The Sense of “I am”

When I met my Guru, he told me: "You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your real Self." I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me.  All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence.  And what a difference it made, and how soon!

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound.

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours
together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
from his book, “I AM THAT”

No-Self

All beings fundamentally have no-self but we experience sufferings and afflictions because we attach to the ide of possessing a self. We often talk about achieving a state of selflessness or non-ego because the idea of a self is actually false and non-existent, but it’s hard enough just trying to ignore the physical body and its various sensations.

All the obstacles to attaining Enlightenment arise because we believe in the existence of a body and self, but if can ignore the body and abandon the idea of “ego”, then you can achieve Nirvana. So if we can get rid of the idea of a body and detach from the notions of possessing a self, we can ultimately reach enlightenment.

Zen, The Method Of No-Method

Zen is considered the highest of all possible cultivation methods in existence because it doesn’t rely on any method at all – it just directly points to the true nature of the mind. In Zen you don’t add anything to the mind in order to attain Samadhi, nor do you try to remove anything from the mind.

With Zen, you neither accept nor reject your thoughts to attain Samadhi, but you simply let them come and go without clinging to them. Since there is no effort for effortless watching or knowing that is always there, Zen is called the method of no-method.

In Zen, you simply watch the function of awareness and turn it inwards, reflecting it back to its source, to perceive the fundamental essence of this knower. Some refer to this process as “resting” sine it means “dropping the busy mind” or “letting everything go” while the function of knowing continues to stay. The mind is open and aware, yet mental busyness naturally comes to a rest.

Our minds are forever visited by chaotic and confusing thoughts, so In Zen we treat these thoughts like hotel guests that come and go without prolonging their stay. So if you simple watch your thoughts without adding any energy to these, in time all these thoughts will depart and you will arrive at Samadhi.

Every thought, has to depart because nothing stays – death will certainly come to thoughts  as it does to all other phenomena. Only one thing remains unmoved during all these transformations – the true self, which is the ultimate source of awareness. You can go east or go west, but the one thing  that never moves, has never left, and has never gone anywhere.

Whether we know something or don’t know something, our true mind know that we know or don’t know, so awareness always shines. In Zen, it’s the root source of this awareness we must find.

The Great Mystery

The attitude of the American Indian towards the Eternal, The Great Mystery that surrounds and embraces us, is as simple as it is exalted. To us it is the supreme conception, bringing with it the fullest measure of joy and satisfaction possible in this life.

The worship of The Great Mystery is silent, solitary, free from all self-seeking. It is silent, because all speech is of necessity and feeble and imperfect; therefore the souls of our ancestor ascended to God in wordless adoration.

It is solitary,because we believe that God is nearer to us in solitude, and there are no priests authorized to come between us and our maker. None can exhort or confess or in any way meddle with the religious experience of another. All of us are created children of God, all stand erect conscious of divinity. Our faith cannot be formulated in creeds, nor forced upon any who are unwilling to receive it; hence there is no preaching, persecution, neither are there any scoffers or atheists.

Our religion is an  attitude of mind, not a dogma.

Jerry Katz
from his book, “Essential Writings on Nonduality”, p.81

All Is God

The computer you are staring at - that's God.

The words you are hearing in your head as you read - that's God, too.

The thoughts you are thinking as you try to understand what you are reading - still God.

The feelings that arise as you read - God, again.

The chair you are sitting in - God.

Your car - God.

Your neighbor - God.

Your co-worker whose very presence you detest with every fiber of your being - yes, he's God, too.

Your dog - definitely God.

Your mother - no, not Satan. God.

That hemorrhoid that's been bothering you for a while now - God.

The ego - nope, God, too.

The "illusory" world - God.
Anger, pride, fear, depression - all God.

It's all God. Everywhere you look. Every thought you think. Every feeling. Every thing you love and everything you hate. Your fears and your frustrations. All just God. What else could Oneness possibly mean? Anyway feel free to substitute a more spiritually neutral term like consciousness or spirit for God if that helps.

What You Really Want Is Freedom

When we progress on the spiritual journey, more often than not we have a desire to be Enlightened. We don’t know what Enlightenment really is, but we want want it because it sounds so wonderful. This wanting of enlightenment is not a bad thing, and it is useful as it helps us going when the going gets rough. So, if you desire Enlightenment, there is no harm in you wanting it. So just relax.

But really, when you investigate this desire for enlightenment, you will inevitably find that what you want isn’t really enlightenment. If enlightenment means anything, it means going beyond the entire mental and emotional system out of which wanting arises. You can’t really want what is beyond wanting! Therefore the obvious question is “What Do I really Want?”

What you really want is freedom. You want to be free to do anything and at the same time free from everything. You want to be in a perpetual state of free fall, no attachments to anything, just free, free. That’s what keeps you reading these blog posts, reading spiritual books, going to retreats, doing all the sitting and meditating. You want freedom.

And do you know what? You desire freedom more than anything, and yet freedom scares the shit out of you! Now take a peek inside and see if this is not the case. That’s the real spiritual journey! Okay, no more sitting under the tree to see what arises.