Hi everyone
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Daily messages from Byron Katie:
http://www.thework.com/DailyMsgArchive.asp
For me, reality is God, because it rules.
When I argue with reality, I lose—but only 100% of the time.
When I am perfectly clear, what is is what I want.
Arguing with reality is like trying to teach a cat to bark—hopeless.
There are no physical problems—only mental ones.
We never make a decision. When the time is right, the decision makes itself.
The miracle of love comes to us in the presence of the uninterpreted moment.
IÂ’m very clear that everyone in the world loves me. I just donÂ’t expect them to realize it yet.
Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already have it—that you are it.
Nothing you believe is true. To know this is freedom.
You see only what you believe. Nothing else is possible.
Why are you upset? YouÂ’re believing what you think. Want to get sane? Question what you believe. -
Her experience is truly beautiful. Thanks...
Less than two weeks after I entered the halfway house, my life changed completely. What follows is a very approximate account.
One morning I woke up. I had been sleeping on the floor as usual. Nothing special had happened the night before; I just opened my eyes. But I was seeing without concepts, without thoughts or an internal story. There was no me. It was as if something else had woken up. It opened its eyes. It was looking through Katie's eyes. And it was crisp, it was clear, it was new, it had never been here before. Everything was unrecognizable. And it was so delighted! Laughter welled up from the depths and just poured out. It breathed and was ecstasy. It was intoxicated with joy: totally greedy for everything. There was nothing separate, nothing unacceptable to it. Everything was its very own self. For the first time I — it — experienced the love of its own life. I — it —was amazed!
In trying to be as accurate as possible, I am using the word “it” for this delighted, loving awareness, in which there was no me or world, and in which everything was included. There just isn't another way to say how completely new and fresh the awareness was. There was no I observing the “it.” There was nothing but the “it.” And even the realization of an “it” came later.
Let me say this in a different way. A foot appeared; there was a c0ckroach crawling over it. It opened its eyes, and there was something on the foot; or there was something on the foot, and then it opened its eyes — I don't know the sequence, because there was no time in any of this. So, to put it in slow motion: it opened its eyes, looked down at the foot, a c0ckroach was crawling across the ankle, and … it was awake! It was born. And from then on, it's been observing. But there wasn't a subject or an object. It was — is — everything it saw. There's no separation in it, anywhere.
All my rage, all the thoughts that had been troubling me, my whole world, the whole world, was gone. The only thing that existed was awareness. The foot and the c0ckroach weren't outside me; there was no outside or inside. It was all me. And I felt delight — absolute delight! There was nothing, and there was a whole world: walls and floor and ceiling and light and body, everything, in such fullness. But only what it could see: no more, no less.
Then it stood up, and that was amazing. There was no thinking, no plan. It just stood up and walked to the bathroom. It walked straight to a mirror, and it locked onto the eyes of its own reflection, and it understood. And that was even deeper than the delight it had known before. It fell in love with that being in the mirror. It was as if the woman and the awareness of the woman had permanently merged. There were only the eyes, and a sense of absolute vastness, with no knowledge in it. It was as if I — she — had been shot through with electricity. It was like God giving itself life through the body of the woman — God so loving and bright, so vast — and yet she knew that it was herself. It made such a deep connection with her eyes. There was no meaning to it, just a nameless recognition that consumed her.
Love is the best word I can find for it. It had been split apart, and now it was joined. There was it moving, and then it in the mirror, and then it joined as quickly as it had separated — it was all eyes. The eyes in the mirror were the eyes of it. And it gave itself back again , as it met again. And that gave it its identity, which I call love. As it looked in the mirror, the eyes — the depth of them— were all that was real, all that existed — prior to that, nothing. No eyes, no anything; even standing there, there was nothing. And then the eyes come out to give it what it is. People name things a wall, a ceiling, a foot, a hand. But it had no name for these things, because it's indivisible. And it's invisible. Until the eyes. Until the eyes. I remember tears of gratitude pouring down the cheeks as it looked at its own reflection. It stood there staring for I don't know how long.
These were the first moments after I was born as it, or it as me. There was nothing left of Katie. There was literally not even a shred of memory of her — no past, no future, not even a present. And in that openness, such joy. “There's nothing sweeter than this,” I felt; “there is nothing but this. If you loved yourself more than anything you could imagine, you would give yourself this. A face. A hand. Breath. But that's not enough. A wall. A ceiling. A window. A bed. Light bulbs. Ooh! And this too! And this too! And this too!”
(I love the way she expressed it
)
All this took place beyond time. But when I put it into language, I have to backtrack and fill in. While I was lying on the floor, I understood that when I was asleep, prior to c0ckroach or foot, prior to any thoughts, prior to any world, there is nothing. In that instant, the four questions of The Work were born. I understood that no thought is true. The whole of inquiry was already present in that understanding. It was like closing a gate and hearing it click shut. It wasn't I who woke up: inquiry woke up. The two polarities, the left and right of things, the something/nothing of it all, woke up. Both sides were equal. I understood this in that first instant of no-time .
So to say it again: As I was lying there in the awareness, as the awareness, the thought arose: It's a foot. And immediately I saw that it wasn't true, and that was the delight of it. I saw that it was all backward. It's not a foot; it's not a c0ckroach. It wasn't true, and yet there was a foot, there was a c0ckroach. It opened its eyes and saw a foot, and a c0ckroach crawling over the foot. But there was no name for these things. There were no separate words for foot or c0ckroach or wall or any of it. So it was looking at its entire body, looking at itself, with no name. Nothing was separate from it, nothing was outside it, it was all pulsing with life and delight, and it was all one unbroken experience. To separate that wholeness and see anything as outside itself, wasn't true. The foot existed, yet it wasn't a separate thing, and to call it a “foot,” or an anything, felt like a lie. It was absurd. And the laughter kept pouring out of me. I saw that c0ckroach and foot are names for joy, that there are no names for what appears as real now. This was the birth of awareness: thought reflecting back as itself, seeing itself as everything, surrounded by the vast ocean of its own laughter.
When I try to explain how The Work was born in that instant of realization, I can analyze the instant, slow it down, and tell it so that it takes on time. But this is giving time to an instant that wasn't even an instant. In that no-time, everything was known and seen as nothing. It saw a foot, and it knew that it wasn't a foot, and it loved that it was. The first and second of the four questions is like the slow-motion mechanics of the experience. “It's a foot” — is that true? Can I absolutely know that it's true? No. What was it like before the thought of “foot” appeared, before there was the world of “foot”? Nothing.
Then the third question: How do I react when I believe the thought? I was aware that there's always a contraction, that when I believe any thought I create a world separate from myself, an object that is apparently “out there,” and that the contraction is a form of suffering. And the fourth: Who would I be without that thought? I would be prior to thought, I would be — I am — peace, absolute joy. Then the turnaround: It's a foot / it's not a foot. Actually, all four questions were present in the first — Is it true? — and everything was already released in the instant that the first question was asked. The second, third, and fourth questions were embedded in the inquiry that was there in the experience. There were no words for any of the questions — they were not explicit, not thought, not experienced in time, but present as possibilities when I looked at my experience later and tried to make it available for people. With the fourth question the circle is complete. And then the turnaround is the grounding, the re-entry. There's nothing / there's something. And in that way people can be held without the terror of being nothing, without identity. The turnaround holds them until it's a comfortable place. And they realize that nowhere to go is really where they already are. -
Originally posted by JonLS:
Beautiful ... thanks for the sharing.
Daily messages from Byron Katie:
http://www.thework.com/DailyMsgArchive.asp
[b]For me, reality is God, because it rules.
When I argue with reality, I lose—but only 100% of the time.
When I am perfectly clear, what is is what I want.
Arguing with reality is like trying to teach a cat to bark—hopeless.
There are no physical problems—only mental ones.
We never make a decision. When the time is right, the decision makes itself.
The miracle of love comes to us in the presence of the uninterpreted moment.
IÂ’m very clear that everyone in the world loves me. I just donÂ’t expect them to realize it yet.
Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already have it—that you are it.
Nothing you believe is true. To know this is freedom.
You see only what you believe. Nothing else is possible.
Why are you upset? YouÂ’re believing what you think. Want to get sane? Question what you believe. [/b] -
Back to work.
The exchanges have been great. All the best, JonLS and LongChen! -
Goodbye Thusness,
It was wonderful meeting you.
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JonLS, Hope to see you around soon
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JonLS, Hope to see you around soon
Sooner than you think!!!
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If you are looking for anything beyond "This", the present moment, then know that ego/mind is still asserting itself, is still dominant.
All there is is This.
Rest in This.
This is the ground of being. -
Welcome backOriginally posted by JonLS:Sooner than you think!!! -
wonderful...Originally posted by JonLS:If you are looking for anything beyond "This", the present moment, then know that ego/mind is still asserting itself, is still dominant.
All there is is This.
Rest in This.
This is the ground of being. -
Interesting...Originally posted by Thusness:Her experience is truly beautiful. Thanks... -
Yes there is nothing beyond 'This'. The 'what is' of the present moment. Attempting to go beyond 'what is' results in the arising of thoughts.Originally posted by JonLS:If you are looking for anything beyond "This", the present moment, then know that ego/mind is still asserting itself, is still dominant.
All there is is This.
Rest in This.
This is the ground of being.
Which is, still 'This'. -
Hi JonLS,
Read some of Tony Parsons articles. Pretty thorough on the aspect of non-duality and with all due respect to him, I think he still misses some points. But before that, what do you think is the factor that prevents one from seeing what 'Eternal Witness' is? Why initially there is a constant fall back to the Source? -
This is from John Wheeler's website:
http://www.employees.org/~johnwhee/index.html
(Click on "Pointers" at the top of the webpage)It all comes down to clarifying your identity. You are already present. So there is no need to look for a future state, experience or attainment. What you are seeking to know is not separate or distant, since it is your own self. What you are must be always with you. Anything which appears and disappears cannot, by definition, be what you are. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions, experiences, objects — these all come and go. None of them as such can be the essence of what you are. So set those aside and continue to look into your true nature. What is left to consider? Surprisingly little!
John Wheeler is a student of Sailor Bob Adamson:
However, you are still present. You are still aware. Look at this presence of awareness itself. Having discarded all else, this is the only possible remainder and must be what you are. Your existence is beyond any doubt, and what you are is brightly aware. You are that knowing presence which is registering all thoughts, feelings and experiences. Look directly into this. This is the heart and essence of all paths and teachings.
Notice that thoughts arise and set, but this presence — your own natural being — remains constant. There is no need to wait for the future to see this, nor is there any need for a special practice, technique or approach — simply because it is already present. You do not need to make any effort to be present and aware. It is completely natural and effortless. Look now and notice that what you are and the sense of presence-awareness are not two different things. You are that which is present and aware. Many words are used to point to this essential nature: presence, awareness, consciousness, life, spirit, emptiness, being, God, oneness and so on. These all simply pointers. And what they are pointing to is your true nature — nothing more or less.
The body and mind may suffer experiences, yet awareness, your natural being, remains unaffected and uncompromised, just like the sun ever shining beyond the clouds and utterly untouched by them. Your being has no suffering, doubts or problems at all. See all this and you will find that your true nature is ever-present awareness, changeless being and undisturbed freedom and peace itself. These are just additional pointers to the same wordless, non-theoretical presence of your true nature.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~adamson7/intro.html -
Hi Thusness,
I am not feeling as "clear" today as before, this happens often, there seems to be an ebb and flow to awareness.Read some of Tony Parsons articles. Pretty thorough on the aspect of non-duality and with all due respect to him, I think he still misses some points. But before that, what do you think is the factor that prevents one from seeing what 'Eternal Witness' is? Why initially there is a constant fall back to the Source?
I don't know.
I'm afraid I don't even understand the question.
I look forward to your answer, to being enlightened!
(Please read my next post before answering.) -
This is not exactly true... He sees presences as separate from thoughts...Originally posted by JonLS:This is from John Wheeler's website:
http://www.employees.org/~johnwhee/index.html
(Click on "Pointers" at the top of the webpage)
quote:It all comes down to clarifying your identity. You are already present. So there is no need to look for a future state, experience or attainment. What you are seeking to know is not separate or distant, since it is your own self. What you are must be always with you. Anything which appears and disappears cannot, by definition, be what you are. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions, experiences, objects — these all come and go. None of them as such can be the essence of what you are. So set those aside and continue to look into your true nature. What is left to consider? Surprisingly little!
However, you are still present. You are still aware. Look at this presence of awareness itself. Having discarded all else, this is the only possible remainder and must be what you are. Your existence is beyond any doubt, and what you are is brightly aware. You are that knowing presence which is registering all thoughts, feelings and experiences. Look directly into this. This is the heart and essence of all paths and teachings.
Notice that thoughts arise and set, but this presence — your own natural being — remains constant. There is no need to wait for the future to see this, nor is there any need for a special practice, technique or approach — simply because it is already present. You do not need to make any effort to be present and aware. It is completely natural and effortless. Look now and notice that what you are and the sense of presence-awareness are not two different things. You are that which is present and aware. Many words are used to point to this essential nature: presence, awareness, consciousness, life, spirit, emptiness, being, God, oneness and so on. These all simply pointers. And what they are pointing to is your true nature — nothing more or less.
The body and mind may suffer experiences, yet awareness, your natural being, remains unaffected and uncompromised, just like the sun ever shining beyond the clouds and utterly untouched by them. Your being has no suffering, doubts or problems at all. See all this and you will find that your true nature is ever-present awareness, changeless being and undisturbed freedom and peace itself. These are just additional pointers to the same wordless, non-theoretical presence of your true nature.
John Wheeler is a student of Sailor Bob Adamson:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~adamson7/intro.html
What he percieved is thru 'the eternal witness' or pure observer... which is a very subtle witnessing... or 'cross referencing'.
This pure observer is also within the flow... it is not unchanging...In fact, it is changing all the time... in the stream too...so to speak -
Hi Thusness,
I just reread this:For the purpose of discussion, I would like to introduce you one concept, it is the "seed of pre-conscious propensities";;. It is a layer of ‘bond’ that prevents us from ‘seeing’ something…it is very subtle, very thin, very fine…it goes almost undetected. What this ‘bond’ does is it prevents us from ‘seeing’ what “WITNESS” really is and makes us constantly fall back to the Witness, to the Source, to the Center . Every moment we want to sink back to Witness, to the Center, to this Beingness, this is an illusion. It is habitual and almost hypnotic.
Now I understand your question!
But what exactly is this “witness” we are talking about? It is the manifestation itself! It is the appearance itself! There is no Source to fall back, the Appearance is the Source! Including the moment to moment of thoughts. The problem is we choose, but all is really it. There is nothing to choose.
There is no mirror reflecting
Manifestation alone IS.
There is no invisible witness hiding anywhere. Whenever we attempt to fall back to this “an invisible transparent image “, it is again the mind game of thought. It is the ‘bond’ at work. I wonder this make sense to you. -
Hi Longchen,
This is not exactly true... He sees presences as separate from thoughts...
Yes, I think I know what you mean here.
What he percieved is thru 'the eternal witness' or pure observer... which is a very subtle witnessing... or 'cross referencing'.
This pure observer is also within the flow... it is not unchanging...In fact, it is changing all the time... in the stream too...so to speak
You're saying there is a mirror reflecting.
Is that right? -
Hi again Longchen,
I took this from the John Wheeler's talk I posted:However, you are still present. You are still aware. Look at this presence of awareness itself. Having discarded all else, this is the only possible remainder and must be what you are. Your existence is beyond any doubt, and what you are is brightly aware. You are that knowing presence which is registering all thoughts, feelings and experiences.
So he is saying here that you are the awareness but that thoughts, feelings and external objects are separate.
Notice that thoughts arise and set, but this presence — your own natural being — remains constant.
Is this what you are pointing to?
And the truth of the matter of course is that there is no seperation, absolutely everything within the present moment, everything that is, is It! It is all One. No separation. Separation is appearance only!
And Thusness will explain why this appearance of separation of awareness from everything else occurs.
That was his question to me.
Why we fall back into trying to be just the awareness, when in fact we are everything. -
jon you read longchen wrong he is trying to say awareness and mind are not separate
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Jonls knows, read his post againOriginally posted by Cenarious:jon you read longchen wrong he is trying to say awareness and mind are not separate -
Hi Jon,Originally posted by JonLS:Notice that thoughts arise and set, but this presence — your own natural being — remains constant.
I think Cenarious is right.
Presence is in everything. It is not a constant(witness /source) witnessing mind/manifestation.
In deep meditation, what i perceived was that... there is no witness apart from the being witnessed. But you may ask...how can it be?
Moment to moment arises in incredibly fast sequences. There is, however, a continuity in them. This continuity is caused by 'cause and effect'. The subsequent thought is the 'effect' of the preceded ones. The subsequence moment is the 'witness' of the preceded one.
Therefore, the 'witness' is within/is the manifestation/mind. Compounded with the knowingness that is in-built in presence/awareness, the impression of a constant witness comes about.
Just my understanding. Thusness may have a better understanding -
deleted wtf whatever
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Yes moment to moment arises in incredibly fast sequences.Buddha taught that all existence is impermanent because there is nothing internal or external whatsoever which is permanent, stable, lasting, not subject to decay and destruction, and forever the same. Everything changes continuously. Existence is like the flowing water of a river or the burning flame of a candle, which is never the same in two consecutive moments.Originally posted by longchen:Hi Jon,
I think Cenarious is right.
Presence is in everything. It is not a constant(witness /source) witnessing mind/manifestation.
In deep meditation, what i perceived was that... there is no witness apart from the being witnessed. But you may ask...how can it be?
Moment to moment arises in incredibly fast sequences. There is, however, a continuity in them. This continuity is caused by 'cause and effect'. The subsequent thought is the 'effect' of the preceded ones. The subsequence moment is the 'witness' of the preceded one.
Therefore, the 'witness' is within/is the manifestation/mind. Compounded with the knowingness that is in-built in presence/awareness, the impression of a constant witness comes about.
Just my understanding. Thusness may have a better understanding -
Hi everyone,
I posted this on another discussion board and would appreciate some feedback here also.I keep having this recurring dream, over and over again.
I have been a substitute teacher for the last 15 years before retiring this year.
As such I have been in many difficult classes where some semblance of control was paramount.
In this recurring dream, I have a difficult class, I ask them repeatedly to stop talking and to do their work.
This doesn't work at all.
So I go to each student individually, get right in front of them, right in their face, and ask them very forcefully to stop talking and do their work.
This works momentarily, the student stops talking and starts to work, barely acknowledging my presence.
As soon as I leave this student to go and talk to some other student, the first student ceases to concentrate on working and goes back to talking with his friends.
This goes on and on in the dream, I get very tired, very hoarse, very discouraged.
But I am completely identified with the task at hand, there is no space, no acceptance, there is complete unconsciousness.
When I woke up this morning the dream was still very vivid and very painfully in my mind.
I wondered what to do about the situation.
It dawned on me that I should just accept the situation, accept it deeply, and so I did.
I accepted the fact I had this unconscious dream that recurred time and time again.
And then it dawned on me that this dream is pointing out that there is still unconsciousness within me, and this unconsciousness is at an unconscious level and is showing up as this dream.
And so I accepted fully the fact that there is deep unconsciousness within.
And then this situation reminded me of Claudia's posts, about how she complains about being completely identified with mind.
And then I had a moment of insight.
The insight is that I am not only totally identified with the story of my own awakening but I am also totally identified with wanting other people to awaken also.
I am forever posting wanting to help, wanting to guide, wanting to inspire.
What if this is all a dream?
What if there is nothing that needs to be done at all?
This was painful to look at. ( a dead giveaway that I am on to something!)
This caused total confusion, complete "not knowing" and disorientation. (another good sign)
And so I have to accept the fact that this is all a dream, there really is no one to help, everything is fine the way it is.
And still this leaves "me" completely lost, completely disoriented.
And that is completely ok.