The danger is in reaching for the ‘idea’ of freedom, thinking it is in any way real. A guru may tell us it is all bliss, all love, all this or that, and all we can do is imagine that apparent state. Then we begin our search by looking for the state we have imagined, which is not the actual thing.
Such a dangerously subtle trick.
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It seems that one starts with a very solid, big, flashy image of what awakening is and what it will do for you.
The further you go the more and more subtle the image becomes as you are continually forced to relinquish your most cherished dreams, until finally it disappears all together and you realise you never had the faintest idea what you were searching for all along.
It is as if the whole search never happened and you find yourself back at square one, but with no desire to move in any direction.
It is true but inevitable.
Even if the guru does not speak of it, the person will have the experience at some point. Then, from the memory, will build concepts. When the experience is fuller, the concepts will fall.
Kris – reminds me of TS Elliot:
We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
Kris,
In most cases, it seems we find that these most cherished dreams cannot be dropped, as they become the new nirvana for the searcher. Before, it may have been sex, attention, drugs, or whatever, and it simply changes clothes and becomes a new item of attachment.
It may unfold exactly the way you have pointed out. But we can’t expect that it will, or that it should.
Too much effort is generally put into this kind of thing; so much struggle and doing to achieve this desire. It seems to be so difficult for people to just sit and listen to what is happening within. They expect it to be an ‘outer to inner’ kind of thing, as if an outward effort will reveal what is naturally here.
It is like a man searching for his glasses, and the entire time they are on his head.
Davidya,
What do you mean here with the word ‘experience’? Can any experience be more full than another?
Davidya,
I can’t remember much of TS Eliot, although i did write a few essays on him at school. It seems i wasn’t very sensitive to a lot of good literature when i was actually studying it.
I suppose its one more writer i need to reaquaint myself with. Thanks for the pointer.
Takuin,
You are of course correct when you say that the unfoldment cannot and should not be expected to adhere to any ideas about how it happened for another.
I was commenting on the process that appears to have happened here, which is still very much happening and by no means complete (complete being the wrong word, for i find myself really not knowing what should/will/did happen, if anything at all. It is a total mystery)
However, i would disagree with you when you say that too much effort is put in to searching for a better state.
In fact, from my perspective effort seems like a very necessary part of the process, and indeed without the application of effort there is no way to learn the valuable lesson it’s application teaches us.
Only through effort/seeking can you understand it’s opposite, which ultimately is the key to finding a resolution to the search.
Without this outward effort can you really begin to appreciate and understand the value of surrender?
Takuin
(laughs) yes, experience is simply experience. But when it is more complete or full, concepts that may be held are seen through and fall away.
Of course, any sense of full or not full is relative to the prior experience or memory of it. What is does not change, just ones ability to see clearly may evolve.
T.S. Eliot….I loved The Wasteland when I was a child. It brought up such wonderful imagery.
Kris,
We may be using the word ‘effort’ in opposite ways, but with the same underlying meaning. What do you mean when you use that word? Do you mean simply being serious in this inward exploration? Or do you mean something else like forcing out something you hope is there?
Or none of these?
Davidya,
Yes, so let’s just chuck it out!
(laughs) But fullness remains such a good word. Others may use emptiness, but its the same thing.
When there is more fullness, more of what is, then there is less need for concepts of mind. The concepts are found false and fall away.
And sometimes they make a lot of noise and a lot of dust on the way out (laughs)
Takuin,
I suppose my interpretation of the word effort in this context could mean, any movement away from and out of oneself in order to find something that is in some way better or more fulfilling than present experience.
I say ‘movement away’ but that is not strictly accurate because of course there can be no movement in any direction only the mind generated illusion that it is actually possible to move.
In my case, this kind of effort was and is necessary because without the emotional investment in it i could never fully have appreciated the futility of following that urge.
So, i would say if you’re so moved give all of yourself to this desire.
Put everything else aside, put your life on hold until you find a resolution.
Of course this kind of commitment can’t really happen by choice or force of will, for me it was a case of not being able to do anything else.
I acknowledge that people arrive at the same junction through different means but i can only comment from my own experience.