Awaken to I AM
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Those want to awaken to I AM might want to read and follow the exercise in
http://www.integralnaked.org/docs/infinity.docI am That which knows. I am not 'Stian', and I have always known that I am I, but never recognized it. I am I.
What does one do after having recognized ones own "true nature"? Extend this recognition to be present in as much of the day as possible? How does one do that? Just abide in the recognition?
For those who have yet to recognize:
1) Download this document:
http://www.integralnaked.org/docs/infinity.doc (it's introduction can be read here: http://www.integralnaked.org/talk_infinity.aspx. Don't mind the goofy website).
That document is written by Ken Wilber and is called "From You to Infinity in 3 Pages".
2) Open the document, and before you read anything do the instructions on the website, reprinted here:
Click on “Edit” in your tool bar, then click on “Find,” which will bring up a “Find and Replace” window. Enter “John” in the “find what” field, and then click on the “Replace” tab and enter your name in the “replace with” field. Then, click “Replace All.”
3) Read the first paragraph (the first bit of text that ends with a parenthesis), and then don't read anymore.
4) Open your mind. Seriously. Suspend your doubts. This text made me recognize my "true nature" within 124 words (yes, I counted them) for the very first time in my life. After that last sentence, notice if you are expecting anything.
5) Follow the breath, closely, intimately, gently, for one single breath cycle. Then one more. Then one more.
6) Read each and every sentence as though it might be the one sentence that points to "it" for you. Seriously. I was cooked and ready to serve within 5 sentences.
Awesome stuff. -
I get mostly gibberish characters when opening the Word document.
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Ken Wilber • From You to Infinity in 3 Pages
What I am going to do in the following is simply "describe" the nondual Self right now as it is immediately seen. The following is stream of consciousness, so forgive any goofs. Simply relax your mind and read the following easily (if a sentence immediately makes sense, fine, if not, just keep lightly reading):
What you have been seeking is literally and exactly That which is reading this page right now. That Self cannot be found because it was never lost: you have always known you were you. That I AMness is a constant condition of all that arises, is the space in which it all arises, has nothing outside of it and thus is complete Peace, and radiates its own beauty in all directions. John arises in the space of that I AMness, John arises in this vast spaciousness, this pure openness. John is an object, just like a tree or a cloud that arises in the space of the Self that you are. I am not talking to John right now, I am talking to you. That which is aware of John is this ever-present Self. This Self is aware of John arising right now. This Self is God. God is reading this page. John is not reading this page, God is reading this page. The Self is aware of John and aware of this page. You are not John. You are what is aware of John. What is aware of John is an I AMness that itself cannot be seen but only felt, felt as an absolute certainty, unshakeable is-ness, I AM that I AM eternally, timelessly, unendingly. There is only this I AMness in all directions. Everything arises spontaneously in the space of this great perfection that is the Self, which is reading this page right now.
And you, John, are that Self. You have always known that you are this Self. There was never a time that you did not know that you are you. You can never remember a time when you were not you. The only thing you can ever remember is something that this Self did. There is only this Self. You cannot reach out for it because it is that which is doing the reaching. You cannot see it because it is doing the seeing right now, which means, everything simply arises in its awareness: the entire world arises in your awareness right now. You are that space in which it is all spontaneously and effortlessly arising. You are that One. You have always been that One. There is only that One. Do not pretend you are finding that One. Do not pretend you have forgotten that One. The only thing you have ever known, the only thing you can ever remember, the only thing you are actually feeling right now is that One: the is-ness, now-ness, suchness of everything, just as it is, and as it is arising within your Self—the simple feeling of Being, which is all you ever feel always.
Look at the clouds: they are arising in your awareness: they are arising in you. The clouds are outside of John but inside of your Self. Look at your body and this room. Your body is in this room, but both the body and the room arise IN your awareness. You are literally holding them in your consciousness lovingly. The mountains are arising in your awareness: they are arising in you, and you are lovingly holding the mountains within your consciousness, holding the arising world within your embrace as the dearly radiant beloved. The mountains are arising outside of John but inside of your Self. The clouds, the mountains, and John are all simultaneously and effortlessly arising in this Self, the reader of this page. All that is arising is arising in this unshakeable I AMness, which is not a thing or an object or a person, but the openness or clearing in which all things and all objects and all persons are arising. This emptiness, this openness, this vast spaciousness is your Self, is what you have always been, is what you are before your parents were born, is what you are before the Big Bang happened. Before Abraham was, I AM. There is no before and no after for this now-ness that is the Self. There is only this now-ness of the Self that is reading this page in this very moment. There is no past and no future in this never-ending now. All befores and all afters arise in this awareness. There is only this ever-present, never-starting, never-ending, unborn, undying, radiant beauty that is aware of this page, that is aware of this universe, and that finds all of them IN the space that it is, and therefore all things arise in the unshakeable Peace that holds them all easily in its caring within. John is in the universe; the universe is in your Self.
Therefore, be this ever-present Self who is reading this page. I am not talking to John, I am talking to you. Let John arise and fall like all objects. Let John come into being, remain a bit, and pass: what has this to do with your Self? All objects arise, remain, and pass in the spaciousness and emptiness that is aware of this moment, and this moment, and this moment, and this moment. Yet this moment has no end, you have never actually felt the present come to an end because it never does: it is the only thing that is real: this now-ness, this simple feeling of being, the very same feeling-awareness in which this page floats, and in which John floats, and in which the clouds float. When you feel this present now-ness, there is nothing outside of it—you cannot see on the outside of this timeless now because there is nothing outside of it. Now and now and now is all you ever know, and this now-ness is simply another name for the spacious Self in which the entire kosmos arises as a radiant, joyful, ecstatic swoon of bliss and a desire to share this infinite Joy with somebody else.
Because this page and the mountains and the clouds all arise in your awareness, there is nothing outside your Self. That there is literally nothing outside your Self means there is literally nothing that can threaten it. Since you know this Self, you know Peace. Because you are already, directly, immediately, and intimately one and identical with That which is reading this page right now, you know God right now, directly and immediately and unmistakably and undeniably. And because you know God right now, as the very Self reading this page, you know you are finally, truly, deeply home, a home that you have always directly known and always pretended you didn't.
Therefore, pretend no more. Confess that you are God. Confess that you are Beauty. Confess that you are the very Truth the sages have sought for centuries. Confess that you are Peace beyond understanding. Confess that you are so ecstatically happy that you had to manifest this entire world just to bear witness to a radiant beauty you could no longer contain only in and for yourself. Confess that the Witness of this page, the Self of this and all the worlds, is the one and only true Spirit that looks through all eyes and hears with all ears and reaches out in love and compassion to embrace the very beings that it created itself in an eternal ecstatic dance that is the secret of all secrets. And confess that you are Alone, that you are literally the only One in the entire universe: there are no others to this One. There are indeed others to John, but both John and the others arise in the awareness that is reading this page, and this awareness, this Self, has no other because all others arise in it. One without a second is what is reading this page.
Therefore, be that One. And also give my love to John.
Ken
p.s. Do you realize, deeply, deeply, deeply, that the one who is reading this page is the one who wrote it, yes? John, and Ken, and this page, all arise in the Witness of this page, yes? The Self is not hard to find, but impossible to escape. So drop all this fuss about finding and losing, and simply be the One in whom all worlds are now arising. So go outside and look at the beautiful world arising within your very own feeling-awareness, arising within your very own Being, and then, you know, go have a beer or something.... -
Let me try.
I am only what I'm aware now. Car passes by. I hear the car now. Memories of the sound? Re-created now. Am I Jui? Hardly. Not now at least. It's an identity I actually only use from time to time. It's not actually who is experiencing. Sound comes up from another car. My awareness is now the sound. I look at the computer screen. I am the screen now. I am whatever my attention turns to now.
Hmm?
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Don't try to infer. You have to find out that source of awareness. You need to have a non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate mode of perception of your true nature. You need to realize what exactly Awareness truly is, not the word, but the actuality of it.
You need to get beyond all concepts, and in that gap between thoughts, what is left nakedly present and awake reveals itself as your fundamental essence. It must be a wordless realization that leaves complete certainty and no doubts behind.
Constantly inquire "Who am I?"
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Ah, just woke up. Can't help but just quickly write something first. I am the sound of the car. I am the touch of the keyboard. I am the feeling of the cold hard floor. I am the cold fingers. I am the rising and falling of my breath. But once they all pass, I'm not them. I am ever changing. I am the infinite possibilites.
Thanks for the instructions AEN, I'll inquire somemore.
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Sound of car, keyboard etc, are also just words, like Awareness. Under the spell of karmic propensities, we cling to a sense of self and treat sound, sight, etc as 'being outside'.
To have a non-dual, non-conceptual... etc (NDNCDIMOP) of a sound, of keyboard is very different. Have you experienced sound of car that there is only sound and no separate hearer?
Actually you should ask, "Before birth, Who am I?"
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Alas, there's still an inside/outside feel.
So for the koan, I'll just keep answering until I can no longer provide a conceptual answer right?
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Sometimes kids can be wiser than adults.
A teacher was asking her young students what the largest thing in the world was? There were many replies. " An aeroplane, a whale, a skyscraper, the Sun etc."
Then came the reply, "My eyes are the biggest things in the whole world. Within them all things can fit ....!"
"When what arises, does the world arise?
With what is the world deeply associated?
On account of what does the world come into being?
By what is the world afflicted?"
(The Bhagava said:)
"When the six (internal sense-bases)* arise,
the world arises. The world is deeply associated with
the six (internal sense- bases).
On account of those very six (internal sense-bases)
does the world come into being.
And by the six (internal sense-bases)
is the world afflicted."
SN I.70 Loka Sutta (Discourse on the World) -
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Sound of car, keyboard etc, are also just words, like Awareness. Under the spell of karmic propensities, we cling to a sense of self and treat sound, sight, etc as 'being outside'.
To have a non-dual, non-conceptual... etc (NDNCDIMOP) of a sound, of keyboard is very different. Have you experienced sound of car that there is only sound and no separate hearer?
Actually you should ask, "Before birth, Who am I?"
what does 'no separate hearer' mean?
when i hear a sound, it's very clear and i am able to hear its full spectrum; the wavelength and its varying amplitudes as it perpetuates itself from its appearance to disappearance.
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Originally posted by whylikethatah:
what does 'no separate hearer' mean?
when i hear a sound, it's very clear and i am able to hear its full spectrum; the wavelength and its varying amplitudes as it perpetuates itself from its appearance to disappearance.
Means usually we believe in the felt sense of separation between I, the seer, and things being seen.
This is due to a fundamental belief and view: I, am the seer, that is doing the seeing, of the seen.
In reality, there never is a "Seer seeing the seen".
In seeing there is always JUST the seen.
No separation between a seer and a seen.
In hearing, JUST sound, no separate hearer. I don't deny crystal clear sound - but as a Zen Master puts it when he just got enlightened, "When I heard the sound of the bell ringing, there was no I, and no bell, just the ringing."
When you realize no separate hearer, it feels like you fuse into everything, it feels like you are one with the universe. There is no distance, no gap of subject and object, just total intimacy.
Except to say "become one" is also not correct. There is no "you" to fuse with the universe, there is no "you" to "become one with the universe".
Always already, this is so, no 'you' apart from 'that'. However, those who simply have short glimpses of experience may say "I become one with the universe", but such are temporary experiences and not enlightenment. If you think there is a "you" that become one with universe, there is also a "you" that can be separated again, and that is a false view or belief.
Enlightenment is a permanent realization about anatta, and not a temporary experience.
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Anyway, the question "Who am I", "Before Birth, Who am I" usually does not lead to non-dual insight.
It only leads to the realization of I AM, which is also an important realization. Non-dual is next step.
In Zen tradition, the prior realization is known as the "Realization of Absolute" or "Apparent in Real" in Tozan's 1st rank, the second is "Real in Apparent" or Tozan's 2nd rank, i.e. non-duality of absolute and relative.
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so for u, u have this permanent realisation ah? that u feel no separation at all between objects in the phenomenal world and yourself(in the conventional sense)?
and another thing is, why do u always talk about what "I AM"ness, non-dual and all. i wonder what place has these stuff got to do with Buddhism.
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so for u, u have this permanent realisation ah? that u feel no separation at all between objects in the phenomenal world and yourself(in the conventional sense)?
I discuss my insights in
AEN's E-Journal
Feel free to read or download.
and another thing is, why do u always talk about what "I AM"ness, non-dual and all. i wonder what place has these stuff got to do with Buddhism.
It applies to Buddhism. Non-duality of subject and object is taught in Buddhism. What I call "I AMness" is what many Masters call True Self, etc. But to me it is simply a phase of insight (definitely not final), and though it is important as it is a direct realization of mind's luminous essence, it is often distorted into Hindu view. In other words, many Buddhist practitioners, even masters, have fallen into Hindu view unknowingly.
That is why I and Thusness were very clear on delineating these different phases of insights so people can have clarity.
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The Pali suttas taught I AM-ness but without self-view: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an01/an01.049.than.html
As this good practice text states:
There are indications in early Buddhism, e.g. the Buddha’s teaching in the Anguttara Nikaya ‘this mind (citta) – is luminous but covered by extraneous defilements’, but essentially this teaching flowered in the Mahayana and tantric Buddhism (as well as in non-Buddhist traditions) the main basis in Mahayana is ‘tathagatagarbha’. I.e. ‘Buddha Nature’ (lit. the ‘womb’ or embryo’ of the Buddha). Probably the earliest expression of this is in the Tathagatagarbha Sutra: ‘… all beings, though they find themselves with all sorts of klesas, have a tathagatagarbha that is eternally unsullied, and that is replete with virtues no different from my own. … the Tathagatagarbhas of all living begins are eternal and unchanging. It is just that they are covered by sentient beings’ klesas’. This teaching became extremely important in Mahayana schools such as Ch’an and Zen, the tantras and particularly Mahamudra and Dzogchen.
Thusness and I would define I AM-ness as the mind's luminous essence, but prior to realizing it's emptiness (self-lessness, anatta), therefore it is reified as an ultimate Self.
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This is how the conceit "I am" (asmimana) and its obliteration is described in the Pali Canon.
"Just like a cloth, dirty & stained: Its owners give it over to a washerman, who scrubs it with salt earth or lye or cow-dung and then rinses it in clear water. Now even though the cloth is clean & spotless, it still has a lingering residual scent of salt earth or lye or cow-dung. The washerman gives it to the owners, the owners put it away in a scent-infused wicker hamper, and its lingering residual scent of salt earth, lye, or cow-dung is fully obliterated.
"In the same way, friends, even though a noble disciple has abandoned the five lower fetters, he still has with regard to the five clinging-aggregates a lingering residual 'I am' conceit, an 'I am' desire, an 'I am' obsession. But at a later time he keeps focusing on the phenomena of arising & passing away with regard to the five clinging-aggregates: 'Such is form, such its origin, such its disappearance. Such is feeling... Such is perception... Such are fabrications... Such is consciousness, such its origin, such its disappearance.' As he keeps focusing on the arising & passing away of these five clinging-aggregates, the lingering residual 'I am' conceit, 'I am' desire, 'I am' obsession is fully obliterated."
Khemaka sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.089.than.html -
Great site and resource for those who wish to realize the I AM: http://www.happinessofbeing.com/articles.html Tuesday, 25 January 2011 Experiencing the pure ‘I’ here and now In a comment on my previous article, How to avoid creating fresh karma (Ä�gÄ�mya)?, an anonymous friend quoted the following passage from Lucy Cornelssen’s book Hunting the ‘I’ (5th edition, 2003, pp. 20-21): There are other opportunities, when we could experience this pure ‘I’ consciously. One such is during the tiny gap between two thoughts, when the attention has given up its hold on one thought and not yet caught the next one. But since we never tried our attention is not trained this way, and we will hardly succeed in the attempt. There is a better chance to catch it between sleeping and awaking. It is very important to try it, if you are serious in your hunting the ‘I’. Take care of a few conditions: Try at night just before you fall asleep to keep as the last thought your intention to catch as the first thing of all on waking in the morning the experience of your true ‘I’. What Lucy describes here as the pure ‘I’ or true ‘I’ is simply the one and only ‘I’ as it really is — in other words, ourself as we really are. Therefore the pure ‘I’ is not something distant (in either time or space) or other than ourself, but is simply what we always actually are. It appears to be something unknown to us only because we have obscured it by confusing it with adjuncts such as a physical body and a thinking mind. However, though it now appears to us to be obscured, it is actually the essence of what we always experience as ‘I’ — our pristine and non-dual consciousness of our own being. Therefore self-investigation (Ä�tma-vicÄ�ra) is not really a matter of ‘hunting’ the pure ‘I’ (as if it were something distant or not now experienced) but is simply the practice of attending to and thereby being what we always truly are — our own essential self, ‘I am’. Since this pure ‘I’ is ever-present — never removed from or distant to us in either time or space — we can experience it as it really is only here and now. Therefore we should not think of it as something that we do not experience now but will experience in future, because as soon as we anticipate experiencing it in future, we have in our imagination created a distance between it and us, as if it were something objective or other than ourself. Therefore Lucy’s suggestion in this passage that we should try at night just before falling asleep to keep as our last thought the intention to catch as the first thing of all on waking in the morning the experience of our true ‘I’ is potentially counter-productive, because the experience of ‘I’ that we would then be anticipating catching on waking is in the future and is therefore removed from what we actually are here and now. Therefore, rather than intending to catch some future experience, we should try to experience ourself as we actually are here and now. The intention or anticipation to experience anything in future is a thought that we are thinking now, so it is a distraction of our attention from experiencing our true ‘I’ as it is at present (which is as it always has been and always will be, if at all there is really any such thing as the past or future). If we are to experience our true ‘I’ in the present moment — which is the only moment in which we ever can actually experience it — we should not intend to experience it at any moment other than now, at this precise present moment, because every other moment is only a thought, and every thought is a distraction from pure self-attentiveness, which is the state that we should be aiming to experience. If our pure ‘I’ can be experienced at the moment between sleeping and awaking, as Lucy suggests, it can equally well be experienced at the moment between being awake and falling asleep. Therefore, rather than wasting that precious moment just before falling asleep trying ‘to keep as the last thought your intention to catch’ the experience of ‘I’ on waking the next morning, we should utilise it to fix our attention only on ‘I’ to the exclusion of all other thoughts. If we fall asleep being self-attentive, we stand a better chance of waking up in a self-attentive state than if we fall asleep with the thought that we should be self-attentive when we wake up. If we fall asleep with the latter thought, we will probably wake up with the same thought, and this thought that we should be self-attentive at some time in the future is not the same as actually being self-attentive in the present moment, here and now. Our pure ‘I’ is ever-present, so in order to experience it as it is we do not have to wait for any gap such as between two thoughts or between two states. All thoughts (including thoughts of the past or future, or of gaps between thoughts or states) and all states (such as waking, dream and sleep) appear to exist only because we attend to them, so if we ignore them by attending only to ‘I’ they will cease to exist, being mere illusions created by mÄ�yÄ�, our own self-deceptive power of imagination. Though Sri Ramana taught us that we experience ‘I’ in its pure state in the tiny gap between any two consecutive thoughts or between any two consecutive states, he did not expect us to wait in anticipation for such a gap at any time in future, but only urged us to attend to ‘I’ now (and at every other moment — as and when we experience it as ‘now’), because so long as we are deeply self-attentive and thereby ignoring all thoughts, states and passing times, we are truly experiencing the gap to which he was referring. Unless we are deeply self-attentive (and thereby completely devoid of all thoughts) at this present moment, we cannot actually experience the pure ‘I’ that shines in the gap between each two consecutive thoughts or states. Therefore, without thinking of anything else whatsoever, we should here and now attend wholly and exclusively to ‘I’ alone, as Sri Ramana instructs us emphatically in the last two lines of verse 27 of Bhagavad GÄ«tÄ� SÄ�ram (which is his Tamil rendering of Bhagavad GÄ«tÄ� 6.25): சிதà¯�ததà¯�தை யானà¯�மாவிறà¯� சேரà¯�தà¯�திடà¯�க மறà¯�றெதà¯�வà¯� மிதà¯�தனையà¯� மெணà¯�ணிடா தே. cittattai y-Ä�ṉmÄ�viṯ sÄ“rttiá¸�uka maṯṟeduvu m-ittaṉaiyu m-eṇṇiá¸�Ä� dÄ“. Fix the mind [your power of attention] in Ä�tman [your essential self]; do not think even in the least of anything else whatsoever. What we need to experience is only one moment of absolutely thought-free and therefore perfectly clear self-attentiveness, because that alone will be sufficient to destroy forever the illusion that we are this mind or anything else other than what we really are (the pure and true ‘I’), and until we experience such a moment of pure self-attentiveness we will remain tightly bound in the grips of this illusion — and of all the troubles that it brings in its wake. Posted by Michael James (www.happinessofbeing.com) at 09:05 Â