The description can never be the described. All we are doing is describing what is. Right here, right now, presently, is what is happening. There is nothing other.
Primarily there is that registering of everything. Just like that mirror on the wall is reflecting everything in front of it, so that essence, intelligence or whatever name you like to call it, is registering everything just as it is. You heard that siren, but you didn’t have to say it was a siren. You are hearing this voice, seeing the sights in the room, feeling your body sitting in the chair. All just as it is. And—just as it is—what can you say about it? You can’t say anything at all about it. From that point of view, it either is or is not.
The description can never be the described, the what is.
The thinking is being registered also. That is discriminated into ‘this thought’ or ‘my thought’ or whatever the word might be. Rather, be aware that it all is just as it is.
Say you are walking somewhere and you are not naming anything, there is no thinking going on. You are passing houses, trees, picket fences or whatever is in the street. Everything is registering immediately. You don’t have to name each individual thing. Your thoughts might be happening, and your mind might be totally involved in those thoughts. Yet one piece of concrete paver may be higher than the other, but you won’t trip over it. It will be registered immediately and the appropriate steps will be taken over it.
Or if there is a crowd walking in the street, you’re not going to bump into everyone. You find yourself avoiding them quite effortlessly without having to think, ‘I have to dodge around this one’. Yet they will be coming from all directions and all places, but that intelligence is registering everything just as it is. And in the moment, the proper activity takes place.
It is the same with thoughts also. As you are going along, you’re passing this house or the next house. And as you are going along, thoughts are happening too. They are registered just as is. What happens? The house you have just passed has disappeared from view, or the picket fence you passed is gone. Thought is registered just as is also. What has happened to that thought? It is left behind. It also disappears. One thought might be acted upon, the next may not be.
The only way we can change what is, is to correct it, modify it or alter it in some way or form. The only thing that can do that is the mind: ‘The chair over there is in the wrong position and I want to move it’. It is no longer what is. It is what I think I would like it to be. That is all that has happened —the thinking ‘That should not be there’. That thought, of itself, has no power whatsoever. It is only a thought; it is only based on words. But it refers to this ‘I’ that I believe, or have believed, myself to be up until investigation. That is so, because what has been added to that ‘I’, that belief, has become the ‘self-centre’ or the ‘reference point’. Everything is evaluated from that reference point. And because it is closely associated with that pure intelligence, it has come to believe also that it is the intelligence.
Like the piece of iron in the fire, it will get red-hot and burn, just like fire. Now, if the iron had a mind it would think it was the fire: ‘I am going to burn this and that’. But take it out of the fire and what can it do? So it is with the thoughts: ‘I can’, ‘I will’, ‘I am’. Take them away from awareness or consciousness or that pure intelligence: what substance have they got? Can they stand without that? Can you have a single thought if you are not conscious or not aware?
Constantly over the years with the habit patterns going on it (thought) has believed itself to be the intelligence. It believes it has reality; it has power; it has will; it can do what it likes and what it thinks it wants to do.
That is why this investigation is needed. Just stop and question. Have a look at what we have believed ourselves to be. Thought can’t of itself do anything! Because that thought ‘I see’, can’t see! The thought ‘I hear’, can’t hear! The thought ‘I am aware’, can’t be aware! But there is seeing; there is hearing; and there is awareness. It is happening right now!
The seeing itself cannot conceptualise. It cannot say ‘I am seeing this’. Neither can the hearing say ‘I am hearing this’. It is just pure seeing and pure hearing. It is conceptualised by the mind, which must refer to some past memory to get that name. The mind or the ‘me’, the thought that I have about myself, is the past. That is all it is. It is the past, and the past is dead. It is gone. It has happened. It is not what is. That centre that we constantly refer to or believe in is a dead image.
Now, can you understand why it can never be happy, it can never be complete or whole: because it can’t keep up with what is. What is, is this manifestation, this transient manifestation, which is constantly changing. Like the river, it is constantly flowing. How can a bucket of water, taken from the river, keep up with the river? It is impossible.
So, we tell you right here, that what you are seeking you already are! The idea of a separation is only a concept. With that idea of separation, there immediately comes along with it the sense of insecurity and vulnerability. Anything that thinks or believes it is separate must also feel isolated and alone, apart from ‘me’, other than ‘me’. That is the way the mind functions. As soon as there is ‘me’, there must be ‘other than me’, and that is the seeming separation. That is the cause of all of our problems. When that is understood, what problem is there, if there is no centre to refer it to?
Got it?
http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/whatis_sailorbob.htm
HTML by Mike Graham, 19 Jan 2008, last edited 7 Feb 2008, last edited 17 Feb 2008
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