Real ize Your Suffering..Continued

[Guest guest]

Continued...

 

Symbolically, this is called " knowing " , or " cognizing " , the One Divine

Self. But in fact it is not possible to fix attention on the Divine

Self. Your own Divine Nature, or Reality Itself, cannot become an

object of attention. The actual process involves attention and

re-cognition of this suffering, this contraction. Where suffering is

thus " known " , what it prevents is suddenly, spontaneously enjoyed-not as

the " object " of enjoyment, but as the enjoyment itself. Then, prior to

effort, motivation, or attention, there is only the Divine Self,

Reality, the Heart. Where there is this re-cognition of suffering, the

whole structure of experiences, concepts, searches, strategies, that is

your ordinary life, your search, ceases to be obsessive or even

particularly interesting. It loses its significance, its ability to

qualify what always already is. This undistracted state, this natural

enjoyment prior to the activity that is your suffering, is called

" realization " , " jnana " , " understanding " . It is the enjoyment of

Reality, that is Reality, what is otherwise symbolized as God, Masters,

whatever. From the " point of view " of the Divine Self, the storybook

" Masters " are of no more significance than a hamburger at McDonalds.

The " Masters " are only more imagery that tends to fascinate and occupy

the seeker, the one who is already suffering. But the search and the

seeker are themselves of no real concern. They are already secondary,

because the " seeker " is only a reaction to his or her own suffering. The

prior action, the thing that is really occupying and motivating every

human being, is suffering itself.

 

Therefore, suffering is the appropriate and spontaneous subject of

meditation, rather than the artifices to which seekers attach

themselves. The seeker's illusions are not the appropriate subject.

They are no solution. They are more of the same. This room is of no

concern to somebody who has never even been to the United States. If a

person lives in Germany, but reads a lot of books about this Ashram, his

or her reading does not " create " an actual involvement with this place.

It is not the equivalent of being here. It may be playful, humorous,

enjoyable, but it is not itself equivalent to being here. Reading about

Jesus and wanting to be like Jesus is not the equivalent of being

Jesus. It never will be the equivalent of being Jesus. Your talk about

" Jesus " is like your statement that you are in your body. You are

suggesting Jesus to yourself, but in fact Jesus is not here.

 

If there is love here, why does it have to be Jesus? What is added to

this moment by thinking that the love that is here is Jesus' love? Why

does it have to be Jesus? Maybe it is Sam Smith, whom nobody ever heard

of! Why does it have to be Jesus? It is only because the mind is

associated with that symbol, and it consoles itself with that symbol.

Rather than penetrate your own suffering, rather than penetrate the

unloveliness, the unloving quality of your own lives, you console

yourselves with the images of things you do not contain. When you

understand that, when you see what you are doing, it really becomes

impossible for you to turn yourself on with symbols. You can read about

Jesus and think that love is his love, but sooner or later there is

going to be a real need for love, a real dissatisfaction with no-love, a

penetration of this whole plaster mind that doesn't really do the job.

Then you will see that all of these consolations are forms of your own

mind. They are entertainments, distractions, for a purpose that is

always hidden. Then you will begin to observe this motivation, this

need to be consoled. And that is a very difficult affair, because in

this process of re-cognition there are no consoling images. There is

nothing by which to be consoled.

 

There is a " death " declared in all the traditions. There is a " spiritual

death " , a dark night, the death of the ego and all the imagery it uses

to support itself, to console itself, to occupy itself. But consolation

is the ego. The thing Jesus recommended was re-birth, or realization

through spiritual death, the cross. " Pick it up and follow me, suffer

the world. " He didn't recommend that you think about his aquiline

profile every day and feel good until he comes again.