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Seeing Your True Nature as Present Awareness
“There is no ordinary life. Life is a grand display or flowering within the vast and clear presence of the divine intelligence. Every leaf and piece of dust is cradled in an expanse of light and presence. That presence-awareness that contains all things is also the deep presence of love and peace always. It is your own real being. The universe being revealed in each moment is aflame with the presence of exquisite love. In that, even the most ordinary thing is a unique and wonderful expression of the underlying oneness of all.” From chapter 82, The Waiting Game
Website: The Natural State -http://www.thenaturalstate.org/ Excerpts
Preface
Is it possible to clearly point to something that cannot be seen? From John Wheeler comes the remarkable gift of beating the same drum at the same tempo with a fresh look at every concern. From the first word, it is clear that the author is speaking from direct honest experience and with the pure intent of bringing the reader to resolution. Because of this, the reader quickly gains confidence that the uncompromising message delivered in these pages is not just the opinion, concept, or belief of the author. The drum that John beats so well is conveying the message that what you seek you already are. You will find many of your own questions in this book followed by answers that effortlessly remove the misconceptions that have been carried, perhaps for a lifetime. In coming to see what the author is pointing to, further questions and doubts will dissolve into the natural state of peace and completeness that is beyond words. In a world where it appears that there is a you and a me, it is with lasting gratitude and without reservation that I say with absolute finality, that in the straightforward answers of this book is the key to end your search. John Greven
17. Keep It Simple and Look for Yourself Question: My main problem is residual emotional turbulence from an ended relationship. It rises up and takes over my perception. I lose my peaceful feeling that normally is always present. John: If you are shooting for a continuous feeling of emotional peace, you are going to be disappointed! Emotions are constantly changing and swirling through. See that your awareness or your being stays steady and constant right through them all. Lock your sights on the fact of being, rather than responding to the thoughts and feelings going through. Otherwise you are bobbing like a cork on the sea, tossed by each wave. This is not about getting the thoughts and feelings to line up, or even to be pleasant. They are what they are. And do we control them, anyway? As the recognition of your true nature settles in you will find that all the other issues sort themselves out naturally. Let the recognition return to what is always clear and present within. This does not depend on states or outer situations being a certain way. Q: What is locking the sights? The mind? I know we are awareness, but how can we observe ourselves? An eye cannot look directly at itself. Is the world a mirror of our mind? Sometimes it seems I can control my emotions and thoughts; other times, not. John: Awareness is self-knowing. You are aware and you know you are aware. Just recognize that this awareness is what you are. Settle in with that. When false ideas come up based on habit, look at them from the position of your identity as presence-awareness. That is all. Simple! Then everything falls into place naturally. You recognize your true nature, and the old ideas fall away. I cannot say much more, because there is no more to say. Just keep it simple and look for yourself. Your direct experience will be its own confirmation. Read the articles on my site about others who have seen this for themselves. That may give you some encouragement.
21. Awareness and the Mind
Question: I am wondering if you could spell out in a little more detail your understanding of the two aspects of recognition you sometimes mention, namely, recognizing that you are non-dual awareness and uprooting the cause of suffering. You mention in your book that there is often a back and forth settling in period during which people report that spacious awareness is self transparent for awhile and then opaque when the mind is fixated on something (wavering between awareness and the mind). According to your understanding, how do you understand the difference between awareness and mind? John: To me awareness refers to the non-conceptual sense of pure knowing itself. It is ever-present and clear and beyond doubt. It has nothing to do with thinking. Then there is the mind, which is conceptual thought or simply thought. Ultimately, awareness and the mind are one because there can be no thought apart from awareness. Awareness is the substance of which thought is fabricated. To imagine thought as an independent something separate from awareness, and more importantly to imagine ourselves as something apart from awareness, is the only real issue. That forms the root of all imaginary suffering and bondage. To rectify this matter decisively through clear seeing ends all questions, doubts and suffering. Q: What wavers back and forth? John: The focus of our attention wanders into false beliefs. The ever clear awareness never leaves at all. It is just that we overlook it and focus on shadows. But even those shadows are arising and setting in the clear presence of awareness. Once this is seen, the wavering ends. This can be seen and resolved directly, once we are clear on what is being pointed out. Q: Is there a preference for one state over the other (for example, focusing on thought or not focusing on thought)? John: Once you see what is going on, there is no difference. Awareness is ever-present and you never leave it. Seeing this is the end of the wavering. Q: Is there a benefit to cultivating a habit of dwelling in/as awareness rather than thought? John: Habits and cultivation are supported in the mind. They cannot go on except as a conceptual activity, and so they are apt to reinforce the basic error. Awareness cannot be practiced. That is just the fact of it. All practices are from the point of view of the imagined separate entity and must be abandoned in the end. Remember, this is the natural state, not the maintenance state! Q: Do you see this habit as something easily attainable? John: It is totally unnecessary. You just need to see the facts. Understanding is everything. Practice is a much less effective approach. The recognition of your identity is the ultimate understanding. Q: How is the cause of suffering uprooted? John: By tracing it to its root, which is a wrong belief, and uprooting the wrong belief through clear seeing. Ignorance is eradicated through knowledge. It is all about understanding, not doing anything. The belief that you are a doer is the root misconception anyhow. You are totally non-existent as a separate entity. Q: How is the deep understanding (and not a mere intellectual understanding) achieved? John: Through a penetrating examination to see if a separate self is present, not as a speculation, but as an actual looking or seeing in direct experience. Thinking and seeing are completely different. It is like reading the menu and eating the food. Most spiritual seekers, due to confusion, are eating the menu. Q: In your understanding, how are the approaches we have been discussing related? John: They go together like two wings of a bird. It is a tandem approach that clearly reveals what is real in you and dismantles the root suffering, which is the belief that you exist as a separate self apart from the real. This usually does not strike home by reading about it. It seems to be accessible more clearly, in practical life, through living contact and dialogue. We invariably try to ‘get this’ as if it were a mental recognition. But it has nothing to do with the mind. So unless we have a living example, we tend to fall back into a conceptual understanding. That was my experience anyway.
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