The Universal Solution

[Guest guest]

Someone recently stated that because of there being so many individual

viewpoints, there could be no universal solution or " one way. " Of course I

can find where that's true, and. being a facilitator of The Work of Byron

, my mind drifted to the opposite of that thought. " There is a

Universal Solution. " Could that be as true or truer? I began to look.

My experience lately has been standing in the idea that there is no me. that

all perceived subjectivity is an illusion. that there is just Awareness,

relentlessly unfolding, moment by moment. What if " " doesn't even

exist, except as an idea or a thought. no more real than the past (another

thought). This is sacrilege, I know, to modern, new age, thought which would

say that there is a me, and that the highest use of my life is to fulfill on

and glorify the story of me and my own personal dream, my own personal

significance.

What if I am an effect of Awareness as it unfolds? What if I have no cause

or say in the matter? What if every " choice " I think I make is just It

unfolding? What if this is-ness I have referred to as is just the

machinery of my identity doing its automatic reactions to perceived stimuli?

It does occur to me that " being cause in the matter " is an idea that is

based on an underlying belief in separation. I must be separate to be cause

in the matter.

If you find that you disagree with this, I understand. I am contradicting my

own self with these words. What I can report is that standing in this idea,

for me, lives as a threshold experience followed by complete peace. freedom.

and unrestrained Self-expression. I like those states of being. I notice

that with no " me " there is no problem. With no " me " then I am whole and

perfect and complete. lacking nothing.

Perhaps there is a Universal Solution, and perhaps that solution is to know

oneself as the Universe. Does the Universe have a problem with birth and

death? If a group of water molecules evaporate from the ocean and drift over

the Earth only to fall as rain in some " distant land " is this a problem to

the Universe? Being whole seems to be the solution to all problems, all

pain, all separation, all suffering. All is resolved. peace. freedom.

perfection. nothing to defend. nothing to justify. nothing holding back.

It's ironic. All my life I strove to be somebody and to make my life matter.

Now I find that I am content to be nobody and to relax in the knowledge that

there is very little, if anything about " " that matters. And who cares?

" I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I become the very

thing I look at, and experience the kind of consciousness it has; I become

the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal

points of consciousness, love; you may give it any name you like. Love says

" I am everything " . Wisdom says " I am nothing " . Between the two, my life

flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the subject and

the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and

neither, and beyond both. "

-Nisargadatta Maharaj, taken from page 269 of I Am That