Self enquiry reconfigures both our perceptual and our operational criteria so that from the separate context of embodiment within which we perceive and act, we act and perceive on the basis of the underlying nonseparateness. Nonseparateness becomes the cardinal operational compass, separateness the dynamic functional mechanism, within which reconfiguration they are inherent expressions of each other.
In order to reach such an organic operational understanding (wisdom) the observer has to be suspended in order that his contribution to the observed be withdrawn. But then of course the observed also disappears. But something remains. Organic recognition of the significance of this something is the gift of self enquiry and the heart of freedom.
So self enquiry is never an attempt to make anything happen. Attempting to make things happen can be used in order to challenge our assumptions about action, intent, perception, freedom etc. Until it is found that happening itself is always beyond the control of the observer no matter how significant his participation in it may at first appear to be.
Self enquiry is enquiry into that which is actually happening.
This enquiry begins perhaps with intentions and actions, soon focusses on perceptions and the perceptual mechanism, embraces beliefs and the conceptual mechanism, and eventually confronts the mechanism and nature of Consciousness itself. It doesn’t take long to recognise that wherever else anything else may be said to be happening what appears to us each to be happening is a happening in our own consciousness.
When the enquiry shifts, which it can only do spontaneously, away from the objects of consciousness to its subject things get pretty slippery. It’s very tempting to skip to the exit and the safety of the known. Recognisable objects and their defining actions.
To the extent that this shift happens a shift in functioning is inevitable. For a start the telltale sparkle in the eye that arises from knowing beyond any doubt whatsoever that everything is always and only exactly as it has to be. If this knowing is genuine certain tendencies become less and less possible. Guilt, blame, anxiety, shame, pride, resentment, regret, manipulation.
This is because it has been organically elucidated that no observed and no observer have any inherent qualities that distinguish them from any other. All distinguishing qualities belonging somewhere along the always transient and unique spectrum of observation itself, which actually has no end where to place an observer or observed. This elucidation itself has brought about a collapse of the sense of self and other. But not their perceptibility. Within which collapse the doing of any deed is seen to have required every other deed/event/action since the beginning of time and the isolation of doership in the incidental agent is known to be simply a conventional aid to social interaction.
At the same time there is an acceptance of the unique and necessary nature of all centres or instruments of action, perception and consciousness. And that each centre has been conditioned uniquely by the single web of action/events that upholds, defines and requires them each equally. And that as each centre has a unique spacetime location each is differently conditioned and that that conditioning is inescapable. And that it may not necessarily be pleasant. But, here it is.
When a centre is truly established in this awareness, which transcends and dispenses with knowledge, there is no longer any attribution of its actions, experiences, perceptions to any entity, self or other. All centres, agents, are known to be inevitable, immaculate, impersonal, impermanent expressions of the single web or matrix. All actions, experiences, perceptions, objects, instruments and centres are but an observation of the matrix by one aspect of the matrix, and one only.
Instrumental centres of consciousness/action such as human beings are known to be simply organic apertures in the matrix whereby Consciousness experiences the matrix via the appropriate neurological mechanism and generates experiential perception of itself. The specific wiring of that mechanism effects the nature of its activity and thereby the content of that consciousness/experience in a set manner which gives a unique colouring to that content. Which uniqueness becomes associated with its mechanism and the contents become criteria by which the centre is identified separately from all other centres. Whereas in fact the content difference is simply a function of spacetime location differentiation.
Each centre is found not to be a separate source of consciousness and action but an active, organic coalescence of spacetime which is inherently infinite eternal and indivisible and which has no separate source. The source that cannot be sourced. The name that cannot be named. The knower that cannot be known but by which all that can be known is known.
This finding needs to be more than intellectual. It needs also to be the experiential fruit of ongoing experience. The imprint left in consciousness by the breaking through of source into mechanism. Which is an event that does not take place in consciousness but deeply effects the instrument through which Consciousness operates. It is an event that cannot be brought about but which often does occur within those instruments that are looking for it but not as a result of their efforts to find it while their looking facilitates that recognition.
While all of this can by the erudite be understood and accepted, for the wise it is the ground of experience, perception and action. Upon which ground no self or other can stand accept as a conventional appearance necessary for the functioning of organic life governed as it is by the laws of chemistry, physics and mathematics. But not necessary to the functioning of Consciousness.
When neither self nor other can uphold any actual substance or existence the only possible result is total relaxation of personal intent. Within that relaxation all actions and efforts and their requisite intentions and decisions are left to happen just as happen they must. A happening that no longer requires, as formerly it emphatically did, the appearance of personal intent or action. Actions being no longer attributed to their objects take up their impersonal and inevitable nature and can no longer be argued with nor resisted, though they may well be decried and defamed.
This does not lead to a passive complacency but to a sparkling participation in the dance of the matrix, free from ‘personal involvement’ in that dancing, yet continuously enjoying its choreography, no matter how arduous and challenging, or subtle and familiar. This freedom is not a cold detachment. It is warm, vibrant and totally satisfying. Even when the steps of the dance become heavy and dark.
For the dance is by nature dualistic and oscillates between its myriad experiential poles according to its own inexorable principles. So in wisdom we still suffer from splinters and carbuncles, grief at the loss of a loved one, anger and indignation. When these arise as a part of an event that can only be met with such a response by that organism. But when that event is over, when that response has run its conditioned course, it ends and is forgotten while the next situation is creating its own steps, its own song, its own response.
So life becomes a flow from action to action, event to event, situation to situation, within which the instrument of consciousness/action expresses its conditioned nature moment by moment without taking any of it personally. This permits an ongoing state of appreciation and interest that is not eroded by difficulty and can never be subject to despair, while moments of gloom may well arise when the dance is in fact gloomy, but never when it is only assumed to be so. Because no assumptions are taken seriously anymore, though they may well still occur, but they will crack at once and with neither resistance nor regret, in the face of actuality as soon as it manifests rebuttal.
Within this release everything is seen to be what it is: a perfect, finite expression of the Imperfectable Infinite. Within this seeing life flows from one spontaneous action to another, even including decisions, choices, intentions, desires and aversions. But they are all seen to be inevitable and impersonal conditions arising within the instrument as a result of, and for, its impact on the matrix as whole.
So then it being clear that only what has to be shall be in wisdom we do now knowingly always and only whatever we feel like, as we have always though unknowingly done. And sometimes it is also what we like. And sometimes it isn’t.
While in ignorance we also do always and only what we feel like, although usually we do not know that we are. And only too often we don’t like it. But that’s because we are taking it personally and not understanding any of this!!!!!!
Ibiza 2001
In order to reach such an organic operational understanding (wisdom) the observer has to be suspended in order that his contribution to the observed be withdrawn. But then of course the observed also disappears. But something remains. Organic recognition of the significance of this something is the gift of self enquiry and the heart of freedom.
So self enquiry is never an attempt to make anything happen. Attempting to make things happen can be used in order to challenge our assumptions about action, intent, perception, freedom etc. Until it is found that happening itself is always beyond the control of the observer no matter how significant his participation in it may at first appear to be.
Self enquiry is enquiry into that which is actually happening.
This enquiry begins perhaps with intentions and actions, soon focusses on perceptions and the perceptual mechanism, embraces beliefs and the conceptual mechanism, and eventually confronts the mechanism and nature of Consciousness itself. It doesn’t take long to recognise that wherever else anything else may be said to be happening what appears to us each to be happening is a happening in our own consciousness.
When the enquiry shifts, which it can only do spontaneously, away from the objects of consciousness to its subject things get pretty slippery. It’s very tempting to skip to the exit and the safety of the known. Recognisable objects and their defining actions.
To the extent that this shift happens a shift in functioning is inevitable. For a start the telltale sparkle in the eye that arises from knowing beyond any doubt whatsoever that everything is always and only exactly as it has to be. If this knowing is genuine certain tendencies become less and less possible. Guilt, blame, anxiety, shame, pride, resentment, regret, manipulation.
This is because it has been organically elucidated that no observed and no observer have any inherent qualities that distinguish them from any other. All distinguishing qualities belonging somewhere along the always transient and unique spectrum of observation itself, which actually has no end where to place an observer or observed. This elucidation itself has brought about a collapse of the sense of self and other. But not their perceptibility. Within which collapse the doing of any deed is seen to have required every other deed/event/action since the beginning of time and the isolation of doership in the incidental agent is known to be simply a conventional aid to social interaction.
At the same time there is an acceptance of the unique and necessary nature of all centres or instruments of action, perception and consciousness. And that each centre has been conditioned uniquely by the single web of action/events that upholds, defines and requires them each equally. And that as each centre has a unique spacetime location each is differently conditioned and that that conditioning is inescapable. And that it may not necessarily be pleasant. But, here it is.
When a centre is truly established in this awareness, which transcends and dispenses with knowledge, there is no longer any attribution of its actions, experiences, perceptions to any entity, self or other. All centres, agents, are known to be inevitable, immaculate, impersonal, impermanent expressions of the single web or matrix. All actions, experiences, perceptions, objects, instruments and centres are but an observation of the matrix by one aspect of the matrix, and one only.
Instrumental centres of consciousness/action such as human beings are known to be simply organic apertures in the matrix whereby Consciousness experiences the matrix via the appropriate neurological mechanism and generates experiential perception of itself. The specific wiring of that mechanism effects the nature of its activity and thereby the content of that consciousness/experience in a set manner which gives a unique colouring to that content. Which uniqueness becomes associated with its mechanism and the contents become criteria by which the centre is identified separately from all other centres. Whereas in fact the content difference is simply a function of spacetime location differentiation.
Each centre is found not to be a separate source of consciousness and action but an active, organic coalescence of spacetime which is inherently infinite eternal and indivisible and which has no separate source. The source that cannot be sourced. The name that cannot be named. The knower that cannot be known but by which all that can be known is known.
This finding needs to be more than intellectual. It needs also to be the experiential fruit of ongoing experience. The imprint left in consciousness by the breaking through of source into mechanism. Which is an event that does not take place in consciousness but deeply effects the instrument through which Consciousness operates. It is an event that cannot be brought about but which often does occur within those instruments that are looking for it but not as a result of their efforts to find it while their looking facilitates that recognition.
While all of this can by the erudite be understood and accepted, for the wise it is the ground of experience, perception and action. Upon which ground no self or other can stand accept as a conventional appearance necessary for the functioning of organic life governed as it is by the laws of chemistry, physics and mathematics. But not necessary to the functioning of Consciousness.
When neither self nor other can uphold any actual substance or existence the only possible result is total relaxation of personal intent. Within that relaxation all actions and efforts and their requisite intentions and decisions are left to happen just as happen they must. A happening that no longer requires, as formerly it emphatically did, the appearance of personal intent or action. Actions being no longer attributed to their objects take up their impersonal and inevitable nature and can no longer be argued with nor resisted, though they may well be decried and defamed.
This does not lead to a passive complacency but to a sparkling participation in the dance of the matrix, free from ‘personal involvement’ in that dancing, yet continuously enjoying its choreography, no matter how arduous and challenging, or subtle and familiar. This freedom is not a cold detachment. It is warm, vibrant and totally satisfying. Even when the steps of the dance become heavy and dark.
For the dance is by nature dualistic and oscillates between its myriad experiential poles according to its own inexorable principles. So in wisdom we still suffer from splinters and carbuncles, grief at the loss of a loved one, anger and indignation. When these arise as a part of an event that can only be met with such a response by that organism. But when that event is over, when that response has run its conditioned course, it ends and is forgotten while the next situation is creating its own steps, its own song, its own response.
So life becomes a flow from action to action, event to event, situation to situation, within which the instrument of consciousness/action expresses its conditioned nature moment by moment without taking any of it personally. This permits an ongoing state of appreciation and interest that is not eroded by difficulty and can never be subject to despair, while moments of gloom may well arise when the dance is in fact gloomy, but never when it is only assumed to be so. Because no assumptions are taken seriously anymore, though they may well still occur, but they will crack at once and with neither resistance nor regret, in the face of actuality as soon as it manifests rebuttal.
Within this release everything is seen to be what it is: a perfect, finite expression of the Imperfectable Infinite. Within this seeing life flows from one spontaneous action to another, even including decisions, choices, intentions, desires and aversions. But they are all seen to be inevitable and impersonal conditions arising within the instrument as a result of, and for, its impact on the matrix as whole.
So then it being clear that only what has to be shall be in wisdom we do now knowingly always and only whatever we feel like, as we have always though unknowingly done. And sometimes it is also what we like. And sometimes it isn’t.
While in ignorance we also do always and only what we feel like, although usually we do not know that we are. And only too often we don’t like it. But that’s because we are taking it personally and not understanding any of this!!!!!!
Ibiza 2001