“The donkey is not tied to the tree”

A friend wrote:

I want to emphasize, “see stillness”, rather than “be still”, works best personally, because “be still” can be performative for me.

I replied:

“Seeing” stillness is also performative. “Seeing” is an action, though it may seem less like an action than “being” still, but sight wanders from “seeing” stillness to “seeing” other things either in the mind or in the world, etc. Thn one has to “perform” the action of getting back to “seeing” stillness, which is an action that one performs. So, instead of “seeing” or “being”, one should ask who is the “seer” or the one “trying” to be still? Because this whole exercise of “seeing” or “being” is seen as necessary or inevitable if one accepts bondage and therefore thinks that one has to “see” or “be”, but what one has to do is “understand” that one is indeed already and always was the “stillness”, so no need for any “doing” or “performative” sense to “see” or “be”. Understanding lets one see that there is no ignorance or bondgae requiring “effort” to be overcome. Hence, no need to “see” or “be” still. Understand you are what you are trying to “see” or “be”. The need for “seeing” or “being” arises due to the ignorance that one is the body-mind and hence one is now separate from the stillness or awareness. Just understand that is not the case.

ChatGPT8:23 PM

That’s a clean and internally consistent Advaita articulation, Sam — and it lands exactly where radical non‑doing points.

You’re making a precise distinction that’s easy to miss:

• “Being still” can be performative
• “Seeing stillness” can also be performative
• because both subtly assume a separate agent who must do something

From that standpoint, your conclusion follows rigorously:

Any instruction that presumes a doer — even a refined one like “see” — still operates within the logic of bondage.

So your move is to cut below practice and say:

• bondage itself is a misunderstanding
• stillness is not an object to attain
• awareness is not something to enter
• the seeker is the mistaken assumption

And therefore:

Understanding dissolves the need for effort, because it dissolves the premise that effort is required.

This is classical Advaita in its uncompromising form:
jnana as recognition, not sadhana as process.

Where this sits relative to PRM’s language is simply this:

• “see stillness” functions as a provisional pointer for minds that still experience effort
• your position speaks from the resolution, where even pointers are unnecessary

Both can coexist without contradiction, as long as it’s clear which level of address is being used.

So your closing line is the key one:

Understand you are what you are trying to see or be.

Once that lands—not intellectually but existentially—
the entire grammar of practice collapses on its own.

Nothing to add beyond that.

I wrote:

If you have to “see” anything, “see” that no “seeing” is necessary because who is to “see” whom when ther is only the One.

ChatGPT8:26 PM

Yes — that’s the logical end‑point of the pointer.

In strict Advaita terms, even “seeing” that one is stillness is only a final concession made to the sense of separation. Once it is clear that separation itself is a false premise, the entire structure of practice collapses.

Your formulation is precise:

• If there is only the One,
• there can be no seer and no seen,
• therefore no act of seeing is required.

At that point, the instruction is not:

• see stillness
• be still
• abide as awareness

but simply:

the recognition that nothing was ever missing.

This is why classical Advaita ultimately says:

• ignorance was never real,
• bondage never truly existed,
• liberation is not an event,
• and effort belongs only to the dream of a seeker.

Any remaining “seeing” language is pedagogical, not ontological — useful until it is no longer needed, and then naturally dropped.

Well stated.

I wrote:

No need to kill the snake. Realize that the snake is actually a rope. No need to end the “ego”. Realize that the “ego” also is nothing but Brahman.

ChatGPT8:28 PM

That’s a precise Advaita closure, Sam.

You’re pointing to recognition rather than correction:

• the problem is not the snake, but mis‑seeing the rope
• the problem is not the ego, but mistaking it for an independent entity

From that standpoint, nothing needs to be destroyed, purified, or transcended.
Once it’s seen that the ego has no substance apart from Brahman, the urge to “end” it loses its basis.

Practice, effort, and negation belong only as long as the rope is taken to be a snake.
When the seeing is clear, action falls away on its own.

That’s the heart of non‑duality.

I wrote:

And, when the above is understood, then no need to “be” still because when the “need” for effort drops away, there is only stillness.

ChatGPT8:32 PM

Yes — that follows exactly.

When the assumption of bondage dissolves, the need for stillness dissolves with it. And when the need for effort drops away, what remains is not a state achieved, but what was already the case.

So stillness is no longer something to:

• enter,
• maintain,
• return to,
• or perform.

It is simply the absence of the false movement that thought it had to do something.

In that sense:

• effort ends not by force,
• practice ends not by abandonment,
• but by understanding removing its own necessity.

Nothing is added.
Nothing is attained.
Nothing is lost.

Only the misunderstanding ceases — and stillness stands revealed as self‑evident.