What is is Oneness.

[Bring4th_Austin]

It is my understanding and experience there is no work to do; in fact, all which is required is an awareness of the present moment and of the self.

I do believe it is true that all which is required is an awareness of the present moment and of the self. At any time, when someone opens their heart within the present moment, there is nothing left to do, no work to complete. That is enlightenment in my eyes.

However, I don't think that an intellectual understanding of this idea will yield results. Basically everyone I know, whether they understand that unity and peace are found within the moment, struggles and suffers. Many of them struggle and suffer with recurring issues, with new issues cropping up consistently. We carry with us biases, distortions, and beliefs which cause us to meet certain moments with resistance.

And simply realizing that we are suffering and then stating, "I am aware of this moment, I am aware of myself," while sometimes soothing, does not always cause the suffering to cease. Basically everyone who has read the Law of One contains the intellectual understanding that everything is one, that everything is ultimately "okay," nothing is lost and our essence lies within love and eternity. Yet simply reading the Law of One does not put someone in a state of continuous connection with the Creator. We continue to suffer, to experience catalyst and contrast.

Why is this? Why can't we just say, "all is one," and then experience complete unity? Why, if we open our hearts in one moment, are we removed in another? What is there to be done beyond accepting our intellectual understanding of being aware of the present moment?

I know I am not the only one who has, in the midst of intense catalyst, pointed my awareness to the present moment, wielded my acceptance to the suffering I was experiencing, and yet the suffering persisted. The simple appeal to unity was not enough to deliver my awareness to the love within the moment.

The idea that an intellectual understanding that all which is required of us is awareness and acceptance of the moment, and there is no work to do, does not take into account that for many (probably most) 3rd density entities, we hold deep biases and distortions which we must consciously dedicate ourselves to exploring in order to fully come to an acceptance of the moment. This is the work. The potential for unity is always there, and is always available to us. But to tap that potential and have it deliver us to that unity, we must acknowledge our catalyst, accept it, explore it, and work with it. As Ra said, "totally efficient use of catalyst upon your plane is extremely rare." An entity who is truly able to acknowledge and accept each present moment presented to them, despite outer circumstances, is one who is utilizing their catalyst with complete efficiency. No moment is not met with acceptance, no emotional charge would ever be felt, all things are transmuted into unity without effort. But I must agree with Ra, this is extremely rare. Perhaps a lucky few are doing this. For the rest of us, we have work to do before we can get there.

Maharshi was quoted very nicely in the transcript, and I would add one of the key questions he asked himself and his students was "Who am I" - the answer to all questions about unity lay there. For these people we call "enlightened" realized there is no work, there is no path, there is just the self and the experience of this reality which is just as real as anything else, if only an abstraction of the cosmic mind. This experience is desired and what we make of it is our own. There is nothing to ascend to, there is nothing to transcend, for we are who we are. We simply forgot for a moment, to allow the experience of limitation and discover how it unfolds.

I have always seen contradiction in the idea that there is nothing to ascend to. The words "we simply forgot for a moment" implies that we must then remember, and that remembering can then be seen as our ascension. I have heard the concept likened to the scenario of having sunglasses upon your head and forgetting they are there. You can proceed to tear your house apart looking for your sunglasses, only to later realize that they were with you all along. This analogy is used to describe how our "all accepting, all loving, ever-present awareness" has never been gone from us. The enlightenment that we are seeking is already within each moment we are experiencing, and our seeking of enlightenment is futile. But to say the there is no destination, that "all it takes is to realize it was there all along" is still describing a destination, a contrast and duality of awareness. At one point we are unaware of the enlightenment within the moment, and at another point we are aware of it. The destination is the point at which we are aware.

As you said, Maharshi consistently turned his questions around on the seekers who came to learn from him by asking "Who is asking the question? Ask of yourself, 'Who am I?'" But is this not work? Isn't it an activity to sit with what each moment gives us and ask ourselves "Who am I that is experiencing this? Who am I that is asking myself this?" And then, when Maharshi's students gained this intellectual understanding and grasped the tool he was offering them, why were they not then propelled to the same state as Maharshi himself? What more was there for them to do besides ask, "Who am I?"

In truth, I find that it is the people who still nurture a mentality of attainment that reject the "illusion", as they call it. It is the people who live in separation who seek this peak, as they cannot currently bridge the gap between their human experience and the disembodied experience. For the ones who see everything as one, for the ones that see it is only a matter of perspective; there is no illusion, there is nowhere to ascend to. There is no work to do or absolve, there is no path to walk or reject, there are no lessons to learn or avoid. There is only the experience and what we make of it is for us to decide. We have our desires and they unfold in front of us; we choose what meaning to attribute to them. And as it's been said, there is no right or wrong choice.

I do not agree that someone who feels there is work to do is rejecting the illusion. There is a kind of person who is aware of what each moment of existing within the illusion offers them, what catalyst is being presented to them. These people realize that what they are experiencing within the illusion is a gift to be accepted, and one which can be utilized and used as a tool to bring them closer to the balance which would allow them to truly exist within the presence of each moment. They realize that the reason they may experience the catalyst is because of something within them that is not quite in alignment with their "true self," something that is pulling their awareness away from the unity inherent in each moment. But they also realize that whatever this is within them that causes experiences catalyst within the illusion can then be worked with, played with, explored, loved and accepted, and then maybe perhaps in the next moment, when circumstances are similar, instead of experiencing the catalyst which stole their awareness from unity, their awareness will remain within unity, their hearts will be open to the moment, and the joy of truly accepting the moment is seen as the harvest of the work they have done.