The Story of It All

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Large Bathers’ – Paul Cézanne, 1905 – WikiArt

There is a hidden presence everywhere we go, that hides within our experience. It is concealed within its own shining, and is the reason for our seeing and experiencing anything. It seems to be woven into our very being, to have married its being to our being. Would we want to separate ourself from it, that we wouldn’t know where to go. In fact, there is no way outside ourself. We have it all here as we are. Our life is unfolding within that which is ‘myself’. We are the garden of our self, of all our human endeavour, of our quest and of our finding, of our lack and of our glory. All that we live for, when reduced to its core target, is to be relieved from our chronic sense of not having enough. We feel there is a thing here to be found, without knowing what it is. So we become blind to ourself, and are consequently driven into the world, seeking there in the distance of time or place, what is already here in and as our very self. We are our own hidden remedy, our secret paradise. We have shrouded the infinite within ourself, and are erring within our own misconception.

In fact, we have been misled by our having a body, imagining us inside it rather than it inside us. We have belittled ourself, have lost faith, squeezing ourself into a thought that we have aggrandised to being an entity. We are a trick of the mind — nothing more — and have lived caught within our own creation, struggling inside our own mistake, wrestling with a world that we have stripped of its essence. We have divided our experience into separate objects, and have reduced ourself to being one such object. Now we are striving to unravel our own mistake, to defeat our foolish, unfortunate belief — hence our suffering and our struggling. Our life has been made into a scream for peace and justice, and the silence of simply being has retired within us, into the hiding place where we have pushed it. We have shied away from our truthful nature, and wandered off from simply being naked being. We have clothed our emptiness with the garment of a self delineated by thought and identification. We have limited the infinite to our convenience, and squeezed eternity into the burden of time.

But there is a dawn here just as we are. There is a light ready to overcome our night. For we never got lost far from our home, never took our stand away from our own being. So our journey is always only the shortest step from ourself to ourself. We have to return where we never left. We have to get acquainted with ourself, with who we truly are, and get accustomed to our being — much wider than we ever noticed. We have a sky at our disposal when we have dismissed the thousands fascinations and identifications with everything that is at a distance from ourself, and is the prey to our mind and our senses. There, curled within and prolonged without, treated so far with contempt, is our own indomitable self. There, trampled by a belief about ourself that we have imposed on everything, is a magnificence. There, is the being of our being, what we-the-seeker have sought everywhere except in its own place of living, which is ourself. We have missed it because it was the last thing investigated, the last stone lifted, for being too close and intimate. Who could have thought that the sought was the seeker?

Now we only have to be that ground of being alone, at the exception of all that is moving and changing in it, and that isn’t us, not truly us. We only have to sink beneath the moving sea of our multiple, insatiable experiences, and let ourself reach that part of ourself that cannot be known or possessed, and is yet our undeniable self and identity. Here we discover that our being is the being of everyone and everything, and that we are bound to this totality by love. Here every single thing in our experience is unraveling itself back to its essence, taking its right place within it — and that essence is found to be our essence. And god’s being too finds its right place and meaning in and as ourself — and we too have our place in god. And our so precious peace is now teeming as our own being, and justice is found right under every step we are taking. Now we have silence as our very best companion, and our seeking — which was our suffering — has been buried under it. Now we are right where we were supposed to be when the world became a world, and the son of god became a woman or a man. And now…

Now let me rest and live and walk the world as I am, alone and one, and all in I.

 

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)

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Website:
– Paul Cezanne (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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Excessive Imagination

Posted on by Alain Joly

We have it all already, independently of any spiritual consideration. All that we ever wanted to acquire or achieve, which we have been aiming to possess without ever truly succeeding, the core object of all our desires before objects multiply and confuse us in their multiplicity — that precious thing: that plenitude — well… we have it. It is there, just as we are, in this experience that we have, in our present feeling and sensation, breathing in our senses, singing as our identity, a kit already assembled, a world designed for us to live in, live for, and live by. Religions have sent us warnings for millennia, but the message was unclear, diffused by authoritative hierarchies to frighten, separate, and control. Yet some got it all through the religious maze, dissecting even the most obscure teaching to its crystalline, original clarity, as Meister Eckhart has done. For he knew — the great master — that our being is a sky knitted of awareness. He knew that this emptiness is all there is, and that our thoughts, feelings, preceptions, the ‘creatures’ as they were called in his words, are all secondary appearances, that draw their multiple existence from the one single identity of our self as pure, unlimited, shared being.

But we have yet to see it. That our present being is the final deal. That what we experience right now contains it all, and is the expression of the silent being that we are in our utmost reality. So there is really no experience other than the experience of this deepest reality of ourself. There is no other than yourself. It is all about what I am, or that I am — all about that which is felt now, before the rise of experience, before the ‘creatures’. That is the landscape that all spiritualities have ploughed for millennia. What you are being now is it, the whole mystery of it. So don’t even try to be it, let alone become it — that would ruin it all. The work is done. You only have to notice yourself in the maze of objective experience. You only have to develop a passion for yourself. To be inquisitive of your being. You don’t have to go through the paraphernalia of spirituality, if you are not inclined to. Just watch your being intensely. Make it the biggest interest of your life. As Krishnamurti once said: “You have only to watch, see, listen; it is all there open and clear.” Don’t tell yourself endless stories about a so-called spiritual path, about advancement — the pride of it all. Jump directly inside the experience of your being. “Take a swift step into yourself” was Krishnamurti’s advice. And swift it has to be.

Swift it has to be for we are too happy to endorse the role of the spiritual seeker and indulge in it, to identify with the means and believe in a path. For the fact is that we are all so attached to being something. This is where we draw our pride and security from, in being something — anything. And if we were to be nothing, or that pure, quintessential empty being that we have learnt we are — well, then we want to be that too. Being something is a reflex that is a hard one to get rid of. This is our refusal to fully and irreversibly die. So you have to bypass your ambitious drive, as sacred and precious as it may be. You have to abandon all willingness to succeed, all impulse to be anymore than what you already are. Any desire to be more, or have more, than what you are, than what you have right now, is another escape into separation. Realisation is nothing but the end of your belief in not being realised, complete, perfect just as you are. You have to let yourself go. The totality of the spiritual quest is about removing a simple belief or misunderstanding, a stubborn bad habit, a single complexity that we have inadvertently introduced in the system. That there has to be something more than just what is — that’s a blatant excess of imagination. We cannot improve on the reality of our self as being, for its substance is of the realm of the non-objective. You cannot object on that. And this mistake can be unveiled with just a little application and a measure of common sense. With the simple dropping of something that isn’t even there.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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The Impeded Buddhas

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Holy Thread’ – by Rajasekharan Parameswaran – Wikimedia

This is what we want against all odds. No matter what. All of us. We want that love, that piece of eternity, although we may not voice it that way. Yet everything tells us that we will never get it. We can’t have it. It is not something to be had, and we know it. We have experienced its elusiveness a thousand times. But that knowledge doesn’t appease our seeking. This indefatigable quest is ingrained in our system. Something deep inside us is missing, is not quite completed. There is an insufficiency, a suffering that sets us on this path of longing. And this seeking has become such an intimate part of our lives, and has taken so many banal, inconspicuous forms, that it is not often noticed or recognised as such. But the fact is: all that we are truly looking for in our life is this deep, abiding peace, which ultimately comes from love. This is our path. Our journey. To get to that point where we don’t have to suffer and strive.

The problem comes with defining our search precisely. We are being too vague about it. Most of the time, it is not taken seriously. So we stroll about, taking divergent, contradictory roads. We are only interested in bits and pieces. A little happiness here and there will do. Our quest remains a fearful one, and mostly consists in avoiding difficulties, in being attached to what we have, and in acquiring little pleasures. But all we do through this, is to battle with happiness. In fact, the whole of our life is made of that, of this frustrated happiness, this thwarted love. Everything we do — including our most unkind, insensitive, foolish, ignorant actions — we do out of our deep, inner desire for happiness. In a way, we are all spiritual seekers. We are all engaged in the same frantic battle to be happy, at peace, rested, unafraid. We are all brothers and sisters in arms. We may do it in the most clumsy, mindless way, and be punished for it. Or we may be gifted with a thirsty, pointed mind, and all the tools necessary to meditate and recognise our true nature. So this seeking is not for a few elected, but extends to humanity’s tireless striving for betterment.

In fact, we are all — without our realising — accomplished Buddhas, beings of light. But we have chosen to identify with our shortcomings, our failures, our reactive patterns, our sorrows, all the inner waste that life produces along the way. Their objective nature makes them easier to associate with. Unfortunately, by doing so, we have troubled our innate clarity, have limited our infinite nature, and have soiled our innocence. We have become ignorant of who we are. We have confused our luminous, peaceful being with a few passing, trifling occurrences. We have all made the same mistake. Our self is the story of a disillusionment, of a shrouded delight to just be. We are all impeded Buddhas. Paradoxically, our nature as peace and happiness, because of its being veiled by our prejudiced sense of self, is the reason for our feeling incomplete, inadequate, and is in consequence the cause of our suffering. So most of our seeking is a direct product of our natural predisposition towards peace and happiness. Our disentangling from this false, unfortunate association may take us on various roads of varying difficulty and intensity. But the truth behind it all is that everyone — everyone — we meet on our journey is our equal partner in this most sacred quest. This recognition would go a long way in establishing some measure of love in our wounded world.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Rajasekharan Parameswaran (born 1964)

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Website:
– Rajasekharan Parameswaran (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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The Hypochondria of Being

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘The Imaginary Invalid’ – Honoré Daumier, 1860-62  – Wikimedia

There may have been a time in your life when you had a glimpse or experience that you had considered to be a major event or happening, some breaking news coming from god’s mouth. And yet you were left after it with only scattered shreds of truth. You had failed to inhabit your experience and make it yours. You had stayed on its threshold and didn’t dare to visit its interior and be blessed by it. You remained where and who you always were, with the bitter taste of a failed enlightenment as a topping. So you have entertained the memory of it. You have placed this experience on a pedestal. Worshipped it as something to be attained or achieved.

So you have searched for it. You have enquired, read, experienced, shared. Slowly, almost inadvertently, you have gathered some understanding. You have sailed on the sea of existence, harvesting here a tiny piece of truth, there a hazy recognition, maybe even a glimpse of a wee realisation, which you have again locked behind closed doors. And you have sailed further. It made you push or widen your understanding even more. Silently. Surreptitiously. Until one day home is coming closer to you. You find yourself inhabiting this truth. It is making itself known as being only who you are, or that which you are. It suddenly takes you by surprise and clarity. This is what it is!

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A playful interpretation of the nature of spiritual experience… (READ MORE…)

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Hide-and-Seek

Posted on by Alain Joly

The spiritual search is really only a process of hide-and-seek. When we are lost and unhappy, we seek some relief. Our sense of a peaceful self, which is our true nature, eludes us, is not felt — so we embark into the search for a happy life. The process is clear and evident: when our true nature is hidden, we are naturally engaged in seeking. We try to uncover it, to dispel the confusion. When it is revealed, we bask in it, enjoy our find, treasure it. We don’t keep running about, busying ourself, pretending we’re a seeker. That would make what we have found leave. That would put her off. That would make it flee. That would cover its presence again.

What would you say — when you were playing hide-and-seek as a kid — if your little friend, after having found you, would go on seeking you everywhere intently? If he left you here standing, unchecked? How would you feel? Well, that would put you off. You would resume the game, go back home, leave him to his folly. This is the same with awareness, with your inner sense of being. You seek it when it’s not there, when it’s covered, hidden. But when it is felt, when you are being reunited with your own precious sense of being, then it is time to suspend all activity and celebrate. Remember the giggles when you found your hidden friend — your big open eyes — the joy of it all — the taste of this reunion. This is also how you should be at the moment of re-union with you true sense of self. Enjoy it. Live the moment. Stay there — in that joy.

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A playful exploration of the ‘hide-and-seek’ nature of self-inquiry… (READ MORE…)

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What is Sought

Posted on by Alain Joly

“You are what needs to be found –
you are not the finder of anything –
the truth is in back of us,
not in front of us.
That’s why it can never be reached,
it can never be understood,
it can never be felt,
it can never be sensed —
because we are what needs
to be sensed, felt and seen.
We are not the seeker, 
we are what is sought.”

~ Eric Baret

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Quote by Eric Baret

Photo by Alain Joly

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The quote is excerpted from an interview in ‘Science & Nonduality’ entitled ‘What is Truth?’…

Bibliography:
– ‘Let the Moon Be Free: Conversations on Kashmiri Tantra’ – by Eric Baret (translation by Jeanric Meller) – (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

Website:
– Eric Baret (in French) 
– Eric Baret (YouTube Channel) 

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Other quotes from the category Beauty in Essence

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