ESSAY BY AJA

Aja, Wednesday, April 28, 2010 12:40 AM Text Size :





Not who you think you are; not your name; not your gender; and certainly not your beliefs, concepts or convictions, but who are YOU? As children, or even teens, we may ask ourselves this question. But soon we are told who we are. We are indoctrinated into a field of isolation by having our Who-ness defined and categorized. We forget the Who we are as it is clouded by misconceptions, desires, ideas, mythologies, and individuality. But who is it that rests prior to all ideas, all thoughts, prior even to the senses?







Within your mind, you may have so many thoughts. They run through your mind, seemingly appearing out of nowhere to tell you what you think and what to believe. But where do they come from. Are you really thinking or are you being thought? All of these thoughts simply arise in the mind and we hear them, see them, are aware of them. But who is aware of them? If within your mind you create a picture, an image of something, anything, such as a tree, a cat, a house - that image appears within the mind, but who is seeing that image? That hearer of thoughts, that seer of images - that is You. It is the Witness, the Consciousness, the Pure Awareness. You are NOT beliefs. And nearly everything you believe you are is a belief, a concept.







All of your ideas about the nature of the world, your likes and dislikes, who you are, what God is, what political or religious system is best, what life is meant for, why your life is a success or a failure - all of these are ideas. They are not and never have been who you are. They are sheets of colored gel laid upon the light of pure consciousness. They make you believe that you are happy or sad, good or bad, fortunate or unfortunate. But you are never any of these things. Who You are is Free. Who You are is Absolute. Who You are is a drop of the consciousness that is the Infinite Consciousness of all existence or what some might call God. Yes, you are That which alone exists, from which everything arises, and into which everything returns. But you focus on the flotsam and jetsam that float on the surface of the ocean, rather than recognizing you are the ocean itself.







Perhaps you even seek to know the truth, to end suffering and realize Enlightenment. Enlightenment is another concept. It is the opposite of bondage or unenlightened and exists in the realm of duality, of opposites, in the land of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. They are names only that we have created to manage within an unknown territory. That's fine, but you are not the territory. You are You, and that has never been bound and will never be enlightened. It always is as it is, pure consciousness.







Right Now! In this moment, Where are You? Not where your body is or even where you are within your body. But that consciousness, that awareness, that witness which is experiencing these words, thoughts and images arising in your mind. Where is that witness? That is you. Where are You? If you really search, without concepts, you will not find it. Who is searching? The seeker is seeking itself! How absurd! But you are convinced that you are not you and therefore seeking something else somewhere else. But the real you is not locatable in space and time.







All you can say is "I am Here". But that 'here' has no location. It is only a knowing that there is existence happening somewhere in a 'here-ness' that is no (or all) space. When you speak of "I", who are you referring to? "I am unhappy" "I am confused" "I am a seeker of Truth" None of these is true. They are identifications with ideas, feelings and concepts, but they are not who you are. It would be better to say: "I am awareness and unhappiness is arising within that awareness." "I am awareness and am identifying with confusion that is arising within the mind within that awareness." "I am awareness and am identifying with a belief that I am not already perfect and looking for something else that may arise somewhere else that will make my mind perfect" Right Now! In this moment...







Let go of all beliefs. Separate yourself from your Body/Mind and rest as Pure Awareness. Don't try to stop your mind. Don't try and do anything. It is all the trying and searching and sweating yourself into a frenzy that makes you unhappy. Let go of all of it. Rest in Pure Awareness, right now, in this moment, and confusion is gone, sorrow is gone, bondage is gone, fear is gone, limitation is gone. Yes, the mind may say something. Thoughts may arise. But you are not the thoughts. You are not the feelings. You are Pure Awareness. You are free from all concepts. Are you looking for spiritual experiences? You are not the experiences. Experiences are phenomena.







Phenomena come and go, but you are always the witness to all experiences and all phenomena. Do you want to see God. The experience of seeing God may come and go but you are always the witness to all experiences and phenomena. That Witness state, that Absolute Pure Consciousness is itself non-different from whatever you might conceive of as God. Do not underestimate this. Do not evaluate it at all. Give up all evaluation, all judgement, all intellectualizing and reside in the peace of who you are.







Are you seeking Awakening? As long as you are seeking you will never find. You cannot be a seeker and a finder at the same time. You must give up your seeking. You must give up your striving. You must give up all that which is the very nature of your mind and intellect. What is prior to that. It is only Pure Consciousness without an object. It cannot be known or grasped for it is the Knower, the Knowing. Let go of all concepts and simply rest in that. Who you think you are is concepts. It is your personal mythology in which you are the Hero/ine.







But that is a story based on a supposed individual that doesn't exist, like a reflection in the mirror. It is an appearance only. A case of mistaken identity. Don't be fooled any longer. It is like watching a movie and thinking that you are the main star. But it is just light on a screen that gives an appearance of people and personalities. Recognize the projector, which is the pure light of consciousness itself. Only then can you be content and free from all of your desires and anxieties (which are also only an illusion). Right Now! In this moment, Realize...







All of this is one thing only. It is the light of consciousness playing in infinite variety. In India, they call this Lila, the play of God. God is one without a second. That means that there isn't anything after God (Brahman, the Divine, Spiritual Source - names don't matter). It's not that no one is as good as God or as powerful as God, or second runner up to God. There isn't anything except God. How could there be? All life comes from Life. All existence comes from Existence. Everything or anything that is, comes from what IS. So whatever you are seeing, feeling, thinking, experiencing...whatever is seeing, feeling, thinking, experiencing...and the acts themselves of seeing, feeling, thinking or experiencing...







All of that is the One, the Divine, the Sacred Source, God. Just as you can see that everything on the Earth is simply earth or transformed earth - the hills, the valleys, the mountains, the trees, the flowers, the animals and the people - so see the All that is seemingly transformed into multifarious forms. What is that All? It cannot be named. It is beyond all names and all concepts. It is emptiness and absolute fullness.







It is the beginning, the middle and the end. You can name it whatever you like, but you run the risk of limiting it in your mind and creating a conception to fit your needs. Then you will have put it into the tiny box of your mind in an attempt to grasp what is ungraspable. Do not try to use names and forms but dive into that which is unknowable. Slip gently into the abyss which is beyond the mind's tiny grasp. Many call it God. And God is as good a name as any other, but you must give up all your concepts of 'God' in order to realize that. Whatever concepts you have about God, Goddess, Christ, Buddha, Brahman, Emptiness, Fullness, must be given up, in this moment, to fully recognize the Truth. For how can you experience what is true if you are holding on to your own expectations of Reality.







First let go of your own knowing, and then dive deeply into the abyss of unknowing. Right Now! In this moment, Know that all is Perfect Everything is perfect exactly as it is in this moment. There is nothing that needs to be changed, nothing to be healed, for everything is exactly as it should be. how could anything be different? Do you doubt that Divinity is taking place in the All One Thing in this very moment? Psychics, healers, classes, seminars, gurus, masters, will not make You or the moment any more perfect.







So stop seeking. Be the Perfection that You already are. You are Perfection personified. You are Peace personified. You are Love personified. There is nothing to add or subtract. When you recognize that you are Absolute Consciousness, you will see that there is nothing else. There is no good and no bad, and that everyone and everything is a manifestation of That. It is all Absolute Consciousness, perfectly manifesting itself in the great drama of cosmic creation.







Whatever arises is simply more of that. Thoughts, emotions, feelings are all part of that. Experience them without judgement, without desire to maintain them or an aversion to them. See with the eye of equality that all is That. In the beginning, it may not seem easy. There may be frustration, confusion, and helplessness. But recognize that these things are simply arising. They are not You. You are the Witness of these arisings. Simply inquire into Who You are, and with anything that arises, do not identify.







Simply come back to the inquiry of Who is witnessing this experience. Even if there is extreme bliss, who is experiencing it? If there is powerful energy arising, who is experiencing it? If there are visions of sublime Deities, who is experiencing it. Bliss may come and go, energy may come and go, visions may come and go, but You are always here, right now, in this moment, eternally. That is what is permanent. That is what is real. All else is phenomenal and changing. Rest in That and you are eternally free. Right Now! In This Moment!