The Silent Prayer

Posted on by Alain Joly

‘Dawn in the Hills’ – Robert Julian Onderdonk, 1922 – WikiArt

We have been taught that we are only a part. A body with some private thoughts and feelings, an entity separate from everything that we can see, hear, touch outside the boundaries of our body-mind. We have been encouraged to believe in separation, in effort and suffering, in reward and punishment, in a happiness that is only a passing experience which we have to strive for, and in brief, elusive moments of peace. That is the way of our life. But in fact, no.

This is all in our mind, only one particular, rehearsed representation of reality. It is all one wrong path taken, a momentary belief. Life was never meant to be fragmented. It was never meant to be tiresome. Our true reality is one of wholeness, with nothing outside of it. There is nothing out there that is not the expression of our own self, that is not included in our saying ‘I’. We may think that our ‘I’ is just this little, private, separate corner of the vast field of life. But if we look with utmost attention, if we let go of everything that we have been taught to believe, we will notice that our ‘I’, our most common, everyday, every hour mention of ‘I’ refers in fact to the vast field of life with no corner inside it.

Our awareness of everything expands beyond everything that is the prisoner of our senses. There is nothing with a boundary in our saying ‘I’. ‘I’ is the infinite that has been brought for a while in a world of time and space, of within and without, of objects which our body-mind is only a part of. Don’t be deluded by appearances. Don’t have a simple belief running your life. See that there is, beyond the many appearances, beyond the body and the many thoughts, beyond our seemingly suffering life, a reality that knows no limitation of time and space, and that has found refuge here in our simply saying ‘I’, or ‘I Am’.

There is nothing small about ‘I’, nothing that it doesn’t include, no time or space that it doesn’t transcend, no corner that is in fact not the infinite, no moment that has not been dipped in the eternal. So keep in mind that every time we cook a meal, do some shopping, or go for a walk, we are in fact inviting the infinite with us. We are inviting meaning, and beauty, and the peace that goes with being whole. The ‘I’ that we are doesn’t have to be restricted to a body, to the limitations of thought, to our physicality. There is eternity in our daily life if we are willing to look.

‘I’ is the absolute which we have wrongly attributed to our little idea of a limited person. We have squeezed the unlimited inside a belief, mixed it with a few sensations, lost it within the world of our many experiences. We have expelled God outside something that exists only in our mind, pushed It beyond the boundaries of an apparent entity, when it is but our very eternally present reality, hidden behind a wrong attribution, and shared as the one essence for all.

‘I’ was never private. We have belittled it for the sake, or the service of our own fantasy. We have downgraded it to a mere body, and in doing so have invited division and suffering. Think about it the next time you are saying ‘I’. Don’t ever say it mindlessly. Watch to where it extends. See the vast field that it is. Have it constantly with you, as the One that is both your true self and the harbour of every possible appearance.

Make ‘I’ your silent prayer.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Robert Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922)

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Website:
– Robert Julian Onderdonk (Wikipedia)

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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:
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