What if there was no prescribed path to follow, nowhere to go, nothing to achieve and thus nothing like enlightenment to find? What if there was nobody at all in first place? In fact, there is nothing to find because there is nobody standing apart from that which is already taking place in this very moment – enlightenment!
That which is already there is simply what is. You cannot name it or describe it for it is not something to be grasped by the mind. However, this is what we attempt to do from the point of view of the “I”, which is nothing but a bundle of words that we pursue in our heads. The “I” is merely an idea composed of words that we like to ruminate like a cow ruminating grass in the field. Everything we think we know about the “I” is just assumptions!
Because you identify with this “idea” of yourself, you have made enlightenment an object to pursue that is separate from you. Enlightenment becomes something inaccessible in that regard, for the mere reason that the “I” has made enlightenment into a thing of the mind. Here, the “I” is merely pursuing its own idea, which it now calls the pursuit of enlightenment.
This is the main obstacle that prevents you from realizing that you are already at that place of abidance in your true nature of infinite being: you identify with everything of the mind. You identify with the thoughts of the mind and then take these thoughts for being who you are.
At the moment you assume to be that little individual with its thoughts, habits and pursuits, you become separated from your true nature. The “I” that you assume to be takes over the field of consciousness as this “idea” of yourself, and then begins to look for something called enlightenment, or whatever else you may call it. However, what really is can neither be found nor lost – for it simply is. The idea of yourself creates the illusion of separation and that is the very burden.
What we call “I” is merely a bundle of memories, a product of thinking created mostly from sensory responses and conditioning – thoughts and modes of behavior imposed by the environment. There is nothing real about it. Even the concept of enlightenment is but another concept coming from outside and as a concept, enlightenment means nothing. We seek that state devoid of the illusion of the “I”, while at the same time holding on to the “I”.
The practice, so to say, is simply about being aware of the mind's tendency to hold on to the thought of “I”. At the moment you begin to pay attention to the “I” and how you hold onto its ideas, whatever they may be, you start living in that place beyond “ideas” and thus beyond the “I”. Everything else takes care of itself.
That which lies beyond the “I” is and always was real. It is the very reality of your existence. Inquiry into your beingness is the very purpose of your existence, and this inquiry will continue until your sense of beingness merges with the very reality of your existence to realize your timeless nature.
It is a matter of abiding in that place and continuing to return to that place of awareness and silence of mind. At the moment you realize you are holding on to the mind, the holding on to the “I” and its ideas can end – and there you are, abiding as that which is! It is nothing complicated, for enlightenment is the natural state of your beingness.
The mind will continue its coming and going, as it is of the nature of consciousness to ever create, expend and destroy. However, now you will reside as the quiet witness of it all. While the ocean appears to be endlessly moving in waves, it remains one and immutable. As you witness the thoughts coming and going, the core of your being remains unchanged and unmovable. That is who you really are – the screen of consciousness onto which everything rises and falls.
For now, examine whether you pursue the things of the mind or whether you simply remain the witness of it all. If you do witness the activity of mind, then naturally you realize that you exist prior to the mind and therefore, anything of mind becomes secondary.
The witnessing itself becomes witnessed as both coming from and ending somewhere. At some point or another, that state of presence, independent of thought and direction, is recognized as being who you are.
You are the ground from which the entirety of life takes place. You are not coming to a state of enlightenment – you are simply settling yourself into the recognition that you have always been there, and there has never been anything else but that which is the source, the beginning and the ending of it all.