Our Sole Horizon

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘The Forest Distant Views’ – Ivan Shishkin, 1884 – WikiArt

The key in spiritual matters, is that we have to keep it very simple. We must not blow it out of proportion, exaggerate it, make a conundrum out of it. It is just a matter of looking, of breaking a little, stubborn habit. Nothing extraordinary. We keep looking away from our own being. We act as if we knew all about who we are, as if it were understood, that we are our body, that we are these thoughts that keep coming, which we judge, influence, direct according to what other thoughts say. We live in a little corner of ourself, feeling like a little king in our kingdom. We are so used to our own ways, to our concepts and explanations, to our beliefs and repetitive actions, that we have taken for granted to be just a person in a world. That’s what we were taught. That’s what we were conditioned to think. In fact, we are only followers. We play small. We are protecting our own establishment.

But we know more than that. In fact, we are all experts at being, without our realising. We are masters of freedom. We know that with just a little looking, a little asking, we could rock our lifeboat. We could make our life sensational, attractive, happy, tranquil. We have that hint in ourself, otherwise we wouldn’t be seeking, or working for happiness, improvement, progress, with such undeterred faith. We know that in spite of everything, the world has magic, and our life keeps inside it secrets of glory. That’s how we can face unspeakable suffering, trauma, violence, and the looming threat of death. Because we have in ourself the warmth and security of being, which we try to reenact in every possible and unreasonable ways, in our pleasures and our hopes, in our beliefs and our addictions.

The problem is that we have put a belief in front of what is. We have invented a self where there is only the wide expanse of being. Our whole identity is in being. We have no space to be anything else than being. Our whole life is being. Our body doesn’t even come close to being what we are, and neither does our mind. Being as consciousness takes it all, the whole of what we are, and of what everything is. Every appearance finds its essence in it, and lives in the gorgeous space it provides. We have all our senses embedded in being, and the world finds its reality in the reality of being. Consciousness has it all. It is all we will ever find. All that ever is. It may hide from our gaze, that being is our only landscape, our sole horizon, but it shows blatantly in every corner of experience, if we are willing to look.

In fact, it is so much here, so reachable, so knowable, that we are blind to it, unable to know it. That’s because we have attached ourself to another pseudo reality inside our own reality of being. We have chosen the lie of being somebody over the truth of being only being. We have chosen to be something, a body, a thought, an idea, a self, and have as a result lost, forgotten, limited the infinity of being, that is pervading our life to the point of being the only thing in presence. The truth is that we can never be something other than being. It’s a nice try to believe it, but it won’t happen, to be a suffering self, a limited body, and a mind with its own separate agenda. Everything that we think we are, we are not. We have to distance ourself from every qualification, from every belief, from every identity. We have to be naked of every addition to being in order to see our naked being, and to be in its gorgeous grip.

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Ivan Shishkin (1832-1898)

~~~

..

Website:
– Ivan Shishkin (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

.

Hidden Fragrance

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Autumn’ – Andrew Wyeth – WikiArt

There is majesty in being your own gorgeous, naked self. But thoughts come and spoil it all. We are always running up and down the line of time, feeding on memories, fearing the future we imagine, leaning on our hopes and expectations, bleeding from our constant suffering, building multiple roads of escape. We never leave ourself alone, never stay with the peace that is naturally the nature of our being. We are always on the move, indulging in the landscape of our many objective experiences, getting lost in them — after all, they are so many, so attractive. They seem to hold the secret of our happiness. So we spend a lifetime shaping them to our convenience, but they are reluctant.

In fact our thoughts have become primary when they should be secondary. They have become the fabric of our life, along with our many experiences, when they should have stayed only an ornament. There is a ground that stays still and silent under our many involvements with things, perceptions, sensations. These crowd us by the thousands, but we should not be deceived. They will want us to believe that they are us — our one and only identity, but don’t listen. There is a oneness that is here taking them all in, enveloping them, lending them the quiet blanket of its peaceful, infinite making. So be careful where you put your emphasis on, what you choose to recognise yourself to be. You are not an aggregation of body and mind content. You are the quiet aware presence which holds the ten thousand things of experience in its loving bosom, and gives them a light to be seen and experienced. Put there your life emphasis, for that presence is your very lifeblood.

So be watchful of what you take yourself to be. Will you marry your identity with all things objective, or with what gives them the ground where they thrive, are born and die? Will you go with the passing or with the ever staying? Will you have a fascination for the many or for the One? Be careful to always stay where you truly are, where you were never born and could never die, where peace is like your true body — before you venture in experience — and where your silent being is seen as the home that harbours every portion of your life. This is how you stand where only the infinite is, and where place is like its humble attendant. This is how you have your days spent in eternity, and time is like its useful valet, for the sake of your daily activities. And that’s how you view your many activities and relationships as a gorgeous play, and the peace of your being as the space where they thrive and are nourished. Don’t let anybody make you think or feel otherwise: Peace is the crux and heart of your life — its sometimes hidden, sometimes revealed fragrance. 

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)

~~~

.

Website:
– Andrew Wyeth (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

.

An Impeccable Death

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘The Death of Buddha’ – Odilon Redon, circa 1899 – Wikimedia

It is striking to think that the day when we die is always today. It is not happening tomorrow, will not take place in the future. Death is for now. This is where and when it takes place. In the present. In presence. The death of the body, its ending, may take place in the future, but is not death. It doesn’t have the implications, the magnitude of it. The death of the body is like a wave that ceases to undulate, to imagine its difference, its conflicting attributes, and finally breaks before we notice that it is not what we are, that there is here, before it, as our very making and identity, an ocean of peace. This ocean is what death is — before we imagine to be a self that thinks itself separate.

We have been moulded in and as a presence that was never born and could never die. This inability to exist or appear as something distinct, or different, is real death. This incapacity to cease or find an ending at our being, is true ending. It is a place where we can never go. This place of being has no objectivity. It is nothing that we can be or project ourself to be. It is pure being, done, final, already perfected, unattached, a free fall. It is a death so complete that it has no object. It is not the death of something, of an object, of an entity — for such death is not truly death. It is the realisation that we are not what we have believed ourself to be. That there is not here an entity, a self that could be dying, that has an existence of its own. That realisation, and above all what is left here to be and live by, truly is death. And in that death is contained, concentrated, achingly shining, the whole of life.

So death is now. It is happening now without our noticing. It is achieved — our death, the one that we fear, that we have pushed away, that we don’t want to envisage, envision, is done, gone through already. It’s a matter of noticing what is — that we are not here, that nothing was born, that it would be curious to die, that what we are has no other attributes than being. How would you put to death something that is without attributes or qualities? How would you end something that was never born? Moreover, no appearance, or thing, or body, could ever die without it being the expression or the modulation of something untouched by death. That something exists deathless is the sine qua non for the existence of death itself. That’s why life itself thrives through the exercice of death. What is deathless is our being. It is being — that which we all share in, which we call eternity, or the infinite, for it is one, and being one, it cannot be measured, qualified, or put to death. That’s how we are immortal — through only being, which we share as the experience of love. Death is when we cannot die anymore. It is obliterating objectivity — therefore our existence as an entity. An impeccable death comes at this price.

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Odilon Redon (1840-1916)

~~~

.

Website:
– Odilon Redon (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

.

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.

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)

~~~

.

Website:
– Caspar David Friedrich (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

.

Intimacy

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Untitled’ – Charles-Francois Daubigny – WikiArt

Spirituality is about intimacy. Nothing else. That is all you will feel, when you go to the right place, when your most tender being comes towering in your life: intimacy. Intimacy with everyone and everything. When you are not content about being a person, about only living the life of body and senses, about all things objective that can be seen, heard, felt, then is left something that you could never comprehend. Then comes that innermost part of yourself which is now found to impress and impregnate both you and your experience. Then comes something measureless. This was already your most familiar experience, although you have made it a stranger in your life, for engaging only with the shallow, with the surface, the easy, the habitual, the measurable. These will never take you to intimacy but to separation, remoteness, distance, and finally discord. So go to what is not only passing, but to what is inmost, intrinsic, that cannot be discarded and dispensed with. Your world will open to something precious beyond understanding, which is the intimacy contained in experience as a whole, when it is not dampened by your insistence in being something separate from experience.

Intimacy feels like being with a close friend, when nothing needs to be said other than simply to live, enjoy, and taste presence. Intimacy is to make yourself and experience as precious as a lover. In that process, it melts you down, so that you are nowhere to be found. This absence of yourself is love, which is your freedom, and the thriving of this presence which you are and have always been without your noticing. It will bring everybody and everything — the whole world — close to your self. So close that you won’t see a difference between your experience and your own self. You will be revealed as one boundless presence — the undefeatable essence of your being, before the thousands things of experience come to soil it, dampen it. You will be in love, inside love, for intimacy is just another word for it. Intimacy is about shared being. It may seem personal, but it is not. What makes it seem personal is that we involve the body-mind, that we think binds it. In fact, intimacy has nothing to do with the body and the mind. It is a warmth without limit or end.

In its purest form, being sends us in a place of immediate intimacy with everyone and everything, a sense of togetherness, of belonging that cannot be helped. Intimacy is a gathering in and as being, whether we are two people, or ten, or a hundred. We feel an absence of plurality, or otherness. It can be informed in a split of a second, deploying itself from a place unknown and unknowable. Its appearance is free, unconditioned by time. Its disappearance is impossible, only apparent or believed. It comes from a place which has neither a beginning nor an end, and is not bound to the limitations of space. It reveals itself as something fundamental to our living this life, but which we have failed to notice was here. It is the highest degree of your essence. Being intimate is the last place in yourself you will ever visit. There is no beyond it. It will come as your last day, your final breath, for there is no living as a separate entity, as a private being, once you have drunken at its source, and suffered its irrevocable implications. To be intimate is to die to yourself, and disappear in the radiance of only and simply being.

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878)

~~~

.

Website:
– Charles-François Daubigny (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

.

The Silent Heart

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Silencio’ – Eliseu Meifrèn p, 1900 – Wikimedia

Silence in the spiritual endeavour is taken to be much more than the absence of noise. It is in fact stillness. Silence is the absence of movement. It is the quiet reality that lies at the very heart of our being. By silencing the mind, we get to our silent heart — the silent heart of being that lies deep down within ourself. In fact, not so deep down. This is one of these illusions, to think that our heart, our silent being lies deep down, hidden, buried. In fact, our silent heart is showering our existence. It is our natural state, teeming, unmissable, that we have made seemingly absent, that we have silenced with the deafening noise of our mind, of our endless chattering, and of this belief a million times rehearsed that we are something, a thinking entity divided from every other thing or entity, and a private, personal self that we believe is attached to the body.

In fact, our mind is made of that silence. Only, we have added so much to it that our silent, unsubstantial heart has been overwhelmed by our many thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions that got all our attention. We have crowded our mind and have stripped it of its natural identity, which is simply being. We have silenced silence. We have mixed it with everything objective, noisy, agitated. So it has seemingly disappeared, although still overwhelmingly present. It is not that it is hidden, but we have transferred our natural, silent identity as being, to a fake identity as body, thoughts, senses. We have exchanged being for existence. We have downgraded ourself from simply being to being something. From pure, unalloyed awareness to that which this awareness is aware of. From silence to the crowding of that silence. We are crowded beings, living at the surface of things, dancing and struggling with everything superficial. We have broken the pact that tied us to the infinite, which is our true home and identity.

It results that we have become a person, when we are truly this silent, depersonalised, but utterly intimate heart of being which is the birthplace of all things and all beings. We are that which is before everything that appears and is the prey to our senses. We are this non-substantial substance that allows everything to find an existence. But we are not ourself a thing existing, a person. We are the still and silent being that is the heart of ourself and of all possible existence. Being something is to transfer our identity to that which we are aware of. But this identity has no reality other than in our thoughts and imagination. It is a belief. In plainly and only being, devoid of the imagination of mind, of its restless and ephemeral content, there is an aware silence. A silent heart. Still beating as our eternal, undefeatable identity. We have to live there, for this is the life we are meant to live. Anything else is a corrupted, even poisoned position. The state of the world is here to prove it, to attest that we have displaced our gorgeous identity away from the silent ground of being, to live in and as an appearance, and to believe in what is only a passing dream.

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Eliseu Meifrèn (1857-1940)

~~~

.

Website:
– Eliseu Meifrèn (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

.

One Living Being

Posted on by Alain Joly

Truth is when the one who desires truth is not there. That one is a flaw. It is superimposed on the truth it is looking for, and veils it, makes it unreachable. It tramples it, literally. It makes it misty, obscure, mysterious. But truth is an obvious reality, if we don’t put it at a distance. If we don’t imagine it as something. Truth is not a thing, a concept. It is what we are — present, alive, real. Only we have to leave, recede, tiptoe. It’s all it takes, to not be boastful about it, to not think we don’t have it, to not assert the lie of our being someone. Being someone will push truth into the darkness, unseen therefore forgotten, hidden therefore to be sought. Our looking for it is the difficulty. Truth is to be approached with subtlety and utmost delicacy. Not that it is fragile, it is not. But it is sensitive to our feeling separate from it. It doesn’t like it. It shrinks at the thought of it, that we are looking for it, wanting it, being ambitious about it. Truth is not to be conquered, practised, refined. Truth is here fully dressed. It is our most fitting attire. The very being of our being. Massive. Obvious. If we let it open up, unfurl, spread its all-pervasive presence, and its creative, mind-blowing, self-evident, undeniable power and eminence.

But if we think we’re not enough, well then we’re not enough. If we want to indulge in being a person, a poor me, then we fall from a great height. We suffer from being separated from our essence, our quintessence. We feel the burden of our constant, intrinsic, congenital seeking. It becomes our identity, to be a self seeking, to live in separation, to be fearful of this condition, and a believer of ideas. We live in our mind, struggle with our beliefs, conflict with experience. We are not what we should be, and we feel it, know it, dread it. And we are crippled by our impending death, which we cannot understand, fathom, and marvel at. So it really comes down to ending a belief, a simple belief, that cheated us. That our body, our thoughts, feelings, senses are substantial when they are but a dream. That our being finds its reality in our body and mind when our essential is not there. Our essential draws its reality from a presence that is infinite, eternal, unfathomable, loaded with love, peace, and a creative impetus. Nothing else than this presence is at play in our experience. We realise that we are just one living being, which cannot be divided, and has no other than itself. We realise that we are that, in spite of all evidence and impression. This self that we believe ourself to be is in fact secretly made of that, if the mist of its fallacious reality breaks apart and reveals its hidden nature. There is no separate, distinctive, solitary self. Only this shared, glorious one being. Then it falls into place that, for exemple, “I and my Father are one.” (John, 10:30) And that “In him we live, and move, and have our being.” (Acts, 17:28)

.

~~~

Text and photo by Alain Joly

~~~

.

Suggestion:
Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

.