Our Last Delusion

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Løvsprett’ – Frits Thaulow, 1889 – Wikimedia

You won’t see a world outside the confines of the mind. The world is not there as an ultimate reality. It draws its many shapes out of the limitations of mind. It is sculpted by our senses. Thoughts are giving it its colour, shaping it for the purpose of a self. We blame it for our suffering, or praise it for our happiness. But its existence is a passing, illusory one, as it is for all thoughts, and for the body.

Although we as a body live in a world of limitation and finiteness, we in truth have our stand and our anchor in the deeper, conscious reality of our own undefeatable, limitless being. Happiness in the world never comes from experiencing the world. It comes from beyond the senses, beyond experience. It comes from beauty, which is the nature of the world when it is experienced from that part of ourself that is infinite.

Contentment in our mind is not given by our thoughts and our many feelings, but through experiencing them from the peaceful nature of our deepest reality as being. To live in the world is to be lost and to know suffering, but to have the world living within ourself is to know a joy that is free and independent from the ruthlessly changing nature of experience.

So free yourself from the world; it is not where you live. Rather, have the world close to your being, and see its nature as your own. This is the way to live in the world. See that it is still of the nature of mind. That it doesn’t own its own reality, but borrows it from the infinite, from the limitless, which is the nature of yourself as being.

So everything you seemingly do, you in fact never do. What you think you are, you are not. We live in a world of imagination. In fact, we only ever live in and as a reality that is shared, and that is our very nature. There, in that reality, is found the reality of our body-mind-world. This reality is the nature of everything and everyone we encounter in experience. It is our real world, our only home.

The impression that we live in a world that has its own reality is created, believed. The belief in being a body has created the world, has made it sprout out of a duality that we have ourself made up and manipulated. Outside this belief, everything re-enters the place it has never left, and the oneness it has never been separated from: infinite, eternal, seamless being.

This reality is what there only and ever is. Nothing exists beyond it, whether it is a world, a body, or a mind. To live as a body-mind in the world is to feel separate from it. It is to see ourself as a self. It is to have the arrogance of being our own self, and to see the world and circumstances as the provider of happiness. This is why we always look for contentment, security, stability, constancy. We mimic what we are before we actually know it.

And enlightenment is sill part of the world, still part of a belief. Its reality is invented, created for the sake of a self or an ego. Enlightenment is not about being enlightened. There is no such a thing as enlightenment, unless you want to cling to the reality of yourself as a body-mind. The belief in enlightenment is our last, ultimate delusion. It belongs to a non existent world, to a non existent self.

You have been the light of yourself — of selfless being — all along, but have played within the illusion of a world and a self, therefore concealing your own reality within that illusion. Re-assign yourself to your true nature. Then it doesn’t matter what you experience. It is not in what you experience — it is in what you are. It is all there. Nothing and no one exists beyond it. You have no use of enlightenment.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Frits Thaulow (1847-1906)

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Website:
– Frits Thaulow (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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The Natural State

Posted on by Alain Joly

‘The natural state’ is an expression borrowed from Joan Tollifson that refers to enlightenment. This is a beautiful way to look at what is often thought to be an extraordinary event. Rupert Spira says nothing less, when he defines it as ‘the absence of resistance to what is’, or simply: ‘this’.

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“Thought doesn’t know truth; it dissolves in it. 
Feeling doesn’t find love; it merges in it. 
Perception doesn’t see beauty; it dies in it.”
~ Rupert Spira 

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“Enlightenment could be defined as the absence of resistance to what is, 
the total intimacy with whatever is taking place 
without any desire to reject or replace it; 

so intimate that there is no room for a self to separate itself out from the whole, 
to stand apart and look at the situation from the outside, 
to judge it as worthy or not worthy, good or bad, 
right or wrong, desirable or undesirable; 

so intimate that there is no room, nor any time, 
in which a separate self could take refuge inside the body 
and so finds itself without boundaries or borders 
pervading the whole field of experience; 

so intimate that there is no ‘me’ on the inside 
and no object or other on the outside,
but only seamless intimate experiencing; 

so intimate that there is no room for a ‘self’ and an ‘other’, 
a ‘me’ and a ‘you’, a ‘this’ and a ‘that’, a ‘now’ and a ‘then’. 

So utterly now and here that there is no time for time 
and no place for distance or space.”

~ Rupert Spira

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“Wouldn’t it be a wonderful relief to recognize that nothing could actually be any other way right now than exactly how it is, that THIS is how the universe IS, that everything belongs? And already, it has completely changed! Can you feel the freedom in knowing that there is no “you” who “should” be doing a better job? How wonderful to see that enlightenment is not a special attainment that only a special few can reach, but rather that enlightenment is the natural state, the groundlessness that is always already fully present. Rather than something we lack and need to attain, it is what we always already ARE.”
~ Joan Tollifson

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“As this intimate oneness, it is known as love. 
In its untouchable-ness it is known as peace and 
in its fullness it is known as happiness. 
In its openness and willingness to give itself to any possible shape 
(including the apparent veiling of its own being), 
it is known as freedom and, 
as the substance of all things, 
it is known as beauty. 
However, more simply it is known just as ‘I’ or ‘this’.”

~ Rupert Spira

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Picture by Alain Joly

Bibliography:
– ‘Presence’, Vol. I & II – by Rupert Spira (Non-Duality Press)
– ‘Nothing to Grasp’ – by Joan Tollifson – (Nonduality Press)

Websites:
– Rupert Spira
– Joan Tollifson

Suggestion:
– Fleeing to God (other pointers from the blog)
– The Inconceivable Actuality Here-Now (a text by Joan Tollifson)

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Blown Out

Posted on by Alain Joly

We continue our series of texts or essays on different subjects of spiritual interest. The question here is about ‘having a spiritual experience’, and delving into the nature of what is called ‘awakening’…

 

“There is a safe place in view of all, but difficult of approach,
where there is no old age nor death, no pain nor disease.
It is what is called nirvāṇa, or freedom from pain, or perfection;
it is the safe, happy, and quiet place which the great sages reach.
That is the eternal place, in view of all, but difficult of approach.”
~ Uttaradhyana Sutra, 81-4 (Buddhism)

 

Nothing much, really. Something just like peeking out of the window. But let’s not be overly disdainful, for this can bend the course of a life and change it in a profound way. To have a spiritual experience is a blessing, a call, maybe a rehearsal for the final dissolution. It leaves you puzzled, wanting to understand, and above all, searching to have it again in the future. It can be just a flavour suddenly lingering at the back of your mind, or a spectacular awakening, or anything in between. In all cases, you meet something new, that is outside any known experience, and yet has a familiar flame, like an old forgotten memory. Above all, peace, love, and happiness are attached to it. It is the DNA of any genuine experience, its vital core, and what makes it so desirable. After all, do we want anything in life but a lasting happiness? It can last for seconds, minutes, or days. It comes as a grace, unexpected, uninvited. One important characteristic is that it fades away, finally disappears. Otherwise we wouldn’t call it an ‘experience’. A spiritual experience is an awakening that failed.

An essay to delve into the nature of Awakening (READ MORE…)