Transcription
Okay, this very strange phenomenon happens with this kind of spiritual pointing, whether it's non-duality pointing or neoadita pointing, or when I talk about awakening. Um, and it's, it's, it's not a, it's not very complicated. It's actually simple, but it gets overlooked over and over and over until it doesn't.
And when it doesn't, when you, when it finally lands, this that I'm going to try to point to, which I, I've tried to point to before and I'll keep trying. Um, but when it lands, that's actually the beginning of awakening, or it is awakening. Like, it doesn't take long after this finally lands.
And it has to do with this, in part, it has to do with this. Not, not what I say when I say it's already here, right? In some, I had a video recently about this where I explain that it annoys people when I say this, and and many people get triggered by it, you know, and I get, I get it. But it's, it's not about the statement itself. It's not, I'm not talking about whether it's true or not true. It is true, but it's, it's actually about what it illuminates when that statement doesn't land or can't land or triggers somebody, right?
So, what it illuminates is this mechanism of, of, let's just call it, let's just call it life is not okay, or I'm not okay. There's such a pervasive feeling of not okayness that we've already concluded many years ago, long time ago, before we knew we concluded it, before we were probably even consciously thinking about any of this stuff. Um, we learned to conclude this through communication styles with other people, primarily our parents. But what we concluded was that it's, something is just not okay with life. Something is not okay with me.
And then the next thing we concluded from that, or the next thing that followed that, was this idea that well, because things are not okay, because life is not okay the way it is, or I'm not okay the way it is, my entire mission is to find something to make it okay, to find, find something to make me feel okay, right? Again, this is preverbal. I mean, this is not something you, you overtly think about and then go structure your life based on it, right? Or structure your, your internal world based on it, or your thinking about the way life is or the way you are.
But if you look at all of the ways that we try to make ourselves feel better, all of the ways we try to become right, all of the seeking, all of the future orientation, all of the striving, all of the really fantasizing about the future, um, we can see that there, there is an underlying urgency to all of that. There's an underlying sense that things are not okay. I have to do this. I have to get to that place.
And, and I think anyone can relate to this, right? Who's seeking, right? Anyone who has not had any shift in identity should be able to relate to that. You believe something is going to happen in the future that's going to finally make you feel better, right? And early on in life, we believe that that thing that's going to happen in the future is when I finally turn whatever age. When I finally turn 16, 18, 21. It may be when I finally get the, the, the relationship or the partner or the girlfriend or the boyfriend. It may be when I finally get in college, when I finally graduate from college, when I finally get married, when I finally have a kid, like on and on and on.
And we see over and over that it's not any event that's going to actually solve this for us because the whole mechanism of feeling like things aren't okay and I have to wait for the next, this certain thing to happen before I can feel okay. That whole mechanism is flawed. It's always false. I don't want to say that the mechanism is always going to disappoint you. It's just that the, the sense of disappointment is already there. The whole system is hinging on it's, it's built on disappointment. It's built on a sense of not okayness.
So when I say like, it's already here, what I'm pointing to is already here, I understand that one of a couple things happens. One is either, like, well, first of all, it doesn't register. It doesn't make sense that it's already here because what it sounds like you're talking about is freedom or peace or feeling okay, but I definitely don't feel okay, so it can't already be here, right? [snorts] That's one thing that can happen. Another thing that can happen is you just think I'm full of [ __ ] or making it up. Or something that can happen though is it's like, oh, it's just here. I can't wait until I get to the place where I realize it's just here, right?
So do you see that any of those three things that happen, it's being filtered through that same apparatus that makes an assumption that until you get under that assumption, it's going to be like the glove that catches everything, right? The, the catcher myth that just catches every pitch that comes in. And it's, it's what it's doing is it's turning everything into seeking. It's turning everything into this belief that like, it's got to be later, like I'm not okay and something has to happen later to make me okay, right?
What I'm actually saying is that you have to question that very first assumption that you don't even think about questioning, that something's not okay in the first place. And that also could be frustrating because you could say, "Well, it sure feels like something's not okay." Right? And I understand that. And I can challenge that directly by saying, "Does it feel like something's not okay? Is a sensation not okay or okay? Is an emotion okay or not okay? Or is that an interpretation?" Of course, it's an interpretation, but that doesn't really get to the root early on. That doesn't get to the root when we're talking about a first awakening. When you're doing shadow work, that can be helpful.
But with first awakening, you have to see that the, to challenge the fundamental belief, or the very deep belief, that it's not okay. I'm not okay. And I need to do something to get okay. I need to find something to get okay. I need to get to okayness. That I'm not okay. It, it, to really get under that, it's not the not okayness you have to look at. It's the you. It's the you you have to look at.
This is the whole message when it comes to awakening. Not that there is a you there that has a problem that it needs to be fixed, and not that there's a you that you need to discover necessarily. You just need to address the sense that there is a you that is defined by not being okay. There's a you that's defined by the seeking. There's a you that's defined by its own suffering. Right? So this is another way of saying this is what you take yourself to be. This is what I'm pointing to.
So when I say things are fundamentally okay, or what you're looking for is already here, the reason, one of the reasons to say that is to discourage the seeking because if you're looking for it later, you're just going to be disappointed. So it may be frustrating to hear that, but it's true, right? You're not going to find it later because later is already based on another lie that if you don't address that, or delusion, or misperception, if you don't address that misperception, then you're always going to be chasing later. And you're just going to either disregard the message or look for a message that sounds better, like, "No, I really will find it later." But the truth is, you won't, right? You can't.
When awakening happens, it's when you realize exactly what I'm saying, that it, there, that the, the sense of not okayness itself really was only a thought. The sense of not okayness that seemed to backward extrapolate a me that's not okay, that doesn't feel okay, that has to seek, that has to try to get to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, that has to try to solve its problem of itself. That is the fundamental illusion.
There's no other way to wake up in my experience. There's no other way for that first shift to happen than to somehow directly disrupt that sense of the "I" that is suffering, the "I" that doesn't feel okay. That's it. If you don't topple that, there's no awakening. I'm being very direct because I, I really feel people's frustration and, but I can also see how they're turning the message I'm, I'm using into what it's not, which says that, oh yeah, later you're going to find out that it's already here. That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying you have to look directly at and look really closely and really precisely and use that frustration, use that stubbornness because I sure, I sure did. I had stubbornness and frustration and rebellion, but I used all of that to rebel against my own [ __ ] thoughts, like my own thought forms and the way they were structuring reality to get underneath and topple that sense of identity. That's what worked for me. And I think that's what works for everybody, but there's different ways to get to that.
And that's why I have a playlist on awakening approaches. That you can do that through a one-pointed approach. Just narrow the mind down into this one point until something actually, that that sense of "I" gets just toppled and it just works for some people. Another one is to, to just surrender into that which came before the "I". Surrender to that which comes before that "I" that you feel like I am because I suffer, because I seek, right? I am the seeker because I seek. Surrender to what is before that.
And if that doesn't land for you, if that doesn't register, that's fine. But for some people, it does. They can actually surrender to that. It's like just going to what's before the "I", right? Before the "I" you learned you were, what is your parents' face before you were born? For some people, it's self-inquiry. Oh, well, if you think you're there, if you think you're the one that's here having this experience that's seeking something in time, find it. Look for it. Look closely. Keep looking. Keep looking. Keep looking until you topple it.
But there's no other way to wake up. And again, there is no awakening in the future. It's not going to happen. Doesn't work that way, right? You're not going to feel better in the future staying the same way you are. If you, if you stay with the same false identity, that false identity is never going to find a place where it feels better. It's going to keep seeking. That's what it does, right? So you got to get under it. You've got to topple that sense of the backward extrapolated one that's suffering because it doesn't have what it needs to make itself feel better because it fundamentally doesn't feel okay. Right?
So I can talk about this in other ways. I talk about it in my book like that's the sense of separation, right? But that doesn't really get corrected, not profoundly, until later in realization. The first thing you really have to do is just investigate that sense of "I", the sufferer. So if there's frustration, that's fine. Look for the one that's frustrated, right? Look for that one. If you feel frustrated, if it's like, "No, I'm frustrated. My life is full of suffering. My life is endlessly not waking up when it wants to wake up." Like, okay, what is that, though? Like, look at what that is, right? That that narrative should be referring back to someone. Look and find it. Tell me what you find. Tell me what you find when you look there, right? Or even tell me what happens if you don't find anything.
But the point is, keep looking until it topples. That's, that's just the only way. You have to topple that, that illusory separate self. There's no other way. That's how awakening happens. Um, even, even by grace, like it can happen randomly. It does happen randomly to people on occasion. Not very frequently, but it does. Um, and it, it can happen fast. But any of those scenarios, still the same thing that's happening. What you take yourself to be is seen to be not what you are at all. Not at all. [snorts]
The seeking one is seen to be an illusion. The suffering one is seen to be illusion. The one that thinks it needs to find XYZ is seen to be an illusion. And that XYZ can be anything. But in this case, it's often spiritual enlightenment or spiritual gratification or bliss. Or, or actually, often what it is, is you, you may use that term spiritual awakening, enlightenment, ko, you may use the term, but what you're really looking for is what you think it's going to give you, right? And you may think it's going to give you, finally going to get that validation, finally going to get the love I need, I think I need, right? Finally going to get, finally going to get, finally going to get. That's why I sometimes say, look at your surrogates, look at what, look at what you're trying to actually get, right? That's important. It's important to see that because if not, then there's that kind of competing agenda.
But if you really want to get under that identity structure, go right after it. Don't get up in your head about seeking in the future and what you think you're going to get. You can't know what you're going to get from this. You have to be willing to go into the unknown in this way. That's what it means to go into the unknown, that there's no promises. If you insist on promises, you're just, you're reinforcing that sense of the seeker, right? Because the seeker doesn't really want to find. It wants to seek, right? The seeking energy wants to seek because it believes it's going to get it something, but it won't. It won't get it what it wants. So hopefully that's not too blunt, but it's honest.