A Universal Cure

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Creation of the World XIII’ (part) – Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, 1906 – WikiArt

The part that we’re playing is not small. We are not living in a corner, limited by the skin of our bodies, and the world is not limited to the time and space in which it seems to unfold and have its conflicts and sufferings. The world has a foot in the infinite. In fact not just a foot, it is bathed in infinity, in eternity, and so are we, we who have been made small and suffering entities by our limiting beliefs and prejudices. We are ruling the world with our thoughts and then blame ourself for it. For the results are of course as limited as our thoughts can be. We have made the world the hostage of our limitations, and its hostility is in fact our own, that we have projected unto it. We believe and think we can only play small and limited, but in fact, we haven’t quite seen ourself as we are, and from this blindness comes the entirety of the world’s agony, and ours too.

Fortunately, ours and the world’s true essence comes spilling over in every possible way through the manifestation of beauty, and through the many expressions of love or peace. That’s what makes it so attractive in spite of all, and that’s where we should be way more curious than we are. Beauty, love, intelligence, peace, are not created by the random structure of a body and the passing thoughts in our mind. This is not where they are manufactured. They are born of infinity and wholeness. They are the expressions of the One, which we can never own. We are in fact rather owned by them, embraced by the infinity that is their reality. We must surrender to this god given identity. We don’t have to play small. Would we think of god playing small? So why would we of ourself, who are like the arm and willpower of God in God’s dream? So we don’t have to play small in this world. We ought to play our given, sacred part. We ought to be what we are and recognise ourself and the world as a whole, indivisible being. A being that is nothing but our own, that is experienced here and now every time we say ‘I Am’, and that we are fortunate enough to share in.

Act on the world from within. Mould it from there, from the source of yourself and of the world, from the ground of being that you feel as your own being, and that is the common ground of all beings and all things. This ground has the best ability. Religions haven’t called it Paradise or Eden for nothing. There is always a truth behind every misunderstood word. This ground of being is where you can play big, from within, from the interior of everything and everyone. You don’t have to create a new reality. It’s already there within and without, for the taking and for the looking. This reality is already here, already yours. There is love and harmony woven in the fabric of life, just here and now in and as our given experience. Our efforts to heal ourself and the world are veiling this reality, and so are our limited thoughts, which carry the false reality of there being persons and separation instead of the reality of one being and the peace contained in the infinite. Our own unlimited being is the ground where we can play big, for it is as large as God’s being if we are willing to notice its real, undefeatable nature. In fact, being is a universal cure, and it’s always at hand.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1875-1911)

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Website:
– Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (Wikipedia)

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The Treasure Within

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Morning mist in the mountains’ – Caspar David Friedrich, 1808 – WikiArt

There is something in us, a presence, a feeling of being, that can say I Am. Nothing else can. No body can. For how could a body say I Am, which is but a bundle of tissues, a physical structure that can only be seen as an object, at a distance. That which is at a distance cannot say I Am. I Am is for the innermost of your being, for what is here beyond a shadow of doubt, in you, as you, indissociable of yourself. Feel that I Am is for that which never moves, is never tired or sick, is never concerned by age, or beliefs, or any passing content of the mind. Go for what in yourself is indestructible, constant, that could never be hurt, and notice that that is the thing which is necessary, responsible for your being able to say I Am. I Am is your anchor, the lighthouse you must never depart from. If you do, you will be plagued with suffering and grab the first thing you could identify with, amongst others your body, and your mind content. Thought is a good client for providing you with a fake identity. It mimics a self to perfection where there is none, where there is only here a presence infinite, borderless, shared by all. Without that, no I Am would be possible. No I Am would be there, and no humans either, no beings, nothing at all, just a black, empty void.

I Am is the light that makes life possible, that renders it palpable, sensible, experienced. You could say that for an object to find its isness, its existence, there would have to be an I Am first, there would have to be an essence, a ground that gives all things and all beings their shape, length, width, and existence. This essence is that without which there’d be no you, no possibility to say I Am. That without which there’d be no support for your thoughts. That without which your body could not in a zillion aeons find its ground, its birth, its death, and its life and beating heart. Thought has nothing to do with your asserting I Am. It is in no way involved in it. It will try to convince you, that thought is behind it all, is the voice of your being, the one that can say I Am. The body has convincing arguments too. They two form a good pair. But don’t be deceived. These are not where you draw your sense I Am from. I Am is deeper. I Am is fundamental, not a passing thought or feeling, bound to an object, to a body. I Am embraces all things and all beings. Even the world could not be thriving and bubbling without having its grounding essence. It needs, for its rising and falling, for its being seen, heard, felt, a something that holds it and creates it, like the content of a dream needs the mind of a dreamer. The world would be at a loss without I Am.

And in fact it is: at a loss. For why do you think the world is plagued with suffering and conflict? If you ever find yourself suffering or in conflict, it is that you have lost your I Am. You have given it, bargained it to a body, or a story, or some mere random thoughts. You have exchanged it for an ambition, an eagerness to be something, somebody, and to feel the reward of it. I Am is without a reward, without a body, faultless, pristine. It doesn’t know the meaning of suffering, or conflict, or confusion. So keep it always close to you, don’t lose its splendid gaze. For your body, mind, and random thoughts are all craving to take on the role of a self and blind you, conceal in the process your gorgeous, inborn, god given identity. They’ll happily send I Am to the wrong place, to keep it unnoticed, forgotten. But I Am is always here, like a patient presence, holding even your ignorance in its benevolent hands. It will wait for your looking, your noticing, the better days of your realising who you are, that is found here nestled within I Am. You owe I Am everything, right to your feeling of being, behind the mere words.

For there is a Word behind the words, which I Am is the pointer to. A living, pulsating reality. Call it being, call it god, call it Word. We have made I Am into a mere body, a limited self, and have therefore compelled ourself to look outside for our peace and completeness. The seeking for our lost completeness is what is called suffering. But the way to overcome suffering and conflict in our lives lies within, in our very being, in what is hidden in plain sight every time we say I Am. A human being can never have its private sense of I Am, for being is shared in equal measure by all beings and things. It is boundless and has within it the peace and completeness that you had been looking for without, as a result of your misplacing I Am. I Am owns its peace and completeness through its being alone, whole, One, and therefore unable to be parted, or lost, or forgotten. So have a good look every time you say simply I Am, and recognise it for what it is, and not what you believe it is. Don’t limit I Am to a projected, illusory, made up entity. I Am is the gorgeously carved door to your being happy and whole, and to have the world reflecting that wholeness and happiness. It is your treasure within, that you have ignored, or misused. So repair the sense I Am in yourself, and give it back to its original, initial, pristine glory and undefeatable reality.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)

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Website:
– Caspar David Friedrich (Wikipedia)

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A Ceremony for Peace

Posted on by Alain Joly
– ‘Full Moon’ – Andrew Wyeth, 1980 – WikiArt

When you have discarded everything in yourself that is not consistent, that will let you down, or change, or leave, or won’t meet your most profound aspirations, then look carefully at what is left behind, that could never let you down, or change, or leave. What is here no matter what, beyond expectations, beyond the agitation of the mind, and your fascination for experience. What is here that cannot be attained, or obtained, for you can only obtain what you don’t already have. Look at that. Look at what is left in you, as you, that cannot be manipulated or bargained for. Feel it, let it acquire prominence, allow it to reveal itself to your attention.

This is what matters: this deeper part of yourself which is untouched, pristine, unconditioned. It matters tremendously. In fact, this is what all spiritual and religious traditions have been calling you to understand or realise. But it isn’t an easy thing to see, for it blends within your experience and hides inside it. Yet, if you look with the right amount of purpose and focus, it will blow your mind as something which is filling the space as your very own identity and being, and had been here always, unnoticed, silent. Now it is revealed as the peace and happiness which you have been looking for in the content of experience, and are now blessing your heart through the simple experience of being only being, which you discover is your natural, and effortless condition.

Everybody knows that he is, or she is. It is an obvious sensation: to be. But then we forget it, take it for granted, stop paying attention. We become obsessed by everything objective, by everything in experience that we can see, hear, touch, feel. We become preoccupied, consumed, tormented by our body and mind, by our circumstances and life events, by what makes us happy or sad, by prestige, failure, pride or shame. We forget that we have left behind, now hidden in the background, one simple thing, one simple fact of living, which is the knowing of our being, this road back to our green pastures, that is here quietly present, every time we say ‘I Am’.

Through force of habit, we let that down, judge it irrelevant, certain that this has only a secondary importance, maybe even no importance at all, that we are, that we know our being, that we can say with certainty and absolute confidence: ‘I Am’. We fly off to dangerous countries, clinging to suffering and uncertainty, navigating between hope and disappointment, making happiness or peace a thing to obtain, gain, deserve. We’re not seeing that it is our identity, our given essence, to be contented, peaceful, creative. That we must not bypass happiness, or pass by it, through it, near it, without even a second glance. That our quiet sense of being is our chance, our remedy, our secret longing granted.

Happiness is simply the knowing of being, the shining of this simple, gorgeous sensation of our being present outside all consideration of body, mind, senses, and world. It is that simple if we are willing to look. In fact, god has placed the secret for happiness, the recipe for peace, right under our nose, on a silver plate, wrapped with a golden ribbon. We can unwrap it every time we become aware of being. Every time we slow down and rest there, in the simple, naked experience ‘I Am’. And then it opens up, it becomes evident, that peace is in being, that joy is in ‘I Am’, that life is spent here, under the gorgeous vault of simply and only being. Then being becomes a ceremony for peace, joy, or love. And then… Well then, everything is for the first time.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)

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Website:
– Andrew Wyeth (Wikipedia)

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Holy Ground

Posted on by Alain Joly

We have no being of our own. We have built our existence as a person, as a body, as a bouquet of perceiving faculties, on a ground that is not our ground. We are borrowers, incomplete entities, which is the reason for our restlessness, for our many lacks, and for our sense of insufficiency. Wholeness and plenitude are attributes of the ground or essence. This essence is hidden because we are overlooking it. We, on our choice, have displaced our attention to what we mistakenly take to be ourself: our thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions — all that makes a narrative, that gives us an appearance, a consistency, an existence. But one such existence is a fraud. It is not what we essentially are. We have displaced our self, our identity, from the ground to the landscape, from the essence to the superfluous appearances that owe their existence to that universal, infinite being or ground.

But an appearance can never make us. A thought doesn’t make an identity. An idea, an image, a body, are not what we are in essence. But they all have a common ground, hence our confusion in our perceived identity. This common ground is our deepest sense of being, the consciousness that is found at the root of ourself. If only we were aware that what is seeing, thinking, perceiving in us, is actually the ground, not ourself; that what is experiencing, what is aware in our everyday life, is in fact this supreme, infinite ground, then we would acquire a very different idea or perception about ourself, another responsibility, another awe, another reverence for our reality. Our reality would be discovered to be the ground of all beings, called ‘god’ in the spiritual literature. God is not a word for a thing or a person, but for a living experience, a taste, the feeling of being that has its reality here and now. It is not distant, not dependent on a belief. It is a hard reality, accessible in all experience. It is our true nature, what we are, and what we know we are, without a shadow of doubt.

God is not a guess, a maybe, a question. God is a certainty, an evidence, and the answer to our suffering. It is our very conscious sense of being, the very thing which in us makes for the feeling ‘I’, for what I am in truth and in depth. It is our one and only reality. If we do live from that essential ‘I’, then we live from inside the holiest of temples. We cease living and acting from a private, separate sense of an individual self. Behind the veil of our mist, of our everyday fascination for mind, body, appearance, existence, is a presence that is revealed when we let go of ourself. It bears in its DNA the savour of holiness, and of a quiet, unbreakable happiness. Holiness is not an attribute of things, places or people for which we may have reverence. Sacredness doesn’t belong to the landscape, or the object. It is rather the natural expression of our true self, of ‘I’. It is in abiding in our true nature or essence that we feel a deep reverence for everyone and everything. What is sacred is our intimate, infinite being, and this being draws its holiness from its one pristine, untarnished, infinite nature. Wholeness makes for holiness. Holiness belongs to the ground, and the ground has it in its nature to shower benevolence to all hosted appearances. This is how we have, shining in our experience, the qualities of peace, love, beauty. They are all offsprings of the holy ground, which is ourself.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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The Impossible Deed

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Pond in the wood’ – Albrecht Durer, 1496 – WikiArt


We are used to knowing. We have been trained in it, brainwashed with it, and drained by it. Knowing has been privileged at the expense of being. So we have become expert knowers, professional doers, but at being, we are infants, clumsy, penniless. We are without a self worth the name. We are homeless without knowing it. We are without a solid ground — a trembling, uncertain little thing living in the wilderness of objects, battling in the haziness of beliefs, having no place to truly be, to truly rest. We are a wanderer of ignorance, a nescient soul lacking the elementary knowledge of its own being.

But OK, I will give us that. I understand this urge to know. Knowing gives us a bright, shiny sense of self. A fantastic ego. It is rewarding. Being gives nothing, is completely unproductive. At least, so we think. But this knowing of our being is not any kind of knowledge. The will to know the ‘I’ is a sacred will, a holy endeavour. If we want to know ourself, we will come to know it. This is a desire that cannot be left unfulfilled. This knowledge cannot resist any serious enquiry. It will give in sooner than we think. But it is a hard one to desire. The difficulty resides in wanting to know. We shy away from that desire. There is something there we’d rather stay away from. We would rather know beforehand what we have to know, and remain on shallow land. We don’t want to rock the boat of our being. After all, this is where we stand. We don’t want to be swept away from our cherished ideas and beliefs, and be deprived of the security we have so dearly earned. We would rather stay a seeker of the known.

But try it now — to know yourself. And do it with your mind, with your usual knowing faculty. Go there, at the heart of your self. Decide it. Make it your goal: to know who or what you are. It doesn’t matter where you begin. But go not to the periphery, to that which you can know as an object. Go to the heart of your self, to that thing which you have called ‘I’ all your life. What is this ‘I’ that you are being all the time? This ‘I’ is never visited. But now is the day. Go there. Find out what it is. See that you will meet there like an impassable, impenetrable wall. You will find closed doors. All your knowing, your ego, your accumulations: this has made a blocking stone. This has barred the entry, has prevented all true seeing, all knowing worthy of the name. Feel that you cannot go there with your mind. But this impossibility is gold. So keep at it. Keep pushing. Don’t be shy. Use both shoulders if needed. Give it all the strength you have. It will recede. I promise you. Everything can be known. This is no exception.

Notice that what you come against is yourself. This impossibility of knowing the ‘I’ lies in your belief in being an entity. The knower is the obstacle, the impassable wall that bars the way. To know yourself is an impossible deed. You can never know who you are, because who you are is only contained in ‘you are’ — in the feeling of ‘I am’, of being. We are so unaware of our being. Being has been forgotten, relegated in the background, replaced by a knower, a doer, a busy self that insists on knowing who he or she is. But to know ourself, the knower has to first realise itself as being. To know is to be, and to be knowingly. This knowledge dips its reality in being. There is no knowing ourself without being first. Knowing here is only achieved through being, which is the knowing of ‘I’ without a knower. The will to know dissolves into being, which is the only knower there is and will ever be.

This knowledge is found in and as the being of the one who wants to know. You can only know who you are by being it, or rather by simply and only being. In that field of self-knowledge, being is knowing. Being is the knowing done without a knower, and therefore without an object known. It is a pure, unalloyed knowing. Everything you ever wanted to know, to be, attain, achieve, all the content of every sacred book, all happiness, all longings, is found in being, in that which you already are. Your amness is the gate code cracked. You will find who you are on the other side of knowing, which is being. And it is delivered with peace, which is the nature of being. This knowledge is the only knowledge that doesn’t take place in duality. It is achieved in the oneness implied in plainly being. So this impossible deed has now been transformed as the infinite being that we were all along, but had veiled through our insistence in being a knower of the known. We don’t know who we are with our knowing faculty. Ourself is the only thing we cannot know as an object. We know our identity through the fact of simply being. There is no other knowing than being. Being is what we are, without a single ripple of a knower knowing. Know that and you will be reborn as the unborn.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

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Website:
– Albrecht Dürer (Wikipedia)

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The Possibility We Are In

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Old Sarum’ – John Constable, 1834 – WikiArt

Whatever there is is God’s presence felt. And whatever we may feel of God’s presence, is what there is here and now, including what exists and appears. It is all here for our recollecting, all here that we can be and be god like. Every experience that we may have, every sorrow and every joy, every fear or trust, every ugly or beautiful appearance, is felt and seen because of our being first. To watch anything is to be watched in return by a presence watching. We can make ourself disappear in it, and be without a self, without the self we have always known and colluded with. And we can share of that impersonal, infinite being that is not ours, but that we can be and embrace as our own. So ‘I am’ is the secret door opener within us, that will give us the world we are in. We will have an aggrandised property, or a world made of the very size of ourself, infinite, manageable, and towards which our being may shine a benevolent beam of light and peace. That I feel is a possibility.

The world will have its secret identity disclosed to us. And we too will have our secret identity revealed. Both being made one, and ourself being of it. Others will cease being others. They will join us as that shared one being. There won’t be any jealousy or comparison, but a rejoicing in and as that oneness felt. Our fate and destiny will be contained inside us, within our own being. There won’t be a time to hope for, or a place to fail in, or a self to mess up. There won’t be a fear of tomorrow, or a regret of yesterday, for both will have merged in and as the being that we are. Time and place will have come to be only convenience. And our very being will have come to be the time and place we are in. That too is a possibility.

The knowing of our own being will have come to be our only experience. The many will have shrunk into the one, and the infinite will have subdued our senses, and made itself seen, heard, touched, and contained within our experience. Happiness will cease being a temporary achievement, and will become the flavour of our shared being with people and things. We will have joy woven into every single corner of our life. That’s the possibility we have at hand.

Movement will be seen as the manifold expression of stillness, and silence recognised as the only component of our living symphony. Turmoil will be felt as this last bit of ourself that we have yet to embrace — not something to be afraid of, but an opportunity that we welcome. We have to see this as a possibility.

So this life is the garden of Eden we once extricated ourself from, but have in fact never left otherwise than in our imagination. And love is not an occasional encounter, but the very air we take our breath from. I’m just throwing the possibility in the air.

Now we recognise after all, that the being of God is what we are — the possibility we are in, without there being a God or a ‘we’.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by John Constable (1776-1837)

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Website:
– John Constable (Wikipedia)

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The Face of the Infinite

Posted on by Alain Joly

For many things in life, we are exigent, demanding. We won’t let things be as they are. We are picky — we want more and better. We expect, hope, resist, desire, and are rarely satisfied. We are seekers of advantageous situations, and have a good idea of what they can be. Yet when it comes to ourself, to knowing who or what we are, we lose all inquisitiveness. We take ourself for granted. We may want to be more loving, less violent, have more of the good qualities, and less of the bad ones, but who is the ‘I’ that desires these things, we don’t want to know. Maybe we have an intuition that there is great danger in uncovering our true identity. After all, it was never talked about, a sort of family secret that society doesn’t want you to interfere with. Even religion is not clear about it, that encourages you to rather follow, pray, and submit yourself to God, but not to know who you are. At least not in a clearly stated way. You may know about anything you want, but please keep yourself out of it. In fact, ‘Know Thyself’ is the least encouraged commandment in this world of ours, and that alone should be enough to fuel our curiosity.

So who am I? What is my identity? What is this last part of my experience that is yet to pioneer and fully settle in? Which has remained untouched, virgin of our constant and fanatic rummaging? Which hasn’t yet been recognised for the simple reason that it is not a place we can know, let alone go to? It is so ourself that it cannot be seen, felt, experienced as something objective, or as an entity. This land of ourself has slipped out of our attention. We are blind to our eternal home. We have left behind us, untackled, unidentified, in the darkness of our wilful mind, the vibrant sky of our being. So what is my true identity? What is this unchanging substance that is the formless form of my being? In other words, what am I identical with, or the same as? ‘Same’, in its most ancient etymology, has the meaning of ‘one’. So we can rule out all the separate, isolated objects that we project ourself to be — that includes our body and our mind, and the many thoughts we’re thinking. Our identity is not in something which we identify with, but in the expression of oneness — the one being that is by definition free from all identification. This identity with the One has been achieved from time immemorial. We don’t need to come back to it, to rehearse it, or affirm it. Our identity has dissolved into the One, which is identified with no other than itself.

Where does unity or oneness live in my experience? In what portion of my conscious being can I feel an absence of otherness? Where do I find in myself no distinction, variation, or divergence, not even a breach that would differentiate me from reality? Where am I wholly and only being? What is it that I truly am, with no intervention of a past or a future? Where is this within that is also without? What is this ‘I’ that I could never ever cease to be? Who am I when all objectivity and multiplicity have died down? Where do I find an absence of ‘me’ in myself? Or rather, where do I find a sense of ‘me’, in me, that is not already the ‘me’ of everything and everyone? Where am I when every remnant of a seeking mind has left? Where do I find an individuality that is not universality? Where could I not find God’s presence in my experience? Where is this ‘where’, where I can never say where, what, when, how, why to what I am? And lastly, where have now all my questions dissolved? Only settle for a living, silent answer. Any other verbal or conceptual answer at this point would ruin it all. It would be like slamming the door in the face of the infinite.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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