It Makes No Difference

So happy to receive your e-mail. I'm not sure what I can say, as you are already saying it so beautifully and of course it seems as though you also "understand" it as well.

I'm reading that you had an awakening about 2 months ago and that you are also experiencing "stuff" around that. This "stuff" is no more or less important than any other "stuff" that "you" experience, for instance, brushing your teeth or washing the dishes.  Yet, we can often get attached to comparing "this" experience to "that" experience and then saying "this" experience is more connected to awakening and "that" one is not.

My question is: what is it that is having these awakening experiences and what is it that is not having these awakening experiences? Is not the one having the former the same as the one having the latter? And if so, then what is the difference? Attachment to the "I" thoughts is no problem for one who understands that the One attaching to the "I" thoughts is the same One realizing abiding nondual awareness.

In other words. There is only the One and it "experiences" Itself through these apparently separate forms, which sometimes look like "awake" and sometimes look like "attached."

Waking up does not necessarily mean an end to identification with "I". In fact, what is experienced here is that it no longer matters whether there is attachment to an "I" or not. The awareness is that what appears makes no difference. It is all simply the One.

I will be interested to know your thoughts on what has been said here. What a fun thing for "you" to be experiencing!


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P.S. I invite you to check out the blog of the person with whom I had this conversation. Her nondual awareness (and the  expression of it) is lovely and clear! 

Expectation

Are you expecting non-dual realization to look like something in particular?
     Yes, I was expecting it to be the end of suffering.
Do you suppose that realization of the nondual nature of all will end suffering?
     Yes, I thought so. I was thinking that non-dual realisation would end suffering and would change experience in some way, like maybe there would be an experience of love.

If you are expecting realization to be something other than what you are experiencing now then you will miss it. Realization is understanding that there is only THIS, whatever THIS is. All there is, is what is happening right now, and right now, and right now--WHATEVER that is. And all that is, is the One/God/Life/the Source expressing Itself as the infinite variety of forms that appear in the world. What you are looking for is already here, right here, right now. You are already IT. You cannot be not IT. Nothing and no one cannot be not IT. There is nothing that IT is not and there is nothing that is NOT it.

Please understand that when I say that, I mean it literally and I mean EVERYTHING--thoughts, feelings, emotions, people, animals, things, ideas, etc. ALL are IT appearing in these supposedly separate forms.

Realizing the nondual nature of all does not mean an end to those things that we think of as negative or bad or wrong. Those are labels that are applied to some of the forms that the Infinite expresses Itself as.  Who says that you are suffering? What is it that is suffering? If there is nothing but the One, what then is it, that is suffering? Even the idea that you are a separate being, experiencing suffering, is merely the One experiencing Itself as a separate being experiencing suffering.

Again, please understand that I am not merely being flip or casual. The illusion that we will somehow experience the end of suffering, the end of negativity, the beginning of endless bliss, are deeply ingrained in some of us. I am being direct, because that is what it takes to see this. The willingness to give up EVERY concept, EVERY idea that there is anything other than THIS, that nondual realization will change ANYTHING or has any relevance. 

You say that you thought  nondual realization might bring an experience of love? It will, but not the love that most of us think of as love. It will be love in the form of a complete and utter knowing that whatever appears is okay, does not need to be changed, does not need to be fixed. It is complete and total surrender to whatever is happening (and YOU are not the one surrendering, because YOU will no longer exist). It is the complete and utter infatuation and fascination with Itself.