ZERO IS ONE

by MGB

ISBN# 978–1–9991319–2–0 for paperback
ISBN# 978–1–9991319–3–7 for e-book

Copyright © 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 by Mounir Gabriel Bashour (MGB)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed “Attention: Permissions,” at the address above.

Dedication

To my darling son Henry

Cover was originally published in Zero is One on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Perhaps that feels to you like an odd way to start a book, and perhaps it is, but I want to tell you only the absolute truth. That is, after all, what this book is about — the ABSOLUTE/TRUTH.

My decision to write this book all started while I was standing on a balcony with the evening sky overhead and the sights and sounds of central Hong Kong before me. I turned to my companion Iona and I told her a story. Iona told me that when I wrote my book, I should start with the story I had just told her.

My first understanding of GOD may perhaps be also my first memory. As a very young boy in Beirut, Lebanon, I often spent the night sleeping between my Grandfather Edward (Jedo) and my Grandmother Souad (Teta).

Their apartment overlooked one of the busiest streets in Beirut (Hamra), and the noise and din were nearly constant, the varied sounds of life itself. Their walls were decorated with religious icons and crosses in the traditional Greek Orthodox manner.

The nights were spent lying between them, alternately being hugged or caressed by one or the other and listening to their terms of endearment for me. Ya albe (my heart), ya yunie (my eyes), tukburne (literally you will bury me), smagh albe bit shouf adesh behabak habibi (listen to my heart and hear my love beat for you my beloved) as one or other would press me to their beating chest.

Their love was so profound, palpable, unconditional and manifest that it still brings tears to my eyes when I think of those nights (they come down even as I write this).

One night (I must have been three years old), I turned to my beloved Jedo, and looking up at a picture of Christ and a cross on the wall, I asked, “What is God (shou Allah)?”

Jedo reached for a red rose on the bedside table nearby and handed it to me.

“Look at the flower. In it is the true face of GOD. GOD is everything, everything that you can see and cannot see, that you can hear and cannot hear, that you can taste and cannot taste. GOD is in everything, in me and in your Teta, inside you.” He touched my chest. “And in everything around you. All is GOD. GOD is love, the true love I feel for you my heart. Never forget that you are GOD and so is everything else and that you feel this most when you express your love for yourself and for everything and everyone around you.”

He held me then cradled me in his chest, and I knew the truth of GOD. I felt the outpouring of unconditional love like I was swimming in its very essence.

There is nothing new in this writing or really in any writing.
There is only one thing to re-know, to remember, to realize.
There is only 0.
There is only 1.
0 IS 1
There is no decimal or fraction.
The decimal exists only as LILA in the play of the 1, forgetting itself and experiencing itself in fractions.
Realize you are the 1.
Awaken!

Preface was originally published in Zero is One on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It is important at the start of both The Prophet Returns and ZERO IS ONE to summarize the final and only TRUTH that is found at the end of spiritual seeking. The TRUTH is plainly and clearly perceived with the seeing of liberation when the character or ego is seen through. The TRUTH is NO-THING — THE VOID — ZERO — OBLIVION. Below is a list of vocabulary or words that have been used as pointers to that ultimate TRUTH. Among those words, are words that may trigger various false concepts and beliefs in characters reading or hearing them. Chief among the triggering words is GOD. GOD as it may occur in this book is NOT an old blue eyed, grey bearded white man in the sky judging your human thoughts, beliefs and actions. There is no personal God judging you. For there is no you to begin with. The character/ego that is believed/seen to be you is not actually there. NO-THING is actually there. For there is NO-THING and from NO-THING emanates EVERY-THING. THE TOTALITY is a seeming union between NO-THING and ALL POSSIBILTY/OMNI-POTENTIALITY, the ultimate opposites/polarities, and the seeming nature of that union is without beginning or end for these two seeming opposites automatically and simultaneously create each other in ETERNITY. The result is seen as a “cosmic copulation” whose effect is WITNESSED as an infinite, living mind. THE OMNIVERSE — THE DREAMSCAPE — MAYA. The play of LILA (the grand illusion of LIFE) takes place on this infinte stage of MAYA.

ONENESS
ONE
THE ONE
THE ONE SUBSTANCE
UNITY
ZERO
GOD
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
TOTALITY/THE TOTALITY
IS
BE
BEING
BELOVED
PRESENCE
THE INDESCRIBABLE
THE INEXPLICABLE
NOW
TRUE SELF/THE TRUE SELF
SOURCE/THE SOURCE
POTENTIAL
POSSIBILITY/ALL POSSIBILITY
POTENTIALITY/ THE POTENTIALITY
OMNI-POTENTIALITY
VOID/THE VOID
ABSOLUTE/THE ABSOLUTE
THE FORMLESS
THE UNCONDITIONED
THE UNCHANGED
THE UNREALIZED
THE FORMLESS
THE PROJECTOR
THE ALPHA
THE OMEGA
LIGHT
LIFE
BEYOND
TRUTH/THE TRUTH
NOT
NOT THIS/NOT THAT
NO-THING
EVERY-THING
ETERNITY
ETERNAL/THE ETERNAL
INFINITY
NOTHINGNESS
OBLIVION
STILLNESS
FULLNESS
DIVINITY
THE WITNESS
THE AWARENESS
THE CONSCIOUSNESS
MYSTERY
UNKNOWING
Am-Am Not
ALL/THE ALL
ALL THAT IS
THAT
THE TAO
I/I AM/I AM THIS
BRAHMAN
SAT-CHIT-ANANDA/TRUTH-CONSCIOUSNESS-BLISS
BLISS
JOY
PEACE
SILENCE

The TRUTH by MGB was originally published in Zero is One on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Preface

On Spiritual Seeking

On Awakening

On Liberation

On Why?

On Creation

On Microcosm and Macrocosm

On Questions

Q01 — How do teachers and gurus teach enlightenment when it is already all there IS?

Q02 — Since everything is meaningless, why did you write these books?

Q03 — How do characters function?

Q04 — What is consciousness?

Q05 — What is human nature?

Q06 — LIFE = INFORMATION

Q07 — Is there free will? Are we free?

Q08 — What do we know?

Q10 — Are we rational?

Q11 — Why do I lie to myself?

Q12 — Why does society exist?

Q13 — How do we understand each other?

Q14 — Can computers think? Is artificial intelligence thinking?

Q15 — Why should I be good or behave morally?

Q16 — Is everything relative?

Q17 — Is time passing?

Q18 — Why are there so many constants or laws? Why don’t things devolve into chaos?

Q19 — Why does our universe or even the OMNI-VERSE exist and is not nothing?

Q20 — What is in space?

Q21 — What is beauty?

Q22 — Do we need religion or the concept of God?

Q23 — What is everything all for? What is the meaning?

Q24 — Do human beings have natural rights?

Q25 — Why do I fear death?

Q26 — Is the seeing of awakening or liberation just a matter of luck?

Q27 — Can you fall out of seeing awakening, or out of seeing liberation?

Q28 — Does it matter how I live my life since nothing is real?

Q29 — Are the seeing of liberation and awakening becoming more common?

Q30 — Is my personal life pre-written?

Q31 — I was abused as a child. Is psychotherapy a bad idea?

Q32 — Is the law of attraction true?

Q33 — Is karma real?

Q34 — Is being born and dying real?

Q35 — In the seeing of liberation, there was an initial infinite expansion, but eventually a sense of localization returns. Why?

Q36 — I still think that my meditation and self-enquiry practices will help me see awakening. Won’t it?

Q37 — The seeing of liberation happens when you die. Why bother seeking it before?

Q38 — I have been to many workshops and had transpersonal experiences. Won’t that make me have the seeing of awakening?

Q39 — When you say that there is just this, do you mean it literally?

Q40 — If nothing matters, why did you write these books and give these talks?

Q41 — I was doing great with my presence until I saw my family, then the shit hit the fan. Help!

Q42 — I am a psychology student, and I think you and other people who think they are seeing awakening may actually have depersonalization-derealization (DPDR) disorder.

Q43 — Talking about my awakening event with my friends and family only seems to alienate them. Help!

Q44 — Why do systems like astrology and the Enneagram seem to work so well?

Q45 — The more books I read on spirituality and more gurus I listen to, the more confused I become. Help!

Q46 — Is our world real or is it not?

Q47 — I have the seeing of awakening, but the seeing of liberation has not happened. How long does it take?

Q48 — I stopped being a vegan and stopped trying to save the world after the seeing of awakening. Is this common?

Q49 — Why is it that, if thoughts just arise, they are usually based on our personal past?

Q50 — If something traumatic happens to my character, since there is no cause and effect, do I do something about it?

Q51 — Do you feel some spiritual practices are bad and others are good?

Q52 — I feel that I have free will and control. How can you deny it?

Q53 — I was disappointed by both the seeing of awakening and liberation. It is so ordinary.

Q54 — Do you think psychoactive drugs can help me destroy my concepts and see awakening?

Q55 — I swear I had the seeing of awakening, but recently, I have had great suffering and feel I have lost it and am back in the story. Can that happen?

Q56 — You contradict yourself. Self-enquiry (which you advocate) is asking who you really are, but you say that persons do not exist. How can they ask anything?

Q57 — My guru tells me that the only way to reach enlightenment is by following his techniques. Is that true?

Q58 — If there is nobody, who can be aware of THAT?

Q59 — I find you saying that this is all there is very disturbing and also not true. If I move from where I am, then THIS is different and what I expected that it would be.

Q60 — You say it does not matter what we do. I do not believe that ONENESS wants us to awaken and not help others awaken. Can’t you see that?

Q61 — Are you and other non-dualists trying to make a religion?

Q62 — Why do you bother writing and holding meetings about all this stuff? Isn’t it enough for you that you have the seeing of liberation? Why are you so driven?

Q63 — Can you give some examples of famous teachers who became enlightened spontaneously or by grace, and some who did it by following a path or by practice?

Q64 — Is dreaming important? Does it still happen in the seeing of liberation?

Q65 — Why do people have such a hard time killing their egos? It has been done for centuries in the East.

Q66 — What are the benefits of the seeing of liberation?

Q67 — What is eternity?

Q68 — I think you are insane to say that there is no self. It undermines literally everything.

Q69 — What is the difference between mind and ego? Are they the same thing?

Q70 — Is transcendence the same as liberation?

Q71 — What is self-realization?

Q72 — I would very much like to go on after death. What is death?

Q73 — Is there really nothing to do?

Q74 — What is the sense of separation?

Q75 — If I am not a person, what am I?

Q76 — Does awareness persist after physical death?

Q77 — It sometimes feels that listening to you is like listening to a Zen kōan.

Q78 — Why are there so many contradictions in non-duality? How can me listening to this in my car and you writing this in Thailand both be all that there is?

Q79 — I want to have sex with you (MGB). Is that ok?

Q80 — I think that you and other teachers like Eckhart Tolle and Mooji are all self-deluded or fakes.

Q81 — Are we like fish discussing how to get more in touch with the sea?

Q82 — Does time exist or doesn’t it?

Q83 — To me, the appeal of liberation is that it will improve my life experience. If it does not, then what is the point of pursuing it?

Q84 — Is there a constant deepening in liberation? I have heard some gurus say there are stages in enlightenment.

Q85 — I find that since the seeing of liberation, hearing classical music often creates such an intense feeling of beauty that tears overflow. Is this common?

Q86 — There are so many different methods out there claiming that they can give you enlightenment. What is better or different about your method?

Q87 — I live with constant regret about how I have lived my life and the decisions I have made. Can you help me?

Q88 — If I look back at my past life, everything about it seems inexplicable. It drives me crazy. Can you help?

Q89 — Can you be in love in liberation?

Q90 — What is it like for a liberated person to go out with another liberated person?

Q91 — What is it like for a liberated person to go out with someone who is not liberated?

Q92 — I am madly, deeply in love with my girlfriend, but I also have uncontrollable jealousy, which is pushing her away. Is there anything I can do?

Q93 — How do you make choices after you are seeing liberation?

Q94 — I do not understand what you are offering here. Other teachers at least offer that, if we listen to them and do what they suggest, we can be happy. You do not seem to be doing that.

Q95 — You are not offering happiness or healing people, saving the planet or helping usher in a new age. You are not channeling wisdom from aliens or angels, and you are not doing light work. Why should I listen to you when others are offering these things?

Q96 — Why are liberation and non-duality not just other stories like all the other religions and spiritual and philosophical doctrines?

Q97 — Is it important to behave in a spiritual way to see liberation, and do you have to keep up that behavior afterwards? Like, you know, always being compassionate and nice. I have a bit of a temper, you see.

Q98 — Can you prove that, in liberation, all there is is unconditional love?

Q99 — How can you believe in evolutionary psychology, or even evolution, if you claim there is no such thing as time?

Q100 — I do loving kindness meditation practices every day and find them great, but I have not seen awakening yet. When will it happen?

Q101 — Does the ego die when you see liberation?

Q102 — Many enlightened masters say that thinking stops when enlightenment is achieved. You can still think for practical purposes, but that is it. Is that true?

Q103 — I am currently receiving third-wave cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for some psychological issues which cause me great suffering. Do you think my psychological issues are blocking me from achieving liberation? Will removing them with psychotherapy help?

Q104 — Why is there so much spiritual crap out there when liberation is so simple?

Q105 — Is liberation like an out of body experience (OBE)?

Q106 — If you are liberated and take psychoactive drugs or get blindingly drunk, can you fall out of liberation?

Q107 — What makes us search for enlightenment and liberation? Is it fear of death?

Q108 — When I am in your presence or in the presence of Eckahart Tolle, I feel a resonance and peace, and I know other people do as well. Is there an energy transference going on? Will this make awakening happen sooner?

Q109 — Can you describe more what the unconditional love you see in liberation feels like?

Q110 — Can you give me shaktipat?

Q111 — As everything is just a dream anyway, would it be ok to steal or sleep with my best mate’s girlfriend if she wants to?

Q112 — Don’t you think it is a human being’s ultimate goal to raise his consciousness to God consciousness?

Stories

Table of Contents was originally published in Zero is One on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With all the above in focus, I will say that life and the cosmos, from the human mind’s current standpoint, are infinitely complex. The OMNIVERSE is INFINTITE and includes EVERY-THING that has the POTENTIALITY of appearing, which is ALL. At the same juncture, it is pure simplicity. It is ZERO, ONE, NO-THING, VOID, EMPTINESS, NIRVANA, ONENESS. The complexity of life can be said to be what is contained in the arrow between ZERO and ONE. All the decimals and fractions are the complexity, but the reality is simply ONE.

Stories was originally published in Zero is One on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Short answer — no.

It is a great story, actually an ultimate story as you say — utterly mouthwatering and tasty to the mind and ego. It is also entirely possible for a human being to experience God consciousness — I and many other human beings have done so. This experience is technically a type of transpersonal experience. The experience of God or cosmic consciousness where “you” experience that “you” are actually YOU. That is everything that is and has ever been and will ever be. YOU are the stars, the galaxies, the sun, the supernovas, the butterflies, the soil, the worms and the blades of grass. This experience is super full of bliss, beyond multiply orgasmic bliss — actually unbearable never-ending bliss. Sounds nice, right? The reason I can give such a great description of it is I had this experience more than once. The key, though, is the character MGB had the experience, and at the time, the ego/mind absolutely identified with being the character — therefore, he had the experience, even though during the experience he — the human being — was HIMSELF/ONENESS/GOD.

The expectation that people/persons/human beings have is that once they attain or achieve enlightenment, this will be their permanent experience. Sorry to pop the balloon. This is not enlightenment, awakening or liberation. These are not states, nor are they experiences. They are not transpersonal. They are utterly impersonal, as in there is no person, no “you,” nobody. “You,” the human being, cannot achieve or attain them no matter what “you” do. “You” may experience powerful transpersonal experiences like that described, but seeing liberation has no “you” in it. I suspect that someday it will be possible to design and create a reliable and consistent method to induce these blissful and amazing transpersonal experiences. It will probably have to do with specific stimulation of what is known as the God center in the temporoparietal lobe of the human brain. Then anyone will be able to achieve the ultimate human goal. It will not be pretty. Just a bunch of human bodies reclining in chairs plugged into this virtual transpersonal experience — the ultimate drug, the soma of Aldous Huxley without the drug probably.

In liberation, there is no ultimate human goal. Ultimate goals and transpersonal experiences are just stories. Those stories still may appear in liberation, but they do not have the same fascination and mesmerizing quality that they had before seeing liberation. Liberation, it is certain, has nothing to do with the brain or the mind, much to their outrage. The brain and the mind — even human beings — are just stories, appearances in liberation in ONENESS.

Q112 — Don’t you think it is a human being’s ultimate goal to raise his consciousness to God… was originally published in Zero is One on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It is true that in THE DREAM of THE DREAMER and in the seeing of liberation, nothing is not permissible, and there are no rules. Having said that, just like in a nighttime dream in the human LILA, there is the appearance of causality. Consequences appear to follow actions. If you dream steal, you may be chased by dream cops and thrown into a dream/nightmare jail. Similarly, if you dream fuck your best mate’s friend, he will very likely find out, and your dream friendship will come to an end because of dream sore feelings and the fact that you broke the dream Bro Code. Also, it is very unlikely that the dream fuck will stick around, so was it worth it when there are so many other dream girls around that are not your best mate’s girlfriend? You get the idea. In general, in THE DREAM, it is best to live by the golden rule and act towards other characters how you would like them to act towards your character.

Q111 — As everything is just a dream anyway, would it be ok to steal or sleep with my best mate’s… was originally published in Zero is One on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I am neither a guru nor a spiritual teacher. All I am attempting to do is describe the INDESCRIBABLE. For what it is worth, I do love hugs and finds them rewarding for both me and whoever I am hugging. It has been my practice now for several years to hug every single patient I do surgery on after the operation. So I will give you a hug if you so desire.

Q110 — Can you give me shaktipat? was originally published in Zero is One on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I can attempt to, but describing the INDESCRIBABLE, as you see, is actually impossible.

It feels like a soft hug from a fluffy blanket. It feels like gratitude oozing out. It feels like tingling all over the body-vehicle. It feels vividly alive and fresh and new.

I hope one day soon, you see it. When you do, it will be NOW, and “you” will be gone.

Q109 — Can you describe more what the unconditional love you see in liberation feels like? was originally published in Zero is One on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Thank you. I am flattered by the comparison. I, while I was seeing awakening but not liberation, also felt the quiet stillness and peace (presence) when I spent time around Eckhart Tolle. Certainly, with the residual self, I retained there was the expectation and feeling that there was an energy transmission going on. Eckhart even described it himself in The Power of Now:

“But if you are fortunate enough to find someone who is intensely conscious, if you can be with them and join them in the state of presence, that can be helpful and will accelerate things. In this way, your own light will quickly grow stronger. When a log that has only just started to burn is placed next to one that is burning fiercely, and after a while they are separated again, the first log will be burning with much greater intensity. After all, it is the same fire. To be such a fire is one of the functions of a spiritual teacher.”

This is a lovely story, but like everything else, it is a story. From the perspective of liberation, there is nothing the personal self can do by effort to accelerate “the process” of seeing of liberation nor even really of seeing awakening/enlightenment. First of all, especially with liberation, there is no process, no achievement, no attainment. Liberation is actually always there. “You” just do not see it because “you”/the false personal self and its incessant seeking is in the way. Even with awakening/enlightenment, which still retains an invisible “you,” it may appear like a process has been gone through, as it seemed to with me, but it is only an appearance. For me, it certainly felt that reading Eckhart Tolle and going to the retreats deepened my presence and sense of being (accelerated things, if you will). It certainly made my life feel more pleasant, alive and connected. But once liberation is seen, it becomes incontrovertible that there was always no doer (enlightenment) and indeed no person (liberation). It could just not be seen because the doer/person was in the way. The stories of a “process” or being with someone who is “intensely conscious” are just that — stories arising in ONENESS, which is all there is. They are great stories, though, and they feel awesome for the character. They can be associated with stories of transpersonal, transcendental experiences as well, so if you enjoy them, then enjoy them. I, for one, enjoy your company, and I suspect that Eckhart Tolle does as well.

Also, I must assert that I am not acting as a teacher here, nor do I see myself as a spiritual teacher. I see myself as nobody/no person. I am simply attempting the impossible — using dualistic language to communicate what non-duality IS. Or, as Allan Watts would say, “the eff in ineffable.”

Q108 — When I am in your presence or in the presence of Eckahart Tolle, I feel a resonance and… was originally published in Zero is One on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.