Consciousness Is All: Guest Teaching by Peter Dziuban
This is the third in our series of Guest Teachings. I hope you’re enjoying discovering, or rediscovering the teachers and teachings as much as I’m enjoying publishing them. Sometimes getting out of “the box” of what we’re intimately familiar with is just what we need to wake up, or wake up again, if you will.
Peter Dziuban is a different sort of voice in nonduality. Amazingly, at the time he wrote this book he had had very little contact with Nondual teachings, so his voice here is both innocent and unclouded. He spoke of this in a recent email to me:
I know some areas of nonduality (particularly emptiness teachings) would say there is no taking of a position (agreed!) and they sometimes even go so far as to say there is no Absolute, and no such thing as pure Being, no Truth. On the basis of logical-mind-analysis and “direct experience” that may seem to be so. But there are “deeper levels of experience” where there truly are no phenomena, no thought or observation, and no time–there is only what might be called pure Being. BUT…the “problem” is that the instant one tries to put that into words, it INSTANTLY appears to be contradictory, because the very saying of it is time, phenomena.
I know you realize all this–I’m just saying what I’ll emphasize more in the revised book, to try to address the issue in a better way. The book emphasizes that there is only Presence, only I AM (I probably will remove that term too, because it sounds like a position, even though it’s not meant in that way). It isn’t until Chap 22 that all of the stuff that could be misinterpreted as being a “position” is blown away, too. But now I feel that part could/should be emphasized even more.
He is uncompromising, much like the Zen masters of old, or Direct Path teachers of today. He plants you firmly in your True Nature and he never lets up. There’s no wiggle room at all; I like that. He’s a difficult guy to really argue with, because his logic is so simple and self-evident. He lays it out like it is and then bids you to take a look for yourself. Once again, this insistence on personal experience is very akin to the Direct Path’s methodology. Peter’s latest teaching can be found through his Time Out! video series on You Tube. As is part of the architecture of these Guest Teachings, I’ll post links to that and other “Peter pages” at the end.
Peter recently wrote me the following in regard to that series:
One in particular, Time Out #20–“Directness” has been very helpful in terms of practicality. In daily experience, if a problem appears to arise (perhaps illness or financial, or relationships, whatever), the nondual response is often something like, “Well as long as there’s no ‘little me’ to suffer a problem, then there’s no problem.” True, there is no ‘me’ having its own inherent existence.
BUT…we often unwittingly continue to assume that the problem DOES have ITS own inherent existence, and thus it is allowed to continue. No finite time-space apparent situation has its own inherent existence–and that includes all “problems.” So…if I’m not “enlivening it” by mistakenly assuming it is out there existing on its own–then the problem has to “die” because the thing literally does not exist on its own! It is not a cause and it doesn’t have its own inherent cause, presence or life–so it can’t continue on its own unless I unwittingly “feed” it. If it’s not fed, it has to “evaporate.”
In regard to his “seeker story”, I’ll once again leave Peter to tell it himself:
Yes, I had been a seeker for quite a while. Raised Catholic but never bought into it. At one point I found The Infinite Way (started by Joel Goldsmith, basically a Christian expression, although a lot of his work had an Eastern influence. I also had done some reading of Hindu literature, plus the basics like the Bhagavad Gita and others). The Infinite Way appeared to be very helpful to me, and at the time I would’ve sworn there was nothing “beyond” it. It is a very deep teaching, and a “healing work,” too. I definitely was a lot clearer, and felt I had made a lot of progress. Yet–that was the very problem/sticking point that I hadn’t picked up on. There was an “I” who was making progress.
I then found the work of Alfred Aiken, and for me it is the purest. It also had a Christian expression due to his “background,” but it was totally nondual. God, Life, Love, the Infinite, is ALL. All means ALL. Period. Period. NO wiggle room. At some point, after several years of being immersed in this “perspective” the thought began dinging, “Hey, it’s possible to say all this same stuff by starting from pure Consciousness and leaving it there. No need to use Christian terminology which often has a lot of conceptual baggage.” So Consc. Is All slowly began to get written.
During the writing of Consc. Is All, I became aware of several nondual books, including Nisargadatta’s I Am That, for example. Frankly, for me it wasn’t as pure–there was still quite a bit of implication that a secondary “me” began at some point, and that this “me” could get clear, etc. I realized it is an edited/translated/annotated book, but still, in the wording, while it would say certain things about Life, the book’s “voice” often spoke as if there were a secondary self to be spoken to (I don’t know if I’m making this clear–I hope so!).
For “me” the seeking experience seemed to be very gradual–a slow falling away of beliefs, assumptions and energy “stuck-ness.” Writing Consc. Is All appeared to make a huge difference, too, because during the writing, all these annoying, mosquito-like questions kept buzzing around. And with each question there was also a definite feeling of, “This question has to be dealt with–ya just can’t sweep it under the rug.” So…in dealing with the questions, a LOT of new points were brought to light and stuff got answered–in fact, many, many questions arose and were answered that I initially didn’t even have!
Along the way I had a number of “deep conscious experiences” very unlike normal human experience, but somehow they seemed “natural”–just different. I also really didn’t know what to make of them, had I wanted to try to figure them out. There was one distinct “Aha!” moment when reading one of Aiken’s books for the first time. It emphasized that Life (God, Love, whatever term), is Itself ONLY. It already is AT Itself. It is ALL the Life there is, leaving absolutely no other life to be separate. Something really “clicked” and that was it. All “seeking” stopped cold right there.
Yes, I certainly continued to read, “study” etc., but it was from an entirely different “place.” No longer was the “middle man” Peter there to be having all of his seeking successes and failures (far more failures!).
Finally, this comes to thought just while writing this–again, for what it’s worth…it pertains to the point I was making about I Am That, and the “voice” of certain literature. We all readily agree that words never are IT. True. However, with any writing or speaking, words are like mental footprints. With any statement made, the words can be traced back, and they lead DIRECTLY to the state of thought that gave rise to the statement. With the thousands of possible combinations of words, why did the speaker/writer choose those particular words? They clearly show the clarity of the state of thought that made the statement.
Peter Dziuban has been a friend of mine for several years, and I was an admirer of his prior to our meeting over the Internet. He published Consciousness Is All: Now Everything Is Brand New back in 2006. I didn’t discover it until the fall of 2007. I’d already had an awakening a year before, but as is most often the case with such things, I was in and out, “I got it, I lost it” for a long time. When I read this book that autumn that’s coming up on being five years past, I had a second awakening. My first experience was the discovery of what I wasn’t. The second was the recognition of what I was. I call the first stage the 180, and the second the 360, because it’s known that you’re right back where you started from, because you never left. You can’t: liberation is always already here and freely available.
I loved this book when I read it, reviewed it about as favorably as a book can be reviewed, posted it on Amazon, and the rest is history. A year or so later Peter and I became friends. Although I used to write years ago, it had been a long time since I’d done any formal writing prior to Awakening Clarity. Peter Dziuban was the first person in the spiritual field to tell me that I had a clear message and a clear voice, and that I should try my own hand at writing. Thank you, Peter. He’s been generous with advice, and both practical and spiritual support for a long time. I love him and am proud to call him my friend and mentor.
I recommend you let your mind do whatever it does as it settles into these pages. It is likely to oscillate between, “This is too complicated,” and “This is too simple,” combined with a measure of “This doesn’t make sense,” and “What’s he trying to say?” I’m here to tell you that Peter is not “trying” to say anything: he says it, and he says it beautifully. There is profound truth here. While there is no “cause” for awakening, I will tell you that the apparent cause for my second opening is printed on this page. Good luck.
And now….
Consciousness Is All
By
Peter Francis Dziuban
Right now, you are conscious.
What exactly is this Consciousness that you now are?
Did you ever ask yourself what pure Consciousness is—entirely distinct from every thing you are conscious of?
What is true of pure Consciousness, all by itself alone?
That is the theme of this book, and the best way to start is by first agreeing there is Consciousness. That’s easy enough—and more importantly, it’s undeniable. You never can say, “There is no Consciousness,” because you must already be conscious in order to say it.
“Of course I’m conscious,” the thought may come. “Why belabor such an obvious fact?”
Stop and consider what Consciousness means. If the very Consciousness here, now, were notconscious, you wouldn’t be able to say there was such a thing as this book, or the body holding it. As far as you are concerned, there would be no such thing as a home, no job, no possessions or money. How do you know this is true? The only way those things can be said to exists is that you appear to be conscious of them. It is all thanks to the fact that there is Consciousness.
If there were no Consciousness functioning, it would be impossible to say there is anything. It couldn’t be said there was a single flower, tree or mountain. There would be none of the riches on earth—not to mention the earth itself. It couldn’t be said there was a moon, stars, or one speck of the entire universe. Without Consciousness first being conscious, simply nothing could be said to exist, not even Life Itself. In fact, one couldn’t even be conscious of a nothingness!
Your consciousness of your world is all there is to your world.
The point is, nothing is greater than, or exists beyond Consciousness. This isn’t anything mystical. It’s a fact.
Right now ask yourself, what could exist beyond, or be greater than Consciousness. Really try to come up with something out beyond it. Whatever is mentioned—even the whole universe—the only reason it can be mentioned is because it is some thing you appear to be conscious of. If anything, the universe seems or appears to be within Consciousness; Consciousness never is within it. Thus Consciousness is great than it, and not bounded by it at all.
At the moment, yes, it certainly seems or appears as if many things are outside of, or beyond your body—such as this book, other objects, even the moon. But no thing ever is out beyond Consciousness, Awareness, is it? If it were, one could not appear to be aware of that thing.
General human belief of course always has said Consciousness is confined inside the human body, somewhere in the brain. That simply is not true, though it may seem or appear so. It’s an assumption, just like the old assumption that the earth was flat because it appears so. A major endeavor of this book is to show conclusively, in various ways, how and why Consciousness is not inside the body. Consciousness is infinite and boundless—it never is contained or bordered by the body or any other thing—not even the entire stellar universe.
Mistaken human belief says the universe is greater than Consciousness, and that the universe is produced Consciousness. It says Consciousness or Life is biological and slowly evolved inside a physical body, on planet earth, in passing time—all as a by-product of that universe.
Consciousness Itself is incapable of having been produced by a universe, a planet earth, a chemical or biological process you appear to be conscious of. Why? If Consciousness were produced by any thing, the thing would have to be before there was Consciousness. But if there were no Consciousness, there would be no Consciousness to even say the thing itself existed! The thing itself could not honestly be said to exist, thus would not exist to do any producing!
Traditional thinking implies the universe still would exist if there were no Consciousness. How could one be certain, if there were absolutely no Consciousness to verify such a thing? Who would vouch for a universe still existing?
There are other reasons why Consciousness cannot be limited, and is not inside the body. Think about those who have had what are called near-death, or “afterlife” experiences. There are many documented cases in which the body was supposedly knocked out, or “unconscious”, yet Consciousness continued functioning, because they still had an experience they were vividly conscious of.
Others claim to have had various out-of-body experiences. But there is no such thing as an out-of-Consciousness experience, is there? Otherwise one couldn’t know of the experience. Again, simply nothing exists beyond, or is greater than Consciousness, Awareness. (Consciousness and Awareness are treated as synonyms in these pages.)
Any scientist will tell you the human body really is not a solid object, even though it seems so. It would be just countless atomic particles that all are constantly moving or vibrating. These particles are so incredibly tiny that the space between them, in relative terms, is greater than the space between the earth and sun. The human body is more space than solidity! Consciousness couldn’t be inside such an arrangement because there’s really no solid object there to be inside of!
Consciousness isn’t a word. It is literally the very “Substance” wherein all existing goes on. Consciousness is actively aware and alive as all Presence, the only real “Place” there is. It is the one, essential “Stuff” without which your everyday affairs and entire universe wouldn’t even appear to exist. The implications of this fact are so enormous, so thrilling, it’s indescribably. That’s why this book is titled Consciousness Is All.
This allness of Consciousness is why It sometimes also is called the One Self, I AM, Life, the Divine, Infinite Intelligence, Love, or what some call God. They are all synonyms for what is the same One. If you can’t warm up to these terms because they’re not scientific enough, stay with the terms Consciousness or Life. It certainly can’t be denied there is Consciousness or Life. Regardless of the term, what counts is that it never is “a” Consciousness, a power far off, that is all there is of all there is. It is the One being aware right here, now, so this can be read.
Why are Consciousness and other synonyms capitalized? It is done to make the essential distinction that they never are personal. After all, who is it, really, that’s being conscious? Is there a personal thinking mind that knows how to be conscious? Of course not. No person, no body, cranks up Consciousness in the morning and sustains or upholds It all day long by thinking about moment to moment. The capacity to be conscious, alive, clearly is something no person is doing or is responsible for. Always, It is Consciousness Itself or Life Itself that is conscious, that is alive to say “I” right here, now. Consciousness Itself, or what is called the Self, really is the only I. This never changes.
As you read, you’ll see why Consciousness is not the same as what is called the personal thinking, “sensing” mind. They’re vastly different. To assume Consciousness is confined to an intellect and five physical senses of seeing, hearing, touch, taste and smell is way short of the mark. The so-called human thinking, sensing mind deals only with that which is limited or finite. It constantly needs to expand and progress out of its limitations. It always looks out beyond itself to something greater—always looks up to a God, Self, or Consciousness.
What about starting from the other direction?
Instead of looking up to the Self, what about looking out from the Self?
That’s what the Self or Consciousness Itself is doing. It never looks up to Itself, and It is the only One being conscious right here, now.
To “look out from” simply means Consciousness Itself gets all the credit, all presence and power. There honestly is no other being conscious. One needn’t do anything for this to operate perfectly here, now—Consciousness Itself already is doing or being It all.
What becomes obvious is shockingly simple, yet undeniable.
* * * * *
Copyright 2006 Peter Francis Dziuban
All rights reserved.
LINKS
To view or buy Consciousness Is All on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/7fawsfy
