The Frailty of Naming

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Still life with Apples’ – Paul Cezanne, 1890 – WikiArt

We really have made a muddle of it all, by believing that all things nameable are so in reason of their being there. It has made what is truly here — formless, absolute, undeniable being — seemingly absent in reason of its not being perceivable and nameable. Our true and essential being is unnameable because it has no objective quality. To name it is to spiritualise it, to give it a form, and finally destroy it. It is to set ourself as a being outside of it, which we are able to name, or describe. So if you have named yourself, know that you are therefore not there. You are still a shadow, a belief, a repetition, a form incompatible with the formless. And if you have qualified yourself as this or that, know that these limits, expressions, or colours you have imposed on yourself are illusions, the clothing of your reality, but not reality itself, not your nature, not the truth of your essential being, not the nameless, not that which is here and now, beyond any shadow of doubt. The named is for absence, and the nameless for presence. For how could you name presence, how could you give a qualification to something which is so here that it could never be there, so now that it could never be then, therefore never made into an object there and then, at a distance from yourself, in capacity to be named.

What is truly here, when it is recognised, ceases to be named. It is the nameless, the unnameable. The names we give to consciousness, to god, to that which is aware and constitutes us for the most part, are only provisional names, given when we are still part of the things that are named, still a person, an entity, a self. But this entity is not truly here. If we can name ourself, it is in reason of our being made into something objective through endless names and qualifications. So make yourself nameless, approach yourself so fully, investigate it so thoroughly, that you cannot name it anymore. Un-name yourself, strip it from objectivity or qualification until you are recognised as being only being. Then notice that you cease to be nameable. You are too close to yourself for that. Then the only way to name that reality of yourself is to not give it a name but to say simply ’I Am’. ‘I Am’ is the only name we can give to God’s being, and its supreme subjectivity indicates that its reality can only be felt as your own reality or being. It is the intensity of its subjective nature that prevents it from being given a name.

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A reflection on what can be named and what cannot… (READ MORE…)

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Divine Presence

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Dance at Moulin de la Galette’ – Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876 – WikiArt

You know sometime truth has its ways and character. You may be quietly sitting at home in silence, listening to some wise teaching. You may want to feel this unconditioned essence of yourself with your eyes closed, within — oh so within! — and feel enclosed in your beautiful, limitless, eternal self. But that appears to be difficult, not quite the day for it, not quite where you want to be. The ‘I am’ door is making a squeaky sound. Today is to see the face of god in all and everything, out in the world. Today is for the car horns and the smell of exhaust fumes. Today is for being in love with the cigarette butt lying in the gutter at the bus stop, and seeing that there is no more, no less here of presence than there is in the melodious swaying of trees in the summer breeze. Today is to feel my essence borrowed by the facades of buildings and by a nearby, wandering canal. It is to feel my own being shared with all passing strangers — oh, so many friends everywhere! — and with an inquisitive pigeon, or a happy dog coming along. Today is for being a seer and a hearer of beauty. It is for a wedding with truth, in the church of experience. It is for the world marrying its presence with freedom and ease, to the presence of my self. Today is to feel with my hands and eyes and ears, that the whole temple of life, from the hard matter-like objects to the thin air caressing my cheeks, and to the pregnancy of sounds — all that is produced by the senses — is but empty of its own substance, and full of the silent, pristine, ethereal presence of the divine.

Another day may present you with something entirely different. You may find yourself wearied by the world out there and crossed with experience. You may want to be at home, simply at home, and take a long journey within, to be taken into the purity contained in being only being. Today is for sitting quietly and for closing your eyes. It is for the feeling of being — unmixed, unadulterated, whole and held within. It is for the seeing of my interior, where thoughts now come one after the other, to die of their natural death. It is to feel that there is here a space which is ready to welcome my all, and has the power to look and to embrace. Today is for letting my feelings melt in the safe harbour of my being, and for marrying my sensations to the infinite space that contains them. It is wholly for the wondrous feeling that I am. Alone. Pregnant. The one that brings all identifications back to their original womb of presence. Today is to be without characteristics of any sort, and to bathe in emptiness and anonymity. It is for the caress of being, and for the never ending gaze towards infinity. Today is for the merriness in my heart, at the wedding of my self with the eternal now. It is to be showered with the knowing of my reality, and to have my being anointed with the peace contained within it. Today is for a honeymoon with my loving essence, and for a sacred communion with the nameless. It is to feel my own substance full of the silent, pristine, ethereal presence of the divine.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

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Website:
– Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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God Unveiled

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Illustrated Depiction of God with Holy Bettmann’ – Tintoretto, 16th AD – WikiArt

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For many of us, god is nothing more than the idea or belief we have inherited of such a being, an idea that is conditioned by religion as the lazy representation of an omniscient, omnipotent entity that is both our creator and protector — in the popular Christian imagery an old bearded figure who lives far and away from us, in a lofty, elevated place for a good view on its creation and creatures. The existence of such a god is almost only a matter of belief or faith, and the relationship we have with it one of reward and punishment, devotion, fear, prayer, praise, but rarely of understanding and exactitude. It seems that we better have god in a hazy place, feel more at ease with not knowing too much about the wisdom that may hide behind that term. So our ignorance is a calculated one, a refusal to rock the boat, and a patting of our carefully assembled opinions from which we derive our sacrosanct identity and security. But let’s tackle god here. Let’s undress the myth and have a thorough eye-contact with the divine. Let’s dare some experiential understanding. Let’s have god out of its hiding place.

Maybe god was never defined because it is the one thing in life that is indefinable. Everything objective that we can know, see, hear, touch, smell, taste — qualities and all — can be described with words and given a name. We have our life surrounded by objects. The objective has filled our experience to the brim, and we are being choked in it — with no breathing possible, and no space allotted to the unknown. God is one such unknown. But how could we describe something that we cannot know as an object? So to god we can only give a generic, provisional name. Because god cannot be pointed at and recognised as an object or entity. God is not an easy catch. The divine defies our understanding, and this defiance is at the core of our misinterpretation of god. So if you want to know god, you have to look for it in your life, and turn every stone and pebble that crowd your experience. So start by removing everything in existence that you can know, see, hear, touch, smell, taste — qualities and all — that have an objective quality and can be given a proper name. You know: everything that you can show to another fellow, and that he too can see, hear, know, understand, and comprehend, just like you. Take it all away, and then see what remains behind.

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An explanation of the nature and reality of God’s being… (READ MORE…)

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The Program

Posted on by Alain Joly
Image by Pete Linforth in Pixabay

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There is a program that shows up in our being. This program was created since the dawn of time. It has been affected by countless lines of conditioning. It is moving, dancing like a sea, moulded by habits or necessities, defined by laws, created by the limitations of having a body. It has its own incentives, formed out of previous incentives. It develops in an infinite number of ways. The program is always surprising. It never stands still. It is entrancing, captivating. It occupies us all, and it does it totally. There is no escape from the program. At least, there doesn’t seem to be. Until one day. Until one day…

That day is the day where light shows up at last. And that light comes as a revelation. It is here to clarify the situation. To give us the truth of the matter. There is in fact a way out of the program. We can be free of it. It doesn’t have to mesmerise us, make us fearful. The program was never really a program. It never was limiting. It was play. And the stage for it was not the universe. The stage for the play was dimensionless. It never came into existence. It didn’t have to. For it is unborn, uncreated, unsubstantial. It is not itself a program. Thank god that it isn’t. It would have had tragic implications. Now listen carefully…

All of life is contained in this infinitesimal point of being that is responsible for your saying ‘I’. This is the stage of life. Beware though of mistaking the stage for the program. That sublime ‘I’ is not the ‘I’ that carries the formulation of the program. It is not the ‘I’ that borrows its existence to the existence of the program. Not that shaky ‘I’. No. That sacred ‘I’ of being is the only thing that is seemingly in the program but is in fact not. That all encompassing ‘I’ is before everything that you can name. It is the nameless that harbours all names. It is the no-thing that contains all things. It is independent of all the things that only depend on it. It is alone within itself. And that aloneness is you, ‘I’, all that you are now. All that you have ever been. Will ever be. Can ever be…

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Text by Alain Joly

Image by Pete Linforth

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Website:
– TheDigitalArtist (Pixabay)

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Other ‘Ways of Being‘ from the blog…

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