‘Yeah, but if nothing ultimately matters and nobody really exists, I could just as well go out in the street and kill everybody!’

Sure.

And, no chance.

This is a common response in the non-dual or, more generally, spiritual conversation, and a well-known reaction to the radical claims about impersonality.

It’s kinda funny.

The apparent mind that’s obviously insulted by the notion that it doesn’t exist.

Uh?

This battle can be fought in limitless ways, and it WILL be fought.

Until it’s simply seen for what it is (yeah I know that’s a shitty conclusion, but it’s still true).

And even then the fight will not be over, in most cases, because that obviously keeps the stories fresh and amazing.

Questions or opinions about ‘not being responsible’ or ‘life not having an inherent meaning’, mostly have a dense energy of frustration, anger, or despair.

This is, I guess, because the mind is absolutely incapable of (and unwilling to accept) what it truly means to not be caught in itself anymore.

Brilliant stuff.

If you get it (haha, sorry, not sorry).

I’ve had amazing spiritual shifts and enlightening insights that totally rocked my world and changed my view of life, and at present, it really seems as if consciousness is much more dominant and powerfully felt.

But I’ve never really lost my mind, and it’s still working hard, most of the time.

It’s obvious that this sense of being in the world as a human body-mind never stops until that bag of bones stops breathing.

Seeing that it’s ‘all simply happening to nobody’ is a weird gift.

And it’s not the result of doing the right things and taking the right steps either, although we certainly love tracing and chasing the footsteps of spiritual human giants.

These insights, these amazing shifts, and this expanding awareness, are not really meaningful for the mind, although it will most certainly try to claim and own all of that and capitalize on it.

Which is a fun part of the game.

It seems to me that this whole awakening thing is beautifully ironic anyway, just as the fact that I always really wanted to be confident, and now when this confidence is very much there, naturally and effortlessly, it doesn’t really give any satisfaction to the person.

Waking up seems to be about a diminishing of personal importance and seriousness, while the idea of being a human in a human world remains.

And that’s interesting, and somewhat hopeful.

Because in that sense it feels a lot better and way less restrictive than being lost in the mind, even though many spiritual teachers will tell you that waking up does nothing for the person, because there IS no person.

That’s true, and it’s not (ugh, I know…).

But I can tell you that there used to be a daily experience of deep confusion and suffering for decades, and it has been mostly the opposite for quite a while now.

Whether there’s a person or not.

I somehow realize without any drama that I’m not ultimately a human being, but at the same time, the life of this apparent non-existing creature seems to feel a million times better.

It can be terribly frustrating to play the role of a spiritual seeker chasing its own tail, using all your precious tools to think yourself straight into enlightenment, and working really, really hard.

I have experienced that frustration and anger, those feelings of disappointment and utter unfairness, for a very long time and on a deep level, and I often meet people who are still in that place, and feel totally stuck and desperate.

To hear, in those moments and instances, that ‘nothing needs to be done’, ‘you don’t really exist in the first place’, and ‘everything is already enlightened’, can feel absolutely insulting and infuriating.

And that’s the puzzling thing about the absolute and the relative that many gurus like to talk about: they both exist at the same time.

The mind crashes over stuff like that!

Yet there seems to be a way, a state of being (and not of thinking), where the whole fucking thing doesn’t collide constantly and starts making total sense.

To get back to where I started: if people hear about their ultimate non-existence and the total lack of personal responsibility resulting from that, they tend to have all these fierce questions and accusations.

But no matter what those questions are, or no matter how much they swear they see what it refers to, it still seems to be about the person.

This now non-existing and non-responsible me not giving a fuck and killing a whole city, having sex with tiny rodents, or burning the company where it works to the ground, is not a result of self-realization.

It CAN be a result of programming, for sure, it can be a part of the role that’s being played, but it doesn’t make sense to say ‘so there’s no responsibility and it doesn’t matter what I do, so I might just as well….’

No.

No-self can’t decide to destroy the world.

And no-self will still be caught up in experiences that feel extremely real and important and full of options.

This thing that’s sometimes referred to as ‘liberation’ is not truly a victory for the mind, and it’s not even about a change in personality, per se (although that seems to happen a lot).

It’s about the deepest sense of relief you’ve ever felt.

It’s like catching a glimpse of what’s really going on behind the scenes, just long enough to never forget it after the curtains have been closed again.

It’s nothing but a sense of amazing freedom while the idea of being separate and restricted and responsible is still there.

There’ll be no you to enjoy it.

But it feels fucking amazing.

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(Photo by @8moments, for Unsplash)