You’re only ready to read the last page of a book if you’ve read all of the pages that came before it. And what if YOU ARE the book? How do you skip over YOU so that you can get to the last page of YOU and just be done with it all? Well, obviously, you don’t. If you were to skip to the last page without first experiencing everything that led up to that page, you’d be pretty confused- life would also seem pretty meaningless and without any real depth.
So why do so few people awaken?
There are of course teachers and teachings that claim people are awakening all the time, that all it takes for enlightenment to occur is to start reading from the last page- that moving through the rest of the story is unnecessary and can be easily circumvented by reciting a few philosophical haikus.
There’s nothing wrong with buying into this sort of spiritual belief system, just as there’s nothing wrong with believing in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. The question is, do you want to settle for belief systems that don’t reflect your actual experience of reality. Does it seem like doing so makes reality go away? Why would you want reality to go away in the first place?
Perhaps it’s time to face the facts…
Santa Clause is not real.
The Easter bunny is a lie.
Skipping the evolution of consciousness is a load of horse feces.
Ultimately, you as consciousness wants to understand itself *through* a particular story— your story. You as consciousness wants to experience limitation through your particular programming and conditioning so that your eventual release from them will be completely unique. In this way, the whole is allowed to experience liberation for the first time over and over again.
Not a bad idea.
So how do you know if you’re on your last page? Well, if it feels like you’re getting to the point where the interest in yourself is wearing thin and the impulse to arrive at a final existential conclusion is withering away, then chances are you’ll be closing the book soon.
What we’re really talking about here though, whether we want to admit it or not, is the end of searching for lasting connection.
THIS is what the entire journey has been about, hasn’t it? To merge with wholeness and permanently drop all sense of isolation and separation.
Lasting connection is what all motivations are ultimately fuelled by. Whether you’re the most seasoned Zen student hell bent on mastering the art of impersonal passive awareness, or a hermit in the woods whose only company is the squirrels, or an atheistic scientist who’s determined to figure out what makes everything tick, what underpins every motivation is the desire to bring an end to inner division. To finally rest.
To arrive at the point where only lasting connection matters though, you have to have tested every other option. You have to know, in your bones, that nothing else — no success, no relationship, no insight — will ever be enough.
That realization can’t be borrowed. It doesn’t come from agreeing with the right teachings. It only comes through experience.
If you still feel like there’s a specific experience you need, then that need will need to be met or at the very least explored thoroughly… In this life… or the next.
No shame in that.
That’s why there’s so much value in being total in your pursuit. Not because it guarantees awakening, but because it burns the seed of desire faster.
Desire dries up when you’ve fully seen through the game:
— the emptiness of attainment
— the exhaustion of chasing illusions
The more total your sincerity, the faster you reach this point. Because the core of all seeking, all desire, all effort… is an unwillingness to see the lasting connection that’s already right in front of you.
When your disinterest in yourself hits full bloom and becomes married with a singular laser-like focus on revealing that lasting connection, it’s safe to say that the last sentence of your story is being read.
So what happens after the last sentence is read and the book is closed? What becomes of you when there’s nothing left to read? Well, what were you BEFORE you started reading? Before you were an identity in a story?
No need to get poetic here…
But suffice it to say that you were what makes all stories possible. Not just the words, or the pages, but the silent presence the book appears within. You were the timeless reader, the quiet witness. And when the book is closed, that presence, that witness remains — unbound, whole, untouched.
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Thank you kindly, Kyle.
What is happening for me is an decreasing trust in thoughts, and admitting that I am clueless, truly clueless. That’s quite relaxing.
The second aspect is what I might describe as “passive meditation,” which is unscheduled, but when it happens I lie down and do nothing, and then even less, and then even less than that. That is very relaxing.
Beyond these, I am left with no more to think or to do, and I go about my daily tasks.
Any comments?
Hey John, My pleasure, Sure I’ll comment 😜… when relaxation starts to become all that matters then that’s a blessing- after all, why search when you could relax instead? Why think or argue with reality when you could relax with everything reality presents to you as you go along? Why try to maintain a sense of self when you could just relax into peaceful-joyful-already fulfilled emptiness instead? ❤️
Thank you for replying Kyle, I appreciate it very much.
OK, I just wanted to check that relaxing is not just sort of zoning-out when there may be better things to do.
I also sometimes wonder whether my happy/sloppy “not-knowing” might not be a cop-out when I could be studying the teachings of wise people instead. But I’ve done that for decades and I’m tired of it, though I find it fun to still indulge from time to time.
But I have come to dead stop as far as practices, processes and techniques are concerned and that feels very good!
So thank you again for your encouragement. 💕
Absolutely John, You’ve inspired me to make some tea and watch the trees from my deck dance around with the wind.
I really love this, it highlights something I’ve been realizing, while awakening is for anyone, it isn’t for everyone.
In particular:
> Ultimately, you as consciousness wants to understand itself *through* a particular story— your story. You as consciousness wants to experience limitation through your particular programming and conditioning so that your eventual release from them will be completely unique. In this way, the whole is allowed to experience liberation for the first time over and over again.
And this:
> If you still feel like there’s a specific experience you need, then that need will need to be met or at the very least explored thoroughly… In this life… or the next.
This paints it so clear, there’s no shame in not awakening, or being interested, thank you!
I’m glad it resonated Xander! 🥳 Imagine shaming an apple tree for not bearing fruit yet 🤪