An Inquiry Into Seeking And Awareness

You'll never wake up as long as you're seeking.

I heard that and it just drove me nuts because it was like,

I can't find it as long as I'm seeking.

So what to do now?

Where to go now?

What am I to do in this situation?

I mean,

I know there's no doer,

But what am I supposed to do?

Hello,

Everybody.

Good to be with you as always.

So today I'm going to tell you something that could fundamentally alter everything that you're doing if you're not awake right this minute.

You're not already awake.

In awakening sessions,

I never actually tell the person,

So now you're awake,

Because it's unnecessary.

I ask them questions and then they come to recognize that what we call awakening has occurred.

But there's no awakening that actually takes place.

And I don't mean that there's no awakening for the seeker or there's no awakening for the absolute or anything.

I mean,

There's no awakening for anybody whatsoever.

And it is the language that we have used around awakening has really kept people in the bushes for not just centuries,

Millennia.

So the language that we use is we say he's awake,

She's not.

I'm awake,

He's not.

He's awake and I'm not.

There's no such thing as a character.

It's no such thing as a human being that is awake.

And there is no such thing as a human being that is unawake.

There is no such thing as a separate human being,

Period.

It looks like it.

I get it.

I understand.

I just put a shirt on this thing that looks like an individual unit,

But it's not an individual unit.

It's all part of oneness.

So when you hear people say,

Gee,

You'll never find this thing as long as you're seeking,

That's as true as anything as anybody's ever going to tell you about awakening.

If I tell you that you're already awake,

And I know how annoying that is because it was annoying to me too,

But that was also one of the truest things that anybody is true.

What is it?

It's very true-ish.

It's not quite true.

This isn't quite true.

So this idea that you're already awake,

That's very true-ish.

The problem is,

Is that it's misunderstood who it is that's awake.

Because what we think is the reason we don't think we're awake when we think we should be,

Is because we're waiting for the unit to wake up.

We're waiting for the meat to wake up.

We're waiting for the character to wake up.

And I signed up to get Fred enlightened,

Right?

And then sadly enough,

That never happened because there's no enlightened Fred.

But there is an authentically awakened teaching vehicle that you're welcome to call Fred.

I'm going to call it Fred because just got to call it by something.

I'm used to Fred.

So if somebody comes up behind me and they say,

Hey Bill,

I'm not going to turn around.

But if they say,

Hey Fred,

I'm going to turn around,

But I'm not turning around because I think that I'm limited to this single unit.

I'm going to turn around because that's what units do in that situation.

That's the practical thing to do.

It's meeting relativity on its own level,

Which means I'm turning around.

Hey,

What?

What?

Ramana Maharshi would have done the same thing.

Hey Ramana.

Yeah.

What?

Nisargadatta.

Yes,

Sir.

So the problem is,

Is that when you split hairs with non-dual teachings,

Generally speaking,

You split the wrong ones.

And that's just the truth.

And I did too.

I get that.

I really do.

And I sympathize with this.

I was a seeker for 24 years.

I was not a quick study at this.

Just probably just like you who've been on this path for maybe three years,

Maybe five,

But probably 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60.

I haven't hit a 70.

I haven't woken up anybody that was on the path 70 years yet,

But I have woken up more than one that was on the path for 60.

So this thing is completely obvious,

But only in hindsight,

You can't see it going in.

You just only can see it once it's already done.

So what I did,

What I'm telling you is that,

Well,

What I did at that time was I,

This is honest to God's truth,

Is that I tried to pretend that I was not seeking any longer.

Okay.

That's it.

I give up.

Did you hear that God?

I'm giving up.

I've given up seeking.

So now show yourself.

I mean,

It was just about that ridiculous.

I really thought that if I could pretend it,

If I couldn't stop thinking,

You'll notice that you can't either.

Not in the way that you think you have to,

But the way that you have,

Think you have to quit seeking is not the way that you have to quit seeking in order to wake up.

What we want to do,

We want to notice who it is I'm talking about when I tell you that you're already awake,

And we want to see what it is that stops seeking and starts to notice.

So when people tell you that you're already awake,

I know what most people think.

You'll think what I thought,

Which is that,

Well,

He's talking,

They're talking about this.

And I knew when I was told,

Fred,

You're already awake.

I mean,

I knew that was bullshit as it came out of their mouths,

Because I knew that this unit was,

I knew number one,

That I was this unit.

And given the fact that I was this unit,

The easiest,

And that I was a Fred Davis and a Fred Davis was this unit.

And given the fact that this unit,

I mean,

That I knew the unit wasn't awake,

That's what the hell I had come to the teachers for,

Was to wake it up.

Hey,

I got a recalcitrant unit here,

Wake it up.

And then they had the nerve to tell me I was already awake.

But they weren't talking to this.

They really were not because I,

Awakeness,

And not this unit.

What I mean by that is,

On one level within the level of relativity,

I am everything.

So I include this unit.

I don't exclude this unit.

But I did when I was a seeker.

I was thinking that oneness began maybe an inch,

Inch and a half outside of my skin.

And that I was looking for oneness and that I just couldn't find it.

And it was all this crap was in the way.

But see,

All the crap that's in the way,

That's oneness.

The noise that you're hoping is going to die down so that you can concentrate on finding oneness is oneness.

The activities that other people are doing that you feel like if they just don't shut up,

I'll scream and I'm certainly never,

Ever going to be able to spot my true nature.

That is your true nature.

That noise,

That activity,

It's all your true nature.

Because you're not that unit.

And I know that you know that on some level.

But the problem is,

The level that you probably know it is not really very helpful.

Because I had a guy last week that came to me and said,

I already know that there's no Bob for it.

So there's no point in going over that.

But the one who was saying that he already knew there was a Bob was Bob.

And that does you no good whatsoever.

Other than as a general philosophy,

It's a fine thing to follow.

It's very useful.

Surrender to what is or whatever.

I mean,

That's great advice.

It's great advice practically.

It's great advice for a unit if it can only take it.

But a unit cannot surrender to this because a unit is resistance itself.

This is resistance to space.

There is conditioned space and there's unconditioned space.

This is conditioned space.

And we could say that it's not really the air,

But we're just for the sake of languaging,

We'll say.

And this is unconditioned space.

So this is resistance to that.

But that's only if this is within relativity,

This is resistance to that.

That's the way to put that.

Because it's only in relativity that this conditioned or unconditioned space.

Because in truth,

There's nothing but unconditioned space and appearances.

And that's what this is.

This is an appearance.

And the thing over there that thinks it's a Bob or Carol or Ted or an Alice,

That is also an appearance.

And when I say it's an appearance,

I mean it's an appearance like this is an appearance.

Why does that lie?

See that?

That's what you are.

That's the truth.

See how quick that came?

And how do we know that that is an appearance and not something that's quote real?

Because the light didn't used to be here.

The light is here and now the light is not here.

And that's the very definition of if this was a spiritual experience,

That's the very definition of a spiritual experience or any other experience.

Is that it doesn't,

It's not happening,

It happens and then it's not happening anymore.

That's what experience is,

Spiritual or otherwise.

And what this is,

This is an experience.

Not for this,

But for you.

This is an experience for awakeness.

Call it oneness if you want.

It's oneness is true until it's not.

So we may as well say oneness.

I'll teach you oneness first,

Then I'll teach it to you later.

So call it God,

Call it Tao.

So you're looking for Tao,

But you are Tao.

You're not anything other than Tao.

How do I know?

Because there's not anything other than Tao.

It just isn't.

There's what you're,

When you look around here,

You're looking at the face of God,

But the one that's looking at the face of God is God.

You ever heard somebody have that spiritual awakening?

Oh friend,

I had a very powerful spiritual awakening and I woke up and everywhere I looked,

I saw the face of God.

Well,

Here it is.

I mean,

I thought it's going to be like a thousand TV sets or something with God faces on them,

Whatever a God face looked like.

I don't know what,

I really had no concept of how that could be.

That's a little bit like closer than close and all those things that don't make any sense until they do.

But once they do,

They make very profound sense and they're very,

Very clear.

They're clear pointers,

But they just rarely,

Rarely work.

You know,

The thing is,

But they're very good for assuring that awakening has occurred.