Undivided Being

‘The Virgin Islands In Bezons’ – Charles-Francois Daubigny, 1855 – WikiArt

We all want to be happy. That’s our most profound desire. Everything we do is only expressing that longing. We want to be whole, free from contradiction and suffering. That’s the quiet or not so quiet battle that our life is, whether we acknowledge it or not. That’s being human in a nutshell. Really, humanhood is a quest. As an individual, that’s all we are seeking. But are we really an individual? Are we really a particle amongst the space of humanity? Are we truly a self contained in a body, an ‘indivisible entity’ as the word ‘individual’ has sought to make us believe? In Latin, ‘individuum’ stands for ‘atom’. But in fact, we feel that we are not yet an individual — we are divided, torn apart, haven’t quite found the person that we have the urge to be. Our limits are blurry. Our qualities are evasive. Our purpose is hazy. We often don’t find ourself in ourself. There is a blank there if we look carefully. So what is truly existing in us? What is here that is worth being called myself, or ‘I’? What is being an individual?

Now, most people don’t like being told. Our being is a much too serious affair to be delegated to another. We want to feel for ourself. We want to feel both what we are, and that we are. That’s why we keep looking, seeking, failing, finding, falling, doubting. We keep dancing the life we are in, by all means. We are seeking ourself in all that comes. In fact, just being an individual doesn’t seem to make it. We feel there is more to us than being a separate entity, delineated by the limits of our body and mind. It doesn’t fit — doesn’t quite match our intuition. It doesn’t feel that we are that limited. It doesn’t feel that we truly know what we are. Maybe it never was about our bodies. Maybe our individuality takes its source in infinity. This is what we were meant to be. This is what an individual is, undivided, not distinguished from everything, devoted to the quality of being that encompasses the universe and beyond. We were never a thing, a particle. Only, it seems that we have squeezed our indivisibility into a body to fit the general consensus.

Paradoxically, it is not in our differences that we find our individuality, but in the sameness of being. Our differences are simply the residues, the negligible expressions of a conditioning at the level of the body-mind. They are not an expression of our individuality. They do not represent us. We are not to be defined by the small, but by the expanded field of our awareness, the immensity of being. In a strange way, this identity-less identity is making us the very person or individual that we have always wanted to be. Do you want to be the best version of yourself? So be. Just be. Be that formless, identity-less being that you are and have missed for wanting to be only qualities or talents. Qualities and talents need our being first for their field of expression. We are their container. Without this silent presence of being that we are, they remain simple goods that we use to buy a semblance of composure, with its flickering moments of satisfaction and pride. Our being identified with them is the cause of your suffering. But there will come a time when being will be seen as the only mark or evidence of our individuality. Being is what our individuality is made of. It is our true body. Idiosyncrasies and differences are but the crumbs left at the table of experience.

In fact, being is what being an individual is. Our individuality is found in the shining of being. Not in the shining of our conditioning and idiosyncrasies. We will learn to see our so-called qualities behind us, almost non-existent, choked by the brightness of being. Bodies are only points of view. And minds are the tools for the government of our body. Our self is not there, not located. It is an expansion. Being an individual is being whole, undivided. It is to find our completeness in and through the world. It is to see and feel that the totality of experience is made of being, and that being is the essence of our individuality. Being an individual means that we are not a divided, broken up, an assembly of body, thoughts, feelings, experiences that makes for a person. How could we be an individual when we draw our identity from scattered objects that tear us apart and leave us confused — unanchored to our deepest self? We own our freedom to the recognition of our individuality, which consists of undivided being. The word speaks for itself. An individual is an undivided being. It is not found in our qualities and idiosyncrasies, not in our body and mind. We draw our individuality from simply being.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Charles-Francois Daubigny (1817-1878)

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Website:
– Charles-Francois Daubigny (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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