Ego doesn’t like to see this and sub-conscious habit mind processes much more quickly than conscious mind. So it can be tricky to see. But once seen…

When ideas of control come up, it’s just mind talking to itself. Telling itself a story. The idea does not affect what is, only how it is willing to be seen.

The more we are able to fall the less we crack.

Reminds me of the wonderful book, “Going to Pieces without Falling Apart – A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness” by Mark Epstein.

Thanks for the blog experiment. I think shorter is better for cerebral topics. The readers who are already tuned into these ideas don’t need too much exposition. Try Twitter!

9 times out of 10 Ramana Maharshi would respond to a question by asking, “Who is it that wants to know?” Always we go back to identity. Namaste and welcome!

re: Control: I believe you can learn to control what you do with those thoughts. Release them. Notice them. So while I am not in control of them, I am in control of releasing them, observing them; choosing to become centered. You do have a choice as to how you react to thoughts and events in life, so I guess that is within our control. But it does take some training.

Great question to get one thinking though.

But one thing I can guarantee each and every one of you: if you hear words in your head that say “I have some control over my life,” what said those words has -0- control. Nada. Zilch. Zip. A big fat goose egg. You can go to the bank on that one. Although, in the current state of world finance, I WOULDN’T go to the bank! Our wonderful government, and every government in the world, is about to get a rather harsh lesson in NO CONTROL.

What decides? Small shifts in awareness are constantly going on, adjusting perception to determine a specific result.

So the entire sense of control falls away and we discover this value is not about doing its about allowing, surrendering to the process.

As it deepens, the doer is found to be multi-layered – local system needs, the field of action interacting with itself, and then a few key pushes from Self Itself. And you find you are That.

Great article loved the read through, its good to have a mixture of both long and short

People are saying ‘HEY, HANG ON, WE DO HAVE CONTROL!’

hahah

& Tom says ‘WE DON’T HAVE CONTROL’

I think it’s best to redefine the meaning of control to ABSOLUTE CONTROL.

We have choices, we have decisions, we have options. We do have a degree of control. Most people are reasonably happy with it. But we don’t have absolute control and there are no guarantees.

A.

Allow me to add a few more things to the discussion.

Andrea brought up some of the ideas from the Law of Attraction about how we create our own reality. This is certainly true and it is a valid perspective at a certain level. It’s also helpful to get people to start taking responsibility for their lives and out of the victim/perpetrator mindset.

Now, something that happens naturally as one continues along the spiritual pathway is that, as Tom mentioned, the duality of controller and that which is controlled begins to dissolve. What’s left is simply the flow of life itself, the perpetual unfoldment of creation.

Andrea also suggested that Davidya was judging her for not directly agreeing with Tom. Regardless of what had happened, it sparked within me the idea of judgment vs. discernment.

Discernment is saying what’s so. Judgment is saying so what? Discernment is the capacity to recognize the difference between an apple and an orange, a dualistic truth of the mind and a nondualistic truth of the ego. Discernment is great. It’s what allows us to know the difference between your car and anothers so that you don’t mistakenly try to drive away in someone else’s car! Judgment is when we start building a story around what happened, calling it good or bad, and so on. It is the judgment that people suggest we let go of, not discernment itself.

Finally, regarding the issue of creating separation by saying I am not the body or mind and I am this sense of awareness, we already are what we are. The “goal,” so to speak, is not to become who we are, but rather to stop pretending to be something we are not. As mentioned earlier, it is by letting go of identification of that which we are not (which, on the surface, appears to be creating separation), we naturally come to know our true nature as the One and the All and then integration occurs. Instead of previously thinking we were the body and mind and not the tree, that which we are is recognized to be the infinite which includes the body, mind, tree, and everything else in existence.

This can be adopted as a simple belief system, but then it’s a “me” who has a belief system. It hasn’t actually been realized on a core level. One hasn’t become the Truth. They simply believe it which, IMHO, is not sufficient. Awakening can’t be accessed by adopting appropriate belief systems and engaging the mind. Awakening is the natural “result” of letting go of all identification to thought, and any idea of the validity of thought itself.

That said, the heart has a much more direct access to That and is described as the bridge to That. So it is an important part of the journey.

hmmm – also wholeness cannot be experienced. It is beyond duality, beyond subject-object that you mention. One can only BE it. This is the nub of why the mind cannot grasp it. Words fail. Yet it is the reality.

I had originally thought of this subject in terms of identifying with either the ego who, like a two year old with a toy steering wheel thinks he’s driving, or the witness, who by definition does not judge or interact. But if we break the matter down to identifying with ego or witness we are still left with the question of who or what is doing the identifying. Now we’re dealing with the whole enchilada.

Heady stuff, or perhaps more correctly, Hearty stuff! For I believe only the Heart can be the experience/experiencer of Wholeness. The ego/intellect sits here, staring at this screen, and tries vainly to understand so it can manage reality; never going to happen! And yet, and yet….

Peace to All.

It is the relation of these two sentences that is at issue.

Looking forward to the next article (or three).

Okay, I will give you all one response to the discussion so far. And it is this: awakening/enlightenment is all about identity. It is the answer to the question: What am I? That’s why whenever someone asked Ramana a question, he invariably said, “Find out who is the one who is asking the question?” Over and over, the more you look for it, the more you will find in all the awakening literature this theme: identity!

So, we can discuss lots of facets and nuances of the process. Davidya has laid out a pretty nice summary of the views of Adyashanti, who does an amazing job of teaching about awakening. However, the bottom line to all the discussion is identity. What am I? Nisargadatta summed up what you will find in a perfect way: Looking within, you find nothing. Looking without, everything. And between these two viewpoints, you exist. How amazing! How simple! And so unbelievably true!

Lastly, as to control and my essay: I was mainly talking from my experience. It isn’t a question of wanting control. It isn’t a question of having control. It really is a question of the one who THINKS he is in control doesn’t even exist. The ego isn’t a someone who has control. It is a thought, a thought of false identity. It has control over nothing. My next article on the subject will be posted later. And I feel a third one coming on. And maybe a fourth?

I don’t really think that the word control even applies to that which we could say IS in control. Everything in control of itself? Control in and of itself implies a controller and the thing controlled. But an absolute totality controlling itself? That doesn’t even compute. I know, someone will point out “but there is this worldly experience and something controls it.” But it IS part of the everything. It IS the everything. Just as it is nothing.

Okay, that’s more than I meant to say. Bottom line to me: as awakening opens us, we begin to see that there really is no control for Mr. Ego. I think it safe to say that he has thought he is the driver of the car called Life, but in fact he has never been driving. He has been along for the ride. Best to just realize that, slide into the passenger’s seat, and enjoy the experience. Oh, you can still pretend to drive the car at times, but does that make it so?

Typically the process is self-realization, god-realization, unity. But recently, some people are going self-realization, unity, god-realization. Probably due to less heart development in the west. Some refinement of perception, but not enough to complete that before the identity falls. One of my teachers calls this ’sloppy unity’. (laughs)

Yes, we loose the idea of being the body, then get it back again, loose the sense of I, then get it back. But when it’s back it is not localized but rather an aspect of the whole. It’s a VERY different experience. Rather than being body in relationship to world, its all in relationship to body. All moving through this idea of body.

Yes, all experience is first within, then not separate from Self. Depending on what we mean by ‘ego’ though, that does not join wholeness as it is already lost. Ego in the sense of an idea of being a separate self. Mind seeing itself as unique. The identity of Fred also goes. But if we see ego to mean the person, that does stick around and merge.

What falls away are the mistakes of the intellect. What remains and is merged is everything else, no exceptions.