PRIME POST! Every Lotus Has Its Feet in the Mud

Let me share some experiences in post-awakening with you that might prove helpful someday.

Ten years ago, when I had the first sustained awakening through the Fred unit, I saw with absolute clarity and surety that there was only One Thing Going On, that it was alive-ing, infinite, eternal, and for lack of a better word, “perfect.” I also knew that it was “me,” although I no longer knew what the term “me” or “I” meant. I could easily state that I was, but I couldn’t for the life of me state what I was. Still can’t.

The myth of “other” was completely seen through during that time. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, “Fred” was a mere fiction, no more than a story, utter nonsense. Yet that conviction regarding the absolute no-Fred state of the universe didn’t last very long. At all. It’s weird how this unraveling comes about, so let me tell you how it happens.

You wouldn’t think that something that never existed could somehow “come back,” but in my experience Fred sure did. There’s some sort of disconnect here, is there not? You can see it clearly. The reason you can see it clearly is that I’m discussing the Fred character and not what you think of as your character. When it’s your non-existent ego that proves to be a hyper-insistent zombie, I’m betting that more often than not you don’t see it clearly. In fact, I’m betting that more often than not you don’t see it at all.

Units acquire habits (mental, emotional, and physical patterns) in the name of efficiency. Why spend time reinventing how to get freaked out about something new when you can simply revert to how you freaked out about something that happened before? Shoes tie themselves and steps take themselves to the mailbox. All day long these units perform actions without needing to pause for direction or permission.

For instance, this unit is presently typing. It don’t have to think about it or even look at the keyboard–the hands do it on their own. The best class (also one of the few classes) that it ever took in high school taught this elaborate typing pattern to this unit and all these years later that pattern still runs, and runs by itself. But only on cue.

This typing pattern is sparked by current conditioning. If there’s no keyboard present, these hands don’t start air-typing. Even if there is a keyboard present, if the unit doesn’t have anything coming to mind to write about (however that process happens), or there’s a pause while it pretends it’s thinking something through, then these hands remain still; vigilant, but still. So it’s the combination of all present conditioning that sparks typing or any other pattern into existence. A few old things fall together, and a whole new thing is produced. 

Aliving happens.

It’s the same with “misidentities.” I’m not like Superman; I don’t have a secret Clark Kent identity. I’m Oneness and I have a Fred misidentity. This Fred misidentity is a mental meta-pattern or “umbrella-pattern” under which the many habits and patterns of a physical meta-pattern (the unit) fall. 

This unit likes to dress a certain way, and it does so automatically. That’s Fredness. This unit laughs a lot. That’s Fredness, too. This unit, which I, Oneness, am wearing like a Greek mask in an ancient drama, has been shown otherwise countless times, yet it can somehow still feel as if it is an independent, separate unit who loves its independent separate wife, dogs, and big old cat.

It may also feel as if it’s scared of the dark or is crazy about jumping out of airplanes.

Those are all action-expressions that happen on their own when conditions encourage them to do so. This Fredness (repetitive, identifiable patterns that are mentally linked to the Fred misidentity) can be said to be, at least for our purposes here, real. Fred, however, is simply a believed thought. It is not real under any circumstances.

So who is believing this Fred thought? Fred can’t be believing it, because there’s no Fred. So who, or what is it? Let’s investigate.

Let me report to you what I presently find here in the absence of a Fred. You can try it yourself if you wish. What I find in the absence of a Fred is simply unowned, uncentered, unknowing This. I notice that whatever it is, it’s alive, aware and awake.

What else do I find? Nothing else. I cannot find anything else, because there cannot be anything else. There is one real thing here, and whatever it is, it’s me. I cannot find a boundary to this me, because in the absence of a Fred I have neither boundary nor center, neither beginning nor end.

Within this boundless no-thing-ness, given patterns play out. Appearances appear and disappear. Arisings rise and fall. And within all that amazing spontaneity, there can also spontaneously arise–due to the totality of present conditioning–a thought that says one or more of the following things: “I am these patterns, these patterns are me or mine, or I own and/or willfully initiate these patterns.”

None of these thoughts are true. Neither is any other thought, for that matter. Surprise.

Fortunately, I don’t have to believe any of that hooey. If I believed them, if I believed in this ghost-in-the-machine idea, it would cause suffering, and why would I want that? No good reason, right? So why do I sometimes insist on believing and suffering?

I always can, and upon occasion do, believe arising thoughts. At least I do until I don’t. I don’t mean to suggest that I’m an entity that believes these thoughts–that’s just another downhill race. I’m Conscious Awakeness here personifying a make-believe entity-thingee in order to language, in order to communicate with myself, nothing more. What I’m really saying is that believing happens. It doesn’t happen to anybody, it just happens.

And that believing, just like everything else, is also a result of conditioning. A pinball is shot through a tube, and then bumps and bounces and is flipped wildly through the machine, with lights and bells and whistles blasting, but it’s not thinking about what it’s doing, because it’s not doing anything. It’s being done. Aliving happens to both pinballs and human beings, but only human beings take the weight of personal responsibility upon themselves for the results of that spontaneous aliving.

In short, finally, let us see once and forever that there is no such thing as free will on any scale, and no such thing as any separate being who could have or fail to have such free will if it existed. If only Fred could get this through his thick headless head! Actually, Fredness pretty much has it down now, except when it doesn’t. This sort of stability is the (apparent) result of (an apparent) 10 years of (apparently) concerted effort within post-awakening, and 24 years of off-and-on, up-and-down seeking prior to that.

Who really knows?

But even here, even now, just when I, Oneness, think I’ve about got reality all neatly wrapped up, complete with bow and tag, here comes the undead-Fred roaring back into the picture. And do you know what this vaporous apparition is most likely to do? It’s most likely to stupidly take itself to task for all of its many failings.

Yes, friends, it is a world without error–except for the Fred character. I  can clearly see all of your mistakes, and I forgive them, one and all. I readily spot your errors of judgment, your lack of wisdom, your foolish egotism, sharp tongue and heavy hand. And I happily overlook them. They are what they are, you are what you are, It Is What It Is, and all is well with the perfect world.

Except for this Fred thing!

This thing should know better! This thing should be better! Is it awake, or not? Is it not supposed to be a spiritual teacher, for God’s sake? Certainly it shouldn’t be doing this, or thinking that!

Says who?

What in fact is the reliable benchmark of success and acceptability, the ultimate authority here in this weird world? Why look at that–it’s none other than mind’s baseless, meaningless, purely egoic opinion. It is nothing more than an unconscious thought pattern spawned in response to other unconscious thoughts. Arising thoughts are frying arising thoughts, and suffering is the smoke that arises from it. There is no end to this turning wheel until it is starved of attention. 

Please. Slow down. Reconsider. Cut yourself some slack.

“Personal behavior,” whether in either pre- or post-awakening, is chiefly a misnomer for an entity-vacant playing out of predetermined patterns rising to meet current conditioning. Yes, there does appear to be some slight, but significant “paradox of indeterminism” in play on some quantum level, but this potentiality is statistically insignificant in regard to what we normally think of as “free will”. Fuggedaboutit.

So what am I ultimately saying here? There’s simply no one home, folks. The building is lit, but the building is empty. Your harsh self-judgement and sense of failure flies directly in the face of reality, which always says simply that you didn’t do what you couldn’t do, and whatever happened was just-right in the end anyway.

There’s no woulda, coulda, shoulda in What Is. That’s what isn’t, which isn’t.

According to the universe, all units are always doing just fine, because they’re doing the only thing they can do until they can do something else. Let your best be good enough, for God’s sake. There’s no alternative.

I have been witnessing humanity for a quite some no-time now, and I’ve learned a few things I can pass on.

The small part of humanity that is not under complete narcissistic delusion is universally disappointed in itself. The small part of humanity that is not sociopathic is universally feeling guilty. No one reaches the potential they imagine for themselves at age ten.

And I already know–your unit can’t even wake up right! This one couldn’t either, but somehow it all seems to have turned out well enough in the end. The “waking up too slowly/incorrectly” is simply another universal complaint, and another universal delusion.

It’s a perfect world. It is what it is and you are what you are. Lighten up. All of these units have all screwed up and they will all continue to. Apparently it’s their job. 

No one thinks like everyone thinks everyone should think. We are not living this life on our terms, we are being lived on life’s terms.

Every lotus has it’s feet in the mud, my friend. Every Buddha has feet of clay. That’s not contrary to the rules of the game, those are the rules of the game. That’s simply how it works when you pretend to be a human being.

Oh, and don’t forget that This is not your character’s dream, your character is the dream. That unit is just another object within the dream of a personal you.

You-You, however, are is always fine and dandy, always have been fine and dandy, and always will be fine and dandy. That’s just the way it works. Sweet, huh?