August 17, 2014 Q&A

Question: on Facebook you were quoting somebody. It was about relationship. You said something about there is no other person and that you are just in relationship with yourself.

And it was like “duh”. I unconsciously had been holding the other as a separate person.
Yeah, it was like Woo.
If you don’t mind discussing that some more. I thought that was really profound. Astounding that something so simple could slip by.
And be profoundly changing.

Reply: It all starts with the assumption that I am a person. And the feeling that I am a person.
There is the impression that the relationship is between two separate people, two separate persons.
And there is a sense of lack in relationship. Lack accompanies that belief and feeling of separation. A sense of incompleteness.

Because a part has been pulled out of the whole. A separate me, a person has been pulled out of the divine wholeness of consciousness. And it yearns to come back to wholeness. That yearning to go back to wholeness is experienced as a pull. Like a child is missing his mother. The child is yearning to be reunited with their mother. To be with mother again.
This entire impression is a dream impression. Meaning they are images on the screen of consciousness. The screen of consciousness IS right now, right here. Whatever it is that hears these words. Presence. Formless awareness… that hears these words, that perceives this perception.
You could refer to that as the undivided screen of consciousness. The screen upon which and from which all images arise… out of consciousness. The me and the other impression arises out of and on the screen. A thought sensation. A me that has lost their wholeness and that is yearning to reconnect.
To return to wholeness, it looks out onto the world and looks for objects in the world that can make it whole. That can bring it back to its natural state of wholeness and completeness.
This looking outwardly is due to the senses. The senses look outwardly. The senses perceive an external world. There is a sensory element to perception. To the auditory sense of hearing. To the sensory sense of feeling the tactile sense of touching, and feeling. Smelling, tasting.

It is as if the senses are turned outward.
We have separated ourselves by focusing on the senses. The body is guided by the senses. The senses guide us outward when we are identified with the body.
They guide us through the visual, through the auditory and through the tactile senses.
And through the feeling states. So, through the senses, through perception we pursue objects. Seeking wholeness while identifying with the body mind.

But all along our experience is non-dual. We fail to notice that our experience is intimate. An intimate experience of sensing, perceiving, touching, smelling. We are experiencing our experience.
We are sensing our sensation, smelling our smell. They are experiences of oneself, not of an external object out there. It is a non-dual experience.

Imagine there is a smell out there of a rose. You cannot know the smell of the rose since it is out there. The smell of the rose has to come to you. How does it do that? We imagine that it travels in space and time and reaches your senses. Is that how it works?
Can you be open to the rose being consciousness? Consciousness taking on the shape of a rose? Consciousness taking on the smell of a rose?

Can you be open to the oneness?

You … smelling yourself as a rose.
Experiencing your experience.

You are never experiencing an object out there.
Separate objects can not experience each other.
It is consciousness appearing as a rose. Appearing as all appearances.

When you look at what your experience is, when you look carefully at an object, you may start by perceiving an object out there. That is your conditioned belief. Your perception is guided by your belief.
But as you pay more attention you will notice that you are perceiving your perception right here and not out there. Your perception is not out there.

You are aware of your awareness… of a rose. Awareness awaring itself as a perception.
As a cup. As a rose.
Awareness awaring itself as these words, this moment.
As hearing, as understanding these words.
Awareness awaring this perception. This perception occurring within awareness, intimately made of awareness. Not as something out there, that you are traveling towards, to experience it out there once you reach it.

That is the mystery that the mind does not get.

The mind perceives a world out there. Which is an assumption. A belief.
We can help the mind by asking: If the world is out there, then how do you perceive it?
If you are apart from it, if indeed it is out there, how do you, in here, standing apart from out there, perceive what is out there?

The mind can not answer such a question and will dance around it. But from your direct experience you will notice that whatever you are perceiving, you perceive intimately… right here right now. Nondually.
Perception is made out of yourself. It is intimately yourself taking on this form. While remaining formless.

Perception is made out of yourself.

So in relationship, when you break it down to a set of perceptions, sensations, mentations, observations, comments, thoughts and perceptions… you are experiencing yourself.
Your experience is yourself and is not apart from you.

When you recognize the intimacy of experience, when you recognize you are experiencing yourself, where is the sense of lack?

There is none.
Pure intimacy, wholeness, is void of the sense of lack.
So when you experience yourself in relationship, the experience is sweet.
That sweetness spreads and permeates the dream. The entire dream.
Your entire experience becomes sweet, tender. It is void of the sense of lack.
Void of expectation and conditions.
Not in time.

But when you are imagining a me and of course another, there is evaluation, measurement, confrontation and argumentation.
This is not working for me. You are like this and that and I expected you to be like that and not like this. Etc.

And, yes this sort of relationship is not going to work. And why?
Because the you is a shifting target.
The dream character keeps changing.
Desires, dissatisfaction… it keeps changing. It is seeking happiness, wholeness in a limited object. In a temporary experience. In the world.
So it says, it should be like this.
And then today is like this but tomorrow it is that, it has to be that way.
And then it is something else.
Because you cannot be fulfilled with an object.
No matter how big the object is, it is still limited.
The finite cannot know the in-finite.

Limited form will only provide limited satisfaction… that is pleasure, but not happiness.
It is not fulfillment.
Fulfillment that is in time and space is impermanent.
It is not the eternal happiness.
So you are not experiencing eternity in a relationship of me and the other. You are in the temporal and conditional. You are experiencing discontinuity.
Incompleteness.

And so you are toggling between happiness and unhappiness and there is no peace in that.

The terms keep changing and shifting.
In a relationship where there are terms being imposed, negotiated and shifting, you don’t know what card you are being handed from moment to moment.

And what card you are dealing from moment to moment.
You flip the card over and you don’t know if it is an ace or a queen of hearts or a jack.
It is a bumpy ride.

A true relationship starts with love for truth and the recognition of your wholeness and the wholeness of the other, as one.
Not dependent on a situation or on conditions.
That dictate how the relationship should unfold.

It starts at the ending point.
It starts with the happiness.
With freedom.

First you have to recognize the freedom that you are. You as consciousness.
The same freedom as your partner.
You instantaneously recognize the freedom that IS. Because the freedom that you are is borderless freedom … not limited to you. Is not limited, period.

The freedom that is limited to you, is not real freedom.
True freedom is not limited.

So over and over in relationship you go to Source. You go to the recognition of wholeness, meaning you go to the recognition that the separate me is a dream, not real. And is not the path to freedom.

And that type of inquiry occurs in your own space, in your own direct experience. Meaning whatever arises that triggers a you, that is where you inquire.
Is that what I am?
Am I this person?
Is the other actually another?

So, yes, relationship is relationship with oneself. When one is a truth lover, that is the path in relationship.
Not a relationship with oneself as a person, but with oneself as universal consciousness.
Meaning it is a universal relationship.
It is a consciousness relationship. Meaning consciousness relating with itself.

Meaning the other is yourself.
Is your very self.
Of course then the mind comes into the picture with all the conditioning. With all the stories, the belief systems. But you cannot buy them. You cannot buy the I-thought.

Because the I thought says that consciousness is personal.
When you look directly at your experience, you will find that there is no person. It is just a belief.
Looking is always in this moment.

In this moment there is total absence of person.
A belief doesn’t create anything real.

What is real is consciousness, presence. Pure borderless presence. Just this aware experience that is borderless.

Not the image itself. The image says yes there is a limit. There is a wall here and another wall over there.
But consciousness, awareness… that is not limited.
That is not a form.
It is whatever hears and perceives.
It is not a form, not an object. It is not perceived.

And yet you cannot deny its reality. You cannot deny presence, beingness, I-amness. I am.
You cannot deny the reality of consciousness.
You cannot deny that there are no borders to it. Where do you find any border?
Which direction do you go?

What direction?
What is a direction?
What picks a direction?
Is it not thought that is arising as direction?

Thought saying: this direction, that direction.

So you rest as that.
As presence, as peace, as beingness.

Relationship is from That.
Relationship is That.
Resting Presence.
That is open and available, intelligent.

There are relationships also that are based on common interests.
You might like the theatre and have a partner who shares your passion and interest, and you have a relationship around a common interest, a shared passion.
Or you might like traveling. A shared passion for traveling, exploring, discovering the world.

But in all cases as soon as you separate yourself there is the yearning to come back home. To wholeness.
And home is not a place, not an experience.
It is peace, undivided consciousness, wholeness, awareness.
Unmoved, unperturbed by events. Untouched by whatever is unfolding.
It is the happiness. Causeless happiness.
You follow?

In the other, in our partner, in relationship, we are seeking happiness.
We are seeking love and happiness.
Peace, love and happiness.

Understanding, tranquility, sweetness, beauty. All these are divine qualities. The qualities of the source. Qualities of c.
So what we love is that. The divine qualities.
Freedom.
Love. Openness.

You recognize that THAT is truly, truly, what you love. Not an object.
Not a man or a woman. Not some experience.
It is the love, the freedom, the joy.
The peace, the tranquility. The infinity. The eternity. That does not depend on anything unfolding in time and space.

So, that is what you say YES to.
That is what you are open to.
That is what you offer and that is what you live.
You live this love, this freedom.
It is a recognition.

You are that borderless presence. Infinite. Formless. You are the love. So badly needed.
The heart yearns for the beauty, for the love and the joy.
You are THAT.
You are THAT that speaks these words. That hears these words. That is the heart. That is home. That is the love that you seek. That is the light that draws all hearts to it.
You are THAT.
The source, the core.

The world comes to you to find peace. To drink from the source. Not some lacking me.
The spring, the fresh spring. The source.
So that the entire world can travel and hydrate themselves from the source.
Fulfill their thirst.

Not some body mind experience.
Those are a dime a dozen.
They are okay. Not a problem.
But that is not what you are. That’s not what you are.
That is not what delivers peace and happiness.