Liberation is not instrumental. We cannot use it for our profit in any way. If liberation is seen, the experience of life may be improved or not, because there are no rules.
An interest in liberation either arises or it does not. If it does, that’s a mystery. If it does not, that’s a mystery. In either case, it has nothing to do with who we think we are.
Dear Richard, Your interview on conscious.tv chimed with me. Some time ago, when I was out walking, I suddenly saw that everything—the sky, the moors, the stone walls—was just as much me as this body is. There was nothing external to me. I was filled with wonder at the revelation that there is no border between me and the external world. Since then I have tried to talk about this to friends but I’m met with incomprehension and disquiet, so I’ve learnt to stay silent.
I have one question for you. Do some aspects of liberation deepen for you as time apparently goes by and do you notice new aspects that weren’t noticed before? Best wishes, Jason
Dear Jason, Thank you for your description, which I enjoyed reading. To answer your question, liberation simply is, so it does not deepen. But that which arises within liberation is constantly changing and this may involve the noticing of new aspects, or new realisations, or a deepening of certain experiences. Really this is no different to ‘before’ liberation, to use time-bound terms. Being asleep and being awake are the same thing.
Dear Richard, I very much relate to the experiences that you describe during awakening. But I find that I am also experiencing a lot of fear, as if this waking dream is so fragile that it could disappear at any moment. I think that I am still recovering from the initial shock of seeing that my life is only a dream.
I realise that this fear is also part of the dream and that there is nothing wrong with it, but it is very uncomfortable. Can you suggest anything which might help me with it? Best wishes, Jason
Dear Jason, I don’t usually give advice or make recommendations, but the therapist in me would say that the best thing to do with the fear you are feeling is simply to pay attention to it on a visceral level. In other words, locate where it is in your body and just focus on it for as long as you are comfortably able to. This is much more effective than getting caught up in the stories in your head about what it may be about. Do this regularly and just notice what happens without trying to change anything. It may get stronger or weaker or reveal some other feeling underneath it. Just go along innocently with whatever happens. Eventually it will transform. Best wishes, Richard
IS THE IDEA OF SELF AN ILLUSION?
Is the idea of the self an illusion that develops during our growing up? Could it be said that non-duality is actually our natural state? When non-duality is seen, is that a return to our natural state through the removal of delusion?
The sense that there is an autonomous individual, or self, is much more than an idea. In other words, the sense of separation that arises along with self-consciousness when we are children is more than conceptual, and this is why we cannot rid ourselves of it with the mind. As the sense of separation is so powerful for most people, I call it an appearance rather than an illusion. ‘Illusion’ sounds too ephemeral and suggests it would be rather easy to see through.
You are right, non-duality is a return to the natural state of being. It could be described as “the removal of delusion”, but we are powerless to remove it. However, it can simply drop away.
DESPAIR, GOING CRAZY AND COMPETITIVE ENLIGHTENMENT
Recently for a while I disappeared and I was just left seeing nothing, in the way that you and Tony Parsons and Nathan Gill have written about.
However, I’ve been reading a lot of conflicting stuff about this and I find myself becoming very fearful and despairing as a result. One so-called ‘enlightened master’ writes that he no longer engages with the world in any normal way. He doesn’t have any relationships any more or do any normal activities. What’s more, he says that this is the mark of ‘absolute enlightenment’, and anyone who doesn’t experience it like this is not fully enlightened.
He also says there is awakening ‘in’ the dream and awakening ‘from’ the dream, and that most ‘awakened beings’ are not fully awakened because they are not awakened from the dream. He has lots of other very complex ideas about enlightenment, and he frightens me with all the stuff that he says we should do. A different writer that I’ve come across also uses the term ‘absolute enlightenment’ and claims it gives access to ‘the fourth dimension’.
However, when I read you, Tony, Nathan and a few others, you all sound much more relaxed about enlightenment. I like this but it leaves me feeling very confused. So is enlightenment some spectacular state involving the fourth dimension, whatever that is, or are these stories simply misleading?
Do I have to go mad to see Oneness?
I wouldn’t describe awakening as ‘I’ seeing nothing. I would describe it as the seeing of nothing because ‘I’ am not there anymore. In awakening ‘I’ comes back afterwards. In liberation, ‘I’ leaves the stage and doesn’t come back.
Liberation doesn’t lead to despair because in liberation the fullness of nothing is seen, the fullness that is unconditional love. But awakening can lead to despair because in awakening only the emptiness of nothing is seen. The person who comes back after that seeing often feels helpless and hopeless.
You certainly don’t have to go mad to see Oneness because seeing Oneness has nothing to do with you, whether mad or sane. Seeing Oneness happens in spite of you, not because of anything you do or anything you are.
It sounds to me like the ‘enlightened master’ you refer to is peddling competitive enlightenment. Liberation is simply the seeing of the emptiness and the fullness of nothing. Everything else is just stuff happening. If liberation is seen, it doesn’t matter whether there’s still an engagement with the normal activities of the world and relationships or not. Whatever happens, happens. The world may very much still be enjoyed as play. In fact a delight in whatever is present often occurs in liberation.
Remember that detachment, which can be developed through techniques by a person, is often mistaken for enlightenment. Detachment is cold, empty and sterile. It has no value. Non-attachment, on the other hand, may make life flow more easily.
Awakening ‘from’ the dream is physical death. Awakening ‘to’ the dream is liberation while the body-mind is still alive. You might like to look at Leo Hartong’s book, ‘Awakening to the Dream’, on this point.
I feel that I am opening up gradually to this, although my mind still wants a special event to happen. The seeing of nothing or emptiness that happened seems to me to be grace. Perhaps I am already mad but I don’t feel this is the case.
Yes, you are right, awakening and liberation are grace. And yes, you are right, awakening and liberation can happen gradually. There are no rules about this at all.
If you don’t feel you are mad, then you are probably not. When the fullness of liberation is seen as well as its emptiness, that is the end of all searching.
Thank you for that. I’ve been searching for enlightenment for a long time, and now for the first time I’m beginning to realise that maybe I don’t have to become enlightened.
Yes, that’s really important. You don’t have to become enlightened. In fact you cannot become enlightened. Liberation can only be seen when you are not there. That is the core of this.
DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF NON-DUALITY
A book on non-duality that I’ve read recently says that ‘consciousness’ exists and that we can become enlightened if we become increasingly aware of consciousness. This seems to be a method that the writer prescribes.
You and Tony Parsons seem to see things differently. You write that there simply is no one and no self. I’m very drawn to your message that there is no method and no right or wrong. I also like it that you say that from the standpoint of liberation everything is meaningless and without purpose.
Would you agree that there are very different versions of non-duality out there in the ‘enlightenment market place’?
Oh yes, of course there are different versions of non-duality out there, just as there are different versions of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, psychoanalysis and Marxism. The disputatious mind will always create different versions in all matters and there’s no reason why non-duality would be any different.
Dennis Waite gives a summary of what he sees as the three main strands in non-duality. He calls them ‘traditional Advaita’, ‘neo-Advaita’ and ‘pseudo-Advaita’. A brief outline of his model is that in traditional Advaita there is liberation and a path to liberation, in neo-Advaita there is liberation but no path to liberation, and in pseudo-Advaita there is neither liberation nor a path to liberation.
“In traditional Advaita there is something to be realised and a path or practices that can lead to this, in neo-Advaita there is something to be realised but no path or practices that can lead to this, and in pseudo-Advaita there is neither something to be realised nor any path or practices.”
According to his own description, Dennis would fall clearly into the traditional Advaita camp and Tony Parsons and I would fall clearly into the neo-Advaita camp. Of course none of this has any importance at all, but it can sometimes be very entertaining. And it’s amusing to consider that there might be three different kinds of Oneness.
In case you are not confused enough already, I recently saw a book on non-duality which, while rejecting paths and practices, promised nevertheless that it contained ‘detailed instructions’ for ‘a practiceless practice’. So as with religion, there is never any end to the sophisticated madness that our mischievous monkey minds can produce.
Can awakening happen slowly bit by bit? Some years ago there was a kind of awakening for me, but after that everything went on as before for a long time. Then a little while ago there was a subtle emotional change. I’m not so upset by events now and there is a profound feeling of peace inside me. Sometimes I seem to be observing myself as if I were a robot, or as if everything’s happening in my absence. I also have a much stronger impulse to be alone than I’ve ever had before.
Yes, awakening can definitely happen slowly. I know someone who had a very clear awakening when she was seven. It was a long time before any further realisation. The recent changes that you write about—not being so upset by events, peacefulness and an impulse to be alone—are common characteristics of awakening. I know of many other individuals who experience them. Your description of observing yourself as if you were a robot reminds me of another common characteristic of awakening, the seeing that although events happen, there is no doer.
I have had a very troubled life. I am often overwhelmed by the thought that I have ruined my life through making a lot of bad decisions. This makes me depressed. Although I know that there are no bad or good decisions from the ultimate standpoint of non-duality, I haven’t really accepted this on a deep level and so I still suffer. Have you any comment?
Many individuals feel as you do. They miss the moment, or presence, or This so often because they are lost in regrets about an imagined past. But as you say, there were no good or bad decisions and, more importantly, there was never anyone to make them. There was also no past to make them in.
When this is directly seen, regret is likely to fall away or to be seen through or at the very least to diminish. Even the mental understanding of this can sometimes bring relief. Apart from that, it is a question of making the apparent prison more comfortable and that can be done in a variety of ways.
I didn’t quite understand what you meant at the end of your reply. Did you mean that I can decide to have more comfortable thoughts?
I would not say that you can decide to have more comfortable thoughts. Nevertheless, an inclination might arise to do things that tend to produce more comfortable thoughts and feelings. For example, doing simple things that we enjoy, spending time in green places, taking exercise, being kind to people and animals, have all been shown to alleviate depressive thoughts and feelings to some extent. Some people also find meditation or mindfulness helpful.
Of course none of this has anything to do with seeing non-duality. Ultimately it may be seen that there is no one who has depressive thoughts or who spends time in green places or who is mindful.
My depression is compounded because I seem to have had a lot of bad luck. To me this seems inexplicable. Is everything that has happened to me coincidence or was it predestined?
I’ll try to give you an answer, but the problem is that the mind always deals in stories. So if I say that neither of those stories are true, the mind simply looks for another one. I can say that it is a waste of time looking for explanations for that which is unknowable, but the mind won’t accept this.
‘Coincidence’ and ‘predestination’ are each equally stories to explain the inexplicable. You touch on this when you use the word ‘inexplicable’ yourself. Why something happened to you can never be known. All explanations are stories, invented by the mind because it hates uncertainty. Meanwhile, there is just This, just Oneness and whatever is arising in Oneness. Or we could say that there is just whatever Oneness is arising as.
The only important thing, I suppose, is to attain liberation. But it’s not possible for me to force this to happen, is it?
Did ‘Oneness’ plan the ruin of my life?
You are right. Liberation has nothing to do with us so we cannot force it to happen.
As soon as we ask a question like “Did Oneness plan the ruin of my life?” we are back in a story, adding an invented meaning to whatever is happening. It’s natural for a person to do this and if it’s happening it cannot be helped. But as long as we are lost in these stories, there isn’t the simple seeing of This.
Some of my depression is because I feel I have ruined myself financially through making stupid decisions. I feel that I can never forgive myself for this. How can non-duality help me with this?
There’s little I can add to what’s already been said. It may be seen that there never was anyone who made decisions, whether stupid or wise. It may be seen that there is no one who requires forgiveness or who could forgive. There is no way that anything can be different to what it is. Sometimes the realisation of this can bring relief and diminish or put an end to regret.
I have never said that non-duality can help anyone in any way. Non-duality is entirely non-instrumental.
You’ve been very patient with me—thank you. I understand non-duality intellectually but I know that this is not much help. I guess it’s only possible to relax into the inexplicable when the person has disappeared and liberation has actually been seen.
You express it so well. The inexplicable can really only be accepted when the person has disappeared. This is why it so difficult to communicate about this. Nevertheless, some people find some relief in communicating about non-duality, although others do not.
ARE RELATIONSHIPS AND LOVE POSSIBLE AFTER LIBERATION?
My boyfriend and I are very much in love. We have shared our spiritual search as friends as well as lovers and now we are both becoming hooked on non-duality.
But I am frightened that if liberation is seen, we will no longer have a relationship and we will lose each other. Is it possible to have a relationship and a normal family life when liberation is seen?
One of the reasons I’m asking you this is because I read a book about non-duality recently in which the author’s description of liberation sounded cold, empty and lonely. But your description and Tony Parsons’ description sound much nicer than this.
That author’s description may be applied to awakening but not to liberation. In awakening only the emptiness of Oneness is seen. That is why it can seem cold and lonely. But in liberation unconditional love, or the fullness of Oneness, is also seen. Don’t worry about the mind understanding this—it can’t. But when it is seen, it is simply incontrovertible.
So there is no need to worry about what may happen in liberation.
A relationship is an entity composed of ideas and as such is seen through in liberation. But relating is a process which can continue and may grow deeper in liberation. This is because much of the neurosis that belongs to a person may fall away when liberation is seen, and neurosis makes our behaviour with our lovers very problematic.
We could even say that it is only in liberation that real ungrasping love can flourish. When all the stories that are attached to being a separate person drop away, what is left may be the simplicity of love, the lover and the beloved.
Ever since I was a young man I’ve devoted myself to spiritual seeking. But then my world was turned upside down when I fell passionately in love. For a while this was wonderful, but I experienced extreme jealousy and because of this my girlfriend eventually left me.
I now feel almost suicidally depressed and that my life has no meaning. I’m wondering whether this has been a kind of awakening and whether this kind of intense romantic love has something in common with the unconditional love that you write about. Could you comment on this?
Awakening is a temporary dropping away of the person, sometimes for only a split second. Liberation is the permanent dropping away of the person. You will probably know if that temporary dropping away of the person has happened, but not necessarily, because it is possible for awakening to happen without any conscious recognition.
Certainly awakening can sometimes plunge the individual into the kind of crisis that you describe. A great romantic love for another person followed by a rejection can also be a shattering experience. The initial stages of romantic love can have something in common with the unconditional love which is seen in liberation, but romantic love usually becomes conditional very quickly.
An approach that some individuals find helpful in this kind of crisis is to stay as much as possible with the visceral experience of what is happening, rather than getting caught up in the story of it in their head. It may also be helpful to seek out some appropriate therapy or healing. Although this can’t in itself bring about the seeing of liberation, it may help the person who is seeking liberation to feel less troubled and more comfortable in themselves.
As to suicide, I don’t recommend it. There is so much beauty in the world, even in the sight and sound of leaves rustling in the wind. I feel it’s a shame to miss this. I wish you well.
Dear Richard, I have been very taken with the sincerity and obvious first-hand experience in your books.
I have been fascinated by questions about time and causation for many years since reading Kurt Vonnegut’s wonderful book ‘Slaughter House Five’. In this the hero, Billy Pilgrim, comes unstuck in time. He finds that all the moments of time are like the beads on a necklace, that every bead has always existed, and that despite everyone’s experience to the contrary, it is consciousness that moves and not time.
I have recently been reading the book by Leo Hartong which you recommended. He has this to say about time:
“Clearly, the timeless does not start later on, nor is the ever-present on its way, scheduled for arrival at some point in the future. It is present right here and right now. When I say ‘here and now’ I do not mean the fleeting moment between past and future, but the eternal present, which contains the apparent flux of time. Now, in this moment, I am writing these words; and now, in this moment, you are reading them.”
I am trying to understand what Leo means. He wrote those words at a moment which was now and I am reading them in another moment which also qualifies as now. Between those two moments of now, there is no break. In fact, it would seem that there are no breaks anywhere in all the moments which qualify as now. I should like to know how you view the connection between those two apparently separate moments in which Leo typed those words and I read them. Best wishes, Allan
Dear Allan, I like Leo’s description very much. Of course all descriptions are simply attempts to “eff the ineffable” as Alan Watts put it.
Causation can only exist in time. But there is no time and therefore there is no causation, except as a thought arising in This. There is only This. And in This, thoughts of writing and reading words in other apparent times arise.
Another way of putting this is to say that time can only arise in consciousness.
The mind loves to wrestle with questions such as this. But we might also notice that as long as the mind is doing this, the miracle of presence—the taste of a cup of coffee, the sound of a car driving past, the texture of cat’s fur, whatever is appearing in and as consciousness—is being missed. Best wishes, Richard
Now that you have realised non-duality, do you still enjoy doing certain things, such as being in nature? And how do you make choices?
I have not realised non-duality. No one realises non-duality. Non-duality is only realised when there is no one there to realise it. Sorry about the paradox.
Enjoyment still goes on. By and large, there’s a preference for quite a simple life here. Yes, being in nature is enjoyable. So is being in the city.
There is no need to make choices. There never was any need to make choices. There is no one who could make a choice. Life simply happens.
I fear death and loss, particularly the possibility of losing my children. Who would it be good to read or listen to about death?
It is quite natural for a person to fear death, the loss of loved ones and the loss of their own individuality. Religions exploit this natural fear of death mercilessly.
However, when non-separation is seen, there’s a tendency for death no longer to cause concern. As there never was an individual who was born, there is no individual who can die. In presence concern with death is likely to collapse because it is about the future—the non-existent future, we might add.
The only reading that I know of to recommend are the usual suspects. That would include Tony Parsons, Nathan Gill, Leo Hartong and of course myself.
I’M SAD THAT THERE’S NO MEANING
I’ve been reading about Advaita for a while. I also go to the meetings of various speakers including yours.
When I notice that there is no doer, I feel a definite sense of peace. But the lack of a meaning to the world, and the recognition that I can’t do anything because ‘I’ am an illusion and life is just a dream, make me feel sad. I can’t stop seeking even though I know that there’s nothing to find and I can’t do anything to make myself wake up. My mind is baffled by this.
Being spiritual seems to offer a kind of false happiness to people. Spiritual people feel that they can help to heal others, save the planet and usher in the coming Age of Enlightenment. They channel messages from great astral beings or become ‘light workers’. But I feel unhappy and isolated because I can’t believe in any of this anymore.
So what can I do? Can you offer me some comment?
You sum up very clearly the dilemma that many seekers find themselves in. What do we do when the hopelessness of seeking has been seen, but the person who cannot help searching is still there?
All I can suggest to this is, if you can, relax and do things that you enjoy doing. You can leave the saving of the planet, the bringing of messages from great astral beings and the light work to those who believe that all of that is important.
MYSTERY, QUESTIONS AND UNDERSTANDING
Whether there has been awakening or not, the world is utterly amazing even though it is transitory. But it is also a great mystery. So when the individual has dissolved, is the mystery clarified? Does the individual then understand the relationship between the author, the creator and the director?
Do questions end because the mystery has finally been understood or is it because of some more ineffable reason?
Questions drop away because the stories that they relate to are seen through, so there is no need to ask them any more. Beyond that, everything is seen as a mystery so questions become futile.
Awakening and liberation are a fall into a great unknowing, so the mystery of this astonishing manifestation deepens rather than being clarified. In presence, questions about this mystery can still arise but they tend not to be taken seriously anymore. This is because it is now known that there is no possibility of an answer that will finally satisfy the mind.
Remember that liberation is a loss—the loss of the person. One of the things that is lost in liberation is much of what the person thought they knew.
There is no author, creator or director.
IS NON-DUALITY JUST ANOTHER STORY?
I love non-duality, but whenever I have followed any path I have ended up having doubts about it. Now I am torturing myself with the thought that non-duality also might just be another story.
Although I know that there is no possibility of proof that will satisfy my mind, I still want to have it! What a paradox! I want to know the reality of non-duality but I guess that’s only possible through direct seeing.
Anything that can be put into words or that exists as thoughts is a story. So yes, non-duality is also a story. But it is the story which most clearly describes reality. All the other stories, such as the world religions or philosophies, add either fantastical or philosophical decorations to what is. Non-duality simply attempts to describe what is. That is why I call it ‘the mother of all stories’.
Of course you will never know the reality of non-duality. That will only be known when you aren’t there. Good luck with your disappearance.
Many teachers of Advaita insist that it is necessary to do self-enquiry. I’ve noticed this particularly with teachers influenced by Bob Adamson and Papaji (H. W. L. Poonja). But I think there’s a paradox in expecting non-doers who don’t have a self to do self-enquiry.
I have done self-enquiry and my experience of it is that it simply reinforces the sense of separation. When I’ve asked teachers about this, they’ve said that this is because I am not pursuing self-enquiry with enough determination and sincerity. Essentially they are saying that I’m not asking “Who am I?” or “What am I?” with enough earnestness.
Now I have come to feel that nothing works. As you say, either non-duality is seen or it isn’t. But I find this very frustrating and in this state everything certainly doesn’t seem to be full of unconditional love. Nevertheless, I have a lot of resonance with your books. Could you give me your opinion of self-enquiry?
As it is a person who is self-enquiring, it will not lead anywhere except perhaps to the reinforcement of the sense that there is a person. When the person drops away, there is no need to self-enquire, because then it just becomes obvious that there is no one.
I don’t make recommendations, but if I did it would be to stop torturing ourselves with techniques, relax and enjoy whatever small thing we are able to. For me it might be a walk round the park and a nice meal.
The problem with your reply is that, as long as there is the sense of separation, relaxation does not seem possible. And it also seems impossible not to seek.
Rather than relaxation, I often feel contraction. So I guess the best thing to do is to try to relax by making the prison more comfortable. Do you think the usual self-improvement techniques help with that? Or would it be better to chant your mantra “Hopeless, helpless, meaningless”? It’s definitely the best mantra I’ve come across.
Nevertheless, since I’ve come across non-duality I’ve felt more relaxed and less neurotic. But what can I do about the continuing feeling that this still isn’t it?
Seeking continues until it stops. Relaxation happens or it does not. In the meantime, we may as well make the prison more comfortable by doing whatever we like doing. If self-improvement appeals, then do that. If walking round the park and having a meal appeals, then do that. If all of those appeal, do all of them.
I like one phrase from your books in particular: “We are in a hopeless case”. I’m fed up with teachers who insist that it is only through dedicated and committed investigation that we can discover non-duality. Having tried that for a long time, I’m now faced with teachers who tell me that I haven’t become free because I’m lazy and uncommitted. I think that’s bullshit! I like to think that it happens through grace.
This is a common trick of spiritual teachers, to tell you when things don’t improve that it’s your fault for not trying hard enough. Of course, if things do improve, they take the credit.
Indeed, what bullshit. After you’ve taken a Bachelor of Science (Bull Shit) in non-duality and a Master of Science (More Shit), you can do the Ph.D (Piled high and Deep).
I keep trying to see my own absence. My belief in the validity of the self seems to be fading gradually away but that’s the only progress I’m making. Tony and you both seem to suggest that we relax and enjoy whatever is happening and that seems to suit me.
Could you comment on this feeling that I have that I’m stuck half way? Sometimes I’m a person, sometimes I’m not.
The feeling that you have of being stuck half way is a common one. Sometimes there can be a sudden event in which the person is gone and it’s simply all over. But sometimes there is a more gradual thinning of the person over a period of time and sometimes there are two separate events, between which the person seems to be coming and going. Either of these can give rise to the feeling of being stuck which you describe.
Remember that however much we try, we cannot see our own absence. When we aren’t there, then our absence is simply obvious.
Thanks for your reply, Richard. Tony also says that this is common. Liberation is probably more natural than I tend to think. It’s difficult for me to get rid of the idea that path and practice are necessary to bring about awakening. But I’m beginning to get that they are irrelevant. I really appreciate your clarity.
The sense of being a separate person still comes and goes here, but some time ago the energy of seeking was suddenly switched off. In an instant, although nothing changed, the sense of an inside and an outside vanished. At the same ‘time’ there was an absolute knowing that it was impossible to understand this. Somehow, the attempt to understand could only arise from the sense of a separated person.
That’s a great description. Nothing changes, yet even if the person returns after an event like this, it is forever transformed.
A lot of the time I feel quite peaceful, but suddenly I’ll feel anxious, fearful or even terrified. At these times I wonder whether I’m going mad. I cope at these times by doing everyday things. For example I like taking my dog for a walk. But often the fear returns.
It may help to stay innocently with the fear, or whatever other uncomfortable feeling is arising, wherever it’s noticed in the body. Simply pay attention to the feeling in the body rather than the thoughts going through the mind. Do this for a few minutes at a time—maybe up to about ten or twenty minutes. Then go and do something else, preferably something that you enjoy—a walk in the park, a cup of coffee, taking your dog for a walk if that’s what appeals to you. Go back to paying attention to the uncomfortable feeling in the body frequently, a few times a day or at least a few times a week. Notice what shifts come.
DEVELOPING LOVE AND COMPASSION
I’ve heard you say that the individual cannot derive any advantage from enlightenment. Something about hearing this enabled me to relax considerably. Before that I had put a lot of effort into becoming enlightened and increasing my compassion.
You and Tony say that after liberation it is simply seen that there is unconditional love. So is it of any benefit to try to enhance our compassion towards others within the story, perhaps by doing a loving kindness meditation practice?
Does it matter whether we increase our compassion or not?
There may be benefit to the individual in doing some kind of loving kindness practice. Enhanced compassion sometimes makes life flow more easily for the person practising it. There is scientific evidence that both giving and receiving acts of kindness increase our levels of oxytocin, which is a ‘feel good’ hormone. You can read more about this if you want to in Dr. David Hamilton’s book, ‘Why Kindness Is Good For You’. It is probably for this reason that some Buddhists recommend performing ‘random acts of kindness’.
Nevertheless, remember that any practice which is ‘forced’ is likely eventually to increase rather than decrease stress.
What I am pointing to, however, is the realisation that there is no one who practises loving kindness. Loving kindness is simply practised or it is not. Another way to put this is that, if an interest in the practice of loving kindness arises, it’s quite likely that it will be pursued. If not, not.
Ultimately, the practice of loving kindness is as meaningless as everything else. Everything is already whole and adequate. Everything is already Oneness doing its own thing, apparently. Nothing needs any added meaning to justify it, except to a person living in a story.
YOU ARE THE LIGHT IN WHICH EVERYTHING ARISES
You and some others have written something that I find very puzzling. Your way of putting it is “What is sitting there, although it might feel like a person, is the light in which everything arises.”
I can’t make any sense of this. I am an individual with my own identity, which other people with their own identities recognise. I might not be able to pin-point where my point of view is precisely located in space, but it is ‘somewhere’. If I have a pain in my shoulder, it is I who feel it, not you. If you have a pain in your shoulder, you feel it, I do not.
An analogy might be a character in a film who acts as if they have a pain but doesn’t really have one. But they are not the light in which the film is appearing. They are just a character and if they disappear from the film, the film still continues. Their disappearance makes no difference to the film. So the words “You are the light in which everything arises” puzzle me very much.
I suspect that discussing this won’t get me anywhere, but I feel impelled to ask whether you can cast any more light on it. Perhaps I need a blue pill.
When I say you are the light in which everything arises, I do not mean ‘you the character’ or even ‘you the person’. The phenomena associated with ‘you the character’ are simply phenomena. This includes the sense of separation, if that is still there.
The light in which everything arises is Consciousness, or Being, or Oneness. We could say that it is this which gives rise to all phenomena, or in which all phenomena arise. It is this which you really are.
The experiences you associate with being a person are froth on the surface of the ocean. You are the ocean itself.
Nathan Gill’s way of expressing this is that there is ‘awareness and the content of awareness’. In these terms, you mistake yourself for the content of awareness, but actually you are awareness itself. Of course these are not actually separate, so it would be more accurate to say that the content of awareness is awareness arising as its own content. That, however, may sound more difficult to grasp.
This probably doesn’t help, as words rarely do.
Sorry, I haven’t got a blue pill to give you. However, my favourite line from ‘The Matrix’ is “Follow the white rabbit.”
I’ve always liked Ronald Laing and I’ve been discussing him recently with a friend. We’ve also been reading your book ‘The Book of No One’. In this you write “Ego is not the person.” Could you explain a bit more what you mean by this?
Like many others, I was influenced by R. D. Laing in the seventies and eighties. When I was training counsellors, I used to show them the wonderful documentary about him, ‘Did You Used To Be R.D. Laing?’
Let me address your question about my remark that “the ego is not the person”. The word ego is used to mean different things by different people. However, these meanings often come down to one of two or three. Ego is often used to mean selfishness or arrogance, as in “He has a very big ego.” It is also used to mean the central organising principle, as in Freud’s definition of the ego as the arbiter between the superego, or morality principle, and the id, or pleasure principle. And sometimes it is used to mean the sense of selfhood, or the sense of being a separate person.
In saying that the ego is not the person I am making two points. Firstly I am saying that reducing our level of selfishness or arrogance or our level of personal egotism will not bring about the seeing of liberation. However, this is erroneously suggested in many spiritual traditions.
Secondly I am saying that the sense of being a person consists of more than Freud’s conscious organising principle. Even if we can somehow see through this principle, that will not bring about the seeing of liberation, because the sense of selfhood comes about through an energetic contraction. This cannot be dissipated through any kind of purely mental insight.
We can also consider this from the other way round. Seeing liberation will not necessarily reduce an arrogant person’s level of arrogance or an egotistical person’s level of egotism. Nor will it necessarily change the way the character’s organising principle operates. Again, spiritual traditions often erroneously suggest that these will happen.
The seeing of liberation is completely impersonal and therefore has no necessary implications for the character and may have no effects on the character at all. Having said that, I have observed in both myself and others that there are certain characteristics that tend to change after the seeing of liberation. However these are only tendencies. There is no necessity for them to happen.
Instead of trying to explain non-duality to people, I just give them your ‘Die’ book, so that’s been really helpful to me. Some years ago it happened to ‘me’ and swept away years of searching. That’s been replaced by stillness. Maybe I’ll drop by for tea one day. I wonder whether like me you use loose tea and a cosy?
Yes, come for tea if you’re nearby. I use tea bags but the choice will include Earl Grey.
There has recently been an awakening experience. Everything I believed has been turned upside down, including all my beliefs about life, death and purpose. Now everything has settled down again and seems normal. The idea of ‘me’ seems to have come back. But there remains a change. It’s difficult to describe but things seem a bit translucent and there’s no real belief in the past anymore. However, I still feel somewhat neurotic, with some of the old feelings of inadequacy still here. But there’s no impulse at all to search anymore.
It seems to me that “the story of me” will continue to express the conditioning that this body and mind has been subjected to. It may go on responding to situations in its habitual conditioned way. But it’s finally getting that This is it.
Does it sound to you like I’m stuck between awakening and liberation?
If thoughts or feelings of being stuck arise, that’s just what’s happening in This. There is no one who can avoid them or prevent them.
If there is no further impulse to search, then probably what has been seen is complete. However, there may still be an expectation in you that certain feelings, such as being stuck, should no longer arise. But this is just a thought, like any other thought.
In liberation, any phenomena can continue to arise. It is simply seen that they no longer arise for a person.
I haven’t had a dramatic awakening, but I know that I don’t exist, that in a way I’m a fictional character. I can’t take seriously the things that I do anymore now that I know that separation is an illusion. I know now that this is a dream.
But I have a problem. I contemplate doing something and then the thought comes in “Why bother? Everything’s unreal anyway.” I can’t help this, even though I know that there is no free will and whatever happens will happen regardless. Life unfolds as it does and there is no one to do anything about that. I suppose I might as well smile and acknowledge that I have no answers. I don’t think I even know what the questions are anymore! Can you comment on all this for me?
You answer your own question as well as I could do. ‘Bothering’ happens or it doesn’t. Thoughts that this is a dream happen or they don’t. Seeing that ‘I’ am a fictional character happens or it doesn’t.
There’s always something happening, except in dreamless sleep. We either resist it or we do not, and that is also simply what is happening.
ON NARCISSISM AND BEHAVING LIKE AN ASS
Until two years ago I was searching. But more recently there have been some significant changes. My sense of having a self got thinner and then more or less disappeared. Then I felt like I was falling into darkness—it seemed like the abyss you describe as sometimes being between awakening and liberation. And then suddenly there was a complete disappearance and what remained was just non-localised awareness.
I was reading your ‘The Avatar of the Single Malt’ again recently, which in my view is comedy gold. It’s brought to mind a problem I’m feeling. I tend to be quite narcissistic, big-headed and generally prone to behaving like an ass. And this still seems to go on. Is it the same for you? Are you big-headed about the things you’ve done, such as writing your books? Is it okay for the self to still be there in this way?
Awakening and liberation have no necessary implications. Any phenomena that arose before can still arise. It is simply seen that they do not arise for anyone. So being big-headed about writing books could arise, and so could being narcissistic and behaving like an ass.
Thinking that there might be something wrong with any of that, or that it might mean that the self is back in the frame, is simply the mind’s way of trying to draw us back into the story of “There’s something incomplete here. There’s still something to find.” This is simply another thought, in other words another phenomenon happening in this.
I’ve heard and read several people communicating about non-duality. Some of them, particularly U.G. Krishnamurti and Suzanne Segal, make liberation sound terrifying. My concepts about spirituality have been blown apart. Have you found liberation terrifying?
The seeing of liberation here hasn’t been terrifying. But it certainly has nothing to do with most people’s concepts of spirituality. In a way spirituality can be regarded as another entertainment in the funfair of life, whilst there’s nothing particularly entertaining about liberation.
Here life simply goes on, with no Suzanne Segal style traumas.
HAVE YOU A QUESTION FOR ME WHILE I DRINK SAKE?
Dear Richard, I’m re-reading your lovely books. They continually delight me, but I don’t know why. Every night at 10.30 I get into my bed (it’s a very fine bed by the way), pour myself a little cold sake and read. It’s delightful.
I have no complaints whatsoever.
I wish I had a question to pose so I’d have an excuse to contact you. But I don’t.
If by any chance you have a question for me I would be glad to answer it.
Regards, Rupert Peene
Hi Rupert, Thank you for your message. I really appreciate it and I’m glad you enjoy the books.
The sake probably helps.
No, no questions from me either. Best wishes, Richard
Dear Richard, I’ve just finished reading ‘I Hope You Die Soon’. Some time ago I had my own little ‘train station’ experience, although it was actually in a hotel lobby. It left me pretty confused.
I was presented with this wonderful experience that gave me the certainty that I’m not separate. But my arthritis still hurt, my bills were still due, my kids were still fighting. I thought “How come?” Now your book has enabled me to relax.
It is what it is and that’s it. You understand what I mean, don’t you?
Well, thank you. I can’t say that I’m fully at peace but I’m certainly taking things more easily now. Take care, Karin.
Dear Karin, Thank you for your very interesting message. Train station, hotel lobby—it’s all the same thing, isn’t it? You express both the realisation and the aftermath very clearly. Best wishes Richard
Hi Richard, Sometimes I still feel frustration or even despair about this. In Portuguese we have a saying: “Se correr o bicho pega, se ficar o bicho mata.” This translates as “If you run, the beast hunts you down. If you stay where you are, it kills you.” It means that it doesn’t matter what you do, the outcome is always the same. Karin
Hi Karin, I love your Portuguese saying. It’s such a wonderful encapsulation of the futility of thinking that we are in control of anything, or even that there is a ‘we’ who could be in control of anything. It reminds me of an American expression: “Sometimes you get the bear. Sometimes the bear gets you.” Best wishes, Richard
The title of your book ‘I Hope You Die Soon’ reminds me of Rumi’s invitation to us to “die before we die”.
Can there be a transmission of energy from the one who speaks about non-duality to the one who listens? I’ve sat in meetings with Tony Parsons and his open empty presence seems to resonate with me and others. Does this facilitate the dropping of the self? Or is there no point in listening to anyone speaking about this?
I enjoy going to Tony’s meetings very much myself. I certainly feel that there is a very enjoyable energy there. However, I don’t want to suggest that this in any way implies that there is a method for finding liberation, which of course the mind is always interested in discovering.
Rather I’d suggest that there is no one who chooses to go to Tony’s meetings. An impulse arises to go there or not but there is no one who owns that impulse. Seen in this way, a question such as “Will this do me some good?” becomes irrelevant.
In other words, when Tony holds a meeting, you will either be there or not. However, you will not have made a decision leading to that because there is no you.
WILL LIBERATION BRING FULFILMENT?
Now that I am quite elderly I find that I have never felt so much joy as I do at present. Should I now seek liberation? It seems to me that even if I found it in the future, it wouldn’t guarantee me the joy I currently feel. Maybe liberation would deprive me of that?
Your way of liberation doesn’t seem to guarantee me fulfilment. I’ve read your book and although I relate to a lot of what you write I’m very confused by other parts of it. I get that there is really no person, but as I haven’t yet achieved a liberated state, I’m still relating to the world as a person. Can you cast any light on this?
The joy that you are now experiencing is liberation. It is liberation expressing itself as joy felt by you.
I have no “way of liberation” so it will not guarantee you fulfilment. There’s no need to worry that your presently felt joy will disappear if you achieve a liberated state in the future. Liberation is not a state, you cannot achieve it and there is no future.
I’m still confused.You write that after we attain liberation there is no change as we may still experience sorrow, fear, anger and so on. I know I’m paraphrasing roughly.
For me there is so much joy and everything changes.
“So much joy” sounds good to me.
When liberation is seen any feeling may still arise. Joy, sadness, happiness, unhappiness can all still arise. But these feelings are seen to belong to no one because there is no one.
Please don’t think I’m nit-picking if I add that “we” do not “attain liberation”. This is a most fundamental point.
DOES LIBERATION BECOME PERMANENT?
Having had an awakening event, everything in your book resonates with me. As you say, it’s impossible to put such an event into words so I won’t even try.
But I still find myself powerfully identified with my character including what I call its faults. I still suffer from anxiety, guilt, pride and jealousy among other feelings. I feel that I am in the desert that you describe.
Did there come a time for you when the underlying seeing of presence became permanent so that it was the basis for all your experience? If so, is this what you call liberation?
After the second event that I describe, all remaining questions dropped away and the seeing of This, the seeing that there was nothing left to search for, remained. This is what I describe as liberation. We could say that it is liberation from searching.
Liberation is a term that is often misunderstood. It contains no promise of a necessarily better life for us. It simply reveals that there is no one who has a life. Any phenomenon that arose before liberation was seen can arise afterwards as well, including experiences and feelings that we find uncomfortable. But there can be no more searching when liberation is seen, because it is known that there is nothing to search for. Of course thoughts of searching can still arise, but they are seen through.
There are several enlightened masters who state that thinking stops after liberation. They say that after this, thinking only happens for practical reasons, for example when planning to cook a meal.
However, others say that the mind never becomes completely silent and even after liberation it is inclined to chunter on. What do you think?
There is no such thing as a mind. The mind is simply the process of thought. Thinking is Oneness thinking. When liberation is seen it’s possible that the energy of thinking may lessen or dissipate but it’s also possible that it may not. But in either case it’s no longer a problem because it’s seen through.
There’s also no such thing as an enlightened master.
A while ago I had a brief instant of awakening. Since then I’ve read your books and they’ve helped me to understand what’s going on for me.
But life has been quite tough since then. I have a family, a job and a very busy life, but I’ve been really obsessed with non-duality since this awakening. I find it difficult to get up much interest in anything else. And I’m worried about the possible effects of liberation on my family and friends. Sometimes I think it would be better if it doesn’t happen. Can you comment on this for me?
It’s common that after awakening there can be an obsession with non-duality and a loss of interest in almost anything else. But in liberation, life often becomes quite simple. Then there can be a great enthusiasm for the ordinary and the everyday.
I hope the final seeing of liberation occurs for you. When it happens, life tends to go on as before, but it is seen that everything is simply happening of its own accord. So hopefully it will be okay with your family and friends.
However, liberation tends to bring about the collapse of all the stories of meaning and purpose, such as the religious and the spiritual stories. So if members of your family or your friends have a heavy investment in one of these stories, this could cause a problem. In that case, I suggest that you try to be understanding. It can be a shock for family and friends when someone close to them sees non-duality and loses interest in their old ideas and viewpoints.
Hello Richard, yours is the strangest book I have ever read in my old life. It’s the one I keep beside the fire at night with my booze. Seamus Gilroy
Hello Seamus and thank you. I’m glad it’s by the fire and not in the fire. Best wishes, Richard
GREAT DIFFICULTIES AFTER AWAKENING
I feel that after an awakening event, I am now lost in what you call the desert and it’s very painful. I’m feeling increasingly depressed and anxious, and I long for the completion that seems to come after the seeing of unconditional love in liberation.
I’ve lost all sense of purpose and meaning and consequently there are aspects of my life which are frankly falling apart. Seeing everything as at least partially unreal is very difficult for me. One of the strangest aspects of this is that my family and friends do not seem to have noticed any change in me.
In a way I wish I’d never come across the term ‘enlightenment’. Can I ask you whether you experienced anything like the suffering I’m going through?
There is some familiarity here with what you are writing about, although in my case it was in a less dramatic form. After awakening there was a period which I describe as being in the desert, in which the hopelessness of my searching was apparent but there was still a feeling of separation and wanting to find liberation. After about a year there was another dropping away of the person, in which the fullness of Nothing was seen as well as its emptiness. This fullness consists in the seeing of unconditional love. After that there was no more searching and no more separation. Now life simply goes on as before. It is just seen that there is no one living it.
What is this Oneness?
Oneness is Nothing appearing as everything. As the Christian mystic Marguerite Porete* wrote, “Now this soul has fallen…into nothingness, and without such nothingness she cannot be All.”
*Marguerite Porete was burnt to death as a heretic by the Catholic Church at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
After a recent awakening I’ve found myself reconsidering my plans to train as a psychotherapist.
I’ve heard Tony Parsons say that a teaching that suggests to an apparent individual that they can arrive at enlightenment through a progressive path is a teaching of imprisonment.
I’ve also heard you in an interview talk about your professional involvement with therapy. Do you think that some forms of psychotherapy address non-duality and are not built around the ignorant belief that there is a self?
Psychotherapy should never be “a teaching that suggests to an apparent individual that they can arrive at enlightenment through a progressive path.” When he uses this phrase, I’m pretty sure that Tony is addressing not psychotherapy but the myriad spiritual and New Age paths. I would consider at least some of these paths to be ‘anti-psychotherapeutic’ in their effects.
On psychotherapy directly I have heard Tony say that he considers it to be one of the most intelligent things that a person can do. I would agree with this. In other words, as long as we perceive ourself to be a separate person in a prison, doing some form of psychotherapy may be one of the most effective ways of making ourself feel more at ease.
For me, the core of any psychotherapeutic encounter is the being of the psychotherapist. My own preference, as I have often said, would be for a psychotherapist who is not there. In other words I would prefer a psychotherapist who has directly seen the unreality of the self.
There are some forms of psychotherapy that are at least to some degree informed by the non-existence of the self. You could take a look at what’s happening in Third Wave Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, particularly as it is informed by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and mindfulness.
If you go ahead with your training, I wish you well with it.
I don’t feel remotely liberated. Instead, I feel very dependent, particularly on the men that I have relationships with. Consequently my life is full of emotional pain. I am able to enjoy very little because of my insecurities in this area.
Would you recommend psychotherapy as a way for me to overcome my insecurity? In addition, do you think that my insecurity is a block to the unfoldment of liberation? In other words, do I need to deal with it for liberation to be seen?
It’s possible that psychotherapy might help you to free yourself of your dependency on relationships, so that you could relate to men in a freer and more spontaneous way. If you’re drawn to this, then I recommend it. But it won’t be relevant to the seeing of liberation because nothing that we do as a person is relevant to that.
So your insecurity is not a block to liberation. In other words, you don’t have to deal with your issues as a person to realise that you are not a person.
What one thing would you say to this character to get it to see This?
Alas, I could not get that character or any character to see This, not by saying one thing or a thousand things. Nevertheless, it might be seen suddenly that there is no one asking the question.
ORIGINAL SIN, RELIGION AND NON-DUALITY
From a non-dual perspective, I would say that the notion of original sin in Christianity represents the appearance of duality. I believe that the earliest definition of ‘sin’ was ‘illusion’.
Do you agree with me that most religions are at their heart non-dual and that it is only the difficulties of communication that have obscured this?
An alternative meaning of ‘sin’ that I like very much is ‘error’. I believe that this is from the Greek ‘hamartia’, meaning ‘missing the mark’, like an archer who takes aim and misses the target. The implications of this are less punitive and guilt-inducing than the usual translation of ‘sin’. Thus “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11) becomes “Go and make no more errors.”
At the root of many religious traditions there may have been the realisation that All Is One. But this has become much obscured. Once a concept of a God who is irredeemably separate from humankind develops, as in most forms of the Abrahamic religions, we have entered into a completely dualistic cosmology. From then on, the best that can be hoped for is that we may approach closer to him-her-it and worship him-her-it. This is of course a metaphor for eternal separation.
THE LAST IMPEDIMENT TO SEEING LIBERATION?
When I first read your book, I thought it was about me! I’m really glad to have finally found someone who can explain the experience that I had.
The only difference for me was that what you describe as two events were both experienced simultaneously. There was the sudden seeing that there was no person, no inside or outside, and that just as I was in everything, so everything was in me. I’m trying to describe it, but as you’ve written yourself, it is beyond words.
In its absolute fullness, this event lasted a few days. Since then my thinking has become much slower and there is little impulse to think about the future. The past and the future are seen to be a story. There’s absolutely no more searching.
Nevertheless, it now feels as if in some way ‘I’ have come back. Normal life goes on. In some ways it’s even more normal than before. So I want to ask you whether ‘Richard’ has also come back. Are you living with the memory of having seen liberation, or have ‘you’ simply not returned?
Now I am really on the planet and I know that there can be no other life and no better life.
As you say “This is it.” I hope you will write another book for the lucky illumined ones.
For many individuals, as for you, there can be the complete loss of separated awareness and a merging with everything. Thus there may be walking but no one walking, seeing but no one seeing, hearing but no one hearing. In this event both the emptiness and the fullness of everything is seen but by no one.
This total merging does not last permanently. Eventually there is a return to a sense of awareness being located in a specific place, ‘here’ rather than ‘there’. However, if it is all over for the separated person, the sense of contraction that was previously felt disappears for good. That is what is sometimes called liberation, although really it is the seeing that there is no such thing as liberation because there is no one who could become liberated.
After that, any thought, feeling or experience can still happen but it is seen through. It is seen to be part of a waking dream which, because it is known to be without purpose, can really be enjoyed. As you say “Now I am really on the planet and I know that there can be no other life and no better life.” That is a beautiful way of putting it.
However, sometimes there is a trap. The individual for whom the sense of location has returned may feel that they have lost something because of this. Then it is possible that searching can resume. This does not matter of course, but it can make life more uncomfortable than it needs to be. Often it only takes the realisation that liberation contains all possible experiences, including ones we may find uncomfortable, for this last ‘impediment’ to fall away.
From what you write, I would say that there is nothing more to be seen and realised than what ‘you’ have seen and realised.
I very much relate to what you say about appreciating the ordinary experiences of life, such as the smell of coffee, walking in the park, listening to the wind in the trees.
Some time ago when I was feeling quite exhausted I suddenly disappeared, leaving just exhaustion. There was no doubt at that point that separation was an illusion. It was both extraordinary and ordinary at the same time, and also in an obvious way the ‘normal’ way of being.
After a time ‘I’ or ‘my mind’ came back. Since then there have been various changes. For example I just don’t respond to many things in my old habitual way. I also take much greater enjoyment in simple things. But I miss that complete disappearance, so what has also returned is my searching as I try to get back to that event. All the things that I thought I knew have been replaced by ‘not-knowing’ and there’s a kind of hopelessness about this. This isn’t unpleasant, it’s just a certainty about the impossibility of knowing anything.
It feels like I’m in the desert that you describe. I’m wondering whether I have some kind of fear about liberation and this stops liberation from being seen. Nevertheless, there’s a profound relaxation into the knowledge that whatever happens is simply happening and there’s no one to do anything about it.
I very much enjoyed reading your very clear account of awakening.
Although there are no absolute rules about awakening, many people seem to go through an event such as you describe. The absolute non-existence of the person and the emptiness of everything may be seen, but the person comes back afterwards and continues searching.
Later there can be another seeing in which this impulse to search simply ends. This is because it is fully seen that there is nothing any longer to search for (although actually, of course, there never was).
Or sometimes this sense that seeing is not yet complete can simply fade away over time.
I call awakening seeing that everything is empty and liberation seeing that everything is also full.
Remember that even in liberation everything may simply continue as before. It is simply seen that it is not continuing for anyone. Sometimes I talk to an individual and get the impression that everything that there is to be seen has been seen, in its fullness. Nevertheless, an idea continues for that individual that “This still isn’t it” because life continues in its ordinary way.
In other words, what sometimes needs to be let go of is just an idea, or an illusion, that life seen in liberation should in some way be different to and better than the life that was lived before. But remember, “Being asleep and being awake are the same thing” or as they say in Zen, “Before liberation, chop wood. After liberation, chop wood.”
Yes, I do think that I still have an idea of what liberation should be like but I’m pretty sure that this is becoming fainter now.
One thing still puzzles me. During the awakening event there was no person experiencing or interpreting that event. There was only direct experience itself, direct perception itself. But now the person is back, although not in exactly the same way as before, and that direct felt-sense of there being no one has disappeared.
I’m not even sure that I’d be able to function at all if that complete disappearance remained permanently. I don’t know if I’d even get out of bed in the morning!
Nevertheless, after the event there remains a powerful understanding that there really is no person.
So what is liberation? Is it the permanent experience of the complete absence that was seen in the event? Or is it the experience of whatever phenomena are arising, including sometimes feeling like a person and sometimes not? Or is liberation simply the understanding that there is no person that remains after an event, even though the person has come back?
Is it simply this constant directness, right here, right now, that seems to result from this plunge into not-knowing?
I like your clear no-nonsense communication about non-duality. I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of diversity among those who write or talk about it. Some seem to think they have something to teach, others not. Is this because the individual will always interpret this in their own way?
I draw a distinction between what I call ‘contraction’ and ‘localisation’. In an awakening or a liberation event (let’s settle for those misleading words) all sense of both contraction and localisation can disappear. This is what you describe.
However, this complete disappearance does not last. There is then either a return of contraction, in which the person has returned from awakening still feeling separate and still searching, or a return only of a sense of localisation. This simply means that ‘awareness’ is once again located within the frame of an apparent individual but all seeking has ended. Now it is known that no matter what is happening in the drama of life, This is it, This is all there is, and This is sufficient.
“This constant directness, right here, right now,” is it. It has always been it. There was never any possibility of it not being it. And that is either seen or it is not seen. As it is put in the Upanishads “The lightning strikes, the eye blinks. Then? You have either seen or you have not seen. If you have not seen, too bad!”
And yes, liberation is a plunge into not-knowing, as all the stories we once believed in fall away.
When this is communicated, it always has the flavour of the personality of the communicator. In addition many communicators of non-duality have an agenda. Usually this agenda is to help people have the experience of liberation, even though this is not possible because liberation is not an experience.
Thank you! I’ve got it!
What’s the point of sadhana (spiritual practice) as practised in ashram communities? It seems to be very much emphasised as an important aspect of a spiritual path.
The main point of sadhana in an ashram is to keep the ashramites busy so that they don’t get up to too much monkey business.
If this sounds unduly sceptical, here is a quotation from Michael Graham’s book about Muktananda and the Siddha Yoga community:- “[In a letter] Muktananda emphasised the fact that we were already God if only we knew it, and that there was nothing to be done. Sadhana (spiritual practice) was just a constructive way of filling in the time between life and death.”
Interestingly, Michael Graham also quotes Muktananda in the same letter as saying “Please release me from your love.” Make of that what you will.
What am I? Does anything really matter? Can you recommend anything to read about this?
You may think you are a person who has responsibility and acts autonomously in the world. To this person, many things are likely to matter.
What you actually are is Oneness. When this is seen, you might say that nothing truly matters, or you might say that everything matters simply for what it is—every leaf, every ant, every delicious sip of coffee.
I’ll tout my own market stall—you could read any of my books. Apart from those, I recommend the books of Tony Parsons. There’s also a book called ‘The Telling Stones’ published by Non-Duality Press (now out of print). It contains a section called ‘The Mad Bastard’s Guide to Enlightenment’ which has some good stuff in it. I also like Leo Hartong’s book ‘Awakening to the Dream’ or you could try Nathan Gill’s book ‘Already Awake’.
It’s not obvious to the mind that everything is unconditional love, but I agree with you that once it’s seen, it’s seen. Then it’s known that everything is allowed in this play. It makes no difference whether the mind judges it as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Love is eternally present and eternally non-judging.
You’re right. Everything is allowed and unconditional love does not judge it. That’s really the bottom line. It’s tough for the discriminating mind to understand, though.
No, not tough. ‘Impossible’ is the right word.
What do you mean by ‘emptiness’?
In awakening it is seen that all phenomena are empty. We could say that they arise out of emptiness. In liberation it is seen that emptiness is also full, however paradoxical that may sound. The nature of this fullness is unconditional love.
Emptiness is silent and still, and from it arise the sound and movement of duality. Although this may make no sense to the mind even after years of puzzling over it, it is seen directly in a moment of awakening.
Hints of this reality are there in many traditions, although they are usually misunderstood or ignored or drowned out by the clamour of much louder and more insistent messages.
When there is no longer an identification with the self, does this bring about changes in relationships?
There are no necessary implications of seeing through the self, so anything can happen. However, there are tendencies for certain things to change.
A certain amount of neurotic energy tends to dissipate in the seeing of non-duality. Because of this, the process of relating usually becomes easier and less tainted by our projections. Another way of putting this is that we tend to see others more as they actually are and less through the veil of our own imaginings about them.
In some cases, however, the loss of interest in previously shared stories of meaning and purpose may cause a relationship to break down.
Do you see time as a construct? Is it simply a concept, as it were?
Yes, time is a construct, an aspect of this waking dream. In the seeing of non-duality, time is seen through.
Nevertheless, the character who remains still lives in this waking dream and in that sense is still subject to time. Ramesh Balsekar was said to insist on getting to airports extremely early when he was travelling. I am much the same with both airports and railway stations. You see, this character values a relaxed way of life, and getting to airports and railway stations in plenty of time tends to increase relaxation.
What is it that drives us to know liberation? Is it fear of the unknown? Or is it fear of death?
Rather than fear being the origin of our wanting to know liberation, we are fuelled in our searching by a sense that there is something missing. We could call this a sense of loss, except that we don’t know what it is that we have lost.
So we search and we search and we continue searching. We may find many things, until eventually wholeness or unity is found. If that is really seen, all searching ends.
DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF NON-DUALITY
Dear Richard, I notice from browsing the internet that there are a lot of different versions of non-duality around. For example, some websites link non-duality to the Laws of Attraction and other New Age philosophies. Some link non-duality to the modern cult of Positive Thinking and never allowing yourself to have a negative thought. To me this smells strongly of denying the shadow.
These so-called non-duality philosophies say that on the one hand everything is perfect as it is, but on the other hand that there is something which needs to be fixed. They hold that somehow, unlike the rest of nature, we are separate and able to control the universe.
I think there’s a lot of spiritual crap out there. What do you think? Best wishes, Brett
Dear Brett, Non-duality is very simple but the mind is very complicated. So the mind wants to graft on to non-duality other stories that seem more exciting and that give it something to do.
As a result, on the internet you’ll find a lot of ‘non-duality plus’. This will include ‘non-duality plus amateur psychotherapy’, ‘non-duality plus the Laws of Attraction’, ‘non-duality plus the Cosmic Ordering Service’, ‘non-duality plus purification through yoga’ and many other ingenious concoctions. The search for ‘an impossible state of constant bliss through non-duality’ is very popular. So is its close cousin, the search for ‘an impossible non-dual state in which no anger, sorrow or fear can possibly arise’.
All of this is very good for maintaining an on-going sense of inadequacy and failure in the seeker, as the realities of life fail to live up to these expectations. Three large spoonfuls of Denial a day should be enough to cope with this and keep the search going.
It is all good fun, though probably more so if we can maintain a bit of detachment from it and not get caught up in web-rage on the forums. Best wishes, Richard
Dear Richard, I relate very much to your reply to me. Recently I attended a weekend retreat which was supposedly on non-duality. The opening talk seemed to be devoted to an insistence that Oneness can contain nothing but ‘light’ and that we should rid ourselves of any ‘darkness’ such as anger. I talked about how the Buddha’s life had a lot of pain and conflict in it, about how his cousin wanted to kill him and about how he died a painful death, probably from being poisoned. As you can imagine this didn’t go down well at all. For the rest of the day people were encouraged to talk about their mothers. I couldn’t bear it and left at the end of the day.
Life isn’t just gentle. Mother Nature is bountiful in her expression but she also eats her young. In the past there were symbols that reflected this—dark, powerful, mysterious figures like Shiva and Kali. Nowadays we seem to emphasise love and peace as the true nature of existence and everything else as some kind of defilement. This isn’t a very good preparation for life as it actually is. The full and natural expression of life’s dance includes both the light and the dark. Best wishes, Brett
Dear Brett, The thought of a day during which everyone talks about their mother and we are all encouraged to deny our anger doesn’t fill me with delight.
If we pretend that we can become beings of light only, with no acknowledgment of the dark side of our being, we create dangers both for ourselves and others. When we deny the shadow it tends to leap out and grab us by the throat and also leap out and grab others by the throat. As Jung wrote, it sets both my house and my neighbour’s house on fire. He also wrote “The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.”
It is the very acceptance of our shadow, our willingness to be open about it and to own it, that can help others to accept theirs. “She who bears her own shadow liberates the collective.” (Sylvia Brinton Perera)
Much of the detail of the Buddha’s life that you mention is in Stephen Batchelor’s excellent book ‘Confession of a Buddhist Atheist’. The Buddha’s life is quite instructive but the details are hard to unearth because they have been buried under the weight of so much spiritual projection. All credit to Stephen Batchelor and others for doing the difficult scholarly spadework and making it accessible in popular form.
The point you make about the inclusion of figures such as Kali and Shiva, which represent aspects of the shadow in the mythology of India, is very important. There’s an interesting comparison with Christianity here. In Hinduism the shadow side is acknowledged as part of the necessary cycle of creation and destruction. In Christianity we are invited to reject the shadow in the figure of the Satan. This rejection leads to all kinds of unfortunate shenanigans.
“That there is a devil
There is no doubt,
But is he trying to get in
Or is he trying to get out?”
Best wishes, Richard
QUANTUM PHYSICS AND NON-DUALITY
I know a yoga teacher who says that non-duality is the same as quantum physics. I have a faint memory that in one of your books you may have said that this is not the case. Have I remembered this correctly?
Quantum physics’ view of the ultimate nature of reality is very similar to the view that non-duality reveals. But it is not identical. For example, no physicist working at the Large Hadron Collider has noticed yet that the nature of nothing and everything is unconditional love.
It is at least a little bit interesting that twentieth and twenty-first century physics has come to a view of reality that is very close to that of the ancient seers of India.
Quantum physics challenges our concepts of time and of cause and effect. Seeing non-duality simply blows these apart. However, I am not a scientist and I understand no formulae, so I had better not comment any further. When individuals like me with a liberal arts background comment on quantum physics, we usually make fools of ourselves pretty quickly.
So up to a point I would agree with your yoga teacher.
I spent years painfully walking a spiritual path. Since an awakening event recently my life seems to have become drenched in suffering, even more so than before. Worst of all is all the time, effort and money I spent with those guru-teachers. It all seems such a waste now.
The situation you describe yourself as being in is a common one, especially for those who have for a long period of time been “walking a spiritual path”. I certainly relate to the pain that can be felt when disillusion with the guru sets in. I hope you are able now to find some of the enjoyment that can be had from simple things.
After taking medication for some time because of psychological difficulties, I started to see a variety of psychotherapists. Then I got interested in non-duality and the psychotherapists started to annoy me.
I think this was because I felt they were full of ‘person’ and they made assumptions about ‘being a person’ that I no longer accepted. This is true of the ones I saw, anyway.
I wonder whether it would be better for me just to go and do something that makes me feel better. I know that some non-dual teachers say we should “stay in the nothingness” so maybe I should search for nothingness so that I can relax. Have you any comment on this?
The sentence of yours that most strikes a chord with me is “I wonder whether it would be better for me just to go and do something that makes me feel better.” Although I don’t give advice, it always seems to me to be a good idea to do something that makes us feel better if we find ourself drawn to something. For myself, this is usually something simple, like a walk round the park, a cup of coffee or a tai chi class, but for others it might be many other things.
I have no idea what is meant by “stay in the nothingness” nor how you would do that. I don’t know how you would “search for nothingness” either. I know that many individuals find it helpful to stay with whatever they are feeling on a visceral level, especially when those feelings are uncomfortable. Again, that is not advice. We each have to experiment and find what works best for us.
It is possible that you were unlucky with the psychotherapists that you saw. Some psychotherapists are indeed “full of person” but some are nicely emptied out and know that there is no self at the centre.
There are not many authors on non-duality that I like. But you are one of them and Wei Wu Wei is another. I can’t remember his exact words, but he wrote something like “The seeker is the sought and there is no one. All else is bondage.” Could you comment on this?
I’ve read very little of Wei Wu Wei, but that’s a great quote. The shock that is often felt in awakening comes from the seeing that we have always been the very thing that we sought—which is both Nothing and Everything.
When I die, nothing matters. Correct? So what is this thing called John?
Correct. But of course that is not how it seems to the person who is searching. As to “What is this thing called John?” we could answer in many ways, all of them metaphors. One answer is that John is a process rather than an entity, an ever-changing flow of thoughts, feelings, perceptions and sensations. Some neuroscientists call this the ‘bundle theory’ of the person, and it is pretty close to how Buddhism has described the person for over two thousand years.
The essential seeing in non-duality is that, whatever you consider yourself to be, there is no self at your centre, only emptiness. So you are an arising out of nothing and a falling away into nothing.
I have been a seeker for many years. I’ve followed Eastern visionaries and I’ve been in Western personal development groups. After reading Krishnamurti, Osho and Nisargadatta I did a retreat with Tony Parsons. I found him particularly impressive. I’ve also practised mindfulness for some time.
But throughout my seeking I’ve been afflicted with anxiety and depression. At times I’ve been prescribed anti-depressants. Now I’m considering seeing a psychotherapist, probably one who practises Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
I’ve read your books and I like your suggestion to ‘relax’ and the fact that you have a background in psychology and therapy. Can you suggest anything for me? Do you think CBT is a good idea?
I’m not really in as bad a state as this may make it sound. One thing I’ve learned over the years is not to take any of it too seriously.
After many years of involvement with therapy, I feel that one of the most effective and simplest long-term ways to deal with anxiety and other uncomfortable feelings is to spend some time paying attention to the feeling in the body in an innocent way. This means attending to it without trying to change it, but allowing it to change of its own accord if it does so. This is very different to listening to the ‘story of anxiety’ in the mind.
This paying attention to feelings can be done each day, often to very good effect. A technique like Focusing may be an effective way of learning how to do this but if you have already practised mindfulness you are probably able to do it naturally.
CBT can also be very helpful for anxiety and depression. It has been clinically shown to be as effective or more effective than pharmaceutical intervention in some cases. If you decide to give CBT a try, I hope that you find it helpful.
For a while I practised a meditation technique in a group. The teacher was very insistent that only his method would work. But then I had a sudden awakening and I realised that it had nothing to do with the practice that I was doing. It revealed that the ‘separated me’ is the one who wants to do all these techniques. It became obvious that liberation has nothing to do with anybody bringing it about through meditative or any other kind of practices.
I hope to come to one of your meetings soon, but it will have to be in secret as my partner gets worked up when I mention non-duality.
I would describe the lack of a relationship between practices and awakening in the same way that you do. Many others also describe it in this way.
I hope you get to a meeting eventually. The difficulty with partners is quite common. Good luck with it. I have a vision of people creeping off to non-duality meetings in secret, much as others might creep off to betting shops, opium dens or brothels.
Well, you can lose something in all three of the places you mention: your money, your mind or your virginity.
It’s increasingly obvious to me that I have no control over events. Nevertheless, something in me continues to try to exert an influence over them so that I can somehow get something from them. Ironically, when I do this I don’t even know what it is that I want.
It is like a car running down a hill with its engine switched off. Even though the cylinders are no longer firing, the wheels are still going round and round.
That’s an excellent metaphor. Another one that occurs to me is that it’s like a hamster wheel that’s still spinning after the hamster has got off.
Even when Oneness is seen there usually remains some level of neurotic ‘machinery’ in the organism which tends to gradually unwind and play itself out. This may take a long time or a short time and it doesn’t matter which.
So feelings of trying to influence things or get something from them may continue to occur. Or they may gradually or suddenly die away. That also does not matter.
By the way, it’s not that you have no control over events. It’s that there is no ‘you’. Events happen. Or they don’t.
MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES AND AWAKENING
It seems to me that mystical experiences are different to awakening. I’ve had mystical experiences in which there was a feeling of pure unbounded love but somehow ‘I’ was still there experiencing this, even though I felt kind of ‘transparent’.
But in awakening ‘I’ wasn’t there at all. There was just a free-fall into nothing—no one there, no reference points, nothing to grasp onto.There was just knowing but no knower. After that there was a certain amount of fear but also wonder.
Does anything in my description sound familiar to you?
I agree with you that there can be mystical, or transpersonal, experiences but that these are rather different to awakening. The clue is in the word ‘experience’ and the difference is that there is still someone there, no matter how rarified and translucent, who is having the experience.
An awakening event can happen with or without the seeing of unbounded love.
The bottom line is the simple recognition that This is it, This has always been it, and This will always be it. It is this recognition that brings an end to searching. After that life goes on in its ordinary way. Wood is still chopped, water is still drawn. But it is realised that there is no one doing it.
You write in your book “The false self may drop away while the individual is still alive but it need be of no concern if it does not, because at the death of the body there is only liberation in any case”.
I can’t share your sense that there need be no concern about death! And I note that you seemed to be pretty desperate at the point that Tony Parsons said to you “I hope you die soon.”
What does it mean that at death there is liberation? Does this mean that both death and liberation are nothing? Is being liberated like being dead in a way?
I’m still waiting for the tiger to bite my head off so I’m hoping you can comment on this while I’m waiting. Perhaps it will help to pass the (timeless) time.
More than anything else, my words about liberation are an attempt at a description. They do not offer a philosophy, a metaphysic, an interpretation or even a rational argument.
As a matter of description, it is reported here and by others that when separation is seen through, death ceases to be of concern. That is partly because in liberation it is seen that what we really are was never born and so can never die.
But even in saying this we have gone into interpretation and away from description. We could conjecture many other things about death and they would all be stories.
As to Tony’s remark “I hope you die soon”, that was said to a person who was in the desert and feeling the despair of still being separate, while knowing there was nothing he could do about that.
OUT OF THE BODY EXPERIENCES AND FEAR
I sometimes have out of the body experiences when I’m going to sleep. I feel that if I could just let myself go at these times, the ‘I’ would finally fall away. But then I always panic and with that fear I find myself back in the body.
Suzanne Segal writes about experiencing a lot of fear in her book ‘Collision With The Infinite’. I’m wondering whether you’ve experienced something similar.
I’ve read ‘Collision With The Infinite’. The degree of fear that Suzanne Segal experienced on awakening is unusual and I did not experience anything like that. However, I did experience a great deal of despair between what in the story of time is sometimes called awakening and liberation.
The experiences you describe having are fairly common. Others report similar events, particularly, like you, in the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states just before falling asleep or on waking up. Whether you let go or panic is not in your hands. What happens is simply an automatic energetic response of the body-mind system.
You may be interested in reading Susan Blackmore’s book on OBE’s, ‘Beyond The Body’.
AWAKENING AND EMOTIONAL SUFFERING
I’m beginning to recognise that emotional suffering gets stronger after awakening. Others that I’ve talked to about this say the same. So even though I see life now as a kind of dream in some ways, in other ways it is more vivid than before. If I have an argument with my girlfriend, I feel angrier and more upset than I used to do. Every feeling is simply allowed to be what it is, raw and natural, with no holding back. Instead of being retained in the body it’s fully felt or expressed. It feels like this is the natural way of being after awakening.
My mind is also completely shot. Is this common in awakening? And is the mind the same thing as the person?
Tony Parsons says that this ruins your life. I feel I know what he means by that now. Yet in a way everything stays the same, except there are some subtle changes that I notice. For example life just unfolds of its own accord in an easier and more effective way. And my sense of responsibility and guilt have more or less disappeared.
Nowadays I live a very simple life. I used to think so many things were important in my life but most of this sense of importance has disappeared. In a way it’s a relief but in another way I almost feel nostalgic for my old way of being.
You describe aspects of seeing non-duality very clearly. Yes, life is seen to be a kind of waking dream and yet more vivid and real than before, because now the many projections and neuroses of the person no longer get in the way of experiencing it directly.
Before liberation, we tend to project a great deal of our own psychic material onto reality, rendering it dull and colourless. After liberation we tend to see life itself. And yes, because everything becomes more immediate, suffering may actually increase, or become more raw as you say. But it also tends to pass more quickly than for the neurotic person.
The mind is almost synonymous with the person. You write that the mind is shot. My way of putting this is that in liberation it is seen that there is no mind, there is simply a flow of thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions arising. Before liberation these create the impression that there is a mind from which they come, but in liberation this is seen through. It is seen that there are thoughts but there is no thinker, just as there are actions but there is no doer. This is partly why guilt and responsibility tend to fall away.
By the way, when I first wrote this I made a typo and it came out as “the mind is shit.” That will do just as well as a description of the mind.
I agree with Tony that this ruins our life, or we could say that it ruins what we thought was our life. But it brings the gift of simplicity and a falling in love with the ordinary.
I get the impression that more and more people are becoming awakened. But many of them are encountering a common problem. The initial experience of being without a self is followed by a sense of a complete void, an emptiness, a desert. That’s what it’s like for me. This can be very painful and very difficult to deal with.
Do you recognise my description? Do you know of others who are going through it? Did you go through it? If you did, how did you cope with it?
‘The desert’ is a commonly used term for the state that you describe. It is a stage that is often experienced between awakening and liberation. Non-duality is seen, but after that initial seeing the sense of being a separate person returns, bringing with it a sense of emptiness or despair. This is partly because there is still a sense of separation but now it is known that there is no one who can do anything about it.
Yes, I know of many others who go through this. Yes, I went through it myself. I coped by doing simple things, such as going for walks and reading books and deriving from them what enjoyment I could.
Who are the teachers of awakening and non-duality that you would recommend? Which practices do you think are the most effective?
It is not possible to teach awakening or non-duality and no practice will give rise to awakening. The attempt to teach awakening is simply misguided so I’m unable to recommend anyone who does this.
Although I know intellectually that there is no person, I still find that thoughts and feelings of a disturbing nature come up for me. Should I be making an effort to rid myself of these or should I just wait patiently?
Whether you make an effort or wait patiently, what I am trying to communicate is that there is no one who does either of these things. In other words ultimately it may be seen that everything is unfolding of its own accord.
Do you know Osho’s dynamic meditation, the one where you make a huge effort to jump up and down, shake, roar and express whatever feeling is in your body, especially anger? Have you ever done it?
I’ve been doing it even though I find that I don’t like it. Although I don’t seem to be getting anything from it, I’m wondering if I should simply make more effort at it.
I have a lot of problematic feelings that I think I need to get rid of. I don’t know whether I should just relax with them or make more of an effort. I’ve been given a lot of different and confusing advice.
And can I ask you what ‘effort’ is in any case? If there is nobody, why should we have to make an effort?
And while I’ve got your attention, what is ‘will’?
Long ago I did Osho’s dynamic meditation for a very short while. I hated it and felt I got nothing from it. But I did a relaxed sitting meditation for many years and loved it. Now I do Tai Chi, which I also love. The point I’m trying to make is that different things feel appropriate at different times to different people so there is really no point in trying to force anything.
Many people find that an effective way to deal with problematic feelings is simply to put their attention on the feeling in a relaxed way wherever it manifests in the body. Then they follow it with their attention, noticing whatever happens to it.
If this appeals to you, you could try it for a little while. Then you could do some small simple thing that you enjoy. This is neither a recommendation nor advice. I simply notice that many people find it effective so it might be worth a try.
I associate the word ‘effort’ with strain. It is often uncomfortable and so perhaps best avoided when possible. As to ‘will’, the person living in separation often considers that they own a possession called ‘will’ or ‘will-power’. When separation is seen through, it is seen that we do not own any such thing, because there is nobody who owns anything.
So how can I awaken? Without effort and will, surely I cannot do anything to achieve realisation.
And what do I do about my life?
Seeing through separation reveals not that you “cannot do anything” but rather that there is no one who does anything. That is quite different.
Meanwhile, as you may have noticed, stuff keeps on happening. It might also be possible to notice that this stuff keeps on happening of its own accord. However, the sense of separation makes us feel that we are doing it.
You can’t do anything about your life because you don’t have a life.
What do you mean by “this stuff keeps on happening of its own accord” and “you don’t have a life”?
The heart of awakening and liberation is the seeing that everything is appearing of its own accord and that there is no self which runs our life. This is what Buddhists mean when they refer to ‘empty phenomena rolling by’. I know this is baffling for the mind. I’m sorry that there is nothing more that I can say to make it clearer.
Although I understand what you write intellectually, I don’t really ‘get it’. Both making an effort and being passive seem like traps to me.
There’s a lot of emotional suffering in my life. I also have disturbing physical symptoms. I very much hope to be happy one of these days.
Yes, intellectual understanding is not the same as seeing through separation. Neither effort nor passivity are relevant here but it may be recognised that there is no person who either makes an effort or is passive.
As to the emotional suffering and physical symptoms that you mention, it is sensible for any person who is suffering to seek whatever help they may be drawn to, for example healing or therapy or medical advice. Because I am writing about the absolute I do not give advice but there are many people who can give good advice about the relative events that cause us suffering.
I hope you will be happy too and send you my best wishes.
After periods when I’ve thought “This is liberation” my mind has raised its voice again and confused me. Then I’ve ended up thinking “There must be more still to find, maybe piece by piece. Or perhaps I’ll keep disappearing one bit at a time.” Sometimes it seems to me that I’ll never stop waiting for liberation.
Then I remember hearing Tony Parsons say “You cannot have less and less of nothing.”
I’ve also heard Tony say “Being is not in the least interested in seeing or not seeing.”
I once asked you how it’s possible for liberation to happen either suddenly or gradually when time does not exist. As far as I remember, you said “Time is in the appearance.” For some reason, this really shocked me. So what is time?
When only the emptiness of Everything and Nothing is seen, that tends to leave searching still going on. But when the fullness of Everything and Nothing is seen as well, searching tends to end.
Even after that, in the appearance there may still seem to be a process going on as remaining neurosis gradually drops away. But as Tony points out, Oneness isn’t the least bit interested in this, or in whether seeing through duality takes place or not, because This is all Oneness anyway and ultimately being asleep and being awake are the same thing.
Everything in the relative world, the world of the appearance, including an apparent journey towards liberation, can only unfold within the appearance of time. The absolute is timeless. Finally, in liberation, the relative and the absolute are seen to be the same.
Why do I have so much fear of death? Do you have any advice about this?
Have you made friends with death?
Where there is a sense of being a separate autonomous person it is natural to fear death, because death seems to threaten the end of our separate existence. But when separation is seen through, it is known that what we really are is Oneness itself ‘pretending’ to be a separate person. By the way, that’s only a metaphor.
What we really are was never born, and so can never die.
I would not say that I have “made friends with death.” It is simply noticed that once separation has been seen through, concerns about death and interest in death tend to fall away. That has been noticed here and in other individuals.
This lack of concern about death has nothing to do with the mind and cannot be produced by anything the mind may think about death.
FEELINGS, DRUGS AND LOSING LIBERATION
Some time ago you suggested to me that I relax into my feelings. I did this and the disturbance I was feeling then has diminished. Somehow as I relaxed into the feelings, the feelings themselves relaxed too. One of our core problems, I think, is that we tend to focus obsessively on our problems and this feeds more energy into them.
May I ask you another question now? If liberation has been seen, can that seeing be lost again because of circumstances? For example if you take a lot of drugs or drink heavily, can you lose presence?
When we focus on a problem in our mind, it often tends to stay stuck. When we’re mindful of how the problem feels in our body, the energy behind the problem tends to release. Be aware that this can be a gradual process that takes place over a long time.
Liberation is the simple seeing that there is no person, that everything arises from Nothing, and that the nature of Nothing is unconditional love. In that, anything can arise, including the taking of drugs or alcohol. However, the impulse to take drugs and alcohol is often neurotic and neurosis tends to decrease when liberation is seen. So it’s reasonable to expect that in that case the impulse to take drugs and alcohol may reduce in liberation.
But remember, there are no absolute rules. You cannot tie Oneness down or put it in any box, including one labelled ‘No Drugs Or Alcohol Here’.
You cannot own presence, so you cannot lose it.
I am aware of the space around me and I notice that I am in the space.
Recently I experienced a sudden flash. It was as if there was a total depersonalisation. Everything became me and I became everything. The buildings were in me and I in them. This felt very stable and powerful, but then suddenly it was gone and I was back.
Rather than you are in the space, I would say the space is in you. Actually, you and the space are one. The ‘flash’ you describe is an awakening event.
I’ve heard you say “This is it and this is sufficient”. But I still own the added piece of software that Tony Parsons calls “me”. This causes a deep and never-ending nagging inside, which makes it impossible for me to see This as “it” and “sufficient”.
There is still a programme running inside me which constantly searches for meaning. Although I do what you suggest and drink tea and eat cake, I feel frustration a lot of the time.
You often say that you don´t give advice. Nevertheless you have suggested that we relax. But for someone who can’t relax, what can they do?
I feel stuck with no one to talk to. On the one hand I don’t trust advice from those who haven’t seen liberation. On the other hand those who have seen liberation don’t care anymore about anyone’s apparent story. But heigh ho, maybe you’ll write to me anyway.
It is frustrating, both for the one who asks for advice and the one who is asked for advice, to see that no advice about the Ultimate is possible. Once the game of giving and receiving advice about liberation is known to be useless it tends to die.
Nevertheless, there are obviously things that the seeker can do to make their apparent life more comfortable.
Years ago I used to phone Tony for advice. He might suggest that I go for a drive in the car or have a nice meal. At the time I found this very frustrating. However, now I can see the wisdom in it, because when separation is seen through, what is left is the simplicity of presence and the enjoyment of simple things.
I wouldn’t say that I don’t care anymore about anyone’s apparent story. Empathy still arises here, but there is also the knowing that where liberation is concerned, all I can do is give a description. I cannot suggest any path or practice.
For some reason I just love to be around communication about non-duality—this attempt to express the inexpressible. Like you I have a background in psychology and following gurus and spiritual paths.
I know that no real help with this can be expected. Nevertheless, I’ve heard Tony Parsons say that his talks are really an excuse for something else to happen—an energetic shift in which the boundless may be recognised. Do you have any comment on this?
I feel very frustrated because I recognise that there can be no real end to neurosis and psychological suffering except through liberation, but I know that I cannot do anything to bring this about. And I ‘get’ that even recognising Oneness is a kind of illusion as it’s never really been lost. What a joke it is to know all this intellectually yet still be caught up in the appearance of duality! Oh well, I suppose it’s the little joke of Lila that it will go on until it doesn’t.
It sounds like your head is well and truly in the tiger’s mouth—in which case there is nothing to do but wait and see whether the tiger bites your head off.
I agree with Tony that this energetic shift can happen. But of course there are no rules about whether it does or not.
Perhaps it is possible to notice the simple and obvious fact that whatever is happening is happening. There is no possibility of it being any other way. If we are sitting with Tony, either experiencing or not experiencing an energetic shift, that is what is happening. If we are sitting in a bar, experiencing or not experiencing a pint of lager, that is what is happening. This is always It and this is always What Is Happening.
It’s part of the frustration of seeking that intellectual knowledge makes no difference.
I found your first sentence, with its reminder of my helplessness, strangely comforting.
I suppose the constant invitation of Oneness is to notice that whatever is happening is happening. When things are going well, this is easy. But when there’s a lot of suffering it’s difficult to hold on to this insight. I have an expectation that after liberation the suffering may decrease but that may be the last illusory hope of the seeker.
There are no rules, so all expectations are false. Remember the Zen story of the monk who said “Now I’m enlightened, I’m just as miserable as ever.” But I know individuals who would say something different—so no expectations!
You write “There is no separation.” What do you mean? Separation from what?
I mean separation from all and every phenomena. I mean separation from objects, from people, from everything that arises in This. I mean separation between ‘I’ the subject and ‘it’ the object.
These are not metaphors or poetic forms of expression. In an awakening or liberation event it is seen that there is literally no separation between that which is experienced subjectively as ‘me’ and that which is experienced objectively as ‘other’.
I have been reading your books, as I hope you will be pleased to hear.
You have written that if you were ever to visit a psychotherapist again, you would prefer one who is not there. In other words, you’d prefer to go to one who has seen liberation.
I feel intuitively that I agree with you. Could you comment further?
I hope you’ve not only been reading my books but also enjoying them.
Yes, I would prefer a psychotherapist who at least knew about non-duality, or even better, one who wasn’t there. I feel this is particularly important if the client perceives their experiences as having to do with awakening.
When presented with experiences of awakening, psychotherapists who are unfamiliar with these can assume that the client is suffering from psychosis or disassociation. This is of course profoundly unhelpful.
A psychotherapist who is not there is less likely consciously or unconsciously to impose their own agendas on the client. They are more likely to have seen through their own stories, including the particular stories that an interest in psychotherapy tends to develop. This may create a space in which it becomes more likely that the client will see through their own stories, without this becoming yet another agenda of the psychotherapeutic sessions.
A month ago I went on one of Tony Parsons’ retreats. It was not my first and I absolutely loved it, as I have in the past.
While I was there I noticed a recurring pattern that I have. Even before it was over I was planning to attend the next residential in a few months time. I’m always looking to the future, it seems, even though I understand that there is nothing to seek!
I’m beginning to realise that, as long as no great shift has occurred for me, I’m stuck with the feeling that “something else has to happen”. It seems to me that this very belief is sustaining my seeking.
I have had quite a few flashes of “no one here” but they have all been very brief. I have the feeling that something longer has to happen to convince me that seeing is complete.
Do you relate to this? Was it like this for you after awakening?
The sense that the energy of seeking is still going on, even when it’s been understood that there is nothing to seek for, is frustrating for many people.
Here there were two distinct events. After awakening, when the absolute emptiness of everything was seen, the energy of seeking went on even though it was known that there was no way to seek. Some people call this period being in a desert. It can be a period of despair.
After liberation, when the absolute fullness of everything was seen, the energy of seeking ended. Now life goes on and it is known that everything is simply what it is.
CHOICE OR NO CHOICE. WILL OR NO WILL.
I’ve heard you on a video tell the story of a friend of yours who believed that the universe would always support him. As a result he decided to give up the job that he didn’t like very much. Eventually when he had used up all his savings, he couldn’t pay his rent, lost his house and was on his way to live in a tent in the park.
What I hear in this is that he is exercising his ‘personal will’. So who is it that is choosing to allow the universe to take care of him? Did he choose this, and if so, was it his choice that led subsequently to his financial disaster?
The anecdote that you refer to was about someone I had not met, but who had phoned me a number of times from America. Each phone call chronicled his further decline in fortune until he was facing homelessness and about to move into ‘tent city’. That was the last phone call I received from him so I can only guess at what happened next.
Of course what happens is simply what happens. The sensation that there may be ‘personal will’ exercised and someone who is making a choice is exactly that—simply a sensation. One way of putting this is to say that there was an apparent choice, or an apparent decision, but there was no ‘self’ making that choice or decision. Let me be absolutely unambiguous: I am not saying that there is no choice, I am saying that there is no one who makes any choice, which is quite different.
In this waking dream, there are actions which appear to lead to consequences. In our night-time dreams there are also actions which appear to lead to consequences, but when we wake up in the morning this is seen through. Then it is known that both the actions and the consequences are unreal. In liberation, that is known about this waking dream. That is why it can be said that this is both real and unreal.
Thank you for your reply. For me that expresses the subtle difference that the mind refuses to recognise.
ABIDING SAHAJA NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI
Has your realisation continued and become a steady abiding? And do you consider this state as more akin to savikalpa, as I would expect, or sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi? Is this the state others you know are in, such as Tony Parsons? Does nirvikalpa samadhi appear at all for you or for anyone that you know?
I myself have been in this state, as well as in savikalpa samadhi. My breath was suspended for at least half an hour. I was dead to the world but peacefully and blissfully super-conscious with no sense of I at all.
I am signing this in my spiritual name.
I know almost nothing of the terminology of traditional advaita so I cannot comment on the specifics of your questions. Nevertheless, I am occasionally drawn to the sayings of some of the Christian mystics. I also very much like some of Nisargadatta’s sayings in his well-known book ‘I Am That’. I am probably paraphrasing but I find myself quoting his “Seeing I am nothing is wisdom. Seeing I am everything is love”.
As to what happened here, I can’t do any better than refer you to my first book for a description. I also like Nathan Gill’s description very much. Again this is probably a paraphrase: “First there’s someone cycling down a country lane. Then there’s no one cycling down a country lane yet cycling down a country lane is still happening.”
By the way, the seeing of non-duality has nothing especially to do with bliss, peace, the suspension of breath, super-consciousness or being dead to the world. These are all states and as such cannot abide. Seeing non-duality is seeing that out of which all states arise.
UNCOMFORTABLE FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS
I appreciate the way you don’t make the slightest concession to dualism in what you communicate about non-duality, so I’d like to ask you a question.
Whenever we feel bad or downcast, our every thought seems to be related to that feeling. This almost invariably increases the pain we feel. Why is this? Do thoughts have their own kind of power?
Sometimes thoughts precede feelings, sometimes feelings precede thoughts. An angry thought, for example, can clearly generate angry feelings. It is not quite so obvious that an angry feeling can colour whatever thought comes into the mind, so that it will be an angry thought.
This is well-known among teachers of meditation. It is why they warn meditators not to act immediately on a thought that may come to them in meditation.
When I taught meditation, I would tell my students that if they came out of meditation wanting to phone their boss and shout abuse at them (as sometimes does happen), they should wait for twenty-four hours before deciding whether to act on this or not. If they still wanted to do it after that time, then fair enough. They could have their fun and start looking for a new job.
It is natural that uncomfortable thoughts and feelings increase the suffering that an individual experiences. We might even say that this is what suffering consists of. But I would not describe this as thoughts having power. It is simply the nature of whatever is arising in This. Out of Nothing arises the appearance of everything, including uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.
Remember that in reality there is no such thing as ‘a thought’ or ‘a feeling’ because a thought and a feeling are not entities. They are processes, just as you are not an entity but a process. So there is only the process of thinking and the process of feeling.
Equally we could say that you are Oneness manifesting the process of ‘William-ing’.
LIBERATION, FREE-WILL AND DEPRESSION
There was an awakening event for ‘me’ a few months ago. It was confusing and this glimpse of my ‘death’ left me feeling depressed. Nevertheless, what I had recognised seemed profoundly familiar.
Prior to this I had the usual amateur career as a seeker. I had done many self-development courses, much psychotherapy and some self-enquiry.
Since the awakening event I’ve read Stephen Pinker’s ‘How the Mind Works’. He puts the view that all of our experiences are the result of natural selection and that any beliefs that there is a benevolent deity are simply the result of electro-chemical reactions in our brains. Of course he holds that free will is an illusion.
This all adds to my depression.
So I want to ask you whether liberation is simply the seeing that ‘we’ are the result of blindly evolving physical processes. If not, what is it?
Let me start by saying that in liberation it is also seen that the nature of Oneness is unconditional love.
Evolutionary theory has huge explanatory power. Of the three great thinkers who influenced late nineteenth and twentieth century thought so powerfully, Marx and Freud have been somewhat discredited but Darwin marches on triumphantly as the theory of natural selection and adaptation explains more and more about our world and about our selves.
Stephen Pinker is one of several interesting writers in this field and in the field of neuroscience. What he and others are describing is analagous to but most definitely not the same as what is seen in liberation.
These writers claim with good reason that there is no such thing as free will. However, in liberation it is seen that there is no person or central self who could exercise free will. This is substantially different. In his excellent book ‘Free Will’ even Sam Harris shies away from overtly recognising the non-existence of the person, although he demonstrates the fallacy of free will very clearly. And Sam Harris is one of the most open-minded of the scientists writing about consciousness, neuroscience and free will. This is possibly because like Susan Blackmore, another open-minded scientist, he has a background in Zen.
There is a world of difference between thinking that you are a person who has no free will, a kind of automaton, on the one hand, and recognising that you are Oneness doing its thing on the other. We could say that you are Oneness doing its ‘David’ thing.
The prevailing paradigm in science is material realism, sometimes known as ‘physicalism’. This holds that physical reality is primary and that consciousness arises only as a secondary phenomenon, or epiphenomenon, of the physical. Indeed it can be professionally damaging for any scientist to challenge this orthodoxy. What is seen in liberation is sometimes held to be the opposite of this—that consciousness is primary and gives rise to the physical manifestation. It is more accurate to say that consciousness and the physical manifestation co-arise. By the way, I am using the word ‘consciousness’ to mean simply the perceiving of phenomena. I am not implying that there is some kind of subtle ‘consciousness effluvia’ or ‘mind stuff’ wafting about the cosmos like a London fog.
Scientists won’t be able to describe reality accurately until they see that everything arises from unconditional love. If they see this they will be confronted with the impossibility of describing it anyway. That is why, if you want to know about ultimate reality, you have to go to a mystic, not a scientist.
When Oneness is finally seen in its fullness, our own emptiness is not seen as depressing. Instead, freedom from the self is seen to be the ultimate and the only real freedom.
How do you know that there is unconditional love? Can you verify this? Is not this claim itself a kind of dogma like any other religious dogma?
There are no satisfactory answers for the mind to your questions. Ultimately all that can be said is “When this is seen, it is seen.” This is because what is being given here is a description and no understanding or knowledge has any bearing on this.
As an analogy, think of the taste of an orange. No amount of conceptual knowledge about oranges, including an analysis of their chemical constituents, can convey the flavour. But with one bite of an orange, the flavour is known even if there is no conceptual knowledge at all.
As to whether this is just another dogma or not, I would say that where there is a dogma, there is always an agenda. In other words, the person with the dogma wants you to get something. Or just as likely, they want to get something from you. But there is no agenda here. There is no one here who cares whether anyone gets this or not. There is just a character who finds it interesting sometimes to communicate about this.
I have heard you talk about evolution at a meeting that I attended. But you also say that there is no time. If there is no time, how can there be evolution?
In this waking dream there is the appearance of time and there are numerous phenomena. When seeking to understand these phenomena, evolutionary theory has a great deal of explanatory power. In fact at the moment for many of them it’s the only game in town.
Analogously, in a night-time dream, all sorts of events unfold in time. But the time in which they unfold is not real. Or it might be more accurate to say that it is in a way both real and unreal.
You have said that rebirth is a story which the mind finds attractive because the separate self feels itself to be threatened by death.
I have recently read a book about awakening which includes this short passage: “Everything disappeared and then what arose was an image of what seemed like an infinite number of past incarnations, as if heads were lined up behind one another as far back as I could see.”
This book seems to be giving a genuine account of awakening. So is Oneness appearing as an apparent series of rebirths before awakening, perhaps as a kind of game?
Questions such as “Is there rebirth?” or “What happens after death?” resolve themselves in liberation, not because they are answered but because it is seen that they are unanswerable in any way that would satisfy the mind. Then an interest in them tends to die and the energy that the mind invested in them fades away, leaving a simple resting in This.
No teacher and no answer could finally satisfy the mind which asks these questions. No matter how long the guru’s beard, how magnificent their hat, how beautiful their garlands of flowers or how many their prostrate devotees, the mind would eventually start doubting what they said.
From your description, the author you quote is describing an inner experience, albeit a transpersonal and rather extraordinary one. Inner experiences are of course subjective. If we are ruthlessly honest it cannot be known what the nature of this or any other inner experience is, other than that it is what it is, a subjective event. This author is quite open about this. He says that what arose was an ‘image’ which ‘seemed like’ past incarnations ‘as if’ heads were lined up
Let me relate this to my own experience. Many years ago I was involved in transpersonal and humanistic psychology and psychotherapy. As part of this involvement I had many sessions of past-life regression and I ‘experienced’ many ‘past lives’. Later on I led groups through past-life regression processes. It is in fact very easy to invoke these experiences in many people.
At the time, because I was convinced of the story of rebirth and had invested time, money and belief in it, I was inclined to think that these were in some way real memories. Now that there is no investment remaining in the story of rebirth, it is quite clear that this could not be known. As a result any interest that I once had in such experiences has died.
In liberation it is seen that what you really are, Oneness itself, was never born and therefore can never die. This is another reason why any interest in questions about the death and rebirth of the person tends to end in liberation.
In liberation it is seen that only This, emptiness arising as whatever is manifesting in presence, is known. Everything else is unknown. The mind, because of its nature, tends to give rise to endless speculation in its attempts to know the unknown.
Is there anything I can do to prepare for death?
Death is quite able to take care of itself, with no need for us to make preparations for it.
However our feelings about death may be a different matter. For those who find these feelings disturbing, there may be things we can do to lessen our disturbance by way of therapy or healing or even simply through reading.
DOES ANYTHING EXIST EXCEPT IN MY THOUGHTS?
I am alone in my garden and there is no one else around. Does the world beyond my garden and other people exist except in my thoughts?
Your question starts from the idea that you exist as person, and everyone else may only exist in your thoughts. But this is not what I am saying. It is you yourself that only seems to exist.
Awakening and liberation consist of the recognition that the central self that seems to be Catherine is an appearance that can disappear. When this is recognised it is seen that there is only Oneness, there is no Catherine in whom Oneness appears. Therefore there is no Catherine in whom others appear.
Awakening and liberation tend to reconfigure the psyche. Then there is an absolute recognition of what can be known and what cannot be known. What can be known is This, whatever is arising out of emptiness in presence. Everything else is unknown.
It is very natural for the mind to ask questions like yours. In liberation this questioning tends to cease, not because the questions are answered, but because it is seen that they are unanswerable. In other words, the mind, rather than being satisfied, simply gives up.
Ramana Maharshi said that there was nothing to be gained from looking for body consciousness. What is the difference between body consciousness and awareness?
I don’t use the term ‘body consciousness’ myself and I use the term ‘awareness’ only rarely and with caveats. I am therefore reluctant to comment on what Ramana Maharshi may have meant by this.
Some people use the term ‘awareness’ to mean personal awareness. That leads to the popular idea that we can become liberated by developing our personal awareness. This is highly misleading.
The only sense that I can make of the term ‘body consciousness’ is awareness of what is going on in the body. Developing this can have considerable therapeutic benefits but it is irrelevant to liberation.
To me, the terms Oneness, Non-separation, Non-duality, Being and Consciousness are synonymous.
What did Ramana Maharshi mean by “You have to find out who you are”?
If there is no one, what is it that we are really seeking? Are we seeking the simple recognition that we do not exist?
I cannot comment on what Ramana may have meant. What you really are is Oneness but that will not be realised until you are no longer there.
As long as there is a state of separation, seeking is the human condition. You are right, we are seeking the recognition that we do not exist, but that can’t be seen until there’s no one there to see it.
Does the subconscious exist or is it a myth?
Considering the subconscious to exist as an entity is an example of what some psychologists call ‘reification’. This means regarding an idea as if it were a real thing.
The subconscious is an idea, or a set of ideas, which can be very helpful in explaining why people behave as they do. It can be a useful map. It can have a lot of explanatory power and it can help us to understand our own and other people’s psyches. However in saying this we risk another reification. We risk reifying the psyche.
Another way of putting this is to say that the subconscious and the psyche are both processes rather than objects. Indeed, the same is true of you and I. We are processes, not things.
So the subconscious does not exist as a thing, but neither is it a myth. It is an explanatory story which can help us to make sense of our own behaviour and the behaviour of others.
We should bear in mind that some of our stories about the subconscious can also mislead us and render our psyches and behaviours even more mysterious.
Is there really only the present moment?
Yes, there is only the present moment. Or rather there is only presence. But in separation there also seems to be the past and the future, which are often attached to feelings of fear, regret, anxiety, guilt, nostalgia and hope. These feelings all make the past and the future seem very real.
When separation is seen through, there is only This. Then the importance of the stories of the past and the future diminishes, as do all other stories.
I understand enlightenment but I know that this understanding is of no help. The large sums of money that I’ve spent on psychotherapy have not been any help either. I hoped non-duality would make my problems disappear but it’s only been of some help mentally. Now I feel hopeless. Can you offer me some advice?
All I can do is attempt to describe this state, which is not actually a state, that is sometimes called awakening and liberation. I am not able to offer any advice about either reaching it or dealing with it, because it arises spontaneously and is ‘experienced’ by each individual differently.
However, I am quite often contacted by other individuals who are experiencing hopelessness about liberation as you are. There are groups to be found via the internet if you wish to share with others about this. For example there are several non-duality Meetup groups. I wish you well.
I have been to meetings with Tony Parsons, whom I like very much. My own sense is of a deep resonance with non-duality.
It’s been quite clear for some time now that no one is living ‘my’ life and that in fact this life only seems to be mine. But I still experience doubts about whether liberation is really being lived. I feel a resonance yet I ask myself whether this is really it.
Can you send me some words which might help this character to die?
Doubts arise naturally. They are simply thoughts arising and falling away. They are themselves liberation expressing itself as doubts as to whether this is liberation.
These thoughts can still arise even when separation is seen through, but they are usually not given much attention anymore. This is because there is no one inside listening to them. Because of this they tend to fall away quite quickly.
Is the body-mind organism’s tendency to avoid pain and to seek out pleasure natural? Or is it something we learn? Is there anything wrong with the enjoyment we experience when eating a lovely piece of cake, or with the disgust we feel at seeing a filthy toilet?
Some pleasure and pain responses are learned but many are Darwinian imperatives and are necessary for our survival. Attraction to food and sex and disgust at rotting matter which might spread disease are obvious examples of these.
Of course there is nothing wrong with either enjoying a piece of cake or feeling disgust at a filthy toilet.
Any foolish ideas that are picked up on the spiritual path that we must rise above both pleasure and pain, regarding all phenomena with the same bland equanimity, are simply that—foolish ideas.
That’s why I’m going off now to have a lovely cup of tea in a nice clean cup.
Two days ago I vanished, as I have heard Tony, you and others describe. It didn’t seem a particularly special event. It was as if the watcher of this film wasn’t there for a few seconds and there was just watching the film. Then ‘I’ was back and in charge again.
Is there anything that I can do or should do about this now? As I write these words to you, something inside me knows that your answer will be “No”.
You describe an awakening event very well and, as you have indicated yourself, there is nothing to do now. You will know whether it is all over for you if searching has stopped.
Searching tends to stop when it is seen that everything is full, rather than when it is seen only that everything is empty. The fullness that is seen consists of unconditional love.
Seeing unconditional love can feel blissful for a while. This bliss almost always fades after a time. That does not mean that the self has come back. If searching has ended then it is all over for the self. Then the nature of what is arising becomes less important, whether it is pleasure or pain, or happiness or sorrow, because it is not arising for anyone.
There seems to me to be a great freedom in knowing that there is no self and no free will. But I tend only to feel this when I am happy. When I’m miserable I may be able to go on trusting the universe intellectually, but I feel downcast and tense.
There’s quite a cult of advising us that in difficult circumstances we should stay positive. But I think it may be better to do nothing and accept our tension. Then I think “But we can’t do nothing! Even doing nothing is really doing something!”
Can you advise me or comment on this?
It’s a common experience that when there’s unhappiness we are likely to feel more of a sense of separation. I don’t make recommendations but if I did it would be to find some simple thing that you enjoy doing and do it at these times. And if tension arises, it will probably be less troublesome if it’s accepted rather than if it’s fought against.
As you point out, we can’t do nothing. If we try to do nothing, something will always happen. Knowing this, it might be possible to relax.
Tony Parsons, Nathan Gill, you and others have ‘experienced liberation’.
I understand that there is no self but I have not experienced this. Do I need to? Is this experience necessary for everyone? And why is the experience of no self important anyway?
Understanding liberation and seeing liberation have no connection. There can be understanding without seeing, seeing without understanding, both or neither.
The kind of event that some individuals describe is not necessary. The seeing of liberation can arise with no specific event being noticeable.
Seeing that there is no self is not important. However, this seeing tends to re-configure the psyche of the individual so that the life that is lived from then on is usually somewhat different from the life that was lived before.
Is not “seeing that there is no self” what the seeker longs for?
The seeker searches for an end to their dissatisfaction. They may long to see that there is no self but can have no idea of what this really means until the self disappears. Until then ‘seeing that there is no self’ can only remain a thought.
Are those who teach traditional Advaita not right to stress the importance of seeking and of a method to give rise to seeing?
No. These teachings are stories to satisfy the mind of the seeker.
Can the psyche be reconfigured with only an intellectual understanding of Advaita? If not, why not?
No, intellectual understanding is simply intellectual understanding. It does not produce ‘seeing’. The taking on of different views, opinions or ideas about liberation has no relevance here. Seeing liberation is an energetic shift which ‘we’ are unable to bring about because ‘we’ are an illusion.
I cannot understand how something with no meaning attached to it can affect the psyche and produce a shift into liberation. Ramana Maharshi, Wayne Liquorman, Nathan Gill and others searched for the meaning of liberation before they experienced the shift.
Your failure to understand is probably because you cannot help thinking of liberation as a mental shift. It is not. The psyche is not simply a set of ideas, and the ideas that it contains are in any case irrelevant to liberation.
Individuals such as Ramana, Wayne, Nathan or even myself may search for the meaning of liberation before it occurs or they may not. But this has no importance except as part of a story.
I’m still recovering from reading your book ‘Drink Tea, Eat Cake’. Wow!
I fear death. Ironically I also don’t know what to do with my life. Can you offer any advice?
I hope it’s obvious why I never offer advice, although I do sometimes say that if I did, it would be to relax and find something simple that you enjoy doing and do it.
You say that you fear death and do not know what to do with your life. In liberation fear of death tends to fall away and it is seen that we do not have a life. Life simply unfolds.
Apart from that I can only suggest the same as other individuals might. There might be books to read or people to talk to that might help you to deal with these issues.
I have been to meetings with Tony Parsons and with you. I find a stillness and humour at both that I value. But I have a question.
I experience a fear of merging with Oneness, even though I have a powerful wish to lose myself. It seems clear to me that my ego is afraid to die, so what part of me is it that longs for unity?
Although the ego may think that it desires liberation as a way of ending its unhappiness, in reality the person can have no idea of what liberation is, nor that liberation entails its own disappearance. This is why there is often a tension between the desire for liberation and the fear of it. We could say that the ego is afraid to die, but nevertheless Oneness wants to re-discover itself.
RUINING OUR LIVES WITH SPIRITUAL SEARCHING
I find your books very calming and very funny. In one of them you speak about how certain people can ruin their lives by following a spiritual path.
I’m puzzled by this because I understood that this message states that there is no choice. In that case, how can it be said that a person can make a decision that ruins their life?
I know that you could answer my question by simply saying “There is no person.” But please don’t do that. My question is about what happens in the play.
Language is a poor medium for conveying ideas about non-duality, but it’s all we have got. If we always wrote with maximum clarity and lack of ambiguity, our writing would become unreadable. So much of the time it has to be understood that phrases that seem to be about personal choice and responsibility are actually not about these.
When I write of people who have ruined their lives, I mean that in this play of consciousness such things appear to happen. As long as the sense of being an autonomous person is still present, this is tantamount to saying that, in the individual’s experience, such things do happen. It is only in retrospect, when the self has been seen through, that it is realised that no one ever made a decision that ruined their life.
In writing about people who ruin their lives, for example by abandoning their partner, children, home and profession to follow some guru, I am simply emphasising a certain psychological trait that some of us fall prey to in the name of spiritual development. This highlights one of the dangers that can arise when we are seduced by one of the many stories about gurus and enlightenment.
CAUSE AND EFFECT IN SEEING LIBERATION
Can you explain to me how attending Tony Parsons’ meetings helped you to see liberation? Is there cause and effect where this is concerned or not?
Perhaps the best thing for me to do would be to attend your satsangs?
I have never written that going to Tony’s meetings helped the seeing of liberation. I have never said that anything helps the seeing of liberation. Nevertheless, in the dream of time, an enthusiasm for listening to Tony arose here, and then ‘awakening’ occurred and later ‘liberation’ was seen. There is no implication of anything instrumental in any of that and yet gratitude to Tony arises. How strange is that!
In actuality I find all the heated discussion that is generated around questions of cause and effect and choice rather vapid. In practice what happens is that either an energy to do a particular thing arises or it does not. If it does arise then it may happen, although of course it’s also possible that it may not.
So if an enthusiasm for attending satsang happens for you, you may find yourself attending satsang. There is no need to add a story to this about cause and effect or choice or reason or meaning.
DISSOLVING SUBTLE ELEMENTS OF THE WITNESS AFTER LIBERATION
I had been a spiritual seeker for a long time when out of nowhere the realisation that there is no separate self appeared. Now life goes on but it is no longer ‘my’ life. The illusion of ‘me’ at the centre has been seen through.
I have heard some teachers say that, even after the separate self has been seen through, subtle aspects of the witness still need to be dissolved away.
Do you agree with this?
The suggestion that anything needs to be done, such as dissolving away subtle elements of the witness, is based on ignorance because everything is simply happening (apparently) of its own accord.
Just as nothing needed to be done before seeing This, nothing needs to be done after seeing This.
Who is there in any case who could do anything or dissolve anything?
Nevertheless, some minds are attracted to striving for a goal which they imagine can be achieved. For myself, I prefer to walk round my local park and have a cup of tea at the lakeside café.
DOES OVER-INTELLECTUALISING PREVENT LIBERATION?
A teacher has told me that until I stop over-intellectualising about all my experiences, I will never realise liberation. Do you think this is true?
Nothing can help and nothing can hinder the seeing of liberation. The mind may see too much intellectualising as a problem, but that’s just the mind doing its sweet old confusing thing. Liberation may be seen whether we over-intellectualise or whether we do not.
Some teachers tell students to stop intellectualising as a way of putting an end to challenging questions that they have difficulty answering. Docile and compliant students are sometimes seen as a great blessing by teachers.
AWAKENING AND LIBERATION EVENTS
You seem to suggest that awakening and liberation do not necessarily have to take place at the same time. Am I right about this?
There are no rules about the seeing of liberation. If there were it would not be liberation, it would be imprisonment.
Sometimes there are two separate events, which for convenience we could call awakening and liberation. Sometimes there is simply one event. Sometimes there is no event, but a gradual shift into this seeing. And sometimes the sense of separation doesn’t arise in childhood and there is just living in This.
During a serious illness recently the freedom of liberation arose for several days. There was no ego present at all, just freedom. Then this faded and left me with only an intellectual memory of it. What do you think happened to me?
It is possible that all there is to be seen has been seen, but there is still an idea hanging on that “This isn’t it”. Such an idea can seem very powerful, but it is still only an idea.
This is fairly common. It usually happens when the individual is still clinging to a story which goes “If this is liberation, it should be better than this.”
At this point it might be good to remember some Zen anecdotes. There is the story of a monk who said “Now that I’m enlightened, I’m just as miserable as ever.” There was also a master who asked a student “Why do you want enlightenment? How do you know you’d like it?”
Another well-known Zen saying is “Before enlightenment, chop wood. After enlightenment, chop wood.” In other words, liberation is simply the seeing that there is no central self. It has no other necessary implications. Afterwards life goes on but it is seen that there is no one living it.
OBSESSION WITH READING ABOUT NON-DUALITY
For months now I’ve been obsessed with reading about non-duality. I don’t want to do anything else in my spare time—it’s really become an addiction.
Can I take this as a sign that I’m getting close to enlightenment? Or might it even be an impediment?
Nothing holds anyone back and nothing advances anyone. If there is an obsession with reading about this, that is simply what is happening in This. Nevertheless such an obsession is relatively common and quite often arises suddenly. It may indicate that your head is in the tiger’s mouth.
Remember that, paradoxically and perhaps annoyingly, being asleep and being awake are the same thing. However, this cannot be seen while we are asleep. I once wrote “There’s no such thing as liberation, but this cannot be seen until there is liberation.” It is the ultimate paradox, but it is blindingly obvious when it is seen.
For many years I did a variety of spiritual practices because of my desire to grow spiritually. Now I seem to have lost that desire somewhere—I don’t know where.
What’s left of me seems to be gradually disappearing. There’s a character here going through the motions—going to work, drinking in the pub with friends and so on. It’s as if I’m an observer of what I used to think was my life.
I’m stunned to realise that everything is going on without a God or anything else running the show. And I’m hoping that the rest of me might dissolve eventually. Can you comment on any of this?
You give a very good description of what quite often happens. Tony Parsons refers to a period of the self coming and going. He calls this ‘me-ing’ and ‘be-ing’.
An interest in spiritual practices may arise or it may not. If it does, it may be followed by the seeing of liberation or it may not. Alternatively no interest in spiritual practices may arise and that too may be followed by liberation or it may not. There are many examples where each of these possibilities has happened. So the only thing I would say about this with absolute certainty is that there are no rules. How could there be? if there were rules this would be imprisonment, not liberation.
This seems to me to be a dream. Sometimes I think of it as God’s imaginings. What is your definition of liberation?
You call this “a dream” or “God’s imaginings”. For me “a waking dream” is the best metaphor for This. A dream is utterly convincing until there is a waking up. Then it is seen to be unreal. Of course, this waking dream is both unreal and real. Watching a movie or a play also works quite well as a metaphor for This.
Liberation is the seeing that there is no self. This apparent person at the centre of experience is in fact empty and this appearance is an outpouring from Nothing of unconditional love.
Some individuals object to that last phrase. But it captures well the difference between awakening and liberation. That is what Nisargadatta is referring to when he says “Seeing I am nothing is wisdom. Seeing I am everything is love.”
DO OTHER PEOPLE’S PERSPECTIVES EXIST?
You write that what is happening is all that there is. In that case, do other people’s perspectives exist or is my perspective the only one?
Of course I can’t know directly whether other people’s perspectives exist or not. But if they don’t, wouldn’t you agree that this places me in an unfeasibly privileged position?
No answer to your question will satisfy the mind. So here is my unsatisfactory answer.
It is a misunderstanding that what I am saying is “There is only your perspective.” That is not it at all. Rather I am saying that there is no actual personal perspective.
This is because the person that feels themself to be perceiving this is itself unreal.
There is no person. There is no central self. Therefore there is no one having this or any other experience. In liberation it is seen that This is simply arising out of nothing for no one.
There is experience but there is no one who experiences. The apparent experiencer is simply experience itself.
In other words I am not saying solipsistically that no one other than you exists. I am saying that you do not exist, at least not as the separate autonomous entity that you may feel yourself to be.
A further problem with answering your question is that “All there is is This” or “This is it” are not philosophical statements. They are instead attempts to get as close as language can to describing what is seen in awakening and liberation. As descriptions, they may clash with logic, with reason and with personal experience. Alas, that cannot be helped.
Remember that in any case none of this matters. “All there is is This” is either seen or it is not seen and it is of no importance which.
To put it another way, being asleep and being awake are the same thing, except that while sleeping they are believed to be different, while in waking they are known to be the same.
I am experiencing more observing of whatever is happening than I used to.
Nevertheless, I still feel very restless and anxious about the future.
What you describe as going on for you is fairly common. There is sometimes a growing sense of observing life, which paradoxically can also involve a greater appreciation of the simple aspects of life.
Meanwhile the psyche can continue to do its own thing, so we may continue to feel restless and anxious. Remember that even when Oneness is seen in its completeness, any feeling can still arise. It is simply seen that it arises for no one.
Some scientists are predicting major solar storms soon. They claim that these may well have the potential to harm human life. I am anxious about this, more for my children’s sake than for my own. Do you have anxieties of this nature?
I don’t have any information about solar storms. But to answer your question, no I don’t have anxieties of this nature.
There have always been so many stories of great change, involving either terrible catastrophe or wonderful transformation, that it is exhausting to pay them much attention. Meanwhile, This goes on being what it is and here a simple life is led. One more cup of tea…
I have had the experience of a period of time when there was great peace on all levels. But in retrospect, that feels like an experience which has ended, just like every experience must end.
But since then some important changes have taken place. There is still some abiding sense of peace and nothing seems to matter very much now, even things that I used to consider very important. I can’t really take anything very seriously anymore.
Nevertheless, I still have to earn a living, look after my family and get along with friends. I feel kind of stuck. I’ve seen for a little while what it means to be free of the self and I’ve had a heightened experience of life. But ‘me’ is back and I have no idea what to do about it.
Is it not true that this experience, like all other thoughts, perceptions and communication, come from the mind? And in essence wouldn’t you agree that this means that it comes from the brain? I’ve read about ‘witness consciousness’ and ‘awareness that is aware of itself’. Surely this too is simply a function of the brain? Isn’t the very awareness that there is no one to be aware itself another kind of brain function or another function of the mind?
You give a good description of an apparent process which sometimes goes on for individuals after awakening. A loss of normal motivation and a heightened sense of awareness are often reported.
As to your questions, I am not sure that I’ve grasped them. They seem too abstract for me to get to grips with. Nevertheless I would comment that of course for there to be human perceptions, there has to be a human sensory system. So anything which is experienced or communicated about has to come from there.
This includes the seeing of non-duality. As Alan Watts said we are trying to “eff the ineffable”, which is of course impossible. If you feel I’ve missed the point of your question, perhaps you might like to get back to me.
Nice try, but yes, I’m going to attempt to put it another way.
Whether someone is aware of awareness, or whether awareness is aware of itself, surely it must be the brain that enables that both to occur and to be recognised?
If I understand your question properly, the simple answer is “Yes”. Every experience that arises for an individual is mediated by or through the brain. In fact, that is simply a description of what it is to be an embodied human being.
The way I describe what you write about is that the soul has to descend to its very roots in order to rediscover what it once had and has now lost. Only in doing that can it find the great silence and stillness which are the only characteristics of enlightenment spoken of in some traditions.
I tend to avoid using the word ‘soul’ as it carries so much baggage in Western religious and spiritual thought. There is also the problem that what we are talking about is ineffable, so any attempt to describe why or how it happens is bound to fail.
Although I would avoid it myself, your metaphor of the descent of the soul is a powerful one. It reminds me of Robert Bly’s book ‘Iron John’ and also certain aspects of Jungian psychology, in which it is acknowledged that to be psychologically healthy we need to ‘bucket out our well’ or ‘shovel our shit’. In other words we need to acknowledge and deal with our shadow.
There is a German film called ‘Into Great Silence’. Perhaps you’ve seen it. However we explain it, seeing liberation certainly involves recognising great silence and stillness, although of course it is not ‘we’ who recognise it.
Stillness and silence are the only two characteristics that we can ascribe to liberation. Yet liberation has no characteristics. So here we are, stuck with the effing ineffable.
Do people often feel uncomfortable after awakening? I find myself missing the excitement of my spiritual search. I’ve also lost all motivation where my work is concerned. As if this weren’t bad enough, I can’t even touch base with family and friends anymore. We seem to be living on different planets now. I feel like I’m in some kind of limbo.
The simple answer to your question is “Yes”. Many individuals have described similar experiences after awakening. The inability to find comfort any longer in the practices and belief systems of any kind of spiritual or religious path is especially common.
Also common is a feeling of isolation from friends and family. They are usually unable to empathise with or understand what the awakening individual is going through. At an extreme, this may lead to an unwelcome referral to a psychiatrist.
Lack of motivation both in work and in life in general is often reported as well.
These generalities are very common, though of course the specifics may vary greatly in different cases.
SOME NOTES FROM THE TRENCHES OF AWAKENING
There seem to be some pretty extreme stories of awakening about. I’m thinking particularly of Suzanne Segal and U.G. Krishnamurti.
In my case, on the other hand, nothing particularly extreme has happened. I simply recognise that I know less and less as almost everything becomes seen as mystery.
I couldn’t even say whether ‘I’ or ‘my self’ (‘myself’?) is still here or not. Thinking still goes on, especially when I see a particularly stunning woman and contemplate asking her out. I’m sure I feel like a person when I’m feeling anxiety or physical discomfort. And yet somehow all of this is also impersonal.
There have been one or two specific realisations. I’ve lost my fear of death, but the thought of dying still freaks me out. I find relating to other people sometimes becoming difficult because I just don’t know what to talk about anymore. In general I’ve quietened down and often don’t have much to say about many of the topics that my friends talk about.
Suzanne Segal and U.G. Krishnamurti are two well-known cases of extreme occurrences in awakening. However, I wouldn’t pay their stories too much attention as there are no rules about this in any case.
After communicating with many individuals about this and from what is seen here, I would say that some common characteristics of the seeing of liberation are an end to searching, the recognition of the mystery and unknowable nature of almost everything, and a sense of gratitude though to no one. Any thought or feeling can still arise, including lust for a beautiful woman—thank ‘god’! And yes, suffering of any kind can tend to increase any feeling of contraction. But that is simply Oneness feeling contracted.
Fear of death tends to end with liberation. Fear of dying may go on. That’s quite natural.
There is a tendency for many individuals to say less when this has been seen. This is partly because strongly held opinions may decrease.
Is there a poet who describes what you describe?
Synchronistically, someone sent me the e e cummings poem ‘Seeker of Truth’ this week.
You could also look at T.S. Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’ or Hafiz among others.
There are flashes of this, but whenever I try to catch it, it disappears.
Yes, trying to catch this has no effect on holding on to it.
How many ‘entities’ have got this? And can you recommend some reading?
Many ‘entities’ have got this. I’ve met and talked to quite a few of them myself.
You could try reading Tony Parsons, Jan Kersschott, Nathan Gill, Leo Hartong or myself. I’m sure there are many others but as I don’t read much about this it’s difficult for me to recommend other writers.
I have had experiences which seem to me to come under the heading of ‘spiritual’. These have mostly occurred during meditation. There was a kind of dissolution of the edges where ‘I’ normally end, accompanied by an undramatic but deep feeling of joy. Is this the same as what you are describing?
I love your description and would say that I remember similar experiences in meditation. However if the experiencer remains, ultimately this is still about a person experiencing the relative, albeit the very refined levels of the relative.
Transpersonal experiences still belong to the realm of the personal, even when the person becomes translucent.
Seeing liberation has nothing to do with these refined and translucent experiences. Seeing liberation is seeing that there is no one. This brings a recognition of both the emptiness and the fullness of everything. After that, there is a great unknowing. There may also be gratitude.
COMPASSION AND OVERCOMING THE EGO
You write that the strength of the ego is not an impediment to liberation in a moralistic sense.
But you also write that an egotistical person has no space to be compassionate to others. Does this not imply that the ego is in fact an impediment to liberation?
I can’t remember writing that “an egotistical person has no space to be compassionate to others”. However that sounds right to me on a psychological and emotional level. If you could quote me chapter and verse about this I could comment further.
But I can clarify one thing. As far as I am concerned, ego is not an impediment to seeing liberation. This is because seeing liberation has nothing to do with ‘me’ or my ego.
Much unnecessary misery has been caused by people believing that they somehow have to overcome their ego in order to reach liberation. Sometimes this kind of message results in self-flagellation amongst students and devotees. Sometimes it results in ‘poisonous pedagogy’ from teachers and gurus.
Yes, I think I mis-quoted you.
The closer I get to death, the more aware of separation I seem to become and the more obsessed with the wish for liberation. I want to ‘die’ before my body does. Nothing else seems to hold any attraction for me. Everything else seems dull and uninteresting in comparison.
Paradoxically, when the self is full of its own sense of being a separated person, then This, whatever is arising in presence, seems empty and unsatisfying. When the self is seen to be empty, then This is seen to be full and satisfying.
Seeing liberation is seeing that This is it and that This is enough. That is why seeking stops in liberation. Once This is seen to be enough, there can’t be anything to seek for.
It sounds like your head is in the tiger’s mouth.
I have always considered myself to be a compassionate person. However, after an awakening I’m struck by how much deeper this has become. Seeing suffering or acts of kindness or even great beauty is now capable of bringing me to tears.
Although I’m wary of assigning any characteristics to awakening and liberation (because there are no necessary implications to awakening and liberation), increased feelings of compassion, kindness and empathy are often present. This relates to the seeing, in liberation, of the nature of everything as an outpouring of unconditional love.
It is also difficult for us to feel kindly or empathic when we are highly neurotic. Neurosis tends to reduce in liberation so our natural tendency to feel and express kindness may be more to the fore.
What kinds of therapy did you train in? Did your training in psychological therapies have anything to do with awakening?
My training was mainly humanistic and transpersonal. It included a lot of Gestalt, some Rogerian stuff, quite a bit of Transactional Analysis, some Psychosynthesis, some Regression Therapy and a little N.L.P. After that I was a trainer rather than a practitioner. The proper word for what I did was ‘psycho-education’ rather than therapy, but it is not a word that has caught on much.
My training neither did nor did not have anything to do with awakening. Sorry for the paradox. What happens is simply what happens. Looking at the past to determine cause and effect where awakening is concerned is a mug’s game.
I have been practising a Buddhist loving kindness meditation for a while. I don’t know if it’s having any effect on others, but I feel more peaceful. Do you have any direct experience of this kind of practice? Does increasing our feelings of empathy or compassion increase the chances of awakening?
Many years ago I practised Metta Bhavana meditation with the Friends of The Western Buddhist Order. Later on I was taught a similar ‘happiness’ meditation from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
Recently there have been some interesting books on the neuroscience of ‘kindness’. Both giving and receiving acts of kindness releases oxytocin. Oxytocin is sometimes known as the ‘empathy’ or ‘love’ hormone. It enhances feelings of well-being in both the giver and the receiver of an act of kindness. Perhaps this is why Buddhists sometimes recommend “performing acts of random kindness” as a practice. It is good for us to do these, in that we feel better for doing them.
It is not surprising that seeing liberation may enhance our feelings of empathy and compassion, because the energy shift that is involved tends to reduce our level of neurosis. Neurosis can be a great destroyer of empathy because it focusses our attention rather uncomfortably on ourself and makes us self-obsessed.
So seeing liberation may enhance compassion. But we cannot say that enhancing compassion will lead to liberation. Because liberation is non-instrumental, we cannot use anything to reach it.
In practice this makes no difference. As exercising compassion enhances our sense of well-being, we may as well do it whether it leads to liberation or not. Of course actually compassion either arises or it does not.
One of the things I like about this aspect of the new neuroscience is that it takes considerations of morality and concepts of ‘selfishness’ and ‘selflessness’ out of the picture. We don’t need to consider these slippery concepts, once it is recognised that giving and receiving acts of kindness increases the production of oxytocin, which enhances feelings of well-being.
I agree with you that practices are not the route to liberation. I am a good example of this as I have done many practices for many years.
But I remember reading an impressive book, ‘Zen and the Art of Archery’. It is true that the author realised enlightenment suddenly, but this was only after he had mastered archery after long practice. Although the enlightenment was not produced by the practice, nevertheless it probably would not have happened without it. Three years of practice had surely prepared him for Grace to occur. What do you think?
I read ‘Zen and the Art of Archery’ many years ago and remember liking it a lot. As to commenting on preparation, practice and liberation, actually concepts about this do not matter, because what happens is simply what happens. Nothing could be any different to what it is in any way. So if there is a history of practice, that cannot be changed. If there is not a history of practice, that cannot be changed.
Sometimes when there has been much practice, there is no seeing of liberation. Sometimes when there has been no practice, there is the seeing of liberation. So we can make no necessary connection between practice and the seeing of liberation. This can be very annoying and can seem very unjust to the seeking mind.
I have read that there are times in life when you might ask for something and then get what you wish for, only to discover that you don’t really want it at all.
Recently, I have been experiencing almost unbearable emotional pain. But instead of fighting it, I’ve been allowing it to be there and “have its say”. I’ve noticed that over time the pain dissolves.
I’ve been hoping for a long time to attain self-realisation or liberation. I want to lose my self so I can see Truth. But I’ve recently read a book by Jed McKenna in which he strongly advises against seeking liberation unless you really understand what it is that you are looking for. He says:
“Most (people) have bought into or been sold on the whole sweetness-and-light spirituality thing. They want to become better people, more open, more loving, happier, closer to God, and they want to achieve spiritual enlightenment because, as everybody knows, that’s where the spiritual path leads. The yellow brick road may be a trip, but it’s all about Oz, baby…. I encourage my students to at least consider the possibility that the world is up to its neck in caterpillars who quite successfully convince themselves and others they are actually butterflies.”
McKenna thinks that people are seeking exciting experiences rather than Truth. He suggests that in order to find Truth we usually have to go through living hell.
I have found that, ever since I started to meditate regularly, I have been assailed by anxiety, guilt, fear of death and confusion, especially at night. I had been warned by my meditation teachers that something like this might happen as meditation would probably bring up my shadow or my dark side. Now I think I understand what McKenna means.
Eckhart Tolle seems to agree with McKenna. In ‘The Power of Now’ he suggests that many people who seek realisation will go through very negative experiences, although in his case they apparently only lasted for one night.
Yes, “Beware of what you wish for” is a well-known saying with good reason.
I would describe your own response to your suffering as ‘natural mindfulness’. This is probably the healthiest possible way to respond to what you are experiencing. Whatever the nature of the emotional suffering we are going through, paying attention in this mindful way is often the fastest and the simplest way to process it or get through it. It represents the razor’s edge between suppression and distraction on the one hand, for example through alcohol and other drugs, and wallowing in our feelings on the other.
As to what you report that Jed McKenna and Eckhart Tolle write, all I would say is that there are no rules. So not everyone suffers in awakening. However, I know that many people do. You may be aware of Suzanne Segal? Her autobiographical book ‘Collision With The Infinite’ is one testimony to the extreme suffering that may occasionally be involved.
Your meditation teachers are right. Meditation often brings up repressed material of a very dark nature so it can be processed. To this I would simply say “Better out than in.”
I’ve noticed that when the self collapses, all sorts of very ordinary things become delightful.
Yes, it’s astonishing how life can appear once the self gets out of the way of looking at it. The most ordinary aspect is seen as so alive, so extra-ordinary.
I’ve come across a Zen saying which I like very much: “Before enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood. After enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood.” I think this means that everything stays the same except the point of view, which changes. That’s what makes the difference.
If I’m right, awakening makes the ordinary extraordinary. And there’s the realisation that it could always have been seen that way.
“Nothing is changed but everything is transformed” also sums it up very well. Nothing is changed, because everything goes on just as before. But everything is transformed, because now it is going on for no one.
In Zen they also say “At first mountains are mountains. Then mountains are not mountains. Finally mountains are mountains again.” In awakening and liberation, everything can seem strange and new, but eventually everything simply settles down and becomes ordinary again. But now the ordinary is also recognised as extraordinary.
I know of a Zen teacher who writes that after awakening a process still carries on. He says that psychological problems can continue and that liberation can take time to become established. What do you think about this?
Awakening and liberation can involve a huge energy shift. In this, there is a tendency for a lot of neurosis to drop away and consequently for the psyche to be reconfigured. However, some neurosis may remain. This remaining neurosis may then unwind and dissipate over a period of time. This happens partly because there is no one inside anymore listening to it and paying it attention. Eventually it can get bored with its own babbling and give up.
So Zen teachers are right when they talk about a process continuing and that this may involve psychological problems. But although the re-configuring of the psyche that can continue even after liberation may be interesting, it is not especially significant.
Awakening is simply seeing that everything is empty. Liberation is simply seeing that everything is full. Everything else, including psychological problems continuing, is just stuff happening.
From a non-dual perspective, what is love? Could it be considered a mistake to desire love and seek for it?
Do you feel ‘in love’ with life? Do you have moments of loneliness like most people?
What great questions! Though if we want a communication about love, it may be better to go to the arts rather than to philosophy or psychology.
In practice most individuals know what love is, each in our own way through a variety of different possible experiences. It might be love of a partner, love of nature, love of friends, love of a child, love of a pet, love of a craft, skill or art. We could compile a pretty long list.
But ‘unconditional love’ which is spoken of in non-duality is beyond experience and can’t be understood by the mind, because it embraces both the positive and the negative.
Unconditional love is beyond the feeling of love. It does not come and go, and it is untouched by any feelings, which are of course always transitory. At root, the desire or yearning for love cannot be finally satisfied until separation is seen through. Then, when the self is seen to be empty, This is seen to be full of unconditional love.
It is neither a mistake nor not a mistake to seek for love. Seeking love is simply something that often arises in the incompleteness of separation.
I do not feel ‘in love’ with life, but being in love with life arises here.
Any feeling is possible when separation has been seen through, but as a matter of fact loneliness does not arise here, although many other feelings do, for example both joy and sorrow.
Some writers on Advaita that I have read say that a kind of mental self can survive death and be reborn, even though from an absolute point of view there is no karma or rebirth. They offer the analogy of sleeping at night, when there is just nothing, but when the person wakes up in the morning, they are back in their suffering. In a similar way, after death there could be a new birth in which suffering occurs again.
I am terrified by the possibility that I could find myself in hell or another world where there is terrible suffering. The fear of this paralyses me. Can you help me in any way with this?
I am sorry that you are so disturbed by these stories about death. When separation is seen through and liberation is seen, questions about death are resolved. Notice that I write ‘resolved’ and not ‘answered’.
In liberation, questions about death are resolved for the following reasons. Firstly it is seen that what you really are was never born and so can never die. Secondly it is seen that This is an outpouring of unconditional love. Thirdly, and from your point of view most importantly, it is seen that all the stories about death such as the ones that you mention are exactly that—they are just stories. It can never be known by anyone, no matter how long their beard, how piercing their eyes or how patriarchal or patronising their manner, that these stories are anything other than imaginings. When this is absolutely seen, the mind simply loses interest in them. They are recognised as unknowable and therefore as uninteresting. The phrase ‘baseless speculation’ fits them well.
Meanwhile those who wish to speculate about death, mainly the religiously and the spiritually inclined, can continue to do so. It is so much hot air and not worth paying attention to. Teachers who speculate in this way often have an agenda, which is to control or influence us through fear. The other side of this coin is the offering of a story about salvation or personal enlightenment which is designed to seduce us with promises of some marvellous reward.
With my ‘non-duality hat’ on, I do not give advice. But on this occasion I am going to put my ‘psychologist’s hat’ on and make a few suggestions. If you want to deal with the fear that you are experiencing, first recognise that it is a part of yourself that you have not yet integrated. In other words it is an aspect of your own shadow. One of the most effective ways of integrating this may be through mindfulness of it. Simply pay non-judgmental attention to the fear when you become aware of it. If you are able to, pay particular attention to where it arises in your body without getting caught up in all the stories in the head that others disseminate to disturb you with. If you find this difficult to do on your own, you might like to find a teacher or therapist who is able to help you. Or you can look for information about a technique like ‘Focusing’ on the internet.
If you want to feel more comfortable in everyday life, instead of paying so much attention to these unknowable stories, you could find some simple thing that you enjoy doing and do it. Both neuroscience and our own experience also demonstrate that giving and receiving acts of kindness and spending time in green spaces improve our sense of well-being. I wish you well.
AWARENESS, DUALITY AND NON-DUALITY
Advaitists claim that the appearance of subject and object is a construction of the mind. In actuality there is no duality, no knower who is separate from what is known.
But they also claim that there is Awareness and everything which arises in it. Surely this is contradictory. Is this not a fundamental statement of duality, in which there is Awareness on the one hand and everything which arises in it on the other?
The very nature of language is dualistic, so whenever we try to describe the Absolute we cannot help creating the impression of duality. Even using the terms ‘Absolute’ and ‘Relative’ misleadingly implies duality.
There is no ‘Awareness’ and separately ‘everything which arises in it’. There is only seamless Oneness arising as This, apparently.
As to your specific question, and only as a metaphor, it might help to think of ‘Awareness’ as one of the characteristics of non-duality. You might consider the others to be ‘Energy’ and ‘Love’. You might recognise this description as similar in meaning to the traditional description of satchitananda.
This does not mean that you now have the duality of three separate entities. Still only as a metaphor, consider an orange. It has the characteristics of having a certain flavour, a certain texture and a certain colour. But these are not separate entities, rather they are simply a description of its ‘orangeness’. Now consider Non-Duality. Sat, chit and ananda are simply a description of its Oneness.
If none of this helps, throw it out. It’s meaningless and it doesn’t matter.
Dear Richard, After coming across non-duality I stopped meditating, although I realise that was just because of concepts. Then there were two powerful events and I realised that I am in everything and all there is is life. These events opened the door to another reality but the memory of them faded after a while.
Recently I’ve been experiencing a deep peace that is beyond the mind. The story of the personality seems to continue as before but it is seen somehow that this is all illusory and has nothing to do with the real me. There is a vast peaceful space that contains everything and everything contains this space. There is no fear or suffering in it, although both of those can arise within it. No matter how troubled and restless the mind seems to be, this vast peace prevails, even though the mind sometimes thinks it’s lost it.
You said that in liberation emptiness is full of love. To me it feels like a gentle hug that accepts and embraces everything that arises.
There is a feeling now of having arrived. There is no ‘I’ in this space and the I or the mind could never have achieved this kind of peace, because it is beyond the mind, effortless and always there. The story of me still continues and I still get lost in thoughts and sometimes feel unhappy, but now this does not seem to matter. I can’t make sense of it. Perhaps I never will.
I would be grateful for any thoughts you may have. Kind regards, Thorsten
Dear Thorsten, Thank you for your message. It sounds like a lovely opening into awakening and liberation has happened. “A gentle hug” does very well as a description rather than “unconditional love”. All the words miss it anyway.
Thoughts and feelings continue to arise. That does not matter. And making sense of it may happen in time. Writing about this sometimes helps that process. And if it doesn’t, that doesn’t matter either, but you’ve already given some very good descriptions here.
In awakening, the emptiness of all phenomena is seen. In liberation, it is seen that this emptiness is also full. Of what? Of love. This is what finally brings an end to searching. Best wishes, Richard
Dear Richard, Yes, it doesn’t matter whether it all makes sense one day or not. It’s just the mind that wants to understand that which cannot be understood. For the first time in my life, I’m satisfied with not-knowing.
Could you briefly explain what you mean by fullness? Emptiness seems obvious but fullness is not so easy to grasp.
For me fullness would be seeing the aliveness of all life-forms unfolding in nothingness. Because nothing is rejected, everything is perfect the way it is. This is unconditional love—the seeing that everything is perfect the way it is and nothing needs to be changed. There are no boundaries and everything is allowed to be as it is.
Does this make sense? I’m still trying to find the right words. Best wishes, Thorsten
Dear Thorsten, You give a very good description. What we are trying to write about is in any case ineffable, so any words we use can only approximate to it and any description will be problematic in some way or other.
I like to use the word ‘love’, which is nevertheless both approximate and problematic. I have also heard the description ‘a certain kindness’ and ‘a gentle wow’. Your own words ‘a gentle hug’ are very good. Some individuals speak of ‘joy’ or ‘causeless joy’ and some of ‘gratitude’. And yes, in This “everything is allowed to be as it is.”
If this has been seen, I doubt that there is anything left to see. Of course questions and doubts can still arise from old patterns of thinking, but they will probably fall away again quite quickly and may re-appear less often as time goes by. Long-held neuroses can persist for a long time but in liberation it is simply seen that this does not matter. Best wishes, Richard
Hello again Richard, Although I don’t have doubts anymore and questions seem meaningless, something seems to be missing still.
Actually of course nothing is missing. But the mind seems to be very powerful at times and can create the impression that something is missing or something still needs to fall away.
There is the understanding that this pure peaceful space which is our true timeless nature does not need any deepening. Nor of course could anything strengthen or weaken it. It just is. Yet the mind quite convincingly and very subtly still wants certain things about the personality to change.
Of course it doesn’t matter whether in the story the personality changes over time or not. Nevertheless, the desire for change seems quite deep in certain circumstances.
Outside of those circumstances, the pure timeless space of nothingness is always dominant and it is also clearly seen that nothing has ever happened. I guess you understand what I am trying to describe here. Best wishes, Thorsten
Dear Thorsten, Thank you for your very clear description of what is going on. What you describe is very common. If there are impulses to change the personality in certain ways, then that of course is fine and change may or may not come about.
Yes, the mind can be very powerful. Yet underneath all of its babblings This remains still and silent. Best wishes, Richard.
I had an awakening similar to that which you describe when I was a student. I knew that I and everything were one, that everything was perfect and that in a mysterious way all knowledge was already known.
Then I began to develop paranormal skills. I enjoyed these at first. I enjoyed people asking me for help and treating me with more respect than they had ever done before. But eventually I got bored with it and a bit overwhelmed with the responsibility so I stopped responding to people’s requests for ‘readings’.
Now I find that I’m becoming more sensitive to paranormal phenomena than ever and I’m unhappy with this. I don’t want to be involved with this or any other ‘spiritual’ way of being. I’m fed up with being around people who chatter on endlessly about chakras, karma, their higher purpose and their connection to the Divine. To be frank, it all makes me want to throw up!
And most of all, I definitely do not want to talk to the dead!
Do you have any experience of how to get rid of these ‘powers’? If I simply ignore them they seem to get stronger.
I feel very much in alignment with your attitude to the paranormal, chakras and other esoteric fairground rides.
As for talking to the dead, I find it difficult enough to talk to the living.
Alas, many people want to develop ‘paranormal awareness’ further, though to me this seems not just a back-water, but a very boring one too.
These days I get very impatient with these phenomena. Unfortunately I cannot offer you any specific advice about how to get rid of ‘paranormal powers’ as I am probably one of the least psychic individuals you could meet. I suppose you could try simply telling the spirits to fuck off.