Tony Parsons has been communicating this non-dualistic message for ten years with absolute clarity. His playful openness ensures that the message is delivered with warmth and laughter. Tony’s invitation is for the simple discovery of the open secret.
The author of ‘The Open Secret’ and several other books, Tony facilitates open discussions on non-duality in London and Europe. For more information visit Tony’s website www. theopensecret.com
Tony - The mind fears this message. In a sense the message about non-dualism is about no- mind, it’s about moving beyond mind. Then the mind has to take its place in the theme of things and be a tool rather than being the false king.
So when the mind hears this it will try any way of compromising it. When anybody comes to a meeting then what they will hear is the mind fighting for self-survival.
Most religious approaches to advaita revert back to the mind as a way of self-survival. Transformation is about the death of something, the loss of being separate, the loss of being an individual. When the mind hears this message it will find any way to compromise it so the story of the person can continue. What you hear in these meetings is:
‘I want to go on continuing and the only way I can go on continuing being a person is to seek, so how dare you tell me that there is nothing to seek!’
Absolutely, there is a fascination with me and the question:
This is ridiculous as there is no individual who is enlightened. It is another way of saying: ‘Are you a person who continues because I want to continue?’
Absolutely, it is the end of individuality. So the individual gets nothing out of it. No one benefits from liberation.
The greatest fear arises when people come across this particular uncompromised message. It is intuited that it is about their own death. It is about absence and that is feared more than anything else.
So the mind will try anyway to get round this or compromise it. What is interesting for instance is that the system of self enquiry is very close to this message but it still finds a place for the mind to survive taking people into the world of detachment. Then there is still someone there who is aware of life happening.
That does change that message quite a lot. But the only thing that I would add is that the message is not about a detachment from the self it is about there being no self. It simply is not there. There is no self that you can be detached from.
Yes (laughter). People are frightened of their own death.
Yes, there is a fear of loosing your life and that includes loving your son. I think what is amazing to discover after liberation, is that there is no ‘you’ that has a son and there is no son. All of those things fall out of the window. But what is there in their place is ‘mothering’ or ‘being friendly’ without there being any investment in that. So something much richer takes the place of what we think of as our roles.
Absolutely, after liberation dream thinking still continues but there is nobody listening and that’s the difference. When there is somebody listening they give so much power to the thinking process that they become part of it and believe in the story of themselves.
Yes, that’s very sweet; you can understand it as it has been the basic teaching of becoming enlightened, that you will be blessed and live in bliss. Hooray! But it is so unreal and related to the idea that liberation has something to do with the person. After liberation neurosis goes on merrily happening. (Laughs) Why shouldn’t it?
Yes, its gorgeous stuff isn’t it? The mind will find any way it can to get out of this. (Laughter)
When there is separation there is apparent suffering. We think starvation is suffering but in fact every separate person lives in suffering and that drives them for a solution. Traditionally religions teach that if you change you can go beyond suffering. The revolutionary non-dualistic message, the open secret, is that ‘what’ suffers comes to an end. When there is ‘no one’ then ‘no one’ suffers. It sounds too simplistic to the mind.
This mind is exploring what to say thinking I should say something different as I am talking in London again, but when it comes to it, I stand up and there is no idea of what is going to come out. This thing comes out of nowhere and speaks through this body. Tony Parsons sits there and sees this amazing thing happening. Sometimes what is said shocks Tony Parsons. Sometimes you get a question that you have never heard before and the mind wonders ‘what is the answer to this?’ The question proceeds to the end and suddenly a voice starts speaking that is not guided by the mind. It is a response to the question. It is out of nowhere. (Laughs heartily).
I have a Christian background and I guess it is in the psyche of most western people, the symbolism of the cross is far more powerful than we think it is. There seems to be a horizontal or linear world which is time, cause and effect, story. Actually that horizontal world that we think is real is actually a parable speaking about verticality. Here we get into the deep mystery that nobody can describe that this meeting point where the verticality meets the horizontal, this point is actually timeless. It is not as though there is verticality moving along the horizontal but that point in the middle of the cross is the timeless ‘is-ness’. The timeless Being is nothing apparently happening.
Yes, I think that’s more powerful than anything. All these words… I’m just writing a new book and I think: this amazing collection of words! The most powerful thing is that energy, that boundlessness. It doesn’t belong to anybody.
The other thing that is quite powerful in the audience is that there is a sudden realisation that there is no expectation of anybody in the room. The audience of apparent seekers is simply seen as being. There is no separate person in the audience from this point of view.
Absolutely, in the spiritual world where there is a teacher there is expectation that the student will rise to a certain standard. That is simply not present in non-duality meetings. And that is very powerful.
I definitely sense that there are a number of people in the audience who re-entrench themselves more powerfully in being separate. (Laughs). You can sense it, you can understand that when the mind hears this message it wants to devalue it all or avoid it and find something that will collapse it. If it can’t then it will rationalise what is being said.
So a number of people will never really hear what is being said and daren’t. They will then go away with a confused idea of what’s being said or a rationalisation, a misinterpretation of it.
But when there is a readiness, and this is nobody’s readiness, there is an opening into this boundlessness that is most powerful.
The other interesting thing about the audience is that I would say 60% of the audience never asks a question. These are the people who have been before and the questions are over.
If the answers are really listened to they are always bringing people back home to mindlessness. This has happened to a lot of people. The mind asks a lot of questions then it just gives up because it isn’t getting anywhere.
Quite a number of people say to me at the end that they came with quite a number of questions but they sat down and all my questions collapsed. It’s amazing! (Laughter).
That is more transformative than anything else.
We are taught instead to achieve.
Totally, because we are in a target, goal oriented world.
My sense is that authority has lost its hold on the younger generation. There is no question that religious authority has virtually collapsed and that political authority is collapsing. Young people have a sense that there is something else beyond the idea of authority. They are very excited by this message which is absolute pure anarchy. This is the open secret, that there is no authority, there is no script, no destiny. There is nothing ‘up there’ making life happen.
Yes, it’s a very powerful and revolutionary message backed up by many scientific discoveries being made these days.
Yes, the other interesting field is neuroscience. A scientist in Holland has recently proved that at a very early age something happens in the brain where a ‘me’ is simulated in order to protect the organism from what seems to be a separate world.
From survival then the whole story kicks in about control and making your life work and choice. (Laughingly). Actually the whole thing is based on a simulation.
In a sense you could say that it is but the very nature of non-dualism is beyond the idea of shift or evolution.
If you would like to pretend that there is such a thing as story or time then this message has always been available but naturally hidden by the mind which projects it into a dogma. This isn’ t a shift in evolution but a recognition of what already is.
Exactly.
What is interesting about this time is that these meetings wouldn’t have happened fifteen years ago. There has been a sudden explosion of non-dualism in the last ten years. Although there are thousands of books and teachings out there, under the heading of Advaita, that are very confused, there has been a huge opening to this message.
Perhaps we are reaching the end of civilisation as we know it. Being emerges as the world is apparently coming to an end, so unity is seen more readily. This world falls back into ‘Being’, to apparently begin again as another story.
Yes, it is just like that. At the end of the orgasm everything becomes apparent and then everything goes back home to one day emerge again.
Yes, ha-ha, its lovely isn’t it (laughing). Beautiful, amazing… stunning. There and not there.
Yes, it’s amazing.
It is a perfect description. It’s a constant wonder.
There is an awakening. The whole isn’t seen because there is still a subtle, nearly invisible ‘me’ seeking. Claire and I talk to a lot of people. Our experience of them, and ourselves, is that there can be a preliminary seeing of this but also a subtle someone still there. Finally that part of that seeker drops away and there is just everything. Until there is no one it can never be seen that all there is is everything because there is still somebody looking. (Laughs).
Yes. This is the case for most people that there is a residue that eventually drops away. It is occasionally possible that some people do not have this residue and go straight to liberation.
As a tiny child when the ‘me’ is simulated there is a weaning out of ‘being’ which the child will remember for some years. Then that is lost in the over layer of the ‘me’. So awakening is a weaning back into being.
Yes, this relates back to your last question and that is, it cannot be seen that there is only everything until there is no one looking. And that they are looking for something in time that is timeless.
Exactly.