Cleansing the Temple

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Expulsion of the Moneychangers from the Temple’ – Giovanni Paolo Pannini, 1724 – Wikimedia

Maybe this is where peace in fact resides. In the fact that peace or happiness can never be found, never be reached. It will be nowhere where you expect it, not in any objective appearance or event, not in any wish granted, not in any kind of alignment between what you want and what you have. You will never obtain what you want. Truth is not there, in what you wish. It doesn’t care for your egoistic projections, for your own private self-interest. Truth is not a mere good to be bargained for, or hoped for, or waited for, which, if not granted will disappoint you, and make you like a rejected lover, or a bruised self. Truth is not any kind of crude object. Remember Jesus who cast out the merchants in the temple. Were you really thinking that there was a physical Jesus actually chasing the merchants from the temple, on the ground of some kind of moral rule?

The merchants in the temple, it is you. It is all of us when we have decided to argue with reality, to buy our happiness with some kind of object obtained, to bargain or negotiate with some invented superior entity the responsibility of what is happening to us, to come to god with pockets full of expectations and desires, making peace a simple object to be bought in the market place of our likes and dislikes. “Wouldst thou be free from any taint of trade?” did Meister Eckhart ask. Imagine the relief that it is: to know or realise that you will not have what you want, that ‘what is’ is all there is, all that you will ever have. What a relief! What a load finally put down, and got rid of! All that you want, desire, expect, all that, will never ever be granted to you. You can forget it all. ‘What is’ is the deal. The grandiose enlightenment you were waiting for lies there, in what simply is! It will never get better than that! You have it all here, in front of you. That is the gift that was specially designed for you. Happiness resides in what you have, in what you are, here and now. This is the secret that Krishnamurti meant when he said: “I don’t mind what happens.”

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On how truth is not an object to be bought in the marketplace… (READ MORE…)

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One Sublime Being

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Winter Night in Rondane’ – Harald Sohlberg, 1913 – WikiArt

The body-mind is not an apparatus that stands on its own. It is an instrument of awareness. It is supposed to bear and implement the innate qualities of its owner as pure, unlimited being. This is why it has pain and suffering: When all such qualities have failed to be transmitted. When awareness is being short-circuited. Suffering is the complaint of God that is inbuilt in the body-mind system. It is God’s intelligence revealing itself to ourself when we have become blind to our true nature. So we have to align ourself to the depth contained in the knowing of our being, to be ourself that vastness, and allow it to shine in our experience. This is the golden avenue to peace: to be ourself an expression of the divine being that is lending itself to our constitution, lending its body to the body of our bones, blood, and skin, and lending itself as a container for our thoughts, sensations, and perceptions.

We never had a solid body with a life of its own. A dying body is not just a body that fails to sustain itself. It is consciousness calling itself back to itself, and in that process making the body-mind instrument ever more soft and porous, leaving it ever more shining, ever more acquiring the qualities of its essence as pure being. It is also a mind that is made less ambitious, losing its carapace of wanting, needing, seeking, expecting — the suffering that it all implies. A mind that is slowly giving itself in, to return to where it never left, and espouse its natural receptacle as pure awareness. This is how death comes to be so readily accepted. In the course of this transition. In the gift that death is in last analysis. For your body is not your body. It is God’s being in disguise. As for your mind, it is but God’s infinite mind borrowed. So you never truly lose your body. You never truly lose your self. And you are not confined to your body-mind in this life. You just come to realise the presence of another truer, finer body. A body that extends itself to the width and length of the world. And you notice that your mind is not restrained to the perimeter of your skull, but hosts unbridled, measureless, the world that is your body, with its infinity of variables. This is how body, mind, world, God, life, death are discovered to be one sublime being, bound together by the vital fluid of love.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Harald Sohlberg (1869-1935)

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Website:
– Harald Sohlberg (Wikipedia)

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The Resting Place

Posted on by Alain Joly

“There is no resting place until the real comes into being.“
~ J. Krishnamurti (‘The World Within’)

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Where could we find a resting place, when we are running in a thousand directions for a sparkle of relief or happiness? Where could rest be, when we are constantly afflicted with every form of suffering and doubt? There is always something brewing in our mind, something that needs to be arranged or perfected. Dissatisfaction is rampant, forever displaying its multiple consequences and leaving us gasping for a peace that is eluding us again and again. In other words, we are stuck in an eternal roundabout, with no clear directions on offer, except for the same old directions that we have explored a thousand times, to no avail. Yet rest is an essential. We know it from intuition. We know it as our deepest knowledge, our only certainty in life. There is a home — of this we are certain. Otherwise we wouldn’t be running around in this constant, infatigable search for love, peace, joy, and the likes. Our stubborn seeking is a proof that the stamp of life is to be found in easiness, naturalness. We are not meant to struggle and strive.

It is interesting to notice that peace always comes in the form of a recognition. We are not here on uncharted grounds. We have explored this chamber of peace a thousand times before. Only we keep forgetting it. In fact, our search for peace and happiness in the field of objective experience is nothing but our many clumsy attempts at remembering. Yet in reality, not truly so. For we should rather proclaim that our search in the field of objective experience is nothing but our many successful attempts at forgetting. How do we forget that which cannot be forgotten? How do we miss the obvious? How do we obscure the light? Well, just by being a self in its own right. Just by thinking to be a self separated from the field of experience. And therefore looking in that field for experiences that will relieve us from our constant seeking. That’s the perfect catch-22. So we become choosy, selective, a slave to experience, forever oscillating between being its victim or its conqueror. But this unfortunate manoeuvre is what puts us afar from the peace we are looking for. Peace is in fact nothing but our deepest, most intimate identity as being. And experience is nothing but a vassal of peace when we have recognised who we truly are.

Only be that eternal being curled in and as your self, and no experience will ever be a source for joy or a cause for suffering. Let your being infuse in and as eternal being, and peace will appear to be the very structure of your self — its indestructible nature. Don’t ever go out for peace, but rather find it within, as the revelation of your utmost being. There is a cabinet of peace waiting for your noticing. It is that very place of rest that you have been longing for, and expecting to find in situations and circumstances, when it is simply the very expression of your inner sense of being. See this peace as your only reality. Be of it, as much as it is of you. And let it pervade your being until it has conquered every corner of experience. Peace will then be seen as the fabric of every thing and being encountered. You will start noticing it in the many figures of life. In every bird flying across the sky. In every towel used to dry your hands. In the business of city hassle. Even in the harsh words addressed to hurt you. Peace is like a torrent of rain falling at your doorstep. It will wash your self clean of any impurities of experience. As it will equally clean experience of any residue of your self. Then will you and experience walk hand in hand under the vault of an unbreakable peace. Each intimately woven with the other, yet both being the children or emanation of an indissoluble unity.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Bibliography:
– ‘The World Within: You Are the Story of Humanity’ – by J. Krishnamurti – (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

Website:
– J. Krishnamurti

Suggestion:
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Christ (noun)

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Christ Pantocrator mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul’ – Unknown, 13th AD – Wikimedia
. Sometimes, the simplest questions are the ones never asked. Like, for example: ‘What is ‘Christ’?’ Were we ever curious about it? To know why this word was chosen to represent what it represents. Don’t we want to know? A word that has lent itself to a whole religion, that has been used to name a person —Jesus — who was worshipped for millennias, who is nothing less but the son of God, and who claims to be the solution to the relief of our suffering, to our being cleansed of our faults, and to our being reborn, resurrected, and blessed eternally. Don’t we want to know, to approach it with an inquisitive mind? Just once? But it’s like we are being afraid. A sort of strange ‘fear of god’ that we have deep down, both as lovers of god or as atheists. Especially in religious matters, where it feels that we are often satisfied with a hazy understanding, a shaky belief, or a quick judgement, and are never prone to go deeper than that. ‘This is too big for us! Too remote! Where too much is at stake! So we’re not going to shake that boat! Not now!’ And so… This is how we keep a simple misunderstanding safe, how we keep an old stale belief alive, and how we keep at bay the truth of who we are… but we’re not going to do that now. Now is for truth. Now we have come to know at last! And one way to start an inquiry, in our highly conceptualised world, is to humbly dig for the etymology of the word that defines the thing we want to know about. That usually reveals some deeply buried secrets. So… ‘Christ’ comes from the Greek word ‘chrīstós’ meaning the ‘anointed one’. A meaning that is shared with the Hebrew word ‘mašíaḥ’, translated as Messiah. To be anointed is to be smeared or rubbed with oil, typically in a ceremonial way. It is a form of consecration, of elevation. It was used throughout history in multiple ways, for example as a form of medicine, or for the blessing of a king, or to attract the influence of the divine. But behind all the pompousness of it, is simply an act of redemption: We want to be happy, to be brought back to a state of health and harmony. It is the desire to elevate ourself from our conditioned ways of thinking and believing, and find the peace that we all think to deserve. It is the longing to be relieved from our suffering, and to rest at last in our own glorious being. […] An exploration of the meanings hidden in the word ‘Christ’… (READ MORE…) .

What We Have to Do

Posted on by Alain Joly

Well, now you know what to do, don’t you? All this time spent in the contemplation of truth must have served some purpose. The countless hours sitting on the cushion. The days in the company of Meister Eckhart or Rumi. And the sage of Arunachala. All these masters of presence. Surely they must have made a lasting impression on you. Now you won’t be seduced by experience anymore. You won’t be dragged into the train of every thought or worry that passes by. You won’t fall entranced by feelings, no matter how pregnant they may appear to be. You won’t let any of your sensations attach themselves to yourself, and suck your attention. Now you know better. You won’t be caught again. The time has come to find yourself just where you are. In that essential in yourself. Not at the periphery. Not in the weather of life, but deep down, in silence, in that presence that falls to nothing but itself. This is where you have to be. This is where your sacred interest lies. But we know that so well by now, don’t we? No need to stress that point again.

Well. But let’s rehearse it again. Just in case. Some part of it may have slipped away from our attention. There is never any harm in repeating what really matters: The important is never in the many, but lies secret in the reality that hosts every seeming appearance. So now we know, don’t we, where to look, where the promise hides, where that non-spoken truth is spoken. We know where is our duty to God. It is there, where you know, close to yourself, behind the behind, present as your most intimate identity. Don’t let yourself be drawn outside of it. Don’t fall to any passing occurrence, to anything that is not the entirety of you. That’s simple enough to make the difference. Stay with that part of yourself that is unmovable, that cannot be divided, set apart, isolated, looked at. That part that will never fail you, no matter hard you may try. And if you find anything, any thing, that stands to be noticed in your mind, an obstacle in yourself, then be unconcerned, go behind it, go for the space that holds it, that last frontier beyond it. And should that obstacle, that thought, that feeling, that perception, be so pregnant as to occupy the whole space of your self, then be bold, dive into it, right at the centre of it, free fall into it, on the other side of yourself, in this unknown, never visited part of you. Then… Then, you may come to that spaceless space, to that newness. Let it shower you, cleanse you. Be it and don’t move away from it no matter what. You won’t regret it.

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Text by Alain Joly

Photo by Elsebet Barner

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Arise, O Krishna!

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘The Rasa Mandala Dance of Krishna and the Gopis’ – Anonymous, 1760 – Wikimedia

Arise, O Krishna! This is not a time for discretion. There is enchantment around the lake of experience. Ladies have come with fine clothes and jewellery to be adorned by you. You have to be their cup-bearer, the one presence giving to every forms of experience their gorgeous light. For what is a thought without the cup in which it grows, stands for a second, and disappears? Krishna, you alone are the meaning and beauty attached to every object that inhabit our daily living. So this is not a time to hide, but to reveal, to shed light, to glorify. The Gopis — the milkmaids of the Krishnaite folklore — have come to you in the effervescence of their longing. You are the reason for their looking so beautiful. They come to you to be revealed and embellished by your presence, by the one being that is their most precious jewel. So enter the round, O Krishna, and dance with every one of them.

Give to the thoughts that come and wander for a time in our minds their chamber of peace. Clothe them with clarity and intelligence. Appease the suffering of which they are the vehicle, and offer them the rest they deserve. Don’t let anyone unattended. Not a feeling should be left alone, frightened or sad, without benefiting from your warm embrace. No sensations should come along without your building for them a temple of awareness. Be the one present for all, infallible, unswerving. Should a Gopi be lost in the contemplation of nature, and you are here showering her vision with beauty. You are the noble harmony of every experience, and what confers to the dance of life the sweetest of melodies. And have you noticed, O Krishna, how your absence can throw a shadow of sorrow on every experience that passes unseen by you? And have you witnessed how acute is our longing for you, when you withdraw your loving gaze from the many happenings of our lives?

So now, with flowers in their hair, and boundlessness in their hearts, do the Gopis join in your endless round, O Krishna. You hold everyone, every experience, every object that stands lost and alone, in your loving arms. You create around them an armour of beauty, and clothe them in truth’s brightest apparel. That’s how we find the peace at the heart of experience: by marrying every appearance to the gentle presence that holds them. And that presence is ourself — who we are — now giving shape to every perception, every occurrence, sheltering them in the being that gives them protection and form. That’s how the Gopis are experienced as an emanation of Krishna, and how Krishna is seen to be their primordial cause. So now arise, O Krishna! Truly arise! We have come here in celebration of truth, to contemplate you and be contemplated by you. The set for the dance has been arranged. We have come to you enamoured as humble milkmaids, as the fervent Gopis of your heart.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Anonymous (1760-65)

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Website:
– Raslila (Wikipedia)

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‘Agnus Dei’

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘The Song and the Cello’ – Thomas Dewing, 1910 – WikiArt

There is a prayer that was once addressed to our deepest self. This is a song of mourning for the life that we cannot get hold of, for the self that we cannot truly be. This mourning is the story of our wrestling with life, of our puny self, a self that is elusive, fragile, fearful, and has been plagued with suffering. So this prayer is a plea addressed to the one that can save us from our intolerable pain. But it is not intended to God. It is intended to ourself, to that part of ourself that appears to be soft, uncertain, constantly seeking affirmation, but is in fact holding the key to the peace we are so desperately looking for.

This self is called, in the Christian tradition, the ‘lamb of God’, and refers to Jesus as ‘Christ’. It is the one for whom John the Baptist had this exclamation: “A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me”. (John 1:30) This self is called a ‘lamb’ because it is destined to die in the embrace of being. Being is its only reality, its rock-like ground and certainty, the one that ‘surpassed me’ because it was ‘before me’. The self that we believe ourself to be is a fragile construction, and a vulnerable entity. It is afraid of dying, of having no solid ground, and is pleading for one.

“Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.” This plea is a liturgical prayer used in every Catholic Mass, borrowed from a passage in the New Testament (John 1:29). This prayer, called in Latin ‘Agnus Dei’, was used by many of the greatest composers for a number of choir pieces. In 1967, an American composer named Samuel Barber, at the time battling with depression, decided to adapt his 1938 ‘Adagio for Strings’ into a choral work. His ‘Agnus Dei’ is a gorgeous expression of a longing for God, a longing that is the one longing of all humanity, the desire for peace, the unceasing quest for a happy living.

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Exploring the meaning behind a choir song by Samuel Barber… (READ MORE…)

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