kentonwhitman.com

For those who are completely bewildered as to what non-dualism or Awakening is, here is what this site is all about:

What do you see?

A 3d image of a cube, right?

This site is about noticing that our mind, at this point in our lives, automatically sees a 3d cube.

But there is no 3d cube. What is really there is a combination of triangles and other 2d shapes.

We’ve been taught to automatically see our idea instead of what’s really there. In fact, for many of us, it’s pretty tough to see the 2d shapes.

We’ve also been taught to perceive all the rest of reality in ideas.

When you see a tree, or a person, or an emotion, you’re really seeing an idea, and not reality.

The problem is that it’s obvious to us that there is a 3d cube! And it’s also obvious that there is a tree, and yesterday, and our friend Martha. It’s so obvious that it seems we don’t even have to question the reality of these things.

The 3d cube has a special property. Can you see it? The ‘front’ of the cube can be seen in two different places!

In this way, when we believe that our ideas are real, we can get into huge arguments about which part of the cube is the front. This is what makes it possible for us to have wars and arguments, and it is also what makes it possible for people to feel stress, frustration, and anger.

In short, believing in the 3d cube causes all our problems!

If you play with the image a bit, you’ll find that you can easily switch between the 3d cube having one face out, and then the other. If you relax your eyes and just look at it for a while, you’ll also be able to see the 2d shapes. If you look in a relaxed enough manner, you’ll soon be able to see all 3 manifestations of the image — 2d shapes, and both 3d cubes.

Being able to see the image in all three manifestations doesn’t make us lose our ability to see the 3d cube. This is important to remember, because when we start to see that something like a ‘tree’ or ‘Martha’ or ‘yesterday’ is just like the 3d cube, we can become afraid that the tree or Martha or yesterday will somehow disappear. But they won’t. We’ll always be able to see them, just like we’ll always be able to see the 3d cube.

But when we know that the 3d cube is just an idea, we can see the cube in its full reality – as a 3d cube with one side out, as a 3d cube with the other side out, and as a series of 2d shapes.

This is not to say that the image is defined as ‘all three things’. This is how people would use Awakening to justify all sorts of atrocious actions. It’s like saying that every way of looking at something is just as good as any other way, so why not steal and cheat?

Our definitions can never capture the true nature of the image. We can only try to describe certain aspects of the image, but our words can never capture the true essence of what the image is (or isn’t). It’s an organic, un-definable sort of thing, and as soon as we try to pin it down, we’ll begin missing out on most of what the image really is.

The true way to understand the image is to see it without pinning it down. We can see it Just As It Is, and then we know everything there is to know about it.

It can seem more difficult to see a tree, or Martha, or yesterday, in the same way we see the cube. But if we pay simple attention, it can happen. The key? Ceasing to try so hard. Simple reality is right before us, but when we try to see it, we’re actually trying to force reality to fit into our ideas. Then we get very confused.

This site is about learning to see what’s ‘really’ there. It’s about how paying attention to the way our minds lay ideas over everything will quickly show us how strong our idea-mind is. It really wants to make the world into ideas.

When you see that all your former ideas aren’t ‘real’, then you won’t be fooled by them any more. Reality will be very simple, sitting right in front of your nose, where it’s been the whole time.

You can then begin to really live life, paying attention to what is right in front of you, instead of spending all of your time imagining all sorts of strange and terrible things (like trying to decide which part of the 3d cube is really the front).

The world is the most amazing, beautiful place you could ever imagine. If you see the world the way it is, things like television will become terribly boring, since it is so much more amazing to do something like taste food or look at the clouds or actually talk to other people.

In our culture we’re taught to distract ourselves with constant entertainment. We take drugs, watch tv, play video games, watch movies, and listen to the radio because we can’t see how wonderful the world is any more. All we see are our ideas, and our ideas are very flat and dull and boring.

Seeing the world just as it is. This is the very best thing you can do with your life. If we spend all our time trying to fix our ‘real world’ problems, like money or jobs or relationships, we’ll just go around and around the wheel, moving from happy to sad and happy to sad. You can try to fix your problems for your whole life, and you’ll never get anywhere. You’ll die with just as many problems as you have now.

But if you see the world just as it is, all your problems will be solved. Not because bad things won’t happen to you any more, but because the world, and the way it works, will be perfectly clear to you.

Some people have compared our usual view of the world to being asleep all the time. This site is your personal guide to Waking Up. And you will certainly find that as you begin to see the world just as it is, your old way of living will seem very much as if you had been hypnotized, walking about in a zombie-like daze all the time.

There is nothing complicated on this site. Every article is about the same thing – Awareness. Sometimes the articles will make us aware of the way we usually think (pointing out our 3d cubes to us). Sometimes the articles will point straight toward the way the world really is.

The trick is that I can’t, in words, describe exactly what the world is really like. This would be like trying to describe the true essence of the cube, or to describe the color orange to you if you had been blind all of your life. Words can’t do this.

All the words can do is point you in the right direction. And then the world will become perfectly clear.