Chasmic Consciousness

Here is a videotaped conversation I had with a friend in 1982, about a subject that is just as current today. It's about the indivisibility of life, and our need to stop presuming separation, in order to rest in our native condition and awareness that we are one.

David: I notice that everybody seems to be concerned about this problem of being separate from other people, separate and different. But you've got to reconsider that notion, because it is a notion, and as long as you sit there and believe that about yourself, that you are separate from other people, that will be your experience. But, the circle that you think is drawn around you, that you think separates you from everybody else, is not there. There is no such circle -- it's a figment of your imagination. There is no such distinction, or separation.

In your growing maturity, it should be evident to you that everybody is the same. Everybody is the same. The same, not similar. I've got people imagining themselves to be different, and separated, and squinting at each other as if through so many pairs of binoculars, and acting and believing as if they were, perhaps, digging through, picking through, some imaginary concrete wall, like an inmate in a dramatic movie, with a spoon -- trying to get through this imaginary wall to other people, to talk to other people, to make communications to other people, to feel similar to other people, to anything with other people.

It's all hokum; it's all bullshit. It's not happening that way. There is no such wall. There is no such distinction. You have to look at these people very carefully and recognize the fact that they are identical to oneself. They are human beings. They are floating in this one consciousness that you yourself represent. They are connected to you in ways that are completely incontrovertible, that make for a kind of communication and transference that even exceeds your own imagination.

People, in effect, are standing there yelling at each other, trying to bridge this chasm or this imaginary wall between each other, without recognizing the relatively obvious fact that even the most subtle psychic communication is passing between you all the time. You don't have to yell. You don't even have to speak. You are in such communication with people that the slightest nuance of your thought communicates itself right away. There is no difference between you and them. There is no wall at all.

Q: But, I was talking about the fact that people have different functions and were being more useful and stuff.

David: Right. Well, I'm talking about the fact that people need to recognize that they're all the same, regardless of their functions. Regardless. Regardless of the apparent differences, you are the same as these people, and you are either reacting about the differences, or else you recognize that you are the same. And you cannot do both things simultaneously. You will either, at any instant, react to the differences, or you will be recognizing the sameness. Not both.

When are you going to realize the sameness? When are you going to be trying to get across this chasm that separates you from other individuals, or distinguishes you?

Everybody is telling me, essentially, about the differences between themselves and other people. I don't understand how it is escaping your attention that you are, in fact, identical to these other people as well, and perhaps more so, and more fundamentally so.

What about that? No one seems to be calling that to my attention. And no one seems to be putting their own attention on that fact. Do you know what I mean? 

Q: Yeah.

David: So people sit there and yell across a two-foot chasm that separates them from people, or appears to. Actually it doesn't, and it isn't even two feet. You're having the experience of yelling at somebody as if they are hard of hearing, who is not hard of hearing. That's what it's like. 

Have you ever gone up to an old person, whom you presumed was hard of hearing, and yelled in their ear, only to have them jump three feet in the air? That's the experience people have in trying to communicate so vigorously across this imagined canyon, or though this imagined impediment or obstruction.

You sit there and yell; you yell at a person who is right in front of your face, and you scare them. Why? Because their hearing is so excellent. Because their sensitivity is so profound. Because their nearness to you is far greater than what you imagine. What people are experiencing is not so much the reaction to being chastened, but the reaction to being presumed to be so separate and different from oneself. The implication that they are that far away hurts their feelings. It enforces the logic of separation in them, which is painful; and it creates suffering for them to experience it, or to have it be enforced in them that they are separate, or that you believe they are.

They desire the news and information that they are not separate, and not distant. And that is the truth, so you might as well offer them the truth as news, and not this thing that reinforces suffering. 

And there are so many ways in which people try to get across the chasm, once they imagine it. And I want to address that on this tape, because those ways of trying to get across the chasm are precisely the same means in which one fails to recognize the true situation. Just like, if you yell at somebody you separate yourself from them, if you talk in too loud a voice for someone and they're only sitting right in front of you, they will start to move across the room, backwards, until their distance from you is appropriate for the level that you're yelling at.

So the best thing is to speak, essentially, in a whisper; but this is metaphor, this is not to be taken literally. This is metaphor. You know what I mean? Take this metaphorically: Do not make the presumption that the person is so distant, and you will not have to deal with them backing up. You know what I mean?

And people do this in ways that often escape attention. For example, you may want to love someone, and so you may embark on a strategy of gazing lovingly at them across the chasm -- across the chasm of the room, of the space that you believe separates you physically -- which has precisely the same effect as if you were to yell at them; because the harder you try to stare across the chasm, the more they get the feeling they must be far away, and the more you get the feeling. You are creating a feeling by doing these things to bridge it, which is an illusion.

It's a self-fulfilling effort. You try real hard to communicate to somebody, and the harder you try, the less you can communicate, because they back up. You try real hard to love someone, and the harder you try to love them, the less you can love them, because you reinforce the distance between the two of you. All this goo-goo eyes and hippie gazing, and so forth, reinforces separation as much as anything else, because the presumption is that I am trying to vibe across this chasm with all this good vibe. And why should I vibe across anything, unless there was a problem? Unless there was, in fact, a chasm, why would I be trying to get across it?

The recognition of the individuals who have studied the matter of existence carefully is that there is no chasm. That is conclusive. That is universal. That is the conclusion of all the saints and sages throughout history. All men and women of wisdom. 

Love is not getting across a chasm. Love is being identical and being identically with what is across the chasm. It is not a matter of trying to get across anything; it's a matter of being across. That person that you're trying to get across to, vibe at, or yell at, whatever your strategy is, is already where you are, and you are already where they are. You don't have to get across. You were born bigger than you think, is what I mean by all of this.

Q: In other words, you're saying that because I was earlier trying to define myself as certain functions, then that's not me, and I was upset because I thought is was me.

David: No, I wasn't saying that. I was addressing something fundamental behind all this, which is this presumption of separation -- that you must deal with. It's not this matter of functions and so forth. Let's not talk about it. Let's talk about the truth.

The truth is that you are not separate from people. That's the truth. And you are not different. It's one and the same truth: You are not separate and you are not different. If you are not separate, you couldn't possibly be different, because you are one and the same body. 

These people that we assume to be so different and so separate are imbued with the same one single consciousness that we are, a single one. They are experiencing the same consciousness. They are living in the same light. They are breathing the same air. They are the same being extended into many bodies. They are not different. And they are not anywhere else. They are not anywhere where you are not. Across the room is not where you are not. 

You are across the room, and you are sitting in the other chair, and you have to deal on it at this level for it to be meaningful. If we were to deal with it on the level of problem, of course, we would not find a solution, but to deal with it on the level that the solution lies, is intelligent -- will work. If you hear it.

The fact is, those beings are not across anything from you -- or if you prefer, you are already across, and you have to realize it. But when you are doing things designed to get across, it gives you the very distinct impression that you are not across. The problem that human beings experience is that they are always trying to get across. And you've had this experience, talking to anyone you know. This is a very mundane example of this: When someone has, at one time or another, tried very hard to get across to you, trying to get this message to you, and so forth. And they're really getting on it; they're going to get across to you if it kills both of you, you know.

Q: They're trying to get some point across to you.

David: The harder they try, the more you really begin to feel that they are not getting across, or that they are not across, or that for some reason, you are so different and distinct that it is an absolutely hopeless situation. Many people have had this experience. Someone comes up to you with a presumption that they are not going to be able to tell you what they're about to tell you; that it's not going to work. And because they think it's such a high degree of difficulty, they try extra hard. And they may yell, or they might start doing something tremendously elaborate and labored. It's not going to work.

I can undo this whole experience in a minute, by saying: "You are already across. You already know what it is that I have to say to you. And we are inseparable. Not only are we not separate, but we cannot be separated." That undoes and accounts for the entire problem. And all the efforts of existence that people make are efforts to get across some imagined barrier, and they create the barrier. 

So, what I'm telling people about spiritual evolution, not only about the matter of relating to other people, but about getting across to anything -- getting across to God, getting across to the universe, getting across to things, getting across to the real world -- getting across to anything, anywhere, anytime, is not necessary.

It is redundancy. A person is trying to recreate what has already been done, and in the process, not do it. For example: if there is a wall right over here, right behind me, which there is, if I was to come up there and commence starting building a wall exactly where that wall is, it would be the same as destroying the existing wall. There is no way, repeat, no way, that I could try to build a wall where a wall already stands, without destroying it. And this is what people do. They bring down the first two by four and try to force it against the space where the wall is, to try to build a wall there, because they do not believe there is a wall there, in effect, you see. In other words, people try to do something that has already been done, and therefore they run into incredible difficulty, because that function has already been performed and cannot be re-performed without undoing it first.

Therefore, if you are not separate from a person, and then you try to mend it, the first thing you have to do is break it. If I want to build a wall where this wall is, the first thing I am going to have to do is tear down the existing wall. And people will recognize that this is exactly what is happening in their consciousness. 

First they are breaking, in their own imaginations -- they are not really doing it, it cannot be done, but in their imaginations (imaginations run wild, you know); and in people's fanciful imagination, they imagine that they are separate from each other, and then go about trying to fix it. That's exactly what people do. But in their imaginations, they have torn down the unity, and then are working on rebuilding it.

Tearing down the unity was our first mistake. Not only first, but only, and last. There is no disunity, and you cannot create unity where there is unity, because why? Because unity has already been created. It's redundancy. You would be doing something redundant if you were trying to get across. You would be doing something redundant if you were trying to recognize or feel some similarity with someone, or try to grasp where they were coming from, or try to reach a sense of unity or understanding with the being. It would be redundant. And it would necessitate the destruction of all that is true to do it, or to attempt to do it, only to recognize that it cannot be done, because it's complete. 

The universe, the dimension of consciousness, the wholeness of things, is finished, and it was finished before you were a gleam in your momma's eye. Therefore, to try to create it now is redundant and unnecessary.

Q: But there is this problem of not feeling that.

David: There is that problem. Therefore, how are you going to feel something is the question, and the answer is, by not doing anything.

Q: About the feeling of separateness?

David: Uh huh. By not continuing to fantasize separation and then fantasize that I have the ability to mend this, or that I am working on this great long project of mending it, like a convict trying to get out of a two-foot cement wall with his spoon, day by day. You cannot do that. Every instant of trying to mend it is an instant of creating it.

The position to be in, in this world, is not the position of a seeker. The position to be in is the position of a realizer, a finder, an aware one. If you sit back in your consciousness, rather than trying to fix things; if you simply sit back in the ocean of consciousness that is what you call your awareness; if you sit in it, you will realize the way things are. You will, immediately. 

It's the effort that beings make that creates this chasm; just like when you're yelling, people back up. When you effort at existence, the whole world appears, to you, to back up. Even God seems to back away to a great distance. You know, what people conceive of as the omnipresent God -- even in the traditional theology of Christianity and so forth, God is said to be omnipresent -- and yet people pray to God in such a manner as if: (1) He's never going to hear this shit and (2) He must be a million miles away. He must be on the moon. They are praying to Him with such an attitude and such a conviction that He is never going to hear this, and He must be a million miles away. He appears to back up. He appears to get farther and farther away, the more you think about it, until finally, when you are there in your prayer room, you have essentially banished Him to the far corners of the universe, as far as you're concerned. He couldn't be any more distant, unavailable, unreachable, incommunicado, than what you could imagine by trying so hard to get His attention. And by trying to do anything, you undo everything. And if you were to sit there and appreciate what is happening, you would appreciate it very much. But instead of that, you're trying to fix it.

Q: Is that the difference between you and us, then? That you don't feel the need to fix anything?

David: My experience of what loving is, is not to get across. My experience of what loving is, is that I am across. I am over there. I am. The beings that I see and deal with, and so forth, are identical to myself. They are identical. And they are not separate. It's my experience.

I can sit, and the more I relax, and the less I try to make up for anything that I imagine, the more it becomes apparent that, in fact, the beings that I associate with are identical and non-separate, and there is no chasm. My observation is, I exist in every molecule of the chasm, and on the other side. Which is, there is no chasm; that means there is no chasm. That's what it means. There is no boundary, separation, limit, between me and other people. There is no wall. You can put down your spoon. You don't have to get through it if it's not there. You don't have to get across, if you are across, and you are. You are across. 

These beings are so attuned to you, so identical to you, they are the same one. And it doesn't matter that they don't know it. It doesn't matter that they forget. That's not a problem, compared to the recognition that they are the same. The recognition that they are the same is a healing thing, whereas the imaginary insistence that they are different is divisive. So, it's best to leave go of the imagination, and also leave go of all the efforts that are based on this imagination, and see what is happening. See that these beings react to your most subtle nuance of consciousness; that your communication is perfect. Perfect. It is perfect.

Q: You need to explain that. I don't understand it. You're talking about the psychic realm?

David: Yes. In the world of the mind, the mind is not a physical organ the way people think; the mind is not five or six pounds of soft, gray, spongy material. The mind is an ocean; it extends in all directions far. Farther than you can imagine.

And you and the other person have the same mind. You share it. It is like a computer time-sharing device, in which you have two terminals, but one computer. You are accessing the same consciousness, the same problem-solving mind, the same awareness is what you share. The awareness with which you are aware of them is precisely the same awareness with which they are aware of you.

There is one awareness. There is one consciousness and there is one mind. And that mind is you, and it's them, and it's one. Therefore you are the same as them. You share a mind. It's only the body that creates this problem that people identify with this distance. But, the minds are one, and you will notice many proofs of it when you get close to people, and you start noticing the dynamics of a group. 

You will notice instantly that every being is fundamentally aware and reacting to the psychic impulses of all others. It is as if there is one head, and many bodies. And in that one head, in any room, situation, group, or meeting between two or more individuals, there is this one reaction. Every psychic nuance that you put out creates some kind of a ripple though all the beings present. They react most subtlety. And so there is always this funny game that is played where, on the one hand, people are yelling at each other as if they were at a great distance; on the other hand, even the thought that the other person is thinking, they are responding to psychically, immediately. You will notice that every thought, and every movement and every nuance, they react to instantly, in a very subtle way, if you notice what is true.

It takes subtlety to notice what is true, but this is happening. Everything you think puts them through a change. Everything they think puts you through one. You don't miss anything. You react, however unconsciously, subconsciously, to every thought that they experience, and even every bodily sensation. You experience their discomfort every time they shift. And even prior to the shifting, you are experiencing it. All the physical and mental sensations that they have, you share. And that is the nature of your psychic connection. That is the proof of it. If you pay attention, it is that way in every room. 

What is this awkwardness that sometimes happens in a room? It is this psychic communication that all the beings are sharing. They are beginning to feel this subtle disturbance from one or more of the beings, and everyone shares it, and everyone begins to respond to it. Not a word has to be said for that to occur. It happens wordlessly. It happens without any yelling or passing of notes. It happens mysteriously in the unity of this one computer. That's the proof. You are one mind.

Q: That's true. I know what you're talking about, about feeling everybody and feeling that there's something the whole room knows about.

David: Everybody feels everything! In this whole life of trying to get free, the only problem is trying to get free. In a whole life of tying to get across, the only problem is the trying, the effort at it. That is the obstruction. Trying to build this wall back here is my problem, if this wall exists.

Q: You're saying, then, that relaxing and accepting things the way they are is what it's about.

David: Right. It is. 

Everyone always wants to fix everything, but nobody knows what it is they're fixing. The reason they don't know what it is they're fixing is because they have always been busy and they've never paid it any attention -- or at least not enough attention to find out what the situation is. 

So therefore, you have all these people trying to build a wall where there is a wall, or breach a chasm that doesn't exist. Do something that is a figment of their imagination which cannot be done because it's already done. What I'm trying to point out to people these days is that your activity is your suffering, and every form that your activity takes is remedial. When you recognize your striving, your seeking, for what it is, you'll see that it is all, in fact, remedial. It is all an effort to make up for something, and in particular what it is an effort to make for, absolutely and simply, is separation. And yet, you have too many efforts and too many strategies, and not enough attention. Too many devices and too many distractions, all designed to remedy something. But there is no remedy for what is fixed and what is well; that's why life can't be fixed -- because life is well in itself, prior to these efforts, and only ill after you've gotten there and started to work on it. And the very instant that you relax your effort to work on it, you begin to see it for what it really is, and what it has always been, and will never be other than.

It will never be other than fixed. It will never be other than perfect, in spite of your best efforts to fix it. The best you can do is to make appear to yourself, and perhaps others, that it is not perfect, which is very different than making it not perfect. It cannot be made not perfect. And it cannot be made not whole. You cannot unconnect from those people, and therefore it's meaningless to try hard to connect! You see, if people could sit in the room and not feel the ambient awkwardness, that would mean that it was appropriate to try to re-unify, to try to fix the unconnectedness of things. Wouldn't it? But because they cannot sit there, and not experience this psychic unity, and not feel everything that comes down in the room, there is nothing to fix, and there is no chasm. 

Q: Right. 

David: This is one being. One, inseparable, indivisible, in God. And it's not to be imagined otherwise, or worked on. God, happiness, realization, relaxation, peace of mind, enjoyment, pleasure, and security, all depend on you stopping what you're doing. Love, human relationships, the unity of you and others, depend entirely and exclusively upon your not trying to get any closer. Joy, freedom, depend entirely upon you not assuming anything different. They will not ever be the result of your efforts, but only the result of cessation of your efforts. And when you cease your efforts, you will begin to see that things are not broken, have not been, and will not be, ever. 

Consciousness was fixed before you were born. Love was made true by the fact that you are inseparable from all other beings before you try to get to be a loving person. Love is not efforting at getting across a chasm at all. Love is the tacit recognition of the fact that there is no chasm to get across. The more I feel, the more I recognize that nothing needs to be added, the more I sit back in myself, the more it becomes apparent that everything, in fact, is finished. 

Now once you have that assumption, it doesn't mean that you can't act; in fact it means that you can act very effectively. But you don't have to act in a compensatory manner, remedial manner.

Q: Right. You are saying, you can be active in life, but not because you feel inadequate and separate from beings, and therefore you're doing everything because you feel separate, and you don't want to be.

David: Right. You can sit back and experience the good news of the way things are, and then you can become active to share it, and not to reinforce or propagate the bad news of your imagination, which is paranoid, you see. Paranoid, illusory, deluded in itself, invariably. Even such a humble effort as to think about everything as the means to figure it out. Everything is prefigured. Everything is known by the people who are willing to relax the process of trying to figure it out. 

And in the thought world, the same thing applies: the more you think, the further you push the solution from yourself. You are, in effect, yelling at the solution by thinking so hard, "Where are you?" Then, when you start to yell at it and make this presumption, it moves away, apparently, to you; this is your experience of it. And the more you think, the less available it seems. The less you think, the more it comes to you, like a fawn coming at you to lie down by you. 

You cannot yell at fawns, any more than you can yell at truth, God, or other beings. If you sit there and make your peace, and live harmoniously in the forest as a quiet being, all the wildlife will come up to you and sit on your knee. If you rant and rave, and scream at them, and experience your frustration, and communicate your dis-ease that they won't come to you, they will not. You just have to sit quietly, and everything will come to you. 

And this is not a technique -- far be this from a technique. An awareness is not a technique. Awareness is not a form of staring or trying hard. Awareness is something that you were born with, that you cannot get away from, that was completely given to you from time immemorial, to experience. It is very simple.

Awareness is not even an experience; awareness is your native condition. You are aware. And if you were simply to be what you were born as, you would realize everything instantly; it would all come to you. But because you're trying so hard to go to it, it appears to be backing up and going away. Do nothing, think nothing, attempt nothing, figure nothing, compute nothing, love nothing, and be those things, and you will then understand, love, have, be, everything that is true, finished, and appropriate, and everyone will experience it in your company.

I think that about says it. That's the Way of Not Doing. Time is very short in this lifetime, the way we experience it, and people are wasting it by trying, when they should just be being. We've got too many toys and too little time, too many distractions, too many projects, and too little time. 

The only proper use of time is to quit. The only means to know is to relax. The only means to love is to be across the chasm. The only way to be across it is to quit trying to get across.

The life of seeking is an endless abortion. The life of attempting is self-defeating. The life of thinking excludes knowing perfectly. The life of relaxing accomplishes everything. Relax, relax, relax. Sit in your native condition. Be as you actually are, without thinking about it, without thinking who you are, without trying to create who you are. And recognize that you've already been created, and so has your enlightenment. 

Your enlightenment is your native condition. It is closer to you than your eyebrow. That's the way things are, and will always be, and always have been. Before the beginning of time.