124. Fitness of the Mind and Body.

We think we know a lot about fitness of our body and /or the mind. There are even teachers, offering fitness of body and fitness of mind. I am' not' discussing the so called medical practitioners, where, you know you are not fit, to perform daily habits like eating, sleeping, standing etc and take help. There is a big science that seems to be in place to treat that kind of illness. But that is about 'illness'. Its not about fitness. But a normal person, who wants to be more fit, going to gym, yoga, guru’s, meditation and what not, that's the game i am talking about. 

Generally, we assume our body is not fit. This where it starts.  How do we know? Not from our own experience, but by comparing to others. I should be as fit as the other. Then very soon, we have idols in way of fitness. It may includes Olympians, rock climbers, gymnasts, gamer and the whole world. There is social fitness also. Stage shy, personality building and what not. They are further advertised by claims of people, who have been benefited by such activity called fitness training. There are personalised schools, in corporate houses dealing with mind and body fitness for their employees. The owners decides that the employees are unfit. His demand of their fitness, needs much to be fulfilled. So its free from his side. More like giving chemicals to a cow, to yield more milk, and telling the cow that I am doing this to keep you fit and ‘Happy”. Don’t forget the happiness part, that gets forcibly included in the package.

Anyway, its time to analyse the issue. Let’s take the idea of body fitness. The idea of fitness of our body is purely mental, rather than physical. Your mind decides that, your body can be improved upon, and is beneficial to oneself. That’s how minds work. To keep you engaged. Or else, it's out of business. So we are forced into more examples of comparison, by what we read, see etc. The authority of Society and the world on us, seems to be unparalleled and binding. But what’s the reality? I see a 'lean' man at 70 years of claiming in a party that he is as fit as a fiddle. Can go to the bath room on his own, walks on his own, cooks on his own and even has fun of all sorts. He is very content about his fitness, that makes me feel, that he is in his 'peak', of how much fitness should be, to a person. Then I see another, of the same dimensions, a little younger, get up in the morning, doing yoga, listening to fitness freaks, going to the gym, marathons, local sports clubs and he has a list of what all he is doing. He is still not finished. Still not fully fit. Still more to go. I don’t know if he thinks he is fit enough or that he requires to be more fit. I don’t even know if fitness is something that keeps getting digested like food, that you need some intake every day to maintain it. Anyway, I leave it upto to the mental state of the guy, to take a call. But I have made my point, that physical fitness is a state of the mind and not the body. In fact, bodily fitness has no end. You cannot come to a point to state that, Now I am fit. There is always more to go, like acquiring knowledge. Even Google, who knows all, keeps acquiring more and more. Its like that. Its more like, you will never ever be fit.  There is always a gap of dissatisfaction. And the thing gets worse, when your routine upkeep gets a dent for a while. So the more fit you are, the more fit you can be, and so more unfit ‘now’.

Now lets take the fitness of the mind. The Guru’s seems to know what mind is. I don’t know a damn. I don’t even know that, you see. I am too young for that.

So you have lots of stress, a gap of how you are or the world should be, or you should be vs what is , as of now. It’s a lot. Financial stress, physical stress, House, Office, relationship, habits, children, education,  colleagues, friends, enemies, and you can add yourself, your in laws, your relatives, and the whole world. You expect all to change, circumstances to change and what not, to reduce that gap and you want some one else like God or a Guru to sort it out. On a smaller level, astrologers and councillors could help. You are unfit, mentally and is caused by the gap of stupidity, which I may call as ‘vast’. The vaster it gets, the unhealthier you get to be. In fact someone will tell you, you got to align yourself to the ‘cosmos’ to handle the issue. Presently the cosmos doesn’t include you. You are separate from it.  I don’t know if you will change the cosmos or cosmos will change you, to effect the required change. But its something where there is scope, one thinks, and that efforts are required. Some seek religion and even better spiritual gurus and all such stuff.

Accepting the state of affairs of oneself, and the world inside and outside, AS IT IS , as of now, because it is already the case, is what mental fitness is. The mind doesn’t intend a ‘future’ 'now'. It’s at rest. You are happy. Fitness of mind is its nature to be Happy. But the nature of mind, is in its fitness to be unhappy. So its a double trouble game. Thinking based of comparing and relating, just leads to more hypothesis or thinking. Intellectual thinking, acts out a thought, as immediately as found true. We don’t do that. We think and think and think. We need a bag full solutions from all angles to take care of all our problems at once. I am unhappy about my relationship. So get a divorce. No. I need my partner to adjust to me, In fact I will appreciate if the whole world adjusts itself, make me pretty, figure fit, good relationship, good money, good humour, good party animal, good health, etc etc etc. One thought leads to another and because of constant thinking suddenly, you are mentally unhappy. You are 'stressed'. 

Unless you know what you are, you are mentally prone to make yourself feel bodily and mentally unfit. But we all know what we are. However the ability to think, has a major side effect. Its largely materialistic, scientific, logical etc which are more towards selfishness of a separate self. It generates a separate self. It is a game that we learn to play, to think that we are limited to the body and noting outside of it. This is the cause of all unwanted thinking. It causes fear and fear is the unhealthy or the unfitness. There is no other problem. Fear is the gap between acceptance and resistance.  The mind has a role to create this parity to maintain itself, by the creation of an ‘I’ thought. As long as we do not crash into the ‘I’ thought, suspecting that it real, and we are limited only by that, we should be ever fit. Its ok to play the game of an 'I' thought, in that way. Its like accepting your name tally to be you. But you are not reducible to your name tally. You are always more than that. Happiness is our nature, but we can pretend to be unhappy, to play the game. But it’s a light game. The game of individuality is for fun. So be light and be happy. That’s a fitness mantra, for both body and mind. You can do the treadmill, to have fun running on it, or to meet your girl friend in that way or whatever for, that one does it. That’s just for fun. 

123. The Limited Form is not IT.

This is the ‘Basis’ of Non –Duality. If you crack this statement, you would have ‘cracked ‘ yourself. That’s a shrewd statement, but true.

What do they mean by that statement and more than that, what is the “IT” that is spoken about.

This problem arises due to the complexity or simplicity by which ‘creation’ works. We know we are  but ‘we’ cant know ‘what’ or ‘who’ we are, simply because the “IT’’ that we are, does not fit into these categories, that we look seek, to ‘know’ this .

Where does the fault lie. Firstly, we have been conditioned not to look into ‘how we function’, by a hypnosis.  Life plays out, in making a personal feel to the form, as if the ‘person’ could be the ‘It’ to the body. Taken for granted that ‘It’ , would make a meaning of all that should be ‘known’ about a  form, which is simply ‘the knowledge’ of the form, takes the ‘being’ of an ‘It’ of that form. So we say, knowledge of the form, helps conceptualise the objectivity to the form, as if objectivity is more primary than form. So we start looking at the form’s objectivity, as our projected knowledge, or the ‘conceptualisation’ of that form, and also of ourselves and play out the game. So we don’t look at ‘THAT”, but we simply look at our own ‘idea’ of what that is. Nothing wrong there, as long as we are always aware about the reality or unreality of taking our projection to be ‘matter’ or objectivity or thingness of that form, and deal with it as its final beingness. You will get into trouble, more often than not and isolate yourself, more and more, for not being capable of dealing with the ‘It’ in a way you thought, you could control etc. and feel unhappy. It could extended to our own selves or to what we think we are, and find that, we have less and less control over what we think we are, as an ‘object’.

‘IT’ is the essence of ‘form’.  For example, water is the essence of an ocean, or clay is the essence of a pot. We have been taught to capture the knowledge around the forms, as if in separation and to deal with our knowledge of it, as if ‘that’ was its essence. The whole ‘world’ is tuned into the same frequency of this ‘hide and seek game’and so the whole game looks ‘normal’. But what is normal, is not the reality and in imagining that as its reality, the game of ‘objectivity’ plays out with its own rules of ‘might’ is right and beauty is better and my ‘thingness’ is more superior etc. However, going back to the example that ‘IT’ is the essence of ‘forms’, we are put into a perpetual confusion, that ‘a piece of the whole’ could be what these examples point out to. The limitation of such pointers prevent them to ‘make the point’ because we are trying to use the example without taking into account that the example, cannot be 100% correct. We try to use an example, a pointer, a concept, to point out even beyond the point.  So we can say there are two ‘Its’. One what we can conceptualise, as the ‘itness’ to forms and the other, as we think them to be, and the other which is  the absolute  essence, or its reality, that is beyond the formation of the form, even though it’s the basis of giving rise of all forms.   Its like the ‘light’ making images on TV, as if people. We can say that there are no people and there is only light there, but we enjoy the TV, as if we felt the images as forms or people themselves, and they made the meanings that was expected of them, like real people.  IT is simply the basis of perception. The thinking mind, which is our only tool to grasp objectivity, using ‘our’ knowledge of form, as if matter or essence of form, cannot do justice in finding its own essence.  Its like using ‘form’ to known its ‘matter’ or the TV image, to know its source as ‘light’. The behaviour of ‘form’ is the behaviour of ‘matter’ and not vice- versa. The method of using logic fails, when we want to go beyond ‘mind’ and its projections, and there can be no other logic, because there is only one logic which is the creation of mind, which in turn is the play  of the ‘source’  to look outward, as if all knowledge and logic are the basis of understanding the world, in a true and absolute way.

Game of “life” is based in ‘Knowing’. The ‘knowing’ property is aliveness.  We all know whatever we know, but we don’t know, how is it, that we know!.  We just know, even without any knowledge of how is it that we know.  Because that is ‘what’ we are. The ‘field of knowing’ is what we are. This ‘knowing’ is perfectly alive. IT is life and Life is This. It does itself and knows itself, as if in separation. It has a clever way to make believe with thought that ‘knowing of content’ should have ‘content’ to knowing, as if ‘of’ their own ‘existence’ or as if ‘outside’ of such Knowing. Contents exists, by virtue of their ‘knowing’. Like ‘knowing of pain’ is ‘pain’. So we say, pain exists, as a knowing of it. Not as an ‘it’. So is the world. Its simply the knowing of the world. No’ world’ as such, separate from its knowing. So knowing is all there is. That is the IT, that can magically behave, as if, we all have ‘thing-ness’ to ourselves and to others. So it seems that there could be a ‘world of objects’ separate from us, and independent of us. This seems so, but not so. We all know this, but have been hypnotised by life, to behave in separation, like a movie actor, who assumes to be the king, within and without the movie.

Until the hypnosis of Life, is unveiled by grace of Life, this activity, being the ‘play’ of life, to behave in separation will continue. IT loves the game and is here to stay. But, once the game starts to ‘rot, or to have a doubt that we have no control on what is happening, there is a intense seeking to get back ‘home’, meaning, to get back to your true nature as Life, other than as ‘ separate entities’ .   Its not something we do, but the doubt about the reality of our ‘Being’ that takes us out of the hypnotism. Its like a patient that is not co-operating being hypnotised, when he knows it. Only that could bring us to ‘be’ IT.

122. Memory, Thoughts and Emotions.

Actually 'thoughts' are 'emotions'. Thoughts are emotional. They are energetic by essence. 

Thought is an understanding of a situation and emotion is the feeling of the thought. Energy is wrapped around thought, so that its meaning is interpreted as feelings. So conversely, emotions are thoughts.

Thoughts are memory or its projections in various permutations and combinations. And memory is a kind embedding of content of creation.  Thoughts itself is a content of creation and can register in memory, just like content of solid matter, sensed as a sensation. So we memorise, what we know around us and also have thoughts around such matter, making the memory more colourful. We also memorise, thoughts about thoughts.  So memory gives rise to thoughts and thoughts give rise to more thoughts.  Soon we become neurotic with thinking and thinking makes a notion of a centre, to which they make meaning and such a centre makes the notion of a 'me'. Except for a centre, to meaning making, the 'me' sense has no role or simply need not exist. As notional, it exists, just to play the part of a 'centre' to 'thought made' unfolding of creation.

The basis of memory is knowledge. The application of knowledge to content of creation, or to 'forms' makes it registerable to memory.  The whole creation by itself, as the content of ‘now’ is ever changing. Unless the change is given meaning, by knowledge, it cannot be registered to memory. Knowledge is kind of a code to memorise content or events. So we can memorise creation as matter and events. When time is involved, we make a story of the content in time so as to make meaningful memory. Meaningless content are forgotten, unless it becomes a unique meaning. Like finding Chaos to be a pattern. 

Making meaning to forms or conceptualising of 'content of creation' is minds ability or purpose of the mind. There by, there is a meaning to life and such a referencing makes a ‘me’ sense, as its centre, around which meaning making goes on. It becomes the nature on mind to pick up this skill and play out its skill, projecting knowledge to forms, as if they ‘matter’ thereby and also to events so as to register as happenings. This endless game of the mind is the dance of life, trying to grasp its own creation, as if from different angles, being different entities with different conditioning and creating a mind boggling complex game to entertain itself. Its too intelligent to engage in simple games, and therefore loves to complicate its creation so as to evolve for the better or worse, improving its own skills. Its like a child, that ever remains childish, with evolution. But life is too powerful to be taken to task, and so we better leave it alone, except where, it loves to engage us, enjoy its game of ‘knowing’ itself, as if Life was 'we' in essence.

All of life, is a knowing game. It plays its game, using ‘knowing’ as its essence. So we can say that all that is happening is made of ‘knowing material'. All that is happening, is only known in duality, or grasping of the content, as if to an entity, but the content is nothing but essentially, just its ‘knowing’. So we can say, 'Being' of life is just the ‘knowing’ of it, and all there is –is just ‘knowing’. The aliveness of creation is essentially ‘gamed’ using the filed of Knowing as essence.  So all content is just the knowing of it. Content and 'Knowing of it' are not two separate things. There is no content, other than just the ‘knowing’ of content. We can say that 'all of this' is of ‘knowing’ material, which by itself is ‘matterless’ and matter to knowing, is simply dressing of knowing, by dualistic knowledge or conceptualising, so as to reveal knowing of content, as ‘content’ to knowing or an external 'world', to an internal 'me'.

So Happy knowing, conceptualising, memorising, thinking and making ‘me’ out of the whole isuue, as if separate from the whole. 

121. To look within.

Many times, we are advised to go within and we wonder ‘where’ this within could be. Does it mean to put attention in the chest or heart area? Does it mean, concentrating on what our feelings are, at the point of attention? Or can we dissolve the attention altogether and see what happens.

This is very trick statement. The sense perceptions are taken, as if, drawn outward. It senses sight, sounds, taste etc. as if ‘knowing content’ in awareness. There are also sensations like feelings, emotions, etc, that arise ‘in’ thoughts, or stimulated ‘by’ thoughts. Thoughts itself are self energetic packages, that adds more meanings to itself, in terms of emotions and feelings. Its like using body language to express words. Thoughts are words, feelings and emotions too, all packaged in one. We don’t know how fast it arises in awareness, stays for a while, like duration of perceptions that we sense, and moves on. Thoughts are also sense perceptions of mind, as they project interpretation to perception in dualitical language, so as to experience perceptions, as if in separation.. Or we can say, mind is the space wherein arises thoughts emotions and feelings, and all sensations of our five senses too. We really don’t locate it as a space in the head, because the feelings are more to the body, than to the head. We may go cold, or limp, by fearful thoughts. These arising’s finally express itself as more of our body language.

Considering that all these sensations are content to knowing, as arising in awareness, it is possible to turn or focus our awareness to these contents 'only'. However contents keep changing and we know that, we are not this content. An sight, if we may call, is to see clearly, what we are not. You cant see what we are, because its not a seeing. You cannot make, 'being' as a content. You cannot have an insight of yourself. Its already the case.If what you are is aliveness, its everywhere and you cannot make it an object, because its already, whats perceiving. So an insight, if you will, is at beast, what you are, as what you are not.
If I want to keep my focus of attention, or .awareness' on my body parts, in a fraction of a second, I get absorbed in neurotic thought process, which has become habitual. It appears that Awareness is aware of all content, but it selects, randomly, some content to keep itself busy, and we really cannot direct our attention to what we want, on a prolonged basis. The mind seems to be in charge of itself and responds to our will power only for a short while, like changing directions or tracks and then, does what it wants. So its both voluntary and involuntary. Its like being on auto, and we try to put it on manual, but goes back to auto. But Mind is always aware of content. Either sensation as content or else, thought itself as content. Its like breathing, voluntarily or automatically. So all actions, thoughts, sensations, etc etc which are content awareness are partially monitored, by what we call our attention or our focus of awareness. However all of these content is referred as ‘outside’. Or we could called all of it is outward perception. So then what is ‘inward’ perception.

When we are not caught up in thought, the focus of attention on content is withdrawn,  as we do by closing our eyes or meditating, etc, we start withdrawing ( we dont start or stop, but its a way of stating) our attention or the focus of awareness. With conscious effort, when the mind is still, ‘if’ we can push our attention on the field of awareness itself,  or the source of thoughts, which can only happen, when the content to knowing, or arising of sensations are totally absent, then 'perhaps’ we have achieved such a state. Then we say, that the activity of all outer perceptions have stopped and what remains is 'knowing' of the field of content, or source of awareness or 'looking' inward. That’s when the awareness that was like an arrow, focused on content, fans out itself, like a Japanese fan,on all content, to include the whole field of awareness, in which a sense of limited attention does not exist. The whole field of consciousness is the perception, It becomes self evident in a way. Knowing can even know an absence of content, and ‘ not knowing’ is an impossibility, because it still needs a knowing to be so.

In the beginning, we cannot have peace of mind. when we meditate, all evil thoughts keep coming up. We are aware of these thoughts and we fight to stop it. There is an internal war going on. If at all, there is some cessation, it could only be 'war weariness' . Complete peace is like a roar of an ocean. You are conscious of your own body to its core. So there is no 'silent' state at all, unless you are clinically dead. But, there is a sense of dissolution of the ‘me’ sense into the field of consciousness, once in a while, where there is a realisation, that consciousness is not limited to the body. Even absence of sensation, can be known in consciousness, and that still exists as you. So even the absence of the body, as a bundle of sensation, is still a content to knowing. It finally dawns that this consciousness is all there is, knowing all presence and absence of content as sensation. That is the place ‘within’ as the 'source'or field of knowing. The source of all content that arises, the field in which all arises, to play out as this universe, by arising as a bundle of sensations. It also is realised that all there is, is only this source, as the essence of all content, as the source itself expresses as content, and uses thoughts to interpret content as 'object' to knowing, outside of such knowing. It as if, the source is making this up, as a foot print, of its actions, to make a story in memory, in a dualistic way. We are left with only such a reflection, that keeps doing itself to make presence feel as a world ob objects. It’s a dance of consciousness.
So to look inside is an act of grace and to look outside is a conditioning of the mind. You are involved in neither.
Good Luck on seeking. There is nothing to attain.

120. The Dynamics of Opposites or Duality

Creation is functional as wholeness. There are no opposites, and what is - is only what is happening. The mental conditioning that is responsible for dividing the experiencing of wholeness into subject and object, confines the subject to be limited to the body and this is just an illusion. Life loves to play the game of duality. Its a crazy game, involving huge suffering at a superficial level, as if the design of duality works on the focus of suffering.

Separation is already the start of the 'seeming' reality of opposites taking in, its roots. We are conditioned to believe that we are separate, meaning, we are separate form the world around us, in a simple way that 'what is not the world' is 'we' and 'what is not we' is 'the world'. We are the subject of the objective world. This is a myth, and when believed so, is the core cause of ignorance on which duality thrives. Thus begins illusion of a 'reality' subject is separate from its opposite, which is the objective world - from childhood until old age.

The cause of suffering, is the belief in separation, which leads further to more beliefs that 'opposites' can exist independent of each other. But this is a lie. All opposites are just an idea of focus at a part of the whole. To win a battle is to lose the war. To win an argument is to lose a relationship. To seek pleasure is to remain in pain. To seek happiness is to remain in unhappiness. What we want is our lack. But the wanting is the creator of the lack. the seeking is the cause of a lack. However we are conditioned to practice seeking one, as if its opposite is is not following us as a shadow to show up as reality in time. Even birth has death attached to it, separated by an illusory time. The cause and effect is not separable.

To win or conquer is to have control. Just like we wish the control to be with us, or we can say that we do not wish to be controlled, the other, also, being same in essence has to follow the same belief. It simply means to give rise to a situation that all want to control but not body wants to be controlled. How is it possible?. To win over the other, seems healthy for you, but is surely unhealthy for the other. In this creation, where me and other is just an illusion, this rule ends in a failure. Creation has its base in harmony and happiness, if understood correctly. The idea of using one to the advantage of other, is bound to fail. The belief that opposites can be sought independent of each other is ignorance and is the cause of a resultant reaction, that we call suffering,

To come to an understanding, which is not a conclusion, but an energetic experience that 'one' is the 'wholeness' and separation is a myth, can result in ironing out most of our ignorant ideas of who or what we are and complete the process of the living experience in a harmonious and happy way. Life will offer may chances to conclude this aspect of living, but the mind, conditioned to be separate will forge itself into more separation by acting selfishly time after time. One day, when the burden of separation is not bearable, it could dissolve onto the ocean of wholeness. The earlier we ponder on this, the earlier we can let go of our ignorant beliefs and just let wholeness guide us to a simple and clear living.

So, what to do?. Just take every event is one's life and others too, to see how, the maintaining a limited self  has caused more suffering in the long run, and how being connected to each other, made one live a smooth sailing. Little by little, we can reverse our attitude of who we think we are, and be in that wholeness, to stay in a place where the world of aliveness of being connected always feels a better place to be. Bring about a change within, that would seem to take care of the ignorance that we are not separate but connected, will make a world of difference to oneself.

119. Cause and Effects pointing to the Truth

An effect points to its cause, as we imagine them to be. This idea comes to us, from Science. Science is based on this thesis. So whatever is discussed on manifestation of matter, from a scientific angle, takes into account, the answers to 'why's and 'how's and a record of explanation is maintained, until proved wrong. So when the research is done purely from the context of cause and effect, proved or disproved, the results are effected as correct or incorrect, but the premise is here to stay. This continuous activity, gives rise to, cause and effect being a 'fact', in the similar lines that -all that we experience from the point that, a 'me' to the body is 'real', or let us say, experience the world in duality, the 'me' is strengthened to remain in power as 'real'. So, in a way, we enpower the power of thought. It works in the objective world,  to some extent, to keep the game of duality interesting, but is not useful in the subjective analysis, of who we are, as some kind of absolute truth.
Let me give you an example. Let is take the correctness of  'Electricity' being an absolute fact. We dont doubt that electricity is something unknown. However we only see heat or light and magnetism as effects of electricity. No one can know what 'electricity' is. It cannot be known per say. We know all its effects, including that body gets a shock, and the multimeter can make measurements, based on its 'torquing' effects. But in general, electricity by itself, is just a name, that can effect all that was stated above. Some will say, electricity is an energy of some kind, and more and more discussion can be made around this. But finally, what is electricity? its a source, that generates all those effects, we discuss, including that it is 'energy'. But energy also should have a source. Similarly, we then ask, what is the source of electricity?. To this, we may or may not come up with an answer. Its stops as we arrive at its definition. After that, we draw a blank, because we invented the limit of sourcing. We may say, that one is stupid to ask questions about something, prior to its definition. So the definition becomes the source of an effect that is conceptualised. As if the word is the source and concepts are its effects.
So truth can be said to be the mother of all defined sources, prior to its definition, that were concepts. It is the sources of all causes, distilled from its effects. Because, each and every effect can be taken back to its cause, which being an effect can be reduced to its earlier cause and so on and so forth. Its like object to a subject. To know this subject, it must be made into object to its knowing subject, and can go on, into an endless regression. until one is tired of subjecting objects to subjectification.
Hence when we analyse cause and effect, to its root cause, 'you' may end up being the root cause of this universe, no matter what is being effected. In the absence of such a 'you', that you truly are, nothing can take place, to have an effect or its cause. That make a 'you' as the root cause or 'source' of all that there is, as an happening, called it's effect. So the effects are simply an expression of its cause. We can sense the effects, but they point back to its cause. They point back at 'you' as source to existence. If we are curious enough to get hold of the root cause, you would soon find 'yourself' dissolve as an effect, merging into its cause, as if the cause and effect could never ever be seen in separation. Such merging, of the sense of 'you' into the 'I' business, or the source of existence can be defined as 'Life', which should not need further objectification. Objectivity is an effect of Being, and what can be experienced is this objectivity, which you simply are not and what we truely are, if we should accept such a 'we' that is, is aliveness or 'knowing capacity, by which all creation can be known. So the idea that 'we' are an 'objective' entity to another 'objective' body is only 'knowledge' passed on in duality, and is here to stay, to let the game of duality be played in its own style, while its not true to identify ourself as limited to this body mind, and open up to the source prior to objectification.
So 'you' are the cause of this world and what is happening as an experience.