The Dream of Separation

The Dream of Separation

All there is is No-thing Being Everything and what appears as part
of that everything is the belief and experience of being a separate
self — an apparent individual with its own free will, choice and
ability to act. This happening is uniquely human and is called self-
consciousness. To most people it is the reality.

That apparent feeling of being separate is at the root of the
suffering, inadequacy and sense of loss that drives people to search
for escape or resolution. It is Being dreaming that it is apart from
itself, looking all over the place for that which is already
Everything. It is the hypnotic dream of separation which, for the
dreamer, is very real.

The dilemma for the dream seeker is that the feeling of separation
drives the seeking for resolution, which further fuels the sense of
separation.

The development of an intelligent understanding 'mind' apparently
brings with it the ability to make choices and take actions in an
attempt to negotiate with 'the world' lived in. These negotiations
are not always successful and the individual seems to experience its
own pain and pleasure. It also develops a great respect for the
guidance and control apparently emanating from the
understanding 'mind'. However, as long as there is a sense of
separation, there is a sense of disquiet or loss and there is a
seeking to dispel that sense. It seems logical that the much
respected understanding 'mind' must be capable of investigating the
cause of this disquiet and discovering ways of dispelling it.
The separate entity can only try to imagine or project an idea of
what it must be like not to be separate. What is sought is the
possibility of a future goal or state that can be realised and
therefore, logically, must be approachable. Consequently, the
function of seeking and the teaching of becoming locks the seeker
into a state of continuously approaching something that it cannot
comprehend. All of this is the _expression of Being, arising as the
good, old, dependable and reliable understanding `mind' functioning
as it can only function . . . in continual movement and
anticipation. It is this activity of becoming which very effectively
keeps the seeker in the hypnotic dream of reaching out for something
it cannot grasp. Of course, Liberation can apparently happen despite
all of this effort.

The only other hope for the dream seeker is to believe that another
benevolent energy (say God, Consciousness or a so-called enlightened
teacher) would be motivated to guide and influence the seeker along
a path which would eventually lead them to fulfilment. All of these
ideas of becoming, purpose and destiny arise in the dream.
But the paradox is that although Being appears as the dream seeker,
Being is not a state that can be imagined, conceived of, attained or
even realised by the seeking of it. Being requires absolutely
nothing … it is the Nothing and Everything that is already
immaculate fulfilment and wholeness. Nothing needs to be changed or
attained, lost or found, for Being to simply Be. The appearance of
separation is simply the _expression of Being. The very idea of
something needing to approach that which it already is, is
wonderfully futile. Being is a comedian with an audience which never
laughs.

The dream seeker feels a sense of loss and unworthiness, and so is
very attracted to dream teachings which involve purification, hard
committed effort, surrender, devotion and the development of
renunciation and detachment. There is a kind of logical
inevitability and worthiness about these ideas which resonates with
the sense of lack. The almost endless path of striving happily
ensures the continuation of the individual experience. These ideas
seem to arise out of a very substantial and reliable history of
traditional wisdom which surely must be respected, even though it is
only available as words on bits of paper.

Two traditional ways which seek resolution, or escape, from the
sense of separation are meditation and self-enquiry.
In meditation it seems possible, through apparent choice and
guidance, to reach certain states of stillness or bliss which seem
better than feeling separate. The belief is that continuous effort
with meditation will solidify the state and eventually make it
permanent. But these states are only refined personal experiences
happening within the dream-story. So like all other time-based
activities they come and go away.

Self-enquiry is a similar process in that the goal is for the
individual to choose to take action or make the effort to reach a
place called awareness which, its teachers promise, will bring
personal peace of mind, happiness and the end of all suffering (?).
There is a great emphasis on the need for properly carried out
investigation of thought processes etc, and the necessity for
vigilance from "being distracted by self-centred thoughts".
All of this activity is based on the principle of the
enquirer "getting oneness" and maintaining personal possession of it.
The effect of the state of awareness is apparent movement into a
place of detachment which at first feels very freeing, powerful and
safe . . . rather like being in a glass box from which life can be
watched without the watcher being affected. It is still a subtly
dual personal experience within the dream-story of separation and so
it is transitory.

Awareness of life happening is not 'Being life'.
Predictably the state of awareness (Buddhist mindfulness) is easily
forgotten or mislaid, or it can be overwhelmed by dream thinking or
any powerful emotional situation, for instance. The glass box
shatters and the place you seemed to be in seems lost again. The
dream seeker either starts self-enquiring again, for another boost,
or it is realised that awareness is just another refuge from within
the dream of separation. All of this is simply the _expression of
Being.

Another way for the dream seeker to avoid simply Being is to try to
understand or develop clarity about its own nature. It is very easy
to get stuck in `Advaita' or `non-dual' concepts. The singular and
unrelenting reiteration of such ideas as "all there is is
Being", "everything is the _expression of Being" or "there is no one"
are an arid and simplistic form of communication. It doesn't address
or illuminate the dream seeker's apparent dilemma and it obviously
ignores the primary energetic essence of the implicit aliveness of
simply Being.

To continuously say that being awake or being asleep is not relevant
because "Being is all there is" is like telling a blind person that
it's OK to be blind because "seeing is all there is". This is pure
idealism. Of course, there is no such thing as being asleep or being
awake, but this is not seen until there is no one looking.

The Open Secret communication is not dependent on clear concepts,
however much they may expose confused concepts. Speaking happens and
words can only point to another possibility which is beyond verbal
_expression. It is the eternally new message which is hidden within
the scriptures and either overlooked or rejected in the `mind'.
The idea of prescriptive teaching, guidance or the offer of any kind
of help simply does not arise. This is a message without hope or
comfort of any kind for the individual, but invariably the dream
seeker will still believe that something is on offer … this is the
function of seeking. It is also possible that all that will be left
is nothing, and then another possibility could arise. However, there
is no agenda or motive because nothing is for sale.

It is possible that clarity could arise, but absolute understanding
is not liberation. Nevertheless, all of this conceptual
communication is secondary to the primary element that is most
illuminating. That primary element is energetic, impersonal
aliveness … the implicit, vibrant wonder of simply Being. It is an
energetic shift, apparently out of contraction into boundlessness.
This boundlessness cannot be owned and so cannot be given. Its
simplicity utterly confounds the `mind', but what arises is an
impersonal recognition that there is no-one and nothing to be
liberated. All ideas of separation, individual suffering, free will,
choice, meaning and purpose, destiny, hierarchy and tradition, are
simply seen by no-one as the dream-play of Being.

It seems that the seeking `mind' is fascinated by struggle and
complexity. The whole fabric of seeking is full of stories of great
edifices, seemingly arising out of simple beginnings. Buddhism,
Christianity and so many other dogmas, arise and grow and fight each
other over having better gods. Catechisms of sin and worthiness,
degrees of awareness and levels of enlightenment are investigated,
dissected and struggled over.

The mind loves the idea of enlightenment being some kind of distant,
virtually unobtainable, perfect place of permanent bliss, free from
suffering and full of omniscience, omnipresence and lots of other
important `omni's' stomping around, shouting the odds and saving the
world. And of course, because all this glory and specialness has to
be attained, it seems there has to be a long haul through the dark
night of the soul, endless past karmas, original sin, right-
thinking, right action and preparation for the bardos. "It is a tale
told by a fool, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Yet Natural Being is such an ordinary and gentle constant. When it
is seen it is. When it is avoided it is. It requires no effort and
demands no standards. Being timeless there is no path to tread, no
debt to pay. It is already totally known. When this is heard and
confusion collapses, when the contraction of struggling to get
something falls away and the vibrant energy of being aliveness
becomes apparent, something else is seen, very naturally of course,
because it is already all that is.

Tony Parsons
1st July 2006

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