all i know is that i don't know

i have been participating in an online message board during the last few weeks. i think it's helpful to me so that i can begin to understand how to speak from this space, this formless i-dont-know open mind, instead of going off the cuff and tapping stock answers that are based on reference points, and thinking i know something. finding out there is no-self here running the show doesn't mean automatically i have any idea how to operate from this place - which is probably why the first couple weeks were so intense back-and-forth as the mind tried to reassert itself as the master of the house. it is not the master of the house, and i am really fascinated in how to speak and communicate from that.

the other fascination for me can be spoken in a metaphor my teacher used about sleep and dreaming. he said that since most awakenings tend to happen in stages, that sometimes there is this understanding of being awake inside of a dream - lucid dreaming as it were. you're aware that there is no self in operation, and so while the rest of the world goes about seemingly asleep, thinking they are an individual self, there is a sure lucidity within the dream itself. in this place we feel like the witness to all we see, we are the unseen seer, the awareness or capacity for the whole world. i feel that, i grok that very deeply in my experience. but something in my guts goes... hmm.... there still seems to be a sense of duality somehow. to quote my teacher again "i am still seeing two where there is only one" and so i am curious about that next movement he called 'further' - a collapse of duality that is when the dreamer wakes up entirely from the dream and gets out of bed.

the wonder for me right now is that i am not striving or trying to "get" to that place, that collapse of duality, because it has been shown clearly to me that there is no point in trying to assert a personal will. i cannot do anything about this but to just sit quietly and look clearly. and i'm really, really curious, so that seems a real blessing.

the reason i brought up the message boards is because i've been engaging in a storyline over there with various people who are from a sort of online confrontation group who have this mission to help people see through the "life of self" as they term it, or to basically show everyone there is no-self. they are very intense, very passionate, and their methods range from intellectual swordplay to childlike name calling. i don't participate on their website, but am part of another board where the members come visit and try to call out and engage older "spiritual" types who seem set in their ways. the whole thing is brilliant to watch.

one of the things that has piqued my curiosity is that the confrontation group uses language to indicate that their members become "enlightened" once they are aware there is no self. and then they go one level up once they begin to go around liberating other people from the "lie of self".

the thread i am a part of on the board i visit has all sorts of viewpoints. some love the confrontation group, some have been helped by it, some think it's silly, some are personally wounded by attacks that happen there, all sorts of opinions one way or another. my main fascination has been asking questions, asking everyone who is willing or able to engage with me questions based on the things they say. and then i watch the answers, in all the forms they arrive in. i have no opinion about the question, and no opinion about the answer, but i admit it's interesting to see people in all their various forms just doing what they do. it's actually deeply moving, and i find myself really feeling strongly affectionate toward my fellows there - no matter which side of the "debate" they are supporting.

my personal experience is that there is something beyond no-self. there is That Which Remains. and the seeming "problems" in the world are not caused by thinking you are a self, but by a lived experience of separation - living in a way that furthers the illusion of self and other. without the collapse of duality, there is no way to move beyond the good/bad dichotomy into a space where the manifested divisions that we see in the world that wound the people, and the planet. and what is actually going on is that we are moving backwards into That which is capable of holding all views (self or no-self, "the lie" or "the truth") and yet is essentially none of them. that is where we are being drawn if we are still and quiet and humble enough to admit that really, we don't know anything. what is actual, the foundation of all this that we see, must be like Franklin Merrell-Wolff said "consciousness without an object".....

or at least that is where i am being drawn. my only experience now is that i do not, and cannot, know anything for sure. even things that i thought i would know for sure once i woke up to no-self.... like the reality that there is no self. i mean, i feel that, i see that, and it is my fully grokked experience. but do i know it? no, actually. i don't. the space itself won't allow for that, because that is one side of a coin, of a belief. and That which i am can hold them both, and prefers neither self or no-self.

 as far as preferences go, well, knowing that i don't know is lovely because it means i can tend to the world in whatever way comes up, take no credit for it, not be involved in the storyline, but just love and love and love like a fucking tidal wave. it just rolls on. it is the life called angela manifesting itself in a lived way that is beyond separation, beyond self and other, right and wrong, and attachment to any opinions at all.

and that is grace. and there, i find real freedom.