Here's a very interesting interview with Bernadette Roberts, a modern Christian contemplative who spoke about her experience of moving from the 'I AM' stage to the insight of the Nondual nature which she calls "No-Self", which is different from the egoless state of I AM . It is the Thusness's Stage 4 experience.

However she has tendency to speak about the experience of No-Self as a stage rather than as the everpresent nature of reality, a dharma seal... even though she knows experientially that nondual is pathless without entry and exit.

Bernadette: That occurred unexpectedly some 25 years after the transforming process. The divine center - the coin, or "true self" - suddenly disappeared, and without center or circumference there is no self, and no divine."

Initially, when I looked into Buddhism, I did not find the experience of no-self there either; yet I intuited that it had to be there. The falling away of the ego is common to both Hinduism and Buddhism. Therefore, it would not account for the fact that Buddhism became a separate religion, nor would it account for the Buddhist's insistence on no eternal Self - be it divine, individual or the two in one. I felt that the key difference between these two religions was the no-self experience, the falling away of the true Self, Atman-Brahman.
Unfortunately, what most Buddhist authors define as the no-self experience is actually the no-ego experience. The cessation of clinging, craving, desire, the passions, etc., and the ensuing state of imperturbable peace and joy articulates the egoless state of oneness; it does not, however, articulate the no-self experience or the dimension beyond. Unless we clearly distinguish between these two very different experiences, we only confuse them, with the inevitable result that the true no-self experience becomes lost. If we think the falling away of the ego, with its ensuing transformation and oneness, is the no-self experience, then what shall we call the much further experience when this egoless oneness falls away? In actual experience there is only one thing to call it, the "no-self experience"; it lends itself to no other possible articulation.
Initially, I gave up looking for this experience in the Buddhist literature. Four years later, however, I came across two lines attributed to Buddha describing his enlightenment experience. Referring to self as a house, he said, "All thy rafters are broken now, the ridgepole is destroyed." And there it was - the disappearance of the center, the ridgepole; without it, there can be no house, no self. When I read these lines, it was as if an arrow launched at the beginning of time had suddenly hit a bulls-eye. It was a remarkable find. These lines are not a piece of philosophy, but an experiential account, and without the experiential account we really have nothing to go on. In the same verse he says, "Again a house thou shall not build," clearly distinguishing this experience from the falling away of the ego-center, after which a new, transformed self is built around a "true center," a sturdy, balanced ridgepole.

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http://www.spiritualteachers.org/b_roberts_interview.htm
Interview with Bernadette Roberts Reprinted from the book Timeless Visions, Healing Voices, copyright 1991 by Stephan Bodian (www.stephanbodian.org). In this exclusive interview with Stephan Bodian, (published in the Nov/Dec 1986 issue of YOGA JOURNAL), author Bernadette Roberts describes the path of the Christian contemplative after the experience of oneness with God.
Bernadette Roberts is the author of two extraordinary books on the Christian contemplative journey, The Experience of No-Self (Shambhala, 1982) and The Path to No-Self (Shambala, 1985). A cloistered nun for nine years, Roberts reports that she returned to the world after experiencing the "unitive state", the state of oneness with God, in order to share what she had learned and to take on the problems and experience of others. In the years that followed she completed a graduate degree in education, married, raised four children, and taught at the pre-school, high school, and junior college levels; at the same time she continued her contemplative practice. Then, quite unexpectedly, some 20 years after leaving the convent, Roberts reportedly experienced the dropping away of the unitive state itself and came upon what she calls "the experience of no-self" - an experience for which the Christian literature, she says, gave her no clear road maps or guideposts. Her books, which combine fascinating chronicles of her own experiences with detailed maps of the contemplative terrain, are her attempt to provide such guideposts for those who might follow after her.
Now 55, and once again living in Los Angeles, where she was born and raised, Roberts characterizes herself as a "bag lady" whose sister and brother in law are "keeping her off the streets." "I came into this world with nothing," she writes, "and I leave with nothing. But in between I lived fully - had all the experiences, stretched the limits, and took one too many chances." When I approached her for an interview, Roberts was reluctant at first, protesting that others who had tried had distorted her meaning, and that nothing had come of it in the end. Instead of a live interview, she suggested, why not send her a list of questions to which she would respond in writing, thereby eliminating all possibility for misunderstanding. As a result, I never got to meet Bernadette Roberts face to face - but her answers to my questions, which are as carefully crafted and as deeply considered as her books, are a remarkable testament to the power of contemplation.
Stephan: Could you talk briefly about the first three stages of the Christian contemplative life as you experienced them - in particular, what you (and others) have called the unitive state?
Bernadette: Strictly speaking, the terms "purgative", "illuminative", and "unitive" (often used of the contemplative path) do not refer to discrete stages, but to a way of travel where "letting go", "insight", and "union", define the major experiences of the journey. To illustrate the continuum, authors come up with various stages, depending on the criteria they are using. St. Teresa, for example, divided the path into seven stages or "mansions". But I don't think we should get locked into any stage theory: it is always someone else's retrospective view of his or her own journey, which may not include our own experiences or insights. Our obligation is to be true to our own insights, our own inner light.
My view of what some authors call the "unitive stage"is that it begins with the Dark Night of the Spirit, or the onset of the transformational process - when the larva enters the cocoon, so to speak. Up to this point, we are actively reforming ourselves, doing what we can to bring about an abiding union with the divine. But at a certain point, when we have done all we can, the divine steps in and takes over. The transforming process is a divine undoing and redoing that culminates in what is called the state of "transforming union" or "mystical marriage", considered to be the definitive state for the Christian contemplative. In experience, the onset of this process is the descent of the cloud of unknowing, which, because his former light had gone out and left him in darkness, the contemplative initially interprets as the divine gone into hiding. In modern terms, the descent of the cloud is actually the falling away of the ego-center, which leaves us looking into a dark hole, a void or empty space in ourselves. Without the veil of the ego-center, we do not recognize the divine; it is not as we thought it should be. Seeing the divine, eye to eye is a reality that shatters our expectations of light and bliss. From here on we must feel our way in the dark, and the special eye that allows us to see in the dark opens up at this time.
So here begins our journey to the true center, the bottom-most, innermost "point" in ourselves where our life and being runs into divine life and being - the point at which all existence comes together. This center can be compared to a coin: on the near side is our self, on the far side is the divine. One side is not the other side, yet we cannot separate the two sides. If we tried to do so, we would either end up with another side, or the whole coin would collapse, leaving no center at all - no self and no divine. We call this a state of oneness or union because the single center has two sides, without which there would be nothing to be one, united, or non-dual. Such, at least, is the experiential reality of the state of transforming union, the state of oneness.

Stephan: How did you discover the further stage, which you call the experience of no-self?
Bernadette: That occurred unexpectedly some 25 years after the transforming process. The divine center - the coin, or "true self" - suddenly disappeared, and without center or circumference there is no self, and no divine. Our subjective life of experience is over - the passage is finished. I had never heard of such a possibility or happening. Obviously there is far more to the elusive experience we call self than just the ego. The paradox of our passage is that we really do not know what self or consciousness is, so long as we are living it, or are it. The true nature of self can only be fully disclosed when it is gone, when there is no self.
One outcome, then, of the no-self experience is the disclosure of the true nature of self or consciousness. As it turns out, self is the entire system of consciousness, from the unconscious to God-consciousness, the entire dimension of human knowledge and feeling-experience. Because the terms "self" and "consciousness" express the same experiences (nothing can be said of one that cannot be said of the other), they are only definable in the terms of "experience". Every other definition is conjecture and speculation. No-self, then, means no-consciousness. If this is shocking to some people, it is only because they do not know the true nature of consciousness. Sometimes we get so caught up in the content of consciousness, we forget that consciousness is also a somatic function of the physical body, and, like every such function, it is not eternal. Perhaps we would do better searching for the divine in our bodies than amid the content and experience of consciousness.
Stephan: How does one move from "transforming union" to the experience of no-self? What is the path like?
Bernadette: We can only see a path in retrospect. Once we come to the state of oneness, we can go no further with the inward journey. The divine center is the innermost "point", beyond which we cannot go at this time. Having reached this point, the movement of our journey turns around and begins to move outward - the center is expanding outward. To see how this works, imagine self, or consciousness, as a circular piece of paper. The initial center is the ego, the particular energy we call "will" or volitional faculty, which can either be turned outward, toward itself, or inward, toward the divine ground, which underlies the center of the paper. When, from our side of consciousness, we can do no more to reach this ground, the divine takes the initiative and breaks through the center, shattering the ego like an arrow shot through the center of being. The result is a dark hole in ourselves and the feeling of terrible void and emptiness. This breakthrough demands a restructuring or change of consciousness, and this change is the true nature of the transforming process. Although this transformation culminates in true human maturity, it is not man's final state. The whole purpose of oneness is to move us on to a more final state.
To understand what happens next, we have to keep cutting larger holes in the paper, expanding the center until only the barest rim or circumference remains. One more expansion of the divine center, and the boundaries of consciousness or self fall away. From this illustration we can see how the ultimate fulfillment of consciousness, or self, is no-consciousness, or no-self. The path from oneness to no-oneness is an egoless one and is therefore devoid of ego-satisfaction. Despite the unchanging center of peace and joy, the events of life may not be peaceful or joyful at all. With no ego-gratification at the center and no divine joy on the surface, this part of the journey is not easy. Heroic acts of selflessness are required to come to the end of self, acts comparable to cutting ever-larger holes in the paper - acts, that is, that bring no return to the self whatsoever.
The major temptation to be overcome in this period is the temptation to fall for one of the subtle but powerful archetypes of the collective consciousness. As I see it, in the transforming process we only come to terms with the archetypes of the personal unconscious; the archetypes of the collective consciousness are reserved for individuals in the state of oneness, because those archetypes are powers or energies of that state. Jung felt that these archetypes were unlimited; but in fact, there is only one true archetype, and that archtype is self. What is unlimited are the various masks or roles self is tempted to play in the state of oneness - savior, prophet, healer, martyr, Mother Earth, you name it. They are all temptations to seize power for ourselves, to think ourselves to be whatever the mask or role may be. In the state of oneness, both Christ and Buddha were tempted in this manner, but they held to the "ground" that they knew to be devoid of all such energies. This ground is a "stillpoint", not a moving energy-point. Unmasking these energies, seeing them as ruses of the self, is the particular task to be accomplished or hurdle to be overcome in the state of oneness. We cannot come to the ending of self until we have finally seen through these archetypes and can no longer be moved by any of them. So the path from oneness to no-oneness is a life that is choicelessly devoid of ego-satisfaction; a life of unmasking the energies of self and all the divine roles it is tempted to play. It is hard to call this life a "path", yet it is the only way to get to the end of our journey.
Stephan: In The Experience of No-Self you talk at great length about your experience of the dropping away or loss of self. Could you briefly describe this experience and the events that led up to it? I was particularly struck by your statement "I realized I no longer had a 'within' at all." For so many of us, the spiritual life is experienced as an "inner life" - yet the great saints and sages have talked about going beyond any sense of inwardness.
Bernadette: Your observation strikes me as particularly astute; most people miss the point. You have actually put your finger on the key factor that distinguishes between the state of oneness and the state of no-oneness, between self and no-self. So long as self remains, there will always be a "center". Few people realize that not only is the center responsible for their interior experiences of energy, emotion, and feeling, but also, underlying these, the center is our continuous, mysterious experience of "life"and "being". Because this experience is more pervasive than our other experiences, we may not think of "life" and "being" as an interior experience. Even in the state of oneness, we tend to forget that our experience of "being" originates in the divine center, where it is one with divine life and being. We have become so used to living from this center that we feel no need to remember it, to mentally focus on it, look within, or even think about it. Despite this fact, however, the center remains; it is the epicenter of our experience of life and being, which gives rise to our experiential energies and various feelings.
If this center suddenly dissolves and disappears, the experiences of life, being, energy, feeling and so on come to an end, because there is no "within" any more. And without a "within", there is no subjective, psychological, or spiritual life remaining - no experience of life at all. Our subjecive life is over and done with. But now, without center and circumference, where is the divine? To get hold of this situation, imagine consciousness as a balloon filled with, and suspended in divine air. The balloon experiences the divine as immanent, "in" itself, as well as transcendent, beyond or outside itself. This is the experience of the divine in ourselves and ourselves in the divine; in the state of oneness, Christ is often seen as the balloon (ourselves), completing this trinitarian experience. But what makes this whole experience possible - the divine as both immanent and transcendent - is obviously the balloon, i.e. consciousness or self. Consciousness sets up the divisions of within and without, spirit and matter, body and soul, immanent and transcendent; in fact, consciousness is responsible for every division we know of. But what if we pop the balloon - or better, cause it to vanish like a bubble that leaves no residue. All that remains is divine air. There is no divine in anything, there is no divine transcendence or beyond anything, nor is the divine anything. We cannot point to anything or anyone and say, "This or that is divine". So the divine is all - all but consciousness or self, which created the division in the first place. As long as consciousness remains however, it does not hide the divine, nor is it ever separated from it. In Christian terms, the divine known to consciousness and experienced by it as immanent and transcendent is called God; the divine as it exists prior to consciousness and after consciousness is gone is called Godhead. Obviously, what accounts for the difference between God and Godhead is the balloon or bubble - self or consciousness. As long as any subjective self remains, a center remains; and so, too, does the sense of interiority.
Stephan: You mention that, with the loss of the personal self, the personal God drops away as well. Is the personal God, then, a transitional figure in our search for ultimate loss of self?
Bernadette: Sometimes we forget that we cannot put our finger on any thing or any experience that is not transitional. Since consciousness, self, or subject is the human faculty for experiencing the divine, every such experience is personally subjective; thus in my view, "personal God" is any subjective experience of the divine. Without a personal, subjective self, we could not even speak of an impersonal, non-subjective God; one is just relative to the other. Before consciousness or self existed, however, the divine was neither personal nor impersonal, subjective nor non-subjective - and so the divine remains when self or consciousness has dropped away. Consciousness by its very nature tends to make the divine into its own image and likeness; the only problem is, the divine has no image or likeness. Hence consciousness, of itself, cannot truly apprehend the divine.
Christians (Catholics especially) are often blamed for being the great image makers, yet their images are so obviously naive and easy to see through, we often miss the more subtle, formless images by which consciousness fashions the divine. For example, because the divine is a subjective experience, we think the divine is a subject; because we experience the divine through the faculties of consciousness, will, and intellect, we think the divine is equally consciousness, will and intellect; because we experience ourselves as a being or entity, we experience the divine as a being or entity; because we judge others, we think the divine judges others; and so on. Carrying a holy card in our pockets is tame compared to the formless notions we carry around in our minds; it is easy to let go of an image, but almost impossible to uproot our intellectual convictions based on the experiences of consciousness.
Still, if we actually knew the unbridgeable chasm that lies between the true nature of consciousness or self and the true nature of the divine, we would despair of ever making the journey. So consciousness is the marvelous divine invention by which human beings make the journey in subjective companionship with the divine; and, like every divine invention, it works. Consciousness both hides the chasm and bridges it - and when we have crossed over, of course, we do not need the bridge any more. So it doesn't matter that we start out on our journey with our holy cards, gongs and bells, sacred books and religious feelings. All of it should lead to growth and transformation, the ultimate surrender of our images and concepts, and a life of selfless giving. When there is nothing left to surrender, nothing left to give, only then can we come to the end of the passage - the ending of consciousness and its personally subjective God. One glimpse of the Godhead, and no one would want God back.
Stephan: How does the path to no-self in the Christian contemplative tradition differ from the path as laid out in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions?
Bernadette: I think it may be too late for me to ever have a good understanding of how other religions make this passage. If you are not surrendering your whole being, your very consciousness, to a loved and trusted personal God, then what are you surrendering it to? Or why surrender it at all? Loss of ego, loss of self, is just a by-product of this surrender; it is not the true goal, not an end in itself. Perhaps this is also the view of Mahayana Buddhism, where the goal is to save all sentient beings from suffering, and where loss of ego, loss of self, is seen as a means to a greater end. This view is very much in keeping with the Christian desire to save all souls. As I see it, without a personal God, the Buddhist must have a much stronger faith in the "unconditioned and unbegotten" than is required of the Christian contemplative, who experiences the passage as a divine doing, and in no way a self-doing.
Actually, I met up with Buddhism only at the end of my journey, after the no-self experience. Since I knew that this experience was not articulated in our contemplative literature, I went to the library to see if it could be found in the Eastern Religions. It did not take me long to realize that I would not find it in the Hindu tradition, where, as I see it, the final state is equivalent to the Christian experience of oneness or transforming union. If a Hindu had what I call the no-self experience, it would be the sudden, unexpected disappearance of the Atman-Brahman, the divine Self in the "cave of the heart", and the disappearance of the cave as well. It would be the ending of God-consciousness, or transcendental consciousness - that seemingly bottomless experience of "being", "consciousness", and "bliss" that articulates the state of oneness. To regard this ending as the falling away of the ego is a grave error; ego must fall away before the state of oneness can be realized. The no-self experience is the falling away of this previously realized transcendent state.
Initially, when I looked into Buddhism, I did not find the experience of no-self there either; yet I intuited that it had to be there. The falling away of the ego is common to both Hinduism and Buddhism. Therefore, it would not account for the fact that Buddhism became a separate religion, nor would it account for the Buddhist's insistence on no eternal Self - be it divine, individual or the two in one. I felt that the key difference between these two religions was the no-self experience, the falling away of the true Self, Atman-Brahman. Unfortunately, what most Buddhist authors define as the no-self experience is actually the no-ego experience. The cessation of clinging, craving, desire, the passions, etc., and the ensuing state of imperturbable peace and joy articulates the egoless state of oneness; it does not, however, articulate the no-self experience or the dimension beyond. Unless we clearly distinguish between these two very different experiences, we only confuse them, with the inevitable result that the true no-self experience becomes lost. If we think the falling away of the ego, with its ensuing transformation and oneness, is the no-self experience, then what shall we call the much further experience when this egoless oneness falls away? In actual experience there is only one thing to call it, the "no-self experience"; it lends itself to no other possible articulation.
Initially, I gave up looking for this experience in the Buddhist literature. Four years later, however, I came across two lines attributed to Buddha describing his enlightenment experience. Referring to self as a house, he said, "All thy rafters are broken now, the ridgepole is destroyed." And there it was - the disappearance of the center, the ridgepole; without it, there can be no house, no self. When I read these lines, it was as if an arrow launched at the beginning of time had suddenly hit a bulls-eye. It was a remarkable find. These lines are not a piece of philosophy, but an experiential account, and without the experiential account we really have nothing to go on. In the same verse he says, "Again a house thou shall not build," clearly distinguishing this experience from the falling away of the ego-center, after which a new, transformed self is built around a "true center," a sturdy, balanced ridgepole.
As a Christian, I saw the no-self experience as the true nature of Christ's death, the movement beyond even is oneness with the divine, the movement from God to Godhead. Though not articulated in contemplative literature, Christ dramatized this experience on the cross for all ages to see and ponder. Where Buddha described the experience, Christ manifested it without words; yet they both make the same statement and reveal the same truth - that ultimately, eternal life is beyond self or consciousness. After one has seen it manifested or heard it said, the only thing left is to experience it.
Stephan: You mention in The Path to No-Self that the unitive state is the "true state in which God intended every person to live his mature years." Yet so few of us ever achieve this unitive state. What is it about the way we live right now that prevents us from doing so? Do you think it is our preoccupation with material success, technology, and personal accomplishment?
Bernadette: First of all, I think there are more people in the state of oneness than we realize. For everyone we hear about there are thousands we will never hear about. Believing this state to be a rare achievement can be an impediment in itself. Unfortunately, those who write about it have a way of making it sound more extraordinary and blissful that it commonly is, and so false expectations are another impediment - we keep waiting and looking for an experience or state that never comes. But if I had to put my finger on the primary obstacle, I would say it is having wrong views of the journey.
Paradoxical though it may seem, the passage through consciousness or self moves contrary to self, rubs it the wrong way - and in the end, will even rub it out. Because this passage goes against the grain of self, it is, therefore, a path of suffering. Both Christ and Buddha saw the passage as one of suffering, and basically found identical ways out. What they discovered and revealed to us was that each of us has within himself or herself a "stillpoint" - comparable, perhaps to the eye of a cyclone, a spot or center of calm, imperturbability, and non-movement. Buddha articulated this central eye in negative terms as "emptiness" or "void", a refuge from the swirling cyclone of endless suffering. Christ articulated the eye in more positive terms as the "Kingdom of God" or the "Spirit within", a place of refuge and salvation from a suffering self.
For both of them, the easy out was first to find that stillpoint and then, by attaching ourselves to it, by becoming one with it, to find a stabilizing, balanced anchor in our lives. After that, the cyclone is gradually drawn into the eye, and the suffering self comes to an end. And when there is no longer a cyclone, there is also no longer an eye. So the storms, crises, and sufferings of life are a way of finding the eye. When everything is going our way, we do not see the eye, and we feel no need to find it. But when everything is going against us, then we find the eye. So the avoidance of suffering and the desire to have everything go our own way runs contrary to the whole movement of our journey; it is all a wrong view. With the right view, however, one should be able to come to the state of oneness in six or seven years - years not merely of suffering, but years of enlightenment, for right suffering is the essence of enlightenment. Because self is everyone's experience underlying all culture. I do not regard cultural wrong views as an excuse for not searching out right views. After all, each person's passage is his or her own; there is no such thing as a collective passage. 

 

 

 

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Update, 2021: 

 

Someone asked what I classify her as Thusness Stage 4.

 

I responded:

 
    Soh
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    In response to your queries on why I see Bernadette Roberts as being in Thusness Stage 4 / One Mind:
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    Soh
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    She has experiences of no mind but sinks back to one mind view.
    .....
    But if there is no self, "What is this that walks, thinks and talks?" (p. 78) The end of the journey is "absolute nothingness" (p. 81), but "out of nothingness arises the greatest of great realities."(p. 81) It is the "one existent that is Pure Subjectivity" and "there is no multiplicity of existences; only what Is has existence that can expand itself into an infinite variety of forms..." (p. 83) Our sense of self rests on our self-reflection and "when we can no longer verify or check back (reflect) on the subject of awareness, we lose consciousness of there being any subject of awareness at all." (p. 86) This leads to the "silence of no-self." (p. 87)
    • [Ms. Bernadette Roberts]: ‘It is quite possible that at some time or other everyone has made contact with the self-as-subject [as distinct from self-as-object]. All that is required for such an encounter is the cessation of the reflexive movement of the mind bending back on itself. Without this reflexive (or pre-reflexive) movement, we are no longer aware of our own awareness, our own feelings and thoughts, and thus we have encountered self-as-subject. But since this subjective self is as nothing to the mind, we cannot stay in this condition for long and soon fall back into self-consciousness or self-as-object. To remain in this un-reflexive condition for any length of time would mean encountering an emptiness, a void, a nothingness that is the subjective self – *which I have called no-self*’. [bracketed insert and emphasis added]. (‘Pure Subjectivity’, from the book ‘The Experience of No-Self’, by Bernadette Roberts; 1982; http://norea.net/roberts/pure%20subjectivity.htm).
    https://www.innerexplorations.com/ewtext/br.htm
    Peter Wang
    The one infinite existent being what remains after her “experience of no self” is consistent with her later books.
    It is her final stage
    "Christ is not the self, but that which remains when there is no self.
    He is the form (the vessel) that is identical with the substance, and he
    is not multiple forms, but one Eternal form. Christ is the act, the
    manifestation and extension of God that is no separate from God. We
    cannot comprehend 'that' which acts or 'that' which smiles, but we all
    know the act-- the smile that is Christ himself. Thus Christ turns out
    to be all that is knowable about God, because without his acts, God
    could not be known. Act itself is God's revelation and this revelation
    is not separate from God, but Is God himself. This I believe is what
    Christ would have us see; this is his completed message to man. But who
    can understand it?
    - https://www.nonduality.com/berna.htm
    — notice that she talks about extentions of the substance, the one infinite existence. All these are consistent with one mind view despite having no mind experience.
    Also the above understanding is precisely one mind level and is equal to the case two of:
    JT:
    http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/01/three-levels-of-understanding-of-non.html
    The Three Levels of "Understanding" of Non-dual Awareness
    Thusness/Passerby's reply to me (slightly edited based on references to another post):
    Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
    What I said here, is not really correct. Thought is, but no thinker. Sound is, but no hearer. Awareness cannot be separated from thoughts and manifestation.
    Yes but what said can still have the following scenario:
    1. There is an Awareness reflecting thoughts and manifestation. ("I AM")
    Mirror bright is experienced but distorted. Dualistic and Inherent seeing.
    2. Thoughts and manifestation are required for the mirror to see itself.
    Non-Dualistic but Inherent seeing. Beginning of non-dual insight.
    3. Thoughts and manifestation have always been the mirror (The mirror here is seen as a whole)
    Non-Dualistic and non-inherent insight.
    In 3 not even a quantum line can be drawn from whatever arises; whatever that appears to come and goes is the Awareness itself. There is no Awareness other than that. We should use the teachings of Anatta (no-self), DO (dependent origination) and Emptiness to see the 'forms' of awareness.
    https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html
    Effectively Phase 4 is merely the experience of non-division between subject/object. The initial insight glimpsed from the anatta stanza is without self but in the later phase of my progress it appeared more like subject/object as an inseparable union, rather than absolutely no-subject. This is precisely the 2nd case of the Three levels of understanding Non-Dual. I was still awed by the pristineness and vividness of phenomena in phase 4.
    Phase 5 is quite thorough in being no one and I would call this anatta in all 3 aspects -- no subject/object division, no doer-ship and absence of agent.
    NOREA.NET
    pure subjectivity.htm
    pure subjectivity.htm
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    Soh
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    Her understanding of God and Christ is based and rooted in an unborn undying apophatic absolute that is nonetheless expressing itself in the created.
    “It should not be thought, however, the Great Divide “locks in” the Uncreated or that It cannot reveal Itself to the created. Being Infinite Existence, the Uncreated is not subject to space and time, has no parameters, no inside, outside, above or below, cannot be circumscribed or pointed to, thus God is neither near nor far. At the same time, however, It permeates creation, is everywhere, closer to man than man is to himself, and all this, without being any part of the created dimension. In truth, God transcends all man’s notions of space and time – this whole created world.
    Given that true existence is none other than God’s Existence , we can understand the saying “God is closer to us than we are to ourselves”. To see how this works, fold the paper on the line (on the Great Divide ) and you will see how the created and Uncreated exist together, only on two totally different levels or dimensions of existence . Because of the transparency of the Uncreated, it is possible to see how the created can exist in the Uncreated and how the Uncreated exists throughout the created while being transcendent to it. Not only can the Uncreated be glimpsed through the created, but the Uncreated can break though the created dimension to reveal Itself. Without this revelation or breakthrough, man could not know the Uncreated existed. This is why the monotheistic religions rely totally on this revelation for their Truth and not on any philosophical theory, mere belief, doctrines, books, or someone’s theology. Indeed, it is because Truth is un-believable man needs Faith – that “truth- sensor” in man – which is beyond all belief.”
    - The Real Christ
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    Additional quotes:
    “n only be the idea of an atheist.[15] Existence, however, cannot come from non-existence. To say existence comes from nothing makes “nothing” an absolute and postulates the existence of two absolutes – Existence and Non-Existence. (Thus, if God needed “nothing” to create, then without nothing God could not create.) In truth, however, nothing created has any existence of its own, only God has or is Existence. Thus, for the created to exist , its true existence can only be God – for what “other” Existence is
    there? This does not make anything created the Uncreated – impossible – it only means the created depends on God’s existence for its existence. So while man has existence, he is not Existence Itself. So too, the soul has life but is not Life Itself. The soul can only “participate” in Life – as Aristotle affirms, “ that which participates in anything is distinct from That which is participated in ”. And as Dionysius says, “ Everything participates in His Being, for the Divinity Which is beyond being is the being of all things ”. And for Gregory of Nazianzus, “ For this [God’s] divinity is the essence and subsistence of all things”. The soul, then, “participates” in Life – for as long as God wills.
    From the atom, then, up the ladder of creation, everything has God for its true existence, otherwise it could not exist. It is because the Cause is in the effect that everything created is existentially one with God, a oneness sometimes called an “essential union” or “natural union”, without which, nothing could exist. This is not an eternal union, however. Since nothing created has any eternal life of its own, should eternal life be granted to anything created, this can only be God sharing Its eternal existence with the non-eternal. There is no other way anything could possibly be eternal, unless it were united to God’s eternal existence – i.e., the created participating in God’s own existence.
    Just as a babe in the womb gets its life from its mother yet is not the mother, so too, man lives on “borrowed” existence from God. There is nothing in a natural or existential union with God that necessitates or guarantees any form of “eternal” life, indeed, God can cut the cord at any time. But if there is to be any eternal life for the created, this can only be God’s own eternal life in which man “participates” for all eternity.
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    As we can see, her views do not go beyond eternalism, Shiva and Shakti, Brahman and its lila, etc etc.
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    Also:
    https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2018/11/no-mind-and-anatta-focusing-on-insight.html
    In 2008, a conversation with Thusness about Bernadette Roberts:
    (1:31 AM) AEN: she said meister eckhart also reached anatta?
    (1:58 AM) AEN: http://www.nonduality.com/berna.htm
    (1:58 AM) AEN: im reading it again..
    (1:58 AM) AEN: i tink its related to ur 6 stages as well
    (2:04 AM) AEN: Chapter 1 is talking about stage 1. Chapter 2~3 is stage 2. Chapter 4 is stage 3. Chapter 5 is realising spontaneity and effortless action of stage 3. Chapter 6 is stage
    (1:13 PM) AEN: Chapter 6 is stage 4-5
    (1:24 PM) Thusness: Robert description is still very much in the journey of understanding the profound meaning of anatta. It is nowhere near experiencing emptiness directly.
    (1:26 PM) Thusness: what she is in is in a state of non-duality struggling to understand the experience of non-dual which she call no-self. Still have not gone beyond the propensities of dualism in the deepest sense. This is not the turning point yet in my opinion.
    (1:26 PM) AEN: icic..
    (1:26 PM) Thusness: True turning point is a vividness of anatta is just manifestation alone.
    (1:27 PM) Thusness: it is total dissolving of 'Self' in whatever sense in clear lucidity and intense luminosity.
    (1:27 PM) AEN:
    Now Roberts saw neither emptiness nor relationship, but what Is. And
    what Is is everything, but not the self. This marked the end of the
    Great Passageway.
    (1:27 PM) Thusness: there is no sense of thoughts, only crystal clarity and mere lucid sensate vibration.
    (1:27 PM) Thusness: there is no need to paste me further.
    (1:27 PM) AEN: icic.. but wat she described is like just manifestation rite
    (1:28 PM) Thusness: i know the experience is not there yet in my opinion.
    (1:28 PM) AEN: oic..
    (1:28 PM) Thusness: what she experienced is still not what longchen experienced.
    (1:28 PM) AEN: icic..
    (1:28 PM) Thusness: in no time, if longchen practice diligently, he will experience the true essence of anatta.
    (1:29 PM) AEN: oic..
    (1:29 PM) Thusness: but since he left temasek, i hope he can still deligate time for his practice.
    (1:29 PM) AEN: icic.. ya hope so
    (1:29 PM) Thusness: to have the right view penetrate into daily action, requires some time and right condition.
    (1:30 PM) Thusness: if the condition is right, it might just take a year.
    (2:02 PM) Thusness: wah...the url u pasted is very good.
    (2:03 PM) AEN: which url
    (2:03 PM) Thusness: http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=-ujxTTC7vjQC&pg=PA6...
    Soh: some relevant parts by Bernadette:
    ...The whole point is that as long as consciousness remains, it functions in conjunction with the senses and does not allow for "pure" sensory knowing. Thus we must keep in mind that apart froM consciousness or separate from it, the senses have their own way-of-knowing and partake of a dimension of existence not available to consciousness.
    Although it is not our intention to go into the nature of "pure" sensory knowing, it is important to note that once consciousness falls away sensory knowing turns out to be quite different from what we had previously believed it to be. Where we thought the senses had been responsible for discriminating the particular and singular, and believed that consciousness and the intellect posited the universal or whole, it turns out to be the other way around. The senses do not know, and cannot focus on, the particular or singular; it is nowhere in their power to do so. Consciousness alone has this focusing and discriminating power. Thus by themselves the senses cannot discriminate the singular or particular, and without the singular there is also no plural, no parts and wholes, no one-and-the-many. Sensory knowing is not derived by reflection, intuition, feeling or any such experience; instead, whatever is to be known is simply "there" - quite flatly with no thought or feeling. The senses merely apprehend "what is" with none of the distinctions, discriminations and labeling that are so indicative of the function of consciousness. As it turns out, consciousness is a discriminator, discriminating the particular and multiple, the knower and known, subject and object. Its dimension is entirely relative, while senses are non-discriminating and non-relative, knowing neither parts nor whole. Also, pure sensory knowing is neither a different type of consciousness nor a different level of the same; rather, it is a totally different system or way of knowing - virutally a different dimension of existence. Pure sensory knowing bears no resemblance to the knowing, experiencing dimension of consciousness. Obviously there are more ways of knowing than that of consciousness...
    ............
    In turn, this means that when the mechanism is cut off, we not only lose awareness of the self—or the agent of consciousness on a conscious level—but we lose awareness of the self on an unconscious level as well. Stated more simply: when we can no longer verify or check back (reflect) on the subject of awareness, we lose consciousness of there being any subject of awareness at all. To one who remains self-conscious, of course, this seems impossible. To such a one, the subject of consciousness is so self-evident and logical, it needs no proof. But to the unself-conscious mind, no proof is possible.
    The first question to be asked is whether or not self-consciousness is necessary for thinking, or if thinking goes right on without a thinker. My answer is that thinking can only arise in a self-conscious mind, which is obviously why the infant mentality cannot survive in an adult world. But once the mind is patterned and conditioned or brought to its full potential as a functioning mechanism, thinking goes right on without any need for a self-conscious mechanism. At the same time, however, it will be a different kind of thinking. Where before, thought had been a product of a reflecting introspective, objectifying mechanism—ever colored with personal feelings and biases—now thought arises spontaneously off the top of the head, and what is more, it arises in the now-moment which is concerned with the immediate present, making it invariably practical. This is undoubtedly a restrictive state of mind, but it is a blessed restrictiveness since the continual movement inward and outward, backward and forward in time, and in the service of feelings, personal projections, and all the rest, is an exhausting state that consumes an untold amount of energy that is otherwise left free.
    What this means is that thinking goes right on even when there is no self, no thinker, and no self-consciousness; thus, there is no such thing as a totally silent mind—unless, of course, the mind or brain (which I view as synonymous) is physically dead. Certainly something remains when the mind dies, but this "something" has nothing to do with our notions or experiences of a mind, or of thought, or of ordinary awareness.
    (2:03 PM) AEN: oic
    No Mind and Anatta, Focusing on Insight
    AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
    No Mind and Anatta, Focusing on Insight
    No Mind and Anatta, Focusing on Insight
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    (2:08 PM) Thusness: it will be a good read and guide for u.
    (2:08 PM) AEN: icic..
    (2:08 PM) AEN: tats anatta?
    (2:09 PM) Thusness: not yet
    (2:09 PM) AEN: icic..
    (2:09 PM) Thusness: why so?
    (2:09 PM) AEN: views?
    (2:09 PM) Thusness: because there is no clarity of no-self.
    (2:10 PM) AEN: oic wat is clarity of no self
    (2:10 PM) Thusness: though what she said is one of the important factor of transiting from non-dual to anatta, it is hardly the essence of our no-self empty nature.
    (2:11 PM) AEN: oic
    (2:11 PM) AEN: which is the important factor
    (2:11 PM) Thusness: Though she is right that pure sensory knowing of 'forms' is different from consciousness knowing 'forms'
    (2:11 PM) AEN: icic..
    (2:11 PM) Thusness: there is no clear insight that even there is consciousness, it is still anatta.
    (2:12 PM) Thusness: a vivid expression of our essence without any difference.
    (2:12 PM) AEN: oic..
    (2:12 PM) Thusness: the essence of there is thoughts, no thinker.
    (2:13 PM) Thusness: and in thinking, always only thoughts is not clearly understood and vividly experienced.
    (2:13 PM) AEN:
    Roberts states that when we can no longer attend to the subject of our
    awareness, we have no consciousness of there being a subject. One
    question that arises is whether thinking goes on without a thinker.
    Roberts says that when there is no self, no self-consciousness, the
    conditioned mind functions at its full potential, and there is no longer
    reflection, introspection or the intrusion of feelings and biases.
    Instead, "whatever is to be known is spontaneously there...in the now
    moment."
    Therefore, thought goes on even when there is no self, no thinker.
    (2:13 PM) AEN: in her previous book, http://www.nonduality.com/berna.htm
    (2:13 PM) Thusness: this is different from saying and repeating it aloud in our mind.
    (2:14 PM) AEN: icic..
    (2:14 PM) Thusness: experientially it is liberating.
    (2:14 PM) AEN: oic..
    (2:14 PM) Thusness: yeah...that is right.
    (2:15 PM) Thusness: but it is not thoughts goes on even there is no thinker.
    (2:15 PM) Thusness: it is there is always no thinker, only thoughts.
    (2:15 PM) AEN: icic..
    (2:15 PM) Thusness: once u see it as a 'stage', there is no understanding of what anatta is.
    (2:15 PM) AEN: oic..
    (2:15 PM) Thusness: then one differentiate between the higher teachings and the lower teachings of buddhism.
    (2:16 PM) Thusness: but from Theravada to Mahayana to Dzogchen, all is/are the same.
    (2:16 PM) Thusness: it is taught, just that it is not known.
    (2:16 PM) Thusness: anatta and DO is already self-liberation.
    (2:16 PM) AEN: icic..
    (2:17 PM) Thusness: Although there is a need to emphasize that Theravada fail to see the essence of the teachings, it is not right to say that Buddha did not make this clear.
    (2:18 PM) AEN: oic how come theravada fail to see the essence of the teachings
    (2:18 PM) Thusness: What Robert stated is like the cases of one and two in the 'clarifying of natural state'
    (2:18 PM) AEN: oic..
    (2:19 PM) Thusness: actually it is the same for all...it is not a problem perculiar only in Theravada.
    (2:19 PM) AEN: icic..
    (2:19 PM) Thusness: it is not the case 3 as stated in the innate state of thinking, perception, vision..etc
    (2:19 PM) AEN: oic..
    (2:20 PM) Thusness: always keep this in mind: Experiences goes with insight.
    (2:20 PM) Thusness: Only after the insight, there is true experience.
    (2:21 PM) AEN: icic..
    (2:21 PM) AEN: in bernadette roberts' case it is insight also rite
    (2:21 PM) AEN: i brb
    (2:21 PM) Thusness: Otherwise, it is always a 'stage' and thus still a form of delusion.
    (2:21 PM) Thusness: When it is understood that it is our natural state, that is true insight.
    (2:22 PM) AEN: back
    (2:22 PM) AEN: icic..
    (2:22 PM) Thusness: It is insight into the non-dual nature of experience though there are glimpses of anatta....it is not the insight of stage 5.
    (2:22 PM) AEN: oic..
    (2:24 PM) Thusness: by the way whatever i told u, just take it as a reference.
    (2:24 PM) AEN: ok
    (2:24 PM) Thusness: don't take it like a bible.
    (2:24 PM) AEN: lol
    (2:24 PM) Thusness: u have to experience it urself.
    (2:24 PM) AEN: icic..
    Bernadette Roberts: The Experience of No-Self
    NONDUALITY.COM
    Bernadette Roberts: The Experience of No-Self
    Bernadette Roberts: The Experience of No-Self
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    ...
    (8:22 PM) Thusness: but it will take some time. Anatta will not dawn that fast.
    (8:22 PM) Thusness: the furthest u go is non-duality, still mostly advaita sense.
    (8:22 PM) Thusness: like that of david carse.
    (8:22 PM) AEN: icic..
    (8:22 PM) Thusness: for anatta to arise, it will require some time.
    (8:22 PM) AEN: oic..
    (8:23 PM) AEN: bernadette roberts also like non dual in the advaita sense?
    (8:23 PM) Thusness: as u need to understand right 'views', its relationship with consciousness, propensities and the conceptual aspect of anatta, emptiness and DO. Their profound meaings.
    (8:24 PM) Thusness: i would say so...for bernadette roberts.
    (8:24 PM) AEN: icic..
    (8:24 PM) Thusness: the right 'views' are very important but it is not a view really.
    (8:25 PM) Thusness: for u to go from 5 onwards...even for 4 to 5. It is important.
    ...
    Session Start: Tuesday, April 01, 2008
    (9:54 PM) Thusness: what she (Bernadette Roberts) said is her own understanding.
    (9:55 PM) Thusness: means she only picks on certain words like 'no-self'
    (9:55 PM) Thusness: and started elaborating it.
    (9:55 PM) Thusness: It is similar to a person talking about 'emptness' and treating emptiness as 'nothingness'
    (9:56 PM) Thusness: but the doctrine of anatta and emptiness is the core of buddhism. She cannot speak of it using her 'skewed' understanding.
    (9:56 PM) AEN: oic..
    (9:57 PM) Thusness: the profound meaning of no-self requires one to experience within our deepest experience our whole life.
    (9:57 PM) AEN: her writing treats no self as not a seal, but rather a stage where all self whether ego, phenomenal, feeling or knowing self, and even true self or divine self as ended
    (9:57 PM) AEN: oic
    (9:57 PM) Thusness: it is a the obstacles of all hindrances
    (9:57 PM) AEN: icic..
    (9:57 PM) Thusness: yeah
    (9:57 PM) Thusness: to her, it is a stage
    (9:57 PM) Thusness: to buddhism, it is a seal.
    (9:58 PM) AEN: oic
    (9:58 PM) Thusness: it is from before beginning...it is already so.
    (9:58 PM) Thusness: 'self' is learnt
    (9:58 PM) Thusness: it is not inborn
    (9:58 PM) Thusness: it is a 'view' that is deeply rooted in us
    (9:58 PM) Thusness: due to karmic propensities
    (9:58 PM) AEN: icic..
    (9:59 PM) Thusness: these 'views' are aquired.
    (9:59 PM) AEN: oic..
    (9:59 PM) Thusness: so once we are able to know why luminosity should not be taken as 'Self', we become clear.
    (10:00 PM) Thusness: why we should not see 'things' as 'objects'
    (10:00 PM) Thusness: but as emptiness and luminosity ever manifesting
    (10:00 PM) AEN: icic..
    (10:00 PM) AEN: btw bernadette's experience of nondual is pathless rite means no entry and exit? yet she havent understand anatta?
    (10:01 PM) Thusness: u can say so except that there is no clarity of insight.
    (10:02 PM) Thusness: in terms of experience she knows there is no entry or exit...but when she attempts to articulate in terms of concepts, it becomes incoherent.
    (10:02 PM) AEN: oic..
    (10:03 PM) Thusness: it is very difficult to convey the experience except that one should have faith in Buddha and walk the path.
    (10:03 PM) Thusness: just like it is difficult to communicate the difference between stage 1 and 2.
    (10:03 PM) Thusness: and stage 4 to stage 2.
    (10:03 PM) Thusness: then stage 5.
    (10:04 PM) Thusness: unless one experiences it or demonstrate very strong conditions of the tendencies for the awakening of certain insight.
    (10:04 PM) AEN: icic..
    (10:05 PM) Thusness: Like I have been telling u but u have not grasp the essence yet.
    (10:05 PM) Thusness: what i can tell u are to make them into points.
    (10:05 PM) Thusness: like propensities
    (10:05 PM) Thusness: like luminosity
    (10:05 PM) Thusness: like emptiness
    (10:05 PM) Thusness: telling u that all already is.
    (10:06 PM) Thusness: but it is very difficult for u to understand unless u go through cycles after cycles of refinements
    (10:06 PM) AEN: oic..
    (10:06 PM) Thusness: then u realised that what u r doing is merely overcoming of deeply inherent 'views'
    (10:06 PM) Thusness: once that is clear and thorough, the 'already is' manifests
    (10:07 PM) Thusness: and all is without much effort and self sustaining for the nature is so.
    (10:07 PM) AEN: icic..
    (10:07 PM) Thusness: because of our views of seeing things inherently, 'will and control' is the way we act.
    (10:08 PM) Thusness: when there is arising, 'we' attempt to 'rid' it...for that 'attempt', that 'we', that 'will' are all illusions.
    (10:08 PM) Thusness: they are illusions created by our inherent views and nothing else.
    (10:09 PM) AEN: oic..
    (10:09 PM) Thusness: like getting rid of thoughts
    (10:09 PM) Thusness: like getting rid of evil thoughts
    (10:09 PM) Thusness: like getting rid of something...
    (10:09 PM) Thusness: then we asked if we don't get rid of it...then 'how'
    (10:09 PM) Thusness: it is only insight...
    (10:10 PM) AEN: icic..
    (10:10 PM) Thusness: true insight
    (10:10 PM) AEN: ya the getting rid and the 'how' are all extras
    (10:12 PM) Thusness: without all those arbitrary inherent/dualistic views, our nature are already pristine, luminous and empty
    (10:12 PM) Thusness: unconditioned
    (10:13 PM) Thusness: but we can't 'see' and 'understand' in conventional terms and it is very difficult to put it across conventionally.
    (10:14 PM) AEN: oic..
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http://simpo.proboards20.com/index.cgi?board=insight&action=display&thread=1170547575&page=3(By Thusness)

Hi Star,

You have loosen the ‘bond’ of a background, no-self is experienced; but the propensity of ‘attempting to understand through seeing things as object and subject’ is still there. “What it means, what it is, how do we make sense of it’ is a struggle. It is a struggle of the dualistic mind attempting to understand something from measurement and comparisons. This propensity must also be deconstructed until you are so comfortable of being naked in awareness. This mode of gaining knowledge from deduction, induction, measurement and comparison is ‘learnt’, it is not the natural state of awareness. There must be a clear understanding that the depth of spirituality cannot be known through such mode of ‘understanding’. This is also a 'seed' that creates the ‘sense of self’. A unit of experience is ‘blocked’ by all these propensities that we are unable to intuitively know the unborn nature of awareness. It is not a 'mind trick' as what some said although wisdom practitioners do not talk about non-local issues.

Conventionally, to experience non-local aspect of pristine awareness is through concentration. It is the job of concentration. Concentration till one enters into a deep stage of absorption and object-subject becomes one, a state of transcendence. Non-local experiences in such a practice are reached through the power of ‘focus’. So the key towards non-local experiences is absorption and transcendence.

Non-duality on the other hand is a form of realization, a realization that all along there never was a split. Its clarity and level of transcendence come from dissolving the ‘seeds’ that prevents the ‘seeing’. Very seldom we hear people talk about the non-local aspect in the practice of wisdom but non-duality do meet non-locality at the point of transcendence (phase 4). It is some sort of absorption as in the case of concentration but it is more of 'clarity till the point of absorption'. It may sound paradoxical, but this is true. This is the way of wisdom.

There are many layers of consciousness and the truth of non-duality must first sink deep down into the inmost consciousness. It is important to reach the phase of ‘turning point’ as at this phase, the realization of no-self has sunk sufficiently deep into consciousnesses till there is no retreat. Otherwise that joy and experience of no-self will be lost in few months time (This is my experience) and re-surface again until "Emptiness as forms' is deeply experienced. In phase 2-3, non-local experiences may be experienced for some people and mostly with the help of concentration (like asking a question of our past lives) it can be experienced after 6-9 months of practices especially after deeply experiencing ‘Emptiness is Form’. Non-local aspect is triggered at the point of transcendence.

Below is some sort of summary of what I think a insight practitioner will go through. What I outline is far from being authoritative, it is just for communicating and sharing purposes.

1. Perception still lingers but there is a clear understanding that there is no-self apart from manifestation. Practice clarity from insight meditation will help. Clarity from all 6 doors – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, consciousness.

2. Perception is dropped. Mind/body dropped. A very important phase. ‘Body’ is but a ‘mental construct’. When that ‘imprints’ and ‘meanings’ of ‘body’ is dropped, division between inner and outer is gone. All divisions of senses are also gone. All is One Taste. Just Isness. Manifold of presence experienced clearly.

3. Emptiness as Forms and Spontaneous manifestation.
Submerge oneself into spontaneous manifestation yet there is crystal clarity of the texture and fabric of awareness as ‘forms’. Dualistic cognition is replaced by directness, naturalness and spontaneity. Spontaneity, naturalness and flow took over all dualistic perceptions. Conscious, sub-consciousness and unconsciousness function as a whole without division. There is no need to hold on to a conscious knowing; there is no need to understanding anything. Whether one understands is no more important, all knowingness comes from flow of wholeness. There is no attempt to deviate from what is as a whole. Here, there is a danger of skewing towards spontaneity. Not to miss out the luminosity aspect, Emptiness as Forms. These 2 aspects must is one. Luminosity is conscious level and spontaneity is unconscious level, the 2 as one. True spontaneity is in luminosity. Psychological death is overcome. Turning point.

4. Only one tremendous spontaneous clarity flows, there is no differentiation between what that spins the earth or what that pumps your heart beats or what that makes the plants grow. When you eat an apple, it is the entire universe that eats the apple. Just one whole clarity spontaneity flow. Continual experience of transcendence joy and bliss.

How the 'seeds' bond us is amazing...Ultimately nothing gain!

Good Luck!

Also check out related articles on self-enquiry: The Direct Path to Your Real Self Ramana Maharshi's instructions on Self-Enquiry If you like these writings, consider checking out Ken Wilber's books "A Simple Feeling of Being" and "A Brief History of Everything" Here are some articles by Ken Wilber, which differentiates and clarifies the Witness (a.k.a. Thusness's Stage 1, the I AM) with Non-Duality (a.k.a Thusness's Stage 4): There are many things that I can doubt, but I cannot doubt my own consciousness in this moment. My consciousness IS, and even if I tried to doubt it, it would be my consciousness doubting. I can imagine that my senses are being presented with a fake reality – say, a completely virtual reality or digital reality, which looks real but is merely a series of extremely realist images. But even then, I cannot doubt the consciousness that is doing the watching… The very undeniability of my present awareness, the undeniability of my consciousness, immediately delivers to me a certainty of existence in this moment, a certainty of Being in the now-ness of this moment. I cannot doubt consciousness and Being in this moment, for it is the ground of all knowing, all seeing, all existing… Who am I? Ask that question over and over again, deeply. Who am I? What is it in me that is conscious of everything? If you think that you know Spirit, or if you think you don’t, Spirit is actually that which is thinking both of those thoughts. So you can doubt the objects of consciousness, but you can never believably doubt the doubter, never really doubt the Witness of the entire display. Therefore, rest in the Witness, whether it is thinking that it knows God or not, and that witnessing, that undeniable immediacy of now-consciousness, is itself God, Spirit, Buddha-mind. The certainty lies in the pure self-felt Consciousness to which objects appear, not in the objects themselves. You will never, never, never see God, because God is the Seer, not any finite, mortal, bounded object that can be seen… This pure I AM state is not hard to achieve but impossible to escape, because it is ever present and can never really be doubted. You can never run from Spirit, because Spirit is the Runner. To put it very bluntly, Spirit is not hard to find but impossible to avoid: it is that which is looking at this page right now. Can’t you feel That One? Why on earth do you keep looking for God when God is actually the Looker? Simply ask, Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? I am aware of my feelings, so I am not my feelings – Who am I? I am aware of my thoughts, so I am not my thoughts – Who am I? Clouds float by in the sky, thoughts float by in the mind, feelings float by in the body – and I am none of those because I can Witness them all. Moreover, I can doubt that clouds exist, I can doubt that feelings exist, I can doubt that objects of thought exist – but I cannot doubt that the Witness exists in this moment, because the Witness would still be there to witness the doubt. I am not objects in nature, not feelings in the body, not thoughts in the mind, for I can Witness them all. I am that Witness – a vast, spacious, empty, clear, pure, transparent Openness that impartially notices all that arises, as a mirror spontaneously reflects all its objects… You can already feel some of this Great Liberation in that, as you rest in the ease of witnessing this moment, you already feel that you are free from the suffocating constriction of mere objects, mere feelings, mere thoughts – they all come and go, but you are that vast, free, empty, open Witness of them all, untouched by their torments and tortures. This is actually the profound discovery of… the pure divine Self, the formless Witness, causal nothingness, the vast Emptiness in which the entire world arises, stays a bit, and passes. And you are That. You are not the body, not the ego, not nature, not thoughts, not this, not that – you are a vast Emptiness, Freedom, Release, and Liberation. With this discovery… you are halfway home. You have disidentified from any and all finite objects; you rest as infinite Consciousness. You are free, open, empty, clear, radiant, released, liberated, exalted, drenched in a blissful emptiness that exists prior to space, prior to time, prior to tears and terror, prior to pain and mortality and suffering and death. You have found the great Unborn, the vast Abyss, the unqualifiable Ground of all that is, and all that was, and all that ever shall be. But why is that only halfway home? Because as you rest in the infinite ease of consciousness, spontaneously aware of all that is arising, there will soon enough come the great catastrophe of Freedom and Fullness: the Witness itself will disappear entirely, and instead of witnessing the sky, you are the sky; instead of touching the earth, you are the earth; instead of hearing the thunder, you are the thunder. You and the entire Kosmos because One Taste – you can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, hold Mt. Everest in the palm of your hand; supernovas swirl in your heart and the solar system replaces your head… You are One Taste, the empty mirror that is one with any and all objects that arise in its embrace, a mindlessly vast translucent expanse: infinite, eternal, radiant beyond release. And you… are… That… So the primary Cartesian dualism – which is simply the dualism between… in here and out there, subject and object, the empty Witness and all things witnessed – is finally undone and overcome in nondual One Taste. Once you actually and fully contact the Witness, then – and only then – can it be transcended into radical Nonduality, and halfway home becomes fully home, here in the ever-present wonder of what is… And so how do you know that you have finally and really overcome the Cartesian dualism? Very simple: if you really overcome the Cartesian dualism, then you no longer feel that you are on this side of your face looking at the world out there. There is only the world, and you are all of that; you actually feel that you are one with everything that is arising moment to moment. You are not merely on this side of your face looking out there. “In here” and “out there” have become One Taste with a shuddering obviousness and certainty so profound it feels like a five-ton rock just dropped on your head. It is, shall we say, a feeling hard to miss. At that point, which is actually your ever-present condition, there is no exclusive identity with this particular organism, no constriction of consciousness to the head, a constriction that makes it seem that “you” are in the head looking at the rest of the world out there; there is no binding of attention to the personal bodymind: instead, consciousness is one with all that is arising – a vast, open, transparent, radiant, infinitely Free and infinitely Full expanse that embraces the entire Kosmos, so that every single subject and every single object are erotically united in the Great Embrace of One Taste. You disappear from merely being behind your eyes, and you become the All, you directly and actually feel that your basic identity is everything that is arising moment to moment (just as previously you felt that your identity was with this finite, partial, separate, mortal coil of flesh you call a body). Inside and outside have become One Taste. I tell you, it can happen just like that! (Source: Boomeritis, Sidebar E: “The Genius Descartes Gets a Postmodern Drubbing: Integral Historiography in a Postmodern Age”. More to be found in The Simple Feeling of Being, a collection of Ken Wilber’s inspirational, mystical and instructional passages drawn from his publications, based on his experiences.) -------------------------------------------------------------- The Nondual Level "In the previous level, you are so absorbed in the unmanifest dimensions that you might not even notice the manifest world. You are discovering Emptiness, and so you ignore Form. But at the ultimate or nondual level, you integrate the two. You see that Emptiness appears or manifests itself as Form, and that Form has as its essence Emptiness. In more concrete terms, what you all is all things that arise. All manifestation arises, moment by moment, as a play of Emptiness. If the causal was like a radiant moonlit night, this is like a radiant autumn day. What appear as hard or solid objects “out there” are really transparent and translucent manifestations of your own Being or Isness. They are not obstacles to God, only expressions of God. They are therefore empty in the sense of not being an obstruction or impediment. They are a free expression of the Divine. As the Mahamudra tradition succinctly puts it, “ All is Mind. Mind is Empty. Empty is freely-manifesting. Freely manifesting is self-liberating. The freedom that you found at the causal level- the freedom of Fullness and Emptiness- that freedom is found to extend to all things, even to this “fallen” world of sin or samsara. Therefore, all things become self-liberated. And this is extraordinary freedom, or absence of restriction, or total release- this clear bright autumn day- this is what you actually experience at this point. But then “experience” is the wrong word all together. This realization is actually of the nonexperiential nature of Spirit. Experiences come and go. They all have a beginning in time, and an end in time. Even subtle experiences come and go. They are all wonderful, glorious, extraordinary. And they come and they go. But this nondual “state” is not itself another experience. It is simply the opening or clearing in which all experiences arise and fall. It is the bright autumn sky through which the clouds come and go- it is not itself another cloud, another experience, another object, another manifestation. This realization is actually of the utter fruitlessness of experiences, the utter futility of trying to experience release or liberation. All experiences lose their taste entirely- these passing clouds. You are not the one who experiences liberation; you are the clearing, the opening, the emptiness, in which any experience comes and goes, like reflections on the mirror. And you are the mirror, the mirror mind, and not any experienced reflection. But you are not apart from the reflections, standing back and watching. You are everything that is arising moment to moment. You can swallow the whole cosmos in one gulp, it is so small, and you can taste the sky without moving an inch. That is why in Zen, it is said that you cannot enter the Great Samadhi: it is actually the opening or clearing that is ever present, and in which all experience- and all manifestation- arises moment to moment. It seems like you “enter” this state, except that once there, you realize that there never was a time this state was not fully present and fully recognized- “ the gateless gate.” And so you deeply understand that you never entered this state; nor did the Buddhas, past or future, ever enter this state. In Dzogchen, this is the recognition of mind’s true nature. All things, in all worlds, are self-liberated as they arise. All things are like sunlight on the water of a pond. It all shimmers. It is all empty. It is all light. It is all full, and it is all fulfilled. And the world goes on it ordinary way, and nobody notices at all. Wilber, K. (1999). Stages of Spirituality. Collected Works, vol.4, pg.361-362. -------------------------------------------------------------- From “A Brief History of Everything (Second Edition)”, Ken Wilber: The Nondual Q: So this casual unmanifest – is that the absolute end point? Is this the end of time, the end of evolution, the end of history? The final Omega point? KW: Well, many traditions take this state of cessation to be the ultimate state, the final end point of all development and evolution, yes. And this end state is equated with full Enlightenment, ultimate release, pure nirvana. But this is not the “final story,” according to the Nondual traditions. Because at some point, as you inquire into the Witness, and rest in the Witness, the sense of being a Witness “in here” completely vanishes itself, and the Witness turns out to be everything that is witnessed. The causal gives way to the Nondual, and formless mysticism gives way to nondual mysticism. “Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form.” Technically, you have dis-identified with even the Witness, and then integrated it with all manifestation – in other words, the second and third phases of fulcrum-9, which leads to fulcrum-10, which is not really a separate fulcrum or level, but the reality or Suchness of all levels, all states, all conditions. And this is the second and most profound meaning of Emptiness - it is not a discrete state, but the reality of all states, the Suchness of all states. You have moved from the causal to the Nondual. Q: Emptiness has two meanings? KW: Yes, which can be very confusing. On one hand, as we just saw, it is a discrete, identifiable state of awareness – namely, unmanifest absorption or cessation (nirvikalpa Samadhi, ayn, jnana Samadhi, nirodh, classical nirvana). This is the causal state, a discrete state. The second meaning is that Emptiness is not merely a particular state among other states, but rather the reality or suchness or condition of all states. Not a particular state apart from other states, but the reality or condition of all states, high or low, sacred or profane, ordinary or extraordinary. Recall that on figure 9-1 we had Spirit as both the highest level (“causal”) and the ever-present Ground of all levels (“nondual”). Q: We already discussed the discrete state; now the Nondual. KW: Yes, the “experience” of this nondual Suchness is similar to the nature unity experience we earlier discussed, except now this unity is experienced not just with gross Form out there, but also with all of the subtle Form in here. In Buddhist terms, this is not just the Nirmanakaya – gross or nature mysticism and not just the Sambhogakaya – subtle or deity mysticism; and not just the Dharmakaya – causal or formless mysticism. It is the Svabhavikakaya – the integration of all three of them. It is beyond nature mysticism, beyond deity mysticism, and beyond formless mysticism – it is the reality or the Suchness of each, and thus integrates each in its embrace. It embraces the entire spectrum of consciousness – transcends all, includes all. Q: Again, rather technical. Perhaps there’s a more direct way to talk about Nondual mysticism? Kw: Across the board, the sense of being any sort of Seer or Witness or Self vanishes altogether. You don’t look at the sky, you are the sky. You can taste the sky. It’s not out there. As Zen would say, you can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, you can swallow the Kosmos whole – precisely because awareness is no longer split into a seeing subject in here and a seen object out there. There is just pure seeing. Consciousness and its display are not-two. Everything continues to arise moment to moment – the entire Kosmos continues to arise moment to moment – but there is nobody watching the display, there is just the display, a spontaneous and luminous gesture of great perfection. The pure Emptiness of the Witness turns out to be one with every Form that is witnessed, and that is one of the basic meanings of “nonduality.” Q: Again, could you be even more specific? Kw: Well, you might begin by getting into the state of Witness – that is, you simply rest in pure observing awareness – you are not any object that can be seen – not nature, not body, not thoughts – just rest in that pure witnessing awareness. And you can get a certain “sensation” of that witnessing awareness – a sensation of freedom, of release, of great expanse. While you are resting in that state, and “sensing” this Witness as a great expanse, if you then look at, say, a mountain, you might begin to notice that the sensation of the Witness and the sensation of the mountain are the same sensation. When you “feel” your pure Self and you “feel” the mountain, they are absolutely the same feeling. In other words, the real world is not given to you twice – one out there, one in here. That "twiceness" is exactly the meaning of "duality." Rather, the real world is given to you once, immediately – it is one feeling, it has one taste, it is utterly full in that one taste, it is not severed into seer and seen, subject and object, fragment and fragment. It is a singular, of which the plural is unknown. You can taste the mountain; it is the same taste as your Self; it is not out there being reflected in here – that duality is not present in the immediateness of real experience. Real experience, before you slice it up, does not contain that duality – real experience, reality itself, is "non-dual." You are still you, and the mountain is still the mountain, but you and the mountain are two sides of one and the same experience, which is the one and only reality at that point. If you relax into present experience in that fashion, the separate-self sense will uncoil; you will stop standing back from life; you will not have experience, you will suddenly become all experience; you will not be “in here” looking “out there” – in here and out there are one, so you are no longer trapped “in here.” And so suddenly, you are not in the bodymind. Suddenly, the bodymind has dropped. Suddenly, the wind doesn't blow on you, it blows through you, within you. You are not looking at the mountain, you are the mountain–the mountain is closer to you than your own skin. You are that, and there is no you – just this entire luminous display spontaneously arising moment to moment. The separate self is nowhere to be found. The entire sensation of “weight” drops altogether, because you are not in the Kosmos, the Kosmos is in you, and you are purest Emptiness. The entire universe is a transparent shimmering of the Divine, of primordial Purity. But the Divine is not someplace else, it is just all of this shimmering. It is self-seen. It has One Taste. It is nowhere else. Q: Subject and object are nondual? KW: You know the Zen koan, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Usually, of course, we need two hands to clap – and that is the structure of typical experience. We have a sense of ourselves as a subject in here, and the world as an object out there. We have these "two hands" of experience, the subject and the object. And typical experience is a smashing of these two hands together to make a commotion, a sound. The object out there smashes into me as a subject, and I have an experience – the two hands clap together and experience emerges. And so the typical structure of experience is like a punch in the face. The ordinary self is the battered self – it is utterly battered by the universe "out there." The ordinary self is a series of bruises, of scars, the results of these two hands of experience smashing together. This bruising is called "dukkha," suffering. As Krishnamurti used to say, in that gap between the subject and the object lies the entire misery of humankind. But with the nondual state, suddenly there are not two hands. Suddenly, the subject and the object are one hand. Suddenly, there is nothing outside of you to smash into you, bruise you, torment you. Suddenly, you do not have an experience, you are every experience that arises, and so you are instantly released into all space: you and the entire Kosmos are one hand, one experience, one display, one gesture of great perfection. There is nothing outside of you that you can want, or desire, or seek, or grasp – your soul expands to the corners of the universe and embraces all with infinite delight. You are utterly Full, utterly Saturated, so full and saturated that the boundaries to the Kosmos completely explode and leave you without date or duration, time or location, awash in an ocean of infinite care. You are released into the All, as the All – you are the self-seen radiant Kosmos, you are the universe of One Taste, and the taste is utterly infinite. So what is the sound of that one hand clapping? What is the taste of that One Taste? When there is nothing outside of you that can hit you, hurt you, push you, pull you – what is the sound of that one hand clapping? See the sunlight on the mountains? Feel the cool breeze? What is not utterly obvious? Who is not already enlightened? As a Zen Master put it, "When I heard the sound of the bell ringing, there was no I, and no bell, just the ringing." There is no twiceness, no twoness, in immediate experience! No inside and no outside, no subject and no object–just immediate awareness itself, the sound of one hand clapping. So you are not in here, on this side of a transparent window, looking at the Kosmos out there. The transparent window has shattered, your bodymind drops, you are free of that confinement forever, you are no longer 'behind your face' looking at the Kosmos – you simply are the Kosmos. You are all that. Which is precisely why you can swallow the Kosmos and span the centuries, and nothing moves at all. The sound of this one hand clapping is the sound the Big Bang made. It is the sound of supernovas exploding in space. It is the sound of the robin singing. It is the sound of the waterfall on a crystal-clear day. It is the sound of the entire manifest universe – and you are that sound. Which is why your Original Face is not in here. It is the sheerest Emptiness or transparency of this shimmering display. If the Kosmos is arising, you are that. If nothing arises, you are that. In either case, you are that. In either case, you are not in here. The window has shattered. The gap between subject and object is gone. There is no twiceness, no twoness, to be found anywhere – the world is never given to you twice, but always only once – and you are that. You are that One Taste. This state is not something you can bring about. This nondual state, this state of One Taste, is the very nature of every experience before you slice it up. This One Taste is not some experience you bring about through effort; rather it is the actual condition of all experience before you do anything to it. This uncontrived state is prior to effort, prior to grasping, prior to avoiding. It is the real world before you do anything to it, including the effort to 'see it nondually.' So you don't have to do something special to awareness or to experience in order to make it nondual. It starts out nondual, its very nature is nondual – prior to any grasping, any effort, any contrivance. If effort arises, fine; if effort doesn't arise, fine; in either case there is only the immediacy of One Taste, prior to effort and non-effort alike. So this is definitely not a state that is hard to get into, but rather one that is impossible to avoid. It has always been so. There has never been a moment when you did not experience One Taste – it is the only reality in all of reality. In a million billion years, there has never been a single second that you weren't aware of this Taste; there has never been a single second where it wasn't directly in your Original Face like a blast of arctic air. Of course, we have often lied to ourselves about this, we have often been untruthful about this, the universe of One Taste, the primordial sound of one hand clapping, our own Original Face. And the nondual traditions aim, not to bring about this state, because that is impossible, but simply to point it out to you so that you can no longer ignore it, no longer lie to yourself about who you really are. (Source: A Brief History of Everything. More to be found in The Simple Feeling of Being, a collection of Ken Wilber’s inspirational, mystical and instructional passages drawn from his publications, based on his experiences.) -------------------------------------------------------------- In this excerpt from The Eye of Spirit, Ken Wilber offers one of the most powerful (and beautiful) pieces of spiritual writing he has ever produced.  This is the very first time these words have been reproduced on the web, and we invite you to share this chapter however you like. “What follows are various ‘pointing out’ instructions, direct pointers to mind’s essential nature or intrinsic Spirit. Traditionally this involves a great deal of intentional repetition. If you read this material in the normal manner, you might find the repetitions tedious and perhaps irritating. If you would like the rest of this particular section to work for you, please read it in a slow and leisurely manner, letting the words and the repetitions sink in. You can also use these sections as material for meditation, using no more than one or two paragraphs—or even one or two sentences—for each session.” –Ken Wilber Where are we to locate Spirit? What are we actually allowed to acknowledge as Sacred? Where exactly is the Ground of Being? Where is this ultimate Divine? The Great Search The Realization of the Nondual traditions is uncompromising: there is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only Emptiness in all its radiant wonder. All the good and all the evil, the very best and the very worst, the upright and the degenerate-each and all are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit precisely as they are. There is nothing but God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other. This realization undoes the Great Search that is the heart of the separate-self sense. The separate-self is, at bottom, simply a sensation of seeking. When you feel yourself right now, you will basically feel a tiny interior tension or contraction—a sensation of grasping, desiring, wishing, wanting, avoiding, resisting-it is a sensation of effort, a sensation of seeking. In its highest form, this sensation of seeking takes on the form of the Great Search for Spirit. We wish to get from our unenlightened state (of sin or delusion or duality) to an enlightened or more spiritual state. We wish to get from where Spirit is not, to where Spirit is. But there is no place where Spirit is not. Every single location in the entire Kosmos is equally and fully Spirit. Seeking of any sort, movement of any sort, attainment of any sort: all profoundly useless. The Great Search simply reinforces the mistaken assumption that there is some’ place that Spirit is not, and that I need to get from a space that is lacking to a space that is full. But there is no space lacking, and there is no space more full. There is only Spirit. The Great Search for Spirit is simply that impulse, the final impulse, which prevents the present realization of Spirit, and it does so for a simple reason: the Great Search presumes the loss of God. The Great Search reinforces the mistaken belief that God is not present, and thus totally obscures the ‘reality of God’s ever-present Presence. The Great Search, which pretends to love God, is in fact the very mechanism of pushing God away; the mechanism of promising to find tomorrow that which exists only in the timeless now; the mechanism of watching the future so fervently that the present always passes it by—very quickly and God’s smiling face with it. The Great Search is the loveless contraction hidden in the heart of the separate-self sense, a contraction that drives the intense yearning for a tomorrow in which salvation will finally arrive, but during which time, thank God, I can continue to be myself. The greater the Great Search, the more I can deny God. The greater the Great Search, the more I can feel my own sensation of seeking, which defines the contours of my self. The Great Search is the great enemy of what is. Should we then simply cease the Great Search? Definitely, if we could. But the effort to stop the Great Search is itself more of the Great Search. The very first step presumes and reinforces the seeking sensation. There is actually nothing the self-contraction can do to stop the Great Search, because the self-contraction and the Great Search are two names for the same thing. If Spirit cannot be found as a future product of the Great Search, then there is only one alternative: Spirit must be fully, totally, completely present right now—AND you must be fully, totally, completely aware of it right now. It will not do to say that Spirit is present but I don’t realize it. That would require the Great Search; that would demand that I seek a tomorrow in which I could realize that Spirit is fully present, but such seeking misses the present in the very first step. To keep seeking would be to keep missing. No, the realization itself, the awareness itself: this, too, must somehow be fully and completely present right now. If it is not, then all we have left is the Great Search, doomed to presume that which it wishes to overcome. There must be something about our present awareness that contains the entire truth. Somehow, no matter what your state, you are immersed fully in everything you need for perfect enlightenment. You are somehow looking right at the answer. One hundred percent of Spirit is in your perception right now. Not 20 percent, not 50 percent, not 99 percent, but literally 100 percent of Spirit is in your awareness right now—and the trick, as it were, is to recognize this ever-present state of affairs, and not to engineer a future state in which Spirit will announce itself. And this simple recognition of an already present Spirit is the task, as it were, of the great Nondual traditions. To Meet the Kosmos Many people have stern objections to “mysticism” or “transcendentalism” of any sort, because they think it somehow denies this world, or hates this earth, or despises the body and the senses and its vital life, and so on. While that may be true of certain dissociated (or merely Ascending) approaches, it is certainly not the core understanding of the great Nondual mystics, from Plotinus and Eckhart in the West to Nagarjuna and Lady Tsogyal in the East. Rather, these sages universally maintain that absolute reality and the relative world are “not-two” (which is the meaning of “nondual”), much as a mirror and its reflections are not separate, or an ocean is one with its many waves. So the “other world” of Spirit and “this world” of separate phenomena are deeply and profoundly “not-two,” and this nonduality is a direct and immediate realization which occurs in certain meditative states—in other words, seen with the eye of contemplation—although it then becomes a very simple, very ordinary perception, whether you are meditating or not. Every single thing you perceive is the radiance of Spirit itself, so much so that Spirit is not seen apart from that thing: the robin sings, and just that is it, nothing else. This becomes your constant realization, through all changes of state, very naturally, just so. And this releases you from the basic insanity of hiding from the Real. But why is it, then, that we ordinarily don’t have that perception? All the great Nondual wisdom traditions have given a fairly similar answer to that question. We don’t see that Spirit is fully and completely present right here, right now, because our awareness is clouded with some form of avoidance. We do not want to be choicelessly aware of the present; rather, we want to run away from it, or run after it, or we want to change it, alter it; hate it, love it, loathe it, or in some way agitate to get ourselves into, or out of, it. We will do anything except come to rest in the pure Presence of the present. We will not rest with pure Presence; we want to be elsewhere, quickly. The Great Search is the game, in its endless forms. In nondual meditation or contemplation, the agitation of the separate-self sense profoundly relaxes, and the self uncoils in the vast expanse of all space. At that point, it becomes obvious that you are not “in here” looking at the world “out there,” because that duality has simply collapsed into pure Presence and spontaneous luminosity. This realization may take many forms. A simple one is something like this: You might be looking at a mountain, and you have relaxed into the effortlessness of your own present awareness, and then suddenly the mountain is all, you are nothing. Your separate-self sense is suddenly and totally gone, and there is simply everything that is arising moment to moment. You are perfectly aware, perfectly conscious, everything seems completely normal, except you are nowhere to be found. You are not on this side of your face looking at the mountain out there; you simply are the mountain, you are the sky, you are the clouds, you are everything that is arising moment to moment, very simply, very clearly, just so. We know all the fancy names for this state, from unity consciousness to sahaj samadhi. But it really is the simplest and most obvious state you will ever realize. Moreover, once you glimpse that state—what the Buddhists call One Taste (because you and the entire universe are one taste or one experience)—it becomes obvious that you are not entering this state, but rather, it is a state that, in some profound and mysterious way, has been your primordial condition from time immemorial. You have, in fact, never left this state for a second. This is why Zen calls it the Gateless Gate: on this side of that realization, it looks like you have to do something to enter that state—it looks like you need to pass through a gate. But when you do so, and you turn around and look back, there is no gate whatsoever, and never has been. You have never left this state in the first place, so obviously you can’t enter it. The gateless gate! “Every form is Emptiness just as it is,” means that all things, including you and me, are always already on the other side of the gateless gate. But if that is so, then why even do spiritual practice? Isn’t that just another form of the Great Search? Yes, actually, spiritual practice is a form of the Great Search, and as such, it is destined to fail. But that is exactly the point. You and I are already convinced that there are things that we need to do in order to realize Spirit. We feel that there are places that Spirit is not (namely, in me), and we are going to correct this state of affairs. Thus, we are already committed to the Great Search, and so nondual meditation makes use of that fact and engages us in the Great Search in a particular and somewhat sneaky fashion (which Zen calls “selling water by the river”). William Blake said that “a fool who persists in his folly will become wise.” So nondual meditation simply speeds up the folly. If you really think you lack Spirit, then try this folly: try to become Spirit, try to discover Spirit, try to contact Spirit, try to reach Spirit: meditate and meditate and meditate in order to get Spirit! But of course, you see, you cannot really do this. You cannot reach Spirit any more than you can reach your feet. You always already are Spirit, you are not going to reach it in any sort of temporal thrashing around. But if this is not obvious, then try it. Nondual meditation is a serious effort to do the impossible, until you become utterly exhausted of the Great Search, sit down completely worn out, and notice your feet. It’s not that these nondual traditions deny higher states; they don’t. They have many, many practices that help individuals reach specific states of postformal consciousness. These include states of transcendental bliss, love, and compassion; of heightened cognition and extrasensory perception; of Deity consciousness and contemplative prayer. But they maintain that those altered states—which have a beginning and an end in time—ultimately have nothing to do with the timeless. The real aim is the stateless, not a perpetual fascination with changes of state. And that stateless condition is the true nature of this and every conceivable state of consciousness, so any state you have will do just fine. Change of state is not the ultimate point; recognizing the Changeless is the point, recognizing primordial Emptiness is the point, recognizing unqualifiable Godhead is the point, recognizing pure Spirit is the point, and if you are breathing and vaguely awake, that state of consciousness will do just fine. Nonetheless, traditionally, in order to demonstrate your sincerity, you must complete a good number of preliminary practices, including a mastery of various states of meditative consciousness, summating in a stable post-postconventional adaptation, all of which is well and good. But none of those states of consciousness are held to be final or ultimate or privileged. And changing states is not the goal at all. Rather, it is precisely by entering and leaving these various meditative states that you begin to understand that none of them constitute enlightenment. All of them have a beginning in time, and thus none of them are the timeless. The point is to realize that change of state is not the point, and that realization can occur in any state of consciousness whatsoever. Ever-Present Awareness This primordial recognition of One Taste—not the creation but the recognition of the fact that you and the Kosmos are One Spirit, One Taste, One Gesture—is the great gift of the Nondual traditions. And in simplified form, this recognition goes like this: (What follows are various “pointing out” instructions, direct pointers to mind’s essential nature or intrinsic Spirit. Traditionally this involves a great deal of intentional repetition. If you read this material in the normal manner, you might find the repetitions tedious and perhaps irritating. If you would like the rest of this particular section to work for you, please read it in a slow and leisurely manner, letting the words and the repetitions sink in. You can also use these sections as material for meditation, using no more than one or two paragraphs—or even one or two sentences—for each session.) We begin with the realization that the pure Self or transpersonal Witness is an ever-present consciousness, even when we doubt its existence. You are right now aware of, say, this book, the room, a window, the sky, the clouds…. You can sit back and simply notice that you are aware of all those objects floating by. Clouds float through the sky, thoughts float through the mind, and when you notice them, you are effortlessly aware of them. There is a simple, effortless, spontaneous witnessing of whatever happens to be present. In that simple witnessing awareness, you might notice: I am aware of my body, and therefore I am not just my body. I am aware of my mind, and therefore I am not just my mind. I am aware of my self, and therefore I am not just that self. Rather, I seem somehow to be the Witness of my body, my mind, my self. This is truly fascinating. I can see my thoughts, so I am not those thoughts. I am aware of bodily sensations, so I am not those sensations. I am aware of my emotions, so I am not merely those emotions. I am somehow the Witness of all of that! But what is this Witness itself? Who or What is it that witnesses all of these objects, that watches the clouds float by, and thoughts float by, and objects float by? Who or What is this true Seer, this pure Witness, which is at the very core of what I am? That simple witnessing awareness, the traditions maintain, is Spirit itself, is the enlightened mind itself, is Buddha-nature itself, is God itself, in its entirety. Thus, according to the traditions, getting in touch with Spirit or God or the enlightened mind is not something difficult to achieve. It is your own simple witnessing awareness in exactly this moment. If you see this page, you already have that awareness–all of it—right now. A very famous text from Dzogchen or Maha-Ati Buddhism (one of the very greatest of the Nondual traditions) puts it like this: “At times it happens that some meditators say that it is difficult to recognize the nature of the mind”—in Dzogchen, “the nature of the mind” means primordial Purity or radical Emptiness—it means nondual Spirit by whatever name. The point is that this “nature of the mind” is ever-present witnessing awareness, and some meditators, the text says, find this hard to believe. They imagine it is difficult or even impossible to recognize this ever-present awareness, and that they have to work very hard and meditate very long in order to attain this enlightened mind—whereas it is simply their own ever-present witnessing awareness, fully functioning right now. The text continues: “Some male or female practitioners believe it to be impossible to recognize the nature of mind. They become depressed with tears streaming down their cheeks. There is no reason at all to become sad. It is not at all impossible to recognize. Rest directly in that which thinks that it is impossible to recognize the nature of the mind, and that is exactly it.” As for this ever-present witnessing awareness being hard to contact: “There are some meditators who don’t let their mind rest in itself [simple present awareness], as they should. Instead they let it watch outwardly or search inwardly. You will neither see nor find [Spirit] by watching outwardly or searching inwardly. There is no reason whatsoever to watch outwardly or search inwardly. Let go directly into this mind that is watching outwardly or searching inwardly, and that is exactly it.” We are aware of this room; just that is it, just that awareness is ever-present Spirit. We are aware of the clouds floating by in the sky; just that is it, just that awareness is ever-present Spirit. We are aware of thoughts floating by in the mind; just that is it, just that awareness is ever-present Spirit. We are aware of pain, turmoil, terror, fear; just that is it. In other words, the ultimate reality is not something seen, but rather the ever-present Seer. Things that are seen come and go, are happy or sad, pleasant or painful—but the Seer is none of those things, and it does not come and go. The Witness does not waver, does not wobble, does not enter that stream of time. The Witness is not an object, not a thing seen, but the ever-present Seer of all things, the simple Witness that is the I of Spirit, the center of the cyclone, the opening that is God, the clearing that is pure Emptiness. There is never a time that you do not have access to this Witnessing awareness. At every single moment, there is a spontaneous awareness of whatever happens to be present—and that simple, spontaneous, effortless awareness is ever-present Spirit itself. Even if you think you don’t see it, that very awareness is it. And thus, the ultimate state of consciousness—intrinsic Spirit itself—is not hard to reach but impossible to avoid. And just that is the great and guarded secret of the Nondual schools. It does not matter what objects or contents are present; whatever arises is fine. People sometimes have a hard time understanding Spirit because they try to see it as an object of awareness or an object of comprehension. But the ultimate reality is not anything seen, it is the Seer. Spirit is not an object; it is radical, ever-present Subject, and thus it is not something that is going to jump out in front of you like a rock, an image, an idea, a light, a feeling, an insight, a luminous cloud, an intense vision, or a sensation of great bliss. Those are all nice, but they are all objects, which is what Spirit is not. Thus, as you rest in the Witness, you won’t see anything in particular. The true Seer is nothing that can be seen, so you simply begin by disidentifying with any and all objects: I am aware of sensations in my body; those are objects, I am not those. I am aware of thoughts in my mind; those are objects, I am not those. I am aware of my self in this moment, but that is just another object, and I am not that. Sights float by in nature, thoughts float by in the mind, feelings float by in the body, and I am none of those. I am not an object. I am the pure Witness of all those objects. I am Consciousness as such. And so, as you rest in the pure Witness, you won’t see anything particular—whatever you see is fine. Rather, as you rest in the radical subject or Witness, as you stop identifying with objects, you will simply begin to notice a sense of vast Freedom. This Freedom is not something you will see; it is something you are. When you are the Witness of thoughts, you are not bound by thoughts. When you are the Witness of feelings, you are not bound by feelings. In place of your contracted self there is simply a vast sense of  Openness and Release. As an object, you are bound; as the Witness, you are Free. We will not see this Freedom, we will rest in it. A vast ocean of infinite ease. And so we rest in this state of the pure and simple Witness, the true Seer, which is vast Emptiness and pure Freedom, and we allow whatever is seen to arise as it wishes. Spirit is in the Free and Empty Seer, not in the limited, bound, mortal, and finite objects that parade by in the world of time. And so we rest in this vast Emptiness and Freedom, in which all things arise. We do not reach or contact this pure Witnessing awareness. It is not possible to contact that which we have never lost. Rather, we rest in this easy, clear, ever-present awareness by simply noticing what is already happening. We already see the sky. We already hear the birds singing. We already feel the cool breeze. The simple Witness is already present, already functioning, already the case. That is why we do not contact or bring this Witness into being, but simply notice that it is always already present, as the simple and spontaneous awareness of whatever is happening in this moment. We also notice that this simple, ever-present Witness is completely effortless. It takes no effort whatsoever to hear sounds, to see sights, to feel the cool breeze: it is already happening, and we easily rest in that effortless witnessing. We do not follow those objects, nor avoid them. Precisely because Spirit is the ever-present Seer, and not any limited thing that is seen, we can allow all seen things to come and go exactly as they please. “The perfect person employs the mind as a mirror,” says Chuang Tzu. “It neither grasps nor rejects; it receives, but does not keep.” The mirror effortlessly receives its reflections, just as you effortlessly see the sky right now, and just as the Witness effortlessly allows all objects whatsoever to arise. All things come and go in the effortless mirror-mind that is the simple Witness. When I rest as the pure and simple Witness, I notice that I am not caught in the world of time. The Witness exists only in the timeless present. Yet again, this is not a state that is difficult to achieve but impossible to avoid. The Witness sees only the timeless present because only the timeless present is actually real. When I think of the past, those past thoughts exist right now, in this present. When I think of the future, those future thoughts exist right now, in this present. Past and future thoughts both arise right now, in simple ever-present awareness. And when the past actually occurred, it occurred right now. When the future actually occurs, it will occur right now. There is only right now, there is only this ever-present present: that is all I ever directly know. Thus, the timeless present is not hard to contact but impossible to avoid, and this becomes obvious when I rest as the pure and simple Witness, and watch the past and future float by in simple ever-present awareness. That is why when we rest as the ever-present Witness, we are not in time. Resting in simple witnessing awareness, I notice that time floats by in front of me, or through me, like clouds float through the sky. And that is exactly why I can be aware of time; in my simple Presentness, in my I AMness as pure and simple Witness of the Kosmos, I am timeless. Thus, as I right now rest in this simple, ever-present Witness, I am face to face with Spirit. I am with God today, and always, in this simple, ever-present, witnessing state. Eckhart said that “God is closer to me than I am to myself,” because both God and I are one in the ever-present Witness, which is the nature of intrinsic Spirit itself, which is exactly what I am in the state of my I AMness. I am not this, I am not that; I rest as pure open Spirit. When I am not an object, I am God. (And every I in the entire Kosmos can say that truthfully.) I am not entering this state of the ever-present Witness, which is Spirit itself. I cannot enter this state, precisely because it is ever-present. I cannot start Witnessing; I can only notice that this simple Witnessing is already occurring. This state never has a beginning in time precisely because it is indeed ever-present. You can neither run from it nor toward it; you are it, always. This is exactly why Buddhas have never entered this state, and sentient beings have never left it. When I rest in the simple, clear, ever-present Witness, I am resting in the great Unborn, I am resting in intrinsic Spirit, I am resting in primordial Emptiness, I am resting in infinite Freedom. I cannot be seen, I have no qualities at all. I am not this, I am not that. I am not an object. I am neither light nor dark; neither large nor small; neither here nor there; I have no color, no location, no space and no time; I am an utter Emptiness, another word for infinite Freedom, unbounded to infinity. I am that opening or clearing in which the entire manifest world arises right now, but I do not arise in it—it arises in me, in this vast Emptiness and Freedom that I am. Things that are seen are pleasant or painful, happy or sad, joyous or fearful, healthy or sick—but the Seer of those things is neither happy nor sad, neither joyous nor fearful, neither healthy nor sick, but simply Free. As pure and simple Witness I am free of all objects, free of all subjects, free of all time and free of all space; free of birth and free of death, and free of all things in between. I am simply Free. When I rest as the timeless Witness, the Great Search is undone. The Great Search is the enemy of the ever-present Spirit, a brutal lie in the face of a gentle infinity. The Great Search is the search for an ultimate experience, a fabulous vision, a paradise of pleasure, an unendingly good time, a powerful insight—a search for God, a search for Goddess, a search for Spirit—but Spirit is not an object. Spirit cannot be grasped or reached or sought or seen: it is the ever-present Seer. To search for the Seer is to miss the point. To search forever is to miss the point forever. How could you possibly search for that which is right now aware of this page? YOU ARE THAT! You cannot go out looking for that which is the Looker. When I am not an object, I am God. When I seek an object, I cease to be God, and that catastrophe can never be corrected by more searching for more objects. Rather, I can only rest as the Witness, which is already free of objects, free of time, free of suffering, and free of searching. When I am not an object, I am Spirit. When I rest as the free and formless Witness, I am with God right now, in this timeless and endless moment. I taste infinity and am drenched with fullness, precisely because I no longer seek, but simply rest as what I am. Before Abraham was, I am. Before the Big Bang was, I am. After the universe dissolves, I am. In all things great and small, I am. And yet I can never be heard, felt, known, or seen; I AM is the ever-present Seer. Precisely because the ultimate reality is not anything seen but rather the Seer, it doesn’t matter in the least what is seen in any moment. Whether you see peace or turmoil, whether you see equanimity or agitation, whether you see bliss or terror, whether you see happiness or sadness, matters not at all: it is not those states but the Seer of those states that is already Free. Changing states is thus beside the point; acknowledging the ever-present Seer is the point. Even in the midst of the Great Search and even in the worst of my self-contracting ways, I have immediate and direct access to the ever-present Witness. I do not have to try to bring this simple awareness into existence. I do not have to enter this state. It involves no effort at all. I simply notice that there is already an awareness of the sky. I simply notice that there is already an awareness of the clouds. I simply notice that the ever-present Witness is already fully functioning: it is not hard to reach but impossible to avoid. I am always already in the lap of this ever-present awareness, the radical Emptiness in which all manifestation is presently arising. When I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I notice that this awareness is not an experience. It is aware of experiences, it is not itself an experience. Experiences come and go. They have a beginning in time, they stay a bit, and they pass. But they all arise in the simple opening or clearing that is the vast expanse of what I am. The clouds float by in this vast expanse, and thoughts float by in this vast expanse, and experiences float by in this vast expanse. They all come, and they all go. But the vast expanse itself, this Free and Empty Seer, this spacious opening or clearing in which all things arise, does not itself come and go, or even move at all. Thus, when I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I am no longer caught up in the search for experiences, whether of the flesh or of the mind or of the spirit. Experiences—whether high or low, sacred or profane, joyous or nightmarish—simply come and go like endless waves on the ocean of what I am. As I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I am no longer moved to follow the bliss and the torture of experiential displays. Experiences float across my Original Face like clouds floating across the clear autumn sky, and there is room in me for all. When I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I will even begin to notice that the Witness itself is not a separate thing or entity, set apart from what it witnesses. All things arise within the Witness, so much so that the Witness itself disappears into all things. And thus, resting in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I notice that there is no inside and no outside. There is no subject and no object. Things and events are still fully present and clearly arising—the clouds float by, the birds still sing, the cool breeze still blows—but there is no separate self recoiling from them. Events simply arise as they are, without the constant and agitated reference to a contracted self or subject. Events arise as they are, and they arise in the great freedom of not being defined by a little I looking at them. They arise with Spirit, as Spirit, in the opening or clearing that I am; they do not arise to be seen and perceptually tortured by an ego. In my contracted mode, I am “in here,” on this side of my face, looking at the world “out there,” on the “objective” side. I exist on this side of my face, and my entire life is an attempt to save face, to save this self-contraction, to save this sensation of grasping and seeking, a sensation that sets me apart from the world out there, a world I will then desire or loathe, move toward or recoil from, grasp or avoid, love or hate. The inside and the outside are in perpetual struggle, all varieties of hope or fear: the drama of saving face. We say, “To lose face is to die of embarrassment,” and that is deeply true: we do not want to lose face! We do not want to die! We do not want, to cease the sensation of the separate-self! But that primal fear of losing face is actually the root of our deepest agony, because saving face—saving an identity with the bodymind—is the very mechanism of suffering, the very mechanism of tearing the Kosmos into an inside versus an outside, a brutal fracture that I experience as pain. But when I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I lose face. Inside and outside completely disappear. It happens just like this: As I drop all objects–I am not this, not that–and I rest in the pure and simple Witness, all objects arise easily in my visual field, all objects arise in the space of the Witness. I am simply an opening or clearing in which all things arise. I notice that all things arise in me, arise in this opening or clearing that I am. The clouds are floating by in this vast opening that I am. The sun is shining in this vast opening that I am. The sky exists in this vast opening that I am; the sky is in me. I can taste the sky, it’s closer to me than my own skin. The clouds are on the inside of me; I am seeing them from within. When all things arise in me, I am simply all things. The universe is One Taste, and I am That. And so, when I rest as the Witness, all things arise in me, so much so that I am all things. There is no subject and object because I do not see the clouds, I am the clouds. There is no subject and object because I do not feel the cool breeze, I am the cool breeze. There is no subject and object because I do not hear the thunder clapping, I am the thunder clapping. I am no longer on this side of my face looking at the world out there; I simply am the world. I am not in here. I have lost face—and discovered my Original Face, the Kosmos itself. The bird sings, and I am that. The sun rises, and I am that. The moon shines, and I am that, in simple, ever-present awareness. When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, every object is its own subject. Every event “sees itself,” as it were, because I am now that event seeing itself. I am not looking at the rainbow; I am the rainbow, which sees itself. I am not staring at the tree; I am the tree, which sees itself. The entire manifest world continues to arise, just as it is, except that all subjects and all objects have disappeared. The mountain is still the mountain, but it is not an object being looked at, and I am not a separate subject staring at it. Both I and the mountain arise in simple, ever-present awareness, and we are both set free in that clearing, we are both liberated in that nondual space, we are both enlightened in the opening that is ever-present awareness. That opening is free of the set-apart violence called subject and object, in here versus out there, self against other, me against the world. I have utterly lost face, and discovered God, in simple ever-present awareness. When you are the Witness of all objects, and all objects arise in you, then you stand in utter Freedom, in the vast expanse of all space. In this simple One Taste, the wind does not blow on you, it blows within you. The sun does not shine on you, it radiates from deep within your very being. When it rains, you are weeping. You can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, and swallow the universe whole. Supernovas are born and die all within your heart, and galaxies swirl endlessly where you thought your head was, and it is all as simple as the sound of a robin singing on a crystal clear dawn. Every time I recognize or acknowledge the ever-present Witness, I have broken the Great Search and undone the separate self. And that is the ultimate, secret, nondual practice, the practice of no-practice, the practice of simple acknowledgment, the practice of remembrance and recognition, founded timelessly and eternally on the fact that there is only Spirit, a Spirit that is not hard to find but impossible to avoid. Spirit is the only thing that has never been absent. It is the only constant in your changing experience. You have known this for a billion years, literally. And you might as well acknowledge it. “If you understand this, then rest in that which understands, and just that is Spirit. If you do not understand this, then rest in that which does not understand, and just that is Spirit.” For eternally and eternally and always eternally, there is only Spirit, the Witness of this and every moment, even unto the ends of the world. The Eye of Spirit When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I am resting in intrinsic Spirit; I am in fact nothing other than witnessing Spirit itself. I do not become Spirit; I simply recognize the Spirit that I always already am. When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I am the Witness of the World. I am the eye of Spirit. I see the world as God sees it. I see the world as the Goddess sees it. I see the world as Spirit sees it: every object an object of Beauty, every thing and event a gesture of the Great Perfection, every process a ripple in the pond of my own eternal Being, so much so that I do not stand apart as a separate witness, but find the witness is one taste with all that arises within it. The entire Kosmos arises in the eye of Spirit, in the I of Spirit, in my own intrinsic awareness, this simple ever-present state, and I am simply that. From the ground of simple, ever-present awareness, one’s entire bodymind will resurrect. When you rest in primordial awareness, that awareness begins to saturate your being, and from the stream of consciousness a new destiny is resurrected. When the Great Search is undone, and the separate-self sense has been crucified; when the continuity of witnessing has stabilized in your own case; when ever-present awareness is your constant ground—then your entire bodymind will regenerate, resurrect, and reorganize itself around intrinsic Spirit, and you will arise, as from the dead, to a new destiny and a new duty in consciousness. You will cease to exist as separate self (with all the damage that does to the bodymind), and you will exist instead as vehicle of Spirit (with the bodymind now free to function in its highest potential, undistorted and untortured by the brutalities of the self-contraction). From the ground of ever-present awareness, you will arise embodying any of the enlightened qualities of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas—”one whose being (sattva) is ever-present awareness (bodhi).” The Buddhist names are not important; the enlightened qualities they represent are. The point is simply that, once you have stably recognized simple, ever-present awareness-once the Great Search and the self-contraction have been robbed of separative life and returned to God, returned to their ground in ever-present awareness-then you will arise, from the ground of ever-present awareness, and you will embody any of the highest possibilities of that ground. You will be vehicle of the Spirit that you are. That ever-present ground will live through you, as you, in a variety of superordinary forms. Perhaps you will arise as Samantabhadra, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a vast equality consciousness: you will realize that the ever-present awareness that is fully present in you is the same awareness that is fully present in all sentient beings without exception, one and the same, single and only—one heart, one mind, one soul that breathes and beats and pulses through all sentient beings as such—and your very countenance will remind all beings of that simple fact, remind them that there is only Spirit, remind them that nothing is closer to God than anything else, for there is only God, there is only Goddess. Perhaps you will arise as Avalokiteshvara, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of gentle compassion. In the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, all sentient beings arise as equal forms of intrinsic Spirit or pure Emptiness, and thus all beings are treated as the sons and daughters of the Spirit that they are. You will have no choice but to live this compassion with a delicate dedication, so that your very smile will warm the hearts of those who suffer, and they will look to you for promise that they, too, can be liberated into the vast expanse of their own primordial awareness, and you will never turn away. Perhaps you will arise as Prajnaparamita, the mother of the Buddha whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a vast spaciousness, the womb of the great Unborn, in which the entire Kosmos exists. For deepest truth, it is exactly from the ground of your own simple, clear, ever-present awareness that all beings are born; and it is to the ground of your simple, clear, ever-present awareness that all beings will return. Resting in the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, you watch the worlds arise, and all the Buddhas arise, and all sentient beings as such arise. And to you they will all return. And you will smile, and receive, in this vast expanse of everlasting wisdom, and it will all begin again, and yet again, and always yet again, in the womb of your ever-present state. Perhaps you will arise as Manjushri, whose ever-present awareness, takes the form of luminous intelligence. Although all beings are equally intrinsic Spirit, some beings do not easily acknowledge this ever-present Suchness, and thus discriminating wisdom will brilliantly arise from the ground of equality consciousness. You will instinctively see what is true and what is false, and thus you will bring clarity to everything you touch. And if the self-contraction does not listen to your gentler voice, your ever-present awareness will manifest in its wrathful form, which is said to be none other than the dreaded Yamantaka, Subduer of the Lord of Death. And so perhaps you will arise as Yamantaka, fierce protector of ever-present awareness and samurai warrior of intrinsic Spirit. Precisely those items that pretend to block ever-present awareness must be quickly cut through, which is why ever-present awareness arises in its many wrathful forms. You will simply be moved, from the ground of equality consciousness, to expose the false and the shallow and the less-than-ever-present. It is time for the sword, not the smile, but always the sword of discriminating wisdom, which ruthlessly cuts all obstacles in the ground of the all-encompassing. Perhaps you will arise as Bhaishajyaguru, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a healing radiance. From the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, you will be moved to remind the sick and the sad and those in pain that although the pain is real, it is not what they are. With a simple touch or smile, contracted souls will relax into the infinite vast expanse of intrinsic awareness, and disease will lose all meaning in the radiance of that release. And you will never tire, for ever-present awareness is effortless in its functioning, and so you will constantly remind all beings of who and what they really are, on the other side of fear, in the radical love and unflinching acceptance that is the mirror-mind of ever-present awareness. Perhaps you will arise as Maitreya, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a promise that, even into the endless future, ever-present awareness will still be simply present. From the brilliant clarity of primordial awareness, you will vow to be with all beings, even unto an eternity of futures, because even those futures will arise in simple present awareness, the same present awareness that now sees just exactly this. Those are simply a few of the potentials of ever-present awareness. The Buddhist names don’t matter; any will do. They are simply a few of the forms of your own resurrection. They are a few of the possibilities that might animate you after the death of the Great Search. They are a few of the ways the world looks to the ever-present eye of Spirit, the ever-present I of Spirit. They are what you see, right now, when you see the world as God sees it, from the groundless ground of simple ever-present awareness. And It Is All Undone Perhaps you will arise as any or all of those forms of ever-present awareness. But then, it doesn’t really matter. When you rest in the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, you are not Buddha or Bodhisattva, you are not this or that, you are not here or there. When you rest in simple, ever-present awareness, you are the great Unborn, free, of all qualities whatsoever. Aware of color, you are colorless. Aware of time, you are timeless. Aware of form, you are formless. In the vast expanse of primordial Emptiness, you are forever invisible to this world. It is simply that, as embodied being, you also arise in the world of form that is your own manifestation. And the intrinsic potentials of the enlightened mind (the intrinsic potentials of your ever-present awareness)—such as equanimity, discriminating wisdom, mirrorlike wisdom, ground consciousness, and all-accomplishing awareness—various of these potentials combine with the native dispositions and particular talents of your own individual bodymind. And thus, when the separate self dies into the vast expanse of its own ever-present awareness, you will arise animated by any or all of those various enlightened potentials. You are then motivated, not by the Great Search, but by the Great Compassion of these potentials, some of which are gentle, some of which are truly wrathful, but all of which are simply the possibilities of your own ever-present state. And thus, resting in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, you will arise with the qualities and’ virtues of your own highest potentials—perhaps compassion, perhaps discriminating wisdom, perhaps cognitive insight, perhaps healing presence, perhaps wrathful reminder, perhaps artistic accomplishment, perhaps athletic skill, perhaps great educator, or perhaps something utterly simple, maybe being the best flower gardener on the block. (In other words, any of the developmental lines released into their own primordial state.) When the bodymind is released from the brutalities inflicted by the self-contraction, it naturally gravitates to its own highest estate, manifested in the great potentials of the enlightened mind, the great potentials of simple, ever-present awareness. Thus, as you rest in simple, ever-present awareness, you are the great Unborn; but as you are born—as you arise from ever-present awareness—you will manifest certain qualities, qualities inherent in intrinsic Spirit, and qualities colored by the dispositions of your own bodymind and its particular talents. And whatever the form of your own resurrection, you will arise driven not by the Great Search, but by your own Great Duty, your limitless Dharma, the manifestation of your own highest potentials, and the world will begin to change, because of you. And you will never flinch, and you will never fail in that great Duty, and you will never turn away, because simple, ever-present awareness will be with you now and forever, even unto the ends of the worlds, because now and forever and endlessly forever, there is only Spirit, only intrinsic awareness, only the simple awareness of just this, and nothing more. But that entire journey to what is begins at the beginningless beginning: we begin by simply recognizing that which is always already the case. (“If you understand this, then rest in that which understands, and just that is exactly Spirit. If you do not understand this, then rest in that which does not understand, and just that is exactly Spirit.”) We allow this recognition of ever-present awareness to arise—gently, randomly, spontaneously, through the day and into the night. This simple, ever-present awareness is not hard to attain but impossible to avoid, and we simply notice that. We do this gently, randomly, and spontaneously, through the day and into the night. Soon enough, through all three states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping, this recognition will grow of its own accord and by its own intrinsic power, outshining the obstacles that pretend to hide its nature, until this simple, ever-present awareness announces itself in an unbroken continuity through all changes of state, through all changes of space and time, whereupon space and time lose all meaning whatsoever, exposed for what they are, the shining veils of the radiant Emptiness that you alone now are—and you will swoon into that Beauty, and die into that Truth, and dissolve into that Goodness, and there will be no one left to testify to terror, no one left to take tears seriously, no one left to engineer unease, no one left to deny the Divine, which only alone is, and only alone ever was, and only alone will ever be. And somewhere on a cold crystal night the moon will shine on a silently waiting Earth, just to remind those left behind that it is all a game. The lunar light will set dreams afire in their sleeping hearts, and a yearning to awaken will stir in the depths of that restless night, and you will be pulled, yet again, to respond to those most plaintive prayers, and you will find yourself right here, right now, wondering what it all really means—until that flash of recognition runs across your face and it is all undone. You then will arise as the moon itself, and sing those dreams in your very own heart; and you will arise as the Earth itself, and glorify all of its blessed inhabitants; and you will arise as the Sun itself, radiant to infinity and much too obvious to see; and in that One Taste of primordial purity, with no beginning and no end, with no entrance and no exit, with no birth and no death, it all comes radically to be; and the sound of a singing waterfall, somewhere in the distance, is all that is left to tell this tale, late on that crystal cold night, bathed so beautifully in that lunar light, just so, and again, just so. When the great Zen master Fa-ch’ang was dying, a squirrel screeched out on the roof. “It’s just this,” he said, “and nothing more.”