There are many things that I can
doubt, but I cannot doubt my own consciousness in this moment. My
consciousness IS, and even if I tried to doubt it, it would be my
consciousness doubting. I can imagine that my senses are being
presented with a fake reality – say, a completely virtual reality
or digital reality, which looks real but is merely a series of
extremely realist images. But even then, I cannot doubt the
consciousness that is doing the watching…
The very undeniability of my present awareness, the undeniability
of my consciousness, immediately delivers to me a certainty of
existence in this moment, a certainty of Being in the now-ness of
this moment. I cannot doubt consciousness and Being in this moment,
for it is the ground of all knowing, all seeing, all
existing…
Who am I? Ask that question over and over again, deeply. Who am I?
What is it in me that is conscious of everything?
If you think that you know Spirit, or if you think you don’t,
Spirit is actually that which is thinking both of those thoughts.
So you can doubt the objects of consciousness, but you can never
believably doubt the doubter, never really doubt the Witness of the
entire display. Therefore, rest in the Witness, whether it is
thinking that it knows God or not, and that witnessing, that
undeniable immediacy of now-consciousness, is itself God, Spirit,
Buddha-mind. The certainty lies in the pure self-felt Consciousness
to which objects appear, not in the objects themselves. You will
never, never, never see God, because God is the Seer, not any
finite, mortal, bounded object that can be seen…
This pure I AM state is not hard to achieve but impossible to
escape, because it is ever present and can never really be doubted.
You can never run from Spirit, because Spirit is the Runner. To put
it very bluntly, Spirit is not hard to find but impossible to
avoid: it is that which is looking at this page right now. Can’t
you feel That One? Why on earth do you keep looking for God when
God is actually the Looker?
Simply ask, Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
I am aware of my feelings, so I am not my feelings – Who am I? I am
aware of my thoughts, so I am not my thoughts – Who am I? Clouds
float by in the sky, thoughts float by in the mind, feelings float
by in the body – and I am none of those because I can Witness them
all.
Moreover, I can doubt that clouds exist, I can doubt that feelings
exist, I can doubt that objects of thought exist – but I cannot
doubt that the Witness exists in this moment, because the Witness
would still be there to witness the doubt.
I am not objects in nature, not feelings in the body, not thoughts
in the mind, for I can Witness them all. I am that Witness – a
vast, spacious, empty, clear, pure, transparent Openness that
impartially notices all that arises, as a mirror spontaneously
reflects all its objects…
You can already feel some of this Great Liberation in that, as you
rest in the ease of witnessing this moment, you already feel that
you are free from the suffocating constriction of mere objects,
mere feelings, mere thoughts – they all come and go, but you are
that vast, free, empty, open Witness of them all, untouched by
their torments and tortures.
This is actually the profound discovery of… the pure divine Self,
the formless Witness, causal nothingness, the vast Emptiness in
which the entire world arises, stays a bit, and passes. And you are
That. You are not the body, not the ego, not nature, not thoughts,
not this, not that – you are a vast Emptiness, Freedom, Release,
and Liberation.
With this discovery… you are halfway home. You have disidentified
from any and all finite objects; you rest as infinite
Consciousness. You are free, open, empty, clear, radiant, released,
liberated, exalted, drenched in a blissful emptiness that exists
prior to space, prior to time, prior to tears and terror, prior to
pain and mortality and suffering and death. You have found the
great Unborn, the vast Abyss, the unqualifiable Ground of all that
is, and all that was, and all that ever shall be.
But why is that only halfway
home? Because as you rest in the infinite ease of
consciousness, spontaneously aware of all that is arising, there
will soon enough come the great catastrophe of Freedom and
Fullness: the Witness itself will disappear entirely, and instead
of witnessing the sky, you are the sky; instead of touching the
earth, you are the earth; instead of hearing the thunder, you are
the thunder. You and the entire Kosmos because One Taste – you can
drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, hold Mt. Everest in the
palm of your hand; supernovas swirl in your heart and the solar
system replaces your head…
You are One Taste, the empty mirror that is one with any and all
objects that arise in its embrace, a mindlessly vast translucent
expanse: infinite, eternal, radiant beyond release. And you… are…
That…
So the primary Cartesian dualism – which is simply the dualism
between… in here and out there, subject and object, the empty
Witness and all things witnessed – is finally undone and overcome
in nondual One Taste. Once you actually and fully contact the
Witness, then – and only then – can it be transcended into radical
Nonduality, and halfway home becomes fully home, here in the
ever-present wonder of what is…
And so how do you know that you have finally and really overcome
the Cartesian dualism? Very simple: if you really overcome the
Cartesian dualism, then you no longer feel that you are on this
side of your face looking at the world out there. There is only the
world, and you are all of that; you actually feel that you are one
with everything that is arising moment to moment. You are not
merely on this side of your face looking out there. “In here” and
“out there” have become One Taste with a shuddering obviousness and
certainty so profound it feels like a five-ton rock just dropped on
your head. It is, shall we say, a feeling hard to miss.
At that point, which is actually your ever-present condition, there
is no exclusive identity with this particular organism, no
constriction of consciousness to the head, a constriction that
makes it seem that “you” are in the head looking at the rest of the
world out there; there is no binding of attention to the personal
bodymind: instead, consciousness is one with all that is arising –
a vast, open, transparent, radiant, infinitely Free and infinitely
Full expanse that embraces the entire Kosmos, so that every single
subject and every single object are erotically united in the Great
Embrace of One Taste. You disappear from merely being behind your
eyes, and you become the All, you directly and actually feel that
your basic identity is everything that is arising moment to moment
(just as previously you felt that your identity was with this
finite, partial, separate, mortal coil of flesh you call a body).
Inside and outside have become One Taste. I tell you, it can happen
just like that!
- Ken Wilber, "The Simple Feeling
of Being"
