Anatomy of a Desire

Posted on by Alain Joly

You must not desire the truth. You must let the truth desire you. For truth has the greatest desire, the most efficient one, to which yours is but a pale copy. It is the desire to be itself alone, unaccompanied, unsoiled. In the fulfilment of that desire, truth will swallow you, will undress you and render you transparent, nonexistent, naked. You’d be inspired to let go, to give in, to trust that desire which is so greater than yours. For your desires are small, inadequate, vile, selfish. They won’t get you where you truly want to be. They will miss the mark. Every time.

So don’t desire truth. Don’t make it like something you can possess. Truth is in fact already possessing you, the only one in command. So undress your being of the superfluous. The superfluous is all the beliefs attached to yourself, that makes you a self that feels separate, an entity in a body, delineated by its thoughts and feelings, that looks up to experience, and betrays its profound suffering through its constant desire for fulfilment.

Notice that your desire has no true owner. The one that desires is not really there. It is but an idea, a desperate attempt to feel that you are complete. But you won’t feel complete by means of desiring, for desire is already the sign of your incompleteness. The problem with being a desirer is that it places you ahead of your natural identity as being. It is a position of ignorance with a plan and a hope. The desirer is a made-up entity whose unacknowledged goal is to consolidate itself. So don’t make truth like a projected goal to be achieved. The desired object of enlightenment, or realisation, was never intended. It was in fact all for the desirer, to strengthen your false identity as a self, to adorn the temple of separation, to attach yourself to another idea. Liberation is not in desiring to be liberated.

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Continue this exploration of desire in matters of truth… (READ MORE…)

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Creep

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Radiohead @ TD Garden (Boston, MA)’ – by Kenny Sun – Wikimedia

I wonder if you have ever seen the face of love, what loving indifference is? I have some days ago, while watching a concert by Radiohead on the internet. It was during the band’s most celebrated hit, called ‘Creep’. This song is the stage of an unrequited love. But I suggest it goes further than that. It is the story of a rage, of not being enough. We all have lived through expectations that were turned down. We all have made efforts that didn’t pay off. We all want to feel special, to belong, to be at peace. We abhor being behind ourself, faking our contentment and control. So we all have known this feeling of being a ‘creep’, or at least of not being good enough. That’s why we live so hectically, constantly looking for better and more, wanting to feel complete, enough at last. Maybe that’s why the song happened to be such a hit, beyond its obvious musical qualities: it is like an echo of the secret battle we are engaged in, of our quiet desperation, and of our repeated attempt to put an end to our suffering.

I was watching the song being played, the singer yelling its rage amongst the gnashing saturated blasts coming from Jonny Greenwood’s guitar, lights illuminating the stage like a flash of lightning would. Then it surprised me. For just a few seconds, the camera caught in the public a young woman whose attitude was quiet, mildly concerned, but deeply tuned to herself. Everybody around her was involved, shouting, dancing, taking their share, drawing their identity and happiness from the vibes of the music. But she was not. Didn’t need to. Her need was to be quiet. Peace was her home. Beauty was where she was, and where she had landed on. She was tasting her being. She was taking it all in, but with a peaceful, loving indifference. For her, separation had been slain, and she had become a silent watcher, a taster of being, a madonna.

There was no need for her to dance and shout the lyrics of her favourite Radiohead song, for she dwelled in silence. It was all taking place somewhere else, in a placeless place where time was nowhere to been seen or experienced. All our objects of adoration are never the point, are never the goal. They are the means to feel and taste in ourself this most profound sense of peaceful being that is always here, always now with us, and that we miss in reason of our obsessive attachment to objects, with their derived outcomes and rewards. When the love or enthusiasm for an object — a song, a piece of art, a football match — is brought to its paroxysm, we merge with it, and in this merging forget our own person. This forgetting is the stage set for a meeting with ourself, for an encounter with our own silent being. We feel what we could call, a paradoxical serenity. So the pleasure of the senses is never the object of our desire, and never what our seeking is about. We are after something more elusive, the harder catch that is our own being. We long for this profound sense of peace and security that lives there as our identity. This serenity is not dependent on circumstances, but lies naturally in and as our most intimate being. This pure being is our true identity, and is in fact what we are really seeking behind all our pleasure oriented pursuits. Pleasure can never be a match to being. Pleasure is but the child of separation, while being is the realisation of our deepest identity as love, and its expression as oneness.

Love takes over experience. Love dominates experience, it brings it down to its knees, reveals what it is made of. Experience appears to be of secondary importance, not because it is not important, but because its importance lies in the light that shines on it and gives it its reality and meaning. We cease to be personally involved. We are just present, and this presence is our most precious and efficient involvement. We are indifferent not because we do not care, but in reason of the preeminence of love in our heart, with its acute, unfocused awareness. Love responds to the whole. There is no personal self present, that feels separate and insecure, fearing and seeking. That one is absent, leaving all the place to the quality of simply being, with no preferences in it, but with a total, impersonal, peaceful engagement. This peace is the most profound signature or identity contained in every experience that we go through. To recognise the nature of ourself as peaceful being, is to recognise the nature of experience as that one same peaceful being. We will never have to complain: ‘I wish I was special’. Never have to say: ‘I don’t belong here’. In love, there is no being a creep.

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Text by Alain Joly

Photo by Kenny Sun (Wikimedia)

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Website:
– Creep (Radiohead Song) (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

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The Wrath of the Lamb

Posted on by Alain Joly
Anatoly Solonitsyn (the Writer) – ‘Stalker’ by Andrei Tarkovsky

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“Keep awake, keep awake, artist, 
Do not give into sleep…
You are eternity’s hostage
And prisoner of time.”
~ Boris Pasternak

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The film ‘Stalker’, made in 1979 by Andrei Tarkovsky, is an absolute wonder. As usual with Tarkovsky, every shot in it is unique and intrinsically harmonious. As usual with Tarkovsky, you will have your breath taken away. And you will be bored too. And puzzled. Searching for a meaning that will elude you. For his cinema is not about entertainment, plot, revelation, or resolution. His cinema is about poetry, beauty, and the search for bringing forth art’s ultimate purpose, which is the uncovering of the core and substance of our being. With ‘Stalker’, you will feel what it is to be locked in a maze. And as usual with Tarkovsky, amidst the shallow words are the pearls. And amongst the mud and the stagnant waters is the eternal truth.

The Stalker is a simple man living with his wife and his little girl in an undetermined country. His job is to guide people who want to enter into a mysterious place called ‘the Zone’, protected by barbed wires and police forces. This is a green, lush, deserted land where stand some vestiges of settlements. Maybe this is the consequence of a fallen meteorite. We don’t know. There is a place, concealed in the Zone, where desires come true. But as one of the protagonists finds out, “it is not merely a desire but one’s most secret desire that is granted here. Here will come true that which reflects the essence of your nature. It is within you, it governs you, yet you are ignorant of it.” As a result, many people want to reach this place in the Zone called the ‘Room’, and they need guides to lead them to it. This time, the Stalker is on again for a new trip with two men called the ‘Writer’ and the ‘Professor’. 

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A reflection on the qualities of Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie ‘Stalker’… (READ MORE…)

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Desire

Posted on by Alain Joly

Desire, is
The source of creation.
All things manifest, exist
because of this.

However, when the one
who desires, sees the self as separate,
they move in ways, where this one
becomes, painfully desperate.

Misunderstood, innocently so.
Desire is not for the sake of completion.
It moves for the joy of being alive
-for the play of discovery
and true Self expression.

There are only two desires,
even though they are exactly the same.
First is to discover what you really are,
the second, is to express
this beauty discovered within.

The flower blooms,
not to impress the others.
It opens slowly, through sincerity;
to see what is inside, encouraged by
a love that is remembered.

Let desire point you inward, and
notice a beauty that asks to be seen.
Open to this truth in your heart
and let the Love -explode
through your being.

 

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Poem by Tiger Singleton (Tigmonk)

Photo by Alain Joly

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Tiger Singleton, founder of InLight Connect, is an inspirational public speaker, satsang facilitator, and author who shares wisdom and insight from the heart; holding events, workshops, and retreats all over the world, exposing the opportunity of this life; our inherent wholeness, beauty, and conscious ability to create a joyful life. With an open heart, Tiger holds space for a profound exploration into the art of being (you). 

Bibliography:
– ‘An Explosion of Love: The Color of All Things Beautiful’ – by Tigmonk – (The Blooming Heart Center)
– ‘Intimacy, with the Silent Nothing that is Everything’ – by Tigmonk – (The Blooming Heart Center)

Websites:
– Inlight Connect (the art of being)
– Tigmonk (All… is Incredibly Well)
– Already Done (The Poetic Life of Being)