Back to Square One
In an effort to express the inexpressible, non dual speakers commonly evoke the extraordinary absence that we really are with words such as “This”; “That”; “I am”; “IT”; “That I am”; “All there is”; “All that is”; “What is” or “Love”, “Oneness”...
Our seeker's mind asks at times in frustration: “Seriously what is there for me in this seeking game?” The only answer it gets makes it worse: “Nothing for you, for you are not what you think you are!” So here we are back to Square One, so to speak, with the question: “What am I?”
We studiously opened the session by reading a pretty complete list of what this meeting is not about. This list comes from a website called “Liberation Unleashed. See PDF
Then there was a moment of pure magic when Deepak demonstrated his delightful talent at making disappear in his hands, as his hands, what does not exist...
How could an agitated seeker's mind possibly grasp the ungraspable with words? The all pervading timeless Presence is so intimate and immediate that it is commonly overlooked. The boundless energy of Life as it is is so ordinary that it is quickly discarded for it could not possibly be spiritual.
The seeker's mind plays with concepts like a child with toys but is far too busy with being the center of attention of the seeking game that he/she forgets he/she is being played.
“I am This, you are This. You cannot NOT be This. It is always there, in the midst of meditation, in the midst of washing the dishes... It is there before the person appears.”
Rupert Spira, gently advises: “Be firm with your thoughts. Ask yourself on who's behalf they come?”
The uncompromising message is far too threatening for the separate self that feels threatened. It is quite right, its days are numbered and it is going to do everything it can to prevent itself disappearing.”
“There is not one unitary self that is carried through from one moment to the next, unchanging. And yet, we feel we have this self, this center of experience. Now it is possible to lose this feeling, to actually have the center drop out of experience so that rather than feeling that you are on this side of things looking in, looking over your own shoulder, you can be identical to the experience that is with no center of self.”
“The individual longs for absence more than anything and totally fears absence more than anything. So it will create any excuse not to die, not to let go of self, so hence religion, astral worlds, life after death... Seeking is the most efficient way to avoid Liberation because it maintains a sense of a seeker, “I am looking for this and I am going go there and find out”. The misconception is that there is no one to go there and find out; and there is nothing to find!”
Zen monk Kozan Ichikyo's poem is an invitation to simply bow at the utter simplicity of Life as it is:“Empty handed I entered this world. Barefoot I leave it. My coming, my going... two simple happenings that got entangled.”
Dorothy Hunt shares with us:“Moments of light, this is our life. Experiences... moments of light... and we think there is some solidness in the center, a me that's having these experiences! But who are you? That's not a question that is meant to be answered intellectually. It's a question that will eventually stop the notions, that will stop the mind to adding to Reality.”
She proposes here a very simple exercise to do and redo at our own pace, very similar to that of Stephen Wolinsky in his documentary on Nisagardatta Maharaj:“If wedon't goto memory, 'What is our name?', 'Where do we live?', 'Were we born?'
As we come with no answer, it is as if no one was there...! Now could it be IT, that I am, really??