09/28/2007 Experiencing No-thing

Experiencing no-thing. 

Once you understand no-thing the next thing to do is to note your experience of it, note it for what it is.  No-thing is no big thing; just about everyone experiences it on and off.  But they pass over the experience.  They either fail to note it, or if they do, they experience as a negative. 

Every time you stop thinking and doing, you pass automatically into the state of no-thing.  You just relax into it. But just because it is no-thing, it tends to escape our notice.  We have a great drive to relax and rest, but when we do it we so unconsciously.  We don't value it; we don't note it or think about it.   Because we don't realize the simplicity of what no thing is, we sometimes go to great lengths to achieve it.  It is like Lamb’s famous essay on the origin on roast pig that some of us were made to read in high school.  Roasting was accidentally discovered when the barn in which the pigs were housed burned down.  So delicious were the burnt pigs that people started to accidentally burn their barns on purpose.  It was not until years later that people realized that you could just build a cooking fire and spare the barn.  And so people go to the similar extremes in sports, drugs, sexuality and spiritual practices just  to stop their minds, when all they really need to do is relax and let go. 

Nobody is no-thing! 

The problem is that in western and westernized societies, with their emphasis on personality with its strong emotions, opinions, and positions, relaxing into no-thing is frequently perceived, both by oneself and others, as being weak or lacking. 

Let me illustrate this with a story. When she was about 12, my daughter Ariel tearfully confessed to me that she was no one.  "All my friends are someone” she sobbed, “but I feel like I'm no one ".  I hastened to reassure her, and then led her to explore the experience without attaching a negative judgment to it.  After a few minutes she opened her eyes, looked at me and smiled "I feel peaceful” she said, “like I’m home”. 

 Ariel’s fears were just one symptom of an all-pervasive misconception in our society, one characterized by a mistaken emphasis on personality, an overvaluing of emotion and a phobia of inner silence. 

Relaxing into it 

As I've said, Accessing the state of no thing is as simple as relaxing, as simple as letting go of all your thinking and your doing.  However simple does it mean easy.  There are some obstacles:   

• The first obstacle to letting go is thinking that you need to do something, and even more, that you need to think of what to do, when all you really need to do is to stop thinking and stop doing.     
• The second obstacle to letting is remembering. Letting go is just too simple, too counter intuitive, and in a weird sort of way, too difficult to remember when you're caught in your thoughts and of course, your emotions.
• The third obstacle to letting go is wanting to.  It is easy let go in theory.  But it is hard to want to when you're caught in your emotions.    
• The fourth obstacle is the ego.  The ego continually plays tricks to keep us from letting go (of it).  There are two basic kinds of tricks the ego plays.  The first is to convince us that it is necessary, and that letting go of it is counterproductive and even dangerous.  The second is to convince us that we have, in fact, let go.  And that it is what we have let go to.
• The fifth obstacle to letting go is knowing how to.  It is relatively easy to relax that which you’re consciously of, but far more difficult to let go of what you are unconscious of.  The mind is like an iceberg with only it’s tip jutting into awareness.  You can let go of what you are thinking and doing, but you can't let go of the memories that you are holding in your unconscious mind, the Karma of conclusions and beliefs, until you have some way of accessing them.  For this deep letting go, the letting go of unconscious contents, relaxation is not enough.  You need presence, skill and technique, both for identifying the contents of your unconscious and for letting go of them.  The sacred technology of PsychoNoetics™ develops the consciousness and the techniques for successful letting go.  www.PsychoNoetics.com 

Experiencing as no-thing. 

Once you get into this state of no-thing, however you get there, the world starts to look different.  As you pass through the looking glass from thingness to no-thingness, from duality to nonduality, stillness, peace, clarity and compassion spontaneously emerge. 

In no-thingness you can finally face yourself, not only witnessing your thoughts and feelings but also accepting them and even revising them.  And that's not all.  When we are in our ordinary states of mind we constantly add to our stock of illusions and steadily accumulate Karma. However when access the state of no-thingness, this stops.  Instead of accumulating illusions, we start dispelling them. 

Knowing that nothing is wrong with you and nothing can ever be gradually frees you from self-doubts and defensiveness, so that you can, at long last, get over your story, your illusions and your Karma!