Here is a reminder inspired from the words of Rupert Spira. It is necessary and terribly efficient to look into these matters for ourselves. This is why I like to share here the parts of a spiritual teaching that sounds like ‘something to do’, something to experiment and verify for ourselves:
‘Try to see in what way the function of most thoughts in our life is to deflect our attention away from the feeling of emptiness and sorrow and lack… Try to feel the very first impulse of the now being insufficient, not quite enough, and the very beginning of the indulging in an activity, or a thought pattern such as daydreaming… Try to notice the very start of it and do not move, stay where you are right now… See how the mind will be upset by your not moving…’
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Further exploring on the subject:
“There are various ways of escape but there is only one way of meeting sorrow. The escapes with which we are all familiar are really the ways of avoiding the greatness of sorrow. You see, we use explanations to meet sorrow but these explanations do not answer the question. The only way to meet sorrow is to be without any resistance, to be without any movement away from sorrow, outwardly or inwardly, to remain totally with sorrow, without wanting to go beyond it. … When there is no movement of escape from sorrow then love is. Passion is the flame of sorrow and that flame can only be awakened when there is no escape, no resistance.”
~ J. Krishnamurti (Dialogue 1 – New Delhi, 12th December 1970 )
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“The apparently separate self is made out of the resistance to the Now. There is only one place the separate self cannot stand, and that is Now. In fact, the separate self is not an entity that resists the Now; it is simply the activity of resisting the Now. … See clearly how many of our thoughts contain this imaginary entity at their origin, and how this imaginary entity ventures into a past or future in order to avoid the Now.”
~ Rupert Spira (The Light of Pure Knowing, Meditation 8)
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“We miss the real by lack of attention,
and create the unreal by excess of imagination.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
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”At certain moments, when alone, we feel a great lack deep within ourselves. This lack is the central one giving rise to all the others. The need to fill this lack, quench this thirst, urges us to think and act. Without even questioning it, we run away from this insufficiency. We try to fill it first with one object then with another, then, disappointed, we go from one compensation to another, from failure to failure, from one source of suffering to another, from one war to another.”
~ Jean Klein
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“No matter what state dawns at this moment, can there be just that? Not a movement away, an escape into something that will provide what this state does not provide, or doesn’t seem to provide: energy, zest, inspiration, joy, happiness, whatever. Just completely, unconditionally listening to what’s here now, is that possible?”
~ Toni Packer
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The picture is by Nick_H / Pixabay
Bibliography:
– ‘Presence’, Vol. I & II – by Rupert Spira (Non-Duality Press)
– ‘The First and Last Freedom’ – by J. Krishnamurti – (Rider Publishing)
– ‘Who Am I‘ – by Jean Klein – (Non-Duality Press)
– ‘The Silent Question: Meditating in the Stillness of Not-Knowing’ – by Toni Packer – (Shambhala)
Websites:
– Rupert Spira
– J. Krishnamurti
– Jean Klein (Wikipedia)
– Toni Packer
Suggestions:
– Fleeing to God (other pointers from the blog)
– A Day at Brockwood Park (Homage to J. Krishnamurti)
– Khetwadi Lane (Homage to Nisargadatta Maharaj)
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The Dawn Within 