A great Lama once said : “If you remove the subject, you remove the object”
I wish I knew the name of the Lama because when I heard the sheer simplicity of that Truth, that it blew me down as if struck by lightening!
Could it be any more straightforward than that? Everything I had ever striven for my Spiritual search was encapsulated in that one, simple, fundamental statement.
So now close your eyes, and imagine for a moment, a worry, fear (or regret) that’s been concerning you, and then instantly ‘remove the subject’. Remove ‘you’.
Now what do you have?
Simply the unjudged, de-humanised, unemcumbered IS-NESS of the condition, person, or situation; and I can guarantee that all of life’s problems either disappear or transform, very quickly, often instantly, when you – ‘the subject’ – is dropped or removed, from the picture, because all that ever made it appear real, were the descriptions and beliefs that upheld it.
When you remove the subject, you begin to live life as an awakened ‘beholder’ rather than a sleeping conspirator, and then our daily experience begins to flow, without hiccups.
What is a problem?
It is a circumstance or condition that we colour with our perceptions, past conditioning, judgements and memories, when really – it just IS.
Ok, so you’ve heard all that before, especially if you’ve been studying Nonduality teachings for any period of time, but how does this Truth play out in ‘real life’ so that it’s of any practical use to us in our daily lives?
The answer to this is always the same answer: to get very still. In every single case, with every so-called problem, remain still. Even if you are running from a fire or from any life-threatening or dangerous situation: run but remain still.
What does that mean? It means, what normally happens is that when perceive something as a problem, especially a life-threatening situation, we have fear, panic and lots of judgements arising, all caused by our conditioning and memory of what it all means or how we might end up.
Or if we drop oily or sticky liquid all over the floor when were in a hurry or about to go out, we have lots of opinions about it usually followed by choice swear words.
Or, if we do something kind for someone like offering a service, helping them or giving a gift, but we get nothing back from them – no ‘thank you’ or worse, indifference or abuse, then we can feel hurt and our mind rages with emotions, opinions and judgements.
But instead, what if we just simply dropped all the commentary and descriptions and just carried out every task without comment or expectation? I don’t mean like being an unemotional robot. This is not what is meant by ‘remaining still amidst activity’. Being still is rather a stepping back within – within and as our essential Spiritual nature, or ‘letting go and letting God’. Then far from being like a robot, instead we feel a sense of surrender, ease, trust, love and safety. We are simply standing down and letting our Divine nature step forward and easefully take care of things, responding to the situation, rather than reacting to it.
This is living life by making a practice of constantly ‘removing the subject’, until it becomes automatic to do so. In every instance, when you remove the subject, the object that appeared to be giving so much grief, either disappears or transforms.
I want to remember walking my dog in a park. I noticed a mother completely ignoring her little boy because she was on her phone. The little boy was doing everything he could to get his mums attention. After a while it looks quite heartbreaking, because the mother was so completely disinterested and her son. This is how it appeared. This was ‘the object’ of my attention, whilst ‘the subject’ – Mandi, was so full of judgement and criticism.
But then it occurred to me that I could just change the picture. So I I walk to the other side of The park so I could no longer see mother and child and I visualised a picture of the mother being extremely attentive and appreciative of all that her son was doing. And when I came back round to where they were, this was exactly what I saw: the mother had put away her phone and was lovingly observing her son playing, praising and hugging him and giving him full attention. I was amazed!
So the next time I have the opportunity, I tried it again, and lo and behold it was the same park! Again I was walking with my dog, and I heard voices and the most exaggerated commotion. There was a black lady talking to a white lady, always screaming about how she had been been racially discriminated against in a local Bar. This lady was understandably furious about it, and really went on about it for what seems like ages. And then finally it seemed like she’d finished raging, but she get all steamed up again and began re-venting her anger. Her voice resounded around the whole park.
But this time, instead of feeling irritated and annoyed by the sheer noise-levels, I allowed an inner stillness to wash over me, and I became deeply calm whilst visualising that this lady would also feel a sense of expanding peace.
What happened following this was very interesting. A short time later she saw me sitting on the bench throwing the ball for my dog, and she came right over and actually sat on the bench next to me and apologise for all the noise she’d been making. We realised we met each other before in the park, and she started to tell me about this place where she felt she was asked to leave because of her colour, but when she tell me the name of the Bar, I realise that myself and my friends had also been asked to leave simply because we asked the Manager to turn the heating up a little! So then I was able to show her that I’ve since learned from other customers that the manager of this place was very angry at everybody in general, and that I was completely sure that she hadn’t been singled out for her colour. So then we had a really big laugh about it and for the rest of the time just sat peacefully together enjoying the sun.
I cannot begin to list the amazing things I have seen over the years when I have simply removed the subject – removed ‘me!’ I’ve come to notice that without ‘me’ all goes swimmingly. 😀