by Jean Klein
When desire arises without having yet found its expression, either in words or as a fixation on an object, we should become conscious of it while remaining completely uninvolved. In this way agitation ceases and the dynamism in it dies away into the observer, the I that contains all and can desire none other than itself. The momentum of the desire is completely felt. It is a striving in the dark towards some form of expression. One must become fully conscious of this desire without its crystallizing in a concept, a direction. This non-directed energy brings us back to our true nature which is objectless. Once we arrive at this clear-sighted vision, nothing appears to be more obvious than the ultimate reality of unlimited consciousness.
Real life is beyond life and death, appearing and disappearing. It cannot be reduced to the mind or limited by memory. Life, concealed in appearance, reveals itself when we clearly see that our habitual living is a compensation. This understanding loses its concreteness and is reabsorbed into stillness. In the realm of the known, everything is qualified, classified and filed away. Beyond the known is never-ending discovery. Everything points towards awareness and is reintegrated in it.
Fear and anxiety are the pawns of memory and the known. Emotional involvement blinds us; it is nothing other than a reaction produced by a psyche cut off from its source. Ideas and ideals are a flight from continual renewal.
When once we take the object as a pointer to what we are, a path opens up before us, it is a starting point towards self-knowledge. From then on life takes on quite a different meaning. The investigation proposed by the teacher leads us intuitively to this self-knowledge. Once oriented we are spontaneously brought towards becoming established in it.
Discursive thought, full of intention, can never lead towards being. Direct intuition of the perspective enlightens us, shows us that there is nothing to be gained by accumulating or acquiring. Then the seeker loses its striving force and dies. As soon as all illusion is dissipated, the seeker is revealed as being the object of his search.
Ultimate harmony depends on establishment in the Self in which the mind, spirit and body are united in harmony. Our whole psychosomatic organism bathes in this well-being and all mental activity is calmed when joy surges forth. At its very first caress let yourself be taken into bliss. Now objects are nothing other than reflections of this joy, this infinite peace, this reality, constantly present, underlying our everyday activities.
Generally what we call “being conscious” in our daily life is a pale reflection of the Self. The essential nature of the Self, Presence, shines forth in the void between two thoughts, two feelings and two states. Generally we ignore the void as an absence of objects, a “loss of consciousness.” But eventually we will become conscious of it, even in the presence of objects.
Real questioning is openness to the unknown. It means letting perceptions, objects, express themselves free from all the qualifications that derive from a center, the censoring ego.
If, during these unqualified moments, we remain in contact with tactile or auditory sensation simply as the uninvolved witness, there is no interference or restriction on the sensation and it is reintegrated into the silent onlooker. In this reintegration all traces of object and onlooker subject disappear. What remains is only being, stillness, what we are fundamentally.
What we are, our Self, all-presence, does not exist in time and space. On the plane of existence one can speak of living and dying, which are images created by the mind, but what we are is beyond birth and death. When we talk of birth we mean the birth of the ego, of the me, and by death we mean the death of the ego.
All phenomena evolve in space and time. This is the nature of existence. Existence is in being which is timeless and spaceless. Stopping ourselves wilfully from thinking for a length of time comes from a conceptualized ego and reinforces it. Trying not to conceptualize is also a concept and a violence against existence. Objectifying hinders us, stops us from finding the way to what we really are. All that we can do is become clear that we can never find enlightenment in the realm of thought and concepts. Our true nature is not objectifiable. All striving by the me is a hindrance. When we drop this process all concepts disappear, we are submerged by Grace, and the background, consciousness, becomes a living reality for us.
The Self is silent awareness but this silence is beyond concept and complementarity and cannot be defined in terms of a silence as opposed to noise. Thus trying to rid ourselves of agitation so as to attain a state of silence keeps us in conflict. It keeps us in the realm of opposition, defense, fighting, attaining and rejecting. But if on the contrary we accept the agitation, accept it as an expression of silence, it dissolves in the acceptance. Then you will reach the silence of the Self, beyond silence and agitation. You cannot hope to rid yourself of agitation if you remain on its wavelength, you must listen to it as a whole. It then dies into silence, for it is nothing else but silence.
When we talk of the present, we mean the eternal present, presence to the Self, which is unthinkable, beyond the mind and the psyche.
The seeker can be considered as a projected ego who feels want. Separated from its wholeness it vainly seeks to escape this state of tension. When the futility of the search is seen, it is abandoned and the energy, the driving force, is reabsorbed into the silent observer. The projected energy of the ego which is a centripetal movement, becomes centrifugal. The seeker, who is no longer a prey to the driving force of the search, integrates with what is found, with his true nature which he intuitively knows to be ever present.
Only a conceptualized ego, an objectified I am, can be tied, bound or freed. Once habit and reactions fall away we can no longer speak of freedom or servitude.
All striving to objectify the knower, which cannot be conceived of in terms of concepts, prevents us from directly perceiving our true nature, which is being, non-dual knowledge.
All conceptualization, objectification, is a projection of energy, a going away from our nearness where there is neither inside nor outside. It is only the mind that conjures up such ideas as inside and outside, freedom and imprisonment. Such inventions disappear without effort or discipline once they are seen to be imposters. There is being, knowledge and love. It is from this living silence that wafts the perfume of existence.
What place does Grace have in non-duality?
The very moment we obtain a greatly desired object, the ego is extinguished. At this moment both object and ego are absent. It is an absolutely non-dual experience where there is neither observer nor observed. But because we are not aware of it, we bypass it, and only catch a distant echo in our body or mind. We attribute its cause to such-and-such an object. Emotional and physical experiences are no more than states which come and go. Often we confuse non-dual experience with these states. The non-dual experience is beyond subject/object relationship, and strictly speaking is not an experience because it does not need a means to be known. When we see this quite clearly, a forefeeling awakens within us, a reminder that has nothing to do with memory which is a mental function. Following the trail of this forefeeling of our origin, we open ourselves to Grace.
The known object and the knower, the subject, are one. If we consider them to be separate entities this gives rise to the notion of an ego. The doer is an integral part of the object upon which he is acting, just as nervousness and the person who is nervous are one and the same. Once we see this clearly, the wilfulness of the me, the experimenter, fades away into lucid observation, silence, free from choice. Then all potentialities find their expression.
There are many different approaches which question the reality of the world. What should we make of this?
The world is both real and unreal. It seems real when looked at from the point of view of the world, the ego, but when seen from a global view this point of view is restricted and therefore unreal. When consciousness knows itself as the source of the world, the world appears highly real. So just what difference is there between these two realities: that of he who is ignorant
of the Self, and that of he who knows himself to be? He who does not know, who takes the perceptible world to be real, limits it to patterns, systems, ideas and beliefs. These all help reassure an insecure ego. But it is a hypothetical world, both restless and passive, a lifeless world. For the one who knows himself to be, the world is an expression of ultimate knowledge. It is a prolongation, an emanation of the totality that is our real nature. The world is constantly recreated from moment to moment, ever new. The world always appears to us according to the point of view we adopt; for the senses it is form, for the mind it is idea, for the Self, the uniting consciousness, it is consciousness.
In this lies the meaning of the Zen saying: First there are mountains, then there are no mountains, then there are mountains again. First the mountains are objects and are called real by the ignorant. Then they are not seen as objects because the subject/object relationship evaporates. But then from the global view they are seen again, not as object mountains but as expressions of oneness. The mountains now appear within totality.
True knowledge is being-knowledge, this is the only knowledge worthy of its name. Truth, being knowledge, is not a part of ordinary thinking which depends on the subject/object relationship. Ordinary thinking stems from the known but being knowledge is outside the realm of having knowledge. It cannot be “had” or “got;” it can only be. If we project the already known, we only close ourselves inside a vicious circle. This attitude will not reveal the unknown, our true nature. Become open to a new dimension. This will immediately result in non-projection, a silence where you are open to reality. Then thinking will lose its boundaries, and its contents will subside into its source, being knowledge.
When an object is recognized as an expression of consciousness, its substance dissolves into knowledge, living silence, peace, lucidity. This light is always there before the object appears. Divided, relative knowledge appears and disappears in undivided consciousness. Thus the appearance of objects is discontinuous but consciousness is constant. Objective knowledge dies away into pure consciousness, global consciousness, and sooner or later you become established in it.
Whatever you do you are always consciousness, it cannot be otherwise. Confusion invades you once you believe yourself to be the doer, the thinker, the willer; but in reality you are purely the witness of your actions.
For example, let us suppose you remember a thought you had yesterday. You are now the witness of this present thought. When you recall a thought about the past it is an entirely new thought, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the thought developed in the past. If you realize that you are the witness of the thought you are remembering, you will cease to confuse the thought with the witness.
How can I free myself from the guile of my thoughts, from repetition? In other words, how can I live creatively?
The mind cannot change itself, the willful ego is only one aspect of the mind. It can never bring about a change by analyzing and choosing, excusing, explaining, criticizing or concluding. Most of the time action is only reaction caused by fear, anxiety and desire. These are aspects of a mind which works like a kaleidoscope which can only rearrange a fixed number of pieces, a mind sustained by the ego, the already known, memory. Through global vision all will, all intention is abandoned leaving only silent awareness, total presence. This silent presence frees us from the patterns fabricated by the ego, thus opening out before us a whole new world of energies.
We divide time into determined periods that we call past, present and future, but when we think of the present it is already part of the past. The only present that really exists is presence. The notion of time comes into existence as thoughts succeed one another. Silent consciousness is ever present, whether we are thinking or not. If things were otherwise, how could we possibly talk of an absence of thought?
Reality becomes a living presence when in non-directed awareness we see error for what it is. It then vanishes, revealing truth and presence. We experience this instantaneously.
It is in this all-present awareness, free of all willing, free of all choosing, that we see error in its true light. Seen in a flash of lightning truth becomes a clear-sighted, luminous certainty. Truth is, and is its own proof, its only proof. It shines forth resplendently, eliminating what is false.
Cause and effect are only a way of thinking common to everyday life. When we think of the cause there is no effect, when we think of the effect, the cause ceases to exist; no two things can exist simultaneously. In the same way, the distinction between subject and object, comparing likes and dislikes, is nothing but memory. Memory is only a thought amongst many others, it has no reality in itself. Whether we think of the past or the future, in reality it is always now. We know time only as a succession of thoughts, based on memory. When we clearly recognize memory as being only a thought, the illusion of time leaves us.
Without an object there is no subject, nor subject without an object. When we are actually perceiving, the subject is absent, it is only afterwards that we say: “I have seen, I have heard.” The subject and object are two separate thoughts. We can only entertain one thought, physical activity or sensorial perception at a time. Thought, memory and time arise from still awareness—they are pure expressions of ever present eternity. Each perception is an entirely new world, of which the body and psyche are a part. The world is created anew with every new thought.
We often try to master the mind, to quiet it through concentration, but with clear-sighted vision we soon realize that concentration and distraction belong equally to the divided mind. We cannot possibly master the mind by means of the mind. Concentration only gives rise to a fixation, imprisoned like a canary in a cage. Silent awareness is beyond dispersion and concentration. Once seen in this light, the mind gives up striving and agitation dies away, giving way to living presence.
If we succeed in stopping thoughts by concentration we nonetheless remain in a state of conflict. When the mind is calmed in this way we perceive an emptiness, a feeling of quietness which might mistakenly lead us to believe we had attained the ultimate. It is essential to accept that our true Self is never to be found in a perception, in an object. We can never look in the known for what is beyond the known. If we have a preconceived idea of the ultimate we will try to attain it. This striving itself then becomes the major obstacle. So we must meditate on the sayings of the guru and let their content guide us to non-objective experience. When the object is no longer the center of our attention, attention leaves the object and is reabsorbed into the ultimate subject. This experience is lived quite beyond the ordinary dual relationship of subject and object.
It is the ego itself that creates all our problems for it is at their very root. The teacher helps us to understand this, and then creator and created vanish. As the creator is no more than a projection of the mind, only our true nature remains, ever present, everlasting. We can neither obtain it nor attain it.
All the problems of the world are our own problems, born of the ego. They come and go like waves one after the other. The professionals elected to solve them try to make changes, ignoring who created the problems in the first place. Thus when a change is made in one area the problem erupts in another. In a true approach, we find what fostered the problem, the root of all conflict and we step back. From the impersonal global view the ego together with its problems is reabsorbed into pure consciousness, attentive awareness. Then there are no longer problems and never will be any again. It is only from this global view that intelligence and right action arise, and lasting change can occur.
Are you saying that when we live in consciousness we turn our back on social conflict?
Conflict is entirely due to our fragmented viewpoint. A fragment is always in a state of imbalance. With this as a starting point we can only create more fragments, more conflict and a greater state of imbalance. Sociologists and economists who try to eliminate social conflicts inevitably do no more than create new ones. They consider the conflict to be exterior to the i
ndividual when in fact he is the very one to create it. Nothing can be changed from the point of view of society: what we can change is our way of seeing and then we automatically are the most effective member of the society in bringing change.
Once we leave the fragmented view of the ego behind, to take up an impersonal point of view—that of consciousness—conflict subsides. The world in itself cannot be the cause of conflict. We are the ones who build it up out of nothing. Just as long as a man considers himself to be his body, he is a slave to his glands, his bodily functions, his mental projections, to what we could call his conditioning. But if he recognizes the fact that his body has no reality in itself, that is to say, no independence whatsoever, that it is entirely dependent on the perceiver, he comes to realize that the body is no more than an object. In this realization he is no longer an accomplice to the body he inherited. He will see that he is perfect harmony. This corresponds to an impersonal point of view. There is an unfolding, where the body will discover its inner wisdom, consciousness. All activity will now be unprejudiced, unbiased, suited to all situations, conditions and problems.
Consciousness is the hearth from which sparks fly and lose themselves. We erroneously identify with these sparks. They are but fragments. Duality is banished from this hearth.
You said that those who try to change society only reduce one conflict but another inevitably arises. This sounds very abstract. On the practical level surely some changes are better than others? We can’t just sit here and say all societies are equally humane or even functional. There must be room for relative change before we are all enlightened. Otherwise self inquiry seems to be a purely selfish way of living. Can you speak about this?
Only a clear vision and deep understanding can bring change. Change comes when you see facts because every situation has its own solution. As long as you look from a personal viewpoint you cannot see facts. So first come to know your own conditioning, the depths of your personal view. Real acting is never personal. When you face a situation impersonally you will be brought to right acting.