meeting with Francis Lucille

[Guest guest]

Saturday afternoon I went with a friend to hear a talk given by Francis

Lucille. He sort of Advaitan and conducts dialogues with the group

attending. Actually, its more like someone asks a question and he holds

forth.

 

He is quite brilliant, speaks well and is funny. He encourages people to

"welcome" what appears - or rather to step out of the stance of unwelcoming.

Here is a sample.

 

"The question, 'Why is there ignorance?' Presupposes there is someone who is

ignorant. When we investigate, we find out that there is no one to be

ignorant. Ignorance never exists in the present, only in the past or in the

future. So, if you look for it you can never find it, but, you can create

ignorance by assumption. Why does the assumption exist? Someone can say

that ignorance exists and then other can believe this assumption and yet

never investigate this created assumption and thus it becomes a belief or

truth."

 

I find this quite good as I can see spiritual belief systems in operation

that I haven't investigated - say as a "Buddhist" I hear that there is some

kind of reality of ignorance and then take this as gospel/dogma and not

investigate it. Yet the Buddha said to investgate everything.

 

So - this self-habit is actually a thing of the past, created out of memory

and a thing of the future created out of "future thinking." But in the

present, no one exists who is ignorant. In the present, thoughts just come

and go, in hearing there is only the hearing, in seeing there is only the

seeing. Not-two. Not "I" hear or "I" see.

 

He seems to have another book coming out on "Meaning". Something to the

effect that meaning=the dissolution of "not knowing" in its knowingness or

consciousness. I never know an object, I only know consciousness and the

object as it disappears in consciousness. When the thing has disappeared

into consciousness we are left with the real thing - the knowing. Things

are always appearing - and they can be filtered through self or ego

(identifying and grasping). But, if just allowed to be they are not colored

and appear from true self or the source, the center of all things, that

which was before all universes.

 

Seeking relief from the now is personal intention, but just being in the joy

of the now is impersonal. Whenever you have thoughts about God or truth, it

is God thinking about himself, also called "higher reasoning" - so one

doesn't aspire to cessation of mind as then there would be no fragrance, no

perfume.

 

More along these lines and then someone served a delicious dinner.

 

Joyce