Monday 26 July 2010

Do years of searching lead up to enlightenment?

How can it? There is no time and therefore of course no 'years'. Many people awaken to their true nature without having had any such desires to become enlightened. Meditation - a tool that calms down the buzzing of the mind - has no claims on enlightenment. One cannot 'become' something that is already the case. Enlightenment is a myth - a fairy - tale. Another carrot dangled by the ignorant mind. People imagine a state where one is blissfully happy and continually in a state of absolute peace and harmony. But since there is no time - there is only that which arises presently - there can not be anything permanent - as in a permanent 'state of being'. There is only 'Being' /God. Liberation is the simple case of seeing this Truth and seeing through all the stories to such an extent that seeking ends and life is simply lived as it arises.

Is it Nonduality' Advaita or Neo-Advaita???

I really dislike all these 'labels' that are put on teaching like 'Neo -advaita' . Truth is just what it is - Truth! It belongs to no-one and no 'school of thought' can pretend to take ownership of it. Therefore Truth is ultimate Freedom!

When we talk about Truth/ God, it HAS to be clear; absolute and radical. It has to GIVE YOU NOTHING so that the mind has NOTHING to grab on to. Otherwise, it's all just concepts and empty descriptions, which will entrap the mind and keep it trapped. It really is ONLY, when the mind isn't given anything it can use, that it has the potential to give up, and that's when seeking drops away and Life as it arises, may truly be ‘seen’.

Wednesday 30 June 2010

Procrastination

Sometimes the question is raised regarding procrastination. A lady wrote in recently saying how she frequently puts things off and spends lots of time watching tv or surfing the net for hours. But because she then gets very angry and frustrated with herself, she tried many self-help techniques but none of them worked permanently.(But that's also because there is no 'permanently')

But these kind of feelings can then go on to depression, despair, lack of self-respect and ultimately self-loathing, so let's look at what's really going on, because the absolute Truth, is always the opposite of that which seems to be the case.

Procrastination happens to anyone whether they are Liberated, awakened or whatever you want to call it. And it's true, that whatever arises, arises for no-one, and anything can arise - for better or for worse. However, the act of judging yourself for what ever you are doing or not doing, that's what is seen through and can fall away.

When I believed in a personal identity, I continually judged myself and beat myself up for not getting on with things . My constant 'mantra' was: " I should be doing serious stuff - I should be more productive" .

The only difference now is that there is no-one here giving itself a hard time. So for me, telly is often watched because I love telly! Things either get done or not done; but there's no longer anyone naming that behaviour, like: 'procrastination', 'laziness' or 'distraction' etc. - It just is what it is.

It's only the mind that lays value-judgements on absolutely everything. Can you imagine how relaxing it would be just to drop self-judgement? 'Being' is not judging ITself is it? How can the 'I' judge 'Itself? And also, who is there to say that one activity is more precious than another? That idea only comes from a belief in time. There is only this present moment and it cannot therefore be 'wasted' or 'spent'. It is always NOW.

And whereever you are, you are always here - you can never get away from now and here. Even when you are apparantly busy and moving - you are actually not really doing anything and going nowhere. Your true Being can never leave itself.

For 'me', sometimes things get done and sometimes they don't, but if I don't do some things I don't get paid - so then I may get on and do something - or maybe not.

There is no continuous picture of 'me' as an unmotivated person. There is only whatever is currently arising."

Tuesday 11 May 2010

How is it that everything appears to be in motion yet NOTHING HAPPENS?

I was once performing music with my band for a wedding. We were playing Eastern-European tunes for the guests because they wanted to do circle dancing.

I was playing the accordion. We'd played for a long time and by the end we got progressively faster and the dancers were moving at such high speed around us that they became a blur. Yet within that motion I experienced a profound stillness and yet the music, which was now very fast and loud and the running dancers, all seemed phantom-like and peripheral, and having absolutely no reality, no real substance. The only reality was the stillness in which nothing moved and no sound perceived.
It was suddenly seen that all this apparent movement was mere ripples on an otherwise still Ocean. The movement was only happening in thought and nothing was really moving.

It is only thought that appears as everything. The Bible says: 'In Him we move and have our Being'. Being is immovable and certain and perfect. Thoughts are the things that are in constant motion therefore uncertain and imperfect.

There is nothing outside of THIS. The aliveness is Source from which all arises and of which everything is made. Thoughts are merely fluctuating frequencies of energy which you hear in your own language as thoughts. All the pictures that dance before our eyes are a dream and have no reality. The only reality is God/Being/ THIS and is both the background and the foreground of everything. There is no true movement.

A few years ago, I was driving my little Micra car down a howling windy motorway on a dark night in Winter, and the car was literally being blown from one lane to another. and fear arose. However, in the midst of that fear - like in the centre of a hurricane - there was just a still core. I can only describe that there was no sense of an 'I' experiencing any fear - yet fear arose around me like a wide, high, transparent vertical tube, within which the sides never touched 'me'. No-one was feeling it. The gales no longer seemed real or harmful and there was only stillness, and then the 'windy dream' gave way to calm weather.

Nothing is truly happening except through erroneous mental perception. Birds singing are thought arising as sounds happening. This present glorious, loving Presence is all that's ever going on.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

No Self - No Suffering

Over the years many people have told me some pretty horrendous and tragic life stories. These include violent and neglectful parenting; sexual abuse within families; alcoholism and drug abuse and even for some people those types of problems re-occurring time and time again in all their subsequent relationships.

Then the question comes: ‘so how does Nonduality fit in with all this and what use is it?’

There is no answer as such and Nonduality doesn’t have a ‘use’. There is only TRUTH. And the truth is that all these bad things never happened to a ‘you’.

Who you truly are is spiritual in substance. This has already been proved through Quantum Science. There is no truth in matter. Your true Being is utterly benign and perfect.

Your TRUE parents are God. Your TRUE husband, wife, child or partner is God.
The people who did all those awful things to you, believed so completely in their separate-ness that they were totally trapped within their own dark thoughts. Then all they were capable of doing was playing out their nightmarish dream scenarios over and over again and including you in their stories. This is the awfulness of seeing two – duality and separation, rather than knowing ourselves as ONE.

Non-duality is seeing beyond the veil of separation and knowing that all that’s truly going on is GOOD/GOD.

LOVE is all that is ever going on. That Truth is even scientific because it’s a fact – a fact that is an ever-present help in trouble. For example: the other day I accidentally poured a large mug of boiling water down the front of my leg. Excruciating pain arose, and after it was dealt with in a practical way, I lay down for 45mins. There was obviously throbbing burning sensations that took my breath away, but as I lay back in the immensity of my own benign Being and looked to who I truly was, the pain literally lifted up and out of my body and the pure love and nurturing that I felt was beyond human description. And this is because we are not separate human individuals made of matter that can be burned or destroyed, we are IMMORTAL and part of the ONENESS. And all that pain never actually happened in Being – in God’s kingdom so how could there really have ever been any effect from it?

We do not have to carry on being affected by nightmares from the past. In Being, there is no past or future there is only this present moment. All the characters in the dreams of past were only characters in a dream, and so they can have never affected who we truly are.

So if you have been carrying terrible images of what your parents did to you or how your violent partner or spouse treated you, just let it go now and know that those human parents were never your true parents – your true parent is GOD – your true partner is GOD. Your true Selfhood is GOD. You have no human ‘self’. And no ‘self’ means no suffering.

Saturday 6 March 2010

Am I enlightened?

For every speaker/teacher of Nonduality a question that arises very regularly is ‘Are you enlightened?’. It is a very valid question for the seeking mind to ask. After all, if I am not enlightened, who am I to be spouting off about it, as if I am? And, how would anyone know whether what I am saying could be trusted?

The people who ask this question demand a definite answer with verifiable proof. They ask if I am ‘Awakened’, Liberated, or Enlightened, then how do I define that? Has my sense of identity just partially fallen away,or has it completely fallen away so that there’s no longer a human experiencer? etc.etc.

No matter how this is answered, any reply will be instantly dismissed by the mind that asks it, and deemed as a ‘cop-out’ . But there is no answer to this.

‘Reality’ or God, can never be qualified, quantified or proved. Who is there to verify something beyond human experience? No human mind can judge another’s experience because it is beyond the mind’s capacity to do so. The mind always seeks to categorise.

The mind also sees time as something that exists and is linier, therefore there must be ‘paths’, ‘journeys’, ‘stages’ and ‘levels’ of Spiritual attainment and Liberation, but these are mind-made judgements and descriptions. The human mind can not know no-mind.

If a person believes in Gurus. Masters, Buddhas, Lineages and complicated spiritual techniques, then they will expect a Nonduality teacher to have an impressive tale to tell regarding their final ‘liberation’. If not, they can be dismissed as not having the right credentials. Yet the dream of Gurus and lineages is simply part of that particular seeker’s dream, so nothing else will do for that person, except a story of Liberation that fits within their rather narrow, totally intellectual confines. The mind also craves theatre,ceremony and distraction.

There is only the eternal Now – everything that has ever happened is happening now (although in Being, nothing is happening) and no span of time is involved. There are no separate identities, there are only trillions of mirror-like facets of Being (that we see as ‘people’) that reflect the Source back to itself. Life is vibrant and alive and yet each facet of the one Being forgets what it is. Our chattering thoughts are believed in, and the dream of being a separate identity is upheld.

In true Liberation there is no longer just an awakening or a ‘seeing’ of this Truth –there is no longer any ‘see-er’. And IT’S NOT PERSONAL! It doesn’t happen to a person – the person part of it, is what drops away completely.

Do not believe anyone who tells you they are Enlightened,Awakened Liberated or whatever. This can only be a prideful, egotistic lie because it doesn’t happen to person!! When all sense of identity drops away and there is a return to the Ocean of Oneness, there is no identity to say 'I' am enlightened! The ego's dissolved.

Now this will ruffle a lot of feathers. It will be said that I am ‘splitting hairs’ – or being deliberately confusing to disguise the fact that I am not enlightened. And this is correct : ‘I’ am not enlightened. When people come to my meetings , God is definitely in the room with us! There is a huge expansion into Being, but it DOES NOT COME FROM ‘ME’ - it comes because when people come together to remember their Oneness, that Oneness always, and without fail, lovingly responds. It is tangible. We feel our Source. There is a strong resonation. As it says in the Bible: ‘Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I AM among you”.

The life that is lived through the facet of Being known as Mandi Solk is light and peaceful and no longer dependent on people, money or possessions for that peace. The sense of being a separate entity is long gone. Other than that, life is lived as it arises without anyone doing or choosing, although doing and choosing happens. There is just the vibrancy and aliveness of Life itself. And that’s kind of liberating But looking at me no-one would ever know that. What is there to know anyway? Who cares? It’s all totally un-important. I’m certainly nobody’s idea of an enlightened being. There’s no magic aura or radiating light emanating from Mandi! And that’s because ‘Mandi’ is not enlightened! PEOPLE AREN’T! And when you stop going after that ‘dangling carrot’ then there’s a chance that the Truth will shine through and melt down the barriers of separation. But you don’t need to go after the carrot – you ARE the carrot! Really. But if you prefer, you can spend the rest of your life trying to verify who ‘is’ and who ‘isn’t’ enlightened, but then you’ll miss the ride home! 

Monday 22 February 2010

Just One Mind - Not Two

Sometimes Nonduality teaching can be perceived as hard, cold, uncaring about the human condition and without compassion. If this is how it is seen, then it is completely misapprehended, as God – Oneness – is the height of compassion, indeed the only true compassion.

There is only one Mind – not many minds. God cannot descend, or come down to the level of the human mind, it is always the human that has to step up, or ‘ascend’ to God . When we look upwards and rest back in our glorious Being then we are ascending. When we look downwards and steep ourselves in the mire of our thoughts and rigid beliefs, then we are de-scending, and God, Being, can not be found in that place. Of course actually, there is no place where God is not, but in the mire, God is veiled from our awareness.

Many people come to Nonduality hoping for answers to their human condition – for a soothing or a solving of their problems and suffering, and get very cross when this is not given. But they are coming to the wrong place. If help is needed for extreme fear or an obsessive mind, then a specialist in human mental conditions is the person to seek out. Because God/ Being/ Love – has nothing whatsoever to do with the human condition, because God is not human and neither are we.

Who are we then if there is only ONE Mind and no separate minds?
We are all aspects or facets of the One Mind, and when this seen, it’s amazing how just about everything we could possibly be concerned about just falls away. If God, Good, is All – if there is only one Mind, then how can there ever be anything really wrong?

As I said in a previous Blog article, (P.N.D.D- Post Non-Duality Depression), ‘the Truth acts on us because it is True.’

I use to suffer from the most terrible depression also anxiety, anger and deep sadness for such a very large part of my life, until I was literally touched by the Truth, the ONE Mind.

Nonduality is simply another term for Truth – the non-two-ness of everything. I became completely intimate with this Truth; I literally saturated myself in it; by reading about it; going to Satsangs; listening to tapes and watching videos etc. I couldn’t get enough of it because it resonated so deeply that the seeking mortal mind just fell away chunk by chunk, and the aliveness of this unquestionable Truth shone through like the Sun until the clouds had no choice but to give way and dissolve. There was no argument – I couldn’t argue with my own Being - there was just nothing left to seek for. God is the Love that we are comprised of and therefore is always Present. There can be no absence of Presence.

There are no answers to human problems because as real as they may feel, they are a horrible masquerade, masking the Truth of Perfect Being, which is always, unruffled, unwavering, rock-solid and harmonious. It is ultimate Good and is ALL in ALL. There is nothing that is not God. This is such a relief! Here’s where the JOY is!

One time when I had neighbour problems, I remember being so angry and resentful about this woman. The lies my mind was telling me was that she and I were separate individuals with our own separate identities and points of view. This was the great lie, of course. Things went from bad to worse and it was a horrible situation. Then one day, the Truth just shone right through and tore down the walls completely. Any belief in two separate minds just dissolved. All I could see was the One Mind in operation and which had been operating the whole time, and I was just one aspect of this Oneness and my neighbour was another. ‘We’ were drops of the same Ocean so could not possibly be at war with each other, since there had never been an ‘each other’.
Within minutes of this profound seeing, there was a knock on my door and my neighbour gave me a big hug, followed by a lovely heartfelt conversation and we have been friends ever since. ‘I’ am friends with 'MY- self' – how could I not be? Just ONE Mind – not two.

Resting back in the Vastness of Being we automatically ascend to our true nature - our ONE-NESS, but God cannot descend to help us, as God does not recognize anything unlike ITSELF - it does not recognize another mind outside itself.