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Throughout history, esoteric knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation across the ages that challenges what would be considered one’s normal understanding of life and reality. It has been called the Perennial Wisdom, the Open Secret and the Final Understanding. There are those who become ‘awake’ to the truth but often found it difficult to convey to others what had been revealed. They might attract followers who would try to understand their wisdom and keep records of their talks but inevitably there would be misunderstandings and the teachings would become corrupted over time.
However, for the awakened one, it changed everything they previously thought they knew and understood about themselves, the world and the nature of reality. They now understood that the separate person they thought they were was an illusion. This change of awareness is known by many names. It is known as Enlightenment, or Self Realisation, or Liberation, or Awakening to What Is, or to the Supreme Reality, or to the Absolute, or to the Source, or to God, or to the Self.
Awakening appears to arise as an event ‘out of time’ but occurs when the dreamer is awoken from their dream of individuality and separation to directly realise Reality as it is. It is an energetic shift in awareness. No person becomes enlightened because enlightenment is the end of the false identification with individualised ‘personhood’. Self-realisation is the journey of no distance from yourself to Your-Self. For the seeker it is the end of seeking as you find that you are what was sought and are already ‘home’ (although there is now no individualised ‘person’ to be home).
For some, awakening comes spontaneously ie not through any apparent personal effort or attempt to improve or purify themselves. Perhaps you could call it through grace. They simply recognise the truth of what is. Awakening cannot be achieved through accumulating knowledge, or earned through devotion or worship, or acquired by dedication to any so-called spiritual practice or belief (although it may appear to be the result of current or previous spiritual effort). This realisation may arise unexpectedly and unbidden, although ironically it is always available to all at all times and everywhere, for how can Reality not always be present?
At best one should consider deeply what is being said here, although saying that is itself a paradox, for who exists that could consider this? At the end of the day, how can you not be what you already are? How can it take time and effort to get to where you already are?
However, the lack of some guaranteed method, or practice, or purification to achieve this notion of ‘awakening’ means that many will quickly lose interest, preferring to continue in the dream of life and to go on their way, asleep to what is Real. But that is how the dream plays out.
It is beyond the conventions of the subject - object duality to fully describe what is revealed in awakening. ‘Reality’ is prior to the mind and to intellectual understanding. The mind is in fact the tool that creates the illusion of duality out of Unicity. So Reality can be pointed to but not reduced to words and concepts by the mind – how frustrating for the ego! When Self-Realisation occurs there is simply the witnessing/experiencing of what arises by no-one (ie no person is involved). Or you could say that as life spontaneously arises it appears in and is witnessed/experienced by the infinite field of Consciousness.
In the great traditions, the teachings regarding Self-Realisation are known as Non-Duality in the West and Advaita-Vedanta in the East.
Here are statements from a variety of sources that attempt to point to this reality. So read on and if anything resonates or creates curiosity then you are most fortunate. If not, best to go back to what you think you know and stay within your comfort zone in the dream of life.
Pointers to Reality:
There is a Presence that is unnameable, which thought cannot touch. It is not your possession; it is what you are [Adyashanti].
The world is not the illusion. It’s you who are the illusion [Chuck Hillig].
Just realise that you are dreaming a dream you call the world, and stop looking for ways out. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that needs to be done [Nisargadatta Maharaj].
All that is happening is always happening only in the mind that perceives it. All there is, is Consciousness. Consciousness is all there is [Ramesh Balsekar].
You are not a thing. You are not a body-thing or a mental-thing or an emotional-thing or a thing with a history in time. You are no-thing. You are consciousness itself. Let go of your attachment to thing-ness, and you will awaken to that which is the source of all things. You are that source. Go directly to that source. Don't waste your lifetime defining yourself as a thing. Wake up from that dream, and you are free [Adyashanti].
Please understand that there is only one thing to be understood, and that is that you are the formless, timeless unborn [Nisargadatta Maharaj].
When I say the word ‘you’ I mean a hundred universes [Rumi].
It is precisely for the reason that Truth is utterly simple, basic, elementary and totally obvious, that it is completely overlooked [Ramesh Balsekar].
The essential Understanding is that in Reality nothing is. This is so obvious that it is not perceived. This Truth cannot be communicated. It can only be laid bare [Wei Wu Wei].
Ignorance is only found in the ‘I’ of the beholder [Charles Hillig].
A person is not a thing or a process but an opening through which the absolute manifests [Martin Heidegger].
We are being that has forgotten we are being. It’s as simple as that. We’re trying to remember something, something that we have mislaid somewhere. That is it. It’s totally and utterly simple. But in another way it’s colossally difficult, because to find it, we’re frightened we’ll lose ourselves. And strangely enough, losing ourselves is the finding of it [Tony Parsons].
This is That subject to conditions. This is the thought process of That [The Implicate Technology Centre].
The purpose of human life has been revealed. The Vastness created these human circuitries in order to have an experience of itself out of itself that it couldn't have without them. When asked who I am, the only answer possible is: I am the infinite, the vastness that is the substance of all things. I am no one and everyone, nothing and everything -- just as you are [Suzanne Seagal].
You are not a human being, you are being appearing as human [Adyashanti].
I am Presence; not I am present, or you are present, or he is present. When one sees the situation as it really is, that no individual is involved, that what is present is Presence as a whole, then the moment this is perceived there is liberation [Nisargadatta Maharaj].
The mind has to know that it can’t grasp what I’m about to describe. The Vastness is perceiving itself out of itself at every moment, within every particle of itself everywhere simultaneously [Suzanne Segal].
Destiny is usually thought of as something that is going to happen in the future. Destiny is all ‘here-now’. The script has already been written. I am playing all the characters in the movie; and I am witnessing the movie that is already done [Nisargadatta Maharaj].
There is an unborn, unmade, uncreated. Were it not for this unborn, unmade, uncreated, there would be no release from the born, the made, the created [Buddha].
To live in the vastness of the naturally occurring state is to bathe in the ocean of non-personal pleasure and joy. This joy and pleasure, which belong to no one, are unlike any joy or pleasure that appear to refer or belong to a someone. The emptiness is so full, so total, so infinitely blissful to itself [Suzanne Segal].
All there is, is Presence, Awareness, Consciousness; and within Consciousness this apparent body/mind instrument which in itself does not exist separately as a person or an entity or a thing but only as a thought, a dream, in Consciousness through which and as which there is experiencing, but there is no ‘one’ here experiencing. There is mental and physical and psychological and emotional functioning here, to be sure. And this functioning is unique in this body/mind organism, as it is in all such. But this is impersonal functioning in, as, by, impersonal Presence; it does not add up to a separate personal entity, of which there are none! [David Carse].
When your individuality is dissolved, you will not see individuals anywhere, it is just a functioning in Consciousness [Nisargadatta Maharaj].
Suffering exists, but none who suffer. The deed there is, but no doer thereof [Buddha].
The purpose of meditation is to find the meditator. When you look for the meditator, you won't find him, her, or it. All you'll find is silent emptiness. In finding emptiness, the mind stops. If you let it, emptiness will stop the mind - unless you run back into the mind's drama of thinking, striving, and confusion. When you allow emptiness to stop your mind, you'll awaken and realise that you are that emptiness. You'll realise that you are not the mind or the body or any meditative phenomena. You are emptiness. Emptiness means limitless, boundless, pure consciousness [Adyashanti].
I show the truth to living beings – and then they are no longer living beings [Tung-shan].
Keep asking those deep questions, sleep on – when you wake even you’ll be gone [Ikkyu].
What you are is beyond anything you have ever believed. You as a separate entity have no choice and no free will. You are simply being lived through by the Infinite in order to discover that you are the Infinite [Tony Parsons].
These things we call ‘persons’ or ‘human beings’, along with everything else we can either think of or perceive with our senses, are actually only illusory appearances in one infinite Consciousness, which is all there is [David Carse].
Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown [Erwin Schroedinger].
Even for a moment do not think that you are the body. Give yourself no name, no shape. In the darkness and the silence reality is found [Nisargadatta Maharaj].
Living in your little life bubble you are the ‘subject’ of all you survey. Everything experienceable is an ‘object’ to you. But there is only one Subject (the Self) and the ‘person’ you believe yourself to be is in fact another ‘object’ appearing within the one and only Self. When the false identification as a ‘person’ is dropped the Self remains [Anon].
When did I realise I was God? Well I was praying and suddenly I realised I was talking to myself [Peter O’Toole].
There is only One. There is not ever in any sense many, or even two. All perception of distinction and separation, of duality, is a mind-created illusion, of the nature of a dream. What you think you are, a separate individual entity, is part of this illusion. You are not the doer of any action or the thinker of any thought. Events happen, but there is no doer. All there is, is Consciousness. That is what you truly are [David Carse].
This is the eternal drama that one is playing. I am one appearing as two including, in the appearance, the sense of separation in order to discover that I am one. Because it’s wonderful to find out you’re one after being two for a while [Tony Parsons].
For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end [Erwin Schroedinger].
The Real does not die, the unreal never lived [Nisargadatta Maharaj].
The first thing you should realise is that there will never be a time when you disappear or die, because there was never a time when you were born. You have always existed as Consciousness, and you will always exist as Consciousness [Robert Adams].
Everybody dies, nobody dies [Swami Chinmayananda].
There is no reaching the Self. If Self were to be reached, it would mean that Self is not here and now, but that it has yet to be obtained. What is got afresh will also be lost. Realisation is already here. All that is necessary is to get rid of the thought ‘I have not realised’. You are the Self; you are already That [Ramana Maharshi].
There is no such thing as a Self-Realised person. When there is no ‘person’ the Self is realised [Sri Poona].
You are not that body/mind, just as I am not this body/mind. What Is, what You are, is Sat Chit Ananda in whose dream appear these body/minds. When this is seen, there is awakening from identification as one of the body/minds in the dream [David Carse].
[Sat means absolute being/existence, Chit means consciousness/comprehension/knowledge, Ananda means love/bliss/pure joy.]
The basic misunderstanding, the essential ‘endarkenment’, is the belief in discrete individuals existing as separate entities and as the originators, thinkers, or doers of any thoughts, actions or experiences. Including, of course, the presumed individual thinking this. The belief in separate individuals, including the individual which one calls one’s self, is part of the larger illusion of space-time. All there is is Consciousness, Presence, Noumenon. What is perceived as the manifestation, phenomenon, the totality of space-time, is an appearance in Consciousness and not other than it [David Carse].
You will come in due course to realise that your true glory lies where you (as a personal ‘I’) cease to exist [Nisargadatta Maharaj].
Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realise it [Osho].
The world is needed for the Unmanifest to be realised. It is through the world and ultimately through you the Unmanifested knows itself. You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are [Eckhart Tolle].
Nothing ever happens. Everything passes before the eyes and nothing stays. From moment to moment there is no build up, no residue: each moment is an entirely new world and any similarity to the previous world is an illusion, an illusion which gives rise to the idea of permanence, of there being some entity here who carries himself from the past to the future. But there is no such entity. There is only ever this, and nobody here to experience it, just the passing of content through awareness, now, now, and now. And finally, the content of awareness is not separate from that awareness. That is what the word ‘non-duality’ points to. Nothing is separate from anything else [Jeff Foster].
You have identified with this mortal and time-bound appearance to the extent that you have apparently forgotten the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that the body-mind is the Infinite having a finite experience. [Leo Hartong].
The Creator hides within their Creation. It’s a game of hide and seek in which the ‘one’ who is hiding is the same ‘one’ who is seeking. When the one who seeks finds Themself hiding, there is much joy at the reunion [Anon].
All paths lead to unreality. Paths are creations within the scope of knowledge. Therefore paths and movements cannot transport you into Reality, because their function is to enmesh you within the dimensions of knowledge, while Reality prevails prior to it [Nisargadatta Maharaj].
All there is, is Being. The One appearing as two. Nothing appearing as everything. The Absolute appearing as the particular. Emptiness appearing as fullness. The Uncaused appearing as the caused. Unicity appearing as separation. Subject appearing as object. The Singular appearing as plurality. The Impersonal appearing as the personal. The Unknown appearing as the known [Tony Parsons].
There is a state of mind not subject to birth, ageing, suffering and death. That state of mind is the source from which springs all of this - the complete cycle of conditioned existence. Your destiny, sooner or later, in this life or some other, is to re-unite with the original, all embracing, unconditional state of being - That [The Implicate Technology Centre].
Know then that true Knowledge does not create a new Being for you, it only removes your 'ignorant ignorance'. Bliss is not added to your nature, it is merely revealed as your true and natural state - eternal and imperishable. The only way to be rid of your grief is to Know and Be the Self. How can this that you already are be unattainable? [Ramana Maharshi].
Do not become attached to the realm of the absolute. See the absolute and the relative as an undivided whole, as two expressions of the same supreme reality that you are. Go beyond all dualities to the source of duality, to that which is neither this nor that but expresses itself as this and that. The realisation ‘I am formless consciousness’ is simply the opposite of ‘I am an individual somebody.’ Even with that realisation, there is still going to remain the appearance of somebody. This is a return to wholeness, to a completeness that includes the unmanifest and the manifest alike. It is perceiving that both formless consciousness and the world of form are simply two aspects of an unnameable, mysterious whole. [Adyashanti]
The world is illusory; God alone is real; God is the world. When your standpoint becomes that of wisdom, you will find the world to be God [Ramana Maharshi].
Suffering will only stop, not when God answers your prayers, but when you awaken to the truth of your own Being. [Robert Adams]
There is no you, no me, nor is there this universe. All is verily the Self alone. Thus you are One. You are the auspicious One existing everywhere at all times. Thou hast no name and form, even to the extent of allusion; nor any substance, differentiated or undifferentiated. You need not be ashamed to say, 'I am the Self, the supreme Truth. [Avadhuta Gita]
There is no such thing as a person. There are only restrictions and limitations. The sum total of these defines the person. You think you know yourself when you know what you are. But you never know who you are. The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot. See that you are not what you believe yourself to be. Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable. You are not. Refuse to think of yourself in terms of this or that. There is no other way out of misery, which you have created for yourself through blind acceptance without investigation. [Nisargadatta Maharaj]
Consciousness is only ever having this conversation with Itself. There is no 'other'. There is this appearance of 'many', but it’s all the very same one, speaking as all these mouths, listening as all these ears, looking as all these eyes. [Nathan Gill]
The dream character cannot wake itself up to realise that it is unreal. Only the dreamer, the one who dreams the world into being, can decide to awaken from the dream of limitation and from its appearance in the world as a person. [Anon]
I and world, seer and seen, rise simultaneously, concurrently, co-dependently and necessarily coexist. The creation is instantaneous with the creator. Realise this. There is no world without the one who sees it. Realise the seer, within who the apparency of the world was imaged. The reality is then only the Seer. [Lester Levenson]
One day you will discover something interesting. Your body will appear to melt, to dissolve. The world, the universe will appear to dissolve, your God will appear to dissolve. Everything you stood up for, everything you have believed in, all of your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, will dissolve. And you will find yourself as omnipresence, all-pervading consciousness. You will discover that you've always been the ultimate reality, ultimate oneness. You are the I am. You are free. You will appear the same. You will look the same. You will not be able to explain this to your friends or family, but you will become one of the few that have transcended the world. The body will appear to move and do things. Yet you will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are not the body. You have awakened. You have become free. [Robert Adams]
My friend, there is no cause for disquietude since you are not the body. You are imperishable and eternal, so why do you cry? Rest in peace. Space-like, immortality-giving, knowledge, absolute, am I. [Avadhuta Gita]
Brahman has created the world not out of desire or motive. It is simply His pastime, proceeding from his Own nature, which is inherent in and inseparable from Him. [Brahma Sutras]
I’ve told you all that constitutes the very core of Truth: there is no you, no me, no Superior Being, no disciple, and no guru. [Dattatreya]
There is no future, there are no people, there is no Earth. There is no one seeking Enlightenment, and no one gaining it. This is the final and only Truth [Sri Poonja - also called Papaji].
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