A Gathering of Friends

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Meal of Holy Communion’ (Agape) – Unknown author, 2nd to 4th AD – Wikimedia

There’s been a gathering of friends lately. All gooey with being. It took place somewhere, in a place unknown, unlocated, kept somehow secret, where they all came to share wildly, and taste of a love supreme. You may want to know that place, to locate it, to find it as being somewhere where you can go and share some of that exquisiteness too. Well, now you have to think twice. For as the dictionary says, unlocated means ‘not surveyed or designated by marks, limits, or boundaries’. It is a place of no location. A place that has no geographical situation other than being here. A place that you cannot find within any noticeable limits but that englobes every known location. That place which you cannot find or reach, which has no known address, and which is kept secret behind the usual, well-trodden frontiers of your everyday experience, is yourself. Not your usual self, which you are well acquainted with. That one you have to be cautious of, or even warned against. No. Not that one. There is more to yourself. There is more than this located entity, with marks, limits, and boundaries. More than where your thoughts and beliefs have placed you in. There is a place in yourself that is not a place, that finds itself in no well-marked location, but that you could never not be in. Would you want to go there, that you would have to notice first that you are already in, already placed at the seat of honour, already warmed by its blazing hearth. This only is the heartfelt, spaceless, timeless location for all gatherings of friends. This is the land of your supreme heart, that you share with all living beings under the sky. There you have lived of all eternity without your knowing it. There you cannot go but only be. This is the event you are already signed in for, a retreat where you share the secret address of your deepest being with other fellow friends, and lit a bonfire of love. It may be a gathering of one or a hundred, in company of the wise or the ignorant, with the lighting of a sumptuous blaze or many a scattered sparkle or glitter, it doesn’t matter — there’s been a gathering of friends here and you as being were its gorgeous venue.

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Text by Alain Joly

Fresco of Agape by Unknown Author (2nd to 4th AD)
(from Greek chapel, Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome)

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Websites:
– Catacomb of Priscilla (Wikipedia)
– Agape (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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Finding Relationship

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Hazy Relationship’ – Rinaldo Wurglitsch – Wikimedia

If you think you are having a relationship with another, you’re telling yourself a story. Literally. For this is what ‘relationship’ truly means: ‘to recount’, ’to relate’, ‘to refer’. More precisely, it means that something has been ‘brought back’, or ‘carried back’. So relationship is not an innocuous word. It expresses something fundamental, that for our relationships to be, we have to conjure up the past, or some kind of knowledge. We have to refer to something, to bring back some old memories, some kind of object or image. We have to bring the past into the now. And this is what we have done so far, to attach our relationships to some kind of reference to the past. We have learnt that we cannot be related to another outside the field of memory or images, without making concepts, without burying our relationships into the impasse of storytelling. But in fact, real relationship only takes place when we stop relating anything to another person or object. It is the moment when you are emptying yourself and the apparent other from the past or the future, which is from knowledge.

Relationship as we know it is a process that involves separation. It is an interplay between two entities that have been brought about, fabricated, their reality made into selves out of fear, habit, convenience, or ignorance. These objective, illusory selves are so brittle that they are incapable of making true connection. They are like empty shells with no real substance. The only possible connection between human beings is love. Just think about it for a moment. Why do we hug anybody? Is it because we acknowledge the powerlessness of words and rather mimic our deep connection through the use of body language and silence? How do you convey what cannot be conveyed? What can you do when words come short, other than fall into silence and cancel the space or division between you and another? This annihilation is the act of love itself. It is the acknowledgement of being or ‘isness’ as the only possible connection. It is the truth of ‘what is’ when all conceptualisation has come to an end, when memory has been brought to its knees.

True relationship is the flowering of consciousness. It is the coming to the foreground of the reality that stands behind all apparently existing things. It is the noticing of the reality that is here amongst beings and things — the ciment behind it all, the nature of everything, the deepest connection there is, before which all other connections pale into insignificance. The irony is that you can only have true relationship with another when you don’t make up a relationship, when you don’t bring in any idea or judgement, when you don’t invite fear or former hurts, or condescendence, or even respect for that matter. You must stay silent, empty of qualifications. You have to be who you truly are, to let the natural relationship of love come to the foreground and act itself out through you, and in spite of you. Let it carry you where you are, at the right place of your pure, innocent self where relationship is not anything you do but what you are as being. It is ‘what is there no matter what between beings’ — be they human or otherwise.

So be watchful of what you bring. For the qualities of the world will depend on the quality of your relationships. That’s how a world is being experienced — through relationships. So don’t start with yourself, with a self, any self, and relate from there, from this position of untruthfulness, of deceitfulness. You’d make an insane world. A world where we use, impose, abuse, misuse, mistreat. That’s how wars are launched, through biased relationships and crooked selves. See how fundamental relationship is, how it can make the world a place where hurt, anger, ignorance are being acted out. Or how it can make the world a place of peace, harmony and love.

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Text by Alain Joly

Photo by Rinaldo Wurglitsch

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Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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A Speck of Light

Posted on by Alain Joly

What you are is nothing ordinary, nowhere near being ordinary. We have gotten used to seeing ourself small, a speck of consciousness in the wider picture of the universe, with its trillions of other specks. We have made consciousness a mere apparatus, something that allows us to apprehend reality. For most of us, reality as the world is the real thing. Consciousness is nothing to speak about or even mention: just a tiny, taken for granted sparkle in the mind. A mere instrument at the service of a limited, separate entity. This instrument is nearly transparent, hardly worth considering, and is often reduced to what is called conscience, which is in fact only mind. But could it be that the most important aspect of our lives resides there, in and as that speck, in and as that sparkle that we have ignored and misunderstood for millennia? We have been exclusively fascinated by the content of our minds, by our bodies, and by this enthralling world, and we have stopped there, leaving the most precious jewel of our lives aside. But this attitude is in fact an elaborate system of avoidance. As Krishnamurti once said: “Your whole concern is with escape.”

We are constantly privileging the content at the expense of the vessel that holds it, and the known at the expense of the unknowable. We want to possess and control, and feel the satisfaction of it. We prefer having experiences to exploring the nature of all experiences. But there is a seed waiting in the tender soil of our mind, that needs our attention and care. It thrives when being observed. It grows under the scrutiny of a loving contemplation. Its infinite proportions are a thing to watch, that can turn your life upside down, and sweep it clean of its erroneous foundations.

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Consciousness: from its being veiled to its being realised… (READ MORE…)

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The Truth

Posted on by Alain Joly
Grundtvig’s Church – Bispebjerg, Copenhagen

You cannot get away from truth. You may try. You may try as hard as you may. You may flee from yourself into some ideas, or chase wrong deeds, or hope for unattainable achievements. You may want to obtain what your feelings dictate, or what your miseries ordain, or what your selfish, envious self hungers for. You may go wilfully on that slippery road, but be careful. For sooner or later, you will have to be wiser. For no matter what, you will be called back to stay where you are, in yourself, as yourself. There is no escape from who you are. There are no ideas attainable, no deeds possible, no hopes to be granted, away from the truth of your self. This is your one, given, golden achievement — this self that you are and that you keep seeking in endless, groundless projections. Truth is not to be found amongst scattered objects. Truth is not desirous, impatient, not to be sought away from the constancy of your deepest self as being. This is what disappointment is, to seek truth where it is not, to miss the point, to not meet yourself where you are, at the very point of your most naked being. There is a whole panorama of being to be discovered when you do not disdain or disrespect the truth of who you are for a few adventures out of yourself. These adventures are all part of a big, forgetting scheme. And truth comes when you cease being forgetful, and remember ‘being’ to be your one and only truth.

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An exploration into the nature and meaning of truth… (READ MORE…)

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A Place of Leisure

Posted on by Alain Joly

There is a place in ourself where we are not, strictly speaking, meeting anything. This is what ‘emptiness’ means, that we are not bumping into anything, that we don’t encounter any resistance whatsoever. There may be objective appearances showing up, but they are not met from the position of being ourself an object, a self, a thing with properties and qualities. As long as we believe to be a self separate from the world, and identified to a set of thoughts and feelings, we are placed in a loud and busy world, a world crowded with objects, where conflict is at home and suffering is the norm, both outside and inside. But only feel to be the empty presence that your self truly is, and your world will appear as a qualitatively empty and silent being. And this silent being is ourself, our being which had been previously crowded by our identification with perceptions, muted by our thoughts, and dumbed by our feelings. So, as empty being, we are never meeting objects and conversing with them, for the only reality we ever come upon is ourself — infinite, empty being. That being is that which we eternally converse with. So we keep company with being only, not with objects and persons. This meeting, or melting, with being — with the essence — is paradoxically the only source for a true, loving, and meaningful relationship between apparent people and objects. Any meeting that takes place only at the level of people and objects is a promise for suffering and conflict.

There is one easy and direct consequence of living, or relating, as and with being. It is that our life becomes a place of leisure. We are liberated from the constraints of objects. Therefore we have a free time, a free space where we are not occupied, not busy working it all out, being puzzled, grabbed by conflict, seized by suffering. We are therefore in for leisure. We are in a position of freedom from where we can contemplate the world and ourself as we are. We are on a holiday, a holy, consecrated day when we release our chronic identification with the objective world, and find behind it relief and an intrinsic peace. This freedom from identification bears joy as its DNA because we are finally allowed to just be. And this being forever shines through experience, which is seen as secondary. And this being renders the world back to its original transparency. Furthermore, being clothes experience with a space like quality. This is a space of ability and creativity, for we are not possessed by our entanglement with experience. This is a space of free will, for we are not constrained by our limiting faculties. This is a space of easiness, for it takes us home, in the loving harbour of our true self. This place of leisure is absolute freedom — freedom from space and time, and from the contingencies of appearances. It is a place of no haste, where you are with your spacious self alone, and enjoy its interior, which is nothing but the world. You stay in the perimeter of your self wherever you may go. And there is the loving influence of infinity in whatever you may do, which means that peace is coming forth in spite of circumstances. Above all, this place of leisure is the burial ground of your self as a limited and separated entity.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Suggestion:
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The Impeded Buddhas

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Holy Thread’ – by Rajasekharan Parameswaran – Wikimedia

This is what we want against all odds. No matter what. All of us. We want that love, that piece of eternity, although we may not voice it that way. Yet everything tells us that we will never get it. We can’t have it. It is not something to be had, and we know it. We have experienced its elusiveness a thousand times. But that knowledge doesn’t appease our seeking. This indefatigable quest is ingrained in our system. Something deep inside us is missing, is not quite completed. There is an insufficiency, a suffering that sets us on this path of longing. And this seeking has become such an intimate part of our lives, and has taken so many banal, inconspicuous forms, that it is not often noticed or recognised as such. But the fact is: all that we are truly looking for in our life is this deep, abiding peace, which ultimately comes from love. This is our path. Our journey. To get to that point where we don’t have to suffer and strive.

The problem comes with defining our search precisely. We are being too vague about it. Most of the time, it is not taken seriously. So we stroll about, taking divergent, contradictory roads. We are only interested in bits and pieces. A little happiness here and there will do. Our quest remains a fearful one, and mostly consists in avoiding difficulties, in being attached to what we have, and in acquiring little pleasures. But all we do through this, is to battle with happiness. In fact, the whole of our life is made of that, of this frustrated happiness, this thwarted love. Everything we do — including our most unkind, insensitive, foolish, ignorant actions — we do out of our deep, inner desire for happiness. In a way, we are all spiritual seekers. We are all engaged in the same frantic battle to be happy, at peace, rested, unafraid. We are all brothers and sisters in arms. We may do it in the most clumsy, mindless way, and be punished for it. Or we may be gifted with a thirsty, pointed mind, and all the tools necessary to meditate and recognise our true nature. So this seeking is not for a few elected, but extends to humanity’s tireless striving for betterment.

In fact, we are all — without our realising — accomplished Buddhas, beings of light. But we have chosen to identify with our shortcomings, our failures, our reactive patterns, our sorrows, all the inner waste that life produces along the way. Their objective nature makes them easier to associate with. Unfortunately, by doing so, we have troubled our innate clarity, have limited our infinite nature, and have soiled our innocence. We have become ignorant of who we are. We have confused our luminous, peaceful being with a few passing, trifling occurrences. We have all made the same mistake. Our self is the story of a disillusionment, of a shrouded delight to just be. We are all impeded Buddhas. Paradoxically, our nature as peace and happiness, because of its being veiled by our prejudiced sense of self, is the reason for our feeling incomplete, inadequate, and is in consequence the cause of our suffering. So most of our seeking is a direct product of our natural predisposition towards peace and happiness. Our disentangling from this false, unfortunate association may take us on various roads of varying difficulty and intensity. But the truth behind it all is that everyone — everyone — we meet on our journey is our equal partner in this most sacred quest. This recognition would go a long way in establishing some measure of love in our wounded world.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Rajasekharan Parameswaran (born 1964)

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Website:
– Rajasekharan Parameswaran (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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Know Thyself

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Putti, detail from The Sistine Madonna’ – Raphael, 1513 – WikiArt

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γνῶθι σεαυτόν

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Know thyself. Know who you are. That’s how simple it is. You may start from the far end, from a belief, a philosophy, an exotic term. You may call it religion, or spirituality, or non-duality — whichever name you want. You may go through the rugged path of belief, faith, practice, meditation, prayer, philosophy — all the names and concepts, the endless thinking about it, and the seeking that seems to never end. But now, when you stop and consider it all at last, you will come to the realisation that, deep down, it all comes down to that simple sentence. ‘Know thyself’. Not the knowing of your thoughts, ideas, opinions, feelings. Not your idiosyncrasies, or character, or outer shape, or preferences. None of that. To know oneself points directly to the knowing of your essence, of your innermost being, what you are made of at the core, when every other thing that can be pointed to has been discarded as superfluous. This is who you truly are. This maxim was once carved in golden letters on the front of the Temple of Apollo in Ancient Greece. That’s what this wisest of civilisations gave to the world as its supreme and most fundamental advice. ‘Know Thyself’.

So self-knowledge is the key. Of course, you may analyse it, take it apart, trace the endless chain of philosophers that gave their stand on this famous maxim, but I would not encourage you to do so. Sometimes, what’s really of crucial, definite importance resides at the simplest, closest address. The one you never truly considered for fault of being almost as nothing, a child’s play unworthy of your attention. Could it be that simple? That the meaning of the whole of life, the solution to our happiness, and the key to the whole riddle of existence could be found there, in the simple knowing of ourself? Let’s assume that it can and consider it seriously. Let’s embark on this shortest of journeys, the one going within, in the direction of our own self, where no distance is needed, no time necessary, and no special expertise required. This simple journey is the one of which the Ancient Greek poet and philosopher Ion of Chios wrote in the 5th century AD: “This ‘know yourself’ is a saying not so big, but such a task Zeus alone of the gods understands.”

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A reverie that explores the path towards the knowing of our self… (READ MORE…)

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