Liberation Over the Edge
When truth is lost from its foundation, the human mind starts a longing search for knowledge that can bring it back. This search brings discussions, and by various means fragments are sampled and dealt with in thought and language. Though it’s sometimes found, and though some scriptures point inwards to the source, misinterpretations and all sorts of outgoing investigations bring about myths, theologies, theories and philosophies, building up defences and even starting physical and/or psychological wars.
Religions, cults, powerful politicians, priests and ‘gurus’ start to use capturing steps in order to induce belief, conformity or obedience. They may make a difference, but seldom a real change.
The first step is ridicule, in which anyone outside the group is considered ignorant of that particular knowledge; at times outsiders are recipients of great hostility; finally, they are trapped with promising, delightful, glimmering, easy-to-believe-stories until they join in, thinking this knowledge will help.
Second comes re-education and initiation into the group through a process of flower-adornment, make-believe authority, or indoctrination, often for a considerable initial fee (money or work). Then again, a fee for every ‘step’ up the ladder, promoting the illusion of progress (supporting self-esteem, making them feel important). In this way they build up a profitable (tight or loose) organisation based on the promised blissful land or country of honey and roses.
Third brings controlling censorship of individuals and media. If this fails you are condemned, rejected, asked to leave, or frozen out of the group (extreme fundamentalist or governments might even kill those whom they consider to be traitors). One of the strongest psychological forces is the need to be accepted and belong, and some politicians, powerful religions, guru movements, and cults know and exploit this need. So it is indeed no measure of psychological health to be well adapted to a profoundly deluded society.
Not that this is always conscious or deliberate. By some it’s simply unconsciously picked up in the process and culture which has developed over many hundreds of years, and which is largely responsible for their huge amount of followers. And some are simply motivated by the belief that their goal justifies those means. And some may be in it just for the money or the narcissistic prestige or status, making them act as if they were knights in shining armor building an army of ruthless warriors fighting for truth, thinking they can save the world with brutal tactics while ignoring or forgetting the strength of the very imprisonment they may or may not have broken from, thus imposing all the above. Failing to meet people were they are, with due compassion.
Now, if you have no desire for truth, little can be done. If you have, the door into seeing it is open.
At first look, the following may sound absurd and incomprehensible, and in a certain light it is a self- contradiction, seemingly a paradox, because it’s beyond usual logic and concepts inherent in language and thinking. This direct pointing was not invented by someone; it has found its way into existence through the simple path of no resistance, and travels from person to person following the path of least resistance, bursting naturally from pure joy of sharing.
Truth continuously hits the matter gently in the face. And it’s free. Prepare to dive. Take a deep breath.
There is no you to live life, but only life.
There is no you to comprehend, but only comprehension.
There is no you to think, but only thoughts.
There is no you to feel, but only feelings.
There is no you to love, but only love.
No you to die, but only death.
No you to exist, but only existence.
No you to understand, but only understanding.
No you to be, only being.
No you to be aware, just awareness.
THERE IS NO YOU.
Not a mysterious statement—just the simple truth. And it does not imply ‘being like the animals’, cold nothingness, nihilism or lack of motivation. It is mind-breakingly simple, takes a few minutes or a few weeks, tops, to realise, and requires just one thing: honest looking. That’s it. That’s the admission fee. It’s been covered with multiple layers of nice wishes, lotus flowers, loveliness, ceremonies, mistaken humbleness, worship, and meditating statues (not that this in it self is in any way wrong; rather it’s too often putting a flower-decorated golden wagon in front of the horse, thus covering the innocent mover), making people think it takes years or even lifetimes of practice to see. This means that most ‘seekers’ find it very hard to accept that there is any way it can be done right now.
But it is for sure an immediate thing. It takes no time to see it, and a few minutes of honest looking at it will forever put one beyond the ability to unsee it again. Dead end swamps will hereafter just be a means of keeping track of the stream.
Seeing this omnipresent reality, both in its manifest and in its unmanifest aspects, is the source of inspiration and intuitive enlightening experience of all seers and sages from beginningless time; it is not conditioned (or divided) by time. The light of truth is timeless. The enlightening experience is timeless; for time is thought and thought is ignorance.
This liberating awakening, this realisation, is quite different from what one has heard about or deduced from teaching obtained from external sources. Whereas in the case of the latter the object of study, investigation and understanding is apparently an object outside of the consciousness, the realisation arrived at in the former is of a special category.
It’s a shift in perspective happening, so to say. It’s spontaneous. It’s subtle. It’s profound. It’s deeply liberating.
When the ego’s quest for self-knowledge meets its counterpart—ignorance—and stands bewildered in choiceless encounter, there is an awakening from the illusion of a separate entity called ‘you’. Then the self- phantom instantly collapses.
A sudden insight, a shift from a centered you, to a ‘no you’; a void where you thought you were. A spontaneous pattern-change; a clarity. Everything else stays pretty much the same. Only, this realisation of no you changes all relations. Liberation is just our natural state of being.
Some describe it as letting go of a big burden. Some as being newborn. Some as home coming. And most are stunned by the fact that it’s so simple and yet never clearly seen, though it obviously has been right in the face all the time. Never not here.
And so, many burst into laughter. It’s been called a cosmic joke, because it’s realised that this was always here. Only the binding illusion of a ‘you’ made an apparent separation.
That unique indwelling omnipresence that is never tainted nor touched by the ground of actions and their reactions, which afflict the (apparent) individual; that which is leftover after the ego-ignorance-collapse; that seeing that the ‘you’ is an illusion, reveals the creative intelligence which is unconditioned by time; that alone prevails. There is oneness, never divided. It is therefore beyond ignorance and its progeny.
Surprise, surprise…there is no you, no self. There never was. It’s an open secret.
A gateless gate.
Keeping at it will get you through. Really, it will.
However, do not be fooled by the conceptual paradox that such gradual evolution implies cosmological or psychological distance to be covered. It should be added that this liberation—(passing the gateless gate, entering the stream, pure awareness, state of yoga, unconditioned creative intelligence, what-ever-words)—is very very close at hand, irrespective of the approach by the apparent ‘seeker’. If you are full of intense zeal, enthusiasm, energy and sincerity, it is possible to speedily overcome any obstacles, provided honesty is your compass.
Seeing through the illusion of a separate entity (self) is beyond words, labels and interpretations. There may be fluctuating loops with illusionary ideas of a self caught in a web. The obstruction is usually because we are creatures of habit, so despite intuitive glimpses that there isn’t a separate ‘I’ as a basis for experience, the thought continues as if there were an ‘I’ that can find out the mystery. But by steady honest looking at what this ‘I’ is, the mind will (although reluctantly) let go of its clinging to the illusion, stop categorizing, labeling, stop searching for another nut to crack, a new conceptual understanding, a new stage to reach. More jogging on the treadmill.
Only reluctantly the mind will admit that it hasn’t a popping-chicken-fart clue of what is going on, and shuts up when all expectations, ideas and concepts must be rejected.
In this silence a transcendental revelation happens that can not be conceptualized and understood. There is no ‘understander’.
Any idea of a goal ahead is just a new projection of habitual ideas in an attempt to maintain a conceptual understanding, and will inevitably create illusory identification with a ‘searcher’ who can find. And the ‘searcher’ is the obstacle that disrupts the flow of vibrant creative intelligence. The void or space is extremely dynamic though steadily silent. Emptiness is not separate from fullness (but we tend not to distinguish between differentiation and separation).
All phenomena, abstract or concrete, are structure (differentiation) in and of consciousness, as ocean waves are differentiating structure in and of water—an indivisible whole.
That is one. Only the illusion of the mind separates (Image-I-ning). The imagining of an ‘I’ or ‘you’, is no more real than the imagining of Santa Claus, a unicorn, Superman or Donald Duck. Life differentiates, fluctuates, varies in one perfectly coherent motion without cause and effect. The question of meaning is therefore merely a conceptual notion. The mind needs a Meaning; Life does not.
So, when you are honestly looking, fluctuating loops with illusionary ideas of a self and fear of annihilation bubbles up trying to distract. This fear is a mechanical response from the mind, programmed by its main assumption trying to protect its position. Steady honest looking at it will expose it’s looping trick. Then more and more ‘glimpse’ of liberation will be shining through until, by sudden balance shift, stable freedom is happening. There is no you doing it. There’s just clear honest looking. Pure awareness. It’s not that the mind is your enemy; far from it. It’s just how it works due to its programming. It comes by default as we learn language and it’s supported by everyone around. Why would we question whether we exist as separate beings if it is considered as common understanding beyond questioning?
Truth is never victorious, but resistance simply dies out. Conditioned habits will lose their grip when there is seeing that they have nothing to cling to. Honest looking has a natural flow. Complete surrender to the stream will soon happen and eventually lead to the ocean of unbounded freedom following the path of least resistance. Liberation is just our natural state of being.
When the mind-stuff is cleansed of distractional memory (not that the capacity to memorize is gone), the conditioning or the colouring (the impurity) is wiped out, as it were, and the pure substance or truth alone shines. Without distortion, logic or reasoning (which is the function or landmark of the limited personality). The self, or personality, which was nothing but fragments is seen as an illusion and collapses.
But be aware:
These are just words picked up in the flow. And they are like shadows from a visitor carrying a torch behind his back.
There is a danger of regarding words as names, for then they create forms or images which perpetuate ignorance while creating an illusion of knowledge (grasped by a knower)!!!!!
From wherever and whenever this insight is communicated, it has no connection with end-gaining, belief, practice or process. It cannot be taught but is constantly shared. Because it is all that is, no individual can lay claim to it. It need not be argued, proven or embellished, for it stands alone simply as it is, and can only remain unrecognised and rejected, or realised and lived.
So, look behind the words and behind your fears. Pure intuition is very helpful in this play.
Ready for ‘take off’? Fasten your seatbelt. Go Flying! Look for the pilot, and see that there is none.
TRUTH IS:
There is no you to live your life, but only life.
There is no you to comprehend, but only comprehension.
There is no you to think, but only thought.
There is no you to feel, but only feelings.
There is no you to love, but only love.
No you to die, but only death.
No you to exist, but only existence.
No you to understand, only understanding.
No you to see, only seeing.
No you to be, only being.
No you to be aware, just awareness.
So—doing less is accomplishing more, so to speak.
Is this true? Don’t take these words for it! Do not believe it. Belief is just belief. Check it!! Really. That’s the only way to find out.
THIS IS EVERYTHING NEEDED: Honesty as compass, intuition as vehicle. No expectations. Just steady honest looking beyond distractions, fear and resistance ’til there is SEEING:
THERE IS NO YOU. Honestly LOOK! Is this true?