November 17th

Oneness meeting itself everywhere

Yesterday's reflection stated that all views are dualistic. This is, itself, a dualistic view. A view can be clearer or truer than another view, but only relatively or dualistically. The view that "all is One" is only pointing to the absolute. It is relatively clearer than some other view. Oneness cannot be expressed.

Yet Oneness is expressing itself in every view and everything. Nothing is appearing as everything - as an ant crawling across the sidewalk, the sand blowing in a desert, and a mother kissing her baby's forehead. It is appearing as your "correct view" and as the "wrong view" held by someone with whom you are debating. There is nothing that This is not. In seeing that you are not this dream self, but rather This that we call Oneness, it is realized that Oneness is meeting itself everywhere. It is appearing as two.

In this seeing, dualism arises but there is no longer identification with it. You are not seeking an identity from any dualistic view.

This non-dual seeing is not some grand enlightenment in the future. "Future" is a thought arising in the non-dual awareness that you are right now. It is a dualistic view that exists only in relation to its opposite - past. Simple presence reveals an awake space in which everything is arising. The absolute is therefore right here, right now. It can be known only through direct experience, not through dualistic views.

Michael Brown

From PART V:   

Chapter 89

Progress in Spiritual Life

(Contiuation...) 

Q:When I was with them (other spiritual seekers) I had a strange feeling of becoming invisible. The devotees, in their surrender to their Guru surrendered me also! Whatever I did for them was their Guru's doing and I was not considered, except as a mere instrument. I was merely a tap to turn left or right. There was no personal relationship whatsoever. They tried a little to convert me to their faith; as soon as they felt resistance, they just dropped me from the field of their attention. Even between themselves they did not appear very much related; it is their common interest in their Guru that kept them together. I found it rather cold, almost inhuman. To consider oneself an instrument in God's hands is one thing; to be denied all attention and consideration because 'all is God' may lead to indifference verging on cruelty. After all, all wars are made 'in the name of God'. The entire history of mankind is a succession of 'holy wars'. One is never so impersonal as in war!

M:To insist, to resist, are contained in the will to be. Remove the will to be and what remains? Existence and non-existence relate to something in space and time; here and now, there and then, which again are in the mind. The mind plays a guessing game; it is ever uncertain; anxiety-ridden and restless. You resent being treated as a mere instrument of some god, or Guru, and insist on being treated as a person, because you are not sure of your own existence and do not want to give up the comfort and assurance of a personality. You may not be what you believe yourself to be, but it gives you continuity, your future flows into the present and becomes the past without jolts. To be denied personal existence is frightening, but you must face it and find your identity with the totality of life. Then the problem of who is used by whom is no more.