“Pain dissolves when ‘you’ dissolve… when you place the truth of what you know first, always. Pain will persist so long as you continue to entertain your secondary knowledge first, as if it were ultimate reality.”
-Kyle Hoobin
MICHAEL: Everything you’ve learned since your body was born is 100% secondary knowledge. It didn’t originate from You and therefore really has nothing to do with you.
On the other hand, what you ALREADY ARE is Primary knowledge. You know it because you are it. Unlike secondary knowledge, Primary knowledge doesn’t depend on anything, like thoughts or beliefs or experiences, to exist. It just always is.
And so whereas we once took secondary knowledge seriously, that becomes impossible once we awaken to the deeper truth of what we are (and have always been) and we see for ourselves that our Primary knowledge never comes or goes or changes. And so we live from what we now know to be true.
Note that there’s no problem using secondary knowledge during the normal flow of Life, but we no longer mistake it for Primary knowledge or Truth. You are already all the Truth there is. Nothing can be added to all that is.
p.s. Silence is Primary knowledge. Words are secondary knowledge.
“We would rather explore the far side of the moon or the bottom of the ocean than the hidden depths within ourselves.
Unless we investigate the world within we can never know reality–we will only know our beliefs about it, or our conceptions of it.”
-William Hart, from The Art of Living Vipassana Meditation
* “VIPASSANA means ‘insight’ in the ancient Pali language of India. It is the essence of the teaching of the Buddha, the actual experience of the truths of which he spoke.”
“The Realization of Truth is not attained by any reaction to the present conditions of existence. Whatever is the Truth, it must be True at this moment. It must be always already True, both in and prior to every moment of space-time.
Therefore, the Realization of Truth is not attained in the search for Truth, since seeking must necessarily bypass the Truth in this moment in order to pursue it as an eventual Goal of action in time and space.”
-Adi Da Samraj
MICHAEL: I must forget/dismiss/ignore/fail-to-notice/fail-to-appreciate that this moment is already all the Truth in existence, so that I can then begin to search for “it” in some imaginary location. And I can do this for the rest of my life.
Have you ever come back to a spiritual teacher and suddenly heard them in a new, deeper, more profound way?
I heard Vernon Howard several years ago but he didn’t knock me over (because I understood so little of what he was actually saying). However, now? Now I find his teaching to be one of the most direct and compassionate, because he doesn’t BS around one iota.
You are not what you think you are, you are not the imposter self that you currently take yourself to be. What’s more, you are in love with your imposter self and thus your suffering continues right up to this very moment!
That until you are 100% clear that YOU are the problem, no one else, the suffering will continue. Only when you admit you are totally helpless and clueless and can do nothing whatsoever via your own power… when you at long last give it up totally and completely, that is the first step towards real freedom. “I can of mine own self do nothing.” -John 5:30
Michael Jeffreys
p.s. Below is a youtube link to one of Vernon’s many amazing and life changing talks, Lose Helplessness And Find Real Power.
“Your thoughts do not belong to you at all.” -Vernon Howard
MICHAEL: It means to remove your ATTENTION from ‘objects,’ i.e., persons, places, things, thoughts, feelings, ideas, sensations, etc. (where it habitually/automatically goes for almost everyone on the planet pretty much non-stop). And to place your ATTENTION on THAT which is silently AWARE (pure Awareness) of everything you seem to be aware of.
For example, as you read these words, notice that ‘something’ must be aware of them or how would you even know of their very existence?? Right now, notice this ever-present-formless-silent Awareness and let your attention rest on ‘it.’ ‘It’ is not a ‘thing,’ and thus has no perceivable qualities, yet it’s what allows for the knowing/perceiving of anything! In other words, are these words aware of themselves? No. Then what IS? (And if a thought says, “Me, I am!”, then what is aware of this ‘me’ thought??)
Hint: Be still/silent and ‘allow’ ‘your’ impersonal Awareness to become aware of itself. If you find yourself going back to a thought/object, gently bring your attention back to the Awareness itself. This is the ultimate meditation and can be done anywhere, anytime, and ‘you’ cannot ‘do it’ too much!
