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.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
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.