Tutorial for March 24, 2021
No Self, No Form, No Goal

What happens when the separation between the one who experiences something, the object of the experience, and the experience itself disappears? One Life Awareness, Liberation, Enlightenment, Awakening, are just four of the many terms used to express the same thing—accepting the absolute reality of no self, no form, and no goal.


No Self
To have no self does not mean that you do not exist, to have no self means that there is nothing that is you that is independent from All That Is, from One Life. When you look at what you call You, you see a version of a body-mind—an image that you have cultivated over time. Yet what you are is the universe. There is stardust, the ocean, the mountains and skies contained within you. No self means that the self that you identify as You, is just a momentary description of something that could never actually be You. There is no permanence in a self that you identify as You, there is no reliable independent substance that is You. Nothing exists separately. Everything is connected.

Though the illusion of a separate self is profound, the first door of One Life awareness asks for the acceptance of the truth of no self. This is not a nihilistic denial of being, but a liberated understanding of One Life. In order to understand the value of letting go of your illusion of self and embrace the knowing of no self, it is wise to become clear with the nature of this illusion. By looking deeply into the illusion of self, you find that it is basically a belief in an unchanging essence that you think is the real You. At the same time there is the You that is the mind-body apparatus, and probably all sorts of Yous that constitute You. No single version of you is ever all of you. You are truly much like a mirage. You appear to be substantial, and seem to be real, yet, you cannot locate You, reproduce an experience of You, nor can you rely upon a You that fixed. Just like the mirage, the notion of a self that is timeless, unchanging and knowable is a misinterpretation of the momentary perceptions of sensory input that create an illusion of a body of water in the case of the mirage, or an illusion of self in the case of You.

No Form
When the deeper understanding that there is no self arises, the experiencer is no longer a separate entity, and maintaining an object of the experience is no longer possible. This is the understanding of no form. This is the opening of the second door where you can appreciate that nothing has intrinsic form, nothing is what its form indicates, everything is formless. The outer appearance of things are not the things themselves. In the world of things that seem to be solid and have color and shape and form, quantum physics exposes the universe to be energy without form. At the fundamental level, incredibly small particles seem to enter into reality for a fraction of a moment then vanish even more quickly. When this is realized, it becomes easy to accept impermanence and that everything is ever-changing.

Knowing there is no form that exists as a solid, while acknowledging transitory and superficial illusions of form in your relative existence, allows you the opportunity to see “behind the curtain” and release any attachments you have to form. It is impossible for form to be experienced by no self.
 
 No Goal
Without an object to experience, you become free of objects of pursuit. Goals fall away, and if you have no goal, then you are finished seeking outcomes. The third door of One Life awareness opens. Suddenly everything is as it is, with all that you need right here, right now. Then there is no need to struggle, to strive or search for something that does not exist in the here and now. Great happiness results in the simple knowing that competing is unnecessary, and that you lack nothing. 

For many, it is difficult to recognize that their life is actually perfect exactly as it is. This is not an idea of static perfection, but a notion of everything being exactly as it must be. Accepting life as genuine, and knowing ultimately that there is no self, no form, and no goal is all there is.

​So, what happens when the separation between the one who experiences something, the object of the experience, and the experience itself disappears? Nothing actually happens, but everything occurs. Nothing needs to be done, everything is done, and it all becomes simple: just be as you are.

Have you ever thought that you didn’t have enough time? Most likely, the answer is yes. Enough time to do this or that, enough time to relax--enoughness is most likely an ongoing theme in your life. You may have asked yourself questions about the nature of time, wondering whether it has substance, whether there is a beginning or end to time, whether it is linear or cyclic. Time has been a mystery explored by philosophers, scientists and seers throughout the millennia.

Time can be understood as a series of successive moments that are always in motion and seem to be one continuous flow. While it often seems like time flows like a river, from another perspective, the river, unique in each moment, also seems to reveal unlimited possibility in its aleatory movement, and thus there may be more of a sense of the infinite diversity of moments, than the continuity of moments conveyed.

When tracking time, you are generally tracking events and ordering them in a sequential fashion, causing time to seem to have a direction—events line up from the past to the present to the future. You agree to this convention as a matter of practicality in navigating the relative world. Yet, even though there is general agreement about this conventional ordering of moments of time, there is significant variance among individual perception of the passage of time. Different individuals will report a wide variety of experiences in their perceptions of the same events occurring.  Time segments seem to pass slowly sometimes and quickly other times, while some past events seem to be very close to the present while others seem far, far away, regardless of when they “actually” occurred. We suggest time is what you allow it to be.

You often allow time to serve you. You order the events of your life according to a sense of meaning. You allocate time for all the most important things you might do and allow time to be a friendly assistant in the unfolding of your life. On the other hand, you often think about what you can and cannot do according to your idea of what is “enough” time. You run out of time to complete projects, you are usually late rather than “on time.” And when you think about time, it causes you may feel uneasy, conjuring up visions of the “end” of all time, and your belief of “not enough time” gets reinforced. In this case, you allow time to contribute to your limiting thoughts and beliefs.

Your perception of time is associated with presence. You must be present to master your time. We use this term, presence, to indicate a state of mindfulness, a way of being attentive to the circumstances and surroundings as well as attentive to your sensory experience of the moment. When you are present, your perception of time expands and you have mastered your time. You will more likely feel that you have enough time for the experience to be complete. If you have no focus, no attention to the moment, time will be your master.

Your perception of time is also associated with memory. Since every moment experienced quickly becomes a moment of the past, you incorporate your memory indexes the timing of the experience. Generally, you experience moments of various duration in particular sequences that are woven together into the tapestry of your life. Events overlap and hide or reveal other events. If you allow those events to seem crowded and loaded with urgency, you will likely believe “you don’t have enough time.” However, if you allow the events to be spacious and you are present with them, you can experience the enoughness of time. Allow all experiences to align in peace and presence, and you will know beyond a doubt that you have enough time.

​Enoughness is the foundation of abundance. You cannot experience a state of abundance concurrent with a feeling of “not enough.” Enough means sufficient or adequate or ample, which we suggest is always the case in everything. There is always enough, because you are enough just as you are. When this is your identified state of being—you know it with certainty—you have the confidence to approach your life with room for abundance on all levels of being. One Life is always enough, add your presence to this enoughness, and dis-satisfaction disappears. Let go of not-enoughness, declare it an impossibility, let all be as it is. And “know one has enough time” will become your deep understanding of what is here and now.