Real Time Happening

Sit still.... take a deep breath...

Listen....

Someone is washing up in the kitchen. The clatter of plates and the jangle of cutlery.

Someone enters the kitchen and a conversation starts.

But see.... they have no existence... apart from this scenario - this happening.

Breathe in... breathe out... feel the tingle in the fingers.

You don't exist... other than this real time happening.

A car goes by... two dogs start to bark excitedly... their owners exchange words.

But the dogs and cars and people have no existence... apart from this unfolding - this present happening.

Only conceptually can things exist other than how they are expressed right Now.

This is not fancy nonduality speak - this is how things are.

There is a universal event... a happening going out live.

It never settles... it never becomes happen-ed.

Of course this event presents as highly complex expressions, conditions, facets, patterns.

But nothing is other than... separate from... independent of... this global happening... this seamless universal turning.

The Universe is this............................................

Breathe in... breathe out...

The Universe* is (now) this...................................

*Universe as a synonym for the All, Totality, Tao etc.

The Illusion Of Happened Things

Existence is a seamless event unfolding... the church bells, the rain, the birds, the trees, the rumble of cars.... are the present expression of a living sweep... a living universe happening - not happened.

Happen-ed things do not exist... there is only a happen-ing... this very zinging actual-ness or such-ness of manifestation - reality occurring in real time - going out live - now... as you read this.

Happened things, separate entities, independent objects and so on are thought (and language) constructions - they appear in a freeze-framed virtual reality (the apparent 'then'.)

Right Now there are no such things - just a happening happening. These seeming things, beings and entities are not what they are but how they are in this real time happening - shifting modulations of a great event.

Things don't exist - only the global living event exists.

L i f e

It's so obvious isn't it?

All there is is Life.

Life* - in the widest possible sense of the word - an all-encompassing creative principle - dynamic - animate - vital.

From the mysterious dance of the subatomic to the most elaborate cosmic formations... Life can be found pulsing and shifting, erupting and evolving.

Is there anything other than this ongoing creative principle?

Is there anything that is separate from Life's happening?

Is there Life... and you?

That would be absurd wouldn't it?

* Tao, God, Reality or whatever.....

The Self Delusion

Everything that manifests in any conceivable way can be said to be the unfolding of a singular source/happening. What the nature of this source is, is unimportant to the point here but let's allow, for now, that it produced a big bang or something similar. So, everything without exception is the expression of this molten universal principle. The formation of the galaxies, solar systems, planets, ecosystems and the complex and sophisticated world of apparent human organisms.

For neutrality's sake we'll call this universal principle xxx. From the perspective of the above, anything thought to be in any way separate from xxx is a form of delusion.

The belief in a self that could be separate, independent and autonomous must be such a delusion. This is not to deny the sense of self that arises in so called self-aware organisms. This sense arises as a seemingly adaptive mechanism and for this reason it's probably not a good idea to try to be rid of it (or to destroy the ego as some religions put it). But it can be seen that this sense of self as with all other appearances is yet another construction in the molten sweep of xxx.

In an intimate way this can be seen right now. It is what is meant when we hear that no one is typing - typing is just happening. Or no one is sitting - sitting is just happening. Right now in this unfolding present (where else?) there is just this seamless molten sweep of Source. The patterns, plays, manifestations and expressions that arise are just this - life happening. Reality being this!

So, seeing through this delusion is a simple and non-mystical thing. Calling it an enlightenment and all the spiritual hoopla that goes along with it is an unnecessary remnant from a murkier credulous time. This is something simple, fresh, alive and in plain view.

Going Out Live

The wind shakes the trees... a TV chatters in the next room... rain splashes the window.

All is the single sweep of a pulsating present happening.

The bird that just flew past the widow has no intrinsic existence.

No independence from a single seamless universal turning.

Right now Reality is going out live.

Reality being this... and now... this.

Already Accomplished

So... all there is is Totality.

Doing, acting, creating etc. are movement or expressions of Totality.

And in a sense... the rest is irrelevant.

Much philosophical ink has been spilt debating the essential nature of this Totality. This can be an interesting sideline - but the need to work this stuff out, to decode or solve something... falls away in this revelation that Totality/Source is the doer, actor, author.

Look right now! Things are already manifesting without struggle in the absence of concepts, compulsions and solutions.

And this is the fabled freedom; everything is already happening... already accomplished in every moment - however that moment expresses.

Who Awakens?

Firstly, what is awakening? There can be a lot of over-elaboration and magical thinking surrounding this question. The plain truth is that awakening is simply a fresh seeing or recognition of how things really are. A recognition that cuts so deep as to be better described as a paradigm shift.

So who or what has this recognition? Well, let's use the old ocean/wave analogy for a moment. The wave goes about its business believing that it is a wave. One day it comes to recognize that it is in fact not other than the ocean - the ocean is its source, power and essence. Now, from here it wouldn't be in any way accurate to say that the wave has awakened since the wave is without power, autonomy or agency. Instead, the awakening can be seen to be a play of the ocean.

So, the apparent entity does not awaken - but the pattern and process that is the mind-body organism is the mechanism through which a recognition occurs. In fact recognition only has relevance within the finite play of the organism. Beyond this play, the need for a recognition is without meaning.

You see, awakening or recognition could be said to be a corrective to a delusion. The delusion of separation is out of kilter with an underlying intuition of wholeness. This schism fuels certain psychological drives that eventually induce the spiritual quest towards completeness. Recognition simply reveals that completeness is and was already the case.

A Conversation About Consciousness

You seem certain that consciousness is not our true nature.

Firstly, there are uses of the word which are interchangeable with Oneness or Reality etc. In these cases I'm sure that we are talking about the same thing.

But I do think that it's best to have a little caution regarding fixed descriptions of the nature of reality. The concept of an absolute transcendent witness - a dissociated eternal knower, can ultimately be found to be incoherent. What is beyond doubt is that there is 'something' as opposed to nothing - I've referred to this as Source or Reality - I think of consciousness as we know it as an emergent condition of that.

Surely it's the case that consciousness is the limitless knower of all that appears? Consciousness must be primary - nothing can be without it.

Well 'to be is to be perceived' is the mantra of the idealist. I have touched on the fallacy of this elsewhere but to summarize; all that the idealistic approach confirms is the tautology that things cannot be perceived to exist without them being perceived. As for the claim of limitless knowing? In my experience I have never met anyone coming to this teaching who didn't ask: if I am consciousness, why is it the case that only this first-person perspective of the organism (this specific sensory matrix) is ever evident? Now this seems a fair enough question given the claims about the all knowing nature of consciousness.

Hmm, but isn't it the case that in the absence of a self or separate entity, consciousness is left as that which sees, hears, thinks etc?

(For the moment I will go along with your use of consciousness for 'all that is' - bearing in mind that Reality or Source is preferable - as we go on it hopefully will become clear as to why.)

Consciousness (Reality) could indeed be said to be the actor, thinker, perceiver etc... but only via its shifting manifestations. For example, in order for consciousness to make a cup of tea, it plainly must manifest the components of that scenario; hands, cup, hot water, tea etc.

Similarly for consciousness (Reality) to actually taste the tea it would need to manifest sentience, sense perceptions, taste buds etc. We can go on to apply this understanding to other actions, perceptions, feelings and thoughts etc. In each case a host of complex conditions are required for said action, perception, feeling or thought to be manifest.

Ultimately we might come to see that the same approach must be applied to the phenomena that is consciousness (as we know it) itself. Consciousness becomes conscious as we know it via the manifestation of a constellation of complex conditions.

By this point we can see why the word consciousness is perhaps not the best designation for Ultimate Reality (not that there is ever a good designation.) Reality/Source manifests as ALL conditions including action, thinking, feeling, perceiving and consciousness.

I have to add here that I'm really not sure how worthwhile it is to work through this sort of stuff. We can never determine such a thing as an absolute identity. All such absolute identities, however we conceive them, are by default manifestations of the same indeterminable mystery.