The experience of Reality is immediately available. However, even that statement is not really accurate. Reality is not immediately available, for it is not immediate, as if it were absent before being available. Reality is not an experience which appears. It is always present.
Reality is not an appearance. It is our experience that Reality is ever-present. We do not perceive Reality appearing and disappearing. It is always here, showing up as everything.
The experience of being right here, right now is Reality. If we try to find something other than the presence of Reality, all our efforts will be in vain. Every attempt we make will be a movement within Reality, made of its substance. Reality cannot escape itself.
If, hypothetically speaking, Reality did appear, the source from which it arose would be more fundamental than it. Meaning this fundamental presence that is the source of its reality would be its reality, THE Reality, the ONLY Reality.
The only Reality that Reality has is itself. It is a Reality unto itself.
Reality, by nature, is an absolutely independent presence. It cannot be derived from anything other than itself. It originates itself, it causes itself. That is, it is causeless.
There can be only one Reality. There is nothing outside it, nothing other than it, and hence it is infinite. There is no apparently existent thing that is not it.
Our reality is the reality of Reality. There is no other Reality that we can be. Therefore, the presence to which we refer when we simply say, 'myself' or 'I' is Reality. Reality knows itself.
Being real, that is, being immutably present, is a self-evident experience, which means that it is an experience that requires no ulterior agent to confirm its presence. Check now if this is the case.
Are you present now?
Is being present a belief, an opinion, a rumour? Or is being present an experience?
Is being present a new kind of experience that appears?
If presence is an experience that supposedly appears, to what or in what would it appear?
Could anything appear to or within something that was absent, something that was not present?
Are you ever absent from experience? Can you ever assert with absolute certitude that ‘I am not’?
What would be present to assert ‘I am not’? From what presence would the statement ‘I am not’ derive its apparent existence?
‘I am not’ would be stated by a presence, the presence of our self, Reality.
Even during an apparent denial of presence, the experience of presence is shining, which shows that the assertion of the thought ‘I am’ is not necessary for presence to be known as it is.
The experience of the presence of Reality is not dependent upon the mind.
Is your presence known by something other than your presence? Or are you knowing your presence as your presence?
Is your presence the evidence that you are present? Or do you need to experience another presence in order to confirm your presence?
Presence is self-confirming, self-knowing. I don’t need to tell you. You already know.
That which is real must be that element of our self which is always present now, which cannot be removed from us. Therefore, it must be that which is already being known.
What am I knowing now?
I know that I am. Knowing and Presence are two aspects of our self that are undeniably real. We are not making it up that we are present and knowing. There is a reality to being present and knowing, and this reality is the reality of Reality.
The absolute certainty of our presence is all that we can know of our essential self. We cannot go any deeper or subtler in our experience than that.
Being this knowing is all there is to our fundamental Reality. Everything arises from that, within that, for all things are known to have a beginning and an end within that which knows their appearance.
Take any movement of thinking, sensing or perceiving now within your contemplative tastebuds.
Where do these movements appear?
They must appear within a medium. What is that?
Obviously, you are experiencing this medium now, for you are experiencing what appears within it. Taste each movement of experience and know this medium that encompasses and pervades all experience.
Can you separate knowing from that which is known?
No!
Can you remove yourself from the movement?
No!
Can you experience thinking, sensing or perceiving without knowing?
No!
The knowing that you are is not separate from all experience. Knowing and the known are one seamless, indivisible reality.
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