Try Something Else

Q: It seems like I should be done with all of this, but questions still come up that just have not been put to rest. There is almost always a nagging doubt that I just don't get it and that I am missing something. How do I move past the idea that I am the body?

A: There seems to be a kind of limbo people are getting stuck in as they attempt to “graduate” in the Advaita model of reality. I’ve been thinking a lot about why that is, and what’s going on, and for some people I think it is a simple matter of beating a dead horse. This way is not for everyone. Some people seem to quite easily give up the idea that the body is “me,” and others don’t. And I don’t think repeated passes at it is necessarily the way to go.

We’re all wired differently, and some people are wired harder into the identification with body. And that’s fine! There are plenty of other ways to go, and they all lead to the same place. When Advaita becomes a dead end for someone, I really suggest backing out and going another way, rather than continuing to charge forward against a brick wall. It’s just going to leave bruises!

Q: I am clearly missing something, because this has not come to an end for me. I am embarrassed to say I don't see what I am misunderstanding.

A: I understand the embarrassment and frustration. You’re clearly a very smart guy, and this seems like it should at least be easier than your hardest college classes, which you probably aced. But it’s not comparable at all. It’s not about learning or grasping complex concepts. It’s about suddenly the world you’re used to is turned on its head. It’s being asked to understand that black is white and white is black. All you’ve thought was real is unreal, and all you’ve thought was unreal is real. Everything you’ve ever cherished is bullshit, and you have nothing to your name, not even your name. I mean, who would even want this?

Q: I'd like to know what life feels like for you. How is it different now in comparison to how it felt prior to your non-dual understanding taking root?

A: It feels like it did before, except that there is no attachment at all to any outcomes. I don’t suffer because I don’t believe anymore in the self that can gain and lose things. I know for a fact – because I looked and found out (more on that later) – that there is no self, no separate, controlling entity, no one to gain or lose anything.

So there is the appearance of a normal life going on, with ups and downs, health problems, challenges, moods, activities, but no suffering ever results from any of it, because I know there is no one who can get hurt by anything. So it’s a background knowing, as I watch the life, that the life is totally irrelevant. I still witness the living of it, but I’m not invested. I don’t care what happens in it, either right here in the moment, or in the long haul. There is no one there to care about.

But this is part of where I think the “limbo” state comes in. I didn’t stop believing in the self while the self still had a job to do, namely, discovering that it was fictional! Do you see what a funny paradox that becomes? You need the belief in the false self so that it can discover that it is not real! Isn’t that crazy?

So smart people study Advaita, and they get the concept “I am not a person.” Then they try to apply it, before the person has exhausted its usefulness. Once the “self” is thoroughly convinced that it is fictional, then you’re all done with it and can ignore it. But the self is really the only tool it has to explore its own fictionality. Once the self is gone, then who would explore its fictionality?

So there is a premature, intellectual lip-service given to being “done” with the self. People get all identified with the idea that they are “no person,” and go around spouting off about it, before they really believe it. This only serves to entrap one in an infinitely looping loop. I’m sure you feel that pressure – “There is no you!” – coming from the Advaita ranks, and yet you strongly feel there is a “you.”

It’s not helpful to keep trying to abolish “you,” when “you” has not finished its job. This is why I am recommending to some people to try another way. Prayer, devotion, chanting, therapy, escapism, anything. Going around in circles is not helpful. Advaita can always be returned to later. How many more times do you want to hear “Just see this! Just see this!”? None, I would guess.

Q: How do you see your body?

A: I see myself as this body most of the time I’m walking around doing my day. It would be hard to function otherwise. But if a stress comes up, because I have seen for myself that no independent person exists here (more on that later), the stress or negative thought quickly dissipates as it has no “thing” to refer to. That’s why all the “Who is worried?” language in the non-dual world. That’s what pops up: Who is this person I think will be hurt by this? Oh, that’s right, there isn’t one. And it dissipates.

This comes up when I’m having a happy experience, too. There is no person for happy or sad to affect. So it’s very much of a loss of all that I associated with my life’s purpose, my uniqueness, etc. I lost all that! It’s a big loss. But it does not feel like a loss, because at the same moment as the loss appears to happen, it is seen that there was never anyone there to lose anything. They happen concurrently.

So more and more, happy or sad “emotions” just flow over me, with no effect. I don’t care about being happy or being sad, or any emotional or mental, or even physical, state. So if a sad state comes, or even physical pain, I notice that awareness is just the same, untouched by happy, sad, or in pain. More and more, that untouched, unmoving state of awareness is noticed as the default, and the passing thoughts and moods as just weather, not relevant to me at all.

Q: Your thinking?

A: I hear my thoughts as the radio turned on at a low level in the other room. I have no control over their rate of production, or about their content, and so I’m not really interested in what they have to say. It’s just entertainment, noise – like the radio. And so, for the same reasons I stated above, thoughts are just not seen as relevant. I hear them, but I don’t pay attention to them; I don’t act on them. They’re always telling me to do stuff that only serves to shore up the ego, the self. I don’t have to do any of that anymore. It’s a relief. 

Q: How do I move past the idea that I am the body? It seems that without the body I could not be having these questions. If I am Awareness, why does the Awareness that I am seem to be localized to this body that is doing the typing right now, and not the cat on the foot stool? Prior to this body, there is no memory of awareness of anything prior to this body existing.

A: I think this is another aspect of the “limbo” I’m talking about. There is a circularity to the arguments in Advaita, and that circularity will just be mentally run around in forever and ever. The questions you ask in the above paragraph are unanswerable, because they refer to two opposite aspects of experience. It would be like asking, “When I am swimming, how do I keep my trunks from catching on fire?” They are totally nonsensical questions. Drop them. Are you aware right now? Anything wrong there? Anything needed?

Q: How did you come to see clearly that you are not the body?

A: It’s the only question worth asking: "Am I this body?" It’s worth asking because it can be answered, by you, in your own experience, presently – not by getting an answer from outside you.

Here’s how I answered it. I did some experiments. I looked, and was curious. Are you your body? How do you know? Close your eyes and tell me if you know where you leave off and empty space starts. Would you know “your” physical outline with your eyes closed if you didn’t have it memorized? Try it. Experiment. (Douglas Harding is a great one for experiments of this kind.) Would you know your face, if you did not have it memorized? 

What do you know about yourself that is not memorized?

Maybe you think you originate and reside in your brain. How would you know that? Would you know about a brain if you hadn’t seen a picture of it in a book? Is the “you” contained in your neural pathways? Would you even know the words “neural pathways” if you had not learned them somewhere? What else do you think you are? Isn't it all learned? 

What do you know about yourself that is not learned?

All that you think of as “you” is learned, read about, memorized. What do you KNOW about you, without any outside help? Is there anything? YES! You know that there is this consciousness here. You know no body, no brain, but you know for sure that there is consciousness here.

Just stop and acknowledge for a moment that you know this – don’t take my word for it. You are conscious – can you deny it? Thoughts arise unbidden, and are noticed in this consciousness. What is always here, in the background of these thoughts?
Consciousness is here, but there isn’t a “me” here for it to belong to. “Me” is another thought. Consciousness is floating in mid-air, attached to nothing and no one! And this consciousness, this awareness, is always the same, always peaceful, and needs nothing. This is it in a nutshell.

Without relying on memory, but only looking at immediate, present experience, all I can know is that consciousness is here (or awareness, or attention – the word is not important). All I "know" about my "self" is learned or memorized, not presently experienced. Consciousness is presently experienced. This is how I came to know for a fact that I am not a body. Actually, I’m knowing it right now – no other time!

Q: Isn't the idea "I am not the body" also another concept?

A: Well, sure, the same as “I am the body” is a concept. Why didn’t you put equal weight on that question?

Q: How is there ever a way to move beyond thought? For a while, I think I get it, but the understanding always just dissolves, and then here I am, right back in the same place I always find myself.

A: Yes! Aware! And that is all. That’s perfect! And has that awareness changed since the last time you were here? No, it’s exactly the same, after all the seeming gettings  and losings of understandings. You are aware. Period.

Q: I would really appreciate any suggestions or direction you could offer me about all of this. I obviously don't know what I'm doing, and I am missing something that others seem to grok quickly and routinely. 

A: Don’t be fooled by what you read. A lot of it is crap. People talk a good game. I’m not saying there isn’t clarity out there, but even in my own writing, I’ll have a “mood” where something really comes forward, and I’ll write about it. But later, it just feels like normal life again. I would guess that most of these people doing blogs are experiencing life pretty normally, but unattached and kind of unmoored, or floaty. Suffering is diminished or non-existent, but that’s not exactly a mystical experience or anything. Ralph Waldo Emerson says it nicely: “I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.”

But I’d like to leave you with the idea that Advaita may not be for you. There are devotional paths that some people relate to better, and other teachings, as you well know. I am a big fan of prayer, and I prayed a lot. “God, please just help me!” I did a lot of that. I love the book on my booklist called Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ: it’s very comforting, very reassuring. If the path you are on is causing you unending frustration, I would suggest leaving it and trying something else. That only makes sense. Advaita is not the only way.

You are already safe for all eternity, no matter what you understand. No worries.