What is this apparent reality? Am I here and you there?


Magdi Badawy, 08-08-2024

Welcome everyone.
Lovely to be with you.

So let’s
welcome our experience as it is,
a sort of relaxation,
in the heart of our experience.
So we invite ourself to be
to be not-knowing.

No need for any images of ourselves,
No self definition.

Simply to allow presence
to appear whichever way
it chooses to.

We don’t need to recollect the past right now.
It’s not necessary.

This silent presence is alive.

Every moment fresh and new
as pure consciousness,
taking on the form of hearing,
in the form of breath.

It’s all unfolding effortlessly.
Impersonally.

There is no person in fact,
no separate self.
Just effortless beingness,
effortless awareness.

Which is undisturbed
by the activity of hearing or sensing.

This awareness is non phenomenal,
invisible to the senses;
the reality which is and knows it is
– the perceiving aspect.

The reality which perceives
and knows it perceives.

You can rest as that
Consciousness resting as itself,
recognizing itself,
as this formless, impersonal,
effortless awareness.

Boundless.

The freedom of being,
the reality of being.

And you are that.

You are not
what you imagine yourself to be,
what you remember.

You don’t exist in time and space.
Time and space appear to you.
Time appears to you as thoughts, memories.

Yesterday,
last year…

The space appears to you
as perception:
The tree over here,
the mountain over there.
Perspective.

But you do not appear
in time and space.
You do not exist in the 3D realm.
The 3D realm exists in you.

One may wonder
what is this apparent reality?
It’s an oxymoron, “apparent reality”.

Does reality, in fact,
appear and disappear?

Thoughts appear and disappear,
bodily sensations,
world perceptions
appear and disappear.

But there is that which
neither appears nor disappears
in your experience right now,
this aware presence,
this being, knowingness.

That which is and cannot not be.
Non-phenomenal reality.

The reality of appearance
and disappearance
does not appear and disappear.

The waves
on the surface of the ocean
refer to the ocean.

The rays of sunshine
refer to the sun.

The golden bracelet
refers to the gold.

Appearance refers to its essence,
to its source,
to that from which it arises,
and to which it returns.

When in your experience
thoughts,
sensations,
perceptions
arise out of consciousness
and return to consciousness.

That which always remains,
that which always is,
is consciousness.

The true and only you,
the true and only self.

Sometimes thought arises:
I am here, and you are there.

But the I Am,
amness,
beingness,
is neither here nor there.

It is.

A body may be here
and another body there,
in a relative way of perceiving.

A utilitarian way of speaking.

A body is in the kitchen,
another in the living room.
But does that imply that
you are here, and I am there?

Take a look at your experience right now.
Without the narrative,
without the past,
to perceive without the history.

Here is there
and there is here
as awareness,
as reality,
as direct experience,
not as a utilitarian narrative,
practical narrative.

I am thou and
thou art I.

In this formless reality,
there are no divisions.

Sometimes we say I get it,
but it is not my experience.
I feel I am here and you are there.

So we can take a look.
When we say I, what are we referring to?

Are we referring to some form
that we perceive or we conceive of.

What is the reality,
the reality of I.
In this moment, always in this moment.

So we take a look.
We may realize that
the looker, the perceiver,
is neither here nor there,
nowhere and everywhere,
no one and everyone,
nothing and everything.

There is a great freedom in this understanding.

So if you have any questions,
anything that you would like to explore…
You’re welcome to unmute yourself.

Photo by Stephanie Harvey on Unsplash


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