View Related
A transcript of Part 3 of Jay Sawyer's 'Becoming the Anomaly' presentation:
“Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.” – Sir Francis Bacon.
JS: Hello again everyone. And to those of you who are just joining us… Welcome. You haven’t missed very much!
[Audience laughter]
My name, for what it’s worth, is Jay Sawyer. And this is the first time that I’ve spoken publicly about… Well, about what, exactly? It certainly hasn’t been easy trying to decide what to include in this presentation, or how best to convey it. In one-on-one situations, which are what I’m used to, it’s relatively easy to gauge where a person is coming from, where they’re at, and what they can handle. Addressing an audience is an entirely different proposition! And so I apologise for not always getting the balance right. It’s inevitable, of course, that compromises have to be made.
Please feel free to interrupt me if you have a question. I’ll also be around for a while afterwards, if anyone wants to talk privately – which is, as I’ve just alluded to, my preferred method of communication. And it can be very rewarding – in more ways than one. For example, I was recently approached by a woman who offered me a sum of money in return for my insights on the truth “in plain English.” She’d obviously heard enough to become intrigued, but couldn’t quite grasp what I was saying. So I said to her:
“No one has stolen the truth from you. If it is missing, it is because you have buried it somewhere.”
“No, no, that’s not it,” she argued, “why would I have buried something so valuable?”
“Because that’s what people do with their fears,” I explained.
“Then it must be that I no longer fear it,” she reasoned, “or else I would not be looking.”
“No,” I said, “if you no longer feared it, you would no longer be looking.”
Kerching! Another satisfied customer.
[Audience laughter]
I don’t teach, you see. Not really. It is said that a teacher will give you more, whereas a master will take away even what you have. And when you have absolutely nothing left, then you will know the truth.
This lady was a ‘seeker’, of course, which is just another trap, in many ways. For me, seekers fall into two categories. There are those who climb just high enough to get a good view, and content themselves with that. And then there are those who keep on climbing, ascending, spurred on by gurus and their promises of ultimate reality at the summit.
The most determined seekers do indeed make it all the way to the top. Only, the ‘ultimate reality’ they find there is not eternal bliss, but a silent, desolate wasteland, devoid of life, and stretching off into infinity. Furthermore, and somewhat ominously, this bleak landscape feels as familiar to them as it does alien. Have they been here before, perhaps?
In any case, alone and afraid, the seeker begins to imagine comforting scenes from Earth, as well as people to interact with. And it’s fun, for a while. But deep down they know that none of it is ‘real’, and so they descend back down the mountain, into the land of forgetfulness.
Yet this is not the end of the story. For within the nightmare of amnesia there is much torment and frustration, conflict and confusion. The suffering seems endless, and pointless. However, were it not this way, the seeker would go on dreaming for all eternity, having no reason to ever truly awaken.
And so the seeker is battered and bruised by life. One day he reaches a point of utter despair, and then finally breaks… having neither hope nor reason to continue. All he seeks now is the Grim Reaper himself, unaware that even death can’t free him from his misery.
At this point, when all seems lost, something begins to shift within him. ‘Reality’ dissolves and he finds himself back on the summit – which he never truly left, except in his imagination. Only now he is not afraid… He is free! Free from fear, free from need, and free from limitation.
Yes, the seeker has finally transcended the illusion that caused him so much suffering. Yet he feels no malice toward it. In fact, he smiles upon the whole expedition, recognising its necessity. For what he once experienced as intolerable aloneness has been transmuted into unconditional bliss. He is unique, in terms of his path of experience; his journey through life. But the sum of his experience no longer defines who he is. For he knows Himself as infinite and undifferentiated Consciousness. If he wears a mask at all, he understand its nature, and its origins. Yes, he is God, but he is also in relationship with God, just as we are all in relationship with ourselves. This is both the beginning and the end of the seeker’s journey, and yet the journey never truly ends. For it is always Now.
[Audience applause]
Audience member (AM): Are you saying that suffering is the only path to enlightenment?
JS: If a person is not suffering, what can they possibly want with truth, or enlightenment? It can only be their ego looking for something to achieve. They want an edge. They want to get one up on the universe – but it won’t work.
AM: What about people who seek from a motivation of love?
JS: This is just another ploy of the ego. First, become love… then you will have nothing to seek.
AM: So, in a way, you’re saying that anyone who looks for truth is bound not to find it?
JS: How can a person search for something unless they know what it is they are looking for? How would they recognise it? How would they verify it? They can’t! And so they fall into all sorts of traps, whilst the truth remains in their pocket.
AM: Doesn’t science represent truth, in terms of what can actually be verified? It also promises freedom, in a way, through technology.
JS: There’s an episode of the X-Files in which the Smoking Man says the following (if I can remember): “Men can never be free, because they’re weak, corrupt, worthless and restless. The people believe in authority, they’ve grown tired of waiting for miracle or mystery. Science is their religion, no greater explanation exists for them. They must never believe any differently if the project is to go forward.”
AM: But isn’t that just fiction?
JS: Everything is fiction apart from that which is real.
AM: Would it not be true to say that you yourself have found an alternative to suffering… in solitude?
JS: That you are so concerned about alternatives suggests that you may have suffered enough already. Only your actions will reveal the truth of the matter.
AM: My actions, with respect to what?
JS: With respect to the source of your suffering.
AM: And what is the source of my suffering?
JS: When you know the answer, you will have found your alternative.
AM: But there is potential for suffering in everything!
JS: So renounce everything.
AM: I can’t just quit my job and become a hermit.
JS: Why not? I did!
[Audience laughter]
AM: So, what, I renounce the world… then what happens?
JS: To be a renunciant is to shun the social order. However, I prefer to think of it as embracing freedom. Society, of course, isn’t permitted to think in those terms, and so it can only define those who leave it behind in terms of what they have rejected, rather than what they have embraced, or stand for. Conformity, after all, is the default setting of society. It doesn’t care what you conform to, so long as you conform to something – anything – that’s on the menu. Therefore, as long as you choose or accept something from that menu – however tasty or wholesome it may seem – then… then you are trapped. And you will suffer. But it’s just a choice; no one is making you choose from the menu. Meditate on why you do, therefore. Because therein lies the real and only reason for your suffering.
AM: So you’re saying that I need to cut my strings?
JS: To cut your strings would mean losing your sense of self. And then where would you be? Intellectually, you can do it. But still you will continue to dance like a puppet. The fact is, you won’t truly cut your strings until you have suffered enough.
AM: And assuming I do cut the strings… then what? I still need to work, to eat, to live!
JS: If you say so.
AM: I don’t?
JS: Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within, and that if you put it first in your life, you will be provided for. Why? Because it is God’s will that you come to terms with the reality of your aloneness – His aloneness. I hear a lot of talk about ‘Oneness’ these days. But Oneness is not a collective, except when viewed from within the illusion itself. So let me be clear about this: That you are not alone is the lie. Okay? Because you are alone. And when you are ready, you will find that inner door, and go through it.
That most people are not ready to enter can be seen in their constant looking outside of themselves, to leaders and authority figures; to gods and governments; saints and saviours; anyone, really, who you can give them a direction, a purpose, a meaning, a sense of belonging. And this becomes an addiction – a cycle. Only when they’ve been through the mill enough times will they change direction. As Carl Jung said: “Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
AM: Where is the proof for any of this though? I mean, how is what you’re saying different from other belief systems?
JS: What are beliefs, really? We like to think that we know, but aren’t our beliefs about beliefs also just beliefs?
[Audience laughter]
Would anyone care to offer me a definition of belief?
AM: I’ve always likened beliefs to gambling. You know, like, having an emotional or intellectual investment in something that may or may not be true.
JS: Okay. Interesting. ‘May or may not be true’. Still an underlying belief in objective reality then?
AM: It’s not so much a belief as an experience. I see objective reality wherever I look.
JS: How do you know that your beliefs aren’t creating the experience?
AM: I don’t, but how could anyone determine that?
JS: By changing their beliefs!
There’s a wonderful quote by John Lilly, who was a pioneering researcher into the nature of consciousness. He said: “What is believed to be true IS true, or becomes true, within limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.”
In other words, there ARE no limits, except for those that we impose upon ourselves and others… through belief. Why? Because the fundamental nature of reality is imagination itself. In the words of Albert Einstein: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
And, really, anyone who speaks of truth in terms of limitation is either deluded or lying… because limitation is just a belief that we accept as truth; a belief which stems from our own manipulated sense of self, or ‘little me’.
As Bill Hicks so eloquently put it: “Life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.”
AM: What role does fear play in all of this?
JS: Fear is fundamental. Buddha said: “The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.” But why? What are the origins of fear?
AM: Aren’t all fears rooted in the fear of death?
JS: So they say… but what do ‘they’ know? In surveys on human fears, death never ranks very highly. Apparently most people fear public speaking more than anything else. And if that’s the whole secret of existence, I think I’m doing pretty well!
[Audience laughter]
What else do we fear? …Anyone?
AM: To be honest, I fear the opinion of others; what other people think about me.
JS: And what is the origin of that fear?
AM: Fear of rejection, I suppose.
JS: But why? Why do you fear rejection?
AM: Because then I’d be… alone.
JS: Ah, yes. And now we’ve come full circle. But have you ever been alone? I mean, really?
AM: No.
JS: So how can you fear something that you’ve never experienced?
AM: Maybe from another lifetime.
JS: Or maybe from the beginning of time. Remember the story from earlier, of the climber who returned too soon? The landscape he discovered was desolate, yet familiar. Why? …Because those were his origins – where he had originally set out from.
Can you imagine what it must have been like for Consciousness to find itself in isolation, as a singularity? …One in awareness of One, with no possibility of there ever being two? Well, we don’t have to imagine, because it’s part of who we are.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a growing conviction that we are, indeed, all One – which obviously has the potential to transform this world into a paradise. And, by all means, let’s go ahead and do that! But merely acknowledging the illusion doesn’t take us out of it. It’s not enlightenment, it’s not transcendence, and it’s not freedom.
To transcend fear, to accept the unacceptable, to become what we already are, and have always been… alone. This is the ultimate reality, and it’s incredible!
AM: Are you speaking from experience?
JS: Yes, I have tasted that reality, and it’s terrifying – at first. I learnt that the reason we seek blindly is because if the destination were known to us, not even the foolish would venture forth.
AM: Exactly. I don’t see how aloneness can ever be a good thing.
JS: Good/Bad. The point is, aloneness is reality. And from an ultimate perspective, we are all trying to come to terms with that reality, whether we realise it or not.
Think of it this way: In the absence of others (outside of the illusion) there can be no suffering apart from that which comes from aloneness itself. And yet aloneness is bliss, and freedom, and play, and infinite possibility, for those who have come to terms with it and have transcended their need, their addiction, to the illusion of others.
AM: What would you say to people who have a genuine fear of death?
JS: Death has never existed as a conscious reality, and so when we fear death, it is really life that we are fearing – existence. Not the unknown, not oblivion, but reality itself. A reality which we are all familiar with, on some level, because we never truly left it. We simply imagined that we did. And so we fear that the death of our apparent self – which we know, intuitively, to be an illusion – could mean a return to the primal state: awareness in isolation. It doesn’t, of course, but we fear it nonetheless, such was the impact of being One, in awareness of One… alone.
What we are talking about here is the greatest fear of all; a fear which necessitated the greatest lie of all. And so it’s not surprising that overcoming it is considered by many to be the greatest achievement of all. Indeed, Osho describes it as “the greatest miracle in the world.” And I’d like to close, if I may, by reading an abridged version of what he said on the matter:
“If you go into your aloneness you will be very surprised. At the very centre of it, it is not lonely at all. And once you have known your beautiful aloneness, you will be a totally different person. Your aloneness is your truth. Your aloneness is your divinity. In aloneness you will disappear as an ego, and you will find yourself as life itself, deathless and eternal.
To be alone is the greatest achievement. When there is nobody you are simply left with your emptiness. Nobody wants to be alone. The greatest fear in the world is to be left alone. People do a thousand and one things just not to be left alone. You imitate your neighbours, so you are just like them, and you are not left alone. You lose your individuality. You lose your uniqueness. You just become imitators because if you are not imitators you will be left alone. You become part of the crowd; you become part of a church; you become part of an organisation. To be alone is really the greatest miracle. That means now you don’t belong to any church. You don’t belong to any organisation. You don’t belong to any ideology. You don’t belong; you simply are. And you have learned how to love your indefinable, ineffable reality. You have come to know how to be with yourself. Your needs for the other have disappeared. You are not missing anything. You don’t need anything. Your bliss is unconditional. Yes, it is the greatest miracle in the world.”
Thank you for your time. Namaste.
[Audience applause]
seeking : enlightenment : self-realisation : self-realization : nirvana : ego : ascension : awakening : truth : freedom : suffering : depression : love : transcendence :
seeking : enlightenment : self-realisation : self-realization : nirvana : ego : ascension : awakening : truth : freedom : suffering : depression : love : transcendence :
What are Tags?. View articles or events that contain the above words.
Post Article:
Submit Your Own Article