Ego IS duality and duality is an illusion!

Ego (or who we think we are) IS duality and can never become non dual.  Ego (or the False Self) exists only in and as the realm of division, separation, ie ‘me over here and the world over there’ thinking.  But as dualism itself, from the perspective of ego believed in as reality – God can not be discovered – no matter how much effort is made as a separate entity!  No matter how much sadhana, prayer, meditation and spiritual practise the separate self does!  We can never claim ‘I am God!’ as personal ego!  We KNOW this – Why?

Because God is ONE, undivided, pure, absolute.  We are that oneness in essence.  We are the True Self – but that true identity tends to go unnoticed and is apparently covered by false identity, by what the separate self thinks it is, by what it wants and what it has been conditioned by.  Egoic identity, quite understandably, gets believed into existence and we are convinced, almost 100% that we are this individual psychological identity – the body/mind – only.

We actually are what is true and consistent, not what is false and ever changing.  Of course yes- the phenomenal play of forms and names is unfolding – an ever changing display BUT we are the unchanging, the background formless awareness.  Much joy and peace lies in that realisation of the safety of our true home.  Here we are untouched by the turbulent waves of circumstance.  Here we are free and imperishable.

To truly wake up to the blazing radiant living reality of God experientially is through the falling away or dissolution of the false egoic identity (symbolised by death on the cross).  Ego IS duality and duality is an illusion.  More about what I mean by ‘Ego’ is here.

An Illusory Dream

Therefore Ego only exists as an illusory dream.  It is not and has never been real at all!  (only within the realm of unstable phenomenality) Ego is imagined and always changing.  Yes – ego is included in ‘Maya’, the great play of the divine plan.    Everything unfolds from the divine source, including the apparent duality.  Yes the personal identity has a part to play in this great theatre of delusion and transcendence but ultimately it is not real!  Only God is real.  In Christianity this ‘crossing over’, this exposing of the unreality of ego as a separate self is called ‘Death to Self’.

^‘Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will gain it.’ Matthew 10:39

To ‘lose your life’ is to die to what is false and be born again in Truth. 

There is only God which is not an object, not a ‘thing’.  God – beyond the concept of God!  God, the beloved almighty creator of all universes is ‘non phenomenal’ and omnipresent.  God is transcendent and immanent.   Does that sound too impersonal?  Actually the sacredness of no-thing (non phenomenal realisation in which consciousness recognises consciousness)  is deeply misunderstood!  It is the true rest and peace Christ speaks of  – as Himself.  The I AM.  Love emanates from here.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

‘No-thing’ to the western mind looks empty, lifeless, void and is to be avoided at all costs!  But on the contrary,  it is the most alive!  It is also Every-thing!  The peace and expansive, unlimited freedom that is revealed through release from the tight constriction of ‘little me’, release from our selfish desires, relief from clinging to an identity that is not our true identity – is immense!

A Wave is Ocean.  You are Consciousness.

As many spiritual teachers have said – It is like a wave, which is made of water, taking form and rising up in a shape, forgetting its true home.  It’s true home being the ocean, being the water itself.  The wave not at all separate from the ocean and but can believe in its own autonomous existence.  Saying ‘hey – look at me! – I am a wave called ‘John’ or ‘Carla’!  It comes into an apparent ever changing separate form temporarily (a wave) and starts living a life as it moves along the surface of the ocean.  It thinks it is in control of its life!  It can fear its demise as it crashes on the shore (death).  It has only ever been water, or ocean.  Similarly, we have only ever been consciousness and in our most natural, subtle, pure, holy nature – the absolute.  Pure and unchanging, deathless and unphathomable.   We can be released from the trauma of believing we are far less!

In Philipeans 2: 7-9, as I have referred to before –  is says Jesus ‘made himself nothing’.  Then it says ‘God exalted him to the highest place’

Making our personal self nothing is the key to mediation and realising our true place actually.  Surrender of ‘me’ and complete abandon and trust and faith in God, the Divine.  What is HERE when we let go of all thoughts and intentions and past and future projections and imaginations and expectations of the thinking mind?  WHAT IS – is here!  The Invitation to Freedom from Mooji is a brilliant tool for this recognition and awakening!  Also so are the practices that Bentinho Massaro points to here.

God or spirit permeates everything so in surrender of the apparent separate self we fall upwards into the loving arms of the beloved indivisible one source.  The illusory egoic identity merges with the one indivisible source.  The apparent wave form subsides and reenters the great mass and cannot ever be found again AS AN INDIVIDUAL WAVE.  There is only ocean.  But essentially nothing has changed or happened to the water – only apparent manifestation of an apparent wave.

God is the only constant.  Unchanging, unknowable, unphathomable, pure, absolute.  Beyond any concept, with no attributes, imperishable, eternal and always here – your own true, natural, original Self.

Only God exists

Jesus says clearly to Nicodemus ‘God is spirit’ and when Nicodemus is confused and asks how someone can be ‘born again’ Jesus says

“Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit  gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”  Spirit is formless isn’t it, unpredictable and totally free, beyond the concept of such things.  

Tony Parsons is very good at speaking from no- thing, from the aliveness and freshness of spirit.  He speaks as no- thing to no- thing to  illustrate there is only no- thing!   It is quite extra ordinary to hear him talk and dismantle all meaning and purpose altogether!  He also makes the point that what is shared is not his understanding at all and from nothing and therefore there is nothing to be gained from his talks at all.  In fact he points out that the whole illusion of a path for an apparent seeker to find some sort of enlightenment or spiritual awakening is all a dream, an illusion.  No one exists in reality as a separate individual  – there is only no – thing.  But joy and liberation saturate his talks   Have a look

The Divinity of No – Thing

According to the bible, before the light entered the earths domain there was formlessness and emptiness.  In other words before creation there was no – thing.

Genesis 1 New International Version (NIV)    The Beginning

This is even written in the Bible as evidence that from no thing or emptiness, every living thing springs, by the grace and power of almighty God!

We can go a step further perhaps to suggest that every living thing, essentially, IS no – thing in essence.  In truth the non phenomenal realm can never be described or understood or encapsulated in words.  Words like Heaven, Nirvana, the Dao, act as signposts for that that is beyond any human understanding.

Sat Chit Ananda

Truth (God/Father/Absolute)

Consciousness (creation/son/daughter)

Bliss (holy spirit/joy)

Shiva Means Nothing

‘All Phenomena in their Own-Being are Empty.’

In Buddhism, ‘The Heart Sutra says, “all phenomena in their own-being are empty.” It doesn’t say “all phenomena are empty.” This distinction is vital. “Own-being” means separate independent existence. The passage means that nothing we see or hear (or are) stands alone; everything is a tentative expression of one seamless, ever-changing landscape. So though no individual person or thing has any permanent, fixed identity, everything taken together is what Thich Nhat Hanh calls “interbeing.” This term embraces the positive aspect of emptiness as it is lived and acted by a person of wisdom — with its sense of connection, compassion and love.

But We Are Individuals Loved by God – Aren’t We?

Humanity generally, however seems to be based on the premise that we are all in fact separate people.  In the Christian faith we are believed to be individuals who are loved by God personally and of course this love we feel from God, from source is real and beautiful, genuine and palpable.  The nature of Life itself is Love.  We know it somehow deep in our core and it is wonderful to feel this love from God.  There is nothing wrong with feeling God’s love for us and everything is right and made right in this Love or God.

Of course the love of Jesus – especially for the down trodden and the oppressed and the least – is central to the message of Christianity.  In the message of the Christian faith, if my understanding is correct, it is said that Jesus (the Christ) loves us fully and without measure, we are forgiven, we are included in God’s family and we will enter paradise, through faith in Christ. Being loved and held by grace and filled with the Holy Spirit is beautiful and deeply comforting to so people around the world.  This love is poured upon us as a freely given blessing.  I love and respect this faith deeply, as I do all other faiths actually   It is a true blessing that the one infinite creator creates a variety of paths that suit the various different and wide ranging cultures on earth.

However – I do feel Jesus himself was a ‘mystic’ essentially.  In other words had a direct experience of God.  Knew he essentially IS one with God and saw beyond the limitations of the dualistic mind.  He loved the many, but saw also the unity and from the freedom of the unitive consciousness love springs unbound.

How is a ‘mystic’ described?

‘a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.’

A mystic is also one who ‘claims to attain, or believes in the possibility of attaining, insight into mysteries transcending ordinary human knowledge, as by direct communication with the divine or immediate intuition in a state of spiritual ecstasy.’

Jesus pointed to the non-dual reality of God as oneness, unity and true peace.  He lived and experienced that and spoke of the kingdom of the heavenly realms as being here and now and ‘within’ us.  His love, indescribable as it is, springs from allegiance to and love for the Father.  They are one.  He points to the truth of who we are.  He speaks of oneness or unity with the Father – the absolute ‘I AM’ presence of God. He is reported to have said “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’

When any soul takes up their cross and dies to what is false and becomes ‘dead to sin’ before their body physically dies – true Life is discovered.  In other words we too can awaken to spirit, discover the enlightenment that truly is our natural power and authority and identity in God, rooted in the source.   I believe His call to ‘follow me’ means to do as He has done, to enter this kingdom of heaven, to awaken to the full power and glory of the one indivisible creator.  Not as a ‘sinful’ person rooted in duality (not as an individual wave) but as the ocean, as consciousness and beyond, in harmony with God.  This universal truth of death to the false self and awakening to the True Life actually lies at the heart of all spiritual traditions and is described in many different ways.

This World of Separate Forms and Names is Real – Isn’t it?

This dualistic way of seeing is absolutely what many people are taught though, automatically it seems.  It is understandable that we think like this – it is almost like we have no choice!  Actually all humans seem to be conditioned with this belief in duality, regardless of faith or no faith.   We could call it ‘the fall from grace’.  That is one name for it.  We are all apparently dipped in the conditioning of dualistic thinking and we are taught to believe, from a very early age that without a shadow of a doubt  – the world of objects and separate forms and names is REAL.  Anyone pointing to a reality outside of this collective agreement is seen to be pretty crazy –  aren’t they?  I can tell you that from experience!

What IS Duality exactly?

Duality is the co existence of opposites, the belief in this physical universe of dark and light, rich and poor, wise and ignorant, accepted or rejected, old or young, good or evil, dead or alive as being the only reality.

What is Non- Duality?

What is God in relation to this understanding?

As I have said we tend to be conditioned to see ourselves as the ‘Separate Self’  In other words there is God and the ‘world’ of forms and objects.  The separate self imagines God in its own likeness – a ‘corolery’ as Rupert Spira says here.  ‘A reflection of the belief in being a separate self’.  He goes on to insightfully say that ‘thought overlooks awareness’   ‘We have manufactured a God separate from ourselves’.  Jesus says – ‘Before Abraham was – I am‘- John 8 : 58   We are the pure consciousness.

Once again friends I urge you to watch this Enlightenment Retreat which we are blessed to be receiving in this time  – Freedom in Lockdown!

Bentinho Massaro’s Free Online Global Enlightenment Retreat

LIVE-STREAMED
WEDNESDAYS AND SATURDAYS

Also – do make use of this   Joy in Crisis

Blessings and peace.

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