God Unveiled

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Illustrated Depiction of God with Holy Bettmann’ – Tintoretto, 16th AD – WikiArt

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For many of us, god is nothing more than the idea or belief we have inherited of such a being, an idea that is conditioned by religion as the lazy representation of an omniscient, omnipotent entity that is both our creator and protector — in the popular Christian imagery an old bearded figure who lives far and away from us, in a lofty, elevated place for a good view on its creation and creatures. The existence of such a god is almost only a matter of belief or faith, and the relationship we have with it one of reward and punishment, devotion, fear, prayer, praise, but rarely of understanding and exactitude. It seems that we better have god in a hazy place, feel more at ease with not knowing too much about the wisdom that may hide behind that term. So our ignorance is a calculated one, a refusal to rock the boat, and a patting of our carefully assembled opinions from which we derive our sacrosanct identity and security. But let’s tackle god here. Let’s undress the myth and have a thorough eye-contact with the divine. Let’s dare some experiential understanding. Let’s have god out of its hiding place.

Maybe god was never defined because it is the one thing in life that is indefinable. Everything objective that we can know, see, hear, touch, smell, taste — qualities and all — can be described with words and given a name. We have our life surrounded by objects. The objective has filled our experience to the brim, and we are being choked in it — with no breathing possible, and no space allotted to the unknown. God is one such unknown. But how could we describe something that we cannot know as an object? So to god we can only give a generic, provisional name. Because god cannot be pointed at and recognised as an object or entity. God is not an easy catch. The divine defies our understanding, and this defiance is at the core of our misinterpretation of god. So if you want to know god, you have to look for it in your life, and turn every stone and pebble that crowd your experience. So start by removing everything in existence that you can know, see, hear, touch, smell, taste — qualities and all — that have an objective quality and can be given a proper name. You know: everything that you can show to another fellow, and that he too can see, hear, know, understand, and comprehend, just like you. Take it all away, and then see what remains behind.

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An explanation of the nature and reality of God’s being… (READ MORE…)

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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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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 Sieve of Life

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Mont Sainte-Victoire’ – Paul Cezanne, 1890 – WikiArt

Consciousness wants to have it its ways. That’s how we meet life on such a bumpy road: Because we oppose the naturalness of being or consciousness, with our views and ideas. We too want to have it our ways. So there is a friction here at play. This friction is our suffering. This friction is the expression of our ego. It is our way of fighting through life, of being stubborn, willing, desiring, at the expense of the truth of our being. The world is not just a world. It is truth in action, with its laws and momentum. They cannot be ignored. They require our understanding, our consensus, our unanimity and harmony, our unison. This unison commands us to look in the same direction, in that very sacred meadow where being can be met. Don’t look for the world to be such a place of meeting. There is an obligatory passage before you can meet the world and your life at the level they must be met. This passage is yourself at its deepest. It is but the hidden expanse of your being. So being is your exploration field. It is your developer liquid, that will give your life its true colours. This is how the world is to be met — through the intercession or filter of being. This is where you will be handed the gift that you have been relentlessly looking for. A gift that will never disappoint you, for it has been uniquely designed for your needs.

So meet the world in being. Meet your life in being. You will smoothen your bumpy road into a path of truth. Life will stop being an achievement, to be only the natural consequence of your internal exploration. Contemplate your being in all occasions, and you will render to your life its ultimate, pristine, innate perfection. You will stop using your life for your own private objectives, distorting it to your conditioned, egoistic convenience. Cease trying to acquire things, bending them to meet your own preferences. Notice that the harshness of life is always on your side. We command suffering and conflict, we invite difficulties. They are the pointed head of the army of our egotistical tendencies. Remember separation to be your worst enemy. Don’t let it come through your door, no matter how seductive it may appear to you. Don’t make it your special guest. Any entity that forms inside your self as an object is only a treacherous self. Trust only formless, undivided being. Pass your life experience through its sieve. Let being be your guide, that one thing which comes first, which is preeminent in your life, and through which life ought to be lived. Sieve your life through the natural influence of being. That’s how you avoid friction. That’s how you annihilate conflict. That’s how you kill all possibility of suffering in the egg. And that’s how you invite the gift of happiness, love, beauty, and eternity in your life — these coveted needs of yours.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)

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Website:
– Paul Cezanne (Wikipedia)

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Isn’t Life a Simple Thing?

Posted on by Alain Joly

We as an apparent body and mind are nothing but the conditions met for the apparition of a world and all the resulting experiences that take place within it. We are simply housing the thoughts, feelings, and sense perceptions necessary to enact experience, and give it a shine of reality. But the essential of what we are is neither in thoughts, nor in feelings, nor in sense perceptions. The essential of a mind is made of consciousness. Awareness is its structure and its backbone, without which there would be nothing left. If it wasn’t for its awaring quality, our mind would be no mind. Our thoughts would crumble and disappear to never reappear. Our feelings and sensations would suddenly blacken and decay in an instant, to be never formed again. And the world would be swallowed back into infinity, if it wasn’t for the consciousness that gave it its essence and knowability. Look as you may, you won’t find a mind of your own anywhere. At best, just a few scattered thoughts, and the momentary and illusory appearance of a self.

Observe carefully. A few thoughts can never make a mind; and neither could some random feelings. You couldn’t own the necessary self that you need to function in a world, without some inseparable and indispensable measure of knowing. So it is all about knowing. It is all about being conscious. Awareness holds it all together — your body; your thoughts and feelings; your world as sense perceptions. All of these come into existence at the only condition that an ‘awareness’ is present. If awareness goes, you go. If consciousness goes, everything with you go. The world goes. No bodies viable. No flower fields. No Milky Way. Everything falling apart. Universe shut black. Just a mess! That’s the power of consciousness! Far from being a mere function of the body, awareness is what holds the body and the world together. It is the essence of everything. It is the indispensable matrix. It is the ocean in which the waves and currents of thoughts, sensations, and world are dancing. And it has no home where to rest but itself. In fact, it is itself a resting place for all apparent minds, bodies, things, selves that make up a world. Consciousness gives existence with its being, allows relationship with its knowing faculty, and brings the consolidation of happiness with its loving nature. Then it returns into itself and stays there, in utter peace and completeness — replete with itself. And when you have seen it all as it is, and yourself as you are — indivisible being — then might come simply a swell of awe. God, isn’t life a simple thing?

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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The Ardent Disciple

Posted on by Alain Joly

We are strolling down a lane of a thousand gorgeous temples. Only we need to see it, to give ourself the gift of sightseeing. We need to open our life to this reality. But first, we must release this tension present in believing to be a self, and honour this temple of pure being that we are when all our beliefs and identifications have been met and dismantled. Then open your eyes. You are living in a beautiful, never yet visited land. Every fellow human being met, is a temple of consciousness. Every animal encountered, a temple of presence. Every living being that crosses our eyes, our ears, our touch, a temple of awareness, a reflection of our being. We are touring in a world of our self. Never in a distant, exotic land. Always in the comfort of our home as being. Forever linked to and as our deepest presence. We are visitors of presence, being both the presence that visits — as our self, and the presence that is visited — as apparent others.

Down this lane of presence, you will meet countless other temples. Every tree that stands majestic in your gaze, every flower that attracts you with its net of beauty, every fallen leaf on your path, every drop of rain landing on your skin, all temples of your own, scrumptious being. And every object surrounding you, a temple of isness. The clothes you are wearing are existing things. So is the watch at your wrist. Or the chair you are sitting on, or a pen, or a musical sound — the thousand fellow objects of your life. All sharing this same quality of presence, of isness. All temples that reflect the inner beauty or quality of your self, that can be met at every step. See them. Hear them. Touch them. Feel them as your own. Sense their making as your own. Honour them every time you can. They will tell you the story of your self. They are like sculptures of being in the temple of your life.

Don’t forget that every traveller or companion of life, is an altar of friendship, a temple for love. And every object distant or at hand, a recipient for beauty. And every felt presence, an echo of peace, and an occasion for happiness. All are hymns of the divine. All praises to god. But don’t stop here, for there is more to pray, or meditate on; more invitations to honour; more temples to enter; ever more heart openings to experience. Life is a dynamic thing. Bow to everything that shows up. Do not bypass the fact that behind every glance of most human beings you meet, and of many animals too, is also a temple with a cross of suffering. Be sensitive to it. That’s how you will come to exercise your compassion. And notice that within any word uttered by any conscious self, or behind any cry of a distant animal, is a sermon to learn from, by a priest in being. Listen to it carefully. That’s how you will come to exercise your humbleness, or your understanding. And in many actions or behaviours of many of your living friends battling through existence, you will be offered a lesson in equanimity, in courage. Be aware of it. Take it as the expression of your own living self, and an occasion for you to face your unmet challenges. These are the many temples placed at every step of your everyday life. A lane of temples to rest both your broken soul or your radiant being. Enjoy the sight. Be the ardent disciple of it all.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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The Little Bud

Posted on by Alain Joly

Could there be a bigger relief than to realise, after a life of struggle and constant pursuit of fulfilment, that everything in our experience is already perfectly still and at rest, and already fulfilled? That we have it all as our birthright? That there is no need to run after ourself, to make everything up, to win our peace through our many efforts and achievements? That there is no need to believe and hope, to project and attain. No need to make life into a war, everlastingly caught between desperation and elusiveness, between all our ‘not quite’, ‘not yet’, and other ‘almost’ or ‘not really’. We put everything at a distance, therefore making happiness into an object, and pursuing it as something to attain or achieve; something dependent on how smart we are, or hard-working, or focused, or lucky, or god knows what. This is to make peace and happiness into something puerile and vulgar, some kind of expensive item to be bought in the marketplace.

Should we not get it right once and for all? Should we not have a definite and thorough look at ourself, and have it all crystal clear? There is no self, inside this body and mind of ours, that is placed at a distance from the objects of experience, and that can use them for its own fulfilment. To believe that there is such a self is what makes life into a battlefield, what renders us small and lacking, suffering our way through existence. We have invented this self. We have fabricated it with all the leftovers of the thousand things and events of experience. We have made ourself into an inextricable bundle which we can never fully know and get hold of. For the simple reason that it is not there. And yet, unfortunately so, this apparent self is our veil. This invented self is our loss. It is what makes us blind to the real life, transforming peace and happiness into objects that this self must attain and never can. How could it in a million years? This self has no reality!

The problem is: we have fabricated, given flesh to something — a self — that is inexistant, and by doing so have made our true and only self and reality into something that appears to be absent, fleeting, elusive. This fabricated self veils a presence that is immediate and intimate. A presence that doesn’t need to be projected. A self that doesn’t need to be arranged or perfected. This self is in fact that thing which we are taking to be just an instrument or function — a consciousness for our invented self — when it is in fact that very perfected self which we are desperately trying to attain. Our fascination for the world of objects has transformed a magnificent and fully grown flower into a little, hidden bud that we have seen and ignored a thousand times. This fully grown self is already what we are unknowingly, and its hidden presence grants like an intuition or memory to the illusory ’me’ which we are desperately trying to perfect. This self owns also, entwined in and as its very nature, the peace and happiness which we are looking for, already achieved and at hand, therefore never lacking, and never in need to be pursued.

Another thing is: there is singleness in our experience. Don’t look at the many, but contemplate the one as being their unique reality. See this reality as pervading everything to the point of being the very fabric of experience. See this reality as being your dearest self. And see this self as being the self or essence of all seemingly other apparent selves and things. This is how we vanquish conflict and suffering. This is how we annihilate struggle and effort. This is how separation is seen through. This is how we make our world a world of peace and harmony, whatever the forms the present dance may temporarily acquire. For you have seen yourself and the world as they are: pure, unbreakable peace. This is why some have called this presence God, on account of its grand, pervasive, loving, and all-encompassing nature or quality, and because it is forever here, forever now, therefore infinite and eternal. Our self and world have been discovered to be god’s being. The little, lost, suffering bud has been discovered to be flower. Its beauty and power therefore self-explanatory.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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