Selected quotes from

"Neither This Nor That I Am"

by Jean Klein

Watkins © 1981 Jean Klein

"The world exists because you exist, but you are not the world. Objects of consciousness, names
and forms, are the world. But reality, ever still, is beyond them. It is purely by reflex that you
insist upon the name and form, and this reality escapes you."

"When you act you are one with the action, it is only afterwards that the ego appropriates the act
from which it was absent. But the ego s a thought just like any other and thus cannot possibly be
its own creator."

"The best way to bring a malfunction to an end on either the physical or psychological plane is to
totally accept the perception we have of it. This does not mean accepting it morally, but actively.
Acceptance is lucid, watchful awareness. It is this acceptance that brings about the cure. Seen
from an "accepting" point of view; illness no longer has any substance, and the patient then has
the greatest possible chance of getting better."

"Acceptance means objectifying the sensation, not trying to escape it, dominate it or suppress it.
In this total acceptance the body regains its health for it already knows health."

"In pure sensation, the idea of being somebody just does not exist. There is no-one to judge nor
condemn, no doer to intervene.
Perception is always closer to reality than the concept. More authentic, it allows the sensation to
come fully to life. As when you pluck the string of a musical instrument, the vibration is first
captured by the soundbox, then by the surroundings, and so on in succession.
In everyday life we rarely give sensations time to make themselves felt. We prematurely,
intervene, conceptualizing and qualifying them. Perceptions and concepts cannot exist
simultaneously and we tend to cut the perception short before it has fully flourished."

"To accept, to take note, this is awareness. There is no other way of expressing it than this for
memory does not intervene. Sometimes we come very near to this state when meditating, there
are moments when we are silent awareness."

"Sooner or later you will be attention, attention without objects. This would seem to have no
meaning when talking of attention, for one is necessarily attentive towards something. But this
attention is absolutely empty, it is not focused on an object, it is free of any memory."
"The very instant thoughts and feelings arise you have not the slightest notion of being a person,
the ego is totally absent. The ego itself is no more than a thought and two thoughts cannot take
form simultaneously. Identification with the ego only comes into being once the thought
concerning the object has subsided. Then it claims this thought as its own. Once this becomes
obvious, you realize that the servitude you previously took to be real is but an illusion, your true
nature transcends it."

"Do not nourish the ideas you have built around yourself nor the image people have of you. Be
neither someone nor something, just don't play the game. This will bring about being, constant
awareness."

"Observe the way your mind moves, works, without having any preconceived ideas about it. A
moment will come when you discover yourself to be the witness. Subsequently, when all striving
has left you, you will realize that you are the light shining beyond the observer. Reality is neither
a product of the mind nor the result of a whole train of thoughts, it just is. The only method we
can suggest is to observe impartially the way in which your mind reacts in the different
circumstances of everyday life."

"Deeply buried within you is the conviction that all objects and your surroundings are separate from
you, outside you. In the same way, feelings and your body are just objects amongst others which can
also be considered separate from you. If we adopt this point of view, the ego loses its substance. You
will come to see that your thoughts, your I-thought, emotions, likes and dislikes are equally only
perceived objects. This standpoint will lead you to realize spontaneously that you are the ultimate
knower, and your notion of being a personal entity will thus lose all meaning."

"For most people, attention is only understandable as concentration directed toward something, or as
deriving from the attraction of an object. The stress we put on the object that interests us creates the
illusion of continuity. Choiceless attention enables the object to melt into silent stillness, the ultimate
non-dual subject which is the background of all apparent duality."

"When you listen without being aggressive or resisting, your whole body becomes this listening.
Everything surrounding you is included in this listening, and ultimately there is total listening. There is no
longer a listener and something listened to. You are then on the threshold of non-duality. You have left
conceptual patterns behind. You must live this experience for yourself. "I am" points towards ultimate
reality."

"We exchange ideas so as to know their worth, so as to find a just way of seeing things, but under no
circumstances do we try to situate ourselves in relation to a thought or a projection. Basically it is a form
of reasoning which is meant to being about its own elimination, so that sooner or later you will find
there is no room for personal identity."
"You have taken note , you have already seen yourself being carried away by your thoughts. To see it
implies a transfer of energy away from your usual thought patterns toward reality. As other thoughts
occur, quite a different attitude will settle within you and you will remain outside the whole process. In
the end you will find yourself without words."

"Reality is not limited to the body and mind. We can consider the latter to be instruments, our property
to be put to use. The changes that the body and mind go through during the different ages; childhood,
adolescence, adulthood and old age are seen by a knower. This knower who observes these changes
could not do so if he were not himself unchanging."

"But at other times when you say I exist, you are heading towards the perception of a non-state, which
is neither of the body nor of the mind.This non-state is being, it is indeterminable, cannot be located
mentally or physically. It is neither a thought nor a feeling. This non-state is identical to that of your
surroundings. You are of the very same essence. In this non-state there are no surroundings. If there is
another, that is, if there are surroundings, there is an I, and vice-versa. Our surroundings are not
contained by name and form. You are neither the body nor the mind, these are limits you identify with
through a lack of clear-sightedness. When you are attentive to a tree or flower, the perception, shape,
name and concept are not the only things present. There is also the All-presence that you share with
them and that you are both part of. The very name and form spring forth from this eternal background,
the All-presence. This is instantaneous awareness that cannot be reached by thought."

"Eventually you come to realize that all intention, all will is but an escape from the suffering incurred by
the ego. The object itself contains neither suffering nor pleasure, but is entirely dependent on the
person behind it. It is when we refuse to accept a situation that we create and maintain suffering. This
suffering just like pain is a pointer, a warning. As such we can accept it. With acceptance the ego is
superseded and its virulence weakens."

"[We free ourselves] By awareness, free from all reference to the past, free from bodily or psychological
habits, free from choice and repetition. It is a door open to spontaneous understanding and having
nothing to do with mental activity. Instantaneous total vision consumes error. The energy which
previously constituted the error shifts away from it and integrates with truth that is being. The ego
striving to survive either clings on to its accumulated memories, or projects desires into the future, thus
using up a considerable amount of energy."

"All perceptions are objects, just as he who feels fear is an object. He who knows these objects is outside
them. Fear is a perception; before we name it there is no fear, there is only perception. Once we name it
there is no perception but a concept, an idea, for concepts and perceptions cannot co-exist.."

"You know that awareness without tension, where you are uninvolved and do not seek a conclusion, is
total awareness. "
"We always strive to find ourselves in relation to objects, we constantly want to choose, master,
arrange, classify, qualify. This is a tremendous waste of energy."

"In the evening when you go to bed prepare yourself, so as to avoid taking your daily worries with you.
Observe whatever should present itself objectively; if you feel tired, feel it deep within yourself, look at
it closely, this you will spontaneously find yourself exterior to it. Sooner or later a moment will arrive
where it is no longer the focal point of your attention and it will disappear, will be burnt up by this
awareness. The same thing will happen to all worries that preoccupy you. You will thus experience a
feeling of harmony. Finally let your body sink into deep sleep."

"When you wake up in the morning, don't do so in relation to objects, let it be in the Self, your true
being. First of all be deeply aware, later the ego and the world will come to life."

"Expectation is like the carpet preventing us from seeing the floor simply because we are so used to
seeing the carpet. The day we send it away to be cleaned, its absence allows us to see the floor."

"Perception is entirely independent of the perceiver and of the perceived object, which are but
concepts. Perception is living, the only reality, now, however gross or subtle it may be. Each perception
is a non-dual experiencing of pure awareness. Subsequently we may say: "I thought this or that, or I
heard a chord in C major" ... at the actual time, there was no thought, no sensation, only "I am". With
deep conviction, this fact will take root within up and we will no longer need to make an effort to
remember it. It is this true understanding that turns the "I am" into a reality."

"In reality there is only the Self, the non-dual Self which is. Awareness is reflected in the mind's mirror,
and this gives birth to the ego. Seeing this dependent and separate. We mistakenly take ourselves to be
this or that, but in reality there is only the true "I am" beyond time and space."

"When one is struck by wonder or astonishment there is perfect non-duality between the knower and
the thing known. It is a living reality. Let yourself be totally absorbed by it, then thought and action will
derive directly from this background which is wonderment."

"Otherwise you only listen to projections, to the already known. The investigation we're speaking of is
an observation of each situation in your life without reference to previous experience, without drawing
any conclusions. It is outside the ordinary memory process."
Page 4

"You could call this fore-feeling the original perception, wherein there is neither perceiver nor anything
perceived - only identity with perception. You feel (without feeling it) that during all states - waking,
dreaming, and sleeping - pure objectless consciousness is."
"When you really love someone, there's no longer an "I" or an "other." Love is empty of all such
attributes."

"The image of being somebody is very deeply rooted. It stimulates insecurity, but even this insecurity
provides a hold for the ego. Let it go."

"There is the conviction that you are nobody, but moments arise in your daily life when you find yourself
reacting. You see the event, you see your neighbor, and you still put an image of an "I" between your
neighbor and yourself, between the event and yourself."

"Come to know the body through listening to it, for the body is in you, you are not in it. The body is a
case history, so one must give it the chance to reveal itself. And to do this you must be still. Listening has
no room for someone who listens. There is only alert, empty listening, which allows the body to express
its history. Otherwise you can't ever really get to know your body, because it becomes a projection of
your memory. For most of us, it isn't the body that awakens each morning but the pattern, the idea, we
have of it. It isn't real, You may ask, "What is real?" That which exists in itself is real. The body needs
consciousness to exist. If you aren't conscious of it, the body doesn't exist."

"Everything that can be perceived has no reality; it has need of an agent to be known. Consciousness
alone is real because it needs no agent. The body is just an idea. It appears and disappears in
consciousness, and what appears and disappears in consciousness is nothing else than consciousness.
The body, the whole universe is an expression of consciousness."

"There's no person to answer personal questions. I listen to your question and I listen to the answer. The
answer comes out of silence."

"Awareness of stillness, of silence, may first arise in the absence of objects, as often happens in sitting
meditation. But later, it is sustained in both their presence and absence. This awareness, which is
listening, is the background of every appearance, so that even while engaged in activity you are aware of
both the activity and being."

"But we can be simultaneously aware of both our phenomenal existence and our presence, being. This
non-state spontaneously appears the instant producing and projecting cease."

"I'm not speaking of pain as a concept, but as a perception, a sensation. Usually we resist the pure
sensation by constructing some ideas of pain. And this refusal is a reaction which contributes to the
pain. But when you allow pain to be pure sensation, devoid of any psychological reaction, all the energy
previously localized as pain is liberated and dissolved back into the ultimate.
Another way to express this is to let the body be the body. The body has an organic memory of health.
You have the proof of this in the fact that when you cut your finger, it heals within a week. The body
evidently knows precisely how to heal itself."
"...because the motive behind all effort is to be effortless. The sole desire is for desirelessness. You see
this when you look at what happens the moment a desired object is obtained. There is desirelessness
but nobody who is desireless, so at this point there is no object as its cause. You live in your real non-
dual nature. Later, however, you leave it and the "I" enters, saying, "I was happy because I bought a new
house, or met a new friend" and so on. But a time comes when this object no longer suffices. So you
begin anew to search for some other object. And this vicious circle continues until you finally see that
desirelessness has absolutely nothing to so with any object. It is in you."

"...the movement of thoughts becomes slow and we can watch each thought, its cause and content as it
occurs."

"Observing everything with full attention becomes a way of life, a return to your original and natural
meditative being."

"Life is present, but when we think, we think in terms of the past or the future. To live in the now
implies a mind free from end-gaining and recapitulation, free from grasping and striving. In the present
there is no thought; thoughts are fused into a whole. Life in the moment contains all possible
happenings so there is no place for time. Everything can be summed up in this: time is thought and
thought appears in time. Beauty and joy are now revealed in the now."

"When the intellect becomes silent through observation, through listening, the basic nature of the mind
undergoes a transformation."