Peace President United Blog
Knowing God beyond Belief
Waking Up beyond the Illusion of Separation By Peace President
Oh, how we continue creating and maintaining the illusion of separation in any way the mind can. Forgive them for they know not what they do.
For centuries to millennia to the beginning of human record, the individuated human mind has been attempting to make sense of experiencing through the incapable tools of language and communication; and only creating and sustaining the innocent illusion of separation that continues wreaking havoc here in Heaven on Earth. Struggling from the prior generation’s cultural patterns, traditions, and now what we understand as preverbal epigenetic inheritance, these questions have been asked for what seems like forever: where did I come from, what is my purpose in life, what happens when I die, what is the point of existence, is there a God, and ‘who am I, really’ have been pondered by minds throughout the ages. Religions have arisen to answer them yet mostly from the limitations and misperceptions of ego-consciousness, thereby continuing to innocently reinforce the illusion of ‘me’ and ‘other’. The great Indian Sage Ramana Maharshi said,
“Discover who you really are and see if those questions arise.”
In the journey of discovering answers to our existential questions like asking who am I and what is the purpose of life, the ever present omnipotent reality is always present underneath, from which all experience arises – from where all questions arise. Some refer to this presence as empty nothingness appearing as everything-ness or the appearing everything-ness as nothingness; or any number of names that do not fit. (The book “God is Nothingness” by Andre Doshim Halaw comes to mind.) For instance, these names: God, Cosmic Consciousness, Source Intelligence, Universal Source, Jesus, Krishna, and on and on and on the individuated mind attempts to “believe” it knows the answers; creating names for the unnamable; creating finite ideas for the infinite while sustaining inner divisions that are projected outwardly. What is the reference to the “individuated human mind” one may ask?
Well…firstly, to somehow understand the idea of individuated mind, we may have to open our minds and hearts to an entirely new reality – not the relative reality that we have built our unstable self-images and self-concepts as personal identities out of, but the ONLY changeless, formless, timeless Reality there is; which points to this: that our relative reality is nothing more than conceptual and mental assumptions from which we base our fleeting opinions, biases, and even facts upon. This is where metaphors may find some use, like this one:
Experience is like holding onto a wave in the ocean.
Right now, grab what you are believing to be true about yourself, life, a situation, your god concept, another person, or what have you – and show me this experience that is permanent. Show me the reality of it. Show me this thought and see if it lasts. Prove that it is as permanent and true as your individuated mind exclaims it is. Do it now, grab the idea in your mind you are believing or even believe you know to be concrete, solid, permanent, and everlasting, AND show it to me like you would show me your new pair of shoes. In the same sense, show me this “I” this “me” this “myself” right here now. What do you discover? Of course, if you are truly earnest and honest about discovering the inseparable Truth of existence (yourSELF), that some refer to as God, you may find that the union with God is more of an unraveling, a deprogramming, and dissolution of ALL assumptions and beliefs, ALL veils of thinking, ALL mental rationalizations, All identities, justifications, interpretations, and conceptualizations.
Since time immemorial, the enlightened ones have been putting into incapable words this idea, which appears to be one of the best practical definitions of God, Reality, or Truth there is:
I don’t know.
For example, the phrase;
“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing”
is attributed to Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher. We also hear the enlightened ones speaking of the simplicity of ‘being’ – of this here now that is effortless and requires no thinking or concepts. Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet and mystic often spoke about stepping into the unknown as a path to spiritual growth and realization. One of his famous quotes related to this idea is:
“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”
This quote emphasizes the idea that by taking the first step into the unknown (by not identifying with the mind), the path forward becomes clearer. And Buddha, he spoke extensively about the nature of the mind and the path to liberation from suffering by exploring the unknown within. He emphasized the importance of understanding the impermanent and interdependent nature of all phenomena arising from the mind. One of his teachings related to stepping into the unknown is the concept of impermanence, which suggests that all things are transient and constantly changing. By recognizing and accepting the fundamental truth of impermanence, one can free themselves from attachment and suffering. Even Jesus is reported to have said,
The Kingdom is inside of you and outside of you. (Indicating there is no separation in reality.)
Let us call attention to a few assumptions from which the individuated mind has innocently adopted as conceptualized and abstracted facts about itself: One, that “I” am a person, as a body and mind. And two, that “I” as the spiritual seeker can unite with the Universal Source (God) under the false assumption that “I” am separate from it to begin with. That is to say, language and words are limitations which divide, and only pointers to direct attention inwardly, spiritually speaking; so we become aware that there NEVER was a separation – that ONLY God Alone exists – Love. The plight of every being is to become aware of what one essentially, universally is – beyond trappings of mind – beyond the divisive prison of conceptualized “me-ness” and “other-ness.” Rumi wrote:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, The world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.
Why doesn’t the phrase each other make sense to Rumi? That is because there is no longer the conceptual illusion of separation lingering – no personal identity; perception is pure, unfiltered. No longer are veils of perception or mental filters of self-concepts skewing the direct spontaneous reality that Everything is GOD – Everything is indivisible REALITY – except in fleeting impermanent experience from which our illusory self-images and self-concepts arise. These are not mere theories BUT verifiable in one’s own experience. It is just that somehow, very few ever allow themselves to die before they die by no longer believing and identifying with the mind. What is it that dies we may ask?
The experience of a separate body dies as the experience of a separate person dies as the individuated mind is no longer assumed or adopted as “me” “myself” and “I.” This suggests that it is not the Spiritual Seeker who merges with God or Source or Reality, BUT that the facades or masks as false identities – as false individuated selves – dissolve or die; thereby revealing what never left – YOU as Reality – God – Universal Presence. It is as if who we believe and identify ourselves to be are gray tinted sunglasses that we have yet to remove. The sun looks gray and we believe it to be truth, yet naively looking through the mental personal self-concepts or gray filters of the psychological self. When we allow our false psychological selves to dissolve by looking to see if they are permanent, the self evident Truth exists in all its glory – pure perception devoid of the illusion of separation – devoid of me and other. This non-conceptual awareness arises:
That everything is inseparable reality (God) or That everything is inseparable God (reality).
Yogananda said this,
You are God playing hide and seek with yourself.
The evidence is staring us right in the face. When you were an infant, there was no personal identity, no “me”, no “I”, no “myself”, and no “other.” Yet, somehow, the mind comes online around age 2 and concepts begin masking our direct universal wholeness. That is to say, the mind abstracts an idea known as me, myself, and I. We therefore begin believing and identifying ourselves as many things we are not. That is to say there is NO Separation in the experience of an infant – no sense of me-ness and other-ness. Yet, words and concepts and ideas and rationalizations and interpretations continue innocently corrupting the mind with more untrue data – because all thoughts hold absolutely no truth. Even Jesus’s words have become the self-fulfilling prophecy of division. Words like the following that were so simple but became more ideas of division for ego-mind (individuated mind) to reinforce its false sense of separation. For instance:
New Testament:
John 10:34-35 – “Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your Law I have said you are gods?”’ If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came.
John 14:20 – “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
1 Corinthians 3:16 – “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”
And in the Old Testament, it is written:
Genesis 1:27 – “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
Psalm 82:6 – “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’” Of course, we see ourselves as we identify ourselves, so the idea of son and Father is a human fabrication, not a reality.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 – “…and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
We even find ourselves creating divisions by saying there is something one must know, that we must see one another for who we are. And that we must know the source. YET there is subtle clever division being maintained here because it is ego-consciousness (individuated mind) that yearns to be heard, seen, and understood – which IS an illusion of separation where none exists, except in the seeking, in the limitations and veils of mind; lost wanting; seemingly lost believing and identifying with the mind.
How can the sun know the sun when IT IS THE SUN? How can the droplet in the ocean who believes it is separate know IT IS THE OCEAN? How can God know it is God when it innocently and paradoxically identifies as something it is not, a person.
In other words,
How can the source of all creation (God/Reality) know itSELF when it IS ALREADY THAT?
If YOU are already GOD and seeking for GOD, where do you Look? Or, do you have to look for the illusion of separation that we call personal identity, and see if that is actually there? Just like the boogeyman under the bed that does not exist YET you believe it does, until you look for the illusion and become aware it DOES NOT exist, THEN you will continue living as a divided spiritual ego, as a me and other, not as inseparable Reality, God – pure universal perception.
To open to the possibility that what creates the illusion of separation we are trying to find amid inseparable unity IS CREATED in our own minds, by believing and identifying with thought, thinking – which is inherently divisive. Disregard all thoughts, all beliefs, all mental constructs, all mentalizations, all images, and take no shape and watch, observe, notice what is ALWAYS ALREADY HERE NOW…Already Whole, Complete, Enough, Infinite, Timeless, Formless, Unconditional Love.
YOU, not as a word, not as the self-concept you think you are, not as a body you identify yourself to be. BUT pure TIMELESS FORMLESS PRESENCE, prior to words, prior to ALL fleeting experiences that are always changing. YOU are the CHANGELESS Reality that cannot die, was never born, AND all there is. The nothingness that is everythingness and the everythingness that is nothingness.
STOP getting lost in words and concepts and Be Still and watch. As Martin Exetor proclaimed, there is “Truth Beyond Belief.” Who am I when I am not believing or identifying with anything? Who am I when I am not attaching meaning to experience and calling it reality? Who am I, Really, when I surrender everything I thought I knew was fact, true, real? In the words of one of our most trusted spiritual teachers of this contemporary age, Adyashanti,
The greatest teacher is silence and the greatest teaching is silence.
If the mind says, “I already know this.” If the mind says anything, then I assure you that is NOT the realization of reality – not the truth of you – but more clever egoic trickery to stay in the game of division, me-ness, and illusion of separation through the use of language, concepts, spiritual ideas and texts. Closing with these beautiful quotes:
The one that says cannot know and the one that knows cannot say.
The one that sees cannot say and the one that says cannot see.
The sun doesn’t proclaim it knows it is shining, BECAUSE it IS SHINING, because there is nothing to know. There is ONLY indivisible reality – ONLY Shining! There is ONLY God. There is ONLY nothingness appearing as fleeting appearances as everythingness. To allow ourselves to be the absolute nobody that we already are is the greatest service to the world – to humanity – to everything.
The mind is a great servant but a terrible master.
Let us no longer allow the mind to be the master by believing what it says and identifying with those fleeting energies which are nothing more than impermanent experiencing.
To Love and to Know are one in the same.
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