TONY PARSONS
The Open Secret
The Open Secret
Introduction
Throughout my early life I felt that there was another possibility, which, once realized, would transform all and everything. One day that possibility became a reality, and it was simple and ordinary, magnificent and revolutionary. It is the open secret that reveals itself in every part of our lives. But realization does not emerge through our attempts to change our lives, it comes as a direct rediscovery of who it is that lives.
The Open Secret is a singular and radical work which speaks of the fundamental liberation that is absolutely beyond effort, path, process or belief."
The Open Secret
One day, almost as if by accident, I rediscovered the secret, or perhaps it rediscovered me.
To explain what happened is quite impossible. The description that comes nearest to it is that of being overwhelmed with a love and a total comprehension that is absolutely beyond imagination. The revelation that accompanied this rediscovery was so simple and yet so revolutionary, that it swept away in a stroke all that I had been taught or had come to believe. Part of that realization was that Enlightenment is absolutely beyond my effort to change the way I live, or even of changing life at all. It has to do with a total shift in the realization of who it is that lives. For I am already that which I seek. Whatever I seek or think I want, however long the shopping list may be, all of my desires are only a reflection of my longing to come home. And home is oneness, home is my original nature. It is right here, simply in what is. There is nowhere else I have to go, and nothing else I have to become.One of the things I came to see is that Enlightenment only becomes available when it has been accepted that it cannot be achieved. Doctrines, processes, and progressive paths which seek Enlightenment only exacerbate the problem they address by reinforcing the idea that the Self can find something that it presumes it has lost (SEE). It is that very effort, that investment in self-identity, that continuously recreates the illusion of separation from oneness. This is the veil that we believe exists. It is the dream of individuality.
And this is again the paradox, for the divine instinct is continuously available, simply through the allowing of it. It is always at hand, in an eternal state of readiness . . . . like the constant and faithful lover it is ready to respond to our every call. When I allow it, it is, when I avoid it, it is.
It requires no effort, demands no standards and holds no preferences. Being timeless it sees no path to tread, no debt to pay. Because it acknowledges no right or wrong, neither does it recognize judgement or guilt. Its love is absolutely unconditional. It simply watches with clarity, compassion and delight as I move out for my return. It is my birthright. It is my home. It is already that which I am.I cannot ‘do’ presence, simply because I am presence. So there is no process to learn because I cannot learn or achieve something that I already am. Presence is totally effortless and is nearer to me than breathing. Presence only requires me to recognize and allow it. What I tend to do most of the time is sidestep it or interrupt it.
However significant or insignificant we think our activities are, however talented, artistic, useful, ordinary, or fruitless we may feel our expression in the world appears to be, all of this is simply and only a function of that hidden principle. A totally appropriate reflection providing the never ending opportunity to enter into and beyond all phenomena and rediscover the source of its emanation.
Whilst we continuously employ the remorseless judge to calculate and measure everything we do or are, we imprison ourselves in an existence of struggle, guilt and suffering, only to appease a god that is ourselves projected. There is only the knowing or the unknowing. If I cannot understand, I cannot see, and darkness is simply darkness. It is neither right or wrong. All concepts of bad or good, original sin, Karma or debt of any kind, are the products of an unawakened mind that is locked into time and the maintenance and reinforcement of a sense of father, mother and self.
Stillness is not brought about by not thinking. Stillness is absolutely beyond the presence or absence of thought. I cannot make myself still, but when that which appears not to be still is seen, then that seeing emanates from stillness.
The invitation to discover that there is no-one who needs liberating is constant. There is no need to wait for moments of transformation, to look for the non-doer, permanent bliss, an ego-less state, or a still mind. I don't even have to wait for grace to descend. for I am, you are, it is already the abiding grace. The infinite is not somewhere else waiting for us to become worthy.
But from wherever and whenever this insight is communicated, it has no connection with end gaining, belief, path or process. It cannot be taught but is continuously shared. Because it is our inheritance, no-one can lay claim to it. It needs not to be argued, proven or embellished, for it stands alone simply as it is, and can only remain unrecognized and rejected, or realized and lived.
Questions and comments arising from the audience are in italics while replies are in plain text
"In your book you mention "The Open Secret". Where does this expression come from?"
"When I walked across the park, one of the most amazing and liberating things that was seen was that everything was the ground of unconditional love. There is nothing which is not sacred, and regardless of any particular state I might be in, I saw that grace was continuously available. Look, here is the secret (picks up a sweater and throws it on the floor). In the dream we see a separate object. When there is no illusory, separate self, the ground of unconditional love is seen. This is what is always open and available to us. There is nothing that is not the ground of this natural unity. The secret is that there is no separation, but it remains a secret as long as we believe we are someone."
"How can I see that?"
"You can’t see it until you stop looking for it, and simply let what is be there."
"You are only expressing your belief."
"I can only say to you that once it is seen it can only be lived, and has no connection with doubt or belief. I am that, you are that, she is that, and the carpet is that."
"Then why do we live in this desperate state of unhappiness if we are that?"
"Again the answer only emerges when there's no longer a question, but the nearest I can get to the answer in words is to suggest to you that we are unhappy because we do not accept that we are divided in two in order to become one again . . . it's a game consciousness is playing, and at times it doesn’t seem very funny. Separation is the experience which consciousness chooses to have, with all of its diversity, and the game is to dance in and out of separation and unity."
"Well I find that that makes me really angry."
"So what is it that's angry?"
"Me, I am."
"And who are you?"
"I am myself, Richard."
"So are you your name?"
"No, but that is my identity."
"But it is not constant and it arises from memory. It can change and so who are you?"
"I am someone who thinks I should be Enlightened."
"Where is that someone?"
"Inside here." (points to head)
"So are you your thoughts?"
(long pause)
"It feels like that."
"And are the thoughts constantly changing?"
"Yes, one minute I’m a saint, and the next minute I’m mundane."
"And is this who you are?"
"Not really, because I seem to change a lot, and sometimes I’m in my body."
"So where are you now?"
(long pause)
"I don’t know, I feel I can’t find myself sometimes."
"Is it possible there is no-one to find."
"I suppose so."
"And is there something else that is looking at these thoughts?"
"Sometimes."
"And who do you feel that might be?"
"Well, you say that the watcher is seeing what is happening."
"But what do you feel?"
(long pause)
"I don’t yet know."
"And where is your anger?"
"It’s not there any more, and I feel a strange excitement about something I can’t put a name to."
"OK, but someone who is happier with themselves is surely more open and available?"
"All we have is someone who is happier with themselves. There are no rules. No conditions are required prior to Awakening."
"But what about such things as Yoga? Surely these techniques can bring one nearer to an acceptance of nothingness?"
"A separate entity cannot draw itself nearer to its own destruction. The doer cannot carry out or do a practice in order to discover the non-doer. However, everyone’s experience is uniquely and exactly appropriate for them, and if that includes meditation or Yoga, then that’s what will happen. Everything that is apparently happening contains the invitation, including eating a hamburger, flying a kite, or sitting in the lotus position. It is only our intention or expectation that gets in the way."
"So what do we look for in a teacher?"
"Someone who gives you absolutely nothing and leaves you feeling helpless. Then it is possible that you are left only with what is. If someone tells you that there's something that you can do or there is a certain way that you can be in order for Awakening to happen, they are simply feeding your own avoidance."
"What do you mean by that?"
"We all have a deep longing and a Deep Fear of the discovery of what we are, and the mind devises any way it can to avoid this discovery. The most effective way it avoids Awakening is to seek it."
"When there begins to be an opening up to the revolutionary possibility that is being communicated here, then the mind sees this as a threat. I am finding that with some people that for a time their strongest fears arise and they feel they want to run away or try to do something about being overwhelmed by those fears. This can be a pivotal period, and often escape routes are sought."
"Some who hear this message will move away at some point to find a teacher who seems to be giving them something ... a process or way of being such as transcending thought, vanquishing the ego, being honest, being moral and so on. Others will be very attracted to those who will offer to help them attain something they call Enlightenment. Usually these teachers imply that in some way or other they are especially unique, and they will often act in such a way as to create a dependency in the follower. All of this personalized teaching is irrelevant to Awakening, but it intrigues and satisfies the mind enormously, for a while."
"But don’t you want to help me in my suffering?"
"I can’t help you, I can’t take you anywhere, because there is nowhere you need to go. I can only suggest that you begin to open to the idea that there is no-one suffering."
"So what are you doing here?"
"Nothing. There is no-one here doing anything. There is energy in a form discussing something with energy in another form. That’s all there is."
"But if there's nowhere to go, there is no purpose, it seems, in anything?"
"And this realization is the beginning of liberation. We are so locked into the belief that our lives have some sort of purpose we have to fulfil. We go on struggling to fulfil some idea we have of something we need to do, or somewhere that we need to get to, in order to be worthy. Of course we never get there, because we're trying to satisfy some idea that is only imaginary anyway. It’s the seeking for something on a horizon that is continually distant. All of this activity reinforces the sense of individual striving, and so the game goes on. Any sense of there being no point to any of this activity is a threat to the mind, but when there is an acceptance and a resting in there being no purpose, a new wonder can arise."
"How can you recognize a real or true guru?"
"You can’t. You can however come to see that there is no such thing as the truth, there is only what is, as it is right now. Whoever you meet along the way, that’s how it’s meant to be. If you sit with someone who appears to be a great master, but speaks from ignorance, that is the infinite expression. If you listen to someone who is Awakened and speaks with clarity, that is also the infinite expression, but there's no guarantee that you will hear.
"What can I learn from you that I can’t learn on my own?"
"Nothing at all. You understand everything that's being discussed here, but you may not necessarily acknowledge it. What you are has nothing to learn. The apparent separate entity however is being told that it is an illusion. The belief systems are perhaps being demolished, and the idea of hope, success or failure is being vanquished, together with the concept of good and evil. All that's left is nothing. Nothing doesn’t need to learn anything."
"You are the divine manifesting, so where is learning needed? You don’t need me or anyone or anything. If someone suggests to you that they can take you to awakening, then simply walk away. Where do they have to take you when you are already that illumination?"
"So how do we begin to allow what we are to emerge?"
"It has already begun. Your very question, your very longing, is the seed.
"What is Enlightenment?"
"There are no words that can describe Enlightenment. It brings with it, however, the realization that there was never anybody or anything to be Enlightened."
"And yet some people are Enlightened and others are not?"
"There is no person that is Enlightened, that's a contradiction in terms. There is no separate self and there is already light. You are the light, but you believe in the illusion of your self as separate. Simply drop seeking and there it is. There is absolutely nothing to look for."
"So what do you see that I don’t?"
"Nothing differently, but what is seen is uncluttered. It is simply what is. However, in what is seen is also the is-ness of unconditional love, the ground of being. It is seen in all and everything, be it a so-called beautiful sunset or a trash-can. Everything exists in light and emanates from the silence of source. There is absolutely nothing that doesn’t generate this ground of being. All is sacred, and we walk and talk and have our time in that which is no less than heaven."
(long pause)
"But do you know any more than I do?"
"This is not a question of knowledge at all. It is the seeing of something that never comes and never goes away."
"Can this wonder be approached?"
"It is already this. In what way can it be approached? As the illusory individual apparently moves towards something that is thought to be over there, so the point is lost. What is sought is in the very movement of the seeker. As the listener hears these words, it is as it is."
"That is so beautiful, why can’t I accept it and let it be like that?"
You are already that which is. But your mind is frightened to let go and still has an idea that something special should happen." (SEE)
"So I can choose to be aware of what is, in order to accept the invitation?"
"You can apparently choose to be aware, but it will eventually be recognized that there was never a chooser or a doer."
"It feels to me that you have something that I don’t, and I want to get there as quickly as possible."
"Firstly, you can’t get quickly to where you already are. (laughter) But really take this in. Live with it and try to see deeply what it's really saying. The problem is that you think something has to happen. You are waiting for something to happen. It's actually happening continuously, and you simply don’t see it. I don’t have anything that you don’t have. The difference is that I am no longer looking for anything. This is it, and that’s the end of it. Give up the search for something to happen and fall in love, fall intimately in love with the gift of presence in what is. Here, right here, is the seat of all that you will ever long for. It is simple and ordinary, and magnificent. You see, you are already home."
Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience and then proceed to make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.
