Silence expressed

I find myself sitting down
To write this post

Sometimes the fingers fly
on the keyboard

At other times
They meander
Taking their own time
to form words

Today the hand is poised
over the letters
And the silence comes
Only silence

I don't know how long
I sit this way
With the silence
And the potential for words

After a while
The eyes open
The fingers fly again
And these words appear

Silence takes shape
Silence takes form
Silence wears a mask
Of meaning

It is all silence
Beckoning us back home
to silence
through noise

How foolish!

When I wish to be free of mind
How foolish I am being

When have I been free of mind?
Yesterday says the mind
Yesterday in meditation
I was free of mind

But the truth is
That today rolled around
And mind appeared again
As it always does

Something shifts
And mind is mostly quiet here
But here is there
And mind is active there

So how foolish of me
To seek my rest
In quiet mind
Here or there

The only rest
Is alongside mind
Inside it even
Right in its sweet lap

This is real freedom
So untouched
By mind's noise
And by mind's silence

That simple

What will this moment bring?
This moment arrives
And I find out

It is that simple.

What sees I?

A question pops up:

I am this human expression - is it true?

I look into the mirror. I see this familiar face. I see the corners of the mouth turn up.

And I am deeply conscious of this that is looking - looking at this face and its reflection. It is looking at the eyes looking at the eyes. How strange.

I am this human expression - is it true?

This human expression is ever-changing. This body-mind is never the same from one year to the next, from one week to the next, from one day to the next, even from one moment to the next. One moment I am not smiling, then in the next moment I am! One moment my tooth is attached to the gum and in the next moment it comes unattached. One moment I am not in pain and then in the next moment, the pain starts.

One moment I am not conceived, and in the next moment I am. One moment I am not dead and in the next moment ....

This human expression is ever-changing.

Yet something always call itself I. What is it that holds to calling itself I? What is I?

What is I?

The body moves. The legs start up and walk the body into the kitchen. The hands move and reach out for this and that. A cup of tea is ready. The cup is lifted to the mouth. The tea is tasted. The eyes close briefly in appreciation. The legs walk this back here, with cup of tea in hand.

Action is happening. The heart is beating. The lungs are breathing. The bird is flying. The tree is gently waving.

Where am I in all this?

I am here - in this body-mind - is it true?

I look into the mirror again. I see the wall behind, a bottle, a candle-holder. Am I there, in those?

I touch the space separating this here from that there. The space is filled with thoughts. They are quite wispy. They just float about. It is very clearly seen that if attachment occurs to any of them, and if they are believed, - even a tiny bit, then wham - the wispy thoughts become a sticky quagmire, sucking more and more identity into them. And with that attachment, a vast distance develops between this I here and everything else. The separate I is birthed from the attachment to thought.

Something sees all this very calmly, as though in complete empathy and understanding. What is it that sees the I being born? What is it that sees the I live? What is it that sees the I die?

What sees I?

Being good and being spiritual

Oddly enough, sometimes being true to oneself and being good can be 2 different things. :-)

Most human beings, including the spiritual seeker, have a certain common idea of what it means to be good, - to be a good person. A good person is one who is kind and considerate, loving and generous, good-tempered and helpful. When a person is unkind or angry or unhelpful, we don't think of that person as being so good. Is this not true?

These are very deeply entrenched beliefs in the human psyche.

One can describe the spiritual path as one where all beliefs come undone. - Even the most widely held, universally claimed and deeply entrenched ones - such as what it means to be good.

Through my own experience and that of those I am with, I find that most spiritual seekers have a very strong resistance to the dropping of this belief in being good. We equate being spiritual with being very good. How can it be otherwise? We have heard and read of saints and sages and Gods who personify and embody the good virtues listed above. So it comes as a bit of a shock when we are nudged to see that even being good, in the commonly accepted human sense, can be simply another belief. And we are frightened of seeing through this belief. This is very natural. The fear is that if this belief drops away then we will somehow be bad people, or, at the very least our bad side will show up more. We think that our belief in being good is what keeps the bad demons away. We don't want to be bad and we don't want to be seen to be bad. We don't want to hurt ourselves or the other. So we cling to this belief in being good.

Does any of this strike a chord so far?

Now I am not saying that being good is bad. :-) Infact this belief can arise in great innocence, and is very well-intentioned. And who among us would not prefer 'good' behavior to 'bad' behavior? But good and bad are ideas too and all ideas are eventually seen through. So I am simply saying that when we no longer resist seeing this apparently difficult truth, then this belief can be seen through.

When we cling to the belief in being good, we are basically insuring ourselves from finding out our bad side. So the belief in being good is fuelled by a fear of discovering how bad we may actually be. The belief in being good is rooted in fear. And fear is rooted in separation. Only one that believes herself to be separate, is fearful for herself.

So let's take a minute to see how this belief in being good plays out in our lives.

We try to be good. We curb what arises naturally and try to make it conform with our idea of good. We censor our words and actions. We speak lies to avoid uncomfortable truths. We live lies to fend off inconvenient truths. We blame ourselves and others when badness escapes our watch anyways and manifests as anger or unkindness. We feel conflicted inside, over our actions, and the actions of others. We feel like we must be on constant guard. We feel tense and constrained in body and mind. We feel superior to the less good people. We build up our image of virtuosity and feel inflated by it. And then we feel deflated when we slip into the slightest deviation. And on and on.

Curiously the belief never really sets out to achieve what it intends. Does it? Look within yourself. Do you believe in being good as a credo? Has it effectively stopped you from being 'bad'? Of course the mind's comeback is that although it doesn't stop badness, it keeps it in check. Yes? No - that is not my experience and if you are interested, I invite you to discover what is really true for you, beyond what mind says. You may be very surprised by what you discover.

For the spiritual seeker, there is the added issue of spiritual image. How can one be spiritual and bad at the same time? No, no - one must avoid being bad and being seen to be bad. That would not be spiritual at all. So we hold back and pull back and perpetuate this violence upon ourselves and others, all in the service of this belief in being good.

Why do I call it violence? When we resist something using force, it is violence, is it not? And when we force ourselves to act good, it is violence upon ourselves. When we force others to be good as per our ideas of good, we are being violent towards them. I am not saying it is right or wrong. But it is violence. And we can see for ourselves how this violence feels inside us and how it affects the other.

Yet, all the time, despite the extent of our suffering around this belief, we feel a certain sense of relief and validation that at least we are trying to be good, just like everyone around us. There is a safety about this trying, because it brings us membership to the human club. This sustains the belief. No need to blame ourselves for this - this just happens. Our need for safety and affiliation is so strong that we are willing to pay a very very high price for it. Until we are not.

When we are no longer willing to pay this high price, we are willing to look deeply into this belief. We are willing to confront the fear that upholds annd perpetuates this belief and all its suffering. We are willing to see that good and bad are both only ideas based on a certain perspective. We see that when we accept living in fear and suffering, then we feed that fear and suffering in everyone around us. This is a gut-wrenching discovery that brings us to our knees. It turns our world upside-down. For we see that our very attempts to not harm, when frozen into this belief in being good, can generate suffering within and without! When this belief dissolves, humility and gratitude flow. Fear starts to be dislodged and freedom begins to take its place. This is the freedom of one who no longer believes herself to be separate from the flow of life and all that it brings.

The belief in being good drops away. And the wisdom of the moment is free to arise. This is the wisdom of wholeness. It may express itself as love, kindness, compassion, understanding, appreciation, gratitude and peace. But make no mistake, nothing is exempt from this freedom; nothing is denied. So anger may arise too. But it is not held back from fear and so it is free to serve its purpose and pass, in freedom. And when we live in this freedom and act from it, then the freedom radiates out, and everything and everyone around us can be free too. This is to be true to ourselves.

Images arise:

Lord Brahma creating the world and Lord Shiva destroying it,

Jesus Christ on the cross and Jesus Christ dealing with the money-lenders,

Kanzeon, the Bodhisattva of compassion and Manjushri wielding the sword.

All in service to the truth.

Who is looking?

What do you see right now?

Suffering? Bad times? Anger? Sorrow? Evil? Rudeness? Confusion? Mistakes? Discontent?

Joy? Peace? Love? Contentment? Fun? Excitement?

Any mix of the above?

Notice how what you see affects how you feel. Whether the anger or peace arises outside you or inside you, notice that there is a response inside you. What is that response? More feelings? More thoughts? Notice.

Notice that all of these are objects in awareness. You are aware of the anger, the peace, other feelings and thoughts. They are not aware of you.

We get caught up in what we are experiencing and looking at. But who is looking?

No matter what is being looked at, there is always the one that is looking.

What is seen depends on who is seeing.

See this at work in your own life.

Start with the most basic thing that we take so for granted - the physical world. What appears as a red flower to us human beings appears differently to different species in the animal world. Some species can perceive only one color and others can perceive a wider range of colors than the human eye.

Then there are functional differences. What may appear as an insignificant ant to a hiker on a trail appears as food to an anteater.

And of course there are emotional variances. Two people faced with the same circumstances may see different things and respond differently.

At many levels then, we can notice that what is seen depends on who is looking.

The world of objects is so fascinating to us that we keep going from one object to another in wonder. Built into this fascination is a desire to find better and better objects. This fuels the looking. And it is natural and fine as long as it lasts. But many of us begin to experience a kind of dreariness to this endless looking. Then at some point we tire altogether of what seems like a wildgoose chase. That's when we can get interested in the question: Who is looking?

This question begins to draw us inward, as we begin to get interested in the perspective that looks out. At first when we ask ourselves this question, we may come across different perspectives. An example that many people can relate with, is that when we see anger within ourselves, asking this question Who is looking? often reveals somebody filled with fear. And we can simply acknowledge this fearful one. And we can see that when fear is looking, then anger is seen and experienced. Now we have stepped back, behind the anger.

Similarly other sights may reveal other perspectives.

When we continue to ask this question, (at a pace that does not feel forced in any way) we begin to step further and further back. So to continue the example above, when we contact the fearful one fully, we may see that even this fear is only an object - it is being seen and experienced. So it is natural to ask the question again - Who is looking? And we may find yet another perspective.

I am not suggesting that we do this as a process to reach a certain objective. What I am suggesting is that if this question interests you, then this process may arise quite naturally. There may appear to be a little effort in asking the question at first, and then it may just start happen quite frequently on its own.

We begin to see that all the perspectives, or the ones who are looking, are finally objects in themselves. And as we step further and further back, we begin to be what we always and already are - that empty self-aware awareness within which everything arises.

There is no gain from this. And the curious thing is there is no interest in any gain.

Circles and dots

The teacher drew a large circle on a paper pasted to a board. Then he turned to his students and said, This is the great circle of being. Nobody and nothing is outside it.

The students listened with rapt attention, some nodding their heads in understanding, and others closing their eyes in meditation.

Each one of you is fully contained within this circle. See this very clearly, each one of you, continued the teacher, scanning all the faces before him intently.

Suddenly a tentative hand raised itself. And a young new student stood up and cleared his throat nervously. Sir, may I share what I am seeing and ask a question? he asked, hesitatingly. The teacher's eyes bore into the young man's even as he nodded his assent.

Well, began the student, clearing his throat again, for two days now you have shown us this circle of being and told us to see that we are each inside it. But I don't see that.... He paused to take note of the teacher's expression, and finding only an even intensity there he made bold to continue. I see myself as being outside the circle, he said a little more confidently.

The teacher's expression softened a bit as he turned to the board and picked up the pen. He drew a small dot outside the circle. Then pointing his pen at the student, he smiled and said, Is this where you find yourself? The student nodded and looked around at the other students. Most of them were now paying close attention. Then the teacher turned back to the board and with great flourish, drew another larger circle, so that the dot was inside this new circle. There now, it is fixed, he said beaming at the student, You are fully within the circle of being.

Some of the students chuckled and others nodded in appreciation.

The student looked nonplussed, then started to sit down as if this was as far as he could get, when the teacher stabbed the air with his pen and said No, no, don't believe me. Look inside again and see what you find this time. Then turning to the other students, he said, All of you - I want you to look inside again. But first, is there anyone here who has never had the same question as this young man? Maybe some of you found the answer sometime back. But allow the answer to refresh itself in this moment. Don't bank on past memories of an answer. See what is true right now.

The students all became very quiet, and a period of silence followed. At one point the teacher called out to the young student and said, I see you are ready to share something. What do you find?. The student stood up and said, a bit sheepishly, I still see myself as being outside that new circle, Sir. He bit his lip anxiously. But the teacher only smiled and drawing another dot outside the second circle, asked, Like this? When the student nodded, the teacher nodded too and again with great flourish drew a third circle on the board such that the new dot was inside it. Then without a word, he turned to the student again and raised his eyebrow. The student nodded slightly, sat down and closed his eyes.

This scene was faithfully repeated many times over the next few days. During this time some of the students went from great discomfort to a kind of settling down. Still others, like the young student, seemed to be ok and took this chance to look within. And then there were a few who seethed about this complete waste of time, but stuck it out for their own reasons. One student left in pure frustration.

The fifth day commenced. On the board were a set of concentric circles, each with a little dot inside. The teacher sat beside the board, immersed in the silence, eyes opening sometimes and closing sometimes. Finally the young student raised his hand again, stood up confidently and said, Sir, I am fully within the circle. And..., he paused, a bit unsure again. Yes? asked the teacher, and what? The student continued, eyes shining, And the circle is fully within me. I am the paper and the circle and the dot.

At that instant many of the students felt an arrow pierce their hearts, but what spilled out was love, not blood.

The teacher turned and began to pack away the board and paper and pen. Good, he said, because I was really getting tired of drawing so many circles.

The myth of exclusive enlightenment

There are many myths about enlightenment, and as many myths about what an enlightened person is like.

Look inside. You will find an idea about what an enlightened being is like. He/she must be experiencing life in a particular way. He/she would act only in a particular way, and so on. And then the implicit assumption is that when I start to experience those things and act like that, then I will be enlightened.

Even the most experienced spiritual seeker, who has been exposed to all the myths, still harbors a very subtle and maybe even highly sophisticated idea of what enlightenment is. And this idea comes in the way of knowing what we are. The mind keeps comparing our idea of an enlightened being with our own self, and finds the self wanting.

In a recent satsang, we talked about squiggles in a painting. What somebody said was that if we zoom in on a squiggle inside a painting, it appears meaningless and ordinary, but when we zoom out and see the whole painting, it suddenly acquires meaning and beauty. This is something we can all relate to, right?

A wonderful analogy, but it still does not come close to capturing the essence of this awareness that we are. The squiggle is not beautiful only in its relation to the painting. This would still be to find the beauty outside oneself. Rather, the totality that is the painting, is as much and as fully in the squiggle, as in the painting. When the squiggle recognizes itself to be the same totality as the painting in which it appears, this is the end of the separation of the squiggle from the painting. They may retain their different forms as squiggle and painting, but they are essentially the same totality - like a holograph.

How is this connected to what we started out with?

When we try to put enlightenment and enlightened people into a box with only some specific attributes, we lose the totality. And we miss the point. Enlightenment and unenlightenment co-exist as one. You who think you are unenlightened - you contain both enlightenment and unenlightenment within you. The teacher who you think is enlightened also contains both enlightenment and unenlightenment within himself. The totality excludes nothing, and includes everything.

The difference between you who think you are unenlightened, and the teacher who you think is enlightened, is that the teacher is fully ok with the unenlightenment within. There is no wishing for it to be different than what it is.

The enlightened squiggle :-) loses its identification with its squiggleness, and sees itself as being the totality that contains the squiggle form. Now the squiggle is not the squiggle. Yet it continues to appear as the squiggle. But it would not be true to say that the squiggle is enlightened, because there is nothing that identifies itself as the squiggle anymore. And yet the squiggle form continues. Until it doesn't. But it is only this totality appearing as the squiggle.

Examine your idea of enlightenment. See how it excludes so much. Can enlightenment exclude anything? Can totality exclude anything? So long as you identify with your enlightened self alone or your unenlightened self alone, you miss the totality of you that contains both.

See through the myth of exclusive enlightenment.

Truth, not peace

Here's a great question to ask oneself:

Do I want the truth more than I want love and peace?

This is a tough question, is it not? It may conjure up unpleasant images that we would much rather avoid. Yet it is a critical question, and it must be faced at some point or the other on the spiritual journey. So are you ready to ask this question now? If you are not ready, no problem - being honest about yourself is always a good thing, is it not? And if you are ready, then go ahead. Get tough.

The truth is that the deep spiritual journey carries no incentive. There is no grand prize awaiting us that makes all the heartache worthwhile. If you are on this journey and holding out for the grand prize, then you are setting yourself up for great disappointment. The deep spiritual journey is its own incentive. We are on this journey, because it chooses us and not vice versa. Any idea that the mind has about pursuing eternal love and peace on this quest is just that - an idea.

The rational mind wants to have a worthy objective and so it makes up a story about the spiritual goals of eternal bliss or eternal contentment. And then it leads us to believe that we are looking for those things. And then what happens? We may have a wonderful spiritual experience or two or even a dozen. But we always seem to return to the life we had before those experiences. In other words, life outside those experiences is not necessarily always blissful or content. So we seek more spiritual highs, and we seek new teachers, new teachings, new techniques - anything that promises us eternal peace. And we end up not with eternal peace, but with eternal seeking. What a mindtrap! Is it not?

Somehow it never occurs to us to question the spiritual goal itself. What if we are deluding ourselves about the goal itself? Am I really seeking eternal love and peace? And even if such questions do occur to us, we dismiss them easily, because mind produces some weighty distractions that help us avoid them. For example, we start to think about all those wise and realized men and women who emanate peace and bliss, and they are shining examples of what can be achieved, is it not? So that justfies the goals we have set ourselves. And it just shows that we need to do something differently to reach those goals. Or so the mind would have us believe. And then off we go -seeking in new fresh ways again!

And yet, can you think of even one realized master who said that he/she was in this to find peace and love for themselves? Yes, many of these masters embody and emanate love and peace. That part is true, but the rest is imagined in our minds. The idea that they pursued that love and peace for personal gain can find no support in their authentic accounts or their teachings. Isn't that true? Don't believe me - check it for yourself.

What these great teachers tell us is that love, peace and contentment are the bye-products of living in truth. But they cannot be grasped at, for what is grasped at and sometimes attained also slips through and is often lost. This love that they radiate is not the idea of love that we carry around in our heads. It is a love that loves without cause. It is a love that loves because it is its nature to love, because it cannot help itself. This is the love that does not need to hold on to itself, lest it should slip away. And this love is a bye-product of seeing and being the truth of what we are. Because living in truth means an openness and appreciation of whatever arises; it means being in unity with what is.

So go ahead, if you are ready. Ask yourself the question:

Do I want the truth more than I want love and peace?

Allow yourself to delve into that question for a few days or a few weeks. Discover what compromises you have made, or may still be making in order to choose peace over the truth. Find out if such a peace really satisfies you in a sustained way. Rediscover what you already know - that the truth is not always peaceful. Really let in what you already know - that you cannot know what this moment will look like for you - that there is no guarantee of peace.

It is not my purpose to make you feel bad, and it is certainly not my purpose to make you feel good! This question is not for the faint of heart. But if you are willing and ready for it, it will change the course of your seeking.

Infinite potential

I am a rose
and I am a thorn
I am neither alone
I am both

But wait
I am a tree
I am a cloud
I am the sky

Nothing lasts
And I am each
And neither
And all

Time is
this moment extended
in the mind
thats all

No time
No future
No past
Only this moment
And infinite potential

I am a rock

I am a rock
in love
with the water
around me

Its currents
and pools
and eddies
and flow

They caress me
and coddle me
and gently
break me down

I laugh
as the water's gurgle
I cry
as the water's flow

Anyday now
I disappear
As the water
Claims me whole

I can't resist
I am in love

Being love I dance life

This nothing that is
everything

finds the love
in being this body

finds delight
in concrete expression

expresses love
in this form
is love
as this form

being love
I act

being love
I dance life

Suffering and relief - Part 1

Human beings want to be free of suffering.

No - this post is not about yet another technique to relieve suffering. There are many techniques out there to relieve suffering of all kinds. And they can be helpful sometimes. If you are drawn to them, then by all means go there.

This post is addressed to those among us who have already tried many techniques, and even found them helpful sometimes. This post is addressed to those among us who have found that, in the end however, no technique has put them beyond suffering. Yes, there has been occasional and temporary relief from suffering. Sometimes the relief has been longer lasting than at other times. But no matter what they try or how they approach it, the suffering visits again and again and they are not free of suffering.

We have a powerful human urge to relieve suffering, in ourselves and in others. And equally, we have a powerful human addiction to relief from suffering. Remember how it feels when a very vexing and troubling issue is cleared up? Remember the delicious relief of suffering dissolved? Of course you remember. We all remember. And we love it. And we want more of it. And more and more.

But how about some relief from relief? Any takers? :-)

The intensity of any experience, relief included, is proportional to the extent of contrast within the experience. When we go from acute distress to peace, it feels palpably different and marvelous! When we go from peace to more peace, the change is not registered so dramatically. Yes?

What we are really addicted to is the drama, - the highs and lows of experience. They make us feel alive in a glittering sort of way. In order to experience this kind of intense high, we need to experience an intense low first, for it is the contrast between the two that makes the high so dramatic. This is not just true for addictions to substance. This is true for the human addiction to experience. And while it may seem ridiculous to say that we are buying into our suffering because we are addicted to the relief from suffering, there may be more than a grain of truth there to examine, each for himself.

While we find it easy to let go of suffering, we don't find it so easy to let go of relief. While we are eager to let go of blame and guilt, we are not so eager to let go of credit and praise. But they are inextricably tied together. One can only be experienced in contrast with the other. So grasping at one thing automatically preserves the other. Grasping at praise preserves the blame. Grasping at relief preserves the suffering.

Notice I said grasping. I did not say enjoying. The difference can be stark or subtle. Only you can know what it is for you. When the sun shines, we can enjoy the sunshine. But when it changes to rain, the sunshine is not missed. When it rains, the rain can be enjoyed. When it snows, the snow can be enjoyed. Each brings its own flavor. This is enjoyment without grasping. When I want the sun to shine instead of the rain that is pouring, it is grasping. When I am anxious that it should be sunny tomorrow, it is grasping. And there is little enjoyment in it.

Again, this post is not for those who enjoy being in the game of opposites. It is indeed a wonderful game. And there is nothing wrong with the game at all. If you enjoy the game, go for it. Enjoy yourself. There is indeed an infinite variety of games to play out there, in the world of opposites.

But if you have seen that, in the end, they are all the same game, and if you just don't enjoy the game anymore, then know that you don't have to play it. You can rest. You can rest in the vastness beyond suffering and relief. Neither is needed for this rest.

Relief from suffering is great, and relief from suffering and relief is sublime. This vastness - it includes all opposites and is beyond all opposites at the same time. Rest here.

And this vastness is not dumb and this vastness is not passive.

More on this in the next post.

What am I really seeking? - Part 3

The question is: What do I really want?

Answers arise:

I want peace
I want happiness
I want fulfilment
I want love
etc.

Perhaps you found an answer similar to the ones above?

For the purpose of this post, let's just take the first one: I want peace.

By now we have seen quite conclusively that there is no such thing as a perfectly accurate prediction of what actually happens in this moment. Right?

So this moment may express itself as peace or war, as comfort or suffering, as anger or love, as hatred or joy, or anything else. Right? The truth is we don't know. So when this moment manifests disturbance or suffering of any kind, how does that relate to our wanting peace? In other words, when we want peace, how do we experience the suffering of this moment? Do we experience it as not having what we want? Check your own experience. Find out what comes up for you when you want peace and this moment brings suffering. Be totally honest with yourself. Explore gently.

If you discover that your experience is of not having what you want, then I would urge you to return to the question: What do I really want?.

You ask: Why?

Perhaps to see that this question has no answer.

Perhaps to see that whatever answer the mind comes up with will leave you wanting - either because your want shifts, (previous post), or because there is always the possibility that something may come up which is opposite to what you want.

Perhaps to see that in the very idea of your wanting something, you put it at a distance from yourself, you separate it out from you.

Perhaps to see that what you really deeply want is this moment as it is. No matter what it brings.

Perhaps to see that you are what you want.

Discover for yourself.

What am I really seeking? - Part 2

A couple of posts back, I painted a scenario where you have an opportunity to tell God what you really want from your seeking. The only condition for fulfilment is that you be very clear about what you want. Time is no bar. God is very patient. :-)

I got a few different replies, some of which were posted on this blog and others to my direct email. Thanks for your participation.

In my experience, (shared by some of you) this question itself is very clarifying. Asking yourself :What do I really want?, can cut away so much of the meandering on the seeker's journey and can really bring you into the essence of what the seeking is about. It allows what is truly important to shine amidst the rubbish pile that pretends to be equally important. Have you seen that for yourself, clearly?

Looking back, perhaps we can each remember many different desires that sprung up in the mind - I really want to have a great job, I really want to have lots of money, I really want to be appreciated and loved, and so on. Perhaps some of those desires were fulfilled, and then what happened? If I really wanted a great job and I got it, then that should have been the end of it for me, is it not? But that's not what happened. After I got the great job, I wanted to get promoted, then I wanted to run the place and so on. After I made a lot of money, I wanted still more. When I had the appreciation of one set of people, I wanted it from another set of people. This is familiar ground, is it not?

And what this shows us is that the mind is quite capable of producing wants endlessly. Within every fresh want, is the implicit promise that this will be it; this one will make us feel fulfilled. But it has not happened yet.

For some of us, this is ok. It's ok to play this game yet again. Others have reached the end of their tether. So when answers start to arise to the question of What do I really want?, bring to bear the full weight of your experience with wants, as you see those answers. Don't rush to believe the answers. Subject them to some scrutiny.

The process of questioning is far more valuable than any answers the mind may produce. This does not mean that answers that come up are irrelevant. I would suggest that some of these answers are simply part of the questioning process. They put us in touch with some of our beliefs and in that sense they are useful. I am suggesting that we don't let those answers stop the questioning process, as if it was completed by getting those answers

Let me go out on a limb here.

You will know when an answer is authentic for you, for it will bubble up from the depth of your being. And it will have an insistent quality to it. You may find that it will connect the dots between all your wants. And (and this is where it can get really icky), it may not announce itself with great fanfare! The answer to this question may simply seep into your consciousness very quietly. You may even find yourself in the odd position of holding the question in the mind, long after the answer is already known and being acted upon. Then somehow the question - which is now only a shell - will just dry up and disappear on its own. I share this only because sometimes we may miss the answer because we are expecting it to look a particular way! And it may look that way or it may not.

Yes this is the last thing that the mind wants to hear! :-) All that effort in the inquiry and no clear-cut answer to point to and grab a hold of ! What a waste of time! - says the mind. And I would only say: don't believe the mind and don't reject it. :-)

Please feel free to write in again.

I will continue with this topic in a future post.

Acceptance

Much confusion can arise around acceptance.

What is acceptance?

In the mind, we have an idea of what this means. We think of acceptance as something we have to do in the face of difficulty - a kind of grit-your-teeth-and-bear-it approach. This is so difficult to do when what is actually happening inside us, is this storm of resistance. Perhaps we are facing a difficult challenge and we have run out of options to address it. The thoughts running through the mind are taking the form of: This should not be happening. This is wrong and bad. Then we remember this spiritual advice of acceptance. To some it sounds beautiful and noble, but it also seems impossible to achieve! So we pretend to accept. To others it sounds like a good idea since nothing else is working, but it still seems very difficult to actually do!

Or perhaps we are living with someone who is being difficult, and we have learned through tough experience that we cannot change her. So we try to accept this person, either because it is the only option left to us, or because we want to be noble and try to feel good and loving toward this difficult person. It works for a while, but then the facade cracks, as all facades eventually do. And it feels so painful. Even when it works, it is such a burden to keep this kind of acceptance going. Right?

Is any of this familiar so far?

So is this the acceptance that is being pointed to?

Is acceptance something we have to struggle to do?

A friend of mine recently wrote this to me: Acceptance which seems so important and necessary and even noble to the mind is just a mound of dirt and rubble, heavy and lifeless, compared to choiceless awareness.

Acceptance is not something to do. Acceptance is choiceless awareness. It happens and it is happening all the time. We can just tune into it. It is much simpler than we think and it is abundantly available. There is already something here that accepts everything just as it is. It is the same something that allows everything to happen! What prevents us from tuning into it is the belief that this moment should be different. And if there is anything at all to do, then it is this: see this belief in operation. Only see it. See that this belief has formed in the mind. We did not make this belief, nor choose to have it installed. It is there quite innocently. See this. That really is all.

This acceptance is not passive, as mind fears. This acceptance does not freeze us into inaction. Look around you. Is life going on? This acceptance that is already here does not halt the flow of life. This acceptance is powerful and real and present. It is the source of all action.

Discover this for yourself.

Don't believe the mind and don't reject it

A wise teacher said, Don't believe the mind and don't reject it either.

Sometimes, as seekers, we take the first part of that teaching to heart, but not the second part. Right?

Infact, the two parts can seem downright contradictory. If we don't believe the mind, then it seems like we must automatically ignore it. True. And the key word is automatically. This is the conditioned response of the mind. We are conditioned to have an either-or response. So if we embrace one pole, then it stands to reason and experience that we cannot embrace the opposite pole. But is that really true?

As we travel on the so-called spiritual path, many of our beliefs actually start to shed and drop away. And most seekers develop a growing and quite healthy inability to believe mind's endless thoughts. :-) But frustration can set in even in the midst of this growing clarity. The frustration can be that thoughts don't stop or that we feel stuck in the mind despite so much having fallen away.

This is where the second part of the teaching can come in handy. Don't reject the mind. Don't resist the mind. For we know that what we resist, persists. And then we feel stuck in the same rut of thoughts and beliefs. So if you feel frustrated, see if there is something of a rejecting attitude towards mind, and towards the thoughts and beliefs. It may be subtle, but even the most subtle rejection can potently reinforce mind.

Perhaps part of the difficulty is that mind keeps posing arguments that sustain it's either-or nature. So it insists that what is not believed must be rejected. Sometimes the seeker buys into this insistence and a certain hardness can develop. All this can be happening very subtly. If this rings a bell for you, tune into it. And expose it to the light of the question: Is it really true? Is it really true that if I don't believe mind, then I must reject it?

You may make surprising discoveries! :-)

Perhaps I can offer an analogy for the mind to consider.

Imagine that you are with an innocent young child. And this beloved child is telling you about the fairies and elves in the garden, or the the monsters under her bed. Would you believe her stories? No, but would you reject them? Isn't there that gentle place within us that can listen to the story, take delight in it and give it loving attention, without believing it? Go there.

This is the quiet ease with what is. This is the resting in the groundless ground. Discover yourself here.

What am I really seeking? - Part 1

Bear with me here while I pose some funny questions.

Imagine that the ultimate truth itself came to you dressed up as God and said: I am here to confer a boon on you. You can have whatever you want, if and only if you can clearly tell me what you want.

What would your answer be?

Further, imagine that it is made very clear to you that this offer is open for all time. In other words, there is no expiry on this offer. :-) So no need to rush and no need to sweat.

What would your answer be?

Ask yourself: What am I really seeking? What do I really want?

Stick with this one question. Get curious about it. Discover what arises.

This is a key question. It can laser-focus your attention to that which matters for you.

Feel free to write in and share.

I will return to this in future posts.

What is grace?

The seeker asks 'What is grace?'

After a lifetime of living in the mind, of worrying about himself and his worth, of feeling unfulfilled or stressed or unhappy or all of those, the seeker cannot be unfamiliar with the enormous power of mind to keep him in the trance. The seeker cannot be unfamiliar with thought's prolific ability to procreate! - One thought leading to another to another and to yet another, seamlessly and unceasingly.

Given this incessant nature of mind, what's to stop us from being enmeshed in its entrails forever?

Isn't that something to stop and consider?

What made the seeker a seeker? What put him on the journey to look beyond mind's babble? What put him on the journey to know his own truth? After all, he could have remained as he had for so long, - taking mind to be his full reality.

Whatever it is that does this - it births the seeker. It puts a spoke in the wheel of mind. It may start with a small spoke, but it knows what it is doing. For even the smallest spoke must start to affect the turning of the wheel, in it's own time.

So what is it? - This quiet, self-assured, powerful, loving force that can quiet mind? That, - dear seeker, - would be grace, - Is it not?

Grace births the seeker. Grace pulls the seeker back, again and again from the trance of mind. Grace finds the teacher, whether internal or external. Grace puts the seeker in the way of the teaching. And grace delivers the seeker into truth.

It is all grace. And deep, deep, deep gratitude is the response. Also from grace.

Who is enlightened? - Part 2

So what is already enlightened?

What already has no argument with reality?

When we sit with this question and let it sink deep within us, we may first notice the resounding silence. The mind may launch an argument right away, wanting an answer to the vexing question. We don't have to settle for mind's prattle. We can notice the silence in the background, and see how the silence holds mind's argument. We can notice that the silence is aware of mind's argument, and yet offers no counter-argument of its own. We can notice this everpresent silent awareness. Is there a moment when this is not?

Arguments start and stop; noise starts and stops, objects in the mind appear and then disappear. Where do they go? Where did they arise? What is present before they arise and after they go? Everything appears in the everpresent silent awareness and returns to it.

And what is the everything that arises within awareness? Can it be anything other than awareness taking shape as something? Can it be 'made of some other substance'? Can a wave be anything other than water in different shapes? But this is not something to be deduced in the mind. See this for yourself. Get to the root of everything that pretends to be other than awareness. Get to the root of every argument with reality.

If I take myself to be this body-mind, then clearly I was born at some time and I must die at some time. What did I come from and where do I go? Notice mind's insistence on this identification with the body-mind. Alas, even the mind is not happy with this identification. If it were happy with it, then you would not be reading this post, right? :-) So notice that mind believes what it does because it does not know any better. But something inside us remains unfulfilled by mind's reasoning. That is the doorway. Go there if you can. Simply occupy that unease with a curiosity to find out what it really is. Don't be afraid of it - it is grace waiting to be received.

This everpresent silent awareness has no argument with reality. It is already enlightened and it is everything. And this means it is I. The I that you are is already enlightened. And all the feelings of unenlightenment are only enlightened awareness in different shapes - free to play in complete freedom - so free that there is nothing to lose even in feeling unenlightened.

For this here is forever enlightened, beyond feeling and thought. And from this enlightenment it plays a darned good game of virtual reality, so real that it fools itself quite successfully - a remarkable feat in itself. And this miraculous self-delusion is seen through and a belly-laugh arises from deep within.

So in summary,

I notice the everpresent silent awareness, that is present before all thoughts and arguments and after them. I see that that which appears and disappears within the everpresent silent awareness is nothing but awareness itself in different forms. I see that this body-mind too appears in the everpresent silent awareness. I see that I am the everpresent silent awareness. Nothing that this body-mind does can be other than the everpresent silent awareness. And it is from this seeing, and from this freedom that I can drop the argument with reality.

The wave knows itself to be water and from this knowing it is free to be a tsunami or a lapping beach wave. From this knowing it is free to be powerful and to be overpowered as the case may be. From this knowing it can advance or retreat as it may happen. This is water living as the wave. This is enlightenment living as you and I.