‘God Runs After You’

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Sea bay’ – Ivan Aivazovsky, 1842 – WikiArt

Through our constant effort, we keep the effortless at bay. Even if we seemingly don’t do anything, we are always after something. So this constant, subtle pleading, asking, begging is closing all doors for truth to come in, to reveal itself to us. We are already dating someone else. Our mind is full of its rushing out in direction of an object, something that is going to satisfy us, to give us an identity, to fulfil us in some way. We are never truly longing. We are never an empty shell — always seeking, filling ourself with one thing or another. We don’t dare giving up, being vulnerable. We think we have to be someone, an entity in charge, a doer, a knower. We live with an armour, with layers that are concealing our true nature, even repelling it.

We have identities. We are full of them. The body is one, which we believe to be and be limited by. The mind is another, which we have adopted as being ourself — the ‘I’ that I am. We too believe in our thoughts, that we think define us, shape our identity. We are in a prison of our own making, made of bricks of memories, beliefs, hopes, desires, fears, that all concur to build a non-existing self of which we have now become the slave, and with which we have a dysfunctional, love-hate relationship. Even our ambition for truth is too much of an identity. Our desire for enlightenment is still a desire for fulfilment, another thing to achieve, a someone to be. Our true identity as pure, infinite being is not a new identity. It is not concealed or limited. It is not resisting, desiring, lacking anything. It is its own fulfilment — an identity that cannot be had, named or measured.

That’s what a true longing is — to be without ambition or desire of our own. To have even not a desire for truth, for which we will need an ego, and which still is a wall against the truth we seek — maybe the thinnest of all, but still a wall. Reality is to be realised, not achieved. It is in the word: ‘reality’ — which is we are that which is. There is no need of even the subtlest move towards it. It is all in the way we long for it. All in the way we build nothing that can go against it, or that could conceal it. This is the meaning of humility. We have to be lowly, on the ground, at the root of ourself, which is to be with our selfless being. We have it already — the being that we are after. It is all a matter of how quiet and accessible we can be. How we can be without a wall, without an identity. This is the most powerful longing there is — to be without any longing of our own making. To be without imagination or belief. To be watching only. Present. Already being — which we are anyhow. Not being an ambitious of some kind. There is no need to run after God. As Krishnamurti once put it so beautifully, “God runs after you.”

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Text by Alain Joly

Quote by J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

Painting by Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900)

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The quote is the title of a book consisting of eight hitherto unpublished discussions with Krishnamurti held in Malibu, California in 1970.

Bibliography:
– ‘God Runs After You’ – by J. Krishnamurti – (Krishnamurti Foundation India)

Websites:
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
– Ivan Aivazovsky (Wikipedia)

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

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Effortless Being

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Quiet Moonlight (beyond Catalina Island)’ – Granville Redmond, 1907 – WikiArt

Be effortless. That’s the clue you need if you want to meet yourself. Because yourself is for ever here, a natural presence, a stillness in the background, that is your silent being. If you look, you will see it, feel it — who you are, the nature of yourself. So don’t assume too quickly that you know who you are. That who you are is in your body, in your thoughts, in being someone, an entity. Don’t believe that what you are is tied to and dependent on your body-mind, and that you find your true expression in being a person, preferably a successful one, that can be improved, and is subject to death. These are beliefs, concepts that you have learned but never took the time to verify. Don’t accept the subtle tension that is implied in being someone. Go for that part of yourself that is here without effort, that never moves or changes, that is beyond the apparent boundaries of birth and death.

Don’t even try to be spiritual, for the effort you will apply to bring that identity in, will ruin everything. Be exactly as you are, when you are not anything that can be pointed at. Learn to go beyond everything that you are not, so that you can land on the true ground of your effortless being. That may require just a little bit of effort, a redirecting, a gentle looking, the release contained in a moment of relaxation. That is enough. Don’t go for a strain, an ambition, a glory of any kind. These go too far, will take you to a self, a fake identity that will stand in the way of your innate nature. You are already yourself. Nothing new or other than what you already are is needed. Spirituality is a gentle reminder. It is for you to remember that you are almost as nothing, a breath within a breath, a spirit that you will never in a thousand years be able to own. Spirituality is only about being — being effortlessly. This is your natural, unavoidable skill — what you could never not be.

To make an effort is to pull yourself out of your natural being. It is also the veiling of yourself, for any movement that takes you away from your true nature, will own an identity that is acquired, not innate, and that will close the door in the face of your awareness of being. This little bit of effort is you trying to be a person — what you are not — and refusing to be who you are. Through the absence of effort, you will be introduced to yourself, to your true nature. There is a vast expanse there — in fact infinite — that is the very ground of your being. There is a life there, in yourself, as yourself, that some have called bliss or paradise. Not because it is giving you a new place to be, but in reason of the lack of effort or tension there is in being yourself. In effort is contained suffering, fear, lack, hope, conflict, separation, everything that makes your life a burden. To be yourself without effort is the meaning behind the word ‘bliss’. It is the sweetest fall you will ever experience — to be yourself in this free, unconstrained, unforced way. To be without strain, even of the most subtle kind. The blissful is in the absence of effort. In being carefree. Not that you don’t care. But you have your care — which is love — lodged in naturally being, and don’t need any kind of effort for it.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Granville Redmond (1871-1935)

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Website:
– Granville Redmond (Wikipedia)

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

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