The Golden Speaker

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Saints John of Damascus and Cosmas’ – Menologion of Basil II, 11th AD – Wikimedia

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“The knowledge of the existence of God is implanted in us by nature.”
~ John of Damascus

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In spiritual matters, it is always a pleasure and a thrill to find a new gem, to mingle with a different formulation, to venture for a while with an old, unexpected description of the perennial understanding; in more simple terms, to stumble on a new exponent of the eternal truth. John of Damascus is one such talented teller, to the point of having been named, in his own remote time, the ‘golden speaker’, or literally — and even more poetically — ‘streaming with gold’ (from the Greek ‘Chrysorroas’). John of Damascus was born in 675-676 AD to a prominent and wealthy Arab-Christian Damascene family. He is known to have composed many hymns and canons that are still sung today, and has written treatises, teachings, and other works, amongst which a highly influential synthesis of Christian philosophy called ‘The Fountain of Wisdom’.

Although raised in a rich and influential family, John became so dissatisfied that he relinquished all his possessions at around the age of 40, becoming a priest and a monk in a monastery near Jerusalem, where he spent the rest of his life studying, writing, and composing. The excerpts presented here are borrowed from the last volume of John’s work ‘The Fountain of Wisdom’, translated by S. D. F. Salmond, called ‘An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith’. In Book I, Chapter 1, John shows in a few eloquent quotes, that God is not to be apprehended in objects. It is empty and unreachable by thought or the mind. However, God is not knowable outside of, or away from ourself, but only in and as our very own self. In consequence, the nature of God as awareness is self-sufficient, and doesn’t need to find peace and happiness outside itself, in the objects of experience, which would rob God — and ourself — of Its/our divine nature…

“No one hath seen God at any time. […]
The Deity, therefore, is ineffable and incomprehensible.”

“God, however, did not leave us in absolute ignorance.
For the knowledge of God’s existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature.”

“No one knoweth the Father, save the Son, nor the Son, save the Father. […]
[no one] has ever known God, save he to whom He revealed Himself.”

“The Divine nature […] is both passionless and only good.”

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Discover the life and insightful writings of John of Damascus… (READ MORE…)

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The Buddha Nature

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Buddha Painting at Amazing Banyan Tree’ – Utsav Rock Garden – Wikimedia

When you see the representation of a Buddha in meditation — or a Shiva or a goddess —, it is not about a person or a god, not about an entity, no matter how mythical or divine he or she might be. It is yourself represented. It is the description of your own aware being. Present. Self-sufficient. Undisturbable. Undivided. Not dispersed. It is a representation of consciousness — that thing or essence of which we are made, and with which we are all having our many experiences. It is the very form of being. It is an attempt to make seen what cannot be seen, to make graspable that which cannot be grasped. It is the form of the formless. It is teaching itself. It is truth in a condensed and visible form.

To see it that way will never make you laugh again at the expressions of devotion in front of statues. It is not to say that the immense majority of believers do not see in these statues the representation of a person or a god, but rather to emphasise the truer significance behind these objects of devotion. They are reminders of truth, wake up calls from the bottomless being contained in your own being. They are beseeching you to direct your attention inwards. You are being asked to devote your attention to your self, to worship your own being, to not disperse yourself in the ten thousand things and the endless dance of thoughts and feelings, but to focus on that which is before them, that which is seeing them all. That is your true self, and that true self is Buddha-nature.

A Buddha in meditation is not a Buddha in meditation. It doesn’t tell you that you should meditate. It is rather the expression of the very being that sits as your very self or awareness. In other words, it is you. You are this close to a Buddha sitting in meditation. A breath away. Less than a breath, you are it to a point that you can never even envisage. That’s what keeps you so far remote from it. This is the real belief: to think of yourself as being a common person and not a Buddha. Imagination is taking you far away from your true self. Don’t let it do that to yourself. Don’t be so malleable as to follow the injunctions of a voice in your head. Sit down in yourself and look within. Surrender to the presence of your innermost being. Stay with it. Admire it. Your true nature is nothing but Buddha-nature. It is the only thing that you must not be asked to believe. It’s just for the realising.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Utsav Rock Garden

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Website:
– Utsav Rock Garden

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Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

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The State of Things

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Self-portrait’ (detail) – Rembrandt, 1658 (Frick Collection) – WikiArt

It is crucial in life to have a clear view of the state of things. Not to be left behind with an erroneous understanding or interpretation. For there are wolves out there, that want you to go astray. They will lure you to adopt their own inherited beliefs. They will push you in the direction of your fall. So be watchful of everything you don’t fully understand.

They will want you to believe that you are surrounded by people or others. That these ‘others’ are objects of fear, pain or pleasure, that you will be drawn to either avoid or use for your own happiness. Nothing could be more remote from the truth. At no time or place will you be asked to meet anybody but yourself. Your own glorious self who happens to be also the self of all apparent others. People are but the varied and beautiful expressions of the one being that stands as your being too. In consequence, they will become colleagues, partners, sharers of that same one being, and therefore beloveds. You will see them as blooming flowers that belong to the same aware field of consciousness. This field is the only self there is, present in everyone and every being as your very own being too. This, truly is the state of things.

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A meditative reflexion on the state of things in our experience… (READ MORE…)

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Go Within

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Church Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption’ – La Grave (France)

All the religious and spiritual traditions of the world, with their complexity and variety, and all the names attached to them, are in fact only pointers to one simple, living reality that can be experienced here and now in every human being. Every Purana, Surah, Gospel, Sutra, Psalm, Hadith, Sermon, Teaching, are one global attempt at pointing or describing the most common experience of our humanity: the nature of our present experience. The truth of our being.

Although the very vehicle with which our experience is known, this instrument — let’s call it consciousness — is ignored and taken for granted. This is what the world’s religious scriptures are here for: to explore this simple reality of ourself which — although experienced faintly or unknowingly — is hidden in the clamour of objective experience. This labyrinthine network composed of our senses, thoughts, and feelings, mesmerises us, hypnotises us, conditions us, and finally renders us like separate beings craving for their lost happiness.

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On how all the world’s spiritual traditions only point to ‘being’… (READ MORE…)

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A Place of Thankfulness

Posted on by Alain Joly

This is where I’m big. When I’m following my unique fate as presence. When I’m fully being my self, embodying it as it were. This is where I cannot be led astray. This is where I cannot be persuaded of my dying. This is where life becomes a princely road towards this beloved castle of being. You become immovable. You cannot be displaced. Where would you go? Where would you be?

Do you really need a direction? Follow the motorway of being. It will be your universal compass. Everlastingly pointing to your self, where you cannot be lost. No matter what, or how, or when, or where. It will find you in times innumerable, that will all have their origin as you. It will take you to countless places, that will all have their being in you. Congealed inside you. Resting. Yet like waves dancing softly, swiftly. Your life will find its being in being. It will move in that which cannot be moved. Are you still afraid now? Are you still dreading this unknown course of your life? Think again! There is no wrong direction in being. There is nothing threatening or dangerous in being. Presence is a soft bed. This is your king size armchair, from where life is enjoyed and cherished. This is your place of thankfulness.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

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Being Spiritual

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Sea View’ – J.M.W. Turner, 1820-1830 – WikiArt

This whole adventure of knowing oneself is not about being spiritual. It’s about being alive. Not just a little bit alive, with holes here and there, where unconsciousness can creep in, and steal us the best portion of what it is to be truly alive. For life is not a collection of deeds or experiences. Life is an energy and an essence that you can feel or know as the totality of your own being. And life extends to everything and everywhere. It is not about you. It never was.

To realise our true nature is not about being spiritual. It’s about being happy. Not the happiness that shakes and crumbles at the least twist of life’s circumstances. Happiness is not meant to be so fragile. And it is not something that you have to attain, or perform. You are not meant to work for that which is your inborn due and essence. Happiness is when you cannot even form or comprehend the concept of unhappiness. It is the distinguishing trait of being.

This understanding is not about being spiritual. It’s about being wholly a human being — inhabiting this whole experience while staying rooted in your true essence as awareness. There is immense delight in being awareness through your whole body and mind. Don’t leave your human experience at the door of consciousness anymore that you should leave consciousness at the door of your human experience. Include your humanness in your understanding.

To recognise our real identity is not about being spiritual. It’s about being in a world. Feeling what a world is — its golden nature — its sacredness — its dazzling presence. Having a world as our own being. Don’t think that you cannot know it through its essence. Knowing the world is like knowing yourself. And that will make you equip the world with ravishing beauty. The world is not about an outside. It is all inside yourself, curling itself into your own being.

I don’t want to be spiritual, or special, or humble. I want to be so fully being that I cannot even formulate such ideas. I want to be so fully myself that I cannot even know the meaning of these words. And I don’t want to be perfect. I want to be soft and malleable, and utterly vulnerable. Not fragile or brittle, but open to every passing feeling, to every hue inherent in living. This is how life shows its greatness. This is how you are truly grateful for being human.

I don’t want to have the identity of being spiritual. I want to have no contours where I can be fixed and localised. I don’t want to be anything that can be bumped into, and get hurt or scarred. I want to be being only being, to leave no room for an other, or for a difference. Why should I define myself? To be truly living is to be undefinable. And to be without objective identity is to belong in everything and in everyone. This is the true meaning of love.

I don’t quite fancy being tagged as spiritual. Being spiritual is only a nice word for everything in myself that cannot quite let go and espouse the pure essence of being. These are the leftovers on the failed path of being one with my essential being. I don’t want to be spiritual any more that I want my true nature to be identified with being French, or being this or that. I want to be what I ought to be when every form of control is seen detrimental and abandoned.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851)

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Website:
– J. M. W. Turner (Wikipedia) …

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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Defining Enlightenment

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Saint Augustine’ (detail) – Philippe de Champaigne, 1645 – Wikimedia

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“A thunderclap under the clear blue sky
All beings on earth open their eyes;
Everything under heaven bows together;
Mount Sumeru leaps up and dances.”
~ Wumen Huikai (enlightenment poem)

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The words for the discovery of our true nature — like enlightenment, realisation, awakening, liberation, etc — are all very significant. They all point to truth and have numerous things to say. Take ‘enlightenment’ for instance. Its original signification is ‘to shine’ or ‘to make luminous’. So to enlighten means to put the light on. It means to cease being distracted by all that is objective in our experience and doesn’t define us truly, and make what is already and absolutely ours here and now apparent. It doesn’t mean to achieve, to reach, to attain, to get something new. Where did we get this idea from? But let’s be very cautious here: to make luminous — does this even require a doing? Why should we have anything to do when the light is already fully on? So to be enlightened is really more a matter of noticing what is already here, and that we have missed due to a pathological phenomenon of blindness. We are too occupied with a thousand things, worried, concerned, busy with this and that, distracted, ambitious, desiring, grasping, expecting, and god only knows what else we have in mind to so successfully avoid seeing the patently obvious. Our true reality and identity as consciousness is already present, luminous and shining in every corner of our experience and we are blind to it. That’s where the word ‘realisation’ comes in.

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An essay exploring the signification of enlightenment… (READ MORE…)

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