The question is: what is Life? Another question is: what is Enlightenment? What is Spiritual Enlightenment? It seems like two questions. So, apparently, we have gotten two questions here – is that so? Actually, we're asking one single question.
The Truth of Spiritual Enlightenment or Enlightenment, if well understood... here we put this expression, maybe in a different sense than most people do. We talk about the Awakening of the Truth of your Real Nature, something outside the known, outside this model of time and space as we know it, something different from anything thought can formulate. Life is something else. So, this Awakening, or Enlightenment, and Life are the same thing.
If you have an approach to the truth of yourself here and now, at this instant, liberating from you this known model, which is the model of the thinker, the experiencer, the observer – here I refer to the one who thinks, the one who sees and the one who experiences – if you have a true approach to yourself, there will be a liberation from this model; then, we will be before the end of the experiencer, the observer and the thinker. That is the Truth of Life. There is only Life at this instant, at this present moment.
Everything happening here, at this instant, does not require the presence of a thinker, an observer, or an experiencer. Life is what happens, what It makes it to be, what it shows itself to be. What it is right now is what it IS. That's Life! There is no “I,” no personal element present in life. That's Enlightenment. So, what is Enlightenment? It is the Reality without the “I.” What is Life? It is the Reality without the “I.” The Reality of What Is is Life. The Truth of Being, without the sense of “I,” is Life, Enlightenment.
We need to investigate the nature of this thinker. Observe that thoughts are happening in you, but the central idea is that you are thinking those thoughts. Notice the illusion of this. You do not think thoughts – they create, sustain, project ideas, formulate images, something that is the result of the known, of what has already been experienced and shows itself, at that moment, as a reaction from the past. Through the brain, this shows itself as an expression, with a form, a model, a specific way of manifesting in Existence, which we call “thought.”
So, what is the thought? Thought is memory. Thought is a reaction, a response given to this present moment by the brain. The brain has records and recordings within; it has remembrances and memories, and it reacts at that moment with this format called “thought.” It is something automatic. You say: “My heart is beating.” That's just an idea, a concept, a belief. There is a heart beating, okay, but it is not “my” heart beating. In the same way, thought is happening, but it is not “my” thought.
Notice that. Thought is not your property simply because you, as an entity present at that instant, are as illusory as a person making the heartbeat, owning it, and being in control of it. The heart is part of the body. You see yourself as an entity present within the body and, therefore, the owner of the body, of the heart, but it is a belief, just as it is a belief to believe that you make the heart beat; in the same way, that you make the brain think.
The brain is reacting with images, memories, and recollections. Something appears before your eyes that you say “my eyes,” and now you have just understood it: they are the eyes of the body. Just as this body is part of Existence, of the Manifestation, which could say “my body,” but you do not have the authority to say “my body” because you do not control it, you do not determine anything at all about the functions, the work, Life, and the Vital Energy present in that organism. All of this is under the control of Existence, Nature, Life – whatever you want to call it.
So, Nature, Existence, and Life own the body, just as the eyes. So, something appears in front of “your” eyes; it looks like you are seeing it, and, in reality, the brain is detecting that image and responding. Then, it is a whole movement of Existence, of Life itself. The body's existence, the beating of the heart, thought, digestion, and everything else happen because of the presence of Life. Thus, what is the Truth of Life? It is the Truth of Enlightenment. There is no “someone” in it. There is a Reality present, and that Reality is What is beyond this model of the “I.” It is the “I” that sees itself as the thinker, as the experiencer, as the observer. But it is an idea, a concept, an imagination.
Life is happening right now. The idea of an “I” present is definitely creating all kinds of suffering, confusion, disorder, and all this commotion in the world, something produced by this sense of the “I” present. “I,” “you,” “us,” and “them;” we are separate from each other, from Life, from Divine Reality. The idea of this “I” is separateness and duality. It is the sense of a thinker with their thoughts, an observer with the thing it observes, an experiencer having its experiences, someone alive having a life it can lose. That represents suffering and fear.
So, our psychological states are states of this “I,” this “center,” this “person,” this “identity” that separates itself from life. Thus, it is a center. That is the model of an identity that has separated itself from life, from the other, from God, from everything, seeking control over everything and therefore having fear and all the psychological afflictions engendered by this model of thought that has been repeated for millennia in humanity and is now present within you.
Thus, notice this: all of this is constructed by this formulation, this reflection, this sampling, which is the thought. We do not know how it works. Thought is creating and producing all this in our lives. It has constructed the idea of an “I” that separates itself. An “I” that separates itself to be the one that observes things, that makes things happen, thinks about the thoughts it has, to be this entity that has these feelings, living this isolated and separate life. All of this is something that thought has built up.
We do not know what thought is and what it represents. We are functioning based on memory, on the past. We go through experiences, and in going through them, we keep those experiences as remembrances, as memories. We mistake these “going through experiences” for “someone” going through these experiences because we identify with the body as we have just said: we believe we are “someone” present inside the body; this human consciousness in us is limited to this consciousness of this body. We have the idea of an individual consciousness, of a real individuality present, of a consciousness separate from the rest of humanity. It is “my consciousness,” “my body,” “my experience,” and “my memories,” all of which are the result of thought that has created this sense of an “I,” an experiencer, a thinker, a doer present.
So, our life in the “I,” in the ego, consists of this idea: “I was, I am, and I will be.” “I have problems today because of situations I experienced yesterday, but one day, I'll get rid of those problems,” there will be a day tomorrow for all this to happen. There was yesterday that, according to this thinking, is the cause of the problem I have today; however, there is today to solve yesterday's problems and to create a bright, astonishing, extraordinary future for “me,” for this “me” tomorrow. Then, we live in time – past, present, and future. That is the life of the “I,” of the ego, of the “person.” That is what is not present in this Natural State, which is Truth revealing itself as Life itself as It is. It is the Nature of this Being we are, Life as It Is.
So, in your Natural State, which is Enlightenment or Realization of God, the Awakening of Real Consciousness or this New Consciousness – the names are various – you in your Natural State of Being are free from this sense of separation and therefore free from this limitation created by thought. At that moment, there is a natural way of dealing with thoughts in a practical, simple, direct, objective way. Thinking is functional for driving a car, for doing math, and for a professional activity, you need thinking.
What is thought? It is also memory, recognition, something from the past, the result of an experience. Here, the experiencer of that experience, who stored that experience, is the brain itself, but we are talking about something simple and natural. However, in this objective, clear function does not carry this sense of separation, which is the “I,” the ego. When the ego arises, the sense of identity present in thought – even in this technical thinking – that all the confusion arises, all the suffering arises, all the human madness begins to happen. So, we build weapons and use violence because of ideas, of strategies thought creates with a goal, with a purpose of destruction, of generating more complication, more suffering in the world.
So, thought at the service of this illusory center that is the “I,” the ego, is at the service of illusion, suffering, confusion, the struggle between people, the conflict between them; however, thought itself is something functional, practical, objective. On a certain level, we need thought. But Life in your Being, in your Natural State of Being, is something that does not need it, does not depend on it, that is, by nature, free from thought and therefore from complications, from afflictions.
My relationship with the other can be a thought-free relationship. However, when thought is present, I have an image of others, and they have one of me. Our relationships based on these images are conflicting. There is this idea in the “I,” in the ego, in the “person,” “I like you,” “I don't like you.” If you satisfy me, if you please this “me,” this “I,” this person who, in fact, is an image I have of who I am – this “I” is a self-image – if you satisfy this image I have of myself, I like you; if you don't, I don't like you. So, there is conflict in our relationships because there is this sense of separation, this sense of division.
So, our life based on the “I,” on the ego, is conflict and suffering. Thought is occupying a place that is not its place. Then, human life, life in this sense of personhood, is always suffering, always conflicting, and problematic. Is it possible to have a life free of suffering and therefore free of this sense of thought in this format, of this sense of separateness that is the “I”? Such a life is the Realization of God. Such a life is Spiritual Enlightenment. Such a life is free from the sense of separation, where this Divine Realization is present. This Divine Realization is Life. This Divine Realization is Spiritual Enlightenment. Thus, for this purpose, we are here together in these meetings.
We have online meetings on weekends. I invite you to join our WhatsApp group in the video description and get closer to this study of yourself with us in these meetings. We have face-to-face meetings and also retreats. So, if this is something that makes sense to you, I invite you to join us. Take this opportunity, leave your “like” and subscribe to the channel, OK? And see you. Thanks for meeting us, and see you next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment