The Fullness of My Humanity Arises.

Today I feel vulnerable, hurt, very human. Incongruously, my humanity seems to deepen with seeing its illusory nature. Everything that comes up, comes up without any of the veils or defences I seemed to used to deploy. I feel I have no one to talk to, that no one understands, and I am very alone. Of course, there is no need to be understood and no one to understand, but those feelings arise nonetheless. As painful as these feelings are, there is something so sweet in them, a sense of unfettered living, joyous energetic life unbounded by any fear. Fear also comes up, but it seems to do so less. How different it all is compared to what the mind expected "enlightenment" to be. It isn't going around in a cloud of bliss, loved and loving, all problems solved, life utterly "fixed". It isn't any different than it ever was. All the same things come up. It's just ordinary life as I always appeared to live it. Yet it is completely different, seen for what it is. And in the memories that arise in this, this which is timeless, I see it was ever thus, the only difference being that I hung someone onto it all. I am meeting this wonderful man, I am getting married, I am sitting here watching TV, I am caught up in the relentlessness of addiction. In fact the wonderful man was met, a wedding happened, TV was watched, the relentless pursuit of alcohol and drugs happened. It was a game, a play, the perfect set of apparent circumstances to see that it's all just happening, to no one. However alarming that seems, the boundlessness of it, and the liberation of it, is beyond description. A personal existence is a tiny box, the smallest of microcosms, blinkered and shuttered, yet strangely always perfect and whole. The dropping away of me is merely the dropping away of the idea that something is missing. It drops away and the void is scary. Yet it is thrilling. There is no one to be scared, no one to be saved, although terror and longing for redemption can arise. No one can save us, we are saved.

In the Apparent Story That Seems to Unfold...

Although there is no time, except to the mind, this morning the time it took to put it all together seemed longer. I wandered to the bathroom to relieve myself not quite knowing yet who I was; what the plans were for the day; what I planned to wear; not remembering yet my heart was broken, and that I was grieving, although the feelings were there. I went and took care of the most basic human requirement just the same. It doesn't need "me" hung onto it for it to happen. "I" arise, and there is nothing wrong with that. My silly mind is quite pleased this now seems "proven" even though it knocks its quiet aspiration to be all-important again. That will never happen, in the apparent story that seems to unfold.

Words are fun but bloody useless. What I seem to be trying to talk about has nothing to do with words, where there is always a subject and an object. But the urge to talk, or write, about this is strong. There is no agenda, just an urge. There is no one to have an agenda. In fact there is no one. There is no one who suffers, there is suffering. There is no one who "awakens", there is what is just as it is. There is no one who needs to "awaken", just this appearance in which everything that seems to be is perfect in its apparent form. Doubt, separation, longing, it is all just as it should be by virtue of its being. It exists; that is its beauty, and it needs nothing hung onto it, although hanging identity onto it is also perfect. As I apparently sit here typing, the boundlessness of what is behind all this and yet encompasses it stuns me, it is just so sexy and wondrous and full-on and utterly indescribable. But to try to describe the ineffable is just fine too.

This Bag Of Bones Needs No Management.

How everlastingly exhausting it is to be human. Each morning the bag of thrills and visions and aches and favourite colours and tasks to be trudged through has to be assembled. When this shift in perception seemed to happen, all that was seen for what it was - not terribly important, just by the by. It assembles itself. It needs no management. Amusement arises when I hear folks speak of having a relationship with themselves. It is good mental health, but it seems to be such complication. Not only is there a dream of separation, they are separate from themselves as well as everything else, and some christened sub-personality is having a sincere conversation with another named compartmentalised entity. However, there is nothing wrong with complication. They are just concepts, just thoughts, just apparent bits of electrical energy in the brain. Just the energetic dance of life, thoughting. The sense that all there is, is this, whatever this seems to be, is deepening, but of course it isn't really. That's just the story, and the mind's interpretation. The mind is just the mind. The mind will never get this. Mind's job is to divide everything up. In this "new" perception, the divisions just seem to arise - they are not the be all and the end all. What is it that Jesus said? "Beyond the heart and mind of man." I am the stillness, the boundlessness that all existence arises in. And so is everyone and everything else. This little piece of awareness and sensation is just life, me-ing. What is beyond it, and part of it, behind it and encompassing it, is that ineffable thing that is All, and is so big it it everything. Sometimes labeled consciousness, or the One, but the name is just another little electrical spark. It's so big and obvious, it seems strange that the dream of separation is "reality" for so many apparent individuals. It is gently everything. Even the sense of location drops away. Just looking down now, I am the keyboard. It seems entirely self-evident. Yet memory arises too of when I would read something like that and think, what a nut job. I am the keyboard? Get some meds for Christ's sake. Now it's just glaringly indisputable. There is no one to manage this bundle of human bits and pieces. There is no one. The bits and pieces just come all by themselves, and in whatever guise, they are joyous celebration. Even depression, which seems to be lifting.

Who Is It That Can Teach Me To Be?

When this shift in "my" perception apparently happened, it seemed that there were a lot of spiritual teachers out there who were teaching away that there was a way to get to this, that with the right amount of meditation or forgiveness or being present in the moment or whatever that "someone" could see that there was no one. There is no practice that can bring it about. Any practice reinforces the idea that there is a separate person who can do something to become One with the Oneness or whatever inadequate thing we're calling it today. But there is no one that can teach someone who dreams they are separate; there is only this, and this is all there is, and it is available always, as it is all there is. Seeking reinforces the idea there is something to seek, that there is someone who can seek it. It already is what I am, exactly as I am, no matter what that might seem to be. No one can teach me how to be, or teach my heart to beat, or my lungs to breathe. No one can unlock what already is immaculate wholeness. It just goes, this idea that I am separate. The illusion of being a separate individual with choices and practices and a life that needs to be made useful and fulfilling just dies. The freedom from the tyranny of self is boundless; in losing everything I thought my life was, life is seen to be the wonder it is, just as it is. And nothing has changed, except how it is seen. Change seems to happen, but in every small happening or feeling or thought that arises in this appearance, there is everything, all, totality, completeness. What seems to be missing is the sense that something is missing. That doesn't mean that "I" feel bliss and peace and utter compassion for the whole of existence. Sometimes, that seems to be what is arising. Sometimes it is being fed up, or feeling frustrated, or deep grief and mourning, and each feeling is unfiltred and intense. In wholeness, everything is available. It was ever thus. All these teachers of non-duality still seem to whisper that there is someone who can be taught, and only by them, for they have the "right method." There is no teacher, there is no student. There is only immaculate being. Wholeness in every apparent breath, in each footfall, in watching TV. This is wholeness. This is it.

In Life Without Meaning, Goals Seem to Arise.

It is only in parables that I can communicate. It is only in parables that life unfolds. It's so clear, so very obvious, that what is is simply a reflection, a parable for what truly is. Once in awhile, or so it seems, I'm lying in bed and the overrated mind grasps a little of what all this means, of what the absolute is. I understand, just for a moment, what nothingness is, the mind sees something like birth in space, no space, no time, nothing, and it is thrilling beyond compare, the reality to the mind of nothingness. This is what is labeled God, this is what the "glimpses" of the absolute are, the mind almost grasping for an apparent milisecond the absence of everything. There is nothing, there is nothing. Most minds run a mile. It makes a nonsense of all the struggle, all the pursuit of joy, all the avoidance of pain, all the fraught seeking to make this life work and help others and rationalise our failures or despair over them. There is nothing and no one, and all this appearance, the hologram of life, illusory and dreamlike, appears as the perfect reflection of its source, which is the only thing, which defies description, which encompasses All and is All and is nothing. Words jig tiny circles far removed from the absolute. Even the loftiest words, even the greatest literature, cannot come close to the exquisite ineffable reality that is what is. They make the story so rich and fascinating, but even the most actualised and successful life is the merest whisper of what truly is. The goals are meaningless, yet they arise, perfection itself in their mere apparent existence. Walking down the pavement, pondering what to do, it is possible that something drops away and the pondering itself and the feelings that arise and the footfalls on the concrete, each seemingly brand new, as never "before" or ever "after": those simple things are the miracle, the wholeness, the sweetness of being. It is admittedly difficult to see, for the story in time as interpreted by the mind in a string of cause and effect to be the "real world" is reinforced by nearly everything that seems to exist. But seen it is.

No Volition. Or so I seem to choose to think.

I started this blog so I wouldn't have to upset people face to face. There was a memorable dinner with my husband that ended in tears when I said that there is no goal, no purpose, nothing matters. "Well, what's keeping you from killing the children in their beds?" he asked, taking it to the next logical conclusion. I tried to explain that there is no one who would choose to do that, it might happen, but that for the apparent character that is me, it was probably pretty unlikely. He was appalled. Perhaps when this seems to happen to apparent individuals, the "best" thing to do is to keep quiet about it. The thoughts and feelings arising in this apparent mind/body organism are along the lines of a strong inclination to talk about it. So this is a safe-ish forum, to a limited audience, just to get it out of "my" system.

It's all so intense. In the story of my life, a recurring theme - perhaps the underlying one - was to change the way I felt, or kill the feelings altogether. Without the filtre of personal identity it's full-on; misery is abject, joy is euphoric. Ambivalence is perfectly untethered. There is no one to own the feelings, although apparent owning sometimes arises. It's certainly not some sanitised state of detachment and witnessing. It's fleshy and immediate, sweet and sour and complete. Totally obvious, for the change is: that which is, simply is what is, and that's it. Nobody who is still in the dream of separation wants to hear that the apparent world is absolutely perfect exactly as it is. I never had a choice, there was never anyone who had a choice, it all simply unfolds as it must, and the thoughts that seem to be choices simply arise - there is no one here for them to originate from. This blog is utterly meaningless, for what is trying to be described cannot be described. It simply is. So it's pretty obvious why I don't talk about it much face to face with other apparent individuals as it comes out sounding like a giant load of errant gibberish.

Christmas Arises.

The seeming freshness, the newness that happens upon apparent awakening (just the little awakening, the one that appears to happen in time each morning) lasted a little longer "today". I guess it's best to drop the pedantic semantics, or else I'd drop "seeming" or "apparent" into speech five times a sentence. Putting together the personal identity took longer, "today is Christmas" actually arising before "I am me." And in that absolute loss of self, the vastness of existence is more evident. Self arising, all the thoughts, the feelings, lying in bed, putting on my lounging-around-the-house clothes, all of that is what is as well, not some flaw or imperfection in awareness. It is what it is. I was at our usual Christmas Eve neighbourhood party last night and was told by a fellow mum that she noticed she has certain energies, and is taking a class in spiritual healing. We danced around the ineffable topic of awakening, or whatever the correct moniker is today. There is not exactly some vast sea change of separate individuals dying like flies all around, but perhaps this perception isn't as elusive as it used to be. Back in the day when it happened to someone, and they tried to talk about it, they were crowned the Messiah or the Prophet or the Buddha and vast numbers of apparent individuals tried to organise the absolute seeing of reality. (Christ is in the desert, having his "awakening." God gets together with Satan, and says smugly, "Hah! They'll all know the truth now. What are you going to do about it? You'll have no power." And Satan says, "I'm going to help them organise it." God sighs, resignedly.) None of it matters. It's a story, and the story can be incredibly interesting: one can use one's energies for spiritual healing, or investigate the scientific credibility of infinite parallel universes; dip into the bits of space between the teeny weeny bits of an atom and find they are vast, and that the particles seem to defy location and description; note that by observing those particles as a wave they obligingly become a wave, and realise that consciousness effects what we call reality; talk to the dead, or seem to die, see a light, and "come back" healed and whole. They are all just stories, fascinating to the mind and thrilling to the emotions. But all there is is this, not in time, not in space, nothing being something, happening, just happening, to no one. Infinite parallel universes are no more beautiful and awe-inspiring than that pile of dog poo on the pavement. Admittedly, this is difficult to see. But seen it is.

Incongruities arise. Paradox is norm.

Another apparent day, another apparent bevy of tasks. But it is different, this new perception. "Before" (in the seeming story in time, ruled by cause and effect) I did the tasks. "Now", the tasks are done. There is sitting in the chair, there is typing on the keyboard, words are written, no one prints them out. Last night I took some poor woman hostage after our 12-step programme meeting. We sat, apparently, and chatted. "Nothing matters," I told her in quite a few more words than that, "yet everything is a miracle by virtue of it's mere, illusory, existence." She nodded and listened and told me bits about her apparent journey through time. "It doesn't matter what nonsense you have going through your mind," she told me, "I'm willing to listen. Call me anytime." We hang so much onto existence. All there is, is this, and though the mind protests "How could 'this' ever possibly be enough?" there is nothing else. Yet all that we seem to hang onto existence, paradoxically, is perfect as it is, as is everything. Everything happens just as it should. How could it be otherwise? All that we seem to abhor is merely balance. There has always "been" balance, there will always "be" balance, no matter how many apparent individuals seem to strive for "a better world." Goals seem to arise, to be President of the United States, for instance, for the mind/body organism that we call Barack Obama. Yet he does not exist, he has no volition, it is beingness or aliveness or consciousness or the One (or whatever inadequate label we're using today) Barack Obama-ing. Timeless being, sweetness, unconditional acceptance and love. No matter if it feels a bit sad, for "I" am still in the desert, embracing my humanity. Incongruously. Perfectly.

Another day of incongruency. Been so low now, apparently for a couple of months. The bereavement is immense, yet bearable. I seem to mourn everything I ever thought was my life, having seen that nothing matters, it is a dream. But the dream is a miracle by virtue of it's very (seeming) existence. Mere (apparent) existence is its beauty, be what arises sorrow or joy or cruelty or kindness or pain or euphoria. It is all impeccably in balance. Yet incongruously, "I" am in the desert, waiting to fall in love with it all. It is love, complete and whole, utterly accepting of all apparent manifestion; it is all apparent manifestation. The words fall flat. It cannot reject itself, it is itself. And I seem to reach out, grasping for some words, and find that no one can identify, despite being it all "themselves". Utterly alone, yet not existing. So low, so low. Nothing exists, despite appearances.