Enlightenment is awakening and resting in/as the undivided, eternal, effervescent, formless Self. It is the shattering of the illusion of mind/body identification. And then opinions are seen as clouds passing in the sky, with no origin, no solidity, and no consequence to Self.
-John Dole
The reason you can’t find “IT” is because everything is “IT.” There is nothing that is not “IT.” “IT” is all there has ever been, “IT” is all there is, “IT” is all there will ever be. Everything is “IT.” The search is over when this is realized. If everything is literally “IT” (and what “IT” is is undefinable and unknowable) than there is nothing whatsoever to get, nor anything not “IT” to get it.
Michael Jeffreys
You can’t find the truth because You ARE the Truth. –Michael Jeffreys
If you ever come to the West LA weekly satsang (which is held weds. evenings in my apt.) you’ll see Buddha peacefully sitting on the table next to the couch. 
Seeking is made of two different parts: the seeker and the sought (duality). I seek to obtain, in the future, something that I currently do not possess. So if I want a root beer, I can go out and obtain it. However, when it comes to searching for my true nature, seeking fails on at least two accounts:
1) How can a limited entity (me) obtain a limited object (anything in the world), and expect to have that make me unlimited. A limitation plus a limitation does not equal unlimitedness. If I have a pound of coffee and I add a second pound of coffee, I do not end up with unlimited amounts of coffee.
2) I can’t seek for myself because I already am myself.
Imagine a piece of chocolate seeking for a piece of chocolate!? Since it doesn’t recognize itself as chocolate, it spends all its energy looking for chocolate. It will never find it because if it knew what chocolate was it would realize it’s chocolate and the search would be over. It doesn’t realize that IT’S what it’s looking for. It just needs to stop long enough to realize this.
Michael Jeffreys
Awakening is the realization that you are not an object, but the seeing (a verb, but never a noun, as Paul Hedderman says) of all objects. What makes it tricky is that the mind turns everything into an object since that is the only way it can “deal” with it. Thus, when it thinks of you, it can only do so as an object. But you are not an object… see the problem!?
This is why the solution is the removal of the ignorance that is preventing you from realizing that you already are what you seek. And therefore it is knowledge that sets you free because it brings to your awareness what you were previously ignorant of: that you already are free.
Just like when you forget your reading glasses are on your head. You already have them, you just are ignorant of this fact. As soon as it’s brought to your attention that they are on your head, the search is over and all you can do is laugh because you realize they have been with you all along.
This is why seeking doesn’t work. It starts from the premise that what you are looking for isn’t already present, i.e., isn’t what you already are. When it’s realized that, “I already am what I have been seeking,” the search is over and the play of lila can finally be enjoyed for the ever-changing and amazing mind/objects show that it is and is not.
Michael Jeffreys
Death is for the body, not You. Only that which is born can die. You were never born so You can never die. Even if you identify as the body, it does not make you the body. The body changes, you do not.
Death is another change. And even after death the body continues to change, decompose, etc., while the eternal You remains ever untouched and unchanged. Death is for objects; You are not an object, but the knower of all objects. You are like an ever-present changeless mirror that exists whether or not an object appears in it.
Michael Jeffreys
A wave can only fight against another wave as
long as the ocean is obscured from its knowledge.
When it’s realized that every form is ocean,
harmony pervades. –Michael Jeffreys
“Objects don’t work as the source of happiness for a very simple reason: I seek completeness when I am already complete. I do this because I do not know who I am.”
–James Swartz, from The Essence of Enlightenment
MICHAEL: An object can’t complete what is already complete.
Meditation Question:
Has ANY object ever brought me permanent, lasting, unchanging satisfaction??
Q: What is SUPERIMPOSITION?
A: “Projecting a subjective value on an object is called superimposition and appears in two forms: 1) mistaking an object for something else and 2) adding a value to an object that is not inherent in the nature of the object.”
–James Swartz (from, The Essence of Enlightenment)
MICHAEL: An example of the former is the classic mistaking a rope for a snake. The rope is harmless, but if I “superimpose” a snake on it, I have imagined it’s something it’s not (and I suffer the consequences, i.e. fear).
Note that if I am not aware that my mind is doing this, I will go around “superimposing” unconsciously onto other people and situations on a daily basis and thus not understand why my life is such a mess.
An example of the latter is thinking that someone “belongs” to me. Every being is inherently free, but if I imagine somebody is “mine,” then I am “superimposing” a quality onto that person/object that it does not inherently possess (and again, I suffer the consequences of my mistaken belief, i.e. jealousy).
