Just One Look Forum Archives

My story about the looking begins in the 80's with the movie "Look who's talking" starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley.

In the movie the main character, a baby boy named "Mikey" is constantly commenting on what is happening around him (narrated by the voice of Bruce Willis). This struck me as odd when I watched it because having a voice inside my head, narrating everything, was not at all how I experienced it.

I remember having the notion that it would be great to have an entertaining voice like Bruce Willis making comments on everything. So I decided to try to create such a voice!

It was hard at first because I had to create it using will, but after a while it became like an automatic and (although skewed) instant replay on life. I remember being quite disappointed with my inner voice because it wasn't funny like Bruce Willis' voice in the movie, it was much more neurotic in its nature. Actually it reminded me about Woody Allen, sadly enough I didn't find him to be in the least bit funny…

I remember one day a couple of months later when I was walking home from a friend's house, it struck me that something had changed fundamentally in the way I was perceiving life.

It was as if a fog had place itself in between me and my life that made everything seem bleak and far away. The feeling was like I wasn't really in me anymore but I didn't know where else I could be. When I tried to place myself back in the position of first person with its direct experience of life I saw that my concept of being in the direct experience of life had taken the place of the actual experience and anything I tried to do to change that was just another concept. I realized that I was trapped and that I did not know how to get back to the realness of my own life experience...

I was only nine years old at the time and I knew that I was to young to figure this out so I decided to wait until I was older.

Some years later I had an "awakening experience" that gave me a taste of the directness to life that I had lost. The intense seeking that commenced after that drove me into the conceptual realm of Advaita Vedanta and non dualism with all the self inquiry and meditation that comes along with it. I was desperately seeking an end to this nightmare and saw spirituality as the one and only way out.

After hitting a pretty hard wall at a ten-day silent retreat in Thailand I realized that looking at the sense of me would be just the ticket. At the time I was too addicted to the non dual teachings to really heed that calling and another year would pass before I was to find John. When I did, I still wasn't ready; the head chopping style of his teachings actually scared my "non dual ego thingy" enough to get me to hide out for a while longer.

But once I got back I heard John say; "It's just the feeling of hereness" and I knew I had finally found what I was looking for.

Cause it's the doing of it, it's not the idea about it, no matter how profound, that closes the gap.

I thank you John and al you other guys and girls who made this simple looking so darn simple!

Love

Rickard

Thank you sir! Thank you for sharing yourself. Yipee!

This is such a beautiful report Rickard, thank you so much for sharing! I understand exactly what you mean when you say, "It was as if a fog had place itself in between me and my life that made everything seem bleak and far away. The feeling was like I wasn't really in me anymore but I didn't know where else I could be. When I tried to place myself back in the position of first person with its direct experience of life I saw that my concept of being in the direct experience of life had taken the place of the actual experience and anything I tried to do to change that was just another concept." This is so well put and clear.

It is so lovely to be in the space of a clear and intimate experience with our life again.

With love,

Dawn