Experiences are appearances of awareness. Remember that, in Living Realization, an appearance is defined as anything that comes and goes. Experiences come and go, no matter how good or bad they are perceived to be. We suffer and seek through focusing on past experiences for a sense of self, constantly labeling and resisting present experiences, and seeking future experiences for a completion of that sense of self.
There is no way to list all possible experiences. Essentially every event that happens in life is an experience from visiting the doctor, to eating red velvet cake, to sleeping, to going to work, to taking a vacation. Rather than trying to list all possible experiences, we rely on Webster’s Dictionary definition, which states that an “experience” is any event “personally encountered, undergone, or lived through.”
The operative word in that definition is “personally.” Thought refers and clings to experiences from the past bundle to strengthen and maintain the simulated self. So the story goes: “I received my doctorate degree in 1999,” “I got married in 2002;” “I had a powerful spiritual awakening in 2003;” or “Yesterday, I finally saw a positive change in my relationship.” Thought labels present experiences as good or bad, often resisting what is happening now. So the story goes: “She shouldn’t speak to me in that manner;” “I’m tired of being here at work;” or “This conversation is boring.” By labeling and resisting present experiences, thought then looks to future for completion: “Tomorrow will be better because I have the day off;” “I hope they make me CEO of the company one day;” or “I will be better when I have an enlightenment experience.”
In Living Realization, we do not say that experiences or memories of experiences are bad or that you should stop having experiences or memories. That would be impossible anyway. We simply invite you to see that experiences appear from and disappear back into awareness, that awareness is your real, unchanging identity, and that focusing on experiences for a sense of self is the cause of suffering and seeking. Enjoy the experiences fully. Celebrate them! But also see that every experience is temporary. There is nothing to hold onto. There is wonderful freedom in that seeing.
The invitation in Living Realization is to simply recognize awareness as any experience is happening and see that the experience is a temporary appearance of awareness. We do not move to change, manipulate, get rid of, or do anything with experience. Yet if any of those movements arise, we see that the movements are also appearances of awareness. Even movements to manipulate experiences are allowed to be just as they are. These movements are not manipulated in any way either. We don’t choose any appearances. They simply appear and disappear. All that we can do is notice that.
In this seeing, no experience is held onto, every experience is allowed to come and go effortlessly, naturally resolving itself back into spacious awareness.
An important point is that experiences are appearances of awareness. We are not inviting you to passively witness experiences. This sets up a duality between the witness and the experience that is happening. Awareness and the experience happening in awareness are not separate. This seeing reveals that our freedom is always present, because it is a natural attribute of present awareness itself, regardless of what experience is appearing.
We hear stories of teachers and others who have had various spiritual experiences including Oneness experiences, experiences of nothingness, no self, light and luminosity, unconditional love and bliss, Kundalini or chakra awakenings, seeing God, hearing God, touching God, and any number of other experiences. Or we — ourselves — may have had one or more of these experiences in the past.
These experiences can be beautiful. Enjoy them totally if they occur. But each experience is temporary, no matter how spiritual or unspiritual it is perceived to be. Living Realization is not about having a particular experience. It is not about a person who is separate from an experience, having the experience. And it is not about a witness witnessing an experience. Living Realization is about space being whatever experience is presently happening in that space. The space and the experience are “not two.”
Awareness permeates every experience, no matter whether it is a spiritual experience full of love and peace or the experience of arguing with your spouse. To look at reality any other way sets up a duality where one seeks after certain pleasurable or comfortable experiences and pushes away other painful or uncomfortable experiences. To seek after certain spiritual experiences as told by teachers or others is to reduce those experiences to concepts and then chase after those concepts, believing that the concepts will provide freedom. But concepts are not the source of freedom. Awareness is already free. Even when we have certain pleasurable spiritual experiences, there is no need to try to recreate those past experiences. To chase after memory is just more seeking.
True freedom, peace, love, wisdom, and joy are inherent aspects of awareness itself. Awareness is ever present. This is the wonderful news of Living Realization. Never again is our sense of well-being dependent on having certain experiences and avoiding other experiences. We are not individual selves living in time, defining ourselves by past experiences, and looking to enhance this selfhood through the attainment of future experiences. Our real identity is the present space in which all appearances (i.e., experiences) come and go. And the appearances are not separate from that space.
Remember, keep it simple! Above all else, recognize present awareness right now. Don’t move to manipulate experiences (this means don’t emphasize thoughts about past or future experiences). Awareness is not an experience. See that experiences come and go within awareness and are inseparable from it.
In reading this basic invitation and these last chapters on appearances, this question arises for me: For one person, awareness appears as poverty and lack. For another person, awareness appears as wealth and abundance. How do you reconcile that? Is the answer that it is what it is? You get the appearances that you get? It seems like there is no choice in the matter. Is choice involved in Living Realization? Seems like it isn't. Am I missing something?
The recognition of awareness reveals complete wealth, contentment and well-being not dependent on any circumstance, appearance, condition, or life situation that comes and goes within awareness. It is available to everyone because it is our real identity. It is not something we own or that appears for us and then disappears. It is not just for the rich or the poor, the attractive or the unattractive. It's not here only when there is money or good fortune. It is unconditional, unmovable, unchangeable. It is what we are.
The recognition of awareness is a stable and permanent seeing that our real identity cannot be found in appearances. It is what is presently awake. It’s so simple that it is being overlooked the moment we move to manipulate a question like “Is there choice?” When the question is just allowed to be as it is, without trying to analyze it, the question falls away, and we see that what is looking is what we are. This provides the wellbeing we are looking for IN the question. I invite you to look to where the words are pointing rather than going back to mental viewpoints about choice v. no choice. What happens when you answer the question, “Is there choice?” You have an intellectual answer, that is all. If the intellect were the key to freedom every scientist, professor, lawyer, doctor, philosopher and scholar would be free. It is not the key. The intellect is just a tool, an appearance within what we are--awareness. The words of the basic invitation are pointing to the fact that your real identity is like pure, boundary-less space. It cannot be destroyed or created. It is not affected by the many appearances that come and go within it. Appearances like monetary wealth or poverty, good and bad days, sickness and health, ups and downs, all come and go within awareness. They cannot move awareness in any way. Awareness is the unmoving, unchanging aspect of your present experience. It is the only aspect of your experience that is always there. It is present awakeness itself. Always here, always present. Appearances come and go.
The appearances are like the rays of the sun. Awareness is like the sun. No single ray can define, destroy, or move the sun. The sun of awareness shines always. The rays are merely inseparable appearances of it. They burn out, fade away, grow larger and smaller, but the sun shines radiantly always.
This very basic recognition of awareness has been overlooked in favor of emphasizing temporary appearances that come and go within awareness. We’ve been emphasizing the rays rather than recognizing we are the sun. In the belief in being a separate self, there is a constant movement to cling to or manipulate appearances (money, pleasure, attention, relationships, sex, career, material things). These things can certainly appear and disappear. But we are trying to define ourselves by them. We cannot find what we are in these things. Emphasizing appearances overlooks a fundamental fact which is that what we are has never been and will never be moved or affected in any way by what appears on its screen. What we are — awareness — simply does not come and go.
In the belief that we are these embodied individual entities, rather than awareness itself, we carry this notion that if appearances in our lives are favorable, we are ok, and if appearances in our lives are not favorable, we are not ok. This is a conditioned existence that can never really provide the ongoing, indestructible well-being and contentment available in awareness. We then may entertain the notion, “It's just my lot in life” because I'm poor or unattractive. These are just passing thoughts in awareness. Nothing more! They come and go like flashes of light in the night sky. They have no more power than that. We give them power by emphasizing them. When they are allowed to come and go without being manipulated or analyzed, they come to rest in what we are — awareness. And awareness is the contentment we are seeking. The recognition of awareness as what we are allows us this incredible capacity for letting all appearances just be exactly as they are. They are all seen as perfect expressions of awareness. They are perfect because they are appearing. The fact that anything appears at all is a miracle really. Life is a miracle. You are life, so you are the miracle.
The only choice that matters, when it comes to this message, is the choice to stop looking in the mind for identity and for the answers. This is the most important point in a person’s life, when he or she stops emphasizing appearances (mainly thoughts) and begins to look from and as the pure spacious awareness that is prior to appearances. There will be plenty of time to take up philosophical questions about free will once awareness is stably realized. But when we make the experiential recognition of awareness our main focus, rather than mental viewpoints about awareness, we get to the root of the whole dilemma. The root is an identity crisis. Once that is resolved, we can talk about whether there is free will, but most of the time people report that the question is no longer that important. Most of our philosophical questions are rooted in the question, “Who am I?” Once that is resolved, the questioner falls away. We can then play with the questions without seeking identity from them.
What we find is that the treasure we have been seeking in appearances is actually what is looking at the appearances. So if you are interested in the question of choice, make this choice to look. This seeing frees you from the idea that your well-being is in any way tied to what appears or disappears. It seems too simple to be true, but only to the mind. The mind wants to complicate everything. This whole message is simply about dropping our ideas about life long enough to look from the place that is presently awake and looking and confirm that this presence is what we are. That recognition ends the questions and the seeking. Then, we see that every appearance — good or bad — is not separate from what we are. So the question of whether we have choice ultimately doesn’t matter in this seeing. We see that choice and no choice are both thoughts that come and go within awareness. They don’t move awareness. They don’t make awareness shine more brightly. Awareness is already here, shining brightly, like the sun. We’ve just been focusing on the rays (the appearances) so much that we continuously miss it.