One Living Being

Posted on by Alain Joly

Truth is when the one who desires truth is not there. That one is a flaw. It is superimposed on the truth it is looking for, and veils it, makes it unreachable. It tramples it, literally. It makes it misty, obscure, mysterious. But truth is an obvious reality, if we don’t put it at a distance. If we don’t imagine it as something. Truth is not a thing, a concept. It is what we are — present, alive, real. Only we have to leave, recede, tiptoe. It’s all it takes, to not be boastful about it, to not think we don’t have it, to not assert the lie of our being someone. Being someone will push truth into the darkness, unseen therefore forgotten, hidden therefore to be sought. Our looking for it is the difficulty. Truth is to be approached with subtlety and utmost delicacy. Not that it is fragile, it is not. But it is sensitive to our feeling separate from it. It doesn’t like it. It shrinks at the thought of it, that we are looking for it, wanting it, being ambitious about it. Truth is not to be conquered, practised, refined. Truth is here fully dressed. It is our most fitting attire. The very being of our being. Massive. Obvious. If we let it open up, unfurl, spread its all-pervasive presence, and its creative, mind-blowing, self-evident, undeniable power and eminence.

But if we think we’re not enough, well then we’re not enough. If we want to indulge in being a person, a poor me, then we fall from a great height. We suffer from being separated from our essence, our quintessence. We feel the burden of our constant, intrinsic, congenital seeking. It becomes our identity, to be a self seeking, to live in separation, to be fearful of this condition, and a believer of ideas. We live in our mind, struggle with our beliefs, conflict with experience. We are not what we should be, and we feel it, know it, dread it. And we are crippled by our impending death, which we cannot understand, fathom, and marvel at. So it really comes down to ending a belief, a simple belief, that cheated us. That our body, our thoughts, feelings, senses are substantial when they are but a dream. That our being finds its reality in our body and mind when our essential is not there. Our essential draws its reality from a presence that is infinite, eternal, unfathomable, loaded with love, peace, and a creative impetus. Nothing else than this presence is at play in our experience. We realise that we are just one living being, which cannot be divided, and has no other than itself. We realise that we are that, in spite of all evidence and impression. This self that we believe ourself to be is in fact secretly made of that, if the mist of its fallacious reality breaks apart and reveals its hidden nature. There is no separate, distinctive, solitary self. Only this shared, glorious one being. Then it falls into place that, for exemple, “I and my Father are one.” (John, 10:30) And that “In him we live, and move, and have our being.” (Acts, 17:28)

.

~~~

Text and photo by Alain Joly

~~~

.

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

.

The Dream of a World

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Milton`s Mysterious Dream’ (part) – William Blake, 1816-20 – WikiArt

There is a fraud in our life. An illusion that makes us feel that life is going to get better. That time or circumstance will bring us to a place of understanding, where our troubles will come to an end, where there will be betterment, improvement, change. To believe this will make us miss that we are already here and now in a place of no change, of no betterment, where nothing can improve or get better. This place is our very self, our sense of being that we have never been able to affect or modify, no matter how relentless our life has been, no matter our despair, our sorrow, our losses. Nothing we have gone through has touched it in any way. All our stories and sufferings have taken the shape of our thoughts and beliefs about them. But while we are desperately trying to give a form to our life, a solidity to our body, a reality to our problems, and a truth to our beliefs, right here and now, right where it all is seemingly taking place, hidden within experience, enveloping it all, is already a presence, a vastness, a reality that is embracing everything, and that is our only reality, our only place, our only possible self in this living experience.

For there is not a world there where we could be in. That would be a lovely idea, but the fact is: there is no possibility to prove the existence of such a world. We can only assert it, marvel at it through our senses, study it, analyse it, but of a solid proof there is none. The existence of a world is dependent on our perceiving it, and perceptions are contained in our knowing them. Without the knowing faculty, there cannot be a world. The whole glory and misery of the world, of the whole universe, is all gathered in that fathomless fraction of knowing, or awareness. Without that simple, ungraspable, dimensionless, ethereal element of knowing, no world could ever come into existence. So in fact, knowing is all there is, consciousness is the essence of every single appearance that comes to be seen, heard, touched, or experienced. The world is shaped, or its appearance created, through our being aware of it. So the whole of our living experience is but a dream in consciousness, a game that can be played and enjoyed at the level of our body-mind, but whose reality is only the awareness of it.

Now, where are we if we are not in a world? Where are we if the world is not even there? What is this something that we feel we are in, and exists, and is undoubtedly? What is a world, an experience, when we have passed through all illusions, all beliefs, all shaky appearances? What is left here that holds our experience, that is indomitable, indestructible, present without a shadow of doubt? This place is our self, what we are, our very essence, the reason behind our saying ‘I’. So we live in our self, not in a world. We see our limited existence pass and consume itself within that which is creating it, which is our own aware being, the knowing that we are and could never not be. And there, in ourself, in being, where the world takes its apparent form, is found what we have been looking for in every direction, in a non-existing world, in experience: a sense of relief, peace, beauty, love, and the understanding of our essence, the explanation of it all. An explanation that is not conceptual, but a living one, a subjective one, something made plain by being it. We and life then become self-explanatory. The fraud has been diluted. All imagination has died down. Now our living experience has acquired the rawness of truth. Something that is, unlike the world or our experience, beyond doubt and absolute.

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by William Blake (1757-1827)

~~~

.

Website:
– William Blake (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

.

A Safe Harbour

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Sea against a rocky shore’ – Ivan Aivazovsky, 1851 – WikiArt

In our relative existence, we are always only a simple human being, a disciple of truth. We are seeking to merge the relative with the absolute, and to raise the finite where the infinite compels it to be. There is no being a super human, with a perfected soul. There is no being a specialist in the field of spirituality. The knower is a so shy and humble presence that it won’t show up when you are there. You will hide it with the boastful assertion of your own self. So if you want to espouse your true nature, you will have to feel yourself as almost nothing. You will have to stop reifying yourself, and make your person a servant of truth. There is a soothing freedom from pride and arrogance to be experienced in our human life.

The feeling of separation is what makes you assert yourself. To only and simply be is felt to be insufficient. You need to be or have something that makes you whole and happy, which you then seek through objects, qualities, qualifications, events, circumstances. To be somebody, to be important is the privilege of incompleteness. Being has no privilege, is not a superior position. it won’t make you anything. It won’t give you an advantage. You’d have to be miserable for that. You’d have to be limited. Your nature as peace doesn’t belong to you the person. When you have realised yourself as the one being that you truly are, then it won’t make you anything, it won’t give you a pedestal. Your knowing is in not knowing. In simply being.

There is a special, humble glory that lies in not being a self that feels separate. Peace is the perfume of your divine nature, that stands unaffected before the person that you happen to be. It is the nature that lends itself to the making of the world and to the selfing of its myriad of apparent entities. It is the secret power behind all appearances. Your nakedness is the key for its being seen and felt in your existence. You will then live from the stand of that knowing presence. Your self will cease feeling separate and superior. Your person will be depersonalised, will have infinity as its ‘I’ identity, and love as its guiding principle. But you won’t get any pride out of it, for your person is now devoid of its own, personal substance.

It is no accident that the life of many truth seekers is expressed through poverty and nakedness. In not possessing, in being undefended, as is the case for nuns, monks, hermits, anchorites. There is joy in not owning your own self, and your own identity. There is release in being at the service of the loving, silent being which you have discovered yourself to be. You have lost the prestige and identity contained in being a seeker. For there is no seeking in being. Being contains the gist of that which you want to obtain or achieve through your constant seeking — the juice of it. Being is the heart of life, and its reward. The Eden which you have placed far and away, as a cherished belief or possibility, is now found here, in the simple knowing of your being.

So there are no Shris, Maharshis, Bhagavans, Rinpoches, Maharaj-s, or Your Holiness, at the level of the person. There are even no sages. All these titles are only for ‘being’, for the reverence of truth, for the One. There is always only one Bhagavan. One Rimpoche. One sage. The peace contained in simply being is not another quality that is added to you as a person. A person, a body-mind, doesn’t have peace. Peace or understanding doesn’t belong to you. It is not for the person. It is all contained in that which lends you consciousness. It is in the presence that makes you, out of which you draw your personhood, and which allows you to love, live, and share. You are not an autonomous, self-contained person. You are infinity lending itself to a portion of finitude. How would an appearance be conscious, if it wasn’t for the presence which contains and creates this appearance? This peaceful, infinite presence is all there truly is. The One you have to bow to. Your teacher and your beloved. Your safe harbour in the storm of appearances.

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900)

~~~

.

Website:
– Ivan Aivazovsky (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

.

Offerings of Praise

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘The Olive Grove’ – John Singer Sargent, 1908 – WikiArt

I don’t know if you have ever been in a gathering of truth seekers. Men and women willing to learn the truth of their being. Rendered humble enough to go through this discipleship. Battling to overcome their suffering. Journeying through the opening of their heart. Relinquishing their endless identities. Embracing infinity and friendship. If you haven’t, then I’ll leave this blessed and prominent ancient Christian theologian Ephrem the Syrian speak for it. Describe it in its own poetical terms. Tell you what it is like. Literally. And if you have, well then you have.
.

“Who has ever beheld gatherings of people
whose sustenance is the giving of praise?
Their raiment is light,
their countenance full of radiance;
as they ruminate
on the abundance of His gift
there burst forth from their mouths
springs of wisdom;
tranquility reigns over their thought,
truth over their knowledge,
reverence over their enquiry,
and love over their offering of praise.”

~ Ephrem the Syrian (Hymns on Paradise, IX:28)

.

~~~

Quote by Ephrem the Syrian (c.306-373)

Painting by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)

Additional text by Alain Joly

~~~

.

Bibliography:
– ‘Hymns On Paradise’ – St. Ephrem the Syrian (trans. Sebastian Brock) – (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press)

Websites:
– Ephrem the Syrian (Wikipedia)
– John Singer Sargent (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Beauty in Essence (other pointers from the blog)

.

Anatomy of a Desire

Posted on by Alain Joly

You must not desire the truth. You must let the truth desire you. For truth has the greatest desire, the most efficient one, to which yours is but a pale copy. It is the desire to be itself alone, unaccompanied, unsoiled. In the fulfilment of that desire, truth will swallow you, will undress you and render you transparent, nonexistent, naked. You’d be inspired to let go, to give in, to trust that desire which is so greater than yours. For your desires are small, inadequate, vile, selfish. They won’t get you where you truly want to be. They will miss the mark. Every time.

So don’t desire truth. Don’t make it like something you can possess. Truth is in fact already possessing you, the only one in command. So undress your being of the superfluous. The superfluous is all the beliefs attached to yourself, that makes you a self that feels separate, an entity in a body, delineated by its thoughts and feelings, that looks up to experience, and betrays its profound suffering through its constant desire for fulfilment.

Notice that your desire has no true owner. The one that desires is not really there. It is but an idea, a desperate attempt to feel that you are complete. But you won’t feel complete by means of desiring, for desire is already the sign of your incompleteness. The problem with being a desirer is that it places you ahead of your natural identity as being. It is a position of ignorance with a plan and a hope. The desirer is a made-up entity whose unacknowledged goal is to consolidate itself. So don’t make truth like a projected goal to be achieved. The desired object of enlightenment, or realisation, was never intended. It was in fact all for the desirer, to strengthen your false identity as a self, to adorn the temple of separation, to attach yourself to another idea. Liberation is not in desiring to be liberated.

[…]

Continue this exploration of desire in matters of truth… (READ MORE…)

.

The Fragrance of Life

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Mist. Autumn.’ – Isaac Levitan, 1899 – WikiArt

There is a time in our life experience, when we come to understand what this complex arrangement of thinking, seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling is all about. The source of it all. What it comes down to be, in essence, in feeling — the simplicity of it. It all starts there, from feeling. When we have the feeling, life flows with an intrinsic harmony. When we have the love, sentiments and actions take their right place. Every experience draws its best colours from this primordial feeling of being. It all flows down from that storm of aliveness which is our true nature.

The moment of understanding is when the teaching, the path, the ‘how’, the description, the words, reveal their redundancy and are stopped in their course. When the doing recedes and leaves its place to simply and naturally being. When we cease being a person and recognise our nature as the infinite nature of everything. The words are not here to teach us a new skill, or even develop it. They only come to provoke. They form to enjoin us to look and notice what is already here, fully alive and vibrant — the final word behind our being human.

At the time of creation, a composer is singing or playing his music first in his mind, and then writes it down. Our understanding proceeds on the same line. Truth comes first. It is played, tasted, lived in and as our own being, and the teaching, the words come to only confirm it, to give it the solemn acquiescence of wisdom, or provide the map of the land before us, of which we now espouse the very ground. It is all a question of feeling. Truth is truth-feeling, visiting the land, smelling its atmosphere, merging with its fuming ground, where we are given the grace to taste of the unity of being.

Truth is that which is here before the passing events, below the ups and downs of existence, encompassing everything that forms at the periphery of ourself. Truth is the beauty that our eye or ear seem to catch, but which is in fact within our soul, in our inside, our essence, our being. Truth is only about feeling being, then, and only then, are we gifted with thinking, seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling — all the world that forms and makes our experience, and is like the flower of our essence. In the accomplishment of truth, we embellish the world with our being.

The feeling of being is the crowning point of our experience. It is lacking when there is the illusion of our being a self contained within the limits of our body-mind. It escapes us when we exclude the world and take it to be outside our own person. But being is hiding in plain sight. In fact, experience itself, in its totality, is but the feeling of being. There is no experience without first feeling being. The feeling of being is our foremost experience. Yet in a tragic and absurd way, experience itself has been the one concealing that. All it contains of beliefs, identifications, and imaginations, is preventing our being to be felt, and the fragrance of life to be enjoyed. We have hidden this simple fact from our own self: that we may be nothing more than the feeling of being. All else is only added to make a good story. 

.

~~~

Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Isaac Levitan (1860-1900)

~~~

.

Website:
– Isaac Levitan (Wikipedia)

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

.

Where is True Home

Posted on by Alain Joly

Where can we find what is ‘our own’ in our experience? What is fitting? Where do we draw a sense of belonging from? Most of the time, we do not feel that we fit in, that we have a place. We feel insecure, so we secure an identity in a thousand things. We borrow from an object our appeasement. We make objects our own, we inhabit our thoughts, we adorn ourself with qualities, and we take shelter in a body. That’s what we do to fit in, and find security: we lose ourself in an ‘other’. We beg for anything that we could call our own, for fear of staying alone, and be left a nobody. We make up a self, and then call it ‘our own’. And that place of our own we find — and have defined — in a thousand shaky, unreliable places and things. But it is a bad try. In fact, we have burgled our own home of belongings that are not ours.

How are we going to find a home, if we keep rummaging through experience for every object that fits our needs? We ought to be disinterested for a while. We need to be disowned, dispossessed of every property or belonging that we have so far acquired, clung to, and in definitive stolen. For this is where true ownership is found, in not belonging. This is how a decent property is secured, by having no place to be. We ought to live free from all the accumulations that we have gathered and identified with. For our true home is not placed on the crest of experience, is not built on the sand of insecurity, and is not limited by the fence of limitation. It is not for a self, or a place, to produce the quality of enduring peace. Peace is already here, wholly achieved, in the home that our being truly is.

Live so that you don’t have to steal in your own house. You have it all. Your property extends to infinity and the world is the garment of your whole being. So in being, wherever you are is your home, and whatever you need is found here, in you, as you, with all the peace and security that pertain to a true home. You fit in when there is no space between yourself and what you long for. Being no space, you won’t have an urge to seek outside of yourself your identity and your happiness. Home is the recognition that you are already home. To be is to be home. There is no achieving it, let alone work for it. Be exactly where you are, in and as your own being — the place which you could never not be in. And if you find that a sense of indomitable peace is accompanying you there, then be in no doubt that this is home — what is your own, where you fit in, where you belong. Truly.

.

~~~

Text and photo by Alain Joly

~~~

.

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

.