Nondual = I am, but I am not somebody.


Magdi Badawy, 12-17-2023

Hello, everyone.
Very lovely to be with you.

So welcome yourself.

Welcome your experience just as it is.
Sit comfortably.

You don’t need to close your eyes,
but you can turn your gaze inward.
And invite yourself to simply be
without direction,
without knowing,
without the past,
without any agenda.

Be this welcoming.
Welcoming is effortless.
It is a a sort of relaxation into presence.

Just for now,
for the duration of this meditation,
in this meeting,
you don’t need to remember anything.

You don’t need to fix anything.
You don’t need to do any effort to achieve any state.

Invite your body
to the comfort,
to the relaxation,
to the well-being.

Invite your mind to the peace,
the inner tranquility,
which we all know deep within us,
the peace of being.

We all know our way home,
because our home is what we are,
our true self is
this simplicity,
this ease,
this well-being.

Allow the words to do
whatever they do
without any expectations.

You are sitting on the bank of the river,
the river flows.
The sun is shining,
reflecting on the wavelets of the river.
The gurgling sound.

You are this listening space.
Not a particular individual who is doing any listening.
Rather, the space is listening;
it is a listening space,
an aware presence.

Everything appears to you effortlessly.
Like hearing,
the sensation of the breath,
the sensation of your feet on the ground.

Thoughts appear to you;
they appear to you effortlessly.

And you are not apart from that which appears to you.

The sound of this voice hearing
and you are one mysterious whole.
One mysterious totality.

Without any separation.

The thought that you perceive,
whatever that thought may be,
is not separate from you, the perceiving aspect.

Whatever bodily sensation appears to you,
appears to you as you,
not an inch apart from you.

Even imagining yourself to be a person,
to be a separate entity,
to be a woman, a man, a daughter, a son,
even that imagination appears to you
in complete intimacy.
Like a wave appears in the ocean,
in complete intimacy with the ocean.

There is no separate wave apart from the ocean.
And this imaginary you,
whatever you imagine yourself to be,
is not separate from the imagination of the universe.

The wave is the ocean waving,
and your imagination is the universe imagining.

Although the universe is imagining in you,
meaning itself,
because you are not apart from the universe.
Although the universe is imagining a separate entity.

This does not mean that in fact,
you are that separate entity which you imagine yourself to be.

Like a little ripple on the surface of the pond
imagines itself to be separate from the pond.

Or a glitter of sunshine
imagines itself to be separate from the sun.

Turn your attention to the silence within.

The silent presence,
this aware presence that perceives this perception,
by its very essence, which is still.

When it comes to presence, there are no problems.
A thought may appear,
another thought may appear,
there are no issues,
simply let it be.

In one way or the other we all seek peace and happiness.

Sometimes we imagine that peace and happiness
will be available to us in a relationship or
will be available to us in a certain situation
or in obtaining certain goals.

A larger bank account, a bigger home, a nicer body.
But this has nothing to do with peace and happiness.

Because whatever you gain, you can lose.

Your healthy body today may not be healthy tomorrow.
The wonderful relationships that you are seeking,
so sweet and loving now may not be so a year or two from now.
Who knows?

What is it that you can truly count on, depend on?
Is it the changing world?

Situations in the world that are constantly changing.

Is that what you can count on?
A better me-narrative maybe?

If you take a look deeper than your mind,
you will find that that which you love is love itself.
Freedom, freedom for all.
Happiness for all.

What you truly love is no separation.
Because in love, there is no separation.
In understanding, there is no separation.
In friendship, there is no separation.
In compassion, there is no separation.

In understanding, there is no separation.

What we truly love is truth, which is nondual.
Meaning I am, but I am not somebody.

Because as soon as you are somebody,
you experience separation and limitation,
worry and concern, fear and the sense of lack.

As soon you as you identify yourself as
a son, a daughter, a man, a woman,
whatever way you identify yourself,
you have limited your totality.

You have compromised your happiness.
You have compromised your true self, your true nature.
\You have diminished yourself, reduced yourself.
And what do you gain from such an identification?

Worry and concern, which is not a gain at all.
It’s a loss.

You refer to yourself as the past,
what I was, what happened to me, what I did.
What’s gonna become,
what’s gonna happen to me in the future?

When you’re entangled in these thoughts
and these sensations and these emotions,
entangled everyday, regrets, worries…
Sense of guilt, hoping for something better.
Often being disillusioned.

What for?

Is it possible to be free from the past and the future,
and all the stories about myself and others.
My family, my tribe, other tribes,
can we be free from this narratives which separates us.

Yes, we can.

In pure presence, allowing things to be as they are,
being open and available for the unknown,
for the mystery to unfold itself, which ever way it wishes to.

Not to continue to feed the me-identity, the me-story over and over.
Hoping for a better me-story, for a better narrative.

And we’ll be narrative free for a moment.
A moment of being, of not knowing, presence.

Can we explore that,
can we explore this possibility for an instant,
to be without engaging in the past and the future,
simply to be not knowing.

Childlike.
Beautiful children,
their innocent face,
that beautiful face,
those eyes that shine.

To tell ourself “it’s okay”, whatever is happening, It’s okay.
That’s what is happening is simply appearing to you.
Like thoughts appearing to you and bodily sensations appearing to you.
Like, in your night dream, so many things appear to you.
So many things.

The other day, in my night dream, I was climbing a tall palm tree.
The palm tree was, like 300 feet tall in the sky,
and I was grabbing the palm tree and crawling up
inch by inch, the palm tree.
It’s like, I’m never gonna get to the top.

So I decided to wake up!
I think, okay.
I can wake up.

When I woke up, there was no more palm tree
and nobody climbed that palm tree.
It’s like that in our waking Waking state.
Things are appearing to us In the dream,
I was so identified with that guy climbing that palm tree.

Am I gonna be able to get to the top?
I had to go out to get it’s leaked from the palm tree.
It was gonna help somebody. I forgot who, maybe my cousin or somebody. I don’t know.

It felt so real, so exciting and fearful, scary.

The waking state is not so different.
We identify with the body mind so we can experience those emotions,
trepidation, the heartbeat, the excitement.

But when we realize, well, maybe it’s too much.
Maybe that’s not really what I’m enjoying what I wanna enjoy right now.
Then we can wake up.

Simply notice that
the you, which appears in your thoughts,
the you which appears in your emotions, in your body,
in your sensations is not you.

You are the perceiving aspect.
You are the knowingness.
You are the reality
which perceives the thought,
which perceives the so called me, the pseudo self,
which is appearing in the thought.

You are that which perceives
and not something which is perceived.

We are this wondrous awareness, which is
not a female awareness,
not a male awareness,
not a tall awareness,
not a localized awareness.

Awareness is undeniable.
But it is not an object.

You are aware because awareness is you.
And awareness is aware by its very nature.
Awareness doesn’t need to do any effort to be aware,
nor do you need any effort to hear these words.
Because you and awareness are not two.

When you imagine awareness to be an object,
to be a female or a male person,
when you imagine awareness to be personal and limited.
At that particular moment, you, which is awareness itself,
is playing the game of imagining itself to be an object,
to be a form, to be limited.

But although you are playing the game of being limited,
you are not limited.

You can play any game you want to play,
out of your freedom,
but nothing limits you.

You, meaning awareness itself, the reality which perceives.
What else would you be if not the reality,
which right now is perceiving this perception and hearing these words?

What else would you be?
A body?
An object?
A mind?
A brain?

Are you the brain that you comprehend
and imagine
and perceive
and know,
or are you the knowing aspect of the brain?
That which knows the brain?
Or are you the body which you know you are familiar with?
Or are you that which sees and knows the body,
which perceives bodily sensation,
which perceives bodily perceptions?

Are you that which is perceived or the perceiving aspect?
Ask yourself.

Because if you do not come to a clear understanding
about what you truly are, what I truly is,
then you remain confused about what you are.

You remain in the imagination and the beliefs about what you are.
And you cannot find the freedom and the peace
which is available to you in freedom from your sense of limitation,
freedom from belief, the freedom from the conditioning of the mind.

It’s okay for the mind to be conditioned,
but not for you to identify yourself with the mind’s conditioning.


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