Q&A: Beyond "I Amness"

Question: I enjoy reading your blog. Please keep up the excellent writing.

Rodney: I appreciate that. Yes, the blog continues to putter along, though I can no longer actually see it (and other blogspot blogs) on my ancient iMac. So I go over to a friend's house on Monday or Tuesday to edit and post that week's piece on her PowerBook. That will probably be my modus operandi for the next year-and-a half. But that's perfectly fine. At least the blog is getting written.

Q: In the meantime, I'll send Steve Jobs an email and see if he's got any unused MacBooks lying around.

Rodney: Thank you!

Q: I have a question regarding a recent blog entry. Towards the end, you mention "a seeing with full awareness."

Rodney: Yes.

Q: I don't put too much weight into words, as they are only intended to work as pointers and are just concepts and can never be the real -- but that statement truly resonated with me.

Rodney: When you are genuinely paused by some pointer, piece of music, work of art, or everyday occurrence, you are often at a lost to explain it. The pause is there before you even realize it. Of course, this isn't like when pause yourself, which is a fine and "legitimate" nondual undertaking. But it sometimes isn't as potent as the former, where you are just, say, reading along and sudden-ly...Full Stop, as Bob Adamson rightly says. Again, you are brought to a halt. You haven't participated in it in any way. The mental cessation is suddenly there, and there is this apparent opening to your natural state, which--of course--is always open and "available" to you. In addition, the opening is the seeing; and the seeing is a simple recognition of what is already fully present. And what could be more beautiful than that?

Q: It's beautiful indeed. I used to have glimpses of what I thought was the Absolute, but I came to realize they were just experiences and that there was still a perceived separate entity there.

Rodney: Good man.

Q: And I have clearly seen that I am not a separate being. Now, there is a true knowing, innately, that there is no one home -- and that has brought untold freedom into this life (of course the appearance will still offer up different experiences, but they are all seen for what they are - non personal).

Rodney: Yes, non-personal arisings, all. And this doesn't change with the cognition of one's true identity. Thoughts, sensations, and emotions still to come up. You may even find yourself briefly identifying with them. But it's of little conse-quence. For you've come to know who and what you actually are. And when that is recognized, it is thoroughly recognized. That's why I would take issue with your saying that you have "clearly seen that I am not a separate being." When that understanding occurs, there are no more fundamental questions about the life, seeking, and the Absolute. But you are correct about your knowing "Innately that there is no one home." Indeed, your deep faith is quite apparent and comes through in your writing. I love that word, faith. Alas, it's be misused by religions and religionists. To a certain extent, faith is a belief. But even more, it is an unexplainable and inner-knowing that what is being pointed to is nothing but the bare and nonconceptual Truth.

Q: Yes, I see what you mean. Listening to John Wheeler, he mentioned that when you see beyond the "I Am", you are truly seeing that Conscious-ness is the play of life showing up on the Absolute (and made of the Absolute).

Rodney: Yes, that's correct. But don't just take John's beautiful words for it. See this for yourself. Don't allow your enquiry to wander into added quoting and conceptualization. And John would be the first to say this, by the way. For what he is pointing to is closer to you than your very own skin.

Q: So I'll just to stay with the fundamentals--that Presence is everything and can't be explained or known because that would imply I am separate from it. And that this Absolute is totally beyond the mind.

Rodney: And that you are the Absolute. That is key. Right at this moment, you are That. Those are the potent fundamentals that point to your radiant and ceaseless reality.

Q: Right now, I know what I am not. But I also do not know the bare truth of what I Am.

Rodney: All that is missing is a clear and solid seeing of awareness itself. This understanding comes quickly and of its own. And what you will come to understand is something so beautiful, so timeless, and so ordinary that you will absolutely marvel at how you have overlooked it for so long.