Sunday 19 June 2011
Who is Looking?
15:52 | 
Posted by
Alexei
Another great question in the comments today, this time from a gentleman named Greg. You can find it in the comments under "A Single Act of Honesty". The basic gist of it is this: if there's no self, then whom am I telling to look and see that there's no self? And who achieves liberation?
Obviously, it isn't the "you" that is being looked for, because that doesn't exist. But if there's no-one to do the looking, then the instruction to look makes no sense. A lot of seekers of liberation get hung up on this, and a lot of gurus make the problem worse by repeating "there's no-one to get enlightened" like a mantra.
Here's a provisional model of what really happens. I may come up with a better one later, but it will do for now.
There is an organic system which we call a human being. In response to input from its environment, certain thoughts arise within it and certain actions are carried out by it. This process is completely automatic.
Over time, when certain patterns of input get repeated, the brain within that system naturally generates certain patterns of thought in response. These patterns are beliefs, and all future input is filtered through them. "I exist" is one such belief.
Then, one day, the input "look - there is no you" enters the system. This prompts the pattern recognition element of the system to check the belief "I exist" against the sensory data of direct perception for the first time. The belief turns out to contradict direct perception.
As a result, the pattern recognition element deflags the belief as "true", and marks it "false".
This is liberation.
In other words, everything except the self does exist, and it's that everything which becomes liberated, with liberation defined as the recognition that the belief "I exist" is false.
The reason we say that, strictly speaking, "no-one is looking" is that the entire process is completely involuntary and automatic. To say that the system is choosing to look is like saying that the computer chooses to process data, or that the clouds choose to make it rain.
Conversely, the reason we tell people to look is that the illusion of free will persists (that could be a subject for a separate post), so it seems like not only is there a person whom we are talking to, but also a choice on our part whether or not to tell them, and a choice on their part whether to look or not. In reality, none of this is true, but illusions don't automatically go away just because you see that they're illusions.
Anyway, this is a simple model, and I strongly suspect it contains certain inaccuracies, but it is sufficient to answer the question. No-one gets liberated because the thing that gets liberated isn't a someone, not because the process of liberation doesn't take place.
Spread this:
Obviously, it isn't the "you" that is being looked for, because that doesn't exist. But if there's no-one to do the looking, then the instruction to look makes no sense. A lot of seekers of liberation get hung up on this, and a lot of gurus make the problem worse by repeating "there's no-one to get enlightened" like a mantra.
Here's a provisional model of what really happens. I may come up with a better one later, but it will do for now.
There is an organic system which we call a human being. In response to input from its environment, certain thoughts arise within it and certain actions are carried out by it. This process is completely automatic.
Over time, when certain patterns of input get repeated, the brain within that system naturally generates certain patterns of thought in response. These patterns are beliefs, and all future input is filtered through them. "I exist" is one such belief.
Then, one day, the input "look - there is no you" enters the system. This prompts the pattern recognition element of the system to check the belief "I exist" against the sensory data of direct perception for the first time. The belief turns out to contradict direct perception.
As a result, the pattern recognition element deflags the belief as "true", and marks it "false".
This is liberation.
In other words, everything except the self does exist, and it's that everything which becomes liberated, with liberation defined as the recognition that the belief "I exist" is false.
The reason we say that, strictly speaking, "no-one is looking" is that the entire process is completely involuntary and automatic. To say that the system is choosing to look is like saying that the computer chooses to process data, or that the clouds choose to make it rain.
Conversely, the reason we tell people to look is that the illusion of free will persists (that could be a subject for a separate post), so it seems like not only is there a person whom we are talking to, but also a choice on our part whether or not to tell them, and a choice on their part whether to look or not. In reality, none of this is true, but illusions don't automatically go away just because you see that they're illusions.
Anyway, this is a simple model, and I strongly suspect it contains certain inaccuracies, but it is sufficient to answer the question. No-one gets liberated because the thing that gets liberated isn't a someone, not because the process of liberation doesn't take place.
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3 comments:
Sir, you really hit something here ! Thanks so much ! Yesterday evening, was like the falling of a card castle... If I could describe the feeling coming out of it, I would say it's like tons of burden on my shoulders just vanished. Pure relaxation. This organic system/program/matrix/life/whatever is amazing ! "I" am not in charge of anything, because "I" don't exist. Period. Your model really hit it. "I" is also a pattern in the program. All is just an organic process (wow !) unfolding by itself. And in this automatic/organic process, the pattern "I exist" (including the sub-patterns "I can control", "I have free-will") will run, until... it stops running. No-one can do anything about it, not because some-one has no power over it, but because there is just no-one. All is like a beautiful choreography with no dancers.
There are things I'd like to share. Don't know if it's relevant here in your blog... At the end of october 2010, after years and years of "seeking", something happened. Yet, it's like nothing happened. Really hard to describe, as it has nothing to do with the loads of "spiritual experiences" I already had in the past. It was absolutely simple, crystal clear, coming from nowhere : the story of being me was seen through, and the amazing part was that it was seen that it had always been known. I remember saying to myself, amazed : "I was never lost nore confused ! This was just a play ! And it was known all along !"... all the seeking thing was just another story unfolding, attached to this play of pretending/playing to be "someone". In the same time, it was seen that this recognition (which was not exactly a recognition, as the recognition was that the truth had always and already ever been recognized, there only was this indescribable and most simple truth in which the dream was unfolding), this recognition, had absolutely nothing to do with anything, with any causal process. Everything just became so clear, in particular in the seeking/spiritual process. For example, for the very first time, "I don't have free will" was seen through. It's not that "I" don't have free-will, that "I" cannot control anything in "my" life, so I should adopt some new "let it go, let it be", or "no free-will" spiritual posture, to get somewhere, to attain liberation, but that "I" don't exist in the first place (only as a concept, a thought), to have or not have free-will. The seeking was over. The show was over.
Then, sneakily, little by little, weeks after weeks, months after months, I found myself seeking again, reading books, watching satsangs videos, trying to find the right practice again (witnessing, observing, bringing back attention towards awareness, presence, whatever). This sense of incompleteness arose again, feeding the seeking game again, itself feeding back the need to seek, feeding the lie of "me" having something to do to get awakened. Ah ah ! And the more I got into it, the more I became frustrated. Was just like a vicious circle. It was like "Fuck ! It was so clear in october ! What the hell is going on here ? This is not supposed to happen this way ! I'm in the mud again ! Shit !".
And attached to the frustration, came anger. And immense guilt : "I am just a piece of shit, I just messed up, I lost the amazing gem that life sent me in october".
Then, yesterday, as I was so pissed of, so angry, so frustrated, I wrote the comment on your blog. And just before you replied by this new post, and after reading it, things got very clear. I feel all this is just stories anyway, and there is no way to know what's going on exactly in this organic process (as it's non linear, non causal in reality, non graspable by the intellect), but thoses things came up (...)
It feels like there was a kinda grief process running since october. Almost all my life, I've been a spiritual seeker. To the point that the all lie of being "me", got refuged in this "spiritual identity". And yesterday, I realized that maybe 99% (if not 100%) of "being a seeker" (which has taken many "spiritual" forms along those years), was just an excuse to keep feeding the lie of being a "person", the lie of "me". "I want liberation", "I am seeking for the truth". While it has been seen in october that there is nothing to seek, nothing to find, nobody to seek, nobody to find anything, it seems there still was some kind of addiction pattern in the system, a resistance pattern to the truth of this recognition that occured, which kept feeding the sense of being "someone". If "seeking" is let go of, this is the absolute end of the illusion. And something was resisting this, resisting the death of the lie.
The fact is that "I" will never get enlightened, or liberated, and this new "input" got me crazy somehow. It was not supposed to happen this way, in the illusory story of "me being a seeker" ! It was supposed to bring "me" the best reward ever. "I" was going to become an "enlightened one", a "super somebody" ! "I" was going to get it by myself, to control my way to paradise, to show the world how worthy I am ! Ah ! And this ended up to be a complete and horrible failure, confronted to the fact that "I" don't exist, in the first place.
What was realized yesterday, is that it really felt like a grief process, with no-one being in grief. Like a computer processing datas which takes some time to run to be completed, once a new input has been sent to the machine. And the lie re-emerged, saying that something was wrong, that "I" messed up, that "I" had to do more things to get it again, which, added to the fact that it was deeply known that there was nothing to do in reality, brought a lot of suffering and despair. Actually, this was, of course, part of the process. Nothing wrong here. Ever. And I remember the great image a good friend of mine gave me : once the fan is unplugged, it will continue to spin until... it stops. I also read somewhere, that "seeking" could also continue post-enlightenment. This was making no sense at the time. Now it does. And as you wrote : "illusions don't automatically go away just because you see that they're illusions".
Apart from that, I realized there was a underlying belief too, that when "liberated", I should become a better person, a more loving person (ah ah ah !). And since october, the same patterns of egocentric behaviors showed up, I was still fighting sometimes with my girlfriend for shit, still feeling/expressing resentment, anger, jalousy, sadness, frustration, agitation, whatever, and this was felt/analyzed like being a total fraud. If I was enlightened, if the recognition really happened, I shouldn't feel and manifest those egocentric things anymore. This is crap. Still, if it happened, it's just and only an unescapable part of the involuntary and automatic processing.
So, I feel now it's not about "shoulds" and "shoudn'ts", good, bad, right, wrong... Everything is perfect as it is, not in a moral/spiritual sense, but because what's seem to happen, can only happen has it is. There is no way out. There is no "I", so no "I" in control anyway.
Again, thanks Velorien.
And please, delete/edit this comment, if you feel it's irrelevant, or too long ;)
Great stuff, Greg.
Thanks for sharing that. I'll leave your comments up because they might turn out to be helpful to other people.
In the meantime, here's something to think about: do you want to share this realisation with other people? If you do, consider joining us at Ruthless Truth - just follow the Ruthless Arena link at the top. It's a forum where people come every day to get help with seeing no-self, and where there are a lot of other people willing to support you in spreading the truth.
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