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The Obsession with Understanding

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The obsessive need to understand enlightenment or anything for that matter, is the very thing that’s stopping you from experiencing this present moment in its fullness. When resting in the present moment it’s seen that there’s nothing missing and no needs are unmet; there’s no understanding that you need that could add or take away from what you essentially are.

You are that which sees everything, you are what is being sought. There’s no understanding that would bring about this realization. Understanding is only ever something that the mind ‘gets’. That’s not to say that some understanding might come; but you as consciousness are prior to any understanding. The understanding arises within you, not the other way around. You exist before any understanding.

Look to the YOU – the ‘I’ sense, and notice that every passing experience can be seen as and from you – the primordial, indescribable, awareness-consciousness. Don’t mistake the objects of awareness (thought, sensations, feelings etc.) for awareness itself; these are only the phenomenal aspect of the consciousness that is you. You’re before all that arises and all that occurs; you are always here, always aware, always now.

There was a time, not long after my awakening where a nagging recurring thought kept arising that somehow all ‘this’ needed to be figured out; that I needed to understand what was happening to me. The personal sense of ’me’ was nowhere to be found, but somehow I needed to understand this. What was eventually realised that this ‘I’ was a false I, it was the I of the mind. There was still a ghost of mind (thoughts, memories, concepts) that was asserting that understanding needed to be attained before all was well. In reality I felt and knew this absurdity was unreal, but it created some suffering while this hollow notion stuck around. There came a day where I realised that this was just a thought that needed to be let go of, needed to be dropped. This led to a natural falling away of this recurring thought, a thought that has yet to resurface since.

So… no matter how persistent, how aggressive, how assertive the thought of needing to understand is, it’s just that, a thought. Stay quiet and notice that you are the one that sees this thought coming and going. There is NO ‘lack of understanding’ that stops you from being you.

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