Tuesday 23 October 2012

The Grand Finale, Blessed Beginnings...

It took many lasting experiences of pure subjectivity to finally realize its total relevance in the here and now.  The initial experiences were a combination of possession, revelation, and seeing in which there was no one to be possessed, nothing for it to be revealed to, and the seeing was only a seeing of itself... I was mistaken to think of [the experience] as a passing infusion, because it turned out that what had initially been so awesome and unbelievable, gradually became a continuous clear reality.  Somehow, it seemed necessary to see again and again how pure subjectivity was, itself, the now-moment, the continuous wakefulness, the concentrated wholeness, the intensity, and the great abiding certitude, all of which adds up to an experiential understanding of how pure subjectivity works.

~ Bernadette Roberts, The Experience of No-Self, 1982

*       *       *

The mind can only conceive of "experience" as an event, thought or feeling that happens to a localized individual "I."

This "I" is the subject of experience, the Experiencer.

When experiences are recognized to be fleeting and impermanent, eventually one wants to uncover and confirm the real nature of the Experiencer Itself... or more aptly stated: "This which experiences."

All experiences fall upon and move through you.  They come and go and are forever taking on new shapes and forms, new sensations, new colours and sounds.  The undeniable quality of experience is CHANGE.  It is very easy to realize for yourself (and you have likely done so many times before) that any attempt to either grasp at or resist an experience causes suffering.  Not only are experiences inevitably and perpetually transforming themselves, they are also coming and going spontaneously, effortlessly and gracefully in the here and now.

Experience, therefore, never has to be a problem.  The only problem is caused by our lack of inquiry into the real nature of "I," the experiencer, while our consciousness is diverted in its game of dancing anxiously back and forth on a continuum of attraction and repulsion.

Self-Inquiry is the only way to put a final end to this anxious dance that is the plague of the human thinking mind.

The "experience" Bernadette Roberts speaks of is not one that comes and goes, nor can it be perceived, sensed, thought about, remembered or forgotten.  By engaging in Self-Inquiry in an earnest way, which generally involves taking some time each day to Sit Quietly with yourself—as yourself, without striving or manipulating or fixing or trying to experience anything at all—you naturally become familiar with the fact that the now-moment both wholly includes and is wholly free of every experience.

You recognize yourself as simultaneously wholly inclusive and wholly free of EVERY-THING...  As both localized and non-localized.  Immovable.  All-Pervasive.  Transcendent.

This is the unbroken experience of the infinite here-and-now as what/who/where you are.  In this unbroken experience, all what's, who's and where's fall away (though of course still serving a practical function in everyday communication) to reveal your nature as boundless, wondrous, imperishable stillness and peace.

Your true Self is "No-Self," because you no longer recognize "I" as an entity separate from something else.  There is no "else/other."  In you, Reality sees Itself as an undifferentiated, indivisible Whole.

Discovering yourself as This, you come to, as Bernadette has attempted to describe, "an experiential understanding of how pure subjectivity works."  Such is authentic Self-Inquiry.  And there is no end to this discovery.  Each moment becomes a blessed beginning.  Eternal, empirical, ever-deepening Self-Discovery is the grand and precious possibility of a lifetime.

All experiences—which are experienced
as objects of perception within Me—
can be none other
than Myself.

I, which has often been called "I-I"
(what is already established prior to the arising or any idea or concept of "I"),
am Pure Subjectivity.

Therefore, this Me
that I see, feel and experience
both Is and Is Not.
  
Beyond this, nothing more can be spoken...

(... which is what makes Truth so utterly immense, majestic... magical.)

If you learn to Sit Quietly,
without concepts,
saying nothing,
with great curiosity and humility,
all of This
will become clear
in Its Own Perfect Way
in "your" life.

Trust.  Be Still.  Remain as You Are.

*       *       *
  


Truth is what remains
when there are no experiences left.

~ B.R.