Transcription
We usually feel as though we are a piece of dense matter. A certain brain which, for some reason, generates consciousness and looks out at the external world through camera-lens eyes. But reality turns this logic inside out. You are not matter. Matter does not even exist. You are that very pattern through which this apparent matter temporarily flows. You are not locked inside the body; rather, the body is within you—in the space of your perception. And since you were never born, you will simply never manage to die.
Does it sound like madness? But the very foundations of your mind are mad by their nature. Ask yourself an honest question: who controls your attention? You? Or no one at all? You will say, "Me, of course." Excellent. And where on earth does this "I" actually come from? Is it the brain thinking about "I" at this moment, or has this "I" just invented a brain for itself in order to somehow explain its own existence? If you pursue this self-enquiry to its absolute limit, it turns out that the "I" is a one hundred per cent illusion. It turns out that any explanations you have of reality do not describe it—they instantly generate it. Out of absolute emptiness, the mind constructs meanings, builds a rigid structure, and fashions the illusion of a personality. This is an ingenious game played by Awareness. It masterfully creates an illusion within total emptiness in order to hide inside it. In this space, everything exists—and at the same time, there is absolutely nothing. And whilst you fail to realise this, you will continue to fight shadows.
Let us examine exactly how the mind is playing tricks on you. So, if the "I" is an illusion, where on earth does this sense of self come from then? Who is it that thinks, who feels pain, who suffers? Direct this question inwards, and your mind will immediately raise its hand like a star pupil at the front of the class: "Me! It is I who am watching. It is I who am listening. My brain is processing all of this." What delightful arrogance. The mind is not an independent player at all. It sees nothing, feels nothing, and is conscious of nothing. The mind is simply a function. An instrument. Like a mirror which only reflects whatever is placed before it. It is as if a scalpel were suddenly to imagine itself the surgeon, or a radio receiver decided that it was the one composing the music. In and of itself, the mind is merely a mechanical barrel organ manufacturing concepts. It is simply a process, continuously generating labels, judgements, and internal noise. The true seer is pure, silent Consciousness. That very boundless space within which all this mental noise arises and disappears at this precise moment. But it is strictly against the mind's interests for you to notice this. To the mind, this is death. Therefore, it continuously steals the attention of Consciousness.
Observe how this happens. Awareness is always here. It is primary. Before any thought even manages to take shape, before the slightest stirring appears in your head—awareness is already present. It is already looking into that emptiness from which a thought is only just about to emerge. What occurs is a pure, neutral act of perceiving reality exactly as it is. But the mind is unbearably fast. A fraction of a microsecond later, it automatically pounces on this pure experience, appropriates it, attaches a label, and loudly proclaims: 'It is I who have just realised this! It is I who have just seen it!' The trick has worked. The thought of an 'aware self' has supplanted Awareness itself. This does not mean there is some malevolent demon sitting inside you who benefits from deceiving you. It is simply a property of the mind to divide, name, and appropriate everything. That is its nature. And so, you already believe that you are this restless, constantly commenting voice in your head, trying to rid itself of problems and attain happiness. Whilst in reality, you are the Light of Consciousness. And the personality is merely a hologram, woven from an endless succession of thoughts that desperately attempt to appropriate this light.
But how exactly does the mind manage to create such a convincing hallucination? It builds it out of absolute nothingness. Emptiness from emptiness. In pure, silent Consciousness, there are no objects, no events, no energies, and no problems. But an astonishing thing occurs: the mind makes a movement. It, roughly speaking, decides to 'go for a walk'. And this very primary movement of the mind simultaneously splinters the unified emptiness into two parts: into the one who is looking, and that which is being looked at. Usually, it seems logical to us: in order to create such an incredibly complex, coherent world, it must first have been pondered over for a long time, designed, and then built brick by brick. Otherwise, there would be chaos. But this is the trap of linear time. No 'before' and 'after' exist. The mind projects the image, the sound, the sensation, and the MEANING of that sensation—simultaneously. As a single data packet. It does not simply create a meaningless blur only to later label it a 'tree'. It instantly projects the very concept of a tree alongside its visual form. And in this very instant, the mind performs its most brilliant trick: it forgets that this is its own creation. It looks at its own projection and declares: 'Oh, this is some external world! And it exists independently of me!' The mind projects the world as being so complex in order to prove to itself: 'Look at how brilliantly everything is arranged! I could not have invented this! Therefore, the world is real, and therefore, I within it am also real!' But all of this 'incredible complexity and coherence' of the Universe... is also simply a thought. It instantly slaps a label onto any event. Out of nowhere, it constructs a narrative: 'This is bad. This is unfair. Whilst this is good, this is right'. Out of absolute nothingness, out of pure perception, the mind constructs an entire rigid structure of meanings. And you fall into the trap of these meanings, whereupon you begin either to fight against them or to cling to them.
But its most grandiose creation is, of course, the personality. How does the mind build a personality out of itself? Look at who you consider yourself to be. It is simply a conceptual patchwork. Once upon a time, at the very beginning, there was no 'you'. There was no time, no objects, nor anyone to look at them. There was merely a pure stream of perception. There was that which in non-duality is called Pure Presence, Being, or I-am-ness (but without the 'I' itself). It is Consciousness resting within itself. It does not require objects in order to be. And then you were told: 'Your name is such-and-such. You are a boy or a girl. You must be good'. The mind latched onto this image and began to gather details like a snowball. It began to collect memories, reactions, traumas, grievances, and achievements. The personality is the first artificial intelligence in history. A set of algorithms and patterns that has learnt to teach itself and defend its boundaries. But if you take this personality apart, if you try to find a solid, immutable essence within it—you will find nothing. There is simply a draught there. Emptiness draped in labels. And this illusion constantly sustains itself. Awareness, having become too caught up in playing this form, creates the illusion within the emptiness of its own accord. It is like a dream. In a dream, your mind creates entire cities, other people, and dangerous situations, and whilst inside this dream, you are absolutely certain that it is all real. You run about in it, fear things, and argue with people. And then you wake up—and where is it all? Nowhere. All of it was merely a game played by your own mind in an empty space.
But if the personality is merely a concept, then what are we to do with the body? It certainly seems solid. It aches, it ages, and it demands food. The body appears to be the most irrefutable proof of your reality. It is easier to agree with the conceptual illusory nature of the personality: well yes, thoughts, labels, a draught in the head. But with the physical form—absolutely not. But what is the body in reality? It is a set of rigid, causally conditioned stories. It is the karmic knots of your own personality, the result of a profound entanglement. Imagine that you have been dressed in absurd, incredibly heavy garments: old padded jackets, heavy greatcoats, and a hundred skirts. You stand in this massive lump of clothing, and you are told to 'live, dance, run!', yet you cannot even move properly. That is exactly what your current body is—the hardened patterns of past reactions, unlived emotions, grievances, and fears. It is simply a dense shadow of your own concepts.
And where, then, is the notorious 'I' located, if the personality is a phantom, and the body is merely a clump of karmic clothing? As soon as this question is voiced, an automatic search algorithm is triggered. The mind attempts to locate the 'I' as a specific object. It scans the brain, sorts through neurons, descends into the chest, delves into psychology, searches for a soul... And at this moment, a system failure occurs: the algorithm catches an 'I' that is NOWHERE. It is impossible to find, because you are not an object. When you attempt to direct your attention towards yourself, you always find only that AT WHICH you are looking: thoughts, physical tensions, emotions. Yet the seer itself is absolutely elusive. It is like a torch trying to shine a light on itself. Or an eye attempting to see itself without a mirror. In its attempts to discover this seer, the mind reaches its limit. It has nothing left to cling to. The conceptual apparatus hovers over the abyss and plunges headlong into emptiness. And then it turns out that you were never that bustling character running about the stage in a heavy greatcoat and suffering desperately. You are that boundless, entirely untouched space within which this theatrical production appeared in the first place.
But if you are the space itself, and not a character within it, then who are all these other people around you? The ones who infuriate you, who love you, with whom you battle every single day? It is here that the mind begins to resist most strongly. It is absolutely vital for it to prove that the external world is entirely real and hostile. That there are bad people, unfair managers, and foolish relatives. But the truth is that the world around you is exclusively a reflection of your mind in the Light of Consciousness. No 'other' people actually exist in reality. This does not mean solipsism. It means an absence of separation. In non-duality, there is no 'you' and 'others', because the division itself does not exist. The statement 'The world is a reflection of the mind' implies that objects (and people included) only appear when the mind begins to divide the unified space into subject and object. Prior to this division, there is only pure Consciousness. Therefore, 'others' do not exist not because you are sitting alone in an empty room with bots, but because the very idea of 'the other' is a concept of the mind. All those who cause you to feel angry, offended, jealous, or to suffer are your own projections. You are constantly looking into a mirror and attempting to alter or punish your own reflection. If there is unresolved fear or aggression within you, the mind cannot simply hold onto it in a void. It requires an object. And it instantly materialises this fear in the form of another person who will come and strike at your most vulnerable spots. You are not arguing with them. You are arguing with parts of yourself that the mind has repressed and projected outwards.
This entire vast, seemingly objective reality gathers solely around your attention. Like in a computer game. Whilst your playable character is standing in a room, only the room is rendered. The world is rendered exactly where your focus is directed. Beyond that is simply emptiness, ones and zeroes, pure potentiality. If you turn away from a problem, if you cease pumping it with meaning and the energy of your attention, it will begin to dissolve. Because it possesses no density of its own. It feeds solely upon your belief in it. The question arises: if another is my projection, am I then the projection of another? How does this synchronicity arise at all? It does not arise because billions of separate minds somehow come to an agreement with one another. Synchronicity exists because the Light of Consciousness (the Mind in its highest, non-dual understanding) is one for all. It is like the dream of a single mind. In your dream, all the characters interact with one another synchronously and logically. One character might offend another, and they will play out their roles perfectly. Why? Because they are all projections of the exact same sleeping mind. There are no 'separate personalities' that need to synchronise. There is one process, one game, wherein karmic knots (programmes) are drawn to one another through the principle of resonance. The phrase 'I am You' is not a pretty metaphor. It is quite literally a technical description of reality. Your 'I' and my 'I', that basic sense of Presence—is one and the same unified Consciousness. The difference only appears when various karmic filters, various bodies, and various patterns of the mind are superimposed upon this unified Consciousness. And until you understand this, you will change partners, move to other countries, and resign from jobs, hoping that there will be 'other' people there. But in new settings, you will inevitably encounter the exact same scenarios. Because it is impossible to run away from yourself. The sole way out is to cease the struggle and to look at the one who is struggling.
But what exactly needs to be done? Which practices will help to achieve enlightenment faster and to escape this illusion? 'What is to be done?' is, perhaps, the most ridiculous question in this entire story. Who is intending to do something? Has an illusory personality, fashioned out of emptiness, set out to attain a non-existent enlightenment? Any effort, any meditation, if undertaken for the sake of a result—is merely the ego dressed up in spiritual clothing. Previously, it wanted to earn a million, but now it wishes to become enlightened and to sit in eternal bliss. The essence has not changed. The ego has simply swapped its toy so as not to accidentally discover that it does not itself exist. Therefore, the clearest pointers always sound like a mockery. What is to be done? Nothing. You do not need to destroy the illusion, nor kill your mind or ego. This is the essence of enlightening illusions: one must simply see that it only appears so to the mind all this time. It appears to it that there is a problem. It appears that you are insufficiently aware. It appears that the internal dialogue must be stopped. But how does one stop the mind? The secret is that it is impossible to stop it by force. Battling the mind is when one part of the mind fights against another part of the mind. One thought screams, 'Stop thinking!' at another thought. It can only be starved to death. And the primary nourishment of the mind is your commentary.
The simplest technique of awareness is to approach the so-called 'great limit'. To the place where the mind boils over, freezes, and breaks. Here, fear, pain, or intense tension washes over you. What do we usually do? We start to run away from it or to tell ourselves a story about it. 'I feel so awful, this is because in my childhood...', or 'Oh, I am thinking again, I have slipped out of the moment, I urgently need to return to emptiness'. Stop. This is that exact same mind speaking! Instead—go straight into the tension without a single word. Do not run away. If you are frightened—dive headlong into this fear. Let yourself shake. Allow yourself to be one hundred per cent afraid. Allow this to exist totally, but—do not comment. Do not attach labels such as 'this is bad', 'this is a panic attack', or 'this is a clearing of karma'. Simply look at it as pure energy, as a vibration in space. As soon as you cease superimposing a narrative, the mind is left with nothing to cling to. It simply does not know what to do with direct perception that is not divided into 'right' and 'wrong'. It freezes. Out of habit, it rushes to look for the one who is currently afraid, attempting to catch this very 'I'—and catches absolute emptiness. This is precisely what is called the enlightenment of the mind by the mind. The mind, having turned back upon itself, discovers its own absence.
But what does this lead to? What is the point of this so-called enlightenment anyway? Be prepared for the fact that the meaning of enlightenment lies in a complete, total absence of meanings. Our mind adores meanings. It is absolutely vital for it to have a grand destiny, a higher purpose, the salvation of mankind, or at least a spiritual mission. The mind secretly hopes that enlightenment is some special-effects state where you understand the secrets of the Universe, and everything around you is filled with incredible significance. Yet the reality is this: you are chopping a carrot, and you are simply chopping a carrot. Without any universal mission. The sun simply shines. Cells simply divide. What for? For no reason at all. It is simply happening. Life does not require a meaning in order to be life. Meaning is only required by a tense ego to justify its illusory existence. And when this tension subsides, colossal relief sets in. You no longer need to be someone. You no longer need to save yourself and others. You no longer need to achieve anything.
The search for enlightenment is, essentially, the final part of the mind's game of madness. First, the mind drove you mad with everyday dramas: career, relationships, survival. You became dead tired of this and decided to find a way out. And then the mind, so as not to lose its power, invented a new, most sophisticated game for you—the spiritual search. It created for you the concept of Enlightenment, the concept of Practice, and the concept of the Guru. And now you are running around retreats, cleansing chakras, sitting in Vipassana, and attempting to rid yourself of the ego. With the help of the ego itself. It is a brilliant game of the mind. The mind is playing hide-and-seek with you, wherein it is itself both the one hiding and the one seeking. And at a certain point, if you are lucky, this joke will dawn on you in all its lethal simplicity. You will burst out laughing. Because you will understand: everything, absolutely everything, from your most base fears to your most elevated spiritual revelations—is merely a ripple upon the surface of the infinite ocean of Consciousness. And you are that ocean. You always have been, and you always will be. Whilst everything else is just a film playing on a screen. So stop trying to jump out of yourself. You cannot fall out of that which you fundamentally are. Simply allow this dream to be exactly as it is. And perhaps, precisely in this moment of total surrender, the illusion will imperceptibly dissolve of its own accord.