You will never be free E-Book

Andreas Müller

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 153

Beschreibung

You will never be free, because there is no 'you' which is imprisoned. Freedom is all there is, one could say, yet, there is no one apart to be aware of it. In that sense, everything is naturally and beautifully itself. Everything is absolutely realized already.

Leseprobe

“Do not follow me. I’m lost.”

U. G. Krishnamurti

This book contains extracts from the talks with Andreas that took place between 2017 and 2019. They are loosely sorted, but do not follow any specific order.

Table of Contents

What

Unio mystica

Well-being

What is the ‘me’?

Additional realization

The ultimate goal

Advantage–disadvantage

Innocence

No seeing

Without an experience

For no one

How to?

True self

Presence

Confused

Useless

About words

Separate setup

Complicated

Freedom

Reality

Surrender

Let go

Unwanted

No presence–no absence

Awareness

Absolute awareness

Joy

No illusion

Knowledge

Scriptures

Deep sleep

No mind

No thoughts

Fear

Delusion

Clarity

Non-teaching?

The battle

Doership–victimhood

Consciousness vs. self-consciousness

Maya

Be here

No creation

Why

Shall I?

All is love

Ramana saying …

Koan

Be quiet …

NetiNeti

Stay in the ‘I am’

Play & screen

Self-inquiry

Reincarnation

Make the prison nicer

Infant

The barking dog

Living in liberation

Healing & trauma

Lingering ideas

Reverberation

Dissociation

Excursions into science

Criticism

Thanks

About

The most ordinary life is unburdened by personal means. There is no person. The whole idea that you can become something better or even lose something is part of an illusion: the illusion of being ‘me’. There is no such thing in the first place. Remember: I don’t teach anything. There is no one.

What?

Q: What do you teach?

A: Nothing. It’s all perfect already. So, there is nothing to teach.

Q: How can I see that?

A: Well, you will never really see that. When you talk about “how can I see that” you’re referring to an additional state of seeing. However, perfection can’t and doesn’t have to be seen. It just is. In that sense, the apparent me is never interested in perfection, it’s only interested in seeing it. Yet, exactly that ‘me’ is illusory and so would be its seeing.

Q: Do you see that perfection?

A: No, I don’t. There is no ‘I’ thinking that I should or even could do so. Surprisingly, perfection doesn’t need to see itself in order to be – it just is what naturally is.

Q: But what’s its worth if I can’t experience it?

A: Oh, nothing. It’s not worth anything. It’s not something that you own and can use. It simply is what you are.

Q: What I am? Do you mean awareness?

A: Oh, no, there is no experience of who or what you are. All there is, is what you are, but for no one. Awareness still is an experience. Nothing is having an experience of ‘what is’ – all there is, is ‘what is’.

Unio mystica

Q: Do you think that liberation is the unio mystica?

A: The unio mystica that we speak about isn’t an experience. It’s neither an insight nor a knowing. It’s the melting of the subject-object reality or rather the melting of the trinity of experiencer, experienced and the process of experience into nothing; into unknowing.

Q: What’s unknowing?

A: Actually, it’s not just unknowing. Unknowing actually comes from not even being experienced. When I speak of unknowing, I don’t refer to a personal state of not focusing on thoughts; this dizzy “I don’t think” thing. Not knowing means not experiencing. Nothing can be known, because there is no experience of anything.

Q: That’s the unio mystica?

A: One could say so. The interesting thing is that there actually is no such thing. Separation is an illusion, so there is no real melting back into no-thing-ness. It’s not something that will happen one day. In fact, it doesn’t happen.

Q: It doesn’t happen?

A: No, it doesn’t. This whole “union with God” thing is based on the assumption of there being a separate entity. Yet, there isn’t. There is already and only union. You know, experiencing itself isn’t real, therefore the assumption of a future experience is nothing but an assumption out of that illusory present experience. There is no experience now, and there will never be any experience. Seen from the apparent perspective of the ‘me’, liberation is assumed to be an ongoing experience of consciously knowing and feeling that everything is good. Well, not just good, really good. That ongoing future experience doesn’t exist.

Q: But there are experiences of ‘absolute goodness’.

A: Yes, but they are still experiences and not fulfilling at all. They never meet the longing for the unio mystica. Nothing becomes unified in that experience. It just is another experience.

Q: Hmm. But maybe it will last one day.

A: Yes, that’s the hope.

Well-being

Q: What do you mean when you say that there is no bondage?

A: Both, bondage and liberation, are part of a dream – the dream of being some separate thing which is present. This “thing” lives in an apparent self-experience, which is accompanied by a sense of unfulfillment and the attempt to find an answer to that sense. That’s what’s called bondage. Liberation is either the idea to overcome that bondage or, how I sometimes use it, the apparent breakdown of the personal setup altogether. Seen by the person, liberation is assumed to be the overcoming of the seeking by finding something – and then become a fulfilled person. The person either wants to get rid of the seeking or it wants to get rid of itself and enter a state of liberation which, too, is assumed to exist as something in time and space. Yet, what I’m saying is that there is no person in the first place. When there is no person, there is neither someone imprisoned by what happens nor is there someone to be freed from what happens. So, the concepts of liberation and bondage only belong to the dream. Neither do you have to escape ‘what is’ nor do you have to bare ‘what is’. It’s really that simple.

Q: I don’t think that it’s simple. To me, it all seems very difficult. I mean, I have been struggling with this a lot for many years.

A: Yes, that’s true. The ‘I’ is struggling with this. It’s simple because it already is like that. Yet, it’s impossible to do. Look, it’s not just difficult to do, it’s impossible! It’s impossible to do, because it already is whole and complete. All experience of completeness that you create is part of the dream. All experience is illusory. ‘What is’ is naturally whole already, no matter what it looks like or what it feels like. And when I speak of ‘what is’, I don’t refer to some abstract ‘what is’. What I refer to is exactly this – the room, you, the feelings, the breathing, the atmosphere. That’s naturally whole and doesn’t need any artificial or extra state of peace or well-being. Wellbeing is the natural reality, we could say. Everything is totally and absolutely well in being what it is.

Q: Even pain?

A: Of course, even pain. Have you ever heard the pain complaining about itself? Have you ever heard any feeling complaining about itself? Have you ever heard any feeling of bliss uplifting itself? No, it just is what apparently happens. Apparent suffering is when there is someone who is experiencing pain and suffering. That one lives in the illusion of suffering from pain, instead of there being just pain. Fortunately, there is no one. There is neither someone in hell nor is there someone in heaven. That’s the freedom.

Q: Is suffering an illusion then?

A: Well, pain is what apparently happens, but yes, the sufferer is illusory. No one suffers from anything. But feelings that the ‘me’ would regard as suffering may apparently happen.

Q: And then? What do you do when there is pain? Do you just sit in silence or what?

A: No, I don’t. Or I may do. I don’t know. Something apparently happens. Taking medicine maybe.

Q: But you just said that pain is ‘it’. Why do you have to take medicine then?

A: ‘I’ don’t take medicine, but taking medicine may be what apparently happens. And, as I said, there is no one who has to bare or accept the pain. You assume this to be a personal message with a personal standpoint. I don’t see that the pain is ‘it’ from a personal standpoint and then can consciously react according to that state of acceptance. The pain as well as my reaction to it is what apparently happens. There just is no one there living in the illusion of doing any of it.

Q: But is that illusion wrong?

A: No, it’s not. It just is what apparently happens. It’s neither right nor wrong, and it’s as much wholeness as everything else.

Q: But why are we working so hard to get rid of it?

A: I don’t know. There is no illusion anyway, so working to get rid of the illusion is part of the illusion. Oneness does neither care nor know anything about an illusion.

Q: But aren’t we talking here in order to get rid of it?

A: No, we aren’t. This isn’t a teaching. There is no intention on my side at least. This isn’t happening for anything. In that sense, the ‘me’ is working on an illusory problem. There is neither a ‘me’ nor a ‘me’ illusion. There just is what apparently happens, which is exactly this and unknowable at the same time. However, it’s absolutely happy to be what it is. All the complaints come from that illusory me, but even that is happily and simply itself. No one is bothered by that ‘me’ nor is there anyone aware of its existence.

Q: Hmm. So, all my seeking was really futile.

A: Oh, yes, there is nothing to get. The whole setup of experiencing doesn’t exist. The first element of it – you – seeking in the second element – what you experience – is a dreamt reality. All results of that seeking are part of that dreamt reality as well. There is no fulfillment in there.

Q: But where can I find fulfillment then?

A: Nowhere. You can’t find fulfillment. In fact, there is no such thing as fulfillment. What you’re actually seeking is an experience of fulfillment. What you’re seeking is an awareness of fulfillment and exactly that doesn’t exist. The apparent me believes that liberation is replacing the experience of unfulfillment and seeking with an experience of fulfillment and having found. It thinks that the experience of presence is replaced by an experience of absence. However, in liberation the whole setup of experience turns out to be non-existent, but it doesn’t get replaced by anything. What’s left is naturally whole and full, yet there is no experience of being it. Of course, seen from the perspective of the apparent me, this can’t be comprehended. All the ‘me’ knows – and all it exists in – is to experience, and all it has been working for its whole life is that replacement. Yet, nothing has to be seen. Nothing has to be replaced and nothing has to be experienced. This “I have to find it” is an illusion meaning that it just isn’t true. Nothing can and has to be found.

Q: Well, I know that. You have said that over and over again.

A: Yes, and? What does it help?

Q: Nothing actually.

A: Yes, exactly. It’s still ‘you’ knowing something. Yet, there is no ‘you’ in the first place.

Q: Hmm.

A: Yes.

Q: Can you still say something about that fulfillment?

A: As I said, what is or what apparently happens, is naturally whole and complete. It’s unknowable, but by being so it’s exactly what is. We don’t talk about some super-reality that’s all-encompassing or secretly permeating everything. It’s not hidden somewhere – it’s exactly this without a second, meta-reality. It is laid completely open. It’s not a hidden secret, it’s an open secret.

Q: Ramana said that knowing it is being it. Does that somehow fit into that?

A: Well, it could be the same what I was just saying. You can’t know or rather experience it. You naturally are ‘it’. Yet, the seeker will probably turn this “being it” into something that one could or should consciously do. “Being it” is the natural reality, or rather: Everything already is that. For the seeker “being it” would mean to “become and experience to be it”. But that’s apparently different from being it. Yes, you are it, but without having an experience of being it.

What’s the ‘me’?

Q: What’s the ‘me’ actually?

A: There is no answer to that question, simply because there is no ‘me’ around. So, we would be talking about an illusion. There is no ‘me’, no soul, no presence, no self-awareness and no self-consciousness. Isn’t that interesting?

Q: But why do so many teachers, religions and traditions emphasize that consciousness so much?

A: Oh, just because these are personal teachings. All the person does is to uplift its existence. All the ‘me’ has is its existence – that’s what it consists of. And exactly that existence has to be pumped up artificially with meaning and greatness in order to make it worthy. All the ‘me’ knows is ‘me’, so ‘me’ must be God. (laughs). What an arrogance. An apparent arrogance, of course.

Q: Oh, wow.

A: The other thing which makes these teachings attractive is that they constantly and directly address the person. That’s what the person wants and enjoys in the first place: to be seen, to be recognized as present, as existent. That’s another method to confirm one’s own existence. Besides that, this whole consciousness thing is referring to another state which apparently can be verified by personal inquiry and experience. ‘Me’ simply has to inquire and find out that it actually is pure consciousness or awareness or something like that – at least something that is, something that exists in some way. “To be aware of being awareness” is another of these ideas. Another thing that seems to be attractive, another promise. Personal teachings offer a state that promises salvation and fulfillment. You just have to learn to go there or to know that. “To know yourself as awareness”, for example, is one of these things.

The funny and amazing thing about that is that it’s completely and utterly illusory. All these states and experiences have no reality at all. It’s a dreamt reality – dreamt by no one – which has no substance at all.

Q: Doesn’t it have at least the reality of a dream?

A: Well, no. “There is no ‘me’” actually means that there is no ‘me’. So, there is no dream of ‘me’ either. The assumption that there is a dream that could end is already part of the dream. There is neither delusion nor a dream to wake up from. That’s all spiritual dream stuff.

Q: But how can it feel so real to be ‘me’?

A: If feeling to be ‘me’ is what apparently happens over there, it’s inevitable. Then that’s what apparently happens, and that is reality, we could say. There is still no one there though.

Q: But how can I comprehend that? How can I see that I’m not real?

A: Not at all. You can neither comprehend nor see that, just because there is no ‘you’. Who would be able to do that? There is no one.

Q: Yes, but sometimes it seems as if I do see that there is no ‘me’.

A: Yes, but what was the use of this? It’s still someone seeing something. It’s still consciousness which is conscious about some circumstance. Yet, there is neither a ‘me’ nor a seeing nor real circumstances. It’s still trying to see and be aware of something. Exactly that’s the dream.

Q: Hmm, oh, man. And I felt like improving.

A: Yes, exactly. You felt like improving. What a joke … (laughs). That’s why I refer to liberation as death. It’s not a seeing of something. It’s not developing towards something. It’s not becoming or being aware of something, whatever that something is. It just is the sudden death of the illusory experience to be that something which experiences presence. There is neither a seeing nor any other prerequisites needed. It’s just dying for no reason, without having reached somewhere and without having gotten any answers. Liberation is just the end of that presence for no reason.

Q: Phew, that’s really strong stuff.

A: Oh, yes, it’s so different from what the apparent me thinks. It has all those ideas of high goals, holy aspirations and dreams about states of bliss and greatness. And then, suddenly, all that’s left is this. All that’s left is sitting in a room, being me, being you, these thoughts, these feelings. And that’s the surprise: In dying nothing happens. In dying nothing dies. Nothing changes. Nothing becomes something else. It’s just ‘this’ – for no one. There is no finding in that, no arriving, no realization, no death and no experience of something coming to an end. The whole experience of presence – me and my life – turns out to be illusory. It never existed. ‘I’ never was something that happened. Nothing has been born and nothing dies. There is just nothing there. What’s left is this. What’s left is what apparently happens. Yet, for no one.

Q: But what’s ‘this’? Is there an illusion now or not? Who knows all of that?

A: No one does. Who would be able to know all that? Who would be able to experience anything in the first place? ‘This’ isn’t something that’s experienced and known. It’s not even something that is. It’s no-thing for no one.

Q: But then really nothing can be known.

A: Yes, exactly. Yet, not because there is something which can’t be known, but because there is nothing there in the first place. All knowing would come from that artificial awareness which experiences itself and everything else as real. Without that, who could experience anything?

Q: Wow, man. Now I see that you really speak about death.