The World is My Mirror Read online

  Probably the strongest, most ubiquitous belief the mind has is that you, whatever that is, is located inside the body as a person‌—‌whatever that is. This, the mind argues, is your ultimate residence, the location from which you view the world and plan your activities for the rest of your life. In here we can hold our secrets and fantasies. We can contemplate whom we would like misfortune to visit and imagine the triumph after defeating our enemies from the past and present in a mock battle that would leave the writers of Star Wars in a daze. Yes, in here no one can see our vulnerabilities; no one can really know we’re worthless and unlovable.

  But take a look; see where this world where you gain all the ideas for your scripts comes from. Let us start with a big one‌—‌other people. Generally other people appear to us as objects. They seem to have clearly defined boundaries and stand out from whichever background is appearing at the time. They match with a previously held pattern that rings the ‘human being’ or ‘person’ bell. We then perhaps smile, recoil or greet our object. We make a connection.

  Now, give your mind this one to chew on: have you ever witnessed a so-called other person and also been absent? I cannot stress enough that you should answer only from your direct experience. Do not allow thought to create an idea of another person existing in time and space that you are not privy to. The mind cannot help but come up with a very intellectual answer that will take you from here to Timbuktu and back again. It is only trying to help. It wants to find an answer that meshes with some higher order or core beliefs set down at a much earlier time. Do not accept its first answer, give it something else to do. Ask it if anything else is apparent when the other person appears. It might start to have an inkling where this investigation is going. A bead of sweat may appear on its wrinkled, perplexed brow. Keep going. Ask it if there is a sense of knowing or presence indicated in its answer. Just wait for a reply. Be patient. It might play the ‘shadow card’.

  The shadow card works like this: objects as we know them might not be what we actually see, but there is still something forming an impression on our nervous system. There is still someone inside constructing something outside and creating a mind object, even if that mind object is not a faithful one-to-one match with the thing that is really there. This, to be honest, is not too bad an answer; the mind has done well. If you are a sensitive type, you might feel wounded and deflated at this piece of logical mortar shell aimed in your direction, but congratulate the mind, and just like Columbo as he is walking out the door of a suspect’s house say, ‘Oh, and just one more thing before I go...’

  The mind’s answer still requires a kind of knowing, regardless of whether the object is perceived as real or represented. It makes no difference to experience whether it’s real, constructed or dreamt; there is still experiencing. Now, experiencing requires something experienced‌—‌an event, an object or a memory. Something needs to splash its colour on the canvas; but once splashed on the canvas, try and remove it, allow it to stand on its own two feet. Give the splash of colour its own show, make it the star and be in awe and utter reverence at the sight before you. Then pull yourself together and take off your Bullshitzio Italian designer glasses. You cannot separate the splash of colour, or experience, from experiencing or knowing. They are one and the same. The splash of colour is the canvas colouring. The canvas and the colour are not two things.

  You might find a silence from the mind at this stage. Is it re-arming itself or fatally wounded? My answer would be neither: it’s in shock, it has probably seen a ghost for the first time and just realised it can put its hand right through it. In other words, an absence has been sensed. The world has started to lose its solidity, its permanence, its created status. Just stop now. Listen to the silence. There is nothing left to do. Any counter attacks now are nothing more than the impact of a child’s spud gun‌—‌it stings a bit but no long-lasting damage.

  The mind has always thought it was running the show called ‘me.’ It created this person very early on as a way of making sense of the world, a world presented to us from seasoned others in the form of parents and teachers. We not only swallowed our food dutifully, we swallowed their version of reality in the same unquestioning manner. We had no choice. It was a clear case of conform or be ostracised‌—‌abandoned.

  Survival’s quite important for any being, but humans have an astounding level of awareness and sensitivity to their environment, and can respond to challenges with drastic measures and quick reactions. This seems to be the origin of personhood. Rather than feeling ourselves to be everything, we are convinced we are someone; when this happens, the world of others and objects is born. We are now walking through treacle trying to make the best of things but always being slowed down by social goo. Bang goes spontaneity; in come meaning, purpose and duty. Now, rather than being life, you have a life, and you have to make it work. You must fit in, so as not to be deemed mad or sad. Living becomes a damn serious matter requiring constant maintenance and attention. You are caught in the net of conformity and order. You are expected to play by the rules. You can elaborate a bit and bend them now and again, but you must never look behind the curtain to see the magic man.

  This sounds as if there is something deliberate going on, a kind of conspiracy to stop you seeing the truth. It is not. You can walk away anytime you like; the door’s open. You just need to be brave and take a look. Most people do not; they are too busy with making their everyday life work

  There seem to be pockets of resistance to the reality in which we are conditioned to believe. They are mostly evidenced by a feeling of alienation from the world or a deep curiosity about everything‌—‌both of which seem to be conducive to a search for enlightenment. There are people who just cannot make their lives work and there are others obsessed with discovering how the world works. Whatever the reason for the search, it is always a search ‘out there’, in the world, at the feet of a guru or in the words of a sacred text .

  There is a belief that effort brings results for the person, for the individual, for me. So looking seems reasonable and logical. We use methods that we think are tried and tested to reach our goal. What is not seen is that what we are looking for is what is looking. The belief that we are imperfect beings who need purification is so strong that we will not hear any message which says we are already all there is. It seems too simple. There has to be more to it than that. It looks much more satisfying, more fruitful, to meditate and chant, to live a pure life and follow the paths trodden by others who will show us the way. Just recognising timeless ever-present is-ness and vibrant energy sounds far too easy.

  But life has always been showing us what there is by appearing as a world. It is impossible to see ourselves when there is personal identification and certainty in the way. The thought that we know what we are and what the world is has the power to box us into a corner; it gives us knowledge as a weapon to comfort ourselves and beat the living daylights out of those who will not readily except our version of reality. The quest to get others to see the world the way we do would be a suitable definition for ‘power’ here, above and beyond the idea of forcing another’s body to act in one way rather than another.

  When certainty gives way to not knowing, something feels different. It is not easy to put into words, but there is no longer a sense of an independently existing outside world, or even a feeling of just being awareness. The recognition that the appearance of anything is none other than emptiness appearing as form, or nothing being everything, is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

  There is no need to chase a particular experience, even if you are trying to regain the blissful time in that last retreat where you dissolved into the cushion and felt all light and airy. No, there is no need.

  This is in walking, talking, eating and singing. In fact, whatever shows up, there you are. You are the space that holds, the space that shapes and the space that remains when all the furniture’s gone to the second-hand shop.

  There is nothing to dest
roy and nothing to save. The dream carries on with its trials and tribulations. Get involved if you like and play your game. Anxiety may come and anxiety may go. Of course anxiety is not your anxiety; it never was. In the same way the person you once identified with as solid and real is seen as just life ‘personing’, life pretending to be something rather than everything. There is nothing wrong with games; they can be very exciting, something to get the blood rushing and the heart pumping. But there is no need to play all the time. Have a day off now and again and be yourself.

  Deep sleep’s a great thing: knowing, knowing itself knowingly without object or event. Not a bad way to be. It’s even better when you know you are this Now anyway and always have been. Deep sleep does not come and go. It is just got the habit of shaping itself into dreams and other things. It is clever really, changing and staying the same simultaneously. Not one for the logicians among us, granted. But there is such a real obviousness to this that defies all attempts to grasp it and understand it. The thing is you have tried to understand all your life and all it’s got you is reading this book, and probably others, hoping for a way out. There is no way out of an imaginary prison or an imaginary maze, though. If this was graspable it would fall through your fingers like soft, dry sand. Grasping is letting go.

  Life Anew

  There may come a time when all the reading, internet frenzy and meetings in clarity cease to grab your attention. Their draw seems to be waning. The interest has gone and you do not know why. It seems to disappear in the same manner it came, that is, without permission. Rather than reading and re-reading someone else’s words, everyday activities and objects become more vivid and sounds become deafening by their presence. Sitting down in the lounge with someone putting away pots and pans in the kitchen feels like they are being knocked on the inside of your head. The sound of an aeroplane’s engine, once thought to be far away and distant, shows up in the same place where the pressure of the body is making contact with a seat or nestled against the hunger twinges in the tummy around lunchtime. Nothing is being filtered out by thinking and knowledge. There seems a first time for everything and there is a feeling this has never showed up this particular way before‌—‌which, you will discover, it has not. It is as if we had stopped looking and ignored the sheer amazement of being. There is an unfathomability of what there is, right here and not somewhere else over there.

  Other people seem closer and you find yourself just allowing them to be themselves and let them behave any way they please. Gone are the old templates you tried to fit on top of them to predict, know and control. You see them more without prejudice and without the usual bias that comes with incorporating the unknown into the apparent known.

  There is a kind of relaxation in another’s company that you could only have dreamt about before. The envy of competent social performers has given way to a way of being which empowers both you and the chap in your field of vision. In a way this is not surprising because the ‘other’ is just as much you as the eyes that see him. It is like dolls within dolls within dolls, never ending, reaching into infinity.

  More surprising is that the need to talk about the change you have experienced does not arise. There is a keen interest in the everyday that has been absent for so long. Conversations about the state of the economy or the price of carrots seem to carry equal weight and so you can play any game with anyone and not falter from the clarity that comes with liberation. Anything is allowed to show up, nothing is unwelcome. This does not mean there is a rigid response to events close to home like just watching and walking by when someone falls over. Responses happen and the hand reaches out. Concern for other’s welfare can actually increases because the bashed knee of the victim leaves a funny kind of graze on your own.

  The urge to communicate this realisation can also recede. At one time you may have felt like going up to someone on the street, grabbing them by both shoulders and screaming at them to wake up and see what you see. There is no need now. There has only ever been you in a sense, and so let the characters in your dream play their parts. Leave them alone. They are fine just the way they are.

  There is a Zen saying translated by D.T. Suzuki in his Essays in Zen Buddhism: ‘Before I had studied Chan (Zen) for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers.’

  A puzzling statement for sure, but it has such potency when you have spent so much time trying to reach a state of union by withdrawing from the world to reach a preferred state where you can become special and leave this nasty world full of stress and pesky people. It points to the realisation that there is nothing wrong with the world just the way it is, the way that it appears and has always appeared. There is no attempt to alter anything any more in order to feel better and more secure.

  Climb a mountain, sit on a mountain, photograph a mountain, it’s all the wondrous play that is showing up and entertaining the audience. Climbing it is not conquering it; it is shaking hands with an old friend that has gone a bit rough round the edges. It is this engagement with the world that you could never have imagined. You were looking for something other than what is. What is, in your naïve opinion, was the cause of all your troubles. How can the very same world afford you so much pleasure now? The secret is that you got out of the way and stopped pushing it around. The twisted knot that got tighter the more you tried to wriggle free has fallen away on its own, releasing the captive to vanish from a place it had never frequented. That is freedom; that is liberation.

  It is the simplicity that strikes at the heart of this. Working things out and wanting to control complicates matters. But if you have one of those minds that have to know, you are in for a hell of a time. This is speaking from direct experience. This kind of mind will not tame easily. It is like trying to wrestle a snake into a bottle. A mind like this has to have its nose rubbed into the dirt time and time again. It is like someone grabbing you by the hair and thrusting your head under water, allowing a short breath for confession, refusing, and then thrusting you back in for another round. It is not pleasant and it is not something you would want advance warning of, but that is how it is for some. This enlightenment is not what is on the advertisement flier that you imagined. No cosmic consciousness and blissful fulfillment here!

  Perhaps you cannot have someone else’s path. Maybe you need to walk in the light rather than in the shadow of someone else. It is very appealing to take a short-cut and download a smart guy’s essay. You might even fool your teacher for a while; but you will never kid yourself. That guy can see right through you. He is too close, you see, and never misses a trick.

  Favouring the Teacher

  Over the Message

  It’s quite exciting to hear an ‘enlightened being’ speaking about things that you thought were private and only rattling around in your own head. Having someone grab your attention in this way seems a way out of your prison of misery and despair. Now there is someone you can look up to, someone who really understands, someone who can point the way. It is easy to be seduced into that world, copy the patter and copy their message. You can find yourself hanging on their every word, quoting their sayings to blast other teachings and opinions on forums and blogs. It can be so subtle at times.

  The teacher‌/‌follower relationship can be almost hypnotic. The mind starts elevating teachers to such high positions that if the non-dual teacher turned to Catholicism half-way through a satsang, some people would follow and look for the hidden meaning. The teacher knows best because they’ve been where you have not and seen what you have not. Listening to something you have not heard before can be quite powerful at times and keep you coming back for an update or the promise of another layer. But teachers appear in dreams, and if you find yourself sitting at the feet of an e
nlightened one then not to worry‌—‌you have just got one of those kinds of dreams rather than one of the other ones. Liberation follows few rules, I have noticed.

  Time

  I do not think I could write a book like this one without talking about time.

  Time is so wrapped up with thought, it is impossible to talk about time without referring to thinking. As I write this, I am sitting in my van at a retail park watching cars come and go and people either darting in and out of the terrace of shops or sitting at a pavement table sipping expensive coffee. A bloke’s just walked by drinking something out of a plastic cup. There are lots of different activities, then, wherever I look.

  But what is going on if I am open to what is? Every image is constantly being updated, change is constant, nothing stands still. And how do I know this change? Well, guess what, something here moves not one nanometre‌—‌ever. It is this unchanging presence that has always been here, dressing itself up as novelty and change. It is not that something’s appearing in my awareness‌—‌no. Awareness, or, knowing, is appearing as constant change, constant novelty and constant potential.