Since the last time I posted, my outlook has changed considerably. Over a couple of decades of seeking, I managed to internalize a lot of ideas. I find that clear seeing requires not being under the sway of ANY concepts, no matter how "spiritual" they are or good they make us feel. Though the philosophy of Advaita (non duality) is often seen as the "end of the road" I found myself even questioning that set of concepts and beliefs. At a certain point it struck me how little I actually know. It was very humbling because it was clear to me that, in that moment, I knew NOTHING yet I still WAS. It became clear to me that, for adherents of it, even non duality is a belief system. Admittedly, it can be a powerful pointer--the very notion that nothing is separate, but I find myself to be most clear when NO ideas are clung to.
I have shared this realization with some non duality folks on facebook and it has mostly gone over like a fart in church. We of course get invested in our identities, even when the identity is the idea that we don't have an identity!
Existence doesn't require any thoughts or descriptions, these mental formulations are secondary and this is where most if not all of the problems in our lives lay--that we mistake ideas for truth.When that quits happening life is experienced as wholeness. All divisions lie in thought. Of course there is no actual separation between consciousness and what appears within it: life.
It is easy to speak absolutely when one has learned how to. Nisargadatta did this very often. Though I have found much of what he said to be helpful, I have to question if he actually knew with absolute certainty everything he was saying... I doubt it!
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
I love Samsara!
Blessed Disillusionment has gone multilingual. It has been translated into Dutch and printed by the publisher, Samsara. Thanks to Julian and Catherine at Non-Duality Press for arranging this. Though I can't read what the author is trying to say (!) it is a beautiful, hardcover edition.
In other news, my second ND book, The Myth of the Ego is done and should be published in early 2013 as long as the world doesn't end on 12/21 this year! Either way, not a problem!
In other news, my second ND book, The Myth of the Ego is done and should be published in early 2013 as long as the world doesn't end on 12/21 this year! Either way, not a problem!
There is no mind to give up.
It's imagined that "mind" is the physical or energetic organ that
generates thoughts but this seems to be an unsubstantiated belief. As far as I can tell, there is no mind. Have you ever seen one? Does it wake up in the morning with you and have a mug of tea while you converse over the day's newspaper?
Just as the heat of the sun gives rise to clouds, consciouness expresses itself (at least in the human experience) as thoughts--there is no thinker, though, or point of origin of thinking. They arise from and disappear into nothing, expressions of the same field of awareness as everything else is. The idea of a thinker is just another thought. Really, any thoughts about anything are describing "solid" objects where none are to be found. It is the thinking of something to be real that makes it seem so. In the absence of designations such as "real" and "unreal" there is raw experience--life appearing however it is in the moment.
Just as the heat of the sun gives rise to clouds, consciouness expresses itself (at least in the human experience) as thoughts--there is no thinker, though, or point of origin of thinking. They arise from and disappear into nothing, expressions of the same field of awareness as everything else is. The idea of a thinker is just another thought. Really, any thoughts about anything are describing "solid" objects where none are to be found. It is the thinking of something to be real that makes it seem so. In the absence of designations such as "real" and "unreal" there is raw experience--life appearing however it is in the moment.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
"Myth of the Ego" nearly done
My second ND work, "Myth of the Ego" is nearly done. I project that, with an introduction, etc, that it will be around 100 pages. It has been a simple, easy process--basically a case of automatic writing. Ideas came "down the pipe" fully formed and I just wrote them down. It seems that there has been no or at least very little personal involvement.
I met some nice folks yesterday who are interested in "the subject". I told them midway through our discussion that talking about the subject with earnest people always makes me feel high as a kite. The illusion (of separation) is seen through, revealing the ever-present being/consciousness/bliss.
I also got some very sad news about a family friend who died and I cried like a baby. I would like to help dismantle the idea that when one lives life (mostly) not believing in the self image/ego idea, there is no more sadness and life becomes our image of perfection. Consciousness is challenging and presents a lot of complex situations and scenarios. The only way, in my humble opinion, to navigate it happily is to have a very simple approach. NOTHING could be simpler than the open, crystal-clear, field of awareness. No matter what traumas and dramas afflict us in life, it is unscathed, available and omnipresent. It is peace in the seeming chaos of life. By grace it is shown that this serenity is always available, here and now, as what I AM. Also, it is known that it is OK for the human element to express itself as it does. There is not one atom or particle of creation that exists on its own in a vacuum--all is one. There is no division between awareness and the world that appears within and of it.
I met some nice folks yesterday who are interested in "the subject". I told them midway through our discussion that talking about the subject with earnest people always makes me feel high as a kite. The illusion (of separation) is seen through, revealing the ever-present being/consciousness/bliss.
I also got some very sad news about a family friend who died and I cried like a baby. I would like to help dismantle the idea that when one lives life (mostly) not believing in the self image/ego idea, there is no more sadness and life becomes our image of perfection. Consciousness is challenging and presents a lot of complex situations and scenarios. The only way, in my humble opinion, to navigate it happily is to have a very simple approach. NOTHING could be simpler than the open, crystal-clear, field of awareness. No matter what traumas and dramas afflict us in life, it is unscathed, available and omnipresent. It is peace in the seeming chaos of life. By grace it is shown that this serenity is always available, here and now, as what I AM. Also, it is known that it is OK for the human element to express itself as it does. There is not one atom or particle of creation that exists on its own in a vacuum--all is one. There is no division between awareness and the world that appears within and of it.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
A new book
I'm working on a new book to be titled "The Myth of the Ego". My aim is to show the ego idea for the hollow concept that it is. I'm thinking it'll be around 60 pages and hopefully printed on hemp paper as I see that great plant as a solution for many of the problems facing humankind. I'm not sure how long it will be before the book is released but material is coming "down the pipe" quite quickly. I am wanting this book to have a more ecological bent, showing how belief in the ego idea is the cause of much environmental destruction and discord. Much of the book will be short sayings. I am trying to pare the language down to the most essential. Stay tuned!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Death
Should I fear death and the dissolution of the body?
No. We were never a body to begin with. No object ever existed except as a movement of the light of consciousness. Our nature is clear, timeless, immaterial, unmanifest. Though the appearance of forms arises from and within our spacious field of knowing, we are not, nor were we ever limited to any form. Form is the expression of the formless. The finite is the appearance of the infinite. The particular is the expression of the universal. Time is the appearance of the timeless. We are that universal, infinite being and not subject to such things as birth, death or decay.
No. We were never a body to begin with. No object ever existed except as a movement of the light of consciousness. Our nature is clear, timeless, immaterial, unmanifest. Though the appearance of forms arises from and within our spacious field of knowing, we are not, nor were we ever limited to any form. Form is the expression of the formless. The finite is the appearance of the infinite. The particular is the expression of the universal. Time is the appearance of the timeless. We are that universal, infinite being and not subject to such things as birth, death or decay.
Clarity IS
Clarity IS, regardless of whatever thought story is currently appearing in it, even a tale of abject suffering and confusion. It takes the clarity--the empty, knowing presence--that spacious, aware void, for anything to appear. It is that very absence that expresses itself as every thing. It is present and absent at the same time. This is amazing beyond words. Grace and gratefulness gush out of this void. It is love. To be that without identification with the obfuscating belief in division is bliss.
Concepts and other forms arise like clouds in front of the sun. They all pass and the sun still shines. The sun gives rise to them and also burns them away. This all happens without any personal involvement.
Suffering under the idea of isolation leads to the urge to escape and seeking is born. One doesn't enjoy the sensation of limitation and rightly so--it is a dis-ease! Seeking will play itself out, sooner or later when one sees that the isolation isn't real, that one was never apart from the infinite, that there is ONLY THAT. You realize that, as the infinite, you were playing a game with yourself and that all of the drama, pain and suffering were because of an identification with form and misapprehension of one's true nature as clarity. The seeing is the being is the knowing--non-conceptually. This is inevitable as it is already the case.
Concepts and other forms arise like clouds in front of the sun. They all pass and the sun still shines. The sun gives rise to them and also burns them away. This all happens without any personal involvement.
Suffering under the idea of isolation leads to the urge to escape and seeking is born. One doesn't enjoy the sensation of limitation and rightly so--it is a dis-ease! Seeking will play itself out, sooner or later when one sees that the isolation isn't real, that one was never apart from the infinite, that there is ONLY THAT. You realize that, as the infinite, you were playing a game with yourself and that all of the drama, pain and suffering were because of an identification with form and misapprehension of one's true nature as clarity. The seeing is the being is the knowing--non-conceptually. This is inevitable as it is already the case.
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