About Meditation and Nonduality

About Meditation and Nonduality

Q: I was very sorry to see that you have been unwell.  I hope the health improves soon.

C: Thank you.

Q: I've been reading your book - From I Am To I Am With Love - it's a great book, I'm on my second reading. I like it a lot and will read it again.  There is much wisdom in there.  Again, Sailor Bob and John Wheeler as you say are good authors on the subject - but there is also tons of good stuff in your book - very good advice.  

C: Happy to hear that you are finding value for your search in the book. That is all that matters to me!

Q: I wanted to know about meditation.  Many teachers say, 'well who is there to meditate?'

C: And that question is – while an excellent POINTER- often misconstrued as a confrontation or attack. The inquiry into “who is here to meditate or do anything else, for that matter) is NOT intended to be some be-all end-all “nondual truth-revealer”. Rather, in a gentle probing into one’s mind, one’s structure of thought and interpretation that started with the arrival of the false sense of a “me-entity” around the age of two, there CAN be the discovery that there never was a “me” to meditate or not. Who wants something more or better that What IS right here and now?

As Bob often asks seekers to ponder, “What’s wrong with right now unless you think about it?” That question leaves the thinking-machinery in the Full Stop of Eternal Isness, That I AM without a single concept! That said, it is also quite necessary  to come back to the one known identity (which is actually NO identity) – that simple natural knowing that before, during and after ANY appearance, thoughts or anything else, Here and Now, I AM. The pointer I like best is from Tibetan Buddhism: That which always IS  - the co called “Great Perfection” - is “Non-conceptual, ever fresh, self-shining, Presence-Awareness, just this and nothing else”.

That is what YOU are and all arguments against that simple seeing are only products of the false sense of “me”. Nailing down the issue of what You really ARE out of the gate is the context for the subsequent inquiry into and discovery that there just “ain’t no such THING as ME.” And that is the precursor to true freedom.

Q: In my early twenties at university, I experimented with psychedelics after reading Huxley.  The psychedelics really speeded up my mind - so much so, I couldn't think straight for years afterwards - I thought I was going nuts.   About six or seven years ago, I got into meditation.  I started doing Ishayas’ Ascension.  They taught me to meditate on gratitude and love - I really enjoyed it. 

C: I am familiar with the Ishayas’ Ascension and enjoyed their techniques quite a lot in my earlier, seeking years. However, when these things are taken up to avoid, fix or correct What Is, i.e. the appearances in that Space that You are, they can certainly serve to further reinforce that false sense of me. No doubt about it! After I met John, and then Bob, I noticed some appearance of the techniques (called “attitudes”) arising with no sense of volition here. No problem with that!

Q: They have this thing where they make you count how many thoughts you have a minute - I was having 350+ thoughts per minute.  I started the practice and over a few years my mind began to calm down.  I also love doing transcendental meditation - that's really relaxing.

C: That is just more story about that which is NOT real! Why keep these “stories of me” going? They must ultimately go. Why not see right now that all that stuff is merely a distraction, enticing the brain to look away from the simplicity of The Natural State – your own undeniable and inescapable BEINGNESS itself, that which is never missing and never changing? Being – Your own Changeless Awareness – is FAR more “juicy” that any of these so called enlightened but utterly bullshitty stories. Just SEE that. Now.

Q: I can understand what nondual teachers say - 'all practices are of the mind'; and they tend to ‘reinforce’ the false someone.'  However if you're having 350 - 400 thoughts per minute and their all negative and then 6 months later you're having 50 thoughts per minute - that is tangibly experienced within this body-mind and sensed as an expansion of peace.

C: Experienced by whom? And where is any problem with thoughts, whatever their frequency. Thought is a movement of that One Energy of What is Real. These teachers are promoting false paths of resistance to what is. So thoughts come and go. WHERE? For WHOM? Take a deeper look at that whole phony paradigm that keeps seekers seeking for freaking ever! I cannot endorse such false guru stuff. Sorry but you must play hardball with that whole structure of interpretation!

You are the Being-Experiencing-Peaace. SEEKING some temporary peace is the surest way to avoid what you really are. Full Stop.

Q: You said yourself you'd suffered depression.  It seems that meditation is pretty cool to me.  What Maharishi Yogi said all sounds good.  What are your thoughts on meditation?

C: See above! Asked and answered.

Q: I've heard non-dual teachers say well why do you want to meditate?  My answer is for the same reason I like eating chocolate and drinking a pint of good beer - because it’s relaxing and enjoyable.  I think you said in one of your YouTube posts that you first disappeared doing transcendental meditation.  Is it useful?  I certainly think it calms you down and surely that is a good thing?

C: So if there is liking meditation and beer, FINE. But is it useful? Again, FOR WHOM?

That video was referring to an experience which came and went back in 1975. It is irrelevant now. Reread what I said above; this is answered there. Meanwhile if you find yourself in or “doing” meditation, so what? That is what IS. Nothing wrong (unless as Shakespeare said, ‘thinking makes it so”.)

Q: Any thoughts Charlie on the pros and cons of meditation?  I can't see that many cons to the practice as I've experienced a loosening of the mind's grip.  Sailor Bob says that 'the mind needs energy to live.'  I think meditation tends to starve the mind and thus it weakens.

I think some nondual teachers have not suffered what it is like to have 300+ thoughts per minute.  It's completely debilitating.  You can't follow conversations and your concentration is shot to pieces. 

C: My friend, again here you are simply arguing for the existence of a separate entity – an “I” or ‘me’ – AND seriously misinterpreting and taking out of context, Bob’s pointer to energy. What he is pointing to (as I recall how he spoke this when I was at his home in OZ) is that one-Energy-Intelligence that is the basis of ALL appearances. This appearance is all vibrations! Then these vibes seem solid due to our ignorance. As far as “weakening the mind” SHOW me this “mind” and I will destroy it! See if you CAN show me an object – a thing – called “mind”. You will fail; there is nothing to find and no one to find that! Seeing that, the mind is naturally seen as nonexistent.  So who is weakening what?

So far as ‘nondual teachers goes, there ain’t no such thing. That very paradigm of teacher/student IS the ignorance of dismissing the never changing IS in favor of … suffering!

I see one thing as a thread, or perhaps an unseen paradigm, running through your query” An addiction to a “me” and its stories! Drop them and BE. That is all there is to this. TOO simple? For whom??

Q: Anyway, Charlie I like the way you express this ancient teaching - your humor is very heartwarming.  Also, I just wanted to thank you for putting out all those posts.  I enjoy watching you talk about non-duality. 

C: You are most welcome.

Q: Also, when realization happens does the mind calm down?  Does the sense of I still remain or does that dissolve?

C: Maybe so maybe not. Depends on the DNA and subsequent conditioning of each organism, each patter of energy we call “body”.  But I riddle you THUS: WHO CARES!?

Q: Anyway, I keep probing these questions.  I think you’re doing a service to humanity... I really do wish that your health improves soon Charlie.

C: Inasmuch as anyone does anything! My friend, the happenings here or beyond any sense of volition or control. It just shows up! As to health, well, “me” too!

"The human being as an entity is only the result of thought, of the accumulated and constantly repeating conditioning that there is something in us which survives through time. Thus our private identity has been established in each of us as our own personal tradition". ~Ramesh Balsekar