The analogy of Sawyer and Jacob used here, about the dreamer and the dream character, is explained on When Shiva Went To Sleep, Shakti Began To Dance chapter. Read it before this one.
Sawyer: This makes me think of… what is there to say? Who are we talking to when we talk?
iRealization: Yes, who are you talking to? You have to realize yourself, that’s all.
People get attached to experiences and think those experiences happen to them. If that experience had not happened to them they wouldn’t suffer. So are you the experience or is the experience you? Or neither?
It’s just an experience, not my experience. It’s just a dream, just the waking state… it’s just consciousness! It’s just me being myself and in my consciousness things arise and they disappear – what about it?
Sawyer: It’s interesting the deeper you get into this the less questions you have, the less you want to talk about it. In a sense it’s giving more to the illusion and one can miss the point in that way.
iRealization: Absolutely. That’s why the final answer and the final truth is only found in silence, and that is not found in speaking. You see… action and words, whatever movement is happening, it’s happening, like right now. And it’s not a doing. When you realize that, these actions and these words, all activity, is not actually doing. It’s just happening! Once you realize it’s just a happening, without literally anyone to make it happen, there is only silence. Let it happen.
When you are walking on the street and the bus is coming your way, the body jumps out of the way. You are not the one doing it, but it happened then. You ate something, your body digested, it happened. You are breathing right now, can you stop breathing? The illusion of control is very strong but if you realize that even this thought is just happening, then there is only silence all the time. Talking and sound has nothing to do with that silence. That silence is the very ground because you will not be able to cognize anything unless there is the background of silence. Even the tiniest of sounds and movement can be cognized because the ground does not move. Pure Seeing! It sees every thing. If it doesn’t move it cannot be cognized because there is no change in it. Because the background is unchanging, other changes are knowable. So, when something is always changing, where is the value in that? There is no point in going after it. So, if you want something that is truly there, that is real, obviously you need to find the only thing that is the unchanging background of everything else. That background is the nothingness. The emptiness. Whatever they call it, but it is in fact full. It’s full of potential, full of everything that you might ever manifest. And what you might manifest is pure imagination.
Sawyer: The static nature… because it doesn’t move and is quiet. The other stuff that does move is noticed.
iRealization: Let’s be clear, even without movement you have Intelligence, you have the Light. The Light is unaware of anything to be seen because it is the cause for seeing. The eye cannot see itself. If something is there to be seen, it is seen. If there is nothing to be seen, that is also known. The Light is required and is there at all times and it is completely independent of anything to be seen or not seen. So whether or not there is a dream or waking, or sleeping, I am still there, I am the one who says “I slept”, “I dreamt”, “I woke up.” So all there is is the Light. And the absence of Light – you call it as darkness – but that concept is only in the absence or presence of the very concept of Light. All there is God. All there is is Divinity. All there is is Light because without Light one would not know anything.
One has to remain in this Awareness. What is there right now, if you just see inside? It’s just nothing! Flat. Neutral. Absolutely neutral state. If I get excited, or happy, or joyful or sad, it is a change from the natural state, a perceptual change. But if you keep on seeing that change, you will be back at the same state of Seeing. Seeing is flavorless, it is neutral, it is the actual Seeing of anything. Even if there is pain there is a Seeing of it and then there is the “going with it”. The “going with it” is the illusion part where the mind says “I’m suffering” or “I’m having fun”, but to see the situation clearly is to see that what we are is the witnessing of every thing. There is an experience in that Pure Witnessing, it is an experience of peace and joy. No conflict at all. It doesn’t have any external dependencies, as it always there. It is the source itself. I’m always comfortable in that source. Why would one want to leave the shade and go into the scorching hard sun of nonsense, when there is cool shade where one can witness everything?
Sawyer: Once you know that, you can’t go back. Why would you?
iRealization: “Once you know that” means once the knowledge of the situation comes clear to Jacob, Jacob does not exist as the one that wants to go everywhere because the knowledge will keep him where he is as there is nothing to be gained by running around and getting further lost in the dream.
Sawyer: Oh! I see.
iRealization: See, you are thinking you’re Jacob. Thinking “I will do this, I will do that” but this knowledge will remove that identification. And then this knowledge will also disappear, because all knowledge requires a knower, you see? Jacob says “I know,” but that is an illusory statement. That I that Jacob is, you don’t want that I, right? So to see very clearly the situation, to see what is consciousness, has to be seen by itself. Consciousness itself has to see it.
If you, the separate entity, sees it, then what happens? The knower is created, the seer is created, thus illusion manifests. Seer, seen and seeing, all three things are there, whereas if you keep looking, the seer becomes the seen. Therefore Jacob is itself an object, not an actual thing – it’s not real! Not real in the sense that it’s changing. It is just an idea, part of consciousness. Where did consciousness come from? See, consciousness came and consciousness disappeared – this happens again and again – you go to sleep, consciousness disappears and again it appears in the waking state: “I just woke up!” Even in the disappearance you were there, you just didn’t have any thing to experience.
Sawyer: I’ve been noticing lately that thoughts aren’t always so primary. So, sometimes I look at something, it’s still there, but it doesn’t drive all my attention anymore. It matters less. I don’t feel as identified.
iRealization: Correct. That is what it is. Remember three months ago when I said you should meditate. That was the whole process of slowing down.
Sawyer: I need to do it again.
iRealization: It can benefit you. But you don’t have to do it in a particular time and all that. If you can, you should have a practice in the morning but again, it’s about being aware, you see? Who is going to meditate?
Sawyer: *laugh* Do you still meditate? Do you have a practice?
iRealization: Absolutely not. The problem is, if you feel you have to meditate, who is that person that should meditate?
Sawyer: You could also meditate because you enjoy it, because it’s fun.
iRealization: It’s a happening. There is no intention there. It will happen. Intention cannot remain, you see? Whose intention is there? Intention can only be of an individual. The totality has no intention. The dream has no particular outcome.
Sawyer: You talk about density between the dream state and the waking state, and people also say that reality is dense. What does that mean?
iRealization: They say that reality is dense but it is not real. Density is an experience. For example, right now everything feels real because it’s persistent – this reality is persistent.
Sawyer: Yes, exactly.
iRealization: So that feeling of persistence is what we are discussing – the grossness of that feeling. If you close your eyes now and imagine a classroom, and imagine teachers there, that experience of the classroom, even though it may be very vivid in your mind, it is very ephemeral and not gross like this one. Do you understand the difference? It’s being projected by the same mind. Your mind is the one showing you this image where everything is very gross, and real and dense and persistent and the same mind can even day dream, where suddenly your mind is somewhere else and you can drift very far away into that day dream, until you realize you have to go back to work and come back. You see, that whole process of daydreaming is not persistent. It’s so ephemeral that you are not bothered when it disappears – you know you created it right there. Creation is imagination.
Sawyer: Creation is imagination…
iRealization: That’s why every single religion has the notion that we are all living God’s dream. God is imagining it.
Sawyer: Yeah, that comes up a lot.
iRealization: But we don’t want to pay attention, you know? My only point is very simple: everyday you dream. Why don’t you see that? This teaching is the simplest. Pay attention to your own experience. This world doesn’t stay, it disappears in a few hours. Then another world appears. You may have the experience of many years in that new world. The food and money you have in this universe is not available there – there you might be poor, you might be rich, you might come back to this world saying “Damn, I wish I had the money I just experienced,” but you know it’s not real, yet… repeatedly you come back to this one thinking it is real. There is no cause for it, you see… there is only you thinking it is real. Just like in any other dream situation, there is no proof. There is absolutely no difference!
The world, the universe and nature shows you every single day that you are experiencing is ephemeral and disappears – it’s a creation that you create. It is telling you this every single night but we don’t want to pay attention to it. We want to pay attention to the object. We want to pay attention to Jacob. We want Jacob to be the one who wakes everyone up! We want Jacob to tell everybody that this is the truth. Jacob is very important to the one that’s dreaming but that’s the very illusion. It’s merely a question of misidentification.
Sawyer: It’s a bit of a habit, yes? I’ve been doing that for so long… or maybe it doesn’t matter who’s habit it is.
iRealization: Exactly! So the actual thing is instant because time is not real, as we’ve discussed. To say habit, brings in the past and brings in the individual whose habit it is. The thing is to see that you are outside time and space right now. The word “now” is very confusing because it is understood only in comparison to past and future, which we both know don’t exist – past is imagined, and future never happened – so if you compare two imaginary things and create a third imaginary thing called “a now”, which is the opposite of these two other things, in what way will that help you?
Sawyer: Yeah, it doesn’t.
iRealization: It doesn’t because one’s imagining time to be real. If you are imagining time to be real then you are in consciousness and you can never get out of consciousness within consciousness because you are what is. Jacob can never get out of it. Let’s make that clear. And the point is: he doesn’t have to! Because you are not Jacob, right? I’m not iRealization. It’s a simple thing. So, that’s the end! What else now?
Sawyer: Now I can stop worrying about it. *laugh* And enjoy it.
iRealization: There’s absolutely nothing you can do.
Sawyer: Yeah. It’s all about the actual experience and not the thoughts about the experience.
iRealization: Whenever thought arises you have to see that it is the shadow which is blocking the illuminating factor. Because first of all, you did realize you had a thought in the first place. Second, before you realize you were thinking, you had been lost to the thought, you became the thought. Then you say, “Oh sh**! I was thinking.” How did you know that? Because you became the thought. That is why when you finally eat the mango you still don’t know what it is because the final knowledge of something is inherent, it arises from within. Not from anywhere else, because what we call “external objects” are imagined. The final knowledge is that there is no mango because it was your own imagination. So, to try to get the knowledge from the senses is a fool’s errand. It will never come. One has to relinquish the knowledge that was generated by the senses and know that this knowledge is false knowledge. Once you let go of that false knowledge then the inherent experience will arise – which is – once Jacob realizes that this is a dream, effectively he can go back to sleep. You understand?
Sawyer: Yes, and get back to being Jacob.
iRealization: He cannot be because he doesn’t exist in the first place. He can go back to being Sawyer in the dream because he is asleep.
Sawyer: So who really wakes up? He doesn’t wake up at all…
iRealization: Nobody has ever woken up because nobody has ever gone to sleep and the very idea of the individual waking up or the individual going to sleep is the very illusion we’re discussing. There is only consciousness and all of it is happening within consciousness, and consciousness is imagining itself to be Jacob. And imagining itself to be Sawyer. To be iRealization. This entire thing is simply a play of consciousness. So consciousness arises, consciousness disappears. Dreams come, dreams go. Waking state arises, waking state goes. The entire thing is one. There is no question of who is seeing it.
Sawyer: I get it. Well, who gets it? It makes sense…
iRealization: *laugh* You don’t have to think about it. The only thing now to be done on this is not to think about it. Let it go, entirely forget about everything that I just said. You just have to go and meditate. Literally, just meditate. Let the understanding arise because you are not the doer. Right now if you think about all the things that I said you’ll create all kinds of concepts: “It is like this, I got it!” The minute you say “I got it!”, that is an illusion. There’s nothing to get, nobody can get anything. That “getting it” is itself the problem. So avoid getting it. Just listen… nothing to get. Listen without listening. See without seeing.
Going through a market with all the shops there, you are just there, seeing everything and not anything in particular. That’s what it is, that’s the state of meditation. It’s very relaxed. It’s now! It is always! You understand?
Sawyer: Yeah. I mean… *laugh* That’s a hard thing to answer but yeah, I understand.
iRealization: When Jacob stops trying to do things he becomes the dream, yes? So when Jacob stops agitating, that stillness makes him part of the dream, as it is actually unfolding rather than him causing ripples by constant reaction to everything, and feeling that those ripples are relevant – by getting drowned in them and having the experience of those ripples – whereas the actual experience is being the whole ocean. And the actual experience is the experience of Sawyer being asleep. Being in peaceful bliss. The actual experience of that will arise through Jacob because Jacob is Sawyer, even though he doesn’t know it. And doesn’t have to know it! Knowledge is ephemeral and false, so that knowing is useless. Why not just be it?
Sawyer: Yes, nothing else to say, it’s perfect.
iRealization: It’s perfect.
Sawyer: Would you say you were born into this? Did your family lined you up for these teachings?
iRealization: I grew up in the exactly opposite kind of environment where I didn’t believe or know any of this. So it all just happened.
Sawyer: I can go back and tell you “Oh, maybe it started here,” but the further I do that you can keep thinking that actually I only solved this because of that, and you can keep going back forever…
iRealization: You can go all the way back to your birth and then you can go all the way back to your parents’ birth and all the way back to the Big Bang of the universe and it’s all predestination. That is why I tell people there is no free will. If you realize that all worries end immediately.
Sawyer: But, is free will… hum…
iRealization: There is no free will. Only the illusion of free will. You do not have a choice because Jacob never had a choice in the matter because Jacob is not real. The whole dream is unfolding as a single totality – like a movie playing – no individual character had any choice in it. It was all scripted, you see?
Sawyer: When you say that it makes sense. I always thought that when something happened you could have chosen here and there.
iRealization: First of all, who is that “you?” The minute we talk about I and choice, and you bring that in, you’re already in illusion. There are many yogas. There is the physical hatha yoga and all these things, but the knowledge one, jnana yoga, which is the path that we are discussing is very, very, very rarified because it requires the keenest of intellects, which realizes the limitation of that intellect – will never be able to grapple with Intelligence – as intellect is an effect of Intelligence. It is the shadow effect – knowledge is created based on Intelligence and it limits Intelligence to that knowledge – A very keen intellect is needed to realize the limit of intellect. A very keen mind is needed to realize the limit of the mind. A very keen understanding is needed to see that understanding can only happen, and no individual can do that understanding. You see? Only the keenest person can understand that the person that I am is itself a thought. The I is itself a thought. The me is itself a thought. Therefore there is no me. Only very few people will realize that the mind is limitation and will realize the limit of their own mind. Then that mind will be dropped.
Sawyer: That’s it right there.
iRealization: You have to understand this part intellectually and then just do it. It’s a practical thing. That’s why I said once you understand it, go meditate for some time. You are specifically slowing down the process. It’s a very clear understanding of what is happening. This process is revealing that nobody is doing it and you cannot do anything. That is all.
Sawyer: It’s a trap.
iRealization: The mind is a disease, it’s a drug. But the good news is that you will feel the quality of yourself emerge more and more as thoughts recede and Intelligence begins to emerge. Even if you are thinking of great things, it is not Intelligence because even if great, it is limited to that thought. And if you pay attention to it, it is a constriction of the whole openness. The whole thing constricts because your focus is there, you see? Whereas there’s an open quality to not having any thought and just seeing. It’s a very clear thing, it is being and there is no need to go anywhere, it’s right here all the time.
Photography - Courtesy of Craig Strahorn
