God’s Flower Bed

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Fleur’ – Jean Benner, 1860 – WikiArt

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The difficulty in the spiritual endeavour is that we have to question the unquestionable. We have to doubt the obvious. We have to turn the stones that we have carefully placed here to pave the road. One such indisputable truth is that we choose our thoughts. That the decisions or actions we are taking, the thoughts or attitudes we are having, are the products of a controller, of a self that has them, chooses them. But is it so? Have we even tried to question it? Have we ever looked if there truly was a self here in capacity to choose? What if there wasn’t? What if this self, this ‘I’ that we seem to be, only drew its existence from our imagination? What if our own self was just another thought? If this entity that we love to pamper and strengthen was not there, not at all? If we have played a game with ourself? If there is here no person outside our indulgence in having the thought of one?

Many of our conflicts and problems in life come precisely from the belief that we are the chooser of our thoughts, that there is an ‘I’, a person here that runs the show when there is not. That’s the mistake, the original sin, to think of ourself as a doer, a thinker, a separate entity that has control, that manufactures happiness, freedom, and is responsible for our experience such as it is. We want to carry the load of our DNA, of our body, thoughts, habits, suffering, or even happiness, and not let them go. We want to be grandiose. The truth is: there is no personal ’I’ that can act on our thoughts or decision-making. These are better left alone, and informed by the only ‘I’ there is, that finds its true essence in the infinity of being, which is selfless. With this understanding or realising, we would come to treat what we have as a jewel of the most precious kind — beyond control but lovingly tailored for us by the universe and its supreme intelligence.

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An enquiry on our ability to choose our thoughts or not… (READ MORE…)

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The Controller

Posted on by Alain Joly

Think in terms of flow. Don’t think that you have to exercise control over your life. Who would be this controller? Do you want to go back to the little, struggling entity that feels separate and wants to gain self-worth through control? Control is illusory. It never happens, although we buy the illusion that we are this controlling agent. It makes us feel good for a while. But this is not the truth. And as all untruths must eventually do, it will recede, give up its fake reality in favour of the only one reality there is, which is our own one being. To keep that sense of being in sight is all the control you need. It’s the only control that needs neither a controller, nor a controlled. For the simple reason and truth that the controller is here the controlled, as Krishnamurti so often said. There are not two things that can possibly act on each other, because these two things never acquire any reality of their own. There is only your natural, ever present being, which controls you rather than it be controlled by you. This being is the flow you need to follow. It will take you where you are and where you need to be. It will keep you safe. It will move you in the right direction. You won’t need to exert yourself, or to practice. Efforting will fade away. You will be taken by its flow.

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“Meditation is a state of mind in which the operation and exercise of will is not.
It has no direction. It is not seeking any experience. It is no longer seeking at all.
Therefore a meditative mind is free of all control.”
~ J. Krishnamurti (Public Talk 3 Bangalore, 1973)

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

Quote by J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

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Bibliography :
– ‘Krishnamurti’s Notebook’ – by J. Krishnamurti – (Krishnamurti Publications of America, US)

Website:
– J. Krishnamurti

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Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

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