‘Winter Scene on the Ice’ – Jan van Goyen – WikiArt
There is not a person in a thought, or in an assembly of thoughts. Not anymore than there is a person in a body or an emotion, or an activity of the body, a reaction after the emotion. These are but things that exist, but don’t make the complexity and radiance required in there being a person, an animal, or any kind of entity. This world is populated by objects, by appearances, by bodies, but not by persons or entities as such. There are no persons, nobody here that could claim to have its own, independent, separate reality. To think that there is, is an illusion, an invention, one of our many well-rehearsed thoughts.
But of course, beliefs have magic. If we believe to be a person, then we are one. If we believe that there are individuals, a world, untold suffering, then the source is obliging. It will create the reality of one such world, will give us the suffering we claim to have, will manufacture all our many conflicts, which we have come to be attached to, and to believe in. Everything is only a temporary, dreamlike appearance in and of reality, but not reality itself. The more you will believe to be a person, the more you will be one. The more consistency this person will acquire, the more suffering he or she will experience, and the more conflictual will be the world, for you have given them a reality they do not have — except for the reality of consciousness.
We have to keep knowing that we are aware, that we are awareness itself. Being a person is about knowing, not about a body, or a handful of thoughts. The body comes second to knowing. There is knowing first, and then a whole world unfolds, makes itself known. The reality of the world is in knowing, not in there being a world, not in there being a person. Knowing takes it all, wins the game. We’ve got to be aware of that. Then the world is shining. So is the person. They may not be truly here, in reality, but they shine with the transparency of knowing.
Every entity that exists, finds its reality within, from an inside experience. So to be a person is not to be a person, not in its reality. We are a person only from the vantage point of a thought, a belief, a representation, but not from inside, not from the depth of being. There, there is no person, no separation, no suffering, only the infinite body of knowing. After all, could a world with its own individual reality be harmonious or beautiful? Or is beauty or harmony conferred to the world by the grander reality of knowing? A world with its reality conferred by thoughts, beliefs, contains conflict, difficulties, suffering, for it is not recognised for what it is. We have confused the world with our misunderstanding, have rendered it an insecure place, and have made ourself an insecure person, constantly seeking its security in the insecurity of a world, which obviously is a vain enterprise.
So if there ever is to be a person, there is a person in infinity. If there ever is to be a world, there is a world in eternity. The world, our body, our thoughts, are all playgrounds for the infinite. Nothing more. If we do not know that, then we will be a suffering self, a person, living amongst the endless conflicts of the world. If we know we are infinity, then the world will oblige, and acquire the colours of the infinite. As for us, we will be playing being a person, or a thought, but with none of the sufferings or conflicts usually attached with their invented reality. We will remain infinity, eternity, in all occasions, no matter how much we live in time and place, and adopt for a while the limited vantage point of a body and a mind. Our own infinite reality will stay the only reality there is.
Now, imagine a world, a society of people where the only reality there is, is the reality of the infinite, of the eternal. What would this world be? What would our many personhoods be? Where could our suffering and conflicts stand in infinity? Where would our life turmoil thrive in eternity? The whole world — conflict, suffering, everything — stands within one single belief or misunderstanding. For the rest, eternity only is the one shaping the world. Infinity the one making a person — that is our human condition.
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Text by Alain Joly
Painting by Jan Van Goyen (1596-1656)
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Website:
– Jan Van Goyen (Wikipedia)
Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…
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The Dawn Within 