You Are That Which Observes

 “Whatever happens, happens to you by you, through you; you are the creator, enjoyer and destroyer of all you perceive.”

― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The trouble with most people's concept of Enlightenment is that they think it adds something to them. It doesn't. The Ego wants to add things, to become more, to be important, to have a shiny "I Am Enlightened - Look At Me!" badge, but it can't.

YOU, the Ego, is that which is awoken from.

You never existed. You were just a construct, reliant on false memories, conveniently forgetting those gaps in time when you didn't exist because you forgot to pay attention to the thoughts.

Let me make that  clear again:

The little you, the Ego, CANNOT be enlightened, because it's not real.

For anyone who is still trapped in seeking and not understanding, Enlightenment takes things away, it does not add them. The truly enlightened know very little, because we are trying to express truth and truth cannot be expressed well in language.

What you truly are exists before language.

• You do not see, seeing happens.
• You do not taste, tasting happens.
• You do not touch, touching happens.
• You do not hear, hearing happens.
• You do not smell, smelling happens.
• You do not THINK, thinking happens.

You are as real as the 'it' in the phrase "It is raining".

Post-enlightenment brings with it the realisation that there is no 'do-er'. That life just happens and that you are not the body, or the mind, but you are the totality of everything.

You no longer 'know' anything that can be expressed well in language, because language cannot express that Truth. The best we can do is 'truthy' posts, like this one.

You don't need some super-experience of one-ness, some Samadhi High, because those are experiences, and they only happen to the ego. It just becomes something you understand, that you cannot find an edge to the real 'you'. That you cannot imagine a place in the universe where 'you' do not exist, because what you actually are contains the whole universe.

You truly are the Creator and Destroyer of all you perceive.

Nothing Has Ever Died

“All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different, and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.” -- Adyashanti

Since the beginning of life, nothing has ever died.

This is not some strange philosophy. This is not some weird new-age belief. This is a simple, scientific fact. It also aligns nicely with the whole process of Enlightenment. I have never seen anyone else discuss this, although it is something that I have been teaching for years.

Think about what life is. Really think about it. Take several seconds or a minute and think about what creates life. Think about the biological process. Think about DNA. Think about how things reproduce.

If you have got all that in mind before we continue then the answer is obvious as to why nothing ever dies, nor ever has.

Some time way back in the evolutionary past a soup of amino acids came about, possibly in a warm vent, a hot bubbling pool, some heated mud. Those amino acids came together to form the first life.

That first life then, as it does now, self replicated by dividing its genetic material and making a copy. 

The simplest lifeforms in our world still do the same thing. Everything from amoeba up to bacteria. Also, if you give it some thought, this still applies to humans.

Leaving aside all our ancestors on the trail to becoming Homo Sapiens, ever since the first identifiable member of our species walked upon the earth they have replicated themselves in the same way. The host body creates a copy of its DNA. A sperm or an egg exists that is part of that host, created from the same genetic material as that host, alive inside that host. So the human divides itself and makes copies from its own material, its own flesh, its own self.

In our biological method of reproduction, the sperm from the male is introduced to the egg from the female to create a new life – but is it new? Isn't it really half of the male's self and half of the female's self? So as long as this reproduced version continues, then so does the male and so does the female. They have simply procreated by dividing their own cells and then allowing those cells to combine with those of another organism to which they are related.

I'm not talking about kissing cousins here, I mean in the simple fact that at some point they shared a common ancestor who divided its genetic material and passed it on in the same way and is therefore still alive in them.

So you take it to its logical conclusion and neither of them is a separate living being. 

They are formed of the genetic material from that common ancestor who still lives because all of her cells never died. That common ancestor can be traced back in a line through various species and forms of reproduction all the way back to that primordial soup, that bubbling mud, that heated pool and those amino acids.

The original life which formed in that pool never died – it divided, it copied itself using its own material, its own flesh, its own life. That original life still exists in everything that is alive on this whole planet.

There is only One Life. One original ancestral mud pool. One life that has developed and adapted to whatever environment or situation it found itself in. One life that became you. One life that became me. One life that became the trees, the birds, the fish, the insects, the bacteria, the viruses and everything else that lives, however you understand that life to exist.

Nothing has ever died, because there is only One Thing going on.

Water Does Not Care What Is In It.

"Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil."

-- Marcus Aurelius

Fred Davis recently said "THIS has to be enough". He is of course referring to What Is.

There is only what is, as I have said before, because there is no such thing as what is not. We can only have what we have. We can only experience what we experience. So where does that leave us?

Right here. Right now.

This has to be enough. There is nothing else. As long as you have desires for something that does not exist, for something other than that which is, then you will create your own suffering.

That is what ego does; one could almost say its job is to do that.

The ego was a survival mechanism. I suspect its original design was all to do with creating circumstances in which the organism could survive, even if that meant banding together with other organisms. The problems arise when it begins to believe that it really exists.

It's like when you go to watch a movie. 

You know you're just watching a movie. You know you paid your entrance fee. You know you are sitting there with drinks and snacks and perhaps in the company of friends, but in order to enjoy the experience you deliberately forget all that. You become so involved in the story playing out on the screen before you that you forget that it is not you. You forget that it is a story. You become fully immersed in the story and, usually, quite enjoy it.

Life is the same. 

The character, the ego, the little me – whatever you want to call it – is just a story. 'What you really are' is here to experience that story. There is nothing wrong with not waking up and realising that it is a story, because that would be what is happening and there is never anything wrong with what is happening. The whole universe is perfect just the way it is. That which you truly are understands this. The ego does not.

Awakening, Enlightenment, Unity with God – whatever you want to call it – is simply what you are when you realise that it is just a story.

There is no you. There never was a you. There never will be a you. There is only this, right here, right now.

Egos spend the majority of their time living in a world that does not exist, a world of their own imagining. If only I had more money. If only I had a better job. If only I wasn't so fat. Feel free to add your own to the list. It is all just a list of things that do not exist created by ego, because it does not think that This is enough.

Enlightenment is not a state of permanent bliss, because enlightenment is not a state.

It is very nice to sit around and feel total bliss, but total bliss is just an arising in what you truly are. To what you truly are there is no difference between Hitler and Schindler.

There is no good or bad, they are just points on the same sliding scale of okayness.

Opinions, beliefs, positions, values and stories are all the realm of the ego. They are all arisings. You, whatever you are, observe all those things and therefore are not those things.

Your true nature accepts everything just as it is. 

I do not know what it is, I just know that it is perfect.

What Lives in the Waters?

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” 

-- Rumi

There is only one life on earth, perhaps even in the universe. 

Life is happening. We define our idea of life in various ways, but they are probably all wrong. The only thing you can know for certain is that you, whatever you are, seem to exist. Life goes on.

Let's cut it down simply to the size of the Earth and look at it. Scientists tell us that molten metals and rocks cooled many billions of years ago and formed this planet and others which orbit around a huge nuclear reactor that provides warmth and radiation and light. The combination of various elements on this lump of rock produced amino acids which produced something that we might recognise as the first life.

Perhaps everyone will tell you how that first life died out millions of years ago, but they would be wrong. 

That first life procreated with cells from its own body. It split itself in half. Even if the original half ceased to exist, the second half lives on. If I cut a banana in half I still have a banana. If I eat the first half, the second half is still banana and part of the same banana which I ate. Life is just a little more complex than that.

Nothing ever dies. 

Nothing has ever died. You and I and the trillions of other life forms on the earth are still that one original life. Each generation divided and became more complex and the older forms ceased to exist but you and I both still carry the life from that original life within us, within our cells.

If something reproduces by creating cells within its own body and then those cells leave its body and assume an independent sort of life, they are still the generating organism. It made them. They were part of it. They were formed from materials it created and then they separated from it so now it is living its life in two places at the same time.

Fast forward that to the present day and that one life is now living its life in trillions of places at the same time. It has not died because it continues to make new cells and separate them from itself so that it continues to live.

Everything is One Life and it always has been.