A Speck of Light

Posted on by Alain Joly

What you are is nothing ordinary, nowhere near being ordinary. We have gotten used to seeing ourself small, a speck of consciousness in the wider picture of the universe, with its trillions of other specks. We have made consciousness a mere apparatus, something that allows us to apprehend reality. For most of us, reality as the world is the real thing. Consciousness is nothing to speak about or even mention: just a tiny, taken for granted sparkle in the mind. A mere instrument at the service of a limited, separate entity. This instrument is nearly transparent, hardly worth considering, and is often reduced to what is called conscience, which is in fact only mind. But could it be that the most important aspect of our lives resides there, in and as that speck, in and as that sparkle that we have ignored and misunderstood for millennia? We have been exclusively fascinated by the content of our minds, by our bodies, and by this enthralling world, and we have stopped there, leaving the most precious jewel of our lives aside. But this attitude is in fact an elaborate system of avoidance. As Krishnamurti once said: “Your whole concern is with escape.”

We are constantly privileging the content at the expense of the vessel that holds it, and the known at the expense of the unknowable. We want to possess and control, and feel the satisfaction of it. We prefer having experiences to exploring the nature of all experiences. But there is a seed waiting in the tender soil of our mind, that needs our attention and care. It thrives when being observed. It grows under the scrutiny of a loving contemplation. Its infinite proportions are a thing to watch, that can turn your life upside down, and sweep it clean of its erroneous foundations.

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Consciousness: from its being veiled to its being realised… (READ MORE…)

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The Watcher

Posted on by Alain Joly

I remember the old odd days when I would sit in the woods on a tree trunk, or on a bench by a meadow, and watch nature playing its part in front of me. I would just watch, thinking very little. I’d leave my life aside, with all its worries and miserable sides. It was not worth looking at, not now, not at this point. For now I’d be a watcher. I knew there might have been a secret here, in this watching, in this looking at anything, at shadowing trees, flowers dancing in the breeze, stack of woods, clouds drifting in the sky. I intuited that it was all there, contained in the watching, enveloped within my experience. In this gaze was the answer. In this questioning was life throwing its identity at me, revealing its essence at last. At least I believed so. But it had to be a skilled watching. It had to have no intention intertwined with intention. It had to stand on this fine line. There was a strange alchemy taking place here, somewhere between the seer and the seen. A sacred, secret brew where reality could be unveiled, if only I could watch with the right, finely tuned focus.

After all, what other reality do we have than this one simple reality of ourself? What other than this presence? Just this presence, this watching, this being, this feeling. Just this. After all, this is all there is. I may look as much as I might, I won’t find anything outside of it. It is all there. I am stuck with it. So I might as well be there, stay there, dissect it, pull it apart. I might learn something of myself, of this looking at something, at anything. As if right there was concealed a hint never caught before, never encompassed, something which could resolve a miserable life. I was quite certain that if I looked hard enough, not at what I was seeing, not at anything out there, but at what this watching is made of, what it consists of, then I might free fall a long way within myself, to land in a new place, a new way of being, a freshness. So I stayed silent, enclosing myself with myself, and watched. Some may call it meditation. But I didn’t know that.

Well, my intuition was right. There is right here, a secret to be felt, guarded behind the limitations of my mind. A hint that my thoughts had concealed, along with my feelings, my identifications, memories, perceptions, sufferings — all that endless, formidable toil. And just there, right in the middle of it, something awakens, slowly pervades it all, and shows me what I am. Ah! If only we could clothe all that we are doing with this quality of watching. And all that we are watching with this quality of being. When all that you are looking at is looking at you. When all that is seemingly other is discovered to be yourself. When you can live and breathe at last, and feel who you are truly. And stay there, in the woods, in the sunlight, amongst shadows, but above all in your newly discovered self. There only exists the song of a bird, the river rushing by, and the silence breathing into it all, the fantasia of my life suddenly melted within one single being. This is where duality is stripped of its reality. Where the One has it all. And where the thousand things — including my old self — are clothed and replaced by their essence.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Suggestion:
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The Flame without Smoke

Posted on by Alain Joly
©️ Krishnamurti Foundation India

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“Love is the only flame without smoke.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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The flame and the smoke is an analogy Krishnamurti referred to sometimes. For him, the flame is this burning centre of being that “can never be expressed with words”, that “is beyond the clutches of time”, and that is often expressed as love. The smoke is of the mind. It is “the smoke of envy, of holding, of missing, of recalling the past, of longing for tomorrow, of sorrow and worry; and this effectively smothers the flame.” The smoke is often what we take to be the flame but is not. It is all that is passing, all the thoughts, feelings, perceptions — the smoke that we have gathered to form experience, and that we take to be ourself, our centre of being. This wilful, separate, time bound, suffering self has appropriated the feeling of being when it is in fact the very smoke that is veiling our true nature. Being only is that flame without smoke. It is our true identity and “the source of all happiness”.

I have gathered, over the years, on social medias, many of the most striking quotes by Krishnamurti, that popped up on my screen. These, I found, acted on me like little koans, that had the power to pierce the smoke of the mind, and reveal the subtlest truths. They are like candies which, when chewed upon carefully, reveal the flame of what we truly are. They are short and easy, but need to be taken seriously. They can crack open our resistance, and show us that flame without smoke. I share them here with you…

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“Do not pursue what should be,
but understand what is.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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“Love is not at the end of time.
It is now, or it isn’t.
And hell is when it is not…”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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“Thought is never free because it is based on knowledge,
and knowledge is always limited.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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“It is essential to understand the seeker,
before you try to find out what it is he is seeking.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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“The ego is a ring of defence around nothing.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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Discover more of this selection of quotes by Jiddu Krishnamurti… (READ MORE…)

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The Resting Place

Posted on by Alain Joly

“There is no resting place until the real comes into being.“
~ J. Krishnamurti (‘The World Within’)

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Where could we find a resting place, when we are running in a thousand directions for a sparkle of relief or happiness? Where could rest be, when we are constantly afflicted with every form of suffering and doubt? There is always something brewing in our mind, something that needs to be arranged or perfected. Dissatisfaction is rampant, forever displaying its multiple consequences and leaving us gasping for a peace that is eluding us again and again. In other words, we are stuck in an eternal roundabout, with no clear directions on offer, except for the same old directions that we have explored a thousand times, to no avail. Yet rest is an essential. We know it from intuition. We know it as our deepest knowledge, our only certainty in life. There is a home — of this we are certain. Otherwise we wouldn’t be running around in this constant, infatigable search for love, peace, joy, and the likes. Our stubborn seeking is a proof that the stamp of life is to be found in easiness, naturalness. We are not meant to struggle and strive.

It is interesting to notice that peace always comes in the form of a recognition. We are not here on uncharted grounds. We have explored this chamber of peace a thousand times before. Only we keep forgetting it. In fact, our search for peace and happiness in the field of objective experience is nothing but our many clumsy attempts at remembering. Yet in reality, not truly so. For we should rather proclaim that our search in the field of objective experience is nothing but our many successful attempts at forgetting. How do we forget that which cannot be forgotten? How do we miss the obvious? How do we obscure the light? Well, just by being a self in its own right. Just by thinking to be a self separated from the field of experience. And therefore looking in that field for experiences that will relieve us from our constant seeking. That’s the perfect catch-22. So we become choosy, selective, a slave to experience, forever oscillating between being its victim or its conqueror. But this unfortunate manoeuvre is what puts us afar from the peace we are looking for. Peace is in fact nothing but our deepest, most intimate identity as being. And experience is nothing but a vassal of peace when we have recognised who we truly are.

Only be that eternal being curled in and as your self, and no experience will ever be a source for joy or a cause for suffering. Let your being infuse in and as eternal being, and peace will appear to be the very structure of your self — its indestructible nature. Don’t ever go out for peace, but rather find it within, as the revelation of your utmost being. There is a cabinet of peace waiting for your noticing. It is that very place of rest that you have been longing for, and expecting to find in situations and circumstances, when it is simply the very expression of your inner sense of being. See this peace as your only reality. Be of it, as much as it is of you. And let it pervade your being until it has conquered every corner of experience. Peace will then be seen as the fabric of every thing and being encountered. You will start noticing it in the many figures of life. In every bird flying across the sky. In every towel used to dry your hands. In the business of city hassle. Even in the harsh words addressed to hurt you. Peace is like a torrent of rain falling at your doorstep. It will wash your self clean of any impurities of experience. As it will equally clean experience of any residue of your self. Then will you and experience walk hand in hand under the vault of an unbreakable peace. Each intimately woven with the other, yet both being the children or emanation of an indissoluble unity.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Bibliography:
– ‘The World Within: You Are the Story of Humanity’ – by J. Krishnamurti – (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

Website:
– J. Krishnamurti

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On Passing Away

Posted on by Alain Joly

We think that most of our life is taking place in the field of body, thoughts, feelings, and sense perceptions — all of these making a self and a world, and the myriads of experiences that come as a result. This is what our life seems to be for the most part. But look again. Because in fact, no. It is not like this. That’s where the misunderstanding lies. Most of our human experience — not to say the whole of it — is spent in being. In emptiness. In vastness. Of course there is a body here that can be sensed. And feelings can be felt. And objects perceived. And thoughts are occurring all the time. And with them a sense of a separate self has been born. And all this joyous team seems to have acquired reality, and has in consequence been cursed with a measure of drama and suffering. But much was missed along the way. For in fact, none of these really took the place we imagined. None of it is taking any place, any space, or occupying any length of time. For the whole space of experience is already occupied by our sense of being. Life in its totality is made of one indivisible reality that fills our experience to the brim. This reality as being precedes experience — experience being nothing but being manifesting itself within itself.

So this is an announcement for the deceased self that we have been engrossed in all this time. Body, thoughts, feelings, senses, will continue their existence, but will lose their identity as a self. Custody will be returned to whom it always and forever belonged: pure, unlimited being. In its quality of the only inheritor of the feeling of being, ‘I’ or consciousness is now made the one true identity for all selves, and the only essence or ‘is-ness’ for all objects of experience. For we are in fact eternity, which our presence as a time-bound self has veiled. We are in truth the infinity of being, which our insistance in being a separate being has limited. And we are in reality peace itself, which our relentless seeking for happiness has sent in the hidden. There never was a self, and there never was a world. Not in the way we have imagined it. Not with the reality we have conferred to them. Being has drowned them long ago; and has given them the only reality to which they are entitled to belong. That’s how anyone, and anything, and any experience can be made to rest in peace: In giving in to being. In passing away.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Isn’t Life a Simple Thing?

Posted on by Alain Joly

We as an apparent body and mind are nothing but the conditions met for the apparition of a world and all the resulting experiences that take place within it. We are simply housing the thoughts, feelings, and sense perceptions necessary to enact experience, and give it a shine of reality. But the essential of what we are is neither in thoughts, nor in feelings, nor in sense perceptions. The essential of a mind is made of consciousness. Awareness is its structure and its backbone, without which there would be nothing left. If it wasn’t for its awaring quality, our mind would be no mind. Our thoughts would crumble and disappear to never reappear. Our feelings and sensations would suddenly blacken and decay in an instant, to be never formed again. And the world would be swallowed back into infinity, if it wasn’t for the consciousness that gave it its essence and knowability. Look as you may, you won’t find a mind of your own anywhere. At best, just a few scattered thoughts, and the momentary and illusory appearance of a self.

Observe carefully. A few thoughts can never make a mind; and neither could some random feelings. You couldn’t own the necessary self that you need to function in a world, without some inseparable and indispensable measure of knowing. So it is all about knowing. It is all about being conscious. Awareness holds it all together — your body; your thoughts and feelings; your world as sense perceptions. All of these come into existence at the only condition that an ‘awareness’ is present. If awareness goes, you go. If consciousness goes, everything with you go. The world goes. No bodies viable. No flower fields. No Milky Way. Everything falling apart. Universe shut black. Just a mess! That’s the power of consciousness! Far from being a mere function of the body, awareness is what holds the body and the world together. It is the essence of everything. It is the indispensable matrix. It is the ocean in which the waves and currents of thoughts, sensations, and world are dancing. And it has no home where to rest but itself. In fact, it is itself a resting place for all apparent minds, bodies, things, selves that make up a world. Consciousness gives existence with its being, allows relationship with its knowing faculty, and brings the consolidation of happiness with its loving nature. Then it returns into itself and stays there, in utter peace and completeness — replete with itself. And when you have seen it all as it is, and yourself as you are — indivisible being — then might come simply a swell of awe. God, isn’t life a simple thing?

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Turner’s Moon

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Moonlight, A Study at Millbank’ – J.M.W. Turner, 1797 – WikiArt

This text is directly inspired by an analogy used by the teacher of non-duality Rupert Spira. I found it to have such evocative power that words started to pour out and I couldn’t stop them. This text is therefore dedicated to Rupert and his timeless vision and teaching.

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Sometime a painting just comes timely to move your heart. It is a gorgeous landscape painting, depicting a coastline and the sea, with boats and fishermen in the moonlight. At Millbank, Turner was painting in dark, subtle hues of black, blue, and purple browns, to define a night, leaving here and there traces of light, golden reflections on the water. In the wide expanse of the sky, he had left one portion of the painting untouched. Pure as white. Undarkened. For the painter had a view in mind. He was to paint a moon, bright and resplendent. And no moon was ever so bright.

This part of the scenery that wasn’t painted, it was you. You, before you were made a person, before the identification with thoughts, feelings, body, story, hurts, memories, projections, beliefs. The nature of the moon was that part of you that was left unseen, unexplored, but that had quietly illuminated you all along, giving you a self and an identity without your knowing, lending you a hidden strength for your bruised self, and bathing you in its unheard silence. It was the trusted one, the one reliable thing in a life of relentless changes and challenges. It was the peace of your true self, the precious being that had been covered up by the night of objective experience. This is the moon Turner had meant to convey.

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A meditation on the evocative power of Turner’s painting… (READ MORE…)

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