Freedom

The Contemplative Mind

Posted on 17 February 2022 by Alain Joly

Contemplation is a place of leisure and space. It is, as its etymology conveys, a ‘place for observation’. It has space within itself. It is a temple, which in Latin means an ‘open and consecrated space’. It is a sacred spot. A place where you find yourself meditating without having initiated it. It means that you — your Self — are on an equal footing with the objects of experience. You have not been absorbed, or engulfed by them. You are rather with them, hosting them all, embracing them in your emptiness. You see life from the standpoint of your temple of being. This is the position where from things acquire beauty and meaning. This is how you contemplate — by looking at everything from within the position of your Self. This is like being at the beach. The beach is a threshold, as are the front stairs that lead to the Ganges in Benares. This is when or where the city life is left behind and we come to be on vacation, on a holy-day — which is always a holy ground — to have leisure, freedom. To meet a certain form of death. To face the emptiness of the sea, the river, and the sky in front of us. We know intimately, or have the intuition of this place in ourself — this threshold, this passage from a dull and empty sense of acquired fullness, to the fullness of emptiness which is nothing but our natural, god-given state and being. This is the temple from which objective experience ought to be contemplated. This is where the contemplator is felt to be the contemplated. Contemplation then becomes a prayer. And such a prayer asks for nothing but the fact of being. This is the place of convalescence, where you come to heal from the world, from yourself. This is where you come to paint, to produce a new world out of your Self. This is where you get healed by this new vision, where your life finds a reorganisation, a new standpoint, a new temple where you can breathe at last and be content. Contemplation is completion. Sitting in an empty boat, or amongst dirty laundry, and be taken far out of yourself into your newly discovered sense of Self. This is a cleansing process, both of yourself and of the world. This is the contemplative mind.

~~~

Painting and text by Alain Joly

~~~

The painting was made from an original black & white photograph by Bjørn Weinreich.

Bibliography:
– ‘Benares, A Sacred City in North India’ – by Bjørn Weinreich and Ulla Mørch – (Denmark, 1983)

Other ‘Ways of Being‘ from the blog…

The Guard and the Prison Breaker

Posted on 9 September 20219 September 2021 by Alain Joly

‘The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’ (part) – Caspar David Friedrich, 1818 – WikiArt

“Without freedom there is no self-knowing
and without self-knowing there is no meditation.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

Few sensations are as boisterously exhilarating as freedom is. Freedom is something that we all love to feel. To be freed! Freed from all weights and limitations. Freed from everything that bullies us and pins us down. But most of the time, this feeling is experienced from the vantage point of the little thought in our head that thinks it runs the show. This entity thinks that its freedom comes from being separate, and from its capacity to do what it wants. This is what being free means to most people. But is this really what freedom is, where freedom lies? In expressing all that comes from the lack and desperation of a limited, vindicative little self? If that is so, then this freedom takes us nowhere but in the already known boundaries of our self. How could that account for the power and magnitude of this feeling? Freedom cannot be so small and contrived. What is it then? Where is true freedom to be found?

Freedom can never be fully felt within the conglomerate of our thoughts, feelings and perceptions, between the four walls of our prison cell. We may feel some occasional bursts of pleasure but this is not the real deal. If you search for freedom through that portion of yourself that is fleeting, fragile, untrue, you will by definition prevent the advent of any meaningful freedom. You will have limited freedom, something to be achieved, something to be added that becomes just another object, another aim in view. And don’t forget that this limited freedom can never be achieved anyway, for we in truth can never do what we want. And of what advantage would it be to follow the clumsy, limited, fanciful ideas of a mind that stands on false premises. Because of this impossible claim, we feel bitter, sad, violent, jealous, regretful. Let’s move away from such dangerous idea.

[…]

An inquiry into the question of freedom… (READ MORE…)

A Thing of Beauty

Posted on 2 September 2021 by Alain Joly

‘Saint Peter’s Basilica’ – Rome (Vatican)

Isn’t the world the most extraordinary place? I’ll explain. Take a tree. A single tree, with its roots spreading and fiddling deep into the soil. And its erected trunk that divides itself into branches, and a thousand twigs, and a whole foliage of leaves. The shadow it gives. The home that it is for birds and little animals. And the shelter. And a thing of beauty. To be admired, listened to, touched, felt. The roughness of its bark under your fingers. And the presence. There are millions — most certainly trillions — of such trees that spread over the world to form groves and vast forests. Extending their sheltering embrace to countless beings. And to you too, today. A tree! The strangest thing there is. To look at one is to be taken into a well of wonder. Feel that amazement. See where it takes you. You will be surprised.

[…]

A reflection and meditation on the beautiful world that we are… (READ MORE…)

The Kiss

Posted on 24 April 2020 by Alain Joly

“Think ‘I am suffering’, and you are suffering.
Replace the thought ‘I am suffering’
with the thought ‘I am free, I am Freedom,
I am Consciousness, I am not the body’.
Do not kiss your ego by saying ‘I am suffering’,
rather kiss yourself by saying ‘I am Free’.”

~ Papaji

~~~

Quote by H. W. L. Poonja (1910-1997)

Photo by Alain Joly

~~~

Bibliography:
– ‘The Truth Is’ – by H. W. L. Poonja – (Red Wheel/Weiser)

Website:
– H. W. L. Poonja (Wikipedia)

Other quotes from the category Beauty in Essence

The Mystique of Freedom

Posted on 20 October 201920 October 2019 by Alain Joly

Bob O’Hearn is my newly invited guest in ‘The Dawn Within’. Bob has a number of blogs and his writings were somewhat influential when I took on the journey of writing myself. I found his essays particularly crafted and it’s a pleasure to share here with you one of them: ‘The Mystique of Freedom’, excerpted from his blog ‘The Conscious Process’. Bob lives with his Beloved Mate, Mazie, in the foothills of the Northern California Sierra Nevada Mountains.

“Pleasure and pain alternate.
Happiness is unshakable.
What you can seek and find is not the real thing.
Find what you have never lost,
find the inalienable.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta

In the vast library cataloguing exceptional human experiences, daunting adventures, and intriguing explorations, the tales of humanity’s search for spiritual liberation are some of the more compelling, and have even formed the basis for most of the world’s religions and philosophies. We all love a good story!

However, as fascinating as the reports may be — these bold testimonies of spiritual heroes and heroines persevering through all manner of adversity to finally attain the pinnacle of human potential, pull the sword from the rock, and ascend blissfully beyond the dreary fate of ordinary mortals — the actual truth is that they are all based on a fundamental case of mistaken identity.

It’s not so much that they have often been seriously ‘airbrushed’ (although that is a regrettable though all too common fate of many of these hagiographies), but rather that they were embarked upon under false pretenses from the beginning. That many of these characters burst out laughing in recognition of that fact at the culmination of their quest does provide a saving grace element to the reports. Let’s examine why. …

Continue reading Bob O’Hearn’s essay… (READ MORE…)

The Natural State

Posted on 5 May 201823 October 2020 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’.

“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

“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

“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

“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

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)

Thanks for Sharing:

Like this:

‘The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’ (part) – Caspar David Friedrich, 1818 – WikiArt

Thanks for Sharing:

Like this:

‘Saint Peter’s Basilica’ – Rome (Vatican)

Thanks for Sharing:

Like this:

Thanks for Sharing:

Like this:

Thanks for Sharing:

Like this:

Thanks for Sharing:

Like this: