by Jean Klein
Recalling the object as being the cause of wonderment reinforces the subject/object relation of which the me is king. Understanding that the object is only a pointer to the objectless displaces the stress put on it. This produces an intimate awakening, a forefeeling of wholeness, which, together with the ego, dissolves, spontaneously revealing the Self.
How can we get rid of the idea of the ego?
Within us there is the deep-rooted belief-system, based on illusion, that all objects and our surroundings are separate from us, outside us. Yet we identify with the body, senses and mind and create a separate world of I and you. In the beginning it is very helpful to take our belief to its full extension and see our feelings, body, thoughts and so on as objects just like others, like a tree, a horse, a bird. This gives some space in the irrational, tight relation we have with the body-mind. We come to see that our thoughts, the I-thought, emotions, likes and dislikes are equally all perceivable objects. This standpoint leads us to realize spontaneously that we are the knower, and the notion of being a personal entity loses all meaning.
The conception of our surroundings as a mass of objects will be transmuted. The object is no longer truly speaking an object; from now on it is an extension, an expression of the knower, consciousness. This is the result of total understanding, grasped in an instant. This experience is of quite a different nature from the analytical process which proceeds step by step.
Can this understanding arise at any moment?
This flash of understanding can occur at any time whether in the waking state, in the dreaming state, or when passing from deep sleep to the waking state. It and it alone causes all set patterns to vanish and to reintegrate in the whole.
For most people, attention is only understandable as concentration directed towards something, or as deriving from the attraction of an object. The stress we put on the object that interests us creates the illusion of a continuity. Non-directed attention enables the object to melt into silent stillness, the ultimate non-dual consciousness, which is the background of all apparent duality.
Total understanding is instantaneous, leaving no room whatsoever for a question or interpretation. In this flash of clear sightedness space and time are abolished. Choosing between long and short, good and evil, is a conceptual process, due to our identification with the material side of things, the body. Understanding is of a different nature, it rises above opposition and complementarity. Only this total knowledge can dissolve all conditioning.
When talking of spiritual matters, what is your idea of God?
It is a concept.
What is a concept?
An idea or a thought.
And what is a thought?
An image evoked by visual, auditory or tactile memory, an object.
Are all thoughts objects?
Yes, except the thought “I am,” which has no material substance and arises directly from non-objectifiable living.
How can I come to this experience?
It is beyond space and time and cannot be experienced.
Can you talk more about this so that I might eventually understand it?
Go away from beliefs, ideas and concepts to what is closest to you, your physical and psychological state at this moment. Your surroundings start with your body, your vitality. Whatever should present itself on the spur of the moment must be accepted as a whole (accepted means free from will, we are not talking here of the opposing terms of acceptance and refusal). Condemning or refusing will not set you free; on the contrary, it only weighs you down, imprisons you. You can only see facts when there is nobody choosing, and only through the facts can you find total freedom.
When you listen without being aggressive or resisting, your whole body becomes this listening, it is not confined to the ears. Everything surrounding you is included in this global listening, and ultimately there is no longer a listener and something listened to. You are then on the threshold of non-duality. You have left conceptual patterns behind. Don’t just talk about it, live it for yourself.
If I have well understood, living is what is left when all thought has come to an end, when all sensations have subsided.
You have preconceived patterns of thinking. Living is an absolutely non-objectifiable continuum, an ever present now. All thought, feeling and sensation spring spontaneously from this living. Consciousness does not depend on the absence of thought or sensation. Do not emphasize the absence of objects. Emphasize only the presence of consciousness, life. Consciousness is in the absence and presence of thought and sensation.
In this case what are the world and objects surrounding us?
When the body wakes up in the morning the world appears. It is perceived by the five senses and conceived by the sixth sense, the brain. There are infinite forms and names but they have no existence outside of consciousness. To paraphrase the Zen saying: First there are conceptual mountains, then there are no concepts, then there are perceptual mountains.
Is there any meaning in the relationship between the I and the world?
There is no aim. God is perfection and beyond improvement. If we want to talk in terms of an aim, the world and objects are there only to reveal the ultimate subject, “I am.”
Is God the same as consciousness for you? Is our natural being God?
Yes, there are not two. In our absence as somebody there is God. This absence belongs also to God. There is only God.
We meet here all together, but in reality we meet only ourselves. In a meeting of personalities there is only demanding, asking, the desire to overcome the feeling of isolation and insecurity that the ego finds itself in all the time. So-called love and giving between personalities, between objects, still arises out of insecurity and the need for security. Real contact is made once there is no person to be met, in a place which cannot be located in time and space.
We exchange ideas so as to know their worth, to find the most correct way of seeing things, but under no circumstances do we try to situate ourselves in relation to a thought or a projection. Basically it is a form of higher reasoning which is meant to bring about its own elimination, so that sooner or later you will find there is no room for personal identity. Then, everything that preceded the living knowing is totally eliminated. There remains only a deep inner peace free from conflict and problems, where nothing needs to be added or subtracted. In this oneness there is no difference whatsoever between you and me. But your present situation is that you know your thoughts, your emotions and feelings, but you don’t know the knower. This is the only difference between us now.
The answer given by one who knows himself to be, never derives from memory. Each and every real answer flows directly from this being knowledge. Welcome the answer with awakened attention, and then forget it. It is indispensable that we let go of the spoken word so that the essence behind it may spring to life within the questioner. When contemplating the sayings of the guru you recall them, not so much from the mind but from the Truth from which they spring. It is not the verbal syntax that has transformative power but the source from which the words come, and with which they are impregnated. It is the feeling of the source which brings the words back to you.
Is it like when you are far from your beloved and you have the urge to be with her and there’s a strong desire to be alone, go for a walk in a quiet place, getaway from the activity of daily life? You have the strong desire to be absorbed in love.
That is perfect as long as you don’t fix yourself in the physical presence.
But is it not important to understand the words with the intellect?
If you sustain mental activity, if you try to understand on the mental plane, the true answer cannot find you. It is only when the mind dissolves that the true answer comes to life. Trying to evaluate the words in terms of what you know only keeps you in the question. We must very carefully distinguish between questions rooted in memory, in the past, and those which spring up in the moment itself free from second-hand information. These creative
questions already contain the seeds of the answer. When we ask the question we do not yet know the answer, but we intuitively feel it to be very near at hand.
It seems that for many of us here the words are still not clear. I see people sitting around you with a smile on their faces who have no questions. Where are they?
They are engulfed in affectivity, in states, and feel themselves in the donkey-stall. Certain people need to be in the stall in order to know the way out. One day they will see this state objectively and know that they, the seer, are out of it. It is the same process for intellectuals who are enclosed in concepts and ideas. At the moment of seeing the situation clearly they know that the seer is out of this cage.
Understanding must be clearly articulated in the intellect. A clear intellect frees you from the hold of states and projection. At a certain point the intellect spontaneously gives itself up to being the knowing, and you find yourself in your equanimity.
You say that in formulating questions and listening to answers we must not analyze, evaluate or interpret. I feel this denies the natural intellect and brings about a state of passive not-inquiring. What exactly is the function of the intellect in asking and listening?
In listening the answer goes through the intellect but you are not stuck to it. The saying goes at once to being understanding. The intellect must understand the words, the symbols, and come to a kind of clear geometrical representation of that to which they point. But at the same time the intellect knows its limits, that it is limited by representation, and then the representation dissolves and only the essence remains. Let’s make it clearer: If I say “pear” you cannot think of it without representing it either mentally or sensorially. But if we talk of “deep peace” or “unconditioned love” you spontaneously leave the representation and come to a feeling which dissolves all concepts. The teacher uses words only to help the student come to this dissolving of concepts so that what is left is only peace or love.
So no matter what the question is, the teacher always brings us back in one way or another to non-representation?
Yes. The teacher can remain silent in certain circumstances. The silence, beingness, gives no hold for representation, for being this or that. The words used point beyond the mind, senses and feeling. You know how different words strike you: table, fork or bag remain simply in representation, but wife, lover, child, stepfather, war, death, my country, all have a strong emotional impact. The words of the guru go neither in the representational nor psychological network, and should never be kept on these levels. It is only in their dissolving in listening that they can be effective.
So if one does not understand your words or forgets them, there can still be some benefit?
When you neither try to remember nor forget, when you are free from all personal relation with the words, they can be effective. The perfume of the words will come back to you at some point. Don’t try to remember, only let yourself be remembered.
And if I don’t understand what you are saying?
When you say “I understand” you haven’t understood, all you have done is interpret the words according to your intellectual framework and capacities. Understanding does not come on the mental level.
This does not mean the intellect should be sleepy or passive. On the contrary, a clear mind is essential so that you do not fall into emotional and psychological states.
The thing that bothers me and that I see as the Catch-22 of teachers in the spiritual path is that they are by definition self-referential. Anything that appears as incorrect teaching or behavior is explained away as lack of insight on the part of the disciple. In this way many false prophets hold a vast audience. How can we come to know the true teachers from the false? And is not doubt and our own intuition an essential tool in discrimination?
My first response is that if a teacher says “you are not...” he distinguishes himself from the disciple, makes him different. The so-called teacher never emphasizes the not-knowing because in reality there is nothing to know. To a certain extent the disciple must trust the teacher and follow his advice, that is he must make the information his own, first-hand. He should quickly come to moments of clarity which convince him that he has found the truth. He must feel himself more autonomous. If not, he must not stay for secondary reasons, compensations.
Real doubt is when you know moments of truth, of non-doubt, and then you fall again in the old patterns. Ask the question “Who doubts?” and live with it.
Why is it that I have a strong fore-feeling of truth but I cannot be it constantly?
Be aware of the exact moment when you leave it and you will discover the mechanism and the circumstances why you leave it. You are so accustomed to feeling yourself as a center that this habit contracts you away from your wholeness. You go away from a vast nothing in order to be a small something. You go away from your Absence to create a presence.
But if wholeness is complete security and fulfillment and I have moments of living this, I don’t see why it would not instantaneously break the habit.
To objectify yourself is very deep-rooted. Become aware of the passage between nothing and the desire to be something, between your expansion and being a center. You can feel this passage clearly between the sleeping and waking states. Take note how the body-mind and all its habits wakes up in you, in your emptiness. This is very important.
So before the moment of wholeness the habit is in the dark and afterwards it is still a habit but now seen as one?
Yes, exactly, it is in the light.
While meditating must we chase away all the thoughts that come to us? What should we do when they do come? So very often we get caught up in them and let ourselves be carried away.
Ah! So you bring me back to this question which I thought I had already spoken of often. See you live in a dream state. Whether you chase thoughts away or let them carry you away, you end up in exactly the same situation. You remain in the subject/object relation. The doer is reinforced.
Well, what should I do then?
Absolutely nothing. Doing and not doing amount to exactly the same thing. The last thing is to try to gain tranquility, to try to become calm.
You have taken note, you have already seen yourself being carried away by your thoughts. Just seeing it implies a transfer of energy away from being lost in your usual thought patterns towards reality. There is already some distance, so as other thoughts occur, quite a different attitude will settle within you and you will eventually find yourself outside the whole process. In the end you will become aware of a current of energy preceding each thought. The continuous swinging between having and becoming will die out too and you will be absorbed into the present, “now.” Then there is peace, silence, tranquility, but no personal identity to be silent.
I have taken note for years that thoughts carry me away. If there has been a transfer of energy it has made no difference in my life. I cannot see how simply taking note can be enough, unless of course I am taking note in the wrong way.
Taking note does not mean you jot it down in your mental diary and forget about it. Here you make it a concept. You have emphasized the fact, not the seeing. This is the lazy way, the passive way. Taking note means that you remain alert, you see the fact and the alertness remains after seeing the fact. See how the seeing acts on you, how it feels to be the seer. The background is emphasized. This is where the transfer of energy occurs.
How can we possibly lead an everyday life and “be” at the same time?
Everyday life and ‘being” are not two as you still think, because consciousness and its object, action or thought, are one. Everyday life appears in consciousness. You are this consciousness but you are not what appears day after day. Question yourself deeply: To whom do these things appear? Who judges them, condemns them? Who swings between likes and dislikes, and who is it that is also an integral part of what appears? You know the person that refuses, accepts or chooses. You know moments when you make a choice and others free from choice. What y
ou are fundamentally is completely beyond all this.
Distinguish within yourself between the person that is involved in choosing, who functions from a viewpoint, and the observer who is ever choiceless. Live more and more from the impersonal, and you will one day knowingly be in this impersonal presence. Here, what we call everyday life takes root and flourishes. Here, there is no person bound by fear, desire or anxiety, to intervene or interrupt the natural flow of life. From what you have said you would think that everyday life was nothing but a burden. Who for? Drop the who, and you will soon see that there is no burden to bear.
Can the world exist without desire?
The world exists within you; you are not a part of the world, you give birth to the world. Who desires? The only reason you desire the existence of a world is to reassure yourself, your ego, so that you can believe in its continuity. Where does this desire spring from? It exists for someone who wants to exist and yet finds the world lacking in interest.
So it’s not so much desiring the world but searching for something deeper, the desire to be?
Yes, this is the only thing we can hope for, all the rest is compensation.
Is this desire essential?
Yes.
So we mustn’t systematically destroy all desire?
No, for it can be a pointer. When we move from one compensation to another, we disperse ourselves. If we see this dispersal for what it is, desire can then be orientated.
Since you have so clearly defined your desire and you have realized that in reality it is a desire to be, this implies that you are capable of discriminating. You may have the forefeeling of being without qualification, being without being a father, an actor, a lover, a lawyer, a minister. Being is the origin, prior to all these. Once you feel this deeply, you no longer strive to become this or that, for this would only be another aim, projection or compensation. And what happens when you let go of all becoming? You can no longer refer to anything whatsoever. The past and future are no more… there is only nothingness, silence. This silence cannot be located in space and it is timeless, you are entirely present, and from this perception comes the desire to be.