Finding Freedom-Living Love

Happy New Year…more to come, I promise!

Knowing/Realizing

Truth is not “knowable” we may invent ideas, borrow theories or provide poetic descriptions of what is called Truth or Realization but the description of something is never the “thing” itself, just as repeating the word water can never quench your thirst.

To find out what the Mystery is, is to REALIZE it. Knowing it is not how you Realize it.
We are ultimately at a loss to know the truth, but we can and must realize it. It’s is only when we admit not knowing not what anything actually is,  that we might be open to the Real…and the open secret is, that we are always open to the Real for it is what looks out the eyes and reads these very words.

Birds fly inside my chest…

Raindrops on my forehead…

My glance is without duality

For I am always looking at mySelf.

The sky that holds the stars

To a person that is unemployed, finding work can be a big deal.

To a person with sexual problems, making love is a big deal.

To a person dying, waking up this morning is a big deal.

Your life unfolds in openness.  Openness is the very nature of every happening in your life. Nothing can give you openness, it is simply who you are, whilst awake, dreaming and sleeping.

Nothing can “cause” openness, it is simply freely who you always already are. The reason we don’t feel or realize this love and freedom is because we have become habituated to “doing” things which prevent the free feeling of being. If you wear a watch long enough, you can easily forget that you have it on your wrist, however you might remember that you are have it on if prompted for the time, likewise, openness is the space within which the “time of your life” occurs.

Thank You

Thank you all for the beautiful, supportive and questioning comments.  I’m looking forward to sharing my ‘art’ when the book is published.  In the mean time, I am working on a workshop so that I can meet with you and share in some  humour, good company and that elusive obvious thing called Realization!

Love and Freedom,  Always Already…

Akash

This Very Moment

This very moment is movement. Everything that you perceive is change. There is much written about ‘being in the moment’ or being in the ‘now’ and yet I often wonder if we are clear about what exactly this means. THIS moment is always changing, literally. The very cells in your body are dancing away, changing, as you read these very words.

It takes time to perceive anything, even if just for a split second. An example would be if you were to hear the sound of a car passing by. By the time it takes the sound of the car to reach your ears and then for you brain to interpret the sound, as that of a car passing by, the event itself has already happened. When the registration does occur, you will say that there is a car passing by, when, in fact what you say, hear, see or feel, for that matter, has already occurred.

Clearly, from the point of view of the body-mind, being in the actual present is impossible. At the same time, there is some sort of genuinely different state associated with the words body and mind. On some level, one feels sometimes more ‘in the now’ than at other times and so there is some basis to this. But taking a particular moment and slowing it down drastically, to the point where you could really feel it, is not what I mean. The Now has absolutely nothing to do with anything that you perceive. It is prior to time and as such never experienced by you. To ‘be in the now’ is to be in the always present un-known silence that is beyond description. The now can never be grasped or experienced, or practiced. You can always experience occurrences, sights, sounds and emotions, but

all of these are a happening in time. What is before, during and after? It is the unknown, un-experienced, undivided This.

‘Now’ is the embrace of every happening, like the dark sky that allows for the stars to shine. It is the no-place where all thoughts and words appear, and disappear. It is the unchanging canvas, but to write or say anything further would be to spill more paint

Why Practise?

Spiritual practise is not means to an end, and as long as we treat it as such, we are bound to experience frustration. When the futility of this attempt becomes evident, we realize that all seeking or our meditating in order to get somewhere, is useless, and then our motive changes. We relax. Maybe even experience a glimpse into the Unknown. That is when real practise begins. Spiritual practise IS necessary as long as you think of yourself as a separate being. I know this does not sound as good as ‘just be here, now’. The ‘be here now’ school has its place, as long as you realize what being here, now, really means.

Another thing to consider is that ‘you’ cannot be here, now. If anything, when the here is now, you are not. However, here ‘you’ appear to be. No use denying this. It is easy to catch a glimpse or understanding of ‘nobody’ being there, but in most cases ‘you’ appear to be back just as quickly as you left! Asking ‘who is it that, left in the first place?’ whilst beneficial, is within the realm of mind and just does not stick, especially when the kids are screaming or your stub your toe on a door.

What is really here and now, in most cases, is a vortex of habits and reactions that we have practised since childhood. Most of us lead unconscious lives and if we were left without some form of practise, it is more than likely that our tendencies will lead us to self-defending comfort and relief, rather than using the moment to open, naked as we truly are. Be here, now, can be an excuse to ‘Be Ego Now’ and so, taking up a practise, and being in the moment are not at odds with each other.

In recent times and especially with the flowering of many Neo-Advaita* teachers, active spiritual practise seems to have gotten an ill reputation. It is not uncommon to hear or to read about teachers who proclaim that there is no need to practise and yet, unconsciously we are always engaged in some form of ‘self-practise’. What you consider ‘natural’ is generally a manifestation of a habit you have practised over time. You have practised reading for so long that now it appears ‘effortless’. You have probably even practised being angry for so long that anger just ‘spontaneously manifests’. Spiritual Practise can work against the flow of one’s habits and the reinforcement of a separate personality. When most teachers denounce practise, what they are actually encouraging us to do, is to question our motive for why it is that we want to practise.

Realisation is always in the moment, and so, taking up any form of practise in order to attain realisation is to miss the point of practising. Our attention is being dictated to, by the mass-conditioning of our consumer-consumed culture. Spiritual practise creates banks in which the river of our attention flows, without being diverted into the ocean of realisation. The path IS the way. Nothing stops you from being in the moment, so why not be in the moment whilst practising? Spiritual practise does not give you anything but the invitation to be more present. Realisation is never the result of practise, but spiritual practise is the invitation to be here and now, with vigilance, as opposed to enforcing your habits and reactions.

Spiritual life is not something to tend to, not something you dip your feet into, every now and then and not some module to keep ticking. Spiritual life is being conscious as much as you can, at being mindful of the Mystery, wherever you are and with whatever you are doing. Interestingly enough that can end up being a practise by itself, dismantling any form of separation between practise and life.

* Neo-Advaita is a ‘satsang’ based ‘movement’, which does not follow the Vedanta method of teaching (impartation of knowledge based on the Upanishad scriptures, which aims at ending one’s thirst for knowledge). Neo Advaita teaching methods are based on the idea that actively working on one’s spiritual self is unnecessary, since everything is just a happening leading to no particular place.