Excerpts from 'Searching for This' by Peter Marjason

Knowledge

When you see that no-one knows
It’s easy to forget to be
Serious

Knowing you don’t know is a start
But when you don’t know
That you don’t know
Then the burden is lifted

In your total not knowing
You are free
Even to seek

You can’t see yourself from here
Maybe if you walk over there
You can see yourself
From there

The mystery shrouds itself
In logic

That which you are trying to
Transcend
Is it

You can know nothing
Intentionally
Or you can know nothing
Unintentionally
Either way there was
Nothing to know

A concept lasting a paragraph
Is fraught with danger
A line or two is safer
Silence is faultless

If you scoff because Advaita
Is used to sell vacuum cleaners
Think again
Selling is it
And think again
Scoffing is it

Nothing cannot be said

Understanding
Destroys the mystery

Every good concept
Renders itself
Immediately unnecessary

Maybe bad wrong silly naughty concepts
Point to non-conceptual oneness
More accurately than
Good clear believable concepts

How many years of seeking
Before nothing is finally learnt

Look at the branches swaying
in the wind
At what point
Can you reach a conclusion

For perfection to be running smoothly
Your understanding is not required

The one thing you know about
The unknown
Is that it can’t be
Known

Silence is a word
Pretending to describe
What it is not

You read this
And think you understand it
And weigh it up
But you don’t even know
From where a thought comes

Truth cannot be seen
Because truth is what is looking
Right now

Here suggests there
Now suggests then
This suggests that
The mystery is safe

Beliefs have to be remembered
True knowledge is unrecorded
And unknown

If you tick off
Everything you know
This will be emptiness
Neti Neti
Not this not this
Also applies to itself

Not-knowing
Doesn’t take years of practice

You can’t know what it is
You don’t know
Which really means
You know everything

It’s easy to be a seagull
Because all you have to do
Is squawk in the right way
And any squawk
Is it

To say that truth can’t be spoken
Is only true
When not said

Freedom

Life is perfect as it is
Trying to do better is
Not even a mistake

It’s no use putting off realization
Till tomorrow
It’s too late for that
You’re already free

There is lots to do about
Getting liberated
But freedom lies before that

Freedom is the freedom to do as you do
Completely freely with ease
With clarity and awareness
Or with resistance
Or with confusion and ignorance

“What is is all that is”
Is not a statement of the obvious
It points to total freedom

If you don’t know what’s
Going on
And yet it still happens
Maybe your understanding
Isn’t required

Realization is of
Non-enlightenment
To be instantly free
Forever
Is not a bad offer

When you realize everything said
Is said by God
You are liable to say anything

You must try harder
To find freedom
Or give up trying
Depending on what happens

For true freedom
Lack of understanding
Must be total

Freedom is when
No-one knows nothing
And that’s always

Before enlightenment
Chop wood carry water
After enlightenment
Carry wood chop water

Thinking you are enlightened
Is a big mistake
As big as thinking
You are unenlightened

It’s not that you should
Realize something
You are already what you
Would realize

The idea of enlightenment and
The idea of ignorance are
The same idea

The idea that
The writer of this concept
Is unenlightened
Is not true at all
This is written and read
By consciousness

When a freight train rumbles past
What can be done about that?
When you burn the toast
And toss it in the bin
What can be done about that?
Life is already completely
Full of what’s happening

There are no imperfect mistakes

Once the truth is revealed
It will soon be eclipsed
And all within oneness

True acceptance is
Acceptance of non-acceptance
And if that’s not possible
Then it’s acceptance of that

What is has already been accepted

True freedom is freedom
From freedom

Before you can blink
You are free

Freedom appears to be
A worry

The leaves are free to blow
Where the wind moves them

Owning up to ignorance
Is bliss

Oneness is liberation
Because you are no longer
Necessary

Unfortunately you're late for
Your appointment with freedom
Because it just commenced

Taking control of your life
You lose your freedom
Luckily it’s just an idea

If you misunderstand a concept
How will you know?

If you want peace beyond
Understanding
Don’t try to understand

Seeking

After years of searching
The mystery deepens

The idea of waking up
Is dreaming
Seek and you shall seek

Even your seeking
Doesn’t prevent freedom

The seeker is the sought
Means consciousness went off
Looking for itself

First there is truth
Then there is the search for it
Only when you try and catch it
Does truth disappear

You can’t be a fly on the wall
Because the perceiver is the perceived

A brilliant spiritual concept
Destroys itself
Taking others with it

You pick up a book and
The written message
Changes you forever
But you have nothing to do
With that process

You must either accept your acceptance
Or lack of acceptance
Or
Accept your non-acceptance of your
Acceptance or lack of acceptance
Or not

Some good and responsible gurus
Say you misinterpret Advaita
For your own selfish purposes
Just so you can do what you like
And blame God

But Advaita is not two
Meaning
The above situation is
Perfectly God in action

On the spiritual search
You can have
Misunderstanding
And as the search progresses
You experience deeper and deeper
Misunderstandings
Eventually the idea that all is
Misunderstanding
Is perfectly misunderstood

Advaita non-duality or oneness
Are not pointing to what should be
They describe what is

Here’s the hint
“No hint is needed”
Acceptance comes before
Any thing to be accepted

Whether you accept
Or reject these concepts
Doesn’t matter
They are all of equal value
In the fruitless search for
What already is

The seeker is the sought
Even before beginning seeking
Advaita isn’t confusing
It’s just unknowable

You can’t see behind a tree
Because what you’re seeing
Is the tree
You can’t ponder the current thought
Because what you’re thinking
Is the current thought

The spiritual search
Has nothing to do with
Finding anything
Enlightenment is an idea
Creating unenlightenment

Truth can’t be described
Let alone remembered

Consciousness is a
Miserable seeker
Searching for the truth
Is the truth

Toying with enlightenment is
Toying with the idea that you’re
Not enlightened

If you feel you’re beginning
To understand
You’re on the wrong path
The idea that truth needs
To be pursued
Is part of the illusion

When you weigh up the
Pros and cons
Of a particular teaching
Or a particular guru
That’s all you’re doing
Meanwhile the truth
In which those thoughts arise
Is steadily present

As a seeker
You can only hope to
Find yourself
Lost in freedom
Seeking is trying to know

Freedom is not knowing