Experience and Enlightenment
Charlie Hayes

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Q: I had a Oneness experience many years ago in Vietnam, (during probably my most boring period over there).  Had never heard of such a thing and just a couple weeks later I was sent to an LZ where I came across Alan Watts' "The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.” Well this triggered another such experience except this time I tried to possess it, to keep it for myself.  And, like quicksilver through my fingers, it was gone.

 This is a very familiar story. Many seekers have had such misleading occurrences happen and they are then really fooled into believing there are such “things” as “enlightenment” and “Liberation.”

 When awareness of the nature of reality dawns in the mind of the seeker, that there is no such thing as permanent “enlightenment” and that any experience, of oneness or any other “state,” must necessarily pass away, the seeking begins to fade away. The realization begins to dawn that ONLY what NEVER CHANGES, never comes and goes, could be the Eternal State, the natural freedom of Being itself. The "experience of oneness" is ACTUALLY, TWO-NESS: There’s the experience and the one experiencing! So in actual fact it is a fake, a delusion of mind masking as “oneness.”

 In Oneness there is NO experiencer and NOTHING experienced. There is only the experience-ING. Then when it is pointed out that any experience comes and goes in awareness and awareness itself is never changing, always clear, present and open, allowing whatever appears to come and go, then it’s coming up to “game over,” and being completely free of suffering.

 Then the clarity of the simple seeing that what we are is Presence-Awareness and that the personal entity is actually nonexistent becomes the living experience-ING. This is an impersonal occurring and not anything attainable or hold-onto-able, of course: There are NO enlightened “people.” A “me” being “enlightened” is the ultimate oxymoron, because the “one who seeks enlightenment” is nothing more substantial than an idea of an "I" who can “get” something he or she is not. You already always were, will be, and are Awareness. Just that and nothing else.

 At any rate my life since has in a particular sense. One of "suffering", looking for the door to that experience again (while I raised a family).   Along the way, I tried to vanquish my ego, which I perceived to be the primary obstacle to my quest, doubted my goodness (purity of heart), my discipline. Meditation seemed like taking a very roundabout road to get to where I already was. 

 All suffering is for a personal “entity,” and there quite simply is NO such thing anywhere. Look for the separate person, do the investigation in the way the sages have always pointed out, and you find that the “me” is conspicuously ABSENT! This is very good news, because it ends the suffering once and for good. When the false is seen AS false, there is no longer any urge or motivation to “dissolve or destroy” it. How can you kill a ghost? Try to capture a phantom. It’s like trying to grasp a cloud. Impossible. But each must find this out for himself or herself.

 The investigation is key… looking for mister or miz me and finding that there ain’t no such actual separate entity, not in you, nor in anyone else, puts paid to the seeking and the concomitant suffering. You simply wake up to the dream, and the realization arises that there never was a problem for the Real You, the Unborn Naked Awareness, and that all suffering was imagined owing to a mistake in identification … the idea that “I am a body, I am a mind, I am a person, a me. All that happened was an innocent error usually around the age of two, wherein a thought that bubbled into awareness from nowhere was believed to be a real thing that described an individual separated from the “world out there.” Clear up the mistake, root out the false cause, and the whole house of cards collapses, leaving what is always present, never changing, your True Natural State of Being-Awareness … just That and nothing else.

 Correcting the error is simple; a little investigation is all it takes. Don’t let anyone tell you that suffering is “just part of what is.” That is a useless piece of nondual crap. Suffering can end, and has ended for countess seekers who take up this commitment to completion in earnest. “Sailor” Bob Adamson’s search ended in the presence of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj 30 years ago, and he has since pointed out what is real and shown the way to see the false and discard it for many, many fortunate “former seekers.” Now with the advent of the Internet the good news is spreading all over the world. And you are the beneficiary. Look: It's even happening in rural Oklahoma!

 So please just take up these simple pointers: You know that you are aware, you are being. That being is inescapable. Then challenge the lies the mind tells you … don’t keep accepting the false assumption that you are a separate entity. Freedom is what you are and you can taste it. Make that your living reality. You have friends who have done the investigation and can help to shed light on the pathless path and that is most fortunate indeed. Use them!

 Perhaps you can help me understand my enigma and help me take the next step toward "dis-llusion-ment"! 

  These pointers can take the seeker beyond the need for "help." See how these work as you get into them with some earnestness. Do keep in touch; feel free write or call with any questions or doubts or “yeah-buts.” Let’s get this done once and for good. 

A discussion (between Charlie and Dennis Waite) of this dialog will follow.

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