This is so powerful… a priceless jewel of wisdom… timeless wisdom of self-inquiry. I found it recently in a newsletter of Byron Katie… and went with this for days… astonished. Here is it:
“What was the thought or assumption that brought you back into the dream world? Find it, identify and question it. It was important enough to die for at the time. You attached, believed, assumed to be true whatever you were thinking, and you lost the only life you have ever really loved.” – Byron Katie
This movie is such a great & funny metaphor about what happens after the so called Death… It’s brilliant… and done with such a sense of humor! – I chose here just one scene… but you can watch the entire movie on youtube!
One time, Alexander the Great went to meet Diogenes because he was impressed that the philosopher (Diogenes) was so highly admired despite having neither money nor power.
The accounts of Plutarch and Diogenes Laërtius recount that they exchanged only a few words: while Diogenes was relaxing in the sunlight in the morning, Alexander, thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, asked if there was any favour he might do for him. Diogenes replied, “Yes: Stand out of my sunlight. I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.” Alexander still declared, “If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes.”[24]
Now, listen to this story:
Alexander the Great: “Diogenes, you are a man of great repute yet you are a man without purpose and mission! All you do is sit about all day, untroubled, unperturbed, indulging in conversation and the pleasures of moment to moment life!”
Diogenes: “So, what is so much better about the life of Alexander the Great?”
Alexander: I am a conquerer of nations!
Diogenes: So, conquerer of nations, unlike my purposeless life what are you going to do next?
Alexander: I am going to conquer Greece!
Diogenes: Yes . . then what?
Alexander: Then I am going to conquer Asia Minor!
Diogenes: Alright . . then what?
Alexander: THEN I am going to conquer the WORLD!
Diogenes: Alright, then what after that?
Alexander: THEN I will relax and enjoy life!
Diogenes: Why not save yourself the trouble? (and enjoy life right here, right now!)
I could see Katie hundred times speaking about the enlightened mind… and each time it is completely new, fresh and surprising!
Watch this video – it’s breathtaking – with all my thanks for Jens Gad (music) Don’t forget to watch it in full screen!
Eastern? – I am pondering… and what comes up is this:
Where is my death and my resurrection? – Not at the end of “my life”, not in 10 years, or 6 months, or 3 weeks, no: Where is it right now? Because if it isn’t NOW, how can I tell for sure, it exists? It’s that simple.
So let’s start. Right now… there is no death, seemingly… but there seems to be a life story, a sense of “me” and “my life”. – Looking very closely… I ask: What is this sense of “me” and “my life”? – And: Who is observing here?
As soon as this observation takes place, I notice: What is observing and noticing “my story”, “my personality”, isn’t a story, and isn’t a personality. That’s the first discovery.
The second discovery is: what is observing “me” and “my life-story”, this field of awareness, observes everything equally without preference. And it sees: everything, every possible experience – including “my personality” – is occurring of its own… is happening by itself – according to its positionality within the Field. I call this second discovery “Liberation” or “Resurrection” – and the first one “Death”.
The first discovery is “my death” right here, right now. “Death”?
Yes, it is death: Death by Discovery – not by accident. And paradoxically enough… live goes on… including “my story”, “my personality”… and yet everything is changed.
The moment I discover my own death – an event in consciousness – I see resurrection everywhere. It’s one of the most peculiar things in life: we can’t see the death ahead, but we discover it as already occurred.
Seeing the death as already happened, we see resurrection occurring everywhere. We see: Everything, literally everything – including our own personalities, – is occurring of its own… is happening by itself – according to its positionality within the Field, the infinite field of Awareness. And everything – seen in this awareness – is resurrected already, is already whole and complete, just the way it is, just the way it exists.
The journey is complete, and yet, it’s always a beginning!
That’s the third discovery or the third step. You remember the tree steps? (see my previous post: “…while meditating”).
While meditating I notice:
Waking up in the morning is nothing else than automatically entering yet another dream, the dream of “my life”. Suddenly, unexpectedly… a “voice”, an awareness awakens… emanating this message:
1. Breathe. Breathe and Observe the sense of “me”, what is it?
2. Breathe & observe how everything is doing itself, is happening by itself!
3. Breathe… Seeing Completeness everywhere present.
How am I going to interpret what is of transitory nature? …and honestly what is NOT of transitory nature in my life experience? All those things that I am experiencing in life… come to pass, not to stay….
“This too shall pass” – do I remember?
Do… I… Remember LOVE? …as I am going through all the transitory experiences of my life?
Once touched by this LOVE… I wonder more and more about my daily forgetfulness… getting thirsty more and more.
Once touched by this LOVE… I come back again and again to this place and notice:
It’s always there. It’s always whole. And it’s complete.
Now I remember so clearly & vividly the moment… as this LOVE entered my experience for the very first time:
Never before did I feel being loved so completely… I saw: it is done. All the love in the Universe… beyond what we could ever imagine… is already given to us. And I saw: there is not even one thing I can do about that.
Now: how can we forget something like that? We do. We simply do.
And what’s even more shocking: usually we don’t even notice that we forget
…until, like always – by Grace – we suddenly see and: We Remember!
It’s fascinating, how something, that can be verified only through our own Experience, (it’s called: “Radical Subjectivity” – see the Works of David Hawkins) – becomes at the same time the very paradigm of New Physics, called “Quantum Physics.”
That’s what “The Observer-Effect” really is. It’s a clear recognition: There is no “World”, without “The Mind” entering it. Each act of Observation effects the Observed. There is no real separation between the two. The Observer and the Observed are already dissolved in the Observation itself, The Seeing itself: The Quantum Field. (See my previous post “Do I understand?”)
I don’t claim to have a scientific understanding of Quantum Physics… But it was and is – indeed – my own mystical experience that shows me, without any scientific training in Quantum Physics, how this new paradigm makes a perfect & total sense. Now, it becomes clear even in terms of quantum physics, what the most ancient teachings are actually saying with: “You are not the Doer”. They are saying: “You are the Observer”, “The ultimate Observer”, “The Witness”.
As much as our entire modern society & civilization with all its social, political and educational institutions is based on that very notion, the notion of personal Doership, as much is our entire modern world an illusion, i.e. only true & relevant to us, as long as we are stuck in the old paradigm of Newtonian Physics, where “Doership” and “Causality” are valid concepts. In the new paradigm – the only “Doer” if you will – is the Universe itself, The Unified Field of Awareness, what our ancestors call “God”. Does this understanding deny that I am still responsible? No. It just reveals how relative, very very relative this notion of personal Doership really is. Actually, it’s exactly like in a dream. Within the dream, we are often fully convinced that what is happening to us is real, and that of course we, as this dream-character, are real. And as long as we don’t leave this paradigm, called “Dream-State”, of course everything is real to us. But then what happens, the moment we wake up from our dream? None of this is real to us. We say: It was just a dream, right? Are you sure? How about this… How if the so called reality, we are waking up to, is also a dream? Yet another dream, we participate in? Why not? Where is here the measure? And: What is Reality anyway? …I mean, Reality not relatively speaking but really… The Reality?
I am still haunted by this remark of Ramana Maharhi (see the post: “What is the Reality of the World?”): “If by the inquiry `Who am I’? you understand the Seer, all problems about the seen will be completely solved.”
Do I understand the Seer?
While I was pondering about this notion of “Understanding the Seer”, I came across another remark, this time from Nisargadatta Maharaj:
“In fact all is one in essence and related in appearance. In ignorance the seer becomes the seen and in wisdom he is the seeing.”
In ignorance… the seer becomes the seen… We all know this experience, right? Every time, I identify myself with my own opinion (seems normal, right? I mean… who is not?) I get literally lost in it, without even noticing it. We see that all the time in politics: Thousands, oh yes, even millions of people getting lost in their own opinions. So that’s called “Ignorance”.
And “Wisdom”? What would be here “Wisdom”? In Wisdom – We Are The Seeing. Instead of getting lost in the Seen, by identifying myself with it… I recognize: I am the Seeing itself, prior to any notion of the Seer and the Seen. I understand: There is nothing beyond the Seer, or the Self. – What we call the Seen, the apparent world, is just a mirror-image of our own Identification, a projection of our own notions and opinions. Not the Seeing itself. – In Wisdom, in Seeing itself, there is no world separated from the Seer. In the Seeing, the Seer is understood: The Seer recognizes himself in everything that is seen. The seen & the seer dissolve in the Seeing itself… and what remains… what is Real alone… is the Seeing.
Update: 1/6/2010
Yesterday I found the following quote:
“When you understand, you cannot help but love.”~ Thich Nhat Hanh.
That says everything! …Love is the Power.
And Love is the Seeing!