Stop Looking and See – Albigen.Net

An Experience with One Awareness

Paul Constant sifted through his email archives and selected the following correspondences with fellow seekers and finders. The correspondence unfolds over a period of ten months starting in late 2006. His hope is that you as the reader might glean an insight or two about your self or remain inspired in the spiritual search.

Part 1, Chronology

At the age of 43, Paul wrote the following discoveries. Rather than think about Paul or the sequence of events, please try to feel the meaning behind the words.

May 16, 2007

For whatever reason, I'm inclined to start from the end of the story and work backwards...

What I now know with conviction:

That it is possible to glimpse an empty, boundless, One Awareness and retain a memory of it.
That I (Paul Constant and everything connected with him) did not exist while immersed in that Awareness.
I now struggle with the words that best describe It—R's ¹ "Absolute Awareness" and Art's "Empty Observatory" seem best. In the months leading up to May 14, I was so frustrated with the tail chasing involved in awareness watching awareness, that I now simply want to call it "One Awareness" because it was a massive awareness-identity problem solved with finality.

1. Richard Rose.

While in the Awareness:

I don't know how long I was immersed...I would estimate a few minutes, but that was enough. Somehow, Paul was out on the wispy fringes, vaguely witnessing this Experience because I now have a memory of it all. But Paul was not "there"...
No "mind stuff" was present for the Awareness to reflect from (thus, the description as empty and boundless). And so the mind now cannot describe it with any plausibility.
I haven't read any of Douglas Harding's writings, but I was startled by the recognition of being headless—Nothingness sitting on top of a body dropping out of a Void. If that's what he meant by headlessness, it's a good depiction (if not, I don't care because it's still a good depiction ☺ ).
Near the end of the Experience, while still sitting in the chair, I placed my face in my hands and thought over and over, "I do not exist." I thought—no, I felt—that I was an empty shell, or Hollow Man. I did not weep. I was not devastated, nor was I rendered senseless or drained. And I was not in a state of bliss.

First thoughts in the seconds upon return:

I remember an embarrassing ego-gratification—embarrassing perhaps because it was such a "base" reaction, like a mountain conquered—that I have finally glimpsed that which I sought for almost 22 years. A deep satisfaction. A relief. No more cursed "awarenesses" endlessly caught in a tail-chasing pattern.
I am completely surprised by what I experienced; It is not at all what I expected. Another embarrassing thought—It is so simple and anticlimactic compared to my preconceptions.
Note: As a student of R, I originally thought (in the 1980's and '90's) that glimpsing the Absolute was a devastation beyond all comprehension. For R, the devastation was real, perhaps because he made the trip entirely on his own, with little help or even a hint at what lay ahead in the final Seeing—or what to expect afterwards. Also, his ego-character was hardwired quite differently than mine. Some of my beliefs eroded with time as others described their Experiences, thus depersonalizing it. Still, the Experience was supposed to be the death of the mind. It was a death, but only for a few minutes. I'm still here. ☺
Later, while walking in the woods, R's words resonated: I indeed looked out of the windows of a mansion like a strange prowler.

In the seconds leading up to the Experience:

"Something" very palpable was located diagonally (a foot or two?) behind my right ear. It felt like an intense electricity, the same feeling I had during intense rapport sessions of past years, when R was around. This time, it was in such close proximity and so intense that my head involuntarily tilted away from it slightly.
Note: This palpable electricity is not something that I have read about or heard anyone discuss in connection with their Experience. I wondered (the next day) if it was because I asked for help in the minutes leading up to this point? Perhaps a more plausible explanation: the electricity was extreme tension manifested? Or, maybe it was R's picture hanging on the wall behind me. ☺ I also know the implications of stating that something was outside of me, especially for those who believe in entities. However, if it was dangerous, R surely would not have directed this electricity, which he often "saw" through closed eyelids, toward people during rapport sittings.
I don't remember a specific thought that was the catalyst, but in a fraction of a second, two "me's" did not exist, and the One Awareness flooded in and I was Nothing.

In the minutes leading up to the Experience:

I wanted to sit and meditate that morning.
Nothing profound about that idea. I didn't have a rigid plan while entering a period of isolation; instead, I knew only that I wanted to sit and watch thoughts a few times during each day. To me, the quantity of meditation time wasn't important. While in isolation, I knew I was going to have a productive period of self-observation within 20 minutes or so, or I was going to give up until an undesignated time later on.

In the preceding months, I was having intense observation periods after I lay down in bed before going to sleep, so I am surprised that the Experience occurred while sitting in a chair in the morning.

A distinct thought crossed my mind that morning: the Community Building is a perfect place to sit and meditate (days before, Mike Casari actually planted a seed when he said he planned to meditate there during his upcoming isolation). Many people have put their heart and soul into the place, expecting no reward in the process. In the past six months, when I first entered the building after being away for a few weeks, a warm feeling washed through me upon each visit. I kept asking others if they felt the same thing. Regardless, this is meaningless in relation to the Experience—but I now find it so fitting.
I pulled a chair to the center of the room, and like any other time, I just started watching thoughts. Slowly, over the course of an hour(?), the watching became much more intense than anything I can remember. The pattern went like this: like always, my mind would start to drift on thoughts, and when I became aware of it, I pulled it back to the center. I kept trying to be aware without being immersed in the thoughts. It was not effortless—it was a fight that grew ever more intense, and it continued far longer than a normal "Paul" period of meditation.
I was so disgusted with the awareness-watching-awareness game that I grew ever more determined to just keep fighting this time. I heard a large bee in the loft above me, and I watched my mind "go there," but I pulled it back to center. Again and again, thoughts passed in front of me, and I worried that any one of them would break the rising tension. "My hands are numb. If I put them to my side, will it break the intensity?" (It didn't). Fear passed through me, and like a distant observer, I heard my breath quicken and felt my pulse pound. But I was determined not to be afraid, and the fear subsided.
I was so distant from the thoughts that it started to feel dreamy. I even asked myself if I could be asleep, but this was anything but sleep. I was vividly awake and aware of the thought-stream in front of me—and the strong desire to just watch without letting the thoughts go off in their own direction.
I had thoughts of giving up, but I wasn't satisfied. I started to silently repeat phrases that I read recently: "Stop looking and See" (Bart), "Relax into the looking" (Art), "Nothing of you shall remain" (Pulyan), "All that remains is All" (R). Several times, I silently said "Stop! Stop! Stop!" (meaning, do not allow the mind to wander or become distracted). At some point, I even asked for help.
Note: These words only mean something to me. I don't know why I latched onto them, but they were vital to maintaining a focused awareness. Mind- death is a battle, and this time, I threw everything at it that I could muster.
After an hour or so(?), I felt the palpable electricity near me...

In the days and months leading up to the Experience:

The following excerpts from email messages best illustrate the precursory struggle and describe my state of mind—and my mind's (false) attempts to know what it possibly couldn't grasp at the time:
September 20, 2006. Email message to Bart Marshall. "Spiritually, I ran out of pavement a long time ago. By that, I mean the road is gone but I'm relentlessly determined to understand the Awareness that watches Paul and his robotic motions each day. To put it into words seems to trivialize my yearning, but I am not satisfied with me. It took years to figure out intuition as it relates to logic, from the perspective of the Process Observer. Sometimes, an intuition tells me the reflection I witness might be me, but alas, I do not know because I have not experienced it. In the latest Forum, Anima's comment resonated: 'In the final mile...even the desire for finding the Self burns off. You continue your search for the sake of search. Ego is pretty much shriveled by this time and any desire for self-enhancement is gone completely.' "

February 27, 2007. Email message to Art Ticknor and Shawn Nevins. "Ever since I saw the headless drawings pointing outward, away from the circle, I've been stewing over the implications (Note: Shawn did a Harding exercise that involved sketching a self-portrait from the perspective of looking out our eyes, then asking the participants to turn their portraits around, facing ourselves). It planted a seed that resonated even more when I reread your 12/31/06 email message last night, Art (for the 10th time). I went to bed, thinking about the drawings, and the need to look upon a reflection in order for 'me' to be there to see it. It somehow made perfect sense. Then I pointed to the wall and then back at me, and that finger was now paul looking at paul. Not really a separate paul, but an image (my finger) needed to be present for my awareness to know that it was there looking. Wait—can it be this simple? I am not only the 'I' behind my eyes; something needs to be out there too. The 'out there' needs to be present in order for paul to be self aware. But this can't be true. Where or who am I if paul needs something to look upon? This is not the Answer, because it is my mind still trying to make sense of mind stuff."

March 17, 2007. Email message to Bart Marshall. In a previous correspondence, Bart said "Paul and Bart are IN Awareness, they do not have little separate awarenesses." "Your comment struck me because I've never considered the possibility of being IN Awareness. I always imagined that Awareness was 'behind me,' shining through me like a light. And, as I mentioned in my last message, that light needed 'me' (the screen) to shine upon in order to 'be.' As Shawn said at the winter retreat last month, most seekers think they can muscle their way behind their Awareness and find the Absolute. Of course, of late, my previous perspective makes no sense at all—I cannot be both the light and the screen."
April 24, 2007. Email message to Mike Casari. "In early April, I saw—or was shown—that Awareness does not exist 'behind' me, only blackness. Thus, though I am still not certain of the source of my Awareness, I now struggle in the thin veneer between nothingness.

These words haunt me every day because I do not See:
- - And now I look upon the looker....Twice I see myself and then I see myself no more. - Richard Rose
- - The degree to which you do not exist cannot be overstated. - Bart Marshall
- - Let go and let God. - Bart Marshall
- - Awareness is Self-aware. - Art Ticknor
- - What you are is a play of light upon the still hand of eternity. - Shawn Nevins"
During the drive out to the farm (TAT retreat center) on May 12, I distinctly remember feeling more serious than ever, and the frustration and tension was mounting since the February workshop at Linsly.
I entered what was supposed to be a four-day period of isolation in Bob Cergol's cabin. I decided beforehand to steer clear of the heady directional-type reading material during isolation—I only brought poetry (Shawn's writings from the Forum collection and R's Carillon), The Albigen Papers (it contained the Three Books of the Absolute, which I read aloud the night before), printouts of descriptions of realizations (they have always inspired me, ever since reading Cosmic Consciousness in the late 1980's), and a few recent email messages from Bart and Art.

Part 2, Resolution

In the hours and days after the Experience:

In the first hour, I scribbled notes on a piece of scrap paper. A thought occurs, "Rose's Three Books of the Absolute is a masterpiece, something I will never duplicate. I am not a poet. I'm still the same noncreative Paul."
Note: To place this statement into perspective, I have never really resonated with Three Books. I now understand it better and think highly of R's work, knowing that it can very well trigger an Experience for a seeker. But it still doesn't stir a deep emotion in me, the thinker-logical type who learned how to develop his intuition only later in life.
I looked forward to the evening hours in Bob's cabin, where I can read how others described their Experiences. In the mean time, the mind is a potent doubt machine, and predictably, its doubt mechanisms kicked into high gear (doubts that Art placed into perspective the next day):
I no longer struggle to know which awareness is Me, but the mind says, "Sure, Paul, you're satisfied that your 'awarenesses' dilemma has dissipated, but you haven't changed one iota."

Why didn't I experience "everythingness" (R's and Art's description) or intense weeping? (Bart)

Why wasn't it painful or agony? (Rose/Shawn) (Note: but my Experience was not pleasant—it just was).

Why was the head seemingly the center for the Nothingness that had no boundaries? (Bart said It came from the heart).

I have glimpsed the One Awareness, but I still don't want to die. This was a temporary death of the mind; if that's "where I go" after body-death, then there's nothing to fear (Note: paradoxically, there is no "place" to go and nothing of me will go "there." Later, Art repeated what I already knew in my heart: "As for not wanting to die, what we are couldn't even if it wanted to.").
For two hours, I sat in a rocking chair on Bob's cabin deck, just staring out at the surrounding woods, the birds, and the deer—something I could never do before.
The next day, I visited Art, who listens and offers perspective, and helps me to grapple and understand. (Before going into isolation, Art helpfully threw unanswerable questions—from the mind's perspective—at me, thus adding to the tension.)
We sat on Art's porch, where we discussed a myriad of unconnected topics. We marveled at how many people over the past 34 years have worked to help other seekers in some small way. Per the Law of the Ladder, each may have gained something in some small way, but most of the group members worked and expected no reward. The true miracles in life are often small, and right under our noses. (I still believe—but cannot prove—that part of the formula for Seeing is to maintain a genuine interest in helping others, all the while expecting no reward.)
I see more humor in more things. The atmosphere is peaceful, and I have to pry myself out of the chair on Art's porch. During the five-hour trip home in the car, I scribbled more notes while driving (ugh!), writing snippets in bits and pieces.
The thought crosses my mind: "All that I witness in front of me and passing around me is flowing from me. How can I be the center?" The mind throws another curve ball at me: "Can each person be a point of Awareness that has no boundaries? Impossible!"
I think: "This has no value to someone who doesn't seek. I don't know what creates the burning desire to See. Perhaps the satisfaction of Seeing is only created by the intense desire to See. In essence, seekers create their own dilemma, and the satisfaction comes in solving the Problem with finality, which ironically is the only problem worth solving."
Because it was a guiding beacon for me, I still believe that R's description of the path in Psychology of the Observer—all contained in a few pages near the Jacob's Ladder image—holds the true key in as few words as possible.
The next day, I finally realized what R meant by creating tension on the path. As a seeker, we shouldn't artificially go looking for tension by abandoning a job or our family, but instead create it by seeking for the sake of seeking. At some point on the path, we back ourselves into a corner (i.e., R's reverse vector), where awareness struggles to become self-aware with immense frustration. For the male, it's a battle that ends in finality when the One Awareness pushes aside the mind.
What to tell others who search? You can't simply believe what others say and expect to See (on the other hand, listening to others and working with fellow seekers provides invaluable inspiration and direction). You must believe in your own ability. And you must continue to take action without thinking that you're "doing" anything. At some point, without you deciding, you will stop looking and See. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say the looking will be stopped for you.
I have a desire to tell those who are only left with awareness watching awareness. You are so close—don't give up!

Part 3, Epilogue

The Struggle to See

May 1, 2009

In the Psychology of the Observer, Richard Rose explains a process of defining the self, and he illustrates the essence, mind, and body realms through Jacob's Ladder. Before the Experience, I was able to watch the mind's activities from an anterior observer, from a conciliatory point that R1 called the Process Observer, which is still mind-stuff. This shift in perspective occurred sometime along the path without fanfare, nor as a distinct epiphany. Intuition and reason, when improved and used together, are potent tools for the seeker and serve as a means of expediting the reverse vector, or the retreat from error. Whether intuitive or rational thoughts, I saw (and still see) thought-forms as observable entities, distinguishable from one another only in how they arrive in my plane of observation. On one side of the spectrum (R's "Umpire," or somatic awareness), the thoughts pile one on top of another over time until the seeker arrives at what appears to be a logical conclusion. Reason ensures continuity of action for the seeker. Continuity of action builds tension. On the polar opposite side (intuition), the conclusion is sudden and often occurs with more conviction. Intuitive thoughts seemingly arrive out of nowhere—they arrive and "you" are the witness—yet they are often more accurate, especially as a seeker grows to trust them despite not knowing the reason for the conclusion until sometime later. Intuition offers opportunities for invaluable shortcuts on the path. Before the Experience, I was aware of the Process Observer and aware that I was aware. However, intellectually, I knew that "I" couldn't be two awarenesses. The reverse vector had brought me to this final, seemingly insolvable conundrum. Most seekers on the path question their own sincerity and ability to See.

A few days after the Experience, in a subsequent email message to Art, I explained my turn in seriousness:

Many times, I recalled feeling serious about the path over the past 22 years, but I've been thinking about what was different this time. It wasn't as though a switch flipped and I said, "Oh, I'm very serious about my path now." ☺ But I recognized a "digging in" or "hunkering down," where I really wanted to resolve the dilemma I faced. The only time I can put my finger on something tangible is when I was driving to WV. I had a feeling that something was about to happen. By that, I mean something substantial, not necessarily a maximum Experience.

As I said to Bart, I'm still fascinated with the tension that mounted over the years, and especially in the preceding moments—even to the point of feeling the "electricity"— before the experience of Nothingness. When I originally read Bart's comment about wanting Truth at all costs, I had a bit of the old inadequacy feeling that I often experienced around Mr. Rose. Meaning, as a seeker, I could never be that intense. In retrospect, I remember the tears that would often well up during TAT meetings over the past year or so, when I would listen to the presenters and become inspired. My tears were not caused by self pity. I had a deep longing to See, which intensified these past few months.

On the other side of the spectrum, I was immensely frustrated with my inability to know the source of the awareness that I witnessed. I couldn't willfully just let go. During that final meditation in the Community Building, when I fought to know who I was, the tension was palpable. The tension, or overcoming the tension, was the catalyst into Nothing.

[My wife] mentioned something to me that I hadn't thought about. She said I asked for help, which is a recognition that I couldn't make the final trip as a result of my own doing. I don't mean just asking for help from others, but praying that some thing would assist in whatever way. Perhaps it was a sort of letting go...

A few weeks later, Bart sent me an email message that added even more perspective:

I think when you felt the deep longing to See that brought tears to your eyes, you DID want Truth at all costs. And that's all it takes—a few brief moments of pure intent. We don't need to feel it with consistency day in and day out. No one could do that. Too much else intervenes and demands our attention. Even one incident of pure desire sets the wheels irrevocably in motion. Such a seemingly simple thing—to want it more than anything else. But what a monumental undertaking it is to bring oneself to the point of desperation that produces such purity of intent.

I offer this bit of encouragement to fellow seekers: you think you might not have what it takes. By all means, doubt what others might tell you about the Truth. But believe in your own ability to See. If you truly long to See, then you have conviction, not a passing inclination.

Problems Solved

solved: who is aware?

A glimpse of the Absolute forever ended my inability to solve the awareness- awareness problem. It was a massive awareness-identity problem solved with finality.

Beforehand, a seeker cannot clearly identify the source of the awareness that is witnessed. Afterwards, the search is over—the finder now knows the True Source of awareness. The "I" that we think we are, and all that we witness, are shadows cast from the light of that Source, the Absolute.

Mr. Rose poetically describes the unraveling in Three Books of the Absolute: And now I look upon the looker....Twice I see myself and then I see myself no more.

and

O tender I-ness forgive me....O lovable I-ness forgive me....for my hand has shattered the mirror, and I can see thee not.

solved: tension

Before an Experience, the mind struggles to be eternally aware of the awareness that it witnesses, creating tension that may not be apparent to the seeker.

A seeker may unknowingly create extreme tension through... (a) Desire: a deep longing to See, and (b) Frustration: the mind's inability to solve the awareness-awareness problem. This tension may be fueled by anger, fear, sadness...desperation.

The release of tension suddenly overcomes the mind's resistance, and the seeker is jettisoned past the mind into Nothing, or Absolute Awareness.

Afterwards, for me, the underlying tension from the search dissipated completely.

solved: who dies?

No one.

Living through a death experience provides a conviction that nothing of Paul is here to die. However, paradoxically, the projected Paul and his mind-body provided the vehicle to climb the mountain, and all is momentarily left behind during an immersion in the Absolute.

What we truly are cannot die because It was never born.

What Has Changed?

Paul hasn't "improved" nor is he "enlightened":

If you are a seeker who desires to improve or enhance your self, you will be disappointed.

If you think you will return from the Experience as an enlightened being, you will be disappointed. "You" witness the Source of your awareness, but you will still return to the same old you. No human being is in a state of enlightenment. The "view" is now inside-out rather than outside-in, and inside is eternally hollow.

If you think the Experience will solve all your problems, you will be disappointed because problems are related to the small "s" self, and we live in the world of the projected self.

During the Experience, there are no hills and valleys. Before and after and the Experience, we live in the self, where the hills are once again hills, and the valleys once again valleys.

Email message to Judy, June 2007:

Regarding self-enhancement...I'm laughing at myself! Paul is the same old turd, and as Bart says, you can't polish a turd. Perhaps most seekers want to be a better person, and there's nothing wrong with trying be a decent human animal. In relation to your true Source, "you" will not matter whatsoever. When you see It, your Knowing will be crystal clear and Judy won't matter in the least. Nothing you have done wrong in the past or will do in the future affects your ability to See.

Doubt

More on the personal doubting after the Experience:

Even after glimpsing the Absolute, to the mind anything that does not fit within its construct is rationalized as fallible or impossible. In fact, acceptance takes time.

I now see that except for a few minutes in my entire life stream, I am damned to the mind's uncertainties. The mind is only capable of certainty to varying degrees. Absolute certainty is only possible during an Experience.

While I now know the true Source of my awareness, I've returned to the world of the mind, and the mind is a doubt machine. It will go to great lengths to fool the truer essential, intuitive faculties.

Before and after an Experience, awareness and intuition are our greatest hope because they represent a more direct connection to the Absolute. See "The Invisible Current" on Jacob's Ladder.

What Now?

Becoming your Source is the end of the personal search; it is also the start of another type of search:

Afterwards, much to my surprise, the mind incessantly churns on what it all means—a "slow burn" or deepening of the understanding of the Experience. Perhaps the mind and body (nervous system) undergo an assimilation of That.

Inexplicably, the Real has grown "larger" with time, and Paul has somehow diminished even more in the Light.

Everythingness is a boundless, vibrant No Thing, and at the same time, every false thing—the universe as our mind knows it—reflects upon, or emanates from, No Thing. Awareness is everywhere...and One.

The mysteries of the mind dimension are intriguing—Between-ness, the Manifested Mind, the miraculous. In R's Psychology of the Observer, he says the "The Invisible Current" presents opportunities to explore a storehouse of unplumbed information.

In R's "Tales of Love", there's a part where he writes about Christ: "...it looks more to me like He too surrendered to the terms of the contract written before He was born." I am in no way comparing myself to Christ, but for all of us, the script is written, the projection goes on, and we play the part to the best of our ability.

As odd as it sounds, it is possible to become totally re-immersed in the illusion, even after an Experience. I'll hold these words close to me: Don't allow yourself to forget what took so long to know. – Richard Rose

Working with others on the path:

The following point conveys R's commitment to others:

1. As a frustrated seeker early in life, R made a promise that if he ever found something of value during his search, he would help others, and of course he thankfully followed through with that commitment. He eventually formed the TAT Foundation as a way to gather a propitious group of helpers, per the Law of the Ladder and the Law of Extra-Proportional Returns.

The next two points illustrate why a seeker must struggle without pause, and why it is important for seekers—and those who have glimpsed the Absolute—to help each other:

2. R often said that we don't all go to the same place after we die (mysterious!).

3. He said there was no guarantee that a seeker will have a maximum Experience at body death.

To the above, I add the following:

4. God's plan for the projected self includes a doorway to God, and therefore, someone who knows the way should point to that doorway. Seeing God is the highest endeavor of mankind.

With rich irony, I look back on 1985, when I first met Richard Rose. In retrospect, I only wanted to see R and listen to his words. I wasn't interested in conversing with the other TAT members. Over time, I became deep friends with fellow seekers—today, many are best friends "whose dust with mine is not the bond." We must at least get along sufficiently to work together and be honest trusting mirrors for each other. Importantly, the Law of the Ladder and the Law of Extra-Proportional Returns are rapport in action. Neither of these laws are possible without rapport, and the path becomes infinitely more difficult for the seeker who chooses to ignore them.

* * *

When again we return to our daily life and play the game of time and space in our world- image, as we needs must do, we shall yet, through that world-image, ever see the Vision of Reality which we have gained; through every creature, every object, every event of our world-image a new meaning and a new beauty will shine forth. Such is the gift of Reality even to our world of illusion.

- J.J. van der Leeuw The Conquest of Illusion

The Final Throes of the Mind

Correspondence with M.

From: M.
Sent: Tuesday May 1, 2007
To: Paul C.
Subject: Friendship, Rapport, and ...?

Paul,

The only true friend is one who can show another his own thinking. This mirroring cannot be done by plan, or previous agreement, or casual or perfunctory discussion, no matter how good the intent. It can only be done through a system of tension and artificial shocks, as in the Zen technique employed by Richard Rose. While there are other teachers and other methods, it is his method that I find to be most effective and suited to my own particular temperament.

From: Paul C.
To: M.
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Subject: RE: Friendship, Rapport, and ...?

M. -

I have doubts about most methodical techniques because I know all too painfully well how my mind works i.e., my habits, fears, moods, inclinations, etc. This isn't braggadocio, it's a statement about paul's laughable condition. Except for words that inspire, I know that confrontational methods meant to serve as "teachings" or a "system" have little impact on me anymore. I've spent a lifetime backing away one step at a time, all the while growing weary of the mind's tricks. I'm at the point where R said the seeker runs out of railroad tracks and now searches only for the right words that will trigger an accidental discovery of his Source. Sure, I'm blind to some aspects of paul, but I don't care to perfect that hopeless little personality of his anymore.

On the other hand, if you are talking about Transmission, then perhaps such an endeavor will open the door just a crack. I would at least like to entertain the thought that I would NOT resist out of fear, as I did 15 years ago in Rose's farmhouse living room. I just don't know what would happen today. I sure don't want to go back to the past, hoping and waiting for someone else to pop my head for a glimpse of Awareness without paul standing in the way. I got way too lazy around Rose. I should have spent the time propitiously, like you, exploring his mind rather than fearing his exploration of mine.

So, without knowing what you had in mind (no pun intended), I'm expressing up-front doubts about the options. Granted, I am tenacious, and certainly sensitive enough to enter rapport.

Paul

M.'s Response

From: M.
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007
To: Paul C.
Subject: RE: Friendship, Rapport, and ...?

Paul,

What needs to happen is "Paul" needs to enter the field of battle, prepared to fight to the death (ego). Don't think it'll be pretty, either. It's war, and there's no rules. Think about that for a while. It's not a game in any way you understand that term. It's a battle for your sanity or your Realization, take your pick. You can't have both. Read the last paragraph in the Psychology of the Observer for further clarification. You can't have reservations. When you leap off the edge there's no turning back. Your desire will carry you across the chasm...or not. That's the risk. You do not know yourself, and true confrontation with an aim toward a maximum realization is not an "approach."

Paul's Follow Up

From: Paul C.
To: M.
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007
Subject: RE: Friendship, Rapport, and ...?

M. -

I doubt if confrontation is going to work. I do understand that paul, his mind, and all his connections with the external world are witnessable by Awareness. Therefore, they are not "going with me" upon the death of the mind. I realize that my wife or my fuzzy kitty aren't part of whatever it is that comprises Awareness. Anything observable is tied to the Observer. On the one hand, I see the Watcher looking outward at all the mind stuff. On the other hand, I'm conscious of the Watcher. I used to think that I could muscle my way behind the Awareness. I thought that with enough effort, I could glimpse backward through the Source and pop, there's the Absolute. But I recently saw (or was shown) that nothing is back there. Blackness. So, its a helluva quandary, isn't it? I feel like I'm still paul the Watcher, but now I don't know where to find Awareness. I can only surmise that Awareness doesn't need me to exist—but that's speculation, which leads only to blind alleys. It’s fruitless to define Awareness in terms of words and other mind-stuff. R often warned about trying to define God and strive towards It; rather, the reverse vector is the proper path.

In my message, when I said that I know "me," I'm talking about what I just said above. The "me" is the mind-junk that I witness, which as times becomes quite lucid when I just step back and Watch, and know that I Watch. The irony? The Process Observer and Awareness are key aspects of Jacobs Ladder, which I knew 22 years ago. In 1985, I believed that success in discovering the Absolute was directly proportional to following a rigorous discipline of celibacy, intense meditation, reading, fasting, etc. None of it was a waste of time, per se. I had to punch at the clouds to realize that Awareness of Awareness is all that's left to do.

Not many options, are there?

Paul

The Blackness

From: M.
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007
To: Paul C.
Subject: RE: Friendship, Rapport, and ...?

Why didn't you enter that blackness to which you refer in your email? What held you back?

From: Paul C.
To: M.
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007
Subject: RE: Friendship, Rapport, and ...?

The short answer as to why I held back is that I psyched myself out.

The longer answer goes like this:

I had been wrestling with a quandary (mentioned in my email message to Bart) for several days. One night, about 30 minutes after I lay down in bed, I was thinking about what or who was the Awareness that I see. I don't recall anything special about the cycle of being caught in thought and then stepping back and being aware of the thoughts. At some point, a blackness appeared "behind" me. I remember the play of thoughts and watching those thoughts...

"What is this?" "How can nothing be back there where Awareness should be?" "Woe, something is happening, is this the start of an Experience?" (I recall that my heart was racing, I was swallowing hard, and I felt a body-panic reaction.) "Rose said be careful not to create an image of the Absolute. Don't wish too hard for a preconceived image." "Am I creating this? Is this blackness my imagination?"

Within seconds, my mind and body calmed down. But it left an indelible mark because I now have nowhere to turn. Previously, I thought that my Awareness was "back there." In fact, somewhere Rose says that we return to the Absolute, but that once experiencing It, we find that we were back there all along. Maharshi also likened discovering our Source as something akin to a movie projector, and we need to look back into the source of the light. These statements now make even less sense to me. In fact, the reverse seems true, where paul is now the movie screen (with nothing behind) and he is at the same time outwardly looking at the movie. Yet his Awareness needs the movie to know that he is Aware (something external is needed to reflect from in order for paul to be Aware).

Honestly, M., that's the best that I can explain it, as wordy and senseless as it sounds. The blackness experience is not the Absolute, but it has profoundly disturbed me nonetheless.

Fear of Death

From: M.
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007
To: Paul C.
Subject: RE: Friendship, Rapport, and ...?

If I were in the situation you describe, I would embrace the Blackness, the discomfort, the quandary, or the profound disturbed state that has arisen. It is all based in or on the fear of death; this is another game the ego is playing. It's masquerading as YOU, when in fact it's nothing at all other than imagination. Yet it is controlling the picture show. You have come face to face, in my opinion, with the fork in the road, mentioned by RR [Richard Rose] many times. At some point you have to be honestly willing to give up everything, life itself, all hope of survival, all spiritual gain or Realization. Then the Door will open. But be warned, as RR said too, the commitment you make will be severely challenged. He told me once, "...you can't play half-games." I think you get the point. You have to be willing to die. It's that serious. It's that intense. It's that real...actually more real than that but you can't imagine it. You can only dream about it until you put your life on the line, not just hours days and years, but your very heartbeat. "Give me Truth, or give me Death" must be your cry.

One time I had an Audi that got caught in a hailstorm, and the resulting damage was beyond repair, yet the car was drivable. I "prayed" or wished that someone would pull out in front of me so I could crash it and collect the insurance. Over the next two days, three people did exactly that, and each time I swerved like hell to save my rear end. AND, I was scared shitless. Hard not to be when you're doing 60 and somebody turns right in front of you. Point is, when I made the wish, I forgot to remember that I would feel fear in the face of immanent death by vehicular collision. Fear kept me alive. Same thing is happening to you. The ego can't willingly enter into a situation that it knows will bring about its demise.

Hence, the wisdom of Zen as a system of tension and shocks.

A Life of Not Seeing

From: Paul C.
To: M.
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Subject: RE: Friendship, Rapport, and ...?

Many times, I heard R repeat the need to fight tooth and nail for the Truth. But there's nothing left to fight for, except to know the Awareness that I witness. Likewise, I see no way to make a conscious decision to give up on life and willingly relinquish the survival urge. So, the choice clearly seems to plug away at something. I can't tell you what would happen if I faced that Blackness again. All I know for sure is that not Seeing is no way to live either.

Dichotomy

From: M.
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007
To: Paul C.
Subject: RE: Friendship, Rapport, and ...?

Paul is observed, so in what way is he connected to the Viewer or the Observer? paul is both observed and Observer, or he seems to be. When I write this letter, and you read it, who is the recipient and the reader? Who are we talking about when we discuss “paul" as a third person entity? Is it possible you've dichotomized yourself in a way the Bob F. wrote about somewhere, the “good Paul" and the “bad paul"? If so, who has done or is behind or is the engineer of the dichotomizing? Is your desire or love of Truth overshadowed or clouded by the machinations of all the pauls?

What prevents inspiration, in this situation? What would it take to be inspired enough to forgo belief in Paul's intellectualism?

Intellectual Fallibility

From: Paul C.
To: M.
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Subject: RE: Friendship, Rapport, and ...?

I realize that the Golden Find is far beyond words and an intellectual understanding of the mind. If someone asked me to explain the difference between the Process Observer and Individual Consciousness of Awareness, I couldn't lay it out in a concrete description. Thus, I know that the intellect isn't infallible, nor is it something that places a person on a superior rung. However, I cannot turn off the intellectual churning over the conundrum that I face.

At the last TAT meeting, I asked myself whether pride or fear is the block to an Experience. My first thought is that fear wasn't it. But then my next thought was that pride wasn't the block. Hell, now I don't know—maybe its fear of the blackness that I couldn't enter.

I believe that inspiration, for me, is important. When I am inspired by a book, or by listening to someone at a TAT meeting, I seem more focused on Awareness for days and even weeks afterwards.

An Experience

May 14, 2007. During a Realization, no mind stuff—no self—was present to reflect an empty and boundless One Awareness. From a description of a personal account: "A glimpse of the Absolute forever ended my inability to solve the awareness-awareness problem. It was a massive awareness-identity problem solved with finality."

- Paul Constant

The full account of Paul's experience appears in Parts 1, 2 and 3 on this page.

Re the blog postings to the website of the above exchange ...

From: Paul C. To: S
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009
Subject: RE: dichotomized awareness

Hi S -

Before mid May 2007, I had a false (albeit, rapidly disintegrating) belief that I could control or focus my awareness. I had a conviction that my individual awareness was the "real me." Or perhaps better said, in the preceding years I believed that I understood the dichotomy between awareness and everything-that-was-not-me. However, in retrospect, this was an impossible task because the mind was using its woefully inadequate apparatus to characterize the unassessable. I didn't know it at the time, but this "outside in" approach was doomed to failure.

In the years after meeting Rose, my mind cleverly constructed a paradigm whereby a cataclysmic breakthrough was needed to penetrate the Absolute. I believed that the Absolute was beyond or behind me, a separate dimension upon which a glimpse would forever lead to Paul's Enlightenment. In short, I believed in "I". But Awareness simply is. Prior to mid-May 2007, all my attempts to describe it were products of the mind ~- thinking that it could solve the riddle -- striving to make sense of its own reflection in the mirror and that which watched it. As Bart said, "The degree to which you do not exist cannot be overstated." There are no individualized awarenesses that die or glimpse the Absolute. Look not at the mirror. The dream of entering, finding, or becoming something is false.

I am interested in your perspective.

Paul

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