This world is where we are and our “true eternal and unbound home” is who we are. In this home we are one undivided and whole. Where we are is divided, separated and conflicted. Our common assumption is that where we are is who we are.

In this assumption we find ourselves longing to close the lines of separation. We preach love in the hope of unity and reconciliation with others. But two is never one. One is just one which is all we are.

We do not notice that what echoes through our bones is a calling beyond love, a calling to come home and be love. We look everywhere, for material goods, for relationships, for intellectual pursuits for spirituality, for God and yes even for enlightenment. But we don’t look in the most obvious of places.

Instead, we seek with a blindfold on and never dare to remove the blindfold lest it crush our perception of how the world is. We cling and cling to knowledge, yet no matter how much knowledge we attain, there is always a little part of us that wants more and more. A little part of us that cries that next piece of knowledge will be the key. Everything will be ok then. That is until the next little cry begins.

We notice the echo to be sure but equally we mistake its message of come home as being more. More is where we are at. More happiness, more things, more thoughts, more visceral sensations; More is never who we are.

What happens is a happening, not a measure of who we really are. A thought is a happening, an emotion is a happening, a sensation a happening. A tear of sorrow rolling down our cheeks is nothing more or less than a tear of sorrow rolling down out cheeks. An angry outburst is just an angry outburst. A happening that occurs in the consciousness that is God. No judgment about good or bad, right or wrong, all is equal here and gleefully accepted as is without reservation. They are just happenings.

Who we really are is unbounded, undivided, and eternal. A thing were nothing exists yet is sacred existence itself. It is a thing where no sorrow exists, where no happiness exists, where you and I as human beings do not exist, where nothing happens, but from which all perceived realities arise in grace. We are beyond all that have come and all that will be. We are that which is formless and faceless. The formless and faceless is home, we are home; always home; we but need to remove the blindfold.

Remove the blindfold and deep peace, comfort and deep deep gratitude ensues. For you see the nothingness is the only thing in actual existence and it knows nothing other than stillness. This stillness is what has been echoing through our lives. Peacefully and loving it whispers there is no fear here, there is nothing here but love, which is stillness, that is inexpressible and ineffable and is not the earthly love we cling to so dearly.

To remove the blindfold we need but ask good questions and the process inwards begins.

Ask yourselves who am I? I mean really ask for the first time in your lives.

Are you the thought? And if so who are you when there is a pause between one thought and the next and there is no concept of you?

Are you the emotion? If so who are you when there is a pause between one emotion and the next and there is no emotion from you?

Are you the sensation? If so who are you when there is a pause between one sensation and the next and there is no sensation from you?

Are you the experience? If so who are you when you are in deep sleep?

Are you really the thing that was born and will die? Is that really you? Is it?

Seek and you ye shall find. Seek inward not outward so that you too can know God directly. So that you can know home.

When you are home that is enlightenment.

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Eddie Traversa

Spiritual Enlightenment Blog

http://www.truthrealization.com/index.php

I loved this whole lesson and I especially loved this:

This is very profound. I would say that I would be the empty spaces, the pause between the thoughts.

And which is the constant, the emptiness or the thought?

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Eddie Traversa

Spiritual Enlightenment Blog

http://www.truthrealization.com/index.php

The constant is the emptiness, everything else is an illusion.

Lovely words Eddie.

Many thanks

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If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to anything.
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few. - Suzuki-roshi

Light,

Emptyness may be the constant, correct. But it would not be completely appropriate to term thoughts as an illusion and cling to the emptyness.

Thoughts, too are as real as emptyness. Thoughts are like waves and emptyness is the ocean. But that does not mean ways are not-real and simply an illusion. They exist as much as the ocean does. Infact, these waves carry the very essence of the ocean within them - the water.

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"Just multiply it with zero" ~ Some unknown buddha

Oh no, thoughts are not real. They are a projection of what is not from what is… In this way they are empty too, just like anything else in the illusion, but they are not real and have no substance or meaning for that matter.

Where is the thought? At a subatomic level, your brain is composed almost entirely of empty space. 99.999999% empty space. A vacuum in other words. The rest is composed of little bits of energy and information scattered here and there, that flashes in and out of existence constantly. Apart from the fact that there at times no physical you, if we had the instrumentation to see beyond the energy and information then nothing is there as well.

The ocean doesn’t physically exist, nor does the universe or anything in it. It exists only as a projection, a shadow. The appearance of things is holy because everything is God appearing as form. But the form itself doesn’t have real substance and the more science looks at this the more they are coming to the same conclusion. But that is science. In terms of enlightenment this can be known through self inquiry which is the negation of all things back to source.

To demonstrate a little parable:

There was once a class on enlightenment and a particular student said, “Master, I don’t understand, how can everything be consciousness? How can everything come from nothing? This doesn’t make sense.”

The master pointed to a fig tree and bought it to the master. The master said “bring me a fig.” The student went and pulled a fig from the tree and bought it back to the master. “Break open the fig”, the master said. He did. “What do you see?” asked the master. “Seeds” replied the student. “Bring me one of those seeds” stated the Master. He obeyed. The master gave the student a razor blade and asked him to cut open the seed repeatedly. “What do you see inside of the seed now?” asked the Master. “Nothing, in the seed there is a hollow, absolute nothingness” replied the student. The Master said, from this nothing, everything is produced.

You are that…

Your real identity is the nothingness that gives rise to the appearance of the thought, not the thought itself.

The thought is there for amusement and entertainment, just like a character in a movie. But it isnt a real thing, which is why it makes it so amusing..

There really is no spoon.

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Eddie Traversa

Spiritual Enlightenment Blog

http://www.truthrealization.com/index.php

ps mystic...

If your clinging to emptiness conceptually then that is clinging and is just ego, which is what I think you mean, but perhaps I am mistaken. But if you directly know emptiness (the absolute, whatever you want to call it) then there is nothing to cling to, because there is no form, which includes the concept of emptiness.

That is a subtle but important difference.

In this sense then when it said that your real identity is the nothingness it is but a mere indicator to inquire within.

The indicator itself is of no value, but the inquiry within is in terms of discovery true self…

When true self is discovered the inquiry within also becomes of no value.

It was just a happening that didnt happen to true self...

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Eddie Traversa

Spiritual Enlightenment Blog

http://www.truthrealization.com/index.php

Eddie,

I agree with every word you've said. I've simply used the ocean-wave thing analogy as an example.

What I am trying to imply is that thought IS emptyness. You can not cling to emptyness and say that all thoughts are non-sense, something different. Thougths are as much emptyness as emptyness itself. Which is exactly what you are saying.

Tatwam Asi. You are your true self.

From another thread, you said that at enlightenment, there is no "you", there is no identity of the self. That is because all there is, is enlightenment. You are enlightenment.

The thought is the emptyness. The fig tree is the seed, as it is also the emptyness that is seen when breaking open the seed.

It's like saying "I'm nothing, nothing is everything. I am everything"

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"Just multiply it with zero" ~ Some unknown buddha

Mystic,

no problem, I was just trying to clear up some possible confusion.

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Eddie Traversa

Spiritual Enlightenment Blog

http://www.truthrealization.com/index.php