Open Letter to Myself
This letter began as a quick email to a client this morning as I sat in my living room tapping on my iPhone. It morphed into this.
Dear You,
The make-believe character you think you are longs for a “repeat” of an overwhelmingly convincing false memory of a “past” awakening and the attendant clarity which followed.
In truth, apparent awakening cannot occur in Amy’s presence—it can only occur in Amy’s absence. Once that clarity passes, ego wants to “again” experience That which is actually prior to the means of experience—by which I mean consciousness.
It’s a false memory owned by a false character. In other words, it’s utter nonsense that ego first manufactures and then subscribes to in order to self-validate the lie of its own separate existence.
We cannot “experience” what we are from “afar” because there is no such thing as distance for Oneness. There is no one “over here” to gain knowledge of something “over there.” The Math of One explicitly states that contrary to the mind’s errant views, one equals one. Post-awakening is confusing exactly as long as thought misappropriates Realization as an event that happened to an individual.
You can’t lose something that was never yours—but you can think you can. It’s like feeling pain in a phantom limb that was never really there to begin with. The pain is real for as long as the never-extant “source” of it is believed in.
Once Conscious Awakeness has made Itself known to Itself even for a fleeting moment—we have to lay claim to that recognition without reservation in order to allow Awakeness-as-ignorance to abandon the attempt to understand That which is simply not understandable.
Relax. Don’t insist that consciousness appear in any specific form in order to support an imaginary character’s fraudulent memory.
Not to worry. It gets easier. You can’t wake up wrong, Awakeness.
Love,
Awakeness-as-Fredness
January 19, 2020 @ 1:44 am
Great letter above, Awakeness. The frequent harking back in your talks to the big events of your momentary and abiding awakenings, though inspiring in several ways, also can have a undertow of encouraging your students to recall their own awakenings in order to dwell in the “false memories” and assure themselves that they really did awake. Of course, as you say, by that moment they are already “down the rabbit hole.” This letter does help to avoid that slip. Luckily I can’t remember a thing from those awakening moments whether fleeting or abiding, though I have felt incited to look. Looking into an empty rabbit hole does not encourage the same mistake. Perhaps I am still sane. I remember some laughter. But that laughter and present laughter are One. Easy to choose the present absence over the past idea of absence: ha! ha! ha! 1=1 and 0=0! 1+0=1. 1+1=1 . 0+0=0!
January 19, 2020 @ 12:45 pm
Sadly enough, in doing what I do (or not-doing what isn’t actually done), I find it impossible not to reference “my” awakenings even though there is no Fred, or any other entity who can truthfully proclaim to have had “an awakening.” Ever. No exceptions.
January 19, 2020 @ 12:32 pm
Thanks, Fred. This is really the key not just to post-awakening clarity, but to awakening itself. It’s here right now, as it is. It’s not yours. But it is you.
January 19, 2020 @ 12:52 pm
Excellent, Kathleen. “Post-awakening.” as we term it, is an endless process of recognizing and then accepting that there is only Awakeness.
January 19, 2020 @ 6:23 pm
Glad you mentioned to check this in satsang today, Fred. It’s beautiful. “There is no such thing as distance for Oneness”. That line shines so bright. All of this is happening inside of me, at zero distance. OH MY GOD. How far from me to me? It is like the concept of distance doesn’t even apply. Am I incredibly vast or smaller than an atom? There is no reference to compare it to. Haha. I have been in stitches the past hour laughing in utter amazement. I have no clue what is happening here. What is all of this??