character story texture

Character is the "what" that plays a role. Nonduality sees this What as only a wrinkle in the fabric of Experience, a locus for energy and time to intersect. Ego wants to claim it as a separately existing thing, but it is simply part of the flowing wholeness. Character has a name (or several) and appearance and tendencies. But all of that is mutable, transitory and only for fun. Choose what you want it to be. This character decided several years ago to create personality facets and give them names and let them do what they wished. Later found that this is called Transpersonal Psychology, which is like inventing multiplication when I was 7... Endless creativity can create anything. Fear for nothing.

Story is something that gets stuck to the Character. Ego tells the stories over and over, to itself, and anyone who will listen. This is a dead end. Free yourself from the compulsion to believe anything about yourself.

Texture is the "how" Experience unfolds. Coffee. Sunrise. Biting an orange. Listening to music. Dancing on the beach. Every experience is unique in all of time. There are no repeats, so don't catch yourself being bored. Life is not a rehearsal. The hearse will come one day, and for now it is unimportant. Yours. Anyone's. Experience it now. Start with whatever is happening... Right... Now. What happens is beyond question. Texture is truth.

steering the sandworm

I have been thinking about dreams: it is fascinating that there can be this audio-visual and other-senses presentation that is fully convincing, made up out of nothing. Try closing your eyes and doing the same thing? It is nowhere near as complete. So what is going on there? My dreams have places, made up or based on real places, or actual real places, sometimes that I have not yet been to, or that I do not consciously remember. I described a house to my parents that we moved out of when I was 3, based on a dream I had when I was 45. There are people in dreams with complete histories, appearance, voice tone. Conversations happen. Unexpected things happen. Can you surprise yourself while awake? If you play both sides of a Chess game, can you beat yourself?

My point is that the conscious verbal mind is only a tiny bleb on the surface of our total being. So much is happening without awareness that one should hardly be amazed at the wild and outrageous things that people do. If we cannot even create a daydream consciously that is anything like the dreams the Basic Self manages without effort asleep, then it says a lot about how much of the being the ego really is: very very little. Why do people think so highly of their own thought process? This is epic vanity, like Ecclesiastes described, worthy of reciting for thousands of years! Get off your pedestal, imposter!

If you really look at how life functions, and how unconscious or delirious most of waking awareness is, you will probably agree that the egoic self we cling to is often nothing more than an observer, or witness to events. I don't like those terms. Sometimes people write about that point of view as some kind of attainment. I think it is the view of a drunk lying in the gutter. Evict the witness, it is just the ghost of a specter. The being does its thing, on many levels: cells need no help from us. Organs and systems are perfectly capable. The body can find food and shelter, defend itself, reproduce... all without words or planning at all. The mind can capture information, recall, design things, find solutions... without an ego stepping in and micromanaging.

The ego is like trying to steer a sandworm. It goes where it wants to. It is far bigger than we are, and it will take care of itself.

no best self

Who wants to know?

Have you ever felt like you were calling on the self-phone, trying to reach your higher nature? For me, the calls go through, but Customized Service can't always give me an answer to my questions. I have had this experience since I was a child, and have discussed it with a friend of mine, that there is a Main Voice that talks with me, but it is not - as I see it - part of my personality. My friend admits that the voice is there, but says it has no special knowledge. I would say it does, but it is a perspective of what I am experiencing right then.

I do not aspire to be that "better self", because to me, it does not represent a self, or an improved version of me, or anything at all, really. It is just "a thought having a thought", which is perfectly fine, as long as I am clear about it. (I don't have a Thinking problem, I can stop any time.)

It irks me when I read magazine articles about becoming my true self or best self or whatever. The assumption seems to be that I just need some improving and more experience and I will have it all down. A few false beliefs pruned and some right view, and I will be much better off. No, the point is to realize that the thought process is a mechanism, and it is not special, or permanent or important or an identity... It is just something happening, really. It is like worshiping a tree: what happens in a hundred years when the tree inevitably dies? Did God go away? How then is reality still unfolding? (I guess if we are standing there pondering, it is alright, but if one's own tree dies, then that would be a problem.)

I DO use the phrase True Nature, which I first heard from Deborah Westmoreland. It sounds similar, but my distinction is:

1. It is not MY nature, but the nature of Experience
2. It is true in the sense of being free of wrong ideas
3. It is impersonal
4. It does not point to a higher reality, but the one we observe

So, "True Nature" is like a placeholder that defers questions until one gets beyond the need to have them answered. No one ever takes it to the bank. That's much better than the temptation to believe in a better version of oneself. For what will that self do? What will it want? This is the childish belief in happily ever after. Heaven exists, but it is still limited, still impermanent, and one must still face the fact that one is special, just like everyone else. There is no trophy for being so wonderful. What do you want this better scenario for? It just kicks the same can down the road. Throw the can away now.

True Nature is the realization that the whole idea of specialness was a fabrication. Things are good how they are. Life doesn't need frosting, or any dessert at all. The main course is fine.

[Pay no attention to this post]

I found out that the main content of my site (on the tabbed Pages at the top) is not indexed for searching unless I link to it. So this is just a set of links to the six main pages of the site. "Move along, there is nothing to see here."
Perspective - getting a handle on Awakening
Stages - tendencies that make Awakening easier
One - a self with Ego "off-line": the Neo state
Gone -  the no-self stage of development
Return - everyday life as the Nondualist hobby
Ocean - Why you are precious to me
All except the Ocean page were written June 17, 2014, the day before I went in for open heart surgery.

ICE (In Case of Emergency)

• Derail Deficiency Thinking. Replace it with Being.
• Always turn away from Story.
• Remember that no one will understand or relate.
• Stop idolizing Choice.
• Think less. Merge thoughts.
• Meditate. (yes, start doing it again)
• Hobby? ("something that doesn't talk back")
• Go "Uh" more often.
• Strive to impart info, not a point of view.
• Don't tell Story.