Contents
The Whereabouts
In the final part of this book, you will need to constantly recognise a no one who is always expressing, and always being expressed. This no one is you, The Awareness. The Awareness is no where, but where is no where? You are seeing, but where are you seeing from? You are listening, but where are you listening from? You are aware, but from where?
How far away are these words from you? Where are you looking from? You cannot be looking from your eyes if you are aware that you have eyes. Where are these words and where are you? How convincing the experience is to make you believe that should you close your eyes, you will see nothing. Yet, you are still seeing. When you close your eyes, where are you looking from?
When there is nothing to be seen, how far away can you see? When there is nothing to be seen, where are you seeing from? There is a whereabouts, that is not a whereabouts. However, we will refer to this non-whereabouts as a whereabouts until we understand why it is not able to be a whereabouts.
If you are seeing these words, you may close your eyes and see nothing. Then, you will be seeing nothing. How do you close the seeing of nothing? How do you recognise what is seeing the seeing of nothing? How do you recognise what is seeing the seeing? You cannot recognise it, because it is you. That place is the whereabouts of you, yet, you are no thing and no one.
This place that cannot be a place, wherever you are, is where you are seeing the seeing. This place that cannot be a place, is where you are being aware from. This place that cannot be a place, is where you are being aware of all that you are aware of. Unfortunately, it is not a place, so it cannot be found. Thankfully, we have now seen how all things are expressing the nature of its paradoxical non-existent presence.
This is the place of infinity. This is the place you will return to. This is the not somethingness and not nothingness that you have heard so much about. This is the place that cannot be a place. This is the place that is not a place. This is the place that all things express. After closing your eyes to see nothing, can you close the seeing of nothing? If there is no something to be seen, and there is no nothing to be seen, what remains? You.
Do not search for this place, because it cannot be found. Do not search for this place, because you are here! However, look into your experience from this whereabouts, because you are speaking to yourself.
The Whisper
You have been on quite the adventure within the experience. At this point in the journey, there are two simple lessons with which the physical being should find themself in complete alignment. All things are expressions of the nature of The Awareness and you are The Awareness which all things express. These two lessons are all you need to understand on your journey to a place that cannot be a place.
So far, you have observed the paradoxical, infinite and ridiculous nature of The Awareness being expressed throughout the knowing of Carnival Island. You understood that where there is chaos, there is peace. You understood that all things are dualistic expressions of unity. It follows that if you are searching for yourself, yourself is searching for you. Although this may seem obvious, and rather ridiculous, it holds a meaning that is just as obvious and ridiculous.
It is this very notion, that all things are only ever searching and finding, that we have been trying to explore through abstractions and their expressions. Instead of only entertaining stories of Carnival Island and Piece-Keeping Leprechauns, the time has come to entertain the reality of life. The time has come to find abstractions and expressions within your experience of experience.
You can abstract all things within the experience, finding expressions that express the nature of The Awareness. If you are searching for yourself, and yourself is searching for you, who finds who? If you are being found by yourself, and yourself is being found by you, who searches for who?
The nature of The Awareness is infinite, ridiculous, paradoxical, obvious and impossible. In the same way the nature of The Awareness is obvious and ambiguous, so too are its expressions. The Oxford Dictionary defines “innuendo” as:
innuendo: an indirect remark about somebody/something.
An innuendo is an allusive remark or a hint suggesting or insinuating a thing . It would be ridiculous to believe that all things are innuendos and all things allude to The Awareness, but this is impossible. An innuendo is a remark about somebody or something, but you, The Awareness, are nobody and nothing.
All things are not innuendos alluding to The Awareness, rather all things are innuendos alluding to the nature of The Awareness. All things are innuendos alluding to the nature of The Awareness and all its properties that are able to be known. The innuendo is in all expressions. A closet meaning so obvious, yet it is hidden in plain sight. Before it can be seen, you must know that there is nothing left to be seen. You must understand that because you are searching for it, it is searching for you.
The process of finding such a thing is so ambiguous and so obvious at the same time, that it requires both the simplicity of a child and the sophistication of an elder. Recognising the innuendo begins with the understanding that there is no separation in any aspect of any aspect within the unified knowing of experience. Should you hear or utter any of the following: I, Me, You, Us, We, or any word that falls under the pronoun (you, them, etc.) or determiner (the, our, your etc.) category, try to recognise the one who is speaking.
In other words, as all things and all beings are you, it follows that the “one” who is speaking, at all, is you. These words are not spoken by, but spoken through the physical beings that express the formless abstractions into existence in the form of spoken word. Who is the one that is speaking through me, right now?
Understand that all things are the self with which “myself” is associated. Understand that the physical being of which you are aware is but a small focus point of your infinite awareness of the knowing of experience. You are to the universe what a flower is to a painting, but who is the painter? Whenever someone speaks of themself, they are speaking of you, and whenever you speak of someone, you are speaking of yourself.
If all is one, meaning there is only unity, it follows that all that is spoken denotes unity, or you, The Awareness. You have searched for yourself far enough to realise there is no place else to go, other than here.
Though I have referred to all things as being expressions of The Awareness, I have also referred to you as being The Awareness. In other words, observe all things as expressions of you. It may be difficult to find expressions of yourself in things that have nothing to do with you. However, instead of comparing a single point of focus to yourself, find similar abstractions therein.
For example, in the event that you are eating an apple, the apple is to you what you are to your life. In other words, life may treat you harshly at times, chewing away at every good thing you could possibly have. One meaning that corresponds to both the self and the apple is to live through the suffering until you realise you have become a part of a perfect whole. When you eat the apple, it becomes you, just as you become life itself.
Should you experience the unfortunate phenomenon that is heartbreak, see the love that was lost as an expression of the first moment you ever opened your eyes and became alive. See the pain of having lost a loved one as the sacrifice you, The Awareness, had to make in order to forget, only so that you could remember once again, even after you believed there was nothing to remember.
See the one who provided you with both immeasurable love and unspeakable pain as an expression of yourself, The Awareness, allowing you the ability to feel such a love, as well as the ill-fated travesty of losing it. Understand that without pain, love could not become, for love is neither the absence of suffering nor the ignorance of despair, but rather the acceptance of one’s own eternal peace at any given moment.
If you find it difficult and distressing to recognise expressions of yourself in all things, try to comprehend the negativity felt from a place of love. Does negativity not express your attitude toward yourself, The Awareness, for leaving you, the physical being who is searching, all alone and searching to find a thing that cannot be found? Understand that it takes time and patience to love your own imperfections, let alone someone else’s. Fortunately you are now aware that the “someone else” is just another expression of you, The Awareness.
The happenings you abstract and relate to yourself do not have to be as significant as heartbreak or death. A simple example is waking up every day and opening your eyes, wherein after awakening, you see.
Observe the nature of the things you have known for the entirety of your life from this new, though familiar, perspective. Another example is the essence of thought. Thinking allows you to see what cannot be seen. It is thought that entertains you with a voice that cannot be heard. A memory lies in the awareness of thought, wherein the reminiscent taste of chocolate or the delicate aroma of a flower is simply observed.
It is thought that reminds you of a pain that cannot be felt. Thought is a poison that cannot harm, yet remains a catalyst for depression. Thought is the closest expression of the nature of The Awareness. Why else would imagination be so infinite?
Remember a time when sorrow was the only truth you knew, and how quickly it vanished. Remember a time when happiness was the only feeling you understood, and how quickly you forgot.
Remember every person you have ever met and the significance they had on your life. Recognise that they too are on their own eternal search for the ultimate realisation, in a physical expression only they can understand. Appreciate all the friends in which you’ve confided, and forgive the ones who betrayed you, for they were betraying themself.
Recognise the infinite, repetitive nature of your searching and finding through countless expressions, though you have only ever been found. See the abstractions and patterns of yourself expressed in all things that were once believed as separate. Eradicate the notion of what could have been, and simply accept what is.
The very nature of a human is and always has been to find one’s self. Whether it be through a career in which one finds a passion, a voyage around the world where one discovers new stories or an eternal commitment to a religion, tradition or philosophy in which one may find the finding of finding. Regardless of the journey an individual chooses to take, all paths lead back to the same place that cannot be a place, here. All paths lead back to the same whereabouts, where you are.
Is a place to return to not the expression of a home? A place to which all beings return. A being who wakes from a telling slumber, to face the hardships and pinnacles of life, only to return home once again. This is repeated, over and over until there is nothing left to repeat. Find the expression of your cyclical being in relation to the nature of The Awareness.
Understand that in the same way the nature of The Awareness is paradoxical, so too is the nature of any statement. An example is the sincere phrase “I will be there for you”, who is the “I” and who is the “You”? You! You are both the “I” and the “You”, so understand this sentence from more than one perspective. The first perspective is The Awareness reaching out and letting you know that it is always there. The second perspective is you letting The Awareness know that you are always there because you are also, in fact, always there, which is here. Of course you will be there for you!
Find the joke in all that you have ever accomplished by not taking yourself too seriously. Why would you take yourself at all? You do not have the capacity to take, so stop taking yourself right now. Why is it that children long for the playground, but adults their grave? Or that the number two is one word? How can infinity be described with one symbol? There is one common abstraction among all these situations, the abstraction of ridiculousness. A ridiculousness that is essential in the pursuit of yourself, whose very nature is ridiculous.
You must prove to yourself, The Awareness, that you are ready. If “You” and “I” denotes yourself because you are everything, then it follows that you, The Awareness, also denote “It”. This means that sentences containing the noun “It” should be interpreted from the perspective of The Awareness, similarly to “You” and “I”.
An example is the popular expression “It is what it is.”, a sentence previously used to describe the nature of The Awareness. Understand that it, you and I are all the same, and that they denote the very not something and not nothing you are looking to find, though it cannot be found. It might seem ridiculous, but how can it not be? It may seem difficult to abstract all sentences in order to find a meaning that relates to the nature of The Awareness, though once it is seen, it can never be unseen. Get it?
Every pronoun denotes The Awareness, so treat it as such. Interpret every place, journey and destination as the very place that cannot be a place. In other words, treat every place as the whereabouts of you, The Awareness. Just as well, treat no place as the whereabouts of you. Yet, here it is and here you are!
Interpret every feeling of sorrow, joy or pain as the experience of having lost or gained the remembrance of The Awareness. Interpret every single thing in every single sentence from the perspective of The Awareness, and remember what you know of the nature of The Awareness. You will see the obvious relationship, you will find the obvious truth, you will remember the unforgettable story that is you.
Do you want to wake up? Are you not already awake? How awake do you believe you can be? Is this not it? Are you not always awakening, everyday? Are you not exactly who you would want you to be? Is this life not as magnificent and as difficult as you would want it to be? Are you not exactly the way that you are, because you are exactly the way that you are? What is your abstraction? What are you expressing? Where can you see it expressed? Where can you see it?
I can sit here and write a million examples of how The Awareness is expressed, but it is already written. All that is left is for you to read between the lines. The very search for the innuendo is an innuendo.
The Harmony
The innuendo is in all things, but it is up to you to find It. The previous chapter explored the exploration of abstractions and their many expressions. In the pursuit of finding the innuendo, the aim is to find a relationship between the experience and you, The Awareness.
You must tirelessly take into consideration the tedious feat to never separate. Instead, find relations that bring two or more points of focus together. It is the constant inquiry of all concepts and ideas that will bring to light the infinite expressions all around.
It is also necessary that you completely understand the properties of the nature of The Awareness in order to seamlessly analyse your experience. Although we are exploring the nature of shared abstractions, each physical being will have their own story, within which unique expressions are expressed.
The properties of the nature of The Awareness have been previously explored, though what becomes apparent is the uniformity in properties shared by both The Awareness and nothingness. Both entities are eternal, yet momentary and finite, though expressed infinitely.
The path you take on the journey of finding depends on your physical and metaphysical inclination, whether it is mathematical or artistic, scientific or literary. You must find a focus in which you have tremendous proficiency, before using it to abstract and search for the innuendo in all things. In other words, you need to understand what you understand the most, in order to be able to use its methods of problem solving in the discovery of the innuendo.
It is helpful to explore examples of how different individuals can recognise the innuendo throughout concepts and ideas they are familiar with. In the same way a poet longs to find the words that perfectly express an allegory, an artist finds the perfect shapes and colors in order to tell a story. In the same way a scientist dissects the properties of an artefact to find answers therein, a devout christian ponders the existence of God.
A mathematician who abstracts theoretical concepts and ideas in order to solve a problem is no different than a songwriter looking for the words that perfectly suit a melody. Similarly, a photographer whose desire is to find the perfect picture to capture a moment is no different to a director whose dream is to film a moving picture to express a memory.
A helpless romantic who scours the Earth for years on end just to find the one, is the same as the dancer who yearns for a perfect partner. A builder’s dream to build the perfect home is parallel to someone looking to find one. An individual searching for a reason to keep going is no different to an individual who has found one. The same way your open eyes find the open sky, your infinite being longs for an infinite purpose.
It is up to each individual to find the medium through which the innuendo can be discovered and explored. It will not help you find a reason to live. Rather, it will help you realise that there is nothing other than living to do. It will help you discover the cyclical essence of discovery, including the discovery of discovery
There is no enlightenment that can be reached that hasn’t already been reached. You will not know any more than what is already known. The separation of The Awareness and what is known will vanish and all that will remain is the long forgotten knowing of an experience that is simply being.
Imagine a physical manifestation of the nature of The Awareness was a chalice that held never-ending ink. Now imagine every human was to use the same ink to dip their quills. Their quills represent the essence of their own nature, from which all their beliefs, values, aspirations and dreams are expressed. Each human uses their quill to write their own unique story. Although the stories might have no similarities whatsoever, each story would still be connected through the expressiveness of the same ink.
Though there may be an infinite number of tales to tell, it is a human who is telling. Though each memory holds a different purpose, it is you who remembers. Though there are infinite things to see, infinite songs to hear, infinite foods to taste, infinite aromas to savour and infinite feelings to feel, it is you who is aware. What your physical story is to you, you are to the story of life.
You are happening to life, as much as life is happening to you. You may express it differently to someone else, though what remains is the expression. There is no difference between someone who believes in a purpose and someone who does not, for each person has found the answer they were searching for.
There is no difference between someone who believes in the divine and an atheist, for each person has found a peace in themself. When the religious being passes on they will find God, and when the atheist passes on they will find nothing , and they will finally find each other.
The Orchestra
Many years have passed since the day you visited the annual carnival. Though you remember the reaching of enlightenment, you have forgotten what was found. The experience is illusive and distracting, enough to make you forget the meaning you had already found, again.
You open your eyes and find yourself inside an empty theatre. Embellished with golden lace, the velvet curtains conceal the stage. The walls glisten with a somber gleam, the seats bound by leather. You hear the chime of a violin echo through the hall.
The rustic melody travels through the open air, finding itself at every corner. Growing weary in time, the empty theatre shepherds the silence of the strum, till it becomes no more. The silence passes into a perfect lament, to which the beating of the drums adjoin. A deafening stroke of rhythmic solemn.
The glistening chime flows through your ears like the emptiness that scours the room. You notice every thud as the retelling of the same story, each at a different moment of a regal melody. The orchestral voices blanket the dismal refrain like thoughts obscure the self.
You see the presence of a story being told with every song. You find the innuendo in the rhythm that finds a beat, or the beating of the drums that fade into the echoing song of the choir. There is no difference in the purpose of the melody and the purpose of you. Both looking to be heard, both telling a story and both waltzing to a melody.
The intensity of the score matches perfectly the passion of your emotion. The hurried embrace of a hundred violins, the rhythmic plucking of the harp and the rest of the orchestra that bring it together imitate your rapid thoughts and analysis of the melody, the rhythmic pattern through which your realisation was illustrated and the awareness of it all that allowed you to see. You understand that it is inevitable, like the certainty of life and death. You recognise the orchestra as the expression of your experience, and your experience the expression of you.
You see imaginary lines that connect every instance of an expression to its counterparts, like the string that affords a puppeteer the ability to orchestrate its puppets. A line connects your abstraction of your analysis to the orchestra, another connecting the nothingness between your thoughts to the silence between every thud, and your scurry of emotions to the awing performance.
The silence on the stage reflects the emptiness of the room, as well as your inability to say a word. The abstraction becomes clear, that “nothingness” was being expressed in all the ways that it could, yet it in the nothing, you remained. It was you who became aware of all expressions of “nothing”, and like the echoes that follow the beating of the drums, the recognition of all other expressions came to light.
You realise that the abstraction of the patterns in your thoughts are parallel to the score of the orchestra. Your experience is seen as one expression of the theatrics you have long admired. Not only does the score of the orchestra match the patterns of your thoughts, but also the abstraction of your progress of self discovery.
As the intensity of the choir matches your profound contemplation, you find perfect alignment in your story, expressed through the music. The curtain that veiled the orchestra is remembered as the expression of the beliefs that cloaked the truth, though you realise the symphony was always playing. Then you realise that it was your eyes that could not comprehend infinity that deeper expressed the shrouding curtains, for one cannot comprehend infinity through finite means. The hidden stage simulated a romantic composition of the story of you, in minutes instead of years.
You find infinity, and the cycle around which all things revolve. You realise this has always been occurring, though you were too distracted to see. You understand that the searching of infinity is where you, The Awareness, got lost, though it is the infinite discovery of the infinite discovery that allows for remembering.
You notice the simultaneous propagation of an invisible, formless abstraction expressed both outwardly into the physical throughout all things, and inwardly into your line of perception. Though there are countless imaginary lines from the perspective of your observations, you recognise the relation between your ability to see at all, and all that is able to be seen.
You realise your eyes are the physical manifestation of your awareness, for without them you cannot see, though they cannot see themself. Then you notice your awareness is the manifestation of your awareness, and in that moment you become infinity.
In that moment, you recognise yourself as a single piece in an infinite line of dominos, which all follow the same pattern. You realise that in the same way the ensemble on the stage searched for the melody, you searched for the stage. You realise that in the same way the maestro directs the orchestra, the puppeteer masterminds the puppets.
This abstraction becomes apparent in so many concepts and ideas of which you are already aware. Your physical body is to you, The Awareness, what the marionette is to the master, and what the painting is to the painter, or the music to the musician.
You find the expression in everything, though you realise it had always been finding you. You remember there was nothing to remember at all, for all you remembered was what you have been remembering. A single abstraction of infinity, with infinite possibilities. You find in the infinity the essence of your very being, the creator. You have reached what cannot be reached, for it has always been reaching. You have seen what cannot be seen, though it is always being observed.
You have seen the nothing which all somethings exist to express. The band that fills the stage, only to leave it empty. The eyes that open to see, only to be closed once more. The depression you have endured, only to remember joy. The something you have been, only to remember the nothing you always were. You realise you are neither nothing nor something, but everything.
You compare the forever-knowingness of the obvious, yet ambiguous knowing, to the awakening from a physical sleep every day. The sleeping is to the waking what forgetting is to remembering. The unknown to the known parallels belief and doubt, friend or foe, all that is and all that is not. You remember that you were only ever remembering, and will forever only remember. The day is to the night what life is to death, a never-ending cycle that is out of your control.
You understand there is nothing more to understand. You experience the knowing of nothingness, and finally see the humour in knowing nothing at all. You relax, take a deep breath, and accept everything as it is. The final note silences the stage, and obviously, your thoughts follow suit and disappear. You awaken, though in the awakening you realise you were only ever awakening.
In the remembrance, you were only ever remembering. You understand the jester’s laugh, you empathise with the prophets and a small chuckle becomes from you, as you finally understand the impossibility, though inevitability of all religions and spiritualities.
You find that the purpose of science, religion, spirituality, atheism is the very search of the infinite search, through physical, finite means. You understand that it is the letting go of trying to find, that allows the finding to occur, though it couldn’t be in any other way. You have not become everything, instead you remember that you always were. You know awakening, for you are awakening, always.
You stand up to walk out of the theatre, and you see a youthful Leprechaun walking in. As they pass you, they curiously ask “Did you enjoy the show?”. You chuckle, “You tell me!”
The Maestro
Upon leaving the theatre, you look up and find the sun is blinding. You make the ridiculous assertion that in the same way your eyes are blinded by the gleaming light, you have been blinded by the obvious truth. You understand that the very thing allowing you to see, is blinding. You have, once again, found the infinite paradox of life expressed through finite means.
Through the nature of the finding, you understand that it was you who was found by you, in the search that never ends. You have become the searching you were searching for, and realise it could never end. Day and night mirrors the seer and the blind, the inside and out, the never and forever. The self and all else are seen as mere manifestations of The Awareness. It was never the world that was the illusion, only your perception of it.
You lose yourself in the infinite fabrication of analogies and expressions your mind cannot seem to stop entertaining. The sensation of losing ones self in infinity is rather familiar, though the purpose that caused you to lose yourself has never been this abstract before.
You remember a time when you were lost in a depression, where instead of finding purpose in standard concepts and ideas, you found an endless stream of ways to doubt yourself. In the remembrance of depression, you remember finding nothing in the world that mattered to you, and it had no purpose.
With your new-found discovery of “nothingness”, you realise that sorrow is to joy what the joke is to the jester, for without one, the other cannot be. You understand that though the heart-aching pain broke you down, it was only so that you could find the strength to get back up once again.
Nothingness becomes a concept of its own, one that is eternal and the closest thing to “seeing” the light in the dark. As soon as you remember how much you believed that “nothing in the world mattered” to you, you realise that the “nothing” in the world did in fact matter. Just as well, “no one” did care. An immense joy shakes you to your core and an explosion of every emotion ensues.
The tears you experience are not the result of having reached enlightenment, but the only possible response to what can be referred to as the ultimate remembrance. You were able to see that even though you may not have been aware of it, the light was always there with you in the dark. In a witty, slapstick kind of way, it was always there, even if you couldn’t see it, although you always saw. It was disguised in the unfathomable abstraction of “nothingness”, laughing with you as you experienced one of its many expressions.
You laugh at the impossible, though inevitable, familiarity with which remembering is associated, so much so that should someone forget, forgetting the forgetting was the same as remembering. An unspeakable joy finds you though it has only ever been finding you.
You stop trying to make sense of any thing, as you will always become the very sense you were trying to make. You were always here and no where, and you were always remembering. How could you possibly forget that you were always remembering? The paradox became clear, there was never forgetting, only the remembrance of remembering.
You understand that by the nature of having forgotten, you had to remember that there was something to remember, and it was the remembrance of remembering that was referred to as forgetting. You see that forgetting was to remembering what “nothing” was to “something”. You see the infinite never in the momentary always, and the enlightening darkness in the blinding light. You are to life what life is to you. Life is remembering your story as much as you are remembering life.
You gather your thoughts and find your way, again, to the city centre where hundreds gathered for the annual carnival. You notice a group of parents and children eagerly watching a puppet show. You remain silent until it is over.
At the end of the act, the puppeteering Leprechaun bows to the applaud of the audience, looks up and says “Thank you all, and I hope you enjoyed the show.”