Awakening to the Non-Dual Essence of Existence

What is the “Me”?

What I call the “Me” is what is also usually labelled as the human ego, the separate self, the illusory self or the conditioned self.

Mostly I avoid using the above mentioned concepts. The reason for this is that the “ego” hates to be told about “itself”. The “ego” simply despises everything about these concepts.

Instead I prefer to use the concept of “Me”. This tends to work better, because the Me loves to hear about “itself”. To the Me, everything is about Me, My and Mine.

The Me is also often referred to as The Doer. This idea, that there somehow is a Doer that is thinking thoughts, and a Doer that has and is the owner of a body.

But The Me or The Doer is simply nothing but a conditioned habitual thought pattern, that depending upon the local traditions and culture, has been programmed into almost every single child on Earth.

The Me is an internal ongoing narrative. It is habitual thinking that constructs a self referencing mental image. The conditioned self image of Me, my and mine.

The construction of a conceptual self image in humans during childhood, is so common and widespread on planet Earth, that it by the self image - the Me - is considered being normal, and therefore almost nobody is questioning it.

Nonetheless The Me is nothing but a mental conceptual mirage. Just like any other mirage, from a distance, it can appear to be real, but when you move closer, it actually vanishes.

However, most of the time, it is a very convincing mirage. Sort of veiling our true essence. The way this happens is by habitual thought pattern and associated emotions in the physical body.

When we take a closer look, we are able to observe that these habitual thought patterns and associated emotions are nothing but experiences, which means that the Me ”itself” is just an experience.

This observation can then lead to a profound awakening out of this dreamstate.

How we move closer I will come back to later in this writing.

The “Me” and seeking

So what’s wrong with the Me? - you might wonder.

Well, nothing. As such there is nothing wrong with the Me, but since it has no real substance to it, since it is nothing but an hallucination, it has inescapable consequences when the human aspect of Being gets conditioned to see “itself” as a separate Me.

First of all, The Me will always see its self image as sort of incomplete. It will of course typically deny this, but it is unavoidable that the Me has a feeling that something is missing.

This feeling of something is missing is what motivates the Me to take action.

Because the Me is nothing but a conditioned thought made self image, it is also vulnerable, so it finds “itself” in a perpetual struggle trying to improve or protect this self image.

But what the Me does not know, is that it does not matter how much it “succeeds” in improving or protecting its self image, it will never reach a point where it will feel complete, or where it will feel safe.

That is the reason that living in this dreamstate, to some extent, always will end up being a sort of “hamster wheel”.

Continually trying to improve, gaining more things, accumulating more wealth, and underneath the fear of getting old and the realization that death is waiting in the future.

So the Me is always seeking. Spiritual seeking, materialistic seeking, seeking love, seeking confirmation, seeking wealth, seeking security, seeking glorification, seeking Enlightenment, seeking survival.

But no matter how much seeking it does, it will never find what it is looking for.

It cannot find what it is looking for. Never….

Since the Me does not in “itself” have any reality to it, lack will always be at the core of the Me, so what the Me is actually looking for, is the dissolution of “itself”.

What is Being?

Being is existence “itself”. Being is everything there is. It’s the Universe, the stars, the planets and everything in between.

It is thinking, it is emotions, it is all inanimate and all living “things”. Ever changing, coming in and out of forms, everywhere in the Universe.

But Being is not limited to the apparent forms. Being is the “building blocks” of everything. Being is the pulsating “energy” that everything is made of.

Being is the Cosmic Intelligence that is structuring the entire Universe. It is an unlimited Intelligence that is capable of anything.

Being is unlimited potential.

What we call the human Being is an aspect of Being, and as that aspect, Being is able to recognize itself, and when that happens, Being awakens from the dream of the Me.

Being realizes that Being is the only intelligence there is, and that the Me is nothing but a contracted conditioned aspect of Being “itself”.

Being is what is experiencing the Me. But I am not talking about your Being, or any particular Being for that matter.

I am simply talking about Being. The one Being experiencing “itself” in trillions of different forms. But still there is only Being.

It is Being that is experiencing the Me. And since the Me is nothing but a conditioned internal narrative, Being does not share the limitations of the Me.

The Me cannot know Being. The Me will never be able to understand what Being is. Only Being knows Being. It is a different kind of knowing.

When a physical form (body) dies, Being does not die. When a human body dies, the Me dies with it, but again Being does not die.

When the human aspect of Being awakens out of the conditioning it realizes that the Me does not have intelligence, the Me does not have a life, the Me does not have a body, the Me does not have anything. Only Being “itself” has all of these “things”.

Being is, as the human, able to recognize “itself” as everything everywhere.

This is awakening on the level of form.

Moving Closer

As mentioned previously, the way we come to a clear seeing is by moving closer.

The way we “move closer” is twofold.

1st. We learn what conditioning is.

How the human aspect of Being is conditioned by culture and by habit.

We learn that the Me is simply a conditioned thought pattern that is programmed into every human.

This means that the basis of what you take yourself to be, is actually something that has been constructed during upbringing by the people that happened to be around you.

This programming was done, simply and only because those people had been conditioned the same way when they were children.

Hence it is not done in any bad spirit, it is actually just an unconscious pattern that keeps on repeating itself until awakening happens.

2nd. We learn about the true nature of thoughts.

What thoughts really are, and the limitations of thoughts' ability to be of true substance.

We come to see clearly, that language is completely unable to deliver Truth, and that language itself cannot move beyond just being concepts.

Because the Me is nothing but an internal ongoing self referencing conceptual narrative, this clear seeing will dissolve the Me mirage.

Liberation

When the “Me” stands revealed as a mirage, the human aspect of Being is liberated from a dreamstate, and with that everything that used to motivate the “Me” falls away.

At this point it will dawn on you that almost everything that you have been doing up until that point, was done in an effort to try to improve the conditioned self image, trying to better the Me.

You will come to see that that was the motivational force behind almost all of your actions. And when awakening happens, this motivation falls away.

That is felt as a liberation from the endless struggle of life. But it can also easily feel a bit strange, for what now?

This often leads to a period with confusion. All that the conditioned self image used to cling to is suddenly gone. There is no longer much motivation to do anything.

This period has to be transcended, and new motivation will be fueled by curiosity.

Curiosity is actually what is motivating the entire Universe, and after awakening you will find this as your new life force.

Curiosity is not interested in a particular result, curiosity is simply just curious to find out what happens when we do something. It is an innocent and vibrant energy that cannot be exhausted.

But also, the daily life for humans goes on….

There is an old Zen saying, that goes something like this: Before Enlightenment, carrying water chopping wood, after Enlightenment, carrying water chopping wood.

This points towards the fact that humans, after Being awakens, still need to make a living.

In other words, humans still need to take care of themselves, and the possible responsibilities that they have accepted.

They have to do so under the circumstances that they find themselves within and with the options that are offered to them at any given moment.

This, making a living, and curiosity is what will move you forward after awakening.

Awakening on the level of “I AM”

The human aspect of Being can, when it becomes silent, “look back” and recognize that I AM is the ultimate source of All.

It is the I AM that is experiencing Being. We could also say: I AM is experiencing Existence.

So it is the I AM that is experiencing everything, but the I AM is not “itself” an experience, and the I AM is not “itself” a thing.

Besides that, we cannot really say anything about I AM. Anything that we say about I AM will not be I AM.

Understanding this, we can still play with concepts. I AM is sometimes also referred to as: Consciousness, Awareness, Emptiness, Void, Ground of Being, Source, Buddha Nature, Brahman, The Tao or Christ Consciousness.

When the human aspect of Being becomes silent and curious about its own ultimate source, it is able to “see” that it is actually “born” out of Silence or sometimes also called Stillness.

This coming to recognize Stillness as the Ground of Being is done by what we call Meditation. In silent meditation the true source will be revealed.

We simply fall in love with Silence, with stillness and thereby cultivating the ability to recognize our deepest essence to be exactly that - Stillness.

And in so doing, the I AM will come to stand out clearly as the new foundation of Existence.

The I am has been revealed as the Non-Dual Essence of Everything.

Also sometimes expressed as: Emptiness is Form and Form is Emptiness.

This is awakening on the level of the Formless.

Living as Awakened Being

You will have come to realize that you have been given the ultimate gift. The ability to know yourself as existence itself. And existence knowing itself as you!

In other words, you are existence experiencing “itself” as that particular human. On the physical level, you do not have a life, you are life.

You will still be able to remember what it was like to live an unaware life, and you will be grateful for the freedom you have been shown.

You will lose interest in typical social interaction, and you will lose interest in the social games that the conditioned Me is playing.

You will be able to make clear personal boundaries because you are no longer afraid of any “public opinion”.

You will be a force of real love wherever you go, and you will be a teacher of Awakened Being. Not necessarily an official teacher, but as a minimum your presence will influence your surroundings towards peace and non-conflict.

You will lose all fear of death, knowing that you in essence are far more than just that particular physical form.

You will be able to see miracles everywhere.

You will recognize the being you are as a cosmic wonder.

You will live life in awe, and you will marvel at the Universe.

You will feel at home everywhere, and you will be able to see yourself everywhere and as everything.

Life will be an adventure, no matter where you are.

You will have come to realize what true Love is.

–oo00oo–

Hans Christian Lundholm - Author

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The Non-Dual Essence of Existence

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