On nonduality — The G Chi

On nonduality…

Nonduality is the recognition that the apparent separation between self and world is illusory.

Our failure to appreciate this truth lies at the heart of the suffering we inflict on ourselves and others.

See ‘Notes on Universal Consciousness’ for further meditations nonduality!

The limited self can never fully grasp the unlimited truth.

Awareness is consciousness becoming conscious of itself.

Awakening is simply the realization that there is no one to awake.

Awareness is the witness noticing the witness has no witness.

There is a realization of a silent presence at the background of perception, a stillness…your essence…you are essentially this presence.

View acceptance as a form of courage, not weakness. Recognize that acceptance is a choice, and it takes strength to let go of resistance.

God is. The word god is just one of a multitude that attempts to explain the ineffable. Each has their own spiritual vocabulary.

Carl Jung was asked if he believed in God, he responded “Now? It’s difficult to answer… I know… I don’t need to believe, I know”, a shorter response to one he had given several years earlier, “All that I have learned has led me step by step to an unshakable conviction of the existence of God. I only believe in what I know. And that eliminates believing. Therefore I do not take his existence on belief — I know that he exists”.

“If your father hadn't met your mother, would you be here?

Now of course somebody would be here, because he might have met somebody else. Would that be you?

Of course it would. Don't you see, you can only be you by being someone.

But every someone is you.

Every someone is 'I'.

That's your name.

You say it’s 'me.’

'I' am here. And everybody feels that 'I' in the same way. It’s the same feeling.”

~ Alan Watts

The observer is the observed, the controller is controlled and the experiencer is the experience

Truth is not a fixed point so there is no path to it.

“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”

~Albert Einstein

Adaptive behavior to adaptive neurology to adaptive belief...

How are your cognizant facilities reliable if you depend on these same facilities to determine that?

“Man is not by any means of fixed and enduring form (this, in spite of suspicions to the contrary on the part of their wise men, was the ideal of the ancients). He is nothing else than the narrow and perilous bridge between nature and spirit. His innermost destiny drives him on to the spirit and to God. His innermost longing draws him back to nature, the mother. Between the two forces his life hangs tremulous and irresolute.”

~ Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

The concept of God is not God the conception is what takes place within me. The conception of God is something I can Voke or kind of refrain me booking myself. That is not what I seek. I seek that which there can be no life.

Live seeking God and then you will not live without God

“The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. What would be the use of discovering so-called objective truth, of working through all the systems of philosophy and of being able, if required, to review them all and show up the inconsistencies within each system; what good would it do me to be able to develop a theory of the state and combine all the details into a single whole, and so construct a world in which I did not live, but only held up to the view of others;...what good would it do me if truth stood before me, cold and naked, not caring whether I recognized her or not, and producing in me a shudder of fear rather than a trusting devotion? I certainly do not deny that I still recognize an imperative of understanding and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the most important thing.”

~sk

The Journals. Entry called Gilleleie, August 1, 1835.

People find what they need to and what they’re supposed to. I don’t need to lead them there. I am riding a different wave

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."

~Schopenhauer

We are not living, we are being lived....by the divine.

Everything is happening on its own.

God has his own use for each of us as we are just the source experience itself.

Live as if you are being lived.

There is no doer. There is no separate person. There is just life.

Life is just one thing.

The observer is simultaneously the observed

Be tolerant of those who are lost on their path (or on other paths)

No single method is superior to another. Different methods have impact for different people at different stages.

Everything is as it should be. If you perceive something wrong, it is within you, not with the world.

You cannot judge what is going on. You are what is going on. Everything is as it is.

You cannot wake up. You are already awake. There are though multiple levels of clarity of the reality of awareness noticing itself.

The way it is is the only way it can be.

It is all a mystery, No need to try to figure anything out. Just live in awe.

There is no should. There is no ought. There just is.

Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right (or wrong).

You don't study non-duality. You are non-duality. Non-duality is awareness.

The I will always confusion in the quest for awareness, since the I itself is an illusion.

The human being. Being is not a noun, It is a verb.

Awareness is not a physicality, It is the source of all essence.

Waking up is a misleading term for me.

As it turns out I was directing my efforts towards an unreachable goal. I was seeking an answer without realizing there is no I. The self is an elusive mix of conditioning, instincts and drives continuously competing for dominance in the ego.

Waking up is better termed becoming aware that all there is is awareness.

Perhaps awareness, consciousness and the numerous terms representing the divine source of being are fingers pointing to the same moon, paths leading to the same destination, streams leading to the same ocean and we are temporary vortexes in that stream.

The day the blind man sees he can throw away his stick.

One you get the message hang up the phone.

Words exist because of meaning; once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the word. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?

The purpose of the adventure is not to clear Gary up...it is to clear Gary out and realizing I am just a vessel, a unit through which awareness becomes aware of itself.

Remember that thought is NOT awareness. You are awareness, you are not your thoughts.

Your mind is a collection of thoughts. You are not your mind. You are pure awareness.

You are of infinite depth.

Awareness is not part of thinking. It is a different dimension of consciousness. If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn't even know you are thinking. Like a dreamer that doesn't know he is dreaming. When you know you are dreaming, you are awake within the dream.

Gary can never 'wake up.' Gary can only be aware of his Garyness, which is pure awareness.

The same awareness, the same Garyness, is accessing awareness from every other unit concurrently.

Stop saying or thinking 'If' everything is one...just accept it wholeheartedly and cease to question it and more persistent clarification will follow...a leap of faith per se is required because rational thought, a product of thought, of the mind, of 'Gary' is completely irrelevant.

Awareness is the animating presence.

We are a formless life force...an unimaginable mystery...beyond imagination...imagination can only occur in the dreamlife of our units...there is no afterlife...just life....perhaps other forms, but the death of awareness if not possible....there is no other place...there is no place period...there is only life in all its variations...there is no right or wrong...no judgement or boundary.

There is nothing other than life. Rocks may not be conscious as we know it but they are life because that is all there is...life cannot understand itself because the question is meaningless.

Stop seeking...where would we go to look for the foundation of life...it is here...it is all there is.

The units are native life, when the unit has dissipated, there is still life, just passive life. There is nothing outside of life.

There is no death, there are only transitions. All must be self consumed...including ourselves, our units.

There is no before life...or afterlife...simply transitions.

All is just life showing itself to itself in a particular manner.

Life cannot grasp itself, it can;t and is not meant to. The question is meaningless.

Sense of being...awareness is simply life noticing itself.

Stop looking for faults in the nonduality, stop the argument.

Suspend judgement and all logical arguments and just let it be...let go...accept...surrender...realize it is all OK and all it as it should be.

You have not been wasting your time...the past suffering is necessary.

Awareness is all there is. Awareness is divinity. You and I are divinity, although we don't know , and cannot know, what that is.

The attempt to define or discover this divinity sparks a lifetime of seeking...frustratingly seeking and chasing something that is impossible to find...the dog is chasing its tail...no teacher can give this to you as it is not ther;e to give and they do not know what it is either....it is awareness is seeking awareness...does it make sense to paradoxically seek one's self?

A self that does not even exist in the first place?

Ultimate reality is beyond dogma and human concepts.

There is only divinity but we do not know what that is.

Once awareness focuses on the ego it (the self) begins to dissolve.

When we keep spiritual experiences close to use and not share them, they bloom and become more prominent, deepening and expanding. Over time, they integrate into our being. They are no longer an experience but a presence within us.

It’s like nurturing a seedling into a tree. It takes time and consistent watering.

When we share an experience that is not yet rooted within us, the mere explanation of something so ethereal changes the quality and energy of that experience. Words will never do to fully express the experience and so in that moment the experience alters slightly as we seek to define it.

Over time, if we keep it within and nurtured it, there will be a time it can be expressed without altering its state. At this point the experience is now deeply rooted within us. At this point it has merged with our presence and state of being.

I don't know what I am. I don't know what's going on here. Is there any possibility I should know what should be going on here? No...unless this is it.

We are both conscious beings and thinking beings, most never awaken to this fact. This does not infer dualism. The unit, Gary, is a thinking thing, however, pure awareness, Garyness, is pure consciousness.

“Man is so fond of systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to deny the truth intentionally; he is ready to deny what he can see and hear just to justify his logic.”

~Notes from Underground

Some people say they determine their own choices, not "nature," what they fail to realize is that they are nature. There is no 'you' separate from nature, it is merely nominal, it follows the structure of language, not the ontological stricture of nature.

We all choose all of the time, the point is there is no "could have been"...this is a human fantasy.

Free will and determinism are exactly the same thing!!!

Determinism does NOT say we do not make choices, we just have no choice in the choices we make? We can do what we will but we can't will what we will.

Realizing there is no 'could have been' eliminates regrets in your life.

Everything is as it should be. There is no 'ought,' only 'is.

At a deeper level, even the 'is' is an abstraction of pure awareness.

'Is' are beliefs and 'ought' are values.

The lens of thinking instigates and forms division of awareness, the experience of 'oneness' is lost

It's like becoming awake inside of a lucid dream, first you think you're the character in the dream, then you realize holy shit, the whole dream (life) is me...and then knowing there is no self but there still is me...pure awareness.

Being truly present is an active process, like surrender, we don't do it once, we must do it continually. Perhaps surrender and awakening are the same concept?

Since you are awareness, there is no need to attain or cultivate it.

You can not think and be aware of being aware at the same time.

You must sacrifice thinkingness to gain awareness.

Silence is the highest teaching, what word cannot express, silence will reveal from within.

Downplay the ends and focus on the means, focus the journey and not the destination. All motives are tied to the world, the sense experiences...what can I get next, how can add to my experiences. While focusing on this, awareness of awareness is impossible. You are sacrificing the lesser for the greater, valuing immersion in experience over neglecting your being. Surrendering attachment to sensory experience is a form of hypnosis who h cuts us off from truth.

You must surrender the feeling that you are your mind and body and the doer of your life.

Everything just happens, 'you' only appear to be the doer. Embrace the unfoldment of your destiny.

Sit in silence with your eyes closed for twenty minutes twice a day and be just aware of awareness, just notice that you are.

with acceptance/surrender, resistance to what is dissolves, since suffering is simply resistance or avoidance to what is, suffering is realized as illusory

The ego or the self is necessary in order to provide a sense of stability in a world of ongoing change and a sense of separation and duality required to support the illusion we perceive

in reality there is no self to suffer

Most live within a dream.

Some wake up within the dream, realizing they are the one dreaming, thus making it a lucid dream.

Less understand that there is no self and they are actually the dreaming itself.

Fewer realize that all reality is simply non-dual pure awareness.

Awareness is the only experience of nonduality.

God is not a being, God is being.

T-he purpose of religion is union with God...the essence of non dualism.

This reminds me of one of the many things that Rohr said that struck me, that Catholicism mistakenly put the priest between man and God and Protestantism but the book between man and God...instead of guiding us towards the direct union between man and God.

Looking for awareness is like looking for your eyes. It( (and they) can never be found. Awareness, like the eyes, is the looking not the looker o-r a thing looked at or for.

If life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me.

Both life and the world are illusions however since the self is also an illusion, they are real to each other.

Attempting to find your self is absurd, as there is no self and no one to look for it.

“Waking up” is like an alcoholic quitting. Instead of addiction to booze, the addiction is to separation. Until acknowledgement of denial, it is useless to guide them towards non duality

It seems to me that union with God and the realization of the self (and all life) as pure awareness are identical. The more I read, understand and experience life, the more I see that religion (all faiths are just human attempts to describe the mystery, each using different metaphors to point to the same truth), philosophy, psychology, quantum physics (both Copenhagen and many worlds interpretations) and simulation theory (life is a game) are all ultimately pointing beyond space and time to the same ineffable source of being…simply different facets of the same jewel.

Don't deny the illusion. Just be in it, not of it.

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

~ Carl Jung

“Only when you see yourself in every other person will you understand your own life.”

~ Tolstoy

What are you?

What were you before your parents were born?

A sense of :

I amness

being

pure awareness

universal consciousness

the space in which all arises

unmanifest spirit

God

Brahman

pure emptiness

There is no such thing as the past or future as they exist only in your mind.

Fretting over something that does not exist seems patently absurd.

The deeper truth is the present only exists in the mind as well.

Still deeper...the mind itself only exists as a projection of pure awareness.

We are the no thing that has the potential for everything.

We come to identify with the body, thought, and we suffer because of this dualistic thinking, which is a good thing because suffering guides us in direction of truth.

The belief in God and the realization of God are not the same.

A belief is a thought. A thought is a product of the mind.

Knowing is prior to thought.

Our life is the dream that God is having.

When the unit is suffering, Garyness is dreaming that things are not going the way they should be for Gary.

You can argue with the sages but if you win…you suffer.

Every ending is a new beginning. This includes death.

How can death be the end of the self if the self doesn’t not exist?

Thought may come to an end but not awareness.

Initially we come to nonduality to wake up the self. Then we realize there is no self.

There is certainly a sense of identification with the unit. Like a rainbow, we can sense it, we can see it, we can experience it we can enjoy it…but we can’t measure it, weigh it and it takes up no volume.

All is one means little or nothing until one sees it and feels it, and then it means Everything.

The units stories ( e.g. I am my body), problems, opinions, conditioning and even thoughts are not even yours, so don’t identify with them. They are Gary’s problems, not Garyness problems.

I know that I am. I don’t know what I am.

Oneness is experiencing life through Garyness.

There is a sense of control of the unit. Garyness is not in control of anything, especially Gary’s (who doesn’t exist) destiny.

Prior to sensing is the sense of being. As far as we know, prior to that there is only an absence of experience.

Everyone is on a different level of understanding and people can only understand from their own perception. Recognition of being as pure awareness cannot be explained to some, any more than one can explain the beauty of colors to someone who is congenitally blind.

It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.

Answers close off further exploration, reinforcing dualistic thinking.

Without time, there is no illusion of separation

Death is the end of one particular perspective, not the end of awareness

When faced with a difficult choice, from the level of the mind, you may feel the struggle of choosing—but from a deeper, witnessing consciousness of pure awareness, you are simply watching it all happen. The choice is part of the unfolding of the universe, whether it feels like your personal will or fate.

The unit doesn’t wake up to the fiction of itself, awareness wakes up to the fiction of the unit.

The self can’t remember being born because there are no memories until thinking creates separation between thought and the thinker.

Prior to this this was there was awareness, the primary state of the universe, but not experience per se.

You can intellectually understand awakening but you have to be ready to hear it for you to realize it. Once realized, everything is interpreted differently. That is why rereading my old spiritual and philosophy books, new meanings constant emerge from the same words I have read many times. There are many levels of understanding and truth. Some layers are paradoxical to other layer however each is true.

At first, seeking is a comfort as you have hopes of finding what you seek. Spiritual growth can be very painful and sooner, later or never, one comes to the experience that Awareness is not an object or a thing to seek, there is no such thing as ‘a’ thing within oneness. Oneness looking for another oneness is absurd; an eyeball cannot see itself. What you are looking with is what you are looking for. It is also absurd to look for something you already have and cannot not have. As long as we are looking outside ourselves, we are doomed to keep looking.

Once Awareness is realized, the relative resolving to the absolute, you cannot explain or tell people about it without sounding crazy as the realization is ineffable.

Different pointers work for different seekers but all point to the same moon, all rivers lead to the same ocean, many paths to the same destination. Each path to realization is unique.

Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~ Rumi

One can only use symbolic language to describe it. You can only point to it, as the unit/vessel/form identity cannot experience awareness, only awareness can experience awareness of awakening waking up to itself.

You are not only watching the movie; you are the movie; the story is being constructed as you go along and the movie critic is your ego.

You are not the driver; you are in the trunk and the driver is drunk.

Things are just happening. Enjoy the ride if you can. They are not happening to you, there is no you. Life cannot be resisted without suffering. Live with what is. Amor fati.

What is perceived as the self is a continuity of mental energy within awareness, like a whirlpool in the ocean or a tornado on the air.

What awareness perceives as a self is a mental construct, a temporary pattern of dynamic forces (instinct, intuition, senses, will, conditioning, emotions) constantly shifting and adapting to themselves and the environment that have found expression that through repetition can seem like a stable identity…tightly wound clusters of mental activity, similar to a whirlpool or a tornado.

Death is a relaxation of the whirlpool of your individual mind back into the ocean of consciousness leading to an expansion of who you are. It won't be like going to sleep, it'll be like waking up.

Usually you quit seeking when you find what you are looking for, however with realization/awakening/awareness, the only way to find it is to stop seeking (and suffering).

The question is more important than the answer as concluding never ends because the universe is in constant flux, making answers provisional at best. If you are ever sure of the truth, keep moving as that is no place to stand. Stay present with the unfolding mystery.

It is only when we realize our life is going nowhere does life begin to have meaning.

We cannot remember ourselves until we forget ourselves.

Conflict only exists when one wants to alter reality.

The seeker, unit, self cannot wake up. The self does not exist. We cannot wake up something that does not exist.

What we think of as the self is already awake. There comes a realization that there is only awakeness/awareness which becomes aware that awakeness is using the unit to allow awareness to become of awareness. The units are unconscious awakeness talking to unconscious/unrealized awakeness.

Imagine your body does not exist. What would be left? Pure awareness of what is. No conflict, no wants, no suffering, no worries…this is what we are.

There is no sense of other at birth. There is no sense of separation. This is pure awareness.

We live in a world or paradox and those who do not see this are bound to inevitable suffering.

There is only oneness. Who can be looking for oneness if there is just one thing? The only thing that can look for oneness is oneness.

The question of life after death is often seen as arising from the perspective of the illusory separate self.

Death is not the end of life; it's the end of the illusion of separation.

Once the illusion of individuality dissolves, what remains is the realization that there is only one continuous "thing" happening—an undivided reality which is beyond human comprehension or conceptualization.

There is no separate afterlife realm per se, as the consciousness that persists is not bound by time or space.

Since there is no separate self to begin with, there isn't really anyone who dies or is reborn in the conventional sense. Questions about life after death lose their relevance because the idea of an individual with a distinct fate was never real in the first place.

The moment you are aware that you are silent, it is not silence. Same with realization of oneness.

Realization takes place when the self is absent. The instant you are aware of self or other, duality ensues.

Oneness is the absolute with no differentiation. The unit lives within relativity and within differentiation.

Realization/awakening is an experience of the absolute which cannot be explained or understood in relative terms. Profound truths of the absolute become paradoxical or nonsensible within relativity.

Our relative experience denies that there is no self, there is no free will, there is no separation, etc. Absolute truths in the relative world simply do not work.

Most on the spiritual path are waiting for the self to wake up. As the self does not exist, this is an impossible task which can only result in failure and suffering.

There is no ought or should. There only is.

Notice the sense of aliveness in your body. Notice it is not the body itself, but an animating presence in the body. Not a soul, per se because this is not individual. This presence is animating the body but is NOT the body. Recognize yourself as this animation. You are looking through the body, the unit, the body is a sensing device for awakeness, a virtual suit for experiencing this virtual reality. Instead of looking from the body, look through the body, like a portal. You are not the looker you are the looking. You are not the camera you are the photographer. You are not the body, you are the animating force.

In the absence of the sense of being there can be nothing.

Do not seek awareness, be awareness.

Awareness is prior to the world. Prior to time.

The instant we have split the world into the self and other, we enter the illusion of duality and the cycle of suffering. We suffer because we believe ourself to be separate. Unlearning this learned separateness leads to the illumination of truth, the realization of oneness.

Within pure awareness, there's nothing wrong. There is no solution needed, because there is no problem in the first place and no self to for any problem to affect anyway.

Within nonduality, the questions are not answered…they fall apart.

The very thing ( self, unit, vessel, observer, thinker, etc.) that wants things to be different than they are, is what is stopping things from being seen as they really are.

It is all about identification, believing something that we are not (a limited single being instead of the unlimited beingness of all) takes a terrible toll on us.

There is no thinker of the thoughts. The thinker is itself a thought.

Nothing dies because nothing is born. You are the unborn. What the unborn, the absolute, is cannot be held as knowledge as it is indescribable.

Do not dwell on what you cannot control. What you cannot control is everything. Let it be. Leave it alone.

Truth is not the exclusive possession of any single tradition or doctrine but can be apprehended in various forms across different cultures and religious practices. Dogma and ritual leads away from true faith.

Doctors, police and social workers all must set boundaries in order to not take home other people’s tragedies and make them their own, it is the same with the extreme suffering you see in everyday life. The processes for maintaining this type distanced empathy vary among individuals.

Nonduality is not about improving the units life, it is about finding being and living as truth…which may not the be way you think it should be.

In the early stages of meditation, it is quite natural to catch a thought, only to find yourself lost in a new thought that claims to be observing thoughts.

Don’t look to dissect thought, or explain where it came from. Simply notice that a thought appeared and allow it to pass without following it to its destination.

You notice the thought... if you then find yourself thinking about noticing the thought, smile and nod at that (new)thought and allow it to pass freely. If yet another thought arrives, notice it as well.

See how the mind tries to pull you back into thought. Very tricky! A game of illusions that makes life quite interesting, but is ultimately unreal and leads to suffering. That which sees the game holds no opinions or judgements. Connect to this deeper "I", and therefore take a break from the game and gain insights into the nature of things.

The nursery rhyme Row, Row, Row Your Boat can be interpreted as a metaphor for nonduality.

“Row, Row, Row Your Boat “

The act of rowing represents active participation in life, embracing rather than resisting the flow of the Tao.

"Gently down the stream"

This implies aligning with the natural flow of life rather than struggling against it.

"Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily"

The repetition of "merrily" emphasizes joy, lightness, and an ease of being, life is inherently blissful when the illusion of separation dissolves.

"Life is but a dream"

Life, as we perceive it, is akin to a dream—a transient play of appearances with no ultimate reality. The individual "self" is an illusion and that all forms arise within the undivided wholeness of existence, much like dream characters and events arise in the mind of the dreamer.

‘Me’ is a disease. The more self-obsessed you are, the less happy you're going to be. Find something you love more than just yourself…which is an illusion.

There can be no good and bad without comparison and comparison begins with duality.

Asking who am I is the highest spiritual practice.

You are not the voice inside your head. Notice your mind. It constantly chatters about anything and everything. It judges, complains, and hates people and situations for no reason. You believe this tiring voice to be you and that’s why you suffer so much in life.

A deeper aspect of you is always silently listening no matter what the voice inside your head says. You start to heal your anxiety when you realize: “You are not the tiring voice inside your head, but the one who silently listens to the voice”.

If you sit with the question “Who am I?” deep enough, you will realize: "You are the awareness through which all the thoughts, emotions and experiences pass." If your awareness vanishes then there is no sense of you or the world. Awareness exists beyond all worldly suffering.

You are not the experience; you are the one that had the experience. You are not in pain; you are looking at the unit experiencing pain. Your pain is just like any other emotion.

We all yearn to return home.

I am amazed and humbled more and more each day that when viewed through the framework of nonduality; religion, philosophy and quantum physics are simply using different metaphors to point to the same truth.

You know everything you need to know right now. There is no reason for ruminating the past, analyzing past events in hope you find some answers. Everything you might remember is an illusion of the mind. It’s like you were there, but its layered with filter upon filter of thoughts, judgements and impressions. Its barely really what happened. It’s what you thought happened.

There is also no reason to try to look into the future and guess what may be happening or anticipate events. It’s your mind conditioned from what you think happened in the past creating images of what you think will happen. The future doesn‘t exist.

Your past and future are fiction. And should be treated as such. Reality is now.

The only good and true answer to all ‘why’ questions is ‘why not.’

Everything happens as it must happen. There is no choice.

In the absence of self, there can be no rage or suffering….which are identified with thought.

We are to here to learn how to live in these bodies as the absolute.

Observing through the unit versus as the unit, is nonduality versus relativity.

Everyone has something to teach you.

Life is stranger than our ability to comprehend it.

The unknown is merely a door to what is beyond our understanding, a return to the source.

Aloneness is oneness with no defining boundaries. Loneliness is based on separation and a sense of deprivation.

Due to ineffability and limitations of language, many pointers to nonduality are seen as paradoxes.

The Old Testament describes God's name as "I Am." This is found in the book of Exodus, specifically in Exodus 3:14-15. According to the biblical account, when Moses asked God for His name, God replied, "I AM WHO I AM" (in Hebrew, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh"). This name is often shortened to "I Am" or "Yahweh" (which is derived from the Hebrew verb "to be").

I am. That is the only truth. As soon as something is added to the I am…anything… anything at all…I am nonattached, I am special, I am not special, I have a special understanding, I am an ego pretending not to be an ego, I am a teacher, I am good, I am bad, I am big, I am small, I am better, I am worse, I am a winner, I am a loser, I am a seeker….. limitation, separation and duality are created. Paradoxically adding anything to the concept of being limits it. The pure I am simply cannot be qualified.

When we die we are waking up from the lucid dream of pure awareness.

Listen to the gaps between the words. Be aware of the gaps between your thoughts. When present with the gap you are aware but not thinking. In that space of awareness the essence of your being is fully there. This presence is deeper than thought. Out of this presence thought arises. To sense this pure conscious presence is to be in touch with the essence of who you are. Pure consciousness, awareness, the Tao, the source of being. The essence of being resides in the cessation of thought.

To perceive what is whole you must have no center from which to look.

How can I die if I was never born? If you believe you are the vessel, you believe you will die with it. The consciousness we really are does not come and go.

Our lives are like dreams of a single dreamer in which all the dream characters are dreaming too.

You cannot find formless consciousness via thought because it has no form, it is not an object it is the only subject.

The unit does not realize awakeness. There will never be a realization by the unit as it only exists as bunch of patterns, patterns don’t have the capacity to realize, it is awakeness that realizes truth.

Awareness of unawareness is awareness.

Those who say, do not know, those who know, do not say.

To one who sees, no explanation is necessary; to one who sees not, no explanation is possible.

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

~ Thomas Aquinas

A teacher might shine a light on your path, but it is you and only you that can walk that path. As someone once said, when the student is ready the teacher will appear - and when the student is really ready, the teacher will disappear.

The apparent self is an illusion, a hallucination.

There is no self. This is all that exists.

There is no past. There is no future. There is no time. There is no meaning. There is no purpose. There is no one experiencing. There is only experience.

There is just this. There is simply what is arising.

Nonduality is not a belief system. Not a philosophy. Not a religion. Just a description.

The idea that there is a me separate from the world is a divine illusion. Stories like religion are are developed to relieve us of the pain of separation…of duality.

Awakening is realizing there is no one to awake so there are no awakened people.

The truth is unknowable by the mind.

You have a stream of thoughts that constantly run through your minds, possessing you if you identify with them. Thoughts and emotions are like clouds. Some light and some dark. Some wispy and some solid. All eventually dissipate and none can change the ultimate nature of the sky, which represents pure awareness.

The individual self is a mere mental concept, and the true Self is beyond the reach of the mind. The mind cannot grasp the true Self, but the true Self can grasp the mind.

The universe requires nothing of you. You do not have to do anything; you get to do things. You get to do things; you do not have to do things. This reframing changes everything.

Knowing yourself is knowing you are not.

When we say, “I”. Everything that follows is illusion.

"The difficulty is that people think they are the doer. It is a mistake. It is the higher power which does everything and people are only the tool. They accept that position, they will be free from troubles, otherwise they court them. Do your work without anticipating its fruits. That is all what you should do."

~ Ramana Maharshi

Becoming. Everything in form is already coming and going. It has no permanent reality, no existence that can be defined as real. A rain drop, the clouds, your body, the whole universe… all coming and going, whether quickly or slowly. Just like the cup that is already broken, so too is the whole universe.

But what is it that sees these forms coming and going, what is it that lies behind the forms? The formless, eternal being that belies all form neither comes nor goes. That which is beyond forms cannot be sliced or cut or burned away. It is eternal. That is where true peace lies.

At the same time, you are here experiencing form. Don’t get too attached to the forms and there will be peace as you experience this human life.

Does following a teacher or using a symbol diminishes the purity of truth?

Not necessarily diminishes, but it can confine. True appreciation or reverence doesn’t require intermediaries. When you see the magnificence of a sunrise, do you need a symbol to appreciate its beauty? When you feel awe at the vastness of the cosmos, does that feeling come through a ritual, or does it arise directly in your heart?

The point is to examine whether the symbol enhances your connection or subtly becomes a substitute for the deeper understanding and connection you seek...look at the moon not the finger.

Spiritual books provide mediative reading which can assist in maintaining a connection to the source. These readings don’t necessarily teach you anything new however constant reminders are needed due to forgetfulness of the mind and straying from what is essential. That is why it is called a practice.

The unawakened man is not a unified person. He has dozens of selves each falsely calling itself I.

Surrender to what is rather than trying to impose what should be. Wu Wei can only happen when the trying stops.

That which you pray to is a creation of your own thought.

A meaning to life only matters when suffering. When life is going well meaning is irrelevant.

The ego is like a shadow that follows you. The more you try to get rid of it, the more it follows you. But if you turn around and face it, it disappears.

Science and knowledge are practical things. We use them because they work. But we shouldn’t think that this practical knowledge represents the full underlying truth. Even physics is just a manifestation, and our understanding of it is limited by what we’re able to experience.

"Sir, the more I listen to you the more I think you are an atheist."

K responds: "I used to think like that too until I realized that I am God."

“A petty mind seeking God will find a god of its own pettiness. If I have a petty mind, a small, narrow, shallow mind, full of ambition, greed, envy, jealousy of another, and I think about God, my god is equally petty, stupid.”

~ K, From Public Talk 6, New Delhi, 7 February 1962

“Where there is learning, there is no storehouse; there are no steps I am going to climb to reach God, or utopia, or the final glorious ideal. There is only one step, no other steps. That is where the clever ones, the people who have gone into this a little bit, are in despair: they see there is only one step, but can’t go beyond it. They write books, invent new philosophies, and catch us with phrases or a word. When we see that there is only one step, and we don’t know how to meet that one step, there is unending despair because we want to climb the ladder. There is no despair if I really see that there is only one step. There is no reaching, no gaining, no searching, no achievement, no being better than somebody else. Leave all that to the theologians, priests, politicians and writers; leave all that muck to somebody else. Then you will see what beauty is.”

~ K Public Discussion 7, Saanen, 9 August 1966

"Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable."

~ Anthony de Mello

Our mind evolved into a problem solving machine. It aids us in our surviving and thriving. This constant looking for, and solving problems creates a continuous stream of activity in the back of our head. All too often we identify with that activity of the mind and mistakenly start to believe that we are that activity of the mind, the misidentification with the unit instead of awareness, with the ‘Gary’ instead of the ‘Garyness’.

Reality is like a dark room which contains a screen, a projector and a point of light, the screen being life, the projector being the mind/body and the light being being.

Psychological time is movement of thought.

"And they say, when two Zen masters meet each other on the road, they need no introduction. When thieves meet, they recognize each other instantly. So they don't say anything, don't make any claims. As a matter of fact, so far from making claims, all good Zen masters say they have not attained anything, they have nothing to teach, and that's the truth. Because anybody who tells you that he is some way of leading you to spiritual enlightenment, is just like somebody who picks your pocket and sells you your own watch. Of course, if you didn't know you had a watch, that might be the only way of getting you to realize."

~Alan Watts

What is it? What am I supposed to do? What is human destiny? Why are we here?

These questions will slowly disappear.

You are the universe. You are apertures through which it is aware of the Now.

Even though it’s all a game, trying to understanding the rules is a real thrill.

I you crush a cockroach, you're a hero. If you crush a beautiful butterfly, you're a villain.

We suffer more in our imagination than actual reality.

What has the Tao got for me now?

Duality is a convenient fiction that allows us to navigate the world and communicate with others.

In applying dualistic thinking to nondualism, paradox arises.

“I don't know" is not confusion.

Confusion is "I don't know, but I should know" or "I don't know, but I need to know."

When you fully accept that you don't know, you actually enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you truly are than thought could ever be.

Nonduality cannot exist without duality.

Awareness is the witness noticing the witness has no witness.
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Non-attachment has nothing to do with the absence of desire as the desire to let go of desire is a desire itself. It’s about letting go of attachment to the self who desires.
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Death is part of the divine orchestration of life, passing, as difficult as it is to comprehend, is a transition, not an end. The soul, the essence—pure awareness—remains intact. The infinite presence we all are, free from the form that limits us.

Everything is as it is. The mind seeks control and responsibility where there is none to claim. The mind tells stories of "what if" or "I should have," but these are rooted in the illusion that you could have prevented something that was ultimately beyond your control. The flow of life is not a reflection of failure or fault. Forgive yourself not because you are to blame, but because there is nothing to forgive.

All is as it is. A sage, recognizing this, does not cling to outcomes or resist change.

You’ve lived through six decades, faced countless challenges, and learned many lessons. You are enough, just as you are.

Being overly self-critical does nothing but cause stress and decrease self-esteem. Instead of focusing on your flaws or mistakes, celebrate your strengths and accomplishments.

Not every thought needs to be expressed. Not every argument needs to be won. What’s left unsaid often speaks louder than what is said. Silence creates space for meaning deeper than words to emerge. Words are fleeting, silence is eternal. Silence is the depth of presence, transcending time and space.

There is only One awareness in the universe and it peers through every eye at this experience.
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You were aware before you were aware you were aware. Realization is simply becoming aware of your fundamental nature. There's nothing prior to that… that you are aware of.

With realization, there is the fundamental shift from seeking peace to being peace. The mind, conditioned to chase after states, to grasp at the fleeting experiences of stillness, unknowingly creates its own suffering. It turns even peace into a goal, something to attain, something that must be held onto. And yet, the very nature of life is impermanence—no state lasts forever, no feeling can be possessed. The moment you try to hold onto it, it slips through your fingers like water. The moment you try to manufacture peace, you reinforce the illusion that it was ever separate from you to begin with.

The realization that it was the resistance itself causing suffering is the key. Peace was never lost; it was simply obscured by the mind’s insistence that this moment is not enough. And yet, how could the present moment be anything but perfect? It is the only thing that exists, the only reality there is. To reject it, to wish for something else, to resist its unfolding, is to fight against life itself. And life—divine, infinite, already whole—does not need fixing. It does not need to be any other way than what it is. The moment this is seen, truly seen, a weight is lifted. Not because you achieved peace, but because you stopped denying what is already here.

Meditation does not “work” when it is used as a tool to escape. No technique, no practice, no external effort can create what was never missing. The mind believes it must do something to reach peace, but peace is simply the absence of resistance. And resistance is nothing but a thought—a thought that says this should be different. The truth is, nothing should be different. Everything is unfolding according to divine precision, according to a preorchestrated intelligence far beyond the mind’s grasp. Even the discomfort, the restlessness, the sense of being lost—these too are part of the path. Nothing is out of place. Nothing is wrong.

This moment is not something to be fixed, controlled, or altered—it is something to allow. The instant you surrender fully, without conditions, without needing anything to be different, the tension dissolves. The body softens, the breath deepens, and you realize—you were never separate from peace to begin with. The mind was simply too busy searching elsewhere to notice. And in that surrender, there is no longer a struggle to find God, because God was never lost. There is no longer a need to reach for peace, because peace was always the foundation. There is no longer a need to resist life, because life was always unfolding in perfect harmony.

So yes—accept this moment, exactly as it is. Whether the mind is quiet or loud, whether emotions are light or heavy, whether circumstances are easy or difficult—accept it all. Not passively, not as resignation, but as deep trust. Trust that everything is precisely as it must be. Trust that even the struggles, the moments of doubt, the waves of seeking, were all meant to happen exactly as they did. Nothing is wrong. Nothing has ever been wrong. And when that is truly felt, you do not need to chase peace, because you are peace.

Surrender is not something you do—it is what remains when you stop resisting. When you stop believing the mind’s stories, stop measuring your state, stop wishing for something different. This moment—this breath, this experience, whatever it is—is already whole. Already divine. Already exactly as it was meant to be. And in that knowing, in that deep, wordless trust, there is only one thing left: freedom.

Thoughts are like clouds and you are the sky. Gray, black or white, they all pass by.

The self is a label for some thoughts and feelings. It's not an entity/thing that actually exists.

Krishnamurti pointed out that answers are always within the realm of thought, which is limited and conditioned. Thought can only operate within the framework of our past experiences, knowledge, and conditioning. Therefore, answers derived from thought can never truly lead to a deep understanding of reality, which is beyond the grasp of thought.

Carl Jung's letter to The Listener, January 21, 1960

Sir, - So many letters I have received have emphasized my statement about 'knowing' (of God). My opinion about ‘knowledge of God’ is an unconventional way of thinking, and I quite understand if it should be suggested that I am no Christian. Yet I think of myself as a Christian since I am entirely based upon Christian concepts. I only try to escape their internal contradictions by introducing a more modest attitude, which takes into consideration the immense darkness of the human mind. The Christian idea proves its vitality by a continuous evolution, just like Buddhism. Our time certainly demands some new thought in this respect, as we cannot continue to think in an antique or medieval way, when we enter the sphere of religious experience.

I did not say in the broadcast, ‘There is a God’, I said ‘I do not need to believe in God; I know’. Which does not mean: I do know a certain God (Zeus, Jahwe, Allah, the Trinitarian God, etc.) but rather: I do know that I am obviously confronted with a factor unknown in itself, which I call 'God' in consensu omnium (‘quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditur’). I remember Him, I evoke Him, whenever I use His name overcome by anger or by fear, whenever I involuntarily say: ‘Oh God’.

That happens when I meet somebody or something stronger than myself. It is an apt name given to all overpowering emotions in my own psychical system subduing my conscious will and usurping control over myself. This is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans, and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse. In accordance with tradition I call the power of fate in this positive as well as negative aspect, and inasmuch as its origin is beyond my control, 'god', a 'personal god', since my fate means very much myself, particularly when it approaches me in the form of conscience as a vox Dei, with which I can even converse and argue. (We do and, at the same time, we know that we do. One is subject as well as object.)

Yet I should consider it an intellectual immorality to indulge in the belief that my view of a god is the universal, metaphysical Being of the confessions or 'philosophies'. I do neither commit the impertinence of a hypostasis, nor of an arrogant qualification such as: 'God can only be good'. Only my experience can be good or evil, but I know that the superior will is based upon a foundation which transcends human imagination. Since I know of my collision with a superior will in my own psychical system, I know of God, and if I should venture the illegitimate hypostasis of my image, I would say, of a God beyond good and evil, just as much dwelling in myself as everywhere else: Deus est circulus cuius centrum est ubique, cuis circumferentia vero nusquam.

Yours, etc., CARL GUSTAV JUNG

“Just as the sun cannot be seen in a densely clouded sky, so one’s own Self cannot be seen in a mind-sky which is darkened by a dense cloud of thoughts.”

~ Ramana Maharshi

Faith is not certitude. Certitude is the opposite of faith.

Paradox is not ignorance, it is mystery.

Paradoxical nondual thinking is the ability to live with mystery. To not be so certain. Mystery is not something you cannot know, mystery is something that you can endlessly know. It’s knowability never stops. This is a very different notion of knowing something. What is called the Tao/Brahman/Atman/Self/God is infinitely knowable. Any name is inadequate.

Faith isn't about being absolutely certain; in fact, certainty is the antithesis of faith. Paradox isn't a lack of knowledge, but rather an encounter with mystery. Thinking paradoxically in a nondual way means embracing this mystery and relinquishing the need for absolute certainty. Mystery isn't something unknowable; rather, it's something endlessly knowable, its potential for understanding never exhausted. This kind of knowing is distinct from other forms of knowledge. Concepts like the Tao, Brahman, Atman, Self, or God are infinitely knowable, though no single term can fully capture their essence.

Each gets the truth we deserve.

“The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.”

~ Meister Eckhart

Every religious tradition shares a common origin of ancient wisdom, the perennial philosophy.

These relations to the "Ultimate Reality" have numerous names across different theologies, such as Brahman, "The All" (Hermeticism), "The One" (Neoplatanism), or, most famously, "The Dao" (Daoism), which are interchangeable according to many, including me. It's an undefinable thing. Not necessarily conscious or unconscious. Deeper than anything we can comprehend in our little finite minds.

“In choosing your god, you choose your way of looking at the universe. There are plenty of Gods. Choose yours. The god you worship is the god you deserve.”

~ Joseph Campbell

Acceptance is awareness through consciousness recognizing relativity.

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind”

~ Albert Einstein

From a letter dated 2/12/50, sent to a Rabbi who was grieving his son, which he lost to polio a few days before.

“ Looking for Awareness with the mind is like trying to find darkness with a torch.”

~ Rupert Spira

You are not the observer or the observed. You are the observing.

Don't follow only one path. Explore all the paths until you understand that there is only the pathless path.

True enlightenment or realization of one’s Buddha-nature cannot be achieved through a fixed, prescriptive path or method, as such approaches often reinforce the ego and separation from reality. Instead, the pathless path suggests that awakening is already present within each moment, accessible through direct experience, mindfulness, and letting go of striving for a distant goal.

When there is no longer any seeking, there can only be finding, and we can only find what is already present, here and now.

God or reality is to be discovered only when thought comes to end.

You cannot grasp god with the mind.

When realization happens…truly happens…
the finger, the moon and the one who looks are not three things anymore.

How can reincarnation be possible if there is no self to reincarnate?

A common misconception is confusing higher truths with lower facts or confusing spiritual truths with physical facts. Reincarnation is a fact that is part of maya. It is part of the mechanics of the illusory dream. It only appears within the illusion, perhaps misunderstanding is a better term because illusion can imply a separation. From the highest perspective, it never happens. What you are never truly incarnated; it was only an illusion.

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Awareness takes the awareness of the conditions known as its identity, just as water takes on the shape of a vessel. Just as there's no inherent shape to water, there is no limit to the awareness that knows no conditions.

The past is memories experienced in the now, the future is expectations of the future. There is only the now. Anything that ever existed and can ever exist is in the present. The present occupies no space or time; it is eternal and infinite. Everything exists in nothingness.

Why is there something rather than nothing? They are the same thing.

Reality as we perceive it within the screen of being is the ever changing in the never changing.

We are bearers of the divine consciousness.

There is no barrier between life and death, like yin and yang, they are gradations of each other.

You don't need fake gurus, or even gurus. You can have your own direct connection to your infinite 'I' without any middle men and women, be they gurus or men in frocks and suits who put themselves between you and their perceived 'god'. Information can of course help, but not in the form of exalted middle people. Awakening is so much easier than they claim and they make it sound complicated because it gives them power over you. All it takes is a re-evaluation of self-identity. YOU are not a 'human'. That is a brief experience for the True 'I' - an eternal expression of consciousness - that is ultimately infinite in nature. You are not Ethel on the checkout or Bill driving the bus or the one reading this. They are an experience. YOU are the forever consciousness having the experience. An eternal soul in a temporary body. Live your life as if THAT is what you are and everything else follows. No guru or preacher required.

Eternal awareness is an infinite accumulation of ‘I am’s.

Pure awareness is an absence of thinking without loss of consciousness.

To transcend is to ‘end the trance’ of the insanity of mind.

On nonduality…

On consciousness