No 'Person' wants to Know - No person Can know.

During one's life, there may be points where one contemplates things in a broader sense.
Some drama may force one to re-assess things.
If I say “I don’t know why all this is happening to me”, what could that really mean?
Is there really ‘someone’ that ‘things’ are happening to?
Of course, it appears that there is but is it really true?
You won’t find many to discuss such a subject with.
Everyone takes themselves to be a ‘person’ because that is what they have been told, more or less.
To suggest that there is no ‘person’ is a preposterous suggestion and will be quickly dismissed as the ranting of a madman. - No one wants to investigate such ideas or facts.
However, this question of being a person or not actually cuts to the core of things.
To be told that there is no person is a highly potent ‘pointer’ but it is also a very threatening suggestion.
The standard belief system is undermined or shaken up.
Who is going to explore such fundamental beliefs?
It is a destination that no one ‘buys a ticket’ for.
What does all of your personal history amount to in this moment, right now?
The mind will immediately start to recall memories of this and that.
But I am speaking about this moment, not the past of memory.
Is any of it actually needed right now?
If you don’t refer to those memories or give it some thought, does it have any bearing on this moment at all?
The ever present freshness of simply being present, right now, has no discernible foundations on the past.
All past experience is no longer present.
Is the past just an echo of the present?
When all those experiences were the actual, as they happened, it was the present, because nothing can happen except in the present.
What is a person? Is a person conscious?
Or is there an awareness of the apparent person and all its memories?
Such questions can be rather interesting to explore but not for everyone.
Are you an echo of the past?
Or are you the actuality of this moment?
Without a thought, you are still present and aware.
Thoughts come and thoughts go.
States come and states go.
Are you any of them?
Or all of them?
Whatever happens you remain as a witness to them all.
You are also aware of the process of witnessing.

Email: Good morning Gilbert,
I am always happy to receive e-mails from you, which is not only a response to my mails, but also a further help, in dissolving more of the ‘me’ that's still left or seems to re-establish itself. - You’re honest and direct and I appreciate that very much.

Your fresh pointers are setting me straight!
"Not a member of a special club” - “no endless fees nor homage’s
required to an earth-bound egoistic teacher”.
I also liked your sentence in your book "The First Instant”:
Accept the message and GET OVER ( forget about) the MESSENGER!

This natural response of gratitude to the teacher and then wanting to worship him, this devotional spirit is so deeply engrained in some of us - however I do understand, see the
truth of what you are writing in your books.
The true teachers, not seeking to collect followers, sets his pupils free!
- Free to BE.
A deep respect and honoring of the teacher remains, however!
Thank you so much! – D, in Canada.

Hallo D, in Canada.
Yes, I see that you recognize some of the salient points well enough.
The ones you mention have a flavor added from your background, in that you change some words slightly, words that I doubt that I actually wrote or said in the same way.
I am not being rude in pointing this out.
– It shows how the mind translates things into what is familiar and remembers the translation, which slightly obscures the original impression or what was said.
Earth bound egoistic teacher - implies a teacher higher up in a System.
This is a subtle holding on to old religious beliefs.
The mind will assert its old notions repeatedly - as if it needs to survive in tact.
The dissolution of such beliefs is a threat.
Many get offended by the rawness of life.
When one goes to a third world country, the impact of the rawness of life is often overwhelming.
The old conditioned view of things is useless there and one may feel exposed and anxious.
A relaxation may happen and we may discover the richness of life in the freshness of each moment.
The apparent rawness turns out to be the livingness which we have sought, and have hidden from, for so long.
The same applies to hearing the clear message, the clear 'pointing' to what is true (in oneself).
In the 'appearance' of being separate individuals, most of us don't want to 'go there' because it is too threatening to our habitual and uncomfortable way of being semi-conscious.
Therefore, my books (including similar books by others) may only find a few readers and fewer still may realize this freedom from all 'things'.
The 'cutting to the core' reveals that there is no 'person' that is separate or alone.
The space like awareness which we all are, is not divided up into parts.
(It is) One without a second.
No teacher! No teaching!
No Higher Being or lower being.
One is ALL.
You are That.
Zero degrees of separation!

Email: Dear Gilbert,

I have a question? - I know questions are what keep me here in the trance yet….
Even though I believe (yet haven’t experienced) that all is One, I find it annoying that others seem to see the ‘light’ at a much younger age and have a seemingly unfair advantage because they have lead ‘princess’ type lives anyway etc. - I have a ‘heavy’ storyline of woe in me. - This and that happened, so I have problems trusting that there is a sense/experience of belonging and a connectedness to all. - So I would like to know why some folks appear to just fall into non-duality so much more easily (than I). - And why would one handicap oneself with a ‘heavy’ storyline before birth so to speak? - I hope this makes some sense. - Thanks, - Pauline.

Dear Pauline,
Even though I address you as a seeming separate ‘person’ - There is actually NO separate individual with any independence.
All these apparent ‘others’ are only appearances ‘in what you are’. – What can you say about ‘before birth’? – In this immediacy, why postulate about some time in the past and so entertain concepts about ‘things’ that are not present. - If you believe that any such conditioning exists, then the time to explore it is now. – Consciously invite it to come forward.
– You will see that it is nothing but concepts based on memories or imagination. – Those who go on about past lives are entertaining themselves with nonsense.
– Grandiose stories or ‘poor me’ stories have no power over pure seeing. – Direct cognition cuts through them instantly. – However, very few can discriminate between cognition and re-cognition or what the mind is bringing up from memory or imagination etc.
- This discrimination is necessary for knowing what is, as opposed to what is not.
Where the pure function of seeing is actually happening - is from beyond phenomena - appearances. – This is very clearly obvious but few seem to grasp that fact.
-Why? - Because they are caught in mind stuff and the ‘bit’ that is caught is a habitual reference point called ‘me’.
Your true essence is free of all phenomena. - That may seem rather fanciful but I assure you it is not.
It is only identified consciousness that refuses to acknowledge such ‘pointing’.
In that pure and empty space like awareness, everything is witnessed without there being any substantial ‘form’ called a witness, as such. – In recognizing that, some have ventured to call it liberation. – That label becomes another trap for seekers, because it is a conceptual postulation for the seeker and it lies somewhere in the future for them. – It will never come any closer than the perpetual ‘tomorrow’, which you may have noticed, it never arrives. – At the stroke of midnight, this moment of now remains as it is. – It is One Moment.
A story is a story. – Heavy or otherwise, it is still a bunch of thoughts. - They are all space-time patterns appearing in and on (your) awareness.

Stay in that empty space of knowing ‘long enough’ without fixating on anything and you will see that nothing of the story is real. – The mind may feel uncomfortable and resist by grasping at familiar, habitual concepts. – Watch the mind and relax into seeing whatever arises.
There is nothing to achieve and nothing to get. – There is no one to get anything.
All the usual spiritual proper gander is propagated nonsense - spread about by ignorant gurus who are in love with their own self-image - but that is all in the appearance of ‘things’ only.

There are two aspects to what you are.
The empty 'space', or No Thing-ness, which is suffused with Knowing - and then there is all of the manifestation that appears in THAT, including the body, mind, thoughts, emotions, states and what have you.
These apparent ‘two’ aspects are actually One in essence.
You cannot separate them except conceptually.
Understand that the stories are all dependant on your attention. – If you see through their foundations, they can no longer infiltrate your natural presence in the same way.
Belief in them is naturally cut off simply because you have seen them for what they are. – To identify with them, there must be the energy of belief flowing into them.
Once known clearly, why would you give them any validity at all.
All we need is to UNDERSTAND what thought is and what it apparently does - then thought can serve us and do what it is meant to do – simply translate ‘what is’.
Imagination is a useful thing at times but it so easily deteriorates into self-destructive notions, when it meets and is challenged by the apparent ‘forces of a selfish, self-centred world’.
The mind only ‘appears’ to divide That One, that which can never be actually divided.
Oneness is registering in that knowing presence ( that you are) just ‘as it is’ – ‘before’ the ‘time bound’ processes of mind translates those impressions into the habitual notions of what is real.
What is real is never a notion or concept. – They can only ‘appear to be’ and the only place and time that they can appear is NOW.
Knowing THAT fact is all you need to know.
You are the light by which you see and know – and nothing other than that.
What story do you need?
Get behind the translations of mind - that is where you are anyway - then the identified consciousness loses its apparent hold over you.
It is so simple – effortless - but near impossible to convey to another - all we can do is point and say FULL STOP.
I will let you into a little secret. - Some of my friends think I am a bit of a loony and they write me off as not knowing anything worth knowing. – They avoid reading any of my books and my website. – I am not phased one bit by that. - In fact it is rather amusing but I must not laugh in their presence about that. - They get very annoyed.
What they miss is that they are making judgments about me based on their own habitual views.
This freedom is inexplicable and it ‘appears’, as things go, that only a rare one can clearly recognize what is being pointed out. – Even so, I KNOW that this is totally available to everyone, no matter what their circumstances may be. – All that seemingly prevents its recognition is a resistance to ‘what is’ and that resistance must be tackled from within and dismantled. – A shock from ‘outside’ may deliver something that is necessary but it must be met with by an equal force of presence. - Otherwise it just flows round and round in the old habitual space-time patterns.

In that space - one sees that without thought, I do not fall apart - the pure functioning remains - untouched.
I am THAT - (You are That).

Warm regards - Gilbert

1. Nothing to do? & 2. the Practice

1. So, our illustrious Non Duality Teacher says there is nothing you can do about this self realization.
What a useless teacher he is!
It leaves the ‘seeker’ feeling helpless and confused, does it not?
It reveals more about that helpless nature of that teacher than he would prefer to reveal.
Of course, in a certain way it is correct but the mind cannot make that leap of faith which he wants you to make. - The mind’s habitual beliefs must be deconstructed by an active investigation. - The self-centre will not vanish or lose its apparent power without a thorough testing of its nature. The 'me' plays its part in the first steps of investigation but the essence of it all is 'seeing'.
By asserting oneself as this self-centre ( and we are all familiar with that), the mind learns of its own limits and a realization penetrates those old beliefs and so that intelligence that one is, begins to shine through the whole belief system illuminating it for what it is.
So it is that I say, make a wholehearted investment of effort, as much as you can muster, take it to its limits. - Expand it all, exaggerate it.
- You ARE the conscious presence in which ALL the activity is taking place.
In this way, one comes to know the nature of all the content of mind, including that self-centre, called ‘me’.
Telling you that you can do nothing about self realization is The Way of a Wimp.
It only leads to being a stand up comic on a retirement plan scheme.
So, assign that teacher to the past.
- Take your own efforts to their limits and make this thorough investigation into the nature of self (and everything else).
- There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. - Your natural freedom must be actualized one way or another.
- Even though in essence, you are already free, as long as there is a belief that you are not free, one must actively challenge that very fixation, that erroneous belief that “I am not free”.

2. Mere words can ruffle up the most stern devotee.

The practice of non attachment is really ignorance parading as knowledge.
It is nothing but attachment to concepts and the idea that ‘I’, by ‘doing’, can alter the very nature of ‘things’. - When all along this identified form, this ‘entity’, the ‘doer’, ‘I’, is nothing more than just another ‘thing’ itself. - It is an appearance, a mere belief.
When the mind sets out to find silence or peace, it is already a disturbance in and on that which is never disturbed from its silent understanding.
Practice? - It is all a fiction and no result is possible because freedom is not a result that will arise from action or non action.
- It already IS.
Why do you not know this? – Is it only because you put your faith in another? - while all along this freedom is obvious. – Do you ignore that in preference to doing what that ‘special one’ says you should do? - If so, it is a bad compromise and most probably full of failed attempts and pretentious images and self evaluations. – Isn’t it all self-centered activity in spiritual garments?
I say without the slightest doubt, that a guru that promises liberation as a possible acquisition is a fraud. - When he or she promises ‘sudden enlightenment’ (in some tomorrow) via his or her influence and instructions, that my friend is nothing but ego talking.
Such teachers can only teach practices and methods because that is all they have.
They are no more than a regular yoga teacher with a few more fancy beads and a lot of pomp and circumstance. - They love to make a spectacle of themselves. - Red carpets and white limos sure smells of conceitedness, does it not.
In not directly pointing you to the fact of your immediate freedom and in addressing each one ‘personally’ in a thorough investigation of what prevents that realization, that deviation of your attention onto less pertinent factors, is the ignorant and fraudulent act of a fraudulent teacher.
There is NO excuse for such behavior.
For their own selfish purposes, they must engage your mind with some extraneous fruitless activities. - They plan all your activities to occupy your mind and so ensnare you in their trap.
They do not point you directly to your natural freedom because they do not know how to.
And that is only because they themselves have not realized freedom themselves.
They only do a good (actually bad) imitation of someone that is free.
Anyone with clear sight can see what they are up to.
So, that is what they teach – bad imitations of freedom.
They teach you how to punishing the body and mind with practices and methods which DON’T work! - and they can never work! - because freedom is not a reaction or result from any practice at all.
It already is.
These dummy gurus encourage the ignorant with praise and merit points, all designed to feed the egoistic appetite and spiritual self image, and that, they themselves are so familiar with.
And they take all the cream and leave you with the curd of dissatisfaction.
Strangely enough, it is all so very popular.
- It works like a dream!
- And it is a dream.

How could it be 'any' Otherwise?

"Once there was a ‘time’ when I could have joined you in scatterbrain chat about nonsense".
Is that true?
See how we construct a triad in our minds. Past and future with a vague present as the Third element.
The Past is gone and invisible.
The Future is not here and is invisible.
The Present is a concept and so it also is invisible.
All there truly is IS THIS.
These three worlds we jump to and fro from in our minds are not real.
Rest back for a moment - in this Moment.
You don’t have to ‘wait’ until you are old and incapacitated.
Is there such a thing as time?
The furthest mountain is cognized immediately.
An intellectual will tell you it takes time for the light to reach the eyes and more time for the brain to process the images and then more time to name it all etc.
Isn’t it all just happening in this NOW.
No chronological instrument can separate this now into any parts, except in the minds of the user.
A lone clock stands in an abandoned house, ticking away in this immediacy.
What time has past? -The clock ceases to tick. -Has anything transpired. - Does this story really change anything? - Something may be stimulated. - Something may trickle past the hypnosis. - A single drop of rain touches a parched, dried up leaf.
- Life unfolds everywhere, ever fresh, just as it is.
- No ‘time’ passes - because a concept has no substance and there truly is no before or after.
- So keep chopping wood.
- Keep carrying water.
- The Zen master is yourself.
- How could it be 'any' otherwise?

Oneness is a concept only

Email:

Gilbert, I contacted you a while back and have been to your website a few times, as well as having spoken to John Wheeler. I have a question for ya....!!!
With direct experiencing, isn't the final understanding this; "there is no separate individual, and all there is is THIS"? (G: Yes - true enough)
If that's the case, who is doing the direct looking?
Isn't it ultimately just Oneness seeing through the illusion that it put there to reveal Oneness.
Please help out with a few pointers. So, close to clear seeing, actually there are many times that this is beyond belief and fully understood (by no one), and yet there are times that the "me" returns....basically, going from "me-ing" to "be-ing" and back and forth.
Bob showed you, you showed Burt - or we can say that, but then again - Oneness showed itself! (G: Shows! Present tense!)
Can you point me - to seeing the obvious that is so easily overlooked - so that the TRUE is seen and the false is dropped for good?

Thanks, Arthur.

Gilbert answers:
- You asked for it!
(some words may appear cold in their use but I assure you my heart is warm.
Brief-ness and cutting to the core can appear blunt, if you want a 'comfy' read)

Isn't it more like this: 'The true' can't be SEEN - It IS the SEEING.
(That is why Bob says: "Start from the FACT that you ARE That".)

Seeing is happening.
That sentence is far more profound than most can appreciate.
If you explore the place where seeing is happening, you will find only empty space.
The reference point of ‘looking’ is of the mind.
Seeing is actually beyond and not limited by any reference point or any 'witness'.

To say that there is a Oneness is just a concept. - Remove that and what is left?
Clear and Obvious. - THIS immediacy just as it IS.
Still missing IT?
Let's explore it for a bit. - Weaving in and out of things.
You may think you know a great deal and have much knowledge.
What do you know of that pure space of knowing?
It is boundless like space. ('Your' own knowing is not different from the 'all knowing'.)
No entity could ever encompass it.
All apparent ‘entities’ can only arise 'in it' and nowhere else.
We take ourselves to be limited and this happens via concepts and what we commonly call conditioning. - Although all that 'stuff' is Trans-Parent unto pure seeing.
- It has no parents - uncaused.
- Now the tendency is for the mind to objectify those words,'Pure Seeing', and so all the trouble starts and all trouble is in the realm of mind translation, which is 'of the Past'.
It is NEVER in the pure and direct Present Evidence.
The most profound journey you will ever take is to attempt an entery into that pure space of knowing. - How is that done? - A thousand glorified Gurus will tell you how but it is all nonsense. - It can't be done!!! Ever - because you ARE that space of knowing and the one attempting to enter can only vanish!
Very few attempt it because it is just too scary or too much and the baggage of belief and attachment is all too cumbersome. - Seeing is clouded by Mind Stuff (fixating awareness).
'They' believe that they are ‘something’ and that something resists quite feverishly any revelations of its own nothingness.
(That something is only 'made' of resistance. - In naming them as 'them', there is a suggestion that 'they' are something real.)

Since you imagine that you can't see what is clear and obvious, we must use concepts - and the concept of 'time' appears in the equation like this:
'Once' this investigation is done, then just like a bath empties its contents, 'once' the plug is pulled, so one's own true nature is emptied of erroneous beliefs and a myriad paraphernalia.

I suggest that you examine your own question to me again, carefully. - WHO wants to Know?

Take out the concept of ‘time’ from the equation in your question.
Remove all concepts of ‘something’ 'doing' 'something'.

Seeing is still happening - even if you remove all concepts, seeing remains.
Then see that there is NO ‘why?’.
Seeing is happening.
Knowing is happening.

Did YOU make these aspects of awareness start happening?
Pure Knowing is happening and it is NOT knowledge - it is simple, ever fresh KNOWING, right NOW!!!! And NOW!!! And NOW!!!!
- Is it 'final'? - Can it ever be final?
- The 'Final Understanding' is a Carrot for the ignorant.
Ashrams are built on such nonsense and seekers get trapped in service to an egoistic guru. - How absurd is that!? - All part of the dream!!!? - Well, you tell me!!!
- If you truly know it all to be dream like, then where is the problem?

So, what happened? - Nothing!

However, as a seeker in the world of phenomena, I was encouraged to examine my own consciousness.
A simple and honest teacher 'pointed' me to it over and over. I did not give up.
My mind squirmed and tried to hold onto some false identity but the present evidence is just too overwhelming and the struggle gave itself up.
It was NOT an event in time.
It 'was' and IS - SEEING.
Ordinary SEEING.
It is still happening here just the same as it is happening there with you.

It truly is NO Big Deal. - Who wants to know that? (Everyone wants to be special and have a special Hero Saviour or a recipe book for a New Earth. - It's all seduction of the intellect and that indulgence is the very thing that appears to cloud present seeing, even though it can never be clouded, since pure seeing remains untouched. - Who knows that appart from the authentic presence, commonly called 'I'?)

Speaking now of my own experiencing: ‘I’ disappeared in the investigation.
The essence of the investigation is SEEING.
However that ‘I’ returned as an appearance in the space of knowing.
Yet nothing changed in this essence of presence.
I am free as I always have been.
This is the message which spontaneously is pointed to by those who truly are free.

How rare are those clear messengers? - and how rarer are those who wish to discover their own true nature? Are you one of these?
It is a ‘path’ with no ground and it is fraught with illusions and mind games.

The paradox is that you are already THAT freedom.
THIS freedom.
Nothing needs be done and there is no one to do it anyway.
Just SEE what is so very obvious.

Note: It can never be objectified.

Like the air you breathe, it is not noticed except in glimpses.
By speaking about all this, I may hold your attention long enough for you to glimpse something.
The mind will try to make something of that glimpse.
Let things be and just see and keep seeing.
You don’t even have to make any effort in this seeing.
Far too simple and that is exactly why no one ‘gets it’.
They already have it and could not BE without it.
I would add this:
I do not consider myself as anyone special.
What I have discovered is the ‘great prize’.
I was assisted in this revelation.
Bob is that one.
He has been saying the same things for so many years.
His first book is packed with pointers, yet so very few recognise them for their intrinsic value.
I have been active in spreading the word about Bob.
The conventional world ignores it all as nonsense.
It has to. - Would the collective dream vanish? - Let your own dream vanish and SEE for yourself. - From one perspective I am awake and wandering through a world of hypnotized 'people'. There is only one true perspective and that can't be called a perspective at all.
'You' are insisting on finding out what it is, even though it is already presently active.
Drop the charade of being a seeker and see.

No matter what I appear to do, I am free and NOTHING compounds into anything that I can call the past. The dreamer is the dream. The awakened one is the wakefulness. One is transient and the other is the unchanging nature of Presence, which is everywhere and nowhere specific at all. (Thus the seeker shoots 'Blanks')
There is NO Final Understanding!!!!
The seeker of that can never arrive at its own projected images, just like you can't drink the water in a mirage.

All there is, and ever is, is THIS moment.

And this moment is the Eternal Revelation JUST IT IS.
There is NO entity here or there or anywhere.
I am the KNOWING of THAT.
I can match the willingness of anyone who wishes to make the investigation.
So many want to talk about it all. They read a mish mash of spiritual books and wonder why they are confused.
They jump from one teacher to another and repeat their habitual pathways to nowhere.
What can I do about that?
I am present and aware.
No big deal anymore.
Stop making a big deal out of it all and just SEE what is.
Stop believing what the mind is telling you.
It is of the PAST.
Present Evidence is IT. Present evidence INCLUDES your 'own' presence, not as a body but as pure knowing. - It is the vastness of itself. - Who are you to claim it for yourself?

You are THAT.

Why is it so unsatisfactory? - (If it is!)
It can only be a self centre that is unsatisfied.

I am present and aware.
- Isn't that also true 'right there' where 'you' 'appear' to be?

If you can find a fault in what I say, it can only be in your own mind.
As all things are.

Warm regards - Gilbert.