The Video IS The Totality Of All Things

[Excerpts from ruthlesstruth.com from “First PURE Liberation” from a dialogue with Ciaran Healy. It's from a chat he had with someone, hence the incomplete sentences and typos. He writes prose much better than this!]

it's this
look
think about how we layer cause and effect over the full experience of life
in the present moment
what you'll find
if you focus
and be disciplined with yourself
is that we assume
basically
that 'we'
are watching a video
that is life
and the video effects 'us'
...
this is endemic
everyone does it
and that's because
you don't need to teach this
cause and effect
is the lens through which
we see the world
so the idea
of this video 'we' are watching
that's having an effect on 'us'
just kind of arises
...

the thing to realise
and if you can see this
that is you enlightened
is that the video
IS the totality of all things
you
such as you are
exist within the video
there is no audience
there is just the film
and you are
how to put this
within the present moment
an assumption exists
that there is someone experiencing it
that assumption
is part of the present
as all things are
....

enlightenmnet is not an energy field
it is much simpler than that
it is just the recognition
of the truth
that the 'you'
that you and everyone else on the planet
holds as the foundational assumption
of their lives
is in fact
wholly fictional
....

when you think about enlightenment
it seems hidden
and important
so this makes sense
buit
it is a trap
you do not need to concentrate
at all
in any way
no effort of any kind
except the most minimal effort of looking
is required
....

is that it is very easy
to start seeing it
as a conceptual puzzle
and as i'm sure you know
it isn't
what it is
in its essence
is a kind of pattern
that's a very weird word to use
because yes
technically
it's more like the absence of a pattern
but let's no go down that road
and confuse ourselves
think of it like a pattern
a pattern in a tapestry
that you are looking for
i can tell you
that the pattern
is squiggly
and blue
and shaped like a monkey
but
i cannot see it for you
you have to find it
you have to just open your eyes
maybe unfocus them slightly
and try to see the pattern i describe
now we're lucky
because this pattern
is massively simpler
and we're also lucky
because pattern recognition
as a human faculty
is permanent
once you see that monkey
it doesn't matter if you walk off
and live for another fifty years
the next time you see that tapestry
you will see that pattern
this is like that
the idea
that there is no 'you' living life
but only life
in a real
and literal sense
is actually true
just as the pattern in the tapestry
is actually there
in real life
you can pretend
that you see the blue monkey
here
or there
but
that will always fade
and isn't real anyway
if you see it
you're done
and it takes
well
ten seconds?

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Just look...is there anyone there?

You have a friend that's extremely paranoid and in constant fear and suffering. They believe that they are being followed and watched, that people are hiding behind trees, in his closets...putting cameras in his house and tapping his phone line.

You ask him, "Have you ever looked to see if it's true? Checked to see if there are really people hiding behind trees, in your closets...are there cameras in your house, is your phone being tapped?"

He realizes that he hasn't, that it's just been a belief. A belief that has made his life miserable. So he finally looks and see that there's no one there.

He's at peace realizing that his fears were based on a belief that was simply never examined.

It's that simple, really. Seriously. Really seriously.

The you that's tormenting you by blasting you with negative and unwanted thoughts...that has a body that gets sick and decays...is it there? Hiding someplace? Have you looked?

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Are Gurus Preaching To An Absent Choir?

For a while I believed that non-dualilty teachers and gurus were just stringing along their followers by offering them pretty words that didn't help them at all.

This is a difficult position to reconcile because they are all, at least from my experience, such wonderful and sincere people with a true desire to help others.

What I see the problem now is this: spirituality teachers are describing the experience of no-self and how the world is seen through awareness and presence, but they're not giving any tools to reach the primary understanding of "no self" which is necessary to be able to appreciate these teachings. So their true audience, people no longer being held under the sway of the illusion of self, is not the there: The "absent choir."

It's not that the majority of spirituality teachers are disingenuous or duplicitous but rather that they're not able to bridge the listener from the death grip on the self to the release that opens up the freedom to enjoy the flow of life.

It's like someone sitting in front of a group of people telling them just how beautiful the Grand Canyon is, the vast expanse of openness and wonderful array of colors and how the sunset is so gorgeous..., but they're either unable or unwilling to give a map showing how to get there! So satsangs end up being someone talking about how wonderful enlightenment is and the audience begging in their minds, "Just tell me how to get there!"

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Controlling Thoughts...I Don't Think So!

Trying to control, shape, steer, or manipulate thoughts is the most futile exercise you can engage in. If it was possible then it's obvious, isn't it....Just don't think negative thoughts! Don't let them come up in the first place if you are in control.

I love to kayak and go out whenever the weather's nice. While I'm paddling the thoughts are coming a mile a minute...back and forth...up and down...left and right. It used to bug the hell out of me. But once you see that they're totally out of your control...and that in certain situations - in my case drinking too much coffee or doing anything athletic - they seem to be on high volume, then they're just noise. No more, no less important than the sound of the paddle hitting the water.

Problem is that if there's a belief that they're "my" thoughts and about "me" then all attention and energy is going to go towards them. If it's seen (and it's pretty damn obvious) that they're not mine (I don't control or own them) and they're not about me, then they're just jibber jabber.

Try this exercise: What's the next thought you're going to think?

Put that one in your pipe and smoke it!

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Get Real!

If you were trying to lose weight, would you sign up for a program where 95% of the members were obese and had been involved for years and years? Every week go to a talk by the person running the program, skinny and in shape, talking about the joys of being thin?

Then why keep going back to the same satsangs and watching the same videos and reading the same books of the same teachers and the same gurus year after year? Ever notice how the same people keep going back over and over? "See ya next year, "Schmooji!"

Are the pretty words that the gurus use to make you feel good really working?

I used to watch videos on Youtube over and over and over, waiting anxiously for something new from my latest favorite teacher. I knew for sure that the next one would do the trick! I'm close, I'm almost there...the next word will do it!

Or I'd read "I Am That" until it was dog-eared and turning brown. One more flip of the page! I know I've read this 5 times before, but this time! This time!

Einstein said that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing again and again and expecting different results.

So what do I suggest? Read my posts over and over! ;^)

But seriously folks...if you just look and see if this thing that you're trying to enlighten or bliss out or improve really exists...if there is such a thing as a "you"...a "self"...Then maybe, just maybe, you can get off of the rollercoaster.

Rollercoasters are fun, but after the 10th or 11th time around you start to get kind of nauseous, don't you?

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Time, Space, and Self

Time, space, and self all have one thing in common: none of them are real.

If there was no movement of objects then time would have no meaning. Time is only observable through movement, and movement is only observable through time. It's the measurement of time that defines movement, and the recording of movement that defines time.

If there were no objects then space would have no meaning. The space between two objects can only be measured because those objects define the space. Without objects and only unbounded space with no references, measurements of distance have no meaning.

In the same way, if there were no experiences then a self would have no meaning. A self is only definable through experiences, and experiences are only definable through a self. Me as opposed to you, me as opposed to a tree, me as opposed to life, and me as opposed to death are only meaningful dichotomies when delineated by experience.

Time/Movement, Space/Objects, Self/Experience: All are inextricably bound to each other and therefore have no autonomous existence.

A self cannot be the instrument of experience because it has no independent existence outside of experience. A self cannot be the witness of experience because it cannot stand apart from experience to do the witnessing.

All of these truths can be verified by observation. If they remain simply as conceptions and are not investigated through observation the result is a life lived in a veil of illusion.

Yet, if these truths are verified what happens is not that they disappear but rather that in the midst of knowing that time, space, and self are not real it is also recognized that they are the very concepts through which life is lived. With their disappearance life itself would cease to be because it is through these three necessary illusions that life itself is known.

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From the "Diamond Sutra"

Buddha then asked, "What do you think, Subhuti, does one who has entered the stream which flows to Enlightenment, say 'I have entered the stream'?"

"No, Buddha", Subhuti replied. "A true disciple entering the stream would not think of themselves as a separate person that could be entering anything. Only that disciple who does not differentiate themselves from others, who has no regard for name, shape, sound, odor, taste, touch or for any quality can truly be called a disciple who has entered the stream."

Buddha continued, "Does a disciple who is subject to only one more rebirth say to himself, 'I am entitled to the honors and rewards of a Once-to-be-reborn.'?"

"No, Lord. 'Once-to-be-reborn' is only a name. There is no passing away, or coming into, existence. Only one who realizes this can really be called a disciple."


"Subhuti, does a venerable One who will never more be reborn as a mortal say to himself, 'I am entitled to the honor and rewards of a Non-returner.'?"

"No, Perfectly Enlightened One. A 'Non-returner' is merely a name. There is actually no one returning and no one not-returning."

"Tell me, Subhuti. Does a Buddha say to himself, 'I have obtained Perfect Enlightenment.'?"

"No, lord. There is no such thing as Perfect Enlightenment to obtain. If a Perfectly Enlightened Buddha were to say to himself, 'I am enlightened' he would be admitting there is an individual person, a separate self and personality, and would therefore not be a Perfectly Enlightened Buddha."

Subhuti then said, "Most Honored One! You have said that I, Subhuti, excel amongst thy disciples in knowing the bliss of Enlightenment, in being perfectly content in seclusion, and in being free from all passions. Yet I do not say to myself that I am so, for if I ever thought of myself as such then it would not be true that I escaped ego delusion. I know that in truth there is no Subhuti and therefore Subhuti abides nowhere, that he neither knows nor does he not know bliss, and that he is neither free from nor enslaved by his passions."

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