Tag: sadness

The event

I don’t remember much detail from my years of seeking but I do remember the endless, frustrating feeling that nothing was happening. I was not seeing my true nature, I was not recognizing the natural state, and I was not abiding as Awareness because I could not find any Awareness as described. All I found when I looked was my sad self. I found neither peace, nor joy, nor beauty, nor freedom. I was constantly stressed, depressed, and felt the opposite of free. The seeking didn’t care though. It just continued.

The mind’s interpretation

The mind at the time was convinced that I was looking for something called the nondual. It was described in various ways from stark to poetic, from cryptical to lyrical, from bloody obvious to deeply esoteric. All I knew was I didn’t have it and I wanted it. Even the descriptions clearly saying I already was it only made me feel more strongly that I wasn’t!

What I’d like to look at with you today is this persistent, incredibly frustrating feeling that when we look, we don’t find anything. We try to look at THIS, at what we are, at what is present and aware — and we find … nothing. I must be doing this wrong because nothing is happening! Well, let’s look:

The inquiry — please pause at every point to check if it’s true and take your time!

• Right now, notice there is presence. There is being, aliveness, awareness. If not, there would be no experience.

• We need to use a word to communicate, and some words may resonate more than others, but the word makes it sound like a thing. It’s not a thing, it’s transparent, like air, energy, or space.

• It’s the simple knowing that you’re not dead. You’re here, alive.

• This transparent “quality” of presence is not a thing or object we can ever find. Let that sink in: you are not ever going to find it!

• Trust me on this one: you are never going to find Awareness. If you look for Awareness (or Presence, or Being), you will find nothing and it will seem as though nothing is happening.

• Instead, notice that you can’t turn off “being here.” No matter what you do, think, meditate on, or achieve — you are here, experiencing that. If there is no experience, you are still here, experiencing the lack of experience.

• Notice that this simple fact of being is not dependent on any thoughts or sensations. Pure being is just this incredible, irreducible fact of being alive, present to experience.

• It’s naked, empty of the content we usually pay exclusive attention to.

• If we’re looking for something, we’re looking for content. If we need something to happen, we’re looking for content.

• So you see: wanting to find some object, event, or action is not it, and takes us away from naked being-knowing.

• Consider: your desire to find is blocking the recognition of what is.

• What knows the desire to find Awareness?

• What does the desire to experience the nondual arise in?

• What is already present before any thought of looking for it comes up?

• What is the pure fact of being that any seeking arises in?

• Just what is — pure being.

• This knowing-being itself is without content.

• Content (thoughts/sensations) arise. Let any such content point back to what knows its arising.

• This knowing is effortless. It already is all the time, noticed or not.

• It only feels like nothing happening, because “feeling something is happening” requires attention to some content.

• But always, independent of content, you are already here, aware.

🙏 Kat.

You may have seen that I highly recommend Salvadore Poe’s 7-week Online Intensive (starting in a week, on May 17th). Sal’s direct inquiries confirmed the end of my search in 2016. His intensives are the end for many who take part as well.

“The Online Intensive takes place twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays. Each meeting will be recorded, video and audio, and you will need to listen or watch each day in between meetings. The more you listen the more the message sinks in. There will also be supplemental audios. We will go through all of the inquiries needed to bring a lasting paradigm shift. This is not philosophy or dogma. It is not fodder for the mind to ruminate upon. It is a real cognition of and abidance in and as your essential being.”