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! 