. . .the wanter is the problem. No matter what the desire, nothing will be fixed by having it fulfilled. Nothing. Having a want fulfilled only leads to more wants – anything we get, we want to keep, which leads right back to fear. The wanter has to be seen through as unreal. That’s the only way. . . - Annette Nibley
The answers we seek are only sought so that the "I" that we imagine ourselves to be will gain something – knowledge, or getting a step closer to enlightenment, or a feeling of satisfaction, or a feeling of control or mastery. - Annette Nibley
Nothing changes in the life of the seeming individual, once it is noticed that witnessing is all that is ever going on. A life, with all its ups and downs, with all its selfish interactions and illogical behaviors, will go on just as before.
There never was an individual there. So why would the story of the life change? Why would it get “more lighted,” or more peaceful, or more “spiritual”? Why would dramas and upsets disappear? That “life” is not yours – it is not a reflection of you.
Do not make the mistake of thinking of yourself as the owner of a life. You are not. An owner is not there, period. It is absent, to the very core. There is no owner, no individual, no reference point for any events in that life to refer to.
Where does the individual come from, then? Who is the individual who is thinking that there is an individual?
It is only being created right now, in a mistaken thought. It does not and never did exist over time, as an objective thing. Until you imagine an individual right now, it never was. See that all reference points only emerge from this one, current, mistaken thought, presently. And in the next new moment, all reference points vanish. It’s always a new day. . .
I remember some conversations. I remember some events. All kinds of memories are arising right now – a constant stream of them flowing through my mind. But I can’t find a person to whom they apply. I notice that this thought contains a reference to an event, but I was never involved in that event. I’ve always just been here, right now, where nothing is ever happening.
I have no reference point for what that event means. Some bodies talked and interacted. I was there as witness, but I have no idea what was going on. The only way I could make sense of what went on is if I assume an “avatar” of some kind, a fictional personality with certain traits which make it want to attract some things and avoid other things. Then, all the events have meaning and fall together as story. But I have no such personality. I am no one. The events fall away as they occur, into nothingness. Right now – always right now – I am free of all of it. So are you.
Everything falls silent. It all comes to a complete standstill. Nothing is happening. There is mental activity; any thought can arise. There is physical activity; all kinds of things can happen. But all this activity – mental and physical – is simply swirling gently within this utter stillness. The stillness is total.
This stillness does not need to be identified with. Let go of trying to “identify” with the witnessing presence. There is no one to do this. Witnessing is happening, and it’s impossible to be unaware of. So forget about it. - Annette Nibley
The way out -- and that's the only thing I'm interested in talking to you about -- is to see that any revisiting of what happened last night or what is a pattern of mine that happens all the time or what is the story of mine that I get it intellectually but it's not permanent or whatever -- that all of that is a story that's simply arising right now. . . The reason we tell stories like this is because we want to have mastery over them. We feel like there's no way to end the suffering without some control and some mastery -- that's how we've done everything else in our lives, control and mastery. So if you don't talk to me about how this suffering occurs for you and I don't help you find a way to master it and control it, then it's not doable. This is what our mind tells us. - Annette Nibley
What are teachers saying when they tell you, “There is no one to be frustrated”? They are really referring to the story you have to be making up all the time in order for there to be a person, and in order for there to be frustration. It’s the story that is at the root of the belief in a person. You’re making up the story, and so you’re making up the person, out of your own imagination. No story, no person.
A story needs to be told for there to be frustration. Without telling a story, is there frustration? Where? How? Look for the story you are telling. Look for the narrative you create for the frustration to thrive in. This narrative creates the person out of thin air. This is something you're doing all the time – you’re creating the person all the time with your inner narrative. And this is the center of every problem, every speck of suffering and seeking.
So what can you do? What is needed is not action, it’s inaction. Stop making up a story.
Having no story amounts to the same thing you’re asked over and over: Who is frustrated? Where is the person? But, “getting” that there is no person is not something you just have to wait around until you "see" – making up the person is actually something you are actively doing all the time. You don't have to do it. You don’t have to make up a story. And without the story, "This is so frustrating" has no place to take hold, no place to bloom. It just blows away like dust. Nothing has any place to take hold. Nothing can harm you. You are at total peace.
If you don't tell a story right now, there is just a watching, a peaceful noticing of the current moment. No problem arises, no frustration, no irritation, until you start constructing the narrative. Until then, it doesn't exist, and it's just pure consciousness, you, peace, that's all. - Annette Nibley
Is this your story?
“It hasn’t really taken hold yet.”
“The full realization is not here yet.”
“I’m not completely detached from my story yet.”
“The last penny to drop seemingly hasn't happened yet.”
“Although I have read everything, I feel like I don’t get it yet.”
Any of those sound familiar? Sure they do. And they are all false. “Yet” is only a misunderstanding – a mistake in your thinking – that something is supposed to happen. Nothing is going to happen, and misunderstanding this is your only obstacle. Would you be waiting or trying for something to happen, if you were convinced nothing was ever going to happen? I doubt it! So the seeking stops.
Once you know that nothing is going to happen, and there is literally no one for anything to happen to, then you will naturally stop trying or waiting or expecting. And what becomes obvious is that there never was a person who needed anything – knowledge, realization, freedom, integrated understanding – nothing! Not even “knowing that you know”! There is simply no one here to need anything. You are not separate and trying to regain your status as whole. No, you've always been this, never apart from or other than this whole.
The mind will jump to “I understand there is no one to awaken, but I want to really get this!” That’s a contradictory statement, and so take a look at how it still assumes the belief that there is an “I” who gets something. There is not. Go after the belief that you are a separate “I,” instead of going after the promised land of “after the penny drops for me.” The seeking can only be stopped by going after the false belief. The belief you still have is that there is an entity, and it will experience a penny dropping. It will not. But you still believe that it will, and that's why you're still working towards it. Aren't you sick of it? . . .
The seeking does not stop because one “finally gets” the realization, or one “completely detaches” from the story. No! The seeking stops WHEN IT IS SEEN THAT THERE IS NO SEEKER. That's all there is to it. There is no seeker, no “you.” That someone is not real. What is real is one life living, impersonally, and it is experienced by you now as awareness. . .
See that there is no seeker, and it's over. That's the only way! As long as the seeker believes there is more to get, more to learn, a final dropping to feel, then the search goes on. As long as there is a seeker, there is a search. Blow the seeker out of the water, and the search is over.
I know that this can be heard at one level, and yet there is a nagging "I'll do what she says. I'll try this and then I'll finally get it." No. The point is that "getting" is for people. Being a person is suffering. Finding you are not a person is to see that the suffering never existed, nothing was ever needed. Nothing to get, for no one. There is just this hereness, now, with no “you” to know it, and that's it. Nothing else is happening. - Annette Nibley
The looking is present, always. It never changes. All the stuff that goes on within that looking – out there, where we are usually focused – is temporary, imaginary, and unreal. What we forget is that we are ourselves one of the unreal objects! We tend to think that all the stuff out there is illusion, except me – I’m real! No! You’re just another object, appearing within the looking.
Any teacher or teaching that suggests even to the tiniest degree that there is something else to get, to learn, to do, or any longer to wait is not true. There is no person to get, learn, or do anything! No more seminars to get the person “closer”! The person is simply another object within that present-time awareness, which is here all the time. Look right now and see for yourself that awareness is here. - Annette Nibley
