Sam: So we’re talking about idea generation, the problem that I face that I sometimes give an idea a certain direction. For example, if I have an idea like “This would be great as an app,” that’s my designer mind thinking and my designer mind sets a boundary. But what if I didn’t give it a direction, what if you let the idea go every direction? The thing is that I have to approach it as a designer, as what I’ve learned in that field.
iRealization: First of all you have to see clearly by what you mean with “I’m a designer.” If you had not gone to design school, or life led you that way, would you have been a designer? Also, you’d have to be born the exact parents that you were born. Without that happening none of this discussion would happen. The ultimate cause for your trajectory is your birth to a specific set of parents, and they had a specific past history, and they had to be born in that exact circumstance and so forth until ad infinitum. But let’s start with the life part. You had no choice in it and after the choice was made for you, all other choices were dependent on that choice. If you did not have a choice in the very first turn, the rest of it is pointless. The rest is only a reaction to the choice made already. It appears as choice but it’s really not, it’s predetermined – you imagine it to be choice but that’s because you don’t know the predetermination has already occurred. This is the situation and now when you say “I’m a designer,” you should see the absurdity of that statement. You are claiming to be a designer because you had certain experiences in life. You’re limiting yourself. Someone who has no idea might come along and design something beautiful, not knowing he’s a designer and he’s unlimited by that. Action needs no definition.
Sam: When I say “I’m a designer,” I’m speaking about professional areas.
iRealization: Do you think the best designers… Do you think they have any ideas about design or do they think that design is an open, unknown, total abstraction?
Sam: People with will and belief in their ideas go very far.
iRealization: Right, but what is design?
Sam: Design is everything…
iRealization: Therefore it’s not anything in particular. If you say it’s everything, it cannot be anything in particular, right? So if you say this or that, it is not that, is it not? Because it is everything.
Sam: The thing about being a designer is that I have a certain capability on my shoulders.
iRealization: Suppose that you go to sleep tonight and you wake up in the dream as a baker, and you are having a similar conversation there – how you are a baker and how much you know about bread and pastries. Someone in that conversation tells you: “You think you are a baker because you happened to be born as one in this dream.” Is this a true statement or not?
Sam: It is.
iRealization: We are talking about the same thing here. The idea that you are a baker, a designer, or whatever idea, a knowledge based idea. One has to believe in that idea. As long as you believe in that idea, of what you are, …
Sam: I am in the dream?
iRealization: You are in some kind of not-reality, is it not? You may call it a dream or whatever you like – point being it’s not reality.
Sam: So I’m limiting myself based on predetermined choices that I thought of as choices.
iRealization: Right. Is it not?
Sam: Yes, it is.
iRealization: When you talk about freedom, freedom means not having any predetermination there, otherwise there is no question of freedom. Are you free now because you have the illusion of choice? In a dream it’s already happening! These people have no choice – it’s a movie playing – nobody there has free will because the whole dream is coming as a single thing. The whole universe is operating as a single thing. Nobody in the dream has free will individually because nobody there had a choice, so when you say “Why did you do this?”, “I am this, I am that…'' These are all foolish statements because the entire thing is happening as a single unit. The question of I in a dream is foolish because the entire dream is one. Everybody says “I am doing this, I am doing that…” who is that I there? Who is actually doing something? In fact nothing is happening at all, nothing is there but it’s appearing to be there. That appearance itself, you refer to it as a dream later on and recognize it as such – that recognition happens in a state that is not the dream because the dreaming has ended and you know that was not real.
Sam: Correct. I say that after waking up.
iRealization: Which means what? That has ended. Something new has started and you are now giving the reality to this new thing that has started and you say that this is real, this waking state, and that you’re always here and this is what you are.
Sam: Wow, yes!
iRealization: Exactly the same thing you did before but now it’s in this different state.
Sam: How do you not think that?
iRealization: Rather… Now the question is “who is that thinker?” and “who is the doer?”, who is that one that you are talking about? The one you’re talking about is the character called Sam – just like in the dream it was the character Sam, the baker. This question is coming from the character because it’s happening in the dream or in the waking state.
Sam: Ohh! Ok.
iRealization: Is it not?
Sam: Yep.
iRealization: That is the thing to be seen.
Sam: When I wake up, it does not mean I’m not that baker anymore. That baker has latched on making the same interpretations of reality.
iRealization: Is it not? Because when you think and it feels that you are awake and you are the baker, you’re not actually awake, you’re actually dreaming, is it not? In fact, you are not dreaming, because the dreamer is actually asleep in order to be the dreamer. Therefore all the three states are happening at the same time.
Sam: Hum…
iRealization: You have to see clearly that there are no states. There are only the three things happening at the same time, meaning that dreaming is the reality or unreality of the knowledge of what is, which comes and goes. Waking is the reality of what is happening now, and gives that reality to the world – which happens in dreaming also – but the dream world includes the unreality of it, whereas waking assumes the reality of it. Both of them are a question of knowledge, and to whom is that knowledge appearing is the question.
Sam: Something to think about today.
Sawyer: Going back to effort, I’ve been thinking about what it is this week but can’t really put what effort is into words.
iRealization: One has to see that everything happens automatically. Ideas come to us automatically, breathing happens automatically, movement, talking. Usually people, considering if this is true, ask what is the meaning of living, what will they do in the world if it’s predetermined. That means you don’t understand that you don’t have to do anything. Secondly, you cannot not do something, even if you talk in the terms of doing. Everything has already happened! You cannot stop breathing, you cannot stop digestion, ideas are coming automatically. Can you stop ideas, can you stop thinking? Everything is happening already. The only effort is to not let it happen as it’s happening and try to change it – that’s the effort. It’s not a question of acceptance, it’s a question of seeing clearly that effort arises when I don’t let what is happening happen. The idea of effort itself arises: “Oh! I don’t want this to be happening and I must act to change it.”
Sawyer: Like trying to take control of the reigns.
iRealization: Absolutely, there’s the feeling that one must do something.
Sam: So I let the idea grow on its own independently whichever direction that idea takes…
iRealization: You have to only see what you are. You are not the baker. You are not the designer. Now again, we’re discussing another idea – many ideas are appearing now. But what are you?
Sam: Just a brain birthing ideas.
iRealization: Which brain? Sam’s brain? Baker’s brain? Designer’s brain?
Sam: The brain here now.
iRealization: But that only appears for some time, no? In a few hours it will disappear.
Sam: Totally.
iRealization: So which brain are we discussing now?
Sam: The present.
iRealization: Ok. But that present brain only belongs to the character, is it not? For example, in the dream, baker Sam has a brain and in that you have all kinds of memories, etc. Is it that the brain has the memories? Or do the memories have the brain?
Sam: The brain has the memories, right?
iRealization: In that situation, baker Sam has come out of memory. That’s what a dream is.
Sam: Oh, in the dream, yes, yes.
iRealization: So what is seen is not real. It is an appearance because in the dream there is no material there. It is in the consciousness only, it just appears. Therefore, Sam’s whole body and the whole universe has come out of memory. Without a particular type of memory, how will you know how the bread and the pastry looks like? So the dream can appear as a world and all that if you already know what it is.
Sam: Yes, ok!
iRealization: Meaning that the brain of Sam, the baker, is being projected in memory, not the other way around. Because the brain is just a bunch of cells, it’s empty, you know? How can it have memory? Brain is changing completely all the time. Every seven years the body cells change out. So what do you mean that your body has memories? You understand? Consciousness is not there in any atom, it’s matter. Matter is what?
Sam: Energy, I guess.
iRealization: Even energy is matter, as pointed out by E = mc², but they are both not sentient. Sentience is what knows about matter. What is that intelligence? When someone says that there is intelligent life, they mean that certain beings such as human beings or chimpanzees or dolphins have a certain level of intelligence. So that is what is meant by intelligence or sentience – the knowing factor; meta-cognition; perception; consciousness. The level of consciousness is different in different beings. A snake has a limited type of consciousness, whereas we are meta-conscious, conscious of consciousness. Now where does the brain appear in this whole situation? Consciousness is not there in any objects because objects are clearly not-conscious. So that is the reason why different bodies keep appearing and disappearing, and why you appear as many different things, such as bakers, designers, etc. That is called dreaming. In what sense is it different right now?
Sam: Nothing, but my mind is convinced that what I think I am is what is reality.
iRealization: Absolutely correct, but isn’t that belief there only in this dream state?
Sam: Yes.
iRealization: Right, that disappears the minute this changes. The minute you go into any other dream state, or any other waking state, any other state, this state disappears and another starts! If you start daydreaming you forget this situation, you might even have an accident.
Sam: Ok. The simplest things to understand are the most difficult.
iRealization: Because the character who’s saying that statement is giving reality to it, therefore you think it’s true. That’s all. True or false is the thing to be seen. Whatever you believe in is either true or false, right?
Sam: Yeah.
iRealization: It’s as simple as a binary switch, true or false. Just like someone addicted to smoking: “I need to smoke!” and in a snap, it’s clearly seen I don’t need to smoke anymore: “It’s sickening! I can’t believe I smoked for so many years!” and not a single cigarette is touched after that. It’s a binary switch. Finished! It’s done. There’s no reality to it after that. “I don’t need to smoke,” that’s the belief.
Sam: Do you need a specific event to impact that realization?
iRealization: The thing is… who will realize it? The character is not real, so the character cannot realize anything.
Sam: So for example, me in a dream state, Sam the baker, was a smoker years ago and then he stopped…
iRealization: Your question is if there was an event that caused it to happen.
Sam: Yes!
iRealization: And I’m pointing out that he was not real. The whole thing was a dream. So what’s the point of finding cause in the illusion? There is no agency there. Sam did not choose either to smoke or to not smoke. He never had choice in either. The question of choice is not there whatsoever.
Sam: It was just a play happening.
iRealization: Yes. It was just a play in consciousness, called a dream. The play, like a theater production in consciousness, is what you call a dream, is it not? With all the dream characters coming and playing a part and doing different things.
Sam: Yeah.
iRealization: In fact you, yourself, are in there and you also play a part and you forget the fact – you play the part so well, you even forget that you’re playing a part.
Sam: Is it of purpose to escape the dream or to stay in the dream?
iRealization: Whose purpose?
Sam: Yeah. *laugh* Anyone who is desiring evolution.
iRealization: Who?! Who can possibly desire it? It’s all dream characters, you see? The question of evolution can only come from an individual point of consciousness who thinks that it is an actual person and reality – the character becoming real is what is meant by “I” – it creates the false baker-I, which limits itself to its own understanding of the universe.
Sam: So this huge effort to come out of the dream is a role I have created.
iRealization: Is it not? Yes. Everything is created by you. That is why it’s called creation.
Sam: This will take some time. I shall meditate on this.
iRealization: I’ll tell you one very important thing. What we are discussing is the dangerous nature of knowledge because it clouds the reality. All knowledge is unreal because it’s not the actual thing. So, it’s best you don’t create any major ideas about what we are discussing because they will become ideas again.
Sam: Yeah, don’t try to deduce it.
iRealization: Yes. That is very important because the deduction process is an intellectual process, which only happens within the conscious state and we are discussing where consciousness comes from. As we just mentioned, knowledge is the problem. We want to know direct truth, which does not involve knowing or what you call knowledge-based knowing. It requires the actual being of what is, and what is in all situations, whether it’s a dream or the waking state.
Photography - Courtesy of Tomoe Steineck
