On karma and rebirth; continuums and DNA; and the one-shot, Wabi-sabi personality. (Part I)
YOU CAN’T IMAGINE HOW DAUNTING it is to see a title like the one above spill out onto the page in front of you, with the blank page expecting illuminating action to now take through these fingertips. Thank God I don’t have to write this post; I’m pretty sure I can type it. Let me take a second to explain a little more about that phenomenon, so that hopefully there’s less confusion. There isn’t any “automatic writing” going on here, as some call it; nothing at all like that. I’m not “channeling” anybody or anything. The chief reason for that, of course, is that “the-Fred-most-people-think-I-am” doesn’t live here any longer (in fact, he never did), and when I’m writing Awakening Clarity, or teaching Nonduality through some other venue, there is damn little Fredness present either. Some, I grant you, but not much. Thus the question becomes, “Who’s here to channel what?” Instead of I-think-I-am-this-unit, there is only I AM.
SPIRIT IS ACTUALLY WRITING THIS through a body-mind that is consciously vacant of personal self, and thus fully available to Spirit for writing, or dancing, or howling at the moon. And over there in your chair there is another vacant-of-personal-self body-mind reading it. The only difference is that I know and see my emptiness clearly and consciously on a constant basis, and most of you don’t. I know that from the emails I get. I’m sure, however, that many of you have glimpses the truth, and some of you may very well be living it. Let’s remember that there is just ONE, so there’s no suggestion here of upper or lower, ahead or behind, greater or lesser going on; nothing at all like that. All of that is utter nonsense. But it’s helpful to know who or what awakeness is currently consciously coming through if we want to orient ourselves toward discovering that view for ourselves. We could spend our lives blindly following strangers in the hope that they are awake. Or we could do some investigation, then look right in front of our faces and get a big leg up–if we open our eyes and ears. And in the end, many of us, perhaps most of us reading this, will see it in our mirrors. Even if that experience seems to be brief, or on-again-off-again, it’s not. And it will leave an imprint on you that you can never shake. I know; I tried to deny it at one point, and ended up failing. That was right after bragging about it, which was equally ludicrous. But that’s all just part of the well worn path, and it’s all good in the end. You just can’t unsee what you’ve really seen.
GRANTED, THE EMPTY BODY-MIND sitting here still answers to “Fred” when that name is called, and at dinner time it knows to put a spoon of soup into this mouth and not Betsy’s, or the dog’s, or into a potted plant. We call that sort of identification biology conditioning, and it’s not only handy, but vital if we’re going to stay on this planet long enough to discover its wonders. Conditioning is not at all a bad thing; it’s a wonderful thing. We are not trying to get rid of it, we are just trying to see through it. .
WHEN I SAY “ME” AND “YOU”, “my chair” and “your chair”, I’m using what Scott Kiloby calls “conventional language” about “conventional life”. I like those terms so much that I am going to boldly borrow them from his terrific Living Realization text. I’m confident he won’t mind. Another way to say the same thing is that I’m utilizing my conceptual thinking to reach your conceptual thinking. There’s nothing wrong with conceptual thinking—it can’t even be avoided—and it’s the just-fine-norm of communication. However, when I differentiate between “typist” and “writer”, I’m indicating that at such point I AM is consciously coming through the relative in order to share the path Home, and intentionally using the concept of a “split persona” in order to get its point across in the least confusing way possible. I suggest just running with it.
IT’S A GOOD TIME TO REMEMBER that all of this is actually beyond words. We’re running in circles here; me trying to catch you, and then you trying to catch me. In my never ending quest to be as clear as possible, I probably just lost about forty readers in the first four paragraphs. Ah well, let’s hope not, and plow on. Certainly I didn’t lose you. And if you are wondering, as I often do, “When is he going to start on the TOPIC??” I can tell you that in this case I already have. I think that lead provides an excellent set-up to the remainder of this article.
I TALKED ABOUT THIS SUBJECT this past week, and I told someone at the time, “I’m going to write a post on it.” Here it is. Let’s begin by talking about, and linking rebirth, and the Wabi-sabi personality. There’s a paradox here. If you’re going to hang with spirituality, you might as well get used to dealing with paradox right now, if you haven’t already done so. What that means in the beginning is that you’re not going to be able to understand what I’m saying some of the time. You’ll probably sense that there’s truth in front of you, but why is it diametrically opposed to the truth that was in front of you just a second ago? Because it’s beyond words. I’m pointing here, not telling the truth. I’m lying at my very highest level; this is stuff you’re just going to have to grok, and you can’t make yourself grok something. It just has to happen, all in it’s own time.
ALL YOU ACTUALLY NEED IS exposure to the truth. I know you think I’m talking to the unit sitting in front of its computer over there, but I’m not. I’m talking to Myself, which I know is what’s really over there, and all the clothing and makeup and intellectual bullshit stories in the world cannot hide Me from Me. You already know the truth. I’m just, as Adya says, “an alarm clock I threw into the dream ahead of me.” Many of you will press the snooze button, especially the ones who think they haven’t or won’t. There’s nothing wrong with pressing the snooze button if you know you’ve pressed it. There’s no hurry here, unless there is. I had someone in my living room this week who said, “I don’t think I’m awake all the time.” That was music to my ears. “I know you’re not,” I responded, “but the fact that you know you’re not, and that you’re willing to admit that is what’s really important. You’re staying true to truth.” He said he’d just keep coming to see me as he’s been doing for a long time, read AC religiously–no pun intended–the occasional book by someone else, and simply let it evolve. I may have actually applauded. He’s come a long way in the year since I watched him “pop off” in my living room.
IN A SIMILAR VEIN, Betsy was talking to me this afternoon in perfect Nondual awareness, and I actually shouted, “Yes, yes! That’s it exactly! You can’t imagine how happy it makes me to hear you talking like this.” I can’t even remember what we were talking about, and I don’t care, but I know she had it down, and it was flowing out of her mouth like honey. She, too, has simply let it evolve. It might have been a little sneaky for her to marry me, but it is what it is!
THERE’S NO NEED TO REMEMBER ANY OF THIS. I wouldn’t bother highlighting or taking notes, though you’re welcome to do both if you want to. However, you’ll never make intellectual sense out of it anyway until it’s suddenly absolutely obvious. You can’t make it happen, and you can’t make it re-happen, although you can certainly make it unhappen. When Realization occurs, however, you’ll look at your saved notes and start laughing. Until that happens, it’s better to expose, expose, expose but not try forcible entry. Did you know that Something created the Big Bang and the whole Universe after that? Did you also know that it wasn’t the tiny human unit that’s been trying to figure out enlightenment? Loosen up. You’re not in charge here. Let IT do the penetration; you just be amenable to exposure. Mind can never comprehend the thing in which mind occurs.
THE PERSON WHO BEGAN reading this post is not the same person who is reading this sentence. Physical cells have died and others have come alive to replace them. If the temperature has dropped and you’ve tugged at your sweater, or it’s risen and you’ve cut on a fan, or someone has entered or left the room, then your current conditioning circumstances have changed. In most cases, attention will have wandered from the page and briefly lit on something else. The person who’s attention came back to the page is not the same person who’s attention left it. Thoughts are arising in your mind all the time. You think they’re yours, but notice that you can’t stop them; not for long. That’s because they aren’t yours. They’re spontaneous arisings within a single field. If they’re yours, make a decision not to think them. Make a decision to think only happy thoughts. Make a decision to not laugh when you see or hear something funny. Each of those thoughts conditions the thing they occur in; the thing that’s claiming them as his or her own.
WHAT I HAVE JUST DESCRIBED IS REBIRTH. There’s no need for you to wait to die to experience rebirth. If that was the case, I wouldn’t be qualified to write this, because even though “I” feel like “I” have essentially died, this body has not, and I think in this case the body certainly rules. You are rebirthing now, and now, and now, and now. There is no constant personality in there any more than there’s a constant—or controllable mood. Both respond to conditions and conditioning and change as a result of them, either through resistance or surrender. But everything is in flux all the time, including us. Especially us. Flux takes place in time, which is the outstanding feature of the dream. I notice that unless I’m in front of my mirror shaving I still feel exactly like I’m 25. I have to wonder who in the hell is that old man is in my mirror? How did he get in there? When is he going to leave? He got in there 59 years ago as an infant. The body changed, though the inhabiting presence did not. That’s why I feel 25, but look every bit of 59. And he’ll get out of my mirror when he changes just a little more. He’ll leave my mirror when he dies and it’s no longer “my” mirror. It’ll belong to whoever buys it at the estate sale, and then they’ll get to watch their body age as well.
SO LET’S BE VERY, VERY CLEAR. When you hear Eastern religions or New Age teachers or followers talking about reincarnation, I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. In my experience, that’s all hooey. The reason I say that is that reincarnation implies—indeed is the principal term of—the transfer of personality from one body and era to another body and era. That’s impossible. I’m not guessing here. This is not an opinion. I have seen the truth of reality for my very own self and it does not include reincarnation. Many of you will see reality for your own selves as well, so you’re going to either catch me in a lie or receive confirmation that, “Doggone it, that Fred Davis was telling us the truth the whole time.” I’m happy to take that public risk and wait.
REINCARNATION IS PART OF A SALES PITCH to keep you coming back to the guru, the ashram, the classroom, the retreats, whatever; until either your patience or your wallet runs dry. I’m not saying this misinformation is always intentional—no one leads the blind so effectively as those who are blind themselves—but I am saying, from where I sit, it’s always hooey. The personality—which remains intact over here as Fredness, and seemingly hanging out within this body, will remain until the apparent host dies, at which point it will disappear forever. It doesn’t die, because it was never born, at least not anywhere but within imagination. It’s all false-linkage, which we can talk about another time. Personality is a one-shot deal. It’s completely unique, passing through this place—whatever the hell this place is—and then it dies in the same way every unique snowflake dies: through the yin-yang of change that is indicative of all duality. Snowflakes are first moist air. Next they evolve into snow, and then, after short and seemingly rather pointless lives, they melt into water, becoming air again, or perhaps a dandelion or a tree; who can know? What we can responsibly assume is that as snowflakes, they’re history. If those molecules became water moisture in the air again, and then snowflakes, then when they wet our heads again, it won’t be the same snowflakes. Every one of them is different; that’s what unique means. When this Fred unit dies, that’s the end of the Fred play; pull the curtains down; send the audience home; tack a “show closed” sign on my bathroom mirror. That’s why I call my body, and every body, Wabi-sabi. From Wikipedia:
Wabi-sabi represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”. It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence, specifically impermanence; the other two being suffering (dukkha) and emptiness or absence of self-nature (sunyata).
THAT PRETTY WELL NAILS IT, does it not?
SO, YOU MAY BE WONDERING, is reincarnation possible within the dream? Given the Dreamer, anything is possible within the dream. I am not an expert on unconscious dreaming; I’m just a lucid driver speeding around within it. But we don’t come here to talk about enhancing or embracing the dream, so I’m not even going to speculate. We come here to find out how to wake up to it. THAT, I promise you, is absolutely available to everyone in the most democratic of fashions. Namaste.
To be continued later this week…
Housekeeping Notes:
First, let me welcome Ecuador and Cyprus to the growing list of countries visiting Awakening Clarity. They join 44 other countries that are already helping awaken Clarity. A great many of these countries are showing up regularly, which is very gratifying
