Jeff Foster

The Little Monsters

Posted on 19 October 2020 by Alain Joly

Here is a reminder inspired from the words of Rupert Spira. It is necessary and terribly efficient to look into these matters for ourselves. This is why I like to share here the parts of a spiritual teaching that sounds like ‘something to do’, something to experiment and verify for ourselves:

‘Just experience the raw sensation, for example of fear, without thought, without the labelling. Instead of covering it up, turn around and face it. Let the feeling come totally to you. Face it, keep living with it, keep opening yourself to it so fully, until there is not the slightest resistance to it. Ask yourself: Can I live with this feeling for ever? You have to be able to answer ‘yes’ to that question. Then see what remains of it. Be very careful not to turn this into a practice that you undertake in order to get rid of unpleasant feelings. Make it just a loving contemplation to discover the truth of your being, the dissolution of this feeling being a side-effect, a by-product…’

~~~

Further exploring on the subject:

“Observation is like a flame which is attention,
and with that capacity of observation,
the wound, the feeling of hurt, the hate,
all that, is burnt away, gone.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“Fall in love with this secret humanity. Know that darkness is NOT darkness, only scared fragments longing to come into the light, beings who want love, and attention, and breath, and inclusion in the larger picture of Self. […] Illuminate. Radiate. Make it safe for the little monsters to come out of hiding. Let them know they are beautiful. And worthy. And not monsters at all.”
~ Jeff Foster

“In simple openness which is welcoming you will come to accept and get to know your negative feelings, desires and fears. Once welcomed in non-directed attention these feelings will burn themselves up, leaving only silence.”
~ Jean Klein (‘I Am’)

“You never remain with any feeling, pure and simple, but always surround it with the paraphernalia of words. The word distorts it; thought, whirling round it, throws it into shadow, overpower it with mountainous fears and longings. You never remain with a feeling, and with nothing else: with hate, or with that strange feeling of beauty.” […] Try to remain with a feeling, and see what happens. You will find it amazingly difficult. Your mind will not leave the feeling alone; it comes rushing in with its remembrances, its associations, its do’s and don’ts, its everlasting chatter. […] Can you look without the movement of the mind? Can you live with the feeling behind the word, without the feeling that the word builds up? If you can, then you will discover an extraordinary thing, a movement beyond the measure of time, a spring that knows no summer.”
~ J. Krishnamurti (Commentaries on Living, Series III – Chapter 37 – ‘Aloneness Beyond Loneliness’)

“The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each
has been sent as a guide from the beyond.”
~ Rumi

The photo is by Alain Joly

Bibliography:
– ‘Presence’, Vol. I & II – by Rupert Spira (Non-Duality Press)
– ‘Commentaries on Living, I, II & III’ – by J. Krishnamurti – (Quest Books,U.S.)
– ‘The Way of Rest: Finding the Courage to Hold Everything in Love’ – by Jeff Foster – (Sounds True)
– ‘I Am’ – by Jean Klein – (Non-Duality Press)
– ‘The Essential Rumi’ – Translated by Coleman Barks – (HarperOne)

Websites:
– Rupert Spira
– J. Krishnamurti
– Jean Klein (Wikipedia)
– Jeff Foster
– Rumi (Wikipedia)

Suggestions:
– Fleeing to God (other pointers from the blog)
– A Day at Brockwood Park (Homage to J. Krishnamurti)
– Rumi (Homage to Rumi)
– A Secret Love Affair with Life (text by Jeff Foster)

A Secret Love Affair with Life

Posted on 14 January 202014 January 2020 by Alain Joly

‘Interior’ – Konstantin Korovin, 1913 – WikiArt

Jeff Foster is my newly invited guest on ‘The Dawn Within’. After studying Astrophysics at Cambridge University, and belonging to no tradition or lineage, Jeff embarked on an intensive spiritual quest for the ultimate truth of existence. After the recognition of his true nature dawned on him, Jeff began sharing his understanding and became an author and a teacher. He now holds meetings and retreats around the world, and has published several books in over 15 languages. You will find ample informations about Jeff in his website ‘Life Without a Centre’.

I like Jeff Foster’s simple and compassionate approach to truth, and the quality, the poetry of his writing. I have chosen to share here one of his texts called ‘A Secret Love Affair with Life’. I liked this story full of wit and humour, where one is invited to see how life, in its most simple, humble expressions, holds at its core qualities such as eternity, humility, intimacy, spontaneity, gratitude, play, celebration. I have added the following piece by Jeff on gratitude, which seemed to be the perfect introduction to his text. I hope you enjoy…

“This moment is sacred,
because it’s all there is.

Memories of moments gone
and the dream of moments to come
both arise in this moment,
held in an unconditional embrace
beyond mind.

Never forget
that this moment
is the source, the wellspring,
the place where life happens,
the origin and the destination
of your pounding heart.

Breathe into the sacredness,
celebrate the aliveness of things,
and go about your day.

It is never too late
for gratitude.”

~ Jeff Foster

~~~

A Secret Love Affair With Life

Part I – Doing The Dishes

I’m at home. The washing up is being done. All that exists in the universe is the chinking of plates, the glistening of bubbles, and the whoooossshhh of water as it shoots out of the tap. The washing of dishes fills all available space.

This bowl is particularly dirty. It’s covered in dried breakfast cereal and will take ages to clean.

The phone rings. The bowl is put down, rubber gloves are removed, and kitchen is replaced by living room. Kitchen sink and dirty dishes are replaced by sofa and table and phone. “Hello?” […]

Continue reading Jeff Foster’s text on the intimacy of life… (READ MORE…)

The Churches of Rome

Posted on 28 September 201828 September 2018 by Alain Joly

“This is the end of my old ways, dear Christ!
Now I will hear Your voice at last
And leave the frosts (that is: the fears) of my December.
And though You kill me, (as You must) more, more I’ll trust in you.
For though the darkness and the furious waters of that planting
Seep down and eat my life away
Yet my dark night both eats and feeds me,
‘Til I begin to know what new life, green life springs within my bones.”
~ Thomas Merton

Ah the churches of Rome! Here I am, trodding for the second time the worn, disjointed, unsettled paved streets of the eternal city, with one thing in mind: visiting and admiring some of its most beautiful basilicas, churches, chapels, oratories… It is said that there are about 900 churches in Rome, so the choice is wide and elegant. One thing to remember here: this place is the cradle of Christianity and hosts the Holy See of Catholicism, a religion to more than a billion people in the world. The sheer number of tourists and pilgrims is huge and many want to see the Vatican in their lifetime, with its most famous Sistine Chapel, the Coliseum of the ancient Roman Empire, or the Trevi Fountain. I have just come from a retreat in the mountains of Umbria, and I wonder what will touch me here, after this week of thinking and meditating on the non-dual nature of experience.

“I am the light of the world.”
[John 8:12]

What strikes me most here, is not the gigantism and wealth of the most famous basilicas, nor the beautiful art that you will find hidden in the innermost corners of many churches: Raphael, Caravaggio, the Baldacchino and Ecstacy of Saint Teresa of Bernini, the Pietà and Moses of Michelangelo, the frescoes of Gaulli and Pozzo. No, something else touches me profoundly. …

An essay on the churches of Rome and their deeper meanings (READ MORE…)

Kissing the Toad

Posted on 22 September 20185 November 2020 by Alain Joly

‘See that you never really meet your uncomfortable feelings, that you are always avoiding them by activities, thinking… Try to be brave, turn around, and face the feeling. Welcome it, invite it in, be interested, get to know it… Experience for yourself the power of courage and avoidance… See how the avoiding of the fear, or of anything, is worse than the fear, or the thing itself… See how the facing of any uncomfortable feeling that you have has a releasing effect…’

~~~

Further exploring on the subject:

“The instrument of your torture, the thing which once threatened to break your spirit, eventually becomes your salvation, even wakes you up, to presence, to gratitude, to the miracle of creation. When we turn to fearlessly face apparent darkness we may discover only undivided light, find a part of ourselves longing for love. Freedom lies not in escaping into the Absolute but in affirming life as it is – in consummating our marriage to our humanity, including all its trials and tribulations, and knowing God as the unbreakable principle present even in our pain, that which holds us even when we cannot hold ourselves.”
~ Jeff Foster

“Just trace your feelings back to their counterpart in the body as sensation, and then trace these sensations back to this luminous empty knowing. It’s all that’s there. This luminous empty knowing, the stuff out of which these sensations is made, to know that, to touch that – THAT is the experience of happiness, or peace. The happiness we seek lives at the heart of our deepest, darkest feelings. We don’t find happiness by avoiding our deepest, darkest feelings and trying to replace them with another kind of feeling. We do the opposite, we trace our way back deeper and deeper and deeper, to go right to the heart of the feeling where we expect to find the monster – the one that is really responsible for our feelings. We never find the monster. If it recurs, then meet these recurring feelings with this recurring exploration. In other words, meet it with your experience. Your feelings cannot stand the truth of your experience. In the end, they have to bow down. They will in time bow down.”
~ Rupert Spira

“Eventually, it occurs to me to stop trying to do (or not do) anything, to give up the search for a solution or a distraction, to simply be present, to allow everything to be just exactly as it is. Suddenly it becomes possible to completely surrender to the actuality of Here / Now, to resist nothing, not even the compulsive biting of my fingers if that is what is happening. Instantly, I feel the heart open. This is the end of grasping and seeking, the end of resisting and avoiding, the end of trying to fix myself and be somebody else, the end of trying to figure it all out or get the right conceptual map nailed down. This is not knowing anything and not needing to know. Suddenly there is no problem anymore. There is no me. There is only this undivided, spacious presence that includes everything, just as it is. Everything is okay, even fingerbiting or feelings of uneasiness or anxiety. Nothing needs to be other than how it is, and when there is complete openness to how it is, I find it is no particular way at all. Everything is moving and changing and dissolving. There is a huge sense of relief. The problem was imaginary.”
~ Joan Tollifson

“If we trace our suffering back far enough,
there, right at its heart, right at its origin,
we find the experience of peace and happiness
which we were previously seeking
by avoiding the suffering.
The moment we kiss the toad,
it turns into the prince.”
~ Rupert Spira

The picture is by Helena Cuerva/Pixabay

Bibliography:
– ‘Presence’, Vol. I & II – by Rupert Spira (Non-Duality Press)
– ‘The Way of Rest: Finding the Courage to Hold Everything in Love’ – by Jeff Foster – (Sounds True)
– ‘Nothing to Grasp’ – by Joan Tollifson – (Nonduality Press)

Websites:
– Rupert Spira
– Joan Tollifson
– Jeff Foster

Suggestions:
– Fleeing to God (other pointers from the blog)
– A Secret Love Affair with Life (text by Jeff Foster)
– The Inconceivable Actuality Here-Now (A text by Joan Tollifson)

The Intelligence of Chaos

Posted on 9 April 20189 August 2019 by Alain Joly

The first line of this poem: ‘Trust the intelligence of chaos’, is a phrase borrowed from Jeff Foster. I was inspired with these few lines after reading it…

Trust the intelligence of chaos

It wants to find its way
Through layers of you

It wants to knock at your door
And make you open your heart

It wants to be protected by you
And let itself melt into your emptiness

It wants to see that it is not a bad guy
To be looked upon and pushed away

It wants to be found inexistant
In the inexistence that you are

It wants to be your friend
Claim your love again and again

It wants you to know that it cares
You only can find its implicit order

~~~

Poem by Alain Joly

Photo by Nicki Gwynn-Jones

~~~

Nicki Gwynn-Jones is a British photographer currently living in Orkney, a group of islands north of Scotland. She has a passion photographing birds, and the coastal life around, full of a wilderness shaped by wind and water. In 2012 she was awarded a Fellowship in Visual Art by the Royal Photographic Society.
Nicki’s Website: nicki gwynn-jones

Bibliography:
– “In the Dreamtime: A Meditation on the Flowers of Orkney” – by Nicki Gwynn-Jones – (Orcadian Ltd)

Suggestion:
– Voices from Silence (other poems from the blog)

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A Secret Love Affair With Life

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