Mark your territory, like a dog. Let yourself be sniffed out. Stand your ground. Bang your gong. Mark your spot.
Be king of the hill. Manipulate the field. Bribe the feeding tube. Smother your friends in flattery. Smile at your superiority.
Just know that the sticky web you have built is your own prison, and will soon begin to stink. You have turned yourself into a toy, a cartoon image.
So mark your territory well. The sooner the better. For only then will you discover that it doesn't satisfy. Only then will you take off wandering the pathless path, leaving no trace.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
The Sovereign Heart
You cannot be in service of an idea if your are in service to your heart. For the heart is beyond ideas, even good ideas. It knows what the mind can never grasp.
The full heart risks the mind, breaches its walls, and sets itself free. Love reigns, for the sovereign heart beats in all.
The full heart risks the mind, breaches its walls, and sets itself free. Love reigns, for the sovereign heart beats in all.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Other Side of Nothing
Since all is one, there is in truth, no duality. So this thing, this body, this mind, is part of the non separation. We have already established that any separation is false.
There is nothing wrong with being a person, being a mind, having a personality, having therapy, working through a depression. All this is an expression of the One.
There is nothing but this. And what is this? It is fullness, and overflowing, and spawning endless fullness. Life in all forms, seething, writhing, jumping, cavorting.
One expression of fullness is personality. Billions of personalities. All important, none separate from the whole, none separate from the One.
Every single expression is That. Every single expression is one of the One, part of the wholeness. Each perfect in its expression and path.
Source is no thing in particular, but everything in its entirety. So nothing is everything. You can stand with the empty glass side, or stand with the full glass side. Either way, it's all the same.
I don't always enjoy my personality. But I certainly enjoy watching it. I get caught up in it and wallow in self pity, or get a big head about something I've done.
Then I step back and see what's been going on and have a good laugh. As a non separate part of the whole, I have to love the personality, don't I? It's doing the best it can.
Love is simply wanting the personality to reach its full potential. And perhaps have as much fun as possible doing it. Love doesn't mean I have to like every part of the personality, or even support all the parts. But having compassion for the ugly parts is love.
I can have compassion for people I can't help. I can have compassion for people I don't even want to help. And when I'm well aware of how much I dislike someone, and avoid them, I forgive myself. For "discretion is the better part of valor."
Each one of us is stumbling down the path, drunk with a small mind, and Everything is watching over us. We are our Friend.
There is nothing wrong with being a person, being a mind, having a personality, having therapy, working through a depression. All this is an expression of the One.
There is nothing but this. And what is this? It is fullness, and overflowing, and spawning endless fullness. Life in all forms, seething, writhing, jumping, cavorting.
One expression of fullness is personality. Billions of personalities. All important, none separate from the whole, none separate from the One.
Every single expression is That. Every single expression is one of the One, part of the wholeness. Each perfect in its expression and path.
Source is no thing in particular, but everything in its entirety. So nothing is everything. You can stand with the empty glass side, or stand with the full glass side. Either way, it's all the same.
I don't always enjoy my personality. But I certainly enjoy watching it. I get caught up in it and wallow in self pity, or get a big head about something I've done.
Then I step back and see what's been going on and have a good laugh. As a non separate part of the whole, I have to love the personality, don't I? It's doing the best it can.
Love is simply wanting the personality to reach its full potential. And perhaps have as much fun as possible doing it. Love doesn't mean I have to like every part of the personality, or even support all the parts. But having compassion for the ugly parts is love.
I can have compassion for people I can't help. I can have compassion for people I don't even want to help. And when I'm well aware of how much I dislike someone, and avoid them, I forgive myself. For "discretion is the better part of valor."
Each one of us is stumbling down the path, drunk with a small mind, and Everything is watching over us. We are our Friend.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Forget about Not Knowing
Forget about "not knowing." Not knowing is actually your natural state. Go take a walk in the garden, look at the grass, the flowers, the birds. You do not know anything about them. You do not know how or why they are.
You already know that scientific reductionism is sterile. One answered question brings up ten new ones. Each answered question opens the door ever wider to what is unknown.
You are already prepared for the next moment. When driving your car on a country road unfamiliar to you, without even thinking, you go left when the road turns left, and right when it goes right. You slow down for the unexpected deer.
You can know a lot of things. The earth is no longer flat. All your knowing is tentative. Labeling and defining helps one maneuver, but does not define what is.
Trying to get rid of knowing is an ego trip. The bars just changed from black to white. This kind of effort is not needed. Ask, who is doing the undoing? Slip into the background and just watch.
Acknowledge that all knowing is tentative. Only a fanatic holds onto beliefs as if they were crucial to life. Only a fanatic would insist on not knowing.
Not knowing is the actual state of affairs. Awareness is always present. It accepts belief and non belief. It accepts knowing and not knowing. Where your mind goes, it is already there waiting.
Awareness is already present, open, ready, willing, without prescription. It is prior to your knowing and forgetting. Your definitions and labels, useful or not, are pointers only.
The body-mind is a vehicle only, roving the field. What it knows is useful to it, or harmful, but all its knowing is temporary and subject to change.
Just step back from what the body-mind sees, and thinks, and feels. You are already awareness which doesn't know. See this and you need no longer worry about knowing or not knowing.
Awareness doesn't need to know anything. That is what you are. Forget about knowing or not knowing. You are prior to that.
You already know that scientific reductionism is sterile. One answered question brings up ten new ones. Each answered question opens the door ever wider to what is unknown.
You are already prepared for the next moment. When driving your car on a country road unfamiliar to you, without even thinking, you go left when the road turns left, and right when it goes right. You slow down for the unexpected deer.
You can know a lot of things. The earth is no longer flat. All your knowing is tentative. Labeling and defining helps one maneuver, but does not define what is.
Trying to get rid of knowing is an ego trip. The bars just changed from black to white. This kind of effort is not needed. Ask, who is doing the undoing? Slip into the background and just watch.
Acknowledge that all knowing is tentative. Only a fanatic holds onto beliefs as if they were crucial to life. Only a fanatic would insist on not knowing.
Not knowing is the actual state of affairs. Awareness is always present. It accepts belief and non belief. It accepts knowing and not knowing. Where your mind goes, it is already there waiting.
Awareness is already present, open, ready, willing, without prescription. It is prior to your knowing and forgetting. Your definitions and labels, useful or not, are pointers only.
The body-mind is a vehicle only, roving the field. What it knows is useful to it, or harmful, but all its knowing is temporary and subject to change.
Just step back from what the body-mind sees, and thinks, and feels. You are already awareness which doesn't know. See this and you need no longer worry about knowing or not knowing.
Awareness doesn't need to know anything. That is what you are. Forget about knowing or not knowing. You are prior to that.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Only Now, Always This
If you could just settle down into not knowing, and not caring that you don't know, and really getting a feel for that, then you would be close.
You are already close because what is, is already here, as all that is. All your thoughts and ideas are obstacles to seeing.
Let the not knowing overtake you, and unmotivate you, to the point that you just give up. Surrender to not knowing and drop off the cliff to nowhere.
You won't gain anything. You will loose the sense of I that thinks it had something, or lost something. You simply overlooked the obstacle -- yourself.
A subjective feeling, a knowing you can't shake, will overtake you. It is not bliss. Just ordinary truth. You can't grasp it, and you can't hold it.
The truth that sets you free gets rid of you. Not the body, not the mind, but the "I sense" of separateness.
Nowhere is everywhere. And you are here. One without a second, Awareness, Consciousness. You are that.
Where did the little you go? It was never really here. It was only a thought. Now there is only this. Only here. Only now, always and forever.
You are already close because what is, is already here, as all that is. All your thoughts and ideas are obstacles to seeing.
Let the not knowing overtake you, and unmotivate you, to the point that you just give up. Surrender to not knowing and drop off the cliff to nowhere.
You won't gain anything. You will loose the sense of I that thinks it had something, or lost something. You simply overlooked the obstacle -- yourself.
A subjective feeling, a knowing you can't shake, will overtake you. It is not bliss. Just ordinary truth. You can't grasp it, and you can't hold it.
The truth that sets you free gets rid of you. Not the body, not the mind, but the "I sense" of separateness.
Nowhere is everywhere. And you are here. One without a second, Awareness, Consciousness. You are that.
Where did the little you go? It was never really here. It was only a thought. Now there is only this. Only here. Only now, always and forever.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Beyond Voluntary Simplicity
Imagine a rainbow that needed to be told that it was beautiful, that needed to be told it was the most beautiful of all rainbows, that needed to be told it was special. That's the kind of image the ego holds for itself.
Because the ego is an image, a bundle of self defining concepts, unnecessary things are needed to support it. It seeks compliments. It seeks entertainment. It creates complexity in its effort to support the image.
However, as the ego dissolves and recedes into the background, all the energy that went into defense and self promotion becomes unnecessary. No need to try and drop effort, there is nothing left to support any effort. Effortlessness is what is left.
When understanding comes, simplicity has an appeal that it didn't have before. It's like the mother bird, finding her nest empty.
Because the ego is an image, a bundle of self defining concepts, unnecessary things are needed to support it. It seeks compliments. It seeks entertainment. It creates complexity in its effort to support the image.
However, as the ego dissolves and recedes into the background, all the energy that went into defense and self promotion becomes unnecessary. No need to try and drop effort, there is nothing left to support any effort. Effortlessness is what is left.
When understanding comes, simplicity has an appeal that it didn't have before. It's like the mother bird, finding her nest empty.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Who's Playing on the field?
The phantom character takes a position based on conditioning, beliefs, and genetic tendencies. We don't have to list the other five thousand unexamined causes.
None of the reasons for taking a position is important, it's only important to examine who is taking the position.
The bodymind takes positions, and later discards them. They're not permanent things. Positions are taken on and discarded like partners on the dance floor.
What positions the bodymind takes is not important. It's only important to see who is taking them on, and who is discarding them.
When you look it becomes apparent that this process is just a covering for the mind, like clothes are to the body.
To get down to brass tacks, stop looking at your positions, your judgments, of self and others, and look for what they are appearing on.
There is a blank mind on which a lot of trash has been dumped. You need to stop looking in the trash, and see who's looking.
At some point you look beyond the mind. You see the screen on which it is appearing, and realize that pure awareness is what you really are.
Pure awareness is the playing field in which conscious comes to play. Your bodymind is just one player on the field.
Be the field and enjoy the game.
None of the reasons for taking a position is important, it's only important to examine who is taking the position.
The bodymind takes positions, and later discards them. They're not permanent things. Positions are taken on and discarded like partners on the dance floor.
What positions the bodymind takes is not important. It's only important to see who is taking them on, and who is discarding them.
When you look it becomes apparent that this process is just a covering for the mind, like clothes are to the body.
To get down to brass tacks, stop looking at your positions, your judgments, of self and others, and look for what they are appearing on.
There is a blank mind on which a lot of trash has been dumped. You need to stop looking in the trash, and see who's looking.
At some point you look beyond the mind. You see the screen on which it is appearing, and realize that pure awareness is what you really are.
Pure awareness is the playing field in which conscious comes to play. Your bodymind is just one player on the field.
Be the field and enjoy the game.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Take No Position
To deeply trust the way things are, without fear, has the perfume of truth.
You can't change what is, as you are part and parcel of it. You can only stop taking a position about it.
Not much more to do. Just don't look for bells or whistles. The ordinary becomes extraordinary when expectations drop.
Hold no head above your own, as no description of satori or bliss prescribes.
Whatever is, is totally subjective. How could it be otherwise? The subject is, I. One.
Hold on to nothing, as no thing is everywhere.
You can't change what is, as you are part and parcel of it. You can only stop taking a position about it.
Not much more to do. Just don't look for bells or whistles. The ordinary becomes extraordinary when expectations drop.
Hold no head above your own, as no description of satori or bliss prescribes.
Whatever is, is totally subjective. How could it be otherwise? The subject is, I. One.
Hold on to nothing, as no thing is everywhere.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Advaita Shorts
An I, identified as a seeker,
set off to find the Truth.
He never came back.
-----------------------
A seeker set a goal,
but never arrived.
------------------------
The tiger's mouth was scary,
but the belly of the beast
was warm.
-------------------
Truth bubbles up through the cracks
in your prison of belief,
and light slips in between the bars.
set off to find the Truth.
He never came back.
-----------------------
A seeker set a goal,
but never arrived.
------------------------
The tiger's mouth was scary,
but the belly of the beast
was warm.
-------------------
Truth bubbles up through the cracks
in your prison of belief,
and light slips in between the bars.
The Night Watchman
Truth tiptoes by in the night,
when most are sleeping,
having spent most of the
day at the parade.
Only the night watchman
sees the apparition,
and follows it
out of town.
when most are sleeping,
having spent most of the
day at the parade.
Only the night watchman
sees the apparition,
and follows it
out of town.
Circle of One
The air we breathe travels through
the lion and the sheep.
The earth we eat,
like every living thing.
We leave behind what the
Dung Beatle calls his feast.
Our bodies lay to final rest,
and other forms take the vest.
The circle is unbroken,
playing on the field of One.
the lion and the sheep.
The earth we eat,
like every living thing.
We leave behind what the
Dung Beatle calls his feast.
Our bodies lay to final rest,
and other forms take the vest.
The circle is unbroken,
playing on the field of One.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Nothing Never Changes
Once you have the ultimate self doubt, the house of cards falls. Only then do you realize you were always safe.
If, all you are is this, what else is needed? Where can you escape to? What can you find?
You were always already this, and already always that. Here is there, and now is then, in a future that always was.
Everlasting Source was, is, and remains. You are that which never changes, reading this.
If, all you are is this, what else is needed? Where can you escape to? What can you find?
You were always already this, and already always that. Here is there, and now is then, in a future that always was.
Everlasting Source was, is, and remains. You are that which never changes, reading this.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
In his autobiography,"Living to Tell the Tale," Gabriel Garcia Marquez, had this to say:
"I needed this old age without remorse to understand that the misfortune of my grand-parents in the house in Cataca was that they were always mired in their nostalgic memories, and the more they insisted on conjuring them the deeper they sank."
Now how enlightened in that? Isn't this one of the most poetic statements about our stories you've ever heard? Reading it just thrills my soul.
Great literature must touch on truth. It's the truth that carries the invisible carrier wave. It comes from the power of the words, and even from between the lines.
Seems there have always been enlightened souls. They just didn't go to Advaita groups, or have torturous definitions of what they were up to. They just knew.
"I needed this old age without remorse to understand that the misfortune of my grand-parents in the house in Cataca was that they were always mired in their nostalgic memories, and the more they insisted on conjuring them the deeper they sank."
Now how enlightened in that? Isn't this one of the most poetic statements about our stories you've ever heard? Reading it just thrills my soul.
Great literature must touch on truth. It's the truth that carries the invisible carrier wave. It comes from the power of the words, and even from between the lines.
Seems there have always been enlightened souls. They just didn't go to Advaita groups, or have torturous definitions of what they were up to. They just knew.
Honoring the Self
Granted, that the personal self is just as illusory as the clouds in the sky and the chair I am sitting on. The chair is only a chair conceptually, though it has a material substance. And the material itself as known by me, is an interpretation of the light passing through my eyes and my sense of touch.
Insistence on the illusory nature of the personal self is not the best ground on which to understand the non dual nature of the universe. All objects are illusory--interpretations of the senses.
For all practical purposes, the personal self should no more be denied than other useful objects, while due consideration is given to the fact that all is one.
In all humility, honoring the self, is also honoring the Source. Dishonoring the self, even for the sake of spiritual pursuit, is just another form of self flagellation. It certainly doesn't honor the Impersonal Self
A true foundation for honoring the non dual nature of life is simply to acknowledge the Impersonal Self behind all manifestation. To know this is to honor all, including the personal self.
Ultimately, The One and the many are one. Any separation is not the ultimate truth, but apparent separation is the nature of manifestation.
Therefore, to honor the personal self, as well as the Impersonal Self, is not only practical, but wise. Duality and non duality are one and the same.
Insistence on the illusory nature of the personal self is not the best ground on which to understand the non dual nature of the universe. All objects are illusory--interpretations of the senses.
For all practical purposes, the personal self should no more be denied than other useful objects, while due consideration is given to the fact that all is one.
In all humility, honoring the self, is also honoring the Source. Dishonoring the self, even for the sake of spiritual pursuit, is just another form of self flagellation. It certainly doesn't honor the Impersonal Self
A true foundation for honoring the non dual nature of life is simply to acknowledge the Impersonal Self behind all manifestation. To know this is to honor all, including the personal self.
Ultimately, The One and the many are one. Any separation is not the ultimate truth, but apparent separation is the nature of manifestation.
Therefore, to honor the personal self, as well as the Impersonal Self, is not only practical, but wise. Duality and non duality are one and the same.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Who Is What Is
Someone did a search on Google.com for this quote:
"The one who makes it has no need for it. The one who buys it has no personal use for it. The one who uses it can neither see nor feel it and couldn't care less. What am I?"
They ended up here. I don't know if they were looking for an answer, or who the author was. The answer to both is Awareness.
"The one who makes it has no need for it. The one who buys it has no personal use for it. The one who uses it can neither see nor feel it and couldn't care less. What am I?"
They ended up here. I don't know if they were looking for an answer, or who the author was. The answer to both is Awareness.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Crude Markings Only
You can't describe the taste of the unknown. It would then be known. The closest I can come to a description of the position one must take, is that one no longer insists on knowing. It is futile.
Do not depend on the idea of a final knowing. One cannot do it. Ask for revelation. One cannot figure it out. If one insists on knowing, then, in humility ask for revelation.
Things will remain the same until they don't. Satori, or an ecstatic unitive experience will not stay. You will not find a permanent state of bliss. You may, however, over time, find one doesn't react as one used to.
Unitive or ecstatic experience, comes and goes. It only leaves a taste - a remembrance of the truth. The taste provides faith. The authoritative experience has left. Now trust as you wander around in the unknown.
You may live an easy but dry existence. Completely go with the dry experience. Go to the depth of the dry. Heaven and hell are only an inch apart -- so they say.
The jump or leap may never come. It might be more like a mist rising in the far off hills. Realize it is you who is looking for a leap or jump. It is not a requirement. You cannot put that expectation on what is.
Hanging on to the idea of a jump or a leap is a way to hold off seeing what is. What is, is already present. Expectations may be a block.
All these words are pointers only. They are not the truth. All words about truth and enlightenment are crude markings on a map. The map is not the territory, and neither are these words.
Do not depend on the idea of a final knowing. One cannot do it. Ask for revelation. One cannot figure it out. If one insists on knowing, then, in humility ask for revelation.
Things will remain the same until they don't. Satori, or an ecstatic unitive experience will not stay. You will not find a permanent state of bliss. You may, however, over time, find one doesn't react as one used to.
Unitive or ecstatic experience, comes and goes. It only leaves a taste - a remembrance of the truth. The taste provides faith. The authoritative experience has left. Now trust as you wander around in the unknown.
You may live an easy but dry existence. Completely go with the dry experience. Go to the depth of the dry. Heaven and hell are only an inch apart -- so they say.
The jump or leap may never come. It might be more like a mist rising in the far off hills. Realize it is you who is looking for a leap or jump. It is not a requirement. You cannot put that expectation on what is.
Hanging on to the idea of a jump or a leap is a way to hold off seeing what is. What is, is already present. Expectations may be a block.
All these words are pointers only. They are not the truth. All words about truth and enlightenment are crude markings on a map. The map is not the territory, and neither are these words.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Beyond Thought and Feeling
"My understanding has been only intellectual & theoretical.."
Both intellect and the heart are paths. Both are valid. I suspect those with a strong intellect follow that path, and those with strong feeling follow the heart. Neither is better. Neither one is superior.
Nothing will so break the intellect as feeling. And thinking often unseats or stirs up great feeling. In the end, feeling and thought merge, and one feels one's thoughts and thinks one's feelings.
If your thinking mind comes to realize its limit; knows it cannot "get" this, then there can be a relaxation into something outside the constraints of thought.
A great anxiety may need to be experienced when thought is revealed to be inadequate. But, then again, if one considers that thought never did contain Truth, one might be able to move on, knowing that the security thought seemed to provide was never real.
Since thought never was adequate, one realizes that one did survive the illusion! The security was false, but survival was still the fact. In this manner, thinking, though not adequate, provides the proof that one can survive quite well with false security.
This realization may provide some relief in letting go of intellectual understanding, as one sees that it never was adequate, and so your dependency on it was never the security you thought it was.
"I am at a loss where the next step is."
There isn't a next step. You have simply reached the end of finding any security in thinking. Feeling is not going to provide the understanding either.
There is something else. It is called the unknown. It's not something one usually envisions as a place to rest. But in the end, when your mind is spent, and your emotions are spent, the unknown may be the only place you can find to rest. If you embrace the unknown, at least it is sure. It will remain unknown.
One realizes that one acted and reacted in unknowing, even when one thought one knew. It's like loosing your security blanket. It never really protected you from anything. You just thought it did.
After the unknown, a few lucky souls experience something else, a subjective knowing beyond thinking or feeling. It is a knowing that is unshakable. In the Christian tradition it has been described as "The peace that passeth understanding."
This knowing is not assailable by thought, because it is beyond it. It is not assailable by feeling either. The mystics called these experiences "unitive." Oneness with God is another description. The East calls these satori.
Keep in mind that the ecstasies of the the subjective experience, or satori, also do not last. But the taste provides a foundation in unknowing knowing. One is then neither happy nor sad, but just O.K. Just O.K. is a good thing. No more searching after high or low. Just this.
Soon enough one finds that one can rest, even function in unknowing. Thoughts may come and go, but they are not held on to. Feeling states come and go, but they are not held on to.
Charlie Hayes says “The difference between an intellectual understanding and AWARENESS noticing itself is incredible “
I would ask Charlie. He may be able to provide clarification. He is speaking from beyond the little mind trying to grasp. It's called non dual understanding. Simple, but apparently not simple to come by.
"I am groping in the dark."
That's not a bad thing. It is your mind that feels in the dark. Your feelings may also be groping in the dark. So what is beyond these two? The unknown. Let the unknown become your friend. Peace can be found there.
Lastly, consider these words of the great Sufi poet, Rumi.
"Out beyond ideas of Wrongdoing and Right doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, and even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense."
-Rumi, c. 532 A.D.
There is no "next step."
God bless.
Both intellect and the heart are paths. Both are valid. I suspect those with a strong intellect follow that path, and those with strong feeling follow the heart. Neither is better. Neither one is superior.
Nothing will so break the intellect as feeling. And thinking often unseats or stirs up great feeling. In the end, feeling and thought merge, and one feels one's thoughts and thinks one's feelings.
If your thinking mind comes to realize its limit; knows it cannot "get" this, then there can be a relaxation into something outside the constraints of thought.
A great anxiety may need to be experienced when thought is revealed to be inadequate. But, then again, if one considers that thought never did contain Truth, one might be able to move on, knowing that the security thought seemed to provide was never real.
Since thought never was adequate, one realizes that one did survive the illusion! The security was false, but survival was still the fact. In this manner, thinking, though not adequate, provides the proof that one can survive quite well with false security.
This realization may provide some relief in letting go of intellectual understanding, as one sees that it never was adequate, and so your dependency on it was never the security you thought it was.
"I am at a loss where the next step is."
There isn't a next step. You have simply reached the end of finding any security in thinking. Feeling is not going to provide the understanding either.
There is something else. It is called the unknown. It's not something one usually envisions as a place to rest. But in the end, when your mind is spent, and your emotions are spent, the unknown may be the only place you can find to rest. If you embrace the unknown, at least it is sure. It will remain unknown.
One realizes that one acted and reacted in unknowing, even when one thought one knew. It's like loosing your security blanket. It never really protected you from anything. You just thought it did.
After the unknown, a few lucky souls experience something else, a subjective knowing beyond thinking or feeling. It is a knowing that is unshakable. In the Christian tradition it has been described as "The peace that passeth understanding."
This knowing is not assailable by thought, because it is beyond it. It is not assailable by feeling either. The mystics called these experiences "unitive." Oneness with God is another description. The East calls these satori.
Keep in mind that the ecstasies of the the subjective experience, or satori, also do not last. But the taste provides a foundation in unknowing knowing. One is then neither happy nor sad, but just O.K. Just O.K. is a good thing. No more searching after high or low. Just this.
Soon enough one finds that one can rest, even function in unknowing. Thoughts may come and go, but they are not held on to. Feeling states come and go, but they are not held on to.
Charlie Hayes says “The difference between an intellectual understanding and AWARENESS noticing itself is incredible “
I would ask Charlie. He may be able to provide clarification. He is speaking from beyond the little mind trying to grasp. It's called non dual understanding. Simple, but apparently not simple to come by.
"I am groping in the dark."
That's not a bad thing. It is your mind that feels in the dark. Your feelings may also be groping in the dark. So what is beyond these two? The unknown. Let the unknown become your friend. Peace can be found there.
Lastly, consider these words of the great Sufi poet, Rumi.
"Out beyond ideas of Wrongdoing and Right doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, and even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense."
-Rumi, c. 532 A.D.
There is no "next step."
God bless.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
No Forward, and No Reverse
No forward, and no reverse means there is only now. When only now is important, that is where attention lies. If now requires something in the apparent future, then that is attended to. But it's really not in the future.
My memory is fading because the past is not important. Memory is fading because it has no meaning. In fact, so much of what I would have fought and died for, has lost its meaning.
Why? It appears to be because there is less and less of me. I cry, laugh, feel sad, even depressed, but it has no root. These feelings are not the be all and end all that they used to be.
To live in the world and not have the same sense of things as what I used to call normal, is difficult. It's difficult because of all the expectations. But when there is no belief in the expectations, when the underlying assumptions are all gone, one feels like an impostor, an actor, playing a game.
The term "egojis" was given by a hermit to all those he was avoiding. I understand. When egos are not taken as fact, when they are seen as unreal, having to put energy into responding drains one.
The will seems to be pulled out from under one, and one does what needs to be done, only. Any more than that seems a waste. Much of normal human behavior seems a waste.
Loss of meaning has results. One can't get into looking at the past. That normal behavior is gone. When memory has no meaning, what becomes of old family pictures, graduation books, the stories you once believed?
When any meaning in the past goes, how to you relate to the rest of the world? You become tolerant or run screaming to a cave.
One's life becomes simply what do I want now, and what do I need now? No future. No plans, or as few as possible seems best. Energy for planning just isn't there. One somehow intuitively knows that if one is supposed to go somewhere, it will happen. More than that is just too difficult.
The shell of the ego is still there. It may be a structure without foundation, but like the human skeleton, the structure remains.
So, one has to deal with what is known as guilt. But it is a funny guilt, because it's more like a feeling of, "I should feel this way or that. I should have feelings about this or that." But this is just the dregs of past conditioning.
It's like being one thing for many years and then discovering that you are not that thing. That thing drops away and you are this other. And this other doesn't relate. The hold of the past, the story, holds no weight.
There is a sense of meaning, feelings, and ideas just dropping away. Not being forced away, but a seeing that just doesn't allow for holding them any longer.
Pangs of guilt occur about not caring anymore about things one used to care about. And there are consequences when others perceive one as off. But if they can't sense the loss you have experienced, they can't know. They are innocent, yet their expectations can't be met.
The many want you to be one of them, but in the end, there is only one.
My memory is fading because the past is not important. Memory is fading because it has no meaning. In fact, so much of what I would have fought and died for, has lost its meaning.
Why? It appears to be because there is less and less of me. I cry, laugh, feel sad, even depressed, but it has no root. These feelings are not the be all and end all that they used to be.
To live in the world and not have the same sense of things as what I used to call normal, is difficult. It's difficult because of all the expectations. But when there is no belief in the expectations, when the underlying assumptions are all gone, one feels like an impostor, an actor, playing a game.
The term "egojis" was given by a hermit to all those he was avoiding. I understand. When egos are not taken as fact, when they are seen as unreal, having to put energy into responding drains one.
The will seems to be pulled out from under one, and one does what needs to be done, only. Any more than that seems a waste. Much of normal human behavior seems a waste.
Loss of meaning has results. One can't get into looking at the past. That normal behavior is gone. When memory has no meaning, what becomes of old family pictures, graduation books, the stories you once believed?
When any meaning in the past goes, how to you relate to the rest of the world? You become tolerant or run screaming to a cave.
One's life becomes simply what do I want now, and what do I need now? No future. No plans, or as few as possible seems best. Energy for planning just isn't there. One somehow intuitively knows that if one is supposed to go somewhere, it will happen. More than that is just too difficult.
The shell of the ego is still there. It may be a structure without foundation, but like the human skeleton, the structure remains.
So, one has to deal with what is known as guilt. But it is a funny guilt, because it's more like a feeling of, "I should feel this way or that. I should have feelings about this or that." But this is just the dregs of past conditioning.
It's like being one thing for many years and then discovering that you are not that thing. That thing drops away and you are this other. And this other doesn't relate. The hold of the past, the story, holds no weight.
There is a sense of meaning, feelings, and ideas just dropping away. Not being forced away, but a seeing that just doesn't allow for holding them any longer.
Pangs of guilt occur about not caring anymore about things one used to care about. And there are consequences when others perceive one as off. But if they can't sense the loss you have experienced, they can't know. They are innocent, yet their expectations can't be met.
The many want you to be one of them, but in the end, there is only one.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Morality
There really isn't any morality to This. Just love. If I was supposed to be in the heart of Africa saving starving children, I would be there. I haven't gotten that call, so I'm just here. Of course I could be tapped on the shoulder tomorrow to go, There really wouldn't be any choice about it would there?
The starving children aren't separate from this. I can't understand it. But I don't need to understand it, do I? I don't need to understand it to do something about it. Neither do I need to understand to not do anything about it.
This is pretty sad. But then again, it's the way it IS. And the way it is is not something I can do anything about. Unless I do. Apparently my place right now is not to. Why? I don't know.
I am where I am because that is the way it is. I can think about things and do nothing. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes I do something about what I think is wrong. But I don't know I'm going to do it until I do.
Morality is a fine thing for apparent persons. Especially when it's a morality that works.
Lording it over others with righteous arrogance isn't a very good morality, but it seems to be the norm. Pat yourself on the back.
I didn't know I was going to sit down and write about morality. It just happened. And I don't know anything about it anyway.
The starving children aren't separate from this. I can't understand it. But I don't need to understand it, do I? I don't need to understand it to do something about it. Neither do I need to understand to not do anything about it.
This is pretty sad. But then again, it's the way it IS. And the way it is is not something I can do anything about. Unless I do. Apparently my place right now is not to. Why? I don't know.
I am where I am because that is the way it is. I can think about things and do nothing. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes I do something about what I think is wrong. But I don't know I'm going to do it until I do.
Morality is a fine thing for apparent persons. Especially when it's a morality that works.
Lording it over others with righteous arrogance isn't a very good morality, but it seems to be the norm. Pat yourself on the back.
I didn't know I was going to sit down and write about morality. It just happened. And I don't know anything about it anyway.
The Mystery
I am the Mystery. But I don't know anything about it. As soon as I want to know more about it, I'm trying to step away from it, but I can't, because I am the Mystery. The Mystery and I are not separate, though I can feel that I am separate from it, and must remind myself that it is not the truth.
I am the Mystery, and any thought about it just deepens the Mystery. There is no mastery of this, only the end of searching.
I am the Mystery. Each apparent person writes a chapter or two of this Mystery. But the Mystery is never solved. It doesn't need to be solved. You could say it was already solved before you thought it was a Mystery.
I am the Mystery, and if I try and find the answer, it's only the mystery playing another round. There is nowhere to go. Nothing to find. Finding is already here, present and accounted for.
The Mystery is all there is. So what are you looking for? Really, you should just start laughing. It's really funny. You cant' find what's already here, can you?
There isn't really any mystery to it if you just accept the Mystery. Then it's just floating with it. Or really within it. Or really just It.
I am the Mystery, and any thought about it just deepens the Mystery. There is no mastery of this, only the end of searching.
I am the Mystery. Each apparent person writes a chapter or two of this Mystery. But the Mystery is never solved. It doesn't need to be solved. You could say it was already solved before you thought it was a Mystery.
I am the Mystery, and if I try and find the answer, it's only the mystery playing another round. There is nowhere to go. Nothing to find. Finding is already here, present and accounted for.
The Mystery is all there is. So what are you looking for? Really, you should just start laughing. It's really funny. You cant' find what's already here, can you?
There isn't really any mystery to it if you just accept the Mystery. Then it's just floating with it. Or really within it. Or really just It.