Now is the Knowing; Eat the cake.

Well happy birthday to me, it's my 34th birthday today. I have been hanging out a fair bit with an American girl Rosie whom I met at Mooji's birthday party. I thought that I might have some dinner with her tonight but it seems she has gone to Pondicherry for a few days so I am celebrating on my own at the moment which is ok with me - no pangs of loneliness at this time. Rosie is mutually in love with a man in the US so it's not that, we are just friends.

It's been over a week since I wrote so a quick run down of some highlights : renting a pedal bike for US50c a day, it gives a lot more freedom and mobility which I like and also makes the gauntlet of passing the many beggars much easier. A couple of times now I have riden around the mountain which only takes an hour or so to do. A few days ago on the full moon there were tens of thoasands of barefooted Indian pilgrims walking around the mountain at night - I went too but wore my shoes this time and went by the road.

Here's a good one : I got bit by Jackie the dog and now have a one inch gash on my left thigh. I continue to break in and out of the ashram compound at night time after curfew but it wasn't that. I was playing with him on the roof and he got over excited and got me on both legs wrecking my good yoga pants. The dog has been immunized against rabies but I am getting the shots anyway just as a precaution and watching carefully for any frothing at the mouth and fear of water. Rabies is fatal so if I die from it nice knowing you all, but I think I will be alright.

Been continuing to go to Mooji Satsang most mornings as well as a couple of other meetings. Mooji is leaving here after Sunday so that will be the end of an era and will leave a big space in my day for other things to happen. The others were smaller groups; one with an Ozzy woman called Miranda who seems to specialize in helping people to release emotions in the presence of Presence. The other is a German guy called Gaia who is very low key and ordinary. Actually from his Satsang one day a couple of pennies dropped. Seems very simple but the realisation was that no matter what thoughts or feelings are arising they are always arising in the now and if one looks, the now is always ok. The other was a seeing of the subtle striving for some pleasant or deep experience in meditation/silent sitting which is a rejection of what is actually happening now. The upshot was a deeper acceptance and peace in the now.

It's simple to say these things but to have an actual experiential recognition of them is something else. No flashing lights or internal explosions just a mellowing into what is. Insights and experiences like that come and go and there's no point in holding on to them or being disappointed when they pass; or rather when the clouds of thought identification temporarly obscure the sun once again. There seems to come a time when nothing can shake the Realisation of Being but that seems to happen only when it is ready to.

My friend Mike from the UK asked me to put a question to one of these 'oracles' here at Arunachala. The question was along the lines of if 'Enlightenment' is the end of the illusion of being a person then who or what remains to know that 'Enlightenment' has happened or is no such self-reflection possible?

I put the question to Gaia and the answer which arose was along these lines: We think that we are a person with particular patterns of thought but that actually the person we think we are is nothing more than these patterns of thought. We are not a person with patterns, the person is the patterns; we are the Awareness. The sense of personhood which we experience, the 'I-ness' of our thoughts and feelings, is only a borrowed reflection from the pure 'I AM'; the Beingness, the Awareness within which all experiences happen and which is aware of experience.

When Realisation dawns then these patterns of thought are seen to be arising within Awareness and they no longer have the sense of 'I-ness'. So any thought which arises in that state such as 'I am now Enlightened' would have no meaning or significance. Then what is aware?

Awareness or Beingness itself is aware. That can be hard to comprehend since we are mostly identified as being a person but I suppose it could be said that the sense of identity has now opened into the dimension of Beingness itself. If our current sense of 'I-ness' is only a borrowed reflection from this pure 'I AM-ness' then what to say of the real thing? It is beyond the mind and therefore beyond the minds capacity to comprehend (other than a few concepts about it). It can only be an experience and yet it is the very 'thing' which makes awareness of experience possible. Perhaps all that can be said about it is that there is a deep sense of Knowingness which neutralises all of these questions? I don't really know.

What motivates action and gives coherence to the remains of such a one? Enlightened intuition? Spontaneous action guided by some higher power? From the standpoint of the mind then it is all open to speculation so so so so so? Maybe better just to eat the cake.

Well, for anyone who is still here after all that, until the next time......................