69. Suffering and ‘Me’ sense.

We normally feel that we are suffering due to one or other reasons. The feeling is so strong or real that we cannot imagine that there is a possibility that, there could be a way ‘not to feel’ the suffering.

People try to be patient, get motivated, counselled etc., as ‘ways out’ of suffering. Some succeed to some extent. Also, it is easy to write, that suffering is unreal, even though it feels real, but no harm in bringing some sense of humour, into what suffering actually is.

There seems to be a cause of suffering and a another root cause of suffering, apart from the immediate cause. The immediate cause of suffering seems to be rooted in external situations, seen unacceptable to a ‘me’. ( or something that I am helpless about ) and the root cause is the illusory relation that is maintained, of the outside world and ‘me’ itself.

We normally tend to attack the symptoms of suffering because the root cause is beyond the appeal to mind. We shortlist the reasons for suffering as lack of money, time, friends, health, mood, character, enthusiasm, situations, and many more to this list and try to strive to increase the chances of improving the external nature of suffering by ‘trying to’ fill up the gap. We try and improve our personalities, relationships, take advise of elders, consultants, pundits and swamijis etc to achieve this target. The ‘known’ and ‘unknown’ causes that seem to bring about suffering, are  imagined to be ‘real’.

Firstly we accept that suffering is ‘real’ and the sufferer also as ‘real’. We believe that life is difficult and we must suffer. In other words, suffering makes life ‘real’. We continue to find ways to suffer to maintain the difficulty of life, so as to maintain the ‘reality’ of the fiction that life is real. Maintaining the suffering is maintaining the sufferer. The suffering is the sufferer –so as to say. Our words and actions too, play out the suffering to the maximum to keep it going. We ‘strive’ (another word for suffering) to come out of suffering. Studying hard, working hard, exercising hard ( physically and mentally) etc, where in full effort ( another word for struggle or suffering) seems to spring out from the sufferer as if a drowning person is trying to save himself.  When there is struggle to get out of water, you normally are not doing the swimming right and run the risk of drowning. Similarly, we try to cover all tracks that can lead to suffering in one go and find the struggle a big burden in life. Life is a burden and burden is life seems to be the bottom line.

What is suffering?. Suffering is an effort to fill up the lack of want verses what you seem to have. You are lean and want to be fat or the other way. You are unhappy and want to be happy. The lack is only in areas of security and pleasure. Seeking is another name for suffering. Seeking wealth and health and peace of mind is struggling on these issues. By grace and in time, some healing of suffering does take place. But in that time, the wants also seem to increase. You don’t want what you have and you want what you don’t have, becomes the ‘logo’ of seeking of suffering. When you get what you want, it already goes into that list of what you don’t want ( or what does not need to be looked into) and the circle of suffering is kept continuous.  This seeking is helpful in maintaining the ‘me sense’. If you are perfectly happy and there is nothing that you want, life becomes hopeless. It is hope that keeps filling time of an illusory ‘me’.

Following lines are apt from ‘Fundamental Expressions’: How can one be in state of ‘perfect and permanent happiness’?  'In perfect and permanent happiness'- there will be no further hope. So the state is 'hopeless'. If you can bear 'hopelessness' now, that is you are not seeking relief through future as if present is compulsive, 'you are in perfect and permanent happiness' now.

We think we are suffering due to external situations not being in our control. Suffering is a mental state. It is a way of ‘seeking change’  The ‘lack’ comes from the conditioning that the present state ‘must not be’. There is a resistance to being present in this state. The resistance is the suffering. It is Natures ‘method’ to maintain the ‘me sense’.  This also sees the activity of continuously changing the world, to meet the gap, causing the suffering. The ‘need’ to want a change maintains the ‘me sense’ here and also becomes an activity that is constantly changing the external conditions or the world. Change is the fundamental element in Creation. What keeps changing is ‘objective’. The whole simulation of ‘want’ is automatic and self sustaining. Understanding the working of nature is coming in terms with the flow of life.

Accepting ‘what is’ is allowing the change to be. The change is ‘going to be’ –come what may. Resistance make you feel separate and as if an individual.   A sense of separation  or individuality ‘appears’ due to resistance to ‘what is’. There is no individual entity operating any body. Life is the operator, maintaining the ‘change’.

Some wise words from Dr. Gregory Tucker: Quote :Life mostly features us 'clinging to the fiction that we are having a difficult life,' to anchor the fiction that 'someone is actually having one' in the first place. 'Enduring a difficult life' works, to keep the fiction in place that 'reality is not only real, it is real because it is difficult.' Without suffering, what proof do you have that you are having a life?  It is ‘embarrassing’ when truth reveals that you are required to keep your ‘brand of suffering’ to keep life ‘difficult’ in order to make the ‘me sense’ feel ‘real’. It is even more ‘embarrassing’ when truth reveals  that ‘suffering works’ to prolong the fiction that a ‘difficult life is a real life’ Unquote.

Suffering seems to be a synonym for ‘me’. When there is joy, you don’t feel either time of any sense of being individual.  Time and ‘me sense’ is felt only in suffering. Feeling separate is a mark of suffering already. They both are one and the same. Suffering is seeking is separateness is ‘me sense’. You cant shake off the ‘me’ as there isn’t anyone there to either to shake it off, nor to be shaken off. To see creation as a movement or change is coming to terms with what is happening and is beginning to dismantle the ‘me-sense’ which suffering is. The end of suffering is end of ‘me’, as both mean the same.

There is a possibility that suffering opens the door to study the nature of mind, or the world of appearance which is called spiritual seeking and also becomes another game to keep the ‘me-sense’ going strong. Ultimately, by grace, it is possible to suddenly find the end of seeking as the end of the seeker which would mean ‘ die before you die’ and bring about quite a bit of peace, but now, to no-one, as you.

It is a fun game to try and get rid of the ‘me’. There is one ‘me’ trying get rid of a ‘me’ by being ‘me’ as always. Try it out, it might throw you off ‘Samsara’ or the chain of suffering. Good luck.

68. Fear and Love

There is a saying that, if you love someone or something dearly, you also have the fear of losing that someone or something. Such love is already the root cause of fear. So it seems. We give it terms like infatuation, attachments etc. But Love and Fear and two ends of one feel. It is something like this, that, absence or limit of fear is Love.

How can we analyse Fear. Fear cannot be analysed, no matter who tells you. Human body reacts to fear like in anger. Assume a snake on you leg. You will either jump away or push it aside ( or rarely admire its beauty). There is a direct action taking place. Until that instant, what we have is a thought of fear and not fear itself. Fear itself enacts the body, as if it was the ‘entity’ to the body.  So when actual fear is there, there pure direct action. That is an instant when there is no analysis. There is either screaming or running or gunning the object of fear. It is either fight or flight that is happening when fear is happening. Or else, whatever is happening cannot be termed ‘fear’ in its right sense. May be after the act, there is a falling back of how insecure you were, and an imagination that you were in fear is what is likely. What is happening as a sensation in the body, before the act leading to fear, is not fear itself.

When we ‘think’ we are in fear, it is only a thought. Being scared is not fear. Its worse. We are scared at the mental images of objects of fear leading to imagine, how bad the end result can be. However Fear, actually and by itself is very friendly and useful. It a 'protective' program. It acts directly and not through thought. You can be sure that having a thought about fear is not what actually ‘the feel’ of fear. There is still ‘space’ not to get sucked into the idea that it is fear. It is just a feel, labelled ‘uncomfortable’ which is wrongly interpreted as fear. It could be due to acidity also ( joking). If it is accepted as a symptom of fear, even for once, it remains as a memory of fear to a similar feeling in future. So, next time, when a similar feeling sets in, it gets linked to the memory of fear, or is recognised as fear and starts to contract the body ‘as if for fear’. Most often people are afraid of cockroaches and lizards. The fear makes them runaway. It acts already. Given a chance to ‘see’ what the feel is about, it is ‘not’ fear already. You can then hug the lizard or crocodile, if this fear is dealt with correctly. ( Not exactly, because all of us are uniquely lived in a way).

Mind tries it best to dwell in a comfort zone of no fear at all. Psychological comfort so as to say. More the comforts enjoyed, more is the scope of imagined level of comfort. This leads to ideas to fulfil them, as if, that gap between imagined limit of comfort and the existing level, is presenting itself as a ‘lack’. When force is used to fulfil the apparent lack, violence comes into play. Security and pleasure are the main elements of comfort. But these are ‘mental’ happenings. It is a mental projection of a gap and tries getting filled with mental interpretations of physical experiences.

Absence of fear is ‘Love’. Whenever there is loss of a something we are attached to, or an object of feeling secure, there is fear. Fear is always of losing. Losing security or wealth, health, people, objects, comfort zones etc. When that loss is made good, there is sense of fulfilment. It is a zone of ‘love’. Fulfilment is a zone of not wanting, peace, comfort. In works in areas of dangers too. Dangers cause fear. But when you fall in love with uncertainties of life or dangers in life, there is an absence of fear. Falling in love with dangers is an adventure. Life is adventurous.  During such times, absence of fear feels as if a presence of love. It is zone of ‘good feeling’.  Extremities of life is seen being played either from a zone of fear or love. There are not two different zones. Its like a mountain with a high and a low. Either you are struggling upwards or enjoying a free fall. To come to terms with fear is to fall in love with life itself. Its like a roller coaster. The heights make fear, the speed makes fear etc. But for an adventurist, the game is full of joy. There is sense of security being strapped to the chair and all unwanted fear of getting hurt is out of the window. So too, you are strapped to life. Very secure. Nothing more is required. No labelling is required for the speeds and ‘ups and downs’ of the game. Just ‘go’ with the flow. Its a thriller. Its love, through and through.

Fear is when we feel personal with rest of the world and love is the absence of fear or absence of the feel of being personal. The labelling of fear just vanishes, when life is seen as wholeness. This body mind is a part of ‘what is happening’. It is secured by life because it is lived by life and not something called ‘me’. When reality unfolds itself, it is just seen as ‘what is happening’. There is a total absence of a ‘separate me’ in reality.

So next time when you feel afraid, take a moment, see how fear moves through the body. Screaming may happen, running or gunning may happen and in the end, it will pass too. It is a good practice to try and enjoy fear as a game rather than resist and brood over it. It can be adventurous ( when you look back in time).

67. Intelligence

It is intelligence that is intelligent. Not you, me or some other. We say he is intelligent. It seems as if a grasping power or conceptualising ability. It seems it is tool to control outcome of apparent events. we say  that intelligence is operating well at that body. How intelligence happens or doesn’t happen is something that only intelligence itself has to reveal.

Intelligence comes in many forms. Instinct is a basic category. A baby monkey has to know all gravitational laws and forces to grip its mother tight enough while it is jumping trees. Neither the mother nor the child has any fear of the baby getting dropped. Similarly a blind kitten must know that the first feed has to be sucked out from its mother, even if it can’t be seen. So intelligence just operates everywhere as if, those forms were intelligent.

The planetary system seems to be in place, the human body -functions seems to be in place, digesting and heart beating etc and this category of intelligence is more than instinctive. The whole of creation seems to be performing intelligently on its own, if taken as a single entity.

Intelligence is life. Intelligence is consciousness. It is intelligence that talks us, acts us or behaves us intelligently or foolishly to unfold the next moment in creation. Taking credit of intelligence as being a product of the brain to which ‘I’ have a control, is self imagination, which is intelligently happening to keep the objective identity of intelligence wrapped up secretly.

Intelligence appears as thoughts and acts. Thoughts happen when action is idle and action happens when thoughts  idle. Love, hate, anger, compassion are all expressions of Intelligence.

Intelligence uses a form to express itself, by being the form itself. We see only the externalisation of intelligence as a form, but its basic essence is pure intelligence, making itself appear as form, like fire to a flame. It not necessary that it appears only as visible or audible forms, but also that which we can feel or know some how. It shapes itself as thoughts, actions, emotions, feelings etc and exhibits ‘as’ Creation. It is life essence itself. Call it God, if you like. All formats that arise in consciousness is IT.

Intelligence is also that which knows itself. It knows itself by being itself. It knows anger by being anger, knows love by being love, knows compassion by being that and knows all forms by being those forms. Intelligence is the knowing –Being. Being knowing itself as ‘all there is’.

Intelligence can disguise time and space, to make itself feel illusory or real. It can play humans forms to feel as if, they are separate entities and show up as other forms as if they were not void and had something called ‘thingness’ or objective nature with those forms. Intelligence has that capacity to appear as a dream state or as a waking state playing itself as ‘mental’ or a ‘real’ universe with separate planets and people and animals, as if each were operating by themselves, independently, even though they all are being played out by that ONE intelligence.

Knowledge is intelligence. To make meaning out of sounds, that we call words, needs intelligence. It shows up as words from sounds and meanings from words and concepts from forms. It plays itself out, creating this universe and knowing it, as a game that plays itself, using human forms and other forms as their apparent ‘knower’.

All there is –is intelligence- The essence, God, Consciousness, Life, etc, whatever you want to call it, objectively being absent and subjectively being ‘all that is’.

66. Truth.

What is truth in life? It is a feeling. Is there a single truth that is common to all human beings at least? What happens when we go against truth? What happens if we go with the truth. Is there a truth to who we are or what we are? If I am not who I think I am, why don’t I feel this as untrue. Are we supposed to know the truth automatically or are we some instrument that always knows what the truth is, given a situation or a choice?

These are probable questions regarding questioning truth. Sometimes we question truth also, or at least, what we assume is the truth and try to see what insights are exposed or what thoughts arise.

Mind can only dish out probabilities of so called truth in a given situation. Truth is something that acts. Thinking about truth springs out many options of the so called truth of the situation and one or none of them will seem apt where it comes to act out the truth. However when truth acts, it just unfolds the next moment to enact the body ( ies) that way.

Does it mean there is no truth as we think there should be? The nearest answer is that truth is not something that seems to be a personal opinion. It is what it is and ‘what is happening’. How and why it happens that way, seeming true at times and false at times is for the mind to guess. That is what minds are for. Guessing, what future ‘should’ be or ‘could’ be and seeking comfort in imagining that it should be at least ‘good, or at least the mind should come to terms with it, when something happens the way it happens.

Truth seems to be rooted in reason or purpose. Seeking truth of a situation is seeking a true logical answer to the situation. One gets bogged down by seeking the truth in life. What’s the purpose of my life in this creation. What’s the purpose in following a certain principle or discipline in life? Etc. We are always pushed, trying to get the right answers day in and day out. If 50 years of your life or 1000’s of years of existence of mankind is still aiming to search, then something is faulty with the very basis of the search for truth. There may not be one, and it may become impossible to search for something that is ‘not’. This is the situation and we still are trying to solve it or at best, get to terms with the question. This is what is a seeking mind..

Truth is personal. That is the truth. There is no universal truth. And that is the truth. Truth pertains to a situation and that very situation is changing all the time. That is the truth. To treat oneself for sickness seems the truth, but if old, to let him pass away seems the truth. So truth itself, is the name of an outcome of the situation and not any standard affair, even though it seems that way. To get an answer to what is absolutely true, you would have to eliminate the very requirement for the answer, by removing the questioner itself. Then all answers are seen as true. Only truth is seen everywhere. It then seems like a joke. There was no-one to whom the truth would be applicable to and so what the hell, why bother. This is peaceful too. Very peaceful and true. All is true. Even if it is false, it is still true. This becomes a new situation wherein truth doesn’t seem to be sought after, because it is already what it is, what I am and whatever is happening. It is kind of funny and good feeling.

As long we see ourselves as separate, truth us personal. That is the truth. The personal sense can be extended to a group, because then the group feels personal. Religion seems personal, birds of same feather, flocking to-gether has a personal mind-set to the group. The truth didn’t extend to the group, but the sense of being separate extend to that group. Hindu became separate from the rest etc.

Take a small example of creation. For example, a movie has all the ingredients of creation. So lets see how this system works. What was the truth in this creation of this movie? What’s the purpose?. We can extend this to God’s creation if you like. Who do you ask about the truth of the movie being created. Ask the producer why the movie was made. Did it have a purpose. Did it have a message? Etc.  Its like finding the purpose of a 'movie' or any movie. Nothing is there concrete as such if you keep asking. Everything seems fluid. The producer of the movie may say, his purpose was to make money. The director may also say the same. Each director may have a different story about the purpose. One may even say, this movie was made of commemorate the 10^th death anniversary of my father. Take the case of people who go and see ‘this creation’. Each one of them that goes to the movie has a different purpose. Somebody goes to hide from the police, another to sleep in AC comfort or to get away from heavy rain or to simply pass time. Another habitual guy may say, his purpose is in way of seeing a movie every Saturday as a hobby.  Someone who says, he is going to the movie to 'see' the movie and find out what it has to offer him may seem closest to the truth. But all have their own purpose and that is the ‘truth’.

One cannot judge what is true for you. Neither can advise you, what you are supposed to accept or reject as true. All what is happening is true because it is what is happening. No one can tell you that, that is not the truth, because you are not seeing what is happening correctly and that you are conditioned etc. Truth is true, untrue and neither in a personal sense and as far as wholeness is concerned, what is happening is the truth. Accepting it or rejecting it, as it will happen through you will also be the truth. Truth is the operator, not letting you fixate on any one aspect as what it can be.

65. Seeker and Seeking.

Human Being is actually ‘Being’ or ‘Life’ being Human. The humanness is actually a thinking mind. The thinking is for the purposes of seeking to know. The purpose of seeking to know is to maintain the species called humans or ‘knowing’ beings. So life has made human species where in a program called seeking keeps running the show as if, there was an entity to the ‘form’. Life takes on as ‘human species’, which is a species having a want to know so as to maintain the status of a ‘ know-er’, which has a sense of purpose to living life as humans.

We are conditioned from childhood ‘to know’. We are told that this is a tree, this is a ‘me’ that is a doctor etc. So the nature of human existence becomes ‘knowing’. The need to ‘know’ the outside world also becomes a necessity. The reason for such knowledge seems to be hidden as a ‘sense’ of feeling more secure in survival. Another vital aspect of human nature is to seek pleasure. So survival is seen as a means to feel secure or happy. So anything that satisfies this means is sought, as a necessity to human life. So ‘living’ is now translated to living for ‘feeling’ secure or feeling happy. So everything that we see, hear or perceive is analysed and seen from a perspective as useful to feel secure or pleasurable. Also Knowing of the world is, seems to, at least, satisfy the pleasure of intellect.  Thus, seeking security and pleasure becomes the nature of human existence. This becomes the purpose of ‘living’. However, this game gets going so dangerously that, the basis of human functioning gets shaped into an ‘activity of seeking’.

To make seeking purposeful, life has designed seeking as a need to ‘survive happily’  without which life has no purpose.  Now two categories seems to appear. One is survival and second is happiness. Once this gets into the system of functioning, life is lived with respect to survival and happiness as its two purposes or ‘aims’. This is then seen as a feeling to be more secure and or more happy. ‘More’ or ‘not enough’ is the key word here. What we have, is not what we seek and what we seek is a feel of ‘more wanting’ or what we don’t seem to have as enough. So the purpose of living takes the shape of to seek more and more of security ‘and’ pleasure. Human life is then defined as a ‘seeker’ seeking ( more and more of security or pleasure). The very game of seeking, assumes a presence of a ‘seeker’ or a feel of a person. The activity of ‘seeking’ itself becomes the ‘person’ that we think we are or as ‘seeker’. So the ‘person’ and seeker are not only synonyms  but are the same entity. Not two. So the ‘person’ is not other than ‘seeking activity’ which is the ‘seeker’.

Its common for most of the ‘Gurus’ to teach that the ‘seeker’ is ‘seeking’ itself and this is all that it means. This is a straight forward sentence and nothing hidden or intellectual about the statement.

The purpose or ‘human nature’ that we think we are, has a perpetuating ‘flaw’. This flaw is the basic ‘necessity’ to maintain the seeking or ‘seeker’ in place by the seeking activity. The whole ‘human race’ or pattern is under this ‘delusion’.  There is a certain ignorance around this ‘flaw’, because it is not basically a flaw. It is the design of nature’s working or ‘play’ with this ‘flaw’ in place. If seeking is designed to be understood as a flaw, the game of ‘Human’ species may end. The key to the nature of ‘human species’ is this design of seeking. Nothing can be done about this or nothing needs to be done about this. But an understanding of what is being said is not out of place.

The upbringing of human nature, does not consider questioning the activity of ‘seeking’ itself. What does seeking pleasure or security mean?  What is purpose of the ‘result’ that we are trying to get at by seeking?. When we fall down to basics, we realise this as a ‘design’ of human working. It gets the game of human species, revolving around a circular game of ‘becoming’ rather than ‘being’. We try to become rich, powerful etc for security and if that is not possible, or becomes a burden we escape it to avoid it, in the name of pleasure or a ‘break’. Satisfaction becomes the ‘motto’ of the game of seeking.  What keeps you unsatisfied is the ‘lack’ of security or pleasure. As long as a ‘lack’ is felt, it helps the activity of seeking. Life has designed human nature in such a way, that the lack is only for what it doesn’t have. As soon as something sought is achieved, the mind is on the search for more ‘lack’. Intellectual games also gives a sense of pleasure and comes under seeking. Its like solving puzzles. Once the puzzle is solved, the game is over. In order to keep it going, the next level of puzzle is exhibited in life, to be solved. Solving is a seeking activity and maintains the seeker.

Somewhere, in life, its possible to know, that this game of seeking is perpetual. So a new game starts to end this seeking game. Now this becomes a spiritual seeking trying to end the seeking game by seeing what the game could be. Unless the game gets revealed as the very nature of ‘human’ aspect, there is something new to seek. Trying to be ‘free of seeking’ becomes the ‘new’ venue to seek and the game goes on. Solving the game of seeking is not possible by the seeker itself. The seeking and seeker is one entity, and is veiled to ‘seem’ as two. Only the death of seeker can bring an end to the seeking. And end of seeking game is the end of the seeker. This means, that stopping to seek is ‘death’ of the seaker or assumed human entity. Its the ‘mind’ that is playing the game of seeking. There is no other game. Any possibility to end the ‘mind’ is the physical end of an ‘entity’ that is the ‘mind’ itself or something that is never there. This illusion of ‘mind’ being there or the person being there, is maintained by the activity of seeking.

Freedom from seeking by seeking freedom is something that cannot be made to happen. It has to happen by itself, in the same way, as seeking started to happen. Trying to know an illusory entity called seeker or ‘mind’ and trying to be free of being an entity, by getting involved, as an entity doing the ‘trying’ is cat catching its own tail. Its back to the seeking game. Its now an intellectual seeking. The problem of the mind cannot be solved by the ‘mind’. There is nothing outside of the mind, to the solve ‘mind’ as a problem.  So more analysis happens regarding freedom.

What is freedom basically. Its the freedom from being bound. Its like you are in jail, and to be free means, to be out of jail. If one loves the life in the jail, he doesn’t need to be free, as he is not bound mentally by its dislike. To be free from problems of the world, one tries to control the outside parameters of the world. He tries not to indulge in sensual pleasures or other activities. But that again is a sense of being more insecure mentally. Meditation is another such activity trying to make a ‘feel’ of more mental security. There comes a stage when one understands that this life was a game of seeking and cannot be solved by seeking its solution, which is basically a ‘type’ of seeking for satisfaction, because that again brings one back to the same game. So now the game changes to seek freedom from seeking.

Freedom is to be free from seeking activity. There is an ignorance about the sense of ‘me’ being  nothing more than a seeking activity. To be free of seeking is to be free of ‘me’. So freedom comes under analysis. We try and see, if the freedom is outside or inside. After seeking for over 40 years ( materialistic and pleasure seeking) , we understand that the seeking game has no solution in the outside world. The very nature of human being is then under the scanner of the mind solving its own puzzle. Then suddenly there is a realisation that this freedom could come about only by ending this game of seeking, which was the very binding to become free. Freedom to the seeker is then seen as freedom from seeking. To be free ‘of’ the crutches is to be free ‘from’ the crutches. That which was ‘binding’ was the game of seeking and freedom was to be free from this game. There is also a realisation that, other than seeking there was no other way that one felt bound. Wanting security and pleasure was the basis for the feel of this ‘lack’ of security or pleasure. The ‘wanting’ or ‘desire’  was reason for the ‘lack’ and what we were doing is trying to solve the lack and not the very game which causes the ‘feel’ of lack. The lack was always ‘seeming’ outside as if I lack a ‘house’, ‘money’, ‘power’ etc,. Life was always freedom in itself and what was not noticed all the time was this very ‘I’ sense that was a cause of problem.  It was ‘I’ that felt the lack of a house or pleasure and it was not the house or wealth that had the solution. This in-seeing of the ‘seeking’ itself as the seeker, somehow bails you out of the game by ending the game of the seeker. Seeking security and pleasure may still seem to gone on from then on, but the seeker or seeking itself doesn’t become the main lifestyle. Life is then ‘lived’ from the zone of ‘being’ rather than from a zone of ‘becoming’.  

64. Wholly Ghost.

Wholeness as / of seeing, hearing and other sensing is –all there is. This includes the body that is thought to be ours or there is a feel / thought  that a ‘me’ is residing in this body or owns this body.. The seeing that is happening, already includes the see-er or the Human being involved, as the ‘seen’. That makes the actual see-er a Ghost because,  the Human see-er that we think we are, has already gone into the category of the ‘seen’. Ghost is an entity that is not there objectively. There is no way to sense a Ghost, because it doesn’t have any quality that can be sensed. It comes in the category of ‘non-sense’ as far as our limited senses are concerned.

Wholeness is the cumulative display of creation. It is also called ‘What is Happening’. The looks of the display keeps changing every instant, like water flowing on your leg, when you stand in a river. The display is a sensation. Even more , it is only a ‘sensing’. Sensation would be a step further, making worldly meaning to the ‘sensing’ for purpose of memory or recall. But even the story to the sensing or the so called meaning to ‘what is happening’, is still happening on its own, with a ‘Ghost’ handling this ‘happening’. There is no-one in control or there is a Ghost in control, of all what is happening and to all so called ‘persons’. The ‘sensing’ of what is happening is ‘by’ a constant or by an unchanging factor or unknown factor or ghostly factor -and the sensations of what is happening are felt as a ‘knowing’ of these changing sensations.  The sensations, even of our own body, that make up the story of this body, are changing every day. It seems to look older, weaker or stronger, tired or sleepy etc etc. However the knower of this knowing is the unchanging, unknown, objectively non-existent knower or a Ghostly entity. Even to imagine ‘That’ as a ghost is giving it some unknown structure to be made seem as ‘known’.

Unfortunately, this ‘GHOST’  what is Wholeness is, is playing itself out, and features man as the subject and rest of wholeness as ‘his’ objects, so that this ghostly ‘knowing effect’ remains hidden. We can call him ‘Spooky’ just so that, it doesn’t scare the one featured in wholeness as ‘Human Being’. The whole of creation, displays itself as an ever changing pattern of nature, animals, humans etc, including an ever changing pattern of this body, being known to a ‘knowing’ that is ‘never’ changing and not identifiable as ‘something’ existing. However, ‘we’ are this knowing itself as that unchanging Ghostly entity as ‘we’ seem to be knowing all that is changing, by ‘being’ the unchanging knowing as a ‘non-entity’. How else could this be?.

Wholeness has a way of knowing itself even if it is ‘not’ present as a knower that is falling in the category of a ‘known’ that can be searched and pin pointed to. Take the case of a flower as wholeness. We can search the flower inside out, pick all its petals, sepals, stems, pollen etc or whatever and never find a flower, inside of IT or never find ‘what it was’ that we called the flower. It was the wholeness itself and never as a ‘sum’ of its parts. 4 was 4 and not 2 + 2, as we normally try to figure things out. We cannot identify what wholeness is, unless we become used to see wholeness as something inclusive of us, as this body or as ‘seen’ as if wholeness was by a ‘ghost’ or spooky or by no-body. To ‘see’ wholeness, being outside of wholeness is only a Ghostly ‘feeling’ or as if one was ‘not’. It is the feeling of the presence of ‘Absence’.

This Ghost has a better name, namely  ‘Presence’  ‘Life’ etc. It runs the show and ‘knows’ it too. The way it hides itself, is by being and knowing as ‘one’ single entity that is ‘not’. Life is ‘being’ whole, and ever changing and also the knowing as ‘we’ or the ‘spooky’ the knower. A very mysterious method by which ‘just’ the knowing ‘feels’ as if ‘being’. Its like a dream seeming ‘real’. There is a ‘seeing’ and feeling of reality to the see-ing or sensing. That reality is in terms of ‘feeling’ its objective ‘feel’. When you see the display of a snake, the ‘feel’ of fear is simultaneously felt around the chest, as if, that snake was making this feel. Both arise together ‘to’ the knowing or a ‘ghostly’ entity, unfindable objectively, but always present as the most immediate presence all around, doing its job skilfully and stillfully or silently.

It wont be wrong to acknowledge this Ghost as God. After all, God also has the same objective existence or non-existence as an object. Presence, God, I –am, Life, etc are all other names of this Ghost, which appears as this objective universe and knows it too. We are party to the knowing . We are the knowing part of God who is acting the ‘Being’ part as Wholeness or ‘what is happening’ or this objective universe, which is not ‘apart’ from the ‘knowing’ or ‘us’. We are the basis for this universe to be or ‘as the knowing of it’, and all there is –is ‘only’ the knowing of it. There isn’t a ‘IT’ existing separate from THIS knowing. It is mysteriously oven in such a way, that ‘only’ knowing behaves as a ‘Being’.

How to catch a GHOST is anybody’s guess, especially, when the ‘you’, that is trying to grasp IT is already featuring ‘you’ in IT, trying to grasp it.

Its not only difficult, but impossible to know the knower by being outside of IT. All there is –is ‘one’ or wholeness,  featuring itself as ‘many’ using a funny method of making seem one ‘object’ a subject for the rest, when all there is –is one subjectivity. This is a marvellous ‘illusion’. May be, someday, this ‘feel’ will set in, the same way, the present feel of being ‘separate’ individuals, that we seem to be, but not, has already mysteriously set in.

63. Nothing is / and Everything?

To write about nothing is as difficult as to write about everything. In some sense both mean the same, in some sense one cannot exist without the other and in some sense both seems beyond the mind or limitations of logic. Within a set of limitations, nothing and everything seem to be two extremes of one set and outside the set of limitations both seem the same, indefinable and unthinkable.

How does one think of an absolute nothing? It seems there is nothing to think about. Similarly, how can one think about an absolute everything, as the thinker would already have to be part of everything, while thinking about everything, having to push the thinker outside of everything. Both are an impossibility. The impossibility is mostly about fitting this concept into logic. Logic can only deal with ‘something’ as if the basis of logic is limited to finiteness and these two define infiniteness which cannot be fitted into definitions of duality or limitations. It is more a case of a limited mind, trying to grasp the whole mind, which already includes the limited mind trying to grasp it.

Nothing and everything are two aspects of BEING. There is no 'thingness' to any form, as we think there should be. So, everything becomes every form including this form which we called this body-mind or me. When thingness to all forms are removed, from the mind, all things become nothing, and it is difficult to sense if all is a break up of forms ( like petals, sepals, stem etc for a flower) or is one single continuously changing form. In that case everything becomes one single form as no-thing. So everything is nothing except that it apparently seems so.
Nothing is the source of all 'things' whose intelligence is so high, that it has the capacity to make feel the thingness to form, to make an effect of everything that seems to be, or everything  that makes up the ‘seeming’ universe. The objective aspect of 'nothing' is this seeming universe, and the subjective form of this objective universe is 'Nothing' or 'Void'. It is not difficult to know it, but it is difficult to understand it. Knowing is direct and understanding is through mind. You know the taste, but cant understand what taste is.

Life is a paradox. By itself, it is not tangible and gives an idea of nothing tangible. The contents of life, which is its objective display, is a matter of everything. The limited understanding of ourselves, limits us to the limits of the skin and prevents us from feel of everything, as it should be. The mind has two roles to play, One is to know all that there is to know and the other is to focus on one part of the whole, as if only that was important for this instant. Since the importance of the mind, is on the focus, the focus becomes the importance of life and seem to get recorded  into memory. In this game, what is not focused is lost from being featured as part of the past or future. There is nothing to be done about the focus, other than to know its behaviour.

When we meditate, we wish to focus on one point or we concentrate on one thing, like an image of flame or sound of water trickle or centre of forehead or whatever. In case we manage to achieve such a focus, with thoughts not interfering with the focus, it is possible that, there would be a state in which we may dwell, where even that one focus is also lost. This amounts to focus on ‘nothing’. However the effect of this, is as if, all sounds, feelings etc.  are then simultaneously in focus. Focus on nothing then, seems to be focus on everything -as nothing is synonymous with everything, when finiteness is dissolved. If you are focusing on the waves and if all waves become still, then what you focus from then on, will be stillness as the Ocean itself. Letting go into nothing is like, getting let into everything. It is the ‘something’ that acts as a veil between nothing and everything.

Life is both nothing as a source and everything as its manifestation. Focus of mind on a limited apparent person, being limited to this body, is the separation that prevents wholeness from being felt, even when wholeness is all there is. Thoughts act like separators between the feel of nothing or everything, both meaning the same. The limit of nothing is everything and the limit of everything is nothing in a way. Nothing as ‘life’ is everything as ‘what is happening’ and that nothing and everything is what we are as ‘life’ and pretend to be, what we are not- as a limited person. But that pretence is not ours as a person, but of ‘life’ as wholeness, pretending to be a sum of trees, earth, and people etc.

We can have  examples like, wanting nothing is like having everything. The taste of an absolute  nothing, is the feel that there is nothing else required to be tasted, as if it is more pleasurable than having tasted everything in life. Man accumulates everything, trying to increase his happiness until it dawns upon him that all the happy zones that he accomplished were those, that depicted a want of nothing else for that duration that he seemed happy. The end of seeking for nothing is the end of the seeker seeking for nothing, by which time, he finds himself seemingly nothing and everything at the same time.

This is the paradox that life shows up, being nothing subjectively and being everything objectively, seeming different but ‘one’ or ‘none’ at source.  Absence of who we are wanting everything, is then felt as the presence of ‘what’ we are being nothing and the very basis of all that there is.
Heads and tails belong to the same coin. We concentrate on both aspects and miss out the coin that was showing both as merely its recognising features.
Its the same with Fullness and Emptiness. The glass always experiences fullness or emptiness what you call it, as both mean same to the glass, as a measure of capacity. What is part is only the contents. When space is included as a non-separate content, it is always either full or empty or both or neither because these aspects are limitations of the contents and not of the glass.

62. Purpose of Life and Enlightenment.

This is a interesting topic. It is also a most often asked question either by the seeker or by a teacher to the seeker. It is also the most important question that one is always brooding about.  Parents seem to grow their children on this and children seem to be intrigued as they grow up, if there was any truth in this at all.

The age old guy, seeking Moksha, the Doctor trying to establish himself, even after the age of 80, yearns for the answer, 'What Life Is'. If you could not know what life is, all these years, one can never know there after. If one could function, sanely, without having to know what life is, how does it makes a difference now. They need definitions. Does definitions define  'being'. Does the definition of happiness or sadness, be used to feel happy or sad?
Before we go any further in arriving at answers, It is important to understand the basis of such questioning itself,  completely.  ‘Why’ is simple question making word, that gives a ‘feel of a purpose’ whilst making the question. This word or such reasoning questions,  feels very important in life. Most of the time, our lives keep hovering about answers to questions with a ‘why’.  When we frame  questions with ‘why’, it seems that it has becomes the very basis of living as humans. It gives a sense of purpose to all that is asked or being done and we fool ourselves with the answers and make them the very basis of our way of living.

Questioning, is the minds way of seeking importance, of its own existence as limited separate entities. Questioning becomes a basis of rationality and rationality begins to propel the life styles. Once this becomes an habit, life is then lived as an answer to rationalise the way of living and flows in that way. It becomes an addiction of the mind  that succeeds in claiming its survival as the most important element of life. We support the system of questioning, because it makes us feel more separate or unique or individualistic and seems to give importance to such living. We make a patern of such rationale individuals and make a group of them. The groupism gets to be known as religion, politics, nationality etc and groups also seems to exist as entities, having a group rational, propelling  a group mind, seemingly functioning as a separate entity.  Seeking answers to a ‘why’ and living those answers becomes from then on a standard way to follow life. It feels precious, noble or whatever it is compared to those that do not question.

There are simple questions that do not  interfere with life. Like for example, where is the post office.  These types of questions are not for satisfaction of the mind. They just happen to complete a movement that has been started. Questions starting with a ‘why’ are more delicate. These change the way life is experienced from the stand point of their answers, because it is taken for granted that answers exist and more commonly,  such answers that come up are agreed to be correct by more or less, most of the human segment.

To find a purpose doing anything in life other than the very joy of whatever is being done, is to imagine that life has a purpose other than enjoying what is being done. Doing such things for a purpose, is planning for a secure future and has to deal with a certain insecurity of the mind, regarding future. This sets in motion an entity at work to secure a good future and feels that such is a purpose of life. It makes the sense of an entity very strong whilst making the sense of purpose also very strong. Its a double edged sword. Either way, it has a purpose.
Purpose seeks to enforce living as a separate individual. So the purpose of life, playing out people as individuals is to create a sense of individual with a freewill and choice, even though there is none of this as truth. But the purpose of the game is to hide the truth. Life enjoys this game, even though it seems crazy on the level of separation. However, in the absence of separation, life is playing with itself, keeping itself occupied effectively all the time. Reasoning causes separation and plays the role by having this theme of purpose as the key to secure living. However, Life is a free fall with no ground, and always a state where sureness is only imagination. Why or reasoning  is a cause to better the effects in a game to bring about separation. There are no answers to why, as life is being just played out by life. The mind which is interpreting life, has an axe to grind. It make life purposeful and makes way for questions to arise. What is meaning of purpose? Purpose and meaning are one and the same. They are just two words with one meaning. Making meanings to life then seems to be the purpose of life. We then make meanings to all that we see, hear, or sense and then get into a trap called conceptualising. The basis of conceptualising is meaning making.  We then start seeing the world as a set of meaning made out of it, each for himself. As in a dictionary, we take the right hand conceptual world with a purpose.This then becomes the world of separation or duality as if this world is made of parts, even when parts do not have independent existence.

Purpose of life is to watch life in its unique expression of living itself as 'we'. Purpose of enlightenment is to step out of subject object format of the world and just be an experiencing structure, that life wants to use, to experience itself. The world there, feels an experience out here. Its a feed back mechanism with a self correction. When change is chosen to be done by the feed back mechanism itself, it can happen so. Saves time.
Purpose is more of a game than a word. Once we go to the root of the word ‘purpose’, we can see through that, that this word was the cause and effect of seeing the world in duality that was an illusion or separation that was an illusion. 

A singer experiences his singing or becomes one with the song. So is an artist or a drama character. He feels the play. We are created to feel the creation, which is also happening. However, just like a singer is engrossed equally in a happy song or a sad song, creation is meant to get involved with, whatever may be the created content. Just for the love of it, to see how it 'feels' as an experience. Falling in love with the various aspect of creation is the purpose of life, if there was one. This requires a non-judgemental 'attitude'. So best we can do is to get out of the way, trying to judge, as if there is a 'me' apart from life, as a person affected by life. 'Just be' so that life reveals its purpose to us.