The Falling of a Feather

Posted on by Alain Joly

The most extraordinary thing about this understanding is that nothing needs to perish inside you in order to access your essential being. Not a supposed self that might be getting in the way of your realisation. Not some kind of entity that you painstakingly have to dismantle before you can access the truth of your being. There is nothing to dismantle. Not a single little thing. That apparent, undesirable self is made of the fully formed self that is yet to be revealed. So don’t be fooled. Don’t even be interested in that limited self that you have bought into. There is no such self. Just a few random thoughts hanging around, and being amused by the trick they have played on you. Don’t give that self even a second glance. What kind of spiritual seeker would you be, wasting your precious time and energy on a self that has not even the beginning of a reality? Don’t get involved with any single idea about yourself.

So don’t fiddle with yourself, get busy suppressing, controlling, practicing, re-ordering. No toughness is required. No crime needed here, and not a bit of violence necessary. Only the noticing that the self you imagined yourself to be is not here. Believe me, there is an awful amount of effort that you can spare yourself. The path is already all cleared. Your true nature is in plain view just as you are. See that what you are looking for is no more than the quiet and gentle falling of a feather of awareness on your experience as it presents itself. Nothing more. A non-happening. The letting go of an idea. So be vigilant. Keep your heart open. See how wide your vision is already. Get accustomed to the light of simply being. You may need time to make it your default experience. But don’t forget that non-violence always prevails with God’s grace. But could you expect any less coming from such a loving being?

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Meditating on the gentleness of the recognition process… (READ MORE…)

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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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The Ultimate Absolution

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Spring Waters’ – Vilhelms Purvitis, 1910 – WikiArt

Isn’t it wonderful to discover that you cannot be destroyed? No matter the magnitude of your heartbreaks. No matter the betrayals and the dishonesties — all that is unforgivable in others or in yourself. No matter the untold suffering inflicted to your body or to your self. Isn’t it a blessing to notice that you cannot be broken no matter what? You can believe to be broken, sullied, doomed and punished for your sins. But in reality you are not and cannot be. You are as beautiful as you ever wished to be. Worse even. No quantity of imagination, no originality of a mind will ever prepare you to comprehend the pure and unsullied nature of your self, which equals to nothing but the beauty of your heart.

The only thing that can ever be hurt or sullied is a thought or a belief. You will be hurt in proportion to the extent of your identifications. The greater your illusion, and the sharper will be the pain when it is challenged, or diminished, or trampled. A belief is a living thing. It is not just a dead abstraction that can be easily ignored or overcome. A belief is as alive and sensitive as a self can be. We are made of that belief, we have clothed ourself with it and have become vulnerable to all that can undermine it. That’s how you become a sufferer. That’s how you can imagine to be sullied, diminished, destroyed. It is all contained in one single belief about yourself. And it can be released in one single act of contemplation: Seeing yourself as you are, and not as you imagine yourself to be.

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An exploration into the true nature of forgiveness… (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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