A FINAL DISCLAIMER, A NECESSARY ONE, before we get on with the story already. The task here is to tell the story of what happened in the jungle. There is no reason to do this, no ‘point’ to the story. The Understanding itself cannot be talked about, can only be pointed to, and that is all that can be done now, is what everything that happens through this mind/body thing is. Talking about the experiential events in the dream that led up to and surrounded the ‘pop’ of perception, the realization, the waking out of the dream, is meaningless; it is just more dream story.

There are those who have asked for this story to be told, perhaps to be able to evaluate for themselves. Fair enough; here are the circumstances surrounding that event. Ultimately it is only the Understanding itself which is of value, not the story of the mind/body thing. But the story is asked for, so here it is. This is what happened in this mind/body. So what? Who cares?

When Ramesh Balsekar’s book Who Cares? was published, I found that in typing the title, these fingers (creatures of habit) would inevitably misspell it by inverting two letters and typing Who Carse? It brings a smile every time, a little gift in Consciousness. The title of Ramesh’s book is not meant dismissively or rhetorically but rather, in the tradition of Ramana Maharshi’s “Who am I?” as a question to be investigated: “Who is it that cares?” So too this: “Who is this ‘carse’?” Who indeed. No one at all, and what does it matter? The accepted social norm is to emphasize the individual: the individual character, the individual effort, the individual experience, the individual story. In fact, nothing could be further from having any significance.

So please do not make the mistake of reading this to find out something about this so-called life, some pattern or path or some chain of causation. The perfect unfolding, the infinite expression in Consciousness is indeed perfect, is indeed infinite. There is no path, except in hindsight; and then there are infinite paths. If you read this story and add it to your collection of stories of pathways to enlightenment, and study the similarities and chart the differences, the story will be of no help and may actually be a massive hindrance.

Like any practice, any work, any trying, any thinking, any book; the only possible help it can be is if you spend your whole life doing it and finally realize it is of no value, doesn’t get you anywhere. Forget it. The Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao. The story that can be told is just more noise. Be still. Who is the ‘I’ that Is, in Stillness? That is what you want. Not this. Read this for entertainment in the dream, if you must, but don’t be sidetracked.

The story is thoroughly saturated with language making use of the words ‘I,’ ‘me,’ and ‘my.’ See how silly this story thing is? This is pure fiction. There is no such entity. ‘Me’ is a mythological idea. The story is told of events happening to someone; but there is no one here, no one to whom events can happen. The personal pronouns are used as necessary conventions of language, but they refer only to this body/mind organism, which is empty of any personal self or entity to refer to. See how vacuous this whole thing is? So what? Who carse?

This cannot be emphasized enough: the first parts of what happened in the jungle consisted of a series of experiences, and so can be thought about, remembered, talked about. In this case there were what could perhaps be called deep, transformative, even dramatic experiences. But it must be remembered that this part of what happened in the jungle, the preparatory part, however deep and wonderful, was still only experience, experience occurring in or through this mind/body thing. As such it is essentially without any particular significance. Dream events in the dream life of a dream character have no lasting significance.

Spiritual teachers sometimes remark that you can consider yourself fortunate if you have not had dramatic spiritual or mystical experiences. Perhaps I have not been as lucky; there have been experiences, some of which are related here. Such is the script for this dream character.

But with them, the clear seeing that experience is neither understanding nor wisdom, but only the circumstances under which these may or may not occur. An experience of awakening is not Awakening.

And so the story about these experiential parts of what happened in the jungle has nothing directly to do with what came later, with what we call Awakening or the Understanding. The first parts, the experience parts, the parts that don’t matter, (although of course, like everything else, they play their part in the infinite unfolding) can be described more or less as they happened. The last part, an instantaneous event out of time and out of experience, can only be pointed to more obliquely.