The Seer

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A woman dreamt that as a beautiful young maiden, she was captured by an Arab prince. He took her across the dessert on his horse to a wonderful marble palace in a green oasis. The prince carried her up the wide stairway to a gorgeous bedroom and threw her on the soft white double bed.

“What are you going to do with me?” she cried with apprehension and excitement.

“I don’t know lady.” The prince replied, “It’s your dream!”

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Timothy Freke is an inspiring author and charismatic communicator living in the UK who gives his all to help participants taste the experience of spiritual enlivenment that the ancients call ‘gnosis’ and he calls ‘lucid living’. Lucid living is a natural state of awareness that spontaneously arises when we wake up from (or to) the collective dream we mistake for ‘real life’ and appreciate the mystery of existence.

Lucid living is a state of super-clarity in which it becomes obvious that, although we appear to be separate individuals, in reality we are one awareness which is dreaming itself to be everyone and everything. Lucid living is a beautiful experience of communion and compassion into which we dissolve when we see through the illusion of separateness and realise that all is one.

Tim has co-authored several significant books with Peter Ganduy and in their latest offering: “The Laughing Jesus”, Tim begins with words that get our attention straight away …

“Wake up!” he writes, “Rouse yourself from the collective coma you mistake for ‘real life’. See through the illusion of separateness and recognize that we are all essentially one.

Although we appear to be isolated individuals, in reality there is one awareness dreaming itself to be everyone and everything. This is our shared essential nature.

The simple secret to enjoying the dream we call ‘life’ is to wake up to oneness. Because, knowing you are one with all, you will find yourself in love with all. You will fall in love with living.”

For more info about Tim and the Alliance for Lucid LIving (ALL), go to: www.timothyfreke.com

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The great Sufi poet and teacher, Jalaludin, Rumi was born on Sept. 30, 1207 in Balkh in modern Afganistan; he died on Dec. 17, 1273 in Konya, Turkey, where he is commonly known as, Mevlana. UNESCO designated 2007, the 800th anniversary of his birth, the international year of
Rumi.

A brilliant mystic, theologian, and one of Persia’s greatest poets, he was also a Sufi Master who gave spiritual instruction to several hundered disciples. A great number of these were transcribed and survive today amidst his vast body of works. A collection of Rumi’s poetry is available from Gurukula. Here are just couple of his observations:

Thinking gives off smoke to prove the existence of fire. A mystic sits inside the burning. There are wonderful shapes in rising smoke that imagination loves to watch. But it’s a mistake to leave the fire for that filmy sight. Stay here at the flame’s core.

The ground’s generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty!. Try to be more like the ground.

The universe and the light of the stars come through me.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

Like a thief (Divine) insight stole silently in and sat amongst the devotees eager to give them advice. They were unwilling to listen, so insight kissed their feet and went on its way.

If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?

If the foot of the trees were not tied to earth, they would be pursuing me.. For I have blossomed so much, I am the envy of the gardens.

Sufi teaching and counselling is available in Sydney, Australia, from Sheikha Fleur Bonnin, who is originally from Persia (Iran).

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To awaken, there’s no technique or practice required—it’s just a pointing to this. The content of awareness is irrelevant. Nothing needs to be attained or avoided. If you don’t recognize the peace, and if you think something is wrong with your life—just stop for a moment and notice, I am aware. I am aware of this situation, and notice the awareness, not the situation. The peace and love are not in the situation. You can not get peace from any person, you can’t get it from your career, your finances or your relationships. You can not get peace out of any situation because there’s no peace or love in the situation. There’s no peace for you in another person, or in more money or a better career. It’s not there.

Nothing needs to be done—nothing. The only thing I can see to do is notice your awareness. I am aware right now. Not aware of the situation—whatever it is, but I am aware of this—myself, awareness. So, it’s awareness aware of awareness—noticing your awareness. Right now you know you are aware because you can hear these words. You’re noticing the awareness. Because you can hear these words you know you are aware. So, notice the awareness. Not the words. The words are irrelevant. The words are a pointer that point back to the awareness. So you notice—I am aware, I am aware right now. And everything is resolved. Your awareness is the peace. It is the love.

There are times in our lives’ when we get our relationships, our career, our finances all in order. And we stop running on the treadmill because we find our life situation acceptable. When we stop running we notice this sense of peace, this sense of love, the sense that everything is okay—not because we attained anything! Peace and love have nothing to do with attainment. Because we stopped running on the treadmill, the peace is noticed. The love is noticed. And there’s a sigh of relief. But the peace and love have always been here. It’s always here. It’s always free.

Any time the appearance of a problem arises, I know it’s my mind. It’s my own mind spinning in circles. And there’s no need to do anything with the spinning mind—not a thing. Just notice that I am aware. Realizing this resolves all psychological suffering because psychological suffering is based on a separate “me”—an image of myself and I realize the image is not me. I am the awareness. So if the “me” I thought I was, is merely an image in my mind, and it doesn’t exist in reality, then there’s no one to suffer. There’s just awareness. And that’s what I am—I am the awareness. I’m not the imaginary character who has to run on the treadmill of life. I am the awareness, which is the peace and the love we are seeking. So you notice this—notice, I am aware right now—that’s it.

You are seeking love, peace and the sense that everything is okay. So you come back to this. I am aware right now. I am the peace. I am the love. I am the sense that everything is okay. It’s what I am. It’s what awareness is—unconditional love.

by Stephen Wingate

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Dear Carrie,Thank you for your inquiry. What I understand Gangaji to be saying in the passage below is that most people identify very strongly and only with the ’story’ of their life up to the present moment. They feel defined by what they have done or not done, and what others have done or not done to them. They feel that life began for them when they were born and wlll end when their body/mind/personality dies. Because such people seem not to be conscious of any other dimension of their life … they could be said to be ‘unconscious’ in this sense.

As consciousness arises in an unconscious person, however, they begin to ‘notice’ their thoughts, feelings and sensory perceptions etc. and as more consciousness arises, they begin to notice that they are noticing these internal phenomena.

You could say that first there is awareness of things and then there is awareness of Awareness itself which is a no-thing or what might be called ‘Spirit’.

It is then seen that while things in awareness come and go, Awareness Itself does not — it is always there and changeless, because it is not a ‘thing’ that can change. At this point, it may be recognized or understood, that one’s previous total identification with the body/mind/personality and its ’story’ was incorrect — and it is then understood, that in fact, one is much more than this — that there is an infinite and eternal dimension to us as well as a finite and temporal dimension. It is then seen that we are Life Itself and not merely our life experience.

The ego here is very subtle or tricky and there is the possibility if we are not properly guided, that we will swing from identifying totally with the body/mind/personality and its (poor me?) story, to total identification with ‘Spirit’ or the formless Self. The egoic mind then thinks it must reject the material things as being ‘unspiritual’ and if it is ‘allowed’ to do so, then one form or separation and division is simply replaced with another. Also, one story — “I am what happened to this body/mind etc.” is neatly replaced with another story, ie. “I am this spiritual ’being’ who is no longer a body/mind etc.”

The truth that Gangaji is pointing to in the passage below, as I see it, is that in reality, It is all one — and there is no separation or division, or in other words, It’s all God! We are not either finite or infinite, but both at the same time and that neither dimension should be ignored or denied. The truth is, she asserts, is that we are already and always Source and temporarily a particular expression of Source. It can be said, that while being inseparable from the Formless, we are a particular form and within that form, there arise countless other forms — thoughts, ideas, concepts, emotions, bodily sensations, sensory perceptions etc.

The person who is truly awake or conscious, Gangaji is saying, is a two-dimensional being, whereas, the person who is unawake or unconscious could be said to function only in one dimension (even though they too are inately two-dimensional). The barely awake or deluded person will have some understanding of the formless (compared with form) dimension of their life but will identify with only one or the other, and may even alternate between one or the other at various stages in their life experience … which would amount to just another episode in the old self-defining story.

Carrie, I hope this has clarified the quote a little for you. If not, please get back to me with more specific questions. Of course, if you can pick up a copy of Gangaji’s excellent book, The Diamond in Your Pocket’ and read the quote in its context, I’m sure that would bring even more clarification for you.

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Inexplicably it comes. When you least expect it. For a reason you can never know. One moment you are striving, figuring, imagining, and then, in the blink of an eye, it all disappears. The struggle disappears. The striving ­disappears. The person disappears. The world disappears. Everything disappears, and the person is like a pinpoint of light, just receding until it disappears. And there’s nobody there to witness it. The person is gone. Only awareness remains. Nothing else. No one to be aware. Nothing to be aware of. Only that remains itself. Then it’s understood, finally and simply.

Then everything — all the struggle, all the striving, all the thinking, all the figuring, all the surrendering, all the letting go, all the grabbing hold of, all the praying, all the begging, all the cursing, too — was just a distraction. And only then is it seen that the person was, is, and ever will be no more than a thought. With a single thought, the person seems to re-emerge. With more thoughts, the world seems to re-emerge right out of nothing. But now you know.

The incarnation is nothing more than a thought. A thousand incarnations are but a thousand thoughts. And this amazing miracle of a mirage we call the world reappears as it was before, but now you know. That’s why you usually have a good laugh, because you realize that all your struggles were made up. You conjured them up out of nothing with a thought that was linked to another thought, that was then believed, that linked to another thought that was then believed. But never could it have been true, not for a second could it have actually existed. Not ever could you have actually suffered for a reason that was true — only through an imagination, good, bad, indifferent. The intricacies of spiritual philosophy and theologies are just a thought within Emptiness.

And so at times we talk, and I pretend to take your struggles seriously, just as I pretended to take my own seriously. You may pretend to take your own struggles seriously from time to time, and although we pretend, we really shouldn’t forget that we are pretending, that we are making up the content of our experience; we are making up the little dramas of our lives. We are making up whether we need to hold on or surrender or figure it out or pray to God or be purified or have karma cleansed — it’s all a thought. We just collude in this ridiculous charade of an illusion pretending that it’s real, only to reveal that it’s not. There is no karma. There is nothing really to purify. There’s no problem. There is only what you create and believe to be so. And if you like it that way, have at it!

But we cannot continue this absolute farce indefinitely. We cannot continue to pretend this game we play, indefinitely. It’s impossible. Everything comes back to nothing. And then it’s a bit harder to hold a straight face consistently for the rest of your life.

Transcribed from a talk given by Adyashanti in Pacific Grove, CA, June 9, 2006.

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“Those who hear not the music
Think the dancers mad”

This should not come as news to those drawn to non-dual spirituality. You have discovered an entirely new way of looking at things. Insights have come and you can never go back to the old way of seeing. Your head is in the tigers mouth!

You may have also discovered that talking about these insights puts you at odds with those around you. To even remotely suggest that the individual is not the ultimate source of his actions (and is thus not responsible for creating them) is to invite powerful, sometimes violent opposition. It is as if the world has an unwritten agreement to not look at its most basic assumptions and if you violate that agreement you are in for a rough time.

Nisargadatta Maharaj had a strict policy that his disciples were not to discuss the Teaching outside of the satsang room. Not only did this have the effect of keeping the blind from leading the blind but it helped protect the fragile seedling of the new insight from being trampled by an ego-centric society. While it is not my nature to create policy, I am sympathetic to the spirit of Maharaj’s njunction.

The deepening of understanding and the relief from suffering that comes with a weakening of egoic involvement are usually part of a process. In the early stages particularly, it is best to let the Teaching grow strong inside you before taking it out and parading it on the street. You may even find that as the understanding deepens there is an ever lessening impulse to talk about the Teaching at all.

By Wayne Liquorman

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Relationship is not to totality, it is totality. This is why so many mystics have discovered that the limitation of worship is that they must maintain the duality of separation from that which they love.

The mystic is tempted by his love for God, even after he discovers that maintaining that duality separates him from the totality, which, of course, is the manifest God. So the poor mystic is in a real dilemma. He’s been fasting and praying and doing all kinds of austerities for all these years. He loves his God with all his heart. He prays to God every hour of every day. God returns his worship with words of love.

One day he asks God for insight into the nature of the absolute and the bounddryless nature of life is revealed to him. God shows the mystic that the God he worships is the mind’s projection. God shows the mystic that there is no mystic who worships, and no God to be worshiped. There is no separation. There is no difference.

The mystic is in rapture. He calls to God his thanks, his praise, his ever lasting love. But, there is only silence in response. In the mystic’s realization of non-duality God has vanished.

So, after a very long night of consideration of the boundrylessness of life, the mystic calls to God once more. This time he asks for one last boon. The mystic asks God to take away the knowledge of that true nature of life and to return as his object of love.

Of course, the boon is granted, the mystic once again can worship his God. He soon forgets the totality. He is addicted to separation.

Steven Harrison. - Read the complete interview >here

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Not long after I noticed that the respected non-duality Web site www.advaita.org.uk/ described the Melbourne-based ‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson as “arguably, the greatest non-duality teacher alive”, Rosemary and I were planning an outback 4WD trip into central Australia, and I figured that as we would already be about 70% of the way to Melbourne — why not spent some time with Bob.

Bob went to India and spent the whole of 1976 with Nisargadatta Maharaj, the great Indian Teacher, and has been teaching in Australia ever since. Transcripts of Bob’s talks in book-form have been published and are available from Gurukula.

Bob, who is now 79 and gives three talks per week at his own home in Deepdene, about 6 km east of Melbourne. In A Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe by Douglas Adams, the answer to the question “What is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything” turns out to be 42. If you catch a train (streetcar) from the CBD to alight right outside Bob’s place -­ you will be getting off at tram stop 42!

While we were there the average attendance was about 15. Bob’s talks are quite informal and these are followed by questions from the attendees. Bob then responds and dialogues begin and often a lot of fun too. Bob said that it normally takes people about 7 talks to get to grips with his teaching, and fortunately, this just happened to be the number we attended.

Bob is also available for private talks to personally help clear up any doubts or misunderstandings on the teaching, and both Rosemary and I had two sessions with him each. We found these very helpful indeed.

Bob uses the analogy that the sea usually looks blue, but if you ask someone to go and get a bucket of blue water from the ocean — they will just laugh. They know that seawater is not blue and are not fooled by the illusion that it is.

We, though, have a sense of a separate self — the so called “little me” — but it is an illusion too, it’s insubstantial, there’s no Aliveness at its core, and it is comprised totally of thoughts. It’s apparent power comes ONLY from the belief in it, but what happens if that belief crumbles?

The answer is that self centered thinking falls away, and with it, personal problems and mind-made suffering. The “me” drops out of the equation, just like the blue water. There is no belief in it any more. It has lost its power. Thoughts still come and go — and that is fine. They are just the passing content of awareness.

Bob talks a lot about the investigation into finding out if there really is a “me” there. Nothing can be found apart from the Aliveness that you are. If that occurs and there is no “little me” there — was there ever a “me” there? It is the direct SEEing of this that is the key.

The common thread of all the great teachings is the non conceptual recognition of our true nature. The seeing that the separate entity that we take to be ourselves does not actually exist in any substantial way is one part of it. The othr part is the actual direct recognition of our true nature — and the alleged “me” is the primary barrier to this.

Bob stresses that this is not about enlightenment, awakening, or self-realization, not about an “attainment” as there is no-one there to “achieve” anything.. No blinding flashes, no “fireworks”, no visions, no eternal ecstatic bliss, not this, not that — just the understanding and the end of seeking. The tram, so to speak, stops right Here, right Now.

Rosemary and I left Bob’s place and continued out journey back to Perth, via northern Queensland, and the Northern territory -­ the “short cut” home. We discussed Bob’s teaching every day and every night and it was our central focus from the time we left Melbourne ­ all the way home. And still is.

You might want to check out Bob’s Web site

Mike Graham

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Knowing God is not simply performing religious duties or thinking about God. It requires a shift of consciousness, a reversal of the natural mode of thinking, or, better yet, a conversion of attention:

“For whoever would enter God’s ground,” says Meister Eckhart, “His inmost part, must first enter his own ground, his inmost part, for none can know God who does not first know himself. He must enter into his deepest and into God’s inmost part, and must enter in to his first and his highest, for there everything comes together that God can perform.”

Here, Eckhart is referring to truly mystical intuition, the insight of immediate consciousness, ultimately the perfection and goal of all human experience. For Eckhart, as for Paul, Augustine and Luther, no merely human act can reveal our unity with God. The perfection of enlightenment is the accomplishment only of God’s grace, which supplants and completes the feeble reach of our spiritual powers.

He therefore concludes, “To know what the soul (our true nature) is requires supernatural understanding. When the powers go out from the soul into works, we know nothing of that, or at least we know a tiny bit about it, but our knowledge is small. What we are in our essence, nobody knows. What we can know of it must be supernatural: it must be by grace. Therein God works His mercy. Amen.”

From: Eckhart’s Way, by Richard Woods pp 62