Reality is Pure Simplicity

There is only this One. Utter simplicity. That is what all of this talk boils down to. One. That’s not very complicated.

This is not a spiritual statement. It’s much simpler than that. I might use the word mystical, because it is unknowable, and that makes it pretty mysterious. But I can’t call it spiritual, because that word carries some confusing implications which are unnecessary and untrue. This is about simplicity. “One” is as simple as it gets.

So, what do I mean by “One”?

Let’s start with what we see, which seems about as far as we can get  from “one.” We see a seeming endless number of things. The world appears to have a huge variety of forms in it – you could even say infinite. These forms are constantly changing and shifting, being born and dying, appearing as sublime beauty, appearing as terrible destructive forces, appearing as conscious creatures. And I, Annette, appear to be one of those forms in the world. I assume I am real. I have no reason to think otherwise.

But after a while, over the years, I read a few things here and there that suggest that the reality of me as a person is only an assumption, and a mistaken one, at that. I was willing to be open to this possibility, since I know I’d had mistaken assumptions before, and when I learned more, I got straightened out.

When I was a kid, I thought that classical music was created by being stamped onto records (the big vinyl LPs they used to make). It was complicated music, and I’d never seen an orchestra perform, and I had no way of knowing anything different. But after some exposure to live music, I finally put the whole thing together and realized that my original idea was wrong. It was a reasonable mistake to make. I just didn’t have all the information.

So when we start out asking these questions, about our own existence and what it is, it is reasonable to assume this world is real, these objects are all separate from each other, and I am one of these objects. But what we don’t realize is that we don’t have all the information. When we look deeper, looking into these objects and forms – these lives, these brains, these activities, these thoughts and feelings – they start revealing some of the false assumptions we’ve made about them. Are they “self-powered,” for instance? Do they feed their own life to themselves?  Do they animate themselves? No, no, and no.

So it turns out these forms have a lot of big ideas, and yet they do not have any power to even be, by themselves. They may plan and design and create in every grandiose way, but can they ever influence “what is”? Can they ever make something out of nothing? It turns out, the forms, the objects that appear, including me, have no power at all. They have no relevance at all. They are simply, you might say, appearances, like a movie, playing on a movie screen.

Where does “One” come into all this? I’m getting to that. First, back to the movie.

On the screen, in the movie, all the appearances are equally irrelevant, equally powerless. There is no group or object with power (like, say, people) and another without. There is no thing that has any more value than another, or more meaning. There is no division at all in appearance, even though it appears there is. Everything in appearance – everything you see – is all one unit, one unit of total sameness. Including yourself.

All appearance is made of the same stuff – stardust, literally. And the stardust assumes different forms or energetic patterns for a while. I, or Annette, am simply an energetic pattern appearing on this screen of the appearance of world – stardust, dancing in this play of energy, exactly the same as every other form here is doing. There is no difference between Annette and the person next to her, or the cat, or the potted plant. Or the galaxy. It’s all the same. So, since it is all the same, and is always simply “what is,” appearance can be completely disregarded. It can be whatever it will be. It is whatever it is.

But then, what about me? If I disregard appearance, and I disregard the “Annette” that appears in appearance, then who am I? Annette appears, but if she has no power, if she is not divided off or separate in any way as a body, and if she is basically the same as everything else, that can’t be what I am.

I know that appearance is not real – does not exist – because I have noticed that none of the forms in appearance have any independent power. It all simply “goes along,” dream-like. Annette is an appearance in this dream, and does not exist. And yet I exist. So I am not Annette. What am I?

All I know about this is that I exist. “This” seems to be stable and constant. And it seems to be aware. It seems to be dispassionate yet loving. Accepting. Peaceful. Never disturbed, never clouded over. It seems to be quietly amazed at the wondrousness of every moment. This must be who I am. This is all I’ve ever been. And the only hard part has been fighting it. The being is as easy as falling off a log.

The Annette who appears in appearance is just not me. She is a form, I have animated that form, and she appears to be something that is me, and I have believed that at times. But I am this One, and that is all, because that is all that really exists. I can’t be something that does not exist, and that form – none of those forms – exist. Appearance is not real. It is just not real. It is a dream-like thing.

Are there two things, then? The One, and the appearance? No, the appearance is the One, expressing in infinitely varied form. Do the forms really exist? To the human mind, which divides, they do exist. To the One, all form is simply Itself, and does not “exist.” The One sees only Itself, and so various forms of it cannot be said to "exist." If the whole universe were green, would green exist?

What can I be but this One? The form appearing as Annette – she is one of the forms that appears. She is no more of who I am than you are. Annette, and you, and the mailman, and the cat, and the tree, and all the empty space in between them, are all forms in this appearance, and they are free to do whatever they will do. They are images, pictures, of nothing. They are the play of light. They are a dance of energy. There is no meaning or purpose in what they do. The One – “What Is” – is all there is – so simple – and these apparent forms dance within the One, because of the One.

But to stay trapped for a “lifetime” within the “body” of one of these forms – one of these dancing patterns of loving energy – and continue to believe for the whole lifetime that this form is solid, flesh and blood, is born and dies – that is simply a shame for the form that feels trapped in such a fashion. Because the truth of that form is this total freedom of Oneness in this dance of love. And the only thing that keeps one trapped in that prison body is a false belief, generated in the mind, which is itself simply part of the appearance.

How does that happen? A thought – a narrative, let’s say – is created in the apparent mind of this apparent body. But keep in mind that the body is not “solid” as it appears, it is not real, and is an appearance on the One. The body and appearance of a separate person is dancing energy. And so the narrative is also just dancing energy. Energy can appear as anything, but it appears here as running commentary in a brain, created by that brain, and believed by that same brain.

And what is the brain? Remember, nothing in appearance has any intrinsic value, nor any power to do anything. The brain is simply an appearance of dancing energy, here now, gone in a few short years, already free because it is simply this One. Always free. Yet it believes a narrative that is totally within the dream, a narrative that says it is not free. This narrative believes itself. And so, for a lifetime, a form that is truly just this One, free, in complete union with all the power and glory of the universe, suffers needlessly, thinking it is a separate form, alone, fending for itself, constantly needing to create or preserve its own value.

So, what is the way out of this closed loop?

I can forget the entire appearance. What happens in the appearance, well, there it is, going along, but I see that it does not have anything to do with me. I am not concerned. I am simply humming along. It amuses me, but I am indifferent towards it. I don’t care to change it, because I see that it has no meaning. Why would I want to change something that has no meaning? It’s just dancing forms with no purpose. It can’t be any other way. Or, it can be any way at all.

So this is it. It really is this simple. And it is really utter rejection of the appearance, or not even a rejection as much as just seeing it is not relevant. And so on it goes – no problem – and I see it, dispassionately. I don’t see the individual forms being important. Instead I see the simplicity of Being itself, but not from a personal angle of wanting to control something about it all the time. Seeing the world impersonally, without the need to improve upon it, every moment becomes a simple, ordinary miracle.

And so the simplicity of this message, this non-dual teaching, couldn’t be more welcome. How lucky we are that this teaching exists. It cuts through all the baloney, all the spiritual trappings. It is the very definition of simplicity. There is nothing complicated about it. There is simply the One, and everything else can be ignored. This teaching does not offer a flashy experience. If it is experiences you want, feel free to go back out there and try that for another twenty years. You can go look in the appearance for another twenty or thirty years, and spend a lot of money, and see if the appearance has what you’re looking for. Or, right now, you can just choose to leave the appearance behind and see that you are not that, and that you do not even appear in it.

When power is pulled from appearance, it is pulled equally from you and me and everyone else. It is not like “I” pull power from appearance and the “I” stays. No. When you withdraw belief from appearance, it levels everything out. You are the same as everyone. Or, you disappear. And all that is left of you is the same that is left at the essence of everyone and everything, and that is this One, energy, light, love, peace, consciousness, beingness. These words are not it; they are the mind’s way to try and describe something that cannot be labeled or named. The One is not nameable, not knowable. And this is all there is.

So where does this leave a person? Where does it leave me? Do I go around in this “state” of knowingness all day long, experiencing that I am the One? No. I just live a normal life. Normal thoughts, feelings, and desires. Mundane actions, mundane existence. Responsibilities. Relationship issues. Health problems. Life stuff. But is there any lasting feeling of Oneness or “I’ve got it” experience here? No. The upsetting emotional involvement with the life appears to be gone, for the most part, but that's not an experience or a feeling.

I experience life the same as ever, but with one difference: I have given up the faith I used to have in the “world,” or what I call appearance, to offer any solutions to what I would call suffering. The constant ups and downs, happy one day and sad the next, never being able to just relax. Always on guard against the next hurt. A constant nagging fear that my life will all go haywire and I’ll end up totally broken and alone. This is the normal mindset that has to be, when one believes that they are the body. And I found that the only way around that was to see that that belief is not true. And I found – after repeated, frustrating attempts for twenty-five years – that I was not ever going to find the way to do that within the appearance.

So yes, there is a way out of being “locked” into that form. But it does not involve having an experience or having a permanent “feeling” of “knowing.” The experience-seeking is just another manner of looking for the solution right within the very place you are proclaiming is not real and has no solutions. So what, then? The bottom line is to remember that what you are looking for is not found in appearance. People are fond of saying, “It’s already here, it’s already who you are.” Yes – but not in appearance. What you are looking for, you already are, but not in appearance. Not as your body, your mind, or any subtle permutations of those forms. Not in your chakras, your subtle bodies, or your “soul” – that’s just more appearance. What you are seeking, and what you already are, is nothing that can be seen, found, or named. What you are is exactly NOT appearance.

So it’s okay to stop looking there – to withdraw your faith from “the world” to provide an answer. No workshop, no "deepening," no breakthrough of mental clarity can get you any closer to your true, free Self than you are right now. It is not something being experienced by the person in appearance – and yet it is being lived, it is being fulfilled in its entirety and glory, right now. And this is who you always are, and what you have always thought you needed to seek somewhere. And you always sought it in appearance, where it never was.

The key to it is really to stop looking for anything in the appearance. There are no solutions to anything in appearance. Nothing in appearance has any power. The logical mind, the books, the practices, the teachers, the satsangs – they do not have any power. Nothing you can think has any power. Nothing you can experience has any power. Nothing you can learn has any power. This is much simpler than all of that. Much, much easier.

Let go of the appearance. Let it do its own thing. Let go of the theories about what this is. It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to feel stupid, like you know nothing at all – in fact it’s good to feel like you know nothing at all and never will. You don’t have to feel “clear” about this. Your mind will never be able so say, “Okay, I’m clear now. Proceed.” So don’t wait for that. Do you have enough of it to “take the brakes off,” as Sailor Bob Adamson says? Then do it. That’s all you need. Just enough is all you need.

Don’t keep waiting for another experience – “I want to feel that this is so all the time. I want to experience it permanently.” This does not happen. Just take the brakes off, and let who you are pick up momentum on its own. Notice the orchestra playing – it’s not hard. It’s just new information. Give it a chance to sink in without running back to what’s familiar. Quit looking for yourself in a dream. The dream is complicated – reality is pure simplicity.