DISCIPLINE OF THE MIDDLE POINT
Teaching people enlightenment is useless, because how can you teach No-Thing? You can only teach something. The middle point guides you to disconnect from all some-things; and in the removal of some-thing-ness, you are left with no-thing-ness, which is the primordial source of All-That-Is.
Can you do No-Thing? Can you teach people how to do No-Thing? When you do something, there’s a distance between you and each thing. Doing meditation, doing love, or doing the middle point assumes that enlightenment is a separate state from you, which requires you to make a tremendous effort to obtain it.
Even if you manage to “have it,” you’ll still be in separation from it. That’s because “having” is all about possession. Can you possess health, truth, bliss, peace, freedom, God, enlightenment? No, you can only be these things. In order to be what is, doing needs to be removed, which allows distance to evaporate from your awareness.
The whole of existence is one, taking care of everything, from the smallest flower to the largest star. If this is the case, then it will take care of you, too. Why worry and why be possessive? To possess your existence or your enlightenment shows simply one thing: that you doubt existence. You are existence, so you doubt One-Self. In order to live in some kind of peace, you have to arrange separate security for yourself, safety for yourself. This is the reason for attachment to the non-existential mind.
The middle point is a non-possessive attitude. Non-possessiveness is the unmotivated midpoint in total trust in existence.
Teaching Is the Mind Indoctrinating Another Mind
Teaching can reach the mind but can never reach the heart. Teaching can satisfy the mind’s curiosity, but not the heart’s thirst for the truth. Teaching is self-cultivation, going on and on in a circular manner, never realizing, never actualizing One-Self, never settling down into being. To settle into being is the highest peak of existence, with no paths or methods to attain it.
However, to attain what is already yours, you need a discipline—and to be disciplined, you need a practice. What should you practice? Nothing!
This is the real practice: to be aware of the illusions and projections coming from your mind. The mind tries to take your attention away from the present moment where your enlightenment is. Not going with the mind and doing nothing to the mind—not identifying with or attaching to the mind—is the practice of nonattachment, and with this practice you are exercising discipline. You aren’t disciplining mind, however: you are reminding consciousness to focus in the now.
Who is disciplining consciousness? Consciousness is disciplining itself by being increasingly aware of itself.
If you try to discipline the mind, you are going to be lost in thought. A disciplined mind is still the mind, only more stubborn and adamant. Real discipline comes from the innermost core of your being. It isn’t forced, imported, or borrowed. It’s the spontaneous, organic growth of your consciousness.
Discipline is a methodology for becoming more present, alert, and conscious—a response from the core of your being in the moment, to the moment. To be disciplined, you have to be a mirror, mirroring All-That-Is through thoughtless awareness.
Teaching gives you the answers; discipline gives you the consciousness to be aware. The ultimate peak of enlightenment is when there’s no more need for disciplining, no more need for practice. This isn’t philosophy; it’s a transformational, practical way of looking at life, being existence, and living each moment of the now by sharing oneness with One-Self.
Through discipline, you come into an alert state of awareness, which allows you to see the truth more clearly. Teaching supplies you with the answers to your thirst, while discipline gives you the eyes to see that thirst was an illusion that was necessary in order for you to settle in your own infinite being.
Enlightenment always dispenses with doing. If you are involved in doing something, you are on the periphery of existence, and every periphery is controlled by the mind. To be an enlightened being, one has to go beyond boundaries, peripheries, and all confinements—all techniques and all methods. One has to stop doing, seeking, and journeying. One has to settle into nothingness.
Meditation is you, love is you, truth is you, and enlightenment is you. You cannot “do” the One-Self. You can only be the One-Self. This truth can’t be conveyed, though it can be indicated, guided, and practiced as a discipline.
The middle point Is an inner science, the investigation of what is—an investigation of the mind space within its structure and its content. It’s inquiry into the real. Not the thoughts and beliefs you live by, nor the intent coming from the mind’s conceptual definitions of what is and what isn’t, nor the unconscious movement in the mind, with its projections.
Once you are aware of the real, you attain the truth. As a consequence, you become aware of your social conditioning—aware of the mind’s makeup. The middle point is the investigation of the real you.
Ivan Rados, Transcripts - A collection of Spontaneous Discourses on The Middle Point, Tantra, Yoga, Yantra, Mantra, Zen..., to disciples and friends in Port Coquitlam, Toronto, Vancouver, and Los Angeles.