Q & A: All Was Seen Clearly

Question: Hi, Rodney! I just stumbled upon your blog from John Wheeler's link page.

Rodney: Thanks for taking the time to write. And I'm happy that you happened upon my link, especially by way of John's superb site.

Question: I really resonate with the style of expression that flows through the pointers on your blog.

Rodney: Well, the blog is a labor of love. I say "labor" because I'm unable to fully access it from my ancient iMac. So I have to catch the bus to the public library to post my entries. I try to post weekly, but that's getting increasingly harder to do with the demands of my job and the round-about-way I have to do the posting. So I'm saving up to get one of the new MacBooks 2GHZ (the white ones, with the matte screen). That is a couple years off, but that's okay. As long as the blog is providing lucid pointers and insights, I am a contented camper.

Question: Your blog's pointers are much like the writing that arises spontaneously on paper for me now. Through a couple of phone conversations and email dialogues with John, all was seen clearly.

Rodney: I'm totally thrilled! A huge hug to you. John's pointers are so vivid and on-the-mark that they, in themselves, are thoroughly capable of bringing one to a clear-seeing of one's true and vivid identity. But when you add phone conversations and email exchanges with John, the days of an apparent self are close to being over (if you will tentatively allow me to interject the time component into all this). I can't add much more than that, given that your understanding is now firm and tangible.

Question: I continue to enjoy John's writings and yours. I most especially liked your recent points on methods, practices, gurus, enlightenment, and the whole bag of techniques and practices! All futile, of course!

Rodney: Indeed. Most seekers who are drawn to gurus and meditation aren't vitally interested in self-knowing. They are drawn to the possibly of ecstasy, attainment, experiences, and anecdotes to the share with their friends, even to the detriment of their personal savings. And if you tell them that they need not deplete their finances or suffer repeated bouts of raging dysentery,more often than not, they will still opt for the spiritual sojourn. It's remarkable, in a truly unfortunate way.

Question: Yes, that is why I also resonated very strongly with U.G. Krishnamurti many years ago, particularly his relentless stance on how practices move you further away from yourself. I see there is reference to him on your blog and that made me smile.

Rodney: U.G. was a great tell-it-like-it-is kind of sage. I'm not so sure he would have made a pleasant lunch or dinner companion, but who knows? His declarations about methods and meditation are required reading if you want the blunt, sarcastic, nondual truth of things. Note this gem from his classic THE MYSTIQUE OF ENLIGHTENMENT: "Get this straight, this is your state I am describing, your natural state, not my state or the state of a God-realized man or mutant or any such thing...But what prevents what is there from expressing itself in its own way is your reaching out for something, trying to be something other than what you are."

Question: Thank you, once again, for sharing your clear pointers.

Rodney: My very best to you. And as John says, keep in touch, if the spirit moves.