Spiritual Practice

The Search is Booby trapped

The spiritual search is entirely booby trapped. The quest is to find out our true nature. Good question - no problem there.

1. If we look at the human sense of 'me' we could say "well - yes - I have found 'me' ", but under further investigation it turns out to be a hoax. It is only thoughts that say there is a 'me' there. Nothing else.

   There is no 'me' there at all.

2. If we look to our essential nature trying to locate a separate 'me' there - like an individual or discrete soul - we lose out there as well.

   There is nothing personal in Awareness. Awareness / Consciousness is NonDuality itself - which means no separate 'bits' anywhere and no place where there is more or less. No room for a separate spiritual 'me' there either. The One Life lives us.

3. If we seek to find our true nature as Universal Consciousness (which it is) - this is also a problem if a mental, thought based, understanding is expected. The mind cannot do anything at all with that except have a few more beliefs to go on (and on and on) about. We end up empty handed and unsatisfied at a mental level as well, but only if we are looking to the mind for understanding.

   At a non-conceptual level - the re-cognition of our true nature is closer than our next breath. Aliveness is fully present. It is Presence - Awareness - your true nature, and you do not need the mind for that.

   The re-cognition of your essential nature does not involve the mind at all. The mind cannot grasp that which is beyond the mind.

   In fact the 'one' who wants to find out is the 'one' that is the primary barrier to the re-cognition and the cause of all the suffering in the first place.

4. Then there is the biggest joke of all

   "What we are looking for - - is what is looking"

   "You already are what you seek".

   This means that the starting point and the destination are the same. The seeking itself is a hoax.

   What is running 'your' life right now is your essential nature - it cannot be anything other than that. The Aliveness that you are is the only Aliveness that exists. The mind certainly has no aliveness in it, but it may claim to be "running the show".

   Our Aliveness (also called Awareness / Consciousness / Presence - Awareness /Intelligence Energy) is already there, completely intact. The purpose of the seeking is to be that - but we already are that!

   Krishnamurti was right when he said that there is no Path to Truth at all. None whatsoever.

   Ramana Maharshi gave a famous example about someone at the Front Desk at Ramana Ashram asking for directions to Ramana Ashram and what would be the best route for him to take.

5. Then there is the problem of the 'Spiritual Practice'.

   If a Practice is done by the 'defective, suffering one' (the ego) to achieve a certain result (achieve happiness) over the course of time, the practice itself is mortally wounded.

   The Practice already includes the belief and conviction that the ego exists and it is the ego who is going to enact the practice to destroy itself, the cause of the suffering in the first place.

   That reinforces the initial belief, so it cannot succeed. Fatally flawed.

6. Finally - there is the problem of the apparent Ultimate Goal. If the objective is 'Enlightenment' or an 'Awakening' - we are aiming for an abstraction, which by definition does not exist.

   Lots and lots of descriptions exist for Enlightenment ranging from "a state of permanent and total bliss" to the following - as the famous Buddhist Teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche noted

   "Enlightenment is the great and final disappointment, the dissolution of all our egoic fantasies and grand hopes."

Fortunately, the way out of this dilemma is to question whether 'the one that we believe ourselves to be' actually exists. If that is the 'me' then where is it? See if you can find it in any way other than just the content of thought.

This is the 'one' who does the fatally flawed spiritual practice, the 'one' who is the primary barrier to our re-cognition of our true nature, the 'one' who is the 'sufferer'. It is also the 'one' who wants to become enlightened or achieve peace.

All you do is work your way through that. Does that 'one' actually exist? Work it all the way. It is the only Practice you can do that does not reinforce the belief in the ego.

The game is to see the FALSE as FALSE which is done always and only by SEEing.

SEEing through it. Not believing or hoping - only SEEing. That is all you have to do to resolve all of the above.

Even after all that, you will not 'know' who you are as your nature is ineffable, indescribable.

However it will be evident to to you as the Aliveness, the Presence-Awareness, which has been there all along, but now without a belief in the 'me'. Without the suffering, as well.

Everything changes, but nothing changes.

Written by Mike Graham, 25 Jan 2008, last edited 31 August 2009