Recognize the Reality of Dreaming and the Dreaming of Reality

. . . because as we know the way that the “I” of the ego is formed is through projective identification. In other words, an original other, usually the mother and then the father, but it’s the other of the family system, projects their fantasy of who you are to them, and the infant takes that in as if it is truth and then lives out the demand of the other to be for them what they want you to be, as if it is one’s own will. But free will has already been lost through the identification with the other’s desire and demand of who you are, and how you are to be with them and for them.

So the “I”—that is why it is bondage, because it is an artificial fabricated self that isn’t who you are. Who you are is covered up from the moment that the ego forms—and once it forms, you can never know yourself—all you can know are the thoughts that come up that were initially installed into you as your operating system, and that operating system was embellished—I won’t say upgraded—by first the demands of the mother, then of the father, and then of the whole system of the family if there are siblings, and the relation and the designated position within the sibling hierarchy, and then within the school system and within the social system—but there’s an indoctrination that is added on to that original system of self-alienation in order to adapt to the further demands of one’s life energy, to serve those social orders rather than to discover who you are, and what is your real essential goal in life that your heart calls you to.

So the overcoming of the self-alienated I-thought that first has to be recognized is not you, is a delusional form of selfhood—until that has become ego dystonic—in other words, you realize even at the ego-level that “I don’t want to be or think those thoughts and feel that way any longer”, and an internal struggle happens. But the struggle can’t be won at that level because the one struggling against it doesn’t yet have power, doesn’t yet have access to its Real Self. It is a struggle to not believe and to not feel bad anymore, the way that you were told you should—but in order to be free of the superego voice and its power to control you, that voice itself has to be silenced.

And the question is, where does the power of silence come from? Because the narrative that goes on in the mind goes on whether you will it to or not. How many have discovered that? OK, so your mental chatter is the Other’s mental chatter. It’s not yours. It’s not you, but you don’t have the power to stop it. It is thinking you into the illusion of existence as a particular entity. You are not thinking it or those thoughts.

So let me read another chapter, chapter 12.

“First I gave up action, then idle words, and lastly thought itself. Now I am here. Ridding the mind of distraction, single-pointed, I shut out sound in all the senses and I am here. Meditation is needed only when the mind is distracted by false imagining. Knowing this, I am here. Without joy, or sorrow, grasping nothing, spurning nothing. I am here. What do I care if I observe or neglect the four stages of life?” In other words, the programming of classical India, from being the student to the householder to the vanprastha to the wandering sadhu, I don’t need to follow those rules. “Meditation, controlling the mind, these are mere distractions as well. Now I am here. Doing or not doing, both come from not knowing, but knowing this fully I am here. Thinking of what is beyond thinking is still thinking. I gave up thinking, and I am here. Whoever fulfills this fulfills his own nature and is indeed fulfilled.”

So the question is: why would giving up thinking be fulfilling? You see, for the ego, giving up thinking would just create lack, it would seem to be a self-disempowerment, because the mind has been weaponized. It’s a defense mechanism, an attack mechanism, it’s a mechanism of control, it’s a mechanism of manipulation of the environment, and of expressing the opinions of the internal other that you think are your own. But it is a force that has a particular use to establish a territory of power for the body-mind apparatus, in which it feels some sense of superiority and ability to speak. So why would it want to give up the ability to think and everything that goes with that, and perhaps then not even have anything to say?

And the only way that that question will be answered is once the experiment has been made of silencing the mind for a sufficient amount of time that you recognize that first there’s a sense of relief—because most thoughts create some kind of suffering—they’re thoughts of lack, of desire, of ignorance, of feeling like one doesn’t get it, or like one needs to do more, to become more, to improve in this or that way—there’s always a sense of striving for something because one is not good enough, one is not yet secure enough, etc., etc. So the letting go of that narrative creates at least a momentary relief and peace.

How many have that imperience? OK, so there is then reason for the motivation to increase the amount of time that one feels that peace. But if one will take the experiment further and say, “But then who am I who is feeling this peace?” And if one doesn’t seek the answer in words, because the words would come from the Other, and then suddenly there would be no peace again, but if one waits, waits in the silence for the answer to come from the silence itself, then what one receives is not so much words, in fact, not at all words, but Presence; Presence as a power, Presence as an intoxicating power. And the longer one stays in that until one’s attention is entirely absorbed into the power of presence which comes with an energy of a quiet joy, it goes way beyond peace—it’s an energy of light and lightness and freedom that opens the consciousness up to an entirely new dimension of its being that was not accessible so long as the chatter was going on. And then one recognizes indeed the ego is bondage, and one has the power now, the power that is coming from the Real Self, via the soul, if you wish, but a power that brings the ability to stabilize in the silence, and what was first perceived as emptiness and lack by refusing to think, now turns into the fullness of that power that is without limit.

Audio File Recognize the Reality of Dreaming and the Dreaming of Reality.mp3