A History of Veiling

Posted on by Alain Joly

“Your life 
between so-called birth 
and death 
does not exist.”
~ Robert Adams

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Why was I never told? To all appearances, there is no world out there. The world is empty. With no real substance. Well a substance is at work. One with the most beautiful, exquisite shine. That explains the beauty. But look for solidity around you and you won’t find it. Look for something that exists of its own accord and you will grasp nothing but thin ether. So don’t believe what the mind tells you. Or you will send a bigger reality at bay, in the hidden. 

Yet nothing ever passes unseen. Not a thing. A thought, a feeling, a sound, a vision. They’re all being witnessed, and known. They’ve all been soaked with light — their presence revealed. They have only been hidden from me, whatever ‘me’ is. A sound in the distance is left unnoticed for I was lost in thoughts, not present. I chose to be identified with only a small part of my total experience. I was busy, had an agenda with some words running in my head and oups!… There is that bird’s exquisite song that disappeared in the nimbus of my confused mind. 

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A short divagation on the question of veiling… (READ MORE…)

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The Mystery

Posted on by Alain Joly

Sometimes opinions and beliefs isolate us
Should we have none, should we be just
Open and light-hearted, driven by the wind 

Should we open ourself to the mystery
Concealed beneath thick layers of desire
The unfulfilled dreams of a thirsty conscience

Should we never be hungry, never thirsty
Hanging nothing on the walls of our thoughts
Keeping nothing and forgiving all

Should we leave everything at the threshold of our nights
And discover every morning, at last, this new day 
That invites itself at the banquet of possibles

That one with sparkling hours rising straight and proud
Like bubbles bursting without return, renewed to the 
Rhythm of the un-formed, of the non-becoming

Without wounds — never — why should there be
When every second contains them all
And when the mind is keen, sharp as a blade

When life offers herself, whole and ardent and never 
For a moment ceases to be amazed at herself 
At this love that irrigates her, incorruptible, never changing 

That same one that moors us to the great Silence
For intimate apprenticeships, unexampled deliverances 
Alone — yet feeling so vibrant and one with what is

 

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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

 

The Hermitage

Posted on by Alain Joly

 

Step out of your house
Turn left
Or right
Then left again
Or maybe right
What does it matter really
You’re one with it all

 

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Then enter the nearest wood
See how it is enchanted 
And don’t forget
This is all you
You’re not walking anywhere
Not reaching any new place

 

[…]

 

Continue wandering in search of your inner hermitage… (READ MORE…)

 

The Everlasting Arms

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Winter Scene’ – Bruce Crane, 1890 – Wikimedia

 

“yes is a world
and in this world of 
yes live 
(skillfully curled)
all worlds”
~ E. E. Cummings

 

Really, to surrender seems the most difficult thing to do. Even in our most relaxed moments, we are unconsciously holding the show through a subtle kind of effort. And this effort is being maintained throughout our life, even more so in moments of threats and desperation. The consequences of this constant tension is visible in every aspects of our being, physically and psychologically where they shine in an obvious manner, but also in our inward, spiritual life where it has even more devastating effects, keeping us at bay, at distance of any deep understanding or realisation.

At every moment of our lives, we experience at best a subtle if not unnoticed resistance to the propositions of everyday experience. Let’s put it simply: we argue. We argue, complain, judge, evaluate, regret, hope, expect, and so many other gesticulations that we superimpose on reality. Really it sometimes feels there is a madman locked here in the room of existence. The present reality, what is taking place here and now offers nothing less, if you look at it carefully, than a quiet and smooth run. ‘What is’ flows majestically like a large river does. It bears the silence of presence, the quiet inescapability of ‘is ness’, of being just the way it is. So why does life and circumstances expose us to such amount of conflict and resistance? How did it all become such an unsolvable riddle? […]

An exploration into the meaning of true surrender… (READ MORE…)

 

I Don’t Mind What Happens

Posted on by Alain Joly

“I’ve no problem because 
I don’t mind what happens. 
You understand? 
I don’t mind if I fail or succeed, 
I don’t mind if I have money or not money. 
… I have no problem because 
I don’t demand anything 
from anybody or from life. 
I wonder if you understand this.”
~ J. Krishnamurti 

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Photograph by Elsebet Barner

Quote by J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

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This quote is excerpted from Public Talk 2, Ojai 1977 on YouTube (39:30)…

Bibliography :
– ‘Krishnamurti’s Notebook’ – by J. Krishnamurti – (Krishnamurti Publications of America, US)

Website:
– J. Krishnamurti

Suggestion:
– A Day at Brockwood Park (Homage to J. Krishnamurti)

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Other quotes from the category Beauty in Essence

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Songs of Awakening

Posted on by Alain Joly

Nancy Neithercut is my newly invited guest on ‘The Dawn Within’. After many years of trying to figure out the pain of existence, Nancy has experienced a shift in her life where all sense of separation faded away and, in her own words, “the whirling center of the dream had exploded and imploded into a vast unknowable unknown.” She now writes and speaks about this ungraspable no-thing in countless poems which are direct effusions of her inner life and understanding. They have been gathered in her website, “Nancy’s posts and poems”, and in her numerous books.

I chose and gathered here a few excerpts of her poetry that came my way. My mind drifted through Nancy’s beautiful writings and picked up just what it did, sometimes arrested by the deep meaning conveyed, sometimes by a harmonious dance of words, or a striking force, or a freshness, or just a no thing elusively expressed. At the end of her last book, she wrote: “This is the end of my seventh book of songs of awakening and I have never captured even one bite of this deliciousness… Yet songs flow through me and even as these words appear my story writes itself.” We are grateful for her many attempts. I hope you enjoy reading these songs of awakening…

 

“Without a listener there is no song, and there is no singer.”

 

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the rush of stillness
sings through it all
it cannot be trampled
or held
it cannot be concocted
by chanting spells
or reading books
or sitting for a thousand years
you cannot wait for it
or gain it
or throw it away
knowing this
is the dawn of love

 

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I would say that the stillness that seekers long for is the end of belief in the dream. Yet this is also feared, because when the dream of this and that is seen to be made up, then it means also that they are made up! It would mean that everyone they have ever loved or known in their entire lives are also made up! 

It would mean that there has never been a past and there will never be a future.  A future where somehow stillness could be attained or lost.  

It would mean the end of all seeking, as the seeker has disappeared.  The end of all ideas of other better more or next.  It’s like the Zen guy sitting there in the cartoon and one guy says to another so this is it huh? And the other guy says Yep.

[…]

Continue reading Nancy Neithercut’s Songs of Awakening… (READ MORE…)

 

The Waiting Room

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘The Dining Room in the Country’ – Pierre Bonnard, 1913 – WikiArt

There is a subtle waiting lingering inside us. Do you feel it? I do. Let’s have a look at it. It’s an expectation, a yearning, a feeling that says that the now, what is happening for me right now, is not quite enough. In whatever way I may look at it, that’s very clear. This is definitely not enough. Period. And off I go, keeping on living as if one day, maybe, if I’m lucky enough, if all the good stars align at last, that might descend upon me. I might get it, that feeling that I’m now complete. Cooked. Finished. Over with it. But that’s really just a fancy idea. Wishful thinking. In the meantime, did I ever look at it carefully? This subtle feeling, this buzz underlying each and every second of my existence, that something is missing? I concede that there are exceptions, fleeting moments when I suddenly find myself whole, silenced, at peace. But this is not satisfactory. So there is comfort in waiting, in not quite engaging. Staying put. Waiting on the platform of life for the next train of thought. The next occurrence. What is this waiting made of? Is it a real feeling? Or maybe just a ghost-feeling? What is here that I don’t see? Why am I waiting? […]

Continue exploring this subtle waiting lingering within… (READ MORE…)