Pointers

The Matrix:

COMPUTER SCREEN

--Wake up, Neo.--


*****


See that you are only the seeing. Nothing else.


*****


You never fully come out of deep sleep (which is awareness without thoughts, images, feelings, etc). Presence remains firmly in the background during your day-to-day activities, witnessing your varying states of consciousness, as well as radiating through them. Indeed, all is awareness.


*****


Being in love is the closest thing that one can compare to self-realization. But it is a love that is wholly without deception, turmoil, disappointment, or end. There is no personal element to it at all. And yet, it is the most giving, the most intimate, and the most radiant of things. Its Adoration is fully present. It is love beyond Love: It is Love itself.


*****


True Self-inquiry isn't a practice. It is, as the name implies, an inquiry that is allowed to easily unfold. Let us say you have the thought, "I am brilliant." What you're looking for is the quick, out-of-the-blue response, "Who is brilliant?" It is only when this response is natural and unexpected that it delivers a deep pause. And if you remain with that pause, you may see that there is no "who" present at all; but rather, a magnificent spaciousness that is both untouched and unborn. This is the Self-inquiry about which Ramana Mahashi was speaking.


*****


You are not your thoughts, body, and feelings. You are the awareness that is aware of your thoughts, body, and feelings. Intuit the clear and simple reality of this, and you needn't concern yourself with attempting to cease identification with your physicality and concepts. This will happen of its own accord.


*****


Four A.M. -- Coffee, Bach, email, blog-work, unfathomable beingness....


*****


You would not be able to perceive that you are awake and conscious if you were not that that is prior to consciousness. Allow yourself to be halted by this glorious truth. Don't rush back to thoughts and thinking. Self-knowing is one of the sim-plest of things. There is absolutely nothing abstruse or theoretical about it. Nor is it anything that you have to strive for or achieve. Simply see what is being pointed to--an utterly peaceful and inherent presence that is prior to all thoughts and conceptualizing.


*****


What is it from which you never move? It can't be your body, because--among other things--your body is clearly animated by something other than itself. It can't be your thoughts because your thoughts come and go. Ditto consciousness. What is, at this very moment, that is subtler than consciousness? Find it, see it, revel in it. This is your Reality.


*****


You are already That which you are seeking. See this subtle whatness that is both before you and within you. It is pure intelligence-- sheer, knowing, and eternal.


*****


Self-realization is the seeing or understanding that you are awareness itself. There is no need for you to practice, become, or achieve anything. That's the glory of nonduality, which is the ultimate Truth. And you, quite literally, are that Truth. It is supremely present at this very moment. It only appears not to be evident because you are overlooking it. Back up, back up! See that there is a felt-presence and sheerness that is prior to your changing states of consciousness. That is what you are! That is your essence and freedom. Do Not Move From This.

Q & A: Clear and Direct

Question: We have come across your blog via John Wheeler's website. I want to thank you for your clear and direct pointing to our natural state.

Rodney: You are welcome. And I'm glad that you discovered John's fine site. It's a pristine multiplicity of bright truths and pointing. All one needs to do is heed what is there. And because pointers don't have to be verbal, John is now including beautiful pictures of the universe that just may give you pause. Other powerful visual pointers you might want to check out is the picture of the park in Tony Parsons' As It Is, the cover-photo of U.G. Krishnamurti on his The Mystique of Enlightenment, the dock-image on Charlie Hayes' Website and blog, and certain pictures of Nisargadatta gazing directly into the camera.

Question: Yes, I will look into those. And I love the information that John includes at the bottom of each image.

Rodney: After reading the info, go back to the picture itself. Allow the beauty, power, and majesty of it to bring you to a stillness that is nothing less than your true Self. Don't make it an effort. You will resonate with some pictures more than others, of course. Or you may not resonate with stellar images at all. Every personality is different.

Question: Relatedly, I wonder what the process was for you, subjectively, on how were you able to recognize your natural state?

Rodney: I could easily go into detail about that. And by "easily," I mean give an even and accurate accounting how this seeing occurred. Why do I bother (though I have grown a little bored with telling it)? Because the answers to such inquiries can sometimes help point the way to someone else's understanding, as long as that someone knows that there is no actual "person" that awakens, and that his or her understanding will, in all likelihood, not occur the same exact manner. It's the knowing that's paramount here, not the manner in which is happens. That said, it would be, easier for me to give you a link in which I speak about the recognition of my natural state in the spring of 2007:

http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/vastness_stevens.htm

This is an article I did for Advaita.org last year. If you have any questions after perusing it, please feel free to write.

Question: Thank you, I eagerly look forward to reading it...One quick question--How have you been able to abide in that natural state, without the mind or the ego constantly over shadowing the pure awareness that you are?

Rodney: Abiding as pure awareness involves no effort or maintenance. It is a discovery that you are That, presence itself. You never move from this. Thus, the mind, which is nothing but the appearance of thoughts, is never an over shadowing presence. Thoughts and emotions appear in awareness, and then disappear. There may be some brief and occasional identification with them, but it's never a problem. Having thoughts is a normal functioning of life. It's a part of this body/mind being lived. What's vital is to take note of is that there is a boundless and unchanging background that is nothing less than your true nature. Thus, it is the what--not the who--that is to be discovered and understood. Just see this for yourself. It isn't at all difficult to recognize. You're simply looking passed it, thinking that it is somewhere outside of yourself, or even heavenward! But it is the Presence behind these very words that you are reading right now. You know doubt feel it: An indefinable immediacy and spaciousness. Allow that feeling to bring you to pause. Because in doing that, it is bringing you to yourself. Then you see that were always home.

Question: Thank you for the beautiful response, Rodney. I'm tearing up a little, but don't know why.

Rodney: No worries. If tears appear, tears are fine.

Question: I will check into the article above. I'm sure I will have an extra question or two. In the meantime, thank you again.

Pointers

Truly, the simplicity of this cannot be imagined.


*****


Be still a moment and see that you are stillness itself.


*****


Before any thoughts or concepts about awareness arise, awareness is thoroughly present. It is a felt-transparency that is, at once, subtle and profound, pristine and manifest.


*****


Consciousness, being a state, changes. But presence, the unmoving background, simultaneously knows consciousness, penetrates consciousness, and is the essence from which consciousness is derived. It takes less than a second to see this for yourself, to see that you are completely beyond all space, time, and even the scriptures. For you are That to which the nondual/advaitic classics are pointing.


*****


Life is Existence, Knowingness, and Peace. But all of these are manifestations from a single reality: Nonconceptual awareness.


*****


Deep sleep proves that something continues to exists when there is no ego, no mind, no bodily sensation, and no consciousness. You are that something at this very moment. You needn't look for it at night (in deep sleep, there is only unconditioned awareness, which isn't aware of itself). Discover this for yourself. What is it, right here and now, that Does-Not-Sleep?


*****


Attempting to live in the "now" is utterly foolish. Who is the person or individual that is trying to achieve this? You are timelessness itself. Why (seemingly) obfuscate your innate clarity by attempting to bring in a fictitious person to attain something that you already are? Like meditation, mindfulness, mantra-chanting, and forced silence, this seeking the "now" is a complete waste of time and energy.


*****


Self-knowledge isn't something that can be acquired by the mind. You can only understand who and what you are after the thinking stops.


*****


Thoughts, concepts, and conjecture are totally irrelevant when it comes to nonduality. For before any scriptures can be parsed and debated, you are That. These three words capture what cannot be expressed in the sum of all books and teachings. You never move from this radiant spaciousness. Every thought, emotion, and perception is a mere momentary manifestation of only That.


*****


Forget such expressions like "Inner Witness", "Absolute Subjectivity," and "Self-Existent Reality." Even knowing the exact definition for each term would not help to know yourself. Why? Because your knowledge would only be conceptual. Take an easier and more direct "route" by attending to what Zen master Huang Po repeatedly affirmed: "It's right in front of you!"


*****


You are seeking that which you already are. Allow the clarity and truth of this statement to give you pause. Just sit with this, whether on a park bench or your high-end Aeron chair. Or perhaps you would like to go to some desolate beach (where, ideally, you can walk with this). Just know that you needn't go anywhere all; for this seeing or understanding is easier to come to than batting an eyelid. But if nature or the beach helps you to be more reflective, then by all means go there. But keep things simple. Begin with the bare fact that you are this sheer immediacy itself. See that there is an actual presence of awareness before you and as you. It is ripe with peace, love, and fullness. Keep coming back to this, in an easy and natural manner, until it is a rich and living reality.

Trio of Topics

I'm only now getting around to Sailor Bob Adamson's Presence-Awareness: Just This and Nothing Else ($13.88/http://www.non-dualitybooks.com/). Published in 2004, this gem of a work collects over 40 of Adamson's talks with earnest seekers from around the globe. John Wheeler--Bob's most celebrated "student"--edited and transcribed these talks from a trio of CDs. Bob's clarity and directness are in peak form in this gathering, e.g., "There is no sense trying to grasp it with the mind. That is where you are personalizing it. Realize you don't have to do it. The mind is appearing on that. Sit with it as much as you can...Stay with the subtleties of this, and you will start to sense what is there."

Be sure to check out Bob's excellent Web site Non-Conceptual Self-Knowing Awareness at: http://members.iinet.net.au/~adamson7/.



*****


Charlie Hayes' No Way Out: The Gift of Absolute Freedom (Nonduality Expressions, $16.99) is a splendid collection of 70-plus essays and dialogues, two appendixes, choice quotes, recommended books and Web sites, an autobiographical page, and even an illuminating Coda. Charlie's sentences blasts you with their energy and clarity. And he refuses to indulge any inquirer's wailings about agonizing spiritual journeys and Dark Nights of the Soul. In a word, Charlie's pointing is spot-on. Ponder these potent ABCs:

A) "What gets irritated?? Only a self-center (the false sense of being apart from the whole) can be annoyed or offended."

B) "You will never grasp or own this with the mind! Don't try to analyze pointers; LOOK where they are pointing.

C) "When it dawned that all my knowledge was actually ignorance, this got real clear. Really!...The end game begins in not knowing a thing. Be in unknowing awareness. Just be. Just be. What never changes? Concepts change. Feelings change. Experiences change. Knowledge changes...[But] what does not come and go...and yet IS?"

Go to Charlie's new and marvelous blog--http://beingisknowing.blogspot.com/
--to learn how you can directly order a copy of this book. You can also get it through Amazon, if course.


*****


I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Charlie for one of his podcasts. You can hear or download it at the following link:

http://charliehayes36.tripod.com/podcast05lknowingthyself.mp3

Below is a text excerpt from the interview, where I'm explaining how I came to nonduality and to knowning John Wheeler:

"...I remember coming across a copy of Osho's Enlightenment: The Only Revolution, which was a commentary on the Ashtavakra Gita,...an ancient Indian treatise which consists of a dialogue between the sage Ashtavakra and his disciple, King Janaka. That book help lead me to nonduality and Nisargadatta. After reading Nisargadatta's I Am That, I sought out more contemporary teachers of nonduality. This led me to Sailor Bob Adamson and his premier student, John Wheeler.

For whatever reason, I immediately resonated with John's writing and style...and especially the in-depth ways in which he answered seekers' questions. Everything about this guy just felt so completely right."

Pointers

Self-knowing: Thisness without end.


*****


Awake to your awakeness. Pause a moment and see what is already before you. It is, at once, subtle and splendorous, immediate and beginningless, unconditioned and ever-present.


*****


Every time you attempt to "reach" self-realization, you are--inversely--delaying it. Why? Because you are already awareness itself. Your seeking it entails not only an imagined seeker, but the notion that you have to make some sustained effort to "gain" this state.


*****


There is nothing cosmic, mystical, exclusive, or positive-minded about your natural state. These descriptions are used by writers and teachers for whom self-realization has yet to occur.


*****


Even happiness is only an experience. Thus, it is limited in duration and in no way compares to the peace of presence itself.


*****


The space in a jug or bottle cannot actually be separated from the totality of space itself. Likewise, awareness permeates all apparent bodies, minds, and states-of-consciousness.


*****


To what does a thought appear? It obviously is not your body, because your body is physical matter. And it can't be your mind, because your mind is nothing but the occurrence of a thought! So to what does a thought appear? Allow the power and significance of this question to bring you to a Full Stop. You really don't have to do a thing. Just see that there is something to which a thought must appear. It can't be another thought, because one thought can't know another one. So to what are your present thoughts appearing?


*****


Matter and energy are manifestations of one reality: Pure awareness.


*****


Your daily life is a race from concept-to-concept, from reaction-to-reaction, from experience-to- experience, and from sensation-to-sensation. You have rarely taken the time to ponder if there is something, amid all this coming-and-going, that Does Not Move. In all likelihood, you are feeling it right now. Take moment to examine the fullness of this presence. Then you will discover that you have actually never departed from its consummate richness and glory.


*****


You can easily spot the ego (which is the false identification with the body, mind, and senses). The ego always appears after an occurrence or activity as a particular thought, response, or feeling.


*****


If you could see the foolishness of your seeking, you would be struck speechless with disbelief. You are floating in the clearest, purist, most magical of springs; and yet, you search for water. Pause a moment and recognize not only the presence of this sheer, aqueous plenitude, but that you are the spring itself.

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.

Pointers

Right at this moment, what is present in addition to any passing thought or bodily sensation?


*****


You have to be awake to realize that you are already awake. Meditation is merely a form of drowsiness.


*****


There is no YOU to be "enlightened." You are not your thoughts, emotions, and body. You are the spaciousness in which they arise. Stay with your deep conviction or notion until you see the truth of this for yourself. When I say to remain with this, I don't mean that you should concentrate or meditate. Just naturally and easily ponder it. In that way, you will have your answer, an answer that has always been in plain view.


*****


Be suspect of overly-conceptual questions (e.g., "What is just?", "What is my place in the universe?", "What should be my moral imperative?", etc). How will the pursue such matters clarify your self-knowledge?


*****


Awareness is the radiance by which consciousness is recognized.


*****


Nondual talks and retreats can be enormously beneficial. The dialogues (with a self-realized teacher or speaker), the concerted energy, and the naturally occurring silences can all assist in engagingly bringing you back to the question of who and what you truly are.


*****


You don't require a single thing to recognize your natural state. It is simply being overlooked. You are peering beyond it, so to speak, at sundry thoughts, experiences, sensations, and conditioning. Particularly enthralling is the false and antiquated notion that self-knowing connotes bliss and involves attaining something that is not already completely present.


*****


Time is a concept. It is simply another thought or idea arising in presence. You say that you hope to "reach enlightenment" in a year or two. Or maybe even a decade! But awareness is already in full evidence. Who is this me that says that it will achieve this in X-period of time? That apparent "me" is the issue, not your innate and pristine clarity.


*****


See right now that what you perceive as emptiness actually radiates with perceptible knowingness. It is thoroughly beyond and prior-to all thoughts, speculations, and spirituality.


*****


You are aware of being conscious. Or to be more specific: You are aware of being awake, of being drowsy, and of dreaming. There is even awareness in deep sleep; otherwise, you would not be able to declare, "I slept so deeply!" Discover the fullness of this awareness for yourself. For that's the only way you can truly know it--not as an object or an experience, but as a genuine spaciousness that is none other than yourself.


*****


What is being pointed to is your natural and ever-present state. You never move from this, even when "life" appears to toss you every conceivable direction. Pause a moment and take note of your nonconceptual, self-shining nature.


*****


Self-realization is the end of all doubts, seeking, and suffering. There are simply no-more-questions. Pause and moment and consider the enormity of that fact. For heretofore, questions were literally all you had. Perhaps you even wondered if life could go on without them! Well, it most certainly can--a deeply felt life in which only presence prevails. And you are That.