Nondual Wisdom and the Somatic Power of Effortless Presence (Blog Series Part One)

"Love says I am everything. Wisdom says 'I am nothing'. Between the two, my life flows".

SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s simple words point to the heart of nondual realisation. He points to the fact of wholeness - the unity of everything and the emptiness of nothing - this which we discover as we deepen into recognising the true nature of form, and of self, beyond labels and imagination.

Nisargadatta's words point us to the true nature of reality - its undivided nature and the knowing that 'I am that' - not as a concept or ideal, but as the self-evident, undoubtable fact of being. 'That' is the heart of awareness - an energetic dawning of realisation that endlessly deepens. Not because there is more to become - but because this is life's nature. Self-deepening. Self-revealing. Self-loving - whilst always remaining self-complete. It's just what this does, in being just what this is. It's how life grooves with itself.

Peeking through the blinds, the sun's gentle rays illustrate the beauty of effortless revelation beyond the veil.

Despite what thought may suggest about realisation - it is not elusive. Its' availability is unceasing, immutable, ever-present. Nisargadatta is pointing to the nature of what is reading these words right now - the empty looking and knowing that is full of experience.

Check this out now. Take your time. To notice this is the most wise and nourishing thing that you can do in your human experience.

The empty looking is the wisdom of 'no-thing' - no labels or content, and the love is the fullness of everything. Your field of experience is always full, of itself. Nothing is ever missing. Despite appearance of shape and form, all is made of the same 'stuff' - and you can't find a dividing line between yourself and this. This is the nondual recognition, and all that is needed is to effortlessly rest in this presence of experiencing for it to be revealed more and more viscerally and deeply. It doesn't require concentration. It doesn't require cultivation. Just a relaxed soft attention on your very natural sense of presence - which you will find to be all that is here - and a commitment to this soft attention that allows for you to be this noticing with ever increasing subtlety.

This alone will reveal the absolute nature of reality beyond the illusory confines of the thinking mind. This enlightenment that everyone is talking about. It's right here. It's this. Your present experience right now is The Absolute. It's not somewhere else. It's not something else. This absolute completion and perfection is your experience right now - no exceptions. We just need to drop our expectations and ideas of what this is supposed to be experienced as. The absolute reality experiences as all experience. All ways. All appearance - is That!.

The seamless totality of awareness is revealed as we notice the immediate indefinability of experience. Presence cannot be grasped conceptually - and it is in recognising this that the natural dissolution of our expectations takes place. This is how healing happens - effortlessly. We reveal ourself to ourself, beyond a conceptual understanding of Nisargadatta's words (and all words and knowledge) and into a direct recognition. This is an invitation into a life flowing as the seamless totality. This is freedom. The beauty of words like Nisargadatta's is that they are a direct transmission of what is. All words are - but the majority take a long route and tend to keep going outward into abstraction before they finally point home. Words and patterns are like stars - imploding and exploding simultaneously. Feeling the indefinable nature of presence is to viscerally harness the implode - and ride it home to itself. Nisargadatta's words and teachings point beyond themselves - and into the heart of the real. Therapeutically speaking, in compassionate attunement, we effortlessly 'do' the same. This is the dynamism of the healing field in recognition of the deep intelligence that sits in the heart of every utterance.

This paradox of being both everything and nothing is only paradox to the mind - it simply points to the non-separate nature of experience - here the dividing lines between things is illusory. This is not an abstract idea - this can be inquired into experientially and recognised for yourself.

Good news right?

All there is here is experience. If you want to know the true nature of experience, you're already perpetually resting in and as the motherload. Already here as this inseparable and undivided nature is that for which there is any seeking for whatsoever. All seeking, all desire - is a seeking for That! It doesn't need be even recognised, and certainly doesn't need to be believed, for it to be so. The true nature of experience is always already speaking for itself and whether it is thought to be otherwise makes absolutely no difference to the fact of this seamless unity. This needs to convince no-one - and this is what you truly are.

You are constantly, unceasingly available to yourself as the true nature of reality. There is nothing else happening here.

Recognition is for the human experience - and it is beautiful and absolutely possible. It is, in our human experience, what all life is already moving towards. This is flawless flow. Reality is self-revealing by its nature - in the same way that water flows by its nature. We just need to follow in feeling. As a friend so beautifully expressed in a recent podcast conversation - 'we realise that we can lie back and just - float'. Stunning!! this is the recognition of the sacred safety of being - everything and nothing in simultaneous dynamic flux. Rock solid stillness that flows seamlessly into itself is all that is here.

The recognition, which may sometimes appear as blind faith, that reality's nature is not dependent upon whether it is recognised to be as it is is key to developing an incremental trust in effortlessness. It doesn't need to be understood. It doesn't need to be cultivated. To say this is a gross misperception, and one that can keep us in a perpetual state of seeking, both spiritual and worldly - its like saying that we need to understand that water is wet for water to be wet - or that we need to make water wet and without us making it so, it will be dry - it will not be. Can you feel the sense of the illusory, egoic self at the heart of the absurdity? That which feels like it is at the centre, controlling and trying to make life what it already is - like its' survival depends on it? Look into this. Feel this. This is the true pointing, the true power of effortlessness. Effortlessness alone will unravel all falsities - everything that suggests that reality is divided, that you are divided and limited in time and space, that you are separate - will unravel itself through effotlessness into the truth of your infinite, seamless nature as That!

What is actually here?

Are you making water wet? What is? Something is. What is That?! Feel the wetness of water. Feel this directly. Put your hand in the stream? (or the bath). What is That? Beyond word. Beyond image. What is that?

Feel yourself.

The insight is that all that is witnessed and the witnessing itself arise as one within consciousness. In this completeness, the restless search for fulfillment quiets. The pain of seeking ceases when we recognise that what we long for is already our own essence. In the stillness of “I Am”, we discover a sacred sanctuary of presence that holds all experiences in wholeness. The more we feel into our experience directly, the more the sense of seeking - the patterns of thought and perceptual filtering built on ideas of control in order to, ultimately, be safe in time and space - naturally dissolve in the recogntion that that within which we are trying to be safe is a fabrication.

We don't find time or space anywhere in direct experience. We only find the immediacy of being. We also recognise that all those 'things' that we fret over - that we try to grasp or avoid - arent' really here either. 'things' are a product of time and space - and those things and the worries that unfold from them (include the personal constructs that we hold to be 'me' - the ideas, the stories, the memories, the images of self) dissolve in the light of this recognition. In compassionate attunement, this is Alert Awareness - seeking dissolves in the light of the real.

However, this is also the most confronting experience - this effortlessness is felt as the greatest threat. Effortlessness is not necessarily easy - and so it is this that can create so much shame around our experience of exploring and seeking. We are endlessly told within nondual teachings this very simple truth. But if we don't look into our felt sense of experience through the body - the energetic charge of our patterns of seeking - that is, the fear that drives these patterns and the intense human emotion that is layered around this fear (shame, grief, guilt, anger, and disgust) - this effortlessness feels impossible to rest within to allow for stabilisation in what is real. We may experience glimpses, momentary experiences of 'realising', but we will not attune to the unbroken peace of being. We must feel our pain as we explore our experience of the 'body' - to recognise it's timeless, spaceless, nature. We must investigate what the body is in the same way that we investigate the wetness of water. If we don't recognise the true nature of the body through our direct experience, we won't realise the peace at the heart of all life. Our emotional pain is the juice. Its the potency. Its the portal.

What is that?

What is That?!

I have one offering in answer, but only to support you in your direct investigation. Whatever it is - it is safe beyond measure. You are safe beyond measure. You will not be harmed. You will be seen, and loved, in the deepest possible way.

Resting in effortless being is powerful, deeply engaged and explorative, and doesn't need to leave out our human experience. Indeed, it will illuminate all that it needs to in the movement of yourself as radical freedom in form. This feels confronting to the psyche, which is what can make it feel so challenging to rest in this. Being with someone that can support you with this in compassion can anchor you incrementally into the sacred safety that lies in the heart of effortlessness. This is what the psyche needs to know - that it is safe to be here now, no matter what is arising. This is how the pain and suffering of seeking ceases. Its how your innate freedom is revealed.

If you would like to explore your experience together with me you can book your session here.

You can also explore other practitioners who guide therapeutically through the nondual understanding via the Nondual Therapy Directory. Resonance is important. The therapeutic relationship matters.

In love, all ways.