The Perfume of Silence

by Francis Lucille

  If “seeing it” becomes another activity that we do, it is an obstacle. The doer is not investigating; it is being investigated. “Investigated” means contemplated. Don’t focus on the doer. Let go of the doer whenever something else arises in consciousness. Contemplate whatever appears in the now. If the doer appears in the now, welcome it. If it leaves, let it go. Welcome whatever appears in the now from moment to moment. Allow whatever arises spontaneously in the now to flow through you without trying to grasp it, resist it, or memorize it. That which comes unexpectedly in the now always comes from grace, from silence. That which comes from silence resonates with silence in us. It reveals silence.

  I find that seeing something and naming it are almost inseparable.

  Don’t name your naming. After all, when you are naming, that is what is present in the now. Don’t make it a problem. It is just an old habit of grasping with the mind. Don’t try to get rid of it. It is enough just to see it. Of course, there are times when naming is necessary, and then we simply use this tool and replace it in the toolbox when it is no longer required. Thought is not the thing that it refers to. It is a theory. The theory of a thing is not the thing itself. Thought doesn’t lead to reality. It only takes us to its own ending.

  ***

  Where does understanding happen?

  Understanding doesn’t happen in the mind. We may ponder a question and at some point the question vanishes and we have a flash of understanding, of insight. When the question is present, the answer, the understanding, is absent. Likewise, when the answer appears, the question has by definition disappeared. Then we say, “Now I have the answer.” However, between asking the question and formulating the answer, the mind is not present, because the mind is simply the questioning and formulating process. It is at precisely this timeless moment when the mind is not present, between the question and the formulation of the answer, that understanding takes place. Therefore, if neither the question nor the formulation of the answer is present when understanding actually takes place, it cannot be said that we understand a thought. What is it then that we actually understand? Understanding understands itself. It returns us to our true nature, consciousness, which is pure intelligence. It is the answer. Understanding doesn’t take place somewhere. It is our true nature.

  After this timeless experience of understanding, the mind reappears with the thought, “I understood such and such.” With this thought the ego is created as the supposed “understander,” but the truth of our experience is that when the understanding took place, in the moment when consciousness recognized itself, the “I” was not present, the mind was not present.

  We make distinctions between understanding, love, and beauty, but they are in fact all the same. Understanding is beautiful. Love is understanding. Beauty is love. Whenever we are touched by understanding, love, or beauty, it is a moment when the mind becomes naturally silent. Not silent for a long time for there is no time there. It is a timeless moment. This is the interpretation at the level of thought or reason. At the level of feeling the interpretation is that life becomes more and more fragrant.

  Is there anything one can do to facilitate the understanding you are speaking of?

  There is nothing the alleged separate entity can do to facilitate or prevent the understanding. This alleged entity is an object. It cannot do anything, so it should go back to sleep and leave us to have a good time. When the Self wants to make its gift to itself it creates the appropriate conditions and makes the gift. The appropriate conditions are like the wrapping paper that surrounds the gift. The gift itself is not an object.

  I feel hopeless when you say there is nothing I can do about my unhappiness.

  When we understand that the alleged person can do nothing, we let go of striving and in this letting go all the obstacles to happiness, at the level of thinking and feeling, are gradually revealed. Realizing that we are not an entity, we take our stand as consciousness, and allow this exposure and relaxation of the knots in the body and the mind, with loving indifference. This is the direct path, standing knowingly as consciousness under all circumstances. The gradual untangling of the knots in the body and the mind, the contractions and the beliefs, may take time. However, we start from our true nature, from a glimpse of it. We don’t end with it. It is a top-down approach in which the body and the mind are gradually realigned with our experience and understanding of truth.

  Often there is a glimpse of truth, followed by a sense of regret that I have been seeking for such a long time and keep getting there and losing it.

  Consciousness was present as the truth seeker. To regret that consciousness was not present doesn’t make any sense. Everything has always been, is, and will always be consciousness, so why worry? There is only consciousness, right this minute.

  It seems that it is so simple we can’t believe it. Consciousness is present all the time and the play appears within it and yet we keep sticking to the play.

  And that, too, is part of the play!

  If there is only consciousness, and all perceptions, sensations, and thoughts arise from and return to consciousness, are all objects an illusion?

  When we say that objects are an illusion we mean that it is an illusion that objects have their own existence separate from consciousness. The experience of a separate object seems real, but the reality of this experience comes from consciousness. The object borrows its reality from consciousness. When objects are present, they are real as consciousness. They have no reality in themselves. When they are not present in consciousness, we cannot say that they exist. However, even when we say that an object exists from the normal materialistic viewpoint, the presence of consciousness is still implied. The word “exist” means to “stand out from,” so if we say that an object exists, we imply that it stands out from something else. That from which the object stands out is consciousness, that which is. It is the background. Later on, it is discovered to be the object’s real nature.

  The moment we understand that objects have no existence separate from consciousness, they cease to be a distraction from consciousness and become instead pointers that reveal it.

  What you say makes sense intellectually but in practice I still feel that things are separate from myself. For instance I feel that this chair is separate from myself.

  Touch the chair with your hands and, without interpreting your experience in any way, ask yourself if that sensation, whatever exactly it is, is separate from you, whatever you are. The answer is obviously, “No!” It is very simple. Now transpose that understanding to all your sense perceptions and ask yourself again if anything you ever experience is actually separate from yourself.

  From the medical point of view, consciousness is different from what you are talking about.

  Let’s call that “medical consciousness.” However, it is not possible to design an experiment that proves that the brain produces consciousness. If there is brain damage, for instance, we do not know that the person loses consciousness. They may have no memory or perception of external stimuli and they may have lost control of their body. If we claim, however, that the absence of these things proves that there is no consciousness, we imply that the presence of these things, by the same token, proves the existence of consciousness. If this were true, then we would have to acknowledge that a computer has consciousness, because it can record data in memory, it can record sensed data if connected to sensors and, provided with robot arms, it can move things. We have no doubt that we are conscious. When we go to sleep at night, we don’t receive sense impressions, we don’t voluntarily control the motions of our body and we have no recollection of deep sleep. However, this does not mean that we are not present as consciousness, nor that there was a discontinuity in consciousness.

  The feeling that we all have of this subjective experience of “I” will never show up on a computer screen. It is beyond the scope of science, which limits itself to the sphere of phenomena. So-called “medical consciousness” is an object; it can be obse
rved and measured. However, true consciousness is that which observes “medical consciousness.” It is that in which and ultimately as which it and all other objects appear.

  Each of us is consciousness, and consciousness is that through which whatever we know is known. If it could be investigated as an object, it would have to be known by something else, and this “something else” would in turn be what we call consciousness.

  If consciousness doesn’t intervene and doesn’t have preferences, why should we put Hitler in prison if he reappeared?

  Consciousness welcomes the totality of the situation. By “the totality of the situation” we mean all the elements that comprise the given situation, including your own reactions. Out of this impartial welcoming, in response to the circumstances, understanding arises that may or may not lead to action. Action that flows from the totality of the situation is right action and will always be beneficial even if, in the short term, it may not appear to be effective. Action that comes from a fragment of the totality, from a separate entity, will subtly perpetuate the suffering it is trying to relieve, even if it appears beneficial in the short term, because it is itself the root cause of that suffering. The body is involved in the world and although the witness doesn’t participate in action, the body does. Even non-action is a form of action. Cowardice, for instance, is a form of action. That is the lesson that Krishna teaches Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. As the Self we are the witness, but as the body, we are already involved. So just do your dharma, do what’s right, do what flows from the circumstances.

  Anyone who loves beauty and truth will presumably express them.

  Yes, the deed that comes from the perception of beauty, truth, and love is a direct expression of beauty, truth, and love in the world. In the realm of thinking it is revealed as intelligence. In the realm of feeling it is revealed as love and joy. In the realm of perceptions it is revealed as a true work of art.

  ***

  If consciousness is fearless, why do I feel so much fear?

  To be fearless implies not being afraid of death and this occurs as a result of realizing that we are that which does not die. If we are truly unafraid of death, we realize that all psychological fear is a figment of our imagination. However, in a real situation, fear may be necessary, it may be an appropriate response to a certain situation. For instance, if we were to discover a cobra in this room, fear would trigger all kinds of appropriate mechanisms. There is nothing wrong with that. It is just an appropriate response of the body-mind to a given situation. We could call this biological fear. However, psychological fear, fear that doesn’t arise out of a real situation but rather from a projection of an imaginary personal entity into a hypothetical situation in the future, is a different story. Psychological fear involves a personal entity, whereas in biological fear there is nobody who is afraid. It is inherent in the personal entity to be afraid of its own disappearance because, deep inside, we have the knowledge of the falsity of this entity.

  Why is it so often said of people who have realized their true nature, that the overcoming of the fear of death brought about a dramatic change? Is it necessary for realization to happen in this way?

  It is not necessary. There are innumerable ways in which consciousness can reveal itself to itself and we should not be prescriptive about it. Above all, we should not expect a particular type of experience. I once read, in an Indian text, a description by King Janaka of his enlightenment. He said, “It was a beautiful, warm night with a gentle breeze and I was in the garden of the royal palace. I was lying on my bed with my beloved. We had just made love, the birds were singing, and the fragrance of the flowers was beautiful. We were drinking delicious wine. At that moment, I heard in the distance the Brahmin chanting the Veda and I woke up.”

  Why do some get realization and others not?

  Nobody gets realization. Our most precious treasure is freedom, and that means the freedom to be miserable if we so choose. We are free to identify with the body-mind organism if we want to. We are free to carry the baggage of the past with us or to drop it. It is very easy, but we choose not to. That’s our freedom. We are freedom itself.

  Why would freedom itself want to become identified?

  Ask yourself the question, if such is your desire! The one who is ignorant and is willing to remain ignorant doesn’t experience himself as ignorant, but as free to choose. In this freedom, he ultimately experiences happiness, because he has the freedom to think what he wants to think, to believe what he wants to believe. When you move away from this ignorance, it is no longer a problem because you see this freedom in all human beings. You see them as this freedom, so you don’t want to convert them, because nothing is a problem. You see their attachment to their beliefs, but you also see their love for their beliefs. Of course, to be attached to beliefs, to viewpoints, is misguided love, but unless they ask you a question, in which case you have to answer honestly, you don’t try to do anything about them, because you see that it comes from their love of freedom.

  Is it the apparent person’s love of freedom?

  The apparent person, the separate entity, doesn’t have anything. It is just a ghost. It doesn’t have feelings; it is made of feelings. This apparent person, this ignorance, arises out of freedom and is also an expression of freedom. It is a very interesting, well-designed game, in which we have identified with the person and in which we have also put all the necessary signs to enable ourselves to find our way back home, sooner or later.

  So ignorance is the choice of freedom and the ending of ignorance is also the choice of freedom?

  Exactly. The ego, ignorance, doesn’t choose anything. It gets chosen.

  Can you speak of grace and conditioning?

  Whatever arises out of conditioning is old. Grace is new. Whatever arises out of conditioning is simply the new packaging of an old product. Grace is truly creative. That is how to recognize what comes from grace and what is simply a continuation of the past. The continuation of the past is simply a horizontal transformation that is not a real transformation. It is an evolution. That which arises out of grace is vertical. It is a radical transformation. It brings about something new. However, it is also true to say that everything is grace. If we truly think and feel that everything is grace, then that is how we will experience the world. If we think that some things are grace and others are not, then that in turn will condition the way the world appears to us.

  Just Say “Yes” Inside

  Is there any place for devotion in this teaching of non-duality?

  Yes, but the important question is “Devotion to what?” We are devoted to reality, to God, to consciousness, not to an object, a fragment, an image. We are not interested in idolatry. Devotion, as it is usually understood, is directed towards some kind of object, an image, a deity with some characteristics, a human teacher, a personal God, or to the divine qualities of a personal God. These are all objects. I am not suggesting that this kind of devotion is useless. It is useful and it eventually takes the devotee to Truth.

  However, the kind of devotion that is the foundation for the search for truth is very pure. It is not tainted by images, by objectivity. It is so pure that in the beginning it is not recognized for what it is. It looks like profound interest and is both passionate and dispassionate at the same time. Passionate because there is a lot of energy that is devoted to it and dispassionate because there is no agitation.

  Ultimately, all human beings are looking for the same truth. To begin with we look for it in gross objects and then in subtle objects, such as spiritual experiences. Gradually, as we come nearer the mark, we understand that the ultimate spiritual object, truth, freedom, happiness, love, is not an object.

  Can the desire for happiness ever be an obstacle?

  The desire for happiness comes from happiness and leads to it. However, the desire for a happy state is an obstacle. A happy state is a particular experience of the body and the mind. In such an experience the body and the mind are touched, as it were, by
our true nature, by happiness, and for a brief period of time they shine with its brilliance. The brilliance belongs to consciousness, to our true nature, and not to the body or the mind, although they can express it. It is a misinterpretation of the experience of happiness to think that it comes from the body or the mind. To pursue a repeat of this experience only reinforces the misunderstanding and therefore the unhappiness.

  We want a method, a trick, to enable us to surrender more.

  Surrender the desire for more. At the moment of surrender, we feel a deep emotion that is the resolution of conflicts. It leaves us in a state of detachment, a natural welcoming. In the beginning, it is difficult to stay in this welcoming because we want to experience again the feelings that accompanied the moment of surrender. There is no need for this. Just stay surrendered.

  If one can avoid devoting oneself to objects through the devotion to truth, to God, is it possible to see others as Godlike and see yourself in that other person as God?

  By using the word God we mean the Divine, consciousness. We don’t mean a personal God or a being with separate existence. The word “God” has been so misused that it is difficult to understand it without the association of previous ideas. When someone quoted to Voltaire the scripture, “God has created us in his own image,” he replied, “And conversely!” A God that is like us is not the real God; it is a personal God. It is a projection of our belief of separation, a projection of the ego. However, once we have understood that there is no experiential or rational evidence for the belief that consciousness is personal, we become naturally open to the possibility that it is impersonal and universal. We become open to the possibility that the consciousness that is seeing and understanding these words right now is the same consciousness that is experiencing everything that is being experienced by all sentient beings at this very moment. The more we test out this possibility in daily life situations the more we find that the truth of it is confirmed in our experience. When we meet a so-called other we have the deep feeling that we are one and the same consciousness. God sees God everywhere.