Eternity Now
Page 1
Eternity Now
Francis Lucille
Edited by Alan Epstein
© 2006 by Francis Lucille
Truespeech Productions P.O.Box 1509 Temecula, CA 92593
www.francislucille.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
1. Spirituality, 2. Consciousness
Other books by Francis Lucille: Truth Love Beauty, Perfume of Silence
This book is dedicated to all the beautiful beings who have made this publication possible through their labor of love.
Francis Lucille Temecula, California 2006
Contents
Foreword
The Art of Not Expecting
The Direct Path
Love Never Dies
Our True Nature is Not an Object
Real Life Has No Purpose
John Doe, the Actor
A Real Teacher Doesn’t Take Himself for a Teacher
There is Nothing That is Not Him
The Wonderful Play of the Timeless Now
Real Understanding is in the Heart
Deep Sleep is, Death is Not
You Are in Love with Love
Awakening to Immortal Splendor
Foreword
We usually identify ourselves with a mixture of thoughts, perceptions, and feelings. This identification with a personal body-mind is deeply rooted in us. The people around us—our parents, teachers, friends, and so on—believed that they were personal entities, and we have found it quite natural to follow in their footsteps without challenging this belief, which, upon closer scrutiny, will be shown to be the origin of all our misery. If the body-mind is an object, a personal and limited collection of mentations, there must be a witness to which it appears. This witness is usually referred to as consciousness or awareness. If we investigate what we are, it becomes clear that it is this awareness that is precisely what we call “I.” Most people identify this witnessing consciousness with the witnessed mind, and in doing so they superimpose the personal limitations of that mind onto consciousness, conceptualizing it as a personal entity.
When we make a deliberate attempt to observe this witness, we find an unusual situation: Our attempt seems to fail, due to the subjective nature of consciousness, and the inability of the mind to recognize something that is not objective; but mental activity, made up of the current train of thoughts and sensations, seems to stop for a moment. Although this “stop” doesn’t leave any memories at the level of the mind, this non-experience generates a strong feeling of identity and an ineffable certitude of being that we describe using the words, “I” or “I am.” After a while, the ego resurfaces with the thought, “I am this body-mind,” projecting once again the space-time limitations of the personal entity onto the limitless “I am.” The limitlessness of the “I am” can’t be asserted from the level of the mind, but remains with us as an “aftertaste” when the objective world reappears.
Having been informed of the presence of this witnessing background, and having had a first glimpse of our real self, a powerful attraction, which brings us back again and again to this non-experience, is born. Every new glimpse reinforces the “perfume” of freedom and happiness that emanates from this new dimension. As our timeless presence becomes more and more tangible, our daily life takes a new turn. People, distractions, and activities that used to exert a strong appeal to us are now met with indifference. Our former ideological attachments become weaker for no apparent reason. Our focus on investigating our true nature intensifies without any effort on our part. Higher intelligence sets in, deepening our intellectual understanding of the truth and clarifying our ontological questioning. Many personal conflicts and antagonisms are reduced or resolved.
Then, at some point, the ego is reabsorbed into our witnessing presence, which reveals itself as the eternal beauty, absolute truth, and supreme bliss we were seeking. Instantaneously, we are established in the certitude of our primordial immortality. This sudden revelation of our non-dual nature can’t be properly described through words to someone who is still under the illusion of the duality of subject and object. Such a person will understand those words in relative terms, as an objective experience. It is the only kind of experience he can conceive.
How is it possible to convey the feeling of absolute happiness to someone who only knows relative experiences? Given any relative experience, no matter its intensity, there is always the possibility of an even more intense experience. But this is not the case when we are referring to the bliss of our true nature. How is it possible for someone who knows happiness only in relation to objects to comprehend the autonomy, the causelessness, of this bliss? How is it possible to convey the non-localization and the timelessness of this unveiling to one who only knows events in space-time; its absolute certitude to one entangled in relative truths; its divine splendor to one for whom beauty is a relative concept?
If we say that our universe, with all its richness and diversity— the apples in the basket, the loved ones around us, the Beethoven quartet on the stereo, the stars in the nocturnal sky—at every instant emanates from, rests in, and is reabsorbed into our self-revealing presence, our words still fail to adequately describe the immediacy of this unveiling.
They fail to do so because they still convey the notion of a transcendental presence from which this universe emanates as a distinct entity, whereas such a distinction is nowhere to be found in this unveiling. Our self-luminous background, which is the common thread of the dialogues in this book, constitutes the sole reality of all that is.
The Art of Not Expecting
What can we expect from our meetings?
Expect to learn not to expect. Not expecting is a great art. When we no longer live in expectation, we live in a new dimension. We are free. Our mind is free. Our body is free. Intellectually understanding that we are not a psycho-physical entity in the process of becoming is a necessary first step, but this understanding is not sufficient. The fact that we are not the body must become an actual experience that penetrates and liberates our muscles, our internal organs, and even the cells in our body. An intellectual understanding that corresponds to a sudden, fleeting recognition of our true nature brings us a flash of pure joy, but when we have full knowledge that we are not the body, we are that joy.
How can I perceive in a sensory fashion that I am not the body?
We all experience moments of happiness which are accompanied by a perception of expansion and relaxation. Before this body perception, we were in a state of timelessness, an unadulterated, causeless joy, of which the physical sensation was simply the ultimate consequence. This joy perceives itself. At that moment, we were not a limited body in space, not a person. We knew ourselves in the immediacy of the moment. We all know this felicity without cause. When we explore deeply what we call our body, we discover that its very substance is this joy. We no longer have the need nor the taste nor even the possibility of finding happiness in external objects.
How is this deep exploration accomplished?
Don’t reject the body sensations and emotions that present themselves to you. Let them blossom fully in your awareness without any goal or any interference from the will. Progressively, the potential energy imprisoned in muscular tensions liberates itself; the dynamism of the psychosomatic structure exhausts itself; and the return to fundamental stability takes place. This purification of body sensation is a great art. It requires patience, determination, and courage. It finds its expression at the level of sensation through a gradual expansion of the body into the surrounding space, and a simultaneo
us penetration of the somatic structure by that space. That space is not experienced as a simple absence of objects. When the attention frees itself from perceptions that hold it in thrall, it discovers itself as that self-luminous space which is the true substance of the body. At this moment, the duality between body and space is abolished. The body is expanded to the size of the universe and contains all things tangible and intangible in its heart. Nothing is external to it. We all have this body of joy, this awakened body, this body of universal welcoming. We are all complete, with no missing parts. Just explore your kingdom and take possession of it knowingly. Do not live any longer in that wretched shack of a limited body.
I have brief glimpses of this realm in moments of stillness. Then I go to work and find myself in an environment which is neither royal nor peaceful, and my serenity immediately disappears. How can I keep my equanimity permanently?
Everything that appears in awareness is nothing other than awareness: co-workers, clients, superiors, absolutely everything, including the premises, the furniture, and the equipment. First understand this intellectually, then verify that this is so. There comes a moment where this feeling of intimacy, this benevolent space around you, no longer goes away; you find yourself at home everywhere, even in the packed waiting room of a train station. You only leave it when you go into the past or future. Don’t stay in that hovel. This immensity awaits you right here, at this very moment. Being already acquainted with its presence, and once having tasted the harmony underlying appearances, let the perceptions of the external world and your body sensations unfold freely in your welcoming awareness, until the moment that the background of plenitude reveals itself spontaneously. This reversal of perspective is analogous to that which allows the sudden recognition of an angel’s face in a tree, in one of those early twentieth century prints that so delight children. At first we only see the tree. Then, informed by a caption under the picture that an angel is hiding there, we begin a meticulous examination of the foliage until we finally see the angel. What is important is to know that there is an angel, where it is hiding, and to have once experienced the tree change its form and turn into the angel’s face, as the image recomposes to confide the secret of the picture to us. Once the way is paved, subsequent reversals of perspective are easier and easier until we see the angel and the tree simultaneously, so to speak. In the same way, once we have recognized our true nature, the remaining distinctions between ignorance and awakening become progressively blurred and yield to the fundamental “suchness” of being.
I am beginning to realize that I am all gummed up in my body. My sensations and my impressions are of being a separate individual.
How does this gummed up feeling manifest?
I feel as if I were hypnotized by my pride and emotions, especially my anger, and by the agitation in my body.
Right. As soon as you become aware that you are hypnotized, the hypnosis ceases.
How is that? This is unclear to me.
Ask yourself who is hypnotized. Inquire deeply. Who is it? Where is it? You will discover that it isn’t possible to find such an entity. If you explore your mind and your body, you will find a few concepts that you identify with, like: “I am a woman,” “I am a human being,” “I am a lawyer.” You can also find certain sensations in your body, certain areas that are more opaque, more solid, that you identify with as well. But, when you look more closely, it becomes obvious that you are not this sensation in your chest, nor this thought of being a woman, since feelings and thoughts come and go, and what you really are is permanent. At this very moment, the hypnosis ends. The occurrence of these thoughts and feelings is less of a problem than your identification with them. As soon as you become aware of them, you distance yourself. You are free. In this freedom, you do not locate yourself anywhere. It is important to stay in this non-localization, and not follow the normal tendency to take a new identity as soon as you let go of the old one, like a monkey who doesn’t let go of a branch before latching onto another. You will discover how wonderful it is to live in the air in this way, without hanging on, unattached. In the beginning, it seems a bit strange, although your new attitude doesn’t constitute an obstacle to anything. You can still fulfill your functions as a mother or as a lawyer, feel your body, and so forth. In fact, to be nothing, in the air, nowhere, is very practical. It simplifies life a great deal. Don’t be content to merely understand. Put your understanding into practice. Try being nobody. Let go of the branches.
Isn’t it hard after that to come back into your body and live daily life?
You never were in your body, so the question of coming back into it doesn’t come up. Your body is in you. You are not in it. Your body appears to you as a series of sensory perceptions and concepts. You know you have a body when you feel it or when you think of it. These perceptions and thoughts appear in you, pure conscious attention. You don’t appear in them, contrary to what your parents, your teachers, and nearly the whole of the society in which you live has taught you. In contradiction to your actual experience, they have taught you that you, consciousness, are in your body and that consciousness is a function emerging from the brain, an organ of your body. I suggest that you question these beliefs and that you inquire into the raw data of your own experience. Recall the recipes for happiness that were given to you by these same people when you were a child: study hard, get a good job, marry the right man, etc. If these recipes worked, you wouldn’t be here asking all these questions. They don’t work because they are based on a false perspective of reality, a perspective that I am suggesting you question. See for yourself, then, if you appear in your body or your mind, or if, on the contrary, they appear in you. It is a reversal of perspetive analogous to the discovery of the angel in the tree. Even though this change seems minimal at first, it is a revolution with unimaginable and infinite consequences. If you honestly accept the possibility that the tree might actually be an angel, the angel will reveal itself to you and your life will become magical.
Can you speak about living intuitively from the heart?
Don’t be a person. Don’t be anything. Having understood that you are no one, live according to this knowledge. When the idea or sensation of being a person no longer deceives you, whether you are thinking or not, whether you are acting or not, you live the truth from the fullness of the heart.
At this point, am I in right relationship with myself and with the world?
Oh, yes. You are in right relationship which is that of inclusion. The world as well as your body and your mind are included in your true self. Love is inclusion. Understanding is an intermediate step, but the final destination, the true center, is the heart.
Is the heart the place between this branch and the next, to use the analogy of the monkey?
If you let go of the branch to which you are clinging without catching hold of another, you fall into the heart. You have to be willing to die. Let everything you know slip away, everything you have been taught, everything you possess, including your life, or at least everything that you think at this stage is your life. This requires courage. It is a kind of suicide.
Is it really like that? For example, do you remember the moments that preceded your recognition?
Yes.
Was it like that?
Yes.
Thank you. Before that did you have any idea what was going to happen?
Yes and no. Yes, because I felt the invitation. No, because, up until that point, I had only known relative happiness, relative truth, relative knowledge, and I could not have imagined the absolute, the ineffable. The Self is beyond all concept, all projection. That is why we can’t steer ourselves to it under our own steam, and must wait for it to solicit us. But, when it invites us, we must say yes joyfully, without hesitation. The decision belongs to us. It is the only decision in which we truly have a free choice.
One of the reasons I postpone making myself available to the invitation is that I fear my life will be radically changed.
Oh, yes. It will be.
My family, as well?
Your family, too. Everything will be changed.
I am afraid that people will leave me.
I can assure you that you will regret nothing.
Is it possible to have received the invitation and to have refused it?
Yes. You are free.
Will I be invited again?
Yes. Be ready. Be available. You are available when you understand that there is nothing that you can do on your own to get to the King. When you acknowledge your total powerlessness, you become an empty room. As soon as you become an empty room, you are a sanctuary. So the King can enter, take the throne, and grace you with immortal presence.
***
You have said that there is nothing I can do to get rid of this ego that sticks to me.
There is nothing that the person, that fragmentary entity you believe yourself to be, can do.
Does this imply that all spiritual practice is useless as long as I believe in that?
Exactly. A practice that comes out of the idea of being a physical or mental being can’t be called spiritual. It is a process of acquisition that takes you away from the real. What you really are can’t be acquired because you already are it. The ego is impermanent. It is a repetitive thought associated with emotions, body sensations, and reactions. When you are moved by the beauty of a piece of music, by the splendor of a sunset, or by the delicacy of an act of love, the ego leaves you. In that moment you are open and complete. If you try to improve your ego by practicing various disciplines, like a collector incessantly increasing the value of his collection with new and more sublime acquisitions, you will become more and more attached to it, and end up dissatisfied and living in isolation.