You will hear no victory speech as at the end of a great struggle for life and death, or when impossible odds have been overcome and the goal finally reached. 

No exclamation or shout in rejoice for the prize which has been won. 

Nowhere will you hear it said “I’ve got it, finally I’ve got it.” 

No bathing in the relief sweeping away the despair of the near defeat which preceded. 

None of this arises. 

This is anti climax. It is a popping out of the context where any of the above has meaning. 

This is what can be said: 

There is no one here who has something you do not. This apparent change or shift is actually a loss. It is a loss of self and a loss of other. So there is no sense at all that there is someone here who can be compared to someone over there. In fact there is no sense of a here and an over there. There is only what appears. 

This is a loss of you – incredible as it may sound there is no you. No you even though what is appearing right now includes feeling like a separate entity, a person, a self, a ‘me’ with a separate world ‘out there.’ 

From here it is obvious and clear that you are not there. 

This is also a loss of seeking, searching, looking, hoping, waiting ….for it to happen, to know the truth, to become enlightened. This is out of time and beyond hope. 

This is a loss of knowing. There is nothing to know. There is no answer because there is no question. There is no question because there is no questioner. 

Nothing can be said with absolute certainty, except a description of what is and how it is seen. 

No omniscience, no secret knowledge, answer or understanding. 

Only mystery, this eternal mystery. 

There is no victory.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nonduality-Ireland/242176335858508?ref=tn_tnmn

I have begun a Nonduality Ireland Facebook page for those living in Ireland who wish to comment, talk or meet to discuss Nonduality. All are welcome to visit, ‘like’ if you wish to receive posts or post your own comments and questions regardless of where in the world you call home.

Joe

You go outside looking for answers

instead of simply staying here

in this not knowing.

You try and try to work it out

when thought can only speculate

and cut and paste

to add to whatever has been heard before.

Can you see how thought twists and turns

leading on and on and ever on

to nowhere?

This

already here

not over there

this is not knowing.

                                                                                                    When a book which is being read is closed, it matters little if it is slammed shut suddenly or closed carefully and gently.
 
But what happens to the hero of the story? 

The hero was not real so there is no cause for concern.

He existed only as long as the story was being read.

His long and meaningful search, while totally absorbing and convincing at every turn, could never have amounted to anything as it was just a story.

And you know the hero did not close the book.

How could he?

That would be impossible.

There is no one to pray to and nowhere to turn

when you are the only one.

There is no one to love or to deny

when there is only love.

There is no future to hope for or past to regret,

when it will or could have been better,

in this no time.

No certainty as nothing can be known.

No doer when all is just happening.

In being all and beyond all,

there is only ever this.

Getting up at 6.45am I unset the alarm, zip up my jacket and take the dog outside with plastic bag in hand. A presentation for a business meeting later this morning begins to run as thought silently maps the main points and checks what needs to be done. Going back inside and looking in the mirror I notice that my Movember charity moustache is coming along quite nicely. I log on, check emails and iron a shirt.

After breakfast my wife, son, daughter and new puppy Daisy walk together to my daughter’s school and I leave for work. During the first meeting which is a pitch to the company directors of a potential new customer there is at times a wondering by no one of where these words are coming from and of how this four way conversation is happening when there is no one in the room. Rushing back to the office I eat a sandwich as I drive. After completing some paperwork I am off again this time to a site meeting with hard hat and high visiblity vest to discuss programme completions and invoicing.

There is walking to the car along St.Stephen’s Green in Dublin in this stillness, this emptiness in which everything and everyone is appearing.This silent stillness is so stunningly obvious that it is amazing that no one else notices. Seeing as there is no one, it matters little either way. Everything and everyone these eyes look upon is this same substance, light, emptiness, love, presence – pick any word and none descibes this inseparability, this looking upon yourself in every instance. This is a not knowing why anything is happening or why anyone is appearing. This is a seeing by no one that there is only this. Words fail as living presence mystery light love life freefall infuses, is all.

Not that this is a completely blissful isn’t oneness wonderful kind of day. There is an absolutely splitting migraine headace developing between my eyes and before I am half way home I pull into a garage to swallow two badly need painkillers. Right here there is just this shop assistant, this blinding pain, this handing over of money and receiving paracetamol and change. And while this is difficult to explain it is okay for this very uncomfortable pain to be all that is. It is simply that there is no way to argue with it or be convinced that it should not be happening or identify as poor me and my pain. None of it arises or is possible. And in the same way the pain arose it eases and a couple of phone conversations later I am back home.

My wife leaves for work and during dinner I take a phone call and return to find the dog eating some of my son’s sausages on the floor to the laughing delight of my two children. There is playing together at being dolphins, laughing, hugging and some telling off when their idea of playing turns to hitting or throwing things at each other. Toilet, teeth, pyjamas, stories and kisses goodnight and now there is this tap tap tapping on the the keyboard and words appearing here.

If you are looking for an extraordinary life instead of this ordinary one or for liberation or enlightenment to make everything better or happier then you are lost in imagination.

You and your life as it appears right now is what is being searched for. It is already all and more than could ever be imagined. What is sought is never anything other than exactly what is appearing right now.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         I am sitting beside a stone Buddha statue in the garden.

The name and the image of this serene face are empty of any meaning or significance. And yet this simple stone sculpture appearing here is so much more than words or any story of an enlightened man could convey.

Our new puppy Daisy sniffs at a tree and bounces across the lawn to investigate something more interesting. The sun warms my face and lights the leaves which have not yet fallen.

The magical mystery tour that is spirituality and the search for truth is so much more interesting than this unavoidable perceiving that there is only this and nowhere else.

Looking for Buddha or Christ or angels in your hair is an adventure filled with the anticipation of something more exciting than this ordinary life. You meet your spirit guide or someone from the other side or experience galactic healing energies which only now in this age of whatever you’re having yourself are available to those who are open to such things. The veil has thinned, consciousness and the world is evolving and now is the time for you to play your part. You know how the story goes.

Between courses in psychic healing and shamanic journeying you can heal your chakras, complete past lives and attain spiritual awakening or enlightenment in this very lifetime. It really is a fantastical world of possibilities, of exciting and gratifying experiences. It is mysterious, magical and full to the brim with meaning and purpose.

While all of it is neither right nor wrong and is for the most part hugely entertaining, it is a trip into fantasy and imagination only.

It is vanity and is simply mind, ego, thought, the identified self in search of security and always more.

In the waking up from being a person or individual, all of the above is seen to be mere dreaming.

This presence in which all is seen to have existence is a complete loss of the possibility of anything other than what is appearing. No enlightenment or coming to the end of a thousand karmic lives. No merging with God or your higher self. No communicating with your angels or loved ones or spirit guides.

Only this.

And this is all.

There is no more.

Mind and thought and searching for anything including what is spoken about here will always only take an imaginary you on an imaginary journey to nowhere.

The most the mind or intellect can do is to see the limitations of what the mind or intellect can know.

Beyond this and yet closer than close, you are.

Standing in the entrance lobby of a church minding the new puppy while my wife and children go inside to light candles it is beautifully obvious that there is only this and this is all.

This is  

tiles on the ground, a holy water font, people entering and leaving, inscriptions on the walls, late afternoon sunlight, cars passing by, this face smiling, this constantly emerging wonder.

This seeing renders all thinking, all reasoning redundant. Religion, praying, lighting candles, all of this the perfect expression. While from this perception it is all meaningless and unnecessary, it is the only and all, exquisitely this, and this, and this.

Nothing needs correcting or changing. No one needs convincing. Wherever you look, whatever is seen or heard or touched, whatever you do, whatever is happening, there is no place and no one and no thing that is not this.

There is only this.

These words that point

inevitably make an object

of what cannot be contained.

 This ultimate subject

without reference

or centre.

These words that point

inevitably offer a possiblity

of an event in time and space

where lies salvation

your final redemption.

These words that point

are your words

your way of reminding yourself

that what you are is

beyond description

beyond events in time and space

beyond ideas of salvation

beyond words.

 .