Endless Thinking

Liberation through Thought ?

Is it possible to become 'Liberated' or 'Self-realised' through the process of thought. By the use of the mind?

Is it possible your mental understanding will grow and grow and a certain point - "Bingo" - you suddenly become self-realised? "Full House."

Is that really it?

'Realization', so called, is not as a result of intellectual understanding - it is a result of an deeper understanding based on SEEing. The understanding is an aspect of SEEing and is one with the SEEing.

The understandING is actually a verb, just as the seeING is a verb, just as Being is a verb. It is a living function - an action, not a state, entity or object. The understandING is in the present moment - it is alive.

There is no set state where you have 'seen' all there is to SEE or you have 'understood' all there is to understand. 'Seen' and 'understood' are past tense - they refer to the past.

Our true nature only ever exists in the immediacy of the present moment - past seeings are gone, past undertandings are gone. They are history and the only reference to them is in the mind as memory.

Only SEEing in the immediacy, only understanding in the immediacy is worth anything at all. They are lived, they are alive. Past ones are dead.

Understandings do not accumulate or build up. It is not like the Bingo board that gradually gets 'full' - and finally you have made it.

It is not like a university degree where you do some units this year to add to the units you did last year and next year when you complete the final units - well - that will be it. Not like that at all. No accumulation. There is no 'credit' for units done previously.

There is only ever SEEing in the immediacy of the present moment.

Thoughts with contents such as "You are not who you think you are" , "You already are what you seek" and "Your essential nature is Universal, Eternal and Non-personal" are just thoughts. The only difference between these thoughts and other thoughts is the content is different.

There is no transformation from the process of thought. Hoping for transformation at some time in the future is another thought - it is time bound.

Re-editing thoughts, refining them, perfecting them - they are still just thoughts - even if their content points to the eternal, the sublime.

At best, thoughts are 'pointers' - to that which is beyond thought. Thought is limited and the limitation of thought is recognised.

There is only in the SEEing in the immediacy.

SEEing that "You are not who you think you are" in the immediacy of the present moment - seeing the false as false - is liberation. And seen beyond.

SEEing that "You already are what you seek" in the immediacy of the present moment - seeing the true as true - is liberation.

SEEing that "Your essential nature is Universal, Eternal and Non-personal" in the immediacy of the present moment - is liberation.

There is no separate 'you' to have that understanding, to have that seeing, or to become 'liberated' or 'self realised'. There is no 'you' to say "When I awoke" as that statement refers to an apparent past event and an imaginary entity called "I" that awoke. Only the immediacy counts.

There may very well be realizations that are put into words - but the realization comes first, then the words. A realization is a seeing. It is REAL, not conceptual. It is actual, not just the content of thought. Suddenly you see how it all fits together, even if it cannot be expressed in words.

Our true nature is fully present, completely intact, totally pristine and always has been. It is untouched by the travails of life. Our true nature only exists in the present moment - which is the eternal now. It is called eternal, not because it contains all time, but that it is outside time. In the present moment there is no past and no future, so how can there be thought? Just for starters all labels, images etc all belong to the past.

In our minds we have conceptualised the past and the future and created this abstraction called time. The only place where time exists is in the mind.

In the actual world there is only ever this moment. In our true nature there is only ever this moment.

So how can thought liberate you? It cannot.

Putting it another way - the Mind is limited. Our nature is the formless. The mind is form. You cannot "grasp" the formless with form. It is the great mystery that defies thought. Thought cannot encapsulate it. It is the Peace that defies all mental understanding, to paraphrase a famous quote.

Another way again. Who is it that needs to understand? It is an aspect of the mind called the 'me'. Does our true nature need to suddenly find an understanding? It is already there in the aliveness and the awareness and the knowing that we are. You already are what you seek.

In the Aliveness that we are decisions are made, preferences are held. But there is not an entity, a separate individual, there that makes those decisions. You give a cat two bowls of food and one is chosen. There is no 'me' there doing the choosing. Just a choice has been made. Same with us. Just that we have a little (apparent) entity there called the 'me' that claims the choosing as "my choosing" - but always after the choice has been made. Literally an afterthought.

Thought occurs. Do we choose our thoughts? Can we decide which thoughts we are going to have? If you say 'yes' to that then who chose the thought that made the decision in the original question? That just arose too. We do not choose our thoughts - they just happen. The world would be a wonderful place if everyone could choose their thoughts. Who would choose unhappy thoughts? Who would choose to be sad, angry, jealous, depressed and all the rest.

Thoughts just happen, and they are not 'ours'. Firstly because there is no entity there, no separate person, for their to be an 'ours'. And secondly there is no choice there at all.

So what does that say about thought as the way to liberation? It is the opposite. It is, itself, the trap. It is 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

OK - if there is a SEEing that has to be done - who does the seeing?

The answer is that there is no entity there - to make choices, or to see. There is just a ChoosING and a SEEing.

SEEing occurs, just as choices occur and are an aspect of the Aliveness / Awareness that we are.

Our true nature is Universal and Non-personal.

Written by Mike Graham, 13 June 2008