Or, is seeing our natural state, our natural condition. Our uninterrupted, effortless presence.

And I don’t mean like seeing through the eyes (pointing to his eyes). That, as a perception, is included as well. However, if you close your eyes, if you just close your eyes right now for, let’s say ten seconds, then something still sees, something sees that you’ve got your eyes closed, something knows that you’ve got your eyes closed. And all kinds of images and colors might still appear. But even without that, even if you go totally blank, something still perceives. Something would perceive the blackness or the non-vision.

And it’s that same perceiving which perceives all the sounds and all the sensations in the body, and all the emotions.

So that which is seeing right now, whether you have your eyes open or your eyes closed… Just notice that something is seeing, and ask yourself, “Am I doing this ?” “Am I really the one who is doing the seeing ?” Or is the seeing the inescapable nature of my experience of life. Can I escape the seeing ? Can there be anything that does not appear within this seeing ? Can I stop seeing ? Because if I am the one who is doing the seeing, then I must be able to stop the seeing, right ? So try to stop the seeing. Try not to be aware. And you’ll notice that whatever happens as an experience, because you try not to see, that that’s just another experience that’s being seen.

So the seeing, or the looking, or the being, that natural presence, is always here, and it’s inescapable. Every experience we have, however you label or describe the experience, it’s always and forever inescapably indivisible from this natural seeing.

You cannot take the experience and say, wow, this is the experience (pointing in one direction) and this is the seeing (pointing in the other direction).

So again if you just close your eyes for ten seconds, notice that something is seeing your experience right now. And it’s not a doing, but there’s a natural seeing in which the experience right now is being seen.

(pause)

And then ask yourself, is this seeing in need of anything. Does it need anything ? Does it need food ? Does it need water ? Does it need sex ? Does it need pleasure ? Does it need pain ? Does it need confirmation ? Acknowledgment ? Does it need whatever you as a person might desire ? Does it need anything ?

Or, does it already allow for every experience to unfold naturally within its own seeing ?

And just notice how it’s inescapable, you cannot possibly escape the seeing.

And so whatever happens within the experience, this seeing is always there, and it’s always stable, it’s completely free in this sense, because it’s unaffected, it’s all pure seeing. It’s always pure seeing, you don’t have to get rid of any emotion or thought or experience, you don’t have to control anything in order for you to be able to notice this natural seeing, this inescapable seeing. Because it’s due to the seeing that we experience anything at all.

So every experience is not an indication of you not seeing or not being aware enough, but every experience as it arises is pure confirmation of seeing being indivisible from the experience, being inescapable, the seeing is inescapable. And when you realize that the seeing that’s perceiving right now without any effort, regardless of what we try or don’t try. And if we then see that in this inescapable seeing there is no need for anything, and there’s nothing that’s being affected. Even though the experience changes, the seeing is unaffected.

And that fills us with a freedom, an ultimate freedom, freedom from every experience.

And you’ll also notice how the seeing is not separate from the experience. So it’s not like the seeing is over here, and the experience if over there somewhere. That’s just another experience, if that’s your experience, of there being a witness of an object, what knows, what sees, that sensation, that state of mind, that too appears within that natural seeing, it’s inescapable, no matter what you do, the seeing is equally present. You cannot improve it, you cannot increase it, you cannot decrease it, you cannot harm it, it’s always there, it’s always oozing out of your eyes, it’s always oozing into your experience, it’s completely embracing your experience.

In fact, the entire experience as it is right now, is known only within this seeing, is known only by this seeing, is known only due to this seeing.

So this seeing is the source of your every experience. And you can notice it right now, that’s the beauty, you can recognize it right now. Not after ten years of meditation. You can notice, recognize, and start to pay more attention, just a little bit, more attention to the fact that this seeing is always here regardless of what type of experience you are experiencing.

If you just notice this throughout your everyday life, throughout, throughout your work, throughout your relationships, throughout all your ideas about the world, you’ll see that the seeing is unaffected.

And from this recognition, the human experience benefits tremendously. And everybody you come in contact with will benefit from this, from your simple recognition of your natural seeing, the source of your experience, the basis of every perception you are having – that simple recognition that something is seeing right now, and that it doesn’t need anything, and that it’s not separate from the experience, but that the experience appears within and as the seeing itself, benefit’s the human experience tremendously.

So just, if you want to commit to anything in life, let this be your primary commitment, because it does not interfere with any other commitment, because all commitments and all activities appear within this seeing, so regardless of your lifestyle, your background, your religion, your beliefs, your ideas, your feelings, your state of mind, your amount of vasanas or whatever – it all happens within this natural seeing which is already perfectly present.

And you can recognize the seeing like we’ve just been doing. Just relax and see that something is seeing your experience right now. It’s very simple. And recognize that within your daily experiences of life.

And then the human experience starts to settle within this recognition, it starts to become more at ease, it starts to become more peaceful.

You are not doing the seeing, the seeing is already happening. The seeing is always here. The seeing is inescapable. Every experience happens within the seeing, and as a confirmation of your natural seeing.

Bentinho: Sure… so he had a moment of relaxation, and for him it was very powerful, because the contrast was very strong — he was about to kill himself, everything felt completely alien and so on. So he had this intense suffering… and then all of it relaxed. And so in retrospect the memory stores it as an awakening. But it wasn’t happening in any new space. The same space of direct experience shifted from being really tense, to the point where the bow is about to snap, to it actually snapping, or relaxing. And so that’s a powerful contrast. That’s a sudden relaxation of everything. And then he describes that he had years of deepening.

Questioner: I have a question about free will, some say there is, some say there isn’t, and I have some confusion about that.

Bentinho: Well I’m only ever interested in what works. What doesn’t work for me and for most people is believing something and then basing their lives on that belief. That limits their experience of freedom. Whether you believe there is free will, or whether you believe there’s no free will, this space doesn’t care. So if either of those become a reference point to live your life by, then that’s limiting.

Questioner: Yeah there are all these reference points. What is true ? I don’t even know.

Bentinho: Yeah, everything is a reference point… Everything I say is a reference point as well. And I hope my reference points lead to not needing any reference point. And not needing any philosophical understanding, or intellectual conclusions. Like: “This is the way it works”. Because the moment “this is the way it works”, then that is the way it doesn’t work, so then there is duality, there’s a lack of experiencing freedom, there’s a lack of love, there’s battle, there’s conflict.

So I don’t care, I can resonate with all of these. “There is free will”. Sure ! “There is no free will”. Sure ! (laughter) It’s all true. “Nothing ever happened”. Yeah ! I can see that. “Everything ever happened”. Yeah ! I can see that too. Who cares ! (laughter)

All of these are subtle perspectives that we tend to land on because it’s a safe thing, you can hold on to it. You can refer your life to it, you can understand your life in its proper perspective. Or so we think. To let go of even that is freedom. To just be relaxed as you are, to not know anything about philosophical “truths”. That’s freedom to me. That opens me up to connect with practically everybody… and to speak about their perspectives… and to have fun. Because it’s all equally valid. Or equally invalid.

It’s total surrender that reveals the causeless reality, and causelessness is where bliss is, or happiness is, because it doesn’t depend on anything… it’s causeless, timeless. And the timeless is always here, is that in which everything appears, and the moment we’re focused on something and describing a past and a future about it, the moment we’re solidifying something as being something… “oh this is an emotion, oh this is a thought, this is you vs. me”… then that clouds and obscures… but when we relax all focus points, we are basking in the causeless, and we are befriending our bliss, and we are trusting that, and evermore we’ll be convinced of that, and then we can be happy no matter what appears.

Questioner: So when you take the two to five seconds out, you aren’t looking at what has been bothering you, you’re surrendering everything…

Bentinho: Very good, you are not looking at anything as if it exists, you’re not analyzing yourself as if you’re imperfect, you’re not focusing on thoughts and emotions as if they mean something, you let everything be, and you are the causeless, timeless here and now. That’s where bliss is. Bliss doesn’t know anything. The moment bliss knows something, Bliss is obscured. Bliss is the nature of innocence, of not knowing, causeless.

So you ignore all your stories. Now there’s this notion that if you ignore something it becomes stored and it’s suppressed, but I’m speaking about something else here, ignoring in the sense of not putting any importance on it, when you don’t focus on it as if it’s something, then you’re ignoring the solidity of it, experiencing your experience without focusing on it. And yet you’re consciously vivid, right here.

And then the waves reveal themselves to be water, whereas if we focus on things and sensations and emotions as if they are things or issues or coming from somewhere needing our attention so they can be fixed, then we only see the waves a waves, as problems and as imperfections. And this perpetuates the cycle of inadequacy.

But when we relax all focus we bask in the timelessness for those two to five seconds, we don’t know anything, we’re just happy, we’re just causeless, surrendering everything.

That’s like a dive into the water, and we realize that every wave is pure water, whether it’s small or big or ugly or beautiful, every emotion is pure, perfect awareness, is pure perfect being, and so we don’t need it to change anymore for our wellbeing to be evident; because our wellbeing isn’t projected on to things and their outcome.

Roman Danylo (star of “Comedy Inc.” on CTV and the Comedy Network) in the Tantric Sex Seminar sketch.

“In the beginning it looks as though you need to embrace life, you need to accept life, you need to allow life. But really, what you are, is the space in which everything is already embraced, already accepted, already allowed, because it’s happening. The proof that it’s already allowed is because it’s already happening. You, trying to allow, is already too late, it’s already allowed”.

I understand that our instinct is to move away from what’s not comfortable, to try to get somewhere better, but as my teacher used to say, “You need to take the backward step, not the forward step.” The forward step is always moving ahead, always trying to attain what you want, whether it’s a material possession or inner peace. The forward step is very familiar: seeking and more seeking, striving and more striving, always looking for peace, always looking for happiness, looking for love. To take the backward step means to just turn around, reverse the whole process of looking for satisfaction on the outside, and look at precisely the place where you are standing. See if what you are looking for isn’t already present in your experience.

So, again, to lay the groundwork for awakening, we must first let go of struggling. You let go by acknowledging that the end of struggle is actually present in your experience now. The end of struggle is peace. Even if your ego is struggling, even if you’re trying to figure this out and “do it right,” if you really look, you might just see that struggle is happening within a greater context of peace, within an inner stillness. But if you try to make stillness happen, you’ll miss it. If you try to make peace happen, you’ll miss it. This is more like a process of recognition, giving recognition to a stillness that is naturally present.

We’re not bringing struggle to an end. We’re not trying to not struggle anymore. We’re just noticing that there is a whole other dimension to consciousness that, in this very moment, isn’t struggling, isn’t resentful, isn’t trying to get somewhere. You can literally feel it in your body. You can’t think your way to not struggling. There isn’t a three-point plan of how not to struggle. It’s really a one-point plan: notice that the peace, this end of struggling, is actually already present.

The process is therefore one of recognition. We recognize that there is peace now, even if your mind is confused. You may see that even when you touch upon peace now, the mind is so conditioned to move away from it that it will try to argue with the basic fact of peace’s existence within you : “I can’t be at peace yet because I have to do this, or that, or this question hasn’t been answered, or that question hasn’t been answered, or so-and-so hasn’t apologized to me.” There are all sorts of ways that the egoic mind can insist that something needs to happen, something needs to change, in order for you to be at peace. But this is part of the dream of the mind. We’re all taught that something needs to change for us to experience true peace and freedom.

Just imagine for a moment that this isn’t true. Even though you may believe that it’s true, just imagine for a moment : what would it be like if you didn’t need to struggle, if you didn’t need to make an effort to find peace and happiness ? What would that feel like now? And just take a moment to be quiet and see if peace or stillness is with you in this moment.

Adyashanti, from Falling Into Grace : Insights on the End of Suffering

Deep in my soul I heard the Laughter of God, ringing in silvery cadences through the timbers of my being, breaking the human bonds and limitations as a strong yet gentle wind in the forest sweeps aside the cobwebs. The hard, fast knots that I have tied slipped loose, and the snarls of beliefs broke free. The river of my human life, frozen by a thousand and one false ideas and teachings, broke joyously into expression and went bounding to the infinite sea of Life, to be lost and found at the same time. One dark cave of fear after another was illuminated by the light of the laughter, and swampy areas of sick thoughts were dried up instantly. Parched sands of hopelessness and futile effort were drenched by the living waters – absorbed instantly like a wave braking on the sands. God laughing at me, and my puny efforts to make things happen; to make heaven appear; to attain the Sonship. Not the laugh of derision, but of infinite compassion, a laughter so deep and sweet, so pure and glorious that everything in the nature of struggle gave way before it.

And the breath of that glorious laughter blew all the dirty rags of personal teaching and self-aggrandizement away from me, and at first the fierce laughter made me afraid – afraid that everything would be taken from me, and that I should be naked; but no sooner had the filthy rags of personality blown free than I was clothed in a panoply of light, and in this glorious raiment of light I saw for the first time the glory of the Spirit made flesh.

I stood before the infinite peals of laughter, which flowed through all creation like floods of golden mist, filled with speechless wonder at the beauty of the world I lived in – which had been invisible because of my separation, because of my personal ideas about attainment. I was as a child with a small measure at the seaside, trying to carry off a little water when the whole sea was at my disposal, and I understood for the first time the exhaustless sea of substance about me, and that the idea of hoarding was but a childish fear grown into a Goliath by false teaching and beliefs. I suddenly became aware that the substance was everywhere, in everything, out of everything, and the only place of lack was in the hypnotic state of belief – and I alone created and moved in this vacuum.

And the glorious laughter rolled on, searching the very joints and marrow of me – dislodging every belief in fear, sickness, or age. And as it swept over me and through me and round about me, I was amazed with the wonder of it – the fierce, terrible thing which was at the same time so beautiful and free. The wonder of it kept singing through my soul as veil after veil of belief was rent asunder and new kingdoms stood revealed. And the whole thing was as if one just saw a little deeper, as one looks through the surface reflection on a river and sees the pebbles and shells below, that was all; only the Laughter made this possible, for it cleared away the effort and straining which in its attempt to see God had been halted at the reflection on the surface, instead of gazing into the limpid, glorious depth of Infinity.

The Voice, as its honeyed tones flowed out like a burst of sunshine through storm- clouds, was so unlabored, so untrammelled, and so Divinely indifferent, it seemed to envelope me with an instant realization that all was well. No matter how many struggles had been made, no matter how many mistakes, how many shortcomings, how many failures, how long the belief, or how short the hate, it was all swept aside as nothing. The glorious Divine ease with which it was expressed made disease impossible. It was the overturning and overturning that had to take place before He, the Laughing One, could come into expression. The people of God are a people of joy, and it is not until they hear this God Laughter in their souls that they have attained to their heritage.

What of this race that speaks of the Kingdom and doing the Father’s work, and uses all the language of the Truth, and at the same time sows seeds of fear and hellish inventions ? What is this race that is always seeking evil to destroy, like a weasel seeks out a rat ? What is the hopelessness they preach – that on one hand, you are the Sons of God, and on the other that you must fight against evil of every sort and nature ? Ah, yes, but, if, and maybe – they roll these stumbling blocks under their tongues with a wise twinkle in their eyes, as much as to say, Yes, it is all true, but it comes only with hard labour and long study, and it is not for such as you, sinner and worm of the dust that you are, until you have purified yourself in the fount of my wisdom and paid me personal homage.

And it is then that the Magdalene hears the Laughter of God and is clean and free; and in an instant too; and it is when the cripple hears the Laughter of God that he leaps to his feet and runs away praising the Living God. And it is when you, no matter where you are, or what you are, no matter what you have done or left undone, hear the Laughter of the God within and the God without, that you will crash through the gates of hell and find heaven, no matter what these gates may be – person, place, thing.

One moment’s recognition that you are the “Son of the Living God”, and you have attuned your ear for the Laughter of God, which will put to flight all the stupid ideas of mine and yours, and free you into an expression you have not yet dreamed of. How can you restrain the joy that fills you when you hear the Laughter which, when it is heard, causes the winter of your discontent to break into full fruition, which causes you to see literally that “before they call I will answer,” is not a bit of euphonious language, but a positive, living, glowing fact.

“I was afraid,” and therefore you were driven out of the Garden of Life.  You have been afraid that God will punish you – that it is too good to be true – that you are not ready – that it comes by great learning; and so you are still without the portals of your own kingdom, trying every way but the only way to re-enter. Many there be who try the way of violence, and many who expect to ride in on the skirts of another. There are some so foolish as to invite this.

Why do you not stop trying to get things, trying to learn how to get power, place ? Why do you not come away from the man whose breath is in his nostrils ? – You who read this page, and go within and hear the Laughter of God, and know that “it does not matter” – that things which gave you great concern are all swept away into the dump heap ? The sooner you learn this the sooner you will see they have no value. And one time, when you take away their value, they are possible of attainment to you. You profess to be a follower of the Master. If you in anyway believe this, you will begin to listen for the Laughter of God through your whole being, and will know that the Laughter of God sets you free from the snarling Tower of Babel in which you have been living.

Presently, as you listen for this Laughter, you will hear it, and gradually you will begin laughing – billows of laughter, silently audible laughter that will shatter one limitation after another; laughter filled with the Divine Indifference which knows that the Universe is filled with God and only God, and to recognize this will cause this laughter to flow into expression and shatter the belief in sin, sickness, and death. And when this belief is shattered in you, the pictures of this on your universe are dissipated and are no more, and even the place thereof is no more. You will know why there can be naught but laughter in the Kingdom of Heaven. What good of words or arguments ? What in human sense is a lecture worth on the subject of Laughter, as compared to one glorious sudden peal of joy released by a God soul and picked up by all those in hearing distance ?

And gradually, as you learn of the Laughter of God and join in with the Glory of the Sons of the Living God, then you will laugh at yourself. You will perhaps go back and laugh all the mistakes and faults and limitations out of existence. You will stand with your glorious feet on the mountain-tops of Self-Revelation, laughing at your universe and with your universe, and laughing in words : “It is wonderful, it is wonderful, it is wonderful !”

“Let the filthy be filthy still.” Some may read into the Laughter of God a belief in carelessness and indifference, and some consecrated souls may rail and tear their hair and say that it is encouraging license and making nothing of sin, in order that one may indulge in sin, and so on; and for them this message is not.

He that have ears shall hear what the Scriptures said unto the Churches, and only he that have a single eye is through with trying to twist meanings to suit personal ends.  But he that have the consciousness of the Son of the Living God shall not find it strange that “he that is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity” should laugh at the belief in it that has bound men for so long; and this Divine disregard does not in any way encourage license, but gives liberty to the Sons of God. It breaks up the dank morasses of human belief and reveals itself as heaven, a state of consciousness, which finds not happiness at the disposal of sin, health at the disposal of sickness, and harmony at the disposal of inharmony; but finds these pairs of opposites swept away. It finds man the individual Son of the Living God, experiencing power and wisdom such as could not be put in human language.

The impress of the Divine upon the human causes the human to express in what to the unenlightened thought may seem to be a supernatural way. The how and why and when are all vested in the limited human concept of life.

When are you going to start laughing the Laughter of God ? When are you going to join the glorious chorus which is already encircling the globe, and which has for its password “It is wonderful.” ? You cannot stop this laughter once it is started; you will shatter the belief in thousands as you go along your way – not by a poor, half-hearted beseeching of God, but with the ringing Laughter of God in your soul which knows no sickness, sin or disease, and hence can not look upon it. And in this very knowledge it will impress the consciousness with the Eternal well-being of the Son of the Living God. The man, if he hear the Laughter – that is, if he is willing to hear it, instead of accepting the pinched human concepts of his human reasoning – shall break the bounds of his limitations; crash through the gates of brass; shake off the shackles of beliefs; burst through the prison bars of his own making, and find himself free, free, free, and find his soul ringing with the laughter and with the song, “It is wonderful.

Whoever you are who read this page – you who sit in prison houses of disease, sin, and unhappiness – listen, listen, listen. I AM the door of attainment  He will fill thy mouth with laughing and thy lips with rejoicing.” I AM the door to this glorious Laughter of God – I AM the way to the eternal bliss and harmony of the Sons of the Living God. No matter where it finds you; nothing is hopeless or helpless; this joyous Laughter of the recognition of God, here and now, of the Finished Kingdom – of the sudden discovery that Jesus was not a liar, but truth-sayer, a concrete truth-sayer, when He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand – it is within you.” – will cause the Kingdom to descend out of the clouds of your belief and be real.

How can you help laughing silently and audibly the Laughter of God, and see its ringing notes shattering the silly arguments about life ? The wisdom of man is foolish in the eyes of God.” Why try to measure the inspiration of the Almighty against any man made teaching ! “I will make you fishers of men.” I, the I AM, when once discovered will make the one who discovers it a Fisher of Men. Who can resist the Laughter of God – the fearless Laughter of God ringing through the universe, sweeping all the debris of human belief out of the way ? – no matter if it be thousands of years old, and hoary with the respect of mankind. Not one stone shall remain in place. The very foundations of the human belief shall be shaken in order that the True Cornerstone, which has been rejected up till now, shall be laid. Yes, the Stone – the very Stone that the Master gave us – the philosopher’s Stone if you will, which we have rejected, because to accept it would have been to have overthrown great temples of human reasoning – will finally be made the Head Stone of the Temple of the Living God, and from out the inner recesses of your being proceeds the Laughter of God. “The Sons of God shout for joy.” You will shout for joy, not because of victory over evil, but because you have at last realized that the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place of overcoming evil, but of revelation which is above the belief of a divided universe. Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.

And I heard the Laughter of God in the Soul of my very being – ringing in glorious cadence throughout the universe, causing me to suddenly to burst into glorious laughter which was full of praise, full of wonder – full of wonder and amazement at that which I had missed through looking through a glass darkly. “Arise, shine, for thy light has come” – do you hear” “It is wonderful ! It is wonderful ! It is wonderful.” Heaven and earth are full of Thee – sin, sickness, and death have vanished away. I hear the Laughter of God ringing in the deep recesses of your Soul, you who read this page. I see the moving finger writing across all the worries and fears of a lifetime “It does not matter”, and I see this Laughter writing the things of beauty over the walls of your temple and casting a glorious glistening white robe – a seamless robe of attainment – over you. And at last I hear you laughing from the mountain-peak as you go on your way, without thought of script or purse or robe or ring or upper chamber, and long before you have reached your destination the Laughter of God in your soul has gone ahead and made ready the upper chamber, and the Host has come out to receive you. Under the aegis of Jesus Christ you can “go” with the Laughter of God in your heart.