All writings herein serve to open up the world towards knowledge that matters, to piece together the greatest philosophies of living, and to expound ways towards
the path of freedom, happiness & choice.
Saturday, 27 November 2010 21:58 Written by Nirmala
Someone emailed me describing their long lasting struggle to come to terms with their suffering. They finally asked, “I want to let go. But how when all the how’s are useless?!!”
Here is my reply:
Suffering is simply the effort to change, fix or keep our experience. And this is suffering since it creates a gap between what is and what we are paying attention to. Our attention, or really our love, is flowing to an idea in our mind about what should be happening instead of what is happening. And this gap can be very uncomfortable. In fact it is the source of all of our discomfort and pain. Sensation by itself is not painful. It is only when we think about or tell a story about how we want to change, fix or keep the sensation that it becomes painful.
However, there is a great momentum to our thinking and story-telling so there is a great momentum to our suffering. It is the mother of all habits. And so even though it is so painful, the tendency to strive to change, fix or keep our experience can continue to arise in both obvious and subtle ways. This is simply the nature of habits, they tend to continue.
Now here is a dilemma: anything we do to change our suffering is just more suffering. It is one more attempt to change or fix our experience. The antidote to suffering is not more suffering. The antidote to suffering is to see the underlying truth of suffering. In this way the end of suffering is quite similar to the realization of our true nature. They are both simply a matter of seeing what is true more clearly and completely. They are never the result of something we do, they are simply the result of something we recognize.
Recognizing something is not something we really do. It is more like something that happens within us. When you look at a photo in the newspaper and suddenly recognize your friend in the picture, it is not something you do. You don’t decide to recognize the person in the picture and then go about making that happen. The recognition just happens within you. It is a potential you already have since you already know what your friend looks like, and that knowledge is simply triggered by the photograph.
So what is it we need to recognize about suffering? The thing we need to recognize about suffering is that there is no such thing! Suffering is just an idea or thought, and there is not really anything happening that this thought refers to. Suffering ends when we see that there is not any “thing” called suffering and there never has been.
All of our effort to change, fix or keep our experience has been an imaginary effort to change, fix or keep our experience. It has all been something we imagined doing. This is because it is always too late to actually change, fix or keep our experience. By the time we decide to change or fix our experience, it has already happened. And by the time we decide to keep our experience, it has already changed. So the only thing we can really do is think about how we would change, fix or keep our experience. We never really get around to changing the experience we are already having.
But wait a minute, what about all of the things you do that do appear to change, fix or keep your experience? Here is the thing: when we actually get up and do something to change what is happening, that becomes our experience. And so in that moment there really is no suffering in the doing. It is just what is happening. In fact, often when we actually get busy doing something our imaginary suffering subsides since we are not usually imagining trying to not do something when we are busy doing it.
So it turns out that there is no reason to stop doing anything you already are doing to improve or manage your life. The doing itself is not the problem. The problem is imagining that what you are doing is going to make things better. The problem is imagining that your doing is going to change, fix or keep your experience. Experience always is changing whether you are doing something or not.
Suffering does not come from our experience, and so a change in our experience never affects our suffering except temporarily. It only relieves our suffering until we imagine doing something else. The trick is in seeing this so clearly that it no longer matters whether you are doing or not doing. This place where it does not matter if you are doing something or not is free of suffering, since what is happening is simply….what is happening, and that always includes anything you are doing or not doing. And ultimately, it has never mattered to our experience of suffering what we do or what we do not do. That is all just the natural movement of life and Being.
Here is where it gets very strange: even our suffering has always just been the natural movement of life and Being. Imagination is just what minds do. When you see the true nature of suffering – that it is just imagination – then there is no reason to even change that. The deepest healing is when we see that there is nothing here that needs healing. Suffering is like that. There is nothing wrong with suffering because it has never been real. It only exists within our imagination, and there is nothing wrong with imagination.
And paradoxically, when it is profoundly recognized that there is no problem with suffering, the tendency to suffer can subside. This happens when we realize that suffering does not matter in the same way that we realize that a small cloud moving across the sky does not matter. Again it is not something we really do, it is simply a recognition of what is so. And yet we can know this truth in a way that is not purely intellectual, but in a way that has sunk into our very bones. You can know that suffering does not matter in the same way that you know that a hot flame can burn your hand. You do not have to think about it, you just know and pull your hand back.
When we know with this same degree of fundamental conviction that what we imagine does not matter, and how we suffer does not matter, then there is a natural tendency for the habit of suffering to fall away by itself. When we deeply recognize the nature of something, we naturally respond to it in the most appropriate way.
There is a story about a family who always cut the ends off of a ham before cooking it. One day the daughter asked her mother why they did that. The mother said, I don’t know, we just always did it that way. So they went and asked the grandmother, and she also said she did not know why but that was always the way they did it. Finally they asked the great grandmother and she explained that the oven she used for most of her life was very small and so to be able to fit the large hams that they got from the butcher in those days into her oven, she had to cut off the ends. After that no one in the family ever cut off the end of a ham before cooking it. Once you see that suffering does not matter, the habit can naturally fall away.
Suffering is like a mirage in the desert. When we actually get up close to it, we see that it does not really exist in the way we imagined. There is nothing we need to change about it or fix. And yet in seeing this, the tendency to spend a lot of time imagining ways to change, fix or keep our experience can simply fall away. It is not as interesting when you see it is purely imagination. After all, what good is an imaginary car? And what harm is an imaginary tiger? Imagination has such a limited reality, that there can simply be less interest in it after a while. Again, this is not something you do, it is just something that happens within you when you recognize the nature of your imagining.
What about right now? What is your imagination doing or not doing? How real is your suffering? Can you actually find it except in your mind? This mother of all habits is just a habit of thought. It can’t really harm you.
Hindu cosmology will be used in this article below, but no belief system is necessary to undertake the investigation.
This article discusses purpose and meaning, showing how identifying with our deeper level of pure awareness leads to enjoying life to the maximum.
In this article I shall discuss Hindu cosmology and its divine ‘plan’, although ‘play’ would be more appropriate. I shall then consider whether this makes life meaningful. I will attempt to show that when one engages totally in this ‘play’, life becomes so enjoyable and pleasurable that no other meaning or purpose is necessary. Finally, I shall consider some objections that could be raised for such a view and offer counters to them.
For me the most plausible divine plan/purpose rests in Hindu cosmology.
In this, Brahman (the totality of cosmic power, energy, consciousness or awareness) rests as a single point before the creation of the universe. Compare this to the ‘singularity’ which modern physics/astronomy posits existed before the ‘big bang’.
From Brahman is manifested the universe and he pervades it, or dwells in it as it. In the gospel of Ramakrishna we find: After the creation the primal power dwells in the universe itself.
In the Vedas creation is likened to the spider and its web. The spider brings the web out of itself and then remains in it. God is the container of the universe and also what is contained in it.
Brahman is considered to have two aspects, the male which is the witnessing/awareness aspect (consciousness at rest) and the female which is the aspect of creation, preservation and destruction (consciousness in motion).
This manifestation of the universe occurred, according to modern science, as the ‘big bang’. The universe ‘grows’ until it reaches a certain point and then recedes finally resting back in Brahman at a single point. Compare this to the expanding universe which, it is theorized, will eventually reach a limit and then start contracting until finally the ‘big crunch’ will reduce it back to a singularity.
This explains the cosmology, but what of plan or purpose?
According to the Hindus this is all the ‘play’ of Brahman in the female aspect called the ‘Divine Mother’.
The Divine Mother is always playful and sportive. The universe is her play. She wants to continue playing with her created beings. Her pleasure is in continuing the game.
Before we can consider whether this makes our lives as human beings meaningful, we have to consider what we really are. Are we just puppets who are being played with by some divine force, or manifestations of that force participating fully in the ‘play’? According to the Hindus Brahman is ‘the container of the universe and also what is contained in it’. Thus we are, in essence, also ‘That’ (Brahman) and able to participate fully in the ‘play’.
However, this is not possible whilst we consider ourselves as separate individual beings trying to make our way in an alien world. This is mainly because this stops us ‘being’ the present moment and engaging totally in the ‘play’. Consider the play of children who totally lose themselves in the game and thus participate fully with maximum enjoyment. As long as we consider ourselves to be a separate ego we are always trying to better ourselves, achieve more (knowledge, possessions, power, fame etc.), polish our self-image and generally build ourselves up. This tends to make us live in the future and stops us from living fully in the present moment. The other side of this coin is to live in regret as to what might have been, self-loathing, melancholy or yearning for the past. This also stops us from seeing ‘what is’ here and now, either by making us live in the past or by the mind spinning on our failures and lack of self-worth.
I realize that this goes against modern western thought which finds meaning in achievement/purpose rather than the sheer enjoyment of ‘what is’ at any given moment. Consider the following quotes from The Meaning of Life:
~ What counts is that one should be able to begin a new task, a new castle, a new bubble. (Richard Taylor)
~ In so far as I have carved out my being in the human world, I go on existing in the future. (Hazel Barnes)
I am not suggesting that having and achieving goals is not a source of great satisfaction, but it does not compare to the bliss evoked when one comes across a stunning sunset which is seen with a still mind, or when you are at a concert and you hear the music so deeply that you ‘become’ the music. This occurs when you totally ‘lose yourself’ in the manifestation.
The point here is that the world is a wonderful place when seen ‘as it is’ with a still mind and no reference to a separate individual seer. In other words when it is seen in its actual reality and not through the narrow filter of the minds’ likes/dislikes, judgements and opinions. I can offer no proof of this apart from the fact that it is my experience and has also been pointed to by many mystics, past and present. This can, in fact, only be known through experience and not through reason and the intellect.
Why should this be the case? Our deeper level of pure awareness, an aspect of Brahman, is who we ‘are’ at a deeper level than mind/body. Our mind/bodies are the instruments with which It (as we) senses and ‘plays in’ Its creation. Thus when you filter any sensation through the mind you are ‘colouring’ it with something less (the mind’s likes/dislikes, opinions and judgements) than the pure awareness in which it appears, and so masking its actual reality.
Finally, consider the problems that this view encounters. The first, and for the philosopher the main problem, is that it cannot be proved by argument and reason. In fact these are the tools which obscure it. It has to be experienced, but for this you have to know, existentially, that you are not separate from ‘That’, the totality of being. Unfortunately, this knowledge is impossible to obtain as long as you identify with the mind/body or as a separate individual.
This is because we are identifying with our rational mind and using it to judge every moment, rather than just ‘being’ with a still mind and experiencing the actual reality of existence.
The point is that pure ‘being’ can only be experienced when one is not ‘thinking of the future, establishing aims and having preferences’; the two states are mutually exclusive, the second preventing the first!
Summing up: when one lives moment to moment, identified with the ‘totality of being’, one is able to engage fully in the ‘Divine Play’. This makes life light, not heavy, and thoroughly enjoyable not requiring any extra meaning or purpose. It is only when identified as a separate individual, living in an alien world, that such meaning or purpose seems necessary.
(Colin Drake has written a book called “Beyond the Separate Self”. If you’d like to learn more about it, please visit: www.nonduality.com/btss.htm)
As I’m writing this right now, this short film has received 1,430,206 views.
Watching it, you may find yourself humored at how reality may appear to most people everyday, and also at how foolishly selfish we can be most of the time.
The video depicts a man’s commute to work, his mental comments towards the things that happen around him, and what happens after he’s given a special something which allowed him to see things he previously couldn’t:
This is the first in a series of three essays, written by a Stoic, about what it means to practice an ancient philosophy in the modern world.
I never intended to become a Stoic. Who, after all, were the Stoics? They were those grim, wooden figures of ancient Greece and Rome whose goal it was to stand mutely and take whatever the world could throw at them. Right?
About a decade ago, though, I began a research project on human desire. The goal of the project was to write a book on the subject, but I also had a hidden agenda in conducting my research: I was contemplating becoming a Zen Buddhist and wanted to learn more about it before taking the leap. But the more I learned about Zen, the less it attracted me.
Practicing Zen would require me to suppress my analytical abilities, something I found it quite difficult to do. Another off-putting aspect of Zen was that the moment of enlightenment it dangled before its practitioners was by no means guaranteed. Practice Zen for decades and you might achieve enlightenment — or you might not. It would be tragic, I thought, to spend the remaining decades of my life pursuing a moment of enlightenment that never came. Zen doubtless works for some people, but for me, the fit wasn’t good.
Then something quite unexpected happened. As part of my research, I investigated what ancient philosophers had to say about desire. Among them were the Stoic philosophers — people like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus — about whom I knew little. As I read them, I discovered that they were quite unlike I imagined they would be. Indeed, it soon became apparent that everything I “knew” about the Stoics was wrong. They were neither grim nor wooden. If anything, the adjective that I thought described them best was “buoyant” or maybe even “cheerful.” And without consciously intending to do so, I found myself experimenting with Stoic strategies for daily living.
Thus, when I found myself in a predicament — being stuck in traffic, for example — I followed the advice of Epictetus and asked myself what aspects of the situation I could and couldn’t control. I couldn’t control what the other cars did, so it was pointless — was in fact counterproductive — for me to get angry at them. My energy was much better spent focusing on things I could control, with the most important being how I responded to the situation. In particular, I could employ Stoic strategies to prevent the incident from spoiling my day.
I also started making use of the Stoic technique known as negative visualization: I would periodically contemplate the loss of the things and people that mean the most to me. Thus, when parting from a friend, I might make a mental note that this could conceivably be the last time I would see the friend in question. Friendships do end, after all, and people die suddenly. Doing this sort of thing may seem morbid, but the practice of negative visualization is a powerful antidote to a phenomenon that will otherwise deprive us of much of the happiness we could be enjoying: negative visualization prevents us from taking for granted the world around us and the people in it.
When they hear about negative visualization, people often get the wrong idea. They think the Stoics advocate that we spend our days dwelling on all the bad things that can happen to us. This, of course, would be a recipe for a miserable existence. What the Stoics in fact advocate is not that we dwell on bad things but that we contemplate them, a subtle but important difference. They also recommend that we engage in negative visualization not constantly but only a few times each day and for only a few seconds each time. Our negative visualizations, then, will take the form of fleeting thoughts.
Visualizing in this manner has the effect of resetting the baseline against which we measure our happiness, and it can have a profound and immediate effect on that happiness. As the result of negatively visualizing, we might find ourselves taking delight that we still possess the things that only moments before, we took for granted, including our job, our spouse, our health — indeed, our very existence.
One of my favorite visualization exercises involves the sky. When I see it, I periodically remind myself that the sky didn’t have to be blue. But on most days it is blue, and a gorgeous blue, the hue of which changes subtly from hour to hour. Then I reflect on how wonderful it is that we inhabit a universe that can, on a nearly daily basis, present us with such a spectacle. A simple exercise, to be sure, and some would say a silly one. But if you can learn to appreciate the sky — something most people take utterly for granted — there is a good chance that you can learn to appreciate your life as well and thereby enjoy a happier existence than would otherwise be the case.
I mentioned above that the benefits to be derived from practicing Zen are uncertain. Stoicism, by way of contrast, does not dangle before its adherents a moment — maybe — of life-transforming enlightenment. Instead, it provides a body of advice for them to follow and a set of strategies for them to employ in everyday life. The strategies in question are easy to use. (Indeed, I suspect that many of the readers of this essay have already, in the last few seconds, successfully attempted negative visualization.) That said, I should add that it takes rather longer to internalize Stoic advice and strategies so that one’s response to the events of daily living becomes reflexively Stoical, at which point one can truly claim to be a Stoic.
My experiments with Stoicism were sufficiently encouraging that I abandoned my plans to become a Zen Buddhist and decided instead to follow in the footsteps of Zeno of Citium, the Greek who formulated Stoicism in about 300 B.C. I decided, in other words, to become a walking, talking anachronism: I would attempt to transform myself into a twenty-first century Stoic. My goal in the essays in this series is to describe some aspects of this transformation.
Most people, of course, would think of Zen Buddhism and Stoicism as being polar opposites, philosophically speaking, but that is because people tend to be, as I was, woefully ignorant of what Stoicism is. One of the most surprising things that came out of my research was how much Zen and Stoicism have in common.
They both advocate taking what Buddha referred to as “the middle path.” Buddha lived a life of luxury in a palace but was not fulfilled by that life. He abandoned the palace to live a life of extreme asceticism but again did not find fulfillment. It was then that he experienced his moment of enlightenment. The wise person, Buddha concluded, will not shun pleasure; at the same time, he will keep firmly in mind how easy it is to become enslaved by it. He will therefore be guarded in his enjoyment of pleasure.
The Stoics likewise advocated taking the middle path. Zeno of Citium began his philosophical education by practicing Cynicism, the ancient philosophy that advocated an ascetic lifestyle. The ancient Cynics (including Diogenes of Sinope and Zeno’s teacher Crates) lived on the street and owned only the clothing that they wore. Zeno abandoned Cynicism in part because he rejected its asceticism. In the Stoic philosophy he formulated, we are told that there is nothing wrong with enjoying life’s pleasures, as long as we are careful not to allow ourselves to be enslaved by them and as long as, even while we are enjoying them, we take steps to prepare ourselves ultimately to be deprived of them.
Offer a Stoic a glass of fine champagne, and he probably won’t refuse it; as he drinks it, though, he might reflect on the possibility that this will be the last time he drinks champagne, a reflection, by the way, that will dramatically enhance his enjoyment of the moment. Then again, offer a Stoic a glass of water, and he might go through the same thought processes with the same result.
In having “last time” thoughts (which, by the way, are a form of negative visualization), a Stoic is behaving rather like a Buddhist. Both Stoics and Buddhists think it important, if we are to have a good life, that we recognize the transient nature of human existence, and both advise us periodically to contemplate impermanence. This is what Stoics are doing when they reflect on the fact that since we are mortal, there will be a last time for each of the things we do in life. Thus, there will be a last time you drink champagne — or water, for that matter. There will be a last time you touch the face of another human being. There will even be a last time you utter the word “forever.”
Along similar lines, both Zen Buddhists and Stoics think it important for us to strive to stay “in the moment.” People tend to spend their days and consequently their lives as well dwelling on things that happened in past moments and worrying about things that will happen in future moments. As a result, there is little time left for them to savor the moment they currently are living. If we are to have a good life, it is important, says Stoic Marcus Aurelius, for us to keep in mind that “man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant.”
For one last parallel between Buddhism and Stoicism, consider again the above-described blue-sky exercise. As a Stoic, I had practiced this exercise for years before I became aware of the work of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. It turns out that Buddhists, in their practice of mindfulness, employ a similar exercise.
On adopting Stoicism, I discovered how much the world has changed since the philosophy was first formulated. Back then, if you told someone you were a practicing Stoic, they would have understood what you meant. In ancient Greece and Rome, it was common for people in the upper classes to adopt a philosophy of life; indeed, parents sent their sons to schools of philosophy (prominent among which were the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Academic schools) in part to acquire such a philosophy.
Tell modern individuals that you are a practicing Stoic, though, and they are likely to be puzzled. “Is it some kind of religion?” they will ask.
My standard response: “No. Religions generally concern themselves with the afterlife; philosophies of life such as Stoicism concern themselves with daily life. They teach us what things in life are most valuable and how best to attain them.”
This response is likely to give rise to a new question: “And just what did the Stoics think was valuable?” My response: “Not what most people think is valuable — namely, fame and fortune. To the contrary, the Stoics (and in particular the Roman Stoics) valued tranquillity, and by tranquillity they had in mind not the kind of numbness that can be attained by downing a third martini, but instead the absence of negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, grief, and fear, from their life. They had nothing against positive emotions, though, including that most positive of emotions, joy. The Stoics were also confident that people who exchange their tranquillity for fame and fortune have made a foolish bargain.”
This, by the way, is yet another point of agreement between Zen and Stoicism: both philosophies of life point to tranquillity as the thing in life most worth attaining. But wait a minute, if Zen and Stoicism share the same goal in living, namely, the attainment of tranquillity, won’t they count as the same philosophy of life?
No, because although they share this goal, they offer different advice on how to attain it. Thus, a Zen Buddhist might advise those wishing to attain tranquillity to spend hours each day trying to empty their mind of all thought. And when they are not doing this, they should spend time trying to solve koans, those paradoxical questions, the most famous of which is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”
The Stoics, by way of contrast, would recommend neither of these activities. Your time would be much better spent, they would suggest, analyzing what it is in your daily life that disrupts your tranquillity and thinking about what you can do to prevent such disruptions. And to aid you in your thinking, the Stoics would go on to suggest that you take a look at the writings of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus. There you will find much advice on how to deal with insults, how to overcome grief, how to avoid getting angry, how to take delight in the world you inhabit, and so forth.
At this point, my introduction-to-Stoicism conversation sometimes turns ugly. The conversation can cause the other person to realize that he has never taken time to think about the “grand goal of living;” instead, his attention has been focused on the short-term goals of daily life, such as getting a promotion at work or acquiring an even-wider-screen television. Or, even worse, the conversation can put the person on the defensive. If he routinely spends his days exchanging his tranquillity for a (quite possibly unsuccessful) shot at the acquisition of fame and fortune, he will not take kindly to my “foolish bargain” comment.
In either case, he might resent what he will construe as an attempt by me to impose my values on him, and his resentment might be expressed indirectly, by ridiculing Stoicism. It is, to be sure, easy to avoid this ridicule: if you decide to give Stoicism a try as your philosophy of life, I suggest that you keep your plans to yourself and practice what I call stealth Stoicism. This is what I would have done had I not taken it on myself to become a twenty-first century Stoic teacher.
This, in a nutshell, is what Stoicism is and why I found myself drawn to it. I hope that if I have accomplished anything in this essay, I have persuaded readers that the ancient Stoics were not stoical in the modern sense of the word — they were not, as the dictionary puts it, “seemingly indifferent to or unaffected by joy, grief, pleasure, or pain.” Indeed, the phrase joyful Stoic is not the oxymoron it might seem to be.
SOCRATES: Hail to Thee, Aeschines! From where do you return to visit us now?
AESCHINES: I have just returned from my father’s kitchen where I was assisting him in making his famed spiced meat delicacies.
S. Yes! Charinus makes the finest sausages in all Athens, that is beyond dispute.
A. Thank you, Socrates. Next to my father, I love you dearly. I hope I shall never leave you. Strike me with your staff, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you’ve something to say.
S. Only the sausage-maker’s son knows how to honour me. I wish all my friends were as loyal as you, Aeschines. In some ways, your respected profession has often appealed to me as most enviable. You assist your Father whom you love, earn an honest livelihood, exercise great care and attention keeping the restless mind in check, and what is more, create delicacies for the citizens of Athens to enjoy with wine and fill their bellies, which when digested, turns to thought and hopefully beneficial actions.
A. Thou speakest truth as always, Socrates. I have toiled to excel at this work, selecting the choicest herbs, learning to pound the cooked rare meats into a paste and blend them, pack them in an edible skin and make them look as appetising as possible.
S. I am persuaded of your eminent skill, Aeschincs. I trust you will not refuse me a sample of your labours.
A. Here is one of Father’s latest concoctions, a mixture of lamb and rabbit flavoured with honey, thyme and black pepper.
S. Thank you. I shall relish it more after our conversation but now ask me whatever you will.
A. You said earlier that my food after being digested, stimulates thought which leads to action.
S. I recall having said that.
A. Does this mean I am indirectly responsible for my clients’ thoughts and deeds?
S. After a fashion, partially, but not completely. Thoughts need food stuff to make them happen.
A. But surely Socrates, man is responsible for his own thoughts and actions, and has the freedom to decide his acts?
S. Dear boy, I hope you will not be shocked when I tell you that man has no freedom of will, and is not responsible for his actions.
A. But surely Socrates, this goes against the ‘consensus gentium’ of educated people and their commonsense. I feel and I know that I am responsible for my acts. When I think to do something, I carry it out.
S. Are you so sure, my dear fellow? Let us examine this matter more closely. Sit down a while. You say you think; where does the thought that you have, come from, in the first instance? Where does it arise?
A. From me, of course.
S. From Me. Tell me, who is this Me? Can you find him inside? Now watch closely. Where do thoughts actually come from? Be very honest.
A. Well, surprisingly they seem to arrive from nowhere, out of the blue. From the Gods, perhaps.
S. Now you see that you did not create the initial thought. It arrives from you know not where. Then what happens?
A. It commences the faculty of reasoning.
S. Yes. It touches your mind, and either the thought is rejected as unworthy or accepted as useful, according to needs, standards of upbringing and so forth; and it starts a process called thinking.
A. But surely I start the process of reasoning.
S. Are you sure? Look closely now. See what actually happens. A thought arrives from nowhere, touches the mind which reacts according to its patterns of education and what it believes to be the right response, and some more thought weighs the matter up.
A. But surely in the weighing I choose from the alternatives offered by commonsense and reason?
S. I mistrust your commonsense and conventional opinion, the so-called reason of the masses. Only the philosophers understand the nature of choice, and not too many of them, I suspect.
A. Do you mean I didn’t choose?
S. What happens if you watch, dear sausage maker, is that the mind or thoughts present alternatives, and according to your disposition you choose what you consider to be the most practical, pleasurable and in the best interest for you. But there is no daemon inside to choose. The choice happens mechanically, like an abacus, and then the mind foolishly ascribes it to itself as “a free agent”, boasting arrogantly “I CHOOSE.”
A. Please continue, Socrates. This is most illuminating.
S. Truly the choice was inevitable. The so-called act of choosing was part of the structure of predetermination. The choice was inevitable, because it appealed to your hidden tendencies of pleasure, and what you believe to be appropriate. In fact there was never any freedom to choose anything other than that which was chosen.
A. But surely if a man does good deeds, they are his own, just as the man who does evil deeds?
S. Again, Aeschines, let us examine very closely. Watch how everything happens. A train of inevitable events leads one man to the good, another to the so-called evil.
A. How is that?
S. One man is born into a noble womb, with refined educated parents, another into an uncaring home of ignorance. Patterns of behaviour are laid down like a mosaic, by example and imitation. What you call good and bad habits are largely mimicry.
A. But surely, Socrates, there are innate tendencies of good and evil that men are born with?
S. Yes. Souls are transmigrated with these tendencies laid down.
A. So what determines this behaviour of these souls?
S. Examples from parents, family, teachers, people you meet, heroes, reading, and so forth. You are determined all the time, by each new event.
A. Is this the way the Gods control our destiny?
S. Broadly, yes.
A. I see. So when I choose, I imagine I’m choosing, but really it’s all predetermined.
S. Exactly. You are beginning to see the point.
A. Then tell me, Socrates, the idea that I can do anything of my own free will, is that falsely imagined?
S. Yes.
A. Then how do I live?
S. Choose as if you have choice, knowing you really have none. This is a step towards freedom and the Good. It will remove guilt, and stop you from blaming others for their so called bad deeds, and stop you from flattering others for their so called good deeds, according to society’s approval or disapproval.
A. If this was generally understood, what would our tragedians have to write about?
S. Very little. But about good and bad, the Nubian, Libyan and Egyptian have quite different standards to we Greeks, neither better nor worse except according to our opinion. Moreover, each tragedy illustrates a chief characteristic which prevents the hero from coming to Self knowledge. Such was the blindness of Oedipus.
A. But how will I live, knowing all this?
S. Enjoy yourself, my boy. Be happy. Love your work, and study philosophy, but don’t attribute your actions to an imaginary ME who doesn’t actually exist which is the real slavery.
A. Thank you Socrates. But…
S. There are always ‘buts’ – listen! This idea that men can act independently of the Gods is at the root of their bondage, and enslaves master and boy alike. To be free, a man must know this clearly. This is my point. I hammer it home continuously.
A. How do I see this clearly?
S. Some time, reflect on major events of your day and examine how much they really happened through your free will? This will undermine your vanity and your pride.
A. Thank you.
S. The tyrant is the imaginary ME who has usurped the Good which is our birthright of freedom. Sacrifice him to the Gods, and all will be well, I promise.
A. Thank you again, Socrates.
S. Come, my dear friend, let us enjoy your sausage with some Cypriot wine; Ah! I can see Alciabides approaching.
NOTES
(1) A Socratic Dialogue. Aeschines was a friend of Socrates who recorded many dialogues, but unlike Plato’s his have largely been lost to posterity. The translation is by Alan Adams Jacobs.
(2) This remark is confirmed in Chapter 7 of LIVES OF EMMINENT PHILOSOPHERS by Diogenes Laertius, along with details of Aeschines’ life.
The human condition is characterized by a compulsive and obsessive personal relationship to thought. At its best, thought is a symbolic representation of reality; at its worst, thought takes the place of reality. Our thoughts describe and interpret both the external world and our internal experiences. To conceive of a life lived any other way is incomprehensible to most people. Thought tells us who we are; what we believe; what is right and wrong; what we should feel; what is true and what is false; and how we fit into this event called “life.” We literally create ourselves and our lives out of thought. Further, we associate the end of thought with sleep, unconsciousness, or death. It is this very personal relationship with thought that is the cause of all the fear, ignorance, and suffering which characterizes the human condition, and which destroys the manifestation of true Love in this life.
As long as your experience of self and life is defined by the mechanical, conditioned, and compulsive movement of thought, you are bound to a very, very limited perception of what is real. But imagine a relationship to thought that was impersonal. This would mean that you were no longer compulsively defining and interpreting yourself and your experience by the movement of thought. If this were the case, you would no longer be limited by the conditioned perspective of thought. Suddenly your entire perspective would shift away from thought to that which was the very ground and source of all thought. A source which, because it wasn’t being compulsively interpreted by thought, would be experienced as it actually is for the first time.
Why is this so important? Because when you are able to perceive this Source, you are actually in direct experiential contact with the truth of your own being. Out of that contact the possibility is ripe to suddenly awaken to who and what you really are – the Self – pure consciousness.
The Self is the context within which thought arises. Manifestation in the world of time arises as a wave out of the ocean of eternal consciousness. But the human condition is defined by a very personal and compulsive relationship to thought, which makes this realization impossible unless you are able, either suddenly or gradually, to let go of the compulsive need to know and understand with the mind. You must become more interested in the context within which thought and all experience arises than in the false security of thought itself. Most people find this very difficult because facing the context, which is prior to all knowing, is literally stepping into the unknown, which is the last place most people want to go. Why? Because thought always seeks security in itself, which is the known.
Fear and insecurity always wait for any and all who dare to probe the depths of the Unknown. The true seeker of liberation must have an uncompromising desire to discover Eternal Truth, a desire that outweighs any tendency to hesitate and contract in the face of fear. It is only when the fear of the Unknown is openly embraced that it begins to transform into the positive energy and intensity necessary to awaken from conditioned existence.
It is not uncommon in the presence of a powerful teacher, and under ideal conditions, to have a glimpse of enlightenment. But all too often most seekers are unwilling to surrender to the overwhelming implications of that revelation. The profound intimacy and vulnerability inherent in true freedom marks the destruction of the ego’s boundaries to such an extent that all beings and all things become the content of one’s own Self. To most seekers this is simply too much because the limitlessness of the Self leaves no room for any separateness from the whole. It is this complete lack of separation from the whole which is the very definition of selflessness and love.
The aim of spiritual practice is to discover in your own present experience That which the movement of thought never touches. This does not mean to suppress the thinking mind, nor does it mean to attempt to understand by using thought. What I am pointing toward is the Unknown: the already, ever-present, silent-still-source that not only precedes thought but surrounds it. You must become more interested in the Unknown than in that which is known. Otherwise you will remain enslaved by the very narrow and distorted perspective of conceptual thinking. You must go so deeply into the Unknown that you are no longer referencing thought to tell you who and what you are. Only then will thought be capable of reflecting that which is true rather than falsely masquerading as truth.
What I am talking about is a condition where the mind never fixates; where it never closes; where it has no compulsive need to understand in terms of ideas, concepts, and beliefs. A condition where you are no longer referencing the mind, feelings, or emotions for security in any way. What I am talking about is the complete surrender of all separateness until liberation becomes a permanent condition, and you are forever lost in the freedom of the Absolute.
- Adyashanti
(Him: Next to Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti seems to be the most recognized teacher on the topic of consciousness in the US. His teachings seem to be easier to understand compared to many others’ on the same subject. To learn more from Adyashanti, kindly visit: http://www.adyashanti.org)
I recently watched a video of David Wilcock & Graham Hancock sitting down together, discussing data around a subject which mainstream archeology has yet to successfully publish.
It concerns a civilization which potentially existed at least 12,000 years ago.
A possible civilization with technologies and a level of intelligence that far exceed its time.
Below is the description of the May 2010 YouTube video:
“Bringing together two inspirational investigators of our hidden past and uncertain future, this unique dialogue between David Wilcock and Graham Hancock takes us on a roller-coaster ride through the wonders of ancient civilisations and into the mysterious nature of reality itself. What is the Ark of the Covenant? Why is its loss the greatest riddle of the Bible? Has its final resting place been found? What do the Great Pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza teach us? What was the function of the Osireion and other megalithic sites of unknown origin found throughout Egypt? Were the high knowledge and magic of ancient Egypt brought to the Nile Valley by the survivors of an earlier civilisation around 12,500 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age? The possibility of a great lost civilisation Atlantis by any other name was the focus of Graham Hancock’s book Fingerprints of the Gods and the dialogue considers the evidence for this exciting idea – including out-of-place artifacts and technologies, ancient maps of the world as it last looked more than 12,500 years ago, and the mysteries of the Mayan calendar. Join Hancock and Wilcock as they discuss Angkor in Cambodia, Baalbeck in the Lebanon, underwater ruins submerged by rising sea levels all around the world at the end of the last Ice Age, the alleged monuments and a gigantic sculpture of a human face on the planet Mars. The dialogue concludes with a paradigm-busting investigation into the full mysterious spectrum of reality.”
Now, I’m not the kind of person who’d invest time into speculations, opinions or claims.
The reason why this interaction intrigued me was because of the large amounts of solid facts provided throughout the discussion.
If you’re interested in truth rather than news, I highly endorse it for your viewing.
With time, us humans are able to eventually resolve more and more mysteries.
I hope this video adds value to your life in that sense:
A friend of mine recently wrote on Facebook that she saw a red light passed by at an unusual high speed in the sky near her area.
She was determined that it was a UFO. Here’s a 20-yr old lady brought up in a good family, well educated, has a healthy social circle and she could make sense that the object which flew past in the sky was just not normal. Times are changing, people are beginning to be able to openly talk about things which were in the past deemed ‘psychotic’ – even when the facts supporting the subject is vast.
Her action piqued my interest into searching for some of the latest videos uploaded on YouTube regarding UFOs.
Needless to say – there were lots of them. Documentaries, clips of reports & incidents, arguments, interviews, presentations, there were resources sufficient to convince just any kind of people to believe that there are intelligences that are not from within earth. One only needs to be open-minded enough to spend time watching the videos to learn all one needs to know about this topic.
I always secretly have an invested interest in topics like these. Main reason? I like to unravel truths and history that humans have yet to discover, or have been forcibly hidden away from by certain authorities. That’s how my curiosity works – I perceive that new information provides new avenues of solutions to problems we couldn’t solve in the past. If we can leverage on them with a positive intention, many good things can take place.
I mean, can you imagine what would happen if we knew that humans aren’t the only beings in this entire universe with conscious will & intelligence? How would we live life differently given this understanding? We have been fighting ourselves in many ways, sometimes for matters so small they seem pitiful when seen from a higher perspective. If we knew that we are not alone in this universe, can you imagine how much more willingness people would have in caring and loving for each other? We’d be much closer as one family despite our physical, cultural or social differences.
So good information or knowledge is worth being shared.
There are many more ‘intense’ videos on the subject of UFOs and extra-terrestrials at YouTube. Documentaries up to hours long, interviews that comprise of people with credible status, home-video shots of live events, you name it. But the video I’m going to share with you here will be much more ‘gentle’ in tone instead – to make it an easier watch for people who are still skeptics on this topic.
Here’s a description of the video:
“For the past few years Anthony Woods has somehow recorded videos about UFOs on a scale unprecedented in history. Over one year in the making, this program tells the remarkable story of his efforts to record some of the most extraordinary UFO footage ever seen.”
What’s interesting about Anthony Woods is that he’s the man with the most self-captured videos on UFOs. And on top of that, the videos he had taken were also much more credible than most videos that exist because of their clarity, and time recorded (daylight). He had captured some of the clearest videos involving UFOs that seemingly defy the laws of physics, and also incidents that irrevocably proof their existences in terms of their arrival in fleets.
Here is the video – hope you’ll find it interesting:
Additional Videos:
Words from Former Canadian Defense Minister, Paul Hellyer on the same subject:
CNN reporting declassified UFO national archives by the UK Government on February 2010:
I recently received a question from a nonduality believer.
Nonduality believers believe everything is one in this world, that nothing is separate, and there is no you and me.
Not as an idea, concept or philosophy – but as the truth.
Yes, some of the Hinduism or Buddhism crowds do adopt the same thinking as well.
The only difference is nonduality came about from a philosophical standpoint – through a method of self enquiry, questions that prompt one to answer who one truly is, what is real/not and so on.
So I read some of the things several of them talk about, and decided I had to oppose – since from a logical point of view, I don’t agree with some of the things they say.
Note: I believe in the idea of nonduality, not the spiritual sense of it as supported by Hinduism or Buddhism believers.
Here is a response in return to a question I was asked:
“What occured to excite your passion for society?” – After I opposed the group by stating their fully invested belief in nonduality as a ‘spiritual believer’ is delusional, can be harmful to the world, and I reasonably represent the society in whole: citizens of different countries, people of different hierarchies, humans of different races when I say that because one has to be open-minded enough to include everyone’s way of thinking, before one could decide that one’s idea is the absolute.
They are hung up on the concept that real life is an idea, and that the everyday truth is we are not different individuals, but just that – the same awareness.
-=-
The nature of your question alone is worth investigating.
Those who are aware of nonduality will not have to ask
another of what one thinks cause you’re non-dual in the
first place isn’t it?
And if you don’t have a passion for society, you’re
passionate for only yourself? – such is the behaviour
of most spiritual believers.
They take a teaching and make God of it, when the
real lesson is to serve people better in all sense.
My passion isn’t for society.
It is for free society – for truth, happiness and choice.
This is hard when the cycle continues where spiritual
believers impose unconscious ideas on others, creating
a situation like other religions have – which cannot be fully
proven and is only based on mere perceptions or belief.
Not reality.
Labels are easy to attach.
Truth isn’t.
By altering truth, one doesn’t change the truth.
By naming an idea truth, one still doesn’t make it one.
Not unless by universal nature, we can accept it fully by
means of observation and proof.
Spiritual teachers of the Hindhu and Buddhism religions
often scold their followers when they try to seek truth
out of what they were told.
They say, stop thinking and just accept it.
Followers tend to have a weaker mind, thus easily
receiving what they were told.
The spiritual sensation they experience eventually comes
from a relieve of stress, of their mental attachments -
But that solves only the way of thinking, not the problem itself.
People who put an end to life at the “spiritual sensation”,
or at the thinking part, are thus stuck in a delusion where
they can perceive things differently in almost everything
they see.
This brainwashing can be easily done by anyone with
authority, rendering the world unequal, and repeats the
cycle of mind control, where real problems cannot be
solved because people are stuck in their heads, and
not aware of what IS on the outside.
The reason for my ‘objection’ raised in this thread -
Is to remind readers that the means is not the end.
Believing that it is still doesn’t make it the end.
Maybe it could to one who believes it fully in perception,
but when the story ends, only a lie was lived – and chances
are this would result in nothing but pain.
What kinds of pain?
1.) A general dissatisfaction with life whether in health,
wealth or relationship
2.) A feeling of waste, of doing nothing worthy or useful
in the world
3.) A sadness that is too late to be exchanged for the better
Life has to be lived through a genuine way.
Most people run from it because they are either
lazy, they fear society as it is today (all the more
the reason for people to be aware, so we can actually
improve upon things), or they have a negative hate
for something in life – and instead of coming off on
top of it, they deceive themselves of the challenge
and avoid it as long as they can.
So to the person concerned:
I embrace society because it is part of what IS.
Because I prefer to accept the world as a whole
instead of filtering things off based on my internal
beliefs and perceptions.
Life is best lived when it is genuine.
Not deluded.
I stand passionate for a life lived from an open
view on life – unfiltered by thoughts, ideas or
concepts.
That is when our heart’s true feelings can be
fully expressed.
And when we will feel most ‘spiritual’ despite
the outcomes in life because when can do that,
we are most connected and is most one.
This is part two of a two-part post. Monday’s article explained that you are not your mind or your body, but the aware space in which your mind and your body (and everything else) exist. You’ll have to read the first part to understand the context of this post.
So if you are in fact the space in which all things happen, how come you don’t always notice this space? Why does it often seem like it’s just the things that exist? If the space is you, wouldn’t it always be apparent?
Not necessarily. Think about it: you are that space, so when you are not aware of that space, it only means the space is not aware of itself. But it can still be aware of the things happening in that space, without seeing what it is that is aware. It’s a major oversight, but it is also the normal state of human existence — complete identification with form, with things.
We usually don’t recognize the space in which the tangibles of our lives happen, so we figure we must be one of those tangible, perishable things, or some combination of them. The thing, or collection of things, that we normally think we are is called the ego.
When you lose sight of the space that contains all things (including your ego) you are lost in things. You have lost sight of yourself, and the play of things seems to be all there is. Things become supremely important, because they’re all you have.
That’s a shame, because all of those things are doomed by their very nature. They’re nice when they’re around, but they are fleeting and perishable. So it’s no wonder that when we become identified with things we feel a persistent uneasiness. They are all fleeting — very certainly, inarguably, on their way out, and some part of us knows that. When life is only a race to manipulate material things into the most preferable arrangement possible before you die, it feels like a losing battle. It is.
This is how most of us live, utterly identified with our thoughts, under the impression that life is nothing but things, and that we are nothing but one of those things.
Any time you are aware of the ego, you are disidentified with it. When you don’t recognize the ego as the ego, you have mistaken it for yourself and you are again unaware of who you really are.
What is really happening is that you experience thoughts that say they are you, that say you are only a creature, and so you remain unaware of the space in which they (and all other thoughts and forms) happen. So you take at face value whatever those thoughts say, because they appear to be you. This is a major sticking point for many people: they cannot accept that they are not their thoughts. They cannot imagine that the voice in their head isn’t them, and that it isn’t necessarily trustworthy.
It actually is the voice of the ego, a self-perpetuating, free-associating collection of thoughts that tries to define you with concepts — I am 29 years old, I am a mid-level office worker, I’m not as good as Jim, I am better than Al, I have big plans but I fear I won’t realize them, I embarrassed myself at work today, I never get a break, I am really good at driving in reverse in my car, I am awkward with people I don’t know, I am a terrible dancer, I eat healthy, I don’t have enough money, I do have enough money but I spend it poorly, my kids are well-behaved, I look good in these jeans and I look frumpy in those ones…
It’s nothing but thoughts of I, Me, and Mine all day long. It changes throughout your life as you continue to think, and becomes hideously complex over time. Managing it is a nightmare. Impossible really, but we are doomed to spend our lives trying if we cannot become aware of the ego as it is: a transient collection of thoughts. When you become aware of it as such, you are regarding it from a distance, and you can’t remain identified with it.
Meditative adepts and people in the habit of self-examination learn sooner or later that the mental chatter in their minds is not who they are. When you observe it for a while, you quickly realize it is an uncontrolled, impulsive source of opinions that never shuts up and cannot be depended on to give you an honest appraisal of your situation. Many call it the “Monkey Mind.” It doesn’t take too many meditation sessions to see that it is something you can observe just like you can listen to sounds or watch your own breath. It is something “out there” in your field of awareness which can be watched like any other form, and thus cannot be you.
This is not about changing beliefs
People have known this for a few thousand years. Those best able to teach it to others have become some of the most well-known people in history.
Here’s Eckhart Tolle, talking about one of those people:
What you see, hear, feel, touch or think about is only one half or reality, so to speak. It is form. In the teaching of Jesus it is simply called “the world,” and the other dimension is “the kingdom of heaven.”
As far as I’m concerned Tolle has compiled the clearest, least cryptic description of the teachings dealing with form, space and the human condition caused by our evolving consciousness. If this post holds any interest for you at all, read his books if you haven’t yet.
There is a lot we could learn in this vein from religion, if only we could avoid becoming lost in its forms — its stories, dogmas and symbols. Religion has become so mired in form it is difficult to find this teaching in it. But it’s there.
Don’t worry about convincing yourself that space is who you are. It’s quite contrary to the conventional explanations of who we are and not everyone is going to find it immediately meaningful. That will happen automatically when you are aware of it. There is no convincing that needs to happen. It’s not a matter of changing your beliefs. It’s only a matter of becoming aware more often. Most people will flip back and forth between awareness and identification with form, with the periods of awareness gradually lengthening and becoming more frequent.
When you are paying attention to space, rather than becoming preoccupied with the objects in that space, everything suddenly appears to be in its right place. The whole arrangement of things takes on a faultless beauty. When you are lost in things, you can’t help but see them in terms of what they mean to the interests of your most treasured thing — your ego.
In the article Die on Purpose, I hinted at what happens when you look at the moment as if you aren’t there. You become able to see the moment just as it is without evaluating it in terms of what’s in it for you or not in it for you. This is egoless awareness, and a moment of egoless awareness is always a moment with which you can find nothing wrong, because there’s no “you” to suffer from any unpreferable circumstances. This is the intrinsic beauty and perfection of the universe talked about by mystics and seers, which sounds like mumbo jumbo to anybody who’s never experienced it.
This is not a metaphor
In the last post I likened the space between the stars in the sky to the aware space that is your true identity. The space out there between the stars sounds like the perfect analogy for the aware space we are. But it is not an analogy! It’s no metaphor at all, it’s the same thing. It must be. There are no qualities in which it differs, because it has no details in which it can differ. It is empty, it can contain all manner of forms, it remains unchanged and undamaged by the forms that come and go within it. It is eternal and timeless.
And, evidently, it has the capacity to be aware. Not just aware of the things in it, but eventually, of itself.
This sounds a bit far-fetched. We tend to think of space as dead, inert, lifeless. How can space be aware of itself?
Through form.
Space gave rise to form. The current scientific theory for how this happened is called the Big Bang, but we don’t know for sure. It’s taken billions of years, but here on earth, form has given rise to consciousness. One of those forms is what you see when you look in the mirror. Human beings are conscious forms, and humans have the capacity to be aware of space itself.
Using form as its tool, space is becoming aware of itself. And that brings us to today.
Almost all of us are unaware of space — our true nature — most of the time. We are at the stage in our evolution where individuals are beginning to become aware of space in bits and pieces, here and there. Some people have been able to completely disidentify with form and we describe them as enlightened or liberated. I would guess some of these people were: Jesus, Lao Tsu, and the Buddha, to name a few, but many other regular people become aware in smaller intervals, even if they don’t know what is actually happening.
Religion’s Role
“The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative men.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religion is the (often misleading) collection of forms that have come to surround this teaching: stories, institutions, rules, mythologies, conventions, political ideas, idols and symbols.
The world’s religions have a poor track record of bringing people to awareness of who they really are, even though I honestly believe that was their shared original purpose. Because of our very strong tendency to identify with form (and overlook the emptiness in which form happens), the major religions have become preoccupied with beliefs, moral codes, political allegiances and other thought-forms, and the message has been all but lost.
As the teachings spread, institutions developed. Like all institutions, they became heavily focused on form, as evidenced by the elaborate ornamentation found on cathedrals, the immense wealth accumulated by medieval churches, the completely unenlightened focus on punishment and threat, the characterization of God as some kind of supernatural dictator, the demonization of questioning one’s beliefs, and the willful antagonism of scientific progress.
Churches have become a fantastic model for accumulating material, worldly power. More than anything, they have encouraged people to identify with their beliefs and their thoughts, making it much more difficult for them to become aware of anything but the world of form.
You are the Subject, not an object
Tolle again:
The arising of space consciousness is the next step in the evolution of humanity. Space consciousness means that in addition to being conscious of things — which always comes down to sense perceptions, thoughts, and emotions — there is an undercurrent of awareness. Awareness implies that you are not only conscious of things (objects), but you are also conscious of being conscious.
Douglas Harding’s method is a simple way to become aware of the Subject, rather than only objects, as we normally are. The face in the mirror is that of your ego, an object. The clear, aware space that you are looking out of is the Subject. It is who you really are.
Unconscious behavior is what happens when we are unaware of space, and become identified with things, with form. When a person is only aware of things, and not the aware space in which things happen, their life becomes a hopeless attempt to manipulate the play of form, of concepts and material things. Money, power, status, gratification and other forms become the only recognizable reasons to live. But they are only part of the picture.
We’re lost in thought, lost in form. Without awareness of that vital dimension of space, we have no perspective. That lack of perspective is responsible for all of humanity’s problems. What else would cause people to invest so much energy finding more efficient ways to kill each other and decimate the planet’s ability to support us?
Evil? Some mysterious quality of “badness” that infects (mostly other) people? The concept of evil is a weak, baseless explanation for why humankind causes itself horrendous problems as efficiently as it does.
Our lack of perspective is the human condition, and we are very gradually getting past it.
***
I realize this is another long, heavy, mind-bending post, and it if you find any meaning in it, it may take a while to internalize. I have received an overwhelming response to this series in comments and emails from people who want me to keep writing about this topic. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, so from here on in I’ll approach it in smaller pieces, and space it out.
You may also notice I didn’t describe any techniques for actually cultivating awareness in this post. That’s a huge topic and I’ll talk about it in the future, but I do encourage people to investigate it on their own. Nobody who is only interested enough to read a few blog posts about this is really going to benefit much, but I hope I have piqued some interest in a few people.
Eckhart Tolle’s books are brilliant, plain-language treatments of this teaching, and are a good place to start. Email me for any other suggestions, or ask questions in the comments.
One more thing. Reader Tom K linked a brilliant lecture in one of his comments that explains this far better than I have (though he goes much much further with it.) It blew my mind and I’m sure it will do the same for some of you. It’s in six MP3s:
Thank you for following along in this series, I hope you’ve gotten something out of it.
(Him: It is official. This website fully endorses David from Raptitude.com’s teachings. It is not only concise, the author’s expression is also genuine. He makes effort to state as much facts closest to his examination. And makes no strong effort to influence others to his thinking. Here is a writer who allows his readers to make a judgment by themselves. I can’t ask for more. If you do feel like learning more from the author, kindly visit http://www.Raptitude.com.)
Okay, this post is the last thrust in our trip down the proverbial rabbit-hole, which so far has looked at what the ego is, and how the late Douglas Harding can help us answer that big, big question — who are you, really?
I had no idea what I was getting into. Back in October, I arrived at an island retreat called Hollyhock, to take what I thought was a five-day course on Buddhism. I didn’t know we would spend those days in uninterrupted mindfulness, without speaking, and that we’d spend about six to eight hours a day in formal meditation.
After the initial welcome at the main hall, our teacher led my group up the pat to our meditation hut in the forest. On the way there, he stopped us and told us to look up. It was a still and clear night, much darker than we city dwelling visitors were accustomed to. I had never seen stars like that.
“Please be aware,” he said, as we all stared silently, “that you are seeing.”
He repeated himself. I was transfixed on the stars, but I remember thinking, “Well, duh,” when his comment registered. Of course I’m aware I’m seeing. How can you see without being aware of it?
His comment echoed again in my head a moment later, and I realized what he meant. For the first time, I recognized that I was normally only aware of what I was seeing, and had taken for granted that I was seeing at all. My awareness had become preoccupied with the content of existence, not the fact of existence itself. Suddenly, it struck me as so peculiar that there was stuff out there to see at all, and especially peculiar that there was something present — me, evidently — to see it. I don’t know why it had never occurred to me there was anything odd, or at least curious, about this arrangement.
In that instant, the stars became more real, more imposing, though I can’t say their appearance changed. It was something like admiring a photograph of a tree, and then realizing you were looking at a real tree. This experience definitely had an effect on me, but I didn’t grasp its relevance right away.
Sitting lessons
A day later I would. Our group was sitting in a warm, circular hut in the woods, in total silence, the evening of the second day.
Sitting for hours is tough work. The idea is to simply watch what’s happening, and there is quite a bit going on. Without the regular distractions of music or traffic or television, you can’t help but notice how much the body and the mind are really up to.
Your awareness fills with the chaos of dozens of sensations happening at once: the aching of your knees, the pressure of your bum on the cushion, the rising and falling of the breath, itches, tingles, weird digestive processes you never paid much attention to.
And thoughts! They come out in full force. They’re loud and pushy, and they just won’t stop coming.
There’s so much going on it’s hard to stay aware of it. You easily lose yourself in the stuff that’s happening. Suddenly you find you’re in the midst of an imaginary argument loosely based on a real argument you had a week ago with your friend. Your mind is saying what it wishes it said then.
Then you snap out of it. Whoops. Stay aware. You return your attention to the breath. For a moment or two, you’re fully with it.
Then your knee-ache gets more demanding, so you direct your attention to the feeling to try and observe it. You’ve been sitting too long on a hard surface, and the knee is tightening up. You know it will throb later, like it did after last session. You notice the intention to adjust your position, and flinch as you almost do it automatically. But you know you should stay put. You think about getting a good meditation cushion when you get home. You also make a mental note to remember to keep the thermostat down, it’s getting hot in here…
…and like that, you’re lost again. You return the attention to the breath, vowing again to stay aware.
After not too much of this you can’t help but notice all these feelings and thoughts are constantly coming and going, and it never stops. Whatever arises seems to come into your awareness from nowhere, and it changes a bit in its texture in intensity as you watch it. Then it eventually recedes, or gets crowded out by something else, until you can’t detect it anymore. It leaves no trace, and by then there’s a new thought or a new feeling, or many, and you forget about it.
During an hour-long meditation session, a whole load of weird stuff parades across your awareness. It’s just a big, maddening show with no plot, and this insidious tendency to keep changing its form.
From my week of meditating in Hollyhock, I learned two major realities about life:
#1: Your whole experience in life is a only a constantly changing arrangement of thoughts and sensations. There are unlimited forms it can take and all forms are constantly giving way to new ones. Whatever it is at any given time is just a combination of the five senses and thought.
#2: It is incredibly easy to get lost in the details of all those things, which makes you forget #1.
All of life seems to be just a constant turnover of “stuff,” in this way. As Winston Churchill said, “Life is just one damn thing after another.”
When you sit with your eyes closed, this is very apparent. It’s like you’re watching all sorts of things happening on a blank screen: thoughts, bodily feelings, sounds, emotions, and it’s so busy you forget you’re watching it. There is so much chatter, particularly from the mind, that it’s really hard to sit and watch it at all. It really makes you want to get up and read a magazine, or grab a beer.
But now and then, you catch a space between the thoughts and sensations, even if it’s really brief. You actually see (or sense, somehow) the blank “screen” on which all of this stuff is projected. It doesn’t take too many meditation sessions to get a glimpse of it. So you know it’s there.
And it makes sense. You can’t watch a movie without a screen. You can’t have “things” without some space for them to happen in.
What is the screen?
It’s pretty clear that this combination of sense perceptions and thoughts is constantly rotating, constantly turning over, constantly giving way to other things, throughout your entire 70- or 80-year existence in life. It’s just one big moving scene, not unlike a movie, only that it’s three dimensional and it includes tastes, smells, feelings and thoughts, in addition to sights and sounds.
But the space in which all the action happens — and the fact that there is a space in which all those things happen — does not change. It’s always there. It is the only constant in life. It is the only part of your experience that is present all the way through from birth to death.
Think about it… there is no thing that stays the same throughout your life. Even if you look down at your body, can you honestly say it is really the same body you had 10, 20 or 30 years ago? We all know that the cells that make up the body are renewing themselves constantly, and you have to admit you don’t look like you did ten years ago. Sorry.
Clearly your body is a thing too, coming and going throughout your life. You can call it yours, and you are in charge of it, but it isn’t exactly you. Which is a good thing, because clearly it’s just passing by, and going downhill for most of the ride. In this sense it’s no different in any fundamental way than a car that drives by you on the street, or a loud sound that comes out of nowhere, and fades. The only real difference between them is how fast they come and go.
Thoughts are things too. They have no mass or visible features, but they arise just like other sensations. They have a form. They have details, therefore they are things. If you sit and pay attention to them, they arise in very much the same way as aches, tingles, sounds and tactile sensations do.
All things — all forms — whether we’re talking about thoughts, sensations in your body, the bark of your neighbor’s dog, or a bird flying by the window, all arise in awareness, in a boundless space. There has to be space for these things to exist. This space has no form of its own.
Think for a moment about the stars out in space again. The stars have form: they have color, they emit heat, they have size and shape and mass. They do stuff, and eventually they change into other forms, red giants, black holes, supernovas. They are contained by space, which is empty.
It seems like a paradox. Space isn’t a thing, it’s an absence of things. It’s no thing at all. But it is there. It is real. You can perceive it; you can be aware of it. But your mind can understand it only in terms of what it is not. The stars occur within that space. If there was no space for them to happen in, they could not exist.
But the space itself has no features at all. Yet it persists, and its presence is 100% necessary for the existence of all things.
Life is full of things, but it is more than things. It’s space too. Space permeates every corner of life, because no things can exist where there is no space. That means it permeates your body. As we talked about previously, if you could keep zooming in on your body, you would see cells, then molecules, then atoms, and eventually empty space.
Who you really are
So if life is just impermanent things arising and fleeting in space, what are you?
The conventional way of thinking of yourself is as a body, with a mind attached to it somehow. But experience shows us that both the body and the mind change completely, many times over throughout life.
The only constant in life is the space in which all those things happen. It’s the same emptiness from which thoughts emerge, the emptiness in which stars sit and burn, the emptiness that accommodates everything you’ve ever seen, heard, or touched. Every sensation, every perception, every thought, comes and goes. The space in which they happen is featureless, boundless, has no taste, smell, or texture of its own. It looks like nothing. Like space. It is timeless and imperishable, which you could describe (if you happen to like the word) as immortal.
So who are you, in the Big Picture?
You are the screen.
You are the empty, 3-dimensional screen on which this greatest of all shows is projected. You are the space in which all of this happens.
When you consult spiritual or religious sources about what you are, the answers are remarkably consistent. Ancient and contemporary sages seem to agree, and the answer to that question is always something like, “You are awareness,” or “You are consciousness,” or “You are emptiness.”
My experiences, both in and out of meditation, lead me to the same conclusion. Sitting there watching what happens, I can’t help but notice that only the background to all that “stuff” — the space in which that stuff exists — is constant throughout my life, so what else could I be? How could I be any of the fleeting, changing, arbitrary things I have been aware of?
It is clear to me now what is meant by “You are awareness,” though it was once just a cool-sounding concept. I’m not trying to convince you of this, only suggest that you might discover the same thing (perhaps you already have) and in the mean time you might want to look into it for yourself.
(Him: David from Raptitude.com still hasn’t cease to amaze me with the clarity in his writing. Because of how clear he can express upon a subject, even some of the most sophisticated subjects we have on philosophy/spirituality/personal development can be easily understood by the average person. If you would like to read more of what he writes, please kindly visit: http://www.Raptitude.com.)
Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things. They invent. They imagine.
They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can
change the world, are the ones who do.
- Steve Jobs
-=-Additional Quotes-=-
“Every man dies, but not every man really lives.” — Mel Gibson from Braveheart
“Nature is about balance. All the world comes in pairs: yin and yang, right and wrong, men and women. What’s pleasure without pain?” — Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
“For just one night let’s not be co-workers. Let’s be co-people.” — Will Ferrell in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
“It’s not about the paycheck, it’s about respect, it’s about looking in the mirror and knowing that you’ve done something valuable with your day.” — Kevin Kline in Dave
“Whatever you fear most has no power over you. It is the fear that has the power.” — George Clooney in The Men Who Stare At Goats
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss author of Cat in Hat
“We can’t retract the decisions we’ve made. We can only affect the decisions we’re going to make from here.” — Jamie Foxx in Law Abiding Citizen
“Sometimes the truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people have got to have their faith rewarded.” — Christian Bale in The Dark Knight
“We’re going to live like we’re telling the best story in the whole world. Are you ready?” — Rachel Weisz in The Brothers Bloom
When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
~ Ernest Hemingway
For a long time I didn’t feel like I had a lot of people to relate to. Being shy, I didn’t find myself in a lot of conversations with people I didn’t know, and when I did, I was uncomfortable. Bonds did form, deep ones sometimes, but it was always a product of circumstance. I made friends with people I was in class with or worked with, because some interaction is bound to happen in those places. But to actually form a relationship without the help of circumstances was something I had never experienced.
I’ve shed much of my shyness through deliberately speaking up more and other forms of comfort-zone-pushing, but I eventually made a discovery that really opened the floodgates for me. I see the potential for connection in just about everyone now; I no longer feel bound by differences of age, interests, cultures, or opinions.
The secret to connecting with people is this:
Always try to understand what people really mean when they speak.
It doesn’t sound like a huge revelation. Many of you are probably thinking that you already do that anyway. But chances are you don’t, at least not very well. Certainly we know what the other person is saying, but most of the time, we don’t particularly care for the topic, or if we do, our minds are already busy forming a response. Sometimes we take the liberty of finishing the person’s sentence, or even beginning one of our own before they finish. This is fairly normal behavior, at least in my culture, and as such, it isn’t considered terribly rude in most circles.
Next time you’re out, try watching an exchange between two people. In most conversations I witness, each person appears to clearly hold his own opinions as being of primary importance, and the other’s as being worth considerably less, though each might pretend otherwise. It’s not that we’re arrogant, it’s just human nature. Each person is usually waiting for their turn to talk, perhaps tossing in some polite remarks and nods so as not to appear rude.
However, things do flow more smoothly when one person’s opinion matches the other’s. That’s when real listening happens without any effort, and conversation is unhindered. But because of this human tendency to revere our own opinions, many people find they can only really connect with people who carry similar views. With friends and family, we’ve already established some common ground, so it’s easy to really communicate with them.
But that leaves only a small segment of the population with which we have the potential to connect. Most people will hold no interest for us. I think part of the problem is that we think that the other person’s message is what they say.
What they say, in terms of what words come out of their mouth, is just a tiny fraction of what they are communicating. The real message is not what they say. The real message is why. Where are these words coming from? That why is what tells us who they are and what they value.
The speaker is rarely just trying to relay basic information to you. Almost always, they are speaking up because there is some visceral desire to express what they are feeling right now. Speech is always triggered by a passion, a worry, a judgment, a realization, or some other internal encounter with an emotion of some kind. If your friend suddenly brings up her job, it isn’t because she wants you to be well-informed about her situation at work, it’s because her job is on her mind and she wants to get it out of her mind. Respect that need and she will not only be grateful, but suddenly she’ll be much more likely to take an interest in what’s on your mind.
If you want to connect with people, make this your social mantra:
Always let the speaker be the star.
Whatever their performance is, whether it’s a story about something their kid is doing in school, a trip to Europe they’re planning, a complaint about what so-and-so said to them earlier — be the most respectful audience you can be. The chair they are sitting in, the doorway they are standing in, wherever they are — that’s their stage, their pulpit. Let them say their piece, no matter what you think of the story, or what you would do in their place.
Really, really listen to what they say, and recognize that they are saying what they’re saying because it is important to them. In every single thing every person says, they reveal what they value. When you can get a glimpse of what people value, you can see the humanity in them. And that is how humans connect: by understanding each other’s values. You don’t have to share those values, though you’ll certainly find you share something with everyone.
I am not into hunting. I have no interest in shooting a deer or a goose for fun. But I do know some who do, and in my more conscious moments, I can genuinely appreciate everything a friend tells me about hunting. The specifics of his anecdotes are not so important; it’s the glint of excitement in his eyes, and more importantly, the enthusiasm that swells in him when he realizes somebody is actually being receptive to his story. I reserve my judgments; there’s no need to batter anyone over the head with my own stances. There would be no communication at all if I did that. Judgments just get in the way and do neither party any good.
To simply know what it feels like to hold something dear, and understand that we all know that feeling — that means you can understand anybody. But only if you genuinely make a point of seeing where they’re coming from. Our failing is that we’re usually much more concerned with being understood than with understanding. Those who reverse those two priorities are very effective communicators and will never have a shortage of friends.
The Barrier
Distraction, in some form, is what typically prevents understanding. Distraction is letting your attention wander from the other person’s performance. It could be captured by what they’re wearing, a TV screen, a book in your hands, anything around you. But the most common place for it to go is into your own (the listener’s) thoughts. Most people are distracted by what they themselves would like to say. Sometimes they want to respond before the person is finished, other times they simply have their own opinion locked and loaded to fire off as soon as there is a break in the dialogue.
Forget what you want to say, just drop all thoughts about yourself and your interests, and let them speak their mind. Think of it this way: when you are listening, the most important thing in the world is to figure out where the other person is coming from. Make it your entire purpose on earth — for the thirty-seven seconds it takes for them to tell their little story — to understand what feelings are behind what they say. If, when they stop speaking, you still don’t understand where they’re coming from, ask a question.
All it takes is putting your own interests on hold until they are able to get their point across to you.
The habit of really listening to what someone is saying is a rare one. And the people who do it can connect with anyone. I’ve understood the value of being a good listener for a long time, but I didn’t really know what it meant to be one. I know now: it means to cherish other people’s desire to express themselves more than your own desire to express yourself. Really, just completely defer your interests for as long as it takes for you to understand them.
That idea might scare some people. Surely our own opinions are important too!
Relax. You don’t have to worry about being understood, and here’s why: when you make a point of dumping your own thoughts to make room for understanding, people are so grateful that you are trying to see their perspective, they’ll be happy to listen to you afterward. By then, what they wanted to say is no longer on their mind, so then they won’t be distracted by it while you are speaking.
In other words, take turns understanding each other, but insist on going first. Let the other person have the privilege of being the first one to be understood. The biggest distraction to understanding someone else is self-importance. Needing to say something means you have to be thinking about it, and thinking about it means you have very little mental capacity left for empathy. Free up yours, and it will free up theirs.
Imagine what the world would be like if everyone did this.
That’s all anyone wants, to be understood. Give it to them. Give the greatest of all gifts, every time you have the opportunity. Unless the building is on fire, give yourself permission to let the speaker be the center of your universe, just for a minute. It won’t hurt, I promise. Forget what you were going to say. Forget how you might wish to respond. You can do that all later. Abandon everything else in the world for the few seconds it takes to let the other person finish their thought.
At first, you will probably experience some angst at the thought of abandoning what you were going to say. Drop it anyway, and see if your life suffers. (It won’t.) So what if you didn’t get to make the wisecrack you had saved up? So what if you don’t get to tell them about your upcoming trip to Europe?
Once you resolve to let all that baggage go, it’s actually a tremendous relief. It’s like dropping an armload of textbooks you’ve had held against your chest. You no longer have to struggle to keep track of your thoughts. You can safely let them all go. Let them drift away, unfinished and unfollowed. 99% of them never needed to be said anyway. And don’t worry, the truly important thoughts will be persistent enough to come back to you when nobody else is speaking. You will get your chance to make yourself understood, just don’t try to be first in line.
There is such a strong compulsion to make our own opinion known, that even the most courteous among us will often practically ignore what the person says, or even interrupt them. Most of the time the hurried remarks we do make are just little indulgences, self-important grabs at approval or admiration.
I know that I personally have a history of saying things for the sole purpose of sounding clever, or arousing the fondness of others. I built my whole identity on looking smart, for years and years. I didn’t know who I was without that approval, so I was constantly digging for it. It’s really just a bad habit, to grab at the little ego boosts those self-indulgent remarks provide. I would even call it an addiction, but that’s a whole other post. For now let’s just say many of us are very strongly drawn to seeking approval by pointing out certain things or telling certain stories, and it impedes understanding others considerably.
The truth is, your opinions probably aren’t that important. And neither are the other person’s. Opinions will come and go, they speak mostly to our emotional state at the time we declare them. There is usually very little logic behind them, just feelings. And that’s okay. There is a brilliant Zen saying: Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish opinions. This is not a prescription for dismissing what the other person is saying, only for cherishing the human being behind the words, rather than the back-and-forth play of semantics and mental positions.
I’ll be the first to say I’m really not all that good at this yet. I’ve been getting better and better at relating to people, but old habits do indeed die hard. But I now understand clearly where I went wrong so often, and I know what to do instead. The specific concept of letting others be the star only came to me fairly recently, and I’m astounded at the results so far. My friends and family suddenly became ten times more interesting, not to mention strangers, clients, clerks and passers-by. I no longer have that bubble of angst growing inside me when someone else is speaking, because I know I can safely drop whatever I was going to say. More and more I get to witness that wonderful sense of gratitude that washes over people when someone makes a genuine effort to understand them.
And when you do get your chance to speak, their eyes will be glued to you, and you’ll probably have the best audience you ever had.
(Him: David, the author from Raptitude.com is amazing at delivering very educational content. His articles seem to cover two major subjects: philosophy & spirituality. Combined, they become personal development. Make no mistake – he is not just a writer. David had personally gone through the obstacles of life to teach what he learned. If you prefer diamonds amongst the mud, consider reading his articles: http://www.Raptitude.com.)
I heard this story for the first time on FinerMinds.com. They recently published a video of Anthony Robbins describing Stallone’s personal story – one that was exchanged in a conversation between the two greats. After watching it, I couldn’t help but wonder how strong of a level of passion or determination Sylvester Stallone had kept to keep pushing on during the lowest moments in his life.
To hear Stallone’s story gives my blood even more confidence, energy and motivation in fulfilling my goal.
What do you think?
I hope you’ll find its message to be inspirational:
(Him: Many contents I post on this blog contradict with each other. Two posts before, I promoted a passion to live life with more effort towards the good. On this post, as you’ll soon find out – the article promotes the idea that there is nothing to actively ‘do’. So where do I stand really? My answer: Where I’m supposed to. In life, I adapt to different situations with different actions & perceptions. Where is the fine line? It’s your call.
As people say, find the balance. The only thing they didn’t say is that the balance has to be entirely, equally spread, because that’d be pretty unproductive for many. When I devote just enough time, attention or effort to each part of my life that my entire life heightens in positivity, that’s where the balance is for me. The same applies to learning. I keep an open mind and learn what I observe is able to make me a better person. What doesn’t contribute to my wellbeing, I either lay it far away or turn it into a positive source of wisdom regardless.
This article below describes who we are is more than the separate identities we think we are. It talks about how everything is an illusion. But look – if you are an illusion person, and you disturb an illusion dog, you’ll still experience an illusion bite. So just understand what the article is talking about. And allow that understanding to be with you. There is no need to force that understanding into your daily life. I guess the point is when we can grasp what this article is trying to express, life will just be lighter in general. May you find it to be a pretty cool piece to read.)
On “This” and “That”
‘That which you already are, pure awareness’ – Sogyal Rinpoche
‘Awareness of awareness – the first factor of enlightenment’ – The Buddha
‘Effortless Choiceless Awareness is our Real State’ – Sri Ramana Maharshi
Overcome fear… by seeing what’s Here!
Let go of all fear and anxiety, for awareness is always present as you are effortlessly, and choicelessly, aware of your thoughts and sensations. This awareness is a constant subjective presence, whereas these thoughts and sensations (mind/body) are ephemeral objects coming and going within this awareness. Therefore this awareness is the deepest level of our being, the unchanging presence that we intuitively feel we are, and have always been, that which has never been absent and has witnessed the pantomime of our lives. This very awareness, the home which we have never left, and can in fact never leave, is the very peace and security that we seek.
Forget about church… Just give up the search!
To enjoy this peace and absolute security we do not need any dogma, belief systems, rituals or practices. All that is necessary is to abandon the external search for this. We must stop ‘seeking for love in all the wrong places’; just recognize, and totally relax into, that pure awareness that we already are.
No need for a prayer mat… Already you are That!
For this to occur there is no need to appeal to any external ‘deity’, for this awareness is itself the ‘hidden treasure’, the Absolute Reality lauded by all religions, and is always present at the deeper (and surface) level of our being. At the deeper level as That in which thoughts/sensations (mind/body) appear/disappear, come and go, arise and subside; and at the surface level as this very awareness of these thoughts/sensations.
No Me, No you! There’s nothing to do…
In reality there is no separate individual entity (me or you) we are both just expressions of the same pure awareness, and there’s nothing we need to do to achieve enlightenment as we are already ‘That’, i.e. awareness is already present.
Nobody, No mind! There’s nothing to find…
There is, in reality, nobody, i.e. separate individual; and no entity called the mind which is just a flow of ephemeral thoughts and images. There is also nothing to find in that we cannot lose that pure awareness that, in essence, we always are; we just need to stop overlooking this.
No effort, No sweat! There’s nothing to get…
There is no need to make any effort to achieve enlightenment, just stop and turn your attention to that pure awareness that you already are. You cannot ‘get’ this as you already ‘are’ this!
Wow! There’s only Now…
In reality there is always only now as the past has already gone and the future is yet to be. If you see ‘what is’ in the ‘now’ with no reference to past (including acquired knowledge or imaginary ‘individual self’) or future, then everything seems much more vivid and alive (Wow!) than when filtered through the mind and its opinions, judgments, attitudes and ‘knowledge’.
Cheer! There’s only Here…
Also you are always ‘Here’, at any given moment, and can only see ‘what is’ here (and now). What you think is going on anywhere else is only speculation, which will take you away from the direct experience of ‘here and now’.
How? Just Here and Now!
How to be ‘enlightened’ (i.e. unburdened) and at peace? Just be totally here in the present moment and see ‘what is’ (here and now) with no reference to the past, future, mind, or what might be happening anywhere else.
Just This! That’s Bliss….
This seeing ‘what is’ with a still mind, from pure awareness, is Bliss. The other name for Brahman (The Absolute) is Satchitananda which can be translated as: ‘What is’, the awareness of ‘What is’, the Bliss of the awareness of ‘What is’.
Just Cease! That’s Peace…
Just cease identifying with the mind (and all of its activity to get anywhere, or attain anything) and the result is instant peace.
Just Being! That’s freeing…….
Just ‘Being’ moment to moment , with no reference to past/future or any illusory separate ‘self’, is in itself totally freeing…
Accept what is … Then feel the kiss!
Always accept ‘what is’ at the present moment with no resistance and life becomes more enjoyable as the mind stills. This does not mean that we cannot plan to change things, only that we need to accept ‘what is Now’ as it is already here and therefore cannot be changed. This lack of resistance liberates tremendous energy, and relaxation, allowing us to ‘feel the kiss’, and wonder, of Reality.
Live life with no ‘story’… Then all reveals its glory!
If you live life with no personal ‘story’ then the mind stills and everything in manifestation appears more vivid and alive, i.e. more glorious…
Each moment is enough… The end of all (mind) Stuff!
If you check you will find that Pure Awareness never needs anything to change and is complete whatever is happening. In this ‘each moment is enough’ and no mind activity is necessary to change, or seek for, anything.
This is an amended and expanded version of chapter six from Beyond the Separate Self which aims to provide a framework for direct investigation of our moment-to-moment experience. When fully accomplished this reveals that we truly are ‘pure awareness’ at the deepest level of our being. The book is available at: http://nonduality.com/btss.htm
When a person finds something he truly believes in, sometimes it is so immense, so vast, so expansive, that it can hardly be put into complete words.
It is only unfortunate that most people have never delved into this strong level of intensity before. If they do, work in general will be inspiring, exciting, and anticipated. Life in general would be filled with passion, love and exceptionality.
Why don’t they?
There are three reasons: Fear, Selfishness & Ignorance.
They fear how great they would become, and in return how big their responsibilities would be. They are selfish, so they control others and dim down the lights in people’s passion to fulfill their own agendas. They are ignorant, as pain has never taught them lessons on appreciating life the way it should be appreciated.
The ones who are aware pushed through despite these obstacles, because they know there is a worthy cause in what they’re doing.
Eventually their actions shined through the surface of people’s eyes, and successfully touched the minds, hearts and blood in people with their passion.
You basically live without having to put effort into worrying.
Instead, you stay at peace with it.
Perhaps not even at peace. You just live. Without focusing your energy into overthinking thoughts that create negative feelings.
In the past few months, I learned yet a lot more lessons about being a human.
Through making mistakes, through experiencing bad feelings constantly, through the comfort of friends and family, I was finally able to take another step in living life better.
Sometimes, I wonder how much of life I have picked up on the way, instead of being taught of them properly on my way growing up.
I lacked knowledge and real life encounters.
Partly because I was brought up in a purely Christian family, and have been conditioned with thoughts of not being too involved with the world.
This caused me to turn into a very bland, devout person, who gets nothing he wants, and gets in the way of having the things he wants.
Trust me, life turns out much better when we can enter it with an opened mind.
After all, how much of what we truly believe, is real?
Concepts fall and shatter away with the slightest of shaking from reality.
Ideas prove themselves to carry much less weight as they are experimented for effectiveness in the real world.
Thoughts turn out to be fleeting nothingness that happens only within one self.
I eventually learned how important it is to be grounded with the real world.
It helps one to see the world for what it truly is.
It lets you see reality, clearly.
And of course, all of us appreciate a real diamond more than a plastic one duplicated after the real one in essence after all, don’t we?
So many of times, we worry so much about something we’ve done, we haven’t done, or will do.
But until they do happen, none of those images or feelings we conjure in the mind means anything.
In fact, as we embrace life with a more positive attitude – it not only affects us well, its infectious quality pulls others into a better place as well.
I have to admit, I kept holding on to worries because I thought they’d help me in life.
But as I grow to learn from experiences, they do more harm than good.
And you can measure their effects distinctly from how it changes your interaction with people, your affect on reality, and almost every avenue of your life literally.
It does a lot more harm than good – perhaps I could go as far as to say they do only harm.
Worry exists in us for good reasons, to prevent us from making mistakes that’ll harm us.
But as we mature, there is little reason in having to keep them within our minds.
It’s like taking off your leg from the brakes as you accelerate.
There is no point to press on the brakes when you know there is a straight road to drive and you can maneuver through them.
If you can’t, practicing with a calm mind than a scared, worried or fearful one surely does help more as well, doesn’t it?
A life without grasping to worries can propel a human being to great heights.
Especially when one has strong, positive & considerate goals to aim for.
As we understand this, many more problems that exist day to day can also shy away by themselves.
I realized life leads a plot of its own with every each of our lives.
As much as we want to control it, put it into a rigid grasp, when the time comes nothing we do actually makes much difference.
Life happens anyway.
I don’t mean to advocate irresponsibility.
The main message here is, we could always live life without worries.
And this way of life can enhance our quality of experience a lot more.
It could make us much happier in general.
Then all that needs to take place, is our honesty, our genuine expressions, and our effort in making things better.
It can be done.
Why not start now and see what differences it makes?
What’s done is done.
What needs to be done now can be done now.
What you’re going to do in the future is of no relations to your worries right now, if you can make as much good decisions as you can now.
After reading this piece, I thought, “Might as well.”
See conscious spirituality/non-duality has always taught similar things.
Sometimes, they are expressed differently, other times the same.
After reading this article, I thought, “Might as well – it is expressed to the extreme, in a way that may not be accepted by most people’s minds. But considering how it can alter a person’s state for the better in certain situations (interpret the piece however you want), I’m sharing it here.”
Some of you after reading will think, “Hey I got something out of this.”
While others, “Man, this is over the top.”
I think either way is fine.
Seen through spiritual spectacles, this is great.
Seen through a materialistic pair, and this may seem mad.
Question is, is there a correctness that stands between them?
Enjoy:
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Author: Robert Adams
Think of the things that have happened to you in your life now. You appear to be getting older and older. Things come into your life, as it appears. You try to exchange wrong for right, good for bad. Yet you refuse to acknowledge that this too is a dream. You want to continue playing the game. You want to play hide and seek by believing there is a God somewhere, and if you find this God, all your problems will be over. So you keep searching.
You can never find your reality by searching.
Reality is where it’s always been, right where you are at this moment. It is you.
There is not reality and you. You are not in the body of God; God is not in you. For there is no you. There is no body. There is no God. You are perfect pure awareness just as you are now.
There is really no thing you have to do. You simply have to wake up. Why will you not awaken now? Even while I’m talking to you, many of you are thinking, thinking, thinking. Can’t you see by now, that this is what is holding you back from your freedom, from your bliss, from your joy? It is your thoughts.
Where did your thoughts come from? They really didn’t come from anywhere, for they do not even exist. Yet unfortunately most of us believe that thoughts exist, for we are bombarded by them day and night.
So sages come along and invent methods, means, in order to obliterate the thoughts. Meditation was invented for that purpose. Self-enquiry, all of these yogic exercises, pranayama, mantras, kriya, they’re really used to stop your thoughts from blossoming, to keep your mind from thinking.. All of these procedures are to make your mind quiescent, quiet, still. If you’re able to do this without the methods, then you would be realized. You would be your self. You would be liberated. But you refuse to do this. You want a teacher to give you methods to wake you up.
But I say to you, wake up now. Awake. The methods will keep you back because you get stuck with the methods. But it makes no difference what I say. You are still going to identify with the world, with conditions, with your body, with your mind. We therefore have to think of a way, the quickest way for you to awaken. Of all the methods I, know, self-enquiry is the fastest if you are mature enough to be able to handle it. You begin to understand that the I is only a thought; it is an idea called the I-thought. It is the I-thought that dominates your existence. True?
How many times have you said “I” today? “I” am going to hear Robert. “I” am going to eat breakfast. “I” am going to take a nap. “I” don’t think I feel too good. “I” feel great. “I” need this. “I” need that. The first person pronoun I, dominates your entire existence.
Yet it has been known by Sages, if you were only able to annihilate the I, destroy it, kill it, you would be free. The I is attached to all of your thoughts. Therefore, begin to follow the I to its source. I have to tell you in truth and in reality, there is no I and there is no source, but you will not believe me. You want to play with I. You therefore follow the I to the Source, and when the I has been dissolved into the source, you become free.
You do this of course by enquiring “to whom do these thoughts come?” Or, whatever is disturbing you, you enquire “to whom do they come? Who is experiencing this? Who is going through this? Who thinks they are human? Who feels depressed? Who feels discouraged? Who feels there is a difference between birth and death? – I do.” Can’t you see now, that if you get rid of the I, all those feelings, depression, and worry would disappear?
So you ask, “Who am I? Where did this I come from?” You never answer that question. When thoughts come to you, you enquire “To whom do they come? To me? I think these thoughts. Who am I?” You do not answer. As you continue to do this process, you find that your mind is becoming quieter and quieter. The confusion stops. You begin to feel happier and happier. You are no longer reacting to person, place or thing. You become spontaneous in everything you do.
You live in the now, but you’re not doing that. It’s doing you. In other words you have not decided, “I’m going to be spontaneous from now on. I’m going to live in the now.” As you are aware, how many times have you tried that without avail? You can’t make up your mind that you’re going to be spiritual, that you’re going to be consciousness, that you are absolute reality. How many times have you tried to do that, and the first thing that comes into your life, you become upset? You react. Something bothers you. Or something good comes into your life and you become elated. You react in a positive way. They’re both impostors.
Remember you’re not trying to change bad into good. You want to transcend everything, and become absolutely free. See how you’re thinking? Your mind won’t stay still, will it? Whose mind is it that won’t stay still? Do you really have a mind? Are you the mind? Who told you this? There is no mind, there is no body, there are no thoughts. Accept this if you want to. All it can do for you, is liberate you. We listen to the birds, we see the beautiful trees. Who sees? Who listens? Why, I do. You’re caught in the trap again. For many of you believe, if I behold the beauty of the world, that’s good. It’s better than beholding death, I suppose.
But the world is an illusion. It is not real. The so called beauty is here today and gone tomorrow. Change is the only permanent thing of the relative world. Everything changes continuously.
Therefore as you go through the vicissitudes of life, and you get rid of your dogmatic thinking, you open your heart, you begin to feel something different. You begin to loosen up.
The first thing to understand is that everything that has transpired in your life has been necessary. No matter how it looks. No matter what has happened. Everything has been necessary.
The second thing to understand is, everything has been preordained. In other words, everything was supposed to happen the way it happened. There were no mistakes.
The third thing to understand is that the first two things are a pack of lies. For these things don’t even exist in reality. Everything is preordained, as long as you believe you are the body. Everything is karmic, as long as you identify with the world and believe you are the doer.
(Him: Watched the movie “Inception” by Christopher Nolan? Perhaps this piece can appear more understandable if you connect the subject of ‘I’ to a dream main character. As real as the dream character is to you, it is just a dream character. It doesn’t exist. We think the characters have a body, mind, emotions and can be happy, sad, fearful, etc. but they really are just played out automatically in a dream. It seems like it has a sense of ‘I’ to its body. But does it really own that ‘I’? Or is it played out somewhere else?)
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“Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”
- Eckhart Tolle, from A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
