A Crash Course in Awakening (Life Without Divisions)

[The Kiloby Group]

*pic Fernando Llosa

 

How long does it take to wake up out of the belief in separation (i.e., to see that divisions do not exist except in thought)?  It takes exactly how long it takes, and not a minute shorter or longer.  Seeing this allows you to avoid blindly believing a spiritual teaching that tells you that you are already liberated (when that is not your experience) and the one that tells you that you need four lifetimes to wake up.  Once you put all generalizations aside, you can take a look into your own direct experience and see exactly what it is that is keeping you locked in a belief in separation. 

In meeting with people over the years, I’ve seen a few common issues that pop up over and over in the discussion of why life often feels like a struggle and why freedom from that struggle seems elusive.  Liberation is freedom from the belief in separation.  It’s not only available in this life time.  It’s available right now.  That’s the good news.  The not-so-good news is that we often look for it in all the wrong places!   We get sidetracked in all sorts of ways!  This article illuminates a few of the common ways we make it hard on ourselves on the road to freedom.  It reveals that freedom is the realization that we are not on a road at all.  Freedom is in the midst of our everyday experience. 

 

 

Keeping It Simple   

            Struggle comes from a belief that divisions are real.  Freedom is seeing that those divisions are not real.  It’s really that simple!  We can over complicate it with all sorts of theories and explanations.  But keeping it simple, by defining the problem simply as struggle caused by the belief in divisions and the solution as seeing that the divisions aren’t real, helps cut through a lot of unnecessary stuff. 

            Let’s define those words.  “Struggle” is a catch-all word that includes all forms of personal suffering, seeking and interpersonal conflict with others—all of which stem from the belief that divisions are real.  The word “divisions” refers, basically, to thoughts.  Thoughts seem to divide out experience in time and space.   We believe that things exist as separate objects and that everything has boundaries and borders around it, separating it completely from all other things.  The point is that it is a belief system, nothing more!  It’s a conceptual overlay, superimposed over undivided presence.  We believe in inherently existing boundaries between, for example, self v other, past, present, and future, America v. Iran, high v. low, right v. wrong, Republican v. Democrat, space v. things happening in space, and consciousness v. the content of consciousness.   

            To say that we believe these divisions are “real” is to say that we think they are more than just thoughts.  We think they really exist in the world, independent of our thoughts.  These divisions are products of thought, without exception.  Seeing through the belief that divisions exist inherently is the realization called nonduality.  Why even bother with looking into this issue of divisions?  In seeing that our experience is not really divided in the way we think it is, we find automatic relief from the belief in a separate person suffering, seeking, and experiencing interpersonal conflict with others.  This is not to say that fear, anger, and other painful emotions and challenging situations do not arise once freedom is revealed.  Things continue to happen but life is no longer personal.  Thoughts and emotions arise and fall within impersonal awareness, but they leave no trace.   

            What is impersonal awareness?  Stop for one moment and notice the thought that is arising now!  What sees that thought?  Don’t answer that question with another thought.  A thought cannot see another thought, only awareness can.  Just look.  That which sees the thought is impersonal.  It has no name.  It has no story.  It is not a person.  Person is a thought, a story, a mental construct.   In seeing through the idea that you are a separate person, and that your real identity is this impersonal awareness, stuff no longer arises and falls to a person.  It no longer hooks into a story.  It is no longer carried over in time, in a story.  In this realization, we experience a natural well-being, freedom, peace, wisdom, and love and compassion for others.  That’s a good enough reason to look into this issue of whether divisions are real. 

 

 

The Issues

 

            These are the issues I encountered on my spiritual search and I continue to see people encountering these same issues today. 

 

Issue #1:  Looking Outside Our Present Experience

 

            Let’s start with the grand daddy of all issues—believing that awareness is somewhere other than in our present experience, right here, right now.  We have to verify for ourselves that awareness is ever-present.  We really can’t trust spiritual teachings, which constitute second-hand knowledge.  Teachings, like this one, can only give us some guidance and a few tools.  We must look for ourselves. 

            Start with something really simple!  Take moments throughout the day, as often as possible, and drop all your mental labels about yourself, others, and the world.  Just rest without having to know anything.  These moments are free samples that reveal that existence itself is not divided.  Only thought creates divisions, like an overlay or blanket placed over the undividedness of presence. 

            Repeatedly taking these moments throughout the day helps us to verify that awareness is always here.  See that all appearances come and go to awareness.  An appearance is anything that comes and goes to unchanging, unmoving basic, ever-present awareness.  Appearances include thoughts, emotions, sensations, states, and experiences.

For example, all the stories that divide me from you and this from that appear to this awareness.  All the sounds and colors in the room appear to awareness.  All the sensations of hot, cold, smooth, and hard appear to awareness.  All states of confusion, doubt, surprise, and sleep appear to awareness.  All emotions of anger, elation, sadness, and fear appear to that awareness.  Everything that happens in life happens to awareness.  Notice that all appearances are inseparable from awareness.  What does inseparable mean?  It means nothing appears outside awareness.  This is 100% true all of the time.  See for yourself.  Whenever something appears, it always appears to awareness.  It has no independent existence from awareness.  Awareness is always here.  Stated another way, inseparability means that there is no real dividing line between sounds, thoughts, sensations, emotions and the awareness to which they appear.  Remember, all divisions are products of thought.  So if you find a dividing line between awareness and something appearing to awareness, notice that a subtle concept is arising.  You are emphasizing some thought or image of a body, person, or story.  Just notice that thought, image, or story.  That which notices it IS what you really are—awareness.  Awareness is like pure space in that it is undivided.  And awareness has no location.  If it had a location, it would be divided between where it is located and where it is not.  It is only thought that gives the sense of location.  One must really look into his own experience to verify all of this for himself.  No teaching can do this investigation for us.  We must do it ourselves!   

            All these appearances have one other very important trait in common:  they are all temporary.  This is where the freedom starts to be realized.  In letting each appearance just come and go temporarily, without trying to analyze, understand, manipulate, categorize, neutralize, get rid of it or keep it around, nothing is held onto.  Life starts to be experienced as a constant, seamless flow of appearances coming and going to a stable, ever-present awareness.  This takes seeking right out of the equation.   

            In taking these brief moments of recognizing awareness throughout the day, we see that awareness is undoubtedly always and already here, no matter what is happening or where we are.  These moments seem to become longer and longer.  But what is really happening is that we are seeing that awareness never leaves or returns.  Awareness is not really expanding and the moments are not really becoming longer.  What is really happening is that the thoughts that divide and complicate our experience are just being emphasized less.  The result is life starts to feel more spacious and undivided.  The present moment appears more prominent, while our viewpoints and the story of time starts to quiet or fade to the background.    

            The appearances constantly change, but awareness remains unchanged, present, and alert to what is happening.  Verify this for yourself.  Look around the room.  Certain temporary thoughts, sights, sounds, smells, emotions, and sensations are coming and going.  But the cognizing space to which they are coming and going remains unchanged and stably present.  Now walk to the next room, and then outside.  New thoughts, sights, emotions, and sounds may arise.  But the basic awareness that experiences those appearances remains no matter where you go or what you do.  We gain a tremendous confidence when we verify for ourselves that awareness is always present, in every situation. 

            There is no need to chase pleasant experiences.  Notice that awareness is present no matter whether you are experiencing total elation or agonizing fear.  All feelings and sensations, good or bad, are equal, temporary appearances that come and go to awareness.  They are not awareness itself.  Being clear about that keeps us from chasing pleasant states or trying to recreate some past, peaceful moment we had while walking down the street last autumn.    

            We don’t have to do anything but recognize that awareness is already here in our present experience, regardless of what is arising (i.e. thoughts, emotions, states, sensations, experiences).  Awareness is here before any thought arises.  When a thought arises, awareness is still here.  Just notice that the thought is arising.  Awareness is what notices the thought.  When the thought disappears, notice that awareness is still here.  This appearing and disappearing is true of every appearance, without exception.  In seeing this, we experience peace, freedom, and well-being.  We don’t bring these things about through force or personal will.  They arise by virtue of recognizing our real nature as being undivided.   

 

 

 

Trap #2:  The Time Division

 

            This is related to Trap #1.  But it’s worth rephrasing here.  We are so used to processing life within the time-bound story of “me”—past to present to future—that it is only natural that we would treat the recognition of awareness the same way.  Yet it is precisely this error that causes unnecessary years of seeking happiness, love, wealth, freedom or whatever else in the future—which is exactly where these things don’t lie.  Our contentment is found through the present recognition of impersonal awareness as what we are prior to this story of personal becoming.  This is not to deny or suppress the story, but only to see it in the proper perspective, a relative story appearing within what we really are. 

            I’ve had many conversations in which someone has described having a “glimpse” of her “true nature” at some point in the past or who has repeated an implanted idea about what awakening might or should look like now or in the future.  This guarantees more seeking towards future.  We often find ourselves chasing some image of awakening.  All images of awakening appear and disappear to awareness.  Don’t emphasize the images.  Just recognize the awareness that sees the image and let the image pass as part of the constant, seamless flow of appearances.  Welcome everything.  Hang onto nothing!        

            If you think awakening will look, touch, taste, sound, feel, or be a certain way in the future, just notice that thought.  That thought really has nothing to do with awakening (or what some call “enlightenment”).  In noticing the thought, it disappears naturally.  What is left is awareness.  The recognition that awareness isever-present and that all appearances come and go equally to awareness is the awakening.  That’s the enlightenment.  

            The same goes for the past.  If you believe that something happened in the past that felt “closer” to awakening than your present experience or if some teaching planted an idea about how awakening is supposed to look, just notice it.  It is only a viewpoint arising in present awareness.  It is so tempting, seductive even, to emphasize these thoughts within the story, rather than recognizing that your real identity is the awareness that sees these thoughts.  Emphasizing the thoughts provides a sense that awakening is something personal, something that we gain for ourselves in our stories.  It isn’t.  Awakening, by all accounts in the traditions and in my own experience, is waking up out of that sense of a separate self woven into the fabric of time.  What to do?  Keep it simple.  See that time is a viewpoint arising in what you are—awareness.  Notice that awareness is present no matter what story-thought is arising.  Awareness is there before the thought arises, while the thought is happening, and once the thought disappears.  It’s always present.    

            There is so much discussion, and sometimes confusion, around the issue of whether liberation is sudden or gradual.  When you are looking back at something that happened to you in the past—perhaps a spiritual experience—or measuring your progress from Point A three years ago to Point B, which is now, that is ego.  That story does not (and cannot) wake up.  No person becomes enlightened.  Enlightenment is seeing through that story, seeing that it is not your real identity.  The measurement from Point A to Point B is about a person, living in time.  That story might give the impression that there is someone who is experiencing more peace, joy, or other great things than at some earlier point in the story.  That’s great!  But it is not the recognition of non-dual awareness.  It’s a relative story of becoming in time, which happens to awareness. 

            No matter how you slice it, when you think of your identity as existing within a story, that is a division.  You are conceiving of yourself as something separate from life and from other stories, and entertaining a self-centered story that is interested mainly in its own progress.  You are buying into divisions that are mind-made.  They aren’t really there.  It seems like there is a past, totally separate from a now, which is totally separate from a future.  But each of those and, in fact, every thought within your story, is appearing right here within the undivided awareness.

            Spiritual experiences or states that happened in the past are nothing more than a memory now, appearing within present awareness.  Ideas about future experiences or states are also just thoughts appearing within present awareness.  It’s tempting to chase some experience or state you once had.  You believe you are moving towards awakening by revisiting thoughts about this stuff, but you are really solidifying the story of “me” that lives in time.  In noticing a thought within the time story, let it pass.  Recognize that awareness is present.  Keep it that simple!   

 

 

Trap #3  The Space Division

 

            This is also a common issue in awakening.  In life, we often start with an erroneous assumption, which is that we are things cut off from life and from other things, somehow existing in a vacuum, apart from the rest of the universe.  We then operate from that assumption, asking many questions about our existence from this unexamined spatial division between me v. you, us v. them, and this v. that. 

            The more obvious spatial divisions that operate in our lives are things like self, other, banana, earth, spiritual teachings, the moon, justice, houses, countries, and tables.  It really looks like there are cars, existing out there, whether we are thinking about them or not.  But is this ever our experience? 

Have you ever actually experienced a car outside of the thoughts and sensations that arise in any given moment?  There is no way to entertain a separate object without thoughts and sensations.  And thoughts and sensations appear inseparably to awareness.  This reveals that objects “out there” don’t exist in the way we perceive them to exist, “on their own side,” so to speak.  We only ever experience the appearance of separate things when we also, simultaneously, experience thoughts and sensations.  We often think that we are touching a car even when the thought “car” is not arising.  But this is not our actual experience.  When we are touching a car, there is only the sensation of hardness.  Our fingers aren’t telling us that it’s a car.  And when we see the color blue on the car, the color is not whispering in our ear, “I’m a blue car.”  These are concepts the mind superimposes over our non-conceptual, present experience.   

            There is no need to philosophize about the separate objects that don’t exist.  Instead go to the root of the issue—thoughts and sensations.  When you think you are perceiving a separate thing, no matter what it is, notice that thoughts and sensations are arising one after the other.  Start with yourself, as an object.  You experience thousands of thoughts each day about yourself, but which one of those thoughts is really you?  Surely, one of them has to be the real you.  Which thought is it?  If you can't answer that, what does that say about what you are believing about a separate self?  We make a monumental error each day.  We emphasize these thoughts, assuming that they are referring to an actual, separate entity.  But when we look for the actual entity, we only find more thoughts.  All of these thoughts are happening to awareness.  All we really have to do is recognize this awareness as that which witnesses these thoughts come and go.  This reveals that there is no separate self.  There is only awareness and whatever is appearing to awareness in any given moment. 

            Rely on awareness as your real identity in every situation.  Each time you reference the thought “me” as if you can exist separate and apart from the rest of reality, see what is happening.  A thought is arising to impersonal, witnessing awareness.  Let the thought pass without emphasizing it.  In realizing that the thought happens to awareness, you see that the thought is not referring to anything.  It is only referring to itself. 

            Notice that it is not just “you” that doesn’t exist as a separate thing.  Nothing exists that way.  For example, get a clear mental image of an orange in your mind.  Notice that, when you are thinking of an orange, your mind isolates that image.  It suppresses all other information in the universe.  There it is, an image of an orange, appearing all by itself, as if it exists separately from everything, as if it exists in a vacuum.  The universe does not divide itself in two just because a thought is arising.  See that this is the case with all thoughts-without exception.  Think of yourself.  It could be the image of your body, some aspect of your story, or the “I” thought alone.  Notice that the mind isolates that thing, whatever it is.  It creates an isolated image, as if “you” exist in a vacuum, by yourself, independent of the rest of life.          

            Drop all thoughts (for brief moments) while you are doing this kind of investigation.  In dropping all thoughts, all divisions subside.  All mental images fade.  This reveals that nothing exists apart from anything else.  There is only undivided life.  If there are no concepts arising, there are no divisions.  It is only the mind that tells us that things are divided off from other things.  Let thought arise again and again.  There is no need to be afraid of thought.  No need to make it into any enemy.  Thought is not the issue.  The belief in separation is the issue.  Let thought show you any image it wants to show you.  It’s the same with all images.  The mind projects an image of a thing, as if that thing exists all by itself, divided off from the rest of the universe.  Nothing exists that way.  We never experience a tree totally independent of the ground, the sky, the grass, and our awareness of all these things. 

 

 

Summary

            In recognizing awareness in every situation, and seeing that it is only thought that divides the universe into this v. that, the belief in separation starts to be seen through.  We begin to experience nondual awareness as our real identity.  We see that divisions are not real.  They are thoughts.  And we see that even thoughts are inseparable from awareness.  We experience inseparability in every way.  This automatically provides peace because conflict happens only through buying into divisions.  It provides humility because the self-centered story is seen as a false identity.  It provides freedom because we are free to experience anything, any thought, emotion, sensation, or experience, and none of that destroys or threatens our basic identity as the awareness to which these appearances come and go.  It provides love because love is the recognition that we were never divided in the first place.  Inseparability equals love.  It provides compassion because we know when someone else is suffering that we’ve been there.  We once believed in false divisions.  We suffer with others, knowing—paradoxically—that there really are no others.  This makes us available and open to help them see beyond the divisions that cause suffering, seeking and conflict. 

 

            Let this investigation be yours alone.  You don’t have to believe anyone who tells you that you are already free, when that is not your experience.  And you don’t have to believe that you need years of investigation before you can be free (that would be the “time division” trap).  In relaxing around this investigation, and going deeply into it, and even enjoying it, you wake up exactly when you wake up, not a minute sooner.  You see that enlightenment isn’t some special state.  It is your birthright.    

 

 

Scott Kiloby is a noted author/international speaker. He is the author of "Love's Quiet Revolution: The End of the Spiritual Search” and "Reflections of The One Life". He is also the creator of an addiction recovery method called Natural Rest. His book, "The Natural Rest Method: A Revolutionary, Simple Way to Overcome Any Addiction," is scheduled for release in 2011.

 

Scott's message is devoted to simplifying and demystifying spiritual enlightenment. He invites anyone who has a desire for Truth to wake up from living within a story. In waking up from that story, our authentic lives can finally begin. 

 

For a more details about these issues, check out Scott's latest book and teaching method entitled: "Living Realization". This digital (e-book) is now available at his brand new Living Realization site, which is an online course containing basic, straight forward language pointing to nondual realization.