Presence-Awareness...

The following is an Extract from the book ‘Awakening to The Natural State’, John Wheeler.. Non-Duality Press, Sept. 2004, ISBN 0-9547792-3-1.)


John:
Ultimately, you have no control over the mind states, so let them be. Lose the concern that there is something significant about the mind and emotional states. They are simply passing states. End of story. They don't mean anything about you at all. As you clear up your real identity, the mind will take care of itself.

'Who' is there in you to pay attention or lose interest? There can creep in the subtle idea that what you are is someone who is a separate person with the ability to choose or pay more attention. This is not really the case. You are always what you are, presence-awareness. It is perfectly whole and complete now. There is no improving it, getting it or losing it. There is no person in the machine whose attention, lack of attention, competence or whatever is a critical factor in understanding your true nature. This idea subtly keeps the idea of a person going. Who or what is there to do or to get, to be competent or anxious? As long as this idea of being a separate 'ghost in the machine' survives, everything in life is bound to give some sense of trouble. Fundamentally, this ‘I’ is not tenable and cannot survive close scrutiny.

So instead of being concerned with the states or actions, realize that the real existential problem, if there is one, is the subtle sense of being a separate person that can tend to creep back into the picture. Even when this happens, it does not in fact change what you really are. You are actually free and unaffected all the time. But there is the apparent sense of suffering due to fixation on the false idea.

Q: The downside of losing interest in the story is that the mind can misinterpret this as a pulling away from or aversion to activity.

John: Who is pulling away? Who has aversion? Can the mind really do anything except produce words and memories of past events and label things after they have happened? Living, perceiving and feeling are happening full on all the time, without reference to the mind at all. With the emphasis off of thought, which is just a small slice of everything going on, you are more fully alive and present with what is. It is going into the mind and thoughts that is the pulling away from life as it is happening. All aversion and resistance is based on ideas and concepts about how things should be or should not be. Without that focus, you are much more fully energized and present and alive.

Q: It seems that it is still a good idea to be wholehearted and fully involved in daily activities. At least in my experience, I have found that to be the case, because my job demands that I be fully engaged at all times.

John: With the emphasis off of the mind and the conceptual story, you will be much more present, because there is no filter. There is no person with all of its preferences and partialities trying to negotiate every experience. But who is the one who is going to try to be wholehearted and fully involved? It would only be the separate person who would try to make an attempt to become something, even wholehearted and fully involved. Awareness, the light of life that you are, is always wholehearted and fully involved, because it is the factor that informs and supports all experience. There is no need to try to become something, even some more present and engaged person. This will subtly emphasize the sense of separateness, under the guise of trying to become something.

The real clarity comes from seeing the absence of the person. It is the person that gums up the works and creates all the problems and supposed solutions. Just keep coming back to the fundamentals. Your nature is luminous, ever-present, radiant, perfect, being-awareness. This is fully realized and complete right now. There is literally nothing you need to do or practice. Just notice what is here and see that. It is actually completely present. We just overlooked it due to the old concepts and habits.

Instead of getting wrapped up in the states and doing this or that, question who is the one who imagines that the states and actions are so important. You will find that it is the sense of being a separate person, something apart from the source (which is the reality, the presence, or whatever you want to call it). Question that till you see that there is no separate person there. See this deeply, and all the issues will resolve with no additional effort. It is almost unbelievable, but it is true. All problems are for the ‘I’. See that there is no ‘I’ and all problems must resolve. There is a logic to it that you can confirm by direct experience.



http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/noperson_wheeler.htm