If your path is self-knowledge continue to question until you are completely satisfied. Just knowing about this path puts you so close to reaching your true unimagined potential. Continue to question until you are completely satisfied and free. Then you will not fall short.
So here the question is just as important as the answer. Below you will see why. Now for a question from Bernard:
So now I know very clearly that I am not my body…I just use my body to play and work with.
I am not my emotions …they do arise and I have learnt over time to respond to them creatively as they very often help to direct me to source by showing me what I am not.
I am not my thoughts although I can use the mind to think with when it is appropriate.
I am not my experience….they arise and have become more joyful over time
I am not the ego or self image …that is just a creation of the mind/emotion.
Behind it all ‘I’ remain …..silent, invisible, mysterious
Any attempt to identify it further means that I must step outside ‘myself’ to see this Great One which clearly now makes no sense.
In meditation I found myself investigating this space of consciousness but now realize that even this is an attempt to see myself.
So I am left with only ‘being’. Allowing this ‘I’ to expose itself spontaneously. This seems very strange indeed for someone who has spent more than 30 years trying to find himself. The question has now arisen ….WHAT NOW? Is that it. There is no where else to go. Body, emotions and mind have all been investigated and I am no where around there. I cannot find myself if I am the one I am looking for and am already there and have never been anywhere else. So most of my life has been creating an illusion of self and then very slowly and with much pain removing the whole fabric of this illusion.
I seem to be left with nothing else to do but to get on with the work I have found myself in but the question still comes up …is that it.
Perhaps you can share something of your own life with me in a way that would be helpful to answering this question.
Very warm greetings,
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
Thank you for your comments and questions. I can see that you are peeling off the assumptions that seem to keep us feeling limited. The body and mind are just objects that you see. They are not your identity or your true home.
Even the thought I, the little hook that seems to connect us to limitation, is just an object in your Awareness and not you.
You see that you cannot stand outside of Awareness as if it were an object and look at it. Your real identity shines by its own light without the need for a separate light. By standing as your true identity you shine in your own glory. In fact, it is Awareness that makes all the objects in the world seem so real and so beautiful. Remember the Christian quote, “I am the light of the world.”
As incredible as it may sound, without your Awareness the world would not be there at all. And yet reality does not change. That’s why when you dream, this world disappears and a whole new world appears, and that world seems real. It’s because reality comes from you and not from the particular world that you see.
Here even death dies
Indeed, when you wake up to your own self-nature even death dies. Death assumes that reality comes from the body and the mind. When they pass away, the assumption is that you will pass away too. But when you return to your home, the still every-present Awareness that sees change, you lose concern for the disappearance of the world, and you remain as the reality that is always here.
I can see that the result of your meditation is that you are feeling more and more joy. This is a good sign and shows that you are going in the right direction. So the question that you have is what now? Is this it? It seems like there is nothing else to do?
So why do you return to suffering
In my own practice I felt a sense of peace, joy, and connection with everything that from within the experience seemed like it would last forever. This felt right; this felt the way things are. But then I would come back again into suffering and limitation. Then I asked, “How when my experience seemed so right did I end up here?”
I saw that I was coming back to the place that I assumed was my home, my true identity. But I didn’t just want a vacation from my suffering; I wanted to find that state which is free from suffering always. So I started to look around at my assumed home to see what it was made of. What was I assuming to be normal or just me?
That’s when I discovered that there where two types of assumptions. The public assumptions that, until we wake up, we all assume are true like: I am limited to a body and mind etc. But then there are also private assumptions which are more my personal views of life, the world, my mind and what I am.
These views may seem so normal that I would never think of questioning them. But as I grew spiritually these views didn’t seem as normal. In fact they felt like the things that were holding me back. In my case I noticed that I felt boxed in or constrained by the world and what I had to do.
That’s when I noticed that I was taking the world to be a very unfriendly and hostile place. Yes I had seen that the world was just Consciousness, the stuff that connects us all, but my real assumption was quite different. I saw that it was our family against the world, the concentration camps in World War 2, and the reason I studied martial arts. This assumption left me feeling awkward and afraid when I had to deal with the world.
How to find freedom from assumptions?
So how did I free myself from this assumption? Just seeing it as an assumption and not reality was good enough. That allowed my life and my relationships to change in ways that I
couldn’t have imagined. Also it completely eliminated the landing spots
that I came back to.
I found that if it was painful to look at my assumptions, it was much more painful to live by them. By the end of my practice I wanted to destroy every little assumption that I held. But long before I could destroy all of them I saw: the self that I was assuming to be me was not me at all. It was just another thought. That’s when I woke up for good.
How does it feel when you find this freedom?
When you wake up it feels very ordinary and extraordinary both at the same time. It feels like you returned to your real home, the home that you never left. You become the peace and the joy that everyone, in a million different ways, hopes to get. There is no longer fear of leaving this home and diving back into limitation. After all, where could I go? Everything that I see is just my own being.
With this there is an end to fear. If the body gets old, or sick, or when the mind seems to go, it feels like nothing changes. I am the reality that is always the same. Even if I no longer had the ability to communicate with you, for me nothing would change.
So you should
know that feelings of limitation and suffering are not normal. They are based
on assumptions. When you shine the light of Awareness on an assumption, it
disappears like a shadow when exposed to light. There will come a point where there will be no one separate to
question. That’s when you will be free.
You can find out more about these little gremlins called assumptions in “Making
Your Wisdom Come Alive.” The chapter is: “What does it mean to question
assumptions?” In the mean time if you need help ferreting out limitations
continue to ask questions and we will destroy them together. I hope this answers your questions. If you need clarification please feel free to ask.
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Question everything
Here
I always encourage questions. People take too much for granted about
the world, their body, mind, and their nature. Questioning encourages
you to take a fresh look. Looking afresh, once again life becomes fresh
and a real adventure. Without changing a thing, everyday experiences
become completely new. If you need help with your questions you can
write me at
michael@light-up-your-life.com.
Please join us
Every
Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California.
All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a
wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to
attend here is a link where you can find more information
www.light-up-your-life.com/talks.html
Other resources available to you
Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come
Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the
highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:
To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html
Please tell you friends.
Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants
to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.
Michael Gluckman
So you should know that feelings of limitation and suffering are not normal. They are based on assumptions. When you shine the light of Awareness on an assumption it disappears. There will come a point where there will be no one separate to question. That’s when you will be free.
You can find out more about these little gremlins called assumptions in “Making Your Wisdom Come Alive.” The chapter is: “What does it mean to question assumptions?” In the mean time if you need help ferreting out limitations continue to ask questions and we will destroy them together.
