All the teachers are doing is teaching you to become something.
All teaching is about becoming something, becoming still, becoming whatever. And always you're going to become it, you never are it, but you're going to become it. If you try a bit harder, you'll get there. That's crap, that's just crap. You are there, you are this, This is it. . . - Tony Parsons
Look, it's all so incredibly simple. There is no one here. This is not a figure of speech. I mean there is truly no one here, no person, no individual speaking to you. You look at me and think there is a person here talking to you, trying to tell you something. I assure you, there is not. Look at me. If there were not Consciousness streaming through this body, what would be here? What would this body be if Consciousness were not here? A corpse, of course! Dead matter. There is nothing else here. There is only the appearance of a body, and Consciousness which animates it. You, along with the rest of the world, have assumed that there is a discreet individual person here: that the Consciousness which is the animating force here is an individual consciousness, unique to this body and separate from the consciousness in other bodies.
This is based on appearances: there appear to be separate bodies, so the assumption is that there are separate consciousness-es. The belief in this assumption blinds you to seeing What Is, and is also the cause of your experience of this life as disquieting, confusing, unhappy, and generally full of fear and suffering. But it is not the case. There is in no way an individual sitting here talking to you. This body is nothing, an appearance in the dream. All there is is Consciousness, and it is Consciousness which is streaming through this appearance.
There is nothing here that exists in and of itself. What we call the human being is not an independent being, not an originating mechanism, not a transmitter. It is a relay station, a pass-through mechanism for Consciousness, the One Consciousness, All That Is. That is what I am, talking to you. And it is the same One Consciousness listening to this, looking back at me out of those eyes you call your own. What I am when I say 'I Am' is exactly the same as what you are when you say 'I Am.'
Once seen, the irony of the situation is staggering. Look: what you think of as your'self,' what you perceive as an individual person, this idea of being a separate entity, a body-mind-personality-soul-intellect: this is a subsequent by-product, an artifact, an almost accidental side effect of this streaming, this flowing of Consciousness. It is the streaming of Consciousness in this organism which the organism inaccurately perceives as a 'mind' which it thinks is its own: it is the very Consciousness streaming in this organism which allows this perception at all, which makes it possible for this organism to think it is other than that same Consciousness. A simple, innocent misperception. And a silly one, because the very One who appears to be thinking this, who appears not to see, not to understand that it is not as a separate individual and is only as All That Is, is Itself the very I-ness that is the only Is-ness of all seeing, of all understanding.
Look into what is behind this perception. Investigate what you think of as your'self.' This is the purpose, the meaning of all spirituality, of all seeking, of your very being: to understand this amazing intricate play of Consciousness by seeing what is this illusion, this mistaken perception, and what is its source which makes it possible. What you are, you always already are. It is by seeing what you are notthat there is a stepping away from it, stepping out of the misconceived role of a separate fearful individual.
When you step out of what you are not, what remains is not something you have to become, but what you always already are. That is why there is nothing you have to do, or become, or learn, or practice, or work at, or purify. It is completely effortless to be in your natural state. What is full of difficult, constant effort is maintaining this false and unnatural idea of being somebody, of being an individual, a separate something. You are a non-entity! Let it go! When it is let go of, you rest in the effortlessness of All That Is, of what could be called your natural state. - David Carse
There is no use removing doubts. If we clear one doubt, another arises, and there will be no end of doubts. All doubts will cease only when the doubter and his source have been found. Seek for the source of the doubter, and you find he is really nonexistent. Doubter ceasing, doubts will cease. -- Ramana Maharshi
Theodicy. The "ace in the hole" for atheism. How can a loving God allow the innocent to suffer so terribly?
There is an answer, but it requires us to abandon a long-standing assumption about who we actually are.
Does the existence of movies that contain conflict or suffering also raise theodicy questions?
Do you ever read a book or go watch a movie with conflict or suffering in it? Why? Why not (as so delightfully parodied in the movie version of "A series of unfortunate events") just go watch a movie about a happy little elf?
If it's all right for you to go watch a movie and vicariously identify with the characters, their lives, stories, pains and triumphs, why do you complain that God / Awareness does the same thing and creates / lives the universe through you and every other apparently separate being?
Theodicy is answered because every joy, every sorrow, every love, every hate, every life, and every death is experienced by the One Consciousness / Brahman / God. You think that you are separate, but that is the dream-character believing in the identity provided by the dream.
God allows the innocent to suffer because God wanted to experience all of it, everything, beautiful and horrible, as part of this grand story called life -- and that innocent child suffering is actually God suffering.
A wise man once said:
"Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me".
He meant it. Literally.
