Take Back Your Power

Q: I have read many of your writings on your web site and decided to write, even though a part of me is saying, “Why bother, there is nothing anyone can do or say that will bring about a realization of what being pointed to.” Still I like what you are writing, it helps keep alive the idea that something is possible. Your piece “You Don’t Need a Suitcase” described well what I have believed for the last forty years, that there was a special state called enlightenment where everything would be different and better for “me.” “I” would feel happy, blissful, content…whatever.

In the past few years I have been attracted to writings which suggest the idea that there is no “me” for this state to happen to.  Indeed when I look (whatever looking is) for this me I cannot find anything but a collection of thoughts that are mysteriously regenerated everyday and dominate my attention.  So I understand the “idea” that there is no independent me somewhere, yet my view and my life of activity still functions from this false reference point. As yet nothing has changed, the idea of “no me” is just another idea there with all the other ideas that collectively are my world. It seems that ultimately for me everything is just thought.

Thus its seems I have not “gotten it” as it were. I am still lost in my world of ideas. In a way I feel depressed now for I don’t believe in the carrot of constant bliss enlightenment coming from some special effort. I used to feel I knew what awakening was and that it would surely happen to me and it would be so great. Now that all seems like just another story, a mirage that is always just up ahead, but when I get there it’s still just up ahead. Now I feel do not know anything for sure, I just know ideas. I feel like my world is entirely relative to itself. Every idea I have is defined ultimately by another of my ideas. I don’t know what it means to know something anymore. I don’t really know what to say or ask you. It seem pointless to ask questions when things have been said so well by you and others.

A: You’re in a limbo place that is very common to encounter at this point in seeking. No worries – with just a little patience, you’ll get through it. You clearly can’t go back, right? You can’t somehow forget that the “I” is made up of a stream of passing thoughts, and take it all totally seriously again. That’s over. Part of the unfolding is that once the “I” idea stops being fed energy, it starts to die a natural death. But that takes time. It will happen. We can help it along, however, by continuing to look at what’s going on.

You’ve identified it very well. There is nothing there you can call “I” and therefore no wonderful state for “I” to reach and call it a day. But look at what you’ve already established: My world is entirely relative to itself and I don’t know anything anymore. That’s great! That’s a huge recognition in and of itself. But since the “I” is not totally dead, you’re still relating these things to yourself. I.e., “The world is relative to itself, for me.” There’s just more to look at here, that’s all. “The world is relative to itself” completely annihilates the “I,” but that just hasn’t sunk in yet. So the pieces you are uncovering are still working their way through your mind and undoing it. But that takes time.

You opened your email with an idea you’ve picked up that is false, and will hinder you, although it has gotten very popular in Advaita circles, and that is the idea that there is nothing you can do. This is so entirely false and misleading, and if you read any of the sages this wisdom came down from – Nisargadatta, his guru Siddharameshwar, Ramana Maharshi, etc. – they ALL say that you do this with your mind, and then your mind is done.

The mind undoes the mind. This is how the process works: the individual person/body/mind is believed in, and while it is, it works to discover the illusion that makes it seems real. Until that is DONE DONE DONE, you have to keep it because it’s your only tool. The current neo-Advaita misinformation is telling people to pretend they are done when they’re not. Not helpful! If you really, really believed what you say (“there is nothing anyone can do or say...”), you wouldn’t even think to write that sentence. So it’s a premature declaration that hamstrings you from further progress.

The illusion of separation is learned, and it can be unlearned. This is the message; read it for yourself! But it has been short-circuited with this idea that there is no “I” to unlearn anything. There is! As long as it is believed in to the tiniest degree, it does exist. And it can unlearn separation.

And what is it that knows all of this is going on? Don’t forget to check in here all along the way, to your true nature which is simply in the background noticing or reflecting all these thoughts and attempts at understanding. This is what you really are. The background. This is what is, before you learned conditioning that told you you were separate. Before that, you are this. You are not the “I” – you are that which notices Greg looking into his not being an “I.”

This is the key always. What you are, and what you are not. You are not anything you can name or quantify, and you are this which is nameless and unquantifiable. There is no part of you, not even the teensiest part, that is in this world and looking for something. You are entirely this, the background.

Well, you know the drill. Just know that there is more to do. Read “I AM THAT” again – the instructions are pretty clear. Those guys did not hesitate to say, “Look at this! Do that!” Of course, once the illusion is completely seen through, it is seen that none of this ever happened. You just can’t jump to non-happening prematurely, that’s all.