Advaita Notebook

I've really enjoyed reading this website www.advaitanotebook.com The author, Peter Marjason, leaves no room for enlightenment as something to get. My favorite line is

"It’s not that there’s no God
It’s that there’s only God"

I normally don't even think about God, but found this sentence to be absolutely true. Here are some more wonderful lines!

You are totally free
Because there’s nothing you can do

It's not you that's being you
It's life that's being you

The I is nothing special
And therefore has the same free will
As a rock


You are absolutely free
You just can’t know it

It’s not that
“There’s no-one to be enlightened
So don’t bother”
It’s that there’s no-one
To not be enlightened right now

Liberation is not done by you
It would be done by oneness
If it weren’t the case already

Concepts always succeed to fail

What a brilliant set of pointers! Hope you enjoyed them too :)

Enlightenment exists, but it's not what think

If you're a spiritual seeker, you probably think the ultimate goal is enlightenment. Enlightment is often seen as the end of the search - once you are enlightened, you will have no more problems or worries. You may think that enlightenment means you never get angry or sad - you never have any issues or fears. You may think enlightened people are not humans - they are almost like celestial beings. They have meditated and purified themselves so much, that they can stop their thinking and just be in total silence and stillness all the time. You may think that enlightenment is a totally different state of consciousness, way beyond your ordinary, wakeful state of mind. Enlightenment is reserved exclusively for the very few, and most of us need to keep searching for many lifetimes to get closer to the ultimate state.

I've got news for you. Enlightenment is both very easy and very ordinary. If you'll bear with me, I'll explain why. You don't need to believe anything I say, just test it out in your own experience.

Firstly, enlightenment originally means "to remove the dimness or blindness (usually figurative) from one's eyes or heart". What is this blindness in your eyes or heart? The blindness is that you are an independent physical body-mind, and that you make  your own choices, and do certain actions as if you are totally separate from the environment around you. In this understanding comes a wonderful freedom and the end of constant inner conflict.

To understand this, the first step is to know that you are alive and existing. Nobody can deny their existence. You exist and you know that you exist. You don't need to even think about the fact of your existence to know that you exist. This beingness, this knowing that you are existing lies beyond thought. Right now, you can get in touch with the sense that you are alive and exist, and that sense of existence is prior to thinking. Stop your thinking for one second and do you disappear? No, of course not. You still exist.  Allow yourself to be absolutely clear that this beingness, this sense of existence is always there, from the moment you were born and through all the moments of your life.

Now, that sense of beingness, which is totally ordinary and cannot be denied, is who you are. You can call it consciousness, awareness, aliveness, beingness, self. The word is not the thing. The word doesn't really matter - what matters is the recognition of your own sense of being. Understand that this ordinary, everyday sense of being is you. You are That. This is what all the scriptures and all great teachers are pointing to all the time. You are that which underlies that.

On top of this beingness, this awareness that you are, lies ALL experience. All thoughts arise and pass away in awareness. All emotions do too. All sensory perceptions arise and pass in awareness. All choices and actions arise in awareness. Anything that has ever experienced has all been experienced in awareness.

So awareness, which is what you are, and what you always have been and always will be, and are right now, is free. Awareness is space like, open, ever shining, totally effortness, free from right and wrong, good and bad, black or white. Awareness is beyond conception. And yet you are that right now. You don't need to have any kind of special experience or awakening to realise this. Ordinary, everyday awareness is what you are. If you understand this, you are free. You are enlightened, and you always were enlightened and you always will be enlightened. Everyone is enlightened, because everyone is awareness or beingness. Enlightenment is not something to get, it is realising you've always been enlightened.

If you liked this post, or have any questions, please make a comment. Thank you.

A Visit to London Zoo

I went to London Zoo today with the students in my class, and with a few other teachers. We saw all sorts of creatures from monkeys to lions, giraffes to gorillas, owls to flamingoes. Both the children and adults had a wonderful time.

On the coach journey to the Zoo, I was reading a book called Awakening to the Dream by Leo Hartong which I  absolutely love. Leo expresses the journey of a spiritual seeker so beautifully, and all the problems with seeking. I read the chapter all about the 'me' and how the idea of a me is so strongly held to be true, that it is never questioned.

You are like a wave on the ocean. The wave arises from the ocean and goes back to being the ocean again. In fact, it's all ocean, and only the word 'wave' creates it as a separate entity to the ocean. So you are both the so called wave and the ocean.

Or, you are like the sand on the beach that has been made into a sandcastle. Although the sandcastle looks separate from the sand, the sandcastle is just sand in a particular form. When the tide comes in, the sandcastle dissolves back to becoming part of the sand on the beach once again.

Perhaps one more analogy may help. You as a separate person is like looking at a mirage. If you know that you are looking at a mirage, you don't really believe the illusion. However, you still see the mirage. In the same way, you may sense yourself as a separate entity, but deep down you know that you are not your body or mind, but are the One essence manifesting as the apparent many forms.

Let life flow.