Jacob: If somebody is committing some crime, if it is already written, if it is already meant to be, what’s the point of judging people? It is generally taught that people have the freewill to choose so how does this go around it?
iRealization: If you say that everything is written before, where is the freewill?
Jacob: Exactly, that’s what I’m asking.
iRealization: Every single religion, every single spiritual master, every single ancient text tells you that there is no free will. It’s all God’s will. Yet, here we are in the twenty-first century still arguing about the same topic. In these meetings the most common topic we talk about is that essentially that there is no freewill. And yet the illusion of freewill persists, right?
Jacob: Correct.
iRealization: Both the knowledges are in your mind right now – the logical explanation of why there is no freewill, and the belief that you are doing this.
Sia: You say that we dream the dream, and seeing it as that, does that not end the notion of freewill? It’s not to say that it negates freewill, or even approves freewill, it’s simply to say that I am, this is all happening because of me…
iRealization: That is a fact. If I’m not there it cannot be happening. That’s a given thing. I’m required! That’s a fact. So I am knowledge only, is it not? What I know about myself at any given point in time, or what I know about anything at all is a function of knowledge that I have. If I don’t have knowledge I’m also there. If I say I have knowledge, can I be the knowledge?
Sia: No. Well..
iRealization: The same thing happens in dreaming – if the dream is happening to me, if I’m witnessing the dream, is there any question about me dreaming it? It’s a happening. We are being dreamed. If this is clear then there is no reaction.
Sia: I get thrown off a little bit when there is any discussion of anyone having control or any sort of power to dictate things ahead of time, to predestine anything except that it was me, only me – because it’s my dream.
iRealization: Yes, but the question of “my” has to become clear.
Sia: That seems to me to be only a flavor of consciousness. I just happen to be this particular flavor.
iRealization: Yeah, when you say “flavor” I assume you mean different types of people?
Sia: Yes. When I say “my” I only mean this flavor of it.
iRealization: Right. There’s no such thing.
Sia: No? Isn’t your life different from my life?
iRealization: The question of “my life”, “your life”, has to be seen. What do you mean by that? What you mean is the waking state, right? And in the waking state so many things are happening and many things are being seen here. Just like you’re walking through a farmer’s market and so many things are going on. All things are just happening.
Sia: I’ll make it even more specific. When I stopped arguing with you and getting mad at what you were saying and began to understand it, life was bad, but then when these understandings began to fall into place. The knowing completely stopped and the wandering for the most part has fallen away, so I’m saying that… Hum…
iRealization: Yeah, you’re saying that it’s all just ideas and those ideas are appearing to you and if you don’t identify with them, then you will not see any difference in flavor. Is it not?
Sia: Fair enough, sure.
iRealization: Awareness has no flavor, you know?
Sia: I feel that when I say that it’s just for communication’s sake.
iRealization: No, no. In actual experience! In experience actually. If you are feeling different things in experience, one has to see where those differences are coming from. If you say “sweet” and “salty”, where is that duality coming from? The salt and sugar both are inert, they don’t say they are sweet or salty, and if ten people eat the same sugar they’ll have ten different reactions. All those different flavors of experience do not come from the objects themselves – which are inert – it only comes from you.
Sia: Yes, yes. I see.
iRealization: Experience is not derived from objects. The mango you eat are just dead cells, energy. It has no taste actually. If you are distracted you don’t even know what you ate. So, see very, very clearly where the experience of anything is coming from.
Sia: Just the mind.
iRealization: Is it not? Because if you go to sleep tonight, there’s really nothing there and suddenly you are eating a mango, enjoying it and having so much fun. But in your dream, there was no mango, no world, no body. Nothing was there and you had the mango. The experience of it was real until you woke up, and in this new state you have a craving for mango also.
Sia: Maybe ice cream! *laugh*
iRealization: Maybe! To see clearly is to see that this is the situation. The problem, which everybody has, is that we are all addicted to experience. Nowadays people don’t want the so-called material things, they want experiences, thinking that experience is not material. But it very much is, no?
Jacob: Can you say that again?
iRealization: The so-called experiences, are they not material?
Jacob: It’s an abstract thing. I can’t see it, I can only feel it.
iRealization: Ah. There is something called subtle matter and gross matter. Gross matter is like a tree, a table, a house, a body. But an idea is subtle matter, because it is still there, a specific idea with a specific boundary, a specific structure, a specific something. So it’s a thing! An idea is a thing also. It’s just that it’s subtle, it’s not gross. But it’s matter. It’s an actual thing, is it not? It’s not nothing. Matter is something that occupies space, has weight, volume and a definite structure. In an idea, the weight is zero because it’s subtle matter but it has a definite volume and even weight, as it can feel heavy, light, and all those things. So it’s a real thing, an object of consciousness, also known as knowledge. Ideas and knowledge are the same, conceptual and based on memories and other ideas. So in all of this, what is experience?
Jacob: Right…
iRealization: You said it is abstract. Is it abstract? See, subtle matter is not abstract; abstract is when there’s no matter there. That is what is purely abstract. Whereas “material” is not abstract by definition. And we just now said that ideas are subtle matter, therefore they are not abstract. Some ideas are very concrete, is it not?
Jacob: Yeah.
iRealization: What I’m trying to say is that experience is abstract, but the knowledge of it is not abstract. Do you understand this point?
Jacob: Yes.
iRealization: When I eat the mango, just at the point of eating it there is no description there. Whatever it is, it is. The minute I compare it and create knowledge out of it, when I say it is like this and like that, whether it’s tasty or not, that is the thing that you call experience. Otherwise how would you know you had experience? The knowledge of the experience is what I’m referring to.
Sam: The discovery of a new experience…
iRealization: Not new. The fact is that you are eating the mango, even if you have eaten five thousand mangoes before, you are eating this one. The very fact that you know that you are eating it – that is knowledge. How do you know that you are having an experience? That is also knowledge, is it not? Either you know that you are having an experience or you don’t. If you walk through the whole farmer’s market and don’t notice somebody in particular, that means you never had the experience of them standing near the veggies section. Which means what? You did not experience it, you did not have the knowledge of it, and therefore you say “Oh, I didn’t know. It didn’t happen.”
Sam: What you didn’t sense didn’t happen.
iRealization: Yeah. The point I’m making is about the knowledge of the experiences versus the experience itself. Eating the mango and having the knowledge of eating the mango; walking through the farmer’s market and noticing somebody versus not noticing somebody. It’s a rough analogy but the bottom line is, unless you know that you are having an experience of the mango, you cannot compare it with anything else. If you can’t compare it with something else, how will you label it?
Sam: Very true.
iRealization: So one has to see very clearly what is knowledge. It is nothing but labeling based on the past acquired knowledge. Basically we live conceptually in the past, using past experiences as knowledge. We are converting experience into knowledge, you see? Otherwise what is there to say? The mango was eaten, that’s all. No reaction! Is this point clear?
Sia: For me there is no question, no opinion. The no-thought, the no-mind space is very comfortable.
iRealization: Yes. You will arrive there. You will not be able to hold that space, because holding it is an effort of mind.
Sia: Exactly.
iRealization: So, not having curiosity about it, is when it ends. Otherwise you are curious: “I want to know”, “What is it?”, “What happened?”, “Why did it happen?”, you know? All those things are exhausting.
Sia: When I ask “why”, I tell myself “it’s none of your business.” *laugh* It’s very helpful, it does end.
iRealization: Yeah. That’s a practice because the question is rising out of ignorance, it does not need an answer. When it becomes clear the question will not arise. Do you understand?
Sia: Oh, absolutely.
iRealization: That’s what we’re talking about. The question will end automatically because that is the actual fact of the situation. That there is nothing to know there. If I just tell you that and you accept it as a fact, as another concept, it is not actual, it is not the direct experience of this. But the direct experience of this will come. When? When other things are not clouding it. That is what is called meditation – remaining as yourself, not disturbed by any appearances, because what appears, disappears, right? Nothing is permanent, so nothing is there to respond to. By the time I say “this tree,” the tree has aged. It’s not that tree anymore. By the time I say “this body,” it’s changed. In fact, it’s just a bunch of atoms moving at high speed and the cells change out completely every seven years. So, we have new bodies every few years. Which one are you?
Sia: Hum…
iRealization: If I point to some object, it is not the object. It is some idea about the object because the actual thing is pure energy vibrating and changing constantly. I call it a tree, you call it a tree. We both agree and call it a tree, but is it a tree? The tree doesn’t know that it’s a tree. The reality is in our minds, therefore there is nothing called reality, or unreality. They both are ideas. To say that this is a dream, or not a dream, has no meaning in the words because it’s just knowledge. But in action, in actuality, for those that are clear, then the question of knowledge is not relevant at all – there’s just being without anything to know.
Jacob: It feels like I'm unlearning and relearning. I think I need some more time for me to get a hold of the thought process basically.
iRealization: Yeah.
Sia: I find that the only question or concern arises when I have to interact with other humans and coming from the place of not knowing, not wondering. With other humans it creates distortion but with you there’s not distortion. I know I’m using “you” and “me” which implies separation but…
iRealization: That’s because of actuality. We all use words to communicate but what it is does not need words. The fire is right there. It has no need for description. You can see it, you can feel it, you can burn things with it.
Sia: I see. Oh… that clicked! *laugh*
iRealization: So that’s what a Guruji is, you see? Intense actuality. Not me, Him. It’s actual! What is there is the actual thing. So you can go and feel it there. There is no need to know about it because it is. What it is and the actual experience is there for you. You know it yourself! When you wake up, you know it was a dream. Nobody needs to tell you that. The actual knowledge is there, you’re just not accessing it at that point in time. Otherwise what else is knowing? Once you know, all the false knowing disappears and you might say “I know all these things are not true!” and you convert it into knowledge. Again. But in actuality it is there – shining without any description. That is called the intensity. It is felt. That experience is there. It’s very simple! It becomes the natural state because it’s all there is in actuality.
Sam: Last week you said we’d be talking about consciousness as well.
iRealization: Right. What is the difference between consciousness and knowledge? That is the question for you, for us to discuss the next time. I can say that the short answer is that we did discuss about consciousness this entire meeting. Knowledge and consciousness are the same thing. So meditate on that and understand why they’re the same or why they’re different.
Alfred: When you say consciousness is that different from Awareness or is that the same thing?
iRealization: No, I mean consciousness and knowledge are the same thing. Awareness does not have knowledge in it. It’s just aware, not aware of any thing. You need Awareness to be aware of consciousness. Consciousness is being conscious of something, thus the word “consciousness”. You have to have content to have consciousness, such as when you say “I regained consciousness,” meaning that you became conscious of the world.
Awareness needs no content. This is a very important question, Alfred. Feeling those two things apart at first – consciousness and Awareness – is how you can reject consciousness, because consciousness is the very problem, right? The knowing factor, or the so-called knowledge is what is the blocker. What you call mind is the same as consciousness, the same as knowledge. Is there something called mind,? Or thoughts or ideas? Or memories other than these things and the interplay of them? Awareness is beyond. It is awareness of all of this.
Photography - Courtesy of veeterzy
