A Place of Leisure

Posted on by Alain Joly

There is a place in ourself where we are not, strictly speaking, meeting anything. This is what ‘emptiness’ means, that we are not bumping into anything, that we don’t encounter any resistance whatsoever. There may be objective appearances showing up, but they are not met from the position of being ourself an object, a self, a thing with properties and qualities. As long as we believe to be a self separate from the world, and identified to a set of thoughts and feelings, we are placed in a loud and busy world, a world crowded with objects, where conflict is at home and suffering is the norm, both outside and inside. But only feel to be the empty presence that your self truly is, and your world will appear as a qualitatively empty and silent being. And this silent being is ourself, our being which had been previously crowded by our identification with perceptions, muted by our thoughts, and dumbed by our feelings. So, as empty being, we are never meeting objects and conversing with them, for the only reality we ever come upon is ourself — infinite, empty being. That being is that which we eternally converse with. So we keep company with being only, not with objects and persons. This meeting, or melting, with being — with the essence — is paradoxically the only source for a true, loving, and meaningful relationship between apparent people and objects. Any meeting that takes place only at the level of people and objects is a promise for suffering and conflict.

There is one easy and direct consequence of living, or relating, as and with being. It is that our life becomes a place of leisure. We are liberated from the constraints of objects. Therefore we have a free time, a free space where we are not occupied, not busy working it all out, being puzzled, grabbed by conflict, seized by suffering. We are therefore in for leisure. We are in a position of freedom from where we can contemplate the world and ourself as we are. We are on a holiday, a holy, consecrated day when we release our chronic identification with the objective world, and find behind it relief and an intrinsic peace. This freedom from identification bears joy as its DNA because we are finally allowed to just be. And this being forever shines through experience, which is seen as secondary. And this being renders the world back to its original transparency. Furthermore, being clothes experience with a space like quality. This is a space of ability and creativity, for we are not possessed by our entanglement with experience. This is a space of free will, for we are not constrained by our limiting faculties. This is a space of easiness, for it takes us home, in the loving harbour of our true self. This place of leisure is absolute freedom — freedom from space and time, and from the contingencies of appearances. It is a place of no haste, where you are with your spacious self alone, and enjoy its interior, which is nothing but the world. You stay in the perimeter of your self wherever you may go. And there is the loving influence of infinity in whatever you may do, which means that peace is coming forth in spite of circumstances. Above all, this place of leisure is the burial ground of your self as a limited and separated entity.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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A Simple World

Posted on by Alain Joly

Keep it simple. Don’t even give in to spirituality. Don’t run after dreams of enlightenment, or new states of consciousness. Don’t go there at all. Keep it utterly simple. Simplicity will give you everything you need for this endeavour. For this is not about religion or spirituality. This is about you. Only you, with no other considerations. So cease conceptualising, being attached to words and ideas. Leave all the big words behind you — awareness, consciousness, meditation. They won’t help you. And please, leave God out of this. Stay only with yourself — that which you are. This will do. This will be enough — being yourself. Simply. Plainly. Leave all your thoughts behind, all that you have gathered about yourself, your beliefs, your hopes, your old identifications. Leave them alone. Be unconcerned. You need one thing only: this simple sense of being yourself — this recognising yourself as being only being. This alone is the most majestic, omniscient, exotic, pedagogical teacher you will ever have. So keep to yourself. Feel the presence that is giving birth to yourself. That first thing that springs out of you. The first brick. That’s simple enough to do.

Don’t leave yourself ever. For they will all try to seduce you — your thoughts, the feelings attached to them, your perceptions in CinemaScope, and these never ending stories about yourself. They will make you take distance, run away into imagination. Don’t let them fabricate you, determine you. Stay simple. Be only with that part of yourself that cannot be twisted, impaired, injured. Be with your unmoving self. It is never going to be more complicated than that. Truth is the simplest affair you will ever come across. You are that which allows for the simple feeling of being. There is no need to add anything to that feeling. Not even a single thought is necessary. You are being yourself before you sit, or stand, or eat, or think. Being yourself requires nothing of you. It is the simplest thing you will ever do. It is baby-level spirituality. So don’t be grandiose. Simply find yourself and stay there. And you won’t find yourself in the many. Simplicity refers to something ‘made of one constituent’, ‘one-fold’ — that’s the etymology of it. You are made of one block. One being. Everything that appears twofold is not yourself. It is duplicity — deceitfulness. And don’t even say that this is about being happy. That will only make you seek happiness. Only look to be yourself. There is nothing to seek in being yourself. Be overly simple. That will make you contented and contained. Gathered in the one single self or reality there is. Therefore unlimited and unbridled. Therefore loving. And the world — phew! How simple it has become!

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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

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The Flame without Smoke

Posted on by Alain Joly
©️ Krishnamurti Foundation India

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“Love is the only flame without smoke.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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The flame and the smoke is an analogy Krishnamurti referred to sometimes. For him, the flame is this burning centre of being that “can never be expressed with words”, that “is beyond the clutches of time”, and that is often expressed as love. The smoke is of the mind. It is “the smoke of envy, of holding, of missing, of recalling the past, of longing for tomorrow, of sorrow and worry; and this effectively smothers the flame.” The smoke is often what we take to be the flame but is not. It is all that is passing, all the thoughts, feelings, perceptions — the smoke that we have gathered to form experience, and that we take to be ourself, our centre of being. This wilful, separate, time bound, suffering self has appropriated the feeling of being when it is in fact the very smoke that is veiling our true nature. Being only is that flame without smoke. It is our true identity and “the source of all happiness”.

I have gathered, over the years, on social medias, many of the most striking quotes by Krishnamurti, that popped up on my screen. These, I found, acted on me like little koans, that had the power to pierce the smoke of the mind, and reveal the subtlest truths. They are like candies which, when chewed upon carefully, reveal the flame of what we truly are. They are short and easy, but need to be taken seriously. They can crack open our resistance, and show us that flame without smoke. I share them here with you…

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“Do not pursue what should be,
but understand what is.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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“Love is not at the end of time.
It is now, or it isn’t.
And hell is when it is not…”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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“Thought is never free because it is based on knowledge,
and knowledge is always limited.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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“It is essential to understand the seeker,
before you try to find out what it is he is seeking.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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“The ego is a ring of defence around nothing.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

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Discover more of this selection of quotes by Jiddu Krishnamurti… (READ MORE…)

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Fear and Trembling

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Plains near Beauvais’ – Camille Corot, 1860-70 – WikiArt

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“The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,
to depart from the snares of death.”
~ Proverbs, 14:27

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There is an expression that we may find puzzling, maybe slightly paternalist, condescending and outdated, but is well worth looking at. We find this expression mostly in Christianity and Islam, where the mentions ‘fear of God’, ‘fear of the Lord’, or the injunction ‘fear God’ are found far more than a hundred times in the Bible, or in the Quran. This fear is said to be one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, along with wisdom, understanding, guidance, mightiness, knowledge, and devoutness. But why would we be afraid of what we longed for the most in our lives? We should be embracing it with ardour and ease. So what is this “fear of the Lord” that, in Proverbs 9:10, is said to be “the beginning of wisdom”? Why is it given such primary importance?

Maybe we fear god for the same reason that we fear death. We think that we are something, someone, a self that we appreciate and have a fondness for, that we love and want to cling to as something precious. We want it to continue. So we have elaborated strategies to keep our self padded with multiple pleasurable sensations through our various habits as thoughts, daydreams, pleasure oriented activities, routines, manipulations, avoidances, all these addictions that have come to form the main part of what we call our self. But these are vain distractions, for awareness as god seems to have in itself a momentum, a power to draw every thing and being to itself. So this pull can be felt as a threatening force from the limited point of view of a self that feels vulnerable, and finds temporary security in being something, even if this something is in final analysis the cause of its suffering. In Hebrews 10:31, it is said: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

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An essay that inquires into the notion of the fear of god… (READ MORE…)

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The Will of God

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘The Wind Blows’ – Hugo Simberg, 1897 – WikiArt

God’s will is what is happening now. Not as a body or an entity, not as a form or any kind of event. The reason is: form has already happened. Every object comes from the past. It has traversed at least a length of time to land in the field of awareness. Like a thought has. A thought is never now. It is the termination of something that took place a moment ago. It is an achieved result. But there is something in our experience that doesn’t come from the past, that hasn’t travelled any distance to be here, and that hasn’t moved through time to be now. So if you want to know what is God’s will, find the only thing in your life that is not a thing, that hasn’t yet taken form, and therefore needs neither space nor time to be. Find that which cannot be found, that which is formless, that which hasn’t travailed. For God’s will doesn’t come second, it cannot be a result, for such a thing would need a cause for itself to be. No. God’s will is first. As a ‘first’, it is in capacity to initiate, to create. But what is created is never itself God’s will, for it is already formed, with a life of its own. It is corruptible as form. So go to the essence, the origin. Find the incorruptible in yourself — that one uncreated thing — and take that only to be the will of God.

So we are in our essence uncreated. This is our identity, to be without form, forever here, forever now, eternally landed, therefore without a will of our own. For what would a separate will be but a thing already formed, an effect with already a cause; and therefore not the causeless, therefore not God’s will. So if we want our life to follow a divine trajectory, we have to give our utmost attention to who we are. That will condition the rest of our existence. That matters the most: that little name we give to ourself, that little identity. Start with the truth of who you are, and be only concerned with the tail of that star. Make yourself bright with it — that’s how to follow God’s will. Be that one that is in no capacity to be a follower. Stand as and for the truth of being and be concerned with nothing else but that. That is the only possible will you can afford. Any other kind of will is not your own, although it may appear to be. So don’t expect to have a will, for a will is but an appearance that has formed in yourself. Go to yourself first. Go for that part of yourself that has no will but God’s will. You will find there a will that encompasses all other wills — for what is a will but the will to be happy, rested, fulfilled? Only at the condition of being without a will of your own can you embrace the one will of your true identity as being. Being is in fact its own will, for it has as its DNA the purpose of all wills, which is the peace of living. From that peace firmly set in your heart, any will is the will of God.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Hugo Simberg (1873-1917)

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Website:
– Hugo Simberg (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
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The Russian Dolls

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Ornement, Matriochka, Babushka’ – Schwoaze – Pixabay

In fact, all we have to do is this: To open to our fact of just being. To let go of our acquired resistance, this tightness running in the background. It’s just an old habit. Our fear too — just an old habit born out of a concept. That concept runs something like this: we are a time-bound self that is separate and needs control and protection. Let this representation go. It’s not fundamental. It’s a narrative. It can be easily rid of. It is but a late creation in our timeless life as being. Just an idea lingering at the surface of our being, with no foundation. A simple belief that has once emerged. Just shake it off, it is utterly vulnerable and lonely, scared to be looked at and unmasked. So don’t let yourself be controlled by it. Don’t let your fear and resistance rule your life. Know better. I understand if you were your body, your mind, and your feelings — if they were being the whole of you — I see in that case how your fear and resistance could infiltrate you, take possession of you, and change you, ruin your innocence, harden you, damage you. I get the point. But you’re not. You’re not your body and mind, let alone your feelings. This is only an unchallenged, primal belief, which gave rise to the idea of you being a self separate from the world, a self which is then both the cause and the recipient for all your fears and resistances, for all your suffering, which then will continue the process: solidifying your idea of being a body; making your whole mind an asset of that body; giving rise to the idea of a self within that mind; which will in turn be a cradle for a whole array of consequential feelings; then god knows what feelings can make you do… Let all these Russian dolls go. Rest in that part of your self that is neither an idea, nor a concept, nor a representation, nor a thought. Go to the very heart. Start there. With Being. This is your illusory self’s weak point, where your primal belief cannot stand. This is what will disintegrate it. What will send you back to the truth of your being, and render your fears and resistances like these vain little clowns who are running around to disturb the show but never can. Be like the bigger doll, with infinite dimensions, in which all the other dolls fall back into place, unable to really act on your gorgeous being, powerless in diminishing it. Let the many dolls within your self be like humble and devoted attendants. Some of them dying of their natural death. Some of them appearing as having never been there in the first place. And some of them painted with the glorious qualities contained in the knowing of your own being.

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Text by Alain Joly

Photo by Schwoaze in Pixabay

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Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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Wherever You Go

Posted on by Alain Joly

Listen to this: you are not meant to go anywhere. You may travel to the end of the earth and beyond. You may climb mountain after mountain, and dive deep into seas and oceans. You may visit the heart of the busiest cities, or be quietly at home. Wherever you go, please give it a close look. For you will never be where you go. Where you go is not where you will find yourself. The reason is: there is no geography outside yourself. Your self is the only geography for everywhere you go. Your self has mountains, cities, oceans and a home for you to live in. Your self has a body attached to it, for you to play the role of a person having a life in a world. But don’t be deluded. It is not because you always happen to be where your body is, that your self is located inside your body. There is a temporary, secret connection between your body and your self. But the truth is: your deepest self is free from any contingencies. It is not to be found anywhere in space, for it is itself owning the space you appear to be in. It has no habitation to live in. It cannot be conditioned, and its essence is impossible to move, or be transported from one place to another. So be always interested in that deepest part of yourself. Dedicate yourself to always know where you truly are. Not the superficial location of your body — not at the levels of names and forms. For where you are is not a place you can go to. It is not a place you have to reach or make an effort to attain. And your body is useless for you to know the place where you are. Where you are has no ‘where’. So in order for you to be where you are, well, then you have to only ‘be’. ‘You are’. Be only interested in that. In the fact that you are. That will give you your true location — where you truly are, wherever you are. That alone matters. Not your diving into seas and oceans. Not your roaming through cities. Not your being quietly at home. These are only distractions, making you head in the wrong direction. Where you have to go is always to your self first. Be there, in your self, in being, and all will appear pristinely simple. All places will fall into place — into your place as being. Then, wherever you may roam, you will reach the highest peak of your self. Then, wherever you may wander, you will be in the beating heart of your self. And wherever is the mellow sofa you may rest in, you will be resting in the sweet home of your self. See: you are not meant to go anywhere.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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

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