Observations expressed in words
All there is is Consciousness. Consciousness is self-conscious medium, which is the base for self-appearance of all there is.
I is the source and simultaneously the totality of all sensations appearing in consciousness.
Life is:
– a dream in the Dream
– a play in the Play
– a performance in the Performance
– a movie in the Movie
– images in the Vision
– I in the I-I
Vision is simultaneously That, which sees and That, which is seen as well as the PROCESS of interaction between the two. Vision is a process, in which both the seer and the seen constitute a single whole. This whole is Consciousness. Only THAT sees being at the same time the seen and the vision, because only THAT alone IS.
The seer does not think. The thinker does not see. The seer’s attention is directed immediately to what appears as a phenomenon. And that is exactly why the seer knows, being absorbed in the very essence of what is happening, in the direct knowing. Essentially, he IS THE KNOWING, while the thinker’s attention dwells only on thoughts, which are just reflections of phenomena. That is why he does not know, but merely thinks of the knowing. All his knowledge is just a collection of thoughts and images of what really is.
Birth is a fall into a sleep, while life is the observation and the experiencing of the dream.
Death is awakening from the sleep perceived as one’s life.
Birth and death are transitional states in Consciousness. Both the states are experienced by the same Consciousness, which does not prefer one against the other. All is perceived as a single phenomenon.
There is only One Doer in the world, the One who does nothing, but due to Whom alone everything is being done.
Enlightenment is nothing, not something worth pursuing. It cannot be touched, seen or utilized. It is really NOTHING. One cannot reach it, because IT is here all the time. One cannot hide from IT, since there is no-one and no-where to hide. IT may occur, IT may happen as a spontaneous realization of What-Is.
Those pursuing some illusive enlightenment will get just illusionary images mistaken for that. Those trying to get enlightenment as something specific will get just specific images reflecting that.
Understanding may be both complete and incomplete. But this is just conventionality, a concept used as a way to express different manifestations of the same phenomenon.
Everyone had moments when they did not understand something at first, but began to understand that later. However that does not mean that they began to understand everything. Their understanding extended just to that phenomenon, which had not been understood before. In such a case we could say that their understanding was incomplete, not total. They understood just a part of the whole, that, which came into focus of their perception.
What is usually called Ultimate or Total Understanding is realization stemming from the recognition of the Unity of all there is, including myself. There is no ‘me’ and some ‘other’, there is only One, which is self-conscious. To see the only One in all its manifestations, in all existing diversity is Total or Ultimate Understanding. It is Total or Ultimate because there is nothing else. What-Is is eternity and infinity. What can be more than this?
Nobody does anything, but everything gets done. There is no doer, all is One and thanks to that One everything is, gets done and is perceived the way it is perceived. The wind does nothing in order to blow, neither the water does anything in order to flow, nor the Sun to shine, or the bird to fly, or the fish to swim, or the man to live, or life to be.
Life simply happens, nobody makes it happen. Life appears as a single movement. In this single movement manifold currents and streams arise. Gradually flowing apart and multiplying these streams create and assume various forms. Thus appear various types of movement, various kinds of actions which are constantly change. One results from another, then another one and so on and so forth. Thus arise various kinds of sensations, forms of perception and life-forms.
Then death comes. Simultaneously change of movements occurs, change of actions, forms, sensations, perceptions. In that regard death is no different from life. Nobody makes it happen either. It is one of phenomena of Single Nature, the phenomena opposed to birth. Without death there is no birth. It is like two ends of the stick.
What is invariable in both cases is the relentless force of Laws of Nature. Nature itself does nothing for its laws to manifest the way they do. IT is the LAWS, IT needs do nothing to be THEM.
THAT, which sees, observes, perceives, feels, thinks, acts, is born, lives, dies, is reborn, and so on; that, which CONSTANTLY manifests ITSELF and which BY ITSELF creates all this diversity is ONE SINGLE NATURE. There is nothing but THAT.
We cannot say that IT lives. Live is just one aspect of its existence. We can only say that IT IS! And this IS-ness, this truth is displayed in all that exists. It covers both visible and invisible, movement and rest, light and darkness, solidity and emptiness. It is the unified existence of all there is and that is the sole existence of the WHOLE.
All very, very simple! Extremely simple! Discard all that is irrelevant and complicated, and what remains is that, which is simple and natural. And that is TRUTH. TRUTH, which is "I".
I am WHAT-IS. But for all that I am not related to that. How can I be related to myself? One can only be oneself! That, which is related to me, is not me but a relation to me.
That, which you customarily perceive as yourself is just a manifestations of you, an appearance. But all the rest of what you see is your appearance as well. Who sees all of this? Isn’t it YOU? Isn’t it YOUR appearance? But That, which sees is not an appearance. That is "I". I am not an appearance, I am THAT, which sees.
All apparent phenomena are on the move all the time. They are constantly being transformed and are perceived differently each time. But what witnesses it all is UNMOVEABLE and UNCHANGEABLE. That is why it is able to witness all that is changing. THE UNCHANGEABLE is ‘I’. That is the only true nature of all there is.
Try to focus your attention on both THAT, which sees and that, which is seen. Isn’t it the single WHOLE? And is there anything apart from this SINGLE WHOLE?
They say that God is all-forgiving, but if you postpone God for some later moment, God may also set you aside for a later moment. That’s one way of saying that. Here is another: If you postpone God for some indefinite "later", that means that God then puts you off for some indefinite "later". After all, you are a definitely indefinite manifestation of Him.
You are constantly trying to utilize the mind, that is, to find by means of your mind some key to understanding and realization. But there is no key of that kind! Nor is there any lock! Understanding, or realization, is impossible to ‘unlock’. It may only happen. You cannot accelerate or expedite it. All attempts to facilitate or prompt it end up in collapse and more confusion. There are no keys or picklocks to understanding except for simple naturalness, which exists by itself.
Understanding will happen when the need comes for that to happen. There is no point in craving for that or in doing anything specific to get it. Everything will unfold the way it should unfold. You can do nothing for that. The more you split the whole into fragments the farther you move away from the understanding of the whole. Do not try to divide the whole; rather, try to understand it as it is.
The Understanding I am speaking about is based on the direct vision, on seeing the subject rather than thinking about it. When you talk about understanding you mean thoughts arising in your mind. That is the difference in understanding. As long as you think that you understand the understanding will not be there. Once you understand without thinking – that is true understanding, which needs no confirmation or proof.
All arising phenomena, regardless of impression they leave, whether pleasant or not, have the beginning and the end. No understanding, no enlightenment can hold or prolong any of the phenomena, nor can it prevent or exclude anything. All the phenomena are completely inter-balanced.
Holding onto something pleasant or avoiding something unpleasant tips the existing balance and thus leads to suffering and disappointment. The realization of one’s True Nature, which is also called Ultimate Understanding, or Enlightenment, is not the experiencing of pleasant sensations only. It is pure observation, seeing and perception of what-is, pure AWARENESS. We may say that it is AWARENESS in itself, apart from which nothing is.
Everything, which arises in your perception, is valuable. And at the same time, nothing of what arises in you has any meaning whatsoever. In other words, it does not matter what is in your perception, what is important is that that is. The value of each perceived phenomena lies in its uniqueness. It leaves in your perception an inimitable imprint. That is why we should not try to remember or hold onto certain impressions. And that is why we should not strive for some specific sensations. Regardless of their type all the arising sensations are equally important for the perception.
All arising in your perception phenomena are interconnected like drops in the river. One results in another, which, it its turn, flows into something else and so on, thus creating a unique picture of life. As we cannot separate a fragment from a night dream so it’s impossible to single out one phenomenon or a particular episode from the rest of one’s life. The dream as well as life is a whole undividable phenomenon perceived as a whole. But since the perception of this phenomenon unfolds gradually, episode by episode, all events appear to be separate and independent. In fact, there is no separation. All the perceived is wholly and by its nature is a part of one whole perception.
The Heart where the sages say one should direct one’s attention in order to realize What-Is is not the internal organ, nor is it some area in consciousness. Heart is the source of attention, the source of vision, the source of "I" sensation. That’s what one needs to become aware of and to realize within oneself as the centre or the basis of one’s being. There, in the depth of the Heart abides the Source of I, the Source of pure being, experienced directly as I AM I.
The discovery of that Source and realizing one’s identity with THAT is experienced as immersion in the ocean of infinite peace and bliss, just as a wayfarer exhausted after his long and hard journey quenches his thirst and refreshes his body plunging into clean water of the cool river. He has nowhere else to go and nothing else to desire. He found what he was seeking, though in fact he had never lost IT.
Liberation, another term for such a Realization, is just a description of sensations arising at the moment of the direct experience of IT. The sense of liberation comes just because once in consciousness identified with the human being the attachment to sensual experiences and objects of that experiences occurred. That very attachment is the bondage.
In reality, consciousness that manifests itself as a human form, being always Pure Heart, which is Absolute Freedom, has never been bound or dependant on anything. Thus Liberation is just a term used for the description of the phenomenon of realization of what actually is "I". I, which is Consciousness-Being-Peace-Bliss. Only THAT is real, all the rest is an illusion.
One can say that life is the enthrallment of consciousness by itself and its own play. It is a pursuit of various sensations. Death is the change of the plot along with the actors performing on the stage. It is also the change of sensations arising from the perception of the play. Enlightenment and the resulting self-realization is falling in love of consciousness with itself, when nothing but the perception oneself as the source of all-there-is matters. That is Self-realization or Total Understanding.
Evgeny Bagaev