Living is to be found in the timeless Now

 Jean Klein

Liberation consists in being free from the me. Understanding this is instantaneous, total, without return. It is a sudden opening to a new dimension which leaves us in silent plenitude where there is no one who claims and no one who suffers.

First we must see that we cannot will ourselves to be open because openness is our very nature. Any tiny residue of willing, of wanting to be open takes us away from what we are. Willing never goes beyond willing. So the only way to be free from this circle is to glimpse the truth that openness is the egoless state, that it is here and now.

When you clearly see things around you as they are in relation with the whole of your being, there is ripening. You see the false as simply false without wasting time and energy analyzing why it is false, defending or explaining it. It just no longer belongs to you. You are out of it. You feel yourself in an atmosphere of clarity

Perfection and imperfection are concepts. The idea of being a person, an ego, is nothing other than an image held together by memory

We are taught to superimpose the past on the present and future and so we lose the excitement, the newness of the moment. It takes alertness to see this mechanical functioning .Be knowingly silent as often as you can and you will no longer be a prey to the desire to be this or that. You will discover in the everyday events of life the deep meaning behind the fulfilment of the whole, for the ego is totally absent.

A mind filled with thoughts concerning the already known is not receptive to the current of life that flows from the all-possible. Living is to be found in the timeless Now.

Once the mind is free from anxiety, fear and dissatisfaction, you will see that your only true desire is to be. Conflict and problems all derive from the mind as it tries to justify its existence. But at other times when you say I exist, you are heading towards the perception of a non-state, which is neither of the body nor of the mind. This non-state is being, it is indeterminable, cannot be located mentally or physically. It is neither a thought nor a feeling. This non-state is identical to that of your surroundings.

You are of the very same essence. In this non-state there are no surroundings. If there is another, that is, if there are surroundings, there is an I, and vice-versa.

You are neither the body nor the mind, these are limits you identify with through a lack of clear-sightedness. When you are attentive to a tree or flower, the perception, shape, name and concept are not the only things present. There is also the All-presence that you share with them and that you are both part of. The very name and form spring forth from this eternal background, the All-presence. This is instantaneous awareness that cannot be reached by thought.

Once the mind is free from anxiety, fear and dissatisfaction, you will see that your only true desire is to be.

Excerpted from jeanklein.wordpress.com. Jean Klein (1912-1998) was a French author, spiritual teacher and philosopher of Advaita Vedanta (Nondualism). The 107^th birth anniversary of Jean Klein is being observed on October 19