focus nor be focused upon, any more than the pink elephant sitting under your chair can focus or be focused upon!
* * *
But at night my mind seems to go into overdrive, and the dreams are continuous and leave me exhausted in the day. Deep sleep is increasingly rare!
But you are present ‘there’. aware of your dreams. And you remain present when the morning comes to you, when the bodily sensations come to you, when the thought of exhaustion comes to you, when the turbulent thoughts and images come to you, when the questions come to you. You are just ‘there’, which is ‘here’, not a place but this presence here that you always intimately know yourself to be, that you never can or ever do cease to be.
You are always ‘here’, allowing all seeming things to appear within yourself, knowing them to be made only out of yourself. In other words, you are giving your entire substance to every appearance and yet remaining completely untouched by all appearances, like the screen that allows all images but remains unmoved by them.
When I wake up, the first thing I do is remind myself that the true subject (as in the dream) can be observed and is not ‘I’.
The true subject ‘I’, awareness, is that which knows or experiences all apparent things that appear in the waking and dream states and, in deep sleep, simply knows its own being. The pseudo-‘I’ is a thought that appears from time to time in the true ‘I’, your own intimate, impersonal presence.
However, the true ‘I’ is the substance of all apparent things. In other words, there are no real things or objects that appear as such in awareness, because everything is made only out of awareness: water flowing in water.
There is rather awareness taking the apparent shape of all things, and because there are no objects in awareness, awareness cannot really be said to be a subject. It is beyond the apparent subject and the apparent object.
* * *
But why is mind making so much use of this dreaming space, where awareness can’t keep it in its rightful place?
Awareness is always in its rightful place, that is, always in itself. Where else could it be? Do you have any experience of anything outside of awareness in which awareness could reside from time to time? Awareness is the knowingbeing of all experience. There is nothing other than this knowingbeing.
The mind is making use of the dream space, because that is the nature of mind. Just let it do its thing. See the dream space as a place where the residue of mind’s activities processes itself. That is one of the functions of dreams at a relative level. Just let the mind do its thing and simply remain yourself, awareness, like a mother allowing her mischievous children to play out in the garden, knowing that their play does not ultimately touch her.
A second, perhaps related point, is the idea of waiting for something to happen. Clearly, at some point, some recognition must happen, and yet the waiting for this is a subtle seeking, that seems to resurface in the mind from time to time. It seems impossible not to want this to happen, or hope, despite how determinedly I remind myself ‘Who is hoping?’ or that there is ultimately no one whom anything is going to happen to.
It is not enough simply to remind oneself that this is the case. One has to understandthat this is the case. Simply reminding oneself without the accompanying understanding is not powerful enough to cut through the apparent separate self and world.
When the understanding is clear, one does not need to remind oneself, just as when we believed in the apparently real existence of the separate self and the separate world, we did not need to continually remind ourself of their apparent existence. Their apparent existence was, it seemed, self-evident. Likewise when there is the clear seeing that all is only in and of awareness, there is no need to remind oneself. It is self-evident.
That which is being waited for is the space of awareness in which the waiting is taking place. In fact, it is even closer than that. That which is being waited for is itself taking the shape of the waiting. You are already that for which you are waiting. It is only the mind’s denial of this fact that makes an apparent object out of your self. The mind then projects this apparent object, which is considered to be unknown and not present, into the future, to be found at a certain time as a result of a certain activity.
But how can knowing be unknown? How can being not be present? That which you are wanting to happen is already present. Awareness is already and always only knowingbeing itself, and in knowing itself as such, loves only its own being.
See how the mind denies the presence of awareness, thus appearing to veil the peace and happiness that are inherent within it, that isit, and then sets about searching for it in the future. It is like a child who dresses up as a monster and then, afraid of the monster, sets about looking for its real self, the child, everywhere. What can one say to the child?
With love,
Rupert
