Sunday 31 August 2008

Moving from I to We

Q - Who am I?

You believe yourself to be what you call 'I, me, and mine'. This concept is very powerful within you. It began very early in your life, when you recognised yourself as an individual state of being. Enquiry into that I leads to a deeper understanding that behind that feeling of 'I-ness' is a greater reality. But I believe their is also a concept that arose before the I concept. This is out of keeping with some thought which holds that we began with the I concept. However I believe that the first concept formed; the fundamental label that as infants we first put upon the world, and beneath which lies ultimate reality, is the 'We', the state of we-ness. As babies we would have recognised our deep interelation with others, as the essential of life. The family, which is the baby's world is essential for the baby's survival. 'We-ness' at this stage is far more important than 'I-ness'.

Take a moment to feel the meaning of the word 'WE'. Feel it. Throw open those connections to the the 'other', which is the opposite of 'I'. We: friends, family, pets, those you have known, colleagues, aquaintances, strangers, those you have never met, animals, insect, the inanimate. What to you is 'We'. This feeling of we-ness, wherever you choose to delineate it, is the first feeling, before even identity. It is the rawest state of being, the original, and the best path to the ultimate reality, that existed before concepts came to rule and dominate our existence.

Q - If We-ness was such a perfect state of being then why did I-ness come to dominate?

We began life feeling ourselves as WE, as part. Once the concept of We had been established in our minds however, then the binary processes that our minds use to create meaning came into play. When our state of we-ness altered, for example we were left alone, shouted at, were hungry and not fed, we had a state of being that was not in keeping with our concept of we-ness. Unweness, if you will. This unweness created the concept of I and Other, and a road into the slow death of conceptual identity began. We took refuge in 'I', for surely it would be an assured state of being that we could control.

We need to recognise the 'I' as no more than a concept, that is paired with 'Other'. Then we will begin to glimpse a strange fluctuating, dynamic state of being; a sometimes strnage and wonderful place, even frightening at first, but the place where genuine, happiness and enlighten ment can take place.

Thursday 28 August 2008

The Heart and Reality

The Heart
Q - Who am I?
You are the heart, the ever unfolding being that exists as a creative dynamic through time. You are a force that takes no effort. As the world (reality) is unfolding without your effort, so you, your identity is unfolding as part of that reality.
I want to share two metaphors that represent visions of reality. The first is the one that I believe is commonly held amongst people.
You are a being adrift in an ocean of reality, surrounded by past, future, here, there, good, bad, them, you, now, then. You are navigating your way around this ocean of reality, succumbing to a myriad of forces upon you.
Now a second metaphor
Reality is a wave, moving through the ocean of eternity. All things exist at the front of the wave, which is the now, the present moment. This moment is ever changing and shifting, evolving. It is affected by what went before, but there is no ‘what went before’. Even our remembrances of it only exist in the now, at the front of the wave. This wave is intelligent, it can even predict where it will be in the future, but these predictions are also creations of the now, at the front of the wave.
Does yesterday exist? Does two seconds ago exist? All that exists is now. The great unfolding wave of reality. You are part of that unfolding wave.
Q – If I am part of this unfolding wave of reality, why do I feel adrift, alone? Why do I feel that life is effort and strain.
Let me explain through another metaphor. You are a like a man in his house, surrounded by his things. This is his world. This is him. This box of memories, of familiarity, he believes is who he is. But he is not, he is the man in the house. If this man goes outside suddenly he is amongst reality. You feel this really each time you step out of your door. Try it now.
Q – But I like my house, I like those familiar things, they make me feel safe, secure, even content.
Do you believe that the truth is a frightening, dangerous, terrible thing to be feared, or do you believe that the great unfolding is the source of love, happiness, freedom, bliss? Your house takes effort to maintain, it is you own creation, an armour against reality and it takes the effort as it is not flexible like the wave. Do you believe that the truth the source of all being can not sustain you? If not, then what can, for even this house of familiarity is created with the source.
Q - You are talking of me as a house, and you advise me to step out of the house, but what does that really mean? How can I step out of myself, when I am myself?
The answer is here my friend, and it is simple. It is called the heart. The heart is the man in the house. The heart is the action that takes no effort.
Q - But how can I recognise the heart?
I will give you two ways to clearly recognise the heart as I can and hopefully one will lead you there. One way is to point to the middle of the chest at the base of the rib cage and say “I”, “Me” or “Mine”. You will recognise that source of identity. It is who you really are. Lionhearted, passionate, charismatic, loving – we are all these things when we recognise ourselves in the heart. Also when you are feeling sexual arousal, you will seem to become a being not of the head but of the middle of the chest at the base of the rib cage. You may begin grunting and groaning, expressing the animal within. This is no simple wild beast, this is the heart. It is felt during sex because it is at the root of our being to procreate since the first organisms. But it can be felt always not just during sexual arousal. It is who you really are. It is the heart arousing, waking up. It is the man in the house recognising himself.
We have tamed our hearts, boxed them up within the mind, within a fabrication of thought. It is time to free you heart from the domination of the mind. The mind is a hall of mirrors, it can not ride the wave. But the heart, oh yes, the heart can be at the front of the wave and ride reality.
Within and around the heart muscle are a mass of nerves. People who have had heart transplants have found they have taken on personality traits, even memories from the previous heart’s user. The heart is the original source of identity, the original being. The brain came as a tool to process data from eyes, ear, nose, mouth, and skin, but in most people it has usurped the sense of identity. The heart thumps away with no effort from you.
Unfold with the heart my friend. Be the heart.
Q – but what of the head, is it not valuable?
Absolutely, the head is a fantastic tool. Wow the imagination! The delicacy of sound and vision, the nuance of flavour – but it is not the heart, the centre – that is where you, the ‘I’ that can unfold with reality dwells. Reside there and let the head be the servant.
You and the heart are the same thing. The heart is being, loving. The heart is the action that takes no effort. You can ride the wave of reality by recognising and realising yourself fully as heart.

Wednesday 27 August 2008

Being

Notes on Being
Q - Who am I?
Big question. Easy answer. You are being. You are simultaneously both a being and also the action of being. Being is what you are. At this very moment you are being. In fact you are always being. There is not a moment in your life where you are not being.
Q - Am I always aware of being or am I sometimes acting as an automaton, a zombie, with no sense of my own being?
Take a moment: Are you being right now? Can you think of a single time when you were not aware of being? No, being is always there.
Q - If being is always there then why am I not in a state of bliss?
Is a man who drinks muddy water, drinking water, then why is he unhappy?
Let us clarify what being actually is.
Being is an act of doing that takes no effort. This is the source of much confusion as the willed acts of thought and other physical actions seem to be what I am, for surely they are the things that I am actually doing, so they are me. The truth actually glimmers through here, for things that you do, are not you, they are things that you do. Being is you. You are the act that takes no effort. Because there is no effort you are hard to identify amongst the much more visible willed acts. But behind all of these willed efforts is the real you; Being. Being; the act that takes no effort.
Being is simply unfolding. It is the unfolding of your life through time.
Q - If I am always being anyway, is there any need to pursue any sort of practise that leads me to being?
Are you happy? Are you content? Are you experiencing bliss? What is standing in the way of these? If you are able to simply be with no effort on your part shouldn’t you be blissfully happy? Such freedom. What is standing in the way? Attachment to thought. Attachment to the act of doing. Attachment to will.
It is clear that there are two aspects here, being and doing. As we clarified being so we need to understand what is meant by doing.
Doing is the willed actions that we undertake in order to reach a goal. We see a goal and think if I do this action then I will reach or move towards attaining that goal. Doing this to get to that. What is wrong with that? A sane question. If I want to become a doctor, do I not have to think about what I need to do to achieve that goal and will myself to undertake those actions?
There is nothing wrong with doing, but if it does not emanate from being, you will not be happy. Like the child who likes to play music but feels the weight of his parent’s wishes for him to become a doctor. He then wills himself to become a doctor; he wills himself toward the goal. Doing the actions required to make his way toward that goal. Is he happy? No, his doing did not emanate from his being. In fact he will lose connection with between his being and doing and that is the source of his unhappiness.
I ask again: Are you happy? Are you content? Are you experiencing bliss? What is standing in your way? But now an extra question. What are you doing that does not emanate from your being, which is the act that requires no effort?
Q - There are many things that do not emanate from my being, compromises I have had to make in what I do, out of the necessities of life, paying bills etc. I have to do my job even though I did not always want to do this job. We can’t all be rock stars, footballers, sages, poets, can we?
No, and we must deal in practicalities. I am not saying throw out everything, give up your job, and set yourself adrift upon the whims of fate (although this will make you happy, it could be catastrophic for those whose fates are attached to your own). I believe that we can be in a state of blissfulness, contentment and happiness in whatever situation we find ourselves.
Going back to our doctor friend, he became unhappy because he lost his connection between his being and doing. Let us take on the metaphor further, supposing the unhappy Doctor, always having to force himself to do things, has a member of is family who becomes seriously ill and he is asked to attend to the patient. Would he now be forcing himself to do it? No. Why not? Now he has a personal stake in his doing. Why now rather than before? A simple yet profound answer: Love. The love for a family member makes his situation, that did not originally emanate from his being, and was purely an act of doing, into an act of being, which is loving, which is the action that requires no effort.
I ask again: Are you happy? Are you content? Are you experiencing bliss? What is standing in your way? But now, not ‘What are you doing that does not emanate from your being?’, but, What are you doing that does not emanate from love?
Yes, Love and Being are the same thing. The doctor had loved music since he was a child, but there was a point at which he did not love music. He just attached his love to music very early so it became tied up with his being, and when another pressure came upon him he felt pulled away from what he loved.
Q - So are you saying we must love everything that we do?
Yes, if you want happiness, contentment and bliss, you must love everything without hesitation. If the doctor had immediately loved the idea of being a doctor would he have been unhappy? No. I ask you now, are you loving what you are doing right at this very moment?
I am not sure what love is?
Love is Loving. It is not a thing but an act. It is the act of unfolding yourself in the moment freely and openly without hesitation. It is the same as being. Are you loving right now? Are you allowing your life to unfold freely without hesitation, to go where it wills itself. Remember it is an act that requires no effort upon your part. You have no control here, that lack of control is the freedom, which is a fundamental cause of bliss, contentment and happiness. In fact we could do away with all three of those labels and reduce them down simply to freedom. Loving (which is the same as being, the action that takes no effort) brings freedom.
Q – When I stop to let my life unfold as it will, should I not feel an overwhelming sense of freedom? The thing is when I stop and let my life unfold it feels like I am just sitting there?
Sit longer, unfold more, let time peel away the layers of doing, embrace the freedom of just being.
Q – I find I want to do. My mind likes doing.
Ha ha! Then do, for that doing is emanating from being which is loving, let the doing unfold as it will. As I said there is nothing wrong with doing, only with doing that has lost its connection with loving which is being.
Q – Sometimes I feel I am just doing because it is a habitual pattern, a routine, or even doing because it is addiction like smoking, both of these seem to need no effort. How can I know these from being?
Habit and addiction are the imitations of loving which is the same as being, that is why they are so pervasive, and also so widely used in manipulations by those that seek to exploit, e.g. marketers and advertisers, politicians. If you do things the same way several times you will be inclined to do it that way again, especially if there is a promise of reward. The same is true of thinking, once you start thinking in certain ways you will be likely to think that way again. However habit and addiction are repetition, Loving, which is being, is unfolding, ever changing, growing and that is how it is recognised. It is the difference between repeatedly being given a beautiful picture of a landscape, or gazing upon the everchanging shifting scene of the real thing.
Q – So how can I escape habit and addiction
Simple, through everlasting unfolding, loving, being, freeing, acting without effort. They are all the same.
Q – But I am scared, my habits and addictions make me feel safe, they are my control, my ritual amidst the chaos.
Then you are like the thirsty man who stands before the oasis, scared to leave the desert.
Q – I have strong desires, lust for example, that seems to come up with no effort at all, in fact it seems almost to throw itself at me. Is this part of being.
Hunger for food, sex, air, water, even love and respect, are just that, they are hungers. Examine it, is it emanating from being? A man can hunger for food, but a man can also love food. A man can hunger for sex, or a man can love sex.
Q – Yes, but how can I distinguish hungering, from loving.
What bliss or freedom is there in a hunger. Stop now and take a great lung full of air relishing it and enjoying, loving every moment, every feeling as it enriches your body, exhale in the same way loving every moment as you expel the unnecessary gasses. Repeat this several times remembering that there is no effort in this.
You are now a man loving air. With each breath your life is unfolding creatively. A fine thing to do with an act we take so for granted and yet is our most primary source of life. If any act of the human body should be celebrated surely breathing is the one.
Now exhale and hold your lungs empty for as long as you can.
Did you feel the excitement, the agitation, the ever growing need until you had to give in. You were a man hungering for air. Lust is the same, only felt by the man who is not loving his sexual feeling all the time. Stop now and love your sexuality, feel it within you, it is always there, not just when a pretty girl pops up. Stop again and feel your wellfedness, love it, mmmmm. Greed and gluttony come to those who only appreciate food when their mouth is full. Feel the liquid in your system, you are two thirds H2O, enjoy it sloshing about inside you. And last but certainly not least, your need for respect. We haul ourselves between occasional gratifications and even then we sometimes deny it as though it were somehow wrong to feel self worth and respect. Stop now and feel the respect you have for yourself, enjoy it, relish it, no guilt at feeling pride, just love who you are. Go on one minute of pure bigging yourself up. Go.
Hunger comes from not feeding yourself. Desire comes from not feeding yourself. It is a signal, an alarm if you will, that that area is not being satiated. Loving, which is being, which is the perpetual unfolding of life without hesitation, which is freedom, which is action without effort will fulfil your needs, hungers and desires.
I ask again. Are you happy? Are you experiencing bliss? Are you content? What is standing in your way? What are you doing that is not coming from Loving, which is Being, which is the perpetual unfolding of life without hesitation, which is freedom, which is the action that requires no effort?
Then stop it!
Q – How long will it take for me to achieve this state?
Until you taste the pure water of being with every moment you exist
Q – There are sometimes several things I need to do pressing upon me. Which should I do? How do I know which is the one that is emanating from being?
Choice is doing. You must love the choosing. Choose without effort. Just unfold.