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#3055 - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - Editor: Jerry Katz  

Charlie Hayes (14 Dec 1936 -) was born to a prominent family in Washington DC, and grew up to be an eighth grade dropout, a drug-doing and booze-abusing jazz musician, then a married-but-divorced father, racing driver and later a hugely successful Ferrari new and used car dealer with a loving wife and a second (totally charming) son. Continued here: http://www.theeternalstate.org/

The Basics Of Advaita Nonduality

(As expressed via Charlie Hayes and www.theeternalstate.org)

Introduction:

The appearing manifest multiplicity - you and me and world - are in Reality, One Being, Unicity, and there IS nothing but That....

There is only One. This One is an Empty yet Full Non-Objective "Aware Presence" that never ends and never begins. You ARE ... Indescribable  ... this Awareness arises In THAT You ... "as" this Ecstasy Of Being, Absolute Objectless Freedom. This is the Real "You". All there IS, is YOU, and You called "Not-You." Radical and Real, You Are This Openness of Being that allows for EVERYTHING to BE, as it IS; pain, pleasure, happy, sad, all of it, IS This Being.

1. What Is The Real You? What Never Changes?

YOU are Awareness, simply being. No one can say they do not exist. That existence, the sense of "I" as in "I Am," is undeniable and inescapable. Try to NOT BE. Cannot be done. So the simple pointer is, what you are is That Presence or Awareness that YOU ARE. Being. Just That! This True You ... BE-ING... is POINTED TO in language with concepts like Impersonal Consciousness; Awareness, Being ... YOU are just THAT, prior to the mind's translation into the thought I Am and I am this or that.

2. What Are You Not? (Cutting Through The story of a "me")

You are NOT an "individual." There are NO "individuals" anywhere except in unreal stories. The idea of a separate person is a fiction, a mind-construction, a house of cards, as the story tries to say, “I’m ME! (Unsuccessfully!) This idea of a "me" is ... on investigation ... seen to be a false claim by the thinking machinery to it's own separate existence. This ever-changing idea of a person is simply unreal. WHO says, "I'm me?" The mind. To be blunt, it's bullshit. The whole fabricated story of me is false: All stories of the “individual” are actually imagination, seeming real but really fiction. As Shakespeare said, it’s a tale told by an idiot, filled with sound and fury, signifying … NOTHING.

Look right now! Seeing with naked Awareness, where is any person … unless you (as a mind-identity) think about it? Thoughts come and go. What you ARE NEVER comes and goes anywhere. It is (You Are) fully Here Now and Eternally Free and Clear, Eternally Presence, Shining before the mind.

YOU are not a thought, not a concept, not a feeling, not a time bound entity. You are the Nonconceptual Silent Beingness, Awakeness, Aliveness, Presence-Awareness. Just THAT and NOTHING else. The story of “me” … ANY “me” … is not only irrelevant, it is totally FALSE. So let's cut through that right now! Okay?

Let's bring this back to the basics: What in YOU never changes? Being-Awareness, just That. That is your True Nature.

Where is a separate entity when you are in deep dreamless sleep? Or under anesthesia? There is none. Obviously! But some Presence beats the heart, breathes air in and out, flows the blood, grows new cells and disintegrates other cells, grows hair and fingernails, ages the body etc etc! Who or what is "doing" all that? Not an "individual”. There is no “do-er of living”; there is only Livingness, happening all by itself.

“Actions happen, deeds are done, but there is NO

‘individual do-er’ thereof.” – The Buddha

Look and see that you are present and aware right now. That is the "Eternal," The Natural State; there is no other, no attainment, no flashy enlightened state, no carrot on a stick. There is NO someday when “you” will “get enlightened.” It's what you are right now. There is no other than NOW. Wherever you are you are ... Here. That's IT. Big Casino.

You’ve already “got it” in total (because you ARE “it”) and there's nothing more to this Nonduality pointing than this simple seeing, that you ARE. Awareness, Simply That. Period. Full Stop.

             Immediate self-awareness is clear and present. Even though activities

 exist, there is no awareness of an agent who is the actor. -Padmasambhava

In our meetings and consultations, there's just friends, sharing what works to end any suffering and recognize that you are already free and clear. Really. There’s nothing to get and no one to get it. When the false belief in “individuality” is seen through the search ends, and there (here) you are, Present and Alive, the Light of loving being, just that, nothing else.

3. The Absolute

Everything points to nothing and is made of that same no thing. This message is not about mental clarity or any sort of “knowing.”  There is no assertion of path or practice, nor any promise of attainment or some arrival someday at a special state of peace, stillness, or silence. The message is, there is only what is, happening, and this is happening to no one. There is nowhere to go and nothing to become. All there is, is everything, Simply Being. There is NO actual “eternal state.” That's simply a pointer to Self-Shining Empty Fullness. There is only timeless Being and in that timeless Being, there arises the appearance of separateness and it seems there is an “individual” who then seeks for “Wholeness.” But there is ONLY Already Wholeness and so the seeking denies that seeker his or her “goal,” because that “goal” is what already IS.

~ ~ ~

Charlie Hayes is the author of four books on Nonduality, the newest of which is “No Way Out, The Gift Of Absolute Freedom.” The website is www.theeternalstate.org; there is also a Blog at http://charlesdavidhayes.blogspot.com and many videos on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=charlesdavidhayes.

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