Challenge your thinking. You may say this is all aliveness, or there are various levels of consciousness, or it is all one source, I Am That, all paths lead to the same oneness, or a million other things. But is this what you have found, or is it what you have been told? Have you seen what is there? Have you gone into those depths? Or do you just repeat repeat repeat? Why are these things given by others of such importance?
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Thoughts seem to be of the nature of a thin film or sheen these days.
There are still experiences of fairly strong discomfort attached to certain thoughts but more and more there is a distance developing between the commentary and the perception.
The most arousing of these thoughts being connected to the idea of freedom and liberation and how i should take action to achieve this. Even as i write this i am aware of a subtle increase in angst, restlessness.
I have never experienced this complete liberation, although memories of a glimpse here and there provides me with the impetus to pursue an ideal that has been burnt into the mind by the words of others who have supposedly reached this state.
It is these thoughts which carry the most attachment, and i have never really questioned their authority, believing them to be the most noble and therefore true.
Kris,
While it may be disconcerting to some, or at least they believe it to be so, the rejection of such an authority is necessary, and quite liberating in itself. But one may have too much invested in the story of liberation; the idea of what is there and how joyful they will be once they achieve it.
You have seen this clearly, and with every perception, you become the greatest and only teacher you’ll ever need.
It is not wrong to go after this, but one must be prepared to take it to the end. (If they really want to find out, they will.) Start with yourself, as that is all you have.
Question your own statements. Is liberation achieved through action? If you say yes, how do you know it to be true? Is it due to what others have told you? I am not saying it is wrong or it is right…you may very well achieve something through an action. But you can never expect it to be so. If you do, curiosity is dead, because you no longer want to find out, you only wish to see what you already believe to be there.
I think this is clear, but the problem may be in sticking to it, right? But don’t fall for that trap. If you try to stick to it, it is only due to the expectation of what you think you can get from it.
I think you see how this goes. It is a gentle reduction of the unnecessary. We are not trying to force anything. And I certainly don’t want you to believe me. You’ll find out as life unfolds. One certainly needs careful attention, but it is not beyond anyone.
One more thing I’ll add about the “distance developing between the commentary and the perception.” One must be careful of this distance. Is someone in there, distancing themselves from perceived discomfort? Is there a subtle need to push oneself away? In other words, are you distancing yourself from what you perceive to be pain? Only you can know. If you are, there is nothing wrong with that. That is where it all begins.
Start with what you have. That is all one can ever have.
It takes time to see that these are all just concepts and concepts have nothing to do with being. And yes, I have heard this said many times. And for a long time I agreed and continued to build concepts about it. (laughs)
There is the seeing that the liberation i am searching for is nothing but an ideal.
I have absolutely no way of knowing if this freedom you talk of actually exists, and if it does, whether or not it conforms to the idea i have of it.
Even so, the mind continues to hope for it, strive for it, because if not this then what?
The mind has all but abandoned any other desire.
I am also aware that underneath this sense of hope for the future, where i will attain some unknown state of bliss, there is a sense of despair that feels dangerous.
It feels as though this idea of enlightenment is the last screw holding everything together, without it there is nothing to hold onto.
It is strange, i know that i will never reach this state because the thing i am trying to reach is an ideal of the mind, as such it will forever be out of my reach.
Seeing this, i still search, still hope and there is still effort to try and make my reality conform to a mental picture, why?
The mind has an uncanny ability to reassure itself in the face of despair, it regurgitates the idea that it needs to die in order to reach this state, it says it knows it is only an ideal but keeps the dream alive by convincing itself that if it can only abandon enlightenment it will achieve enlightenment, haha
Essentially, the ‘I’ thought is trying to become another, better thought.
It can no more achieve this than i, Kris, can become a mobile phone, but it still bangs its head against the wall.
It would rather endure a life of misery than no life at all, which is what will happen if it stops searching for itself in other thoughts, trying to solidify itself. This is seen but the chasing after its own tale continues, or maybe this is not seen. How do i know whether it is seen or it is simply second hand information?
Is this what is seen, or is this what i think is supposed to be seen?
‘Is someone in there, distancing themselves from perceived discomfort?’
I honestly have no idea, you may be right Takuin.
It is impossible to know although there is an awareness of the effort or the movement to escape. And there is also an awareness of the mind assuming the role of the awareness in an attempt to escape.
The mind is continually trying to comprehend its own source, although it can never see it because the source is nothing, pure perception.
Everytime there is an effort to get outside the mind, it is still the mind, every movement towards truth is in fact falsity.
Hi Kris
Now it’s only for the mind to let go of this desire. This desire arises in a concept of the mind, as you observe, and becomes a barrier. You cannot act to do this. What you seek is nothing you can do. You can only be that. To be, you simply allow, be with what is. It is a very different thing to the doing of the world and the mind.
Why do you seek it? Because you know it is there. You are that.
The mind cannot comprehend it’s source because it is not that, not because it’s source is nothing. There is something before the nothing.
You may fear letting go of this desire because what seems to remain may be despair. But if you look closely, you see it is a fear of despair you fear. A fear of what might be. A fear you hold. If you simply allow whatever is there, some such emotions may arise. But if you simply allow them, they will be briefly experienced, then pass. They will be done. No longer held. And soon the smoke screen will be gone and allowing what is, as it is, will be very simple.
Peace will replace despair. Then the something that moves over the surface of nothing (how this is seen evolves) will be found to be pure joy. Pure love.
Sure beats anything in illusion.
‘The mind cannot comprehend it’s source because it is not that, not because it’s source is nothing. There is something before the nothing’
Davidya, from the relative perspective the awareness, source, perception, ground ,whatever, feels like emptiness, nothingness.
Maybe i have not gone deeply enough to see differently but there is a growing sense of a matrix, framework in which all objects are suspended.
But of course, i cannot describe this in anyway but to say it is nothing, i can only identify with it.
For a while now, it has seemed that the ‘I’ has been existing somewhere between the object of the personal identity, and the impersonal awareness, mostly fluctuating back and forth between the two, but grounded somewhere in the middle.
Kris,
I’ll go into this a bit in the next post, so stay tuned.
Davidya,
There may be a few things in the upcoming post you will want to comment on. It is always good to get your voice in there.
How silence appears changes over time. It could progress like this – At first, it can be a unique experience. Then a developing familiarity, but still other. Then more intimacy. Then an abiding friendship. Then a shift from a person experiencing silence to silence experiencing the person. Then the environment is seen to be arising out of the silence. Then the silence in the environment and the silence within are seen to be the same and the sense of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ dissolves. Then the sense of person, even the idea of “body” dissolves, all is seen to be silence.
This silence may be called emptiness or fullness or the fullness of emptiness. Again, an evolving experience. Awareness and perception are found to be effects of that.
In the expression, there is a geometric structure, yes. We could say intention causes vibration, causes awareness of, which generates intelligence or structure, which causes fields, then particles/ form. So yes, form hangs on a structure. We could say the ‘surface’ of silence vibrates into form. Later this is seen to take place within silence rather than on top of. That is the shift from the world as illusion to the world as silence itself. World is real, then unreal, then real again, but a different real (laughs).
It is not uncommon to spend time in a kind of middle ground. The question who am I may at one point be the silence, then another be the expression or form. There can be an uncertainty then. This is a ripeness, a closeness to making the shift. A shift that cannot be done, only allowed.
Now, we’ll see what Takuin has said…
This silence…although we may say the appearance seems to change over time, the completeness of the thing is always there in its entirety. Maybe we could say a continual evolution without growth. (“Growth” in the sense of becoming something better.)
Takuin – yes exactly – it is perception that changes, not That.
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