The Seer

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In May, 2005, I had the amazing good fortune to travel from Australia to northern California, via India, to attend a Silent Retreat conducted by Adyashanti.

Adya, as he is known, describes himself as a ‘Truth guy’ and is about as true-blue as they come.

After practicing Zen for some time, there was a big break-through in his understanding and he’s been a spiritual teacher, more or less, ever since.

The straight-forward way he puts things seems to be helping a growing number of seekers to see and experience the sublimity of their essential nature.

I told Adya there were a lot of people Down-Under who appreciated what he had to offer, and invited him to come and do some teaching in Australia.

After considering it, Adya accepted and this October, he will be giving a series of satsang talks and intensives in Perth, Sydney and Byron Bay.

We don’t know how it happened, but it seems that everybody in Australia and beyond our shores, who’s the least bit interested in spiritual truth teaching, is now talking about Adya’s upcoming visit.

We’ve even had a number of inquiries from people planning to attend the Perth events from interstate and overseas! Interest in Adya’s teaching work has now grown so much that we will have to book a bigger venue in some places.

Today, it was announced that people can now register on-line for Adya’s weekend intensives in Perth, Sydney and Byron Bay.

Check out the dates and if you’d like to attend, please register now to avoid disappointment. Numbers are strictly limited at all venues.

If you have friends you think may be interested in hearing this gifted and insightful teacher in Australia, please forward this post on to them. Believe me, after hearing Adya, they will thank you profusely for alerting them to this opportunity of a life-time.

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What you are in essence is self-shining, pure intelligence. The very idea of shining implies a movement. Movement is energy. So, I call it “pure intelligence-energy”.

It is shining through your eyes.You cannot say what it is, and you canot negate it either. It is no thing: It cannot be objectified. It ever expresses as that living, vibrant sense of presence, which translates through the mind as the thought ‘I am’.

The primary thought ‘I am’ is not the reality. It is the closest the mind or thought can ever get to reality, for reality to the mind is inconceivable. It is no thing. Without the thought ‘I am’, is it stillness? Is it silence? Or is there a vibrancy about it, a livingness, a self-shining-ness?

All these expressions are mental concepts or pointers towards it, but the bottom line is that you know that you are. You cannot negate that knowing that you are. It is not a dead, empty, silent stillness.

It is not about keeping the mind silent, but seeing that what is prior to the mind is the very livingness itself. It is very subtle.

When you see that that is what you are, then the very subtleness expresses itself. That is the uncaused joy. Nisargadatta puts it beautifully. He puts it in the negative: ‘There is nothing wrong any more’.

We think that we have to attain something and then stay there. Realize that you have never left it at any time. It is effortless. You don’t have to try or strive or grasp or hold. You are That.

From the preface to What’s Wrong With Right Now by ‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson

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Seeing is outside of what’s being seen. That’s where the wisdom lies: in the seeing itself, in the awareness itself, and in the consciousness of what’s happening. That’s where the wisdom is.

The mind will always want to remain fixated on the content of perception. But wisdom arises from the consciousness of the content. So it’s important to see that the content of perception is the dream, is unimportant, is illusion.

From: The Impact of Awakening, by Adyashanti

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This brightness is so great that the loving contemplative, in the ground wherein he rests, sees and feels nothing but an incomprehensible Light; and through that Simple Nudity which enfolds all things, he finds himself, and feels himself, to be that same Light by which he sees, and nothing else.

John of Ruysbroeck (1293-1381)

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I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a word are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

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Father Bede Griffiths was a Christian monk who went to live, study and meditate in India. After his spiritual awakening, he wrote: “Ah, so many believe that enlightenment would be some sort of lobotomy, that our mind stills into a passive blank sterile state of no-thing. And that the peace that surpasses all understanding would yield a tedious dimension stripped of diversity and contrast, yet that is the furthest from the truth of this Edenic dance and hum of all Life coming to its essential awareness of its full aliveness … ”

Moving then to the Buddhist tradition, Bede draws on a quote from a great Zen teacher, Suzuki, in which he said that “Sunyata is not static but dynamic.” So even in Buddhism, even in the great emptiness of sunyata, notes Bede, there is a movement, a tendency towards outpouring.

“In the void there is a constant urge to differentiate itself. And the whole creation is the differentiation of the void … At the very moment of the differentiation it returns to itself. It is always coming out and returning.”

The void flows out in differentiation and simultaneously returns to the void. “That is why the Buddhists say that Nirvana and Samsara are the same,” says Fr. Bede. “Ultimately they are one.”

From: “Eastern Mysticism and Christian Faith“, by Bede Griffiths, as recounted by Brian J. Pierce in: Trinity, Creation and the Energy of Love

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Truth is too simple for words
before thought gets tangled up in nouns and verbs
there is a wordless sound
a deep breathless sigh
of overwhelming relief
to find the end of fiction
in this ordinary
yet extraordinary moment
when words are recognized as words
and truth is recognized
as everything else

From: Gifts with No Giver, Poetry by Nirmala

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When the ultimate understanding has dawned in our awareness — that Consciousness is all there is and that there is nothing else whatever — some may imagine that worship has no place in the life of those who are thus illuminated because, they suppose, there is no otherness or duality to make worship possible.

This conclusion is sometimes drawn, because the human mind cannot grasp the awesome wonder, sublimity and mystery of That which is pointed to by the word: Consciousness. The great Indian sage, Nisargadatta Maharaj urged his hearers to consider the divine nature or aspect of Consciousness when he said:

“Do you realize the unimaginable greatness, the holiness of what you so casually call Consciousness? It is the unmanifest Absolute aware of its awareness through the manifestation, of which your mind-body is presently a part.”

An ancient Indian scripture, The Yoga Visistha, is unequivocal in asserting that worship is actually natural and delightfully beneficial for those in whom the ultimate understanding has arisen. It also tells us how to enjoy without interruption this most important practice.

This Consciousness (the Self), it says, is to be worshipped inwardly by one’s own consciousness, not by outward ritual or material substances — by waving of lamps, lighting incense, offering flowers or even food or sandalpaste.

To read the complete article, >Click Here

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A shadken (Jewish matchmaker) goes to see a poor man and says, “I want to arrange a marriage for your son.” The poor man replies, “I never interfere in my son’s life.” The shadken responds, “But the girl is Lord Rothschild’s daughter.” “Well, in that case…”

Next, the shadken approaches Lord Rothschild. “I have a husband for your daughter.” “But my daughter is too young to marry.” “But this young man is already a vice president of the World Bank.” “Ah, in that case…”

Finally, the shadken goes to see the president of the World Bank. “I have a young man to recommend to you as a vice president.” “But I already have more vice presidents than I need.” “But this young man is Lord Rothschild’s son-in-law.” “Ah, in that case….”

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Less than two weeks after I entered the halfway house, my life changed completely. What follows is a very approximate account.

One morning I woke up. I had been sleeping on the floor as usual. Nothing special had happened the night before; I just opened my eyes. But I was seeing without concepts, without thoughts or an internal story. There was no me. It was as if something else had woken up.

It opened its eyes. It was looking through Katie’s eyes. And it was crisp, it was clear, it was new, it had never been here before. Everything was unrecognizable. And it was so delighted! Laughter welled up from the depths and just poured out.

It breathed and was ecstasy. It was intoxicated with joy: totally greedy for everything. There was nothing separate, nothing unacceptable to it. Everything was its very own self. For the first time I — it — experienced the love of its own life. I — it —was amazed!

In trying to be as accurate as possible, I am using the word ‘it’ for this delighted, loving awareness, in which there was no me or world, and in which everything was included. There just isn’t another way to say how completely new and fresh the awareness was.

There was no I observing the “it.” There was nothing but the “it.” And even the realization of an “it” came later….

Then it stood up, and that was amazing. There was no thinking, no plan. It just stood up and walked to the bathroom. It walked straight to a mirror, and it locked onto the eyes of its own reflection, and it understood.

And that was even deeper than the delight it had known before. It fell in love with that being in the mirror. It was as if the woman and the awareness of the woman had permanently merged.

There were only the eyes, and a sense of absolute vastness, with no knowledge in it. It was as if I — she — had been shot through with electricity.

It was like God giving itself life through the body of the woman — God so loving and bright, so vast — and yet she knew that it was herself. It made such a deep connection with her eyes.

There was no meaning to it, just a nameless recognition that consumed her. Love is the best word I can find for it. It had been split apart, and now it was joined.

There was it moving, and then it in the mirror, and then it joined as quickly as it had separated — it was all eyes. The eyes in the mirror were the eyes of it. And it gave itself back again , as it met again.

And that gave it its identity, which I call love. As it looked in the mirror, the eyes — the depth of them— were all that was real, all that existed — prior to that, nothing. No eyes, no anything; even standing there, there was nothing. And then the eyes come out to give it what it is.

People name things a wall, a ceiling, a foot, a hand. But it had no name for these things, because it’s indivisible. And it’s invisible. Until the eyes. Until the eyes.

I remember tears of gratitude pouring down the cheeks as it looked at its own reflection. It stood there staring for I don’t know how long.

Byron Katie