The Journey to Recognizing Consciousness

Clarity

The Story

I was born in nineteen sixty into a working-class family in South-East England. As a child I was intense and inquisitive - hours spent reading adventure and mystery books, hobbies which involved searching for antique artefacts, long treks into the countryside at every opportunity. Seeking began at an early age!

As I grew up, my restlessness led to difficulties in choosing a career, an inability to focus in any particular area. I left school as early as I could, decided to train as a chef, and then ended up working on construction sites.

I enjoyed this very much. It absorbed much of my restless energy and required no investment of responsibility. I took my orders and got on with the work - leaving me free to indulge in roaming in the thought story.

There was a constant interest in the mysteries of the body and the universe - experimenting with various diets and herbal treatments, looking at the stars, eating magic mushrooms, and pushing the body to the limit with weight-training and body-building.

In my early twenties I was forced to slow down. A shoulder injury brought the weight-training to an end, my wife gave birth to our first daughter when I was twenty-two, and I changed from construction to horticulture. For several years I picked fruit in Kent orchards from early summer to late autumn and gardened at other times of the year. During this period my thoughts turned to spiritual and esoteric matters.

Around nineteen eighty-five I joined a fraternal order which sent me regular monthly lessons in mysticism and 'universal law'. I enjoyed doing experiments and reading monographs each week.

After a couple of years I became interested in the teachings of a deceased Indian teacher, offered in monthly lessons and incorporating a guru-disciple relationship - even though the guru was already dead! I took this up and became involved with seeking enlightenment. This was my new obsession.

Another couple of years and several spiritual techniques later, I grew bored with it and happened upon a book by a western guru. This book told me that I was already awake and needed no liberation. The truth of what he was saying seemed obvious. However, he then went on (in the next few years and over the course of quite a few books) to proclaim himself the world teacher and offered a guru-disciple relationship for those who were interested.

Well, this time I was having none of it, although over the following five years I read a few more of his books as well as just about every other spiritual book I could get my hands on. But nothing really cut it for me the way the western guru's original book had done. Somewhere in me I knew it was true that I was already awake and free, but I was still confused, because I seemed to be just an ordinary person with all the usual sorts of problems that ordinary people have.

Anyway, I got sick of this guy's teachings and all the more traditional spiritual stuff, and next I hit the Advaita scene. I read everything by and about all the big Advaita names.

A lot of the confusion that I had felt before dissolved. I understood that all there is is Consciousness. So why did I still feel like a separate 'me'? What was the missing link? If I was already awake and free, then why did my life often seem like a pile of dung?

In nineteen ninety-seven I read Tony Parsons' first book, The Open Secret. I contacted him and he invited me to join a discussion at a house in London. It soon became clear to me how much mystique I had built around the whole 'enlightenment' drama. Tony appeared as an ordinary man and spoke with humour and patience. I listened to what he said in response to people's questions and I was struck by the simplicity of his answers. I went to more discussions over the next year and spoke to Tony on the phone when I could.

I wanted to make him into my 'teacher', but he explained that he had nothing to teach, and simply pointed out that there is only Consciousness - which I already am. Although I had understood this to some extent already, now it really began to sink in.

Tony pointed out that there does not need to be any kind of 'event' associated with the recognition of our true nature. Well, as it happened, in September nineteen ninety-eight an event arose. I was gardening and the rain was drizzling down. I looked up, and there was a subtle sense of 'me' not being there. I got on my bike and cycled around the lanes and it seemed as though there was a movie going on, without any effort necessary on my part to be taking part in it.

With this sudden dropping of the 'I', all need for understanding fell away as knowing was revealed. Even though Tony had pointed out that an event is not necessarily associated with the recognition of our nature as Consciousness, I had obviously still been subtly waiting for one, because now that this event or experience was occurring, it was seen as 'permission to be awake'. Without realising, I had been waiting for a confirmation of my true nature.

I rang Tony and excitedly explained what was going on and, with this new 'permission to be awake', speaking arose from clarity rather than the point of view of 'I'. Tony recognised that I was no longer relating to him as a separate character who was trying to get something, i.e. from the point of view of seeking and understanding.

As the day wore on, the mesmerisation as 'I' began subtly to return and claim this event - which was precisely the absence of 'I' - as 'my' enlightenment, 'my' awakening. There was a focus on the sense of sudden release - a blissfulness that arose in the absence of the 'I' - as being the enlightenment I had waited for.

I woke the next day. Was it still there? Yes! Then, after a few days, I noticed that the sense of release was wearing off a bit - but a couple of days later it was full on again. After a couple of weeks of it coming and going and of the 'I' reappearing and trying to hold on to its own absence, I went to one of Tony's discussions and the blissfulness seemed to be re-charged through being there.

But then a few days later it disappeared altogether and there was mesmerisation as the 'I' again. I didn't say anything about it to Tony and I didn't go to the meetings for a while. I felt confused.

Then I read a book by a woman who described an absence of the 'I' which lasted many years. After some time, she was told by certain 'teachers' that this was enlightenment. Then she became ill and died, and, in the afterword to her book, written by a friend of hers, I read that near the end she became confused and frustrated because the event had disappeared and the 'I' had returned.

Suddenly it became clear that these events where the 'I' suddenly disappears can actually be very confusing, so far as clarity is concerned. Such an event may last a few seconds or ten years or more, but unless the 'I' is seen for what it is - as simply a thought - then when this 'I' returns, there is a sense of loss, a sense of confinement in being an identified character again. As the identified character, the desire arises for more of this 'enlightenment', and there is the sense of being back in the agitation and tension of the play of seeking.

Now it was seen that all of life is a great play. There is only ever knowing, but this knowing is seemingly veiled by the mesmerisation with the 'I' thought and all the other thoughts that appear as 'my' story. Our true nature as Consciousness is awareness and the appearances. The 'I' is simply a part of the scenery, as are all the other various images, and when it is seen through - or seen for what it is - then seeking and tension fall naturally away.

It was clear also that this seeing through the 'I' is not necessarily a sudden happening, but may appear to happen gradually, as part of the play of life. And rather than in a rush of blissfulness, the natural ease of being is gently, gradually revealed.

The confusion was gone. I no longer required any event or sudden dropping of the 'I' to prove my nature as Consciousness. It was clear that the whole of my life and 'spiritual' search was arising as a play in Consciousness, and I understood the confusion around this whole issue, why 'spirituality' and 'enlightenment' are confused with simple clarity. This recognition of my true nature was not associated with any kind of event. It was clear that an event of any kind is easily confusing if it occurs without clarity - which is the seeing through of the 'I' and the thought story.

Obviously the event that happened in the garden was of no particular significance, nor is any other event. The occurrence of the event merely brought my confusion to a head and allowed the clear seeing of how I had been subtly waiting for an event as 'permission' to be what I already am. This clarity is not dependent on the absence or presence of the 'I'. If the 'I' appears, it is simply seen for what it is.

To bring this little story to a close: during the years of spiritual seeking I was divorced, married and divorced again, a single parent to my two daughters throughout most of their school years. I settled in a small village in Kent with not so robust physical health, and until recently worked locally as a gardener. Life is presently quiet and simple.

Consciousness

You are Consciousness, oneness, all that is, the source and appearance of all. All appearances rise and fall in awareness, nothing else is ever happening. People are passing, clouds are going by, conversations are going on, thoughts appear and disappear. All unfolds presently in awareness.

This appearance as the character is already the perfect expression of oneness - nothing needs to change for this to be so. No awakening or enlightenment is needed - all of this is simply the story in the play. There is only already awakeness as oneness, regardless of whether there is mesmerisation with the play of images, or resting in recognition as your true nature.

This present appearance, however ordinary or extraordinary, is the content of awareness. Awareness and content are one - Consciousness. You are Consciousness - awake and aware and presently appearing as everything.