FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is Life Without A Centre?
Life Without A Centre is all about non-separation (‘nonduality’) between you and your world. It is about the origin of suffering, and the discovery of freedom within that very suffering. It is about the ways in which we try to run away from uncomfortable and painful experiences, and the possibility of discovering ease and relief right in the midst of those very experiences. It is about seeking, and the end of seeking. It is about seeing life as it is.
It’s about what’s happening – right now.
What does the word ‘nonduality’ mean?
Think of the word ‘nonduality’ as a ‘finger pointing to the moon’ (as they say in the Zen tradition) directing your attention back to the wholeness of all life, to the Oneness (wholeness, completeness, unity) which exists here and now beyond, and prior to, any apparent separation. It points to an intimacy, a love beyond words, right at the heart of experience. It points back Home.
Ultimately, what we are talking about here is beyond comprehension – and yet it is also as obvious as breathing, as familiar as the feeling of your heart beating in your chest, as ordinary as the sights and sounds and smells appearing in this room…
It is beyond comprehension, and yet it could not be simpler.
So ‘nonduality’ simply means ‘wholeness’?
Yes, ‘nonduality’ is simply a word I use to point beyond your ideas, concepts and beliefs about life.
It is a word I use to point to life as it is, beyond what you think it is – and to who you really are, beyond who you think you are.
And ultimately, who you really are, and life itself, are not separate. They are not-two, they are non-dual, they are inseperable. This is a timeless truth that goes right to the heart of all the world’s spiritual traditions, and ultimately right to the heart of modern science too.
And Life Without A Centre isn’t about just taking all of this on as a new belief system. It’s about seeing it for yourself.
It’s one thing understanding intellectually that ‘we are all One’, ‘there is no separation’, or ‘the self is an illusion’. It’s another thing seeing this wholeness for yourself in the midst of every experience – including the painful ones!
Is Life Without A Centre a religion?
Well, if by ‘religion’ you mean a belief system, a structure of rules and regulations, some kind of man-made ideology passed down through the ages, prescribing how to live, what to think, what to feel, how and who and what to worship, how to behave, how to change – then no, absolutely not! I certainly do not want you to make me into an authority on life and blindly believe what I tell you. I have no interest in gathering ‘followers’!
This message is not about taking things on authority – it’s about seeing for yourself. You could say that ultimately this message is about letting go of all authority – including your own! It’s about letting go of your preconceived notions about life, letting go of what you thought was true, and discovering a truth that goes beyond ‘true’ and ‘false’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ – a truth that goes beyond all dualistic opposites. Discovering a living truth, rather than the dead truth contained in words and concepts. Words and concepts are always from the past. Truth – life – this - is always fresh, always new, and cannot be contained. Trying to capture this living truth is like trying to catch water in a fishing net…
As Marcel Proust said:
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Is Life Without a Centre a form of atheism? Or nihilism?
No, this message is not nihilism. And it’s not anti-belief or anti-religion. It’s not anti-Science or anti-God. It’s not anti-anything, in fact! If you read on, you’ll understand why I say this.
This is not an atheistic, solipsistic, nihilistic philosophy or ideology, because of course the rejection of all beliefs is just another belief, perhaps the biggest belief of them all. This message does not deny any aspect of human experience, because in the end, nonduality infuses all human experience, including denial itself.
Beyond our beliefs, or lack of them, life is as it is. You cannot turn ‘life as it is’ into a belief system, because ‘life as it is’ comes before all belief systems, and therefore cannot be captured by any belief system (including Life Without A Centre, if you choose to turn it into your new belief system!)
As I often say in my meetings, I’m not here to teach you anything new. I’m not here to give you a new and complicated philosophy for the mind to chew on. I’m not here to convert you, to transform you, to awaken you, to fix you, or even to help you (and if you really listen to what I’m saying, it will become obvious why I say this.)
I’m only here to remind you of something that you’ve always known – that life, as it is, is already the miracle you’ve been seeking. That life, as it is, is enough. That right now, nothing is missing.
And when this is seen, a natural ease and a sense of simplicity, wonder and fun may be found, right at the heart of life.
Is Life Without A Centre a spiritual path?
No, there is no path to Being.
No path cannot take you to where you already are. No path can take you to Life as it already is.
In other words, wherever you are on your ‘path’, what can be discovered is that Being is already fully present. Being is fully there, at every point along the path – that is the discovery which renders all spiritual paths obsolete. This is not a rejection of spiritual paths, but a movement beyond them. Paths are helpful, perhaps, until the time comes to see through their root assumptions.
No path can take you to the end of all paths – which is, deep down, where you long to be. Because the end of all paths is right there (here) at the timeless beginning of all paths. Which is where you already are – and no path can take you there (here)!
Why do you say that nonduality is beyond our understanding?
Thought (language) is always dualistic. In other words, when you are using words, you are always in the world of two, the world of: me and you, inner and outer, higher and lower, good and bad, right and wrong, success and failure, self and other, enlightened and unenlightened, here and there, black and white, duality and nonduality, and so on. You are in the world of my belief versus your belief, my religion versus your religion, my truth versus your truth, even my god versus your god. You are in the world of time and space, past and future, seeking and finding, ignorance and awakening.
And so, how can we use words (duality) to point to that which is beyond duality? How can thought, which is inherently dualistic, capture something which is ultimately beyond thought? How to use time and space to point beyond time and space, to the timeless Being that you are, and that life is in its essence? How to use language, which separates and divides by its very nature, to point to inseperability and wholeness?
In a sense, the moment you speak about nonduality, nothing you say is true!!!
And yet, we use words to communicate. That’s part of the play of life too. So, if we are going to use words, let’s be very clear about the nature of language, and the impossibility of capturing nonduality in language. Then we are free to talk…
Ultimately, nonduality cannot be understood – and does not need to be. And yet we talk, using words as pointers to a truth that cannot be captured in words.
Do we need to get rid of thought?
No. We don’t need to get rid of anything. Thought is a very useful tool – indeed it is impossible to function in the world without thought and language – but when it comes to understanding the freedom that you are, thought must be resigned to its rightful place.
Thought is useful when you want to plan a trip to the cinema, when you want to learn how to speak Spanish, or solve a mathematical equation. But when thought tries to understand the open space in which thought arises, confusion appears. When thought tries to comprehend the inseperability of thought and space, paradox is born. When thought begins to ponder the absence of the separate thinker, a perplexed seeker begins to turn towards teachers and gurus for answers, ignoring their own always-already-awake nature.
In the end, this isn’t about intellectual understanding, although there is nothing wrong with the intellect and its attempts to understand. This message is not anti-belief, nor is it anti-intellect. Belief and intellect have their rightful place in the mystery. Everything does.
This is about falling into the mystery, not ‘understanding the mystery’. There are no certificates to be handed out here. No entrance exams or graduations. Nobody is an authority on the mystery. And in the mystery, nobody is a failure.
The mystery cannot be understood, because the mystery is the fire in which attempts to understand the mystery burn up, leaving only the awesome simplicity of life as it is….
If nonduality cannot be put into words, why do you write and talk about it?
Imagine you’ve been sitting for hours, watching a beautiful sunset. The sweetness and intimacy of the scene has just melted your heart. You then find yourself wanting to share this beauty with loved ones – you want to tell them about what you’ve seen. Although you know that you cannot put the sunset into words, and although you know that ultimately the sunset doesn’t need to be put into words (since it carries on being a sunset even if it is not put into words), still, the words come, and they emerge out of that wordless intimacy that cannot be captured by the intellect.
In a very mysterious way, life longs to share itself with itself. And so, in a sense, the words themselves, even though they are just words and cannot touch that ineffably beautiful sunset, are an expression of the sunset.
You write a poem about the sunset, or you paint it, or you compose a piece of music about it… in this way, life shares itself with itself.
In other words, although nonduality cannot be put into words, still, words can be used as pointers to that which is beyond words, and in that pointing (sharing), a simplicity beyond words may reveal itself.
I can’t make you see the sunset. I can’t awaken you to the beauty and wonder of it. I can only point to the sunset, and to the seeing of it, beyond concepts. I can also point to the ways in which you are avoiding seeing the sunset, the ways in which you are seeking, the ways in which you have blinded yourself to life in your pursuit of ‘something more than this’. In this way, life shares itself with itself. For what purpose? The sharing is its own purpose. The sharing is love.
In the end, where these words are coming from is identical with that which hears the words. That which speaks is that which hears. You are not separate from what I am. This is you, reminding yourself of what you already know.
You know what I am talking about… because you are it!
Are you a teacher?
Well, I don’t consider myself to be a ‘teacher’, in the same way that I don’t consider you to be my ‘student’. I don’t feel that I have anything that you lack. I’ve always seen what I do as a kind of sharing. A sharing between friends of something that’s really too intimate, too alive, too present to talk about. And yet talking happens, and that’s part of the adventure.
Why do I share the sunset? Well, why not?
Why do I talk about nonduality? Well, why not?
Call me a teacher, or call me a friend, or call me nothing at all, it doesn’t really matter in the end. I am what you are. Underneath our individual stories, what could possibly separate us?
And within the play of life, we can meet, and explore the mystery together. I can meet you where you are – and together we can explore your experience (which is also my experience), shining light on the places where you are still seeking, in other words, where you are still at war with life, still conflicted. And in exposing that conflict, perhaps another possibility will shine through. Perhaps in taking a fresh, honest look at our suffering, we can discover the end of suffering. That is the possibility being shared here.
Call this a teaching or a sharing or an exploration – call me a teacher, or a friend, or call me nothing at all – it really doesn’t matter what words you use, in the end. The real question is, are you open to taking a fresh look at your own experience? Are you open to discovering an unshakeable freedom right in the midst of every experience? That’s what this is really about. Outside of that, you can call me what you want!
Are you enlightened or awakened?
Well, in order to see myself as ‘enlightened’ or ‘awakened’, as a rare and special human being, as different from or better than you in any way, I would, on some level, have to separate myself from you. I would have to tell a story about what I am, and about what you are not. It would be my own belief – I would have to believe my own story. It would be my own dream!
Beyond the dream of identity, how can I know what I am? Beyond the dream, how could I ever separate myself from you?
“I’m enlightened” or “I’m awakened” or “I get this and you don’t” or “I’ve transcended the ego and you haven’t” (and the list of boasts and claims made by the ego are infinite) are all just thought-constructed identities.
In other words, somebody who thinks they are ‘enlightened’, and that you are not, is simply somebody with a belief that they – a separate individual – are ‘enlightened’ and you are not! They see themselves and you as separate. Beyond this, there is no way of knowing that you are ‘enlightened’ – and so there is no enlightenment. The question ‘are you enlightened?’ becomes totally irrelevant when things are seen clearly. The question simply burns up in the clarity of present seeing.
Oh, and yes, of course “I have no identity” can just become another identity….
Is the story of ‘my enlightenment’ simply part of the dream of separation?
Of course. A self-image, including any ‘enlightened’ or ‘awakened’ self-image, is always separate. It is always part of the dream.
This message is about seeing through the dream of separation, and part of the dream of separation is the belief in separate enlightened and unenlightened people.
That’s why when it comes to this message, there are no authorities, no ‘enlightened’ or ‘awakened’ people, no gurus and no disciples. It is the person, ‘enlightened’ or not, that is seen through in the end.
An authority figure is someone who thinks that they know. This message is all about the not-knowing. And who could possibly be an authority on not-knowing? Can I know more about not-knowing than you? Can I possess more nothing than you? Can there be any more Being here than there is there? Can there be an authority on life? Or is life itself the only authority?
What do the words ‘enlightenment’ and ‘awakening’ point to?
Okay. So let’s take a fresh look at those words. You see, for me, enlightenment has nothing to do with ‘somebody’ becoming ‘enlightened’. That’s the mind talking. That’s the voice of the seeker.
Awakening has nothing to do with ‘somebody’ becoming ‘awakened’. That’s the myth. That’s the dream – the ultimate dream of the ego, in fact.
‘Enlightenment’ is simply a word that points to the en-lightened nature of life itself. If something is en-lightened, it is in the light. It is lit up. It is visible. And what can be seen is this: Life itself is already fully visible – it is already fully enlightened, filling all space, appearing as everything, right here and right now.
Open your eyes and the world is simply here. What a miracle! Sights, sounds and smells simply appear. A bird singing. Hunger. Cars whooshing past. A thought about last night’s football match. Life simple appears, out of nothing. It appears, and is seen, and life is not separate from that seeing. Was there ever anybody here separate from this seeing? Was there ever anybody here, separate from life, who could become enlightened? Maybe that was part of the dream…
Similarly, ‘awakening’ is simply a word that points to the ever-present awakeness of life itself. Life is not asleep, it is awake. Life is not switched off, it is switched on. It is already awake to itself, appearing as everything. It is already awake to sights, sounds, smells, to colours, textures, movement. To the sound of that bird singing. To present feelings in the body. Was there ever anybody here separate from this ever-present awakeness? Was there ever anybody here who could become awakened? Maybe that was part of the dream too…
What does it mean to be an ‘individual’?
All of your life you have taken yourself to be an individual, a separate person. You live with a story of yourself, a self-image that you attempt to protect and defend. This story becomes your identity – who you think you are – and you end up forgetting who you really are, beyond that story.
Thought weaves a story about who you are, based on past experience. Before you know it, you are a ‘someone’ rather than a no-one. You are a person in a world. You have a past and a future. You try to fit in, to adapt, to make things go the way you want them to, to make your life work. You build up a list of achievements and failures. You work on yourself. You try to fix yourself. When asked, you tell your story of ‘me’. You listen to stories about other ‘me’s', and compare and contrast, defend and attack these stories, forgetting that your ‘me’ is simply a story, and that story cannot even begin to describe what you really are.
You start to believe that this ‘me’ really exists outside of thought. You take it to be so much more than a story. You start to believe that this ‘me’ is who you really are! You defend this illusory story of ‘me’, and forget that you are defending nothing more than an image appearing in awareness. This is the origin of all violence and suffering. Violence and suffering do not begin ‘out there’ in the world, they begin with ‘you’.
The ‘me’ is your personal journey, your life story. It holds everything: Your successes and failures. Your past and future, your memories and projections. Your beliefs, your judgements, your opinions. Your fears, your regrets, your worries, your seeking. I refer to it all as ‘the story’, because that’s ultimately what it is, a story, a narrative, a tale, appearing in awareness, appearing in the present moment… and there is only the present moment.
Ultimately, your entire past and future are merely thoughts appearing in the present moment, and that’s the only reality this personal ‘you’ has. The personal ‘you’ has no reality outside of presently-arising thoughts…
Is there something wrong with having a ‘story’?
Well, there is nothing wrong with the story, in itself!
Many people believe that this ‘individual self’ is what they really are, and they ignore the space, the openness, the vast ocean of Being in which the ‘individual’ arises. They identify exclusively as a ‘separate person’, as a separate wave in the ocean, and never stop to ask if that is what they truly are.
You see, this message points to the possibility that you are not what you think you are.
You have taken yourself to be a separate wave in a vast ocean. You see yourself as a little person in a vast ocean full of other people. You see yourself as an individual in a world which is fundamentally separate from you.
But of course, the ‘separate wave’ in the ocean is not really ‘separate’ from the ocean at all! The ‘separate wave’ is really just the ocean appearing temporarily as a wave.
The wave is actually one-hundred percent water. In essence, it’s the same as the ocean. And so really there is no ‘separate wave’ at all.
There only appears to be a separate wave – the wave exists in appearance only. It is a temporary appearance of the ocean.
You – what you take yourself to be – the person, the character, the ‘me’, only has existence as an appearance, a story appearing now in boundless Being, a story which is ultimately not separate from Being…
Is nonduality all about getting rid of the separate wave?
Perhaps it does sound like I’m saying that the appearance of the separate person is a problem and we should get rid of it. But who is going to get rid of the wave? The wave? How can the wave get rid of itself?
This is one of the traps that people fall into when they identify themselves as being ‘spiritual seekers’. They think that they need to get rid of the wave in order to reach the ocean, and there seem to be a lot of spiritual teachers and gurus out there who believe the same thing. Some spiritual teachers implore you to ‘kill the ego!’ or ‘destroy the mind!’ or ‘get rid of the self!’ and miss the fact that the attempt to kill the ego is that very ego, and the effort to destroy the mind is the mind, and so on…
The point is, the wave is already fully ocean. Any attempt to get rid of the wave is the wave attempting to get rid of itself! Any attempt to get rid of duality and move towards nonduality is the very duality the wave is trying to free itself from!
Years ago, when I was a very serious and intense spiritual seeker, I tried desperately to get rid of Jeff, the character, the person. But this attempt ultimately ended in failure and frustration, because I was trying to get rid of something that wasn’t actually there! I was fighting an illusion, and when you fight an illusion, you are assuming that the illusion is real. What you fight, you give life to. What you resist, persists, as they say.
You don’t need to get rid of an illusion. To expose the illusion as an illusion is enough. To expose an illusion is to end it.
So this isn’t about ‘destroying the ego’, as some spiritual teachings require us to do?
No. Think about it: The attempt to destroy the ego, transcend the mind, kill the self, get rid of the ‘me’ – in other words, the spiritual search – is really just a war with life. It’s water fighting water.
Only an ego would want to get rid of an ego.
Only an ego would claim to have destroyed the ego.
Here’s another way of saying it: My spiritual seeking failed. Why? Beacuse the separate wave failed to become anything other than a wave. It failed to become the Ocean. It failed to escape.
My war with life failed.
And in that failure, this other possibility shone through – a possibility that went beyond seeking and finding, beyond ‘me’ getting what ‘I’ wanted, beyond my personal desire to become an enlightened person. Beyond the seeker and the sought, there was – and is – only unconditional love…
Nonduality does not mean ‘not-duality’ – that would be completely dualistic! In reality, nonduality includes (the appearance of) duality, because it is everything. It is nothing – no-thing – and it is everything.
Ultimately, nonduality appears as duality. They are one and the same. Then you can’t even speak of ‘nonduality’.
In other words, the appearance of the separate wave is not a problem for the Ocean. The appearance of your life story is itself a perfect expression of Being. In this unconditional love, nothing is denied.
And so it was never about getting rid of Jeff. It was always about falling in love with Jeff, and through him, everything…
So we seek because we experience ourselves as being separate?
Yes. The individual, the separate person, is a seeker. The separate person always seems to be looking for something more. The gift of this moment never seems to be enough. What is never seems to be enough. The individual experiences lack, and looks into the future to find the end of lack, which is, of course, their own projection.
The moment you have an individual, a wave separate from the Ocean, somebody separate from life – you have a seeker. The moment there is separation, the moment there is two (one ‘thing’ separate from another ‘thing’), you have a longing to return to One. The moment there is separation, there is a longing to end the separation. And this longing manifests in human experience as – in very simple language – the feeling that something is missing.
And so we seek in order to fill a hole in our lives. In various ways we attempt to move away from perceived lack and incompleteness. We look out into the world of time and space for our salvation.
But no matter how much we achieve in the world, no matter how much money we make, no matter how many spiritual experiences we have, no matter how many possessions we accumulate, no matter how many drugs we take, no matter how ‘enlightened’ we get, no matter how many times we meet our ‘perfect partner’ or get the ‘perfect job’, no matter how much sex we have, or alcohol we consume, we never seem to feel complete. No matter how much we find, the seeking seems to carry on. We get the new car, the new house, the new job, the new lover, the new guru, the new spiritual high, and it all satisfies for a while… but then the seeking starts up again. There always seems to be a longing for something more. We just can’t seem to shake off the sense that we are incomplete.
But here’s the problem – the individual, the seeker, is the very sense of lack he seeks to be free from.
How can the individual (separation, lack, seeking) put an end to separation? This is the dilemma which every honest seeker faces in the end.
Are we really searching for wholeness?
Yes, the search of a lifetime is really the search for wholeness, for Oneness, for the end of separation. We think we are looking for money, for power, for wealth, for love, for spiritual experiences, for enlightenment, for liberation, for Nirvana. What we are actually looking for is wholeness.
And what is wholeness? The end of seeking. What we are really seeking is the end of seeking.
We say to ourselves, “One day I will be whole, one day life will be complete. And on that day, when life is complete, I will no longer be looking for anything outside of myself to complete myself – because I’ll be complete!”
Yes, this bears repeating: what we’re really seeking is the end of seeking.
You see, if we’re honest, we don’t really want material wealth, power, success. We don’t really want to become an ‘awakened’ or ‘enlightened’ person. What we really long for is the end of the sense of being a separate person – the sense of being someone over here looking for something over there, the sense of being a seeker separate from what is sought, the sense of being incomplete.
We long for the end of seeking. We long for Home. We long to feel complete again. We long to simply be okay, deeply okay, where we are.
And of course, as long as the seeker is seeking the end of seeking – there is a seeker seeking!
So, basically, we long to be complete, and we don’t know how?
Yes, that’s a very simple and elegant way of putting it.
Bringing all of this back to the level of human experience, we could say:
We experience ourselves as incomplete, and we long to be complete.
We experience ourselves as not okay, and we long to be okay.
And we search for this okayness or completeness in the future. We search for money, wealth, power, worldly success, fame, love, approval, status. Or we search for enlightenment, awakening, liberation, higher levels of consciousness, transcendent realms of Being, and so on. But essentially what we are looking for is completeness, okayness. We are waiting for the wholeness of life to reveal itself.
One day, we say to ourselves. One day….
But as long as we are seeking completeness in the future, we will experience ourselves as being incomplete, no matter how much ‘stuff’ we accumulate, no matter how successful we become, no matter how many spiritual experiences we have, no matter how many cigarettes we smoke or drugs we take, or relationships we have. As long as we seek wholeness in time, we maintain our identity as separate time-bound seekers, alienated from the Source. As long as we seek home, we experience a cosmic homesickeness that we cannot seem to shake off, no matter what we do or don’t do.
Seeking is the mechanism behind all of our suffering.
How does seeking relate to resistance of the present moment?
Great question.
Seeking can take many forms. We seek completeness/okayness in big and small ways. We seek an event called ‘enlightenment’ in the future, or we seek wordly success in the future, or we seek permanent bliss in the future….
“One day I will find what I’m looking for. One day I’ll find love. One day I’ll have a million euros in the bank account. One day I’ll become enlightened. One day all my sadness and pain will go away. One day I won’t be afraid anymore. One day I’ll be complete. One day…”
Or, we seek an escape from present experience, right now. We seek an escape from this sensation, from this feeling, from this discomfort, from this thought.
“I don’t want this feeling to be here. I don’t want to feel this. This feeling shouldn’t be here. When this feeling is gone, I’ll be complete. This feeling is a block to completeness, a block to life. This feeling is not okay. If I’m feeling it, it means I’m not okay. When it’s gone, everything will be okay again. How can I make this feeling go away? What can I do?”
Can you see that the question ‘what are you seeking in the future’ is identical with the question ‘what are you running away from right now?’
Both seeking a future goal, and attempting to run away from present experience, are identical movements, though they seem very different. They are both expressions of the seeker. They both have their origin in lack, in separation, and they both seek their resolution in the future.
How does seeking relate to suffering?
Let’s bring this right back down to the level of human experience.
A sensation appears, a feeling appears, and we label it. We put a name to what’s appearing in immediate experience. We call it pain, sadness, fear, anger, etc, and immediately all of our judgements, our concepts, our stories, our fears and theories about that feeling appear. Everything we’ve been taught. Everything we’ve learned from our parents, from books, from our spiritual teachers. What our conditioning basically tells us, in many different ways, is that this feeling is ‘not okay’. It’s ‘not okay’ to feel this feeling (or think this thought). It’s ‘not okay’ to have this experience, right now.
So, a sensation or feeling appears, and thought judges it as ‘not okay’.
Now, thought always operates in the world of opposites. So the moment the concept of the ‘not okay’ feeling appears, its opposite appears too – the absence of the ‘not okay’ feeling. If there is pain, thought creates the possibility of the absence of pain. If there is fear, thought creates the possibility of freedom from fear. And so now there is the attempt to move from the feeling (not okay) to its absence (okay).
The attempt to move from the presence of something to its conceptual opposite – its absence. This is the basic movement of seeking. We search for freedom from aspects of our experience.
However, here’s the problem: feelings have no opposite! Sensations have no opposite! Life has no opposite! Does a sound have an opposite? Does the sound of the bird singing have an opposite? No – only in thought. In actual reality, in life as it’s lived, there is only the sound happening. Tweet tweet! In the same way, a sensation in the body has no opposite. Pinch yourself and feel it. Was there an opposite? Or was there just the pinchy feeling? You’ll only find an opposite in thought, no matter how hard you look. Experience is whole – it has no opposite.
What is, in the moment, is the feeling. What is not, in the moment, is lack or absence of the feeling. We never experience the absence of anything, in reality. What is, is. What is not, is not. Ignoring this obvious reality, thought attempts to move from the feeling (present sensation, what is) to the lack of the feeling (what is not). It attempts to move from what it perceives as ‘not okay’ to what it perceives as ‘okay’. And this movement will take time.
But this is an impossible movement. The attempted movement from the not-okay to the okay, actually creates and maintains the not-okay.
Suffering is this ‘impossible movement’ from what is to what is not.
Suffering is the search for ‘freedom from’. Freedom from pain, freedom from sadness, freedom from fear. Freedom from this feeling, this sensation.
But the only real freedom is ‘freedom in’. Not freedom from this experience, but freedom in this experinence. Because in the end, you discover yourself to be the freedom in which all experience comes and goes.
Life Without A Centre is all about the discovery of this freedom within every experience – including all the experiences we label as ‘not okay’ and seek to escape.
Freedom in, not freedom from – this would be my motto, if I had one!
So suffering can only happen in time?
Yes. Suffering is seeking, which is time. It will apparently take time to move from pain to absence of pain. It will apparently take time to move from what is to what is not. The seeker needs time to exist. It always takes time to find what you’re looking for!
The seeker is time.
“I am in pain, and soon I will not be in pain”. The seeker is born. Identity is born.
Or “I am sad, tomorrow I won’t be sad. I am in fear, tomorrow I won’t be in fear. I am angry, tomorrow I won’t be angry”.
In seeking the absence of pain (or fear, or sadness, or anger…), the identity as ‘the one who is in pain’ is born. “I am the one who is in pain – tomorrow I won’t be the one who is in pain.”
In seeking, I maintain my identity as ‘the one who is in pain’. But at least I get to keep a story about myself! At least I know who I am. I am someone, in time. I am something rather than nothing. I am a victim of life, seeking freedom from my affliction, and it will take lots of time to get there. I join the Pain Club. The Fear Club. The Anger Club. The Seeker Club. I have an identity. I am part of something, part of the world. Without the identity, who would I be? Without my story, who am I? That question can bring up a lot of fear – which is ultimately fear of non-existence. And so we cling to the identity for dear life, even if that identity is no longer serving us because it is based on unreality.
In life as it actually appears, in the sensation as it is actually experienced, prior to the story of ‘pain’, there is no identity. In life as it is, there is no identity, which is death. The seeker is attempting to escape death. Ironically, in attempting to escape death, we suffer. Death, in this context, is the ‘freedom in’ that the seeker is really looking for, but cannot find. This is beyond understanding…
So in seeking a way out of pain, I become identified as the one who is in pain?
Yes, seeking is time, and it is also identity.
A simple way to think about it is this:
In the beginning, there is just pain appearing. It’s not ‘mine’ – yet. In the beginning, life is not owned by anyone. Sounds happen, smells happen, thoughts happen, flowers grow, rain falls, and none of it is ‘owned’. There is just life, prior to the appearance of the individual. Life itself is impersonal, in this sense.
Then there is ownership. Thoughts become ‘mine’. Feelings become ‘mine’. The body becomes ‘mine’. And the pain becomes ‘mine. It is now ‘my pain’.
I have pain, and I don’t want to have pain. I am the one in pain – I don’t want to be the one in pain. So I seek to be the one with no pain. I seek release from my identity as ‘the one who is in pain’, not realising that this identity is an illusion.
This whole movement is based on mistaken identity. You are not ‘the one in pain’. You do not ‘have‘ pain. Pain is not ‘yours‘. It’s simply pain happening. Pain appearing in life. Pain happening in the open space that you are. Pain happening in emptiness.
And even to call it ‘pain’ is already to move into concepts. What is it, before we call it ‘pain’? (or fear, or sadness, or anger, or anxiety…)
What is actually there, before the story?
So, we can say that suffering is the attempt to move away from life. And of course, you cannot move away from life. There is only life, and even the attempt to move away from life is life. That’s why suffering hurts – it hurts to try to be separated from life – from what you are. Attempted separation hurts! It hurts to run away from Home – from what you are.
But there is a deep intelligence here – the hurt acts as a signal that you are trapped in some form of illusion about who you are. That you are hanging onto a false image of yourself. And so we could say that all suffering, viewed from this perspective, is simply a call to SEE what illusion you are caught up in, in the moment.
Suffering, then, seen in this way, is not a problem – it is an invitation to rediscover the wholeness of life in the midst of the very experience that you are trying to escape. Life is one great big invitation, to wake up from the dream of separation…
If suffering is an invitation, how do I accept the invitation?
Think about it like this. Every wave in the ocean is already 100% ocean. Each wave is already a perfect expression of the ocean. In fact, there are no waves that are separate from the ocean – there are no separate waves in reality.
Everything that appears in present experience – every wave of experience, every pain wave, or fear wave, or thought wave, or sadness wave – is already 100% ocean. In other words, everything is already allowed in present experience – each and every wave is ‘allowed’ by the ocean, because the ocean is each and every wave.
Or, we could say, every wave that appears in consciousness is already 100% consciousness – every wave is ‘made of’ consciousness. There is no wave that is ‘outside’ of the ocean, no wave that is ‘rejected’ by the ocean.
Nothing that appears is outside of consciousness. Consciousness is all.
The ocean does not have a problem with any of the waves, because it ‘knows’ that all of the waves are nothing but itself. The soft, gentle waves, as much as the strong, violent waves – they are all itself. In other words there is no ‘darkness’ in the ocean – only light. Every wave is 100% water – there is no wave in which there is absence of water!
What the individual calls the ‘dark’ or ‘negative’ waves are simply the ones which are not being ‘allowed’ into present experience. When it is seen that all waves are fundamentally the ocean, it is seen that there cannot be any waves that are fundamentally ‘not okay’. All waves are fundamentally okay – there is only ocean – and so there is nothing to fear – there is no darkness. Oneness is not ‘at war’ with duality. Life is not ‘at war’ with death. It is all One.
This is what I call ‘cosmic okayness‘. Everything that appears in your experience – every sight, sound, smell, thought feeling – every pain wave, or fear wave, or anger wave, or sadness wave, is already 100% okay from the perspective of what you are. What you are is simply the open space in which all of these waves appears. You could say that the ocean loves all the waves unconditionally – because it is not separate from any of them. It is all of them. You are this space of unconditional love in which all waves of experience come and go. It is way beyond the individual’s conception of ‘unconditional love’. What you are is a radical embrace of all the waves…
What you are is already 100% okay with all of the appearances. It is not separate from the appearances. It is intimate with the appearances, even the apperances that ‘you’ – as the character, the individual - don’t like or don’t want.
And so ‘you’, as the character, the individual, might not like pain. Who would like pain, right? But what you are in your essence is already 100% okay with pain. And it is 100% okay with ‘your’ dislike of pain! Both pain and ‘your’ dislike of pain simply appear in what you are. What you are is already okay with this entire movement. What you are is already okay with the appearance of the seeker. And it knows that you are not the seeker.
What you are is already okay with ‘your’ attempt to move away from pain. Even your resistance is already okay, viewed from this perspective! Many spiritual seekers are trying to get rid of their resistance to life, but viewed from this perspective, even resistance is part of this cosmic okayness. The attempt to get rid of resistance (resisting resistance) is just more resistance anyway….
And so it turns out that the ‘okayness’ the individual is seeking, is what you already are. You are what you seek, as all the authentic spiritual masters throughout the ages have been reminding us.
Suffering is both a perfect expression of the ocean, and an invitation to see the ocean in present experience. An invitation to take a look and see where seeking is still happening. Life is already okay – already a perfect expression of Home, even in the experience of the most intense suffering, and each experience of suffering is the invitation to see Home. And ultimately, Home is still Home, even if the invitation is not accepted. There’s the cosmic okayness again.
Who accepts the invitation? There is only that question…
There’s a huge difference between understanding all of the above intellectually, and actually seeing it in your own experience. Knowing intellectually that ‘everything is Oneness’ or ‘there is no me’ doesn’t always end the seeking/suffering. If you are interested in taking a look at your own experience from this unique perspective, and discovering where seeking (and therefore suffering) may still be happening for you – in other words, where you are still running away from life, perhaps without realising it – you may be interested in coming to one of our meetings or retreats.
How do we stop seeking?
This message is about the possibility that there is no separate person – that what you are is not separate from life. That what you are is life itself – the open space in which seeking happens. You are not the seeker – you are that in which seeking arises. What you are sees seeking – and seeing is the end of seeking. You are the end of the seeker. No wonder the seeker could never find wholeness – because you are the wholeness the seeker was seeking!
You are the freedom in which seeking appears. This is not a freedom found by the seeker at the end of a long journey – it is the freedom that you already are, the freedom that you have always been, the freedom that has been there from the beginning. The freedom that cannot be taken away, cannot die, cannot be destroyed – no matter what the circumstances.
In other words, the end of the seeker is not something to be found by the seeker in the future – it is what you are. The end of seeking is life as it is. You are what you seek.
And so the question ‘how do I stop seeking?’ is rooted in faulty assumptions about who you really are. If you are a seeker doing seeking, then perhaps, yes, you can stop seeking, given time. But if it turns out that in reality you are not a seeker – that you are the space in which the seeking mechanism appears – then who, exactly, is going to stop seeking?
When it is discovered that seeking simply appears and disappears in what you are, there is no longer any need to get rid of the seeker – that would just be another movement of seeking. And so the question “how do I stop seeking?” is replaced by “is there actually anybody there who can seek or not seek?” The question “how do I stop seeking?” is replaced by “is there a seeker at all?”
In other words – at the heart of your experience, can you actually find a seeker? Can you actually find somebody there who is separate from life? Can you actually find a person there who is living your life? Or is there just the present appearance of life?
Are you a seeker – a separate person looking out at a separate world – or are you, in your essence, the space in which everything – thoughts, sensations, feelings , sounds – appears?
Is it true that you are a separate person doing breathing, doing seeing, doing hearing, doing thinking? Or are breathing, seeing, hearing, thinking just happening in the space that you are? Have you ever stopped to look, with fresh eyes? Or have you been on automatic pilot your whole life, just accepting what the world tells you about life and yourself, and never questioning it? Do you believe that parents, teachers, gurus, masters have the answers, and have you accepted their answers unquestioningly?
Let’s investigate, and see what’s really going on…
Is there a separate person or not?
First of all, let’s just say that it seems as though you’re a separate person. That’s the play. It seems as though you are separate. It seems as though there’s a me and a you. It seems as though I’m over here and you’ve over there. It seems as though there’s somebody here subjectively looking out at a solid, objective world.
It’s supposed to seem that way. The seeming is the appearance. The seeming is the play. The seeming is the dance – the dance of duality.
But beyond this seeming, is there actually anybody there separate from life?
So, let’s come back to present experience and see if we can answer that question. Our answer will not be based on conceptual knowledge, on heresay or on our conditioning, but on direct experience, direct evidence.
Right now, what is happening? For a moment, if you can, and if you are willing, put everything you believe on hold, suspend all your second-hand knowledge, forget for a moment what you’ve been told by teachers, gurus, authorities, and look with fresh eyes at life. Look with fresh eyes at your own experience. Begin again, like a child seeing the world for the first time.
Right now, are sounds appearing? Listen: sounds simply happen. Without any effort, without you having to do anything, sounds simply appear. The sound of breathing. The sound of cars beeping their horns outside. The television blaring. A bird singing.
There is simply the spontaneous play of life.
And then a secondary movement seems to happen: thought comes in and says “I am hearing”. “I am a separate person, hearing these sounds. There’s me, and there’s the sounds. I am the subject, and the sound is the object. There is a perceiver separate from that which is perceived.”
But does this separation ever really happen? In reality – in direct, unfiltered experience – is there any evidence that there is a separate ‘somebody’ here, hearing sounds? Is there actually a person here who does the hearing, or is hearing simply happening, effortlessly? Is there somebody here doing sounds, or do sounds simply appear spontaneously?
Yes, thought says “I hear the sounds”, but this begs the question, where and what is this ‘I’ who hears the sounds?
Is there, in reality, an ‘I’ hearing the sounds?
Who hears the sounds?
Can we say that separation is an illusion?
Well, in direct experience, right now, can you find two things (the one who hears the sound, and the sound itself)?
Or is there just the sound, being heard, effortlessly? Is there just one thing – the unitary movement of life?
Can you find any dividing line at all, in your direct experience, between the hearing of the sound and the sound?
Can you find the one who hears the sound over here, separate from the sound over there? Or are ‘over here’ and ‘over there’ never actually part of your direct experience?
Are there two things? Or is there just the singular movement of life?
Same goes with seeing, thinking, feeling. Can you find anybody here doing seeing, doing thinking, doing feeling? Or are seeing, thinking and feeling simply happening, effortlessly?
A question asked by spiritual teachers throughout the ages: Who sees? Who thinks? Who feels?
Who are you, really?
Why do you use the phrase ‘Life Without A Centre’?
Without the thought “I hear”, hearing still happens, doesn’t it?Without the thought “I see”, seeing still happens, doesn’t it?
We say “I am thinking, I am feeling, I am seeing.” But in direct experience, isn’t it more true to say that thoughts just appear? Feelings in the body just appear? Sights and sounds and smells just appear?
That they don’t appear to ‘you’ or for ‘you’, they just appear?
That life isn’t happening to ‘you’ or for ‘you’, it’s just happening?
That really life has no centre?
That really, there is simply the present appearance of everything? Appearing to and for… no-one?
This is the dream: that you are a person at the centre of your life, somehow separate from life. That you are a person doing life, a person controlling life, a person in charge of life, a person orchestrating thoughts, feelings, sights, sounds smells…
See that life is just living itself. This is not ‘your’ life, this is just life.
Freedom from the burden of individuality cannot be found by the individual in time. Freedom from individuality is right at the heart of individuality. True freedom is not freedom from the personal. It’s freedom in the personal. Freedom as the personal. Radical, impersonal freedom right in the middle of this very ‘personal’ human experience.
As Jesus said, you have to lose your life to save it. Perhaps this is what he was pointing to…
What is your view on spiritual practices?
Ultimately, what you already are cannot be practised. What you are is not the result of a practice. This simple seeing that I talk about is not really a ‘doing’ at all – it is the space in which all apparent ‘doing’ appears and disappears. It is the space in which practices come and go. The space itself is not a practice – it is already at rest, in spite of any practices that come and go.
You will find yourself doing spiritual practices or not. I’m certainly not saying “don’t do a spiritual practice because all spiritual practices are dualistic” – of course, that would just be a practice in itself. The practice of no practice!
Some people meditate, some people self-enquire, some people visit gurus, some people just like walking in nature or listening to music. It’s all life, it’s all absolutely appropriate to each and every dream, and I’m not here to tell you how to live or what to do. But what these words are really pointing to is the possibility that there is nobody there separate from life in the first place – and that life itself is not the result of any practice.
In an ultimate sense, no practice can bring you closer to life. There is only life, and all practices, and absence of practices, appear within life, which is what you are and where you are. If you think you are closer to life, or further away from life, these are just thoughts appearing within life. ‘Closer’ and ‘further away’ are simply concepts appearing in that which is prior to, and beyond, all concepts.
Some people do meditation because they think it will get them closer to Oneness. Some people do self-enquiry because they think it will get them closer to Oneness. Some people hang around a guru because they think it will get them closer to Oneness. Some people give up practices altogether because they think it will get them closer to Oneness. I’m not saying any of this is right or wrong, I’m just saying it’s what seekers apparently do!
The real question of course is who does the practice? Who sits down to meditate? Who self-enquires? Who asks questions and waits for answers? All practices, in the end, lead to this question. All seekers, in the end, are confronted with their own absence.
Why do some spiritual teachers give out practices and teach methods?
Well, perhaps the ultimate point of practices is to make you believe that you are getting somewhere, until it is seen in clarity that there is nowhere to go but here! To make you think that you are getting closer to your goals, until it’s seen that your goals are imaginary. However, this could be seen whilst doing spiritual practices… but it could also be seen whilst having a cup of tea, or walking in a park, or listening to music, or shopping in a supermarket…
Perhaps all practises are there to exhaust the seeker.
There’s a world of difference between sitting down to meditate in order to get somewhere, and meditating for its own sake. There’s a huge difference between singing mantras because you think it will bring you closer to awakening… and just singing mantras. There’s a huge difference between sitting on a chair watching your breathing because you think it will bring you closer to enlightenment… and just sitting on a chair. There’s nothing wrong with meditation, or singing mantras, or sitting on a chair. How could there be?
But the question is, what are you looking for? When will you find it? And is there actually anything to find? Or is there only the present appearance of life? Is there only life, appearing to no-one? Is that possible? And are you open to that possibility?
Yes, the need for spiritual practices may simply fall away when you realise that you’ve been using the practices to escape from life as it is. And then you may still find yourself meditating, or not meditating, and either way, you can’t go wrong. Because you will see that meditation is equal to eating a cheese sandwich. And repeating mantras is equal to going to the shops to buy a newspaper. It is all the One Taste, as they say in Zen…
Perhaps the reason I don’t give out specific practices is because I don’t know what’s best for you, in your dream. I am not an authority on life – there’s no such thing. I’m not a guru – I don’t have a one-size-fits-all method or practice that will magically solve all your problems. That’s a lovely idea but unfortunately life doesn’t really work like that. In the end, life isn’t something that needs to be fixed anyway.
So there’s a difference between doing a practice in order to fix myself, and simply seeing what is?
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Seeing is not a practice. As long as you’re doing a practice in order to fix yourself, to reach wholeness, to become enlightened, you’re fuelling the sense that you are incomplete, broken, separate. You’re moving towards a more complete future that never arrives.
Any practice which leads you away from life as it is into a future moment when you will be more whole, more complete, more fixed, is simply maintaining the problem it promises to solve. It is actually maintaining the very incompleteness that you are trying to escape.
As I was saying earlier, all waves are already 100% ocean, and so each individual wave of experience is a little invitation to see the ocean in present experience. Any practice that leads you away from this seeing is simply another form of seeking.
We don’t see the ocean in order to become whole. Seeing the ocean is the wholeness. There is no ‘becoming’. And ultimately, the wave is already whole, even if that isn’t seen. Either way, there is only wholeness – already.
So, there is a huge difference between using practices, techniques and methords to try and fix yourself – and exploring what is, right now, in openness and fascination. There is a huge difference between seeking and seeing. I’ve written a whole article on this – see Therapy Without A Therapist.
Life Without A Centre exposes the various forms of seeking – and in that exposure, there is clear seeing of life as it is. We take a look at the various (and ingenious) ways in which we attempt to run away, deny or block out aspects of our experience – in other words, we shine light on the seeking mechanism. (And of course, spiritual practices can easily be part of that mechanism – they can actually fuel the mechanism.) In Life Without A Centre, we en-lighten the seeker! In that exposure, there is nowhere for the seeker to go, nowhere for the seeker to hide. The exposure of the seeker is its death – and that is the end of seeking. The end of seeking is seeing – and any practice which points away from this, is only going to keep the seeking cycle going.
Since life is already whole and complete, should we just stop doing practices, and stop trying to help ourselves and others?
Again, I’m not here to tell you how to live, only to point back clearly to life as it is. I’m not telling you to give up on life, I’m not telling you to stop doing what you’re doing, I’m not telling you to give up practices, I’m not telling you to stop helping others, I’m not even telling you to ‘do nothing’…
Look, you will find yourself helping people or not. You don’t need me to tell you how to live. But beyond helping and needing to be helped, there is a wordless intimacy here in which nobody can help anybody – because there is simply nobody there separate from life. Beyond help and helplessness, you are already free, and that’s the possibility that is being shared here. And again, this could be seen in the midst of practice, or in the midst of watching TV or doing the washing up.
Nonduality isn’t about detaching yourself from the world and from other people (and justifying that detachment with the belief that ‘there is no world and there are no others’). Detachment is separation. No, this is about a life lived in fullness, where nothing is denied. And that fullness could include moving to help apparent others, although ultimately there are no ‘others’. It could include moving to improve your life, if you think that your life needs to be improved, even though ultimately it’s not ‘your life’ at all.
To the mind it’s a total mystery, a total paradox… but to what you are, it is the clearest and most obvious thing of all.
If someone is hungry, you might give them food. If somebody is in physical pain, you might help ease their pain if that is possible. If somebody is upset or frightened, you might help them to take a look at what they are thinking in the moment, and to see it as just a story, and to find the open space beyond the story. When there is unconditional love, there is enough room for all of this. But where the action comes from, you don’t know – it all happens spontaneously, without any specific agenda.
When the completeness of life is seen, there is room for appropriate action, always.
When you see that the world does not need your help, perhaps that’s when you become the greatest help. Because ‘you’ get out of the way.
So, after all that, do I really need to give you a practice? Can’t you see that you already have the perfect practice? That you’re doing it right now? That, in fact, you are it?
Do you really need a guru, when life itself is the ultimate guru?
But didn’t spiritual practices bring you to where you are today?
My goodness, year ago I used to be obsessed with spiritual practices! I was desperate to become an ‘enlightened person’, I was desperate to become ‘awakened’, to lose my self and merge with life. I was using spiritual practices to get somewhere. Spiritual practices had become a drug for me.
I was a depressed, miserable human being, and I saw spiritual enlightenment as the only way out. Modern psychology hadn’t worked for me – it only seemed to deal with surface issues. I didn’t want to ‘fit in’ or ‘adapt to society’ – I wanted to be free, totally, radically, free. I didn’t want a fleeting state called ‘happiness’ – I wanted truth and reality, something absolute and unchangeable, something totally beyond earthly pleasure and pain. And so I turned to the teachings of enlightenment, and I became obsessed with my own transformation.
I tried everything. I meditated for hours every day, I did self-enquiry obsessively, I even became a vegan for a while because I thought it would bring me closer to enlightenment, closer to the disappearance of the self, closer to the dissolution of separation. And it was all very exciting at first, because I thought that I – a separate person – was getting somewhere. I thought that the seeker was getting closer to the sought. I thought that I was ‘nearly there’.
But eventually, the seeking failed. Why? Because no matter what I did, or didn’t do, there was still the sense that there was somebody there, separate from life, doing or not doing. No matter what I did, or gave up doing, to try and get rid of separation, separation still seemed to be there.
I was in a double-bind. I saw that seeking was futile, but I couldn’t give up. I saw that practices were pointless (because they seemed to fuel the sense that I was separate) but I also saw that not doing practices, or giving up practices, was just another practice, just another tactic to bring about a desired change. The seeking ended in despair and frustration. How could a separate self get rid of a separate self? Not possible. I was lost.
And in that lost-ness, in that frustration and despair, another possibility arose. And it had nothing to do with somebody doing something to get somewhere. It went beyond doing practices or not doing practices. This possibility said that freedom was already right here and right now, and that there had never been anyone here separate from it. That no practice can take you to freedom, because practices already arise in freedom. That the ‘I’ could never become awakened, but ever-present awakeness is already here, lovingly embracing everything, and here is the end of all seeking. It all became as clear as crystal, as obvious as breathing. It wasn’t an experience (experiences come and go), it wasn’t a passing state (states are in time), it was life as it is, and it had always been staring me in the face.
In the seeing of this, practices became totally unnecessary. Having a coffee with a friend became equal to sitting down to meditate. Why? Because it was seen that the one who sits down to have a coffee with a friend is the one who sits down to meditate! The one who walks through the park looking at the beautiful flowers, or the one who lies in a hospital bed in extreme pain, is the one who sings mantras or goes to therapy or spends a lifetime seeking enlightenment! The seeker is the sought. There is nothing to find – nothing was ever lost. As wise men and women throughout the ages have been trying to tell us – You Are That. Already.
And so these days, life is very simple. The spiritual search came crashing down, and what emerged from the rubble is a very ordinary life being lived. Who it is lived by, I have no way of knowing. The question, ‘Who is living life?’ self-destructs the moment it asked. It collapses under the weight of its own assumptions – every question does in the end.
‘Who is living life?’ – that question cannot stand.
The mystery is enough. I still call myself ‘Jeff’ (the character is not lost, the wave goes on being a wave), but what is seen is that ‘Jeff’ is simply a wonderful story, a narrative that comes and goes in that which does not come and go. I don’t even need to be attached to the story ‘I am not Jeff’ or ‘I am nobody’ – that would just be another identity, something else that comes and goes.
And so, what is left? Life, lived in fascination. Life, lived in gratitude.
Life, in its radical simplicity.
Do practices lead the seeker to wholeness?
Yes and no. It’s always yes and no, and totally beyond yes and no. The mind operates in the world of ‘yes and no’. But of course, life is always beyond mind. This is why this is very difficult to talk about…
You see, practices were all about me attempting to get somewhere, while this realisation was a seeing-through of this me who was trying to get somewhere! Practices were all about doing something to bring about a change – this was the seeing that life is always exactly as it is, and no change, in the moment, is necessary.
Practices were all about cause-and-effect, about putting in effort to get a result, and what was seen is that life is ever-free from cause-and-effect. Life as it is is not the result of effort, because ‘effort’ and ‘result’, ’cause’ and ‘effect’, indeed all thoughts about life, are simply thoughts appearing in life.
The thought of a ’cause’ doesn’t actually cause anything. The thought of a ‘result’ is not the result of anything. The past does not bring you to the present. The present is all there is, and the past is just a story arising in the present. (And ultimately the ‘present’ is just another thought too…)
In the story of time, it seems as though there is cause and effect. It seems as though A leads to B. It seems as though acorns grow into oak trees. It seems as though what I did brought me to where I am now. It was this illusion (this seeming) that was seen through! The seeming has no reality outside of thought. I’m not saying there is no seeming. I’m saying there is only seeming in thought.
No practice brought me here, because ‘I’ am not here! ‘I’ is just a story arising here, appearing in the vastness of life itself. The shocking realisation was this: freedom had nothing to do with whatever Jeff did or didn’t do on his spiritual search. Freedom is not a result of Jeff’s search. Life is not caused by Jeff’s search (what arrogance it would be to think that!). Jeff’s search appeared in life… and itself was a full expression of life.
In other words, I had always been Home, but hadn’t realised it.
Even in the depths of seeking there had been Oneness. But that hadn’t been seen – and that’s why the seeking had continued for as long as it did. Seeking is equal to not-seeing.
It was Oneness, dressed up as a seeker, looking for Oneness!
Oneness looking for itself…
Is seeking necessary at all?
I must say this: the story of Jeff’s search is the only story that could have happened, because it did happen. I simply had to go through what I went through, not because it was predestined, but because it happened, simple as that. What happened, happened. The dream you dream is the only possible dream. Your life story is the only possible story that could have arisen. Your dream is perfect for you.
And so spiritual practices were necessary (only because they happened)… until it was seen in clarity that they weren’t necessary. And when it was seen that they weren’t necessary, it was also seen that they had never been necessary, because there had only ever been life, and no practice had ever taken me even one inch closer to life.
You see, I have always been this. Even before I did spiritual practices I was this. When I took my first breath, I was this. When I take my last, I will be this. I cannot not be this. And neither can you. You are what I am. And that recognition renders all spiritual practices obsolete.
As I said, this is not a rejection of spiritual practices, but a movement beyond them, for those who are open.
Jeff, do you really believe in all of this?
I know that – ultimately – not a word I say could possibly be true, because no word can touch life. Life is too alive for words. So, no, I don’t actually believe in this stuff, in the sense that I cannot form it into a ‘belief’ that I’m separate from. I don’t believe in life – because there is only life. Life as it is does not require belief, and that’s the beauty of it. It is simply this – here and now. It is breathing happening, it is the heart beating, it is sights and sounds and smells appearing exactly as they appear. It is sound of the washing machine whirring. It is the taste of the cup of tea I’m drinking. So simple, so obvious, so present. So wonderfully ordinary, so extraordinarily wonderful. No need for belief, at all. All belief comes and goes, but this remains, whether Jeff believes it or not!
Seeing is the end of believing! What need is there for belief, when you see?
Life is the bonfire that burns up all beliefs, all words, even these words, leaving only presence. These words appear and are immediately burnt up. Jeff knows he is not special or different – he is simply an appearance in life. I cannot be an ‘authority on nonduality’, I cannot ‘know’ this, because these words are equal to the barking of a dog or the tweeting of a bird. It is all the One expression, it is all an expression of the One, and nobody can separate themselves from that expression and claim ownership. Nobody can teach life itself, nobody can give you that, because the dog barking, the bird singing, the sun shining is already life itself. Nobody can teach you it because everything is teaching it – everything is it.
I’m not saying “there is no authority, except for Jeff!” (and this is the guru trap of course). I’m saying there is no authority, and that includes Jeff and his expression . To be totally free from all authority, including your own… that’s the real freedom.
Jeff, you speak as though you know! But how do you know?
‘I’ don’t know. The ‘I’ cannot know. Because there is no ‘I’ separate from life that can know. There is only the not-knowing. And all knowledge arises and falls away in that.
See for yourself, and it’s as obvious as breathing.
These words come from the certainty that there is nothing to know. It’s not the certainty of the mind, but the certainty that is not-knowing itself. All knowledge, all intellectual certainty, is just a play of thought. Beyond thoughts, there is no world. Beyond the world, there is nothing to know. Who would know it?
You see, where there is belief, there is doubt. Anything you believe, you can also doubt. If I believed any of this stuff, I could also doubt it. But because for me this is not a belief, there is no doubt either, not a trace of it.
Life as it is, cannot be doubted. In simple language, you cannot doubt that you are awake and present, right here, right now. You cannot doubt this simple feeling of being that is identical with life itself. You cannot doubt the sound of that bird singing, or the taste of this cup of tea, or breathing happening…
Oh yes, you can doubt everything you know about life, you can doubt all the language we use to point to and describe life, you can doubt even the word ‘life’ itself, but you cannot (unless you are in total denial!) doubt the reality to which the word ‘life’ points. And even if doubt appears, life is that which is doing the doubting. So in the end you can’t escape it. You are Home, no matter what. Beyond belief, beyond doubt.
When there is nothing to know, when there is no belief and therefore no doubt, all that’s left is life itself, in all its beauty and rawness, and a deep, unshakeable knowing that this is all there is – and this is enough (because this is all there is).
It’s not something that ‘you’ know. But, undoubtedly, it is known. Life knows, because life is. The Knowing is the Being, and in that, everything comes full circle, and life completes itself. The origin of life is its destination, and its destination is its origin. Creation and destruction are not-two.
To look life in the face, and to see only love, only an intimacy beyond words looking back at you, that’s when you know it’s all over… and only just beginning.
Welcome to Life Without A Centre, the life you are already living.