Thursday, April 17, 2008

Let The Big Cat Jump

If you were born a seeker, you might as well go to the zoo and stick your head in the tiger's mouth, or take up race car driving, because you won't be getting out alive.

The seeker will die a seeker unless he finds, and to find is to loose all that you think you are. "Lose your life for my sake, and you shall have eternal life," was how Jesus put it.

How many years does it take the average seeker to figure out that he has to leave himself behind? How long before he packs his bags, throws them in the back of a truck, and dumps them off a cliff?

As Wei Wu Wei put it, "Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 per cent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself - and there isn't one."

Seeking is not just an Advaita disease, it's every seeker's ball and chain. Anyone reading this post can say "Been there. Done that."

An interviewer once asked an old lady living in the hollers of West Virginia what she had to say about living, having arrived at the age of ninety. She thought a minute, and said, "If you're born to hang, you ain't gonna drown, so let the big cat jump."

Now, I really like that quote. If this doesn't sum up realization, I don't know what does! Let me explain my take on this. This lady has observed a lot of life, and she knows damn well that people aren't as free as they think they are.

If one is destined by nature to live in such a way as to be hanged, for what you did, or what you didn't do, there's probably not much you can do about it. If that's your destiny, you certainly don't have to worry about drowning. Ain't gonna happen.

So, iff you're walking in the woods, and you see a big mountain lion about to jump, you can just calmly walk by because you ain't gonna die that way either. "Let the big cat jump."

But, there is another freedom hidden in this understanding. It is the understanding that you are not what you think you are! You are not a person, wrapped in a skin, stuck in a mind. In fact, you are freedom far beyond these apparent limitations.

You are beyond bondage or freedom. Beyond needing help of any kind. You are not a technical writer, a yoga teacher, a spiritual guru, you are awareness itself. You are an explosion of yourself! Expressing yourself in every possible way. A multitudinous manifestation of form.

So, did this seeker waste any time seeking? Not possible! Who did he think he was? Who was living this life? The little person I thought I was? No, beingness was just being what was happening. Happening happened to be seeking. So what.

From here there is nothing but freedom. Seeking didn't waste any of my time. There wasn't a me. Just a pile of thought. It's what happened to no one. So now there is seeing. Ah peace. Shall we go watch the parade?

1 comment:

Charlie Hayes said...

Very well said. Your expression is bright, lucid and transparent. The product of "A mind that alights upon No Thing", as the Zen master put it "once upon a time".

Here is a bit that you inspired which I added to my site today: "Lose your life for 'my' sake - [meaning, In The ONE, the Universal I AM] - and you shall have eternal life" - Paraphrasing Jesus, who also said, "I AM is The Way, The Truth, The Life"