In the beginning, we think about the truth from time to time. Then a time comes when a thought about the truth automatically comes up during every available moment. Later on, this is replaced spontaneously by silence or perhaps a short thought about the truth followed by silence. By then, whenever we are not available, in other words when we are engaged in activity, meditation is still present. However, we shouldn’t feel guilty about it if we don’t meditate, we shouldn’t make it a means towards a goal. Whenever we are invited, we should just respond naturally like any other process in our life, such as breathing, eating, reading a book, or listening to music.
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When I see that I am stuck to my body-mind, this observation releases the stuckness, but I don’t feel that I remain in my true nature, that I go all the way.
Just go as far as you can. What is essential is our goodwill to go all the way no matter what. If we have this goodwill, then for all practical purposes, it is as good as if we had gone all the way. Some people expect a big event in which they are going to go all the way and be liberated. The solution is much simpler: just be ready to go all the way from moment to moment. That is it. That accomplishes the same thing. That is exactly the position in which one who has gone all the way finds himself or herself. If there is a stain on this willingness, an obstacle, a reluctance, then we have to take a look at it, but for all practical purposes, it is sufficient to be willing to go all the way from moment to moment. To go all the way is not death but a beautiful birth.
There is a longing in the feeling, so it is not quite comfortable.
What does it mean to go all the way? It means complete surrender. Therefore, if there is discomfort, it is no big deal because, if we are ready to go all the way, ready to die for this, a little discomfort is nothing. If we take this point of view, which is the same as welcoming, then providing the welcoming is pure and total, the problem vanishes.
Could you say something about being unfocused? I feel that I should be wider and unfocused, but there is a habit of concentrating on things.
Don’t see this ability to concentrate as a drawback. See it as a force in yourself, as an asset. Simply concentrate on being unfocused. This will happen naturally when you understand that the mind will never know what you are, that you will never know in the same way that you know a chair, for instance. However, you will be it. The same quality of the mind that enables us to focus on an object also enables us to be totally unfocused. People who stand on the path of knowledge, of understanding, usually have the ability to focus on thought. We spontaneously focus on the thought about the truth or the arguments that are expounded here, and this thought about the truth dissolves and leaves us in freedom, leaves us complete. We have nowhere to go. The mind has nowhere to look.
There are two ways of being one-pointed: artificial and natural. The artificial way is the result of effort and practice, just as when we learn to play tennis, we learn to keep our eye on the ball. After years of practice, we are able to do that and at some point, it becomes spontaneous. The other way is through grace. It is the way in which we are focused in love. If we are in love and we finish an activity, we think of our lover. It doesn’t require any effort. We fall in love with truth and truth falls in love with us and reminds us of itself whenever we are available. When the thought about truth comes to us spontaneously in this way, we know that it is the effortless way of being one-pointed. We become more and more one-pointed, and it grows effortlessly and naturally. Someone who is in love with truth doesn’t need to make an effort to think about truth.
Was there a point in your life when you weren’t in love with truth and then one day you were?
Yes. One day I wasn’t aware that I was in love with truth, and the next day I was. There was a day before I was in love with truth, and the next day I thought, “Gee! I didn’t know truth was so beautiful. I didn’t know that it was beyond my wildest dreams!”
Can falling in love with a man or a woman be a steppingstone towards ultimate enlightenment?
It can be a steppingstone and it can also be the stone that makes us fall. When we are in love with a man or woman, we have to see that we are in love with consciousness in that man or woman. In other words, we are in love with the true essence of that man or woman, which is also our own essence. If we are in love with a beautiful body, we are, whether we know it or not, really in love with beauty itself, towards which this beautiful body points. If we are in love with beautiful qualities, such as intelligence or sensitivity, then we are truly in love with supreme intelligence, receptivity, ultimate consciousness. Sensitivity points towards liveliness, consciousness, life. It is that with which we are in love. Through the apparently limited individual shape, both gross and subtle, we are in love with the essence. In a relationship, the experience of the object sends us back to the essence. In this way, it remains alive. That is possible only if our partner also shares this love knowingly.
We need this deep communication in a relationship, and this is only possible if there is true love. This love in our partner may not be specifically revealed as love for the truth, for the ultimate, but it has to be there and in time, it will reveal itself. Otherwise, we may still be in love with a beautiful form or some beautiful characteristics and, as a result, if we do not have this deep communion, there will be no way we can find a place in which conflicts and oppositions can be resolved.
The true function of relationships is the same as the function of anything else in this manifestation. It is to take us to the truth, to grow in understanding, love, and beauty, and to celebrate this. Relationships are perfectly designed to provide continual opportunities to lead us towards truth. They are also perfectly designed to celebrate this understanding, love, and beauty, just as in music, it is good to play duets, trios, and symphonies as well as to play solo. Therefore, if there are difficulties in a relationship, take these difficulties as your yoga exercises. They are very effective! If there are no difficulties, then just celebrate happiness.
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I am confused about karma and reincarnation and wonder who there is to be reincarnated?
That’s a good question! Ask those who believe in reincarnation. I have no view, which means I can have all views. It’s fun! You have put it in a nutshell. Who is there to reincarnate? It is not our experience that consciousness is in our body. Our experience is that the body and the mind are in consciousness, so what is there to reincarnate? It is obvious that this body cannot reincarnate; it vanishes and is gone forever. If there is another body, it will be a brand new one. Likewise, the alleged mind dies every time a thought, a perception, or a sensation vanishes. Something that vanishes cannot reincarnate. On the other hand, consciousness has never been incarnated. You should ask those who believe in reincarnation what they think.
When people remember events from a life a long time ago, does that mean that their mind has tapped into universal mind?
This so-called past life is created the moment it is thought about, in the same way that when our own past in this lifetime appears, it is always created in the now. If our own past, of which we are allegedly conscious, is an illusion, then our unconscious past, from past lives, is even more so! Therefore, we first have to investigate the reality of our past in this lifetime. The past is always a figment of our imagination. It only appears in the now. Only the now is real. Our personal past is based on the concept that we have been traveling through time, that we were there ten years ago, then five years ago, then a minute ago, and so on. However, the reality of our experience is that we are always here and now and that time, events, and appearances are traveling through us. Only the now is real and that which comes and goes is only real as long as it is present. We never go anywhere.
We create the so-called external reality as we go along. In fact, it is not external at all but is always within consciousness. We create our past each time we think about it. However, it is not cast in stone forever. We have many pasts. The past changes from moment to moment, just as
the future does. One moment, it seems totally unavoidable that a certain thing will happen. Then something comes out of the blue, and things take a totally unexpected direction. The same thing happens to the past. To believe in reincarnation only reinforces bondage, reinforces the belief system that we are personal entities. It is a tragedy to see doctrines of liberation that reinforce this belief.
Some people in the West think that it is better to replace our Christian belief systems with more sophisticated, more awakened belief systems from the East. However, in doing so, we just move from one hole to another. There is nothing spiritual about reincarnation. It is bondage.
Are you saying that I never had the experience of being a boy, that it is just a memory created in the present?
What is being said is that there has never been a boy moving in time, turning into a young man, then into a middle-aged man, and so on. All of these appearances flowed through consciousness. You, as consciousness, have never been a boy, a young adult, or a middle-aged man. These were perceptions and concepts flowing through consciousness. I am not denying that these perceptions and concepts have flowed though consciousness. That is what memory tells us. However, I am denying the fact that the boy grows into an adult. I am denying the objective existence of these events and the objective existence of time. By “objective,” I mean independent from consciousness. From the vantage point of the totality of this timeless presence, there is no time. Consciousness is not in time or space. All the mind can do is reduce consciousness to a point, whereas it is in fact the totality, of which the mind with this universe is just a speck. Since the mind cannot grasp consciousness, it reduces it to nothingness and then becomes frightened of it.
The timelessness of our true nature is frightening to the mind because it says, “There is no room for me there,” and it is true! However, it shouldn’t be frightening for the mind because, at the same time, one of the possible modes of existence of this extraordinary potential is whatever is going on right here, right now. There is room for the entire universe, all the galaxies, all the stars, and all the times. So there is no lack of space or time. It is just that the mind has no access to this different dimension.
We take ourselves for an object that is conditioned, subjected to time and space. There is no doubt that the body seems to be so, but we have no right to infer from this that consciousness is either located in or subject to time and space.
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Turn whatever thought, feeling or perception arises, towards its source. Their source is the “I am.” It is consciousness, presence. We have this presence in common with every arising object. Its presence is also our presence. In true welcoming, in true meditation, the arising thought or feeling is not avoided. It is not repressed. It is completely allowed to reveal presence. It is important to understand clearly that the object does not have to disappear for presence to be revealed. Nothing needs to happen with regard to the object.
We can look at a beautiful painting and, at some point, we feel the beauty. In a sense, the painting disappears, but it disappears in a natural way. It vanishes naturally into beauty. We do not make it happen. We do not move away from the painting towards beauty but rather, we let beauty take us. We let the painting speak to us until we understand the message.
In order for this understanding to take place, we need to be detached from the object. If we look at the painting, being specifically interested in what is going on in the painting, who painted it and when, how much it is worth, how long it has been in the museum, who were its previous owners and so on, we cannot see the beauty of the painting. All that stuff stands between us and the beauty. In order to see the beauty of the painting, we have to look at the painting and be interested only in beauty.
It is the same here in this contemplation of whatever arises in the moment. We don’t look away from it. We don’t manufacture another object. We look at it. We face it. We let the situation speak to us, being only interested in presence. We don’t care about anything else. That is what is meant by “turning the mind inwards,” “turning a feeling inwards.”
We usually do not know how to look at a painting because we do everything so fast. We should have a sofa in front of it and make acquaintance with it in silence. Of course, we have a first impression, a first aesthetic impression, but the aesthetic impression is not necessarily the seeing of the beauty. The seeing of the beauty is much deeper. It has to truly reach the heart, and then a transforming process takes place.
We have to sit in front of the painting for a while and set aside what we know, what we already like or dislike. We have to be in not-knowing, open to new beauty. It is like when we make acquaintance with someone, we should ideally make acquaintance in silence, being open. We let all the feelings and the thoughts that are triggered by the encounter freely unfold in this contemplation, and then at some point, there is a meeting, especially if both parties are open to the meeting.
The painting that we are contemplating in life is not a rectangle limited by a frame. It is the totality of our experience. It has no boundaries either in space or in time. It is the infinite painting. Forget everything you know about the painting. Forget the name of the painter, God or whatever, the past history of the painting, what you like about the painting, what you dislike about the painting. Forget all of that. Just sit on the sofa of consciousness and contemplate the painting, the totality of your experience in this moment. It has no inside, no outside, no frame, no borders. However, it has a title. The title is “Now.” In this contemplation, let the painting lose itself in you and lose yourself in the painting.
When a landscape is painted by a great master, we always discover new details. It is ever new. This is even more true of the painting called “Now.” If it seems to be the same old painting, it would mean we are not really contemplating the painting; we are contemplating the stuff about the painting, the trivia, the concepts and feelings about the painting, but not the painting itself. The painting itself is always alive, fresh, and new.
Meditation Never Starts or Stops
I know that unless I face fear, I can never be free. However, I cannot face it. The thinking process is an escape from it. I feel trapped. Do I have to face it?
The very fact that you speak of it shows that you are aware of it, which in turn suggests that you have already faced it. If you had not faced it at all, you wouldn’t have come up with this question. However, by saying that you cannot face your fear, you indicate that you are afraid of facing it.
Yes.
There, you just faced it! Just before you said, “Yes,” you faced it. In order to agree, you first had to become aware that you are afraid of facing your fear and, to become aware of it, you had to face it to some extent. You are not asked to face it in its totality right away, right now. Next time, you can go a little deeper.
It is one thing to face it and another thing to act on it. Fear stops me from doing many things. I can face it, but I cannot take the leap.
Do you want to be free of fear or do you want to feel good? In the beginning, it is not going to feel good. We say, “I feel bad because . . . because . . . because . . .” Would it be possible to just feel bad without the “because”?
Probably.
Yes. That’s what I call facing the fear. Just drop the “because.” Just feel bad. When fear comes up, it is a feeling in the body; it has a body-like aspect. It is not just in the head. You turn in circles when you start looking for reasons for it in the mind. It is important to welcome the totality of the situation, including the feelings in your body. Just live with the fear or anger or whatever it is, without escaping from it or finding reasons for it. Stay with it, not just with the thoughts, but with the feelings, also. Contemplate all thoughts and feelings as you would a landscape or a painting. Some paintings are not necessarily pleasant, but you can still contemplate them.
I think that you are speaking from a level where you are aware of your true nature, but as long as I think I am a mind and a body, I can’t do thi
s. Fear is very real, and the thought process is designed to avoid the fear. The fear is based on me being a mind and body. I can’t do this.
That is true. You can’t do this as long as you think that you are your mind and your body. However, you don’t always think that you are your mind and your body. There is some freedom. When you don’t think, “I am my mind and my body,” there is room to face your fear. You are only your mind and your body when you think that way. Don’t condemn yourself to ignorance by thinking, “I am always my mind and my body.” This thought sometimes occurs. That’s fine. So what? However, between such thoughts, you are not your mind and your body. You are whatever you are. Ask yourself, “When I am not thinking that I am my mind or my body, then am I my mind or my body?”
That question comes from the mind that I believe is there. It is a thought.
When you don’t think, where is your mind?
I always think.
When you feel, hear, or perceive, and between thoughts and perceptions, you are not thinking, so you don’t think all the time. You heard these words and you said, “I always think,” but before speaking, you had to hear so as to understand what you were being told. You are hearing at this moment. In order to hear, you cannot think. You think after and you think before. The attitude you have when you are hearing these words is not thinking. It is hearing. It is openness. You can develop this attitude and stay open even when no one is speaking.
The Perfume of Silence Page 16
