A Universal Cure

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Creation of the World XIII’ (part) – Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, 1906 – WikiArt

The part that we’re playing is not small. We are not living in a corner, limited by the skin of our bodies, and the world is not limited to the time and space in which it seems to unfold and have its conflicts and sufferings. The world has a foot in the infinite. In fact not just a foot, it is bathed in infinity, in eternity, and so are we, we who have been made small and suffering entities by our limiting beliefs and prejudices. We are ruling the world with our thoughts and then blame ourself for it. For the results are of course as limited as our thoughts can be. We have made the world the hostage of our limitations, and its hostility is in fact our own, that we have projected unto it. We believe and think we can only play small and limited, but in fact, we haven’t quite seen ourself as we are, and from this blindness comes the entirety of the world’s agony, and ours too.

Fortunately, ours and the world’s true essence comes spilling over in every possible way through the manifestation of beauty, and through the many expressions of love or peace. That’s what makes it so attractive in spite of all, and that’s where we should be way more curious than we are. Beauty, love, intelligence, peace, are not created by the random structure of a body and the passing thoughts in our mind. This is not where they are manufactured. They are born of infinity and wholeness. They are the expressions of the One, which we can never own. We are in fact rather owned by them, embraced by the infinity that is their reality. We must surrender to this god given identity. We don’t have to play small. Would we think of god playing small? So why would we of ourself, who are like the arm and willpower of God in God’s dream? So we don’t have to play small in this world. We ought to play our given, sacred part. We ought to be what we are and recognise ourself and the world as a whole, indivisible being. A being that is nothing but our own, that is experienced here and now every time we say ‘I Am’, and that we are fortunate enough to share in.

Act on the world from within. Mould it from there, from the source of yourself and of the world, from the ground of being that you feel as your own being, and that is the common ground of all beings and all things. This ground has the best ability. Religions haven’t called it Paradise or Eden for nothing. There is always a truth behind every misunderstood word. This ground of being is where you can play big, from within, from the interior of everything and everyone. You don’t have to create a new reality. It’s already there within and without, for the taking and for the looking. This reality is already here, already yours. There is love and harmony woven in the fabric of life, just here and now in and as our given experience. Our efforts to heal ourself and the world are veiling this reality, and so are our limited thoughts, which carry the false reality of there being persons and separation instead of the reality of one being and the peace contained in the infinite. Our own unlimited being is the ground where we can play big, for it is as large as God’s being if we are willing to notice its real, undefeatable nature. In fact, being is a universal cure, and it’s always at hand.

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1875-1911)

~~~

.

Website:
– Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (Wikipedia)

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

.

God’s Flower Bed

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Fleur’ – Jean Benner, 1860 – WikiArt

.
The difficulty in the spiritual endeavour is that we have to question the unquestionable. We have to doubt the obvious. We have to turn the stones that we have carefully placed here to pave the road. One such indisputable truth is that we choose our thoughts. That the decisions or actions we are taking, the thoughts or attitudes we are having, are the products of a controller, of a self that has them, chooses them. But is it so? Have we even tried to question it? Have we ever looked if there truly was a self here in capacity to choose? What if there wasn’t? What if this self, this ‘I’ that we seem to be, only drew its existence from our imagination? What if our own self was just another thought? If this entity that we love to pamper and strengthen was not there, not at all? If we have played a game with ourself? If there is here no person outside our indulgence in having the thought of one?

Many of our conflicts and problems in life come precisely from the belief that we are the chooser of our thoughts, that there is an ‘I’, a person here that runs the show when there is not. That’s the mistake, the original sin, to think of ourself as a doer, a thinker, a separate entity that has control, that manufactures happiness, freedom, and is responsible for our experience such as it is. We want to carry the load of our DNA, of our body, thoughts, habits, suffering, or even happiness, and not let them go. We want to be grandiose. The truth is: there is no personal ’I’ that can act on our thoughts or decision-making. These are better left alone, and informed by the only ‘I’ there is, that finds its true essence in the infinity of being, which is selfless. With this understanding or realising, we would come to treat what we have as a jewel of the most precious kind — beyond control but lovingly tailored for us by the universe and its supreme intelligence.

[…]

An enquiry on our ability to choose our thoughts or not… (READ MORE…)

.

Humanness

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘The Human Mountain: Towards the Light’ – Edvard Munch, 1927-29 – Wikimedia

There is no human being. This is quite extraordinary to think of it, and even positively mind-blowing. But turn it around as much as you may, the true self of man is not where a body is. It doesn’t take shelter there. A body, or even a mind for that matter, is way too small and inappropriate to house your beautiful being. There is no room there. For how could the infinite enter something that is finite, limited, prone to decay and death? How could something that knows no beginning and no end, be contained in a passing thought, in a mind which is changing, developing, forgetting, believing, cheating and being cheated? In being, you won’t find the beginning of a change, won’t find even the possibility of death. In being, there is no forgetting who you are. Only a mind can forget its own nature, not because there is something there that can forget, but because thoughts, feelings, perceptions, when they are believed to be yourself, are hindering your true nature, rendering it as if absent. What is left is only a cheating thought that believes itself to be real as self, when it is not.

There is nothing depressing in not being a human being, and nothing demeaning. Being is such a malleable thing that we still retain the illusion of being a human being, a person, as we do now, but with the difference that this illusion won’t hide the reality that is behind it, and that is our true identity. Losing our identity as a person doesn’t mean that we won’t feel compassion for another, or love for our beloved, for love is not contained in being a self separate from an other. Love doesn’t need to be directed. We are not doing love, let alone giving it. Love is the expression or signature contained in our simply being. It is the feeling of being that irradiates in every directions, and that is shared as that which we are here and now. And don’t think either that you will lose your ambition, but it will be reoriented to be not your ambition, but the very contagion of being in every aspect of your life and world. And don’t think that you will miss out on happiness, for happiness was never yours, never your expression, never contained in achieving or obtaining a thing that thought has said you desire. Happiness is the very feeling of being, that we cannot contain or limit, but which splashes over to colour life with a golden hue of oneness.

So there is only being taking momentarily the clothes of a human being. But being itself has no qualifications, no colours which would render it a definable entity. The colours and the qualifications are not pertaining to being. They are the property of everything that appears in being, but is not being. They are in body, thoughts, sensations, perceptions, in all the existing things that come and go, dancing to make the form of a world, of what we call a human, a dog, a mountain, or the parking lot in which we park our car. To be being won’t diminish our feeling of being a person. It will enrich it, for being is the essence of a person. Being is the essential of our experience as a human being, only we don’t see that, don’t know that. Our focusing on the belief to be an objective entity that thinks, feels, and perceives has made us blind to our reality. So let’s remind ourself that there are no limited human beings, but only one unlimited being. This knowing and feeling of being only one unlimited being is a source of constant awe in life. And this vision is what gives its true colour and reality to our imaginary humanness.

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Edvard Munch (1863-1944)

~~~

.

Website:
– Edvard Munch (Wikipedia)

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

,

A Chronicle of Thought

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Transept of Ewenny Priory, Glamorganshire’ – J.M.W. Turner, 1797 – WikiArt

Most of our thinking is so much unnecessary work. Consider all the worries we had, that have been fuelled by thought, and have now evaporated into thin air. Think of all our expectations and dreams that were never fulfilled, replaced by just being what we are now. There’s been so much energy wasted in these internal fights with reality. So much presence that we have missed or hidden for being tied up with these endless rounds of endless thoughts. Thinking can be a damaging factor in our being aware of our utmost reality. And we most often don’t need to have thoughts to actually be caught in their net. Thoughts are good at delegating. They will sooner than we think be replaced by chronic tensions, nasty feelings, diffuse depression, and the uneasiness of being a self. All the troubles contained in being a person — the endless suffering that goes with it, and the seeking that never seems to stop. In fact, we have been sculpted by our thoughts. We owe thoughts all that we have seemingly become. It really gives me shivers to think about it.

Our thoughts are both the cause and result of the idea of ourself they have imposed on us over time. We have been a follower of thoughts. We have been conditioned by them. They have us in their spell, and we could spend a lifetime without confronting them, without going right to the bottom of their essence. Have you ever met a thought face to face? Do it now. Ask your next unnecessary thought that simple question: ‘Why are you here?’, and see its reaction. See how it will shy away and retreat. Thoughts are not courageous beings. They thrive out of our carelessness. They love our being inattentive. It goes the same way with the self they have made us into. If it is left to act alone, that self will never leave you out of its own will. It will keep hiding your most truthful identity. It will continue feeding you with its thoughtfully rehearsed beliefs and illusions. You will keep being an entity. You won’t see the infinite that your being is made of. Silence and eternity will keep evading you. They too are shy — they don’t like when that boastful self is around.

Thoughts are silent workers, and pernicious ones. We think we have them when they in fact have us. The problem is not so much in their being there, but in what they have left in their trail for us to believe in. That’s why we call them ‘thought’ — a past participle. Thoughts are known when they have already been thought. They are agents from the past, that are here for a mission. They have created an entity that is in turn thinking them with the view of keeping itself strong and alive. So we are caught and doomed, aren’t we? Well… maybe not. Maybe thoughts too have their weaknesses, and I’ll tell you one. Pierce your thoughts through to get to their ground of being. Your freedom from thoughts is in your looking beyond them. And your freedom from being a self is in giving attention to what beholds that self, to what gives it the light necessary for its appearance, and for the knowing of your thoughts. Everything that you can know is lit by a knowing faculty. Be engrossed by that light, be only that one, for there is no thinker behind any of your thoughts, and no knower behind any of your ‘knowns’. Espouse the being in you that is responsible for being aware of everything — thoughts, objects, experiences, the feeling of being a self separate from the world. Just stay present in, as, and to this deepest, most intimate presence — the one which you cannot know, or even be as an object, and which will deliver you from being a self. In that deliverance is contained the severing of all the thoughts that are like the bricks and walls of your illusory self. You will hear the sound of the rubbles crashing at your feet. This sound is the sound that freedom makes. Silence comes afterwards — and this silence is you, who you are before the coming of any thought, truthful or not. But really, nothing is new here — after all, Paul the Apostle said it all long ago in far more succinct terms:

“Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory,
are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory.”
~ 2 Corinthians, 3:16-18

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Quote by Paul the Apostle (5-64/65 AD)

Painting by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851)

~~~

.

Websites:
– Paul the Apostle (Wikipedia)
– J.M.W. Turner (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

.

Twisted Rainbow

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Hope’ (detail) – George Frederick Watts, 1886 – WikiArt

Unhappiness is a strange thing, for against all appearances, and under serious investigation, it is not really found. We are making it up as we go along. In fact, there is no such thing as an absence of happiness. Yet we are nurturing this absence with great consistency, designing our so called unhappiness with care, through our thoughts, our memory, our attachments, our stubborn persistence. But only try to experience its effects outside your thoughts and feelings, in the absence of your mind, and you’d have to confess that you can’t find here anything like a misery. The reason is: unhappiness is not a thing in itself. It is veiled happiness. It is the covering up of your innate peace. It is past residues and future expectations tossing the tranquillity of the now. But all such disturbances, discomforts, or distresses, are always only temporary events, passing weathers distracting us from what is always here, always faithful, always to be trusted: the peace contained in simply being. This peace is in fact the very making and backbone of our lives, its solid background. It could never leave you no matter how hard you may try. Its not being felt is a form of snobbery. You have missed your innate joy in reason of your not looking in the right place. You have neglected your true, natural being for wanting to be somebody. You have been scorning yourself out of vainglory. In fact, unhappiness is but the simple mourning of a loved one who is missed: our true self. It is but a distraction from the boredom of our ignorance. Or a warning for a wrong turn taken.

Unhappiness is not found in physical pain, or in the natural grief following a loss. These are all compatible with happiness, as is a shared, compassionate sorrow. These are wise and healthy responses to life situations and challenges. Unhappiness is of a different nature. It is more like a habit or an indulgence. Often, we would rather be unhappy than shatter a well-rehearsed idea of ourself, in which we have invested our most cherished identity. Unhappiness is also the result of a fallacy, and a form of delusion. It is a shadow which we nourish through our belief in being a person caught between seeking and resisting, and the reward of fulfilment. Unhappiness is only as real as our limited self is. One will follow the other both in death and in birth. So really, unhappiness is a self-inflicted pain. In a way, we could say that it is a sin. It is ourself being driven away from our happy, forgotten nature, and bound to the suffering self which we have identified ourself with. It is our twisted rainbow in the sky of ignorance, that appears naturally without being truly there. It is created by the rain of all our renouncements, of our constant search for security and approval, through accumulation and avoidance. So next time you meet some measure of unhappiness in your life, don’t believe it. Don’t be caught up and allured by its convincing appearance. See through it until you find its referent. See that unhappiness is not real as affliction or suffering. It only exists as the sum of all that hinders the happiness which is the nature of your self as being. Your misery may in fact only be a passing, unassuming thought, maybe an innocent, unchallenged belief, or just a feeling hovering about, which you are taking too seriously. Not very much really. Hardly enough to send you far and away from the delight of simply being.

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by George Frederic Watts (1817-1904)

~~~

.

Websites:
– George Frederic Watts ( Wikipedia)
– Hope (Watts) (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

.

Taking Sides

Posted on by Alain Joly

Don’t you want to be just made of that? To wholly embrace this experience? Not to stay in a little corner, to be always wanting, claiming, hoping, complaining, but to find yourself being the bearer of all things, merging with the ten thousand colours of experience — not being just one side of it? To be whole is never a matter of choice, but parting is. Awareness is always choiceless. If you exert a choice, in the form of a chooser, then chances are that you don’t know the true nature of living. You’re not aware, no — not yet aware. You’re still sleeping in a dark cave. You haven’t contemplated all that life is. You haven’t truly been amongst the trees, and been taken by the harmonious course of a bird. You haven’t been a lover of the grass, and a true partner of that heap of dried, dead leaves in the autumn air. You haven’t quite yet mingled with the clouds, and merged your being with the being of the sky. No, not quite yet. For now, you’re just being a chooser.

Don’t cheat on your true self and being, by partnering with a thought, a feeling, or some particular object. Don’t be abused by the noises and colours of experience, to the detriment of the silent presence that hosts them. There is something profoundly sad about taking sides — identifying with opinions, beliefs, preferences, judgments. For really, to take sides is to be a self. It is to play in the limited courtyard of your thoughts and feelings, and not be touched by the immensity of not knowing, of having no preferences, of not being a chooser. To take sides means: you haven’t let reality be as it is. You have intervened, and in doing so, have limited your self, have made it into a poor little thing.

For taking sides will send you on the dangerous road to fear, loneliness, and confusion. It will make you retire in the fake refuge of your separate self. Remember this: every time you take sides, every time you exert a control, you are not being ‘you’ — I mean your true ‘I’. You have been dragged and caught by the cunningness of a thought. You have been robbed of your essential self. You have made yourself into a point of view with a limited scope and understanding. You have been squeezed in a little corner of your invention. I am begging it to you now: Stop being anything. Don’t think yourself to be a body, and therefore be an insider. Don’t push away experience, and therefore be an outsider. Don’t be sidetracked with a sideshow. No. Make your true self the real show of experience. You won’t regret it. You will be standing on the stage of life under a shower of light and applauds. For then, you have vanquished all that separating gig. You have given your life the colour of life itself. You have treated your being with the being of all selves and things. And you have exchanged your never ending complaints with a life lived in utter thankfulness. Just by not taking sides.

.

~~~

Text and photo by Alain Joly

~~~

.

Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

.