An Unbroken Universal Unfolding

unbroken universal unfolding 17 a n Q One of the fundamental components of your teaching is what Ibelieve you call “the impersonal view.” Could you explain what you mean by this? A Yes. Whal Icall “the impersonal view” is what the enlightened perspective actually is. From the enlightened perspective there is only one human experience and that one human experience is recognized to be an impersonal affair, auniversal unfolding. The impersonal view always sees through and beyond that which is merely personal. Aperspective that is merely personal traps us forever in the deeply painful and never-ending melodrama of the sepa¬ rate self and inherently limits our ability to see beyond the illusion of independent self-existence. From the enlight¬ ened perspective, we see that it is the deeply condi¬ tioned, profoundly mechanical habit of personalization that creates ego, the psychological and emotional barrier that separates us from our own Self and the rest of life in every moment. That is why making the effort to see beyond a perspective that is merely personal is essential if we want to be free. an unbroken universal unfolding 103 So how can we discover this impersonal perspective for our¬ selves? By paying attention to our own experience in an honest way. Without being aware of it, we personalize almost every move¬ ment of thought and feeling. Every single experience we have, from the gross to the subtle, we compulsively call “mine.” Yet if we stand back even alittle, we will quickly dis¬ cover that so much of what we experience is not unique or personal in any way. Think about it. Look and see how much of our shared human experience is exactly the same, and yet how, through the deeply ingrained habit of personalization, we compulsively create the appearance of difference—the very illusion that is the sole cause of all of our unnecessary suffering. You see, in the impersonal view, which is the enlightened perspective, the ego and the entire personal world that it creates is not seen as being real. That world is revealed to be empty of meaning, value, and purpose, ulti¬ mately serving only to perpetuate the existence of aseparate self that doesn’t really exist. What do you mean when you say it doesn’t really exist? When you discover who you really are, you see directly that the personal self, with its attachment to time and history, lives in adream world, an unending nightmare of countless worries and fears, desires and hopes, which literally become transparent when one awakens to one’s own impersonal absolute depth. And when that impersonal Self Absolute begins J04 living enlightenment to emerge in consciousness as aliving presence, the “personal,” instead of being the impenetrable fortress that the separate ego abides in, becomes apermeable vessel through which the impersonal Self Absolute seeps into this world. So what you’re saying is that the “Self Absolute” is impersonal and it is that self that begins to shine through in the enlightened state. What happens to the old personality then? What happens to the personal self? I t b e c o m e s l i b e r a t e d ! A n d t h a t l i b e r a t i o n i s a r e s u l t o f directly seeing, again and again and again, the ultimately impersonal nature of the apparently personal dimension of the human experience, including all its unique twists and turns and endless variations. So from the perspective you’re describing, you’re saying there’s really nothing personal in either the absolute or the relative di¬ mension of our experience. That’s exactly what I’m saying. The personal dimension, from apersonal perspective, will be seen as being personal. But that same personal dimension, from an impersonal perspective, will be seen as being impersonal. The whole point is that our relationship to our experience depends upon how we see it, how we interpret it. So the important question is: Are we still compulsively personalizing all of our experience? Does the way we interpret our experience have anything at all to do with the impersonal view? Because remember, the an unbroken universal unfolding 105 enlightened perspective always points us to that which is sin¬ gular, empty of anything personal, and free from any and all motivation that comes from ego. Therefore, if we want to be free, the terrifying yet liberating truth of impersonality can¬ not be escaped. Sooner or later, we must summon up the courage to face directly into the ultimately impersonal nature of our very own personal experience. Because you see, the truth is that we really are ah in the same boat, on the same sea, going to the same destination. The problem with aper¬ spective that is fundamentally personal is that it makes it impossible to know this. It makes it impossible to see beyond our own ego to enlightened freedom itself, where we discover atruth that is universal, absolute, and definitely not personal. 1am beginning to sense the truth of what you are pointing to, but it makes my head spin! Ifeel like 1don’t know who or what l a m . . . That’s what happens. And if you stay with this inquiry, you will end up at aplace inside your own self where there is absolute singularity—where the personal becomes the imper¬ sonal and the impersonal becomes the personal. In that place, it is literally impossible to distinguish between the two. But why is that? Because there is only one Self and there is only one human experience. That’s liberation. But to discover this for your¬ self, you have to take the inquiry all the way to the end. A J06 living enlightenment merely superficial effort will never get you there. That place of absolute singularity is where true freedom and enlightened understanding are found. That is where the relative and the Absolute, the personal and the impersonal, merge and become one. In that mysterious place, they become one unbroken uni¬ versal unfolding that is free from the bondage of duality. an unbroken universal unfolding 107 f