What does Enigma mean when he writes, "The key to salvation is losing interest in salvation."? Why do so many sages and spiritual masters emphasize the importance of attention? Why do teachers recommend meditation or ATA? Why did Jesus tell people to "look within" or "become like a little child."? Why does EM say that nothing is happening or that there is no one who can make a choice?
The problem for most of us is that mind is dominant. We spend all of our time thinking ABOUT the world rather than simply being. The average adult probably thinks a thousand or more self-referential thoughts each day. Our thinking reinforces the illusion that there is someone separate, "me," who thinks thoughts and interacts with an external world. If we didn't think such thoughts, or didn't believe such thoughts, who we think we are would vanish. Who we think we are is a thought, only. Who we REALLY are is unimaginable and boundless. How can our true nature be discovered? By turning attention away from thoughts to "what is." Does this mean that we have to stop thinking? No, but it means that we have to become free of thought long enough to see what's going on.
Why do some of us recommend ATA, or mindfulness, or breath awareness, or physical activity rather than remaining focused on reflective thought? Because it helps us to see through illusions generated by incessant thought.
The truth is unified and complete. It is alive and whole. It is intelligent and conscious. In the form of human beings it can imagine, and it usually becomes identified with what it imagines. We can call the truth THIS, or God, or Reality, or Oneness, or anything else that appeals to us. Who we really are is THAT. Who we imagine we are is a person, a human being, a father or mother, a businesswoman or housewife, etc. Because we are THAT there is nothing to get and nowhere to go. We are the whole shebang, the entire kit and kaboodle. If we look at the stars in the night sky, we are looking at ourself. If we drink a glass of water, we are drinking ourself. If we write a post on this forum, we are writing to ourself. There is no OTHER; there are not two here.
Most of us are attached to thoughts that appear in the mind's eye, particularly incessant thoughts. We have thousands of ideas, and our ideas jerk us around like puppets on a string. We imagine that the world should conform to what we imagine. We imagine that people should act in certain ways. We name, and judge, and interpret, and comment on everything we see, and this habit keeps us trapped in a heap of confusion.
Watch a small child. A small child has no self-consciousness and no ego. It is pure awareness and pure action. It sees and interacts with the real world, with THIS, and it does not imagine that it is separate from THIS. It does not even think about THIS. It is happy, free, and content without knowing it is happy, free, or content, and it never thinks about such idiotic things as happiness, freedom, or contentment.
The sage lives life just like a little child, but retains the capacity and power of intellectual thought. The sage is not a child; she is childlike. She has discovered that there is only NOW, so she doesn't waste much time thinking about the past or future. She is action-oriented, and she uses the mind only when it is necessary. She has no beliefs, and she is not attached to any thoughts. From her POV she lives in an empty/full suchness that is "just like this"---doing whatever has to be done, and then doing the next thing that has to be done. She lives in a state of infinite flow.
There is no separate person who can make progress from ignorance to understanding. There is no separate person who can get enlightened. There are no separate states. There is only THIS. THIS can wake up to Itself, but when that happens, it becomes obvious that nothing really happened, and there was no one to whom anything could happen.
The consensual meta-reality (the consensus trance) that most of us perceive is a kind of mental structure created by imagination and incessant thinking. This structure can collapse. When it collapses, it involves the total disintegration of everything that one has previously "known" and imagined as reality. When this happens, the brain undergoes a massive transformation. Some people have this happen in numerous minor "shifts," insights, and realizations. Other people, like Tolle, Kabir, or the Buddha, experience a complete collapse/realization all at once.
People who wake up give other people advice based upon what seemed to work for them. Ramana woke up after doing self-inquiry, so his best-known teaching was self-inquiry. The Buddha woke up after meditating, so he advised people to meditate. Niz woke up by staying conscious of the I AM (his sense of existence), so he recommended the same thing. Tolle woke up in a rather strange way after suffering extreme despair and contemplating an odd thought, so he recommends a wide range of different activities, most of which involve becoming present.
Some people will resonate with particular kinds of advice and be turned off by other kinds of advice. One size does not fit all. The main thing is to look at what every sage's advice has in common. As posted previously, here is the general advice summarized:
1. Be here now
2. Look, listen, smell, feel, taste, attend
3. Just do it! (Become action oriented rather than reflective)
4. Become like a little child
5. Give up oughts and shoulds
6. Look within, do self-inquiry
7. Look at the world without naming, cognizing, imagining, interpreting, judging, etc.
8. Stay in a not-knowing state of mind
9. Shift attention from thoughts to what is actual
10. Be mindful (watch everything that's happening)
11. Become as a passer-by
The truth is spread out before everyone's eyes, but attention usually stays focused upon thoughts. We wash dishes while thinking about our plans for tomorrow. We eat dinner while thinking about a conversation we had last week. We go through the day constantly thinking about who we think we are, what we want, where we're going, where we've been, what we have or don't have, and our innumerable personal stories that make up the big story of who we think we are. The living truth is contantly overlooked. When it is momentarily seen, it is ignored because it seems so ordinary. We look for bells and whistles and explosions while ignoring the taste of our food, or the feeling of water while washing our hands. We drive to work, and never see anything but our thoughts about the coming day. We go out for a walk but listen to the radio on our headphones. We look at a scenic vista on vacation and mentally compare it to other places we've been in the past. Because we practice living in our heads we stay in our heads while the truth dances all around us.
The truth is simple and obvious. It is typing words on a computer, reading words on a computer screen, looking at a flower, feeling a breeze on our face, listening to birds singing in the trees, watching squirrels jump from limb to limb. To find the truth, and discover what the word "oneness" points to, we only have to look at, and interact with, the world like a little child, without knowing, thinking, reflecting, cognizing, imagining, labeling, interpreting, or commenting.
The absolute simplest advice of all is contained in Psalms 46:10, "Be still."
If one does nothing more than become still and watch, the heavens must eventually unfold.
The problem for most of us is that mind is dominant. We spend all of our time thinking ABOUT the world rather than simply being. The average adult probably thinks a thousand or more self-referential thoughts each day. Our thinking reinforces the illusion that there is someone separate, "me," who thinks thoughts and interacts with an external world. If we didn't think such thoughts, or didn't believe such thoughts, who we think we are would vanish. Who we think we are is a thought, only. Who we REALLY are is unimaginable and boundless. How can our true nature be discovered? By turning attention away from thoughts to "what is." Does this mean that we have to stop thinking? No, but it means that we have to become free of thought long enough to see what's going on.
Why do some of us recommend ATA, or mindfulness, or breath awareness, or physical activity rather than remaining focused on reflective thought? Because it helps us to see through illusions generated by incessant thought.
The truth is unified and complete. It is alive and whole. It is intelligent and conscious. In the form of human beings it can imagine, and it usually becomes identified with what it imagines. We can call the truth THIS, or God, or Reality, or Oneness, or anything else that appeals to us. Who we really are is THAT. Who we imagine we are is a person, a human being, a father or mother, a businesswoman or housewife, etc. Because we are THAT there is nothing to get and nowhere to go. We are the whole shebang, the entire kit and kaboodle. If we look at the stars in the night sky, we are looking at ourself. If we drink a glass of water, we are drinking ourself. If we write a post on this forum, we are writing to ourself. There is no OTHER; there are not two here.
Most of us are attached to thoughts that appear in the mind's eye, particularly incessant thoughts. We have thousands of ideas, and our ideas jerk us around like puppets on a string. We imagine that the world should conform to what we imagine. We imagine that people should act in certain ways. We name, and judge, and interpret, and comment on everything we see, and this habit keeps us trapped in a heap of confusion.
Watch a small child. A small child has no self-consciousness and no ego. It is pure awareness and pure action. It sees and interacts with the real world, with THIS, and it does not imagine that it is separate from THIS. It does not even think about THIS. It is happy, free, and content without knowing it is happy, free, or content, and it never thinks about such idiotic things as happiness, freedom, or contentment.
The sage lives life just like a little child, but retains the capacity and power of intellectual thought. The sage is not a child; she is childlike. She has discovered that there is only NOW, so she doesn't waste much time thinking about the past or future. She is action-oriented, and she uses the mind only when it is necessary. She has no beliefs, and she is not attached to any thoughts. From her POV she lives in an empty/full suchness that is "just like this"---doing whatever has to be done, and then doing the next thing that has to be done. She lives in a state of infinite flow.
There is no separate person who can make progress from ignorance to understanding. There is no separate person who can get enlightened. There are no separate states. There is only THIS. THIS can wake up to Itself, but when that happens, it becomes obvious that nothing really happened, and there was no one to whom anything could happen.
The consensual meta-reality (the consensus trance) that most of us perceive is a kind of mental structure created by imagination and incessant thinking. This structure can collapse. When it collapses, it involves the total disintegration of everything that one has previously "known" and imagined as reality. When this happens, the brain undergoes a massive transformation. Some people have this happen in numerous minor "shifts," insights, and realizations. Other people, like Tolle, Kabir, or the Buddha, experience a complete collapse/realization all at once.
People who wake up give other people advice based upon what seemed to work for them. Ramana woke up after doing self-inquiry, so his best-known teaching was self-inquiry. The Buddha woke up after meditating, so he advised people to meditate. Niz woke up by staying conscious of the I AM (his sense of existence), so he recommended the same thing. Tolle woke up in a rather strange way after suffering extreme despair and contemplating an odd thought, so he recommends a wide range of different activities, most of which involve becoming present.
Some people will resonate with particular kinds of advice and be turned off by other kinds of advice. One size does not fit all. The main thing is to look at what every sage's advice has in common. As posted previously, here is the general advice summarized:
1. Be here now
2. Look, listen, smell, feel, taste, attend
3. Just do it! (Become action oriented rather than reflective)
4. Become like a little child
5. Give up oughts and shoulds
6. Look within, do self-inquiry
7. Look at the world without naming, cognizing, imagining, interpreting, judging, etc.
8. Stay in a not-knowing state of mind
9. Shift attention from thoughts to what is actual
10. Be mindful (watch everything that's happening)
11. Become as a passer-by
The truth is spread out before everyone's eyes, but attention usually stays focused upon thoughts. We wash dishes while thinking about our plans for tomorrow. We eat dinner while thinking about a conversation we had last week. We go through the day constantly thinking about who we think we are, what we want, where we're going, where we've been, what we have or don't have, and our innumerable personal stories that make up the big story of who we think we are. The living truth is contantly overlooked. When it is momentarily seen, it is ignored because it seems so ordinary. We look for bells and whistles and explosions while ignoring the taste of our food, or the feeling of water while washing our hands. We drive to work, and never see anything but our thoughts about the coming day. We go out for a walk but listen to the radio on our headphones. We look at a scenic vista on vacation and mentally compare it to other places we've been in the past. Because we practice living in our heads we stay in our heads while the truth dances all around us.
The truth is simple and obvious. It is typing words on a computer, reading words on a computer screen, looking at a flower, feeling a breeze on our face, listening to birds singing in the trees, watching squirrels jump from limb to limb. To find the truth, and discover what the word "oneness" points to, we only have to look at, and interact with, the world like a little child, without knowing, thinking, reflecting, cognizing, imagining, labeling, interpreting, or commenting.
The absolute simplest advice of all is contained in Psalms 46:10, "Be still."
If one does nothing more than become still and watch, the heavens must eventually unfold.
