Kenneth Madden | No-Thing And Boundless Freedom

36:04

36:04

Kenneth Madden | No-Thing And Boundless Freedom

by Alex Hickman

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talks

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Meditation

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Kenneth Madden is quite a well known 'teacher' in this space. Having watched a couple of his videos prior to the conversation, I resonated with the (seeming) personality and I enjoyed speaking with him. We spoke about:- - 'Spiritual' seeking - How psychology/philosophy are 'seen' - Free will - Meaning - Mental Health - Why this isn't 'nihilistic' - Knowing

Psychology Mental Health Non Duality Wholeness Self Mind Duality Longing Beyond Mind Embracing Duality Knowledge Spirits

Meet your Teacher

West Midlands, England, United Kingdom

Meet your Teacher

West Midlands, England, United Kingdom

Transcript

Kenneth, Madam, Thank you for joining me. I appreciate it. This message that you have here, I don't live in this space, Right? I've spoke to Jim Newman, Tony Parsons, A few of these guys. And there's a deep resonance with what's being said. And that's why I wanted to speak to you because I want to stay around it myself. It's like a selfish point of view, Right? So explain to me and the listeners what this is. When you say this, You mean what you mean? This, The message? Radical non-duality, Yeah, The message. All right. Well, First of all, There's no such thing as non-duality. So there's no really such thing as radical non-duality either. It's become clear maybe why I say this later on. There's a communication that is from, Is nobody's communication. It's from nothing. It's a clear and uncompromising suggestion that there is no separate you and there's just what appears to happen. That is different to another communication that also falls under this heading of non-duality, Which does speak to you, Which sounds very similar, Which says there is no separate you, So on. But essentially this very clear uncompromising message is one that is less common, But is one that is energetically different in that it does not speak to an individual. It's simply a sharing. It's not a teaching. It doesn't come from a knowing. It doesn't come from somebody who knows. It's an agendalist sharing that has a certain quality to it. And there you go. It comes under the umbrella of non-duality, But clearly non-duality is just really another kind of religion or another kind of spiritual area or whatever. You could call it different things. And that's fine. That's nothing right or wrong with that. So I tend to find, I heard you say earlier, Actually I was listening to one of your interviews and you said something along the lines of regardless of what everybody does, It's basically just a symptom of wanting to return back to what they already are, Like the sense of wholeness, Which they haven't lost in the first place. So the guy who is sitting there meditating is doing the same thing as the guy who's injecting heroin just to a different degree. Could you sort of expand on that a little bit? Yeah. So there's a sense of, There's a really felt sense of being separate. It's not an idea. There's a sense of feeling in the body, A contracted sense of being in the body, Looking out on the world. So that's generally how people will report themselves to be, That they are separate people. And so I've always said that it's like there's life and then there's my life. So there's me with my life. There's life and then there's me with my life and I have a life. And I've been told all my life that I have a life. My parents, My family, My teachers, Everybody has told me I have a life. So I have to work hard and focus and make something of the life I have. And that's the way, That's the lived reality then. It feels very real that I am a person and I'm looking at other people. So there's this subject-object reality that we feel we live in. We live in the real. So that's the way it appears to be. And when it is like that, There's a yearning for wholeness. So the person then thinks that, Okay, There's a yearning. Say if there's a recognition that there is a yearning, There's a, Well, That yearning is for whatever, You know, You could call it for, You know, Completion, Self-actualization, Fulfilment, Whatever. And it is done through all of these endeavours, Success, Power, Money, Recognition from my peers, You know, Accomplishing different things, Whatever. And that's fine. Again, Nothing wrong or right with any of that. But what's being suggested simply is actually what you're what's actually being yearned for is not these things that you think that will get you somewhere. Actually what's being yearned for is simply whatever is appearing to happen. And this is going to come as quite a shock to the person. You know, It's just, It's very simple that what's being yearned for is already the case. It's already sitting on a chair, Looking out a window, Speaking, Whatever. So in the very same way that actually what's yearned for has never been lost, It's just already the case. But you've been lost looking for it because actually that there's nothing has ever been missing. It's that there was an addition of an artificial you. So it involves a loss of this artificial you, An apparent loss. So what you're saying sort of destroys the Western, The Western idea of like individual, The pursuit of individual happiness and all that stuff. Yeah, It's very counter intuitive to that. That communication that is, You know, Life, Liberty, And the pursuit of happiness, You know, As in the American Constitution of that, It's very, In Western culture, It's that what you're looking for has to be pursued. It can't already just be the case. And you've got to work towards it. And maybe someday you'll get there. And then we in that reality, Then we have stories of people who have arrived. So they have arrived and you can get to where they are. So we're all kind of on this hamster wheel of kind of searching for something and sometimes feeling like we get there for a while and maybe that's transitory as well. And then, But continually yearning for something that is usually around the corner, It's around the next corner. It can't just simply be whatever is appearing to be. That's kind of boring to the person. It's not satisfactory. Unsatisfactory. It doesn't feel like this, For example. There's an energy here that wants to go and achieve something. Yeah. Yeah. Would there be, There's that drive to, And it's different for every person. You know, Some people have it very intensely, Very, Very intensely and some people much less so. Some people are, You know, Maybe quite content and they're not that much of a, There's no feel that much of a yearning. And that's the beauty of it. It is just different. But all the time, There's a sense of feeling like a person. Underneath that, There is some sort of yearning. Because there's a question then, There's a question of what is it that's missing? Because when you feel like there's the world and there's me, There's something not quite right with that whole picture. And you know, This first happening, For the lack of a better term, Was that after a period of seeking or was it just a spontaneous happening? Well, Actually there's nobody that's not seeking. So once you feel like a person, Everyone that feels like a person is seeking in one way or another. But then we kind of think of the more traditional seeker that's maybe more, We would think of that as more of a spiritual person maybe, Or someone who's seeking, Or maybe not just, Maybe not nowadays, Just spirituality, But more experientially, Or someone who's looking for something that's usually not materialistic, Some sort of state of mind or experience or spiritual thing that they're seeking and that's the way we think. But then I actually really, Nobody's not seeking if they feel like a person. It may be more pronounced in those people I just mentioned, Or they may identify more as a seeker. But once there's that sense of feeling separate, There's a question and a yearning. I think it does arise, The question comes to my mind that if it wasn't meant to be that way, Why would it be that way as it is? You would be like 99. 99% of people, What you're probably suggesting here would just go completely, Wouldn't even consider it. Yeah, It's always a surprise actually to be honest. It never fails to amaze me how it can just be an openness to this. There's no telling, There's absolutely no telling. Someone might just totally resonate with this. And there's more of an openness now, But in general, In general, This would be very strange, What's being suggested, It would be quite strange. There is nothing on offer to the individual and it's the illumination that the individual is in fact a story. So in general, That's very confronting. But I suppose to go back and answer your question as regards seeking. So you asked, Was there seeking here? So there was a sense of feeling like an individual person. So as I explained, Anyone who feels like a person is seeking in some way or another, And then there was a going to a meditation retreat. But the interesting thing about it was, It was just on the recommendation of a friend and it just so happened that I was finishing my studies. So it all just kind of came, It struck me as an interesting thing to do. So there was no expectations around it at all, Nothing. And I went and then boom, I just wasn't there, Clearly wasn't there. It was two days into it. And then it was, I spoke about this lots of times, But it was, It began to be quite obvious that there was nobody meditating. And it began to be quite obvious that nothing had actually happened. So there was a period of time in which there was quite an intense searching in the more traditional way of spirituality, What was it that was seen, It was undeniable, And so on. And then I heard Tony Parsons in about, Let me see, When was it? You're probably talking 2007, I'd say. And then instantly when I heard what was being communicated, It was seen that what had appeared to happen a year previous to that hadn't actually happened. It wasn't a happening. And nothing had happened to me. It was that that sense of me had collapsed. So that's really it in a nutshell. So nothing happens. What I just told you there is a story, Nothing actually happens. And I guess you could sum it up by, Like, Logically, The brain would think something happened to Kenneth because of the meditation. But then it was very clear that nothing happened and it was revealed despite anything that seemed to proceed it. So i. E. That is the meditation. So it's actually irrelevant. It's totally irrelevant. But some people latch onto that then and think, Well, If something happened to Kenneth when he was meditating and Kenneth always, Always, Has always been very clear it had nothing to do with meditation whatsoever. It was just that this was, It was just, It was just seen. And you could be unlucky enough to be thinking you're doing a spiritual practice. And if you were, Then logically you will think that maybe the spiritual practice is what brought something about and that would be. But what's actually been spoken of here is not logical, It's not linear, It is not causal, It is beyond knowing. So the knowing we have is linear, Logical, Causal, Sequential. And what's actually been yearned for is totally beyond the mind. And it's remarkably ordinary and simple and already the case. It's just what's appearing to happen. It's very simple. We're all actually, What's been yearned for is just already the case. And that's why it appeared. That's why Tony called it the open secret. And that's why, You know, Other people like we had the book, The Open Secret and it's been called, That's a lovely expression really, Because it is the open secret. Because it's just already the case. So what an amazing way to appear to hide. It doesn't get more fantastic than that. Let's hide by already being everything. Yeah, What's coming up here is like, I guess I'm, My mind's going and it's trying to go, This is a coping mechanism for the suffering of life. It feels like if this was a way of life for me, I would be trying to escape from life's issues. So when you say that, You mean the sense of being separate is a coping mechanism? Or do you think that what I'm suggesting is a coping mechanism? I'm not suggesting what, The second thing you just said, But I don't think it is, That's what is coming up in my mind, As if to say. . . Oh yeah, That's fine. Yeah. So that's what's happening there then. There's an idea there that what I've just suggested is just that there's some people who have a way of coping with life, That they tell themselves they're not there, Or they tell themselves there's just what's appearing to happen. So that just occurred to you there. That was just an idea that occurred to you. See, The beautiful thing about this is, This is not actually right, Because there is no right or wrong, Actually. It's not that what's being shared here is the right way and that everyone else is on the wrong way. There is no right or wrong way. There's just what's appearing to happen. And this is just a suggestion that's been made without any kind of requirement or agenda or anything. So it's either heard or it isn't. It's that simple, Really. Yeah. And the seeming atrocities that go on around the world, Would you suggest that just, It is what it is? There's obviously you don't go around telling each other. . . Everything just, Yeah, Everything just is what it is. Everything just is a play of light. It's an appearance. In the story of separation, Everything is on a scale of good to bad or good to evil or whatever. And because this is the play, The dualistic play of the person that the person lives in. And actually, When you feel like a person, There being a meaning to what's. . . Everything is happening. It's really happening. And it's imbued with meaning. And that meaning is what draws your attention to one thing or another and it kind of helps knit the fabric of the story together. So it's a very important part of feeling like a person, Is for things to have meaning. And when that sense of being a person collapses, Meaning completely collapses because there's no need for meaning anymore because there's just energy, There's just what's appearing to happen, Which is nothing being everything. So everything is actually just an appearance anyway. And any meaning would be just something that you would be putting on things. And that's what meaning is. It's people imbuing life events with meaning for it to be significant to them or insignificant or whatever. I see that all the time at the moment in the world. It's like, Oh, We've got a meaning crisis and I'm just thinking, Well, Ain't that just what people believe? Ain't it just an opinion? Yeah. I don't know why we've got some sort of a big, Massive psychology around meaning when it just feels like we're doing it ourselves. It makes no sense to me. But it's just, It's just something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, So we've got all sorts of crises. Things have changed rapidly in a couple of years. There's a lot going on energetically. And there is a complete, How would you say, It's like a deconstruction of reality now, Of what's reality. It's very postmodern. It's very polarised and it's very much a huge power struggle to find a new reality. And that's what's playing out before our eyes now. And that's the way it is. So the narrative is shifting in all sorts of ways all the time. It's hard to keep up. Nobody's doing anything. And nobody's doing anything. Yeah. It's all part of the story. So simply, What's being shared is that there is already nobody. There's no separate anything. And all there is is energy. And so energy is and isn't. It's nothing being everything. So there's the appearance of things happening. And that contrasts with when you feel like a person, There's you and there's the world. And it's not the appearance of things happening. Things are real. There's a living in the real. It's only real. So there's a time when you're not real. There's a thing called life and there's this other thing called death. And this is the dualism. And then things are really happening to me in life. And it's all happening in a linear, Causal reality in which it moves forward into the future. And there's a past behind us. And that feels completely real. It feels absolutely real to the person. There's a real thing called time. And there's a real felt lived experience of moving through time. And when it's real, It feels absolutely real. The person feels completely real. It's not an idea. It's a really felt feeling of being in the body, Looking out on the world. And when that sense of being a separate person is no longer, It's immediately obvious to nobody that all of that was a story, That nothing even happened, Nothing even fell away. And so there's only what's appeared to happen. There never was separate people. There's just what's appeared to happen. And it's a complete mystery. It's all knowable. It's just. . . So I'm trying to catch my mind. It's going, So what needs to be done for this to happen? Yeah, Of course. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. And that's okay. Like some things I often say at the start of my meetings, I nearly always say actually, If this is a sharing, You can't go wrong or right with this. So if something is there, A question is there, Just say it because it can't be a right or wrong question. It's just energy. It's just what's appearing to happen. And when this is shared, There are all sorts of questions like that. And although there is often a huge irreverence and a huge humour around this, Nobody's ever been laughed at either. Because someone could say the most ridiculous thing and that's fine. That's just what's appeared to happen because there's nobody to even laugh at. There's just, You know, There's just whatever response comes. And some people sense that very clearly. They can sense that. Some people immediately sense that. They immediately sense that actually they're not being seen as an individual at all. And they're actually just being seen as unconditional love because they're just being seen as energy, Which is nothing being everything. They feel this energetically and they feel this boundlessness to the communication. And they feel this total love. And then in that can also be the confronting aspect of that because what feels like a person wishes to be spoken to and fed. And so it also finds that very unnerving. You know, Because I want to be. It's like, Hello, Hello, Hello. Sorry, I don't think you see me here. I don't. Maybe my screen's not on. Is my screen on? Sorry, Can you see me? Hello? Hello, I'm here. Hello. Sorry. You're not acknowledging me. I just like to get a bit of, You know, Like not. And that's the whole energy. And then the whole thing is that they won't be acknowledged because they're not there. So that just plays out like it plays out for that. For some, That's too much. That's just they just energetically absolutely hate this communication so much. And they run from it. Others stay with it. And actually, What they do is they engage with it just conceptually and they kind of know what's being said, Which is another way to really not hear what's being said is to turn it into something else. So all sorts of things can appear to happen. It's absolutely gorgeous. It's a total mystery because this communication, The first thing I saw about this, One of the first things I saw was there was no Tony Parsons. There was no Tony Parsons. That was so clear to me straight away. And people would say, Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony. And I would be at the meeting and go, You really think there's Tony there? You think it's, You know, It was so beautiful that it was just boundless, Unconditional love that was so completely impersonal and nothing to do with anybody. So that's the way that was the communication appeared to come from Kenneth and it appears to come from other characters. But they are just the character is irrelevant, Totally irrelevant, Nothing to do with anybody. And it doesn't come from a sense of knowing. It's totally from annoying actually. And it never ceases to amaze. It's just so amazing. So what you're saying completely obliterates psychology, Philosophy, Spirituality, The whole lot. It reveals it as just simply something in the story that is observational about the interactions of apparently separate people and speaks to them in the story about that. It's within that story of separation. It's not right or wrong or anything. It has no meaning. But some of it may be interesting and some of it may not be interesting. But the differentiation is that this is something that illuminates that there is no you, There is no separate you. And in that communication, In that illumination, That resonance, If there's an openness to it, That contracted sense of separation can just dissipate. And it can just be that there's just what's appeared to happen. But there's no guarantees for anything. It could actually get stronger. The sense of a person could get stronger. And there's no agenda for it to be heard as one way or another because actually I can't already, There are no separate people. So there's nobody even to liberate. There's nobody to liberate from separation because the sense of separation is only a story anyway. So yeah, That's a little bit about the way it goes. Paul So you know, The idea in the dream of free will, The philosophical and spiritual road to nowhere, The free will determinism debate, That sort of just collapses in on itself as well, Doesn't it? Paul Yeah, It totally collapses. And sometimes people come into my meetings and they want to discuss free will and you know, Say free will, But like, It's amazing what can come up at the meetings. Like, Whoever's meeting it is, It doesn't matter. But it's amazing. Like, It could be that, Say for instance, Free will comes up and someone asks a question about free will. And it's is there a thing called free will or is there not a thing called free will? And then it's very clear, It's very clearly illuminated that, Well, Free will is simply an aspect of the artificial individual. So this separate person isn't even really there. So that free will, Sense of free will and sense of agency of being the one who chooses and so on, That just is also, It's just an aspect of that sense of being separate. So that can just collapse. So all of these other, Like, What I'm saying is you could approach this from almost an infinite amount of points, Maybe not infinite, It's a bit of an exaggeration, But you can approach it from anywhere, You know, Because for instance, Someone else might say, Well, Time, What about time? It feels real. And then in that, The response then it shows that, Well, Time is real and unreal. It's real in its appearance. There's no separate thing called time. And a sense of there being a separate thing called time is from the sense of there being a you. So all of these things can come up but really, It's always coming back to the illumination that there's no separate you. Because this is the root of it all. This is the root of all of these, You know, Causality, Time, Space, Free will, All of these things are simply just aspects of this sense of being a separate you. So that's what it always continually comes back to. And when that is seen, By nobody, Boom, There's just, It's indescribable then, There's just what's appearing to happen. That's just some asshole over the road and I go, You know, There's no separation here. Like he's a prick. I don't want to be like him. You with me, There's like a rejection of that. Yeah, But listen, This is the thing is that energy assholes. So energy assholes, And there you go. It's beautiful. Like, I mean, Energy is everything, Nothing being everything. So that's the scene then. It's this, The collapse of dualism is that I, You know, This nice guy who's very, He's just a really nice guy. He'd really look after you. He'd feed your dog if he went on holiday. He'd keep an eye on you, You know, He'd, And then this other guy would chuck litter into your garden and piss against your gate. And he's an asshole. Do you know what I mean? And this is the dualism we live in. Whereas both of those things are just energy appearing as both of those characters. And that's what just is seen then by nobody is that there's just what's appearing to happen. Now that is completely, That really cannot be understood by the person really, Because the person is that dualism. The person is that, You know, Play of opposites of good and bad and nice and asshole and whatever, You know, And good and evil and all of those things. And it's just like, And because the mind kind of is that play of opposites too and organises itself around that, It's totally beyond understanding. And did you, Did the way you lived your life change? Well, You see, Again, It's back to the fact that I was no longer living my life. Okay, So the character of Kenneth, Did that change? Some things changed immediately. Some things completely collapsed immediately and other things kind of slowly kind of petered out a bit. But then the largely not so much. Often there's not as many changes as people would expect, Actually. Some people think there's going to be, Everything's going to change, But not necessarily. And the other thing to say about it is Kenneth was more Kenneth then. The character Kenneth was free to be more Kenneth because there was a dampening of the character, Because there was this whole energy of, I'm too much of one thing and I'm not enough of the other thing. Or why did I say that to that person? Or they misinterpreted me and I think I've offended them now. And I was a bit over the top here and I should have done more of this then. And these are the things that people do, This whole sense of kind of criticising and when that all collapses then with the sense of being separate, There's just life kennethine. Some people enjoy that and some people don't enjoy it at all. And that's just what's appearing to happen. It doesn't matter. There's nobody in there anymore. Yeah, What's coming up is that it's like you're in alignment with nature. I'm trying to grasp it in my mind again and it's just like nature playing out. That's what comes to me. Yeah, To be honest, It's not anything that's imaginable. What's being suggested about, Let's call it liberation, Just to call it something. Liberation, Let's say, Would be just that there's just what's appearing to happen and that there's nobody it's happening to. That's not actually describable. Nobody can ever describe that to you. And you can't ever understand it because if you understand it, You've really just made a concept out of it or something. And now when I say that, It sounds like it's just, Oh, It's just so unimaginable and fireworky and just esoteric and amazing that it just cannot be understood. It's not like that either. It's just so ordinary and obvious. It's just so immediately just this. It's so immediately just it's over by the time I try and describe it. Like if I tried to describe to you now what it feels like sitting on this chair and what's been seen and the microphone and the sound and everything, A load of words would come out, But they're just bummed. They're just words then. They're not sitting on the chair. So it's in that very same way that it's indescribable. And people already, It's completely already known what's being shared, Actually. That's the amazing thing also. That's why sometimes it's immediately, Immediately just bam, Because it's already known already because you are already that. You are already just energy. So it can just be bummed. So it can just be bummed. Oh, Of course. Of course, It's just this. So there's no way of telling. I think it's too, You know, I'm sitting here thinking it's too simple. Oh, It's way too simple. That's exactly the problem. It's way too simple for the person. The person wants complex and difficult and hard to get to. That's what the person wants. Because if you think about it, Complex and difficult and hard to get to feed my sense that I can progressively, Through progressive endeavour, I can get there. You know, So that's the whole energy that I'm a separate person, That there's something to get to, There's somewhere to get to. So it has to be, That's what the person wants. It doesn't want just boring sitting on a chair and the wind is stirring the leaves and the sun is kind of fading. Or the light is fading. I mean, What's that? That's boring. What do you mean? What do you mean the light's fading? Yeah, It's well, It's five to ten. So what? The light's fading. That's what happens at this time of year. So you're sitting on a chair. Like there's that second, See, Everything is kind of secondhand to the person. There's a secondhand kind of sense to it, Because the person is continually living in its own knowing and familiarising the present by knowing it. And so the newness is never, The newness is never seen. It's impossible. It can't be seen by the person. So there's a kind of staleness to everything then. And the staleness comes through knowing it, Because the staleness comes through, Well, I know I'm sitting on a seat. I know what sitting on a seat feels like. I've been doing it, I've been sitting on my fat arse for 40 something years. You know what I mean? Whatever. It's I know, I know. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. But then nothing is actually seen as it actually is. Because there's a need to be, Gerry. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't got anything to ask you, Man. I'm just. . . That's okay. That's okay. It's just whatever comes up. It doesn't matter. Yeah. When I spoke to Jim Newman, I said to him, Like, I'm not going to ask you as the conversation's going through. But it worked out well. It's similar to this, Man. There's sort of a resonance within me and I can feel it. And it's sort of, It feels like it's bubbling. Yeah, Absolutely. That's it. You know, That's it. There's a resonance and there's a, There's a, Yeah, There's a resonance with what's been said. And the incredible thing is that you're not asking anything. And I've also been talking to a friend of mine who's got a friend of mine who's got a friend of mine who's got a friend of mine who's got a friend of mine who's got a friend of his and the incredible thing is that you're not asking anything anyway. So even if you thought you had a load of questions, That would just be a story. There's just what's appearing to happen. That's all. There's no you speaking. There's no me speaking. There's just speaking. There's just whatever appears to happen. Okay. We'll leave you there then. Yeah, It was lovely. It was really lovely speaking to you, Alex. Thanks. Yeah, Kenneth, Thanks for coming on, Man. I appreciate it. I know it's late and yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. Cheers, Man. Cheers, Buddy. Where are you in England? I've got to let me stop recording.