Dan, b & Nis

[Guest guest]

"To expound and propagate concepts is simple,

to drop all concepts is difficult and rare."

 

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

 

There seems to come a point in the inquiry, if one is steadfast and

courageous, in which the limitations of the conceptual, meaning-

making and meaning-seeking mind become unavoidably apparent (despite

the arbitrary agreements or disagreements from peers in forums such

as this, where shifting alliances and transient moods add even more

story to what is already an interpretive excercise).

 

A good friend, Dan Berkow, characterized this as "the wonder of

futility":

 

Most of the world ignores "This", seeing no use

or value for "This". Most of the world values

tangible things, status, power, or enjoyable or

rewarding experiences. Thus, through ignorance,

"This" which is not tangible nor an experience

is never noticed.

Of those who begin to break

through ignorance, many

continue on fruitless paths in pursuit of This,

believing they "see glimpses" and thus generate

beliefs that reinforce their vain pursuit.

Others vainly claim they are "being This", lost

in self-delusion and their own positive

conceptual affirmations.

Still others futilely try to negate what is

"not-This", never able to reach an end

to that which must be negated.

 

Only when there is no investment in ignorance,

and when the utter futility of all

approaches and non-approaches is

seen, will there be the dropping away

of avoidance, useless efforts, and the

unrewarding pursuit or self-conscious

non-pursuit of an imagined effortless

mode of being.

 

Pursuit and the attempt to gain

This through non-pursuit

are both grounded in thought.

Thoughts are understandable only in

the context of prior thoughts.

Thus, thought ultimately has

no ground.

Experiences register in the context of

previous experiences.

Thus, experience ultimately has no ground.

Similarly, feelings relate to prior feelings, and

sensations are interpreted against the

background of other sensations.

 

"This" which has nothing prior to itself

cannot be experienced, intuited, felt,

sensed, remembered, or cognized.

To speak of "This" is completely

paradoxical, because

speech about "This" always occurs as simply more

speech, thought, and reference to experience.

Because such speech is paradoxical, some consider it

ludicrous. However, This Itself is neither paradoxical

nor absurd. It is merely speaking of This

that is paradox and absurdity.

Such speech has never occurred for any

meaningful reason other than to bring attention to

the prevalence of ignorance.

 

It is futile to call It "That" which experiences,

remembers, or cognizes, or to call It

"consciousness", "awareness", "Self", or "God" --

all of these concepts are merely ways to formulate

an idea and a relationship to an idea,

more thoughts interpreted

against the background of other thoughts.

Similarly, saying there is "no one" who is doer

or cognizer simply contributes additional

thought-statements about reality, depending

as do other thoughts on a prior thought context for

meaning.

 

Negating thoughts and concepts will never lead to It.

The activity of negating depends on something to be

negated. This very dependency doesn't allow This

with nothing prior to Itself to emerge from the

activities of negation. Similarly, inquiry is

dependent on a question being there, and meditation

is dependent on the context in which meditation has

meaning. That which has nothing beyond Itself will

never be found, constructed, nor recognized -

and neither inquiry nor meditation/contemplation

will lead to This.

 

One may seek a teacher or spiritual path, but such

will only provide more sensation, thought, and

experience.

 

One may seek to let go, but this activity will always

depend on there being something to let go.

 

One may attempt to do nothing, but passivity will

have no power to interfere with thought seeking after

thought, experience leading to accumulation of

further experience, etc.

 

Indeed, there cannot be shown to be anything

"out there" beyond sensation and thought

that is being sensed and

thought about. Anything said to be "out there"

is a thought interpretation about sensory or

intuitive experience. The so-called "reality beyond"

or "reality out there" turns out to

be more data in the realm of concept and experience.

Thus, claims about "'Something' beyond thought

and sensation" are as absurd and paradoxical as

any other speech about This.

 

When nothing is "placed 'out there'",

there is nothing "in here".

Then, nothing can be said to be or not to be.

Then, neither concepts of death, nor birth, nor

deathlessness, nor birthlessness apply.

 

This is beyond any statements, activities, or

inactivities.

Now is recognized the futility of any efforts

and non-efforts intended to find This, be This,

reveal This, or negate what is not This.

There is literally nothing else at this point

other than recognizing the utter futility of all

efforts and non-efforts, cognitions, feelings,

and experiences.

 

As far as this statement itself being additional

futile verbiage interpreted

in the context of prior words and ideas - it is so.

This statement itself cannot lead to "This" any more

than can any other statement, question, negation, or

assertion. Neither a path nor a pathless way of

being will reveal "This".

 

~ Dan

 

 

At such a point, two possiblities, or gates, seem to emerge:

a collapse into existential angst, or an opening into the fire of a

transmission in the heart of silence. It is a wordless transmission,

and yet it is actually a very simple, ordinary "thing" --

Awareness "wakes up" to itself. Clarity beyond assumed identity or

fixation on any sense of self "moves" to the foreground of

consciousness, and the formerly intractable and problematic nature of

existence gives way to a kind of acceptance that is not dependent on

answers or acknowledgement from others. It is the dawn of freedom,

but the way in which this freedom will express through the body-mind

organism is mysterious and confounding to those who would have life

conform to an ideal or image of what is. The separative tendency, the

chronic "core story" of embodiment, is undermined in this process, as

Love unmistakably recognizes itself peering out of every pair of

eyes, animate and inanimate.

Of course, Love is a word until it isn't, and its use here is subject

to the same interpretaive mechanism referred to above, and yet we are

moved to communicate with the languages of duality, and so, yes, it

is Love. It is Peace. And there is no Love. And there is no Peace.

We Are. We Are. We don't know who we are. We Are.

 

 

Namaste!

 

b

 

 

"What prevents the insight into one's true nature is the weakness

and obtuseness of the mind and its tendency to skip the subtle and

focus the gross only. When you follow my advice and try to keep your

mind on the notion of "I am" only, you become fully aware of your

mind and its vagaries. Awareness, being lucid harmony (satva) in

action, dissolves dullness and quiets the restlessness of the mind,

and gently but steadily changes its very substance. This change need

not be spectacular; it may be hardly noticeable; yet it is a deep and

fundamental shift from darkness into light, from inadvertence to

awareness. For this, keep steadily in the focus of consciousness the

only clue you have: your certainty of being. Be with it, play with

it, ponder over it, delve deeply into it, till the shell of

ignorance breaks open and you emerge into the realm of reality."

 

~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

 

Love