The following is excerpted from an article entitled An
Exploration Of Non-Volitional Living by Galen Sharp, a student and
friend of Wei Wu Wei (Terence Gray). The complete text of the
article can be accessed at www.sentient.org. Click Teachers.
Click Selected Teachers. Click Galen.
You have never done anything! Because the mind has conceived
itself to be an individual it also conceives of itself as the
Thinker and also the 'Actor' or 'Doer'. Yet it is not anyone. The
mind is not a 'thing' or entity but a process. The thinking
process. Simply a process that is happening automatically, the same
as the heart is beating automatically. This is why we cannot live
the perfect life even though we have been taught how a 'good'
person should act. We know we shouldn't get angry at our spouse or
our children whom we love, but despite the greatest resolve, we
still do. Why? Because we are not the thinker of our thoughts nor
the doer of our actions. Because they are not our thoughts or our
actions. We are not even the experiencer of the experience. What
are we? We are what is perceiving the mind and that is not
anyone.
We are what is perceiving the doing, but we are not the doer. We
never were. We have never done the bad things and we have never
done the good things either. Thoughts are affected by the
environment (such as this article), inner habits and tendencies,
and by the mind's concept of a 'me', but not by any actual 'me'. We
are incapable of interfering with the mind. Why? Because there is
no one to interfere. We aren't anyone. Thus, we absolutely cannot
have any volition. The concept of being an individual is an
invention of the mind itself. It is an artifact of the way the mind
works. The feeling of volition is an illusion spawned by this
concept of 'me'.
We can never find our own will (volition) in any action. Every so
called action is actually an automatic re-action of the mind with
an accompanying feeling of volition. It is not 'me', it is the mind
automatically going its own way! Simply watch the mind. Be aware of
it. That's all that can be done because that is all we are doing
right now. That is all we ever do. That is all we have ever done.
It is the mind that thinks and feels otherwise and we are what is
aware of what the mind thinks and feels. We are perfectly open,
empty and still. We are not in space or time. We can never be
affected in any way. We have no needs or desires whatever. We just
shine brilliantly, effortlessly.
We are what perceives what is appearing. In fact, it is because of
this perceiving that anything at all appears. What we are is the
beingness of what appears. The isness, or the am-ness, if you will
of the very sense of 'I am'. Another way to put it is that we are
the Awareness in which everything appears (the here-now, the sense
of presence, consciousness). See that we are simply and only the
awareness of the mind while it goes its own way. Every sensation
and feeling it has belongs to it, to manifestation ...not to
ourself. With everything that appears in any way, we can say 'Not
me, not me.'
We are the Watcher, not the thinker, or the doer, or the
experiencer.
Once this is deeply and completely understood, the mind can let go
of its sense of volition and its sense of being an individual,
relax and just be knowledge. Everything happens by itself.
Everything happens as it should. Everything happens as it
must.
When the mind lets go of its sense of self and volition there is
the deepest sense of complete peace and fulfillment. It is the
Bliss spoken of by the ancient masters. All fear disappears.
We are now looking from our true Source (as we always were but
didn't realize) the timeless, spaceless Absolute. The unmanifest.
This is what we all are. This is the ultimate source of our light
of awareness. We are perceiving the manifest from its source, the
unmanifest and it unfolds spatially and temporally as it eternally
IS.
