The Hand of God

Posted on by Alain Joly

‘Hand of God, stained glass – Dayton Saint Mary Catholic Church – Wikimedia

Isn’t it extraordinary that our whole life is spent in the present ? That no part of it, ever, happened somewhere, sometime, that was not the time or place of now ? We speak of the past or the future all the time, but in fact, we are prisoner of the now. We can never leave the present, which is in reality nothing but presence. It would be tempting to think that we are a body, somebody progressing in time through a succession of moments. But it is a naive way of thinking, for we can never find that moment — that ‘now’ — in time. It is elusive, doesn’t know a border, is reluctant to have a beginning and an end. The now has a smooth, timeless reality. It cannot move, cannot know place or time. The now is of the order of essence. It is a fundament. You can never go beyond it, or before it. It is you. You are not in the now — you ‘are’ the now. You are yourself where you live in. ‘I Am’ is the only time there is, which is no time at all. And you are not a prisoner, for there is an infinite amount of freedom in the absence of time, an infinite amount of space in the absence of place.

Time is for objects, not for you. If you think to be one such object, then you are in its claws. For your body has a beginning and an end, just like every object in existence. So choose who you are carefully. Don’t be tempted to be exclusively your body and mind, for time will affect you in the most vicious way. It will lie to you, telling you that you have an age and a limit, that you are as fragile as your body or mind can be, destined to wither and die. Time is a handy construct of thought that measures activity, movement, appearance, decay. But before the appearance of body, mind, world, is a space which is immovable, inalterable, inalienable. This space is not to be found outside yourself. It is your very essence, who you are at your deepest, when you have ceased giving your attention to what is only living and thriving at the surface, and are willing to dive in the most substantial essence of who you are.

So notice that where and when you live is only experienced now. This is no accident. See that the future is unattainable, except in the now. Understand that there was only a past as the experience of ‘now’. So now is the only reality — not time, not place, which are only appearances created by thought and sense perception. See through the many appearances of life, to land where and when you have always been — in your own inescapable presence here and now. The now is not a fleeting moment, it is massively here. It is stretching itself to infinite proportions, and renders time a ridiculous, though necessary passing notion. The now has the flavour of something new, for without the conditioning of the past and the expectation of the future, is a life that is fresh, embedded in unknowing — notice that you can only know the past or the future. The now is also something that stands right in the middle of yourself, that is at no distance, that knows no separation as past or future, whose immediacy is total for it is blended in and as your very essence. So comes a time when the now loses its time-related signification to expose its true nature as presence. The now is maintained right through as the very nature of everyone and everything. The now is how the infinite keeps you in its hand. It is the hand of God.

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Text by Alain Joly

Photo by Nheyob on Commons

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Website:
– Hand of God (Art) (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
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A Ghostly Thing

Posted on by Alain Joly

We only ever become within the course of time. We seem to always want to move cautiously, step by step. We don’t consider a becoming that could be achieved in an instant. Quicker even. A becoming free of the constraints of time or place, that could not be influenced by our thoughts, conditionings, beliefs, desires. A becoming that doesn’t find its worth in objective experience. A becoming that has no movement, that is still, confident, ever present. A becoming which bears in itself no change, and that was here before you even had the idea to change, or become, or evolve.

After all, when it comes to our identity, to who we truly are, ‘becoming’ seems to be a very poor idea. What could we become that we are not already? What is here in our very being that could become, that could be different, or better, or more? Our identity has been settled from time immemorial. It was here before even the appearance of time, which is but the product of our patterns of thinking. Before the appearance of place, which is but the product of our ability for sensing, seeing, hearing, touching. We have our identity and our perfection — our changelessness — hidden in being.

So, could we not become what we are? That’s the real question. How do we become our true identity? How do we espouse who we truly are, or be that thing which we are that cannot be deformed, changed, soiled, or even defined? That implies understanding both the one who wants to become, and that which he or she wants to become. There is a becoming, a change, a better or a worse, a less or a more, for the body-mind. But is there a becoming for ourself? Is there anyone here that could ever achieve becoming? Look for the one who wants to become, and notice that you will never find it. Becoming is a ghostly thing.

You cannot become. That’s a lovely idea, one that comes from another idea. From the belief that you are something, someone, that can change, evolve. There is in our being no room for change. Being is complete. It cannot be bent according to our beliefs, hopes, ambitions. So there is no becoming that which we are, and no one to become being — a better being, or a worse being. Being is the only thing shining in our being. There is no one here that could ever want to become. We may give to our body-mind more skills, more strength, better abilities, but to ourself, we can give nothing but the faculty of being only being.

So go only for what you already are. That’s truly what you want to become: what you already are. There is not a better becoming than that. That will spare you being a person caught in the effects and weariness of time and place. That will spare you being in the prison of a self, all the separation and loneliness involved in becoming anything or anyone. That will free you — to not become. That will give you exquisite joy — to only be what you are. That will give you certainty, confidence — to have your own being as your changeless, unbreakable horizon. May you become what you are. Believe me, this is heaven.

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“Creatures of a day! What is anyone?
What is anyone not? A dream of a shadow
Is our mortal being. But when there comes to men
A gleam of splendour given of heaven,
Then rests on them a light of glory
And blessed are their days.”
~ Pindar, 5th century BC (Pythian 8)

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Text by Alain Joly

Quote by Pindar (c.518-c.438 BC)

Photo by Alain Joly

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Website:
– Pindar (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
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Meditation in a Nutshell

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Mediterranean Seacost’ – Isaac Levitan, 1890 – WikiArt

When you have an hour in front of you given to meditation or contemplation, don’t ever think that you are engaging in something that is happening in time and place. It is not an hour that you have, that you occupy with an activity. Nothing is taking place, and nothing is lasting in time. Forget these well-rehearsed notions. Your meditation is a presence in which time and place cease to appear as a frame in which you live. They die out in yourself, are melted in your essence, to never reappear quite in the same way. They are washed by your living presence. You are cleansed of their conceptual limitations. Meditation is like a good bath, and you are the water. Nobody is having a bath. Presence is not what you are in. Presence is what you are, and you are nowhere to be found.

There is only a sinking, a deepening of presence. Borders are discovered to be not there. Walls falling all around. Divisions re-assembled. Your being ceases to be mistaken for a limited entity, but is solely the wild, unlimited, unlocated, dimensionless expanse of the nature of everything and everyone. You are in a place that doesn’t have any location, and where time cannot enter. Presence is the only thing in presence. Your life ceases to take place in time, which appears to be just a tool that finds its expression through your thinking process. And space is the illusion that perceptions are creating for you to have a location. Presence provides you with all the necessary appearances to create a body-mind-world. Meanwhile, you as pure being remain untouched, changeless, massive, solid, teeming. Meditation as an activity has ended. Who could possibly meditate in the absence of a meditator?

You have now landed in a spot where you have no need to be a separate entity, and no advantage for it. You have ceased being a person with a story and a destiny. Your body doesn’t qualify you anymore, and is not the recipient of your self. You have become independent, free, non-aligned. You acquire the proportions of a whole world, which has now become your most intimate body. You have lost all qualifications, all identities, and have surrendered to the one all encompassing, all pervading being. Nothing could describe you now. What you are has been relieved of every objective substance. You couldn’t worry the least for your self, which you discover to be devoid of even the possibility of being harmed, diminished, or impaired. Suffering appears to you like the most exotic thing there is. Hope is not even on the list, and all impulse of seeking is gone and forgotten. Wholeness fills you all, and makes you the thing you had previously sought, hoped and suffered for, in every possible direction except in the direction of your own present, inescapable being.

What you have longed for is what you are, which is being alone. When you have been stripped of all the attributes that pertain to time and place, to qualities, conditionings, situations, objects, including the body-mind-world you apparently live in, then you may come upon what you truly are. A being alone, unattached, empty of place, devoid of time, fierce and fearless like a peaceful, unmovable, gargantuan warrior. Why a warrior? Because you as being have subdued all forms, and have been made the vanquisher and pacifier of every division, limitation, separation, and defect. You have consented to your formless nature. This verily, is meditation in a nutshell.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Isaac Levitan (1860-1900)

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Website:
– Isaac Levitan (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
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The Ending of Time

Posted on by Alain Joly

“Don’t wait for the right time, make this time right.” I read this quote lately, attributed to Neem Karoli Baba. Let’s meditate on it. For no uttering of a master is ever innocuous and randomly said. It comes from a deep source that is ever overflowing. If you do catch what it means, if you chew what these words contain of wisdom and truth, you will see how the now of time blends into the now of being. For there is no now of time. The now of time is a well-rehearsed illusion. Its only reality is practical, for the right functioning of the body in the field of experience. But there is one other reality that is here now, and this is the reality of yourself, of who you are truly in and as the eternal now of your being. In this newly discovered reality, you will notice that there is no possibility of waiting for the right time. The right time for an understanding is a handy projection to give you the hope that you need, and spare you an immediate death, a confrontation with your true self. Your hidden assumption behind the so-called ‘right time’ is: ‘You should better postpone. You should better wait. There is a sometime that will come right one day in the future. So keep at it. Keep meditating, keep practising. The fruit will come eventually. You will come to deserve it. But not here, not now. It is for another now — a future now.’ But let’s be cautious here. For the right time will never come. Of that I can assure you. It can’t. This time is not there. It has no reality. It is an escape. A postponing for your own sake. Cleverness at work. There is no waiting with truth. This timeless now that your being is made of, is the only time there is and will ever be. Assert this truth. Lean towards it. See that understanding already shines in and as your own being. Spare yourself the waiting. The ‘right time’ is a spiritual myth.

Make this time right. Make it the ever flowing home of your being. Feel that you are now, the now you seek in the future, and this now can never leave you. This now will never pass, and never come to be. This now has grown to infinite proportion. It envelops you. It cannot be pushed to another now, for now is always one. It has no duration. Feel that you are yourself this ‘right time’ which you want to postpone and find in the future. Sink into it. Make it disappear as time, and reveal its true identity as being. That’s how you make this time right: by being the being that you are. By living your truth. By sensing that what you are is not an object in time and space, but is the very container in which time and space can spread their limbs. Time is what thought has superimposed on the reality of being. If you stay at the level of time, it means that you are still living in your thoughts, and are lured by their promises. To make this time right is to go beyond thought. It is to pierce time through — which is yourself as thought — and discover that beyond time is a nature that is timeless. Beyond the idea of your being a separate, time-bound entity, is a presence that is always here, always now, and therefore always true and right. This presence doesn’t need a now to come into being. This presence is what you are, untouched by time or place, ignorant of even the possibility of ignorance, and devoid of any idea of lack or seeking. You will never again wait or expect to be anything other than what you are now, for being is your true and unavoidable, indissociable nature. From now on, this time of now will forever be the right one, for the simple reason that it bears within itself the ending of time, and the revealing of the unborn. In fact, the ultimate virtue of time is in the eternity that it hides.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

Quote by Neem Karoli Baba (1900-1973)

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Website:
– Neem Karoli Baba (Wikipedia)

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The Scrutiny of Now

Posted on by Alain Joly

You cannot understand truth in the future. For one good reason which is simply: there is no such thing as a future. The future is forever doomed to be a projection of thought. In reality, you will never meet anything that is not now. You are eternally married to the now as presence. The now is where you are, when you are, and also what you are. The now is encircling you from all directions, and you are bound to it, caught in its perpetual enchantment. So if you long to understand who you are, look at yourself now. Don’t postpone it for another moment that exists only in your imagination. To postpone truth is to never come anywhere near it. Understanding will never happen in another place than the place where you happen to be now. Now is your cathedral of understanding. You are being showered by its benefits every time you look for its presence within, for this presence of now is nothing but who you are, what you are. So if you think of the now as a moment that exists outside or independently of yourself, you haven’t looked well enough. For you are in fact the now. I mean it: you, the totality of who you are, your purest essence, is that thing which is called, amongst various other names, now. The now is that which you refer to when you say simply ‘I’. I know it doesn’t look like it, but you actually draw your identity from the now, for there exists nothing under the sun but this timeless presence whose place of living is in and as the now. This is why you can only understand yourself now. No other moment is fit for it, for any other moment is nothing but your hiding place, your desperate attempt to avoid drowning into the timelessness of now.

So don’t ever run away from now. Face it now — the now. Don’t think you can meet it again tomorrow. Now is a rendezvous that you can never miss. It will happen only once, which is now. But the good news is that you have never been anywhere but now. You are under the scrutiny of now. You live by its rule. Only you have to see that, and to see it now. Don’t think about it, for any thought you may have about anything — including the now — belongs to the past or the future, which actually don’t exist outside thought. Don’t think that you live separate from the now, as an entity bound to the effects of time. So let us not be so malleable, so easily cheated on. We all play so many tricks to avoid being now — which we are anyway, and anyhow. Oh! The silliness of it all — that constant stepping away from that which we are; that repeated removal from our being simply now; and the fear and suffering involved in not abiding as and by the now. The effort that it takes — to be away from home, displaced, a self in denial of its true and inescapable identity, refusing to die in the grip of truth. ‘Not now! Not now!’ Well, ok… But when if not now? Truth is for every-where and for every-when. It has no place to live outside of now. We are an ocean of presence that is so inevitably present and pregnant, that it appears to be not here. The reason is: it has lent its being to timelessness. Now is the Eternal that we have mistakenly taken to be a moment. A mishap that hides only one thing: Myself — the ‘I’ that is the now, for times eternal.

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Text by Alain Joly

Photo by Elsebet Barner

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An Explanation of Reality

Posted on by Alain Joly

You may not be interested in these matters. You may be an atheist, a non-believer. You may have an aversion towards all things spiritual. It doesn’t matter. You will get it all the same, that the world, the universe, everything — including yourself — are not there. Nothing is really there. Not in the way you had imagined. This is not like everybody has been telling you. Not at all. And you will see it with your logic, with your scepticism — a golden value by the way —, with your Cartesian, rational, solid mind. I will explain. You just have to listen carefully. There is no world, and I will expose to you how it is so. I will demonstrate it to you.

You may think there are billions of other people, countless other versions of suffering, a multitude of experiences, a world teeming with crowds and achievements, and all manner of things, from the most sublime to the most appalling. And there are indeed multiple points of views. But all of the world’s sufferings will always ever be experienced as yourself. It will be for whoever you may be now, and be experienced in whatever experience you may be experiencing now. The whole world is always only a first person experience of the world — in whoever you happen to be at this moment. When another person experiences suffering, it will then be this person’s only reality, and so on. So you will always ever be yourself. There are no ways to be another than yourself, to have another experience that your own experience of being yourself — which you experience right now. So the totality of humanity is contained in that one subjective experience of being. It is all there — in being. The billions of subjectivities, the myriad of experiences, the unspeakable suffering, the expansion and the veiling, the gruesome and the awe, the glory and sacredness of truth, and the compelling ignorance. Every experience of every possible being in this world is in essence made of that one experience of pure, ethereal being. And suffering is when you don’t know that.

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An explanation on how the reality of everything is only being… (READ MORE…)

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Where Eternity Hides

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Daoist immortal Han Xiangzi’ – Zhang Lu, early 16th century – Wikimedia

I think that our search for the ultimate could find some relief in giving attention to what is small, unnoticed, humble. All the things unremarkable, unassuming, that we pass in life without a glance. You know these moments when we sit down doing nothing. All these things easy, like resting, breathing, eating, sleeping, that can be achieved without our forceful participation. These moments or actions are closer to god than we may think. They live in a grey area where they flirt with the non-objective and slip out of our attention to hide in the sublime, to rest in the blissful, unattached, forgotten. Their presence is made absence, like for the space between two thoughts. But don’t let them leave you. Strive to own them. This is where eternity hides. This is why presence is so much emphasised in spiritual matters; why, in Zen practice, students are encouraged to take pride in habitual, so-called boring or unimportant activities like washing dishes, serving tea, or chopping wood. Forget all your achievements of glory. Put aside your pointed quest for the sublime. Your selfish ride towards the selfless. Go for the minute, the nanoscopic. Take interest in the small and the ordinary. Have a passion for the shallow, like the sacred lotus does.

After all, god has made beauty the most accessible thing there is. And love is so close and intimate that it has been described to be nothing but our very self or being, our natural if forgotten identity. Presence is the most unassuming thing there is, almost as to be nothing. Happiness never comes when invited or provoked, and real beauty has never been seen showing off. But don’t be deceived here. Unassuming doesn’t mean not assuming. And what appears to be nothing can be revealed as the most blatant ‘something’ there is. All spiritual endeavour really boils down to seeing the unseen, and experiencing the non-objective. Your sense of simply being is the most shy presence you will ever encounter in your life, and yet you will find nothing more attractive than its discreet and humble presence. There is glory in simply being, without going for qualities, qualifications, objects, pretence. Silence is louder than noise, and truth more clamorous than any lie can be.

All that religions and spiritual traditions ever do is to proclaim this presence that is already here amongst us, as our very being, and to point towards all that is hiding it from our gaze. Simple-minded by nature, the mind has chosen to ignore it, entrenched as it is in all things objective. It has deemed it insignificant. But the so-called insignificant is simply where the mind cannot go, which is literally everywhere except in objective experience. That leaves for quite a wide field in the unknown, in the hidden, discarded as being too unremarkable to be made a conscious thing. This misjudgment is our mistake. This is our sin. For god is hiding in the small and the insignificant, in everything unremarkable to the mind. But it is not on account of its small size or nature that this presence is unreachable to the mind, but rather that the mind, as the belief in being a separate self, has taken all the place and hides the infinite from our eyes. Just as time, as an idea born of the mind, has taken all the place and veils eternity. This is the extent of the mind’s indulgence. But its conscious retiring or humbling will reveal the sheer glory of all that was left in the hidden. And in doing so will lift the veil on the real nature of our self. God’s being revealed.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Zhang Lu (1464–1538)

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Website:
– Zhang Lu (Wikipedia)

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Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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