In stillness there is beauty, wisdom, and the answer. That's what happens when you let go and let god. Anonymous
I've heard a lot of people proclaim this quote. It's a good one. I suspect this quote comes to mind when someone is broken and they have no other option. This is a rather tragic way to come to this conclusion, and I suspect it is quite common. I took the long haul, piece by piece. Not the best route, but that's the way it was for this appearance.
Some of us have pretty strong egos and instead of having some grand collapse, we resist and resist and decompose in small pieces. I was one of this type. I do remember a period of time in my late twenties when I felt like I was dying over several months. This was not a physical death, but the death of the ego. Interestingly, I was probably still resisting, and in actual fact, the death was letting go a small miserable ego, into a more expansive one. A more inclusive one. Still, this was change. It was disruption.
I recall that during this time and later I would search out books. But I was very proscribed in what I chose. I would always chose a book that was very much in line with my current thinking, but just enough further out than where I was to challenge me. This process went on for a long time before I became conscious of what I was doing. Once I became conscious of what I was doing, I thought to myself, "Why don't I just abandon all of my positions and save myself a lot of reading time?"
Toward the end of this phase I saw in the bookstore a small book entitled, "You Are the World. It was a book by J. Krishnamurti. I had never heard of this author, and the cover was just a black and white photo of an old man with white hair. But I loved his face. It was wise and androgynous. I picked it up, read a little bit, bought it and brought it home.
I began reading and was totally enthralled. I knew at the bottom of my heart that I would love to be in the space he must be in to write what he wrote. I could sense the space, but I had nothing to compare it to. I had nothing to grasp it with. It was a book of his talks, and I was captivated.
Since I couldn't put the book down I kept reading. My wife and kids had gone to bed and I was still reading. About half way through tears started running down my eyes. Then a much deeper crying started. I didn't want to wake anyone up, or upset the kids, so I went into the bathroom at the other end of the house. I closed the door, curled up in a corner and cried my heart out.
It was a very strange and profound effect. One of the major feelings I was having, was one of forgiveness. I felt utterly forgiven. Can't to this day tell you what it was in the book that elicited such a response, but effect was explicit. I went on to read everything J. Krishnamurti ever wrote.
This was the opening into the world of the unknown. In fact, one of J. Krishnamurti's most famous titles was "Freedom From the Known." It was along the lines of Jesus saying, "No one puts new wine into old wine skins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. But they put new wine into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved."
J. Krishnamurti was a major catalyst to the emptying of my mind. But, it would be many years of emptying because I had a lot of beliefs and concepts that would need to be dismantled. I joined a Gestalt group and worked on exposing everything I had bottled up inside. Meanwhile, I kept reading.
All this boils down to winnowing out what had been put in by society, my religion, and my own conclusions that were made with poor context, and therefore erroneous. I did not throw out my mind. I just emptied it. I needed to find the truth, and the truth couldn't come into an already full vessel. I have always had a strong mind and it needed to work to come to the point where it could see its limitations. Ramana Maharshi explained it this way. "You use a thorn to remove a thorn and then you throw both away. There is the way of the heart, but with a strong mind, Jnana yoga was more profitable for me.
It took many years to dismantle what I had stored up. Persistence did pay off. In the end there was nothing left but that which is beyond freedom, ineffable, unlimited, unbound, The Absolute.
I've heard a lot of people proclaim this quote. It's a good one. I suspect this quote comes to mind when someone is broken and they have no other option. This is a rather tragic way to come to this conclusion, and I suspect it is quite common. I took the long haul, piece by piece. Not the best route, but that's the way it was for this appearance.
Some of us have pretty strong egos and instead of having some grand collapse, we resist and resist and decompose in small pieces. I was one of this type. I do remember a period of time in my late twenties when I felt like I was dying over several months. This was not a physical death, but the death of the ego. Interestingly, I was probably still resisting, and in actual fact, the death was letting go a small miserable ego, into a more expansive one. A more inclusive one. Still, this was change. It was disruption.
I recall that during this time and later I would search out books. But I was very proscribed in what I chose. I would always chose a book that was very much in line with my current thinking, but just enough further out than where I was to challenge me. This process went on for a long time before I became conscious of what I was doing. Once I became conscious of what I was doing, I thought to myself, "Why don't I just abandon all of my positions and save myself a lot of reading time?"
Toward the end of this phase I saw in the bookstore a small book entitled, "You Are the World. It was a book by J. Krishnamurti. I had never heard of this author, and the cover was just a black and white photo of an old man with white hair. But I loved his face. It was wise and androgynous. I picked it up, read a little bit, bought it and brought it home.
I began reading and was totally enthralled. I knew at the bottom of my heart that I would love to be in the space he must be in to write what he wrote. I could sense the space, but I had nothing to compare it to. I had nothing to grasp it with. It was a book of his talks, and I was captivated.
Since I couldn't put the book down I kept reading. My wife and kids had gone to bed and I was still reading. About half way through tears started running down my eyes. Then a much deeper crying started. I didn't want to wake anyone up, or upset the kids, so I went into the bathroom at the other end of the house. I closed the door, curled up in a corner and cried my heart out.
It was a very strange and profound effect. One of the major feelings I was having, was one of forgiveness. I felt utterly forgiven. Can't to this day tell you what it was in the book that elicited such a response, but effect was explicit. I went on to read everything J. Krishnamurti ever wrote.
This was the opening into the world of the unknown. In fact, one of J. Krishnamurti's most famous titles was "Freedom From the Known." It was along the lines of Jesus saying, "No one puts new wine into old wine skins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. But they put new wine into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved."
J. Krishnamurti was a major catalyst to the emptying of my mind. But, it would be many years of emptying because I had a lot of beliefs and concepts that would need to be dismantled. I joined a Gestalt group and worked on exposing everything I had bottled up inside. Meanwhile, I kept reading.
All this boils down to winnowing out what had been put in by society, my religion, and my own conclusions that were made with poor context, and therefore erroneous. I did not throw out my mind. I just emptied it. I needed to find the truth, and the truth couldn't come into an already full vessel. I have always had a strong mind and it needed to work to come to the point where it could see its limitations. Ramana Maharshi explained it this way. "You use a thorn to remove a thorn and then you throw both away. There is the way of the heart, but with a strong mind, Jnana yoga was more profitable for me.
It took many years to dismantle what I had stored up. Persistence did pay off. In the end there was nothing left but that which is beyond freedom, ineffable, unlimited, unbound, The Absolute.
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