u/Don_Beach-000

There is nothing to point to to describe reality. The word ‘reality’ is not apt. There are very subtle ways of pointing to very subtle things that may seem like ‘The Thing’, but they are never ‘It’. There is no ‘It’. The I-thought can even be seen or recognized as just that—a thought—yet the one recognizing it is not ‘It’. In fact, there is no one recognizing it. One could say that one is constructed out of deep layers of appearance, sensations, and perceptions. Albeit accurate, it is not ‘It’. People sometimes say, “There is just… this!” And don’t know what ‘this’ is. They are themselves ‘this’. And ‘this’ gets shrouded in very mystical or epic language, perhaps necessarily so. There is actually no ‘this’ to be shrouded to begin with. This paragraph, the reader of it, the writer of it, and whatever else seems to be outside of it are all available directly. There is nothing to go get; no ‘It’. The urge to write these words is a part of it, as well as the urge to read or the dismissal of reading. No mysticism here. No epic tales or superpowers. Only what’s left when concepts aren’t taken to be such weighty things, and when ‘I’ is fully seen through. In fact, there is nothing to see through! Though it seems like there is.

There is only appearance and nothing more or less. There are no winners or losers here, and there is no such thing as enlightenment. No need to borrow ideas or concepts from others, nor borrow them from yourself. “Who am I?” Is the beginning and end of all inquiry in one instant moment, if you let it be.

Not sure why I am making this post. No one would have anything to say that would mean anything, but I have gone through a lot and there's not really a better place to release some of this, although this place probably is no better than going to a church to spill the beans.

I have been searching for Truth, as McKenna puts it, for roughly three and a half years now. My whole life and world has fallen apart, and I'm left with almost nothing. The process described in that book is real, and I didn't think it was. It starts out exciting, like I'm figuring out the secrets of real spirituality. But then it pretty rapidly turns into not-so-fun, and then into what-the-hell-is-happening. And complete obsession takes over, because everything I thought was solid was seen to be essentially baseless.

When I realized that truth could only be found within myself, I set out to dig a very, very deep hole into 'me'. What I was doing for most of that 3.5 years was attempting to get to the bottom of perception, for lack of better phrasing. The intellect and mind can only go so far before they hit a final wall, which is "I am". But then you get stuck, even if this "I am" is directly/experientially recognized. I know it's not the end of the road because it is temporary, and someone has to be here to recognize it in the first place.

I spent the rest of this time continuing this search for the "prime mover" or the "ground of I" or the "bottom of Being". Where was it, and how do I get to it? This whole thing ruined my once-successful career trajectory and nearly ruined my relationship. I was automatically, 24-7, completely inward, digging, digging, digging. Balancing that with the outward-demands of real life is the most taxing thing I have ever dealt with. And this whole thing is truly the strangest thing I've ever been through.

It was only very recently that I had my questions and my logic reflected back to me, and I realized a fundamental error I had made a very long time ago. I realized I was digging at bedrock, where the hole doesn't get any deeper. For the first time in my pathetic life, I saw that what I was seeking was a conceptualized version of truth, and what I missed the whole time was the very, very subtle assumption that there was a someone here to do the digging. On paper, this sounds obvious, but it's not at all obvious in the midst of it all. I questioned who and what I was constantly, but I never once questioned the questioner. I didn't ask what was doing this seeking the whole time. It's such a subtle miss, and it's very difficult to detect. You think you're digging into yourself, but the digger is never questioned. Once it is, the self is seen to be what it is: a fictional reference point from which to seek.

I realized 'I' was chasing 'I', like a snake eating its own tail, and that I wasted many years of my life. I realized that truth is always, already here, and it has never gone away, and if 'I' is anything, it is that. There was never any need to go get "it" in the first place, because there is absolutely no "it". Truth cannot be found or grasped or realized, because that which seeks it is already it. Not as a finite 'I' to be seen, but as the totality of movement in consciousness. Not even that--because can't be pointed at. It's not a thing. 'I' is simply a self-conjugating verb, over and over and over again, ad infinitum, and each iteration is fictional. There is simply no 'I', and it truly is simple, yet really fucking difficult. There's no bottom to get to.

Even this story is told from a fictional person, and saying all this is another attempt to define a reference point: someone's story. So I don't really know why I'm placing it here other than perhaps an attempt from whatever remnants of 'me' there are left to have any stance at all.

I don't know what 'done' means in the Jed world, but I know that I am done seeking, because seeking is what is in the way. 'I' comes and goes but is seen for what it is, which is a thought-feeling. Truth is not known here, but it's recognized that it isn't a thing to be known. The only walls to break are seeing through what was once deemed important or meaningful, solid or not solid, real or unreal. You can ponder about the reality of the world forever and not get anywhere. The pondering makes you stray from whatever is right in front of you, without labels. There's only perception left but no perceiver. Thoughts and perception come and go with nothing behind them--a void, but not a void within some space, a dimensionless, unknowable void, no-thing-ness.

Even all this yapping about it isn't what is, because what is doesn't need to be talked about. Maybe there's something called enlightenment, I wouldn't know what that is or if it even exists. What I 'know' is that nothing is knowable, and there's nothing to be known.