As you remain unattached the core essence that is you, within your beingness will come forward and will begin to unfold exquisitely. Expect this to take place and rest assured it never will. Engage a commentary from mind and it all stops again.
The most subtle of all thoughts is the concept of ‘I’ and from there ego is born. Without the ‘I’, you will clearly see that you are not the creator of your feelings or your thoughts. Thoughts simply pass by like clouds moving across the sky of consciousness. If you identify with either passing thoughts or feelings, you will give them life force and an egoic state resumes for you. Feelings and thoughts flow through you, that is life. They cannot bother you in any way without your identification with them.
The problem is not with the mind, it is the personal identification with thoughts that creates suffering.
Clinging to self-image is a mind game of resistance underpinned by fear of the unknown. On this journey of self-exploration, most discover that as interest in the chatter of mind lessens, an ease and contentment of what is, arises naturally. A consequence of this is a natural fall-off in your interest in taking drugs, alcohol, and eating junk food, coupled with a gladness and ease regarding these changes.
When abiding in Self there is no you, so in effect you cannot bring yourself there. Neither can you actually experience it as you must shed you to abide there. It may be unfolding to you now that the very subject of you, that which you refer to as yourself, is also an idea: simply a grand collection of thoughts. When this unfolds, it is made known with absolute clarity that all that exists is simply thought.
At the outset of self-enquiry, it is necessary to make an effort to abide in the Self. This results in a natural abiding in time. The unnatural state of an outward focused mind must be brought around to being inward focused, and this alone is where effort lies. Mind thinks it has something to do in order to realise its true nature. It only has to be quiet, not engage with thought and then it must be bypassed.
Ask the question “Who is having this original I thought?” In words of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, ask within, “Who am I?” From where did this question arise? Look within and find out from where did the ‘I’ arise. This question turns your vision around. When you solve this for yourself and confirm your findings with absolute clarity, you have solved all other conceivable questions. There is no answer to either of these questions. To arrive at any describable answer would be a conceptual response from your mind. Stop reading and settle within right now. You are capable of this enquiry this very moment. Go within and prove it to yourself. See if you can locate the source of the thought of ‘I’ or ask, “Who am I?” See what you find.
Your mind can be just as preoccupied sitting on a rock in the countryside as in a crowded supermarket. The focus or work, if you call it that, is within you always.
Everything will be taken from you on this path. Everything. It’s easier to let go than to hold.
Why is it so difficult to find words for what you are, for the Ultimate Self? Because words are a product of the mind and the Self is prior and beyond mind. Remove all thoughts, all concepts and there is infinite rest in that which is prior and beyond. Peace is there, silence is there.
Let thoughts and feelings come, let shock flow through you, let physical pain come. Observer does not have the capacity to like or dislike whatever manifests, only mind has these concerns.
Without the movement of thought, there is no phenomenal world.
Really there is nothing to understand. Being what you really are is happening; that can not be stopped or started. What you are is beyond all of this. Nothing to work out any more perhaps; let the fragrance of what you are arise and dissolve any tendency to imagine you are other than the essence of all that IS.
It's very simple. It's difficult only for the 'I', but it's totally natural to return to what you are, to what's underneath the 'I' story.
To want something leads to suffering because, at the outset, you think you are missing something. If and when you get it, it cannot last. Wanting is suffering. Not wanting is the natural state.
There is no point in reading these words without taking the step to find out who/what is the ultimate seer deep within. If you glide over these words without taking an earnest look within, you are throwing away the most precious diamond that existence can give you. Your natural state is this emptiness and if there is direct experience of this, even the definitions of emptiness and nothingness fall short.
Your mind can take you to form and the formless I AM. To go beyond the mind simply stop thinking, stop using the instrument that creates the concept of you that you hold onto so dearly. Let mind relax: thoughts will come and go. Do not let your attention cling to any thought in particular. Let go, relax. Without any effort at all, just settle. No doing, no effort
It is possible to unplug from all identification you hold about yourself. It requires a retraining in thinking. Develop the habit of retaining your awareness as the observer of your life. This will yield an enormous freedom, but you will not be able to retain your awareness there permanently, for there is more to be uncovered.
When there is no idea of what silence is or is not, then there is silence. Yet this is not a happening: it simply is.
In any moment, you are either observing effortlessly or you are believing your thoughts.
Beings
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